Your Glow Up Pt. 2 with Jodie Taylor

Hey, girl. Welcome to the get yout Guy coaching podcast. My name is Anwar White, but you can just call me your own personal dating and relationship coach. Each week you'll hear actionable advice, tips, and strategies that you can implement in your own love life. I'm talking about healing your heart, dating effectively, and understanding men so that you can, you guessed it, get your guy. Are you ready to level up your love life? All right, let's go.

I never felt the way I do without anyone but you.

Hello, hello, hello, ladies. I hope you're doing well. We have come back with part two of your Glow up with the amazing Jodi Taylor. Jodi, how you doing, girl?

I am well. I'm well. I've got to see you a couple times this week, so I'm happy. I'm blessed.

I know. I'm so excited about that. You know, we had to come back because we had so much tea to spill as it pertains to glowing up. And I just felt like we couldn't put it all in one episode. So I wanted to make sure that we were giving bite sized pieces so that it could really be internalized. Because when I tell you this is a game changer, not just in love, but in life, I always see that. I always say that you have to have your life together if you want to have your love life together. And so I just think that you are really putting the girls on when it comes to glowing up. And I'm just so happy that you came back so we can share more of this Glow up tea.

Of course. No, I. Thank you for having me back. I'm excited.

Yeah. All right, so let's get into it. I mean, the last time we talked about physical, we talked about social. Now I want to talk about career and financial, which I think is so important. I think everyone knows that, but I think that especially for black and maybe brown women, they don't know how to really glow up in that area. So, girl, put us on. What are your thoughts and feelings around.

This, the financial Glow Up? I think there are a couple components to it. The first thing I would say, oh, I also launched a Glow up ebook. And we talk about a lot of this content in that ebook. But the first thing where I start in this globe ebook, when we're talking about career content is a lot of y' all are on the wrong journey when it comes to your career. A lot of y' all are, unfortunately. And I can speak for myself as well. I'm a daughter of immigrant parents, and so I thought I Had to be a lawyer, doctor or in finance. And so I, I was pursuing a lot of careers that are not in my zone of genius. And zone of genius is essentially this area that only you can do. It comes naturally to you, it brings you energy when you do it. It comes with ease. And you're sort of like in your flow state when you're doing that work. So I would encourage people to reverse engineer their career, which is essentially printing out the LinkedIn of three to five people who are in your ideal career. And you have to be honest with yourself. Like if you really want to be the MD of Morgan Stanley, like that is ok. Okay. And be honest with what you want to do and sort of just like look at their career and reverse engineer. Like what schools did they go to? Did they go to business school, did they go to law school, did they work at a nonprofit? Do they work at a startup? And kind of figure out what some of those synergies are and then see how you can apply that to your own career, into your own pathway to really make sure you're on track. Because I've had friends who took the first job out of college at like a customer service role because they wanted to work at a big name organization and now they're 10 years into that role. But they really wanted to do marketing the whole time, but they just wanted to get a job. So making sure that you're aligned to the career path that you want is my first tip. Like making sure that you are not in the wrong place.

I think that's so important. Girl, I started out as a consultant. I went and got my MBA and then I was managing billion dollar budgets for fashion companies and now I'm in my zone of genius.

Yeah, yeah.

So I think that is so important. And realize when you're in your zone of genius, you will rise to the top very quickly. People think that, oh my God, it's going to take forever. Because now girl, it's girl, your acceleration, your trajectory is going to 10x.

That's exactly right. There's this test that I had to take. It was probably my second job out of college. It's called strength finders. And you know strength finders behind that test is you want to lean into things like that you're naturally good at. Because if you. I'm like a two in math. Right. So I'll never be great at math, but my first job, I am horrible. Why do we need math when we have a calculator.

Tell me that what.

You.

Good at math. But if You I'm horrible at math and so I started my career out in finance but that.

Asset management because they said cute girls can work at asset management.

Yeah, I was at work at Stanley in asset management. Like what am I doing here? I hated every second of it, but that's what I thought success looked like. And I'm horrible at math. And so the premise behind this is do things that you are naturally good at. So after that I pivoted into DEI work and more people facing client facing communications oriented roles. I'm naturally, let's say an 8 at that. So that comes significantly easier for me. I made infinitely more money doing that. I would probably still be an analyst, an associate at Morgan Stanley because I just wouldn't be getting promoted. I'm not naturally good at it, but now I'm a senior level leader in a large organization because I leaned into the skills that come naturally to me. So finding your zone of genius and aligning to what your purpose driven life is to what you are naturally good at, that to me is my biggest piece of career advice. And then reverse engineering your career and then the other things that I think about, I always hinge on meritocracy is a farce. I do not think it's real.

It isn't.

You're right, it is not real. I think unfortunately we have been told toil at your job and you will get promoted, you will get visibility, you have, your skill set has to be unimpeachable. I will always say you have to execute, you have to be great at what you do. But there are so many other components that I really think play into having an incredible career. And those other components are having particular skill sets of executives and not managers or individual contributors. So you can't be a worker, be and a leader simultaneously.

That's right.

Figuring out how to obviously execute. But learning skills like influencing public speaking, learning how to have gravitas like executive presence, those are the skills of leaders. Leaders are not in the day to day trenches. So if you're able to demonstrate those skills earlier in your career, I think that will take you far. Having a board of directors internally and externally, these are people who can advocate for you within your organization. And then lastly.

I'm sorry, let me just stop you there because when you're talking about gravitas and public speaking, what can the girls do? Because I think that's so important. Everyone's just going to work and coming home and not really thinking about how can I really, really level up in this way. So what are Some places or events or schools or courses that they can take to really level up in those areas.

Yeah, I would say public speaking is the number one skill. That or just communications generally. If you want to be a senior level executive, particularly in a non technical role, if you're a software engineer, maybe not, but you can get a lot of those skills by doing things like Toastmasters. So that's an organization where you can. I haven't, I've never been to one. But essentially like these little groups, meetings where people can do like small public speaking presentations and then you're coached on it and it's like in a safe space with a group of maybe like 10 to 15 people. There's also what I also recommend people to do is read. And I'm not saying an audiobook, I'm saying reading. Because reading, when you're actually reading a book, it helps you understand sentence structure and it helps you with elocution. So don't audiobook, don't podcast, actually read books. That girl.

Don't tell them not to podcast girl, right now.

Because some people will swap out, I'll say audiobook. People will swap out a book with the audiobook. So make sure that you're reading. And then also watching YouTube videos has been really transformative for me. So watching how people pace, how people speak, how people pause while they're speaking to communicate a point, what they do with their hands, observing all of that will help you become a better public speaker.

Yeah, I love that. Thank you. What about gravitas? What is that? How do you become that girl if you, if you're not that girl?

Now.

I would say there is an unspoken language at every organization that you're in and your responsibility is to figure out what that unspoken language is. So I would say observe the people who are the senior leaders at the table. And we all know who is really the power player in a room. Your greatest asset, I think, in your glow up journey is observation and execution. If you are able to observe the people who are leading the meetings, who people have deference toward, watch their patterns, watch how they speak, when they speak, how they move, all of that, and then integrate that into your own sort of way of being. And gravitas is just like executive presence. It's how you hold space in a room, how you present, how you speak, how people engage with you. It's almost like your aura, your executive aura. So being able to observe senior leaders and how they move through spaces, that is going to be your key. And figuring out how to emulate the Gravitas that is also the currency at your particular organization. Because not every organization is the same. Not every organization values the same way of moving throughout a space the same.

Yeah, I love that. One of the things that I saw in one of your videos is you were talking about how it is so important when you're trying to get your money up to move roles every two to three years. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I think some of the girls are like, if I'm just loyal, kind of like with a man, honey, if I'm just by audition, I'm going to get the role. And sometimes it doesn't work like that. Oftentimes it doesn't work like that.

Like that. Yeah. I hope the pandemic has sort of recalibrated this for a lot of people. The mass layoffs, the working from home to understand that ultimately we are cogs in a wheel when it comes to this whole career and capitalistic space. So you want to do what is best for you. Do not have more loyalty to an organization than you do yourself. So I am a fan of moving roles every two to three years. And you know what makes sense for your career if you're up for a promotion. Like usually you want to stay for a promotion or two in order before you move roles. But if you know a promotion is five, six years out, do not stay for it. Because every time you leave an organization, your pay should increase about 30%. So you are. That is the easiest way. And when you get a promotion. I've gotten many promotions in my life. I'm always gagged. I'm going up 5%, 6%.

They're not giving you nothing girl. They're just giving you that title girl.

Exactly. They're not giving you anything. When you promote, when you are promoted, you will maybe make 15 more dollars every paycheck or whatever it is. It is such a nominal amount. So you want to leave organizations every two to three years. And I also say bounce through experiences. Like you shouldn't have the same experiences whether you're in the same role or company or not. You should have an experience that is like a startup or non profit experience where you're having to like be really scrappy. You should have an experience of a large organization where you have a budget and you see how organizations with large budgets operationalize and do their work. You should have an experience delegating. You should have an experience leading like all of the. You should look for a diversity of experiences in each role that you get as well.

Yeah, Yeah, I love that. Now, you were saying there was one last thing about career before I had interjected. I'm sorry about that. What was the lesson that you wanted to share?

It was about having a board of directors and a brain trust. Those two things are critical when you're looking to really amplify and accelerate your career. So personal brand to me is the most important thing that you can have in your career. Skillset should be unimpeachable. But everyone that you work with, not everyone, but most people that you work with are probably smart and can probably do the job. But the people who really sort of fast track their career are the people who have networks and brands that do a lot of the work for them. So have a board of directors. These are people internally and externally that can evangelize for you that when you're not in the room, they're putting you on projects, they are pulling you into meetings, they are advocating for you to go on these professional or personal development opportunities. You want to have a board of directors and they sit in different parts of the business, they know your work, and they're advocates for, for you. And then you also want to have a brain trust. And my brain trust is four people. We're in a group chat, and it's essentially people in different industries. I would say they're maybe five to eight years more senior than me, but we're all sort of like peer group and friends for the most part. And they're in different industries. So some are in marketing, some are in finance, some are influencers. And what they're really helpful with is they can put you on in spaces that you don't necessarily have access to. So one of them has access to every gala in New York City. So if you're looking for a gala ticket, they're going to help you with that. Another friend is really big in marketing. So if you have a question around strategic rate or building a deck for work, they're going to help you with that. If you, you know, put out a piece of content. One of my friends always posts. He writes LinkedIn articles all the time and is trying to be a thought leader on LinkedIn. And he will immediately post it into that group chat and we will boost it and comment it and like it. So it's essentially this group of sort of supporters in career and personal life that can really sort of accelerate. They're not. They're not sponsors and they're not mentors per se. They're more so like peer group people, almost like lateral connections. But they have excelled in their own respective spaces that can help put you on.

I love that. I love that so much. I'm so happy that you talked about really getting advocates in work. And I think that's like a struggle for many women of color, specifically black women, specifically. So, like, let's say I've been at a job for a year and a half. I'm doing pretty good, like, but I need to like, get to that next level. What. How do I. How do I even.

Approach or even think about. And we're spending a lot of time on this because I feel like this is such a immense opportunity that is not being seized as much. So how would I start to have those conversations? Do I just say I want to have like an informational lunch with you or what does that look like?

Yeah, so I think it depends if you're trying to stay in the role or space that you are in. Let's say you've been at a role for a year and a half and you're sort of ready for a promotion. The first thing that you need to do is tell everybody that you're ready for a promotion. And the reason being is when I was working at a large tech organization, someone was getting promoted year over year and we were like, how? And I'll never forget the lead of the team was like, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. She lets us know that she wants to be promoted. We also recognize that she's a flight risk if we don't promote her. So we going to do every. Y' all are not asking for promotions like so. Therefore, word. These organizations have budgets and they have budgets that are allocated for promotion and compensation. They can only give X amount of promotions every single cycle or every single year. Otherwise their budget will be diminished. So they are going to prioritize the people that they know they are going to lose if they don't promote. They only have X amount of money to do. It's a diminishing pot. So you want to be a part of that diminishing pot. So I would say first and foremost tell people you want to get promoted. Tell your manager. Also work you usually have like an HR business partner. Talk to your HR business partner around what are the competencies? Because they will be probably be a part of your promotion process. What are some of the competencies and skills I need to get to the next level? What are some projects that I need? Talk to your manager about that. Also in some organizations, not only your manager has to decide if you're ready for promotion at A lot of these large tech companies, not only your manager but everyone globally has to decide. Everyone who is your manager's peer has to decide that you're ready. So make sure that you're working on cross functional projects, make sure you have visibility globally, make sure that other people know your work, not just your team, not just your manager. And yeah, looking to pivot outside of industries, informational coffee chats. I really think doing LinkedIn and understanding what it takes to be in that role, what are some of those skills that it requires and then just filling in the gaps as needed. If you're applying externally, having multiple types of resumes and.

Sort of like a hack, because I used to do this work, is recruiters essentially type in something called a Boolean search, which basically is they go on LinkedIn and they search for particular words and look for all the profiles that come up. So if I were looking for a business analyst who's a black woman, for example, I would type in like business analyst, maybe like Alpha Kappa Alpha or Delta Sigma Theta or she's a part of NSBE or one of those organizations, because those key terms, they're going to automatically pull up the people that fit the criteria of the role. So what you want to do is have key terms in your resume that signify that you are aligned to the role that they're looking for. So go into the job description of the role that you're looking for, pull out those terms and then put it in your resume because that will ensure that people will be able to find you on LinkedIn or on those sort of like web platforms.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Good. Oh my God, I love this so much. Girl. Let's, let's shift gears because I want to talk about kind of emotional, intellectual, spiritual component of the glow up, which I think is so important. What do you have to say about that?

The first things first, go into therapy. That is like my number one tip.

Wait, can we talk about this? Because I feel like there's so many black women that are in therapy, but like not as many women are talking about it. Many of the girls out there are in therapy. They're just not talking about a girl.

I actually don't know anyone who's not in therapy. I genuinely don't have any friends to my knowledge who are not in therapy or I would say like 80% of my friends are at therapy. Everyone is in it. It is life changing. I would say that was like the premise or the start of my globe journey. My globe journey was unintentional by all Means but as I was sort of feeling better and looking like that is how my globe journey started. But it really the crux, the genesis of it was therapy and something that my therapist taught me was a body scan. And that to me has been so beneficial. So body scan, as we were talking about something hurtful, painful, trauma triggering, she would say, jodi, where does this show up in your body? She would say, are you just your throat closing? Is your heart beating fast? Are you rubbing your hands together? And that is something that can really help inform when situations or places or people are safe for you. So I would always recommend getting a therapist and learning how to do a body scan. Yeah. Some other tips within like the, the wellness glow up space are also things called wellness wheels, which I love. A wellness wheel essentially helps you understand what are some of it's like a diagnostic test and helps you where life. And so those are my things around like the therapeutic wellness part of the globe journey. But number one thing is get a therapist and get a therapist that is trained in the type of therapy that you need. So it might be like dbt, it might be inter family systems. Do your research and figure out what kind of therapist is right for you.

Yeah, definitely. And what about spiritual right? I mean obviously everyone has their own spiritual practice or, and, or you know, ways of being. But maybe if you could just talk a little bit about your spiritual glow up that might be helpful.

Yeah, of course. I would say for me, I grew up a Christian, but very, very, very, very strict Christian parents in a way that didn't feel completely aligned. God felt a little bit more prosecutorial than maybe I wanted to experience. Like a lot of things were done out of like guilt. And so I sort of found my way back to Christianity in ways that made sense to me, ways that felt loving and supportive. But generally whatever your spiritual belief is, I really think that creating a purpose driven life is the most important thing you can do. I really aligned to that where I went through a very, very, very difficult time where my dad had passed away in October, then I went through a breakup in November, then I was laid off like that January. So it was like back to back. And then other things were happening during that time. But what I had was a more purpose driven life than just my job or just a relationship. And so when you're aligned to something that is much bigger than yourself, that allows you to sort of nap, it gives you resilience. Like you are not committed to your, your identity is not centered around a person or job. Those things are Fleeting. They also found in this study that people, they were sort of like these keys to longevity and people who live to be octogenarians or people who live to be over 100. Those were the people who had a purpose driven life. They had something that anchored them. Usually it's volunteering, usually it's Christianity or like religious belief system. It can be your own business and what you're building, but making sure that you have something that anchors you through life storms. That, to me is like what spirituality is about. It's something larger than yourself.

Yeah, I love that. I love how you just mentioned that. Because when I think about my great grandmother and my grandmother, My great grandmother lived to be almost 93, 94. My grandmother is currently 93. And my grandmother is on prayer lines from 7 to 10pm every night.

Yep.

And between the other hours, she's praying for everybody in the family and everybody in the world.

Yep.

That's our purpose. Right. My great grandmother, who used to work for obviously white families and used to, you know, babysit the children and clean and cook after, you know, when she came back to California, where we were from Virginia, she continued doing that. So she was up at 5am Even though we'd been like, please don't do that. Please let us do that for you. No, she had to do this because this was her purpose. And I truly believe that that activity helped her live the life right. And have the longevity of life. She had something that she needed to do and wake up for.

So thank you so much for sharing that 1000%. Similarly, my dad passed away shortly after he was retired. And that is a study that a lot of these, like, social psychologists see is that when someone either like shortly after they retire or shortly after, specifically for men, if their spouse dies, they usually die very shortly after because it's like I have nothing left to live for. Whereas my mom. My mom is working. She's. She just became a deacon church.

She's.

She's like, I'm going to Martha's Vineyard this week. So. And she's approaching 70 and she is sprightly and young. So it kind of shows that discrepancy. When you have purpose in your life, you will fundamentally live longer, look better, feel better throughout its entirety.

Yeah. Yeah. Good. Awesome, awesome, awesome. So.

As we think about the glow up, because, you know, we've shared a lot of different things, but a lot of this takes a level of commitment and consistency. So how can we stay committed to these goals?

Girl.

Right? I mean, how do you grow? Because it sounds like a lot. No shade. I think we all want this glow up, but we also want to do it in a way that is manageable. Right. So that we can continue it, so that we can see the fruits of our labor.

Yeah. 1,000% thoughts on that. Yeah.