Janine Rogan 0:04
Is there a way that we can erase the notion that debt is either good or bad? Can it be neutral? And if we can hold that it’s neutral. And we look at people who are extremely successful. They don’t call it debt, they call it leverage, right? And I’m not saying that you should spend your entire credit card and never pay it off on things that like you said, don’t bring value. But can you invest in yourself? Can you invest in your business or your education or whatever it is in your life that’s going to potentially get you to that next career or allow you to make more money? When I look at millionaires and billionaires, they’re all using debt. Like there’s not a company that doesn’t have debt out there. But we’ve been taught that debt is so bad, and I think sometimes that’s detrimental to us building wealth and abundance, frankly, because we’re not looking at longer term.

Blake Schofield 1:01
Hi, I’m Blake Schofield, founder and CEO of The Bridge to Fulfillment®, mom to three, USA Today top 10 professional coach, and former corporate executive who got tired of sacrificing my life for a comfortable paycheck. My mission is to expand women’s perspectives and empower them to achieve greater impact at home and work without sacrifice. This is The Bridge to Fulfillment®

Blake Schofield 1:34
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Bridge to Fulfillment®. Super excited to have our guest expert Janine Rogan with us. She’s a CPA, and a passionate keynote and TEDx speaker. She’s the founder and CEO of the Wealth Building Academy, Inc., and an award winning CPA. Her mission is to educate and empower women to confidently and profitably grow their wealth through financial feminism. Financial equality for all. Jamie has been featured internationally by a number of publications and has delivered keynotes to thousands of individuals and companies around the world. She currently sits on the CPA Alberta Education Foundation board, the board of FESA, and the planning committee of the AICPA Global Women’s Leadership Summit. Her debut book, The Pink Tax, will be everywhere, books are sold starting in May of 2023. Welcome to The Bridge to Fulfillment® Janine.

Janine Rogan 2:35
Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to chat today.

Blake Schofield 2:38
Ah, I’m so excited about this topic we’re going to be talking about. It’s one I’m really passionate about. I think not only because I, my parents divorced when I was young, and I watched my mom be underpaid, undervalued. I’ve watched that pay inequity for women in so many places in my career. And once I really uncovered some of the barriers that were stopping women and also myself from being able to really step into more financial abundance, it was really a game changing thing. So I’m excited for you to be able to come on and share with the audience some of the things you really learned about that. But before we dive into it, I want everyone to get to know a little bit about you. So can you share a little bit about who you are and your background and how it led you to do what you’re doing today?

Janine Rogan 3:25
For sure. So I live in Canada, I live in Calgary, Alberta. I grew up in Edmonton, which is just three hours north. I came from a family of accountants. And so I tried really, really hard not to be an accountant. When I went to university, I tried Engineering, I tried Electrician. But I wound up as an accountant, probably my parents were probably happy about that. But as I was doing my accounting degree, and ultimately, my designation afterwards, what I really found was, I was learning how to manage companies, I ended up articling at one of the big four doing corporate tax returns for some of the biggest companies here in Canada. And we were never being taught how to manage our personal finances and how to learn how to invest here in our personal lives. And so that’s really what got me interested in the personal finance space. And I would say that I’m relatively self taught in that area. And so as I was doing my designation, it really was kind of a nice marriage of learning the corporate side, but also learning the personal side. And then I would say as I was a woman in a male dominated fields, I was in tax and accounting and then ultimately wound up in tech. After that, I really started to become passionate about women’s economic equality in the world. And that’s kind of what has led me to the journey that I’m on right now, which really is to empower women to build their wealth.

Blake Schofield 4:47
I love that. What was it that you saw about the inequity for women that made you stop and say, Wait a second. There’s so much opportunity here. I’m passionate around this.

Janine Rogan 4:58
I think and this is one of, and we’ll get into, I’m sure, my book, but this is the first quote in my book is a Gloria Steinem’s quote on “The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.” And I remember training a man at this accounting firm. And he was the same level as me. And I was training him. And I don’t remember, really anything around how we got into this conversation. But I found out and I would say, like, I’m grateful for him for sharing this with me, but I found out I was being paid $13,000 less than he was, which at that time would have been a 23% raise. And that just like sent me into a bit of a blind rage. And I think that’s really was my first experience. Personally, I always knew the wage gap existed, I always knew there was economic inequality. But this was my first experience of actually having that happened to me and being like, just so stunned that, you know, I’m here training this person, and I’m being paid so much less than them. And it really shocked me and started to have me ask questions around. You know why this was the case, I was a relatively high performer. So what was that saying about me, and what people or how people were viewing me at the firm. So I would say that’s really, I think, where it all started for me from a personal perspective, and that frustration, anger really drove my passion to uncover and start to fix, hopefully, the economic inequality that women face.

Blake Schofield 6:34
I love that. And you know, you saying that reminds me so much of, I guess my own personal journey. Like I said, I watched my mom struggle and go through this working really hard exceeding what she needed to do. And yet, I watched these constant struggles in her career where men were paid more than her or some guy got the promotion over her, even though she had overcome every hurdle she had been told she had to meet. And I personally found myself in a similar situation to you, I was about a decade or so in my career, I was the num, I had become the number one merchant team or buying team at JC Penney two years in a row. And one of those years was the number two buying team out of 90 in the entire company. And I found out that I was being paid below the 50th percentile.

Janine Rogan 7:20
Yeah, when you start to dig into this data, they’re starting to be more of it, which you know, pay transparency is something that I’m so passionate about. And I think it’s so important, but my God does it suck to like, find some of this stuff out where you’re like sitting on it, in terms of like the range or you find out what another person makes, or you find out, you’ve been passed over for a promotion, because of you know, something silly,. I remember a manager once telling me that I you know, they they ranked us on a scale of one to five, but the accounting firms, every accounting firm does this. And I was relatively highly ranked in it. My manager at the time, he told me that I was lucky that I got that rating. And I was like, I just worked my ass off, like, What do you mean I’m lucky? So you know, it’s just so, so embedded in our culture, to just look at women, whether or not it’s conscious, but look at women kind of as less unfortunately.

Blake Schofield 8:14
Yeah, and it’s interesting, because we can perpetuate some of those biases as women because we, I think as women, at least from what I see consistently, in the work that I do, women aren’t taught how to approach this logically with data and information. They’re not seeking it and not having the conversations or they believe, as I used to believe that, well, my work will just speak for itself. Instead of understanding that you have to be your own advocate. And I’ll never forget that when I realized, wait a second, more than half of the people here are making more than me, and I’m delivering more than 98% of them, something’s really wrong. And that’s when I went back and I said, I am underpaid. And it is not okay. And I ended up leaving that company and moving and I was paid in the top 75th percentile every job I had after that, because I learned the lesson no more, no more. I don’t really average employee and I’m not going to get paid like the average employee and I’m tired of being taken advantage of, really, and here’s the hard part, we can often get mad at other people, but then we give them the power. Instead, I would encourage you if you’ve ever been or you’re currently in a situation where you feel undervalued or you feel underpaid, what can I learn and what can I do to change the trajectory of that?

Blake Schofield 9:33
Because the more we are empowered with the right skills and knowledge, the more we stand up for our value, the more that won’t happen anymore, because the reality is HRs job is to get the best person as cheaply as possible. I know that their job is to protect the company bottom line. And so if you are willing to take the lowest amount, if you are the employee who always takes on more work, who will say yes to everything. If you create a perception that you’ll just do it. And then to your point, Janine Belbin just say, Oh, well, you should be happy you got this 8% raise, because everyone else got it three. But if you’re 8% raise and you’re still underpaid by $15,000? Are you kidding me? That’s not, not great.

Janine Rogan 10:17
Yeah, I always used to say to my coaches, or my managers, when I was at the beginning of my career, like a big percent of a small number is still a small number. So I’d say be careful with percentages, because again, those can be skewed. But, you know, you hit on some really, really great points there. And I think making sure that we are advocating for ourselves and coming with the data is so important. So using things like Glassdoor or any website that’s going to share that information about what people in other roles are being paid for paid. And then, you know, backing that up with, I always keep a little journal when I was incorporated, like all the things I was doing and the outcomes. And if I can tie any numbers to that there’s a really good TED talk, the career advice you probably didn’t get. And it talks about how actually, as a society, we mentor men and women differently, and we tend to mentor women to focus on soft skills. And in a lot of cases, those skills aren’t promotable, or those skills aren’t hitting the billable hours or the revenue targets. So it is really important that we understand this. And then we can actually do something about this in our work so that we are compensated appropriately. And I guess I’ll also just like preface with, obviously, we are in a privileged situation where we have the ability to speak up, there’s sometimes women that can’t and I think then if you’re in a situation like that, it’s probably time to look for a different job and exit the company, as opposed to like arguing or fighting or putting yourself in a situation that’s unsafe at your workplace.

Blake Schofield 11:43
Yeah, yeah, thank you for saying that’s interesting, I believe and definitely see a lot of that unconscious bias around how women are raised and how we are praised. We are praised for being good friends, not hurting anyone’s feelings. Don’t brag about yourself. And we don’t do that to men. And we praise men by achievements. And we praise women for being kind or sweet or thoughtful.

Janine Rogan 12:10
I was just gonna say, you know, little boys like, Oh, you’re so brave, or Oh, that was so courageous. And, yeah, exactly. Little girls, it’s like, Oh, you are nice, you were quiet. You were you didn’t speak out of turn, you played quietly in the corner. It’s that stuff that actually perpetuates into even our ability to negotiate, because we may not have the experience or the confidence to do that, because for our entire lives, we’ve been told to sit down and be quiet.

Blake Schofield 12:37
Well, it’s interesting that you mentioned right women are praised for soft skills. And I think one of my big perspectives about that. And one of the things I really talk to my clients about is the soft skills are far harder to learn than the technical. And when you see high performing teams and companies, it’s always a leader that has high EQ.

Janine Rogan 12:56
100%.

Blake Schofield 12:57
And has high soft skills and a leader who can drive results individually, but don’t have those people skills will burn out or take the company down. And so what I would encourage women is to be able to connect, to connect the soft skills to the results, because they are connected. I think often we don’t understand how to do that. And that’s the problem, not so much that we have overly focused on the soft skills is that we’re not recognizing how those soft skills actually connect to the results that are driving the organization or driving the results that we bring that other people don’t bring.

Janine Rogan 13:33
Totally and yeah, just to be clear, I 100% think soft skills are are amazing. And women are make better leaders than men usually. But when we’re looking at promotions and raises, and they’re sitting around a table deciding, they are typically looking at those metrics. So yeah, absolutely finding a way to tie those in and making sure that you’re not forgetting about the things that are actually going to get you promoted or get you more money, making sure that you kind of tick those boxes, as well.

Blake Schofield 14:00
Awesome. There are a couple of there’s so many topics I want to talk about. So I’m gonna switch this to a new one.

Janine Rogan 14:04
Yeah.

Blake Schofield 14:05
So that we can get a good breadth of conversation. One of the things you talked about was money trauma, and how this impacts our ability as women from a wealth and an equity standpoint, we’d love to hear your perspective on that. And what are the most common things you see around that that are holding women back?

Janine Rogan 14:24
For sure. So I’m actually in the process of getting my trauma money certification. It’s an organization in Canada here. And it’s been fascinating, for sure to learn all of the things that can potentially cause money trauma in people. And it absolutely can be generational. So if you grew up and there was never enough food on the table, and it was always, you know, oh my gosh, we might have to put something back at the grocery store because we physically don’t have enough money that can translate into things like I always joke with my one friend who did unfortunately grew up this way, but she says she hides her money under the Monopoly board, right? Like it’s keeping that We all have that cash under your mattress to keep it in a safe place in case you don’t have enough, and that can really hinder women in terms of building wealth, and investing, because they’re worried that they’re gonna potentially lose all of their money.

Janine Rogan 15:25
And I think also some of this, this money trauma, and it kind of goes back to how we raise little boys and little girls about asking for more. Women are seen as if you if you want money, you’re greedy. If you marry someone who has more money than you, you’re a gold digger. And these are the things that we’re telling, you know, young women that potentially can traumatize them away from advocating or asking for what they’re worth, or standing in their worth, and not offering a discount. I think there’s so much when it comes to money trauma, those are just a couple of examples. And that can turn into kind of how we spend, and what kind of impulses we have, when it comes to almost like self medicating with, with the spending in our lives. And this is true of men and women. But there’s just I think so many things that impact women specifically, because of you know, how we’ve been raised or how our parents have raised us or the generations. I mean, I remember when my grandma like she grew up in the Great Depression, but you could see through her like frying pan, and she was like, No, it’s still good. And it you know, it’s that where you know, not wanting to potentially even treat yourself to your money when you’ve earned so much and you worked so hard for it. So I think it’s such a broad topic, but I’m really passionate about it. And I think it’s really interesting to dig into.

Blake Schofield 16:35
Yeah, I totally agree with that. There’s so much unconscious or subconscious belief systems that drive how we are thinking about using or not using money, I have definitely found that for myself, I found that for my clients as well. And especially if you grew up in a home that lacked money or struggled with money, often we can to your point hold on to it, it’s pre, it’s almost as if it’s a safety blankets. And then we create this sense of scarcity around money, that then we actually create less, because we’re so close minded to doing things that could create more abundance, and then we create this vicious cycle. And I know for me, personally, I got stuck in that it’s one of the reasons I was stuck in my successful corporate career for so long was really the money, it was really nice that I couldn’t replace the money that I would be at risk if I didn’t have the money. Even when I first started my business. And I knew I needed to invest my money in the business, I actually had belief systems around safety based on how much sat in my physical checking or savings account versus what was in my 401k or the stock market. And I knew logically it made no sense. Like I have plenty of money in totality. But if it wasn’t sitting where I expected it to be, I literally felt unsafe. And so I love just opening up the dialog of maybe an understanding and maybe to think about what are your belief systems around money? And are those belief systems around money driving the decisions that you’re making in a healthy or an unhealthy way?

Janine Rogan 18:15
Yeah, and I find a lot of women to almost have this, like unworthiness like I’m not worthy of spending my money or I’m not worthy of having more or even dreaming of building a million dollar business, for example, or being paid six figures. There are a lot of limiting beliefs that we can put on ourselves. And I think if you think back to any money memories you have when you’re a child, those can not in all cases, but in some cases can drive how we start to think about that. So, you know, when we look at, okay, if I don’t have $20,000 in my checking account, I’m not gonna be able to I’m gonna live on the streets is maybe let’s say the belief and that’s not true, we actually have to put that thought kind of on trial and see if that actually makes sense. I don’t know your story. But maybe that stemmed from the fact that something in your childhood or something that a parent or teacher told you around, making sure you have enough always to be able to do something with at any point in time, just in case the world ends tomorrow.

Blake Schofield 19:15
100% Yep. 100%. And I experienced moments where we struggled to pay the bills, the level of stress that was I didn’t experience as a kid when we had to put back stuff at the department store.

Janine Rogan 19:29
Yeah.

Blake Schofield 19:30
And there was always this due diligence around making sure you’re really responsible with your money and unexpected things come and you need to be prepared. And what I didn’t understand is that we can overdo that, we can over prepare and an over preparing we create fear and scarcity and lack, that actually stops us from creating what we want and one of the big belief systems I had to get over was actually all around using credit. Funny enough, I had always least systems around, you must pay off your credit card every month, and you must hold this great credit score. And I had panic around not having that or hearing money on a credit card. And I had to really begin to understand that there’s a difference between using your money to invest and make more, versus using your money for debts and things that right aren’t bringing back to you. And that it’s okay. And in fact very healthy, to invest money for long term gain in the same way we do with college.

Janine Rogan 20:31
I was having this conversation with some entrepreneurs last night, actually. And there was this conversation around debt. And I said to them, like, is there a way that we can erase the notion that debt is either good or bad? Can it be neutral, and if we can hold that it’s neutral. And we look at people who are extremely successful. They don’t call it debt, they call it leverage, right? And I’m not saying that you should spend your entire credit card and never pay it off on things that, like you said, don’t bring value. But can you invest in yourself? Can you invest in your business, or your education, or whatever it is in your life, that’s going to potentially get you to that next career or allow you to make more money. When I look at millionaires and billionaires, they’re all using that, like, there’s not a company that doesn’t have debt out there. But we’ve been taught that debt is so bad. And I think sometimes that’s detrimental to us building wealth and abundance, frankly, because we’re not looking at longer term

Blake Schofield 21:28
100%, I cannot agree with you more. And that has been my experience is that the more money and the more you know how to build financial wealth, the more you understand how credit or using some of these things actually allows you more leverage to be able to create more of what you want. And for me shifting that was dramatic, because it enabled me to invest what I needed to do to get to the next level and continue to grow financially and continues to do so. But it was a huge belief system that I did not even realize was holding me back because I was under the guise of being responsible.

Janine Rogan 22:04
Absolutely.

Blake Schofield 22:05
That’s what I was taught

Janine Rogan 22:06
Well, because you have to be a good girl, be responsible, pay off your debts, and then you’ll be fine.

Blake Schofield 22:11
And yet, it was that mentality that was making me physically ill, unhappy, stressed out, creating health problems, not only enabling me to be present with my family, feeling guilty about wanting to make a career change, because of how that might impact us. The negative impacts were so significant. And I don’t think I even really realize that it was my belief systems around money, that were actually the biggest driver of mistakes.

Janine Rogan 22:38
They’re so deeply rooted. And the more work I do in this space, the more I’m like, Oh, my gosh, our society has so much to unpack when it comes to money. And, you know, I mean, it impacts all of us, like we’ve set ourselves up relatively well to be buying in retirement as in our 30s. And, you know, there are still minutes where our bank balance and our checking account gets low. And I have to remind myself not to panic that more money is coming, we can pull from different if we need to, but it’s still almost that unconscious, like amygdala response that stress that fight or flight oh my god, we have no money, we’re not able to afford groceries. And it’s like, Okay, now, take a step back. Look at look at those thoughts. Look at those beliefs, and where are they stemming from?

Blake Schofield 23:21
And I love what you’re saying. Because I think part of this journey of personal development and mastery over learning how to use your emotions to work for you, as opposed to driving your life is to begin to give a little bit of space between what am I feeling? And what is my brain telling me and what’s reality. And most of us I know, for most of my life, I didn’t understand that my brain lies to me all the time. I thought it was true.

Janine Rogan 23:48
It’s so funny. You say that because I’ve struggled with anxiety for a long time. And that is basically your body’s saying like a tiger is after you, like run. And like there’s no tiger, you know, we live obviously, there are things that should warrant a stress response. But again, yeah, your brain lies to you or just have a disproportional view of what’s going actually on in your life.

Blake Schofield 24:12
It’s why I think this work of being able to find trusted mentors, guides, coaches, to help you unpack and uncover what are the limiting beliefs, what are the fears? What are the patterns in your life that are creating the things that are making you unhappy are so important because it’s not just one layer, there’s just really multiple layers or multiple things and when you can begin to learn and unpack and remove those things, it completely changes the game for your life.

Janine Rogan 24:40
Absolutely. I think there’s so much work for all of us to do but definitely this money and limiting beliefs space. I think they’re especially for women, because again, society has told us all these things. I think unpacking and unraveling and just trying to even ask questions that literally question your beliefs are really great first steps.

Blake Schofield 25:02
Awesome. Thank you. Well, Janine, I want to make sure we get into talking about the pink tax. Yes, what that is, so can you kind of transition us into and share more about that?

Janine Rogan 25:12
For sure. So the pink tax initially was some research done. Comparing products that were male and female, men and women, and the price difference between them. So we see this a lot at pharmacies or grocery stores around things like razors, shampoo, lotion, so there’s usually a price difference, or if they’re the same price, the women’s version has less volume, so less ounces, or milliliters, or whatever it is. And so that’s initially what the pink tax was identified as this extends into children’s clothing, children’s bike helmets, you know, everything. And researchers have now estimated, this is costing women between 80 and $180,000, over the course of their life. And so this was something that really pissed me off when I learned about it. But my book, The Pink Tax, kind of takes it a little bit further and starts to look at all of the other areas that women are paying more for things or are impacted financially to build their wealth. So it isn’t kind of just about the fact that we pay more for razors, because I know that there will be someone that says I’ll just buy a men’s razor. And that’s totally fair. And we can do that. But it’s systemic in our society, that women make less money and then have to pay more for things to simply just exist.

Blake Schofield 26:35
Yeah, it’s interesting, I worked in corporate retail 18 years. Of those, the majority were in the women’s side of business. And so it’s an interesting thing, because again, we can be like, Ah, it’s the horrible and terrible, and it should be all equal. But we’ll just take women and men’s apparel, for example. So I’m going to take a polar opposite one on men’s apparel changes very little, yes, it is the same polo that it has been for the last 20 years, maybe they change fabric, maybe they change color, but the body of a men’s polo shirt does not change much. Same with pants, same with shorts, same with everything. Women’s apparel is consistently changing. There’s so much research and development trend and change. So while there are certain things like you talked about a razor, yeah, probably does not need to have that substantial of a difference. But there are also things from a society standpoint, that is women that are cost to selling to women based on what they want and need that are different. And so I think it’s an interesting dialogue. Because I agree with you, I think there are places right now, where women are paying more because as a society, we allow it.

Janine Rogan 27:42
Absolutely.

Blake Schofield 27:43
Like, why is the eraser that’s a pink color that looks just like a men’s, why are we paying more, right? There’s not a ton of change. But then you go to women’s apparel. And the reality is, the profits aren’t the same. The research and development and amount of trends, the amount of time and energy that have to be put into it to create it, are very different than what happens in men’s apparel, very different. And so there’s a logical reason behind what that is. And as a society, if we continue to want those things, then we have to understand that there’s a cost to that too.

Janine Rogan 28:13
Totally. And I think two things can be true at the same time. So when we look at little kids clothes, I was I have a two and a half year old. And it’s literally the same brand. And the same two T-shirts and two shorts, at Costco, for example, and one is $3 more than the other. That’s where I have the problem. I don’t know if there’s ever I mean, maybe if it was like the same shirt for men and women, but I think there are two vastly different market sectors, where I think this really starts to impact us, too, is if we talk about credit, like we were mentioning before, women typically earn less, so they have a potential to usually get less credit, which ultimately then impacts your credit score, which if you’re going to get a mortgage, a better credit score usually will lead you to a better interest rate. So if we start to look at it from that perspective, it’s like, okay, women are paying more interest. Why is that? Well, because they make less money. And so, yes, totally, we can have the conversation around R&D for certain products, for sure. I know that there’s cost that goes into that. But when we look systemically at you know, women’s involvement in their finances, their ability to borrow, etc. I think there’s also a conversation there around just the high cost of being a woman.

Blake Schofield 29:29
100%. And you know, it’s an interesting thing, because we really are not that far removed from women not being able to get a mortgage. When you really look at it. You’re like, wow, it was not that long ago. I mean, my mom tells stories about when I was a kid, how they would go on a work trip, and she was not allowed to get a hotel room, because she was a mom and a woman and she had to be home and put food on the table for her family. Yet they would put on a flight that didn’t get home till midnight.

Janine Rogan 30:00
Wild.

Blake Schofield 30:01
Wild, right. And so it’s a really strange thing to see, where we are as a society, because we are not that far removed from not having these rights and these opportunities. And in the same respect, I see an entire society of women who have worked so hard, because we grew up with mothers and grandmothers that told us, it won’t be equal, you have to work hard, you have to do all these things. And so we’re working in many cases harder than then, putting in more hours and doing more in many cases than then, if you look at the data, it will also say women are spending more time taking care of the kids or the household. And so we have this inflection point of where more and more women are becoming exhausted and burned out, and are seeking a solution. And often I see women seeking a solution is I’m going to bail out or I’m going to take a job that’s less stressful, or I’m going to accept a pay cut in order to have a more fulfilling work or have better balance. And my challenge to them is that there’s a better way. Some of it starts with us unraveling and removing these things that are creating our own cycles of burnout, our own cycles of not valuing ourselves, and learning how to operate as a working women differently than how our mothers and grandmothers did, so that we can open up those doors for ourselves. But we can also open up those doors for future generations of our children to understand those things. And so I love what you’re talking about here in terms of learning your worth, understanding as a woman, what are some things we can do ourselves to create more equity? Because I’m super passionate as a mom of three kids. And as a woman who consistently watched women around her undervalue themselves and make these decisions to compromise, a man would never go, yes, please pay me $20,000 less, so I have better work life balance, that doesn’t happen.

Janine Rogan 32:02
And I think you’re hitting on like two really important things. So number one is unpaid care work, that unfortunately, we’ve set up our society in a way that does not value unpaid care work. So that is everything from remembering that you have to take your kids to soccer, signing their permission form, ordering the groceries, making sure dinner’s on the table, all of that work that we needed to start having conversations with our partners around equalizing some of that, or finding a solution that allows us to potentially have more flexibility, so that it is not just all on women. And then it breaks my heart to hear women leaving the workforce or asking for less, so that they can have more flexibility when they maybe don’t want to. And I mean, everyone has their choice. Like if you want to stay at home with your kids, I believe that you should, you know, have all of the choice in your life. That is something I advocate for.

Janine Rogan 32:02
But what really gets me there is I don’t know if when we’re making those decisions, if we really understand the long term impact, because for every year a woman is out of the workforce, she is giving up $200,000 in wages, potential wage growth, and benefits that government or a retirement plan or a pension would offer her based on that salary growth that she would have had. And so when I learned those numbers, I was like, Oh, my God, like $200,000. And I obviously that’s an average. But I think when we think about it from that perspective, like what is the potential growth? Because if you give up $20,000 now, what does that mean for your raises in the future, they’re always going to be $20,000 left. And so I really think that you hit the nail on the head when you said, we need to almost reimagine how we’re designing our lives and the conversations we’re having and advocating for ourselves and setting boundaries with our partners in our work, so that we can, I don’t like to use the word have it all, but we can do what we actually want. And if that’s staying in corporate and making it all the way up to the top, then we should be able to do that we shouldn’t have to bow out and take a step back.

Blake Schofield 34:09
Yeah, thank you for saying that. Yeah, it’s such a huge, huge thing that I’m really passionate about. And my clients that come into The Bridge to Fulfillment® come to understand the gaps of what we’ve not been taught. And when you have this framework, you really can have better balance and do more fulfilling work and continue to be there and enjoy your family life. And I think it’s almost in some ways, it feels like a hidden secret, because it’s so common for women to believe that it’s, you know, I make a great income. And if I make a great income or have an impactful job, I have to give up these other things.

Janine Rogan 34:44
Yeah.

Blake Schofield 34:45
And I get to a point where I’m unwilling to give up those other things, and I have to give up something in my career. And that was the internal struggle I had for so long until I began to realize that wasn’t true. It wasn’t black or white like that. But I had to learn how to view things differently, I had to gain skills that I didn’t have, to learn how to ask for what I wanted, I had to be able to view that I could create the change that I wanted and understand that different companies cultures are either fit or not a fit.

Janine Rogan 35:14
Totally.

Blake Schofield 35:15
And that many places you can have the balance that you wants, and also be fulfilled and happy.

Janine Rogan 35:23
And I think, you know, modeling the behavior that you wish you saw in those corporate places, is also something that’s so important, because when I was articling, there was one female partner, and she didn’t have kids. And to me, the unconscious story was, if you want to be a successful woman at this company, you have to give up your family. And I don’t think that they have to be mutually exclusive. But I had just never seen an example of that. So also, I think there’s something to be said for, if you’re struggling with, Oh, my God, I’m going to do this. And I’m going to advocate for myself, you’re also advocating for the women that are coming up next in the workforce to be able to see examples of women that are doing what they want with their life.

Blake Schofield 36:03
Yeah, 100%. And the more women learn this, embody it and take it back to their jobs, their families, their homes, their friendships, the more women see examples, and free to do it. And that’s how we create change. Because we often say this, right? We’re 50% of the workforce. And like, 14%, of the C suite.

Janine Rogan 36:26
Yeah, it’s that you cannot be who you cannot see.

Blake Schofield 36:29
You cannot be who you cannot see. And also, we have far more power than we believe that we do.

Janine Rogan 36:35
Totally

Blake Schofield 36:36
Because we’re the ones opting out, we are the ones saying I’m done, I’m too stressed out. Or if I take that job, it means I have to sacrifice XYZ, instead of saying, How do I create an environment that allows me to do what I want to do? How do I then change or find an environment that enables and supports me to have what I want?

Janine Rogan 36:54
And what are the tools? Who are the people? I need to make that possible? I think are some other questions and what financial resources are? Where do I need to be in my financial journey to do that? Because, you know, going back to what you said before, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man turn down a job because they were stressed at home. And there’s a lot to unpack there as to why that is. But I think I always have tried to flip. If I’m ever like questioning something like flipped like, would a man say that? And in 99% of the time, the answer is no. And so that usually tells me that I need to do a little bit more digging, or figure out a different way of approaching it.

Blake Schofield 37:34
I love that so much. What an easy, simple way to start to challenge. What are the stories I’m telling myself? Janine, our time is almost up already. I cannot believe it. Let me ask you, is there anything that I haven’t asked you yet that I should have, or anything that’s just really on your mind that you want to share with those listening?

Janine Rogan 37:57
I mean, I feel like we’ve had such a great conversation, and we could continue this conversation, I feel like he’s a flag to Canada, so we can have a glass of wine and, and keep talking about this, because it’s something that I’m so passionate about, and obviously you’re passionate about. But I would say, and I say this to people that I work with, from a money perspective, and I think that it extends into the career as well is sometimes being faced with all of this information can feel daunting and can feel like a lot. And it can be overwhelming to kind of know where to start. And so I always tell people that you only actually need to do one thing at a time. And it sounds simple. But I do believe sometimes we have analysis paralysis. And if you commit to doing one thing, whether it’s for your finances, whether it’s for your career, whether it’s for your life, one thing in a month, at the end of the year, you’ll have done 12 things that can potentially change the trajectory of where you’re going in your life, your career, your money. And so I always want to come back to that, because, you know, we give lots of examples. And I’m sure people are like, Oh, my God, that’s a great idea. That’s a great idea. But then, where do I start? So just pick one thing to change or to advocate for to do in your life. And I think giving yourself grace that you don’t have to do it all at one time is really, really important.

Blake Schofield 39:13
Awesome. Thank you. So you mentioned your new book, The Pink Tax is coming out? What’s a quick synopsis? For those that would be interested? What will they learn by diving into your book?

Janine Rogan 39:22
Yeah, so it really focuses on economic equality for women globally. And so it’s really broken out into three areas, the personal, the corporate, and the globe. So there’s something to learn for everybody, whether you’re trying to figure out how to negotiate or you have power to make change at your company, or you want to advocate politically or globally to make positive change for women. I think those are kind of the three areas that I touch on in the book and they’re all intertwined. So you will definitely learn a lot whether again, it’s how to invest or how to advocate for paid parental leave in the country that you live in. So I hope that you pick it up. It’s available online, everywhere books are sold, Amazon, Barnes and Noble chapters, Indigo, all of those wonderful places. So definitely check it out. And you can find more information at PinkTaxBook.com.

Blake Schofield 40:12
Awesome. Thank you so much. And we’ll stick that in the show notes as well for you guys, if you just want a quick direction to the book or want to follow or connect with Janine and learn more about what she does. Thank you again, Janine. It’s been such a pleasure connecting with you today. And for those of you who are listening, always appreciate you. And until next time, have a great week.

Blake Schofield 40:40
Thanks for joining me today. Rather than hope the grass will be greener, identify what the right next step is. We can help you do just that. Get clarity on where you are in your journey to career fulfillment, where you’re headed, optimal paths to get there, and the right next step to take. Start your complimentary personalized career fulfillment plan at https://thebridgetofulfillment.com/plan. Again, you can get your personalized career fulfillment plan at https://thebridgetofulfillment.com/plan Thanks again for joining and have a great week ahead!