Welcome to the Let It Be Friday!, where I say hello (and TGIF), and round up the lifestyle, career and business news that inspired, excited, made me smile (or laugh out loud).
This week, we mourned on Sunday the loss of iconic basketball player and sports legend Kobe Bryant, who tragically passed away in a helicopter crash along with his 13 year-old daughter Gianna and all the other passengers. As we honor all the lives lost, we remember Kobe’s love for his daughters, celebrated with the #girldad hashtag and movement on social media.
However, we celebrate, along with Black Enterprise, legendary actress Cicely Tyson’s induction in the 2020 TV Hall of Fame, as well as our FLOTUS FOREVER Michelle Obama winning a Grammy Award for the audio version of her book “Becoming”.
Worried about potential health problems? US News lists 6 things all employees should know about the Family and Medical Leave Act.
Are you a new mom? Working Mother lists the 12 most unsolicited pieces of advice new moms get.
‘Tis the season for colds and flus! Business Insider details the work rules around getting sick at work.
Couples alert! If you need romantic dinner ideas, Food52 has gathered 10 date night menus, right on time for V-Day.
In 2020, women want equal rights. Refiney29 lists all the US laws that as women, we should know.
Want to make your home a haven of peace, especially after those hectic days at work? Forbes lists Marie Kondo’s best tips to make your home a relaxing space.
Are you planning for your future and that of your family this year? The Corporate Sister explains 3 basics of estate planning for working moms.
Looking for new reads? The New York Times recommends these 10 new books this week.
As working women, many of us have been conditioned to favor hard rather than soft skills at work. For the longest time, soft skills such as negotiating, listening, public speaking, or writing skills, to cite a few, were relegated to the background, in favor of hard skills considered to be directly relevant to the job at hand. These are examples of soft skills to keep in mind:
Communication: Being able to articulate and communicate your ideas effectively is paramount to not only starting, but also ascending, in your career or business.
Critical Thinking: Are you able to come up with unique ways to complete the tasks at hand, or think on your feet when a new challenge arises? More than pure, hard knowledge, this is an invaluable skill you can develop through continuous learning and growth.
Interpersonal skills: Are you a good team player? Having interpersonal skills such as the ability to help, taking responsibility for your actions, will go a long way in your career.
Work ethic: Are you disciplined, professional and dedicated to your work? These important factors play a crucial role in helping you stand out and achieving your professional objectives.
Leadership: Do you serve as a role model for your colleagues and employees? Being an effective leader requires leading well by example, but also being open to constructive criticism and feedback.
Time management: Are you able to use your time effectively or do you tend to procrastinate? Do you frequently miss deadlines or are late? Managing your time wisely is a critical component of your professional success and should be prioritized.
Conflict Resolution: Can you work with various personalities, and handle the inevitable conflicts and disagreements that are bound to emerge? Promoting peace and harmony in your teams and workplace can not only help everyone work better, but also place you in the position of leader.
Adaptability: The only constant is change. Are you adaptable to changes in your environment? Are you flexible in project settings? Organizational changes are bound to happen, and being able to display this skill will help you thrive.
Responsibility: Taking responsibility for mistakes, whether yours or that of your team members, is the sign of a leader. It also includes being able to praise others as well.
The focus is increasingly being put on the importance of soft skills in any career. As a CPA and professor, I can testify first-hand to the resurgence of soft skills in the professional arena of business. Even in fields such as accounting for instance, which have been erroneously considered to be reserved for introverts, research is now showing that soft skills are increasingly important, especially at the management level and above.
Soft skills have not always been given the credit they deserve. Instead, hard skills were thought to better equip individuals to succeed in the workplace. However, employers are increasingly paying more attention to these. Yet, they frequently report that applicants are sorely lacking them. As an educator in the field of accounting, I can testify first-hand that soft skills are absolutely invaluable for business success, as the work model has evolved towards teamwork and globalization.
As working women, many of these skills are innate and come naturally to us. Communication, problem-solving, and conflict resolution are a few of the skills that many, if not most women, are particularly gifted. These are skills we apply in our everyday lives, in the context of our family and personal relationships. However, since we’ve been conditioned to ignore these at work, here are a few ways to re-focus on our soft skills at work:
Show up authentically: Your WHO matters more than your WHAT
Your personality introduces you before you even get a chance to display all your hard knowledge. Someone I once met told me this: “You bring all of YOU to the workplace!”. Dare to show up authentically, and don’t be afraid to put your soft skills, such as communication, empathy, and interpersonal skills, on display.
Dare to be vulnerable
One of my favorite researchers and writers, Brene Brown, talks about the importance of vulnerability, not just in our personal lives, but also at work. Many, if not most of the soft skills that are indispensable to career success, are rooted in vulnerability. It takes being vulnerable to communicate effectively, engage in conflict resolution, or handle change.
Allow space for others to be themselves
In the same vein, allow others to also show up as themselves. These may be team members, colleagues, or even superiors. The more we’re able to hold space for others to show up more authentically, the more effective we can work together.
Are you using soft skills in your career or business? If so, how?
In this episode of The Corporate Sister podcast, I’m discussing why and how we, as working women and working moms, should and can care for our mental health, whether through therapy or other ways of prioritizing our minds.
From treating our minds as our best assets, to realizing the impact and influence our mental health has on our close and loved ones (and really everyone around us), and what an extraordinary act of courage it is, this episode is all about committing to being our best, mind-healthy, selves!
Thanks so much for tuning in and listening to this week’s episode! If you enjoyed this week’s episode, please share it by using the social media at the bottom of this post!
Also, leave me a review for the TCS podcast on Apple Podcasts !
I remember the feeling of being engrossed in a book for hours, enjoying every single sentence, treasuring every single word as I l crouched hidden as a child in my closet with a candle on to finish (or start) a book. If you are a book lover and bookworm like myself, you know the feeling. And then life happened, kids happened, pick-ups and drop-offs along with work schedules and the whole “adulting” thing, took over. Gradually, as a working mom, I was barely getting to one page a day, then a week, then the babies started ripping pages off my favorite books, when these would not accidentally slip in the toilet as I struggled to hide in the bathroom to sneak some personal mama time. Before I knew it, I had almost given up on books as a source of learning and as pure, unadulterated joy, for lack of time to read.
Reading has been proven to have a plethora of benefits, from mental stimulation that can slow the progress of dementia and Alzheimer’s, to reducing stress, increasing knowledge and vocabulary, to improving memory, concentration and focus, to cite a few. Many of the most successful and influential individuals, from Oprah to Bill Gates, credit reading for much of their inspiration and achievements. For me, it’s always been a source of escape, and my favorite way to learn about anything. As a student, it has allowed me to grasp the most complex concepts. As a working woman, it’s been my saving grace to acquire the skills I needed, and as a writer and teacher, the fuel to my inspiration and the essence of my life’s work.
Giving up on it as the pressures of life, parenting and work accumulated felt like an unfair punishment, in addition to a blatant disadvantage as a working woman and mom. The more intentional I decided to be about how I spent my time and what to say yes to, the more it became crucial to re-establish reading as a part of my schedule. Here are some ways that helped me do so, and that may help you as well as you make more time to enjoy the pleasures and benefits of reading:
Make reading a part of your sacred time
When I started re-prioritizing my time and how I spent it, I began to re-classify some of what I call my pillar activities as my sacred time. These include my prayer and worship, meditation, family, exercise and reading time, as my sacred time. By sacred, I mean non-negotiable, at all. For me, it means reading for 30 minutes a day at the very least, usually early in the morning or at bedtime. It also means letting go of non-sacred activities, such as browsing social media, or watching TV, in order to fit some yummy book-reading in. At the end of the day, it’s all a matter of priorities.
One effective way to make more time for reading is to make it a family activity. I love public libraries, and as a new mom on maternity leave, I would often sit at the local library for hours with the babies reading while they would play or nap. It later turned into a regular family activity, which also instilled in my kids a love for reading. As they carve out their own time to read, I also now take it as an opportunity to enjoy a good book myself. And voila, it works for everyone!
Consider technology as a way of reading too
I recently started listening to audiobooks and to my surprise, I really enjoy listening in on a good book on my long commutes to work and school. It’s another way I found to get some reading in, especially when driving, doing laundry or cleaning the house. Granted, I still prefer my good old paper books (blame it on habit), especially when it comes to fiction books. I find it easier to listen to a non-fiction, practical book than a fictional account, but it’s mostly personal preference.
If you’ve been considering giving up on reading, or have been struggling to fit it in as part of your schedule, I hope these suggestions motivate and inspire you to continue to invest in yourself through books.
How will you make more time to read as a working mom?
As busy and at times overwhelmed working moms, thinking further than the next drop-off or pickup, the next meal, or the next school form to fill out can be far-fetched. We’re so often caught with the demands of the moment that long-term planning can fall by the wayside. Especially when this long-term planning involves uncomfortable, and downright somber possibilities such as the case in which something should happen to us, and we could no longer be around our families and children. This falls under the definition of estate planning, which while sounding like a dark topic, is also one that working moms like you and I should get familiar with, and take action on.
According to Investopedia, estate planning is the “preparation of tasks that serve to manage an individual’s asset base in the event of their incapacitation or death.” This includes the guardianship of any living dependents, such as children, naming beneficiaries of insurance and retirement plans, naming executors and power of attorney to oversee and direct assets in the process, and many more planning tasks.
I remember meeting with my first financial advisor, and broaching the topic of estate planning. Saying it was a highly uncomfortable conversation is nothing short of an understatement. The prospect of anything happening to any of us is a rather terrifying one, let alone having to plan for it. However, life happens, circumstances are often out of our control, and may end up leaving our loved ones in dire straits for lack of adequate planning and preparation. This is actually what happens to 70% of Americans who leave this Earth without a will.
As working moms, it’s also our responsibility to help plan for the future and well-being of our children and families. If this is something you have thought about and would consider, here are a few steps to help us get started:
Introduce and continue the conversation
This is hard to think about, let alone talk about, so it is understandable that you may feel awkward and even stressed broaching the topic. However, keeping in mind the well-being of your family can help in the process, and you can start with your spouse, significant other, or a trusted loved one. It need not be an elaborate discussion, but rather the honest asking of questions such as: “Who would take care of the kids if anything happened to me/us?”, or “What would happen if I fell ill?”, or “How will things and assets be divided up in case of unplanned circumstances?”
This also means continuing the conversation with the people you and your partner, or you on your own, if you happen to be single, have picked to fulfill various roles as part of your estate planning. These may be your potential executors, children’s guardians, or individuals to be entrusted with power of attorney. It would make sense to first discuss with them the possibility of their fulfilling these roles, and whether or not they agree to do so and are aware of what it entails.
Begin the process
The most immediate basics that most people start with when it comes to estate planning consist in setting up a will and establishing life insurance. Many have life insurance already set up from their workplaces, however it is important to check whether those insurances do indeed cover all foreseeable needs should something happen. This is especially relevant if your family is dependent on your income.
As for a will, it can be easily done online, although you may want to check with a professional as well, and consider a “living will” as your healthcare directive for your medical and financial wishes.
Also be sure to consolidate all your paperwork and documentation, and inform your executor(s) of their location and how to access these, should anything happen.
Seek professional help
If you’re afraid you may not be familiar enough with this process to undertake it alone, or your estate is larger or more complex than average, or if you possess investments, you may want to seek professional advice.
Despite the fees charged by attorneys (which may range from $500 to multiple thousands of dollars), setting up your estate plan appropriately will save you not just money, but your dependents much heartache and stress in the long run. Besides, peace of mind is worth every penny!
Have you thought about estate planning as a working mom?
