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If women are doing twice the amount of housework as men, it means that the children in those households are being sent a clear message that taking care of the home is mostly a woman’s responsibility, even if no one articulates it explicitly.7
As of this writing, there are one hundred thousand more Google search engine results for “Marissa Mayer baby” than there are for “Marissa Mayer leader.”
a woman should always have control over the income she earns, and it should be enough to provide for her and her children.
“Resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”
In saying she feels like she has to cope with the guilt of not having been “a good mom,” one of the world’s most accomplished women is articulating an unspoken cultural truth: if women let their home lives suffer for the sake of their careers, they have effectively committed a moral transgression.
Our Lone Ranger syndrome causes us to focus more on our output and less on cultivating the relationships that are just as critical to our career advancement. We go it alone, expecting to be recognized based on our own merits, without asking the right stakeholders to advocate for us.
psychologist Dr. Ayala Malach Pines argues that the root cause of burnout is not that we have too much to do, it’s the feeling that the things we do aren’t meaningful or don’t reflect who we really are.1
The first was a funeral visualization Stephen Covey made popular in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.4 I imagined three people—a family member or good friend, a community member, and a work colleague—getting up to eulogize me.
“Tell me about a time when you experienced me at my best.”
importance of focusing our attention on the areas where we bring the most value as managers, instead of on the areas where we might be better than others because of experience alone.
Put simply, just because you’re better at doing something doesn’t mean you doing it is the most productive use of your time.
backward. I should be looking at my list with an eye to the obligations I couldn’t delegate. Leveraging our highest and best use means employing what we’re good at and focusing on the tasks only we ourselves can do in order to realize our greatest goals and priorities.
“Very little takes as much courage as a woman taking care of her own needs.”
In response to a Harvard Business Review study surveying the time allocation of working women following the birth of a child, the Catalyst Research Center concluded that “the reality is, if a woman wants to obtain a top management position, she cannot be the primary caretaker of [her] child.” 4
The practices, which I call the Four Go-Tos, are most effective when integrated into our daily routines. They are the following: 1. Going to exercise (building your stamina) 2. Going to lunch (building your network) 3. Going to events (building your visibility) 4. Going to sleep (building your renewal)
In Unbending Gender, Joan Williams writes, “Allowing women the ‘choice’ to perform as ideal workers without the privileges that support male ideal workers is not equality.”
The greatest privilege that men in the workplace have had isn’t a corporate or public policy. It’s a partner at home.
But if there’s one thing I’d learned from the White House Project’s founder, Marie Wilson, it’s this: if you want to ignite real change in the world, you have to meet people where they are, not where you are.
