Work-Life Balance for Christian Women in Leadership | Missy Tuft

In a world that celebrates hustle, how can Christian women pursue career growth without sacrificing their faith, family, or well-being? This episode explores what it means to lead with integrity, set healthy boundaries, avoid burnout, and find a sustainable balance between work, life, and leadership. Whether you're early in your career or leading a team, you'll gain practical insights for growing professionally while staying grounded in your calling. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Welcome to the Vanderblumen Ladies Leadership Podcast, where we help Christian women grow in confidence, calling, and leadership. If you want to excel in your career while staying true to your faith, you're in the right place. Thanks for being here. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

All right, everyone. I'm Jen Paulsen, and I'm the COO of Vanderblumen, here with you for another episode. Today I'm joined by Missy Tuft. Hey, Jen, thanks for having me. You're welcome, Missy. What is Missy short for?

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Missy is short for Melissa. Excellent. And why did you start going by Missy? Actually, I played soccer and softball my whole life. Yes. And the coach's daughter had a name Melissa. And so he decided to change my name. Oh. And then it just took off from there. So glad to have you.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Missy is our director of operations. Um, she's been in that role here for maybe four or five months at Vandalloon. She's been killing it. Thank you. Um, so today you get the privilege, I guess, or the stress of being my little sister. A little bit of both.

unknown 1:02

A little bit of both.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Um, Missy, please let's start by you telling us your thoughts on tea. Are you pro or con hot tea?

SPEAKER_01 1:09

I am con. You're con. Tea. I am con hot tea. The only tea that I truly enjoy is Starbucks medicine ball tea. Otherwise, I don't like when drinks should be hot and they start to go cold. And it actually becomes a place of frustration.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Oh, well, we want to eliminate as much frustration in our lives. So I don't need the tea scene. Is the medicine ball something when you're sick? Is it like ginger and lemon and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_01 1:37

It's supposed to be something when you're sick. It's um peach, citrus, and then mint with honey, stained lemonade, and water. So it's delicious. So sometimes even when I feel fantastic on a hot day, I will say it's the perfect day for a medicine ball tea.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Well, now that you reveal Starbucks a secret recipe, everyone can go make their own stuff their own medicine ball tea. Absolutely. Enjoy. You learned it here. Yes, your big little sister. You're the little sister. I mean the little sister. So, Missy, what have you got for me today? What what um what topic should we talk about for the audience?

SPEAKER_01 2:12

You know, Jen, I was thinking a great thing that I would want to talk with you about would be work-life balance. Um, especially right now in my career, just have been in a leadership management role for several years and always struggled with when do I turn it off? What's the line? Do I get to turn it off at this level of operation? And if not, then what do I do to help balance the stress and it not seep into my own mind?

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Yeah, that's a really good question. It's the million-dollar question. Anyone who can solve that is worth a million dollars, if not more. Um, Missy's got a husband, Bo, wonderful guy, and two kids. So your situation is, you know, some some people are single, some people are just married, but you've got a husband and two kids. So um I'll I'll talk a little bit about my thoughts on it, Missy, but just tell me like over the course of your life, do you feel like you've gotten better at the work-life balance? Um, what do you think? How have you seen over your career your work-life balance change?

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Yeah, Jen, that's a great question. As you were asking, I was kind of spanning through the beginning of my career, which is where I felt that I needed to just strive, strive, strive, strive. The first one to get there, the last one to leave, the first one to respond to an email, the first one to offer for volunteer projects. Um, and it paid off and it also cost, right? So, where is I kept finding um, am I really benefiting my life by doing this or just a part of my life? But I found that I started struggling with a lot of anxiety and panic because I never ever shut it off. So I would definitely say over the years, um, I've gotten better, but there's still definitely areas for growth of feeling the freedom to have a more balanced life.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

I have a lot of favorite quotes, but one of my favorite quotes is that we're human beings, not human doings. And I think if you've heard that one before, yeah, that's a good ism though. Did y'all write that down? That's a good ism. We're human beings, not human doings. And I think that people who um focus too much on the doing part of it don't get any of that rest of the Lord that that God has designed for us to have, you know, one day out of seven, a Sabbath, or just a rest. Like if you think about it from that perspective, Missy, is one seventh of your time spent resting and recharging? Probably not.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

No, not even near, but that feels so countercultural. Not even work right like not even work just in anything that you do, when is rest allowable? Yeah. When is it permissible? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

So um, would you like me to to give some thoughts um when I had my when I used to work at Lush? Or do you want to get want me to give you some thoughts about current? What do you, what do you, what would you like my perspective?

SPEAKER_01 4:50

I think what I would love to know is one, was that normal for me, fresh out the gate, trying to prove myself. Is that even a real thing or is that something that we put on ourselves? This is my thought on that for you.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

I think that um my opinion is that you have to work harder at the beginning so that you can work less hard at the end. So I think what you're doing is natural and normal and probably needed. Because if at the beginning of the career, if you be at the beginning of your career you're coasting or you're um slacking and you're not really working on all cylinders, you're not going to be able to get to the place that you want to be in your career. So I do think we need to do that. I think that the most important thing is making sure that you're taking care taking care of yourself along the way. And then if you, if at the beginning of your career you're, you know, going all out and you're accomplishing things, but you're also still taking care of yourself, then as you get older, you'll already have those habits built in of that self-care. So, for one example, when I used to work at Lush, Lush Cosmetics, it was amazing, one of my favorite jobs ever. And we traveled all the time. So I was traveling three to four weeks a month. I was always, always traveling, always, always traveling. And I made a decision at that point. I'm like, I can't really be in a relationship. I can't really get married and have kids with this type of lifestyle, but I'm investing right now in my career, and then I can do those things later. And I was um, you know, always full out. I was traveling, I was working, and there wasn't a lot of time for rest. But advice that one of the girls on our team gave to me is every time you're in a city, take an afternoon. If you can stay an extra day, take an extra day and stay an extra day and do something unique to that city. And then that was kind of the recharge at the end of your trip. So if I went to New York for a week, maybe I stayed an extra day and went to do something like the Highline, you know, or um walking across one of the bridges. Like do something that's New York specific or go to a Broadway show. And then at the end of that trip, when I could have been exhausted, I ended it on a high note, kind of feeling more uh rested and regenerated. So that was a good tip for that. Um, I think it kind of depends on what stage of your life you're at and what stage of your career you're at. Now, um here at Vanderblumen, I work really, really hard all day long. And then I try to turn it off when I get home. And when I when I was hired, one of the things, one of the deals that I made with my boss when I got hired was that after five o'clock or after 5 30, I wouldn't be available by text and phone. And William has been so good about that, he's maybe only reached out to me once or twice in four years. Oh wow. After hours. But if you set the, if you set the boundaries initially and then also do your work really well, then people are gonna respect the boundaries. And I also think it's a lot easier to set the boundaries earlier rather than later. It's the same thing with in like personal relationships. So if you're you're dating someone or married to someone, if you set the expectation, this is how I want you to treat me at the beginning, then that'll just be a normal. If you are known as the person that's available 24 hours a day, you know, they'll come in on a Saturday, they'll come in on a Sunday. It honestly almost erodes a little bit of respect for you because it's like, oh, that's just the person that's available at any time. But if you set the boundaries and work really hard during the boundary times, then people are usually pretty respectful of your wishes. And then it makes it easier for you to have work-life balance.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Absolutely. And I can identify with what you were saying of just when you make yourself available, people will take advantage of that. They will say yes because who doesn't love a yes man? And it's not always because we want to take advantage of someone, but it's because we do need that extra help always. We can always use an extra set of hands. So if someone is available and they always say yes, then they're gonna be our first person to go to.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

I think we all need to, all of us really need to work on the art of saying no, because there's ways to say no that's still kind and considerate and compassionate. And if we say yes too many times, women especially, I'm sure men deal with this, but women, in my experience, more often than men, if we can't say no in a compassionate way, we end up saying yes, and that's to that's to our detriment. And I know you we at Bander Bowman, we use the Enneagram. We love the Enneagram. Um, it's like basically a personality kind of test. And missing are both threes, but we both lean toward two. And the two is the helper. So the three is like the achiever, the perfectionist, but the two is the helper. And I've seen you in different situations and me in different situations trying to help other people, but we're helping people at our own cost. And then, you know, another another thing to think about is it's like on the airplane, you've got to put your uh air mask on. Your is that what it's called? Your ear mask?

SPEAKER_01 9:19

You know, I'm not a big flyer. Oh, so I wouldn't even know what that thing is called. The thing that comes to the things about stealing.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

You have to put your own emergency mask on before assisting others. And I think sometimes we as Christian women especially get into a situation where we're helping so many people that we're having trouble breathing, but maybe literally having trouble breathing because we've given so much of ourselves to others.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

So say that I walk into my first corporate job and I come out the gate as a yes woman, and I'm just so excited and I'm so eager. And that I'm seeing benefits from that at work, but then I'm also feeling the repercussions of that in my life outside of work. How would you help me pull back?

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Well, I think so you're saying that you're the yes men in both personal, like in this example, yes person is the yes man at work and at home.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Say I was the yes person at work and only at work. Yeah. And then it was flooding into my personal life, though. So, and I'm I'm early on in my career and everyone loves me, and I'm terrified of shaking, shaking any feathers because they know me as something already. How do I work backward? Is that possible?

SPEAKER_00 10:31

It's a very nuanced question you have there, Missy. I would say this. I think the important thing to think about is if your work life is impacting your home life adversely, negatively, then you've got to change something in your work life, right? Because you and I talk about this all the time that we're design we're destined for relationship, like God designed us for families and for communication and for connection. And work is a means to that end, and it oftentimes fulfills us very much. But we need to make sure that we're healthy for our families. So if it's affecting your family, and if you notice that based on things your family's saying, maybe your husband isn't thinking that you have enough time to spend with him, maybe your kids want to have more time to play, then what my recommendation would be that you talk to your boss. So I would talk to my boss and I would say, is there some kind of flexible schedule that I could have? Is there something that I could do a little bit differently to make to help you make the boundaries? Because you probably can't just say I'm no longer a yes woman at work, but you can work with your boss to create some boundaries. And then if people know those boundaries, then that's going to do the work for you. So maybe you have an example of having done that?

SPEAKER_01 11:32

I don't have an example of having done that in my early career. Oh, okay. Um, but I definitely could say yes, but I want to circle back real quick before we go on to that. Is so I love what you said of go and have that conversation with your boss. I think that is so important and so empowering and equipping. Yep. Can you speak to the young corporate girl's mind of how to approach her boss, how to initiate that kind of conversation for the first time?

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Yeah. People are either blessed with good bosses or they're even more blessed with bad bosses. Because what I always say is that you've learned a lot more from bad bosses than from good bosses. And maybe your good boss, maybe your favorite boss will still be your friend 20 years later. But if you look at who you are as a corporate boss, Lady Missy, I guarantee you you will have learned more from bad bosses than from your good bosses because you see clearly firsthand what not to do. Right. So if you're approaching your boss, it's gonna be a lot easier to approach a good boss. And if if you have, let's let's go with that. Let's say you have a good boss that would be completely open to your feedback. The way that I would approach it is I would just say, uh, and this is more reasonable to expect that the boss would be comfortable with this conversation now, because the generations coming up below us really do place a higher value on mental health and physical health, which is excellent. And older people in leadership managers and bosses, executives, are learning that that's how you get the best out of the younger generations. So if you're a new career person, don't feel like this is going to be an unexpected conversation to your boss because they know that that's a value that's really important to the whole generation. So that first should set the expectation for you to not be scared. And then when you have that conversation, I would come at it with, I really want to do a great job as your employee. So I'm here to talk to you about either feedback, things that you think I could do better, um, and that feedback, as well as to maybe ask for your help with something. And if you if you flip it to asking your boss for help, they're always gonna be willing to help rather than coming at them with demands. So if you come at your boss's demands, they're probably gonna shut down. If you come at them asking for help, they're gonna feel like this is an opportunity for them to really help an employee that needs some help.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

I think that's such good wisdom. Thank you, Jen. I think that's really helpful. I think that's really encouraging. Um, and you're right about approaching and asking for help. I don't have an example of that in my earlier career, but you know that this last year has been a very hard personal year for me. Um, and our bodies tend to take time to catch up, right? To what all you've experienced over the last year, over the last couple of years. And I reached a point relatively recently where I was like, Jen, I love my job. I love working full time. I don't want to change any of that, but I need slow mornings. I need just to wake up and not feel rushed in something in my life. And you met me right in that moment and you said, well, let's talk about these things. Take a break, have some minutes, and then let's meet later and let's talk about some different options. And so for the last few weeks, I think we're on week two, um, I have been having some slower mornings and it has drastically shifted. My work level hasn't changed, it's only increased. Yes. Sorry about that. Only increased. And um, the challenges at work have have only increased, but the greatness is also increased because having that time to be slow in the morning and prepare your mind and your body to get to get out the door and to go, especially when I do have littles at home and preparing them for their days as well, it makes a huge difference.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

So this is um, this is a really this is a wonderful story, Missy. And I could just tell up until that point, Missy's had a very stressful year as she said, um, but you, your, your mannerism, your body, you were just, you could tell that you were like kind of tense and stressed, stressed out. I'm so thankful that you asked because that you talked to me about it. A lot of times people will hold that inside, not share that with their manager, and then maybe just quit, or maybe quiet quit. But communication, communication, communication, communication, you will always win with excellent communication. And by you bringing that up, we were able to brainstorm together and come up with a solution. And a really neat, like kind of bow on this story is that you had just started that last week. And I think it might have been on like Tuesday last week, it was your second day of doing it. And you had come in and you were like, I'm so refreshed, I'm so energized, thank you so much. I feel like I've gotten more sleep. I was able to work out, I took a walk outside. And then it made you more resilient because last week we had a really difficult week at work. Yes. And if if the old Missy, if the Missy that had been stressed out and frazzled, were dealing with that, it would have gone in such a different way. But instead, the Missy that was balanced, focused, and like in control of herself handled that. And your resilience level was so off the charts. And you not only made it better for your team members, but for the rest of the company because you had chosen to put your oxygen oxygen mask on. That's what it is. If I ever get on planes, that's what it is. Um, because you had selected to put your oxygen mask on first so that you could assist others when they were kind of struggling. Absolutely. Well, you taught me that.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

You taught me that. And you also created a space for me to feel that I could come to you and trust that you would have my best interest and to not continue to bring that up to me of like, oh, you were given that's another thing that that other young women could fear is is this gonna be held against me in my career growth and development? Um, is having these conversations with my boss, are they gonna think that I'm weak? I haven't seen that from you. In fact, you today gave me a huge project, right? So, like, you know, it's been huge for our working relation.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

It has. And I think giving your boss the opportunity to help also like strengthens the relationship and additionally grows the trust. And if this would have been a whole different thing if Missy had done this flexibility schedule, this flexible schedule, and then all of a sudden completely underperformed. But she knew, Missy, you do have excellent self awareness. You and I've talked about this in the past. You knew what you needed to be able to optimally perform, and you didn't. Thank you, Jan.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

Yeah, thank you for you.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_02 17:40

Thanks for joining us. Have a blessed week and lead on.