Chief Change Officer - From Corporate Hustle to Happy Hustle: Rahshea Cardiff’s Guide to Workplace Joy – Part One

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

Part One. Who wouldn’t want more joy at work? In this two-part series, we meet Rahshea Cardiff, VP of Partnerships at Happy Companies—a business on a mission to make workplaces happier and healthier. With two decades of experience at big names like Best Buy, Starbucks, and Microsoft, Rahshea knows what it takes to elevate employee experiences. But there’s more to her story than impressive titles. Rahshea has faced her share of life’s curveballs—losing her mom, navigating a divorce, and raising her first child—all while managing major career shifts. In today’s episode, she opens up about how resilience shaped her journey and what inspired her to join Happy Companies. Tune in for insights into how she’s using her life lessons to redefine workplace happiness. And don’t miss Part Two on Tuesday, where we’ll dive into her mission of merging tech with heart and her bold vision for transforming modern workplaces. Key Highlights of Our Interview: Conditioned Ambition: The Corporate Ladder Wasn’t the Life I Wanted “As we’re growing up, we go to school, we get good grades, we go to college, we get married, buy a house. Climb the corporate ladder—it’s what we’re taught, what we see. But in 2016, everything shifted—I realized I was chasing something that no longer felt right." Loss and Legacy: Realizing We’re Not Promised Tomorrow “Losing my mother and going through a divorce within a year taught me that we all fall into this trap of thinking there’s always tomorrow. I began asking myself, ‘If today were my last day, would I be at peace with how I spent it?’ Too many times, the answer was no. I knew it was time to recalibrate.” Choosing Purpose Over Position “I walked away from corporate stability and took a leap into entrepreneurship. And now, working with Happy, I’m able to stay close to my family and focus on meaningful work that aligns with my values.” The Gift of Presence: Living in the Moment “When we are able to shift our mindset and perspective to live in the present, it really is such a gift.” Connect with us: Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Rahshea Cardiff Chief Change Officer: Make Change Ambitiously. Experiential Human Intelligence for Growth Progressives Global Top 2.5% Podcast on Listen Notes World's #1 Career Podcast on Apple Top 1: US, CA, MX, IE, HU, AT, CH, FI 3.5 Million+ Downloads 80+ Countries

Hi everyone, welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Who couldn't use a bit more happiness? This episode and the next dive deep into what it means to find joy and resilience in both work and life. I'm thrilled to introduce Rishir Kardes, the VP of Partnerships at Happy Companies. Happy Companies is a venture focused on building happier, healthier workplaces. Rasha brings over 20 years of experience

in people management across major brands like Best Buy, Starbucks, and Microsoft. And she's deeply passionate about talent development and employee experience. As we all know, bureaucracy, corporate politics, and constant changes like layoffs and digital transformation can make it tough for employees to thrive and survive. Richer herself has navigated intense transitions, leaving a corporate role at Microsoft to pursue entrepreneurship, experiencing the loss of her mother, facing

divorce and raising her first child. In this two-part series, she shares her journey of resilience, why she joined happy companies, and how she's working to enhance employee experience using technology but without losing the touch, the human touch. In today's episode, we'll focus on Rishia's personal story and career transitions. On Tuesday, Part 2, we'll explore her role at happy companies and her vision for transforming the workplace, balancing tech innovation with genuine care for people. Let's dive in and find some happiness. Rishir, welcome to our show. Welcome to Chief Change Officer. Good evening to you. Good evening.

Thank you for having me, Vince. I'm so excited to connect with you this evening and dive into some great thoughtful discussion. My name is Rishia. I currently serve as VP of partnerships at Happy Companies and went through some significant life experiences over the past several years that, for myself, really placed me in a deeply reflective space in terms of what is my purpose in my time here, what are the intentions and the things that I want to accomplish and

the positive impact that I want to have on other people, on the world. And then ultimately really positioned me to consider what is most important in life and on this journey. And that positioned me to make some shifts in life and on this journey. And that positioned me to make some shifts in life. As I reprioritized my family, I reprioritized the things that bring me joy and purpose in my personal life. And going through that journey is then something

that cascaded to my career journey and really positioned me to take some different perspectives towards doing meaningful work in the world and really wanting to connect that to the positive impact that I seek to have. So that's just a little bit about that personal and professional journey that I've been on. You spend over 20 years in corporate America with some powerhouse names. Best Buy, Starbucks, and Microsoft, all in different industries. Could you walk us through a bit of that journey? How did your role and approach evolve across these big firms, especially since you've always been focused on people management and leadership? Yes, I have so much passion towards people leadership and just as a whole the people

component of teams and organizations. I'm very passionate, you know, that people are truly the heart of what propels an organization forward. They are the heart of what propels growth and success. And so that people first ethos has always been a very integrated part of my foundation and leadership. I started out my journey in Best Buy and I was with Best Buy for over a decade in multiple people leadership capacities, and ultimately had additional wonderful opportunities within Starbucks. When most recently, prior to my journey with Hapi,

I was with Microsoft for almost a decade. Within each of those opportunities that I've had, I always maintained the mindset that if I put my people first, if I hire the right talent, if I give them a thorough impact structured onboarding experience that sets them up for success, and I then follow that up with consistent talent development,

just understanding their individual goals, both personally and professionally, understanding their strengths and the things that they're passionate about. If I catch those things as a priority, and I ensure that anybody within my team truly enjoys coming to work, truly has the opportunity for their talents and passions to have the greatest impact to our clients,

to our collective vision and goals, then the results will follow. Really truly, that is what I attribute to the success that I experienced in my corporate career and reasons that I feel I've had such amazing opportunities. It's really keeping that people first mindset and trusting that the results and the growth would follow. That has ultimately led me to many wonderful chapters in my career. And ultimately that passion is what has connected me to where I'm currently serving in my role at HAPI.

You've worked at big names like Best Buy, Starbucks, and Microsoft, each with their own well-defined structure, policies, and, dare I say, bureaucracy. I can relate because during my 15 years in large corporations, mainly in finance, I experienced a similar environment. On the one hand, as an employee, I appreciated the structure, the resources, and the weight that comes with a big brand. But when it came to handling people issues, especially from the employee' side of things. I often felt disconnected from HR. Many times, it felt like they were more focused on enforcing policy rather than truly helping

employees. The KPIs seemed more aligned with executing company policies rather than supporting employee needs. Given your extensive experience in people function within large companies, I'd love to hear how you managed this balance. How did you reconcile your personal passion for putting people first with the reality of representing and implementing firm policies, which sometimes don't always feel like they are in the workforce's best interest. That's a really great topic to bring to the table, Vince, because you're absolutely right. We encounter that in corporate America often, and there's a myriad of factors within those

situations. But what I will say is things that come to mind within that. Yes, in corporate America, we have that structure, we have those guidelines. And there's one thing that was reiterated throughout my career, fair and consistent. We have to be fair and consistent. Well, yes, that structure plays a role, right? And it's necessary. It is a necessity in many ways. It's also, there's a role of a leader to demonstrate leadership courage.

And there are times when that should come into play. And so to provide an example there, if I took over a market and prior to taking over that market, I was informed that these members of the team are currently on performance improvement plans, and we would expect that they would likely be making changes soon, right? And so I came in and I said, I can appreciate that insight. I can appreciate where the process currently is. However, as the new leader coming in, what I will ask for is the opportunity to

observe the dynamics and the specific circumstances with these individuals and to gain further insight about their opportunities and then have the opportunity to assess from there. And that's demonstrating leadership courage. And I think it's super important that, yes, we have structure and we have policies and they do give us a guideline to work within and by and create those standards to be fair and consistent. But there's also times that a leader needs

to exercise discernment and exercise courage in navigating a conversation for a situation. For example, within that story I was sharing, one of those individuals, I sat down, anytime I take over a team, one of the very first things I do is I schedule one-on-ones with every single person on my team. And I just seek to understand, one, more about them as an individual. What are they passionate about? What do they feel their strengths are in their specific areas that they bring superpowers to the team?

I like to understand a bit more about their strengths and opportunities and their performance and what plans they may have in place around that. And in general, just get a feel for what's going good. What do we say, this is awesome and we want to keep this going? And what are some of the pain points? What are some of the things that we really need to address and consider making some changes around moving forward. So within having those honest conversations with my team, these two individuals whom I had been shared this information

with coming in to take on this team, I had heart to heart with them. We looked over their performance trends, we looked over their deliverables and what had consistently been shown over a specific period of time. One of those individuals was able to really do some great reflection, some deep inward reflection and accept some responsibility in those areas and said, Rashiya, if I can

have your support, if you and I can develop an action plan moving forward and I can turn this ship around, I would really appreciate that because these are the long-term goals I have that I'd like to accomplish. And if I have the right leader working with me in the right support, I believe I can still do that. So I said, absolutely, let's make it happen. And just to share, that individual did just that. They turned that ship around. They became one of the top three performers in the nation in their deliverables.

And that person is now serving in a corporate management role at our corporate campus. And now on the other token of that, the other individual, it didn't end up being the right fit for them. It just wasn't the right role. And we did ultimately have to take that path, but they ended up making their own decision to find an opportunity that was better suited for them. But within that, you're given the context coming in, you're given the context coming in, you're given the expectation coming in, you know that you need to work within that performance management cycle.

But as a leader, you need to exercise that wisdom and discernment and not be afraid to have courageous conversations, even if that means with your upper leadership. And so in those instances, I went to my upper leadership and I said, listen, I would like to sit down and review these two situations with you and provide my perspective and my feedback and then share with you what our plan of action is moving forward. I believe that we can turn this around. You can't shy away from having those conversations. Again, whether that's peer-to-peer or that's to your upper leadership.

So I think that was sometimes where some challenges come in play. I'm just going to go by the policy or I'm going to go by the steps that were issued to me. Are there times when that's the right process to follow? Absolutely. But are there times where as a leader you need to demonstrate that wisdom and discernment and have courageous conversations? Yes. The people function is crucial but it's also uniquely challenging. Unlike tech, policy or finance, you can't just apply a formula or a quick fix to people's issues. There are so many layers. Emotions, personalities, motivations, incentives, and politics. All of which make it complex to navigate.

One of those layers is happiness, which can be an emotion, but also an approach to leadership and management. Before we dive into your work with happy companies, I know you've experienced some major transitions yourself. Moving from a large corporation into a new venture is a big leap in itself. But on top of that, you faced some personal challenges

along the way. Could you share what that journey was like? And how did you find your grounding to move forward even stronger? Yes, it's one of the things that's interesting as we reflect on our journey is there tends to be some conditioning as we're growing up. We go to school, we get good grades, we go to college,

we get married, buy a house, continue to climb the corporate ladder and achieve a certain title or a certain status. And it's just kind of things that we observe, we see, we hear, we're taught as we're growing up. And it was always very important to me to be very independent, to be able to stand on my own two feet as I navigated the world. And I really was very ambitious from a very young age.

When my mother was always telling me that was her concern for me. You're such a workaholic and I know you're so passionate and you're so talented, but my biggest fear is that you're going to look back and realize you missed so much by being so focused on your career. And I used to in my mind just be like, oh, she doesn't understand, she doesn't understand. And I keep climbing that ladder. But in 2016, my life really started to go through some really challenging, challenging life experiences.

I went through a divorce with the person whom I had spent half of my life with up to that point. My mother went through multiple battles with cancer and she ultimately passed away in 2017. And so those were two tremendous losses, literally within a year of one another. And they really started to shift my entire mindset and perspective towards life, towards my priorities,

just in general, towards how I wanted to move forward in life. I then had my first son in 2018. That just continued this kind of intense internal evolution because now I had this amazing little person whom I wanted to provide a wonderful life for. I wanted to be the most amazing mother for. And I didn't want to miss it all.

I didn't want to be so focused on my career and working so much that in 10 or 15 years I'd look back and feel like I missed it all. It was through those back-to-back experiences that I really started to ask myself, what am I doing with my life? What are my priorities? And how do I want to be very intentional and purposeful with how I adjust those moving forward? When you go through a loss like a parent, just you realize that we fall

into this mindset. We're all moving so fast and like at the speed of light every day and there's so much going on that we just have this mindset of there's always tomorrow. It really takes going through an experience like that to help you realize, no, we're not. And one of the biggest mistakes we can make is living as though we are always guaranteed tomorrow. And that really started creating some massive just internal transformation for me. And so at this season in my life, I was overseeing four states of business.

I was traveling extensively. My son was right in that two-3 year old range. I would come back and just feel that I had missed so much. One of the questions that I like to ask myself a lot now. At the end of each day, I ask myself, am I at peace? Am I content? Do I have joy for how I spent this day? And if it were my last day, would I be at peace with it? And if I reach a season where there's too many days that the answer is no, then I know that I need to pause, take a step back, and recalibrate. And that is really what happened. I started asking myself that question, and there were too many days the answer was no.

Because I was missing time with my son, I was gone a lot, even when I was with him, I wasn't fully present because my role was very high responsibility and very consuming. And so I had to start asking myself, what changes are you going to make? What are you willing to do differently moving forward to work towards the life that you really want to have, which is being able to prioritize my family, my friends, my passions, and making a positive impact on other people's lives in the world. And so I chose to resign from corporate America and take a massive leap of faith into entrepreneurship.

I did that for about 18 months, and then I ended up crossing paths with HAPI. And HAPI is just doing so much of the work that I believe the world, and especially teams and organizations need when it comes to prioritizing the people component of what propels them. And I ended up being a great fit and now I have the joy to be contributing to meaningful work. I am close to home. I'm local, so I still have that ability to balance and prioritize my family and the things that I'm passionate about.

It's really put me in the position to live that more purposeful and intentional life that I want to live. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Living in the present is not just a saying, it's truly a way of being. When we let go of the constant worry about what's next and really ground ourselves in what's happening now, every moment feels richer, more meaningful. And like you said, it's not about being overly dramatic or anxious about what could happen tomorrow, but rather about appreciating what we have right here, right now. Is this more things picking up your son, making dinner, and joining a little downtime.

That could mean so much when we approach them mindfully. That idea of the present being a gift really resonates with me too. I love that colorful panda quote for a reason. It's simple, but so profound. When we live in the now, we allow ourselves to fully experience life, and that's what makes it all worthwhile. Yes, it is a gift. I'm so grateful for the learnings and the wisdom that I've been able to derive from the challenging experiences. And just an example of that, connecting to what you just shared. In the past, if I was having one of those

challenging days where it just seems like nothing's going right, but you lost the car keys or you ran out of gas or just any number of things that happened to us in the day-to-day of life. In the past, I would get very anxious about that when you just, okay, how do I fix it? How do I make everything work? Today, when I'm having a day like that, it really, to your point, it helps me be more present.

I'm like, you know what, Rashia? If you can't find your car keys, maybe there's a reason why. Maybe you're just not supposed to leave right now. So let's just redirect our time and energy towards something productive and fun right now. Or if you're having just a difficult day, right? Maybe you had a challenging interaction at work

or a challenging exchange with a client or customer. I do so much better now at just releasing that once that situation is concluded and shifting my mindset for, okay, how can we continue to go make the best of today when it really does help you focus more on living in the present and making the most of today, when it really does help you focus more on living in the present and making the most of today, when I think it's such a gift when we are able to shift our mindset and

perspective to live that way. Now, Richa shared honestly about her own personal journey and career transitions. On Tuesday, we'll explore her role at happy companies and her vision for transforming the workplace, balancing tech innovation with genuine care for people. Join us again on Tuesday and find yourself some happiness. what you heard, don't forget, subscribe to our show, leave us top-rated reviews, check out our website, and follow me on social media. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.