How Tide Risers Transformed My Life

Before I start, I would like to share that I’ve participated & joined a few groups in the past 2 years, and each one of these groups has had an impact on my life & business in a profound way that I simply didn’t get from working in the corporate industry. I like to say that I’m somewhat lucky that I got laid off because it really did change my life. I hate to think where I’d be right now if I were still there, probably still miserable. It’s not to say I’m not grateful for the time I spent working in the corporate industry, it’s definitely taught me a lot. But there’s something about being part of this community where there’s this whole other world of women that are making their own impact on the world.

Each one of the communities I belong to has had an impact, and I’m grateful to be a part of every single one of them. I really wanted to highlight Tide Risers because it’s really pushed me way beyond my comfort zone in such a good way that I can’t help but want to share this experience. It’s somewhat challenging to articulate my experience, but I’m going to try!

Some of you may know that at the beginning of this year I joined a women’s leadership organization called Tide Risers. I will fully admit i had no idea what I was getting myself into but i knew i needed to be part of a local organization for at least a year.

Before i made the commitment, i contacted them & asked if it would be at all possible to have interpreters provided for at these sessions because 3 hours with no interpreters is exhausting and I wouldn't feel as if i would get the full benefits. Lucky for me, Lara & Danielle were all in! We worked to get a team of 2 interpreters to commit for the year long cohort! 

In January of 2019, we all braved the winter weather, and met each other for the first time. Meeting these women for the first time was quite an experience, learning about who they were, what they did, and what they wanted to do. I was truly excited to get to know these women! Each person was unique, some worked for themselves, some had a side hustle, some worked for a company, and some were wanting to start a business for themselves. But I could tell, we were all looking for a way to take things to the next level. 

As a few months went by, the sessions were impactful and I would leave each session feeling all the feels. My biggest struggle was facing the one thing that was standing in my way and that was myself. I was standing in my own way. I had this notion that I was cool with my identity of being this deaf girl in a hearing world, always straddling the line and making do with what I had. 

During one of these sessions, we did an exercise where we had to identify between several different choices of what was important to us and who we were. It was during this exercise that my being deaf constantly came up. After the meeting, I really struggled with the entire notion of why I consistently identified as deaf despite me saying, “Oh being deaf is a small part of me.”

It was probably a week later or so, when I had a conversation with one of the women in my stick with her groups. During this conversation, we discovered there were a lot of parallels between us. And she asked me a question that went along the lines of this, “are you fine with always straddling between the two worlds (deaf and hearing?” I had replied “well, no.” (The reason why I said no was because it’s exhausting straddling the line between “two worlds…”)  

A few days later, a light bulb went off and realized that my being deaf was who I was. Everything that happened in my life is because I was born deaf.

Needless to say after that realization, I went from zero to a hundred, as Danielle likes to say! 

This personal development that I experienced as I went through Tide Risers allowed me to really open my mind and figure out what the next step in my life & business needed to be. I’ll be honest, even though I’m not quite sure where my business headed, but I do know that this focus on educating and working with businesses to help them make sure they’re accessible for all is something I need to do. 

I also wanted to mention that while at Tide Risers Summit in New Orleans, I had a conversation with someone from another cohort, and she credits Tide Risers with pushing her to make a move to leave her job & go back to grad school. The thing we had in common was that we both worked for a corporation, while there the experience is fine, and most corporations do offer networking groups, but we both agreed there was a limit as to how personal you could go. 

I’ve never ever felt comfortable with the network groups at my previous company nor did I feel that it would benefit me & my career in any way. It literally just felt like the only reason I’d be a part of these groups was to get ahead and schmooze, which isn’t a bad thing. But it wasn’t something I wanted to do. 

To wrap it up, even though I didn’t have a clear idea on what I would be getting out of Tide Risers, there was something in my gut that told me this was going to be a move that was going to impact me on some way. 

I know it all sounds so abstract and crazy and maybe a little woo woo (which if you know me, I’m soooo not into that stuff), but it’s an experience that women who want to make a change in their lives and use that to make a change in the world no matter how big or small it is, it’s something you should do. Take that leap!