Ocho - Hola de Chile 🇨🇱

Life lessons, Product & the Podcast.

What a couple of weeks it's been. A busy week at Manchester Tech Festival, and then a busy few days getting ready to leave the UK & finally flying to Chile!

I feel like I'm an absolute travel expert now. From packing and getting everything for 6 months to fit into a backpack in the first go, to spending our first day landing in Chile and getting up with SIM cards and exploring the local area. The transition of my life is so seamless now it's mad!

I still think back to when I first started travelling and needed to have everything figured out. Now it feels like South America is a home away from home. I forgot how much I loved it until we touched down earlier today. The people, the Spanish, the second summer! So, I'll fill you in on some of the details - but I apologise for my semi-jetlagged, been travelling for 24 hours kind of writing this week!

Life Lessons

This week's have been quite simple. I spoke about how difficult change can be in a previous newsletter. & I still believe it is.

I certainly cried a few tears leaving again. However, I have really just cracked on with life like normal. I haven't seen travelling again as a huge change. Within 12 hours, I already feel quite settled in Chile again.

It is a funny one, because part of me loves the highs and lows of emotion.

When I was crying my eyes out this week saying goodbye to everyone, I really stopped to think how lucky I was to love so much and have such amazing people around me. It puts a very different light on feeling sad.

I also didn't think too much about moving to Chile for the winter. & sometimes, that's a bit sad - it is an incredible feeling to get excited about something. However, by also not thinking about it too much - we don't worry ourselves too much.

My simple lesson here - we feel the things that we choose to pay attention too.

We can always reason with ourselves ie. 'well I need to worry about X thing or it might all go wrong'. However, we should always challenge ourselves. We should ask whether what we're feeling is productive, or conducive to something useful.

If the answer is no. If it isn't supporting anything... Then see if you can practise paying less attention to it.

Just crack on and do the thing that scares you anyway.

I'm not saying this applies to all scenarios. Sometimes we should just be sad. We need to be. Sometimes, everything is so sh*t that we can't help it.

However, with the big scary work things, or relationships, or personal choices - try paying a little less attention to it and just make it happen. It could turn out amazing!

Product Lessons

I had the most incredible week at Manchester Tech Festival.

For those of you that don't know, it's a week long festival that brings people together from all walks of tech in Manchester. & it has a huge focus on D&I.

I didn't learn too much about Product. However, it was a really bloody eye opener.

The biggest take-aways for me were:

All of the incredible people in the Manchester tech scene. I had the most incredible conversations with so many people that just want to do things differently. The way that we run businesses, the way we want to include people, the way that we want to break society norms and ask questions about how things are. That is what I love about the North.

& we include people. I had so many fascinating chats on how to be more inclusive with people of colour, those with ADHD, females in tech and more. & we can do so much more. & that includes how we build and think about our products. It all needs to start with awareness, and a willingness to learn and listen - and give people the voice that they deserve.

Manchester tech festival was an incredible example of this. & the conversations that I had will continue to shape my thoughts for a while. I am also now super glad that I have some incredible people in my network that help me to broaden my understanding.

The course!

Speaking of breaking things and doing things differently. The doors to my course for PMs wanting to get promoted and stay sane - ie. do things differently - close today.

If it is something that you're thinking about, then get in NOW.

Can't wait to see you there!

Get Promoted in 2024, and stay sane!

+ a quick mention ... The post that I got the most enquiries from was around burnout. & it is incredible that I can step in and help people in this space. However, it also says an awful lot about the Product career and the culture that we have created that this is what so many people want support with. If you're working in a Product leadership space, and want to have a chat about how you can support your team (or yourself) best. I would be more than happy to hop on a free call.

The Podcast

Agile transformations. Triumphant or failures?

​97%! Stop or fail.

WILD.

We spoke to Leanne Gill, an expert in Agile transformations, to get some tips on how to actually make yours a success.

Whether you're going through a full transformation, or you're just trying to bring some people on a maturity journey. It is 100% worth a listen.

Listen Here

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Anyways, I'm off to have a long sleep & hopefully be fresh by tomorrow to enjoy Chile for the weekend!

Have a wonderful one,

Evie
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