Ep 16: Transitions with Liz Tinkham
92,000 Hours
In this episode of 92,000 Hours, Annalisa speaks with Liz Tinkham about transitions. Liz talks about the most important transitions in her lifetime and how people aren't truly afraid of change, they are afraid of uncertainty. She discusses the importance of finding happiness and setting boundaries in work and how to find meaning and purpose in your "third act" - retirement.
Liz Tinkham spent over 30 years as a leader at Accenture, working with high tech media and telecommunications companies. Upon her retirement, Liz has become an adjunct professor at the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington, where she teaches a class on consulting. She serves on several boards, and through the Athena Alliance she hosts her own podcast, Third Act, in which she explores the next phase in life for those who have retired, left, or changed careers.
Transcript
Annalisa Holcombe (1:34)
This week, I’m joined by Liz Tinkham. Liz spent over 30 years as a leader at Accenture, working with high-tech media and telecommunications companies. Upon her retirement, Liz has become an adjunct professor at the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington where she teaches a class on consulting. She also serves on several boards and, through the Athena Alliance, she hosts her own podcast—Third Act—through which she explores the next phase of life for people who have retired or changed careers. Today, we’re speaking with her about transitions.
Annalisa Holcombe (2:20)
If you remove any reference to work, school, sports, volunteerism, church activity, research…. What is your greatest accomplishment as a human?
Liz Tinkham (2:33)
I think I have two, if that’s okay. So the first one would be being a mother. I think being a mother is a bit of a miracle, even though there's billions of people born, right? But just being able to create life and then to nurture life, and to have the joy of having my three kids who are wonderful to me, is my biggest accomplishment. Whether or not I’m the world's best mother was open to debate, but it's a fantastic accomplishment that I… I feel like it's a gift, right, that I've gotten to have some children. Then, if I think about it from a personal perspective, I have a really good ability to see the best in people and that has paid off very well for me. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt and I also can see people's talents pretty clearly. That made me an effective leader of people because I could put people where they would be the best.
Liz Tinkham (3:48)
But I think it's also helped me to mentor and grow a lot of people that I didn't even know I was doing. Through my life, I've had a lot of people call me back years later, and say, “You made a big difference in my life because you told me this or that.” And I didn't know it was a something that I was doing differently than anybody else. But my husband actually told me, he's like, “You have a better ability to see the best in people than anybody I know.” So, yeah.
Annalisa Holcombe (4:18)
That's lovely. Has that played out both in your career, as well as with your children at or in your personal life?
Liz Tinkham (4:26)
Certainly in my career, for sure. As I said, I was a… well, I've been a well respected leader and people working for me and people have grown underneath me and I've seen a lot of people do very well. I probably am harder on my children, I’m sure I am, than I am other people but I can definitely see the best in them and and try to nurture that. With your kids, they don't necessarily take your advice as readily because they’re not working for you, but… I mean, it's something I probably still need to work on more. Because, as a mother, you want them to be the best all the time, so bring out the best in them. But then you also balance, “But then you need to be doing this,” so it's been a work in progress, I would say.
Annalisa Holcombe (5:17)
So when we wanted to talk about this conversation when I was… as you know, on the podcast, I try to have a theme for each episode and because of your podcast and what you're doing with your work now, I was really interested in just really talking about what does it mean to transition in your career, in your life? And so, I don't know if I really—even now I don't know, do I want it to be the language of transition, or the language of change. I don't even know, but when you think about those words or the… I’m actually thinking, what do you think about when we say transition and change? Or what do you even feel like what does it feel like for you to think we're going to talk about this?
Liz Tinkham (6:05)
Well… scary. Because I believe there's a lot of fear involved in transition and change, particularly as you get older. I like change, I kind of thrive on it, and my career as a consultant was a lot of change all the time and that's part of being a consultant. Transitioning, though, away from the identity I had as being a consultant to something else—or going from, not being a mom to being a mom or being… you know, being a mother to worker, I mean all of those sort of transitions and identity changes are hard. And it's something I explore in my podcast because I'm very interested in how people sense of identity changes when they transition. And I'm always… The other thing I think about is sort of advice. Who do you go to when you're in a period of transition? Who do you reach out to how do you think that through? So those would be sort of what I would think about.
Annalisa Holcombe (7:10)
So, can you tell us about the most impactful transitions that you have had in your life?
Liz Tinkham (7:20)
Oh gosh, that's a good question. Yeah, I'd say two. I’ll probably think of more after we hang up. When I went to college… so I graduated from high school, I went to college in Ohio, graduated… I was in high school and college in Ohio. I did well in high school and I certainly had enough friends, and you know I was fairly popular but I certainly wasn’t… I was a little more on the… I wasn't confident in myself or the way I looked. I was really smart, but I wasn't “it girl” or anything like that, right? Which is fine. And I went to college and I wasn’t quiet, but I wasn't super outgoing, I would say. I go to college, go to Ohio State, which was my last choice, but that was what I could afford and my parents could afford. And I immediately meet some people, my roommates, and then I joined a sorority. And it's such a weird thing, because I know people have their own opinions on being Greek or whatever. But I have to tell you, that was the best thing I could have done. It really brought me out. And for whatever reason, maybe being around a whole group of 100 really supportive women who are also really smart (because the house I was in had the best grades and a lot of really smart gals in there). It helped me to develop a really good sense of myself and I made a great transition to be a lot more outgoing and a lot more sure of myself and that very much helped me get a good job and get a good into a good career.
Liz Tinkham (9:00)
I would say the second big transition I made is in 2011 when I was 50 years old, which is strange. My husband and I decided to move and we moved from my job to Seattle from Chicago, and I took a different role at Accenture, which is where I was working. And so I didn't transition jobs, I still have the same level, but the position here and what I did was so different. And moving at age 50 away from a very comfortable lifestyle was a huge transition. Most of my friends and family were like “What are you doing?” And it has paid off again in spades. The Pacific Northwest is a beautiful place and we've really come to love Seattle. I had a very new role that I got that was extremely good for my career. And I had no idea it would be, I didn’t. I knew it would be good, but I didn't know would be as good, and I also met a lot of people both inside Accenture and outside of Accenture who have really broadened my life and point of view and opened up my eyes to a lot of really new and interesting things. And it brought a lot more confidence back. Not that I wasn't confident, but sort of a new level of it. And I've always encouraged people, you know—take a chance, take a risk, regardless of how old you are. So those would be the two.
Annalisa Holcombe (10:34)
I love both of those. So one of the other things you said about when you were moving at 50. That this moment about how all of your friends were saying what are you doing and I think there's something really significant about that, when it comes to how we… that influence of our periphery, of the people around us, who tell us when we're in the midst of change whether they're supporting us or think we're crazy. And I'm really interested in how that manifested itself for you and how you got through it, because I think there's something important there in terms of how we through these periods of transition and change.
Liz Tinkham (11:16)
Oh, that's a good point well I’ll tell you the first and foremost person was my husband. I mean, he was the most important part of that change because I certainly we didn't we weren't going to move unless he wanted to. And then I also asked my older son, who was in high school at the time; my daughter was in college so she was kind of left off the list. And he wanted to go as well, because I was like “I moved in high school, I thought it was terrible,” so I didn't really want to disrupt him. But my husband has a really great sense of adventure and he's also very supportive of my career. And I have to say, I don't think most spouses would have done this at 50 because we had a nice comfortable life where we were. But he was up for the adventure.
Annalisa Holcombe (12:04)
So you also mentioned this, and I want to talk about it. We as a society talk about change with fear involved, like the “fear of change”. And I went to this event once where there are a bunch of organizational leaders, they were the HR folks and the CEOs, and it was about organizational culture. And one of the speakers there asked, he said “Okay, so I want to ask all of you who has recently—in the past year—who has changed their hairstyle or color? Who's gone on a vacation to someplace they've never been? Who bought a new car? Who moved? Who switched careers?” He had all of these questions—had to child, started or ended a relationship—and so pretty soon almost everybody had their hand up. And he said “See, we're not afraid of change. That’s change. Human beings aren't afraid of change, we say we are, but we actually in some ways crave it. We're looking for change.” And he said, “So what's the role of leaders in saying that the people they lead are afraid of change? Is it us who are afraid?” and it was just an interesting conversation about are we afraid of change, or are we afraid of failing in the change? What is that fear? And so I'm just interested in you talking about that a little bit.
Liz Tinkham (13:23)
Okay, so I'm not afraid of change at all and I never have been, I don't think. You have to know, I don't know if you know much about management consulting but it's change every single day. We help our clients through change, so if you don't like change you don't take the job because one day you're assigned to a particular client. maybe you're in the city you live in and you drive there, and you do a project and then three weeks later you might get sent out of town. It’s a very unpredictable lifestyle. Your clients can call you at five o'clock at night and cancel a project or say “You know, I need you here over the weekend.” Or one night I was on a call all night and then the next day I came downstairs and said to my husband “I gotta go to India for three weeks.” Right? And so you just get very used to it and you learn to build your lifestyle around it… and it's not for everybody. If you want to know where you're going to be every single day or you want to be able to always know you can take a six o'clock SoulCycle class, it's not the place for you.
Liz Tinkham (14:30)
But if you get exhilarated with the constant change like I do, it's a great career. So I've never been afraid of change, and I think it's really healthy because life is change, right? Even one thing I see with not working at Accenture anymore is all of the things that are changing that I would have been a part of if I was working, and sometimes I feel like “I’m missing this, I'm not part of the business change that's going on with COVID” even though I'm still doing things through COVID and I'm working at the University of Washington. But it just excites me to think about what my old colleagues are doing, all the challenges they must be facing and life just keeps changing. So to me, you need to embrace it and figure out coping mechanisms to deal with it. But again, I think people just have different degrees of what they can tolerate. anything I'd be on far end of the spectrum, maybe.
Liz Tinkham (15:24)
One thing I always have said to people, and I don't know if I got this advice early on, which is… what's the worst case scenario? Oh, I know, after I had cancer. When I was 38 I had breast cancer, and it was a pretty bad case—I lived through it, thankfully, and it's so it's been 21 years but after you go through that where the worst-case scenario is death, you look at everything much differently. So everything I do, I'm like “Well, what's the worst case scenario that could happen?” And if you play that out, you will almost always able to see that you can deal with every single thing that is worst case… Because with work, death was never the worst case scenario. So once you have, that is sort of something you've already faced, to me “What's the worst case scenario? We get to Seattle, it doesn't work out, we just move back.” You take a position you don't like, change. You’re going to be able to figure out a way to work through it. And I've preached that to my kids, I used to tell people that at work and help them work through that and that tends to take the fear out of change.
Annalisa Holcombe (16:32)
Oh, I think that’s way more profound than you may even be giving it credit for. In one of my past lives, I was a divorce lawyer. One of the things I saw is that—once a significant change happened, when people were going through divorce or I'd see them at the end of divorce… it felt like, and that is also a cliche, but it felt like it really did open the door for them to think about their lives differently. Now that that had happened, the thing that they thought was the worst, they could now go, “All right, I'm gonna go try this now.” It seemed more possibility-related… depending on the person, but I feel like there's there could be… when you face that worst case thing and you get through it, then possibilities seems so much more.
Liz Tinkham (17:37)
I did, I also think it helps you to… it breaks everything down into some small steps that you can almost always work through.
Annalisa Holcombe (17:47)
I'm interested in how we bring our whole selves to work so that we don't have to be a separate person at work and at home, you can just be a person. What does that mean to you and what was that like for you in your career? Were you able to be Liz mom and Liz work? D id you want to be?
Liz Tinkham (18:08)
So I have three kids who are eight years apart, and I would say it was different from the first one to the third one as society progressed to be more accepting of working moms, and as did Accenture. So when I had Katie… well, people were thrilled. I mean, people were so excited that I was going to be a mom and all of that. And I know when I came back to work, though, I worked for somebody who was also a mom so I was lucky. And she understood the guilt thing that goes on when you first come back to work. And she was funny because, at the nine month mark, I remember working and I was feeling all bad about everything… and you know, you never feel good. You feel terrible about your kid, you feel terrible about work. And she looked at me and she's like “Get over yourself. You're feeling sorry for yourself, you're doing fine. Your kid’s fine. Your job is fine. You're kicking yourself.” And she gave me a little, I always say sometimes you need a swift kick in the butt to get yourself out of your own way, and she did that. And then that's like yeah you're right, this is probably fine. And by the time I had Will, then I had the cancer at the same time.
Liz Tinkham (17:30)
Things had changed, but as I got older and more senior and as my kids aged and grew up, they definitely—sometimes they came along with me to different trips. They sometimes came into work, if we needed it. They certainly knew what was going on. I was very supportive of working parents, I hope people would reflect that way. And then my last position, which is the one I came out to do in Seattle… I was really conscientious about working families and when we had events and things, they were always family events. We tried not to do any “work after-hours”. We had occasional dinners, but any client events or anything were all family events, because you just need to. So yeah, I think things have gotten so much better than they were in 1991 when Katie was born, so much better.
Annalisa Holcombe (20:29)
I would imagine that's absolutely true, and I think it's important for us. I wonder what advice you would give to listeners, I do know that I have a lot of listeners who are considering parenthood. What advice would you give to them as they are considering that big of a life change?
Liz Tinkham (20:50)
If they want to stay working, you mean? Yeah, you can make it work. First of all, the first thing I'd say is children bounce. I'm not saying you should do this, but you know, your kids fall off the bed and you pick them up and they're crying and they bounce. Parents are going to worry about their kids, but in general your kids are fine. I think a lot of parents obsess about a lot of things that they don't need to obsess about, and if you think back on the way they were raised, or maybe their mother was or grandparents were raised, some of the stuff that we obsess over now, my mother and grandmother never would have even thought about it. And I turned out fine.
Liz Tinkham (21:38)
So I think number one kids bounce, and number two I do believe that most issues that you might have are created by you, not by your company. And I know this to be true, because I've just seen it. And I think you need to talk about… you have to draw clear lines and boundaries yourself and you need to communicate with your employer in terms of what you can do and can't do and what you want.
Annalisa Holcombe (32:01)
One of the other things that I'm interested in hearing from you about is this work that you do with the Athena alliance, it is all about women. From that work, what have you seen in terms of how you're coaching or you're working with women executives in that space… how are they approaching change? How does that manifest itself for you in that in that work with women in particular?
Liz Tinkham (33:28)
So the Athena alliance is a company that helps senior women reach their potential to get board positions or to rise up the ranks, primarily into a CxO spot. So our population is ladies who are, say, 35 and up and moving up the career. It started with people probably a little bit older because they were looking at board positions, but we've expanded. What I do for them is run this Third Act Podcast where I'm looking at women who have reached what we call “vocational freedom”, meaning they have the time, treasure, and talent to do whatever they want. And I had this hypothesis that that group of women, which I'm in, is the first generation of women who actually have their own money. They've made enough of their own money to be able to retire comfortably and they're not just going to go play golf.
Liz Tinkham (24:25)
So when I retired a couple years ago, my husband curated a set of retirement books and they all ended up being about “Don't divorce your wife and go play golf and have fun.” And I'm like, none of them were written for women, and none of them reflected the high-achiever set of women who are now retiring. So in interviewing these folks who all are either in the transition or have been through it, what I found interesting is that most of them have been pretty purposeful about it. They found something during their working career or from when they were in college that they wanted to continue, they wanted to do and ended up going back to. Like a lot of them had been told to be educators ended up doing something else, and then went back to education. Or they saw a need in their business world that they're now solving in their third act, so to speak. And so they've had good transitions because they had something to go to.
Liz Tinkham (25:33)
Now me, on the other hand, I had not figured any of that stuff out. So the Third Act Podcast is somewhat self-serving, because I'm trying to figure out “Okay, well what should my third act be?” But it's been really fun exploring how these folks have made those transitions and, as I talked a lot about identity, how their identity has changed and how they've worked through it. And they've given a lot of really interesting life lessons around how to think that stuff through and it's been really interesting to me to learn their stories.
Annalisa Holcombe (26:07)
I love that you talk about identity, I had this in some of my leadership training that I did at Antioch actually, it was about one of the folks that was our one woman who was our Professor also worked at the Center for Creative Leadership and had us all go through this system where we looked at what are all the identities that we carry with us all the time? And she had us like really go through, and say, these are my given identities (I didn't choose them but it's a part of who I am)—whether it's like I'm a daughter or I'm an American, right? But chosen, so I could also choose to be a mother or I could choose to be an American; I could choose not to anymore. Then there are core identities—what are the things really truly at your core that you that you're working through, that you value so much that you have to figure them out. And it was it's really interesting for me because as a lawyer, I struggled a lot with my ability to be… I really love to be an advocate, but I really hated to be an adversary. And then I also struggled in a leadership role to think of myself as a nurturer but I know that that's a big piece of who I am. So I had to reframe how I owned that.
Annalisa Holcombe (27:72)
And I just wonder if, during any of your conversations about identity like we have identities in our work, but have you had conversations with people that lead you to think of their core? Or what is your core identity, when you think about that?
Liz Tinkham (27:56)
That's really a great question. I would just have to think through my guests, but a couple of them… that's come through. Most have been “I’m doing this, I'm doing that,” and then maybe they're still trying to figure out what their next identity is. But a couple of people, their core identity has come through, and you can see it because they talk about who they were in college, who they were at work, and what they're doing now, and it's all kind of the same, right? And somebody who's very artistic—she comes to mind. She always loved art, her art factored in somewhat at work—not a ton of their big career—but now she's back doing art. But just that identity of being an artist and the part of that she had taken from I think her aunt or her grandmother and how that all makes her feel. And she's doing a fine art and sort of mass-market art in her third act, which is really cool. And I just, I haven’t… I talked to a football coach and you'd never think that somebody who had that much success as a football coach would… he was one of the most authentic guests I've ever had and just a family man, and really concerned about kids.
Liz Tinkham (29:30)
And it comes through. The whole interview, it just comes through. It's really interesting, in spite of the trappings of power, wealth, fame, which are all there—that his authenticity around him himself, his family, and the kids that he nurtured as football players just sang out in this interview.
Annalisa Holcombe (29:56)
I think that's wonderful. I want to… I'm really interested in that… and I have to I let you know that what I am paying attention to with you is right at the beginning of our conversation when you talked about what you're proud of as a person is seeing the best in people. And it leads to these really great conversations that you're having with the people on your podcast where you bring out the best in them as they go iinto their Third Act. So there's something really interesting along those lines, and with regard to the third act, I also… many of the people that you're talking to, you're talking to them as they're at the potential retirement stage and I have a dear friend of mine who, we used to have these jokes with him, because every year when we would end up talking about what's next for him, he would say for probably five years—“I’m going to retire. No, really this time, I'm going to do it. I'm gonna retire.” Every year, he didn't retire, and he didn't retire. And we ended up having this lovely really vulnerable conversation where we were talking really about like “What is it we really fear in our lives?” And during the conversation he just stopped and he said “I’m so afraid of being irrelevant.”
Liz Tinkham (31:16)
Oh, that is so true.
Annalisa Holcombe (31:21)
So I wonder, I think that is really clear when you're retiring. And I would love for you to talk about what that felt like for you as you were making the decision your retirement.
Liz Tinkham (31:34)
And I'm still afraid of being irrelevant so that's a great question. It’s very hard to go from a big position of power and have a lot of people working for you and you're doing really well financially, you work for a name brand company. I just keep thinking about my business card, right, handed out—what's my business card say now?And it prevented me from retiring for many years, as it does a lot of people. But I came to a point where it's like look I've accomplished everything I wanted to, I'm leaving on a high, it's time. I had one, my youngest, was still in high school, I thought at least have one year with one kid, right? And it is really hard. And you have to—and everybody I know or who I've interviewed has said the same thing, that when you when you're at that position and then you lose that—your email, you don't get as much email, nobody calls you, it's all true.
Liz Tinkham (32:37)
You lose a lot of your friends, you have all these friends at work. Especially as a woman, all the guys—and I knew this was going to happen—I said to them “Look, I talked to you guys once a week, as soon as I retire you're never going to call me again.” Like, “Of course we're going to call you!” Never hear from them. So now, I can call them and they’ll pick up the phone, but I mean it's sort of a guy thing as well, but it's really hard. That's why I wanted to do this, to say you do need to plan for being retired—male or female, regardless of what job you have. Because you need to find something that is going to fill up your self esteem and make you feel good about the step steps that you've made or the choices you're making. It's hard. Lots of books written on it.
Annalisa Holcombe (33:22)
It seems really hard and it makes me think that, in some ways, we keep going back in this conversation—and I haven't thought about it enough because… I keep thinking about purpose and meaning. But it does also come back to confidence, too. How do you feel good about yourself, when our whole society bases ourselves on what we do?
Liz Tinkham (32:48)
Yep, society’s scoreboard, one of my guest talks about that. And you're right, purpose and meaning are a big part of what I think about with the third act. And the, you know, here's the sort of irony of the situation—when you have time, talent, and treasure—which, if you're fortunate enough to get that, like I am—everyone says “Now you can do whatever you want, you can fulfill your purpose and mission,” and I think to myself… the only life that I've known has been I got good grades in high school so that I could go to college, and then I worked my butt off during college so I could get a good job. Then I got a good job and I just worked harder, so that I could build up enough wealth and have a great career, so that I could take care of my family and whatever else I wanted. So I've had this set… it's like I've been getting A’s all along, right, so I've had scores in front of me.
Liz Tinkham (34:50)
In that period of time, I never thought about what else was I going to do? Because I was always working, I started working when I was 12 years old babysitting or whatever. And when you take all that away and then you have this sort of happy, now you can do whatever you want, the question is “What do I want to do?” And oh my gosh, Annalisa, I cannot tell you how much time I've been spending try to figure out what is my purpose and meaning in life. And some people, like my guests on third act, a lot of them know. But I think most people don't and I don’t think that's a problem. But I feel like I'm in this really fortunate situation and I need to sort of step back and say “There's more of me to give, what's the right way to do it?” And you know, I need to sort of get myself on that path.
Annalisa Holcombe (35:43)
I love that because it makes me think when I graduated from law school—you know, I'm a first-gen college student. And I joke, a little bit about going into law school was about because all the TV shows I saw, if you were successful, you are a doctor or a lawyer. And I was afraid of science, so I went to law school. Which is not the reason to make those choices, that's not right. And I remember being a 26 year old lawyer and being terrified because I was like “Wait, all I'd ever planned for was that I was going to be a lawyer, and now I am one. And I have the rest of my life in front of me, and I don't understand this path or what to do with it.” And then we take.
Liz Tinkham (36:28)
But you changed, right?
Annalisa Holcombe (36:31)
I changed, I did. Super scary and that changes all about… everybody told me I was crazy, because I come from the first gen world. So everybody was like “You're our hope, you're the person. You didn't just go to college, you went to law school and you gave it all away! What are you doing?”
Liz Tinkham (36:47)
But you got to make yourself happy.
Annalisa Holcombe (36:50)
Yeah, absolutely. And it came from me with motherhood, with that with that moment of being a mom and thinking “Wow.” You look down at that little kid and all you want for them, all I want is for you to be happy. I really legitimately don't care what your happiness looks like.
Liz Tinkham (37:08)
I feel the exact same way.
Annalisa Holcombe (37:10)
And then I remember thinking “Oh, I probably should model that.” I don't even know what happened, what this looks like for me.
Liz Tinkham (37:18)
You know, it's interesting because my brother and I both—I have one brother, and he has a great job that he loves and I had a great job I loved and our dad did not like this job. And we've talked about that, it's like maybe that modeling of my dad not really always being happy with this work told us “Boy, the 92,000 hours you spend at work, you better make sure it's something you like doing.”
Annalisa Holcombe (37:46)
Right? Exactly. And even, then the next chapter—that transition of finding the space that makes you feel fulfilled—maybe it isn't as much about purse purpose and meaning and maybe it's just about happiness.
Liz Tinkham (38:00)
Yeah. I mean I love working. I really do. I always have. So I love my job, I thought it was a terrific job. So I feel… you know, the hours I worked were meaningful and fulfilling, and so I feel really lucky that I was able to find a career that was that was enjoyable.
Annalisa Holcombe (38:24)
I feel really lucky I got to talk to you about that career and about this work. As you know, and I love that you've talked about this, I would love to hear story… I am seriously passionate about the role that mentors play in our lives, whether they are known mentors or not. In some ways, what you just said about your dad was being a mentor to you in what you didn't want to have happen in your life. So is there a story about a mentor that you would like to talk about or honor here that you want to say this person was a mentor that made a difference?
Liz Tinkham (39:01)
Absolutely. Yeah, so my mentor work was Jill Smart. She was one of my first bosses when I first started working at at Accenture. She was badass, I'd have to say. She would have fit the dictionary description of it, and I mean that in the most wonderful loving way. But she was hard charging, tough, but very smart, very fun to be around, and pushed me hard—and I like being pushed hard. And she went on to become the head of HR for Accenture over a long and storied career, she was the CHRO, and she was always my mentor, right? So she and I diverged paths after I worked for her, but we were always in contact. And it's funny, I had a child before her, but then when she had her daughter Stephanie I remember her calling me with like “Liz, you have to tell me exactly how to do it and I need all your advice.” I thought, well this is a role change, right?
Liz Tinkham (39:58)
But she would be the one, every time my career would get stuck, I would call her and I would say “Oh, this is going on, and this is going on and blah blah blah.” She's like, “What are you afraid of?” And she would kind of go into “What's the worst case scenario”, and just terrific, she would push me and I like people who push me. And, to this day, if I ever have anything I want to talk to her about or am thinking about, etc., I can still call her and say “Hey I'm in the middle of this thought or that thought, I'm thinking about doing this or that.” And she's just one of these people who gets right to the point, right to that point of where you're so uncomfortable and she'll just push it right through it. I love people like that, and so she's always been my my best mentor.
Annalisa Holcombe (40:50)
She sounds amazing.
Liz Tinkham (40:52)
She is. She's a wonderful woman.
Annalisa Holcombe (40:56)
Alright, so now, at this last moment of our conversation I just wonder… as you're spending your time doing this, figuring out your third act, and spending what hopefully is not as many of those 92,000 hours right now. When you're when you're finished with these moments of work that you're doing, whether it's on a board or at the University of Washington or doing your podcast, how do you know that those hours are spent well?
Liz Tinkham (41:30)
Oh my gosh, I'm so happy. I mean I love doing all those things. The thing I love doing the most is learning new things and talking to people, so the podcast for sure fulfills that. I always learned something so neat new about people, and people are amazing. You know, because I was listening to your podcast and so many people have interesting stories and lessons to tell. The teaching is a gift, totally a gift. I learn way from my more for my students and they learn from me, because they all come from different backgrounds and they have unique opinions. They just amaze me. They amaze me with what they come up with. And then the boards and the technology involved, it's a little more challenging than maybe what I have been used to so that's always fun to get your head around and I'm working with a lot of people that I didn't have a chance to work with at Accenture. Different, right? So I learned a lot from those as well, so all of them are a very happy time—I love my time spent on all three. No stress, either.
Annalisa Holcombe (42:35)
Which is even better.
Liz Tinkham (42:37)
Right, because, like my worst-case at Foster is grading. Like, I have to grade today—great, I can do that right. But nothing’s going to break or I'm not going to lose money or anything like I did at Accenture right. In that way it's a lot better.
Annalisa Holcombe (42:52)
Awesome, thank you for spending your time with me.
Liz Tinkham (42:55)
Thank you. It's been wonderful to talk to you.
Annalisa Holcombe (42:58)
It has been wonderful. I'm going to pay so much more attention to your podcast and your work and what you’re going to be doing next because I think I could learn a lot.
Annalisa Holcombe (1:34)
This week, I’m joined by Liz Tinkham. Liz spent over 30 years as a leader at Accenture, working with high-tech media and telecommunications companies. Upon her retirement, Liz has become an adjunct professor at the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington where she teaches a class on consulting. She also serves on several boards and, through the Athena Alliance, she hosts her own podcast—Third Act—through which she explores the next phase of life for people who have retired or changed careers. Today, we’re speaking with her about transitions.
Annalisa Holcombe (2:20)
If you remove any reference to work, school, sports, volunteerism, church activity, research…. What is your greatest accomplishment as a human?
Liz Tinkham (2:33)
I think I have two, if that’s okay. So the first one would be being a mother. I think being a mother is a bit of a miracle, even though there's billions of people born, right? But just being able to create life and then to nurture life, and to have the joy of having my three kids who are wonderful to me, is my biggest accomplishment. Whether or not I’m the world's best mother was open to debate, but it's a fantastic accomplishment that I… I feel like it's a gift, right, that I've gotten to have some children. Then, if I think about it from a personal perspective, I have a really good ability to see the best in people and that has paid off very well for me. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt and I also can see people's talents pretty clearly. That made me an effective leader of people because I could put people where they would be the best.
Liz Tinkham (3:48)
But I think it's also helped me to mentor and grow a lot of people that I didn't even know I was doing. Through my life, I've had a lot of people call me back years later, and say, “You made a big difference in my life because you told me this or that.” And I didn't know it was a something that I was doing differently than anybody else. But my husband actually told me, he's like, “You have a better ability to see the best in people than anybody I know.” So, yeah.
Annalisa Holcombe (4:18)
That's lovely. Has that played out both in your career, as well as with your children at or in your personal life?
Liz Tinkham (4:26)
Certainly in my career, for sure. As I said, I was a… well, I've been a well respected leader and people working for me and people have grown underneath me and I've seen a lot of people do very well. I probably am harder on my children, I’m sure I am, than I am other people but I can definitely see the best in them and and try to nurture that. With your kids, they don't necessarily take your advice as readily because they’re not working for you, but… I mean, it's something I probably still need to work on more. Because, as a mother, you want them to be the best all the time, so bring out the best in them. But then you also balance, “But then you need to be doing this,” so it's been a work in progress, I would say.
Annalisa Holcombe (5:17)
So when we wanted to talk about this conversation when I was… as you know, on the podcast, I try to have a theme for each episode and because of your podcast and what you're doing with your work now, I was really interested in just really talking about what does it mean to transition in your career, in your life? And so, I don't know if I really—even now I don't know, do I want it to be the language of transition, or the language of change. I don't even know, but when you think about those words or the… I’m actually thinking, what do you think about when we say transition and change? Or what do you even feel like what does it feel like for you to think we're going to talk about this?
Liz Tinkham (6:05)
Well… scary. Because I believe there's a lot of fear involved in transition and change, particularly as you get older. I like change, I kind of thrive on it, and my career as a consultant was a lot of change all the time and that's part of being a consultant. Transitioning, though, away from the identity I had as being a consultant to something else—or going from, not being a mom to being a mom or being… you know, being a mother to worker, I mean all of those sort of transitions and identity changes are hard. And it's something I explore in my podcast because I'm very interested in how people sense of identity changes when they transition. And I'm always… The other thing I think about is sort of advice. Who do you go to when you're in a period of transition? Who do you reach out to how do you think that through? So those would be sort of what I would think about.
Annalisa Holcombe (7:10)
So, can you tell us about the most impactful transitions that you have had in your life?
Liz Tinkham (7:20)
Oh gosh, that's a good question. Yeah, I'd say two. I’ll probably think of more after we hang up. When I went to college… so I graduated from high school, I went to college in Ohio, graduated… I was in high school and college in Ohio. I did well in high school and I certainly had enough friends, and you know I was fairly popular but I certainly wasn’t… I was a little more on the… I wasn't confident in myself or the way I looked. I was really smart, but I wasn't “it girl” or anything like that, right? Which is fine. And I went to college and I wasn’t quiet, but I wasn't super outgoing, I would say. I go to college, go to Ohio State, which was my last choice, but that was what I could afford and my parents could afford. And I immediately meet some people, my roommates, and then I joined a sorority. And it's such a weird thing, because I know people have their own opinions on being Greek or whatever. But I have to tell you, that was the best thing I could have done. It really brought me out. And for whatever reason, maybe being around a whole group of 100 really supportive women who are also really smart (because the house I was in had the best grades and a lot of really smart gals in there). It helped me to develop a really good sense of myself and I made a great transition to be a lot more outgoing and a lot more sure of myself and that very much helped me get a good job and get a good into a good career.
Liz Tinkham (9:00)
I would say the second big transition I made is in 2011 when I was 50 years old, which is strange. My husband and I decided to move and we moved from my job to Seattle from Chicago, and I took a different role at Accenture, which is where I was working. And so I didn't transition jobs, I still have the same level, but the position here and what I did was so different. And moving at age 50 away from a very comfortable lifestyle was a huge transition. Most of my friends and family were like “What are you doing?” And it has paid off again in spades. The Pacific Northwest is a beautiful place and we've really come to love Seattle. I had a very new role that I got that was extremely good for my career. And I had no idea it would be, I didn’t. I knew it would be good, but I didn't know would be as good, and I also met a lot of people both inside Accenture and outside of Accenture who have really broadened my life and point of view and opened up my eyes to a lot of really new and interesting things. And it brought a lot more confidence back. Not that I wasn't confident, but sort of a new level of it. And I've always encouraged people, you know—take a chance, take a risk, regardless of how old you are. So those would be the two.
Annalisa Holcombe (10:34)
I love both of those. So one of the other things you said about when you were moving at 50. That this moment about how all of your friends were saying what are you doing and I think there's something really significant about that, when it comes to how we… that influence of our periphery, of the people around us, who tell us when we're in the midst of change whether they're supporting us or think we're crazy. And I'm really interested in how that manifested itself for you and how you got through it, because I think there's something important there in terms of how we through these periods of transition and change.
Liz Tinkham (11:16)
Oh, that's a good point well I’ll tell you the first and foremost person was my husband. I mean, he was the most important part of that change because I certainly we didn't we weren't going to move unless he wanted to. And then I also asked my older son, who was in high school at the time; my daughter was in college so she was kind of left off the list. And he wanted to go as well, because I was like “I moved in high school, I thought it was terrible,” so I didn't really want to disrupt him. But my husband has a really great sense of adventure and he's also very supportive of my career. And I have to say, I don't think most spouses would have done this at 50 because we had a nice comfortable life where we were. But he was up for the adventure.
Annalisa Holcombe (12:04)
So you also mentioned this, and I want to talk about it. We as a society talk about change with fear involved, like the “fear of change”. And I went to this event once where there are a bunch of organizational leaders, they were the HR folks and the CEOs, and it was about organizational culture. And one of the speakers there asked, he said “Okay, so I want to ask all of you who has recently—in the past year—who has changed their hairstyle or color? Who's gone on a vacation to someplace they've never been? Who bought a new car? Who moved? Who switched careers?” He had all of these questions—had to child, started or ended a relationship—and so pretty soon almost everybody had their hand up. And he said “See, we're not afraid of change. That’s change. Human beings aren't afraid of change, we say we are, but we actually in some ways crave it. We're looking for change.” And he said, “So what's the role of leaders in saying that the people they lead are afraid of change? Is it us who are afraid?” and it was just an interesting conversation about are we afraid of change, or are we afraid of failing in the change? What is that fear? And so I'm just interested in you talking about that a little bit.
Liz Tinkham (13:23)
Okay, so I'm not afraid of change at all and I never have been, I don't think. You have to know, I don't know if you know much about management consulting but it's change every single day. We help our clients through change, so if you don't like change you don't take the job because one day you're assigned to a particular client. maybe you're in the city you live in and you drive there, and you do a project and then three weeks later you might get sent out of town. It’s a very unpredictable lifestyle. Your clients can call you at five o'clock at night and cancel a project or say “You know, I need you here over the weekend.” Or one night I was on a call all night and then the next day I came downstairs and said to my husband “I gotta go to India for three weeks.” Right? And so you just get very used to it and you learn to build your lifestyle around it… and it's not for everybody. If you want to know where you're going to be every single day or you want to be able to always know you can take a six o'clock SoulCycle class, it's not the place for you.
Liz Tinkham (14:30)
But if you get exhilarated with the constant change like I do, it's a great career. So I've never been afraid of change, and I think it's really healthy because life is change, right? Even one thing I see with not working at Accenture anymore is all of the things that are changing that I would have been a part of if I was working, and sometimes I feel like “I’m missing this, I'm not part of the business change that's going on with COVID” even though I'm still doing things through COVID and I'm working at the University of Washington. But it just excites me to think about what my old colleagues are doing, all the challenges they must be facing and life just keeps changing. So to me, you need to embrace it and figure out coping mechanisms to deal with it. But again, I think people just have different degrees of what they can tolerate. anything I'd be on far end of the spectrum, maybe.
Liz Tinkham (15:24)
One thing I always have said to people, and I don't know if I got this advice early on, which is… what's the worst case scenario? Oh, I know, after I had cancer. When I was 38 I had breast cancer, and it was a pretty bad case—I lived through it, thankfully, and it's so it's been 21 years but after you go through that where the worst-case scenario is death, you look at everything much differently. So everything I do, I'm like “Well, what's the worst case scenario that could happen?” And if you play that out, you will almost always able to see that you can deal with every single thing that is worst case… Because with work, death was never the worst case scenario. So once you have, that is sort of something you've already faced, to me “What's the worst case scenario? We get to Seattle, it doesn't work out, we just move back.” You take a position you don't like, change. You’re going to be able to figure out a way to work through it. And I've preached that to my kids, I used to tell people that at work and help them work through that and that tends to take the fear out of change.
Annalisa Holcombe (16:32)
Oh, I think that’s way more profound than you may even be giving it credit for. In one of my past lives, I was a divorce lawyer. One of the things I saw is that—once a significant change happened, when people were going through divorce or I'd see them at the end of divorce… it felt like, and that is also a cliche, but it felt like it really did open the door for them to think about their lives differently. Now that that had happened, the thing that they thought was the worst, they could now go, “All right, I'm gonna go try this now.” It seemed more possibility-related… depending on the person, but I feel like there's there could be… when you face that worst case thing and you get through it, then possibilities seems so much more.
Liz Tinkham (17:37)
I did, I also think it helps you to… it breaks everything down into some small steps that you can almost always work through.
Annalisa Holcombe (17:47)
I'm interested in how we bring our whole selves to work so that we don't have to be a separate person at work and at home, you can just be a person. What does that mean to you and what was that like for you in your career? Were you able to be Liz mom and Liz work? D id you want to be?
Liz Tinkham (18:08)
So I have three kids who are eight years apart, and I would say it was different from the first one to the third one as society progressed to be more accepting of working moms, and as did Accenture. So when I had Katie… well, people were thrilled. I mean, people were so excited that I was going to be a mom and all of that. And I know when I came back to work, though, I worked for somebody who was also a mom so I was lucky. And she understood the guilt thing that goes on when you first come back to work. And she was funny because, at the nine month mark, I remember working and I was feeling all bad about everything… and you know, you never feel good. You feel terrible about your kid, you feel terrible about work. And she looked at me and she's like “Get over yourself. You're feeling sorry for yourself, you're doing fine. Your kid’s fine. Your job is fine. You're kicking yourself.” And she gave me a little, I always say sometimes you need a swift kick in the butt to get yourself out of your own way, and she did that. And then that's like yeah you're right, this is probably fine. And by the time I had Will, then I had the cancer at the same time.
Liz Tinkham (17:30)
Things had changed, but as I got older and more senior and as my kids aged and grew up, they definitely—sometimes they came along with me to different trips. They sometimes came into work, if we needed it. They certainly knew what was going on. I was very supportive of working parents, I hope people would reflect that way. And then my last position, which is the one I came out to do in Seattle… I was really conscientious about working families and when we had events and things, they were always family events. We tried not to do any “work after-hours”. We had occasional dinners, but any client events or anything were all family events, because you just need to. So yeah, I think things have gotten so much better than they were in 1991 when Katie was born, so much better.
Annalisa Holcombe (20:29)
I would imagine that's absolutely true, and I think it's important for us. I wonder what advice you would give to listeners, I do know that I have a lot of listeners who are considering parenthood. What advice would you give to them as they are considering that big of a life change?
Liz Tinkham (20:50)
If they want to stay working, you mean? Yeah, you can make it work. First of all, the first thing I'd say is children bounce. I'm not saying you should do this, but you know, your kids fall off the bed and you pick them up and they're crying and they bounce. Parents are going to worry about their kids, but in general your kids are fine. I think a lot of parents obsess about a lot of things that they don't need to obsess about, and if you think back on the way they were raised, or maybe their mother was or grandparents were raised, some of the stuff that we obsess over now, my mother and grandmother never would have even thought about it. And I turned out fine.
Liz Tinkham (21:38)
So I think number one kids bounce, and number two I do believe that most issues that you might have are created by you, not by your company. And I know this to be true, because I've just seen it. And I think you need to talk about… you have to draw clear lines and boundaries yourself and you need to communicate with your employer in terms of what you can do and can't do and what you want.
Annalisa Holcombe (32:01)
One of the other things that I'm interested in hearing from you about is this work that you do with the Athena alliance, it is all about women. From that work, what have you seen in terms of how you're coaching or you're working with women executives in that space… how are they approaching change? How does that manifest itself for you in that in that work with women in particular?
Liz Tinkham (33:28)
So the Athena alliance is a company that helps senior women reach their potential to get board positions or to rise up the ranks, primarily into a CxO spot. So our population is ladies who are, say, 35 and up and moving up the career. It started with people probably a little bit older because they were looking at board positions, but we've expanded. What I do for them is run this Third Act Podcast where I'm looking at women who have reached what we call “vocational freedom”, meaning they have the time, treasure, and talent to do whatever they want. And I had this hypothesis that that group of women, which I'm in, is the first generation of women who actually have their own money. They've made enough of their own money to be able to retire comfortably and they're not just going to go play golf.
Liz Tinkham (24:25)
So when I retired a couple years ago, my husband curated a set of retirement books and they all ended up being about “Don't divorce your wife and go play golf and have fun.” And I'm like, none of them were written for women, and none of them reflected the high-achiever set of women who are now retiring. So in interviewing these folks who all are either in the transition or have been through it, what I found interesting is that most of them have been pretty purposeful about it. They found something during their working career or from when they were in college that they wanted to continue, they wanted to do and ended up going back to. Like a lot of them had been told to be educators ended up doing something else, and then went back to education. Or they saw a need in their business world that they're now solving in their third act, so to speak. And so they've had good transitions because they had something to go to.
Liz Tinkham (25:33)
Now me, on the other hand, I had not figured any of that stuff out. So the Third Act Podcast is somewhat self-serving, because I'm trying to figure out “Okay, well what should my third act be?” But it's been really fun exploring how these folks have made those transitions and, as I talked a lot about identity, how their identity has changed and how they've worked through it. And they've given a lot of really interesting life lessons around how to think that stuff through and it's been really interesting to me to learn their stories.
Annalisa Holcombe (26:07)
I love that you talk about identity, I had this in some of my leadership training that I did at Antioch actually, it was about one of the folks that was our one woman who was our Professor also worked at the Center for Creative Leadership and had us all go through this system where we looked at what are all the identities that we carry with us all the time? And she had us like really go through, and say, these are my given identities (I didn't choose them but it's a part of who I am)—whether it's like I'm a daughter or I'm an American, right? But chosen, so I could also choose to be a mother or I could choose to be an American; I could choose not to anymore. Then there are core identities—what are the things really truly at your core that you that you're working through, that you value so much that you have to figure them out. And it was it's really interesting for me because as a lawyer, I struggled a lot with my ability to be… I really love to be an advocate, but I really hated to be an adversary. And then I also struggled in a leadership role to think of myself as a nurturer but I know that that's a big piece of who I am. So I had to reframe how I owned that.
Annalisa Holcombe (27:72)
And I just wonder if, during any of your conversations about identity like we have identities in our work, but have you had conversations with people that lead you to think of their core? Or what is your core identity, when you think about that?
Liz Tinkham (27:56)
That's really a great question. I would just have to think through my guests, but a couple of them… that's come through. Most have been “I’m doing this, I'm doing that,” and then maybe they're still trying to figure out what their next identity is. But a couple of people, their core identity has come through, and you can see it because they talk about who they were in college, who they were at work, and what they're doing now, and it's all kind of the same, right? And somebody who's very artistic—she comes to mind. She always loved art, her art factored in somewhat at work—not a ton of their big career—but now she's back doing art. But just that identity of being an artist and the part of that she had taken from I think her aunt or her grandmother and how that all makes her feel. And she's doing a fine art and sort of mass-market art in her third act, which is really cool. And I just, I haven’t… I talked to a football coach and you'd never think that somebody who had that much success as a football coach would… he was one of the most authentic guests I've ever had and just a family man, and really concerned about kids.
Liz Tinkham (29:30)
And it comes through. The whole interview, it just comes through. It's really interesting, in spite of the trappings of power, wealth, fame, which are all there—that his authenticity around him himself, his family, and the kids that he nurtured as football players just sang out in this interview.
Annalisa Holcombe (29:56)
I think that's wonderful. I want to… I'm really interested in that… and I have to I let you know that what I am paying attention to with you is right at the beginning of our conversation when you talked about what you're proud of as a person is seeing the best in people. And it leads to these really great conversations that you're having with the people on your podcast where you bring out the best in them as they go iinto their Third Act. So there's something really interesting along those lines, and with regard to the third act, I also… many of the people that you're talking to, you're talking to them as they're at the potential retirement stage and I have a dear friend of mine who, we used to have these jokes with him, because every year when we would end up talking about what's next for him, he would say for probably five years—“I’m going to retire. No, really this time, I'm going to do it. I'm gonna retire.” Every year, he didn't retire, and he didn't retire. And we ended up having this lovely really vulnerable conversation where we were talking really about like “What is it we really fear in our lives?” And during the conversation he just stopped and he said “I’m so afraid of being irrelevant.”
Liz Tinkham (31:16)
Oh, that is so true.
Annalisa Holcombe (31:21)
So I wonder, I think that is really clear when you're retiring. And I would love for you to talk about what that felt like for you as you were making the decision your retirement.
Liz Tinkham (31:34)
And I'm still afraid of being irrelevant so that's a great question. It’s very hard to go from a big position of power and have a lot of people working for you and you're doing really well financially, you work for a name brand company. I just keep thinking about my business card, right, handed out—what's my business card say now?And it prevented me from retiring for many years, as it does a lot of people. But I came to a point where it's like look I've accomplished everything I wanted to, I'm leaving on a high, it's time. I had one, my youngest, was still in high school, I thought at least have one year with one kid, right? And it is really hard. And you have to—and everybody I know or who I've interviewed has said the same thing, that when you when you're at that position and then you lose that—your email, you don't get as much email, nobody calls you, it's all true.
Liz Tinkham (32:37)
You lose a lot of your friends, you have all these friends at work. Especially as a woman, all the guys—and I knew this was going to happen—I said to them “Look, I talked to you guys once a week, as soon as I retire you're never going to call me again.” Like, “Of course we're going to call you!” Never hear from them. So now, I can call them and they’ll pick up the phone, but I mean it's sort of a guy thing as well, but it's really hard. That's why I wanted to do this, to say you do need to plan for being retired—male or female, regardless of what job you have. Because you need to find something that is going to fill up your self esteem and make you feel good about the step steps that you've made or the choices you're making. It's hard. Lots of books written on it.
Annalisa Holcombe (33:22)
It seems really hard and it makes me think that, in some ways, we keep going back in this conversation—and I haven't thought about it enough because… I keep thinking about purpose and meaning. But it does also come back to confidence, too. How do you feel good about yourself, when our whole society bases ourselves on what we do?
Liz Tinkham (32:48)
Yep, society’s scoreboard, one of my guest talks about that. And you're right, purpose and meaning are a big part of what I think about with the third act. And the, you know, here's the sort of irony of the situation—when you have time, talent, and treasure—which, if you're fortunate enough to get that, like I am—everyone says “Now you can do whatever you want, you can fulfill your purpose and mission,” and I think to myself… the only life that I've known has been I got good grades in high school so that I could go to college, and then I worked my butt off during college so I could get a good job. Then I got a good job and I just worked harder, so that I could build up enough wealth and have a great career, so that I could take care of my family and whatever else I wanted. So I've had this set… it's like I've been getting A’s all along, right, so I've had scores in front of me.
Liz Tinkham (34:50)
In that period of time, I never thought about what else was I going to do? Because I was always working, I started working when I was 12 years old babysitting or whatever. And when you take all that away and then you have this sort of happy, now you can do whatever you want, the question is “What do I want to do?” And oh my gosh, Annalisa, I cannot tell you how much time I've been spending try to figure out what is my purpose and meaning in life. And some people, like my guests on third act, a lot of them know. But I think most people don't and I don’t think that's a problem. But I feel like I'm in this really fortunate situation and I need to sort of step back and say “There's more of me to give, what's the right way to do it?” And you know, I need to sort of get myself on that path.
Annalisa Holcombe (35:43)
I love that because it makes me think when I graduated from law school—you know, I'm a first-gen college student. And I joke, a little bit about going into law school was about because all the TV shows I saw, if you were successful, you are a doctor or a lawyer. And I was afraid of science, so I went to law school. Which is not the reason to make those choices, that's not right. And I remember being a 26 year old lawyer and being terrified because I was like “Wait, all I'd ever planned for was that I was going to be a lawyer, and now I am one. And I have the rest of my life in front of me, and I don't understand this path or what to do with it.” And then we take.
Liz Tinkham (36:28)
But you changed, right?
Annalisa Holcombe (36:31)
I changed, I did. Super scary and that changes all about… everybody told me I was crazy, because I come from the first gen world. So everybody was like “You're our hope, you're the person. You didn't just go to college, you went to law school and you gave it all away! What are you doing?”
Liz Tinkham (36:47)
But you got to make yourself happy.
Annalisa Holcombe (36:50)
Yeah, absolutely. And it came from me with motherhood, with that with that moment of being a mom and thinking “Wow.” You look down at that little kid and all you want for them, all I want is for you to be happy. I really legitimately don't care what your happiness looks like.
Liz Tinkham (37:08)
I feel the exact same way.
Annalisa Holcombe (37:10)
And then I remember thinking “Oh, I probably should model that.” I don't even know what happened, what this looks like for me.
Liz Tinkham (37:18)
You know, it's interesting because my brother and I both—I have one brother, and he has a great job that he loves and I had a great job I loved and our dad did not like this job. And we've talked about that, it's like maybe that modeling of my dad not really always being happy with this work told us “Boy, the 92,000 hours you spend at work, you better make sure it's something you like doing.”
Annalisa Holcombe (37:46)
Right? Exactly. And even, then the next chapter—that transition of finding the space that makes you feel fulfilled—maybe it isn't as much about purse purpose and meaning and maybe it's just about happiness.
Liz Tinkham (38:00)
Yeah. I mean I love working. I really do. I always have. So I love my job, I thought it was a terrific job. So I feel… you know, the hours I worked were meaningful and fulfilling, and so I feel really lucky that I was able to find a career that was that was enjoyable.
Annalisa Holcombe (38:24)
I feel really lucky I got to talk to you about that career and about this work. As you know, and I love that you've talked about this, I would love to hear story… I am seriously passionate about the role that mentors play in our lives, whether they are known mentors or not. In some ways, what you just said about your dad was being a mentor to you in what you didn't want to have happen in your life. So is there a story about a mentor that you would like to talk about or honor here that you want to say this person was a mentor that made a difference?
Liz Tinkham (39:01)
Absolutely. Yeah, so my mentor work was Jill Smart. She was one of my first bosses when I first started working at at Accenture. She was badass, I'd have to say. She would have fit the dictionary description of it, and I mean that in the most wonderful loving way. But she was hard charging, tough, but very smart, very fun to be around, and pushed me hard—and I like being pushed hard. And she went on to become the head of HR for Accenture over a long and storied career, she was the CHRO, and she was always my mentor, right? So she and I diverged paths after I worked for her, but we were always in contact. And it's funny, I had a child before her, but then when she had her daughter Stephanie I remember her calling me with like “Liz, you have to tell me exactly how to do it and I need all your advice.” I thought, well this is a role change, right?
Liz Tinkham (39:58)
But she would be the one, every time my career would get stuck, I would call her and I would say “Oh, this is going on, and this is going on and blah blah blah.” She's like, “What are you afraid of?” And she would kind of go into “What's the worst case scenario”, and just terrific, she would push me and I like people who push me. And, to this day, if I ever have anything I want to talk to her about or am thinking about, etc., I can still call her and say “Hey I'm in the middle of this thought or that thought, I'm thinking about doing this or that.” And she's just one of these people who gets right to the point, right to that point of where you're so uncomfortable and she'll just push it right through it. I love people like that, and so she's always been my my best mentor.
Annalisa Holcombe (40:50)
She sounds amazing.
Liz Tinkham (40:52)
She is. She's a wonderful woman.
Annalisa Holcombe (40:56)
Alright, so now, at this last moment of our conversation I just wonder… as you're spending your time doing this, figuring out your third act, and spending what hopefully is not as many of those 92,000 hours right now. When you're when you're finished with these moments of work that you're doing, whether it's on a board or at the University of Washington or doing your podcast, how do you know that those hours are spent well?
Liz Tinkham (41:30)
Oh my gosh, I'm so happy. I mean I love doing all those things. The thing I love doing the most is learning new things and talking to people, so the podcast for sure fulfills that. I always learned something so neat new about people, and people are amazing. You know, because I was listening to your podcast and so many people have interesting stories and lessons to tell. The teaching is a gift, totally a gift. I learn way from my more for my students and they learn from me, because they all come from different backgrounds and they have unique opinions. They just amaze me. They amaze me with what they come up with. And then the boards and the technology involved, it's a little more challenging than maybe what I have been used to so that's always fun to get your head around and I'm working with a lot of people that I didn't have a chance to work with at Accenture. Different, right? So I learned a lot from those as well, so all of them are a very happy time—I love my time spent on all three. No stress, either.
Annalisa Holcombe (42:35)
Which is even better.
Liz Tinkham (42:37)
Right, because, like my worst-case at Foster is grading. Like, I have to grade today—great, I can do that right. But nothing’s going to break or I'm not going to lose money or anything like I did at Accenture right. In that way it's a lot better.
Annalisa Holcombe (42:52)
Awesome, thank you for spending your time with me.
Liz Tinkham (42:55)
Thank you. It's been wonderful to talk to you.
Annalisa Holcombe (42:58)
It has been wonderful. I'm going to pay so much more attention to your podcast and your work and what you’re going to be doing next because I think I could learn a lot.