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34. 15 Seconds to Impact: Communication Skills That Get You Noticed with Jen Mueller
3 Plays1 minute ago
In this episode of Gritty is the New Pretty, Krystle Edwards sits down with Jen Mueller—legendary Seattle Seahawks sideline reporter, founder of Talk Sporty to Me, and author of The Influential Conversationalist to break down real-world leadership communication skills that help women speak up at work, build confidence, and get noticed (without turning into someone they’re not).
Jen pulls back the curtain on what she’s learned from 25 years in high-pressure broadcasting, including the moment someone tried to reduce her to “just a pretty face” and how she used it as fuel instead of a full stop. You’ll walk away with practical tools for building credibility in micro-moments and using simple conversation strategies to connect faster, advocate for yourself, and be remembered whether you’re walking into a meeting, a networking event, or rubbing elbows with a potential investor.
Join us as we discuss:
- Confidence is a skill you can build: How “small wins” stack into real momentum, especially in rooms where validation is scarce.
- Presence is part of your message: Why you’re being read before you speak, and how to show up engaged, grounded, and memorable.
- Conversation strategy = career strategy: Better openers, “success statements,” and quick connection tools that help you communicate in 15 seconds flat (and keep the door open).
If this episode hit, take 10 seconds and help it travel—follow the show, leave a quick rating, and share it with a woman who’s ready to be heard.
Follow us @gritcitywomen | www.gritcitywomen.com
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Gritty is the New Pretty'
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to Gritty is the New Pretty, where resilience meets real talk. I'm your host, Crystal, entrepreneur, leadership coach, change maker, and outdoor enthusiast.
Exploring Themes of Change and Success
00:00:15
Speaker
Join me as I sit down with powerhouse women leaders, entrepreneurs, and small business owners who share their raw, unfiltered stories of success, struggle, and the grit it takes to make an impact. From navigating change to redefining success, we'll explore what it takes to rise, lead, and thrive.
00:00:35
Speaker
Expect raw conversations to fuel your journey, whether you're breaking down barriers in life or in business. We're redefining success, not by perfection, but by the strength it takes to rise again and again. Because in this space, gritty is the new pretty.
Sponsorship by Hey Becks Creative House
00:00:53
Speaker
Hit subscribe and let's get gritty with it. This episode is sponsored by Hey Becks Creative House, founded by brand strategist Becky LaFranche, known for building crave-worthy brands that blend story, soul, and strategy.
00:01:09
Speaker
Explore the work at heybecks.com.
Guest Introduction: Jen Mueller
00:01:17
Speaker
On today's podcast of Gritty is the New Pretty, we have Jen Mueller, legendary Seattle Seahawks sideline reporter and the founder of Talk Sporting to Me. She spent 25 years mastering how to communicate with confidence in high-pressure rooms, or should I say locker rooms.
00:01:32
Speaker
Today, we're talking practical conversations and tools from her book, the influential conversationalist to help you develop your leadership potential.
Grit City Women Collective Announcement
00:01:42
Speaker
But before we get into talking with Jen, I want to make an announcement. I'm creating a space where we can keep these conversations going off airir So join the waitlist for my upcoming Grit City Women Collective built in Tacoma for women everywhere. You can get on the waitlist by going to gritcitywomen.com backslash gritty, and you'll be the first to get access when we launch.
00:02:05
Speaker
And without further ado, welcome, Jen. Oh, thank you so much. i really appreciate the conversation. This will be fun. Yeah, I'm really excited for it. I loved your book, so I'm super excited to get into some of the topics on it.
Jen's Journey into Broadcasting and Passion for Speaking
00:02:20
Speaker
But why don't you go ahead and start telling us about you?
00:02:23
Speaker
Well, I am the person who got talks too much on every single report card. And if it was not for a high school guidance counselor nudging me in the direction of broadcasting, I would have been a teacher. And so I never really lost that desire to help people, to teach people, to be at the front of the room and kind of having those aha moments. I feel like I do that as a broadcaster and as a keynote speaker. I've been able to combine everything that I love into a career that has been very fulfilling and has had some surprising takeaways along the way about what success really looks like.
Defining Success: Small Wins as Confidence Builders
00:02:59
Speaker
So what are some of the tips that you recommend for women that are looking to speak up more, lead, and be remembered? Yeah. I think there's a couple of things. Number one, you have to define your own success and that success, this is number two, is probably a lot smaller than you think it is. So when women come to me and they feel like they need these big moments and they can't figure out how to break through in the big ways or people are talking over them or they're not you know being valued or asked their opinions, my responses then go smaller.
00:03:38
Speaker
And I know that that sounds counterintuitive and it sounds like I'm telling you to play a small game. But if you're not finding success up here where you want, you can keep looking at all the things that are going wrong, but find the thing that's going right. and figure out if it's you showing up prepared and kind of internally going, yeah, that's exactly what I would have said right there. That is the solution. Now, you can't do that in every single meeting, but you can have these measures along the way where you build confidence. Nobody else is tracking these measures. You are. And sometimes that first step that you need is something like, did they say hi to you that day?
00:04:20
Speaker
Did they look your direction and see your nod of approval? Okay, now we got something. Now let's see if we can build from there. I love that. You also talk about in your some of your speeches, or at least in your keynote, in the Women to Watch about a bubblegum story. yeah And I think that also relates to sort of those small wins, but building on your confidence and experience. Can you elaborate on that a little more?
The Bubblegum Story: Accumulating Small Successes
00:04:47
Speaker
ah Yeah, so i call them bubblegum moments and it's really fun. Amazon has actually said, I buy too much bubblegum. And then also reminds me when it's time to buy more bubblegum, which is a very confusing mixed message that I'm getting there from the online provider. But it came from a coach saying, who used to hand me pieces of bubble gum on his way out to the bullpen. And it was right before I was getting ready to go on live TV. And so I didn't have a place to put it. I wasn't gonna chew the gum. So I would shove it in my pockets or into my little makeup kit. And I never thought about it again, because it's not like I was gonna go and chew the gum after the broadcast either.
00:05:26
Speaker
And it wasn't until i got to the point where you couldn't zip the makeup bag where i revisited all of the gum because it wasn't just one piece of gum. It was like four, five, and six pieces of gum. And to me, it would make me laugh. And I still find pieces of gum in jackets that I haven't worn for a year, coats that I haven't worn for a year. But it made me laugh because that one piece of gum, I can hide just about anywhere. And I won't think about it But once you have an entire handful, you can't avoid the impact of it.
00:05:59
Speaker
And there's so many times, and I know specifically for me, when you're working in the dark and you're working on skills and you're trying to get people to notice you and you think you're on the right track, but you don't actually have proof because success has this long tail on it.
00:06:15
Speaker
You wonder if it actually matters. And to me, the handful of bubblegum is the reminder that all of the little moments stack up. If you're willing to track them, they are going to stack up and work in your favor.
00:06:31
Speaker
And I think that's true even in like you talk about in meetings, right? If you are able to make a line in a meeting or say something in a meeting where maybe you're a little ah timid and you don't want to speak up, understanding the content and and being proficient in the conversation, if you can get there, and then just saying what you need to say to be heard. If it's one line, one line and you get some nods in the meeting. You're like, oh, okay. I remember being in a meeting with a bunch of executives and they say something and I'm just thinking, man, there's this one thing they're not thinking of because they don't know what's really happening at you know my level of the industry. And then I bring it up and then they nod and I'm like, that just got me visibility.
00:07:17
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, it's how you show up to begin with. So I'm sitting in far fewer meetings than I'm sitting in press conferences. And when you sit in a press conference, there's a couple of different types of press conferences, but it's really easy to assume that you are sitting in a large group of people and that you blend in.
00:07:38
Speaker
And you can blend in right? And you can make sure that you blend in. But when you sit in your chair and you're slumped backwards or you're hunched over and you're looking at your phone and you're doing all of these things, you think that you're not being noticed.
00:07:54
Speaker
I will tell you as somebody who has been on the podium, who has been at you know the microphone, who can see a room differently, you are being noticed. And if you're going to be noticed for looking like you're not paying attention,
00:08:09
Speaker
And if it's going to look like you don't want to be there, guess what? You can also be noticed for the attentiveness that you pay, right? The energy that you bring to the room, and I will speak as a keynote speaker, i notice the energy. I know who's sitting up. I know who's smiling. I know who's nodding. I know who's taking notes. And I'm not judging the audience. What I'm saying is you bring more to the room, just sitting in the room and sitting at the table than you think you do.
00:08:39
Speaker
And even if you don't say a word, if you're leaning in, right, if it looks like you are dialed into the meeting because you are, that is also a form of a contribution that goes much further than you realize in how people perceive you and also the opportunities that you will end up getting.
The Importance of Meaningful Small Talk
00:09:02
Speaker
I love that. I know that in your book, there's I feel like when I was reading it, I was walking through my own career journey of lessons that I learned the hard way. um I felt that it was super informational. But one of the things that you say um is you talk about your dislike for icebreakers. Oh, my gosh. And i laughed so hard because i hate icebreakers. But I want to hear your perspective on them and and your thoughts on them.
00:09:32
Speaker
Now, let me clarify, I don't hate small talk. I specifically hate the icebreakers that are so far out of left field that I don't have an answer for them. And these tend to happen, you know, at networking events or it happened a lot during the pandemic when people were trying to get engagement on virtual calls, right?
00:09:53
Speaker
Here's my problem with icebreakers that sound like if you were a tree, what type of tree would you be? Or, you know, that sort of a thing. First of all, I don't know. This is not something that I spend my time thinking about. If you are with a group of arborists, awesome. That is probably the right question to ask, right? They spend a lot of time thinking about trees and what they would do as a tree.
00:10:16
Speaker
just I'm just assuming there, right? When we get so far off of the topic, there are going to be some people who were anticipating that question because they knew it was coming or they've answered that question five times in other networking events. But there's a couple of things. I just confused the audience. And I didn't really do a good job of building a connection because I don't know what I'm trying to get out of that conversation, right? Again, if we're talking about trees, what does this have to do with the conversation that we are about to have? So the icebreakers that are awkward or weird generally do not lead to the connection that you're hoping for, and it doesn't help further the conversation. I would rather have an icebreaker that gets you slightly adjacent to a a question you would have already been asked. So for example, if you're trying to get to know people and it's a morning event, And you just want to know your icebreaker would be what kind of coffee do you order? What's your what's your standard coffee order?
00:11:17
Speaker
Okay. I can do that and I will have an answer. But here's the icebreaker I would prefer. When did coffee become part of your morning routine?
00:11:29
Speaker
Everybody has an answer for that question. It's a morning event. Coffee is top of mind. And whether you drink coffee or not, you have a story about coffee. I promise people feel very, very strongly about this. But now I actually have a connection point that ties into the time of day, the event, the the people that I'm with, and that furthers the relationship. It doesn't stall a conversation out or take us down a different road.
00:11:58
Speaker
Right. And some of them might even have their coffee with them on the table or in their hand. And so you've kind of grounded them into the space that they're in which i I like. Yes, i I chuckled at that. I'm not an advocate for icebreakers. I always think, why are we doing this? And I feel like...
00:12:16
Speaker
i so I kind of feel like a child. Like why are we're all adults in here? We're all here for a reason to accomplish a goal, a purpose of this meeting. And i I don't need that to feel comfortable in the space.
00:12:31
Speaker
Yes. And I do realize that some people do. Right. And so I think the overall message to this would be whether it's small talk, icebreakers, emails, any sort of interaction.
00:12:43
Speaker
just give it a little thought ahead of time and be very intentional about what you want to get out of that question or that conversation. If all I'm trying to do is fill time,
00:12:56
Speaker
Okay, then ask whatever question you want. But I'm assuming that if you were in that space, there's a specific reason. You're not just trying to fill time. It's not like you need something during the course of your day, right, to just like take up a couple of hours. You've got plenty of options for that, right? And so when we just think about this for just a little bit, we'll change everything about those interactions and the effectiveness of the conversations that we're already having.
00:13:24
Speaker
And that concept is similar to something that you talk about with interactions that you might come across with some of the executive leadership. And it's something that you practiced as you were in your career, um somewhat of an elevator pitch for when you might come across somebody, an executive in
Using Success Statements for Impact
00:13:42
Speaker
the company. So for women looking to develop their career, you know, if you don't get a lot of face time with these executive leaders, you want to be prepared. Tell us more about that and why that's important.
00:13:55
Speaker
So I call them success statements. And a success statement is a little less of an elevator pitch. It is more about shining the light on something that you are proud of that also relates to your audience. And that's important, right? Because I'm gonna talk about work when I'm talking to the CEO or when I'm talking to my manager. I'm gonna talk about some personal successes when I'm having wine with my girlfriends, right? But a success statement is really helpful because it is the response that you give to the question, how are you?
00:14:30
Speaker
And often we fall into the same script and the same conversation, but that's the moment that you get. You know you're getting that moment multiple times a day. And you know that even if you don't have face time with the CEO regularly, generally when you get into the elevator with him or her, somebody will say, hey, how are you today? I'm good. Great.
00:14:53
Speaker
And now you're going to say, I'm great. The project that I've been working on we are ahead of schedule and already gotten 25% more out of this new sales direction than we anticipated.
00:15:11
Speaker
Now that's pretty cool, right? You're proud of that. You recognize that. You know who always cares about productivity, money, revenue, sales? The CEO of the company does. And I don't need to say anything else. Now, maybe the CEO will turn around and ask you a question about that, but even if they don't,
00:15:29
Speaker
you still maximize that time. You told them something about you that you are proud of. And that is one of the easiest ways to advocate for yourself. It doesn't matter who you're talking to, but it is a very productive way to maximize a little bit of face time with the executives.
00:15:48
Speaker
hundred percent, hundred percent. And even if they don't answer the question or ask you a follow on question, because they might have other things in their mind. I mean, they've got a lot on their plate. We know that that's why you're maximizing this time to make an impact and an impression.
00:16:04
Speaker
When something around that topic comes up in another meeting and maybe you aren't in the room, guess who they're going to think about? you. And they're going to be like, Ooh, I wonder what you're working on. Or I want to know more about that because that might be a potential solution to this problem that we're discussing. um I've definitely had to do a lot of that working in an industrial environment, trying to initiate change in a culture that was very change and risk adverse. And i had to do a lot of elevator pitches. i would literally
00:16:40
Speaker
get on elevator rides and follow them so I can get those few minutes because getting on the calendar was so hard. And you talk about a little bit in your book, the administrative assistants, and they are your best friend because they know when these executives are coming in and out of rooms, they know what meetings are priorities, And they are going to move things around for you if they can. They would even tell me, ooh, he's going to be coming from this meeting in that building. If you're over there, you could probably walk with him for two minutes.
00:17:12
Speaker
yeah And I would be like, okay. And sometimes I would go and I could tell it wasn't the right time because there might have been a crisis. And I was like, yeah, i don't this isn't a good time. And so I'd walk away. But you know i would do some of my office stalking and just go and be like, I know they're going to come out of this room because sometimes – It is hard to get that FaceTime. And if you're trying to socialize an initiative or a win or a project where you want sponsorship support, you have to be visible and you have to even take such advantage of those little micro moments.
00:17:43
Speaker
Yeah. Well, and we do it all the time in broadcasting. and And I say that in the context of we measure conversations in seconds when we are doing a television broadcast. I think when we think about, oh, I need FaceTime and I need a meeting and I need a one-on-one, we're thinking, oh, it's got to be at least 15, 20, 30 minutes to make an impact. That's not true. You can make an impact in 15 seconds. That's the smallest amount of time that we will be given to tell a story or to kind of put a bow on the story, toss back to our colleague, get a comment back, right? 15 seconds equals three sentences. That's a standard measure of TV time. If you think about what you're doing three sentences at a time and you really dial that message in,
00:18:31
Speaker
Boy, yeah i can I can make an impression in under a minute. i can I can tell a story that sticks. I can get somebody to pay attention in under a minute. And so to your point, all of those little moments, it's not they're not throwaway. Those are actually the ones that you should be paying more attention to during the course of the day.
00:18:53
Speaker
Yeah. And in change management, because I'm a change manager and I practice that, we call that socializing sometimes. So if I have something that I'm trying to get people on board with early, instead of coming to them with this big, huge presentation and that 30 minute meeting, I start dropping little hints in meetings. Ooh. Yeah, this really relates to something that we're working on with XYZ. And that's all it is, is a line. You're socializing it. You're warming people up to it. People might be interested and ask more, but they know that there's something there. And then as you kind of progress the conversation, your' your you're setting them up to be engaged and interested and you're sort of selling them on whatever this is that you're working on. So I like to call it socialization, too. And you can find parallels in different meetings for different things. Oh, that relates to this. So, you know, if you're starting a business or a brand when you're talking to certain people and certain things come up, that's where you pop in that two lines. So it. It parallels even outside of the corporate and the broadcasting world into this entrepreneurial small business world. If you're having a meeting with someone who could be a potential investor and you don't know how to approach it, or maybe you don't want to do this whole big pitch, you can start dropping these lines. What are they going to be interested in about what I'm working on? How am I going to get the support or this visibility with these people or their community? Maybe they'll let me have access to their community. So those are all sorts of ways that you can do that. so i thought that that was super valuable in your book.
00:20:22
Speaker
I love the way that you phrase that. I'm going to borrow that phrasing from now on. Yeah, absolutely. One of the other things in your book that you talk, I keep reference
Handling Negative Comments as Motivation
00:20:32
Speaker
to your books. I really did love it. um I'm going to read some stuff from it because I think it's important.
00:20:40
Speaker
You had some quotes in here of things that you were told when you started your career. I was told women don't belong in sports. I was told by a former manager in my first television job that I was hired to wear short skirts and open doors, not to think or contribute to conversations.
00:20:59
Speaker
I was told I belonged in the kitchen where I could cook and clean, not on the football field where I could officiate. I was told I wasn't pretty enough for TV. i was told i was just a pretty face and full of shit.
00:21:13
Speaker
How do you navigate that narrative without letting it become your story?
00:21:23
Speaker
I think it is being an ultra competitive person who is slightly naive to believe that something good or something great is going to happen the next day.
00:21:35
Speaker
I did learn a lot from those early comments. The manager who told me I was hired to wear short skirts and to open doors,
00:21:46
Speaker
I was understandably upset about that. And my reaction was to throw a pen against the wall. And all things considered, right, that's that's a fairly tame reaction when you're sitting in a conference room with a man who has just said that to you. The pen exploded. It was one of those old school Bic pens. And the dialogue and the narrative that came out of that one is she's too emotional to work here. Mm-hmm.
00:22:14
Speaker
I've never again had a meeting just one-on-one. I have never again done that. And i learned very quickly that I could be mad if I wanted to, but that that sort of response and reaction wasn't gonna help my cause.
00:22:33
Speaker
It's not fair. i know that I'm not the only one who've heard who's heard that, but my response was to look at it from kind of an athlete standpoint and a competitive standpoint. Okay, fine. How do I win in this situation, right? What can i first of all, tolerate? Because I am in the industry that they said I was never gonna be in. So what's my level of tolerance for this? Do I wanna keep going? Do I wanna give it a shot? It was my first job and so yes, right? I wanted to keep going and I wanted to give it a shot. And then you just try to figure out, okay,
00:23:11
Speaker
How much do I have to interact with that person? How much do I believe that person? What is the other evidence telling me? I can choose to focus on the one person who is trying to make my job difficult, or I can look at, here's the opportunity that's in front of me.
00:23:27
Speaker
Well, I get a chance to go to a press conference today. Can I prepare a question? Well, I get a chance to talk to this guest today. Can I be kind and gracious and make a great impression so that the next time they're on the show, they're looking forward to it because they know they will be greeted by somebody who is kind and gracious. It did force me to look for new opportunities after a couple of those conversations. And I'm grateful for that, too, because otherwise I would have stayed in the same place and I wouldn't have challenged myself to grow and to do other things. But I think it's always about looking ahead. and it's not even a chip on your shoulder.
00:24:05
Speaker
I will say I wrote one of my books in response to the person who to told me I was full of shit. um And that felt pretty good. When I sent him a copy of the book, I said, what did you think about this shit?
00:24:18
Speaker
And he responded in an email and he said, well done. He goes, I underestimated you. Well done. i was like, okay. He said he underestimated you. Wow. Well, he did, but also like, okay. So I'm going to have to definitely read that one too. Yeah. Yeah. But I just, you know, a lot of my athletes would say you use it like a chip on your shoulder, right? The problem with a chip on your shoulder is you're always trying to prove somebody else wrong.
00:24:47
Speaker
Yeah. I would prefer to prove myself right. yeah And there's a there's a small difference there, but it makes all the difference in the world when you wake up in the morning and you decide, what am I going to do? And it's a huge difference maker when you're crying at night going, what am I doing this for? I'm not doing this for anybody else. I'm doing this for me. So how can I prove myself right?
00:25:07
Speaker
Yeah. And when you have the chip on your shoulder, that mentality, you're doing it thinking about them. You're giving them mental space in your mind and the way you move ah throughout your day when in actuality, they're probably not even thinking about you at all.
00:25:23
Speaker
They made an offhanded comment and they're done. Yep. It's more about them and their character than about you and your worth. And so I love the concept of what can I prove right about myself and enforce that.
00:25:39
Speaker
I've been told some of those things and, you know, high risk situations. Sometimes I've had to go and actually take take charge of scenes um from men that were like, I'm not going to give this to you because you can't handle it. Yeah.
00:25:54
Speaker
And you go through enough of those that you almost tend to kind of navigate it in in a strange way because you can't go and just complain about everybody everybody if it's happening all the time. Not that it happened all the time, but there's quite a few that I have experienced um in the realm that I was in. But again, you have to make the choice. I made the choice. I'm going to stay and I'm going to keep going and I'm going to move forward and things that were bad enough, you know, I bubbled up or I filed formal complaints on. But when you navigate just those little one-offs things,
00:26:32
Speaker
you have to almost be prepared to with that one liner, like how to respond, you know, like I'd have responses for everything. um One other thing I want to mention about your role as a broadcasting and sideline reporter is you've been with the Seahawks for a really long time.
00:26:51
Speaker
And you also talk about using sports as a conversation topic in the workplace.
Using Sports as a Communication Tool
00:26:58
Speaker
I am not a huge sports person. I did watch most of the Superbowl this year. And, um, what do you recommend for women that are not into sports and, you know, how do they integrate that or what other kind of conversation starters can they do to build? well i Yep. I always recommend sports and yes, I am biased. However, the numbers show that it is a
00:27:26
Speaker
Very effective topic. More than half of all Americans identify as sports fans. That is conservatively over 168 million people that you can connect with if you are willing to ask them about sports. Sports fans are not just fans on game day. they are fans every day of the week. If you give them a chance to talk about their favorite team or player, they will share more with you than you possibly could have imagined. And it doesn't have to be the nitty gritty part of sports. It's not just the scores and the outcomes and the stats. If I'm trying to learn about my colleagues and build relationships, there's a few things that I need to know outside of just your hobbies. One of them is your preferred communication style.
00:28:13
Speaker
And every single sports fan tells me that in the way they talk about a game. If you talk about a game in terms of the final score, the quarterback rating, the ah yards on the ground, ah the defensive sacks, right? Any number of those things. I have a pretty good idea that you are driven by numbers, data, and analytics. And that that is how you prefer to communicate and and the things that you prefer to talk about. If you talk to me about the same game, so let's say it's the Super Bowl, and you talk about, we had um these friends over, oh, and then they invited this couple over, and I really loved the spread that I made. Oh my gosh, it was all of my favorite game day foods. And I had to tell everybody to be quiet when the game started so that I did not miss a commercial. Oh, and the defense was really good. And Seahawks didn't score touchdown until the second half. And they ended up winning.
00:29:06
Speaker
I now know that you are driven by connection. And what you like in a conversation is to put people in that picture and you want conversely to be put in the picture. So when I'm describing an outcome or a solution for you, it can't be numbers based. You wanna know what that solution looks like and feels like.
00:29:29
Speaker
That's why I would say sports is a go-to topic. It is also one of the easiest topics to ask a yes-no question of. Did you watch the game last night?
00:29:40
Speaker
Did you watch the Super Bowl? Are you watching the Mariners this season? I quite honestly do not care what the answer is. But I don't have to play a weird game of 20 questions of like, oh, what did you do last night? Do you like to go hiking? Do you have a dog? Do you have kids? Do you have, because I will tell you when people default to kids and pets,
00:30:03
Speaker
I don't have either. And that conversation can get awkward really quickly when you thought you were just going to ask me about my kids and my pets, but you don't have anything else to go to.
00:30:14
Speaker
Right? so when you start with sports, I at least know where to direct the conversation. No, I'm not going to watch much baseball. My kid's actually in a traveling environment.
00:30:25
Speaker
ah softball league. And so I'm going to be gone to tournaments all summer. Okay. Now I can ask you the question about your kids and your family and get into it from that point of view.
00:30:38
Speaker
I love that. Asking to understand their communication style. That's really important too, because you can translate that into other conversations down the road. If you know X person is interested in numbers, what are they going to know about the project that you're, what are they going to want to know about the project that you're working on? The metrics, right? So those are your two lines that you spew out. If they want to know about other pieces of it, like how is the morale on in the workplace.
00:31:05
Speaker
Okay. I'm going to talk about how, what I'm doing impacts the morale in the workplace. I think that's a really great tip. Thanks. So one of the biggest flexes that you have is that you have a Superbowl ring.
00:31:20
Speaker
I do. Yes. Tell us about that and what that means to you.
00:31:29
Speaker
As somebody who was told all the things that you read off earlier, he to be in a position where I am part of a team um and to have the respect of the team, it means it means the world just to be in that position. For me, it is in some ways validation of all the hard work that nobody knew about and all the times that I sat there and wondered, if it was worth doing it. um And it is incredibly special to just know that that that's that's part of either my legacy or just a career that's been filled with so many wonderful memories that I i could not have ever imagined or pictured when I first got into it.
00:32:21
Speaker
Well, congratulations to you. Congratulations to the Seahawks. I think you were at the Super Bowl, weren't you? I was. i was on their sidelines. I saw you on TV. It was fun. Yep.
00:32:34
Speaker
Yep. It was very fun. Yes, that's awesome. And I'm so glad that you're a part of that journey and all the hard work that you did in your book. It was really inspirational and um I'm honored to be able to read it and to have a conversation with you today about it.
00:32:51
Speaker
So as we wrap up, what is your biggest piece of advice for Grit City Women? Figure out what success means to you in the smallest of small ways.
Personal Definitions of Success for Confidence
00:33:03
Speaker
It could be you decided that you want to get up five minutes earlier every day so that you can have five minutes of stillness and meditation. It could be getting five people to say hello to you during the course of the day. It could be any number of small things. What those things are don't really matter.
00:33:21
Speaker
What matters is you can look back over your day and know that regardless of any other outcomes... that you had success and that you are building confidence to keep moving forward.
00:33:35
Speaker
Great advice. Thank you so much for joining us, Jen. Absolutely. Thank you. Born from the spirit of Grit City Women, Gritty is the New Pretty carries the torch, amplifying the voices, stories, and power of women who lead with resilience, purpose, and unapologetic grit.
00:33:55
Speaker
To support Gritty is the New Pretty, follow us on Instagram at Grit City Women or shop our online store at gritcitywomen.com.