Bring Your Authentic Self to Work (How-To Monday)

self to work. And through her work, Jodyanne says she is on a mission to disrupt business as usual to achieve social change, and she's doing that in a couple of different ways, and especially in the way that she's approached her career. So we're going to talk to Jodyan about the TED talk about the myth of Black women bringing their full authentic self to work also her podcast. She has an amazing podcast called Black Cancer, which we're going to talk about where she explores the lives of

people of color through their cancer journeys. I cannot wait to get into this conversation. So, without further ado, Hello Jodyann. Thanks for joining VA.

trying to make do? And then what also happens to your career path when you're a black woman in predominantly white spaces trying to carve out space for how you work right, your authenticity, your values, your ambitions. And so I think on that second half of it, between the recession and what is it like to navigate work as a black woman. Yeah, you'll see people changing jobs every couple of years or changing industries every couple of years.

And so I think that this path of the topic of my TED talk authenticity, that I've kind of always been on that path in some shape or form, trying to understand who I am in these spaces, who I am as a person who's born in Jamaica but moved to the US within my first year of life, navigating those two cultures within blackness, Navigating what it's like to try to succeed and understand yourself in the context of

predominantly white institutions and predominantly white workspaces. I've always been trying to understand what is truly my authentic core and what have I had to adapt as part of who I am in the process of code switching for know now twenty plus years of my life, right, And so I think I've always kind of been building through my own experiences personally, my professional path, and just my scholarship of kind of authenticity in these types of contentious environments

or environments that have high stakes, because who you are in your authenticity with your friendships isn't tied to your livelihood or your health insurance. Yeah, so there's a lot of risk in that space. So I think I've always been building content wise. But as far as the TED stage, and I know you talked about the podcast and to make that linkage here, four years ago around this time

I had my surgery. I'm sure we'll get more into that, But as a part of going through that process of the prediagnosis depression that I was experiencing, the post diagnosis depression I was experience and saying, just like, how traumatic that health crisis was when you're in a situation when you have to really grapple with your own mortality. There was a period of time that I couldn't see myself in the future, Like I really just like, all right, let's just make it through the end of today, maybe

we make it tomorrow. But I really could not see or imagine my life beyond like the immediate crisis that I was in. And so the moment that I had the thought that oh, I'm going to apply for tedex Seattle became the moment where I'm like, wait, are you seeing yourself in the future? Yeah, do you see a vision? Do you see a path for? You know? Your life? What you can contribute? And I think, most critically what

I want to leave behind? What do I have to say that can outlast me and kind of reach way beyond I could in my little corner of the world. And so that's kind of how I got to the TED stage. Like both content wise, life experience wise, but also what makes you take that leap was this desire to leave something behind. It's interesting because you think about leaving things behind, but I don't think I really fully grappled with or thought of what being on the TED stage would create a head for me.

get this public sense of who you are. You know, who you are on social media, who you are on the TED stage, what people think about you kind of through these mediated platforms, and then who you actually are.

I have eld insurance. Okay, so it's like it was just it was a lot, and I was getting very tired of that, especially in a lot of these in and out of new doctors' offices, being met with racism and different bias, which shows up as I mean, are you really in a lot of pain? I had one doctor tell me that a lot of what I was experiencing was a result of having having a sedentary lifestyle, and I'm like, well, how do you know that, because I snowboard, I surf, I run, I lift weights. I

was on a competitive dragon boating team. So he's looking at me like, oh, why didn't you tell me, well, why did you assume looking at me? I don't know if it was colored my skin shape, with my body that you assumed that I was sitting at home watch TV all day, which is also fine for people who do that, not trying to judge on people's lifestyles, right, And so just kind of deal with like the back and forth of that and the it was just draining.

I cannot describe like the level of pain, but you're just like it's whatever you push through, you go to work. I still did all my physical activities and I was hurting the whole time, which is a whole other thing of why do we normalize being in pain like that? Wasn't okay. At some point I was describing all of this to my sister and she just interrupted me and she's like, Joe, so you were not Serena Williams. And I'm like, first of all, you don't have to come

for me like that. I know that I know that I'm not Serena Williams, Like what is your point here? But the point she was making was that I'm just

a regular active person. You know, Serena Williams is an elite athlete, right, being a regular active person should not create the amount of ailments that I was having, right, that the fact that I was in pain was not normal or should be warranted for the types of activities that I was doing, because again it's not like I'm I'm doing a lot, but I'm not an elite level competitive, greatest in the world athlete, and so that kind of snapped to me that this is actually not okay, and

so I kind of grited down, barried it. I gave myself four months to do every single test that they could do, unrelenting, right, that I would just give myself that amount to really do the investigat work, which is itself a massive privilege to be able to take the time off, to be able to have the health insurance or the finances to cover that, or or even the mental capacity to invest in your health in your in yourself that way. And so I was like, I have

all these things lined up for me. I'm just going to commit for the next couple of months to figure it out. Literally, the next test that I did, which was an MRI, my cervical spine, found a massive tumor inside of my spinal cord. So the way it was explained to me was if I did nothing, I would be completely paralyzed from the neck down in a year. So I should have surgery and should have it within the week, which I pushed back because I was already

scheduled to go snowboarding in Europe. So I was like, yeah, I'm going to Europe first and then i'll.

I cannot make you better than you are from when you go into surgery, and so you could be compromising. You know the best thing that you have going for you right now, which is the fact that you're healthy right like you have a lot of mobility. He actually said to me that when he saw my scans, he didn't he didn't expect someone who could walk to come

into his office, like that's that's where we were. And so after the deliberation, I was like, I have to go to Europe, like I have to do this trip like this to be my last opportunity for anything like this, And so kind of went through that whole process, had the surgery, had a lot of rehab to.

in military. They planned that if I ended up severely like paralyzed, that she would adopt me as her child so I can get health insurance through the military and I wouldn't have to bankrupt my entire family for the rest of my life, you know. Like so there were a lot of what if head and I just needed to focus on there. Now I'm going to Europe. I'm going to have surgeram. We'll see what happens after that.

When I came back to work from that, And one thing you know, at the intersections with work here that I want to emphasize is that when you have a health crisis, or someone in your household or someone that you take care of has a major health crisis. You have to decide what is likely an inevitability that you have to tell somebody at work, and not all workplaces know how to handle the real humanness that comes with

when a health crisis is in play. Whatever meetings I had, whatever deadlines I was working on, did not matter as soon as I got that news. And thankfully, whereas working at the time, they're like, you do what you have to do, all the paperwork, all the PTO, all the disability whatever, we will handle that on the back end. I did not have to worry about anything when it came to my job. In fact, after surgery, I was on disability leave for four months and they created a

policy at my organization. This is a very small organization, nonprofit, so I don't even know if those large companies do this, but they created a policy where you could donate your PTO to someone else. And so in the creation of that policy, I was able to extend my leave an additional month because I was still I mean, I couldn't even type after surgery, right, I had to relearn how to do everything that I could extend my leave and

still get my full paycheck. It's it was probably the greatest gift to not have to worry about my livelihood, how I was going to be paying for all these bills, what I would have to do work wise. They took every single thing off my plane. Not everybody has that experience, even when it's you who've been diagnosed with cancer or you have this. We're seeing this now with COVID, how sensitive companies are with giving space for that or understanding

the role of caregivers. You know, my sister's job was very supportive of her because she was the one who was primarily caring for me after I got discharged, And so I just wanted to emphasize that because if we talk about this in authenticity language like this is genuinely what I was dealing with, what I was going through, and my work environment had the ability to hold that to support me as I was trying to, like fright

for my life. Right. Not all places have that. It's like are you going to be well or are you going to work here? And we prefer that you work here regardless of what physical, mental or emotional damage that does to you. I think, you know, just to land

the plane here. But after going through that experience, it became very clear to me that difference between like how different my experience could have been if I was working somewhere else, and so that division of what is me and what is this organization, what is the environment, what is the individual, and what is the institution? Right, so that became super clear for me. But also, and I've talked to a lot of people on the podcast who go through this, but the capacity for bullshit is like

almost eliminated after you go through something like that. And so my decision making after that was very clear. Right at a job that I loved, it was absolute nonsense to me, and I quit right. I wanted to kind of create my life in this way. I'm not handwringing and like I don't know what should you do? Should I do this? Maybe I could wait? No, wait for what?

And so I still live my life that way with people who want to plan stuff for me, like months in advance or you know, I've had people ask me like, oh, what are you working on or what goals do you have? And I tell them the same thing, like I don't plan my life more than two weeks out right, Like

I just because you don't know. And I think that kind of trauma response also gives me a sense of urgency and a way where I don't negotiate with what keeps me healthy, what keeps me sane, and what keeps me happy, Like that's non negotiable, and so I always try to take care of myself.

spinal tumor. The client that I was talking to this morning, when I tell you, and it's so serendipitous that I'm sitting with you now because I think back to my I hate the word client makes it sound so transactional. But this woman who has been working with me for a couple of months now, and I looked at her and I was like, you've realized I need you to act more like your your house is on fire right now, like you're having an emergency. We need to call nine

one one, and their responses. Quit the responses. It's time for you to walk away and take six months off. But and it was like she was waiting for something big enough, the catastrophe, the tumor on a scan, you know what I mean, And the fact that and it's really difficult kind of get people to a place where they can see their own health and their own well

being as that emergency like it actually is in jeopardy. Wow, all right, ba fam, Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back with more of my illuminating conversation with Jody Ambury. This is brown ambition, All right, ba fam, we are back. Let's dive right back into my conversation with Jody Ambury. The surgery, the physical rehabilitation. How long did all of that take?

you to project like your shit onto that situation. And so there's this sense of like when you go through something really difficult, that if you get on the quote unquote other side of it, that the process itself was worth it. Right. I would strongly prefer to not have had a spinal tumor or to be currently living with a spinal cord injury and all the disability and challenges and chronic pain that come from that. Like, I would

absolutely rather not have gone through that. The experience when I was in hospital was traumatizing and very very isolating, And this is pre COVID, right, so I had people visiting me every day, but it's really challenging. And I remember this one instance where they took me to the bottom of a staircase and she was like, all right, you know, for pta today, we're gonna walk up the stairs.

And I was so irritated because I'm like, I'm that memorial Sloan kettering like this is like the creme day la Creme of cancer centers in the world, and what we're doing today is walking up these dingy back staircase Like give me the bells and whistles, like I want cool equipment. So I'm all high and mighty off myself, like this is what we're doing, Like we're walking upstairs. And I stood at the bottom of the stairs and

I just kind of looked up. I started crying. Because it's interesting about a spinal cord injury is that there's nothing physically wrong with my muscles, my legs, like my body functions. The problem is is that the brain cannot get the information to the rest of the body. And so when people use paralysis as a figurative sense of speech, I'm like, you have no idea what that experience is like.

To be at the bottom of a staircase looking at it, wanting to walk up, but your body is not moving, and having to constantly send those signals over and over and over again and hope that one of them gets through and your leg moves, which I think actually sounds like we're you're talking about with your client, where you're like, you keep sending these signals like girl, quit your job, right, like do something different, take some time off, and the

signals are not getting through, and so you keep sending them and hoping that, like you can, you can take the step. So I think I understand why people use it, you know, figuratively, but the actual work of kind of navigating through partial paralysis is I guess it's humbling.

the pandemic, from that, like like I don't. I don't want people to have to go through a crisis to start investing in themselves and to spend their intellectual energy, you know, as we talk about professional lives through something that really matters to you, but also is getting you kind of what you want out of that realm of your life. And so I'm not saying that everyone has

to do meaningful work. You can make widgets. If those widgets give you, you know, generational financial safety and that's important to you and that's your goal, then great, right, But are you destroying yourself regardless of what path you choose in that process? Like? Are you unhappy? And so I just want people to tap into, like what actually matters to you, what's actually important to you? How can you achieve your goals without eroding yourself?

the urgency of protecting happiness and well being. And what I feel like the shift that I'm seeing is we are collectively using our voices and even people like you going on stages and talking about the importance of us telling that and holding employers accountable and companies and businesses accountable for breaking down their problems, breaking down their systems and processes to better accommodate our new perspectives and our you know, what we value the most, which you know,

which is love, family, wellness. You know, why is it not okay for me as a mom, a black woman, a mom, a working person. I I I even I'll put myself out there and say that I judged my own mom when she would tell me, I just want to be a mom. I don't want to work. I just want to be a mom. I had to work because I had four kids, and you know, was by myself. And I'd be like, you just wanted to be a mom,

But like that isn't which is the huge job. It's a huge job, and it's also but I felt for me, you know, I'm glad I got over this really quickly. But it was like I had this perception that like there was a glamorization of work and working and being a part of a you know, being a part of a company and doing the nine to five, and that you know, the traditional image of the working woman through

the eighties. I think we were as eighties I'm an eighties baby, and you kind of see the women and you have to like act like the man and be aggressive with your career, but at what cost. So we're almost like we're the next level of that. It's, yes, we can have careers, but we can have it on our own terms, and we don't have to sacrifice our

financial well being to have a job. We shouldn't have to sacrifice our face nancial well being to have work that is meaningful, that treats us well, takes care of us and lets us clock out when we want to clock out and spend time with the kids and have time for ourselves and all that beauty. So, for you and I, the way that we got there was being

our own boss. And I want to talk to you about that transition for a lot of women, and it is you know, I'm so happy that they can find places in traditional you know, nine to five work where they are able to do that, feel safe, be well paid. It exists, y'all who are listening. It exists, I hope people sometimes it does. But in this particular chapter in your life, you are on your own. So how has that been, that transition into independence, and how's it going?

I had a non traditional approach even to entrepreneurship. I've tried the like forecasting and here are all my marketing strategies and this and that, but that is it's so not me and so not what I had the energy for, where I'm just like, I just want to do what I want to do, and so I call it. If someone steals this, I'll be so pissed. Maybe I'm not going to give it a name. Because it is a cool name. But the strategy is basically, the strategy is to work as authentically as I can and as publicly

as I can. And so when I started in twenty twenty, I wanted to have conversations about microaggressions in the workplace, but again I wanted the audience to be us, and so it was like a workshop for women of color. We're going to talk about microaggressions, kind of what the experiences are. And I was just trying to figure out, like what in that topic I actually cared about, and

so I just started doing it. It wasn't perfect, right, It was probably a seventy percent, which is my rule, Like if it's seventy percent good, If it's seventy percent there, it's enough, right, which itself I think also for black women is like wait, is it not perfect? Yeah?

I had no audience really before this, and just started doing them very regularly, and from that built this huge audience, like I would have three thousand people on the waiting list, and so kind of building off of that and kind of crafting like, Okay, what in this do I care about? What else do I care about? I started the Black Cancer podcast, which is not revenue generating at all, and important for me to kind of keep that as a

passion project. And it just started kind of doing. What I didn't expect is that people who showed up in these places in my workshops, workplaces, right, I didn't plan this, and so they're like, hey, can you do this for us? And can you do that? And I'm like, wait what? And so in the beginning of that, I had no idea what to charge. I was just kind of I don't know, making things up, talking to people. I would never charge something. Now, somebody now what I accepted two years ago, like.

the things I had energy for. Now, what that came with is saying no to clients who would not pay me what I asked for, and this is when I was not even charging that much, Saying no to people that I felt bad vibes from, Like there's a CEO of a big company here in Seattle who made a comment about my hair in a zoom meeting and I'm like, yeah, this is not not the match, and no to thousands

of dollars because I didn't like the interaction. And so I always try to center on what's given me energy, what's taking away my energy, and as much as I can make decisions about what's given me energy. What's also critical to this too is that I never wanted to make decisions based on money, because if it was about

the money, then I could go work for somebody else. Right, The whole point of working for myself was to give myself the level of agency to structure my day the way I wanted and to do the types of things that I could get excited about, and to work with the type of people that I want to work with. And so I love saying no to people, and I've turned down a lot of people and that's been an

important part of my process. So the last thing I'll say too, is that because I work in what I'll call it such a self centering way, i have never pitched work to anybody. I've not done a proposal. I've not done like you know, the RFPs. I've not emailed people cold with a deck or anything. I work publicly and I make sure that my website is up today and people know how to find me, and so all of my business is inbound. And I love that because

it changes the power dynamic. I'm actually deciding whether I want to work with you instead of the other way around. And that level of power is a level that a power I've never experienced in my career before. And you know, spinal cord injury aside, I've never been as mentally or physically healthy than I've ever been, and that that's the point, you know.

all that. But we need more examples. And I'm so glad that you share yourself with us because we need more examples of this, more women doing whatever the hell they want to do and showing that, yeah, my bills are paid and I'm doing what I want to do, so now what And on top of that, what you said that I work so hard. I have a group coaching program and one of my favorite things to talk about is one of the scariest for the women that

I work with, which is your brand. It is and it's using your voice and standing in your point of view and speaking and sharing and showing people what it is that you're doing and not being afraid of that, you know, not being afraid of creating your own platform and sharing and how much power there is when you tell people. As soon as I started actually opening my mouth a lot more and sharing my opinions, your audience will find you, and those opportunities baybe when you said

all those inbound requests. Yes, that can that will happen in your career. You know, even if you're nine to five. It'll be recruiters reaching out. It'll be hiring managers. You know if they if you don't open the front door and you know, say come on in, how are they going to know that you're there? And I think that's such a I'm so happy and to hear that, to hear you say that there was power in you being more public, you know, with the work that you're doing

and not waiting around for the permission. Event Bright is free Bright.

to keep at it. And now there's like over thirteen thousand people on this list, right, And so what was important for me is I set process goals. I do not set outcome goals. And the times where I have tried to set outcome goals is when I've stopped doing the work. And so what I mean by that is this. When I had the podcast, my goal was not how many listeners I would get, you know, what type of

outlets would talk about the podcast? Like, none of those things right, those are all kind of like outcome goals. My one marcro of success for Black Cancer when I started was if I said that the season starts on April first, did you start the on April first? If I set the schedule that I would release an episode every single Monday, did I release an episode every single Monday? That's it? And if that happened, that was successful.

It was about scheduling the time and making it a consistent habit, and then your audience begins to trust you and you show up for them and it may take you years and you know and all that, but as a personal trainer, I feel like you probably understand better than anyone that a lot of people know the steps it takes, but they won't. It's it's the differentiating factor between who actually takes those steps and who shows up. Who shows up, and it's not convenient, very different.

all my post surgery weight right now. There's nothing to do with how I feel about how I look, and all about trying to like feel good about like my body in a like a very grounded way. So not about aesthetics for the folks out there, like why trying this weight? Girl? You look great? I know it look great, but this is what I'm working on, right, So I'm trying to lose all my post surgery weight. And the thing that I kept going back to is like you have a agree in this. Yeah, you have done this

for other people. You've done this for yourself, and you have studied this. I have all the information that I need to meet my fitness goals, and I've been trying to meet these fitness goals for four years. Right, and so what supports you in taking the action? Right? Hey, you don't weigh the same that you did two years ago, So you need new clothes. Stop suffocating yourself with things that do not fit, that make you feel uncomfortable. So then you don't do the physical activity right, sign up

for the gym membership, go to the park. Here are all the actual environmental things that supports me in making this happen. What accountability can I set up? And so having the information is never enough. It's about what struck you have in place. And we see this with our workplaces. Most of our workplaces, if you look on our websites, on the websites of where you work, knows that diversity acting inclusion is important. They know that paying women the

same as men is important. They understand that diversity is key. They have all the information, right, do they act on said information? Yeah? No, right, no, no, noep.

there to lead the meeting? So you say that you know this thing, you say that you value this thing, you say that this thing is important, But what's actually happening infrastructurally to make those changes come to bear? And I think we could see that in entrepreneurship as well. There's the things that you want to do and the things that you do, So what are you doing?

at this early, early Friday hour with our audience. I know that they will feel seen in your work. So if you guys want to learn more about Jodyanne, check out her website. We'll have a link to the notes. Check her out on ig Jodian, Where's is the website? The best place for people to to find out more about your work? That's Jodyanbeery dot com.