Making Space For Meaning and Success

As human beings, it is embedded in us to seek purpose in everything we do. We want to do meaningful work that affects other people or pursue the passion within us.

But many people wonder, is it too much to ask for an opportunity to work on something valuable?

In today's episode, we are joined by Tutti Taygerly, a design leader, an entrepreneur coach, and author of the book “Make Space To Lead: Break patterns to find flow and focus on what matters” 

Tutti's primary focus is to help high-achievers make space for sustainable success, so we dive deep into conversations about making space for the things you want to do and achieve. We delve into how we can create more fulfilling work and build a career that is sustainable, by making space for what matters most to us, and how you can navigate through your current environment to maximize your creativity. 

Join us in this jam-packed episode filled with actionable tips on how to deal with the "Achievement Monster" and what steps you can take to create your space and utilize it the best way possible.

About Tutti

Tutti coaches cofounders and tech leaders to embrace their unique leadership style to achieve professional impact and a sustainable company culture. She focuses on working with women, people of color, and immigrants. Previously she was a design leader at design firms, startups, and large companies including Disney and Facebook. Tutti writes for Harvard Business Review, Business Insider,  and Fast Company and her book Make Space to Lead shows high achievers how to reframe our relationship to work. 

Tutti grew up in seven countries on three continents and is settled in San Francisco as her home base. She spends her time parenting two spirited girls, obsessively reading, and paddling out for the next wave. Find her at tuttitaygerly.com.

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

Leigh Arredondo  00:16

Hello, friends. Welcome to UX cake. I'm excited to introduce you to my guest today, Tutti Taygerly. She is a veteran design leader, and she's also the author of a fantastic book called Make Space to Lead. In this episode, we're delving into how we can create more fulfilling work. And to build a career that's really sustainable by making space for what matters most to us. I want to mention that making space is not the same as making time. This isn't about time management, or prioritization techniques, is really all about having awareness, self awareness and reflection and creating structures in your life. So that you can do that. So that you can do that more often, we are chatting about how we can create more space for creativity, flow and whatever else matters most to us in our personal and professional lives. So if you're looking to make your work and career more meaningful, as many people that I've talked to lately, are, listen on. Tutti Taygerly is a design leader with 22 years of experience building products and design cultures at some of the world's largest organizations, including metta, and Disney and Oracle, and more. And now Tutti is an executive coach, author and speaker. And you can find out more about her at tuttitaygerly.com. And the link is in the show notes. All right, let's get on with the episode. Hello, Tutti. And thank you so much for joining me on UX cake today.

Tutti Taygerly  02:01

Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Yeah.

Leigh Arredondo  02:05

I have been wanting to talk to you actually on the podcast since I think before your book came out, possibly. But for sure when your book did come out. And I was on sabbatical. Not personally, but the podcast was for a couple of years. So I'm really excited that we've had a chance to actually meet and then talk about the podcast. So

Tutti Taygerly  02:30

welcome. Thank you. I'm excited because I'd have fun with this. Let's play.

Leigh Arredondo  02:36

Yeah, you know, it's interesting, the conversation, the topic I thought we would be talking about because the name of your book is making space to lead. After I read your book, I think what my biggest takeaway was, this is about making space, to have a career that is fulfilling and sustainable. For anybody, it's very important for leaders to do this for themselves and for their teams. But I have really been noticing a recent theme with clients. Since your coaching, you may probably hear this from clients as well. But not just clients. I'm hearing this from friends and from former colleagues, people are wanting to do work that feels meaningful to them. And a couple of really interesting questions come up. One, is it possible for them? And too, are they asking for too much? I'm super curious, your thoughts about that. First, have you been hearing this a lot? Not just in coaching? Obviously, you might think people would come to coaching with those sorts of questions. But even outside of that in the general kind of work world.

Tutti Taygerly  04:01

I think we're all very lucky to be in tech. And I think we're very lucky to be in, in the design fields, the greater UX fields in tech, because I would say 100% absolutely possible for us in this field. Even in the downturn, climate right now. absolutely possible. Because it's a field that's growing. It's a field where it's financially lucrative. So it's absolutely possible to find that that purpose and fulfillment. I think it's harder for people in different fields, people in dying fields fields that do not get paid like this, but since this audience is in tech, absolutely. And I think even more so you know, I work I coach with a lot of people all in tech who are later on in their careers. And they're questioning, okay, I've been working at this come Beneath maybe the product seemed really appealing. Maybe it was a consumer product that all my friends use. And then more and more. So when I talk to people later on in their career, they're like, oh, do I? Did I really want to be spending my time doing this, and I hear more and more, oh, maybe I want to do something that's more sustainable, more in green tech, something that feels a little bit more meaningful, valuable, purposeful. I've seen people after 1015 years switch careers to focus on, say, government tech or a health care tech, just different things because of the sense of purpose. And I think it's especially so with things go on a pendulum, I think it's especially so in the political climate and turmoil in the US over the last five plus years.

Leigh Arredondo  05:51

Yeah. And interestingly, I know a lot of people have talked about how the pandemic in some ways has kind of forced many of us to take time, or to have more introspection, I think, actually, I don't know that anybody has any more time? I don't think so. Which is an interesting topic. I want to get to that the whole topic of time. I'd also love to get your thoughts around this, are they asking for too much, because especially in tech, whether you're in UX or product management, or engineering, we tend to rely on high salaries. And sometimes when we start asking ourselves questions about our values, what do we actually value? We don't want to give up that salary. But we're finding that other things are actually possibly more valuable or more important to us time and creativity. And a whole lot of things can be valuable besides money, right? And security, financial security, but I just would love to get your thoughts on someone who says, Am I asking for too much? To have a job that is fulfilling and meaningful and sustainable? As well as getting paid? What I'm quote unquote worth, right? I

Tutti Taygerly  07:24

mean, the easy answer, that is no, you're not asking for too much. You can dream and envision whatever life that you want. And I'm leaving this in the dreaming realm and the realm of possibility in the realm of this is the life that I want to build for myself with all of this, I would never tell anyone that they're asking for too much. But the caveat is, well, what are you willing to do to achieve that, that life that dream, that purpose, and it's these details, this caveat where it gets really interesting? Because so many people are gonna say, Yeah, I want it all, I want this dream job, that's perfect, that's gonna pay me this much money, that's going to give me all of this flexibility that's going to let me have work life balance that is extremely fulfilling, and changes the world in some way. And I think this is where some of the hard trade offs come in, and having a fairly solid understanding of what are your stack ranked priorities for this job? And what are your stack rank values for this job? And I'm not putting any judgment on it. There's periods in our life where money is number one? Sure. Because maybe you're trying to buy a house, maybe you're just having kids, maybe you're supporting your parents, maybe you're sending money home to relatives in a different country? I don't know. And there's no judgment maybe because you just want to be able to retire earlier. It's having that clear understanding of what's the stack rack most important thing and it might be purpose in in in your job. The my last partner worked for an environmental nonprofit. And something that I found really interesting is that he shared with me how Trent, tons of different people who leave college ready to change the world and pour their hearts and soul into a nonprofit. And he said that something happened, there was a group of people who come in like fiery raging, and they work their little hearts out for a couple years. And then they just burn out. And I share this example because as syntek were like, and I worked at Facebook, right there is the oh my gosh, I worked at a social media company, but you work in an environmental nonprofit. You know, your job is so much better than mine. But it's the same thing because he shared these trends for me that like the burnouts, the same. The pouring your whole heart and soul on something is the sandwich leads to burnout. And it didn't matter that it was for an environmental nonprofit. So that was like one use case. And then he said, the people who, well, there was a second kind of more negative thing, which is like their old timers who were there and they just get like really cantankerous. They've, like, I've seen all that before that, that's not going to work. So that was the second people that he told me about. And then the third group is the people who learn to, to pace and sustain the people who learn that you can't get completely judgmental about other people. You can't be like, you guys, don't recycle like that. That is not good. You're gonna go to hell, you're destroying the environment. But it's really finding your own path to what is the balance between what you do, how you act in the world, and how much you give to your job, just the boundaries. Because in our world in tech, I used to joke a very long time ago that like, no babies will die. You make a feature mistake, and no babies will die. In their world. It's like, oh, my gosh, if you didn't put in the extra couple of hours, how much more of the rainforest is gonna burn? Right, right. But it does go back to that you can ask for all of this, but know what your priorities are? Yeah.

Leigh Arredondo  11:14

Which gets at this making space. Because making space is so much more than it's not just making time. It's not about making time. It's time is a construct. Time is a fake construct. Like when you think about it, time is infinite. It's not about this book is not about time management, you know what you're talking about, it's not even prioritization. There's so much about self awareness and reflection, that is required in making space, which we often we get too busy.

Tutti Taygerly  11:58

It's this terrible conundrum, because you're too busy to make space because you've got to like, get your stuff down to the to do list. You got to cook dinner, do all this stuff.

Leigh Arredondo  12:08

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And, in fact, you I think you may have referred to it as the cult of busyness. And you must get a lot of clients, I would imagine as gi who are a little bit addicted to the busyness. In fact, I in your two, you're very honest in your book about it. And I have to say I do I get that way. And I used to be that way very much working at Amazon. A lot of the things you talk about working at Facebook were very similar to me. It was like, Oh, yes, that sounds very close to home.

Tutti Taygerly  12:48

We all do. This is how we're rewarded. This is how our performance review systems i This is how our quarterly OKRs This is the corporate world.

Leigh Arredondo  12:56

Yeah, yeah. And with that, I'd love to know how you approach that with people who want to make space but don't feel maybe allowed to. Yeah, in their day to day work.

Tutti Taygerly  13:13

There's so many places where we can start to play with space. And also, where I start with a lot of people is what's the problem? What's the pain right now? What is it that you want to be? What is it that you want to be different? I think in coaching, we talk a lot about what's an aspirin? And what's a vitamin. We know if we don't take our vitamins, right? If this is kind of this vague idea of like, Oh, I'm kind of busy, I want to make more space, how do I do it? I don't think there's any, there's enough incentive to change. We all know that like, meditation, exercise, eating well, these are all things that are good for us. But it's so hard to do. Because we're so human. I find that change is easiest to me, when it's forced on us. That's the shock to our system, that's gonna say, Hey, you got to break this pattern. This is enough. This is too much. I can't do this anymore. And you were talking earlier about the pandemic. That is the greatest collective pattern break. We've had, like, all right, you can't do anything else. You're sheltering in place, you got to do this stuff. So the first thing I would ask people is, what's the pain? Why? What is it that is requiring you to need more space? Is it a feeling of stuckness in your job? Is it a feeling that maybe this work that I do day to day is not the work that I want to do? Is a feeling that oh man, I do not have a good relationship with my boss. They're blocking me in every way. Is it a feeling that there's no career progression here? Is it a feeling that like, all my energy is going to my job and I don't have enough energy for my puppy or my kids or my spouse or to, you know, play with cooking? So I think these are universal concepts. And I think when you ground them in the specific of what parts of my life what I like to get better than that means you go back to the dream, that means that like, okay, I can envision this part of my life being better, I can envision having a wonderful relationship with my cross functional peer peers. Because what's happening right now is I am up at night anxious, replaying these arguments going, Oh, I should have said this. I should have said that. Like, that's all the mental chatter. I'm talking a lot. So the first part, I think, is to really identify like, what that pain is, because I think that's the trigger to change to motivate someone. And the second part of it, I think, is well, where is space working in your life right now? You know, where are the areas in your life where you can find space, and you can chill and you're like, that feels really good. And there's so many areas, right? Maybe it's exercise, maybe it's outside in nature, taking a walk, maybe it's a connection moment with a spouse or a partner. Maybe it's the 20 minutes you have on your commute, where nobody else talks to you. Maybe it's when you're kind of so immersed in your work and prototyping that, like those hours fly away in the flow time. So it's like, What does space mean to you? Where do you feel the most spacious in your life right now? You know, and it may be none of that happens in the work week, and it only happens in the weekend. Now, what are you let's work on a more integrated life? Because I think every single person, actually I'll ask you this. If you think about yesterday, what was what felt the most spacious for you about yesterday? What like instance, yesterday felt the most spacious?

Leigh Arredondo  17:13

Hmm, that's an interesting question. Did feel spacious? Probably driving my child to the doctor's office and waiting in the car. Reading a book while I waited in the car. Yeah. Like just making it was enforced. Yeah. You know, like you said, sometimes we have to have these things sort of forced on us almost.

Tutti Taygerly  17:43

Okay, but kudos to you, right? You drove your child to the doctor's office and in the car, you didn't get on your email and be like, Okay, who do I answer? What do I need to get to? How do I clear this, you knew that you needed that, and you read a book. And this is how I work with most of my clients understand what the pain is, like, maybe you need more space and like, love to understand more why but like, where is it working right now? There is no one who has zero space in their life. It's not possible. We're human. We inherently crave this even if it's brushing your teeth, right? Sure. And then it's finding out like which parts so those are rejuvenating, energizing all that for you, and then figuring out ways to do more of that. So like, yeah, part of it for you. And it sounds like the reading was a core part of it.

Leigh Arredondo  18:33

Yeah, there's a couple of things that I want to sort of circle back on that you said one, which is motivation. And that's always a very good question to start with someone. How motivated are you? Actually, the other thing, though, that you mentioned, brings to mind structures, structures that we can put into place to enforce space in our lives.

Tutti Taygerly  19:03

Yes, and no, I think structures is the third step. I think the second step like to one is motivation. I think the second step is recognizing that you have the innate resources and strengths and just the innate ability to find space already. So before we get to structures is the identification that you know how to do it. Let's identify and celebrate the places where you're already doing it. And then structures becomes maybe the third step. Let's just amplify, let's just find out what works for you. And then let's do more of it. There's no one way that works for everyone. Yeah. And I think that's why it goes to the context of individual motivation and individual celebrations and acknowledgments of how to space finding work for you right now. And with those two things, then it's figuring out the structures.

Leigh Arredondo  19:56

Yeah, yeah, I think what you're talking about is all So points out how it can be so helpful to do this work with another person, whether that's a coach, or whether that's in a program or with a therapist or just a friend, you know, but it can be so difficult for us to necessarily see our own strengths and, and to celebrate ourselves and to celebrate our achievements. Yep,

Tutti Taygerly  20:24

absolutely. This is not culturally accepted. This is like how many of us when we get our performance review, or like flip, flip, flip, flip, I don't care about everything I do. Well tell me what I need to change. Right? Tell me what I need to fix. It's right. It's yeah,

Leigh Arredondo  20:41

how break up. And we're sort of bias to remembering the negative about ourselves. More so than, you know, could be 15 positive things. But the one thing we remember is the feedback we got from somebody that points out that we're not perfect.

Tutti Taygerly  21:03

Yeah, absolutely. This is our high achieving fast charging, must get better, must do better, must do more. This is our doing indoctrination.

Leigh Arredondo  21:14

Yeah. You have a very interesting character, who shows up early in your book called The achievement monster. And I would love to actually, maybe just to hear from you a little bit about the achievement monster and how that plays into not having space.

Tutti Taygerly  21:39

Yeah, I'm mean, I grew up as a product of a certain culture. I grew up with an Asian tiger mom. So I received love attention care, when I did stuff, when I was good, quiet little girl, when I got good grades, when I did well with my writing, when I did well on my school when I did well in my swimming. So that's a good little learner. That's what I learn. The more I do, the more I achieve, especially compared to everyone else. Gotta be top. Gotta be number one. That's what feeds love. Yeah. And that is something that many high achievers that I coach resonate with, many Asians resonate with having the stereotype of a tiger mom, which is partially as a stereotype, because many times it's true, not universally, and I still have it, it's the flip side, the achievement monster, helps me get success. Yet, there can be really the flip side of wow, it's only going to get you to a certain place. Because without spaciousness without awareness without a deep introspection for why are you doing this, there's a difference between like an extrinsic because its behavior is reinforced to me by my mom and adult figures and a school educational system, versus how much of this is feeling good for me. Because hey, it can feel really good to get to feel like I've written the quality paper or to launch a product that is high quality, how much of it is intrinsic versus how much of it is extrinsic? So I think a lot of it is recognizing the achievement monster, recognizing like the energy of when it's actually in flow and feeling really good to do a good job about something. And when is that like, you know, a driver? I actually have something right here. Oh. It's something that reminds me of my achievement monster because one of my first coaches says a whip

Leigh Arredondo  23:53

for people who are listening and not watching,

Tutti Taygerly  24:00

it's like a cat of nine tails with, which is the question that made it real to me is, why do you continue to sell flagellate yourself? And sometimes, we need that metaphor, we need that like, levity to be like, Oh my God, why am I continuing to whip myself like, does that to really be like, Ah, maybe you got to stop that. Maybe you might want to think about doing something differently. Like you would never whip your best friend or your kids or someone you love. We do this all to ourselves. So I have this by the side of my desk, just to remind me so I can like look over and be like, there it is. Why are you doing that again?

Leigh Arredondo  24:44

Yeah. These parts of ourselves that can be a strength and can also then be self sabotage. Because there isn't anything wrong with achievement in and of itself, right and in fact, we even talked about how it's important to celebrate our achievements. And yet, as you pointed out, that can really go too far. So there's nothing wrong with achievement in and of itself. But you know, as you pointed out, we can take these strengths and turn them against ourselves. Absolutely. And because you are actually quite like you have achieved a lot.

Tutti Taygerly  25:34

I got an innate drive and ambition. And yeah,

Leigh Arredondo  25:37

and wonderful. I mean, now you're in a place where you can celebrate it, and you can feel

Tutti Taygerly  25:46

healthy. Absolutely. Yeah.

Leigh Arredondo  25:49

And still achieve. But that awareness of the achievement monsters is very important.

Tutti Taygerly  25:57

Yeah, I think it's all about the awareness, which is why I use the metaphors when I work with people. It's like, well, what are the phrases? Your achiever monster says, because this is where we make our brains work for us, rather than being up like anxious at 2am, like re reliving the conversation. It's don't stop, try harder, keep on going, you can't quit. These are the phrases like my achievement monster says, So then I start to recognize them. I'm like, Oh, wait, it's that statement again. All right, maybe I got to take a break. And that's why is that of adding like little bits of spaciousness to your life, like a 32nd, breathing, break, or just step outside for a minute, that's at bat, like pings of space that we can all put just to be like, I can't let's just pause for a minute.

Leigh Arredondo  26:49

Yeah, and that actually, excuse me, that actually, kind of brings me to this next, what I want to talk about, in regards to creativity, I know for me, it was really important for me to understand how my brain works, this happened over the last the course of the last couple of years, really understanding that I need breaks in order to stay in flow. And that's just how my brain works. I can tell when it's happening, I can tell when I am in the middle of something, and it's going well, but then anxiety of feeling similar to anxiety comes up for me. And I actually need to go take a break and allow myself to just reset and come back to it. And but for so long. I think I didn't allow that. Because I felt like that was I'm not in flow. If I'm not just constantly, you know, for two hours sitting still, because I was taught that growing up, right? I have trouble sitting still for two hours. A lot of people do, especially

Tutti Taygerly  27:59

most people do. Talking

Leigh Arredondo  28:01

about creativity. Making space for creativity is a constant complaint on many design and research teams, innovation design insights. These are not linear processes, they, you can spend eight hours on something. And yet, it might need to be over multiple days simply. So you have the incubation time. So I would love to get your thoughts at a team level at work. It's one thing to make space for yourself. But when you're working in an environment that's not doesn't seem to be allowing that. I'd love to get your thoughts on how people can approach that situation.

Tutti Taygerly  28:52

So one thing I talk about a lot in terms of service to creativity is two seemingly disparate concepts, which is force and flow and force. That is apps because two F's are easier to remember before it's a structures. It's what are the structures and rituals and things that you can put in your life, to enable creativity to flow. And I believe that you need both of this. There are flip sides of each other similar as we talked about our strengths and the dark sides of our strengths, I think for simpler are both needed. And the good thing is that force these structures are what a team can do together. We're innately human creatures, we can like ping pong and work off each other for this. Something I talk about in my book and something which I do still is really having this concept of focus block. So a I'll say two to three hour period of time, that is blocked out free from meetings, to have that gestation space, that white space. So that creativity can flourish. And I think there's ways where this can go wrong, where you can be like, oh, I need to do this, I need to finish this, I'm just gonna like put it off until that focus blog. And when you start that focus block, you're like, oh, I don't want to do this, I don't feel like doing this. Now. Now what? So there's the ability to put the structure in. But I think then there's the also the second part of it, which is the ability to stay deeply present. To know that even though it is your focus, block time, similar to what you said, it doesn't feel right, I've been sitting for two hours, no, it's not there. And part of it, I think, is giving yourself little rituals to reset to get in that state of mind, maybe it is, I don't know, doing 10 squats to get back into your body. And to remind yourself that like, you can shift you can reset, maybe it's making a cup of tea. A lot of times, if it's dark, and gray in San Francisco, when I start my workday, I almost always light a candle, if I'm gonna write, it's just like a little bit of a ritual and a reset. And these are all forces and structures that you can help yourself do. And talking about a team. I know at Facebook, when we started doing focus blocks, it's awfully hard. Because you're trying to schedule you're trying to schedule meetings, you're trying to schedule meetings with people from different time zones. So I think what really works is to do this together as a team, to as a team acknowledge that, hey, everyone in this team, not just design with end with product harder for product managers, but everyone within this team needs this. Work time, this focus blocks time, let's try as a team to run an experiment, to do this together for two weeks for a month, and see if we can make this work. It's really hard to take vacations, because you feel like you're missing out and all this stuff is happening. And the day that you come back, like you're going to be inundated with so many emails. But it's different if the whole company is dark for, say Veterans Day, that just happened, because we're all off. So that's the benefit of using the power of the team to give focus blocks for creativity. So that's one, shall I do you will have another question, or shall I move to another thing that might help? Oh, let's

Leigh Arredondo  32:14

hear another thing.

Tutti Taygerly  32:16

So the second thing, which I think is even better is like focus blocks, or like you alone, doing your flow time, your creative time. I think it's really important for a team to have rituals to do silly, frivolous things together. And part of creativity is when it's not so serious. Yeah, right. There is the creativity of oh my god, we better get to that really good concept because we got to present it. I know shit, how are we going to do that? So I think there's value in having weekly team rituals, where you do silly things, you know, whether you play, you play an improv game together, whether you play I don't know, you do sketch games together, you sketching games together, where you're saying, where you just vibe off each other's creativity, because you can do silly things with a group, you're more likely to do silly things with a safe within a safe space, welcoming, comforting group. Sometimes it's really hard to do it alone. Like who's gonna sit there alone and have a dance party? Like, yeah, I know some people who do that. But if you put the music on, and if you know, you're all doing it, and if some people want to turn their video off, cool. I think there's a magic and creative energy in a tea room that laughs together and plays together that makes everything else easier.

Leigh Arredondo  33:44

I think that is probably just one of the best pieces of advice that I've heard for teams in a long time. It there's a lot of talk about teams not gelling, because everything is remote and distributed. And sometimes teams aren't even the rarely in the same timezone. You know, where they can even work simultaneously. But I think bringing a sense of levity and silliness and fun. It's so overlooked.

Tutti Taygerly  34:23

Yeah, yeah. And it's human. We want that. That is the being that's the emotion that you leave a meeting with. Because you can go to a meeting, you can have the agenda, you can get everything done, and when you leave, everyone's like, glad that was over. Right. As opposed to a meeting when you remember the laughter You remember, like the stupid joke someone told at the beginning that we're so eyeroll EBIT? Like that's, that's what stays with you. Yeah.

Leigh Arredondo  34:49

I would like to talk a little bit about surfing because it's a big theme. Yes, for you in life in general. And it works. So supremely Well, with this subject of when you talk about finding flow. So, yeah, let's talk about surfing and the role that it plays in this book and your life.

Tutti Taygerly  35:15

So I spent decades as a driven, controlling command and control leader with like my armor on needing to be a certain way. Some of it came from my upbringing. Some of it came from certain tech cultures, some of it came from, like the atmosphere of competitive design studios. And throughout all that time, there was one thing in my life that felt frivolous and completely unnecessary. And it was surfing, I spent so much time on it, because I loved being in the ocean. And it was also the one thing where no matter how much time I spent on it, you feel it didn't feel like I was getting any better. But I didn't care. Because I was out in the water magic power of nature, the magic of learning to surf with a bunch of women, which were called what wahine high in Huntington Beach in Orange County. And so there was no potential unconscious bias of being with men. It was like a single gender very supportive, very loving group, where there was so much levity and laughter and foolishness and just simply being present in the sunshine in the water in nature, surrounded by birds and seals and dolphins occasionally, that it was simply magical and healing really got you present, because it's sear in the ocean. So you do have to be pretty present. It's not something mindless, like jumping on the elliptical machine, you got to pay attention. So there's a there's a variety of it. It's been an important part of my life, it was the first thing I think that was really a touchstone of, oh, I have something in my life that doesn't feel like I need to achieve. You know, of course, I would have these dreams. Got that achievement monster, I'd be like, do you think I could become a pro surfer in my 30s? I was like, Oh, my gosh, that is so ridiculous. Why must I put achievement into everything. And then just the ability to laugh about it and be like, Oh, my gosh, I'm so bad. And it's okay.

Leigh Arredondo  37:30

I mean, the parallels between what it takes to ride a wave, and finding flow for ourselves, making that space to find the flow works incredibly well. Plus, it's quite a beautiful cover for your book.

Tutti Taygerly  37:50

Being here. It goes back to what I talked about, which is forcing flow. I use the app, acronym surf, s, u r f, to remind people about what to do the SS Stop, just stop for a minute and see like, is this the pattern that you want to continue? You as understand? Take a minute to be like, what what's happening here? Is it the achievement monster? Are you getting triggered? Are you hungry? Are you getting really hangry just understand are is because I'm a bit of a rebel and AR is a re just redo it, rethink it, reevaluate it, pick your own Re. And then the F is what I talked about earlier, which is a force in flow. Where are you right now? Are you more in flow? And do you maybe need a little bit more force to your example earlier? I'm in flow, but I mean, I need to stop for a minute, take a break? Or are you completely enforced structure, I got to do like the 10th design iteration and keep on going and going. And I'm just weren't seeing myself to do it so much. So then you need a little more flow. And what I love is that surfing needs both. There is a rigor that you need in having to paddle and having to like build up your lats and your muscles to just paddle because without that strength, there's currency, you always have to stay in place so that you're right at the right place in the wave. So you do need to put in the time do you do need to put in the diligence of getting out and doing this regularly because you lose the paddle strength. But then there's also the flow because you look at the horizon, and there's sets of waves coming in. And the sets are all different because there's different currents and winds coming in. So there is a flow just looking and be like, is it that one? Is it that one? No. Let's go on this one. And then there's the unbelievable flying magical flow of being up and riding on a wave for like precious seconds or you're just looking down the line, you know, like what's my next move? What's my next move? What's the wave going to do? How do I stay on the edge of the wave and hit the lip? How do I do something else? And I get that flow in snowboarding as well because you're carving or in skateboarding. But it's completely different with The dynamism of the water changing, and you never know what's going to happen. Yeah.

Leigh Arredondo  40:07

I just am picturing surf retreat for women in leadership. That would be like the perfect.

Tutti Taygerly  40:16

Oh, it's gonna happen. I'm planning my next retreat, it's going to be October 2023 in Hawaii, and there's gonna be a surfing component of it. No, it's It's a metaphor. It's getting into your body. It's trying something different. And it's getting the feel good about it. And like the force, like the, the attempts of it.

Leigh Arredondo  40:36

Yeah. Oh, sounds wonderful. What else do you have going on, that you want to share with our audience?

Tutti Taygerly  40:48

Well, my biggest passion project right now is I'm working on my second book. Yeah, approaching it completely differently. Because, you know, I like experiments. I like doing things differently. So it's a research based book, even though there's some memoir, things as well. And the title is hardworking rebels, how to lead and succeed as Asian women. So what I've been doing is I've interviewed I think I'm about 55. Now, professional, Asian women in tech and outside of tech with like doctors and lawyers and financiers, and all of that. And what the book is doing is really pulling into our lineage. No similar to me talking about having a tiger mom, because I'm Thai, Chinese. There are ways that we exist in the world, because this is how our parents have been. This is how our grandparents have been, these are ingrained traits passed down through epigenetics at the molecular or surrounding molecular level, that are a part of who we are. And mostly I work I support women, people of color, and immigrants. So there is also the additional trait of HA, you're an immigrant or your family was an immigrant. So you have this foot in both worlds. And what I love about this book is that, you know, there is a trait of Asian Americans that's valued in our culture, with my tiger mom with being hard working, put in the time put in the grit, a lot of successful people have, this is the undertones of the achievement monster. But yet, it's an Asian American story. So there is the sense of immigration, whether you did this as first generation or whether it was something your parents did, or your grandparents did. And there is a sense of being a rebel, having this foot in an old world and a new world. And what the book does is it provides coaching guidance, a blueprint for Asian American women in the corporate world, who are not rising as much there is lots of Asian American representation in tech, but not at the highest levels. Because there's a ceiling, there's a ceiling, there's a glass ceiling, and there's a bamboo ceiling. And when both of those together, and it's both for Asian Americans was as well as black women. That's the worst. The book provides stories, inspiration, and lessons and tactics and experiments to try to be able to break through this. And that's my current passion project. That's, I'm spending all my time researching and writing and doing.

Leigh Arredondo  43:20

Yeah. Oh, I can't wait. Me too. Yeah, but it's equally fun and a lot of work, I'm sure.

Tutti Taygerly  43:31

Yeah, for sure. And that's where I do have to, like, be super mindful of my energy. When is the writing flowing and when I'm forcing it. And one thing that's really good is that book writing has a whole creative part. But it also has a very structured part, which is like similar to information architecture. What do you want to share? When How do you do this, then what's the continuity of a storyline throughout? So I love that. I feel that book writing is similar to design.

Leigh Arredondo  44:00

Nice. Well, this has been a wonderful conversation. You are incredibly inspirational. And I would love to have more conversations with you. And thank you so much for your time, and for sharing so much of your insight with us.

Tutti Taygerly  44:18

Thank you so much. This was a ton of fun.

Leigh Arredondo  44:20

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