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 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.

Erica: Because honestly, girl, you were never meant to do this alone. If you are looking for a woman who has figured out how to thrive in the c suite, look no further. Deb Lieu, CEO of Ancestry and author of the book Take Back Your Power is here to talk about the 10 new rules for women at work. From not giving yourself a free pass to making your mark and finding your voice, Deb lays it all out in practical, easy to do strategies to help you truly grow and succeed in a world that is stacked against us. Trust me when I tell you this, you are not going to want to miss out on this episode.

Erica: Y'all, this woman had Mark Zuckerberg, yes, the Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook meta king, tell her that she was never, never going to get the job that she wanted, and she still rose to the top. Her resilience, her creativity, and her ability to see the world in a way that others cannot, DeBlue is playing a game so she can change the game. Deb Liu is the president and CEO of Ancestry and author of Take Back Your Power, 10 new rules for women at work. With almost twenty years of experience in the tech industry, she has been named one of Business Insider's most powerful women engineers.

Erica: She was previously a senior executive at Facebook where she created and led Facebook Marketplace, the platform that I know you shop and sell on, and she has also led the development of Facebook's first mobile ad product for apps and its mobile ad network. Prior to Facebook, Deb spent several years in product roles at PayPal and eBay, and she is a board member, holds several commerce related patents, and is actively involved in promoting diversity in tech. Deb has founded Women in Product, a nonprofit with more than 30,000 members, and just like many of us, is a wife and a mom and crazy busy. So, Deb, thank you so much for coming and spending some time with me today. I am so happy you're here.

Erica: How are you?

Deb: Great, Erica. Thank you so much for the invitation.

Erica: Oh my goodness. Well, let's kick this off. You have had such an impressive career in a male dominated industry no less. Would you mind sharing some of the key challenges that you have faced and that you have overcome in your journey?

Deb: Yeah. You know, it's interesting. Like, I don't I see my career arc as one that's actually been very blessed and very fortunate, and yet I'm even into some of these challenges, which I, you know, I should have known were coming. I'll give you an example. One of the things that, I started out with was I, you know, I remember having my first child, and my career hit a wall.

Deb: And then it hit a wall, and it continued for six years while I, had my second and my third. And I just realized that being stalled out feels terrible, and it makes you wanna quit. You know, I actually resigned after my, my son was born to the VP I was working for because it's just I felt all the things that you read about in the lean in book. Right? You feel like you're falling behind.

Deb: You feel like you're you know, I remember one woman saying to me, I feel like I'm feeling at work and at home. At least if I quit, maybe I'm only feeling one place. And I just remember that feeling. And that just was devastating to me where I had no idea what she meant until that happened to me. And going through that cycle of going from, you know, my first child and then the second and third and feeling my career was actually going backwards because I had you know, I was taking time off to have the babies and then coming back to a different job and then starting over.

Deb: Not only did I get promoted for six years, I actually, you know, took a demotion and and I took a step back to go to a new company, which eventually became obviously Facebook. It was a 900 person startup at the time. And so I think that these are these micro decisions make sense within the context of your life. And yet when you look at the career arc of many women, they go through this as well.

Erica: Absolutely. Now, Deb, this is the podcast that is all about climbing the ladder and shattering the ceiling by breaking free from our sticky floors. And your book is all about the challenges and obstacles that women in the workplace face and how that deck is stacked against us. So great synergy here. I gotta know, what was your sticky floor?

Deb: Yo. The biggest thing was feeling like I couldn't do it. I just couldn't advance. I couldn't make it, and that wasn't possible for me. You know, when you go through your career and you get stuck, the door just feels closed.

Deb: It feels slammed closed for you, and there is no way to open it. I remember after my, my third child was born, I had my dad was in hospice. He had stage four cancer that he diagnosed really late, and he was passing away the entire time he was pregnant. I had an extremely difficult pregnancy, and, you know, I just I could not go to work every day and just feel like I could give anything. I had nothing left.

Deb: I remember finally saying to my manager, he was my seventh manager in two and a half years, and I was on maternity leave for six for about five months of that. And I just remember saying, I just can't do this. And, you know, I've had managers just rotate on top of me for so many for so many times, and I was delivering, you know, the products, but yet I just felt like I was not making any progress. I hadn't been promoted. I'd already taken the step back I had talked about.

Deb: And he looked at me, and I remember this was a very instrumental conversation for me. I just remember saying, I can't do this. And he said, why do you think you have to do it alone? And suddenly, it just changed my mindset, but I remember feeling stuck. When you talk about sticky force, that was the moment I just felt so stuck that I was ready to quit.

Deb: And he said, why do you need to do it alone? And he actually named a lot of our colleagues and peers, and he said, you know, they have spouses to stay at home with their kids. They have people who are part time. They have people who you know, they they have someone taking care of their families when they're at work, and you don't. And to ask for help.

Deb: And I remember him just giving me that permission, and it completely changed the way I looked at things. He was such an incredible sponsor and ally. And as and and in that moment, I felt like he saw me, he heard me, and then he said, here's a path forward that we can walk together. Very few you know, a lot of people do not have the opportunity to meet a manager like Doug who basically changed the trajectory of my career. But I think that's when we need people the most.

Deb: It's when we're most vulnerable, when we can't do it, when we're stuck the most. When someone when you're actually sitting there I have this visualization in my book about stumbling blocks and stepping stones. You know, what do you do when you hit a stumbling block? Sometimes you just need someone standing on top of that rock to give you a hand to get over it, so it becomes a stepping stone to the next thing. But I could've been stuck there without

Erica: him. Well, the world needs more Dugs. And, Deb, I feel like you and I were in this generation where we were told that we could have it all and do it all and be it all, but what we heard was that we had to be everything. And so I think this idea of asking for help is so key. And, you know, in your book, you talk about a swim lane marriage, which I think is a really big piece of asking for help.

Erica: So tell me, what is a swim lane marriage, and how can we all be in the pool together?

Deb: Yeah. Well, I love the concept of swim lane marriage because, you know, your partner and I started the chapter actually talking about the quote from Sheryl Sandberg. The most important career decision you make is who you choose to marry, and that is absolutely true. I met my husband when I was 18. We started dating when I was 19, and, you know, we didn't know who we would become.

Deb: And we decided to build a life together so that we would become something together as a family. And one of the things that we we talk about is a swim lane marriage. We call it the sixty sixty marriage. I I talk a little bit about this from, from a from a marriage seminar we went to. We went to a Christian marriage seminar before we got married, and they talked about if each of you give 60%, the other you both feel like you've got the the the best part of the bargain.

Deb: And I thought that would be amazing. And we we do have that kind of marriage. When we talk about a swindling marriage, it's so important where one person does something and does it all the way, and the other person has to accept it and not complain. And it's hard. Right?

Deb: Sometimes someone will not do the things the way you want. I'll give you an example. My husband loves planning vacations. All of our vacations, he plans the entire thing. He sends me a Google Doc, and he says, this is what you need to do to show up.

Deb: Here's where we're going, and here's all the tickets, and everything is booked. I hate the outdoors. I am allergic to everything, but we have been white water rafting, zip lining, hiking, and I know he gets to complain, and he gets to do all the fun things. I actually put up with it. He's he's like, you're a really good sport.

Deb: Like, well, I said I wouldn't complain. But I make sure we pack, and we and I take care of all the food. And so, you know, that is that is a give and take. We we don't get to complain about each other. We don't get to bean count.

Deb: And I think that's so important in a relationship. Just like if you had a partnership with somebody at work, you know, you have somebody who you work with every day. You don't check up on their work. You don't say, hey. I wouldn't have done it that way.

Deb: Instead, you find ways to actually play at each other's strengths. And I think that that has made our marriage really strong is that we just you know, we call it standing down the edges of life for each other. And I share a story of how my husband is so incredible where for a year, I didn't, actually get gas, and I didn't realize it. I never thanked him. I never noticed.

Deb: And then one day, my car was gone, and I said, oh, where'd you go? And he's like, well, you're going to the city. And so I went to get gas to make sure your gas tank was full. And that's what a swim lane marriage is. It's I make sure there's always food in the refrigerator.

Deb: I cook both in bulk so when I have to travel, there's food that he never has to cook. And he takes care of all the shopping. And I cook whatever he buys, and he gets to choose choose what we eat. But I get to cook it. So it is a great ebb and flow in our relationship, and it's always worked really well for us.

Erica: Well and, Deb, you and I talked a while back, and one of the things that you talked about that was just an epiphany moment for me was when women stay home and we have our maternity leave, we take on the full responsibilities of the child we're doing, which makes sense. Right? We just birthed this little child. It needs us. But then women go back to work, and we never redistribute any of those workloads.

Erica: And so, actually, my husband and I just recently sat down and we created an Excel spreadsheet, and we're like, let's dish out everything that we do. And we wrote it down, and then we took it a step further too, and we put a cadence next to it. Like, is it daily? Is it a weekly responsibility? Is it a monthly responsibility?

Erica: Because when you looked at it on paper, our responsibilities looked very similar. Except for his, we're all monthly, and mine were daily.

Deb: That is actually one of the big flaws in actually dividing the work. A lot of people say, well, I take care of everything inside the house and, you know, he takes care of everything outside the house. How often are you mowing the lawn? You know, how often are you really taking out the trash? But you're actually cooking.

Deb: You know, every night when I cook, it usually takes about an hour. And and, you know, that is real work. You shop for food once a week for an hour, and you cook for seven, you know, seven dinners and seven lunches. So how do you think about that? And so I do love that where you're really thinking consciously.

Deb: We call it conscious renegotiation in our relationship. And we constantly renegotiate when things aren't working, when things are out of balance, when one of us feels like it's not right. And so I think I love that you sat down and actually put it to paper.

Erica: Yes. And I think it's so important too because as you know with three kids, like, we go through these different phases of life and things change. And you have kid activities and then you don't, and then kids drive. And so it's important to sit down and map that out. But I do wanna dive into your book because this book is amazing.

Erica: If you guys haven't listened to it, you can buy it on Amazon anywhere. It'll be there in less than twenty four hours from the Amazon gods. But her book is all about thriving in the system that we have today, which I think is so key because there's a hundred and thirty two year pay gap. There is a one hundred and fifty year leadership gap, so none of us are gonna be around for that to close. But in this book, Deb, you talk about the 10 rules for women at work, and these are knowing your playing field, not giving yourself a free pass, you know, charting your own path to name a few.

Erica: Which one of these rules did you find the most challenging in your career climb? 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?

Erica: It's time to shatter those limiting beliefs and toxic behaviors to uncover infinite possibilities. My book, Glassy Leads 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.

Erica: 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 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.

Deb: You know, I actually think the one about giving myself a free pass because I was that kid. I grew up as a, as a child in South Carolina. My parents moved there when I was six. And, if you don't know anything about South Carolina, it's a wonderful and beautiful state, but there are only 16,000 Asian people there. And our family looked I stood out like a sore thumb.

Deb: And people felt the need to comment and and make a ton of comments and and racist, attacks, and it was a lot. And I realized I just if I just shrank smaller, if no one noticed me, if I didn't say anything, maybe people wouldn't say anything to me. You know, people would come up to us on the streets and say, go back to where you came from. And I remember I used to say, oh, New York? And they're like, no.

Deb: Really? And I we've been into an argument about it. So, basically, it was because I was born in New York. And I think one of those things where, you know, if you think about, what it's like to be a child, it teaches you what it need what you need to protect yourself. And I learned that too well, which was if I just if no one ever comments on what I did, if I just put my head down and did the work, that's what success looks like.

Deb: And you and I both know that is not what success looks like in the workplace. If you look at who is successful, it's the people who who speak up, the people who have an opinion, the people who influence, and I just wasn't that person. And I really struggled in my first couple of jobs, really coming into my own, getting my ideas sold, really influencing people because I was really bad. I remember I was in consulting, and they're like, you're kinda bad at the client part of client service. But I was really good at the analytics, the slides, like, all the hard skills, and really bad at the most important part, which are the soft skills.

Deb: And so get not giving yourself a free pass, this comes from my friend, Carol Aizazaki. She teaches a, she teaches a seminar on this. And she said, you know, free pass is basically how many times do you actually go in a meeting and you say, you know what? I'm just not gonna pay attention, or I'm gonna sit in the back and just take notes. No one's gonna notice me.

Deb: I don't care, you know, if they if I say anything. Very few this she called it the ridiculous unintentional ridiculous strategies that people employ. But how many times you walk out of a meeting having done just that? And so one of the things that, you know, this giving up the free passes, don't sit in the back. You'll sit at the table.

Deb: Take up space. Have an opinion. Because why aren't you even at this meeting if you're just not even gonna show up and can you just get the notes and know what happens? And so she really talks about intentionality. Like, choose what you're participating in and then show up a 100%.

Deb: And if you can't show up a 100%, don't go. Don't waste your time and other people's time as well. And so I love that because I felt like I was free riding. I was sitting in the back, you know, backbenching my life actually at work because I was like, well, I'm doing my work. But that's not what success looks like in the workplace.

Deb: We reward people who have ideas, who debate, who and and fair or not, I'll I'll say this and I wanna note this, which is that seems really unfair to people who are introverts, and I am a deep introvert. But this is a bias. Susan Cain wrote an entire book about this called Quiet, which is we have such a bias towards extroversion. And so even if you're an introvert, you have to find ways to at least make your opinion known. Otherwise, you know, you're not seen, you're not heard, you're not having influence.

Deb: And I think that that was the biggest challenge for me. And I had to tear up that fear free path. I had to force myself to learn to speak up, to actually be intentional, And to say, at each meeting, if I didn't say anything, it if I had an idea and I didn't say it, that was a ding on me. And the next time, I would change it. And so I think by changing that, eventually, I got much, much more comfortable.

Erica: That actually leads me, like, right on into rule number four, which is all about building the learning mindset. Right? And so you have to constantly change and grow and adapt. And you were so crazy bold in my opinion because when you showed up to PayPal, day one, this is her first day in her new gig. She shows up and she tells her boss that she has no idea what this role entails.

Erica: And when I tell you I about fell out of my chair with anxiety and cold sweats for her, I'd tell you, I about died. How did you find the courage to show up and say, I have no idea what this role entails?

Deb: Well, I remember when I so this actually, the story of how I got to PayPal is interesting. So I was graduating from Stanford from business school, and I was heading back to North Carolina. So my husband and I wanted to move back. We could not find jobs, though. It's this terrible economy, 2002.

Deb: And I saw this table for PayPal, and there was sitting a product manager and the the guy who recruited the entire PayPal mafia, which is Tim Wenzel. And he said you know, I just said, I just love your product. I'm an eBay seller. Your product has transformed my selling experience. And he's like, do you want a job?

Deb: And I said, no. I'm heading back to North Carolina. And he's like, just go and see our offices. And so I kind of thought, well, just go see their offices. I spent the whole day, the next day there.

Deb: We didn't have class. And I kind of buffeted into a job, basically. Like, I they would ask me questions, and I had no idea what this job entailed because I remember he was sitting there and he said, well, I have jobs in marketing and product. Would you interested? And I had taken a marketing class, and I was like, well, I'm not sure if that's for me.

Deb: And then I looked at Katharine Wu, who's sitting there next to him. And I said, what do you do? She said, product. And then I said, I'll do that. What I didn't know, and this is how I stumbled into product management, was that I didn't actually know what the job was about.

Deb: And and I kept looking for clues as I was interviewing. I was talking to all these people who became my good friends, but then I remember just talking to them and they would just say, well, what would you build as the user? And I would just say, here are the things I would build, here are the things I would change, here's, you know, here's how you could grow the business. Here's how you can make sellers' lives happier. And then they said, okay.

Deb: Great. At the end, I was offered a job. And I remember David Sacks is like, okay. What would it take to to get you to come? And I said, what?

Deb: And I had a job, I you know, within a few days, and I thought, what am I gonna do? I have to admit that I have no idea what this is. And this is a time when there was a lot written about product management. I had no idea. So I show up to the first day, and I said, okay.

Deb: I gotta fess up. I got the job not knowing what I'm actually doing. And I had to go to the VP I worked for, Amy Clement, and she is the sweetest and and kindest and most sponsored the supportive person in the world. She said she said, what do you mean? And and I said, I have no idea what this job entails.

Deb: And she was so kind. She's like, oh, you know, all those ideas, you need to just we should just build them. And I said, but how? And she showed me the tools, and I remember just spending time with her as well as my manager and and actually going through those things. And I realized something, which was I had kind of lost my way into a job in a Silicon Valley tech company, and I didn't no idea.

Deb: But but then I thrived in that. I loved building products. I ended up spending the next twenty years of my career. I didn't say it turned out great. I would advise that maybe you ask your friends what the job entails before you go there, but, you know, sometimes if you just say, you know what?

Deb: I'm not gonna be the expert. I'm not gonna walk in this room knowing what I'm doing, but I'm gonna learn faster than everybody else. And, you know, a couple years later, when my manager left, she gave me his job, and I was you know, I barely ever managed anybody. I didn't know what I was doing, and she took a risk on me. And I think it's those moments where you have this, what we call, what Peggy Alford in my book called, step functions in your career, where you just take a flyer, you do something, and you just, like, take this huge step up, not one rung up the ladder before.

Deb: And I think that is how to how she defined work here, and it's something which I I define my career as as well.

Erica: I love that story. And you have another story in your book that we absolutely have to talk about, and this one is going to center on resilience for me. And this is the story where you were passed over not once, but twice for promotions at Facebook. Now I know I know what you did, but I probably would have tucked my tail and run. So I wanna know, Deb, is how did you move forward after that?

Erica: Because it had to be heartbreaking in the moment.

Deb: Yeah. You know, there was only so I did every job that I really wanted to do at the company. I started out, you know, in product marketing. I made a product, which is something I wanted to do. I built, you know, I built all of these amazing things to help build a games business.

Deb: I I ran payments. I built the first ad product. I did all these things, and I eventually even got the chance to build marketplace. But there was one thing I wanted to do, and I went to Mark, and I said, this job opens up. I want this job someday.

Deb: And it opened up. It actually opened up. I talked to him a few years before. It opened up, and he gave it to somebody else. And I asked him, hey.

Deb: You know, I really wanted that job. I want really wanted a shot at it. And he's like, I don't think it's right for you. And I said, okay. And, you know, I had to kinda think about it and say, you know what?

Deb: Do I wanna stay? And I did. And then later, the job opened up again. Someone else left, and he picked somebody else. And I reached out to him and I said, hey.

Deb: I really wanted that job. And he's like, I don't think that's the right job for you. In fact, not only am I gonna give you the job, you will never have that job here. And he slammed that door shut hard. And I had I mean, I had to really reflect on why.

Deb: And and there were many reasons why, but I think the bigger thing is you don't get to choose. And I have this quote from Chuck Colson in my book that said something like, life is 10% what happens to you and 90% what you choose to do about it. And I can't change the 10%, and so I had to decide what am I gonna do as a result of being turned down for my dream job. And, you know, there are a few choices that you have. Right?

Deb: You can dwell on it. And I said, you know what? I have to decide. Move forward or leave. Like, I can't just sit here.

Deb: And so I decided I was gonna make the job I had the job I wanted. I involved my job. I actually did some of the best work after each of these rejections because I realized I had to turn the thing that I was doing to the thing I really, really wanted. And I did that. And some I did some of my very best work in the years after each of these instances.

Deb: But the point is that it was a choice. It was a choice. You don't get to choose what happens to your life, but you definitely get to choose the next step. And if you choose to say, you know what? I'm just gonna sit here and dwell, or I'm gonna sit here and be upset, or I'm or you say, you know what?

Deb: That door is closed. It is time for the next door and the next door and the next door after that.

Erica: That is so powerful. And speaking of powers, I wanna talk about superpowers because this is something that I am so passionate about. And just in the short time that we have already talked today, I feel like your superpower is resiliency, it's creativity. It's adaptability. Like, I could go on and on here, Deb.

Erica: But rule number seven is embrace who you are and you talk about superpowers. What is your superpower, and what is the story behind that?

Deb: Well, I just you know, I have this thing where I, you know, I had this theory that if if I had an idea and other people couldn't see it, then it probably wasn't real. And I remember I had this coach, and I I saw you had done a podcast about coaching and how coaching unlocks you. And my coach, Katya, said, what if they just don't see what you see? What if their life experiences do not open the same doors as yours? And I I had to take a step back because if it's obvious to me, it should be obvious to everybody else.

Deb: But your superpower is so great. Superman didn't think that he's super because in his world, he is average. But in in Earth, he is Superman. And so I think that's often you know, we don't see what is special about us because it seems to come so easy. We think everybody sees the same way.

Deb: And that's why we talk about superpowers. It's this hidden thing that you can do and see that no one else can do. And for me, I can really see what we should be doing. I remember the the products we should be building. And so I remember when, when I was a kid, I I used this illustration when my mom would throw her necklaces into her jewelry box, and I loved untangling them.

Deb: It was actually, like, every six months or so ago in, it was all tangled up again, and I would go and untangle them for her. And I I did that because and I just remember the the satisfaction of knowing these things were previously untangled. I couldn't untangle this, and I can untangle anything. And I see that with products too. I can visualize what we should build.

Deb: And so one of the things that I, I saw was we should build a marketplace. I remember meeting Sheryl Sandberg for the first time when I was interviewing, and she you know, I told her we should build a marketplace on Facebook, and this is 2009. You'll note that 2016 is when we actually launched marketplace. And so I built many, many other things, but I could see what other people couldn't see, which was people could buy and sell on this platform. And it was incredible because this is how people connected.

Deb: They connected locally. They connect with their community. And I was a mom. I was one of the few moms at the company. I was actually the only mother mom PM for many, many years.

Deb: And I remember selling this idea and selling this idea because I was buying and selling. I had bought all my kids' bikes. I had sold them back. I had bought scooters. I had sold them back.

Deb: And so I said, but, you know, I'm doing this in groups. Why don't we make this marketplace available to the world? And I just remember selling it. So I remember the CPO said to me, but why would anyone wanna buy anything on Facebook? You you last thinking now that, you know, people buy tons of things on Facebook, but at the time, it just seems so different.

Deb: And so, you know, eventually, I got the chance to build it, and marketplace has now over a billion people using it. And it's because I could see something, my life experience as a mother, as somebody in my community, somebody who actually loves thrift stores and, you know, could see that there was an opportunity here, and it became something that we could build community commerce for the world.

Erica: How does it feel to know that you have truly changed the world?

Deb: I actually don't think about it. It's funny. My daughter was like, you know, I looked you up on on, I looked you up on Google the other day, and it says that you're the creator of Facebook Marketplace. And I said, that's what people know me for. But it's fascinating.

Deb: Right? She well, And she said, yeah. And I told my friends, and they're like, that can't be possible. And I thought, well, I actually used the product. I actually sold something, and there's somebody who's picking it up.

Deb: Actually, it's it's outside. And so, you know, I still use the product to this day because I feel like there's for me, part of the mission was really, we we could just have less stuff in the world. If everyone took the stuff from their garage, things that they don't use, and just gave it to the world and made it possible for other people to buy the things that they don't need anymore. And so that was the vision behind it, which is how do we build community through commerce. And it is really incredible, and it has been an important part of my career journey, and it carries on so much even after I'm gone.

Erica: Oh my gosh. I love that. Well, Deb, one of the questions that I ask everyone on my podcast and this is my final question for you. But if you could go back to the Deb who is bluffing her way through jobs, who's getting rejected twice from her dream job, what piece of advice would you give her today?

Deb: That it'll always if if you have courage, it will work out. I think for so long when you're striving early in your career. You know, I love my job here at Ancestry. I love what we do every day that we can change people's lives, and I love that, you know, what we do is we connect people with their families. I mean, it's a wonderful, wonderful journey I've had.

Deb: But if you think about all those years along the way, I would not have thought I would end up here because I was that shy girl in South Carolina who said, you know what? I'm gonna be the smallest and and most unassuming person possible. I was that person who went to college and said, you know what? I'm not gonna have to connect with anybody because I'm in an engineering school. I went to consulting.

Deb: You know, I had all the hard skills, but I missed the soft skills, which was how to learn and teach others to have, you know, to actually take what I care about and have influence. And so I just would advise her that it will work out, but you have to have courage. You have to to learn how to learn. You have to learn to speak up. You have to learn to influence.

Deb: You have to learn to to build towards what you hope for. And that it is possible. It is within your grasp. I think so much of, you know, what I remember, telling my husband the story. He's an attorney, by the way.

Deb: He say thinks this is really funny. I told my high school English teacher that someday maybe I could be a paralegal. And she said, well, why wouldn't you be a lawyer? And I said, I can do that because I just came from this town where, you know, nobody ever left, and this is just the world that we lived in. And and, you know, he's like, you've come so far.

Deb: He reminded me of that story. And he said, you've come so far. And I said, part of it was learning that there were no limits. That if I push hard enough, if I learned hard enough, if I if I move fast enough, if I had enough courage, I could get there. And I hope everyone believes that there is so much potential in you that you're not capturing today.

Deb: And if I could just go back and tell her that if you just have that courage, you can make it.

Erica: I love that. Learn that there are no limits and maybe also consider that maybe you can't even see yet what those possibilities are. So that is so powerful. Deb, thank you so much for being here today.

Deb: Thank you so much, Erica. It was wonderful being here.

Erica: Oh my goodness. Didn't I tell you that you would just love this conversation? Deb's ability to see the world differently, to bend like bamboo, yet remain strong and flexible has been flexible, has been just one of her many superpowers. Now if this resonated with you, please share this podcast out with someone you know and maybe even someone you don't. Deb's 10 rules for women at work are essential to changing the game that we are playing, and we have to get her message out there.

Erica: We need more women in these roles and in these c level positions, y'all. But until next time, stop putting a ceiling on what is possible and start smashing through them.