Nice Work: Tell me what you want, what you really really want

Hey there,

What’s one thing you’d do if you felt more powerful?

That’s the very first thing I asked during last week’s Power Shift kickoff. And I know it might seem like a weird question right now, when our feeds are jammed with stories of heartless layoffs, torturous interview cycles, and buckwild bosses. There are a lot of reasons to feel powerless.

I didn’t ask this question so that people would ignore this reality, though. I asked them because of this reality.

Because how you answer that question reveals something important: what you really want.

Not what you think you “should” want. Not what other people expect of you. Not what you’re doing out of fear of your professional world falling apart.

But what you—smart, capable, imperfect, struggling, beautiful you—actually want.

And what I’ve seen in my coaching practice is that a lot of us are feeling…pretty disconnected from ourselves right now. We’re so focused on what other people might think or what might happen next in our industry that we don’t give ourselves permission to ask this question—much less answer it. The second we start dreaming just a little bit bigger for ourselves, that nasty voice in the back of our heads pipes up to tell us not to bother: That’s impossible. Don’t be ridiculous. Just keep your head down.

Yet this is precisely the moment where we need to stay connected with ourselves and our ambitions. Because when we speak them out loud—when we give them some space to live and breathe—they start to feel more possible. They give us clarity. They give us something to move toward, when it’s so tempting to wallow.

And you know what? That’s actually how we start to feel more powerful. That’s how our visions become attainable. Visions like the ones our participants shared last week:

• Speak out more often

• Write a book

• Come out of social media hiding

• Make a big career change

• Have no fear of networking

• Love myself more

I gotta tell you, that last one hit hard. Don’t you want to love yourself more, too? I know I do.

So now I’m asking all of you: What’s one thing you’d do if you felt more powerful? You can reply to this email and tell me about it if you want. But most of all, I want you to speak it out loud—even if it’s just to yourself right now. Don’t stamp it out. Let it roll around in your brain and take root in your heart. Show it care. You might be surprised just how much more possible it starts to feel.

–Sara

EPISODE 17

What’s my role here?

IC, senior strategist, team lead. What do you do when your title says a whole lot of nothing—but seems like it means everything?

On the list

Read: The features investors want are not the ones your users need
Justifying harmful choices based on “the needs of the business” is a way people displace responsibility for our own choices and it gets easier to do the higher you get in an organization as the “business” becomes a more salient part of your job. Businesses are collections of people working together. “The business” doesn’t have its own sentience. 

Read: We need to look closely at the number of pregnant tech workers being laid off right now
For some moms, being laid off meant losing their maternity leave benefits or using precious time during their maternity leave interviewing for jobs in a depressed tech job market—time that should have been focused on recovering from childbirth and caring for their newborn. Others have had to navigate pregnancy complications with gaps in health insurance coverage, resulting in inadequate healthcare and unanticipated medical bills.

Attend: Seeing tigers everywhere
Join me next Wednesday, February 28, at this free remote event and hear UX leader and content strategist Jessica Smith explain “why the trauma-informed lens matters for all of your design work.” I’ve had great conversations with Jessica about this topic, so I know this will be good.