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Pretty Likeable: How to Escape the Likeability Trap with Alicia Menendez · QUESTION EVERYTHING

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Speaker 1: The following podcast is a Dear Media production.
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Speaker 2: You always remember your first don't you Your first kiss,
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Speaker 2: your first concert, the first time you visit New York, Oh,
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Speaker 2: the first time you drive a car, your first basketball game,
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Speaker 2: your first love. Today is one of those firsts for me.
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Speaker 2: This is the first episode of Pretty Smart. This show
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Speaker 2: was nearly two years in the making, so, as you
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Speaker 2: can imagine, I felt like the first episode had to
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Speaker 2: be special. I hope it will be. Thank you for
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Speaker 2: doing this first with me. Big things happen when you're pretty,
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Speaker 2: pretty bold, pretty clever, pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and
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Speaker 2: each week my guests and I have conversations that put
0:49
Speaker 2: a new spin on pretty This is pretty smart. Be
0:57
Speaker 2: nice but not too nice. Be assertive but not demanding.
1:02
Speaker 2: Take credit for a job well done, but keep in
1:05
Speaker 2: mind great leaders are team players. Make sure you talk
1:09
Speaker 2: about what you bring to the table without sounding like
1:11
Speaker 2: you're bragging. Be enthusiastic, but don't be too eager. Get
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Speaker 2: a lot of mixed advice on how to be at work.
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Speaker 2: It can feel like you're doing gender judo. And the
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Speaker 2: more I talk to my friends, the more i feel
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Speaker 2: like I'm not alone in this navigating likability can feel
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Speaker 2: like a minefield. Just be likable easier said than done.
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Speaker 2: Then one day I stumbled on a book titled The
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Speaker 2: Likability Trap. I finished it in two days. This book
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Speaker 2: gave me the words to explain what I'd been feeling
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Speaker 2: for years and couldn't explain. When men walk into a room,
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Speaker 2: they're perceived as competent. When women walk into the room,
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Speaker 2: they have to prove it. So how can women exist
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Speaker 2: in the narrow space between strength and warmth and be authentic?
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Speaker 2: Award winning journalist and author Alicia Menandez says women are
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Speaker 2: stuck in an impossible bind, so much so it's actually
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Speaker 2: a trap. Alicia, it is such a trap. I felt
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Speaker 2: like I had PMS for the last ten years of
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Speaker 2: my career, and then I read your book and I thought,
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Speaker 2: for the very first time, oh my god, maybe it's
2:19
Speaker 2: not me. So thank you for that.
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Speaker 1: Thank you for reading it. Like writing a book is
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Speaker 1: one thing, having the.
2:25
Speaker 3: Book find the person it was meant for, and then
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Speaker 3: having that person actually read it is a whole other level.
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Speaker 2: I've never thought about it that way. I love the
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Speaker 2: idea of a book finding somebody because it does land
2:36
Speaker 2: in the hands of the person who's supposed to read it.
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Speaker 2: That's very cool. I kind of have this armchair philosophy.
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Speaker 2: It's definitely not researched that people that go into passionate
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Speaker 2: careers or fields do so in part to kind of
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Speaker 2: heal themselves. And so my best guess when I was
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Speaker 2: reading this book was that you fell into the likability trap.
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Speaker 2: And I'm wondering if there was a moment that sort
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Speaker 2: of cattle you wanting to write the book.
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Speaker 3: I don't know that there is any single moment, so
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Speaker 3: much as I think the process of getting into my thirties.
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Speaker 1: And realizing that I was in a lot of.
3:13
Speaker 3: Situations at work where I was really trying to please everyone.
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Speaker 3: I was trying to please the people who I managed
3:20
Speaker 3: on my team. I was trying to please the people
3:23
Speaker 3: who managed me, and by that I mean both doing
3:26
Speaker 3: my work and delivering, but also being very pleasant and
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Speaker 3: non demanding and non confrontational in the process. When I
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Speaker 3: would assert what I wanted, two things would happen. One,
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Speaker 3: I would often feel that the vibe in the room
3:44
Speaker 3: changed and all of a sudden, people sort of had
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Speaker 3: their backs up a little bit. And then the second
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Speaker 3: thing that would happen is I would leave the room
3:52
Speaker 3: or the meeting, and even if I accomplished what I
3:56
Speaker 3: wanted to accomplish, even if I received the thing that
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Speaker 3: I was asking for, I would sort of have this
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Speaker 3: likability hangover where I would then worry about the way
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Speaker 3: that I had.
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Speaker 1: Been in the room.
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Speaker 3: And so in some ways it was that ladder piece,
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Speaker 3: the hangover that I was initially really interested in. Why
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Speaker 3: am I feeling so bad for asking for what I
4:20
Speaker 3: want and getting this response? And I imagined myself going
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Speaker 3: like on an e prey love for likability, where I would,
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Speaker 3: as a person who cares a lot about being well liked,
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Speaker 3: do all these things to learn to care less. And
4:33
Speaker 3: what happened to Neil is that as I started interviewing
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Speaker 3: other women, I met a lot of women who, like
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Speaker 3: you and I, were governed by likability, people for whom
4:43
Speaker 3: it was really important.
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Speaker 1: But then I also met a lot of women who
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Speaker 1: really didn't give a damn.
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Speaker 3: And I imagine that those women were just out there
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Speaker 3: living their best lives. And what I came to find
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Speaker 3: is that even those women felt that they were paying
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Speaker 3: a price for being so brazenly themselves.
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Speaker 2: I was actually going to ask you about that because
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Speaker 2: there are moments particularly I think in what we do,
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Speaker 2: I'm on set and feel some of these things very blatantly,
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Speaker 2: and I go home have the likability hangover, as you
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Speaker 2: call it, which I love that term, and then I
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Speaker 2: try and sift through it, and I think to myself,
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Speaker 2: you're so sensitive, Danielle, Like, there must be women out
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Speaker 2: there who just don't care. So you interviewed hundreds of
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Speaker 2: people for this book. They don't care, but there's still
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Speaker 2: a price to pay.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think there are a lot of
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Speaker 3: women who are very clear, very assertive, very direct, ask
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Speaker 3: for what they want, ask for what they need, don't
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Speaker 3: have those secondary feelings afterwards. But the truth is that
5:41
Speaker 3: we work and live in a culture, in a society
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Speaker 3: where we socialize women and girls to care about what
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Speaker 3: other people think of them. I think in some ways
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Speaker 3: that can be really good and really powerful and not
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Speaker 3: a thing we want to dismiss entirely, because I do
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Speaker 3: want other people to feel good and seen and respected
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Speaker 3: in my presence. It's actually a big part of what
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Speaker 3: I pride myself on. The challenges when that cross is
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Speaker 3: over into being dictated by it, right when it becomes
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Speaker 3: the only thing you care about when you don't feel
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Speaker 3: you can authentically show up as your true self because
6:15
Speaker 3: you're always trying to please other people. And what I
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Speaker 3: found with a lot of the women who aren't governed
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Speaker 3: by it is they work in places where they have
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Speaker 3: managers and bosses who feel like they should care, and
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Speaker 3: that by being a woman who sort of just operates
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Speaker 3: in the world without regard for what other people are
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Speaker 3: thinking about them or feeling about them, that they often
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Speaker 3: have gotten dinged for not caring.
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Speaker 1: And so that became more interesting to me.
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Speaker 3: Right, why is there this expectation that women are supposed
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Speaker 3: to care? And especially I think where this shows up
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Speaker 3: is for women who are ambitious and for women who
6:55
Speaker 3: work in male dominated.
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Speaker 1: Fields where leadership is.
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Speaker 3: Framed around this very mass masculine notion of leadership, and
7:02
Speaker 3: where anyone who doesn't show up that way isn't seen
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Speaker 3: as a leader, or anyone who does show up that way,
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Speaker 3: but as a woman is then seen is less likable
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Speaker 3: because she's not showing up the way that we as
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Speaker 3: a society and we as a culture expect women to
7:18
Speaker 3: show up.
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Speaker 2: I thought you did such a wonderful job of characterizing
7:23
Speaker 2: those the two that really stuck out to me as
7:25
Speaker 2: examples in the book were one women in politics and
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Speaker 2: two women with children. So I'm wondering if we can
7:32
Speaker 2: kind of go through those categories the women in politics.
7:35
Speaker 2: You just said that leadership is still framed through a
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Speaker 2: male lens, which is I think like the overarching issue
7:42
Speaker 2: that we don't think about, even down to the way
7:44
Speaker 2: we're supposed to dress like a suit is powerful, I know.
7:47
Speaker 3: But look at you in that leather blazer. See to me,
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Speaker 3: you look so powerful.
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Speaker 1: I love it.
7:51
Speaker 3: Thought a lot to know about whether or not this
7:53
Speaker 3: past election cycle did begin to loosen up some of
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Speaker 3: those frameworks. So for women in politics, the core tension,
8:01
Speaker 3: and the core attension for all women is that we
8:04
Speaker 3: expect women to act communally, to want what is in
8:07
Speaker 3: everyone's best interest, to care about the team, not about herself,
8:11
Speaker 3: which is why when a woman says me or I,
8:14
Speaker 3: when she frames things around herself, people get really uncomfortable.
8:18
Speaker 3: And when you're running for office, even if you're running
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Speaker 3: because you care about your community and you want everyone
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Speaker 3: on your block to have access to whatever it is,
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Speaker 3: better water, better schools, there is still the sense that
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Speaker 3: you're putting your name, your hat into the ring, and
8:34
Speaker 3: that that act of raising your hand and saying I
8:37
Speaker 3: think I can do this already means that women begin
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Speaker 3: as a deficit because we're not accustomed to seeing women
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Speaker 3: do that. What I think this cycle may have changed
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Speaker 3: was there were all of these women that were being
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Speaker 3: considered very publicly to be Joe Biden's running me, and
8:55
Speaker 3: I thought it was fascinating and powerful that, one by one,
9:00
Speaker 3: instead of doing what people normally do when their name
9:03
Speaker 3: is being floated for a vice president, which is to say, oh,
9:06
Speaker 3: I don't know, it would be an honor, but you
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Speaker 3: know I'm every single woman said yes, I would like
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Speaker 3: this job, and let me tell you why I'm qualified,
9:15
Speaker 3: let me tell you why I'm the best candidate. And
9:18
Speaker 3: I thought it was so powerful that it wasn't just
9:20
Speaker 3: Stacy Abrams, it wasn't just Val Demming's, it wasn't just
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Speaker 3: Kamala Harris. It was an entire group of women who
9:28
Speaker 3: one by one made it really normal to say I
9:33
Speaker 3: want this, I can do this, and if asked, I'm
9:35
Speaker 3: going to say yes.
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Speaker 1: And I think there was a power in the individual
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Speaker 1: doing it, but I think there is even more power
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Speaker 1: in the group doing it because it became such a
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Speaker 1: unifying factor that it meant you couldn't pick it apart
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Speaker 1: as strategy one by one. It was just normal. It
9:52
Speaker 1: was what everybody was doing.
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Speaker 3: And I think that is awesome, not just for women
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Speaker 3: in politics, but for women in any industry.
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Speaker 2: I agree. I think we saw it with the Me
10:01
Speaker 2: Too movement. A rising tide lifts all boats. There's real
10:04
Speaker 2: power in numbers. The one thing I did see because
10:07
Speaker 2: I agree with you, but I heard a lot of
10:09
Speaker 2: people kind of substitute the word likability for electability. It
10:13
Speaker 2: felt like a synonym almost, we just decided to use
10:16
Speaker 2: a nicer word.
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Speaker 3: Feel like it is a close cousin of likability. Everyone
10:21
Speaker 3: learned the lesson from twenty sixteen, where that was so
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Speaker 3: much of the way that we talked about Hillary Clinton,
10:26
Speaker 3: and so it's like they trained themselves not to say it,
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Speaker 3: like don't say it, don't say it, don't talk about
10:30
Speaker 3: how likable she is. And so they were like, but
10:32
Speaker 3: you know how we can talk about it by talking
10:34
Speaker 3: about whether or not she's electable, because not about whether
10:36
Speaker 3: or not I like her, It's about whether or not
10:38
Speaker 3: these other amorphous Americans out here will like her.
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Speaker 1: So yeah, we're not past it bindings.
10:44
Speaker 3: I mean, I think you saw Kamala Harris come up
10:46
Speaker 3: against it in a number of ways. Some of them
10:49
Speaker 3: were about gender, some of them were racialized. I actually
10:52
Speaker 3: think she came up against the question even more during
10:55
Speaker 3: the primary when she, you know, brought critiques to Joe
10:59
Speaker 3: Biden said you know, this is part of your record,
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Speaker 3: and I want to talk about it. And it was
11:04
Speaker 3: very clear that he got dinged for just deigning to
11:08
Speaker 3: go toe to toe with him.
11:09
Speaker 2: I'm going to start using that in my mind, it's ding.
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Speaker 2: I got dinged because it is. It feels like ding.
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Speaker 1: I think you can do it.
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Speaker 3: As much as you do it for yourself, you do it,
11:19
Speaker 3: watching when it happens to other women is equally powerful.
11:22
Speaker 2: Actually, what's your philosophy on that? Because I'm sure you're
11:25
Speaker 2: so tuned into it now you probably always were, but
11:28
Speaker 2: especially after writing the book and researching, how much do
11:32
Speaker 2: you try and go out of your way in situations
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Speaker 2: to speak up when you hear it happening or see
11:38
Speaker 2: it happening to other people?
11:40
Speaker 1: Every time?
11:41
Speaker 3: Now it is like a yes because part and part
11:44
Speaker 3: of what I think it is too, is that a
11:49
Speaker 3: gentle probe will often go a long way that if
11:52
Speaker 3: someone says I don't know, I just don't like to
11:55
Speaker 3: Niel that I could say, what do you mean by that?
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Speaker 3: What do you mean when you say I don't like her?
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Speaker 3: What is it about her that you don't like? And
12:02
Speaker 3: if you drill down, drilled down, drill down, you realize
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Speaker 3: how subjective it often is, and how coded and loaded
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Speaker 3: it is. And I actually think there are lots of
12:11
Speaker 3: opportunities to reframe language. And if someone says to me,
12:15
Speaker 3: she's a little indecisive, and I say, well, is she
12:17
Speaker 3: indecisive or is she deliberate?
12:20
Speaker 1: Is she aggressive? Or does she deliver for her team?
12:24
Speaker 3: Even words like helpful, which I've often described another woman
12:28
Speaker 3: as being helpful, and I have meant it as a
12:31
Speaker 3: positive attribute. Calling a woman helpful can often diminish her
12:35
Speaker 3: to just being a helper. So I've learned to say
12:38
Speaker 3: not just oh no. Danielle was really helpful on this project.
12:41
Speaker 3: But Danielle ran all our regression analysis. Danielle wrote all
12:45
Speaker 3: of the scripts, she prepared, all of minders. Whatever it is,
12:49
Speaker 3: the actual thing that the person brought and contributed helps
12:53
Speaker 3: people understand the value that they add much more than
12:56
Speaker 3: saying a woman is helpful because when you do that,
12:59
Speaker 3: most often people are like, she got everybody coffee.
13:01
Speaker 2: Drilling down to the specificity is one of the biggest
13:03
Speaker 2: takeaways I had from the book, and I loved when
13:06
Speaker 2: you said, because I think you and I are probably
13:08
Speaker 2: really sort of fueled by questions innately, and to use
13:12
Speaker 2: that as a tool is really powerful. I started saying
13:15
Speaker 2: to people if I heard an uncomfortable comment, can you
13:19
Speaker 2: repeat that? Hearing themselves say it again I think made
13:22
Speaker 2: them realize that it was ridiculous. But there were two
13:25
Speaker 2: questions that you noted in the book that I really
13:27
Speaker 2: loved that when you get feedback from your employer, there
13:31
Speaker 2: are two things that you can say. I'm wondering if
13:33
Speaker 2: you can kind of talk.
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Speaker 3: About that absolutely, and I want to say these ideas.
13:38
Speaker 3: This came from an executive coach who I quote in
13:41
Speaker 3: the book, and most of the feedback that women get,
13:44
Speaker 3: the vast majority of feedback is critical subjective feedback, meaning
13:48
Speaker 3: that instead of talking about your results or about the
13:51
Speaker 3: work itself, very often in a formal or informal feedback session,
13:55
Speaker 3: it'll be about the way you use your hands, or
13:57
Speaker 3: the way you use your voice, or the way you
13:58
Speaker 3: sit in a chair, which for you and I actually
14:02
Speaker 3: is part of the work, but for many women is
14:06
Speaker 3: very tertiary to the work that they do.
14:08
Speaker 1: And so that if.
14:09
Speaker 3: Someone were in a feedback session and they were to
14:11
Speaker 3: say to you, you know, Melissa, you're just too assertive,
14:15
Speaker 3: that Melissa would say, okay, assertive compared to whom, meaning
14:20
Speaker 3: would you give that feedback?
14:21
Speaker 1: Would you qualify my style that way?
14:24
Speaker 3: If I were someone else in the office, it gives
14:26
Speaker 3: the person who's giving the feedback an opportunity to say, oh,
14:30
Speaker 3: let me.
14:30
Speaker 1: Think about that. I'm not sure I would.
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Speaker 3: And then I think the second question is actually even
14:34
Speaker 3: more useful and more powerful, which is to say, Okay,
14:37
Speaker 3: can you draw a line for me from the way
14:40
Speaker 3: you see my style in the office to how it
14:42
Speaker 3: actually impacts the results of my work. I think if
14:45
Speaker 3: you're going to ask that question, you also have to
14:47
Speaker 3: be open to the possibility that there is a connection
14:50
Speaker 3: between your style and how it impacts your work. But again,
14:54
Speaker 3: it pushes the conversation towards the work itself and towards results,
15:00
Speaker 3: which is what I heard from women again and again
15:03
Speaker 3: that that is really where they wanted to see things
15:05
Speaker 3: headed So as much as I think that's a good
15:08
Speaker 3: advocacy tool for yourself and you should use it tomorrow
15:11
Speaker 3: and any type of feedback you have, I also think
15:14
Speaker 3: it is really powerful when you use it on someone
15:15
Speaker 3: else's behalf, when you ask those questions on someone else's behalf, Oh,
15:18
Speaker 3: she's too aggressive. Can you give me an example of
15:21
Speaker 3: where that impacted or work? And that for those of
15:24
Speaker 3: us who are managers or even just work with other teammates,
15:28
Speaker 3: that we are thinking critically about the feedback that we
15:31
Speaker 3: give and how much of it is about style and
15:34
Speaker 3: how much of it's actually about substance.
15:36
Speaker 2: So there are two ideals we must hold at once
15:38
Speaker 2: that makes this such a catch twenty two. And you
15:41
Speaker 2: call this the Goldilocks conundrum. Can you kind of lay
15:44
Speaker 2: out what that catch twenty two is the holding two
15:47
Speaker 2: ideals at once.
15:48
Speaker 3: We expect women to be warm and communal and what's
15:54
Speaker 3: best for everybody, and we expect leaders to be direct
16:01
Speaker 3: and to be able to advocate for themselves. And that
16:06
Speaker 3: means that if you are showing up the way we
16:08
Speaker 3: expect a woman to show up, then people don't see
16:11
Speaker 3: you as a leader. And if you show up the
16:13
Speaker 3: way we've been conditioned to expect leaders to show up.
16:16
Speaker 3: Then people think that you're violating what they expect from
16:19
Speaker 3: you as a woman. And so that is just the
16:21
Speaker 3: constant tension that women are running up against. And I
16:25
Speaker 3: think you see it most if you just think about
16:28
Speaker 3: most of the women in your life and the feedback
16:31
Speaker 3: that they've been given, which is they've either been told
16:34
Speaker 3: often that they are too assertive, too aggressive.
16:38
Speaker 1: Need to tone it down.
16:39
Speaker 3: That while they have what it takes to be seen
16:42
Speaker 3: as a leader, there are people in the office who
16:44
Speaker 3: they rube the wrong way or who may not like them.
16:46
Speaker 3: And then the other version of that, or the complete
16:50
Speaker 3: inverse of that, is a woman who everybody likes and
16:53
Speaker 3: everybody loves and just adores, so people aren't sure she
16:58
Speaker 3: has it, that she doesn't take up enough room, she
17:00
Speaker 3: doesn't take up enough oxygen. I mean, there are like
17:03
Speaker 3: a million euphemisms for the fact that people don't see
17:05
Speaker 3: her as a leader. And then what I find especially
17:08
Speaker 3: interesting is that there are a lot of women like
17:11
Speaker 3: myself who've been given both sets of feedback, have been
17:14
Speaker 3: told that we are too much or not enough. And
17:17
Speaker 3: that shows you, I think, just how subjective and context
17:20
Speaker 3: specific that feedback is that there are certain environments where
17:24
Speaker 3: you're seen as really a sort of and then there
17:27
Speaker 3: are other environments where you are seen as not a
17:29
Speaker 3: sort of enough, which tells you you're you. You might
17:33
Speaker 3: be showing up as you exactly as you are all
17:35
Speaker 3: the time. It's not you that's always changing. Sometimes it
17:39
Speaker 3: is the expectation of the environment itself.
17:42
Speaker 2: Because it's also about the people giving the feedback as well,
17:46
Speaker 2: it's subjective to their own personal experiences. One of the
17:50
Speaker 2: largest pushbacks I hear when I talk to people about this,
17:54
Speaker 2: specifically men in positions of leadership. They say that they
17:58
Speaker 2: feel a lack of accountability from people, and so they're like,
18:01
Speaker 2: it's not a woman thing, it's a person thing. Of course,
18:04
Speaker 2: I want somebody who's likable, who's amiable, who has great
18:09
Speaker 2: people skills and can negotiate. Well, why is this so
18:13
Speaker 2: specific to women.
18:14
Speaker 3: I do think that people want to work with people
18:17
Speaker 3: that they.
18:18
Speaker 1: Like, and that is part of why.
18:20
Speaker 3: I also don't feel it's as simple as being like,
18:23
Speaker 3: don't care about likability, just like, get over it.
18:26
Speaker 1: No. The challenge is.
18:29
Speaker 3: That what we see as a likable leader specifically has
18:34
Speaker 3: been defined in very masculine terms. That's also challenging if
18:39
Speaker 3: you are, you know, identify as a man and don't
18:43
Speaker 3: present in an uber masculine way the same way that
18:47
Speaker 3: women get dinged at the workplace, ever, communicating in a
18:50
Speaker 3: way that approximates anger. If a man cries in the workplace,
18:56
Speaker 3: that is an instant de merit like he is not
18:59
Speaker 3: seen as being as strong.
19:02
Speaker 1: Or as leaderly as he would be otherwise. So it's
19:06
Speaker 1: about the fact that there's just.
19:08
Speaker 3: Not a big enough space and a broad enough definition
19:13
Speaker 3: for people to step into that. It's this very narrow
19:17
Speaker 3: definition of what a likable leader can be and how
19:20
Speaker 3: they can show up, and my interest is in expanding
19:24
Speaker 3: that to include many more people and many more styles
19:30
Speaker 3: of leadership.
19:30
Speaker 2: There was such a great example you used. You said,
19:33
Speaker 2: there was a study done in researchers showed a series
19:35
Speaker 2: of videos where an individual was forced to choose between
19:38
Speaker 2: staying at work and dealing with a crisis or going
19:40
Speaker 2: home to tend to a sick child. Men had no
19:43
Speaker 2: penalty either way, so whichever one they chose, they were
19:46
Speaker 2: to find. And women were either competent and unlikable or
19:50
Speaker 2: likable and incompetent, and those two things likable and competency
19:55
Speaker 2: are constantly on this inverse swing.
19:58
Speaker 1: That study really set my hair on five.
20:00
Speaker 3: I think because I was becoming a parent around the
20:02
Speaker 3: time that I read it, which is to say, I mean,
20:05
Speaker 3: imagine it. A woman is at her desk and there
20:08
Speaker 3: is some big assignment due and everybody's rushing to finish it,
20:11
Speaker 3: and she gets, let's say, a call from her kid's
20:13
Speaker 3: school and they say, Jimmy just threw up on the playground.
20:16
Speaker 3: So she rushes out the door to go get Jimmy.
20:18
Speaker 3: And everyone's like, well, I guess she's not that dedicated
20:20
Speaker 3: to this project. Or if she says like, well, Jimmy's
20:24
Speaker 3: other parent will pick him up, like it'll be fine,
20:26
Speaker 3: I'll stay here and I'll do the job, that everyone's like.
20:28
Speaker 1: Oh my god, what a terrible mother.
20:30
Speaker 3: It's like she really can't win. And that would be
20:34
Speaker 3: one thing, as you sort of alluded to, if the
20:37
Speaker 3: same things happened with dads. But when a dad rushed
20:42
Speaker 3: out door to go get Jimmy, everyone was like, he's
20:44
Speaker 3: an amazing father, like he's so dedicated, And when he
20:47
Speaker 3: stayed at work, everyone was like, yeah, a real team player, like.
20:50
Speaker 1: He won both ways.
20:51
Speaker 3: And the mom got dinged both ways, and it even
20:54
Speaker 3: shows up in more subtle ways that again, there are
20:57
Speaker 3: things I didn't think about until I became parent, And
21:00
Speaker 3: I think becoming a parent has been very helpful in
21:03
Speaker 3: terms of recognizing, even as a very empathetic person, the
21:06
Speaker 3: limits of our own empathy and how imagining someone else's
21:10
Speaker 3: life situation or circumstance is actually more challenging than we
21:15
Speaker 3: want to acknowledge.
21:16
Speaker 1: Which is like happy hour is hard for parents.
21:19
Speaker 3: That bowling thing at five point thirty that means they
21:22
Speaker 3: have to arrange child care, It means they have to
21:25
Speaker 3: plan dinner from afar. I mean, all of these things
21:28
Speaker 3: just become more complicated, and that's where a lot of
21:31
Speaker 3: the social fiber of work really happens. It happens in
21:35
Speaker 3: those things. That's like even if you do get invited
21:38
Speaker 3: to go and schmooze and do it, like if you
21:40
Speaker 3: don't do it, there's a price. I think a lot
21:43
Speaker 3: of places are trying to think more holistically about how
21:46
Speaker 3: you set people up to succeed for those things. This
21:50
Speaker 3: all sounds so wild because no one's been together in
21:52
Speaker 3: person in a year, so like just imagining a bar
21:56
Speaker 3: situation is making me very anxious.
21:58
Speaker 2: Of course, there was all these terrible things, but there's
22:00
Speaker 2: a pressure that was lifted that I hear most people
22:02
Speaker 2: talk about by not feeling like they have to go
22:05
Speaker 2: to those things. I had an experience on set recently
22:08
Speaker 2: that it took me an hour of therapy to sift through,
22:11
Speaker 2: and I want to kind of tell you about it
22:12
Speaker 2: and then unpack it with you. I was on set
22:15
Speaker 2: and a producer. It was COVID time, so there's very
22:17
Speaker 2: few people on set, and a producer who I've worked
22:20
Speaker 2: with a ton and actually really love kept stopping down
22:23
Speaker 2: and saying, Danielle, can you do it with a little
22:25
Speaker 2: more energy? Okay? So I did it once. Can you
22:27
Speaker 2: just smile more? A little bit more energy? I need
22:30
Speaker 2: bigger energy. Okay? So I did it twice. The third
22:33
Speaker 2: time it became funny because my male co host looked
22:36
Speaker 2: at me and was like, he's so he was so
22:38
Speaker 2: monotone at this point. I mean I should have tap
22:41
Speaker 2: danced in the air, like there was how much more
22:44
Speaker 2: energy can I give? And he didn't mean anything by it.
22:47
Speaker 2: He's a nice, well meaning person. The rest of the day,
22:51
Speaker 2: I was fuming on the inside and pretending I wasn't
22:54
Speaker 2: because I had a job to do, and after an
22:57
Speaker 2: hour of therapy trying to unpack why this bothered me
23:00
Speaker 2: so much, because again I'm like, Danielle, you're so sensitive,
23:04
Speaker 2: I realized that it was because my male co host
23:07
Speaker 2: gets to show up as himself. When somebody gives you
23:10
Speaker 2: feedback like that, it takes away part of your personhood.
23:13
Speaker 2: You're constantly shape shifting. I don't get to show up
23:16
Speaker 2: as myself if that's the feedback you're giving me. And
23:18
Speaker 2: I thought about the Cardi b effect. This is, I know,
23:21
Speaker 2: one of the most sort of talked about moments from
23:24
Speaker 2: your book, and I'm wondering if we can expand on it.
23:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think part of what I'm hearing
23:30
Speaker 3: from you, and that's the thing is like not everyone
23:32
Speaker 3: wants to be a television personality, but I do think
23:36
Speaker 3: the most commodifiable television personality as a woman is the
23:40
Speaker 3: perky morning like, hey guys, like let's check in on
23:44
Speaker 3: what's happening on the Twitter. Like you know, like there's
23:47
Speaker 3: just that is a type. It's just so one dimensional.
23:51
Speaker 3: Like that is a fraction of the women I know
23:53
Speaker 3: who actually are that way and show up that way
23:56
Speaker 3: in the world. And the ones who do that's right, Like,
24:00
Speaker 3: the point is not to not allow that person to exist,
24:02
Speaker 3: It's just to acknowledge that there is more of a
24:05
Speaker 3: breath of experience than just being on.
24:09
Speaker 1: I think that.
24:10
Speaker 3: Shows up in a lot of ways for a lot
24:11
Speaker 3: of different people, right, Like people have an expectation of
24:14
Speaker 3: how if you were that way and you were an
24:15
Speaker 3: accountant and you showed up that bubbly, people would be like,
24:18
Speaker 3: I need you to bring it down, you know, like
24:20
Speaker 3: there's that. So I just think Cardi is really fascinating
24:26
Speaker 3: as an example of someone who is lauded for authenticity.
24:31
Speaker 3: And I think you can have an entire sidebar conversation
24:34
Speaker 3: about whether anyone who is that public of a person
24:38
Speaker 3: is authentic or choosing parts of themselves to cultivate and
24:42
Speaker 3: put forward. I don't know how many professional environments anyone
24:48
Speaker 3: could show up as their authentic self that is sort
24:53
Speaker 3: of big and bold and brash and be celebrated for it.
24:58
Speaker 1: And I think that happens yet.
25:00
Speaker 3: In multiple directions, right I think there are people who
25:02
Speaker 3: are dry and quiet who need to play it up,
25:06
Speaker 3: and then there are people who are loud and eccentric
25:10
Speaker 3: who are asked to hem it in and I think
25:14
Speaker 3: what happens especially for women and especially for people of color.
25:20
Speaker 3: I think there are other marginalized identities where this happens
25:22
Speaker 3: to It certainly happens for LGBTQ individuals, where you may
25:27
Speaker 3: show up as yourself in every manifestation of whatever that
25:31
Speaker 3: is hair, clothing, accent, linguistic choices, and people may just
25:38
Speaker 3: like love it, and it may fully resonate at your
25:41
Speaker 3: place of employment, and you will.
25:43
Speaker 1: Be lauded for that authenticity.
25:45
Speaker 3: Often feel like you are gambling that if you show
25:50
Speaker 3: up fully authentically as you really are, when you are you,
25:55
Speaker 3: and it lands, then there'll be a great reward. And
25:58
Speaker 3: if it misses, that that's it, and that there's a
26:02
Speaker 3: huge risk, and that there is a certain amount of
26:06
Speaker 3: credibility in showing up the way that the main office
26:12
Speaker 3: culture or whatever culture it is. You're stepping into stuff
26:14
Speaker 3: up that like putting yourself into the box that you
26:17
Speaker 3: know is safe.
26:18
Speaker 1: It may not have the same reward as showing up
26:21
Speaker 1: as your more dynamic, authentic self, but it carries less risk.
26:26
Speaker 3: And I think I think with all of this, with
26:29
Speaker 3: this with the question of how ambitious to be, I
26:33
Speaker 3: think we have flattened it to making it seem as
26:35
Speaker 3: though people making one time choice right that you like,
26:38
Speaker 3: get out of bed one day and you're like, it's
26:40
Speaker 3: today of the day, I'm going to be ambitious or unambitious,
26:43
Speaker 3: And it's like, no, it's it's all these micro choices.
26:46
Speaker 3: It's that moment on set where something is being asked
26:49
Speaker 3: of you and then asked of you again, and you are,
26:53
Speaker 3: in real time having to do the assessment of is
26:56
Speaker 3: what I'm being asked fair of me and truly a
27:00
Speaker 3: part of the job that I've been signed up to do.
27:04
Speaker 3: Is there a version of this feedback that would be
27:06
Speaker 3: asked of my male colleague for a person of color?
27:10
Speaker 3: I think that becomes would the same thing be asked
27:14
Speaker 3: of a white colleague? And if I say, hey, there's
27:19
Speaker 3: something about what I'm being asked that's making me feel
27:22
Speaker 3: uncomfortable by even opening up the conversation, do I then
27:27
Speaker 3: get marked as a problem, even if I am truly
27:31
Speaker 3: just asking it from a place of interest and inquiry.
27:35
Speaker 3: Women and people color making those decisions, you know, multiple
27:38
Speaker 3: times a day, and that is the challenge, is that
27:41
Speaker 3: it's like you are always asking yourself is it worth
27:46
Speaker 3: dealing with this. Do I just do what is being
27:49
Speaker 3: asked of me? Do I just process the feedback as
27:52
Speaker 3: though it is coming with the best of intentions, or
27:55
Speaker 3: do I say something? And each of those choices, I
27:58
Speaker 3: think it is hard to fully appreciate the emotional weight
28:05
Speaker 3: and the cost. Right Like, you walked off that and
28:08
Speaker 3: you needed to go unpack it with a professional.
28:11
Speaker 2: Which sounds ridiculous. But you know, as I've gotten older,
28:14
Speaker 2: I'm willing to compromise in that way less and less,
28:17
Speaker 2: but I still feel like I do it all the time,
28:20
Speaker 2: and it does chip away at your soul a little bit.
28:23
Speaker 2: And at the same time, no matter what profession you're in,
28:25
Speaker 2: there is kind of a game that you have to play,
28:28
Speaker 2: and so it's that cost benefit analysis that you're constantly
28:32
Speaker 2: playing with. You laid that out so beautifully. There's a
28:35
Speaker 2: quote I love in the book. It says, when we
28:37
Speaker 2: walk into a room, there are assumptions made about us,
28:39
Speaker 2: and many of us go to great lengths to undercut
28:42
Speaker 2: those assumptions. We know to always be prepared. We can't
28:45
Speaker 2: afford to slip up to us. Be yourself can sound
28:49
Speaker 2: like a dare a self declaration only truly intended for
28:52
Speaker 2: those who are assumed to be competent, qualified, and powerful.
28:57
Speaker 2: And it is that assumed competence we are constantly pressing
29:01
Speaker 2: up against. And you do such a beautiful job laying
29:04
Speaker 2: it out for intersectionally because you mentioned any person who
29:08
Speaker 2: has a piece of marginalized identity feels this in some way.
29:12
Speaker 1: I don't know.
29:13
Speaker 3: Have you ever walked into a room and assume that
29:15
Speaker 3: people think that you are competent and have checked all
29:17
Speaker 3: of the boxes and are imminently qualified. I mean, I've
29:21
Speaker 3: everything I have ever done. I have felt that the
29:24
Speaker 3: assumption is that I will have to prove all of
29:27
Speaker 3: those things, even after I've been hired, even after I
29:30
Speaker 3: have been given whatever responsibility, It still feels like every
29:37
Speaker 3: every single time I am doing the task that is
29:40
Speaker 3: being asked, that anything less than an A plus is
29:44
Speaker 3: a potential to merit or an opportunity for someone to
29:47
Speaker 3: say that I didn't deserve it or that I'm not
29:50
Speaker 3: up to the task. It doesn't feel like I ever
29:53
Speaker 3: have the luxury of an off day. And I think
29:56
Speaker 3: that is both about having incredibly high standards. I think
29:59
Speaker 3: that there are probably people who feel that who don't
30:02
Speaker 3: necessarily have the added dimension of you know, being a
30:06
Speaker 3: woman in a space that has been classically dominated by men,
30:10
Speaker 3: or where men have the vast majority of leadership roles,
30:13
Speaker 3: or being a person of color in a space where
30:17
Speaker 3: most of the people in leadership are white. But it
30:20
Speaker 3: all adds. Like I think about that story that I
30:23
Speaker 3: tell in the Likability Chap about being with Donna Brazil
30:26
Speaker 3: in the makeup chair before we're going to be on
30:29
Speaker 3: this week with George Stephanopolis, and there's a person who
30:32
Speaker 3: has been doing political analysis and working in politics for
30:36
Speaker 3: at this point the majority of her life, and she
30:39
Speaker 3: expresses to me that she's tired because she's an up
30:41
Speaker 3: all night preparing and it's in myself. I think like, well,
30:44
Speaker 3: I'm relatively new to this, so my anxiety must just
30:48
Speaker 3: be about my own newness and my own perfectionism. And
30:53
Speaker 3: to hear someone who's been doing it for twice three
30:56
Speaker 3: times as long a say, oh no, I stay up
30:59
Speaker 3: and I study, and I have anxiety about it even
31:03
Speaker 3: still because I know that if I slip that it
31:07
Speaker 3: will be a deeper demerit, and that there are a
31:11
Speaker 3: lot of people who won't just see it as like oh,
31:14
Speaker 3: Alicia Mestap, but every young woman under thirty five, if
31:20
Speaker 3: every Latina must be less confident because I watched this
31:25
Speaker 3: one person not be as good as I thought they
31:28
Speaker 3: should be, and so you have that constant expectation. But
31:32
Speaker 3: it's not just about you, but it's about a lot
31:33
Speaker 3: of other people.
31:34
Speaker 2: I have a good friend who has a young daughter.
31:37
Speaker 2: She had to have surgery and her daughter said, is
31:40
Speaker 2: the doctor a woman? Her daughter said, oh good, and
31:42
Speaker 2: she said, yeah, it is good because you know, she
31:44
Speaker 2: had to study twice as hard. And it's true, there's
31:47
Speaker 2: this constant like we have to know a lot more.
31:51
Speaker 2: There's a constant pressure to be great. The constant chatter
31:55
Speaker 2: of women, you say, the constant chatter of how women
31:57
Speaker 2: lead impedes them from leading and trying to everything at once.
32:01
Speaker 2: Women are straight up exhausted. And I laughed reading that,
32:04
Speaker 2: but it's so true. They're straight up exhausted. So much
32:08
Speaker 2: of my mind share at work is dedicated to how
32:10
Speaker 2: I'm being perceived rather than what I'm actually doing. And
32:13
Speaker 2: I'm wondering what price women are paying for internalizing these
32:17
Speaker 2: conflicting demands.
32:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think a really deep price.
32:21
Speaker 3: So I think again, you and I are so strange
32:24
Speaker 3: because our work is very public facing.
32:26
Speaker 1: So what I found interesting was realizing how.
32:30
Speaker 3: That weight and that anxiety is shared by a lot
32:32
Speaker 3: of women who work at tech companies or you know,
32:37
Speaker 3: work at consulting groups where yeah, let me give up
32:39
Speaker 3: public presentation now and then, but it's not it's not
32:42
Speaker 3: really core or central to the work that they do.
32:46
Speaker 3: So like I thought of this one woman who, I mean,
32:50
Speaker 3: she just she was ascendant at her company. People just
32:53
Speaker 3: she was lauded for the fact that she delivered across
32:57
Speaker 3: the board constantly at some of the best numbers.
32:59
Speaker 1: Was in a line of work where there're war metrics
33:02
Speaker 1: right where she.
33:03
Speaker 3: Could could really say, this person's delivering, And she got
33:07
Speaker 3: all of this feedback around lowering her voice, taking up
33:11
Speaker 3: more space, being more direct and tell as I spoke
33:15
Speaker 3: with her. I mean, part of it was in the
33:16
Speaker 3: story she was telling, but part of it was also
33:18
Speaker 3: and you know this Beau, when you interview people, there's
33:20
Speaker 3: sort of like there's a deep sigh that happens over
33:23
Speaker 3: and over again that tells you that someone is really.
33:26
Speaker 1: Going through it. She was going through it.
33:29
Speaker 3: Where it's like, even though she had the title, even
33:32
Speaker 3: though she kept being promoted, this constant like you're doing great,
33:37
Speaker 3: but how about if you sat like this?
33:40
Speaker 1: Or you're doing great, but how about if you started
33:42
Speaker 1: asking questions more. It's like it's just like a lot,
33:46
Speaker 1: and it feels like you.
33:46
Speaker 3: Can't actually focus on the work that you need to
33:49
Speaker 3: be focused on because you're being asked to focus so
33:52
Speaker 3: much on the style. And I think there are women
33:55
Speaker 3: who are able to say, this is the workplace, this
33:57
Speaker 3: is somebody else's opinion, and I am going to do
33:59
Speaker 3: it I need to do and move past it. And
34:02
Speaker 3: then there are women like me who really internalize it
34:05
Speaker 3: as an individual and personal flaw, not that we are
34:09
Speaker 3: doing something wrong, but that we are wrong. There's something
34:12
Speaker 3: intrinsic about us that is wrong and not working.
34:16
Speaker 1: And if we could fix ourselves, then we could fix
34:18
Speaker 1: the problem.
34:18
Speaker 3: And I think that is one of the bigger points
34:21
Speaker 3: that I want to get through with someone who loves
34:23
Speaker 3: Women in the Workplace books and like read so many
34:26
Speaker 3: Women in the Workplace books, is that the challenge of
34:28
Speaker 3: some of these which are built around this idea of
34:30
Speaker 3: learning how to survive in different environments. They will help
34:34
Speaker 3: you arguably survive, The question is will they help you thrive,
34:38
Speaker 3: Like will you actually get to show up better.
34:42
Speaker 2: Oh my god, wait, will you say that again? I
34:43
Speaker 2: love that.
34:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, that all of this Women in the Workplace book,
34:47
Speaker 3: A lot of the Women in the Workplace books, they
34:49
Speaker 3: give you the tools necessary to survive, and you may survive,
34:53
Speaker 3: but it is the question is can you thrive? And
34:56
Speaker 3: that in some ways, there's even research that finds that
34:59
Speaker 3: the more you've been exposed to these ideas, like the
35:03
Speaker 3: idea of leaning, in which I actually think there were
35:07
Speaker 3: many things about that book that were useful and helpful
35:10
Speaker 3: for a specific genre of person, that even being exposed
35:15
Speaker 3: to the ideas makes you feel that not only are
35:19
Speaker 3: women responsible for the problems and obstacles they run up
35:23
Speaker 3: against in the office, but that they are responsible for
35:27
Speaker 3: overcoming those obstacles, which makes us see everything as an
35:31
Speaker 3: individual problem as opposed to a system problem. And when
35:35
Speaker 3: you see everything as an individual problem instead of a
35:38
Speaker 3: system problem, that's a great way of letting the system.
35:40
Speaker 2: Off the whole. What role does appearance play in likability
35:44
Speaker 2: for women?
35:45
Speaker 1: Here's what I do know.
35:47
Speaker 3: I know that women are often evaluated based on their appearance,
35:53
Speaker 3: and that, for example, talking about a woman candidate and
35:57
Speaker 3: her appearance, whether you're saying she has the best hair
36:01
Speaker 3: and the most well tailored suits and she always looks lovely,
36:05
Speaker 3: or saying she's a sloppy mass. Just the fact that
36:08
Speaker 3: you are talking about her appearance ultimately leads to a
36:13
Speaker 3: demerit for women, right, that it changes the way that
36:16
Speaker 3: you're thinking about them, So you're not thinking about them
36:18
Speaker 3: in the context of their work or the context of
36:22
Speaker 3: their merits. You're thinking about them in this more superficial context.
36:26
Speaker 3: And that it is another one of those things where
36:28
Speaker 3: there's not really a foil for men, like in part
36:30
Speaker 3: because there's just not that much to say he combs
36:33
Speaker 3: his hair to the left or to the right, he
36:34
Speaker 3: wears a gray suit or a navy suit, Like, there's
36:37
Speaker 3: just not as much there. But just the fact that
36:40
Speaker 3: you're talking about a woman's appearance often is a distraction
36:44
Speaker 3: from the movement yourself.
36:45
Speaker 2: It also seems like it's not what we value in men,
36:48
Speaker 2: so it really doesn't matter as much, and it's such
36:50
Speaker 2: a value that we place on women, and so it
36:52
Speaker 2: does have to play more of a role.
36:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's also you know, one of the
36:57
Speaker 3: things that I think was easy to misinterpret about talking
37:00
Speaker 3: about likabilities, Like, of course everyone has to do some
37:04
Speaker 3: performance at work. You know, no one's like rolling in
37:09
Speaker 3: exactly what the like energy. I mean, maybe some people are,
37:11
Speaker 3: but that is I don't think any of us see
37:13
Speaker 3: that as a path to success. We don't want people
37:16
Speaker 3: to be like a wildly unfiltered, inappropriate version of themselves.
37:21
Speaker 3: And there are certain standards that we hold people to,
37:24
Speaker 3: even things like what the appropriate attire is in your
37:27
Speaker 3: industry or in your office. So sure those those are baseline.
37:31
Speaker 3: I think what you're trying to do, though, is make
37:33
Speaker 3: sure that those baselines are as level and as even
37:37
Speaker 3: as possible. So you know, just as I could tell you, like,
37:41
Speaker 3: oh don't care, you do you and you don't care
37:42
Speaker 3: what anybody thinks about It's like I could also tell
37:45
Speaker 3: you to roll into the office and sweatpants, and you
37:48
Speaker 3: can see how that goes, but it's probably not the
37:50
Speaker 3: wisest course of action. But I suspect also that you're asking,
37:55
Speaker 3: as I see you there fully jued with incredible makeup,
37:58
Speaker 3: is that.
37:59
Speaker 1: Clearly they're there's an.
38:00
Speaker 3: Expectation that women ought to self present in a way
38:03
Speaker 3: where it shows that they have thought about their appearance.
38:05
Speaker 3: I think part of what your play also identifying is
38:07
Speaker 3: it swings in the other direction, where when you have
38:10
Speaker 3: put a lot of time and effort, when your look
38:12
Speaker 3: is a part of your thing, that there's also a
38:14
Speaker 3: tendency to believe that that that person may not be
38:17
Speaker 3: as competent or have the hard skills because they have
38:20
Speaker 3: all of this other packaging.
38:22
Speaker 2: You know, I was actually thinking of it so much
38:24
Speaker 2: in terms of social media. You know, social media is
38:27
Speaker 2: a part of my work. It's part of your work.
38:29
Speaker 2: Some of my girlfriends who that isn't a part of
38:32
Speaker 2: their work still have this public, sort of performative persona.
38:37
Speaker 2: And it used to be that just like celebrities were that,
38:40
Speaker 2: or maybe even politicians chose that, and now everybody has
38:43
Speaker 2: this public persona. I don't know, it just it feels
38:45
Speaker 2: like social media is the woman's domain.
38:47
Speaker 3: It is, I mean, and the majority of users are,
38:50
Speaker 3: especially on something like Instagram, which is very esthetically oriented.
38:54
Speaker 3: I mean, that's a women's mostly women on the platform.
38:58
Speaker 3: And I think part of what makes yes, we all
39:00
Speaker 3: know about the highlight reel. We all know that it's
39:03
Speaker 3: not real life, and yet it's so easy to be
39:07
Speaker 3: comparative and it's not just you know, there's like the
39:11
Speaker 3: like I as a mom feel a lot of the
39:12
Speaker 3: anxiety around like you're doing like sticker activities with your kids,
39:17
Speaker 3: Like am I ruining my kid by not teaching the
39:20
Speaker 3: math with sand like wild things? Or am I a
39:23
Speaker 3: bad mom because they didn't have that poster that says like,
39:25
Speaker 3: it's my first day of this. My favorite color is this.
39:28
Speaker 3: I want to be this. I'm like, she's gonna hate
39:29
Speaker 3: me when she's eighteen. But that there's also a like, oh,
39:32
Speaker 3: this person's giving this keynote, or this person got a
39:36
Speaker 3: brand endorsement, or this person got employee of the month.
39:40
Speaker 3: They got employee of the month at a place you
39:43
Speaker 3: don't work, like, you do not need to stress about that.
39:46
Speaker 3: And so I think it is about the fact that
39:49
Speaker 3: it used to just be that you First, I keep
39:52
Speaker 3: saying office, and so a few of us are going
39:53
Speaker 3: into offices, not even just because of the pandemic, but
39:56
Speaker 3: because so many of us now work as freelancers or
39:59
Speaker 3: have consulting gigs and these more. But like, let's just
40:02
Speaker 3: use the office as the context, understanding that not all
40:04
Speaker 3: of us go into an office.
40:05
Speaker 1: You should just walk into the office, and you compare.
40:07
Speaker 3: Yourself to the twelve twenty two hundred people who worked
40:10
Speaker 3: in your office. I think part of the danger of
40:13
Speaker 3: the social media comparison as a professional is the possibility
40:17
Speaker 3: of comparing yourself to an infinite universe of people who
40:21
Speaker 3: are on different tracks and accomplishing different things, and being
40:26
Speaker 3: recognized at different levels, and feeling like if you were
40:29
Speaker 3: not doing the most, that you're not doing enough. And that,
40:34
Speaker 3: to me is where that becomes really tricky.
40:38
Speaker 1: Is that you have to be.
40:40
Speaker 3: Very clear with yourself about why you're on and who
40:43
Speaker 3: your peer group actually is, because otherwise, when you're like
40:46
Speaker 3: comparing your life to Chrissy Tiggins and that's that's just
40:48
Speaker 3: not a helpful model for most of us.
40:51
Speaker 2: And also maybe the aphorism less is more sort of
40:54
Speaker 2: rings true.
40:55
Speaker 3: This I found to be very helpful, though I've not
40:56
Speaker 3: been good at putting it into action, which is the
40:59
Speaker 3: people who are happiest on those platforms are the people
41:02
Speaker 3: who actually actively use them to share. I am not
41:07
Speaker 3: a huge share, but I'm actually on those apps a lot,
41:11
Speaker 3: just sort of lurking, and that means that I am
41:15
Speaker 3: doing more consuming on them than I am doing producing,
41:19
Speaker 3: and that is not what you want to be doing.
41:21
Speaker 1: Like it would seem.
41:23
Speaker 3: That the people who actively use them to put stuff
41:25
Speaker 3: out into the world and to engage and less of
41:28
Speaker 3: their time mining other people's content, actually having much healthier
41:33
Speaker 3: relationship with them, which I think is sort of great,
41:35
Speaker 3: interesting and potentially counterintuitive, but.
41:38
Speaker 2: Makes a lot of sense. I really like that. I
41:40
Speaker 2: agree with I think scrolling is the enemy. Can we
41:42
Speaker 2: get out of the trap? Do you see it getting better?
41:44
Speaker 1: Yeah?
41:45
Speaker 3: I think about this a lot because I have two
41:46
Speaker 3: little girls, and so I think about the fact that,
41:49
Speaker 3: first of all, I appreciate being realistic about it, Like
41:53
Speaker 3: I think that one piece of it is not imagining
41:59
Speaker 3: that I just will teach them to not care, and
42:00
Speaker 3: then they will go into the world to not care.
42:02
Speaker 3: My concern is raising two girls who don't care at all,
42:05
Speaker 3: and then I send them into a world that expects
42:07
Speaker 3: them to care. That's not setting them up for success,
42:09
Speaker 3: that's not setting them up to be themselves. What I
42:11
Speaker 3: actually need to do is reckon with the systems and
42:14
Speaker 3: the structure so that by the time that they are
42:17
Speaker 3: twenty two or you know, going into the workforce, that
42:20
Speaker 3: the workforce has actually changed in some really seismic ways.
42:23
Speaker 3: And so I think for those of us who identify
42:27
Speaker 3: as women.
42:28
Speaker 1: Part of that is being the leaders we.
42:30
Speaker 3: Wanted and we needed, and not just replicating the leadership
42:34
Speaker 3: that we've seen before. I think it means being really
42:37
Speaker 3: good to each other, peer to peer, having some of
42:39
Speaker 3: those conversations, some of the language shifting that happens.
42:42
Speaker 1: Make me feel small, let me feel minute.
42:44
Speaker 3: I actually think that changes culture brick by brick by brick,
42:48
Speaker 3: having leadership inside of organizations understand that these things that
42:54
Speaker 3: are sometimes subtle are the most pernicious. That it's not
42:58
Speaker 3: always the things that are easy to walk into an
43:00
Speaker 3: HR meeting and say this happened, and it's very clear
43:04
Speaker 3: that it's a problem. It's a lot of things exist
43:06
Speaker 3: in that gray area, and you want to get comfortable
43:09
Speaker 3: grappling with the things that happen in that gray area.
43:11
Speaker 3: So yeah, and then I also think the more you
43:13
Speaker 3: see women in leadership positions and the more we normalize that,
43:18
Speaker 3: that itself is incredibly powerful and has the potential to
43:21
Speaker 3: change things. But like you, yourself is not the issue, right,
43:24
Speaker 3: Like that's that is the biggest thing, is like you,
43:28
Speaker 3: absolving yourself is a piece of it that is important
43:32
Speaker 3: for you and your personal self care that is not
43:36
Speaker 3: going to fix the problem at large.
43:38
Speaker 2: Since reading the book and identifying certain things, I've been
43:41
Speaker 2: trying to be the change brick by brick. I think
43:44
Speaker 2: it's possible the more we all sort of realize the
43:47
Speaker 2: unconscious bias we have because women have it too for
43:49
Speaker 2: other women. So the more we recognize.
43:51
Speaker 3: It, women have it for other women, and like parents
43:54
Speaker 3: who are our parents have it for our parents, white
43:56
Speaker 3: women have it for people of color. Like it moves
43:59
Speaker 3: in the number of directions and understanding it is part
44:04
Speaker 3: one and then calling it out as part two.
44:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got to call it out. Okay. So these
44:09
Speaker 2: are three questions I ask people at the end of
44:11
Speaker 2: every interview. This is kind of a bookie podcast, a
44:14
Speaker 2: book that shifted your perspective, something you think everyone should read.
44:19
Speaker 3: Ooh, that is a good I'm like looking to see
44:23
Speaker 3: if I have it for a visual I don't have
44:26
Speaker 3: it because I'm surrounded by children's books.
44:29
Speaker 1: Yeah.
44:29
Speaker 3: The Memo by Minda Hart is a really powerful book.
44:34
Speaker 3: So many of the books for women in the workplace
44:37
Speaker 3: assume that the woman who's reading it is white, and
44:41
Speaker 3: even I think it's almost even more important to read
44:44
Speaker 3: if you are a white woman, especially if you're a
44:47
Speaker 3: white woman who manages other people to understand what black
44:50
Speaker 3: women in particular are up against in the workforce, often
44:54
Speaker 3: the most ambitious and often the most undersponsored, under mentored,
44:59
Speaker 3: like they're just there is a gap between the ambition
45:04
Speaker 3: that black women have for themselves and the way that
45:07
Speaker 3: corporate America steps up to meet that ambition.
45:11
Speaker 1: So the memo minde heart highly recommend.
45:13
Speaker 2: I've never heard of that book. I'm going to read it,
45:15
Speaker 2: and it makes me think of the Viola Davis speech.
45:19
Speaker 2: I think it was a Golden Globe except speech. I
45:22
Speaker 2: listened to it all the time and she says the
45:24
Speaker 2: only difference between white women and black women is opportunity,
45:29
Speaker 2: and it's so true. So okay, I'm going to read
45:32
Speaker 2: that book. The memo this is a PSQ. Sometimes I
45:35
Speaker 2: do a PSA where I speak on things, but this
45:38
Speaker 2: is the PSQ. So I pick a card at random.
45:40
Speaker 1: My hands are sweating watching you shuffle that deck.
45:43
Speaker 2: Ooh, this is kind of personal. Do you fall in
45:46
Speaker 2: love easily? If so, what is your love language?
45:49
Speaker 3: I definitely fall in love easily with my husband. I
45:52
Speaker 3: knew when I met him, totally loved that guy, even
45:55
Speaker 3: love him after a year of quarantine with two children
45:58
Speaker 3: and my lovely which as acts of service one hundred percent,
46:02
Speaker 3: Like want to get me to love you, take out
46:05
Speaker 3: the trash, empty the dishwasher.
46:08
Speaker 1: I'm here for it. What is your love language?
46:10
Speaker 2: I need physical touch and words of affirmation. I want
46:14
Speaker 2: someone to tell me they love me.
46:16
Speaker 3: My husband is a words an affirmation person. And I try,
46:19
Speaker 3: but I'm like, you are nice, you are.
46:22
Speaker 2: No, You're just such a beautiful vocabulary. I feel like
46:26
Speaker 2: you probably write him letters or something. You are so
46:28
Speaker 2: great with words.
46:29
Speaker 1: That's a whole other podcast.
46:31
Speaker 2: Last question, what is the smartest decision you've ever made.
46:35
Speaker 3: I don't know if it is the smartest decision I
46:38
Speaker 3: have ever made, But what is coming up for me
46:40
Speaker 3: is I knew that I wanted to be a mom
46:43
Speaker 3: and I also want to have a big career and
46:46
Speaker 3: a big life. And I worried for so long that
46:48
Speaker 3: having kids would mean that I would have to choose.
46:52
Speaker 3: And it is hard, it is not easy. It does
46:57
Speaker 3: complicate things. But I'm so glad I have them, and
47:00
Speaker 3: I'm so glad that I did not put it off
47:03
Speaker 3: thinking that there would come a moment of complete clarity
47:07
Speaker 3: where it made sense and where it was uncomplicated because
47:11
Speaker 3: I don't know that that moment ever comes, and I
47:13
Speaker 3: think I would really personally have regretted it if I
47:17
Speaker 3: had had waited any longer than I did.
47:20
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for sharing that. The reason I
47:22
Speaker 2: started this podcast the idea I heard a quote from
47:25
Speaker 2: Gloria Steinem It said, she said, the most feminist thing
47:28
Speaker 2: we can do is share honest stories. So much of
47:32
Speaker 2: my life has been expanded by other women being honest.
47:36
Speaker 2: Your book was so honest. That answer was so heartfelt
47:39
Speaker 2: and honest, and I'm really grateful. You're just You're a
47:43
Speaker 2: culture changer.
47:44
Speaker 3: You are so wonderful. Thank you so much for finding
47:46
Speaker 3: the book and for reading it. I can't tell you
47:48
Speaker 3: how much it means to me to have you'd be
47:51
Speaker 3: so thoughtful about it.
47:52
Speaker 2: I can't wait to watch all that you do. I
47:54
Speaker 2: have a feeling this was just the first of many books.
47:57
Speaker 3: Birthing a book way harder for me than birthing anything else.
48:01
Speaker 1: I don't know about that girl.
48:05
Speaker 2: Alicia's books, The Likability Trap is available online. Obviously, I
48:09
Speaker 2: highly recommend it, and you can also catch her reporting
48:11
Speaker 2: on MSNBC and on her podcast, Latina to Latina. So
48:15
Speaker 2: navigating likability can feel like a minefield. I can't even
48:19
Speaker 2: tell you the amount of books I've bought over the
48:21
Speaker 2: years about how to best show up at work. Alicia
48:24
Speaker 2: even said she's bought so many of those books. I've
48:26
Speaker 2: been doing what I kind of think of as gender
48:28
Speaker 2: judo for years, and this is the first book that
48:31
Speaker 2: gave me real clarity. Maybe we're not the problem. Maybe
48:34
Speaker 2: the system's the problem. When men walk into the room,
48:36
Speaker 2: they're perceived as competent. When women walk into the room,
48:40
Speaker 2: they have to prove it. So what would happen if
48:42
Speaker 2: we tried to change the system and not ourselves.