16The Future of Women + Work
Some final thoughts as we consider women and work in the future.
I hate to be the one to say this, but I can be impatient. I am tired of waiting for systemic change; however, I'm simultaneously committed to the long game. I'm a mom, an aunt, a sister, a mentor, and champion for women, clearly. But what do you do in the meantime, as slow but steady progress moves us forward? How do you maintain hope? Sleep at night?
I don't have the answers, but I do hope the principles and exercises in this book are the beginning of massive healing, transformation, and one of the biggest catalysts for change in your career and life. I hope that these exercises have and will continue to implore you to show up fully confident, crystal clear, and courageously ready to join hands with other women to shake up the workforce by no longer playing small, having the audacity to quit or pivot, and creating new pathways for women of the future to follow.
I was recently asked what I think will happen with women and work in the future. There's so much I could hope for and I have a lot of ideas, but it is hard to tell. You can never accurately predict the future. Consider the pandemic and how it literally changed everything so quickly. But if I use what I know and have observed with current patterns and trends post‐pandemic, I would make the following assumptions. I wouldn't dare suggest that they are fixed and accurate, but the research and work would bend in the following directions ...