Unseen Battles
Unseen Battles
Parul Goel
For women in tech, the path to success can be confusing and challenging. What should be my brand? Will negotiating hard make me unlikable? Should I push back on my manager? Should I stay or leave? What if I make the wrong decision? Have you ever wondered how other successful people know what the right answers are? The truth is they don’t. Even though we often feel alone in our struggles and failures, fear and ambivalence are universal experiences. Every successful person, every successful career is built on a series of such unseen battles. Every two weeks, we will hear from interesting, smart and successful people about an unseen battle from their careers - dealing with rejection, working with a difficult manager, being a working parent - whatever their struggle was. We will hear about their motivations, fears and learnings. Their stories will leave you feeling hopeful, inspired and confident. Parul Goel is a woman in tech, a product leader and a keynote speaker. Having been through her own struggles and failures, she knows how lonely the experience is. Her mission to remind herself and others that we are not alone in our struggles. Every successful career is built on a series of such unseen battles. Tune in for you bi-weekly dose of hope and inspiration.
Episode 16: Overcoming High Functioning Anxiety with Heather Rider
In this episode, Heather Rider, an anxiety coach, talks about her battle with high functioning anxiety, a form of anxiety that afflicts high achievers as they struggle to consistently meet their own high standards. She shares practical tips that have helped hundreds of her clients overcome this condition.
Sep 7, 2021
25 min
Episode 15: Dealing with an Abusive Leader with Erin Norton
In this episode of Unseen Battles with Parul Goel, Erin Norton, a technology leader, talks about her experience of being pushed to the edge by a difficult, bordering abusive leader. She offers practical advice on how to hold on to your mental peace if you find yourself in a similar situation.
Aug 10, 2021
24 min
Episode 14: Bouncing Back From a Layoff with Shilpa Vir
In this episode of Unseen Battles with Parul Goel, Shilpa Vir, a Product Manager at Google, shares her experience of being laid off from her role when she was eight months pregnant. Instead of letting this setback define her, Shilpa set out on a determined path to prove to herself that she was deserving of a better role and ended up with multiple job offers.
Jul 27, 2021
32 min
Episode 13: The Value of Passive Income with Eve Porcello
In this episode of Unseen Battles with Parul Goel, Eve Porcello, an author and the cofounder of Moon Highway, talks about how content creation, something that started as a side track, ended up becoming her main source of income. This passive income helped her when she was going through a crisis in her personal life. Eve talks about her story of how she got started, and shares tips on how we can too.
Jul 13, 2021
24 min
Episode 12: Bringing Your Voice to Meetings with Poornima Venkatakrishnan
In this episode of Unseen Battles, Poornima Venkatakrishnan, an engineering leader at PayPal, shares her journey of finding her voice in meetings. She talks about an inspiring event from her career where she self-advocated to get herself invited to a pivotal meeting, and her struggles with self-doubt and fear as she prepared for it.
Jun 29, 2021
31 min
Episode 11: Balancing Caregiving and Work with Ada Chen
In this touching episode of Unseen Battles, Ada shares her story of balancing being a caregiver for her dad and building her career in tech. She offers practical advice on topics such as having crucial conversations at work as well as end of life planning.
Jun 1, 2021
39 min
Episode 10: Saying Yes with Catherine Madden
In this episode, Catherine Madden, the co-founder of global conference and community UXDX, shares an experience where because of self-doubt, she said no to an opportunity. Even today, the lesson she learned from this experience many years ago motivates her to more often say yes and has shaped her career.
May 18, 2021
25 min
Episode 9: Sticking to Your Why with Erika Ferszt
In this episode, Erika Ferszt talks about her stress-related vision loss, and how that inspired her to find Moodally to help others combat workplace stress. As an entrepreneur, she learned that in the face of challenges and conflicting advice, her “why” became her guiding star.
May 4, 2021
27 min
Episode 8: Making Career Choices with Jennifer Stefanski
In this episode, Jennifer Stefanski, Product Counsel at Survey Monkey, shares her career journey and how she learned to make professional decisions based on the life she wanted. Through the years, her career moves have been guided by personal needs even more so than professional wants, and this has been her recipe for success and happiness.
Apr 20, 2021
27 min
Episode 7: Partnering with Execs with Christa Johnson-Perkins
Christa Johnson-Perkins shares her experience of a presentation to execs gone awry, and the valuable lessons she walked away with. She also shares some very practical tips about how to stay in control during such high pressure presentations.
Apr 6, 2021
29 min
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