How to stop finding your self-worth through your job (w/ Gloria Chan Packer)

How to Be a Better Human

TED and PRX

Self-improvement, Education

4.2 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2023

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For some of us it’s easy to lose ourselves in our work. But a lack of boundaries between your personal and work life is something mental wellness educator Gloria Chan Packer would warn you twice about. Gloria speaks about the perils of gaining your sense of self-worth from your job, discusses her experience with burnout and stress and shares empowering insights on how to shift our perspectives to create – and maintain – a healthy distance. For the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/BHTranscripts

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0:00.0	Ted Audio Collective.
0:02.0	Audio Collective.
0:04.0	You're listening to
0:10.0	You're listening to how to be a better human.
0:12.0	I'm your host Chris Duffy.
0:15.0	I started struggling with debilitating chronic migraines that for me
0:21.0	meant that after months of no change and no medication or treatment working, I knew I
0:28.9	had to take at least a leave from work and that was devastating for me because work had really become my everything.
0:35.0	Gloria Chan Packer is a management consultant, but not just any consultant.
0:39.0	She was and is one of the best in the world.
0:42.0	She was working with people at corporations all across the globe.
0:45.4	But when illness forced her to suddenly take a step back
0:47.9	from her job, it felt like she was losing herself.
0:51.4	There is a memory that haunts me from that time. It was the night before I was about to go on leave and I was just grabbing dinner with a friend and my husband.
1:02.0	And I said to my friend work is my entire worth and my identity. I don't know what I'm going to do without it.
1:10.0	And my husband's body language and face dropped in a way that I had never seen it. And my husband's body language and face dropped in a way that I had never seen it.
1:15.0	And after my friend left, I remember him saying to me,
1:19.0	I can't believe that you think that work is your only worse when I see so much more and I can't believe you can't see that either.
1:27.0	It's a poignant memory for me because I remember it feeling so true.
1:31.0	Today's episode is going to deal with issues that many of us
1:35.0	struggle with every day. How do you draw boundaries at work? How do you balance
1:39.3	ambition and drive with taking care of yourself? What is really important in life? I know intellectually.
	...

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