January 17, 2025 • 42 mins
In this inspiring episode, Gia welcomes the incredible Tia Graham, a renowned keynote speaker, bestselling author, and expert in well-being and happiness at work.
Tia shares her transformative journey from a successful career in luxury hospitality to founding her own happiness company, Arrive at Happy. With over 14 years of leadership experience and certifications in neuroscience and positive psychology, Tia reveals the science behind happiness and how it can be a choice we make every day.
Join Gia and Tia as they dive deep into the impact of toxic work environments, the ripple effect of happiness on our families, and the importance of self-love and inner work. Tia discusses her bestselling book, Be a Happy Leader, and her eight-step methodology for fostering happiness in the workplace. She also introduces her new program, the Calm Working Moms Collective, designed to help high-achieving mothers transition from chaos to calm.
This episode is packed with actionable insights, personal stories, and powerful messages about redefining success, overcoming guilt, and embracing the journey of self-discovery. Whether you're a corporate powerhouse or an entrepreneur, this conversation will empower you to prioritize your happiness and advocate for yourself in both your personal and professional life.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to Your Future Starts Now, the go-to podcast for
extraordinary women who are ready to step into their next chapter with
authentic confidence. I'm your host, Gia Lacqua empowerment coach,
motivational speaker, children's book author, and girl mom. Whether
you're a corporate powerhouse or an entrepreneur, this show is
designed for you. Your Future Starts Now is more than
(00:20):
just a podcast. It's a movement, a movement towards rewriting
the rules of success for high-achieving women. Are you ready
to get unstuck and step into your next chapter? If
so, you're exactly where you need to be. Your future starts
now. Welcome to Your Future Starts Now. I'm
your host, Gia Lacqua. Thanks for tuning in. Today, I am
(00:43):
absolutely thrilled to welcome Tia Graham to
the show. Tia is a keynote and TED speaker, bestselling
author, and expert in well-being and happiness at
work. As the founder of Arrive at Happy, her
TED Talk, The Simple Secret of Being Happier, has over 1.3 million
views. With certifications in neuroscience, positive psychology,
(01:05):
and well-being at work, Tia has over 14 years of leadership experience
and is recognized by top media outlets like CNN, Forbes,
and Fast Company. Her social media following of
60,000 engages with her insights on happiness and productivity. A
working mom of two daughters, including one with a rare disability,
(01:25):
Tia has invested deeply in her family's well-being. Her
personal journey has led her through various therapies, self-help practices,
shaping her holistic approach to healing and happiness. Her
book, Be a Happy Leader, outlines her eight-step methodology for
fostering happiness and growth in business. Tia,
so happy to have you with us today. Welcome to the show. Thank
(01:48):
you. I'm very excited to be here. Excited to
chat with you today. So, I mean, you've accomplished
so much. Start a little bit with your background. I know you weren't
always, you know, in the role you're in today. Tell us a little
Yes, so I had an
(02:09):
amazing 15 years working in luxury
hospitality, and this included locations such
as the Hawaiian Islands, New York City. I worked
in Istanbul, Turkey, as well as Los Angeles, all
leading sales and marketing teams and doing PR. I
grew up in the middle of nowhere in Northern Canada, so
(02:33):
to be able to live and travel and work in all these places and lead
teams, it was incredible. Of
course, there was stress and pressure and challenges, but
I always was very grateful and super happy at work. I
became a leader at a really young age. I was 26 years old when I
(02:53):
started leading my first sales team. I had no idea what I was doing. Um,
but through my career, I had some very inspirational, really,
really wonderful leaders. And I also had some leaders you could probably relate to
this or people listening can relate. I worked with some people who were
very toxic and made everyone really, really unhappy. Um, when
(03:13):
I went back to work after having my second daughter, I was, uh,
very, very challenged to, to feel happy
and well, I was super. I was stressed and
anxious and overwhelmed and confused.
I felt stuck. I had so
much guilt on work guilt, not being able
(03:36):
to work and do as much and not mom guilt, not being able to do as much
as a mom. I was really, really
unhappy. And prior to having kids, I've always been
a pretty positive, optimistic person. I'm definitely one of those people that
are more genetically disposed to be happy. Fast
forward, kids. And
(04:01):
at this point, I
was working with a spiritual business
life coach who's still in my life. And
I told her about this dream that I had to create a happiness company
and help other people be happier. And I
(04:22):
started researching what makes people happy. And
this is when I discovered the science of happiness, also known
as positive psychology. And I was like, whoa, like, what is
this? Needless to say, I became absolutely
obsessed. Immediately, I went to the World Happiness Summit.
I started learning from professors who were teaching this
(04:44):
at Harvard, started getting certifications. which led
me to then get interested in the neuroscience of happiness, which
led me to go to Denmark and get certified as a chief happiness officer because
Scandinavians are significantly happier in all areas,
especially at work, compared to North Americans and
(05:06):
became a certified coach. And I started
growing, building my company while I was director of
sales and marketing at a hotel in Los Angeles. And eventually, after
several years of building it, and I was coaching
people, and I started speaking, doing leadership work,
et cetera, I then left my corporate job in the spring of
(05:29):
2019. And, you know, book
and TED Talk, et cetera. And this
year is when I start,
I'm creating a new, well, I have created a new program for
high-achieving working moms called Calm
Working Moms Collective, which is a community for moms who want
(05:51):
to go from chaos to calm. That's
Amazing. That is such an incredible backstory.
I love to hear those stories of
transformation and love the
work that you're doing and how you're influencing so many people. And
(06:13):
obviously there's a lot of overlap in terms of the women
that we work with, high achieving, working moms, and
it's important work. Tell us, you wrote a
book, Be a Happy Leader, Stop Being Overwhelmed, Thriving Personally,
and Achieve Killer Business Results. It's a number one bestseller on
Amazon. Tell us a little bit about what led you to write the book and
(06:39):
Yes, absolutely. So I always worked
very, very hard as a sales and marketing leader to be
a positive leader, to be someone who made my
sales and marketing and PR teams feel
happy while they're working and, and,
(07:01):
you know, have them want to
be working and working well and working together, et cetera. Um,
and I was always very confused with bosses that
made everyone feel horrible. I was like, I don't understand why the company would hire, like,
my brain just didn't compute on like, how is. And
then when I started researching happiness and I was researching happiness
(07:25):
at work, and then I started reading research about. Toxic
negative bosses, of course, affect their employees,
their team, but that ripple effect goes to their spouses and their
children in a very big way. And
so there's this massive ripple effect out to society. I just got goosebumps
of like, it's not okay. And we spend so much time
(07:48):
at work. And I knew I
had done all this research on the science of happiness. I
had all this research from happiness at work, all this neuroscience. that's
what led me to write the book. And
this isn't something like, yes, it's easier for some, like
I said, genetics play a huge part, but it's also something that
(08:10):
you can get better at. And so I created, I basically
looked at what do I do?
And then where's the research that supports it in
being happy and positive when I show up and having
the team feel happy so
that they'll sell more, be more successful, have
(08:32):
better customer relationships, drive revenue, drive
profit, drive market share, et cetera. And so
these steps are how you
can take care of yourself and be well, because you cannot have a happy team
if you're miserable. And then steps on
how to build great relationships, create psychological
(08:55):
safety, et cetera. create friendship, be
a coach, how to motivate people, how to be
optimistic, et cetera. And
yeah, that's the reason why and
the methodologies about you and how you make your team feel.
(09:18):
Got it. And such a powerful statement. I want to go back to a couple of things
that you said. One, which also gave me the
goosebumps, which is when you are in a toxic environment for
the majority of your day at work, whether it's a toxic boss or
other people, right? We bring that home, whether
we realize it or not. And so, you know,
(09:40):
I've always sort of believed that to be true. I
appreciate you confirming that ripple effect that that
can play with our spouses, with our families, with
our children, um, is, is just such
a powerful statement, right? So sometimes we think about, especially, especially
as high achieving women, we'll just suck it up, grit
(10:01):
and bear it. It is what it is, right?
This is what I've signed up for all the excuses. Yes.
And I will say, I want to just, you immediately made me think
of a situation I was in. So I was director
of sales and marketing at a hotel in Los Angeles. The
(10:21):
owners and the asset manager were breathing down our necks
every five minutes because I arrived at the job,
the asset was severely underperforming and I was brought in to turn it around. And
the asset manager was so extremely toxic
and negative and At the
(10:41):
three month point, I was having like almost a
panic attack because of what was happening. And
my husband basically was like, Tia, you need to go in and
say what needs to change or you need to leave this job because nothing
is worth this. And I'd never done that before. I
had never been brave enough to go say, stop
(11:05):
treating me this way. But I wrote down everything that
I needed and I went in and I talked to the general manager
who was my boss, who then reported to the asset manager. And
I basically said like, these conditions need
to change or I can't be your director of sales and marketing. And
I was terrified to have that very brave conversation, but
(11:28):
they changed so many aspects because they
didn't want me to quit. Of course. So for everyone listening that
has a boss that is toxic, I
think it's worth it for you to have
that. I think of, you know, good old Brene Brown to have that brave conversation because
(11:49):
Yeah. And isn't that the definition of brave
is being scared to do something, but doing it anyway. And recognizing
that your health, your wellbeing is not worth it. Recognizing,
you know, that, that you, you have to advocate for
yourself. And so many women undervalue. right,
(12:13):
Right. Yes, absolutely. And of course, there
are some people who cannot just quit their job or
everyone has different financial situations. But
know that you definitely don't have to stay in it for years, right? You can, whether it's
finding a new job or being able to talk to the people
you work with, etc. You're
(12:40):
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a powerful message. Now
in the work that you do, you talk about happiness is
Tell us a little bit more about that.
And I would also love your take on a lot
(13:01):
of the women I work with. One of the most common things I see is
we need permission to be happy. Hmm, let's
talk about that. Which could be self-permission, right?
It could be somebody else giving you permission, but I would love your
Okay, so in my
(13:22):
TED Talk, I tell a story about my dad
being really unhappy for several years, going
through divorce with my mom, and after
several years, He made the decision to,
and his exact words were, I'm not gonna have another bad year.
(13:44):
On his birthday, he said that. And he said that to my face. I
was like 11. I'm not gonna have another bad year. And I saw
him choose to think
and act differently. So
I learned that it is a choice because I witnessed it. I witnessed my
(14:05):
father Make a choice. And
what I want everyone to understand is that what
the science proves is that our
genetics play a huge part. So
some people are genetically predisposed to be happier. Some
people, unfortunately, are genetically predisposed to be depressed
(14:28):
or unhappy. Or there's, of course, schizophrenia and
bipolar and, you know, and I will say all of that, but there's you
know, this, this range of genetics. So
to recognize, and you could probably look at your siblings, right?
Different genetics. So that's the first part. The second
part is then you have your environment, your
(14:50):
events in your life. So if
you're a lawyer that works a hundred hours a week in New York City, or
you are a, you
know, a children's author that lives on a farm in Montana. Your
environment, your circumstances, those are
all gonna play, those are gonna play into it as well. Okay,
(15:12):
so genetics and your environment and your circumstances.
Then, and a lot of people don't have control, you
have no control over your genetics and your environment, we
have some control over, but not all. We
have no control right now of what's happening in Russia and Ukraine, and it's not helping
(15:32):
our happiness, right? There's things out of our control. The
third piece, which is what the science of happiness and the neuroscience
of happiness is based on,
is the piece that is your agency. And
this is where happiness as a choice comes in.
(15:55):
And what the research shows is you have agency, over
and you have choices over two areas in your life. Number
one is your thinking and number two are your behaviors.
And there are thousands and thousands of research papers proving
that there are many different things
(16:17):
that you could do with your thinking and how you behave that can increase
your happiness and your well-being. In
the areas of, and I learned this from Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar, There's
this acronym of SPIRE, areas of your spiritual well-being,
your physical well-being, which is your mind and your body, your
(16:38):
intellectual well-being, growing and
learning, your relational well-being, relationship with yourself, relationship with
others, and your emotional well-being, having a healthy relationship with painful
emotions, never call them negative, they're painful, and
your positive emotions, growing
those. The
(17:01):
first step is knowing
that you have agency and if
there's someone listening and the clients you work with
who do not feel that they have
the permission to choose
(17:24):
happiness and to make choices to
increase and sustain their happiness, it
probably goes back to childhood and adolescence,
and it probably could be discovered through therapy on
the why. And it's okay if they don't feel that
(17:46):
way. If someone listening doesn't feel that way, it's completely okay.
But there's a reason or reasons why. And if
there's someone in your life not giving you permission, I would question that, that, like
how much, that's a whole other thing, you know, of like the
people who you surround yourself with should absolutely want you to be happy and give
you permission to be happy if they care and love about you. Sorry,
(18:09):
care and love you. But
you absolutely deserve it. And I will say the
goal is not to be happy all the time. There's no such thing about,
there's no set, there's no human in the world that's happy all the time. The
science of happiness is also about purpose and about
meaning and about growing and
(18:33):
gaining wisdom. There's this false belief that
it's like you have positive emotions all the time. No. So
I wanna hear your thoughts on your clients and
this belief that maybe I don't have permission or
(18:53):
Yeah, and I love what you said, because it's one of the
exact reasons I became a trauma informed coach
is because there was a very significant trend
that I was seeing in high achieving women who
are lawyers, doctors, C-suite executives,
(19:15):
very successful on the outside, but silently
struggling, unfulfilled, self-doubt,
overwhelmed, right? And so it
made me wonder, what is the key? Like, what is it that holds
us back, right? And there's no one easy answer, but certainly
(19:36):
a big part of it is what you just touched upon, which is the
stories we carry from our childhood into adulthood.
That yes, yes, and yes, and I have done
so much therapy and so many types of therapy because
(19:58):
exactly what you just described was me for
over nine years. Yeah. So from the
outside, life is great, right? There's so,
if you would go to look at my LinkedIn and even you're like, oh, Tia, all your, for
nine years, I did not feel I was good enough
as a mom. And I was, I beat
(20:19):
myself up, such a loud inner critic. And
through therapy, I realized where
that originated and why that originated
and have compassion for myself. And
I have turned that inner critic into the loudest, amazing
(20:40):
cheerleader. And I believe it's
like self-love is the antidote, you know, to this guilt
and not enoughness is just falling so
in love with yourself. And a
lot of times we can't do it alone. And I love that you're a trauma-informed coach.
That's as immediately when I saw that, I was like, oh my God, I need to get
(21:02):
to know this woman. And
I wish I did all of this therapy in my twenties. Like if I could go
back, I would have done it before I got pregnant. But you
know, our kids come to trigger us and then show us all our unhealed wounds.
Yeah. Right? I mean, our spouse is too. for
(21:23):
all the married people is this.
So. Our identity, this
is from Michael Haig, who I heard speak on Saturday, and
it kind of talks to our identity is the false
self we present to the world to protect us
(21:45):
from the fear that grows out of the belief that
was created by the wound that happened in the past.
That is so powerful. And that the beliefs are
never true, but they're always logical and they make sense. And
(22:07):
so, you know, he said, we hang on to this fear. And
I love this because I know your future starts now is Instead
of how can I not be afraid ask yourself? Am I
willing to be afraid? Hmm Because we always
(22:29):
will be anyway, we always will be absolutely. So how do
we face that fear? How do we say like yeah fears
and yeah, I think of Elizabeth Gilbert right like fears there Just
Let fear be in the backseat, right? Right. And that's a hard shift to
make. So, so much power in what you just said. And I love
how you talk about the mom guilt, the work guilt. And I think most
(22:51):
women, working women feel that tension of
never being enough, right? I talk about the never enough phenomenon,
which is this drive for that validation. It keeps
us chasing our self-worth outside of
ourselves when it resides within us. Yes. I
would love to know from your perspective and for our audience who's
(23:13):
probably curious, how do we shift from that not enough-ness,
that strong inner critic, to that
I'm sure that there's many different journeys to
(23:33):
get from this place to this destination.
Let me share how I did it and I hope it's valuable for
some people. So I first got
really, really clear on who was
in my head telling me that I wasn't good
(23:54):
enough. Like, who is this voice that's
constantly telling me? And I did a powerful visualization
exercise and I realized that my voice is a referee that has
a scoreboard with 19 things on it. I
always felt good enough in my career. I didn't, well, that's not
true. No, that's not true. I didn't always feel that. Let me backtrack. That
(24:16):
would go in and out. But on the motherhood side was
more where I felt like I am, I am not good enough, not
good enough. And it was like loud megaphone inner
critic. Okay. So I realized I have this referee.
And I wrote down all these things on this scoreboard that
the referee was holding me accountable to,
(24:38):
and I could never do all 19, ever. And
then I realized, okay, this
referee is there. It's really,
really actually negative for me, but I
feel like this referee is trying to help me. What is this referee trying to do?
And then got
(25:00):
that message on, okay, this is trying to
push me, is trying to help me achieve. And I actually realized, like,
this referee served me in childhood when there was complete chaos in
my home, and I wanted to be this, like, good
girl, straight A's, do everything well.
It served me. And then,
(25:22):
so I got that message, like, this referee is trying to help me succeed, trying to
help me feel safe, et cetera. Okay, good, thank
you, referee, but you're not, I see you're trying to help me, but you're
not helping me that much. I
then visualized, instead
of listening to the referee, who do I want to listen to?
(25:43):
Who do I want to be my guide? And
immediately I visualized this wise, old,
indigenous woman. And I'm not actually, I
mean, we are all indigenous, go back, right, lineage. But like, I
am from Northern Canada. So I went to school with a lot of indigenous kids in elementary school.
(26:04):
But anyway, picture this woman. And
all she said to me was, her scoreboard was, for
me was, are you loving yourself? And
are you loving your girls? And so every
single day, and I put her up on my mirror, it was like, yes, I love myself.
Yes, I'm loving my girls. I'm enough. So
(26:27):
that was one, that was a powerful start of the shift. And
the other piece of moving from not enough to
self-love was being in therapy
and understanding where that
not enough originated from. And
(26:48):
I've done neurofeedback, EMDR,
internal family systems, cognitive behavioral therapy, somatic
experiencing therapy. I basically read the Body Keeps the Score and
like did an experiment on myself. And everything that Bessel van
der Kork recommended, I was like, I'm doing this. And
I've, for three years, and I still do EMDR. I
(27:11):
still, and I still have a long way to go. but
probably after
two, two and a half years of really understanding like,
where did this inner critic come from? Why am
I so hard on myself? And
(27:34):
basically, you know, earlier this
year, I had a final switch, you
know, this self-love growing, growing, growing. And
earlier this year was a final switch where it was like, I
am a, am I allowed to swear on your podcast? Yes. Where
I had this realization and it is so strong. And
(27:58):
my voice says to me, I am a fucking amazing
I say it out loud all the time. I'm like, I, you know, But
it took several years of
me getting there. I love that. I don't want anyone to be like, oh, you
(28:19):
just do this in one day. You're like, you're in a critic. Your not enoughness is
gone. But you can get
A lot of inner work, but I love that. I think we're going to have to make a sweatshirt with
that saying on it. 10,000 hour, no. I
love it. That is so incredible. There's so much there to
(28:42):
unpack. So essentially what I think you
and I both talk about is doing the inner work. Right. And
I think that first step is getting curious, getting curious with who
the voice is, what the voice is telling you, where it's coming from. And
then the second part of it is really dismantling those old
stories and beliefs that are no longer serving you. And I think that can be really hard
(29:03):
for us because to your point, at one time in our life, or
perhaps our entire life, they did serve us. being
a people pleaser, being a perfectionist, right? All the
If I didn't have kids, I think I would have been like, I'm awesome. Like keep
going. I would not have had to like face these childhood wounds.
And I think a lot of women have that experience where once you give
(29:25):
birth, right, you are faced with those
old wounds. And I see it all the time. And that's when
sort of the healing journey tends to begin. And so there's some magic
there. Um, so I, you know, and I,
I know you've done the work and are doing the works. I
think we have similar stories from that respect. Um,
(29:47):
but tell us how has that impacted your ability
Okay. Don't make me cry. So one of my daughters, um,
my older daughter is, has a very, very
rare profile of autism, and
she also has an extreme nervous system disability. And
(30:11):
my younger daughter is neurotypical. So my
older daughter, around age
seven, started having huge panic
attacks. And I won't go into all the
details, but very, very, very, I don't
even know, it needs a word, challenging times a million
(30:36):
And she
triggered big time how
And so I would also, like my nervous system felt
(30:57):
like it was on fire when she was having panic attacks. And
what would happen is unintentionally, I was putting fuel on
her fire. And of
course that challenged our relationship, added more stress, et
cetera. And through all of this work, and
(31:20):
I will say for seven years, my husband and I didn't realize she
was disabled. We just thought she was a
very challenging, strong-willed, defiant child. Sure. she
doesn't seem autistic in what you know
when, you know, think of autism. Stereotypical. So we treated
her like a regular kid who was just very strong willed and
(31:42):
unintentionally were like causing trauma because
we didn't know what we didn't know. So what
this work has done for me is
when my children are dysregulated, I
am able to self-soothe my nervous system
(32:03):
and stay calm and stay regulated and help them get
back to regulation. I also know
how to communicate way more effectively with
collaborative and proactive problem solving. Because in our house, we don't
do consequences, we don't punish, we don't use carrots. It's
very collaborative is the way that we run our family. It's
(32:29):
brought just, it's brought us closer together.
Now, are there still challenges? Is parenting still extremely hard? Of course,
like, I'm not saying it's all, everything is roses now.
But my friends, like, and I actually see my,
because most of my friends don't have neurodivergent children. And
(32:53):
I see them yell at their kids, or I see the way they talk to their kids and their kids struggling. And
I will talk to their kids the way I talk to my kids. And
my friends are like, how do you do that? Like, what are you doing? Um, and
so I would say, it's also
we, you know, my husband, I treat our kids It's
(33:15):
not authoritarian, right? It's like there's like this equality. Of
course, we're still the guides. We're still the parents, but
it's full of respect. And our number one
goal is connection with our kids. And
I will say at the beginning of my healing journey, I was very resentful that
(33:36):
I had to go do, like I was like, I've already given so much to these kids. I've
already taken my career. I've already had to go on this healing journey.
Now I'm so grateful. Now, years
of doing it, I'm such a better person. And I
tell my older daughter that, you've made me such a better person because
(34:00):
I was kind of parenting like I was parented. And I know that this is going
to last when they're in their 20s, when they're in
um yeah
(34:22):
that's that's what i would say about that brought tears to my eyes for
sure so and think about that ripple effect right
think about the ripple effect you are going to have on them
and if they choose to have children. Yeah. Right.
Because you think about like, even you were talking about toxic leaders before
you learn how to be a good leader, sometimes by learning from
(34:45):
bad leaders. Yeah. And the same thing, right? Like we think
about our childhood and what worked and what didn't work. Yes.
Right. And you shift and you evolve. And
so I love, I love the respect. I love the collaboration. And
I think it's also what I'm hearing you say, but not say
directly is sort of understanding where they are coming from and
(35:06):
meeting them where they are at, which is hard to do when
Yes. And, and I will say that as
a high achieving working mom, we
have so much in our brains. We are managing
so much with work, with home, with children, with
(35:27):
family, with our friends, taking care of ourself. And
we have to self-manage so
that we're not at a place of chronic stress and overwhelm. Because
I know when I'm in that place, that's when you react.
(35:48):
That's when you show up and then you're like, oh God, I regret it.
And hey, I reacted poorly yesterday morning. So
we all have those moments. I'm perfect. I'm saying Ashkahn
so far. Yeah. I still get triggered. Yeah. But
the only one to manage everything in our bodies and
everything in our mind is us. And you know, your body keeps
(36:11):
the score. And so we have to be very
intentional. to not get to that place of
like overloaded where we're treating our loved ones badly.
And it's really hard to do. It's really hard to do.
It's like, you have to take that time to pause and
(36:39):
And taking that pause can be the thing that's really hard to do because, you
know, as high achieving women, sometimes we're so busy doing and going that we are
afraid to take that pause. And we make excuses that
I don't have time to do the work. I don't have time to
be happy. Right. I feel like that summarized my
life for many years. Yeah.
(37:03):
Yeah. Yeah. Because. going
back to the perfectionist child that makes us
kick-ass high-achieving women, our
value comes from doing. That's
what we feel. It's like, I achieve more, I do
more with my kids, but there's so much
(37:25):
value in rest, and there's so
much value in reflection, and there's so much value in
just being and not thinking and doing. And...
And knowing that you're enough. And knowing that you're enough. If
you don't do that next work thing, you are enough. If
(37:46):
you, yeah, that you're valuable just because you're
See, I feel like we could talk for hours. So on this podcast, we
talk about success and redefining success. How do
you define success for yourself today? And maybe how has that evolved for
Such a good question. It used to be my success
(38:11):
was all my work achievements. And I probably was like, Oh,
I'm successfully married. Maybe, you know, finance. Now
for me, success is feeling
the way I want to feel. Think of,
you know, Danielle Laporte and desire map
(38:34):
of like, how do you want to feel? And that's how you should design your life. Feeling
the way I want to feel, loving myself deeply, loving
who I care about deeply, and inspiring
and helping as many people as I can. Basically,
the purposeful work that I do. Yes. That is
(38:57):
success for me now. Of course, friends
and family and community and, you know, the
volunteering of volunteering helping community
too. But
my whole hat used to be hung on career, and now it's like, that's
one peg of the table. That's not everything, right? Because it becomes
(39:23):
Love that. What's one thing, just before we wrap up, that you want
our listeners to consider doing differently or changing
I would say that if today you
(39:44):
have, if you don't feel enough or you have
a loud inner critic like I did for nine years or
nine and a half years to make
the choice to make
the choice to work on it, to know that
(40:05):
it doesn't have to be there forever and
I love that. Such great advice. Tia, where
can our listeners find more about you, the work that you do, connect
with you and, you know, find more information on the Calm Working Moms Collective
(40:26):
Yes. So I'm very active on Instagram and
LinkedIn. My Instagram is Tia E. Graham and I'm Tia
Graham on LinkedIn. And the find
more information on going to Calm Working Moms. And
there is a, I was gonna say, for
any of your listeners, if anyone wants my Be
(40:49):
a Happy Leader audiobook, if anyone is a leader and is like, I
am not happy, my team is not happy enough, I'm happy to
send my book to them. So you can email me at tia.arriveathappy.com,
and I'll send the ebook or my audiobook. I find
working moms like to listen more with all the people they know. And
then I also have a checklist
(41:15):
that I created because guilt was something that I struggled with
probably the most. I
would say other emotions too, but I always felt so much guilt. So
I have a checklist of seven
That's incredible. Love that. I want to thank you so much, Tia,
(41:36):
for being here, for sharing your insights, your story, your expertise, and
importantly, thank you for the work that you're doing and the good you're
putting into the world. Oh, you too. Thank you again
for having me. Thanks for being here. And of course, you can visit my website
at GiaLacqua.com. Reach out to me on Instagram at GiaLacqua. Don't
forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review. This is Gia signing off
(41:57):
with gratitude for your time and energy. Our mic drops, but the movement continues.
Until next time, your next chapter is waiting. Take care. That
concludes another empowering episode of Your Future Starts Now.
Before we wrap up, I wanna thank this incredible community of high-achieving women.
Your energy, resilience, and commitment to growth are the driving force
behind what we do. If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate
(42:19):
it, leave a review, and don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Your
feedback fuels our mission to empower high-achieving women just like
you. And of course, share Your Future Starts Now with the extraordinary women
in your life who are also on a journey of healing and empowerment. Connect
with us on social media, share your thoughts, let us know what topics you'd like to
explore in future episodes. Stay connected on Instagram at
(42:41):
GiaLacqua. I encourage you to carry the energy of this conversation
into your day and keep on supporting the incredible women around you.
Welcome to Your Future Starts Now, the go-to podcast for
extraordinary women who are ready to step into their next chapter with
authentic confidence. I'm your host, Gia Lacqua empowerment coach,
motivational speaker, children's book author, and girl mom. Whether
you're a corporate powerhouse or an entrepreneur, this show is
designed for you. Your Future Starts Now is more than
(00:20):
just a podcast. It's a movement, a movement towards rewriting
the rules of success for high-achieving women. Are you ready
to get unstuck and step into your next chapter? If
so, you're exactly where you need to be. Your future starts
now. Welcome to Your Future Starts Now. I'm
your host, Gia Lacqua. Thanks for tuning in. Today, I am
(00:43):
absolutely thrilled to welcome Tia Graham to
the show. Tia is a keynote and TED speaker, bestselling
author, and expert in well-being and happiness at
work. As the founder of Arrive at Happy, her
TED Talk, The Simple Secret of Being Happier, has over 1.3 million
views. With certifications in neuroscience, positive psychology,
(01:05):
and well-being at work, Tia has over 14 years of leadership experience
and is recognized by top media outlets like CNN, Forbes,
and Fast Company. Her social media following of
60,000 engages with her insights on happiness and productivity. A
working mom of two daughters, including one with a rare disability,
(01:25):
Tia has invested deeply in her family's well-being. Her
personal journey has led her through various therapies, self-help practices,
shaping her holistic approach to healing and happiness. Her
book, Be a Happy Leader, outlines her eight-step methodology for
fostering happiness and growth in business. Tia,
so happy to have you with us today. Welcome to the show. Thank
(01:48):
you. I'm very excited to be here. Excited to
chat with you today. So, I mean, you've accomplished
so much. Start a little bit with your background. I know you weren't
always, you know, in the role you're in today. Tell us a little
Yes, so I had an
(02:09):
amazing 15 years working in luxury
hospitality, and this included locations such
as the Hawaiian Islands, New York City. I worked
in Istanbul, Turkey, as well as Los Angeles, all
leading sales and marketing teams and doing PR. I
grew up in the middle of nowhere in Northern Canada, so
(02:33):
to be able to live and travel and work in all these places and lead
teams, it was incredible. Of
course, there was stress and pressure and challenges, but
I always was very grateful and super happy at work. I
became a leader at a really young age. I was 26 years old when I
(02:53):
started leading my first sales team. I had no idea what I was doing. Um,
but through my career, I had some very inspirational, really,
really wonderful leaders. And I also had some leaders you could probably relate to
this or people listening can relate. I worked with some people who were
very toxic and made everyone really, really unhappy. Um, when
(03:13):
I went back to work after having my second daughter, I was, uh,
very, very challenged to, to feel happy
and well, I was super. I was stressed and
anxious and overwhelmed and confused.
I felt stuck. I had so
much guilt on work guilt, not being able
(03:36):
to work and do as much and not mom guilt, not being able to do as much
as a mom. I was really, really
unhappy. And prior to having kids, I've always been
a pretty positive, optimistic person. I'm definitely one of those people that
are more genetically disposed to be happy. Fast
forward, kids. And
(04:01):
at this point, I
was working with a spiritual business
life coach who's still in my life. And
I told her about this dream that I had to create a happiness company
and help other people be happier. And I
(04:22):
started researching what makes people happy. And
this is when I discovered the science of happiness, also known
as positive psychology. And I was like, whoa, like, what is
this? Needless to say, I became absolutely
obsessed. Immediately, I went to the World Happiness Summit.
I started learning from professors who were teaching this
(04:44):
at Harvard, started getting certifications. which led
me to then get interested in the neuroscience of happiness, which
led me to go to Denmark and get certified as a chief happiness officer because
Scandinavians are significantly happier in all areas,
especially at work, compared to North Americans and
(05:06):
became a certified coach. And I started
growing, building my company while I was director of
sales and marketing at a hotel in Los Angeles. And eventually, after
several years of building it, and I was coaching
people, and I started speaking, doing leadership work,
et cetera, I then left my corporate job in the spring of
(05:29):
2019. And, you know, book
and TED Talk, et cetera. And this
year is when I start,
I'm creating a new, well, I have created a new program for
high-achieving working moms called Calm
Working Moms Collective, which is a community for moms who want
(05:51):
to go from chaos to calm. That's
Amazing. That is such an incredible backstory.
I love to hear those stories of
transformation and love the
work that you're doing and how you're influencing so many people. And
(06:13):
obviously there's a lot of overlap in terms of the women
that we work with, high achieving, working moms, and
it's important work. Tell us, you wrote a
book, Be a Happy Leader, Stop Being Overwhelmed, Thriving Personally,
and Achieve Killer Business Results. It's a number one bestseller on
Amazon. Tell us a little bit about what led you to write the book and
(06:39):
Yes, absolutely. So I always worked
very, very hard as a sales and marketing leader to be
a positive leader, to be someone who made my
sales and marketing and PR teams feel
happy while they're working and, and,
(07:01):
you know, have them want to
be working and working well and working together, et cetera. Um,
and I was always very confused with bosses that
made everyone feel horrible. I was like, I don't understand why the company would hire, like,
my brain just didn't compute on like, how is. And
then when I started researching happiness and I was researching happiness
(07:25):
at work, and then I started reading research about. Toxic
negative bosses, of course, affect their employees,
their team, but that ripple effect goes to their spouses and their
children in a very big way. And
so there's this massive ripple effect out to society. I just got goosebumps
of like, it's not okay. And we spend so much time
(07:48):
at work. And I knew I
had done all this research on the science of happiness. I
had all this research from happiness at work, all this neuroscience. that's
what led me to write the book. And
this isn't something like, yes, it's easier for some, like
I said, genetics play a huge part, but it's also something that
(08:10):
you can get better at. And so I created, I basically
looked at what do I do?
And then where's the research that supports it in
being happy and positive when I show up and having
the team feel happy so
that they'll sell more, be more successful, have
(08:32):
better customer relationships, drive revenue, drive
profit, drive market share, et cetera. And so
these steps are how you
can take care of yourself and be well, because you cannot have a happy team
if you're miserable. And then steps on
how to build great relationships, create psychological
(08:55):
safety, et cetera. create friendship, be
a coach, how to motivate people, how to be
optimistic, et cetera. And
yeah, that's the reason why and
the methodologies about you and how you make your team feel.
(09:18):
Got it. And such a powerful statement. I want to go back to a couple of things
that you said. One, which also gave me the
goosebumps, which is when you are in a toxic environment for
the majority of your day at work, whether it's a toxic boss or
other people, right? We bring that home, whether
we realize it or not. And so, you know,
(09:40):
I've always sort of believed that to be true. I
appreciate you confirming that ripple effect that that
can play with our spouses, with our families, with
our children, um, is, is just such
a powerful statement, right? So sometimes we think about, especially, especially
as high achieving women, we'll just suck it up, grit
(10:01):
and bear it. It is what it is, right?
This is what I've signed up for all the excuses. Yes.
And I will say, I want to just, you immediately made me think
of a situation I was in. So I was director
of sales and marketing at a hotel in Los Angeles. The
(10:21):
owners and the asset manager were breathing down our necks
every five minutes because I arrived at the job,
the asset was severely underperforming and I was brought in to turn it around. And
the asset manager was so extremely toxic
and negative and At the
(10:41):
three month point, I was having like almost a
panic attack because of what was happening. And
my husband basically was like, Tia, you need to go in and
say what needs to change or you need to leave this job because nothing
is worth this. And I'd never done that before. I
had never been brave enough to go say, stop
(11:05):
treating me this way. But I wrote down everything that
I needed and I went in and I talked to the general manager
who was my boss, who then reported to the asset manager. And
I basically said like, these conditions need
to change or I can't be your director of sales and marketing. And
I was terrified to have that very brave conversation, but
(11:28):
they changed so many aspects because they
didn't want me to quit. Of course. So for everyone listening that
has a boss that is toxic, I
think it's worth it for you to have
that. I think of, you know, good old Brene Brown to have that brave conversation because
(11:49):
Yeah. And isn't that the definition of brave
is being scared to do something, but doing it anyway. And recognizing
that your health, your wellbeing is not worth it. Recognizing,
you know, that, that you, you have to advocate for
yourself. And so many women undervalue. right,
(12:13):
Right. Yes, absolutely. And of course, there
are some people who cannot just quit their job or
everyone has different financial situations. But
know that you definitely don't have to stay in it for years, right? You can, whether it's
finding a new job or being able to talk to the people
you work with, etc. You're
(12:40):
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a powerful message. Now
in the work that you do, you talk about happiness is
Tell us a little bit more about that.
And I would also love your take on a lot
(13:01):
of the women I work with. One of the most common things I see is
we need permission to be happy. Hmm, let's
talk about that. Which could be self-permission, right?
It could be somebody else giving you permission, but I would love your
Okay, so in my
(13:22):
TED Talk, I tell a story about my dad
being really unhappy for several years, going
through divorce with my mom, and after
several years, He made the decision to,
and his exact words were, I'm not gonna have another bad year.
(13:44):
On his birthday, he said that. And he said that to my face. I
was like 11. I'm not gonna have another bad year. And I saw
him choose to think
and act differently. So
I learned that it is a choice because I witnessed it. I witnessed my
(14:05):
father Make a choice. And
what I want everyone to understand is that what
the science proves is that our
genetics play a huge part. So
some people are genetically predisposed to be happier. Some
people, unfortunately, are genetically predisposed to be depressed
(14:28):
or unhappy. Or there's, of course, schizophrenia and
bipolar and, you know, and I will say all of that, but there's you
know, this, this range of genetics. So
to recognize, and you could probably look at your siblings, right?
Different genetics. So that's the first part. The second
part is then you have your environment, your
(14:50):
events in your life. So if
you're a lawyer that works a hundred hours a week in New York City, or
you are a, you
know, a children's author that lives on a farm in Montana. Your
environment, your circumstances, those are
all gonna play, those are gonna play into it as well. Okay,
(15:12):
so genetics and your environment and your circumstances.
Then, and a lot of people don't have control, you
have no control over your genetics and your environment, we
have some control over, but not all. We
have no control right now of what's happening in Russia and Ukraine, and it's not helping
(15:32):
our happiness, right? There's things out of our control. The
third piece, which is what the science of happiness and the neuroscience
of happiness is based on,
is the piece that is your agency. And
this is where happiness as a choice comes in.
(15:55):
And what the research shows is you have agency, over
and you have choices over two areas in your life. Number
one is your thinking and number two are your behaviors.
And there are thousands and thousands of research papers proving
that there are many different things
(16:17):
that you could do with your thinking and how you behave that can increase
your happiness and your well-being. In
the areas of, and I learned this from Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar, There's
this acronym of SPIRE, areas of your spiritual well-being,
your physical well-being, which is your mind and your body, your
(16:38):
intellectual well-being, growing and
learning, your relational well-being, relationship with yourself, relationship with
others, and your emotional well-being, having a healthy relationship with painful
emotions, never call them negative, they're painful, and
your positive emotions, growing
those. The
(17:01):
first step is knowing
that you have agency and if
there's someone listening and the clients you work with
who do not feel that they have
the permission to choose
(17:24):
happiness and to make choices to
increase and sustain their happiness, it
probably goes back to childhood and adolescence,
and it probably could be discovered through therapy on
the why. And it's okay if they don't feel that
(17:46):
way. If someone listening doesn't feel that way, it's completely okay.
But there's a reason or reasons why. And if
there's someone in your life not giving you permission, I would question that, that, like
how much, that's a whole other thing, you know, of like the
people who you surround yourself with should absolutely want you to be happy and give
you permission to be happy if they care and love about you. Sorry,
(18:09):
care and love you. But
you absolutely deserve it. And I will say the
goal is not to be happy all the time. There's no such thing about,
there's no set, there's no human in the world that's happy all the time. The
science of happiness is also about purpose and about
meaning and about growing and
(18:33):
gaining wisdom. There's this false belief that
it's like you have positive emotions all the time. No. So
I wanna hear your thoughts on your clients and
this belief that maybe I don't have permission or
(18:53):
Yeah, and I love what you said, because it's one of the
exact reasons I became a trauma informed coach
is because there was a very significant trend
that I was seeing in high achieving women who
are lawyers, doctors, C-suite executives,
(19:15):
very successful on the outside, but silently
struggling, unfulfilled, self-doubt,
overwhelmed, right? And so it
made me wonder, what is the key? Like, what is it that holds
us back, right? And there's no one easy answer, but certainly
(19:36):
a big part of it is what you just touched upon, which is the
stories we carry from our childhood into adulthood.
That yes, yes, and yes, and I have done
so much therapy and so many types of therapy because
(19:58):
exactly what you just described was me for
over nine years. Yeah. So from the
outside, life is great, right? There's so,
if you would go to look at my LinkedIn and even you're like, oh, Tia, all your, for
nine years, I did not feel I was good enough
as a mom. And I was, I beat
(20:19):
myself up, such a loud inner critic. And
through therapy, I realized where
that originated and why that originated
and have compassion for myself. And
I have turned that inner critic into the loudest, amazing
(20:40):
cheerleader. And I believe it's
like self-love is the antidote, you know, to this guilt
and not enoughness is just falling so
in love with yourself. And a
lot of times we can't do it alone. And I love that you're a trauma-informed coach.
That's as immediately when I saw that, I was like, oh my God, I need to get
(21:02):
to know this woman. And
I wish I did all of this therapy in my twenties. Like if I could go
back, I would have done it before I got pregnant. But you
know, our kids come to trigger us and then show us all our unhealed wounds.
Yeah. Right? I mean, our spouse is too. for
(21:23):
all the married people is this.
So. Our identity, this
is from Michael Haig, who I heard speak on Saturday, and
it kind of talks to our identity is the false
self we present to the world to protect us
(21:45):
from the fear that grows out of the belief that
was created by the wound that happened in the past.
That is so powerful. And that the beliefs are
never true, but they're always logical and they make sense. And
(22:07):
so, you know, he said, we hang on to this fear. And
I love this because I know your future starts now is Instead
of how can I not be afraid ask yourself? Am I
willing to be afraid? Hmm Because we always
(22:29):
will be anyway, we always will be absolutely. So how do
we face that fear? How do we say like yeah fears
and yeah, I think of Elizabeth Gilbert right like fears there Just
Let fear be in the backseat, right? Right. And that's a hard shift to
make. So, so much power in what you just said. And I love
how you talk about the mom guilt, the work guilt. And I think most
(22:51):
women, working women feel that tension of
never being enough, right? I talk about the never enough phenomenon,
which is this drive for that validation. It keeps
us chasing our self-worth outside of
ourselves when it resides within us. Yes. I
would love to know from your perspective and for our audience who's
(23:13):
probably curious, how do we shift from that not enough-ness,
that strong inner critic, to that
I'm sure that there's many different journeys to
(23:33):
get from this place to this destination.
Let me share how I did it and I hope it's valuable for
some people. So I first got
really, really clear on who was
in my head telling me that I wasn't good
(23:54):
enough. Like, who is this voice that's
constantly telling me? And I did a powerful visualization
exercise and I realized that my voice is a referee that has
a scoreboard with 19 things on it. I
always felt good enough in my career. I didn't, well, that's not
true. No, that's not true. I didn't always feel that. Let me backtrack. That
(24:16):
would go in and out. But on the motherhood side was
more where I felt like I am, I am not good enough, not
good enough. And it was like loud megaphone inner
critic. Okay. So I realized I have this referee.
And I wrote down all these things on this scoreboard that
the referee was holding me accountable to,
(24:38):
and I could never do all 19, ever. And
then I realized, okay, this
referee is there. It's really,
really actually negative for me, but I
feel like this referee is trying to help me. What is this referee trying to do?
And then got
(25:00):
that message on, okay, this is trying to
push me, is trying to help me achieve. And I actually realized, like,
this referee served me in childhood when there was complete chaos in
my home, and I wanted to be this, like, good
girl, straight A's, do everything well.
It served me. And then,
(25:22):
so I got that message, like, this referee is trying to help me succeed, trying to
help me feel safe, et cetera. Okay, good, thank
you, referee, but you're not, I see you're trying to help me, but you're
not helping me that much. I
then visualized, instead
of listening to the referee, who do I want to listen to?
(25:43):
Who do I want to be my guide? And
immediately I visualized this wise, old,
indigenous woman. And I'm not actually, I
mean, we are all indigenous, go back, right, lineage. But like, I
am from Northern Canada. So I went to school with a lot of indigenous kids in elementary school.
(26:04):
But anyway, picture this woman. And
all she said to me was, her scoreboard was, for
me was, are you loving yourself? And
are you loving your girls? And so every
single day, and I put her up on my mirror, it was like, yes, I love myself.
Yes, I'm loving my girls. I'm enough. So
(26:27):
that was one, that was a powerful start of the shift. And
the other piece of moving from not enough to
self-love was being in therapy
and understanding where that
not enough originated from. And
(26:48):
I've done neurofeedback, EMDR,
internal family systems, cognitive behavioral therapy, somatic
experiencing therapy. I basically read the Body Keeps the Score and
like did an experiment on myself. And everything that Bessel van
der Kork recommended, I was like, I'm doing this. And
I've, for three years, and I still do EMDR. I
(27:11):
still, and I still have a long way to go. but
probably after
two, two and a half years of really understanding like,
where did this inner critic come from? Why am
I so hard on myself? And
(27:34):
basically, you know, earlier this
year, I had a final switch, you
know, this self-love growing, growing, growing. And
earlier this year was a final switch where it was like, I
am a, am I allowed to swear on your podcast? Yes. Where
I had this realization and it is so strong. And
(27:58):
my voice says to me, I am a fucking amazing
I say it out loud all the time. I'm like, I, you know, But
it took several years of
me getting there. I love that. I don't want anyone to be like, oh, you
(28:19):
just do this in one day. You're like, you're in a critic. Your not enoughness is
gone. But you can get
A lot of inner work, but I love that. I think we're going to have to make a sweatshirt with
that saying on it. 10,000 hour, no. I
love it. That is so incredible. There's so much there to
(28:42):
unpack. So essentially what I think you
and I both talk about is doing the inner work. Right. And
I think that first step is getting curious, getting curious with who
the voice is, what the voice is telling you, where it's coming from. And
then the second part of it is really dismantling those old
stories and beliefs that are no longer serving you. And I think that can be really hard
(29:03):
for us because to your point, at one time in our life, or
perhaps our entire life, they did serve us. being
a people pleaser, being a perfectionist, right? All the
If I didn't have kids, I think I would have been like, I'm awesome. Like keep
going. I would not have had to like face these childhood wounds.
And I think a lot of women have that experience where once you give
(29:25):
birth, right, you are faced with those
old wounds. And I see it all the time. And that's when
sort of the healing journey tends to begin. And so there's some magic
there. Um, so I, you know, and I,
I know you've done the work and are doing the works. I
think we have similar stories from that respect. Um,
(29:47):
but tell us how has that impacted your ability
Okay. Don't make me cry. So one of my daughters, um,
my older daughter is, has a very, very
rare profile of autism, and
she also has an extreme nervous system disability. And
(30:11):
my younger daughter is neurotypical. So my
older daughter, around age
seven, started having huge panic
attacks. And I won't go into all the
details, but very, very, very, I don't
even know, it needs a word, challenging times a million
(30:36):
And she
triggered big time how
And so I would also, like my nervous system felt
(30:57):
like it was on fire when she was having panic attacks. And
what would happen is unintentionally, I was putting fuel on
her fire. And of
course that challenged our relationship, added more stress, et
cetera. And through all of this work, and
(31:20):
I will say for seven years, my husband and I didn't realize she
was disabled. We just thought she was a
very challenging, strong-willed, defiant child. Sure. she
doesn't seem autistic in what you know
when, you know, think of autism. Stereotypical. So we treated
her like a regular kid who was just very strong willed and
(31:42):
unintentionally were like causing trauma because
we didn't know what we didn't know. So what
this work has done for me is
when my children are dysregulated, I
am able to self-soothe my nervous system
(32:03):
and stay calm and stay regulated and help them get
back to regulation. I also know
how to communicate way more effectively with
collaborative and proactive problem solving. Because in our house, we don't
do consequences, we don't punish, we don't use carrots. It's
very collaborative is the way that we run our family. It's
(32:29):
brought just, it's brought us closer together.
Now, are there still challenges? Is parenting still extremely hard? Of course,
like, I'm not saying it's all, everything is roses now.
But my friends, like, and I actually see my,
because most of my friends don't have neurodivergent children. And
(32:53):
I see them yell at their kids, or I see the way they talk to their kids and their kids struggling. And
I will talk to their kids the way I talk to my kids. And
my friends are like, how do you do that? Like, what are you doing? Um, and
so I would say, it's also
we, you know, my husband, I treat our kids It's
(33:15):
not authoritarian, right? It's like there's like this equality. Of
course, we're still the guides. We're still the parents, but
it's full of respect. And our number one
goal is connection with our kids. And
I will say at the beginning of my healing journey, I was very resentful that
(33:36):
I had to go do, like I was like, I've already given so much to these kids. I've
already taken my career. I've already had to go on this healing journey.
Now I'm so grateful. Now, years
of doing it, I'm such a better person. And I
tell my older daughter that, you've made me such a better person because
(34:00):
I was kind of parenting like I was parented. And I know that this is going
to last when they're in their 20s, when they're in
um yeah
(34:22):
that's that's what i would say about that brought tears to my eyes for
sure so and think about that ripple effect right
think about the ripple effect you are going to have on them
and if they choose to have children. Yeah. Right.
Because you think about like, even you were talking about toxic leaders before
you learn how to be a good leader, sometimes by learning from
(34:45):
bad leaders. Yeah. And the same thing, right? Like we think
about our childhood and what worked and what didn't work. Yes.
Right. And you shift and you evolve. And
so I love, I love the respect. I love the collaboration. And
I think it's also what I'm hearing you say, but not say
directly is sort of understanding where they are coming from and
(35:06):
meeting them where they are at, which is hard to do when
Yes. And, and I will say that as
a high achieving working mom, we
have so much in our brains. We are managing
so much with work, with home, with children, with
(35:27):
family, with our friends, taking care of ourself. And
we have to self-manage so
that we're not at a place of chronic stress and overwhelm. Because
I know when I'm in that place, that's when you react.
(35:48):
That's when you show up and then you're like, oh God, I regret it.
And hey, I reacted poorly yesterday morning. So
we all have those moments. I'm perfect. I'm saying Ashkahn
so far. Yeah. I still get triggered. Yeah. But
the only one to manage everything in our bodies and
everything in our mind is us. And you know, your body keeps
(36:11):
the score. And so we have to be very
intentional. to not get to that place of
like overloaded where we're treating our loved ones badly.
And it's really hard to do. It's really hard to do.
It's like, you have to take that time to pause and
(36:39):
And taking that pause can be the thing that's really hard to do because, you
know, as high achieving women, sometimes we're so busy doing and going that we are
afraid to take that pause. And we make excuses that
I don't have time to do the work. I don't have time to
be happy. Right. I feel like that summarized my
life for many years. Yeah.
(37:03):
Yeah. Yeah. Because. going
back to the perfectionist child that makes us
kick-ass high-achieving women, our
value comes from doing. That's
what we feel. It's like, I achieve more, I do
more with my kids, but there's so much
(37:25):
value in rest, and there's so
much value in reflection, and there's so much value in
just being and not thinking and doing. And...
And knowing that you're enough. And knowing that you're enough. If
you don't do that next work thing, you are enough. If
(37:46):
you, yeah, that you're valuable just because you're
See, I feel like we could talk for hours. So on this podcast, we
talk about success and redefining success. How do
you define success for yourself today? And maybe how has that evolved for
Such a good question. It used to be my success
(38:11):
was all my work achievements. And I probably was like, Oh,
I'm successfully married. Maybe, you know, finance. Now
for me, success is feeling
the way I want to feel. Think of,
you know, Danielle Laporte and desire map
(38:34):
of like, how do you want to feel? And that's how you should design your life. Feeling
the way I want to feel, loving myself deeply, loving
who I care about deeply, and inspiring
and helping as many people as I can. Basically,
the purposeful work that I do. Yes. That is
(38:57):
success for me now. Of course, friends
and family and community and, you know, the
volunteering of volunteering helping community
too. But
my whole hat used to be hung on career, and now it's like, that's
one peg of the table. That's not everything, right? Because it becomes
(39:23):
Love that. What's one thing, just before we wrap up, that you want
our listeners to consider doing differently or changing
I would say that if today you
(39:44):
have, if you don't feel enough or you have
a loud inner critic like I did for nine years or
nine and a half years to make
the choice to make
the choice to work on it, to know that
(40:05):
it doesn't have to be there forever and
I love that. Such great advice. Tia, where
can our listeners find more about you, the work that you do, connect
with you and, you know, find more information on the Calm Working Moms Collective
(40:26):
Yes. So I'm very active on Instagram and
LinkedIn. My Instagram is Tia E. Graham and I'm Tia
Graham on LinkedIn. And the find
more information on going to Calm Working Moms. And
there is a, I was gonna say, for
any of your listeners, if anyone wants my Be
(40:49):
a Happy Leader audiobook, if anyone is a leader and is like, I
am not happy, my team is not happy enough, I'm happy to
send my book to them. So you can email me at tia.arriveathappy.com,
and I'll send the ebook or my audiobook. I find
working moms like to listen more with all the people they know. And
then I also have a checklist
(41:15):
that I created because guilt was something that I struggled with
probably the most. I
would say other emotions too, but I always felt so much guilt. So
I have a checklist of seven
That's incredible. Love that. I want to thank you so much, Tia,
(41:36):
for being here, for sharing your insights, your story, your expertise, and
importantly, thank you for the work that you're doing and the good you're
putting into the world. Oh, you too. Thank you again
for having me. Thanks for being here. And of course, you can visit my website
at GiaLacqua.com. Reach out to me on Instagram at GiaLacqua. Don't
forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review. This is Gia signing off
(41:57):
with gratitude for your time and energy. Our mic drops, but the movement continues.
Until next time, your next chapter is waiting. Take care. That
concludes another empowering episode of Your Future Starts Now.
Before we wrap up, I wanna thank this incredible community of high-achieving women.
Your energy, resilience, and commitment to growth are the driving force
behind what we do. If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate
(42:19):
it, leave a review, and don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Your
feedback fuels our mission to empower high-achieving women just like
you. And of course, share Your Future Starts Now with the extraordinary women
in your life who are also on a journey of healing and empowerment. Connect
with us on social media, share your thoughts, let us know what topics you'd like to
explore in future episodes. Stay connected on Instagram at
(42:41):
GiaLacqua. I encourage you to carry the energy of this conversation
into your day and keep on supporting the incredible women around you.
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