On Thin Ice.

🪩 RISE & RAGE, MUFFINS 🪩

A bit of sap to start:

I’ve been with my company for nearly 6 years and in that time frame, I have experienced a career evolution that I never saw coming. This is dedicated to my incredible coworkers, the amazing leadership I’ve had the opportunity to work with, the clients who have become friends and my entire Torc community. Thank you all for your endless support along the way! This isn’t just my story, it’s proof of what happens when individuals are lifted up by a strong, connected community. Cheers to all of you!

Spoiler: Community is everything to me.

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🚫🧢 No Cap Recap

I have teased this blog post on the internet a few times so I really hope it lives up to the hype. BUT before we get into it, here is a few updates to catch you up on:

💻 My coding journey: do you like instant gratification? if so, do not learn JavaScript. I need to see things happen soon or I am liable to crash out.
🎙️ I have a badass idea for a new podcast series and cannot wait to share more updates on that with y'all! Shoutout to Jesse Hall, the creative genius. I am definitely going to need to lean on my community for this to be successful.
⛳️ I took a work trip to PHX and played TPC Scottsdale. Talk about an incredible experience! This is a fun addition because the clients I was able to connect and break bread with are the very center of this blog piece. I posted a couple of videos on my socials but here are some pics for a sneak peek:

🐘 Recently I visited family and took my kid to see the University of Alabama Campus. It was surreal for me to bring him somewhere that holds such a special space in my heart. Look at us:

So, now that I know how curious all of you are, I'll answer the "Million Dollar" question... (only bama fans will get that joke. #IYKYK)

What do I actually do for work? 👩🏼‍💻

The short answer: I sell IT and Engineering Managed Services to enterprise companies.

This means that I help my clients solve problems by giving a solution that allows them to free up internal resources and provides specialized skill sets where needed through a scalable and flexible project model. The really cool thing about this is each statement of work we create is customizable to the clients specific need whether that's fixed fee or outcome-based. 

That was a lot of corporate talk.

BUT HOW DID I GET HERE?!

Let's talk personal first:

I'm a middle child. What I say next will be heard around the world: I was EXTREMELY shy growing up.  It wasn't until I moved to a new state right before starting high school that I realized the whole "not talking to new people" thing wasn't going to work out for me. I had to make an active decision to be curious about other people.  I also ended up working in the service industry for about 8 years. That industry gave me the opportunity to fine tune this soft-skill which would ultimately become the greatest passion of mine: human connection.

Now, let's talk professional:

First and foremost, anyone who works in staffing knows that no one really sets out to have a career in staffing. Every person who works in staffing has their own "how I got here" story and none of them begin with "since I was a little girl I always knew I wanted to work in staffing". We didn't choose the staffing life, the staffing life chose us. 

I have only ever staffed in the IT, engineering and creative spaces and you will never find me working in any other industry ever again. It was love at first phone-screen.

In the early years of my recruiting career, I was a yes-woman. I worked in several of the companies different business units and that allowed me to develop an understanding of where I wanted to go as I progressed in my career.

How do you go from being a recruiter, placing candidates in tech roles to selling managed services and project solutions?  My story is one that includes trustworthy leadership and some big leaps of faith.

When I decided to move from recruiting to account management, it felt like a natural career evolution. I managed accounts and sustained relationships but it always felt so... transactional. It paid the bills but surely that couldn't just be it for me. This type of account management lacked the personal connection that I required to feel confident and excited about the work I was doing.  

At the recommendation of my fearless leader at the time, we will call her Laurina (mostly because that's her actual name), I inherited an account that required me to travel to a client site. This was something I had never done before. So here I go, with my flight anxiety, imposter syndrome and a dream packed into my suitcase! I took a flight to meet an executive vice president and client partner who I worked with internally. That was honestly one of the most intimidating moments in my entire career up to that point.  I'll set the scene for you: It is mid-January in the northeastern US. There is snow everywhere. I am dressed for the job I want, not the job I have. I meet the EVP, we will call him John (mostly because that's his actual name), and we begin our trek to the clients office.  We made it about 2 blocks before I "stepped" outside of my comfort zone and "slipped" on the ice of uncertainty right then and there on a corner block in front of God and everyone. I mean it was like someone pulled the imaginary rug right from underneath me.  Wild.

I am not kidding. I fell so hard that multiple people gasped. This not only gets filed in the top 3 most embarrassing moments of my life but also the most humbling! 

John asked me about 10 times if I was okay. "No, but seriously are you okay?"Physically I was fine. Emotionally and psychologically I was absolutely wrecked. Honestly, the experience could only go up from there.  Both John and I would go on to laugh over this story and we continue to laugh about it every time we catch up! (That is if we aren't already throwing salt in the wound of each others respective SEC Football rival's loss)

This was my first ever in person client visit and I was absolutely 🐝 buzzing 🐝 from it!  The feeling of something being meaningful versus transactional was profound. Now make no mistake, I am not saying that staffing isn't meaningful because it certainly is, in fact it's monumental in my career evolution and in the workforce as a whole. For my personal career, I knew Solutions was my calling!

After I headed home, John reached out and said that if I ever considered moving to sales, he wanted to be on the top of the contact list. Seriously! Even after I slipped and fell on ice within about 10 minutes of meeting him. To me, this is proof that shared laughter and humility helped build connection and trust.  Building a community around your professional life isn’t just about work but also shared bonding moments, no matter how embarrassing. 

About 5 months later, after I had finally recovered from my embarrassment, I pinged John and said "put me in, coach!" and soon enough I was fully submerged in the world of Solutions and Managed Services. Boy, was I in way over my head.  The way I describe it is if this were Guitar Hero, I went from easy mode to hard mode basically overnight. 

Similarly to my journey in software development, I quickly realized that the best way to learn was to just do. I was winging it out there with the backing of John and my new direct leader, we will call him Dave (mostly because that's his actual name). 

Why are these two guys so important?  I'm so glad you asked. It took one of them believing in me and the other one pushing me to my limit for me to figure out what kind of seller I am. The thing about Dave is that even though he is no longer my direct leader, I still experience unrelenting support from him in my professional life as well as my side projects and that’s a direct result of the power of community! 

My first client meeting, my first year-long sales cycle and my first deal were pivotal for me and the one thing that I can say contributed the most to my success was the leadership and support that I had behind me.  On God, if it were not for them, I would not have pushed myself outside of the limits of what could be done.

Not to mention this: a year long sales cycle? GRUELING. Patience, persistence, the ability to overcome adversity and push through roadblock after roadblock. If you know, you know.  One simply does not make it through this type of process by doing everything on their own.

The project in question was not executed without obstacles. Actually, the first draft of the project statement of work was IMMEDIATELY rejected by the client's contingent labor department. I was crushed.. but Dave pushed me. He kept the faith.  This project was my baby and we both wanted to save it at all costs.  What do you do when you are at a crossroad like this? You have to think outside of the box. You have to bring in the experts. I worked with our pre-sales solutions team and our industry group leader to help pivot to a solution that would work for the client based on the problem they had along with the guidelines set forth by their sourcing department.

Regardless of whether or not that sounds like a foreign language to you, the important part is this: I had to put my faith in other people and trust that they knew the process better than me in order to achieve the success I was striving for. I took a leap of faith even attempting to execute this project. The client took a leap of faith by allowing me to help them solve that problem.

/*Side Note: I fostered a professional relationship with this client over the course of a entire year before having the opportunity to go to PHX and meet them face to face. I can't explain how meeting someone face-to-face for the first time after you have been working with them on something so groundbreaking is just electrifying! I went from working with this team virtually to cultivating friendship and community with a them pretty much overnight. Now we are bouncing between work talk and discussions on Light Saber fights, Jedi vs. Sith, etc. You can absolutely create community virtually but the real deal comes to fruition when you take it to the level of interpersonal connection.*/

Now back to the project: There were people along the way who directly told me "you are not going to be able to do this" but the fact that I had no preconceived idea of what COULDN'T be done opened me up to the possibility of what COULD be done.

During this year-long sales cycle, I gained things, I lost things (but mostly gained!) and one of those things was my current client partner, we will call him Art (mostly because.... you know where I'm going with this).  Art came into this deal, helped me pick myself up by my bootstraps and said "get back in the game!".  This is important to me because in a time when you have leadership changes, a lot of things can get left behind. But not with Art.  In fact, the knowledge I have gained from his leadership has benefited me in both my personal and professional life.

Here’s the cool part: what struck me most was that this wasn’t just a win for me, it was a win born out of community. When people across departments, specialties, and even companies come together with a shared vision, the impossible becomes possible. Their leadership reminded me that no win is ever just yours. Every success is stitched together by the people who gave feedback, opened doors, or simply stood in your corner. 

I don't know how this happened but from day one of working with this company, have hit the leadership jackpot. I have experienced these leaders putting their people first, pushing their people forward and most importantly, pulling people together to create a community that champions the success of others. 

Truthfully, It is through the confidence of those leaders and support from my peers that I was able to step out onto the stage and operate in my role in a way that accurately reflects who I am as a person, my values and what I want to help others achieve.

My entire point here is this: find the leadership and community who helps you back up when you slip on the ice. Because make no mistake, you will slip; but it will always be about how you get back up and the community that surrounds you while you do it. A supportive community, whether that’s leaders, peers, or partners is what transforms setbacks into springboards. If you are a leader and you're reading this, be the leader that uplifts, pushes forward and connects people together. Be the leader that encourages community. Be the leader who cares enough to ask "No, but seriously are you okay?" 10 times.

xx - Jordyn W.