Why 94% of Employees Would Rather Quit Than Have One Hard Conversation | Tessa White

Most people would rather quit their job than have one uncomfortable conversation.

In this episode of the Swedish Wealth Institute Podcast, Daniel Wood sits down with Tessa White — better known online as “The Job Doctor” — to talk about why modern careers are breaking people, why workplace conflict is being avoided at all costs, and what actually creates long-term career growth in today’s rapidly changing world.

Tessa spent 25 years in HR before accidentally becoming one of the world’s biggest workplace creators during the pandemic. What started as simple TikTok videos answering practical career questions exploded into millions of followers, a HarperCollins book deal, appearances on CNN and BBC, and eventually a role helping shape the future of education in Utah.

But this conversation goes far beyond social media success.

Tessa explains why employees keep “swipe-lefting” their careers instead of learning to handle difficult situations, why practical communication skills matter more than polished résumés, and why education systems are failing to prepare people for the real world.

You’ll also hear why she believes “red zones” at work — layoffs, restructuring, conflict, uncertainty, and pressure — are often the exact moments that create the most career growth and long-term value.

If you’ve ever struggled with difficult bosses, workplace politics, asking for raises, career uncertainty, or figuring out where the future of work is heading… this episode is packed with practical insights you can apply immediately.

Inside This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• Why 94% of employees would rather quit than have one difficult conversation
 • The real reason Tessa’s raw TikTok videos outperformed polished content
 • Why practical value beats production quality on social media
 • How “The Job Doctor” accidentally built a million-following platform
 • The workplace scripts people need most: raises, conflict, promotions, performance plans
 • Why younger employees are changing jobs faster than any previous generation
 • The hidden career value of staying through “red zones” at work
 • Why conflict avoidance quietly destroys careers
 • How AI is completely changing education and career preparation
 • Why schools must teach resilience, communication, and critical thinking
 • The difference between information and real-world readiness
 • How mentorship and workplace experience will shape future education
 • Why financial intelligence should be taught long before university
 • The biggest workplace mistakes modern employees keep making
 • Why emotional resilience may become the most valuable future skill

🎁 Free Gifts & Resources Mentioned:

2 Weeks Free Access — Swedish Wealth Institute Community

 👉 https://event.financialfreedomsummit.online/wealth-creation-movement-sp-4974

Tessa White’s Free Career Resources & Workplace Scripts

Conflict worksheets, career scripts, negotiation guidance, and workplace tools
 👉 https://www.jobdoctortessa.com/tjd-free-materials

Free Ticket — Financial Freedom Summit

Learn directly from world-class speakers including Robert Kiyosaki, Les Brown, Brian Tracy, Jack Canfield, and more
 👉 https://events.swedishwealthinstitute.com/financialfreedomsummit-na

⏱️ Timestamps :

00:00 – “I had 10,000 followers after 3 days”
 02:20 – How boredom during lockdown created “The Job Doctor”
 05:40 – Why practical career advice exploded online
 09:10 – Raw content vs polished content: what actually worked
 13:30 – How TikTok led to CNN, BBC & HarperCollins
 18:20 – The reality of launching a bestselling book
 24:50 – Her son’s paralysis and nearly losing everything
 30:10 – Why education is becoming too expensive and outdated
 35:40 – AI, free information & the future of learning
 40:15 – Why mentorship matters more than content alone
 45:20 – “94% of employees would rather quit than speak up”
 49:10 – Why modern workers avoid difficult conversations
 53:30 – Swipe-left careers and conflict avoidance culture
 58:40 – Why red zones create the most career growth
 01:03:50 – The hidden value of staying during company crises
 01:08:20 – Financial intelligence & teaching young people about money
 01:13:30 – What universities should actually be teaching now
 01:17:50 – Final advice for building a successful career
 01:21:10 – SWI takeaways + closing thoughts + next episode preview

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

When the pandemic hit and I was locked in my house, I had decided to retire and I got bored. I had 10,000 followers after three days. Before I knew it, I had a million followers, and I really call myself an accidental influencer. I really This was the the job doctor was the idea that wanted to happen, and there was literally nothing I could do to shut it down. Midway through, my son paralyzed him, and I had to stop everything and thought the whole business would die.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Welcome to the Swedish Wealth Institute podcast. I am your host, Daniel Wood, and today we are speaking with Tessa White, also known as the Job Doctor. This is gonna be a really interesting episode because not only does she help people all over the world with practicable work issues like how do you ask for a raise, how do you handle a difficult manager, how do you handle conflict without leaving, how do you handle all the change that is happening? She is incredibly practical. And I got to interview her about how she accidentally became a major social media superstar, how that led to a book deal with Harper Collins, and how the governor of Utah instructed her to reinvent the future of education. This episode is absolutely amazing. And if you are interested in how your children, how you, and how the world is changing and growing, here we go. Start with sharing about your background because I've been curious about all the things you're doing.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

Well, I, you know, I'm an HR person by trade, uh, 25 years in HR. And then when the pandemic hit and I was locked in my house, I had decided to retire and I got bored and I decided I was gonna start the job doctor. So I had my daughter post a couple of things on TikTok for me. I didn't even know how to log in. And about three days later, my son called from California and he said, Mom, is it even possible that you're on TikTok? My girlfriend said you were just on her for you feed. And uh turns out I went and I totally forgotten we posted. I had 10,000 followers after three days. Wow. And then just every day was more and more followers. And that that's how the job doctor was born. It was really because I was locked in the house and bored out of my mind.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Wow. All right. So we're gonna talk more about that, but continue the rest of your journey because I know you're doing really cool things with education. So let's share that. But I definitely want to ask you about social media.

SPEAKER_03 2:35

Yeah. So so the social media led me into just talking more about how you navigate a career. And uh I eventually got contacted by a Harper Collins who asked me to write a book. So I wrote a book. The book sold really well. That kind of launched me into a couple of other things, you know, and I started doing a lot of work on as an expert on morning television or CNN and things like that. And then a few years later, I found myself so interested in the future of work and talking about that all the time that I ended up um as the chair of the board of trustees for one of the largest universities in Utah. And so now it, you know, I pivoted one more time and I'm helping shape what education looks like in the future to prepare students and create a value proposition so that they, if they get an education, it's A, worth it, and B, they can get a job at the end of that. So that's what I'm pivoting into now. It's just such an unlikely path to even. I never would have imagined it.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Yeah, I'm I'm just seeing three different episodes right now because I want to learn everything about what you did on social media. I want to learn everything about the book launch, and then I want to learn everything about the future of education. So we'll go one at a time. Sure. And we'll see if I'll have to invite you back for two more episodes to get through them. So start with social media. We're trying to blow up. So many people are trying to blow up, and it's not easy. What did you like? How did you yeah, how?

SPEAKER_03 4:02

How? Well, no, I think part of it was just fortuitous timing. The fact that everybody was locked in their house and and looking for something to do, I think that was the first thing. And at the time, I was one of the only people that was talking about um, you know, really, I wasn't doing dances, I was talking about practical scripts and things you can do to talk to your manager about how to get a raise. Now I have a counter offer. What do you do when when you're on a performance plan and you don't agree? So I started really giving these practical tips and it seemed to resonate with people. Um, you know, before I knew it, I had a million followers and I and I really call myself an accidental influencer. I really was an accidental influencer. I had no intention and I didn't edit well, I didn't have great anything. I, you know, I'd sometimes show up, no makeup, and just start talking. And um it just seemed to to fill a need that people had at the time. And then I just kept doing it. So I and the only secret I have is that even when you're embarrassed and you don't think you have good content, if you know something about something, keep talking about it. You'll your audience finds you. And for me, it just was this meteoric, I couldn't even understand how I was getting so many new followers, but I I just posted every single day at least twice and said, Well, at least twice. At least twice. And um, and I engaged with my people, and that's basically all I knew about social media. That's it. That is it. I couldn't even edit, I just put it out there in its raw form, and that's where we ended up.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

And how does your social media look now compared to when you started out? Like what do you do today?

SPEAKER_03 5:41

Well, I've tried a lot of different approaches. I actually got to a point I thought, oh, now I can be professional. And I hired a film crew to help me, and we were doing really professional looking, great, you know, clear color was great, the captions were great. They didn't play as well. Oh, really? No, they didn't. And so I went back to just talking about what was on my mind that day and responding to what people's questions were. That was the thing. People tell you what they want to know about, and then I would talk more about that thing. And that seemed to be the magic formula for me is simply to be me and simply to talk about what I know the most about and respond to what people are asking about.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Right. Just so basically just raw and unfiltered in front of the camera.

SPEAKER_03 6:25

Yeah, didn't follow hashtags, didn't follow a lot of the things that somebody would tell you you need to do to build a social media following. You know, when we when I hired the film crew, we started posting on every platform to try and and crossfeed and get you know tons of stuff done. And we would get really efficient and say, let's record for a half hour and turn this into 20 things and and put it on five platforms. Didn't work.

unknown 6:48

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

You know? So what what platforms are working for you now? Are you on all platforms or have you focused on like TikTok?

SPEAKER_03 6:54

I focus on TikTok and Instagram now. And Instagram basically gets the same posting that TikTok does, which is interesting because every platform has its own personality and what works and doesn't work. But for me, I'm so busy with the work I'm doing on the board of trustees that I it really I can't focus a real strategy on social media that takes too much of my time and it still seems to work.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Right. So you basically just you're you're doing TikTok and then you're copying that over to Instagram and letting it play as as well as it will play there.

SPEAKER_03 7:25

That's right. And I'm I am on YouTube, but I don't focus on it. We we focused on it for a little while, and and I just didn't have the energy because again, it it requires a little bit different flavor. And I just decided I was just gonna do what's on my mind, and whoever wants to find it can find it, and that seems to work.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Nice. Oh, that's so cool. We're I'm definitely gonna make sure Sagir watches this. He's our social media and podcast show runner, so I'm gonna have him take some lessons here. So let's go to the next step then. What what happened when, like, how how did Harper Collins find you? Like, uh, you know, we have so many in our community teachers, speech, you know, public speakers, motivational coaches who would love for Harper Collins to call them. What what yeah, give us that story.

SPEAKER_03 8:12

Well, you know, I I I'll tell you, I don't know the answer. I I this was the the job doctor was the idea that wanted to happen. Yeah, and there was literally nothing I could do to shut to shut it down. Even when midway through my son, you know, was paralyzed and and I had to stop everything and just focus on on I mean just disrupted our lives. Of course, yeah. It was horrible. And I just stopped in the middle of my life. He's doing okay. I mean, but he he's he's he will have lifelong injuries, but we worked through it and he seems to be doing you know, he's living more independent than I ever expected.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

That's good.

SPEAKER_03 8:53

It was I stopped midway through the height of my book launch and thought the whole business would die. And it is the idea that wanted to happen, and it and as soon as I picked it up again, it just kept going. And I think the key was, you know, I TikTok has really interesting people that are hiding and under user 58234. And you know, you don't know who's listening to you, but what I found is I was getting outreaches from the BBC, CNN, Good Morning America, News Nation. Like I was getting these outreaches from people who were in TikTok controlling. Right and and they would reach out to me. I did not have to hire a PR firm, which was crazy. I just took the calls and I I think being on all of those different platforms ended up drawing a lot more attention to me. And that's where, you know, a HarperCollins says, we'd like you to write a book for us. Um, it just again, it is something that resonated with people. When you think about how much time you spend at work and a given, how much of your life goes to it? It's arguably more than you give to your family. You know, when you're working an eight or nine hour workday, and there hasn't historically been somebody that certainly wasn't when I was in work telling me how to navigate that and what to do and what not to do. I just knew work was dysfunctional. Corporate America is somewhat dysfunctional. How do you navigate it? And I think it just hit something that nobody was really talking about at the time.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

So basically the key was you were you're not up there dancing trying to figure out what the what the algorithm was doing. You were sharing actual valuable insights in a in a serious manner, and you got on got on all these amazing like news outlets, and that led one thing led to another.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

Yeah, well, my family will tell you I did try one dancing video, and it was terrible. And it they have they still tease me mercilessly to this day.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

So what I did save it before you could remove it.

SPEAKER_03 10:54

I'd saved, yes, it is there.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:57

But I ended up just deciding to do what I knew about. I and I started doing live sessions as well. So I do question answers for people. And the thing I find that people are struggling with is I don't know, you can tell me what to do, but I I actually need help to know how to say it.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

And so I'm really practical. I'll say, here's how you talk about it. And when I started to do these live sessions, you know, we'd get 10,000 people in one live session. And again, I I'm just talking to my phone, but somehow people need somebody to help them kind of get over the hump. How do I ask for the increase? Not just should I ask for it, but how do I do it? How do I say it? How do I botch it and how do I not botch it? And that it just seemed to resonate. So I just do more of what people seem to want.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

As it walk us through the book launch and especially the, you know, the whole planning of how are we gonna get it out there and hit these, you know, best selling uh lists and stuff. What what was that like?

SPEAKER_03 11:58

Well, not only am I an accidental influencer, but I don't know anything about book launches. And so I get this book out and thinking that of course, Harper Collins, big name, they're gonna they're gonna launch this thing for me and they are.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Yeah, they'll deal with it.

SPEAKER_03 12:12

They are gonna have this marketing tour that is amazing to sell this book. And what I didn't realize was writing the book was the easy part. Then they give you the book and they say, go get them, Tiger, go sell it. And I was like, What? I have to do this. So I decided that my strategy for selling books would be I was going to visit big companies in key cities and do lunch kind of lunch and learns. And then I was going to do a lot of podcasts because I listen to podcasts, so that made sense to me. And then I was going to try and sell books by speaking and selling larger portion, you know, big big book sales so that I could get the counts up. Now, some of that worked and some of that didn't work. The thing that worked the best was going into companies and just sitting in the lunchroom and and um, you know, you'd have people come up to you go, Oh my gosh, are you the job doctor? And it blew my mind that anybody knew who I was. I mean, I I am Wait, so you so you weren't too old to be an influencer, you know?

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Wait, so you weren't like pre-scheduled to be there. It wasn't like the company's hype. You just showed up or what?

SPEAKER_03 13:20

Well, we we'd have sometimes we had a little publicity ahead of time, sometimes we didn't. And we would show up, but people all over the nation recognized me, which still blows my mind. I get stopped in places and my family just rolls their eyes. I think it's hilarious. But you know, people knew who I was and they saw me, and I would have so many young people, usually Gen Z and young millennials, come up to me and say, Oh my gosh, you know, you really helped me with this or that. And that seemed to be really what ended up helping sell the most books. Now we're in three languages, which is really cool. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

And so Harper Collins didn't help you. What did they do anything?

SPEAKER_03 14:01

No. Well, they got I shouldn't say that in case they're listening. They put my book into Barnes and Noble.

unknown 14:07

Right.

SPEAKER_03 14:07

And they so they got it in bookstores, which was great. Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

So they got you the good shelf space in those places.

SPEAKER_03 14:14

They got me a little bit of money so that I could use it towards whatever I wanted. The other thing we did, which was fun, is I went to New York City, downtown New York City. We made a like a plastic fake office in the middle of downtown bustling, New York, and I did the job doctors in. So people would, you know, walk in and I would I would answer questions, and people just were like, Well, who is this person? What who is she and what's she doing? And and we had a billboard on Times Square that day. So that was that was a really fun part of the book.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

That's very Richard Branson with his uh with his gimmicks right there. At least you were dressed doing it. He usually was more undressed than his, but but that's cool. I like that.

SPEAKER_03 14:54

Yeah, so I I don't know. We just tried a lot of things. A lot of things worked, a lot of things didn't work. We we sent book boxes, really cool book boxes, to publishers and and people who had covered stories about me. And and who knows if that actually yielded or not. I don't know. But you know, we sold a lot of books, enough to write a second book. So that's good.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Yeah, the the positive side of a shotgun approach, right? You get some of the things work, some don't.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

Honestly, I have tried so many bonkers things just because I'm I have nothing to lose. I have nothing to lose. I've already done my career, I've had the success I want to have. There is no reason I can't take risks. So, you know, as I try to monetize my followers, I've tried some crazy things like let me call. I have so many people say, I wish you'd talk to my boss. My boss is so bad. I wish you'd tell them this. I'm like, okay, I will. So for a period of time, I tried you can hire me to call your boss anonymously and tell them this information. So I've tried some really weird ideas to get in front of people.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

How did that go?

SPEAKER_03 16:02

That one was harder because the managers wouldn't answer. And so I could leave messages, but that one was pretty short-lived. But we've tried some things that worked really well too.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Right. And so what came what came next there? When you this the whole journey into education, so how were you able to leverage this into getting on that board of trustees?

SPEAKER_03 16:23

Well, I really think what ended up happening when my when my son had this injury and it just stopped me dead in my tracks, I had to stop from I was traveling every week doing keynotes around the nation and I had to stop. And it really took a lot out of me. That was the most difficult period of my life. And it it took me out for about a year. And I think when I went back in, uh not only did I have a change of perspective, but a change of energy. And I didn't I I just didn't have it in me to have that kind of schedule. So I had already been on numerous boards in Utah and somebody must have recommended me. And I got a call one day from from uh you know, the our mayor, and they said, Hey, our governor, governor of Utah, and he said, Hey, I need you to do this.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

You didn't actively search it out. He actually reached out to you.

SPEAKER_03 17:17

Yeah, and and it's a it really is like a at request of the governor of the state of Utah.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 17:22

And so I got put on the board and then over the course of a couple of years moved into the chair role. Now we've got eight campuses, 30,000 students, and and we've been tasked by the state of Utah to change education and figure out what the education of the future looks like. And it's really a lot of fun to marry what I know about the workplace with what others know about education, and I'm having a ball.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Yeah. So what is the future of education? What have you guys found out?

SPEAKER_03 17:52

I I first of all, education's too expensive and education takes too long. You know, things have sped up and they speed up every single year. So, first off, we have to be able to get people in and out and over the finish line quicker. And there's some is there's some industries you can't do that, like you can't speed up nursing too much. No, but for the most part in business, you can speed up and get people to the the content they need to understand and know. The other thing is there have to be more mentorships, more mentorships between student teacher and student business. And that is the one thing that kind of sets an educ, I think, a really good institution or somebody that just is delivering content. Delivering content and learning really is not a value add until you pair it with somebody that can show what real world looks like.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

Right.

SPEAKER_03 18:44

Because the whole object of education is to get a job.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:49

I don't even think it's learning. It's to get a job. And it's you go to school so that you can make money and so that you can make a living. And we've got to somehow tighten those relationships and create stronger mentorships. That's how somebody's gonna stand out, I think, in a university.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Yeah, I think that's a big point, especially now with AI, is I can get the content from doing a proper prompt to Chat GPT.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

Right. That's right. And there's a lot of ways to get information and knowledge that don't require you to put your whole life savings and your house, you know, mortgage your house to do it. You know, education is ubiquitous, it's free. And so you have to find something that's a greater value proposition for a student because they can get free education, free knowledge anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

And how do you look at like the total totality of someone's life? Are you focusing purely on that, you know, education should give someone a job, or should they also prepare them actually to be an adult and, you know, manage their money and relationships and everything else?

SPEAKER_03 19:54

Well, it's you know, you should do that too. But I think you don't have to have an education to do that. You can do that a lot, that can come a lot of different ways. I do think education needs to do a better job at teaching resilience and teaching young people how do you how do you talk through conflict? How do you deal with resilience? How do you because we're really living in a swipe right, swipe left world, you know? You think it's just for dating, but we do it for everything. Our brains, AI and technology are actually teaching our brains to abandon the very thing we need, which is critical thinking and the ability to kind of stay in a hard conversation. And so I think that education is going to have to shift to teach those skill sets because they're really, really important. And I and I'm seeing that uh young people are really struggling with those once they get into the workplace. They can be as smart as smart as can be, but unless you have those skills, you know, what I find is I I asked my followers and 94% said they would rather leave their company than bring up there's a problem. Oh think about that for a minute. And so, and now you get, you know, in my my age group was we stayed in a job for 8.8 years on average, but today it's 2.2. And the average young person is gonna have 25 to 30 jobs in a lifetime. Right. Now, if you think about that, that's that's that's a crazy change.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

That's a lot, yeah. And especially if that's just because they're afraid of conflict and running away.

SPEAKER_03 21:23

Yeah, and they just move and you find they move from company to company, seeking the grass greener, and the grass isn't greener. There's a skill set that is needed to actually survive in today's world that we're not teaching that I think needs to be a part of the curriculum.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Yeah, well, I mean, we had our our mutual friend Jane Gunn on the uh on the podcast, and so I'm sure you've spoken to her. Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_03 21:45

Mm-hmm. Yeah, Jane's right on though. And Jane's such a master at this. It's interesting because there was, you know, conflict is is so tricky with people. And like I say, they would rather leave than bring up the hard thing. And we're we're going to have to figure out how to have the hard conversation. I I think it that because we can't stay in hard conversations and because our brain is so swipe right, swipe left, that um we make decisions too quick. Yes, no, good, bad, um, toxic, not toxic, cancel, don't cancel. And the goal is to teach students it's okay to be in this in-between place where we disagree and to stay in disagreement and to to frame it a little bit differently than needing to make a binary decision that you're good, bad, you know, right, wrong. There's there's shades in between.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Yeah. And so for our industry, obviously, we see so much of the the financial parts of people's lives with, you know, it's as Brian Tracy always says, it's not how much you make, it's how much you keep. So that is something that I've always felt, and a lot of our speakers, like Robert Kiyosaki, has been fighting for for a long, long time, that you know, financial intelligence should be taught in schools and that we should be actually learn how to manage our money. How how are you looking at implementing that and bringing that into that space?

SPEAKER_03 23:12

I think it needs to start in high school. Yeah, well, agreed. It's got to start younger and it has to be taught. The fact that I can have somebody know a lot about AI, for example, but they don't know that you have to buy health insurance and car insurance.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:30

That's that's a really big disconnect to me.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:34

You know, those are really big disconnects. And, you know, I I teach people sometimes how to how to maximize their pay within a company, even. Like how do you look at the tax situation and what is a 401k and what's an HS HSA and how do you how do you how do you put 20% more money in your paycheck? And it really is so foreign and completely misunderstood and just never did it.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Well, and then what happens next? Even if you get that 20% extra and now the money lands in your bank account, what do I now do with that? Well, great. I can go buy myself a Porsche and uh, you know, I don't have anything else in my life. Like, how do I handle my lifestyle?

SPEAKER_03 24:15

Well, you know, it's interesting because I worked at Vivence Solar, so this was basically door knockers. They would knock on doors and try and sell solar door to door. They made crazy amounts of money.

unknown 24:26

Right.

SPEAKER_03 24:26

And they were mostly not college educated and um and and and they made like ridiculous amounts of money. And what we found is that they would make this money and think that buying Porsches and other things was a normal part of life. And what we ended up doing was we gave them financial counseling and started to teach them how to manage money. Then we took some of their commission, we said, we'll do this cool thing for you. We're gonna take some of your money and put it over here so that it continues to grow and invest. And all of a sudden they're like, What? This this can grow. And you started to talk to them about equity and stock options and what it actually is, and uh, you know, trying to build wealth. So our goal became I'm not just trying to keep an employee and pay them high commissions, I'm trying to build wealth for them so that they can build, you know, they have their own popcorn stand, so to speak, and they can build their own popcorn stand or their own business and leave us in five years and and be wildly successful because we've helped them accumulate. And it was just amazing to see the difference and what that did to the strategy around retention when you do something like that.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Oh, I can imagine. I mean, we do that with our our team. We've done trainings on, you know, helping them set up a personal budget, how to figure out how to put away 10% of their paycheck into investing and you know, and then what to do with that that 10% to actually get a return. And as you say, like if if they're going to be financially free and you know, well off in five years, well, if the average person is working 2.2 years for you otherwise, you've still more than doubled the time you have the person.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

That's right. It and I just think it's really interesting. If you really study generational um patterns, um, you know, in let's take a Gen X. Uh, let's actually go back, a boomer. A boomer was saving for they had a pension and retirement, right? And they were saving, you know, to pay off their house. Then you kind of move it up the line, and then millennial urban comforts, right? You're getting shorter term, shorter term all the time. It was stock options, urban comforts, a nice car, great vacation. Now you go to today's worker and they're lucky to have 200 bucks into their name. And so shorter term things like I need to be able to pay this right now. I need to be able to take care of this problem right now because I have no money. So when you move from a longer term thinking to shorter term thinking, you're naturally working against this idea that you can build long-term wealth. And so it's really a new concept, I think, for many of the our younger workers and teaching them that there's an alternative, I think, is really great.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Is that something you will be implementing into the university, or is that something that needs to do be done in high school?

SPEAKER_03 27:22

You know, I don't I don't see it at the university. I think they've got to know it, they've got to know it when they're younger. They've got to be able to enter into this mini adulthood understanding these are what bills look like, here's the things you're gonna have to pay for, here's what they are, here's what they do. And I think that the bigger messages in uh higher education have to be around resilience, around how do you deal with conflict and and really practicing this idea that you can have a different point of view without needing to be enemies.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:55

Along with a whole bunch of other things. That just happens to be my hot the thing I talk about the most.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Yeah, exactly. Well, that's why you have a team. They can come they can fight for the other parts of the education and you fight for this part. So so what do you see as the biggest takeaway that that a new, you know, someone new to the job market should should really keep in mind to make sure they maximize their opportunities.

SPEAKER_03 28:16

Well, I'll tell you something that's really been on my mind lately. This idea that when you go to a company, there are red zones and green zones. Red zones is a company going through really difficult things, uncomfortable things. It could be restructuring or what have you. A lot of people decide to move a company during a red zone so they can get to a green zone. And there is great value in working through a red zone because a red zone, even though we're afraid of them, a red zone teaches you how to is really the trigger for innovation. You have to do things differently, whether it is you're implementing a system, you're streamlining, figuring out how to do more with less. It's the problem solving phase of your career. And if all you do is skip from green zone to green zone, there will come a time you just don't know how to solve the problems that come. And people who stay through red zones, and there's a lot of them right now, almost every company I know is going through a red zone. You will be able to say, I know how to do that. I've I've been through that problem before. I know that if you do this, this happens, if you do this, this happens. And I think that people tend to want to just run away and go to the green zone all the time. I think there's great value in staying through a red zone. And it's proven, I can tell you that people that stay through red zones in a company, let's say it's an acquisition and a lot of people leave during an acquisition. The people that stay most often get increases because more promotions are available because there's more vacancies. And I would say staying through a red zone on average can give you about $10,000 extra dollars if you'll just be patient. It'll add $10,000 in value to your resume, if not through a raise through the next job that you get.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I I it just reminded me of an old uh an old talk that I saw Brian Tracy do, where he said that everyone's life is a series of problems. And every three or four problems is is a bigger one, so you call it a crisis.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

And so you go around life and it's like problem, problem, problem, crisis, problem, problem, problem, problem, crisis.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

And he said, so that means that everyone you meet is either in the middle of a crisis, they've just come out of a crisis, or they're about to have a crisis. Which means if you're in a company that's in a crisis and you're switching to one that's in that green zone, well, probably shortly they're gonna have a crisis as well. And you're just gonna be chased around running away from these crises.

SPEAKER_03 30:50

Well, even worse, the reason the job is open is probably because somebody left because it was a red zone. So you're moving into another red zone. And I think the gentleman that wrote Atomic Howits is my favorite book ever. He's working on a new one and he talks about hats, haircuts, and tattoos, about decisions. And he says so many times we think that a decision is, you know, a tattoo, a permanent thing, when it actually is just like wearing a hat. You can take it on and off, or it's a haircut, it takes a couple months to grow out. And I think that people make tattoo decisions to leave a company, to give up the trajectory where they're at, when in fact they might just be going through a haircut moment for that company. And if they if they stay in it, then they could reap the benefits of it. That's not always true, but but by and large, I think we swipe right, swipe left. I guess in this case it would be swipe left and leave the company far too soon.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

That's great insight. And I I think that's a perfect place for us to stop today. So, how can we connect with you? How can we keep learning from you?

SPEAKER_03 31:57

You can find me just about everywhere. If you look at Job Dr. Tessa, you do a Google search. You're gonna find podcasts, you're gonna find out.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

I will link obviously in the show notes to all your socials.

SPEAKER_03 32:09

Perfect. And and if you go to my socials, you'll see that I have downloadable scripts and all, you know, how to have a hard conversation, worksheets, all kinds of free material for you to work through whatever is uh befuddling you in your career at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

Nice. We'll link to that. That sounds absolutely amazing. Any last uh pieces of wisdom you'd like to leave us with before we log off?

SPEAKER_03 32:32

I don't know that I'm that smart. I would just say if you've if you have challenges in your career or you're not particularly thinking you're as fulfilled as you'd like to be, you are not alone. I don't think for a vast majority of us, a career is not if you're really lucky, a career can be your passion. But for most of us, a career is a job and hopefully a place we're learning and growing. And it it isn't going to be the end all be all. So set your expectations accordingly and realize that even in bad situations, there's tremendous learning to be had. So I would leave you with that.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

Amazing. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode with Tessa White. This is actually my favorite part of the episode where me and the Swedish Wealth Institute team have broken down the conversation into actionable steps that you can put into your life. We always try to look for the answer to what is the difference that makes the difference? Why do some people take off while others simply don't have that trajectory? So here are five things that I got from this conversation with Tessa. Number one, practical value beats polished content. So one of the things that was really cool was Tessa grew online not by trying to look perfect, but by being authentic. And when she tried to be more polished and professional, it didn't work. It didn't play. It was simple, direct, useful advice that helped people solve problems. That was the key. Number two, your audience will tell you what they need. So this again, incredibly powerful. She conversed and listened to her followers and answered the questions they had in their lives, and that is how she grew. So can you do the same in your business? Can you figure out what are people asking and then answer those questions? Number three, knowledge isn't enough. People need the actual words. So Tessa gets very, very practical. She doesn't just answer the question as how do I get a raise. She goes into the detail and gives a script. This is what you say and why. That is incredibly powerful. Number four, education has to connect to real life. So Tessa is working on the instruction of the governor of Utah to reinvent education because it's changing. Information is everywhere. We have it online, we can learn on YouTube or social media or from experts directly. So what is education gonna do now? It's about getting real outcomes, jobs, confidence, resilience, mentorship, financial understanding, and the ability to handle difficult situations in the real world. That is just something you don't get from watching a YouTube video. Number five, don't run from every red zone. So one of the things that has started to happen more and more in these in later years is that when something gets difficult, we run away. Tessa pointed out that she calls these red zones in companies. Restructure, challenges, uncertainty, difficult periods. This is where you learn. This is where you grow and you become more powerful for your company. So sometimes it's actually worth sticking it in and learning in that red zone. So have a thought about how you handle these situations. Now, again, thank you so much for listening to this episode. Before you go, I would like to invite you to the Swedish Wealth Institute community. I'm gonna give you two weeks free access because we are truly making some major investments into this platform to help you and support you. The goal, what we try to teach you or help you identify is where are you now? Where are you going, and what is the number one limiting factor? Then our technology will connect you with how to overcome that. It could be connecting you with an accountability buddy or one of the courses in the course catalog where Jack Canfield, Dr. John Di Martini, and many more have contributed. You'll see the link in the show notes. You can claim your two weeks free access. After that, it's only 27 euros a month. You get access to all the courses, all the trainings, and connecting with entrepreneurs from all over the world. Of course, I would really appreciate it if you enjoyed this episode that you share it with a friend, and I think your friend would too, if it's something you think that they would grow from. Please make sure you follow this uh the podcast just like thousands of people all over the world are already doing. And if you want to give us a five-star review, that is very much appreciated. Next week, we are interviewing JR McIntyre, also known as the Hood Motivator. This is gonna be really, really interesting because he has a background as an army veteran, a bronze star recipient, a best-selling author, a life coach. He's exploded on social media, but it hasn't always been easy. He's gone through tough times, and we're gonna get dive in deep into how do you overcome them and make your weaknesses your greatest strength. So I hope I see you next week. I'm Daniel Wood. This is the Swedish Wealth Institute Podcast. Thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

Everybody knows hustling, but no people know no business. That's why we're bankrupt. I don't hire potential, I don't even talk to people, just call up the guy who rented me the building. This is my last month here. Cried for days, didn't come out the house, isolated myself, spiraling downhill once again. And I used to read books in the janitor closet after I would sweep in my bathrooms and the gym floors and just read, read, read, and all of a sudden the light started to