Alla Adam, Lean Startup & VC Coach | Negotiator | Investor | Author | Founder at Alla Adam Coaching.
The moment the clock strikes 5:00 p.m., the doors of a big, shiny office building near London’s Paddington Station open wide and the crowd of people in suits gets out. All but one person, that is. Codie usually stays late, because her manager stays late. You see, Codie has been with the company for almost seven years and desperately wants to get a promotion. She also wants to stop working late. At the end of the day, she will get a much better option, but Codie doesn’t know it yet.
I sit on the stairs of a sunlit amphitheater. From my vantage point, there is a good view of Codie’s office building. I sip my tea and can’t help thinking that today feels as exciting as four years ago when I met Codie for the first time at this same spot.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” said Codie while unsuccessfully trying to steady her breath that warm October afternoon. “Actually, I’m always late. And this is a problem,” she added carefully.
“Hi, Codie. I’m Alla. It’s nice to meet you.” I stretched my hand to shake hers and gestured for her to sit down.
Fast-forward two hours, a fair amount of tears and revelations, and we had a clear picture of what was going on. Codie was trying to please her manager just like she used to please many adults in her early life. She was trying to earn her right to a promotion by working long hours and taking care of every single thing the manager asked her to do. She wanted to get out of this spiral where she was always the one responsible for everything in her department of 20 but never the one who received gratitude.
The thing was, just as Codie got used to using the same techniques that propelled her forward seven years ago, her manager and her colleagues got used to the fact that Codie was eager to do everything and didn’t ask for much in return. As a result, Codie ended up being the one who burned out, didn’t get enough sleep, had no life outside the corporate walls—and eventually started missing important tasks and meetings and received a final notice from her manager, after which she’d be fired if she wasn’t able to go back to performing at the highest level.
During that warm October afternoon, I sat down with Codie and we figured the way out and up. And here’s how it looked.
1. Sabbatical is not a cure, but it is a treatment.
When you are on the verge of burnout, quitting and burning all the bridges is the last thing you must do. Instead, take a sabbatical for three to six months. You’ll have just enough time to restore your energy, drive and motivation but not so much time that your professional skills get rusty. The point is to plan your sabbatical as an active time. Travel, read books, meet new humans, try new sports and dishes, learn a new skill, but do not under any circumstances stay in bed watching some popular series and binging on chips.
2. Side income equals flow equals safety.
When you have only one source of income, you are trapped. A company you work for can fire you at any time. Reasonable yet limited compensation may be able to keep you afloat but is rarely enough to propel you forward. To avoid this dangerous state, think about your flow and safety ahead of time and establish a reliable side income, start investing and build your personal brand outside the corporate walls.
The point is that employee status is only a temporary safe harbor. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been promoted; the next one is not guaranteed. Don’t bet on one option, especially if your control over it is limited; build a side-income foundation that you can rely on at any time.
3. Pleasing brings you down; serving lifts you up.
You must serve yourself first—establish healthy boundaries with others, declutter your working and living space, master new tools of getting things done, exit toxic professional and personal relationships, start journaling, etc. When you are used to one way of getting things done, you start to associate your identity with it, and it becomes hard to experiment with new ways. But new problems demand new solutions and new levels of leadership. Stop pleasing your manager, your colleagues and society in general; start serving them the best way you can while not letting them cross your boundaries.
It was not a full-fledged strategy, but it was a start.
“Hi, Alla. I actually arrived a bit earlier and got you the tea you like,” says Codie on the stairs of the same amphitheater where we first met four years ago. “Come on, sit down next to me; I want to tell you about our new investor from India I just finished a call with.”
Codie (whose name I changed for confidentiality) was my client’s daughter. Four years ago she was one of 20 in her department and one of thousands in the company she worked for and, as she likes to remind herself, “more of a commodity than a star.” Now she is one of the few female startup founders in the UK with over £8 million in raised funds. With smart coaching help, she has fully transformed herself, and at the same time, she knows that it’s just the beginning of a fascinating journey in which she works five hours per day, takes proper vacations, interacts with smart humans all over the world, reads books, meditates, eats healthy and never on the go, plays tennis two times per week and builds a business she loves.
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