Debra Senra, SVP of Revenue at Hireology, argues that work-life balance is a myth. Instead of chasing equilibrium, prioritize happiness in the moment. Start your day with something joyful, be patient with yourself, and adopt an endurance mindset: you can always try again tomorrow.
All right, everyone, welcome back to another sales assembly study break. I am Christina Brady, president of Sales Assembly. I want to give a quick shout out to Vidyard, our sponsor. And I'm here today with Deborah. So, Deborah, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.
Yeah. So I'm Deborah Senra. I am the SVP of revenue at Hireology and so I oversee customer success, implementation, sales, customer development and Hirology is a recruitment software.
Wonderful. Well, thank you for being here with us. Thinking about tactical tips that people can use right now. One thing that I keep hearing come up is this idea of work life balance. And now that we are all working from home and we are not in the office, how do we find that balance and separate our life from our working life to our personal life? Sure.
My honest answer to that is that work life balance doesn't exist and it's the wrong thing to be chasing. I think somebody branded this idea by calling it work life balance and we've all forgotten what we're actually trying to get and we focused on balancing work and life. And at the core of why you want work life balance is you want to be happy and peaceful and manage your stress levels and find joy. And I don't believe you find those things by trying to reach a balance. I actually personally find those things by being completely out of balance. And by that I actually have found that more in post Covid world than I did beforehand. Because some days to find joy and happiness, I do that by snuggling my kids in bed until 8:45 or cutting out for two hours to go for a run and clear my head or grabbing a beer at 4 o' clock on a Tuesday because it's been a rough one. And then other days I find joy and happiness by shutting my kids out of my room and locking the door and working for 12 hours a day or 15 hours a day or getting on a call and doing helping a customer. And that has absolutely nothing to do with balance. It's just figuring out what I need to be peaceful today and prioritizing that over anything else. Because frankly, if I'm in a good place emotionally, I'm a better mom, I'm a better friend, I'm a better wife, I'm a better leader and I'm a better salesperson and so strong. Screw balance, you don't need it.
I love it. I love the idea of just focusing on being happy. And it's not always about being balanced. Happiness isn't always. I have everything perfect. It's what's filling the tank. And so if I'm a frontline sales rep and I grab onto this idea of like, okay, I want to lead with happiness and I want to focus on what's going to make me feel fulfilled and get out of this idea of balance. What's the first thing that I do? How do I approach doing that and kind of paradigm shift into that thought process?
Well, I'm going to give two seemingly contradictory pieces of advice, but I think they work well together. And the first thing is just be kind to yourself and be patient with yourself. It is really hard right now. Life is hard. No one is okay. We're just varying degrees of okay right now. And so if you wake up one morning and the idea of cold calling makes you want to vomit, do something first that makes you happy. And nine times out of 10, you'll be able to make those cold calls After. I had a friend who was a personal trainer who said, if you don't want to work out, just go to the gym, because just by being there at some point you might find that you work out. And so I think the same. Just be kind, be. Be honest with yourself about what you need and find joy first. And then the second thing I'd say is that I actually just sent an email out to my team that the difference between success and failure is a timeline issue. And you can see the pelotons in the background. I had a peloton instructor in a class say she got asked the question, how do you build endurance? And her response was, you endure. And so I think about that too, that when something isn't going my way or when I'm not reaching the goals that I want, just give myself a break. That, like, not hitting the goal that I want today isn't the objective today. You endure, you keep going, and you give yourself permission to try again tomorrow. And maybe you'll reach your goal then, and if not, then the next day. And so you reach your goals by enduring, and you learn to endure by enduring. And so that plus being kind to yourself and giving yourself what you need. I think that's the best advice I can give.
It reminds me of sort of the 1% challenge, which is so often we bite off more than we can chew and we set these super lofty goals that we will inevitably fail on. And then we beat ourselves up for failing at our goals. And that leads to a not feeling happy and fulfilled. And if the idea is just focus on 1% at a time, even if you do that 50% of the days of the year, how much further ahead are you in one year? If you just focus on just one little bit, one little bit, and if you're constantly moving forward, one step back isn't that bad, you're still ahead of where you were. So it's a great way of thinking, and it's about mental health and happiness, and I always think it's great to take things in that direction, and it's a good reminder. So thank you so much for sharing that and being honest. We all need a good, honest spoonful here and there. So once again, I'm Christina Brady with Sales Assembly. Thank you to Vidyard and Deborah. Thank you so much for sharing and being here today. We appreciate it. Thank you. See you next time.
