Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Tricia Dempsey On Why We Need Women At All Levels EP 30

Starting point is 00:00:00 I started following these women who were doing what they really wanted to do. I was hearing how their life looked and what the challenges were and all the other things. Because I didn't know any women like that. They're all the women that were my age were exactly in my boat. I started following a new group of people. I started reading new things. I really started getting my brain focused on what's possible, not what's impossible or what seems impossible.

Starting point is 00:00:22 And so for me, it was like my daughter, I told her in middle school, the best way to avoid peer pressure or to get the right peer pressures, pick the right group of friends. And it was like, I had to shift to where I was listening to, putting in my ear, reading every day,

Starting point is 00:00:37 and putting in my brain. And that was the first shift to beliefs. And then the second shift, I think, was taking one small step and getting it validated. Like, okay, all right, this is going to be okay. Okay, take another small step and get it validated. Okay, this is going to be okay. Oh, by the way, people really could want this.

Starting point is 00:00:52 This could be bigger. I say this to my husband all the time. This business will probably be the biggest business I've ever been in. Been a part of and I was so fearful for so long about it, but I now see it completely different. That was a major shift in beliefs. Hello visionaries, creators, innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders of all types. Hi, my name is John Miles, and I wanted to welcome you to this episode of Passion Start

Starting point is 00:01:16 Podcast, where it is my job to interview high achievers from all walks of life and unlock their secrets and lessons to become in Passion Start. The purpose of our show is to curvy the listener by giving you lessons, tools, and activities that you can use to achieve a passion-driven life. Now let the journey begin. Thank you for joining me today on Passion Struck. Cheryl Sandberg said, we need women at all level, including the top, to change the dynamic. Re-shape the conversation to make women's voices as heard and heated, not overlooked and ignored. As I was thinking about today's episode with our guest, Trisha Dempsey, I found that quote from Cheryl Sandberg, Facebook's COO, and I thought it laid a great foundation.

Starting point is 00:02:02 Trisha and I will discuss the evolution of the women's role at work and how for so many women, it is so important for them to become the CEO of their own lives. We will go into Christian's own journey and how she uses that journey to teach her clients today about not only finding their purpose, but how they can diversify themselves

Starting point is 00:02:22 and really and cruelly live a life that they want to live. And men out there, this message just isn't for the ladies. There is a ton here that applies to you as well. Now, let me tell you a bit more about our guests. Patricia Dempsey is the founder and CEO of Ryper, where she helps ambitious women live their purpose, leverage their strengths, and build thriving businesses and lives that they love. She describes Ryper as a movement in her purpose in life and calling. Khritsha has transformed her own career from seventh grade school teacher who in eight of your CEO. Before starting Briper, Khritsha scaled and sold her IT staffing firm,

Starting point is 00:02:57 Agile, which was recognized as the number two fastest-growing staffing arm in the nation. In a three-time, 5,000-e工 company. During this time, she coached over 5,000 women to take their careers and businesses to the next level. But where else can your survivor an passionate advocate for women? Krisha has served on the boards of the Susan G. Coleman, where she raised over 320,000 through her own fundraising event and women in technology,

Starting point is 00:03:22 where she served as president led multiple committees and programs for over 10 years. I am so excited to have this talented guest on the show today and let's get igniting. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Passion Start podcast. I am absolutely thrilled to have Trisha Dempsey on the show. Thank you so much for joining us today. Glad to be here, John. Thank you so much. Well, I remember that day you reached out to me about wanting to be a guest on the show, and I loved it because it wasn't a long-packs, it was pretty short saying, I don't think there's ever been a show I've seen that more matches up to my values. And so it only took me a few seconds to realize that we are aligned

Starting point is 00:04:08 in both of our passions of helping people overcome their fears, unlock their potential and live the life that they can. But you have such an interesting path to where you are today. I think one of the most important things that we can talk about and we both serve people who are in the midst of careers have such an interesting path to where you are today. I think one of the most important things that we can talk about, and we both serve people who are in the midst of career invention is your own career invention.

Starting point is 00:04:33 And I wanna start with what was going on at that specific time? What was that one thing or things that caused you to shift in pivot direction? Yeah, I've done multiple career inventions, so I started as a cool teacher, and I moved into the IT staffing world, and that was in my 20s, and then I stayed at the end of that industry for about 25 years.

Starting point is 00:04:52 So I just over the last year just left my full-time job after, so here's where I was. I'll put you exactly where my mind was. I was, I had sold a business that I had grown to like an eight-figure business back in 2015. I stayed on as the market president for four years, I sold a business that I had grown to like an eight figure business back in 2015. A state-owned as the market president for four years. And I was bored the tears, like,

Starting point is 00:05:10 just willing to get up every day and go into the office. And then my husband and I had built a home, our dream home out in Sunset, South Carolina on Lake QE, and this took about two years to do. And we finally get and moved to your job. And you know, this feeling between, I have great anticipation about something and then I get there and I'm just like, what have I done? Is this just the right move? Is this so I found myself, I found myself every morning kind of

Starting point is 00:05:35 in my devotion time just sitting on this little chair in my master bedroom, looking out the window and thinking, I've made a huge mistake. And for the first time, I was facing this conflict of, I was not a mom, my daughter had gone up to school, and I was no longer like a daily mom and had that routine. I was no longer a leader for the first time. So I had moved back into an individual contributor role at first, my stuff on my own. And then I lived in the middle of nowhere. After living in Atlanta forever, I lived in a population of like a thousand people where I lived. And I remember pulling my husband out on the porch

Starting point is 00:06:07 one day and just saying, made a big mistake. And we had built this house for two years, dreamed about it for 20, like it was like a horrible feeling. And I realized that I wanted to do something completely different. And when I looked back, John, there were all kinds of clues that I was already doing it a lot of ways. I'm sure your listeners experienced this too, in that I was coaching women every single week

Starting point is 00:06:28 on their career transition, probably four to six women a week, just for free. You know, just like, hey, call me. I know you're struggling or you're in the midst of this, or I heard you got laid off, or whatever, just call me, and I'll kind of walk you through a process that I take people through. And I also had joined all these women's organizations,

Starting point is 00:06:43 served on all these women's boards. So I just like, I had been doing little pieces of it, but I've been doing it for free for years. And so I had had this conversation. My husband like, Hey, listen, in the next calendar year, I'm out, I'm out. And John, his response was, are you kidding me? We live in the middle of nowhere. You have no people reporting to you for the first time in 20 years. You make amazing money. You've got a great team. Why now, Trisha? Why? I have to take this now. And it was a long debate. You know, I get a lot of heat from my family quite honestly on like they thought I was crazy. And I was secretly like dying inside every day. So that was the moment when I used to sit

Starting point is 00:07:22 on that chair in the morning time. And I had what I call, we're purchased my happy hour, just my little quiet devotion, get myself ready for the day. I realized something had got to change for sure. We know I felt a number of years ago in a similar place and I think we get oftentimes I call it these portfolio careers where you're kind of just stuck and I found the reason I was shown up for work was because we had reached the standard of living, which was really comfortable. And that became a huge, unfortunately, liability for me

Starting point is 00:07:53 to be able to do what I really wanted to do. And I kept showing up for work, but I was becoming more and more just burned out with the constant politics, the people issues that we're facing on a daily basis. So I understand exactly where you're coming from. So someone who's out there right now and they're facing this situation, for you, what were the one or two biggest fears

Starting point is 00:08:14 that you had as you thought about leaving this safety zone and going into something yet? Okay, so truth time, there were two fears. I think one won't surprise anybody. One was money, right? Because I was making a lot and I was really concerned about like how long would it take me to get back there? I knew I'd get back there, but money was a big concern. The second was the perception of myself. So I had gone from building this business, great reputation, all of these things back to a startup company and I was like, how will people do that? Like, will they think I'm crazy?

Starting point is 00:08:45 I think it was a lot of like, what will people think of me fears? Which honestly had no bearing once I got started at all. They weren't, they weren't true at all, but I think many and what people thought were the two biggest things that kept me stuck for a long time. You raised a really good quote. I recently recorded a solo episode of what I think are the six steps to finding your passion in life. And one of those six steps is we fall too much on beliefs instead of values. And those beliefs, in many ways, come from one of those groups you just mentioned, and that is what other people are going to think about you. Whereas as I think, if you revolve yourself around values, it completely changes perspective. But beliefs are difficult. What advice would you give someone

Starting point is 00:09:28 who's in a similar situation on, are you shift that focus? Well, I think in my experience, you have to start by being around a different group of people that create a different set of beliefs in your mind. So I started following all of these, as a matter of fact, I've got this resource on my website, called the Top 50 Fear Swim in the mind. So I started following kind of all of these as a matter of fact, I've got this resource on my website called the top 50 fierce women to follow. And I started following these

Starting point is 00:09:48 women who were doing what they really wanted to do. And I was hearing how their life looked and what the challenges were and all of the things. And because I didn't know any women like that, they're all the women that were my age were exactly in my book. I started following a new group of people. I started reading new things. I really started getting my brain focused on what's possible, not what's impossible, or what seems impossible. And so for me, it was like, like my daughter, I've told her in middle school, the best way to avoid peer pressure or to get the right peer pressures, to pick the right group of friends. And it was like, I had to shift to my, was listening to, putting in my ear, reading every day, and putting in my brain. And that was the first shift to beliefs. And listening to, putting in my ear, reading every day, and putting in my brain.

Starting point is 00:10:25 And that was the first shift to beliefs. And then the second shift, I think, was taking one small step and getting it validated, like, okay, all right, this is gonna be okay. Okay, take another small step, get it validated. Okay, this is gonna be okay. Oh, by the way, people really could want this. This could be bigger.

Starting point is 00:10:40 I say this to my husband on the time, this business will probably be the biggest business I've ever been in, been a part of, and I was so fearful for so long about it, but I now see it completely different. That was a major shift in beliefs. Yeah, and you brought up a very key element, and I similar to you have a framework I used called the PassionStruct Framework, and you hit on one of the 11 stages, and I call it, you've got to be an action creator because without action, there's nothing. If you're not willing to push that car and keep pushing it when you're stuck on the road, there's no one else

Starting point is 00:11:13 who's going to come there and help you. Well, I say this all the time in our community that insight without action is absolutely worthless. That action really does create the validation path to kind of get to the next step the next step. But I also think we in corporate America especially, and I know you can relate to this hopefully your listeners can too, making mistakes can be career catastrophizing. So failing or making mistakes or something that doesn't go perfect, it usually results in a downgrade and down promotion being fired, all of the consequences. And when you switch into entrepreneurial bill,

Starting point is 00:11:45 you really got to be, you've got to have a risk tolerance and a resilience tolerance around failing and failing just like every day. Like, oops, that didn't work. Okay, let me take that down. Okay, let me try this, that didn't work. Okay, let me take that down.

Starting point is 00:11:58 You just got to have, and you got to normalize, nose and normalize failures because it's just part of the journey, for sure. Yeah, I actually, all that process. I call it the personal agility process and it's something that I haven't been trained as a sprue master. I have a phone here in town, Maria, Mater Elle, great podcast interview if you want to go see it, but she founded a company called Personal Agility Institute and after really talking to her, it made total sense. You can apply that Agile methodology into how you're living your own life And really what it's all about is

Starting point is 00:12:29 Gotta come up with this process where in a very quick you need to learn how to do it in a very quick format But basically you analyze you prioritize you ignite execute measure and then you just keep doing it again Just iterate you just iterate until you've got it until you got it, I have a friend who is a dear friend of mine who started a business two years before I started mine. And I kind of clung to her in the early years. And I've watched her over this last year. She's really perfected one offer that she has.

Starting point is 00:12:56 And at the beginning of last year, I think she had nine people enroll in the month at the beginning of January. And now she's enrolling like 120, 150 people a month into her program, all with small, agile, base kind of iterations of, let me test this, let me measure it, did it work? Okay, wait, let me tweak this back, did it, let me test it, did it work?

Starting point is 00:13:16 So I think you've got to have the tolerance to know, it's a million little steps to get the success, that's really not one big, giant, great idea or anything that people might read about in Forbes Magazine, it's really a million little steps to get the success. It's really not one big giant great idea or anything that people might read about in Forbes magazine. It's really a million little steps that get you there. Well, and especially if you're using a lot of your own money to do maybe this second career, the last thing you want to do is waste a whole bunch of time and money and effort. Only to find out that what you thought you're offering was going to be is not really what people want from you. So I think that what you just brought up is very key because

Starting point is 00:13:47 I just can I say something about that because I think I've been thinking about this over this last week. So your offer, I think this has been my big aha in the last couple months is your offer are the words that you say and you get the reaction of how people respond to those words. Your offer is not a product necessarily that you've worked on for six or eight or 12 months before you ever show it to anybody. So you have to start like socializing your offer so early to see if people want it and what they want about it and what they're struggling with and how they're evolving becoming successful with a particular thing.

Starting point is 00:14:21 And I realized that instead of building a big, clunky course membership offer, I've little small things that validate those things that don't require any money. Like a post that says, hey, I'm thinking about, I did this over the last week, I think I'm thinking about teaching people the process of how I get my business fully booked in 90 days

Starting point is 00:14:40 with one-on-one clients. Or would you be interested in kind of the behind the scenes look at that? People are like, yes. So you don't have a bunch of people on a workshop on Friday, and it's like, that costs me no money. Like, it's that kind of, that kind of testing frequently to see what people really want. Your offer is really your words more than it is your product initially. Yeah, and I think a great way to practice that, because you're going to have to practice it, is when someone asks you, what do you do? That's the statement that you say. And, you know, I think it should start out with,

Starting point is 00:15:08 you know, who are the people you're trying to solve? What's the issue that they're facing? How can you help them overcome that issue? And then what were their life looked like on the other side of it? How will it be better? And I think if you make it simple, you make it something that they find compelling. Even a stranger is going to be able to repeat it back to you. And that's when you know that you've hit it. You've hit it. Yeah. And then I think kind of one layer below that is, so then now if that's my value proposition,

Starting point is 00:15:37 then what is the first thing? What is my client thinking feeling doing right now that I can help them with in a small solution in a small way, right this very minute. Like, what are they struggling with? Like, for me, this, this woman who's sitting in corporate American and is thinking to herself, gosh, I really want to start my own business. And I'm like, okay, what is, how can I help her with that first step right now? That's really the key, I think, to gaining momentum and then just following your client down the journey, trying to help them discover, uncover, how to solve all their small problems as time goes on.

Starting point is 00:16:08 Yeah, and did you know that the second episode I ever recorded for what I call momentum Fridays was facing the brutal reality of your current situation? Yes. Because unless you're gonna really sit there and face it, and I think what we'd like to do is we sugarcoat it instead of really looking at what truly is your self identity, not what you project to everyone,

Starting point is 00:16:31 not the sunshine that's out there, but what is it that you're truly feeling? Because that brutal reality, it's difficult to face, especially like you said, if you're this woman who's doing well in her career, but she's not satisfied in it. And then you've got other things. You've got kids. You've got your husband.

Starting point is 00:16:48 You've got your friends. You've got your public image. It's all those things. But like you said, you've got to conduct a mosquito audit and get those things gone. You can focus on what's most important. And John, here's the thing that I find is that most people want to focus on what they're doing right now. Like, gosh, I'm working 12 hours a day. now I've got to homeschool the kids and, and gosh, I took on a two more groups.

Starting point is 00:17:10 I didn't get a raise and like all of those things, but we don't really get in touch with what we're thinking about those things and how we're feeling about those things. And I think when you, to your point about the brutal reality, you can do an audit, like, here's all the things I find myself doing all day long, but how do I feel about that all day long? What do I feel when I walk back in the house at the end of the day, and I'm showing up for my husband or my family in a way that's not the way I want to show up?

Starting point is 00:17:35 What does all of those components really look like? But I think we don't get deep on what we think and feel, especially in corporate America. Of course. You get an engineer and you sound like, you're your background, you come from that type of background, we think about, hey, what do we do today, and what does that really mean in terms of what we want to do tomorrow?

Starting point is 00:17:51 I'll have to go back and check out that episode. You said episode two. Episode two. Yeah, I'll check it out. This point, I wanted to ask you now that you've been on this journey. How has your life changed? What are things like now that you took that jump? I'm gonna give you some real practical things

Starting point is 00:18:07 and I'll talk about some of the amazing things too, but I no longer spend in the alarm to get up in the morning. That like is such a practical difference, but it has made all the difference. I spend the morning in thought versus doing, it never do that where I was before. Just thinking and really spending time pondering like,

Starting point is 00:18:25 where is my customer? How can I help them? What is she struggling with today? What is the right solution for her? I've never had that kind of time to think before. And I think my husband, if he were on spotcast with me today, he would tell you, I'm a completely human walking back in at the end of the day. I am energized in a way. I haven't been in 20-something years, and I think I have a sense of fulfillment that has really most days nothing to do with what amount of money I make it really is the impact that I feel like I'm making and Filment of watching somebody change in their lives and then quite honestly, you know like I'm looking at it's such a fun Huzzle to piece together for me so I've run multiple businesses and I'm I looking at like, what's the right combination of pieces that make this successful? And then how do I do this long term? So I see myself

Starting point is 00:19:09 like, do I ever want to retire from this? Like this is a amazing life. And so I think there's just a lot of practical things and I'm healthier. I have this picture in one of my webinars of what I looked like three years ago when I started this journey, kind of thinking about making the move and what I look like today and, you know, John, I'm dropped 30 pounds. I, I sleep through my, like, there's, there's just some really practical things. I don't have stress in my body with the same way of like, you know, chest pains and just all of the things that I would so wound up tight about. So physically, there's been a major change, spiritually, there's a major change, and then I think, you know, just watching the journey on both financially, there's an amazing change

Starting point is 00:19:49 and just long-term potential to do this and not get tired of doing it. And I just never thought I would feel that way at this age. Well, thank you for that. And I think you've just summarized three core buckets that I think people need to get in sync. One of them is obviously your career and where you want that career to go, but then if you don't have wellness and you don't have ways

Starting point is 00:20:11 to manage your anxiety and activities that allow you to go out and for your mind and recharge. I think that's what happens. Our Cortezone levels go out of whack. We stop eating in the way that's best for helping our gut health and other things and all of a sudden our systems get out of whack, we stop eating in the way that's best for helping our gut health and other things. And all of a sudden our systems get out of whack. We're not sleeping right. We have insomnia, we're not getting deep sleep, we've got waking, we've got daytime fatigue, we've got other things.

Starting point is 00:20:36 So it sounds like for you you've put those three magic things in alignment. When you do, you just feel so much better inside. You have so much more energy. Well, I found myself before just going through the motions of the day and I would get to the end of the day and I'd be like, did I even eat lunch today? What did I do for like, or going through the drive-through 10 times a week because I'm rushing off to the next meeting

Starting point is 00:20:57 and I find like I'm lose more consciously sleeping, consciously eating, consciously organizing my calendar and my time consciously picking clients that I really want to work with and just get a lot of joy helping like I'm just more conscious, like almost like a wake to my life. And that has been fantastic change. So I didn't want to ask you this. So I, you know, given your long career, you may not have needed a guide, but one thing I wanted to ask is, did you have a guide that helped you on this?

Starting point is 00:21:27 And whether the answer is yes or no, why do you think a guide is so important for someone who's trying to go through this and how can they help? Well, John, I've been playing sports since the seventh grade. I've had a coach since seventh grade basketball literally. And I've never been without a coach literally every year of my entire life.

Starting point is 00:21:46 So I'm a huge believer in the power of a guide. I think it helps us see our blind spots that uncover things that we can't even tap into and see. And I'm looking for somebody who's been farther along on the journey than I have so that I can save all of the heart ache of having to go through it on myself. So I've always had a guide. I've always had a coach,

Starting point is 00:22:05 even in my past business, $10 plus million in revenue, I had two coaches, one that helped me on the finance side, one that helped me on the personal side. And so I just believe in, and because I think it's very lonely to be a CEO too, I think it's very, very lonely. And so I think it is the number one accelerator to getting where you want to go. I think there's nothing more, there's no better ROI in my opinion

Starting point is 00:22:27 than investing in a guide. Somebody who's already been there, done that who's farther down the road than you are and can save you a lot of time and heartache, trying to figure it out by yourself, for sure. I can tell you there's a big difference between being a CEO and being the CEO of your life. And when you get in tune with the latter,

Starting point is 00:22:44 it puts you into so much more powerful position of how you want to live with intentionality every single day. It leads me to something I wanted to ask you. I know as we've been going through this pandemic, it's been difficult on many, many people. We were conversing, but before this interview, one thing that you brought up is that you feel women have disproportionately

Starting point is 00:23:05 been affected worse by this, and you call it the women's recession. As we were talking about it, I personally have had an equal share of both men and women who have been impacted. But I'm looking at it through potentially my own personal bias instead of through an outside lens. I wanted to hear your perspective on this, because I think it's something,

Starting point is 00:23:25 especially the women listeners out there might relate to. Yeah, let me just say that you're comment about the CEO of your life is literally one of my core values at Thriper. It's literally one of my core values, like just taking control and being in charge of who you are and what kind of like you want to build. But no, it's not this term of the women's recession

Starting point is 00:23:44 wasn't coined by me. It's a very widely held belief, mostly because women have lost about, you know, 9% of the job share over this last year due to conflict between what they're dealing with at home and what they're dealing with at work. And especially it's even larger for women of color or women of different ethnicities and backgrounds. And so I think that what I've seen is two things happen. And I'm sure, and I'm sure this is where men and women have experienced a lot of this

Starting point is 00:24:12 too. Once you reach a certain age, and usually that's somewhere in your mid-40s, early 50s, a lot of my clients have been asked to leave during this time. And I think a combination of their salaries are too high. Hey, we're going in a different direction. Hey, we're trying to reduce expenses and really kind of reinvent ourselves. So there's a lot of painful situations

Starting point is 00:24:33 that I've seen with women who, I think about one, in particular, who's a CMO, who was basically just kind of asked to leave after 20 years and had no warning, had built a company almost from scratch and found herself like in a just total bamboozled situation of like, wait a minute, how did I get here on this side of the table? And I see it a lot with women. And then I think when women are getting out into that situation, they're kind of reaching the second phase of like, gosh, I'm mourning the loss of kind of what I was and what my title was and all of those things. Now I'm in this situation where I'm like, wow, what if I didn't want to go back to that? I think immediately people start posting their resume

Starting point is 00:25:09 and they're like, okay, let me get a job. Let me talk to my friends and then they're realizing like 30 days later, like, do I? Wait a minute, do I? I don't want to go back to this. Is that the kind of life I want to live? And then they're ending up in one of my classes called Pinpoint Your Purpose. We've trained like 600 women over the last year kind of talk 600 women how to find their purpose. And I think they're ending up in that and they're going back to who do I really want to serve, what strengths do I want to contribute to the world and what impact do I want to make on people's life. And does that align back with my job? And then I think we found that in enormous meltdowns women are saying no and not just no like hell

Starting point is 00:25:44 no, I don't want to do that. And so now they're saying like, what does this really look like in terms of being the CEO of my life? How do I do life on my terms? And does it have to look the same that it did for me the last 20 or 25 years? So I think I spend most of my time in the world of women. So I hear these stories every day.

Starting point is 00:26:02 They're definitely are just like hard facts about the the amount of impact this recession has had on women, especially and then women are just really taking more control over. How do I how do I even want to do this or continue to do this? So that's what I'm saying a lot of. Well, that's great. That's a great backdrop. And when I and I guess I didn't really consider as much as I should have, you know, the impact of having kids that you might have to be homeschooling now, having kids who can't go to school in person, et cetera. And many times that does fall down on, on the woman in the household, which means it makes it that much more difficult for them to maintain that job, the work-life balance, et cetera. So that, along with everything, you just said,

Starting point is 00:26:43 make a lot of sense to me. I did want to do a shout out here for those who are millennials or generation Z now who are coming into the workforce and that is don't wait to year in your 40s. You can be CEO of your life now and it's so important that you take those steps and it's one of the things I try to impart on my 20-year-old son that I wish I could tell my 24 year old self is there's no time like now to start this journey. And let me give you some advice that one of my career coaches gave me.

Starting point is 00:27:13 And I had been working in these Fortune 50 companies had been a CEO at this point. And he said to me, he goes, John, your life is like you're putting on a stool, but it's a stool with one huge post in the middle. And if that things are going well, that post is nice and sturdy, but what happens like the woman you were talking about

Starting point is 00:27:32 who all of a sudden gets blindsided and her career is taken away. All of a sudden that whole post that you're sitting on just falls right over. And he said, you know, why don't you think if your life is having multiple legs to it? And one of those legs could be your career. Another one could be a nonprofit.

Starting point is 00:27:48 I saw you like to get involved in nonprofit yourself. You raised $320,000, which is amazing. So it could be a passion project that you have. Another one could be another passion that you're trying to build. And another one could just be health and wellness. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that you have more than one outlets that you divers trying to build and another one could just be open wellness. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that you have more than one outlets that you diversify yourself in. Which leads me, if you're that CMO and this point,

Starting point is 00:28:12 she has so much experience, so much talent. But what I have found and it's completely ironic is that sometimes that extra talent can be a liability. And I know it's something that you talk about. So can you share your thoughts on this topic because I think it's important for the listeners to hear. Yeah, I mean, I've got multiple comments about this particular topic, but I will say like in her particular case, right? She is assumed to want to go back into a CMO role.

Starting point is 00:28:42 And so she's been called about those positions, but that's not what she wants to go back into a CMO role. And so she's been called about those positions, but that's not what she wants to go back into, um, at all. And so she's having to look at like, how do I either laterally make a different type of move or maybe even completely reinvent myself? And if I just don't want to do marketing anymore, because I've done all the things I want to do in marketing, then the experience level really is a hindrance. You have to get a good story around why you're making that shift and what you're passionate about or how you've done something adjacent that you really can speak to or talk to when you make that transition.

Starting point is 00:29:14 And so I see that being a challenge a lot, like people just don't want to do what they've been doing. And then the other thing in her, like out in her case, she really wants to start her own business and be a CMO consultant. And I don't know, and Johnny, you've run businesses and so you know this. Sometimes I can hire the same exact person

Starting point is 00:29:32 and the value of their word or advice is so much less that if I hire an outside consultant and that consultant tells me what to do. And now all of a sudden I'm like, the most brilliant thing ever came from somebody I paid, hundreds of thousands of dollars to to tell me that we should go in this direction. And the employee just doesn't have that pool a lot of times. Sadly, I mean, it is what I call it. I call it the Mackenzie syndrome. Yes, exactly, exactly. I have a great example of this. I was a cattle in a marketing

Starting point is 00:29:58 and the entire time from the day I got there, I was telling my boss and the board, we fundamentally do not have the platform and architecture in place to go from where we are today to becoming this digital Transform company that they wanted to go to and I'm like it's gonna cost a lot of money because we have shortfalls everywhere And they didn't believe me didn't believe me and then they're like, okay, we're gonna bring McKenzie and they started I think they ended up spending for 500,000 dollars on the exercise. And the number of mechanics gave him was even larger than the number I told him it was going to be. And I'm like, you know, we just wasted six more months when we could have been focusing on getting the work done.

Starting point is 00:30:34 And I think that happened so often. And but you're right, there are so many companies out there who just don't want to listen to that and listen to their internal employees who really know and are passionate about solving their problems. Yeah, I see it all the time. It's one of the major frustrations of why people end up leaving in the first place, right? But I think that there's like, now she's able to, she's pairing up with private equity firms to go into a partial CMO role and really helping them speed up product development to get a lot of insight on how to go to market faster, gain leads and do more business and and change our to premium for that experience. So I think I think what experience goes two ways, right?

Starting point is 00:31:11 It either goes with, hey, I already have too much experience. And now I'm overqualified for most things that I'm looking for and or people think I want to do exactly what I've done before. And then on the flip side, I think up from a consulting side, it can be really lucrative. Like I think once people realize the value of the experience that they have and what they can bring to a company and what they can potentially charge to be able to create that value for other companies in the speed with which they can get to a point A to point B, it's hugely valuable. And I think that's what I'm seeing a lot of women in our community are realizing now the value. So it's such a mindset shift going back to your beliefs.

Starting point is 00:31:47 You know, nobody valued me there. I didn't really get so far. I only got paid so much. 70 cents on the dollar for every dollar. The John might have made. So people do people really value that to once you believe and know and understand your true inherent value in which your experience brings, you can really do some amazing things individually too. Did you know that Forbes Magazine recently cited that 70% of individuals who do personal development masterminds and one-on-one coaching benefited from better work performance, increased communication skills, and overall better relationships. And we, at PassionStruck, are obsessed with self-development, coaching, and mentorship.

Starting point is 00:32:31 That is why we've created a free resource to help you unlock your hidden potential. Because people doing great things in business and life are just like you, only they've had a coach along the way. And we've got that covered too. Let us show you the systems and frameworks that we teach, growth-minded individuals to help them step into their sharp edges, execute on their passion journeys and get predictable results time and time again. Go to passionstruck.com slash coaching right now and let's get igniting. I did want to ask you given your extensive staffing background. When you saw senior people go into roles,

Starting point is 00:33:14 what was the typical tenure they had and what was the failure rate? Oh my gosh. That's such a hot, so I worked all in IT and I would say that let me just take this top level. If I took a CIO and we placed them or work with them, I'd say the average 10 years, summer of 22 and three years. How you would design failure is, I mean, certainly, I think the ones that stayed two or three years were not near successful as the ones that had stayed seven or 10 years, but it was very rare. So very, very in our market in Atlanta, that was a very people were constantly moving from place to place company to company and not necessarily staying long term tenure. And then I would say at the senior level, I don't know, John, that's a, that's a really good question. I always think about it in terms of tenure and how long people stay in roles, but I'd say the average person would probably stay less than three years in a role in most of the positions that we have that feeling or back

Starting point is 00:34:05 feeling in Atlanta. Yeah, well, I think if you look at it over that that term as you're bringing in senior level employees into a company, I think your most companies failure rate is 35 to 40 percent. Yeah, I would say that's true. And to your point that you were bringing up earlier, there's this rise of something called the fractional or interim CXO in the marketplace. I think it's a really sound idea both for the practitioner that you were describing who's coming out of that long-term career that they could reposition themselves into that. But I also think it's very important for the companies because so many times they go on, I remember it seems like it takes ever for ever to hire an executive.

Starting point is 00:34:46 Sometimes I'd see these things go six, seven, eight, nine, ten months. Six, seven, eight, six, seven, eight. So you're wasting all that opportunity time and then on the when you do land the person, there's only a 60% chance that they're going to make it. So so I really think this idea of bringing in a fractional leader can be a great one. And if you're a smaller company, do you really need a full-time CFO or do you really need a full-time CMO or getting 8 to 10 hours of A really experienced person's time is that enough? I know it's gonna hit your budget less And here's that here's an interesting perspective too is like, you know that person that's fractional person can be with a company from six to 12 months Or in an interim time while you're still looking for somebody else.

Starting point is 00:35:27 And can also be the greatest bridge to make sure they land successfully. Because I think this is the other thing. Nobody understands, you know, like a, I'll take a CEO, CMO relationship. I mean, CMO really doesn't understand what the CMO does every single day all day long. And once you've got that fractional person in there, I think it makes for just a nice smooth transition. So for somebody to walk through the day to day details as well as the strategy of how they kind of take it from here. And they may make changes in adjustments, but they're not starting from zero. So then again, you're speeding up even the success of the new person coming in who

Starting point is 00:36:00 will replace them. Yes. And I want to give everyone out there a real quick reality lesson. So when I was recruited from Lowe's to Go To Dell, and I was recruited by Michael himself. I walked in the door and my first job was going to be the CIO of the Consumer Division. And I was working for a gentleman by the name of Ron Gerrads, and within six weeks of me starting my job, he was fired.

Starting point is 00:36:22 And all of a sudden, for me, I thought life was gonna get better because I was multiplying from just being, see, I have a consumer to consumer small meeting business, which was 30 billion of that time, Dell's 60 billion in revenue. But I remember talking to the president of this combined group, Steve Felice, who invited me to come out to Singapore.

Starting point is 00:36:43 Now, I had never met Steve. I talked him once on the phone, and he said something I will never forget. I thought I was coming out there to just take over the job, and he goes, no, you're flying here so that my team and I, in Inter, can do a job interview with you because he goes, I literally can have anyone I want

Starting point is 00:37:01 for this game. Oh, I have a hand. And you need to prove that it's you. And so I got through that. But after a while, your top cover eventually fails. And you can't be friends with everyone. And for me, in the course of just over two years, four or five presidents came and went.

Starting point is 00:37:16 And I'm saying all this because part of the audience has been there, part of the audience is yet to get there. But I'm just giving you these lessons because life at the top isn't necessarily the bravery train that you might think it is. No, no, it's super challenging. And that organization, I've got, did you ever work with Mike Cody from SecureWorks

Starting point is 00:37:38 and when you were at Dell? Yeah, it was when I was there, it was one of the acquisitions we did. So I worked on that directly with Peter Altabeth, who was the head of pro systems, who led that acquisition with Dave Johnson. So yes, very familiar with that. And the good friend of mine at Atlanta.

Starting point is 00:37:55 Yes, that was a very strategic acquisition at that time. And it was an interesting one because secure works was a behemoth at that point in time. And really the market leader in doing what they were doing and he had built a great organization but you know we could have a whole another discussion on the other big topic here is you know how do you once you acquire a company how do you properly integrate it because they're they're now just done back off again and they're independent I know so yeah so they're independent. I don't know. So yeah, so I'll hold different.

Starting point is 00:38:26 Mike could have a conversation with you about that for sure. Yes. So earlier on in the interview, you were telling me, you know, when you first told your husband and others around you that you were going to make this prayer change, they started saying, are you crazy? So what I wanted to ask is, what advice do you give the people you work with when everyone is telling they're crazy and how to get over that phenomenon? Yeah, so different situations were different people because depending on who is the person telling us

Starting point is 00:38:56 we're crazy, I think it holds more weight than others do for sure. But I think it's crazy to stay in a job that you're probably spending 60 hours a weekend too that you absolutely hate and it's affecting your health and your wellness and your family life. And you may be about to get divorced from your spouse because of it. And you're making great money. And at the end of the day, all people want is quality time with you back at your house. And so I try to really paint the chair for them of what life can be like.

Starting point is 00:39:24 Like I think we think so much in ors. Like do I have to be a sea level executive in an organization or can I be this? And I and I really try to get people in the mindset of thinking in and like can I be wildly successful and have a quality life with my family, have good health and wellness in myself, you know, not work myself to death every single day. And can I prevent, provide them with examples of other people who've been there and done that too? And can I be the example in a lot of ways of what's possible to do that as well? So I think you got to get, you've got to get out of the mindset of everything you're going gonna lose and give up.

Starting point is 00:40:05 And at least get some reality of what those things might look like. But I don't think it's a, you're giving up everything and you're turning around and taking the second option. I think it's choosing the best option and knowing just like anything. What if you decided today that you wanted to lose 30 pounds, the thought of giving up ice cream at the end of the day and your lattes at Starbucks and all of the things may seem daunting, but

Starting point is 00:40:28 that adjustment and change doesn't happen overnight. It happens with a lot of small habitual changes that you'll make over time to get to where you want to go and is the journey worth it. So I think you got to get really clear on on why you want it so much and making sure that once you get that why it is really going to be as fulfilling as you want to. But the other thing, John, that I fundamentally believe is the relief for people takes place as soon as they make the decision. So it's not about getting to, you know, back to a seven figure salary or whatever it does. It's not about that. The relief really comes immediately once they make a decision.

Starting point is 00:41:06 And that they have the power through their decisions to recreate something that they really love. And that they get to do that in all of the small ways that it takes to get from point A to point B. So I think the human mind also, I would say this, and your listeners do too. The human brain tells us and warns us for danger. It's its job to warn us for danger. And we have to reprogram it by focusing on what we really want. And letting the brain know it's a safe place. It's where you want to be. It's where the goalie, you know,

Starting point is 00:41:37 it's where the happiness comes from, it's where the joy comes from. And you have to really get your brain reprogrammed on what's possible versus the risk of what you're walking away from. And that's a journey. That's a journey that does not happen with the flick of switch. And that's CMO that you were working with, that you mentioned earlier. Do you think if she's looked back and analyzed things a little bit differently, she would have seen some of these signs had she been the CEO of her own future? Well listen, I just had, she was in a strategic meeting with a client with me in Atlanta

Starting point is 00:42:08 about a month ago, and we had dinner afterwards. And I said to her, how long before you were asked to leave, did you know it was time to leave? And she said, oh, for five years, five years I knew that. And I bet your listeners would all nod their head like, yeah, I'm here right now. And here's the biggest thing that I think she would say is she wishes it was her decision, not somebody else's decision. So I would say the better option is to make your own decision

Starting point is 00:42:32 and your own exit before I post something on social media that they like, hey, listen, make sure that your exit comes with a celebration of the great work you've done and not the worst papers, because that's what it feels like when somebody asked you to be. And I think my experience was the same way. I actually left five years before I actually did, but I white knuckled it for those five years, trying to make it through and just make it work and keep a smile on my face. And I was completely unhappy.

Starting point is 00:42:59 Well, I think here's a great way that the listeners may be able to apply this. I have this long term friend, I've known her for like 30 years, and she has been her passion for most of these years has been being a teacher, and she's great at it. But she realized that she's going to need to retire. And so she started to take that analogy of the stool, although she wasn't using it, she was doing it. And she decided, I want to start creating some independence from that teaching job. And so she started business where she's now, she's on Instagram and she's doing other things,

Starting point is 00:43:34 but she's running a product company and making revenue at this point, more revenue that she made when she was a teacher, but she's trying to build it up while she has time. She decided she wanted to get into long distance races and put a personal passion journey out there that she wanted to run so many marathons and so she's doing that now. And she also wanted to pursue her passion for cooking. And so she's filling up her world with these different activities

Starting point is 00:44:00 all for, you know, what do I want my journey to be like after I'm done teaching? And I think your point, and what I'm trying to express here is don't want to get to that five-year point, start five-years-out, and start creating that future you want to live. I love that. I love that analogy. I'm going to steal that about the stool because I think it's so, we think it's all or nothing. And especially women, we think we can't do anything until our kids are gone. And I wish somebody would have told me in my 30s or maybe even in my 40s,

Starting point is 00:44:30 what life is like once your kids are out in the house and how you get to kind of reinvent your whole life at that point in time. But I wish I would have started some things along the way. And I think even like moving here to sunset and being in a really remote place and having just a life on the lake, we love the lake was a big part of that journey my husband runs travel on so I know exactly you know

Starting point is 00:44:50 It's just face and try so I know that exactly that feeling But it's so like I have you you that lady you just described could be any person in my driver community That's where that's where most of those women. And one lady who was working at a large fortune of 100 in Atlanta got asked to do share what you're passionate about one day. And one of these lunch and learns cooked lunch for the whole team. And now she has a business called cooking with my tie where she does all online cooking tutorials of how she cooks mostly with Inst Instapot and fast things for her family. And that's now become her business. So I think we're doing a lot of the things,

Starting point is 00:45:30 a lot of times we're doing them in little small pockets. And if we just allow ourselves to do them more, the things that are fulfilling to us, we would find that next step in the journey for sure. Yeah, you're right. I just interviewed a woman very similar to that, her name's Sharon Gehr, and her company is called the Culinary Queen. But she went from, I think she was making $30,000, $45,000 a year, doing something she really didn't feel passionate about, decided

Starting point is 00:45:54 with literally no savings to go after this dream. And now she's, you know, an executive chef making multiple six figures. And it took her just two years to get there. And it was all because she decided to go on that passion journey and make that first step that we talked about. So. I think, John, one of the things that I really love

Starting point is 00:46:16 about what I do in the Throcker community is teach him and how to make money fast. Because if we knew the path to get our incomes replaced, we'd probably make a lot more decisions differently. And so learning how to monetize what we love to do quickly as possible is just a big part of what I teach women to do every day. Well, if people wanted to learn more about you and how you could help them in their career,

Starting point is 00:46:41 where can they find out more information about you and your business? Yeah, they can visit my website at drive-her.com and if they want to jump into the community, get some weekly training and kind of tips every week, they'll just go to www.throwher.com-join and they can jump into our community and then we have a ton of freebies and things that they can experience some of our content already on the website. So I'd say that's the best place to find me. The other place I spend most of my time is on LinkedIn. So if we're not connected, then that'd be a great place to get connected to me as well.

Starting point is 00:47:12 Okay, that's great. Well, I'm gonna take us to the last part of the interview and it may be a surprise to you, but I like to do quick, lighten, lighten around. I'm also, so what I would just say is go about it with the first things that come to your mind. So I'm going to start with what is the number one thing donating your time, which charity taught you? But all my business comes from volunteering. Possibly set another way serving others versus serving yourself.

Starting point is 00:47:40 Oh yeah, no doubt. What is your kryptonite? Oh, busyness. I could keep myself busy all the time. It really is my kryptonite. The next idea is my kryptonite. What is the best compliment you ever received? I think that I really helped somebody step into their purpose and lead a completely different life and that that meant more than anything to them. I think there's little impacts you, there's little moments you have where you impact some of life and you finally get a glimpse of it, is just the best.

Starting point is 00:48:11 Okay, if you could have any type of dessert, what would it be? Oh, I'm sorry, I can have any type of dessert, what would it be? I love a good key life pie all day long. Well, having lived in Key West for a few years, I like a good tea on pie myself, especially one if you've ever tried it

Starting point is 00:48:29 that has a peacon crust instead of. Oh, so good. Yeah, so darn good. If you were on the mission to Mars and you were having your last meal on Earth before you left, what would it be? Maryland Blue Crabbs with a bunch of old day. That sounds good.

Starting point is 00:48:48 And if you could give one word of advice, female listeners on the show today, what would it be? You said it beautifully earlier. Know that you're the CEO of your life. You may not step into that role. You may not identify it with it. You may not think that you'll ever consider yourself a CEO. Anything, but know that you already are consider yourself a C-E anything, but know that you already are and you have all the power to make decisions and create the life you want.

Starting point is 00:49:09 With Perture with that, I'm going to wrap us up, but thank you so much for being on the show today. I so enjoyed our conversation and getting spend time with you today. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it. I can tell we're at Kendrick's spirit, John, so we'll have to do it together for sure. That sounds great. Thank you. What a great episode with Trisha Dempsey. I am so excited that I could have her on this show to talk not only about her personal journey, but the words of advice that she gives, the finds that she counsels every single day. Thank you so much for joining us and please tune in every Tuesday and Friday for more great episodes on Passionstruck. Thank you so much for joining us and please tune in every Tuesday and Friday for more great episodes on Passion Struck. Thank you so much for joining us. The purpose of our show is to make Passion Go viral.

Starting point is 00:49:51 And we do that by sharing with you the knowledge and skills that you need to unlock your hidden potential. If you want to hear more, please subscribe to the Passion Struck podcast on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcast ad. And if you absolutely love this episode, we'd appreciate a five-star rating on iTunes, and you sharing it with three of your most growth-minded friends so they can post it as well to their social accounts and help us grow our passion strike community. If you'd like to learn more about the show and our mission, you can go to passionstruck.com where you can sign up for our newsletter,

Starting point is 00:50:29 look at our tools, and also download the show notes for today's episode. Additionally, you can listen to us every Tuesday and Friday for even more inspiring content. And remember, make a choice, work hard, and step into your sharp edges. Thank you again for joining us. you

Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Tricia Dempsey On Why We Need Women At All Levels EP 30

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