Built for Purpose

Welcome to (un)leaderly, the podcast that looks at the world through an atypical leadership perspective. In this episode, host Barbara Iverson gets personal with details of a trip to a Berlin museum and the frustration of not being in a space where you are able to do the work that brings you joy. 

Are we really not valuing people (specifically women) after a certain age? In the workplace specifically. Because it seems that the opportunities for women over 45 shrink if for some reason a woman leaves a position (out of choice or not) around that age. If you're feeling this, we hope you find some encouragement or at least you sense visibility in this episode.

Barbara tells stories from her life and looks at the world through an atypical leadership perspective. Every week she offers a challenge or task for listeners, to prompt reflection or growth. This podcast is the perfect listen for someone who feels like they don't quite fit to the typical leadership profile. 

Find us on Instagram @unleaderlypodcast

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Hey, before we get started, I would love to ask you, if you're listening, which you obviously are, to give us a like, give us a follow, subscribe, do all the things to make sure you don't miss an episode, and also leave a review if you are so inclined, because it helps other people get through the algorithm craziness and find us. Hello and welcome to Unleaderly, the podcast that looks at the world through an atypical leadership perspective. My name is Barbara Iverson, and I'm your host. Yesterday I had an extraordinary privilege of going through one of the museums here in Berlin with a friend of mine who is, she works as a restorator. Is that the word? Restorer? I actually don't even know because like I always just hear the word in German and I'm not always familiar with it. But anyway, she restores stone objects. And she took me through the what's called the Neues Museum, meaning the new museum, but it's not really new. And it's full of a lot of Egyptology, a lot of artifacts from Egypt. And it's really amazing. It's beautiful. And she took me through. The most stunning thing, of course, that everybody wants to see when they're there is the bust of Nefertiti. It's one of the most famous objects that exists in the art world in Berlin. She is beloved. She is so beautiful. And she has a room all to herself. And what's really incredible, so the whole day was amazing because my friend, she is so familiar. She's worked on so many of the things that are exhibited there. And she touches them so lovingly. It's really amazing. Like I'm used to never touching things in a museum. But um, they're like her, they're like her pets or her children. And so she she touches them and tells me stories about these artifacts and interesting things about like the books of the dead, where I assumed that the books of the dead would somehow be stories of the life of the person to sort of take a bio and a biography with them into the afterlife. But no, it's actually just they were generalized and they were basically lists of the things that you were gonna need to bring with you into the afterlife. It's all really, really fascinating and strikingly beautiful. And we saw there's all these bas relief stones, and that's a lot of what she's worked on cleaning and restoring. And one of them was really funny because it was so many different animals, and the Egyptians had such an incredible knowledge of musculature and the animals and also the plants, like so many of them are really brought to life by the way they're carved. And we only have a tiny glimpse of what these actually looked like when they were created because they had color to them, which we rarely see now. Most of the color came off many, many years ago when they were transported. It's a very long story. If you can look into it, I would say do it because it's quite interesting. But it's not what I wanted to talk about today. So we we went through and we spent some time with Nefertiti and talking about how amazing she is. If you've never seen it, you should give it a search because she's absolutely gorgeous, even though she wasn't ever really finished. So one of her eyes, a semi-precious stone, was placed into it, but the other eye doesn't have one. And her ears have been badly damaged, but they still are kind of there. And they don't really know if she like they don't really know what she was meant to be for, like if she was a model for something else. She is painted. Her crown now is this dark, dark, dark, almost black blue, but it was apparently a very brilliant blue when it was first painted. They just can't get it back to that color. And if you notice from the side, you can see how far back that crown extends on her head. And what my friend told me was really wild is that they the creator of this bust really understood weights and finding that central point because she said when you lift it, it actually you can feel it's uh it's about to fall backwards. But when you set it down, it's perfectly weighted and it just sits there. And it's this amazing thing because they understood where to put the weight and how to sculpt it and how to make sure that the crown, even though it extends really far back, I don't think it's it's solid or somehow, I don't know, it's sort of cantilevered so that it doesn't, she doesn't fall backwards, even though when you lift her, you can feel that she wants to, but she doesn't. So we went on a Monday and the uh the museum was empty because it's closed on Monday, which was very, very special. And it was really remarkable to be there. So thank you, Pia, for taking me. It was a birthday present and it was incredibly kind and it was super fun just to hear her perspective and talk about things and observe them and of course spend time with Nefertiti. And one of the super cool things in that room, it's a painted room, it's it's round, it's just beautiful, the setting where she exists, but they also have a bronze replica of the Nefertiti bust in the room with her, and there's a sign in Braille so that people who have difficulty or are unable to see can actually touch her and feel what she looks like, which I think is wonderful. I love that accessibility. And I've been told that there's an upcoming exhibition for blind people, so that they're they've made replicas of a whole bunch of things so that people can touch them and interact with them and get a feel for what they look like, even though they can't see them as clearly as many of us can. That sort of accessibility is to me, it's amazing and it's wonderful, and it's we should definitely all be doing it. There's a place in Berlin, it's called the Gipsvoll Machei, and it's like the plaster. These words in English fail me. Simply because I don't know what they would be called in uh a US museum setting, but it's they they make plaster casts there. It's the plaster castery. And I went there last summer with a group from one of the museum foundations, and that was also incredible. And we saw a whole bunch of reproductions of the Nefertiti bus there. And they had done a thing a few years ago, I don't know how long ago, where they had made the plaster bus of Nefertiti and then given them to different either organizations or fashion houses, and they had the opportunity to style the Nefertiti bust. You might be able to find them if you search for it on the web too. But they were super fun, a very modern, glamorized version of the Nefertiti bust. So that was an incredible day, and I will not forget it. But the thing, well, not the thing, one thing that stood out to me is something that only an insider would probably hear about. Maybe when they give tours, they tell people this. But as we traveled between the floors of the museum, we rode in an elevator that is bigger than any elevator I've ever been in. I it's the it's bigger than my bathroom. Actually, I think it's about the size of the room that I'm in now in my apartment. It's my second room. I mean, it's it's the size of like a small bedroom. Really, not even a small bedroom necessarily, like a bedroom. It's it's room-sized. Like not gigantic, but you could fit um a queen-size bed and dresser and nightstands in there easily. Huge, huge elevator. And it was made to carry very, very heavy loads because they have to use that elevator to transport all these stones from one part of the museum to another. So from wherever they are coming from, and all these old sarcophagi sarcophagi, sarcophagi, very, very, very massive stone pieces that are going into exhibits. Massive. So this elevator was built to handle it. I should have asked her. I should actually um okay, so I have looked online to try to find the answer to this question. And at one point I think I saw a number and it was around 5,000 kilograms. I could be wrong, but that is a massive number. And even if it's not quite that, it's still huge. And I think I saw also that around 60 people could stand in it. And that's also a lot. But it was made for these extreme weights, and I think you could probably fit 40 adults into that space, I think pretty easily. I'm I'm telling you, it was huge. And what Pia told me was they have problems with the elevator because if it doesn't get to carry the who really, really heavy loads that it was made to carry, it it breaks down, it gets grumpy, gets really cranky, and it doesn't work smoothly anymore. So they have to have it calibrated, they have to now and then put really heavy loads into it so that it feels like it's doing what it was made to do. And I have to tell you, I thought that was actually wonderful. Absolutely wonderful that an elevator that was made to carry extraordinar extraordinarily heavy loads is cranky when it isn't given the really, really heavy loads to lift. And I think there's something incredibly beautiful about that because I think I mean people talk about cars that way too, right? These Lamborghinis, Ferraris, whatever. Okay, my one of my aunts had a Ferrari years ago. Her husband thought a classy lady needed a classy car, so he bought her this really old Ferrari. It wasn't like one of the newer ones, it was like a 1972. And I never rode in it, my mom did. But it was always in the shop, so they had to get another car so that she had something to drive when the Ferrari was in the shop. But the reason it was in the shop is because there was really nowhere to drive it the way it was meant to be driven. It wasn't built for going to the grocery store and the doctor's office and then home. It was built to scream down racetracks and swervy roads. That's what it was made for. I mean, we think about objects and how they're built for a certain purpose. And to our limited brains, I think we look at something like, say, the elevator, and you think to yourself, why wouldn't the elevator be happy or at least function properly while carrying two people? Why wouldn't that be, why wouldn't that be a thing? Why wouldn't that be like, aren't we usually happier when we're when we know we're supposed to do hard work, but then we're given something easier and we're like, oh yay, cool, this is great. I don't have to do as much work. So why doesn't the elevator do that? And I think that there's really something to this idea that we're built for purpose, and all of the things that we collect along the way help to create this purpose inside of us, this ability to handle or do increasingly difficult things. I wouldn't say that we're only happy when when we have to do the difficult things. That's that's not at all what I'm saying. And I'm still ruminating on this. And to be honest, I I wanted to record this while I was really thinking about it and while it was sort of kind of fresh in my brain, and and this experience and this sort of wonder at this elevator that gets cranky when it's not doing it what it was intended to do. But I I think of it if I'm gonna take that as an analogy and apply it to humans, it doesn't, it doesn't fit perfectly, of course. Those things never do. But I think there's really something to trying to find the thing that we were intended to do. And I don't want to get super woo-woo with this. I mean, get as woo-woo as you like, but that's not really my intention with this, to try to say you were made for this or that, or this is what some higher power or creator or being intended for you. Like, I feel like that becomes a little bit exclusionary, and that can lead us into some areas that I don't really want to go into. But I think that we all have things that when we're doing them, they bring us a lot of joy. And to me, that is then one thing that you were intended to do. Maybe you have a list of 15 things. Maybe you like this elevator, just really have the one. Whatever it is, I think it's it's something worth sort of ruminating on and marinating in to think about like what do I need to be doing to feel most fully myself. And I think about this often in a, I mean, you can think about it in a hobby context, but I also think about it in a job or career context. And I know that not everyone has the luxury of looking at their career or their job through the lens of, oh, this is what I was made to do. This is what the universe or something intended for me to do, or this brings me maximum joy. Certainly not 100% of your job because there's I think almost no one on this planet where 100% of their job is their favorite. Usually we also have parts that we don't enjoy very much. But if it outweighs, if the the joy outweighs the frustration or the dreading, then you're doing great. But I think about this in terms of when people are great at something and it's hard for them to find a space where they can do it and be appreciated and hopefully even paid for it, it becomes very frustrating. And I feel this quite acutely. When you are not in a space where you are working and doing what you have built a huge amount of experience and knowledge in that field, in that area, in that subject matter, it's really frustrating. And I I think I want to say, I see you. You can you can be that elevator that gets cranky and says, This is super, this is just really frustrating. I'm not able to do what I was trained to do, what I've developed skills around, what I have experience in doing. And I know, I know because I've been there that it's really, really difficult to be in a space where we feel that we're not able to do what we are built to do. And I I think that's as humans, I think actually we we thrive in work. I know that there's a lot of people who, you know, as they get older, they cannot wait to enter retirement because they are just tired of working. I remember talking with a woman many years ago who was nearing retirement age. And when I looked at her, what I saw was a woman who was extremely capable, very knowledgeable. I don't even remember actually what her field was, but she seemed to me a woman who enjoyed work. That's what she seemed on the outside. And she seemed to be someone who very happily and willingly stepped into spaces where something was needed. She was great at seeing what needed to be done and knowing how to get there, whether it was she herself did it or she knew someone, or she knew she just knew how to get there, whether or not she was doing the actual labor. So I looked at her and I thought this was a woman who thrived with meaningful work. But I heard her talking about the fact that she was retiring in a few years, and she said, When I retire, I'm just gonna put my feet up and never do a thing again. And I that shocked me. And I looked at her and I said, Okay, but I I feel like there's meaning behind work. And you seem to be someone who finds the meaning in work and who who does things not because not just because they like have to get done, but you find meaning in it too. She was she said, Nope, nope, I am when I'm done with work, I am done with work, and I'm not gonna work anymore, and I am just gonna relax. So I'm sure she's retired by now, and I'm no longer in contact with her. It's been it was probably 10 years ago that we had that conversation. But I find myself wondering what happened. Like my guess is that she finished her job, whatever it was, retired from that company or that position, and went home and put her feet up and read and listened to music and cooked and baked and maybe painted or visited galleries and museums. I bet she did all of that stuff. But I also bet that she got bored. I bet that she started searching for something meaningful to do. I bet she did. Because that's what people do. They start searching for meaning, and we find meaning in work. Even low-level unskilled work. Because I think even unskilled work, there's an element of skill. That's my subway take, and you can come at me for that and say that's absolute nonsense. But I think it's all in our approach, it's all in our mindset how we enter into. A work situation, we can let it be mindless. And hey, I have done mindless work. I did data entry when I was in university as like a temping job. And it was so mindless, I would fall asleep at the computer. But I think if I'd had a different mindset toward it, I might have, I probably wouldn't have fallen asleep and I might have found a bit more joy in it. I'm not sure. Easy to look back now and think that that may be true. But I think there's something super meaningful in finding work. And I don't mean that she would have to find difficult work or work that is really a drain on her. But I think that there's incredibly joyful work out there. And whether she's paid or not, I don't know. I wonder. I wonder what she's doing. I wonder how retirement looks for her. So the interesting thing to me is I recorded this a while ago, and I didn't feel like it was finished. So I put it to the side. And I said earlier in the episode, like I'm still ruminating on this. And I haven't specifically been thinking about it, but you know, the universe sometimes wants to communicate something to you. And I've recently been seeing a bunch of stuff on Instagram that's totally targeted to my generation Gen X, specifically even Gen X women, where many of us are finding ourselves taking a pause or not working in our preferred field, in our preferred titles, in our preferred way, whether that's full-time or part-time, or we're just not finding ourselves in those spaces because maybe we've had to, maybe we've been laid off, maybe we've lost jobs for different reasons, legally or illegally. Maybe we've had to take time off for various reasons. But there seem to be a number of women who are between 45 and 60, let's say. So still like anywhere from five to 15 plus really great years left to work. Really great years left to work. The thing is, I don't understand why companies aren't maximizing women between 45 and 60 in their companies or 45 to 65. Let's just put it that way. Like between 45, or let's even make it bigger, 40 to 65. The last 25 years of a woman's work if she prefers to retire around 65. But to say these women, whether they took time off to have families or not, and I'll tell you, especially if not, I never took time off to have children. I do not have children. I never took maternity leave. I never did any of that. So my career, my working in the workplace, care is also work. Please don't at me on this. Care is also work, but it's different. It's in a different setting. And unfortunately, it's unpaid. I had continuous years of paid work. But the last 10 years or so have had a lot more insecurity and non-continuous, let's call it, non-continuous working than I would have wanted or expected or would have hoped for. I have been out of work for more times and for longer than I would have expected, and certainly than I would have wanted. And I don't think I'm alone. I've talked to a number of women, and we all seem to be about the same age, and they are no longer like they lost jobs for whatever reasons or left work for whatever reason, but not to go into another position that they wanted to. So there was some sort of interruption wherever it came from. And they are frustrated because, and I feel this, I feel this so deeply. We spent years developing skills, expertise, know-how. We know what we're doing. And whether we had a break to have kids or not, we've had years of experience. And we're not gonna need another break. We've got these 20 to 25 years that can be uninterrupted now. And yet it is so hard. And it's really wild to me. People say, like, oh, well, it's because you're too expensive. And I'm like, but I'm not necessarily too expensive because actually I don't like at this age, I don't know. I would be interested to hear from other women, but I don't feel like my I don't feel like I have to prove as much. I don't need the big titles and I don't need the huge paychecks. I just want to be able to do meaningful work and be paid a reasonable salary for it. Would I take a pay cut from the highest salary that I've already been paid? Yes, I would. I would. Because I'm more interested in doing work, doing work that I care about and I'm interested in. But women at this point in our lives, for many of us, we just want to be able to continue with something. And it's super, super frustrating that those opportunities just aren't there anymore. And if you want to do it, you might need to figure out how to do it on a freelance or like start your own business kind of way. And for many women, that's not really a good answer for a for any number of reasons, one of which is entirely true for me, and that is I prefer to work in teams. I wasn't always like this. I was not always a person who was like, yes, put me on a team for many of my early years, and this is what's really wild. Now that I am a full-on team player, I'm I don't have the opportunities to work in teams. When I was much younger, I was not interested in working in teams. I wanted to show what I could do, and I was way more self-focused and absolutely not interested in you know, sharing or collaborating. It's wild. But it took actually working on a really functional team that made me realize oh, wow, this is even more fun than like trying to have all the limelight on me. Working on a team that's functioning and sharing and collaborating and and I hate doing this. Oh, you love it? Oh my goodness. Well, please, here, you do it. I talked about this in a previous episode, working on the festival where I worked on a team, but it wasn't even that team that I had in mind. That was just two of us. But I worked on a team later than that, where it really functioned and it made me such a fan of working on a team. And I actually wanted to reproduce that feeling anytime I was leading a team. I wanted people to have the feeling that they were understood, that they were seen, that they, that their skills were really valued. And if they really hated doing something, they might still have to do it. But if somebody else loved doing that thing, hey, we're gonna pass it on because it's better for you and it's better for the team, it's better for the other person. They get to do what they love. What's wrong with that? I'm now in this space where I love working on a team. And starting a business as a freelancer is so unattractive to me. It is so unattractive to me. And I don't think I'm alone. I mean, I'm sure that there are people who are like, nope, love it, love working on my own. I led teams for years, I don't want to do it anymore. Cool. But not leading a team isn't the same as not being on a team because you can be an individual contributor and a huge part of a team, not the a team, but a team, a team. You can be part of a team and be an individual contributor and still really function in that role. Or you can really be like over on the side. And that's typically in the freelance area, especially as a consultant, where you come in and maybe as a coach, coaches, consultants, which is what people in my field, if they go out on their own, that's what they tend to do. And there are a few that do this on a team basis. I actually had an interview with one of those places that do it on a team basis. And it was such a bait and switch. It was such a disappointing experience because they had advertised the position as one thing. And when I got in there, they emailed me within an hour of me sending in my application materials within an hour. And when I went into the interview, I did I realized almost immediately, oh, this is not, this is not what they said that they wanted. And I am not who they want for this role. I don't have like the ingrained ability that they're looking for because they they didn't say that that's what they were looking for, but they are great, cool. But I know from from looking online at their profile that this is a consult, like an HR consultancy that has very, very young people working there. And I think I'm gonna sound like the grumpy old lady, get off my lawn. Um, but I think that currently we have lost the sort of ability to realize that some skills develop over years. They're not immediate. Someone in their early 30s won't won't be able to do some of the things that a a person in their 50s could just because of life experience. And having a different perspective. I think that we were, we've lost a lot of that. And that's one of the reasons why companies will say, Oh, I'd rather have someone in their 30s, which, like I said, to me is bonkers. Because look, it's not a case of, oh, well, we want them to stay with a company. Really, really. You expect that someone in their 30s is gonna spend 30 years at your company? Really? Let's be honest about this. There's no way. There is no way someone in their 30s is gonna spend 30 years at your company. They're probably gonna spend no more than five. Probably no more than five. And then they will move on to a higher paid, better title, and better experience than they could get at your company because they've done everything that they can. And that's the mindset that they have. Whereas Gen X people, certainly Gen X women, we were raised in a work environment that said you stay in a job. There's company loyalty, you stick around, and job security is a really good thing. So if you hire a woman 45, 50, 55 years old, she brings a wealth of experience. And I'll tell you what, if you want her to stick around for 10 or 15 years, she will. She's not gonna go anywhere. Because those years of that scrabling up a corporate ladder, those years of scrabling up a corporate ladder, those years are gone. Those years are are over. She's not looking for that. She's looking for meaningful work that she enjoys, feels like she can have an impact. Still some challenges, always want to be learning, but isn't gonna be your ambitious woman trying to fight with every like that's not what it's gonna be. Because I've talked with people and they're like, oh, well, if you're really qualified for your job, like I was talking with somebody about this, and it was actually a super annoying conversation because you know, I was like, I've had a lot of interviews and it just doesn't go anywhere. And they're like, Are you overqualified? I was like, not generally. They're like, Well, are you older than the person you're interviewing with? And I was like, often, yes. But and I've said this even to people hey, I'm not interested in taking your job. I'm really interested in doing this job and doing it really, really well. Being excellent at it, and like I'm not I'm not ambitious for taking over the world like I was at like 23. I'm just not anymore. And I think that's really healthy. It's it's good for me. I'm happy. But I'm missing the opportunity to be able to do the work that I would really like to do and that I'm qualified. I have knowledge, expertise, and know-how. I'm not able to do it in the way that I would like to. And I know that I'm not alone and it's really frustrating. It's a really hard place to be in. And if it's because of my age, that is bonkers. And I yeah. If it's because we're too expensive, then you if you're a hiring person and you think that's true, you probably don't have enough information because I don't think that's true at all. Because women in my age group who are not working are somewhat desperate and would definitely come down from whatever our last salary was. It doesn't mean that we're cheap, but it I am probably a bit more expensive than a 32-year-old, but I know way more than a 32-year-old. And I have just a bit much broader experience and perspective. I don't know everything more than a 32-year-old. Don't get me wrong. I think I used to think, gosh, at 32, I thought I knew everything, but I'm not 32 anymore, and I don't think I know everything. But I know a lot. And I have continued to learn from the mistakes that I have continued to make. I see you, and I think there's a lot of us, and I think we're all frustrated, and I don't really I don't have an answer. Gosh, I wish I did. Because then I could, you know, deal with my own life. But I I do see you, and I think that I wish that companies that hiring people would would look at women of a certain age with different eyes and recognize that they are gold and would be so valuable to the company would bring empathy, would bring compassion, would bring kindness. And you could have all the ambitious people alongside that too. Companies that have broad diversity do well. Companies that all look a certain way, and if that's and including age, they don't do as well. So smarten up all you companies out there. I'm sure all of you are listening. Well, your challenge for today, man, I would love to make your challenge for today. Please write to me. No. Your challenge for today, how do you not crawl into a hole and bury your head out of frustration? No. Your challenge, if you are someone who is in this kind of space, frustrated, not able to work as you would as you would like to, whatever that means for you, that something something's keeping that from connecting. How can you be kind to yourself today? Not like what sort of five-step plan can you use to have AI find you the next. No. How can you be kind to yourself today? And I'm I'm making that today's challenge because I need to hear this and think about this myself. Because I put myself through the ringer all the time, blaming myself for all the crap that mediocre and subpar men have directly or indirectly inflicted on me. And I'm not joking. But we all know that because most of us have reported, maybe only, but certainly we have reported to mediocre or subpar men in our careers. And they probably were not helpful and and were not a good experience or memory. So I'm asking this to myself as well. How can I be kind to myself and take responsibility for what's mine, but leave behind all of the BS and the nonsense that just weighs down my brain. So I'm right here with you on that challenge. And I hope there was something in this today that might be a bright spot for you. That's all for today. You can find us on Instagram at unleaderly podcast, all one word, no punctuation. You can find us on LinkedIn. I would love to hear from you. We had a listener leave a comment on YouTube and it made my day. It was so wonderful. So anything you can do to help people find us will be much appreciated. And I would love to hear from you in the comments. You can also send us fan mail if you're listening through your web browser or on the Buzz Sprout website. Would love to know what things resonate with you. As always, big thanks to Lilia Keys for our intro and outro music.