Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
20. Tanisha Jumper, Chief Communications Officer for Tacoma Public Schools
108 Plays1 year ago
Tanisha Jumper is the current Chief Communications Officer for Tacoma Public Schools. Prior to that she worked with the City of Tacoma for 7 years serving as the Director of Communications, Strategy andEngagement. Throughout her career she has been responsible for implementing strategic initiatives, monitoring towards goals and achieving lasting impact. Tanisha is a skilled facilitator, collaborator, and creative thinker. Tanisha has a wealth of experience in health and human services, developing collaborations, strategies and initiatives in both Montgomery County, Ohio and Pierce County, Washington. Tanisha is the mother of three adult children and has served on many community boards and initiatives in both Ohio and Washington. She is currently serving on the board of United Way of Pierce County, Foundation for Tacoma Students, Multicare Mary Bridge West Region Community Advisory, and Big Brother Big Sister of the South Sound Advisory. Join us as we discuss:
- Career lifepsan
- Importance honoring your whole self
- Importance of knowing when to show up in what roles
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Gritty is the New Pretty, a podcast by Grit City Women. On episode 20 of Gritty is the New Pretty, we are featuring Tacoma Public Schools Chief Communications Officer, Tanisha Jumper.
Support and Community Involvement
00:00:15
Speaker
To support Grit City Women and keep these podcasts going, visit our online store at gritcitywomen.com. Welcome, Tanisha. Hey, how are you? I'm doing well. How are you?
00:00:30
Speaker
I'm doing really good, doing really good. Great. So why don't you start out with telling us a bit about yourself? All right. Well, I'm Tanisha Jumper. I am the communications officer for Tacoma Public School. I am a mom of three grown, grown people. And I do a lot of volunteer work in the community, serve on some boards and
00:00:59
Speaker
Just really want to be a positive force in the world doing good stuff. And so where I see I can fit or my skills help, I jump in.
Career Journey and Early Influences
00:01:10
Speaker
I think I would say my specialties are a strategic kind of work and collaboration and really helping people build consensus to get good stuff done. So yeah, it's me. So what led you down that route?
00:01:29
Speaker
So the long or short story is I was a college student who was determined to go pre-law. And in my junior year of college, I took a class called law and the poor, and it pissed me off very badly. And I decided that I did not want to be a lawyer, that I wanted to work in public policy.
00:01:53
Speaker
And so I graduated with a degree in political science and took my first job at Head Start. And at Head Start, I was about the same age as a lot of the people I was there to serve. I was a social, you know, a case manager when I first started at Head Start. And I was, you know, 24.
00:02:13
Speaker
three coming right out of college with no experience growing up in a very middle-class neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, and now I'm a case manager in Ohio. And I graduated from college with a child, and I realized how different my circumstances were from the families that I was trying to help.
00:02:38
Speaker
And the main difference was just that my parents had a little more resources. I was able to go to college. I was able to have the support I needed to finish college. At the very end of my college time, you know, the way that our system is set up, you can, I could still be on my parents' insurance, but my child couldn't be on my parents' insurance. So I had to go get public assistance for the last year of college so that Tim and I could graduate.
00:03:08
Speaker
That process was also humbling because like I said, I grew up in a very middle class neighborhood. I never even thought about needing help and like was never a question. Was I going to go to college? I never didn't have food. None of these things were like part of my life prior to that. And so going into it and thinking like I'm a college student, you know, me and me and my baby's father, college students were just trying to graduate and do what's right. And you want to make it this hard. You want to make it.
00:03:36
Speaker
degrading and demeaning at times. And I was like, I'm going to fix this system. And so I started working at Head Start and I was working with these families and I was realizing how many things were stacked against families. And from there, I just took job after job after job that led me closer to solving different parts of it or understanding different parts of the system better. And then I realized somewhere in there that
00:04:05
Speaker
probably when I got to United Way. So I worked as the vice president of collective impact for United Way in Dayton, Ohio for about eight years. And when I did that, I really started to realize that the power wasn't in necessarily the system, but in the people understanding the system so that they could make the right decisions in terms of who they were voting for, advocate for the right policies, get the right people in the right seats so that we could actually change and break down some of the systemic barriers that I
00:04:34
Speaker
had been watching people face their entire careers.
Career Transitions and Building Confidence
00:04:40
Speaker
And then I ended up working for city government, which I never expected to do. I saw the good, bad, ugly of that. And then I had the opportunity to come back and work with kids. And I decided that that's really where I started and working with children and families.
00:05:03
Speaker
I feel like I got a couple more moves left in me, but I'm coming towards the part of my career where I'm like, I get to do what I want, not what I need to do. And so I want to spend my time and my energy doing that work that really impacts the trajectory of where a family, where a kid might go. It's really about what system they ended up in and who they were lucky enough or not lucky enough to run into.
00:05:33
Speaker
Here I am. Yeah. I love it. There's so much that I want to touch on. But before we go back, I want to make a comment. You said, I have a couple more moves left in me. So I think
00:05:53
Speaker
You might be a little ahead of me in probably the career, but I just did a big move to a new agency and I never thought that I would be working for either of these agencies doing what I've been doing. I mean, I guess what does that look like when we talk about the lifespan of our career, right? So I think at first we're trying to get established.
00:06:14
Speaker
We're like, all right, we're new. We don't know what we're doing. We don't have a lot of cloud. We don't have a lot of experience. So we're just going to get our foot in the door and see if we can get more exposure and more experience and more responsibility or something like that. And then at some point, when you get up to a certain level,
00:06:33
Speaker
you can start making some moves. Right. And I didn't really think about that. What made you realize that you're kind of like in this position now where you can start making some different career moves and still feel secure? You know, I think when you are with an organization so long that you kind of feel like I can't do anything else or it's scary out there and it is the job market scary, right? You got to support yourself. But what led you to that level of feeling confident enough to do that?
00:07:04
Speaker
So I think what happened is, so my career was never like planned and I have, I feel like it's such a privilege to really get to just do what your gut and what your heart tells you to do. And I've been lucky enough to be able to do that. Like I graduated with a degree in political, with a bachelor's degree in political science and everybody was like, you were going to be poor for your whole life. And I was like, what is rude?
00:07:32
Speaker
Like this is important work and like understanding how our systems work is important work. And it shouldn't be something that looks like, oh, you have that degree from liberal arts college. And I was lucky enough to, when I graduated from college, I did get married pretty quickly after that.
Strategic Roles and Systemic Challenges
00:07:53
Speaker
And so I had a partner who,
00:07:55
Speaker
had a, you know, was in business. And so he had a decent, you know, we were both coming straight out of college. So when I say we, we had enough money, and we were in Ohio, so we had enough money to pay rent and make sure our kids could eat. We were not, it was never like fancy, but we, but I always was able to make the right, the moves that I wanted to make, you know, work wise.
00:08:21
Speaker
What I started to learn was every time I made a move, so from the time I graduated from college until really coming back to Washington, because I grew up here, I went to Ohio for college. So for the 20 years I was in Ohio, I didn't apply for a job. I was always asked to apply for a job. So I always was like, I'm just going to go in the room and I'm going to do the work. I'm going to show up in the best way possible.
00:08:47
Speaker
And I would be working on one problem and someone would come tap me on the shoulder and be like, hey, I've got another part of this problem I want you to work on. And every time I said yes, I realized the thing I did just before that informed me on how to deal with the problem, even though it felt like they had nothing to do with each other. So it's like I was working at Head Start, working with three, four, and five-year-olds and low-income families.
00:09:12
Speaker
And I left there and went to work for a program that was doing out of school time and teen pregnancy prevention and drug prevention for school age kids. I go there, but I realized part of the problem is that when you're in Head Start in this early childhood space, people are talking to your parents and engaging with your parents and bringing your parents along. And then all of a sudden you join the school system and like nobody talks to your parents anymore.
00:09:36
Speaker
There's this divide that happens and kids get lost in that because the adults don't have their stuff together. And then I'm working in this system and I realize, gosh, these nonprofits are fighting for their dollars, fighting against each other, but serving the same people. And so then I leave there to go work at United Way so I could control the money. So I could figure out like, how do we do this in a way where we're not robbing from Peter to pay Paul and now we're cutting senior programs and that's hurting kids, or now we're
00:10:07
Speaker
not doing workforce development and that's hurting kids. And so I worked my way up to being the VP of collective impact where I got to work in these education at that point, United Way was focused around education, income and health. And so really focusing on like the educational pipeline, the income pipeline and like what it really costs to be low income and all the different factors that are in that bucket. And then how that then you cannot be healthy if you
00:10:34
Speaker
don't have all that source of income and you can't take care of your medical, mental, physical, medical, spiritual needs. You can't take care of them if you're struggling to just even get food on the table. So that work then led me, and that's a serendip of the story that I won't go into, but that led me to
00:10:55
Speaker
coming back to Washington and working for the city, working on the strategic plan, which if you look at the strategic plan and you know what my body of work is before, you're now like, Oh, that's why there's five areas. And that's why she was here. Yeah. You know, so I, and I, I did that. And I think that I created a pretty good framework for the way a city would know that they were successful in
00:11:23
Speaker
helping to address all the needs that a person comes in. I think somehow in our society, we lost that people are whole people. And just because you're the one that writes them a check for public assistance doesn't mean you don't need to care about, do they have a house? And even if you're not a person that needs any assistance, and that's usually the group that gets the least amount of help, that little funky middle that makes too much to get assistance, but doesn't make enough to actually thrive,
Balancing Career and Personal Life
00:11:53
Speaker
Um, you're a whole person. You have to go to work, but you still gotta take care of your kids. And like, I think COVID exists, you know, showed us that like, when we allowed people to work from home, when we allowed people to have more flexible work environments, even though we were in the middle of this global pandemic, that was hella stressful and, you know, just completely disorienting. There were some people.
00:12:18
Speaker
mostly women, people of color who found a balance to their life that they never had before because I'm not less productive if I'm in between my meetings going to throw a load of laundry in so that on Saturday morning I can just wake up and be with my kids and check on them and see how they're doing. But we've created these weird bifurcations of our life of work is here and don't talk about work here.
00:12:46
Speaker
family is here and don't let your work make you a bad parent. And oh, you know, besides that, you know, drink water and rest and, you know, my friends and go yoga, like what in what fucking time? Like, I just thought it's not real, you know? Yeah, 100%. And so like, I think, you know, to get back to your question, I somewhere along the way realized like,
00:13:12
Speaker
I've done a lot of really cool things. I've worked on a lot of really cool projects. You're a badass. Thank you. I get to decide. I get to decide. I don't have to do anything I don't want to do. And I've earned the skills and the abilities, and I have enough projects to point back to to say, no.
00:13:40
Speaker
I'm, you know, and I've told people in my last couple of interviews, like, Oh, I'm interviewing you the same way you're interviewing me. I'm deciding if I want to work for you. And, and people say, don't, you shouldn't do that. Like I, depending on where you're at, but like, I feel like there's a couple of things at play. One, this world is very happy to have women be insecure and not comfortable in their own skin. And you're at work as much as you're anywhere else in your life.
00:14:09
Speaker
And the same way I'm not showing up in a relationship or in my friendships as some fake phony person, I am not showing up to work as a fake phony person. So I got my nose pierced in 1992 with my first paycheck from my first job. That's a whole other story. But I decided that it was a key marker of my independence and my individuality, because it was before everybody had their nose pierced, right?
00:14:37
Speaker
People are like, oh, you're going to have to take that out when you go for a job interview. You're going to have to, you're going to have to cover that up or take it out because people aren't going to hire you. And I thought, well, if they don't want to hire me with a nose ring, then they don't want me. And why do I want to work somewhere that doesn't want me?
00:14:54
Speaker
Yeah, and it's such an old, I mean, if you think about women's rights, right? It's not that long ago that women couldn't vote. It's not that long ago that women didn't work. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with not working and being able to stay home and support your family. I 100% wish that I could not work and stay home and just be a mom, which I never thought that would be me. I always thought I'm gonna have been this career
00:15:22
Speaker
And now that I have a son, it has totally changed for me. And I did, I left my job of 12 years that I worked really hard to move up in and get to a GS 13 level because of that exact reason. The work-life balance wasn't there anymore. That support for me being a new mom wasn't there at that level.
00:15:46
Speaker
And I just really had to make some choices about what was important in my life and my health and doing the stuff in the community. Like, you know, you, I really like sitting on boards. I'm very passionate about public safety and issues surrounding that kind of stuff. And so I think it's important for me to have the space to do that because I care. And I think like if we don't honor our whole selves,
00:16:17
Speaker
we can't really expect anyone else to honor our whole selves. And, and I did learn that in parenting. So I was never the mom, I was net, like, okay, I did try to be a stay at home mom lasted about nine months. And at the end of the nine months, I literally called my old employer, like, please let me come back to work. And I could very well be that same person, you know, like, I had a head start when I had a mod, my second, I was working at Head Start. And I had been training moms at like,
00:16:46
Speaker
You're the, you are the most important teacher you're ever going to have. And so, you know, after you teach enough for those classes and you look at enough literature, you know, the same way that I was just like 100% know I am breastfeeding my kids and that is what it is. And don't even bring a formula around here. I was the same way, like, no, I'm the best person. So I'm going to stay home with my kids. Well, I had a three year old and a new baby.
00:17:12
Speaker
I didn't have the resources to like go to mommy and me classes and stuff like that. Cause it's, you know, we were fresh out of college, two kids now. I've been married for like two years and I was, it was so hard. I have so much respect for stay at home moms. Cause I don't know how you do it, right? I do not know how you manage it.
00:17:35
Speaker
But I, yeah, so I went back to work. I was like, I need to go to the bathroom by myself. I want to be so much about sharing it with nobody. And I don't want to feel bad about that. And I think, as women, we're taught that that's somehow, there's not space for moms who want to be moms and stay home and moms who, I knew I'd be a better mom if I went back to work. I knew I would be a better mom back to work. I don't regret it.
00:18:04
Speaker
But in that trade off, like the going to Head Start was about if I'm not going to be at home with my kids and I'm not going to be the one raising them, then I'm going to be doing something that's making this world a better place for them. I'm not going to just go somewhere and sit behind it. You know, I'm not going to do that kind of job. And it's not to disparage that type of job. I just got white and that's not for me. Right. And so I'm going to go and I'm going to do work that I care about, that I'm passionate about, that makes the world a better place. But.
00:18:33
Speaker
And I don't know where it came from, but I was like, but I am not missing a thing my kids do. If my kid is on a field or a stage or anything, I'm going to be there. And if that means I have to leave work early, then I'm, I leave work early and I need to work someplace that understands that if, if there's a kickoff happening at four 44, Sneesha jumper is going to be sitting at the 50 yard line at four 43. And when he runs down the field and he looks, I'm going to be sitting in the same place.
00:19:03
Speaker
and he's going to see me. And I have three kids that played at least two sports a season for the entire time. And there's an eight year gap between my oldest and my youngest. And so for 20 years, I was in a stand of some sort almost every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, depending on, you know, basketball's Tuesday, Thursday, wrestling was Saturday, Sunday. I was there. I got, I got miles in some bleachers.
00:19:32
Speaker
When your time gets old enough, if you need some fold up chairs, some blankets or hand warmers, I got travel set, right? But that's where, that's the first time that I put down my line of like, I will give you a hundred percent. And I am, I am smart and I am capable and I will work hard, but my baby gets ready to play. The trade-off is I am leaving and I am going to do that.
00:20:00
Speaker
And if I have to come back and work from eight o'clock at night till midnight to finish a project or whatever, I'm happy to do it. But where I will be sitting at is where my kids can see me. People ask me all the time, like, why do you have two phones? I've literally carried two phones since our late 1998. I mean, because of that, when my kids are playing, I'm not going to be looking at my work phone. I don't want my work stuff coming to my phone. I want to be able to pay attention to them.
00:20:31
Speaker
you know, now that my kids are grown and can critique my parenting, wait till you get to that place, life is lovely. Now that I'm like, they're older, there's still things that they say, well, I mean, but you did work a lot. And it's like, yeah, but I, I did the best I could to balance. And there's some if I could go back, maybe I would do differently. Because I don't think I had in my younger years, I don't think I had as good of
00:21:00
Speaker
coping mechanisms for like if work was really stressful and then you, you know, come in the house. I mean, I am so grateful for my time at Head Start that kind of taught me about structure and schedules and things like that. I mean, when they were like, you know, elementary and younger, I would like come in, I'd turn on the timer, I'd be like, y'all look, we're gonna put the timer on for 15 minutes. For 15 minutes, you guys sit down here and, you know, play, watch TV. Mommy's gonna go upstairs for a second.
00:21:29
Speaker
But until the time it goes off, don't ask me for a snack. Don't ask me for juice. Nothing. I'm going to go upstairs. I'm going to change my clothes. And that would be my 15 minutes to transform from work to Nisha to mom to Nisha. And then I'd come down, and then we could do snacks, and we could do stuff like that. But I tried my best. That's a great tip. I'm going to have to use that at some point. That's a great tip.
00:21:58
Speaker
I went to a training that was like talking about working and training like an athlete and that, you know, athletes like will, you know, run a race a hundred times, but they'll run it at like, sometimes they'll run for distance. Sometimes they'll run for speed. Sometimes they won't take a day off thinking about your work life in that same way. And one of the tips in there was like to create a boundary between your work life and your home life by like,
00:22:24
Speaker
drive the long way home. And not me and you live down the UP Silicon area. And I drive to work on the freeway because that's fast. But I literally drive home through the street so that I drive past Chambers Bay and drive past Sunnyside. And by the time I get to Sunnyside, if I'm still worked up, I just pull in the parking lot and I sit until I'm calm because I don't want to go home and bring that into my house.
00:22:54
Speaker
But I didn't feel like I had the ability to make those decisions when I was a young mom. When I was a young mom, it was like every minute counts, rush, rush, rush, go, go, go. I'd be here. Oh, I'm going to be five minutes late. Oh, so and so is going to not have a full meal before they go to practice. And that's the space where I wish I'd have been. I would have had more wisdom and I would have given myself more grace. And I think, you know, I talk to younger women who have kids and I say like,
00:23:24
Speaker
I wish somebody would have told me like, Oh no, I'd be fucking up all the time.
Understanding Systems and Civic Engagement
00:23:28
Speaker
I wish somebody would have said that because I felt so much pressure to be perfect. Right. That I probably was harder on myself than anybody around me would have ever been. But in my head, it was like, Oh my God. Oh my God. You didn't look at that homework assignment. Oh my God. You didn't read that newsletter. Oh my God. And it's like, nobody cares. Yeah.
00:23:49
Speaker
I got who have done great. All of them are in college or done with college and they're good human beings. And, you know, I did the best I could.
00:24:01
Speaker
Yeah. Well, you made a sacrifice, right? The work that you do is so important. And I've seen you in action how we met with the Community Police Advisory Committee. And in the beginning, it was sort of like, what are we going to do? And of course, I had my ideas and everything changed with what happened in 2020.
00:24:27
Speaker
going through that work and just seeing everybody show up to the table in very difficult conversations, really trying to solve a very complex problem that is, I don't think it's solvable, but I think the only thing we can do is try to make it better and do things like provide resources and help people have transparency with policy.
00:24:53
Speaker
and understand that really you are in systems of systems and these systems aren't designed for you to stay in. They're not user friendly, nothing is user friendly. I had the same experience going through a domestic violence with the courts and the police and the defense attorney or the prosecuting attorney and I was like, I'm a very tenacious, educated woman with my own home and finances and this
00:25:22
Speaker
is so confusing and complicated. I'm getting no answers. I'm getting the run around. And that really made me think about people that don't have resources and women that don't have resources, don't have money. They're struggling to feed their kids. They're struggling to get a job or whatever it is.
00:25:44
Speaker
That's another reason why I think it's so important for women like us to get engaged in civic duties and sitting on boards and just having a seat at the table so we can say, this is not an easy system. Unless you've gone through it, you don't know where we can make it better. And there's so much work to be done.
00:26:07
Speaker
Yeah, and I think the real like, one of the things that I have learned is like, even when people say when they got all the things, the house, the job, the money, like, these things are still hard. Raising kids in this society is hard. Being present is hard. Like, staying present is even harder, you know, like,
00:26:31
Speaker
There's so much about this world and how much information you have to filter and sift through and what's true and what's not true. And then you add the layers of patriarchy on top of it and you add layers of racism, sexism, all those things. Some days it's just hard to get up. And if women aren't honest with other women,
00:26:56
Speaker
and saying, you know what, it is okay if you call me on Thursday and say, you know what, I do not like my son today. That you don't get judgment, that you get, you know what, sometimes they're little shits and you don't like them, but you love them in any way. And you might just need to say that to be able to get back in the game.
00:27:21
Speaker
we should all have places where we can be our authentic true self, that we are allowed to be tired, that we are allowed to be like, you know what, I have been working so hard and none of this shit's paying off and be supported in that because there are whole families and whole systems depending on us to be able to stay in the game. But we've created a society that makes it like women can't talk. I mean, a couple of months ago, I had a year ago now I had a hysterectomy.
00:27:49
Speaker
And at the time that I had the hysterectomy, I didn't think anybody else in my peer group had a hysterectomy. But me being who I am, I started asking a whole bunch of questions. I was scared. I was scared about what does that mean? Am I going to not be a woman anymore? What happens? God love my 27-year-old. He was like, mom, they can make men who are born biologically male women. So I think you're fine. I think you can stay a woman.
00:28:19
Speaker
So that's such a simple idea, but when you're in the throes of it and you're not expecting that and your doctor's like, hey, I'm gonna take out all your reproductive organs, but then I find out, I have tons of friends who've already done it. Every woman in my family had already done it and nobody had ever talked about it.
00:28:42
Speaker
You know, now I'm like, you know, on the cusp of 50, I had my first hot flash and luckily I had a person at work that was like, girl, I haven't slept in weeks because I'm having hot flash. I'm like, why don't people talk about this? Thought it was crazy. Well, you know, a lot of people don't like to talk about their age. All of that is how we are controlled by the system. Yeah. And I'm like, I am, I am so happy.
00:29:08
Speaker
about the wisdom that I've gained as I've gotten older. I don't feel old at all. No, you don't look old at all. She is the oldest and youngest one of us all. I know, right? I listen to new music. I try new things. And I think it's all about the mentality of me giving myself permission to like, I'm still learning and growing. And as long as I'm learning and growing, I'm not old. I think if you're old, then you stop being interested in learning and growing.
00:29:41
Speaker
And I'm not really interested in learning and growing to get that next promotion at work for the first time in my life. I'm interested in learning and growing about how do I be a better partner? I got a divorce in 2019. I got a divorce. I didn't intend to be this age trying to figure out how to date again and all those things.
00:30:05
Speaker
All those things happen for a reason and there's beautiful gifts in it if you can just kind of not judge it and just what is, is. I think that's the hard part because society is constantly judging us and telling us that we're not enough or we didn't do enough or if we only would have done
Embracing Change and Personal Growth
00:30:24
Speaker
it. If I would have cared less about my work, I'd probably still be married. But okay, what does that mean?
00:30:31
Speaker
Yeah, I, you know, it's hard, you know, the last podcast I had with Ruthie Taylor, we talked about the phases of life. And it just, I'm seeing a lot of that in this conversation too. It's like, you know, sometimes you're focused on your career and there might be a couple year period. And then there's a time where you're like, Hey, I met someone special.
00:30:51
Speaker
I need to unfuck everything that I have been ignoring for the last four years and really focus on being a better partner. And that's a very real thing. I mean, you know, I have been married for a couple of years now and it has been.
00:31:08
Speaker
the craziest journey ever but you know when two people want to make it work you have to put in the work and it's a beautiful thing when they commit to it but um yeah it's working in a relationship is working through the stuff with yourself right exactly and that's the hardest work because it's always evolving like you're always going through stuff and then as we age and other things come up yeah
00:31:35
Speaker
And I, like I said, I just don't think we give ourselves the great, I mean, we don't give ourselves the grace for that of like, I, and I think like we have these weird ideas about even, even something like divorce, like me and my ex-husband are great friends. And we have a great relationship as friends. All things end and change. And that might be phases of your relationship. That might be the actual relationship, but like,
00:32:06
Speaker
When things end and change, other things get to grow and emerge. So it's not, we shouldn't be sad about it or like holding onto it. It's the same thing with jobs. Like there's a point in every job where you're like, I don't think this is for me anymore. And there's this thing where we reflexively try to hold onto it because it's like, it's what we know. It's what we're comfortable. Yeah. It's like, I know how to do this. And it's like,
00:32:31
Speaker
I just have found every time I fought against the universe, I have paid immensely. And every time I've kind of just said, I don't know what is happening right now, but okay. Beautiful things have come on the other side of that. Okay. Right. And, and I am not going to even pretend like I was like gracious and just sore. Yeah.
00:32:52
Speaker
Oh no, I'm an anxious, you know, avoidant. Like I got all, I got all the labels, man. My therapist would be doing her work, but I, I really, really believe that at that point where I just said, you know what? Okay. All right. Whatever. Show me what's next. Yeah. What's next has always appeared and it's always been better.
00:33:20
Speaker
And it's always been exactly what I needed at the time I needed it, even if you know that. And I think I still get anxious. I still get, you know, I still freak myself out. And then I remind myself every move has ended up okay. I'm going to be okay.
00:33:39
Speaker
And you've learned a lot in every move. And I feel the same way. I started doing that. And the reason I started because I wasn't really book smart. And my first year of real college, I put on was put on academic probation.
00:33:55
Speaker
And I was like, wow, I really have to study. And I didn't know how to study, because I just kind of cruised through all my other classes. I didn't know what I was studying, so I took art, like pottery. And then I was like, oh, crap. And so I had to learn how to study. I realized that I don't learn the same way as everybody else, and I have to try harder to read stuff and pay attention and focus.
00:34:22
Speaker
Then I thought, well, if I can't get the grades that my peers are getting, like the A's because they were like super smart weirdos, and then I need to get other experience. And so that's when I started volunteering and that's when
00:34:37
Speaker
In college, I was doing the trauma intervention program, doing emotional first aid on crisis calls, volunteering in OHSU lab, doing neuroscience research, and I just started my volunteer journey from there.
00:34:53
Speaker
I've learned so much through all those experiences, all of those trainings. And same thing, there has been times where I have not been graceful in my career. There are moments where I'm like, man, I was just a child. I was still learning and growing. And even now, sometimes I'm like, OK.
00:35:10
Speaker
simmer down, you're an adult now, or you're close to being an adult now. I don't know if we're ever really adults. But when you're in work like this and you're sitting in different boards and you're studying the systems and studying policies, you learn so much about the systems of systems. So for me, changing into my position as a change manager now,
00:35:38
Speaker
because I think there's so much change that's needed in organizations, in government, and people don't know how to implement change. So we're like, oh, okay, so we want to fix these things, but if you don't do it in the right way, then it's not effective, and it's not adopted, and then money's wasted and time's wasted.
Effective Leadership and Communication
00:35:56
Speaker
And people stop believing that change is possible. And they stop believing that they lose trust in whatever is implementing the change. And it's kind of funny because anytime change comes up, now my husband and I joke about it because I'm supposed to really like change because I'm a change manager. That's what I'm employed about.
00:36:20
Speaker
But I've gotten, and I'm like, how would I, how am I even here? Like, how am I even a change manager? You know, but my experiences on the police advisory committee, volunteering for the trauma intervention program, Liz rocks, you know, grit city women, um, my work at the shipyard, you know, doing all the innovation there, all of those things I've learned so much from. And yeah, I don't have a master's degree. I don't have a business degree.
00:36:50
Speaker
I don't have either. Yeah, but I can walk into the room. I don't have a marketing degree. I don't have any of those things. But if I get the right person looking at my resume that recognizes the value and the work and the intelligence that someone who does all of those things
00:37:13
Speaker
has to possess, you know, then it's like, that's where I want to be. Because if you're just looking at my forward auto or my average, definitely wasn't forward auto, my GPA and like my titles.
00:37:27
Speaker
What does that mean, right? Now you know that I'm passionate about things. I'm passionate about innovation. I'm passionate about making positive changes. I'm passionate about getting the communities involved in these changes engaged in the process. And so I was so happy. I was kind of surprised I even got an interview as a change manager because I'm like,
00:37:50
Speaker
I've taken one training once, but I think I qualify because I have done all these things. I was like, I'm surprised I even got an interview. I tell people all the time, I don't know how I ended up here. I don't have a degree, I didn't study communications. I never thought this would be my job. But when I was at the city and we were going through some changes, somebody else saw in me,
00:38:17
Speaker
She isn't a communicator, but she is a community person. She gets people. She understands how to listen and how to respond in ways that are thoughtful and caring. And I got an opportunity to start doing communications. And communications and strategy, people try to separate them all the time. It is not separated, right? Yeah. So the thing that I'm
00:38:45
Speaker
best at is like seeing where's the path. Okay. There's some rocks there. Okay. So we have to go over there. We've got turn left here. We've got to go around like, but it's the same thing with communicating. Like sometimes you're talking to people and they're not, you're not even talking to them. And it made me think of like the other day I was listening to an interview with Angie Martinez and she was talking to Jeezy, which I'm not really a fan of Jeezy. I mean, I don't know him. I don't know solids, but I don't really know him, but like he's gone through this whole transformation and you know, he's whatever.
00:39:14
Speaker
And he said, on his phone, he keeps a picture of himself as a young boy. And she was like, why do you do that? And he was like, because that's who I got to talk to. In those moments where I'm triggered, I got to talk to that boy because he was hurt. He was abandoned. He was mistreated. And I got to coach him through how, like, I got you, man. I got you. We're going to be all right. We're going to do it this way now. And all of us are the little person on our phone.
00:39:44
Speaker
Like, you know what I mean? Like we think that we're adults, but we're really just grown up kids who either had our needs met or didn't have our needs met. And we respond because either we're being retraumatized by not having our needs met yet again, or we're used to having our needs met and they're not being met and we're responding to that. And I think the more that we can realize that we're just all, you know,
00:40:08
Speaker
somewhat broken, somewhat flawed, somewhat damaged, you know, humans having real human experiences and just pause for a second. Like, I don't think Crystal's hearing me right now. She's pissed. You know, like, can I create space for her to be
00:40:32
Speaker
authentically who she is? And can I let my humanity, you know, connect with her humanity? And, and we both try to get someplace together. And even if it is like, I just, I'm not going to be able to see it the way you're going to be able to see it. I'm saying that from a truly human space. You can hear it too. Right. Maybe not in the moment. And that's the other thing. People want it now. Like, Oh, I said the thing and she's got to hear me now. And it's like, no,
00:41:01
Speaker
I'm not able to hear you now. I hear, I probably hear 25% of what was said to me in any given day at 10 p.m. when I'm in the shower at the end of the day. And I'm like, oh, that's what was happening. Cause you know what I mean? Cause I'm like, why are you being so stubborn? Why are you being so tight? Or why are you, you know? And it's like, then I, like when I finally get myself far enough away from it, I'm like, oh, that wasn't even about me.
00:41:32
Speaker
Right. It's really ever about us. I mean, it really isn't. It's hardly ever about us. And I think the more we can accept that too. And I mean, that's just the echoes for your kids, echoes for your mother, you know what I mean? So it's never about us. And it's like,
00:41:54
Speaker
I think just the older I get, the more that I just get really comfortable in my own skin. Somebody was like, oh, wouldn't you love to be 25 again? No, I would never go back. And I'm like, you know, people say, oh, you know, especially like when I first started dating again. Oh, I want somebody who's going to cook dinner. I'm never cooking dinner every night for anybody ever again. If you wanted that version of Tanisha, you should have met me in 1993. She was all about it then. This version?
00:42:24
Speaker
I may never cook dinner again, deciding on how I feel tomorrow. And that's okay. And you should know that about me. And we should be okay with that. I can cook very well, but I don't want to. That's it. It's not my worth is not based on that. And there's certain things that I will 100% compromise on and some other things that I will not.
00:42:49
Speaker
It comes because I've had experiences. I've had, I was married for 20 years. I learned lots of things in that 20 years about myself, about other people, and I'm grateful for it. I'm also able to say that was 20, that was that 20 years, and now I'm in a new 20 years, and in this 20 years, I don't know what it'll bring. And I'm great if I find a partner, and I am totally okay if I don't. Because like, I'm good with me.
00:43:18
Speaker
Yeah, it was me and I got a great set of friends. I got wonderful, amazing kids. I have had a career that I'm proud of. And so if I never accomplish anything else, I'm good.
00:43:30
Speaker
Yeah. But I don't think that'll be the case. Well, you've done a lot. You've got three wonderful grown boys and, you know, they're going off to college. I see pictures and I'm just like, wow, that's so awesome. And I mean, you've done amazing work with the city and United Way and, you know, everything that you've been engaged with, you've tried to make an impact. And so that's.
00:43:53
Speaker
you've accomplished a lot just because you might not, you know, be on the forefront of all of it. You're one of the people that's behind the scenes that's putting your passion in. And I really appreciate that. I think that's one of the reasons why I was so enamored by you when we first met. I was just like, oh my God, she's so awesome. And she's so cool under these like super tense, aggressive conversations. And she just comes in and she's just like, OK, da da da da da.
00:44:22
Speaker
Yeah, I was just, I was really happy that I met you. And I was like, she's a role model for me to, you know, slow my role and learn how to communicate a little better. And I was impressed by you, definitely. I think, like I said, I think the way that, you know, the way that we met and the way that you were like, like, there's something about having to know, like, okay, here's all the pieces that are on the table. And so
00:44:49
Speaker
this is the role that needs to be filled and being able to adjust to that role. So if I've got someone like you who is like, I'm going to fight, if I got a you and a Lewis Cooper and a Shane, I can, I can be there. Like, I'm just going to keep like clearing the path so that you guys can do your work. If there wasn't a you in the room, I can play that role too. I just know when I don't need to. Right. And, and I think.
00:45:16
Speaker
I think it's really like, I think we just get so full of ourselves and like, Oh, I'm the one that's got to do the thing. And it's like, no, I, I see myself and I have seen myself for a long time is not necessarily the doer, but the facilitator with the doing. Yeah.
00:45:34
Speaker
I will assemble a rock star crew of people. I will give them everything they need. I will listen to all of their worries and complaints. And I will move heaven and earth to give them the lane to do the work. Because I am never going to solve racism, poverty, the capitalist system on my own. So it's like, I'm building an army. I'm like, oh, you want to fight?
Mentorship and Supporting Future Leaders
00:46:00
Speaker
Come on in. I got to think.
00:46:03
Speaker
I really feel like if we all did that, there's so many things that we would accomplish. I don't need to be on shit. And I would say, I don't know if you've watched Unusual Suspects, but I used to be like, call me Kaiser Soze. I want to be like a myth. I heard Tanisha Jumper did some things. I've never actually met her. I've never seen her. Now I'm on TV.
00:46:31
Speaker
But I used to always just want to be like, my name's on a paper. If you were in a committee with me, or if you were on a board with me, or you'd be like, oh, no, she handles her business. But I just kind of want to be like this mystical creature out there that like, hey, if Tanisha Joma put her hands on it, it's good. But you don't even need to know me. You just need like the proof is in my work.
00:46:52
Speaker
I don't need a building named after me or a scholarship or anything like that. I just want some young girl to be like, nah, I'm about to go in there and fuck that shit up.
00:47:01
Speaker
or do it. Yep, do it girl. Clap in behind her. Yeah, pave the way and give people hope that things can change or that you can make an impact and it's not easy. I think that this kind of work can be stressful and it can take a toll on you because you care so much and then when
00:47:25
Speaker
something goes wrong you know just like I experienced you just you either got to make a decision to keep the fight or you know maybe let someone else take over the fight and I think that's just being strategic at times too you know you like sometimes it's just the right time to say okay
00:47:42
Speaker
You know, my role didn't quite work out as well. And then maybe somebody else can come in and step in and pick up where I left off. Absolutely. Yeah. So there's definitely value in that. And I think also, like you said, knowing when to be the facilitator, knowing like, hey,
00:47:58
Speaker
I could come in and really be a leader in this but this isn't, I see other people that are prepared to take this on, but what I'm going to do is offer my expertise and resources to help and empower them and I think that's also very smart and I think that's what makes
00:48:16
Speaker
you very employable to many different types of careers, right? Because you can kind of do anything, right? When you have the knowledge of how business works and how government works and how policy works and, you know, working with people, it doesn't matter what it is. Yeah, like I can do it. Yeah, yeah.
00:48:39
Speaker
Oh, and I had a really great, like, I won't say who he is because, you know, he probably offered this to other people, but he was like, no, I need you in the room, Tanisha. So if there's a rock that needs to be thrown, you tell me how big a rock and where to throw it and I will throw the rock, but I need you in the room. Right. And I think, you know, as we get older in our careers, our job is to identify
00:49:07
Speaker
who's coming in behind us and be that to that person. There'll be a point in which I'll be doing consulting full time and I won't be employed by anybody but myself. And I will expect that people like you and India and some other people that I've worked with that are a little bit younger than me will be like, hey, I need your help. This is what's happening. And I can give my advice or I can be like, you need me to show up?
00:49:35
Speaker
I can show up and call the scene because I don't have anything to lose at this point. You know what I mean? And I think that is, you know, that's what, that's what we all, we all need, you know, those type of people around us. And, and I think I do want to do be different than like the generations before us. And I'm not going to stay too long. I'm not going to hold a space for too long because I think society is changing so fast.
00:50:05
Speaker
that it's nearly impossible to keep up. My kids are hilarious. My oldest is a girl, and she's the girl engineer. And she'll say, hmm, you're a little patriarchy in your mom. You know what I mean? Because I'll say something about, are you sure you're going to wear that? Why would you wear that? Why wouldn't I? I'm like, oh, you're right.
00:50:27
Speaker
is your body. You work hard. But I have these things ingrained in me about like how I'm supposed to dress to be taken seriously. You know, my hair and like, the journey from going from straight hair to just natural hair, like that was shouldn't have been a thing. But it was a real thing. It was saying I couldn't or shouldn't. So it's like, you know, I want to
00:50:56
Speaker
be a woman's woman, a girl's girl. I can hang with the boys and I love it. I'm a sports mom through and through. But I want all women to know if I'm in your space, I got your back. And if you're off or you're not doing it right, I might say something to you, but it's from love. And it won't be some like, you should wear pantyhose. This shit people tell me to watch it.
00:51:26
Speaker
Or, you know, we should, you know, we should wear dresses more. And I'm just like, what does that have to do with my brain?
Final Thoughts and Authenticity
00:51:34
Speaker
But yeah, so. Okay. So what's your best piece of advice that you would offer to any women? I mean, I guess anywhere in life. I think the best advice is
00:51:55
Speaker
Be kind to yourself. Really take care of yourself and find you a squad around you that when you don't, they remind you to. And there is something to be said about finding yourself a good partner and abstaining from partnership until you have a good partner.
00:52:22
Speaker
Because a good partner makes all the difference in the world. And even though I'm not married anymore, I was married to someone who, at least in that aspect, never tried to convince me not to be me. And that allowed me to really develop into who I am now. But I've seen lots of my friends be married to people who wanted them to be a particular type of woman
00:52:52
Speaker
show up a particular kind of way. And I think it's hindered their ability to show up fully in all the other spaces. And at the end of the day, we were all uniquely made for our own unique purposes. And so you're not doing anyone a service. And I think Lauren Hill said on the uncut version, Lauren Hill uncut MTV long time ago,
00:53:21
Speaker
Oh, unplug, not unconsciously. What's that? The real you is better than the fake somebody else. Yeah, absolutely. Great piece of advice. Thank you so much. Thank you. Loved having you and appreciate all the work that you're doing. Yeah, I appreciate you too. Anytime you want to come back, I love chatting with you. Awesome, thank you so much.
00:53:50
Speaker
To learn more about Grit City Women, visit gritcitywomen.com or follow us on Instagram at gritcitywomen and we look forward to getting gritty with you.