Episode 1
Back on Your Feet with Neha Lagoo Ratnakar
In this podcast episode, Serena speaks with Neha Lagoo Ratnakar about the challenges and rewards of restarting a career after a break.
Neha, a champion for women reentering the workforce, shares her personal journey and offers insightful advice on overcoming self-doubt, embracing patience, and finding support.
They discuss societal pressures, the importance of learning from mistakes, and the relevance of being present in the moment. Neha also talks about her book, 'Back on Your Feet,' providing listeners with practical wisdom for their career comebacks.
- Neha's Linkedin
- Neha's book: Back on you Feet
- Neha's new book: The Missing wheel
- Neha's website
Transcript
You can be more mindful about how you design that career break,
Speaker:what you do during that time.
Speaker:I think it was so who said, an unexamined life is not worth living.
Speaker:So be selfish about your life and your career.
Speaker:Welcome.
Speaker:It's really a pleasure to have here with me.
Speaker:Neha Kar.
Speaker:A champion for women starting careers.
Speaker:Welcome nea.
Speaker:It's really a pleasure to have you here for this podcast.
Speaker:I want to start with one question.
Speaker:What means I'm back for you?
Speaker:Alright, so that's the name of your podcast too, right?
Speaker:And I thought a lot about it because I've been back at work a couple of times.
Speaker:I've reinvented my career several times, and over the years I've
Speaker:also been a theater artist, so.
Speaker:I've done a lot of improv and improvisers.
Speaker:We exaggerate a lot of, they used to make people laugh to make good theater.
Speaker:I hear the phrase, I'm back it immediately.
Speaker:The image that pops up in my head is of a big star that's entering
Speaker:the stage with a very loud bang.
Speaker:The audience is going crazy that's throwing confetti and the star who's
Speaker:the center for all the attraction.
Speaker:This person is beaming with a lot of confidence and is promising a
Speaker:phenomenal show to the audience.
Speaker:That's the picture that comes to my mind when I think of I am back, but
Speaker:to be honest, my own I am back moment was nothing like that very honestly,
Speaker:because after I took a break, which was for my first child, but I came back
Speaker:to active workforce, or when I started looking for work, I was full of doubt.
Speaker:I was full of anxiety.
Speaker:I did not have the confidence to start reconnecting with my network.
Speaker:Or I was not confident that I'll be able to deliver on any of the work projects
Speaker:if I was ever selected in a position.
Speaker:I also felt quite guilty about not being able to spend time with
Speaker:my daughter once I started work.
Speaker:So, uh, this I'm back was quite different for me now that I see it.
Speaker:Of course, that big bank show business moment is still very fresh.
Speaker:But I think I'm back in terms of career or in my life, has been more of a commitment
Speaker:than one big moment of show base.
Speaker:It's more of a commitment to continue to keep working towards my goals, my
Speaker:dreams, my aspirations, and even if the progress is slow and unglamorous,
Speaker:because that's another part of it.
Speaker:It's always unglamorous.
Speaker:It's not a lot of gin bang and everything.
Speaker:It's always unglamorous when you restart a career after a break, still continue to.
Speaker:Keep giving to that career aspiration that you have to keep making progress even
Speaker:if it's slow, even if it's baby steps, to continue believing in your dream and
Speaker:going for whatever goal you have in mind.
Speaker:So that's for me,
Speaker:I really like your point about being unglamorous and I'm wondering if it's
Speaker:linked to society standards that we don't feel so happy or proud to be back.
Speaker:But it's something, as you said, maybe connected to some sense of guilt or
Speaker:shame, or maybe I'm not good enough.
Speaker:What do you think about this?
Speaker:You told Donald some really good points there.
Speaker:Sarina.
Speaker:I completely agree with you that yes, this feeling of having an
Speaker:unglamorous restart of work is not according to societal standards or.
Speaker:Or even how social media shows it to be.
Speaker:When you see big stars making a comeback after a hiatus from their show, a movie
Speaker:base, you see them come back with big banners, big movies, and really stealing
Speaker:the show in their comeback movies.
Speaker:But for common people like you and me when we make a comeback, I remember very
Speaker:clearly when I was trying to restart my career, I kept it really quiet.
Speaker:I didn't even tell my husband for the longest time that I was looking for a
Speaker:job or wanting to restart my career.
Speaker:I thought I had nothing to show.
Speaker:I had nothing to post about.
Speaker:And I was like, I don't even know which direction I want to take.
Speaker:So I wanted to sort it out myself.
Speaker:I continue to send my resume to lots of different companies, reaching out to
Speaker:recruiters and doing all sorts of things.
Speaker:I always dreamt of that one day when I will have a job offer in hand, and
Speaker:then I will proudly show it to my husband or my parents and make them
Speaker:proud of me and make it a big deal.
Speaker:Then it doesn't have to be because all those months I kept quietly
Speaker:working hard on that one offer that I was looking out for or for.
Speaker:Restarting my career or my business.
Speaker:I could have been taking support from my loved ones, from people who actually
Speaker:were my cheerleaders throughout my life, and to make them a part of my
Speaker:journey as well, even if there was no huge success or a big bang there.
Speaker:I think taking that into consideration is very, very important.
Speaker:So on career starters or whatever restart you're making in life, listening to
Speaker:this, I would really urge you to make your network or the people who love you.
Speaker:Make them a part of your journey.
Speaker:Don't do it all alone.
Speaker:It's very difficult and it's very depressing sometimes.
Speaker:So get the support you need.
Speaker:Get the help you need.
Speaker:Get the cheerleaders to give you hope.
Speaker:Sometimes some days are very difficult when you're restarting your career,
Speaker:so get that support that you need in these difficult days and not worry
Speaker:about what the world thinks of you or what the social media portrays career
Speaker:comebacks to be, where people are constantly showing their awards or.
Speaker:Their next new position or the promotions and everything.
Speaker:Just forget about all that.
Speaker:That's all noise.
Speaker:Just concentrate on what you want you need to do to reach your goal.
Speaker:And the people near and dear to you who are there to speak to
Speaker:on your book Back on Your Feet, you trust the importance of doing
Speaker:mistakes when you are coming back.
Speaker:Can you tell us a little bit more about this?
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:This is probably the one thing I love talking about is my mistakes.
Speaker:Because I've done quite a few random things throughout my career.
Speaker:Not so far great, uh, achievements that I've had, but lots of
Speaker:really terrible failures as well.
Speaker:And I always talk about them upfront because if you really think about it, when
Speaker:you get a success or when you have a, a big promotion or something big happens
Speaker:for you, you learn something from it.
Speaker:You see what worked for you.
Speaker:You get a lot of pat on the back, friends come to you,
Speaker:say congratulations and stuff.
Speaker:You don't really learn a lot.
Speaker:On a scale of one to 10, I think you learn on two when you have a big success.
Speaker:But when you fail, and if you fail a bunch of times trying to do something
Speaker:to get somewhere to figure something out, you may not get on the pats on the
Speaker:back, or uh, friends surrounding you, congratulating you, but you learn a lot.
Speaker:So on a scale of zero to 10, I would say you learn at a nine if you're
Speaker:constantly making mistakes, trying something new, trying something better
Speaker:in your career and in your life.
Speaker:Example is my practice in yoga.
Speaker:I've been a student of yoga for a very long time, but only last couple of years I
Speaker:started being more sincere about it, more disciplined about it, and I got a teacher
Speaker:and she is, although in an online format, she taught me how to do a head stand.
Speaker:But Serena, I can't tell you how many times I have failed at it, how many times
Speaker:I've fallen down, how many times I've had to screen for my parents who are
Speaker:visiting me or for my husband to rescue me because I couldn't bring my legs down.
Speaker:Or because I couldn't bring my legs up to begin with, so I've fallen so many
Speaker:times, but now I can do a decently good headstand, and I feel so proud about it.
Speaker:I wouldn't be so proud of it if I could do it very easily, like my
Speaker:little daughter can who is a gymnast, and for her, any new acrobatic
Speaker:position is very easy to achieve.
Speaker:But for me, after having put months and months of efforts into it, I
Speaker:think all those failures taught me to really enjoy the success that now.
Speaker:I see when I do my yoga practice or when I do a head.
Speaker:For me, this is also connected to the notion of patience because sometimes
Speaker:when you are coming back, you are in a hurry, but patient is really an
Speaker:important factor of being able to come back to work or come back to your life.
Speaker:What do you think about this?
Speaker:It's perfect.
Speaker:I think how you said it was absolutely perfect.
Speaker:Yeah, you are in a hurry.
Speaker:You were at a certain point in your career or in your life, and you think
Speaker:you are just after a break, you're just going to bounce back and be right at, at
Speaker:the same position was a vice president or a CEO or a manager wherever you were.
Speaker:You're saying, oh, you'll just take a break, come back and
Speaker:restart where you left off.
Speaker:It's usually not that simple, and that's the lesson I learned too.
Speaker:So I've taken two breaks, to be honest.
Speaker:My first one I told you about was when my doctor was gone, which was 12 years ago.
Speaker:At that time, I was completely unprepared.
Speaker:I just went into a break thinking, oh, it's okay.
Speaker:I'll be away from active workforce for a couple of years, and I'll just restart.
Speaker:I'm talented.
Speaker:I know what I'm doing, and companies will hire me, and it was
Speaker:ridiculously difficult to restart.
Speaker:Now, this time around with my second child, I'm taking kind of a break.
Speaker:I'm not calling it a real break, but it's more of a pause.
Speaker:I'm still meeting people in my industry.
Speaker:I'm making new connections.
Speaker:I'm learning new things.
Speaker:I'm not going at a breakneck period.
Speaker:Of course, I'm helping my little baby take baby steps, and I'm also taking
Speaker:baby steps in my career forward.
Speaker:I'm not going back or I'm not stagnating, but this time I think I
Speaker:have gained a maturity where I think, okay, it is going to take longer.
Speaker:I. Things are going to be slower, and patience is something that that's my
Speaker:best friend right now as I continue to move in the right direction in my
Speaker:career, and yet not at a breakneck speed or at a crazy speed, which
Speaker:is not sustainable as a new parent,
Speaker:as I said already, you have written a book that is called Back on Your Feet.
Speaker:Can you explain the reason why you choose to write this book and
Speaker:why it's so important for any.
Speaker:Come to read this book.
Speaker:That book is very close to my heart, and I never thought I would write a book.
Speaker:Honestly.
Speaker:Serena, if you'd met me five years ago and you'd ask me, Hey, do you like books?
Speaker:I would've said, yeah, I love books, and if you'd asked me if I would ever write
Speaker:one, I would've said a huge no to you, because I didn't see myself as a writer.
Speaker:I wrote on LinkedIn and I wrote a little few letters here and there to friends,
Speaker:but never thought of writing a book.
Speaker:But a few things in my life, uh, motivated me to a few years ago, uh,
Speaker:that I was running my own business.
Speaker:It was a very small business.
Speaker:I used to run it on shoestring budget.
Speaker:I needed help in India for one of my clients, and I couldn't travel.
Speaker:I was living in China back then, and I asked a cousin of mine
Speaker:who is my age and whose child is also the same age as my daughter.
Speaker:I asked her if she would step in for me, because I knew growing
Speaker:up with her, she was a very smart person and she was very intelligent.
Speaker:Very creative, and I thought, it's a small favor that I'm asking a cousin of mine.
Speaker:I didn't expect her to say no.
Speaker:Okay?
Speaker:And she said, no.
Speaker:Now a no is not difficult to hear for an entrepreneur.
Speaker:If you run your own business, you're hearing a no every day.
Speaker:Constantly.
Speaker:People are rejecting you for whatever reason.
Speaker:But why she said no is what broke my heart.
Speaker:She said no because she said, Neha.
Speaker:I don't think I had the confidence to go and represent your company in front
Speaker:of a client or I, I don't think I had the confidence to open a PowerPoint and
Speaker:deliver up your, uh, pitch in English.
Speaker:And this is the person I grew up with who was, we used to talk her classes and was
Speaker:extremely good at her work, and she took a break for three to four years for her son.
Speaker:She completely lost that confidence, that professional life that she has had built.
Speaker:So I couldn't get this out of my head.
Speaker:Of course, I wasn't her mentor to tell her what to do.
Speaker:I accepted her.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:But then I started seeing that pattern all around me in the seven, eight
Speaker:countries that we've lived in, in my neighborhood, in my college classmates,
Speaker:school classmates, my aunts, my cousins.
Speaker:So many women who had taken a a step back in their careers thinking
Speaker:they would go back someday.
Speaker:That day never arrived because they didn't have that confidence anymore, or
Speaker:they did not have the company support or family support, or the societal
Speaker:structure was not built in a way that would support their career comeback.
Speaker:And I started mentoring people.
Speaker:So every time any woman reach out to me on LinkedIn for career
Speaker:coaching, I would always say yes.
Speaker:And I kept doing it free.
Speaker:Of course, for years and years, I coached dozens of women, uh, during
Speaker:their career comeback and during Corona.
Speaker:I had some time to kill.
Speaker:You know how we were just inside our houses for weeks together?
Speaker:So I started writing one day thinking I was writing an article, maybe a
Speaker:LinkedIn article or for a magazine or something, and I couldn't stop writing.
Speaker:There was so much I had experienced.
Speaker:There was so much I had learned from the women that I coached
Speaker:over the months, over the years, and I just couldn't stop writing.
Speaker:I wrote their stories.
Speaker:I wrote my experiences.
Speaker:I wrote what worked, what did not.
Speaker:When that finished, I started interviewing other women who had restarted their
Speaker:careers successfully, and I wrote their stories and I took inspirations from them.
Speaker:That whole thing ended up being a manuscript of more than 400 pages,
Speaker:which of course, my editor was kind enough to shorten for me, bring it
Speaker:down to about 200 pages, which is, which makes for a more readable book.
Speaker:But that's, that's the whole story of the book.
Speaker:That's how it started.
Speaker:I didn't think I would write a book.
Speaker:Here I am and every time I get an email or a message saying that people have
Speaker:benefited from my book or a part of the book touched them, or they found
Speaker:it relatable, I just feel very full.
Speaker:There is a chapter in the book that really resonated with me and
Speaker:the chapter is Be Where you are.
Speaker:Can you explain a little bit better for our audience?
Speaker:What do you mean by be where you are?
Speaker:I think it's, I can't take credit for that sentence.
Speaker:I heard it from a friend whose boss said it to her.
Speaker:I think it is so true sometimes, especially we women, when we
Speaker:restart work, we constantly think about what we would've been doing
Speaker:if we were at home with our kids.
Speaker:It's a case of grass is more greener on the other side.
Speaker:Women who stay at home taking care of their children.
Speaker:They feel like women who are back in their professional careers have it better.
Speaker:Whereas the people, women who have restarted professional work, they
Speaker:keep thinking about how much better they would've felt if they were with
Speaker:their babies or with their kids.
Speaker:But the mantra is the secret of really being able to have a friend, family
Speaker:life, as well as a professional life where you feel satisfied with your
Speaker:career aspiration, that goals being met.
Speaker:Is being where you are instead of continuing to think what will
Speaker:happen in the meeting the next day?
Speaker:Or what would my boss say or how to respond to an email When you are
Speaker:reading a bedside story to your child?
Speaker:Stop.
Speaker:Stop yourself.
Speaker:Just be where you are.
Speaker:Be at the bedside reading that story of whatever caterpillar that
Speaker:you're reading a thousand time if your son or daughter wants it.
Speaker:But being in the moment is where the magic lies, I think.
Speaker:And it's the same goes for when you're in the office.
Speaker:Instead of wondering what has happened, if you forgot to send
Speaker:a tiffin with your child to the school, stop worrying about it.
Speaker:Now that you're in the office, you can't do anything about it.
Speaker:The child will not go hurry.
Speaker:The child is in the school.
Speaker:People will take care of them somehow or the other, or if they miss one male,
Speaker:it's, it's not the end of the world.
Speaker:You, you'll remember the next time.
Speaker:But be where you are.
Speaker:If you're in one situation, give you a hundred percent and don't
Speaker:worry about the rest of it.
Speaker:It'll fall in place.
Speaker:Do you have any advice for the people who are listening to this podcast that
Speaker:maybe are struggling with their comeback?
Speaker:So, one piece of advice that I wish I, I was able to give myself and I
Speaker:reached, started my career the first time around is find your tribe.
Speaker:Find your village.
Speaker:They say, right takes village to raise a family.
Speaker:It takes a village to also.
Speaker:Start your career.
Speaker:I would say stay in touch with people who were close to you, who
Speaker:were your colleagues, your friends, your bosses, and ask for help.
Speaker:There's absolutely no shame in asking for help.
Speaker:Sometimes we think we'll do it all alone, like an underdog
Speaker:and be a star the next day.
Speaker:You don't have to, you can still be a star if you slowly go after your
Speaker:dreams and get help from people.
Speaker:And yeah, apart from that, if you can try to design your career
Speaker:break, of course there are times like accidents, et cetera, or.
Speaker:Family member needs your help and you have to just uproot and live with them,
Speaker:then you can't do anything about it.
Speaker:But in other cases, like a pregnancy or relocating with your spouse,
Speaker:you can, you can be more mindful about how you design that career
Speaker:break, what you do during that time.
Speaker:I think it was so who said, an unexamined life is not worth living.
Speaker:So be selfish about your life and your career.
Speaker:Continue to take a good hard look at where you're going.
Speaker:And if you think it's going in the wrong direction or if you need to
Speaker:change course, feel free to pivot.
Speaker:There's no set rule, there's no guidebook that says This
Speaker:is how a career needs to move.
Speaker:So be flexible about it and keep making small changes, big changes, being mindful
Speaker:about the changes that you're making.
Speaker:Then you get to a point where you're happy with how the career
Speaker:is going, how your life is going.
Speaker:How it matches with the vision of a happy and content life where you can sleep well
Speaker:at night, where you know you are spending time with your loved ones, where you
Speaker:have good relationships, not just money.
Speaker:So that's the one advice I would say I would give to people.
Speaker:Find your tribe, get support, and be mindful about your break
Speaker:if you can try to design it.
Speaker:Well, thank you so much for.
Speaker:For this.
Speaker:I think I needed to hear that.
Speaker:For sure.
Speaker:Thank you so much for being in my podcast and looking forward to
Speaker:hear more from you in the future.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Thank you, Serena.
Speaker:I loved chatting with you and all the best to people who are listening to
Speaker:this and were restarting your careers.
Speaker:You got this.
Speaker:And if you need to chat, you can always find me on LinkedIn.
Speaker:Thank you for listening to this podcast.
Speaker:If you find it helpful, please share it with friends and with people that
Speaker:may need to hear this conversation.
