The new emotional workforce allows you to bring your personal life to work
Odette Barry from Odette and Co explores how your personal life can come together with your work life.
“We are in the wilderness—it’s hard. You can’t belong when you are betraying yourself.”
Brené Brown, SXSW 2019
The guru of vulnerability Brené Brown spoke so many wise words about the merging of work and personal life at this year’s SXSW conference, but this quote in particular struck a chord with me — coming after an especially tough time for several of my small team’s members, due to break-ups, fertility challenges and a family cancer diagnosis.
We’d ended the year, frankly, collectively drained. As our office culture encourages sharing openly, we’d update and reassure each other on team WIPs and there were lots of private conversations too. Somehow, the hard times were coming all at once and it impacted the whole team, in both beautiful and confronting ways. Brown’s words were so very welcome as I have wrestled with the question: how much sharing is the right amount of sharing?
“I don’t want to work with people — team members or clients — who don’t share our values.”
Neither do I, but there teeming multitudes of them. If I don’t work with them, I don’t work.