Why Women Get Stuck Climbing the Corporate Ladder with Erica Anderson Rooney

H: So, Erica, I have been dying to ask you this question. You know how you and I have talked about the glamorization of female entrepreneurship and how so many women are getting the message that if you don't take your ladder off the corporate wall and start building something for yourself, like how can you have any self respect? But in truth, many women, most women should and want to be in corporate life, but they're not reaching the levels of power, influence, leadership, and success that they long for. Most of them, as you know, get stranded in middle management, and I know that your mission is to help more women get into the positions of power and even more importantly, stay there. So where shall we start unpacking this?

G: Oh my gosh. There's so many places that we could start, but I think I'd love to set this context in the fact that we are all working in an institution that has been built by men, for men, and is still dominated by men. So the way we women walk through corporate America is very differently than the way a man walks through corporate America, which is why we get stuck. And as much as I would like to say that, you know, everything's equal and all of that congested, the reality is it's not right, like, there are systemic issues at play here. There's bias. There's harassment. There's all of that that we still have to contend with and there's something called the broken rung. And the broken rung is that very first step from entry level into management. And guess what, that's where gender disparity starts and when that happens, women can never catch up. And so from the jump, you're on 1 point and so I wanna lay that context because I don't think that people realize that. I don't think they recognize that it starts right away, but all of the other things like having kids, that sets women back in corporate America.

H: The mommy track.

G: Yeah. You're on the mommy track. You're further and further behind, and the gaps widen right? If you take a year or 2 years out to have kids your pay gap is substantially more than a woman who did not, and then you never catch up. So it's one of those things where it's like we are behind from the gent. It is impossible to treat men and women the same working through corporate America, and it's like, yeah, that is the reality. Now I'm not against corporate, that is my passion is helping women get into positions of power. I'm actually very pro corporate. I am a chief people officer today that has my own business. So I'm doing both, and I love aspects of corporate, but you do have to understand the differences between being a man and woman in corporate. You have to be able to figure out how to navigate that and how to do that without burning out.

H: I feel like women are being lied to from both directions. On the corporate side, as you've said, the broken rung like, if you look at the mission statements, if you look at the vision, if you look at the corporate values, they're plastered all over their website, they're on the wall of the home office. So many companies know they need to appear to be more progressive in order to hire the best talent. So what do they do, they hook us by telling us that we have a ladder, and we can advance based on our will and skill. But if that first rung is broken, they know it because they broke it. Now the other group of people that is lying to us is these web celebs and internet gurus who are preaching to a group of women who are frustrated in corporate, also nonprofit and academia, saying, don't even deal with this bullshit! Take your ladder and put it against your own wall because being an entrepreneur for a woman is easy, fast, fun, lucrative, virtually passive, and anyone can do it.

Just pay me $20,000 and I'll show you my secrets. But in truth, not only will most of those women who buy those courses, go to those coaching programs, sign up for those masterminds, not only not achieve the goal. There are biases and blind spots built into entrepreneurship as well. So it's not like we're going to be better off over here than we were over there. And I personally know, and I'm sure you do many women, after having built a successful entrepreneurship career, went back to corporate because there were things they genuinely missed.

G: Absolutely and here's the thing right? And I love how you say they broke that rung, not only did they break that wrong, but they're not doing anything to fix it. So if we look at corporate first, not a single organization out there is going to say, you know what, Diann we actually don't prioritize diversity. Nobody's gonna tell you that. They are going to get one woman in the c suite, and they're gonna check a box, and they're gonna move on. And then you've got the entrepreneur side of the house. Diann, I don't even wanna add up the dollars that I spent on my business before I made a dollar because it would probably cause me to stroke out.

H: Same and it's much too early to start drinking, we're recording this in the morning, so…

G: It's just both tracks are hard, right, there are challenges to both. There are pros to going down both avenues. And one thing that I love about you is that you have this, as you've called it on my podcast, the continual evolution, you've got to figure out what that is you wanna do at that time. So for me, corporate has been a great avenue for a very long time, and I've made it all the way to the c suite. And I have learned some of the most valuable lessons in my life by going through all of that and going through my entire climb. And now I'm at the top, and it's like, okay. I'm looking around. I'm at the top of this ladder.

I've got a pretty good gig but, like, is this what I want to do now? And I love bringing women into positions of power and keeping them there. Part of that has been because I've been in an elevated corporate role right, a position of power. People now see me as someone that, well, she's done it, and she can do it, and she can help other women do it. And, yes, I am going to move fully into that. But who knows if I stay there for forever. I might evolve again, and I might evolve again and again and again. I don't know. So the important thing is to pick the avenue that works for you at the time, But keep your mind open and be very, very aware of the pros and the cons of both sides.

H: Your story is somewhat unique in that you have figured out how to get through the purgatory of middle management where so many careers go to die, especially women's careers, because they somehow got past the broken rung and started to move up and so they thought, Great! Even though I'm a woman, even though I'm a woman of color, even though I'm a woman of color with a disability, whatever boxes the corporation was checking to cover their own asses, this individual woman thought, I'm winning. Maybe it's taking longer than I thought. Maybe I'm having to make lateral moves. Maybe I'm having to change companies and not get more money when I make that change, but I'm carving this path, you were able to get to the C suite and from that vantage point, make a decision to move into your own business, and you're doing it very strategically over time. Really smart, I have mad respect for how you're doing that. But what I find, and I'd love for us to talk about, is how many women get completely stranded middle management and are unable to advance beyond that. So something tells me, Erica, there's more than one broken fucking rung.

G: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So if you look at middle management, right, 60% of men hold those positions, and only 40% percent of women do, and the number gets smaller, smaller, smaller as you go up the ladder. Only 28% of women hold C level titles. So, like, there's rungs broken across the board. But I'm gonna tell you a story because it it really resonates with what you're asking. And a few years ago, I worked for a company that I absolutely idolized is the best word. I was connected to the mission and the vision, and I felt every single day that when I showed up, I had a purpose. I mean, I was looking at this career, and I was like, I'm gonna retire here. This is amazing.

H: It's a dream job right?

G: It was the dream job. I was on succession plans. I was in a stock retention program, and I had and still have a true advocate that made sure I was in every room that I needed to be in. And my advocate was 2 layers above me, I reported to a man, and I came to this man and I said, listen, I've got a great idea for a new way of working. It's gonna shift up the department and basically elevate my role, I would take over a larger scope. It would really solidify my next step up the rung. And he looked at it, and he's like, I like the way you're thinking this looks great, blah blah blah. I'll take it up the ladder. Zoo, at that same time, there was a change in leadership.

And ironically, the person that was my advocate was moved out of the department and a female was moved in. And I do think that there was some probably the belief that there's only room enough for one at the top kind of mentality looking back. But at the same time, the person I pitched that idea to pitched it as his own and the job that I had planned for myself pitched to someone else. And so at that moment, Diann, my entire career ladder had been cut off. Like, you don't want the rungs weren't broken, but it was cut off.

H: And they take a chainsaw to that.

G: Yeah. It was almost like there were and then they said, okay, well, don't worry. We have these two, like, sympathy roles for you that we're gonna offer you is essentially what it was, a consolation. They didn't call it that you know? But they gave me one option, which was not in line with my career aspirations or goals. And then they gave me a second option, which was actually a little bit of a lower level because they were adopting the new way of working that I said, which then put that role a level down to where I was. And so for so not so long, it was only a couple of weeks, but I was just like, I am stuck. Like, I have nowhere to go, but I know I can't stay here. I would go talk to my advocate who is still at the company, and he would say, Erica, I don't know what to tell you like, I am at a loss. I don't know why they did this.

I don't know what they're thinking. He's like, this is just crazy to me and so I was devastated for a very long time. And then I recognized that I number one, I wasn't done growing. And I believe that I was made for, like, big and magnificent some things, and I knew that neither of those moves were a move for me. And that's when I said in my brain, I was like, I'm going to figure something else out. And that is when I reached out to people in my network and I said, didn't you tell me you were looking for someone in HR? And he was like, actually, yes, this is the perfect time. Let's meet and so I took all of that that what I felt like was a failure at the time because I was like, oh my god how did how did I make this happen?

It took a lot of hindsight to look back, and it wasn't me. And I took all of those feelings of uncertainty and doubt, and I climbed all the way to the C suite because I embraced the power of my network. And I got, you know, I connected with my network and I climbed all the way up to the c suite, and it was the best decision that I ever made. But I share that number one, because yes, the ladder was chopped. But then number two, that was a point where I could have made a lot of different changes. I could have chosen to make the change to leave and start my own business at that point. I could have chose to be complacent and stay, which is what many women do because they don't know what to do. Or I could say, for lack of better words, fuck this. I'm gonna go find what I deserve and that's what I did.

H: I wanna know how much mindset work, and maybe even work with a therapist, you needed to do to be able to reach the point where you recognized all of your options and were able to evaluate them without emotion. Because what I heard in that story was such a betrayal, and unfortunately, all too common I mean, I cannot even tell you how many times I came up with an original, disruptive idea in different jobs I held, and they were either just ignored or appropriated by someone else, a man as their own. Like, this person was your mentor, and perhaps he thought he was being magnanimous. Maybe he thought if he presented it as his own, it was more likely to be accepted, but you must have felt betrayed.

And I think, you know, women are often told by men that we're too emotional to be in the ultimate positions of power, but I think what's true is that we recognize, experience and express the genuine emotions that we do have where men tend to compartmentalize, suppress, or deny. Like, did you need to work through the disappointment, the betrayal, the confusion, all of the things and how did you do that before you were able to recognize, I got a lot of options here. I'm gonna pick the one that's best for me.

G: Oh my gosh. I had to work through so much like, everything that you said. And I can still remember sitting, it was over a Zoom and having this new leader tell me that the job wasn't mine. And I just remember feeling the physical sensations of, like, my gut clenching up and the heat rising up to my neck and the tears prickling behind my eyes. And I will never forget, I bolted out to my car as soon as I could, and I burst into tears because I was just, it was a combination of shock end of disappointment. Because at that point, I didn't know that this job had not been pitched as mine. So I didn't really have the full picture yet and over time maybe I would say over the next week, I really learned what happened just through a series of different conversations, and then that feeling of betrayal really started to set in. And I actually had a conversation with that manager who approached it as in, well, you presented some thoughts and ideas to me, and then I really took it and made it what it was.

H: Which I'm sure he thoroughly believed.

G: Right and I'm going, but that was actually a really pivotal a pivotal moment for me because it made me realize what happened was not a mistake. It was not a misunderstanding. And I was very grateful because that person showed me who they really were. And I knew at that moment, I didn't want a part of that right? Like, I believe that people make mistakes and I believe that he could have said, you know what, Erica like, this is what happened. I'm so sorry, we might have had a different outcome. But in that moment, I recognized who he was and what was happening and it almost pushed me up against a wall because I knew that it would be going against everything in my core value to work with and for someone that I couldn't trust. And then I also looked at these wo options they gave me, which were both terrible options for me, and I could recognize that they almost expected me to be grateful for this.

And my self worth was so much more, and it is so much more than that. You know, that I was able to say while there is so much that I do love about the entire company, and there's so much that I believe in the mission and the vision that didn't change, but this is the end of the road for me or the end of the ladder. And I knew through many of my life's lessons that by reaching out to someone in my network, it's not saying I'm doing anything. I didn't have to make a decision then. So I was like, I'm gonna see this all the way through, and then we'll evaluate. And so for me, reaching out to my network and getting that opportunity, and then I could sit back and with a very clear head, I could evaluate. I can either stay here in one of these two really shitty positions with a leader I don't trust. Or I can go to the fucking C suite where I can make a difference. Where am I gonna go?

H: Seems like a no brainer to me. There are so many lessons in this story. I'm so grateful that you shared it because it really does illustrate that in spite of the fact that there's the broken rung at the beginning. The higher you go, the thinner the air gets, and the more opportunities to either misread the room, make assumptions, or simply failed to recognize that just because you wouldn't do something to someone else does not protect you from the fact that others would do those things to you? I have always been told I'm idealistic, and I used to think of that as a weakness or a flaw. I now believe it is a strength, but what it means is that I need to be really careful who I align myself with.

Because being idealistic can open me up to being exploited, being betrayed, being abused, and sometimes I wouldn't see it coming. I wonder if you think that this is more likely to happen, this type of scenario, where you were clearly a respected person in your organization, you were clearly seen as someone who had the ability and the desire to advance. Everyone could see where you were headed, and there's nothing like an original idea that disrupts the status quo for the better that sets you apart as a C suite player. Do you think there was anything other than the systemic issues in the company that meant that whether it would have happened then or another time, you were just not gonna go into the C suite with that company.

G: I think and I don't wanna say it's a systemic issue with the whole company. I feel like it was the department. And I wanna be very clear about that because this is where I think a lot of women get stuck because I was so in love with that company and the mission and the vision that it made it harder for me to leave. But I had to look at, like, you know, when you're in a department, that's your nuclear family. I had to look at that and sometimes you have to walk away from family, and that is what that felt like for me. I think that because of the leadership changing and shifting, I never would have made it to the C suite.

Never. And I think what happens with a lot of women, and this is my opinion, is they take that same situation I'm in, and they say, okay. Well, I'll take this other role that they gave me because I do love this company, and I do love the mission, and it's good work. And, you know, I'm doing important things here even though it's not what I wanted, even though this person really burned me, like, okay, I'll give them another chance. And a lot of that happens, but I think had I done that and moved over into that position, I would have stayed stuck there for a long time. I don't know that I ever would have really elevated out of that role.

H: I agree with you, and I think you talk a lot on your podcast and in your work about sticky floors. And for me, I know sticky floors is about limiting beliefs, but I also think for most women, and certainly has been true for me historically, sticky floors are often about sunk cost fallacy and fear of change. Because if we think about it, like by the time you reach like upper middle management, you have proximity to power. You feel like you're right there. You're not in the C suite yet. But because you have been able to advance over time, you believe and are oftentimes led to believe or misled to believe that it's inevitable that you're gonna get there, because it's in the company's best interest to keep you hooked on the purpose.

And, you know, like, you bring your time, your talent, your energy, your creativity, your effort, your focus, all of that to this company that it's in their best interest to keep you there, and it's in their best interest to keep you believing that you are gonna continue to elevate up the ladder. But I think for many women, when they even when they realize I've probably hit my own personal glass ceiling. For whatever the reason, they don't see me as C suite material, instead of recognizing that it's probably a systemic issue that has nothing to do with them personally. They shift into convincing themselves why they should settle and why they should believe that what they have is good enough because of how much energy and effort they've already expended to get this far, I'd love to hear you response.

G: Well, and a sticky floor could be staying status quo right? And saying, well, this is good enough. And for me, good enough is not good enough for me. So I want to do work that I love. I want to feel like I have a seat at the table. I want to feel like I'm making change. And so wherever I am, whether that is in my own business or in corporate America, if that ever changes, I'm out. I'm on to something different. If I don't feel challenged, if I'm not growing, I'm out. And so I have established that for myself. But, yes, companies will do a lot of very tricky things to keep you feeling enough, just enough right? They won't I mean, I was on a freaking retention plan. I was gonna get stock payout if I stayed another year and a haf and of course, I thought about that when I was making the decision to leave, but I also put my own value over that. So you have to be really rooted in your core values, which one of mine is courage and one of mine is growth and, obviously, I was not growing by staying there.

And the other one, which was courage is, Erica, what would the courageous person do in this situation? Would they stay with the safe and the known and the good enough, or would they pursue something else that might just be a little bit crazy, like taking a C level position. And that answer is pretty clear to me. And that's why number one, core values are so important. I know a lot of people think they're, like, all fluff and fun and games, but when you take it down to that tangible action, it made my decision very clear. And so I think especially with women, we tend to look around and we say, like, okay, this is good enough. We do it in our marriages. We do it in our friendships. We do it on anything that is for us too because women tend to be such givers. We give so that others can receive and, like, we take the back seat. We especially do this in parenthood. We give to our children, we give to our spouse, our partners, and we just take what's left over. And I think that that is a trend we see in corporate America because it has been a systemic issue over time.

H: I have to ask you this question, because once we both have this personality trait of continuous personal growth, and even if everyone around us seems to be satisfied, or maybe just satiated, or maybe stuck, I don't know. But we don't reference what other people are doing, we don't reference what other women are doing as a deciding factor in what we should be doing. So the question I have is, did other women in the organization judge you or throw shade or have interesting conversations with you that kind of run along the lines of what's so special about you. Because we're all here, and you think it's not enough like, you're disrespecting us by thinking you need more. Did any of that happen?

G: I definitely there was a lot of chatter behind my back when I left, and I got to put up on my LinkedIn, like, here's Erica Rooney, I started as an SVP and then went to C Suite a year later. So there was a lot of chatter around that and, you know, LinkedIn loves to tell you who looks at your profile. So I've got people looking at my profile not commenting or liking a damn thing, but they're lurking. So I knew that there was a lot of chatter, and I am sure that a lot of those conversations were she is not a executive. What are we like that's ridiculous. I know there was a lot of hate.

H: Yeah, who does she think she is?

G: Absolutely. And I will tell you too to this day, Diann, I will still have people who are like, but I don't understand why you're also doing your own business like, what's that about? And it's very judgmental, and it's very, like, why are you doing this. And It's not coming from a place of curiosity of, like, why tell me more what's going on. It's very judgmental.

H: I'm interested in your path, I might wanna do that.

G: Right. No, it is judgmental because, again, it is this who do you think you are, why do you think you're special. And, I mean, full transparency, this is probably true for you. I am not even looking at what other people are doing. I am so busy on all of my own stuff, you know, and all of the other cool stuff that, like, my friends and my colleagues and the people I surround myself are doing, that I don't have time for the haters or the naysayers or anything like that, but they absolutely exist. Mean girl syndrome, all of that. And I think that comes from a place where they probably have a lot of limiting beliefs and a lot of sticky floors that they are not willing to address, that they are not willing to peel back the onion and say, why am I even spending a minute of energy being negative about Erica who's trying to elevate women into positions of power, wounds like a good thing. You know, I'm not out there selling cocaine, that's not my side gig. You know, it's like, why am I spending any time doing that when I could be working on my own damn self?

H: You literally did not have time to think about, consider, compare yourself and what you wanted to do with what other people were doing as a reference point. And I absolutely think, that is a cultural conditioning, feminine conditioning, and I'm gonna go one step further, I'm even gonna say it's part of our biology because women, we know this from neuroscience, women have more crosstalk between the two hemispheres of their brains than men do. We know this, it's not controversial, left side logic, right side emotion women having more crosstalk between the hemispheres. Now, this means we can be more nurturing, we can be more compassionate, it's easier for us to consider the impact of our choices on others? It's easier for us to have empathy and intuition then for men, men obviously have all these things, they just have to work harder at them. But I think what's also true is that we are social species.

We have mirror neurons in our brain that help us recognize how others see us. Now I prefer to take this knowledge that we are wired for connection, we are wired to give a shit about what other people think of us literally by our design, even our female hormones. Estrogen is the tend and befriend hormone. It literally biologically programs us to give a shit about other people and to want to take care of them and put their needs first. I prefer to know these things and then decide how much I want to be ruled by them. But it really does make us outliers, even with other women. So in a way, being a driven, ambitious woman in corporate means you're fighting the patriarchy, you're fighting the fact that this system was made by and for the benefit of men. Now we have these mandates for diversity, okay, we have to make room for them, but not too much room. But then when you figure out how to advance in spite of all those cards stacked against you, you're not even gonna get support from the majority of women! That makes it really, really hard.

G: Yeah. Here's the other thing too. We are hardwired to belong and if we are all going to belong, that means we all need to be kinda doing those same things. We need to be in community with each other right. And when you have those outliers, which let's face it, if you have the ambition and the drive to go all in on your career and get to the C suite or to go all in on your business and do what it takes to be an entrepreneur, which is a hell of a lot. You are an outlier. I mean, so number one, the world takes all kinds of kinds right, we need our individual contributors and we need our c level leaders, but those are two very different people. They're the people who wanna go to work, do their job, go home, and watch some Netflix. I'm here for that. If that is you, great.

But there are also those people who are probably like you would be that can't sit still long enough to watch a damn Netflix series, and we are out there doing stuff. What can I do next? What's my next project? And those are the outliers. So there's there's that piece of it and that's hard for group mentality to accept. So what I've decided, and I love this. I'm a big fan of the word of the year. I love everyone when they pick out a word of the year. This year, I couldn't figure out a damn word to save my life. I couldn't pick one until July, and I picked the word becoming because I really feel like I'm kind of stepping into this new phase.

u to do that amazing shit. So: 2024

H: And creating a community of people who are like minded.

G: Yes. Who are like minded in not in, like, thought. Right? Like, I love diversity of thought. I love hearing different perspectives. But like minded in personal evolution, like minded in leveling up. That is where I want to live.

H: But you know what something, I'm so here for this and you better count me all the way in, but one thing I'm also clear about with you is that you networked all the way up, because you have always understood the value of community, you have always understood the value of belonging, and you knew that it wasn't just, support, it's accountability, it's reality testing, it's resourcing. Like, you would not have made it all the way to C suite if you hadn't understood all along that fitting in was never the goal, but belonging and community was. And I dare say you must have done it. I mean, I wasn't there back then, but you must have integrated that into your advancement at every level.

G: So I like to think about the corporate ladder climb as you gotta have street smart and you gotta have book smarts. Because you can be the most charismatic person on the face of the Earth but if you cannot read a P and L statement and if you cannot manage a budget, you are not gonna be in the C suite. So I actually you and I were talking about this before we recorded. I have a digital course coming out, and part of the digital course will be all about the mindset that women need to have to climb the corporate ladder because we need to be in the right frame of mind, and we need to know about what kind of corporate world we're living in. It's not a fair one but we also have to have the actual tactical strategy and skills, which come with networking.

It comes with personal branding. It comes with the financial things that you need to know to climb the corporate ladder and have that talk. And so often, women are kept out of those rooms at the very bottom of the ladder. So then, of course, they never advance because they've never been exposed to a P and L. They've never been exposed to a budget. So it's all about learning all of that and combining those street smarts and those book smarts so that you can use both of those to climb the ladder. And that's gonna pay off whether it's in corporate or your own entrepreneurial journey.

H: You anticipated my next question really well because I'm just imagining the woman is so good. It's like, psychic because there's so many mindset coaches out there. Let's say the reason you're not succeeding at the level that you wanna be, the reason you're not crushing it, the reason you're not where you want to be is because you need to have a different mindset. And while I don't debate that, it's also not enough. You need to have the will and the skill and oftentimes, because we don't have access to those rooms, there are very crucial skill sets that we may not even realize exist, but we certainly haven't had an opportunity to develop. And what ends up happening, I think, many times a woman is only able to reach a certain level of power in corporate and decides, fuck this, I'm gonna start my own business.

And she is starting at a disadvantage because she may have fixed her mindset, realized she's not the problem, but she has business fundamentals, like foundational skills that she has not developed and that stuff is going with her into her own business. What would you say to someone who's thinking, you know what, this whole corporate thing, I've only reached middle management. I've been stuck here for 5 years, 10 years, I'm going to start my own business. What do they need to do first or at the same time?

G: If you're gonna start a business or, you know, be a founder, I would say go to LinkedIn and pull up a job description of a CEO because that's what you're going to be. You are going to be a CEO of your business, and I need you to look through those job descriptions and those requirements. And if there are bullets on there that you don't have a flipping clue how to do, you better either hire somebody to do it for you before you better start investing in your learning. I had never done a P and L before. I've never been responsible for a budget at some point. I took a finance class because I was like, if I'm gonna be up with these leaders, I gotta know how to talk about EBITDA and margins and revenue. I have to know about profit and loss. And so moving out of corporate and just saying, you know what fuck this, I'm gonna be my own boss. That's not how it works. If you can't figure out a P and L statement in corporate, you ain't gonna be able to figure it out on your own, that's for sure. And you're not gonna have a finance team to back you up and say, actually, you're looking at that the wrong line here. So you have to constantly recognize that those gaps, they exist everywhere.

No, you don't gotta deal with the patriarchy and the bullshit if you're on your own, but you're not gonna have a thriving and successful business. And so I always when I'm working with women and when I'm talking with women, I tell them never look just at the next step. Look three steps up right? If your next step is, like, director to senior director, don't look at that gap. Look senior director to, like, senior VP, what are the gaps that you are missing? Because if you can go through that job description and you can start pulling pieces out and saying, here's how I had experience here, and here's what I did there, you're damn sure gonna land the next level. So why are we limiting ourselves by only looking one step ahead. We need to be looking three steps ahead.

H: I can't tell you how happy I am to hear you say this, because the prevailing rhetoric, particularly in the coaching industry right now, is that you are an expert to the person who's two steps behind you. I have heard many very popular, well known, very wealthy coaches who help people start their own business say we are in the age of anti experts. They don't say that, this is my paraphrasing. But basically, this notion, particularly in the coaching industry, and I've talked about this a lot, that you're an expert to the person who's two steps behind you. This is exactly the opposite of what you're saying because if we are only looking at the person who's two steps ahead of us, if we are hiring the person who's two steps ahead of us, and we are building an audience of people that is two steps behind us, we are inching along and misleading all the people that are following us because the skill gaps are enormous.

So your advice if you're going to start a business look at this description of a CE fucking O because that's what you're about to take on, and just take note of all the things you haven't done, you haven't learned to do, you know nothing about, and let's calculate the probability of success if you don't fill those gaps. So it's I think it's so misleading to tell people that they are an expert if they know a little bit more than the people they're helping. I think it's not only misleading, I think it's irresponsible. It's irresponsible.

G: It's extremely misleading, and I would I think some influencers I'll call more of these people influencers because the people who have the money and the following, they're not necessarily the expert, but they are the influencer. They need to be more open and have these conversations, and I recently was, listening to a podcast from someone. They have a bazillion followers. They make all the money, all of these things and she said, here's the deal. I have a CEO like, I don't do this. I actually have a CEO. I am the face of the company like, I have the ideas, and I thought that is a realist. That is somebody who's like, I'm not a businessperson by nature like, I'm not gonna be the CEO.

I am the face of the company, and I wanted to applaud that because she had a great idea. She worked her ass off to make it happen to the best of her abilities and as she was able to grow and scale, she hired the people who had the expertise and the experience. And she says, I pay a fucking CEO a lot of money to keep this business running. So I think we also coaches need to understand that it's not about being the CEO. It's about making the impact and figuring out what do you need to do to make that impact, which is not always being in the CEO position.

H: So true. And I think just learning that the hard way is why we see so many people going back to corporate because they realize I'm actually not cut out to be a business owner. I don't actually like being a CEO. I like performing really well in a specific role that allows me to use my gifts and does not force me out of my comfort zone into areas that I really have no interest and no skill. That's a good choice.

G: I'm laughing because I think you're being too kind. I think that people are going back into corporate because they're like, you know what? It's just too hard, it's not me! It's just too hard.

H: You know what? I don't disagree. I don't disagree. And I think that's probably the majority, and I think again it comes down to expectations and what we've been told about corporate life, what we've been told about entrepreneurship versus the actual truth that we need to discover by doing our homework and doing the fucking work.

G: Yes, and I would love to say that, like, this entire episode is all about showing that you can climb a corporate ladder and you can have an amazing business and you can go back and forth, but that you are responsible for your own personal evolution. Don't be married to one idea. Don't be so set on making something work because your life is going to change. You're going to go through those periods where you have kids, where you don't have kids, where you're married, where you're single, where you're living in the US, where you're living in a car. There's so many things. Why is there only one solution? There doesn't have to be. You know, and I tell you, I'm in corporate now. I've got my business, you know, up off the ground, but it's not in full capacity yet. I don't know if I'm gonna live there forever. I'm gonna go back into corporate. I might start 6 businesses. I don't know, all I know is that as long as I am being courageous and I am growing, I'm good.

H: Which is why I wanna make sure in addition to visiting your website and wherever else you want to send them, people need to check out your podcast from Now to Next, which I think is so perfectly named. Because you're not talking about a destination. You're saying, this is where you are, and what's next, which leaves room for growth and courage, and I love that so much. So besides the podcast, where else do you want people to discover you and get into your world?

G: Yeah. Absolutely the website, which is just ericaandersonrooney.com, super easy, or connect with me on LinkedIn.

H: LinkedIn is the bomb. Thank you, my friend. This was a really exciting and in-depth conversation, loved it.

G: I loved it, Diann. Thank you.