Intro 0:00 [Music] 0:03 yes I know I am the President of 0:06 atlassian where I lead our product 0:08 design strategy and 0:11 I have not spoken here with you all 0:14 before but I jumped at the opportunity 0:16 to speak directly to women in Tech 0:19 um I found over the years that spaces 0:22 like these allow us to build rapper 0:24 connections really learn from each other 0:26 in a safe and friendly community 0:28 so I'm delighted to be here today uh 0:31 thanks to Anna Margo and the whole team 0:33 for having me here Personal story 0:36 I want to start with a personal story 0:38 that shaped my understanding of 0:41 resilience because today we're talking 0:43 about long-term resilience 0:45 um but this is something that happened 0:47 to me that really affected how I think 0:50 about resilience for myself and for 0:53 everyone around me 0:54 eight years ago on a cold winter day in 0:58 Australia I woke up in my cozy little 1:00 apartment 1:01 golden rays of sunshine string through 1:04 the windows framing the beautiful Harbor 1:06 Bridge of Sydney and eager to kick off 1:08 my day I bounced out of bed to get ready 1:11 for work 1:13 um I bounced out of bed to get ready for 1:16 work 1:17 hmm wait I wasn't bouncing up I was not 1:21 moving something was wrong my knees just 1:25 would not respond it's like they were 1:27 frozen in place 1:28 I knew something was seriously wrong and 1:31 in what seemed like hours of 1:33 excruciating pain I dragged myself out 1:35 of the door and hurled myself into a cab 1:38 that would take me to the emergency room 1:41 once there I was told that I would need 1:44 to be hospitalized while they diagnosed 1:46 what was wrong with my knees 1:48 I was alone in a new country unable to 1:52 move I was terrified 1:54 what if I never walked again 1:57 you see I had just accrued on myself 1:59 from home and moved a continent away to 2:03 work for the small Aussie startup called 2:05 atlassian 2:07 I knew nobody in Sydney my family and 2:10 friends were still all back in the US or 2:13 in India 2:15 I texted my manager to tell him I won't 2:17 make it to work today 2:19 and then determined to survive this 2:21 audio I submitted myself to the battery 2:24 of tests that the doctors would run on 2:26 me 2:27 few hours later I woke up to see two of 2:31 my teammates in the hospital room with 2:33 worried looks on their faces 2:36 they were here to check up on me and 2:39 they brought a host of supplies for me 2:41 books clothes snacks thoughtful things 2:44 that would tide me over during an 2:46 unexpected Hospital stay 2:49 now these teammates were not my friends 2:51 not yet 2:53 but they had brought their work to come 2:55 check on me 2:57 the next day two more of my teammates 3:00 showed up that cheered me up 3:03 luckily I recovered soon enough to be 3:05 able to go home but my teammates 3:07 continued to check in on me 3:10 helping me with chores bringing me 3:12 supplies simply making sure that I was 3:14 all right 3:16 I was touched by the kindness and 3:18 concern that they showed for me I no 3:21 longer felt all alone in a strange 3:23 country 3:25 it was also a very humbling experience 3:28 for me 3:29 I didn't know it at that time but it 3:31 sold a lot of seeds for what I have come 3:34 to internalize about resilience 3:37 um and I've relied on resilience through 3:39 a lot of my journey both in my 3:41 professional as well as personal life What is resilience 3:46 I think of resilience really as the 3:49 capacity to deal with setbacks while 3:51 continuing to grow 3:53 it is also the Cornerstone of mental 3:55 health because good mental health does 3:58 not mean never being sad it means having 4:00 the ability to cope with the vagaries of 4:03 life without being paralyzed by them 4:06 for those of us in technology our 4:08 industry naturally experiences a lot of 4:10 disruption and transformation in a 4:12 compressed period of time so many of us 4:15 have to balance that kind of velocity 4:17 with family and caregiver roles 4:21 the strength to cope with velocity of 4:24 this kind comes from various places and 4:26 today I want to share some of my sources 4:29 of resilience and how I have cultivated 4:31 resilience for an enduring career 4:35 when I was younger in my 20s I equated 4:37 being ambitious as the same thing as 4:40 being independent and self-sufficient 4:43 travel on a day's notice to speak with a 4:46 customer no problem move across the 4:47 world for a job done 4:50 but while I was Ill in Sydney it was a 4:53 visceral reminder that I couldn't do 4:55 everything by myself 4:57 toughing it out was not the only answer 5:00 to every challenge posed by life 5:03 I would not have been able to navigate 5:05 many of my challenges if I did not have 5:08 the support of a community Importance of community 5:12 back on the incident 5:15 um I'm amazed that my teammates and I 5:18 had built such caring caring Connections 5:21 in a community that cared about each 5:23 other in such a small amount of time I 5:26 feel especially lucky 5:27 but a couple of months prior to that as 5:30 I did my interviews with atlassian I was 5:32 surprised in a good way about how 5:35 serious everyone was about company 5:37 values they really lived and breathed 5:39 open company no which is one of 5:41 our values we are an Aussie company we 5:43 swear a lot 5:45 I knew I had to say yes to the job 5:47 because I felt like hey this is my tribe 5:50 I belong here that sense of 5:52 belongingness that sense of community 5:53 was especially strong I couldn't really 5:56 point out to why but there was a 5:59 visceral feeling of belongingness 6:02 now coming from 10 years at a big 6:06 company I was a bit apprehensive about 6:10 forming friendships at work what if 6:12 these close friendships cloud my 6:14 judgment of them as colleagues and 6:16 affect my decision making but being able 6:19 to form authentic deep connections is 6:22 crucial to navigating tough moments in 6:24 building resilience 6:26 having work friends is a big source of 6:28 resilience for me because like many of 6:31 you I spend a lot of my waking hours at 6:35 work and it's important to have a sense 6:37 of community and togetherness at work 6:40 as an example my career my engineering 6:43 partner is really somebody I can vent to 6:47 who's a shorter to cry on or I can go 6:50 say oh I didn't have a good day with my 6:52 boss or here is a customer that was 6:54 really hard what do you think we should 6:55 do and I can rely on him as somebody 6:58 that's there for me that that is a 7:01 person that I can be vulnerable with 7:03 even at work so having friends who are 7:07 also your teammates can help build 7:09 sources of resilience where you have 7:12 someone to lean on 7:14 and needing help is not a weakness being 7:17 able to ask for help requires a lot of 7:19 vulnerability in inner strength so 7:21 embrace the fact that you can't do it 7:23 all and surround yourself with a 7:25 community that can understand you and 7:27 support you as a person 7:29 [Music] Managing your time 7:31 another question I get a lot is how do 7:33 you manage your time now that you are 7:35 the president of a company 7:37 it's true that my biggest constraint is 7:40 time I just don't have enough hours in 7:43 the in the day to do all the things that 7:44 I want to do but a useful framing to 7:47 consider is to understand your own 7:49 energy levels as a way to manage your 7:52 time 7:53 I've found that it is more important to 7:55 manage your energy in order to manage 7:58 your time 7:59 so how we spend our energy how we 8:02 recharge our energy is unique to 8:04 everyone so it's important to understand 8:06 deeply what drains you what charges you 8:10 what do you feel happy to do what do you 8:12 do mostly as a chore in all our jobs 8:14 there's an aspect of our jobs that we 8:17 would do for free that we do because of 8:19 the love of what we do and there is an 8:21 aspect of the job that we feel like man 8:23 this is tax I have to pay but in order 8:26 to get the goodness of the rest of my 8:29 job 8:29 right so it's important to identify 8:31 which of those pieces energize you and 8:34 which are pieces that you really end up 8:36 spending a lot of energy when you do 8:38 those activities 8:40 for me talking to customers talking to 8:43 my teams is a great source of energy 8:45 right I could talk to customers for 8:47 eight hours straight about their 8:48 challenges and potential Solutions and 8:50 still feel like I have energy in the day 8:53 but rapid context switching across a 8:55 bunch of different businesses might feel 8:57 might make me feel like oh I'm draining 9:00 my energy with the context switches so I 9:04 make an effort to really find out what 9:07 is energizing me what is pulling away my 9:09 energy and be intentional about how to 9:12 structure my day or week or month based 9:15 on 9:16 activities that give me energy as well 9:18 as activities that require energy from 9:21 me it can feel like a tedious thing to 9:23 do mapping this out but it's very 9:25 rewarding if you actually build that 9:28 kind of self-awareness and be 9:29 intentional about how you're spending 9:31 your energy 9:32 so take a moment to think about how you 9:34 design your days everyone has different 9:36 energy levels 9:37 um and being intentional about how you 9:39 spend your energy can help you go the 9:41 distance 9:43 the other thing is as much as we might 9:46 try to structure our days such that we 9:48 manage our energy sometimes we do get 9:51 into situations where our internal 9:53 temperature starts running High 9:56 being aware of when your temperature is 9:58 running hard and when you would really 10:01 need to take a step back and care for 10:04 yourself is a skill 10:06 typically especially as women we tend to 10:09 ignore self-care but self-care is never 10:12 selfish it is merely good stewardship of 10:16 the only resource you have to create 10:18 impact in the world to add value to the 10:20 world which is yourself 10:22 so thinking about self-care and 10:24 prioritizing it amidst the number of 10:27 different things that you have 10:29 responsibility for is an important step 10:32 towards building resilience Selfcare 10:35 um to give you an example of when I put 10:37 self-care before my career I decided to 10:39 take a year long sabbatical in 2016. 10:42 which I realize is the privilege and not 10:46 everyone is able to do this is able to 10:48 have this kind of privilege but if you 10:51 can do it I I totally recommend a 10:53 year-long sabbatical at some point of 10:55 time during your multi-decade career 10:59 um I took a year off to work in Wildlife 11:01 Conservation which included rescuing 11:03 lions in South Africa monitoring penguin 11:06 decrees in Antarctica 11:09 um working with cheetahs in Namibia 11:11 um I'm a bit of a wildlife nerd so this 11:14 was an amazing recharge for me I was 11:17 lucky enough to rejoin atlassian when I 11:20 was ready but the sabbatical just showed 11:23 me how much you can learn about the 11:25 world and about yourself outside of work 11:28 and how all of these things really 11:30 influence who I am as a leader so if you 11:34 have the opportunity to take some 11:36 extended time and build your skills and 11:38 experiences outside of what you would 11:40 typically consider a career building 11:42 experience 11:43 my advice would be to take it recharge 11:46 yourself fill your cup 11:49 the biggest tool for realizing when you 11:54 want to take a break or when what kinds 11:56 of activities re-energize you all of 11:58 those like I said at the beginning is 12:00 very unique to yourself so the one 12:02 crucial thing across all of the 12:04 activities we describe as building 12:06 resilience is self-awareness so 12:09 self-awareness is super important so 12:11 spending the time to really reflect on 12:13 what is important to me what energizes 12:15 me what does a break look like for me is 12:17 super important Reflect 12:19 for me it's the ability to connect with 12:24 a source of Wonder and enchantment 12:26 outside of work because the Daily Grind 12:28 of work can really be tedious after a 12:31 while right so if you're in it for the 12:33 long term you're all building 12:34 multi-decade careers it's useful to 12:37 think about what fills your cup maybe 12:40 it's religion maybe it's spirituality 12:42 maybe it's art maybe it's music 12:45 um for me it's a love of the natural 12:47 world I love spending time Outdoors just 12:50 watching A Sky Full of Stars or a 12:52 hummingbird in the garden is a 12:55 man-riching experience for me it just 12:57 reminds me of how amazing it is to be 13:00 here for a short time in a mediocre 13:02 planet in the vast expanse of our 13:04 universe just gives you perspective 13:07 so nurturing your sense of awe and 13:09 wonder can help ground and energize you 13:12 in the face of challenges that might 13:14 feel impossible in the moment and remind 13:16 you of the multi-decade journey that 13:20 you're undertaking and how important it 13:22 is to take care of yourself build 13:23 resilience and continue through a long 13:27 journey Story 13:29 so finally I want to end on a story 13:31 which is one of my favorite childhood 13:34 memories 13:36 um this is a picture of me during a 13:37 kickboxing fight and I have learned 13:40 kickboxing and karate for uh multiple 13:42 decades through my childhood and one of 13:45 the conversations I had with my mom 13:47 while I was learning kickboxing was she 13:51 said to me when someone says that you're 13:53 beautiful or that you're smart how do 13:56 you feel 13:57 Beauty and intelligence their lucky 13:59 qualities to inherit but they're nothing 14:02 to be proud of yourself about 14:04 but when someone says you're kind or 14:07 resilient how do you feel because 14:09 kindness is a choice that you made to 14:12 care for another person to share your 14:14 meal to offer your seed a choice to be 14:16 proud of and resilience made you 14:19 overcome obstacles you learn to swim 14:21 despite your fear of the sea you won 14:23 your clarified despite losing before you 14:26 prevail 14:27 and that is something to be proud of I'm 14:31 grateful to my mom for this lesson and I 14:34 hope you find belief in yourself listen 14:36 to your needs and Safeguard your energy 14:39 so you can also tap into the power of 14:42 your resilience 14:43 thank you 14:45 foreign 14:48 right away I was thinking I know many 14:51 people are going to have this feeling Mantra 14:53 sometimes of 14:55 um you know these voices saying like go 14:56 back to work or you have too much to do 14:58 do you have a mantra that you say to 15:00 yourself or at least at first when you 15:02 were kind of taking that personal time 15:04 to to be in those amazing trees and do 15:06 all the Adventure things that you're 15:07 doing outside of work 15:09 yeah I'm a Taipei person so I can relate 15:12 to what you're saying it's very much uh 15:14 worked on the list of tasks and a 15:17 feeling of accomplishment at the end of 15:19 the day 15:20 I have found that what uh works for me 15:23 is it's okay to find that sense of 15:27 accomplishment and different things not 15:28 just at work and once you broaden your 15:31 interests you find that you do get that 15:33 sense of accomplishment in the way you 15:35 impact other parts of the world so for 15:38 example when I had my time off I was 15:41 very very engaged in saving the lives of 15:44 lions doing policy work lobbying for 15:46 changes in 15:48 and uh hunting laws in South Africa all 15:52 of that so for me it was the trick 15:54 really was to turn the accomplishment 15:57 driven part of my brain towards 15:59 accomplishing other kinds of goals 16:03 um that that's just a neural trick that 16:04 worked for me yeah and allowing your 16:06 brain to say this is also an 16:07 accomplishment it's just a different 16:08 kind yeah 16:10 okay we have some other questions 16:11 um in a couple minutes here that we have 16:13 left how did it occur to you that you 16:15 need to slow down was there another 16:17 story besides the one you shared coming 16:19 from our audience 16:23 um 16:24 it's a good question how did it occur 16:26 for me to slow down so it's not that it 16:29 has happened at one point of time in my 16:31 career I Illustrated one story which was 16:33 an example of when I did not slow down I 16:35 did not listen to my body and ended up 16:38 in a situation where I had to be in the 16:39 ER to be reminded pay attention 16:42 but since then 16:44 I think of it as uh running very close 16:47 to boiling temperature right you want to 16:51 manage yourself to the extent where you 16:53 don't really get to that boiling point 16:56 temperature 16:57 um so things that I use to realize am I 17:01 running too close to hot temperature is 17:04 um really thinking about how I show up 17:06 in different meetings or how I'm feeling 17:09 during one hour review or reviewing 17:12 Financial metrics 17:14 um because the thing is as a leader as 17:17 you progress in your career the first 17:19 phase of your career the things that 17:20 matter are technical skills how good you 17:23 are at your craft right technical or 17:25 non-technical depending on the role 17:26 you're in uh the second stage what's 17:29 important is soft skills how well are 17:31 you able to influence other people how 17:32 can you persuade others to do what is 17:34 important but the third phase which 17:37 arguably is the harder face is how do 17:39 you manage your emotional energy that's 17:41 what matters in roles of 17:44 um extreme breadth and influence right 17:46 so how can you manage your emotional 17:48 energy such that you don't show up tired 17:51 or angry or you don't show up to a 17:53 situation where you're not your best 17:54 self and for me a good tactic has been I 17:58 have an Office of the President where I 18:00 have a number of my teammates who act as 18:02 my extended brain and heart who say okay 18:05 I know you're probably running a little 18:07 too close to Boiling Point Let's maybe 18:08 scale back here so I have additional 18:11 sources of reinforcement for that 18:16 yeah they're backing you making sure 18:18 that you're paying attention to it 18:19 sometimes that's good now we have one 18:21 more question how can organizations 18:23 support their employees in managing 18:26 their energy levels and maintaining 18:28 long-term resilience and they kind of 18:30 added for example if sabbatical is not 18:31 an obvious option there are there other 18:33 ways 18:34 yeah yeah I think it's the Articles an 18:37 extreme option I definitely would not 18:39 recommend that as this whole thing to 18:41 build resilience it's a good question on 18:44 how can organization support so at last 18:46 year we do a number of things related to 18:49 employee well-being I I think one of the 18:52 latent things that I have enjoyed at 18:54 atlassian that I have not really in my 18:56 previous gigs has just been the sense of 18:58 community that I talked about right 19:00 because humans are social creatures and 19:03 it's important to feel like your 19:05 teammates have your back at work I think 19:07 establishing that kind of culture that 19:09 kind of communal culture that's an 19:12 important thing that goes a long way in 19:14 creating psychological safety and 19:15 creating sense of resilience in addition 19:18 to that Wellness specific programs like 19:20 what what benefits can you offer as an 19:23 organization that help your employees 19:25 with physical wellness mental Wellness 19:28 for instance we have a meditation 19:29 subscription that we give out and we 19:33 have something called Foundation leave 19:34 which is basically five days of leave 19:36 that employees can take to go volunteer 19:38 with any cause that they like that they 19:41 want to contribute to these are small 19:43 things that help in the long run for 19:45 employers to feel a sense of 19:47 belongingness support from their 19:49 organization as well as build their own 19:51 internal sources of prison 19:53 that sounds so great all of those things 19:56 I think there's probably people quickly 19:57 going in already searching your careers 19:59 page here new with all the great things 20:00 you just mentioned and I hope they are 20:04 for everyone's sake but um thank you so 20:06 much for joining us here today 20:08 thank you so much for having me it's 20:10 been the pleasure 20:11 hi yes our pleasure thank you