What if it’s not a glass ceiling that’s holding you back,
but rather a sticky floor?

From high-achieving ceiling breaker and sticky floor survivor, Erica Anderson Rooney introduces the SNAP method, a neuroscience-backed method for altering the subconscious beliefs that hold us back.

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    The Power to
    Clean Up Your Sticky Floors

    Have you ever struggled with impostor syndrome, perfectionism, fear, or burnout?

    Success and fulfillment have always been the goal, but you find yourself stuck, making it impossible to move forward.

    Women face unprecedented challenges in the workplace and find themselves staring up at the glass ceiling. But what if it wasn’t the glass ceiling that was holding you back . . . but rather your own “sticky floors”—those limiting beliefs and toxic behaviors that are within your control?

    Erica is a sticky floor survivor. As a high-achieving ceiling breaker and C-level leader, she masked her struggles to everyone around her—even herself. From feelings of being an impostor to using wine to cope with burnout, it wasn’t until she was faced with the shocking reality that she could lose everything that she stared down her deeply held beliefs about being a “perfect” wife, mom, and executive. Ultimately, Erica was able to snap out of her sticky floors and find fulfillment, and uses her stories to help other women navigate their paths to success.

    Snap Out of Your Sticky Floors

    Download the Values Exercise

    Advanced Praise

    “Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors digs into the unseen barriers that hold women back and often aren’t talked about, shedding light and giving hope to all the women who have stayed small and quiet for far too long. If you want to conquer self-doubt and redefine success, this is it!”

    Kelsey Pumel Woods, domestic violence survivor and advocate, TikTok star, and entrepreneur

    “As a successful woman who’s faced her own share of limiting beliefs, I understand the impact of ‘sticky floors.’ Erica Rooney’s four-step science-backed SNAP Method is a practical and powerful way to transform your mindset so that you create the life you want.”

    Mel Robbins, CEO of 143 Studios, New York Times bestselling author, and host of The Mel Robbins Podcast

    “Erica’s book is a testament to the transformative power of embracing your potential and challenging the status quo. Her science-backed approach cuts through doubt, empowering you to shatter invisible barriers. For anyone stuck on their own ‘sticky floors,’ Erica offers a clear path to the life you envision. A must-read for the ambitious.”

    Emma Green, CEO and founder, Your CEO Mentor

    “We talk a lot about glass ceilings. But we don’t talk nearly enough about sticky floors. I love how Erica shifts our focus, energy, and power to the people, places, and programs that propel us forward. Through her proven method, you will notice the glimmers of the sticky floors exponentially more than the traumas involved in the broken glass ceilings. And that leads to sustainable, transformation change. That is how we hype women.”

    Erin Gallagher, CEO and founder, Ella | Hype Women, executive producer and host, the Hype Women podcast

    “With raw authenticity, Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors explores the unseen barriers that hold women back, offering a road map for personal growth. Erica’s story is a rallying cry for every woman seeking to conquer self-doubt and redefine success on her own terms.”

    Tricia Montalvo Timm, author of Embrace the Power of You: Owning Your Identity at Work

    Meet Erica

    Keynote Speaker, Executive Coach, Chief People Officer, wife, mom, entrepreneur, and fitness fanatic.

    Erica Rooney is a leadership expert, AI educator, and Chief People Officer with over 15 years of experience shaping workplace culture and advancing women into positions of power. She is the author of Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors, and the AI Gap: Women, AI and the Next Great Leap Forward, where she explores how bias in training data is shaping the future of work and why women must be a part of building what comes next.

    She hosts the Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floor Podcast, and co-hosts AI Voice or Victim, translating complex AI concepts into practical, human centered insights leaders can actually use. Known for bridging the gap between tech and trust, Erica helps organizations and individuals understand that AI is not neutral, it is trained, and what we choose to build today will define who gets access to opportunity tomorrow.

    Erica is the founder of HER Collective, a fast-growing leadership community designed to help women rise and stay in positions of power. HER Collective is the only community for women that sits at the intersection of leadership, women, and AI, accelerating career growth at scale.

    She lives in the Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina with her husband, Dan, and her two children, Hudson and Halle. She enjoys running half-marathons and reading historical fiction novels.

    Press & Media

    Erica is available for interviews, speaking engagements, and book-related events.
    For more information, download Erica’s Press Kit here. For all media, speaking, or event enquiries, please email: hello@ericaandersonrooney.com.

      Stay in Touch

      Follow along on Instagram for tips, tricks, and freebies
      to help you shatter your glass ceiling.

      • Be honest. You have talked yourself out of more rooms than anyone has ever kept you out of. I almost did it with my podcast. Then again with my book. When the offer came to write about women and AI, my first thought was not "yes." It was "who am I to write this." I am not technical. I came up through HR. Every reason to wait for a more qualified version of me to show up first. She was never coming. There is no qualified-enough fairy who taps you on the shoulder and says you are allowed now. I said yes scared, and then I figured out the seat on the way up. This is the whole P in my SNAP framework. Pivot. Which is a polite way of saying: do it terrified. Not once you feel ready. Ready is a story your nervous system tells you to keep you exactly where you are. What seat are you currently asking too many questions about? Get on. Figure out the rest in the air. #WomenInLeadership #CareerGrowth #ExecutivePresence #WomenWhoLead
      • The job that changed my life was never posted anywhere. A woman I had worked with two roles earlier said my name in a room I was not in. That was it. That was the whole mechanism. Most women are told to apply, optimize, follow up. Almost nobody tells you that the roles worth having move through relationships before they ever hit a job board. So in February, Stacey and I built a room in the Triangle where that could happen on purpose. Every woman in it was vouched for by another woman. They walked in as strangers and walked out with clients, referrals, and introductions to the things nobody posts. We are doing it again. August 26, 6 to 8pm. Come sit at our table. Details at the link in comments. Who said your name in a room you were not in? Tag her. #HERCollective #WomenInLeadership #RaleighWomen #TriangleNC #CareerGrowth
      • One night, a room of powerful women asked AI to show what it thought they looked like. Not one image looked like them. That was not a glitch. The system worked exactly as designed, trained on data that was never neutral. AI is quietly becoming the authority layer of work, the infrastructure deciding who gets seen, hired, promoted, funded, and amplified. The women missing from the data pay first. I am taking this to the SXSW stage with Kristin Thomas @kristinthomas_ , founder and CEO of Marble Collective @marblecollective . We are two women working opposite ends of the same problem. Our session is called “The Authority Layer: Getting Women Seen in the Age of AI”, and community voting is open now through August 23. It takes about a minute and it genuinely moves who gets picked: Click this link: https://participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sxsw27/community-voting-sxsw/page/community-voting/session/1784144721773001SgVY 👉🏼Create a free Panel Picker account (30 seconds, that’s the platform SXSW votes through) 👉🏼Hit the little heart to the right of the session title 👉🏼Leave a one line comment on why this matters to you ✨That comment carries more weight in SXSW’s scoring than the vote alone, so please do not skip it. And while you are there, my Moms Meet Up session is also on the ballot this year: https://participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sxsw27/community-voting-sxsw/page/community-voting/session/1784140325045001pjHT — would mean the world to get your vote and a comment on that one too. Thank you for helping us get in the room @marblecollective @joinhercollective
      • I never wanted to be vulnerable. Because vulnerable meant weak. It meant someone might look at me with that head tilt and the "bless her heart" voice, like I was a woman who could not handle it. So I didn't show the cracks. If I let anyone see them, they would know the truth: I was not the perfect mom, the perfect wife, the perfect friend I wanted to be. So I shed no tears. I let no one know I was suffering. Until it was too late, and I was molded to the couch, so depressed I could not get up. And here is the part I hate to admit: that was not the only time. It is a lesson I have to keep learning. The armor was never the flex I thought it was. It just kept everyone at arm's length while I came apart quietly underneath it. Sometimes showing up here, telling you the real version, is the thing that helps. You are allowed to be human. Even at work. Especially here. #HERCollective #WomenInLeadership #ExecutivePresence #WomenWhoLead
      • Did you know, that with alllll the companies out there saying they are "AI-Forward", and that they have been giving out Co-Pilot Licenses to all their employees, and they are encouraging them to play around with it probably haven't seen ANY ROI? For real ya'll. This is the fact: 95% of company AI efforts show ZERO measurable impact. Not "modest returns" but ZERO. ZILCH. NADDA. Meanwhile do you want to know the percentage of companies call that call themselves AI mature? ONE PERCENT. 😐 So here's what's happening in fundraising rooms right now. Every deck says AI. Every founder says AI. And investors have started doing the math – if 95% of AI efforts go nowhere, then saying "we use AI" tells them absolutely nothing about whether YOU are in the 5%. That's the actual gap. It isn't about adoption... anyone can use ChatGPT to "write me a better email." It is about profit. Revenue. YOUR BOTTOM LINE. THE ROI. You can be using every tool on the market and still walk into a raise looking exactly like the 95%, because nobody ever taught you how to show your work. And it's not a you problem. Only 36% of employees say they were ever adequately trained on this stuff. We handed everyone the tools and skipped the part where someone shows you how to talk to them, how to use them, and how to do it in a way that (again) drives ROI. I'm heading to the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center for Capital Ready in the Age of AI. 11am PT. We're covering: → What investors actually look for in an AI-enabled company, past the buzzwords → Where to embed AI so it strengthens your business model instead of decorating your deck → How to articulate AI inside your growth story, your margins, your defensibility → A framework for building a company that's scalable, capital-ready, and not part of that 95% Founders – be honest. If an investor asked you tomorrow to prove your AI is working, could you? What would you point to? To help you out I'm dropping the link in the comments. Check my facts out: MIT NANDA State of AI in Business; BCG AI at Work; McKinsey State of AI 2025. @nasdaqcenter #CapitalReady #FounderJourney #AIStrategy #VentureCapital
      Be honest. You have talked yourself out of more rooms than anyone has ever kept you out of. I almost did it with my podcast. Then again with my book. When the offer came to write about women and AI, my first thought was not "yes." It was "who am I to write this." I am not technical. I came up through HR. Every reason to wait for a more qualified version of me to show up first. She was never coming. There is no qualified-enough fairy who taps you on the shoulder and says you are allowed now. I said yes scared, and then I figured out the seat on the way up. This is the whole P in my SNAP framework. Pivot. Which is a polite way of saying: do it terrified. Not once you feel ready. Ready is a story your nervous system tells you to keep you exactly where you are. What seat are you currently asking too many questions about? Get on. Figure out the rest in the air. #WomenInLeadership #CareerGrowth #ExecutivePresence #WomenWhoLead
      @ericaandersonrooney
      @ericaandersonrooney
      •
      Follow
      Be honest. You have talked yourself out of more rooms than anyone has ever kept you out of. I almost did it with my podcast. Then again with my book. When the offer came to write about women and AI, my first thought was not "yes." It was "who am I to write this." I am not technical. I came up through HR. Every reason to wait for a more qualified version of me to show up first. She was never coming. There is no qualified-enough fairy who taps you on the shoulder and says you are allowed now. I said yes scared, and then I figured out the seat on the way up. This is the whole P in my SNAP framework. Pivot. Which is a polite way of saying: do it terrified. Not once you feel ready. Ready is a story your nervous system tells you to keep you exactly where you are. What seat are you currently asking too many questions about? Get on. Figure out the rest in the air. #WomenInLeadership #CareerGrowth #ExecutivePresence #WomenWhoLead
      1 week ago
      View on Instagram |
      1/5
      The job that changed my life was never posted anywhere. A woman I had worked with two roles earlier said my name in a room I was not in. That was it. That was the whole mechanism. Most women are told to apply, optimize, follow up. Almost nobody tells you that the roles worth having move through relationships before they ever hit a job board. So in February, Stacey and I built a room in the Triangle where that could happen on purpose. Every woman in it was vouched for by another woman. They walked in as strangers and walked out with clients, referrals, and introductions to the things nobody posts. We are doing it again. August 26, 6 to 8pm. Come sit at our table. Details at the link in comments. Who said your name in a room you were not in? Tag her. #HERCollective #WomenInLeadership #RaleighWomen #TriangleNC #CareerGrowth
      The job that changed my life was never posted anywhere. A woman I had worked with two roles earlier said my name in a room I was not in. That was it. That was the whole mechanism. Most women are told to apply, optimize, follow up. Almost nobody tells you that the roles worth having move through relationships before they ever hit a job board. So in February, Stacey and I built a room in the Triangle where that could happen on purpose. Every woman in it was vouched for by another woman. They walked in as strangers and walked out with clients, referrals, and introductions to the things nobody posts. We are doing it again. August 26, 6 to 8pm. Come sit at our table. Details at the link in comments. Who said your name in a room you were not in? Tag her. #HERCollective #WomenInLeadership #RaleighWomen #TriangleNC #CareerGrowth
      The job that changed my life was never posted anywhere. A woman I had worked with two roles earlier said my name in a room I was not in. That was it. That was the whole mechanism. Most women are told to apply, optimize, follow up. Almost nobody tells you that the roles worth having move through relationships before they ever hit a job board. So in February, Stacey and I built a room in the Triangle where that could happen on purpose. Every woman in it was vouched for by another woman. They walked in as strangers and walked out with clients, referrals, and introductions to the things nobody posts. We are doing it again. August 26, 6 to 8pm. Come sit at our table. Details at the link in comments. Who said your name in a room you were not in? Tag her. #HERCollective #WomenInLeadership #RaleighWomen #TriangleNC #CareerGrowth
      The job that changed my life was never posted anywhere. A woman I had worked with two roles earlier said my name in a room I was not in. That was it. That was the whole mechanism. Most women are told to apply, optimize, follow up. Almost nobody tells you that the roles worth having move through relationships before they ever hit a job board. So in February, Stacey and I built a room in the Triangle where that could happen on purpose. Every woman in it was vouched for by another woman. They walked in as strangers and walked out with clients, referrals, and introductions to the things nobody posts. We are doing it again. August 26, 6 to 8pm. Come sit at our table. Details at the link in comments. Who said your name in a room you were not in? Tag her. #HERCollective #WomenInLeadership #RaleighWomen #TriangleNC #CareerGrowth
      The job that changed my life was never posted anywhere. A woman I had worked with two roles earlier said my name in a room I was not in. That was it. That was the whole mechanism. Most women are told to apply, optimize, follow up. Almost nobody tells you that the roles worth having move through relationships before they ever hit a job board. So in February, Stacey and I built a room in the Triangle where that could happen on purpose. Every woman in it was vouched for by another woman. They walked in as strangers and walked out with clients, referrals, and introductions to the things nobody posts. We are doing it again. August 26, 6 to 8pm. Come sit at our table. Details at the link in comments. Who said your name in a room you were not in? Tag her. #HERCollective #WomenInLeadership #RaleighWomen #TriangleNC #CareerGrowth
      The job that changed my life was never posted anywhere. A woman I had worked with two roles earlier said my name in a room I was not in. That was it. That was the whole mechanism. Most women are told to apply, optimize, follow up. Almost nobody tells you that the roles worth having move through relationships before they ever hit a job board. So in February, Stacey and I built a room in the Triangle where that could happen on purpose. Every woman in it was vouched for by another woman. They walked in as strangers and walked out with clients, referrals, and introductions to the things nobody posts. We are doing it again. August 26, 6 to 8pm. Come sit at our table. Details at the link in comments. Who said your name in a room you were not in? Tag her. #HERCollective #WomenInLeadership #RaleighWomen #TriangleNC #CareerGrowth
      @ericaandersonrooney
      @ericaandersonrooney
      •
      Follow
      The job that changed my life was never posted anywhere. A woman I had worked with two roles earlier said my name in a room I was not in. That was it. That was the whole mechanism. Most women are told to apply, optimize, follow up. Almost nobody tells you that the roles worth having move through relationships before they ever hit a job board. So in February, Stacey and I built a room in the Triangle where that could happen on purpose. Every woman in it was vouched for by another woman. They walked in as strangers and walked out with clients, referrals, and introductions to the things nobody posts. We are doing it again. August 26, 6 to 8pm. Come sit at our table. Details at the link in comments. Who said your name in a room you were not in? Tag her. #HERCollective #WomenInLeadership #RaleighWomen #TriangleNC #CareerGrowth
      1 week ago
      View on Instagram |
      2/5
      One night, a room of powerful women asked AI to show what it thought they looked like. Not one image looked like them. That was not a glitch. The system worked exactly as designed, trained on data that was never neutral. AI is quietly becoming the authority layer of work, the infrastructure deciding who gets seen, hired, promoted, funded, and amplified. The women missing from the data pay first. I am taking this to the SXSW stage with Kristin Thomas @kristinthomas_ , founder and CEO of Marble Collective @marblecollective . We are two women working opposite ends of the same problem. Our session is called “The Authority Layer: Getting Women Seen in the Age of AI”, and community voting is open now through August 23. It takes about a minute and it genuinely moves who gets picked: Click this link: https://participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sxsw27/community-voting-sxsw/page/community-voting/session/1784144721773001SgVY 👉🏼Create a free Panel Picker account (30 seconds, that’s the platform SXSW votes through) 👉🏼Hit the little heart to the right of the session title 👉🏼Leave a one line comment on why this matters to you ✨That comment carries more weight in SXSW’s scoring than the vote alone, so please do not skip it. And while you are there, my Moms Meet Up session is also on the ballot this year: https://participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sxsw27/community-voting-sxsw/page/community-voting/session/1784140325045001pjHT — would mean the world to get your vote and a comment on that one too. Thank you for helping us get in the room @marblecollective @joinhercollective
      @ericaandersonrooney
      @ericaandersonrooney
      •
      Follow
      One night, a room of powerful women asked AI to show what it thought they looked like. Not one image looked like them. That was not a glitch. The system worked exactly as designed, trained on data that was never neutral. AI is quietly becoming the authority layer of work, the infrastructure deciding who gets seen, hired, promoted, funded, and amplified. The women missing from the data pay first. I am taking this to the SXSW stage with Kristin Thomas @kristinthomas_ , founder and CEO of Marble Collective @marblecollective . We are two women working opposite ends of the same problem. Our session is called “The Authority Layer: Getting Women Seen in the Age of AI”, and community voting is open now through August 23. It takes about a minute and it genuinely moves who gets picked: Click this link: https://participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sxsw27/community-voting-sxsw/page/community-voting/session/1784144721773001SgVY 👉🏼Create a free Panel Picker account (30 seconds, that’s the platform SXSW votes through) 👉🏼Hit the little heart to the right of the session title 👉🏼Leave a one line comment on why this matters to you ✨That comment carries more weight in SXSW’s scoring than the vote alone, so please do not skip it. And while you are there, my Moms Meet Up session is also on the ballot this year: https://participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sxsw27/community-voting-sxsw/page/community-voting/session/1784140325045001pjHT — would mean the world to get your vote and a comment on that one too. Thank you for helping us get in the room @marblecollective @joinhercollective
      2 weeks ago
      View on Instagram |
      3/5
      I never wanted to be vulnerable. Because vulnerable meant weak. It meant someone might look at me with that head tilt and the "bless her heart" voice, like I was a woman who could not handle it. So I didn't show the cracks. If I let anyone see them, they would know the truth: I was not the perfect mom, the perfect wife, the perfect friend I wanted to be. So I shed no tears. I let no one know I was suffering. Until it was too late, and I was molded to the couch, so depressed I could not get up. And here is the part I hate to admit: that was not the only time. It is a lesson I have to keep learning. The armor was never the flex I thought it was. It just kept everyone at arm's length while I came apart quietly underneath it. Sometimes showing up here, telling you the real version, is the thing that helps. You are allowed to be human. Even at work. Especially here. #HERCollective #WomenInLeadership #ExecutivePresence #WomenWhoLead
      @ericaandersonrooney
      @ericaandersonrooney
      •
      Follow
      I never wanted to be vulnerable. Because vulnerable meant weak. It meant someone might look at me with that head tilt and the "bless her heart" voice, like I was a woman who could not handle it. So I didn't show the cracks. If I let anyone see them, they would know the truth: I was not the perfect mom, the perfect wife, the perfect friend I wanted to be. So I shed no tears. I let no one know I was suffering. Until it was too late, and I was molded to the couch, so depressed I could not get up. And here is the part I hate to admit: that was not the only time. It is a lesson I have to keep learning. The armor was never the flex I thought it was. It just kept everyone at arm's length while I came apart quietly underneath it. Sometimes showing up here, telling you the real version, is the thing that helps. You are allowed to be human. Even at work. Especially here. #HERCollective #WomenInLeadership #ExecutivePresence #WomenWhoLead
      3 weeks ago
      View on Instagram |
      4/5
      Did you know, that with alllll the companies out there saying they are "AI-Forward", and that they have been giving out Co-Pilot Licenses to all their employees, and they are encouraging them to play around with it probably haven't seen ANY ROI? For real ya'll. This is the fact: 95% of company AI efforts show ZERO measurable impact. Not "modest returns" but ZERO. ZILCH. NADDA. Meanwhile do you want to know the percentage of companies call that call themselves AI mature? ONE PERCENT. 😐 So here's what's happening in fundraising rooms right now. Every deck says AI. Every founder says AI. And investors have started doing the math – if 95% of AI efforts go nowhere, then saying "we use AI" tells them absolutely nothing about whether YOU are in the 5%. That's the actual gap. It isn't about adoption... anyone can use ChatGPT to "write me a better email." It is about profit. Revenue. YOUR BOTTOM LINE. THE ROI. You can be using every tool on the market and still walk into a raise looking exactly like the 95%, because nobody ever taught you how to show your work. And it's not a you problem. Only 36% of employees say they were ever adequately trained on this stuff. We handed everyone the tools and skipped the part where someone shows you how to talk to them, how to use them, and how to do it in a way that (again) drives ROI. I'm heading to the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center for Capital Ready in the Age of AI. 11am PT. We're covering: → What investors actually look for in an AI-enabled company, past the buzzwords → Where to embed AI so it strengthens your business model instead of decorating your deck → How to articulate AI inside your growth story, your margins, your defensibility → A framework for building a company that's scalable, capital-ready, and not part of that 95% Founders – be honest. If an investor asked you tomorrow to prove your AI is working, could you? What would you point to? To help you out I'm dropping the link in the comments. Check my facts out: MIT NANDA State of AI in Business; BCG AI at Work; McKinsey State of AI 2025. @nasdaqcenter #CapitalReady #FounderJourney #AIStrategy #VentureCapital
      @ericaandersonrooney
      @ericaandersonrooney
      •
      Follow
      Did you know, that with alllll the companies out there saying they are "AI-Forward", and that they have been giving out Co-Pilot Licenses to all their employees, and they are encouraging them to play around with it probably haven't seen ANY ROI? For real ya'll. This is the fact: 95% of company AI efforts show ZERO measurable impact. Not "modest returns" but ZERO. ZILCH. NADDA. Meanwhile do you want to know the percentage of companies call that call themselves AI mature? ONE PERCENT. 😐 So here's what's happening in fundraising rooms right now. Every deck says AI. Every founder says AI. And investors have started doing the math – if 95% of AI efforts go nowhere, then saying "we use AI" tells them absolutely nothing about whether YOU are in the 5%. That's the actual gap. It isn't about adoption… anyone can use ChatGPT to "write me a better email." It is about profit. Revenue. YOUR BOTTOM LINE. THE ROI. You can be using every tool on the market and still walk into a raise looking exactly like the 95%, because nobody ever taught you how to show your work. And it's not a you problem. Only 36% of employees say they were ever adequately trained on this stuff. We handed everyone the tools and skipped the part where someone shows you how to talk to them, how to use them, and how to do it in a way that (again) drives ROI. I'm heading to the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center for Capital Ready in the Age of AI. 11am PT. We're covering: → What investors actually look for in an AI-enabled company, past the buzzwords → Where to embed AI so it strengthens your business model instead of decorating your deck → How to articulate AI inside your growth story, your margins, your defensibility → A framework for building a company that's scalable, capital-ready, and not part of that 95% Founders – be honest. If an investor asked you tomorrow to prove your AI is working, could you? What would you point to? To help you out I'm dropping the link in the comments. Check my facts out: MIT NANDA State of AI in Business; BCG AI at Work; McKinsey State of AI 2025. @nasdaqcenter #CapitalReady #FounderJourney #AIStrategy #VentureCapital
      4 weeks ago
      View on Instagram |
      5/5