Today, I’ll be chatting with Samantha Laing, a New-Zealand based Agile consultant and coach whose passion is helping people work and live with purpose, meaning and joy. Most of Sam’s career has been in the IT industry, specifically software development. She co-founded Growing Agile and spends most of her time guiding and mentoring others with a passion for Agile. Sam regularly speaks at international Agile conferences and has co-authored a number of books specifically aimed at helping Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches run effective workshops on a range of topics. Her experience lies mainly in working with teams, Product Owners, Scrum Masters and Managers.
In this episode, Sam guides us through what self-care means to her, why it is so important and how others can apply it in their workplace and lives through a couple of engaging and personal anecdotes. We talk about why a lot of people enjoy saying “I’m busy,” what that usually means, and what some indicators are for Agile Coaches in need of more self-care. Sam shares tips and tricks that she uses in her daily schedule to periodically and pragmatically check her workload. She also talks about why it is important to dissociate who you are from what you do, the importance of having a “sounding board”, and being your own best friend.
In this episode, Sam had alluded to Brené Brown’s Rising Strong book. You can stay in touch with Sam through her blog, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
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We’re not just Agile Coaches. We’re also a wife, or a cyclist; we might be an uncle or a grandmother or a gardener… and some of those things are more important than others. [What] if you prioritized that list according to what was valuable to your identity? [And] what if you prioritized your time using that? [I’m] pretty sure that Agile Coaching is going to be near the bottom of the list, not near the top. Yet, we prioritize client work over anything else.
SAMANTHA LAING ON THE AGILE ATELIER PODCAST
Rahul Bhattacharya 