Leverage Is My Favorite Word

the show, it's your first introduction. Let me just clarify something with you. We ain't your financial advisor, we ain't your lawyer. We are not your uh your gynecologist. We're not your therapist, we're not your doctor. So we give advice on the show. It is just meant to be for entertainment enlightenment purposes. Okay, use it for inspo. We can't know every single thing that is right for you, but we can definitely give you our best ideas and just based off of our own advice and expertise in

our different fields. When it comes to career stuff, I do qualify myself as an expert because I had a great career, I have a great career, and I help other ambitious women create incredible careers of their own. So I love getting these questions. I hope that you guys find it helpful. If you want to submit a question

to the podcast to be answered, it's super easy. Slide into our DMS at Brand Ambition Podcasts, and our wonderful assistant will direct your questions into the mailbag and then we just kind of pick each week which questions we want to answer. And this week two incredible questions have been highlighted. We got one that deals with a really important topic, which is what happens and how can I, you know, create a career when I actually have a

physical health condition that limits my physical abilities. And then we also have a question about someone who's got access to one of the dinosaurs of workplace benefits called a pension plan and wants to know is it juicy enough to keep her there or can she entertain other job offers? So let's get on into it. Let's start with question This comes from someone who wants us to call her Mama Bear. Okay, from one Mama bear to another Mama Bear says, hey, browan ambition, I have a career question.

When do you disclose a medical condition to your boss? In this situation? A twenty seven twenty seven year old was diagnosed with MS in twenty twenty one. Recently, she's having difficulty with basic physical tasks and has a noticeable limp, awkward walking slash altered walking slash moves much slower due

to MS or another yet to be diagnosed condition. She was recently hired for a role that requires intermittent physical movement, including walking, lifting heavy equipment during about half of her work days. She's one month into this new career and is excited about it, but she's worried that her wedical condition may impede her performance. People are noticing when asked she told them something but didn't fully disclose what was happening.

She's in a right to work state and hopefully as the doctor slash medicine slash treatments are figured out, she will be physically better and can do the work. How do you best navigate this landmine of a conversation? Signed Mama Bear. Okay, Mama Bear, I'm going to guess this is your daughter and Ugh, it's just first of all, your daughter's only twenty seven years old, and I people getting diagnosed with MS that young is just wild to me. And I think on the bright side, you know, there's

a lot more awareness about multiple sclerosis these days. We have, you know, celebrities like Christina Applegate and Selma Blair, but then also our own first lady, the queen of everything in my mind, Michelle Obama, talks about her dad's struggle with MS even as she was a kid growing up. There's a lot more progress, I think being made when it comes to like treating people with MS. I don't personally have experience with MS, but if you zoom out of this, it's not so much about the name of

her condition. It's the fact that she has a medical condition which is a private one and it can remain so, and there are protections. There's something called the ADA, the American Discrimination Act. So what it's called. I know it's ADA, but what does stand ford though? Let me oh, the American Disabilities Act. Okay, aba fan, We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. So the ADA basically protects employees from being discriminated against as long

as they are qualified to do the job. They can't be discriminated against for any sort of quote unquote disability. We shouldn't be calling it that, I know, but different ability. So if that's issues with vision, hearing, physical movement, if you need a cane or a walker, or you know, you need special equipment, that you cannot be fired specifically

for that reason. So I had to do a little bit of I wanted to understand really how the law can be applied in a situation where jobs like absolutely need someone to be physically able to do the work. For example, I imagine you'd have a hard time getting hired by like a UPS or a FedEx to be working in the warehouse if you're not able to physically lift the boxes in the whatever you need the packages

into the trucks to be delivered. Right, So there is actually an allowance for companies to put on job descriptions if it is a if it's a legitimate requirement that you must be able to lift so and so, you must be able to stand for so many hours. And I think that that's fair enough because in some jobs there does need to be a physical requirement. My question for you and your daughter is she's so young and

carving out her career. I know that you guys are I mean, MS is just this, from what I understand, It's not a disease where you just here's the treatment for it, and we put a bit. You just get this medication, and that's what it is. It's not like you just get a moxacillin and your day, you know,

you're done, go fight the infection. It is so complex, and it's so individually complex that she may have her own treatment plan and that can change, and it probably will change as she ages and as the science develops. I hope to improve treatments for her disease. I think it's a really crucial, probably difficult conversation to have. Because you're twenty seven, you don't want any limits on your career, and I don't think she should have any limits on

her career. But I do think that the same way that you know, I approached my career, like, hey, I'm not great at accounting, so I'm probably not going to go into, you know, into learning accounting or becoming a CPA. I'm not great at well, I'm so not great at so many things. What do I choose? I'm not great at a sport, So I'm probably not going to go into a field that requires any sort of coordination and

physical like sport activity. So I think that she doesn't need to see it as like a something that's going to hold her back, but just some some information about herself and how she can best thrive in a workplace and for her own happiness. You just don't want to be in a workplace where you feel like you are not giving your best or not able to deliver the same as your colleagues, because you're just not made the

same way. We're all different. Right. What I will say is, at this stage, she is well within her right to keep the information private. I just don't want her to get hurt by doing that, because at the end of the day, who is she protecting with that information. If she goes to her HR or to her manager and says, hey, I want to disclose, I think she I want to disclose that I have been diagnosed with MS. Here's what

that means. Here's what my doctors have said. I am going to now ask you for to make some accommodations because I have this diagnosis. She is well within her right and as long as she is still qualified to do the parts of the job that is that they're

requiring her to do. They can't legally do anything about it, like they have to be okay with that, And it's I just don't want her to be unsafe because what if they're asking her to do something that she can't do and she hurts herself or you know, or just like the even just the mental toll of like can I do this thing? Yeah, and just that discomfort of saying that you can do something when you really don't know is your body Are you going to wake up

that day able to do it? Which I don't think of people with MS know every day what it's going to be like. You may have good days and bad days. Having a boss who understands that you're going to give them an opportunity to make accommodations for you and to be flexible for you. I can give an example as a as a leader when I was managing a big team. One of my my actually my number two, after she

was hired. I forget at what point, but came to me and said, I have a medical condition that I'm not giving her name, so I'll just say it was endometriosis, which is if you're a woman, you should know about endemetriosis. It's very painful condition that affects your menstrual cycle. It affects your fertility for so many different things, but it's also extremely painful. And when you're in that type of pain,

you can't show up to the office. And this was pre COVID, so we were come to work every day, be in the physical meetings, come to the happy hours, kind of vibe right, And so it was, you know, a request of hers, like when I'm in these when I'm having these bad days, then I'm going to need to work from home? Is that okay? And I was like, of course, but I had an opportunity to like make an accommodation, and I did and often, and I did a little bit of research on this just to make sure.

Often when it comes to MS, a common accommodation is to work from home because you know, you you may feel fatigue is a big symptom also pain, and that pain can manifest in different ways. So maybe that your daughter wants to move forward in her career kind of carving out a way that she can work from home or at least have like a hybrid work situation. At the very least work for you know, a company that has management that is going to accommodate her and be

like understanding when it's a bad day. I don't for her own good. I don't want to make this about you know. You could go, like I said, in the negative sort of lane of oh, this is going to hold me back from so much. I wanted this kind of career for myself. Don't think that way. I think the mindset has to be I'm going to make this

work for me as I am. I'm an individual, but I have every right to have an amazing career in whatever field that she's in, you know, in spite of this, in spite of this different ability that I have in this disease that I'm contending with, and you got to take charge of it yourself and kind of move empowered, move with the sense of let's figure this out. And ideally she has employer and employer who is going to be on board with that and wants to help her

be prepared. I would say, to have an employer who doesn't understand MS. I mean, you're kind of the same way you're asking me this question. If I was your manager, I'd be like Okay, I want to find out everything I can about your condition, and I want you to also help educate me so that we can create an environment that is you know, conducive to you. It makes you comfortable, and that may be you know, even paying

for a certain equipment. You know, if you want to work from home, they need a special equipment like a special computer or whatever workstation that they can, you know, spend a few hundred dollars to do that to accommodate you. Companies I've seen do that many times over on the off chance that you're working and they they don't want to accommodate you, or they say, okay, we respect this, but given the requirements of this job, you're not qualified

to complete the tasks that are required. This is the point where I think it would be smart for you to go in ahead of time, like really well educated on ADA, the American Disabilities Act and what is protected and what isn't. Like I said, if it's a job where like they were very specific, you need to be able to do this type of physical labor. And that's a big chunk of what the job is. I know you say that it's about half of her day. That's

a pretty significant amount of time. Then they may be within their rights to say, unfortunately, you're no longer able to do what we are what's necessary for this role. But it would be in their best interest, I would say, and yours for them to find a better fit for

you at the same company. And I would want to if it was me, if it was my daughter, I'd want to help her kind of do her own research before having the conversation and figure out maybe she could even come to the table with a suggestion this may bee, may not the best, may not be the best long term fit for me, But how about I check in with you once a month and just let you know how I'm doing, and we can sort of stay ahead

of it. And then if things start, you know, really deteriorating to where I can't actually consistently show up and do what I need to do, then here's an idea about transferring me to this other department, this other team. Where can we use my talents in the best way so that I can deliver for you guys, and that you guys, you know, are getting your business goals met. But I'm also bringing value to the team. It is a really complex conversation but I would not shy away

from it. Like I said, it's your baby, it's your daughter, and she needs to be safe and they need to know not to ask her to do certain things and understand, you know, don't treat and not be able to judge her negatively if she's like if they're like, oh gosh, this girl again is calling out sick or saying she needs to work from home, like, ough, what is going on? If you just give them the information, then they can

be more generous with you. I hate to say, but human nature is to sometimes think the worst of people who who you know, are not showing up to work the way that they think that they should be and all that. But if they just know what's going on, they can be much more sympathetic and empathetic to her, and that, ultimately, I think, is just going to be better,

better for her, healthier for her. She'll feel safer and supported, and if she's not getting what she needs from this place, then hopefully she can find well not hopefully she's going to find something else for sure where she'll be able to, yeah, find a job that's a good fit for her as she deals with as she deals with these conditions, and listen. As we know in this country, health care is tied to our work, so she has to work, right, It's survival.

It's like for her, all these bills she's going to be bringing up, like she's going to need to work unless it comes to a point where she's so debilitated. I pray it won't ever happen, but that she will need some sort of like social services to help, and then there's options for that Medicare, social Security, all of that. But as I don't think that that you're even close to that. I think as a mom, you know, you may just be like thinking of worst outcomes because it's

your baby and you're so scared for her. But at the same time, I think I would I would be really optimistic because that's going to help her stay optimistic and just say, like, we can figure this out, you know, don't keep it a big hairy, scary secret. Let's be transparent. Let's go in with like a solution oriented mindset and just say, hey, this is what I'm capable of. I can still contribute so much, Here's where I can do it,

here's what I think. Get the advice from your medical team as well, and bring that to the table and let your employer in on that so that they can be a supporter as well. Thank you, Mama Bear for sending this question. Is I hope? I mean, I know that so many of our listeners are either dealing with something. Maybe it's an invisible ailment like MS can be, or maybe it's just you have a loved one who's dealing with it and you've seen it effect their career. This

is not uncommon. I mean, you never know what people are going through, So I'm glad you asked. And if you're someone who's listening right now and there's something that you're holding back from your employer because you're afraid of repercussions, educate yourself on your protections too, and think about are you doing more harm than good by keeping it a secret? And what good can come of it if you open If you open up and let them in and let them see what you're going through, you may find on

the other side there's understanding, compassion, flexibility waiting for you. Okay, thank you so much for your question, Mama Bear, and we'll take a quick break, take a little woosa, and be right back for a question number two. All RIGHTBA Faan, we are back with another question. I recognize this ig handle City Floor. I think you have sent a question before, but I'm excited to hear from y'all again. You say, hey, Mandy and Tiffany, y'all are my favorite podcasters of all time.

All I seriously love you guys. Thank you. I'm so sweet. All Right, I have a career dilemma and need your help. I work at a big company and they've offered great benefits. One of them is a six percent retirement match and a pension plan after three year. One of them is a six percent retirement match in a pension plan after three years of employment. I'm going to be at two

years this September. My dilemma is, I've been getting a lot of in Mandy's words, juicy job offers on LinkedIn that offer a minimum one hundred K and great benefits slash work balance, they're one hundred percent remote, etc. I'm currently making a little over eighty K and I'm coming

into the office three days a week. It's enticing to consider one of these other offers, but I don't want to forgo the money the company has been putting into my retirement and the pension plan, especially since I've only got a year and change left to be vested. What advice would you give me? Please help many things, City Floor. Okay, I love this question. I love a company that offers not only a match for your retirement contributions, but a

pension plan of their own. That's incredible. I don't unfortunately, I want like, I want to know more about the details of your retirement match and of the pension plan. I need to understand that to give you, like a really specific answer to your question. But I'll do my best. Okay. So, when it comes to your four one K match and a pension plan, the keyword you mentioned it is vested. Are you actually vested? You say that after three years

of employment you have access to a pension plan. So I'm going to make an assumption here that in order to even have a pension plan, you have to work through three years. Then the company starts making an employer contribution to a pension for you. At that point, you're still not vested. There's going to be a vesting schedule for that pension, so the employer maybe making contributions to

your pension for years of employment. This happens in a lot of public sector fields, a lot less common in private sector, but hey, you found a little unicorn of your own. However, they're making these contributions, but you may you may not have access or you will not have

access to those funds until you are vested. All right, now, your retirement match This is when a company says, if you put in a certain amount of money to your retirement each month, we will match that up to, in your case, six percent of your contribution, or sorry, we will, yeah, we will contribute up to six percent of whatever you do or six It can it can vary the language, but they're going to be matching what you're putting into your four one K to a certain extent. But even

that match can be on a vesting schedule. So even if they're like, we're going to cover one hundred percent up to six percent of your contribution, they can still say, but you can't touch that money that we put in until you have been vested. It's for or until you've been here for ten years, then you're fully vested, or it'll probably be less than that. But you catch my drift. What I call when you're when I call this situation, it's actually a really positive one because this baby girl

gives you lever rige just my favorite word. It gets me up in the morning. It gives me life leverage, baby leverage. Here's what happens when you are applying for these other jobs, or you're not even applying, you're just getting little like you're getting nice, juicy offers on LinkedIn. Probably because you have a great profile that is specific about what skills you bring to the table and the jobs. The people who are looking for talent and posting jobs,

they are finding your profile and reaching out to you. Amazing. That's a great sign that you have a strong you know, profile, a strong brand professionally, and also that your skills are in demand. Love that for you. However, what that means for the people trying to poach you, which is what

they're trying to do. They're trying to get you to leave your comfortable job with the six percent match, with the promise of a pension, with the decent salary of eighty k. They're trying to get you to leave that job. And do you know what, all these these delicious things on your plate, all these benefits that you have, what that's telling them is, oh city floor, that floor is

not going to be an easy catch. We're going to have to bring the best, juiciest benefits and compensation to the table to get her to even consider taking our offer. That's leverage, baby, And that is when I say you can quit your way rich. What I mean is when you are willing to walk away from a job or even interview while you already have a job, it just puts you in a much more powerful position because they

already expect to have to win you over. Versus someone who is applying to a job and they've recently been let go or at their very first job, and the company is then thinking, oh, well, there's nothing else they have, so let's just give them the market value that we think is best for them. But you have a current market value, okay, So what I would do is I would not let your pension or your match stop you from job hunting. That would be career suicide in a

couple of ways. One, even though your company is giving you great benefits, they can still lay your ass off and will and did and has and will always. Companies constantly will reorg, have an acquisition, sell off a part of their company. The economy changes, you can be extremely disposable. So you want to keep your options open. You want to take those interviews, You want to keep in contact

with recruiters, hiring managers elsewhere. You want to do it just for your everything from interview experience to actually having competitive job offers that make sure that you are getting paid market rate for your skills constantly, versus staying loyal to your employer and being at the mercy of what they consider you to be worth being at the mercy

of those bullshit, you know, cost of living adjustments. If you're lucky in January each year, that's like two percent or nothing that's ever going to match what the real cost of living adjustment is. Okay, thanks inflation. So when you're looking at this, you want to take these other job opportunities and you want to go into it obviously want you know, you want to find the right fit for you, even if it's one hundred thousand dollars they're offering.

Look at their benefits package and keep in mind, do they offer a match Okay? Do they offer a pension plan? No? Now you may think, okay, I do have a pension right now, or I could have a pension right now, and I do have this six percent match. Even if you're not vested, and I have done this myself, even if you're not vested, you can still negotiate for them to make you whole for any money you're leaving on

the table. So just the fact that, like, let's say you have ten thousand dollars of a retirement match that you're not vested into, so you can't do anything with it. But it's a carrot that your company's dangling in front of you to keep you there. It's called a retention kind of benefit. They want you to stay with them, and they're making it a little bit harder for you to leave by giving you this match and saying you

can't have it. Yeah, but it's day with us for another three years, and we're going to make sure that we squeeze every bit of talent out of you while you're here. The other company that's trying to poach you may be willing to just snatch that carrot for you and just give you their own carrot. So let's say you've got ten k in this retirement match that is you're not vested into, you can't access it. Company B who's trying to poach you could say Oh well, we'll

give you a ten K signing bonus. So not only do you get another job with juicy benefits, but they're literally like advancing you the money in your retirement match, so you wouldn't even have access to now if you stayed. Okay, So I did this personally one of my last jobs, which is I think I had something like one hundred thousand dollars. I'll just get my business. I had like one hundred thousand dollars worth of equity in the company that had been given to me that wasn't vested yet.

It wasn't going to be fully vested for four years. It was going to be incremental, which is how it typically happens. So every year I would potentially have twenty five thousand dollars that I could vest or access. That's if the stock market thought it was valued at one hundred thousand dollars, you know, like that's if the stock continued to perform. Well, it could have done even better than that, but it also could it no way worse.

And when I was interviewing it about to take a job, I was like, well, I've got one hundred k worth of equity, so let me get one hundred K your equity please, and they were like okay. And I think I forget what the mix was, but it was a lot of equity they gave me, and not just equity. I also asked for a cash advance, so not just give me your own equity, but like, hey, make me whole, Like write me a check for the money that I'm

leaving on the table. Even though this is crazy, but even though that equity could be worth less than it is right now if I were to stay here, I'm still risking losing it by coming to your company. And so at that position, at that time, they were like, okay, understand good, here's a check for such an amount of money and we'll give you this much equity. So that's why I call it leverage. This is a good problem, baby girl. It's a good problem to have. I want

more of y'all to have the problem that floor has. Okay, take notes. When you have these juicy benefits and the reason you should be fighting for them when you're negotiating your compensation package, it's because think about what leverages can give you in a future, you know, negotiation with another company that wants you. And it's not all about job popping. It ain't all about quitting. I'm not someone who's saying quit willing nilly just for a dollar bill. I never

have been all this great resignation bs all this. You know, millennials quit generations Z All they do is quit and

job pop. I've never bought into any of that. This is smart strategic career management to keep your options open, to have a healthy network of people who are ready to support you so that not if, but when a company does what a company does, which is treat their employees like a part of their business that is disposable if no longer providing the return on investment that they need for Wall Street, for their investors, for their own bottom line. Like when that happens, And I say when,

because it's hold on the screen just went dark. E there, I still hear. Okay, when that happens, and it probably will happen over the course of your career, You're going to be ready because you're going to have a bunch of recruiters who have reached out to you over the

years that you've taken their calls. You've gone on those coffee, those coffee interviews, those phone screens, you've kept their email address because you're a smart cookie, you've kept their phone number, whatever, you can reach out to them and say, hey, this has just happened, but I'm available. If you have anybody else in your network that you're recruiting for hiring managers

like be good at your work. Make sure people remember you for being brilliant at your work when you get laid off, if you get let go or whatever, it won't matter to them because they're going to know you. They're going to be rooting for you, and they're going to be there to help you and lift you up, carry you on the fast track to your next opportunity. That's why it's so important to put yourself in a strong bargaining position by negotiating the heck out of your

current job offer and getting what you're really worth. You know, so, I love this question. Thank you so much, Floyd for listening, for being such a valued part of the BA fam and for always supporting and loving us, and for apparently taking our advice because you're killing it. If this is where you're at in your career, and I'm excited, really excited to hear what may come of any of these conversations. You may be having with people who are interested in

working with you, and just to close out. I will also add that if you haven't thought of it this way, definitely, if you've been listening to the show, you've probably heard me say it before. But even entertaining outside job offers, it's not about taking another offer. It can be about making sure that you know what your current market rate is. Because your company gave you your salary right now based

on salary data from almost two years ago. Right if you're in a certain kind of field, value me have gone up. It may be more expensive, there may be more rare. You may have developed new skills that have made you more rare, more unique, more specialized than when

you were first hired. So when you get another company to interview with them and they do their assessment of your skills and the job opening and they're like, oh, we think you're worth one twenty five, you know you can actually take that offer back to your manager and say like, I'm really happy here, but I've gotten an offer, or i am even you don't even need an offer.

You can just say I'm being you know, approached by a company that's saying that they would, you know, give me like fifty k more, twenty five k more or whatever. Can we talk about my career trajectory here, my compensation here? And is there flexibility? Is there an opportunity to increase my compensation just to be aligned with what the market rate is and that again gives you leverage with your current employer. Oh, I love talking about this stuff. But yeah,

thank you Floyd so much. This has been so fun. If you guys want to submit your questions, you can reach us at Brown Ambition Podcast on i G. You can also send us an email. We are Brown Ambition Podcast at gmail dot com. Until next Friday, B a Q and a fam. I will see y'all. Bye,