Overachievers and PTA Effort-Makers Unite!

Rachel Dooley, Associate General Counsel, Legal Innovation, Global Counsel for McKinsey Digital and Design; Founder and Designer, Gemma Redux; and PTA Effort-Maker Extraordinaire joins Moms At Work to talk about life as an entrepreneur and jewelry designer, (mailing out orders on her lunch break!), to being a brilliant innovator and legal mind at one of the world’s largest and most prestigious consulting firms.

Not to mention, how success at work doesn’t always translate to success at the bake sale, crafts fair, or at general mom duties. Rachel shares her experiences and her advice for managing her incredible professional responsibilities with her responsibilities to her family, to her children, her spouse, her community….and to her kids’ class mom.

Type A’s will relate to this one as we spend an hour together laughing about pathetic last-minute goodie bags, to forgotten theme days, and how we’re all just doing our best.

Episode Highlights:

1. Build a support system and leverage friends, family, and community members. You don’t have to know it all, do it all. Share the weight, spread the work, collaborate.
2. Prioritize! Not everything is urgent, not everything needs to be done now (or at all).
3. You can ask for help. You can give tasks and responsibilities to other people.
4. Say no to things.
5. Communicate clearly, frequently, and without shame or guilt. People are not psychic.
6. Don’t expect that people are going to be on the same frequency – much like at work, the people in your personal lives, community, PTA, schools, volunteer organizations, etc will follow the boundaries and expectations you set.
7. Ask for timelines. Ask for deliverables. Ask for deadlines.
8. You are the CEO of your house, of your life.
9. A kind word, compassion, grace, solidarity – these are free, and go a long way in providing emotional support if not anything else. Give it freely to others.
10. Affecting change in your personal lives is very much like being change management agents at work. Find your innovators, be among the early adopters, and encourage the early majority.

For more insights from Rachel listen to Episode 4: “A” For Effort and be sure to check out other episodes at jobs.mom/podcast

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Moms At Work is the official Jobs.mom podcast, hosted by Zabeen Mirza – you can visit Jobs.mom to sign up for updates ahead of the official launch on March 1st, 2021

To nominate a guest for the Moms At Work podcast, email press@jobs.mom

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