Latest / The Bold Lounge / Cindy Gallop: Values-Driven Boldness, Your Guide to Embracing Your Worth

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Cindy Gallop: Values-Driven Boldness, Your Guide to Embracing Your Worth · The Bold Lounge

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My name is Leigh Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Every week, we'll hear from someone who has taken a leap or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Whether they face challenges or doubts along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be freed.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Today I have Cindy Gallop.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: She's a graduate of Somerville College, oxford, whose background is over 30 years in brand building, marketing and advertising.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: She is the founder and CEO of If we Ran the World co-action software launched in beta at TED 2010, and subsequently written up and taught as a Harvard Business School case study, which enables brands to implement the business model of the future, which is shared values plus shared action equals shared profit, which is financial and social.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: She is also the founder of Make Love Not Porn, a platform designed to promote good sexual behavior and good sexual values, which was launched at TED 2009, and she has raised over $2 million for this platform.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: She acts as a board advisor to a number of tech ventures and works as a personal brand life executive coach and a consultant on brand and business innovation from companies around the world.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Describing her consultancies approach as I like to blow shit up, I'm the Michael Bay of business.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge, cindy.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Thank you, leigh, thrilled to be here, so excited to have you.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: So we're going to jump right into being bold.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: What is your definition of bold?
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: So I would say, lee, that my definition of bold is simply speaking your truth.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: And you know, I say that because I'm described as bold quite a lot and I find that interesting because you know, know, I'm simply being me and I'm speaking my truth.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: And when somebody thinks that's bold, I think that makes more of a statement about society and how much we are not encouraged to speak our truth than you know relates to what I actually am yeah, you're not out there going.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Today I'm going to be bold.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Today I'm going, you know, to do X, y, z.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: You're just actually being you authentically and you're being real, and I think that does say a lot about what the world expects us to be and what we can be right.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: So, based on your definition, when's the first time you remember being bold or a memorable bold moment for you?
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Sure, what I would say is it's going back to, like you know, the very first moment that registers in this way.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, you know.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: What I'm calling on, therefore, is you know what I would define as genuinely being bold under the circumstances?
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: And so my mind goes to an episode from a very long time ago.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: So this would have been when I was in my 20s.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: My mind goes to an episode from a very long time ago.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: This would have been when I was in my 20s and I was working in advertising in London.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: I'm going to share this because it may be helpful to our listeners, because this was the first time ever that I was what might be described as bold in a really crucial scenario, which is negotiating one's salary.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: What I mean by that is, at the time, I was a baby account manager in advertising in an advertising agency in London and I had my very first performance and pay review coming up.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: I decided that I wanted you know my pay to get to a particular figure and, honestly, this is so long ago I can't remember what that figure was, but I had a figure in my mind that I wanted to be.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: So I went into my first performance pay review at this company in fear and trembling.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: And it was with the managing director of the agency and my immediate boss, who was the head of account management, and they gave me a glowing performance review.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Director of the agency and my immediate boss, who was the head of account management, and they gave me a glowing performance review.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: And then they said you've done a great job, cindy, and so we are raising your salary too.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: And the figure was £1,000 short of where I wanted it to be.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: And so I thought right, I've got to say something, and the key thing here is that, you know, this is the first time I'd ever done this, you know.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: I thought to myself and this is what I say to people, especially women, who often have a difficult time in negotiating pay the key thing is, just start talking, even if you're really nervous, just open your mouth and start talking and arguing, because the right words will come out.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: So I opened my mouth and I began talking and my voice sounded to me very little and very far away.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: I can't remember what I said, but I basically asked for £1,000 more, and both my male bosses were clearly very startled and they looked at each other, and both my male bosses were clearly very startled and they looked at each other and then the senior man, the managing director, said okay, cindy, can you just pop out into the corridor for five minutes?
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: They shut the door.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: I waited outside and a few minutes later they opened the door, they called me back in and they gave it to me.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: And, by the way, from that moment on I was unstoppable on the pay negotiation front.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: But when you ask that question, that was the moment that my mind went back to, which is the very first instance, I recall, of being bold in the conventional sense, which is actually stepping up and doing something that was not expected in that scenario.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: I love that example because a lot of the times people think that being bold is something that's loud, that's something that's seen by everyone, that's on social media, that's in some great article, and that was a quiet I would say a quiet, bold moment.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Not that you were quiet, but no one needed to know about it or maybe knew about it, except those maybe closest to you.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: And now you know thousands of people that listen to this, know about it or maybe knew about, except those may be closest to you, and now you know thousands of people that listen to this know about it.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: But I think you know, from the perspective of, that was a quiet, bold moment that was thoughtful, that was pragmatic, that you knew what you were doing.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: You didn't know where it would end up, but you knew that you needed to speak up.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Is that fair to say yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: So from being able to speak up for yourself and advocate for yourself, which is one of the hardest things I think to teach or to share for themselves as much as they should.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: And I feel like at times during when we have like we use this as an example pay negotiation or being promoted we accept or feel like, well, that's a lot, I should be thankful.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Versus like pushback.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: What is it that you had in your arsenal, if anything that you would share with us?
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: And then, what advice would you give to someone who maybe needs to step up their advocating for themselves game?
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: I would say two things to that, lee.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: The first is information.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Ok, so before this performance and pay review, I knew that in order to set an expectation of what I wanted my salary to be, I had to know what everybody else has been paid.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: So I went around the agency, to every account manager at my level, and I asked them this is London in the late 80s.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: They were so shocked they told me.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: So, first of all, information.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: And, by the way, I genuinely recommend asking other people what they're paid.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: And today you'll find there are many allies, including men, who will willingly tell you, because there's been a real movement to be much more transparent about salary figures, precisely to close the gender pay gap.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: And then the second thing I would say is you are always in a better position than you think you are, and it's very important to have that in your head.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: And I'm going to give our listeners a second example of the second time I negotiated my pay, because when I left the agency we've just about GGT I moved to another agency, bbh, which was at the time the hottest agency in London, and so I moved on the same salary that I was being paid at GGT, but with the promise from BBH that if I performed as they expected me to in the first six months, I would get a six-month pay review, at which point I would get a pay raise.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: As with the previous occasion, I prepared for this, and so I decided that what I really wanted was a pay raise of 5,000 pounds.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: But I went I'm not gonna get that.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: I thought I want the £5,000, but I'll settle for three.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: So I revved myself up for this performance and pay review and in my head I had this refrain want five, settle for three.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Want five, settle for three.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: So I remember standing again in fear and trembling outside the door of my immediate boss, the head of account management at BBH, about to go into my performance pay review, thinking one, five, settle for three.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: So we sit down and he gives me a glowing performance review.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: I've done stormingly well as far as the agent is concerned and I'm thinking get to the point, get the point.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: And he goes.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: And the thing is Cindy, you know you've done such a great job.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: We're going to give you a pay raise of and in my head I'm going one, five, settle three.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: One, five, settle three.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: We're going to give you a pay raise of 6,000 pounds and I was gobsmacked.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: And I was so gobsmacked I just looked at him because I literally did not know what to say.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: I kept my face completely immobile and he thought that I was really disappointed with how low it was, and he went.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: And of course, you know we'll review your pay again another six months and I'm sure if you can't afford this, you know you'll get another pay raise.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: So that is why my second piece of advice to our listeners is you are always in a better position than you think you are.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Do not undersell or undervalue yourself yeah.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: So like even by being quiet, they probably wanted to do even more for you, but even you were like it's internalizing wow, I got way more than three I'm going.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, you know, oh my god, they've just given me a pay rise.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: It's way more than I thought they were going to right, I don't know what to say and, entertainingly, me being quiet made my boss think that I was disappointed and that I wanted to not walk.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about some of those ingredients.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: You had data and we use data in that first iteration of when you were advocating you.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Then, I think, really took time, you know, and when you moved from one agency to another, you had in mind of what you would have as an expectation one agency to another.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: You had in mind of what you would have as an expectation, you prepared for it.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: So, like, you prepared yourself, even if it was a mantra of like this is what I'm going to do in there, this is how I'm going to do it.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: And so that you didn't just accept potential, Like if they gave you a one, you know, 1000 pound raise, you would have then, you know, gone into action with you know, your, your conversation.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: So data and preparation I think were part of it.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: What part of it do you think is confidence?
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: You know, honestly, I'm not a fan of talking to women about confidence because, ironically, um, the more women are told to be confident, the less confident we're going to feel.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Confident, the less confident we're going to feel.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: And the reason I'm not a fan of this concept is because women are told to be many more things that men should be less of.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: I would say it differently I think it's enormously important that you just go into negotiation with a strong sense of your own value.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, I want to frame it like that.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: I don't want to talk about confidence, because I just think that that is not a good framing of the nature of the dialogue that we're talking about.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Right, now, yeah, I think confidence is very abstract.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think self-belief and self-valuing and self-love, like those are things that I think are much more understandable.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: And if you asked me, cindy, if I was confident, I would say sometimes you know like, but it would be like, what does that even mean?
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: So I'm in agreement with you around like, telling someone to be more or less of something is extremely abstract and very difficult to actually do.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: And so I say focus on what you know.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: Your own value is because you know how hard you work, you know what you've contributed, and so the important thing to bear in mind is that people value you at the value you are seen to put on yourself.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: Never undervalue yourself, you know, and that is why.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: Because, obviously, in the many years since, you know, I work as a coach, I've coached many women and men on negotiation across a range of different industries in a range of different scenarios, and that is why the single piece of advice that I give most often is the amount you ask for is always the highest amount you can say out loud without actually bursting out laughing.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: And and it works.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: I hear pretty much every week from a woman somewhere who says oh my God, cindy, I did it and it works.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it works, and I think some of the pieces and parts of this is the just do it of it all meaning stepping into the fear.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: So my definition of bold is really not knowing what's next, knowing something needs to change and doing it anyway.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Stepping through the fear into the, the fear into you know, I don't know how it's going to end up, but I'm going to learn from it regardless, and I may learn that I need to make a change.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I may learn that I need to level up.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: I may learn, you know, something about myself that needs to improve, or maybe something I need to highlight more about myself.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: It's a myriad of things.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: So when we think about, like advocating for ourselves or doing the, the bold, you know the bold thing in our life that we want to think through or do next, and it could be a promotion, it could be salary, it could be trying something new, it could be starting a business I mean, it's a whole host of things could be bold.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: It could be like saying I'm I want a better relationship.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: It could be you know, I'm not sure this person's supporting me and we need to talk about it.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's a bold move, but how do we like ignite it, get it going to actually make that change or do that thing.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: That scares us.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: So two responses to that.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: The first is and actually this is my answer when because I'm asked a lot Cindy, you know, how did you get to be this confident and how can other women be confident like you?
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: And again, you know, as I say, I reject the notion of confidence, particularly because this is my response.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: What I recommend is that you know.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: If you've never done this exercise, take a long, hard look inside yourself and identify what you believe in, what you value, what you stand for, what you are all about is that doing that makes life so much easier because life still throws at you all the shit it always will, but you know exactly how to respond to that shit in any given scenario in a way that is true to you.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: And secondly, that is why this is my response, because, honestly, what people call confidence I call simply living my life and working my work according to my values.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: That's all I'm doing.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: You know living my values, but when you do that, you don't care what anybody else thinks, because you know you're being true to yourself and that lies at the heart of you know what people call confidence.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: The second thing I would say, lee, given how you were characterizing, bold, as you know, stepping out of your existing circumstances into new ones.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: What I also recommend to people and this is born out of my own, again, my own philosophies, because I am somebody who has never, ever, wanted to be married.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: I have never wanted children.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: I adore being single.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: I am not a relationship person.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: I cannot wait to die alone, and I am deliberately very public about all of that, because we don't have enough role models in our society for women and for men, by the way that demonstrate you can live your life very differently to the way that you're expected to, and still be amazingly happy and I'm one of the happiest people I know.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: And so the other thing I recommend to people is take a long hard, look inside yourself and ask yourself what would really make me happy, because it's very likely that what would really make you happy is not necessarily the way you are living your life right now.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: There are many people living life in oiled grooves, because those grooves were dictated by what their parents wanted them to do, what all their friends around them were doing simultaneously, what every message popular culture sent them said they should do do, and so I really recommend stripping all of that out of your mindset, looking deep within yourself, being really honest with yourself and asking what would really make me happy, and then doing that.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: What's interesting is, I think some people don't even know what happy means anymore.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: You hear a lot about, you know, living in your joy, living your life to the fullest, whatever you know, whatever the saying is, but some people have forgotten how to be happy and they're kind of living in that oiled groove, as you talked about it, and they're also potentially aligning with a convention that was set for them by somebody else.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: It could be their parents, it could be their spouse, it could be their friends or their friend group and those types of things and so they've come to accept it in a way of like this is as good as it gets.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: And I'm just, and I think that's a very, very sad way to live, and sometimes they do it at the expense because they think that they're not worthy of it or that it's selfish for them to think about themselves and I don't know have you run into to that type of situation and coaching all the people that you've coached and your experiences that you've had that people think they're not worth it or it's selfish to actually be happy people may come into a session with me thinking that and they think completely differently by the time I finish with finish and I say that because, because I've had many wonderful testimonials to you know my coaching.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: So, yes, of course I've encountered people who feel that.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: But yeah, but as a coach, it's my job to change them right, feeling worthy of being happy.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: I think you know, particularly for women, is something like we have so many different roles, so many hats that we wear.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: You know, like I'm want to be a good mom, I want to be a good wife, I want to be a good sister, a good daughter, a good, whatever your role is in your organization or whatever role is.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: You know, we have a lot of hats and I think you know.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: Just thinking about that, and I think what you got to there is actually like being bold is actually understanding your value and claiming patriarchy and sexism in both a professional and a personal context, and I very much want women to be conscious of that.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you think creates the situation where women don't support women?
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: My experience has been in my corporate career that at times women are not supporting you because there's limited seats at the table, which is a patriarchal thing.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: So there's a connection, right?
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Because I don't think all women in my again, my lived experience has been that not all women have supported me throughout my career and I had an incredible career in my again, my lived experience has been that not all women have supported me throughout my career and I had an incredible career in corporate which took a lot and then by 40, I was a chief, which was just incredible to obtain that at such an early age.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: But it also, I think, created a situation in organizations.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: I worked in wonderful organizations where it created this.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I'll use competition, but I don't know if that's the right word, but wondering what your thoughts are of like when we, when we experience that, what are we experiencing and where do you think that root cause comes from?
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Sure, I've talked about this for years, because what you are describing I call it Highlander syndrome there can be only one when women know that in a male-dominated, sexist environment there is only ever room for one token woman on the leadership team, on the board, on the project, at the event, on the retreat, whatever it is that is what then forces women to compete with other women.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: It's a dynamic idea, for and the good news is that these days and we still have a very long way to go, but we are making more and more inroads One sees this less and less, you know.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: One sees much more female solidarity also because, honestly, one of the best things that social media has ever done is catalyzed female solidarity, you know.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: It's catalyzed women realizing we're all going through this shit and it's catalyzed women supporting other women through it as well.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: So you know, I'm happy to say that while that still happens in particularly sexist you know sort of pockets of industry, it is less and less these days to get to that place and not feel like, oh someone's got me, someone's supporting me.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: You know we hear a lot about creating a place at the table and sponsoring other women.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Are there organizations?
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: that do that better than others in your experience.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: Honestly, again, I'm giving you a very subjective perspective, but I don't think it's about organizations.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: What I mean by that is I'm regularly interviewed about my successful career in advertising, and I always explain that my successful career in advertising was entirely down to luck.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: I was very lucky on two fronts.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: The first is I was lucky because I was never sexually harassed in a way that ended my career, and I was absolutely sexually harassed, but not in a way that so many women experience.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: That involve retaliation, managing you out of the company, managing you out of the industry Pure luck, by the way.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: The second reason I was lucky was because I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of female bosses I had in my entire advertising career too.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: I virtually always worked for men, but I was lucky enough to work for men who saw my potential before I did, wanted me to succeed, championed me and gave me every opportunity to do so, and that is not the experience of most women, and the reason I'm saying that in response to the question is because it's not about organizations.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: It's about making sure that you only work for people who want you to succeed and will give you every opportunity to do so and, by the way, those people can be men as much as women.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: But my advice to everybody, and especially women, is, if that is not the case where you currently work, get out and go somewhere where it is, for example, in my industry, advertising.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: Still, horrifyingly, only 1% of all advertising agencies here in the US are women-owned, and a wonderful woman called Christy Heiler, who is the female owner of an agency called Cornette, is out to change that, and so she has a podcast series called Own it where she interviews female agency founders and business owners, and the last time I checked she had something like 80 interviews.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: And so I say to women in our industry go and listen to those podcast episodes, because your next boss is there.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: Go and listen to those podcast episodes because your next boss is there.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: That's what I mean by you know.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: Get out of anywhere you're working where they do not champion you.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: Give you every opportunity and go and find somebody who will and work there instead yeah, why do you think people don't get out?
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: well, you know all sorts of wrong-headed reasons, partly Partly, by the way, and again this is wrong-headed because it's been deliberately drilled into over the years.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: When you've had your confidence destroyed, you don't believe you'll be good anywhere else.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: I mean that's a very common syndrome.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: It's appalling the mistaken belief that a job is the safe option, which it never is, by the way, because in any job, you are at the complete mercy of management changes, industry downturns, marketplace dynamics.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: I mean this is why, by the way, I am evangelical about ultimately working for yourself.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: I always say whose hands would you rather place your future in?
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: There's the large corporate entity or somebody who will always have your best interests at heart?
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: ie yeah, and both have a risk to it.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Right, I think I you know, as an entrepreneur, it was something that I never even thought I could be until I just got pushed to a point of, like I had to choose me.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: I had to choose my values, my family, the way that I but I was the breadwinner.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: I was as selfish if I was doing this, but I hadn't gotten to the point where, like, it was destroying me.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Like it was such a toxic level of burnout, like two hours of sleep, horrible health habits, constant working length and quitting your job without having your job is bold and it's scary.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: And but what was so interesting about it, cindy, was the moment I did it.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: It felt freeing.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: Oh my God.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, by the way, I've done the same thing, Lee.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: I've left a job without a job to go to, Absolutely.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: And I think what's very important for people to realize, Lee, is and this is true at every level of society and every level of income, and so what I'm about to say does not involve privilege at all.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: We have not even begun to see how every industry can be reinvented through the female lens.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, take my own, okay, advertising.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: We as women are the primary targets of all advertising because we are the primary purchasers of everything and the primary infants that purchase everything.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: But our industry is male dominated.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: How ridiculous is that?
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: We, as women, are sold to the male lens, which is why those studies regularly come out that go 90% of women say that advertising isn't relevant to them.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: It's ridiculous.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: At the same time.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Think about the restaurant industry.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: All the famous chefs are men.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Women are seen as cooks and domestic cooks.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Professional recognition goes primarily to men and, by the way, that is why I say you know, the opportunity to build your own business exists at every level of society, because you can absolutely bring the female lens to doing business.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: You know in a completely different way whether you are a low-income worker who's a woman who decides she's had enough of her shitty job and she wants to start making and selling whatever she's brilliant at cooking out of her kitchen at the local market, et cetera.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Build a business that way.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: And again, women don't do this.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: Because One of the questions I'm asked in interviews is so, Cindy, what sexism did you encounter coming up with the ranks in advertising?
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: And my response is always a fish does not know what water is.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Because when I was a young woman in advertising in London in the 1980s, sexism was all around me and it was a norm.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: I didn't even notice.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: Today that same phenomenon exists in every industry, which is so male dominated and white male dominated that you know women don't realize how much money that they could be making by reinventing it with a female lens.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: So when I talk to them about starting their own businesses, one of the things I say to them is take a long, hard look around you at your industry and identify what you think is missing.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: That should be there, what you would love to make use of yourself.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: That you can't because nobody built it.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: You could uniquely bring to the table that nobody else is and then start that because that's a huge market opportunity.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: And then the second thing I recommend when I'm doing this exercise is I recommend bringing an additional dimension to it.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: So I have a friend, Natalie Molina Nino, who is a wonderful entrepreneur and investor and she wrote a book some years ago called Leapfrog, which I recommend because it's a book where she interviewed a ton of female founders, myself included, about all the challenges we faced and how we overcame them.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: And it's called Leapfrog because the idea is that this book enables the women who come after us to leapfrog those obstacles because we've given them solutions.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: But the reason I'm sharing this is because there's a wonderful line from Natalie Network that I quote all the time.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: You know how we're always told to start businesses around our passion.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: You know, find what you're passionate about.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: And Natalie says forget passion, find things you want to punch.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: And so what I say to women is, when you come up with this exercise, also think about what in your sphere of operation, in your industry right now, makes you red hot with rage on a daily basis.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: What enormously frustrates you, what are you furious about?
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: Build a solution to that, because you can extrapolate back out from your frustration to thousands and millions of people who pay good money for that solution yeah.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: So I love that.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Maybe passion is.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: But, like, what do you want to change?
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: What is something that you think needs to go away forever and, as soon as possible, promoted or not see their worth or to actually have to mute themselves?
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, I would say that I kind of felt like I had to do that in the corporate world, like I couldn't be all of me all the time and because of that it felt like at times it was like it took a lot of energy and I think that led to the burnout, partly for sure.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: But thinking about being able to make a change, a positive change, like solve that problem for good, right, and how do you do it differently than anybody else?
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: When we think about, you know some of the things that people are doing now as they start their businesses and and try to like light their entrepreneurial spirit in a way that they can actually make that change, like it's a bold move, it's a step.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: What is it around advertising slash, personal branding that people need to understand when they're stepping out, because a lot of people get intimidated by actually saying, wow, I have to put myself out there.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: For example, cindy, when I first started, I had 80 followers.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: I had everything like just totally locked down.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: No one could see this or that.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: I was extremely private.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Everything like just totally locked down.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: No one could see this or that.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: I was extremely private.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: But I realized that if I don't share my message and the messiness of what I'm doing and how I'm moving forward, then I can't help anyone.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: And the first person that said I inspired them I actually took that as like, I'm responsible, that's a responsibility, like I take it very seriously to kind of like you know, everything isn't always going great and here's the ups and here's the downs, and I think you know I've grown to 17,000 followers on LinkedIn.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: So, like, when someone's putting themselves out there, it feels like a level of vulnerability that they've never experienced before.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: So what would be your guidance or advice to someone who is ready to do that.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: So what I would say, say interestingly, is that putting yourself out there makes you the complete opposite of vulnerable, and what I mean by that is I'm a big fan of be your own filter.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: So you know, as you know, lee um anyone who follows me knows my linkedin bio and my tagline across all my social channels is I like to blow shit up.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: I'm the Michael Bayer business and where that came from was many years ago.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: I was meeting with some potential consultancy clients and I was talking them through my approach to consulting and I said to them so I'm very selective about who I consult with.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: I only consult with brands and businesses that want to change the game in their particular sector.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: You come to me for radical, innovative, groundbreaking, transformative.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: I don't do status quo Like a heart of me off the cuff.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: I said I like to blow shit up.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: I know I can be a business and everyone in the meeting laughed and I left the room and I thought actually that's a really good way of summing up what I do and I've been using it ever since.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: But I use that line not as a bit of fun creativity whimsy.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: I use that line entirely deliberately Because when I characterize what I do in that way it attracts to me the people who want what I do.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: It repels the ones who don't, and I want to repel the ones who don't, because they're a waste of time, effort and money.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: So the interesting thing is, when you put yourself out there in terms of what you're doing, what you stand for, what your business is all about, you will absolutely attract your tribe to you and you will keep away the people who don't get it.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: I especially encourage women to do this on LinkedIn, which is far and away the most effective social media platform, and that's because the LinkedIn algorithm works differently and better than any other social channel Because, as you know, when you post on LinkedIn, your entire network sees it.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: When somebody comments on your post, their entire network sees that.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: When they like your post, their entire.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: My posts linkedin get way more reach, impressions and engagement than on any other channel, and you know.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: Another very interesting example of how much you can attract the people who get it to you is you know, and and I'm going to give you my own example, which is it's a bit of an extreme one, but it absolutely demonstrates how much you can attract the right people to you.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: So you know, I'm currently working to raise funding for my own business Make Love, not Porn and my challenge with finding investors is, and always has been, that I know that my investors are out there.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: There are a ton of them.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: They're impossible to find by the usual means.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: So my strategy, deliberately, is I put what I'm doing out there all the time across all my social channels.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: I do every media interview I'm asked to.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: I go on every podcast.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: I have to make synaptic connections happen that will attract those investors to me.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: Now, theoretically this is a long, slow, painful, highly inefficient process.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: In practice it works and I've been amazed at the fact that LinkedIn is my number one investor lead generator.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Investors reach out regularly going I see you're raising funding.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: I'd like to talk, I'm intrigued, tell me more and, as I said, my case is a rather extreme one.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: I operate on the final front of investment, but everyone listening to us that's what I mean when I say be your own filter.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Put what you're doing out there, especially on LinkedIn.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: You will attract the people who get it to you.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: Those people are your clients, your partners, your customers, your community, and so, ironically, as I said, putting yourself out there is the opposite of vulnerable.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: It's making yourself strong.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that Because it does kind of turn it on its head.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: You're doing something other people aren't doing to.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: You're putting yourself out there.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: You're.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: You're doing what you need to do, whether it's share more or guide people or give advice or just share your experience.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: You know, you know we've heard multiple times the mess.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: You know the message is in your mess and so people learn from that and realize, wow, you came back from that or you got through that or you figured something out.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: And that inspires people.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: And I think, ultimately, that's why we're here is to make a positive difference in other people's lives.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: And I think you're definitely doing that with the work that you're doing with Make Love Not Porn and all of the other things that you do in your organizations and helping people realize that actually, maybe we should change the definition of bold.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: It shouldn't be all about like being your true self and being authentic, like that should just be a norm and no longer be considered bold.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: So we'll keep working towards that.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so we'll keep working towards that.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so thank you so much for being on the Bold Lounge.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: All the information about Cindy, her organizations and all the things that she supports others in is in the episode notes.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, cindy.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: It's been a pleasure.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Leigh, thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: Through the continuum of bold stories vulnerability to taking a leap you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.