Dear Daughter,

I’ve already written to you about the first days of a job – the excitement, the nervousness, the feeling that the world has finally opened its door to you. But today, I want to talk about what comes after. The years when the novelty has worn off. Seven years in. Ten. Fifteen. The years that are, in many ways, the most defining.

By now, you’ve watched the landscape around you change. Some people will keep moving – from company to company, always chasing something just out of reach. Some will step away entirely, following a calling they always suspected was there. Some will build something of their own, only to discover that the structure of a good organisation was actually what they needed all along. And increasingly, beta, the world itself will change faster than any of us expected – especially with AI reshaping what work even means. No one can tell you exactly what the jobs of your middle years will look like.

But after a 23-year-long career, here’s one thing I know for sure: as long as there are humans, there will be judgment. There will be office politics. There will be situations to navigate. So today’s letter is about exactly that.

The simplest advice I can give you: go and talk.

Most conflicts – the simmering ones, the ones that stretch over weeks – live in WhatsApp threads and emails and Slack messages that go back and forth and say very little. Two people reading tone into text.

If something feels wrong between you and one other person, close the app and go find them. Have the conversation. You will be surprised how often there was no problem at all – only the distance that screens create.

On gossip: move away.

Everyone has a bad day. Everyone needs to vent to someone they trust. That’s human, and I’m not asking you to be a saint. But there is a world of difference between releasing something once and letting it go – and becoming someone who trades in other people’s stories. Gossip feels like connection, but it is slow poison. It pulls you into dramas that aren’t yours, builds your identity around other people’s failings, and – quietly, inevitably – undermines how others see you.

My rule, in all these years, has been simple: the moment a conversation becomes a circle with no useful exit, I remove myself. Politely, quietly. I don’t add fuel. If you do the same, you will protect your peace in a way that no title, no salary, and no promotion ever can.

On politics: abstain.

I want to be very clear here, beta, because this one matters more than most.

Never be part of gossip. Never be part of politics. These are the two things I have held onto most fiercely in my career, and I credit them – more than skill, more than timing – for whatever peace I have carried with me. There is no constructive outcome from either. You go in thinking you are playing the game, and you come out having become someone you didn’t set out to be.

Refrain from both, whatever the environment around you. Your happiness will thank you.

On being passed over.

It will happen. Someone else will get the role you were working toward. Someone will be recognised before you. These are not failures – they are simply the texture of a long career, and they will happen to everyone who stays long enough.

When they do, don’t let them pull you under. Instead, ask yourself the more useful question: How can I make my work impossible to ignore?

Here’s what I’ve learned: no one discovers your work on their own. You have to be the kind of person who shows up when the team needs someone. Who thinks a little deeper than what’s obvious. Who brings ideas into a room that no one else thought to bring. If you are dependable – genuinely, not performatively – growth will come. It may not come on your schedule. But it will come.

On leading people – the skill nobody prepares you for

Beta, at some point the work will shift. You won’t just be doing – you will be leading. And I want you to understand something before that day comes: leading a team is an entirely different skill, and it will ask things of you that your individual work never did.

People are not interchangeable. The team that comes together will bring different strengths, different speeds, different moods, different capacities on any given day. Your job as a leader is not to expect uniformity – it is to see clearly. Who thinks best under pressure. Who needs a little more time but delivers something beautiful. Who is the one to call when everything is falling apart. Once you see these things, assign accordingly. Play to people’s strengths, not your assumptions about them.

Be assertive about timelines – always. But there is a sharp and important line between assertiveness and bullying, between holding someone accountable and making them feel small. Never cross it. A team that fears you will perform for you only when you are watching. A team that respects you will perform because they don’t want to let you down. The second is worth so much more.

And here is the thing that will frustrate you most when you first step into a leadership role: the pace will feel slower. When you were an individual contributor, you could move fast – your hands, your output, your timeline. As a manager, you will watch something take four days that you could have done in one, and every instinct will tell you to just do it yourself. Resist that. It is the biggest trap new managers fall into. The people around you are carrying four to six things simultaneously – you are seeing only the one thing you assigned them.

The antidote is simple, but you have to be disciplined about it: say everything upfront. Timelines, expectations, dependencies, what good looks like – all of it, in one clear conversation at the start. Not in pieces. Not as reminders when a deadline is approaching. All at once, so everyone is aligned from day one. You will find that most of the frustration – yours and theirs – simply doesn’t arise when expectations were never left ambiguous to begin with.

Leading well is slower than doing alone. It is also the only way to build something that lasts beyond you.

On not staying comfortable.

This one is a quiet danger. The moment you feel that you have learned everything a role has to teach you – the moment the work no longer stretches you – is the moment to start looking. Not in panic. Not in frustration. But with intention.

That search might lead you to a new role in the same organisation. It might lead somewhere new entirely. It might lead you to something outside work altogether. But the sense of fulfilment only lives where there is growth. When it disappears, dissatisfaction moves in. And then the corporate life begins to feel like a trap rather than a path.

On having a life outside of work.

This is, I think, the most underrated piece of advice I can offer you, and I cannot stress it enough.

Have something that is yours alone.

Write. Swim. Sing. Act in a play. Cook. Run. Whatever it is – let there be something in your life that has nothing to do with your job, your designation, or anyone’s expectations of you. Not because you need an escape, but because it will give you ballast. It will remind you that you are larger than your career. And that knowledge – that settled, quiet knowledge – is what makes the hard days at work manageable.

Just one thing: don’t let it bleed into your work time. Pursue it honestly, on your own hours. That’s what makes it sustainable.

On friends at work.

People will tell you that you can’t make real friends at work. I don’t believe that. Some of my truest friendships were born in offices. They take longer to grow, yes – and they ask more of you in terms of discernment. But they are real.

Be warm. Be open. And also be careful about what you share, especially early on. Not every colleague who feels like a friend yet is one. Trust is something you extend in layers, over time, once it’s been earned. When it has been – open up fully. Until then, be present, be kind, and be a little measured.

The middle years of a career are the ones that shape you most. The early years are about proving you belong. The late years are about legacy. But the middle years – these are the ones where character is built. Where you decide, quietly and repeatedly, what kind of person you want to be.

I hope you choose wisely. I hope you choose peace.

With all my love,

Mumma