Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: And welcome to another episode of the Worst Advice I Ever Got. I'm your host, Sean Taylor, along with my producer, jb. And today our guest is Teresa Caro. Teresa is a marketing executive, a leadership coach, and someone who's built her career guiding people and organizations through major transitions. She's worked with top brands, mentored countless professionals, and now helps leaders break through the patterns that keep them stuck.
Today, she's here to share the worst advice she ever got and how it shaped the way she thinks about success, value, and growth.
Hey, Teresa, thanks so much for joining us today.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Thank you for having me.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Well, let's start with the theme of this podcast, which is to ask you, what is the worst advice you ever got?
[00:00:47] Speaker A: The worst advice I ever got was you don't have to be smart if you're pretty.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:00:56] Speaker C: Me and John know about that.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: Great.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: Oh, yes, I can tell if I.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Had a niggle for every time somebody told me that I would have one penny.
But no, but at the time, like, tell me more about who gave you the advice and how you interpreted it.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Well, let's, let's just frame it up for everyone. This was a, a long time ago. It was my first job out of school. I was just moved to the Atlanta office, work for Lincoln Mercury. So forwards Lincoln Mercury. The fact that it was Lincoln Mercury should give you an indication of how long ago and I was, I was what's called a zone manager. So picture, if you will. I was maybe a year out of college. They give you a Mark 8, and then they tell you to drive from dealership to dealership and tell these people who have owned their dealerships for decades how to actually properly inventory their lots. So that is the stage.
Well, you know, as you could imagine, here I am, like, acknowledging and, and being open to a particular sales manager, how I'm feeling about this. And he says to me, don't worry, Teresa, you don't have to be smart because you're pretty.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: How did you interpret that?
[00:02:15] Speaker A: Well, I tend to have a very positive outlook on life because. So I thought it was funny, actually. And I shared this with, with my manager, and to his credit, he was actually pretty upset about the whole thing. And that's when I first started getting an inkling that, oh, well, maybe this isn't funny.
Maybe this is something I should take seriously.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: What was the time gap in between when you got the advice and you were thinking, oh, this is maybe a great advantage for me to. When this manager said, hey, this may not be so great, Theresa, it was.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Really Only a few weeks. But here's the thing. As I, as I reflect upon this bad advice is, yeah, that was my first inkling that it wasn't a good idea. But it stuck with me for a while. That whole concept of, all right, well, you know, I'm only a year out of school, I don't know everything about a Lincoln Mercury dealership, so let's use what I got.
Sure.
[00:03:14] Speaker C: I mean, if someone's going to say, hey, let me help you a little bit more here because you're pretty and I'm like, let me take you to this extra sales meeting and do a thing. It's like, okay, like, I don't care.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: How I get ahead.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Heck, if they're going to look forward seeing me because I'm good looking and I'm fun to talk to instead of dreading of, oof, here comes the Ford person telling us we need more of this, you know, ugly Mercury car and we want more villagers.
If they're going to look forward to talking to me, why not use that?
[00:03:43] Speaker B: So sounds like you still leaned into it a little bit and used it as sort of part of your repertoire to be successful. Is that fair to say?
[00:03:51] Speaker A: It is fair to say. And if you think about the time, you know, even so, at that point I was in sales, I then shifted. I realized sales wasn't for me, that I wanted to be more behind the scenes. And so I moved into marketing. Yet even in marketing, I'm running trade shows. Well, at that time and probably even still a little bit now, hopefully we don't call them the same thing, but remember the booth babes that you would hire to, you know, those good looking women that would bring. So I'm still exposed to, hey, if you're pretty, that works. The second thing is Gail Evans wrote this great book called Play Like a Man. And when Like a Woman. And I actually got to meet Gail, I think it was last year, and she said this book, which was written in the 90s, still actually sells quite a few copies each month to her chagrin. The part that I remember is that men work with women and treat them like their wife, their mistress, or their daughter.
And so again, that's being reinforced to me that, okay, if I'm going to win like a woman, why not lean into the things that I've been told up to this point?
[00:05:08] Speaker C: Well, it seems fine, right? So it's the worst advice you ever got, but it seems it's helping you. Your career is advancing. So when did you, did you start to see a Shift in this, like, when does it start to become bad?
[00:05:19] Speaker A: Oh yeah, this might have worked for me in the 90s at that stage of my career. Yet as you want to grow as a leader and you want to be respected, that whole smart piece really starts playing a role. Let's be clear. There's a lot of great image consultants out there. Heck, I work with them right now. How you show up, how you look, whether or not you're a man or a woman is important.
Eventually need to get to the point where you are seen as smart, that you are seen as well spoken, you are seen as a great storyteller, a great leader, and the people around you want to start sponsoring you and moving you forward in your career. And that is when the shift started happening.
And I, I really needed to pivot.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: I mean, it's almost like it was a crutch for you.
I have to believe this is more than just being pretty too, because there's got to be other aspects of.
Well, that's okay because you're, you went to the same college as this person did, so lean into that. Or am I interpreting this the same way?
[00:06:25] Speaker A: I guess.
And let's, let's explore this a bit more because there is, there is a subtle difference in everything.
The whole you showing up and someone wanting to take care of you is completely different than you showing up on your own two feet for who you are and the value you bring to the table. And so yeah, when, when you're first out of school, yeah, you're going to use the things that, that seem to work. If you get stuck there, then your career is not going to move forward. And there's definitely, definitely different things that can make you stuck at each of those phases. We just happen to land on the worst advice that I ever got, which is you don't need to be smart because you're pretty.
[00:07:14] Speaker C: What are some of the other things you can kind of get trapped in and feeling like, oh, I do this so I don't have to be smart or whatever.
[00:07:20] Speaker A: I like to think of it as four phases. You have that entry level two, just starting out kind of phase. Then you have the functional leader or functional doer kind of phase. So that's when, if you do manage to realize that eventually you will need to get further education. I went on to get my mba. I networked with the right people. I got the marketing job. Then I was a functional doer. I was known for getting the job done, being a hard worker, you could count on me. I learned to have that as my, my center, my core. The challenge with that is if you start valuing that, if you start thinking that you are valuable because you can work 15 hours a day and 80 hours a week if you can always be counted on to get this stuff done, then again, at that phase, you get stuck in your career and you don't get to move to the next more strategic leadership phase.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: Was there an instance or two where you had a failure because you weren't really prepared? Did you get burned once or twice by leaning into this advice?
[00:08:29] Speaker A: You know, that is a really great question and maybe I was burned. Again, I come across as a very positive person. So if I was burned, I let it go. The thing that happens now today is as I work with different people, I watch them get burned. I watch them get stuck at different phases, not allowing them to be the leader that they can be. So I watch leaders or people progressing in their career. I watch them getting burned and not realizing that they are burning until we work through it. And I, I help them see the value that they can provide.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think it's well put. I think sometimes the worst advice we ever get isn't necessarily something where we're damaged so badly that for weeks and months and years we can't even get out of bed. It's sort of like tiny paper cuts along the way that lead to something that if I don't do something about, it could be worse. And you were able, fortunately to, through your positive outlook, through your energy and other things, turn it in a different direction before it became too negative. But it definitely could have gone the other direction and there are other things.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: That I was able to do. So yes, I have a sunny outlook. I've been accused of wearing rose colored glasses.
I also had great mentors when I needed it. That's another thing that we can do as we progress in our career. I also had great sponsors. A smart woman once said, we are, as you know, as a gender, we tend to be over mentored and under sponsored again, going back to that perception of the pretty versus smart, taking them under the wing, caring for them, so that, that sort of, that perspective of mentoring continues and persists with us. And I was lucky because at some point the my mentors started realizing, oh, okay, she's doing the needful, let's start sponsoring her, let's start putting her in these different positions and helping her succeed in those positions. So I was lucky in that case. And so I wasn't stuck for very long.
[00:10:36] Speaker C: Go into that a little bit. What's the difference between a mentor and a sponsor.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: Yeah, great question, jb. I think our listeners need to understand your perspective on that.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: Delta, let me talk about the difference between a mentor and a sponsor. And it's more the action.
Mentorship and sponsorship.
Mentorship is more related to telling someone what to do based on that mentor's own experiences.
It's an act of telling, an act of guiding. It's giving the answers.
Sponsorship is the act of putting that person in different roles, giving them opportunities they wouldn't have otherwise had unless that sponsor took the steps to do that for them.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: So the sponsor is extending some trust and some risk to. To that person to allow them to further benefit. Is that fair to say?
[00:11:37] Speaker A: Correct. It's more of an action.
So mentors or mentorship is a discrete sort of time frame. You go out for coffee, you go out for lunch, hey, I have this challenge. The mentor gives their advice, gives some examples of their experiences. They decide what to do next. Maybe they have a father work.
Sponsorship is more active. And like you said, it's trust. It's saying, okay. And it could be the same person. That mentor could also be the sponsor. It could say, hey, this person is taking my advice. I'm seeing their progress. I feel like they're ready. I'm going to put them in this particular role. So it's more of an action that happens that the mentee or the sponsor doesn't even know that's happening. That person is just doing it. They're going ahead and saying, teresa's ready. Let's put her in this realm.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: Interesting. It makes great sense.
[00:12:33] Speaker A: It is. And to bring it back to pretty us in the coaching world, we love using this phrase called perceptual beliefs or these societal stigmas that are put on you. And so as coaches and really great mentors, we are able to figure out what's a perceived belief. You know, hey, I'm good looking. Or even, you know, as we grow older, the perceived belief might be, I'm getting too old. And so now you're getting into ageism. And so now you have this whole concept of perceived beliefs. And so then we can help that person try to suss out what's the difference between something they believe to be true and what are the facts.
[00:13:18] Speaker B: I. I mean, I'm a CPA and I do a podcast. I mean, that doesn't really fit. Right. That's somewhat of a reinvention.
That's hard for people to get to individually, though, right? It's hard sometimes in your own thoughts to be able to get to.
[00:13:32] Speaker C: That's your perceived reality as opposed to maybe the external.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: Yeah. So in my mind, I would ask you, what are the things that are keeping you from believing that you can be the most famous podcaster ever?
[00:13:48] Speaker B: I haven't even thought that far. But you know what?
[00:13:51] Speaker C: J maybe doesn't have any.
[00:13:53] Speaker B: Maybe we need to go down this path. I think I need a coaching session with you, Theresa. Let's.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: Oh, it sounds like a great podcast for another time.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: Right?
[00:14:02] Speaker C: It's that shift in your career and thinking about, okay, as I shift and what do I know? And I've been doing it this way for so long, how do I shift into this new way?
So what happens to somebody if they don't shift outside the obvious? You don't advance in your career. But if you just. I don't know what to do now, what happens?
[00:14:21] Speaker A: Well, let's take an extreme example. So one of the perceptual beliefs is this concept of ageism, which is really interesting because now we're. We're sort of bookending someone's career. You go from being pretty, you know, being a great communicator, and so people want to bring you on board to now you're stuck in the ageism side. So your perceptual belief is that you are not being hired because you have actually gotten to a certain age, then that means that's going to keep you from getting that next job or maybe pivoting your CPA career to a podcast or like me, ahead of marketing, to being executive coach.
If you get stuck in the I'm a failure, I'm not going to get another job or people won't hire me because I'm a certain age, then it's fear, it's uncertainty, it's stuckness.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: Where do you think you are? If you were still leaning into your good looks, like if you were still just leaning into that segment of you, where do you think you are?
[00:15:28] Speaker A: Well, first off, you know, still, you.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: Would have been successful for sure.
[00:15:35] Speaker A: Thanks, guys.
Well, here's the thing. It's the second part. You don't have to be smart because you're pretty.
And okay, at some point, if you want to move forward on your career, you actually need to know something. You need to have the information. You need to be successful. You need to have the skills. You need to continue to move your career forward. Yes, brand image is important.
How people see you and size you up within the first few seconds is incredibly important.
But then the rubber meets the road. You really need to show them that you can make an impact, that you can provide value to the organization.
So if I had just let him tell me that and I never realized, I was never self reflective. I never had mentors and sponsors and coaches that helped me along in my career.
I, I really, I don't know where I'd be. I'd be sort of stuck probably still as a zone manager, going from dealership to dealership.
[00:16:39] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, you can be both. That's what is, you know, you can be smart and pretty and you can have energy and still bring value in other ways and you can do a thing. And that's what it kind of hear me, is that shift in your value, your value doesn' has to also change as you change a little bit. Is that something that your clients, that you've seen, is that really difficult for someone to do? Easier said than done in terms of.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: The shift in anything, in terms of what makes them stuck.
Yeah. There are certain clients that it will take at least a year for them to realize, oh, this is what it is.
It takes time. Especially as we get older and older and the protections in our brain get stronger and stronger. It's. It's harder to see through what's actually keeping you stuck.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: I think back to a lot of examples in our society where we have labeled an individual as something, but he or she turns themself into something completely different. Right. So if someone were given this advice today, oh, you don't have to worry about being smart because you're pretty. Do you feel like there is subjected to believing it and being stuck with it? Or is there enough information in the public today to be like, that is so dated, like it's a misnomer to even hear that. Where do you think we are societally on that, Teresa?
[00:18:05] Speaker A: Oh, completely different. I believe that's why I felt like it was so important in the beginning of this for me to help people understand where I was, that I was in the 90s, that there were, you know, there were booth babes and certain books coming out about playing like a man, winning like a woman.
I'd like to think that this generation coming up is gender agnostic. That the p. If someone said that, I have a feeling they would say exactly what you said. That's a little bit, that's a little bit dated. Or at least I'd like to hope so.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: Yeah. With work still to do, I'm sure. But feeling like, you know, we've come a long way from just having to believe it because somebody who's been in the position longer than I have tells me. Or something along those lines.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: Exactly. And that goes to that particular statement. We, all these years later, there are other things that people say that I'm sure decades later, someone else will be having a podcast about the worst advice, and it'll be something new that we're, that we men and women are being told.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: That just seems silly, you know, thinking back to the time you got the advice, you'd been moved from, you know, Detroit to Atlanta. It's a major life change.
People graduated from college to start their first job. It's a major life change.
If you could give advice to someone today who's looking at changing a phase of their life or looking at a change in careers, just what. What would you advise them to think about and do?
[00:19:43] Speaker A: Great question.
I would tell them your worth isn't tied to any single phase of life.
And really, the earlier you accept that change is inevitable, the easier the transition will be.
[00:19:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I think that's a great point for, for anybody looking for this utopian. I finally found it, and now I can just stay right where I'm at and live the rest of my life in this, in this ecosystem, in this moment, in this phase. It just, it's not reality. Like, life changes all the time.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: And I would add to that what you've done in your collective life. So as you look back, what is most important to you and let all the rest go and then what's next?
What's next doesn't necessarily need to be what's today.
So I encourage people to figure out what is their next phase of life and how do they find their worth in that next phase?
[00:20:44] Speaker C: Do you always have to be looking for that next phase, or can you be content where you are?
[00:20:48] Speaker A: Well, here's the thing. There is a difference between contentment and settling, right? And, and not pursuing the next thing. But also there is this concept of just being restless and, and always looking for something more. So only the person can answer that. Are they truly content? Are they truly happy? Then stay there. Because that's another thing I work on with clients is they keep thinking again, perceptual beliefs that they have to move forward with their career. They have to get the VP title or the C suite title. And then it's amazing how many people say, you know, I was happier at the last role.
Why am I even here? I liked, I liked my full functional role. And so it's a great question for you to ask and for you to ask your listeners is, are you settling or Are you truly happy? When we say value, don't let society define what you see as value.
As I think about, you don't have to be smart. You just have to be pretty. And I think about the different advice that was given, especially early on in my career.
The thing I want to be able to reinforce is, yes, when you are progressing your career, when you are navigating different kinds of organizations and different kinds of people, you do need to figure out how to play some type of game. The thing is, is don't get stuck in the game. Know that the rules of that game are going to evolve over time, and you need to evolve with it.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. And while it is hard to maybe define how people find, you know, value for themselves, it's pretty easy to recognize how valuable you were to today's episode. And coming and sharing the worst advice you ever got will surely help people along their journey to figure out what's, you know, valued to them. And, Teresa, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate you sharing your story and your experiences, and we're just grateful for you. So thank you.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me. This was a lot of fun.
[00:23:05] Speaker B: Well, jb, that was a great episode. Teresa really broke down something. A lot of us overlook the phases of a career, you know, like entry level, functional, doer, leader, and then beyond.
Each stage has its own value. But if you don't evolve, you. You can get stuck. Yeah.
[00:23:22] Speaker D: You know, and that's the trap, right? You get known for one thing, and you start to believe that's kind of all you are. Like, I'm valuable because I grind 60 hours a week or 80 hours a week, or I'm the guy who always gets things done. Like that works in the functional phase. But if you carry that mindset into leadership, you're going to burn out or stall. You know, you're clinging to yesterday's value instead of stepping into tomorrow's.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Teresa showed how you got a, you know, shift what makes you valuable as you move forward.
Early on, it might be energy or effort, but later, it has to be vision, storytelling, you know, leadership. Otherwise, you're. You're playing the same level over and over and over again.
[00:24:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:00] Speaker D: She even said, you know, some people confuse being restless with moving forward. They choose a new title or a role and bring the same playbook. And then they wonder why they're miserable. You know, at the top, you got to change what you bring to the table. If you're actually going to enjoy the new spot that you're in.
[00:24:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Right. Right. Big thanks again to Teresa for laying that out so clearly. That's it for today's episode of the Worst Advice I Ever Got. Make sure you follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn for clips from this one. And tune in next week when we're back with another story you won't want to miss on the Worst Advice I Ever Got.
