Want to be a Badass? This Woman Can Teach You How

Posted on January 24, 2017
by Lisa Thompson
1 Comment on Want to be a Badass? This Woman Can Teach You How

Our new Women Empowerment series just started. There are many times where women right in our towns are doing amazing things that go unnoticed. They are women who are rocking it in their career, making a difference in others lives but also working to empower each other. And we want to promote them!

Today we are featuring the absolute badass Tuesday Geeting! Her and I have gotten to know each other over the years and she is always doing something new, amazing and well badass! She has the kindest soul and I pretty sure her and her husband are the power couple of all power couples (just check out their photos below)

Tuesday is well like I said a badass and let’s start by saying interviewing her was fun. I was able to visit her farm and try her famous cake…yes probably the best cake around and it was a great 10:00am treat. I definitely can get down with cake and rap music in the kitchen every morning, hanging with farm animals and learning how to be a badass.

Check out my interview with Tuesday below and be ready to want to get a little more ambitious:

1. Tuesday, can you share with our readers a little more about your background?

Sure, I graduated from Northwood University in December 2013 with a BBA in Marketing after previously starting my collegiate journey at Michigan State University (MSU) as a Journalism major. With the exception of my freshman year at MSU, I’ve worked at Dow as a high school and then college co-op since June of 2008. I transferred back from MSU to Northwood University when I realized two things: 1.) I LOVE to write, but…I HATE writing what someone tells me I have to write about and 2.) I wanted to go into business and should utilize my experiences and connections made at Dow to benefit me while still in college.

2. How many years have you been in role at The Dow Chemical Company and what exactly do you do on a regular basis?

I’ve been in my current role for nearly three years. This role has been a constantly evolving and challenging role that I’ve enjoyed greatly. Initially, I was hired to be the North American Subject Matter Expert in the Oracle Eloqua Automated Marketing tool. In that capacity, I have created close to 100 marketing campaigns that generated hundreds of leads and contributed to sales, and ultimately, profit for the company. I also needed to make sure I was ahead of the competition in the role so I was constantly looking into the solutions companies like Sureshot offer for Eloqua that may take the campaigns to the next level. I have enjoyed the opportunity to enable many Dow businesses to use this tool to its full capacity within their own businesses, allowing them to target their customers and prospects more closely. The other side of this job is less marketing related, and more technology based. This past year I’ve served as a product owner for a new mobile application – meaning I am the middle-woman between the techy folks and the sales folks, helping them to build a mobile app that will be a user friendly way to generate more sales for the company. I’ve loved this new opportunity – it has challenged me in more ways than I would have ever expected. It’s also opened me up to different career paths that I likely wouldn’t have thought I’d be good at prior to working on these projects.

3. Outside of work I know you do a ton of amazing things including lifting? Can you share more about how you got involved in this and what does this mean for you?

So, I’ve played sports all of my life and have always lifted kind of recreationally just as a byproduct of training for sports. I was about to graduate high school and had been lifting at a gym in Bay City, Michigan when I met my husband (At the gym, incidentally. Meathead love.) who is a professional level powerlifter. I obviously started to take a much greater interest in it once I had him to really coach me and expose me to powerlifting specifically. I’ve competed in one state level meet and am hoping to do another one before too long. My bench is pitiful, so I’ve been working hard on that, but my squat and deadlift are on par with some state level records; so, that encourages me to train harder and push more to get stronger and put up even bigger numbers. At my next meet, my goals are to squat 300lbs, bench my bodyweight (insert laughter here) and deadlift 400 lbs. While I am just naturally a very high energy person and I get a ton of enjoyment out of physical activity, I think my favorite part of lifting specifically is how capable it makes me. I LOVE being a physically strong woman. I can go outside on the farm and do pretty much anything that my husband can do. I mean, I may have to get innovative with my solutions and it may take me longer than him, but I’m every bit as capable in our everyday lives as he is. I think the highest compliment I’ve ever received was from this super adorable Amish boy at the feed store where we get our animal feed. I had walked into the barn and picked up a 100lb bag of grain, put it on my shoulder and walked back to the truck with it. Shortly after, my husband gets in the truck cracking up and says, “you walked away and that Amish kid goes, ‘wow, that’s a strong wife you have’.” I love that!

4. So besides lifting competitions, you are a badass woman with a huge heart, I know you also teach poms, own a farm and bake delicious cakes…. So why did you decide to have each of these pieces are of your life and can you share with me more about each?

My dad always used to say,

“it’s good to be busy, it keeps you out of trouble”

– which I always found especially funny because I never got in trouble (well, never got caught anyway) – but I guess that stuck with me. I don’t ever like to be idle. So, I have all of these pieces of my life that keep me busy. I saw an image on Pinterest the other day that said,

“Find three hobbies you love: One to make you money, one to keep you in shape and one to be creative.”

In the long term, the farm would ideally be the hobby that made us money. My husband and I are both huge animal lovers, we’re both against corporate farms and the way livestock is treated at large scale productions and we’re both very into sustainability – so, it only made sense to start our own little sustainable hobby farm. I love that we can make sure that our animals are loved and living an organic and healthy lifestyle. Having our own animal farm can ensure that we are able to keep an eye on them 24/7, so we can resolve any urgent issues that need our attention. As a result of this, our friend gave us some monocular suggestions from Outdoor Empire that would provide us with night vision to keep a much-needed eye on our animals, even in the darkest of nights. This could help to improve their safety, as well as their overall health and well-being. It’s better for them and it’s better for us. It is a very small difference in the grand scheme of things, but knowing that we’re not supporting a system that we don’t believe in and their practices that we abhor makes me feel so good. If you’re struggling to think of ideas for a hobby of your own, you could take a look at this tlhobbyideas list for some inspiration.

Secondly, while I still play sports year round, coaching poms is what I would label my hobby to keep me in shape. Not sure if you’ve hung out with any middle school girls lately, but they keep you on your toes AT ALL TIMES. I am mentally and physically exhausted after our practices. I love being the hands on type of coach that knows their routines and is doing it with them during practice. A very close friend of mine and I coach together and combined we probably have 20+ years of dance, pom and performance experience; so, we find it way more effective to teach the girls by practicing with them. It’s also super mentally stimulating – these girls are smart, motivated, and HIGH ENERGY. I love being a role model for them and someone they feel they can come to when they need someone. I’ve had a number of coaches and teachers along the way that contributed so greatly to who I am today and I want to make sure that I’m always on point in case one of these girls needs me.

My cakes are definitely my hobby to keep me creative. I’ve always loved to cook and bake. My mom likes to joke that she would send me to bed at night when I was little and hear me sneaking to watch Emeril on my little TV upstairs. I worked at a bakery in high school and loved it, and learned a lot during that time. So, I started just making all of our family birthday cakes, did a few for close friends birthdays and bridal showers and with the exposure from social media started receiving requests from other friends and acquaintances. I love creating one of a kind cakes for special events in people’s lives.

I’ve always subscribed to Julia Child’s notion that “A party without a cake is just a meeting” so I will spend whole days making a cake that is unique, delicious and memorable for someone. I think my calling in life is to feed people, and while I love where my career is headed, I’m hoping that at some point in my life I’ll get to live out that dream of owning some kind of bakery or restaurant.

5. Now the question I bet everyone has when learning everything you do, so how do you manage it?

I don’t sleep much. Kidding (not really). I mean, there are only so many hours in the day and so many days in our lives. I definitely burn the candle at both ends, but it’s for things that I love to do, so I’m going to ride it out until the energy well starts to get a little shallower. I’d like to say that there will be a time in my life in the not too distant future where I’m more relaxed, but to be completely honest, that’s really not who I am or what I enjoy anyway.

6. What advice do you have for a woman in working in a corporate atmosphere what would you say?

There’s a very fine line between assimilating to corporate life and changing who you are. I’ve struggled with this personally in many ways and what I’ve discovered as I’ve been given more leadership roles is that a number of the characteristics that I was trying to mask in myself are actually very helpful when applied properly in the workplace. I’m a very energetic and happy person, sometimes I used to think that to be successful as a woman in a Fortune 50 company I would have to start embracing the fact that I’d have to be more cold and be all business, all of the time. When I first started my career I received some feedback from a mentor whose opinion I value greatly, it was, “no one will take you seriously until you take yourself seriously.” And while I absolutely agree with that, what I’ve discovered over the past 6 years is that taking yourself seriously doesn’t mean you have to be an ice queen. It means being confident. It means expressing your opinions and sticking to them when they’re worthwhile. And it means using what’s unique about you to get the job done.

7. What does self-love mean to you?

There’s this quote from Dita Von Teese that I absolutely love,

“You could be the ripest, juiciest peach in the whole world – and there’s still going to be someone who doesn’t like peaches.”

That completely resonates with me when thinking about self-love. When I was younger, I struggled a LOT with trying to make people happy. I’d say whatever I thought they wanted to hear, be who they wanted me to be, all to keep everyone else happy – and one day I realized that I was not only suffering for this, but I was completely losing who I even was, I was becoming a blur even to myself. Now, I know who I am. I like who I am. I recognize the flaws that make me who I am. I make changes when I want and need to – but never because of someone else’s opinion of me. Self-love to me is recognizing that I deserve the love that I give so freely to others. And if they don’t return it, well then, that’s okay.

8. What is the quote that helps you push through the day and succeed?

“I will hold myself to a standard of grace – not perfection.”

9. What is next for you? Dream job?

The good thing about having so many hobbies and loves in this life is that I have 537 dream jobs. J Seeing where the wind takes me at this point. I like where I’m at currently, but that certainly doesn’t mean I’m not open to new opportunities as they arise.

10. If you could give advice to any little girl getting bullied in high school what would it be?

Top ten favorite quotes, and something that I’ve actually said to one of my girls before,

“before you diagnose yourself with low self-esteem, first make sure you’re not surrounded by a-holes.”

There are always going to be jerks, middle school and high school suck. Some of those people really are just jerks, but some of them are also experiencing their own struggles and are just trying to find themselves too. That doesn’t ever give someone an excuse to be unkind to another person – you just recognize, that it’s their problem, not yours. Find the things and the people and the things that make you happy and bring you joy. If a person or a thing doesn’t bring you joy, refuse to let it have an effect on you. You’re the only person who has the power to control your feelings and your self-worth. Be tough! And always, always, always, have a sense of humor.

My mantra, courtesy of Joan Rivers, “Life goes by fast. Enjoy it. Calm down. It’s all funny.”

Thanks to Tuesday for being an amazing badass and for sharing such amazing advice, stories and guidance for us!!

Thank you for reading!

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