What It Takes to Lead with Couraae and Clarity in Corporate America

Hello everyone and good afternoon, good morning, or wherever you are in the world right now. Welcome back to Alchemize with Alana, where we see through leadership clichés and talk about what's real in business and human transformation. Today's guest is CB Bowman Ottimanelli, a powerhouse in executive leadership and courage in coaching. She's a Forbes contributor and a recognizable voice in the world of executive coaching and organizational development. Our theme today is what it takes to lead with courage and clarity in corporate America, because leaders these days are being challenged in ways that I don't think they could have ever imagined. We'll explore what courage looks like when the stakes are high, how executive coaching actually shifts corporate leadership, and what it means to navigate these spaces as a woman of color in today's evolving workplace. Thank you, Elena.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Fantastic. Well, audience, as always, I encourage live comments or questions while we're doing this so that CB and I can address them. And if you're catching the recording, feel free to comment and write questions as well, because I do check back or I get prompted on the platform. So before we dive in, I always, always love to ask the audience a question. And that is, what does courage look like in your workday? Does it look like speaking up? Is it making some kind of difficult or big, bold decision? Is it saying no? Or sometimes it's even just asking for help. Drop it in the chat and you might be surprised how many people can relate. CB, here are some questions for you. Strategic courage. When people hear that, they might think of taking bold risks, but what does it really mean in the day-to-day decisions of a corporate leader?

Oftentimes we think about— and I'm going to get to your answer, your question— we think about courage as something that is massive, like running into a burning building to save a child or jumping into a pool when you can't swim to save a dog. And that is courage. However, what I talk about in my book, Courage to Leap and Lead, is steps that you can take, 7 steps that you can take to lead to being courageous, whether it is going to the meeting when you don't feel good Whether it's confronting somebody, whether it's starting a new product or service, or restarting a product or service that failed once, it is stepping out of the quagmire.

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, it's— yeah, those kinds of— I see those too, you know, especially when they experience failure, you know, and then having to get back out there, uh, it has to do with executive presence, like, or their, you know, their, their brand and how they show up or how they're respected and seen as a leader. So I, I see that too. Yeah. Anything else you want to say about that?

Uh, no, I think one of the things that I talk about is strategic courage. Now, this is very different than courage as a blanket. Strategic courage means that you're taking step by step by step to get to your goal. And it's recognizing the things that may hinder you, recognizing why you're in a quagmire to begin with, and not feeling upset about it, but using that as a learning lesson to move into the next phase, which is to Come back and revisit and move forward.

Yeah. Well, and with that, where do you see— it's like to move forward, sometimes it means tapping into their internal compass or confidence levels. Where do you see leaders confusing confidence with courage?

I don't know that there's a separation between the two. You have to have courage. You have to have confidence in order to get to courage. Now, sometimes we all feel down, like we have not succeeded, and that affects our courage. But if we can break up that feeling into pieces that we can solve, then that gives us strength to move forward in a courageous manner. So it's like, well, how do you eat an elephant? It's bite, bite, bite, bite, bite. Not that I want to eat an elephant, but that's right. It's a metaphor for how you tackle things that are holding you back or pulling you down.

Yeah, that's a good one. That, that's a— it's a common one used in, in corporate America. And though the— what I appreciate about it too is the different perspectives using the same concept, you know, if you're standing by the tail, you're going to see one perspective. If you're standing in front of the elephant, uh, by the trunk, you're going to see another. And so, yeah, so although it's, you know, tackling things piece by piece, bite by bite, it's also, you know, connecting with what is your perspective and what, what value or contribution can you bring in that moment, which might then contribute To courage and, you know, this, this, uh, looking at the distinction. Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, I want to build on what you said because that was a perfect metaphor, is, um, taking that elephant and walking around it, not just looking at it from the front or the back, and seeing what does it encompass. Because if you only look at it from one view, you'll only get the same answer. And I remember when I took this training, what they made us do was to look at a container and ask the person in front of us, what do they see? And then we had to respond, no, that's not what this jar says. It says something completely different. You are wrong. Well, the person was right. You just had to turn the jar around.

Right. Yeah. Well, and this is where God, we could go down that whole rabbit hole. You know, this is where people get into unnecessary conflicts or misinterpretation because they don't realize there's what they don't know they don't know, and they have a limited purview. But yeah, it's— yeah, that's, that's an— that is a definite occurrence that happens often and can cause other impact, if you will.

I love what you just said. People don't know what they don't know. And one of the things I advise people to have, regardless of what their position is, is to have their own personal board of directors.

Hmm. Yeah.

A board of directors. Each person you have communicated with, to share with them your style and the way that you appreciate feedback. Because there's different ways, you know, I'm highly introverted. So if somebody that comes at me yelling and screaming, you did this wrong, or you did this right, I'm not— it's totally blank. I won't hear it. But if somebody comes at me and says, you know, I think you did a great job. However, I might have thought about doing it this way. And here's why. Well, that opens up the conversation to rich dialogue.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you have to train your board of directors to let them know how do you appreciate getting feedback and to give that feedback in an honest way. That helps you see more of going around the elephant.

True. Yeah. And but to the point about— because I'm highly introverted too, although I may not seem like it. When I think about somebody being approached with feedback in that way, I don't know, I don't think it really matters if you're introverted or extroverted. If somebody comes at me, or comes at somebody who's extroverted, with an aggressive way of offering feedback, I don't know how much anybody would be able to receive that well. I think most people would shut down because it has more to do with brain science and our amygdala and feeling like we're being attacked.

Right.

And that, you know, having the courage then, speaking of strategic courage, to say, hey, wait a second, can you— you know, I'm— I want to hear what you're saying. Can you say it in a different way? Because right now I'm not— I'm not able to hear it.

That's a great way to approach it. You know, I think my own opinion is that men are more comfortable with aggressive feedback. than women are. I hear my husband talk to his boss in a way that I would say, oh my God, don't even think about discussing something with me like that. But it's, it's how they hear each other. They hear it differently.

Well, I think, you know, it's— I mean, look, you know, here we are, 2 women talking about how men possibly hear it, but And I— 85%, if not more, of my clients are men. So, so I'm, I'm often in conversation or dialogue with them on how they do experience things, or they also engage in things. So I, I think for the most part that's probably true, uh, although I also know a number of women who can discern between what might be direct versus what is received as aggressive. And it's all about language, like the use of language is super important in addition to, say, pitch and tone of our voice. So the delivery of it is important to you, and that's more like in the realm of communication as a whole.

Yeah, I agree with you. I think that, you know, most of my clients are men, and when I'm working with women, I have to change my approach completely. It's, it's a different dialogue in respect to how they might receive Not in terms of changing their mind or influencing them, but how they're going to receive what the information I'm going to share with them.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, before we move on to the next topic, what do you think is one misconception about courage that you wish more executives understood?

I think that most executives view failure as a fatal flaw.

Hmm.

Instead of failure as part of the university of life. And that's because of the pressure that they're getting from the outside. You know, make this happen, make it good, don't waste money, don't waste time, et cetera, et cetera. There is— especially post-COVID, there is just tremendous pressure on executives to make a decision that feels right, flies right, and makes money. And that is the worst approach I can think of because you learn more from failure than you do from success.

True on a personal level, although in the business world, it doesn't always translate in the same way. Yeah, it's a really great point. And that makes me wonder, you know, when you, you know, when leaders who say that they want to be courageous, but their environment rewards conformity and those expectations that you were just talking about, you know, what's your advice for them in that?

So my advice is, first of all, let's just take a look at this word courageous, especially as it involves the workplace. Since you're not jumping in and saving the dog or running into a burning building, what you are looking at is strategic courage, and that involves listening. The most important ingredient is having the courage to listen, to listen to what's being said. And this will surprise you, I'm a graduate of the New School for Social Research. Listen very carefully for what's not being said.

Yeah.

The other thing is allow space for creativity, and that means If a person or persons are being creative and they don't succeed, it's not dinging them. It's saying, let's revisit this and see what we've learned and what we could do differently. Because innovation is the key to moving ahead of your competition.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, if you're not staying innovative or taking a look at what your offerings are and staying up with what the market is demanding versus what you think you should offer, then yeah, that's where companies, you know, start to go away and fail. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I want to start moving us into the impact of executive coaching and corporate leadership since that's a realm that, you know, you and I both understand down pretty well. So audience, here's another question for you. What pressures in your workplace make courage difficult? Just either write it down for yourself or feel free to share in the chat, if you will. So for CB, you've been, you've seen coaching evolve from, say, a performance tool to something that's much more transformational, which is something I've seen as well. Even though it still supports high performance, how has its role shifted in the most recent years? You know, because you mentioned like since COVID or since we've all gone virtual, or most of us have. So how have you seen it evolve from performance tool to something more transformational?

So I'm the CEO of the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches. We have a completely Of how the relationship looks like with you and your client. It's not an appreciative inquiry methodology that we encourage. It is being an enterprise-wide business partner with your client. And what does that look like? That looks like not going in and asking the question, how are you? What do you think?

Boiled down.

Boiled down. The goal is to know enough about your client to be able to hear, cognitively hear, the situation that they're in and help them get to a point where they can see it and they can respond to it. And so that means, for example, if you're going into a corporate environment and you're working with the C-suite, is understanding what their competition looks like, what their employees look like, what are their goals, what are their failures, what has transpired to lead them to this point.

Yeah.

And be with them, with them together. And identifying solutions.

Yeah, there was a— this makes me think of a client that I had where he was a sales leader. And there were some complaints about his, his organization not closing as much business as what, what was expected in, you know, in the quarterly goals. And The more I started to ask questions and poke holes into what was occurring, and I said, "Well, wait a second. At what point in the in the process are things breaking down, or does it feel like there's an obstacle?" And it actually was occurring much earlier in terms of the marketing leads. And I said, "So what's going on with that?" So you know, so you guys are expected to. take the baton and carry it forward at this point in the juncture. But what's occurring before that? And what I helped him realize is it wasn't a sales problem. It was a marketing problem because he was telling me all the efforts that the marketing organization were making to generate leads and he wasn't getting them. But yet, they were just merely— the company, the more senior leaders were looking at The numbers coming in and saying, oh, sales is a problem. And so I had to help him then have, you know, coach him on how he's going to go back and talk with his strategic partners internally on how to different— have a different conversation to see what else they could uncover and approach it in a different way versus just accepting that the burden is on them.

Yes, that was in fact Being an enterprise-wide business partner.

Absolutely. Yeah, that's where I have a lot of fun. I love digging into that stuff with leaders and operationally or organizationally what's going on. But speaking of coaching— Yes.

I just want to add one point. What you just said is very important because there are a lot of people out there that call themselves coaches. And they may be coaches according to old definitions. But these days, if you walk into a CEO's office or anyone else in the C-suite and you say, so tell me what the problem is and tell me what you feel the solution is, you're going to be shown the door. Because if they need— if they knew that, they wouldn't need you. So it's your responsibility to come in, with wider eyes, a 360 view, so that you can appropriately support that client. And you just demonstrated it.

Oh, thank you. Yeah, no, that was a— probably wasn't so fun for him and me poking holes where he wasn't expecting and, you know, supporting him in a direction that he also wasn't expecting. But, you know, it's, it's I don't know about you, but, you know, it's like making sure that we're addressing the real problem versus what's just appearing on the surface, right? Like, part of our job is to dig and find out what's going on underneath the hood with absolute curiosity. And, and because they're in it, they can't always see it. And so as an objective collaborator and partner for them, or support system or guide, We can sometimes see things that they can't.

Absolutely. You're right on target. Yeah. Awesome.

Well, I'm curious too, from your perspective, when you're coaching corporate executives, what do you see as one of the hardest patterns for them to break?

Not listening.

Yeah. Keep going. What else? Say more about that.

That is the main reason. I love the story, and I won't say which CEO this is, but he was head of a Fortune 500 company, and he received coaching. And a very well-known, extremely well-known coach and mentor in our field said, well, what have you learned? And his answer was, I've learned to shut up. Yes. Yes. So you probably recognize the people I'm talking about, but I had that happen to me in running and leading the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches with my advisory board. And, um, one day they said to me, CB, we don't understand what our role is. And I said, what? We've been meeting for 2 or 3 years. How could you not understand? And they said to me, well, each time we meet, you tell us what you've done and how we're growing and what's going on. We never tell you what we think and how to make it better. I became very insulted. I said, what? Okay, so you don't want to hear my perspective. I won't talk. And the next meeting I didn't talk, and at the end they said to me, so what do you think? And I said, no, you told me not to talk. When I finally got over myself, I realized that AC/DC had grown so much by my listening to them that I just learned, oh my God, that story I heard was correct. You need to just zip it. Because the minute you speak as the leader, you create silence in the minds of people that you're wanting to get information from.

Yeah, it can have that impact and they don't realize it. They think they have to know everything. They think they have to have all the answers. Yes, you need to have presence. Yes, you need to have bold, leadership. And of course, being able to have a longer-term vision and make decisions and really lead. Like, what does it mean to be a leader to then have followers? All that to say, when you're in a room, whether it's virtual or in person, what space are you creating for others to show up? Because you're not running the company yourself, right? You're the head of the company.

Yeah.

You're the top leader, or depending on where you are in the organization, All that to say, there are people that are making things possible and actually doing things in the trenches that you don't even know about. So there's information and knowledge that they don't actually have, and they, they don't always fully understand that. And there's a reliance on the reporting structure to receive it and get it, and sometimes there's gaps.

And that is called a lack of strategic coverage.

100%. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, there's coaching sometimes is hard to measure in terms of ROI.

And oh my gosh, you're gonna get me started. Oh, good.

No, I love this. Okay, so what, what do you think? What's the impact that you've witnessed that can't be measured on a spreadsheet?

So first of all, and the audience is going to kill me, you cannot measure the success of coaching in terms of ROI. You cannot. Yeah, so I'm a marketing person. I come out of classical marketing for Fortune 500 companies. We understand what an ROI is. As a coach, you have too many interferences to be able to measure the result of coaching singly to say that you have improved the ROI of a company. Let's take the example that you just gave.

Okay.

So you helped a client understand that it was not a sales issue but a marketing issue.

Mm-hmm.

Suppose then he goes and he changes the marketing— this is just suppose— marketing campaigns, and they're still not successful. Can you say that you had an ROI impact? No, you can't, because you did not have control over the, the new marketing campaigns.

Right.

The only thing that you can say is that you successfully coached this person to open their eyes to the possibilities of marketing being the problem and to visit other types of marketing. So you see that coaching does— is not a standalone. Something that's measurable through an ROI is a standalone. That's a really good question. I changed this price, and as a result, we increased sales. But you would have done nothing else, no marketing changes, nothing. All you did was increase the price. Then you can say that it had— that price increase— an effect on the ROI of your business. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I mean, yes, depending on, right, you know, the— in this particular case, I don't know if raising the price would have helped. I probably— I think it probably would have made it worse. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, it's— I, I appreciate that because you're right. It's okay. So it's like, oh, there's this new awareness that it's actually the marketing campaign or how marketing is approaching the generation of leads. So then they, they do a whole new campaign. But then what, like, to your point, what if that one doesn't work? But then, you know, there's so many— it's, it's, it's probably so much more complex. You know, what if the people— maybe it's not even the campaign. What if it's the people executing on it and there's some sort of bottleneck or performance issue or a supply issue or who, you know, who knows? It could be—

That's right.

Anything. It's just the mere awareness of it. So yeah, it's, it's very difficult.

So yeah. So what I say to coaches is ask the client what their return on investment was by hiring you as a coach. That's a different question.

Yeah.

Then I increased the ROI.

Yes. And, and to ask that at the beginning too, right? Because to set realistic expectations.

Yes, you could, you could in fact ask the question. Now the only thing is, and you just pointed this out with your client, their expectation, his ex— his or her expectation could have been that you said to them, well, Your sales are the issue, and so what we need to do is experiment with pricing. So asking him at the beginning, him or her at the beginning, what is the issue that they want to solve, which is not enough sales, it turns out that the reason why he hired you specifically was not correct. Because the correct answer was, what's wrong with our marketing that we're not getting the sales? So you can ask the question at the beginning, but then at the end, the summary has to relate back to the original hiring purpose.

Does that make sense? Absolutely. And somebody just asked a question about that. They, they're asking, you know, if ROI isn't the measure of success, And how do leaders reconcile that truth in environments that demand constant quantifiable results?

You have to ask the client. Yeah. What was their return on hiring you? And you could ask them— there's nothing wrong with asking them, um, can you respond in terms of numbers?

Yeah, like what impact would that have? I mean, at this point, you know, at that point too, it's all— it probably might feel like you're making it up, but at the same time, who knows if it's also planting seeds? You never know.

Yeah, absolutely. And it could be a qualitative or it could have been a quantitative response.

Yeah, both are good.

Yeah.

So in regards to that, if you could redesign how organizations use coaching, what would you change first?

Oh, you're gonna get me in big trouble.

Oh, that's okay.

I love this.

No, this, this will make this more interesting and juicy.

Yeah. Many people hire based upon an organization that has given a credential to somebody. Okay. Worst way to hire. Because the methodology that, that organization aspires to may not work for your cause.

Mm-hmm.

The other thing that people do is they hire based upon recommendation without realizing that the person who's making the recommendation may have had a different relationship with that coach. They may have had a different communication style with that coach than you do. So there are a lot of factors involved in hiring a coach, and hiring the right person for you is critical.

Yeah, it's really personal, isn't it?

Hold on one second. Unfortunately, my doorbell just rang and my dog is barking. And I did mention this to my husband, but he said it would be fine. So I hope it's fine.

I love it. No, we're all good. All right. So for the sake of time, I want to make sure we also have time to— did I lose her?

I'm sorry.

Oh, you're still there. Okay.

Thank God.

All right. So I want to make sure we have time for the last topic. But audience, I've got another question for you. If you've worked with a coach, how did it shift your leadership or your mindset in some way? We'd love to hear from you. And in essence, that may or may not, you know, and a follow-up question to that is, would you consider that part of the ROI for yourself? So the last—

Repeat the question.

What's that? You want me to repeat the question?

If you worked with a coach, how did it shift your mindset? Asking me if I've worked with a coach?

No, no, no. Well, actually, that is an interesting question. I was asking the audience if they worked with the coach, how did it shift their leadership or their mindset? But I— now that makes me curious. Have you worked with the coach? And if you have, how did it shift things? Great. Okay, so how did it shift things for you?

You know, Elena, I was not prepared for this interview, I can tell you. You're going off the record here.

Well, I'm a little rebellious, so that's okay.

I worked with a coach many years ago when I was having trouble in corporate America as a woman of color.

Okay.

I could not understand because I was raised in an environment where, and I hate this expression, where people didn't see color, 'cause you see it. It means that you were inclusive and you move from there, right? When I got to corporate America, I was shocked that people of color are not included in the dialogue that makes for a successful organization. And in fact, they were, admonished for creativity and for coming up and for solutions and etc., etc. And I couldn't understand it. It was slowing me down. And I had to take some actions which we won't go into now, but the end result was I wound up seeing a coach that was also a consultant and also a therapist. Oh, interesting.

Yep.

He was amazing, amazing, because he restored my faith in me and my strength and said to me, just go for it and ignore the rest. because you have it in you to really make an impact on this world. And I needed to hear that. I needed to have confirmation of that.

So that makes me curious. So, well, one is, how long ago did you work with this coach? And another is, what I hear in that actually is not so much paying closer attention to the fact that there's a distinction of color. It's more just Just go for it. Just as a person and as a powerful person. That's what I heard in that answer.

That was his answer. But my going-in issue was that I was being separated out from my colleagues. I was not allowed to take leadership classes and programs.

I was told that— How long ago was that?

Now you're asking my age.

No, you don't have to date yourself.

Which I will not respond to, but I will tell you, um, that it was a long, long time ago.

Okay. So here's why I'm asking this, CB. So I'm asking this because yes, I hear this from women of color or people of color. And yet what I also want to know from your perspective is how have you noticed that things have changed? Because to me, from what I've observed, things have changed. I'm not saying that this doesn't exist still. It does. I mean, as a woman, period, I've experienced things. Uh, and there's, there's, there's just people in the world that have judgments or biases no matter what. Uh, all that to say, you know, how have you noticed that things have changed since you You've grown in that way and you had that experience.

What I noticed— what, what I notice now is that discrimination has become more sophisticated.

Oh, interesting. In what way?

So a person might not say— and, and, uh, look, let's go back to my original thought. A person may not ignore you.

Okay.

I recently received— oh, it wasn't— it was last year when I was working after the release of my first book, Courage to Leap and Lead. I received a letter from somebody who said to me, how dare you write a book on courage? I invited you to my meetings, my master classes on courage, and you have copied us, and I will not support your book or anything that you do. And I wrote back and I said, you don't own the word courage, and if you read the book, it's about the journey I had And how I can share with other people how they can use courage instead of fear. And I said, and if your hypothesis is correct, then you need to talk to Brené Brown.

Yeah.

Who came before you. Who came before you. So that was a sophisticated source of discrimination, and it's harder to recognize than the old-fashioned way.

Yes, and I'm curious how that relates to— maybe it doesn't, but how does that relate to being of color?

Um, yeah, so you're stopping the person of color from their journey. If he had read the book first, he would have realized that he was going over the top in trying to block what I was doing.

Huh.

I'll give you another example that may help you see it better. I belong to a group of people, and we had a WhatsApp— we have WhatsApp— and I wrote something on it, and That was personal. It was not private, but it was personal. And this woman wrote to me and said, I trust that you're new to this channel and this is not the kind of thing that we do. I hope I'm helping you. 2 months later, she did exactly the same thing. Now, the person who wrote this to me was not a person of color.

Hmm.

So you have to look at— in this new sophistication of racism, you have to be sophisticated enough yourself to recognize and ask, where is this going and why is this happening and what's the comparison, right? So that you have a better understanding of what's going on. And it is harder— what I'm saying, it is harder for somebody who's not of color to understand what I'm saying, and I appreciate that. I think if I explained it in terms of things that might be closer to, like, yourself, it might relate to your religion and how you're currently being treated, right? And I'm sure that you see certain flaws that are happening that to me I would not understand.

Yeah, possibly. And, you know, regardless of, say, religion or color or even gender, um, sometimes I just— I moved past that and say, how is this being taken personally That if none of those were a factor, that's where the real growth can happen.

That is where the growth would happen, but, um, it's not— we have to recognize that it is happening, and then you have to evaluate whether the person who's doing this looking, seeking to grow Because if they're not, then the question becomes, are you wasting your time?

Right.

Now, I did have a situation that was similar, and that person— I happened to pick up the phone and say, this was my experience of what you did. And the person was mortified. We became good friends after that because it wasn't what the intent was. And in her position as CEO, she needed to be really careful about making the kinds of assumptions and statements and understanding how that was going to be received by a person of color. So part of your board of directors that we talked about earlier is to have all different kinds of people at all different levels. Shades, languages, so that you can hear, they can listen and say, I'm not sure you're correct, or what other way would you approach this, or do you want to spend your time with this, or how important is the situation to you? So there are so many aspects that we don't think of in normal daily life.

Yeah, I was at a— there was a company I worked for, um, and I was part of the sales team. And, uh, we had our, you know, a week off-site yearly kickoff in Vegas. And we went to a show, um, that was very entertaining, also a bit racy in terms of the humor. And the, the MC host was cracking jokes, addressing anything you could possibly imagine. And they were actually able to do it in a way that everybody in the audience at least found funny. Well, one of the channel partners came early that night because they were doing a presentation the next day. And so they came to the show with us. And the next morning, The person from that company decided to continue on with that type of humor. And he made a joke about Jews. And my jaw dropped. I just was like, did he just say what he just— and what was interesting is my colleagues, I was the only Jew in the room. My colleagues, one of them leaned in next to me. And he said, I'm so sorry that he just said that. And I said, Thank you. I think I'm still processing what he even just said. And it was fascinating because at that point I just tuned out. I heard nothing after that, after that comment. And after the presentation was over, I went to the restroom and I realized that it was quite upsetting for me. And I hadn't heard anything like that in a really long time, at least in that way. Uh, and my colleague said, say something to our manager about it because that, that's inappropriate. And I was like, yeah, you're right. So, uh, at the airport when we were all leaving, I went up to my manager and I said, hey, I just, I need to share something with you. So I said something to her. I got a call from that man and he apologized and he said he, he And he, in his own way, you know, if I was just in the realm of just really listening and really hearing his apology in the best way that he knew how to give it, he said, you know, I'm, I live in Texas and I'm in the South. And, you know, it's, we're just in conversations where that kind of humor just comes up. And he said, I just didn't think about it. And I said, I appreciate your honesty. I accept your apology. And if I may, I also want to offer that you just never know who's going to be in the room. And you might want to better assess what you're saying and how you're saying it and who it might impact. Because I don't know, in a different context, maybe I would have found that funny. But in this context, I didn't. So I appreciate your apology. And reaching out. And that, that was a really interesting thing for me. I hadn't had to address anything like that in quite a long time. And I know I've taken this very, um, on a different route. And the last question I want to ask you is—

I just want to say something to you. Kudos to you saying something because it is so hard. It is so hard. And what makes it even harder is understanding when you should speak up and when you don't speak up. I just want to give a quick example.

Yeah.

My husband is Italian. When I lived in New Jersey, my neighbors were Italian, and they were so close to me. I mean, I can't even begin to tell you. I was there at Thanksgiving dinners and everything. I wasn't married then. Above her kitchen sink was a statue of Aunt Jemima.

Oh, interesting.

Okay. Should I have said something or not? This woman was older than me, and I decided not to say a word because to her One day we were talking about it just in terms of statues and collecting. To her, it represented home cooking, which she did for her husband all the time, because in the Italian households of that gender, the women did the cooking, right? And cooked damn well, I must say.

But Yeah.

Um, my husband just taught me how to make sauce. Now I can outdo him. Um, but yeah, so you have to pick your— I don't want to say battles, but it is an appropriate word. You have to pick when, when the person who is displaying this doesn't understand. And has a completely different perception as this man did. But in this case, we're talking about somebody who grew up in a generation and in a race that was different. And so why make her feel bad?

You know what I'm taking away from this? This is fascinating. Like, I, I never know where these conversations are going to go. This, this, this I do have one more question for you, but this, this, this brings us home in a whole interesting way, which is having the courage to not say something. Right? So there's the courage of when to speak up and say something or say no to something, right?

Yes.

And then there's the courage, and that's something that I've been practicing a lot more in my life, and I'm seeing a huge benefit to it. Of not saying anything and just letting things be. And it's so interesting how either it just goes away and the intensity of how it might impact me doesn't, doesn't have a hold on me, or because I didn't say anything, the other person comes to me.

Yes.

On their own. And it's, yeah, it's fascinating.

Yeah. And sometimes it's a question of just biting your tongue, as you said.

Yeah.

I know somebody who did something recently this week that I know was absolutely wrong, and I tried to talk to the person and they weren't hearing it, and I suddenly realized they're in an incredible stress mode at this point. So now I just have to wait until an opportune time. And I know the person will hear me then. Yeah.

Well, the last thing I want to ask you is, have there been moments, or where have there been moments when you've had to redefine what success looks like on your own terms?

Yes, absolutely. When I had—

One example.

I'm sorry, Elena?

Give us one example. I wish we could have more, but like, yeah, we gotta wrap up soon. So yeah.

I can't give you the details of this.

That's okay.

But I was faced with whether or not I should sue a company for discrimination.

Hmm.

And that was a defining moment in my life.

How?

And I'm trying to answer you in the best way I can and still be appropriate. I was shunned by everybody because I was faced with this. My race, other races, I was walking alone. And that was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life.

I bet. I bet. And CB, we're in the realm of coaching, right? And taking what we learned from our life experiences. So how did that, how did that provide something valuable for you?

I knew even at the time that I was doing the right thing.

There you go.

Yeah. Wow.

Interesting. Oh gosh.

Okay.

This has been a very unexpected— I wasn't expecting— like, there's— we've taken some twists and turns that I wasn't expecting, but I really love what we hit on.

The audience, I saw the notes. Yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, look, leadership is not about having all the answers. It's about choosing Honesty sometimes over comfort. Before we close, what's one question leaders should be asking themselves this week if they want to lead with more courage? What would you say to them?

How much do they listen? Truly listen, not surface listening.

Yes.

As I learned at the New School, always ask yourself, What's not being said in the conversation.

I love that. That's a good one. Yes.

And I also say the answer is the beginning of the question.

Hmm. Thank you for that. That's a great note to end on. So how can people find you?

Pretty easy. I'm on LinkedIn under CB Bowman Autumn and Ally. And I look forward to hearing from everybody. And I have a LinkedIn newsletter that goes out each month. So please subscribe and send me your thoughts on what I'm writing.

Fantastic. So audience, I have one more question for you. For those watching, what's one courageous decision that you've been avoiding and what might change if you made it? Write that down for yourself. All right. So for those who've listened to this episode, I have a gift for you. In every coaching session that I do, my clients ask me help often for working through difficult decisions and hard conversations. And one powerful conversation can change everything if we're brave enough to have it. So I created the Conversation Prep Toolkit. It's a complimentary guide and it helps you really step into those moments. With more intention, less fear, hesitation, and words that can actually land. And you can download it by joining my newsletter. And Jesse's going to share that in the chat. So thank you, Jesse. And if you're in a place where you know that you're ready to alchemize feeling drained into feeling more energized or pivot into what's next, let's talk. So if today's conversation resonated, stay connected with me by subscribing, like I said, to the newsletter. And you'll get information about new upcoming Alchemize with Alana episodes, which are live. And I also have a prerecorded podcast called Defy Limits, or, you know, I'll be sending some other coaching tips and anecdotal examples. Also, like and follow my business page, I Love My Life Coaching, so you don't miss future lives. And also share this episode with someone who's ready to turn their own adversity into power. I'm Alana Levinson, and this is Alchemize with Alana. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time. And CB, thank you again for being here. Thank you.

Thank you so much. It's been an incredible pleasure.