Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors: Shatter Limiting Beliefs - Redefine Success - Chase Big Dreams

What if the most damaging thing that ever happened to you was not the dramatic moment - the affair, the rehab call, the divorce papers - but the slow, invisible erosion of yourself that happened so gradually you did not even notice until you were already gone? Dana Killion spent 25 years in a marriage to a high-functioning alcoholic who also had a secret sexual life. She did not collapse. She did not run. She did the work of trying to understand, trying to rebuild, and eventually trying to save herself. And then she wrote about all of it - so no woman ever has to go through it alone again.

SUMMARY & GUEST INTRO

If you have ever set yourself aside for someone else's pain and looked up one day to find you had completely disappeared - Dana Killion wrote this episode for you. She is the author of Where the Shadows Dance and the upcoming Becoming Unbreakable: A Big Sister's Guide to Trauma, out September 2026. A former apparel industry executive who turned to writing first as escape and then as purpose, Dana has survived the collapse of a long marriage, the loss of both parents, a cross-country reinvention, and the death of her eldest son. She now works as what she calls a trauma big sister - not a therapist, not a coach, but someone who has been through it and will hold your hand while you find your way through too. This one is going to stay with people.

INSIDE THE EPISODE

• He Got Sober. She Got Broken. The line on Dana's website that stops everyone cold - and the one Erica starts with. When your entire life is organized around keeping someone else alive, you disappear. Dana breaks down how that happens, why it happens below the surface of awareness, and what it feels like to suddenly see yourself clearly for the first time in years.
• The Secret Life She Did Not Know About. While her husband was in rehab finally taking his sobriety seriously, Dana learned he had also been living a secret sexual life - a large number of partners she had never known about. She walks through what it is like when the ground shifts under 25 years of memory all at once.
• This Is Trauma Too. Most people think of trauma as a sudden, acute event. Chronic, quiet, invisible trauma - the kind that comes from decades of loving someone who is slowly destroying themselves - does not look the same. Dana took years to name what had happened to her as trauma. She gives every woman listening permission to do the same.
• I Will Not Let This Man Destroy Me. Lying in bed night after night, Dana repeated this to herself until it became the foundation of everything she built next. Determination that looked like stubbornness. A refusal to become one of the women she had seen who never recovered. This is the turning point.
• Why Am I Staying? Not a one-time question. A daily one. Dana filed for divorce and yanked the papers. She ran out the door and came back. She makes the case that none of this is failure - it is the non-linear, painful, honest work of a woman trying to figure out who she is and what she can live with.
• Each Trauma Built the Tools for the Next. Dana lost her son three years ago. It was the most recent of the traumas and the most devastating. But she found herself handling it with what she describes as more ease than she expected - because every previous loss had quietly built something in her. That is the thesis of Becoming Unbreakable.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Pre-order Becoming Unbreakable (Sept 2026): https://amzn.to/4f7x9XT
• Where the Shadows Dance (memoir): https://www.danakillion.com/
• Dana Killion Website: https://www.danakillion.com/
• Dana on Substack: https://danakillion.substack.com/
• LinkedIn: Dana Killion: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dana-killion-936214263/

ERICA'S RESOURCES & LINKS

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📚 Get my first book, Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors: https://amzn.to/4uvjbE5

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What if the hardest thing you have ever been through is not something that happened to you - but something that was always going to make you? Sara Schulting Kranz was blindsided by divorce, betrayal, single motherhood, and the complete collapse of the life she had built. She was 40, across the country from her family, with no career, no clear path, and three boys watching her figure it out. She did not go around it. She developed a five-stage framework for walking through it - and has since used it with Fortune 500 executives, professional athletes, and a blind female para-athlete she guided rim to rim in 24 hours. This episode is about what it actually takes to get through the thing that looks like it is going to break you.

SUMMARY & GUEST INTRO

If you are standing at the edge of a change you did not choose - a divorce, a career collapse, a loss, a life that no longer fits - Sara Schulting Kranz has walked the canyon you are looking into. She is a bestselling author, keynote speaker, certified executive coach, and elite adventurer who has spent 32 years building and living her five-stage framework for navigating change. Her book is called Walk Through This. Her tagline is 'The way out is forward.' And in this episode, she brings the full weight of her own story and her decades of work guiding others to help you understand exactly where you are in the change process - and what to do next.

INSIDE THE EPISODE

• The Labor Day Weekend That Changed Everything. Sara was beyond rock bottom. She had moments of wanting to end her life. Her friends took her to Sequoia National Park, a friend put rocks in her pack, and she climbed to an outcropping of rock, looked out at the valley below, and felt completely disconnected from the problems she had been carrying for a year. That was the moment everything shifted - from 'I am a victim' to 'I am going to thrive on the other side of this.'
• What We Fear Is Our Greatest Success. Stage one of Sara's framework is approaching the change - and the biggest resistance most people feel is not actually to the difficulty ahead. It is to the success that might be waiting for them. Sara breaks down why that is, what it looks like, and why courage is the only thing that develops confidence.
• Blame as a Form of Control. In stage two - descending into the change - blame shows up almost every time. Sara explains why: when everything feels out of control, blame gives people the illusion of getting some control back. The move out of blame and into ownership is where the real transformation begins.
• The Three Types of People Going Through Change. The wait and seer. The resistor. And the let's goer. Sara shares why high-achieving women are constantly assumed to be let's goers - and why that assumption is one of the most costly ones made about us. You cannot pour from an empty cup. Taking care of yourself is not optional. It is the only real leadership move.
• Every Time She Does the Hard, It Gives Her Permission to Do the Other Hard. Sara sold her house and 98% of her possessions in 2017. She went from 4,200 square feet to 800. She has spent at least seven nights alone in the wilderness every year since. She hiked the John Muir Trail for 22 days in 2020. Not because she had to - but because choosing the hard thing on purpose builds the resilience to face the hard things that choose you.
• With My Last Breath. Sara's mother was her best friend. She died in 2022. They used to talk about regret. When Sara thinks about what matters, it always comes back to one thing: when I take my last breath, I want to know I lived it my way. This is the question she leaves every listener with.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Book: Walk Through This - Sara Schulting Kranz: https://saraschultingkranz.com/
• Sara Schulting Kranz Website: https://saraschultingkranz.com/
• Email Sara: [email protected]
• LinkedIn: Sara Schulting Kranz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-schulting-kranz/

ERICA'S RESOURCES & LINKS

Start small with me inside HER Jumpstart:

https://her-collective.mn.co/plans/1985289?bundle_token=60b2c61d62213cdbd16d437cdc0e4204&utm_source=manual

🤖 Grab your copy of THE AI GAP: https://amzn.to/3OAXAdL

📚 Get my first book, Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors: https://amzn.to/4uvjbE5

💼 Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericarooney/

📸 Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericaandersonrooney/

🎵 Check out my TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ericaandersonrooney

What if the number you've been too scared to say out loud is exactly the number you should be asking for? A few years ago, Erica was hunched over her phone on her back porch about to ask for $100,000 more than she was currently making. Her hands were sweating. Her chest was tight. And a voice in her head kept saying don't push it, don't be greedy, don't blow this. She said the number anyway. And she got it. This is the full story - the research, the mindset work, and the exact words she used.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

This is the episode Erica gets asked about more than anything else - and she has never done a full breakdown of it until now. Not just the strategy (though the strategy is here, in detail), but the sticky floor that almost kept her from making the ask in the first place. She walks through the entire SNAP method applied to her own salary negotiation, shares the Harvard Business Review data that would have saved her weeks of stomach aches, and reveals the AI-powered negotiation toolkit she built inside HER Collective so no woman ever has to guess at this again. Whether you have a job offer sitting in front of you, a promotion conversation coming up, or a review in a few weeks - this one is for you.

INSIDE THE EPISODE

• The $100,000 Ask. What Erica was feeling in her body when she sat down to make the ask, why she almost talked herself out of it, and what finally made her say the number out loud. Including the three seconds of silence that felt like three years.
• Gratitude as a Cage. The sticky floor that almost cost her the negotiation wasn't lack of confidence. It was being so grateful for the opportunity that she was ready to accept whatever kept the door open. She breaks down why this pattern shows up in so many of the women she coaches - and how to name it before it costs you.
• The Harvard Data Point That Changes Everything. Negotiation is very unlikely to actually cost you the offer. The rescinded offer, the burned bridge - it's a story women tell themselves. The data says otherwise, and knowing this changes how you walk into every conversation.
• How to Research Your Number. Real market data is not a salary aggregator. Erica walks through the four variables that actually matter (role, company size, industry, geography) and explains why most people only use one or two of them - and why that gap is costing them.
• Translate Scope Into Business Impact. The move most people miss. She didn't walk in with a list of responsibilities. She walked in with the dollar value of what she was about to own - turnover cost, cost per hire, benefit spend - and handed her future boss the business case he needed to fight for her.
• The SNAP Method Applied to Salary. Stop and notice what your body is telling you. Name the sticky floor underneath the fear. Ask and answer the honest questions (including: what actually happens if they say no?). Pivot from protecting the offer to making the case.
• The HER Collective Negotiation Toolkit. The AI-powered tool Erica built so that the compensation analysis she did as a CPO is now available to every woman - not just the ones who spent a decade in HR. It analyzes role, scope, industry, geography, and company size and gives you a number backed by real market data.

ERICA'S RESOURCES & LINKS

Start small with me inside HER Jumpstart:

https://her-collective.mn.co/plans/1985289?bundle_token=60b2c61d62213cdbd16d437cdc0e4204&utm_source=manual

🤖 Grab your copy of THE AI GAP: https://amzn.to/3OAXAdL

📚 Get my first book, Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors: https://amzn.to/4uvjbE5

💼 Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericarooney/

📸 Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericaandersonrooney/

🎵 Check out my TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ericaandersonrooney

WHAT IF

What if the business idea you keep talking yourself out of is the one that changes everything? In 2013, Jessica Rhodes was a brand-new mom who just wanted to stay home with her baby. She had no business experience, no sales background, and a $35,000 salary she needed to replace. She started by clicking links on her dad's website every Saturday morning. Twelve years later, she is the CEO of the world's first podcast booking agency, with over 30,000 interviews booked and $13 million in career revenue. She did not set out to build a $13 million company. She set out to stay home. The rest followed.

SUMMARY & GUEST INTRO

If you have been sitting on an idea that feels too small, too unproven, or too outside the norm to take seriously, Jessica Rhodes is the case study you need to hear. She is the founder and CEO of Interview Connections, the world's first and leading podcast booking agency. She started it from her living room as a stay-at-home mom with her father as her first client, in a niche that did not yet exist. Today, Interview Connections has booked over 30,000 podcast interviews and generated $13 million in career revenue. She is also the author of Interview Connections: How to Rock the Podcast From Both Sides of the Mic, and the creator of Monetize the Mic, a program that teaches entrepreneurs how to turn podcast guesting into a real revenue strategy - not just a PR move. In this episode, she breaks down exactly how she got there, and gives every woman listening a practical roadmap for using podcast guesting to build her brand, her authority, and her business.

INSIDE THE EPISODE

• She Just Wanted to Stay Home. Jessica had no big ambitions when she started. She wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and replace her $35,000 salary. She started by clicking links on her father's website. That mindset - start with your why, not your goal - is the thing that made everything else possible.
• The Step Back That Was Actually a Slingshot. She left a six-year nonprofit career where she was running her own office to become a virtual assistant. It felt like a demotion. It turned out to be the smartest move she ever made. Jessica breaks down why sometimes the most significant growth starts with swallowing your pride and doing the humble work first.
• She Invented the Industry. In 2013, podcast booking agencies did not exist. Jessica did not know that was a problem to solve - she just started doing the work for her dad, realized it was something other people needed, and built a company around it. This is what spotting an opportunity actually looks like from the inside.
• Why Every Woman in Corporate Needs a Personal Brand. You do not need to own a business to benefit from podcast guesting. Jessica shares the story of a client who built a side hustle brand through podcast appearances - and her boss heard her and said: 'Oh my God, that's you.' Being on podcasts is a visibility strategy, a networking strategy, and a career advancement strategy all at once.
• The Podcast Pitch That Goes Straight to the Delete Bucket. Jessica books podcasts for a living and also hosts her own show. She shares exactly what makes a pitch land and what gets it deleted immediately - including the one AI mistake that is tanking pitches right now.
• How to Monetize the Mic. Podcast guesting is not a PR strategy. It is a revenue strategy - if you use it correctly. Jessica walks through the full framework: why, messaging, storytelling, call to action, and consistency. She explains why going quiet for even a few months can send your entire pipeline into decline.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Interview Connections: https://interviewconnections.com/
• Monetize the Mic: https://interviewconnections.com/get-started/
• Free Podcast Guesting Masterclass: https://interviewconnections.com/masterclass-2026/
• Jessica Rhodes on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-rhodes-interviewconnections/

ERICA'S RESOURCES & LINKS

Start small with me inside HER Jumpstart:

https://her-collective.mn.co/plans/1985289?bundle_token=60b2c61d62213cdbd16d437cdc0e4204&utm_source=manual

🤖 Grab your copy of THE AI GAP: https://amzn.to/3OAXAdL

📚 Get my first book, Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors: https://amzn.to/4uvjbE5

💼 Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericarooney/

📸 Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericaandersonrooney/

🎵 Check out my TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ericaandersonrooney

What if the story you have been keeping to yourself - the one that feels too messy, too personal, too much - is exactly the thing that would make someone else feel less alone? Shari Foos has spent her career building spaces where women write their truth, share it with strangers, and walk out feeling seen for the first time in years. She calls it the Narrative Method. What she is really doing is fighting the epidemic of loneliness one story at a time.

SUMMARY & GUEST INTRO

If you have been surrounded by colleagues, partners, and friends your entire career and still felt profoundly unseen - you are not broken, and you are not alone. That specific kind of loneliness has a name, and it has a cure. Shari Foos spent decades building it. She is a Columbia University-trained narrative medicine expert, marriage and family therapist, former punk rock singer and TV writer, and the founder of the Narrative Method - a nonprofit running free online salons where women write honestly, share without judgment, and walk out feeling seen for the first time in years. Her work has been featured in Shondaland, The Huffington Post, Women's Health, and Real Simple. In this conversation, she makes the case that the story you have been keeping to yourself is not too much. It is exactly the thing that will make someone else feel less alone.

INSIDE THE EPISODE

• The Cult of Culture. Social media, marketing, and the constant noise of what we are supposed to want, look like, and be. Shari names the force that has been quietly shaming women into conforming - and explains why the antidote is not more willpower. It is honest expression.
• Why Small Talk Is Making Us Lonelier. When you skip the surface and go straight to what actually makes someone tick, something shifts. Shari breaks down why depth creates real connection, why women in corporate America are starving for it, and what gets in the way.
• The Night She Went Looking for Herself. At sixteen, Shari walked through her neighborhood alone in the middle of the night. Not because anything was wrong. Because she was trying to find herself. The police brought her home. The next morning she gathered her family and said: 'I wasn't on drugs. I was looking for myself.' That moment became the foundation for everything she built.
• We Are So Quick to Blame Ourselves. The patterns that held you back were not character flaws. They were survival responses to circumstances you didn't choose. Shari makes the case for empathy toward your younger self - and explains why that compassion is not softness. It is the beginning of real growth.
• You Can't Go Wrong When You Follow Your Passions. Shari gave up a career she loved. It felt like loss. What she could not know at the time was that everything she learned - about performance, about storytelling, about what it means to hold a room - would become the exact foundation of her most meaningful work. The path does not always look like what you imagined. It still leads somewhere.
• The Narrative Method: What It Is and How to Try It. Free online salons, writing prompts drawn from 12 core concepts, a community from across the country and beyond. Shari walks through how it works, what happens when women who have been writing for their jobs finally get to write for themselves, and why the prompt 'what part of yourself longs to be expressed' is a question worth sitting with.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• The Narrative Method: https://www.thenarrativemethod.org/

ERICA'S RESOURCES & LINKS

Start small with me inside HER Jumpstart:

https://her-collective.mn.co/plans/1985289?bundle_token=60b2c61d62213cdbd16d437cdc0e4204&utm_source=manual

🤖 Grab your copy of THE AI GAP: https://amzn.to/3OAXAdL

📚 Get my first book, Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors: https://amzn.to/4uvjbE5

💼 Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericarooney/

📸 Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericaandersonrooney/

🎵 Check out my TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ericaandersonrooney

WHAT IF

What if the very humility you were raised to wear like a badge of honor is the exact thing quietly capping your career? What if showing up, speaking up, and being seen isn't bragging. That's the whole game. Siri Swahari spent two decades unlearning that lesson, and now she's built an entire movement to make sure other women don't have to figure it out alone.

SUMMARY & GUEST INTRO

Siri Swahari moved to the US at 23 with no network, no roadmap, and no one in her corner. She built her entire career from scratch, volunteer work at a Colorado Springs library to VP at one of the world's largest IT and business consulting firms. Along the way, she founded Women Executive Circle, a community of senior women leaders now active in 12 states and growing. I needed to have this conversation. Her message is one every woman in corporate America needs to hear right now: you were not taught to show up, speak up, and be seen. That ends today.

INSIDE THE EPISODE

• The Humility Trap. Siri grew up in India being told that announcing her achievements, even being class topper, was bragging. She breaks down the deep unlearning it took to realize that staying invisible when you're already delivering value isn't humility. It's counterproductive.
• Imposter Syndrome Is a Growth Signal. Siri reframes the thing most women dread: if you're feeling imposter syndrome, you're doing something new, something uncomfortable, something that means you're growing. She shares how a career rotation into an entirely unfamiliar business function transformed how she leads. She coaches others through it now.
• You Can't Be an NPC in Your Own Career. Siri borrows her son's gaming acronym. NPC, non-playing character. It's what happens when talented women stay silent and expect growth anyway. Advocacy, visibility, and speaking up aren't optional extras. They're the game itself.
• What Bad Leaders Teach You. Siri and Erica both share how their worst leadership experiences became their most formative ones: the bosses who didn't credit their work, the environments that made people feel disposable, and how those moments became the North Star for the leaders they chose to become.
• The Origin Story of Women Executive Circle. What started as a small lunch group in Raleigh, born out of a Christmas party that required 100 attendees to happen, became a 12-state community of senior women leaders. Siri tells the full story, including the parking lot moment that made her text her WhatsApp group that Thursday night and say: the world needs this. Let's go.
• The WEC Framework: Wins, Evolving, Challenges. Siri walks through the rose/bud/thorn icebreaker she adapted into WEC's signature framework. Going around a table and asking 'what's actually going on in your life' unlocks something no traditional networking event ever could. It's the reason a leader who hadn't gotten out of bed in three days showed up to happy hour. She left with a plan.
• Representation Is the Work. After a women-in-AI event, Brown women lined up to ask Siri how she was so comfortable speaking in public. Not the VP title, not the promotions. That moment is what drives her. Because you can't be what you can't see, and Siri is committed to being visible so others know it's possible.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Women Executive Circle: https://www.linkedin.com/company/women-executives-circle/
• LinkedIn: Siri Swahari: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sirishaswahari/

ERICA'S RESOURCES & LINKS

Start small with me inside HER Jumpstart:

https://her-collective.mn.co/plans/1985289?bundle_token=60b2c61d62213cdbd16d437cdc0e4204&utm_source=manual

🤖 Grab your copy of THE AI GAP: https://amzn.to/3OAXAdL

📚 Get my first book, Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors: https://amzn.to/4uvjbE5

💼 Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericarooney/

📸 Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericaandersonrooney/

🎵 Check out my TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ericaandersonrooney

Have you ever held back from saying something you know, teaching something you have lived, or going for the thing you want - because a voice whispered that you haven't earned the right yet? Not the ordinary self-doubt. The deeper kind. The one that says your story isn't painful enough, your struggle wasn't dramatic enough, and other people are allowed to lead, but you have to wait until you've suffered the right way first. That belief has a name. It's the qualification myth - and this episode is about taking it apart.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

I got a piece of feedback recently that stung. Not because it was cruel, but because it pointed straight at something she knows a lot of high-achieving women quietly carry: the belief that authority has to be earned through visible suffering. In this solo episode, she breaks down the qualification myth - where it comes from, how it shows up in your job right now, why it hits women harder than men, and the three things that actually qualify you to teach, lead, and take up space. None of them require you to have hit rock bottom first.

INSIDE THE EPISODE

• The Qualification Myth, Defined. The belief that you are only allowed to teach what has nearly destroyed you - that your authority comes from how much you have bled, not from what you actually know. Let's name it, define it, and trace it back to where it starts.
• Why It Hits Women Differently. Men teach from theory and are handed authority based on confidence. Women are asked to prove it - to be both wildly accomplished and deeply humble at the same time. The invisible tax is real, and it is costing you bandwidth every single day.
• The Promotion You Didn't Go For. Women apply for a role when they have closed every qualification gap. Men apply when they meet about half. The gap is not competence - it's permission. Men give it to themselves. We wait to earn it.
• Pre-Discounting in Real Time. Every time you open with 'I'm not really an expert, but...' or 'it might be obvious...' you are handing the room a script for doubting you. You are paying the qualification tax before anyone even asks for it.
• You Cannot Suffer Your Way Into Everyone's Approval. There is no amount of pain that earns you universal permission. Some people have already decided what your story should look like, and your actual life is never going to match the version living inside their head.
• The Three Things That Actually Qualify You. You have lived it. You have done the work to understand it. And what you know can move one person one step forward. That is it. That has always been it. Full stop.
• The SNAP Method in Real Time. I walk through how she used her own framework to process the feedback - stop, name the sticky floor, ask if the thought is true and helpful, and pivot. Not to pretend it didn't sting, but to decide not to sit in it.

ERICA'S RESOURCES & LINKS

Start small with me inside HER Jumpstart:

https://her-collective.mn.co/plans/1985289?bundle_token=60b2c61d62213cdbd16d437cdc0e4204&utm_source=manual

🤖 Grab your copy of THE AI GAP: https://amzn.to/3OAXAdL

📚 Get my first book, Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors: https://amzn.to/4uvjbE5

💼 Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericarooney/

📸 Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericaandersonrooney/

🎵 Check out my TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ericaandersonrooney

WHAT IF

What if you didn’t need a tech background, a development team, or even a single line of code to build your own software? Kay Allen-Carr launched a working app in four hours and a full software company in 48. She’s not a developer. She’s a marketer. And she did it by stopping prompting AI and starting to partner with it — and now she teaches women entrepreneurs to do exactly the same.

SUMMARY & GUEST INTRO

Kay Allen-Carr is a data-driven marketer, owner of a seven-figure agency, keynote speaker, and the founder of KAC Marketing and Collab AI. After 15 years climbing from marketing manager to agency partner to business owner, she hit a ceiling — and instead of waiting for the next rung on the ladder, she built an entirely new one. Today she runs her business in roughly ten hours a week, has replaced almost all of her software subscriptions with tools she built herself using AI, and teaches women entrepreneurs how to stop using AI like a search engine and start using it like the business partner they’ve always needed. No coding required. No tech background necessary. Just a willingness to have a conversation.

INSIDE THE EPISODE

• From the Corporate Grind to a Seven-Figure Agency. Kay started at Comcast, moved to an Inc. 500 startup, climbed to partner at a Miami ad agency, and then asked herself: what’s next? She breaks down the moment she realized the ladder had run out of rungs — and what she did about it.
• 5am to 8pm to 10 Hours a Week. Kay was a self-described perfectionist and control freak who would redo her team’s work rather than trust it. She takes us through the honest before-and-after: the exhausting grind, the expensive senior hires, and how AI completely transformed how she runs her business — and her life.
• From Prompting to Partnering. The biggest mistake people make with AI isn’t using the wrong tool. It’s treating it like a search bar. Kay breaks down what it actually means to build a real working relationship with AI — one where you give it the end goal, not a perfectly engineered prompt, and let it figure out the plan.
• She Built a PR Pitch Tool in Four Hours. A fashion brand client needed PR outreach. Kay didn’t hire an agency. She described what she wanted to her AI in plain language, built a working prototype, deployed it, and made it free for anyone to use — all for zero dollars and a few hours of her time. This is what’s now possible.
• Give Your AI a Job Description. Kay’s methodology for corporate employees and business owners alike: give your AI a name, a role, defined responsibilities, and access to your institutional knowledge. Stop asking it generic questions and start treating it like a new team member who needs to be onboarded properly — and watch the quality of output transform.
• Any Repetitive Task Is Fair Game. Marketing reporting. Sales call documentation. Bookkeeping categorization. Email triage. Kay walks through role-specific examples and gives listeners a simple framework: describe your repetitive task to Claude or ChatGPT like you’re talking to a friend, ask what can be automated, and see what comes back.
• Follow Your Intuition. When Erica asks Kay what advice she’d give her former self — the Kay who was nervous to pivot from KAC Marketing to Collab AI — her answer is simple and worth sitting with: “I’m glad you followed your intuition.” AI is the internet of this generation. The people who ignore it will be the ones who said they didn’t need a website.

SPECIAL OFFER FOR LISTENERS

Kay is offering Glass Ceilings & Sticky Floors listeners 20% off any Collab AI membership tier (quarterly or annual) with code ERICA20. Use the link below to join.

• Join Collab AI (20% off with code ERICA20): https://thecollabaicompany.com/

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Collab AI: https://thecollabaicompany.com/
• KAC Marketing: https://www.kayallencarr.com/
• LinkedIn: Kay Allen-Carr: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kayallencarr/

HER Collective: Send Erica a DM. She’ll invite you to sit in on a live HER Collective session as her personal guest. No pressure, no strings attached.

ERICA'S RESOURCES & LINKS

Start small with me inside HER Jumpstart:

https://her-collective.mn.co/plans/1985289?bundle_token=60b2c61d62213cdbd16d437cdc0e4204&utm_source=manual

🤖 Grab your copy of THE AI GAP: https://amzn.to/3OAXAdL

📚 Get my first book, Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors: https://amzn.to/4uvjbE5

💼 Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericarooney/

📸 Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericaandersonrooney/

🎵 Check out my TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ericaandersonrooney

WHAT IF

What if the thing that’s been holding you back isn’t your resume, your credentials, or your experience. But the version of yourself you’ve been shrinking to fit rooms that were never built for you? Dr. Syreeta Rios has a doctorate, two decades in tech, a PMP certification, and a global career that took her from Delaware to Atlanta to Dubai. She still had to fight every single step of the way. Her answer wasn’t to conform. It was to unleash.

SUMMARY & GUEST INTRO

Dr. Syreeta Rios walked into corporate America with every credential they said she needed. The bachelor’s, the MBA, the PMP. And they still told her she couldn’t handle the questions. She built her career anyway, taking herself from the conference rooms of the US to international assignments in Dubai, navigating single motherhood, divorce, and her own dark seasons, and coming out the other side with a framework she now teaches women across the country. She’s an Afro-Latina tech executive, board member, 2024 International Impact Book Award winner, founder of the Bad Bitch Boardroom, host of the Professional Bad Bitch Podcast, and author of Unleash Your Inner Bad Bitch. She means every single word of it. I needed this conversation. And by the end of it, so will you.

INSIDE THE EPISODE

• Credentials Weren’t Enough. Dr. Syreeta had the bachelor’s, the MBA, the PMP — and still heard “I don’t think you can handle the questions.” She breaks down the moment she stopped asking for permission, started networking around the gatekeepers, and went and got it herself. FAFO energy, activated.
• Dubai, Disrespect, and Discovering Her Authentic Self. As one of six Americans and one of four Black people in a workplace abroad, Dr. Syreeta was called fat every single day. She stayed for three years, proved herself anyway, and credits that pressure cooker environment with the moment her authenticity fully came alive. When everyone questioned her worth, she stopped questioning it herself.
• The B.A.D. B.I.T.C.H. Acronym. Before you clutch your pearls — it’s an acronym. Brave. Ambitious. Determined. Bold. Intelligent. Talented. Creative. Heroic. Dr. Syreeta breaks it down and makes the case that if you have even three to five of those qualities, you are already a bad bitch. It’s time to take credit for it.
• From Shy to Unstoppable. Dr. Syreeta was super shy in her first corporate job — quiet in meetings, dressed to blend in, watching her ideas get credited to the man sitting next to her. She traces the slow, deliberate transition from shrinking to showing up. Starting with the hoops, the wings, and the decision to stop making herself smaller for rooms that didn’t deserve her full self.
• Project Management Is a Life Framework. Scope management. Stakeholder management. Communication management. Dr. Syreeta has spent 15 years applying PM frameworks to billion-dollar projects. Every single one maps directly to life. Whether you’re planning a birth, running a household, or navigating a career pivot, you are already a project manager.
• The Guilt Audit. Career mom guilt. Partner guilt. Family guilt. Dr. Syreeta breaks down where it all comes from: an ex-husband who told her she was putting her job before her family while she was on back-to-back meetings during COVID with a one-year-old in the house. Her reframe: the things that fill you up don’t need to be justified to anyone. And science backs it up — career moms do not negatively impact their kids. Full stop.
• Dark Places and Real Talk. Dr. Syreeta spent three to four years in a genuinely dark place: divorce, single motherhood, starting over. She wrote her book in the middle of it, which triggered it all over again. Her message to any woman in that place right now: you are not alone, you are still a bad bitch, and therapy is not optional. Go get a therapist. Even when things are good.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Book: Unleash Your Inner Bad Bitch — Dr. Syreeta Rios: https://www.amazon.com/Unleash-Your-Inner-Bad-Bitch/dp/B0DG7KRJMH
• Podcast: Professional Bad Bitch Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/3gw3NCDLhTiEHUc7eFeLax
• LinkedIn: Dr. Syreeta Rios: https://www.linkedin.com/in/syreetarios/

HER Collective: Send Erica a DM. She’ll invite you to sit in on a live HER Collective session as her personal guest. No pressure, no strings attached.

ERICA'S RESOURCES & LINKS

Start small with me inside HER Jumpstart:

https://her-collective.mn.co/plans/1985289?bundle_token=60b2c61d62213cdbd16d437cdc0e4204&utm_source=manual

🤖 Grab your copy of THE AI GAP: https://amzn.to/3OAXAdL

📚 Get my first book, Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors: https://amzn.to/4uvjbE5

💼 Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericarooney/

📸 Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericaandersonrooney/

🎵 Check out my TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ericaandersonrooney

WHAT IF
What if you've done everything right — the climb, the grind, the sacrifices — and the exhaustion you feel isn't a personal failing, but proof that the system was never designed for you to win? Meghan French Dunbar spent over a decade interviewing more than 1,000 leaders to find the ones who figured out how to succeed without destroying themselves — and what she found will change how you define the whole game.

SUMMARY & GUEST INTRO
Meghan French Dunbar is the co-founder of Conscious Company Magazine, creator of the World Changing Women Summit, TEDx speaker, Forbes and Fast Company contributor, host of the podcast Unbehaved, and author of This Isn't Working — a book born from her own collapse on the floor mid-panic attack and the two years of soul-searching that followed. After interviewing nearly 100 additional leaders for the book, Meghan identified a clear, research-backed playbook used by grounded, thriving women at the top — and it looks nothing like what we've been sold. Her work sits at the exact intersection of Erica's mission: naming what's broken, refusing to accept it as normal, and giving women a real path forward.

INSIDE THE EPISODE

• The panic attack that started it all. Meghan hits the floor of her guest room in 2017 — CEO, six months of runway left, 85-pound dog on her heels — and what she did the next morning says everything about the trap high-achieving women are in.
• The intrinsic vs. extrinsic success split. The one mindset shift every grounded, thriving leader Meghan interviewed had made — and the University of Rochester research that proves it's not just philosophy, it's survival.
• What "enough" actually looks like in practice. Meghan and her husband built a concrete definition of enough for their family — and how they use it as a hard line when a case or contract threatens to cross it. This is not abstract. This is a system.
• The ideal life statement exercise. Before you can change anything, you have to write down what you actually want. Meghan walks through why most people have never done this — and what happens when their current life and their ideal life don't match at all.
• For the woman who can't just quit. The long-game strategy Meghan got from the women she interviewed, including the internal play one leader ran inside a global consulting firm that gave her an exit ramp years later — without blowing up her life.
• Your boundaries are modeling behavior. "You cannot expect people to respect your boundaries if you don't respect them yourself." Meghan no longer has work email or Slack on her phone. Full stop. And she explains exactly why that matters for every person on your team.
• The stat that stops the room. 70% of people say their manager or boss has as much or more impact on their mental health than their spouse. If you lead people, this one is not optional listening.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Book: This Isn't Working by Meghan French Dunbar
• Website: meganfrenchdunbar.com
• Podcast: Unbehaved with Meghan French Dunbar
• LinkedIn: Meghan French Dunbar

Her Collective: Send Erica a DM. She'll invite you to sit in on a live Her Collective session as her personal guest. No pressure, no strings attached.

ERICA'S RESOURCES & LINKS

Start small with me inside HER Jumpstart:

https://her-collective.mn.co/plans/1985289?bundle_token=60b2c61d62213cdbd16d437cdc0e4204&utm_source=manual

🤖 Grab your copy of THE AI GAP: https://amzn.to/3OAXAdL

📚 Get my first book, Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors: https://amzn.to/4uvjbE5

💼 Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericarooney/

📸 Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericaandersonrooney/

🎵 Check out my TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ericaandersonrooney