60: Passing On A Promotion When It’s The Wrong Season Of Life | Women and Work

Trying to “do it all” can sometimes mean saying no to the opportunity you worked your whole career for.

Jen Anderson spent nearly two decades building a successful career in fitness leadership while raising her family. After turning down a promotion when her children were young, she expected the opportunity would still be there when the timing was right. But when she was finally ready, the company chose someone else.

Instead of letting that setback define her, Jen used her years of leadership experience to reinvent herself as a business consultant and “Professional Wing Woman,” helping entrepreneurs grow with strategy, accountability, and business development support.

In this episode of Women and Work, Jen shares how motherhood shaped her career decisions, why timing matters more than titles, and how walking away from corporate life led her to build something even better: 
• Turning down a promotion for family
• Being passed over later in your career
• Balancing leadership and motherhood
• Managing the mental load as working parents
• Transitioning from corporate to entrepreneurship
• Building a business through referrals and networking
• Finding confidence and using your voice
• Why some opportunities are meant for another season

Have you ever turned down an opportunity because it wasn’t the right season of life?

Struggling to find the right child care? Get a video interview of your ideal nanny at https://www.momsub.com/child-care-options

If you’re looking to get your business or your health in shape, check out https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-anderson-wingwoman/

#WomenAndWork #WorkingMoms #CareerGrowth #WomenInBusiness #Entrepreneurship

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

In my fitness career, there was I was part of the leadership team and there was one position that was open above me that I had been offered a few times by different various you know executives and I I didn't I didn't want it and I probably wouldn't have been ready, but I had little kids and there were all kinds of things that you know I liked the flexibility of the job that I had, so then that position came open again, and um it was a natural fit for me. I had done all of the things that would have prepared me for it, and I didn't get it.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Welcome to Women and Work, the show where we take an inside look at how women are overcoming our own unique challenges as we grow our careers or build a business while nurturing relationships and family. I'm Diane Mocha, founder and CEO of MomSub, the childcare app that connects you to a substitute mom. And I want you to know that work can fit your life. Each week we meet a woman who has done that. And today I'm with Jad Anderson. She calls herself a professional wingwoman. She's been collaborating with entrepreneurs to provide strategy and accountability for the past three years and offering fitness training to individuals for more than 20 years. She spent nearly two decades as the exercise coordinator at a hospital. So she knows the value of good health. Thanks for being here, Jen. Thanks. That's a great intro, Diane. Thank you. Awesome. Well, you offer the whole package, right? Wellness for the body and mind to help business owners find that balance and focus on what they enjoy and do best. And I know that many women working in a corporate setting like a hospital struggle to find balance like that. And I wonder if you face that. What do you think has been the biggest challenge in your career, specifically because you are a woman?

SPEAKER_01 1:53

What a great question. There's how long do we have for the podcast? Yes. Um, I do think that, and particularly, I I'm not necessarily so young anymore, but when you're a younger woman, there is such a huge potential for being underestimated and really just sort of overlooked. And the expectation is you're just doing, right? You're doing all the things all the time. So the expectation is that you're just going to sort of keep churning and maybe not always get all the credit. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Yeah. So you're doing those things expecting that you're going to reap the rewards because you hear about that in school it works, right? You do the things and you get the good grades and you get the accolades and you get the scholarships, and then you go into the workplace and you're doing the things, and other people are doing the things, and you're putting in even more, but it's a whole different world, right? It's political, it's who's the loudest about their own accomplishments, it's who's got the bravado to show that they're confident and they deserve it. And sometimes it's pattern matching, right, with the boss and who they connect with, you know? Yeah, all those things. So, did you have instances of that in your own career where you felt slighted or you felt like, wait a minute, something happened that you didn't expect because you thought it was a natural consequence and then it didn't happen?

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Gosh, I I have a great one, which is where I made the transition from being a fitness, full-time fitness professional to being a professional win woman and working online. So in my fitness career, there was, I was part of the leadership team, and there was one position that was open above me that I had been offered a few times by different various, you know, executives. And I I didn't, I didn't want it, and I probably wouldn't have been ready, but I had little kids and there were all kinds of things that, you know, I liked the flexibility of the job that I had. So then that position came open again, and um, it was a natural fit for me. I had done all of the things that would have prepared me for it, and I didn't get it. It came, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

And you were offered this position earlier in your career, but you recognized it wasn't a fit because you had young children. And you said that's later on when I'm ready for it, you know, and it's right for me, and when it was right for you, do you think it was ageism?

SPEAKER_01 4:29

I think it's because, to be honest, uh and and this is gonna sound like I'm you know tooting my own horn. I think I was so good at the job that I was in that they feared me leaving that role because I did so much. So I I think it was more to do with that. Um, and you know, they they would have had to pay me more than that. And I had already and I would and I had already been there for a long time, and I was only going to accept X amount more because you know, the increments were gonna have to get bigger for me because I had been there. So I think it was a combination of those things, but then you know, the the question was, but you're you're gonna stay, right? And I was like, I can't I can't. Um I can't stay. So they lost you anyways.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Yeah, yeah. So at that point, when they said you're gonna stay, was that after they had offered it to someone else? And was that person younger or less experienced? Do you think they paid them less than what they would have had to pay you?

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Uh less experienced in that role, and probably paid pr maybe they paid less. I'm not quite sure, to be honest. Was it a man? Yeah. Uh-huh. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

And was the person who you were interacting with, was it the same person that had offered you that position all those years ago? No.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

No. So it was new, new leadership that came into that role. Um, which, and you know, it's funny because that's what kicked me into hang on, I I'm gonna go open up my computer and use all of my leadership skills because I already have fitness skills and I still teach fitness in different places and I love it. I won't give it up. But my full-time job then became as a professional wingwoman. So I had all of the business skills I had already done in that role, marketing. I had done talent acquisition, I had, you know, contractors that reported to me and places and spaces and revenue responsibilities. So I get how the corporate and and I don't work with corporate people now, but I get how business runs. Like I understand, I have business sense and I have uh I have that to share and to give. So when I started working with people online, you know, originally as maybe coming in as like an assistant, because I was just like, I'm not, I didn't even know this job existed. I started to realize that's not where my skill set was. They really needed more. And so since there wasn't a word for it, I was like, I'm a professional wing woman. I made that up because why not?

SPEAKER_00 7:11

So you had this big transition in your career where the next logical step when you were ready for it suddenly was taken away from you in a way that you didn't think it should be. So you couldn't stay and work for this other person. Um that you should have been in that role. And so when you left, was your plan, okay, I'll just become an entrepreneur and I'll just uh consult with businesses? And and but you had not been doing that on your own previously. So that's a big leap to be saying I'm gonna walk away from 20 years in a career in corporate and I'm just gonna do my own thing. I mean, you know, did you have some sort of safety cushion? You know, you're like, well, I've got savings, I've got a spouse, you know, my kids are grown, I'm fine, I can take my time. Or were you like, I gotta make this work and I'm gonna? Like, what was the you know, pressures on that? Yeah, it was more about door number two.

unknown 8:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

So I I did, I am married, and my husband was fully supportive. Um, but we are not a family that can be a one-income family. And so we wanted to, you know, I do have my my kids are grown, but I've I've got a kid in college and a high schooler, and there's they're still expensive. So um it was kind of like I know I can make this work, I just have to figure it out. Um, and and that was three years ago, and I I have had year over year growth every year. Um, I have figured it out and then some. So I'm I'm I'm pretty I'm pretty proud of that because I have proven to myself that I can I can make these things happen. And I am finding my my voice and my value when I'm working with people. Um the the value that I'm really given to them is it's worth this whole entire trip. It's worth the whole entire trip because it's so much different than working for, you know, working for someone else and and really driving their mission. I'm I'm finding my people that are my clients, and um all of my business has been referral and word of mouth. Every every single I don't even have a website. Um, I haven't needed one. And so I just it's been referral word of mouth, and I I know. And some people are like, oh my gosh, you need a website. And I'm like, well, uh it's been going okay so far. I work out of LinkedIn, I work out, yeah.

unknown 9:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Where did you start? I mean, how did you just decide I'm gonna consult with businesses? Oh, there's somebody and they want me. I you know, because there's so many people that struggle so much, and they they put in a lot of time and effort and they do all sorts of marketing and they don't get the clients and the money, and they can't replace their income. So, how did this all magically come to you? There had to so there has to be something behind the magic.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

There is. So I had was my my very first client I was introduced to by a mutual friend, and on paper, this person should have been great for me. They were someone also in the fitness space, and I was going to be their full-time assistant and had spoken to them very candidly. I this you're my first client. I've never done this before. Here we go. I'm a fast learner, and it was a terrible fit. It was a terrible experience. It was um and and when I look back on it, I wanted it to work so bad that I overlooked my own gut because I knew I was like, this doesn't, it doesn't feel like it doesn't feel right, but I know I can make it work because I was so excited and I and I thought for sure um that I was going to make it work. And it we it was a person that did not want to have any accountability in their own business. It was very, very I mean, I'm talking like no boundaries, 14, 16 hours a day, still in my pajamas, crying, overwhelmed. I mean, it was it was bad. But the silver lining was I met another contractor through that experience who experienced some of what I did and started working with that person, and from there, everything else took off. So left the one that was a terrible fit, but man, was that a good learning experience because I learned a lot on the fly and I also learned who I will and will not work with. And I'm very clear now about listening to my own gut and not overlooking those red flags. And from there, it was, you know, the the one client that I met that I worked really well with, and I'm still working with, and it's been almost four years. We have still been together, and then from there, networking, meeting people, being referred by this person. Hey, you should work with Jen. Now I meet other people, you should work with Jen, and organically growing that, and then growing my own presence and my own voice and and my own connections. So it it wasn't an overnight success, and it wasn't, and it would have been really easy to throw in the towel. And I did go back to fitness in in a different capacity for a little while in that same interim. I was still working online, but I was like, I don't know if this is gonna work out. So I went back and I was working in fitness, and then I was like, it's gotta be one or the other, and I I know I can do this.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

But you list both on LinkedIn. So you still provide some fitness training to people in person. Okay. Yep. Yeah. So my sense was that what you're providing with the collaboration and the strategy and the accountability is more in like a coaching or consulting role. But when you said assistant, that sounds like you're digging in and you're actually doing the work, taking some of the work off of the backs of the business owner to free them up to look at the bigger picture. So are you doing both? And and are you, you know, how do you structure it? Is it based on your time? Is it based on metrics? What how does this work?

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Yeah, so that's how I'm started. I started more in that assistant role, but really now what I do is um very fractional, work with clients on uh strategy and business development. And so typically we will do um a weekly meeting, look at where they were last week, look at where they're going next week, make sure that all of the clients that they need to be in touch with have the right touch points. I'm helping them create the capacity to do the things that they do that I can't. So, like, for example, working with a graphic designer, I am no such thing. I have no talent or skills whatsoever as a graphic designer. However, when it comes to, hey, here's your client, we're finished with this project, what's next? And they go, Well, I need to get the next project. I go, hold on, do they need assets now? You just created a whole thing for them, branding. What else can we offer the clients we already have? How can we develop that? So helping them to, oh, sort of see things in that new light and then create that repeatable business or a new service line. So sometimes it's helping them with their messaging. Um, I do some writing for them, content creation. So it kind of depends on what the client needs and what's going to help them create that capacity so that they can do more.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

And you said you were doing all these different things as an exercise coordinator at a hospital.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

I did. So when I did that, what that job was, yeah, that was full time of yeah, I did, I did marketing. We did, it was all pretty grassroots. So I had to create all of my own classes. So I had to come up with my own creativity for what are we gonna offer? Who's our audience? Who are we, who's filling this class? How are we gonna get the parents to buy swim lessons for their little kids? How are we gonna nurture those relationships? How are we gonna make our bottom line revenue? You know, how are we gonna take um cut our expenses and manage the the you know resources that we have? So all of those business development things is what I did in fitness. Now, I did I do jumping jacks? Yeah, I did. And push-ups, and I still do, and I taught classes, but I also was over the whole entire department and we and I I didn't have a team, it was just me. So it was me doing all of those things, you know. Someone else was over personal training, someone else was over, you know, the Pilates department, and I was over all of the group fitness, which was really the biggest. Um, we saw the most people, we have the most um the most traffic in the door. So um, and the most variety. So, and and a lot of times it was it was chunking those, you know, people would pay for like a boot camp class or something, right? So it's like $10 a class. Well, I gotta make this much revenue, so I better come up with something else that's not ten dollars a class. So with that kind of like creative business development and figuring out how to get more bodies in the door and serve more people and and help them get fit.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Wow. And doing that all on your own, figuring out as you go along, like an entrepreneur does. When you started that job, were you a mother, or was that before you had kids?

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Uh, I had kids when I was there. Yep. Okay, I started it right before two a year or two before I had my first. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

You started the job a year or two before you had your child.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Yeah. Okay.

unknown 17:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

So you started a position but knew you wanted a family. And was your plan like, I'll have kids, but I'll stay working full time? Or didn't like, did you have a grand plan, or you're like, I'll figure it out at the time, or were you thinking of leaving or going part-time? What were your thoughts about combining work and kids?

SPEAKER_01 17:23

You know, I if I would have had a different job, I think I wouldn't have wanted to stay working full-time, but I loved that job and I could be so flexible with it, even though it was full-time. I could work four 10-hour days, or I could work three 12-hour days and do a Saturday morning, or my husband and I could really structure it around our life. And he had like super consistent hours, and so mine could be kind of all over the place. Um, and we did, you know, we had to get help. We had to get my parents to help, you know, the babysitting here and there, but we did um really make it work for a long time, and it was just such a great job. I mean, that's a great way to make a living when people come in and work out. I love it. That's why I still do it. You know, I still do that in addition to all of this, which is so fun. It's like two really fun different jobs that I get to do. But yeah, you know, people are excited when they come in for for workouts most of the time, you know. Being in that leadership role, though, I also had to deal with people that weren't very excited, or something went wrong, or technology failed, or somebody, you know, uh misspoke, or there was a conflict. So all of that stuff, conflict management, everything. So, you know, all the things that you could think of, that was part of the role that I had. So that that was challenging. You know, that's tough, I think, in any leadership role.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

So you could be there during the day some of the time when your husband was working. Your parents could be there during the day some of the time when he was working and you were working. If you were working evenings or weekends, he was with the kids. And so, did you have any childcare like during the first, you know, three, five, eight years of their lives? Or was it just you were kind of coordinating this patchwork, which takes some effort, and then they went to school, and then you just kept coordinating?

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Yep, we did. And so my mom retired when I had my first son, so she could help with um a lot of that early little little baby childcare. And then when I had my second son, it was two years later, so now toddler and baby, and she helped with that too, and my dad did, but then my dad got sick in there, so we um we did actually have a friend who beautiful friend who was like, I will watch your children, and we we paid, it was childcare, and we paid for everybody's time because it was important. Um, but they helped when we needed help, and then the the mom community that you you grow, right? The the mom community of the little people, like, can you pick them up? We need this, and and just kind of like teaming up with each other. So we did a lot of that. And, you know, my husband did so much of the because he was always getting them off the bus. And then it was he did homework, dinner, take them to sports practice, bring them home and get them cleaned up, get their stuff ready for the next day, make the lunch. And sometimes then I would come home from work. So we did do a lot of that, you know. Sometimes we would structure it and I would just say, you know what, I'm here, I'm gonna stay until 10 o'clock tonight and just, you know, work like crazy. And he's like, Okay, we're we're already doing it. So, you know, my kids played played a lot of sports and we did we drove to a lot of hockey rinks and uh baseball fields and everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

It was wild. Did even with that support, did the logistics of just figuring it out from week to week or even day to day when it was changing, did it wear on you? Did did you did you feel like you were the one who had to kind of figure it all out? I mean, these were some of these days were back before there was online calendars and it was so easy to kind of program everything in. You were probably walking around with the daytimer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

You know what we had? We had one of those giant desk calendars where you can write on it. And my husband would arrange the whole thing. And one year for my one of my girlfriend's birthdays, she had she had five kids, and he knew all of their schedules because they they played with my kids. So he wrote one for her birthday, and she started crying. She's like, This is the nicest gift anyone's ever given me. And it was literally like, here's your whole entire six next six months in summer.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Wow. It is, it's a lot to carry, right? The moms call it the mental. Load today, you know, that they're carrying around. So you had assistance with that as well. Yeah. And so you loved what you did. You had this flexibility. You were teaching, you know, classes at night or weekends. You didn't feel like you were missing things with your kids.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

No, not really. I mean, I did, you know, like I said, my husband did a lot of the like afternoon after school that I didn't do, but I didn't really miss their games. I didn't miss because again, I could have all of this flexibility when I was at that job, which I loved. Um, and my husband and I really just kind of tackled it like we're we're in this together. And neither one of us, I didn't want him doing everything, and he didn't want me doing everything. It was like, no, let's we we both really have to get in here and contribute because otherwise, yeah, one of you is gonna lose it. And that's not gonna be fun. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

And even though you had that flex schedule, when you were working, you had to be there at the hospital. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

I was in the work on the computer. No. And at least you got that focused time, you know, because we hear moms nowadays that are frustrated because they've shown the ability to work from home. Now they're being pulled back into the office, you know, they can't go pick the kids up from school. But you really found a way to make this full-time career for you and your husband work. You know, you found a position. You maybe did you did you know that when you got this position? Like, hey, this is gonna be a great position to design around family, or did you fall into it? And do you think there are moms that if they are like, I want something like that, that they could find something like that out there?

SPEAKER_01 23:35

I do. I think, I mean, the fitness world is a great place to find it because I also I could have been a personal trainer and again arranged my own hours. But when I got into that position, when I got into that organization, I I knew that would that position was was going to be what it was. And I I had worked my way up. I had been promoted and promoted and promoted. And that that was a lateral move from one of my you know promotions. And I um and I was like, oh, this is great. And I thought it would be, I thought it would be easy to, you know, go from being really a personal trainer to a group fitness person. It was not easy at all. It was a lot of work, but it was so much fun. Um, and I had such a great, I had such a great team and I had such great people to help me that made it easier. But yeah, that would be one of the, you know, getting into fitness and really taking it seriously is a great place for somebody to build their own flexibility um and really make a career out of it. Um, it can be done and it's it's very worthwhile. And there's so many different ways you can take it. You can go into health coaching, you can be a running coach, you can be a strength coach, you can work with seniors. Um, I did a lot of work with seniors and I did a lot of work with special populations, people that had injuries, illnesses. Um, so I got a lot of, I was a cancer exercise specialist for a while. Um, so there's a lot of things that you can do to really get some good depth and make you very attractive and appealing to places like hospitals that that have, you know, that have all of the amenities that you want. You know, they've got insurance plans, they've got paid time off, they've got all the things that would make it easier as a working parent to be able to do that. And so I I I enjoyed that for a really long time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

What a great suggestion for parents who may be searching for that something that has that flexibility, like a business owner, without the risk, you know, that you can actually have a position like this, but still be working for a company and still have, you know, all the benefits that come with W-2. It almost sounds like you escaped the whole mom guilt. Was that never a part of you?

SPEAKER_01 25:58

I don't know. I think it's all we all always have mom guilt. I know I did still have mom guilt, you know, but dang it, we did the best we could. So I can't, you know, but yeah, I mean, every once in a while it would be like, oh, you know, my husband would go to something that I didn't, but really, I mean, I was able to, hey, I'm leaving to go to my kids' recital and I'm coming back. And being the mom that got to take them to the bus stop and do all of those really cool things. I I mean, gosh, we were so fortunate. It was, it was a lot of hard work. When I do think back on it now, though, it's like, man, that was that was wild.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

That was wild times, you know, coordinating it all on that calendar, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Yeah, on that paper calendar that was like was like a bar of gold. We were all like, this is the greatest thing I've ever seen. Yeah, yeah. And we, you know, we gave our kids a lot of responsibility too, though. We we would tell I would tell my kids all the time, like, pack your own bags, get your own uniforms ready, do your own laundry. My kids have been doing their own laundry since they were eight years old.

SPEAKER_00 27:05

I didn't do that. And it's like, and so if I told them to pack their bag and then we got there and one of them didn't have shin cards and couldn't play, I was the mom that was like, I know they're supposed to learn consequences, but I don't want that to happen to my kid. So I'm gonna be the one checking all the boxes and making sure everything's in there. Like you pack your bag, but I was always like, wait, you forgot this. So, you know, maybe maybe I stunted their growth a little, always kind of picking up the pieces behind them. But we all, like you said, do our best and do it the way that works for us.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Yeah, for sure. You know, and then my oldest went away to college, and one of my girlfriends actually said to me, you know, we all kind of talked him. We feel like he's the most prepared. I was like, he said he was gonna teach his roommate how to do his laundry, all those things.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

I was like, okay, this is good. Yeah. They they say that's one of the skills that's missing from the current generation that we need to do more to give them more chores. So all these things that you went through with this job and then the career, and now this transition to your own business. If you can go back to an earlier version of you, knowing then what you know now, what's the one thing you would change?

SPEAKER_01 28:19

Ooh, I think I would change. What's the one thing I would change? I think I would use my voice more from an earlier time. I think I did a lot, I filled the role, and I I think, and I, and I know I did a good job. I know I did a good job that you know I got promoted, I got promoted. I I did that job well. I do think that if I had been able to use my voice a little bit more confidently from a younger age, that I probably could have even gone further. So might have changed that trajectory.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Now But you were offered a chance to go further and you turned it down.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

You're right. So that's very further.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Meaning, maybe not necessarily a different position that wouldn't have given you flexibility, but maybe more pay or something else.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Something else, yeah. Something like that. You know, and people have asked me too like, don't you wish that you started doing this sooner and you know, my wingwoman and working remotely and being online? And my answer is no, because I would not have been ready. I needed all of that development, I needed all of that time to like live through all of the different, to your point, like the political, the politics of being in an organization, of working with different people that you might not choose. Like, I get to choose my clients now, but that wasn't always the case. And so you had to figure out how to work with people that you might not really even like. Most of the time, I did like everybody. I'm I'm pretty easy to get along with, but you know, there's there's all those elements. So I think that all of that like lived experience is what comes out into you know what we get to do now. And being being, you know, being the age that I am and the skill set that I have, I think that's like kind of what what gives me a little bit of um traction.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Very insightful that you recognize because some people say, oh, I should have done it sooner, but you recognize that, you know what, I wasn't ready sooner, and I'm the best version of myself because I went through all those things. I appreciate all the insights that you revealed on today's episode of Women and Work. If you are inspired by today's story, remember to share it with a friend, leave a review, and subscribe to meet our next amazing guest. If you or anyone you know is struggling to find the right childcare, just submit your criteria and then watch a video interview with the ideal nanny who fits your family at momsub.com. That's momsub like a substitute mom. Our mission is for you to get the help you need so you can discover what you want in life, pursue it with intensity, and fulfill your dream, reducing your stress, guilt, and self-criticism, and increasing your calm, confidence, and clarity along the way. Remember your career, your choices, and your success are yours to define. So keep pushing boundaries and spreading your love and encouragement to other women who need it.