Episode 4: Emily Klear '12 MS on a Career Change into Couples Therapy
Listen to "Emily Klear '12 MS on a Career Change into Couples Therapy" on Spreaker.
If you enjoy this podcast, don't miss Emily Klear's webinar -
Can We Really Have It All? - where Klear discusses the unique challenges dual-income couples face as well as how to reprioritize your partner.
Transcript:
[MUSIC PLAYING] CASSIE PETOSKEY: Welcome to Northwestern Intersections, a Northwestern Network podcast where we talk to alumni about their careers. We'll hear what they've done right, what they've done wrong, and the stories behind both. My name is Cassie Petoskey, and today we're talking with Emily Klear. Emily is the director of couples services and part of the clinical services leadership team at the Family Institute.
Through research, education, and clinical services, the Family Institute at Northwestern University is one of the nation's leading relationship-based behavioral health organizations committed to strengthening and healing children and adolescents, couples, families, and individuals. So Emily, we're so excited to talk to you today. Thank you so much for being here.
EMILY KLEAR: Well, thank you for having me. I'm really excited to talk to you guys, and to share kind of my story with other Northwestern grads.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Definitely. And I know that this is a career-focused podcast, and we're really excited to talk about all the really cool things you're doing at the Family Institute now. But before we get into that, I'd like to hear about what you did for your first job. And that can be however you interpret that.
EMILY KLEAR: Sure. Well, I mean, technically my first job was at Hallmark. So I don't think that's the job we want to explore-- stacking cards and putting gift little thingies, knickknacks out. But my first post-college job-- I guess I could also share my internship, because it was pretty interesting. But my first real job was with Coca-Cola. I always joke that I sold Coke.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: And now you're a therapist. Look at that.
EMILY KLEAR: Exactly, the full circle. So I sold fountain soda out in the Bay Area in San Francisco. So I'd go to various restaurants. I had the local entry level position with it. So I was going to all the local restaurants, which was really kind of cool, because you got to meet a lot of chefs and small business owners. So it was a really neat experience, although I was not very good at sales. So when you're selling Coke, it's easy. But you know, later jobs I was like, this is not the pathway for me. I knew I liked working with people, but I just didn't know how to translate that into something different.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: And how long were you selling Coca-Cola in the Bay Area?
EMILY KLEAR: I was there for about a year. And I left not because of the job. I was homesick. I loved San Francisco, and I still love to visit. But living there-- I'm not a West Coast person. Like, if I'm going to pay that much in rent, I'd rather live in New York City. I'm not beachy. I wasn't going to surf. None of that stuff. And the weather-- honestly, I'd rather take Chicago weather, where we have very distinct seasons, than this always 60-ish weather. Which I'm sure people in California, uh.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: You're crazy.
EMILY KLEAR: You're crazy, exactly.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: That is funny. I don't hear people often saying that I live in the Midwest for the weather. But I get what you're saying, the seasons. You need the seasons.
EMILY KLEAR: Yeah. It's not the Midwest weather, it's just seasons.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yes, totally. And so you're from the Midwest, is that right?
EMILY KLEAR: I'm from all over, actually. So I was born in Cincinnati. My dad worked for Dow Chemical for the majority of his career. So we went to Midland, their headquarters. Then we went to Atlanta, Georgia, and then back to Midland. And then my family moved to the Chicagoland area right after I graduated high school. So kind of all over.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: How do you think that all the moving and the change throughout your childhood has impacted your mindset, I guess, and career path in general?
EMILY KLEAR: Yeah, it's kind of impacted both. I'm a middle child, so I'm very gregarious. So I think it made me even more of a people person, just because every time we moved, I'd have to acclimate to a new school system and a new kind of way of being. And there was a very stark difference coming from a Michigan School system to Atlanta, and then going back from Atlanta to Michigan.
So just kind of navigating cultural changes that I don't think a lot of people think about going South to North and North to South. But I think overall, it also made me a lot more flexible. So even with job transitions, I'm able to tolerate a lot of movement and chaos. And as a therapist, it also helps me step back and think through people's experiences differently too.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Speaking of transitions, when you moved back, were you still in sales? Or was that when you made a career change?
EMILY KLEAR: Nope, I was still in sales. So I went on to work for the local CBS station. And our station here in Chicago is owned by Viacom. So I went from one major corporation to another major corporation. I worked at CBS during 9/11, so it was really interesting having access to a news room as 9/11 was unfolding and happening.
And having a lot of friends-- I went to the University of Michigan for undergrad, so a lot of my friends were newly in finance in New York. And this was pre-social media, so we were all kind of on AOL Instant Messenger trying to figure out, was everyone OK, because a lot of people were down in that part of Manhattan. So it was kind of a really cool experience being at CBS during that period in American history. But again, I really stunk at sales. So even there I knew, like oh, I'm not very good at this. So it was around that time that I started to recognize something needs to change.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah. And we talk to a lot of alumni who are thinking about career changes. And I just wonder if you can think back of how you felt in that time, and how you knew that you had to make a change.
EMILY KLEAR: Yeah. So I have an undergrad degree in psychology and history. And both of those degrees didn't seem at the time to me like I could do anything with them. I hadn't really tracked the way I should've in psychology if I wanted to go on to graduate degrees when I was at Michigan. So I kind of started playing around. Do I need to be doing something different in business, or what does it all mean? I think since I was about 15, 16, I always had thought about being a therapist, but I didn't know what that would look like.
And when I didn't properly take that path at Michigan, I thought I had closed the door. So early in my business career, I just tried to keep turning directions. So I ended up in corporate retail slash store management, merchandising. And I thought that would be enough. And I was much more successful. I worked for Neiman Marcus. I worked for the North Face. So I started to have a lot more success in that realm. But it still felt hollow, and I knew I had more in me or more I wanted to do. And then I had a few personal things happen.
My nephew was born premature and subsequently passed away. And I had a really good girlfriend going through fertility, and I thought, you know, I'm watching these people that I love suffer, and not have a lot of resources available to help them navigate it or to help their marriages navigate these major events. And that's when I started exploring. Are there options and pathways to become a therapist that don't involve just the clinical psychology PhD pathway? And that's how I found the Family Institute at Northwestern.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah, the personal side of why you made the change seems to be like a major instigator for your career change. And you mentioned sales wasn't for you. And you seem very happy being a therapist. And they're both-- I mean, you're working with people in different ways. What are some of those common elements, and what are the things that are so different that you now love what you do?
EMILY KLEAR: I think the biggest stark difference is, my experience in sales-- and this is purely mine-- it was very competitive, and it was all about the bottom line. And even when I was working for companies I believed in and still believe in-- to some degree. I don't drink soda anymore. But I just couldn't-- it just felt really-- like, the only word that I keep coming back to is hollow.
There was also a little bit-- especially with Coca-Cola-- and I don't want to be generalizing, because they're a very different company now than they were when I was there almost 20 years ago-- but it just felt gendered to me too, a little bit. And I don't know why that was my experience, because there was a female manager that was influential there.
And it was all about numbers. And so that's the part that I really found frustrating. I think more of my business experience translated from my retail experience. Like, even if I was in sales, there seemed to be more of a human connection. And I think it might be because so much of sales in a retail space depends on the customer feeling good.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: The customer service aspect, totally.
EMILY KLEAR: Exactly.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: And so what is so different about therapy that now you have been-- how long have you been a therapist?
EMILY KLEAR: So I started at the Family Institute in 2012 as a student. So we'd start seeing clients, we call them, pretty quickly within our programming. They're very strong in helping us navigate what those experiences are like, and they provide a lot of supervision. So I've been working with clients since 2010. So eight years, oh. It's probably more like seven, because you really don't build up right away. So seven years, and then I've graduated in 2012. So I've been practicing since 2012.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah. And the personal connection, it seems, is what you were really searching for with the therapy. And it sounds like you work with couples who are going through some really tough times. What is it like to develop those relationships with people who are going through such a challenging time in their lives?
EMILY KLEAR: It's really incredible. It's like, every day I kind of am in this privileged position of walking with people and their stories and their lives, and really helping them hopefully see their worlds differently, and helping them navigate unexpected moments in their world. I work a lot with fertility and late term loss, whether that be second trimester or stillbirth. I do more run-of-the-mill couples work as well around discernment-- which is kind of the decision, do we stay in our marriage? Do we not? Do we stay in our relationship or do we not? Affairs, all those pieces. And then I do quite a bit of individual work as well.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: It's so interesting. So you work with some people who are having fertility issues, some couples. Is there bits of advice that you have come up with through your work that you could offer people? Just something to think about if they're going through-- our alumni out there.
EMILY KLEAR: I think one of the big universal themes with all couples, whether they're in a distressed place where they're not sure they want you together or not, or there in this distressed place around more of this, like, what is our world going to look like place, which is more of fertility, difficult transition to parenthood places. You know, most couples have a process of how they communicate with each other. And we get stuck in one part of the process, and we can't let it go, and we can't step back, and we can't see it differently.
And so I think if I had a universal piece of advice, it's to kind of slow yourselves down, and slow the emotional reactivity down, and take a step back to allow yourself to passively stand in your partner's position. And that would be if you guys are having a hard time achieving parenthood in the path and way you want to have a family, or that would be applicable to if you want to step back and change course with your marriage. I think we're at the cusp where marriage is kind of being redefined.
And actually one of our amazing faculty members here at Northwestern wrote an incredible book called The All or Nothing Marriage from Eli Finkel. And it's one of the books I really appreciate and adore, because we're in this new phase of what relationships look like. And he does a great job of talking about how marriage has moved from a love-based organization to more of a self-expression.
And we're expecting a lot of our partners. And so when partners are able to do that for each other, it looks fantastic. And then the level of happiness in marriage is really high if you can do it. But if you can't, the level of disappointment is really intense, because we're expecting our partners to be our entire extended family, our best friends, our perfect lover. You know, that's a lot to put on one person.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: So is that the wrong way of doing things, or is that the new way?
EMILY KLEAR: Both. I think it's both. But I would definitely say sitting with a lot of couples-- I think I read research recently that we spend significantly less time socializing outside of our marriage and our family than we did in the '70s. And there's also research showing that couples report higher satisfaction levels when they're around and engaged with other couples than people. And so I think a little bit of it is it still takes a village to bring up kids, and it still takes a village to hold a family together. So don't allow yourselves to be so inwardly focused that you forgot to look outward too.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah. And the fact that this is happening when we're in such a connected world now. Like you mentioned, some of the things that you dealt with were before social media. And now it seems like, oh, you're like one click away from your friends. And you feel so connected when you're posting to Facebook. But is that real engagement? Is that real connections?
EMILY KLEAR: Exactly. And I think there's more dual-income families out there, and so I think people's bandwidth is really maxed out. And the last thing you want to do is try to figure out how to put socialization in there too. And even prioritizing your partnership can be a challenge. So it feels often like, oh, I'll just get those needs met by scrolling on Facebook.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Right. But that's not how that works.
EMILY KLEAR: Not really meeting the need, exactly.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: And I find the dual-income challenges, that I think you and I had spoken about the first time we met, is also just a really intriguing concept, now that more couples are both working. And we have some alumni in our Northwestern network who maybe the female the breadwinner for their family, or making more than their husband. And are there challenges that you've seen that are common for these couples? Or can you talk a little bit more about that?
EMILY KLEAR: I think one of the biggest challenges is that we are still in this cultural place where we haven't caught up to what it means to free men and women up from our old siloed roles that we put them in. And so I think oftentimes-- especially in female breadwinning households, even if it's female breadwinning where both are contributing-- we still haven't gotten to a place where it feels totally comfortable for the men to step into more of that nurturing house management role and for the women to step into the provider role.
I think we still have a few constraints around what that means. And that frequently shows up in the therapy room as a power imbalance that they're not sure what to do with. They're not coming in overtly because of that, but it's the subversion of kind of identity that they're not sure what it means. And I think as a society and culture, we more globally still don't know what it means. We're past the second wave of feminism, and I would like to believe we're entering the third wave.
And what does that mean? I don't think we know yet. We're definitely out-educating men at the higher levels. I think I read somewhere that there are now two times as many women graduating from vet school as men. That may be a totally wrong statistic on my part. There are a couple of careers that used to be traditionally male-dominated careers that are now female-dominated careers, that I don't think we've totally caught up with how we configure our houses and our parenting responsibilities to match that.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: So being a therapist, I'm sure a lot of people talk about burnout and self-care, because I actually have a social work background, where that's all-- so often, they're like, don't get burned out. Take care of yourself. And I'm wondering if you had times throughout your many years of providing therapy when you've thought, I can't do this anymore, these challenges are too big, or you doubted this career change.
EMILY KLEAR: I actually am lucky I have not. I mean, I've definitely felt burnout for sure. And then I have a three-year-old, so I feel burned out in my ability to balance everything, to be truthful. And I'm doing the bad thing of cutting out-- I sit with clients and tell them, make sure you exercise, make sure you eat well. And then I go home and I don't exercise.
So I think in that sense, I'm still trying to figure out the edge between having a leadership role at Family Institute, being a therapist-- I teach once a quarter and I'm coming off of that quarter-- being a parent and being a working mom. You know, the old gender piece that I carry around is a lot of guilt that I'm gone. Most days I get maybe an hour and a half with my son-- maybe-- except for the weekends. So trying to sit with that and recognize that he'll be OK, even though I'm not there all the time, is a harder thing to sit with. But it never comes back to like, I shouldn't have picked this career.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah. It still feels right.
EMILY KLEAR: It still feels right. And I've worked really hard in my career to be able to see clients in a timeframe that works with my family life. And not a lot of therapists have that luxury. We don't work a nine to five job. So a lot of therapists have to figure out, how do I have this life-- a career and a life-- that doesn't fit the normative timeframe of when work normally happens? We have to kind of work when other people aren't working.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Right. And talking about your family-- I know the first time we spoke, we talked a little bit about raising kids in this gendered world. And I don't know if you're strategic about how you raise your kid now, having the therapy lens you have on couples therapy and family issues, and how that's impacted your family.
EMILY KLEAR: Absolutely. I'm raising a boy. I'm raising a white male. So he's got dual privilege. And I don't want him to feel shame for that, but I also want him to recognize that he implicitly has power because he's white and he's male. It's hard. I got a lot of pushback. He's got a hyphenated last name, in both of his last names are not super-- they don't go well together.
So he's got a really clunky, cumbersome, big last name. But it felt that important for me, since his father and I weren't married, that my name be attached to him as much as his dad's name. And I'm also working really hard-- I'm really mindful of things. And it's hard, because my dad's very old school. His dad can skew a little more traditional male. You know, he's three. I'm not trying to tell him he can't cry. That's an age where boys start to get that message of like, don't cry.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Suck it up.
EMILY KLEAR: Exactly, suck it up. Or you know, little boys don't do x, or those was kind of emotional outputs that I'm trying to allow him to do those things without having the--
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Stigma.
EMILY KLEAR: Yeah, actually.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: One of my biggest questions, as someone who doesn't have children. How do you deal with the dilemma of raising your child the way you want to, and then putting him into a world that is totally different, and all the kids around him are getting a different message? And how hard is that?
EMILY KLEAR: It's really hard. I live in one of the more affluent suburbs of the Chicagoland area. It's fairly white. It's got a lot of stay-at-home moms. And so I think my son is getting a little bit different messaging than other kids. But I think it's staying true to who I am. Like, I know he's going to have outside influences.
And they're going to be different mindsets than mine. But just trying to help him be open minded, to make his own choices and decisions, is really a large priority. I think one of the greater challenges is we're parenting in this very child-centered period of time, where everybody feels like they can build the perfect kid. And I think the harder part is that I don't believe that, in the work that I do and the research I've read.
And I approach parenting a lot more like a gardener, that I only have so much control of what I can do and effect in his world. And I think that's the harder piece. People are like, you don't have him and blabbity blah activity already? I'm like, he's three. He doesn't need to be in soccer and baseball and all of those things.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah. The child-centered world is also something that I'd love to dive into a little bit, because I feel like so often-- well, people my age who are considering having children, it's like, OK, we have kids and our lives are over and their lives begin.
EMILY KLEAR: Yeah, everything gets organized around the kid. Which as a couples therapist, is one of the worst things you can do for your partnership. And I'm slightly guilty of it in the sense that, yes, I'm not working out because I want to spend more time with my child when I get home. But I also have a career. And I get that it's easy to do that. But I try not to organize my whole entire day around him and what he's doing. And it's hard, because that's part of the messaging out there. Like, your kid should be in x, y, z activities. And if you're not working, you should be totally playing with your kids. And the research doesn't support that. Kid's think going to Target with you is quality time.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: I love Target. Perfect. This is going to be great.
EMILY KLEAR: I know. Exactly. You don't have to go to the best park, or do whatever the coolest activity is. Whatever you're doing to keep the household running can be considered quality time for kids.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah, still spending time together. Well, Emily, I find the work that you do super interesting, and obviously how it's impacted your life and your personal life is great. But I'd love to talk more about the leadership role that you mentioned earlier at the Family Institute, and how you've done so well in your career, and kind of risen to this leadership role so quickly. And if you can talk us through the steps you've had starting when you were in school at Northwestern till now being in a leadership role.
EMILY KLEAR: Yeah. So I think part of it actually even starts before I went back to graduate school. So I think a lot of it started with my business career. I thought when I started graduate school that I was doing a 180, and I was leaving that part of myself behind. And then after I graduated, I worked for a group practice in the area, and was able to see a lot of my retail management background could actually be helpful in organizing and helping with the administrative side of the practice.
And then I came back to the Family Institute at staff in a leadership capacity, trying to help really promote their Northbrook location. A lot of people aren't aware that we had a satellite office there. And so I came on in this role of helping market and really lead that office. And then the director of couples services position came open last fall.
And I actually didn't think I had enough experience for it, to be honest. So I decided to put my CV in more as a way of showing them, if and when you think I'm ready for this, I'd like to be considered. And lo and behold, I got promoted. So I think a lot of it was I cultivated relationships with a lot of the leadership at the Family Institute prior to coming back on staff, as a student.
But I think a lot of it's my business background. You know, I didn't totally shed that part of my identity or my career. And that's a lot of my role is really looking-- you know, I'm leading a team, and trying to really help the organization be as healthy as possible so that we can continue to provide services, and make sure people know what kind of services we have available.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah. And from when I was getting my master's in social work, I heard a lot that people who were going into therapy, they were going to get promoted into management positions within however long. Five years down the road, you're probably going to be managing someone. And so often, it's such a different skill. It's therapy versus managing people, which obviously, you have this really cool background of business to add to it. But what were some of the challenges and some of the rewarding pieces to becoming a manager and a director?
EMILY KLEAR: I think the biggest hurdle was I went from being a team member to in a leadership role. One of my team members and I graduated together. So she and I worked really hard to openly communicate about this change, that we had gone from classmate to coworkers, to now I'm her director, and what does that all look like.
That was probably one of the hardest roles, and then I have some of the most senior clinicians at the Family Institute that come into my team. And so really, balancing that they don't mean me to lead them. They actually lead the organization for a very long time. That I can use them more in a mentorship capacity of where they are at their stage in their career, and where I am in the stage of my career, and how together we can all help the Family Institute provide the best level of care that we can to our clients and our community too.
So that, I think, was a really unique challenge. I've never led such senior people before. Even in the retail world, it always felt like I was leading people developmentally in my stage or coming up behind me developmentally. So to lead people so way far out, that are way developmentally ahead of me, that I've admired for years, was a really interesting challenge.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah. And the fact that you have such different relationships with the people you manage. You have some people who I'm sure you're leading more, and some people who you look to for mentorship. And I love the experiential learning aspect to your Northwestern experience. And I'd love to talk a little bit more about how that has impacted-- obviously, you went on to then work at Northwestern.
EMILY KLEAR: Then I came back.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: It never ended. But if you can talk a little bit about how that experience has shaped your career and your life.
EMILY KLEAR: Yeah. The Family Institute was such a huge part of my graduate school experience. And for the people listening, the Family Institute's nested into Northwestern. We are the Center for Applied Psychological Studies at Northwestern. And so we're a research and education component of Northwestern, but we're a separate nonprofit entity from the university. So we're like part of it, but also not totally part of it.
So that piece was always great, both as a student and now as staff, that we are intertwined, but we're also a bit separate too. So I got both the student piece of being a Northwestern student. But the Family Institute has such a rich layer of staff and professors and faculty, and so that experience really informed me in the mentorship capacity. And then between the two-- Northwestern and the Family Institute-- they really network hard with their alumni. And so it always felt seamless and interconnected.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah, that's great. The Northwestern network is so vast.
EMILY KLEAR: Exactly. Very connected. I don't feel like-- being part of the University of Michigan too-- and this isn't a knock on Michigan, because it has amazing things-- but I never felt totally included in it, versus Northwestern makes you feel very included. And I don't know if that's a product of grad school versus undergrad school, but it feels very different.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah, the Northwestern network is such a great network to tap into and to go back to throughout one's career. Emily, you're teaching as well.
EMILY KLEAR: I'm more of a teaching assistant this year.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: You're doing so much. You're a director, you're doing therapy.
EMILY KLEAR: My direct boss, the chief clinical officer at the Family Institute, taught one of my favorite classes during graduate school. And this past year, she invited me to co-instruct with her. So this year, I was more of truly like a TA, and just in completely awe of her again. And then hopefully, the goal is that I'll help lecture and grade. And that's been a huge part of coming back as well. I mean, a large part of why I came back was the ability to research, the ability to write, the ability to teach, to have a much broader career than just being clinically involved with clients.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah. And your career is so broad now. You're doing so much, which is great.
EMILY KLEAR: Yeah, maybe too broad.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: What are some of the things you're most proud of in your career looking back?
EMILY KLEAR: Well, that's a good question. Well, I'm definitely proud of the clinical work I do. That feels like a really big privilege, and it's something that I recognize there-- you know, as therapists, a lot of people never retire. You just slowly build your caseload down till it feels manageable, and then you-- I don't know.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: You never actually retire.
EMILY KLEAR: Yeah, exactly. It's hard to actually retire as a therapist, from at least a lot of the mentors I see out there. And that feels important to me. And so I'm glad I made that shift. But I think maybe what I'm most proud of is to be able to take all of that previous career experience and intertwine it with the direction that I felt strongly about going, and making a career out of both of them. Not having to throw away my earlier career.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah, that's great. And turning the tables a little bit, are there any learning lessons or career missteps that you've had along the way that had a really big impact on how you've gotten to where you are now?
EMILY KLEAR: The therapist part in me is going to say I'm a big proponent of failure-driven learning. So I think trying sales and trying it as hard as I did early in my career-- if I hadn't made those mistakes, I wouldn't have gotten to where I was. I actually got fired from an ad agency. I think it was 2003 or '04. They had hired me on as their new business development, which is pretty much lingo for cold calling sales.
And I was really, again, bad at sales. And it became very alarmingly obvious, when I wasn't supported by a large organization like Viacom or Coca-Cola that I really wasn't good at it. And at the time, I would probably have said that was devastating. But that's what got me on the trajectory of really having a successful business career. And that opened up space to lead me back to grad school, too. So I wouldn't say it was a mistake, necessarily. But that was the moment that I was at my lowest career-wise. Like, getting fired was a horrible feeling.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah. I've talked to a lot of successful alumni thus far in creating this podcast. And almost every one of them has a story of being fired, and that being a moment where you're like, uh, re-evaluate.
EMILY KLEAR: It's an identity moment, too. I mean, because it happened developmentally at the same age where I had like seven or eight weddings within like six months after I got fired. So I was single. I had just gotten fired. Here are all my peers taking all these life stops. And again, I graduated from Michigan, so some of my peers from Michigan were doing some really intensely cool things. So I kind of felt like, oh, well I'm failing at all of this. And a lot of my clients who have been fired say the same thing. There's this identity moment of, do I have value? So much of our lives are professionally-oriented.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah, the identity of, who am I now that I don't have my job? Because isn't that-- like, Baby Boomers or Gen X-ers when they introduce themselves, they're like, hi, I'm so and so, I'm a lawyer. They define themselves by what they do. I'm so glad you share that, because I think so many people in the Northwestern network have that type of experience, or people listening in are going through that right now. And there is a light at the end of the tunnel. You'll find what is best for you.
EMILY KLEAR: And probably even better for you.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Exactly. Exactly.
EMILY KLEAR: Clearly wasn't a good fit. I shouldn't say that. In my case, it was me. Like, I probably deserved to be fired.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: No, there are different ways to be fired definitely. But that's really helpful for the Northwestern network. And have you received any advice throughout your career in these different positions that's really stuck with you from one job to the next?
EMILY KLEAR: I had a really great manager at The North Face. And I think working for them as an organization was a pretty defining moment overall. They are a fiscally-sound company that's also ethically and environmentally trying their best with the constraints of being who they are. But I had a manager who told me, you're only as good as the weakest person on your team.
And so don't make it about you. Make it about the people underneath you. That was a shift for me in management that helped me step back from micromanaging, and helped me recognize how incredibly important delegating was, and letting things go in order to be a leader. It helped me re-contextualize leadership.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: I love that that's the bit of advice that you have to offer too, from being a therapist who works one-on-one with the people, to have this team aspect that's really influenced you. And now I'd love to get into our speed round of really random questions that we just want you to answer as quickly as you can, first thing that comes to mind. In another life, what would you want to do or be?
EMILY KLEAR: A chef.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: That's awesome. What are some of the restaurants that have really inspired you in Chicago?
EMILY KLEAR: Well, my favorite is Avec, and has been for years.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Where is that?
EMILY KLEAR: They're on Randolph on the Eastern edge of all the cool spots. And they were over there well before all the cool spots came into play. I haven't been there in a while. I know they've had executive chef changes since last time I've been there. But such a cool space, and just they've always been very innovative. And then definitely Alinea. I've never had wine and food match in such a profound way before.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: I'm so jealous.
EMILY KLEAR: I mean, it's just so cool.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah, and to be a foodie in Chicago, it's a great place.
EMILY KLEAR: They always stop and show you the kitchen and everything, I think. Or at least that's what they did when I was there. So it's like, great, I love you.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: That's awesome. No, you can be a chef next to him in your future life. And what is the funniest thing that has happened to you recently?
EMILY KLEAR: Oh, recently. Hmm, I don't know. I lead a pretty boring life.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Well with your three-year-old, I'm sure there's--
EMILY KLEAR: Oh, I know. I'm not Irish, but my son's part Irish from his father's side. On St. Patrick's Day, he insisted on wearing his underwear on his head all day.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Is that an Irish thing?
EMILY KLEAR: Well, he seemed like a drunk Irishman. Like, he I was little Irish shirt. I'm like, you're not even drinking yet, and you're already crazy on St. Patrick's Day.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: He just feels it. He senses his Irish roots.
EMILY KLEAR: Your Irish Chicago is showing up in you, buddy.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: That is a good one. And if someone gave you a million dollar grant right now to use on something that makes the world better, how would you use that money?
EMILY KLEAR: Probably to research the impact of relationships on mental health and families. There isn't enough research money getting funneled to that, to be honest. There's a little bit in the military, but because of the nature of the complexity of researching multiple people in the room, especially clinically, is really challenging. And so most clinical psychology programs focus on an individual pathology. And we do know from research that the relationships around us impact all of those things. I would probably put it in that direction.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah, that's great. And tell me about your favorite time or place when you ran into a fellow Northwestern alumnus, which is probably every day.
EMILY KLEAR: Yeah, every day that I go to work.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: I know. I was going to say, does it ever happen when you're not on campus or at work?
EMILY KLEAR: Occasionally. I mean, a lot of times it happens at work, because one of our alumni has a practice two doors down. And a lot of my cohort works. So we're all kind of around each other.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Oh, that's funny. And if you could be any animal in the world, what animal would you be and why?
EMILY KLEAR: Probably a dog. They are the most attuned to humans, and they're most attuned to connect. There's a lot of research showing that they have a larger capacity to read our nonverbal feedback than we do. Yeah, they're more attuned to us than we are to ourselves.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Crazy. And what kind of dog would you be?
EMILY KLEAR: Well, my dog that died in December was a Basset Hound. So I have a high affinity for Bassets. Although as he was dying, I found out that I'm allergic to dogs. So I will not be able to have another Basset Hound.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: So you figured that out after you had a dog for years?
EMILY KLEAR: I had had him for 17-- he died 17 and 1/2.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: 17 and 1/2 years. Wow. Oh my gosh. And you were allergic that whole time.
EMILY KLEAR: I'm only mildly allergic. But towards the end, I think because he was having a lot of issues, it exacerbated all my allergies.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah. Well, there are hypo-allergenic dogs?
EMILY KLEAR: Or less allergen. Yes, Bassets are not one of them.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: And what do you wish you could tell yourself as you graduated from Northwestern now, knowing what you know about your career?
EMILY KLEAR: I think I needed less advice when I graduated from Northwestern-- I was older and more mature-- than I did when I was graduating from Michigan. But both ages and stages, I probably would have told myself to just be more comfortable in the moment, to be more present in the here and now.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: So hard.
EMILY KLEAR: The future doesn't matter as much as you feel or think it should.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: It's definitely something that has always been a challenge for me, especially learning how to do these interviews. Be present.
EMILY KLEAR: I think for most people.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah. That's great. And do you have any other advice-- general career path advice for the Northwestern network as a whole?
EMILY KLEAR: Probably the same. Because I think a lot of us that come to Northwestern are high achievers, and very future-driven. Think about my experience, I frequently went over to Kellogg to get-- they have better food options than a lot of folks on campus-- and watching a lot of the Kellogg students. And I think it's just to be in the moment. Don't spend your life chasing something. Be present with what's here and now.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: That's great. Very simple. It could be transformational, if you actually attempt and try to do that.
EMILY KLEAR: Right. And I recognize it's hard to do.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah, and have that self-awareness. That's awesome. And Emily, thank you so much for spending this time with us, and for being here, sharing all these great insights.
EMILY KLEAR: Thank you. It was my pleasure.
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CASSIE PETOSKEY: Thank you for tuning into today's episode at Northwestern Intersections. To find more information about the podcast, please visit Northwestern.edu/intersections. That is Northwestern.edu/intersections. Have a great rest of your day, and go Cats.