teacher, and the other who is a performer, music theatre actor and musician.
The Colony Music staff there were the human embodiment of what Amazon does today, ‘If you like this then you will like that’.
I would sometimes arrive with a list from the two performers in the family and the staff would be impressed with my knowledge and taste for the latest in jazz and Broadway or off-Broadway’s ‘hot’ new songwriter/musical team. Maybe that was partly why the kids were ever so understanding of their mother’s wanderings.
Our kids knew that someone might get something that Mum had seen and thought was a good idea at the time, but they would not all get presents just because I had been away doing my job.
When travelling for work, enjoy the surrounds
One of my other insights was that, if you travel, don’t rush home with things half-done. Stay another day, or whatever it takes to arrive home with the work done so you can be fully present (at least for a while) or take some downtime. Go visit a gallery or museum, walk around whatever city you are in to soak up the atmosphere, go do some shopping, watch a play or a sports game. If you do that you are more likely to be more relaxed as well as more interesting to talk to when you get home!
I have to confess that Robert was not fully aware of this policy of mine until quite recently. A couple of years ago, I led one of those lunchtime sessions with a ‘Women in Technology’ group. Also on the platform was a Human Resources Executive of one of Australia’s largest companies. After I made my comments about the value of taking some downtime, she came up to me to thank me for the advice and told me she was going back to the office to redo her schedule for her London trip the following week to include an extra day out.
She ran into Robert and me in the foyer at an event a little while later, where she commented to Robert that he was clearly a very understanding person. I then had a little bit of explaining to do.
As a friend of mind is fond of saying, ‘Not everyone has to know everything all the time’.
The caveat: we each have different drivers, different comfort levels
Each of us is different. My purpose here is to illustrate how we deal with ourselves, using some of my journey, and that of some other women, to provide context and learnings.
I don’t expect others to copy the way I have approached things, and I expect not many would want to!
As Jody Evans indicated, there is no one right way. We each find ourselves in different circumstances, we were brought up differently, have varied experiences and different levels of tolerance for ambiguity and stress. What is really important is for each of us to understand our own motivations and strengths and play to those.
The leading Company Chairman and Director, Elizabeth Proust put it this way, ‘Women need to work with each other, build great networks, take a few career risks, and also ensure that at least one domestic skill is a major deficiency. Mine is cooking. I don’t and won’t cook’.
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