In this episode, host Lorie Jones features Danaya Wilson, the trailblazing CEO of BetterCertify and author of Changemakers Wanted. Danaya shares her journey from launching a career during the Great Recession to leading transformative change in the hazardous materials industry.
This conversation highlights the concept of “micro-progressions”—simple, 1% improvements made over time, creating meaningful change—and explores the challenges and rewards of making bold moves in male-dominated fields. Danaya also candidly discusses impostor syndrome, making career pivots, and how furthering her education empowered her trailblazing entrepreneurial spirit. Plus, she shares practical tips for young women on building confidence, self-advocacy, and leveraging existing circumstances to create opportunities.
Tune in for an energizing, honest conversation with a true changemaker who offers powerful, actionable wisdom for anyone ready to shape a fearless career.
Show Highlights:
- How BetterCertify was born of a pivot from a family business. [06:37]
- The power of higher education to unlock growth in outdated industries. [13:31]
- Shift the focus to granular steps toward broader change. [17:20]
- What are “micro-progressions”? [19:30]
- Storytelling as a way to empower female leadership. [22:09]
- Learning to trust yourself away from impostor syndrome. [24:40]
- Why self-advocacy matters to create respectful workplaces. [31:25]
- Does overworking signal a fear of being viewed as unworthy? [38:14]
- Moving to equity from informal “housekeeping” workplace roles as women. [42:48]
- Growth, courage, and fulfillment in resilient motherhood. [49:04]
- Valuable advice for young women early in their careers. [51:12]
Connect with Danaya on her website https://danayawilson.com/about/ and her LinkedIn profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/danaya-wilson/
Check out her book “Changemakers Wanted” avaialable online (Amazon Link https://www.amazon.com/stores/Danaya-Wilson/author/B0DPNDF27G?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1753754949&sr=8-1&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true)
If you enjoyed this episode, please go to Apple Podcasts and leave a review!
For more information about Lorie Jones, go to https://fearlessfinancialadvisors.com/fearless-females.
00:00.49
Danaya Wilson
but
00:03.10
Lorie Jones
Good morning, fearless females. I’m excited today. We are here with Denea Wilson, who is CEO of Better Certify and an author. I actually have, um I’ve started your book. I’m over halfway through, but night not quite yet finished.
00:19.00
Lorie Jones
And I just love your message. So I’m really excited about this conversation today.
00:24.03
Danaya Wilson
Yeah, thanks for having me on.
00:25.82
Lorie Jones
Thanks. I really appreciate it. So um this question is interesting always for my authors because my first question is always, I’m a reader. What is your favorite book?
00:36.79
Danaya Wilson
oh let’s see So after writing a book, everything changed because you start to look at things very differently. So if I say one of my favorites before writing a book was Educated.
00:51.68
Danaya Wilson
i really liked Educated. i liked American Dirt was another really good one. um i tend to like first person stories that are written in a way that, I guess to use the word twice, is very educated, but is able to take you through this immersive journey, even though the topics were so heavy and hard.
01:12.53
Lorie Jones
Uh-uh.
01:15.84
Danaya Wilson
And then after writing, um i i really enjoyed, don’t know if you’ve heard, um it’s I Who Have Never ah Known a Man, that one.
01:24.97
Lorie Jones
but
01:25.90
Danaya Wilson
It’s a super weird book. Yeah. It’s not a book that you want to read if you are looking for a story that is packaged up nicely and completed.
01:37.16
Danaya Wilson
You’re definitely left after reading that book being like, well, what happened?
01:41.52
Lorie Jones
and
01:42.45
Danaya Wilson
But it the writing and its um kind of feminist undertones is very exciting. um i very much like that. And it’s a quick read, too. I think it was only a couple hundred pages. Certainly nothing like, you know, what the fiction the fantasy novels are coming out with, you know, 500, 700 pages. So that one I very much enjoyed.
02:07.29
Danaya Wilson
and then what I’m reading right now, I’m reading Women in Power by Mary Beard. I just started that one, like literally just read the first page last night. So I’m excited to get through that one.
02:19.76
Lorie Jones
You’re a reader like me then, huh?
02:21.86
Danaya Wilson
Yes, I know. i was like, wait, I’m actually reading right now five books, but I never used to do that. I used to only be able to start and finish.
02:33.60
Danaya Wilson
And then, you know, then I would look at a different book, but after writing, it was like, I can’t get enough. It’s just such an exciting experience. And so I want to just be present in everybody’s words.
02:47.18
Lorie Jones
Oh, that’s cool. That’s neat. It’s interesting how you say it started. You started one way and then like after writing a book, it just completely changed like what you read and who you were and the way you read.
02:59.32
Danaya Wilson
Yeah. Well, and I, I would liken the experience a little bit to, If you did something different, like let’s say you went and you skied for the first time and you’re like, I really enjoyed skiing. And then all of a sudden you started to see yourself like now you’re watching skiing on on the TV and now you’re reading books about skiing and you’re joining a ski club and.
03:20.32
Danaya Wilson
ah That’s kind of how it feels like for me. It’s like I found something that I have ah deep passion for, have always enjoyed reading. But now that I’ve gone through this experience, it’s like I want to embody it in every part. And I’m really energized by that.
03:37.19
Lorie Jones
So you’re telling us all we should probably write a book.
03:40.58
Danaya Wilson
Get on it. Get on it.
03:43.59
Lorie Jones
So tell me a little bit about your journey, Denea. Talk to me about um how you got started and kind of how you progressed and where you’re at today, what you’re doing.
03:55.41
Danaya Wilson
So I graduated in 2007 with an undergraduate degree in marketing and, um you know, facing the first Great Recession was one of the worst times to get a a degree and in a sector that was being cut drastically.
04:11.21
Danaya Wilson
And so I was struggling to find a job and I was still living at home with my parents. And I, at the same time, they were pivoting out of their regular careers and starting up a company that does hazardous material abatement.
04:25.77
Danaya Wilson
So my dad was like, well, just work with us temporarily. was like great. That sounds like a good stop gap. I’ll write your business plan. I’ll help you with some marketing. And then I’ll find what I’m, what I’m meant to do is kind of my thought period.
04:39.01
Danaya Wilson
What I thought process at that time. And after running their company, you know I was in their company for eight yeah eight years and started admin, went all the way up to corporate branch manager, took the company from $0 in sales to over $8 million.
05:00.07
Danaya Wilson
And it was it was a really fun experience. um I learned a lot, but I was definitely not… passionate about the work I was doing on a daily basis.
05:12.99
Danaya Wilson
And so what I really wanted to do was make it so that I was able to travel more And the hazardous material industry is very busy in the summer because schools let out. And then that’s when a lot of abatement work happens.
05:28.24
Danaya Wilson
So switched to education side of the the industry. And I really started focusing on the curriculum and allowing for remote options for this annual renewal requirement.
05:42.82
Danaya Wilson
I decided to get my master’s degree at the same time. i got it in organizational leadership.
05:48.57
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
05:49.06
Danaya Wilson
But I took an emphasis in curriculum development. And so what that really inspired me to look at is like, how do we take complex things and then put them into course learning modules that are relevant and also applicable to the individual that is taking the training and commonly taking the training in an environment that is not in which they would be doing the work in.
06:15.64
Lorie Jones
her
06:16.06
Danaya Wilson
And so learning how to almost translate a different language to the trades and um being really effective at that. And then also working in advancing this this little niche of an environment that I work in and allowing for remote options, which has some was something that really didn’t exist at the time in which I started Better Certify, which was in 2015.
06:42.23
Danaya Wilson
And I just started to see this trend where one, my students were driving four hours to get to a four hour class. And then two, we were seeing this really transient workforce that was almost chasing the work as opposed to where, you know, in the state that they lived in, where they started their career, they would just continue to do abatement in that in that state. We were starting to see workers that were going all across the country and needed certification and training that was valid in a broader area.
07:13.87
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
07:14.08
Danaya Wilson
So that’s the the secret sauce that we have is we work really hard to not only modernize what they’re learning and make it more relevant, but we also provide for a remote or a more optioned ah method of training so that they can make a little bit better decisions on what is best for their learning.
07:36.97
Lorie Jones
That’s kind of cool. So um ah I’ve heard recently that like the TikTok generation, and I honestly have seen it in my life too, where my attention span goes from like, oh yeah, i can pay attention for hours and hours to like, ah you better entertain me in the first two minutes or I’m not watching your video sort of thing. So is that, ah did that come into play when you were like coming up with this curriculum and stuff like that? Have you had to take into…
08:06.31
Lorie Jones
um account learning styles and attention spans.
08:09.96
Danaya Wilson
That was the biggest part is like a lot of times when you’re looking at regulatory training, who has developed the training is the individuals that typically are aligned with the research or regulation or maybe even like the um enforcement side of things.
08:27.20
Danaya Wilson
And what is difficult with that is they’re not the ones that the curriculum is written for. And so what we have to do or the regulation is written for, it’s essentially written for plethora of that stakeholders. so We have to take in account of what this individual is going to be doing with the, what are they responsible for?
08:47.34
Danaya Wilson
and then how are they going to be doing the work? You know, they may be removing a a particular type of asbestos, but what methods are they going to be doing that? Are they in an area, excuse me, are they in an area where they’re going to be using certain tools Or are they in an area where they have to maybe do multiple air changes because the the requirement is is different in that particular area? And so there’s all these different levers that you have to, one, just be aware of, but two, big ah predict and and plan for.
09:21.78
Danaya Wilson
and it really takes more of an immersive learning experience, which is, I think, you know, it does have a lot to do with attention spans, but I think that we can all agree that if there’s something that we find interesting,
09:37.09
Danaya Wilson
we will dedicate the time and energy towards learning that. And it’s really about that, finding what piques people’s interest as well as what they can immediately understand that is relevant.
09:41.05
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
09:48.22
Danaya Wilson
Like, hey, I’ve come across this situation before. I definitely understand how this particular regulation plays into my day-to-day and how it also, by abiding by that regulation, will keep me, myself, my family, and my my loved ones safe.
10:05.84
Lorie Jones
Oh, that’s so interesting. So like making it relevant to who they are and what they’re doing applicable in their life, and maybe a little bit of storytelling too, to kind of um show them how it it works with them, how it it’s important to them in their lives and their families.
10:19.72
Danaya Wilson
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
10:22.94
Lorie Jones
That’s so interesting.
10:23.39
Danaya Wilson
yeah
10:24.89
Lorie Jones
So, Dania, tell me a little bit about um the best investment you’ve made in yourself. Is there something that you’ve done through this journey? um It’s interesting that you were you came out of college looking for a marketing career and you are doing a little bit of marketing, maybe, you know, through training and stuff like that, but some are kind of different than you expected to be. But is there something that you’ve done that you’re like, oh my gosh, I’m so glad I did that. I just don’t think I’d be where I’m at today.
10:57.32
Danaya Wilson
Yep. That certainly would have been my investment in my master’s degree. I didn’t need it. You know, I was already at the top of of my my industry and my market. um i was making good money for my age.
11:10.57
Danaya Wilson
I just really looked at, you know, I was already the most educated individual in my environment as well. You know, you having a bachelor’s degree degree was few and far between, especially in the construction industry.
11:24.43
Danaya Wilson
And so I did it purely out of, i want to learn more. you and And I would love to, one, you know just have that accolade, right? Like it’s it’s something that you carry with you for the rest of your life. But I really genuinely wanted to learn more and see if um see if my experience was different. Because when you’re getting your bachelor’s degree, you’re typically not leading organizations. You’re typically not in a position where you can immediately apply what you’ve learned.
11:52.68
Danaya Wilson
And so I was looking for that experience. And And because I did that, it really allowed me to see it opened up a door that like, one, I needed to start my own business and I needed to pivot outside of what my parents were doing with theirs.
12:06.79
Danaya Wilson
But then to really look at how to I think a lot of times when people are thinking about like where should we should invest and what would be a good like entrepreneurial investment strategy.
12:17.46
Danaya Wilson
they’re looking for the things that haven’t been done before and the blue oceans. But typically what that requires is that they’re going to new industries. They think that blue oceans exist in in newer industries and that you know because of an industry being Relevant or in commerce for decades that everything has been reddened. And that’s just not true.
12:41.35
Danaya Wilson
I looked at a very antiquated industry and identified ways that I could be impactful and and influence change. That would be very helpful to the industry as whole as a whole. And also, nobody was doing it.
12:57.03
Danaya Wilson
And so had I not got my master’s, I wouldn’t have looked at that industry. And it was, you know, to shine a little bit more light on it, it was because I had an assignment that said, like, look at your existing job and identify one thing you could do differently.
13:12.74
Danaya Wilson
And I took that very seriously. And I said, you know, not just my job, but let’s look at like the industry as a whole. If I was going to think big and be bold, how could I change this entire industry?
13:25.24
Danaya Wilson
And I started small and that’s what we’re doing. And the the hope is, you know, we’re 10 years old now. The hope is in another 10 to 15 years, looking back, we can say before we entered this industry,
13:41.46
Danaya Wilson
You didn’t have access to modernized and relevant content. And now you do. And hopefully that allowed people to be more effective in their jobs and kept people more safe.
13:53.27
Lorie Jones
Yeah, and and probably allowed more people to enter the industry as well that wouldn’t have typically been able to if they’d had to make that four-hour drive to do the training and stuff like that.
14:02.55
Danaya Wilson
Yeah.
14:04.30
Lorie Jones
huh that’s That’s so interesting that you talked to about um looking at things that have been done the same way all the time and
14:14.42
Danaya Wilson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
14:15.35
Lorie Jones
And you can make transformational change if you’re looking at and those sorts of processes and saying, hey, do these still serve us? Is this still, you don’t have to come up with the new Facebook or the new Twitter or the new whatever tech.
14:31.01
Lorie Jones
Like ah you can, ah it it’s interesting that you pointed out, you can change where you’re at. You can make a difference where you where you are that makes real change and impact in people’s lives.
14:43.32
Danaya Wilson
Absolutely. And that can be broadened outside of entrepreneurship, but just civic duty. And when I started to look at, you know, what inspired me to write the book was looking even more broad outside of my in industry and saying like the word world as a whole.
15:00.76
Danaya Wilson
And I had at that time, I had a new baby daughter. And if I’m if I could change something for the positive in the world, what would that look like?
15:12.35
Danaya Wilson
And then taking that from this thousand foot view to the granular level, how would I impact that change today? and that was the whole premise behind Changemakers Wanted, which originally, the you know, the title was Rise Up, which, you know, was a very strong call to action.
15:31.00
Danaya Wilson
But as I got through, you know, the book, the journey, I realized that it was something that was ah so possible, but so large. I mean, we’re talking about complete overhaul, like you said, looking at things and challenging that status quo, that I needed really strong change makers, women and the men that stand next to them to say, we’re no longer going to continue with this trajectory and we’re going to start prioritizing women.
16:03.07
Lorie Jones
Yeah. I love some of the things that you brought up in the book too, you know, as you’re looking at some of these industries that are very male dominated and saying, hey, you know, it struck me as I was reading it and going through it, that you have this overarching big vision for where you want things to go or where you see they could go, but you also give very practical like little things that you can do to make change where you’re at and in the situation you’re in.
16:33.40
Danaya Wilson
No.
16:35.85
Lorie Jones
Because sometimes it feels like the it’s just overwhelming. Like there’s so much we have to do. There’s so many big things that that need to change to make it happen. um i think that we get overwhelmed and then don’t just, just don’t do anything.
16:50.53
Lorie Jones
But if we, if we can look at those little pieces and make little changes in our lives and in others’ lives and, and just take Take a bite-sized chunk and try it.
17:01.47
Danaya Wilson
her Yeah, I call them micro progressions, essentially, and we hear a lot in mainstream media right now about micro, micro aggressions, essentially, it’s this, you know, way to kind of even the score when you’re feeling that you’re being wronged in some way.
17:17.57
Danaya Wilson
And, you know, i think that if we’re able to do these little tiny progressions that ultimately stack ourselves up. um Did you ever play Lemmings? It was like a 90s game, the Lemmings.
17:33.57
Lorie Jones
No, but that sounds interesting.
17:33.77
Danaya Wilson
Oh my gosh. It was a really fun game, but also with like a sinister background, essentially your goal was to save a certain number of lemmings in each round that you went to. And each one of the lemmings had different talents.
17:49.08
Danaya Wilson
And one of them, the guy was a stair builder. So he would have a bag and he would, one by one, every single time he would build ah a step, right? to wherever you needed to go. And it was a slow, arduous process. Sometimes you would get multiple stair builders at the same time.
18:06.23
Danaya Wilson
But it reminds me of that. It’s like, you know, not, we’re not going to drag and drop a master stair into this, this level. What we’re essentially going to do is work together on a community level and build by laying one brick at a time.
18:20.90
Danaya Wilson
And there’s books on upon books like atomic havoc habits that was impactful talking about 1% changes done over a long time compound into massive impact.
18:25.46
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
18:37.16
Danaya Wilson
And, I just think a lot of times we didn’t look at that. We’re not looking at that on a community level, on a society level, societal level. We’re looking at that more individual, like what can I do?
18:50.18
Danaya Wilson
And my approach was not only to ask what I could do, but also if we were able to get if we were able to get on the same page and build this collective of change makers, what could that impact really look like?
19:03.31
Lorie Jones
Yeah. um And the and that I love that too, like the big picture view or what it could what we could build. And it’s like um building a cathedral and you put your your brick in and you don’t eat you don’t really see that what the cathedral is turning out to be.
19:18.44
Danaya Wilson
Mm hmm.
19:20.36
Lorie Jones
you know And and and that your idea is to give people a picture of what you’re going to build in the end and how their little piece or their little brick fits into that, right?
19:32.33
Danaya Wilson
Yeah, and to make a case for the the importance that we need everybody to be involved. And that was the most kind of stark realization as I started to go through this. like Like I said, I genuinely enjoy reading and I love the research process. I really approached this book as if I was writing a research paper, essentially, you know making sure that I didn’t just…
19:56.63
Danaya Wilson
answer the question of why there weren’t a lot of women in leadership positions, particularly in male-dominated industries, but what was the foundation that continued to support that to be true, and where was the data backing that up? And so As I started, you know, as I progressed through this, this research process, I really noticed that a lot of women want this, you know, and a lot of men want this in the sense of like more women in leadership positions.
20:26.06
Danaya Wilson
It’d be lovely to have a pathway for our future generations, for our daughters, for our nieces to come up in leadership positions if they want to.
20:26.27
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
20:35.29
Danaya Wilson
But many either didn’t know how to start or felt like, It was too confusing to move forward. And they felt like, well, we’re not being biased in our day to day, but we’re not really sure how that looks like to be like now a proponent, you know, to be someone that’s standing on the same side.
20:56.52
Danaya Wilson
And so what I focused on with the book was building ah ah view of what it could be. why it should be, and then how we can all together do that on very simple levels.
21:10.32
Danaya Wilson
you know two of them was ah Two of them were um you know addressing the childcare crisis and then looking at instilling flexibility in our workplaces.
21:16.61
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
21:21.58
Danaya Wilson
and On those two small levels, if there were things that were changed in order to have more flexibility, especially for working parents, especially for individuals later in life, like women that are caretaking for older parents or they’re going through menopause and experiencing a lot of hormonal changes.
21:43.06
Danaya Wilson
Having this human first mentality significantly impacted their workforce and their community.
21:51.44
Lorie Jones
And then we get to keep that talent in the workforce and not lose it to, you know, caretaking duties or or some, ah you know, health scares or something like that. So I i think that’s so interesting. I love that.
22:07.17
Lorie Jones
um Denea, what’s the worst advice someone gave you? Did anyone give you some really bad advice and did you take it?
22:16.93
Danaya Wilson
I will say something that’s very relevant right now. um I think that imposter syndrome is very real.
22:29.16
Danaya Wilson
And I have heard a lot of individuals that I really, um find inspirational, say that it isn’t real. and I really hadn’t, I’ve been, i have been so laser focused on change and impact that sometimes because I have so much work to do, I haven’t had time to feel the weight of, um,
22:58.05
Danaya Wilson
ah not trusting myself essentially. And all of a sudden, 10 years in my company, I started to feel that huge weight of doubt. And i think a lot of it came up with writing the book.
23:12.48
Danaya Wilson
And so the advice I would say was that when you’re feeling doubt, immediately get someone on your team, like a consultant that could see things in a different light and would guide you through this.
23:26.34
Danaya Wilson
And ironically, you know i I very much did that in multiple cases, spent tens of thousands of dollars. And ah hindsight, what it came back to was that my leadership, my vision is the secret sauce in a lot of what I do.
23:47.06
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
23:47.39
Danaya Wilson
And trusting myself, certainly giving myself the room and time to feel what doubt feels like and fear feels like. but see it in the light that these are very real emotions and thought processes that should go along with doing big things, right? Like you would expect this when you are standing at a cliff and jumping off and hoping that something big is going to happen.
24:15.96
Danaya Wilson
And just trusting that not only yeah Is it expected that I feel like this? It’s welcome that I feel like this. But I also am able to face this on my own with my team, but I don’t have to seek outside approval, if that makes sense.
24:38.63
Lorie Jones
so So the idea behind the consultants is that they they give you courage, or are you saying that we shouldn’t have outside consultants to kind of help us?
24:51.40
Danaya Wilson
No, definitely not. If you’re hiring, so like it really came down to the mindset behind why your why your business decisions are being made. So if you’re looking at hiring a consultant to provide a very different view, great, perfect.
25:00.92
Lorie Jones
Okay.
25:09.57
Danaya Wilson
That sometimes is very helpful, especially when you maybe like my team were small, so we don’t have the funds to be able to have a full suite C-suite. So it’s nice to be able to ah have fractional people.
25:23.04
Danaya Wilson
But instead, what I was doing was I was hiring experts around me to make myself feel better, to
25:32.01
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
25:33.57
Danaya Wilson
basically encouraged me when I was feeling doubt to come in and say, no, you know what you’re doing. You’re okay. And realizing that, that and instead it was these heavy emotions and it was this imposter syndrome allowed me to be more true in my business and more present.
25:51.50
Danaya Wilson
And I don’t think that we really think as entrepreneurs, as women, what is that motivating emotion behind what we’re doing and how does that impact our day-to-day choices?
26:03.27
Danaya Wilson
And so like really that, that advice that when you’re feeling scared or when you’re feeling confused, you know, hire it out, hire a solution out may not be the best advice, especially for me in this particular season that I’m in.
26:19.44
Lorie Jones
Yeah. Yeah. I love that you mentioned that when you’re going when you’re doing something big, those emotions are there and they kind of should be there, right? Like a yeah that’s the idea behind fearless is, is you’re scared to death and you do it anyway.
26:35.80
Lorie Jones
You know, you try it because you never, I’ve never had anyone on the program that has said, i regret trying.
26:36.22
Danaya Wilson
Absolutely. Mm-hmm.
26:44.44
Lorie Jones
i have had a lot of people that have said, i regret not trying. i regret not um pushing through that fear or pushing through that scared feeling or pushing through that um imposter syndrome to really get to the other side to be who I can be. um Some of them have failed and they’ve learned from that, but i have I’ve never had anyone tell me that they regret trying.
27:09.33
Danaya Wilson
Yeah, it’s very true. i learned a lot about that. I have a really strong anxiety disorder and I am a huge advocate for talking about mental health. And ah so far that I had, you know, borderline agoraphobia where I was struggling to even exit my home.
27:26.84
Danaya Wilson
And what ended up helping was, you know, I built a team and had a team of therapists and medication and doctors. exposure therapy, but it was these little small steps of trying and continuing to, okay, I’m uncomfortable with this for five minutes.
27:46.39
Danaya Wilson
If I can do five minutes, I can do 10. If I can do, you know, and a lot, I talk a lot about that in the book um with doing exposure therapy with flying, because ultimately my first fire, my first panic attack happened on a plane. So I developed a really strong phobia around that.
28:03.83
Danaya Wilson
And I think that there is so much power and so much joy in that process of trying and then proving to yourself that you can do it, especially when all of those thoughts and that inner dialogue is um somewhat against yourself.
28:16.37
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
28:21.75
Lorie Jones
Yeah, yeah. Scared, um hard, you know, why are you even trying, you know, that sort of thing.
28:25.11
Danaya Wilson
Mm-hmm.
28:29.75
Lorie Jones
um And yeah, overcoming that. i i didn’t I didn’t ever think of it that way, but that’s true. Like overcoming your own um fears, a lot of times you’re your own worst critic and overcoming that is the first step.
28:45.56
Lorie Jones
I think that’s so interesting. Thank you so much. What about… um What about a situation that you, if you knew then what you knew now, you would handle that situation totally differently?
28:59.57
Lorie Jones
Anything like that?
29:00.12
Danaya Wilson
Of course, you mature, things are, you but you look at situations a lot.
29:11.41
Danaya Wilson
different You know, you have a very mature eye when you’re looking at the way that you converse with people. i let myself I feel like I was in the prior organization, you know, my parents’ organization that I worked with, I think I took a lot of abuse from counterpart employees in in ways of just being demeaned and um talked over. That taught me a lot of lessons, but hindsight, I think it did a lot of damage.
29:44.67
Danaya Wilson
And I would have spoke up for myself now, but at that time, you know, I was not only the the boss’s daughter, i was trying to make the best of a situation that I felt like I had been handed, you know, the state of the economy and also wanting to be there for my family.
30:07.45
Danaya Wilson
You know i genuinely wanted my parents’ company to do well. And so I took a lot of this um disregard and and poor treatment because I, I,
30:19.67
Danaya Wilson
believed that I this was what I needed to do, like my investment in order to getting in a different position. And I don’t think that’s true. We don’t have to be abused to earn our role or, you know, our place in any environment. And that’s the part that really, i would have done much differently.
30:37.42
Danaya Wilson
But i don’t know that, you know, I didn’t know that at that time.
30:41.51
Lorie Jones
Yeah. So how would you have changed the way that you reacted in those situations?
30:46.12
Danaya Wilson
I certainly would have advocated more for myself. And then I would have been able to give myself the opportunity to pivot, to exit this environment because I didn’t have to stay.
30:59.40
Danaya Wilson
you know, there was no reason why I absolutely had to at that time. Like, I didn’t have a family. I was just providing for myself and I easily could have accepted a different role. But I think that sometimes we think of pivot and change as something that’s so negative that it’s often predicated by a ah failure.
31:19.14
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
31:19.55
Danaya Wilson
And so we hold on so tightly to these situations that may be really bad for us because we don’t want to go through that. And I would have felt change You know, sure, it would have affected where I am to- today. Absolutely.
31:35.82
Danaya Wilson
But um I think it would have been really important to younger Denea to say at that point that I mattered.
31:42.95
Lorie Jones
yeah
31:43.08
Danaya Wilson
And unfortunately, I didn’t learn that until much later.
31:46.78
Lorie Jones
that That’s so interesting because i’ve I’ve come across those situations in my life as well where i am watching. um I work primarily with young women, um you know, as far as like that the building them up and the mentorship and stuff like that.
32:02.50
Danaya Wilson
Thank you.
32:03.03
Lorie Jones
And I see them in these situations that just are not. They’re not helpful for them. They’re not growing in the way that they want to grow. There’s no ah mentorship. There’s no support.
32:16.45
Lorie Jones
There’s no, there’s no help for them becoming who they want to turn into and who they should turn into. And yet they cling to this job.
32:28.46
Lorie Jones
They cling. And sometimes for, i mean, really valid reasons, like they need a paycheck, right?
32:34.17
Danaya Wilson
Yeah. the
32:35.62
Lorie Jones
But, but I think it’s so interesting that you’re like, you don’t, and that that sometimes we are in that situation, and, and we don’t see that we have options there, that we could change that situation. And it’s not bad. It’s not.
32:54.70
Lorie Jones
In fact, when we, when we make that change, And I love that I’m using the word change a lot because your book is change makers.
33:04.40
Danaya Wilson
Woo.
33:04.39
Lorie Jones
but But when we make that change, and it really does. it It opens up a whole new life for ourselves. but But we cling so hard and to that that situation that just isn’t right for us.
33:18.63
Danaya Wilson
Mm hmm. And kind of talk a little bit about that in the book. And I tell the story of my my father, because sometimes the circumstance outweighs the power that we have to be able to pivot and change. So in his case, he had three daughters by the time he was 25.
33:35.93
Danaya Wilson
So asking what he wanted to do in his career to earn money was not the deter you know the determinant on whether or not he was going to take a job. It was what’s going to pay and how can I get as much money as possible kind of thing.
33:50.62
Danaya Wilson
So if you’re faced with circumstance that outweigh that and make it heavier and harder to make decision, then you are in a situation where you are clinging. But if you’re a young woman coming up and you don’t have family and your circumstance is the is where you’re able to maybe take less or maybe change quicker, i say do it.
34:14.14
Danaya Wilson
Because what a world we live in that we can sit here and say, what really inspires me? what How would I be able to give my my gifts to the world and have them be accepted? Because at the end of the day, what we do for work, we all know, is a third of our life and sometimes more.
34:33.88
Danaya Wilson
And if you looked at it from that lens, what do I want to spend a third of my life doing? And then also understanding that when you get into that, if you are in it and you’re like, gosh, I invested so much into this, you also have the power to say like, this is no longer serving me.
34:50.23
Danaya Wilson
This is no longer something like it’s okay to invest everything into something and then decide, well, you know, i did it, but I didn’t particularly enjoy it. And I’m going to go and do something else. And I think,
35:02.72
Danaya Wilson
Allowing us to have, you know, that flexibility with ourselves and that fluidity with being able to go on this journey of life will make it so that we’re able to make decisions that best serve us.
35:17.41
Lorie Jones
Yeah, I like that idea. um Did anything scare you when you first started out on your career or or during this process? And does it still scare you or did you learn how to deal with it?
35:31.51
Danaya Wilson
Oh, man. So many things scared me. have That, I was very fearful. as And I found at that time, I didn’t like to acknowledge it. But I did find that that was very real for me to, again, like these emotions were real. Because a lot of times I would go into these environments where I didn’t know if there was a contamination, like an active asbestos spill.
35:56.26
Danaya Wilson
I didn’t know if I had, you know, the appropriate PPE to keep myself safe. I didn’t, um you know, I would be expected to go into confined spaces that, you know, as having anxiety and not liking to be, you know, across ah in a tight space, um that was very nerve wracking.
36:14.47
Danaya Wilson
But I would say outside of what would be real and true for most individuals, the biggest fear that I had was coming across as someone that didn’t deserve their position.
36:30.31
Danaya Wilson
And when you know, because I was the daughter of the the founder and the owners, um it was look like I was, it was nepotism, you know, essentially why I got my job. And i worked extremely hard.
36:44.53
Danaya Wilson
I studied really hard. I was definitely the the most educated And I think I had this deep-seated fear that someone would tell me that I didn’t deserve what I had materialized, you know, what I had created.
36:59.21
Lorie Jones
Thank you.
37:00.28
Danaya Wilson
that ended up doing what that ended up doing was in the yeah ah encouraging me and giving me that fire that pushed me through more education and more studying and longer work hours and really pushing harder.
37:20.36
Danaya Wilson
um But I’m not so sure that that was the best. You know, I don’t think that had I not had that fear, I probably wouldn’t have lost myself so much and trying to prove it to people that ultimately i didn’t care about, you know in the long term.
37:40.67
Lorie Jones
Yeah, i I think about that a lot um because I overdo lot. You know, i I work long hours. I have, I always am looking for more education and that sort of thing. And I enjoy it, but it does take time out of other pieces of life that could be more, you know, fulfilling for me in the long run.
38:03.29
Lorie Jones
So do you, do you regret putting all that time in it, like, I, this is a question for me, honestly, because I’m, can I’m, I’m wondering, like, was that was all that time and energy worth it?
38:20.84
Lorie Jones
um Just to prove that you could do what you, what you know you can do or or not?
38:27.13
Danaya Wilson
You know, what I don’t regret is the action. What I do regret is the reason. And so it’s really looking at, again, going back to hiring the consultants and everything like that.
38:40.94
Danaya Wilson
If my reason behind my action is to prove my worth, is to pay someone to tell me I’m okay or deserving of what I doing,
38:56.62
Danaya Wilson
then that’s the part that I’m regretting. And I think a lot of women on like a broader scale, if we just knew that we were absolutely amazing, that we could do anything that we put our mind to and that we’re also very well adapted very well versed on asking for help when we need it not, we don’t always do it, but we when we need to, when like, especially in business, we typically are doing that.
39:26.07
Danaya Wilson
um We’re good leaders. We lead the country in knowledge. You know, we are getting the most most secondary degrees. um I think that if we just had the…
39:34.34
Lorie Jones
you
39:38.20
Danaya Wilson
the confidence that we ourselves are enough, then that would motivate a lot of our decisions, as opposed to feeling like, one, there’s scarcity in the workplace, meaning like there’s not going to lot there’s not going to be a lot of leadership positions for women.
39:55.96
Danaya Wilson
So we’re already kind of entering that with a mindset of like, well, we need to please, we need to outperform. And then two, we have this huge, I mean, just imagine just from like a younger woman’s person perspective and then a younger male’s perspective, they’re looking at their life or their career path and one is linear and then one is somewhat linear and then it’s going to have like this possible unknown pause if they choose to have children.
40:23.40
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
40:23.51
Danaya Wilson
And then it’s a little bit linear. And then there’s, you know, caretaking for parents or menopause. And so we have so many things that are impacting us as young women that we tend to say, OK, well, because we’re going to have these pauses in our career, we’re going to need to outperform and be very vigilant in the times that we can be in order to make sure that we’re best prepared for when these things come up.
40:50.63
Danaya Wilson
And even that yeah is hard and heavy. And I think I, from an outside perspective, I very much see how I regret that that weight is being, that that onus is on women. 100%.
41:05.60
Danaya Wilson
cool
41:06.62
Lorie Jones
Yeah. um So did you face any unique challenges because you were a woman? Yeah.
41:15.57
Danaya Wilson
ah one hundred percent um In the industry that was in, male-dominated, and certainly in very numerous situations where I was the only woman at the table, um the unique situations that I was faced with was doing a lot of the administrative, a lot of the planning.
41:37.83
Danaya Wilson
Anytime, especially coming up, um you know, when i started 2007 to now, there was a lot of tech changes as we all Imagine, you know, even going from having the and conference phone to now having it, you know, as easy on your own phone, but just having to know all the variations and the changing technologies and being the only one that was tasked with the entire caretaking, the housework of the work environment.
42:06.30
Danaya Wilson
um so much so that now when I’m in that same situation, I’m very big on prioritizing that women and men learn how to do these things, that they understand that the tasks fall to both genders, that it’s not specific because it is still prescribed, especially in, again, like these, my industry um has shifted 18% woman decade.
42:31.96
Danaya Wilson
to twenty percent
42:33.92
Lorie Jones
Thank you.
42:34.13
Danaya Wilson
in the last day So these things, just because there’s progressive movements outside of the industry doesn’t mean the industry isn’t lagging behind. And so in order for me to and impact impact change, I was going to kick that up from 20 to 50%.
42:51.33
Danaya Wilson
fifty I have to be really intentional and I have to be really um going against the grain, especially if I’m sitting in a room with eight males and two females.
43:02.53
Danaya Wilson
I’m going to be the one that stands up and says, hey, John, can you do this? Or, John and Jim, can you guys please arrange the lunch for the day? And not just think that, oh, well, women are really good at organizing, so I’m going to give them this role.
43:17.57
Danaya Wilson
But what does it do on a larger societal level? What role, what does that role speak to um women on telling them of what they’re able to do?
43:27.53
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And there is a lot of behind-the-scenes work that women do. they’re Usually, a lot of times, there are the note-takers in the room. and i can’t think of a male colleague that unloaded the dishwasher in the office even once.
43:44.84
Danaya Wilson
I know very true very true or clean the fridge you know clean the fridge out and it’s those things that a lot of time when a lot of times I mean I’ll tell a story about this too but a lot of times women’s women are like well i just don’t want to have the battle
43:47.15
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
44:01.62
Danaya Wilson
Right. And I don’t want to break this down to training a toddler, but it’s the most relevant thing that I can think of at this point. And I was watching Jordan Peterson just did a four part series on parenting. And one of them was toddlers. And because we have a two year old, that was something that’s very relevant to us right now. And so I’m watching it. And one of the parents on there is like, it’s really frustrating to me because I want to get to church on time. I want to be and you know sitting in the pew at 9 a.m. m
44:34.26
Danaya Wilson
And his advice is essentially like when a tantrum happens or when there’s a negative behavior, you need to make space to master it. So essentially that means there’s going to be times where you’re late to church because you’ve got to pause and you’ve got to communicate.
44:52.04
Danaya Wilson
And she was just like, that’s a non-negotiable. We have to be on time for church. And the way that he broke it out was that, you know, how many times are you going to take this and this kid to church? She’s like, well, hopefully for the rest of his life, right?
45:04.19
Danaya Wilson
But he said, like, we came up with like 400 times, right? And maybe 20 of those times you’re late to church, but you’re laying the foundation for behavior that’s going to change and be impactful for the rest of this child’s life.
45:18.56
Danaya Wilson
that is worthwhile. So when we take it in the context of looking at emptying the dishwasher or taking the gender out of the roles that we do at work, it is going to be hard.
45:31.94
Danaya Wilson
And that conversation in that space is going to have to expand. And lot of times, if you’re the woman like me leading that, you’re going to be ostracized. You’re going to be looked at as, oh, well, she’s always the one that’s going have a problem or she doesn’t like men And really what it is, is what we’re doing is restructuring our work environment.
45:53.94
Danaya Wilson
And we’re making a place for women and men to work alongside each other instead of looking at, well, women are good at this and men are good at this. And we’re only going to continue to perpetuate this this notion of putting them into these spaces.
46:07.87
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
46:09.05
Danaya Wilson
And that’s hard and it takes time, but it will be so worth it.
46:15.02
Lorie Jones
Yeah, I love that you use the example of, you know, like teaching teaching a two year old or or teaching a toddler, you know, that sort of thing, because I i find that the same skills that I used as a parent, I i say 100 times, I’m like, it’s so much easier to empty the dishwasher myself than teach my five year old how to empty the dishwasher.
46:21.57
Danaya Wilson
Absolutely.
46:35.49
Lorie Jones
Like, ah I would rather 100 times do it all my own rather than teaching them how to do it. But if eventually it gets to the point where If I take the time and do the training right, then eventually i don’t have to do the dishwasher.
46:51.43
Danaya Wilson
Yeah.
46:52.13
Lorie Jones
Somebody else does it for me. So.
46:54.17
Danaya Wilson
And I bring it back to that thing that you said earlier, like I never met someone that regretted trying. And it’s going to be that if you’re looking at your child’s life from the the view, the lens of, ah you know, your child’s now 20 and they’re not, they don’t know how to empty a dishwasher, you know, and they’re not doing it.
47:16.04
Danaya Wilson
You sure as hell are going to regret that. And so what you’re doing is you’re you’re doing the hard work today for the future tomorrow. And that’s ah the whole basis of the book is like, what can we do today to change the trajectory for women leaders tomorrow? It turns out it is a little hard, but it’s not that hard.
47:39.97
Lorie Jones
What is the thing you are most proud of, Denea?
47:43.68
Danaya Wilson
Oh, definitely having my daughter.
47:45.97
Lorie Jones
Uh-huh.
47:46.67
Danaya Wilson
would I did not think that I would become ah mother. i had a ah rough um upbringing and I have a, I had a very difficult relationship with my, my mother.
47:59.59
Danaya Wilson
And I thought that if I had a child, all that would be doing would be giving them the strong anxiety that I have. And how could I ever do that to a child and being able to,
48:13.67
Danaya Wilson
realize that I was going to raise that child in a very different environment than I was going to be raised in. And then that child was also going to be half of my husband and someone else that wasn’t me.
48:21.99
Lorie Jones
Thank you.
48:25.47
Danaya Wilson
Um, was really brave on my part. And I am so happy that I was able to go through that because I get to learn from this, this little fierce monster every single day. and it is by far the greatest thing that I’ve ever done and been a part of.
48:45.61
Lorie Jones
and And that’s saying a lot because you’ve written a book, you’re successful CEO.
48:49.25
Danaya Wilson
Yeah.
48:49.98
Lorie Jones
I mean, there’s a lot of things out there that you’ve done.
48:50.28
Danaya Wilson
Yeah.
48:53.54
Lorie Jones
And i think that um I think that it’s interesting that I ask that question all the time. And a lot of time I do get the answer, you know, my kids or my children or something like that.
49:04.87
Lorie Jones
And I think that it’s that sense of we’re we’re helping grow the world, you know, like, and, and we see the impact so much in our own lives and our own kids, but, but those same skills that you use to, to raise your daughter, you’re using to make change in the workplace and to and to really make this world a better place.
49:11.06
Danaya Wilson
Yep. Mm-hmm.
49:24.94
Danaya Wilson
to
49:28.43
Lorie Jones
And, and, and we see it in our kids, but I think that that flows out to the regular, to the broader world and our broader um position in it too. So I’m i’m excited that you’re you’re change-making that way, right?
49:44.79
Danaya Wilson
Yeah, for sure.
49:47.07
Lorie Jones
Any advice for a young woman who’s just starting down this path that you’re already so successful at?
49:52.76
Danaya Wilson
ah ah I’m going to go back to having having that confidence. And if we don’t have the confidence, then we do the research to make sure that we have those counter statements. So if, for example, you’re saying, well, I’m not very good at that, then you counter that or you question that, well, what evidence exists for this?
50:11.92
Danaya Wilson
Is it just because I don’t feel that I’m good at that? Or is it really true that I’m getting the feedback That I am not good at this. And then if it is true, how can I counter that?
50:23.45
Danaya Wilson
I think so many times women are told, like, get a mentor, or make sure that you have the support. And again, that onus is on us to do something to be better. And what if we just instead knew that we were coming to the table, most likely with more than anybody else around us? You know, we we tend to over-prepare and over-show up. So let us just lean into that as being the bare minimum instead. And we’re already ahead of the game.
50:51.65
Danaya Wilson
And then know that we have the confidence that to analyze those thoughts that come in our head and justify whether or not or question whether or not they’re correct and then therefore react that way as opposed to reacting just by feeling unworthy.
51:09.72
Lorie Jones
Yeah, I find that so interesting because um a lot of times you’ll just take what somebody says as truth, as gospel truth. You know, you’re they’re like, you’re you’re not good at this.
51:21.25
Lorie Jones
And rather than questioning and saying, am I really not good at this? Like, do the facts point to the fact that I’m not good at this? or Or have I been in situations where I’m not good at this and this is something I need to work on and change? Or is that just someone’s opinion?
51:35.88
Danaya Wilson
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
51:36.82
Lorie Jones
It isn’t true.
51:37.10
Danaya Wilson
And like, are they even having a bad day? You know, I think a lot of times by us just taking in less feedback, and being able to really filter what is important.
51:40.76
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
51:50.29
Danaya Wilson
A lot of times, like what guides us, you know, we bring up TikTok and everything like that, what typically guides us as people that we don’t even give any care about. And so what we really need to do is like, is this, is this feedback coming from a source that I even admire or would, you know, would my grandma even listen to, but yet these are people like your grandparents and your family are typically people that you do respect.
52:18.77
Danaya Wilson
And so kind of just shifting that feedback, um, attention. Yeah.
52:25.36
Lorie Jones
Thank you so much, Janaya, for your time today and for sharing your journey and some of the the things that you’ve learned along that path. I really appreciate it. If I have a young lady who wants to ask you questions or get more information or just touch base, how does she do that?
52:42.12
Danaya Wilson
Thank you, Lori, for having me. And also I am very big at being available for the future generation. And so my website’s danaowilson.com. My book is Changemakers Wanted. It’s available everywhere. And there’s an audio and Kindle version.
52:59.24
Danaya Wilson
And then I’m also doing a lot of speeches at leadership conferences. The next one is the Steamboat Leadership Conference, Women’s Leadership Conference in September. it’d be really nice to to see people at but that event.
53:13.10
Lorie Jones
Well, thank you so much for your time today. i appreciate it.
53:16.76
Danaya Wilson
Thank you.