Closing the Gap Era

What if the system you've been navigating was never designed to include you — and now the technology being built on top of it is about to make that permanent?

That's not a hypothetical. It's happening right now. And Erica Rooney isn't just naming it — she's doing something about it.

This is a solo episode and a bit of a manifesto. Erica pulls back the curtain on why Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors is evolving — not abandoning its roots, but expanding them. From surviving corporate to influencing what gets built next, this episode marks the moment the conversation gets bigger, bolder, and a lot more urgent.

Inside the Episode:

• The Quiet Shift: Why the biggest evolutions don't announce themselves — they just change how you think, what you tolerate, and which rooms you're willing to walk into
• The AI Gap: Why the leadership gap, the pay gap, and the opportunity gap now have a dangerous new sibling — and why it matters right now
• History Is the Training Data: The chilling reality of what gets amplified when AI learns from a system that already wasn't built for us
• From Ceilings to Gaps: How Erica's mission is expanding from helping women navigate what exists to influencing what gets built next
• The Her Collective Play: Why the work was never meant to happen alone — and how AI is becoming a practical tool (not a gimmick) inside this community
• The One-Decision Rule: No overhauls. No waiting until you're ready. Just one pivot that compounds into the person you were always supposed to be

Resources & Links:

• Her Collective — Erica's private coaching community where strategy meets support. DM Erica directly for a guest invite to a live session
• Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors (the book) — Erica's foundational framework for understanding the barriers women face in corporate
• Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors Podcast — Follow, rate, and review to keep these conversations going

The AI GAP: Women, AI and the Next Great Leap Forward -https://amzn.to/3OAXAdL 

Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors - The Book: https://amzn.to/3YDS10f

Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericarooney/

Join our Facebook Group!: https://urlgeni.us/facebook/fromNOWtoNEXTtribe https://www.facebook.com/joinHERCollective.ER 

Find me on Instagram: https://urlgeni.us/instagram/EricaAndersonRooney

And YES — I’m on TikTok!: https://www.tiktok.com/@ericaandersonrooney

Transcript

[00:00:00] Alright y'all, something shifted and I've been sitting on this for a little bit now and it didn't shift in this crazy dramatic like burn it all down kind of way, but more so in that way where you feel it before you can actually explain it or put words to it. And it's really about like the way you think changes, the way you move, starts to change the rooms you're in, what you're willing to tolerate.

It changes, and at some point you realize that you're not becoming somebody new, but you're becoming more of who you were always meant to be. And that's exactly what we're talking about today. Welcome to Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors, the podcast where we stop playing small, start calling things out and actually do something about it.

I'm your host, Erica Rooney, executive coach, speaker, and a little bit of a movement maker, and I'm on a mission to get more women into positions of power and keep them there. Because, let's be honest, we've been told to [00:01:00] lean in, but not too far to speak up, but not too loudly to be ambitious, but somehow still likable and y'all we're done doing that.

This is the space where we break it all down. The sticky floors, the ceilings, and the gaps that are shaping who gets ahead, especially in this next era of AI and leadership. Some of its mindset, some of its burnout, and. Some of it is the system working exactly as it was designed. Either way, we're not staying stuck in it.

Each episode is your nudge to move one decision, one shift, one bold step forward. No overhauls y'all. No waiting until you feel ready. Just real momentum. So if you're ready to think bigger, move smarter, and build power on your own terms, you're in the right place. Let's smash the ceilings and close the gap.

All right, friends, what did you think of the new intro? Like be honest with me because it's been a hot minute since I've [00:02:00] made any bigger updates to the podcast, but I really felt like it was time. And you see I'm right at the edge of this evolution, and I'm not ready to leave behind my glass ceilings and my sticky floors.

I just. I love that. And y'all, this isn't just a podcast to me, it's truthfully the foundation of everything that I've built. And it gave me, it gave me language to something that so many of us were feeling, but we couldn't quite name. And I'm talking about like the tension and the second guessing in this constant recalibration of how do we show up in the rooms that weren't designed with us in mind.

For a long time, my work was all about helping women see those patterns and figure out how to navigate them more effectively. How can they actually survive corporate and still climb and still be a mom? All of those things, and all of that still matters. It still matters deeply to me, [00:03:00] but here's what's true now.

When I started this podcast, I was still very much. Living inside of it. Right. I was a chief people officer in tech. I was working anywhere between 50 to 60 hours a week. I was leading, I was building, I was integrating, and I was still stuck. That's actually what led me to all of this work was because I felt so stagnant and it wasn't in a way that you could easily point out.

Right. I had the title, I had the pay, I was traveling to exotic places. It looked like I had that dream life and I thought that was the dream life I, I wanted, but you know, I was still in my late thirties and I was like, this is it. Like this is what I'm going for. And that's when I started the podcast. And if, if you're a real og you remember way back in the day I called it from Now to Next.

And it was really all [00:04:00] about the career progression and that led me to understand this concept of glass ceilings and sticky floors. And so we rebranded into Glass Ceilings and Steep Floors podcast. We have the book and so much of my work is centered around that and smashing. Stealings and I again, still loved that work.

I needed that season and I needed to live it fully while I was still in corporate because that's where that clarity came from and that's where the languages came from. And you know, growth really always has this way of asking for more, doesn't it? I don't know about you, but as a growth-minded person, my brain is always going to the next thing.

But eventually navigating this corporate system really stopped being enough for me, and so. You know what happened next was the conversation started expanding, you know, and [00:05:00] that's what I want to happen here in this podcast. I want our conversations to expand. I still wanna talk about things like confidence and burnout and perfectionism, because I love reading new research and when that comes out, I wanna be at the forefront of it.

And a lot of those things we all still struggle with. They're still very real, but there's also a bigger layer. And those are the actual systems themselves that we're living inside, right? The patterns that get rewarded, the behaviors that get promoted, those decisions that shape who actually advances and who doesn't.

Because once you see that, you can't unsee it. Right. My, uh, dear friend and mentor always says, you can't unring the bell. And that is so, so true. And because of that, my work has expanded from ceilings to gaps. Right? And I'm talking about the leadership gap, the opportunity gap, the visibility gap, the pay gap, and what I am calling the AI gap [00:06:00] because the future of work.

Everything as we know it is being shaped by AI right now. And we're talking hiring decisions, promotion criteria. Who succeeds, who doesn't? Who gets seen, who doesn't, right? All of the data that is used to train these systems and how they're gonna influence the decisions that are made at scale, that is what is like massively critical right now.

Whatever sits underneath the decisions, that's what gets carried forward. That's what gets reinforced. And y'all, that is what becomes the standard. So I want you to think about it. 'cause what I'm saying here is that history is in the training data, and this training data is going into ai. And what does AI do?

It accelerates, it expands, and it grows things rapidly. So. If everything it sees pattern wise is your traditional waspy [00:07:00] male succeeding, what do you think that's gonna amplify? Right? More of that, less diversity, less women, less people of color, less LGBTQ plus in the community. So y'all, we have got to expand.

We have got to lean in more. Because this shift that I'm talking about to you right now that you're hearing it is so personal. I am gonna be stepping more fully into the work that I am here to do, and that is not just helping women move through what currently exists in like this archaic system that still operates and quite honestly is going a little bit backwards right now, but actually helping more of us influence what comes next.

Y'all. I'm a movement maker. I'm a gap closer, and that means that I'm gonna be a little bit more direct from now on. I'm gonna build things with more intention, and I take responsibility for the rooms I'm in and the ones that I help shape and create. And y'all. Shameless plug. [00:08:00] That's why I created her collective, and it's growing the way that it is because the work was never meant to happen alone.

Right? Her collective is where this conversation becomes action. It's where women take what they're learning and we actually apply it in real time where strategy needs. Support and y'all. We all need some support in our lives. Now, what I also love is AI is becoming an integral part of her collective, and it is becoming a tool that is usable and practical, not, you know, abstract and like, Hey, I'm using Chad GBT as a glorified Google.

It is backed by very specific AI agents. That are aimed to accelerate these women's climb up the corporate ladder and to close the gaps because that's the only way we are going to win this game. Right? I tell people, you have to play the game to change the game. To win the game. Nope, scratch that. You gotta play the game to win the game.

To change the game. And that's what we're doing [00:09:00] now. We are changing the game because through all of this, one thing remains the same. And that is that this podcast is all about movement. It's about forward momentum, and I want you to know that this isn't some big life overhaul that you have to take, right?

You just need one decision. You need one pivot, one moment where you're like, you know what? I'm gonna do it differently this time, because that is how momentum starts to build. It is really just by taking that one simple step. 'cause all those little steps they add up and they compound over time and they change you into that person that you were always supposed to be.

So yes, this podcast right now, my work, me, things are evolving and you're gonna hear that. And how I speak and what we talk about here, but the conversations that we bring into this space, y'all, they are going to [00:10:00] blow your minds because we are still here to name those ceilings and we are still here to call out those sticky floors, but now we are also going to be closing the gaps that shape what comes next, y'all?

The future is being built in real time and we have a say in what it becomes. So let's smash the ceilings and close the gaps. If this episode resonated with you, don't let it stop here. Send it to a woman you care about, a colleague, a friend, someone who's been on your mind while you were listening. These conversations are meant to be shared, and you never know what one small shift can unlock for someone else.

And if you haven't already. Make sure that you're following the podcast. Leave a rating and write a quick review. It helps more women find this space and it keeps these conversations going. If you're ready to go deeper, come a little closer. Send me a dm. I'll invite you to sit in on a live her collective session as my [00:11:00] personal guest.

No pressure, no strings attached, but you get to experience it, feel the room, and see what happens when women start moving together. Until next time. Y'all keep going. Keep choosing differently and let's smash the ceilings and close the gaps.