Meet this boss babe Jodi tate

This is a podcast episode featuring a special guest, Jodi Tate, who is known for her kindness and thoughtfulness. The host discusses Jodi's background and how she is a successful businesswoman. Jodi talks about her career path as a cosmetologist and owning a salon, and how she transitioned to working for a healthcare company called Canyonlands. She shares her role as a grants director and her work with community health workers to help diabetic patients navigate the healthcare system. Jodi's motivation comes from her personal experience with her father's unmanaged diabetes. She emphasizes the importance of helping people feel good about themselves and their lives. Despite facing challenges, Jodi remains open-minded and confident in her abilities. Overall, Jodi's story is inspiring and showcases her dedication to making a difference in people's lives. Hello, this is your host, Allie Hansen, and welcome back to the Overcome and Become podcast. Let's get motivated. Hello, hello, you guys. Welcome back to another incredible episode. As you saw by the title, we have a very, very special guest on. This week, once again, this is your host, Allie, and I am so happy to be here. But let's dive into Jodi Tate for just a minute before we welcome her on here. So a little backstory, her husband, Aaron Tate, is the guy who actually diagnosed me. And that's how we kind of got introduced into her family because her loving and kind heart sent a package to me while I was up in the hospital in Salt Lake for six weeks with all of this Halloween stuff to decorate my room and just really do her part to make the experience better and just to make my room feel more cozy. So that's something that I will never forget. But I'm on here for this episode with her today to talk about business. Now, the reason I want to talk about business is because she's a boss woman. OK, she is amazing. Like, I have no words for her. She is just, uh-huh, like gets it. She works incredibly hard, like another level of hard work that I have never seen before, a level of hard work that I will push myself to be every single day. But on top of her boss woman, like she is just one of the most thoughtful, kind people you will ever meet. If you even come down with a little cough or runny nose before you even have a second to say anything, she'll be like, oh, I'm going to bring dinner to you tonight. And not only does she bring dinner to you, but she really thinks about things. If you have a cold, she's going to make you soup without a doubt. But she's not just going to make you soup. She's going to make you the best soup in the world. So she is one of the most well-rounded women I've ever met, someone that I am proud to have in my life, someone that I am so grateful to have gotten so close with and someone that I can look up to every single day. I love this girl. And I know after this episode, you guys are going to feel inspired and you guys are going to love her, too. So I cannot wait to get into this episode. Without further ado, let's welcome Jodi Tate. OK, she's sitting here next to me now. Why don't you say hi? Hello. I am so excited to have you on today. But of course, per usual, you've listened to our episodes before. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself so we can get to know our guests before we get into the juice of this episode? Hi. So my name is Jodi Tate. I'm a little bit about myself. I don't know what to say. I think that's something like a mom deals with because you're like your life is like wrapped up in your children. So I'm never going to say about myself. But I grew up in Las Vegas. I love to travel. I love to bake and make things like to me, food is love. So I love to provide that through creativity, baking food. And I love that. And I actually I I talked a little bit on here before you got on. And I was telling them how sweet you are. And even if you come down with like a cough or something, you will already be on top of having dinner at their house. And it's always the most thoughtful meal ever. And so that's something that my mom taught me. You know, I saw that example growing up that you don't have to do much. I think sometimes just showing up with food and a warm hug goes a long way. And so it's something that I try to do as an adult myself. I agree. And you are very, very good at that. But now, why don't you give us a little background? Because obviously this is going to be kind of a businessy podcast. But I want to hear what did you originally start out with? Because it wasn't Candy and Lance. You've kind of had a couple of different jobs. So let's hear about your original career path, I guess you could say. Yeah. So growing up, I knew I always wanted to do something that helps people feel good about themselves. I loved making people feel happy and feeling fulfilled. So my initial path actually was I was a cosmetologist and I owned a salon. I loved having people sit in my chair and helping them feel beautiful. Like there was nothing more fulfilling to me than having a client walk away feeling like her best self. And, you know, some people might think that it's vain vanity, right? That it's all about the looks. But really, as a woman or a male, like if they felt good about who they were, then you're more successful in life. And so that's kind of where I started out was in cosmetology, loved doing that. And then it kind of morphed as I became a mother and as my husband started his career and we moved, I kind of stayed at home a little bit more and kind of saw my home life as my job. And I did hair at my home a little bit, but it just wasn't as my first focus. Then we moved to Page and I wasn't working. I wasn't planning on starting my salon up again, because when you are a cosmetologist, it takes a long time to build a clientele. And I wasn't really interested in doing that. About four years after moving here, it led me to my current job. I honestly love that you started out as a cosmetologist because from, I don't know, like I don't I don't go to a lot of cosmetology appointments, but from looking at you and from going to my own, I feel like it could teach you so many life lessons, like more than you would think, you know, just you even mentioning how you make people feel good and feel beautiful, beautiful about themselves. Because really, if we're being honest, who walks out of a makeup or hair appointment or nail appointment and they feel worse than they did going into it? Right. If they do feel worse, then you did not do your job right. Yeah, I would have to agree. So now you are working for Canyonlands, which is a health care company. So I want to hear about that because you have worked your way up because you are just a boss woman. But what was your first job when you started working for Canyonlands? What did you do for that and how did your creativity really grow and blossom? Because you are by far one of the most creative people I've ever met in my entire life. Oh, you're so sweet, Allie. So when I first started over at Canyonlands, I was a population health director. Oh, no, actually back that up. I was the grants director. There wasn't really a title for what I was. I was really fortunate that the CEO at the time recognized that I had some skills and abilities that would really be useful for what he was looking for. And so I worked with a program where we had community health workers. Community health workers are a division of health care where these workers help people to navigate the health care system. A lot of times when you're looking at people that are living below the poverty line or they have different barriers to care, there's a lot of mistrust with the health care system or misunderstanding of how to navigate it. And so I had I built a team of community health workers that work alongside patients to help them to navigate the health care system and specifically with diabetic patients. And so that meant a lot to me. I lost my dad about seven years ago due to complications of his unmanaged diabetes. And so to me, it mattered. Every patient that we helped improve their A1C or help improve their quality of life, that meant more time with their family. And so it mattered to me. It was personal to me. And so it was really fulfilling to be able to use my skills as a cosmetologist. You wouldn't think that those two things translate, but it's all about helping people feel good about their lives and the decisions that they're making with their lives and helping them to feel listened and heard. If you've ever been to a cosmetology appointment, you know, you sit there and you talk to your hairstylist or your esthetician or et cetera about all the stuff going on in your life. I don't think that's any different than what we were doing with the community health workers. People were sitting down with these patients and finding out about their lives, asking them, you know, what their barriers were, what their concerns were. Some of it was as simple as they needed access to a refrigerator to keep their insulin in because they didn't have electricity on the reservation. So they needed a generator or they needed somebody that could help them get a refrigerator so they could have their insulin. So just really sitting down and finding out what the patient needed and how we could help them. Just hearing you talk about that, it sounds like so much more than just a job to you. It's it's way beyond the paycheck that you get to help provide for your own family. It's it's honestly really more about truly helping other people. And that shows a lot about your character. But like we have said, you didn't start out as a cosmetologist or you didn't start out in the health care field. This was something that you have worked so hard for that you have kind of grown and adapted into. So have there been any struggles taking such a big career leap and honestly kind of taking a leap of faith and stepping into something that you had never really been a part of and now are just absolutely phenomenal at? I wish I could say, you know, I was going to say, yeah, there's lots of struggles. But to be honest, I went into this very open minded. So I think, you know, my biggest struggle was just having the confidence in myself. You know, I had to be OK with knowing that there were things that I didn't know and there was going to be times that I didn't have the right answer and being vulnerable enough to ask the questions like, hey, you know, in health care, there's lots of acronyms, you know, UDS reports and HRSA reports and all these things that are acronyms. I had no idea on my first day what any of these things were. I remember CJ, our CEO, giving us on one of the days going into his office and I was asking him a question and he actually gave me a printout of all these acronyms of all these, you know, different what these different acronyms were. And I just studied it. So I think my biggest struggle was just finding the confidence in myself to know that I could do this, that I knew I possessed the skills and the creativity. One of the biggest positives I had going into it, I know you didn't ask me that, but I think my husband is a physician assistant. So he's worked in the health care field our entire marriage. And so I had a huge leg up coming into administrative role in health care because I knew all the challenges that he as a physician faced with health care administration. I heard him complain so many times about how the administration didn't listen to him or they didn't understand what they needed. So I went in with the mindset that I wasn't going to be that administrator, that I was going to listen to the providers, I was going to listen to the staff and what they needed. So that's something I think has helped me a lot. That's amazing. Now you have worked your way up and I always look, I always look at like companies and different things, kind of like a triangle where there's just so many different positions, especially in bigger companies to where you've worked your way up and you're the COO now, correct? Correct, I am. So that's amazing. But I want to hear what it was like, because I remember you, I mean, obviously working so hard from the beginning of this health care career. But when this job opportunity presented itself because the previous lady had retired, you were like, I have never seen someone so determined in my life. You were like, I'm going to work for this. And I want you to tell the people how hard you worked for that and some of the things that you did to prepare for that and the accomplishment and excitement you felt when you were gifted that opportunity to partake in that role. Yeah. So I knew about a year before that our current director of operations was going to be retiring. And so I knew that that was something that was on my radar that I wanted to do. I really believe in the mission of Canyonlands. Our mission is to promote healthier lives through accessible, affordable, inclusive and integrated primary care. And I knew that that was essential to have someone in operations that understood that mission, because, you know, we need to make sure that we are having workflows and that we are looking at our how we are our processes. And are we efficient? Are we are we living our mission? Are we are we operationally set up to be able to fulfill our mission? And so that's what I kind of worked on from that year forward. You know, I knew that Mary was going to be retiring and I just worked my butt off. I asked her a million questions. You know, I kind of shouted her as much as I could. But I also started coming up with some initiatives. You know, I put together an improvement plan. I wanted, you know, some goals I wanted to reach as a company operationally. This is I did this as a population health director. I was not yet the CEO at the time, presented it to the CEO and said, OK, these are some these are my goals. These are some things I want to do. So I have your support to do it. And I did. And so I kind of just jumped in in January of this year with this improvement plan and really wanted to prove myself to the team that I was valuable and that I had good ideas and that I wasn't just, you know, there for the paycheck. And so we worked really hard and we were able to, you know, get get to some of our goals and we missed some of our goals, which I think is OK, too, because we're looking at twenty twenty four and we can look at what we did different, know what we can do differently. But in August is when we did the interviews for this position. And I was really nervous. I prepared for the interview, you know, having your own business, you don't ever have to interview with people. You interview other people. And so it was a whole different experience for me. I didn't know I was going to be asked. And I remember walking into that room and just being like, oh, please, you know, and and then I didn't hear for another week and a half what the decision was, which was torture because I wanted it so bad because I knew that nobody else would put as much passion to this job because I you're right. I don't it's not about the paycheck for me. My husband, we're blessed that we're able that he's had a great job. I show up because it matters to me whether or not people have access, access to good health care. It matters to me if people can afford their health care, if they feel like they're you know, they belong in our clinics. And so it matters to me. And so I worked really hard. And, you know, when you're when I was told that I got the job, I actually was in shock. Like I think that I think that he thought that maybe I wasn't as happy as I was, but I genuinely was shocked. It took a couple of days for it to sink in that I had really achieved this goal because it wasn't something that was ever on my radar. I never wanted to be in the C-suite, you know, as Aaron likes to call them. It was not in my it wasn't it wasn't a goal of mine. And so I was a little bit shocked and so thankful and humbled that I'd be trusted with something like this. Now, it's a big organization. We have 11 clinics throughout the state of Arizona and Nevada. And, you know, that's a lot of trust to put into somebody to be able to operate this big of an organization. Right. And I love how much you've kind of talked about the importance of self-confidence because my mom and I were actually talking about this in the car the other day, kind of going on a little side note really quick. When I recently just got my thyroid taken out, the nurse that was taking care of me and was telling me all the things before I went and had a nursing student with her and was like, do you mind if she tries to give you your IV? And I was like, oh, yeah, for sure, because usually I do pretty well with IVs because I've just had so many that it doesn't really freak me out. And she ended up missing. But you could really tell how nervous she was. So then my mom and I kind of went on this whole rampage of how important it is to have confidence or fake it till you make it, I guess. And Jodi has taught me also a lot about like women empowerment because she is a boss woman. Like I will say this over and over and over again, like she is the definition of who women should be. Really pushing yourself to be the best that you can be and really showing what we're worth. And so I admire her hard work so much, you know, and I'm going to keep mentioning it. But this was not the first thing that she did right out of high school. This was something that she decided to step into and she was like, all right, I'm going to do this. And the only way I'm going to do this is by having confidence in myself and putting in the hard work. And so when you hear the words hard work, like what does that really mean to you? Because there's got to be some passion, some drive behind it with how much work you have put into something. I think hard work is something that happens every day, right? Like everyone has a day one. I think hard work was instilled in me from a little girl. My mom works extremely hard even now, especially now as a widow. She cleans offices for a living and she's hustled. She owns her own business. And so that was my example growing up is that, you know, you kind of talked about being a strong, confident woman, that as a woman, you have the ability to be able to provide for yourself. And I've also had the privilege of being surrounded by men who understood and supported me as a woman. Hard work for me is just every day. You know, you go to work, you do your best and you come home. But if I'm being completely honest, I think I had hard work is allowing yourself the ability to adapt and change as you grow. You know, like you've mentioned, this was not my first career path. This isn't what I wanted to be initially. You know, I knew I wanted to do something that helps people. But, you know, I had to be open minded to what life gave me. And this is an opportunity that life kind of threw at me. I remember sitting, you know, I think everyone on the podcast knows that the CEO of the company I work for is actually Allie's dad. And so we're friends. And I remember sitting, we were on vacation somewhere and him sitting there and saying, would you be interested in a job? And I was like, well, sure. Like, yeah, I don't know. I, you know, I thought it was like, yeah, sure. Well, what can I contribute to health care? Right. But, you know, going home and really saying, you know what, I do have skills and I do have, you know, lots of things that I've done well in my life and having confidence in what I have currently done and allowing myself the opportunity to grow and adapt as a person. You know, even at the age of 35 that I can there's still a lot for me to learn and there's still a lot of opportunities for me to grow. So I think hard work, you know, it's putting in the effort every day, but it's also allowing yourself the permission to change and to adapt and to become a different person than what you initially thought. I think sometimes you go into life with this idea of this is how I'm going to be. This is how I'm going to be and this is how I'm going to achieve it. And then you just do it. And that's great because that works out for some people. But for me, that wasn't my life. You know, it kind of changed as my life changed, as I had kids, as my husband finished medical school, as all those things changed, my life changed and I had to make pivot and make different choices about what I wanted to be and who I wanted to be and allowing each piece of that to come along with me. And that's kind of what I've tried to do is allow each piece of my life and each career path I've had to just build on the other. They didn't have to be separate. You know, I know how to manage a team. I know how to be creative and that works in operations today just because it's healthcare doesn't mean that it's not relevant because it's no longer, you know, a salon. So I allowed myself the ability to change and to adapt. That's some great advice and honestly, a new perspective. Now, in my more recent podcast episodes, I feel like I've talked a lot about like a younger version of yourself and what that younger version be proud of who you are today. And I think ultimately it comes down to that, because like Jodi said, some people have, you know, their whole life planned out and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But at the end of the day, when you ask yourself if the person yesterday or the person last year, is she or he going to be proud of you? And the answer is no. Then maybe you're doing something wrong. If you were to ask yourself this question, do you think that your little girl Jodi would be proud of the things that you've accomplished today? Am I allowed to put this on here? Sure. Hell yeah, she would be. I mean, I've worked so hard and I have done so as a mother and as a wife, as a daughter. Like there are a lot of things that I'm also, besides a COO, and have worked hard for it. And I've worked hard to kind of make my stamp. So heck yeah, she would be. Oh, yeah. We love that. We just love you so much. You're just the best. And now to finish us off, do you have any last pieces of advice or any last things that you want to share with the Overcome and Become community that might be a valued lesson for someone's life? We're talking about your career and we're talking about growing as a person. I would just say create a vision for yourself, but allow God to give you a greater vision and allow yourself to grow with that vision. I think it's good to have perspective and to have a time, a timeline of when you want to achieve things, but be open to change. Because had I never been open to working in health care, I mean, that was not even when I say it was not in my wheelhouse. I mean, I literally had no desire to work in health care. Look at the opportunities I would have missed. I've been able to speak at conferences. If you would have told me five years ago, I'd be speaking at a national conference. I'd be like, what are you talking about? You know, there's so many things I've been able to do because I don't limit myself. So create dreams, but allow the universe or God or whoever is your, you know, your true north, allow them to make your dreams bigger than what you think they're going to be. Because if you do that, you'll be amazed at what God can give you. Yeah, that's incredible. Now, if you love this episode as much as I love this episode, then be ready for next week as well, because she's going to be on for another one on a totally different topic, but equally as good. So thank you so much for being on here. That was so much fun. And we will talk to you guys next week for another very exciting episode. Bye. Bye.