Carolyn Birsky
How To Take Care Of Yourself Post-Layoff

If you’ve been reading the news or your LinkedIn feed, you’ve likely seen the layoffs happening across the tech industry. Maybe you yourself have been impacted. Whether this is your first layoff or you’ve been a part of one before, the experience can be quite disheartening.

You go from having a full work day to hours on hours of open time. You had a group of colleagues you worked with daily and suddenly you’re no longer interacting with those folks on a regular basis. There are moments when your new found freedom feels amazing - and others when it’s absolutely brutal.

So how do you support yourself through it?

Below are some ways in which I’ve been taking care of myself throughout my own layoff journey. Hope you find them helpful too!

How To Take Care Of Yourself Post-Layoff
Carolyn Birsky
Start, Stop, Continue, + Support

In business, there is an exercise called Stop, Start, Continue. The purpose of the exercise is to enable teams to give feedback, clarify priorities, and create agreed upon next steps. By putting all of these ideas out in the open, it’s easier to get everyone on the same page about what action needs to be taken. It’s often used at the end of project sprints or the end of a quarter to help teams self-evaluate and improve upon processes for the next project or quarter ahead.

It can also be a helpful exercise for your own self-reflection.

Start, Stop, Continue, + Support
Carolyn Birsky
How To Support Your Grieving Team

We’re all experiencing grief right now. It might look and feel a bit different from what normally comes to mind when we think of “grief”, but ultimately that’s what it is.

We’re grieving the loss of life - both the actual loss of life of those who have died of COVID-19, as well as the sudden loss of our “normal” lives. It feels like overnight the world we knew changed and we’re mourning what we once took for granted like meeting friends for dinner, going to the gym, or even shaking hands with someone we just met. Many of us are grieving the loss of stable income and aren’t sure when we’ll be able to find jobs again.

We’re also grieving the loss of the futures we had in mind for ourselves - whether it’s postponing a wedding or graduation, changes to who is allowed in the delivery room when giving birth, the move we were supposed to make, or the new job we were supposed to start. We had plans and dreams that suddenly seemed to have vanished or have drastically changed on us.

Nothing feels certain - other than the fact that we’re experiencing grief.

As we deal with our own grief, it’s important to remember that in many ways this is a collective grief. Every single one of us is affected by this pandemic in our own way.

This is particularly important to remember when it comes to work.

How To Support Your Grieving Team
Carolyn Birsky
What I'm Loving Lately: Quarantine Edition

How are you holding up, friend?

I hope you’ve been finding ways to have fun and appreciate the good things in life amidst all of this uncertainty. To help you feel inspired and hopefully discover some new things to keep you occupied in quarantine, I’ve pulled together a list of things I’ve been loving lately.

Each item on the list is something I’ve personally been using for inspiration, stress management, or just for fun.

What I'm Loving Lately: Quarantine Edition
Carolyn Birsky
The Do's And Don'ts Of Working From Home

Over the past week, several friends and clients have mentioned the difficulty they’re having adjusting to working from home. Maybe you’re feeling that way too?

As someone who has spent a few years working from home and on distributed teams, I thought it might be helpful to share my best do’s and don’ts of working from home to help make your adjustment easier.

Here’s what I’ve found to work well.

The Do's And Don'ts Of Working From Home

Open Up: Mindset Shifts & "Ah Ha" Moments

Open Up: Mindset Shifts & "Ah Ha" Moments

You know those times when you’re so set in one way of doing something that you’re almost blind to alternative ways of looking at it? And yet, the way you’re going about something just isn’t working for you?

In these cases, you’re so fixated on the way things are that it's as if you don’t have access to changing your perspective. The more you focus on the problem, the more it seems to stay and the less you're able to see alternatives. It often takes something or someone outside of yourself to access a new mindset or perspective that, when you look back at it, often seems pretty logical or even obvious. Sometimes it comes from a comment made by a friend. Sometimes it comes from reading a page in a book. Sometimes the Universe smacks you upside the head.

How did I not see it that way before?!

What Attending INBOUND Reminded Me About Inspiration And Growth

What Attending INBOUND Reminded Me About Inspiration And Growth

Last week I had the privilege of attending Hubspot’s INBOUND conference - an annual marketing conference that the tech company hosts here in Boston. I’d never been to the conference before, but thought it would be a good opportunity to network and hear what’s new in the marketing world, since as an entrepreneur both of those things are super important. Thankfully, I managed to snag a free ticket from an incredible organization called She Geeks Out (if you’re a woman in tech, you should absolutely check them out!) and avoid the $500+ price tag for the opportunity to attend.

I went into the conference expecting it to be like many conferences I’d attended as a sales rep: full of vendor booths, swag, and plenty of opportunities to network, but not a ton of inspiration. Sure, there was a lot of the former. It’s a tech conference after all.

But what I wasn’t expecting was how inspired I would leave.

My Guest Appearance On The Talent Hacks Podcast

My Guest Appearance On The Talent Hacks Podcast

Hey friend! Going off my normal blog schedule to bring you a bonus post because... I was recently interviewed for The Talent Hacks Podcast and the episode was just released! I was too excited to wait until next week, so just HAD to share today!

Chris Algiere, Marketing Lead at LaunchSource, invited me on the show to chat about women in sales, along with his colleague, Amy Petkanas. As a former-sales-person-turned-coach, I jumped at the opportunity to talk about a subject I'm deeply passionate about.

September Is The New January

September Is The New January

Well, it's that time of year again, when we say so long to summer Fridays and trade in our bikinis and flip flops for toasty scarves and pumpkin spice lattes. We may get a few more warm days, but the weather is very noticeably changing. Have you seen how quickly it's getting dark in the evenings now?!

Beyond the obvious shift in weather, the changing of seasons brings a shift in energy as well.

Summer's energy is very carefree - all about doing things that bring us pleasure, whether that be travel, lying on the beach or impromptu outdoor dinner parties with friends. Fall's energy, however, is much more focused. Now that our summer plans have come to an end, our focus shifts to getting back to our normal lives and routines. That "back to school" vibe is in the air, and even if we're no longer in school ourselves, the energy is still around us.

For some of us, this transition can make us feel a bit sad - like we're saying goodbye to an old friend. However, I happen see it as an opportunity.

Give Yourself Permission

Give Yourself Permission

I've seen the phrase "Give yourself permission" a lot recently. From podcasts to social media posts, it's like it was a message I needed to hear. Give yourself permission. The synchronicity of it has not been lost on me and it's made me think about how much of our lives revolve around seekingpermission, rather than granting it to ourselves.

It started when we were kids: permission slips sent home so we could go on field trips, asking our teachers if we could use the restroom during class, asking if we could sit with someone at lunch. While these examples may seem small, they add up over time.

We've gotten so used to seeking permission from others that now, as adults, we often forget how to ask ourselves permission to do things. 

My Interview On Fitvista.com

My Interview On Fitvista.com

This week's blog post is a little different...

I'm very excited to share that I was recently interviewed by my super amazing friend, Michelle Cady, for her blog on Fitvista.com!

Michelle is a fantastic health coach based in NYC. She's a fellow Middlebury grad (although we didn't know each other in college) and took the leap to go to nutrition school and start her own coaching business after facing some major burnout in her finance career.

As her former-client-turned-friend, Michelle is someone whose work and vision I value immensely, so needless to say, I'm extremely grateful to be featured on her blog!

For the interview, Michelle asked me all sorts of questions about millennials, stress at work, and how to prioritize self-care even when things are a bit nuts at the office. Plus we got into some fun questions around health and fitness too! You won't want to miss it!

3 Ways To Avoid The Summer Slump At Work

3 Ways To Avoid The Summer Slump At Work

Work and summer. Two words we really wish we didn’t have to say in the same sentence.

I mean, what happened to the days of actual summer? Like when we were growing up and summer felt like a break from our normal daily lives. None of this being a working adult all year round business. Just thinking about it sounds relaxing, doesn't it?

Are You Listening To Your Body? (Free Cheat Sheet)

Are You Listening To Your Body? (Free Cheat Sheet)

Your body is freaking brilliant.

While you may have a love/hate relationship with it at times, the sheer brilliance that your body contains is an undeniable fact. All day, every day, your body is giving you cues. It tells you when it needs food, when it needs sleep, when it needs to pee, when it needs you to just stop moving already (or even when you should really get off your ass for a few minutes).

But how much do you actually listen to your body?

Failing vs Failure

Failing vs Failure

The recent opening of the Museum of Failure in Sweden inspired me to pick up the subject of failure, how we perceive it and why it's actually important. The head curator of the museum is quoted in the New York Times saying, "The purpose of the museum is to show that innovation requires failure. If you are afraid of failure, then we can't innovate."

Why I Took A Social Media Detox (And You Should Too)

Why I Took A Social Media Detox (And You Should Too)

About a month and a half ago, I was feeling some major overwhelm prior to going on vacation. I was spending a lot of time running between networking meetings, client calls, keeping up with emails, creating content and staying on top of my social media.

I’ve always been able to manage a lot on my plate at once, but this time it was causing me to feel like I was trying to run underwater.