What Being the ‘Cool Aunt’ Taught Me
In 2012, my grandma passed away. It wasn't sudden, but it was a huge loss for me and for our family.
I'll save the long story for another day, but that event changed the trajectory of my career and reframed how I think about the importance of the time I spend at (and on) work.
Fast forward 13 years, and I was reminded again why being present matters most.
Turns out, there are some titles that no promotion can beat, and this one might just be my favorite.
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A couple of months ago, I got one of the best compliments of my life. Over family dinner, my then 13-year-old niece looked up from her plate and said, "Oh, by the way, Auntie, my friends call you the cool aunt." That's right. My now 14-year-old niece said that I was the cool aunt among her middle school baddies.
Yes, I did make her repeat it. Twice.
When my nieces were little, we did everything together: slumber parties, movie nights, and had really deep conversations that turned into really great life lessons, and not just for them.
But now they're older, they're busier, and I hate to admit it, cooler than me. Between volleyball games and basketball games and birthday parties, our time together is limited.
I'm here in San Francisco, they're on the Peninsula,
But up until this past fall, every Tuesday, my mom would pick those two girls up from school, my brother and I would drive to her house, and we would have family dinner.
Every Tuesday without fail.
My sister-in-law, God bless her, was an elementary school teacher for 20 plus years, and she got a night off.
We would play games, we would laugh, we would stay off our phones, and we would keep ourselves up to date on life, work, and all of the middle school drama.
And somewhere between card games and all the chaos, I realized something. What they say is true: the days are long, but the years are short.
That lesson applies to job searches too. They test your patience and your confidence, and even your resilience.
If you're only measuring your worth by the next job offer or next interview, you may be missing the things and the people that make life meaningful. So here's my reminder to you while you're applying and you're networking and you're updating your résumé, make time for the people and the things and the hobbies that fill your life with joy.
Because yes, your career will evolve. But the investments you make into relationships are what will echo into eternity.
And if you're lucky, you may just get a title like mine that no promotion can beat. That is if my nieces never find out that I actually posted this to LinkedIn.
