Lauren Smith Brody

So the first step is a precept, which is really, it's convincing yourself.

And this is what I spend.

If I like get on a screen or stand on a stage and talk to an audience, you know, for an hour, so much of what I'm doing and sharing all of these data points and research and the numbers is to help fill up your pockets, right?

Like pretend you have on cargo pants, like fill up your pockets with everything you need to

so that you feel like I have, I can go into these, these negotiations feeling really, really sturdy in what I'm asking for, knowing that it's not just for me, you know, as a, as a, a needy person myself for my little family, but it's something that is ultimately better for my employer.

It makes me, you know, you can look at kind of how your employer compares to other employers in the area or other employers in your field and look at, you can either make the case that

They need to be doing more because others are doing more.

So to keep up or you can make the case that actually like they're doing the most and they need to maintain that in order to maintain their sort of their lead of retaining retaining new moms.

So convince yourself and then you want to have a really firm sense.

This is so basic, but you just want to know what your job description is.

You would not believe how many people don't actually like.

can't stop and think like, what are the five things that are on my job description?

And I guarantee you, you're doing 2,500 things because so many of us like outgrow what we're doing and we're really comfortable with the old stuff and we add the new things and we get promoted and we take the new stuff on and we don't ever get rid of the old.

That's how you find the time that you ultimately are going to need to be able to have the white space in your day to keep growing, to keep feeling like you can breathe, to have time for networking and connecting and business development and all the things that keep your career moving on that upward track.

So research outside, then research inside the company, what policies are already available that you may not be using, then go in with a sense of what your job description is and propose a plan, but also have a plan B and a plan C that fulfill that job description.

And then you can also propose, this is sort of the last step, to try it.

Just propose a trial period.

Because particularly if you're a new mom, but really in kind of many stages of caregiving, your needs are going to change within a month, within two months.

And so you want to have this be sort of a continuum of conversations, not just a one and done.

And this way you end up actually sort of showing the service you're providing.