劳拉·斯图尔特，走出企业围城的起伏人生

劳拉·斯图尔特曾拥有辉煌的职业生涯。后来她生了孩子。重返工作岗位后却遭遇灾难——被边缘化、区别对待，还面临有毒的工作环境。于是像其他30%在生育后一年内离职的女性一样，劳拉选择了离开。但她也和那30%的女性一样，并未真正退出职场。

Laura Stewart had a big career. Then she had a baby. She went back to work, it was a disaster, sidelined, treated differently, and a toxic workplace. So like the rest of the thirty percent of women who leave their jobs within a year of having a baby, Laura left. But also like the rest of that 30%, she didn't leave the workforce.

她只是离开了一份与家庭生活无法兼容的工作。她创立了名为Unravel的咨询公司，帮助组织解决复杂挑战。然后在2025年初，与瓦妮莎·皮勒联手共同创立了Pathmaker——一家由女性领导的社会企业，致力于帮助组织创造社会价值与影响力。这条从大企业到自主创业的道路，正被越来越多女性选择。自1991年以来，女性创办的小型企业数量增长了77%，最常被提及的原因就是平衡性与灵活性。

She just left a job that wasn't compatible with also having a family. She started up a consulting practice called Unravel, helping organizations unravel complex challenges. And then at the beginning of 2025, joined forces with Vanessa Pillar and cofounded Pathmaker, a female led social enterprise helping organizations drive social value and impact. This path from big corporate to self employed is one that more and more women are taking. The number of female founded small businesses has grown 77% since 1991, and the most commonly cited reason is balance and flexibility.

但这条路也充满挑战。如今劳拉的儿子两岁半，她的事业正在快速发展。今天我们将探讨从大企业转向小企业的历程、成为母亲的体验，以及她当前生活中的多重角色平衡。欢迎来到节目，劳拉·斯图尔特。

But it also comes with a its challenges. Now Laura's son is two and a half. Her business is growing rapidly. And today, we're talking about shifting from big corporate to small business, becoming a mom, and what the juggle looks like in her life right now. Welcome to the show, Laura Stewart.

谢谢。这段介绍真精彩。感谢您的溢美之词。是的。

Thank you. That's quite the intro. Thank you for those kind words. Yeah.

今天能与你对话让我非常兴奋。邀请你参加播客是因为我们交流时你分享的职业经历让我惊叹——这绝对是许多女性正在经历却鲜少被讲述的故事。希望你能从职业历程说起，重点谈谈离开大企业的决定：休产假前后的经历、回归后的感受，以及最终选择离开的心路历程。

So I am excited to be speaking to you today, and we I invited you to be on the podcast because we were talking and you were sharing your career journey, and I was like, oh my god. Everyone needs to hear this story because so many women experience it, and not enough women speak about it. And so I was hoping you could start with your career journey and especially focusing on that decision to leave big corporate, you know, heading off on parental leave, coming back, what it was like, and deciding to leave big corporate.

确实是一段漫长的旅程。这一切甚至在我怀孕之前就已埋下伏笔。说实话，我曾设想典型的职业路径：按部就班攀登企业晋升阶梯，规划这条道路已有相当长时间。虽然过程并非总按计划发展，但那始终是我预期的方向。这也是我直到这个阶段才要孩子的原因之一。

Yeah. It was quite a journey, and it probably even started before before I got pregnant and and before we we had, my son. Because to be honest, I was envisaging a pretty typical go about your business, climb the corporate ladder, be successful, and had been plotting out that for for quite some time. It wasn't didn't always go to plan by any means, but I guess that was always where I expected to go. And it was part of the reason why I hadn't had a baby up until this point.

所以我加入母亲俱乐部的时间较晚，近四十岁才怀孕。但职业发展确实是重要驱动力——我希望先成就事业，达到某个阶段再考虑生育。当时发现怀孕其实有些意外，这彻底改变了我对职业的认知轨迹。产假期间我不断解构自我，重新审视人生价值，艰难平衡着过去的自我与正在蜕变的新身份，以及企业环境中的种种期望。

So I was quite late to the, to that mom club. I was in my late thirties when I felt pregnant, but it was absolutely a driver as to I wanted to get my career done first, and I wanted to get to a certain point before we even contemplated that. And then finding out I was pregnant was was a bit of a surprise at the time, and it did change the course of my career and everything that I thought about a career. And it certainly unraveled as I was on maternity leave, and it challenged my thinking about what I wanted to do, what I valued in life. And I grappled personally with how do I balance the person that I was with the person I was becoming and all of those expectations that we have, in that corporate world.

所以我在咨询行业工作了近二十年。直到怀孕前，我在那之前的五六年里一直担任领导职务，主要是运营领导角色，比如总经理之类的职位。这些职位让我管理损益、管理团队、管理增长、与客户合作，所有这些都让这个角色变得极其多样化和具有挑战性，但也非常有回报。但这仍然是一个竞争非常激烈的环境。有很多需要考虑的事情，总有更多的事情要做，这使得它竞争性很强。

So I had spent nearly twenty years in consulting. Up until the point that I was pregnant, I had held leadership roles for about the last five or six years leading up to that, predominantly operational leadership roles, general managers, and the like, which saw me, you know, managing p and l, managing people, managing growth, working with clients, and all of those things that make, you know, a role incredibly diverse and challenging, but also really rewarding. But it's still a really competitive environment as well. There is, you know, lots to consider. There is always more things to do, which made it really competitive.

当我有了儿子后，他们称之为'母性转变期'，我想这是我最近学到的一个术语。我确实经历了一次非常重大的个人转变，这随后影响了我做出的决定，包括何时重返工作岗位、重返后做什么，以及在这个过程中学到了什么。

And when I had my son, they call it matrescence, I think, is a term that I've recently learned about. I certainly certainly went went through through a really significant shift as a person, and then that really kind of drove decisions that I made subsequently around when I returned to work, what I did when I returned to work, and what I learned as a part of that returning process.

其实我记下来要问你的问题之一就是这个。我在你的LinkedIn上看到你说：休完产假重返工作岗位。我预料到了像 childcare logistics（育儿后勤）和赶上日程安排这样的挑战。然而，真正的启示是意识到在那段时间里我发生了多大的转变。

So I actually one of the things I had written down to ask you about was exactly this. So you I think this is on your LinkedIn. You said, returning to work after maternity leave. I anticipated challenges like childcare logistics and catching up on calendars. However, the true revelation was realizing how much I had transformed during that time.

你说得对，这个短语就是'matrescence'（母性转变期）。对于没听过这个词的人来说，它有点像母性青春期的感觉。这是一个巨大的趋势——在我听到这个词之前我就描述过这种感觉。我当时觉得，这是生活中如此巨大的转变。

And you're right. The phrase of that is matrescence. And for people who haven't heard that expression before, it's kind of like the adolescence of motherhood, matrescence. And it is this huge trend like, described it before I'd ever heard that word. I was like, it's such a seismic shift in your life.

之后一切都不一样了。而且很多这种变化只是内在的，外在可能看起来甚至没什么不同。事实上我还在这方面做了额外研究，这也是我很多关于支持职场父母、母亲的工作的来源。所以跟我说说这个吧。

Nothing is the same after. And a lot of that change is just internal. Externally, might not even really look that different. And I have done additional study in that, in fact, and that's where a lot of my work around supporting parents, mothers in the workforce comes from. So tell me about that.

比如，当你说你在那个时期发生了转变，我知道很多变化，就像我刚说的，可能是看不见的，但你的具体体验是什么样的？

Like, when you say you transformed during that period and I know a lot of it, like I just said, it might sort of be invisible, but what what was your experience of that?

是的，我认为确实是看不见的。到目前为止，我跟很多人说过这个：作为管理者，我以为自己非常有效地支持了女性重返职场。但亲身经历之后，我觉得我只是触及了表面。是的。

Yeah. I think it is invisible. And up until this point, I've said this, you know, to many people, I thought as a manager, I had supported women back into the workplace really effectively. But having gone through this myself, I don't I think I scratched the surface. Yeah.

当然，我原本认为重返工作主要关乎后勤安排。我想的是要工作多少时间、何时工作、 childcare 怎么解决、家庭生活如何协调进出家门。所有这些战术性的后勤问题，就是我原本以为的回归工作。是的。但实际上，这关乎我之前担任的角色是否还适合我，我想在职业生涯中做什么，我想成为什么样的人以及做什么事。

And, certainly, I had in my mind return to work was very much about logistics. It was how much I was gonna work, when I was gonna work, what was childcare, what would our home life look like getting in and out of the house. All of those tactical logistical things was fundamentally what I thought returning to work was gonna be. Yeah. But it was actually about whether the role I was in beforehand fit me anymore, what I wanted to do with my career, what I wanted to be and do as a person.

所以我真的被儿子给我个人带来的改变所震惊和触动。那些我曾经认为重要的事情突然不再重要，而我现在真正深深珍视的东西则完全不同。我休了十个月的产假才重返工作。我确实决定离开之前的雇主。这有很多原因。公司被收购后发生了变化，你知道，这是件大事。

So I was really quite struck and shocked at the change that having my son had on me personally, the things that suddenly I thought were important once upon a time were no longer important, and the things that I now was really that I really valued deeply were completely different. So I did have you know, I had ten months off, before I went back to work. I did decide to to leave my previous, employment. There was lots of reasons for that. You know, the business had had been acquired and had changed, so, you know, that that was a big thing.

但此外，我也不再适合之前的角色，它不再适合我了。然后我需要认真思考理想的角色是什么样的，那将会是什么，这是一个非常重要的对话，尤其是当你还要照顾一个小宝宝，学习所有与育儿相关的事情，而这些每天都不一样。每天、每周感觉都不同。一旦你觉得掌握了，心想，好了，现在可以关注自己了。

But, also, I didn't fit the previous role, and it wasn't for me anymore. And I then needed to really think about what what did the ultimate role look like and and what was that going to be, which is a really big conversation to have when you're also dealing with a small human and learning everything that there is to do with having having a baby, which is different every day. It feels different every day and every week. And once you feel like you've mastered it and you're like, okay. Now I can focus on me.

其他事情又变了，其他方面又转移了。所以，在抚养小宝宝的关键阶段，同时还要应对个人发生的这种重大转变，确实非常困难。我选择积极面对这一点，并且非常幸运地得到了一些很好的支持。但我也觉得我必须这样做，因为我无法完全理解为什么我对重返工作的想法如此不安，以及如何对无论结果如何感到满意。

Something else changes and something else shifts. So it is actually really hard at that critical point of of, you know, raising a small baby and then trying to kinda deal with this really significant shift that's happening for you personally. I opted to lean into that, and I was really fortunate to have some really good support to do that. But I also felt like I had to because I couldn't quite work out why I was feeling so uncomfortable with this idea of returning to work and and feeling satisfied with whatever that was gonna be.

首先，我想承认，很多女性都有这样的感受。当我们没有支持、资源或能力去质疑，好吧，我的职业生涯会是什么样子？这意味着许多女性选择暂时退后一步。所以她们留在原来的工作岗位，做兼职，更多地专注于家庭。然后几年后，她们才想，好了。

So what first of all, wanna acknowledge, like, a lot of women feel like that. And when we don't have the support, the resources, the ability to kind of question, okay, what is my career gonna look like? What that means is that lots of women just choose to step back for a little while. So they stay in the same job, they work part time, and they they focus more on the family. And then some years later, then they're like, okay.

我如何重回我的职业生涯？你得到了什么支持来帮助你？你能否说明是什么让你觉得那份工作不再合适？以及，你是如何确定什么才是合适的选择的？

How do I turn back into my career? What support did you have to help you with this? And are you able to articulate what it was that meant you feel felt like the job wasn't the right thing anymore? And what it like, how did you identify what would be the right thing?

是的，这里涉及很多方面。先从支持说起，我当时确实有一些支持。我一直以来都在进行领导力辅导，已经有一段时间了，并且在休产假和重返工作之间还有一些剩余的课程，我原本打算用这些课程来帮助我重新规划和思考重返工作的事。所以这是我非常幸运拥有的一项资源。我和当时的教练进行了几次会谈，这帮助我意识到工作之间存在脱节，我可能会说不仅仅是工作角色和组织，更多是关于我当时的职业轨迹和职业生涯，以及它如何不再适合我了。

Yeah. So there's there's a lot to that. So if I talk about the support to start with, the support that I did have at the time, I had a I had always been doing I had been doing some leadership coaching for quite some time, and I did have some leftover sessions between kinda going on mat leave and coming back to work that I had intended to use to kind of help me reshape and and kind of rethink about going back to work. So that was one resource that I was really lucky to to have. You know, I had a couple of sessions with my coach at the time, which helped me realize that there was a disconnect between the job, and I would probably say more so than just the role of the job and the organization and more about the the career that I was that I was the trajectory and the career that I was having and how it no longer fit.

所以我们做了很多小练习，试图真正梳理清楚——我想做什么、我擅长什么、我看重什么。是的。通过这个过程，我真正发现自己的价值观已经发生了变化。我重新定义了对自己看重的品质、对成功看重的要素。而对于之前工作中让我烦恼的事情，我的容忍度大大降低了。

So we did a number of little exercises and really tried to kind of unpack that whole what I wanted to do, what I was good at, you know, what I valued. Yeah. And through that, I really discovered that what I valued had shifted. So the the things that I valued in myself, the things that I valued in success, I had suddenly redefined what success was. And the things that had annoyed me about my jobs previously, I had such a less tolerance for.

是的。这也是我经常听到的情况。比如你休完产假回来，突然会想：我们到底在做什么？这有什么意义？

Yeah. This is such a common thing that I hear too. Like, you go on parental leave, and then you come back. You're like, what are we even doing? What?

为什么这个很重要？我们为什么要这么做？所以这涉及我的价值观，我想从生活中获得什么，以及重新定义这一切。这是第一步。第二步则是获得某种许可，我很幸运当时不必急着返回工作岗位。

Why is that important? Why are we doing that? So there was a bit about my values and the things that that I wanted to get out of in my life and redefining what that all is. So that was the first step. I think the second step was then somewhat permission, and, again, I was in a really fortunate position where I didn't have to rush back to work.

我可以慢慢思考下一步该怎么走，什么才是正确的选择。第三点是我的妈妈群，这群人非常了不起，出乎意料的是，我们虽然背景相似，却进行了非常深入的交流。她们再次点燃了我的灵感：为什么我们总要急着回归原来的工作、原来的状态、原来的routine，勉强让一切维持原状？如果我真正花时间换个角度思考呢？这其实很符合我的个性，我做事的初衷就是想要不同凡响，勇于挑战。虽然这么说，我确实也纠结过是该自己创业还是回归职场。后来确实有人联系我，推荐我申请这个职位，我申请了，得到了工作，回到了企业界。

I could take my time and then think about, what the next step was and what was gonna be right. And then the third thing was my mother's group was such an incredible group of people who it was really unexpected, but very similar, had really deep conversations, and they kind of, again, were a spark of inspiration for me to think, why do we just kinda throw ourselves back into this same, you know, same the same job, the same thing, the same routine, and try to make all of these things fit when what if I actually took the time to maybe think differently? And it's a little bit of my personality, and why I do what I do is very much around kind of doing things differently, trying to challenge. In saying all of that, I did, you know, get to this point of do I go out and do my own thing, or do I go back to to a role? And and certainly, you know, was approached and and was identified to, you know, apply for this role and and did that and and got the and got the job and went back to the corporate world.

我当时觉得回到熟悉的领域可能是个更平稳的过渡。虽然是个新组织、新职位，仍然充满挑战。我以为通过拓展自己、尝试不同事物是在做正确决定。我拥有灵活的工作安排。

I did that thinking that maybe it's a softer landing to go back to what I knew. It was a new it was a new organization. It was a new role, so there was still this challenge. And I thought that maybe I'm doing the right thing by, you know, still stretching myself and doing something different. I had flexibility.

我获得了自认为成功所需和看重的某些要素。我每周工作四天，担任运营领导职务。但回归之后我发现，虽然初期感觉不错，但突然意识到自己对这个决定多么不满意——我只不过是在重复老路，勉强适应已经不再合适的事物。于是我选择离开那个环境，探索其他可能性，最初做了一些自由职业，最终创立了Pathmaker。

I had, you know, some of the aspects of the things that I thought I needed to be successful and that I valued. I worked four days a week still in an operational leadership role. But going back into that and then discovering, actually, it was great for a period of time, but then I suddenly realized how unhappy I actually was with that decision and that by doing that, I was just walking that same path and trying to make something fit that no longer fit. Yeah. So I I opted to leave that situation and and then kind of explore other options, which is when, you know, initially, I went out to some freelance work, and then, eventually, Pathmaker was born.

现在的工作完全能让我发挥所长，做所有热爱的部分，以我认为能创造价值和影响的方式，同时完美平衡我的价值观，实现真正的成功。

And that's very much about how I get to do the great things and all the things that I love about my job and how I think I can add value and and impact, but do it in a way that balances how I can do that in a really successful way that meets my values.

是的。我想谈谈这个。但首先，我想就你刚才说的几点提几个问题。第一，如你所说，你多次提到了价值观。是的。

Yes. And I wanna talk about that. But first, I wanna ask a couple of questions about some of the things you've just said. So one, as you said, you talked about values a few times. Yeah.

有了孩子后，你的价值观会改变。对很多女性来说确实如此。我们重返职场时会觉得，这与我的价值观不符。而能够清晰表达这一点的前提，是明确自己的价值观是什么。当你进行这类练习，审视自己的价值观并发现存在不匹配时，在有了儿子之后，你认定自己的价值观是什么？

Your values change when you have a baby. For lots of women, that happens. We come back to work and we're we're like, this is misaligned with my values. And part of being able to articulate that is getting clear on what your values are. When you did that kind of exercise and that work to look at what your values are and identify that there was misalignment, What what did you identify as your values after you'd had your your son?

是的。其中一点很大程度上围绕着我工作的目的和我的技能，真正专注于那些我轻松自然就能做好的事情，并希望更多地去实践这些。在运营领导岗位上，你最终会为很多人做很多事，通常是为了业务，而不是那么多地运用我所掌握的解决复杂问题的技能，或者以我能贡献的方式去应对社会面临的挑战，这些通常是咨询工作能解决的。我无法既做这些又担任运营领导，因为我每周有一半时间都在处理电子表格

Yeah. One was very much around, the purpose of of my work and my skills and really leaning into what what comes easy and naturally to me and wanting to do more of that. And often in an operational leadership role, you end up doing lots of things for lots of other people and often for the business and not so much the things that you know, the skills that I can apply to solve complex problems or the the ways in which I can contribute to, you know, the challenges we have in society and the things that consulting typically, resolve, I couldn't do that and be an operational leader because I spend half my week doing spreadsheets

是的。

Yeah.

以及所有那些对业务很重要的事情。所以第一点就是真正能够应用我天生擅长的技能，并轻松地做到这一点。另一点则与此相关，即致力于解决重要的问题和议题，有了这个小不点，考虑到我们作为社会面临的所有挑战的复杂性，我想确保我能用自己的技能为他将来重要的事情做出改变。这可能是最深刻的一点，因为我突然有了一个内在驱动力想要这样做。我可能一直都想这样做，而且我认为，广义上说，我们都有点想做出贡献。

And all those sorts of things that are important to the business. So that was the first thing is really being able to apply my skills that come really naturally to me and to do that with ease. The other thing's then tied to that insofar as working on problems and issues that matter and having this little human and thinking about the complexity of all of the challenges that we face as society, I wanted to make sure that I was making a difference with my skills to things that were gonna matter for him. And that's probably the most profound thing because suddenly I had this internal driver for wanting to do that. I probably always wanted to do that, and I think, you know, broadly, we all kind of wanna contribute.

但是，是的，有了这个小家伙让我更想这么做了。

But, yeah, having this little person made me wanna do that even more so.

是的。我认为这一点非常重要。一个朋友曾这样描述，虽然是Guy的例子，但他回去工作后说，我感觉自己整天就是把文件往右推一英寸，然后客户又把它往左推回一英寸，这就是我的生活。是的。关于真正目标和意义的部分是其中很大一块，因为孩子——尽管我毫不怀疑整天和孩子在一起并不轻松或有趣。

Yeah. I think that's a huge one. A friend described it once as, like this is actually Guy, but he went back to work, and he was like, I just felt like I was spending my time pushing paper one inch to the right, and then the client would just push it back one inch to the left, and that was my life. Yeah. And this thing around real purpose and meaning is a big bit of it because kids although, you know, I'm under no illusion that spending all day with kids isn't easy or or fun thing to do.

对吧？就像，岁月短暂，但日子漫长。但但感觉这其中是有意义的，而且我们倾注了如此多的爱。

Right? Like, the years are short, but the days are long. But but it there feels like there's meaning there, and we have so much love there.

而且，是的。

And Yeah.

我们希望能给予他们很多。所以当我们被从那种状态中抽离，去做一些感觉毫无意义的事情时，就会想，为什么我不能把生命花在这上面？而我觉得，在有孩子之前，你有时能说服自己工作很重要，或者工作之外的生活足够丰富，你会想，好吧，我工作我的时间，赚不错的钱，然后我去过我的其余生活，去旅行等等。但有了孩子后，其中一些东西也会被剥夺。比如，你外出的次数远不如前。

We wanna be able to give a lot to them. And so then when we're taken away from that to do something that feels meaningless, it's like, why I can't spend my life doing this? And I think whereas before you have kids, you can sometimes you can convince yourself it matters or you have enough of a life outside of work that it's like, well, I just work my hours and I make good money, and then I go and live the rest of my life and I get to travel and stuff. But some of that stuff gets taken away when you have kids too. Like, you're not going out nearly as much.

你去度假的次数也远不如前。因此，你如何度过每一天就变得非常重要。是的。

You're going on holidays nearly as much. And so the the way you spend your days matters a lot. Yeah.

是的。

Yep.

我最喜欢的名言之一来自安妮·迪拉德，她说，你如何度过你的日子，当然就是你如何度过你的一生。我认为，这一点在你有了小孩，尤其是年幼的孩子时，会变得异常现实。

And one of my favorite quotes of all time is Annie Dillard says, the way you spend your days is, of course, how you spend your life. And that, I think, comes into stark reality when you have small kids, especially.

是的。绝对如此。突然间，我开始问自己，如果我不得不离开他，那必须有一个足够好的理由，而不仅仅是，是的，是为了钱，是的，是因为如果我做了这个，我们就能去度假，或者得到我们需要的东西。但实际上，它仍然需要有意义，仍然需要有一个超越所有这些事物的、能引起共鸣的目的。因为我可以有很多不同的方式来实现那些事情。

Yeah. Absolutely. Suddenly, I'm asking the question that if I'm going to be away from him, it needs to be a good enough reason that it's more than just necessarily, yes, it's about the money, and, yes, it's about the fact that if I do this, then we can go and, you know, go on holidays or, you know, have whatever it is that we need. But it was actually about, well, then it still needs to be meaningful, and it still needs to have a purpose that resonates beyond any of those things. Because I can do those things in a whole bunch of different ways.

是的。完全同意。

Yeah. Totally.

但如果我没有获得那种真正的成就感，而且我认为作为领导者，你投入了太多——我当然是这样。你在那些角色中投入了太多自我。嗯。突然间我变成了，你知道，一个稍微不同的人。可能我能给予的稍微少了一些，就那部分的我而言。当然，从时间、从产出上看是一样的，但那个'我'确实少了一点。

But if I'm not getting that sense of real fulfillment and I think also as a leader, you put so much I certainly did. You put so much of yourself into those roles Mhmm. That suddenly I was, you know, I a was slightly different person. I probably had a little less to give maybe in terms of that piece of me. Like, sure, from an hours, from an output, it was the same, but that little less of me.

所以，因此，我所做的事情仍然必须与组织目标保持一致。那个角色在当时必须很重要。而我确实，是的，确实面临着那个整体问题：我整天都在做什么？就像，这有点，像是在仓鼠轮上，我想，在某种程度上。是的。

So, therefore, I had to there still had to be an alignment in terms of what I was doing for the organization. The role needed to matter at that point in time. And I was, yeah, certainly confronted with that whole, what am I spending my day doing? Like, this is just a bit, like, on the hamster wheel, I guess, in a way. Yeah.

那样也可以，但那不适合我。

And that's okay, but it wasn't for me.

然后你提到的另一点是，你真正重新定义了成功对你意味着什么。那么你是如何重新定义它的，从什么变成了什么？

Then the other thing you said is that you really redefined what success meant to you. So what did you redefine it from and to?

是的。再次，你知道，回想起来，这个转变远在利斯出生之前，但我一直认为，你知道，我想担任某个特定角色，你会按照通常的爬梯子方式前进，正如人们所期望的那样。而且，你知道，随之而来的一切就是我当时对成功的定义。但突然之间，那对我而言不再是成功。成功实际上就是拥有这个小家庭，让我们真正成为这个小单元，做任何我们需要做的事情，以确保我们有时间在一起，拥有我们需要的一切，但我们不一定需要所有额外的部分。

Yeah. Again, you know, thinking about, you know, shifted way before, you know, Leith was even around, but I always thought that, you know, I wanted to be in a certain role, and you kind of follow the usual climbing that ladder, as one would expect. And, you know, all the things that come with that was really what I was defining a success. But, suddenly, that wasn't success to me. Success was actually just having this little family and for us to actually be this little unit and do whatever it is that we needed to do to make sure that we had time together, that we had all the things that we need, but we didn't necessarily need all the extra bits.

是的。所以这有一部分是关于需要少一点额外的东西，但也关乎质量，而不那么关乎数量。

Yeah. So there was a bit about needing a little less extra, but there was also about the quality, not so much the quantity

是的。

Yeah.

是的，以一种迂回的方式来说。灵活性确实能给你带来很大的自由，尤其是在时间方面，这很棒。我认为很多组织在这方面做得很好。但这几乎就像是头脑空间和心灵空间之间的区别。

Yeah. In a roundabout kind of a way. Flexibility gives you some great, you know, freedom in terms of time, and and that's great. And I think lots of organizations do that well. But there's almost like the distinction between headspace and heart space.

你可以离开工作，但它仍然占据着你的思绪。我希望能够处于一个位置，无论我拥有多少时间，都能全身心投入——无论是为Lathe还是为家庭——而不必像我看到许多其他女性那样不断挣扎。所以并不是我不想要全部，而是我认为关键在于重新定义'全部'对我意味着什么，而不是对别人意味着什么。这就是我们作为一个家庭所做的决定，这无疑是一个有意识的决定，并且我和我丈夫持续讨论这对我们实际意味着什么以及我们如何实现。

You you can be away from work, but it's still occupying your mind. And I wanted to be able to be in a place where I could give everything that I could with whatever time I had, you know, with Lathe and with the family and not have to kind of do that constant struggle that I'd seen so many other women do. So it's not that I don't want it all, but I think it's defining what does all mean that and what does all mean to me, not to others, that I was able to kind of redefine. So that's what we've done as a family, and that's certainly been a conscious decision and just ongoing discussion with me and my husband about what does that actually mean to us and how do we there.

所以，你朝着这个方向迈出的一部分是选择了自主创业。就像你说的，先是自由职业，然后创立了Pathfinder。Pathfinder。抱歉，是Pathmaker。

And so part of your moving towards that was going into self employment. So as you said, first freelancing and then starting Pathfinder. Pathfinder. Sorry. Pathmaker.

Pathmaker。我想问你一些具体的问题，但也许我们先定个框架。所以，请用一段话告诉我，Pathmaker是做什么的？你的愿景是什么？

Pathmaker. So I wanna ask you some specific questions about that, but maybe let's frame it first. So tell me in how you know, one paragraph. What does Pathmaker do? What is your vision?

你们的使命是什么？

What is your mission there?

是的。我们是一家社会企业，但同时也是一个咨询公司。我们为政府和非政府客户提供战略咨询服务，专注于参与策略和社会价值。这意味着我们真正致力于与客户合作——就像我职业生涯多年来所做的那样——解决需要参与策略和社会价值的复杂社会问题。我们以社会企业的身份，以一种略微不同的方式来做这件事，并且我们是由女性领导的。

Yeah. So we are a social enterprise, but we're a consulting firm as well. So we offer strategic advisory services to to clients, both government and nongovernment, and we work around engagement strategy and social value. And what that means is that we're really trying to, again, work with clients as I have done for vast, you know, years in my career to solve complex client, complex societal issues that require that engagement strategy and social value. And we're doing that in a slightly different way by being a social enterprise, and we're female led.

因此，我们在业务结构、吸引人才的方式以及提供福利方面也有所不同，这确实是基于女性在职场中面临的系统性挑战而设计的。

So that's also a little bit different in how we've structured our business and the ways in which we are attracting people, but also offering benefits, is certainly done from a, yeah, a systemic systemic challenges that women face in the workplace.

是的。你能举个例子吗？比如你们正在与人们一起解决的复杂挑战是什么？

Yes. Can you give an example of, like, a complex challenge you might be solving with people?

目前我们在能源领域有相当广泛的工作。我们正在关注如何实现公正的能源转型？也就是说，如何以不同的方式实现社会价值和社会影响衡量，并采取长期视角。显然，这是一个复杂的话题和情境，以多种方式影响许多社区，但我们与组织合作，希望能以更公正、更公平的方式实现这一目标。

So we work quite extensively in the energy sector at the moment. So we're certainly looking at how do we how does the transition, the energy transition, how happen in a just way? So, bringing about social value and social impact measurement, how can we do that differently that takes a a long term lens to that. So, obviously, a complex topic, complex situation that impacts lots of communities in lots of different ways, but work with organizations to hopefully do that in a much more just and equitable way.

太棒了。好的，现在我想谈谈自雇职业，因为很多女性选择通过自雇来解决意义、影响力、平衡和家庭的问题。坦白说，我通常不会推荐别人这么做，因为

Amazing. Okay. So now I wanna talk about self employment because a lot of women women choose to solve the issue of meaning, impact, balance, family by moving into self employment. Full disclosure, I don't actually normally recommend this to people because

可以理解。

Fair enough.

因为我觉得关于薪酬差距、性别养老金差距等等这些问题讨论得还不够多。我们稍后会谈到这些，但我想先聊聊你的经验。自雇职业中，你觉得最有收获的三件事是什么？

Because I think that there's not enough that's actually talked about the pay gap, the gender the superannuation gap, all of that kind of stuff. And so we'll talk about that in a minute, but I wanna talk about your experience. What have your been your three most rewarding things going into self employment?

是的。我完全理解你为什么不会推荐它，因为这并不是一个更轻松的选择，可能也是我之前先回到企业界，然后再回归自雇的原因之一，因为自雇感觉压力太大，有一份稳定的薪水反而更轻松。不过，我确实学到了三件事：第一，这确实需要勇气和胆量。所以它可能看起来像是一种更灵活的选择。

Yeah. I can certainly say why you don't recommend it because it is not it's not exactly an an easier option and probably one of the reasons why I fell back into the corporate world before I went back to this, back to self employment because it just felt overwhelming, so it was easier to know I had a constant paycheck. Yeah. But the three things that I have have definitely learned, One, it it does take take courage, and it does take bravery. So it can appear as, again, an an option by which it is a little bit more flexible.

你可以某种程度上，你知道，决定你想在何时何地工作以及所有这类事情，这很棒。但确实需要一种勇气来坚持你所提供的服务、你想做的事情、你想工作的时间等等，这样才能收获这种工作方式可能带来的绝对益处。所以这确实需要勇气。

You can kind of, you know, dictate when and what you want to, you know, when where you wanna work and all those sorts of things, and that's great. But it does take a sense of kind of courage to be able to stand by what you're offering, what you wanna do, when you wanna work, and all of those things to reap the benefits of what can be an absolutely beneficial way of working. So it does take courage.

是的。是的。而且我

Yeah. Yeah. And I

我经常对我儿子说，他是我勇敢的原因。嗯。因为他给了我这样做的动力。所以是的。其次，我认为是获得一些真正好的建议。要确保你不会在自雇职业中许多系统性的事情上掉队，就像你提到的养老金等等，就是要获得一些真正好的建议。

say to my son all the time, like, he's the reason that I'm brave Mhmm. Because he's kind of given me the impetus to kind of do that. So Yeah. Secondly, I think would be to get some really good advice. So to have to make sure that you don't fall through the cracks with a number of things that are quite systemic to self employment, like you mentioned, superannuation and all of those things, is to get some really good advice.

所以无论是财务顾问、会计师还是任何人，但要了解如何利用系统运作，以及你需要考虑的事情，这样你就能在风险出现时最小化并管理这些风险。第三点，我认为是为了保持这种灵活性，要确保你设立了任何必要的界限来收获这些好处。作为一个小企业主，对我来说继续工作非常有诱惑力。总是有事情做。永远没有无事可做的时候，但我确实把周五隔离出来。

So whether that's financial adviser or an accountant or whomever that is, but know how you can work the system and the things that you can, that you need to think about so that you're minimizing those risks and managing those risks as they come about. And the third thing, I think, is to in order to maintain that flexibility is to make sure that you're putting in place any boundaries that you need to be able to reap those benefits. So as a small business owner, it's incredibly tempting for me to keep working. There is always stuff. There is never nothing to do, but I do quarantine my Fridays.

所以周五是我和我儿子在一起的日子，我在那些天不工作，除非绝对必要。我必须承认有过几次例外，但必须有一个非常好的理由，而且我们尽一切努力保护这些日子。再次强调，永远没有无事可做的时候。

So Fridays are, you know, days that I have with my son, and I I don't work on those days unless it is absolutely critical. I must admit there's been a couple of times, but it has to be a really good reason, and we do everything we can to protect those days. Again, there's never there's never nothing to do.

是的。是的。这实际上是我明确注意到的一点。很多女性选择自雇是因为她们想要平衡。是的。

Yeah. Yeah. And that's actually one of the things I had noted downright. Lots of women go into self employment because they want balance. Yeah.

但现实中，她们最终只是不停地工作。所以我本来想问你这个问题。你觉得保持那个界限困难吗？我的意思是，我想这个界限更多是和你自己以及你的商业伙伴之间。对吧？比如客户，他们不知道你在做什么以及你什么时候在做。

But in reality, they just end up working all the time. So I was gonna ask you about that. Do you find it hard to hold that boundary with I mean, I guess the boundary would be more with yourself and with your business partner. Right? Like, clients, they don't know what you're doing and when you're doing it.

是的。但这是你自己和商业伙伴。

Yeah. But it's yourself and business partner.

是的，完全正确。我认为这确实是我选择与合伙人一起创办Pathmaker的个人驱动力之一，因为这确实在一定程度上减轻了负担，感觉我们可以共同成长，实现我的目标，而不必独自承担那份重担。所以这绝对是我的考量之一。但确实，这种诱惑很大，我在生孩子前这方面做得非常糟糕。

Yeah. Absolutely. And I think it's it's certainly one of my personal drivers as to why I did go down the path of Pathmaker with a partner because it does somewhat ease that load, and it did feel like we could grow and I could achieve my goals, with someone and not have to kinda carry that that burden, on my own. So that's certainly one of my rationales. But, yeah, I think it is so tempting to and I was really bad at this pre pre baby.

我以前完全是个工作狂。我会做任何需要做的事，长时间工作，诸如此类。这并不是说我现在就不长时间工作了，但当你从 daycare 下班回家后，还要做饭、哄孩子睡觉等等，我过去错误地以为之后还能打开笔记本电脑再处理几封邮件、多做点事，但我做不到。那时我已经筋疲力尽了。

I was an absolute workaholic. I would do whatever I needed to do, work long hours, all of those things. And that's not to say that I'm not necessarily working long hours, but, the second the second shift, when you come home from, you know, day care and you're doing all of the cooking and the put down and all that sort of stuff, I had an a a kind of misconception that I could then pick up the the laptop and do a few more emails and do a few more things, but I can't. I'm exhausted at that point.

筋疲力尽。是的。

Exhausted. Yeah.

我已经工作了一整天，甚至更久，然后，你知道，我已经没力气了。

I've done a day's work and then a bit, and I'm, you know, I'm done.

没力气了。是的。实际上，我发现这种模式在我 coaching 时接触的女性中非常普遍，那些在生孩子前成就很高的人习惯长时间工作，不惜一切完成任务。如果晚上需要工作，没问题。偶尔周末加班，也没问题。

I'm done. So Yeah. I actually find that that paradigm is really common amongst women that I speak to in coaching and stuff where high achievers before they had babies are used to working long hours, doing what it takes to get stuff done. If they need to work in the evening, fine. If you have to work in the weekend sometimes, that's fine.

但即使你只是从早八点到晚六点不间断工作，而现在，比如你到公司时可能已经9点了，但实际上你可能从六点就开始忙喂奶、应付各种事情——我不知道该怎么形容。各种谈判，真的，比如处理哭闹、应对情绪崩溃、试图让他们吃樱桃而不是把樱桃放在鼻子上等等。然后你到了办公室，已经花了这么多时间，而且睡眠可能还被中断。接着，你不是从八点到六点 uninterrupted 地工作，而是从六点忙到九点，然后九点到五点工作。是的。

But also even just if you're doing a day that's eight till six uninterrupted, whereas now, like, by the time you get to work, it might be 9AM, but you've actually probably been up since six doing feeding and getting I don't know. Negotiations and all negotiations exactly, like dealing with tears and dealing with meltdowns and trying to get them to eat the cherries instead of put them on their nose and stuff. And then you get to work, you've already had all this time and also probably interrupted sleep. And then instead of working eight to six with no interruptions, you're working six till nine, and then you're working nine till five. Yeah.

也许你正在想日托所里发生了什么，或者如果你送孩子去的时候他们在哭，诸如此类的事情会占据你的心思。然后你五点下班，赶在日托所关门前接孩子。回到家后，你要做晚饭、讲故事、洗澡时间，还要应对更多的发脾气和更多的谈判。然后他们上床睡觉，显然，根据孩子的不同，时间在七点到九点之间。所以实际上从六点到晚上八点，你一直在忙，睡眠也是断断续续的。

And you are maybe thinking about what's happening at day care or if the kid you know, if you drop them off crying, whatever, that's that takes up some your mind. And then you finish at five, you rush a day care together before day care closes. And then you get home, and you do dinner and stories and bath time and more tantrums and more negotiating. And then they go bed, obviously, depending on the kid between seven and nine. And then so you've actually done six till 8PM, say, on on on interrupted sleep.

所以，然后还要指望你在晚上八点打开笔记本电脑，就像你说的，这太荒谬了。没人能做到。

And so you've had and so then to be expected to pick up the laptop, as you said, at 8PM at night is, like, it's absurd. No one can actually do that.

不，不。或者至少做不好。

No. No. Or at least not well.

是的。至少

Yeah. At least

做不好。当然，我们建立的一些系统和措施，让这变得稍微容易一些，我认为这是我们成功的关键之一。但是，是的，这确实不容易。而且，这又回到了你在妥协什么。对吧？

not well. Certainly kind of systems and and things that we have put in place to to make that, you know, happen a little least, you know, easier at home, I think that's certainly one of the keys to our success. But, yeah, it's it's certainly not easy. And, again, it's kind of what you're compromising. Right?

因为我喜欢睡前时光。是的，它充满了谈判和戏剧性，你永远不知道会发生什么。但我真的很喜欢能够在一天结束时坐下来，读几本书，拥抱一下，仍然感受到那种连接。这才是真正重要的。

Because I love doing bedtime. Yeah. It is, you know, full of negotiating and drama, and you never know what's gonna happen. But I do really like being able to, you know, sit down at the end of the day, read some books, have a cuddle, and still feel that kind of connection. That's what's really important.

这帮助我度过一天。所以，尽管有所有其他事情，这仍然是我一天中最喜欢的部分之一。

That helps me kinda get through the day. So Yeah. Despite everything else, that's still one of my favorite parts of the day.

是的。是的。百分之百。我认为那些在生孩子前就成就斐然、习惯全力以赴的女性，突然之间，正如你所说，一方面你更疲惫了，另一方面你又想好好利用晚上的时间。

Yeah. Yeah. 100%. And I think this thing of, like, women who are high achievers before they have babies and are used to doing what it takes, and then suddenly, as you've said, one, you're more exhausted. Two, you wanna do that evening time.

所以你的时间被不同的事情拉扯。我对你说你重新定义了成功很感兴趣，因为他们确实对这种双重拉扯做了研究。对吧？就是既想要一份有趣、充实、有意义的事业，可能在生孩子前还会长时间工作、非常投入并取得成功等等，然后我们又有了对孩子的新奉献，想要花时间陪伴他们。

And so you different pull on your time. And I was interested in you saying that you had redefined what success looked like for you because they actually did research into this dual pull. Right? Like, the the desire to have an interesting, fulfilling, meaningful career and possibly before kids working long hours and really putting in a lot and succeeding and stuff. And then we have a new a new devotion of our children that we wanna spend time with.

这项研究来自哥伦比亚大学，被称为‘竞争性奉献’。他们发现的一点是，那些既有事业又有家庭、希望两者都积极参与的女性，最有可能在花时间重新定义对她们而言什么是成功时，感到自己是成功的。因此，成功不再是我像有孩子前那样工作，或者我像一个全职妈妈那样育儿，因为这两者都不再可能实现了。

So this research came out of Columbia University. It's called competing devotions. And one of the things they found was that the women who have this, a career and a family, they wanna be active in both, they are most likely to feel like they're successful when they spend the time to redefine what success is for them. And so it no longer is I work the way I worked before I had kids or I parent as if I'm a stay at home mother because neither of those things can be true anymore.

是的。

Yeah.

它看起来是什么样的？就像你说的，也许少做一些额外的事情，也许财务状况在几年内会紧一些，但你周五休息，能在睡前陪伴孩子。之后你就不工作了，因为实际上获得足够的睡眠是成功和感觉良好的重要部分。当你非常自觉地做出这个决定后，你就会环顾四周说，我做到了。就像今天，我做到了。

It's what does it look like? Like, as you said, maybe little bit less of the extra stuff and maybe the financials are a little bit tighter for a couple of years, but you take Fridays off and you're there at bedtime. And you don't work after that because actually getting enough sleep is an important part of being successful and feeling okay. And when you've made that decision really consciously, then you're looking around going, I'm doing it. Like, today, did.

我们度过了一个愉快的睡前时光，然后我九点半就上床了，第二天感觉休息得很好，我对此感到满意。而如果你唯一的衡量标准是‘我是否像有孩子前那样工作？’那你只会一直觉得自己不成功。

We had a lovely bedtime, and then I I got to bed at 09:30, and I feel rested the next day, and I feel good about this. Whereas if your sole measure was, am I working the way I worked before I had kids? You would just always feel like you weren't successful.

是的。是的。我对这么多点都深有共鸣，而且很高兴知道有研究在某种程度上验证了我自己的旅程，因为有时你确实觉得，你在经历这种重新定义的过程，但这只是你个人的事。它不像是一个系统性问题，或者不一定有其他人也在经历这个，这就是为什么我非常热衷于分享我的个人故事，因为我觉得我过去并不知道这些。在我任何出色的圈子、任何美好的朋友或我认识的妈妈中，没有人 necessarily 说过，‘这将会震撼你的核心。’

Yes. Yes. I can resonate with so much of that, and it's good to know there's research that kinda validates, you know, my own journey because sometimes you do feel like you're kind of, you know, going through this whole, you know, redefining thing and it it's just a you thing. It's not like a a system thing or there's not necessarily others in that, which is why I feel really passionate about sharing my personal story because I do think that not I didn't know about this. Nobody that I knew in any of my incredible circles or any of my beautiful friends or the moms that I've known necessarily said, this is going to shake you to your core.

我们谈论身体上的变化，谈论睡眠不足，谈论人际关系的改变，所有这些，但我们实际上没有真正讨论那种个人的内在转变。我曾百分之百地期望自己能像那些了不起的妈妈们一样——你知道，那些重新担任CEO或类似职位的人——她们似乎一步都没落下，继续大步前进。这对某些人确实有效，我认为如果她们努力定义自己看重什么、什么重要，她们可能会发现那就是她们认为重要的东西。

We talk about the physical. We talk about the lack of sleep. We talk about the changes in relationships, all of that, but we don't actually kind of talk about the individual kind of shifting that. And I did a 100% expect that I could just do the same thing, hear about these amazing, you know, moms who, you know, again, pick up, you know, the CEO role again or whatever it is and just kind of don't lose a step and just keep kind of striding. And that absolutely works for some people, and I think if they did the work to define what they value and what's important, they would probably find that that's what's important.

但我相信这背后肯定有一整套我们有时看不到的支持体系。

But I'm sure that comes with a whole bunch of scaffolding that sometimes we don't always see.

完全同意。而且

Totally. And

那样很棒，但对我来说情况有些不同。我确实感受到一种难以置信的从容感，就像我确实处在应该的位置，成为了我应该成为的人。虽然仍然艰难，仍然充满变数，但我在所做之事中感受到了一种自在。

and that's great, but, yeah, for me, it was slightly different. And I do feel the most incredible sense of feeling at ease and, like, I'm actually the right you know, I am where I'm supposed to be, and I'm the person that I'm supposed to be. It is still hard. It is still dynamic, but I do feel a sense of ease in what I do.

是的。现在。对。对。对。

Yeah. Now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

说得很美。我之前简单提到过，我通常不建议人们将小企业所有权作为解决方案，但我想谈谈为什么如此。我也很想听听你对此的看法。在我看来，主要有三个原因让我建议女性在踏入这一领域时要睁大眼睛，因为它可能看起来是个很好的解决方案。一是已经存在养老金性别差距，女性退休时的养老金显著少于男性。

Beautiful. And so I sort of touched briefly on the fact that I often don't recommend small business ownership to people as a solution, but I wanna just talk about why that is a little bit. And just I'm interested in your inputs in this too. So a cut the the three big reasons are, from my perspective, why I just may just suggest that women go into it eyes wide open because it can feel like what a great solution. One is that there's already a superannuation gender gap where women retire with significantly less superannuation than men.

而且很多时候，当女性进入小企业时，她们不会往自己的养老金账户里存钱。

And very often when women step into small business, they don't put money into their superannuation.

是的。完全正确。

Yeah. Absolutely.

所以他们可能会离开职场，我不知道，大概四年时间经营小生意，尝试这样做以获得更多灵活性和陪伴家人的时间。这样一来，他们的养老金就会大幅减少，当然还有长期复利收益的损失。那么你是怎么做的呢？我的意思是，你提到向他人寻求建议。在养老金方面你做了什么，确保自己不会因为这个决定而在长期财务上处于不利地位？

So they might be out of the workforce for, I don't know, four years working on a small business, trying to to do that instead so they have a bit more flexibility and time with the family. And then their superannuation is all of that amount down and, of course, the compound earnings over time. So what did you do? I mean, you talked about getting advice from people. What did you what do you do around superannuation, making sure that actually that is that you're not financially disadvantaging yourself for the long term by making this decision.

是的。我认为，你知道，我确实对养老金以及女性普遍面临的挑战有了很多了解。当然，这也是促使我很晚才要孩子的原因之一——所有这些因素都起了作用。虽然听起来可能有点傻，但养老金确实是我决策过程中的考虑因素，因为职业上的财务影响以及所有相关的连锁反应是真实存在的，并且有大量数据支持。作为小企业主，面临的财务挑战在于：我们如何填补这个缺口，如何从启动全新事业发展到最终取得成功——这确实是一场赌博。

Yeah. I think, you know, again, I I had learned quite a lot about superannuation and the the challenges that women face just generally. And, certainly, again, one of the drivers for me coming to the party around having a, you know, a baby so late was absolutely all of those contributing factors. And it sounds silly to think that superannuation is on your mind as part of that decision making process, but the financial impact on your career and all of those, you know, connected dots is is real and has lots lots and lots of data. As a small business owner, it is that financial, challenge of how do we kind of, you know, fill the gap, how do we get from, you know, launching and starting something really new, really fresh to, you know, hopefully down the track where we're incredibly successful and, you know, all of those things, it's it was a gamble.

我确实有好几个月没有领到工资。幸运的是，我们当时的财务状况允许这样做。这同样是与家人共同商议后做出的决定，我们讨论了如何应对以及具体安排。不过，我们的财务顾问给出的建议是——我之前不知道如果未达到那个小额阈值（我记得大概是3万澳元），还可以进行补缴。

And I did go, you know, several months without being paid. It was fortunately that we were in a position where that was possible. And, again, it was a decision with the family about how we were going to manage that and what did that look like. The advice, though, from, again, our financial adviser was that we you know, I didn't know about the the kind of the payback that you can do if you if you don't kind of reach that small threshold. I think it's about 30 k.

在一个财年内，你有几年的时间可以补足差额，希望能某种程度上追回这部分损失。是有几年时间可以补缴的。所以如果人们

In one financial year, you've got, you know, a couple of years to kinda top it up and and hopefully, you know, kind of catch that back up in some places. Years to pay it back. So if people

正在收听，请注意这不是财务建议。显然大家正在听。我比较确定是每年2.5万澳元，虽然现在可能是3万了。而且我认为你有五年时间可以补足。也就是说，如果某一年你只给自己缴纳了1万养老金，你有五年时间可以补缴剩余的1.5万。

are listening this is not financial advice. Obviously, people are listening. I'm pretty sure it's $25,000 a year, though it might be 30 now. And I think you have five years to catch it up. So that means if one year you pay yourself 10 in super, you have five years to give yourself back that extra 15.

所以如果你开始赚更多钱，或者你丈夫根据财务和育儿安排向你的账户缴纳供款，你可以在五年内完成补缴。是的。

So if you start to earn more or your husband pays contribution into yours as part of the arrangement around finances and childcare, you could do that for five years. Yep.

是的。那么那种，你知道的，那些影响会是什么呢？这是我们非常清楚意识到的一点。在Pathmaker，我们确实设定了一些目标，围绕何时给自己支付薪酬、这看起来会是什么样子，以及我们如何通过养老金来实现。甚至，在刚刚结束的财年年底，我们更多地是补缴了养老金，而不是一定给自己支付薪水。

Yeah. And what was that kind of you know, what what was those impacts going to be? So that is something that we were acutely aware of. At Pathmaker, we did kinda set it to, you know, set some goals and set some targets around when we were gonna pay ourselves and what did that look like and how we were gonna do that with with super. And even, you know, come towards the end of the financial year that has just gone, we kinda topped up our superannuation rather than necessarily paying ourselves some salary.

因此我们采取了一些具体步骤来实现这一点，并在可能的情况下追赶进度，同时找到合适的机制和所谓的‘漏洞’，以便能够做到这一点。所以我认为，对于任何小企业主来说，特别是女性经营的企业，将这些放在心上非常重要。我们知道女性经营的企业正在增加，但像许多企业一样，你知道，小企业能坚持三年左右。所以考虑到所有这些机制，并以此为基础来规划自己，我认为至关重要。

So we've taken some specific steps to to enable that to kind of happen and kinda catch up where we can, and finding the right mechanisms and the loopholes, I guess, so to speak, that can enable you to to do that. So I think that being front of mind for any small business owner is really important in particularly female businesses. We know that female businesses are on the rise, but like many, you know, three years is the rough, you know, age of any small business to to kind of last. So thinking about all of these mechanics and setting yourself up with that in mind, I think, is critical.

与此密切相关的是小企业的实际收入。我在准备这期播客时读到，在小企业主中，男性的收入几乎是女性的1.5倍。女性小企业的年收入中位数为4万美元，说实话，这比我想象的要低。我看到的是，外面有很多烟雾和镜子。所以很多女性进入自雇行业，也许她们会做教练，或者开一个小型在线企业，被告知能够获得被动收入，等等。

Very much related to this is the actual earnings of small business. So I read in preparation for this podcast, among small business owners, men earn nearly 1 and a half times what women do in small business. And the median small business earning for women is $40,000 a year, which is lower than I expected, to be honest. And what I see is that there's a lot of smoke and mirrors out there. So a lot of women go into jobs into self employment, and maybe they're gonna be doing coaching or they start a small online business where they're told they're gonna be able to make passive income, whatever.

实际上，那是个谎言。我们必须非常努力地工作

And, actually, that's a lie. We have to work really hard

是的。

Yeah.

根本没有什么被动收入。即使有，也是因为你花了多年时间建立邮件列表、销售漏斗等等。而收入，比如4万美元，可能会让其他听众感到惊讶，他们会想，‘哦，不，没关系。我会离职，然后复制我的公司薪水，但我会有很多灵活性。’

To there's no such thing as passive income. Even if there is, it's because you spent years building up an email list and funnels and all that kind of stuff. And the earnings, like, $40,000 is immediate earnings might surprise other listeners who are like, oh, no. It's fine. I'll leave, and I'll just replicate my corporate salary, but I have lots of flexibility.

所以你已经稍微谈到了这一点。但当你在设立时，我想知道，不是具体的数字，而是你的期望，比如你认为我们需要多长时间才能实际获得收入？在那段过渡期我们做什么？是的，回报是什么？

So you've already talked about that a little bit. But when you were setting up, I guess, what were your not actually numbers, but your expectations in terms of, like, how long do I think it's gonna take us to actually earn any income? What do we do in that interim period? Yeah. What's the what's the payoff?

那么，临界点在哪里呢？比如，如果我们没有达到预期目标，我们打算怎么做？关于这一点你有什么想法？

Where are the cutoff points for, like, okay. If we haven't met met projections, what are we gonna do about it? What have have you thought about that?

是的。我来自一个有着小企业主传统的家庭，这既是好事也是坏事，因为我确实亲眼目睹并经历了小企业经营不顺时会面临的挑战。当然，也见证了当一切顺利时，家庭能够...

Yeah. It is I come from kind of a long lineage of small business owners, so which is both a good thing and a bad thing because I have certainly seen the an experience, the challenges of what happens when small business doesn't go quite, you know, right Yeah. But also, you know, when it goes really well, what, you know, what what the family

能够...是的。

can for Yeah.

是的。所以这两种截然不同的经历确实深深烙印在我的脑海里，也在很大程度上影响着我如何运营Pathmaker。但我们还处于早期阶段，二月份才刚启动，现在大约六个月大。关于我们能坚持多久以及那会是什么样子，我们进行了非常艰难的讨论。

Yeah. So that is certainly those two, you know, many experiences are burnt into my brain and sort of drive how I certainly run Pathmaker. But we you know, we're early. We've only launched in February, so we're around about six months old at this point. And and it was really tough discussions about how long we could go and what that was gonna look like.

完全透明地说，我目前的收入肯定比在企业工作或以前要少，但作为回报，我也获得了许多其他的好处和收益。所以，作为一个小企业主，获得一些真正好的建议、了解你能从哪些方面获益、如何让业务为你服务，以及存在的不同模式（比如个体经营者、公司、信托等）及其伴随的复杂性，我认为获取这些好建议很重要，这也驱动了我们所做的决策。我们确实制定了一个五年的增长计划，所以我们知道我们能做什么、想去哪里、以及要看哪些指标来实现目标，这使我们能够在此过程中逐步解锁不同的财务回报。是的。不过我必须承认，这整个旅程是为了长远发展。

Full transparency, I'm certainly earning less at the moment than I would in a corporate role or I did way back when, but there's certainly lots of other perks and benefits that I'm gaining as a as a result. So, again, as a small business owner, having some really good advice and knowing the landscape in terms of what things you can you can benefit and you can gain from and how you can get the business to work from you and just the different models that exist, like a sole trader versus a company versus, you know, trust and all the complexities that come with how you might set up a business, I think getting that good advice is is important, and that has driven the decisions that we've made. We have certainly sent a five year kind of growth plan so we know what we can, where we wanna go, and and what metrics we're looking at to to get there, and that is then enabling us to unlock different financial, you know, reward along along the way. Yeah. It I must admit, though, that this whole journey is we're here for the long term.

这对我个人而言是长期的抱负。这完全关乎如何为我的家庭奠定长期成功的基础。所以短期来看，收入可能感觉比在企业角色中能获得的要少一些。但如果回到我对成功的定义，我正在实现我们需要做的一切。而且，我们作为一个家庭单位，处境非常好。

That that's how aspiration for me personally. This is absolutely about how do we how do we how do I set my family up for success long term? So short term, it might feel like, you know, a little less than maybe, again, what I could have been doing in a corporate role. But, if I go back to what I defined as success, I'm achieving everything that we need to do. And we're, you know, we're in a really good place as a family unit.

我真的很感激我有一个非常支持的丈夫，他百分之一百五十地支持我，并且一直在那里，因为这确实需要团队的努力。但对于其他女性，我认为关键是获得商业建议，理解你的目标是什么，并由此倒推。所以我知道从可计费的角度，我需要与客户工作多少小时才能达到类似以前的标准，而这个时间要少得多。我不必每周工作五天就能达到目标。因此，理解你理想中想赚多少钱，然后由此倒推，我认为非常重要。因为如果你没有那个明确的目标，只是盲目尝试，你就不知道你的成功需要是什么样子，也不知道需要多大的动力。

I'm really, really grateful that I've got an incredibly supportive husband that has backed me a 150% of the way and is there, because it does take a bit of a team effort. But for other women, I think it's getting that commercial advice, understanding how what's the goals that you have and working backwards from there. So I knew how many hours I needed to work from a billable perspective with clients in order to achieve a similar sort of standard as what I was, you know, previously achieving, and it was a lot less. You know, I didn't have to work five days a week to kinda get there. So understanding how much you're ideally wanting to earn and then work backwards from there, I think, is really important to understand because just throwing it out there into the world, you don't know what your success needs to be and what the momentum needs to be if you don't really have that flag on the hill.

是的。是的。那么第三个原因，第一个是巨大的认知差距。我认为人们对这一点认识不足。第二个是小企业收入的现实情况。

Yep. Yep. So then the third reason so the first one is super gap. I think there's not enough awareness around that. The second one is the reality of what earnings are in small business often.

而且，再次强调，我认为人们往往没有真正想清楚自己想要什么。就像你说的，他们只是先尝试一下，看看会发生什么。第三个原因，我们已经讨论过了，就是界限问题。人们为了灵活性和平衡而创业，但有时最终工作时间翻倍，收入却减半。这完全不是我想要的结果。

And and, again, I think people often don't actually work out what they want. They're as you said, throw it out at there and see see what happens kind of thing. And then the third one is, which we did already talk about, is boundaries. Like, people go into it for flexibility and balance, and sometimes they end up working twice as much for half as much money. Like, this isn't the outcome I was looking for here.

如果没有那些增长预期，那么很快就会觉得这一切根本不值得。

And without those growth projections, then that that certainly feels not worth it very quickly.

是的，完全正确。我认为，利用现有资源很重要，现在世界上有一些非常棒的资源可以让事情变得更容易一些。比如像Canva这样简单的工具，意味着你不一定需要平面设计师。当然你仍然需要发展一些技能等等，我只是以这个为例，我当自由职业者时就在用，并且一直沿用至今。

Yeah. Absolutely. And I think, you know, using the resources, there's some incredible resources out there in the world now that do make it a little bit easier. You know, something as simple as Canva, you know, means that you don't have to necessarily have a graphic designer. There's still skills that you need to develop and all those sorts of things, and I use that just as one example that certainly I was using as a freelancer and then, you know, carry through.

但关键在于，你能采用哪些既经济高效，又能让你更有效率、更专业地工作的工具和系统，从而促进增长。所以我认为这是节省时间的重要部分。根据你所从事业务的具体情况，找到这些系统非常重要。但这同样需要勇气，不适合胆小的人。

But it's what tools, what systems can you employ that are cost effective but enable you to do things more efficiently as well as far more professionally to kind of help that growth. So I think that's a big part of being able to save some time. And I guess depending on the context of whatever it is you're you're doing as a business, finding those those systems is really important. But it is, again, like, it it take courage, and it's not for the it's not for the faint hearted. That's

确实如此。

for sure.

这确实需要一些勇气。我在这方面确实挣扎过的一点就是能够相信自己并拥有那份自信。当一切都在变化时，你知道，在最糟糕的日子里，家里有人得了手足口病，还有一堆会议需要重新安排，你也不确定客户是否会支付账单，肯定会有这样的时刻：我到底在做什么？这一切真的值得吗？但在最好的日子里，你看着这一切，就会明白：这就是我这么做的原因。

It does require some bravery. The one thing I've certainly struggled with around that is just being able to back myself and having that confidence. And when everything is shifting, you know, in the worst days where you've got hand, foot, and mouth happening in the house and a bunch of meetings that you didn't you know, that you're now gonna have to shift around and you're not really sure, you know, if that client's gonna pay that bill, there are definitely moments where you're like, what am I doing with my life, and is this actually gonna be worth it? But then on the best possible days, you kind of look at it and you're like, okay. That's why I'm doing it.

是的。这正是原因所在。

Yeah. This is exactly why.

所以作为小企业主，驾驭这股浪潮真的非常非常困难。而且我认为作为母亲以及所有这些身份，会带来更多情感因素，我们当然，你知道，在家里也要承担大部分情感上的压力。

So riding that wave is really, really hard as a small business owner. And I think as a mom and all of those things, bring more emotion to it, and we certainly, you know, deal with the brunt of the emotional stuff at home as well.

是的。非常感谢你今天加入我的节目。相信这对正在收听的女性朋友们来说将是一次极富启发的对话。非常感谢你的分享。你知道你可以邀请我进入你的组织吗？

Yeah. Thank you so much for joining me today. Think this is gonna be an incredible conversation for women who are listening. Thank you so much for sharing. Did you know you can get me into your organization?

我进行演讲，主持小组讨论，并举办关于性别平等和全公司解决方案的研讨会。如果贵公司对此感兴趣，请联系我们。《职场女性》承认我们位于Gadigal和Bidjigal人的传统土地上。我们在此录制播客，并向过去、现在和未来的长老们致以敬意。我们承认他们与土地、水和文化的持续联系，并努力尊重他们的主权。

I speak, I moderate panels, and I host workshops on gender equity and whole of company solutions. If this is something your company might be interested in, get in touch. Women at Work acknowledges that we are on the traditional lands of the Gadigal and Bidjigal people. We record our podcast here and pay our respects to the elders past, present, and emerging. We acknowledge their continued connection to land, water, and culture and strive to honor their sovereignty.

这片土地过去是，将来也永远是原住民的土地。

Always was, always will be aboriginal land.