00:00:23Welcome to the third pedal, podcast recorded at the Vandal Lounge. In beautiful Southeast Portland, Oregon. Why the third paddle? Because even the most badass entrepreneurs gets stuck up in Business Management. Consultant Jennifer McFarland is your third paddle, helping you get unstuck.

00:01:44Write the book. So I've been doing divorcing inclusion work. I'm kind of a volunteer basis for a long time, and I've always had a passion about this topic and like, back to Childhood. Even what I wanted was some book for me, a working, professional to say, okay. I'm all in on this diversity thing. But what can I do about it? I'm not a, not a big corporate executive. I'm not, but this is important to me. What should I do? When I have a lot of books along the way and it's almost a book. I want doesn't exist. Maybe I should be the one to write it and so I didn't. Oh, that's great. How long does it take you to go to? They're always, in my opinion. They're always three answers to. How long did it take to write your book. So, the first answer is my whole life.

00:03:06So from that standpoint, it took about a year from the time that I actually opened up a Word document called book draft.. It took me about four months. So we had a really good coach to help me.

00:04:16And I'm just like everybody else. And so was I want that and I felt different. There's probably a lot of opportunity out there for me to change the way I show up at work, so that other people feel welcome. And so that I can open up opportunities to other people and this organization of that organization, Jenny girl channel.

00:05:34But I never saw these kids that were suffering as like other, right? And I just saw them, or if I had been born looking like this, that would be me. And so I always could have identified with a sort of the outsider perspective. And then when I went to college, I am bisexual. And that was a really difficult thing from throwing up. And you know, who's like a girl, you know, what homosexuality homosexuality was and wasn't, you know, I don't think I have the word bisexual and tell you, just in talked about it and I very acutely felt other for a long time and I knew why, but I didn't have the words to express it and then when I had the words to express, it, it became

00:07:34They have that so much worse than I do because of their age or the Rays, or the gender gender identity, or where they come from, or how they talk to you. And it's not that they can't do the work and it's not that they can't be Rockstar's. It's the, they just either. They don't know how to show up in the way that sits like that box, right? Or they're doing everything they can to show up that way in there. So, it's cool. I don't want to be a part of that. I want them to want to be around me and doing the best. I would say, we talked about it before we schedule the interview or some of the parallels. It's not lost. I need to wear a couple of white women talking about inclusion. However, I think the both of us coming from Tech. Also know, at least, in one regard, what it is like to be the other and I last week show, actually, I talked about a couple of situations that

00:09:34It's a huge work that you're doing and I'm so glad to meet you and know that somebody else is out there. Passionate about this kind of work. Do you think about what is the most insulting things to me from my tack days? And then I'm going to still have a good night tea and some places to. But what is like this, you say that loud. This is notion of like like a server relationship being like master and slave relationship. And I've always been bothered by that terminology and I think you like, you know, just a simple thing that shows up at work and happy. No, just being able to have that conversation about what this is not okay to use these kinds of parrot eyes when you're talking about communicating with each other. That's not the right.

00:11:34Or facial recognition software that advises, you know, Asian Americans said they need to open their eyes for the camera, right? Because they didn't take into account that their ratios of recognition were based on a eurocentric model and not on. You know, I'm working first, right? And this is all kinds of. And then, you know, we talked about like artificial intelligence and machine learning and those sorts of things. All of this is going to that code to and it really is kind of a scary thing. Like if you if you just keep doubling down on the same perspective over and over and over again, you're missing so much in terms of data, in terms of, you know,

00:13:24Are patterns of synapses create the same neural Pathways over and over and over. We keep reinforcing that and if we wanted our cells out of that behavior, we have to choose to do things different letters at that moment in Williams movie about that. But if you, if you don't want to keep running those same routine and running the same path as in your brain that you have to do something different. You have to choose something different. And so, you know, and I talked about this a lot, these identities that we do. We Bill based on how the world interacts with us how the world responds to us in the world responds to ads based on who he thinks we are based on how we live.

00:15:24Diamond Lake and I can kind of see the young group there to raise. He like, that's my buddy from the Dale and Buddy from the board game. Clue and I happen to these different interest into getting stuck in one and go find things that you never knew you. Like and you know, what, if you don't like things, that's okay, too, but at least you'll have an appreciation for what they are and why they're absolutely in and I lack of curiosity around things like that because I'm I'm the I like the ballet and the Opera and plays in sports and Crossfit and just all kinds of things. And people are like, is there anything you don't like? I'm like, I don't like bananas.

00:17:06So I had to come up with a way to network that felt good to me. And so, the challenge that I set for myself, the first time I went to a conference which is not that long ago, but the waiting on a couple years ago, I have so many conversations with former managers about today and maybe if I fully papers for them or I passed out their hand out, or I recommend a book or I introduce them to someone like, these are things. I know I can do and I'm not going to be nervous. I need to find a way to go to.

00:18:43Intentional about that. So you're not just going to the same buddy that helping your buddy, you know, helping people in different ways. That's that's really beautiful. And I do think that it helps you get out there a little bit more. So, how how vital is networking for your career and your business? We have a lot of business owners listening to the show. I have the larger companies when they're hiring, they will only put jobs internally or the post internally first. So, if you're not already in your chances of getting a job, were pretty low the next place. They'd look referrals from existing employees. Do they know that you're looking into? They know what you can do, so they can recommend you for that job, because if you don't get the recommendation of the referral and then, and it's only posted internally for people to like send out then if they don't know.

00:20:38What's a your car? Salesman car salesperson and let's say you are a

00:21:38And so you don't end up just one little example, but if you think about it, okay. Well, if I had access to a totally different people than the people that I typically sell to totally different people from me that need what I'm building in the world. What kind of doors would that open for you? What kind of auction used to create a huge unlimited? Absolutely. And I couldn't agree more about how important it is for your career in your business. I mean, it's it is absolutely vital and I I kind of learned that the hard way before I started my business, the importance of really even when you work in a large organization. You can't make the assumption that people know you do good work.

00:23:22Play job and prove that they have the right skills to be there. When their peers are not necessarily doing that right there? Piers are making sure that they're getting noticed and I hope you have to find a balance between doing really good work and getting notice because of all you do is do really, really good work. The people around you are going to notice and then there and use that to their advantage. To yours. So carve out a couple of hours a week, where you go talk to people in other places and talk about what you're working. You don't have to be boastful. You don't have to brag about it and talk about a problem that you saw that you're excited about or something. I know you're working on right now that you're looking forward to, you know, building talk about a deal that you close talking about. You know, what you learned in class or something where you're actually talking about you and your experience with other people can see you and I can tell she was really uncomfortable with that. But I think you'll be your first job out of college because of a career fair or you know, any players coming on.

00:25:20And the acronym Camp each letter in the word stands for a type of contact. So he is your customer or your constituent age of someone hired or help get a job and have to be active helping like endorsing them for PowerPoint. On LinkedIn does not count as an a is an associate which is basically a somebody that you would, you know, somebody you go have coffee with or maybe a drink after work, you're having a rough day like that kind of person, right? And M is a mentor, and he is a protege. And if you have those fives, I called the five critical connections for your career. And if you have all five of those, you're going to be more Innovative, you're going to go farther in your career more quickly and you're going to have the right support network in doing stop. And so, you know, as your building that out though, you also want those perspectives to be a different from your own as possible.

00:27:06Yeah, well well in and what I appreciate about it too is like building that diverse Network and not focusing on one thing something I've run across again. And again is how women in particular focus on finding mentors as opposed to having this balance network of people that they collaborate with, and that Focus solely on finding a mentor, if it puts you in a padded. If all you're looking for armentors, then it's actually not a diverse Network recipe for a second to just a white woman, right? We tend to look for members and sponsors a lot, but we don't have to think about the places where we have four. And so that's why I have the higher or help in there. That's not helping somebody move forward in their career, with a real job. And, you know, I think we, I think we tend to ignore

00:29:06Enough for Innovations going to happen and that's where we really going to go to Goodwill. If we can, you know, opportunities for people that when you don't owe somebody, something you're doing it because it's the right thing to do. And I totally agree with that. Thank you. Yes, how do you evaluate how to verse your network? Is in the give me a list and I'll come out. And then the other dimension is, what perspective is your network, ignore? And that takes, you step-by-step through different, you know, different demographic, industry, being one of them.

00:31:06That is what. Yeah, I know all these people who are different but they aren't. The first five I thought of. And so then I say right? And so like when your CEO or your manager, your director is making a decision about who they're going to put on a high-profile project. And so like if your have your complaining about, why don't get any opportunity because I'm different, but then you can totally see in that moment. How you're perpetuating that as well. And I even had diversity, professional say to me that we cannot address them. And so does the framework really help you just be aware and it's not a one-size-fits-all. There's no right number for everybody, but you know,

00:33:07You're probably be a lot of ignored perspective. What I want to do is I want to focus on the next generation of leaders. The next generation of leaders are not as entrenched in the way things are. As the current generation of tomorrow's leaders aren't giving up anything. They already have to make room for somebody else and I wanted to change that that mindset of I have to give something up for someone else to have it. What I want people to understand is when you bring someone else in, you create more for everybody, absolutely understand that this all starts with their Network. It all starts with who, they know who they bring in their champions, for how they can act, how they relate who they see as like them and quotation, mark, because when you see somebody and you think you're like me, you go out of your way to help them and we're all alike in some way that it was always something like maybe you root for the same, you know, the same baseball team or, you know,

00:35:06That to me, is how we're going to change this going forward because we're going to build these leaders were going to bring these people up with us. They're going to bring us up as they rise and then we're all going to get there together and we're all stronger for it along the way. Absolutely, I did. And I couldn't agree more about the need to shift away from. I have to give something up for somebody else. It's it's not like it doesn't work like that. Yeah, and we inherently know that like we bring on people who are like us. We don't think I'll give him something up right now. Like,

00:36:18A secret. If you actually download an e-book, you'll also get a special gift and a couple days out there and reach out and also pick up the book network network Beyond bias because it's awesome. And we really just skim the surface. There's so much good stuff in there. So thank you very much for being on the show.