You are techY podcast

Ellen (00:00):

You are listening to the You are techY podcast, episode number 164.

Voiceover (00:10):

Welcome to the, You are techY podcast where it’s all about growing in your techy-ness. So you can find the tech job of your dreams. And now your host technology learning coach Ellen Twomey.

Ellen (00:27):

Hey moms, are you trying to break into tech? Are you wondering what skills you really need to get hired and how those skills can be worth $45 an hour? Not that $25 an hour you thought when you first started thinking about going back to work? If so, then the You are techY membership is for you. Our combination of courses, coaching and community, come with a mentor support. You need to keep moving forward into your tech career. It’s like no other membership available. We have the exact skills employers are looking for. You learn how to maximize your income with portfolio ready skills that hiring managers are seeking, not to mention the steps you can skip. So you don’t find yourself down that endless tech learning rabbit hole. Join me as we walk you step-by-step through the getting hired process in tech. Sign up at youaretechy.com. That’s Y O U A R E T E C H Y.com. I can’t wait to see you in our membership.

Ellen (01:15):

Welcome to the show. Today we’re talking about how to stop yelling at your husband that is reflecting the title of the show. Stop yelling at Your Husband. So I assume that because you’re listening to this, maybe you’re someone who’s yelled at their husband before, but this is going to go a little bit deeper. I know I certainly am one of those people. Okay, so I have made a commitment to stop yelling and I’ve only broken it like a couple of times. And so that process, like that was a true deep process for me. I was definitely a yeller. You know, I come from a court, there’s no excuse really, but the, you know, my background and coming from sports, coming from the home environment, those are things that were kind of just normal and natural.

Ellen (02:12):

And what I found is it really was painful, especially to Kevin and to my oldest daughter. Like to me, that wasn’t really that big of a deal. If somebody yells at me, I was kind of used to it. So I had to work through that process. All that to say I’ve come to learn a lot when I think about what I used to yell about and why I used to yell and I feel like it’s really relevant information, maybe the most helpful information I can share with you. So I wanna be, you know, that’s a pretty raw thing to share with you. Obviously no one, I can’t stand here and say I’m proud of that behavior. It’s definitely behavior that looking back has been detrimental. So it hurts. It’s really hard. But I wanna go there because you are likely not as big of a yeller as me.

Ellen (03:05):

Like I, I’ll be, I’d be surprised, <laugh>, you know, if there was any of you out there, maybe a few, but most of you probably yell less than me. But when you feel the inclination to yell, I wanna just go there and teach you what that says about you. Okay? And it doesn’t say that you’re a horrible person. It doesn’t say that you’re an awful mom. It doesn’t say that you don’t love your husband. None of those are true. But what it doesn’t say is that there is a pain in your life that you need to address. If your brain just went to, yeah, his name is whatever your husband’s name is, and he needs to change <laugh>, I feel you. But that’s not what I mean. What that means is that there’s something in your life that you are very frustrated about. That is the learning that you need.

Ellen (03:58):

It is the gift in your life. So I wanna give you a really great example. And it’s not mind blowing or difficult or different. So many of you are learning tech, you’re at home, you’re, you know, you’re self-paced. You’re doing it on your own unless you like cut off your life and go to a bootcamp, which I get why a lot of people do that. It’s like, I can’t get out of this fog that I’m in, so I’m gonna do that. But many, for many of us, that’s just like impossible. It’s, well, if my kids need to get to school, that gun doesn’t work for me. And maybe there are ways around that. Maybe you have the help that you need, that’s great. But for many of us, that’s tricky. So I wanna give you an example. So the chummy have had some illness in our household and it’s just been kind of tricky.

Ellen (04:37):

And so I just got off the, all the kids off to school. And honestly, I don’t do that most days. Most of the days Kevin is helping me. Only when he travels, he does it a lot. You know, the fact that I got, and I only had to get four, cuz one is still sick, but only four. So I got all the kids off and then I come into the house and the dishwasher is not unloaded. And you know what? Of course it’s not unloaded. We are sick. Kevin is sick. We are not feeling well. We are behind. It’s not happened, okay? But it does harken back to this time where I’m like, I’ve had to make that choice. Like do I unload the dishwasher or do I get straight to work and I’m really angry that I have to get to work or that I have to do the dishes.

Ellen (05:17):

Whatever the choices that I made, I’m really angry about it. But why am I angry? So angry? I’m gonna yell and maybe I’m gonna yell then, or maybe I’m gonna get later, but it doesn’t really matter. But I think that the dishwasher and dishes are a great example because some of you tell me, you’re like, I just can’t stand to have the house dirty or not updated or not clean, right? Not kept up. And I say to you, guess what? When you’re doing something hard in your life and you’re transitioning, you’re thinking that your house is gonna look perfect, every day is not going to happen. And it would also submit to you that many of your husbands are not going to step in and do the work until it seemed a little out of control. And so that is the work that you have to do.

Ellen (05:52):

So, yeah, I mean, I wrote a blog on this a long time ago too, and it’s like, keep your playroom messy. And I mean, it’s really funny you guys, because my parents, I think my mom read it and they would always joke in high school that my room was a mess. I think compared to my kids, my room is not that bad. But the point is so fine, I’m not your example for clean. But my point is that thinking you can keep everything neat and orderly and perfect and that everything is going to, as you’re transitioning into tech, which is super hard. Like I don’t think people give it. It’s like, oh, I’ll just try it. No, you can’t try it. It has to be a decision. And you’re just changing your life. It’s not just a new job, it’s a totally different transition. So whether you have, you were in tech a long time ago or you were in sort of tech, but you’re trying to level up into that six figure range, it’s a huge, huge transition.

Ellen (06:43):

Even if you’re just trying to break in and then level up, that six figure trajectory is hard. You’re gonna have to work like a six figure earner before you make that amount. You have to prove that you are that person before. Okay? What does this have to do with yelling at your husband? The point is that if you feel like you have to yell at your husband because he maybe didn’t do the dishes or maybe didn’t pitch in, I want you to just take a minute. You are going to have to allow more pain on his side than you experience. Because if you are the person who’s been doing it now, if your husband already does the dishes, just substitute whatever you do, okay? Whatever the thing is, he’s gonna have to physically see how behind you are or how hard it is. And you have to not judge yourself and not call yourself a failure and not think that you’re a failure because you’re spending time on the priority, which is getting your work done.

Ellen (07:36):

So when people say to me, I only have, I mean, I do say try to start off for 25 minutes, but I only have 25 minutes. I doubt it. I bet you can find an hour. I bet you can find two every night until you break into tech. It’s worth it. It’s an investment of your time. But other things are gonna fall by the wayside. So when they do accept it and it’s not his fault, and don’t yell at him. And that’s a gift. That’s a gift to think that what you would have been frustrated with him before. It’s really just that you are making a decision. And that’s going to feel like a struggle. It’s going to feel like a struggle because you have this one identity that a good mom does, X, Y, Z, a good wife does X, Y, Z because you’re whatever you’re already doing.

Ellen (08:21):

Maybe you have to give up reading leisure books. Maybe you have to give up watching tv. Maybe you have to reduce your workout time, I hope. Or it is that you think you need, maybe you have to reduce your shower time. Gross. But I mean, you know, I don’t take quick showers, <laugh>, so, so maybe you can reduce that. Maybe you wash your hair every other day. Some of you’re like, that’s what I do anyway, Ellen, that’s how you maintain good hair. I don’t know how to do it. Kate takes care of my hair, she helps me out. So really when you want to yell, here’s what I recommend. There’s nothing easy about this, but I do feel like it is the most important thing that you can understand this concept. So I’m kind of, I’m kind of obsessing over the obstacle as the way by Marcus Aurelius, that concept right now.

Ellen (09:08):

So you’re probably gonna hear me say that again and again. But this obstacle, this frustration, this pain, this I wanna yell is the way, it is the solution. So don’t avoid it, just stop. If he’s physically there, step away. Just say, need a minute, take a few deep breaths and then feel the frustration. Now ask yourself this question. Why am I really mad? Why am I really frustrated? What am I actually frustrated about? Is it the dishes? Because they can be done at 6:00 AM or 9:00 AM or 5:00 PM and you can still be a good mom. It’s not the end of the world.

Ellen (09:51):

But this learning, this frustration is, and this is why transitioning into tech and doing something so, or any big transition, call it, call it changing careers, call it starting a company, whatever your big transition is, you are going to have to grow as a person. And that literally means feeling uncomfortable, usually frustrated, usually sometimes angry. And if you can learn that emotion is a gift free, that is a gift. That obstacle is the way to growth. Where you have to learn, I am going to choose to go do my work and allow the dishes to not be done. I’m going to choose to do my work. And here in lies a little bit of my challenge that I’ve been having in this kind of remote workforce thing. So when I started Euro techy, I, I assumed that everybody would want remote work. And they did not.

Ellen (10:58):

They did not. Most of my, it was like 50 50. Half my students did, half my students didn’t. And it was funny for me because I always wanted remote work. Oh, I just wanted remote work. And most of that is because of efficiency. <laugh>, I knew that I could, I knew how efficient I could be and how I could, you know, my kids had naps and I could get work done then. And I just knew my routine. And I knew that if I was just allowed to do my routine, I could get an amazing amount of work done. And I can, it’s true. But after C O V and then everyone being home, and then I was home for all these years, I, it actually sent me into a depression. So I suffered postpartum depression after Gwen, and it was so painful. And I was like, what is the problem?

Ellen (11:39):

And it’s a little funny and annoying. So talk about my husband, he knew, he’s like, you need to talk to more people. You are an extrovert. I mean, it was like groundbreaking, right? But I didn’t wanna work from home anymore. I did not wanna work from home anymore. And some of you’re like, what does this have to do with anything? So now I work at a co-working space and even if I didn’t, I just get out a lot more and talk to a lot more people and it works better for me. I don’t think that being an introvert or an extrovert is absolutely the thing that you need to work from home or work in an office. I understand the complexities that are involved. Like it’s so much harder to get out the door to go to an office, like to get myself ready and then to get the kids ready, mostly Gwen.

Ellen (12:20):

Cuz the other kids get themselves ready, right? Like getting her ready and packing her lunch and all. That’s super hard to get out the door. I know that. But in some ways it’s easier to be in a space where everyone is working and everyone is focused on the same thing. And I don’t have to ignore the dishes cuz I couldn’t do them even physically if I wanted to. So I do wanna submit in this like everybody wants to work from home type of environment. Now I feel like all my students are like, oh, I wanna work from home or work from home. I want you to consider that when you go into the office, these, and those are people who go into an office every day. We’re like, Hey, don’t worry about the dishes. They’re done in the morning or they’re done in the evening.

Ellen (12:56):

I don’t ever think about it. But those of you who wanna work remotely, you have to identify that you have to overcome a lot of household noise in order to focus on your work. And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t do it, but I do think that if you just ignore that and try to pretend like that isn’t something that you have to overcome, that is going to be hard. So yes, it’s hard to get out the door and it’s hard to stay focused when you are at home. So consider that. Spend a few minutes, 10, 20 minutes journaling the hard that you are willing to accept. And maybe you are one of those people who, it would just be better if you were in an office and you weren’t even thinking about the dishes. And a lot of times I know that many of you don’t wanna go into an office because you wanna be able to pick your kids up from school, come back, take a call, not worry about it.

Ellen (13:48):

But I would submit that you are going to have that conversation with your employer regardless. So maybe your employers fine with that, maybe they’re fine with you working 30 hours, maybe they’re fine with you working 30 during the workday and 10 at night, or the setup ends. So you are going to get to know these people that you work with. I know they feel like strangers now, but you’re going to want to build that relationship with them. And the way that you do that is look at your frustrations again with the dishwasher. Look at what you are really fearful of, right? So when you’re fearful of the dishwasher not being done and you’re yelling at your husband because he didn’t help you with it, what are you really fearful of? It could be that you’re not a good mom. It could be that you’ll never have enough time to do what you need to do.

Ellen (14:38):

Whatever it is, dig into that because that is the answer and you probably never will have enough time to do everything you wanna do. So what you need to learn are priorities. What are the priorities that you can accept in your life? And what can you let go of even temporarily, maybe you say to him, Hey, for these three months I’d like you to do the dishes. And then after three months, let’s revisit and see how far I, let’s see how close I am to getting hired and we’ll revisit. It’s gonna be really hard for you. It’s gonna be really hard for me. And let’s just see where we are. Let’s try to do this really hard thing together. And then guess what? He probably won’t get it done every day because we’re human and no one is perfect. So then forgive him and forgive yourself and use that frustration and anger to dive in to yourself and get your growth instead of yelling. So stop yelling up your husband and I’ll stop yelling at mine. Let’s do it together, my friends. Thank you so much for being here. I’ll see you next time.

Ellen (15:37):

Hey if you enjoyed listening to this podcast you have to sign up for the You are techY email list. Imagine being in the tech job of your dreams. Join me to get the strategies training and never ending support to get hired. Sign up at youaretechy.com. That’s Y O U A R E T E C H Y.com. I’ll see you next time.