Last year, award-win­ning jour­nal­ist, doc­u­men­tar­i­an, entre­pre­neur, and phil­an­thropist Soledad O’Brien took the stage dur­ing the 2019 SAP­PHIRE NOW and ASUG Annu­al Con­fer­ence to talk about liv­ing our per­son­al best. She even helped mod­er­ate the ASUG Women Con­nect break­fast pan­el and led the con­ver­sa­tion on the impor­tance of women find­ing our voice and using it to dri­ve our own suc­cess. It was both a high­ly antic­i­pat­ed and well-attend­ed event, leav­ing us want­i­ng to pick back up on the con­ver­sa­tion today, espe­cial­ly in light of the cur­rent busi­ness landscape. 

As busi­ness­es across the coun­try and the world are adjust­ing to changes due to COVID-19, peo­ple in the work­force are try­ing to keep up and find ways to con­tribute. This is espe­cial­ly chal­leng­ing for those who are not only adjust­ing to work­ing from home, but who also are the care­tak­ers for their fam­i­lies and extend­ed networks. 

Soledad sat down with me for a vir­tu­al chat on how we can all nav­i­gate our new real­i­ty and con­tin­ue to dri­ve our suc­cess into a post-COVID-19 world. 

SAP Cus­tomers Get Real Com­fort­able Work­ing from Home 

It was as authen­tic as we could get: Soledad dialed in from her bed­room, glass of wine in hand and slip­pers on her feet, while I sat com­fort­ably in my home office in a busi­ness-casu­al sweater and favorite pair of sweat­pants. I could see out the cor­ner of my eyes the dish­es that need­ed to be washed, and Soledad com­ment­ed on the giant back­hoe dri­ving down her street as well as the pos­si­bil­i­ty of one of her kids walk­ing into the room. We were joined vir­tu­al­ly by near­ly 500 peo­ple who were watch­ing the con­ver­sa­tion, like­ly in sim­i­lar settings. 

As we all adjust to our new work-from-home envi­ron­ments — or at least new cir­cum­stances — we’re learn­ing how to be bet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tors, how to adjust expec­ta­tions, get cre­ative, and just be more human. 

What Exact­ly Is Bal­ance, Anyway?

“You know, peo­ple ask me about bal­ance all the time, but what does that even mean?” Soledad asked. She offered the anal­o­gy of life being like plates. ​“Some of them are glass and oth­ers are rub­ber. The goal is not to let the glass plates fall.” 

We dis­cussed learn­ing how to pri­or­i­tize, but also how to be flex­i­ble. The key isn’t to be per­fect. It’s to try to do the best you can for that day, reassess what’s impor­tant for the next day, and for­give your­self when you can’t. One attendee shared, ​“I’m used to work­ing from home. I’ve been doing it for four to five days a week for a cou­ple of years. But I find I’m hav­ing a hard­er time con­cen­trat­ing some days now than I used to.” This is true for many. ​“Every day is going to have its chal­lenges,” Soledad said. ​“The key is to reassess your priorities.” 

Fight­ing Fear with Facts on COVID-19 

Every­thing around us — work life, home life, and every­thing in between — is chang­ing in ways we could have nev­er imag­ined. Tak­ing a trip to the gro­cery store can cause anx­i­ety. Dial­ing in for a team meet­ing can be stress­ful. Watch­ing the news can be frus­trat­ing. But ulti­mate­ly, we have con­trol over how we respond to these situations. 

“Set para­me­ters ear­ly,” Soledad said. ​“Let your cowork­ers know that it’s a rough morn­ing… tell your team you are only going to spend 10 min­utes talk­ing about some­thing…” Last­ly, she urged, ​“Don’t get med­ical advice from non-med­ical officials.” 

She gave some straight­for­ward advice on how she was cop­ing with a lot of the same stress­es her­self. ​“I near­ly killed one of my kids for walk­ing over a fresh­ly mopped floor,” she joked. She lat­er stressed that it is ulti­mate­ly up to each of us to do the right things, seek cred­i­ble infor­ma­tion, rise to the occa­sion, and be for­giv­ing if we, or oth­ers, can’t.

Atten­dees com­ment­ed through the chat func­tion through­out our con­ver­sa­tion. One attendee said, ​“I real­ly appre­ci­ate the mes­sage of high stan­dards with­out per­fec­tion­ism.” Anoth­er said, ​“I love how can­did she is!” 

ASUG Women Con­nect Offers Ways to Con­nect Virtually 

Dur­ing the hour we spent with Soledad, we opened up the oppor­tu­ni­ty for par­tic­i­pants to ask their ques­tions through the chat func­tion. They ranged from, ​“What are you drink­ing?” to ​“What advice would you give for some­one not used to being on a cam­era all day?,” to ​“Will this pan­dem­ic help the fight for income equality?”

You’ll have to watch the full con­ver­sa­tion in the video below to hear what Soledad had to say. For our part, we thought we’d share some fun respons­es with­in the live chat for the light­ning round at the end of our call. Here’s what our ASUG Women Con­nect net­work had to say: 

What’s the last bot­tle of wine you opened? We received so many respons­es to this, and I love that you all love wine! You enjoy every­thing from a good red blend to caber­net to a ries­ling. Soledad was drink­ing a glass of Apoth­ic Red while oth­ers boast­ed about 19 Crimes, Ménage a Trois, and La Mar­ca Pros­ec­co. We see all of you out there! 

What’s your favorite snack right now? Soledad told us she became a veg­an a few weeks ago, although she’s hav­ing a hard time stick­ing to it. She said she’s enjoy­ing almond but­ter on rice cakes and asked the par­tic­i­pants to stop say­ing, ​“cheese.” Sor­ry, Soledad, but cheese was the num­ber one snack of choice, fol­lowed by pop­corn. Yum! 

What are you read­ing? Soledad is read­ing ​“Horse Crazy” by Sarah Maslin Nir and said, ​“It’s just beau­ti­ful!” Oth­ers chimed in with their own sug­ges­tions includ­ing
​“The Ruin of Kings” by Jenn Lyons; ​“Girl, Stop Apol­o­giz­ing” by Rachel Hol­lis; and ​“Ele­ments of Style,” which gar­nered a reac­tion from Soledad, ​“You are not read­ing Ele­ments of Style, quit playing!”

What are you binge watch­ing? Sur­pris­ing­ly, I don’t think any­one in this group indi­cat­ed they’re watch­ing Tiger King, unless I missed it. It seems we had a lot of fans of ​“Lit­tle Fires Every­where,” ​“Schitt’s Creek,” and Soledad’s favorite, ​“Call the Midwife.”

What’s the first thing you do once we can all go out and play again? Soledad said she will hug friends who need it, but also, she will go get her hair and nails done. Most of us will be right behind her. We also got a lot of votes for going to the beach and going out for din­ner. But most­ly, it was to give hugs. Well, here’s a vir­tu­al hug to all of you for now! 

Fol­low what ASUG Women Con­nect is doing next and join the LinkedIn group to stay connected.