EP 118: Taking Up Space — Leadership, Burnout, and the Courage to Be Visible with Julia Rock

Leadership journeys are rarely linear. They are shaped by identity, experience, opportunity, and sometimes the courage to step forward when others hesitate.

In this episode of Thriving in Intersectionality, Dr. Lola Adeyemo sits down with Julia C. Rock — keynote speaker, leadership consultant, and executive coach — to explore how layered identities influence leadership journeys and workplace dynamics.

Julia shares how growing up as a first-generation American with Caribbean immigrant parents from Barbados, combined with her faith background and experience navigating corporate America as a Black woman, shaped how she approaches leadership, visibility, and resilience.

Before becoming an entrepreneur and leadership advisor, Julia built her career in financial services and the energy industry, where she managed global teams and oversaw billions in operational responsibilities. Along the way, she discovered that leadership growth often comes from raising your hand for the assignments others avoid and learning to take up space in rooms where your voice matters.

Together, Lola and Julia unpack powerful lessons about career ownership, sponsorship, burnout prevention, and the future of work.

This conversation offers practical insights for professionals navigating leadership while balancing identity, ambition, and wellbeing.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

✔ How immigrant upbringing and faith shaped Julia’s leadership mindset
✔ Why raising your hand for difficult assignments can accelerate your career
✔ The difference between mentors and sponsors — and why both matter
✔ Why visibility and taking up space are critical leadership skills
✔ How burnout often stems from misaligned expectations and lack of boundaries
✔ Practical strategies for advocating for yourself at work
✔ Why leadership in the future workplace requires human skills alongside technology

Key Leadership Insight from Julia

“You are the CEO of your career and your life. Focus on what you can control, and don’t let the obstacles you can’t control define your path.”

About Our Guest

Julia C. Rock is a keynote speaker, leadership consultant, and certified executive coach dedicated to transforming workplace dynamics and helping leaders create environments where employees can thrive.

Julia has managed and scaled global teams across industries, navigating challenges like burnout, disengagement, and inequality. Her work focuses on helping leaders simplify leadership, build strong workplace cultures, and develop practical approaches that improve team performance and retention.

Her personal leadership journey has empowered her to coach and mentor over 1,000 professionals and leaders in building meaningful and fulfilling careers.

Connect with Julia Rock

🌐 Website:
https://leaduncomplicated.com 

📰 Julia’s Substack: Leadership, Uncomplicated, where she shares daily insights on practical leadership and how organizations can create environments where employees feel seen, heard, and valued.

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About the Podcast

Thriving in Intersectionality explores the real experiences of professionals navigating the workplace with layered identities — including immigrants, first-generation professionals, working parents, veterans, and more.

Through conversations and reflections, host Dr. Lola Adeyemo uncovers the insights, challenges, and leadership lessons that help professionals not just survive in the workplace — but truly thrive. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hello and welcome to the Thriving in Intersectionality Podcast. A podcast that explores the real experiences of professionals navigating the workplace with layered, leathed identities. I'm your host, Dr. Lola Ateemo, the CEO of EQI Mindset and founder of the nonprofit Immigrants Incorporate Inc. I'm also an author, speaker, and a workplace inclusion strategist. I work with organizations to build communities of belonging through strategy, storytelling, and systems change. This podcast amplifies the voices of professionals from intersectional backgrounds, immigrants, ethnic minorities, first-gen professionals, veterans, working parents, individuals with disabilities, and so many more. Through solo reflections and guest conversations, we'll uncover the eating challenges, celebrate the wins, and offer insights to help you thrive, not just survive in the corporate world. Because in today's global workforce, belonging isn't just a bonus, it's the catalyst for real growth and impact. Let's dive in. Hopefully, this has stirred you to also explore the concept because it's way deeper than we go on this podcast. But I start with explaining what a word means. It's a mouthful intersectionality, but it is a framework that recognizes how multiple aspects of identity, such as gender, race, ethnicity, immigration status, and class, among so many others, how a lot of these categories overlap and interact, creating very unique experiences of privilege or discrimination that you can't understand by looking at just a single one of these factors in isolation. And so, what I love about uh this stage and the guests that I bring is we get to explore that part of their journey, which most times you see a lot of people doing stuff, you don't get a chance to get to really know them. And so beyond the bio, we get to know who Julia is today. So I'm going to bring her in right now by reading a brief bio first before I ask the intersectionality question. All right, so Julia C Rock is a keynote speaker, a leadership consultant, and a certified executive coach dedicated to transforming workplace dynamics and helping leaders create environments where all their employees can thrive. Julia has successfully managed and scaled global teams, navigating and overcoming challenges like burnout, disengagement, and inequality. Her personal journey led her to the TEDx stage and has empowered her to coach and mentor over 1,000 professionals and leaders in building meaningful and fulfilling careers. All right, I am looking forward to this conversation. I see a lot of overlap with my work and Julia. So let's get right down to it. Hi Julia, how are you doing today? I'm doing well, Dr. Lola. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Hey, we're recording this on a Friday. I'm always doing great on Friday.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Yes. Thank God for Friday, literally.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Yep, yep. All right. Okay, so um, we saw a little bit of your bio or we heard a little bit of your bio, and of course, my my guests, my audience can go look you up. And I know that's a condensed version of your bio and and and your story, and we want to learn a little bit more about who Julia is. So when you think about intersectionality and you want to introduce yourself, what aspects of your identity have been most relevant in shaping your leadership journey and and that you want us to know about you?

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Yeah, and especially in the context of of intersectionality. So I'm a first generation uh American. My parents are are from Barbados, so so uh anyone who has Caribbean parents, they know what that life is like.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Uh and in terms of very similar to African.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

I was gonna say, I was like, especially my my friends who are West African, if they're in Nigeria, what have you, it's it's a lot of overlap. And so so thinking about you know my journey, that has really done a lot in terms of shaping because when you come from a family with an immigrant background, the idea is that they had to overcome so many challenges. So they expect you to be at a certain level of excellence uh throughout your life. So there's no, woe is me, this is hard or this obstacle. It's uh it's about striving for for a high level of excellence. Um and then in addition to, in addition to that, it's also about um the Christian background. Because, you know, um for for folks who are who are believers in Christ, there's always a conversation around humility and how you show up. And so religion has also played um, you know, played a role in how I show up as a leader, especially because it's about service and serving others. And so when you think about doing leadership development, I always try to help leaders think about this is what it means to lead. And it's about being of service to the people that that that uh that work for you. But I wouldn't have gotten that had I not had the same, had the religious background. And so when I so thinking about that, being from an immigrant family, being uh, you know, coming from a background that's that's Christian, and then also just being a black woman in America and navigating the challenges uh that we deal with, because it's easy to say, well, just work hard and climb the ladder and do the things, but that doesn't always apply to to black people, and if we're just being honest. And so overcoming those challenges in corporate, that has also helped me in terms of talking to leaders about the inclusion that they're able to create on their teams and seeing everyone's value, everyone's contributions, and making sure that they're not, you know, even unconsciously discriminating against someone on their team because of their background or what they look like. So all of those different pieces have helped to shape, you know, who I am today and how I'm able to serve leaders.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Oh my gosh, you're like the perfect guest right now. Because each of those things are like things we could go deep on, right? Everything you touched on is like a whole layer being a black woman, being a Christian, being an immigrant, lots and lots of layers. Yeah. But but that that's again, um, I love to lead with that because uh a lot of people might be listening to these um on audio only, and I think it gives us more understanding of who this person is than any bio ever could. And and most times we lead with bio, but um hopefully that you know resonates with some people as we talk about your career now. Thank you for that, Julia. All right, so let's go to the career conversation. Uh you know, uh we'll come into your work, we'll we'll end up with your work because I really want to um ask some questions for you around the work that you do with leaders and and with companies right now. Um, but can you walk us through your leadership journey? Uh, if you want to highlight some of the key milestones, how did you get here? You know, as early, as far back as you want to start. Take your time.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Yeah, no, thank you so much. I mean, when when I think about how I actually got here, so I started my career in financial services. Um, and I always knew that I wanted to be on the leadership ladder. And so even back then, I, as an analyst and then a senior analyst, I was always looking for opportunities to lead something, whether it was a project or a committee or something, some way for me to contribute additional value above and beyond what I was doing every day. Uh, and so, because that's always just been in the back of my mind. And so taking that experience and then going into grad school after that career, I had a different lens as to the kind of person I wanted to be on the other side because I had that work experience. I had tried kind of informal leadership. So taking that into my graduate program, that's kind of shaped, that kind of shaped how I went through that. So then when I finally got into energy, which was the last career I had before I launched my business full time, I had that mindset about how do I show up differently here so that I'm able to one, get the career opportunities that I want and get into leadership. And what I found that was helpful for me in terms of moving forward as a leader was being willing to do the things that other people didn't want to do. Oftentimes, people want to take the comfortable route, they want the sexy jobs and all of that, and and nothing wrong with that. But there are also assignments that maybe other people don't want or they think are too hard. And if you were willing to take those, that that would be a kind of a catalyst for your career. So I was a person that raised my hand for the things that people didn't want to do. So when we had an audit uh role in energy, and a lot of people didn't like it, it was too much travel, it wasn't really finance anymore. And I raised my hand and I said, pick me, pick me. And and then uh there was an assignment where I could go to a plant in Baton Rouge and be a supervisor there. Other people didn't want that to work in Baton Rouge. They said it was too far from Houston, which was where my company was headquartered. And I said, pick me, pick me. And so part, so all of the leadership opportunities I had, it started with me raising my hand for things so that when I got later in my career, I got the jobs that other people wanted. So I got a cool assignment to go to Argentina and lead a team of 70 people as a division manager. But had I not raised my hand, then I wouldn't have gotten there. Um, I had the opportunity, my my last job, being the OpEx manager for over $23 billion in operating expenses. Not a lot of people can say that that was under their portfolio. But again, had I not raised my hand for the things before. And so I would say that that's really been the through line through my entire leadership journey is just not being afraid to take the things that that make other people uncomfortable or they don't want to do. The other thing that I would say that has been really helpful is that I was willing to take up space. So, so especially in my second, in my second career in energy, I became known as a person that always raised their hand for the like the the big town halls and the big forums and everything. They're like, oh, our team needs to ask a question. Oh, Julia, can you ask the question for us? And so I was always the person to raise my hand. Hi, I'm Julia Rock, I'm so and so. And here's my question. And people began to realize that I was willing to take up space in the biggest rooms possible. And so that also helped to feed some of the decisions about me taking on leadership assignments, is because they knew I wasn't going to shrink in those spaces. They knew I wasn't gonna shy away from tough things or or something awkward. And so, you know, those are the two big things when I think about how I got here. It's like, man, that's how I got here.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

I love it. Yeah, and and and those are key, the things you just described, because um talking about background, I mean, do you see some of the alignment there with how your identity and your lived experience as sort of shaped how you showed up, how you were able to comfortably show up in those spaces?

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Absolutely. I mean, because I think about you know, immigrant parents, right? Where that, you know, if you're just doing, if you're if you're doing well, it's average, right? You've got to be exceptional, right? So, so part of the exceptional of being exceptional means that you can't operate the same way that everyone's operating, right? So if everyone is doing the cool thing over here, that means how do you go against the grain? How do you stand out and be exceptional? And so that's always been in the back of my mind. And part of it is also being a black woman, knowing that oftentimes you can get overlooked uh and and almost be feel invisible because you may not be seen the same as other people there. And so what I was intentional about doing was I want to make sure that you see who I am. You can't ignore me if I raise my hand, right? Like you can't overlook me if I'm the person standing here. And and what that also did for me was thinking about who else is coming behind me. There's gonna be a black woman, a black person, a person of color who's coming behind who may not have my personality, who's willing to raise their hand and stand out, but that doesn't mean that they should get overlooked. So, how can my willingness to take up space uh open the door for someone else who's going through the same struggle that I had been going through? Um, and then I like I like that.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

I like what you just said because that was going to be one of the questions I asked you because you have an amazing personality, and I know showing up and being out there also it you've probably gotten better at this with practice, right? By doing it, and and I can say that from experience that getting, you know, speaking up, raising up your you you can't do it well enough that you're perfect, you just have to show up, you just have to keep doing it. And so my question was going to be for people that feel like, oh, but my personality is not really like that. I love that you are thinking about how you are opening the doors for people by doing the things and raising up your hand.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

And I want to just speak directly to those folks who say, my personality, my this, my that, part of that is also mindset. If you feel that your personality is going to be a roadblock for you, then it will be a roadblock for you. If you think about the fact that, hey, my personality can be an asset. So so for example, I know that um, especially when I was in high school and like junior high school, I was socially awkward, right? I I know that much. But what that allowed me to do was I own that and said, okay, well, a lot of other people won't talk to me. So I'm gonna go talk to the person who's sitting by themselves. And so that's how I started to shift that. Because if I sat there and said, I'm socially awkward and I'm getting excluded from things, I've been bullied or whatever. If I if I stood in that, then I would be robbing myself of an opportunity. So I would just advocate for those who are listening who feel like, hey, I'm socially awkward, I'm introverted, I'm whatever. Think about how that can actually be an asset for you. Think about like if you know that you don't like talking to people, bring someone with you who isn't who is an extrovert and let them connect another introvert with you to say, hey, you guys look like you guys aren't talking. Let me put you together, right? Like, like, like use those things uh that that are at your disposal to to make sure that you're not robbing yourself of opportunities and success because of the story that you've told yourself.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Right, right. I love that. And you know, talking about socially awkward, I mean, a lot of people see me out and about now, and there's this perception that, you know, you're very ex extroverted. I I don't know if I'm on the extreme, extrovert end. I think I'm somewhere in between because um networking, socializing actually drains me. So I heard for the people that are on the extreme, it's like it gives them energy. For me, it drains me. And I was thinking about you talking about the younger you. When I was younger, I used to bury myself in books because I didn't know how to talk to people. And I was very close to my dad, and I remember going on rides with my dad where I have my head like this, and I'm going for a doctor's appointment, I have a book with me, and I didn't realize how much I was leaning on the book as a way to avoid having conversations with people, but then my dad was intentional about it, and I remembered him saying, I won't buy you books anymore if you don't, you know, like it would take me on road trips. We'll travel, we used to do road trips together, and he would say, I can't read a book, I have to talk to him. And I'm like, it's gonna be a couple of hours, so it's so funny because that was definitely the definition of socially awkward as a teenager. And so looking back now, it's like, oh wow, I definitely have come a long way.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

But but but that goes to the point of you were willing to overcome it rather than allow that to stop you. You said, Okay, I know that this is a problem, your dad was helpful in saying we've got to fix this, but you've taken the time to practice, and I guess that's one other thing I'll I'll try to advocate for here is you're you don't have to be perfect. You just have to try, right? So, you know, all of us are trying to just do the best we can in the world here. So if you're a person who's like, I don't really speak that well with people, I struggle with that, then go to smaller events first. You don't have to go to the biggest event in the world and try your skills out. Go to something small, go to a community event or something so that you can practice your skills, invite friends with you so they can see you and give you feedback. So, so instead of giving yourself a story, why not just try and and baby step your way so that you can improve and so that by the time you look back, you're like, Man, I remember when I didn't want to talk to anybody and now I'm talking to everybody.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Yep, exactly. And and yeah, I love that we we have to take the step instead of looking at some of these things as barriers, is accepting the things, right? If you accept that you're an introvert, yes, that's great. It's not a negative or a positive, it's a self-understanding, right? And then, okay, but I want to meet people. How do I do that from this position of knowing and and loving myself?

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Um, yeah, and and if I could add one more thing there. So going back to the idea about intersectionality, right? If you think about immigrant parents, for example, they they knew that they were gonna be disadvantaged when they came to the country because they weren't citizens, but they didn't let that stop them from achieving. So my parents, when they came to the US, my dad was already an established teacher in Barbados, my mom had been nursing for years, and they had to come to the US and do their GED. They literally had to go back to the beginning again. But but so for them, they knew, hey, these are obstacles we have to overcome and we're gonna still try it anyway, versus thinking about woe is me, I'm an immigrant, you know, whatever the case is. And so the same thing goes for for all of us, whatever our obstacle or barrier we think it might be, even if it's skin color, you know, there's certain things that we're not gonna be able to fix in society today, but does that mean that you stop striving? Does that mean that you don't go after what you want? And the answer to that should be, you know, no.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's kind of bringing us to the work that you do now, and uh maybe a little more leadership insights from you about the world of work these days. Um, you know, some of the things that helped you when you were coming up the corporate ladder and and maybe doing the transition to from corporate to business. I see a lot of people doing that these days. So are there some things that you would advise for people that are in corporate and maybe not trying to do entrepreneurship at this point, right? Or you are within corporate America and you are mid-level or you're somebody that wants to be a leader or you're already managing a team, but you they can relate with some of the intersections you described, right? Raised as part of an immigrant family, being a black woman or person of color. What advice would you give them um on what they could be doing now from your own experience? And maybe you could also speak to the future of work because workplace is changing, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:36

That's right. Yeah, man. So how much time do you have? I'll try to I'll try to keep it short. Um this is the meat of it. Take your time. Um, you know, the the biggest thing that I found that that that helped me was getting the right people around me and and making sure that I had people who are willing to advocate on my behalf. It's not just good enough to have mentors. Mentors are important, but for a lot of us, we're over-mentored. We have enough people who can give us insights, but you need to align yourself with people who can speak your names in rooms that you can't get into for a long time. And and the key to that was, which goes to point number two, you need to be executing at the highest level possible. If you're just saying, well, I'm doing my job and that should be good enough, or I'm meeting my deadlines, that's not sufficient. Everybody's meeting their deadlines. You need to be executing at the highest level possible. Your work should be spectacular, you should be seizing the opportunities for professional development, for committees, whatever it is, because you want to be visible to the people who can go speak on your behalf. If you're just making the widgets, as they used to say, that the those people are not going to see you, they're not going to hear about you. So so those would be the two things thinking about the people who can speak your names in rooms, so the sponsors and ex. Executing at the highest level. The next thing that I would say that was really helpful for me was to not take things personally. To not take things personally. Because when you want to move up the ladder in corporate, there's going to be, you know, getting to that point, you're going to hit some challenges. Um, I'll tell you a quick story. At one point, I was leading a group. Um, I was doing a presentation in front of a large group of my peers, their my boss, their boss, and it was this big room. And one of the managers, I had spoken to her a couple hours earlier, and I stood in the front of the room and she attacked me for something that she could have told me on the phone, but she brought it into the room and it was so bad that I went when I went to the bathroom, someone came in there. They're like, that was awful. My God, I am so sorry. Like, that's how bad it was. I could have taken that personally and had an ax to grind and all of that, but I took, I took that as an opportunity to say, okay, so this is how things are. Let me develop a thicker skin. And then how do I address this person in a way that is still professional so that the people who matter in this room, they see how I handle it? Because if I fly off the handle and I'm angry and so forth. Right. But but then what how does that limit me from every anything else I wanted to do? And when you get into leadership, there are going to be more decisions that make you angry the sooner the higher up you go. So managing your emotions and learning to not take things personally also was something that really helped to catapult me. And then to think about the future of work league really quickly. It's not just about learning the AI tools, because there's enough tools out there you can drown yourself in courses, but it's thinking about the skills that you have and want to put into the workplace, making sure that you understand what those specific tools are and how to use them and integrate them with the humans that you work alongside. I know everybody thinks that robots are going to replace all of us and they're gonna be no humans. I know everybody wants to think that, but by and large, it's gonna be humans and technology working together. So if you are in a role right now where you're thinking, I want to get into leadership, it's thinking about how do I understand the technology and how to bring the humans together. And the last thing I will say is if you can help to fix the processes before the technology gets in, people are going to love you. What's happening with a lot of organizations right now is that people are bringing in AI tools, but they're broken processes and nothing and the AI is not working. And they're and they're like, oh, we spent all this money, and now we have to revert, we have to hire people. But if you can go into the conversation and say, hey guys, before we bring in this thing, I think we should fix so-and-so. And here's why. And this is how it will save us money or make the implementation easier. Now you're on somebody's radar because no one else is talking about fixing those challenges.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

Yeah, I love it. Yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot to unpack in in everything you guys. I know I'm a patty patty. I'm sorry, y'all who are listening. All captured, it's all captured. We're going to dive into it. But two things that you said that I think also ties to the some of the work that you do is around burnout and retention. Yes. And because I don't want people to take it the wrong way, a lot of the advice you give is really great around people that want to lead in the workplace, uh, minoritarist groups that are incorporate America. You know, sometimes we talk about you gotta worker, do the things, go above and beyond, and people take it to the extreme. Right. So I love that you shared that advice in two ways. You talked about being in front of the right people, finding sponsors and advocates, but then also going above and beyond, because it's when you pair those two things together, is where you're actually moving. And so talk about that in the context of burnouts, because I think you know, people go too far in this direction and you miss this part. Doing hard work and walking more than everybody else without being visible doesn't help anybody, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:07

All it does is it burns you out faster because you wonder where is my work going? No one seems to care. Right. And so if we if we think about burnout, the first thing that you have to ask yourself is what does success look like to me? Right. So I'm talking to people who who are trying to excel in terms of leadership and get to a certain level. But if that's not where you want to be, you have to accept that too and say, hey, that's that's not really what I want. And so you can take another path. But even if you want to get to that leadership level, it's about what does success look like to me and if and in making sure that you understand what your values are or what your priorities are, because the company is always going to tell you what their priorities and values are. So you have to make sure that you understand those for yourself. And that's where self-advocacy can come in because you don't have to kill yourself to excel well, right? Like if you if you know that you can only be at work from 8 to 3:30 because you have to go get your kid at 3:30, then you need to execute well from 8 to 3:30. But the people that you work for need to know, hey, at 3:30, I've got to leave. I can either log on tomorrow or I can uh or or log in before I go to bed and just send this email or whatever it is. But having the right conversations that you need to, that's where the burnout, where you're able to prevent the burnout, is is the self-advocacy and understanding what your priorities and your values are because they're always gonna tell you what they want from you. It's important for you to be able to say what you want from them and what you need from them to be successful. And then the last thing I would say is think about, and this, and this goes back to advocating, is also think about what matters, right? Everyone's gonna tell you that everything is on fire, right? It's like, oh, the sky is falling, the sky is falling. But the way that I coach leaders is that I'm like, if everything is urgent, that means nothing is, right? And so so you have to be able to prioritize. So it's up to you to advocate with your leadership to say, hey, I just you just gave me this new thing. I've already got these other three priorities that you said are due by Friday. So what would you like me to move around to prioritize this one? Right. And so, so, and you put the ball back in their court because if if you're working in an environment where they don't care about you, they don't care about your about your ability to work well, if they don't care about your mental and physical health, you need to ask yourself, is this a place I want to work in anyway? Right. And so, so that conversation around priorities and boundaries and values is so, so, so important.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

Yeah, absolutely. And that's where the owning, owning your own kind of path comes in. Because as you said, I I love the example you just described. It's like if somebody gives you three things that are a priority and you're already working on, and they put one more thing, and they put one more thing, and then you don't meet complete all five things in three days, then you are absorbing it as a failure for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

And they will be right to say that. Well, you I told you this had to be done on Friday. Why is it not done? Well, at the point where you were being assigned, did you communicate to them that there's no way I can humanly do this within my work hours over on my other priorities? So I think um a lot of the time when we start to hear about burnout or we start to hear about, you know, black women burnout at work is because we have this high standard for ourselves that we want to adapt by. But then nobody else cares about you. If you are not caring about yourself enough to say, here is what I have, here is what I'm gonna do, here is when I can get that to you, then you are absorbing the blame.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Okay, you're you're and then and then you're looking at yourself in the mirror and saying, Okay, something is wrong with me. And another thing for black women, because this is what I experienced when I was burning out, was I was working so hard and I was frustrated, but I kept thinking about well, my team and this other person and that other person and my sister, she she told me, she's like, Julia, you're you're not gonna be any good to them if you're not good to yourself. And so so you have to ask yourself if you're if you're constantly considering what everybody else needs, and that's the for black women, that's a big thing. We're always concerned about everyone else, supporting everyone else, making sure they're successful. But it's important for us to reflect and say, what do I need in this season? And what can I manage? And it may be that you can't be captain save everybody. Um, you know, we don't have to be superheroes, right? We don't wear capes, that's not our job. You know, we can we can be there for other people, but it we we are of no use to anyone else if we don't first say, what do I need right now? And and and and and honoring that. It's important for us to not just ask the question, but honoring that. And because then also we set examples for the for the other people who are coming up behind us and we're see so that they realize that they don't have to to live that life either.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

Oh, absolutely. And and um it it did remind me of a few years ago, I had to talk to a therapist when I was like borderline burnout, and and that was um the the eye-opening moment for me was when I was talking about my work responsibilities and talking about my personal life and talking about marriage and talking about the kids, and she said, Well, what is your go-to plan for you? And I was there thinking, What do you mean for me? Like, I'm talking, you know, my kids, and she's like, You, what about you? What is your care plan for yourself, right? Like, what do you enjoy doing? What gives you, you know, what refreshes you? And she first she had to, it took a couple of tries for her to get to ask me, What about you? Because I realized in the midst of everything, I had lost, like, well, what about me? Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

It's like I I'm a person too, and and I and I want to just I want to stay on that point for one second longer. For a lot of us, we tie our self-worth and our our identity to the to our productivity into the world, whether it's taking care of our kids, having a good job, whatever it is, we we tie our worth to external things, and so that's why we take so much personally, and that's another thing that drives burnout. But what if we realize that we are enough without those things? That we are enough, that we are sufficient, that that we are amazing without any of that, without any of that, and so so that then you can approach your work, approach your family, approach your life with a different lens because you realize that independent of anything, I am still an amazing human being that people would have would be honored to be in touch with regardless of what I do or what I produce.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Yeah, absolutely. I love that. And and and to your point about the examples we're setting, um, I had a friend who said um, she she said I for her birthday, she decided to just go. She was exhausted and she decided to take a weekend. And and she's a single mom, but her son is a teenager. And she said, when I told my son that I was just going away for the weekend, it was like, you mean like just by yourself? Like you're not going for a conference, you're not going for you, don't have a she's like, Yeah, she said, and I could see the wheels turning, and then he looked at me and he's like, Oh, good for you. And then he walked away. And she's like, I was worried how he would take it. And he literally had to process it like, Wait, you're not going for a conference, you're not going for a work event, you're just going away. And he's like, Oh, okay, good for you, mom.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

And then he walked away. That is awesome, but but and that's the thing, our families are paying attention to us, so he's so his brain is trying to compute mom's not gonna work while she's away, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Right, and we think the only time we get to ask permission of everybody else is when we're going for another thing. The only time we take PTO is when there's an emergency, right? No, it's you can take time off just to love on yourself and rest. Yeah, that's okay too.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Yeah, you don't have to travel, you don't have to go to Cancun or Dubai or Tulum or wherever it is. You can literally just stay in the house and watch Netflix and eat chips if that's what you want to do. But give yourself a chance to just rest and reset.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Exactly. I think for those of us that travel as part of our work, we understand the reality that when you have to plan a trip for vacation, it stresses me out. I do.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

What are you gonna pack and which airport are you flying through? Too many, too much.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

Just I love staycations because I'm like, I do not want to plan anything else when it comes to family vacations. My husband is the planning, and sometimes it's it confuses him. Like, why are you so hands-off with a chance? I'm like, because I don't want to plan it. I don't want to be involved in this process. Just tell me if I need my passport or not, and tell me what that's all. Like, I'm not, and don't pack uh uh my schedule for the full full vacation period, just let's go.

SPEAKER_02 35:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Um, but I know we could talk all day, Julia. It's been awesome, amazing chatting with you. Thank you for the work you do, and and I think um also for your authenticity in the way you share your journey and and and the the why to what you do. Um, I have a final question that I like to close out with, but before I get to that, do you have anything else for my audience as we wrap up?

SPEAKER_00 35:32

Um I I I I want to make sure that that they understand that I that I fully understand what it's like to come from a background where there are a lot of layers and there may be some disadvantage, whether it's gender, whether it's race, whether it's religion, that there's a lot that can be said about that. And it's hard sometimes for us. I don't want to discount that. But I do want to make sure that folks understand that you can't focus on the things that you can't control right now, or else that's only gonna drive anxiety, burnout, stress, depression. It's thinking about what I can do with what's in front of me? What can I take control of? What can I take ownership of? You are the CEO of your career, you are the CEO of your life. And so it's important for you to seize control of whatever you can and be willing to accept the things that you can't control. Uh, and and making sure that you stay true to who you are. You have value, you have you have priorities, you have goals that are independent of whatever your job title is. So make sure that you don't lose sight of that.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

Thank you. Really appreciate it. And um, on to my final question. Okay, if you were to share a meal, a snack, a food, something, eat something with your co-workers, what would you peak, and why did you peak what you peaked?

SPEAKER_00 37:03

So and this is like the most non-West Indian dish, but I'll take it anyway. It's uh it's uh it would be chicken wings and french fries. And and the reason why I say chicken wings and french fries is because that is my comfort meal. So if I if I am, if it's like, okay, this is a cheap day or I've had a high stress day or whatever the case is, chicken wings and french fries always gets me to recalibrate. And and I think it it eliminates the opportunity for pretension. There's no sexy way to eat chicken wings, right? There's no sexy way to eat french fries. You just you just dig in. And so it's almost like an e it's an equalizer. So we're all eating with our hands, we all have sauce and places we shouldn't. Uh and so so that that would be the meal I would pick.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

I love that. I love that. And I and I I I love that you're also thinking, yeah, how we eat it, how it shows up, but also how it makes you feel. Yeah, why you pick that, what it means to you. Thank you so much for sharing that. Now I want to I have to go grab some chicken wings and french fries. You have a substack? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 38:22

So you can go to lead uncomplicated. I think it's leaduncomplicated.substack.com. Or if you go on Substack and just put in leadership uncomplicated, you can find me uh on there.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Uh yeah, and I will drop the link as well on on the comment section in the show notes so you all know where to go get that and stay connected. Uh, would also have a links on the show notes. So looking forward to the conversations that stem from these. Thank you so much for your time here today.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

Thank you so much, Dr. Lola. Really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 38:59

Thank you for being part of today's conversation on thriving in intersectionality. If you're an HR or DEI leader and you need employer resource group or business resource group resources, let's connect and LinkedIn. I help organizations build inclusive cultures through inclusive workplace communities, strategy, and storytelling. Immigrants and first-gen professionals, join our free community at www.immigrantsincorporate.org for career support, networking, and resources in community with peers who understand your journey. Tag our podcast page on LinkedIn or connect with me directly to continue the conversation. Please don't forget to rate and review to help others discover these discussions. Keep thriving in your intersections. Your story matters. I'm Dr. Lola Adeyo, and this has been Thriving in Intersectionality Podcast.