Everybody has a story that contains the seeds of their leadership, passion, and unique gifts they have to bring to the world. When I met Denice, I found this couldn’t be more true. Behind every insight lies an obstacle faced, a fear overcame, and an accomplishment shared. She has a generous spirit that sparkles with what she calls her “sixth-grade sense of humor,” but underneath her contagious laugh is a fierce leader, mentor, board member, entrepreneur, and author who worked her way from cleaning floors in the steel mills of Indiana to running multiple billion-dollar companies at Johnson & Johnson.
Most of us have to overcome challenges, both internal and external, in order to realize personal and professional success. Denice is a great example that it’s not about being fearless; it’s about being courageous. It’s about having the audacity to be yourself. I’m excited to share with you Denice’s three top tips for forging ahead despite the odds in order to claim your place in the world.
1. Don’t Let Others Define You
If Denice had listened to her teachers in high school, she never would have gone to college. One teacher told her that the only way she’d go to college was if Denice’s father built her one. “I knew there was no way I was going to accept that,” says Denice. She wanted to make a difference and she knew that going to college was the path she would take to do that. Being a janitor at the steel mill while doing laundry at a local hospital in the summers allowed her to save the money to make that dream a reality.
One teacher told her that the only way she’d go to college was if Denice’s father built her one.
While working at the hospital, she noticed that people wore different colors of pants that indicated what job they had; there was one color if you were a nurse, another for doctors, and another for janitorial staff. She saw how often people did not make eye contact or associate with people wearing different colors of pants than them. “I wish I would have known when I was younger that I am not defined by the color of my pants, or the label on my shirt, or the town that I grew up in,” says Denice.
Denice was accepted to a university and realized that she was actually a very good student. She was awarded a scholarship to law school and was later accepted into a top business school. By not letting other people’s opinions of her define her, she was able to forge her own path and listen to her inner voice.
2. Bring Your Special Sauce
As a leader and mentor, Denice’s success comes from the fact that she encourages her team members and mentees to bring all of themselves to the table and strives to do the same herself, but it wasn’t always this way. “I would run marathons and do outward bound trips because I thought that I wasn’t enough, but I am enough.” She adds, “We all are.”
She calls it our special sauce. “It’s part head, part heart, and part experience,” she says. Denice explains that the lessons of our past create our foundations and give us strength. This is what Denice uses to move forward. “It didn’t happen overnight,” she adds. Denice encourages her mentees to be courageous and vulnerable, to show who they are—that there is strength in that. “My experience meeting thousands of people, leading teams and companies, being mentored and mentoring has shown me that we all have this special sauce.” This is what we need to bring to the table to succeed, and ultimately, to be happy.
We all have this special sauce. This is what we need to bring to the table to succeed, and ultimately, to be happy.
3. Don’t Be Afraid To Pivot and Make Changes
After graduating from law school, Denice practiced for a year and hated it. “I realized, not only am I not good at this, I think I’d rather flip burgers,” Denice says and laughs. She quit her job, and over the next year and a half, she cycled through a series of jobs until she landed in marketing. She had found her calling. “I loved it,” she says, but the transition wasn’t an easy one at first. “People would ask me how a lawyer was going to work in marketing.”
Since she didn’t have a track record of successful campaigns under her belt, she sold herself on her personality and work ethic, highlighting how well she worked with others and how she was willing to work her way up. “I would tell them that if I wasn’t a top performer within a year of hiring me, I would fire myself. I’d add, ‘That’s how confident I am that I’m going to do a great job for you.’” They hired her on the spot, and she stayed there for three years and still maintains a close relationship with them to this day.
Many years later, Denice took the same approach when she decided it was time to retire from Johnson & Johnson. “I took the leap,” she says. “I had to reimagine myself apart from the company and the titles.” She admits it was scary, but as she puts it, “When we align ourselves with the statements, ‘Yes, I can’ and ‘Why not me,’ great things will happen.”
When we align ourselves with the statements, ‘Yes, I can’ and ‘Why not me,’ great things will happen.
Denice is just one powerful example of how being true to yourself and your core values can pay off. Great leaders need to possess great character. That character is built not by staying in the safety zone or acquiring it through family— or even community—inheritance. If anything, it’s the opposite. It’s forged. It’s earned, and it’s uniquely yours. How are you going to apply these three tips to your career and life? What obstacles did you overcome or want to overcome?
Learn more about Denice and her work with The Mentoring Place here.
WRITTEN BY
Rebecca De Ornelas