Erica: Hey, girl. By now, you know I have HER Collective, my online community for ambitious women who are done doing it alone. HER Collective is for the women who are smart, capable, and driven, but they find themselves stuck on the sticky floors like self doubt, burnout, and waiting for permission that quite honestly never comes. Inside HER, you get more than motivation. You get real support, real strategies, and real momentum.

Erica: We work on things like clarifying what you want now and what's coming next, building confidence without burning yourself out, navigating hard conversations, career moves, and leadership moments with clarity, and surrounding yourself with women who actually get it. This isn't about hustling harder. It's about moving intentionally with the right tools and the right people in your corner. If you're ready to stop spinning, start choosing yourself, and build a career and life that actually feels aligned, I'd love to welcome you inside HER Collective. You can learn more and join us at joinhercollective.com.

Erica: Because honestly, girl, you were never meant to do this alone. I'm Erica Rooney, and you're about to drop in to a special episode of the Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors podcast. It's gonna look a little different, but y'all, this is an upgrade. Hello. I don't know if all of y'all saw my email and my post inside, but I said we're having a slight change of plans, and it's an upgrade.

Erica: We have Tara Ryan with us in the house. And y'all, Tara and I met when I went to the AI Powered Women's Conference in Boston, MIT. And you're not even really getting the full awesome picture of this woman right here because she's only showing you her Zoom box from here up. My gosh.

Erica: I'll show you the rest. Good.

Tara: This big.

Erica: But, y'all, she was so super cute. She had on this little dress, but then she had a t-shirt on tied at her belly that said "division of invisible labor." It was just a whole visual. But she is a woman in tech, and she is also the founder of a really cool technology called Confidant AI. She and I were going to do a podcast recording today, and then I thought, how much more fun would it be if we all came together in a group and had a fireside chat with lovely Tara Ryan, and she was all game for it. Welcome to HER Collective, the fun Friday edition.

Erica: Tara, thank you so much for joining us, for coming, being here today, and just talking about all things you, your journey, tech, and giving us all your wisdom and advice.

Tara: Oh my gosh. Well, it'll be tough.

Erica: Miss in the intro? Give us your intro. Tell us a little bit about who you are, how you came to be, and really what led to Confidant.

Tara: Yeah. Totally. Well, first, thank you for inviting me here. I'm glad that we kind of transitioned it into this fireside chat format versus the podcast. Both would be fun, but this is great. I hope this is okay, but interrupt me. I want this to feel conversational. If anybody has a question or wants to jump in, I want to empower everyone to be able to do that.

Tara: Long story short, Confidant, what I am building now with my cofounder Ariel, is a culmination of all of my experience exploding into one. My experience in technology, so I spent eleven years leading and scaling software sales teams, then my love and experience becoming a mother and supporting mothers, going through infertility and that whole journey, and then kind of understanding and getting really confused but also curious around why there are so few systems in place to support women and mothers. That led me to a lot of maternal advocacy work through the Chamber of Mothers and my Fair Play certified facilitation work. And then this belief that technology has been architected by people, whether intentional or unintentional, in a way that disconnects us. But if we have it being built by people with the intention to use it to connect, it can be so powerful.

Tara: So all of those things combined have brought me here to where I am today, which is building Confidant and spending the afternoon with you beautiful people.

Erica: Oh, I love that. Let's get into the weeds really quick on Confidant, because we did it briefly when I talked to you earlier, but it's all about leading and living with AI, but within your core values. So talk to me about what that means.

Tara: Yeah. I'll give you a little background, just a little context. After I left the corporate world, it was a software tech job. My favorite part of that was mentoring the young sales reps, especially women, that were on my teams. Not necessarily from the sales lens, but more of, okay, what do you want to do with your life? What motivates you? What excites you? What inspires you?

Tara: So I was like, how do I make money doing this? That led me to coaching. Through IPAC I got certified as a professional coach.

Tara: I started attracting, because of my background, primarily women in sales, women in heavily male dominated career spaces with a lot of stress and pressure applied to them in their career while also juggling and navigating the world of motherhood and keeping a home afloat and themselves and all of the things. In my coaching work, I quickly realized that some of the most powerful moments with my clients were not when I was offering advice or we were building a plan. It was literally when a mom would come into our safe, sacred space together, and she would bring her deepest fear or stress or worry. I would just give her the space to pause and ask her what she wanted to do in that moment.

Tara: What was it that she desired? What were her values in this situation? What decision did she want to make? It happened time and time again where the woman would look at me like I had ten heads. Wait, I get to do that? I get to insert myself into the equation here and regulate my body and actually take a pause and make a decision from that place. I wanted to be able to replicate that without having to be physically present with someone, because the data shows us that women are making over 35,000 small decisions every single day.

Tara: So we're doing that and navigating that alone a lot of times, and from immense places of stress. Confidant really started as just a place for women, for moms, to turn to help them regulate and make values based decisions.

Erica: Okay, I love all that, but I'm wondering, do we know how many small decisions a man makes in a day? Because I just gotta compare. If we don't know, I'm gonna look it up. But maybe like a hundred? Is that too generous?

Tara: I don't know off the top of my head. We should look it up. When you layer on multiple children and a career, before you even send your children to school, how many decisions have been made in the day?

Erica: Oh yeah, absolutely. Oh my gosh. Okay. So you're also a certified Fair Play facilitator. For anyone who might not know what that is, give me a little snippet of what does that mean, who is it from, and then how does that play into your framework when coaching?

Tara: Totally. Curious, before I dive in, are there any Fair Play people in this group? Anybody familiar with Fair Play? No? Okay. That's exciting.

Erica: Like, where's my book? Because it's always close by. Okay, that is exciting.

Tara: So I got introduced to this work actually before I had my daughter. It's a method. It started as a book, written by Eve Rodsky, New York Times bestselling author, that addresses the gendered division of unpaid labor and how unfair it can feel inside of the typical heterosexual couple's household. She wanted to create a system, a method, that addresses this and makes it feel not equal necessarily, but more fair.

Tara: In my coaching practice, I started to see this trend in how moms were, one, showing up inside of their paid working environments, being asked and demanded so much, but then also at home, taking on all of the unpaid labor and childcare responsibilities too. How could it be possible that women could take all of this on? I'm like, oh my gosh, this is a huge barrier.

Tara: This is a huge barrier that we're all facing when we step into motherhood that men are just not, and it's really, really challenging. I didn't have my daughter at the time. I found this work, and I got became obsessed with it. I was part of the first Fair Play certified facilitator cohort. Now I incorporate it into my coaching, because so often that division of unpaid labor, the division of the mental labor, the emotional labor, the unseen stuff that we all carry, is a massive barrier to us being able to invest in ourselves, our careers, our creativity, anything outside of our role as mother and caregiver and household manager.

Erica: Yeah. It's an awesome book, and I've seen they've got the cards now that you can get on Amazon, which once you read the book and get familiar with the methodology, you'll see where the cards make sense. It's a very interesting way to break up the duties. But I've got a theory, because here's the thing, this kind of invisible labor happens to all women, not just mothers.

Erica: I think we see a lot of it come from the mother perspective because of the amplification of the duties with kids. But I don't think this is ever really going to change until men have the same amount of leave policies that women do. I say that because having had two kids, this is just my experience, but I was the only one back in the day that had leave. I worked for a large global company, and I only got my short term disability for six weeks, which was 60% of my pay.

Erica: Back then, y'all, I was making like $60,000. So it wasn't much. But what's crazy is, I knew I wanted to go back to work. When I did, I was the only one that had that time with my kid. Then when I went back to work, I already knew all the information. I knew what soothed him. I knew how to feed him. I knew how he liked his bottle. So it was easier for me to just continue on, and we never stopped to renegotiate the duties when I went back to work.

Erica: Then I had another kid, and it just got worse.

Tara: Yeah, it is. We don't have the systems and support in place to actually set up fair and equitable distribution of unpaid labor inside of the homes. Even men who do have paid family medical leave access, the majority of them do not take all of it, because there's still so much stigma and pressure, and these gendered expectations of how we're supposed to show up in the roles we're supposed to hold, that man is still the provider. So, oh my gosh, I can't take all of this leave.

Tara: There's still some really toxic narratives around, well, what would I possibly do to help during that time?

Erica: Right. I'm not the one who's like, I think we can make a list.

Tara: Exactly. I think that needs to change for sure. I also think we are seeing shifts in dads, millennial dads in particular, step up in new and exciting ways in their ability to parent and be involved. But we have to do better, because it also starts with our children seeing that there is a fair, and not necessarily equal, but a fair distribution of these tasks, and that everyone inside of the family values each other and their contributions, whether they are paid or unpaid, equally.

Tara: All time is created equal. All contributions are created equal, because without the unpaid stuff, you don't have a roof over your head. If you don't have food, if you don't have caregiving, if you don't have your health, you're not going to work and making the money. They're all connected, but we don't value them. Our society does not value unpaid and paid labor in the same way.

Erica: Okay, I got a question, because I know I have struggled with this, and I know some of these other people on this call struggle with this too. We struggle with the guilt of redistributing some of this labor. How can we go about, or what is one practical way that we can start redistributing some of this invisible labor without feeling the guilt?

Erica: I'll say, for example, I like taking my kids to bed, but sometimes I really don't want to. But then I feel bad that I don't. Whereas my husband, he could care less. He's like, oh, whatever. So how do I do that?

Tara: Well, I think the first thing, the way I think about it, and this is just my perspective, is that we have to acknowledge that from the get go, we've kind of been set up not for success around this. So first, acknowledging and practicing some self compassion around the fact that you feel guilty because the systems are not in place to actually support us to be able to give up control. That's step one. Then realizing that you've probably tried to give up control in the past, and the way that you expected that task or duty or service to be performed was not met to your expectations. So therefore it's like, alright, forget it, I can't go away, I can't leave, I can't give up control, I can't give this task away, I'm just gonna own it.

Tara: I think acknowledging that, but then also acknowledging that's not sustainable. So that can be true, but we also need to make a change. In the Fair Play world, how you start to shift towards being able to give up that guilt and control is being able to actually rely on people when they step in to help you. Because it's really hard to not feel guilty if bedtime is gonna look a certain way when you do it, but when somebody else steps in to do it, they're gonna be neglected, or not tucked in properly, or not cozy, or not get their water, whatever it is.

Tara: Eve, the author of Fair Play, would say that the only way to combat that is to establish a minimum standard of care with the person, whether it's your partner or a parent or a nanny or whoever is going to step in and take over that task. Because if you do not have a mutually agreed upon minimum standard of care, you can't give up control, or it's really hard to. That's when the resentment comes into play, the frustration comes into play, the exhaustion comes into play, because we are handling everything because we don't feel like we can give that up. So I think we would feel a lot less guilty if we knew that the people stepping in to help us were gonna do it to the level of that standard of care.

Erica: Yeah, awesome. I love that. How are you at this phase of your life? Mother, expecting, founder, you're in the thick of it. How are you preparing for this next phase of your life?

Erica: Hey there, listeners. If you have ever felt like you're stuck in a place, held back by self doubt, perfectionism, or that pesky inner critic, you're not alone. We all face those sticky floors that keep us from reaching the heights we dream of. But guess what, it's time to shatter those limiting beliefs and toxic behaviors to uncover infinite possibilities. My book, Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors, is your ultimate guide to smashing through barriers, overcoming limiting beliefs, and stepping into your full potential. This book has been endorsed by none other than the great Mel Robbins, bestselling author and motivational powerhouse.

Erica: It's also been featured in Success Magazine, so you know it's packed with insights that work. Inside you'll find real life sticky floor stories, practical strategies to help you navigate your own sticky floor moments, and a whole lot of inspiration to keep you climbing. This isn't just a book, it's your roadmap to success, confidence, and freedom. Grab your copy of Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors today at erikaandersonrooney.com.

Erica: Whether you're in the boardroom, the classroom, or just starting out, this book is for you, because no one, and I mean no one, deserves to stay stuck, no one deserves to feel small, and you have glass ceilings to shatter. Let's do this.

Tara: Oh my gosh. So I'll back it up a little bit. My husband and I, my partner Nick and I, before we had our first daughter, we struggled to get pregnant for two years. We experienced some loss. We ended up going through two years of infertility and IVF, a couple rounds of that, a whole journey. It was some of the darkest, hardest days of my life. But now that I'm out of it, I can say that I am so, so grateful for it, because it gave Nick and I the opportunity to have some really deep and real conversations around how we wanted to show up as parents and partners, and what our core family values are. It evolved. We really had the chance, and we would light a fire outside in our backyard and just have these super deep conversations.

Tara: That was all before my daughter was here with us. I think we are very unique in being able to have set that foundation before children. Because I always say, I spent eleven years in sales, and now I've spent five years immersed in motherhood, and I believe, this is my own personal opinion, but there are a lot of cases in which someone does more research and asks more questions around purchasing software than they do around how they're going to show up as partners for each other.

Erica: Oh, I could guarantee you that's true.

Tara: Right? Truly. So long story short, what we are doing is kind of cycling back to that. Those deep conversations around, okay, now that we're gonna have two, how are we still going to carve out time alone for ourselves? That's my biggest concern. We've been able, with one, to navigate that very well with a lot of intention and a lot of conversations and a lot of emphasis on values and equity. But two is a whole new ballgame. So how do we really make sure that we are preparing for that, and building in cues or signs of, help me, I need a minute. So it's a lot of intentional conversations is what we're doing.

Erica: I heard Brene Brown one time, I don't know if it was an Instagram reel or something, but she said it's never fifty-fifty, because you could have a very energy fulfilling day where you come home and you're on cloud nine and your partner had a really bad day. If a kid pops off or says something sassy, you gotta fill them in, but she said something like, together you just have to at least get to a hundred. So if your partner comes in and it's a sixty-forty kind of day, you may have to be the one on tap. But then what do you do if you're both twenty-twenty? I don't know.

Tara: I know. And I think, just being really real, after you give birth, you're still bleeding and healing for so long. A woman, no matter how it unfolds, is not gonna be her full contributing self for a while. I have just tried to be really honest about that with my partner. This pregnancy has been so much harder than my first. My iron levels are really low. This baby is just moving like crazy. I'm so uncomfortable. I'm kind of checking in with Nick on a daily basis to say, I got this much sleep, I'm this uncomfortable, I have this level of work meetings I'm dealing with, we gotta figure this out together.

Erica: So interesting. I love that. I just hear communication, communication, communication, but also having a partner that's able to receive what you're saying is a big piece of it too.

Tara: Yeah. And I will say, I just want to be honest with this group, because transparency is so big for me. When I first introduced the Fair Play method to him, he was very defensive. He was like, this is, and I think a big part of it was how I introduced my energy.

Tara: I was like, oh my god, we're doomed, every couple hates each other after kids, we've gotta figure this out. He was like, Tara, we're good, we'll just figure it out. I'm like, no, we're not. He was like, who is this Eve lady, why does she hate men, what is all of this? So it took a while to get us to where we are. It's not a switch that flips. It's a process.

Erica: Well, let's be real clear. If you're gonna do the Fair Play method, you actually need to do it the right way, because you can also have another failed experience like me, where it was very much like, here's my spreadsheet of all the things that I do. My husband's like, oh, you wanna do that? If I had had 50 lines on there, he would have had 51 lines.

Erica: I will never forget, on this spreadsheet was, put up the Christmas lights, and I'm like, next, what is that even on the list for? Oh my gosh. You have me crying laughing over here. It's because it's so funny, it's real.

Erica: But I wanna take a left turn and talk a bit about how you're weaving AI into Confidant, and how do you think this kind of technology can actually help women like us who are in the fix of it, whether we have kids or not? How is it gonna help support women instead of us feeling constantly overwhelmed and burned out?

Tara: Yes. So AI is foundational to Confidant. It has also become a massive helper in my life. I wanna kind of poll the group again, are a lot of you dabbling with AI? Have you tried ChatGPT or any of the LLMs? You can kind of nod.

Erica: I've made them all this year.

Tara: You have. Okay.

Erica: I pulled them all along with me.

Tara: I love it. I think, like anything, if we've seen the dangers and the harms associated with technology, specifically social media, if architected and built certain ways, whether intentional or not, but the way social media is structured today, it makes money when you click. So obviously that has some impacts to our mental health and our children and all the things.

Tara: So I think, in order to create and use AI in a way that is human centric, or we call it mother centric, women centric, women have to be at the helm. Women have to be building it. Women have to be shaping it. Women have to be training it. That is a deep belief that we hold at Confidant, that if we are going to be able to actually lean on this technology and use it as a way to make our life better, it's gotta be built by us, because we're the ones that know how to do that. My cofounder actually is really the brains behind the tech piece of it. Neither of us are, I mean, I spent eleven years in tech, but in sales.

Tara: So I'm not a technical person. I'm not an engineer. I can dabble, but nothing extensively. She has vibe coded, so I don't know, are you all familiar with that term, vibe coding?

Erica: I'm mostly now.

Tara: Yeah. So basically, now that AI is more accessible, there are tools that you can use, and I would get curious with these things, it's actually magical and wild. My favorite one is Lovable. You can try it for free, where you can go in and you can just prompt. So write, use your creativity, your language, all the things, a web page, an app, a prototype to life just using words. Then your words, your vision turns into code, and that code then generates a thing. Our entire app experience, Confidant, the app experience, the front end that our users see, which we would love for all of you to try in the beta, it's in beta right now, was vibe coded, prompted by Ariel, our cofounder. She built the code using her words, which is just wild.

Tara: I think it opens up a whole new opportunity for women who have felt kind of intimidated by bringing an idea to life, because they haven't had a technical cofounder or an engineer. Now you can spin up a prototype or a web page or a web app in hours and just get some feedback on it. Is it gonna be perfect? No. But it can get you to a pretty far place.

Tara: So did that answer your question?

Erica: Yes, girl. Oh my god, I'm just so impressed with what you're building and what you're doing and how you're doing it specifically for women. It's such a cool technology. I was so excited to see you there. I do have another question for you though.

Erica: This is one question I always love to ask. If you could go back, I don't know, fifteen years, pre kids, pre founder, you're tech sales all the way, what piece of advice would you give yourself today?

Tara: Well, I'll share something interesting. My cofounder Ariel, one of the ways we got connected was that I actually enrolled in a self paced course that she created with one of her college professors. It was called Imagine Your Story, and it was journal prompting that encouraged you to explore some of these kind of unwritten and written rules that you apply to your life that maybe are or aren't serving you. You explore your relationship to money and your relationship to how you define success, and your values that you've carried from childhood. The prompts help you understand and realize if those things are still working for you or against you.

Erica: Mhmm.

Tara: I wish I had taken that course right before I decided to step out of the corporate world. That was one key driver in doing that, and I wish I had done that sooner. I wish I had realized that some of these values and rules I had written for myself early on weren't actually what I believed. They were just driven by external expectations, family expectations, and weren't actually connected to my true self and my deeply held belief system.

Erica: I think you're just where you're supposed to be right at the right time. It all comes, you're supposed to receive it. So I wanted to thank you for coming.