WednesdAMA: Reader-Submitted Questions
While it’s true we get to do a lot of cool work with various companies, it’s no secret that our individual mentoring is considered the crown jewel of The Threadsmith Group. If we can make one person’s life better through the mentoring we provide, the business is a success.
BUT, not everyone is able to make the investment to get 1:1 mentoring, and we believe in giving back to the community. So welcome to WednesdAMA, in which we take a mix of reader submitted questions and LinkedIn questions and answer them.
LinkedIn: “Your workload just doubled overnight. How do you stay organized and manage the stress?”
DOUBLED?? How in the world did it double? No, you're not going to just take double the work and be like "oop well I guess I better PRIORITIZE BETTER". Did your salary also double overnight?
No? Then why are you crushing yourself to do more work for this company that clearly does not value anything about you or your work? What you're going to do is get to the bottom of why your workload suddenly doubled, talk to your manager about it, and figure out how to get your work down to a more manageable level. And you are going to pay VERY CLOSE ATTENTION to what your manager does. If they do not support you, you need to look at ways to get out of that role or out of that company. You deserve to be in a supportive environment that respects your time, energy, and expertise.
Ultimately, you are a VENDOR providing a SERVICE. If a business doubles its usage with ANY OTHER VENDOR, it expects to pay higher costs. That's how business works. Why should it be different for the humans who make things happen?
Reader-Submitted: “I was just laid off and I’m shocked. How do I move forward?”
We do not, as a society, give people enough room for grief. We don’t talk about it, we don’t think about it, we don’t manage it well.
I think the best thing you can do for yourself right now is ALLOW your system to grieve and not judge yourself for whatever feelings and thoughts come up. You have to let it flow through and process. We tend to want to shove down those feelings and keep on keeping on, and it's not serving us in any kind of healthy way.
Grieve it. It's a breakup, it's a loss, it needs to be honored. If you are in a financial position to not rush that process, don't. If you are in a financial position to need to get back on your feet, at least take like, a long weekend to sit in your feelings, scream, eat a pint of ice cream, whatever it is you need you do it.
And then we're going to get back up and move forward.
First off, I need you to understand that there are thousands of deeply mediocre people out there doing a way worse job than you are and they're confidently shouting about how great they are. Go sit through five minutes of some dude with a crummy podcast and it'll drive that point home better than anything I'm going to say.
Second, your worth is not tied to your work. No one, at the end of your life, is going to say "wow I really love how she spent so much time in meetings" or whatever. They'll remember you for your friendship, for the love you put out into the world, for the things you created for yourself and others, not for how much revenue you brought someone at some business somewhere. Your value is not in your productivity or your work. You're gonna dismantle that idea within yourself, realize your own power, and go into your next role knowing who YOU are and what you bring to the table.
I believe in you, stranger. Wholeheartedly.
LinkedIn: “You're stuck in a dead-end job. How can you take the first step towards your dream career?”
One of THE most useful exercises I’ve ever done in my career was writing down everything I did in a week on a whiteboard. I circled the top things I loved doing and crossed out the things that I'd rather never do again. That deceptively simple exercise was exactly what it took to help me identify what I'm actually passionate about, and allowed me to build a career based on those things.
Now, was it overnight, NOOOOO, not by a long shot. It took me another five years to finally say, “okay, my favorite thing is enabling and empowering people to be their best, I’m going to leave my miserable job and go step toward doing more impactful work that aligns with the things I love at a different company”
And then another three years to go, “okay I’ve learned SO MUCH, I think I’ll start a business of my own”.
And then another six months before I got myself out of panicking that I wasn’t good enough and just went ahead and got started.
The whiteboard exercise is GREAT for getting started, but don’t feel like you have to take that exercise and DO something with it RIGHT NOW OR ELSE. You have time. Be thoughtful and intentional with that time, but know you have time to get things figured out.
Reader-Submitted: “How do you beat impostor syndrome?”
I hope this question isn’t insinuating that I’ve somehow found the secret to defeating impostor syndrome. Because wow I have NOT, I’m so sorry. What I can tell you is that I have some tricks for at least making that critical voice quieter.
And it all starts with, somewhat weirdly, acknowledging how tiny I am in the universe. I close my eyes and listen to Neil Degrasse Tyson reading Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot. What particularly gets me about that piece is the bit about Earth being a mote suspended in a sunbeam and people fighting to be the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Beautiful stuff.
Anyway, The Pale Blue Dot reminds me that I can afford to care a LOT less about self-criticism. I’m just one part of a pixel in space, who cares if I’m not the most perfect and most knowledgeable person in the universe? I have my experiences, those are just as valid as the experiences of anyone else, and I am not serving anyone or anything by meekly sitting in a corner and hating on myself.
Finally, it’s really just remembering what I wrote up ^ earlier in another answer, that there’s DEFINITELY other people out there who are FAR less qualified than me, in this same role, and it’s entirely possible they’re being paid more than me to do it. I’m not the impostor, THEY ARE. That can be helpful when I’m having a particularly rough confidence day.
The Threadsmith Group Approach
At The Threadsmith Group, we don’t believe in cookie-cutter advice. We believe in real answers for real people, backed by experience, strategy, and a healthy dose of common sense.
Got a question of your own? Send it in. Let’s talk about the things that actually matter.