237: Embracing Self-Leadership with Araceli Higueras

Aoife O’Brien [00:00:02]:

Ara, you’re so welcome to the Happy at Work podcast. I’m delighted to have you as my guest today. And as the time of this recording, we actually met in person when I was in London last week, so it was lovely to make that connection and actually get to get to see you in real life even though we’re recording this on Zoom. Do you wanna let listeners know a little bit about you, your career history, and what has brought you to where you are today?

Araceli Higueras [00:00:25]:

Yes. Thank you. And thanks for welcoming me, and I’m very happy to be here. So, I know I’m supposed to give a summary, but I’ve been working for 25 years. So my summary is not very, very short. What I can say is that I joined Reuters in the year 2000, and I stayed in that company for 20 years even though it became Thomson Reuters. And then I was part of financial and risk, which became Refinitiv. My main roles in throughout those 20 years was being a client trainer, being a consultant in a data modeling department that was called the desktop design group.

Araceli Higueras [00:01:03]:

I was a business analyst, and I was a business operations manager. But, throughout those 20 years, I lived in in Spain. So I’m from Barcelona, but moved to Madrid, then moved to Dublin. So worked from there, came to London. I’ve been living now in London for about 22 years. And while I was doing all that, I had children. I joined, employee networks and became chair. I was part of a school board for 6 years.

Araceli Higueras [00:01:33]:

I trained to be to not just so the company paid for me to have, like, financial mathematics and kind of FX trading kind of certifications, but they also paid for me to become a coach 15 years ago. They paid for business analysis accreditation. They paid for user experience accreditation. So I I did lots of, almost like professional training in different strands because I’m very interested in personal development. I also was studying languages in the evenings. So I studied Japanese for 15 years.

Aoife O’Brien [00:02:13]:

Wow.

Araceli Higueras [00:02:13]:

I was studying German. I’m very stimulated by a lot of learn Yeah. That I do in compartments in my life.

Aoife O’Brien [00:02:22]:

Yeah. It certainly sounds that way. So I suppose I’m curious about the the professional sounding things like UX and some of the other kind of things that you do with forex trading, things like that. Did they benefit you in your day to day role, or or was it more I’m interested in this and maybe some of the skills are transferable, but it’s not necessarily a direct benefit in my day to day role?

Araceli Higueras [00:02:50]:

It it it was a direct benefit to my role because Yeah. At the time when I was setting up financial calculators and screens that users, needed to to do to use in their everyday job to calculate portfolios or arbitrage opportunities with Reuters data, then it was very important that I refreshed all my financial mathematics from university and that I learned some, like, not terms and conditions, but, like, what’s the market standards in different regions and the regulations and the cause of ethics and all all that. Okay. I I stopped, 4 years ago. I didn’t realize, but I I I’m not working for Reuters. I’m working for Global Relay at the moment. I’m working as a product owner. I’ve been there for three and a half years.

Araceli Higueras [00:03:41]:

In between, I set up a company, and I, I trained to become a copywriter so I could sell my coaching services. And now I sometimes, either do a bit of copywriting or sometimes a bit of coaching, whatever I can do on the side apart from being, a product owner. And in the during the pandemic, which was this break, I also wrote a book. So now I’m trying to sell the book as well. So there you go. All these things.

Aoife O’Brien [00:04:12]:

And when we when we met in London last week, we were saying, like, you told me about all of these ambitions that you have for the future. And what really struck me, aside from all of these overlaps where I spent my Erasmus year in Barcelona from 1999 to 2000, And I’m from Dublin, and you lived in Dublin, and I lived in London for three and a half years. There was all of these kind of parallels that were going on. Our interest in coaching, our interest in psychology, models, and maths, although you’re much, much deeper into all of that stuff. But what really struck me was this idea of, like, a portfolio career and thinking about the future of work and earning money that is not just directly linked to your day to day job. And, like, how do we make that leap? Because I think that’s where the future of work is going, that we’re gonna have to have these additional skills that we do that are outside of our roles as a way to earn additional income if we so choose or just do multiple different things very much like you were talking about, Ara. So having coaching, and then you have the copywriting, and then you have books. So your book.

Aoife O’Brien [00:05:25]:

So it’s multiple sources of income, essentially. Any any thoughts on how you see that evolving or anything that you’re seeing out there at the moment?

Araceli Higueras [00:05:36]:

While while I was in Reuters, every year, I facilitated a workshop that was called how to be the CEO of your career.

Aoife O’Brien [00:05:44]:

Mhmm.

Araceli Higueras [00:05:44]:

And throughout the last 7 years of my employments, I worked with 10 different groups of people. These are not huge groups. Sometimes there were 4 people. Sometimes there were 8. But I work with a fair amount of people all that time apart from working some people individually. Many people have interests in more than one topic. So some people have set up a charity for social mobility or want to work in a local, you know, kitchen for people who need support feeding their families, or or many other things. And I find, in my case, what what really woke me up was that there was a a group called Women on Boards that came to Thomson Reuters.

Araceli Higueras [00:06:35]:

I don’t remember now, but maybe 12 years ago, And they were telling us the importance of, increasing the representation of women on boards. At the time, I that’s what I I had already been in a student union and, like, part of that committee and being then the chair, and I was already part of a women’s network. It made me want to join, a school board, and then it made me I planted the seed that from a school board and I was there for 6 years. I wanted to go into a charity and I was a trustee for 3 years and became the chair as well. So I’m gathering this experience with the intention of in the future at some point being a non executive director. And I I don’t think there’s just one formula to do this, but we have to explore what we care about, what we are good at, where we can transfer skills, where there is demand, and how things fit for us in terms of what we enjoy to see how can we find more than one stream of revenue. For me, the the future is if you want security is not to put all your eggs in 1 basket. Yeah.

Araceli Higueras [00:07:55]:

And depending sing only on one employer means that, unfortunately, you can be without anything if the employer doesn’t want you.

Aoife O’Brien [00:08:06]:

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I had a recent conversation, with someone who was made redundant. So suddenly overnight well, not overnight, you know, but going through that redundancy process, you’re left without a source of income. And it’s like, what can we do to to I’m trying to find the word now. What can we do to make sure that that doesn’t end up being the case so that we are not reliant on just one source of income, that if something like that does happen, we have other sources that we can either learn or that we can turn it into something. And I’m seeing so much more of this.

Aoife O’Brien [00:08:45]:

I think probably because of the world that I’m in now being much more entrepreneurial, and I’m seeing people literally turning nothing into something, into something where they are generating revenue from something that previously was an idea in their head. So I suppose the purpose of today’s episode is really just to open people’s minds to this is a possibility for you. And I suppose I’m curious as well for you, Ara, because I know you have a busy and active life, and you have children as well. So how have you made that happen? Like, how have you prioritized this and your your interest? Have you and I’m I’m reluctant to use the word balance because I think it’s more about integration, but how have you made it all work?

Araceli Higueras [00:09:34]:

What I what I see works is when you, raise awareness of, what you really care about. So the fact that I enjoy learning is is the key to how I have chosen my formula. So having skills from a discipline that can be connected. So going to open university and learning about systems thinking, for me, it’s like is a no brainer. It’s important to learn about systems thinking for coaching, for business analysis. I can use it for itself. So every time I have a choice, typically, I lean towards learning something that I can integrate with the rest. And when it comes to using the hours that we have during the day, I know that if I’ve been working for 7 or 8 hours, but afterwards, I have to study 2 or 3 hours, actually, I’m energized.

Araceli Higueras [00:10:36]:

So if this was draining me, then it would not be the right formula for me. But Yeah. I’m energized by learning something new. It it makes me happy. So you said I mean, you obviously talk about happiness. So I like learning. That makes me happy. So that’s part of my formula.

Araceli Higueras [00:10:56]:

And I enjoy connecting, connecting people, connecting knowledge, connecting experiences. So that’s how I don’t know. It just starts making sense in my head somehow.

Aoife O’Brien [00:11:10]:

And it’s a way well, it’s a way to make a choice based on enjoyment and values. But you’ve reminded me of a time in my life and I was quite new in a role, and I didn’t feel like I was learning as much as I could or should. As in the company was very set in their ways and there was ways to do things and I wasn’t didn’t have the opportunity necessarily to add my own stamp to it. It was quite bureaucratic. And what I found myself doing was, the MOOCs, so massive open online courses and for the simple love of learning. So, I don’t think it’s something I’ve spoken about on the podcast before, but I went on and I did, I did a course in Python computer programming because that was an area I was quite interested in and I thought it would be relevant. And I did one in statistics as well. And I did well in both of those.

Aoife O’Brien [00:12:08]:

Like, there was, they were free and available, but I think if you wanted to take a test, you had to pay for it or something. So I went as far as I could, with those. But it was exam again, for me, for the simple joy of learning. Have I used those specific skills? Not necessarily, but it’s something that I’ve discovered that I’m actually quite good at is around, you know, using statistics specifically, and then computer programming could be something that I look into further down the line. And if I think again of my own career and not working in corporate anymore and turning what was an idea in my head into something that is generating money in the world that is out there. And the podcast especially, I think, is what most people know me for. But it’s incredible that feeling, that something and someone describes it to me as alchemy. So it’s that turning of something it of some it’s turning of nothing or turning of an idea into your head into something that’s out there in the world.

Aoife O’Brien [00:13:09]:

It’s it really, really is incredible. And I’d love to get a steer on the so you mentioned that you had spoken to so many different people in that the 10 years that you’re running the how to be a CEO of your own career. What kind of themes and topics came up? Like, what were the challenges? Were people aware of these kinds of opportunities for them?

Araceli Higueras [00:13:36]:

The because the context was work. And even though the the last few years was with, I started mixing women from, I I was the last 3 years I was on the board of women on the on the Wharf. So I start mixing women from other firms on Canary Wharf.

Aoife O’Brien [00:13:54]:

Fantastic. Yeah.

Araceli Higueras [00:13:55]:

Yeah. And also I’d like to correct it. It was, during 7 years. So 10 groups a year during 7 years just so that I don’t mislead anyone claiming that I’ve done more than what I have done. No. That’s okay. That’s okay. Because the context was work, a lot of people came with, already the constraint.

Araceli Higueras [00:14:17]:

The main the mental constraint of going through the workshop applying it only to work. Yes. And I Okay. Yeah. Let people to think about something that they didn’t think for themselves. So the idea for me is when somebody came and said, should I apply this to work or personal? Then I coach them to think about what works for them. If it’s if they’re in a moment when they’re questioning themselves and they want to consider something that’s happening in their personal life, they’re welcome to bring it, but they can choose and use the workshop only for one side. Or they can or or if they don’t consider anything and they answer directly all the questions, then we follow their path.

Araceli Higueras [00:15:02]:

So I was not encouraging them to think bigger than they wanted to think. Yeah. Most people that I met who thought outside of work, it was because either they were going through a transition. So they were either coming back from work or about to take time time off or husbands or or partners were, moving abroad and their family structure was going to change. They were already involved in some activities. So there was a I remember this lady, I don’t think was in in one of my workshops, but I remember somebody was making pillows. I learned about, I think, this website called Etsy at the time that I had never I mean, I don’t use it very often, but now I I’ve seen it more times. I think people who are small artists, like, not a proper big company, you can sell your creations on pages like that.

Araceli Higueras [00:15:59]:

And there were a handful of people who were doing small small leans. I don’t want to offend anyone, but it’s like not corporate type of initiative.

Aoife O’Brien [00:16:11]:

Yeah.

Araceli Higueras [00:16:14]:

But, they were the exceptions. Most people came to work in a financial services firm thinking about work only and progressing their career within the industry. Mhmm. Yeah. That’s that’s the fair answer.

Aoife O’Brien [00:16:29]:

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So most people were focused on what’s next in my career. And and I suppose this is something that I’ve learned over time because I probably had those blinkers on when I had my corporate career as well. You’re focusing very much on that next move and what that next move might look like. And usually, you want that next move to be a level up as opposed to a sideways move, which looks like it’s yeah. It doesn’t look like great.

Aoife O’Brien [00:16:54]:

But actually what I’m learning since leaving the corporate world is those sideways moves are actually really important for getting up and especially for progressing quickly the further you move up as well. So, yeah, I suppose just to acknowledge that I was that same person with those blinkers and my career is this. And my life is very separate from my career, and the 2 don’t necessarily mix even though I’ve taken, assessments to show that I’m the same person in work and out of work. And I think maybe that’s where I came up against some issues where if I’m behaving in an authentic way in a in a workplace that doesn’t accept me as myself, then that can cause some conflict or it makes me feel like I need to mask or hide myself. So, where I was going with all of that as a slice of life, I suppose, is thinking about how can we help people to help themselves. So what kind of steps do you encourage people to maybe to broaden their thinking, to to broaden their horizons and think about the bigger picture and not just so focused on, okay, so this is I’m only focusing on my career, not necessarily in the context of my whole life, and I’m only thinking about that next move and and how I get to that next place. And I’m only kinda limiting myself to either the company I’m in or the industry I’m in. How can we get people to expand their thinking around that?

Araceli Higueras [00:18:24]:

I I have to be a bit contrarian here.

Aoife O’Brien [00:18:27]:

Okay. Good. I love it.

Araceli Higueras [00:18:30]:

I when I when I speak with people, when I listen to them, when somebody talks to me in this sort of a context, I try not to judge too much in terms of what’s the right thing for them.

Aoife O’Brien [00:18:46]:

Yeah.

Araceli Higueras [00:18:46]:

So if somebody comes with, with the idea, with a topic that they want to address, with a concern, with an ambition. It is very rare that I will be the person who tells them, have you thought about x? And I try to make them look at a bigger picture or smaller picture or stay in the industry or move industries or or I try to leave that part to them. Yeah. And I very much respect the the phases that we go through where we need to cruise. And it’s the state of school as it is. Yeah. Because I think well, it it was my experience, but I think that, I I think about life as multifaceted. So it makes to me, it makes total sense when at work, we just want to stay where we are.

Araceli Higueras [00:19:40]:

And I don’t think in a very capitalistic way as in always bigger and always more expensive and always more money and always. Sometimes being in the same role for many years is the right thing for you.

Aoife O’Brien [00:19:54]:

Yeah.

Araceli Higueras [00:19:54]:

Some people are playing in an orchestra or some sometimes you are helping a child who has dyslexia at home or something. And then you you just you like to be in control at work, and you don’t want to rock the situation.

Aoife O’Brien [00:20:09]:

Yeah.

Araceli Higueras [00:20:09]:

You have your salary. You enjoy you you work for a good manager. You are comfortable. You are good at what you’re doing. And in parallel, you are achieving something else. Looking after an elderly or or even studying, you know, for for another career or something. So do I I don’t push people to be, ambitious. I don’t push or to to to want things.

Araceli Higueras [00:20:36]:

What I try to do is if somebody wants something, then we work so that they achieve it. But if they don’t want it, I don’t think they should. I think it’s okay. Yeah. And and I noticed working with with people in those groups and individually, there were 2 main personas that came and looked for, so because it was self, like, people nominated them just to to go on this on this workshops. No. I mean, sometimes managers send people to coaching, and I also had some people that had been bold and told to to be coached. But those were the exceptions.

Araceli Higueras [00:21:19]:

I was quite lucky that there were enough people that volunteered and then we formed groups and sometimes, for some transformations, HR organized some activities and people went through them. So it was it was mainly 2 personas that went through this and it was either a young person who is very ambitious and has been working for a couple of years, not many, and notices that things don’t evolve as fast as they would like. So they want to learn the rules of the game. They want to figure out instead of letting experience teach them, they want to read the handbook.

Aoife O’Brien [00:22:01]:

Yeah. They want to get the fast track.

Araceli Higueras [00:22:03]:

So how do I go about that? And then this sort of workshop was talking to them, encouraging them to think through their values, to articulate their mission, to to visualize where they wanted to go, the the the sort of alliances that they needed to build, the awareness that they need to develop about their environment, and the goals that other people were trying to achieve, and how they could align themselves with certain people that were key for themselves, and how they could be key for other people Yeah. And learn to lend some self promotion as well. So this was the sort of workshop that that we that we went through. And then the other person that persona that, went on this was more of a I’ve worked for 20 years, and I have about 20 years worth of working life left. So what’s what’s there for me in the next 20 years? And not necessarily of course, already 15 years ago, I was hearing about the talent drain of the like, the missing middle, and I’ve heard or so many marketing words to talk about the fact that women leave the the their employment. Yeah. The revolving door or the like, in 15 years, I’ve heard it all probably. But, the point being, sometimes people actually those that are a bit more self aware take the time to think.

Araceli Higueras [00:23:32]:

How what took me to this point? What skills do I have? What do I care about? And what do I want to achieve in the 20 years that I have left? And I was working with these 2 types of people mainly. Yeah. It was very interesting because it was always or I tried to facilitate in a work set in a group setting. And it’s it’s always so fascinated that it’s a trade off. You don’t have the attention of the coach when the coach is not working alone with you, but you get to hear other people.

Aoife O’Brien [00:24:06]:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And learn from them and hear them being coached presumably

Araceli Higueras [00:24:11]:

Exactly.

Aoife O’Brien [00:24:12]:

Various different scenarios. I love that.

Araceli Higueras [00:24:14]:

And then they would hold each other accountable. So sometimes in the office, I saw somebody, like, if they they had, they had declared what we call the vocabularies that you have a board of directors. So when you paint this network that are important to you that could become sponsors or or that are influential for your goals, then I would sometimes see somebody, like, elbowing this or somebody else. Like, go and talk to that person.

Aoife O’Brien [00:24:41]:

Oh, yeah.

Araceli Higueras [00:24:41]:

Elbow each other. I was like, go now.

Aoife O’Brien [00:24:43]:

You said you said

Araceli Higueras [00:24:44]:

in the coaching that you are going to speak, go now.

Aoife O’Brien [00:24:47]:

Yeah. Now is your opportunity. Not tomorrow. Now. So easy to put off till tomorrow, isn’t it? And I suppose for me, kinda adding on to that, I’ve always been a very ambitious person at work. And so sometimes I’m blind to the fact that not everyone is always ambitious. And I suppose recently, I have encountered this concept that it’s not you have different, seasons in your career, and it’s not all about being ambitious all of the time for various different reasons. So I suppose I just wanted to acknowledge that that I come oftentimes with my bias or my preconceived notions of everyone wants to get to the top all the time and it’s a pyramid and it’s hard and it’s competitive and all of these kinds of things.

Aoife O’Brien [00:25:37]:

I wanted to come back, Ara, to this concept that we spoke about before we started recording and that is the fact that a lot of people don’t know what they want. So you mentioned about these peep these, employees who are early career, and then you mentioned about the the kind of second cohort or the mid career. Right? I’ve done this for 20 years. I’ve gained lots of these different skills. Where do I go to next? And how do we help people to figure out what they actually want when most people don’t really know what they want?

Araceli Higueras [00:26:14]:

I don’t so I try to give people exercises. Yeah. And I try to encourage that people do these exercises outside of a coaching session. So they take away the, like, the questions and they take their time. And if somebody wants to do this in 10 minutes or if somebody wants to think about this for 1 hour, it’s their choice. But, ideally, they come with some thoughts to the conversation. And then coaching happens when we are together. And it’s not that I give them questions that are a surprise in terms of reflection points.

Araceli Higueras [00:26:49]:

Yes. We just have we just have the conversation live. I think it’s very important. So when I trained to become a coach, I did not understand the values exercises enough. It took me practice to see what really becoming aware of your values does to you. But I absolutely concur with the training. You always have to start with values.

Aoife O’Brien [00:27:15]:

Yeah.

Araceli Higueras [00:27:15]:

If you become aware of what’s important to you, it makes a huge difference

Aoife O’Brien [00:27:20]:

Yeah.

Araceli Higueras [00:27:21]:

In terms of making sense of the choices that you have made and also simplifying the choices that are in front of you. Afterwards, some choices become no brainers

Aoife O’Brien [00:27:31]:

Yeah.

Araceli Higueras [00:27:31]:

And you don’t go down routes that are not going to be a good fit for you. Yeah. Obviously, when you have no choice, say you have to pay your mortgage or something, you do what you have to do. But if you have the choice, then you have criteria to make that choice.

Aoife O’Brien [00:27:45]:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Araceli Higueras [00:27:46]:

So that’s that’s the sort of exercises that I like to lean on where I encourage people to learn how to make choices, how to make decisions. Yeah. I don’t want to help people to solve one particular situation. I want them to feel that they have changed the way they think.

Aoife O’Brien [00:28:09]:

Yeah.

Araceli Higueras [00:28:09]:

And then they start finding ways to make decisions by themselves or more. Yeah. And if they come with other situations to coaching, it’s be because then we have to be thinking about something else. But it’s not more of the same because they’ve learned to think about that.

Aoife O’Brien [00:28:26]:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Araceli Higueras [00:28:27]:

And I really, really steer people away from analysis paralysis.

Aoife O’Brien [00:28:32]:

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Araceli Higueras [00:28:33]:

This all I need all this information in order to make up my mind and I am going to do this research and I’m going to think through this. I was like, no.

Aoife O’Brien [00:28:44]:

It’s another form of it’s a way to stop us from moving forward because moving forward, thinking about things in a different way, actually making a decision is scary. And so it becomes another blocker for us by and I’m the kind of person who I’m like, oh, well, I need to know absolutely everything. I need to do all of these personality tests before I can make a decision and yeah. So I

Araceli Higueras [00:29:09]:

can totally relate. I see I see my job as, encouraging people to move out of that mindset.

Aoife O’Brien [00:29:15]:

Mhmm.

Araceli Higueras [00:29:16]:

And I try to encourage them to find the their level of confidence increase when it comes to not needing absolutely all the guarantees and all the information. But as long as you can be comfortable with the criteria, then that’s almost like, again, the word formula, but it’s something that you can apply to make decisions. You have some inputs. You have your formula. You have a result. So Yeah. Have clear rules or clear criteria or develop as many as you can to have this understanding and then make sense and make decisions.

Aoife O’Brien [00:29:52]:

Yeah. No. I think it’s fantastic that you’ve brought that up as well because for me, when I thought about values, I knew them from the context of I work in this organization and we have corporate values, and those corporate values are on the wall and they’re on our email signature. But they were quite meaningless because they weren’t translated into behaviors or, certainly, they weren’t translated into the behaviors that I was experiencing. So I didn’t give it much thought. I didn’t know that I, as an individual, had values. And then I went on and did my coaching qualification. I did my masters.

Aoife O’Brien [00:30:25]:

And during the master’s and the research I did about happiness at work, I found that values were one of the crucial pieces. And I just started seeing about it everywhere. And there are previous episodes of the podcast for anyone who wants to listen in more detail about, you know, a deep dive into values and the the structure of the happier at work framework as well. You can definitely go back and listen to that. But I’m so glad that you brought that up and how it’s not just about solving one problem. It’s about challenging how people are thinking and using values in their decision making as well so that they can see exactly as you said, Ara, how have they made decisions in the past and how can they make decisions that are value based going forward so that they feel really clear and confident about the decisions that they’re making.

Araceli Higueras [00:31:14]:

Yes.

Aoife O’Brien [00:31:15]:

Brilliant. Something that we touched on before again, before we started recording is this idea of self leadership. Do you want to talk to me a little bit more about that? Because it’s something I have spoken about it on the podcast before. It’s a couple of years ago since I spoke about it, but it is that idea that take taking responsibility for yourself in the first instance and and how to lead yourself. Do you have any thoughts around how we can actually do that?

Araceli Higueras [00:31:42]:

I probably don’t have a very articulate very well articulated answer. I I wrote about so my intention was if if you for those who want change and they don’t want to wait for change to happen to them or they want to deal with change that happens or things that happen that are out of your control, then there needs to be a role that we choose to play in our life. And that’s how I see the role of self self leadership. I like the concept of, leadership outside of, hierarchy in an organization or in a society. I like the concept of, trying to use autonomy and competence at the level where you are. Yeah. And I that’s what I try to encourage in my yeah. In the way I work or in the way I, we coach.

Araceli Higueras [00:32:49]:

I I was coaching or I was working with people. I think it’s very important to make a conscious choice even if it’s quite frankly, even if it’s, self care and choose to give your mind the rest sometimes and learn to accept certain things and look after your body. There’s some leadership in that, and there’s also in nutrition and in sleep and, how you turn up, how much you share of yourself. So, yeah, I’m going to leave it at the For

Aoife O’Brien [00:33:23]:

me, what I think you’ve articulated it quite well there, it’s putting yourself in a position that for me, what I’m hearing reading between the lines is that you’re being proactive and rather than reactive about what’s going on, and you’re putting yourself in the position that you can have more control or make better decisions, whether that is a active decision that you’re making or whether something is happening to you and you need to make a decision based on on some outside circumstances, let’s say. Yes. So thank you. I appreciate that. And the question I ask everyone who comes on the podcast, what does being happier at work mean to you?

Araceli Higueras [00:34:01]:

I I’ve been thinking about this a bit and I know that what makes me so I don’t want to say what I think being happy means for everybody. I’m going to say how I am happy, what makes me happy at work.

Aoife O’Brien [00:34:18]:

Great. Yeah. Yeah.

Araceli Higueras [00:34:19]:

And I’m happy at work when I connect personally with people I’m working with. Sometimes with customers, with providers, with peers, with reports, with managers. So I care about having some sort of personal connection that makes me happy. I I’m happy when I’m trusted, when I have some autonomy. I’m happy when I’m hurt. So when I have concerns, I don’t want to be left alone. I want to be supported and sometimes shown a way forward or support when I need it. I’m very happy when I’m creating something.

Araceli Higueras [00:35:01]:

I like there to be a result and to to add value add value to somebody else or to customers or to the organization. And I really really enjoy learning. So but because I am able to learn outside of work, like, I don’t demand that work is my only source of learning that’s why sometimes I was, like, focusing on languages or doing some craft. I I I have this when you were talking about portfolio, so I have this way of living where I try not to be demanding from any part of my life. Like, I spread the damage. And I I’m equally happy for the input to come from either way. So sometimes, if at work, I have not been so socially or so emotionally connected, then I lean more on my friends or my family. But I know that for me to be happy, I need it.

Araceli Higueras [00:36:02]:

So I have to find it somewhere.

Aoife O’Brien [00:36:04]:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. I get that. If people want to find out more about you, your coaching services, your book, what’s the best place that they can do that?

Araceli Higueras [00:36:15]:

I think the best place is to find me on LinkedIn. Yeah.

Aoife O’Brien [00:36:21]:

Brilliant. And I’ll put a link to your LinkedIn in the show notes as well for anyone who wants to check that out. Ara, thank you so much for your time today. Really, really enjoyed this conversation. We went in a couple of different ways I wasn’t expecting, but it’s all good. That’s what the Happy at Work podcast is all about. And I really appreciate your time and sharing your is your wisdom and your insights. So thank you for that.

Araceli Higueras [00:36:42]:

Thank you for having me. The pleasure was mine.