I'm Lisa 👋 Welcome to this week's edition of Stream of Consciousness - the newsletter for product leaders who want to build products and their careers more consciously, in ways that are inclusive, holistic, ethical, accessible, and sustainable.

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I had a conversation with one of my coaching clients last week about “amplifiable skills”, or skills that you can invest in that help you develop even more valuable skills.

We landed on these as the two best skills you can invest in:

1. Time and Focus Management

2. Self-Awareness (yes, I think this is a skill!)

Let’s dig into both:

1) Time and Focus Management

I’d love to do a series where I interview some top performers in product management and other fields and just ask them about how they approach focusing their time and energy (if this is something you’d be interested in, let me know!).

I’d be willing to bet they’ve got a system that they’ve thought about consciously to help them reach their desired outcomes. And, that it’s something they are constantly iterating on.

If you can define:

a) What your North Star is; and

b) Your immediate desired outcomes; and

C) Where you need to focus your time to take steps towards these things…

You’ve probably just set yourself up for success in a way that most won’t.

This is something that expands into every area of your life - not just work.

If having a loving, close-knit family is one of your desired outcomes, what is one tangible thing you can focus some of your time on now to take steps towards this?

It’s the same process for learning a new sport, a new instrument, or any new skill.

It’s the same thing for relationships you want to focus on building.

If you need help with this, here’s a template you can use to do a conscious time recap with yourself every week to iterate on how much time you spend focusing on different areas in your life.

I’ve also written a whole bunch on this here (check out the Conscious Career section).

2) Self-Awareness

Going to therapy has impacted my life exponentially.

It has made me aware of my subconscious, engrained patterns.

It has made me aware of the types of situations I seek out out of fear to help regulate my nervous system vs. ones that are actually beneficial to me and that help me move in the direction I want to.

It has helped me see how I form relationships at work and in other parts of my life.

I’ve got a better understanding of how to detangle my baseline personality, attachment style, trauma responses, and more.

It’s helped me to better understand how I take in information and then how to create space before I respond so that this is intentional vs. an automatic reflex that may not actually be that ideal.

Having self-awareness can ripple into every part of life in ways that you often don’t see until after the fact.

I frequently catch myself now responding to situations differently than I would have a year ago and give myself a mental high five when I do. I have more self-awareness now to be able to recognize when this is even happening and to me, that’s a big win.

To make outward change happen, we need to start inside.

We need to be aware of our values, the things that make our souls come alive, the ways that we connect, the signals we’re getting from our gut, how our unconscious biases are impacting our lives (and the lives of those around us), how the choices we make impact us and others, and what our own “Why?” is.

If we aren’t aware of these things we’re only living fractionally.

What are some of the best “amplifiable skills” you’ve invested in?

 Let me know!

Conscious Bytes 📰

TONY FADELL’S TAKE: I recently finished reading Tony Fadell’s new book Build and absolutely loved it. Fadell was one of the core members of General Magic, ended up inventing the iPod, became the founder and CEO of Nest, and more recently started The Build Collective. Of all of the people in the who’s who of Silicon Valley, I believe Tony’s a key player whose perspective and positioning can really make a difference in developing products more consciously. Check out this clip I recently came across here where he talks about what he thinks Big Tech should be investing in.

GOOGLE’S FORMER HYPE WOMAN HAS REGRETS: My aunt shared this New York Times First Person podcast episode with me and it really resonated. It’s a hot take from Claire Stapleton, who spent 12 years at Google and left in 2019, who says that the turbulence in Big Tech offers bigger lessons for workers and the kinds of meaning we can vs. can’t expect to find in our work.

Soulwork 💜

• ✨ When was the last time you experienced pure joy? I went rollerblading this weekend at the COOLEST indoor roller rink - Rollerpony and felt like a kid the entire time. It made me realize how little of those kinds of moments I’ve had in my life recently and I definitely want to make a more intentional effort to do more things that make me feel 🤩

Thanks for Reading!

If you're looking to improve as a conscious product leader and achieve outcomes in your career and the products you are building more intentionally, there are 4 ways I can help you:

1. Personal Positioning for Aspiring Product Managers Mini-Course

2. The Product Manager's Career Guide

3. Stitch: The Best Resources for Product Managers

4. 1:1 Product Coaching

Have a great week!

-Lisa ✨

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