Speaker 1: All right, hey, hey, va fam, It's Mandy. I'm back
Speaker 1: with another very special guest with Brown Ambition. Today we
Speaker 1: have the amazing, incredible, intelligent, charismatic snowboarding, podcasting, writing, TED
Speaker 1: talking queen Jody An Beury. Jody Anne is. As I
Speaker 1: just said, I don't even there's not enough hyphens for
Speaker 1: Jody Ann. But where I discovered Jody Anne was through
Speaker 1: her incredible TED talk, which you can check out. We'll
Speaker 1: put a link in the show notes called the Myth
Speaker 1: of Bringing your full authentic self to work, And through
Speaker 1: her work, Jody Anne says she is on a mission
Speaker 1: to disrupt business as usual to achieve social change, and
Speaker 1: she's doing that in a couple of different ways, and
Speaker 1: especially in the way that she's approached her career. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk to Jodyanne about the TED talk about
Speaker 1: the myth of women bringing their full authentic self to work.
Speaker 1: Also her podcast. She has an amazing podcast called Black Cancer,
Speaker 1: which we're going to talk about where she explores the
Speaker 1: lives of people of color through their cancer journeys. I
Speaker 1: cannot wait to get into this conversation. So without further ado,
Speaker 1: Hello Jody Ann, thanks for joining.
Speaker 2: Va Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: That was the best introduction ever.
Speaker 1: Oh you're welcome. I want women and you know what.
Speaker 1: I used to do it off air on my own,
Speaker 1: but then I was like, I know it's uncomfortable to
Speaker 1: hear your own bio, but I also want I'm like, here,
Speaker 1: listen to your bio, you know, listen to what you
Speaker 1: have done. So for those in the BA fam who
Speaker 1: may not be aware of your work, where did you
Speaker 1: get your start in your career and how did you
Speaker 1: end up on that Ted Talk stage? Walk me through it?
Speaker 2: So in nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 1: Now, when two people love each other a lot.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly. There are two ways to think about this, Right,
Speaker 2: Normally I would say, oh, I'm a classic millennial in them,
Speaker 2: 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, kind of always been on
Speaker 2: that path in some shape or form, trying to understand
Speaker 2: who I am in these spaces, who I am as
Speaker 2: a person who's born in Jamaica but moved to the
Speaker 2: US within my first year of life, navigating those two
Speaker 2: cultures within blackness, navigating what it's like to try to
Speaker 2: succeed and understand yourself in the context of predominantly white
Speaker 2: institutions and predominantly white workspaces. I've always been trying to
Speaker 2: understand what is truly my authentic core and what have
Speaker 2: I had to adapt as part of who I am
Speaker 2: in the process of code switching for now twenty plus
Speaker 2: years of my life, right, and so I think I've
Speaker 2: always kind of been building through my own experiences personally,
Speaker 2: my professional path, and just my scholarship of kind of
Speaker 2: authenticity in these types of contentious environment or environments that
Speaker 2: have high stakes, because who you are in your authenticity
Speaker 2: with your friendships isn't tied to your livelihood or your
Speaker 2: health insurance. Yeah, so there's a lot of risk in
Speaker 2: that space. So I think I've always been building content wise.
Speaker 2: But as far as the ted stage, and I know
Speaker 2: you talked about the podcast and to make that linkage here,
Speaker 2: four years ago around this time I had my surgery.
Speaker 2: I'm sure we'll get more into that. But as a
Speaker 2: part of going through that process of the prediagnosis depression
Speaker 2: that I was experiencing, the post diagnosis depression I was
Speaker 2: experiencing just like how traumatic that health crisis was when
Speaker 2: you're in a situation when you have to really grapple
Speaker 2: with your own mortality. There was a period of time
Speaker 2: that I couldn't see myself in the future, Like I
Speaker 2: really just like, all right, let's just make it through
Speaker 2: the end of today, maybe we make it tomorrow. But
Speaker 2: I really could not see or imagine my life beyond
Speaker 2: like the immediate crisis that I was in, and so
Speaker 2: the moment that I had the thought that, oh, I'm
Speaker 2: going to apply for TED ex Seattle became the moment
Speaker 2: where I'm like, wait, are you seeing yourself in the future?
Speaker 1: 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 LEADEP 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 1: You know what do you mean by that? The opportunities
Speaker 1: 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 1: Let's talk about your health scare, not even a health scare,
Speaker 1: your traumatic health event you were at, what happened? How
Speaker 1: old were you because I mean this is I can't
Speaker 1: even fathom being You were probably in your mid twenties.
Speaker 2: No, it was thirty two when I got there.
Speaker 1: Thirty two, early thirty Okay, so tell us. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: so talk about this, this this experience, and how did
Speaker 1: 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 a sedentary lifestyle, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, how do you know that, because I snowboard,
Speaker 2: I surf, I run, I lift weights. I was on
Speaker 2: a competitive dragon boating team. So he's looking at me like, oh,
Speaker 2: why didn't you tell me, Well, why did you assume
Speaker 2: looking at me? I don't know if it was color,
Speaker 2: my skin, shape of my body that you assumed that
Speaker 2: I was sitting at home watch TV all day, which
Speaker 2: is also fine for people who do that, not trying
Speaker 2: to judge on people's lifestyles, right, And so just kind
Speaker 2: of deal with like the back and forth of that
Speaker 2: and the it was just draining. I cannot describe like
Speaker 2: the level of pain, but you're just like it's whatever
Speaker 2: you push through, you go to work. I still did
Speaker 2: all my physical activities and I was hurting the whole time,
Speaker 2: which is a whole other thing of why do we
Speaker 2: normalize being in pain like that? Wasn't okay. At some
Speaker 2: point I was describing all of this to my sister
Speaker 2: and she just interrupted me and she's like, Joe, you
Speaker 2: are not Serena Williams. And I'm like, first of all,
Speaker 2: you don't have to comfort me like that. I know
Speaker 2: that I know that I'm not Serena Williams, Like, what
Speaker 2: is your point here? But the point she was making
Speaker 2: was that I'm just a regular active person. You know,
Speaker 2: Serena Williams isn't a elked athlete. Right, being a regular
Speaker 2: active person should not create the amount of ailment that
Speaker 2: I was having. Right that the fact that I was
Speaker 2: in pain was not normal or should be warranted for
Speaker 2: the types of activities that I was doing, because again,
Speaker 2: it's not like I'm doing a lot, but I'm not
Speaker 2: an elite level competitive greatest in the world athlete, and
Speaker 2: so that kind of snapped to me that this is
Speaker 2: actually not okay, and so I kind of grited down
Speaker 2: barried it. I gave myself four months to do every
Speaker 2: single test that they could do, unrelenting right, that I
Speaker 2: would just give myself that amount to really do the
Speaker 2: investigative work, which is itself a massive privilege to be
Speaker 2: able to take the time off, to be able to
Speaker 2: have the health insurance or the finances to cover that,
Speaker 2: or even the mental capacity to invest in your health
Speaker 2: in yourself that way. And so I was like, I
Speaker 2: have all these things lined up for me. I'm just
Speaker 2: going to commit for the next couple of months to
Speaker 2: figure it out. Literally. The next test that I did,
Speaker 2: which was an MRI my cervical spine, found a massive
Speaker 2: tumor inside of my spinal cord. So the way it
Speaker 2: was explained to me was if I did nothing, I
Speaker 2: would 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 be back
Speaker 2: after that.
Speaker 1: Wait. Wait, you were snowboarding, surfing, all this stuff and
Speaker 1: you had a massive spinal tumor massive doing nothing would
Speaker 1: have made you paralyzed. And you said, uh huh, I
Speaker 1: hear you. But the flight is booked and the hotels
Speaker 1: were bookly fundable. So br be you didn't tell your mom,
Speaker 1: did you?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Are you kidding? My mom never would have left me.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, Mama never knew that you were
Speaker 1: getting on that flight with a smile to.
Speaker 2: Were 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 it.
Speaker 1: Was something with you when you were getting this news.
Speaker 2: No, So I'm like, Okay, if that's what I'm facing,
Speaker 2: If I'm facing potential complete paralysis from the neck down
Speaker 2: this week, I'm going to Europe right because it could
Speaker 2: be the last time I was ever able to travel
Speaker 2: independently or to snowboard and to like have that experience.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what was ahead of me, and so
Speaker 2: I start bargaining. I'm like, can I push it back
Speaker 2: a month, and he's like, you have a ticking time
Speaker 2: bomb in your neck. I cannot make you better than
Speaker 2: you are from when you go into surgery, and so
Speaker 2: you could be compromising. You know the best thing that
Speaker 2: you have going for you right now, which is the
Speaker 2: fact that you're healthy right like you have a lot
Speaker 2: of mobility. He actually said to me that when he
Speaker 2: saw my scans, he didn't he didn't expect someone who
Speaker 2: could walk to come into his office, like that's that's
Speaker 2: where we were. And so after the deliberation, I was like,
Speaker 2: I have to go to Europe, like I have to
Speaker 2: do this trip like this to be my last opportunity
Speaker 2: for anything like this. And so kind of went through
Speaker 2: that whole process, had the surgery, had a lot of rehab.
Speaker 1: You go to Europe. Had an amazing trip. I hope.
Speaker 2: It was phenomenal, the best snowboarding on my life.
Speaker 1: The powder was fresh. I don't know snowboarding technology, but
Speaker 1: I mean terminology, but there was snow when 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 so 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 sisters
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 ifs ahead, and I just needed
Speaker 2: to focus on there. Now I'm going to Europe, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna have surgery. We'll see what happens after that. When
Speaker 2: I came back to work from that. And one thing
Speaker 2: I you know at the intersections with work here that
Speaker 2: I want to emphasize is that when do you have
Speaker 2: a health crisis, or someone in your household or someone
Speaker 2: that you take care of has a major health crisis,
Speaker 2: you have to decide what is likely an inevitability that
Speaker 2: you have to tell somebody at work, And not all
Speaker 2: workplaces know how to handle the real humanness that comes
Speaker 2: with when a health crisis is in play. Whatever meetings
Speaker 2: I had, whatever deadlines I was working on did not matter.
Speaker 2: As soon as I got that news, And thankfully where
Speaker 2: I was working at the time, they're like, you do
Speaker 2: what you have to do, all the paperwork, all the PTO,
Speaker 2: all the disability whatever, we will handle that on the
Speaker 2: back end. I did not have to worry about anything
Speaker 2: when it came to my job. In fact, after surgery,
Speaker 2: I was disability leave for four months, and they created
Speaker 2: a 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 was probably the greatest
Speaker 2: gift to not have to worry about my livelihood, how
Speaker 2: 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 to
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 I do? Should
Speaker 2: I do this? Maybe I can 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 for clarity.
Speaker 1: I mean what I mean it was trauma, but it
Speaker 1: was like the positive the silver lining is that fast
Speaker 1: track to clarity, fast tracked to being unbothered, oh, being
Speaker 1: focused and understanding what's important. You know, when you say
Speaker 1: you get stripped down to like family, your health, you
Speaker 1: know what's in front of you. Nothing else matters. And
Speaker 1: I am I don't want every Obviously, not everyone needs
Speaker 1: a spinal tumor. I've swear don't let it be a
Speaker 1: spinal tumor. The client that I was talking to this morning,
Speaker 1: when I tell you and it's so serendipitous that I'm
Speaker 1: sitting with you now because I think back to my
Speaker 1: I hate the word client makes it sound so transactional.
Speaker 1: But this woman who has been working with me for
Speaker 1: a couple months now, and I looked at her and
Speaker 1: I was like, you realize, I need you to act
Speaker 1: more like your your house is on fire right now,
Speaker 1: like you're having an emergency. We need to call nine
Speaker 1: one one, and their responses. Quit the responses. It's time
Speaker 1: for you to walk away and take six months off.
Speaker 1: But and it was like she was waiting for something
Speaker 1: big enough, the catastrophe, the tumor on a scan, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, And the fact that and it's
Speaker 1: really difficult to kind of get people to a place
Speaker 1: where they can see their own health and their own
Speaker 1: well being as that emergency like it actually is in jeopardy. Wow,
Speaker 1: All right, ba fam, let's take a quick break and
Speaker 1: we'll be right back with more of my illuminating conversation
Speaker 1: with Jody Ambery. This is brown and all right, ba fam,
Speaker 1: we are back. Let's dive right back into my conversation
Speaker 1: with Jody Ambery. The surgery, the physical rehabilitation. How long
Speaker 1: did all of that take? You said it was four
Speaker 1: months of recovery, five months.
Speaker 2: Learning of not of not working. So I was in
Speaker 2: hospital for about a month. And that's like can you walk?
Speaker 2: Can you write? Can you pick up a really small
Speaker 2: thing and put it to the other side of the
Speaker 2: table like that? That process was so I don't want
Speaker 2: to say humbling because it makes it sound like it
Speaker 2: was a fun process.
Speaker 1: No, humbling usually means it was hard as shit. And
Speaker 1: I thought you were big, tough shit before and now
Speaker 1: you need to pick up a pencil and.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like, you know, like it's kind of
Speaker 2: like that like inspiration porn that we do with people
Speaker 2: who have disabilities. So you can have someone who has
Speaker 2: a physical disability and they're just playing basketball, and then
Speaker 2: all the comments will be like, now you have no
Speaker 2: excuse to chase your dreams. And I'm like, here's a
Speaker 2: kid who's just like playing basketball. No one asked you
Speaker 2: to project like your shit onto that situation. And so
Speaker 2: there's this sense of like, when you go through something
Speaker 2: really difficult, that if you get on the quote unquote
Speaker 2: other side of it, that the process itself was worth it. Right,
Speaker 2: I would strongly prefer to not have had a spinal
Speaker 2: tumor or to be currently living with a spinal cord
Speaker 2: injury and all the disabilities and challenges and chronic pain
Speaker 2: that come from that. Like, I would absolutely rather not
Speaker 2: have gone through that. The experience when I was in
Speaker 2: hospital was traumatizing and very very isolating. And this is
Speaker 2: pre COVID, right, So I had people visiting me every day,
Speaker 2: but it's really challenging. And I remember this one instance
Speaker 2: where they took me to the bottom of a staircase
Speaker 2: and she was like, all right, you know, for pta today,
Speaker 2: we're gonna walk up the stairs. And I was so
Speaker 2: irritated because I'm like, I'm that memorial Sloan kettering, like
Speaker 2: this is like the creme de la crem of cancer
Speaker 2: centers in the world, And what we're doing today is
Speaker 2: walking up these dingy back staircase like give me the
Speaker 2: bells and whistles, like I want cool equipment. So I'm
Speaker 2: all high and mighty off myself, like this is what
Speaker 2: we're doing, Like we're walking upstairs, and I stood at
Speaker 2: the bottom of the stairs and I just kind of
Speaker 2: looked up. I started crying because what's interesting about a
Speaker 2: spinal cord injury is that there's nothing physically wrong with
Speaker 2: my muscles, my legs, like my body functions. The problem
Speaker 2: is is that the brain cannot get the information to
Speaker 2: the rest of the body. And so when people use
Speaker 2: paralysis as a figurative sense of speech, I'm like, you
Speaker 2: have no idea what that experience is like to be
Speaker 2: at the bottom of a staircase looking at it, wanting
Speaker 2: to walk up, but your body is not moving, and
Speaker 2: having to constantly send those signals over and over and
Speaker 2: over again and hope that one of them gets through
Speaker 2: and your leg moves, which I think actually sounds like
Speaker 2: what 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 1: I'll never I can't even fathom. I can't even fathom
Speaker 1: what that. But thank you for thank you for even
Speaker 1: taking the time to try to express that for those
Speaker 1: of us who haven't felt that way.
Speaker 2: Man, man, I just wish that people wouldn't have to
Speaker 2: go through stuff like that to get that kick in
Speaker 2: the butt to just create the life that you want
Speaker 2: to create. Life is so fragile, and if you can't
Speaker 2: walk away, even from the pandemic, from that, like like
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't want people to have to go
Speaker 2: through a crisis to start investing in themselves and to
Speaker 2: spend their intellectual energy, you know, as we talk about
Speaker 2: professional lives through something that like really matters to you
Speaker 2: but also is getting you kind of what you want
Speaker 2: out of that realm of your life. And so I'm
Speaker 2: not saying that everyone has to do meaningful work. You
Speaker 2: can make widgets. If those widgets give you, you know,
Speaker 2: generational financial safety and that's important to you and that's
Speaker 2: your goal, then great, right, But are you destroying yourself
Speaker 2: regardless of what path you choose in that process? Like?
Speaker 2: Are you unhappy? And so I just want people to
Speaker 2: tap into, like what actually matters to you, what's actually
Speaker 2: important to you? How can you achieve your goals without
Speaker 2: eroding yourself?
Speaker 1: I could not agree more. I think some people do
Speaker 1: need the the the big seismic shock of an event.
Speaker 1: I'm with you. I'm like, if the pandemic didn't do it,
Speaker 1: then what the heck will? I mean? But some people
Speaker 1: are really hard headed and not you know, they're gonna
Speaker 1: people will learn on their own time. But I do
Speaker 1: feel like younger generations, and I include ourselves in that.
Speaker 1: I'm a millennial, and I think that we don't want it.
Speaker 1: We understand the urgency of protecting happiness and well being.
Speaker 1: And what I feel like the shift that I'm seeing
Speaker 1: is we are collectively using our voices and even people
Speaker 1: like you going on stages and talking about the importance
Speaker 1: of us telling that and holding employers accountable and companies
Speaker 1: and businesses accountable for breaking down their problems, breaking down
Speaker 1: their systems and processes to better accommodate our new perspectives
Speaker 1: and our you know what we value the most, which,
Speaker 1: you know, which is love, family, wellness. You know, why
Speaker 1: is it not okay for me as a mom, a
Speaker 1: black woman, a mom, a working person. I even I'll
Speaker 1: put myself out there and say that I judged my
Speaker 1: own mom when she would tell me, I just want
Speaker 1: to be a mom. I don't want to work. I
Speaker 1: just want to be a mom. I had to work
Speaker 1: because I had four kids, and you know, by myself.
Speaker 1: And I'd be like, you just wanted to be a mom,
Speaker 1: But like that is an which is the huge job.
Speaker 1: It's a huge job, and it's also but I felt
Speaker 1: for me if we're you know, I'm glad I got
Speaker 1: over this really quickly. But it was like I had
Speaker 1: this perception that like there was a glamorization of work
Speaker 1: and working and being a part of a you know,
Speaker 1: being a part of a company and doing the nine
Speaker 1: to five, and that you know, the traditional image of
Speaker 1: the working woman through the eighties I think we were
Speaker 1: as eighties. I'm an eighties baby, and you kind of
Speaker 1: see the women and you have to like act like
Speaker 1: the man and be aggressive with your career, but at
Speaker 1: what cost? So we're almost like we're the next level
Speaker 1: of that. It's yes, we can have careers, but we
Speaker 1: can have it on our own terms. And we don't
Speaker 1: have to sacrifice our financial well being to have a job.
Speaker 1: We shouldn't have to sacrifice our financial well being to
Speaker 1: have work that is meaningful, that treats us well, takes
Speaker 1: care of us, and lets us clock out when we
Speaker 1: want to clock out and spend time with the kids
Speaker 1: and have time for ourselves and all that beauty. So
Speaker 1: for you and I, the way that we got there
Speaker 1: was being our own boss. And I want to talk
Speaker 1: to you about that transition for a lot of women,
Speaker 1: and it is you know, I'm so happy that they
Speaker 1: can find places in traditional, you know, nine to five
Speaker 1: work where they are able to do that, feel safe,
Speaker 1: be well paid. It exists, y'all who are listening. It exists.
Speaker 1: I hope people it does. But in this particular chapter
Speaker 1: in your life, you are on your own. So how
Speaker 1: has that been, that transition into independence and how's it.
Speaker 1: 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 not traditional approach even to entrepreneurship. I
Speaker 2: have tried the like forecasting and here are all my
Speaker 2: marketing strategies and this and that, but that is it's
Speaker 2: so not me and so not what I had the
Speaker 2: energy for, where I'm just like, I just want to
Speaker 2: do what I want to do, and so I call it.
Speaker 2: If someone steals this, I'll be so pissed. Maybe I'm
Speaker 2: not going to give it a name because it is
Speaker 2: a cool name, but the strategy is basically the strategy
Speaker 2: is to work as authentically as I can and as
Speaker 2: publicly as I can. And so when I started in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, I wanted to have conversations about microaggressions in
Speaker 2: the workplace. But again I wanted the audience to be us,
Speaker 2: and 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 1: No, but I love that done is better than perfect
Speaker 1: 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 it's like I'm going to
Speaker 2: learn publicly. This is a low stake situation. I'm just
Speaker 2: 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
Speaker 2: list and so kind of building off of that and
Speaker 2: kind of crafting, like, Okay, what in this do I
Speaker 2: care about? What else do I care about? I started
Speaker 2: the Black Caad Answer podcast, which is not revenue generating
Speaker 2: at all, and important for me to kind of keep
Speaker 2: that as a passion project. And it just started kind
Speaker 2: of doing. What I didn't expect is that people who
Speaker 2: showed up in these places in my workshops workplaces, right,
Speaker 2: I didn't plan this, and so they're like, hey, can
Speaker 2: you do this for us? And can you do that?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, wait what? And so in the beginning
Speaker 2: of that, I had no idea what to charge. I
Speaker 2: was just kind of I don't know, making things up,
Speaker 2: talking to people. I would never charge something. Now somebody
Speaker 2: now what I accepted two years ago, like.
Speaker 1: As you shouldn't exactly as you shouldn't. The price has
Speaker 1: gone up, and it's gone up.
Speaker 2: Un So yesterday's price is not today's price.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you this 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 said no to
Speaker 2: thousands of dollars because I didn't like the interaction. And
Speaker 2: so I always try to center on what's giving 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: you know, myself the level of agency to structure my
Speaker 2: day the way I wanted and to do the types
Speaker 2: of things that I could get excited about, and to
Speaker 2: work with the type of people that I want to
Speaker 2: work with, and so I love saying no to people,
Speaker 2: and I've turned down a lot of people and that's
Speaker 2: been an important part of my process. So the last
Speaker 2: thing I'll say too, is that because I work in
Speaker 2: what I'll call it such a self centering way, I
Speaker 2: have never pitched work to anybody. I've not done a proposal.
Speaker 2: I've not done like you know, the RFPs. I've not
Speaker 2: emailed 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 1: So you can snowboard whenever the damn hell you want
Speaker 1: a snowboard every Wednesday. Every Wednesday. Where do I live?
Speaker 2: I live? I live in Seattle. I snowboard at Steven's
Speaker 2: for people who know it's like an hour and a
Speaker 2: half away from here. I snowboard on Wednesdays so there
Speaker 2: are no crowds. I do not take business meetings before
Speaker 2: one pm, with rare exception like this podcast.
Speaker 1: I donna say, what time is it over there?
Speaker 2: I know, girl, when your team was like nine o'clock,
Speaker 2: I was like nine o'clock. I'm still doing yoga at nine.
Speaker 2: I have a three hour morning.
Speaker 1: I'm walking in the park at nine. So I appreciate you,
Speaker 1: 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 1: I am so happy talking to you because for anyone
Speaker 1: who's listening, I'm just going to sum up a couple
Speaker 1: of things that I'm hearing. I'm hearing one, it is possible,
Speaker 1: like you are. This is when we like we glamorize
Speaker 1: black women grinding and hustle culture and all that. But
Speaker 1: we need more examples. And I'm so glad that you
Speaker 1: share yourself with us because we need more examples of this,
Speaker 1: more women doing whatever the hell they want to do
Speaker 1: and showing that, yeah, my bills are paid and I'm
Speaker 1: doing what I want to do, so now what And
Speaker 1: on top of that, what you said that I work
Speaker 1: so hard. I have a group coaching program and one
Speaker 1: of my favorite things to talk about is one of
Speaker 1: the scariest for the women that I work with, which
Speaker 1: is your brand. It is and it's using your voice
Speaker 1: and standing in your point of view and speaking and
Speaker 1: sharing and showing people what it is that you're doing
Speaker 1: and not being afraid of that, you know, not being
Speaker 1: afraid of creating your own platform and sharing and how
Speaker 1: much power there is when you tell people. As soon
Speaker 1: as I started actually opening my mouth a lot more
Speaker 1: and sharing my opinions, your audience will find you. And
Speaker 1: those opportunities, Babe, when you said all those inbound requests, yes,
Speaker 1: that can that will happen in your career. You know,
Speaker 1: even if you're nine to five, it'll be recruiters reaching out,
Speaker 1: it'll be hiring managers. You know, if they if you
Speaker 1: don't open the front door and you know, say come
Speaker 1: on in, how are they going to know that you're there?
Speaker 1: And I think that's such a I'm so happy and
Speaker 1: to hear that, to hear you say that there was
Speaker 1: power in you being more public, you know, with the
Speaker 1: work that you're doing and not waiting around for the permission.
Speaker 1: Event Bright is free Bright.
Speaker 2: That's literally what I said. I said that event by
Speaker 2: is free. I have a computer and I have Zoom,
Speaker 2: so let's make it happen. And just starting to build
Speaker 2: like super small, like I started this newsletter and the
Speaker 2: I had four people on the list, four and I
Speaker 2: knew all of them all right, and myself in yourself,
Speaker 2: yeah I got it myself included, right, So really three
Speaker 2: other people and I just I'm just going to keep
Speaker 2: at it. I'm going to keep at it. And now
Speaker 2: the like over thirteen thousand people on this list, right,
Speaker 2: And so what was important for me is I set
Speaker 2: process goals. I do not set outcome goals. And the
Speaker 2: times where I have tried to set outcome goals is
Speaker 2: when I've stopped doing the work. And so what I
Speaker 2: mean by that is this. When I had the podcast,
Speaker 2: my goal was not how many listeners I would get,
Speaker 2: you know, what type of outlets would talk about the podcast? Like,
Speaker 2: none of those things, right, Those are all kind of
Speaker 2: like outcome goals. My one marker of success for Black
Speaker 2: Cancer when I started was if I said that the
Speaker 2: season starts on April first, Did you start the season
Speaker 2: on April first? If I set the schedule that I
Speaker 2: would release an episode every single Monday, did I release
Speaker 2: an episode every single Monday? That's it? And if that happened,
Speaker 2: that was successful.
Speaker 1: A Men's Sister consistency from one podcast to another. Brown ambition.
Speaker 1: The best thing Tip and I did from the jump
Speaker 1: was and we will publish on at the time it
Speaker 1: was Tuesday, and we met and we did our tape.
Speaker 1: It was about scheduling the time and making it a
Speaker 1: consistent habit, and then your audience begins to trust you
Speaker 1: and you show up for them. And it may take
Speaker 1: you years and you know and all that, But as
Speaker 1: a personal trainer, I feel like you probably understand better
Speaker 1: than anyone that a lot of people know the steps
Speaker 1: it takes, but they won't. It's it's the differentiating factor
Speaker 1: between who actually takes those steps and who shows up,
Speaker 1: who shows up, and it's not convenient. Mm hmm, it's
Speaker 1: 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 degree 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 structures
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: such information?
Speaker 1: Yeah? No, right, no, yep. They tell you to leave
Speaker 1: the call or leave the room exactly, get it? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: 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 in
Speaker 2: parks of syndrome and it's holding women back and blase
Speaker 2: blah cool. But have you changed your work culture to
Speaker 2: not trigger my imposter syndrome? Are you still interrupting me, Bob?
Speaker 2: Every time I have something to say? You know? Are
Speaker 2: you still asking me to take the notes when I'm
Speaker 2: actually there to leave the meeting? So you say that
Speaker 2: you 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've see that in entrepreneurship as well. There's
Speaker 2: the things that you want to do and the things
Speaker 2: that you do, So what are you doing?
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that you pointed that out, and I
Speaker 1: wish we had more time to talk more. From one
Speaker 1: entrepreneur to another, I see you on so many levels,
Speaker 1: and thank goodness that you're healthy and that you made
Speaker 1: it through the other side of that. I'm so grateful,
Speaker 1: and I'm grateful to you for taking that experience and
Speaker 1: not letting it, if anything, letting it turbo charge you
Speaker 1: forward because your work is so important, and I'm so
Speaker 1: honored that you have shared your time and your voice
Speaker 1: at this early early Friday hour with our audience, I
Speaker 1: know that they will feel seen in your work. So
Speaker 1: if you guys want to learn more about Jodyanne, check
Speaker 1: out her website. We'll have a link to the notes.
Speaker 1: Check her out on ig jodian Where's is the website?
Speaker 1: The best place for people to to find out more
Speaker 1: about your work? That's Jodyanbeury dot com.
Speaker 2: Yep, Jodianebeury dot com and Jodynnbury 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 1: Name Zi's Are you doing any TikTok dances?
Speaker 2: No? No.
Speaker 1: I asked my.
Speaker 2: Niece to teach me a TikTok dance and she looked
Speaker 2: at me and was like, Auntie, No, you know what's.
Speaker 1: Great about to You don't have to learn how to
Speaker 1: do dances. Just be yourself. People they love authenticity. Authenticity. Well,
Speaker 1: I will say this.
Speaker 2: I heard this for like to support entrepreneurs, like pick
Speaker 2: two social media platforms and like double down and so
Speaker 2: I'm on Instagram and LinkedIn or my primary one so
Speaker 2: y'all can find me there.
Speaker 1: I love that. Yes, just focus, just fine, just pick
Speaker 1: one and focus. People are always like, it's so overwhelming, Well,
Speaker 1: don't let it be, don't pick one and focus. Well,
Speaker 1: I can't wait to find out more. I feel like
Speaker 1: you've got some exciting things. Whenever someone teases something that's
Speaker 1: going to happen, I'm like, is it Shondaland is it?
Speaker 1: You know? Are you going to have a Netflix reason?
Speaker 1: My head goes to Shonda. I don't know why.
Speaker 2: I just feel like, from your lips to the universe, Yeah, Sean, whatever, Netflix, listen.
Speaker 1: If Shonda listened to BA, that would be I know
Speaker 1: I'd made it then, Stacy Abrams was a good way
Speaker 1: to start the year. Now, I just got to keep going.
Speaker 1: And you are an incredible just woman, person, human being.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Jodian for joining Brown Ambition. We
Speaker 1: will have links to all of your incredible work in
Speaker 1: the show notes and I cannot wait to see where
Speaker 1: you go next. My friend, my new friend in my head.
Speaker 2: Thank you. No, the friendship, the friendship is here. You
Speaker 2: heard it here first.