Career Growth: No-Fluff Advice to Accelerate Your Career with Pink Careers

Deneen L. Garrett: 00:02 00:20 This week's guest is mom, wife, author, leader, and founder of Pink Careers, Richa Bansal. She is also a leadership and job search coach with a decade of experience excelling in the corporate world on her own terms. Richa, tell us more about you.
Richa Bansal: 00:22 03:09 Thank you, Dineen, first of all, for inviting me on your podcast. I am really excited to share my story and some of the work that we do here at Pinkers with your audience. So a little bit about me. I love how you introduced me as like mom, starting with mom. And then we went on to say like wife and coach and all of these other things. Right. I am, first and foremost, a mom of two beautiful boys. I have a seven year old and a five year old. And I like, you know, that we start with mom, like this is my first and foremost identity because really work and life is not separate. And so even though I am a career coach, I am a job search, I support lots of clients with job search and promotions and career growth, we cannot separate our careers from our lives. And if you're a mom, just like I am, then our kids are a fundamental part of our choices. And I know as we speak more, we'll talk a little bit about those intentional choices. But I make an intentional choice for me to design a life where I'm a mom first, and then I get into all of these other identities. So a little bit about me. I originally hauled from India for several years now I've been in North America. I came to the US in 2009 to do my master's. I'm a mechanical engineer by trade. I came here to study you know, do my master's in mechanical engineering as well, and then I went on to join the energy industry. So I worked as a field engineer, I used to wear a hard hat, work on offshore oil rigs off the deep coast of Malaysia, and then from there I've done several things in my career, all the way from engineering to engineering management, I moved in supply chain, I've done corporate strategy, I did program managing for a bit, and then One day, I started kind of asking myself, like, how am I making an impact on the world? And I call it my quarter life crisis when I was maybe about 28 years old, hopefully it was my quarter life crisis. And I started asking myself, like, how am I making an impact on the people around me? And that's when I realized I really want to teach, I really want to show others the path to move on and tackle some of the challenges that I faced throughout my career, primarily being the only women in the room. or the only woman around the leadership table for most of my career in the oil and gas industry and tech. And that's the work that I do now with Pink Careers. It's my social enterprise where I believe in providing other women who are first starting to step into leadership roles, no fluff, career and life advice, so they can create fulfilling careers on their own terms as well.

Deneen L. Garrett: 03:09 04:36 That's awesome. And two things that I want to kind of highlight So I, when I was in corporate, I was about work-life integration. So kind of like what you talked about, right? People talk about a balance. And for me, it's an integration because it's not like I stop being one person and then turn into someone else. It was just a part of who I was. I had the pleasure the last five or six years of my career to actually have a career I would say that I was being paid to passionately pursue my purpose. So that's why I was able to integrate it. So for people, if you are working in your career, it's an integration as opposed to balancing. And then everything that you're talking about as far as designing your life, that's pretty much what I empower women to do. That's part of what this podcast is about. So we're already off to a great start in alignment. So you talked about how you've been the only woman in a room. So I want to get into that a little bit more. I want to know what specifically, maybe if there was one thing that actually led you to found Pink Careers, which you've described as your no-fluff career advice to ambitious professionals and to help them accelerate their career growth. Was there one moment that you said, you know what, I'm done, and pivoting?

Richa Bansal: 04:37 08:12 Absolutely. There was definitely a pivotal moment. And I would love to share this story with you. So when I was in corporate, I was in my first leadership role. So I had two reports into me. And so I was a first-time human manager. And my mentor at the time, she was leading a big team. So she had just stepped into her first-time leadership role. And that was a much more high-profile role, had about 10 to 15 people reporting into her. And we used to joke around. At the time, we were the only two female managers in the whole engineering center for about 1000 people. And her role was a very unique one, very high profile, where she was supporting all of our clients, like big clients like Shell, Total, ExxonMobil, so on and so forth, with anything and everything that would go wrong in field operations and deployment. So any issue that happens with these big clients would come to her team for troubleshooting, which means that whenever things got heated, they also escalated very, very quickly up to senior leadership. And, you know, so it, it so happened that things did go wrong, and things that escalate, and very quickly she found herself burning out on the job very quickly she started finding herself not knowing how to deal with office politics, and how to really. kind of free the whole executive presence to be able to maintain her leadership when things were going wrong with big clients. And so within three to six months, she found herself completely burned out on the job. And one day I found my mentor was had left on an unpaid leave of absence. So a few months later, she did come back to the workplace. And I asked her what happened. And she told me that this is the story, this is what happened. And the company had finally helped her with an executive coach who supported her through this period of unpaid leave of absence and helped her come back. Eventually, my mentor left the workplace altogether. But that incident particularly made me think, why is it so that we are left alone to figure it out by ourselves on the job? To the point when we break down, to the point when we fail, And then we are given the support that we should have originally been given much earlier in our lives so that we could handle things the right way, we could maintain our confidence and we can continue strengthening our leadership. And I think that was the pivotal moment that really, you know, Help me think that I want to focus on those demographics. When we are first, as women especially, when we are first starting to step into those leadership roles, the early to mid-management roles, I want to support those women with real-life, raw, actionable advice so that they can continue believing in themselves and continue strengthening their leadership so ultimately they could accelerate up the ladder as they want. I want to just share this one quote. You may have heard of this from the study that was done by Leenan and McKinsey a few years ago, 2019, I want to say, in the study called Women in the Workplace, where they talked about for every 100 men that get promoted, only 72 women get promoted. And the stats were even more miserable for women of color, for racialized women, Latinas. And, you know, it's that first step, which they call the broken rung, that I want to be able to fix. Yeah. Because when we do that, you know, our confidence and our leadership skills, like, increases tenfold from there.

Deneen L. Garrett: 08:12 09:53 Yeah, absolutely. And you know what, when a person is promoted, it should be a given that it comes with some type of coaching, right? There should be some type of period to where it's maybe even before they step into the role that they go through some leadership courses, right, and then have a coach. You know, especially depending on how high up you are, it should definitely be a given. And you don't see that. It's often, my experience has been you're promoted and you're kind of just left to your own devices. I believe, you know, you spoke to that. And then later, if there's an issue now, here's help, right? It's always reactionary as opposed to being proactive. And the thing is, a lot of people who are promoted, you know, they were good at that job as an individual contributor. That does not mean they're going to be good in a leadership role. And the key is leadership versus a manager. So a lot of people are managers managing versus leaders leading. So I definitely appreciate and applaud what Pink Careers is doing. So I want to ask about, so you mentioned that you moved here from India in 2009. So, and by the way, my number two audience, international audience is India. Fabulous. Yes, yes. So I'm like, I'm glad we're having this conversation. So what impact has it had on your choices? So coming from India, majority of your life you lived there, 2009 to now is not that long, right? So what impact did that have on the choices that you make?

Richa Bansal: 09:55 13:22 So yeah, 2009 is when I first moved from India to US. And I want to say, one of the one of the noticeable threat that I've found through my career choices as I reflect back on them, is how I've tried to make every choice very intentional. Okay, and I've noticed this, you know, I've noticed, especially in the last five or six years, how you have to make those intentional choices. Because if you are not making those intentional choices for yourself, then somebody else will be making those choices. And I'll give you a few examples. And it actually even starts before 2009, back to 2005, when I first was entering undergraduate. Now people know how old I am. But back in 2005, the way it works in India, I went to the school called the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. IIT Delhi is one of the top engineering schools in the country. And the way it works is you give this exam, you have to write this whole exam, over 2 million people write the exam. And then a select at the time, a select 3000 got placed into one of the few IITs that existed. And so you were to make a, depending on how high you ranked in the exam, you would be asked to choose the subject that you want to take. And so based on my ranking, I wanted to take mechanical engineering. And the counselor at the time told me, Richard, don't take mechanical engineering because girls don't take mechanical engineering. And I was like, okay, that's what I'm going to take. And I was the only woman in my class of 67 because I made the choice to take mechanical engineering. Later on, one other one other lady joined us. But I think that intentionality started from way back when I made the choice to take the subject that I wanted to, because that was that felt the right choice for me. The choice to come to the states to do my master's. From there the choice to work in a 24-7 lifestyle because that connected with the way I was and so you know you know what how I wanted to build my career and really from there I want to say the intentional jumps that I made before my career in the type of functions that I had, the roles that I had, I didn't necessarily wait for those to come to me and there's a story behind that as well that we can get into, if you would like, but I didn't necessarily wait and I asked for things and things happen. And the most profound choice that has really, really impacted my career is the choice to apply for my own green card in the EB1A category, because my company didn't want to do that green card. And so for those who may not know, as you come to the States and you want to do permanent residency, there is multiple levels. And there's one extremely difficult level called the EB1A. Usually folks who have a PhD degree apply for that. I don't have a PhD degree. And even my lawyer said, you have a 1% chance of getting through this. And I told him, I'm going to pay you. I will do the work. You tell me what needs to happen to strengthen my profile, and I will apply for it. And I did that, and I got approved. And that's why now we are back in the States. We have a green card, and we can keep our family here for the long run. And so to anybody who is listening, you know, thinking about how are you being intentional with your choices and not waiting for things to happen to you, but really making the things to happen for you for yourself?

Deneen L. Garrett: 13:22 14:33 Absolutely. And you know what? Sometimes, like for me, I've realized that. So for an example, the company that I work for was headquartered in Dallas. I live in Detroit. And so kind of being out on an island, I realize and recognize that a lot of things happen the way they happen for me. for me to be intentional, for me to go ahead and do the extra to get noticed that visibility and exposure, and it helps, right? So yes, absolutely with being intentional and also recognizing that sometimes you're in a situation so that you can make a choice, so that you can be intentional and decide, well, what am I going to do? Am I just going to accept things as they are, or am I going to go ahead and decide what it is that I want and then drive towards making that happen? Yes to everything that you said. So this podcast, Women of Color: An intimate conversation is about empowering women of color and elevating their voices. So you coach people on no fluff, right? So what three no fluff actions can a woman of color take to tap into her power and voice? That's such a great question.

Richa Bansal: 14:34 18:40 In terms of the three actions, the first one I encourage everybody, not just women of color, not just women, everybody to take for their careers is to take a stalk of their personal brand. I coach so many women through my programs. One of the most common responses I get from them when I ask, and I ask each one of them this question, like, what are you known for at work? Can you describe a three word, what are you known for at work? And I want to say like 90%, if not more, tell me, the three words are almost always hardworking. Hardworking is all with it. Hardworking, reliable, helpful. And I really would encourage everybody to think about these three words Where are they keeping them? How are they placing you? They're placing you more as that dependable employee that should be in the role that they're in, as opposed to somebody who we can lean on to think big picture for our organization, who can think who's like a visionary, who can take us to the next step, who can think about solving problems, who can work in ambiguity. Right. And so, how are you known for like it's not only dependent on the skills that you have that your personal brand is a combination of the skills that you have and really what are you known for. So stop being known for that hard working reliable dependable helpful. employee and start thinking about how can you change the narrative that others have for you to the more strategic, the person who works in ambiguity, the more leader, you know, in the room. So that's the first step. Take stock of your personal brand. The second tip I would say is that set up monthly career conversations with your manager. So pretty much everybody has these weekly or bi-weekly meetings, which are more operational in nature, where you are updating your manager on the day-to-day work that you're doing, on the project updates, and so on and so forth. In those meetings, there isn't too much of an opportunity to talk about you and your career and where you want to go. And so oftentimes people limit those conversations to the annual performance reviews or, you know, twice a year in a very formal setting. And by the time it's already too late for you to discuss about your next step. Because if you're having that conversation only once a year, one, you're only getting feedback, formal feedback once a year. But second, if you make your desires known once a year, things will change for you a year later. So instead, what I advise is to set up what we call monthly career conversations where you don't talk about operational stuff. Where you talk about you and your career goals and your career aspirations and feedback on what you're doing well and what you should be doing differently. Setting up black and white goals on this is what success looks like and if I deliver on that, this is the timeline for promotion. Seeking your manager's help on what else they could be doing. Who else should they be connecting with? There's so many great things you can do with these monthly career conversations. So that's the second thing that I would recommend. And then the third note of advice, especially for my women of color, is to stop saying sorry. I cannot believe the amount of time I used to say sorry until I read this fabulous classic. It's called Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office by Dr. Louis P. Frank was one of my all time favorites. I just took it out a couple of days ago to refresh myself on something. I was looking up on an office politics, but that book really helped me realize how many times we say sorry for everything from I'm sorry, I am out of office right now. Yeah. You know, I'm sorry on many other things. And so saying sorry really minimizes us, you know, and the work that we do, as well as the value that we create. And so really find ways to replace that sorry with other words, you know. So instead of saying, I'm sorry, I'm late, say, thank you for waiting for me. I appreciate your patience.

Deneen L. Garrett: 18:43 20:22 Absolutely. Language is so important. And whenever I do hear the word sorry, like my ears perk up and like, okay, you know, is this really a sorry, you know, moment or not? But everything that you're talking about, especially the first two points, it boils down to you, you being intentional, you doing these things, you taking control. And another resource to use is LinkedIn, like I swear by LinkedIn. I tell people LinkedIn is your platform to communicate, right? It's to communicate, like you talk about your brand. It's for you to tell people who you are and how you want them to perceive you. So going back to your first action, you know, what do people say? And those three things that are being said is something that women and women of color in particular hear often, right? So start telling people how they should see you. Right. Yeah. Clear about, well, who, how do I want to show up? How do I want to present and make sure that you're presenting that way? You're demonstrating that and you're telling people. And an example of that is pie. So pie in, in the workplace is, um, let me performance image and exposure. What my pie is a passionate, innovative executioner. So I do things with passion. I'm in my approach. And I get it done, I execute it. So that's what is even on my resume, right? You will see that, that's what I say about myself. That's how I want people to see me, because that's who I am. So for those who may not recognize that, I'm letting them know. I'm putting them on notice, if you will, to let them know this is who I am and this is what I do.

Richa Bansal: 20:23 21:32 Absolutely. And I love how you say that, you know, leverage LinkedIn, don't be a passive consumer of LinkedIn. So many people are just passively like strolling and consuming LinkedIn. And to your point, I really encourage my clients to be intentional about how they're consuming. and how they can leverage that for their own growth. I'll give you a quick example here. So one of my clients I'm working with is to help her build her personal brand. And so when we first started building, first started working together, she was like, Richa, like I see all of these people getting all these awards on LinkedIn. And this lady has the same kind of experience, but how come she is like top 100 women of so and so. And I was like, you know why? Because they applied for the award. And you can apply for awards too. People apply for TEDx, people apply for these awards. And you know what? Some of these awards are paid and it's okay to have some paid awards because it's part of building that brand and shaping that narrative. And so as you consume that LinkedIn, think about, not just think from a standpoint of, oh, this person is ahead of me or from like a passive standpoint, but really, okay, if they are able to do it, how can I do it if this is my goal as well?

Deneen L. Garrett: 21:33 22:34 Absolutely. How do I learn from that person? What did they do? Right. What are they demonstrating that they do? And I'll tell you for me, LinkedIn, LinkedIn, I was named one of 100 global top success, successful women. Right. And it was by and it was from the CEO of a media brand, an international media brand. And they're located in London. Right. And how did they find me in Detroit? LinkedIn. They saw my work on LinkedIn, they saw how I presented on LinkedIn, looked through, read through my profile, you know, my posts, etc. And they felt I was worthy of that honor. And from there, that relationship also landed me on a billboard in Times Square the Friday before New Year's Eve. So you know how huge that is and how many people were in Times Square that particular weekend, right? More than any other time. So those are just two examples of my presence on LinkedIn.

Richa Bansal: 22:34 22:37 Absolutely. This is such a fabulous example to share.

Deneen L. Garrett: 22:37 22:58 Thank you. Thank you. So you've talked about this when you mentioned your mentor and how she had a mental breakdown, if you will. So I want to get into the importance of taking time for ourselves and the power in the pause.

Richa Bansal: 22:58 26:29 So I think pause is so powerful. in all of these ways. And for me, I'll maybe start with how the pause has been powerful for me, particularly. And then I can share a couple of tips with your audience on how they can really leverage the power of pause in a couple of different ways. For me, I think definitely the power of pause has helped me reflect on, you know, whether the work that I'm doing, the day to day work that I'm doing is in alignment with what I see myself doing when I'm 50 years old, 60 years old. Because if you think about it, our career is career is not like limited to a one or two year time frame, right. So our choices should not be limited to how we see ourself like one or two years from now. It's our career is this long life, it has a long lifespan, you know, till the time when we're alive, I don't think I'm going to ever stop working, it may look differently, the type of work that I do, but I'll still be working. So Everything that we do every day, as long as it connects and moves me a step closer to where I see myself when I'm 50, 60, 70 years old, then it's an alignment, right? And you can only do that when you have intentional pauses or what I call white spaces in your calendar where you have nothing. like no appointments, no meetings, no nothing, so that you're able to really think about, okay, the things that I'm actually doing the day-to-day, are they in alignment? Are they actually moving me closer? Even if it's a little bit of a sidestep sometimes, but are they eventually moving me closer to where I want to be? So I like to have those white spaces built in my own calendar, the way now that I'm not not an corporate, but I do run my own business, I have to be even more intentional with it because nobody is driving my goals. Right. And so and I have like lots of coaching calls to do and whatnot. So then I try to be very intentional and have team days where Mondays, I don't take any any meetings. So today is a special day where we are doing recording this podcast. But Mondays, I don't do any meetings. And then Monday just allows me to think about okay, what do I want to do with the company? The type of programs I want to build so that it has the highest impact on the community that I'm serving and so on. And so for your audience, how can they think about building those white spaces? And those are really your time to pause and give your brain a break and for it to connect with what is your deeper purpose in life. And then if you just think about self-care, really, this was a little bit more macro and a little bit more philosophical, if you may say so. But on a day-to-day basis, I see so many of my clients just burning themselves out in the day because they're just running from meeting to meeting to meeting. They're up, then if they have kids or whatnot, they're just catering to them, then they're running meeting to meeting to the point where they don't even have bio breaks built in. They're like one meeting is running over and they're just jumping into another meeting. They forget three hours later. Oh, I had to go pee. So how can you like just a simple trick that I learned from my own manager at Amazon was start your meetings five minutes past the hour or the half hour. So instead of starting a meeting at 11, start at 11 or 5. So you have, you know, five minutes to just decompress from your last meeting. You can have a sip of water, you can go take the bio break or whatnot. Even those little pauses really, really have an impact on our well-being on a day-to-day basis.

Deneen L. Garrett: 26:30 26:42 That's interesting. So starting at five minutes later, to me, it seems like, oh, that meeting will get missed, right? Because folks are not used to it being, you know, timed that way. But interesting. Okay. Yeah.

Richa Bansal: 26:42 27:10 And for culture, you can help set, right? Because lots of people had started following that. We actually even had a macro that you could install on your Outlook back in Amazon. So, like, automatically the meetings will start five minutes later. But a couple of people told me once that, oh, like, I thought like the meeting, I've missed the meeting, or I'm late, or like, what happened here, but they would learn, right, you just let them know. So the next time they know, and they learn how to educate people, they would appreciate that as well.

Deneen L. Garrett: 27:11 27:18 Now, let me ask this question. Is the meeting actually set on your calendar for 11, but does not start until 11 or 5?

Richa Bansal: 27:18 27:36 No, it's set up for 11 or 5. It shows on the other person's calendar also at 11 or 5. So they know it's at 11 or 5. So you can wrap up your meeting by 11. And it doesn't work when you're trying to end the meeting five minutes early because people always run over. It works better when you start it five minutes later.

Deneen L. Garrett: 27:37 28:33 Well, listen, I think some people who used to come to meetings, like meetings that I started, like I always started on the hour, whether, you know, top of the hour, whatever, half hour, and I would give people five minutes grace, right? So I'm thinking some people already adopted what you're talking about, and they just didn't show up, right? But then I got to the point and someone has said something about respect, right? If you schedule it for 11, other people are there at 11, 11, five, whatever the time, other people show up on time. So respect them and yourself and start the meeting on time. So I kind of started not giving people that five minute break, that five minute. So I'm going to pivot. I honor my late sister, author and poet, Soul True. by asking about Dreams Deferred, which is the title of one of her books. Please share a Dreams Deferred moment.

Richa Bansal: 28:33 32:15 I had to think about that question for a bit. And I think I want to share the story of how in 2020, like the thick of pandemic, I hit my lows in terms of my confidence and how I came out of it. And I think there's a lesson there for everybody that I got that lesson from my own father that helped me come out of that low in confidence that I think your audience would appreciate as well. And I generally think myself as a fairly confident person, but pandemic was, it really, I think it really, really killed me. It was very hard. I'm generally an extroverted person. I love to travel. Before the pandemic, even when I had a one-year-old, I took at least 12 trips with my one-year-old. We flew 10 times. I'm always traveling. I'm always traveling for fun, to meet friends and family, just see national parks. So when pandemic hit, there was like a total break to that. Total break. I talked about, we applied for our own green card, but things got delayed, like in administrative processing. So it didn't come in time. We lost our jobs. And so we had to move countries. And so now we're like in this new country with little ones, can't see anybody. Canada was even like, we moved to Canada and was even stricter on their policies on, you know, how many people you can meet at one point. You couldn't see anybody. weeks on end that were not part of your family and so I think that isolation really got to me and also because that was the time I had left a 10 year old career. with a company that I loved being at, and I was really finding myself at this pivotal moment of who I am, what's my identity outside the company, trying to build pink careers, was very young at the time, having a really hard time starting a business as everybody does when they first start a business, and finding myself at a very, very low point, to the point where I found my confidence starting to get really, really crushed. And my dad, I had a conversation with him and he helped me, he shared his own story of how he was at a very high moment in his career, but felt it was very low and how he got himself out of it. And I'm like, if I have to, like, I need to get out of where this low I found myself in. And the way I did was I decided to start focusing on my health. Okay. Um, and so I decided to invest in a personal trainer, like, because I wouldn't have, for love of God, wouldn't have gotten myself to a gym myself. I was like, I need somebody like, take me, take my money and get me to the gym. So I invested in a personal trainer, very expensive, worth every penny. Um, and I invested in a business coach and I just, you know, those two things really, really, really helped me get out of where I was finding myself in very low moments. We started being intentional about building relationships with my family who was there. And I think that was that moment that really helped me out of where I was. So you talk about dreams deferred moment. I think my dreams deferred moment really was that I cannot put my life on hold simply because pandemic is here, right? I cannot put my life on hold and just like blame external situations because there were so many external situations that were going on with our residency, with the pandemic, with the business, with how things were at the workplace I was at, all of that, that I think I cannot just put everything on hold. I have to take back control and do things to improve. them for myself, you know, and that looks like taking help in a variety of ways. So you say yes to help.

Deneen L. Garrett: 32:15 32:42 Yeah, absolutely. You know what, that is something that I'm leaning into as well. Having a team, right? We can do a lot on our own, but we can do even more with other people. So relying on help, absolutely. So I also empower women of color to live a dream lifestyle. For me, it's travel. That's like number one. So when you were talking about travel, that's my thing. What is a dream lifestyle to you and how do you live a dream life?

Richa Bansal: 32:44 34:46 So I am of this proponent that women can have it all. It's a very debatable. There's lots of like huge debates around and people say that women cannot have it all. And I was like, we can. OK. It's just that every woman's definition of what having it all looks like is different. And the problem arises when we start comparing our definition of having it all with other person's definition of having it all, especially other person's social media, because we only see the rosy side. We only see the promotion. We only see the new job they got. We don't see the 300 rejections they had behind it. Or we see the picture perfect. pictures on Instagram, or these like some just meals cooked and housed, but we don't look at, okay, but they're not working, right? So they are able to focus on this one thing. So really, dream lifestyle is like what you define the dream lifestyle to be. And several years ago, we had done this little exercise, I still remember, where we had to put like on a stick, like create a stick figure, and like write what that means to you. So I created a stick figure of a woman, where on the top it said like always learning so like the head was always learning and then one hand was holding a degree so it's that super career I think it was like 26 at the time it's that super career like super boss and the other hand said super mom and the feet said seven continents. Okay. And so for me, like that was, that's my dream life, but I'm always learning. I am able to, like, I'm juggling motherhood and, you know, I have a beautiful home to the extent what I consider beautiful. And then I'm also doing well at work and I'm traveling. That's awesome. Yeah, I don't like that. So I did a couple a couple years ago, but I think I lost it when I moved to Canada. But I for years, I had kept it on my desk. And people would joke about it. I'm like, but that is that is me. So define what dream lifestyle means to you. And then don't sit on it, take action to make that dream lifestyle happen for you. Absolutely.

Deneen L. Garrett: 34:46 35:09 Absolutely. And that's, that's one of my three plus D. So In my framework, I empower women of color to live a dream lifestyle by helping them with my framework, which is dream. It's decide, design, and drive. So absolutely, it takes action in both steps. So before we wrap, what would you like to leave the audience with?

Richa Bansal: 35:11 36:18 I think if I can leave the audience with one message, it is to not wait for your life to happen for you. Don't wait for your career to happen for you. Because if you're not in the driver's seat of your career, somebody else would be right, the economy will be or your boss would be or your HR or your company would be or even your parents would be. Especially you talked about your second most audience being in India. Lots of our choices through our early careers get defined by our parents. And that's just the reality of it. But as we grow into adulthood, we can take charge of our choices more than anything else. So be intentional about the choices that you make. And then once you create your dream, once you have a dream about that lifestyle that you want to have for yourself, take steps to make that happen. Take the help, take the coaching. If you read up on something, implement those things. What I call just-in-time learning. Learn something, implement. Don't just dream. Do the work to make that lifestyle happen for you. That's what I would want to leave your audience with.

Deneen L. Garrett: 36:18 36:20 Absolutely. Thank you so much. And so what's the best way to connect with you?

Richa Bansal: 36:22 36:58 So the best way to connect with me, people can find me on LinkedIn. They can search for Richa Bansal, Pink Careers. I will pop up on their LinkedIn. They can also check out my website. It's called pinkcareers.com. And then we have a free webinar, a free masterclass that's coming up in March, on 2nd of March, where I'm going to share more actionable, free, excuse me, more actionable, no fluff advice with women on how they can accelerate up in their careers. So if people are interested, they can go to https://www.pinkcareers.com/promotion-masterclass and register for that event.

Deneen L. Garrett: 36:58 37:13 Awesome. So I'll definitely have your information in the show notes so they can they can read there. So Richal Bansal. Thank you so much for lending your voice on women of color and intimate conversation and enjoy the rest of your day.

Richa Bansal: 37:13 37:17 Thank you so much for having me on your podcast, Deneen. You're welcome.