63: Choosing Courage Over Comfort | Women and Work

Facing uncertainty can feel safer than stepping into a completely new chapter.

For Corinne Pierog, every major career transition required courage—from leaving a dismissive workplace, to raising two children as a single mother, building a consulting business, and eventually entering politics later in life.

After years of saying no to opportunities that felt intimidating, Corinne decided to walk through a door she had long been afraid to open. Running for state office taught her lessons about leadership, resilience, public service, and the impact one person can have on an entire community.

In this episode of Women and Work, Corinne shares how she navigated career pivots, motherhood, entrepreneurship, grief, and public leadership while staying true to her values:
• Overcoming bias as a young woman in the workplace
• Building confidence after difficult career experiences
• Raising children as a single mother
• Creating stability while balancing work and family
• Starting a consulting business later in life
• Learning to embrace career risks
• Running for political office for the first time
• Finding purpose through public service
• The importance of mentors and lifelong learning
• Why courage often comes after fear—not before it

What opportunity have you been hesitant to pursue because it feels outside your comfort zone?

Struggling to find the right child care? Get a video interview of your ideal nanny at https://www.momsub.com/child-care-options

#WomenAndWork #Leadership #WomenInBusiness #CareerGrowth #PublicService

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Having many opportunities through my earlier career of having doors opened, but being terrified, terrified to walk through that door. I mean, really, honestly terrified. Think, oh my god, that's gonna be a change in that. It'll be a change in that. How am I gonna do that? Oh, I just, it's better to stay secure with where I am right now than launch into something brand new. But I was over 50. And I went, you know, if I don't do it now, when? When am I gonna be brave enough to walk through that door that I know really very little about and do it? So I did it, and I realized that this is something that I've had a great interest in intuitively for a very long time. To really help out a broader section of community, to help people who are in need, uh, to provide resources for them, to provide a voice for them.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Welcome to Women in Work, the show where we take an inside look at how women are overcoming our own unique challenges as we grow our careers or build a business while nurturing relationships and family. I'm Diane Mocha, founder and CEO of Mom Sub, the childcare app that connects you to a substitute mom. And I want you to know that work can fit your life. Each week we meet a woman who has done that. Today I'm with Corinne Pirog. In 2020, she became the first Democratic woman to serve as the chair for a local county board in the suburbs of Chicago. She's also the founding chair of the Kane County Democratic Women. Before she started in politics as a school board member, Corinne was a university professor and college administrator who earned three degrees, including an MBA. But she switched careers to focus on nonprofit management and open her own management consulting firm. Wow, that's a lot. Thank you for being here, Corrine.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

My pleasure. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. And good morning, everybody.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Yes. And I understand you did much of this as a single mom, even buying a fixer upper so that your family would have a home. Oh, the fixer upper.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

So I love old homes. And the renovation of getting one's hands dirty and getting into the muck of it all is a well, let's just say it's a metaphor for sometimes life.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Yes, very messy. So you're raising kids, you're running a business, you have, you know, all these uh professional accolades and accomplishments that you've had, and you had a different kind of a challenge than maybe men do sometimes who don't find themselves as single parents. So I wonder what do you think was the biggest challenge that you faced in your entire career because you are a woman?

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Yeah, I think I first recognized it when I was newly graduated from university, and I had an opportunity to have federal grants to do some work for a local school district. And the man, they put me in a trailer, and I was presented with all of these catalogs of books. I mean, they were just boring as heck. And I was told to read them, and I said, fine, for what purpose, sir? And he's there smoking his cigar because I told you so. So months went by. I said, Am I supposed to report to you what I'm reading? What am I looking for? What research I have? He says, No, we really don't care about you, just read. Well, I left that job thereafter because I thought, what a what a waste of time. Although the money was fine and I was very happy to have a job, but it was just insulting. So knowing that the world was going to be a bit of a challenge going out out of academic life where you could do anything and everything you wanted to, uh, which is really why I started to take a look at getting a master's degree and going into teaching, because I didn't want to share that experience that I had. And enabling my students to say, have the guts, have the courage to say, heck no, I'm better than that.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

And you think that that man treated you that way because you were a woman?

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Because I was a young woman. I was in every respect. I was 21 years old, knew nothing about the world. But eager to learn and contribute. And I know I had, I had, I had the smarts. And I had the smarts to leave. I had the smarts to leave. And the guts to give up something safe and secure. It was it wasn't even, it was just horrible. So we all had those kinds of jobs, though, and that inherent implicit bias that we continue to change, continue to change, whether or not you're a woman, whether or not you're a woman of color, a woman of diversity. We sometimes it's just culture that has that biases, and that's what I've discovered. And you have to recognize it and not necessarily fault the individual who's doing it, because they may not have the awareness themselves that they're doing it, but to correct it, not leave it like I did, which I think was actually a good idea on my part because it launched me in a different direction. But actually to have the courage to say, I don't appreciate doing you treating me that way. That's not who I am, that's not who we are together. So stop it. So good.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

But that's hard to do. Yes. And then and then heading into academia, did you find a more welcoming environment there? Did you feel like women could excel, they were given the respect that they deserve? Or did you find, as you got into administration, you started facing some of those same things, the glass ceiling?

SPEAKER_00 5:52

It wasn't administration so much as it was the um professors who thought that they were God's gift to knowledge, uh, primarily men. And not all men were like that at all, at all, at all, at all. Some of them were uh gracious and giving and um mentors, without question.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

I mean, many, many of them were, but some of them were to everyone or to women in particular?

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Um, well, I can't judge all women. I can just say how I was treated. Um, and I can't say they were bad to every woman. God, I hope not. But you can sense you can sense that there was a disconnect, absolutely. But that has, I believe that has changed now, and it is changing. Um, there has been for all of us, for women, we have started really collaboratively recognizing that we matter, that we are smart, we have courage, we have skills, we have talent, we have capacity. We give that to our children. If you have a boy, if you have a girl, you don't tell them that they have to have this career. You say, what do you want to do with your life and encourage them? And then I know for me, I become a, I was a tiger with my kids. If anybody got in their way, I'd go, boom, get out of their way, because it's their path forward and you can't stop them. But I never prevented them from falling because they had to learn to get up and learn how to have the courage to fight for themselves, because I feel as well, as a single mom, that once they got launched, I would always be there to help, but I would never be there to pick them up because that's their job to do that, so that they can go on and develop their own career.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Be resilient and not expect a rescue. So, where were you at in your career when you started having children? And what was happening in your personal life? Did you did you fall in love, get married, the traditional things, have kids, and then something changed?

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Oh, wow, I've I've had a very interesting life. Um, it probably non-traditional. Um, yes, I um I was in uh New York City, uh, and I was uh wanting to be an aspiring somebody in theater. I really was trained as an actress and a director. I had some success with that in New York. Um, but frankly, if I can be honest, I didn't want to have my body be the vehicle for success. I wanted it to be my mind. Um, it was always the case. So I felt that I was being exploited as an actress, and I didn't want that anymore. And I just went, that it's done. Change, change of course. Uh so I was looking for an opportunity, and I met a very attractive man uh when I was working in theater off Broadway and fell in love, uh, got married, um, and surprisingly, after several years, because I was told I could never have a child, um, I discovered that I was six months pregnant. Uh my waist went from a small waist overnight, went boom. I'm I'm how far along? Because I had I was told I would never have to worry about it. Did you want children? Was this a pleasant surprise? Well, it was just say a shock. It was a shock. And of course, as soon as you hear the baby's heartbeat and you go, oh my god, life shift very quickly. Uh so had a uh beautiful child and a little girl, a little girl um who was as feisty as me, um and became a mom. And it was uh a real shift. I was at that point uh working on a PhD and uh was very much the academic. So it was a very good time for me to have a child because as a student with a part-time teaching job, I had flexible time, uh, which was not like a 40-hour a week job. So it was it was a good time. And then later on, um I had another child, a son, uh, who I knew I wanted. Um I had a feeling, you know, you feel you want to have another kid because you just know it's gonna happen. Uh and it did, but several years later, uh large difference between the two eight years later. Um and then shortly after that, after his birth, um I divorced and went on my own. Wow. Big step.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Big step in a day when divorce was not as common. I mean, I know it happened, but not as common when there weren't as many single moms, right? You know, when Murphy Brown came out in back in the day and said she was gonna have a child on her own, this was a little scandalous. So here yes. So here you were. Single, single mom, two kids, two kids in New York, far from family.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Very far from family. Is that why you moved back to the Chicago area? Well, no, again, uh my life, my life story. Um, so I was in academics, and you can't find a job everywhere in academia. And I had a very nice job, but I knew I needed to leave New York City at this point for self-healing, for self-healing, truly, uh, because it was such a tumultuous marriage. Uh so I ended up in the South and uh changed career at that point. Uh, was teaching uh and got engaged with developing a theater company, uh Cat Productions, which incorporated learning uh for not just for children, but also for their parents, because it was a very impoverished area, as well as doing first-class theater that incorporated the learning skill. Um, it was awarded grants, um, and I was recruited to North Carolina to start a theater company. And from there I really transitioned into economic development. Uh, because once again, uh the rural south really needed some joy, some opportunity, some its own courage uh uh back when I was there. It's changed now, thank God, but there's still so many pockets of poverty throughout the United States. Um but I started missing home and I wanted to come back to Chicago. Uh my family had not the opportunity really to know my children. Uh so came back here and uh started a life uh in St. Charles and have stayed within Kane County now 25 years. It's the longest place I've ever lived. So it's been it's been quite good. Um through that, through work, uh I met another delightful man, my second husband. Uh, and we were joyously in love for a long period of time until he passed uh several years ago. So stood on my own uh again. Uh so here I am, grown children and uh a wonderful career.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Wow. So back when you were in the South and you were working on some pretty big projects and had a lot of responsibility, and you had these young children, how were you dealing with childcare? Did you have enough flexibility that you were trying to do it all yourself, or did you put them in daycare, or did you have help at home? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Oh, there was no home help.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

There was no home help. There was no home.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

No sitters, no nannies. I have I have to say, I'm uh uh anybody who knows my last name knows I'm Polish. And uh I'm stereotyping everybody right now, my whole Polish family. We work, right? I mean, that is we work. Um we clean our own house, uh, which I still do, and I actually still like it. It's very therapeutic. Uh, you know, door alone laundry gardening, you know, it's it's something that uh is really a good experience. But I can do it on my own time now. I don't have the the demands of, you know, I have to get it done ABC, but it was quite the challenge. I looking back on it now, I frankly don't know how I managed it all. Because it was get one child to school, the other one is with much littler, so they had different needs. Um, do you take one to baseball or to soccer where the other one's going off to cheerleading? How do you divide? By yourself, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

So you did you have a village? Did you build up friends? You know, uh, did you have Oh support kids always, always, yeah. Yeah. So you had support around, you you met the parent, other parents helped each other. Absolutely. And and and so your your children were in daycare while you were working. Did you go through any of the mom guilt that we hear so much about?

SPEAKER_00 14:41

Oh, who doesn't? And who's who still doesn't have it? I mean you're a mom. Of course you feel guilty about everything. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

When you're with them, you feel guilty you're not working. When you're working, you feel guilty you're not with the kids, right? You know what if I had done this? What if I had done what if I had stayed there? Wow. But you, you know, you just like you said, you move forward. That that that was kind of how you were raised. You worked, you you did what you need to do, you came, you know, back here. And when you were around family, did you feel like you had more support?

SPEAKER_00 15:13

Um, it was I I felt like I had and always had a lot of love. Uh whether they could support me on a day-to-day. I lived here, they lived on the North Shore. So there was not that integration of I can come over tomorrow and watch. That was never the case. Um but there was there was love, and that love really strengthened everybody's bonds with each other.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

So you're working in economic development, but having a job and then starting your own firm, two very different things. I mean, starting your your own consulting business is like birthing another child, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:57

It was, oh my gosh, it was the detailing of it um was amazing. Knowing all the paperwork you have to do to start your own business, uh the registration, the incorporation, um, getting invested uh with the uh women's business program here in Aurora so I could get certification. Um and then doing the client base. And luckily, because of my previous work in not-for-profits, I had some connections and I was uh very much involved with an agency that is no longer in existence, but I became part of their interim director, executive director program, so I would get leads, so I could go off and they would provide the interview basis for me. So that was an amazing start and opportunity. Um, but my work was never short-term advisory, uh, being a consultant. I would work for a company, a not-for-profit company, for a year, four years. Uh, my last client, I was there for about six years with them. Okay. So it was part-time and encouraging the board and figure out what their strategic plan is, what the direction they were going on, uh, what board development was, doing financial management for them. Uh, so kind of setting up the board for success and bringing them to their mission.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

Was there ever a time when you thought about doing your own thing as a consultant, even if it was similar to having a full-time role because it was long-term consulting, where you felt like it would give you more flexibility with your children and that that was what encouraged you, or do you think starting a business and being a mom had nothing to do with each other?

SPEAKER_00 17:49

Well, the children were grown at that point when I started the business. Ah. Okay. So they were one.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

So do you think you waited? No, yeah, I think it just happened organically. It just happened. It just just worked organically. So do you think it would have been harder to launch such a thing while you were while you had children who were younger, while you were still shuttling them around to their activities?

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Um well, yes, because I lived here and most of my clients were on the North Shore. Oh. And sometimes it would take me an hour and a half to two hours to get home. Ah, so that wouldn't have been very feasible. It would have been very challenging. You may have had to move your family. Oh, that had been considered, but I had because of moving, and I told them I would never move again. And I kept that as a as a as a real promise to them, uh, that there would be stability here. Um, and I I kept that promise. So no, there was there was a consideration, um, but never movement.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

So part of it was keeping them in the same school district, keeping them with their friends with their friends.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

With their friends, which is they developed a relationship here, and I just wonder I'm not gonna do that to them again.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Yeah. But then you venture into politics all these years in, you know, the nonprofit world. Was that something that somebody outside encouraged you to do, or was that something that you always envisioned? And why was it the right time then later to do that?

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Well, I have actually have to thank my son for that. Um, he was the one who encouraged me. So it was a real snowy winter. It was uh it was we were having one of those winter blizzards, right? No early winter blizzards. And I had always wanted to help out with the school board um because he was in school, he was in high school. And I thought, you know, I I have a passion for education, always have had, always will, but it's an incredibly important for all of us to succeed in education to the best of our capacity. Learning is just an amazing thing. I still love to read and to learn. Um and I thought, okay, I'm gonna go on the school board. So I got my petitions, and I didn't need very many, maybe 20, 30. That's all. Oh, that's all. It's it's just you go knock on doors, right? Uh-huh. And you talk to neighbors. So I had one page done which had 10, and I needed to get some more. And I thought, oh man, the deadline is coming up, but it's a blizzard outside and it's awful weather. And my son looks at me and he says, Mom, you want to do this? Get out of the house, get out of here, go knock doors. So I did. Well, all my neighbors took me in because here I am covered with snow, and they're signing the petition. So that really launched the career into politics. I had a great mentor with a superintendent uh at St. Charles uh D303. He was a marvelous man, highly, highly just uh engaging uh and really new state um uh state politics, uh financial management, budget, but very different governmental budgeting is very, very different from not-for-profit or business budgeting. It's a if it's a different animal. Um so I gained as much as I can from him. He would take me in and say, This is the way it works. So we're going back to our original conversation. Here's a man who has got a lot of skill set, um, a brilliant man, and said, But here's somebody who's interested in learning this. Let me pour as much knowledge on her as I possibly can. So I absorbed as much as I could and kept on being more curious. And when I was having dinner one day with my husband and my son, um I got a phone call. And I said, you know, I said you might have to take the call, so which usually I don't do during dinner, but it was an odd phone call. Um it said state of Illinois, Democratic Party. Who's this person calling me? So I they asked me if I would be interested in running for state senate. And I thought, well, they said, would you have any recommendations? And I thought intuitively, you know, they're actually asking me. To run. So I hung up the phone. I said, well, let me get back to you. And damn those men. So I sat down. I told them about the phone call, and they're both laughing. Your husband and your son? They don't want you. I said, no, really, they want me. Why would they say that? Because, you know, they just love me. So I went, no, I really am going to do this. And having many opportunities through my earlier career of having doors opened, but being terrified, terrified to walk through that door. I mean, really honestly terrified. Oh my God, that's going to be a change in that. It'll be a change in that. How am I going to do that? Oh, I just, it's better to stay secure with where I am right now than launch into something brand new. But I was over 50. And I went, you know, if I don't do it now, when? When am I going to be brave enough to walk through that door that I know really very little about and do it? So I did it. And I realized that this is something that I've had a great interest in intuitively for a very long time. How to make substantive change in in yes, in very small capacity, very small capacity. But to really help out a broader section of community, to help people who are in need, to provide resources for them, to provide a voice for them. So that's what I learned during all that time. And also with those wonderful debates that are take a lot of work to prepare for. How to have your voice heard. To be able to speak to fact and not be afraid to challenge somebody who thinks that that is their position and to push back and say, Well, I have a different opinion. And share what your position is. So that's what I learned through that. And by blessed of having that opportunity of having my consulting company very quietly in the back end, because that was my professional life and theirs was my other professional life that I was learning. I continued learning more about politics and becoming more engaged in it.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

And even though it didn't, you didn't win the election, no, but you learned enough that you then went on to run for county chair. Correct. And that's a very powerful position, a very influential position. And so, you know, it it led the way to the next thing. So, like we were talking about earlier, you know, encouraging your kids to to try it even if they're gonna fail, because when you fail, it leads to the next thing. The next thing. Now, I wonder in all that you've done, if you could go back to an earlier time, knowing then what you know now. Oh my gosh, to be one to be 20. What would you change if you could? One thing.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Can you imagine what we would do with this world? So, what would you do? What would you change? So, one of the opportunities that I always thought about that I really should have stepped in that door is I had the opportunity two times, and two times I said no to walk into television production. Um, not doing the production camera, but to actually do the research. Um, one was for cable when I was much younger, and I went, oh, that was not, I'm not there yet. Um but the other one was working for a uh in New York, an MPR station, uh, getting so there helping them with research because they needed somebody who knew a little bit about theatrical production, right? It's very similar, different, but similar, but also knew how to do academic research. And they invited me with this opportunity. And I said, I think so. I don't think so. I think I'm gonna continue studying 19th century women's literature.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

So you you hesitated getting out of your comfort zone for a long time until you were older and said, if not now, when? Yes, that makes sense. And we thank you for all of these insights that you've shared today. Thank you. And we thank you on uh for tuning in with us on this episode of Women in Work. If you were inspired by today's story, remember to share it with a friend, leave a review, and subscribe to meet our next amazing guest. If you or anyone you know is struggling to find the right childcare, just submit your criteria to momsub.com and then watch a video interview with the ideal nanny who fits your family. That's momsub like a substitute mom. Our mission is for you to get the help you need so you can discover what you want in life, pursue it with intensity, and fulfill your dream, reducing your stress, guilt, and self-criticism, and increasing your calm confidence and clarity along the way. Remember, your career, your choices, and your success are yours to define. So keep pushing boundaries and spreading your love and encouragement to other women who need it.