Latest / All Figured Out with Andrea Barr: Figuring Out Work, Life and Parenting / 86. Should you leave corporate to consult? with Tiffany Rosik

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86. Should you leave corporate to consult? with Tiffany Rosik · All Figured Out with Andrea Barr: Figuring Out Work, Life and Parenting

• 0:01
  Welcome back to the All Figured Out Podcast.
• 0:03
  My name is Andrea Barr. Thanks for joining me again this
• 0:06
  week. Today I bring you Tiffany
• 0:08
  Rossak, who is a really incredible woman.
• 0:11
  She is the founder and CEO of TGR Management Consulting, and
• 0:15
  she's had a really interesting career both on the tech side,
• 0:18
  project management and many other roles.
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  And now she has actually pivoted to having her own consulting
• 0:24
  company. So recently I've been working
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  with a lot of different clients who are actually toying with the
• 0:29
  idea of creating more flexibility for themselves and
• 0:31
  their family by going out and being a consultant themself,
• 0:35
  whether that is through freelance work, project based
• 0:39
  work, or consulting. So I actually dive really deep
• 0:43
  in this episode into how and why Tiffany made the decision to
• 0:47
  leave her big study corporate job and go into consulting and
• 0:51
  how exactly she did that. I asked the really nitty gritty
• 0:55
  details that I personally wanted to know and wanted to know on
• 0:59
  behalf of all of you, because I know there's people out there
• 1:01
  listening who want to make a jump like this, but you just, it
• 1:04
  probably feels really daunting and you just don't know how.
• 1:07
  Tiffany is also the author of a new book that's called That's
• 1:10
  Not the Help I need real Talk for women about winning at work.
• 1:14
  She is really, really big on mentoring the next generation of
• 1:17
  women. And she is just she shared some
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  really cool practical tips. And one of the tips that she
• 1:23
  actually talks about or one of the pieces of wisdom she shares
• 1:27
  is around how and when to tell your workplace that you're
• 1:30
  pregnant. So she she's just a wealth of
• 1:32
  knowledge. I think you're going to really
• 1:33
  enjoy this conversation, even talk about her grandma, who at
• 1:37
  one point was in a bit of a scuffle on the baseball diamond.
• 1:41
  Like we go all over the place, but Tiffany is incredible and I
• 1:46
  know you're going to enjoy this episode.
• 1:47
  And if this sparks a little fire within you that makes you
• 1:50
  realize that you want to make a career change yourself just like
• 1:53
  Tiffany did, then reach out. I do 20 minute phone calls or
• 1:56
  Zoom calls just to get to know one another.
• 1:59
  And we can just chat about where you're at and what your big
• 2:01
  goals are, where you want to go, and we can see if there's a way
• 2:05
  that I can help you out there. So without further ado, Tiffany
• 2:08
  Rosik, you're listening to the All Figured Out Podcast.
• 2:13
  I'm your host, Andrea Barr. I'm a career coach for parents,
• 2:18
  mom of two, and a self-proclaimed expert at
• 2:21
  winging it. After 10 years in the corporate
• 2:23
  world, two major career pivots, and navigating life with kids,
• 2:27
  I've learned one thing. No parent has it all figured
• 2:30
  out, and that's OK. Here, we're all about growing
• 2:34
  personally and professionally while keeping family time
• 2:37
  sacred. You'll get practical tips,
• 2:39
  career strategies, and musings on life, plus guest experts to
• 2:43
  help us fill in the gaps. So grab a coffee or hide in your
• 2:46
  car piece of me time. We're about to figure out this
• 2:48
  work, life and parenting stuff out together.
• 2:53
  Tiffany Rossett, thank you so much for joining me on the All
• 2:56
  Figured Out podcast. Well, thanks for having me,
• 2:59
  Andrea. It's great to be here.
• 3:00
  It's so good to have you. And this is we were chatting a
• 3:03
  bit before this, that this is a really long time coming.
• 3:07
  Talk about I was telling Tiffany that this was like that
• 3:10
  situation where there's that person that you continue
• 3:12
  canceling on and you you were that person.
• 3:16
  And I will say that there is some solace in knowing that I'm
• 3:21
  canceling on a fellow mom who's just, you know, and I know you
• 3:24
  have two teenage boys. So I, I will apologize on air as
• 3:28
  well. Thank.
• 3:28
  And no, I will say thank you so much for your patience with me
• 3:31
  and re recording this and women helping women, you know, moms
• 3:35
  helping moms. Absolutely no.
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  And it was no big thing because every time I would get the
• 3:40
  notice, hey, I need to shift or move, I'm like, yeah, no
• 3:42
  problem. I've got, I've got other things
• 3:44
  I can slot in. It's not like I was sitting
• 3:46
  around with nothing to do, right?
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  We were laughing about that, how like, no mom is ever like, oh,
• 3:53
  shoot, unless it's like massage that gets cancelled or something
• 3:56
  like that. But like, no one's really that
• 3:58
  upset about plants being kept up.
• 4:00
  So thank you for your grace. We have a jam packed episode.
• 4:04
  There's so much that we're going to cover today, including your
• 4:08
  career story, your experience going from working in, you know,
• 4:12
  big, big tech industry, leaving that industry, what that was
• 4:17
  like to be leaving, to make that career decision, starting your
• 4:20
  own consulting firm. I've got a lot of questions
• 4:23
  about that because I am working with so many people right now
• 4:25
  who are contemplating going in being their own consultant and
• 4:30
  just, you know, so many questions, so many questions.
• 4:32
  So we're going to go in that and you have a book and you, the
• 4:36
  book was spurred from a passion for mentoring other women in the
• 4:40
  workplace, which is so beautiful.
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  And I know you have a lot to say on that topic.
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  And in addition to that, it is International Women's Month,
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  Women's History Month. Sorry, International Women's Day
• 4:51
  will be coming up soon. This will be released a bit
• 4:53
  after International Women's Day. So we're going to hear about
• 4:57
  your grandma, Grandma Millie, right?
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  Grandma Millie. Millie, apparently she goes
• 5:02
  viral on the social media. So we're going to hear about
• 5:06
  Graham Miller. So that is what to expect.
• 5:08
  So let's start with your order, your origin story, your your
• 5:12
  Spiderman origin story. I want to hear.
• 5:15
  Well, Fast forward to when you were working in tech and tell me
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  what was the, what was, what was happening in your world when you
• 5:24
  were deciding, making the decision to transfer transition
• 5:27
  out of the company that you were working for and into consulting?
• 5:31
  Sure, I'm happy to tell the story.
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  So I, I like to tell folks that I, I grew up on the software
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  side of, of healthcare technology.
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  So a lot of the things that we have is monitored conveniences
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  today, you may or may not remember having to do them in
• 5:44
  paper. So everything from, you know,
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  your electronic medical records to automated claims to be
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  prescribing. So your prescriptions
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  automatically going to the pharmacy, the interaction
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  between the systems to get your X-rays and your Mris digitally.
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  I did a lot of those things and worked for those companies in
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  the back end making sure that we digitize a lot of that and
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  connected the technologies between the systems.
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  And at one point in my career, I ended up working for a large
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  consulting company. So one of the, what I would say
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  the big 5 consulting companies And you know consulting is
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  different when you work for a big, big, big company like that
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  because all of your time is expected to be billable to a
• 6:30
  client, Hmm. Whereas you can think, if you
• 6:33
  work in a in a more typical company, there's unproductive
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  time, right? There's maybe, maybe you get 4
• 6:41
  hours or five hours of truly productive time of day, but some
• 6:46
  of the rest of it is throw away time if you will.
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  And so consulting generally speaking, they are expecting you
• 6:54
  to work about a 4045 hour work week and they really truly want
• 6:59
  40 hours at that time to be billable to the client.
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  That's a lot. It is a lot.
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  So, so you know, you hear the stories about how exhausting it
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  is to be on the consulting side and, and I didn't have to fly
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  anywhere per se. There are some consultant
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  organizations where they're dispatching you and you are on
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  site, you're on the plane Monday, Friday, whatever it is.
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  And, and it, it can be that much more exhausting.
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  But that was not my case when I was working for this particular
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  company. I was hired in to do program
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  management and I ended up moving into some business development
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  specifically on the healthcare side because of my healthcare
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  background. And, you know, the organization
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  reached a point, we were about 18 months in or two years in and
• 7:45
  they reached a point where they just decided they didn't have
• 7:47
  the, the organizational fortitude to, to wait for that
• 7:53
  business to develop. You know, there were, they were
• 7:56
  looking for clients that were going to spend at least
• 7:58
  $1,000,000 in, in IT services with, with our organization.
• 8:03
  And those relationships don't turn up overnight, right?
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  You've got to be in there pounding the pavement building
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  rapport, right? It's a lot.
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  There's a lot of grassroots stuff and they just decided they
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  didn't want to wait any longer for it and they were going to
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  close the division that I was working in.
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  And, and they were, they were nice about it.
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  They said, hey, look, we'd love to have you in another part of
• 8:25
  your organization, finance, oil and gas, electric, right.
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  So any other industry I, I probably, I could have picked my
• 8:33
  move my way into, but I didn't know anything about those.
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  And so when I sat down and I said, OK, well I'm going to have
• 8:42
  to start over, you have to build rapport.
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  You've got to find contacts, you've got to learn the
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  industry. That's just really felt daunting
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  to me. And you know, at the time I was
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  seeing my kids at that time were probably 8 and 10 years old.
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  So we were, we were starting to hit sort of the meat of of the
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  kids where they were moving into sports and after school
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  activities. And there was just a lot of
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  logistical stuff. And so I just couldn't see
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  myself trying to build a new line of business for this other
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  company and putting in all that time and effort to do it.
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  So the company ultimately made a decision when I said no, I
• 9:23
  wasn't going to move anywhere else.
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  I wasn't going to move into a different line of business.
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  I knew that I was going to put myself on a layoff list that was
• 9:28
  coming and um, and sure enough it did.
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  But, but the way I looked at it is, look, they made a decision
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  about them and I made a decision about me and, and, and that's a
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  really hard decision to make, but it, it ultimately was what
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  led me to start my own consulting company as well.
• 9:49
  That's really cool. I like the way that you phrase
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  that and maybe you've used that line a couple times, but like,
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  that's so good. You know, they made a decision
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  about them. I made a decision about me and
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  how much power is in that? Like so much power, right?
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  And it's not to say that the it's hard.
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  There's like this, there's this push pull between we want
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  organizations to be people first.
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  We want them to like really take care of their human beings,
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  which they should. We all know they also need to
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  turn a profit and they need to do what's best for them.
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  It's like relationships when you know, when you're like dating
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  and the person's like, I don't know, I don't think this is like
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  fully right. You don't want to push the
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  person to marry you, right. If they're not feeling like it's
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  so it's, it is so interesting, like you said, to make that
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  decision and and take the power back.
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  It sounded like in that decision where you could have been like,
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  well, I'm not really sure. Like, well, maybe, maybe, maybe
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  not, Maybe you will. And then get blindsided, you
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  know, like not really give them like a really firm decision as
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  to what you need and what you want for your family.
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  And then getting blindsided by being laid off or not thinking
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  through that. Like, OK, if I say no to this
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  opportunity, I'll probably be in a layoff list.
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  It sounded like you were fully well aware of that and you
• 11:00
  weren't, you know, weren't being naive to that fact.
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  So I mean, that's such a cool, such a cool part of your story.
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  And now tell me about the transition into the consulting
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  role. Did it feel like, I don't know
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  how to ask this question? Like did it feel like you were
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  like, OK, I'll just do consulting?
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  Or was there like an excitement in you to like go and do the
• 11:20
  consulting versus going and looking for another job?
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  So my first choice was not to to open up my own company and start
• 11:28
  my own consulting business. That was something that I ended
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  up being being talked into, if you will.
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  So I did start out creating my resume, updating it, looking for
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  jobs. And you know, there's an
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  exhaustion in doing that. For me it was I couldn't even
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  get through and finish reading a job description on the post that
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  I would potentially want to apply for before I was
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  completely bored. I'm like, OK, no, I'm not.
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  I don't wanna do this. So, so I, I, I was, I ended up
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  having a series of conversations and lunches or drinks or
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  whatever it is with, with the, with three people that
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  ultimately I, I refer to as my, my board of directors.
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  And it was these three people that separately were encouraging
• 12:16
  me to go out on my own and do my own.
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  You know, as a matter of fact, one woman just said she's like,
• 12:22
  well, why wouldn't you do that? Like, why couldn't you do this
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  on your own? Like, and I'm like, I don't
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  know, I don't know how to do this.
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  I don't know, like, where do I start?
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  And, and so that's where these three people kind of came in and
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  how I call them my board of directors.
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  I had one gentleman who was excellent at business
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  development. You know, he kind of walked me
• 12:37
  through how do I set up a business?
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  What things should I be thinking about?
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  And then, you know, another, another woman, she was, she had
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  done a lot of businesses. She'd, she'd stood up and, and
• 12:48
  took down a number of businesses, sold businesses.
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  So she kind of coached me through a couple of those
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  aspects of it. And then I had another woman who
• 12:54
  was heavily focused on operations and, and honestly,
• 12:57
  she just was a great cheerleader in the early days to help me
• 13:00
  figure out, OK, how would I position?
• 13:02
  What kind of services am I going to offer?
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  And you know, who would I even call first?
• 13:07
  So, so between those three people, that's really where,
• 13:10
  where this this sort of bubbled up.
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  And I'm like, alright, well, I guess I'm going to hang my
• 13:15
  shingle and I'm going to call myself a consultant.
• 13:17
  And then from there, you know, you can evolve further after
• 13:21
  that because some lot of people and they say, oh, I want to do
• 13:23
  my own consulting. They just want to be themselves,
• 13:25
  you know, just a single shingle out there selling yourself into
• 13:28
  a business. But as I got into it, I realized
• 13:31
  that I actually wanted to be bigger than just me.
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  And so from there, we we kind of charted course and redirected a
• 13:39
  little bit to get into a team, kind of a team aspect.
• 13:43
  From a financial perspective, is there exponentially more
• 13:49
  opportunity financially when you do bring on a team?
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  And do you believe that there's a true correlation between the
• 13:54
  more people you have, the more money you can make as a
• 13:57
  consultant? It depends.
• 14:02
  Um, and I know that's not a helpful answer for people out
• 14:04
  there, but I think it depends on the services that you're
• 14:07
  offering and how you're positioning it.
• 14:11
  The work that we do, we do a lot of, we call IT services, it's a
• 14:15
  lot of project management. So our, our sweet spot is in
• 14:19
  technology rescue. So these are technology
• 14:22
  installations that have gone awry as well as helping
• 14:26
  companies marry the tactic technology to the operations.
• 14:30
  So think about, you know, your CRM, your ERP's, your HRIS
• 14:35
  tools, these are these are backbones to any organization
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  and of a lot of times they're not functioning, they're not
• 14:44
  optimized. They want to just RIP it out and
• 14:46
  replace it. And so that's the other service
• 14:49
  that we provide. OK, well, let's talk about what
• 14:50
  does that look like? How much does that impact your
• 14:52
  organization? And are you better off pulling
• 14:54
  it out and putting something new in, or are you?
• 14:57
  Or is it better for you to think about how you can adjust your
• 15:01
  operations to make better use of the technology that you're
• 15:04
  paying for already? Hmm.
• 15:07
  So, so can you make more if you have more people?
• 15:10
  I think it goes, it comes back to what is it you're doing?
• 15:14
  How big is the company you're selling into?
• 15:17
  Because that makes a big difference on on what your
• 15:20
  margin, you know, the money that you can make and how many people
• 15:23
  you could really bring in into their organizations.
• 15:25
  Right. That's a good point.
• 15:26
  That's a really good point. I think that's that's such a
• 15:29
  genius. I mean, not knowing too much
• 15:31
  about the technology side, but having worked on projects where
• 15:33
  I would have been one of your stakeholders because I was
• 15:35
  bringing in L&D software into, you know, large organization I
• 15:39
  worked for. Why have you?
• 15:40
  I was kind of on the other side knowing how much money is spent
• 15:45
  on contracts in software and how poorly if somebody, something
• 15:50
  does not get integrated properly, like how much money
• 15:53
  you're throwing down the drain. Like I know you're talking
• 15:55
  probably millions. The people have integrated like
• 15:57
  a million dollar, $2,000,000, five, $10 billion technology
• 16:01
  project that's going awry. And what a, what a great
• 16:05
  position that you put yourself in where you're like, OK, I'm
• 16:07
  going to help you either protect or like rectify this investment
• 16:12
  that you've made. How the hell did you come up
• 16:14
  with that, though? How did you realize that that
• 16:16
  could be your niche, given that you're by trade a project
• 16:19
  manager? Like I want to know exactly how
• 16:21
  you figured that out. Because I know there's people
• 16:23
  listening who want to do consulting, but they're like,
• 16:25
  but I can do 100 things like what would I?
• 16:27
  How would I market myself? Well, so I would go back to
• 16:30
  those Java descriptions I couldn't finish reading and say
• 16:34
  there are always those tasks and those job descriptions that I
• 16:36
  just didn't like. I don't want to do that.
• 16:40
  And and for me, what I really loved about the work that I was
• 16:44
  doing was I liked the rescue aspect of it.
• 16:46
  I liked the big thinking strategy.
• 16:49
  And then I like charting the course and setting the path and
• 16:52
  getting, you know, if you think of it as like a train, right,
• 16:55
  All right, trains off the track. So how do I get the train back
• 16:58
  on the tracks? Then he set the cars up and you
• 17:00
  and then you just kind of kind of pushed along and then
• 17:03
  eventually it kind of picks up its own speed and, and and
• 17:06
  finishes the job, right. That's the part that I enjoyed.
• 17:09
  Did I? I don't enjoy the part of
• 17:11
  project management. I don't enjoy is all of the very
• 17:16
  detailed project planning, scheduling, umm, all the kind of
• 17:23
  needy, gritty type things. That's just not for me.
• 17:26
  I mean, I have people on my team that love that.
• 17:28
  They're all about it. Great.
• 17:29
  That's for you. It's not for me.
• 17:32
  Not I love that you that you took what you actually wanted to
• 17:36
  do and built a business out of that, because I do believe that
• 17:38
  though, yes, you should be looking at like what does the
• 17:42
  market demand or want or need? That's but that's that of
• 17:46
  course, makes sense. But you're going to do so much
• 17:48
  better in your career in building a new business if you
• 17:51
  love the work that you're doing, because people are going to feel
• 17:53
  that energy. Like I feel like even just
• 17:55
  knowing you for very short time, I'm like, yeah, you seem like
• 17:57
  someone that could just like sort out an issue.
• 18:00
  And I'm sure you you could do a timeline, but I don't I'm
• 18:04
  totally with you on that. When I think about project
• 18:06
  management, like if I were to see a job description with
• 18:09
  project management in right now and it's like kick off and
• 18:12
  manage timelines and budgets, I'm like, Oh my good God, that
• 18:15
  is no no longer for me. I can do it.
• 18:17
  I'm not good at it and it doesn't light me up, but I can
• 18:20
  tell that like the work that you do, you're like, Oh yeah, let me
• 18:22
  get in there. Let me get my hands dirty on
• 18:24
  like all your issues and your problems.
• 18:26
  Yeah, absolutely. And so so that that's really
• 18:28
  where it starts like, OK, what is it I love to do?
• 18:31
  And if I had to write a job description for my perfect job,
• 18:34
  what would it look like? And that's ultimately what I
• 18:37
  went out and tried to find in the marketplace.
• 18:39
  And I've been, you know, you've met alluded to it.
• 18:42
  We've all been apart enough of organizations where projects
• 18:44
  have gone just inside out and, and, and so every business can
• 18:52
  probably look at themselves if they're being honest right now
• 18:55
  and go, yeah, we've been trying to do that for 2 1/2 years.
• 18:58
  It's not going well. Yes.
• 19:01
  Oh gosh, we've all. Yeah, I've been there.
• 19:04
  I've been there. So now tell me last question on
• 19:09
  this. How does one get clients?
• 19:12
  So when you want to become a consultant, you're an expert in
• 19:14
  what you do. It lights you up.
• 19:16
  You're like, if I know my niche, I'm really pumped to give this a
• 19:19
  go. How is somebody putting
• 19:21
  themselves out there to go and land those big contracts?
• 19:25
  It is that is the hardest part of my job.
• 19:28
  But you have to, you know, you have to think about it as you
• 19:32
  want to fail fast, right? You want to take imperfect
• 19:35
  action and you want to fail fast.
• 19:37
  So what do I mean by those two things?
• 19:39
  Well, I will when I first started, you know, my sales
• 19:43
  pitch wasn't perfect, my mission vision values, right, The deck
• 19:47
  that, you know, I didn't have a pretty slide deck.
• 19:49
  I just had a few words, but but I got out there with it, right?
• 19:54
  I took it out there. In some cases they're like,
• 19:56
  yeah, this isn't us. It doesn't work for us, right?
• 19:58
  So then I started to fail fast, right?
• 20:01
  If I can get to know in the first meeting, great, I can move
• 20:03
  on. I can spend my time moving on
• 20:06
  and you and you really have to be comfortable in hearing no,
• 20:10
  but recognizing that it's not necessarily a personal no, just
• 20:15
  like you as a consumer, right. When you, when you're
• 20:17
  interviewing somebody to come and do something, work on your
• 20:20
  house or maybe another vendor, you're like, yeah, it's just no,
• 20:24
  none of what you said appeals to me right now.
• 20:27
  It's not personal. It's just you're not ready to
• 20:30
  buy, OK. So you're so you take that as
• 20:33
  information and be like, OK, would you ask questions around
• 20:35
  like why? You know, why?
• 20:37
  Why aren't you wanting to buy? Yeah.
• 20:40
  And I think a lot of the a lot of the people that I was coming
• 20:42
  in contact with were, were pretty open about that.
• 20:46
  They were like, yeah, your services, you seem too small.
• 20:49
  Yeah, You know, in some cases it was like, this is you haven't
• 20:52
  done a whole lot of this. So I'm going to go with the guy
• 20:56
  that I know, like, OK, go to the guy.
• 20:58
  You know, at some point, at some point I might be the guy, you
• 21:01
  know, as far as finding clients, how do you, how do you go about
• 21:05
  that? You know, I tried, I've tried a
• 21:06
  lot of different things and it really comes back down to my
• 21:11
  network and my relationships. I mean, I've, I've, I do social
• 21:15
  media posting, the business does posting.
• 21:18
  We've done, we've done lead Gen. we've done newsletters, right?
• 21:23
  We've done, we've done a lot of the more common things and all
• 21:28
  that really does is help get my name out there.
• 21:31
  It doesn't actually lead to any sales.
• 21:33
  There are some leads that have been in my pipeline for a number
• 21:36
  of years. And, and, and these are the,
• 21:40
  these are really, really choice opportunities that have that
• 21:45
  I've been, I've been building rapport around for, for, for
• 21:48
  that long. But there are always other
• 21:50
  opportunities that come your way that maybe they're not exactly
• 21:56
  how you would craft them, but they're close enough to where
• 21:59
  you can have money coming in. Yes.
• 22:03
  Continue building rapport. How you wait for that, that
• 22:08
  meaty, perfect one that you're lining up in your sights down
• 22:13
  the line. Yes, OK, there's so many
• 22:16
  takeaways from everything you said around leaving your, your
• 22:19
  big, you know, your big corporate job, finding a board
• 22:22
  of directors to really help you navigate the decision to go into
• 22:25
  consulting, which I love. I love that nugget.
• 22:27
  I love finding like the the specific people for each area
• 22:30
  of, you know, building a business.
• 22:32
  I think that's genius, whether those are your friends or you're
• 22:34
  hiring them or whomever and then getting into work that you
• 22:39
  actually enjoy. Another big take away for me.
• 22:42
  And then and then just start doing the thing failing fast.
• 22:47
  I think that's a huge that's you should be.
• 22:48
  So for those who are listening, who are wanting to get into
• 22:51
  consulting, just like go out and do it.
• 22:53
  And then on the whole, you know, business development side, we're
• 22:55
  getting super niche nitty gritty here.
• 22:56
  But I liked what you said about not thinking that like, you
• 22:59
  know, playing around on social media, doing the newsletter,
• 23:02
  That's it's not the BL end all. But what I think it does, and
• 23:06
  I've noticed this with my own business, is that it helps
• 23:08
  people to know what it is you're up to.
• 23:10
  And so it makes it easier to refer.
• 23:12
  I've been noticing that a lot like the people who watch and
• 23:15
  consume my, you know, content or whatever aren't necessarily the
• 23:19
  ones who are spending the money, but they're the ones who are out
• 23:22
  there advocating on my behalf, which is, which is such a
• 23:25
  blessing too. So I love, I just, I love your
• 23:29
  story and I love all of that. Now I want to switch gears to
• 23:32
  make sure we have enough time. We've got so many other things
• 23:35
  we want to talk about. So let's move over into why the
• 23:39
  heck did you want to write a book?
• 23:40
  I've heard it's very hard. So tell me, what is the origin
• 23:43
  story there? So it's a little, it's there's a
• 23:47
  couple of variations to it. So I like to, I'd like to tell
• 23:51
  people some of the stories that happen on a day-to-day basis.
• 23:54
  And I would often say, Oh my gosh, I gotta write a book like
• 23:59
  this up. I gotta write a book.
• 24:00
  And and so there was one point where where I was out at a happy
• 24:05
  hour and I'm and I'm telling some story to a group of friends
• 24:09
  and you know, I'm imagined it went something like this is
• 24:13
  going in my book. And at one point one of those
• 24:17
  friends leaned in and said, alright, when are you going to
• 24:20
  stop talking about this book? You're going to write and write
• 24:22
  the book. That's all.
• 24:24
  I got called out right then and there.
• 24:26
  And, you know, few glasses of wine later, all of a sudden I'm
• 24:29
  like, you know what? I'm gonna write that book.
• 24:30
  And and then then I started putting some wheels in motion
• 24:34
  around around riding the book. It was a two year journey to
• 24:38
  write it. It was it was very positive for
• 24:42
  me, but it is hard. It's time consuming.
• 24:45
  And I can tell you, we talked about the Board of directors
• 24:48
  that was around me to start the company.
• 24:50
  Those friends that called me out that night about writing this
• 24:53
  book are the same friends that when I said, OK, guys, I'm gonna
• 24:57
  I'm truly gonna write it. Let's do a writers retreat.
• 24:59
  I wanna, I wanna go somewhere and just get some thoughts down.
• 25:02
  And they showed up all, you know, all five of them showed up
• 25:07
  and they showed up in a big way that that particular weekend
• 25:10
  that I scheduled the riders weekend, They brought the wine,
• 25:13
  they planned the food and the meals.
• 25:15
  And, you know, they warmed the hot tub and they just, they just
• 25:17
  took care of everything and let me come in and out of that
• 25:21
  weekend as I needed to come in and out of that weekend, which
• 25:25
  is such a unique feeling. As a mom, when was the last time
• 25:29
  you just had to show up? Like didn't need to do anything.
• 25:35
  It was such a weird thing, but but that's what they did for me
• 25:38
  in that particular weekend. And then those same folks
• 25:41
  continue to show up. Every time I got, I hit, I hit a
• 25:44
  stall point in writing the book. Or if I lost my confidence or I
• 25:47
  had imposter syndrome or I couldn't make a decision.
• 25:51
  They all kind of came to the table at those different points,
• 25:54
  whether I needed a happy hour or a round of golf or a
• 25:59
  conversation to get on stock, right?
• 26:00
  So that really is the story around.
• 26:03
  How did the book get created? It was those people that refused
• 26:05
  to let me fail. I love that it sounds like so
• 26:08
  much of your career and your story has been the people you
• 26:12
  surround yourself with. Like you have clearly surrounded
• 26:14
  yourself and because you're a great human being too, like you
• 26:19
  have surrounded yourself though and really nurtured
• 26:20
  relationships in business and your personal life.
• 26:23
  So kudos to you. That sounds like that sounds
• 26:25
  like fun. I want to do this now.
• 26:29
  Is that, is that how you get to have one of those weekends you
• 26:31
  do your writers retreat? That's right.
• 26:33
  Just tell everybody you're you're writing a book and that's
• 26:35
  it. Don't call me.
• 26:37
  Yes, and was the fact that you have always been really big into
• 26:40
  mentoring younger women, was that a big piece of why you
• 26:44
  wanted to write? That's not the help I need.
• 26:46
  Real talk for women about winning at work.
• 26:50
  It is so, so you'd have these conversations with people and I
• 26:55
  felt like I'd had enough conversations with enough women
• 26:58
  where we were talking about the same things.
• 27:00
  Yes, we were struggling with the same concepts.
• 27:03
  And while in in the book, I talk very openly about some of the
• 27:09
  successes and failures that I had, right?
• 27:11
  I just, I just felt that this was a it was more of a
• 27:14
  conversation, right? This is this is the advice that
• 27:16
  I would give you if you came to me and said, hey, I'm really
• 27:21
  struggling with this manager or Oh my gosh, I think I'm going to
• 27:25
  be laid off or I'm got laid off or I I want my promotion.
• 27:29
  I feel like I'm being passed over for this promotion or I
• 27:32
  need to make more. These are the things, little
• 27:34
  tips and tools that I would tell you and I would and I would
• 27:37
  share the personal stories of either success or failure in
• 27:40
  areas in which I attempted to do the same thing.
• 27:44
  Awesome. How would you how would you give
• 27:46
  advice and the given you've written a book on this, I wanna
• 27:49
  ask you like just like advice based questions.
• 27:52
  So how what advice would you give somebody who is a mom who
• 27:55
  has come and gone from a few maternity leaves?
• 27:59
  We are, I'm in Canada, a lot of my listeners are in Canada.
• 28:01
  So we do have a protected job for between 12 to 18 months if
• 28:06
  you want it. And so that those can be big
• 28:08
  chunks of time. And I know where, you know, in
• 28:10
  America, you can take maybe smaller chunks of time legally.
• 28:15
  But so I know that a lot of women have struggles coming back
• 28:19
  to work having taken maybe a couple of maternity leaves,
• 28:22
  parental leaves. And they're like, but I I still
• 28:25
  deserve the promotion. And they want to navigate that
• 28:27
  discussion. How would you coach, guide,
• 28:30
  mentor somebody in that position?
• 28:33
  I actually do talk a little bit about this in the book as well.
• 28:36
  Um, it's all about how you frame it, right?
• 28:41
  Just because you took a leave from your your 9:00 to 5:00 does
• 28:48
  not mean you are not developing skills in the process.
• 28:53
  I one of the stories that I do tell in the book is about a
• 28:56
  woman that I hired. She'd been out of the workforce
• 28:58
  for maybe 12 years while she was raising kids.
• 29:02
  And I remember having a conversation with my vice
• 29:05
  president at the time and I said, look, this woman has
• 29:09
  amazing technical skill. She's it's right what we need.
• 29:13
  But I'm concerned that she hasn't been in an office in, you
• 29:17
  know, 12 years. And, and he point blank said to
• 29:20
  me, because I didn't have kids at the time, I didn't have kids
• 29:22
  at the time anymore. Blake said.
• 29:24
  I would never turn down a woman that has had to run the
• 29:28
  household business and logistics and the carpools and the people
• 29:33
  and the personalities, um, because they haven't been in a
• 29:39
  cubicle in a while. And, and he was so right now
• 29:44
  that I'm kind of on the other side of that, right?
• 29:46
  I've been, I've been a mom for, you know, 2 teenage boys.
• 29:49
  I've been a mom for a little while.
• 29:52
  The skills that I've picked up outside of the workplace, I
• 29:55
  think, I think help, um, help overall in the workplace, right?
• 30:02
  If you've managed the PTA or you've been the Girl Scout troop
• 30:07
  leader or the carpool coordinator, right?
• 30:10
  Let's let's talk about those skills that you need that you
• 30:13
  can pull right out of that, out of that experience and then
• 30:16
  drive into your resume or your conversation in your interview
• 30:20
  about what you've been doing. Hmm, So going into that
• 30:25
  discussion and not saying this is one thing I, I really try to
• 30:31
  coach people on as well or give advice on really it's not
• 30:33
  coaching is, is talking about talking from their perspective
• 30:37
  of what the company, what the manager needs, what the role
• 30:39
  needs versus what you need. As much, as easy as it could be
• 30:43
  to say my family needs more money, you know, that's really
• 30:47
  what's at the crux of it. We, we desire, we need more
• 30:50
  money. That's not the motive.
• 30:52
  That does not play to the emotions and the motivation of
• 30:55
  the person that you're speaking with.
• 30:56
  If your manager of the organization of which they work
• 30:58
  that and it's harsh, but it's just not how humans work, right?
• 31:03
  We always think about what do we need?
• 31:05
  And but when you're doing that negotiation, you don't speak
• 31:08
  from your own position. You, you share the value like
• 31:11
  this is the value that I have generated and the skills that
• 31:14
  I've generated over these 12 years, 18 years, however long
• 31:18
  someone might have been out of the workforce.
• 31:19
  So I think that's, that's really excellent advice.
• 31:23
  I, I need to ask you about the last few chapters of your book.
• 31:28
  I know which are about telling a workplace that you're pregnant
• 31:33
  and back story, Tiffany. There have been heartbreaking
• 31:38
  discussions I've had recently with clients or potential
• 31:41
  clients who have shared every type of situation where it's
• 31:47
  gone really well, it's gone really poorly.
• 31:49
  They've decided to not tell them when taking a job.
• 31:52
  They've told them after, you know, all these different
• 31:54
  situations that are you'd think the world wouldn't run in a
• 31:58
  certain way and sometimes it does.
• 32:00
  So what is your advice? Say I am pregnant.
• 32:05
  OK, let's do scenario one. I'm pregnant and I work at an
• 32:08
  organization that I've been with for a few years.
• 32:10
  Good relationship, things are going well.
• 32:13
  When should I tell them that I'm pregnant in your opinion?
• 32:15
  This is very opinion based. This is Tiffany as a friend.
• 32:20
  So couple things that that I would just I need to understand.
• 32:24
  One is, you know, what is your day-to-day like?
• 32:26
  Are you sitting in a cubicle? Are you expected to do a lot of
• 32:29
  traveling and you know how? Yeah.
• 32:35
  How obvious is it going to be that you have not shared this,
• 32:38
  and how quickly? Hmm, OK, let's say it's a it's a
• 32:42
  remote job because I think that's interesting when you
• 32:45
  actually don't necessarily need to tell them because you're not
• 32:47
  going to be walking around with a belly.
• 32:49
  So remote, fully remote. And yeah, sit at my desk, don't
• 32:53
  really have to travel, just humming along.
• 32:57
  Yeah, very similar situation to me.
• 32:59
  I, I waited as long as I possibly could to, to tell to
• 33:03
  tell them. And it was, it was out of fear.
• 33:07
  I'll be very honest, I had a wonderful works work
• 33:10
  relationship with my direct manager.
• 33:11
  The people around me were all super supportive, but it still
• 33:14
  was a very personal thing for me.
• 33:18
  And so, you know, my personal, my opinion on this one is that
• 33:21
  is that no, you shouldn't have to disclose it until you're
• 33:25
  really ready. And when you're ready to
• 33:26
  disclose it, it should be a joyful thing, right?
• 33:29
  Just like, hey, I'm getting married, right?
• 33:32
  All the excitement and joy around being around getting
• 33:34
  married should be, should be the same for sharing that you, that
• 33:39
  you're pregnant and it really needs to be on your own timeline
• 33:43
  because it is about you. So if you, you can foresee that
• 33:48
  you're going to have some important doctor's appointments
• 33:52
  coming up where you know, you're going to be missing some
• 33:54
  particular deadlines or you're going to have to be, um, moving
• 34:00
  things around and you're looking for a little bit of grace.
• 34:03
  You might want to give some consideration to your coworkers
• 34:07
  and and share and share the why around it because they're
• 34:10
  probably going to be happy for you and you may get that grace
• 34:12
  that you need because of it. Yes, that's a really good point.
• 34:17
  That's a really good point. It's true.
• 34:19
  And and I guess it depends on how private of the person you
• 34:22
  are, how public, how much do you value and respect the opinions
• 34:27
  of those around you? Or is it, I've actually talked
• 34:30
  to somebody, I think it was a friend maybe, and just was
• 34:32
  saying, like, what's going to make you feel good?
• 34:34
  Like do you feel like you're harboring a secret and that's
• 34:36
  actually causing you more stress in which, like do you want to
• 34:38
  just just get it over with and tell them or are you really
• 34:41
  superstitious? You know, I know a lot of moms
• 34:43
  to be can be really nervous, especially that first time.
• 34:46
  And you're going through it and you're like, whoa, I want to
• 34:48
  wait as long as possible because I'm terrified by every feeling
• 34:52
  that I have in my body. So I like I like your diplomatic
• 34:55
  answer. Now this is again, what about
• 34:59
  the what about the interview process?
• 35:01
  What about the person who's going for a job and is pregnant?
• 35:09
  I so so I know you're in Canada and the US is a little bit
• 35:12
  different. You're not actually even allowed
• 35:13
  to ask me about about it in the interview process.
• 35:18
  Now you could infer things and I but, but if you're, if you're
• 35:22
  being interviewed, you can't, it's really hard to change
• 35:25
  somebody's opinion if they're going to have a bias like that
• 35:28
  anyway. So this is, this is part of the,
• 35:31
  the tough skin that you need to have, right?
• 35:32
  They if if you walk in and you're pregnant and they decide
• 35:36
  they're not going to hire you and, and it's their bias that
• 35:39
  they have, then OK, you kind of have to shrug your shoulders and
• 35:42
  be like, alright, well, that's not about me because this is
• 35:46
  what I want in my life and this isn't changing for you company.
• 35:51
  Yeah. So, so I do think that it really
• 35:53
  has to be again, it comes back to having being comfortable with
• 35:57
  where you're at, especially as you're wherever you're at in
• 36:01
  your pregnancy and and you just have to let it go, right?
• 36:05
  You can't. I don't, I don't think you need
• 36:07
  to disclose it. That's my personal.
• 36:08
  You don't need to if you if. If it's not obvious, I don't
• 36:10
  think you need to disclose it because it's not a factor in the
• 36:12
  job. No, it's not.
• 36:16
  If it is obvious, I wouldn't even.
• 36:18
  I wouldn't even make mention of it.
• 36:21
  I love that. I love that.
• 36:22
  What a power move. Yeah, like, you know, why is
• 36:25
  this a thing? Yeah, yeah.
• 36:28
  If they were. Inside situation it's not
• 36:31
  related to. Yeah, great point.
• 36:33
  And honestly, I think if I were, if I were painted into a corner,
• 36:36
  if I were an interview, if let's say, if I'm in an interview at 8
• 36:38
  months pregnant and someone's like, well, I see you're 8
• 36:41
  months pregnant, you know, what are, what are you thinking about
• 36:44
  in terms of your maternity leave?
• 36:46
  I think my next question back to them would be very forward.
• 36:49
  Well, let's have that conversation if you really think
• 36:51
  I'm a great fit for this job. Yeah, yeah.
• 36:55
  Totally. And if they don't like how bold
• 36:57
  you are in making that statement, yeah, you might have
• 37:01
  done yourself a favor. How would really?
• 37:03
  Yeah, I had a client recently in which she did she personally
• 37:07
  wanted to share it. I don't know, I can't remember
• 37:10
  she had the the offer or not. I think they are going to they
• 37:15
  were gave her a verbal offer. I forgot the story now, but and
• 37:19
  she told him she was pregnant. She was like, I just want you to
• 37:21
  know they reacted really poorly and she was like, oh, never
• 37:27
  mind. And she's like, yeah, I want
• 37:28
  this. And they're like, oh, OK, great.
• 37:30
  You know. And she was like, God, I dodged
• 37:32
  a bullet there. And it's just there's so there's
• 37:34
  so many different situations. So I like that.
• 37:36
  I love that opinion. Yeah, that'd be interesting.
• 37:39
  Again, laws and rules are all different, but it would be an
• 37:43
  interesting scenario where if you they put it down in writing
• 37:45
  and you're like, look, since since you put me some put
• 37:48
  something in writing for me, I wanna fully be upfront.
• 37:50
  This is my situation as well. If they ever send that offer,
• 37:54
  that's an interesting conversation about whether or
• 37:56
  not they can even do. That Oh totally, totally no.
• 38:00
  And our our laws are very similar.
• 38:02
  Like you really can't be asking questions like that.
• 38:04
  Like planning to have a baby anytime soon is definitely not
• 38:06
  going to fly here. Switching gears a bit, Tiffany,
• 38:11
  I know that sport is really important to your family and
• 38:13
  that, you know, supporting your kids and getting into sport
• 38:16
  coaching and everything like that.
• 38:18
  How have you made it work being a working mom, having two boys
• 38:24
  who are into sport? How do you just how do you like
• 38:27
  that is such a big thing that I know so many friends of ours are
• 38:31
  going through. How do you make?
• 38:33
  How do you make that work personally?
• 38:35
  Well, I can tell you the secret that we found to success, we
• 38:39
  being my husband and I, is that we've taken on coaching roles
• 38:43
  and, and almost every sport you could imagine our boys play.
• 38:49
  You know that they're high school, they've had to limit it
• 38:52
  a little bit, but they play ice hockey and they play baseball.
• 38:56
  So ice hockey. You guys are Canadians or many
• 39:00
  of your listeners are Canadians, right?
• 39:01
  That's an all consuming sport and practically year round.
• 39:06
  So the and the way it's played here in the States is probably
• 39:09
  not that much different than it is in Canada.
• 39:11
  You know, you, you could play, you could play year round if you
• 39:14
  wanted to, but it is. But the typical season is like
• 39:17
  August to March or April. So long.
• 39:22
  Yeah, so long time. Well, so our secret has been
• 39:28
  we've, there are certain aspects of of those of youth athletics
• 39:32
  that we can't control. But we've been able to control
• 39:36
  some of it by being coaches and as opposed to being team
• 39:40
  managers or, or other other roles on different teams, mainly
• 39:45
  because the coaches can control the practice times in a lot of
• 39:48
  cases. And I personally, as a woman,
• 39:53
  have found that when I say I need time, you know, Tuesdays
• 40:00
  and Thursdays at from 4:00 to 6:00 because I'm coaching
• 40:04
  hockey, I get a much different reaction than when I say, oh, I
• 40:09
  need to leave early on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3:30 to go pick
• 40:13
  up my son to get him to hockey practice.
• 40:16
  Interesting. OK, So it's from the perspective
• 40:18
  of the excuse of not the excuse, but like the yeah, the the.
• 40:24
  The reason, right? And they're like, oh shit.
• 40:28
  Yeah, yeah. It doesn't really matter what
• 40:30
  the sport is. Hockey is.
• 40:32
  Hockey definitely is an attention getter, particularly
• 40:34
  since I'm in San Diego and port down here.
• 40:40
  I grew up in Chicago, my husband grew up in in Detroit, right.
• 40:43
  So, so we've got some, some cold weather ties, but it's
• 40:47
  definitely an interesting conversation when, when they're
• 40:51
  like, wait, ice hockey? So have you always played like
• 40:56
  there are 5 or 6 more questions that come after that and you
• 40:59
  forget that they just said that, that, that I've asked for more
• 41:03
  time off to go and do hockey things.
• 41:04
  And it's the same thing when we would have these tournaments,
• 41:07
  right? You would have to leave on a
• 41:08
  Friday and then you'd come back late on a Monday kind of a
• 41:11
  thing. And, and it was rarely a
• 41:13
  problem. And most often when I would get
• 41:16
  back in the office, be like, so how the team do this weekend?
• 41:18
  Oh, because they were involved. You enrolled other people.
• 41:22
  You weren't sneaking around. Yeah.
• 41:25
  And they found it interesting. They found it fascinating.
• 41:27
  And, and I know a lot of women that maybe listening to this
• 41:30
  going, Oh my God, I know it's time to coach.
• 41:32
  OK. That was my next question.
• 41:34
  Yeah. OK, Time out.
• 41:36
  Don't tell me don't have time to coach because you're already
• 41:38
  leaving work early to pick your kids up to take him to the
• 41:41
  soccer, baseball, lacrosse, like whatever location anyway, right.
• 41:46
  Or you're coordinating the logistics to have, you know, you
• 41:49
  do drop off. He does pick up whatever it is.
• 41:51
  So, um, and I think we're at, we're at a point where most
• 41:56
  women probably played enough sports growing up.
• 41:59
  Let's talk about the skill level that's really required to coach
• 42:03
  a nine year old. OK, yes, I know.
• 42:06
  I'm like, I want to coach basketball, but I'm like, Oh no,
• 42:08
  but who am I to coach basketball?
• 42:09
  Like I didn't play in university Nana Nana, but I could coach
• 42:13
  little basketball. For sure, right?
• 42:16
  Yeah. And once you don't know, there's
• 42:19
  probably a YouTube video out there to figure out.
• 42:21
  And I and I really, I truly think that for most, for most
• 42:25
  women, the difference between, you know, a guy coaching and a
• 42:31
  woman coaching is the guy doesn't say no.
• 42:32
  He just says, yeah, sure, yeah, I could totally do that, no
• 42:35
  problem. They probably didn't play
• 42:36
  university either. No, you're right.
• 42:39
  OK, What's the most outlandish sport that you've coached that
• 42:42
  you probably had no business coaching that like you knew
• 42:45
  nothing about? Um, let's see, I do, I do find
• 42:50
  it funny that I ended up coaching ice hockey.
• 42:52
  I never really played growing up, but I, but I played so many
• 42:55
  other sports and, and I ultimately picked up the game in
• 42:57
  my 20s because, you know, I was just, I was totally burnt on
• 43:03
  playing college basketball and I was burnt on playing college
• 43:05
  golf. And so my husband's like, why
• 43:07
  don't you try hockey? And I'm like, sure, why not?
• 43:11
  That guy used to play on the pond with the boys.
• 43:12
  No problem. So that was that one was that
• 43:15
  one was for sure weird, you know, backer like I never played
• 43:21
  soccer growing up. It was just one of the few
• 43:23
  sports I never never really played.
• 43:24
  So yeah, that 1 was definitely having to learn.
• 43:28
  So you were like Ted Lasso. You were like reading a book on
• 43:31
  soccer. Absolutely.
• 43:32
  Yeah, yeah. Love it.
• 43:34
  But again, right, Like what? What is the skill level?
• 43:37
  I think my kids were six and seven at the time, right?
• 43:40
  The skill level is being able to organize 6 year olds and a line
• 43:43
  to kick a ball. Totally.
• 43:45
  And how do you like turn make it into like some sort of game
• 43:48
  revolving around animals? Like there's a crab, there's a
• 43:51
  dinosaur. So I looked at it and here's the
• 43:55
  other thing too is that is that I could spend my time driving my
• 43:57
  kids to all these things, but it was actually much more enjoyable
• 44:00
  for me to get be active with them.
• 44:03
  And even though it was them and like 10 other kids, it was still
• 44:07
  me being there with them and having the laughs and having,
• 44:11
  you know, the fun games and having that totally different
• 44:14
  side to you that maybe they don't get to see because you're
• 44:18
  always busy, you know, going somewhere, doing something
• 44:22
  stressed out about being late. We're not having a snack or
• 44:25
  whatever it is. Yeah, and I didn't even think
• 44:27
  about the fact that you're dropping them off at the
• 44:31
  activity, the practice, the game is an hour, an hour and a half.
• 44:34
  What are you really getting done in that hour?
• 44:37
  And yes, you don't need to coach all of the sports, all of the
• 44:40
  activities. But if it's once or twice a
• 44:42
  week, I feel very inspired. Tiffany, I'm going to, I'm going
• 44:45
  to take this away. I'm going to think about this.
• 44:48
  Wow. And now tell me about your
• 44:50
  family. So we are celebrating Women's
• 44:52
  History Month. It is March 2025.
• 44:55
  Tell me about Grandma Millie. Millie, tell me about your
• 44:58
  family history and how that's also been an inspiration to you
• 45:01
  and your mothering life and your career.
• 45:05
  So Grandma Millie is my grandmother on my mother's side.
• 45:09
  Short little Italian woman. So you know your stereotypical
• 45:14
  woman. Put the picture in your mind.
• 45:15
  No, no. But she was, um, so forward for
• 45:22
  her generation, born in the 1920s, she, she actually played
• 45:28
  baseball and that's how she met my grandfather.
• 45:32
  She created some kind of a ruckus on the baseball field and
• 45:35
  a fight broke out and my grandfather ended up swooping
• 45:37
  her up and throwing her in the car going let's go.
• 45:41
  What? Yeah.
• 45:43
  Yeah. So, So she was, she was, she was
• 45:44
  a baseball player. And she was in a fight.
• 45:47
  She was in the fight. She instigated it from what I
• 45:50
  hear. I don't.
• 45:51
  Amazing. And she got scooped out of
• 45:54
  there. So she so she was tough, right?
• 45:56
  She was one of those women that knew like she knew the rules of
• 45:59
  the game and she let the umpires know when they when they were
• 46:02
  wrong and why she was right. And my grandfather had done a
• 46:07
  lot of baseball coaching. So that was an alignment for
• 46:09
  them and, and ultimately led to them getting married and, and,
• 46:12
  and kids and so on. She had the equivalent of a high
• 46:17
  school education, which at the time wasn't surprising, but um,
• 46:25
  she did end up having a, she was a beautician.
• 46:30
  She opened up a part time beauty salon in her basement, which was
• 46:34
  unique for the time, right? And you're talking about the 40s
• 46:37
  and the 50s women didn't work, right.
• 46:39
  But she had a salon in the basement of her house and, um,
• 46:44
  anyway, so she just, she was just real bigger than life
• 46:47
  personality and, and very influential for me as I was, as
• 46:52
  I was growing up, a little bit traditional at times.
• 46:55
  I can remember arguing with her when, when she was quizzing me,
• 46:59
  it's about why I needed a car. She's like boys need cars, not
• 47:01
  girls. So I'm still a little bit in
• 47:05
  there. Oht there's still a little bit
• 47:07
  in there, but but but anytime I talk about Grandma Millie,
• 47:10
  there's some Grandma Millie isms that that'll slide in and out of
• 47:13
  my social media. I think there's a couple Grandma
• 47:15
  Millie references in the book. Meantime, I talk about Grandma
• 47:19
  Millie on, on social media. Her, her posts usually garner a
• 47:24
  lot of attention and I think folks get, get a laugh out of,
• 47:27
  out of the relationship that we had.
• 47:30
  So as we, as we look here at women's History Month, one of
• 47:32
  the things that I'm doing is I've kind of paged back through
• 47:36
  and, you know, between myself, my mom and then my grandmother.
• 47:41
  So, so between the three of us, grandma had a high school
• 47:44
  diploma my and and made sure that my mom got a got a college
• 47:48
  degree and I have a masters degree, right.
• 47:51
  So three very different educational experiences.
• 47:54
  And I can remember coming home from school, I'd always stop by
• 47:57
  my grandparents house on my, on my drive back there I was on my
• 48:00
  way back to my, my parents house anyway.
• 48:02
  So I'd stopped there. And she wanted to know every
• 48:06
  detail about college life. She wanted to know who my
• 48:08
  friends were, what parties I went to.
• 48:10
  She wanted to see the photos from the, from whatever it was I
• 48:13
  was doing and hear the stories and, and the inside jokes and,
• 48:17
  and I didn't necessarily recognize it then, but that was
• 48:21
  her way of living vicariously. I've been through my experiences
• 48:26
  because she didn't get to have that.
• 48:28
  I see this like the trend of paying it forward to an an
• 48:32
  uplifting the next generation in you and not to blow smoke up
• 48:36
  your ass, but like I really see you like you have two sons of
• 48:39
  whom I'm sure you're raising in a beautiful way to be great,
• 48:42
  great men in this world. But I can see how you're paying
• 48:45
  it forward to the women of whom you have mentored over the years
• 48:48
  and the book that you've written and really elevating that neck.
• 48:52
  And it's been probably not necessarily from like, and now
• 48:54
  you think everybody needs a doctor it but but more so from
• 48:58
  the perspective of like go out and do work that you love and
• 49:02
  ask for what you want and like be that now that next generation
• 49:06
  can really be that generation where they're not holding
• 49:08
  themselves back in the workforce because they're because they're
• 49:12
  women. So thanks for doing the good
• 49:13
  work. That's such a beautiful, such a
• 49:15
  beautiful story. Tiffany.
• 49:17
  Why? Why should somebody and who
• 49:19
  should be reading your book? Tell us, tell us the the reason
• 49:24
  for for reading the book that you've written.
• 49:27
  That sounds so beautiful. So the book was really written
• 49:30
  for women that are maybe 5 to 8 years into their career.
• 49:33
  That was, that was the picture of the person as I was writing
• 49:36
  the book. However, I have found that there
• 49:40
  is some camaraderie in the stories that I'm telling from
• 49:44
  women of all ages. So while if you're, you know, 5
• 49:47
  to 5 to 8 years in, you probably are hitting a lot of these
• 49:52
  things for the first time, you may find some of the, the, the
• 49:55
  stories and the, the tips and the tools very helpful and very
• 49:59
  relevant. I think if you are, um, you
• 50:04
  know, even 20 years into, into your position, you may be like,
• 50:07
  oh, I haven't tried that yet or nobody ever told me that.
• 50:13
  Particularly on performance reviews.
• 50:14
  I have always have the great conversations when I talk about
• 50:16
  performance reviews because there are some things that I
• 50:20
  feel like we never were told or maybe we just didn't know what.
• 50:24
  We didn't know not to say that, men.
• 50:25
  Like taxes, you're not told how to do a performance review.
• 50:29
  Yeah, and not to say that men are are taught any differently.
• 50:32
  It's just once you, once somebody gives you a few tips,
• 50:36
  you're like, oh, that totally makes sense.
• 50:38
  I don't know why no one said this earlier.
• 50:41
  So. So that's really the The Who.
• 50:44
  And you know what I hope for them to get out of it is just
• 50:47
  something that's useful. Now, is everything in my book
• 50:50
  going to be useful to you? Is it going to be relevant?
• 50:52
  No, probably not. Are you gonna agree with
• 50:53
  everything that I say? No, probably not.
• 50:56
  But like anything else, there's always a nugget or two that you
• 50:59
  can take away from from anything.
• 51:02
  For sure. And I mean, nobody's writing in
• 51:04
  a book. I mean, I've yet to see in books
• 51:07
  that I read about parenting or motherhood, nobody talks about
• 51:11
  specifically when should you tell your workplace or stories
• 51:14
  around when you should tell them that you're you're pregnant.
• 51:17
  So I think that in and of itself, just the fact that
• 51:19
  you're even talking about that, having a position, sharing some
• 51:22
  wisdom or advice, I think is phenomenal.
• 51:24
  And where can everybody find you get your book if they want to
• 51:28
  learn more from you? So the book is called That's Not
• 51:30
  the Help I Need Real Talk for Women Winning at Work and you
• 51:35
  can buy it on Amazon. You can follow me on LinkedIn.
• 51:40
  So professionally, I'm not on LinkedIn socially, I'm out on
• 51:43
  Instagram and it's Tiffany Rosick.
• 51:46
  And you can also go to my website.
• 51:49
  I have Tiffany rossak.com. There's some tidbits out there.
• 51:52
  You could also sign up for a newsletter out on my website.
• 51:55
  If you're, if you're interested in the newsletter, I'll tell you
• 51:57
  that the newsletter is maybe once a month.
• 52:01
  And it's one of those things where I, I can appreciate that
• 52:05
  we all get too many emails and they're all signed up for too
• 52:08
  many things. So I really don't send out a
• 52:10
  lot. It's maybe once a month and it's
• 52:11
  just tidbits here and there. So I don't feel like I'm going
• 52:14
  to spam you forever if you if you sign up for that.
• 52:17
  Lovely. Well, thank you so much for
• 52:19
  coming on the show. It's been such a pleasure to
• 52:21
  chat with you and just get wisdom from somebody a few years
• 52:24
  ahead with teenagers. Oh my God, can't even imagine
• 52:28
  what that's like. So we really appreciate you
• 52:30
  coming on. Well, thank you so much, Andrea.
• 52:32
  That's great. It's been great.
• 52:36
  Thank you so much for listening and since you made it this far,
• 52:39
  please share this episode with a fellow parent who you love,
• 52:42
  respect, and want to support. And while you're at it, hit me
• 52:46
  up on Instagram at All Figured Out.
• 52:48
  Andrea, I would love to meet you and hear what you are trying to
• 52:51
  figure out these days.