Harmonizing Career and Motherhood
Is harmonizing career and motherhood possible? Are you a mother or do you know a mother who would like to learn the secret to unlocking balance between career and motherhood? This episode of Superpower Mommas host, Tatiana Berindei, and guest Gladys Simen explore the avenues available for balancing life being a mother and continuing a fulfilling career. Tune in to hear Tatiana and Gladys discuss transferable skills that create resilience and balance between the task of raising children and succeeding career-wise. You do not want to miss these tips for solving the challenge that most working mothers face.
Tatiana Berindei:
Hello everyone and welcome to the SuperPower Mommas show. I am your host Tatiana Berindei, and today I’m really delighted to have our guest Gladys Simen on. We are going to be discussing harmonizing career and motherhood, a very important topic. A lot of you who are tuning into this today, you’re juggling this, there’s few of us who have been able to just solely devote ourselves to being mothers. There’s a lot that we balance and many of us don’t want to just solely devote ourselves to being mothers. We want to have both and we can have both, we can have the career and the motherhood, but some of you might be out there asking how because it can be a little chaotic and a little crazy. So I’m really excited that Gladys is here to share some of her wisdom with us today.
Let me tell you a little bit about her before we dive in. Gladys is a life enthusiast who has lived in five different countries, mastered two languages, and changed several professions. It took becoming a fabulous mama for her to tap into some big superpowers within herself. Former quiet introvert, today Gladys is passionate about helping women live big, beautiful, shooting for the stars kind of lives right now. Gladys considers herself an advocate for the working mama, and I am just so happy to have you on the show today. Gladys, welcome.
Gladys Simen:
Well, thank you so much, Tatiana. I am so excited to be on your show today to talk about my two favorite topics, career, and motherhood.
Tatiana Berindei:
Yes, and we’re going to have a great conversation. Will you tell our listeners what your superpowers in these areas are, as you’ve discovered them over the course of this work?
Gladys Simen:
Of course. So I was going to say that I tried for the longest time to separate my two lives, career and motherhood, but then I realized that because I’m at the center of both roads, those superpowers become transferable between the two lives. So when I’m talking about advocacy, something that I discovered motherhood brought to me, because I consider we’re all born with superpowers, and some are dominant because of the environment we’re in, and we have some dormant superpowers that are revealed to us because of some particular set of circumstances or an environment. So using my voice, as you said, in my intro, I was quite introverted, it wasn’t something that came naturally to me. And then becoming a mom revealed that I had to advocate not only for me but for my kids, for other moms. So that became one of the superpowers that I use interchangeably, both in my professional and personal life.
We talk about resiliency. It takes a lot. It’s the hardest word that I ever had being a mother, but it’s also the most beautiful reward that you can have, at least it is still for me. So for me, resiliency and patience, it’s another superpower. I didn’t consider myself as very resilient or patient before, but you’re creating something that gives you a higher sense of purpose and you are the guide to bring those children to adulthood.
There’s a lot of those little intricate things that happen behind the scenes that you don’t always realize, but they’re there. Make sure you are not overprotective, respecting the sense of independence and letting them make their own mistakes, and not being the mama bear that comes and makes things hard for them. Learning, teaching them lessons, being the role model, I can go on. But those are those little things, sometimes when I talk with my kid about superpowers, they always often think that it’s going to be some kind of superhero, big cape kind of power, but it’s the little things that you do over and over, chief organizer officer, chief love officer, stabilizing your little unit, being the center of everything. When people say, hey, where are my mittens and my hat? And you know immediately, in the bottom corner of that cover. I’m like, man, how do you do that?
Tatiana Berindei:
Yes. I love that. I can totally relate. I’m like, I always know exactly where the thing is.
Gladys Simen:
And people are like, huh, okay. But you will walk into your house and notice those things and your brain stores them, I think that’s the only way I can explain. But to carry on on these transferable skills, I would say also as a mother, I have the unique opportunity to learn those skills maybe because of motherhood, but not only learn them but practice them every day. When you have, we’re thinking about negotiation, everybody that has kids, more than one, there’s also a negotiation every day about things. Negotiation skills, you can transfer them to the workplace, thinking about giving another option, always those opinions, making sure everything looks good, that’s the thing mothers do. Hey, my daughter came last time, she wanted to draw a plate but she couldn’t, so we transformed it into a sun, and she was happy. This creative side of you comes and says, hey, danger, avert, avert it.
I’m thinking about multitasking. We women, us moms, and it’s not about multitasking, I don’t like the term. I think it’s better to say juggling multiple priorities because multitasking implies to me that you do several things with the same focus and you must have a mom here. But juggling multiple priorities as a mom, you start knowing that you will spend 10 minutes on a task, but you have that entire 10-minute attention on that task and move to another task. So those are … and the list is endless, I can go on. But I’m just saying to answer your question, Tatiana, when you have your own superpower and you are a working mom, you will realize that it transfers interchangeably between your two lives.
Tatiana Berindei:
I love the direction of this conversation and I’m excited to dive in deeper. We do have to go on a quick break to continue talking about harmonizing career and motherhood. Before we go, will you let our listeners know where they can go to find out more about you and your work and your offerings?
Gladys Simen:
Oh, absolutely. So I try to make those steps very simple. We are all working moms, busy people there. My website is my main form of contact mylifecouch.com, not coach, couch.com, and I can explain a white couch leader. But also, I have an offering there, so for those of you that like journaling, I created a journal for working moms, so go in and download it for free. And send me an email at [email protected] I love to chat, so it’s usually the best way to get me there. And also, I have LinkedIn, so Gladys Simen on LinkedIn, where I can talk about my adventure as a working mom and I’m on Instagram. So those are the three ways you can get to me.
Tatiana Berindei:
Beautiful. So we are talking today with Gladys Simen about harmonizing career and motherhood. Stay tuned, I have a feeling this is going to be an awesome, awesome conversation, so you don’t want to miss this one. We’ll be right back.
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