Transcript

Qin En  00:06

Hi.  I am Qin En, and this is the Parents in Tech podcast. Welcome to Season One of the Parents in Tech podcast where we interview moms who are technology company leaders based in Southeast Asia. We want to hear stories, hopes, challenges and tips from moms who are raising kids while pursuing their career aspirations. In this episode, we speak to Karen, who has an illustrious career in the Singapore public sector. In her most recent role as Smart Nation director, she revamped the government's approach to tech talent cultivation and attraction. She's also advisor and coach to tech CEOs on operations, people and strategy. Based in San Francisco for five years and counting, Karen is currently on a sabbatical to re-energize herself with two daughters, each five and three. Hi, Karen, welcome to the Parents in Tech show. Let's start off. Can you tell us about your family?

 

Karen  01:11

Yeah, it's an honor to be on your show. I'm based in the Bay Area, I have two children, both girls. One is five and one is turning three this week.

 

Qin En  01:23

Very nice. Any exciting plans for your younger daughter is turning three?

 

Karen  01:27

Definitely, like, everything will be green. Her favorite color is green. So we have like a green birthday plan, green cake, green clothes, everybody's wearing green, green balloons.

 

Qin En  01:38

Awesome. And are you guys gonna invite her friends, your friends to come over to celebrate? I think that's something that, at least for us over here in Singapore, it's only a dream with all the restrictions that are in place. But tell us how are you guys gonna celebrate? And are there any restrictions that are placed on the party that's coming up?

 

Karen  01:55

No, I mean, in the US there's no, you know, restrictions. It's all up to you. You have full liberty.

 

Qin En  02:04

How do you feel about that as a mom?

 

02:05

I have to tell you, I think it was a lot more stressful in COVID to not have any of that to, you know, tend to defer from friends. And a lot of these things became devolved to individual families to resolve, and that causes its own set of stresses. But yeah, right, different countries manage it differently. For us, we basically try and stick to a pod, and so the pod is coming over. And then we might do something outdoors with a bigger group.

 

Qin En  02:30

Very nice, very, very thoughtful, so you can get a nice balance of both. So tell me, Karen, how do you explain your job to your children when they ask you, "Mommy, what do you do at work?"

 

Karen  02:41

Well, one, they don't really ask me. More like, "Mommy, just come and play with me and live in my world." And so that presence is very important to them in what they're doing. But I have to tell you, I did I did give a presentation to a bunch of kindergarteners on, basically, what is international trade and investment. And I had to like boil it down to the simplest concept. I was like, Okay, if all the cupcakes in the world and you have all the candy in the world, like, okay, like, how are we going to, you know, each get some, you know, what ratio are you going to trade them for? So, I mean, like, these really simple concepts, but I talk to them a lot about, like, what's important to me.

 

Qin En  03:26

That's really amusing. Wait, tell me, how did you get to that setting where you were teaching kindergarten children on international trade?

 

Karen  03:35

Well, you know, I recently took a sabbatical, right? And I was like, Okay, for the first time in my life, I must try and be a parent volunteer, you know, like, try and get to know everybody. So when the teachers were asking, like, "Any parent wants to come and talk about work?" I was like me, me, and then I immediately regretted it. And then I had to talk myself down from all my fancy plans and end up on like ice cream and cookies, or cupcakes.

 

Qin En  04:00

Yeah, I guess PowerPoint slides don't work, too well. Now, Karen, you mentioned about a sabbatical, which is really interesting. You have built a very successful career in the public sector, then in the intersection of public and private sector. It's almost like you've earned this unstoppable momentum. Tell us more about the sabbatical. How did you come to decide that it was time for you to take a short break?

 

Karen  04:22

I really enjoy working. And when I became a mom, I knew that I wanted to work. It was part of my calling, how I'm made, and I think it's not about time, it's about energy, right? So work gives me energy, enough energy, like, that - to spend with my children. But if I'm really honest, and I think many parents would have felt this during COVID, I felt that my energy banks were depleting not only because it took a lot of energy to adapt to everything virtual and having teams in four time zones virtual and my children being at home, what, like, 50% more, everything being canceled, school being canceled. And that energy was just dwindling on all sides. I felt that I wanted to get that back up. I needed to get into a new cycle, if you call it, of energy, and part of that for me was giving myself space. Because after, I mean, I definitely had a bunch of these job offers coming in. And I just knew that I needed to take space before making any decisions.

 

Qin En  05:29

As you were going through this, was there any fear around taking the sabbatical that if you do it, oh, maybe it'll be hard to get back? Or were there any of these concerns that you might have had?

 

Karen  05:39

That's a good question. Actually, let me tell you very Singaporean things, okay. And I think, you know. Like, you get this to get to the next step, to get to the next step and get to the next step. And there was really a - people who love me were saying, well, we've worked so hard, like, this is the next opportunity to jump to, like, why not? And I think that was definitely tempting to hear, right. And I thought long and hard about it. But, ultimately, I, I saw this as valuing myself as a human. So whatever you've done in your life and who you are, no one can take that away from you. Not time. You don't want the people-  to work with the people who will say, you know, decide now never, or I'll never work with you again. You know, like, do you want that type of people in your life anyway? No. A lot of these things don't go away. Like, own what you have, own who you are, and value yourself. And that is hard, I'm not gonna say it's easy because, yeah, like, this narratives are here. I was born and raised in our culture. But that was a decision that I had to make.

 

Qin En  06:44

Wow. But I think that's so true, right? It's to - to be confident of the experiences, the skills you have, and knowing that taking a break doesn't take it away, right? I think that's really, really a huge encouragement to those who - who might be thinking of taking a break, right? And you mentioned some of the challenges when COVID happened, your kids were home, teams were virtual. What part drained your energy the most?

 

Karen  07:11

I think it was that any semblance of space disappeared. You know, I was taking calls at 5:30am, 6, 7, and then at night, because I worked in London and Singapore timezone, I was also doing 9, 10, 11. And in between, my husband and I were basically passing the children off to each other. Like, "No, no. You're going for this, I'm doing it now, you're doing it" - you know, we have no family support here. So literally it's the two of us passing the children between us. I had no space to - to even think - and I love to think -and no space for myself. And I think those were the things that really drained my energy, not one thing in particular. It was the structure of life under such constraints.

 

Qin En  07:54

Yeah, thanks for that real sharing. I think that that whole passing is something that, sort of, my wife and I go through because we also don't have full-time help. So in the evenings when we have work to do. it's really like, "Okay, I got to take this meeting. Can you handle for one hour?" And then this back and forth. I'm curious, Karen, have you considered getting, you know, like, nannies or help? Or was that perhaps not so much within your consideration?

 

Karen  08:18

Well, during COVID, we did not really want to have help.

 

Qin En  08:22

Yep.

 

Karen  08:22

 I think there was the additional worry about transmission and who else the nanny is working with. This was before vaccines, right? I think towards the end, maybe like the start of this year, when I was just very exhausted, we did have a nanny come in a few days to help, especially in the evenings. So that - that definitely helped.

 

Qin En  08:43

Yeah, definitely. I find that to be very helpful. At least for me, mine is having a helper from nine to five, so, during office hours, I can get that focus. But, Karen, as you think about this, and, of course, being away from your extended family, what led you to make this decision to basically take your Singapore career and build it and halfway across the world in the US.

 

Karen  09:06

So my husband and I, we met in the US actually. We met in college. And we have many college friends here. And when we left, we were actually very sad because it's 20 hours, you know. I think 40 of them flew over for our wedding.

 

Qin En  09:20

Wow.

 

Karen  09:20

But it's really to keep in touch when you are far away. And so in the back of our minds, you're always like, hey, one day, let's make a plan to move back to the US. I didn't think about it very consciously. Then there's part of this adventurous part of both of us. But I think we were also worried that if we stayed in Singapore too long in our 20s and 30s, we might end up making default choices about life, career, how we would spend our time, how we would raised our children, and I would say one thing that I always noticed about the difference between Singapore and America is America is just a bigger country, and there are so many different ways of living your life. And it feels like okay, if you make this choice like, nobody's ever going to care, whereas in Singapore, you go to, like, Chinese New Year, and they're like, "Are you - you know, like, when is your next kid coming? Like, you know, when is this happening?" And, like, you might not care, but like, there's this constant narrative of this one way to live, right? And I guess I didn't really trust ourselves to be immune to that, and so we were like, hey, let's get out.

 

Qin En  10:21

Wow, you mentioned default choices. Can you tell us a bit about what you've seen in terms of the default choices that people in Singapore or even probably in Asian cultures make both in family as well as in their career that you wanted to try something different about?

 

Karen  10:37

Yeah. I say default choices, but, of course, even within Singapore, there's - you know, especially recently, I just see many people making different choices. So okay, like, I'm not stereotyping anyone here.

 

Qin En  10:47

It's changing, yes.

 

Karen  10:49

Right. It's changing. I'm not stereotyping. But I would say the default choice for me would be to, let's say, both of us have full-time careers, hire a helper at home, and then leave the children with the helper and grandparents in the day and really, you know, work long hours. I think in Singapore, it's until, what, 7?

 

Qin En  11:06

At least, in tech.

 

Karen  11:09

Right? And even on nights and weekends, I used to be, you know, very chained to my iPad. I think there's a sense of yeah, you sacrifice a lot for work, and your children figure out a way to - and grandparents are great, right? Okay, entrepreneurs are breaking some of the mold of like, let's keep accumulating, right? Like everything can be sacrificed for this career. Career is very important. Money is very important. Stability is important. So those are still important decisions, considerations for many people. But I do think it becomes a little bit of a, you know, a straightjacket, on folks after, what, like -  for example, if you buy private property -

 

Qin En  11:44

Yes

 

Karen  11:44

- like, look at your mortgage. You're basically tying yourself down to dual income, corporate big roles for life. So, you know, these are also like structural incentives. People don't rent there, for example. All of us are renting here, right? These are structural things that lead to default choices.

 

Qin En  12:01

That's so true. That was definitely one of the things I myself recently went through, right? Even things like a car, that's so expensive over here, it just ties you down and creates that financial burden and stress that that leads you to make choices in a certain way. So Karen, as you and your husband were planning to move, where the kids fall into the picture. And when you did the move, did you already welcome your daughter into the world or not yet?

 

Karen  12:26

Yeah, we moved here when my older daughter was five months old. And we had this conversation.

 

Karen  12:32

We said - we knew we're gonna move. So we said, do you want to move and then have kids there or have kids here and then move? We decided that we will have kids before we went. To be honest, I do not regret it because the support for mothers is much better in Singapore when - you know postpartum, right? We have confinement nannies. You have a lot of help. Your friends are within, like, stone's throw away. My coworkers would, like, drop in every day. And then, like, we would hang out or - you know, just density of people. And it wasn't - like, it wasn't hard compared to what my friends in the US go through because it's a lot less of a culture of having help for the mom. Right? So I have no regrets. And then I had my second kid over here a few years later.

 

Qin En  12:32

Wow

 

Qin En  13:16

Okay, this is really fascinating. So you moved over with a five month old daughter, and given that you had studied in the US, it's not new to you, but still it was a new environment, at least, right. And you have been in Singapore for six years. Tell us a bit about the challenges that you went through with a with a five month old, right? Because at that point, it's just constant caregiving. It's probably every three, four hours you need to feed, change the diapers. Yeah, tell us a bit more what that was like.

 

Karen  13:43

Oh, my. I feel I have blocked out, like, some of the pain of that, and all I remember is the good stuff.

 

Qin En  13:49

That's awesome.

 

Karen  13:51

I will tell you that I actually did part-time work for the first year because I said, I'm really not sure I can do full time. And the role I was doing at first was experimental. And it was like, well, let's try to part-time it. And that worked out well for me, because then I had the flexibility to be there and figure out this whole parenting thing. And my husband was in PhD. So he was also having some flexibility. We were figuring it out. And only after that year, and after proving out some of the outcomes and the model for operations, then it became full-time. I will say the hardest thing about moving country when you have a young kid is actually community. I think that's what is great about Singapore. Your whole community is there. But if you are trying to find new friends, when you have a young kid and you have all these new constraints, bedtime, naptime, things like that, it's actually very hard. So it was very lonely.

 

Qin En  14:48

I can imagine right? Like there's just so many things on your mind, and even stepping out of the house. Before kids. it used to be, okay, I just grabbed my phone, my wallet keys, and that's it. But now it's like you got to pack diapers, it can affect the mood, you're going to get extra clothes. There's just so many things that, you know, even stepping out of the house can be a whole affair, right. Like going to the mall. I remember for me was like going for a staycation. A lot of bags.

 

Karen  15:13

I remember those days.  I remember those days too, yeah.

 

Qin En  15:16

Yeah. But it's nice that you have now sort of moved on. But I would say it's a different kind of fun. And there's a different set of challenges around it. So, Karen, you also mentioned a bit about your role. I realized that for some of our audience, they would love to find out how you build your career over here. Could you tell us, what have you been up to since you moved to the US?

 

Karen  15:36

So I moved over with Smart Nation and Digital Government group. And at first, it was experimental, it makes sense for the organization that oversees tech for Singapore to have, you know, an outpost in the Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is like the tech hub of the world. So let's see what is possible here. And you know, I was also like, Okay, let's see if it's possible. If it isn't possible, we can part ways. But things moved really, really fast. I think it's because a combination of a few things. One of them is that 2016, you started to see the tip of companies coming up and Singapore becoming a legit destination for tech companies. Between 2016 and now, the explosion in engineering jobs in Singapore has been massive, even adoption within the government. Like 2016, I would say, like, what, maybe less than 100. Now we're, like, going - pushing 500, 600, and, like, going up to 1200, right? Like, the idea of really being able to digitize healthcare and service delivery and every part of life is far from an illusion, and 2016 was the start. So one thing that really took off for me was in building the talent pipelines back to Singapore, not just in the recruitment sense, but also in - all right, like, the government does have a unique value proposition here for people who have already had very successful tech careers, right? Impact, being able to do something like SingPass, contact tracing, these are national level things that you can't do too much when you're in a big tech company. And we started to see those pipelines shifting, and then we had to ask - you know, it's one thing to attract them, it's another thing to retain and give a good experience, right. We ended up really looking deeply at, you know, compensation structures, progression and titling things within an organization. And the government is not an easy organization for tech talent, of course, because it's a different, almost completely different operating principles. How do you bring that together? And so being part of that was very, very interesting. I was also asked then by EDB, to come on board to look at the Singapore global network, which was less of a tech talent attraction thing than an alumni network for Singapore, focusing on tech. And that's when I started working more with the private sector as well as their talent needs. And, you know, I found that the Singapore tech forum grew from - I think the first year we had 400 people - no, 700 people signed up ,400 people showed up. Second year, we had 1300 people sign up. Last year, we had 7000.

 

Karen  18:12

And so you can see the progression of interest, you know, Singapore is not insignificant anymore. People talk about it. VCs talk about it. People are making their first investments in Singapore at a much higher rate than I ever heard. So yeah, being able to make those connections and build the alumni network, and, and test out the use case, that was a quick summary.

 

Qin En  18:12

Wow

 

Qin En  18:31

This is so fascinating. It's almost like you were there at the inflection point, you sort of accelerated it, and then you kind of created almost this movement, so to speak, right? Where, where there's this greater awareness that, hey, there's actually opportunities back at home, that are very different but just as interesting as those that you might find in Silicon Valley companies. You know, Karen, I'm sure you meet a lot, a lot of people and just as you mentioned, right, in the thousands just at a single event. Are you an introvert or an extrovert?

 

Karen  19:01

I definitely get energy from people. Okay. But you know, probably borderline. I need a lot of space by myself as well. After I see people, like, you will find me hiking alone somewhere. Yeah, but I do enjoy people. I do really enjoy listening to people and understanding what makes them tick and helping them see the best in themselves.

 

Qin En  19:21

And for some of our audience who want to learn how to connect with people - and I'm trying to avoid the word networking because I think there's just a lot of negative stereotypes around it, but to just build genuine relationships and conversation, what is some of the advice that you would give to them?

 

Karen  19:35

I think networking is a long game, a five year long game in that it really does require you to not be too transactional about what you want and what your - you know, I always offer something first, you know, what might this person be looking for? How can I help them a little bit? Even think about their interests. Keep in touch with email once in a while. I mean, I think that's how we got in touch with the first place, right?

 

Karen  20:00

I meet people, and I think, Oh, well, this person might benefit from this introduction, and I'll go out of my way to make it. Yeah, it's not transactional, really. But the benefits of a network come two to five years down the road.

 

Qin En  20:00

Yeah

 

Qin En  20:16

Yeah, absolutely. It's so much about the long game. And I love the pathways. It's not about the transaction, because it just feels so like a quid pro quo kind of sense. But I think one of the things that I also hear, especially from those who are younger, is, "I don't have anything to offer," right? I love the point that you mentioned about offering value. So how do you advise some of us who think that way on how we can think about adding value or offering something?

 

Karen  20:40

Yeah, I had a young person approach me and basically asked, like, "Hey, I'm looking for an internship opportunity." And I thought back on the first time I met her three, four years ago, I'm going to help this person. And what did I appreciate about her? She didn't really offer me anything in the interim. But she just came across as a genuinely interested person who wanted to learn who was not purely one-track in her mind. Like, no, I just want to get this career thing, and, like, you're - I'm making use of you towards it. No, like, we had a very wide ranging conversation about how she thought about her studies, you know - she's doing urban studies and computer science, for example - about how she brought that together and why she was interested in my work. And I left with a good feeling about her. Right? It was a sense of this is a person who I'll be happy to invest in. Like, she thinks hard about life, deeply about life, and so I'm going to help her. So it's not necessarily that you need to come in and give me something that I don't have.

 

Qin En  21:36

Yep.

 

Karen  21:36

Because, yeah, you know, not everybody's like that. But it's the thoughtfulness of the person.

 

Qin En  21:40

Absolutely. I remember one of my mentors telling me, at the end of every conversation, it's not so much about what you say, but people remember how they feel about you. I'm sure if I asked you right now, the - over the conversation, probably most of it, you have forgotten, but at least as you share about how you feel about this, it's so clear that it was such a positive interaction. So, Karen, it's really good to see you step up and emerge as this mentor, this coach, especially to the younger generation. How has being a parent shaped the way your mentor, you coach, you lead people?

 

Karen  22:16

I think that we all need someone who sees us for who we are and really honours that. And as a mom, I think about my daughters who are both wildly different, wildly different personalities, and, obviously, one is more like me. And as a boss, you'll always be worried that you only like people like you, right? So don't do that, right? Like, the fact is, these people have been given to me to steward and to call out. When I think about people, I think about that, that all of them are quite uniquely made. What brings them energy, what makes them tick, what makes them excited, what they might need to work on. Everything is different. Like, let's not compare, like, apples and oranges in that sense. How do you really see this person and help them to be closer to the person that they were made to be? There's huge pressure sometimes to be a certain mode, right? These are the ideals of society. But not all of us were made to be that way. And a lot of my own journey has been owning who I'm supposed to be, and helping other people own that as well.

 

Qin En  23:13

I fully agree. You know, earlier were just mentioning about how you wanted to step away from certain defaults. And I think that's one thing that - it's changing in Singapore and in the region, but it's still quite present. It's the whole idea of comparison, right? It starts off with comparing what grades you get as a kid, what school you go to where you're slightly older, what job you get, how much you make, how prestigious it sounds. And then once you have kids, it's like, oh, how well are your kids doing? Right? But to be able to, like you say, own it, I think that's so valuable and so important. So could you shed a bit of light, Karen, on how different both your daughters are, and how you had to tailor your parenting style?

 

Karen  23:51

Yeah, so my older daughter is probably what you call an introvert, she will observe things for a long time before jumping in. And this has been the case since she was, like, 2, right?  She'll look and look and look, and she won't be the first one to throw herself in. But when she does, she'll more or less have figured it out. My other daughter is extremely extroverted. Wherever the action, she's there. She will leap before she looks. And then she'll be like, Oops, and then she will fall down and she won't cry. She's just like, oh, whatever, like, let's move on. So, you know, that's very different personalities, right? Which one is better? None, right? Like, they just require some very different tailoring. I must appreciate both for what they are and also stretch them in the directions that they need to be stretched, but not really because I need them to be a certain way. I'll tell you a very good example right? Like the teacher will say, "You should get your older daughter to speak up more. If not, she will be washed away by the crowd of kids." And then I'm like, Well, I get what you mean. And I'm going to encourage her to put herself out there more, but she does not need to meet your standard of what it means to be a good student, because I don't think a good student is necessarily the one up there like me, me, me. My husband is a pretty smart guy. Like, when he was he was a child, he sat outside tumble tots for six months and refused to go in. Because, you know, it just took him that long to warm up, and he turned out great. I love the very observant analytical part of him.

 

Qin En  25:23

So true. I think the best way of describing what a parent should do, it's to always be there and unconditional acceptance of the child, but also almost to unlock his or her potential in whatever shape in whatever form that it might take. So, Karen, tell me a bit about how you split the parenting workload or even the responsibilities or the styles between you and your husband.

 

Karen  25:47

This is constantly shifting, you know. We are pretty equally split. I don't like to clean up. I don't like to fold. You know, he's the orderly one. So I'm in charge of creativity, and he's in charge of ordering.

 

Qin En  26:03

Very nice. So is he the disciplinarian, or is it you, or both?

 

Karen  26:07

I mean, that's a part that I feel like we are constantly trying to align with, because we bring whatever we came with. And I tend to be a bit more like, let's talk about it. And he's like, yes, let's talk about it, but there are certain things that are just crossing the line. So, you just come down on it first, and then you talk about it. And so we are constantly, like, going back and forth. Like, hey, you know, there's no good guy and bad guy here. Okay, yeah, we are both going to be consistent and on the same page. There's no, like, crying to mommy that daddy did this, or, like, daddy said - no. There's no come to mum. There's no such thing. The parents have to be really aligned. And I think that is the foundation of stability for the child.

 

Qin En  26:47

I can't agree more. And I think that's going to be the challenge for me and my wife. But that's definitely the goal that we want to work towards, right, not play favorites and kind of be cohesive as one, right? So it's not like Oh, Daddy or Mommy is lenient or laxed one and then the other one is almost like demonized as a result, you know. You are in the Bay Area, you are in Silicon Valley, you're in the heart of technology. Tell me about screen time for your kids. Because this is the age where at least when I go out and see it can be sometimes the easiest, or the best pacifier, so to speak. Like if you don't want to run around or talk you just put the iPad or the screen in front of them and they can stay glued to it for hours. What's your take on that?

 

Karen  27:29

I love screen time on airplanes, that's the only thing that helped me survive that Singapore SF flight. Like Okay, watch all the TV you want. I'm not going to stop you. Do it. And I - you know, I just was found myself waiting for my three year old to be able to watch TV because, like, you know, I don't think below one they can pay attention to anything. So that is my one exception. Like, they love lights for that reason. You know, my husband and I, we just commented to each other last night, like, I mean, they hardly even asked for TV because they just so enjoy, like, playing with each other and playing with us.

 

Karen  28:05

Life is very different here, okay. Singapore, go to malls, go out with your friends. I mean, here, much more volume of social commitments. The children actually have us a lot more. This is just a lifestyle thing. Not - no judgement at all.

 

Qin En  28:18

Yeah.

 

Karen  28:19

I think when we went to Singapore in August, we use quite a lot of screen time because our friends would come over and turn on the TV. But like, here, it's like almost zero. Like they learn quite a lot interesting things from there.

 

Qin En  28:32

So tell me how do you spend your weekends, right? And I think that's something, honestly, as someone who is based in Singapore, I'm jealous about. I think you're spot on, right? The only thing that I can really do is the malls and yeah, okay, a few of the parks. And you know, one of the things I was telling my wife it's walks will be so much more enjoyable in SF weather, right? Where you don't sweat, there's the breeze. So, you know, I'm sure you guys really enjoy your weekends. What do your weekends look like?

 

Karen  29:01

The older your kids get, the more restraints you have on your weekends.

 

Qin En  29:04

Oh, okay.

 

Karen  29:04

So, I mean, when you were, like, below -  both of them were below three, like, Hey, let's go to Santa Cruz, or let's go to Half Moon Bay. I felt we were just going somewhere every weekend. But as they get older, they want play dates with their friends, and then both want separate play dates. It's like no, no, this one's not my friend. My younger one - if she has to go for the older one's play date, so my husband -Okay, you bring this one, I bring that one. They are getting interested in things like oh, I want to try a ballet class. Oh, I want this, and then you know what, like your weekends start to get eaten up.

 

Qin En  29:35

Wow.

 

Karen  29:35

So then I feel like we are kind of at that stage of like transitioning into having slightly older children - slightly, three and five - and my husband just commented that they - like, we haven't been out for a long time. You know, we should go, and then we both said okay, but we ended up sleeping.

 

Qin En  29:54

It's so true. I think, you know, as a parent, especially when the kids are younger, sometimes the most valuable asset or gift is sleep? So, Karen, you're now on sabbatical. Is there anything that you are looking forward to, or anything you're enjoying?

 

Karen  30:09

Having space for deeper conversations? If you have space in your life to start taking stock, some of these conversations go further, even further, than when you're locked in, they're like, no, no, like I - you know, it feels tight. I think a lot of us operate with this feeling of like tightness and constriction and trade-offs. And actually, we have a lot more freedom than we think. I think this time has also made me a deeper listener, a better coach, a better mom. And I can say yes to more life-giving things as well, you know, without necessarily having a productive angle, and your life is now. Your life is not leader. That's what I like to think and tell people, right, like, sometimes they think, okay, if I get this job, I'll be happy. Or if I get this much money, I'll be happy, but this is endless. Like, your life starts now. So you had this question in the PowerPoint that you sent, like - - -

 

Qin En  30:40

Yes.

 

Karen  30:41

- - - if you had a billboard, like, what would you put? And I thought about that question. It would be give yourself permission to change. I say that because you're always changing. Having a new human in your life - like, you've never had it before. Like, do you know, like, what you want? You know how you want to parent? Do you know, like, the side of your spouse that it brings out? No, no, no. Like, you don't know anything, right? Like, you're always going to change. What you thought you were is different. And having a child is one of those events where who you thought you were might not be the same. Some of it might be; some of it is not, and you are going to take time to figure that out. You're not going to figure out overnight and then make all the right decisions and optimize your life perfectly. Like, no, that just doesn't happen. Like, permission to loosen those expectations and have fun in that change. And then, again, things will change, and you'll be like, today, maybe I need a sabbatical. And, like, there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, that shows that you're growing.

 

Qin En  32:00

I love that. And I think there's no better way to wrap up our conversation with those words, right? Give ourselves permission to change. Now, Karen, for some of our parents who are listening who would love to connect with you, how can they best do that?

 

Karen  32:13

I would love to have more of those conversations with other parents or parents to be, so look me up on LinkedIn, and let's connect.

 

Qin En  32:19

Certainly. Well, thank you so much for joining us on the show today, Karen, this was a really enjoyable conversation. I myself learned a lot about it, and it also inspired me to think about when I might want to potentially take a break. Thank you so much, Karen.

 

Thanks for listening to the Parents in Tech podcast with me, your host, Qin En. We hope you were inspired on how to raise kids and build companies. To catch up on earlier episodes or stay updated with upcoming ones, head over to www.parents.fm to join our community of parents in tech. There you can also drop me a question, idea, feedback or suggestion. Once again, the website is www.parents.fm. That's all for this episode, folks. See you next time.