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The term is biofeedback. Literally. What is your body telling you? Is your body telling you it's time for a break? It's your body telling you you need to take a sabbatical. Is your body telling you that you need to, you're allergic to your job and you need to quit? Like, what is your body actually telling you? What does that stress really feel like? Hello and welcome to the Py Bytes podcast, where we talk about Python career and mindset. We're your hosts. I'm Julian Sequeira. And I am Bob Valdebaus. If you're looking to improve your python, your career, and learn the mindset for success, this is the podcast for you. Let's get started. Welcome back to the Pipeworks podcast. Whether you're listening or watching on YouTube, welcome. A very special introduction from me. This is Julian, your host. I'm not actually here with Bob this week, as you can see if you're on YouTube. I actually have a very special guest with me today, so I'm about to cut to the interview I've done, but a quick introduction. Today I'm interviewing a. An amazing human being, but above all, a very, very, very passionate individual who cares a lot about the employee experience, about people, and whether they find value and purpose in their work. And in her own words, she actually is on a mission to make work suck less. And it's an amazing, amazing thing that she's up to. So the very special guest, of course, is a good friend of mine, Cassandra Babili, who I've known for quite a few years and who's kicked off this journey to just make work a better place for everyone. It doesn't have to be miserable, it doesn't have to suck. And she's just brings a wealth of knowledge in this conversation. So quick word of advice. If you are listening to this or watching this, wherever you happen to be, grab yourself a pen, grab yourself a piece of paper. You're going to need it. This is a very actionable episode. We have four questions that we're going to run through that you're going to need to write things down. So maybe an idea watch or listen to the episode first and then come back for a second run through. And this time, be prepared to write things down. So without further ado, here is my interview with Cassandra Babilia. Enjoy. Welcome back, everyone. It's Julian. As per that intro, I am here with our very special guest, Cassandra Babilia. Cassandra, welcome to the Pie Bytes podcast. How are you going? So good. Thanks for having me, Julian. Excited to be here and, you know, talking to the pie bites crown. You're the first person to say that you're excited to be here, so thank you for that. What? I don't believe that. Yeah, I'm normally, we record these at night, and I've had a few beers, so this is the first time I'm doing it during the day. No. So, look, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate your time, everyone. As I mentioned in the intro, Cassandra is just amazing at what she does. She's one of my favorite people on the planet. I've known her for many years now. And what's very exciting, Cassandra, what you're doing is you're on this mission to make work suck less. And I even have your sticker for that, which is cool. And always also, that was the introduction to my children to learn the word suck. So they're like, daddy would just suck me. And I'm like, oh, Cassandra, it's a fantastic use case. Thank you for that gift. So do you want to give everyone a quick introduction before we dive into the questions? Yeah. So, as Julian said, I'm Cassandra Babilia. I'm a career coach. And as he mentioned, I am the author and creator of the make work Suck Less newsletter. Newsletter. Blog. I don't know. It's on LinkedIn. It lives on LinkedIn. Make work suck less. It came to me late 2021, and I was asked, you know, what is my, what's my team strategy? And I thought it simply needed to be that we endeavor to make work suck less for people and that we don't shy away from the fact that work does suck for some people. And no matter what we do, it's still going to kind of suck for them. But what we can do is make it a little better, help them find some excitement, some joy from it. Nice. Yeah, that really resonates with a lot of the stuff we talk about. I don't think you can ever get to a point where 100% is what you love. Right? There's always going to be something. But no, I love it. And just back to that newsletter that you have on LinkedIn. I thoroughly love it. My open rate and my email is probably terrible because I read it on LinkedIn, so don't judge me on that piece. So we'll have a link to that in the show notes for this, everyone. I strongly recommend you have a read and subscribe to that. All right, so we'll jump in. Now, the topic for today is finding your purpose. And that pertains to work. Right. Finding your purpose at work or in life in general, I think they should be the same thing. Honestly. Your purpose, your life purpose, should somehow collude with your work purpose and make a beautiful, joyful baby. That's great. I like that. Okay, so the first question then, or that was the first question. The first real question is, sure. You know, how do you identify the feeling that something is wrong at work? Because, you know, if we're going to talk about finding purpose and. And all of that, I think part of is realizing that things may be not so great at the moment. So let's dive into that side of it first. Yeah. I think the purpose part, recognizing the purpose comes after. There's usually a catalyst. There's something that's telling you day after day that there's just something incredibly wrong with your world. Oftentimes people come to me because they keep having the sense, the feeling that that's something wrong. That thing is their job, their career. Their body is telling them that it's not working anymore. Their body is telling them that they need to change. Their mind is telling them that they need to change. Their heart is telling them that they need to change. It's waking up every Sunday with an anxiety attack because you don't want to go to work on Monday morning. It sleeps its nights throughout the week. It's waking up in the middle of the night worried about that thing forgot to do or you think you did wrong. It's dreading, you know, the ping from your. Your work phone or your work laptop. It's, you know, the. Just the ball of knots in your stomach when you have to interact with that coworker or manager or a leader who you just don't get along with. It's also that sinking feeling like you perhaps got into a career or an industry or a profession early on because it seemed exciting. It seemed like something you wanted to do for a long time. It seemed like that's the path you wanted to take. And so you got into it, and then 15 years down the road, you realize you're a different person. You don't like what you're doing. You don't agree with the values of your. Of your company or of your industry, and you need to get out because it is literally causing your body to breakdown on you. It's. It's headaches. It's the insomnia. It's the exhaustion. It's the. The panic attacks, by the way, all of which I experienced. So I'm speaking from experience here. You've been there. Yeah, I've been there. No, that's really interesting, I think. And we've discussed stuff very similar to this on the podcast before, but never to that detail or level of insight. One thing I find really interesting about all this is that, uh, the stress from. I'll just use the word toxic. Right. In that situation, it sounds very toxic. Right. But the stress from a situation like that actually has physical manifestations. Yeah. On, um, on you as a person. Right. And I think a lot of people forget that or don't think of it that way. They might think, oh, I'm just run down. I'm just tired. I didn't sleep well last night. I'm sick. I'm just coming down. Yeah. I'm just stressed not realizing that there's something very tangible that they can actually change that's influencing that sort of reaction in their body. So do you think most people. And so a lot of the people listening to this podcast are watching us on YouTube, probably people who are developers in the IT sector, maybe in education and so on. There's a lot of stress that comes from those kinds of jobs. I mean, would you have any insight into. I want to say that almost everyone is going through this at the moment. Like, almost everyone is in a position where they wake up stressed about work. Yeah. Yeah. You're not wrong. So, literally, 44% of global workers experience significant daily stress because of their workplace in the US. So I'm based in Washington, DC. So in the US here, 84% of workers in the past year have experienced a mental health challenge because of their work. And it's funny, when you. You say stress, I realize that I almost never actually use the word stress, because for me, I think we very often are able to brush off stress as, oh, it's just stress. But really, what I challenge and encourage people to do is listen into the physical sensations of what they are experiencing in their body that. That stress is manifesting as. So that the term is biofeedback. Literally. What is your. What is your body telling you? Is your body telling you it's time for a break? It's time. Is your body telling you you need to take a sabbatical? Is your body telling you that you need to. You're allergic to your job and you need to quit? Like, what is your body actually telling you? What does that stress really feel like? When we learn to feel and, like, recognize that we are feeling things, that's when we're able to establish patterns and make connections. That stress, that biofeedback is literally connected to XYZ. So the people that come to me, they realize that stress that biofeedback is connected to their jobs. So then what? No, no, I like that. That's. That's adding to what we always talk about with people when it comes into getting with flow, with coding and stuff. Right? Sometimes you just hit this wall. You'll be tired. You'll be listening to your body. That's when you know to take a break, those sorts of things. But this is like the next level of, like, this is your life we're talking about. This is your career, your workplace place, your nine to five. Right? So that's very cool to have that insight. The biofeedback thing, I hadn't heard that term before. So very cool. So, yeah, to that point that you just ended on, what next? So let's say I want this for everyone listening. We're making this very actionable for you today. So we're not telling you how you feel at work, but we want you to really think about that. Listen to your body and everything, like cassandra's just described. So now that you've done that, if you do find yourself in that situation where you're feeling like there's something very wrong, what's next? What do you suggest? Yeah, so I usually suggest kind of looking inward. So when I coach people around their careers, I usually take a four step approach. The first step is to look inside. So there are four questions to ask yourself when you look inside. And this goes around finding what that purpose is. And a lot of people in our lives, we've gotten to, we've gotten into our thirties, our forties, our fifties, sometimes our sixties, and we've never really taken a moment to step back and look inward about what we actually wanted to be when we grew up, what kind of impact we wanted to have on the world, how we wanted to spend the end of our days. So, four questions to ask yourself. The first is, do you feel a disconnect between your personal values and your professional values? Like, literally list them out? And by the way, those should be the same things. Your top three values in work and in life should be the same. And if they're not the same, identify where the disconnect is between who you are at work and who you are at home. And also recognize that being two different people in two parts of your life takes so much energy and it is draining. It is exhausting to be two different people, to hold two sets of values separately. We are one person. We don't get to leave behind our experiences, our values at the door when we walk into the office every day. So trying to push those down in order to conform to a company or an industry or an organization or a team that you fundamentally don't agree with, that's such a challenge. So the first step is to understand exactly what your values are and where they diverge from that of your job. That's amazing. You got me thinking about that. Do I really care about PI bytes? No, I'm kidding. Of course I do. This matches perfectly with my values. I'm very lucky like that. But you did get me thinking, right? For people to get into a situation where they're working, what they do day to day, it may not be work, but what they do day to day doesnt align with those personal values, what they wanted out of life, what they believe in, and so on. If that doesnt happen, I just knocked my microphone. Im getting so excited. That doesnt happen overnight, right. Thats a very slow burn to get into a position where you wake up one day and go, what the hell am I doing? How do you think, and this, I know we didnt discuss this before as a talking point or anything, but how do you think people get to that point? Are there any factors? I mean, just so people maybe can be aware if they see them going down, see themselves going down that path. Any thoughts on that? I think it comes to, ultimately, it comes down to feeling safe in what you know, you feel comfortable, you feel secure in what you know. Even if what you know sucks, even if it's terrible, even if it feels wrong, if it's what you know, it's what you tend to stick with. Deciding to go out into the unknown is super scary for a lot of people. And so, yeah, it is that slow burn of you rolling down the road for 510, 1520 years, like, with the sense that there is a disconnect there, and you just kind of roll with it. You're like. Because you think what you think is, well, maybe with that next promotion, maybe with that next job change, maybe with that next assignment, maybe with that, you know, that next manager that comes in that, or that next leader or that next reorg, maybe things will be different. Maybe the company is going to start, I don't know, acting in a way that I think it should be acting more like. So you convince yourself that there's a carrot ahead, and that when you finally reach that carrot, things are going to have changed. And usually the reality is that things don't change. At least things don't change to that degree. And so the people that, when they realize that there's that, you know, significant divergence in values, it takes. It takes usually a significant catalytic moment. That's like, okay, that's it. Like, not enough. Not anymore. Like, I cannot do this anymore. Something's got to give, and it's not going to be me. Wow. No, that's. That's. That's great insight. I totally agree with you there. And it's. There's this essence, as you were talking about it, this is essence of being passive, you know, waiting for the world to happen for the change that you need to happen, because, honestly, it takes guts to go out there and chase what it is that actually means something to you. So that's. Yeah. Really insightful. And. And you're the slow burn. The slow burn piece. People just won't even see it happening. Right. The years will pass and it'll just happen. So. Yeah. Nice. Thanks for that one. That's good. Now, you mentioned a second, another three questions to ask yourself. Right. So the first one was, do you feel a disconnect between your personal values, the professional values? What was number two? I started number two. What was the last time that you woke up, jumped out of bed excited for the day? What were you going to do? Could be for something. Yeah. Like, sure. Tell me, when was the last time you jumped out of bed excited for the day? Julian? It was. It was this morning because of this podcast. Let's see. I know that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, everyone. Such a suck up. That was tacky. That was cheesy. I don't know. I got to think about it. So, yeah, all of you watching and listening to this pause and think about it. That's a tough question. Honestly, I would say it was a family thing. It would have definitely been a family thing. And it was probably. I think it was Sunday, just Sunday, because we had some family things planned, some celebrations with the neighbors and stuff, and I was just excited to jump into the day. And I think it relates to being around people because as you. As you all know by now, I'm a bit of a people person, and I just thoroughly was excited at the thought of spending the day with people. Anyway, sorry. So, yes. So what's the purpose behind that question, then? Yeah, so that question, it really digs into what are your passions? So what gives you energy, what brings you joy, what lights you up? And so it's thinking about how you feel when you recognize that you are doing something that gets you really excited, that brings you a lot of joy. So I usually, I talk about, like, think about the whole day. What were your first thoughts when you woke up? What was the weather? How did you feel? What did you decide to wear beyond even, what were you going to do first? Just think about. Try to remember. Try to recall the environment and how you felt in it. When you knew that you were going to get to do something that was going to, like, totally make your day, you were going to crush it. You were going to knock it out of the park. It was going to be awesome. So that could be. It could have been something with your family. It could have been a project you were really excited about that you were going to launch something new. It could have been an activity. It could have been, you know, taking a day off to go hiking, like, whatever it was for you. Think about the things that really bring you a lot of joy and energy in life. That's cool. And make a list. Write them down. Yes. Yes. By the way, these four questions you're asking, you're not just asking yourself, you actually have to write this stuff down. Yeah. Pick up a pen. All right. Don't be so lazy. No, that's great. We often think about these things from a vision board or, you know, perspective, but never from a perspective of what am I doing now? It's always like, how do I envision the perfect day in three years time? So what are my goals? How am I going to get there? So it's kind of nice to think of it, well, what was the thing that I've done recently, or may not be recent, sadly, that made me jump out of bed and be really excited. Okay, that's awesome. Good question. All right, next, what's number three? Number three, what do people often come to you for help with? So what do your mother, father, kids, former co workers, siblings, college roommate? What do they all come to you for? Because they know that you're the person that can help them with XYZ. So this may be you have a lot of people in your life that come to you for relationship advice, or how do I make a new friend? Julian? It could be that you are the go to person who gets tapped to plan all of the bachelorette parties. It could be that you're the person that gets. That people come to when they need, like, a resume review or they've. They've written something and they want your eyes on it because you've got, you know, a gift for words. Whatever this thing is that other people tend to see in you as, hey, Cassandra, can Cassandra can help me with that. Like, that's a superpower of yours. And I think we oftentimes, we're, we all have usually a pretty wide set of skills. Some of them we don't use in our jobs every day at all. Some of us are lucky to be able to use our gifts at work. But sometimes, you know, and my mother comes to mind, actually, in this, in this case, my mother doesn't have a degree in design. She shouldn't go to college. But she is an incredible interior designer. Incredible. You walk into any house she's. She's built up for herself. It looks straight out of a magazine. And people come to my mom, myself included, when they want advice on how to decorate a room, pull together a house, what colors would she recommend? What style? Where should I find furniture? What goes with what? Her eye is incredible. She doesn't have a degree or a certification in it, but that is a superpower of hers. And oftentimes, very oftentimes with women in particular, we feel like if we didn't, if we're not doing it professionally, if it's something we're doing on the side or something that we're not, you know, taught to do, if we don't have the piece of paper saying that I am the XYZ doer, then we don't feel like it's a superpower of ours that we could leverage in our professional lives. So think beyond that. Yeah, that's for one. I'll need your mum's phone number because I need some interior design help. But you raise a really good point here, is that, and I love that you mentioned it, that what you write down as you're doing this exercise, everyone, it may not match what you're doing at work. So I really encourage you, as you do it, is to just forget what it is you do every day. Forget all the stuff you already know with regards to your career, and just take this as if you were a clean slate, you know, what are the things that people come to you for? What do you, what do they ask you about? What opinions do they always consistently want to come with you, come to you for, and write them down. And don't be afraid if they have nothing to do with what you do day to day. Because I think that's the key point of the exercise, is that it may not match, and it likely won't match what you do day in, day out. So I think that's really, really important to recognize here. That's cool. I like these questions getting me thinking. All right, number four, what's the last one? Okay, so number four is actually, you're putting the first three together. So, if you didn't notice, the first question was about values. Second question was about passions, and the third question was about skills. So, in the fourth question, you're putting them all together, and you're. You're asking yourself, what's missing when I'm not in the room? This is actually a question that I got from a former. A former manager of mine who's incredible. And she would ask us, you know what's missing when you're not in the room? That's. That's what only you. It's the some. It's the thing. It's the je ne sais quoi that only you can bring to the table. It's the perspective that only you can bring. It's the energy and experience that only you can bring. It's the passion that only you can bring. So, what's missing when you're not in the room? Me. That's my phenomenal kid. Again, always the people person. So the what's not missing when you're in your room? The amalgamation of your values, skills, and passions. That's your purpose. That's actually the next step. The first step was looking inside, identifying your values, passions, and skills first, just identifying it. The next step is actually putting it all together and creating yourself a really powerful value statement. The first step was looking inside. The second step is looking around. This actually involves interviewing some folks, talking to family members, coworkers, friends, and asking them how they see you, what they think is missing when you're not in the room. This one, you can get some outside. Get some outside input for ACB interview, send them a text message, whatever. No, that's. That's exactly where I was just going to go with that, because there's a lot of impostor syndrome. A lot of the people that we talk with, Cassandra, that come to us for coaching and for support and ideas and so on, there is this whole layer of imposter syndrome that we all feel right, that we just don't feel like we contribute or that we give much or that we have much value, and that if we. And so I imagine there are people listening to this that'll say, oh, when I. If I was to not be in a room, people wouldn't care. Right. And I completely. Exactly. I think that's completely untrue for everyone. I think everyone provides some sort of value. Even if it's like me. I just provide a sense of humor and that's about it. No, I'm kidding. But the key is, if you are finding yourself struggling with these last couple of questions, to Cassandra's point. Exactly right. Go and talk to other people, your closest friends, your family, your teammates, even people that you're not that close with because they may have more of an objective view. They might say, well, I come to you because you provide the greatest troubleshooting support. Don't know you as a person, but I know that you can solve a problem. Right. And that, to you, might be exactly what you needed to hear. So I definitely subscribe to that. Go and talk to other people and see how they go. So. Okay, so now that you've got all these four questions hopefully answered, you're talking about the value statement. Do you want to elaborate on that a little bit? Yeah. So it's putting it out there into the world, what it is. That's. It's putting out there into what's missing when you're not in the room. So when I think about my purpose statement, my value statement, my north Star, there are many different terms for what this is around the world. So mine is that I help people build work, create from a place of joy rather than dread. Like, that's what feels true to me and in both my life and in my work. That's a. That's a tough one, especially when it comes to work, because so many people can be trapped, feel trapped in these roles, right, where they. They feel like they are actually just doing it from a place of dread. They're fearing, in our audience's case, they're fearing the code review. They're fearing people looking at their code and judging them. They're fearing, I guess, the prerequisites or the requirements of the project they're working on changing at the last minute. They're fearing redundancies and layoffs. They're fearing all that. So when they go to work, they're just dreading it. They're hating life. They're putting them in the bare minimum or trying to put in as much as possible and not getting that sort of feedback from work or recognition from work and so on. So I guess the next question for me then, if someone's identified these values and this statement, right, and this north Star, what next? Because if it doesn't match what they're doing now, they're going to be like, oh, crap. Midlife crisis, existential crisis, what do I do? So what comes next? Yeah, so the next two parts, it's the looking back and looking ahead, looking forward so the looking back kind of is looking at those experiences. What about your current situation or your past situations? Have you dreaded what is dragging you down and what will you no longer accept? Decide what your based on your past experience. You know, you need to change. So in order to change, you need to do something differently. So decide what you're going to do differently. Decide what your non negotiables are. I am going to find a job that allows me the freedom to travel without asking permission. I am going to find a job that gives me the freedom to express myself in the fullest potential. I'm going to find a job that enables me to grow my bank account. I am not going to accept a job that pays me a pittance anymore. Like, discover what your non negotiables are like. You are hunting for a new spouse and they are going to be perfect. You're on Tinder, you're on whatever app, and you're clicking the boxes. You're like, do not show me anyone that's not meet these basic criteria. This is what your non negotiables are. Also decide for yourself, like, what's an except, what are acceptable, what's an acceptable situation look like for you and what's ideal. So if you were to wave a magic wand and find the perfect career, what would that look like? What would that feel like? I actually encourage people to write out their dream job description. Like, it could, it could be total fantasy at this point. And that's okay. That's kind of part of the, that's kind of part of the exercise. Where would you be working? What would your role be? What kind of people would you be working with? Who would your manager be? What would the company be? What would the salary be like? Literally everything. What benefits would you get? All of it. Write it all out. Dream job description, magic wand. Anything is possible. What does that look like for you? The next step is looking forward. So remember the values, passions, and skills. There's the Venn diagram, and in the center is your purpose. Okay, so actually plotting out where you feel like you currently are on that Venn diagram, are you heavy on the skills? Are you heavy on the passions and kind of low on the values and the skills? Are you outside the Venn diagram entirely because there is zero connection between your purpose and your profession? That's okay. Plot it out. And if you can plot it out, if you can identify where you currently are on the map, you can start to plot away towards the center, back to where you're trying to get to. And so looking forward, I really see two paths and it's a little complicated because you kind of need both. You're going to do both. You need a path to stay with purpose, unless you plan on handing in your two weeks notice like today, and you need a path to leave with purpose. So what does that look like? Staying in your career with purpose means making meaningful changes in your current, in your current role or in your current company. It means, you know, taking on more community work. If that's something that brings you, brings you joy or something you're passionate about, it's taking on a different, different scope of role. It means taking on a stretch project that in an area you really want to develop skills in. It's moving teams. If the problem is with the team that you're on move teams. If you're going to leave with purpose, I mean, there's going to be like some sort of acceptable timeline for how long it actually takes you to leave. But when you leave with purpose, that means that you are going to get as close to that ideal job, that that job is going to bring you exactly what you're looking for from a purpose standpoint. And you're not going to accept a job that does not bring you closer to that purpose. You're not going to accept a job that does not mean you're non negotiables. You're not going to accept a job that is really just an imitation of the shitty job you're currently sitting in. You're going to do it on purpose. You've done all of this work. You understand who you are, what you bring to the table, what you value and what you're not going to stand for anymore and what you want and that's what you're going to go for. Oh, my gosh. I was just listening to all that going feed me. No, that was awesome. That's amazing. And I hope everyone, as you're listening to this, you're feeling like some energy from this, because I certainly am. And that it's inspiring you to essentially realize that you're in control. I think that's one of the favorite takeaways from this sort of a conversation and these sorts of exercises is that it really puts you in the driver's seat because a lot of us can feel quite helpless, especially now where the market can be quite volatile and everything. There's still plenty of. Still plenty of work out there. There's never going to be a shortage of work. And I think having this as like a tool or something in your tool belt, as like a non negotiable list. I love that tip. Right? Write the non negotiables out as if you were looking for a partner. Right. Because then when you go for interviews and you talk to recruiters and hiring managers and everything like that, you'll know that's not for me. And you'll avoid potentially going for a job that you'll be stuck in for two years and hate it. So, no, no, I love everything that you just said. And so as people are figuring this out and finding on that Venn diagram that, hey, maybe things don't quite match up, the skills and values and everything, and that they do need to find some change. Do you have any tips for people on, I guess, how they can get started? Is it just a matter of, like, say, hey, I love that, first of all? Actually, I think the great tip is set yourself a timeline, right? Because right now may not be the perfect time to do it because there might be other circumstances, especially if you have a family. Right. But do you have any tips for everyone? Start small. It's identify exactly. Identify where you are today and identify one thing that you can do today that will bring you closer to what you want to be doing. That one thing could be updating your LinkedIn profile. It could be join an erg. It could be find a mentee, someone that you can work with. If that's something you're passionate about, is, you know, the people aspect and sharing your. Sharing your knowledge. Or even if you're. You're just getting a mentee because you don't want someone else to experience the same shit that you did, like, that's a great reason to do it. Yeah. It's find one thing. It's find one thing and then see how you feel. Keep taking steps. Keep working towards that. You need to keep taking steps. Otherwise you're going to fall back into that complacency, that safety net of the known crap again. I like that there's a sort of habit building to this as well. Like, even if it's to be practical, it could be set aside an hour a week to work on this, right? It could be. And in that hour, you know, plan in advance. I'm going to do market research. I'm going to do job research. I'm going to see what jobs even match my values. I'm going to interview people. I'm going to talk to people. I'm going to update my LinkedIn. I'm going to network. And I really like that because if you build up the habit, then you're pulling yourself inch by inch, or, sorry, centimeter by centimeter. This is a metric friendly podcast out of the hole. Right? And so, no, I really like that. And this is so everyone listening and watching. If you've been with us for a while, you know that a lot of these steps are very similar to how we coach people when it comes to python. Right? Set aside time every day to code, make sure when it comes to the career, are you actually going down the path that you want? Do you actually want to become a manager, or are you just looking to be a senior developer that people come to because you're the one that happens to know a lot? And so finding that dream sort of goal back to that point, Cassandra, is that visualization of what the perfect role looks like. We have that exact question in our form that people fill out to when they want to chat with us about coaching, because that's what we want to really play on. Because that's motivation. Right. That's motivation for you. More motivation. Julian. I think the one thing that everyone can do, at least after they've answered these four questions, something that I do is I've had a weekly reminder. Every Friday on my phone, I get an alert,

like 10: 37:52

00 a.m. Or noon on Fridays. And it has in the, you know, in the reminder, in the calendar reminder, it has my. My purpose statement right now. So it's literally like, hits me in the face once a week just to remind me, just to remind me of how. How I want to show up in the world, the impact that I want to have, basically, the commitment that I've made to myself to stick with a career and work and output that aligns with my values, my passions, my skills, and not someone else's. But we all need that regular reminder. That's awesome. Yeah. Make it present, make it part of your everyday or once a week, you know, actually put it on a post it note. Whatever you do, put it on a coffee mug. Well, forever. And Cassandra sent me. Cassandra sent me my. My purpose word for 2023 actually was sort of two words. It was hyphenated. It was, like, less annoying. No, I'm kidding. It wasn't that. But no, we ran through an exercise, Cassandra and I, with finding your word for the year. And for those of you listening, that are in pibytes, the PDM program, we did this as well as a byproduct of that. And my word for this year was patience. And that's really influenced a lot of the stuff that I'm doing. Both at work with PI bytes, family, everything that's holistic for me. So thank you for that. So there's another thing. If you want to get cool exercises and things from Cassandra, just go and follow her. We'll discuss that in a minute. But to your point of making it a daily thing, I didn't tell you this. I've got the card that you sent with the word patience on it, and it's now my BookMark. So as I read books, I see it every, you know, every day that I read a physical book. Can't really get it on Kindle. So if you can solve that problem, I hope you know that I hand stamped with these tiny little stamps, each of those letters. I should have chosen a longer word with tricky, tricky spelling. Awesome. Well, is there anything else that you wanted to add, Cassandra, to all of this? Because this has been an amazing conversation, but I don't just want to cut you off. Is there anything you wanted to add? Forever? I mean, to anyone out there who feels like something's wrong and they're ready for a change, you're not alone. There's a lot of people out there who've been there, myself included, and finding a way out of that, it can take time, but I think if you do the work to look inside and what you want, identify what the real problem is, even if you can't change your entire situation immediately, there are steps that you can take to improve it, to make things better, to make yourself feel like you're more of a whole person again. You can be the same person at work and in life. Mm hmm. That's awesome. Great takeaway. I love it. Just a reminder, you know, we've mentioned this before, is just separate the self from the situation. Right. Don't take it personally. Things that might be happening. I've got a chat with a friend tomorrow night who might need to hear those words. So if he's listening to this, just remember, right, situation is not always on you. And if we separate ourselves, we can be just much more content and happier that way. But, yeah, Cassandra. So before we wrap it up, one actually, I'll throw to this before I forget it. Is there anything, anywhere that people can go to find you? We'll have all the links in the show notes, but where are you? Yeah, so I'm primarily on LinkedIn. You can find me LinkedIn. Search Cassandra Babilia. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one in the world. They can also find me on my website, Cassandra babilia.com, and they can find me on Instagram. Cassandra Babilia. Honestly, my name is very long and very hard to spell, so going with a brand, that is my name. It was a bold move. Yeah. I'll make sure I typo the URL in the show notes for everyone. Thanks. One s or two s? No, that's cool. Thanks. I'll make sure everyone gets that. And I'll. I constantly share your stuff out, so I really, really enjoy what you're putting out into the world. Definitely aligns with what we're about here at Piebytes and what I'm about, like, my personal values. So I really appreciate what you do before we go reading. You can read, right? I do read, yes. Okay. What are you reading besides the captions for Cocomelon? Nice. Yeah. Horrible. Yeah. So the last book that I finished was Amy Porterfield's two weeks notice, which comes out on February 21. Nice. It's a book for. It's basically an instruction manual for how to leave your corporate job and start your own business. It's actually a pretty cool book with a lot of great insight about mindset shifts and, like, what actual steps should you take in order to leave your role? I had the chance to interview Amy, and that interview was going to come out on Monday the 20th. So if you want to, if you find me on my stuff there, there's a very, a very bad audio video that's going to get posted to YouTube where you can hear the whole conversation between Amy and I. Her audio is fantastic. Mine was terrible. Now, yours wasn't too bad. The snippets you sent were pretty cool, but that's awesome that you interviewed Amy Porterfield. I did like a little squeal and jumped up and down when you told me that. That was really cool. Really cool. Yeah. Agree. We'll put a link to that in the show notes. I don't know if this will get published before then. Maybe not. But regardless, I'll chuck the link in on this podcast as well when you have that link ready. That's awesome for me. No, I don't put captions on, on Bluey, so I don't read much kids tv shows. I think I'm just reading. What was I reading the other day? Oh, no. I was going to say I'm reading comics. I'm reading. I needed a break from all the mindset, career focused books that I normally read, so I'm reading my Marvel Unlimited subscription. I'm currently reading this series on Kang the Conqueror, getting prepared for the new season of Loki and the MCU. Where Kang is the new. Okay, I'm really getting. Let me block this iron man picture behind me. Everyone seeing my nerdiness. I'm sorry. So that's what I'm reading. I am not familiar with the Kang character, but I will look them up. You can try. Go for it, by all means. And one quick shout out to all of our mutual friends that will likely listen to this. This may be the most civil conversation Cassandra and I have ever had over the many years that we've been friends. So kudos to us, Cassandra. Cheers to that. Good job. Nice. All right, well, everyone, thank you so much for listening. Cassandra, did you have any other parting words or just inspiration for everyone? Before we drop, I always say is just, you got this. Nice. That's perfect. You got this. I like it. Beautiful. All right, everyone, thank you so much for listening, for tuning in on YouTube. Cassandra. Amazing is always inspirational. Definitely one of my most favorite inspirational people on the planet. And I always get so much from our conversations, even if we're just sitting there going, I'm so tired. From the children. From the children. Of course, children. But thank you, everyone. We'll be back next week, who knows with what guest. I have a solo podcast to record. It's all happening. But thank you, as always. We appreciate you and your time, and, yeah, cheers. Take it easy. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Julian. We hope you enjoyed this episode. To hear more from us, go to Pybite, France. That is pibit es friends, and receive a free gift just for being a friend of the show and to join our thriving slack community of python programmers, go to Pibytes community. That's Pybiton es community. We hope to see you there and catch you in the next episode.