Ep 123 Transcript: The Truth About Authenticity and Owning Your Story with Jennifer Griffith

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors in spelling or inaccuracies in the spoken words.

Shauna Lynn Simon (01:50.094)

Hello and welcome back to the Real Women Real Business Podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. And today's episode is for the woman who looks like she's got it all handled, but privately it feels just a little heavier. Not necessarily because you're not great at business, not because you're not fully capable, but because you might be carrying a story that you're not actually saying out loud. A lot of "Accidental CEOs" are leading from these unspoken scripts, things like I have to be the strong one. If I slow down, everything falls apart. If I'm not impressed, if I'm not safe.

And those stories don't just live in our personal lives, but they show up in our pricing, our boundaries, our capacity, and just how exhausting it can feel to lead. So today's guest, Jennifer Griffith, is an author, speaker, and host of the About Your Mother podcast. Her work explores the relationships and defining moments that shape us. And her debut memoir, Both Sides of Then: Finding Love After Abandonment, is a powerful reminder that rewriting your next chapter doesn't mean erasing the backstory. It means telling the truth about it.

and choosing what comes next. So if you've been craving a little more honesty, a little more self-trust, and a lot less performing, this conversation is going to be for you. So Jennifer, welcome to the show.

Jennifer Griffith (02:59.234)

Thank you, Shauna Lynn. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you.

Shauna Lynn Simon (03:02.326)

I'm thrilled to have you on here. One of my favorite things to talk about is exactly what you cover. Like the way that the stories that we tell ourselves shape our lives. And I want to talk a bit further about this. Like we're we're talking about the narrative of the stories too, right? Like it's absolutely it's what happened, but it's also the narrative that we put in. And those aren't always the same thing. Am I right?

Jennifer Griffith (03:23.918)

Exactly. Well, and I think so many times the narrative, the story that we tell ourselves about ourselves isn't accurate. Right. I think sometimes what we're doing in business, whatever you're doing, is re-establishing yourself and retelling a a narrative and forming a point of view. And this is something that I did in technology sales.

When I was in technology for nearly 20 years, I developed a lot of careers. I don't know how many hundreds of people I had hired through the process. But one of the things I told them is you will succeed if you have a point of view, if you know why you're doing something. And that's the part that gets really gray because I think sometimes we take in what other people tell us we're supposed to be thinking about ourselves, about who we are as workers, as individuals. And that starts feeding on itself. And it's almost like a cancer in some ways.

where it then infiltrates how we see ourselves in the mirror and what we think about ourselves. I mean, this is one of the reasons Will Robbins is so successful right now, because she just has these very easy to digest things where we can shift our narratives and how we present ourselves in the world. And so that's the thing that really excites me. And then furthermore, when I left my career 10 years ago to write a book and do a podcast, it became something bigger. It was

These stories that we tell ourselves and how we show up actually comes from way, way in the beginning, right? So we've got these two things on the side. We have where we are in the moment and how the world is receiving us and how we receive what the world thinks of us. And then we have how we were developed when we were young and putting those pieces together as we enter the working world. And that's a really complex system of checks and balances and work, honestly.

Shauna Lynn Simon (05:12.098)

My gosh, yes. I mean, we have have this buzzword called authenticity that is just floating around constantly. And I've done a little I've done a I've done a couple of podcast episodes that kind of touch on this about how you know it's used as more of a buzzword and like what's the real authenticity. And a couple of months ago, I actually did a whole episode about you know, the loudest voice in the room isn't necessarily the best voice in the room or the correct voice. And

Jennifer Griffith (05:20.398)

Too much.

Shauna Lynn Simon (05:38.412)

We're finding there's so many influencers now. We didn't used to have access the way that we do now to all these different opinions about who we were supposed to be, how we're supposed to act, what we're supposed to be doing, whether it's as a business owner, as a parent, as a daughter, as a sister, as a spouse, as you know, as just a human being in the world, we're constantly being told what we should be doing. And I remember when I first started my first business, I remember saying to someone about a year or so in, I'm like, if I had a nickel.

For every time someone said to me, you know what you should do. Yeah. And there were times where I got some incredible nuggets of information from them, like, my gosh, it was gold. Maybe not exactly the way they said it, but I interpreted it into my business and it really stuck. And other times where I'm hearing what they're saying, but I'm like, that just doesn't fit with who I am and what I'm doing. Now, this is going back almost 20 years. Yeah. Today.

It's not just about the casual friend you're talking to who's like, you know what you should do. Instead, it's this noise everywhere of so many people telling us what we should be doing. And those shoulds are causing us to get stuck in our own authenticity of just not knowing who is authentic me, what is authentic me, what does this actually look like? What am I actually building? And we lose sight of all of these things. And I think we do.

I think that's something that we really need to dig into. And you actually have said that the most powerful stories are the ones nobody said out loud. What do you mean by that?

Jennifer Griffith (07:06.198)

I mean so many things. I have chills because I'm so glad you're bringing this up. As an author, I'm gonna answer it twofold. As an author and someone who took on so much, I would hire people to help me because I was feeling so overwhelmed. Social, there's so many tenets to building a platform. And so many times those people were telling me what I needed to do. You need to do this, you need to do that. And then I was losing sight and getting caught up in an inertia of how somebody else thought I should run my business.

Right. But then on the flip side, and let me say I'm gonna take social media as an example. And these are all great people trying to do helpful things. But when somebody was, and I don't have somebody helping me anymore for this very reason, because what they were doing is they were taking my content and then creating it how they think it should be perceived by others. But the true story is, and when I get the most response in my line of work is when I am incredibly honest and raw and open.

And it's only the story that I can tell. That's where I have the most success. And so that's answering your question in in two parts. And we do get caught up in it, you have to have this many followers and you have to have this and you have to have that. And then what I would realize is like, no, it's when I take, you know, 30 minutes and I write a really personal post that's a perspective that I have that nobody else has. That's what people want. They don't want to be, they don't want people who are

being put into these like templated everybody does it this way processes. You know, this person did it this way. So you have to follow that. You have to find that lane that is so uniquely your own. And that's hard work, right? There's a lot of us who hide from that. And I'm not saying that people need to be memoirists and put their put their stuff in the street the way that I do. But whatever you're doing, it's even in technology sales.

I would coach people and say, there is a way that you're gonna look at this deal or you're gonna look at this relationship that nobody else can. There's a way you're gonna connect with this customer. And that's what you have to follow is that lane of curiosity. And so to your point, I think authenticity is losing its meaning because you have a bunch of people telling you how to be authentic. That doesn't make any sense. That doesn't make any sense.

Shauna Lynn Simon (09:26.382)

I call it running a borrowed business. We're borrowing other people's businesses and trying to cram them into our own somehow. And it's this whole, you know, round hole square peg type of situation sometimes. And it's not to say that it's not valuable information that exists out there. Again, like the frameworks, the things that people are saying. But if I see one more post that says, if you just do this this one email sequence that I have, you're guaranteed to get.

five, six figures in sales. And it's like, well, that worked for your business. And you might have actually replicated that in some other people's businesses, but that doesn't mean it's going to work in my business. So the key is being able to learn what direction you want to go in, trusting yourself, trusting the things that you know you do well and applying the frameworks that you're learning to your own business and pulling from them what you need to pull from them. Like I have one of my clients who keeps saying like, I think I just need to

Do X, Y, or Z. It's a sales funnel. I need to post on social media more often. my content's been off. Like she's always blaming these things that I know she's hearing from other people out there. And meanwhile, I just keep telling her, I'm like, but how's your networking going? Because that is what she is so good at. She builds these strong relationships that just naturally nurture referrals her way. That's where you need to spend your time and your energy. But she gets caught up in what the latest person has said. And

With all due respect, I totally understand where she's coming from. Like I see how it happens. I'm not blaming her by any means and I'm not shaming her either. Yeah. But it's challenging when I see someone who's being pulled in all these different directions and they're trying to figure out what's actually true to them. Yep. So

Jennifer Griffith (11:08.856)

Love that you're saying this. It speaks to my heart.

Shauna Lynn Simon (11:11.79)

So what are some of the ways that people can then use their stories to to grow their business in an authentic way, a real authentic way, not fake authentic way? Yeah.

Jennifer Griffith (11:22.668)

Well, it it requires some digging. So I think what a lot of people are trying to do to scale their businesses, and these are service providers, is these programs and these templates. And certainly that is a great thing to do. However, you also have to do, and I call those case studies. That's what we would do in technology sales is you pull from case studies. You're like, okay, that part of that deal worked, and that part of that deal worked, but I'm gonna find my own, you know, entry into the world. Right. And so I think these programs can be very valuable and I rely on them.

And then to answer your question, you have to do the work internally. You have to say, what are the things that make me unique? And it's not just a branding exercise, it's a skills exercise. And let me apply it to my own experiences. For a long time I was kind of, I call it banging my head against the wall, like building this platform. What's gonna work? And of course you have to try lots of things and see where your market is. But when I realized the thing that I have that's really unique to me is that I sold before.

And I used to think that technology sales was not linked to podcasting and to being an author, but yes, it is. And is selling is selling. And so when I tapped into that and I said, these are the skills that I already have that are going to help me grow in these areas that I'm now venturing into, that was the difference maker. And so that's real internal work. That's real questions of asking yourself, who am I? What have I done before? What's transferable? What's not.

Shauna Lynn Simon (12:29.838)

When selling is selling.

Jennifer Griffith (12:51.136)

And then, of course, always having a vision. And I talk about this when I lead workshops, is you have to know why you're doing something. Why does your heart want to do this? And of course, does it evolve over time as you build? Of course it does. And that's the goal. But you have to wake up and you say, What is the reason I am spending all of this energy? And I wake up every day and I want to do this. And some days are good and some days are bad. And knowing that success, there is this whole concept of overnight success just

Really bugs me. But that success is working at something for a very long time and knowing why you're doing it. Because if your heart's there in it and you have this vision for it of what a moment of success looks like, that's what you follow. And so that's internal work. And nobody can get you to do that but you. And so when you have that, and I always tell people like, you know, if people come to me, I want to write a memoir. I'm like, great. Why? What is the reason?

that you are not going to give up on this. And that is not something a lot of people ask themselves, or why are you starting a podcast? What is success going to look like to you? And when you do that work and you hold yourself accountable and you have that internal dialogue, you quiet the noise on the outside that we're talking about. All the people do this and do this and have this many followers and I grew my business this way. Great. That's a case study. Good for you. But if you know your why, then you can connect it to these bigger opportunities and then you can start filtering what I call the case study noise.

of what are the things that you can learn from other podcasters, business people, authors, whatever it might be, but knowing that you're going to show up uniquely your own.

Shauna Lynn Simon (14:28.374)

I really like your reframe of this is a case study because I just think it repositions it in your mind a little bit differently. Most of our audience is what I love to affectionately refer to as my "Accidental CEOs." And these are women who followed more passion than plan. They knew that they there was something that they loved to do, that they wanted to share with the world, that they knew that they were good at, that they could help other people. There's usually that whole like

I would do this for free. I love doing it so much, kind of mentality at the start. Now, of course, I'm not encouraging anyone to do anything for free, of course, no matter how much you love it. And that's the whole point. We're trying to monetize a passion essentially. And so they're not necessarily coming to this with the business foundations that some people might have. And so it's easy to look to different people to say, well, they've got it figured out. I'll just follow their step-by-step process, X, Y, and Z.

And I will tell you as a business coach, everyone says you got to have a framework. You've got to have the step-by-step process. And I do, I do have those. But the beauty of the frameworks that I use is that they allow you to pull in your own stuff. I'm not trying to tell you to be someone that you're not because it's not going to work for you. just because I did something doesn't mean it's going to work for you necessarily. But I want to help you to find what makes the most sense for you. And like you said, it's the you have to know why you're doing something.

Shauna Lynn Simon (16:38.21)

Yeah. And what you want it to do. And the challenge is that once we hear all these loud noises and voices and we start taking in all this advice, we look up one day and realize the business doesn't look like what we were trying to actually build in the first place. We've lost sight of that a little bit. And that's where we often find ourselves in the weeds and struggling a bit. When we go back to the roots on it, the direction is actually usually a lot clearer and a lot easier to find than we think it is.

Now, going back to finding that why, why people got started in the first place, you mentioned like some of these stories go back quite some time to to get them to that point. So how does someone go about really digging into their why and looking into their story?

Jennifer Griffith (17:23.31)

So many different ways. I think you have to take moments of inspiration. That's a really important part. And take a moment of when did that light bulb hit you that you had to do this? Okay, let's go into that moment. What was happening to you? Let's reframe. I have a framework that I'm working on. Frameworks are very important.

Shauna Lynn Simon (17:41.986)

Frameworks are important. I'm not dismissing them. By any means. Don't get me wrong.

Jennifer Griffith (17:45.102)

Shauna Lynn, you and I are together on this. However, the framework has to be done by the person. And that's where, you know, that's what you and I are talking about is the people who say, if you just do these, you know, five things like I did, that's not gonna work. And so what I call is the lens. You have to look at a moment, you have to then go back and evaluate it and look at it from both sides, and then reshift that narrative and you tell a different story. And so I think oftentimes when people are doing something.

They think the motivation was one thing, but it was actually something much deeper. So a moment that was happening inside of them. So let me ask you like when you're working with somebody, you call them "Accidental CEOs" give me an example of one. And we can use that as like a case study of give me an example of someone who they're like, I just want to build this thing. This is, you know, interior design or something like that.

Shauna Lynn Simon (18:35.682)

I was actually just gonna say a a good part of my audience and my clients are interior designers. And that often comes from the I decorated my own home. I did a major renovation project. I helped my mother with something. Like there's some sort of I did it myself, realized I was damn good at it, and decided I was going to make a career out of this. And sometimes it means they went to receive formal training, sometimes it doesn't. Whatever that looks like, it doesn't necessarily mean that they have.

all the things figured out for the business side of things. So there's a lot of second guessing. There's a lot of challenges to things. I mean, I don't know about you, but I grew up watching Designing Women, which is a show that maybe people may not have heard of, but I think a lot of people are are in the right age range for it. Yeah. And if I were to go back and watch an episode of that now, I would laugh because that's not actually what does interior design looks like in practice. Right. But you have this idea of what interior design looks like in practice. And

People will say, like, that looks like such a fun career. Yeah, the fun stuff that you're thinking about, where like you're going in and throwing pillows around and putting those final touches on things, that's like 5%, if that, of the work that's actually done. There's so much planning and processes and ordering of items, and the procurement process alone is just so inundated with different tasks and levels to it. And there's so many moving parts that you're navigating. You've got to be organized, you've got to be creative, you've got to be all these different things.

And so it's there's a lot more to it when once people get into it. But anyway, sorry, what you were asking though is what is an example of why someone got into something? So yeah, interior design is something that people often find themselves like, well, I'm really creative. I've done this personally and I want to now make a career out of it.

Jennifer Griffith (20:17.258)

Yeah. And I'm gonna give you an example. So I had a girlfriend where it was a woman who had done her house and she had approached my girlfriend and said, well, I did my house. I can help you anytime. That's not a compelling story. I have another friend who, right, she's like, Look at my home, isn't it pretty? I can help you. That's not super compelling. What is compelling is a dear friend of mine, Rhonda, who would rearrange her room. She was raised by a single mom, they didn't have very much, and she would rearrange her room to make herself happy. And she realized that that

childhood moment was the reason that she was so inclined to work with others because she loved taking in their story and knowing how they wanted to live in their space because that's something that she did as a young girl. That's a much more compelling story and a why. And then of course the business side of it, which as you had just described, interior design is incredibly complex. There's so much business process to it and paperwork. Then you hire somebody to help you with that. But she knows

That her goal, and this is how she sells herself, is I love taking in people's stories and knowing how they want to feel in their space. And that's a much more deeply rooted personal narrative of why you're doing something and what motivates you. And that can make it more clear on how to move forward and to know where your strengths are and where your weaknesses are. Do you follow or does that make sense?

Shauna Lynn Simon (21:36.67)

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I think for myself, even like the coaching, the teaching, the training that I've been doing for a number of years is something that has been a part of my life for longer than I can remember, yet wasn't necessarily at the forefront. I didn't want to go to teachers' college and teach a high school level or the elementary level or anything like that. But when I look back, every job I ever worked, even from my Walmart days when I was a teenager.

Through all of my hospitality days, through my corporate job, through all the things I was doing, I was constantly creating SOPs without even knowing that the name of them was SOPs, to be clear. But I was constantly creating processes and training manuals and the whole idea of like, if we're doing this multiple times, shouldn't we write out how to do it so someone could understand how to do it themselves and make this easy and came up with all these training things? And that right there, when I look back on it, like I've been training and teaching for years.

long before I ever actually started a business doing it. But I'll admit that when I first started doing it, so 2015 was when I started my home staging certification training. I became a home stager in 2008, had taken my own certification training. And when I started my own business in 2008, I was completely unprepared for everything the world was throwing at me. I didn't know how to do a consultation. I didn't know what kind of reports were expected. I didn't know how to run the process.

Of a staging project. I had zero templates for I didn't understand any of that. And that right there was planting a seed for me of like, I got to start my own training program. I'm going to make this into something bigger. So I then trained my own team members on how to become a stager, created this whole training program, and then turned that into an online training program. So part of my story for that particular training program is that it was an internal program that I created because I felt that there was a need for something.

Bigger than what already existed. See?

Jennifer Griffith (23:31.054)

I mean, isn't that a great selling story? Great story. So much and totally attached to your why and making a connection and a thread from jobs before to where you are now. And that to me is what is missing. And that to me is an authentic business of what you just described. And you can sell that any day, every day, if you talk about that whole, you know, lineage of how you got to where you are. And that's my point, is that.

There's a lot more looking back that we have to do versus just looking forward if you do these things. And that's where the confusion comes, I think, for a lot of people. if you just do this and that and that, you're gonna succeed. No, no, no, no. You gotta do, you gotta look at, and here it comes my plug, both sides, both sides of the moment. And then you're gonna be much more grounded into what you're doing.

Shauna Lynn Simon (24:21.61)

Yeah. And I think this is where more and more of us need to embrace that, like you said, the why we got started in the first place, the who we're doing this for, what we want things to look like from our own perspective and continue listening to podcasts like this and listening to audio books or reading books or attending conferences and masterminds like these are all incredibly valuable and there's an abundance of opportunities that didn't exist for businesses 20, 30, 40 years ago that do now.

And you should take advantage of them, but you need to have like a filter essentially to be able to filter through that and apply what makes the most sense for your business without losing who you are, without losing your strengths on that.

Jennifer Griffith (25:03.706)

absolutely. And there's space for all of us. And the space that we take is all different. And so measuring ourselves against other people is not the greatest thing to do. We can draft on them, be inspired by them, but we have to define our own space in the world and be open to that. And that's the part that can be a little sloppy and messy as you figure it out. Because the world, you know, you're gonna have your intention and you're gonna have what the world does with your work. Right. And so

That famous word pivot will come in there. But one thing I do, I do want to mention this here because I talk about it a lot is at Salesforce, every employee did what was called a V2MOM. And every person, no matter what business you're in, needs to do this for yourself. And so V2MOM stands for this vision. You have to write down what your vision is. That's kind of your executive summary of what you're doing in the moment, whatever that is, a book, a business. And then two is your values, what you value most. And then there's the methods at which you're going to approach it, the obstacles, and then the measures.

And when you do that framework, and I have authors do it, they're like, wow, I didn't even think about it that way. I didn't think that I had to have values related to my book or a vision related to my book, but you have to do that. And that framework is now used all over the world and even creative people can use it. And that to me is a good explanation of getting to the root of why you're doing something and what you're doing is going to take shape and space in the world.

Shauna Lynn Simon (26:27.442)

I love that. And I think again, this is a great example of where framework can really help to pull the good things out of you. But I do like that you're talking about the framework that we're using and being able to apply that to authoring a book. Like we don't think of we just think, I've got this story to tell. I'm gonna get it all down on paper, but there's actually a framework of what's gonna make that successful as well. Like it doesn't matter what it is that you're doing. It could be your business, it could be your personal life, it could be writing a book, it could be a passion project, whatever it is, your volunteer work.

All of that does require you to come back to why are you doing this in the first place? Because we started everything for a reason. And in order for us to actually stay true to ourselves and enjoy what we're doing, there has to be a reason that we're doing it, not just because so and so asked me to and I just didn't know how to say no. Like that I mean, I have done plenty of episodes on people pleasing. That's a whole other conversation, of course.

Jennifer Griffith (27:18.326)

That's like a that's a whole podcast in itself. Of course.

Shauna Lynn Simon (27:20.362)

A whole series for that matter. But one of the things that I I did want to get into is sometimes people have negative stories. Like everything we're talking about is all these positive, feel good, kind of meet cute type things when it comes to how you were inspired for your business or your passion project or whatever that or your book or whatever it is. But some people have these more negative narrations that are going on in their head. What do we do with those stories?

Jennifer Griffith (27:47.736)

Well, that's a good one too. That's another one where you got to take the lens. You have to look at what am I telling myself? Okay, and take a step back. Who said that to me? Where did I feel that? Where is the origin story of this negative emotion? And then you have to reframe it and look at it from both sides and go, okay, I walked away at this moment feeling this about myself. And I'll tell you, I'll give you an example. When I started at Salesforce, a very intense onboarding program.

And I do this two-week boot camp and I get a grade and it's an A minus. So I don't know where my minus came from. But, anyways, I sit down with my new boss and I've worked really hard in this boot camp and it's intense, right? You're learning product, you're presenting, it's competitive and very scary at times. And I sit down with my boss and he says, Gosh, I'm really my new boss, and he goes, I'm really surprised. And I said, Excuse me? And he said, I'm really surprised you got an A. And I I thought he was saying the minus. And he and he goes,

Because you look privileged to me. I was like, now think about that moment and what I could have done with that, right? Yeah. I could have said, because I dress a certain way or present myself a certain way, he's assuming things just happen to me and I don't have to work very hard. That's how I took that, right? Sure. And then so if I reframe it, you know, and and

Shauna Lynn Simon (28:48.376)

Yeah.

Jennifer Griffith (29:08.896)

Which means he doesn't have high expectations of my brain or something. I don't know what he was referring to. But you know, welcome to technology twenty years ago. It was very very complex as a woman. And so then, well, if I reframe that, I think of it as, you're underestimating me all the way. And isn't that sad for you? Because watch this, you know? And so that I could have taken and mind you, I did carry it for a little while of

Shauna Lynn Simon (29:18.221)

Yeah.

Jennifer Griffith (29:37.946)

A little negative kind of, you know, he's just pegging me as someone who just shows up and dresses well or whatever was in his head. However, I used it as a motivator and I used it as a way to put him in his place. And I think the reframing, the looking at both sides of it, trying to understand what he meant, trying to see, you know, okay, how do I use this as a positive thing to reframe how I'm

approached in my team was important. And then I have one other one if you want to hear it. And it's a doozy. So I had been promoted to manager, my first managerial job at Salesforce. And I found out I was pregnant. And I did not expect to be pregnant. And in fact, I wasn't actually supposed to be able to have kids. So it was a really complex surprise. Well it was supposed to be very challenging for me to get pregnant. Anyways, I'm pregnant and I take this new job and I tell my new boss and she looks at me and says, you know you shouldn't have done that.

And I was like, done what? And she said, gotten pregnant when you took a new job. And I know. And again, technology 20 years ago was not what it is today. And that broke me that evening for sure. And but then I saw it as an opportunity. And Cheryl Sandberg was just doing her lean-in work. And I said, you know what? This is while I cried that night and I felt terrible. I said, I'm not gonna let this stop me. In fact, I'm going to be a voice.

at this company for working women like myself who do get pregnant and do take managerial jobs. And I'm going to show them that it can be done and it can be done to excellence. And I'm not going to let this take me down. So that's what I'm talking about is the reframing of those negative experiences. We're all going to have them. I think you have to spend some time with those moments I call them scenes where an idea is formed in your brain or where something that you're going to carry is formed and reevaluate it and reuse it.

You know, yeah. Shame only lives in the shadows. If you put light on shame or anything that you're carrying, then it becomes something that you can use for good. And that's one of the foundations of my work.

Shauna Lynn Simon (31:43.064)

Well, and I mean, take a look at what our mothers dealt with, what their mothers dealt with, things that they felt shame about that we now speak openly about. And if we think of it that way, there's so many things that we do carry, whether you're acknowledging it as a shame or not, if it's that story that you're telling inside your head that you're not willing to say out loud, you're scared to say out loud, there's something going on there. For me, one of the things from my childhood, and it took me a long time to actually fully identify this, but I was always what I would consider unique.

And don't get me wrong, we're all special, we're all unique, but I definitely always felt like I didn't quite fit in. And I couldn't really put my finger on it. I had an uncle who was very creative, and he was the person I tended to relate to the most because somehow I felt like he really saw me and he really embraced my creativity and my uniqueness. And sadly I lost him when I was 15 years old. And so that was a very, you know, formative time for me. And

I can remember around that time that I decided it would probably be easier if I just tried to fit in more. and there was all these little things as I was growing up. You know, my parents used to always say, like, you're really one of a kind. And I thought that was super cool when I was a kid, until one day I noticed like a connotation to the tone that they were using, like, you're really one of a kind. And you kind of start picking up on these things. And my parents met no disrespect by this, to be clear. They weren't intending to insult me or anything, but

I remember starting to form this idea of like, I thought one of a kind was a good thing. Maybe it's not a good thing. And then I get to high school and we're getting ready with a bunch of girls and we're getting ready to go out. And I have wonderful friends, not mean girls or anything. But nonetheless, I would get the, you're wearing that out tonight, or you're gonna do that with your hair. And all those little things kind of kept hitting at me to the point where I was like, just watch what everyone else is doing and just try to do what they're doing, just mimic what they're doing. It'll just be easier.

And I spent a couple of years trying to do that and end up s setting myself it spiraling into a massive depression. Trying to go against the grain. Finally end up moving away for university. And I remember looking around again around the first week, and I was like, nobody here has a clue who I am or what my history is or what I bring here. I can be anyone I want to be, and I want to be me. The more that I was, the more I realized that I was attracting the people who.

Jennifer Griffith (33:44.824)

Bet you did. Yeah.

Jennifer Griffith (34:03.191)

Yeah.

Shauna Lynn Simon (34:09.024)

really saw me. I felt that these were real friendships. Some of the friendships I formed in university were some of the best I ever had. And since then as well, because I haven't hidden behind a facade of who I think I'm supposed to be. I have been authentically myself for the last 30 so years. And my friends to this day, my high school friends, definitely see me as someone that is different than they are.

I didn't get married and have kids and follow the path like everybody else does. And I've definitely lived a different lifestyle. And all of that is completely embraced at this age, of course. I mean, it damn well better be. But the point is though that I learned to be comfortable with all of that because the more comfortable I was with it, the better things happened to me, the better I felt about things. And that is something that I cannot stress enough. So when we talk about authenticity, I'm always like, I am as authentic as they come because I already know what the consequences of not doing that are.

Jennifer Griffith (35:02.98)

I love it. And see, by you sharing that, I'm so much more invested. Not that I wasn't before, but by you opening up and sharing that story, I'm so much more invested in you and what you're offering. And do you know what I mean? Like that's how that's how you reach people and you bring people in your orbit. And so many times, to your point, we're so trying to do everything for everybody, and that's not how it works.

We have to find our story and our people. And you're not always going to get a yes. And that's okay. That's something I learned in Salesforce. You had to get 10 no's to get to a yes, or in technology sales in general. And so I'm I'm purpose built for that, but only after doing decades of work in it. And that's, I think, the real work that you and I are talking about. Is connecting who you are to what you do. And nobody can tell you how to do that.

They can give you guidance, but you have to do that work just like you have.

Shauna Lynn Simon (35:58.862)

Absolutely. And so tell us again what the name of your book is so people can find it, because it sounds like they're gonna get some solid insights from this book.

Jennifer Griffith (36:05.73)

They are Both Sides of Then, yes. It's a story, it's a memoir, it's actually a mother-daughter memoir. It's the story of my mom's life being raised in an orphanage in Philadelphia after her parents died tragically, and then being forced to relinquish her firstborn, my brother for adoption in the decades before Roe, and then the impact that those things had on the mother that she was to me. And so I am just purpose built for connecting narratives and and connecting who our parents were and how that influences our own identity.

And how do we break those cycles and identify new ones and all of those good things? That's just my wheelhouse and and I love it. And what I think you will get from the book is not only an your own personal examination of who your parents were as people, not just your parents and how that shaped who you became and what you're, you know, what you carry into your own adult life, but also I think it's something that

is really important for people when they're trying to find their own individual identity like you and I are talking about right now. And you can't do that if you don't go back first. If you want to see where you're heading, you first have to go back. And then that road becomes so much more clear.

Shauna Lynn Simon (37:19.214)

Wow. I mean, that's such a powerful story that of where you've come from and all that came before you even existed and how that continues to trickle in. So I think even when you're telling people, they need to go back, not even just in your own story, but you need to go back into what led to your story in the first place as well, sometimes and

Jennifer Griffith (37:39.606)

Absolutely. And when I would hire salespeople to join my teams, that I was really interested in that. I was really interested in the ones that came in with a full story. This is who my parents were, or this is who influenced me, getting to your uncle. That is the stuff that we especially these days with the AI processing engine and how everything is just, you know, moving at such a quick rate. People are so hungry for personal narrative and story.

that they can cling to and identify with. So that they, like you, can find your people like you did in college or find your people that you did in business and just find your orbit. And and that's something that's I think work we're doing all the time. And

Shauna Lynn Simon (38:22.814)

it's what you do through your podcast, it's what we do here on this podcast. We're finding that connection, we're bridging some of those gaps and we're helping people to feel more connected, more themselves, and help them to discover their own identity. So I feel like we could be talking for hours, but we do need to wrap up because

Jennifer Griffith (38:38.402)

that went so fast and so fun.

Shauna Lynn Simon (38:40.534)

But this has been a fantastic time for me. I've I've just so enjoyed everything you've shared. I'm definitely gonna check out your book. I suggest everyone else on the audience does. We'll have a link to that, of course, in the show notes. And Jennifer, if there's one thing that comes out of today's conversation, if someone listening to this is like, these are all some great tips, but I just don't even know where to start. Like, what's the one thing that you want them to take with them today and start applying this week?

Jennifer Griffith (39:06.472)

Your story matters. I know that sounds generic and almost cliche, but who you are, what you have been through, where you come from is so essential. Whether it's good, bad, complex, easy, messy, imperfect, all of those things make you uniquely who you are. And don't hide from that. Lean into it. I'm not asking people to overshare, but I'm asking people to feel

empowered by their own story. People, I'll leave it at this. People often ask me, So when you wrote the book, are you all healed? Do you feel better? And I said, healed is such a silly word. I didn't do it to feel healed. I did it to feel empowered by all of the experiences I've had before and to let those things lead me in a new direction. And it has. I think

Shauna Lynn Simon (39:55.138)

That's that is perfectly said. I think that that's a misconception that a lot of people have of like the, you know, you're we're on these journeys and it doesn't always have to look the way that someone else sees it. Like we get to determine how these where these journeys are going to take us ourselves. Jennifer, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been an absolute honor to have you on the show.

Jennifer Griffith (40:13.07)

Thank you. Likewise, keep doing what you're doing and I'm so glad that you are uniquely you and I'm here for it.

Shauna Lynn Simon (40:19.2)

I appreciate that. Thank you. And if you're listening to this and you're thinking the same thing that this is really resonating with you, that you want to hear more of this. And I hope you'll continue to join us each week on the podcast. And we drop new episodes every Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. Eastern time. Don't forget to subscribe to us wherever you get your podcast and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. It really does help the algorithm. But as always, the best way that you can support not only this podcast and not only Jennifer and myself, but your fellow woman entrepreneur.

share this episode with someone that you know needs to hear this today. That is the best way that we can continue to help each other to grow, to rise up, and to be the best version of ourselves that we can possibly be perfectly imperfect in all. So thank you. And until next time, keep thriving.