Speaker 1: Ba Fam, we have another how to throw back for you,
Speaker 1: of course we do all month. We're looking back at
Speaker 1: some of our favorite episodes from days past, for memorable
Speaker 1: guests to unforgettable moments. There's still so much to learn
Speaker 1: from the.
Speaker 2: Be A Vault. Take a listen, will you all right?
Speaker 3: Hey, hey, ba Fam, It's Mandy. I'm back with another
Speaker 3: very special guest with Brown Ambition. Today we have the amazing, incredible, intelligent,
Speaker 3: charismatic snowboarding podcasting writing, TED Talking queen Jody An Beury.
Speaker 3: Jody Anne is as I just said, I don't even
Speaker 3: there's not enough hyphens for Jody Ann. But where I
Speaker 3: discover Jody Anne was through her incredible TED talk, which
Speaker 3: you can check out. We'll put a link in the
Speaker 3: show notes called the myth of bringing your full authentic
Speaker 3: self to work. And through her work, Jodyanne says she
Speaker 3: is on a mission to disrupt business as usual to
Speaker 3: achieve social change, and she's doing that in a couple
Speaker 3: of different ways, and especially in the way that she's
Speaker 3: approached her career. So we're going to talk to Jodyan
Speaker 3: about the TED talk about the myth of Black women
Speaker 3: bringing their full authentic self to work also her podcast.
Speaker 3: She has an amazing podcast called Black Cancer, which we're
Speaker 3: going to talk about where she explores the lives of
Speaker 3: people of color through their cancer journeys. I cannot wait
Speaker 3: to get into this conversation. So, without further ado, Hello Jodyann.
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining VA.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: That was the best introduction ever.
Speaker 3: Oh you're welcome.
Speaker 2: I want women and you know what.
Speaker 3: I used to do it off air on my own,
Speaker 3: but then I was like, I know it's uncomfortable to
Speaker 3: hear your own bio, but I also want here listen
Speaker 3: to your bio, you know, listen to what you have done.
Speaker 3: So for those in the BA fam who may not
Speaker 3: be aware of your work, where did you get your
Speaker 3: start in your career and how did you end up
Speaker 3: on that Ted Talk stage? Walk me through it?
Speaker 2: So in nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 3: Now, when two people love each other, unnots exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: There are two ways to think about this, Right, Normally
Speaker 2: I would say, oh, I'm a classic millennial and that
Speaker 2: I'm like on my sixth or seventh career at this point, right,
Speaker 2: And then the other side of the coin is what
Speaker 2: happens to your career path when you graduate college with
Speaker 2: this promise of if you go to a fancy school,
Speaker 2: you get a fancy job and live a fancy life.
Speaker 2: In two thousand and eight, in the Great Recession, you
Speaker 2: know what happens to your career path when you're just
Speaker 2: trying to make do? And then what also happens to
Speaker 2: your career path when you're a black woman in predominantly
Speaker 2: white spaces trying to carve out space for how you
Speaker 2: work right, your authenticity, your values, your ambitions. And so
Speaker 2: I think on that second half of it, between the
Speaker 2: recession and what is it like to navigate work as
Speaker 2: a black woman. Yeah, you'll see people changing jobs every
Speaker 2: couple of years or changing industries every couple of years.
Speaker 2: And so I think that this path of the topic
Speaker 2: of my TED talk authenticity, that I've kind of always
Speaker 2: been on that path in some shape or form, trying
Speaker 2: to understand who I am in these spaces, who I
Speaker 2: am as a person who's born in Jamaica but moved
Speaker 2: to the US within my first year of life, navigating
Speaker 2: those two cultures within blackness, Navigating what it's like to
Speaker 2: try to succeed and understand yourself in the context of
Speaker 2: predominantly white institutions and predominantly white workspaces. I've always been
Speaker 2: trying to understand what is truly my authentic core and
Speaker 2: what have I had to adapt as part of who
Speaker 2: I am in the process of code switching for know
Speaker 2: now twenty plus years of my life, right, And so
Speaker 2: I think I've always kind of been building through my
Speaker 2: own experiences personally, my professional path, and just my scholarship
Speaker 2: of kind of authenticity in these types of contentious environments
Speaker 2: or environments that have high stakes, because who you are
Speaker 2: in your authenticity with your friendships isn't tied to your
Speaker 2: livelihood or your health insurance. Yeah, so there's a lot
Speaker 2: of risk in that space. So I think I've always
Speaker 2: been building content wise. But as far as the TED stage,
Speaker 2: and I know you talked about the podcast and to
Speaker 2: make that linkage here, four years ago around this time
Speaker 2: I had my surgery. I'm sure we'll get more into that,
Speaker 2: But as a part of going through that process of
Speaker 2: the prediagnosis depression that I was experiencing, the post diagnosis
Speaker 2: depression I was experience and saying, just like, how traumatic
Speaker 2: that health crisis was when you're in a situation when
Speaker 2: you have to really grapple with your own mortality. There
Speaker 2: was a period of time that I couldn't see myself
Speaker 2: in the future, Like I really just like, all right,
Speaker 2: let's just make it through the end of today, maybe
Speaker 2: we make it tomorrow. But I really could not see
Speaker 2: or imagine my life beyond like the immediate crisis that
Speaker 2: I was in. And so the moment that I had
Speaker 2: the thought that oh, I'm going to apply for tedex
Speaker 2: Seattle became the moment where I'm like, wait, are you
Speaker 2: seeing yourself in the future? Yeah, do you see a vision?
Speaker 2: Do you see a path for? You know? Your life?
Speaker 2: What you can contribute? And I think, most critically what
Speaker 2: I want to leave behind? What do I have to
Speaker 2: say that can outlast me and kind of reach way
Speaker 2: beyond I could in my little corner of the world.
Speaker 2: And so that's kind of how I got to the
Speaker 2: TED stage. Like both content wise, life experience wise, but
Speaker 2: also what makes you take that leap was this desire
Speaker 2: to leave something behind. It's interesting because you think about
Speaker 2: leaving things behind, but I don't think I really fully
Speaker 2: grappled with or thought of what being on the TED
Speaker 2: stage would create a head for me.
Speaker 3: You know what do you mean by that the opportunities
Speaker 3: that came with it, the spotlight, the exposure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are a lot of good things that come
Speaker 2: with that. I will say taking that TED stage during
Speaker 2: the pandemic it was in twenty twenty has radically transformed
Speaker 2: the trajectory of my life, just objectively, but also as
Speaker 2: I was trying to grapple with like who I was
Speaker 2: with this, like planning for my life, Like why it
Speaker 2: was so critical for me to even start having the
Speaker 2: thought of TED. Once you reach and I'm sure you've
Speaker 2: experienced this but I don't want to project, but you
Speaker 2: get this public sense of who you are. You know,
Speaker 2: who you are on social media, who you are on
Speaker 2: the TED stage, what people think about you kind of
Speaker 2: through these mediated platforms, and then who you actually are.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about your health scare, not even a health scare,
Speaker 3: your traumatic health event you were at, what happened? How
Speaker 3: old were you? Because I mean, this is I can't
Speaker 3: even fathom being you were probably in your mid twenties.
Speaker 2: No, thirty two when I got that.
Speaker 3: Thirty two, early thirty Okay, So tell us, yeah, so
Speaker 3: so talk about this, this this experience, and how did
Speaker 3: that sort of change your outlook on your career and everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think I've been struggling with different health ailments,
Speaker 2: very benign like, ah, my elbow hurts, you know, like
Speaker 2: my wrisk, like very very tiny, tiny things for about
Speaker 2: three years. And so that took me in and out
Speaker 2: of different doctors' offices doing MRIs and X rays and
Speaker 2: trying braces and exercises and creams, and the work of
Speaker 2: that is mentally exhausting, physically exhausting, and it's expensive. The
Speaker 2: first MRI that I had cost four hundred dollars and
Speaker 2: I have eld insurance. Okay, so it's like it was
Speaker 2: just it was a lot, and I was getting very
Speaker 2: tired of that, especially in a lot of these in
Speaker 2: and out of new doctors' offices, being met with racism
Speaker 2: and different bias, which shows up as I mean, are
Speaker 2: you really in a lot of pain? I had one
Speaker 2: doctor tell me that a lot of what I was
Speaker 2: experiencing was a result of having having a sedentary lifestyle,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, well, how do you know that, because
Speaker 2: I snowboard, I surf, I run, I lift weights. I
Speaker 2: was on a competitive dragon boating team. So he's looking
Speaker 2: at me like, oh, why didn't you tell me, well,
Speaker 2: why did you assume looking at me? I don't know
Speaker 2: if it was colored my skin shape, with my body
Speaker 2: that you assumed that I was sitting at home watch
Speaker 2: TV all day, which is also fine for people who
Speaker 2: do that, not trying to judge on people's lifestyles, right,
Speaker 2: And so just kind of deal with like the back
Speaker 2: and forth of that and the it was just draining.
Speaker 2: I cannot describe like the level of pain, but you're
Speaker 2: just like it's whatever you push through, you go to work.
Speaker 2: I still did all my physical activities and I was
Speaker 2: hurting the whole time, which is a whole other thing
Speaker 2: of why do we normalize being in pain like that?
Speaker 2: Wasn't okay. At some point I was describing all of
Speaker 2: this to my sister and she just interrupted me and
Speaker 2: she's like, Joe, so you were not Serena Williams. And
Speaker 2: I'm like, first of all, you don't have to come
Speaker 2: for me like that. I know that I know that
Speaker 2: I'm not Serena Williams, Like what is your point here?
Speaker 2: But the point she was making was that I'm just
Speaker 2: a regular active person. You know, Serena Williams is an
Speaker 2: elite athlete, right, being a regular active person should not
Speaker 2: create the amount of ailments that I was having, right,
Speaker 2: that the fact that I was in pain was not
Speaker 2: normal or should be warranted for the types of activities
Speaker 2: that I was doing, because again it's not like I'm
Speaker 2: I'm doing a lot, but I'm not an elite level competitive,
Speaker 2: greatest in the world athlete, and so that kind of
Speaker 2: snapped to me that this is actually not okay, and
Speaker 2: so I kind of grited down, barried it. I gave
Speaker 2: myself four months to do every single test that they
Speaker 2: could do, unrelenting, right, that I would just give myself
Speaker 2: that amount to really do the investigat work, which is
Speaker 2: itself a massive privilege to be able to take the
Speaker 2: time off, to be able to have the health insurance
Speaker 2: or the finances to cover that, or or even the
Speaker 2: mental capacity to invest in your health in your in
Speaker 2: yourself that way. And so I was like, I have
Speaker 2: all these things lined up for me. I'm just going
Speaker 2: to commit for the next couple of months to figure
Speaker 2: it out. Literally, the next test that I did, which
Speaker 2: was an MRI, my cervical spine, found a massive tumor
Speaker 2: inside of my spinal cord. So the way it was
Speaker 2: explained to me was if I did nothing, I would
Speaker 2: be completely paralyzed from the neck down in a year.
Speaker 2: So I should have surgery and should have it within
Speaker 2: the week, which I pushed back because I was already
Speaker 2: scheduled to go snowboarding in Europe. So I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm going to Europe first and then i'll.
Speaker 1: Be back after that.
Speaker 2: Wait.
Speaker 3: Wait, you were snowboarding, sir fing, all this stuff and
Speaker 3: you had a massive spinal tumor massive. Doing nothing would
Speaker 3: have made you paralyzed. And you said, uh huh, I
Speaker 3: hear you. But the flight is booked and the hotels
Speaker 3: were really fundable. So BRB, you didn't tell your mom,
Speaker 3: did you?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Are you kidding? My mom never would have let me.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, Mama never knew that you were
Speaker 3: getting on that flight with a smile tour.
Speaker 2: No, that was not information we were sharing the public.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: So this was going through my head because he told
Speaker 2: me that the surgery itself carried the same risks, right,
Speaker 2: that the surgery itself could paralyze me if.
Speaker 3: Something with you when you were getting this news.
Speaker 2: No, So like, okay, if that's what I'm facing, if
Speaker 2: I'm facing potential complete paralysis from the neck down this week.
Speaker 2: I'm going to Europe right because it could be the
Speaker 2: last time I was ever able to travel independently or
Speaker 2: to snowboard and to like have that experience. I didn't
Speaker 2: know what was ahead of me, and so I start bargaining.
Speaker 2: I'm like, can I push it back a month? And
Speaker 2: he's like, you have a ticking time bomb in your neck.
Speaker 2: I cannot make you better than you are from when
Speaker 2: you go into surgery, and so you could be compromising.
Speaker 2: You know the best thing that you have going for
Speaker 2: you right now, which is the fact that you're healthy
Speaker 2: right like you have a lot of mobility. He actually
Speaker 2: said to me that when he saw my scans, he
Speaker 2: didn't he didn't expect someone who could walk to come
Speaker 2: into his office, like that's that's where we were. And
Speaker 2: so after the deliberation, I was like, I have to
Speaker 2: go to Europe, like I have to do this trip
Speaker 2: like this to be my last opportunity for anything like this,
Speaker 2: And so kind of went through that whole process, had
Speaker 2: the surgery, had a lot of rehab to.
Speaker 3: Go to Europe. Had an amazing trip.
Speaker 2: I hope it was phenomenal. The best snowboarding on my life.
Speaker 3: The powder was fresh. I don't know snowboarding technology, but
Speaker 3: I mean terminology. But there was snow and you boarded it.
Speaker 2: Okay, there was snow and I boarded it. It was
Speaker 2: it was it was great. I mean I cried for
Speaker 2: a lot of it, just trying to like really take
Speaker 2: it in. Yeah, I didn't know. I didn't know. I
Speaker 2: didn't know if I could die. You know, surgeries are serious, right,
Speaker 2: I didn't know if I would be paralyzed. I didn't
Speaker 2: know anything. You know, my family and I my sister's
Speaker 2: in military. They planned that if I ended up severely
Speaker 2: like paralyzed, that she would adopt me as her child
Speaker 2: so I can get health insurance through the military and
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have to bankrupt my entire family for the
Speaker 2: rest of my life, you know. Like so there were
Speaker 2: a lot of what if head and I just needed
Speaker 2: to focus on there. Now I'm going to Europe. I'm
Speaker 2: going to have surgeram. We'll see what happens after that.
Speaker 2: When I came back to work from that, And one
Speaker 2: thing you know, at the intersections with work here that
Speaker 2: I want to emphasize is that when you have a
Speaker 2: health crisis, or someone in your household or someone that
Speaker 2: you take care of has a major health crisis. You
Speaker 2: have to decide what is likely an inevitability that you
Speaker 2: have to tell somebody at work, and not all workplaces
Speaker 2: know how to handle the real humanness that comes with
Speaker 2: when a health crisis is in play. Whatever meetings I had,
Speaker 2: whatever deadlines I was working on, did not matter as
Speaker 2: soon as I got that news. And thankfully, whereas working
Speaker 2: at the time, they're like, you do what you have
Speaker 2: to do, all the paperwork, all the PTO, all the
Speaker 2: disability whatever, we will handle that on the back end.
Speaker 2: I did not have to worry about anything when it
Speaker 2: came to my job. In fact, after surgery, I was
Speaker 2: on disability leave for four months and they created a
Speaker 2: policy at my organization. This is a very small organization, nonprofit,
Speaker 2: so I don't even know if those large companies do this,
Speaker 2: but they created a policy where you could donate your
Speaker 2: PTO to someone else. And so in the creation of
Speaker 2: that policy, I was able to extend my leave an
Speaker 2: additional month because I was still I mean, I couldn't
Speaker 2: even type after surgery, right, I had to relearn how
Speaker 2: to do everything that I could extend my leave and
Speaker 2: still get my full paycheck. It's it was probably the
Speaker 2: greatest gift to not have to worry about my livelihood,
Speaker 2: how I was going to be paying for all these bills,
Speaker 2: what I would have to do work wise. They took
Speaker 2: every single thing off my plane. Not everybody has that experience,
Speaker 2: even when it's you who've been diagnosed with cancer or
Speaker 2: you have this. We're seeing this now with COVID, how
Speaker 2: sensitive companies are with giving space for that or understanding
Speaker 2: the role of caregivers. You know, my sister's job was
Speaker 2: very supportive of her because she was the one who
Speaker 2: was primarily caring for me after I got discharged, And
Speaker 2: so I just wanted to emphasize that because if we
Speaker 2: talk about this in authenticity language like this is genuinely
Speaker 2: what I was dealing with, what I was going through,
Speaker 2: and my work environment had the ability to hold that
Speaker 2: to support me as I was trying to, like fright
Speaker 2: for my life. Right. Not all places have that. It's
Speaker 2: like are you going to be well or are you
Speaker 2: going to work here? And we prefer that you work
Speaker 2: here regardless of what physical, mental or emotional damage that
Speaker 2: does to you. I think, you know, just to land
Speaker 2: the plane here. But after going through that experience, it
Speaker 2: became very clear to me that difference between like how
Speaker 2: different my experience could have been if I was working
Speaker 2: somewhere else, and so that division of what is me
Speaker 2: and what is this organization, what is the environment, what
Speaker 2: is the individual, and what is the institution? Right, so
Speaker 2: that became super clear for me. But also, and I've
Speaker 2: talked to a lot of people on the podcast who
Speaker 2: go through this, but the capacity for bullshit is like
Speaker 2: almost eliminated after you go through something like that. And
Speaker 2: so my decision making after that was very clear. Right
Speaker 2: at a job that I loved, it was absolute nonsense
Speaker 2: to me, and I quit right. I wanted to kind
Speaker 2: of create my life in this way. I'm not handwringing
Speaker 2: and like I don't know what should you do? Should
Speaker 2: I do this? Maybe I could wait? No, wait for what?
Speaker 2: And so I still live my life that way with
Speaker 2: people who want to plan stuff for me, like months
Speaker 2: in advance or you know, I've had people ask me like, oh,
Speaker 2: what are you working on or what goals do you have?
Speaker 2: And I tell them the same thing, like I don't
Speaker 2: plan my life more than two weeks out right, Like
Speaker 2: I just because you don't know. And I think that
Speaker 2: kind of trauma response also gives me a sense of
Speaker 2: urgency and a way where I don't negotiate with what
Speaker 2: keeps me healthy, what keeps me sane, and what keeps
Speaker 2: me happy, Like that's non negotiable, and so I always
Speaker 2: try to take care of myself.
Speaker 3: Or clarity, I mean what I mean. It was trauma,
Speaker 3: but it was like the positive, the silver lining is
Speaker 3: that fast track to clarity, fast track to being unbothered, oh,
Speaker 3: being focused and understanding what's import You know, when you
Speaker 3: say you get stripped down to like family, your health,
Speaker 3: you know what's in front of you. Nothing else matters.
Speaker 3: And I am I don't want every Obviously not everyone
Speaker 3: needs a spinal tumor. I don't let it be a
Speaker 3: spinal tumor. The client that I was talking to this morning,
Speaker 3: when I tell you, and it's so serendipitous that I'm
Speaker 3: sitting with you now because I think back to my
Speaker 3: I hate the word client makes it sound so transactional.
Speaker 3: But this woman who has been working with me for
Speaker 3: a couple of months now, and I looked at her
Speaker 3: and I was like, you've realized I need you to
Speaker 3: act more like your your house is on fire right now,
Speaker 3: like you're having an emergency. We need to call nine
Speaker 3: one one, and their responses. Quit the responses. It's time
Speaker 3: for you to walk away and take six months off.
Speaker 3: But and it was like she was waiting for something
Speaker 3: big enough, the catastrophe, the tumor on a scan, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, And the fact that and it's
Speaker 3: really difficult kind of get people to a place where
Speaker 3: they can see their own health and their own well
Speaker 3: being as that emergency like it actually is in jeopardy. Wow,
Speaker 3: all right, ba fam, Let's take a quick break and
Speaker 3: we'll be right back with more of my illuminating conversation
Speaker 3: with Jody Ambury. This is brown ambition, All right, ba fam,
Speaker 3: we are back. Let's dive right back into my conversation
Speaker 3: with Jody Ambury. The surgery, the physical rehabilitation. How long
Speaker 3: did all of that take?
Speaker 2: You said it was.
Speaker 3: Four months of recovery, five months.
Speaker 2: Relearning of not working. So I was in hospital for
Speaker 2: about a month, and that like can you walk, can
Speaker 2: you write? Can you pick up a really small thing
Speaker 2: and put it to the other side of the table,
Speaker 2: Like that process was so I don't want to say
Speaker 2: humbling because it makes it sound like it was a
Speaker 2: fun process.
Speaker 3: No humbling usually means it was hard as shit and
Speaker 3: I thought you were big tough shit before, and now
Speaker 3: you need to pick up a pencil.
Speaker 2: And it's kind of like, you know, like it's kind
Speaker 2: of like that like inspiration porn that we do with
Speaker 2: people who have disabilities. So you can have someone who
Speaker 2: has a physical disability and they're just playing basketball and
Speaker 2: then all the comments will be like, now you have
Speaker 2: no excuse to chase your dreams, And I'm like, here's
Speaker 2: a kid who's just like playing basketball. No one asked
Speaker 2: you to project like your shit onto that situation. And
Speaker 2: so there's this sense of like when you go through
Speaker 2: something really difficult, that if you get on the quote
Speaker 2: unquote other side of it, that the process itself was
Speaker 2: worth it. Right. I would strongly prefer to not have
Speaker 2: had a spinal tumor or to be currently living with
Speaker 2: a spinal cord injury and all the disability and challenges
Speaker 2: and chronic pain that come from that. Like, I would
Speaker 2: absolutely rather not have gone through that. The experience when
Speaker 2: I was in hospital was traumatizing and very very isolating,
Speaker 2: And this is pre COVID, right, so I had people
Speaker 2: visiting me every day, but it's really challenging. And I
Speaker 2: remember this one instance where they took me to the
Speaker 2: bottom of a staircase and she was like, all right,
Speaker 2: you know, for pta today, we're gonna walk up the stairs.
Speaker 2: And I was so irritated because I'm like, I'm that
Speaker 2: memorial Sloan kettering like this is like the creme day
Speaker 2: la Creme of cancer centers in the world, and what
Speaker 2: we're doing today is walking up these dingy back staircase
Speaker 2: Like give me the bells and whistles, like I want
Speaker 2: cool equipment. So I'm all high and mighty off myself,
Speaker 2: like this is what we're doing, Like we're walking upstairs.
Speaker 2: And I stood at the bottom of the stairs and
Speaker 2: I just kind of looked up. I started crying. Because
Speaker 2: it's interesting about a spinal cord injury is that there's
Speaker 2: nothing physically wrong with my muscles, my legs, like my
Speaker 2: body functions. The problem is is that the brain cannot
Speaker 2: get the information to the rest of the body. And
Speaker 2: so when people use paralysis as a figurative sense of speech,
Speaker 2: I'm like, you have no idea what that experience is like.
Speaker 2: To be at the bottom of a staircase looking at it,
Speaker 2: wanting to walk up, but your body is not moving,
Speaker 2: and having to constantly send those signals over and over
Speaker 2: and over again and hope that one of them gets
Speaker 2: through and your leg moves, which I think actually sounds
Speaker 2: like we're you're talking about with your client, where you're like,
Speaker 2: you keep sending these signals like girl, quit your job, right,
Speaker 2: like do something different, take some time off, and the
Speaker 2: signals are not getting through, and so you keep sending
Speaker 2: them and hoping that, like you can, you can take
Speaker 2: the step. So I think I understand why people use it,
Speaker 2: you know, figuratively, but the actual work of kind of
Speaker 2: navigating through partial paralysis is I guess it's humbling.
Speaker 3: I'll never I can't even fathom. I can't even fathom
Speaker 3: what that. But thank you for thank you for even
Speaker 3: taking the time to try to express that for those
Speaker 3: of us who haven't felt that way. Man, man, I just.
Speaker 2: Wish that people wouldn't have to go through stuff like
Speaker 2: that to get that kick in the butt to just
Speaker 2: create the life that you want to create. Life is
Speaker 2: so fragile, and if you can't walk away, even from
Speaker 2: the pandemic, from that, like like I don't. I don't
Speaker 2: want people to have to go through a crisis to
Speaker 2: start investing in themselves and to spend their intellectual energy,
Speaker 2: you know, as we talk about professional lives through something
Speaker 2: that really matters to you, but also is getting you
Speaker 2: kind of what you want out of that realm of
Speaker 2: your life. And so I'm not saying that everyone has
Speaker 2: to do meaningful work. You can make widgets. If those
Speaker 2: widgets give you, you know, generational financial safety and that's
Speaker 2: important to you and that's your goal, then great, right,
Speaker 2: But are you destroying yourself regardless of what path you
Speaker 2: choose in that process? Like? Are you unhappy? And so
Speaker 2: I just want people to tap into, like what actually
Speaker 2: matters to you, what's actually important to you? How can
Speaker 2: you achieve your goals without eroding yourself?
Speaker 3: I could not agree more. I think some people do
Speaker 3: need the big seismic shock of an event. I'm with you.
Speaker 3: I'm like, if the pandemic didn't do it, then what
Speaker 3: the heck will? I mean, but some people are really
Speaker 3: hard headed and not you know, they're gonna people will
Speaker 3: learn on their own time. But I do feel like
Speaker 3: younger generations, and I include ourselves in that. I'm a millennial,
Speaker 3: and I think that we don't want it. We understand
Speaker 3: the urgency of protecting happiness and well being. And what
Speaker 3: I feel like the shift that I'm seeing is we
Speaker 3: are collectively using our voices and even people like you
Speaker 3: going on stages and talking about the importance of us
Speaker 3: telling that and holding employers accountable and companies and businesses
Speaker 3: accountable for breaking down their problems, breaking down their systems
Speaker 3: and processes to better accommodate our new perspectives and our
Speaker 3: you know, what we value the most, which you know,
Speaker 3: which is love, family, wellness. You know, why is it
Speaker 3: not okay for me as a mom, a black woman,
Speaker 3: a mom, a working person. I I I even I'll
Speaker 3: put myself out there and say that I judged my
Speaker 3: own mom when she would tell me, I just want
Speaker 3: to be a mom. I don't want to work. I
Speaker 3: just want to be a mom. I had to work
Speaker 3: because I had four kids, and you know, was by myself.
Speaker 3: And I'd be like, you just wanted to be a mom,
Speaker 3: But like that isn't which is the huge job. It's
Speaker 3: a huge job, and it's also but I felt for me,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm glad I got over this really quickly.
Speaker 3: But it was like I had this perception that like
Speaker 3: there was a glamorization of work and working and being
Speaker 3: a part of a you know, being a part of
Speaker 3: a company and doing the nine to five, and that
Speaker 3: you know, the traditional image of the working woman through
Speaker 3: the eighties. I think we were as eighties I'm an
Speaker 3: eighties baby, and you kind of see the women and
Speaker 3: you have to like act like the man and be
Speaker 3: aggressive with your career, but at what cost. So we're
Speaker 3: almost like we're the next level of that. It's, yes,
Speaker 3: we can have careers, but we can have it on
Speaker 3: our own terms, and we don't have to sacrifice our
Speaker 3: financial well being to have a job. We shouldn't have
Speaker 3: to sacrifice our face nancial well being to have work
Speaker 3: that is meaningful, that treats us well, takes care of
Speaker 3: us and lets us clock out when we want to
Speaker 3: clock out and spend time with the kids and have
Speaker 3: time for ourselves and all that beauty. So, for you
Speaker 3: and I, the way that we got there was being
Speaker 3: our own boss. And I want to talk to you
Speaker 3: about that transition for a lot of women, and it
Speaker 3: is you know, I'm so happy that they can find
Speaker 3: places in traditional you know, nine to five work where
Speaker 3: they are able to do that, feel safe, be well paid.
Speaker 3: It exists, y'all who are listening. It exists, I hope
Speaker 3: people sometimes it does. But in this particular chapter in
Speaker 3: your life, you are on your own. So how has
Speaker 3: that been, that transition into independence, and how's it going?
Speaker 2: It's going great. I mean to put it in context,
Speaker 2: like if I didn't want to do anything revenue generating
Speaker 2: for the rest of this calendar year, I do not
Speaker 2: have to do that. And I think that's what Ali
Speaker 2: Wong some extent of to what Ali Wang refers to
Speaker 2: as like fuck you money, where you're just like, I'm good,
Speaker 2: like I don't have to do anything. But I didn't
Speaker 2: expect this from myself at all. And I feel like
Speaker 2: I had a non traditional approach even to entrepreneurship. I've
Speaker 2: tried the like forecasting and here are all my marketing
Speaker 2: strategies and this and that, but that is it's so
Speaker 2: not me and so not what I had the energy for,
Speaker 2: where I'm just like, I just want to do what
Speaker 2: I want to do, and so I call it. If
Speaker 2: someone steals this, I'll be so pissed. Maybe I'm not
Speaker 2: going to give it a name. Because it is a
Speaker 2: cool name. But the strategy is basically, the strategy is
Speaker 2: to work as authentically as I can and as publicly
Speaker 2: as I can. And so when I started in twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: I wanted to have conversations about microaggressions in the workplace,
Speaker 2: but again I wanted the audience to be us, and
Speaker 2: so it was like a workshop for women of color.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk about microaggressions, kind of what the
Speaker 2: experiences are. And I was just trying to figure out,
Speaker 2: like what in that topic I actually cared about, and
Speaker 2: so I just started doing it. It wasn't perfect, right,
Speaker 2: It was probably a seventy percent, which is my rule,
Speaker 2: Like if it's seventy percent good, If it's seventy percent there,
Speaker 2: it's enough, right, which itself I think also for black
Speaker 2: women is like wait, is it not perfect? Yeah?
Speaker 3: No, but I love that done is better than perfect
Speaker 3: sometimes exactly.
Speaker 2: And it was like, I'm going to learn publicly, which
Speaker 2: we don't often feel like we get a chance to do,
Speaker 2: and people create situations where we don't get a chance
Speaker 2: to do that, right, So I was like, I'm going
Speaker 2: to learn publicly. This is a low stake situation. I'm
Speaker 2: just going to just put this stuff up on the internet.
Speaker 2: I had no audience really before this, and just started
Speaker 2: doing them very regularly, and from that built this huge audience,
Speaker 2: like I would have three thousand people on the waiting list,
Speaker 2: and so kind of building off of that and kind
Speaker 2: of crafting like, Okay, what in this do I care about?
Speaker 2: What else do I care about? I started the Black
Speaker 2: Cancer podcast, which is not revenue generating at all, and
Speaker 2: important for me to kind of keep that as a
Speaker 2: passion project. And it just started kind of doing. What
Speaker 2: I didn't expect is that people who showed up in
Speaker 2: these places in my workshops, workplaces, right, I didn't plan this,
Speaker 2: and so they're like, hey, can you do this for us?
Speaker 2: And can you do that? And I'm like, wait what?
Speaker 2: And so in the beginning of that, I had no
Speaker 2: idea what to charge. I was just kind of I
Speaker 2: don't know, making things up, talking to people. I would
Speaker 2: never charge something. Now, somebody now what I accepted two
Speaker 2: years ago, like.
Speaker 3: As you shouldn't exactly as you shouldn't, price has gone up,
Speaker 3: and it's gone up, and.
Speaker 2: So yesterday's price is not today's price.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you the period paragraph say less.
Speaker 2: And so that just really built up, and then some
Speaker 2: writing opportunities came up, and the ted talk went out,
Speaker 2: and those two things really took off, which created the audience,
Speaker 2: which generated the work, and which has led to other
Speaker 2: opportunities that will be public saying that I can't talk
Speaker 2: about yet. But I just allowed myself to really just
Speaker 2: stay focused on the things that I cared about and
Speaker 2: the things I had energy for. Now, what that came
Speaker 2: with is saying no to clients who would not pay
Speaker 2: me what I asked for, and this is when I
Speaker 2: was not even charging that much, Saying no to people
Speaker 2: that I felt bad vibes from, Like there's a CEO
Speaker 2: of a big company here in Seattle who made a
Speaker 2: comment about my hair in a zoom meeting and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: this is not not the match, and no to thousands
Speaker 2: of dollars because I didn't like the interaction. And so
Speaker 2: I always try to center on what's given me energy,
Speaker 2: what's taking away my energy, and as much as I
Speaker 2: can make decisions about what's given me energy. What's also
Speaker 2: critical to this too is that I never wanted to
Speaker 2: make decisions based on money, because if it was about
Speaker 2: the money, then I could go work for somebody else. Right,
Speaker 2: The whole point of working for myself was to give
Speaker 2: myself the level of agency to structure my day the
Speaker 2: way I wanted and to do the types of things
Speaker 2: that I could get excited about, and to work with
Speaker 2: the type of people that I want to work with.
Speaker 2: And so I love saying no to people, and I've
Speaker 2: turned down a lot of people and that's been an
Speaker 2: important part of my process. So the last thing I'll
Speaker 2: say too, is that because I work in what I'll
Speaker 2: call it such a self centering way, i have never
Speaker 2: pitched work to anybody. I've not done a proposal. I've
Speaker 2: not done like you know, the RFPs. I've not emailed
Speaker 2: people cold with a deck or anything. I work publicly
Speaker 2: and I make sure that my website is up today
Speaker 2: and people know how to find me, and so all
Speaker 2: of my business is inbound. And I love that because
Speaker 2: it changes the power dynamic. I'm actually deciding whether I
Speaker 2: want to work with you instead of the other way around.
Speaker 2: And that level of power is a level that a
Speaker 2: power I've never experienced in my career before. And you know,
Speaker 2: spinal cord injury aside, I've never been as mentally or
Speaker 2: physically healthy than I've ever been, and that that's the point,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: So you can snowboard whenever the damn hell you want
Speaker 3: a snowboard every Wednesday. Every Wednesday, I.
Speaker 2: Live in Seattle, I snowboard at Steven's. For people who know,
Speaker 2: it's like an hour and a half away from here.
Speaker 2: I snowboard on Wednesdays so there are no crowds. I
Speaker 2: do not take business meetings before one pm, with rare
Speaker 2: exception like this podcast. I want to say, what time
Speaker 2: is it over there? I know, girl, when your team
Speaker 2: was like nine o'clock, I was like nine o'clock. I'm
Speaker 2: still doing yoga at nine. I have a three hour morning.
Speaker 3: I'm walking in the park at nine. So I appreciate you,
Speaker 3: thank you, thank you for the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I have a three hour morning routine and
Speaker 2: you know, most of my work day yesterday I ran
Speaker 2: eleven miles right. So that's the type of lifestyle that
Speaker 2: I want. And to be able to have that type
Speaker 2: of lifestyle and also be financially healthy is something that
Speaker 2: I did not think would be possible. It's a thing
Speaker 2: that you hope for. But I mean, I'm very happy
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 3: For anyone who's listening. I'm just going to sum up
Speaker 3: a couple of things that I'm hearing. I'm hearing one,
Speaker 3: it is possible like you are. This is when we
Speaker 3: like we glamorize black women grinding and hustle culture and
Speaker 3: all that. But we need more examples. And I'm so
Speaker 3: glad that you share yourself with us because we need
Speaker 3: more examples of this, more women doing whatever the hell
Speaker 3: they want to do and showing that, yeah, my bills
Speaker 3: are paid and I'm doing what I want to do,
Speaker 3: so now what And on top of that, what you
Speaker 3: said that I work so hard. I have a group
Speaker 3: coaching program and one of my favorite things to talk
Speaker 3: about is one of the scariest for the women that
Speaker 3: I work with, which is your brand. It is and
Speaker 3: it's using your voice and standing in your point of
Speaker 3: view and speaking and sharing and showing people what it
Speaker 3: is that you're doing and not being afraid of that,
Speaker 3: you know, not being afraid of creating your own platform
Speaker 3: and sharing and how much power there is when you
Speaker 3: tell people. As soon as I started actually opening my
Speaker 3: mouth a lot more and sharing my opinions, your audience
Speaker 3: will find you, and those opportunities baybe when you said
Speaker 3: all those inbound requests. Yes, that can that will happen
Speaker 3: in your career. You know, even if you're nine to five.
Speaker 3: It'll be recruiters reaching out. It'll be hiring managers. You
Speaker 3: know if they if you don't open the front door
Speaker 3: and you know, say come on in, how are they
Speaker 3: going to know that you're there? And I think that's
Speaker 3: such a I'm so happy and to hear that, to
Speaker 3: hear you say that there was power in you being
Speaker 3: more public, you know, with the work that you're doing
Speaker 3: and not waiting around for the permission. Event Bright is
Speaker 3: free Bright.
Speaker 2: That's literally what I said. I said, event by is free.
Speaker 2: I have a computer and I have Zoom, so let's
Speaker 2: make it happen. And just starting to build like super small,
Speaker 2: Like I started this newsletter and the I had four
Speaker 2: people on the list, four and I knew all of
Speaker 2: them all right, and myself included yourself, Yeah, I got it.
Speaker 2: Myself included, right, So really three other people and I
Speaker 2: just I'm just going to keep at it. I'm going
Speaker 2: to keep at it. And now there's like over thirteen
Speaker 2: thousand people on this list, right, And so what was
Speaker 2: important for me is I set process goals. I do
Speaker 2: not set outcome goals. And the times where I have
Speaker 2: tried to set outcome goals is when I've stopped doing
Speaker 2: the work. And so what I mean by that is this.
Speaker 2: When I had the podcast, my goal was not how
Speaker 2: many listeners I would get, you know, what type of
Speaker 2: outlets would talk about the podcast? Like, none of those
Speaker 2: things right, those are all kind of like outcome goals.
Speaker 2: My one marcro of success for Black Cancer when I
Speaker 2: started was if I said that the season starts on
Speaker 2: April first, did you start the on April first? If
Speaker 2: I set the schedule that I would release an episode
Speaker 2: every single Monday, did I release an episode every single Monday?
Speaker 2: That's it? And if that happened, that was successful.
Speaker 3: Amen's sister consistency from one podcast to another, Brown Ambition.
Speaker 3: The best thing Tip and I did from the jump
Speaker 3: was and we will publish on at the time. It
Speaker 3: was Tuesday, and we met and we did our tape.
Speaker 3: It was about scheduling the time and making it a
Speaker 3: consistent habit, and then your audience begins to trust you
Speaker 3: and you show up for them and it may take
Speaker 3: you years and you know and all that, but as
Speaker 3: a personal trainer, I feel like you probably understand better
Speaker 3: than anyone that a lot of people know the steps
Speaker 3: it takes, but they won't. It's it's the differentiating factor
Speaker 3: between who actually takes those steps and who shows up.
Speaker 3: Who shows up, and it's not convenient, very different.
Speaker 2: This is I learned this from personal training and also
Speaker 2: with my public health degree, right, and I will and
Speaker 2: this is hard to say someone who speaks and writes.
Speaker 2: I think there is an asterisk there. But foundationally, information
Speaker 2: is not enough to change your behavior. It's not information
Speaker 2: is not enough to change your behavior, and so you
Speaker 2: can know anything, right mind you, I'm trying to lose
Speaker 2: all my post surgery weight right now. There's nothing to
Speaker 2: do with how I feel about how I look, and
Speaker 2: all about trying to like feel good about like my
Speaker 2: body in a like a very grounded way. So not
Speaker 2: about aesthetics for the folks out there, like why trying
Speaker 2: this weight? Girl? You look great? I know it look great,
Speaker 2: but this is what I'm working on, right, So I'm
Speaker 2: trying to lose all my post surgery weight. And the
Speaker 2: thing that I kept going back to is like you
Speaker 2: have a agree in this. Yeah, you have done this
Speaker 2: for other people. You've done this for yourself, and you
Speaker 2: have studied this. I have all the information that I
Speaker 2: need to meet my fitness goals, and I've been trying
Speaker 2: to meet these fitness goals for four years. Right, and
Speaker 2: so what supports you in taking the action? Right? Hey,
Speaker 2: you don't weigh the same that you did two years ago,
Speaker 2: So you need new clothes. Stop suffocating yourself with things
Speaker 2: that do not fit, that make you feel uncomfortable. So
Speaker 2: then you don't do the physical activity right, sign up
Speaker 2: for the gym membership, go to the park. Here are
Speaker 2: all the actual environmental things that supports me in making
Speaker 2: this happen. What accountability can I set up? And so
Speaker 2: having the information is never enough. It's about what struck
Speaker 2: you have in place. And we see this with our workplaces.
Speaker 2: Most of our workplaces, if you look on our websites,
Speaker 2: on the websites of where you work, knows that diversity
Speaker 2: acting inclusion is important. They know that paying women the
Speaker 2: same as men is important. They understand that diversity is key.
Speaker 2: They have all the information, right, do they act on
Speaker 2: said information? Yeah? No, right, no, no, noep.
Speaker 3: They tell you to leave the call or leave the
Speaker 3: room exactly get it? Oh yeah, that's important. What's for lunch?
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly. I know you talked to her cheek about
Speaker 2: imparksis syndrome, right, like all our workplaces talk about imparx
Speaker 2: of syndrome and it's holding women back and blase blah cool.
Speaker 2: But have you changed your work culture to not trigger
Speaker 2: my impoxy syndrome? Are you still interrupting me, Bob every
Speaker 2: time I have something to say? You know, are you
Speaker 2: still asking me to take the notes when I'm actually
Speaker 2: there to lead the meeting? So you say that you
Speaker 2: know this thing, you say that you value this thing,
Speaker 2: you say that this thing is important, But what's actually
Speaker 2: happening infrastructurally to make those changes come to bear? And
Speaker 2: I think we could see that in entrepreneurship as well.
Speaker 2: There's the things that you want to do and the
Speaker 2: things that you do, So what are you doing?
Speaker 3: I'm so glad that you pointed that out, and I
Speaker 3: wish we had more time to talk more. From one
Speaker 3: entrepreneur to another, I see you on so many levels,
Speaker 3: and thank goodness that you're healthy and that you made
Speaker 3: it through the other side of that. I'm so grateful
Speaker 3: and I'm grateful to you for taking that experience and
Speaker 3: not letting it, if anything, letting it turbo charge you
Speaker 3: forward because your work is so important and I'm so
Speaker 3: honored that you have shared your time and your voice
Speaker 3: at this early, early Friday hour with our audience. I
Speaker 3: know that they will feel seen in your work. So
Speaker 3: if you guys want to learn more about Jodyanne, check
Speaker 3: out her website. We'll have a link to the notes.
Speaker 3: Check her out on ig Jodian, Where's is the website?
Speaker 3: The best place for people to to find out more
Speaker 3: about your work? That's Jodyanbeery dot com.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jodianbeury dot com and Jodyannbery on Instagram. Jodyanne underscore
Speaker 2: be on Twitter, but I never do anything on Twitter,
Speaker 2: so that won't be an exciting place for you.
Speaker 3: James's are you doing any TikTok dances?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: I asked my niece to teach me a TikTok dance
Speaker 2: and she looked at me and was like, Auntie, No,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: What's great about to You don't have to learn how
Speaker 3: to do dances, just be yourself. People they love authenticity. Authenticity.
Speaker 2: Wow, I will say this. I heard this for like
Speaker 2: to support entrepreneurs like pick two. Social media platforms and
Speaker 2: like double down and so I'm on Instagram and LinkedIn
Speaker 2: or my primary one, so y'all can find me there.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 3: Yes, just focus, just fine, just pick one and focus.
Speaker 3: People are always like, it's so overwhelming. Well, don't let
Speaker 3: it be, don't pick one and focus. Well, I can't
Speaker 3: wait to find out more. I feel like you've got
Speaker 3: some exciting things. Whenever someone teases something that's gonna happen,
Speaker 3: I'm like, is it Shondaland is it? You know? Are
Speaker 3: you going to have a Netflix series? My head goes
Speaker 3: to Shonda. I don't know why.
Speaker 2: I just feel like and from your lips to the universe, Yeah, whatever, Netflix.
Speaker 3: Listen If Shonda listen to BA, that would be I
Speaker 3: know I'd made it then. Stacy Abrams was a good
Speaker 3: way to start the year. Now I just got to
Speaker 3: keep going. And you are an incredible just woman, person,
Speaker 3: human being. Thank you so much, Jodian for joining Brown Ambition.
Speaker 3: I cannot wait to see where you go next. My friend,
Speaker 3: my new friend in my head.
Speaker 2: Thank you. No, the friendship, the friendship is here. You
Speaker 2: heard it here first