"Drop The Ball" Feat. Tiffany Dufu

Today’s episode took me to Harlem, NY to meet with and interview Tiffany Dufu, author of “Drop The Ball: Achieving More By Doing Less.” Tiffany is also Chief Leadership Officer @ Levo, a platform and community that helps millennials navigate and design careers they love. Enough about her resume! Here’s what’s going to be on her tombstone: “She got to as many women as she could.”

 

I discovered “Drop The Ball” via the Call Your Girlfriend podcast!  Ann Friedman interviewed Dufu in early 2017, and just like that, “Drop The Ball” was added to my summer 2017 reading list.

 

To an untrained eye, “Drop The Ball” on its face could be mistaken as a “Millennial How-To Live” book. And yes, I’ll be the first to admit that Tiffany’s life could be mistaken for looking like a fairytale--family and career in check, with a seemingly on-fire interior life. But as she says in the first pages of the book, “fairytales don’t cover logistics.”

 

In this episode, Tiffany and I talk through a couple of exercises on how to #DropTheBall in our own lives. Check out Levo League at levo.com, and follow Tiffany’s work online and on Twitter.

 

4:30 - Tiffany on her life mission: “My life’s work is advancing women and girls. That’s why I’m on the planet.” 4:45 - Inside Tiffany’s portfolio career--from serving as Chief Leadership Officer at Levo to serving on nonprofit boards, and learning to #DropTheBall in her own life--and not judge herself for it! 7:35 - Why it was so important for Tiffany that she let go of the insidious feeling of guilt associated with not being *good enough* to *all people* at *all times.* 7:55 - “It starts at looking at the roles we enter when we first come into our lives and experiences. Most of us, when we’re born our first role is ‘son,’ ‘daughter,’ ‘sibling.’ We become friends, students, citizens. Sometimes we become wife, mother, or father.” 8:25 - “For most of us, if we’re ambitious, it’s not enough to be just mother or daughter or sister--we want “good!” in front of those roles. Not just a daughter, a “good” daughter not just a friend, a “good” friend. All of those roles has an invisible job description.” 10:35 - On how the first step of “Drop The Ball” is tuning into the feeling of, “I’m not quite doing it all, I feel all this pressure,” and understanding that all of the expectations come from somewhere else, and they don’t begin with us. 10:50 - The first question Tiffany asks before helping someone #DropTheBall is, “In relationship to your role, what does a good [insert role] do?” From there, “How do you know that’s what a good [insert role] does?” You begin to notice, the answer is never us. It’s never, “I made that up,” you start with the people you aspired to be like when you grow up. 12:10: “The exploration of ‘why do I feel this way,’ and ‘where is this pressure coming from,’ is an important A-ha! Moment we all have to create for ourselves. It’s a humbling experience to recognize and reconcile the fact that what we feel and think are our choices, are pretty much default positions. And even though we feel we’re in the driver's seat of our lives, we’re actually living someone else’s story. But until we curate that story and create  a new job description for what it means to be a good X, we haven't done the work and will continue to be in the spiral of trying to meet other people’s expectations that aren’t our own.” 13:06 - Tiffany mentions in the book it’s important to  decide what matters to you--which ball to drop. What matters to you, and where can you not judge yourself too harshly? Is there are an area in which Tiffany thinks women and girls judge themselves too harshly? 14:00 - “We all have values that are for the mostpart noble. The problem is we attach behaviors to those values, that don’t have to be attached to them. 14:18 - Tiffany expresses how a chance meeting with her daughter’s piano teacher could’ve sent her into a spiral of guilt and self doubt...but instead, she stood behind knowing her value as her daughter’s mother. 16:40 - Tiffany’s “highest and best use: a combination of, what do I do well with very little effort?” 17:34 - How Tiffany evolves her idea of parenting, based on her highest and best use: “My highest and best use in raising conscious global citizens is engaging my kids in meaningful conversations each and every day.” 19:00 - “In reading the book, I came up with the mantra,“my humanity is not optional or a luxury.” 19:43 - Tiffany’s advice to recent grads on how to establish themselves as a priority 20:00 - “I’d encourage them to go to WITHIN! I think that before you can convince yourself to develop the discipline to go to events and the gym, it’s about learning to listen to yourself and your voice. The challenge is that there’s a voice in your head. It’s the voice of doubt that says, “We’re not enough,” “That’s so stupid.” 20:55 - How Tiffany’s learning to quiet the doubt in her head--named Cynthia. 21:40 - “The first step is getting intune with your own voice separate and part from the voice of doubt. That’s the voice that will guide you to the other go-to’s.” 22:45 - Tiffany’s #Bribooks: “Insight,” by Tasha Eurich - “If I’d had this book as I was going through my #DropTheBall journey, I would've cut it down by 12 months.” “The Power of Onlyness,” by Neila Merchant. “I’m always struck by books I complete and take action on as a result of reading it.” “The Big Life,” by Ann Shoket. “I recommend it to my millennial colleagues!”