Women in Leadership: Grit, Growth & Gumption with Tinsley English

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Speaker 7 Yeah, make it look, make it look, make it look easy. Hey, stand up, guy boom, tip.

Speaker 7 Welcome back. Big body pull-up in a rainbow.
This is the show, Tim.

Speaker 7 Tremendous episode for you. Conversation with Tinsley English.
She's the author of Grit, Growth, and Gumption for Women. Three keys to lead yourself and others with confidence.

Speaker 7 This is a dynamic conversation that takes us deep into the mindsets, the attitudes that keep us stuck in positions where we don't feel satisfied and what we can do to break free and become leaders.

Speaker 7 And whether leadership means inside of an organization, becoming an entrepreneur, a leadership in your family, in your community,

Speaker 7 whatever leadership means for you, whether it's just taking personal ownership and leadership of your own life, there are moments where we feel stuck and Tinsley helps us break out.

Speaker 7 Incredible human, incredible person, longtime leader, operational leader inside one of the largest insurance organizations in the United States.

Speaker 7 You are going to love this conversation.

Speaker 7 Enjoy Tinsley English. So Tinsley, I'm so excited to have you on the show.
Thanks for coming on.

Speaker 5 Absolutely. Happy Friday.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 And I will have said this in the intro as well, but I always love having a fellow insurance industry professional on the show when they have then, and and for those listening that just cringed a little bit thinking we're going to nerd out on insurance we're not right that's not the point i love having um

Speaker 7 insurance industry people

Speaker 7 who have thought about the world in a larger sense and branched out and done something interesting outside of it and that's why we i mean when i saw your book i saw the title i saw the topic obviously i'd seen a lot of your work and stuff that you've done uh on linkedin and just the way you talk about it and think about it i just couldn't have been more excited to have you on and really break down a little bit of your story.

Speaker 7 And then I want to get into the topics that you address in your book.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I am so excited to be here, and I love everything that you're doing around thought leadership and pushing the boundaries.

Speaker 5 You know, we have to do so many things within the confines of the law and with in

Speaker 5 insurance, just following the rules and doing the right thing all the time that

Speaker 5 to

Speaker 5 veer outside and color outside the lines, it it's fun to get into the space where we're talking about leadership and how that's coming from within us.

Speaker 5 And that's really why I wrote this book is just to talk about those leadership qualities that we all have inside of us and where we need to dial up certain areas to really be effective, confident leaders.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 And I couldn't agree with you more on that. And I think that,

Speaker 7 you know,

Speaker 7 I've experienced firsthand

Speaker 7 the wrath of an industry

Speaker 7 that does not appreciate innovation or innovative thinking. And I think you are, to me, seem to be much better at probably playing a little bit of the game and not having people throw stones at you.

Speaker 7 However, at the same time, your ideas are

Speaker 7 forward thinking, they are driven, they are determined. I think the message is clear and people obviously resonate with it.

Speaker 7 So just taking a step back into your history a little bit, like, where did that come from? Like, we don't need to go all the way back to,

Speaker 7 you know, go back as far as you think is relevant to kind of address like where you started to develop some of these things or where you started to see the weaknesses or

Speaker 7 maybe

Speaker 7 opportunities for people to grow into these spaces.

Speaker 5 I think it was in

Speaker 5 my mid-30s. I was promoted as a senior account account manager.
And with that comes some junior reports, so people maybe at the assistant level or the account manager level.

Speaker 5 And these people are looking to me to give direction, to delegate work out,

Speaker 5 to help answer complex coverage questions for clients. And

Speaker 5 I was just not equipped. I feel, I tell people, I was promoted without an instruction manual.

Speaker 5 I was promoted to a leadership position without an instruction manual. And I failed forward for

Speaker 5 years. I failed forward.
And that's okay. I really want people to fail forward, but it was painful, just like falling is painful.
Failing forward is painful.

Speaker 5 And what I came to realize when I look back on those days is I was a really great individual contributor.

Speaker 5 senior account manager, my clients really were happy with me and my producers were happy with me. And

Speaker 5 I was just

Speaker 5 really confident in my own abilities. So when I had people reporting to me, I would just expect them to do it exactly like I did it, to handle client questions or client issues exactly like I did it.

Speaker 5 I wanted all my proposals to look the same, didn't give a lot of room for innovation, didn't give a lot of grace for failure.

Speaker 5 I would actually probably make them feel bad when they didn't do something the way I asked them to. And so I look back and I cringe

Speaker 5 about those times. And also personally, during those times,

Speaker 5 I was a mother. I had a three-year-old, three-year-old girl, and I was the first to drop off at daycare at dark 6:30.

Speaker 5 I can remember rolling in hot to the daycare at 6.30 at night, last to pick up, apologizing profusely, feeling like mom guilt weighing down on me, mom guilt, and then also like guilt from leaving the office, couldn't get everything done.

Speaker 5 So those times, like that time,

Speaker 5 when I reflect back on it, I know that there are other women in that, in that early career stage right now in leadership, and they're, they're struggling, they're on the struggle bus with that.

Speaker 5 They are laying in bed at three o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 5 Did I check this audit in a timely fashion? Oh, also, am I going to make this school play for my daughter this week or do I have a renewal meeting? So it's all the stuff.

Speaker 5 And I'm not saying like at three o'clock in the morning, I don't wake up and still have a panic attack about things I need to do, but

Speaker 5 I can at least self-soothe now.

Speaker 5 So the book is really coming out of a place where

Speaker 5 if somebody is getting into leadership, especially, let's give her some tools that I didn't have. So she doesn't feel like she's going it completely alone.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 I can relate not personally, but, and I don't know if you know this about Rogue Risk, but our hiring practice, we were about 70%

Speaker 7 either single moms or moms with young children was our workforce. And we specifically recruited them because they often got tossed out.
And, you know, for those of you not in the insurance industry,

Speaker 7 particularly the part that I came from, those are not in the insurance industry who are listening to the show, the part that I came from was the independent channel, which is more like last name slash insurance on every road you've ever driven down is my portion of the industry.

Speaker 7 And in those businesses, they tend to be very old school and very punch, time card punchy.

Speaker 7 So what was happening with these women was they were either single moms, which adds a whole nother layer to the difficulty of what they have to do. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 7 Or they were moms of young children, which is tough enough.

Speaker 7 And because maybe they had to go to a school thing, maybe their kid got sick, maybe the one time because their entire life outside of work was taken with kids' stuff, they needed to do, you know, pack a day with doctor's appointments, whatever.

Speaker 7 They were being tossed out by all these old traditional, you know, I call them like fat old white guy type businesses where if you couldn't punch in at 8:30 and punch out at 5.30, they did not want you.

Speaker 7 And I found two interesting things.

Speaker 7 One, if you have a little bit of flexibility, and while they tend to be tougher to manage only because oftentimes have to be remote and they don't, you know, managing anyone who isn't strictly on this schedule is tougher.

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 7 You got, I got this incredible enthusiasm in work ethic

Speaker 7 because

Speaker 7 they were appreciative of the fact they actually lived their friggin lives. So I don't understand why even capitalists, like pure capitalists, aren't thinking this way.
And two, that the one

Speaker 7 I'll call it a negative, but really it was just a mindset that I didn't foresee coming. And this is really where my question comes out of: was

Speaker 7 they tended to initially start in their company in a a very

Speaker 7 like territorial competitive mindset. Like, if I don't protect my territory, I'm going to get fired.
I'm going to get yelled at. I'm going to get demoted or whatever.

Speaker 7 And it took for some of them, it took six months, sometimes longer to go like,

Speaker 7 I'm not a big fan of like the term like safe zones, but I'm like, you're safe here. I'm not firing you.
Like, you're good. Keep working.
Psychological safety.

Speaker 5 It's psychological.

Speaker 7 Yes. Yeah, yeah.
Psychological safety. safety.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 I think psychological safety is more important than me saying to you, like, you're part of our family. No, I'm really not.

Speaker 5 You know, we're work, we're work colleagues, but, but for you to tell me, like, hey, you're safe here. I'm, if I tell you that you've got some flexibility around your work day, I mean it.

Speaker 5 I'm not just trying to get you in the door. And I grew up with a single mom.
So,

Speaker 5 you know, I get it.

Speaker 5 Like I was, I was the last one picked up at the, and I'd go to those awful after school programs where they'd like give you a piece of like cheese and bologna for a snack and then like turn you out into the schoolyard and just like to rot until your parents got there.

Speaker 5 Yeah. And I mean, I, it's probably where my work ethic came from.

Speaker 5 I had to see my mom grind. Like she was a grinder, started her own insurance business.
I'm sorry, not insurance business.

Speaker 5 Now you've got me thinking insurance. Yeah.
Interior design firm.

Speaker 5 I have an older sister and from an early age, and this is probably why I just love women so much and women that are just out there getting it done, is that my sister and I were always workers.

Speaker 5 When I was 15, my mom said, you know, you've got a job. You're going to work for your uncle.
He's a lawyer.

Speaker 5 He's going to put you to work doing, I don't know, shredding files and all that kind of stuff. My sister, we just worked, worked.
We had two jobs at some time during high school. And we loved it.

Speaker 5 We loved having that freedom. We loved having our own money.

Speaker 5 And we liked having that independence. So, mom always was kind of like, if you find somebody and you want to align yourself with that person in a long-term way, great.

Speaker 5 But you've got to be able to provide for yourself. And that's what you're saying, these women that you've hired are doing.

Speaker 7 Yeah. How do you, so if someone's listening to this and maybe they just, maybe just the idea of psychological safety is something they've never just wrapped their head around, right?

Speaker 7 How do you, as a leader, start to provide that for your team?

Speaker 7 what does that look like in practice so that people know

Speaker 5 break it down and explain what that what that looks like and how you actually put that in practice so in order to lead with psychological psychological safety um you you have to be safe within yourself

Speaker 5 um and and i hope that comes from whether you're reporting to a team of people or you're reporting to just one person what's your relationship like with them um are they gonna go to bat for you or your team if somebody screws something up pretty royally, which can happen?

Speaker 5 Most of the times that we think we've screwed something up, we're blowing it way out of proportion. But are you, I've had a manager one time, he's like, I'm just going to give you enough rope.

Speaker 5 You like, I'm always going to come to bat for you, even if it means my job's on the line. And he created that for me.

Speaker 5 And I loved it because I was like, okay, I can try things now. I can be more innovative,

Speaker 5 Like I say this again, color outside the lines.

Speaker 7 But

Speaker 5 so if you've got that with your manager, and maybe you don't have it with your manager, you need to fix it because in order for your team to feel safe with you, you have to feel safe within yourself in that, okay, they're going to screw stuff up, but I'm going to

Speaker 5 hold that space for them and go to the map for them. when it comes down to it.

Speaker 7 And if you don't have the confidence to do that, that's where this book can come in to help you build that yeah and so what would what would be one thing like is it do you have a are you having regular meetings is it the verbiage that you're using or is it simply you know when when these situations present themselves you have to act accordingly like how do you it's probably and it's probably a combination of all of them but like if i'm let's say let's say i own my own business and i got a team yes 10 15 people and i'm sitting here going you know i use that term we're all family,

Speaker 7 but maybe that doesn't mean anything to them.

Speaker 5 Maybe they don't even like their family, Ryan. Yeah.

Speaker 7 I know. And I think, you know, it's also, it's one of those things and it's one of those things that sounds really good if you're the one saying it.
But when you hear it, you're like,

Speaker 7 yeah, mama. Until I mess up and then you're going to fire me like.

Speaker 5 So it's regular touch points. It's knowing your team.
Get to know your team on a personal level.

Speaker 5 And I'm not saying you have to go out with them in a social setting all the time, but take your team to lunch. I know we get busy, but take them out and grab something quickly.

Speaker 5 Get to know what they're like, if they've got kids and what they are interested in. So I think before you can start to say we're a family, like you got to get to know that person.

Speaker 5 in a in a way that they feel comfortable sharing sharing certain things about themselves with you. And then

Speaker 5 once you've established a trust, like be present, be there often. And if you're working in a remote setting with these people, set the touch points.

Speaker 5 I have weekly touch points with my remote colleagues and just catch up. And what was hard this week? What was easy this week? What did you do better? What did you bring to the table as a solution?

Speaker 5 So you've got that ongoing dialogue because it's just, it's constant. Like you feel more comfortable telling somebody something if you're talking to them all the time.

Speaker 5 But if you haven't spoken to your manager in a month and then you've got to tell them something, that's built up in your mind of, oh my gosh, this thing that was actually very small is now built up.

Speaker 5 I've been thinking about it.

Speaker 5 And then if you've done something, like if you've screwed something up, just come tell me. Like, tell me as soon as you figure it out.
Let me help you.

Speaker 5 Because if you might try to figure it out on your own,

Speaker 5 you might dig yourself in a bigger, deeper hole.

Speaker 7 Yeah. Yeah.
I, I, uh, two comments there.

Speaker 7 One, I often think when like a business owner says we're all family here, what they're really saying is, give me all the slack for all the stupid things that I do, but you know, not necessarily with the intention of reciprocating that.

Speaker 7 So basically they're saying, I'm going to kind of be a hot mess and act the way I'm going to act. And this is my business.

Speaker 7 And I need you to give me the grace because we're a family, but I don't necessarily have to reciprocate that. That's at least been my experience.

Speaker 5 And if we're family, then you're going to start to feel like your office is my home and it's not. I have a home and it's where I like to be at night.

Speaker 7 Exactly.

Speaker 7 You know, and I have an anecdote for the touch points. I had a very high performing team member that I adored and

Speaker 7 she started acting weird. And I was like, so what, you know, it's been maybe a couple of weeks since I touched in with her.
And I just said, hey, let's have a meeting. She said, great.
And get on.

Speaker 7 I can immediately tell. something's wrong.
And I'm just like,

Speaker 7 what's going on? Like, you know, her numbers are great. She's doing great.
I have no problems with her work. She's awesome.
She doesn't cause any problems. She's not complaining.
All the things.

Speaker 7 Great, great employee. And she's like, you don't talk to me anymore.
And I'm like,

Speaker 7 and it like hit me that,

Speaker 7 so I had my, and I said to her, I said, I was like, oh my gosh, please take my not reaching out to you as a compliment. Like, you're not a problem.
You're doing great.

Speaker 7 Like, I got to go deal with the problems all day. Yeah.

Speaker 7 But, but what it taught me was,

Speaker 7 and hope, and I'm sharing this hopefully for the people that are listening and trying to put themselves in these positions, is that my mentality was all wrong, right?

Speaker 7 That mentality of if I'm not contacting you, it's because you're doing everything right. That doesn't work.
Like, that's not the way humans are.

Speaker 5 Like, you know, because if they're doing everything right, they need somebody being like, hey, you're killing it. And even if it's just like a quick text, like, you're killing it.
You're awesome.

Speaker 5 I'm here. I'm here to support you.
Like, I had

Speaker 5 a manager at some point

Speaker 5 turn that phrase to me, what can I do to support you? Or I'm here to support you. And that just was, it resonated with me.
And I use that a lot. Like, what can I do as your leader to support you?

Speaker 5 Because it's typically the other way around. Like, if I, if you're my boss, I'm saying, what, what do you need me to do?

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 I actually, um,

Speaker 7 I picked this up from a

Speaker 7 high school sports coach that I had,

Speaker 7 very,

Speaker 7 very forward thinking. Today, I think this would be more common language, but at the time it was not.
And he, he, like,

Speaker 7 right before the season started, he sat us down and he basically said,

Speaker 7 my role here

Speaker 7 is simply to make you the best versions of you, right? Like, I, it's not about me. Like, because I'm the coach, no one cares.
I don't care.

Speaker 7 It's that's my my job is to make you the best version of you that you can be so if i'm yelling at you or i'm instructing you or i'm you know what it's only because i think you are capable and why

Speaker 7 acts okay so i that has always resonated with me and you know i think something that

Speaker 7 is not shared enough, even though I think a lot of leaders believe this, they just simply, and what I'm taking from what you're saying, and let me know if I'm wrong, is that oftentimes I think we have the right thought or intention in our head as leaders, but we believe that our people are mind readers, right?

Speaker 7 We believe that they somehow can read our minds. So we don't communicate with them.
And that was, that was my problem for a long time was that I, I just assumed they knew

Speaker 7 I thought X or thought they were doing a good job. It's like, you still work here.
I'm happy at you. And I haven't yelled at you ever.
So why would I have a problem with your work product?

Speaker 7 But I wasn't telling them, I think this is great. This is wonderful.
Keep doing more of this. Thank you.
Like I wasn't doing those things for a long time. And that was a huge shift in my leadership.

Speaker 7 And the productivity and the general atmosphere of your business changes when you start to do that stuff.

Speaker 5 And even if you've got a high performer and they are killing everything that you've you've put in front of them, they still need some like, okay, you're killing this.

Speaker 5 But, you know, they like high performers still need stretch goals.

Speaker 5 And, you know, that might be where you and that high performer establish those together. But if you've given me,

Speaker 5 you know, three boxes to check and I've checked those three boxes for 365 days, don't just let me sit over here and keep checking them. I need three more boxes to add on top of that to stretch.

Speaker 5 Because as a high performer, unless you're giving me that, I'm going to get bored and I'm probably going to disengage.

Speaker 7 I want to change topics slightly.

Speaker 7 One of the primary bullets in your book and one of the key things that I've seen you talk about some of the marketing and inside the book is this idea of lacking a sense of direction.

Speaker 7 And I think that this is 100% true in our business. And I think that it extends into right now in our current moment in time and in our society, it feels like a general lack or sense of direction.

Speaker 7 is very common or is as common as I've ever perceived it to be in my lifetime. One,

Speaker 7 in general, why do you think that is?

Speaker 7 And two, how do we, like, when you're talking to someone or you have a mentee or a team member and they bring this up or you get this sense, how do you start to coach them out of that?

Speaker 5 So I'm going to answer the second question first.

Speaker 7 You can answer.

Speaker 5 And I'm not going to tell you I have an answer for why there's a lack of sense direction, but I'm going to, I'm going to,

Speaker 5 I'm going to just kind of guesstimate. So

Speaker 5 the one thing that I do in the book is that I talk about what your core values are. And I want to know what, and I give you some questions to even go back to like an early, early childhood memory.

Speaker 5 Let's start to talk about a time you felt good, a time that you did something well.

Speaker 5 What was that? And who was with you? And I want you to start to try to picture.

Speaker 5 what that was like and those and then start to like draw those core values out of you and i give you a list of 50 different core values but I give you space to add your own.

Speaker 5 And so once I've gotten those established, then we want to craft a personal vision statement.

Speaker 5 And that is, I am Ryan and my core value, I'm going to use my core values of X, Y, and Z over the next five years

Speaker 7 to

Speaker 5 blank. And that's usually impact blank.
It's impact the brokerage community, impact my clients.

Speaker 5 And I want you to fill in the blank. So for my personal vision statement outside of my role as an operations leader, I want to impact as many women as I can with this book and this message.

Speaker 5 It's like a million dollars, a million target right now, a million women target. I think that's a little small.
So, I need to probably up it.

Speaker 5 But once we've got that personal vision statement established and you feel good, and it needs to feel so good that it's more than an elevator pitch, it's you feel tingles, like you feel excited when you say it.

Speaker 5 And you can do this, you know, I like you to do it where you're integrating your, your personal and your professional life so that everything's always in alignment.

Speaker 5 If your personal vision statement for your work is completely different from that of your your your life,

Speaker 5 you're going to have, you're going to have some conflicting ideas. So once we've established that, then we break it down into short, medium, and long-term timeframes.

Speaker 5 And so you can kind of reverse engineer what you need to be doing today

Speaker 5 to get there.

Speaker 5 And I don't know if everybody's having these conversations with themselves or with

Speaker 5 their reports, but I wish somebody had had that conversation with me rather than, you know, here's our company culture.

Speaker 5 These are the three things that our website says that we believe in. You should believe in them too.
Let's go to work.

Speaker 7 I don't think

Speaker 7 nearly anyone is having these types of conversations.

Speaker 7 I was reminded by a friend the other day.

Speaker 7 My biggest problem is often that I'm interested in too many different topics.

Speaker 7 It's a big reason why I do the podcast because it gives me my outlet to talk to so many different people and learn so many different things.

Speaker 7 But I was nerding out on some topic and blathering on to a friend of mine. And he goes, I got to stop you.
And I go, why? And he goes, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

Speaker 7 And I said, what do you mean? I go, you've never thought about,

Speaker 7 I think

Speaker 7 this is going to sound ridiculous, but I think I was, I was debating the allocation

Speaker 7 of physical hard assets that you should have in your investment portfolio.

Speaker 7 It doesn't matter. It literally doesn't matter.
And he goes, I don't even know what you're talking about. I've never thought about that.
And I go, you've never thought about.

Speaker 7 you know, but but and what about this? And what if this happens and inflation and the economy?

Speaker 7 And he's like, nobody thinks about this. What are you talking about?

Speaker 7 and i was like and i don't mean that as anything special to me i mean i think most people are just trying to survive day to day i honestly think they wake up they interact with either their family or whoever they try to get through the morning they get through the morning they get in their car they they drink their coffee or whatever they get to the office they try to survive the office for eight hours maybe have a little fun maybe crack a joke but really they're hating it they get done they get home they try to get through the evening they turn on the tv pop some ice cream watch some tv go to to bed and do it again

Speaker 5 and i get that i i've hey i've been there too i i will tell you i've been that girl sitting on the couch watching netflix and like just binging out and trying to just unwind uh you know and getting into that loop where every night looks the same every day looks the same you don't even i don't even know what i did on the weekends like chopping like target and just running around and i felt like i was running around in circles uh many times and that's really no way to live i don't want people to live that way i want people to wake up and be jazzed about going to work because they know that they've got some people there that are going to push them and that are going to challenge their ideas and like you said make them a better version of themselves and you know the great thing about all the stuff we're talking about it doesn't cost anything yeah i mean you know my book's on sale right now for 99 cents because you know why i i don't care about making a million dollars from this book i just want people to have a sense of purpose and and i think if you can figure out what your sense of purpose is, that translates to every area of your life.

Speaker 7 I completely agree.

Speaker 7 I think the word passion is used too much and the word purpose is not used enough.

Speaker 5 If I have got some friends that are really big on purpose and they help you delve down into that purpose.

Speaker 7 Yeah, passion,

Speaker 7 I have nothing against passion, but to me, passion is a derivative.

Speaker 7 It's not a first principle. It's when you find the times

Speaker 7 when I personally have been the most passionate about anything were the times when I was most dialed into my purpose and the thing that I was doing, be it recreational or business.

Speaker 7 You know,

Speaker 7 I am incredibly passionate about

Speaker 7 coaching kids sports. I love it.
I love every second of it, but it's only because.

Speaker 5 You have a lot of patience then.

Speaker 7 Yeah, and I just, I, you know, I feel like we treat our kids like they're idiots and I I don't treat them that way.

Speaker 7 And I have so much fun with them and we joke and we laugh and I yell at them and I, you know, I call them dummies because they are. I'm like, you're freaking 10.
You're a bunch of dummies.

Speaker 7 What are you talking about? You don't know anything. Your brain's not even developed.
You're talking to me like you know what you're talking about.

Speaker 7 And, and, but my point in getting that is the reason I'm passionate about it is not because I like. spending entire weekends of my life on a baseball field.
I mean, I don't like that.

Speaker 7 Frankly, I don't like that. I don't like that a lot, actually.

Speaker 7 But man, I love helping helping these kids and it's a part of the purpose of my life is helping these kids and talking to them and showing them why you know i i had a i had a kid he got drilled the other day absolutely drilled by this picture that threw really hard and for kids this age eight to 10 in particular yeah uh that can be a very shocking experience for them in some cases because we live in such a soft society today it's the most pain they've ever felt ever in their life right so so they don't know what to do with this and helping coach them through that not only to just get through the moment, but to ultimately get back up and get in that batter's box and actually give it a real try.

Speaker 7 Like, you know, there's something there. Okay.
So it's kind of this idea of like, I could be miserable out there. I could be standing there.
It's raining. I live in the north.
It's cold.

Speaker 7 You don't want to be outside. It's terrible.
You've lost 10 hours of your weekend on baseball fields and you're dealing with these kids. And, you know,

Speaker 7 or you can,

Speaker 7 but I'm passionate about it because of the purpose. So I think that this thing is.

Speaker 5 And what you're doing, what you're doing is they're going to remember you forever, Ryan. These kids are going to remember you.
I was the worst softball player.

Speaker 5 You can fact check this in Glenn County, Georgia ever, the worst. And I played it for eight years.
Like I didn't have my dad around.

Speaker 5 So I, you know, my mom certainly wasn't trying to throw a softball with me. So I didn't really practice, but I had the best coaches and they didn't care.
They just put me in right field.

Speaker 5 So I, you know, maybe a ball will go out there.

Speaker 5 sometimes i'd be the catcher but i'd be the one that would just be like dropping the day ball so i don't know but i remember i remember a handful of my coaches and they were just like tinsley you're so bad but you have the best attitude i just wanted to be part of the team so you've got those kids on your team i'm sure the ones that aren't good and they're they're going to remember you they're not going to remember how they're going to laugh about how bad they were but they're going to remember the way that you made them feel

Speaker 7 well i mean, I hope, but I think, I think, I think going all the way back to the question of like lacking a sense of direction and how we get out of it, to me, what it sounds like, your exercise and the work that you do through the book is essentially helping them find what that purpose is.

Speaker 7 And I think, I think, so, so then you had stated that, you know, you weren't sure how many people actually thought about this stuff. And I think the answer is not a lot.

Speaker 7 If they do, they give it lip service, not real work. So, so you've, you've, you've shown them, you've, you've kind of shown them the path.

Speaker 7 You've given them a project and a work product to do that's going to help them start to break free from this sense of being stuck, we'll call it.

Speaker 7 How do you coach

Speaker 7 these women and anyone that's listening? How would you coach them through

Speaker 7 the consistency? And maybe this is in the title of your book, the grit piece. How do you coach them through?

Speaker 7 Because it's going to, the first couple of days are amazing. Oh, I'm journaling.

Speaker 7 oh, yeah, you're high on the, yeah, and then the third day, you're like, oh, this is terrible. I don't want to do it, right?

Speaker 7 Or my kids, my kid woke up too early and I couldn't do it, or too late, or whatever.

Speaker 5 Like, how I have an ear infection, my kid gave me an ear infection. I know they're not contagious, but now we're everybody's sick.

Speaker 5 Like, when you have kids in daycare, like, you get every little thing that you get. That doesn't mean, and this was before we could work from home when I was growing up in this business.

Speaker 5 So, I was dragging myself to work sick as a dog. And so, I see what you're saying.

Speaker 7 Like, how do you get them to keep coming back?

Speaker 5 How do we,

Speaker 5 that's like, everybody thinks that grit is just rolling up your sleeves, but

Speaker 5 the resilience part of grit is dealing with that setback and kind of easing into the, to that time when it doesn't feel good. And, and when it's, it's longevity.
So grit is longevity.

Speaker 5 It's not being in it to win it for a minute. It is,

Speaker 5 and I did not mean to rhyme there, but I did.

Speaker 5 It's being there in the long haul and knowing that, like, your life and your career are going to have peaks and valleys.

Speaker 5 And the valleys are not fun. And sometimes you cannot see how long you're going to be in that valley.

Speaker 5 And one thing that I do, and we can go back to the grit and the resilience piece, but one thing I do in the book is compare careers to an amusement park.

Speaker 5 And I've got a little poem at the beginning of the book and it's talking about this roller coaster. So if you think about management in a way that

Speaker 5 you've gotten to the amusement park

Speaker 5 and

Speaker 5 you're going to get into management. So you've got this nice little merry-go-round carousel over here.

Speaker 5 It's very prescriptive.

Speaker 5 You know exactly what you're going to do. This ride is going to go round and round and round.

Speaker 5 And for women, especially, like if you're going to get into leadership, they need you you to do x y and z and they know that you will do x y and z because you're a woman and you're going to follow direction and you're not going to color outside the lines and you're on your you know you're on your carousel horse and you're going around and around well i'm

Speaker 5 that's not for everybody i i need a little more fun in my life in leadership so i i compare it to say not everybody is cut out for that management merry-go-round if you want more you're going to get on this leadership roller coaster and so when you you think about the grit that is when that coaster has just left the platform and it is a grind you have no momentum behind you at that point you're just crawling crawling crawling towards the top and that's what like building your early career or one of those setback times like nobody's pushing me i'm doing carrying all this weight on my own to get to the top

Speaker 5 And so then you get to the top and you're up there and you can see for miles around and you finally have like the really good vantage point. You can see the forest for the trees.

Speaker 5 But that is where that gumption piece comes in of the confidence to move forward. And this could be like your first big

Speaker 5 critical conversation as a leader, your first coaching of somebody through something very difficult and you don't feel equipped yet. So you're going to have to like take that leap.

Speaker 5 You can't stay up at the top. because there's another coaster coming behind you, say.

Speaker 5 So you got to move forward and you got to have that gumption to move forward. and then you're going really fast.
And what have you got to do next? You've got to turn,

Speaker 5 and the turn is the growth piece.

Speaker 5 So, that is staying on the track when you've got all this acceleration and you, you know, you kind of want to fly off the rails, but you've got to lean into those turns. And so, that growth piece is

Speaker 5 where I was lacking as a leader. I likened the growth piece to emotional intelligence and empathy.
I had very low,

Speaker 5 both of those I was very low on.

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 5 you'll read this in the chapter in my book, but I say that the management merry-go-round,

Speaker 5 you're probably going to do okay. And you're not going to remember the ride, though.
The leadership roller coaster, the ticket is much higher. And it's scarier, but you're going to remember it.

Speaker 5 You're going to walk away from that amusement park saying, that was a hell of a ride. Like I remembered it and my team remembered it.

Speaker 5 So that's a little analogy that I use and to kind of paint the picture of what we mean by growth and gumption.

Speaker 5 And the whole idea of the G-Force principle

Speaker 5 was something that I'll attribute to my husband. He was

Speaker 5 not a fan of roller coasters at an early age. His mom dragged him on it because she's a thrill seeker.
And he's like, I didn't cry, but I think he might have cried.

Speaker 5 But he told me one time about as a high school student, he went on a physics field trip to Bush Gardens in Florida, and they were studying the g-force principle with a roller coaster and so he started to like

Speaker 5 explain the whole ride and everything and i was like that sounds a lot like the leadership the leadership principle that i just described and so when i when it came time to think about what grit growth and gumption really was that's where it's like that's the g-force it's acceleration it's moving forward you're not stagnant or stationary like that that that merry-go-round that's stuck in one place.

Speaker 5 So that was a very long-winded explanation, but that's how I came up with this principle.

Speaker 7 No, I think that's wonderful. And I think the roller coaster analogy is completely on point.
I mean, it's,

Speaker 7 and I really like the part

Speaker 7 about

Speaker 7 it being memorable.

Speaker 7 I think that, again, going back to this idea of why do so many people seem to lack a sense of direction is,

Speaker 7 I think there is a general,

Speaker 7 there's

Speaker 7 a belief that, and I have no idea where it came from, but that

Speaker 7 if we can't be guaranteed the experience we want, we're unwilling to take a swing at the thing.

Speaker 7 So what we do is we sit around and we look at all these opportunities and go, ah, that could be fun, but what will I be in 10 years?

Speaker 7 Or this could be thing, but it only is going to make this much money. Or,

Speaker 7 And so we just stay in this one spot because we're

Speaker 7 projecting out into the future what we believe it's going to, what this thing is going to be. And I think you're right on it.
Like until you ride the ride, you have no idea what it's going to be like.

Speaker 7 But if you engage, if you, if you step into something,

Speaker 7 at worst, you're going to find something that you don't like to do at worst. Or a

Speaker 7 type of boss you don't like to work for or a a type of company you like to work for. Like, I now know through multiple iterations, I am not meant to work in a bureaucracy.

Speaker 7 Absolutely 100% not meant to work in a bureaucracy. I stick out like a sore thumb.
I rub everyone the wrong way.

Speaker 5 No one is. I'm so surprised at that.

Speaker 7 Oh, yeah, just it's constant. And,

Speaker 7 you know, this has been over and over and over again.

Speaker 7 And I've had to embrace that.

Speaker 7 I always thought I love working for teams, like work, you know, I like working on big projects. Where do you find that? Big companies.
Where to go? And

Speaker 7 it just isn't the path for me. So it's okay.
Well, now I know that. So now I can readjust.

Speaker 7 And what that's done is taken the number of possible directions I could have gone in that maybe was holding me back in the past and said, there's only a few options left, right?

Speaker 7 Join a really small business team, maybe be a consultant, start your own business.

Speaker 5 Like, yes. these are the only ways that you can go.

Speaker 7 Now, for other people, you might try to be an entrepreneur and find you just don't love it.

Speaker 7 You either like, you, you, because I think the entrepreneur porn of the last like five to 10 years has tried to convince us all that we need to be our own bosses. And I don't think that that's true.

Speaker 5 Not everybody has that discipline.

Speaker 7 And it's not even that. Not everyone likes it.
There's so much stuff. Like when I think about my, my, my old agency, Rogue Risk,

Speaker 7 I wasn't selling insurance and doing big business development deals and stuff all the time. Most of the time, as the founder and owner of the business, I was dealing with nonsense, nonsense stuff.

Speaker 5 Apparel taxes.

Speaker 7 Oh my gosh, just all these nonsensical things that are absolutely part of that position. And I think that

Speaker 7 I guess my point is like, I wouldn't know.

Speaker 7 what things I liked and what I wouldn't if I didn't try. Same with you, right?

Speaker 7 You engage in the world, you take the ride, you figure out, I like this, I don't like this i work well with these kind of people i don't hear etc

Speaker 7 and um but if you don't get out there and take some kind of action if you don't get on the ride that you're never going to know you're never going to know um and here's another thing like think about going to like a family barbecue or a um

Speaker 5 you know you're around your grandparents or you're around your parents or you know that annoying brother-in-law that everybody has no not that i have one i love my brother-in-laws uh but you know if you're talking to your family or your friends at a party or a barbecue, and they're asking you about your day and they're asking you about your work, do you just really want to tell them some story that is so

Speaker 5 boring and not memorable that like they're ready to go get the second helping of the horrible potato salad that somebody put out? Or do you want them to be like on the edge of their seat?

Speaker 5 wanting you to tell them more. So I think that's another thing that people like,

Speaker 5 I want people to be excited about their careers, whether it's a career in risk management or anything.

Speaker 5 I want I want people to feel like they're going somewhere to do something important.

Speaker 5 And for me, it's my thing is I want to leave a legacy. I want

Speaker 5 when I exit insurance, when I exit anything, I want people to say, she was here and what she did mattered because she made me feel this way, just like we talked about with your kids on the field.

Speaker 5 You want people to remember you in a way that you made them better.

Speaker 7 I agree. So So, I have just a couple of questions left.
I'm gonna be respectful of your time and of the audiences.

Speaker 7 I

Speaker 7 last question on this particular topic is: I'm positive that there are people listening to this part portion of the conversation going, That all sounds great, but I hate my job and I hate my company.

Speaker 7 There's no place for me to go, and I'm never going to get a leadership position because of insert, whatever reason.

Speaker 7 You know,

Speaker 7 what am I supposed to do?

Speaker 7 How do you respond to that person that

Speaker 7 looks at where they are and feels like there is no possible way of moving forward?

Speaker 5 And we've all felt that way.

Speaker 5 I would say

Speaker 5 I need that person to kind of give this book a chance because we work through some of these challenges. You might feel like you're stuck.
You are definitely not stuck.

Speaker 5 You need to sit down and really evaluate what you hate about your job. Is it you hate your boss? Is it you hate the tasks you're doing?

Speaker 5 Is it because the tasks that you're doing are not aligned with your personality and what gives you, you know, that spark and that initiative?

Speaker 5 If you just got this, I hate, I hate this, we need to figure out what you hate about it and what you can change about it. And

Speaker 5 if you can't change anything about your job, whether it be asking for a different role or reporting to a different person,

Speaker 5 you need to look at other opportunities. I mean, you're never absolutely stuck in something.

Speaker 5 You owe it to yourself

Speaker 5 to

Speaker 5 peek through the door to see if there are other opportunities. And

Speaker 5 I just don't want anybody to ever feel like they are completely stuck where they are. And that goes back to the acceleration principle.

Speaker 5 Even if we're putting one foot in front of the other every day, and that's all you can do,

Speaker 5 you're going to look back in a year and say, okay, I've gone, I've gone a mile further down the road. So I don't want people to ever feel like they are stuck.

Speaker 5 And if they do feel stuck, I want them to reach out to me because I'll help them get unstuck.

Speaker 7 Like there are, there are

Speaker 5 lots of different ways to approach a career change or a reevaluation of where you are at that current point in time.

Speaker 7 Okay. I love that.
So three questions to finish the show. Okay.

Speaker 7 You

Speaker 7 take over a new team and 20 people on it. It doesn't matter how many people are on the team.

Speaker 7 And you are tasked with giving them one book that will guide their relationship, either working with you or will set the expectations for what you. you expect out of them.

Speaker 7 And it cannot be a book that you've written.

Speaker 5 Oh, it cannot like that was hard.

Speaker 5 Oh gosh.

Speaker 5 I love the purpose factor by Gab and Brian Boucher.

Speaker 5 That's one that

Speaker 5 really drills down to

Speaker 5 why you're here, to why that person's here.

Speaker 5 And it's got a lot of life lessons and business lessons in it.

Speaker 7 Nice.

Speaker 7 I like it. The purpose factor.
Very good. Okay, question number two.
Finish the show here.

Speaker 7 When you are at your best, how do you show up in the world?

Speaker 5 When I'm at my best, and

Speaker 5 this has been true throughout my career, when I know that a conversation that I've had or

Speaker 5 any kind of interaction that I've had with a person, I can see that spark in their eyes and I can see that they believe in themselves or

Speaker 5 they've started believing themselves again.

Speaker 5 I am like on fire, so jazz. Like there's no amount of money in the world that could compare to that.
That is a feeling and that goes on building that legacy.

Speaker 5 When I'm at my best, it is when I get a note or an email or a call from somebody and says, Hey, I took your advice or I reflected on our conversation and I've started to take this next step

Speaker 5 to change the direction or to reframe the situation.

Speaker 5 That is what gives me like the joy

Speaker 5 beyond anything else yeah

Speaker 7 and so one i would just like to second that one i refer to it as rocket fuel like when you even sometimes it's like a simple one-line dm of like hey read your article like on you know i'm running through a wall whatever whatever the thing is it it it it

Speaker 7 it validates all the creative thought like everything you've done to put yourself in the position to be able to help that person it validates it and it's like it's like dropping rocket fuel into your engine.

Speaker 7 And I will tell anyone who's listening who maybe has never felt that feeling. And don't worry, this is, it's not like it happens every day for me.
And

Speaker 7 a long time before it ever happened the first time. So I'm not, you know, but if that hasn't happened for you, I encourage you to try to cultivate that feeling as Tinsley just described.

Speaker 7 And to do so, it is simply as just like,

Speaker 7 hey, man, what's going on? How are you feeling today? What's up? right you ask somebody like literally be interested in another human being listen to what what they have to say.

Speaker 7 And sometimes it's as simple as just going like, you know what? I've been, I'm right there with you, man. I feel you.

Speaker 7 I can, I can have, and like, just simply letting someone know that they're not alone in the world can be enough to like change someone's entire day. It's, it is an amazing feeling.

Speaker 5 And I just want to add to that, Ryan, is

Speaker 5 as a leader, there is a superpower in vulnerability. Like.

Speaker 5 for me to tell you don't tell like i don't want you to tell me that

Speaker 5 oh it'll be okay Everything will be okay. Like, you can say that stinks.
Like, I went through that. I actually just made that mistake last week.

Speaker 5 Like, as a leader, you're supposed to be at a level with your team that they, they see you screw up, you know, and you're okay with it. And that's that brings back the psychological safety.

Speaker 5 So being a vulnerable leader and letting your team know, like, I don't have this all figured out. And that's like early motherhood.

Speaker 5 Like, some mothers make you feel horrible because you don't have it figured out. And others will be like, girl, you've got this.

Speaker 5 Like, we've all done this it's yeah it's just that's what i want to convey like as a leader you have the superpower of vulnerability and you have to be willing to like check your ego at the door and and let your team in to see who you are i love it all right last question um tinsy do you have children or a child do you i do i have a daughter

Speaker 7 okay you have a daughter okay so you uh are able

Speaker 7 Now, this is not the case because we all give our children a million pieces of advice, but let's say you were only able to give your daughter one piece of advice, one thought, one concept that would put her on the path to be the best version of herself in whatever way that

Speaker 7 shows up in the world. What would that be?

Speaker 5 I would say make an impact on somebody else every single day.

Speaker 7 I love that. Tinsley, it's been an incredible honor to have you on the show.
I'm so happy. Thank you so much.

Speaker 7 I had notes and stuff and I got your Amazon listing up and the entire time I've been staring on number one release on Amazon. So happy for you.
Incredible conversation.

Speaker 7 The book is Grit, Growth, and Gumption for Women.

Speaker 7 Create your own GeForce code system. I love it.

Speaker 7 We'll have links to the show in the show notes. We'll have links to the book so you can get them there.
Uh, if you google it or you go to Amazon, you're gonna find the book. Highly recommend it.

Speaker 7 I appreciate the hell out of you. Thank you for being here.

Speaker 5 Uh, thanks for having me, Ryan.

Speaker 9 Yeah, make it look, make it look, make it look easy.

Speaker 7 Hey, stand-up guy on 10 toes, big body pull up in a range roll. I could change the whole game when I say so.
I pull up, shut it down, yeah, they know. Running this game ain't a thing for me.

Speaker 7 I never switched to no change in me. The only thing changing this easy, you go against me, then you know that you're tweaking, okay? Cause, baby, I'm him, I'll be on 10.

Speaker 7 Two stepping in the party, I do not dance. Watch how I move, make it look easy.
Counting up wins, that's part of the plan. Black man's taking up my head as a CC.

Speaker 7 That can't fail, I'm gonna beat the reason with repeat. I'm knee deep, need a job, that's that you seek me.
I'm too sick, yeah, I know I make it look easy. Easy, easy, eat, yeah.

Speaker 7 Tell them don't try to play me.

Speaker 7 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm drippy on the journey.

Speaker 7 They can never count me out, they can never count me out. I know,

Speaker 7 they can never count me out. They can never count me out.
I know I make it look easy, make it look, make it look easy.

Speaker 7 I know, make it look easy, make it look, make it look easy.

Speaker 7 I know I make it look easy, too smooth, I make it look easy.

Speaker 7 I know we make it look easy.

Speaker 7 Make it look, make it look, make it look. I know I shoot my shot, better play up.

Speaker 7 Make it look easy, that's a layup. Bad mine, bad man.
Why they wanna be like me inside my two wavy, swallow your pride. All of my guys call them, they slide.
They will oblige.

Speaker 7 Called them, I told them you playin' with me. Now look all in, I'm starting to riot.

Speaker 7 When I'm in your city, it's magic. When I'm all in my baggage, it's tragic.
When I see what I want, gotta have it. I can't let up, they made me a savage.
I can't slow down, my foot on the gas.

Speaker 7 Coming way off from where I was last year, I'ma make it look easy. That's it.
I know God got me, he got my back. These blessings falling in my lap.
I came up, gave it all I had.

Speaker 7 Read my city, put them on my back. Hit my shots, I'm just dogs.
Straight up, I'ma let them know I don't fall. Make it look easy, and they know.
There's only one way for us to go.

Speaker 7 Can't hold me back, I'm going way

Speaker 7 Tell them they can never play off

Speaker 7 Ain't no stopping me now, no Ain't no stopping me now, no Ain't no stopping me, ain't no stopping me, ain't no stopping me now, no Straight in my lane when they got it, I make it I know that they mad when I swear by the lot Thinking the plot, they did not get the picture when I said I don't fit in they box Taking a shot

Speaker 7 if they hand me the rock I feel like a rubbish cause they confused with how I line it up by spinning the block

Speaker 7 too easy. Get your weight off when you see me.
I'm a threat, but they don't give me a reason. I'm a valer, I see through your decisions.
When I'm done, they gon' pick up the pieces.

Speaker 7 And you know we ain't losing this season. It's the reason why they hate on me.
Cause you know that I'ma make it look easy.

Speaker 7 Ain't no stopping me, nominal.

Speaker 7 Ain't no stoppin' me, nom, no, no.

Speaker 7 Ain't no stoppin' me, nom, no, no.

Speaker 7 Ain't no stoppin' me, I know I make it look easy

Speaker 7 Make it look, make it look easy I make it look

Speaker 7 easy

Speaker 7 Make it look, make it look easy

Speaker 7 I know I make it good Too smooth, I make it look easy I know we make it good

Speaker 7 I know I

Speaker 7 do

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