In Chapter 1 of 15 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, entrepreneur Audrey Parker French answers "How Has Taking Time Away From Work Given You a Fresh Perspective on Life?" During her time off from work, she reconnects with family and meets her husband. The time off work allows her to shift from capturing her flag in career to capturing her flag in life and personal relationships.
Audrey Parker French returns to CYF for her Year 3 interview after a one-year sabbatical from work and getting married. She co-founded CLEAResult, an energy management consulting firm. In 2010, CLEAResult ranked #144 in the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing private companies. In late 2010, CLEAResult was sold to General Catalyst Partners. She graduated from Wake Forest University.
Transcript:
Erik Michielsen: How has taking time away from work given you a fresh perspective on life?
Audrey Parker French: Well, in several ways. First of all, it gave me time to reconnect with family and to meet my husband. About a year ago actually, very similar time to this interview last year, I had just met the man who just 2 months ago became my husband. And I – over the last 5 to 6, 7 years, the intensity of my work and my career had made it such that I was putting so much energy into those things because that really was my passion. That was the flag that I was capturing at that point in time. I really didn’t have time for the relationship, a really strong meaningful relationship.
And so – and I also didn’t have as much time to connect with friends and family, and over this last year, the energy that I didn’t even realize that I had been putting into my career all of a sudden became really available to me to reconnect with old friends, to develop my bonds with my family further that I really hadn’t even realized that it would be more surface level, shorter conversations with them when I was working really, really hard constantly.
And all of a sudden, I could have deeper more meaningful conversations more often and the combination of those things just making space for new people, my husband, his family, the new people that have come into my life. It’s been a really incredible year to have all that space and that energy freed up.