Speaker Erica: 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. 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.

Erica: 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 in life that actually feels aligned, I'd love to welcome you inside her collective. You can learn more and join us at www.joinhercollective.com. Because honestly, girl, you were never meant to do this alone.

Erica: What is grit? If you look it up in the dictionary, grit is passion and perseverance for long term and meaningful goals. It is the ability to persist. Now what I know to be true is if you wanna climb the ladder and shatter ceilings, you've gotta move it. Today's guest star is my first repeat guest.

Erica: And that is because she recently authored a book on, guess what, grit. And it is called Unstoppable Grit. As a woman who has overcome being kidnapped by her own mother, postpartum depression and is currently raising twin boys while having a husband in the military, and a thriving career and business, this woman, she knows what it means to be gritty.

Erica: Hello, friends. Today, I have something super special for you. We have Danielle Cobo with us. And if you've been listening for a while, you may think that that name sounds familiar, and it probably does. Danielle was on the show a while back, but since then, she has authored the book Unstoppable Grit, breakthrough the seven roadblocks standing between you and achieving your goals.

Erica: And y'all know that topic is right up our alley, so I just had to have her back. And let me tell you why. I don't know anyone better than Danielle to talk about unstoppable grit. This woman has been through it, but she has harnessed the power of her unstoppable grit and resilience and is doing amazing things. So, Danielle, I am so excited to say welcome back.

Erica: How are you today?

Danielle: I'm doing fantastic, and thank you for having me back on the podcast.

Erica: Well, so for my listeners who may not have heard our first session together yet, which go back and listen, tell us a little bit about who is Danielle Cobo.

Danielle: Well, more importantly, I am a mom to six year old twin boys. It's a big part of my life, and I spent a majority of my career in medical sales. So I spent about fifteen years in corporate America where I was doing medical sales. And then most recently, I was leading a team for a Fortune 500 company as a senior sales manager. And you talk about some of the challenges that we went through.

Danielle: It was often managers would tell me you experienced more within your first year of management than most managers do within five to ten years. And that's because we went through acquisitions, restructuring, downsizing. We had an organization, our competitor that was trying to do a hostile takeover of our company. And it ended up going into the federal court because it was gonna create a monopoly within the industry. So it was a very intense situation, but it gave me some great experience in understanding how to lead through change, how to have grit, and how to have a team come together towards a common goal.

Erica: Well and I'm a mom, and I have a five year old and eight year old. So I think that if you have six year old twin boys, you absolutely have to have some grit and some resilience to back it up. But I want to dive right in, and I wanna hear what this book is about.

Danielle: This book is about breaking free from the burnout cycle. And more importantly, part of breaking free from the burnout cycle is redefining success on our terms. Because a lot of times we are fed from the media, from movies, from social media, the news, each other, on how we think success should look like and how we should show up as a mom, as a professional, as whatever title cap that we're putting on our heads. And so it's about how to define success on your terms, how to discover and tap into your unique strengths and how to build a career that's fulfilling to you and living a life with purpose. And a lot of it, the underlining theme, is grit.

Danielle: I do share some very personal stories of challenges that I've gone through as well as people on my team or people that I've worked with over the years. I do change the names. So I want to be mindful of that, but I share some stories that I think a lot of readers can relate to, just the challenges of trying to balance a career and a family life and trying to live up to some of the expectations that are told to us versus really showing up authentically who we are and who we want to be.

Erica: I think that's probably a big piece of it is that we don't show up authentically because we are trying to do all of the shoulds, what we think a good mom should look like, what we think a good manager should look like. But I'd like to talk a little bit more about burnout too, because I think that a lot of people, number one, it's a buzzword as well, right, but it is a serious thing, and I have burned out. I don't know if you've burned out, but what is burnout?

Erica: What does it look like? What does it feel like? How does it show up for people?

Danielle: I agree with you. Burnout is a buzzword, but it's also valuable to actually put a term into something that I believe a lot of us have felt over the years for a long time. And so sometimes these words at least help us identify where the problem is so that we can identify what steps we can take to work towards a solution. I have hit burnout on multiple occasions. Earlier in my career, I was in medical sales, and I was working nonstop to the point where in sales, our Q3 was our toughest quarter.

Danielle: I would break out in hives in my chest. I would just burn out entirely where it would come out. My skin would be dehydrated. I'd break out in hives. I'd be so tired.

Danielle: My eyes would be hollow. But I was young. I didn't really realize the toll that it was taking on me long term. And then I reached burnout again when I had my twins. But it was a little bit different because the burnout that I experienced was a combination of becoming a new mom, having premature twins that weren't sleeping through the night until they were six months old.

Danielle: So trying to balance young premature twins and a career, but also I experienced postpartum depression and that was a big challenge. And so I've hit burnout a few different times, but I think if there's anything that I've learned through each experience is how to identify it and how to prevent it and how to overcome it when it does happen.

Erica: Physical symptoms are such a huge thing that women especially tend to overlook. And even if we notice the repetition of, like, I get hives every time this happens, we are like, oh, it just happens. It's fine. And we're sitting here and we're itching and we're scratching, and that is your body's physical way of telling you that something is very, very wrong.

Erica: And we do not pay attention to it. So I think that's really great that you shared that, because so many people just ignore those physical signs. When you think about burnout too, how do you think it shows up in the workplace? Not just the physical symptoms, but how does it manifest when people are showing up to their teams?

Danielle: So in the book, I talk about the weekly body scan, and that takes readers through step by step how you can look at the physical signs when you are experiencing burnout, the physical and then also the emotional sides. But when it comes to the workplace, a lot of times what happens when somebody is burned out is they become irritable. So just that common colleague coming up to you and asking you a question, but you happen to be very focused in on your particular work, you might be irritated a little bit easier. You might find that road rage comes a little bit easier when you're driving down the road, but oftentimes burnout, it's irritability, it's mental fatigue, which then can cause migraines, can cause headaches, can cause different ailments within our body. Disengagement, if you're finding that you're disengaged, you may be feeling like you have a lack of purpose or a lack of fulfillment.

Danielle: You're not enjoying your job as much. And then also think about how you show up at home too, because if we are not feeling fulfilled at work, that's going to trickle into how we show up as a spouse, as a friend, as a parent, and they go hand in hand. So I think it's really important for everyone to understand the signs when they are experiencing mental burnout, stress, mental fatigue, and then they're able to take those steps to overcome it.

Erica: And I know for me, I take it out more on my family than I do anyone else because I keep it together at work and then just unleash when I come home.

Danielle: That's no different than kids. Right? So you think about kids. There's been studies out there that say that kids will act up more around their parents. And the reason being is because at school they are having to be so, listen to the rules and they have to sit down and they have to pay attention and be mindful of everything that's going on.

Danielle: So by the time they get home, this is what I say, my six year old twins, they get home and it is like all hell breaks loose

Erica: Yeah.

Danielle: On our house. But that's the same for us at work when we are trying to keep it all together at work. And then by the time we get home, we sometimes will take it out on our family, or we'll just sit down on the couch and not wanna move.

Erica: So this book, it says there are seven roadblocks, and that's a lot of roadblocks. But I'm not gonna make you talk about all of them here today because I want people to read the book. But when you think about these roadblocks, which are the ones that you see the most frequently?

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.

Erica: 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, best selling author and motivational powerhouse. 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.

Erica: It's your road map to success, confidence, and freedom. Grab your copy of Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors today at www.ericaandersonrooney.com. 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.

Danielle: I believe the biggest roadblock is people. The number one is they may not know it. They may not know what success means to them. And so they may be chasing somebody else's goals or what they think success should be. And then that leads to this constant feeling of not good enough, and it creates that self doubt and it creates those limiting beliefs.

Danielle: I know that's another buzzword, but it's good to put a word towards how we're feeling. And so when we're able to really define what success means to us, then that becomes our guiding light as to what we want our future to look like. And then second to that is discovering and tapping into what our unique strengths are and how that aligns with our core values. Because that becomes the barometer in any decision that I'm making, whether within my personal life or within my career. When I understand truly what my core values are and what my definition of success is and what my unique strengths are, then I'm able to make decisions that are always going to be in line with integrity of what is meaningful to me.

Danielle: So I believe that when you can take those steps, that's when you can truly define what you want your future to look like and live a life based off of that's fulfilling, that's of purpose, that is authentically to you.

Erica: Let's talk about core values because this is a place, as a chief people officer, when I see people burning out in the workplace, it is typically because their core values are not matching up with the core values of the organization. And a lot of people don't take into account how those two do need to match up to some degree. In my experience, we've gone from kind of startup mode to bigger startup mode to being sold off to a larger global company, and you really lose that family feel. You lose the autonomy that you get when you are in startup mode and you have all this big red tape of corporate.

Erica: And people struggle so much, and it's like they're grinding their gears against a different set of gears that are going in a different direction. I can't stress enough how important it is for people to hone in on those core values. What is your way to really kind of get people to figure out what those core values are?

Danielle: When I'm working with an individual, I have some workbooks and worksheets where we go through where their core values are, and it's a list of different core values. And we narrow it down to five core values. And those are the core values that, like I said, in any decision you're making, you're always basing it off of those core values. So for example, for me, my top priority of my core values is my family. I used to spend two hundred and fifty nights on the road.

Danielle: I spent more time in a hotel than I did in my own bed. Now I did that before I had kids. But when I became a mom, one of my core values is family, and it was really important for me to be present for my kids. And so sometimes people think taking a step back means, oh, if I'm gonna go from a leadership role and maybe I'm gonna go back into an individual contributor role, I'm taking a step back in my career. No.

Danielle: You're just choosing a particular position that may align more with your core values. And at the end of the day, you're gonna be happier because you're making decisions off those core values. And then when I'm working with a team, a lot of times in my leadership programs, I'll bring everybody together. Everyone identifies their core values, and then collectively, we all put them on a whiteboard or a poster board. We write them all down and we say, look at where there's similarities in our core values, but let's also acknowledge that there's differences amongst each of us and our core values.

Danielle: And as a leader, that's really important because if I know that somebody's core value is independence and having the autonomy to make decisions on their own, then I wanna do everything I can to provide them and empower them with the tools and resources to make decisions on their own within their particular role. If I know that somebody's core value is balance, I need to make sure that I'm always checking in with them and ensuring, hey, do you feel like you're balanced right now? How is your workload right now? What are some different ways that maybe we can delegate or prioritize what your workload is and maybe redefine what those expectations are. So as a leader, it's really important that we understand not only what our core values are, but the core values of our team.

Erica: Love that. I love getting them up on the whiteboard. And then how do we do this for the strengths? Because I feel like a lot of people are like, well, I don't know what that is. I'm like, I'm good at a lot of things or I'm not good at anything.

Erica: So how do we hone in on those unique strengths?

Danielle: Okay. So there are two different activities that I suggest, and I walk readers through this on how to do it in the book. The first one is sometimes people see things in us that we may not see in ourselves. So when I was looking at what do I want my future to look like, and at that point in my life, I was kinda struggling with my own self doubt, my own limiting beliefs.

Danielle: So one of the exercises is to either go on social media or reach out to your colleagues and your friends and your family members and say, if there was one word that you would use to describe me, what would it be? Or if there was a way that I've impacted your life in a positive way, please share how. So I posted two of those on Facebook, and I was flooded with comments, motivating, inspiring, empowering, grit, resilience, encouraging. And so I took all of those words. I wrote them down.

Danielle: I created a word cloud out of them. And so anytime that I am feeling self doubt or I'm feeling discouraged or frustrated, I look at that word cloud and I say, these are the qualities that people see in me, and I get to then see them in myself. So that's one exercise, is to put words to it. The second one is grab a piece of paper, write down every challenge that you've experienced in your life, personally, professionally. And then on the other side of the page, write down the steps that you've taken to overcome those challenges and think about how those have shaped you into the person you are today and write down all of your accomplishments.

Danielle: I had one client that I was working with and we were redoing her resume. We were redoing her LinkedIn profile and she was looking for a job. And I said, okay, let's talk about some of your successes. And she started to write them all down and she goes, wow, I didn't realize everything that I had accomplished. She had become a certified life coach.

Danielle: She's written books. She's grown a successful business. She's had all of these accomplishments and she's like, I really didn't realize everything that I've achieved over my years until I sat down and wrote them down.

Erica: I think women too, and I say this because I know I do it, but we tend to downplay our successes so much. I mean, I have a story just from this weekend because I put my book cover up on all my social medias, and one of my husband's friends texted him and said, dang, your wife wrote a book? Does she ever sleep? And my husband jokingly was like, actually, she does get her eight hours.

Erica: And he was like, she's a LinkedIn influencer. She has a podcast. She wrote a book, and she's a C level leader. We all need to step up our game. And I kinda looked at that, and I was like, dang.

Erica: I aim to. But we struggle to really recognize all the things that we're doing. Do you, number one, do you ever feel like that? Number two, if you do, what are your tips to kinda pull yourself out of that, to really recognize all of your greatness?

Danielle: Okay. So let me get one misconception out on the table here. A lot of times people will say, well, you're so confident. And the first thing I say is I still experience self doubt all the time, but I now know the tools to reframe that self doubt in the moments that I have them. I'm not only able to identify when I'm experiencing it.

Danielle: So if I'm experiencing self doubt, the first thing I say is, well, what's triggering it? Why? A lot of times it comes from I'm making a big change in my business and I'm stepping into something that's unknown, uncomfortable. I'm stretching myself a lot. So I'm going, oh, am I ready for this?

Danielle: I don't know. So sometimes I'll go, what's triggering it? And then what am I telling myself that's true or not true? And then also where is that fear coming from? Because a lot of times, fear is false evidence appearing real.

Danielle: And we worry about things a lot of times, we worry about things that are going to happen and the majority of the time they don't happen. So just because someone sees confidence on the outside does not necessarily mean that they don't experience self doubt at times. I think it's natural to experience it, and I believe that we all do. It just happens at different times. But really be tuned into what's triggering it.

Danielle: What are you telling yourself and what steps can you take to say, this is just a story that I'm telling myself. This is not real. And then reframe it from there.

Erica: I think that's really important. And people ask a lot of the times, are we ever free from these sticky floors? Because that's what we call them on this podcast. And I don't wanna sound negative, but I'm like, not really. No.

Erica: I said, but you do become more confident in knowing you can overcome them because you show yourself time and time again that that is something that you can overcome. So I love that. I'm glad you laid that out there for all of us. So now I wanna go back to that first one you were talking about, the first roadblock, all the shoulds. Right?

Erica: What success looks like, or what we think success looks like. I wanna ask you what was your original definition of success and what is your definition now?

Danielle: So my definition of success was climbing the corporate ladder, a certain income level that I was making because I was in sales. So a lot of times it was tied to president's clubs, region manager of the year. And I had achieved, I had earned four consecutive president's clubs as an individual contributor, and I had earned region manager of the year leading a team to number one. So I had achieved a lot of that, but I was always constantly measuring myself based off of job titles, income, how much was in my retirement fund, what is my house compared to everybody else's.

Danielle: And there was a six month period that completely changed my life. And it was in 2020, like most of us experienced change, but in early January, my husband was deployed in Iraq for an entire year. Twins were two years old at the time. In early January while I was at my national sales meeting, my husband's base got hit by 13 missiles. It made national news, worldwide news.

Danielle: Gratefully, he came home a couple weeks later. So we were kinda navigating through. Here he comes back. He's just been in a war zone for a year. He's now coming back to kids who, when he left, were in cribs, were just learning how to walk, who were still eating in high chairs.

Danielle: Now he's coming back. They're two and a half years old, and they're eating on their own. They're in full size beds. It was a big shift. And so we're kind of navigating through that.

Danielle: Then March 8, I had lost my mom to suicide. So as I'm trying to plan her celebration of life and try to even process the fact that I had just lost my mom, March 12, March 13, the world got shut down with the pandemic. And then a couple months after that, I was in a very toxic work environment, and our company had just been acquired. The culture changed, the values changed within the organization. So I left a company that I was with for seven years and I felt lost, confused.

Danielle: I didn't know who I was. I was discouraged. I was having panic attacks because I just felt like I was such a failure and I didn't know who I was or who I wanted to be or what my next step was. So it was in those moments where I realized that so much of what I tied success to was external versus really looking at what makes me happy. How do I wanna show up as a mom, as a wife, as a friend, as a family member, and what makes me happy?

Danielle: And that's when I really kind of went through some of the exercises, and there are lots of exercises that I share in the book on how to define success on your own terms. But when I started to go through that self discovery, I was able to really identify what success looks like for me, and that helped me get through to where I am today. And since that, in three years, I've started a business. I do leadership trainings. I've written a book.

Danielle: I have a top rated podcast, but more importantly, I've gotten more involved in my church. I'm there with my kids. I've coached their soccer team, and I still get to travel. So I thoroughly enjoy the life that I have now.

Erica: And it's success on your own terms.

Danielle: It's success on my own terms. Yeah. To me, what I've learned, my one word is impact. And to me, when I think about when that time comes and people are standing at my celebration of life, I think about what do I want people to say about me? What's the legacy that I wanna leave?

Danielle: And it comes down to, every single day, I wanna find a way to make a positive impact on the lives of others. And so that is kind of my guiding light into the decisions that I'm making professionally and personally.

Erica: Well, I love it. And I think all of that story from 2020 until now is why you are so credible and the person to write this book called Unstoppable Grit. So I cannot wait to get my hands on it. I cannot wait to read it. Where can people find this book?

Erica: How can they get their hands on it?

Danielle: So the best way to find the book is to go to daniellecobo.com/book, and that's where listeners can go ahead and preorder the book. The official release date is February 21, which I'm really excited about, but there's also some free resources when people preorder the book. There's a lot of goodies that I'm gonna be giving, some workbooks to go along with it.

Erica: Oh, that's gonna be really good. So I am super pumped for it. And, Danielle, I've gotta ask, if you could look back on this entire experience of writing the book, of imagining your life at the beginning of 2020 to now, what is the one piece of advice you would give that Danielle?

Danielle: I would say step into the uncomfortable, because you never know what's on the other side unless you try. And you see people, I used to compare myself. I would see people like you, for example, if I saw you and I didn't know you, and I'd say, here's this woman who's a C suite executive and she's an author and she's a podcast host. There's no way I can do all that. It's like, no, you can. You just get to try.

Danielle: And either it's aligned with what you wanna do or it's not, but always find ways to take courageous steps to step into the unknown, because you never know what's on the other side.

Erica: And with that, I'm gonna say thank you so much for not being on my show once, but for being here twice. I cannot wait to read this book. I can't wait to get my hands on it. I'm gonna go make sure I preorder it today, and I hope all of you listeners do as well. Danielle, thank you.

Danielle: Thank you.

Erica: Oh my gosh. I hope you are so ready to step into the uncomfortable and the unknown after this episode with Danielle Cobo. She is so amazing, and I just am such an admirer of her work. Thank you, friends. Again, I am so glad you were here, and please rate, review, and subscribe this podcast as it truly helps it land in the hands of the person that needs to hear it most.