A Case for Work Girlfriends
Last week I hung out with my girlfriends. We talked. We cried. We laughed. I’ve known them for almost 20 years now - so of course there’s a lot of shared history.
What made this meeting special was the advice I got from my girlfriends. A lot of times, we meet, we give and receive advice. But we often forget to give the same advice to ourselves. So in these meetings, we often regurgitate advice. And why is this important? It’s important because we often need to hear someone else telling us what we already know. And once we hear this, it serves as a great reminder that all of us need - to simply get out of our heads!
Then later that same week, we had our “SheTO CTO Club” meeting. And pretty much the same story repeated itself. We laughed. We commiserated. We swapped stories. It always amazes me how similar our experiences are. It also kind of surprises me that we usually know what we “should” do. But we sometimes need to hear out loud, the words that we wish someone had said to us, when we were in the same situation!
Based on these experiences, my advice is very simple. Make the time to find girlfriends that you can connect with and open up to. And if you already have them, then spend quality time with them. You will find that this group often reminds you that
You are not alone
Your experiences are shared
They will often help you hear what you already know
You will find yourself giving advice that you wish you had received when you were in this situation!