EP 138: When Caring Isn't Enough — Rethinking Burnout, Leadership & Workplace Culture with Ashley Gibson

In this episode of Thriving in Intersectionality, Dr. Lola Adeyemo sits down with Ashley Gibson—founder of Meaning in Practice, psychotherapist, and former marketing executive—for a conversation that challenges many of the assumptions leaders make about resilience, workplace culture, and employee well-being.

Before becoming a therapist, Ashley spent more than a decade leading marketing for mission-driven organizations, including serving on the original marketing team behind Hamilton. Today, she combines her executive leadership experience with clinical expertise to help organizations understand why their most committed employees are often the first to burn out.

Throughout the conversation, Ashley reflects on the experiences that shaped her work—from navigating neurodivergence and single parenthood to working in high-performing, mission-driven environments where caring deeply often came at a personal cost. Her own journey became the foundation for a different way of thinking about leadership, organizational culture, and burnout.

Together, they explore:

•  Ashley's journey from Broadway marketing to psychotherapy and organizational consulting 
•  How identity, neurodivergence, single parenthood, and purpose have shaped her leadership philosophy 
•  Why burnout is often an organizational design issue—not simply an individual resilience problem 
•  How workplace culture teaches employees how to treat themselves 
•  The gap between organizational intentions and employees' lived experiences 
•  What leaders miss when they assume employees "just don't care" 
•  Why sustainable leadership begins with healthy boundaries—not endless sacrifice 

Rather than asking people to become more resilient, Ashley invites leaders to ask a different question:

What if the system—not the people—is what needs to change?

Whether you're a leader, HR professional, ERG leader, or someone trying to build a meaningful career without losing yourself along the way, this conversation is an invitation to rethink how our own experiences shape the way we lead—and how healthier workplaces begin by designing systems that allow people to thrive, not just endure.

Guest

Ashley Gibson, M.Ed., MFA, NCC, LRC is the founder of Meaning in Practice, a psychotherapist, organizational advisor, and speaker specializing in structural burnout, organizational culture, and workforce sustainability. Drawing on over 13 years of executive leadership experience and her clinical work in trauma therapy, Ashley helps organizations identify the hidden patterns that drive burnout, turnover, and workplace exhaustion before they become organizational crises. 

Connect with Ashley

🌐 Meaning in Practice https://www.meaninginpractice.com

📝 Substack: Meaning in Practice

*** Connect with Ashley on LinkedIn

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, lead 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, longing isn't just a bonus, it's the catalyst for real growth and impact. Let's dive in. Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Thriving in Intersectionality Podcast. A podcast created to make space for all of the layers, all of the categories, all of the person that we are. I had a guest recently give me one of the best recommendations ever by saying I go on podcasts and everybody wants to talk about my work. And Dr. Lola said, This is not about your work, this is about you. And he said this this was different, and I love it because it reminded me that okay, this is still grounded in why I created this space, and and so I I love being here with you, Ashley. Welcome. Thank you for so much for having me. All right, so before we dive in, I am going to take a minute to explain the word intersectionality. The name of the podcast is Striving in Intersectionality. And so if you're listening and this is your first episode, I love to take a minute to share what exactly does intersectionality mean. And it refers to a framework. Kimberly Crensher, who coined the term, uses that that word as well. It's a framework that recognizes our multiple aspects of identity, such as gender, profession, lived experience, upbringing, personal history, and even social context, how all of these things overlap and interact and create very unique experiences for every one of us. And these experiences could be privilege, but it could also be uh benefit, it could be barriers, it could be bias, right? So, depending on how we understand it, how we leverage it, how we lean into it, it could be super powerful and it shapes how we navigate the world and how we lead in our work. And so I I use this as an entry point for us to understand the people I'm having conversations with and the their journey to where they are right now. So today I have with me Ashley Gibson, and I'm going to read a brief bio about Ashley before I bring her in. Ashley is the founder of Meaning in Practice. She's a psychotherapist and national certified counselor with advanced training in EMDR. She specializes in helping eye achievers combat burnout and workplace trauma. But I love to also talk about the fact that before entering clinical practice, she has spent 13 plus years as a marketing executive in mission-driven organizations. And she was on the original marketing team for Broadway Smash Heat and Milton. She now uses that executive present experience and clinical rigor to diagnose the structural failures that take advantage of the very people who care the most. Definitely looking forward to hearing about that transition from marketing executive to uh clinical practice. Ashley works with nonprofits, healthcare organizations, and mission-driven businesses to identify the specific places where organizational design converts genuine purpose into systemic exhaustion. I love it. Nice to have you here with me, Ashley.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

How are you doing today? I am doing so great, Dr. Lola. Thank you for having me. Although I wish I was in San Diego, like you.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Well, San Diego in summer is not necessarily our favorite, but you're on the East Coast, so there's still a huge difference with the humidity.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

A little humid over here, but I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted to be here.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Thanks for being here, Ashley. All right, so let's learn a little bit more about you beyond the bio, the part that people don't know, right? So when you think about the word intersectionality, what aspects of your identity have most shaped who you are today?

SPEAKER_00 5:43

I had so much fun thinking about this question, and I came up with way too many things. So I'll try to keep it brief. Um, share as many as you can. This is my favorite part. We could sit here all day. I'll be happy. Well, you know, I my parents got divorced when I was very young. And so I grew up across these two households, and I've been thinking a lot lately about how I had to learn to read and adapt and code switch in two very different environments back and forth. And now I'm a single parent myself. That inheritance has really come full cycle for me. At the same time, my grandparents were super involved. And I think people who grew up, especially on the East Coast, but I'm sure all over, can really relate to this idea of multi-generational, um, if not households, then family systems, right? They were very consistent for me. And on both sides of my family, my grandparents actually have known each other since my parents were teeny tiny. They were stationed in military bases together. And so that generation is military. The next generation down, my parents, we all moved and settled in the East Coast, were government contractors. My grandfathers were both NSA. And then you have this third generation where okay, I want to do something mission-driven. I want to work for a nonprofit. Not that it's not mission-driven, but I think a lot about the um, like I say, the inheritance, right? Of generationally what was passed down. Um, so I'm not a military brat, but my parents were, and that absolutely informed their upbringing, which informed mine and looped all the way back around to how my grandparents, grandparents were involved in interfering in my life in good ways. The other thing that comes to mind when I think intersectionality is I am neurodivergent. I have ADHD and I wasn't diagnosed until pretty recently when I was uh my daughter is three now. So it's been about three and a half years. I was pregnant when I was diagnosed, and it's been really interesting because at the same time I was studying clinical mental health counseling. And so to have that personal lens on it and to understand the extent to which I had been masking because I'd been quite high functioning, I'd completed a bachelor's and two master's degrees before I knew. So it gave a real um uh a real clarity to what had been coming up for me before. And now it definitely informs the way I, the way I move through the world, but also the way I interact with my clients, both in the therapy room and in the boardroom as well. And then the last thing that kind of came to mind there was I'm a millennial, you know, we came of age in that era, right? As the internet was yet to be in our pockets, and then it was. And before we started recording, we were talking a little bit about being yourself on social media and online. And it's um it's not a given, I think, in the way that it would be for more recent generations, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Yeah, yeah. Tell me about the the millennial I'm millennial as well. And yeah, there's a little bit of the sadness around it because it's interesting that you bring that up about technology and digital, because I um my team recently was trying to put together a clip about me, and they said, you know, we want to make this clip about the early Lola, not the you. And so they asked me to put together pictures of me growing up, and I felt a little bit sad because I'm an immigrant. I moved from Nigeria. When I moved, I moved with my laptop. I didn't have a cell phone that took tons of pictures, like I have with my kids, and then my laptop crashed when I was in grad school, so even the pictures I took, and so I was feeling a little sad because I like texting my sister, do you have pictures of me from my bachelor's graduation? Do you have pictures of me with mom and dad? And then my parents have passed on, and so I'm I was emotional because I kept thinking, I feel like I don't exist, like we have physical photo albums in the house, like stacks of photo albums because we would do photo shoots, but they are not digital, yeah. And and so I felt a little sad, and my sister was like, Go go to Facebook, and so I had to find some things on Facebook, uh, but I I still felt sad because there were key moments of growing up that I wish I had captured in features, but it wasn't the norm.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Well, I and I just heard you say I felt like I didn't exist, and isn't it so interesting that unless we have a digital uh format, it doesn't feel real anymore somehow?

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Yeah, I know, and and I'm like, when did this become so normal? Because I'm scrolling through all my Google photos and the years, I can't find anything beyond certain years, and I'm like, Yeah, it makes sense because we didn't all have iPhones in our pockets taking pictures of everything. So, anyway, it was just a little sad because it's very recent for me and and me texting my sister and just talking about where are all our pictures? I guess the memories live in our brains.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

And you know, as somebody who I spend my clinical hours working with memory, right? Like literally the the use of neuroscience in trauma recovery, and so what we can and can't retrieve. I saw a client earlier this week who needed to trigger her hard traumatic memories by looking at some photos of herself that age because that's what activated the memory network. But uh, it really is as I was thinking about this question before we met, uh the intersection of generations and technology technological advancement is so interesting to me, especially with the onslaught of AI.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Yeah, yeah. I I think we were still getting comfortable with technology as millennials, and then AI came because we we know what it's like not to be technology field. I mean, technology was already there before AI, and then we're raising kids who you know we're I remember us struggling. My my first child is 13 now, and I remember struggling like we just he doesn't need an iPad yet, he doesn't need an iPad yet, and we finally got him one. But now it's normal. Everybody's as some gadgets, it's not so we we know what it's like to be without this technology world, and we appreciate the world without it, but we also see the good it can do, and so we are treading this path of how do we balance it? I can get away, get rid of all my social media, like actually.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

I know I shared with Dr. Lowell at the top. Yes, I I deleted my social media a few years ago, which has been tricky moving into a space where I'm now speaking and teaching and you know, writing. And oh, I guess I should have an online presence. But it feels inherently uncomfortable. And then, you know, you add that layer for me of I came from marketing background, so I'm hyper aware of coming across as sales-y, and at the same time, I'm now a clinician who has an ethical code to follow. And I can ethically post online, but it makes me think about what a potential client, a therapy client, might be Googling and seeing. And it's a relational act being in a therapy room. So I don't want them to have uh preloaded opinion in certain ways. Um, so it's a really interesting dance, uh, being in these two worlds now for sure.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Yeah, and and I and I like that tied to your work too. I think I think ultimately we're all just gonna need to be intentional when it gets to technology. Like we can't avoid it, but we can choose which one and we can control, but just knowing that once you put stuff out, it's out, you know. People are like, Oh, you know, you put no, once you put it there, just assume it's out. So decide wisely, yes, assume that it lives forever, that it lives forever. So imagine your your children seeing it years from now. Imagine your family, or you know, just assume it lives forever and and be okay with it, or don't post it. Um, well, it's uh nice to learn so much about you with just one question, Ashley. See if that's the point. So when you when you I guess when you look back, what part of your story do you do you think people mo most often overlook? When they look at your accomplishment today, what part of your identity and and your background?

SPEAKER_00 14:36

It's interesting because you know, we talk about like the neurodivergence of it, right? I don't um I don't show the struggle. Like I said, I I got all these degrees and I was Valictorian, blah, blah, blah. And it's actually been for myself about um, they don't understand the the way that I've had to integrate it into my identity as I have learned more about myself, right? And I have grown in my own self-confidence or my ability to, you know what? Yeah, I do have these credentials and I can speak on this. So even when I made that change, right, flipping from this long, wonderful marketing career, I did a lot of personal work on this idea of wow, like six-year-old me would have killed for this job, and now I'm walking away. And there's a real incongruence there around identity that was coming up for me. And so that part of the struggle that people don't see of we're all integrating in this kind of spiralic way, right? The way our identities grow and change. It's developmentally appropriate and it's expected, it's wanted, and it's still um it's something that I I would want to lead with more if it was appropriate too.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that's what that's what we're doing here. And so now I want to I want to hear about your journey a little bit, which we've kind of mentioned in your bio and also as you're talking. Um, can you walk us through your professional career path a little bit? How did you get here? I ask myself that every day.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

No, why did I walk into this room again? Um, but I I was a theater kid, you know, I thought I was gonna be on stage. Um, I am now in a different way, but I went to school for business, uh, really enjoyed running this student theater company, loved that production aspect of it. So went straight out of my undergrad business degree into a master's program in New York City, um, where I was studying performing arts management. So, right away, was thrown into this master's program where it was a very, very small cohort. There was like five of us, and no pressure, but the cohort was built around us, and I was the first person picked. And so it was like, okay, I'm setting the tone. I'm the only marketer in this cohort. Um, but no, at that time it was it was a great time to be in New York. I did my residency at the public theater, which produces free Shakespeare in the park, as well as has incubated uh anything from hair and chorus line to Hamilton, which premiered while I was there. I was in that original marketing team. I was in the room where it happens. It was very cool. Um, I was joked that I peaked very early in my marketing career. Because once you're once you do that, like, where are you gonna go? Um, but no, it was an incredible experience. I was so grateful. We launched it and then it moved to Broadway. Um, I moved on, I went back to the DC area, had a series of roles in different cultural organizations, um, mainly in marketing, although I sat on quite a number of nonprofit boards, both as a governance chair and a president and this, that, and the other. Um, really dipped my toe into that, was also teaching nonprofit management as an adjunct at my alma mater at that time, really found that I enjoyed the teaching element of it. And then eventually wound up in a VP of marketing role in DC, which led to this regional marketing role for big Broadway producer up and down the East Coast, where I landed in Richmond as my home base. And during the pandemic, I thought this is super fun. And also I'm kind of bored. I want to do something that feels um not that the arts isn't meaningful. I always have to lead with that, but more one-to-one, intimately meaningful. And I'd always had this inkling in the back of my mind that like, I think I would be a good therapist. Uh, so it's funny to run with a thing you think you're gonna be good at. But I went back to school, I got another master's from William and Mary. Um, and like I said, I had my daughter, you know, while I was in school, got divorced, and so was juggling a lot. But in the past few years, have really it's been lovely to understand this intersection of what drew me to this mission-driven uh cultural, arts, tourism world is the same thing that draws me to sitting in the room with an individual and working through their trauma. And the psychology behind how we motivate behavior change was actually really applicable in marketing. And now I just apply it differently as a psychotherapist. And then I bring all that together and decided why not keep the fun going. And um, now I work at this uh intersection of organizational psychology for mission-driven organizations, specifically looking at where is that gap between what a mission-driven or founder-led business intends and what's actually happening, right? We know you have a great mission somewhere, it's fallen apart along the way. So I bring that clinical lens and I do like facilitation. Um, I get to do my my speaking and my podcast engagements and love that theater kid in me. And then yeah, I see I see clients every week. I was seeing clients this morning. So it's a varied life and it's a really intentional, as you said, portfolio career that I've built.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Yeah, I love it, and I love uh as you were talking and how you tied it all together. Like I always say no part of our experience is wasted. Yeah, when it comes together, it's gonna come together in a way that makes sense to us. Yes, maybe not someone else. Yeah, exactly. It's like we would think, you know, theater person, marketing person, and then doing this, but I I think you know, even right from the beginning, you've always been using that phrase, mission-driven, intentional, purposeful. And and that that that journey to finding what that purposefulness is for each of us is what makes our stories and our paths so unique.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Yeah. No, I I appreciate it, and I agree. It is that unique intersectionality of it, right? And I can totally look back and go, oh yeah, I did my undergraduate thesis on social capital, and that's still a lens that's informed everything I've done since. You know, you were saying earlier that idea of framework, right? What I like to offer both my therapy clients and my consulting clients is a framework because it's a lens through which I see the world, and the social capital piece is part of that.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

Yeah, I love it. Thank you. Um how do you think your own experiences influenced the way you show up for your clients today?

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Yeah, you know, it was really interesting. When I first started seeing clients, I was still working my day job. I was day job marketing, clients in the evening, toddler bombing. And I did not realize I was burned out until I started treating clients who were burned out. And to see it clinically, we always joke, you know, with other clinicians, you can do for others. It's hard to do for yourself. Right. I'm sure any of us in in a helping profession or coaching or teaching feel that way. As a parent. And so this framework exists because I finally could name what I was already living, what I had been living for a long time, and what I'd been watching in all of these organizations, where the parting line is always like, well, you knew what you signed up for when you worked for this organization. You knew it was going to be late hours. You knew it was going to be a lower salary. It was asking a lot of me and of my colleagues. And then I was seeing it sitting in the therapist chair.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Yeah. I love that when you said that though, that you you can treat it in other people and not recognize it in yourself. Because sometimes it's easy to fix others, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:44

It's easy to fix other people. Yeah. Yes, my family would tell you that yes, I I fix everybody else. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

I like it. I I think it's you know, in in everything, it's it's why I always tell the moms, the friends, the girlfriends, sisters in my life, like we do so much for the kids. And when I started when I saw a therapy a few years ago, I would tell everybody about it, and they were all like, Oh, you know, you you have a therapist, like, why do you have a therapist? Oh, because I needed it. I was burning out silently, and nobody could tell because I was doing so much for everybody else. Right. Yeah, and so I think that's that's a real thing, is is being able to like you can do and be pouring from empty for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Yes, yeah. We've been conditioned to believe that caring enough is gonna get us through, right? I really care about what I'm doing, and so everything is worth it, and I'm gonna make it work. And we're now at the point where systems are taking advantage of that, and that's kind of the drum I'm trying to beat.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Yeah, we're not AI, we're not a machine, we're not limitless. Like we you can't run on empty. Yeah, you need to also be getting filled up somewhere. So um, thank you for sharing that. Um, I think we kind of started talking about your work a little bit, uh, but a little bit more about your work. I mean, through all the identity journey and the navigation, you landed where you are today. So tell us a little bit about your work.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Yeah, um, really, you know, burnout is a hot topic term, but we often think about it from this like individual resilience lens, right? We were just saying, you know, I have to push harder. Nobody knows because I'm keeping it all together. I'm keeping all those balls in the air. And I got really interested in, you know, seeing this as a clinician. Okay, I can help an individual client understand the scope and work through their own personal reframes and baggage that they might be carrying, right? Their own big T or little T trauma, we would say. But where I really want to make change is at the systems level. And so my work is for people who are willing to hear it and to make change. Because you and I both know there's gonna be organizations and leaders out there who aren't interested in um being called in, right? My job is to call in, not call out. And that element of, you know, you have a good mission, right? You know that everyone agrees and believes in it. And somewhere along the way, it's drifted. And sometimes it's drifted because you decided to pursue a grant for something you kind of apply for, but why not? Right. But more often than not, it's drifted because the there's that mismatch between we say we stand for this, right? Here are our values, but here's how we're actually treating our people. And so when I named it as a clinician individually, I could then zoom out and look at the whole pattern. And what's been really fun is I get to use 13 years of experience sitting in those big boardrooms, thinking about okay, where could change actually happen? And then using the clinical tools I have, these frameworks, right? About how we are inherently social creatures. We go back to the value of social capital. And two primates walk into a room, the first thing they're trying to assess is, are we on the same team? And is this a friendly or a hostile interaction? And just looking at yourself in that framework can offer you a lot of, oh, we thought we were trying to encourage people to be innovative, but actually we have this element of over control, right? We think we're holding people to a level of high accountability, but in reality, the pressures we're putting or the expectations we're modeling as leaders is creating this kind of structural recipe for nervous system collapse.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Oh, wow. I love and I love that you are talking about the kind of organizations you're working with, they are mission-driven, purposeful, you know, nonprofits, healthcare. Um because yes, you you started this because you are on a mission, and sometimes that mission gets diluted or you forget about the people that you have brought with you, right? So thinking about the customer was trying to make the world better for the customer. What about your people?

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Yeah, yeah. And I I really believe that term mission-driven can apply to for-profit organizations too, right? It's exactly because there are so many incredible teams out there who are doing really good, interesting, important work. Yeah, it is a mission, whether or not you are a 501c3, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:38

Yeah, no, and and that's that thank thank you for saying that because I I know I worked in corporate America for over 16 years, and that was I was in biotech. So my background is is uh biochemistry, biotech, uh, all of the companies I worked in were biotech. And I, you know, that same feeling of I worked at big companies, so with 50,000, 100,000 employees, but that mission of we are trying to create this medicine to cure this disease, that's a solid thing that employees want to get behind. Yeah, but then the struggle becomes but if my experience every single day is painful for me, I can't stay here no matter how much I care. Yes, yeah, yeah. All right, so um, can you give us a little bit more about some of the things that you've seen as you've done this work with organization? Um, what patterns do you think the leaders are maybe missing when it comes to these, you know, as a therapist, as an organizational strategist, um, you are wearing those two, you're bringing those two lens into this conversation. So burnout is a thing now that everybody talks about, but what patterns do you have you seen that they are often missing when you're trying to intervene in the burnout space?

SPEAKER_00 29:01

Yeah. I think too often we're not intervening at the systems level, right? It's easy to say, oh, well, we're gonna add a you know, ping pong table to the break room is something people always joke about. But we're gonna say you have unlimited PTO, right? Okay, great. But if you've crafted a culture wherein everybody's gonna get a little bit silently judged for taking PTO, it doesn't matter that you say you have unlimited PTO. You're not living that in practice, right? So it the interventions often come in at this way where it positions a company as coming across as really caring. And they genuinely think that's what they're doing. But my job is to step back and say, okay, but what is the system actually teaching? And too often it's teaching, this is a failure of individual resilience, right? Um, the other thing I think that really comes up in these mission-driven organizations is your people care. Too often leaders assume, well, people just don't care, you know? And they might care a little bit differently than you care, right? Maybe you're the CFO, so you care more about the bottom line, and then your program manager cares about the client. But everybody cares. And so it's disingenuous in doing everybody a disservice to come from that lens of people just don't care. If we trust people, if we put that level of trust that we're all on the same team and we do really care, we can then actually look point blank, zero-based budget, the system as to what needs to change to craft a culture that feels would actually support the nervous system, right? So think about you know, you move through the world based on the what was modeled for you in childhood. We're going back to like basic neurobiology. What an organization models, right? The head of your company, or we say one thing and we mean another, it teaches us how to show up and it teaches us how to treat ourselves. I would get to the point with myself of, well, I must just not be trying hard enough because look at so-and-so. They're able to pull it out, whip it through, answer their email at 10 p.m., right? So thinking about it at a systems level would be that first idea. And then coming back to understanding what you're modeling because that's where you can actually intervene.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

I love it. Yeah. And if it's if it's normalized, if certain things are normalized, then if you have an issue, it you become the problem.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Exactly. And you know, I'm so cognizant of when I speak to this coming across as um like idealistic, right? You've got employees who are sitting there and going, oh yeah, but this is never gonna change. And I'm not asking you to change. Now, I do hope there is a level of intervention just in hearing, hey, it's not a you problem. This is actually more of a systems design issue, right? Because that will hopefully relieve some of that internal striving to reach that uh goal, for lack of a better word, of finally figuring it all out, right? Yeah. Um so I think naming it is an intervention in and of itself for an employee. And on the other token, can we as mission-driven humans really help to craft a narrative to call each other in and say, like, hey, I know we're all on the same page here. Here's where the breakdowns are happening. It's not personal, but these relational patterns and breakdowns between our team members are the stumbling blocks. And we're gonna keep feeling stuck in these patterns until we work through them.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

Yeah, I love that. And one of the things you said that I got kind of stuck on is the people assuming one of the mistakes is leaders assuming people don't care. Yeah, people care, they just care differently. And I I do a lot of work um in my employee resource group consulting. So I do a lot of work around ERGs, and and I I am in that space between the ERG leaders and the ERGs and leadership, yeah. And that's often part of the the mindset that they say in so many words, like, you know, we give them this, this is what they care about. How do you know that's what they care about? Right. This is have you talked to them? Have you listened? Have you asked them? Right, you assume people care. Everybody cares about something. Yep, and if they work at your organization, they probably care about your mission. I mean, but then even if they're just there for the paycheck, they still invest it, they care about the paycheck, exactly. So people care. Yeah, we we we yeah, so I I like that because I I love the way you put it. Is is it it's a mistake as a leader, as somebody in a decision-making space, to assume that people don't care. Yeah, I I I think that's a lazy excuse to try and not do the work and and to try and not uh position yourself in a listening space. People do care, but they care about something more than the perspective that you bring is very different from what they bring.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

And it's okay to care about it in different ways. You still care, exactly, right? Exactly. It's actually the like the beauty of having those multiple perspectives. We can't all care for the same reasons or else nothing would get done.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

Exactly. You know, you you see all the the thing with LinkedIn now, people are like, oh, your employees don't care about the pay. They care about the no, some employees care about the pay.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

Yeah, some people use their motivation. You're gonna love this. There's there was a TikTok meme back when I was on TikTok many years ago of um, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up? Oh, I do not dream of labor. And I have taught my three-year-old to if somebody asks her what she wants to be when she grows up, she says, I do not dream of labor. And then she tells you she wants to be a doctor. But it is inherently um our worth is our productivity in current society, right? And the thing I want people to know, your exhaustion is information about the system's failings, not your personal failings or your level of commitment.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. We we went we went deep into the work piece of it because I definitely saw an opportunity to layer in some questions and insights from you that brings my work as well. Um, but as we close this out, um, I want to bring it back to your intersections that you shared earlier. So if there's anybody listening um that can relate with you at sort of the things you are interested in, the things you studied, the work you ended up doing, the transition into a different space, right? Um maybe they are earlier in their career or maybe they are navigating some difficult decisions right now, transition decisions. What are some advice you will give them that you that work for you, but that you are also recommending for your clients now as you're working with them?

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Yeah, um, you're never gonna feel caught up. That's something I I had to learn. I'm still learning, right? But if you keep making it a personal performance problem, you're just chasing your tail, right? So sitting with that real hard reality of uh there really is a limited amount of time and you have a limited amount of bandwidth. And rather than uh chasing this carrot, this goal that doesn't actually exist of I'll finally feel on top of it, or they'll recognize me when kind of taking up space for yourself and knowing, okay, this is actually my boundary, right? And starting to experiment a little bit with where I can gently push back on a system, you know, I'm gonna try not answering a Slack message after 8 p.m. I'm gonna try declining a meeting request without giving a reason. Like just gently seeing, even if you can't rewrite the org chart, you can model different behaviors, intentional ways of showing up in your work, preventing your own level of burnout, right? Tending to your own nervous system. And when you model that, it means you're not passing that dysfunction downstream.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

Yeah, yeah. One of the one of the best uh email email signatures that I've seen is the comments where people put of like, I'm responding to these or I'm sending the you this message at a time that works for me. Yeah, absolutely. Take the time to respond to these when it works for you, and I think that's in that's important to put, especially when you're somebody that works with people globally. Yeah, I work in the evening, but it's Pacific time. Yeah, I work in the evening, Pacific time, and so that doesn't mean you respond. So when I'm sending emails in the evening, that's a chunk of a few hours that I put in on my worker because I stop work, attend to dinner, attend to the kids, and then when they go to bed, I do maybe another two hours, right? And that's okay, that that works for me. But that doesn't mean if it works for me, right? If you're getting my message at um, I don't know, in the middle of the night, I don't expect you to, but I did discover this thing called scheduling that I absolutely love. Because I schedule the emails to go out in the morning at 8 a.m. I am not at my computer at 8 a.m. sending emails. Thank you. So I try to be respectful of people's time zone to not allow the emails to land in their inbox at 3 a.m. Yeah, but then if I'm emailing somebody on the uh in Europe, it's early for them. So I just send it. So again, I appreciate it that people remind others that I have my own boundaries, you set yours. You know, if you need to let us know, let us know. But don't work with my boundaries because my life is different from yours.

SPEAKER_00 38:57

Yeah, just giving each other some grace, right? That's what I heard in there of like, oh, if I get an email at a weird time rather than getting grumpy that I got it, I'll assume that's when they were working, right? And that's okay. And they don't expect me to email them back at 3 a.m. or whatever. Exactly. Although there's some cultures that do.

SPEAKER_01 39:14

And some people, yeah, I I think I think that's again, that's part of where my husband used to do this thing where you um if somebody calls and he can't talk, he will pick up the phone to tell you, I'll call you right back. And I'm you know, I don't walk like that. If I can't talk, then I ignore it. I let it go to voicemail and then I call you back. So we we would have conversations about that. Yeah, we'll have conversations about that. I'm like, if I can't pick up my phone, I can't pick it up. I mute it, I silence it, and I ignore it. If it's an emergency, unfortunately, I can't be everybody's emergency. Yes, yeah, you know, hopefully somebody has multiple emergency points. There are there are multiple people that I know I'm on their emergency list, and so even if I can't pick at that time, I will call them back immediately, right? Because I know I'm their I'm their backup. Um thank you so much. I I think um bringing the corporate experience and the clinical experience, I do have to ask you this final question. Um, what does thriving mean to you right now that maybe has shifted over the years?

SPEAKER_00 40:28

Yeah, thriving means uh being able to set my own intentional boundaries. And I'm I'm still working on not feeling guilty about that. So maybe right now it just means um being able to sit with that guilt and set the boundary anyway. Because the guilt is conditioned, right? But I gotta put my own oxygen mask on first. I can't be anybody else's therapist or advisor or speaker or mother or daughter until I take care of my own needs, and that's not selfish, that's just sustainable leadership.

SPEAKER_01 41:03

Absolutely, I love it. Well, um it's been great to learn about your journey, your work, all of the layers you bring into the work that you're doing. And um my last question is going to feel off, but I'd love to close on a very light note, especially because all our conversations end up being a lot of deep topics. Yeah, so this is a food question. Oh if you were to share a meal, it could be a meal, it could be a fruit, if you were to break bread with your co-workers, what would you peek and why?

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Ooh, um, the first thing that comes to mind is pizza, specifically, and I'm gonna be lambasted for this, I can feel it. Black olive pizza because my grandparents used to put, and they still do, a can of black olives in the Christmas stocking every year. Because when they were on base many years ago, it was hard to get black olives. So I still do that for my daughter's Christmas stocking. I love black olive pizza, and pizza to me is the thing that I would share with my castmates after a rehearsal when I was 12 years old doing cats, the musical in, you know, downtown Frederick, Maryland. So pizza has that communal, like, we're all around the table just grabbing a slice informality for me. And then it's got that little like, yeah, that is why I like black olives, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 42:26

I love it. I know you make me. I mean, I'm not necessarily attached to black olives. I eat it, but now you make me think about it. I don't think I necessarily okay, veggie pizza. Some veggie pizzas, when I do have them, they had backup pizza.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

There's not a there's not bad olive. I think all olives are good.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

So well, thank you so much for sharing that. Thank you for sharing with me. Thank you for the work you're doing in the world. Keep thriving in intersectionality and and keep you know leading and inspiring us along the way.

SPEAKER_00 42:59

Thank you. And you as well. Thank you so much for having me. This was a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 43:04

For everyone listening, um, we have a way for you to send us mail directly for each episode now. So check the show notes. What did you think about this conversation with Ashley? Do you want to drop a note specifically for this episode? We would love to hear your thoughts and your biggest takeaway. And uh follow us, share the podcast, and uh looking forward to hearing feedback from you. Thank you. Thank you for being part of today's conversation on thriving in intersectionality. If you're an HR or DEI leader and you need employee resource group or business resource group resources, let's connect and LinkedIn and 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 Adeyemo, and this has been Thriving in Intersectionality Podcast.