You. Hi and welcome to this next episode of the clover podcast, where you know we're really celebrating women in leadership, and today's episode is all about how your career is actually not a ladder. It's a jungle gym, and it might have some broken rungs on it. So when I was in my 20s, I thought that success meant climbing the ladder, fast promotions. You know, corner office. Back then we were all working in offices. Maybe I joke, maybe a power blazer, not so much. I wasn't in the 80s. But instead, I moved to San Francisco, and I went through the.com boom and bust. I sort of detoured into marketing after getting a film degree and starting out my career in film, and I found myself transitioning between freelancing, working in different industries, working with startups, all the way to enterprise. And I figured, did I fail? Because this doesn't seem like a straight route, you know, I guess maybe I took the scenic route. So it turns out, most women I admire didn't climb a ladder. They sung, swung sideways, they jumped across, they stumbled, they pivoted, they climbed back up, and sometimes they built their own dam structure, right? So in today's episode, I want to blow up the whole ladder metaphor and give you a more realistic and liberating view of what your career path can look like, especially if you're a woman, navigating the maze of corporate or startup life. So when we were kids, we were told to climb the ladder, or at least when we were younger, that's kind of like, at least for my generation, what we were heard, right? And so maybe you didn't hear it in those exact words, but it was implied, right? So you get good grades, you go to college, maybe pick a major that leads to a real job, get promoted, get promoted again, and eventually, maybe you'll win the game, right? You'll get that office big title. You know, champagne. She pop that champagne. But the whole ladder idea came out of a very specific model, the traditional corporate workplace mostly built by men for men, in the era when one income could support a whole family, and women were expected to bring the jell o salad to the company potluck, not run the meeting. So the late the ladder made sense back then. It was clean, predictable. You knew what rung came next. But here's the thing, that ladder wasn't built for us. It definitely wasn't built for women or caregivers or people whose careers don't follow that. Go to college at 18, intern at 20, become VP by 35 blueprint, the latter model assumes we all have the same tools, the same access, the same uninterrupted runway. I don't know about you, my career has had more zigzags than a New York subway map, honestly, like it's crazy, such a roller coaster. So here's a problem. We internalize that linear ideal even when we know better, even when we've lived the messiness of the real world, we still compare ourselves to that imaginary straight Shut up, and when we don't follow it, we feel like we're falling behind. So it's like, Oh no, I took a year off to raise a kid. I'm off track, or I switched industries, and now I'm back at square one, or I should have gotten that promotion by now, but I'm stuck because my boss is threatened by me and keeps giving my ideas to Brad, right? So maybe some of these sound familiar to you. Here's the truth. You're not failing just because your career doesn't look like a straight shot up. Most of us are zigzagging, and that's where the good stuff is. So I've worked in corporate, I've worked in startups, I freelance consulted, I've gotten laid off. I've taken on projects that looked bananas on paper and made job moves that made zero sense to people on the outside, but they were right for me in that moment. And let's just be clear, the people who benefit from the latter metaphor, they're not zigzagging, they're not caregiving, they're not trying to lead in rooms where they're outnumbered and underestimated. They're mostly men, they're mostly white, and they're mostly already in power. If our careers were truly linear, every VP would be a white guy named Chad who stayed at IBM for 30 years and thinks pivot is a basketball term because the rest of us, we had to get a little more creative. Women are forced to take lateral moves just to stay in the game. Or we get held back because of potential family plans, actual or imagined, or we take a break and come back to a whole new world of tech tools and acronyms we didn't get the download on. The latter doesn't flex for any of that. That's why it's so dangerous to keep pushing this myth of upward only success. It ignores the richness of lived experience. It punishes growth. It doesn't look traditional. It gaslights us into. Thinking were the problem when we're actually navigating a system that was never designed with us in mind. So if you're listening to this thinking, my career path doesn't look like hers, or his, or what I thought it would look like by now, let me say this good. That means you're adapting. That means you're learning and you're building something more real in the fantasy of the ladder, because the ladders only go one one direction, right? And the second you step off, people act like you're done, but you're not done. You're just figuring out a different route, one that fits you better and means you're not stuck behind someone else's pacing. One that you're not waiting for a rung to be handed to you. You're just building your own structure. You are the structure. So if the ladder is out, and trust me, it should be, what are we actually climbing? Um, kind of like a jungle gym. So jungle gym sound cute, right? Maybe even childish, but this thing is no playground. It's It's messy, it's flexible, and sometimes it's terrifying, but it's real, and it reflects the way women move through our careers, especially if you've ever had to pivot, pause or rebuild. I first heard the jungle gym metaphor from Sheryl Sandberg and say what you will about Lean in. But that image stuck with me, because the gym lets you move in all directions, not just up. You can go sideways, diagonally, down and back up again. There's no one right way. You build your own path, grip by grip, and that feels a hell of a lot more familiar than any tidy ladder ever did in my own career, there was no golden staircase to executive status. There were trap doors and hidden monkey bars. And I've taken lateral roles that looked like a step back just to get closer to what I actually wanted. I've jumped into startups where I had zero formal training and a role, but I brought in a skill set no one else had. I freelanced. I burned out. I've quit jobs with with no plan, and I've stayed in toxic jobs too long because the paycheck was steady and I was afraid of falling. None of that was quote, unquote, ladder worthy, but it was mine. They were my decisions. And here's where it gets even trickier. A lot of the rungs on the metaphorical jungle gym are broken. And by broken, I mean they were never meant to support you in the first place. These are missing or unstable steps that women encounter all the time, like when you try to step into leadership, the job keeps getting restructured, or when you're passed over because your manager assumes you'll have kids soon, or you do have kids and suddenly you're treated like you've downgraded from ambitious professional to part time distraction. Or how about when you're the only woman or the only woman of color in a leadership meeting, and people nod at your ideas, but only take action when Steve repeats them. Five minutes later, we climb. We keep climbing regardless, with grit, with creativity, with community, and with this very specific kind of quiet power that comes from learning to adapt when the structure doesn't fit you, because the jungle gym forces you to get scrappy. It builds resilience in a way ladders never could. When the straight path is blocked, you find another way. You look for a side move. You jump diagonally, you hang upside down for a second while you figure out your next grip. One of my favorite moves is the strategic lateral I mean, it doesn't look sexy on paper, and recruiters might even side eye it, but sometimes a sideways move is what unlocks a whole new direction. I once took a role that seemed smaller on the org chart, but it gave me access to decision makers, creative control, and a front row seat to how leadership actually worked. It taught me more about power than three years of climbing ever did. And I want to be clear, these moves aren't just reactive. They're smart, they're intentional. You're not flailing, you're navigating. You're playing three dimensional chess while other folks are still climbing a ladder that was bolted in the wall in like 1982 and don't discount the value of pauses, breaks in your career. Don't mean you're broken. They mean you're human. They might be for caregiving, mental health, travel, starting a side hustle, mourning, healing or just figuring your own stuff out. Those breaks are strength, their clarity and their space, and space is where real leadership is born. So if you're in a season right now that doesn't feel upward, it feels sideways or like you're hanging by one arm trying not to fall off the damn monkey bars, please hear this. You're still building, you're still rising, and you're doing it on your own terms. You don't owe anyone a straight path. You don't have to explain your zigzags, and you sure as hell don't have to feel behind, because the jungle gym has no behind. It just has next. Okay, so let's picture this. You're on the jungle gym. You've ditched the idea that your career is supposed to look like some shiny corporate ladder built in a 1995 Microsoft Office clip art file. You're in the mess, the swings, the slips, the side moves. So how do you navigate this thing without falling flat on your face, or worse, waking up in a job that doesn't even recognize you anymore. So let's talk about it, because the truth is, the jungle gym is wild, but it's not random. It requires a strategy that's fluid, not rigid. So you're kind of thinking compass, not blueprint. So here's a few tools that I swear by. Number one, know what season you're in. This one's big. Not every season is meant for climbing. Some are for holding steady. Some are for resting. Some are for planting seeds you won't see bloom for years. Are you in a growth season? You're stretching, learning, taking risks, or maybe it's a maintenance season. You're holding the line, protecting your energy, keeping the ship afloat. Maybe you're in a healing season, where the best move. You can make is no move at all. All are valid, but you can't play the same game in every season, and you can't compare your rest season to someone else's launch. So just because someone else is sprinting doesn't mean you're behind. Maybe you're lacing up your shoes and maybe you're changing direction entirely. So naming your season gives you permission. It also helps you choose your next move with intention instead of panic. So number two is, build your network before you need it. I know networking can feel gross like you're collecting LinkedIn connections like Pokemon cards. Relationships are the rungs of the jungle game, especially for women, especially if you're navigating around gatekeepers in the glass ceilings. So here's what I tell women all the time, stop networking like a job seeker. Start networking like a leader. Leaders don't just show up when they need something. They show up consistently. They invest they ask questions, they listen. So DM that woman whose work you admire, invite someone to a virtual coffee, offer help before you ask for it, because the right action a connection doesn't just open doors. They help you build your own. The third one is, don't be afraid to look sideways. I know we've been conditioned to always chase the next title, the next promotion, the next rung, but in the jungle gym, lateral moves are often the smartest play. Maybe you want to switch industries, you'll take a sideways leap to a role that overlaps with your current skills. Maybe you need better leadership exposure, so you lateral over to a department with more visibility. Maybe you're feeling burned out, but not ready to quit, so then you find a role with a different pace or culture. The sideways move is not a failure, it's strategy, and the people who judge you for it, they're usually stuck on the ladder, metaphorically into a wrong they don't even like number four is own your narrative. This one is gold the jungle gym can be confusing to other people, especially recruiters or executives who want a tiny, bullet pointed version of your life, but you know what? You get to be the narrator, so the career break. Call it a values reset. That pivot from finance to UX design. Talk about how you learn to solve problems from both sides of the brain. That demotion that gave you more flexibility, frame it as a conscious trade off, and one that taught you how to lead without a title. No one's going to make your story make sense for you. That's your job. If you don't tell your story, someone else will, and they won't get it right. So write your own bio, practice your elevator pitch, and say it out loud until it feels true because it is number five is let go of the timeline. And finally, please, for the love, let go of the fake timeline in your head, you know the one? I should be a director by 30. I should have a team by now. I should be further along. Says who success has no age limit, leadership has no deadline. And every single woman I know who's thriving in her 40s, 50s, 60s, she had at least one season in her career where she thought it was all falling apart. It actually wasn't. It was just the jungle gym doing its thing. So if you're in a weird phase right now, confused, pivoting, stuck, don't panic. You're not lost. You're navigating, and you're doing it with more grit and grace than you probably gave yourself credit for. You don't need a perfect path. You just need your next grip, because the jungle gym doesn't require perfection. It just requires movement. So you got it. Let's land this thing like you're stepping off the jungle gym, brushing off your hands and turning to your listener like, See you've got this. So if no one told has told you this lately, you are doing just fine. Your career isn't supposed to look like a straight shot. It's not a linear climb or a highlight reel. It's a jungle gym full of weird angles, broken rungs, unexpected turns and moments where you're hanging on by one sweaty hand asking yourself, Why am I doing this again? But you're not lost. You're building something that doesn't need to look like anyone else's success story, and that's powerful. So let this be your permission slip, to pivot, to pause, to take the wrong job that turns out to be exactly right, to walk away when it's no longer serving you to move sideways, backwards or diagonally without shame, because growth doesn't just happen when you're climbing, it happens when you're choosing and you're allowed to choose yourself. So here's a little reflection to take with you this week. What's one non linear move you've made in your career that ended up teaching you something you couldn't have learned any other way. Write it down, share it with a friend, or say it out loud, own it. That's your jungle gym resume, and it's badass. If this episode hit home for you, send it to another woman who needs a reminder that she's not behind she's just building her own structure. And next time on clover, you know we're going to be digging into why being nice isn't the same thing as being respected. That's a future episode, How To lead with empathy without being a pushover. So until then, keep climbing. Don't wait for permission, and if you're really into this, you know, give give me a review for the episode for the podcast series itself. Share it with others. We really, really appreciate it until next time you.