[0.0] Hey it's Mel here just a quick note for you.
[2.2] If you love this episode, hit subscribe.
[5.1] The women I talk to are building businesses
[9.0] and careers differently,
[11.6] without performing, without the constant content hustle.
[15.6] And they're sharing how they're actually doing it.
[18.7] Building trust, sharing their expertise
[21.5] and reaching the right people.
[23.4] And if this episode sparked something,
[26.4] Share it, send it to that friend who's building something beautiful,
[30.2] but staying way too quiet about it. And actually, if that's you,
[35.4] if you left corporate or a boring office job to do meaningful work,
[40.8] but the whole Get On Camera thing makes you want to hide, the sunny chapter edits that my agency
[47.7] is creating is definitely for you. We have one conversation where I help you position yourself
[54.8] strategically and ask you all the right questions. And then we turn that into
[61.0] multi-format marketing assets for you social content block posts all of it. So
[68.6] you can build trust and share your expertise and reach all the right people.
[74.8] No camera performance just you being you talking to me. The link is in the show
[81.9] know it's if you're curious. All right, let's continue. The HR arm, you know, is very
[88.5] heavily female dominated, so are ERGs, right? So it's the women who are noticing how people
[95.0] are really connecting. And a lot of that work has always been done for free. And I actually
[99.8] think it should be paid for one. But also it's the most valuable work that we're doing out there,
[106.1] because that's how people are really connected.
[109.0] Hello, in today's episode of Mama What's Next, we're talking about the future of work.
[117.1] Not just as a trend, but as a lived reality for women and how to navigate it.
[124.0] My guest today, Nola Simon is a future of work strategist and hybrid work futurists who's been
[131.1] advocating for flexibility long long before the pandemic made it mainstream. In this conversation
[140.1] today we explore why return to office mandates are really happening. How trust is breaking down at
[149.4] work and why women, especially caregivers and multi-passionate women, are being pushed to redesign
[157.1] work on their terms. This episode is about agency, self-trust and preparing yourself for
[165.6] 2026 without waiting for anyone's permission. Hopefully it's really helpful to you and enjoy
[174.6] today's episode.
[175.6] I'm so excited to have you here today with me.
[216.0] We're going to talk about the future of work for women, for mothers and what we're moving
[222.1] to because you are a remote work futurist but also you are a LinkedIn top voice as in 24.5. I'm
[233.9] really happy you can share some of the learnings and the trends and where you see work going.
[240.2] So welcome to Mama what's next today. Thank you so much it's a pleasure. No, it's interesting for
[246.6] people to see what kind of background you've come from and how you moved into this very interesting
[254.0] space of guiding companies and people towards meaningful work and how we can connect better.
[262.4] How did you find your place?
[263.9] So I'm in Canada, sorry, 45 minutes north of Toronto and I've actually always lived in a small town
[270.8] on North Toronto since I was a baby.
[273.3] And I come from financial services.
[277.1] So I work for a global insurance company
[279.9] who also happens to own a bank.
[281.4] Toronto traffic is around the worst in the world.
[284.1] My commute actually grew to be two hours one way.
[286.7] My kids were born in 2005, 2007.
[290.4] And by the time they were school age,
[294.6] it became challenging for me
[296.4] if something happened during the day to get home to them.
[299.9] So is the challenge and we had limited family support.
[302.5] So that's where I started with hybrid remote.
[305.6] There happened to be somebody else,
[307.1] should the same babysitter and she worked in the same company as me.
[310.1] She had been there so long that what they had granted her
[313.1] was permanent remote.
[314.9] And so I went to my boss and I'm like,
[316.9] well, if she can do it, why can't we work at something?
[319.3] And that's how I started getting involved in pilots.
[321.8] This is all the way back in 2011.
[323.7] I started advocating for this.
[325.4] So by the time I actually left the company,
[328.0] I had actually transformed over to like a fully remote employee.
[332.0] I think that's very much a topic for women being able to work remotely.
[337.8] It just gives us women, mothers particularly, a chance to have some agency again in the kind
[345.3] of work that we pay great, moms, sacrifice, pay and the type of work they do in order
[352.0] to be able to care for their families and to be a good parent.
[357.5] You know? So I think helping companies and also workers achieve some level of normalcy and
[367.3] something that we feel is very much an integrated part of our lives is really important.
[374.1] So is this the kind of work that you're doing right now? Like who do you work with and
[378.1] how do you support?
[379.5] So the ideal is always organizations who are interested in supporting their employees better,
[384.3] So that could be government, that could be nonprofits,
[387.3] but it could also be like organizations,
[391.7] who just have invested interest in wanting to support
[395.6] their female employee, actually any caregiver really.
[398.8] Better, right?
[399.6] So it doesn't have to be women, doesn't have to be parents.
[402.5] There are people who have to struggle with elder care as well too.
[405.7] I used to have a friend who she had older parents
[408.3] who had never really learned English,
[410.1] her parents were Italian,
[411.3] and to get any kind of support workers to come in
[414.0] and be able to support them.
[415.4] She had to facilitate it because she was the only person
[419.2] who understood their medical history
[420.5] and she was the only person who understood the language
[423.6] to be able to convey it because it's a rare skill
[427.3] to have that support in the language and need it, right?
[432.1] And Canada is very multicultural.
[433.8] So that's not a unique thing.
[435.6] So it could be any company that's interested in providing support
[439.5] to caregivers.
[441.1] All of a sudden, there's this narrative
[443.2] that we're going to need fewer employees that, you know,
[446.3] AI doesn't need to work or sleep or how does this integrate into work?
[450.3] Well, AI doesn't need to be in an office either because it's not real.
[455.1] Right? So if we accept that that's going to actually impact how we work as well too,
[461.2] which it might, then it's sort of vested interest in how we make life and work more human,
[468.3] because the work that humans are going to do
[471.1] is going to be not the stuff that's transactional,
[474.3] that AI can quickly pick up.
[476.6] So the work that humans do is relational.
[480.5] It's the compassion, the generosity,
[483.5] the wisdom that only humans can bring.
[485.9] But in order to bring the best of us
[488.3] so that we're performing that type of work better,
[491.4] we have to be happy.
[492.5] It's in companies' best interest
[494.3] to create conditions that employees are going to thrive in.
[497.8] And one of the ways that employees thrive
[500.1] is if they have the autonomy and the agency
[502.5] that you're talking about,
[503.6] we can make the experience of work for humans.
[506.9] Even if we're using AI to augment the work,
[509.9] that's how we can make it better.
[511.1] So it's not just what's happening in 2026,
[513.7] but where do we see this going?
[515.5] And what has to happen?
[516.7] Because organizations have to re-jig how jobs are done,
[521.9] what tasks are done,
[523.6] and what that work really looks like.
[525.6] There was so much media coverage and so much movement
[529.7] pulling people back into the office, right?
[532.6] And there's a lot of, and I share an article around this as well
[536.7] where that's coming from and why that's happening.
[539.0] Why is that happening?
[541.2] So I want to pause here for a very quick moment
[545.0] because if you are listening as a woman navigating work
[550.7] and building meaningful work for the future this part matters.
[556.8] What Nola is describing isn't just a workplace trend.
[562.1] It's a structural mismatch between how work is designed and how women actually live.
[569.1] The return to office conversation and the erosion of trust that she mentioned,
[573.3] the fear around AI. None of this is happening in isolation,
[578.1] and especially for many women, mothers, caregivers,
[583.7] and multi-passionate women, like we are,
[587.2] the costs of pretending it's just business as usual
[590.8] is simply too high.
[592.9] What I wanted to listen for in the rest of this conversation
[596.3] is this, where do you still have agency?
[600.7] And what can you build in a way that works for you
[605.7] and how because even if organizations are slow to change, you are definitely not powerless.
[613.6] And that's where we move to next from waiting for permission to designing work that actually
[620.1] supports your life and your family. So let's continue.
[624.5] What's happening with the will return to office mandates that are so often in that news and
[630.6] the whole circular debate that's happening with that. It's really just companies are invested
[635.5] in commercial real estate. So the infrastructure is there, like you said, it's a patriarchal society.
[642.2] So there is that perception of control from the top. So they're invested in commercial real
[647.8] estate. Their work has always been in person. So it's in part and parcel and identity thing as
[656.1] well. This is how I've been successful. This is how we think that work has to be in order to go
[663.0] forward and we don't want to sacrifice our identities and that perception of power and control
[669.3] just because you need extra time and flexibility. We need to see you here in person because that's
[674.9] how we trust that work works. Honestly, it comes down to that investment in real estate as well
[681.0] as if you accept that flexibility is the way the future and that people are going to be working
[686.9] less in an office. What does that mean in terms of the value of commercial
[691.3] real estate? A $300 million building was selling for like $69 million. That's
[695.4] incredible loss, right? So for a company to really come out with a narrative that
[701.4] says we accept that that's possible? What does that mean for their balance
[705.6] sheets? What does that mean for the way that they do business? What does it
[711.3] mean for their shareholders, their board? Because you have to remember board
[715.7] members that are helping to make decisions and advise CEOs and why not.
[720.1] I'll come from that same environment of this is the way the world always worked.
[724.3] This is the way we think it should work. Very few board members who really have that
[728.5] future as perspective of if we accept that real estate isn't necessarily the key to the value
[735.7] in the future, whether we're looking three, five, ten years from now, which is that look like,
[740.6] and how do we adjust that? People aren't really having that conversation, right?
[744.9] But what I'm finding is people like individual employees,
[749.9] and that includes leaders themselves too,
[752.1] are making decisions that get them
[753.8] closer to the flexibility that they need to support their lives,
[756.8] and making those choices that's going to actually prepare them
[760.5] to do the work that's going to get them more in line
[763.7] with what they have to be.
[764.7] I mean, I did it.
[765.6] If you actually look back just even at my story,
[768.4] when I first started asking about remote work,
[772.1] we didn't have laptops, right?
[774.2] There was only a specific team in our office that had laptops.
[777.9] We all had desktops.
[779.0] So you literally had to be in the office
[780.9] to be able to access the computer.
[782.7] That's not the case now.
[783.8] The majority of staff, obviously, have laptops.
[786.4] They have phones.
[787.1] They have different devices that they can use to connect.
[790.2] But it's the policies and procedures.
[792.7] And the way that the organization is structured
[795.6] to be able to provide that work are your policies
[798.6] and procedures.
[799.4] I had to switch teams, because only one particular team
[803.3] allowed to do any kind of remote connection into the office at the time. So I made the choice
[808.9] to switch teams even though I enjoyed my team members. I needed the flexibility. You have to be
[814.8] very clear of your terms, right? People are going to start making those decisions to get more of
[820.9] the flexibility to be right the these or that they need for their teams. It's for all this talk
[827.2] of collaboration for all this talk of, you know, the experience in the office is better. There are
[832.5] people who know that that's not true because their work isn't actually designed to be collaborative
[837.9] and you don't listen to them. There are so many studies that come out that say that trust is really
[843.2] eroding in leadership and that's a critical thing. So, employee experience as well down
[849.0] trust is eroding and then you add AI into the mix and the narrative around AI right now is we can
[855.8] use this to eliminate headcount. So therefore we don't need staff at all. That doesn't actually
[863.9] improve the trust. So now you've got this fear that's being introduced as well too, right? This is
[869.4] how it's working currently, but I'm not sure what this is going to look like in a few years
[874.6] because I don't see that trust improving. So I think that unless organizations and leadership
[881.6] start to look at this and how behavior and psychology really play into it.
[887.4] They're going to find that it's very challenging to attract the best of the best if they continue
[893.1] with this return to office narrative. You've always had a central head office, but you've got branches
[898.1] around the country. Those people are working remotely together. And so the branches in person,
[905.1] But the head office staff is working remotely to those branches, right?
[909.9] It's always been that way. It's really just what we've called it and the narratives that we've
[915.5] built around that, right? So if you don't feel as a leader that you can build those types of
[921.9] connections and collaborations, that's a skill issue. So you need to upskill because it's the
[927.7] way of the world and if you're actually online stating that you cannot build connection that way,
[933.8] How do you think it's going to work with AI when it's becoming more and more asynchronous?
[939.8] And there's, it's just the opportunity to actually connect.
[944.1] It needs to be studied.
[946.3] It needs to be connected.
[948.2] And if you can't connect remotely in a world where connection like that is the norm,
[953.9] then that's a cute problem.
[955.2] And then you start seeing layoffs, right?
[957.4] Because that's the other thing is, that's where the trust gets undermined is.
[961.7] are people actually hoping for voluntary attrition
[965.8] when they make these announcements
[967.9] because their headcount is too large.
[970.5] And if people leave voluntarily, no severance is required.
[974.9] So that's where it's like employees who have discernment
[978.4] are looking at these patterns
[980.1] and seeing that the actions in the words
[982.7] don't necessarily line up with what the intent is
[985.5] and what the strategy is.
[986.9] So leaders are saying one thing and doing another.
[989.7] And that's all undermining trust.
[991.5] And that's not going to get better with this narrative
[994.5] around AI, with the potential of impacting jobs and headcount,
[999.3] too.
[1000.7] So what is your intention about workforce
[1003.8] in general?
[1004.4] How do you see the future of work?
[1007.7] And how does that involve humans?
[1009.1] It becomes a really essential conversation to have,
[1011.7] because if your vision is to have maybe
[1015.9] to reduce your organization from 500 people down to maybe
[1020.3] you're hoping for 20 to maximize your profits,
[1023.7] is that an organization where you see yourself
[1027.1] being set up for success, right?
[1029.2] Who are the people that you want to keep?
[1031.5] People are assessing this,
[1032.8] which people always do because it's their livelihood, right?
[1037.1] They pay attention to what leaders say,
[1039.5] they pay attention to the feedback that they ask for
[1042.8] and then how they take that feedback and enable it
[1045.7] and action it.
[1046.7] And what they often see is that they give all this feedback
[1050.1] and then nothing happens, nothing changes.
[1052.7] And that's underwriting trust.
[1054.5] And so when you're constantly seeing this
[1057.1] and it's a repeating pattern,
[1058.7] are you going to make the decision to stay
[1061.9] or you make going to make the decision
[1063.5] to get a different job, make different choices
[1066.3] that's going to make you feel more secure, right?
[1069.3] And people will do that, especially women.
[1071.8] Women are really good at detecting patterns
[1075.7] and communication in general, right?
[1077.5] So women historically have been the community builder.
[1080.9] So if you look at the employee resource groups that are formed,
[1084.4] a lot of times the people who are leading those types of employee experience situations,
[1090.7] like the HR is very heavily dominated.
[1095.6] So are ERGs, right?
[1097.3] So it's the women who are noticing how people are really connecting.
[1101.5] And a lot of that work has always been done for free.
[1104.2] And I actually think it should be paid for one.
[1107.7] But also, it's the most valuable work
[1110.3] that we're doing out there because that's
[1112.3] how people are really connected.
[1113.9] So again, are you as a leader paying attention
[1117.1] to the way that your organization actually works?
[1120.5] Because the values, the mission, the statement,
[1124.7] everything that you've crafted,
[1126.0] and you've put on paper, and you've
[1127.1] put posters around your office about how
[1129.2] you want the organization work?
[1131.3] But what's the behavior on the ground?
[1132.9] what's the real culture in your organization?
[1136.1] Because culture is an offshoot of behavior.
[1139.6] And are you actually living the values that you say
[1143.8] around the organization?
[1145.1] Or are you actually living other values
[1148.9] that play out in behavior?
[1150.3] So I get it interesting too about the way organizations work
[1153.7] is a lot of times they're now bringing in fractional
[1157.7] and correct people, like me.
[1159.9] And they're having these people work into related, right?
[1163.9] So now you've got full-time employees.
[1165.6] You might have some part-time employees,
[1167.0] but you could have contractors.
[1168.9] And then you could have people who are
[1170.5] a fractional, they're working on different types of contracts, right?
[1174.4] How does that get managed?
[1176.3] How does that all interplay?
[1177.8] It becomes a really different thing,
[1179.1] because the contractor isn't going to want to attend.
[1181.9] You're asking anything session, because, well,
[1185.2] you're talking about benefits that they're not eligible for, right?
[1189.5] and they work in a different way than the full-time employees.
[1194.7] So that's where it's like that whole collaboration piece
[1197.7] is interesting because organizations aren't necessarily
[1203.3] going to be just comprised by the full-time employees
[1205.7] the way they have historically.
[1207.9] There's more flexibility in how we're actually working
[1210.5] with people and attracting people
[1212.3] with the best most competitive skills.
[1214.8] That's the other aspect that I see for women
[1217.1] in particular as well too.
[1219.1] how do you build a Netflix ability that you might need to
[1221.9] when pay isn't really changing
[1223.5] and companies aren't really promoting
[1225.2] and everything is frozen
[1226.7] and you still need more money
[1227.9] because everything is increasing in cost
[1230.4] because of tariffs and
[1233.1] just the way the world right now,
[1234.7] that portfolio of career
[1236.5] where you can actually work online,
[1238.6] you can get paid through a blog,
[1240.4] you can work part-time as a community manager,
[1243.3] you could do part-time job like as a census taker,
[1246.9] that sort of thing.
[1247.8] It's all like you're building out a portfolio career
[1252.0] where you have a central job,
[1253.5] but you might be doing other things on top of that too.
[1256.4] You're then CEO of your own business
[1260.0] and full-time employment is just actually a part of it
[1262.9] because there's no limit to the human creativity
[1267.3] and imagination.
[1268.2] And I think that's really what we need to not discount,
[1271.5] especially AI not only benefits organizations, AI,
[1275.7] benefits individuals.
[1277.4] And we don't even know what that's gonna look like.
[1279.3] But the potential is that the possibility is there.
[1283.3] So how are you working with people
[1285.9] who have assets and ability to walk away from you
[1289.5] if the environment that you create
[1291.0] isn't the environment that they need?
[1292.7] They have options.
[1293.5] Is that what you where you see the future of work now
[1297.2] going for women particularly portfolio careers
[1300.6] and build a friend income streams for ourselves?
[1304.1] Honestly, that's a trend that's been going on for a very long time,
[1307.4] like selling Mary Kay, that sort of thing that people have done on the side.
[1312.6] And historically, it did tend to be women.
[1314.9] It would do those types of things because it was like the parties and
[1318.9] that social aspect and that community thing is how can you benefit
[1322.1] in those types of networks and those types of relationships?
[1325.7] This is an extension of that possibility has a grown-in beyond just who you can
[1330.3] actually host in a party in your living room on Saturday, right?
[1333.8] So it becomes the normalcy in the future because right now, especially as a corporate woman,
[1340.3] I think it's still very much normal to have your 100% that's what I'm doing and your identity is
[1347.0] kind of locked into that role and job profile, right?
[1352.0] Well, I think that that is true, but it's also fear-based, right? Because and it's a way the policies
[1358.5] They're designed because a lot of times organizations, especially like large global organizations
[1363.7] have a lot of rules about how you can have a second job, what disclosures you have to do.
[1370.8] If there's any kind of conflict, right?
[1372.8] In the organization I worked with, they didn't necessarily, they had rules in place where
[1377.9] they didn't actually want anything that was knowledge related.
[1380.7] So you couldn't go out and sell insurance for another company, that sort of thing.
[1386.1] I worked with somebody, she was the photographer, she was in the communication team.
[1389.7] Always ran her photography business on the side because it had nothing to do with the main business
[1395.8] of the organization, right? So she would take pictures of families and weddings, all of that stuff,
[1401.4] had nothing to do. And the organization had no problem with that, right? Because it was clearly
[1407.0] something that she was doing on her own time operating completely separate, had nothing to do
[1411.2] with the reputation of the organization. So do I think is possible for employees to create that kind of stuff
[1417.7] and do that on the side? I think it's honestly a really good thing if you have the ability to do that
[1425.3] because she also got laid off and with her she started right away because that business had already
[1431.7] had like a 10-year runway and she didn't have any blip in income because she just went full-time
[1439.3] with the photography business and was able to actually be really successful.
[1443.3] So building that alongside your normal role and as a strategy for the first few years as a safety
[1451.4] net, as a strategy into the future. Exactly. So when you're thinking about identity in your work
[1458.5] and your relationship with your organization, I encourage people to run scenarios of what happens
[1465.6] if, right? So if you look at your organization, the organization I used to work with, they would
[1470.5] do layoffs like every November. It was like clockwork. Is it likely at one point that I won't survive
[1476.2] that? What does this look like, right? And run those scenarios? What does it feel like if you lose that?
[1483.3] And how does it impact your identity? How does it impact your work? How quickly do you think you're
[1488.3] going to be able to find another job? What does your network look like? Do you have an updated resume?
[1493.0] who would you turn to, who would support you, who would help you.
[1496.9] And if your, this is futurism, this is what I call everyday futurism.
[1501.3] It's more, it's not that you're running predictions.
[1505.1] It's imagining what would happen if something became true.
[1508.7] Right? And if you're noticing trends, especially if you combine the trends, right?
[1513.4] So for example, if you're seeing the idea of portfolio careers and you're also seeing the idea of AI
[1519.7] And then you're also seeing the idea of organizations laying off staff.
[1524.7] If you're looking at the convergence of all those three,
[1527.7] create a scenario where you wake up one day,
[1530.7] and all of that has actually come true.
[1532.7] What does it feel like?
[1533.7] What does it look like when you wake up in the morning?
[1535.7] Who are you living with?
[1536.7] Who are you responsible to?
[1538.7] Start to imagine it and start to feel it in your bones.
[1540.7] And then you can start to see what options are maybe going to feel
[1545.7] better for you as an individual.
[1548.7] And then you can start to live that. There was a, it was actually a large scale scenario that the
[1554.3] Futurism Company that I studied with did. And they did it 10 years before the pandemic happened.
[1559.8] And it was a scenario based on what would happen if there was like a global pandemic. And
[1565.5] they knew from that that there would be difficulty with masking. There would be difficulty with
[1570.5] ritual, so like weddings and funerals and people wouldn't want to stay home and miss that type of
[1576.0] saying that gathering instant would become challenging, right?
[1579.9] They knew from their scenario that they'd run
[1581.8] that this would be a problem.
[1582.7] And so, but they, they imagine that 10 years beforehand.
[1585.9] So after the pandemic, they actually followed up
[1587.9] with people who'd be part of the scenario initially
[1590.8] to see how they had handled the pandemic
[1594.2] and whether it was stressful for them.
[1596.2] And the people who'd been part of the scenario,
[1598.6] what they found was because they had imagined
[1601.2] what it would feel like and how they would cope
[1604.5] and what their reactions would be
[1607.8] and how they would influence and how it would impact their work.
[1611.1] They cope so much better than people had no idea
[1615.7] that that was ever coming.
[1616.9] They reported really positive impacts
[1620.7] because they had run those scenarios.
[1622.8] So you can prepare yourself for the possibilities
[1625.6] of what you think the future might bring.
[1627.5] And whatever that is, you can create that.
[1631.2] You can imagine that yourself.
[1632.6] there's no one right answer.
[1634.0] It's just what do you personally hope and believe
[1637.3] and see happening if you prepare yourself
[1639.6] and it never happens in my world.
[1641.1] But if it does, your head's entails above
[1644.5] where you need to be.
[1645.4] Yes, you've just left us with the most amazing statement
[1650.0] just right at the end.
[1651.2] Also amazing advice for women looking to actually create
[1657.1] change now in their work life and stepping into their next chapter.
[1661.3] Thank you so much.
[1662.2] Yeah, thanks, Melchle.
[1664.0] Thank you.
[1664.9] Bye.
[1666.5] Thanks so much for listening today.
[1668.6] And here are some of the key takeaways for you
[1673.1] just to recap the episode.
[1676.9] So number one, stop waiting for work to go back to normal.
[1680.6] Design your very own normal.
[1683.7] The future of work is in something that happens to you.
[1687.1] It's something that you can actively shape.
[1689.8] So ask yourself if my job disappeared tomorrow,
[1693.3] what would I want my work life to look like?
[1695.9] Start moving toward that now,
[1699.2] one small decision at a time.
[1702.6] Number two, treat flexibility like a strategy
[1705.3] and not a request.
[1707.1] Flexibility isn't a perk that you earn.
[1710.8] It's a business advantage you can negotiate
[1713.3] and build towards.
[1716.0] Order it, your actual role right now,
[1718.8] which parts of your work truly require you to be in a specific place,
[1723.8] and which don't, and use that clarity to advocate for yourself
[1728.8] and redesign your role towards more flexibility.
[1733.8] Number three, build optionality before you need it.
[1738.8] Optionality is the real safety net.
[1740.8] One income stream means one point of failure.
[1745.8] of you have maybe never thought of this before, but choose one low-pressure way to expand
[1753.8] your income and skills this year.
[1756.2] You could be consulting, writing, teaching, coaching, community building, or a creative
[1765.2] side project.
[1767.0] You don't need a side hustle.
[1769.1] You just need some options.
[1771.9] Before, practice everyday futurism and imagine before you're forced to react.
[1779.7] Like we talked about today, you don't need to predict the future, but you can prepare for
[1784.6] it.
[1785.6] So, just run a little simple scenario for yourself to think about it.
[1791.2] What if my role changed or my company downsized or AI reshape my role and my work?
[1800.5] skills, relationships or income streams would help you feel more safe and more confident
[1807.5] in your work.
[1810.1] Number 5. Trust your pattern recognition. It's a leadership skill. If something feels
[1817.7] offered work, it very likely is women are exceptionally good at reading systems, culture
[1825.0] and power dynamics. So when you notice repeating patterns, disengagement, fear, unclear leadership,
[1835.0] don't guess like yourself. Use that insight to inform your next move and be prepared.
[1842.0] Number 6. Separate your identity from your job title. You are more than just one role,
[1851.2] one company or one chapter. Write down everything you actually do. Strategy, problem solving,
[1858.8] caregiving, communication, leadership. This is your transferable skill set and it travels with you
[1867.6] wherever you go. Number seven, build self trust the same way you build muscle through small
[1877.2] repetitions. Confidence doesn't come from certainty, it comes from taking action.
[1884.5] So make one decision this month that prioritizes your future self, even if it feels a little bit
[1893.2] uncomfortable. Because each align choice strengthens your self trust.
[1901.9] And remember, the future of work isn't about predicting what will happen.
[1907.2] It's about trusting yourself enough to prepare and giving yourself permission to design,
[1913.6] to redesign your work life in a way that actually fits your life and supports your family
[1921.0] in the way that you need it to.
[1924.5] Thank you so much for listening today.
[1926.6] We will catch up next week.
[1930.4] Have a beautiful week.
[1931.4] Bye.
[1932.4] Alright, hello and I'm so grateful you were here today tuning in and showing up for yourself.
[1939.6] If you love this episode, can I ask for a quick high five?
[1942.8] Yes, that's right.
[1943.8] Just hit that subscribe button at the top and leave me a review and share this episode
[1948.5] with someone who could use a little inspiration today.
[1952.1] Your support really means the world.
[1954.3] That's also give ourselves a big hug for showing up, being honest and supporting each other
[1959.3] on this incredible journey.
[1961.6] Don't forget to check the show notes for links to connect with me on Instagram and
[1965.3] LinkedIn.
[1966.3] I'd really love to keep in touch.
[1968.3] Until next time, keep being the incredible real you that the world needs.
[1973.7] I'll see you back here soon.
[1975.3] Bye.