January 28, 2024
“To affect a long lasting, meaningful shift within an organisation, a leader must first undergo a meaningful shift within themself. If they do not, any external shift they attempt will - at best - be temporary.”
A wise coach told me this four years ago. Since then I have done a lot of work on myself. I’ve fallen into a habit of setting an intention for each year. One that pushes me to develop beyond what Ruby-from-the-year-before would have believed possible.
Sharing this year’s intention, and the way I intend to go about achieving it, feels like a great way to kick off my blog for 2024.
Most people working in early stage tech are hardwired for the hustle. We love being the underdog and - most of all - defying the odds. I’d go as far as to say some of us live to be the outlier. I certainly do. And that most often comes at a personal cost.
Last year, like many years before it, several BIG THINGS happened. And, just like many years before, I worked crazy hard. At work and at home.
I perceived stress as the admission fee to the place where BIG THINGS happen. But the payoff was progress towards something worthwhile. So my tendency was to merrily queue up and request: “One hundred tickets please!”
There came a moment towards the end of last year. One where I noticed I was becoming increasingly calm and emotionally steady. Despite finding myself in progressively more challenging situations.
This is a thread I want to keep pulling (hard) in 2024. To the extent that it’s my intention for the year: “To be Peaceful While Kicking Ass.”
To start myself off with the best shot at this I have come up with a plan. The purpose of this blog is to share it. Sharing it increases my personal accountability and it’s a bonus if it helps even one more person.
As part of sharing the plan I thought it would be useful to share my thought process. I spent time during my break thinking it over from a few different angles.
I percolated over several questions:
Here are my key reflections on each of them.
In December I caught up with my therapist for a check-in after not seeing her for nearly two years. I told her I wanted to figure out what to do with my life next. There was something there to explore, but I couldn't put my finger on it - hence the visit.
She started drawing a scale on her board. She began describing the various emotional states most people operate in. I'll share what I recall her saying, although I'm sure this isn't exactly correct.
Towards the bottom she included states such as fear, anger and desire. She explained that this was where most people operated, something like 70% of people.
Then she said as a person who’s managed to become the CEO of a company it’s more likely that I’m operating towards the upper half of the scale. She went on to write words like curiosity, courage and willingness towards the top. She said this was where around 20% of people got to.
At the very top she wrote peace and said only 10% of people get to this state. I had a strong physical reaction in that moment.
I immediately blurted out: “I don’t have that. But, that’s exactly what I want!” Without thinking I went on to say: “I just assume that peace isn’t possible at this stage in my life, and to achieve it I would need to drastically change my life. I’d need to do things like leave my job, uproot my family and go live on an island somewhere remote.”
Then I immediately countered my own statement: “But actually I love my job, and where we live and my life has never been better, so maybe peace isn’t some different scenario that I need to create - it’s just something I need to achieve within myself - regardless of where I am and what I’m doing”.
And there it is. Peace isn’t some plan I hatch and execute to create the ideal external circumstances. Peace is feeling tranquil, accepting and calm regardless of my external circumstances. Inside this life I am experiencing right here, right now.
I suspect this may be obvious to most other people, but until this moment it wasn’t obvious to me.
Three things mainly:
It makes sense that I should better balance my life, be clear on what my values are and act accordingly, reduce my stress levels and prioritise looking after myself.
The trick is for this to be realistic. As opposed to some over zealous new year resolution that will almost certainly be abandoned by February.
Fun fact: I've joined a gym about 10 times in my life. I've never gone to any of them more than five times. Lesson learned.
I’ll keep this simple.
It feels like a real challenge to be doing both these things at once. My life often involves flying from one thing to the next, and I’m constantly across a ton of details - whether it’s work or life admin. It can feel overwhelming and relentless, and I’d be inhuman not to feel mentally exhausted from it. Yet, I also kind of love it.
While I can offload some things, this is the nature of my life, and I need to improve my ability to slow down. There’s the saying: “you need to slow down to speed up.” Nope. I just need to slow down. Full stop.
If I don’t, I will undoubtedly still kick ass. But there won’t be much peace involved.
I concluded that my success will boil down to having a defined pattern of an ideal day, and a plan for how to support my intention.
To be clear: I’m not trying to achieve a perfect day everyday. It’s about progress. Even if I only get some of it right some of the time, at least I’m headed in the right direction.
I came across this post on conscious habits by Bhavna Toor (She/Her) on LI at the exact moment I was working through this.
It was close to perfect for my needs. So, I adapted her plan to suit my situation. I love it when you happen to come across something just when you need it. I also like the idea of physically writing it out and tracking it on paper.
Here’s a photo of my weekly sheet for tracking conscious habits.
I’m a morning person. How I start my day usually determines how the rest of the day goes. To start it right:
💫 Read 5% of a book while enjoying a freshly brewed cup of filter coffee. Using a Kindle makes tracking my progress easy. Here are the 12 books on my list for the year. Some I haven't read before. Others I'd like to read again a second time.
💫 Go for a run with my dog in the park. I’m using the Couch to 5k Runner app to learn how to run. I'm only 17 runs away from reaching 5k.
💫 Do some maths work with my kids 2-3 times per week. We work through a sheet from Prototec together. In the process I don't just help them learn maths, I help them develop learning strategies, and adopt a growth mindset.
It’s easy to get pulled into consecutive days of back-to-back meetings. It’s the number one way to destroy a person's soul. It also means you are mostly reactive as opposed to proactive. Just say no.
💫 Progress at least one of our three big goals at Joyous each day.
💫 Check-in on at least one other person and make sure they are doing okay and getting the support they need.
💫 Track deep work, this is the number of hours I am able to work without distractions or meetings.
I am going to use conscious breaks this year to build muscle mass. I thought this was a genius 2-for-1 hack. I get to take a break helping me to keep calm, while also making progress towards one of my goals. I'm still patting myself on the back for coming up with this 😂.
I have four things I could do each day during pauses.
💫 Drink a glass of water: Ideally while stepping outside.
💫 Core muscle exercises: I found a great 4 week program for this. It amazes me how much you can sweat after keeping perfectly still for 10 minutes!
💫 Arm muscle dumbbell exercises. I found this great routine that I've enjoyed using.
💫 Brain food. Enjoy some brain food. For example: walnuts, blueberries or some soy and linseed toast with avocado.
I felt that Bhavna’s values were a good representation of mine, so I kept them pretty much the same.
💫 Abundance: Did I practice an abundance mindset by celebrating my wins and those of others? I also include noticing and appreciating the many bright moments within a day. Historically, I’ve not been great at this.
💫 Courage: Did I push myself to do something uncomfortable or scary today? Particularly with my leadership skills I usually aim for one thing a week. This is something I’m good at I’d like to keep doing.
💫 Kindness: Was I consciously kind to others and myself today? As a leader and a parent, finding ways to support and empower people rather than dictate and control is important to me. Being kind while doing so just takes this to another level.
💫 Check-in with my husband. It’s important that we connect, chat about our day, and share things that are on our minds.
💫 Plan for the next day. I check my calendar for the next day, ensure it’s sensible, and think about what I want to accomplish.
💫 Drop the phone. Once I’ve sorted the plan, I put my phone down for the day.
💫 Relax after 8pm. My mind consolidates during down time which is super handy. Also, by the time I go to sleep I’ve already mentally geared down enough get a good night’s rest.
Now to turn my intention into practice. At least I can confidently say that “well begun is half done.”
Ruby is a comedian-turned engineer, previously leading product at two global tech companies, she has been CEO at Joyous for 4 years. Her passion for making a positive impact on people’s lives is perfectly matched with the mission of Joyous to make life better for people at work.
She enjoys working across all parts of the organization and is passionate about product direction and data science.
She is the co-author of Joyfully, a book about shared leadership, modern organizational structures, and a new way of working. Her second book Pathways, is a guide to help woman and other under-represented people get a job in technology in six months or less.
She was the Winner of the Product Category for Women Leading Tech Australia 2022 and a finalist in the Inspiring Individual Category of the HiTech awards in 2023.
