As a certified beer brewer, Eline Blomme, Vice President at TrueLayer, didn’t seek a career in tech but is grateful that tech finally found her.
Choosing to study law, she didn’t plan for a career in payments but carved out a path for herself in Fintech, moving from Belgium to London six years ago. During this time, Eline took on her greatest role yet when she became a mother. Initially believing such a decision would slow her career, she quickly realised that being a parent, and working at the right company, only accelerated her journey.
Now a successful woman in tech, in this session, Eline shares her inspirational story and what life is like as a working parent at TrueLayer.
hello everyone and thank you for tuning in as always I am Kaylee Bateman the content director at chican code and I
have the wonderful Elaine Blom vice president at true layer with me today Alene she didn’t have a traditional
route into Tech in fact she started life brewing beer before studying law and
we’re going to chat a little bit about her career route today and what life is like as a working parent at true layer
so welcome Marlene nice to have you with us thank you Kaylee thank you for the introduction yes my pattern to payments
was not a traditional fat at all I am I studied law and then did a master in
general management and started to work for beer company where I soonly actually discovered a
passion for sales and it was something that I did not wanted to do so if you would have asked me what do you
absolutely not want to do I said it was sales but I loved it so I couldn’t help myself after having rotated in the
company in four different functions I started into the sales side and this is
where I eventually ended up on the sales side of a payments company so one of the
largest European payments company and and interestingly enough after a
couple of years being there and being responsible for the global e-commerce sales team
I wanted to make that shift that I had always kind of wanted to make into product management although neither my
education or neither of my career paths decisions had really led me to make that
decision to move into products I got a great opportunity by somebody or some people actually that believed in me at
the company that I was working at at that time for a long period And I became responsible for the global e-commerce
product management team and ever since I’ve been working in product management on the payment side
fantastic I I do hear some um interesting routes into technology so and that is the first for me uh to hear
about his life in a completely different area you’re actually Brewing here um but uh yeah it’s always it’s always
so interesting to hear uh roots in um and then you don’t obviously have to take a traditional computer science
route into Tech exactly I I thought you’re really passionate about
payments and fintech now why why is that so for me
I was a little bit on Discovery in the beginning of my career because I worked at fmcg then I worked into another more
different kind of stream like consumer goods and I I kind of was pitched this
idea of going into financial services and payments by recruiter I remember he
told me you like complex things I can see from our conversations and blah blah
picture to me and I was like maybe I do like complex things because I like how things are wired and how they can look
complex on the outside but actually very simple because it’s just sending of information from one side to the next
but you have to be a little bit imagination of when you’re trying to imagine how payments or how payments are
flowing and how payments are working so from that point of view I moved into
payments and I soon discovered how relevant payments are because any given
company in the world has to take payments be it with electronic payments or be it with cash payments
and if you look at that that kind of assume realized allowed me to get into
contact with a lot of different companies and very large global companies and get a good take on what
their strategy is of those different companies because the strategy will always be linked on how they also take
the payment methods and process the payment method side of things so rather than maybe going into a traditional
Consulting path or whatever you get a very broad a very deep view of what a
specific company strategy is and you’re trying to help them to achieve that strategy so it’s very relevant and
omnipresent is interesting is whether you just mentioned having to use your imagination quite a bit because I think
from somebody that has never worked in fintech I’d be thinking actually it’s probably not very creative you know but
by the sounds of it actually the way you described it there it does sound like a very creative role where you have to
come up with solutions to to people’s problems um and they’re obviously going to be very tailored and unique to that company
it is absolutely creative because of the fact that we also like in my career pad
I’ve always worked for large Global customers in a sense that the ones that we served in in in in both
true layer and also my previous company where I ended up was always working for large Global Enterprise merchants and
there’s two points to it so you would always have a lot of creativity putting things together
mapping them together and to think about this can be a great way of how we can overcome this specific problem for the
specific client that could potentially also be tailored to other clients in that industry but also how you visualize
it because again we’re talking about things that you know you cannot take a bottle of beer into the meeting room
with the customer it has to be something that you present on a slide present on official make a demo and so there is a
lot of need of that kind of how are we going to make it very useful for the client to link back to its actual
um to its actual use case to the point that I also think we are presenting the
products uh so that’s like the third element if you want is how are we going to show what kind of part of the product
we are because at the end of the day if there’s nothing that is running in production you don’t know 100 for sure
what you’re going to get and in your own leadership style um what characteristics stand out to you
so this is an interesting one so if I I look back uh
working over 10 years now I think it probably changed because when
I started especially um I used to question myself often like how
how do I want to you know how do I want to be seen how do I want to you know
make it make a difference and I used to work with people that
I respect it a lot and the people that I respected a lot typically had a bit more of an introvert and a bit more of a
different kind of style than the style that I myself have because I tend to be quite extrovert quite informal
um very transparent in terms of like sharing a lot um and this is where
you’re kind of want a copy of what you are not because you assume that that maybe is better but I soon realized
um while working that that’s on the incredible it’s not very credible towards the people the
team that is working with you and being your authentic self is extremely
important part of that um so I realized that actually being sometimes maybe like a little bit too
much out there a little bit too enthusiastic almost uh uh very extra words
um it actually is my asset it’s not necessarily something which is
um a negative so so using that to kind of get everybody in the room with you and being your authentic self and not
trying to change that to copy someone else that was a very important realization for me and and it only came
actually a couple of years ago that I became very comfortable with that and then another part that I realized was
very important for me is trust and it really goes both ways as well in in
terms of like a leadership I I think it’s very important that you trust your teams
um but you need to trust each other in both ways and you need to earn trust um so I think that’s a very important
part of something that that gets displayed along a relationship is not something that you
you kind of receive immediately it’s something that you you get and then the last part is also an element of
um you know you’re respecting uh the other person and the other person’s work
um so I think that’s a together those three things are very important to form a solid relationship and on the react
respecting side what I think is important there is that I see my job as taking away roadblockers
and giving direction when it’s needed and whenever you join a new team or
specifically what is important is whenever there is a situation or an issue or something
occurs and that’s typically the moment that you can you can help your team that’s when you deserve the respect and
that’s when you also get the trust back um I remember I had to take over a team
back in the day because I I had a lot of times in my career that I took over
teams and from somewhere else because we have made Acquisitions
um and sometimes it was quite challenging because somebody that was a team manager for example would all of a sudden have to be reporting to me
typically there was also a big age gap between the other person and so somebody with far more experience typically as
well and then you know all of a sudden it might be difficult for that person so
how do you make sure that that person um you know you you still want to do your job you really want to make sure
that that person is on your side to make sure that you do the best possible job so in order to do that
I’ve realized that you cannot like enforce that immediately you have to
find that opportunity where that person needs a certain help in your exactly place there to help them and then you
get that kind of respect from them that kind of trust of them that then creates a good functioning theme uh moving
forward and that that circle is is um repeats itself multiple times
basically yeah it’s interesting as well that you mentioned there that you’ve only really
started to figure out some of this stuff recently because I think that’s something that a lot of our our
listeners are um first and second jobbers and they’re quite new in their careers and I think when you are very
new in your career you seem to think I’m supposed to have all the answers I’m supposed to know that it’s so
interesting to hear you know now that you’re more senior that it’s these things start to Dawn on you later in
your career you’re not meant to have all the answers and as you say just being your authentic self is something that
you don’t realize until way down in your career and you think oh wasted all those
years trying to be somebody else yes yes and it’s very it’s it’s very weird that
you think there is the perfect it’s kind of a team manager leader like but
that doesn’t really exist and it’s kind of a symbiosis of who the other person is on the other side and how you will
get to that kind of respect and trust but I would say for the listeners that being your authentic self like it
doesn’t mean that you don’t have to work on yourself there’s you always have to work on yourself but there are certain elements of you that you know like when
people described you they would say you know she’s like this or this or this that actually they’re your assets you
don’t necessarily only need to think about what you’re not so good at you need to think about what you’re good at
and how you can play that out as being a strength for your specific leadership style
um that will you know that will make you go further in your career and something um that you shared with us recently as
well that um when you um became a parent or wanted to become a parent you felt that it might slow your
career you weren’t you weren’t too sure there um and actually you quickly realized them that that didn’t happen and that
you know accelerated it was absolutely terrified I uh absolutely terrified because I had worked all my life so hard
um so you know to progress in my career because I I was as of the moment that I started somewhere I was like saying okay
I want a key manager and the next you know and a very very
career focused and I’ve given it a lot of priority in my life as well
um so when you come to a certain realization that you know now is a good time to potentially start a family and
you want that family it becomes a little bit of a decision okay am I going to be
set back for a year two years what’s going to happen to that is that going to mean that maybe after I take that time I
come back but I will never be at the same Pace maybe I’m not going to want to go to the same Pace
um so because that’s possible as well right because you get that moment in time where you can actually really stand
still um and I remember talking with this um I think two or three women in my life
and not necessarily people that I I was very close to but I remember once I was
in Brazil for a work conference and I spoke to this this lady um and she told me I told her my fear
which I didn’t like anybody else at work because I was scared if I would just mention the word clients sorry if I
would mention the word uh children I wouldn’t get that next promotion because people would just assume that I was
thinking about children and she told me oh it’s like the best thing in your life
like I mean like literally like it it’s the stupidest thing it’s meaningless if
you’re if you’re if you’re in like in your total career it’s like no like if you want to have children you really
have to have children I don’t let it be set back and she was explaining to me what happened to her now that it was
like not an issue and so on so it’s kind of nice for me to hear that and there are some other people in my
life that were like pushing me towards it so then when I announced I was pregnant I was absolutely terrified I
almost got to like the legal maximum amount of weeks that you you until you like actually have to say it you know
because it’s cover time so you could hide it quite well um and then when I said it and everything was fine it was fine that was
not a big deal there was not an issue whatsoever and I was really surprised by
that and even more so people were very accommodating they were asking me you know sending me gifts they were asking
me I was doing there was was not a single problem in the world and now having a child going
back to work I don’t feel like I had to like give up any kind of career step that I
wanted to make in progression and even more so I find that it’s very
um um it’s very easy to have a child and at
the same time um uh function very well uh in an
organization so a truly more specifically we work with flexible
working hours so if I for example for me I drop off the baby always in Nursery in
the morning um so that’s you know as an activity takes time because Nursery opens only at a certain slots and you get to spend a
great hour together and I drop her off at nursery and then I go to work so that means I come in the office a bit later
so people know that so my calendar is like block 930 like no meetings whatsoever
um and nobody would ever question that uh if that’s a problem I think another thing that is extremely
important to go back to you to your question um it’s like when I took that decision
now having a child what I realized which is very convenient as well it’s like having
um a partner that is very supportive of my career and when our child was sick and I had a very important presentation
it would be my partner that would take the child and would actually take them home and take care of of her and nobody
here for example neither has like thought anything all of that and the same thing for my husband’s company
nobody thinks that weird and and that brings me maybe to a point that I do want to make here is it’s great with
like Advanced massively in terms of like having more female um policies created into financial
services so so we were going there and I think a company like true layers is really like on the core front and I can
tell you five six different examples of things that I was shocked about here that are like really tailored towards
parenting but what I find extremely important also in other companies is
that we are trying to now make sure that whenever a male person takes that kind
of policies that paternity leave whatever that extra paternities that they have that it’s also very normalized
or if he goes home for the sick child and and I think here at Trulia we do that and it’s actually quite cool
because one of our co-founders um his wife works here as well so we can kind of see as well how that plays out
and but it sets the example and the same thing for me like I try to set the example also you know for for the people
in my team to take that other step if there’s somebody takes in a paternity
leave like a long paternity leave I say that’s exactly the time that you need to
take there was somebody in my team that took a uh was it two three-month maternity leave I think that’s great the
best time that you can spend together and I’ve done the same thing so so yeah
I think that’s that’s a very personal decision as well wasn’t it how much time you decide to take off and and as you
said you know just normalizing these things and um so you don’t you don’t have that
worry and and that that would definitely um attract more women to the industry just just to know
um that those things are just normal you know they’re not something like yourself who was thinking you know I really can’t announce when I’m going to have children
um as to you know that worry as to what it’s going to do to your career I think a lot of us have that in the back of our
lives yes but you know what was feared for me is when I had my baby originally so I
was never like really like I have to have children in my life but when I had that baby when I had that baby in my hands I was like
I was very confused because I was like I kind of maybe I don’t want to go back to work anymore um and that was different it’s like it
was me thinking to myself maybe I don’t want to go back to work anymore I don’t know if I want to like give this up
um which was very interesting but I think it’s it’s a normal process that you go through when you become a parent
and you spend already some time like a lot of time together because um you know there there is like the
first weeks that you do stay together for sure uh uh if you can
um and so that was for me like the weirdest thing ever because all my life had only been about like that progress
um so in the end I when I came back to work I was very happy with it but I think it’s
sometimes a little bit of a scare as well of like you know you don’t know anything else anymore you’ve been in
this world now and all of a sudden you need to go back it’s a it’s a bit of a scary decision in itself
yeah yeah and I suppose if you’re at the right company that decision um becomes slightly easier uh it just
depends on you know which company you’re at how flexible they are how willing they are just to talk to you about you
know how how often you come back when you when you first go into the workplace um and those sorts of sorts of um
conversations what are the cultural norms in this industry that you think would change to
open the doors a little wider huh that’s a hard one Keely
um the culture Norms in this industry
I think I would go back to my previous answer in the sense that it is really about like applying What You Preach
um end to end like make sure that whenever it is being used it is fine
um so yeah uh I I would say and and
transparency I think that’s another one that this industry can do well um applying which you preach and
transparency yeah if I see very male dominated like uh panels still or so on
I kind of say okay you have like at this conference this like a separate section for like um uh women or like uh uh
gender equality like kind of con site conference so there would be like a reception for women in in in in in
something you know in financial services industry but then you see like three quarters of the panels are only male
dominated then I’m like okay that’s that’s somebody clearly at this event has not really thought this felt true
um so I would say definitely like applying What You Preach is is is a is an important part of that cultural norm
and then I think transparency because I think what we’ve done in the UK with like you know obliging companies to
Showcase to pay a gap between aluminum males it has it has been proven uh to
work and and we talked before we started this call briefly about you know
um tracking data to understand like how many women are currently being on board positions and where this article of of
the Ernst and Young was saying that it’s 40 at this moment or 42 I think even for
non-executive in Europe which I think is already like a good progression
um but tracking and transparency more and more across companies Industries and
and countries it’s going to allow us to also play a little bit more at heart like where where there’s still a gap
um and where we need to make a difference to to to make that policy change again it shouldn’t be a policy
maybe that’s the point it should be transparency that comes yeah from within the industry itself yes and
that is is for as far and about
just making that normal as well because you know you mentioned about um parenting a true layer and making
sure that men are involved um in that conversation and just making that very normal
um instead of you know the the women always as you mentioned at a conference having to go up on off a side room and
talk about something that is their issue um you know just to normalize we talk
about this together and have male allies um and then we just you know move forward together
but to that point but it’s maybe so where we have a women a group here or
women working group and we were having a breakfast uh the other week so it’s a women group very supportive by
um Everybody of the chief level as well like because they would attempt to listen and to make sure that everything
kind of gets Incorporated and we were discussing what we do more or less a
year ahead now in 2023 and one of the feedback was should we invite the males
as well to whatever we organize and so on and I think we should because by and
that was actually somebody’s point because one of the the meals I was attending was saying it’s only by
somebody sharing their kind of story like you know or like trying to make me
more as a male may be more aware more included in that kind of whole understanding that it helps me also to
adjust more because you can empathize to a bigger extent so I do think that we have to take Mills with us in that
Journey uh iffy so yeah yeah and it is just opened the floor to them
um instead of making it exclusively female um yeah absolutely I think it’s so
important to to include them in in the conversation um what are the leadership qualities being a woman in a male-dominated
industry um do you feel have served you the best so I
I I sometimes feel a little bit like that um when I look back and I look like
at at some of the stories of my my female colleagues struggling I don’t
necessarily always feel like I I went through that same kind of struggle um and I think the reason for that is
maybe that I will have what some people might consider some male uh character tray characteristic traits and in a
sense that I’ve not been one to easily scare so if
there would be a promotion up and coming um it is often said and I believe it was a study of PWC that was showcasing that
females often will not apply for it more often than males not because they feel
if they don’t have a hundred percent of the um capacities over what what is needed
in order to like um you know like what’s nice to have and what’s a must-have it don’t have 80
percent of what is on there it will kind of feel that they are not making
um they’re not a good fit for the role where a male on the same kind of study was shown and they would say I’m giving
them so I don’t remember the precise numbers but they would be saying you know they only get like 60 they would apply for it anyway
I believe I’m probably more in the second category in the sense that if there would be that kind of like I would
say fine I’ll do it I’ll learn whatever I can’t learn uh and so on so I do say
if I can give any advice um what helped me is there’s going to be a lot of things in life let’s say that
are going to hold you down and you should be one of them like if if you
see something that you’re interested you’ll like even you know even if you’re really not a good fit because maybe
going from sales to product I mean nobody was considering me for that role but you kind of have to make it happen so that means reaching out to people
that you’ve been working together with or people you know they just that you don’t even know like they like to be
reached out to you they you can ask them for advice you can ask them what they think that you should be doing in order
to get that role like how how how they feel maybe you already have some things in mind
um and you can make your own paths to words whatever you think that it is that
you’re doing um and try I mean worst case you can get a no which is it’s not that bad if you
get a no that’s fine it’s a good thing to have a note and
often you’ll see or get a yes and you’ll be surprised about it and it will move you further in into your career
so for male characteristics perspective I think that that has helped me like
having a little bit less of a fear or being less perfectionist maybe in into a
certain extent yeah yeah and you shared with us a little bit before about
um your worries about before you became a parent um and and you know the first few months
were like um now after becoming a parent um how do you ensure a work-life balance you mentioned a little bit about you
know blocking out your meetings at the beginning of the day is is there anything else that you kind of stick to
so um what I’ve realized is that whatever I’m
doing at this point it wasn’t perfect before but now it’s even worse so
I’m at this most of studying for an MBA so I’m doing some information I have a
one-year-old and uh well I started a new job at chulaire which is uh you know
A new challenge in itself requires yourself to work into uh into it as well so yes I um I realize it’s not gonna be
perfect so that’s like the first thing so our child for example gets pre-made food like whenever she’s home in the weekend like none of us is cooking and I
feel guilty about that obviously I feel guilty I see my like my other friends that have kids they get like they make
like you know it’s not that difficult to cook for one year old to be honest it’s just cooking some potatoes and like some
veggies and mashed it all together but but so no um I mean if you come at our house like
the laundry will probably not be done and and it’s gonna it’s gonna be not perfect but I’m fine with that I think
like if you’re comfortable with that and another point which I’ve realized is there’s going to be moments where it’s
going to be very tense it’s going to be very stressful it’s going to be a lot at the same time because even if you say
it’s not perfect you know still it’s going to be at some moments like a lot of work at the same time that you also
have your friends or family over whatever or it’s going to be intense be it in multiple Parts your work or your
life or you know both separate it’s going to be hard but then it goes
fine again as well um I think a very nice example of that like just recently
so here at true layer we had a full week off for the full company during the
Christmas period um which basically meant that nobody was slacking so we use slack we don’t really
use email but you know let’s say for our other companies maybe the equivalent to email there was not a single email being
sent out so you feel also zero need to kind of respond because nobody’s online
everybody is off and the moments before that was so intense and we’re so full on
that it was kind of nice to have this kind of you know it’s going to go up it’s like a roller coaster and it goes
down again and then it’s fine you’re all like a little bit static and relaxing we’re all ready to like kind of start the year again
um so so I think that’s two things that help high low you know it’s gonna get
better in the end uh and you’ll have some time off they get ready um and then I think blocking my agenda
is a really important part of what I try to do and I do really try to minimize any weekend work so
I would not like unless it’s really really needed I would like to take somebody but it would never be more than
maybe like one or two hours uh in a weekend so never anything more and
um I think it’s probably more because of I couldn’t be more efficient during the
week you know like cut off uh some of the meetings a little bit shorter um so so I think that’s how I organize
it mainly um at this point in time but also actually even in the evening I mean in
the evening I always try to be home like between 5 30 and 6. I try to make sure that I
can go home so when the baby arrives back home at six um you know I can see her until seven
until she goes to bed because otherwise you don’t see her again and then if you want to reopen your computer great but
you know that’s only an exceptional cases um but yes I do think a very
a good work-life balance it’s like one of our Founders said it’s a marathon and
it’s it’s not about the end goal uh it’s about the pap enjoying the path towards
our end goal you know as a as an exciting fintech and I really see that that’s being deployed as well into the
organization with people like you would not have a call at like seven or six anything after six that just would not
happen uh that people would not think that’s normal here yes yeah and you think that’s that’s right it’s about as
well picking the right company for you and where you’re at in your stage of life and and what works for you and
we’re nearly out of time and I just wanted to ask you one last question um do you have any advice that you’d
like to share is it is there anything that you know you wish somebody had told you um that you would like to share with our
community um I would say dare to reach out to people I and
I absolutely if somebody wants to reach out to me they can because I’ve been
but don’t don’t don’t wait until somebody asks you I’ve been reached out to but I have done it myself as well but
I’ve been reached out to by some um women and they asked me you know what I’m just very interested in this kind of
business or in this thing or I see that you know somebody that could help me and the only thing that has done for me is
like impress me if somebody did that with me I was like wow like this person you know they they dare to like uh uh go
out and about to ask and there’s a way you know to ask as well of course um or to to reach uh you know I can like
a really good example there was a lady on LinkedIn next to me and she was asking me you know um for a phone call
uh quite quite aggressively even like you know for a phone call and I was in this phone call and actually she just
wanted career advice and I thought wow it’s like I should have done that that’s very smart if you’re like considering a
career move or like uh uh because I was it was not aggressive I was just trying to say she was like very direct like I
was not it was not a very like big intro it was like a specific date time you
know to you know let’s meet then um so I uh yeah so I would definitely
say reach out it cannot hurt worst case that person doesn’t reply to you or
maybe they reply they say they don’t have time but yeah definitely reach out because it is a it is an industry of
like helping each other like helping each other out like well it’s not an industry
it’s like part of normal business so it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s about if you’re very motivated people see that
and you have to show that so you can’t expect people to kind of guess what you want to do and you can’t people already
have guessing um I also would say try to make yourself as much as possible
support it by an environment that will help you
um kind of to thrive if that’s what you want because I think not everybody needs to have like a massive career or
whatever like it depends on what you want them if you want one it is important to support yourself with your
surroundings um as much as possible so I have a partner that’s like extremely supportive of my career and because he knows that’s
important for me and so I do think if you can have people around you that are friends
family whatever that are very supportive of that and maybe also surround yourself with some some kind of you know
optimization I never go grocery shopping in my life it’s all in life like but you know what these kind of things do help
kind of to make sure that whatever else you don’t want to really spend time on you’re reducing that as much as possible
because I still want to go out and see my friends of course which which is important to me so um so yeah
Jen I think it’s it’s um and and that goes back as well to the authentic self that we were talking
about earlier because um you just mentioned there about being in an environment where you can Thrive
what whatever that looks like for you is so important because I think when you enter the industry or when just when you
enter the world of work you’re immediately told well you know now now you have to start working to the next
position in the next position and and if you’re working in Tech you might be thinking oh you know I actually need to
work my way up to CIO or CTO and and you’re absolutely right that’s not right for all ladies that’s not right for
everybody in their path um and as obviously your your work life
um progresses and and for instance you might become a parent then you you know what you wanted for your life and your
career might change anyway so it’s back to just being you know your authentic self and being at a company that really
really supports that and then try to be honest about it because there’s no I mean we don’t have to prove anything to
anybody besides ourselves like you you have to if you if you if that’s you know
like for example I like to go on holiday a lot like typically I would have like
customers say are you again or Holly I would say yes because for me my passion is traveling
um I just came back actually from a month of South Korea and Japan uh with a baby which was 10 months old and uh it
was great it was absolutely fabulous and I’m never going to like not travel and if people think I’m lazy because I like
to go travel then I think they have a problem I like to work very hard but then I also like to take my time to
fully disconnect and to you know to enjoy my life because I mean I I I is
there a medal to like work 12 months uh at 100 no and why would I want to do that for who would I want to do that so
no absolutely yeah I think that’s important and I’m pretty sure your employer would say the same I don’t want
you to to work like that they don’t want you to burn out and to get the most from you you know as she said itself enjoy
yeah and I think that cycle of what you want I can get is for everybody different and I think that’s also has to
do like where you want to be in in your progression letter um and again I wouldn’t say that
necessarily I work so much more now than I used to work five years ago I think it’s quite similar so if people think
the higher I climb into my ladder it’s going to get that much more worse no that’s not true again you can do your
job great you can do the extras if you want to do them and then you’ll see
where you kind of end up but you you it’s still a balance like I don’t get this kind of industries that used to
scare me massively where you know you hear these Consultants working until midnight every day I I just I could not
I could not live like that I could not do that uh that kind of lifestyle and what I did do was travel quite a bit
when I was when I before the baby arrived now
but because I don’t want to not because um so not in this point in time at least
um and so but but so I think for everybody that’s different if if you you know if you’re stressed levels on a
different like level of what you can have or like so it’s very difficult to say what is the perfect way of the
perfect day for uh somebody with a child or or what is a perfect day for somebody that wants to have a work life balance I
think for all of us it might mean different things um but if somebody calls me at like seven eight eight pm yeah it will have
to be because it’s really necessary setting that boundary as well isn’t it
as to what you’re comfortable with exactly exactly and I think also that with becoming older you’re getting like
or it’s not really about being older having more experience I would say it’s more and more that you’re actually able
and capable to but set that example as well for your team um if I do that then they feel it’s okay
to be doing that right um so I do think there is a job for me to play uh in that
regards yeah yeah well that is a lovely note to end on a link because I’m so sorry we’re actually out of time
um and it’s flown back it’s been a really interesting conversation so thank you so much for for coming on and
chatting with Chic and Co today we really appreciate it absolutely and it’s just anything I can do to help any of
your community members please do reach out thank you so much and to everybody listening
always thank you
