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. 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. Because honestly, girl, you were never meant to do this alone.

Welcome to Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors, the podcast where we get real about the challenges women face in work, life, and leadership. I'm your host, Erica Rooney, HR executive, keynote speaker, and executive coach, and I'm on a mission to get more women into positions of power and keep them there. This is the space where we call the paradoxes, y'all, being told to lean in but not too far, to speak up but not too loudly, be ambitious but not too ambitious. Does that sound familiar? Yeah. We're over all that. Here, we break down the sticky floors that keep us stuck from imposter syndrome and perfectionism to burnout and fear and give you real strategies to shatter those glass ceilings once and for all. So if you're ready to rewrite the rules, own your power, and take your career in life to the next level, you're in the right place.

Now today's guest is someone I immediately felt a kindred spirit with, Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer. She's got a PhD, y'all, and she is the author of the new book. Here we go. It's called Now Near Next, and it's a practical and powerful framework designed to help mid career women move from professional serendipity to intentional advancement. Now for those of you who've been with me since the very beginning, you know that this podcast was originally called from now to next. And when you dig into this episode, you're gonna find out that our work is so complimentary of each other. So I just know y'all are gonna love this. You're gonna eat it up. But we recently did a podcast swap. So after today, you're also gonna be able to hear me on her incredible show, climbing the corporate ladder without breaking a heel. And y'all, I just knew instantly it was a conversation that this audience needed right here.

Cynthia's work speaks directly to the quiet but costly problem that so many women are doing excellent work today. Right? We are out there. We are grinding, but without a clear path for what's near or what's gonna be next. And that's exactly what we're unpacking today. Now like me, Cynthia is a mom. She's a former chief people officer, and, y'all, she's an all around badass. And I am so excited to have her on the show. So, Cynthia, welcome. How are you? It's so good to see you again.

Cynthia: Oh my goodness. I'm awesome, and I'm so excited to be with you. It's fun to turn the tables a little bit today and continue the conversation.

Erica: I know. And I love that people can just, like, listen here and then bebop over to your show. Listen there. They're gonna get both sides of the coin.

Cynthia: That's right. They're gonna be sick of it.

Erica: Nobody could ever.

Cynthia: But I'm gonna...

Erica: I'm gonna start with the same question that you asked me, which is why this book? Why now? Tell me all the goods.

Cynthia: Yeah. So I'll keep it brief, but the bottom line was a couple of years ago, I was working a very big job, as you can relate. I was the chief administrative officer of a very large health system, and HR was a big core responsibility, but I had also reached a level where I had other departments and responsibilities. And we were going through a CEO change, and I knew that was happening as the chief people officer, chief human resources officer. I had been stewarding the succession plan for over a decade. There was a date certain when the person that hired me, my boss, the CEO, was gonna be exiting. But I was beginning to feel a little restless and a little uncertain about what the future was gonna look like and where I was gonna fit into that new master puzzle of people.

And so work was fulfilling in terms of my team, my job, etcetera. There was this sort of question mark about leadership, but it was at that time I felt really called to finally write the book that I'd been envisioning for a couple of decades. I always knew I wanted to write a book. I always knew it would be focused on women. But suddenly it was like this is the time I needed to feed that intellectual curiosity that I wasn't quite getting stimulated at work. And so I did research, and we'll get into that, but the bottom line is this, just as my manuscript was going into editing, my position was eliminated as part of the change of control.

And here's the big lesson in all of that. When I started writing the book with my thought partner, Kimberly Rath, we researched women around the world. And the single thing we found is that women, regardless of race, ethnicity, age, industry, etcetera, feel restless at some point in their career, and for me, many times. And what we found was it was because they didn't feel self actualized. They had more to do, more to give, etcetera. So drinking my own champagne, when I wrote the book, it was all about start working on your future today. And so I did that. I drank my own champagne. I got my coaching certification. I wrote the book. I started to build and envision what my encore career would look like three to five years from now.

In that moment, nine months in, when my job was eliminated, had I not studied these women, had I not found this research, had I not written this book, I would have been like all of the women we've studied, and I would have thought I have one option. At 55 years old at that point, I gotta go find another big c suite job. I'm a single woman, empty nester, which means I'm gonna have to move all by myself, reestablish myself. It sounded exhausting. The saving grace was I had a plan. I had a plan because I had been working on my future in that moment, still doing my day job with excellence, but working on my future. So fast forward, my encore career that was supposed to be three to five years from now, I chose to accelerate it, and here we are.

Erica: It's here today. It's here. Can I just tell you the word restless resonated so deeply with me, Cynthia? It resonated so deeply. And in my corporate career, I have felt restless many times too, but I've never been able to name that.

Cynthia: And as...

Erica: soon as you said it, I was like, oh my god. That's it. And, you know, my story was I was as a chief people officer in tech at the height of my career, and it was like, but I'm bored. Like, this is all there is. What am I supposed to do? And that's kind of what helped me start my encore career, which lord knows I never even anticipated to start. But I love it because it's an emotion that we can all identify with. But I also wanna point out, I love how bougie you are. You don't drink Kool Aid. We drink champagne.

Cynthia: Hell, yeah.

Erica: So I love that. But yeah, talk to me a little bit more about this self actualization because I think that is such a key piece. And I wanna hear from you in your words, like, what does that mean and what are the women who are listening really need to take away from that?

Cynthia: Yeah. So you spoke to it in naming it as restless. Right? And for a woman listening, it might feel like stuck or stagnant. I know you talk about being stuck a lot in some of your thought leadership, which we share. It is that notion that when you really unpack it, why am I bored? You use the word bored. Why am I bored? When you start to go deeper, there's something more for you to do. You've graduated.

And when I left, not necessarily on my own timing, and I'm not gonna lie, that was not easy at first. I saw it coming. I had two conversations that I initiated with the new CEO saying, I'm feeling like this isn't working. What do we need to do? Because in my mind, if I'm being honest, Erica, I was restless. I was bored. But I'm like, I can do this for three more years. I love my team. I love the culture of the organization. And that was gonna get me to like 58. And I thought, you know, early retirement at 58, but it wasn't really retirement. It was moving on to my encore. I'm like, I can do that. But the reason I wrote the book is because I was restless. I was bored. I wasn't getting enough stimulation.

So for me, when we think about self actualization, it's at the core, I have more to offer. I have more value to add. I have more to give. I have more to learn. I have more to contribute. If you're feeling like this particular role in this moment is not allowing me to live into my big, beautiful, badass potential, that's the feeling. That's that stuck feeling. And so often, we leave it in the laps or hands of our leader or the organization. Right? Too often, the woman listening may relate to this is we're like, well, I've been working hard. I'm doing all the things. Don't know why I haven't been promoted.

Erica: We're gonna take a little bit of a left turn here because as you know, we're both HR professionals here, and so we thrive in that people space. But the one thing that has always really irked me is when people would come to me and they're like, well, what's my professional growth plan? How do I climb the ladder here? And I'm like, I can't write that for you. Like, I could outline it. If you're an associate PM, you can become a junior PM, and then you become a PM. I could do that for you, but you need to tell me what you're passionate about. You need to advocate for your skills. And then we can figure out what those steps are. But I think there's so many, and this is not just limited to women, but people who put the expectations on the leader or the organization to lay that path out. And if you do that, you're gonna find yourself on a path like you did where they're like, you know, we're gonna pass you right on out the door.

Cynthia: Exactly. Well, and I would add to that just based on our research that women leave their agency in other people's hands statistically more than everyone else. So I agree a 100% with what you said. It is your job to invest in your career path. It is your job to invest in your human capital. The research that we have and that I've studied is men are a lot more willing to put their hand in the air. Men are a lot more willing to sit down with Erica, the CPO, and say, okay. Well, I've been a director for nine months.

Erica: Yeah. I'm a business owner. When do...

Cynthia: I get to be a VP? Right. And here's the thing, by the way, for the man who may be listening, that is not an indictment of men. What I say all the time is we need to steal a page out of their playbook, ladies. Because here's the conditioning. Women are taught to put your head down, work hard, and wait to get tapped, right? And that's a convenient path, because if you're raising kids, or you're investing in your church, or your community, or your significant other, or your spouse, it's like, okay. I'll just put my head down and work hard. That I can do. And keep all the other plates spinning. But the reality is that's not how corporate works. That's not how business works. And so you wonder why, you know, I use the merry-go-round. We get on the merry-go-round and pick the zebra. And we put our head down as we're dutifully taught, and we go round and round and round. And about three to four years later when we're feeling restless, stuck, stagnant, we look up, and all the riders have changed and we're still going in circles on that same doggone merry-go-round. You need a bigger playground. So, yes, you have to have agency over your own career and that's why my through line, the through line of Now Near Next is start working on your future today, not tomorrow, not when the kids go off to school, not when they graduate college, not when the partner gets their perfect job. We can pour into everyone else and put it off, start working on your future today while doing your day job with excellence.

Erica: And I would add just because, like, a little caveat that if you really do love the organization you're working for and you wanna remain there, do this in tandem with your people leader, with your HR partner, because I've also seen so many women who keep quiet about the things that they're doing, and they keep quiet about the certifications they're getting or the training that they're taking or just their dreams and aspirations. And then, you know, let's say something like a position opens up, and Bob over here who's been vocal about it the whole time gets tapped. And you don't, and then they're frustrated. I've seen women, and I actually just saw a Facebook post in probably, like, the Peloton working moms group or something. And it was this poor woman who had done all of this work over the span of, like, six months. And she said I was really doing this in the hopes that I would get a promotion or a raise, and then I completed it and blah blah blah. And I said, well, did you have any conversation with the leadership team about is this even a direction they wanna go in? I said, you can never do extra work thinking it's going to lead to a promotion. I was like, you need to have those strategic conversations. You need to be vocal about it, and you need to be visible. None of this, like, I'm doing it quietly in the background BS.

Cynthia: Well, and again, it gets back to how we have been conditioned, which is getting back to put your head down, work hard, and I'll get tapped. And so we have this false expectation. Somebody I was talking to not that long ago shared this context with me, and it resonated deeply. Think about as little girls. Now I'm gonna generalize for a moment. But as little girls and little boys, little girls, you know, sit still, legs crossed, work hard, do your things, don't be disruptive, and for the most part, my daughter not one of them, but for the most part, they followed suit. She's my creative. And you get the gold stars. Little boys, they're throwing spit wads, they're wiggly in their chairs, they're cracking jokes, all the things. And then we begin to mature, and we become young ladies and young gentlemen, and the gentlemen begin to mature and channel that energy, but they're still outspoken. They put their aspirations into the universe. They're really formed to ask for what they want and to be confident. And little girls, women now have this conditioning that if I sit still and I'm quiet and I do my work and I work really hard, the gold stars will come. Well, guess what? People are not mind readers. Your leader is not a mind reader. So to your point, one of the chapters in the book we talk about, put your aspirations into the universe. People cannot say your name in rooms you're not in if they don't know you're interested.

I can't tell you how many women, when I was in corporate America, that would reach out to me and say, hey, would you, I've been following your career, and you're a mom, and you're this and you're that, I just love, would you be willing to have coffee with me? I'd love to hear how do you do it all? And I'm like, it looks a lot better on the outside than it is on the inside. But I go to coffee. And do you know, Erica, that it would be three months later, I'd be sitting in some executive meeting, and they'd be talking about a committee they wanted to form, and this is the kind of talent they need. And I'm like, you know what? I just had coffee with this gal, Esther, three months ago. This is exactly what she wants to do. We should tap her. Had she and I not had coffee, had she not reached out her agency to reach out to me, that would have never happened.

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, 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. 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.

I love it. The power of just speaking it out into the universe is something I believe deeply in, and that lesson really hit true for me when I was starting my business while I was still in corporate. I think it was an Instagram reel, and it was like, you don't got a business if you can't talk about your business. And I was like, oh, gosh. That is me because I was hiding behind the visibility, and I was building it, which in turn just shields everything else from all the very cool things that I was doing. But with that being said, Cynthia, I wanna dive into this beautiful, beautiful piece of art right here.

Now Near Next, for those of you listening, first of all, it's gorgeous. Second of all, y'all, the layout is incredible. I love the graphics that she has in here. I love the takeaways at the end of every chapter. So it's really a great resource, and it is one that I would encourage you to buy so that you have it in your hands because I've already dog eared, I don't know, half the pages, and I'm only three quarters of the way through.

So I want, okay, so what I love about it is it's very clearly separated into three sections. Section one is the now, which I'm gonna read this to y'all so I don't mess it up, which is all about energizing your self agency. We've kinda talked about that. Section two, y'all know it, it's all about the near, which is igniting intentionality. And then section three is about actualizing your potential. Since we already kind of talked about self agency, I wanna talk about igniting intentionality. And you talk about charting your now, near, next. And I think first, let's explain to the people, like, what does near and next mean? Like, this is for that mid career woman. And what I love that you said is you're like, I got divorced, had breast cancer, was a chief people officer, all of this, and I was a mid career woman. So y'all, if you're sitting in this c suite and you're thinking this ain't for me, you're wrong. It's for you. But all that being said, doctor Cynthia, what is my view for the near and the next? What is that?

Cynthia: I wanna start by defining what we mean by mid career because one of the things we found post the book coming out, when we're on stages and we're promoting the book and so on and so forth, is what it meant to us, to Kimberly and I, and what some people thought it meant were two different things. So let me clarify that first. Mid career has zero to do with age, which is where people initially go. They think, oh, that means middle age. This is for women 28 to 60 because women are staying in the workforce a lot longer. So this is for decades, right, of women, or four generations of women. Number one. Number two, it's not status oriented. It isn't mid manager. You could be early in career and you could be a c suite person. It covers. Mid career for us are those decades just past where you've got that hunger and the fire in your belly, and you're sort of like whatever it takes, and you're probably five, six, eight years in. It's different for every woman. Between that and your encore, which is a really long time. For some of us, that's thirty years, thirty five years. It's that big long amount of time where we get into the hamster wheel. We get into life is busy. I've got all these conflicting things going on, all these things that need my attention. And so you're doing work, but you're also doing 97,000 other things. All just life. You're doing life, and it's busy, and it's the hamster wheel part. So, that could be thirty years for somebody that we consider mid career.

So I think that's a really important clarification. One of the things again that we found in our research is that women were not intentional in their career planning. They likened their success, and mind you, we studied five race ethnicities across four countries, an age span of twenty years, multi industry, all of these women highly successful, VPs and above, highly diverse. What the universal commonality was, they had not been planful and intentional, that word is so important, about their career. They likened it to serendipity, right place, right time, great leader, I just worked hard. Now listen, all those things can also have a factor. I, if I'm being completely honest, was not nearly as intentional as in hindsight I wished I had been, and I reached a wonderful level of success and had a fabulous business career. I was a lucky one because...

Erica: I was gonna say, this is a look back. This is all the things we woulda, coulda, shoulda done. And this transition would have been, yes, because same thing for me, Cynthia. I was a little bit intentional, but there was a lot of serendipity, a lot of luck. I'm intrigued to hear...

Cynthia: Keep going. And we are, in some cases, and it's not lost on me a bit of the anomaly. Because when we studied women, what we found is that was a very small microcosm of the universe, and it comes from that because we're not intentional, we grow restless, stuck, stagnant, etcetera. Because we're not self actualized. So our solution is intentionality. So the solution is start intentionally working on your future today. Again, the three lane. So how does that line up with now and your next? The philosophy is this. You need to, today, don't put it off, today, begin to think about what is my aspirational next. Now you may need more than today to figure that out. For some of you, you know immediately, I wanna be a vice president. I wanna leave this company and go to another company. It could be any number of things. Keep in mind that your aspirational next doesn't necessarily mean a job change. It could mean I wanna finish my degree. It could mean I wanna get a certification. It could mean I wanna serve on a board. What is your aspirational thing that is going to fill your cup, give you intrinsic satisfaction, help you grow, that you really desire to aspire toward? Identify that thing, name that thing. And then what is the date certain by when you want that to happen? So I wanna finish my MBA by x date, or I wanna be promoted to such and such by this, or have a lateral move to expose myself to new things, whatever that is. You pick a date certain.

And then what the book walks you through is a framework, a blueprint that says it's a two thirds, one third scenario. So I'm gonna use three years for easy math. For those of us that are not, not me, I write math down, don't do numbers, right, the math ain't mapping, so three years. From now to near is two thirds. That's two years. So in your blueprint, and by the way, the blueprint is available for free, you can download the PDF off my website. Between now and near, you spend the first two years of your three year journey working on all the little things that you can tick off your list in the context of your life. This is for the woman that says, I got little ones at home. I'm working. I don't have a moment to myself. My thing, the seven minute pivot, seven minutes a day. Two thousand five hundred and fifty five minutes in a year, if you spend only seven minutes a day focusing on your next. Everybody can find seven minutes. Point is you get two thirds of the time to really chip away. For me, it was I'm gonna work on getting my board certification for coaching. And so that was something I could kinda do in the margins and chip away and have that. I was going to start to research what it would mean to own my own business. Do a little bit of reading about that. Chip away at that.

So it's things that you can do that fill in the flow of your natural time. And then the last third, the near to next, is when you hit the accelerator. And that is the last third of that timeline. Now your timeline could be nine months. It could be six months and three months. For somebody who's unemployed right now, it might be three months. Two months and then one month you hit the gas. The goal here was do something. Momentum. It's all about energy and momentum because we tend to put it off and then we stay stuck.

The other thing I'll say is for the woman that's listening that says this, or this is great, but I love my boss, I love the culture, I love everything about my job, it's roses right now. So did I.

Erica: I was gonna say, girl, you see me picking up my bubbly just waiting for that shoe to drop.

Cynthia: So did I.

Erica: That high heel will come crashing down because officers, we know the best laid plans.

Cynthia: Yeah. Exactly. That's right. I'll never forget talking to my financial planner and saying, oh my gosh, I love our CEO, and I love the culture, and I wanna retire from here. I'm gonna retire from here. And him saying to me, you know, Cynthia, I love that for you. But things don't always stay the same. There could be a change in leadership. There could be this. There could be that. A lot of consolidation in the health care industry. Anything can happen. And me thinking, what a pessimist. What a glass half empty kinda guy.

Erica: You know? I mean, in my head, I'd be like, well, I've never been laid off before. Why would it happen to me now at the height...

Cynthia: of my career? 1000%. I was at the pinnacle of my career. I'd never had a career setback ever. I'd never fallen off that horse. It just did not seem probable. And I'm not even saying that, it could be, sadly, you go through a relationship breakup, your significant other or spouse is relocated, and so that becomes a disruption, you change your mind to just decide you wanna start having kids. So many things in life change so rapidly.

Erica: There's disruptors everywhere.

Cynthia: Everywhere. So for the woman listening that says, oh my gosh, everything's coming up roses, all the more reason you need to start working on your future today. It's obvious for the person that feels stuck, and it's even more obvious for the person that's currently unemployed. Those individuals are like, yeah, bring it on. Where's this playbook? The people I worry about are the people that are content and not thinking about it and not putting a plan together. Because had that been me, I would, God knows where I'd be living away from my grandchildren, doing the corporate grind at 58 years old, living in some city where I'm trying to make new friends as a single empty nester. Nothing about that sounds fun.

Erica: No. And, I mean, that's one of the things I talk about so often with women is that in today's world, you've got to have a backup plan. But instead of it being like this backup plan, have that just be call it your next chapter plan or your near plan, your next plan. Because life throws curve balls at you all the time, and you never know what's gonna happen. Like, I would have never predicted that I would be a business owner...

Cynthia: Same.

Erica: Twenty years ago. That was never in on my bingo card of life ever. But here I am. And, you know, my situation was I was at a very stable company making extremely good money, but there was a big values conflict. And every day I was going to work, I was stressed out. I had anxiety. It was making me drink more. My life was not going in the right direction. And when I look at this linear plan that we all think we have to have, the next possible growth step for me since I already was a chief people officer making well over 6 figures would just be another chief people officer job at a larger company with more employees and more problems and more bullshit. And it was like, I don't wanna be on that merry-go-round. And so you've got to be thinking ahead.

And so that's what I think is so powerful about this book. I did wanna ask you one question though because you have got, I want you to explain this to the listeners. You've got this beautiful diagram in here. I'm a put it right up to the camera. It's the four p's. And you have all of the steps here. You've got to pause and interrupt your thoughts. You've got to protest and challenge the validity. You've got to pivot, which we know is a step I love. And then you've got to pray, which is all about enlisting your higher power. Can you tell me what this four p loop is and why it's so powerful?

Cynthia: So it's very much like snap. It's a kindred spirit. They're in the same family, cousin of snap. It's their cousin. One of the things is I realized early on, I didn't claim it as sticky floors, but I love the way you talk about sticky floors and that those are so often those internal barriers that are our own self limitations. And for me, it was when the boss walks by and says, hey, Erica, do you have a minute, I'd like to chat. And your mind goes to, oh my gosh, did he find out about such and such? I thought that was fixed. I didn't think it was gonna be a big deal. Oh my gosh, I'm probably gonna go in there and he's gonna be really upset. And, oh my gosh, I'm gonna get fired. And if I get fired, then I can't pay my mortgage, and then I'm gonna end up homeless. We go down this crazy train.

So the format, similar to snap, is pause, interrupt the thought, recognize it. What I love about your framework is you talk about feel the feels. You talk about that human physical reaction, and I think that that's so powerful. This is more from a human psychology pure perspective, which is just acknowledge that, hey, maybe I'm going down a rabbit hole here. So pause, protest the thought. Again, is this really happening? Ask the questions. Do I have evidence that I'm in trouble? Maybe he wants to promote me. So protest it. Pivot to a positive thought of, if it's that, I'm gonna own it. We're gonna work through it. It's gonna be fine. But it could be something completely different that's really positive. And then I say, with whatever your familiar calling is, to pray, whatever that means to you, to call upon whatever power that means to you, to just give you sort of the words and the strength and the affirmation to show up.

And we share the knowledge and the psychology background, which is, thoughts create behaviors and behaviors create actions. And I know for certain, as do you, when we allow that negative self talk to take over, our body language changes, our tone changes, how we show up, the words we choose. We're not the same person if we walk in thinking we're gonna be homeless, that if we walk in going, maybe I'm getting promoted. You show up a little differently.

Erica: It's not a different vibe.

Cynthia: Yeah. But for me, it was something I've actually used throughout my career for my own, and I use it in personal situations. And, you know, if my son doesn't answer right away and he lives on the East Coast, and I've got him in a car accident, it's like, okay, Cynthia, maybe his phone's off.

Erica: Maybe he's at the gym. Like, really? Well, 100%. Well, I love the protest piece, and this is why. And I'm just gonna insert my little plug here that there is no competition between women in this space. Because when one of us succeeds, all of us succeed. And you could take the snap method, and you can marry it with these four p's, and it could be the perfect thing that works for you. But I love protest because it's a little more direct than my step about ask and answer the questions about why you feel this way. Like, that's more fluffy. This one's more like, hell no. That's some bullshit. Don't believe that.

Cynthia: That's right.

Erica: Get down with that, Cynthia.

Cynthia: I love it.

Erica: It's so great. When you think of the sticky floors though that you went through, I know you talk about impostor syndrome in the book. What were some of those sticky floors that either you had to work through or the ones you're still working through or maybe ones that surprised you as you went into your encore career?

Cynthia: Yeah. I think I had probably an unearned level of confidence. I don't know. And I've started calling it, by the way, imposter phenomenon. I interviewed Anna Blue on my pod recently, and she's done a lot of deep work around imposter syndrome. And we think about syndrome and it's mental illness, and DSPs have syndromes versus it's not a syndrome, it's a phenomenon, it's these circumstances, these systemic things that create this phenomenon that then we somewhat internalize. So kind of taken that on, I've been really fascinated by the sort of changing my mindset around that.

So I had some of that, but for me, it was more the things around not quite understanding that the rules of the game were different for men and women. Men could show up a certain way and argue a point or behave at a party, etcetera, and I wanted to be one of the guys because I wanted to fit in. And so what I realized, I think as I matured, was, hey, the rules are different. You can't be the life of the party, and if you're a woman, it's a very different stigma. And so figuring out where's my authenticity in the space and how to, as Christy Rutherford says, you're either playing the game or you're being played. There's no, people say they don't wanna be a part of corporate politics, I'm sorry, she's like, listen, you got two options, you're either playing the game or you're being played. I'm like, sister, that resonates. And I think I was trying to figure out how to play the game, but not recognizing the rules were different. And so for me, I think the sticky floor was trying to show up authentically and still play the game.

Erica: One of the metaphors or whatever that I always loved is if you're not invited at the table, you're probably on the menu. I'm just like, oh, god. Oh my gosh.

Alright. Cynthia, last question. Best question. But if you could go back in time to the Cynthia who was maybe just gotten hit with those severance papers, and we're exiting you stage left, you know, you're working the long hours, I read this part of your book where I knew you were waking up at 4AM just to write the book so people wouldn't think that you weren't doing your work. What piece of advice would you give her today?

Cynthia: That is brilliant. I love the HR part of you that says, not that I know that you had a severance because you know that if I did, I wouldn't be able to talk about it. I just made that information, protecting me. That's so funny. Oh, gosh. I think the advice I would give would be, you've got this, number one. This is not in any way a reflection of your work ethic, your drive, your performance even. And maybe to let go sooner of the anger of the way it happened. It wasn't that it happened that was an absolute blessing on many, many levels. I have never been happier, and I had graduated. It was time. The way it happened was, I've never actually spoken about this, but the way it happened was really hard for me, and I was angry about that for a very long time. And that anger can be very consuming. And I would have given myself the advice of feel, grieve, be pissed off, do all the things, because we're human. But you need to let that go because that is consuming energy that can be placed in so many more positive places.

Erica: But you could put it in your near or your next.

Cynthia: How do I... but you don't even, oh, that's a good one, girl. That is a good one. Never been asked. So that's new insight. I love new insight.

Erica: Oh my gosh. Alright, friends. If this episode resonated with you, I need you to do two things. Number one, I need you to go get this book, Now Near Next. You can buy it on Amazon wherever books are sold. There's a lot of amazing resources in here, so make sure you check it out. The other thing is if it resonated with you, I want you to know about Her Collective. It's my online community for ambitious women who are ready to stop feeling stuck, stop second guessing themselves, or doing it all alone. Inside her collective, we focus on clarity, confidence, and intentional growth, real conversations, real strategies, and women who actually show up and support each other. It's truly magical. Now if you're ready for your next level without burning yourself out, you belong in that space. You can learn more by checking out www.joinhercollective.com. I can't wait to see you in there. Now let's get out there, take up some space, and start shattering some ceilings together.