Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / From Teen Mother to Tech CEO: Tana Greene's Revolutionary Approach to Workforce Flexibility

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From Teen Mother to Tech CEO: Tana Greene's Revolutionary Approach to Workforce Flexibility · The Inspired Stories Podcast

• 0:04
  Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
• 0:08
  where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
• 0:12
  their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
• 0:14
  adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
• 0:17
  today's guest is Tana Green, CEO of My Work Choice.
• 0:22
  They provide fully managed staffing solutions for
• 0:24
  manufacturing and distribution, ensuring companies get
• 0:28
  dependable workers while securing 100% shift coverage.
• 0:34
  Under Tana's leadership, My Work Choice was recognized as one of
• 0:37
  the most innovative companies to watch in 2024, and Tana herself
• 0:43
  was inducted into the Carolina Entrepreneur Hall of Fame in
• 0:47
  2022. She was also named among the 100
• 0:51
  Women to Know in America for 2024 and honored by the Smart
• 0:56
  Business Deal Makers Hall of Fame.
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  With over 37 years of experience in staffing, Tana is known for
• 1:03
  transforming a national firm into an organization that
• 1:07
  champions flexibility and personal growth.
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  She authored Creating a World of Difference, where she shares her
• 1:14
  insights on leadership and resilience.
• 1:16
  Tana overcame notable challenges early in life and turned them
• 1:20
  into stepping stones for success, earning her a
• 1:24
  reputation as a leader who supports others in reaching
• 1:27
  their potential. Now before we get into all that
• 1:30
  good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company,
• 1:33
  Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and
• 1:37
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• 1:40
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• 1:43
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• 1:47
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• 1:53
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• 1:55
  To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at
• 1:58
  AD Back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
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  today, the CEO of my work choice, Tana Green.
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  I appreciate you making the time to Share your story today.
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  I am thrilled to be here. So Tana, your journey begins
• 2:13
  with overcoming very significant personal adversity at a very
• 2:18
  young age. Can you share that story with us
• 2:21
  and how it LED you into the staffing industry?
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  Absolutely. Absolutely.
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  So for me, I was that perfect teenager going into high school.
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  I was on the honor roll. I was the chaplain of my school
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  when that was an elected position.
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  I was the president of the principals committee and I'm
• 2:41
  starting 9th grade. Well, what does every girl want?
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  Starting high school to validate themselves.
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  They think they need the boyfriend.
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  Well, I got Mr. Right, actually was senior.
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  He was the top of his class. He was a surfer boy.
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  Everybody wanted to date him and he picked me.
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  So here I am halfway through my 9th grade and I have the
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  boyfriend of the century. Fast forward to summer of that
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  year and just so you know, I I grew up in a very Leave it to
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  Beaver household. My parents were older when they
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  had me. They had adopted my brother and
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  we're told they couldn't have children.
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  And voila, I appeared in their life.
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  And so it was, it was just a very magical time.
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  I mean, everything was perfect in our lives.
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  And I started dating the boy and next thing I know, it's the
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  summer between my 9th and 10th grade and I got pregnant.
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  This was 1974. So it was before abortion.
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  It was before anybody even used the word in the South.
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  We didn't even use the word pregnant.
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  In fact, we never said that word in front of my grandmother.
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  So it was very proper, very Christian, very proper.
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  So when I very. Conservative environment, you
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  know, take the picture to understand, OK?
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  Exactly. And so here I am, 15 years old,
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  it's in my summer. My parents sat down.
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  Luckily my parents were incredible.
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  We sat down with them and said this is our situation.
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  I remember going to my mother and saying I heard my dad was at
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  work and I remember saying to her I started crying and I said
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  you're not going to love me anymore And she goes what?
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  And I said I think I might be pregnant and she looked at me
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  and she said oh I I think you are too.
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  And she hugs me and says I was so afraid I was going to be too
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  old to be a grandmother. I get tears in my eyes thinking
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  about it. To this day I wish she was still
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  alive because I would ask her, what were you really thinking?
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  But that response in the moment was just pure gold.
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  It's. Exactly.
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  A conditional love. It was unconditional love.
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  It was a situation that she knew I was in and why make it worse?
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  So she embraced me and said, when your father gets home,
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  let's have a discussion with him.
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  Why don't you have Larry come over and let's have a
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  discussion? So we go into the living room
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  with my parents that evening and they said, what do you want to
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  do? And we said we want to be
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  married. So two weeks later, I'm walking
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  down the aisle wearing a white dress.
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  The women at the church came together and through the
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  reception, This is how life was back then.
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  Everybody bought a potluck. There was no alcohol, there was
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  no music. There was nothing that you know
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  of today in weddings. But there was the white dress
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  and it was down the aisle. My parents had a second home
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  that they rented out and they asked the renters to move out
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  and they furnished it for us. We moved into the home to live
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  happily ever after, right? So you think the story's going
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  to go right? I should have seen the signs
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  when dating, but I didn't because I thought he loved me so
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  much that he did not want me to be around certain people, that
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  he didn't want me riding the bus.
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  He would pick me up and take me to school.
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  What I didn't realize is that was control.
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  What I didn't realize is what that would turn into later.
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  And it became abuse physically. But they came, you know, it's
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  it's now I speak out a lot about domestic violence.
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  I'm doing a national project, which we'll talk about later.
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  But it's the kind of thing where you think somebody's just caring
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  for you. You don't realize what's
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  happening. And then when you find yourself
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  in those cycles of abuse where you get hit and then he cries
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  and says, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that.
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  You think it's your fault. You think you can make it
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  better. And you think, oh, he's sorry.
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  He's going to. And then it continues to happen
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  over and over. Well, I've never witnessed this.
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  I've never been around it in my life.
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  I've never seen anything like it.
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  I didn't tell anyone because I kept thinking I had to fix it.
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  And this is what women do. We're going to fix things.
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  And especially back then, from what you're saying, you were all
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  alone, like this wasn't happening.
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  I quit school. I'm not in school.
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  I'm at home all day. He takes the phone with him to
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  work. When he had the Rotary dial
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  phones he would take it in because I wasn't allowed to
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  speak to anybody when he wasn't there.
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  So I'm I'm living through this and I don't know what to do.
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  I've been cut off from all my friends and family.
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  My parents weren't even allowed to be there unless he was home.
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  So he wanted to make sure I wasn't telling anybody this was
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  happening. So it was about a year and a
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  half into it. My parents had offered to
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  babysit and we were going out one night for to be with
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  friends. Well, I'm 17, what does every
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  girl want to do? Be with their girlfriends,
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  right? I spend all day getting ready.
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  And it's funny, it's back then you didn't have, you didn't have
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  hair dryers except these big things that go on your head and
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  you didn't have curling irons. So you either ironed your hair
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  or you put it up on top of your head with these big, huge Mickey
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  Mouse rollers so that you had this straight hair for the
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  night. I remember doing that all day
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  long, getting ready and he was late getting home from work.
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  And by the time he came in the door he'd been drinking and I
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  was crying and saying I wanted to go out so this is fine get in
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  the car. So we get in the car and we
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  argue going to my parents house. He takes the carrier out with
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  the 8 month old sets it on the ground proceeds to beat the crap
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  out of me and drive off. I have to go to my parents door.
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  I ring the doorbell, my dad mum come to the door.
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  My dad takes one look at me, I have blood coming down my face.
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  He goes gets his keys and goes and looks for him.
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  My mother takes me in. Luckily she was very smart and
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  that she called a friend who was at the YWCA because there was
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  nothing called domestic violence, there was no hotline,
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  there was nothing to to turn to. My dad luckily did not find him
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  that night because God only knows what he would have done to
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  him. But the counselor that they
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  connected me with, I began to have daily conversations with
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  him starting on that Monday and by Friday.
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  And I wish I knew his name. I wish I could reach out to him.
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  I don't remember, but he said there's nothing wrong with you.
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  On the 5th day, he said this is the situation you're in and he
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  named it for me. And he explained the cycles of
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  violence and he explained what was happening and he said you
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  have a choice to make. You can be a victim or you can
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  be a survivor. Clear as day, you need to make
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  that decision. I suggest you go home and write
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  some goals and decide what you want to be and where you want to
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  be in life. And I wrote four goals on a
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  piece of paper. One, I wanted to graduate high
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  school 'cause I remember I quit after the 9th grade.
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  I wanted a cap and gown. I did not want a GED.
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  The second thing I wanted was own my own home by the time I
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  was 25. Oh boy.
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  I wanted to marry a knight in shining armor somewhere in this
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  game plan, and I wanted to own my own business by the time I
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  was 30, so I didn't even know what targeted goals were, right?
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  Measurable targeted goals. I didn't know what they were,
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  but I wrote them on a piece of paper.
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  I graduated high school and I get finished my three years and
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  two by going to night school and summer school.
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  I bought my first home at 22, I married my knight in shining
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  armor at 26, and we just celebrated 40 years last
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  weekend. Yay.
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  And open the doors of this business at 29.
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  Oh. My goodness.
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  So that was the beginning of understanding when you really
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  want something. If you have clear cut goals and
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  you don't deviate from those, it doesn't mean the path is easy,
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  but it means you can achieve them.
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  And that was the beginning of my my journey forward out of the
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  mess I was in. So it sounds like this gentleman
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  from the YWCA will call him Honest Bob.
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  Honest, Bob, These very simple words that he put in front of
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  you, like it, it triggered something in your brain.
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  You go and you write down these goals that I have to say as you
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  were running through them, Tana, I'm like, those are pretty
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  audacious goals given you what your current situation is.
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  But. But you, you hit all of them out
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  of the park, you got there faster than you know what the
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  goal that you had set was. And I'm kind of curious to, to
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  understand this because some people, they achieve a lot, some
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  people struggle to get there. Everybody struggles at some
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  point in their lives, multiple points in their lives.
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  Where do you think this came from?
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  Like, is this like, did you inherit this, this quality from
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  your parents? Were they like this?
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  Do you think that the trauma that you went through somehow
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  set you up or prepared you for this like?
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  I don't know. I don't have any.
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  Sense of where where this comes? From Anthony.
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  I've asked that question so many times.
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  I've had asked of me so many times and I've thought about it
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  very deeply. And I will say my parents did
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  not My my mother was very timid, very shy, stay home.
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  Mother only got involved in church things was not fourth
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  full. My dad was in the military.
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  He retired in the military when I was 6 because he was older and
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  went to work for Sears. And then later in life he part
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  time sold real estate. But neither one of them were,
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  were drivers. But what they did instill in my,
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  what my father did instill in me is that you really have to
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  follow your gut and your instincts.
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  And I think sometimes the trauma that I went through may have
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  given me that. And plus, the fact that I
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  achieved, I was achieving these goals, I was seeing them come to
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  fruition. It may have catapulted me into
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  that. But even to this day, I mean, at
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  my age now, I still don't settle for much.
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  So I don't know whether it was learned or it was in me
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  somewhere. I don't really know.
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  I mean, it sounds when you were telling the very beginning of
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  the story, you know, starting your freshman year in high
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  school, it sounds like you were kind of an overachiever from the
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  beginning, right. You were voted the chaplain,
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  the, I don't know, the president's council or the
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  principal's council or, you know, there was, there was a lot
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  of things that, you know, were, were kind of lining up for you.
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  Yes. Yeah.
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  OK. Yeah, so.
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  And I was, I was always that way.
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  So yeah, that was probably part of it.
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  And then this probably catapulted it even further.
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  But there are times still to this day fear can get in the
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  way, and if you let fear overcome your goals, you will
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  never achieve them. Let's let's do a little sidebar
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  on this because I hear that from a lot of folks.
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  You know, I, I pleasure to interview many people and a
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  little bit more privately, usually off air.
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  I, you know, I hear about the fear that, you know, they
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  overcame or have to continue overcoming.
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  And so, you know, even today is the CEO of this, you know, huge
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  staffing company and you've had lots of companies and exits and
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  successes along the way. You still deal with fear on a
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  periodic regular basis, whatever it is.
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  How does that show up for you? And then what do you do to move
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  through it? Because I think for a lot of
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  people, when they hit that fear, they're like, oh, this is God or
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  the universe telling me that this is too hard, that I
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  shouldn't do this. What?
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  What's your approach? I think, I think for me, when I
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  feel that it's deep in your gut, it feels sick.
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  It feels not right. You're not doing your normal
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  routines, you're not interacting with your friends and family.
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  It there's a lot of telltale signs of when fear and a lot of
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  times it's not real blatant it, it's happening behind the scenes
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  in the background and you get this feeling.
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  And what I've realized is the number one thing is I don't have
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  a Plan B. I've lost control of the
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  situation and I don't have that. I, I don't feel I have control
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  or I'm not finding a way to take control.
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  So I think whenever that happens, I have to stop and go.
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  What is the worst that can happen?
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  And then how am I going to drive myself out of this or what has
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  to take place to get to Plan B? And whenever I can get clarity
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  on Plan B, fear's gone. Now I'm off and running again,
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  but it's real easy to get mired in that fear.
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  And I'm not saying I do it instantly.
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  I'm a hard, slow learner. Sometimes it takes a 2 by 4, and
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  I've been hit by that 2 by 4 more times than I can count.
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  But ultimately, at some point, I'll go, wait a minute, what is
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  going on here and why do I feel like this?
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  And what's it going to take to get out of this?
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  And it can be everything from somebody moving.
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  Moving is a very traumatic thing.
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  Divorce, death, all of these things can be can bring that
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  fear in, but if you can stop and and recognize this is where I
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  am, I don't feel like I have a way.
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  Fear only comes when you don't feel like you have a way out.
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  Interesting. So once I figure the way out,
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  fear is gone. Not saying it's always the right
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  path and it might change 15 times, but.
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  Here's what I heard you say. It's kind of a like a multi step
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  process. Just a few steps though.
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  What is the worst that can happen?
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  And this step helps you? I I'm gonna guess actually let
• 17:23
  me hear it from your words. What does this step help you
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  with? That helps me realize I'm not
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  gonna, I'm the elephant is not gonna eat me.
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  That it's not as bad as my internal is telling me.
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  It's not the end of the world. It's like I went through 911 and
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  let me tell you, living in a huge home, 911 hits, half my
• 17:47
  business is gone. I'm exiting A franchise.
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  I don't know what's happening there.
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  I don't know how I'm going to meet payroll.
• 17:54
  I don't know how I'm going to get computer systems to work.
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  All of this is happening in a six month period of 911.
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  And trust me, I didn't see the end of that.
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  I thought, shut the business down, go to work for somebody
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  else. And I went, no, that is not my
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  path. That is not what I'm supposed to
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  be doing. I'm affecting lives and what I
• 18:15
  do and I've got to figure a way out of it.
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  And so sold the house. I mean, part of the plan was
• 18:21
  sell the house and get the equity, you know, put it back
• 18:26
  into the business. So there's been many a major
• 18:31
  cases to where you could have just walked away and said God
• 18:35
  doesn't mean for me to be doing this right now, you know, my gut
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  is not right, doesn't feel right.
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  Just give up and and go find an easy path.
• 18:46
  No, And every time I've grown because of that, I read
• 18:52
  Happiness Now, which was written by a Harvard professor.
• 18:57
  And the one quote that stood out to me more than anything is
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  happiness comes from fulfilling potential.
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  Potential comes with a little bit of pain and growth.
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  So I always remember that and I always go, this is just one more
• 19:14
  step that's taking me to that next level.
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  And at 66 years old, I'm still taking those next steps.
• 19:22
  That's great. I'm glad we did a sidebar
• 19:25
  specifically on that. You know that why it's so
• 19:28
  important to explore that? Like what's the worst that can
• 19:31
  happen because you take it from, you know, negative starts start
• 19:35
  thoughts start spiraling out of control, you really
• 19:37
  catastrophizing this. And it's like, OK, let's let's
• 19:40
  just walk through it. What's the worst that can
• 19:42
  happen? Like, I'm not going to die.
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  The elephant's not going to eat me right there.
• 19:45
  There's a path forward. And so once you've kind of set
• 19:49
  that part aside, probably helps to calm your central nervous
• 19:52
  system to some degree. And then you can focus on the
• 19:56
  next question, which is what is Plan B?
• 19:59
  And. Once I've got an idea, let's get
• 20:02
  moving forward. And and once you get moving
• 20:04
  forward, you, you feel like at least to some degree, probably
• 20:08
  not a lot early on, but to some degree you feel like you're
• 20:11
  taking back control, like things are back in your hands.
• 20:14
  Yeah. There it is.
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  Losing control is fear. Yeah.
• 20:18
  It's as simple as that. So connect some of the dots for
• 20:22
  us how you got from, you know, bloody face on your your parents
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  steps and, you know, writing down this list of goals to
• 20:31
  actually achieving those goals in a in a relatively short time
• 20:34
  period. Right, right.
• 20:36
  Well, again, I wasn't involved in high school when I went back.
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  I was just there to get my diploma.
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  So I actually worked every afternoon.
• 20:46
  I would leave school, go to work and I would do night school and
• 20:51
  I would do weekends. Thank God I have my parents
• 20:53
  support and I was living with my parents at the end of high
• 20:56
  school. I wanted so badly to go to art
• 21:00
  school and become an art teacher.
• 21:02
  That's what I thought I wanted to be so, but I couldn't afford
• 21:06
  four years of college and my mother said to me, well, you can
• 21:10
  be a nurse, you can be a secretary.
• 21:15
  So I thought, well, I'm not going to be a nurse.
• 21:17
  I I'll pass out if I just see a needle.
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  So that's not going to work so well, I guess I could be a
• 21:23
  secretary. So I went to a nine month
• 21:26
  Business School where I learned to do shorthand typing, basic
• 21:30
  accounting and graduated in nine months with a secretarial
• 21:34
  certificate. And at that time I went to work
• 21:38
  for Econo Lodge as the Founders secretary.
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  So I was an executive secretary at age 19, and I was probably a
• 21:48
  pretty good. Role for you to land, huh?
• 21:50
  It was great. Yeah, it was great.
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  And then the school that I had, I'm making $8200 a year and now
• 21:59
  I've moved out on my own. My son and I had our own place
• 22:02
  and I ended up going back to work for the school that I went
• 22:08
  to. So the director kept up with me
• 22:11
  through these years and now I'm 21.
• 22:15
  All those years, two years. And she said, I think you would
• 22:18
  do really well in admissions at the school because you can talk
• 22:24
  from a place of purpose to what the education did for you in
• 22:29
  helping you get a real job. And I said, oh, I'd love to do
• 22:33
  that. And she said it's all
• 22:34
  Commission. And I went, I can't do that.
• 22:39
  And she said, I'll tell you what, I'll give you $1000 a
• 22:42
  month draw against Commission 'cause that's how much I believe
• 22:46
  in you. And in 90 days, if it's not
• 22:50
  working out, I'll help you get another secretarial job.
• 22:53
  I said, yeah, what have I got to lose?
• 22:55
  Well, in six months, I made $35,000, took my son to Disney
• 23:00
  World and bought my house. Wow.
• 23:03
  So you're pretty good at this? I was very.
• 23:06
  Good. Because I was from a place of
• 23:08
  purpose. And I think that's where I
• 23:10
  started realizing if I'm in purpose, I didn't know what it
• 23:14
  meant, but if I was doing something that was from my
• 23:17
  heart, it would truly play out in a successful way.
• 23:23
  And so that's kind of how I ended up in this business
• 23:25
  because it was to help people get jobs.
• 23:29
  And so that's amazing. And so how did you get from
• 23:32
  there to starting your own business so?
• 23:35
  We ended up, my husband and I got married and we moved to
• 23:38
  California and I went to work for went to work for National
• 23:43
  Education Corporations, their largest school, as the
• 23:46
  admissions director. And we were living out, living
• 23:50
  the life of Southern California. And it was wonderful.
• 23:53
  And then one day I said, I don't want to do this anymore.
• 23:59
  I want to help people get jobs. The part of that I loved about
• 24:03
  working for the school, I enjoyed the enrollment part, but
• 24:07
  the best part was when the people got the job.
• 24:09
  So it was like, how can I do that?
• 24:13
  So I went to work for a headhunter in Newport Beach, CA
• 24:17
  that did mainly mergers of attorney firms and large
• 24:22
  executive partnerships in in insurance.
• 24:27
  And he wanted to start a temporary health division.
• 24:30
  So he hired me to start it. 90 days into it, I came home and I
• 24:36
  said to my husband, this is our business, this is what I want to
• 24:41
  do. And my husband was a nuclear
• 24:44
  physicist at San Onofre and he says to me, I can see this
• 24:50
  working. So we thought, well, we don't
• 24:53
  know anything about the business, so we'll buy a
• 24:55
  franchise. So that's how we started in
• 24:58
  1987. We bought Remedy Staffing, first
• 25:03
  franchise they ever sold, and they said you can have it
• 25:06
  anywhere but California and Arizona.
• 25:09
  And so we like, well, let's go back home, OK?
• 25:12
  Home was. Virginia.
• 25:14
  So we moved back to Virginia and started this May 9th, 1988.
• 25:18
  Oh, you remember the date? I remember the date.
• 25:22
  It's coming up off to the. Races Off to the races.
• 25:25
  Well Yep, and after about 2 1/2 years of being in the Virginia
• 25:31
  Beach, Norfolk area, we had an opportunity to buy a franchise
• 25:35
  in Charlotte that was not doing well.
• 25:37
  So we bought that. We had the 2 going and then
• 25:41
  someone came along and bought the Virginia office.
• 25:45
  Didn't know who it was, a broker approached us.
• 25:47
  Ended up being my first boss ever at the college small.
• 25:51
  World bought my. Business so moved to Charlotte
• 25:54
  started growing that and at the end of the contract, 'cause we
• 25:57
  were the first franchise, we didn't have a non compete.
• 26:01
  So we and, and this is kind of a whole story into, into the
• 26:05
  purpose. Thing is through this time I'm
• 26:09
  going, I'm not in purpose anymore because we were making
• 26:13
  money and I had this crazy idea in my head, I guess through
• 26:18
  church that money was evil and making money wasn't purpose and
• 26:23
  I had to do a calling. So I had to sell this business
• 26:25
  to go find my calling. I was really mixed up in this
• 26:29
  hole. You can't have both you it, it
• 26:32
  doesn't flow. So at the time that we were
• 26:38
  thought we were going to exit, they'd gone public, Remedy had
• 26:41
  gone public. They brought in a new CEO and we
• 26:45
  thought they were going to use the formula and buy us.
• 26:48
  Well, 911 hit, half our business is gone.
• 26:52
  The franchise agreement is up in April of the following year of
• 26:55
  2002. We had to make a hard decision.
• 26:59
  Talk about fear. At that point, it's like, OK,
• 27:04
  are we going to take this on our own?
• 27:06
  And we sat down and said we want to be $100 million company.
• 27:10
  We want to be a nationwide company.
• 27:12
  We know how to do that. We just knew the goals we
• 27:16
  wanted. We started with the goals and
• 27:18
  then we started biting off the pieces to get there.
• 27:20
  Tana, you've got a. History of setting up pretty
• 27:22
  audacious goals for yourself Here's a pattern here.
• 27:25
  Please go ahead. Yeah, so.
• 27:28
  So we we, we started on that journey again, we had to sell
• 27:31
  our house to get there. That was tough decision, but it
• 27:35
  would it fit into the plan of what we ultimately wanted.
• 27:38
  And sometimes there's sacrifice to be made to get to the next
• 27:41
  goal. So that's what we did and it was
• 27:45
  the best move we ever did. We also went out and hired
• 27:48
  someone couple years later that had taken to companies public
• 27:52
  that knew how to do this and brought him on.
• 27:56
  It's been 17 years now, brought him on to help us grow this.
• 28:00
  He's the president of our company now and continues to
• 28:02
  lead the company, LED it through this transition.
• 28:07
  I'm curious to hear how you eventually resolved this
• 28:11
  conflict of purpose. Making money, making money is
• 28:16
  bad. I, I, I need to do something
• 28:18
  that makes less money so it's more purpose.
• 28:21
  How did you, how'd you come to it was?
• 28:23
  Interesting. At the time that we're going
• 28:27
  through this, we've hired A consulting company that came in
• 28:30
  and tried to help us with these goals.
• 28:33
  I've had many a coach throughout the years.
• 28:35
  I highly recommend a coach. I highly recommend consultants
• 28:40
  that can help you drive your business because it makes you
• 28:42
  think out-of-the-box. And I remember this consultant
• 28:46
  said, well, why can't you be in purpose?
• 28:50
  Why do you, What is it about that?
• 28:53
  And so, you know, I told him the whole story and he said, but
• 28:56
  you're helping people get jobs. Have you forgotten the reason
• 28:59
  you went into this? And at that point it all clicked
• 29:05
  and and I went, OK, at the same time that was happening,
• 29:11
  Anthony, a friend of mine's daughter who was a senior in
• 29:13
  high school, called me and said, would you come talk to our
• 29:17
  class? We're talking about healthy
• 29:19
  relationships. Would you come talk to my class
• 29:22
  about your story? I had never told my story to
• 29:26
  anyone. Now remember, I'm on the board
• 29:28
  at the Chamber of Commerce. How did she know to?
• 29:33
  Ask you to come tell your story because her.
• 29:36
  Mother was my best friend and knew my story.
• 29:38
  Gotcha. So she knew she didn't know a
• 29:41
  lot about it, but she knew I'd gotten married at 15, had a
• 29:44
  child and it wasn't a healthy relationship.
• 29:47
  So I I said yes. And then I panicked and I went,
• 29:53
  what are you doing? You're about to tell the world,
• 29:58
  you know, even though it was a high school, it was like, you're
• 30:00
  about to tell everybody the story.
• 30:02
  And I remember thinking to myself, I don't know anything
• 30:05
  about domestic violence except for what I lived through.
• 30:09
  So I called the local hotline and I said, can you send
• 30:13
  somebody to help me with this? And this woman said, absolutely.
• 30:17
  So she comes with me. We do the whole thing where I
• 30:20
  tell my story. She backs up with statistics and
• 30:24
  what happens and about the shelter and how it works and
• 30:27
  everything else. And then next thing I know, she
• 30:30
  said, would you go to lunch? Sure.
• 30:32
  I did not know she was the CEO of the largest domestic violence
• 30:36
  and rape center, crisis center here in Charlotte.
• 30:39
  She said, would you sit on our board?
• 30:41
  This was 2008. And I said I would love to
• 30:46
  consider that. She said, well, we're about to
• 30:49
  go through a campaign to raise funds.
• 30:50
  I'm thinking this was 08/09. Well, we remember how bad the
• 30:54
  economy was during then, but we needed it so bad.
• 30:58
  In Charlotte. We had a a 3300 square foot
• 31:02
  facility for all of these women coming in.
• 31:04
  We were putting them in hotels and everything else to keep them
• 31:06
  safe. And we really needed this.
• 31:09
  So I agreed to do it and I ended up on the funding board.
• 31:13
  We raised $10 million. We were only one year late in
• 31:17
  building that facility, which had 100 beds in it versus 30
• 31:23
  beds. So we were able to do it and,
• 31:26
  and it was from a standpoint of passion.
• 31:30
  But as I'm going through all of this and I'm working with my
• 31:32
  coach, I said, why do I get something out of this?
• 31:36
  And maybe I don't get something out of other things?
• 31:39
  And, and she, she says, well, what would you be doing if you
• 31:42
  were totally retired? Let's start there.
• 31:47
  I said, well, I've always wanted to paint.
• 31:49
  I'd probably take a, an art class.
• 31:52
  So I started oil painting and I didn't buy canvases this large.
• 31:58
  I bought, this is one of my paint pieces behind me.
• 32:01
  It's huge. I bought these huge canvases,
• 32:04
  didn't even fit my SUV of a little Type A, right.
• 32:08
  But what came out of all of that between speaking engagements and
• 32:12
  doing, I became the spokesperson during that entire campaign on
• 32:16
  the news, everything that we needed to do.
• 32:19
  I'm taking the art classes and I'm building the business and I
• 32:25
  realized that. Winning.
• 32:28
  A $10 million account was great and it gave you a big high, but
• 32:32
  it didn't last. Creating art once you put the
• 32:36
  glaze on it. I donated a lot of pieces.
• 32:39
  I gave them to family members. It was done.
• 32:43
  But giving back in this community of these women gave me
• 32:48
  the ultimate joy of doing that. So I kind of was able to break
• 32:54
  down, but it all gave me joy. But the lasting part was serving
• 32:59
  others. That was the.
• 33:02
  Biggest piece. And so as you think about where
• 33:05
  you are today, where are you able to get that sense of
• 33:12
  purpose from your money making job as well?
• 33:15
  Like have you been able to reframe it as I am helping a lot
• 33:19
  of people get to work? Yeah.
• 33:21
  And you? Know what it came from?
• 33:23
  Helping people get a job to now we're empowering a working
• 33:28
  workforce. And when I say that there's
• 33:31
  never been flexibility given to an hourly worker.
• 33:35
  If you think about the manufacturing role, it was
• 33:38
  created back and forth when he was building the cars in Detroit
• 33:43
  and he was like, I got a fill every minute of every day.
• 33:46
  How am I going to do that? Well, I'm going to create 8 hour
• 33:49
  shifts. They're going to run three times
• 33:51
  a day and we're going to have mandatory overtime.
• 33:55
  Well, that worked when they were only men in the workforce.
• 33:58
  Now you have women in the workforce, you have men that
• 34:01
  share duties with the household, and you still expect people to
• 34:06
  commit to 40 hours a week, mandatory overtime and three
• 34:11
  strikes, you're out. It doesn't work the job.
• 34:17
  The. Alternative is creating an
• 34:18
  environment to where they can have flex time, they can be off
• 34:24
  if they need to go to the dentist and not get dinged for
• 34:27
  it. And that is when we created My
• 34:30
  Work Choice seven years ago. It was realizing the turnover
• 34:34
  was 433% in a manufacturing environment, 30% absenteeism a
• 34:39
  day and these companies were pumping in 6-7 staffing
• 34:44
  companies to try to fill the void.
• 34:46
  And these are people coming in with no training.
• 34:49
  It was a constant chaos. It was just chaos.
• 34:52
  Then they would hire a vendor management company to come and
• 34:55
  manage the chaos. And it was like, OK, wait a
• 34:58
  minute, what is the answer to this?
• 35:01
  And it was absenteeism is causing all the turnover.
• 35:05
  So how do we deal with that? And then you've got
• 35:07
  manufacturing. Who says we can't get women in
• 35:10
  the workforce? They're proud if they've got 40%
• 35:12
  of their workforce women. OK.
• 35:16
  We've got 56% of our workforce are women and you're serving
• 35:20
  the. Manufacturing and.
• 35:23
  Distribution because they have they, we build a bench of
• 35:28
  workers for a client. It's still your 40 hour a week
• 35:32
  workers, 70% of the people are completing their 40 hours like
• 35:37
  clockwork. But you have a 30% of the people
• 35:39
  that are working 22 hours a week.
• 35:42
  Well, how that works is the guy here who says, hey, it's
• 35:46
  midnight and I'm running 104 fever.
• 35:49
  Typically he just doesn't show up.
• 35:52
  There's an 800 number. Nobody calls it.
• 35:56
  With the gamification of the app, he pushes the button and
• 36:01
  says I'm not going to be at work today.
• 36:03
  That goes out to the community that says they want that first
• 36:06
  shift. It Dings them on their phone and
• 36:09
  they go, yeah, I'll take that shift. 99.9% of the time when
• 36:13
  somebody drops a shift within six hours, it's picked up OK.
• 36:18
  Let's explore this a little bit. So you talk about the
• 36:20
  gamification on the app. You know, you've got the 800
• 36:23
  number, you know, somebody can call real easily.
• 36:26
  Just give them a heads up. Hey, I don't feel well, I got
• 36:28
  something going, whatever, I'm not coming in today and most
• 36:31
  people aren't doing that. What is it that is getting
• 36:34
  people to do that with your app? Right, They get.
• 36:38
  Points for it they get, they get, they get points for it, and
• 36:41
  they can use those. Points for what?
• 36:43
  For more. Days off for we have every
• 36:48
  client is different. We build an entire program
• 36:50
  within their comfort level because some clients are still
• 36:52
  very strict on this. They haven't, they haven't quite
• 36:55
  given up complete flexibility, but they let them have a little
• 37:01
  bit like they'll give them two days a month that they might
• 37:04
  play with some of them give them four.
• 37:06
  Remember, you don't pay somebody in an hourly if they're not
• 37:09
  there. So why penalize them if they
• 37:11
  need to be off? You know why?
• 37:13
  Because they've never figured out how to build a bunch of
• 37:15
  people that can fill in. So they think if.
• 37:20
  They hit people with this penalty that that'll somehow
• 37:23
  incentivize them to yeah, to show up.
• 37:26
  It's it's really. Going to help you when your car
• 37:28
  breaks down or it's really going to help you when your daughter's
• 37:30
  sick or you know no no and because.
• 37:33
  You've built such a bench of talent, a, a, a big workforce
• 37:39
  bench. When somebody raises their hand
• 37:41
  and says I'm not coming, you've got a whole bunch of people who
• 37:44
  are like, I'm available. I'd like to earn a little extra
• 37:46
  money today. Yeah.
• 37:48
  And it could. Be anywhere from 1 1/2 times the
• 37:51
  number of people they need to two times.
• 37:54
  Good example is we had a plant where we have 1200 workers a
• 37:59
  day. That's the average.
• 38:01
  We might have 2400 people that are pre trained, production
• 38:04
  ready. Oh, so you've got.
• 38:06
  You've also got these folks trained.
• 38:08
  It's not like they're showing up and they're spending the first
• 38:11
  couple of hours learning how to run the machine or whatever
• 38:13
  they're doing. There is thing.
• 38:15
  Something out there called a marketplace, and you hear a lot
• 38:18
  about these where, oh, come to the marketplace and you can find
• 38:21
  an employee. Well, manufacturing can't just
• 38:24
  take anybody and put them in the seat.
• 38:27
  They have to have a trained individual to do that.
• 38:30
  And what we found is that GEGE is a perfect example because
• 38:33
  they've spoken out in Bloomberg for us and they speak
• 38:36
  engagements all the time on how this works at GE.
• 38:40
  You've got a workforce. They gave us 290 people that had
• 38:44
  been terminated for absenteeism and they said see if they want
• 38:50
  to come back. Under your umbrella, under 200
• 38:54
  and. 40 of those came back under the premise that I can work when
• 39:00
  I want to work, I can pick up whatever shifts I want to pick
• 39:02
  up and if I'm not going to be there, I'll let them know I'm
• 39:04
  not going to be there. We also break out the shifts
• 39:07
  into two blocks. So if it's a 10 hour work day,
• 39:11
  you could pick up a 5 hour shift.
• 39:13
  If it's eight hour, you can pick up 4 and so the.
• 39:16
  Folks who are most comfortable in this sort of a flex
• 39:19
  environment in terms of the workers, the employees, they're
• 39:24
  what they're, they're parents, they've got or, or they're
• 39:28
  taking care of somebody or like, like they don't know, they don't
• 39:33
  have a set schedule where it's like, I know I can work Monday,
• 39:35
  Wednesday, Friday. Like sometimes I can work on a
• 39:38
  Monday, sometimes I can't, right?
• 39:40
  And so. They can pick their shifts every
• 39:42
  week. They can get a static shift if
• 39:44
  they want the 40 hours a week, and they can commit to it and
• 39:47
  then just hit the button when they're not going to be there.
• 39:49
  Or they can be one of the flex workers.
• 39:51
  So we have a lot of moms that you know, hey, my kids are in
• 39:56
  school now and I've got this flexibility.
• 39:58
  I may only do a four hour shift, but I might pick up five of
• 40:01
  those in a week. And I'm they're more and they
• 40:05
  don't turn over 'cause they have the flexibility to continue to
• 40:09
  live their life. And you've got retirees or one
• 40:12
  of our bigger ones too, because they're like, hey, it's raining.
• 40:17
  I can't go play golf today. I could go earn $17.00 an hour
• 40:20
  in an air conditioned environment packing a box.
• 40:23
  You know, it's not hard labor. It's in a clean environment.
• 40:27
  It's easy. It's it's not like loading
• 40:29
  trucks. It's a simple job to do.
• 40:33
  And we get students, a lot of college students love this
• 40:36
  because, Oh my gosh, it's midterms.
• 40:38
  I can't even think of taking a shift.
• 40:40
  Well, when you work part time somewhere, I don't care where it
• 40:43
  is, they expect you to be there part time every week.
• 40:46
  Well, I can't always do that because of my Flex or I'm taking
• 40:50
  care of an aging parent. I can't do that.
• 40:52
  But you think of all the gig work that's out there today.
• 40:55
  You can go drive an Uber, you can go do DoorDash.
• 40:59
  People want the autonomy to do that work, but they don't
• 41:04
  necessarily want to drive around with somebody in their car or
• 41:07
  drive stuff in their car to somebody.
• 41:11
  Now I can go to the same place. I'm familiar with it.
• 41:14
  They know my name, they know my work, and I'm valued there and
• 41:19
  it's not guesswork. And I can get as many hours or I
• 41:22
  want or as few as I want. And last week alone, in 22
• 41:27
  states, over 10,000 employees, we had a 98% show rate on every
• 41:32
  shift. Wow.
• 41:34
  That's how it works. So the first question, it's a
• 41:39
  multi part here. First question, Tana, are are a
• 41:42
  lot of other employment agencies doing this?
• 41:45
  Nobody's. Doing it, that I know of.
• 41:46
  Why? Because they're afraid of change
• 41:50
  and they're afraid the client's not going to accept it.
• 41:52
  And I will say it's been a battle to get a client to really
• 41:56
  let this go because we've always lived in this point system of
• 41:59
  fear. We've never empowered the worker
• 42:03
  before to let them deal with it themselves.
• 42:06
  And it's amazing what comes out of giving that empowerment.
• 42:09
  But now it's morphed into a a SAS product because the client
• 42:14
  said I want my permanent people to be on it because this is
• 42:16
  brilliant. They can choose to be out and
• 42:19
  they can hit the button. So now we're starting to build
• 42:22
  programs for the GES of the world to let their permanent
• 42:26
  people actually be able to play on the app as well.
• 42:29
  Now they can't see other shifts of other companies or anything
• 42:32
  like that, but they can use it to be out.
• 42:35
  And let's say I took off today because I needed to be at my
• 42:39
  daughter's school, but I'd like to pick up those hours this
• 42:42
  weekend. Now I can go pick up a shift and
• 42:45
  keep my 40 hours whole. Before, all I could do was take
• 42:49
  that day off and probably get penalty penalties for it.
• 42:53
  So not only can you offer the staffing solution through this
• 42:58
  app for your clients, but you can also, like you said, now
• 43:02
  it's a SAS, it's a subscription service where they can do this
• 43:06
  with their own internal full time folks.
• 43:09
  Yes, yes. Exactly, and it really is just
• 43:12
  all about changing the job and the perspective of the job.
• 43:16
  So before it was a mandated 440 plus hours a week.
• 43:20
  Now it's you choose when you want to work.
• 43:23
  Well, when we run ads in cities, we are always number one or two
• 43:29
  response on on any ads on indeed.
• 43:33
  We beat out Amazon in all these big cities.
• 43:37
  We may be paying 2 to $3.00 less, but we get more recruits
• 43:41
  because of the flexibility and. So that is obviously
• 43:45
  communicated in that job post and people are looking for that,
• 43:50
  that that word flexibility that means everything to them.
• 43:53
  We'll get 2 to. One to anybody running a full
• 43:56
  time job, we'll get and I remember the CFO of of GE saying
• 44:02
  I don't get it. We run an ad, we get three
• 44:05
  people. You run an ad, you get 100
• 44:07
  people. He goes.
• 44:08
  We have benefits. The benefit is flexibility.
• 44:12
  You're you're overlooking the biggest benefit to the worker
• 44:16
  today. So you mentioned that there's
• 44:21
  been some resistance from folks 'cause this is something new,
• 44:24
  it's a new way of thinking, a new approach.
• 44:28
  How do you continue to grow this and and gain more adoption?
• 44:32
  You do. It slowly with the client,
• 44:34
  you'll start off with one division and you'll show them
• 44:38
  the data of how it works and next thing you know you're in
• 44:40
  their second plant and their third plant and you're taking
• 44:43
  over as an exclusive provider, which doesn't happen today.
• 44:46
  Most staffing companies are sharing the business because
• 44:49
  they can't get enough from one. Once you prove you've gotten in
• 44:53
  the door and done that, they take you with open arms.
• 44:56
  We have grown mainly, we don't even have a sales department.
• 44:59
  We have grown mainly through referrals, believe it or not.
• 45:03
  Say that again tonight the. Size of your company and you
• 45:07
  took. Zero sales and I think you just.
• 45:09
  Told us last week you you had 10,000 shifts.
• 45:13
  What was the number 10? 1000 shifts. 10,000 and you
• 45:16
  don't have a sales, there's nobody doing sales, my
• 45:19
  president. Does the sales because they come
• 45:21
  in asking for a demo? Wow, it's word of.
• 45:26
  Mouth and it's growing through like Stanley Black and Decker's
• 45:30
  a perfect example. We had two of their locations in
• 45:32
  the country. Now we have exclusive the entire
• 45:35
  country. So is it a big lift for you to
• 45:39
  go into a new geography because now you've got to build up that
• 45:44
  pole of talent there in that particular city I can build.
• 45:47
  Talent in two weeks I put these ads and I get bombarded and our
• 45:51
  app is all self self-sufficient. So they come on, they do
• 45:55
  everything in the app. We have AI on the back end.
• 45:58
  All the chat is done. We we have grown our business
• 46:04
  tenfold and not increased our staffing level through AI.
• 46:10
  That's amazing. We don't have one.
• 46:12
  Branch office. Not one branch office.
• 46:14
  It's all done from one call center.
• 46:16
  How are you? Using AI.
• 46:18
  Mainly through the chat, it's all through the process of the
• 46:21
  application, everything. And we use it to judge how many
• 46:25
  people we need at a specific site based on turnover, based on
• 46:28
  need. We can kind of put that in play
• 46:31
  to give us an output if, if the normal is 400, I may need 650.
• 46:36
  But if they have big fluctuating schedules, I kind of need to
• 46:39
  know what that level is to staff to.
• 46:42
  Those are the two areas that mostly we're using AI that saved
• 46:46
  us the most money and time. Fascinating.
• 46:49
  And it sounds to me like given that this model, that this
• 46:53
  approach is still relatively new, that you're probably just
• 46:56
  rolling up your sleeves and thinking about how do we get
• 46:59
  this idea to as many people as possible.
• 47:03
  But are there, how many, how many steps down the road are you
• 47:07
  thinking? Like, where do you see this
• 47:09
  going, 'cause I I know you've got the entrepreneur's brain and
• 47:12
  it doesn't turn off. And like, this is just a
• 47:15
  seedling of what I think is probably to come.
• 47:17
  Yeah, I really. Believe now that this is bigger
• 47:21
  than us, that it needs to be in the hands of the world, not just
• 47:26
  our small company. And I think it's going to end up
• 47:29
  partnering. I can see us partnering with a
• 47:31
  large strategic that has branch offices and has big contracts
• 47:37
  and just laying it over what they're currently doing to take
• 47:40
  an average of the show up rate in the staffing right now for
• 47:44
  light industrial is 49% to fill every shift.
• 47:50
  It's a, it's a mindset because typically you're giving a
• 47:53
  requisition for 100 people, right?
• 47:56
  And you have 70 show up. That's a 70% show rate.
• 48:00
  But what happens day 2 on that shift?
• 48:04
  So it's it's hours filled that we're judging now instead of a
• 48:10
  requisition filled. So in the staffing industry,
• 48:13
  they're filling 49% average hours worked, we fill 98%.
• 48:21
  That's absurd, yeah. I know it's and, plus we have no
• 48:25
  branch offices and. So to partner with a large
• 48:29
  strategic is I, I sense that's probably more than just, you
• 48:34
  know, here's the app it because, because there's a lot of process
• 48:38
  that goes to it, right? Like it's, it's the hiring, it's
• 48:41
  the, it's the advertising for the positions, right?
• 48:45
  And So what do you, what does that look like?
• 48:47
  I don't know if you've done any of them yet.
• 48:49
  It's. No, we're talking with some now.
• 48:52
  That's what that's I think will be the next step.
• 48:54
  We could grow it organically, but it's going to take a lot
• 48:58
  longer to grow it organically than it would delay it over
• 49:01
  something and move fast, especially in international,
• 49:04
  Yeah. Super interesting Tana, I would
• 49:08
  love to hear about your book Creating a World of Difference.
• 49:14
  Tell me about what was the inspiration there?
• 49:16
  What's it about the? Inspiration there was really
• 49:19
  about working out a purpose, which we talked about, but it
• 49:24
  was really taking our core values.
• 49:27
  And what does that look like in creating a world of difference
• 49:32
  within your company? How do you do that?
• 49:34
  I mean, we all know what mission vision values are, right?
• 49:39
  I've had mission vision values for 38 years.
• 49:43
  But it wasn't till about 15 years ago that I really stopped
• 49:47
  and said what is my values? What is my values?
• 49:51
  Because it has to come from the top down.
• 49:54
  And how does that play in the business?
• 49:57
  So sat down with again a coach and started whiteboarding what
• 50:02
  is important to me and where do I see and where did these
• 50:06
  stories come from? So we we started with see the
• 50:10
  awesomeness in others. That was that was our number one
• 50:14
  that came from really the way my mother reacted to me when I told
• 50:19
  her I was pregnant. It was that feeling of somebody
• 50:25
  embracing you, not judging you and that seeing the awesomeness
• 50:30
  and everybody. People react differently when
• 50:33
  they feel that, when they don't feel they're being judged.
• 50:37
  And so taking that into the business was really important.
• 50:39
  Especially people coming in that don't have jobs and they're
• 50:42
  looking for jobs. Can you imagine how low they
• 50:44
  feel? Seeing the awesomeness in them
• 50:47
  and building them up was, was our number one.
• 50:51
  Number two was dare to be different.
• 50:54
  Well, I definitely have dared to be different in my life.
• 50:57
  There's a pattern. Of that, yeah.
• 50:59
  But it kind of goes back in my book.
• 51:01
  I wrote a whole chapter on my 5th grade because I was sent to
• 51:07
  an all black school. It was integration.
• 51:10
  It was 1971. It's segregation.
• 51:13
  Excuse me, sending us across town to an all black school.
• 51:18
  I can remember my parents and all the neighbors in our living
• 51:22
  room going, we're never going to let our kids do this.
• 51:24
  This is not going to happen. We're going to stand up for it.
• 51:27
  I remember touring the local Christian private school because
• 51:30
  my parents were going to put me in that.
• 51:32
  Next thing I know, the fall rolled around and got on the
• 51:36
  little yellow bus and went to the all black school across town
• 51:40
  and there was a principal there, Mr. Brabel.
• 51:43
  And I write about him in my book because he must have seen
• 51:46
  something in me then. And he asked me if I would do
• 51:51
  announcements. So what he saw was I guess a
• 51:55
  leader within the group and he said I'm going to put you up
• 51:58
  here. Well, talk about being different
• 52:01
  and being put out there. And it's funny, I sent him a
• 52:05
  copy of the book when I predict I never told him, never called
• 52:09
  him, just wrote about him and sent it.
• 52:12
  And I got a phone call one day. I'm sitting at my desk and my
• 52:16
  assistant says there's a Mr. Brabel on the phone for you.
• 52:19
  And I said, you are kidding me. So I answer the phone and he
• 52:22
  goes, could you do me a favor? Could you send me a picture of
• 52:27
  you from school? I need to make sure I'm putting
• 52:31
  two and two together. I think I know who you are, but
• 52:34
  I'm not sure. I sent him that picture and he
• 52:36
  called me and he said I knew it was you, I just knew that was
• 52:39
  who it was. And he said he carried that book
• 52:43
  everywhere he went and shared it with everybody.
• 52:45
  He has since passed, but he was honored as the last, a live
• 52:50
  principle that went through all of that segregation in 1971, so
• 52:55
  very special. He was in his 90s at that point.
• 52:58
  So that dare to be different and say it, mean it do.
• 53:01
  It was the third one. And that was all about my my
• 53:05
  father taught me that he was he was a mentor to me.
• 53:10
  Even when I went to buy my house, he said to me, I said,
• 53:12
  what do you think dad? And he said, what does your gut
• 53:15
  tell you? And he was all about?
• 53:19
  But if you start it, you're finish it.
• 53:22
  And that is one of the core values that we have carried
• 53:25
  through. If you say it, you better mean
• 53:27
  it and you better do it because that's what people value.
• 53:31
  And that's when people trust you.
• 53:33
  And then the last one is easy. It's never settled.
• 53:39
  I obviously didn't settle for much and I still don't.
• 53:41
  So that that was big. But really that's it's really
• 53:45
  all about how do you find that within yourself?
• 53:49
  You have stories. What are they and how do they
• 53:52
  drive your life? How do they drive your
• 53:53
  parenting? And there are certain ones in
• 53:56
  there that are very deep rooted because of what you've been
• 53:59
  through that become your values. It's easy to just pick words out
• 54:03
  of a dictionary. And then for me, it's really
• 54:06
  about as far as the mission. It's empowering the working
• 54:09
  world. It's a purpose.
• 54:12
  And where can people find this book?
• 54:15
  On Amazon creating. A world of difference.
• 54:18
  We'll we'll include a a link to it on Amazon and we'll show
• 54:21
  notes for folks. Great.
• 54:27
  What advice would you have for others looking to achieve their
• 54:30
  own level of success? Well, it depends on what you
• 54:34
  deem as success. Number one, what's important to
• 54:36
  you really identifying what what, what is that?
• 54:41
  And it may not my path of success may not be your path of
• 54:45
  success, but I think just really being able to be honest with
• 54:49
  yourself and what's, you know, just saying I want money is not
• 54:55
  driving where you truly need to be.
• 54:57
  It is what do you want? What, what do you want others to
• 55:00
  say about you? What do you want it?
• 55:01
  What, what does your epitaph say?
• 55:03
  What, what is it that you want to leave?
• 55:06
  What do you want people saying about you when they come to the
• 55:08
  church that day and you're gone? What, what, what is that?
• 55:12
  And how do you want people to left?
• 55:15
  Feeling What, what's the feeling you want to give people?
• 55:18
  All of that ties into your path. How do you?
• 55:22
  Connect that then to making money like.
• 55:29
  Well, I want I. Want to help people I, you know,
• 55:30
  I, I want, you know, we all have sort of these no, most of us
• 55:34
  have sort of these more noble ambitions but at the end of the
• 55:36
  day, a lot of people listening hey, I've still got bills to pay
• 55:39
  like, oh, absolutely Tana, how do I kind of get these two to
• 55:43
  marry together? Well, I think.
• 55:45
  It's and, and I think you can answer this easily.
• 55:47
  Is why do you do what you do? It's the why you do it because
• 55:55
  you want to inspire people. I mean it, it's it you have to
• 55:59
  understand the why if you don't connect the Y dots and the Y can
• 56:04
  be as simple as I, I sweep up at Disney and why?
• 56:09
  Because it creates an environment for happiness for
• 56:11
  people that come here. It's it's a simple why.
• 56:15
  Answer the why and everything else becomes purpose, Simon.
• 56:19
  Sinek had a great love him. Yeah.
• 56:22
  Ted talk on that and it's become famous.
• 56:24
  If if people haven't seen it, it's worth Googling.
• 56:27
  Yes. Any particular daily habits,
• 56:33
  practices, rituals, Tana that get you started, keep you on
• 56:38
  track, keep you centered? It's important to me to find
• 56:42
  quiet time. I am an extrovert, but I do need
• 56:45
  my quiet time and I do that. I get up early every morning and
• 56:50
  I am on my back porch. I don't care what the
• 56:53
  temperature is. I don't care what the weather
• 56:54
  is. I'm out there.
• 56:56
  I have a heat lamp and I have fans when it's hot, but that's
• 57:01
  my time to reflect on what I'm thankful for.
• 57:05
  Every day I try to find three things from the day before that
• 57:09
  I'm thankful and grateful for. And then I really think about
• 57:13
  what do I want this day to bring to me before I begin my day.
• 57:17
  And it's a simple ritual. It doesn't need to take more
• 57:19
  than 1520 minutes. It's my way to meditate.
• 57:22
  I can't meditate. I've tried.
• 57:26
  My brain just won't stay that quiet.
• 57:29
  You found a different you found. A modified version that works
• 57:32
  for tan and green, right? But that.
• 57:34
  Is the and when I don't do that, my whole day's off, yeah.
• 57:40
  Tell me about imposter syndrome. Oh my.
• 57:43
  Gosh, still, there's no way that this.
• 57:46
  Effects you, right? All the successes that you've
• 57:49
  had along the way, all the hurdles that you've overcome.
• 57:51
  Surely you are very confident in yourself all the time.
• 57:55
  Absolutely. Not, absolutely not.
• 58:00
  I would say I had some imposter syndrome coming into this
• 58:03
  podcast. You know, it's like, well,
• 58:05
  people really believe your story.
• 58:07
  Are they really? Do they really want to hear what
• 58:09
  you have to say? Really.
• 58:12
  I think that imposter syndrome lives within us all the time,
• 58:17
  sometimes worse than others. But I think pushing beyond that
• 58:23
  has given me the strength to go to the next level.
• 58:26
  It's kind of when I look back to the fulfill your potential, it's
• 58:31
  pushing yourself out there and the more you do that, the more
• 58:35
  comfortable you feel. But that imposter syndrome still
• 58:39
  to this day, I'll be at some function and I'll feel like I've
• 58:44
  got to be quiet. I was sitting in boardrooms
• 58:47
  years ago and I wouldn't say anything, 'cause my mother said
• 58:51
  to me, you're bossy. And she said, you need to be
• 58:56
  quiet. In other words, women need to be
• 58:59
  seen, not heard. And I took that into business
• 59:02
  meetings. And boy, oh boy, I wouldn't say
• 59:05
  anything. I would wait for the right
• 59:07
  moment. I never interrupted.
• 59:11
  And to this day, I have to remind myself I have something
• 59:15
  valuable to say. I still live in that world of
• 59:18
  imposter syndrome. I don't think it ever leaves
• 59:21
  you. I think if it does, you're a
• 59:23
  narcissist. Something's really wrong.
• 59:26
  That's a good perspective. And I appreciate you, you know,
• 59:29
  being open and honest about that because I, I think, you know,
• 59:33
  everybody suffers from this and everybody I've ever, you know,
• 59:36
  gotten to open up about it. But they think that they're
• 59:40
  alone. They think it's just me that
• 59:42
  that feels inadequate. And I had a guest a while back
• 59:46
  that framed Imposter Syndrome as his greatest superpower.
• 59:52
  Wow. And I was like.
• 59:54
  Oh, I love that. Rather than it being this thing
• 59:57
  that I'm trying to run away from and revalidate myself, it he's
• 1:00:02
  like, no, it's my greatest superpower because it's what
• 1:00:04
  makes me get up out of bed every day and go after it and reprove
• 1:00:09
  myself. He's like, so I don't try to get
• 1:00:13
  rid of it. I don't try to get away from it.
• 1:00:15
  That's the thing that fuels me and pushes me forward, yes.
• 1:00:18
  Yes, yeah. Doesn't feel good when you.
• 1:00:22
  Feel it. It does.
• 1:00:23
  Not, I don't think there's any way around that, but maybe if we
• 1:00:27
  can look at it as the, the, the fire under our rear ends that,
• 1:00:32
  you know, gets us moving, then be like, oh, that's just, that's
• 1:00:35
  right. That's God.
• 1:00:36
  That's Mother Nature. That's my biology telling me
• 1:00:38
  it's time to get movement right. That's right.
• 1:00:41
  And one thing we didn't discuss yet that I wanted to bring up is
• 1:00:45
  on my goal sheet two years ago, I had, I wanted to do something
• 1:00:52
  national with domestic violence, not just local.
• 1:00:56
  And I had just put this on my gold board.
• 1:01:00
  It was like December. And in February, I got an
• 1:01:03
  e-mail. And usually these emails I get,
• 1:01:06
  you know, they go into trash, junk, junk, junk.
• 1:01:09
  But for some reason, I read this one and it was, we had done some
• 1:01:13
  research and found an article that you had done in Ink
• 1:01:16
  magazine talking about your domestic violence situation.
• 1:01:20
  And we're working on a museum project in San Francisco called
• 1:01:24
  the Courage Museum. It's going to be located next to
• 1:01:27
  the Presidio. It's going to be housed there,
• 1:01:30
  but there'll be a traveling component and an education
• 1:01:33
  component to people who've overcome things.
• 1:01:36
  And we found your story and would like to know if you want
• 1:01:39
  to participate. Well, I answered the call.
• 1:01:42
  Little did I know it was going to be as big of a project as it
• 1:01:46
  is. It opens in 2026.
• 1:01:48
  It's called the Courage Museum, and it's 15 stories.
• 1:01:54
  I'm one of 15. And it's going to be like a
• 1:01:56
  hologram. I flew out to California and
• 1:02:00
  filmed for three days with a documentary company.
• 1:02:05
  That is, that is, you see all their documentaries on Netflix,
• 1:02:11
  They're they're the biggest one. Right.
• 1:02:14
  And they said to me they wanted an environment that represented
• 1:02:17
  me. And we tried and tried and tried
• 1:02:20
  to find something. And I said, it's my business,
• 1:02:24
  that's what represents me. They go fine, we're going to
• 1:02:26
  ship your office out. They literally came in and
• 1:02:29
  crated up my artwork, crated up all of my stuff, shipped it out
• 1:02:33
  there, recreated my office, and we did this entire filming and
• 1:02:38
  somehow that was. More efficient than then coming
• 1:02:40
  to you where it was already set up well because their.
• 1:02:42
  Crews. If you saw their crews, it was
• 1:02:44
  big crews. OK, so a lot of people that
• 1:02:45
  they'd have to travel and put up in hotels and OK, so.
• 1:02:49
  Now I actually this will travel, it will go from city to city and
• 1:02:54
  it will have the educational component and you can even
• 1:02:56
  interact with me with an iPad, ask me questions and with AII go
• 1:03:04
  right to that point and answer your questions.
• 1:03:07
  It's going to be fascinating. So that's.
• 1:03:11
  So this isn't in a a fixed location, it's a traveling
• 1:03:15
  exhibit as both. The fixed locations at the
• 1:03:18
  Presidio, which is right next to the Golden Gate Bridge.
• 1:03:21
  And then there will be a travel component that goes city to
• 1:03:24
  city, and there's an educational component that's gonna roll out
• 1:03:28
  to all of the high schools and colleges.
• 1:03:31
  Wow. And it's it's.
• 1:03:33
  From everything from hate crimes to domestic violence to what
• 1:03:38
  happens on the reservations to women, all of the subjects.
• 1:03:43
  And it's not just women. It's any time you had to
• 1:03:46
  overcome something dramatic in life.
• 1:03:51
  They've covered that subject and it's just I got to go out for a
• 1:03:56
  storytelling. They call it a storytelling
• 1:03:58
  event where they bring in a lot of the donors.
• 1:04:02
  And I got to hear some of the other stories that the survival
• 1:04:06
  of a girl in high school during one of the shootings, she was
• 1:04:09
  the only one left alive in her classroom down in Florida, and
• 1:04:12
  she played dead underneath another body on top of her.
• 1:04:16
  And just hearing her story and how she's taking it to where
• 1:04:19
  she's taking it in life, and it's just overcoming.
• 1:04:23
  And they had a girl. She was 28 and he, at the time,
• 1:04:28
  I was 64. They put us on stage together
• 1:04:32
  and they showed snippets. We hadn't seen our story yet.
• 1:04:35
  They showed some of her story and some of mine.
• 1:04:37
  They were identical, identical. And it was, this doesn't change
• 1:04:42
  just because times have changed. Domestic violence has not
• 1:04:46
  changed. And so they're doing great work
• 1:04:49
  Just to, for me, it was naming it once that doctor named it for
• 1:04:53
  me, I could get out of it. So it's like if I could have
• 1:04:57
  heard that earlier on, maybe I wouldn't have married him.
• 1:05:00
  Maybe I wouldn't have even dated him more than a few times.
• 1:05:03
  But it it's naming things like this to be aware.
• 1:05:07
  So I'm just, I'm just very proud.
• 1:05:10
  It's called the Courage Museum. The Courage Museum.
• 1:05:13
  Yep. And.
• 1:05:14
  Can people see it now or it's not coming out until next year,
• 1:05:17
  2026? It's not coming out till.
• 1:05:19
  Next year there are the education.
• 1:05:20
  You saw a preview. Of it, but it's not available
• 1:05:23
  for public view yet. Not yet.
• 1:05:26
  So that's exciting. Well, if it's all right.
• 1:05:28
  Maybe we'll have you back when that comes out and you'll have
• 1:05:31
  some snippets that we can share and we can we can sort of talk
• 1:05:34
  about the impact that it's having because that right that.
• 1:05:37
  Would be great that would. Be great, Tana, What's one thing
• 1:05:42
  you wish more people knew about your industry?
• 1:05:47
  I really wish they knew how important the people were that
• 1:05:51
  they hire. They think of it as a commodity.
• 1:05:53
  I wish it wasn't such a commodity 'cause it is people
• 1:05:56
  driven and I can't understand why it becomes just a commodity.
• 1:06:01
  I can order 50 today and then when they get here, I can say,
• 1:06:04
  yeah, I only need 25 of you go on home.
• 1:06:07
  I mean, it's like the human part of it is is gone.
• 1:06:12
  I think that is the part that bothers me the most about our
• 1:06:15
  industry, 'cause these are people and they're working and
• 1:06:17
  they want to be valued too. That's that's, that's the one
• 1:06:21
  thing. And then just to the accepting
• 1:06:24
  change and understanding that our world, it's we're not going
• 1:06:27
  to put that genie back in the box with technology.
• 1:06:30
  This is going to continue to drive the gig economy.
• 1:06:33
  Jobs are going to continue to drive change.
• 1:06:35
  Technology drives change. Accept it.
• 1:06:38
  Find a way to work with it rather than fight it and let's
• 1:06:41
  make our world better. I love.
• 1:06:43
  That one more question for you, Tana, But before I ask you, I
• 1:06:46
  want to do 2 things. First of all, I'm going to
• 1:06:48
  invite all the listeners to hit the follow button on their
• 1:06:51
  favorite podcast app. That way you continue to get
• 1:06:54
  more great interviews like we've had today with Tana Green, the
• 1:06:56
  CEO of My Work Choice. Tana, I also want to let people
• 1:07:00
  know the best way and you choose from the following to get in
• 1:07:04
  touch with you directly to follow your story or to follow
• 1:07:08
  my Work Choices story, right? I LinkedIn is the best way to do
• 1:07:12
  it. I'm on LinkedIn, my work choices
• 1:07:14
  on LinkedIn. They'll continue to post those
• 1:07:16
  stories and feel free if you want to get in touch with me
• 1:07:19
  directly. My e-mail address is
• 1:07:23
  tanag@myworkchoice.com. OK.
• 1:07:27
  You sure? You want to put that out there?
• 1:07:29
  Yep, I'll put. That out there, I hope I get a
• 1:07:32
  bunch to answer 'cause I would love to help anybody.
• 1:07:35
  That's amazing. So last question for you, let's
• 1:07:40
  say you and I reconnect in a year and you are celebrating
• 1:07:43
  something. What is it?
• 1:07:47
  Probably grandkids. I have two now and they're my
• 1:07:54
  life. What are their ages?
• 1:07:58
  1 is almost 15. Oh.
• 1:08:00
  Goodness, yeah, because. Remember, I got married really
• 1:08:03
  early, started young. And then?
• 1:08:04
  20 years later I had my daughter and her daughter is now six
• 1:08:08
  months old. Oh wow.
• 1:08:10
  So and. So.
• 1:08:11
  Fingers crossed that there's more on the way.
• 1:08:13
  Is that what we're saying? Yeah, we're hoping.
• 1:08:15
  Not with the one with the 15 year old.
• 1:08:17
  He just turned 50. I think he's finished OK.
• 1:08:21
  Well, Tana, this has been a lot of fun.
• 1:08:23
  I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your
• 1:08:25
  time and your story with us today.
• 1:08:27
  I really appreciate it. Thank you.
• 1:08:29
  I've. I've really enjoyed my time.
• 1:08:31
  Thank you again. Look forward to coming back, all
• 1:08:33
  right? OK, book it.
• 1:08:35
  That's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast,
• 1:08:38
  folks. Thanks for learning with us
• 1:08:40
  today.