Never Drink Coffee During a Business Meeting

Insider Advice From a Top Female CEO

Liza Marie Garcia

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781630476489
• eBook ISBN: 9781630476502
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Mentoring & Coaching

"Never Drink Coffee During A Business Meeting" grabs young businesswomen by their stilettos and launches them on a journey of caution and self-promotion. "Never Drink Coffee During A Business Meeting" describes how one woman successfully shattered her own glass ceilings by packing her Coach briefcase with the wit and wisdom of the powerful women she met on her way to the top. "Never Drink Coffee During A Business Meeting" examines the state of affairs of women in business today and offers remedy to the anti-female, male-dominated culture that still prevails. It is packed with gems of advice and savvy mentoring shared by the CEO-author.

ALL SUCCESSFUL WOMEN HAVE AN UNSTOPPABLE DRIVE

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”

—Thomas Jefferson

Yesterday I hired a “fledgling” trainer and I think she is going to work out great. As I went through the process of considering her and the other applicants, I narrowed down the outstanding traits for success that I’ve found in each of my best engineers and trainers.

Here is a list of those traits:

• Enthusiasm

• Openness to life and work change

• Willingness to do things even if they are below her job description (like getting clients coffee or making copies)

• Ability to handle multiple jobs/multiple projects simultaneously

• Positive Attitude

• Creativity—the ability to come up with new innovative ideas, or a new approach

• An Unstoppable Work Ethic—to work as hard as it takes, no matter what until the job is done

These are great traits but the one that makes an applicant truly stand out is her drive. You either have it or you don’t. I don’t know exactly where drive comes from. I’ve hired (and fired) many employees who had fantastic resumes and interviewed well. They came from good backgrounds and seemed to have had a quality education but in the end they had no ambition. They had no drive in their personal careers, no drive to be the best software engineers for our company and really no drive to satisfy our clients to their utmost. I’ve learned that unfortunately drive isn’t anything I can motivate or provide a company program to incubate. In my observation, people either have it or they don’t.

I’m going to assume that you have that drive! I have no doubt that if you picked up this book, you do. You are keenly interested in being successful in business and you are already committed to doing whatever it takes to achieve your goals. It’s my goal to assist you in making that happen. I’m not going to tell you how to motivate yourself; I’m going to tell you how to take what you already have going for you and teach you how to apply the inside information I am going to give you so you can benefit from my experience as a CEO.

Many of us, myself included, still come from a generation when our mothers, if they were ever in business, were just making the first tiny footprints across the thresholds of Corporate America. The success of the next generation, you, depends on those of us who have gone before you sharing our knowledge. I’ll do this for you. I’m ready to bring you on board.

Where Does Your Drive Come From?
I know Where I Got Mine…

I was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. Both my parents are Mexican Americans. You might assume they speak Spanish but they do not because in their era parents were sensitive to making sure their kids were 100% assimilated. Here is an example of where my family embraced changed and adapted to fit the culture of their new country. It’s this tradition of inviting change and adaptation that has made my family successful in business.

My grandparents on both sides were also born in Utah. Some of them worked as manual laborers. My dad grew up without the regular presence of his father. Fortunately he had a resourceful and determined mother, my grandmother Julia Garcia, who, despite her lack of education, was uncompromising in her vision of a better future for her children. Born in 1919, Julia lived to the wonderful age of 93. She certainly wasn’t an executive but she knew that the key to her family’s future lay in her managing her family by inviting change into their lives and rejecting the notion that things would or should remain as they were. She knew that education was the path to this change and she encouraged my father and his siblings to go to college.

My father, Manuel T. Garcia, “Manny,” earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Westminster College in Salt Lake City Utah. He was a Manager for AT&T and Harris 3M for many years and retired as the Director of Communications for the University of Utah Medical Center. My mother also earned a bachelor’s degree from Westminster College. Both my parents were the first college graduates in their immediate families. While I was growing up there was never a doubt that my sister and I would also graduate from college. That value and that expectation was very clearly communicated to us and so it became our goal.

Fortunate Influences at a Tender Age

“Dance makes you fearless, putting yourself and your personal expression out there for the world to judge, it takes a certain type of person to do that.”

—Misty Copeland

Like many little girls, I was lucky to have been afforded dance classes. Unlike many little girls, I was fortunate to have had an extremely special, world-renowned dance teacher, none other than “the” Virginia Tanner who established the Tanner Dance Program in Utah in 1937. My selfless mother drove my sister and me from the mountains of East Salt Lake City to the dance studio, which was located quite far away. She did this several times weekly from when I was three until I was a teenager.

I don’t know how my mom found out about the program. My mother’s upbringing was quite different and definitely not privileged. I’m sure the classes were a financial sacrifice for my parents. I remember that my mother sometimes helped out by sewing some of the costumes for our performances. This demonstrated to me how deeply my mother was committed to our success. It was what all the involved mothers did. Like my grandmother, my mother invited this change, invited the new with no possible way of knowing just where or how far it would take us.

Virginia Tanner was recognized internationally as a pioneer of children’s dance and as one of its finest teachers. In her heyday some said that Salt Lake City was the most blessed city in the world to have the world’s master children’s dance teacher and that no other place, including New York, London, Paris, or Moscow, had anyone who could touch her genius for teaching children what was called the “exciting purity of the dancing arts.” The Tanner Dance Program is now an arts auxiliary of the College of Fine Arts at the University of Utah.

Miss Virginia, as we called her, had a profound effect on me and on all of the dancers. When Miss Virginia walked into the dance studio, we all stood up straighter, pointed our toes harder we all learned to hold ourselves in a dancer’s carriage. I remember being afraid to breathe in her presence.

Miss Virginia had an indescribable ability to command instant respect. I’m not quite sure exactly how she did it. I can’t reduce it to a look, a movement or anything she said, but you knew it was there, felt it was there and that was astounding. As I have grown in my career and as a business owner, this is an ability I’ve strived to capture for myself. She was the first woman I wanted to emulate. I knew this at a very young age.

Miss Virginia took special notice of me when I was in my very first dance class at the age three. She declared me a “child of dance.” From then on I was extended great privileges. I traveled with the Children’s Dance Theater (her modern dance Company) to Canada, and across the United States. I got to do pieces like “Water Study” and other advanced Martha Graham style pieces.

Wherever we went, I was always the youngest of the troupe. When I was seven years old, I was actually invited along to dance at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. It was a simply amazing experience and it certainly expanded my horizons and made all things seem possible. It was on one of these trips I had a second strike of great fortune.

One Blessed Encounter Leads to Another

The second fortunate mentor from my childhood is a woman I now call “Nana,” Gloria Castano. Gloria was, among other things, the National Program Director of The Sacred Dance Guild in Severna, Maryland from 1972 to 1980. With Sacred Dance Gloria produced week-long inter-faith dance Festivals in Boston, Denver, San Antonio and Miami. Gloria is an alumnus of Jacob’s Pillow, a national landmark center and dance school located in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts, where she completed her study in 1957.

Following this period, she enjoyed 10 years of international performance in theaters and on the concert stage. After a year of performance in Europe in 1962, she returned to the United States and began a teaching career that has spanned more than 50 years. Most recently she is known for her work with the Senior Performing Group “Skyloom” an interfaith and intergenerational dance group from the greater Boston area. She is well-respected and admired in her own right and has had numerous achievements and credits in her dance career.

In Gloria’s own words:

“I met Liza in October of 1975 in Washington D.C. Her dance teacher, Virginia Tanner, was my dear friend. Many students from her dance school in Salt Lake City were in Washington as part of the educational and performing arts offerings for the 1976 Bi-Centennial. I had traveled to D.C. with a few young students of my own to see Virginia and the performances. That’s when I met Liza who was just seven years of age at the time.”

When it was time for the Tanner School’s demonstrations, the room was suddenly filled with two dozen little dancers all under the age of 12. Each wore a pastel-colored leotard and each was adorned with a Lucite pendant twisted into the shape of a dancer. As part of this special dance, the children twirled, jumped, stretched and soared through the air enchanting everyone. When the music came to a quieting end, each of the children found someone in the audience, danced to their side, took off the necklace and encircled it around their neck. Liza came to me. It was in that moment that we found each other.

The events of this long weekend were joy-filled beyond description. Liza and I shared a glance here, and word or two there, as the days went on and when it came time for good-byes, we found ourselves in the same elevator. There, Liza handed me a note with a four-leaf clover necklace. I still have both of the necklaces she gave me and I treasure them. Reflecting, I recognize how, in these simple acts, this courageous little girl demonstrated such a natural confidence. It was she who pursued our relationship by calling and sending me letters. Going after what she wants is simply second nature to Liza. This characteristic is a tribute to her early and present achievements. She determines a path and its place on her journey and time and again claims her victories.”

I came to know Gloria when on that trip to DC, as she mentions. I remember that I became so fond of her on the trip that I gave her that 4-leaf clover necklace. I have no idea where I got the necklace. The only thing I do recall talking about then was that since she was a little “brown” like me (she is Italian), perhaps I felt some kinship with her. I learned later that she had no children of her own. That initial connection allowed us to discover our common ground and to develop a rich relationship.

Imagine me, a little girl from Utah, hearing Gloria’s stories about performing in places such as Thule, Greenland where it was sunny 24 hours a day. And of Sicily, where her own family was from, and of concerts in a lavish casino in Switzerland, and supper clubs in Rome, Milan and Florence. I remember one particular story she told me about a charity event at the “Casino Municipale di Sanremo,” the oldest casino in Italy famous for its music festivals, where the featured artist was an accomplished jazz pianist who was Romano Mussolini, the son of Bonito Mussolini, the Italian Prime Minister and the first of 20th century Europe’s fascist dictators who was married to Sofia Loren’s sister! Such sweet and exciting memories Gloria shared with me. She fascinated me and broadened my world view exponentially.

From this chance meeting began our lifelong friendship and a “family” relationship. When I was in my early teens, she became my godmother. She was an important part of my wedding. She has visited our family numerous times. She is today known “Nana,” to both of my girls and she is a significant part of our lives.

Gloria, today, remains absolutely unbelievable in her beauty, her poise and in the love she continues to share. Absolutely everyone she has ever taught remains so grateful to her for the liberal sharing of her talents. She is still healthy and amazing today. Like Virginia Tanner, Gloria is also one of those women who walks in a room and immediately commands respect. I attribute the early influence of these two amazing women—and, of course, that of my parents—to fostering my belief that I was and remain capable of great things. These are the women who demonstrated to me the limitless potential of all women. They were the women who were pushing the boundaries and expanding the opportunities for all of us who came after them. These two women, along with many of their generation are so deserving of our remembrance and respect.

Type “A” All the Way

So there I was at seven, already believing I could take on the world. I attended a private, Catholic School through fifth grade. When I was entering sixth grade, I begged my parents to put me in a public school for my middle school years. I excelled there. My first year, I was elected homeroom president. After that, I ran for class president. This required giving a speech in front of the whole student body. I barely remember that speech. I didn’t win but instead of discouraging me it motivated me to try harder. I recognized that I had an inner drive that set me apart from my classmates. In reaching and falling short of my goal, I learned to be persistent. I began setting my own course, learning very early in my life that I am a leader and not a follower.

In high school I kept setting and reaching for new goals. I sang in the choir. I wondered why I didn’t win all the voice competitions I entered. I was a member of the Utah Youth Symphony at a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface: a Note From the CEO
• Chapter 1: All Successful Women Have an Unstoppable Drive
• Chapter 2: Congratulations, You’ve got your degree! Now What?
• Chapter 3: Welcome to the World of Women in Business, You’re Gonna be Lonely!
• Chapter 4: The Difference between Female and Male Managers: Women’s Superior Soft Skills
• Chapter 5: Women’s Weakness—Emotionality the Double-Edged Sword
• Chapter 6: The Double Whammy of Being Young and Female
• Chapter 7: Listen More, Talk Less. The Magic of Active Listening
• Chapter 8: Corporations are Teams
• Chapter 9: Play like the Boys—Learn to Golf
• Chapter 10: The Importance of Mentor Relationships
• Chapter 11: Practical Appearance Matters a.k.a. Dress for Success
• Chapter 12: Never Drink Coffee before a Business Meeting
• Chapter 13: When to Go For It Becoming Comfortable Taking Risks
• Chapter 14: Staying Relevant in Business
• Epilogue
• Afterword
• Acknowledgements