141: Sustaining Ambition: Insights From France with Sandra Fillaudeau
Overview
If you live and work in the U.S., you might have daydreamed about finding better work-life balance by moving to another country with different cultural norms and government structures around work.
But what if the challenges of navigating life and work in the modern world are more pervasive than we think? What if the structures that need to change run much deeper than government policy and programs?
To explore these questions, I’m joined by coach and consultant Sandra Fillaudeau, who lives and works in France and whose work tackles questions of work-life integration, gender balance, and sustainable living.
We dig into what challenges French professionals typically face with work-life integration, how those issues are reflected cross-culturally, and what shifts individuals and organizations can make to help us better navigate the dynamic nature of our lives with work in the modern world.
Listen below or on your favorite podcast player.
More About Our Guest
Sandra Fillaudeau is the founder of the consulting and coaching agency, Conscious Cultures. She helps individuals and groups move forward serenely in their careers, by helping them to find the right posture and path for them. Because there really is no boundary between "professional life" and "personal life", she promotes a better integration of life domains, building a career and personal life in harmony.
Sandra is also the creator of the podcast Les Équilibristes, in which she interviews guests to explore their ways of "choosing it all,” combining professional and personal ambition, and giving a new meaning to "work/life balance.”
She is also a member of the Welcome to the Jungle Lab community of experts, where she writes articles exploring the nuances of work/life harmony to build the future of work.
Listen to the full episode to hear:
Sandra’s experience returning to work from maternity leave, and how it challenged her ideas and beliefs about ambition and work-life balance
How French cultural norms around privacy and keeping work and life separate impede conversations about how life inevitably impacts work
Three key aspects of what workers really want
Reconceiving career paths as non-linear paths
How balance is not a state, but a dynamic pursuit
What leaders and managers can do to create open conversations and shift their structures
Learn more about Sandra Fillaudeau:
Resources Mentioned
Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family, Anne-Marie Slaughter
Thanks for Listening!
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