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. I'm your host, Erica Rooney, and today, I have Ruby Hamacher. Now Ruby is a managing director with Gallagher's HR and compensation consulting practice where she helps organizations create and implement their diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies. She is a speaker, she is a presenter, and she contributes as a subject matter expert for SHRM as an exam and content writer. And she is here today to share her story of sticky floors with us. Ruby, how are you?

Ruby: Good morning. Thank you, Erica. I really appreciate the invite, and I'm so excited to chat with you today. Awesome. Well, it's great to have you here today. So I would love if we could just start right

Erica: at the beginning, hear a little bit more about who you are, your story, and kinda how you came to be.

Ruby: Yeah. So I'll just tell you a little bit about my personal life. So I'm a solo parent to three kiddos. I started my parenting journey as a teenager in high school. So now I have a 19 year old son who's a sophomore in college. He's much smarter than I am. He's a computer science and app development and all the fun stuff. And then I have 12 year old boy girl twins who are just starting seventh grade, so they keep me busy as well. They're all thriving, smart, kind individuals. I couldn't be prouder of them. But we live in a little beach town here in West Michigan, so we love going to the beach or exploring festivals, activities all summer. I also really enjoy traveling extensively, although that happy has kind of been stifled the past few years, but I do enjoy exploring new cultures and cuisines and and just kind of getting out there.

Erica: Awesome. And tell me about what you do for Gallagher and and your role in diversity, equity, inclusion.

Ruby: Yeah. So Gallagher benefits in HR consulting division, which is where I'm the managing director of DEI. The division delivers a comprehensive approach to benefits, compensation, retirement, employee communication, and workplace culture, which is what I specialize in. It's the workplace culture utilizing the Gallagher better works model. So, really, what that is is it it works with aligning an organization's people strategy with its overall business goals, empowers employees to face the future with confidence. So Gallagher is a global insurance brokerage risk management and consulting services firm, but I work specifically in the HR consulting division. And I specialize in helping organizations understand where they currently are in their DEI journey as a multicultural organization and then helping them to understand where it is they would like to be as an organization, and then designing and defining what it is, what are the steps that need to happen

Erica: for them

Ruby: to reach their goals and to get where they would like

Erica: to be. Awesome. Awesome. So on this podcast, as we talk all things sticky floors, so there's limiting beliefs such as imposter syndrome and perfectionism to systemic issues like ageism, racism, sexism. If I were to ask you, Ruby, what is your sticky floor? How would you name it, and what would you say about it?

Ruby: I would say that for me, it would be not believing in my own words. And this has come up a few times in my professional career, and I can explain it further as we chat. But in in the short version, I think understanding or really not understanding how to advocate for myself Mhmm. In a sense to where I was confident in the fact that what I was needing or what I was asking for was actually worth the time and attention of the organization. Yeah.

Erica: So let's dive into a little bit about believing in your own worth. Is that something that you think started, like, from the jump? Is that something that you consistently deal with? Like, tell me more.

Ruby: Yeah. I mean, I think it actually started pretty early in life. So my whole life, I've kind of been impacted by this belief that I have a moral obligation to give all of myself in support of others, even if that's to my own detriment. And I I never really knew there was a name for it or that other women experience the same type of weight of these crushing expectations. So but it recently has been given a name, and it's called the human giver syndrome, which is really a term that describes the ongoing inequality in the time and effort spent on childcare and housekeeping between men and women. Just actually a difference of 40 per week for women versus an hour and a half for men globally. So that's a huge difference, and that's kind of this idea of having a full time second job even if you're a full time professional as well. Right? So there's kind of this inequality happening. It was also influenced by my childhood where I became kind of conditioned to please others in order to demonstrate my value as a member of that family unit. So I remember I pushed back against that, but in fighting to find my voice, I was sometimes labeled as too loud, too dramatic, too rebellious, just too much. Yeah. So I began to shrink a little and kind of hide parts of myself to to fit in whatever box I needed to fit in within certain group settings, whether it was family or whether it was at school, and that definitely kind of led into professional life as well. So, I know now that what I was subconsciously doing is called code switching, but I had no words to name it then. I just kind of never knew I was never fully myself. Yeah. But one of the things that actually helped me is that my escape was always in books, and I saw education as my ticket out of the cycle of poverty and the failure that I heard so many times was my destiny. So it really became my fuel and fire to prove that I could be or would be more than the victim of my circumstances. So I really spent a lot of times in education, and that's kind of been throughout my life. I've been a lifelong learner, and I really value constantly learning and improving and educating myself. And so I'm the first person in my family to obtain either a bachelor's or master's degree, and I really try to use that knowledge every day to speak up and work to create spaces for people who might not have the opportunity to share their own voice. As it pertains to moving into my professional career, I would say the human giver syndrome definitely followed me. I thought that if I just worked hard enough at doing a job before I was given the title, that I would eventually be recognized or rewarded for that. That was not the case, and I had to learn it the long and hard way. It felt like the faster I ran, the faster that treadmill sped up, and I never got any closer to the reward I thought I deserved. Yeah. And I really I finally realized after many years that I needed to stop waiting on others to recognize my worth, and I needed to believe in that for myself. And I needed to start to advocate for myself And then to have the confidence to walk away if it wasn't recognized, and that was a huge learning, I would say, step for me. Yes. Yeah.

Erica: So did you read the book burnout? I have not. You have not read the book burnout. Okay. No. So the book burnout is where I learned all about human giver syndrome. Really? It's actually called the secret to unlocking the stress cycle, and it's by Emily and Amelia Nagoski. Nagoski. And I've actually talked about human giver syndrome on the podcast because of this book. So you absolutely should go out and get this book, but it's all about women, how we are conditioned from a young age to, air quote, make it nice. At, like you said, be quieter. You were too loud. You had to learn to shrink yourself to make it nice for everybody. So that book, a 100%, lines up with what you're talking about.

Ruby: It is on my reading list at this moment.

Erica: And it's yeah. It's a super easy, really great read, but it talks about all things toxic perfectionism, self compassion, all of that. But one thing that you said that I think is really a big key piece of this, and I know it's one too that I sometimes struggle with still, is having the confidence to walk away, right, when something isn't serving you anymore, when you aren't being recognized the way you should or elevated or advocated for. Right? Because and I think for me, I struggle with that because I always want to do a great job, and it it's almost like it's a failure if you walk away.

Ruby: I don't know if you

Erica: ever felt like that.

Ruby: Yeah. Absolutely. It feels like you have either failed the company or failed your own goals. Right? It's it's this idea that if you just remain loyal Yeah. That you're going to kind of reap the benefits of a return loyalty, and that is not always the case.

Erica: No. 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 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. One other thing you said too, and it reminded me actually to a podcast, the one that drops today with Jennie Boyd, where she very much said like you, I felt like if I worked hard in it, if I did all of these things that people would see this, and they would elevate it, and they would advocate for me and do all those things. She said, but what really happened is I just ended up getting more and more work

Ruby: and no recognition.

Erica: Yes. She's like, so here I was sleeping with my laptop. Right? And I think this is something that so many women do probably because I don't know. I think we just we advocate for each other so much. Right? That, like, when we see somebody doing something amazing, we say it, so we expect others to do that for us, but that's not always the case.

Ruby: Yeah. That's such a valid point. And I think that segues kind of specifically into a few stories that I can share. Yeah. Sort of new sticky floor. So when I first moved into the corporate world, so I really I started my little background. I started my career in health care for about the first twelve years. And then I moved into the corporate world where I started doing more of the HR Yeah. Activities. And in that in that role, I moved up quickly. So I started entry level. I moved into kind of an analyst role, and then I moved into a specialist role. And then I really just kind of dove in and created the role and expanded it in a way that so not only was I doing affirmative action and compliance types of things, which was previously just a very transactional role.

Erica: No.

Ruby: I asked for if I could kind of have the the freedom to create, use it as a strategic role and to create responses for these compliance issues. And so I really kind of just jumped off and turned the role into not only compliance, but also diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy. And so in that role, I did a lot with I created a lot of workforce equity programs. And so things like returning citizens program where I created a space for employees that were just being released from incarceration. And so I worked hard with a different community organizations that already supported that population to have them all be aligned and have this kind of network of support set up. So whether it be transportation or housing or even helping people get a bicycle so they could get to work or helping them set up a bank account, ATM card, all of that stuff. So really just working a lot with community. I also set up a refugee placement program with on-site ESL classes and an on-site program for individuals with disabilities to be in a supported employment environment. And so a lot of this work, to be perfectly honest, all of this work was outside of my normal job. This is what I was passionate about. I really enjoyed it. It was really personal to me. And so, like you just mentioned, I was doing a lot of work that was not being necessarily recognized. Right? So I was doing this these two jobs, but only under kind of one my original transactional rule. Right? So, you know, this was years in the making, so I just kept kind of growing the role. I ran multiple OFCCP audits with perfect closures, including a CMC audit, which is kind of considered the glass ceiling audit or the corporate audit. And so just so much where I was working eighty hours a week. I was I implemented employee resource groups in the organization to just try to bring people in because people were feeling like they didn't have a voice. I start to try to build and create all of that along with some fabulous team members who were there to support. And I had the support of my supervisor. She was fantastic. She was very supportive, but that it kind of ended there. The organization was accepting and and happy that all of these programs were happening because it was giving them great media coverage. I would say they're not gonna complain. No. It was making them an employer of choice in the Yeah. Community and and all of that. But the realization started a couple of years in when I started talking about, okay, so I've been creating all of this. We've kind of showed the ROI. We've increased our minority representation in every single one of our North American locations because of this outreach. Like, we're seeing all of this. So let's talk about, can we create a position for this more of this DEI strategic role can and that I could move into? And so, again, that was supported by my supervisor, but kind of the support ended there. Right. Like you mentioned with the with the other person you've just talked to, it was it kinda became an idea of, well, you're

Erica: doing

Ruby: it so well right now. Why should we change anything?

Erica: Fucking great for us, Ruby. Come on. He's gonna be

Ruby: our roommate.

Erica: And all this too, right, while you're being a mom.

Ruby: Yes. Wow. Exactly. And so, yes, I finally realized that I I went so far as to analyze my own market worth and to say, listen. If you went to market right now and try to replace me, this is how much you'd have to spend. And I don't think you could replace me with one person. I think that you'd have to replace me with two. And it took me a long time to get up the confidence to have that conversation because to me, it felt like I was that was stepping into maybe beyond confident and into cocky type of thing. But then said, well, if I'm not gonna speak up for myself, no one else is going to either. So they ended up for months, we went back and forth, and they thought about creating position, and it ended up eventually being refused. Wow. And so I did I made the decision to leave. And I say business my my journey has obviously capped out here. I made the decision that I I do need to walk away in order to kind of fulfill my goals, my professional goals. Yeah. And so I ended up leaving for another role where I was the manager of diversity, equity, inclusion, and HR compliance. And after I left, the original organization actually ended up replacing me with two people.

Erica: Oh, gosh.

Ruby: Two men, to be specific. And sometimes I still smile because it's been about two and a half years and actually closing in on three years now, and they will still reach out to me and ask for my help and input and insights. And I usually give it because I feel, you know, I feel bad for the people. For the That's the

Erica: human giver syndrome in you, Ruby. That's the The human giver syndrome come here.

Ruby: I know. Oh, I just don't wanna leave the team in a lurch. Right? But it's just been an interesting journey to to kind of watch. Right? So

Erica: No. And, I mean, that's a crazy story, and I don't think that it's you're the only one who's gone through something like that. What I what I'm interested in, right, is like and you said it took me a long time to get to the confidence to walk up and say those things. Because even when I hear you tell that story, I'm like, wow. You gotta be really bold to, like, come up there and and say that because it almost feels like you're drawing a line in the sand.

Ruby: Yes. I mean, you have to be willing to walk over that line if it's not met. So I think that's part of it.

Erica: That's the hard that's part of the scary part. Right? Like, if I say this, oh, and they don't bite. And that's I talk a lot about that, right, in, like, asking the worst case scenario. Right? So in my head, I'm thinking, okay. Worst case scenario is they deny this, then what? Right? What does that mean for me? And that either means, a, that you stay and you continue doing status quo or, b,

Ruby: you depart. Yes. Yeah. And you have to be willing to follow through on that because if you go back on it, then you you teach people how to treat you. Right? You teach people what you're going to accept and what you're not. And, really, I think part of what gave me the confidence is I I really had a fabulous mentor there, and she really worked a lot on helping me understand my worth and build my confidence. And I will just always be forever grateful for that because she really helped me to, I think, find my voice professionally. And, yeah, that was that was very helpful.

Erica: Yeah. Yeah. I think a mentor a mentor is definitely, like, a key person. Right? And there's there's probably a lot of people out here who are like, well, I just can't walk away. And I can't leave a job because I have other responsibilities and whatever. So when you walked away from your job, did you have another job lined up? Did you take some time to get your ducks in a row? Like, what did that look like for you?

Ruby: No. I did. I I would I didn't have another job lined up. I was very I was I needed to be responsible because like I said, I have three children. I do have a lot of responsibilities, and so I couldn't just say, oh, I'm walking off the job. I'm quitting. No. I I took enough time to make sure that this was really the decision that was best for me, and I was ready to make this decision. And I did have another job lined up, which I was willing to walk away from that new offer if needed Yeah. In order to stay. I really prefer to stay. I I had built so much I had put so much time and energy and created so many great relationships in the organization, and I really I wanted to stay. It was not my goal to leave, but I ended up having to leave. And and when I left, they actually created that position that I wrote. I helped write the position description for this new position that I felt like would be a good fit for the organization. They created that position. They posted it using most of my competencies that I had wrote. They invited me to apply for it. But at that point, I felt like

Erica: We're done

Ruby: here. Would just be a good fit. That was time for me to move on.

Erica: So let me ask you this. When you kinda got to that point, right, because you said, like, I really wanted to stay and it wasn't my intention or goal to leave. Did you have to go through a grieving process when you left? Because you had put so much of your your heart and soul into a lot of those community efforts that you built up and and kind of getting the company to that place.

Ruby: Oh my gosh. Absolutely. I have built so many good friendships and coworkers. I had so the people that I worked with in these community organizations, they became so close to me. The I had people that were in these either returning citizens programs or refugee programs who would come talk to me personally and just thank me so for giving them a new chance in life and just be so grateful or just come ask me some things that we take for granted. So, for example, there was someone that was incarcerated for quite a few years, and he had never seen a smartphone, and he didn't know how to check his messages or check voice mail. And so he just came to my office and asked if I would help him set that up. And it's just those little things. And, also, access to things like one of them had no idea what a four zero one k was. And so just sitting down and explaining how to how how do I access my benefits? How do I how do I go to the dentist? We had one person that went to the dentist and paid cash because he didn't understand how to utilize dental benefits. And so, yeah, you become really personally invested in the success of a lot of these people and become really close to coworkers who are helping move this forward, who are equally passionate, etcetera. So there is. It's a sense of loss. It's a sense of that you're working so hard for something, and then you're walking away from it, and you have to just trust that the people are going to be okay. Right. You have to feel you you have to decide that it's okay to not be personally responsible for Yeah. All of these people, and and that's hard, especially working in HR. I'm sure there's so many people that feel that. We we work so closely with people, and it's hard to not feel personally responsible. Right.

Erica: I think that speaks to a lot of people in any of these kind of roles, health care, teaching, HR, where we're people focused and people centric. Absolutely. So you left that organization. You took a new role. Is that kinda where Gallagher comes in, or what's the next step?

Ruby: No. That was before Gallagher. So that I moved into was a large Fortune 400 company with about 25,000 employees. So there I was leading the enterprise wide DEI as well as HR compliance. So again, kind of the split rule. Yep. So I went into this role just super excited and passionate with all of these ideas, how to create this DEI program from the bottom up. They didn't have anything in place previously. Quickly started to learn that it was a little more performative than authentic. This position was actually created in response to the social justice issues in 2020. Got it. And I don't know that the organization was ready to be fully immersed into this type of a strategy. And so I found myself being actively undermined in this role, and I felt like my professional opinion and recommendations were disregarded. And it got to the point where I felt like I could no longer it was no longer a match for my personal professional values or goals. I could no longer be the face of an organization that I didn't personally feel very well represented my own values. And so Right. Yeah. That's itself one too. It is.

Erica: And also another kind of grief process. Right? Because like you said, you go in. You're so gung ho and excited, and you realize that it's it's not what it turned out to be.

Ruby: Yes. And that one was hard too because, I mean, I gave myself a good fifteen months in the role. I said, okay. I'm not gonna make any stop judgments. I'm not leaving in six months. I'm going to stick this out. Maybe I'm just being dramatic or maybe we just need to work a little harder. Maybe we just need to fix some things, maybe trying all of the things. It didn't take me as many years to realize that this this organization wasn't ready for this, but it was still very much a process. I mean, I'm very much kind of just roll up my sleeves type of person and get in there and do the work to be successful. And it can be so incredibly frustrating when you're working in one direction and running as fast as you can and someone else is pulling you in a different direction or undermining in the backside. So yeah. It was a good growth opportunity. Oh, yeah.

Erica: I mean, that's a great way to look at it too. Right? But, like, what I'm thinking and and then this is the way I envision it, that when you bring someone in to really do the work that that people do in diversity, equity, inclusion, you have to hand that over to them. Right? You can't be like, I want you to do DEI, but, like, only this part of it. Or, like

Ruby: Exactly. You can't be selectively a

Erica: little bit.

Ruby: Yes. Oh, that's so true. You can't be selectively inclusive. Right? That's kind of an oxymoron, but that's, like, kind of what was happening. And you're absolutely right. If you're bringing in someone who has the expertise to build a DEI strategy or to build what you're looking for, you absolutely need to trust them and and provide them the resources they need to be successful because otherwise, it's going to be a self defeating purpose. Right? It's going to just not be successful, and then that's almost worse than not doing anything at all.

Erica: Yeah. Right?

Ruby: Because

Erica: I would absolutely say so.

Ruby: Yeah. I mean, not only them,

Erica: but, like, then it really becomes like that. Oh, they hired this Ruby girl to check a box. That's it. So they check their box. They got somebody who has that job title, but they're not actually doing the work.

Ruby: Exactly. And once I started getting those questions from employees of why why is the organization staying this one thing, but yet in actions, this is actually what's happening. And I actually work a lot with that. So diversity, equity, and inclusion really needs to be supported by three pillars. It needs to be strategic, programmatic, and systematic. And oftentimes, organizations are really just focusing on the programmatic side of it, which is things like awareness events or employee resource groups or community connections, which are so super important, and it gets people passionate about it. But if you are not supporting that by your systematic changes, which is what how an organization is actually run every day, so what are the policies, processes, procedures that are actually supporting how an organization is run, it's going to be performative. If you don't have a strategic structure in place where all of these things are working towards an organizational goal of being a multicultural organization or a fully inclusive organization, then it's not going to be successful. Yeah. And so I felt that organization was still stuck in the kind of programmatic phase without a willingness to have it transition into looking at systems and and making systematic changes. Yeah. Yeah. So it's time

Erica: to make another change. It was. And is that what led you to Gallagher? Yes. Oh, yeah.

Ruby: It is. Gallagher found me, and so yeah, I moved from the practitioner world into now I'm in the consulting Yep. Side. And so that's been an interesting opportunity to really take some of the experiences that I've had as a practitioner and apply them as I work with different organizations and on their goals. And so I get to be really creative, which I appreciate

Erica: Mhmm.

Ruby: And kind of work across the spectrum of whether it's training or looking at maybe policies or procedures or designing employee resource groups or governance structures. It's really just been kind of interesting. A lot of strategy work, working internally with our our different teammates to kind of work together to create this DEI services that already utilizes the strengths that all the team has. We have people who do pay equity. We have people who are great at running surveys or leadership advisory. Right? So just trying to bring everyone together to have this holistic DEI service. Right. Yeah. So so it's been fun. I've been there for about six months now, so I was still learning and growing a lot. Cool. So you went from

Erica: I I mean, well, you had two really kind of marking experiences, right, in your last two roles that leading up to Gallagher. Right? And in the very beginning, you talked about believing in your own self worth. Do you feel like with each one of those big, I guess, e like, events is what we can call it. Right? Do you feel like that now that you're on the other side of it, has helped build that confidence in that self worth?

Ruby: Oh, absolutely. And, I mean, I think it was confirmation that walking away from the the second role, they also split my role into two, posted it for two people.

Erica: I'm seeing a pattern here.

Ruby: I'm seeing a pattern. So I think that was confirmation to me that, yes, I am doing the right thing. I am recognizing that the talents that I have can be utilized for moving organizations in a direction if they are willing to go there. Right? So it that's what excited me about the consulting part is I get to walk alongside organizations and who are willing to and ready to to make those changes. Right? So I think that going through all of those different situations and experiencing that, I think that absolutely I mean, at first, I'm gonna be perfectly honest. At first, it's a blow to your confidence. Right? Because you feel like you're not doing something right. It's not something. There's something maybe that you should have done more, something you could have done better, something that you've missed, right, in order to to have it turn out like that. But then at the end of the day, just taking a look at being confident in in what you bring to the table is important.

Erica: Yeah. Well and I think that's really interesting that you say that. Right? Because I could it totally resonates with me to have that big blow. Right? Like, the the hit to the confidence, the I'm not the right person for this, or I'm not giving them what they need can really impact you, but then pushing through, continuing to take the steps you need to take. Right? And then you can kinda have that look back period where you see that those heartbreaks were really opportunities for something different. Right? And to push you along further and to help you build that confidence and land you in a place that is filled with opportunity that's meant for you. Right.

Ruby: Well, and it's interesting that you say you feel like you're not the right person for the job or you have felt that you're you're not the right person for the job, and I I can still relate to that as well. I mean, I know we've talked a little bit about imposter syndrome, and I think for me, it's that type of imposter syndrome of, am I really the right person? Am I should I be here? It kind of manifested itself in almost a crippling perfectionism. Mhmm. Really feeling as though I had to produce perfectly or I'd be seen as incompetent.

Erica: So feeling

Ruby: feeling like everything that I put out had to be perfect because it was under extra scrutiny or I didn't have much room to fail because then if I failed, then by default, the entire DEI strategy or program or whatever would see that as a failure. Right? So I just was a lot of pressure.

Erica: It's so interesting talking about having to get everything, like, perfectly perfect and on point. I'm reading another book which has absolutely nothing to do with what we're talking about, but there is a rule in the book about hitting 80% of the goals. Right? And throughout this he'd always talk about it. It's an eighty twenty rule. Like, you're never gonna get it a 100%. And it's so funny because I just equate, and I was like, that's that's what we need to be shooting for. We need to be happy with 80 out of 20 because we are going to have some failures. Right? Nobody's perfect. There's gonna be mess ups. There's gonna be failures. So, like, how can we get ourselves to this place of feeling accomplished and great and solid at at 80% and then taking learnings from the 20 and moving it right along. Yeah. That's what we need

Ruby: to be doing. 80% goal. That that's a great goal. I'm not sure that performance management system is that.

Erica: Right. You're right about that. The HR just comes out with that one. Right? Yeah. You're right about that. Oh my gosh. Well, Ruby, let me ask you this. If you were to talk to the Ruby years ago who was working eighty hours a week, you're a mom. I don't know how you even did any of that. But feeling just totally burnt out from all of the work that you're doing, excited to hand over this plan of, like, hey. Here's how the path forward, what it looks like that ultimately gets rejected. What would you tell that Ruby now? What advice would you give her?

Ruby: Well, first, I would say don't ever give anyone else the power to ascribe your your worth. I spent so many years feeling like I was somehow too much and not enough at the same time Yeah. Which is a terrible space to be in. I think that that kind of goes back that feeling kind of goes back to this idea of code switching, which really kind of showed up in my professional environment as well. So I'm naturally pretty inquisitive and observant, and that's what informs my recommendations for continuous improvement when I'm observing a process and I'm asking questions, why are we doing it this way, etcetera. And this served me really well in my first supervisory position back when I was in the medical field where I was responsible for multiple adult foster care homes. And in that role, I was actually assigned to failing homes for six months at a time. I would go in there. I would see what's going on and implement business turnaround strategies, making hard decisions, all of that, but that was not as well received in the corporate world. So Yeah. People saw it as threatening. I actually had someone tell me I had a male leadership team, and I had someone recommend that when I brought an idea to them, I would I would position it in a way that they felt like someone on their team might come up with the idea in order for it to be supported. And so I had to learn how to make my voice a little smaller or a little less Yeah. Intimidating, I guess. So I would say don't don't do that. Don't change who you are.

Erica: Yeah. But I always say because I'm a very loud person. I'm very extra. I I tell everybody I put the e in extra that if I'm too much, go find less.

Ruby: I love it.

Erica: And that's just and I but I've had to teach myself that. Like, I have been told before, and I've mentioned it in

Ruby: a previous podcast how in

Erica: a three sixty review one time, somebody told me that I'm a little too much. And I was like, well, being too much is what got me here.

Ruby: So Well, in more casual conversations, I have a response for that. If someone says I'm being extra, I just say, am I being extra, or are you being basic?

Erica: There you go. Right.

Ruby: That in the professional world. Yeah. The corporate world.

Erica: Oh my goodness. I love it. Well, Ruby, where can people find you if they wanna connect with you, if they wanna if your story resonates with them, like, is LinkedIn a good place, or where else?

Ruby: Yeah. So LinkedIn and then also ajg.com, which is my current organization. So there you can access my most recently published thought leadership piece, which is really on the role of leadership and organizational transformation to a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace. Very cool. Awesome.

Erica: Well, thank you so much for being here. I absolutely love hearing your story, and it was so great to talk to you.

Ruby: Thank you so much. I absolutely appreciate the the opportunity, and I'd love to leave you with a couple of my favorite mantras. Oh, yeah. So my first one is my worth is intrinsic in just being, not only in doing. And then the second one, which is a little bit more of a cheeky version, but it's other people's opinion of me is none of my business. I love that one because it it's a good reminder to not give others the power to define your worth in your life for your goals. That's good.

Erica: That's one of my favorites too.