The Confusion of Knowing Thyself

I'm in a career counseling class right now, which is a fascinating meta-experience being in the middle of a career transition. 

In many ways, midlife brings clarity I did not possess in my early career. I know the kind of people I like to work with: interested in the group's good over personal agendas, do what they say they will, introspective and invested in personal growth. I know the environment I like to work in: independent work with some team collaboration and plenty of chances to get outside and move. I know that I really don't like commuting more than a 2-3 mile bike ride and that I plan to stay in Utah. 

Yet the wide experiences of midlife also muddy the waters. I know now that there are many careers and jobs in which my skills can be used well and I can find fulfillment. My list of specific skills has expanded into a large set of transferrable skills that I can use in many settings (prioritizing, clarifying ambiguous needs, perseverance). 

All of this introspection and self-inspection is an odd experience in middle age. It feels profound and, at the same time, trite and obvious. It feels clarifying and confusing. I think it's because I know myself better, and I have seen enough to realize there are a million ways to use my skills and passions that are fulfilling to me and bring light to the world. I guess I just need to get comfortable in the ambiguity. The irony is, of course, that most of my life and career is about creating clarity in complex, ambiguous problems! My superpower is in conflict with the very thing I need to reconcile with.

And the circle continues...

Goodbyes are Odd

It was a strange thing saying goodbye to Qualtrics. I was thinking about it, and 10 1/2 years is longer than I've been a part of almost any organization; only my time at CenterPoint Church outlives my tenure at Qualtrics. 

I was lucky enough to get a sweet, simple goodbye party, and one of my former teams dropped by to say our farewells. As we posted for a photo, one of them pointed out, "You hired all of us!" And, by goodness, they were right! It was a stunning experience. 

I didn't set out to spend a decade at a single employer, but we were good for each other for a long time, and it just worked out. In an industry where it is normal to change employers every 2-3 years, there's a strange and solemn privilege for this one relationship to work out for so long. You learn different lessons than the ones you learn from job hopping. One path isn't necessarily better than the other, they're just different. Staying at one organization, you learn:

• That your internal reputation counts for a lot in the long run. Yes, your fortunes may rise and fall with the organization's whims, and the company may chase after shiny new people. Yet you also get the chance to prove your character over the long haul.
• To create internal opportunities to move adjacent and diagonal in ways that seem exciting.
• That karma usually does win out in the end.
• To dig deep and weather the storms (and maybe even steer the org through them) rather than moving to an easier set of problems somewhere else. 

After spending so long in one organization, it's an odd thing to release both the triumphs and the heartaches after I've spent so long holding tight to both. Odd. Good. I'm grateful for what has been and I'm also ok with letting it go. 

Two Months Post-Employment

It's been just shy of two months since I said goodbye to the corporate world and stopped working full-time. Lots of people ask me how it's going and how I'm adjusting, and those are hard questions to answer. The last two months have been chock full of adjustments - I stopped working full-time, Steve started working full-time, the kids were off school for the holidays, the kids went back to school, I finished the semester and started a new one, I started working at my clinical mental health practicum site. Oh, and Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's were all mixed in there as well. There's been little stability to adjust to - but the reality is that's the way of life, there is no such thing as a "normal" season. 

I don't feel like I've hit a "new normal," but I have discovered a few things in the last two months. Here's my list so far:

I am pleased with how I choose to spend my days. I go outside, I do yoga, I walk the dogs. I do homework and meet up meet up with friends. I ski. I go to practicum and learn to be a competent and attuning counselor. I work on Creating a Family and our Mexico service trip trip plans. Sometimes I just sit and knit or journal. I believe that "How we spend your days is how we spend our lives" (Annie Dillard), and I am pleased when I look at how I am spending my days.

I'm a little surprised at how much I crave quiet, alone time. When I have more control over my schedule, I tend towards large periods of being quiet and solo. It's interesting because that's so very different from my days over the last 5 or 8 years, with meetings pretty much all day every day. My natural tendencies build in much more solitude.

I don't miss my old rhythms. There's a ton that I'm grateful for, and I can feel nostalgia for the especially sweet moments of my tech career, but I don't crave it. This is a good place to be, and I want to invest the time and attention into this season and these new rhythms.

Three cheers for the revelations and learning that a new season brings!

Australian Adventures

Last month I visited Sydney, Australia on assignment for Qualtrics. I will state the obvious here - visiting an entirely new, stunningly beautiful, and very expensive continent for work is simply fantastic.

Here's the view from the Qualtrics Sydney Office. I kid you not - that's the office view. 

I decided I needed to do something special on my first evening in Australia to keep myself awake and try and get on local time, so I went big with Bridge Climb Sydney. See that bridge in the upper left-hand corner of the photo above? Well, you can pay (a lot of) money to put on a very fancy jumpsuit, and climb up the arch! It's an amazing experience and definitely kept me awake!

Sydney at night from the top of the bridge.

Morning reading at the harbor

Of course, I was there to work, and work I did!I came to Australia to help out with the X4 conference in Sydney. We do 3 conferences worldwide - the main conference in Salt Lake (my reminiscences here), and then one in London and one in Sydney. I helped with setup, client relationships, and presentations including representing the iQ product line that I manage.

Reppin' the iQ

And I made time to check many Australia must dos off of the list, including:

• The obligatory koala photo
• Eating kangaroo
• Touring the Opera House
• Checking out the beaches
• And getting everything on my kids' souvenir list (namely licorice and a boomerang)

Australia was fantastic - the weather was perfect, the people were so friendly, public transportation was easy to navigate. I was particularly proud of completing 10 days of corporate travel with only a carry-on bag (wahoo!).

My favorite thing about Australia, however, was their deep and public love for breakfast as a nation. It's even generally referred to as "brekkie" - how great is that?!? I have a soft spot for any culture that has a pet name for the greatest meal of the day.

Sunset reflected off of the Opera House

Heading to the beach for brunch

Stand-up paddleboarding in Manly Harbor

Meat Pie at an Australian Rules Football game

The cricket/AFL pitch (distinctly quiddich-like if you ask me)

Church at Hillsong

The Bondi to Coogee walk

My trip was not without its cultural missteps. For example, in Australia apparently "black tea" means tea without sugar or cream (like black coffee) rather than the kind of tea.

Also, there were no paper towels in any public restroom that I saw. I get it, they're wasteful, but I still prefer paper towels to those scary loud hand dryers.

But, never you fear, I persevered through these hurdles. And, yes, folks from Sydney really do love their Opera House, say "no worries" a lot, and live in a simply wonderful city. I'll gladly go back any time I can do so on somebody else's dime!

Qualtrics X4 Summit 2018

I did it! I survived the Qualtrics X4 Summit 2018! And I think I'm almost recovered...

It's such a joy to be a part of a company that puts on such an astonishing, inspiring event. And such an honor to get to show off our products to 7,000 of our customers and prospects - and in the process also get to hear from Ariana Huffington, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Angela Duckworth, Tony Hawk, and so many more deep thinkers with amazing stories. It was a heck of a week up in Salt Lake City.

I know you've been wondering how big a stage and room has to be to host 7,000 people. The answer is - really big. Here's a photo of me practicing our session from only halfway back - the room was twice this deep! And the screen was simply dazzling.

Cramming in the green room the night before our mainstage presentations

It was such a joy to get to present our products to so many clients and prospects!

Qualtrics Text Analysis, my pride and joy

This year I purposed to attend all of the mainstage presentations and it was an amazing experience. Usually I'm so busy and exhausted prepping sessions that I don't get to enjoy the luminaries we bring in to learn from. This year I said - no way! Here's me and several of my close coworkers enjoying the mainstage.

And we never miss the Qualtrics concert! This year it was... Maroon 5! So fun, so entertaining, and we had such great seats. An excellent payoff for a very full week's work.

But wait, there's more! The capstone to every X4 Summit is ski day and this year's was the most amazing ever. Through some polite and persistent asking, I was able to be one of the Qualtrics ski buddies for our Future of Experience Management crew which meant...

...I got to ski all day with Jonny Moseley!!!!

Now... if you don't know who Jonny Moseley is, shame on you. We need to hang out and ski together more. Jonny is the 1998 gold medalist in Olympic Moguls and he is amazing. We skied bumps. all. day.

I'm still sore.

The faithful few who made it to the end of our amazing ski day!

We couldn't bear to break for lunch, so we had a picnic on the snow!

Check out this class act - even replying to my thank-you tweet!

It was an amazing, exhausting, fantastic, crazy week. I'm so proud of Qualtrics and the experiences we were able to give our customers - it really is an all-in effort for the whole company to pull off a conference this amazing. When the going gets tough, we show just what we're made of.

I would have gotten into sports much earlier if I had known there was unlimited ice cream...

Saturday we had the distinct pleasure of attending a Utah Jazz game... from the fifth row... with a courtside box... and unlimited ice cream. I think we all would have gotten into sports a lot earlier if we had known it could be like this!

My company, Qualtrics, purchased the patch space on the Utah Jazz jersey this year to advertise 5 for the Fight, our cancer research charity. It's a super cool charity, and Qualtrics has pledged $50 million to cancer research. It's a lot to celebrate.

Anyway, as a part of our Jazz sponsorship, we also have a supercool courtside suite and this weekend the Morningstar Family got the chance to enjoy it!

Now, I know that you're thinking that you didn't realize we were such big sportsball fans. I'll admit that our knowledge of basketball up until Saturday morning was... cursory at best (i.e. the ball is orangeish and you get 2 or 3 points per basket).

But we were committed to making the most of this basketball experience, so much so that we found a basketball rules primer on YouTube and watched it until we could recite it from memory. Also, we watched Space Jam Saturday afternoon in preparation. The movie was, candidly, less helpful than I had hoped but it had its entertaining moments.

Anyway, the game was a huge success. We ate plate after plate of free food and drank as much soda and beer as we could, in good conscience, consume (it was all pre-paid, so we figured we had a moral obligation to make the most of the company's investment). We also discovered in the second quarter that there was unlimited ice cream so, yeah, we tried every kind. Multiple times.

And the game was really fun! It definitely helped that it was a high-scoring game and we won. [Sam: Why do we always say we won? We had nothing to do with it! Me: There's no i in Team. Hush and eat more ice cream]

We also (mostly) clapped at the right times although Sam did get confused at the side-switching mid-game and started cheering for the opposing team's baskets.  In his defense, it kind of is confusing that they switch sides.

Also, note that we have food in our hands in every picture. and it's never the same snack twice. I'm really proud of us.

Here's a screen capture of our seats that we found the next day online. So fun!

The girls were so excited when the Qualtrics logo came up on the stadium's screens.

We had an excellent night at the Utah Jazz. I can confirm right now that if you ever have box seats at any sports event that you want to give us for free, we will gladly take them off your hands! We will even pledge to prep on the rules of said game so as to (mostly) not embarrass ourselves or you.

And what we lack in actual knowledge, we more than make up for in enthusiasm and appetite!

Women Tech Awards

Last month I had the honor of being a finalist in the 2018 Women Tech Council Women Tech Awards. It was a far bigger even and honor than I had ever imagined, and it was truly a joy to see so much local support for women in technology - we're talking 1200 attendees at the lunch alone!

There were over 100 nominations and 17 finalists - a very cool cross-section of Utah technology from materials R&D for rockets to software development and management to education. There were 5 winners and, sadly, I wasn't selected. But never fear, we had already worked out a plan with the kids: "If mommy wins, we're very excited. If not, we say, 'That's, ok, it wasn't that nice an award anyway.'" The kids stuck to script magnificently.

With the exception of the not winning, the event was really cool. My very favorite part was that Qualtrics purchased a table for my whole family, so we could celebrate together! I don't get to go to many banquets with the whole family, and it was so nice to share the occasion with my favorite people.

Other highlights included:

• Keynotes from Oracle CEO Safra Catz and Orrin Hatch
• Ben shopping with me for a collared shirt that he wouldn't fuss about wearing
• Seriously, a 1200 person lunch for 17 finalists?!?
• A pretty kicking prize bag
• All four of my children willingly eating the chicken served for lunch (well done, Grand America!) 
• Being a part of an amazing group of women, doing so much good work in and for the Utah tech scene

Here's my video intro from the event (my part starts at 4:17):

Our official finalist shot

Meet & greet with Safra Catz

The full event

Thanks so much to my friends, family, and coworkers who cheered me on for the event, coached me through all my outfit and hair choices, and have supported my career's growth every step of the way. And thanks to Women Tech Council for organizing such a great event and the scads of people who turned out to support women in technology.

It's so much to be grateful for!

One Wild Week - Qualtrics Insight Summit

In 24 hours, I got to share the products I work on with an audience of 3,500...

...attend a private concert with Elton John...

...and ski a few runs with Bode Miller!

You guessed it, it's Qualtrics Insight Summit week again!

Insight Summit is our annual Qualtrics customer and industry conference. From learning from luminaries like Michael Lewis, Clayton Christensen, and Angela Duckworth to hearing from Michael Phelps to meeting Qualtrics clients face-to-face, it's non-stop action. For me, it is a whirlwind of excitement, listening, learning, celebrities, fatigue, exhilaration, and joy.

I had the opportunity to speak on the Summit Mainstage as a part of our one-hour product update again this year and was overwhelmed by the warm response to our new products and features. Sharing the hard work of so many engineering teams with an excited audience of 3500 is quite the rush!

Steve snapped this pic from about 2/3 of the way back in the Grand Ballroom - 3500 people sure is a lot!

Reception to our announcements has been great, and I was even quoted in a couple of articles, which is fun! Check out this article on KSL Herald and this article in The Daily Herald to read more about our product announcements and see my quotes :)

Thursday evening, Summit concluded with a private concert with Elton John! It was a total blast to see such a skilled, talented, legendary pro in his element.

Partying with my peeps!

Insight Summit traditionally concludes with a ski day and Steve and I went up to Park City to show Qualtrics clients around the mountain as employee ambassadors. Skiing with clients is always a highlight of Summit, but this year Qualtrics totally upped the ante by bringing Bode Miller to the slopes!

YES! I SKIED FOUR RUNS WITH BODE MILLER!!!

It was an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Needless to say, I couldn't keep up with the best men's downhill skier of all time, but as I bid him adieu we exchanged these words:

Jamie: Thanks, that was really fun
Bode: Yeah. You're a good skier

WHAT?!? Yes, you read that correctly - unprovoked and unrequested, BODE MILLER SAID I'M A GOOD SKIER!!! I'm not sure which moment was more thrilling, addressing a crowd of 3,500 or getting a compliment from Bode Miller! And both happened within 24 hours!

Summit 2017 was amazing. Now to rest up and create more amazing products for us to demo at Summit 2018!

For some reason, Steve didn't appreciate my taking a selfie in front of this poster...

...so we'll go with this one instead :)