Hello everyone, welcome to the show.
With workplaces today being highly stressful, companies know that apart from team building
exercises, they need to provide counselling for employees to manage the pressure.
Usha Krishnamurthy did several things before she found what she loves helping people with
being the career psychologist.
In the fourth episode of My First Job, the podcast, she talks about how she took life
as it came, moving from teaching to helping children with learning disabilities to scribing.
My name is Venugopal Nair.
I'm the host and CEO of Ideascape Communications, an agency handling branding, design and creative
executions.
Now, let's hear from Usha about a career driven by chance rather than intentions.
Welcome Usha.
Hi Venugopal, great to be here.
Counselling psychologist, do you end up meeting a fair number of young people?
So I would say that it's pretty much spans all ages, what crowds say about between 18
to 30.
Are their careers part of the areas of confusion, things that they want?
So work-life balance is pretty much something that we are constantly discussing.
I think, I mean, that is going to be a challenge for some time.
We had COVID recently and that upset everything.
And then now the transition from post-COVID to, you know, supposedly normal is challenging
as well.
So I think this work-life balance, this word is used a lot, but I think rightfully so.
Why don't we start with where you began?
Varanasi is where you took up your first job.
Why don't you tell me a little more about your childhood and a job and how it has evolved
in your mind?
So I feel like such an imposter can tell you very honestly at the outset that you invited
me for a podcast like this, because I would have never associated myself as somebody with
a job or a career in that sense, right?
Because I just, it's only when I was, you know, I was being asked to list out what all
I've done that I said, okay, you know what, I have done some varied stuff.
Growing up, I think the accent was on academics and I was definitely a well-added student
studying in Sikandarabad and I was a commerce graduate.
I don't remember being that person who had these ideas about how I wanted my life to
be or, you know, there was no clear-cut idea that I want to be a doctor or an engineer.
I think I just went along with the flow.
So at that time, teaching was something that did appeal to me.
I had thought that, you know what, probably beard is something that I could do.
So when it happened that my dad being in the railways, we have traveled all over the country
and Benares, incidentally, was where I was born.
So when we went back for the second stint, this was about in 89, I mean, that's when
I joined the school, I got a chance to work in a convent there.
And you must understand that I hadn't done my beard, I had applied for it, but the school
administration was kind enough to take me on.
So I think I worked there for about one and a half years and I had promised the principal
that I would send him my beard degree when I did it.
Memories of that school stint or the first time, I was very young.
So every time the principal would call the teachers, right, for a meeting to the office
or something, I remember, oh my God, I would be like, why am I being called to the principal's
office?
And then I would have to gently remind myself that, hey, you know what, you're the teacher,
you call the shots.
Pretty much was one of the youngest teachers there because I joined when I was 21 or I
was pretty young.
But I think that's what really helped because all my students, I was teaching the 11th and
12th and they were all pretty much, you know, they were not much younger than me.
And it just seemed like, okay, I could make something.
So I did my beard.
I think I did it.
I got my degree in June 91.
I got married end of the year.
It used to be a source of a little embarrassment for me.
I had also applied for my M.Com because I said, you know, after B.Com, M.Com would be
a national transition.
And once I got married, I never went and completed that course.
It used to be, you know, there were moments when I used to be like, oh, I didn't finish
that.
But then being newly married, moving to Mumbai, I mean, everything was so new.
And I was like, okay, this is something that I'm going to pay more attention to.
So then obviously immediately after marriage, it takes time to settle down.
You're finding yourself in a new place.
You're getting to know a new person.
You're getting to know a new city.
You're making a new set of friends.
Absolutely.
So how did you sort of navigate towards that second professional part of your life?
The Dawar's Secretarial Institute.
It was a very famous one in Mumbai.
And they were looking for somebody to teach accounts because as a secretary, you're supposed
to also know a little bit of accounting.
And it used to be a small group of 20 people to whom I will be teaching accounts.
So that was very comfortable again.
It was not so intimidating.
And having had that stint of teaching unruly students who never took me seriously, this
was okay.
Through Dawar's I got this opportunity to English speaking and etiquette.
It was in Great Eastern shipping, I remember.
I had to go to this company, and I would have to teach them how you would communicate and
how words, vocabulary and pretty much is like finishing school but a little different.
And these were all people who were working there.
And I always used to wonder that here I am just balling in saying, I can teach you.
And these are all pretty senior people who've been probably having much longer careers than
mine.
But the openness with which they welcomed me there and understood that I would be value
adding to them, I think made that experience really nice.
I made some friends there.
We would go out for coffee and it was a very nice group.
At that time, I was applying in schools, and I got an offer from a school called Manekji
Cooper and I found out I was pregnant.
So pretty much that became the most important event for me.
And I think I took to that.
That was my job for quite some time.
So I had that little fun stint where I was on my own and I used to travel quite a bit.
So I felt like a Mumbai girl because I was traveling by train from Bandra to Churchgate.
And so it was again a fun experience for me.
In terms of accounts, were you preparing hard for classes or it came to you fairly easily?
I think I'm fluent in English.
I think that helped because it was easier to explain or hold the classes attention.
I can't say I waltzed into class without reading up.
Remember that these were 11th and 12th standards who are very quick to pull you down or call
you out if you hadn't done your homework.
A certain amount of preparation did go in and I felt very accountable to the administration,
the principal.
As I told you, I felt like I was a student, so I said I have to do my job well.
I think the students liked me a lot because of the way I was teaching.
So that did make me feel that I had it in me to be somebody who could teach in a class.
So accounts you could sort of prepare, but when it comes to things in a finishing school
or what you said, how did you approach that?
I used the word finishing school.
It was not that.
It was just that I was interacting with a bunch of people.
So it almost takes you to that, oh, you're not teaching them how to use a fork and a
knife.
I think it was very informal.
It's more for them to understand that presentation is very important, that you could know your
subject or you could know the words, but how are you going to communicate it to somebody?
And so I think it was more like a morale booster for the employees to know that the company
is thinking of them as that they could benefit.
So I don't think there was too much pressure on them or on me in that sense, because I
mean, what are the results helped ease the pressure and it became a little more informal.
So the next phase was actually we were living in New Bombay, which was a very small community
place.
Everybody kind of knew each other.
So my son was privileged to study in the same school for 10 years.
I knew the vice principal, the principal, everybody, and they knew that I was trained
to be a teacher.
So I would get called, roped in for substitute teaching, like if a teacher is offered, you
know, this.
So I would go along with my son and sometimes, you know, be there.
And that used to keep happening.
I would be on call to the vice principal, Vijaya Man, who's a lovely, lovely person,
who's been quite an inspiration for me, used to keep calling me.
And so I think it was around 2007 when my son was also didn't need me as much.
And I was also they started a national open school in the school.
I mean, the same school that he was studying in.
It was a wonderful project that they started because a lot of students with learning disabilities
get thrown out in the ninth and tenth by the schools because, you know, the merit list
is going to get affected.
They started classes for ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth because you in the open school
system, you have the tenth board and the twelfth board.
So these students were being prepared to pass their tenth and their twelfth so that then,
you know, they could go for vocational.
So again, I was called upon to teach accounts and economics.
That was a part time thing.
And yes, that required a little preparation because understanding that these were students
with learning challenges, you would have to break down the imagine, you know, economics
as dry as it is.
You'd have to break it down in point form and try to use simpler words.
So it required a little bit of work.
And mind you, we would have 30 students and 25 students in a class and each student would
come up with his own or her own challenges as well.
So that is quite an endeavor by the school.
They were visually impaired or they simply could not see it all.
So no, no, no.
So this is sorry.
This is not that bad.
Yeah.
This was students with learning disability.
So they had issues maybe of dyscalculia or dysgraphia or, you know, so these were students
who were trying to pass their tenth and twelfth.
So my stint in Mumbai at that time was with teaching in a school.
So that was, yeah.
So these children, what kind of, how would you approach teaching them?
You said children with special needs.
What would be the?
Yeah.
How was it managing a class with that?
So it's like literally unlearning what you've learned in a traditional classroom because
you just go there and you give your lecture and some interaction.
So the demand of the job was that you have to be teaching them like a special educator
because we were all mothers.
I was one of the few who was a teacher, but then we were all mothers who volunteered there
because we were very invested in this endeavor ourselves.
So it's not like teaching in the traditional sense, breaking it down.
So it's to simplify.
How much more simple can you make it so that students had to pass that in control?
That was pretty much the goal.
Right.
And it was a party every time we had these results.
And yeah.
And those three years, I mean, I don't think we've had too many students who couldn't
compete or even if they did, we would kind of push them.
And the next year that, you know, because NIOS, the system is wonderful.
You can write the exam every six months and you can write it one paper at a time.
So there's a time.
So we would be able to focus, really work with the students to help them pass.
So our goal was to get them that 12th standard degree.
It's such a wonderful thing that these children would have been among a very small minority
who actually had the access.
Vashi, they were in a good school or at least they were located somewhere close by.
But as you move in further, I think a lot of places in India, I doubt if any of these
kind of efforts beyond the point.
I'm sure there are schools doing great work.
All of these things, obviously.
And then what would happen?
They do their 10th and 12th and then go in for some kind of vocational training.
Vocational training.
I think national open school, the schooling system that the government started is that's
been quite the moon for students with learning challenges because you have varied subjects,
right?
You have home science, you have typing, you have computers.
I mean, a student is not restricted to math or English was the only compulsory subject,
but that flexibility, right?
They had more room to maneuver and figure out what was it they could be good at.
Even the fact that we would have students who chose home science and they've gone on
to catering and nutrition.
And I think it's a wonderful thing that we have national open NIOS, the system in place
in our country.
So from there, Usha, what happened next?
How long?
I think about two and a half, three years till we moved to Chennai.
I have to say I didn't take to Chennai very well because I was leaving Mumbai of 18 years,
all my friends and Chennai was only home.
I mean, since we would come here for holidays to see our respective parents, it took me
some time to get used, warm up to Chennai.
I pretty much had nothing to do.
So I remember joining yoga class and then somebody spoke about scribing because I was
always interested.
So since I'd had that stint with children with learning challenges, I was kind of telling
myself that maybe I should be doing, you know, a bachelor's in special education.
So I started off scribing.
So that's when, you know, I've had opportunities to write for visually challenged.
This brought me...
It's almost like dictation.
They would tell you and you wrote?
Yes, pretty much.
For somebody who had forgotten how it was to write, to put pen to paper.
My handwriting was all over the place and I was like, this kid is going to fail because
I'm the one who's the scribe and they would have a lot to say.
So they don't have visual cues.
So they're just dictating and I am like trying to keep up and yeah, there was immense pressure
on me because I somehow took it personally that if I don't write well, they are failing.
That's it.
So that is interesting because the period with which they defy, you know, what odds
they have, definitely value adding for me.
I definitely hope they passed because I wrote their papers to them.
But it was, I mean, I was connecting, right?
Here I was in a new state and my social circle was limited to my mom and my mother-in-law
wonderful women, but I missed my friends.
So these were these little connections that I was making that I was beginning to really
enjoy.
I used to scribe for children in school colleges.
I've written for law students.
I remember this law student who understood very quickly that my English was good then,
you know, his grammar was pretty all over the place and he was pretty much like, madam,
I mean, you know how to write, just write.
So it was hard for me to write grammatically wrong.
So it was very amusing.
It was fun.
And if he didn't finish a paper on time, both of us would be panicking.
I remember asking the person who'd come to collect the paper, another 10 minutes and
it took me back to my school days and it was like the fun time.
Yeah.
Exactly.
I was standing just for that particular thing, run back and forth.
Absolutely.
And I felt very protective.
No, I'm sorry, but I think you've made some very unusual experiments with, because like
you said, okay, if you were born, most people would look at a hobby or look at something
like that, but you decided that no, I'll actually go into something like this, which I think
is fairly unusual, right?
It's the way you were built.
I find it hard to comment about myself, but that just seemed like the thing I could do
at that time.
I got introduced to this organization called Chennai Volunteers, which is connecting volunteers
with NGOs and people who need volunteers.
So to them also, I got a stint to teach English.
I used to go to Madras Seva Sadan and other schools that they had tied up with.
So Vidyasagar, which was where I used to go, the icecribe, it was from there.
I somehow, what I'm going to preempt your question is to why counseling?
So when I was in this phase when I was trying to do something, a conversation with a friend
of school friend of mine, and she said that, you know what, this is something that's great.
And somehow then, I mean, I got hooked onto the idea that why not counseling, maybe not
special ed, because I had a lot of my colleagues in teachers who would say that, hey, you know
what, you're somebody the kids find very easy to access.
So they'll come and talk to you or they would share a lot of stuff that they probably wouldn't
share with the other teachers.
So I just thought, okay, so why not counseling?
I like people.
I think I had gone to Vidyasagar to inquire about doing bachelors in special ed.
Vidyasagar used to conduct a course at that time.
And I remember going and meeting them and checking up about the syllabus and all that,
reading about icecribe there.
And then I said, okay, you know what, this till I figure out when I'm going to start,
I'm going to use my time, because I have a lot of free time.
So icecribe is something that is being, I mean, Vidyasagar is one of those who, you
know, they were doing that program.
Pretty much that's how I got the idea.
So what happened was Vidyasagar had a course that they had for in 2013, I remember that
they had a small three months course on counseling with people with disability.
So the accent of counseling was on working with people with challenges.
I remember that three month course was absolutely fantastic because, you know, the energy of
the group, we were about 15 of us.
Shivagami, who was conducting the course, was much younger than most of us.
But the way she was able to put across to us what is required, I think I got my taste
or idea of what counseling actually demanded of you by just that three month course, because
it pretty much prepared mentally prepared me that, okay, you know what, this is what
you're signing up for if you decide to go down this path.
And then I said, okay, you know, if I want to be working, I have to do a post graduation.
So counseling requires at least my understanding, it requires drawing people out, it requires
a lot of empathy, it requires great listening skills.
What are your views and impressions of counseling and how it helps people?
So when I did counseling, I have to, I mean, when I signed up to study for the group, I
was not aware of how it exists.
I mean, in our country, I mean, we've heard of counseling.
I mean, I've seen umpteen Hollywood films where they're talking about therapy.
But I never really knew how it was in India, in Chennai.
As far as I was concerned, I thought that it's going to be, I'm going to be this person
who somebody can come and talk to and share.
It'll be that safe space where we can figure out together something that they've been trying
to deal on their own.
So as you said, listening empathy was, I mean, that's part of the course.
I was not aware of how many people would take to counseling or whether there was a, you
know, opening for it.
It was just something that I thought it aligned with what I could deliver as a person.
So I think I just went about it.
I don't think I thought too deeply about what value adding I was going to do and all that.
I wish I could say something profound here, but nothing.
I think the most practical people actually bring about the greatest change rather than
saying I'm going to bring about change.
I think the people who change others and who do it actually get down to the, they don't
speak much about it.
They sort of deal with it on an ongoing basis.
I mean, I was just naive.
So what is it like?
What is it when you've met your first set of people that you had to counsel and how
did that slowly change or how did you go about that?
Do you remember the early days after?
Did you set up a practice or did you go and work out with people?
How exactly did it come about?
Yeah.
So I got my degree in 2014.
I was still figuring out how I'm going to start working because nobody knows me.
Through my uncle, I got a contact to meet Dr. Vijay Kumar.
They have a Dr. Lakshmi Vijay Kumar, Dr. Vijay
So they run a practice and through my uncle, I got a chance to go meet them.
I had said to just let me be in your clinic.
They are psychiatrists and I said, just let me be with you all.
And they had two counselors at that time on board.
So I said, I just want to observe.
I just want to kind of be like an intern.
So I was definitely okay about it.
And I remember going to the two counselors and requesting them, can I sit in the sessions?
And that was really hard.
I think I was able to sit in two sessions only because it's very hard for a client to
agree to a third person in the room.
I mean, if I was a client, I wouldn't agree to having somebody.
And then they started referring clients.
The other two counselors were male and I was female.
So I think sometimes women would say, okay, I want to talk to a, so I think by default,
I started getting female clients.
And then I think 15 days down the line, sir said that, you know what, why don't you just
come here and as and when we get cases, we are going to send them to you.
And that's how it started.
Zero experience.
I mean, they just took a chance on me and I have to give them complete credit for just
trusting that, okay, here's this person who's going to work with, I mean, their patients,
right?
It's at the end of the day, people, they were treating many.
Yeah.
So, so I started operating out of their clinic.
They operate out of Raju hospital in T Nagar in Santhome.
They had their own clinic.
So I never had my own.
I felt very safe there.
Right?
Here was a place where if I had to run for help and there they were.
So now we'll come back since we're talking of jobs.
If you could tell us a little about the kind of issues that people have with jobs and careers
and how they sort of handle them and what do they, you know, what is it that disturbs
them?
Is it the loss of control over their lives or do they feel they're not advanced enough?
What are the things that people come to you?
I had a opportunity to be, I mean, I am an affiliate counselor in the EAP program.
There is a lot of companies give their employees three sessions.
So they have the option of using that about a year into my counseling.
I got a chance to do that as well.
So I used to have a lot of clients who would come through the corporate system.
I used to always think that since it's coming through the corporate side, it will probably
have to do a lot with work.
So coming to the job part, challenges, some of the biggest challenges would be interpersonal
relationships and all this.
I think at the end of the day, it boils down to us as human connecting on a human to human.
So invariably, it would be not being able to get along with their bosses, with their
peers, a lot of maybe bullying, of course, not being able to deliver if they had deadlines.
But I think mostly at the root of it would be these relationships impact their emotional
state of mind because you have to be balanced to be able to deliver.
And automatically, when you're talking about work-life balance, their ability to work in
the office environment, a lot had to do with their personal space as well.
If you started talking to them, you would find that the root cause would be somewhere
else.
I have had people who've come in, we have specifically worked on, okay, how do we be
more assertive in office or how do we draw boundaries or how am I going to work with
this colleague of mine?
And so interpersonal was something, especially in the office environment, there were clients
who would be very specific about that as well.
Yeah.
And like you said, there are so many of these overlaps, like bullying, you said it continues
at the office.
We always somehow seem to believe that bullying ends in school, but that is not the case at
all.
It carries on and all this passive aggressive stuff at times as to how people want to get
it done, the sense of power in the office, you know, all of these are real problems.
Would you say that on a gender basis, since you are a woman, you met a lot more women
than men?
Are you talking about in the corporate setup?
Yeah, in the corporate setup.
Yeah.
No, I think it was a very fair mix.
I mean, I've had a lot of women clients as well.
So I mean, if you're asking me if there were more men than women, no, not at all.
It would be equally divided.
A lot of women employees would also reach out and through this EAP program, I sometimes
used to go for on-site to companies at that time.
Cognizant was one of the clients of our EAP.
I would be asked to handhold when an employee was being terminated or in Cognizant, they
had this system where a newbie had to write three levels of some exams and they had three
chances and a lot of these fresh engineering graduates would come in with, you know, a
lot of starry eyes, okay, I'm in Cognizant, but they wouldn't be able to clear the exams.
I would be asked to talk to these, you know, to kind of motivate them and tell them, hey,
you know what, you have only one more chance because they were all in that state where
they were like, what's the worst?
I mean, it's an exam.
And then the third attempt they would feel and they would be asked to leave.
Literally, I mean, they would be, their belongings are given and they're asked, clear your desk.
It used to be quite counseling, very intensive because you're not prepping for anything.
You literally just.
I mean, you literally have to, it's almost as if, you know, you have to come in and manage
an emotionally fraught situation where the person doesn't have a clue.
One is, like you said, they've gotten to Cognizant, so they think they have, or, you know, a very
large company and from here on, it will be smooth sailing.
And suddenly they're told it's not.
Then is it that you build courage or you tell them that this is not the end of the world
or how do you handle situations?
You have to understand in these situations, I've not had the time to really connect to
them.
Like in counseling, we talk about that for a session to really work, rapport is very
important.
Human to human connect.
In these situations, they didn't know.
I mean, they just asked to come and talk to me and that's it.
But the fact is that they were young kids, they were scared kids.
They were suddenly being told that they are not good enough, that you have this engineering
degree and you've told everybody at home that I've joined Cognizant, but suddenly you're
being told that sorry boss, you're not fit.
To me, immediately to calm them down was what was, you know, priority for them to be able
to even take that walk and go outside that gate, to give them time to went, to give them
time to speak aloud their fears, their sense of shame or whatever they felt was coming
from their parents or from their peers.
And these are also many students who had probably not got the job as soon as they had passed
out.
They probably got it the next year or there was so much that was invested for them.
And it was also like, oh, I wish I knew this was important.
So there was a lot of regret.
I think it was just to be there for them and understand that while nothing can be done,
let's just stay together in this moment that you're not alone, that I'm here, I'm hearing
you and participating in your, you know, in your regret and in your shame.
And I'm giving you that space to feel that without questioning and saying, why the hell
didn't you study then?
What are you doing?
What are you thinking?
Right.
Which would be easy to say.
So, but to find it in me to say, okay, I'm just going to hear you.
I'm going to give you the space here so that when you step out of the room, you're able
to at least hold your head and say, okay, you know, this happened, but now I'm going
to move forward.
So I think listening pretty much a lot of listening.
This is the part of the job, you know, the others are all the celebrations are all huge
party, all of that.
But yeah, this sense of, am I really good enough, which, you know, which all of us,
I think at some point in time in our lives are questioning, though we forget that everyone
is going through the same phase.
So it's not as if we are in different boards, people, and maybe things that we are good
at that others are not good, but all of that just gets relegated to the background.
This becomes the single most important thing.
Do you think that these are massive turning points or does it defeat some people?
Where is it motivated?
Have you seen this effect in two things?
One is that I will show you what happens.
Yeah.
Take it as a challenge.
Yeah, it's a challenge.
The others are broken.
Yeah.
So how do you, I don't pressurize myself to detach at all.
It is sometimes, I mean, you are privileged to hear somebody's story and it's hard to
be disconnected from that.
So in that room, I'm completely connected.
I am crying with you.
I am feeling hurt with you.
I am feeling ashamed along with you.
And so it's hard to completely detach.
I have had times when I've come home and, you know, boiled my guts out.
I have, you know, had to take time to collect myself.
I have a wonderful friend to whom I mean, she's my, I need to talk to you.
And she's also a counselor.
So I'm able to discuss without, you know, because confidentiality being that important.
So she is able to understand where I am to process it sometimes.
So it's some cases can be extremely difficult.
You have to understand that there is, they call it self of counseling, right?
I mean, I am a person who brings my belief and value systems to the table as well.
So I can't not be me in that room as well.
So there is also a battle going on in my head when I am trying to understand, hey, you're
saying something that doesn't make sense to me at all.
And I could have dealt with it very differently, but you haven't.
So I'm going to try and understand why you did it that way.
Right.
So it can be sometimes exhausting, but sometimes you get to see shades of people.
It can be awe inspiring because they will be narrating their life stories and you will
be like, Hey, how are you even alive?
I mean, what are you made of?
And I need a little bit of that because, yes, they are coming because they are struggling
with something.
But sometimes it's just to remind them that you've got this.
You've done this before.
Right now you're in a cloud.
So you need some hand holding in that direction.
But you know, so I, yes, I do have to work on myself.
And I mean, if I come home, it's not that I can talk to my husband about the work that
I do.
It's not like I can share and say, you know what, today I had a bad day at work.
So there is zero sharing.
So I have to kind of figure it out.
But I think probably my personality also is that to some extent, I am able to understand
that, okay, now that's space.
I remember the initial one year of counseling, I used to have clients who would come for
sessions and then they would disappear.
And then I would be beating myself up.
Okay, what did I do?
I was really bad or what?
And I remember going to Dr. Ajay Kumar sir and saying, I'm very worried.
And he said, see, your job is in that room.
After that, what they do with whatever you have discussed or processed with them is theirs.
So if you think, you know, so somewhere when he said that that's not your responsibility,
it took such a huge load off.
Because then I was able to understand that, you know, here I was thinking I'm this, bearing
this magic wand and saving people's lives and a shot of a halo, I was, you know, I thought
I was everything.
And he absolutely I, you can that can happen sometimes, right?
Because you are in that position.
So he told me he said, understand that it's a job.
So sometimes you have to tell yourself that you have limitations as a human being that
what you are telling that person, they're not ready to buy at that time.
As simple as that, or it could be something a lot more complex.
Exactly.
A lot more complex.
But if I'm going to but I have to do that little introspection and try to think about,
okay, is there something I could have done better as a therapist and, you know, learning
from the session.
So one thing is the detachment.
The other is, is counseling emotionally exhausting, dealing with a fair amount of conflict.
People who come to you are conflicted.
And throughout the sessions, you're talking to people who are not in a happy frame.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Does that affect your emotional well-being or have you learned over time to kind of?
No, no, no.
So I think self care is not just for me as a counselor, right?
I think self care is something that as human beings, we have to be doing.
When I ask clients what they what comes up for them, and I use the word health immediately,
everyone is thinking of exercise.
But it's not right when we're talking about health.
We're talking about emotional, mental and physical health.
So physical is a very small portion.
That's exactly what came.
Very small portion.
So when you talk of self care, I think that goes for anybody in any job, right?
Whatever challenges you have, whether that's timelines, whether that's physical challenges
or emotional, right?
So the demands are going to be made on you no matter what.
So here is what I would my opinion about it.
As a person, as a human being, I understand that I know how to set boundaries with that
person and be in that room or in that space with them as a counselor.
But if they find it hard, they're never going to feel safe talking to me, which is why we
say that sometimes with family, I mean, why would I mean, why would you have counselors
if we could all talk to family and friends, right?
We become that third person who's that safe space where you can go to person because you're
not able to depend or rely or you worry that you're hurting them or you don't want to
trouble them or you don't think that it's OK.
So I mean, so that's why you have counselors, right?
Otherwise, we I mean, come on, we all have friends and family.
Here's that other part, which is that you're working with special children being a scribe.
Has that in some way do you think it's very hard for us to answer this question?
But what is your?
So so here is what I've been saying when I said that I feel like an imposter when you
call me for a first job podcast.
OK, so because I have never looked at whatever I've done as a job in that.
So it's always been about experiences for me, I think.
And I think even to this day, I'm not going to be somebody if somebody asks me, what do
you do?
I'd like to quickly.
I remember when I was not working and we used to go to these parties.
My husband used to take these financial parties and there would be a lot of women, obviously,
who were having wonderful careers in the finance field.
And they were all conversations would happen and they would be like, oh, so what do you
do?
And I would be like, oh, what do I do?
There is no definition.
Right.
And I remember sometimes coming back from these parties saying, this is embarrassing.
I'm not sure if I want to go the next time.
I have nothing to offer.
I have nothing to talk about.
Still, there was one party where this lady, it was like she was a beacon of light because
everybody was attracted to her.
And she was like the life of the party and people are asking, so what do you do?
And she said, I am the queen of my life.
I live a privileged life.
I do nothing.
And that that home from I said, you know what?
It's not about what you do.
It's about how you want to define yourself.
So I think that day some some I mean, a little bit of a baggage kind of was dropped.
Yeah, lifted.
So I don't think I take myself too seriously to say, OK, you know, so I wouldn't I mean,
if you asked me and I'm introducing, I would never tell you what I do unless you ask me,
so what do you do?
So I find it still a bit hard to you know, the imposter still shows up quite a bit.
So that's the thing I find strange, that you know, you being in advertising, we should
be the biggest imposter.
Oh, yeah, you sell and we buy.
But as far as we're concerned, I think it's a it's something that we've done.
It's it's been a wonderful conversation with you because I thought that it's the beginning,
which will be the part that defines you.
But I think you grew into a into the job and you know, everything from teaching accounts
to special children to striving for the blind and then this moment when you said that I'll
do counselling and all those sessions that you talk about, I think you do a very important
bit of helping people understand.
Like you said, you define and that's a very, very important statement.
You define who you are and how your life.
So thank you for coming on the show.
It's my privilege.
Yeah, I'm glad to be one of the initial people to be called to the podcast.
And maybe I'm going to yeah, I'm going to start telling people, you know, I this is
the job that I do.
Yes.
It's connecting a lot of young people will take heart from whatever you've just said,
because I think that's another important point that the company brings in a counsellor rather
than somebody just saying, OK, here's your letter.
There's at least half an hour.
It's like a buffer.
Right.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I think is marvelous.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Awesome.
That's so nice to talk to you.
Thank you so much.
Yeah.
Wonderful.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Hi, my name is inadequately speaking.