Success Shouldn't Erode You: Dr. Judy Wright's P.A.C.E. Method for Sustainable Success

Vimala Pydi[00:00]
Welcome to Her Career Unplugged. I am Vimila and I'm joined by my co-host Joanne today. We are bringing to you today a guest who would guide all you high achievers to protect your energy and create some sustainable success. We bring to you Dr. Judy Wright, a physician, MD TEDx speaker, and sustainable success strategist who helps all of you high-achieving women professionals and leaders.

Vimala Pydi[00:28]
Learn to lead themselves first so they can lead others more effectively. Drawing on more than two decades of experience in medicine, leadership and corporate health care, including executive leadership roles, Dr. Judy brings a unique perspective on self-leadership, sustainability, sustainable performance, and long-term success.

Vimala Pydi[00:51]
Her insights are shaped not only by her work with professionals in high pressure environments, but also by her own experience navigating burnout and a life-changing cancer diagnosis that forced her to rethink what success should look like.

Vimala Pydi[01:09]
Through her signature pace method, Dr. Judy helps high achiever women professionals and leaders strengthen their self-leadership, protect their energy, make better decisions, and create a life and level of performance that supports lasting success. Her belief is simple: the way we manage ourselves ultimately shapes the quality of our leadership and our success. Success should elevate your life, not erode it. So thank you so much, Dr. Judy, for

Vimala Pydi[01:38]
being on the show today, looking so forward to all the insights that you give and thank you so much for your effort to help all the women out there to kind of balance the burnout.

Dr. Judy Wright[01:50]
Thank you. Thank you. it's a pleasure to be here.

Vimala Pydi[01:53]
All right, so our next session, I'll hand it over to our amazing Joanne to go over a few discussions today.

Joanne Skiles[02:01]
thank you again for being here and really excited. being a physician is an area with high burnout. I worked with radiology AI a little but this has a huge

Joanne Skiles[02:12]
burnout aspect there. So you've experienced burnout as a physician and then you also had a cancer diagnosis. So how did those two experiences together lead you to create the PACE framework?

Dr. Judy Wright[02:25]
Yeah, so that's a great question because sometimes people think it's one or the other. I think that they came right around the same time. and what they forced me to do was ask different questions, right? So I've never been afraid of hard work at all. I'm I mean, I'm a physician, I've been through medical school, I've been through hard notch, and I've held

Dr. Judy Wright[02:48]
executive positions, I've held leadership positions, I've held academic positions, and I've built a business, raised a family, all of those things, care for aging parents. So, you know, I am a high achiever. That's never really intimidated me, but I'm also someone that experienced burnout not once, not twice, multiple times.

Joanne Skiles[03:09]
Yeah.

Dr. Judy Wright[03:10]
Right? And then suddenly I was also that last time.

Dr. Judy Wright[03:14]
was diagnosed with cancer. And it's the diagnosis, the need to go out on medical leave, the need to get treated that actually forced me. And I'm gonna say it again, it forced me to stop because I wasn't stopping. So it forced me to do that. And when I stopped, I I because of changes that were happening for me and I noticed changes in

Dr. Judy Wright[03:38]
how I was feeling and my physiology and some symptoms that I had been having outside of being diagnosed with cancer. I started asking, not so much, why is a job like that? Why is it so much on this job? That's not what I was asking. And I say that because in the past, my solution was leave that job. Right? So that's not why I was yes.

Joanne Skiles[03:57]
Yeah, yeah.

Vimala Pydi[03:57]
Okay, yes, yeah. Definitely can connect to it, yeah.

Dr. Judy Wright[04:03]
So that's not what I was asking now.

Dr. Judy Wright[04:04]
What I was asking was, how did I get here again? Right?

Joanne Skiles[04:08]
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Judy Wright[04:09]
And what is my role that I may have played that got me there? But also, and this was very important, does success look the way I want it to look or look the way I was taught it should?

Vimala Pydi[04:21]
Okay, that's

Dr. Judy Wright[04:22]
Okay.

Vimala Pydi[04:23]
very crucial. Okay.

Dr. Judy Wright[04:24]
That's very crucial. And so I think as I was going through these questions,

Dr. Judy Wright[04:28]
Pace kind of existed without me having a name for it. Like I was just going

Joanne Skiles[04:32]
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Judy Wright[04:33]
through this process to to deal with this and to figure out how can I minimize the chances of this happening again? Right? Because it's all about minimizing. You can never say never, but you can do stuff to mitigate that risk. And so as I worked through all of that, that's how I came.

Dr. Judy Wright[04:52]
eventually to this pace method because I realized I wanted to help people like me, other high achievers, other high

Joanne Skiles[05:00]
Yeah.

Dr. Judy Wright[05:00]
achieving women who have all these roles, right? But I realized I didn't want to come from a stance of how to recover from burnout. Because I had recovered from burnout and then I burnt out again. All right. So I didn't want to just come from that stance. I wanted to come from more of a prevention stance.

Dr. Judy Wright[05:18]
And I wanted to help them learn how to build success that wasn't quietly taking a wrecking ball.

Dr. Judy Wright[05:25]
to them and taking a wrecking ball to their lives. So that's really where that that pace method came from.

Joanne Skiles[05:31]
No. That that's great. I I love it because like exactly the same way where I say like I've experienced burnout many times. And like you said, it sometimes it's more like, all right, leave that job. Instead of and I remember like it

Dr. Judy Wright[05:43]
Yeah.

Joanne Skiles[05:45]
was a couple jobs ago that I was like, you know, I am mostly, mostly responsible for what's going on to me when I get to the point that I'm burned out with a job.

Joanne Skiles[05:57]
I'm like I'm like I kind of created this myself by being this crazy high achiever that keeps saying yes. I I remember one time just like in front of the mirror saying say no. Say

Dr. Judy Wright[06:07]
Yeah.

Joanne Skiles[06:08]
no

Vimala Pydi[06:08]
Good one saying no.

Dr. Judy Wright[06:10]
Say no

Vimala Pydi[06:12]
No, I I agree with Joanne, Dr. Judy especially now with how the market is, the job market is. y maybe you don't have an option to get out, but if we can use your framework to balance everything and kind of understand how we are working, that would help a lot of us out there who are in

Dr. Judy Wright[06:33]
Yeah.

Vimala Pydi[06:33]
like yeah.

Vimala Pydi[06:34]
Corporate world.

Dr. Judy Wright[06:35]
Yeah, oftentimes it takes a a a rewiring, and and that rewiring may be shocking to some other people as you're doing it, but it needs to be done, right? You you need to save yourself and save the this this you know your former success, your you know, your goals, what you your ambition, right? Because no one's saying your ambition is too high. No, no, it's not.

Dr. Judy Wright[07:02]
Okay. But how do you how are you able to sustain that? And and that's that's what I came to.

Joanne Skiles[07:08]
Yes. We're going to get into the the pace framework, but before I ask the question about pace framework, because I know everybody's waiting to hear that, let's first go. You said something about you have to lead yourself first so that you can lead others more efficiently. So what does self-leadership actually look like for women that are already managing teams, deadlines, expectations from every direction?

Dr. Judy Wright[07:32]
Yeah, so yeah. So self-leadership is really how you manage yourself. And sometimes when people hear self-leadership, because I've said it before, they think I'm talking about self-care. I think self-care is an important part of self-leadership, but it's not one and the same. it it helps to support it. But it's important you learn, think think of dominoes. So if you are that first domino, right? Because I always say that your first system is you.

Dr. Judy Wright[07:58]
If you're that first domino and you're not functioning well, every every other domino that you're supporting and leading is going to fall as you tumble over, right? So if you're making decisions from exhaustion, if you're reacting instead of being proactive or leading, if if you're if Joanne, we're saying yes to everything, right?

Dr. Judy Wright[08:22]
If that doesn't just stay with you, right? It's gonna show up in how you lead. It's gonna show up in your team. It's gonna show up in your family. It's gonna show up in your relationships, right? So that's why I say that self-leadership is literally one of the greatest leadership responsibilities we have.

Joanne Skiles[08:40]
I love it. And I I like definitely the the difference between self care and self leadership. It's very

Dr. Judy Wright[08:47]
Yeah.

Joanne Skiles[08:48]
important.

Dr. Judy Wright[08:48]
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Vimala Pydi[08:49]
Mm. Yeah.

Joanne Skiles[08:50]
Very important.

Joanne Skiles[08:51]
All right. And I wanted to lead that question first with self-leadership because I feel that is part of the PACE framework in itself, right? So

Dr. Judy Wright[08:58]
Yeah.

Joanne Skiles[08:59]
now can you walk us through the PACE framework? What each letter

Dr. Judy Wright[09:03]
Yeah.

Joanne Skiles[09:04]
stands for, how it works as a system, or rather just individual tips.

Dr. Judy Wright[09:08]
Absolutely. So one of the things that high achievers do is they make they they jump straight to solutions. So you're about to see my physician brain in a moment, right? Because we jump straight to to solutions. Have you ever been in in the boardroom or even if not in the boardroom, in a meeting? And someone says, I don't want to hear problems. I just want to hear solutions.

Joanne Skiles[09:32]
Yes.

Dr. Judy Wright[09:32]
And

Dr. Judy Wright[09:33]
my brain automatically says every time, how do you know what you're trying to solve if you don't know what the problem is? If you don't know the actual

Vimala Pydi[09:41]
Right.

Dr. Judy Wright[09:41]
problem. And it may be a problem other people try to solve, and now you don't even know the history. So now we're just spinning our wheels, right? But high achievers often because we're busy. We're so busy. We want the productivity hack. We want the planner. We want the strategy now. We we just

Dr. Judy Wright[09:59]
d just give us something. So with with pace, right? The first thing, the pace for pause. It's the first thing that you're supposed to do is pause. And it's not about pausing your ambition, stopping your ambition. It's about stopping your autopilot. Cause we just push through and we are on autopilot. Okay. And this is particularly extremely

Dr. Judy Wright[10:23]
True for women because of s all the roles that we tend to hold, right? Sometimes we're busy solving today's problem, but we didn't stop long enough to ask whether we are solving the right problem. So the first thing you do is to pause, okay? The next thing is audit, okay? So you stop asking, How do I fix this? And you start asking, what actually is causing this? So for instance, if

Dr. Judy Wright[10:48]
If you're feeling overwhelmed, overwhelmed is the symptom. But the reason I might feel overwhelmed is different than the reason you might feel overwhelmed, right? So we

Joanne Skiles[10:57]
Okay.

Vimala Pydi[10:58]
Yes.

Dr. Judy Wright[10:58]
can't, we can't deal with that the same way, right? Overwhelm is the symptom. What is the root cause of that? If you had a fever, I could give you a Tylenol, okay? It's gonna take it down for about four hours. That fever is gonna come right back.

Dr. Judy Wright[11:13]
Because that infection that caused that fear is still there, right? We didn't entreat the right thing, you know? So the same thing is happening in leadership. The same thing happens. If you say you're overwhelmed, maybe you had too much to do, maybe you're experiencing higher decision fatigue. Maybe you're carrying responsibilities that you had no business carrying in the first place. Maybe you're feeling a misalignment. Maybe.

Dr. Judy Wright[11:40]
Right? Because never forget this. Maybe you actually are working in a toxic environment. Right. But you have to understand what is the driver. And that's why the audit matters. Because if you don't understand that, you're probably going to choose the wrong strategy. The next thing is to calibrate. And what gets calibrated depends on what you found out from that audit. Right. So it might be your schedule, it might be your boundaries, your priorities, your leadership, your expectations.

Dr. Judy Wright[12:06]
But you calibrate. It might be a definition of set success. You might redefine that. And the goal isn't to change everything, it is to hone in and calibrate the right things. And the final thing is then you elevate. Right? And by that, I don't just mean, you're moving up. No, you elevate your position and how you operate where you are, right? Because once you understand how to move through this and operate.

Dr. Judy Wright[12:32]
Differently, that sets you up so that you could even be ready to sustain not only where you are, success where you are, but success when you move to your next level. Right? And so I'm not asking women to do more. I'm asking them to operate differently and build a way of leading and succeeding that they can sustain.

Joanne Skiles[12:50]
Yes. I li think it. I I think it's great.

Joanne Skiles[12:53]
So with the pace framework, we also have the power balance. So how do those two connect and work together for women leaders?

Dr. Judy Wright[13:03]
So like I just said that about operating differently, the power balance is a state of being and a way of operating where your ambition and your leadership and your values and your well-being and your wants and yes, your needs, okay, are working together instead of operating, instead of competing with each other. When they're competing with each other, that's when success starts to cost you more than it should.

Dr. Judy Wright[13:29]
But when they're working together, sustainable success not only becomes possible, it becomes inevitable. Right? So that's so that's the the power balance. It's like your it's like the operating system. But pace is the method that gets you through it. Okay. And ultimately your your result is sustainable success.

Vimala Pydi[13:53]
Okay.

Joanne Skiles[13:54]
Yes.

Joanne Skiles[13:54]
Yeah, I get it. So I like that. And it kind of makes the framework work better than just, you know, any of the other random frameworks that come along in our lives, right? So

Dr. Judy Wright[14:03]
Right.

Joanne Skiles[14:04]
I like that. It makes it a little more practical.

Dr. Judy Wright[14:07]
Yeah.

Joanne Skiles[14:08]
yeah.

Joanne Skiles[14:09]
So let's like go back to the beginning when we were talking about burnout and we're talking about burnout and you know the answer isn't just leaving, right? So let's say to someone, I mean sometimes the answer sometimes the answer is leaving. I will I'll be honest. Like there's been a couple of

Dr. Judy Wright[14:17]
Yeah. I did that.

Vimala Pydi[14:21]
Ha ha ha ha.

Joanne Skiles[14:24]
jobs that

Dr. Judy Wright[14:25]
Ha ha.

Joanne Skiles[14:26]
I've worked at like one job, the answer was leave. Like there was no fixing it. but

Dr. Judy Wright[14:29]
Yes. Yes.

Dr. Judy Wright[14:32]
Because sometimes it really is the work environment and the work culture. Sometimes it is. But we really have to maximize how we're doing things so we can look and say, no, the problem's not me. The problem's you.

Joanne Skiles[14:42]
Yeah,

Vimala Pydi[14:43]
Right. Yeah.

Joanne Skiles[14:45]
yeah. And

Vimala Pydi[14:45]
Yes.

Joanne Skiles[14:46]
to be fair, that job I stood at like nine months longer than I should have ever stayed and went, and it took me years to look back and be like, yeah, I that was leave.

Dr. Judy Wright[14:56]
Yeah.

Joanne Skiles[14:56]
but let's say now, you know, we're taking this and you're feeling this burnout. The answer isn't always to leave, but now we need to reset. So

Joanne Skiles[15:06]
How would you advise someone to reset their energy without just completely stopping everything and going off to Fiji or something?

Vimala Pydi[15:15]
Fiji I know, we know wait to wait

Dr. Judy Wright[15:17]
I I like the Fiji. That's that's a hard

Vimala Pydi[15:20]
to f wait to find Joanne if she dis disappears, right?

Joanne Skiles[15:24]
Yeah, but I'm giving away my runaway part plan.

Dr. Judy Wright[15:25]
Right.

Dr. Judy Wright[15:27]
Right. Noah, yeah. one hundred percent. I I I can tell you from my perspective and perspective of women that I've worked with, we are under this assumption that taking a pause means slowing down. Right? And sometimes what you need to take is an intentional pause. But w but people think intentional pauses are

Dr. Judy Wright[15:50]
The elusive sabbatical or

Joanne Skiles[15:52]
Yeah.

Dr. Judy Wright[15:54]
waiting for that vacation. You know, the vacation you may take once a year. So what happens to the other like 50 or 52 weeks, right? Right. and it's it's not. You can take, you can intentionally pause and have it built in to your weekly life, your daily life.

Dr. Judy Wright[16:11]
And just do an intentional pause that allows you to reflect and make better decisions. Spend time with yourself. Because we don't do that enough. I before I came on here, I was talking to my friend, and she's looking to take some time off. And all she was was saying was, I just want a day in my day or two in my house by myself. Like I don't want anybody

Joanne Skiles[16:32]
Yeah.

Dr. Judy Wright[16:32]
around, right? Because you don't get time to think.

Dr. Judy Wright[16:36]
unless you make time intentionally to think and to reflect. And back in 2018, my cancer diagnosis came in twenty nineteen. Back in twenty eighteen, I remember saying, I know there's something else I should be doing, but I don't even have time to figure that out because I never had time to sit down and think. So taking that intentional pause allows you to reflect and make better decisions and also allows you to move further and faster. And I don't think

Dr. Judy Wright[17:03]
And everybody says, yes, we should rest. But I don't think they take it seriously enough. Right? Right? It's a lot

Vimala Pydi[17:08]
Yeah, yes.

Dr. Judy Wright[17:10]
of lip action. And if people want to call that intentional pause slowing down, that's fine. But that doesn't necessarily it is it's not necessarily stopping you. It's slowing down so you can speed up, right? It's not to be less ambitious. Yes, I get it. You need your job. We all do in this economy. I mean, really.

Dr. Judy Wright[17:28]
It right. But I'm asking you to pause so that you could stop acting on autopilot. Realize that the reason that you had to turn the car around and look and see if you close the garage doors because we act on autopilot all the time. And we're operating in ways that are quietly working against us. Right? Momentum isn't isn't something

Dr. Judy Wright[17:53]
That is formed from constant motion. It's formed from intentional motion. And so this is more about, it's not about losing momentum. It's more about pro protecting, building and protecting your momentum, right? Because it's success is not just going to depend on what you do, but it depends on how you do it. So it's very important that we get intentional. And I s and I say down to the getting it on the calendar, make it just as important as the meeting you're gonna have with your boss that you would have never missed.

Dr. Judy Wright[18:22]
Right? You would have never missed that. If that's what it takes for you, do that.

Vimala Pydi[18:23]
Good one. Yes.

Joanne Skiles[18:24]
Yeah, i exactly.

Joanne Skiles[18:27]
And I think the hardest thing for me, I I I mean when I take those tests that tell you everything that's wrong with your personality, number one is always a hi hyperachiever. so I'm an insane hyperachiever. but what I have tried to tell myself is that not every moment has to be productive. You know, it's though because

Joanne Skiles[18:48]
I always feel that if I'm not doing something, I'm wasting time. And that was the hardest thing to rewire. Even the fact of like the pause that I used to call my pause was, when I go running, that's when I have my thinking time. That's not good enough. That's not good. You're still running. So that was like my rewiring that I needed to have. I'm not saying everybody's the same way, but I had to realize I need to just force myself to sit and think.

Dr. Judy Wright[19:12]
Yeah.

Dr. Judy Wright[19:13]
Yeah. I mean the running is great. Like that that

Joanne Skiles[19:15]
Yes.

Dr. Judy Wright[19:15]
that is me time. But I think that for some people, they put they put me time in a box. And and you ever been in a room and there's that awkward silence and you just feel the need to

Vimala Pydi[19:29]
yes.

Dr. Judy Wright[19:31]
fill it in because it's so uncomfortable. People have that same issue with just sitting down.

Joanne Skiles[19:38]
Yes.

Dr. Judy Wright[19:38]
For a moment with themselves. And it's uncomfortable at first, especially when you're a high achiever, how you put it, I love that hyper achiever. You know, it's it's

Vimala Pydi[19:47]
Ha ha ha ha.

Dr. Judy Wright[19:50]
uncomfortable. It it it feels wrong at

Joanne Skiles[19:53]
Yeah.

Dr. Judy Wright[19:54]
first, right? but practice. Practice makes progress. Yes.

Joanne Skiles[19:57]
Yes. Yes. Practice makes progress. And I'm not saying we're ever going to be perfect, but I think

Vimala Pydi[20:00]
True, yes.

Joanne Skiles[20:04]
I think accepting that not every moment of my life needs to be filled has helped significantly.

Dr. Judy Wright[20:09]
Yes.

Joanne Skiles[20:12]
So I think we've kind of come into what the you know, the first step of pace is the pause, right? Like that

Dr. Judy Wright[20:18]
Yeah.

Joanne Skiles[20:18]
intentional pause. What's the first sign that someone's pace is unstable?

Dr. Judy Wright[20:24]
You know, this is a good question because some people are like, when you're truly exhausted. But I Yes! Yes! By the time you feel

Joanne Skiles[20:31]
Think that's too late.

Dr. Judy Wright[20:35]
real true exhaustion, you all you're already at the la near or at the last sign.

Vimala Pydi[20:40]
But yeah.

Joanne Skiles[20:41]
Yes.

Dr. Judy Wright[20:42]
Like, you know, I would

Dr. Judy Wright[20:43]
say one of the earliest signs is not even a symptom. One of the earliest signs is the constant need

Dr. Judy Wright[20:52]
To repeatedly rationalize and normalize why something feels off.

Joanne Skiles[20:57]
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Judy Wright[20:57]
Okay? And it's quiet. And the reason it's quiet is because you're still productive, you're still winning, you're still getting things done. You still everything looks great on paper. And it looks great to other people too, right? Because one, you to them, you look like a rock star. And two, they're probably benefiting from that.

Dr. Judy Wright[21:18]
But internally, you know something doesn't feel right, yet you rationalize that. High achievers are good at rationalizing it. it's just the season. I'll be fine after this project. I just need to adjust. I need better time management. The kids are just really busy, can't wait till the summer. And a rationalization or a normalization, this is what leadership looks like.

Dr. Judy Wright[21:44]
This is what being a high achiever looks like. Now, sometimes on their own, those things are true, but it is the consistent rationaliz rationalizing and normalization over and over again, right? And one of the most dangerous things is that we normalize things that should have actually prompted us to be more curious and ask better questions. So I I think that's

Dr. Judy Wright[22:10]
The first sign when you know something's off, you know you made that excuse la last month, the month before that, the month before that. Right. So high

Joanne Skiles[22:18]
Yeah.

Vimala Pydi[22:19]
Yeah. Exactly.

Dr. Judy Wright[22:22]
yes, and so high achievement women don't they don't actually miss the warning signs. They often mis mislabel it so they could push it down and push through, right? So what we call over functioning leadership. And we'll call misalignment

Vimala Pydi[22:34]
Yeah.

Dr. Judy Wright[22:35]
ambition.

Dr. Judy Wright[22:36]
And we'll call pushing through commitment.

Joanne Skiles[22:39]
I love this so much. We have our own little corporate speak for ourselves.

Vimala Pydi[22:40]
Good one.

Vimala Pydi[22:43]
No, I I totally love it. The first signal, you are you know yourself, right? Like you have to listen to yourself. You need to understand your signals. That's the leadership. Like if you're not listening, yeah, then that's

Joanne Skiles[22:56]
Yeah. I think I love it. I I always

Joanne Skiles[22:59]
think of I think it's Devil Wears Prada where the girl kind of goes like, I love this job, I love this job. I think I you know it's one of those movies where you're like, you're saying

Vimala Pydi[23:06]
going back and say, yeah, but she knows.

Dr. Judy Wright[23:10]
Yeah.

Joanne Skiles[23:11]
I love this job, but you actually trying to remind yourself you love the

Vimala Pydi[23:13]
Actually don't

Joanne Skiles[23:15]
job.

Dr. Judy Wright[23:15]
You're try you're trying to convince yourself,

Dr. Judy Wright[23:17]
right? I love it. I love it. This is what I always want to do. I love it. I love it. And you may love something

Vimala Pydi[23:18]
Compressing. Yeah. Yeah. That's

Dr. Judy Wright[23:25]
about it. You you may be getting a payoff. It may be the prestige of it all. It may be, you know, the accolade. You may be getting a a payoff, but what what what is it costing you? Right? And then you weigh those two. Because I'm not saying that is wrong, but what is it costing you?

Vimala Pydi[23:40]
Yeah. And it's for outside,

Vimala Pydi[23:42]
right? Like those are all external things that you spoke about, Dr. JD. Like everyone else is winning something out of it, but you know something is off. That's the signal.

Dr. Judy Wright[23:51]
Yeah.

Vimala Pydi[23:52]
Yeah.

Dr. Judy Wright[23:53]
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Vimala Pydi[23:55]
I love

Vimala Pydi[23:56]
this. Totally something to keep in my playbook.

Joanne Skiles[23:56]
yeah. This is this is great. I got one

Joanne Skiles[24:00]
more question to you before I hand you over to Vimila for the rapid fire. All right.

Dr. Judy Wright[24:02]
Sure. Sure. Okay.

Joanne Skiles[24:05]
so your core belief is that the way we manage ourselves shapes the quality of our leadership. And now I'm a mom of two kids and Vimila's a mom as well. I I feel that at least for me, I put everybody else first before myself.

Joanne Skiles[24:21]
Right. and there's a lot of women we've been taught to do that. So how do you start managing yourself without feeling guilty?

Dr. Judy Wright[24:29]
Sorry man, this is such a woman problem.

Vimala Pydi[24:32]
Love it.

Joanne Skiles[24:33]
Ha ha ha.

Dr. Judy Wright[24:35]
This is such a woman's problem because

Dr. Judy Wright[24:38]
the reason you tend to feel guilty is because you believe managing yourself is selfish.

Joanne Skiles[24:44]
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Judy Wright[24:44]
Right? How would I manage myself first? Isn't that putting myself first isn't that selfish, right? And that's a huge misconception. It's not so much, you know, the priority as it's a responsibility.

Dr. Judy Wright[24:57]
To manage yourself first because you're your first system, right? And like I said, if you're not functioning well, every system leaning on you, built on you, they're also not gonna function well. They're also going to feel it. It's a responsibility because it doesn't just it it doesn't just affect you. Now I say definitely pay attention.

Dr. Judy Wright[25:23]
To doing it for you, but know that because you hold so many responsibilities, because I'm a mom too, because you hold so many responsibilities, it is a leadership responsibility. So instead of worrying that managing yourself looks like you're putting yourself first and it looks kind of selfish, see it for what it really, really is.

Dr. Judy Wright[25:47]
It really is you refusing to put yourself last. Okay. And and understand that this is how you're successful. When I talk about success, I'm talking about whole whole success. A lot of people think, it's just it's just a career, but it feeds off of each other, right? So something over here is not working. That's why I don't like work life balance. Cause I'm like, is work on Mars and balance on Venus? What's happening?

Joanne Skiles[26:14]
Yeah.

Dr. Judy Wright[26:14]
What what's going on? They're here together and and and can affect each other. If one is off, it can affect the other thing, right? So understand that to gain that success is going to require effort, but it shouldn't require your identity. You have to manage yourself first.

Joanne Skiles[26:32]
Wonderful. So hear that all, everybody. You have to manage yourself first. And you're not being selfish. Remember that. We the it is

Dr. Judy Wright[26:38]
No. No. If you manage

Dr. Judy Wright[26:41]
yourself if if you're managing yourself as chaos, how do you expect everything else to to run?

Joanne Skiles[26:45]
Exactly. Exactly.

Joanne Skiles[26:47]
All right, Vimila, take it away in rapid fire.

Vimala Pydi[26:51]
All right, thank you so much, Joanne and Dr. Judy. The next section is

Dr. Judy Wright[26:55]
Yeah, I'll come down.

Vimala Pydi[26:56]
a fun one, rapid fire questions. Yes.

Dr. Judy Wright[26:59]
Rapid fire.

Vimala Pydi[27:01]
It's more of like trying to go over a few questions to send that message in one word or a sentence. And if you feel there's more, you can like go dive deep into that. So are

Dr. Judy Wright[27:12]
Mm-hmm.

Vimala Pydi[27:13]
you ready for rapid fire? All right, let's do it.

Dr. Judy Wright[27:15]
I think I'm ready.

Vimala Pydi[27:19]
The first one, one boundary every high achieving woman avoids setting. What is that one boundary? Hmm,

Dr. Judy Wright[27:24]
That's not that's not mine to carry.

Vimala Pydi[27:29]
good one. Ener Yeah.

Dr. Judy Wright[27:29]
That's not mine to carry. Yeah.

Vimala Pydi[27:32]
Energy, is it managed or created?

Dr. Judy Wright[27:34]
Manage. We spend way too much time trying to create more energy when we're not managing the energy we already have and we're allowing it to leak out. So manage.

Vimala Pydi[27:45]
All right. The next one is a fun one. Morning routine. Is it non-negotiable for you or is it flexible?

Dr. Judy Wright[27:52]
Intentional. It's intentional.

Vimala Pydi[27:54]
Intentional. Love it.

Dr. Judy Wright[27:56]
The routine can change, but the the

Vimala Pydi[27:58]
Yes.

Dr. Judy Wright[27:58]
meaning behind it shouldn't.

Vimala Pydi[27:59]
Okay. Love it. Self-leadership was a self-care. I think you did hit on it, but yeah. Is it the same thing or different?

Dr. Judy Wright[28:06]
Yeah. so different. Self care

Dr. Judy Wright[28:10]
can support self leadership, but self leadership should be the forward thing about how you manage yourself and your decisions and your priorities and your boundaries and your energy. So self leadership comes first.

Vimala Pydi[28:21]
Leadership, yes. for anyone listening, just go over the podcast to kind of understand those two as well.

Dr. Judy Wright[28:27]
Mm-hmm.

Vimala Pydi[28:27]
And next one is worst career advice you have ever received.

Dr. Judy Wright[28:33]
Learn to play the game. 'cause the problem is nobody ever tells you what the game is. And so Yes.

Joanne Skiles[28:37]
They don't. They don't. They just call it the game and it's very vague.

Dr. Judy Wright[28:44]
No one ever tells you what the game is. And so you spend all these years twisting yourself into some sort of pretzel trying to fit into it. And then all of a sudden you're like, I this I am I even myself? Like you totally start to feel disconnected, even in

Dr. Judy Wright[28:59]
You know, a career that you love.

Joanne Skiles[29:01]
Yeah. I l I

Vimala Pydi[29:02]
Sure.

Joanne Skiles[29:02]
love it 'cause I just the other day I was talking to a a young woman, she was asking me these questions and I said, I'm like, Well, you gotta play the game, but don't ask me what the game is.

Vimala Pydi[29:10]
Good one. All right. The next one, I think Joanne was kind of hinting on it. Say no more or say yes differently.

Dr. Judy Wright[29:19]
Both. I want you to say no more. Like, you know, when toddlers learn the word no, and that's all they say, and they say it with figure. No. No. I want you to learn to say no more so that your yeses become more intentional because every yes has a cost. So you want to make sure that you are saying yeses that matter.

Vimala Pydi[29:39]
Awesome. What would you tell your younger self with your learnings today?

Dr. Judy Wright[29:44]
That I would tell my younger self that you are so much more than a grade, a title, or even a goal. You are a whole person.

Vimala Pydi[29:52]
Love it. Okay. The last question. One thing listeners can do today to reset their pace.

Dr. Judy Wright[29:59]
I would say to stop for five to ten minutes and ask themselves one question. Is the success that you've built thus far, have you built it to last? And you don't really have to fix that today, but you should just answer that question honestly. And if that, you know, and and that's high achievers, we're so busy. Sometimes our brain gets cluttered. So if that question makes you realize you need more clarity, but you don't even know how.

Dr. Judy Wright[30:24]
I I built a sustainable success assessment that your listeners can go and take. It's about five minutes to complete. It gives you an honest look at how sustainable your success really is. It's not about how stressed you are or even how busy you are, but whether what you've built is actually built to last. And it might even help you put language to what you've been feeling for some time.

Vimala Pydi[30:49]
Yeah, that's great. And we will add the links to your website and any any other areas that you want our listeners to come to within the description. So that's a wrap. Thank you so much, Dr. Judy Rai, for coming

Dr. Judy Wright[31:03]
Thank you.

Vimala Pydi[31:04]
on Her Career Unplugged today.

Dr. Judy Wright[31:07]
It's been great. You guys are fun.

Vimala Pydi[31:11]
Yeah, so I think like one of wrap up and kind of like going over what you said, pace, right? Like pause, audit, calibrate, and ease, elevate yourself, right?

Dr. Judy Wright[31:22]
Elevate. Mm-hmm.

Vimala Pydi[31:23]
Yeah, all those three. Just remember, try to like go over that framework, make a mental model as you're going through, and if you want to connect to Dr. Judy Wright.

Vimala Pydi[31:34]
Please follow our description and you'll find places where you you'll find her. so thank you so much again. any any last words before I wrap up, Dr. Judy?

Dr. Judy Wright[31:44]
I just want every if you take nothing away from this, always remember that success should elevate your life. It shouldn't erode it. And if it feels like it's doing so, you really have to just stop and take inventory of what is going on. Take that time because it'll it you'll move further than you realize just by taking the time to stop and take that inventory.

Joanne Skiles[32:09]
Yes. I think it is amazing

Vimala Pydi[32:10]
So yeah, pause and take, then run through.

Joanne Skiles[32:12]
advice and something everybody should follow. And wanna echo it for myself, is that like I didn't take that time until last fall. So take the time, you will reset, you will realize what success is to you. And it for me at least, like you said, Dr. Judy as well, is my form of success was definitely what I was raised to believe success was.

Vimala Pydi[32:35]
Yeah.

Joanne Skiles[32:35]
Not what I wanted it to be.

Dr. Judy Wright[32:36]
Yeah, same.

Vimala Pydi[32:37]
Yeah. All

Dr. Judy Wright[32:37]
Same.

Vimala Pydi[32:39]
of us kind of yeah. The pause is important to kind of understand that. So with that, thank you so much. With that, for all of our audience, please subscribe to our channel on your favorite platform. Stay intentional, stay focused, and stay unplugged.