Tiffany Dufu: What if the Power Move Was to Just Let Go?
Good Life Project
Jonathan Fields / Acast
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2017
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When Tiffany Dufu left for summer camp as a teen, both parents dropped her off. Only one picked her up.
She’d soon discover her parents had split while she’d been gone. Not long after, her mom’s boyfriend moved in and began to behave in ways Dufu, a self-described preacher’s daughter, had never been exposed to. When this stranger in her home became violent she left to live with her father and began to rebuild her life.
But it wasn’t until years later, when returning from maternity leave to assume her role as Chief Leadership Officer of Levo, that she found herself in crisis-mode, and began to ask deeper questions.
While Dufu had spent years as a strong advocate for women in leadership positions at the highest levels of industry and government, she’d never examined the far more personal roles she and her husband had “defaulted” to in everyday life. She’d never realized how it was stifling her life and stopping her from truly stepping into her potential.
Things had to change. How she navigated this challenging moment, recreated her relationship with her husband and opened space to thrive in life is a major focus of today’s conversation, along with the moments and stories that led to the wisdom in her new book, drop the ball.
Be sure to subscribe to our weekly Good Life Updates and listen on iTunes to make sure you never miss an episode!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I had been really encouraging women to aspire to be CEOs and senators and to launch their |
| 0:10.1 | own businesses to be entrepreneurs. |
| 0:13.1 | But the women were saying, Tiffany, that's all well and good. |
| 0:15.6 | But I'm just trying to figure out how do I get out of the house in the morning on time |
| 0:18.7 | with everybody with the right backpack and the right lunch. |
| 0:21.4 | And I just, I can't quite get there because I'm just so overwhelmed with what's currently |
| 0:27.4 | on my plate. |
| 0:29.4 | Today's guest, Tiffany Dufu, has been featured in New York Times, Essence O, MPR. |
| 0:37.5 | She's a consultant to Fortune 500 companies, a speaker on leadership. |
| 0:43.1 | She's presented at Fortune's most powerful women summit makers, Ted Women. |
| 0:47.8 | She's pretty much a force of nature and an awesome human being. |
| 0:52.6 | And we sit down today to talk about a bit of a different topic. |
| 0:56.2 | She's also the author of a new book called Drop the Ball. |
| 1:00.7 | And it's an exploration of how sometimes we're so externally focused on building tools |
| 1:07.3 | for leadership, for growth, for performance in the big questions, the big topics that |
| 1:13.2 | we find are super important to us, super meaningful to us, the things we consider ourselves |
| 1:18.0 | to be contributing to the world the most fiercely. |
| 1:22.8 | And we kind of forget to reflect back on some of the deeper assumptions that govern |
| 1:27.9 | our personal lives, our personal relationships and really look at how those are affecting |
| 1:35.0 | the way that we're bringing ourselves to the world, you know, re-examining roles of gender |
| 1:39.4 | in relationships, typical roles and jobs within a household. |
| 1:44.7 | And it's so interesting because I think so often, so many folks who rise to power and |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jonathan Fields / Acast, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Jonathan Fields / Acast and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.