202. Love Mondays Again: Tammy Alvarez’s Guide to Career Transformation

[00:00:07] Welcome to episode 202 of Girl, Take the Lead, where each week we explore womanhood and leadership. And I'm your host, Yolanda Canny.

[00:00:17] Tammy Alvarezs, Gen X, joins me today to discuss her new book, Escaping the Career Trap, Transform Your Apathy, A Self-Leaders Blueprint for High Achievers Who Want to Experience True Career Fulfillment.

[00:00:34] Tammy is the CEO of the Career Winner Circle, author, professional keynote speaker, inspirational coach, and former corporate executive.

[00:00:45] Her spirited, break-all-the-rules approach blends C-suite experience with a pragmatic, results-based coaching style that helps business professionals create a big impact and love every Monday again.

[00:01:03] Tammy's book is written for people who feel disenfranchised. And the so what? Is that you start to become the CEO of You, Inc., and then everything changes.

[00:01:17] Tammy Alvarezs, Gen X, auràcies.

[00:01:19] Some of the topics we covered were career trap examination, research findings around apathy, how to transform apathy, or just good enough, being the CEO of your career and life, beyond personal branding, aligning companies and personal employee ambitions, personal exploration of our passion,

[00:01:44] and skills we need to build resilience by failing successfully.

[00:01:52] Enjoy the listen. And here you go.

[00:01:57] Well, Tammy, welcome to Girl Take the Lead. I think we're going to have a great conversation.

[00:02:01] So thank you for joining us. Thank you, Yolanda, for the invite. I've been so

[00:02:05] excited to do this recording with you. So finally here. Yeah. And why don't you introduce

[00:02:11] yourself first to our listeners and our viewers? That would be helpful. Absolutely. So I'm Tammy

[00:02:16] Alvarez and I'm the founder of the Career Winner Circle, where we empower business leaders to make

[00:02:21] a big impact and love every Monday again. And I am a, and we're recording on a Monday. So hopefully

[00:02:28] you woke up really excited about your day today. And I spent my corporate career, much of my corporate

[00:02:34] career in and around Wall Street. And when I ended, I was, you know, a C-level managing director,

[00:02:41] leading over 3000 people in 35 countries. And I loved my job until I didn't. And I remember

[00:02:49] not loving it anymore. And so I ultimately made a big decision. So I cashed out of Wall Street about

[00:02:55] seven years ago. I moved to a tropical island off the coast of Belize in Central America.

[00:03:01] It started, I mean, it's just absolutely all the things. And so, so now today we work with businesses

[00:03:08] and individuals to really help solve the problem of like, I hate my job. You know, everything is just

[00:03:16] good enough. We've got this apathetic haze that's kind of hanging out in, in corporate America. And,

[00:03:22] and so that's what we are here to do is to eradicate that apathetic haze on an individual

[00:03:27] and an organizational level. And it's so much fun leaning into that kind of purpose-filled work.

[00:03:32] Well, tell us about your book because your book has an incredible title.

[00:03:38] Thank you.

[00:03:40] Subtlety has never been my strength so long, right? So, um, you know, the subtlety of a sledgehammer

[00:03:45] half the time, but the book is called Escaping the Career Trap, Transform Your Apathy into Ambition

[00:03:50] and Never Hate Mondays Again. It's got gorgeous golden handcuffs on the front, which I think a lot of us

[00:03:55] who have, have been in that situation can relate to. And I'm super excited to announce literally

[00:04:01] yesterday, I found out that the book took three first place awards in, uh, the BookFest competition

[00:04:08] for this year. So I'm really excited about that in terms of work culture, professional development

[00:04:13] and career. So it's nice to get that acknowledgement given it's my, my first book and maybe my only given

[00:04:18] how hard it was to write. Um, but yeah, it's, and it's a journey. It's, it's a guided journey

[00:04:23] to really find that elusive career fulfillment. And, um, and it's really designed to be that step

[00:04:30] by step, you know, do this first, second, third based a lot on our coaching practices in terms of

[00:04:36] helping mid to senior level leaders pivot. Um, and then moving into some of that leadership and some

[00:04:42] of that business stuff in terms of being able to pay it forward and, and truly thrive. And, um,

[00:04:48] the, the emails that I get and just random strangers saying, I read this has made such a big impact

[00:04:52] on me, uh, was really, really exciting. So I don't think you explained though, the title.

[00:04:59] Okay. Like how you got to the title, like, how did I get to that title? Um, you know, it was

[00:05:05] interesting because we're all my best ideas come from is usually with a martini in my hand, right?

[00:05:09] So we were at the time we had moved to Mexico city. So we moved to Mexico city about a year ago

[00:05:15] after living in Belize for five years. And we had a, we moved into a new building. So we had a happy

[00:05:19] hour just to meet our neighbors and that kind of thing. And we were all talking about what we do

[00:05:24] for a living. And, you know, I was just trying to explain the problem we solved, you know, of course,

[00:05:29] after a few martinis and I'm like, it's like the escape room where you have all these, you know,

[00:05:34] riddles and you just, you know, you're trying to solve the code, but you can't get out of the room in

[00:05:38] time. And so that's kind of where the career trap came from is, is, you know, just kind of sharing

[00:05:43] those journeys and how frustrating it feels for, for that to happen. Because I think a lot of us feel

[00:05:49] stuck and a lot of us, you know, we know we're good at what we do. We certainly know what we don't

[00:05:55] like to do, but we don't know what we do want to do. And, and that feeling of being in your mid forties

[00:06:02] and, and committing so much to, to what, you know, one track, if you will, in your career,

[00:06:08] and then realizing that, all right, this is not going to play for much longer, but then having no

[00:06:13] idea what to do next is really frustrating. And, and so a lot of us do feel trapped. And so we can,

[00:06:21] we can break that cycle and do better for ourselves and for those that we love.

[00:06:24] I love it. And I know you've got apathy in there. Transform your apathy to ambition. So how does apathy,

[00:06:34] how's it like, I started to think about that a little bit, like, okay, so apathy is basically

[00:06:39] not caring. Right. So is it like, you don't care anymore, whether you go to work or not,

[00:06:46] or you don't care about what, what do you see there?

[00:06:49] Yeah. So I'll, I'll share with you some of what the research shows and then what I'm seeing and what

[00:06:53] I felt, right. Cause you always, you know, you coach and serve those who were, were, you know,

[00:06:58] were like you, I think. And, and that's where the most effective coaching comes in.

[00:07:01] Um, so Gartner did two different research studies and they were both for global knowledge or global

[00:07:08] knowledge workers. And so the one study asked global knowledge workers, how satisfied are you

[00:07:14] with your job? And that number came back at 80%, which is a high number. I was like really surprised

[00:07:21] to see that, but then they asked another question in terms of basically how much do you care about

[00:07:26] what you do? And that's the number that went down to 20%. Wow. So we've got 60% of our population

[00:07:34] that is walking around in this apathetic haze. And I remember sitting in Chicago this, this winter,

[00:07:41] January, I was getting ready to kick off a three-day strategy session with one of my clients.

[00:07:44] And I was there early and it was a big building, like full of all kinds of companies. So I grabbed a

[00:07:49] cup of coffee and I sat in the lobby and I just watched. Cause again, I'm in Mexico city. I hang

[00:07:53] out in my office all the time. So I don't get to see the daily grind very often. And I just started

[00:07:58] watching and I was like, it looked like the zombie apocalypse had a meet in Chicago. People were

[00:08:05] shuffling in there. You know, they were looking at their feet. No one was making eye contact. No one

[00:08:10] was smiling. And I was like, what has happened? You know? And, and so from, you know, from a business

[00:08:18] perspective, having employees, you know, that are checked out can be devastating. And from an

[00:08:24] individual perspective, being checked out has so many negative implications in terms of your personal

[00:08:31] quality of life, your long-term earning potential. And so there's all of these reasons to fix it.

[00:08:38] And what I've always been really curious about is like, okay, you've got two groups that are,

[00:08:44] have a very symbiotic relationship, employer and employee. Employers don't want zombies

[00:08:50] and employees don't want to feel like zombies. So if two groups that want the same thing,

[00:08:58] but they keep getting further and further apart. And it's like, why is that? Because you hear about

[00:09:05] all the employee satisfaction and pulse surveys and engagement and all these things yet nothing is

[00:09:10] working, right? Let's be honest. Like all the things we're throwing at this, nothing seems to

[00:09:14] be working. And so we're missing a very, very key element here. And this is from an individual as well

[00:09:20] from a business perspective. And what I strongly believe is that when you connect your personal

[00:09:28] ambition and your personal aspirations to the company's biggest goals, you're going to start to

[00:09:34] see a difference. So what are the things that you get out of bed for in the morning, no matter what you

[00:09:39] do for a living, what are those things you can do for 12 hours a day and end the day more energized

[00:09:45] than when you started it. And when you can tap into that and put that to use on a more regular basis,

[00:09:53] individuals are more fulfilled and companies start to thrive. And so this apathetic haze is really,

[00:09:59] you know, it's, it's crushing individual careers, you know, and livelihoods and lifestyles,

[00:10:04] as well as killing business performance. So is that what you, when you say we get kind of stuck

[00:10:10] and we don't want to wake up on Monday morning, is that, is that app, is that the apathetic part of

[00:10:16] us or it's just good enough? You feel like you're on this hamster wheel, you get that pain in your

[00:10:21] stomach on Sunday night. Cause you know, what's coming on Monday. I like, I don't want to suffer

[00:10:25] these fools another minute, right? It's like, I can't do this, but it doesn't hurt enough to make a

[00:10:29] change because change is hard and scary. And, you know, we can go down all that, you know, that

[00:10:33] rabbit hole if you'd like to, but I think so many people stay stuck in that good enough phase

[00:10:40] until it's forced on you to not be good enough, right? Because change will happen whether you drive

[00:10:46] it or whether someone else is driving it, things are always changing. I mean, we are in probably one of

[00:10:51] the most dynamic cycles, you know, of career and business that I've ever seen, you know, and the

[00:10:57] it's just keep on coming, right. You know, in terms of all the disruption. And so you can either be the

[00:11:02] control, you can control that or someone else can control it for you. And it's that apathy that just

[00:11:08] people stay stuck in until it's too late. So when you talk about taking control, how, how does one

[00:11:17] empower themselves in order to let that go? Right. It's like, I can't control anything. I don't control

[00:11:26] the hiring, the firing, who gets ripped, who doesn't, but here's how you take control.

[00:11:32] And the one thing that really surprised me about the book and I'll walk in a bit for just a second

[00:11:37] is that this book is written for the disenfranchised worker. Let's not kid ourselves,

[00:11:41] right? If you hate Mondays, you need to read the book. And the thing I never expected was that

[00:11:47] companies are paying me to come deliver this message to their organizations. I was like, you do realize

[00:11:54] that the first two chapters I talk about how messed up absolutely everything is. And that's kind of all

[00:11:58] your fault, right? I'm like, you do get that. And, and because the message in the book, the, the,

[00:12:03] so what to this is that as an individual basis, if you start to treat your career like a business

[00:12:11] and you become the CEO of you ink, everything changes Yolanda. It's amazing.

[00:12:18] I know. I've started thinking of myself that way. Like, you know, I'll, I'll think, Oh, well,

[00:12:25] you know, you should be editing right now or, you know, posting and I'll go, wait a minute.

[00:12:30] I'm the CEO here and I get to decide what a different mood people would be in if they had

[00:12:39] that point of view going into work. Absolutely. And when you think about it, we already have the

[00:12:46] skills that we need, you know, how to drive strategy. You know, how businesses run, you know,

[00:12:51] how to make sure you've got a good Salesforce and a good marketing team and that your products and

[00:12:55] services are good and that your pricing is right. And that your customers are satisfied. If you take

[00:12:59] these things that you do every day without thinking and apply them to you and your business,

[00:13:06] which is you ink, then you show up differently. Yeah. Is that kind of like, sorry,

[00:13:12] is that kind of like personal branding? Do you see personal branding the same way?

[00:13:17] Personal branding. That is absolutely a part of it. Right. But it goes way beyond that. So for example,

[00:13:22] you know, we don't think of our power base, our network as our sales team, but we need to.

[00:13:30] Right. When, you know, a business without a sales team is dead, right? No, you know, no new customers.

[00:13:36] And so who in your organization and in your industry are saying amazing things about you when

[00:13:42] you're not in the room, right? Who's out there being your champion and say, Oh my goodness,

[00:13:48] we've got to get Yolanda at the table. Cause she's the only one who can do this for us.

[00:13:53] And that's, you know, that's part of it. How often do we do a business strategy when we're trying to get

[00:13:58] funding or anything like that? It's like, okay, here's what it's going to look like the next two

[00:14:02] years when we're done. But do we do that for us? Not really. And when we think about marketing,

[00:14:09] there's your personal branding, right? When we think about customer service, what if we treated

[00:14:14] our work frenemies, you know, those ones that just make our lives miserable at every chance we get.

[00:14:20] And what if we treated those coworkers as our most valuable customer?

[00:14:26] Like how would that change our interaction, our outlook, and ultimately the impact,

[00:14:32] that we're driving for the organization, right? You also don't make these decisions,

[00:14:38] which some people believe you don't have a choice. How many times do you see in corporate

[00:14:44] where someone has the honor of getting more work because they're really good at what they do,

[00:14:51] but they get no compensation change and they get no title change. I'm like, let me get this right.

[00:14:55] You know, as a business, if I'm working with a company and they're like, listen,

[00:14:58] we need you to do more work. I'm like, excellent. Let's renegotiate that statement of work.

[00:15:03] Happy to do it. But we don't do that, right? We say yes and hope that somebody is going to

[00:15:09] recognize it, you know, or how many times we say, just do this and I'll make it up to you on bonus

[00:15:13] season. You know, hoping the person doesn't get fired or develop amnesia by then.

[00:15:18] Now, if a client said to me, I need you to do work right now, but I might

[00:15:22] probably be able to pay you in about eight months.

[00:15:24] I'd be like, hard pass on that, but thank you for the offer. You know, and there's ways to do this

[00:15:30] within an organization to where you are actually seen as a stronger leader because you say yes and

[00:15:39] say no, but you say yes. And let's negotiate this today, right? For this. And so, and there's ways

[00:15:46] to do that. And so when you start to show up and treat your career like a business and you start to

[00:15:51] look at what you do and the impact, then you're not going to sit on your hands when a dumb idea

[00:15:55] comes across the table, right? You're going to be like, oh no, this makes no sense. Let's find a

[00:16:00] different way. Or you're going to be the first one to say, listen, I'm seeing some trends from a

[00:16:04] customer perspective. We're getting the same kind of feedback, good or bad, you know, new products or

[00:16:08] things you need to fix instead of just saying, well, it's not my job. Right. Right. I'm just going to keep

[00:16:14] on moving on. And so you feel more engaged. You're doing the things that you love and the

[00:16:17] business is thriving in the same time. And so that whole CEO of your career piece of things

[00:16:23] makes all the difference in the world for individuals and for businesses. Is it a shift

[00:16:29] for leadership to hear managers speak in this way? I mean, do you almost have to change the culture for

[00:16:39] the entire organization? And is that who you tend to work with? You know, I think the idea of culture

[00:16:47] change is enough to make grown men cry, right? It's like millions of dollars, years and years

[00:16:54] and years, right? And like nothing to show for it, which is really kind of what it's been.

[00:16:58] And so, um, so it's less about the culture as an organization and more about tapping into those

[00:17:04] individual aspirations and then using those for the collective good. And that's what we're showing

[00:17:10] organizations to do. We've got, we've got a, um, a business to business offer called Amplify

[00:17:14] 360. And it's designed to really eradicate this apathetic haze so that companies are seeing

[00:17:21] increases in revenue, profitability, quality, productivity, customer satisfaction, and retention.

[00:17:27] But here's what we do. It's really interesting. We take a three-pronged approach because it's,

[00:17:31] it's a multi-pronged problem, but we do it quick. We're in and out like three months.

[00:17:36] And so we work with the individuals to teach them how to be the CEO of their career.

[00:17:41] Then we work with the leaders to teach them how to not screw this up.

[00:17:46] And then we work with the executive team and the board. What are your policies? What are you

[00:17:52] measuring? What does good look like? Let's make sure we're taking the organization in the right

[00:17:56] direction of travel, right? Some basic things like how many times you see, you've got to stay

[00:18:02] enrolled for two years before you can take a new job. Well, that's a great way to send your best

[00:18:06] people to your competition, right? Or you're going to promote you, but we can only give you 20% more,

[00:18:12] even though it's, would cost me 45% more to hire somebody from the outside. Like on what planet

[00:18:18] does any of these things make sense? So there's a million other rabbit holes that we go into with

[00:18:22] the board and with the executive team in terms of what you measure. And I think one of the most

[00:18:27] interesting stories that highlights the impact of ambition, right? And aspiration is I had,

[00:18:35] I was leading a global team. It was a big team, but we had like 10 managers and they all did the exact

[00:18:42] same function for different parts of the business and different parts of the world. And my team was

[00:18:48] miserable. I mean, I could not get them to get excited about anything. And didn't matter what I

[00:18:53] tried, like it was just a train wreck. And I was like, all right, something's got to change here.

[00:18:58] So I just spitballed it. I'm like, okay, design your perfect job for me. What would it look like?

[00:19:03] And cause clearly you guys are like not at all loving what we're doing, but it was super important.

[00:19:08] And these were really good and talented people. And it turned out like each of these groups did five

[00:19:14] or six things. Like they drove strategy, they onboarded customers, they did all the data,

[00:19:21] you know, they did all these different things in a silo, right? For their, for their groups.

[00:19:25] But as it turns out, one of my leaders just ate strategy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He loved

[00:19:30] it. He hated data and really didn't care about the customers. I hate to say it, but he just didn't,

[00:19:35] he was not definitely a client facing person, but he was strategy. Another one just ate data,

[00:19:41] loved it. Like, give me more, give me more. And so what we ended up doing is reworking the team

[00:19:46] to where the one person led strategy for everyone. Another person led data for everyone and another

[00:19:52] one for customers, another one for onboarding and so on. And we moved the teams underneath them based

[00:19:59] on the things that they loved. Yeah. Now I didn't have terrific. That really does. It was amazing.

[00:20:05] Like a nice solution to require no HR involvement, which was important because that were slowed me down.

[00:20:10] No reorg changes in terms of levels or titles or any of that stuff. And I did not have to redo our

[00:20:16] processes because they were all doing the things that they loved. They worked in handoffs off.

[00:20:21] They work off the handoffs together in a seamless way and things just fixed themselves quite literally.

[00:20:28] And then all of a sudden the team is thriving. Well, I also think sometimes our talents and our

[00:20:34] skills kind of rise to the surface and you, you can't help, but not do it. Like one thing that was

[00:20:43] a thread through my career was, you know, put me into a creative role, a way that I just have to

[00:20:49] brainstorm or look at problem solving, or put me in charge of a team that we've never done it before.

[00:20:55] That kind of thing was like, you, you got the best of me when that happened. And you got the worst of me

[00:21:04] when you put me into something that was mediocre and it was routine and it was the same thing over and

[00:21:11] over again. And I've often thought that, you know, people go into jobs thinking of the title

[00:21:19] and not so much of the skill or the talent that's involved with that job. And it's hard to interview

[00:21:27] for that because people are tied to, well, I'm going to be doing this and this, this, this,

[00:21:32] as opposed to is that maximizing the best of me? I get, I imagine you must see that a fair amount in

[00:21:40] your life. Right. And I think a big part of making sure that you're running the right race

[00:21:46] is to check in as to why you're doing that. I got so many people that come through. It's like,

[00:21:51] I want to be a, this, I want to be a C-suite. I want to be this. And I ask a very simple question.

[00:21:55] I'm like, why? Yeah. Like most of the time those jobs are not fun. So why do you want that? Well,

[00:22:00] it's because I'm supposed to, it's the next thing I want the Range Rover, like my neighbors have

[00:22:05] like all of these things that kind of fall hollow. And it's like, well, what if,

[00:22:10] have your cake and eat it too? Like what if you didn't have to sell out to really get everything

[00:22:15] that you wanted? And so let's get really clear on that. Why and why it's important to you,

[00:22:21] because there's nothing worse than killing yourself working and you finally get there.

[00:22:27] And then you look around and you're like, is this all there is? Yeah. It's like, I busted my stuff for

[00:22:32] what? Like, you know, for this. And, um, and that's how, you know, you're running the wrong race.

[00:22:36] Yeah. Um, you know, so finding places where you can play to your strengths is so important.

[00:22:41] What do you think of when, um, I hear sometimes from millennials, like we should know our purpose.

[00:22:49] Like, you know, I made one, right. So I know the millennial site, you know, guilty. I got one too.

[00:22:56] Um, you know, and I know you've got, you know, you've got one of each, right. So, um, in terms of

[00:23:01] that and, and here's where I always find, like, here's how I look at purpose. And I always have.

[00:23:06] And so I'm in financial services. I was a wall street executive, right? I mean, that's not sexy.

[00:23:11] I mean, it looks like on TV and stock markets, all that kind of fun stuff, but the day-to-day work

[00:23:15] is not exciting in many, in many cases. And so I always like, and I never really felt like this

[00:23:22] massive purpose for myself. Like there are people out there that are compelled to save the world and I

[00:23:26] am so thankful for them. I'm just not one of them. Right. And so I was like, what do I do? Like,

[00:23:31] how do I really line up and get excited? And I, for me, I found one of at least one of three things

[00:23:37] had to be present. So I needed to either be passionate about the work, like is the impact

[00:23:43] that we're making significant enough? Does it make a big deal? If the work was not good enough,

[00:23:50] then I need to be passionate about my people. And do I love the people that I'm working with? And do I

[00:23:55] love the team and all that kind of fun stuff. And if that didn't exist, then the last thing was I

[00:24:02] needed to be passionate about my growth. And if I wasn't personally growing and developing and all

[00:24:08] that kind of fun stuff, then it was time to pull the cord and do something very, very different.

[00:24:13] Yeah. And I think what you're describing too, is going through the personal exploration

[00:24:20] and doing the work to find out what it is for you. Because I can remember, I don't know where I got this

[00:24:28] comparison, but you could be a barista and show up and say, well, I make coffee. Or you can be the barista

[00:24:36] who shows up and says, I make everybody smile first thing in the morning by giving them their coffee. And

[00:24:42] such a difference in what you're doing and the purpose of it. But I do think you have to kind of

[00:24:48] be through that apathetic haze so that you're not in that deep resignation and you can see some optimism,

[00:24:56] some ambition for yourself. But I got to think with the mass exodus we've seen of women at the sea level

[00:25:04] and not even getting in there, that there's a point where you just go, yeah, it's just not worth it.

[00:25:13] And in many cases it's not right. I mean, we're, we're supposed to do this and we're supposed to

[00:25:19] want this. And, you know, I think COVID was a good reset for a lot of us in terms of recalibrating

[00:25:25] on where we really find our joy and where we find our purpose and our meaning in terms of our,

[00:25:30] our, you know, our sense of self. And there are so many options out there that, you know,

[00:25:36] playing the corporate game and, and, you know, just taking that one rung after the next, after the

[00:25:41] next oftentimes is not the right answer for men or women. And I think companies who understand that

[00:25:48] and organizations who create a more adaptive environment will have the best talent and thrive.

[00:25:55] And so I see a lot of people moving into middle market sectors. I see a lot of people saying,

[00:26:02] you know, I'm not doing this whole big thing anymore. I'm done with politics, with the silliness,

[00:26:06] with all that stuff. And I'm going to take my skills that I've learned and be able to play bigger

[00:26:11] and have a bigger impact at a medium-sized organization. I remember one of my biggest aha moments,

[00:26:17] I had moved from big banks to a medium-sized bank. And I was able to create a three-year strategy

[00:26:23] strategy and actually deliver it. I was like, wow, this is nice. It's like 700 reorgs and all

[00:26:29] these different strategy changes and everything else that's going on, or, you know, investors in

[00:26:33] the stock market saying, oh, this is a terrible idea. We're taking all your money back. And so,

[00:26:38] you know, so being clear on the why. Yeah. And then the other thing we talk about a lot is,

[00:26:43] you know, obviously playing to your strengths and finding the things that light you up. But when you're

[00:26:47] able to do that and find an environment where that is in high demand and in short supply,

[00:26:54] now you're having fun. Because the things that you've worked so hard to craft and the things

[00:26:59] that come naturally for you are the things that are most needed. And, you know, I've got tons of,

[00:27:05] like, one of my clients, Phil, is a great example. He was career financial services and he was bored

[00:27:11] and he was starting to get sidelined, right? You age out after a while. He was starting to get

[00:27:14] sidelined. Non-financial services, it's very common to reduce your staff by 10 to 15% every year.

[00:27:21] That just is how it's done. And, you know, from that perspective, you still have to innovate.

[00:27:26] You still have to keep your employees motivated. You still have to create new things and serve

[00:27:30] your customers and do all this. He didn't even know that was a skill. Now, here comes a very,

[00:27:38] very well-known startup that everyone knows and uses today. But when they were young, right,

[00:27:43] it was a land of milk and honey. Every time there was a problem, here's more money.

[00:27:48] Every time, you know, here's more tech, here's more tools, here's more money.

[00:27:51] And then here, you know, so it's the land of always you have more. And these young men who

[00:27:58] started this organization, they grew up in this company. And so now they go public,

[00:28:03] their competition gets their act together and they're getting their clocks cleaned.

[00:28:08] And the market is not happy. And the board is not happy. But yet, despite how smart these men are,

[00:28:16] they do not know how to do more with less because they've never had to do it.

[00:28:21] So now Phil comes in knowing nothing about this industry whatsoever, but because doing more with

[00:28:26] less is in his DNA and he takes a service-based mindset to show other people how to do it too.

[00:28:33] Now he's an MVP, right? He's sitting at the cool kids table every day. He's on all the strategic

[00:28:38] conversations and he's helping drive the organization forward, right? And so when you

[00:28:43] can find those things where it's just so natural for you and so needed elsewhere, that's where the

[00:28:49] magic happens. That's so cool. I mean, I spent five years, six years maybe with startups that kept

[00:28:57] failing. But you know, that's where the job market was at the time and, you know, made sense sort of

[00:29:07] at the time, I thought. But I love what you're saying about looking at the middle size market.

[00:29:16] That's interesting. Yeah. Good. Well, you know, we could keep talking forever, but

[00:29:21] is there anything that we didn't cover that you'd like to, you know, there's one, yeah,

[00:29:27] there's one last thing I'd love to leave our listeners with just in terms of, you know, some,

[00:29:32] some mad skills to be able to build some resilience, right? Because I've always had the imposter

[00:29:37] syndrome. I never belonged to the table, you know, all these things in my mind, you know,

[00:29:41] as being the only female, the youngest one, I didn't get my degree until I was 40. Like I had all

[00:29:45] these things that were happening, but here's the secret sauce to being able to do these things.

[00:29:50] And early in my life, I learned how to fail successfully. And I think so often we have a very

[00:30:00] binary relationship with success and failure. We think they're opposites, but the reality is you

[00:30:05] can't succeed without having failed. And so if you're preventing failure, you're, or if you're

[00:30:12] avoiding failure, you're preventing success. And so if you can take on this experimental mindset

[00:30:17] where it's not pass fail, right, wrong, good, bad, but it's, what does this button do? Let's push it.

[00:30:23] Let's keep the things that worked and get rid of the things that didn't and try again.

[00:30:28] And if you can get into that mindset in terms of how you navigate your career and your business,

[00:30:34] then all of a sudden you are able to start to make some bigger plays and show up much more

[00:30:42] impactfully without having all of the head trauma that goes along with this, right. In terms of the

[00:30:47] sleepless nights and all the things that, that happened with that. So I think, you know, in terms

[00:30:51] of, you know, how do you make this happen and how do you do these things? And we've got to get really

[00:30:56] comfortable with being, you know, having that experimental mindset and kind of taking a

[00:30:59] scientific approach to it. I also like when you talk about failure, because one of the exercises I did

[00:31:07] not too long ago and I put it on as one of our episodes was doing a failure resume.

[00:31:13] And it really does damage to your thought that you needed to be perfect in a job. And that,

[00:31:21] you know, of course, when you're putting your resume together for a job, you appear to be perfect.

[00:31:25] That's why the exercise of doing a failure one was so great because I could see how

[00:31:32] I didn't replicate the same mistake. I learned, made a different one in the new job, but had a

[00:31:41] different question, you know, and, and I guess what I started to see was that failure is just kind of

[00:31:48] this reiteration of being human. And we, if we could like just change the way we look at even the word,

[00:31:59] it's not even, you know, if you're able to put learning and meaning to it, it's not failure.

[00:32:08] Well, I think the reality too, is nothing is a complete success or a complete failure ever.

[00:32:12] Right. Right.

[00:32:13] And so we own that narrative.

[00:32:16] Yeah.

[00:32:16] And so being, you know, for ourselves and for our business and for all of those things. So I think,

[00:32:20] you know, being really comfortable with that and, and I didn't know I was building that

[00:32:24] resilience, you know, it was one of those hindsight things where it's like, oh,

[00:32:27] that's how that didn't hurt so much. Right. In terms of making all these big changes and taking

[00:32:31] these big risks. But I do think that fear is probably one of the biggest things that hold

[00:32:36] people back from having a true fulfillment in their business and their careers. And when you get,

[00:32:41] when you solve for that everything just becomes a little bit easier.

[00:32:46] Yeah. That's a big one. The fear, the fear element is huge. And we spent a lot of time in a lot of our

[00:32:52] episodes trying to get at fear a little bit, just to break it up so that we can have, be an observer

[00:32:58] of it and not have it control us or trigger us or pull us, you know, that we can actually observe

[00:33:04] it better.

[00:33:05] Yeah. Well, and so often, right. We make things bigger than they are. I'm like, look under that bed,

[00:33:10] you know, are they monsters or are they dust bunnies? Like you just have to look.

[00:33:14] Yeah.

[00:33:15] Because most of the time it's like, I've been freaked out about this. It's like, why?

[00:33:18] Um, you know, but yeah, there's, there's a lot to unpack when it comes to fear. That's for sure.

[00:33:24] All right. Well, how can our listeners and viewers get in touch with you and follow you?

[00:33:29] Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I love when listeners reach out to me on LinkedIn. So send me a message,

[00:33:34] let me know what you thought about the episode, what you agreed with, what you didn't, all that stuff.

[00:33:37] Cause I love hearing about your journey. Um, and then, you know, whether your career or your business,

[00:33:42] you know, need some help reach out to us at career winner circle. We've got a team,

[00:33:46] you know, of coaches ready to chat and just learn a little bit more about you and see how we might be

[00:33:51] able to help. And then obviously, if you do not love Mondays, you need to grab that book.

[00:33:55] And, uh, if you had to escape in the career trap.com, uh, you'll get a signed hard copy and a

[00:34:00] bunch of free stuff that no one else gets. So while you can go to Amazon and audible and all that kind

[00:34:05] of fun stuff, pop into, um, to our website and we'll take extra special care of you.

[00:34:11] So I'd like to ask our guests, what would you tell your 20 something self today? Tammy,

[00:34:16] what would you tell yourself? Yep. I think I would tell my 20 something self. Um, I would teach

[00:34:24] her a very strong lesson in perspective. So many times, especially leading big teams and getting

[00:34:32] sucked into the, the corporate drama, everything felt like this episodic adventure where it was life

[00:34:38] for death. And the reality is unless you're saving lives or curing cancer, it's probably not.

[00:34:43] Had I known that and been able to navigate my career with that in mind earlier, um, you know,

[00:34:51] would have been an, you know, had a much more harmonized life in terms of, you know, family

[00:34:54] life and everything else. Um, but a lot less stress too. Right. So I think a heavy dose of

[00:34:59] perspective is what we all need as an early of an age as possible.

[00:35:03] Hmm. Well, thank you so much for joining us and thanks for the invite. This has been great.

[00:35:07] Yeah. And talk, talk this through a little bit. I think you hit on some great aspects of emotions

[00:35:13] and things that, you know, we're always interested in exploring. So thank you again.

[00:35:18] Pleasure. Thank you.

[00:35:22] Thank you for listening today. And we sure hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did,

[00:35:27] please leave a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts, tell a friend about us,

[00:35:32] join our public Facebook group, girl, take the lead or visit our website, girl, take the lead pod.com.

[00:35:40] We also have a YouTube channel where your subscription would be appreciated. Once you're

[00:35:46] on YouTube search at girl, take the lead. And we've recently expanded to YouTube music where you

[00:35:51] can find a video of this episode. And you can also see a video on Spotify. Here are three episode

[00:36:00] takeaways. One, we can break the career trap cycle by knowing what we want to do, what we love doing,

[00:36:11] what we want to do next and why we want to do it. If we find those things that are so natural for us

[00:36:20] and needed elsewhere, that's where the magic happens. Two, the Gartner research determined that 80% of

[00:36:30] respondents came back satisfied with their job and only 20% came back caring about what they do.

[00:36:40] When you connect your personal ambition to your personal aspiration with the company's goals,

[00:36:46] individuals are more fulfilled and companies thrive. Three, what if we treated our frenemies

[00:36:55] as our best customers or negotiate when new work comes along, we could be seen as a stronger leader.

[00:37:05] And there's some good quotes from the episode. We are the CEO of our own life.

[00:37:11] And our worth is not tied to our output. And the right path doesn't need to be hard.

[00:37:22] Our next episode will feature our guest, Judy Bornstein, Boomer and founder of C-Suite Resolutions,

[00:37:30] where she provides mediation, OMSFED services, conflict and negotiation coaching,

[00:37:37] and corporate training to organizations and executives. She has worked extensively as a CFO

[00:37:44] and chief compliance officer and brings her business experience to her work in addressing conflict.

[00:37:52] You are going to love her insights into conflict and what it's all about. And most importantly,

[00:38:00] how to deal with it. So do not miss this episode. Talk to you soon. Bye.