400K Black Women Were Laid Off. LinkedIn's Their Next Power Move.

Don't tell me that you fired these 400,000 Black women because they were underperforming. You fired them because now they're unprotected, so easy to push them because you never liked them, because you don't understand them, because yeah, you don't have affinity with them. And I don't know, there's something there that they have a very hard time with having senior women at the top.

This is what I think it is. When you think about all those statements that we were just talking about, all these companies making, you know, these big statements that they really didn't even understand the true meaning of a lot of those words. They are not living that life in real life. And this is a problem. I almost see it as like, like tho— those statements were like social media, you know? It was like a highlight reel of like what they thought. But like the reel behind the reel was like, they don't have friends that look like us, you know? They don't understand. So there's a lack of empathy. And this is the thing, like besides being unprotected, I think it's just a basic human empathy. That is missing that I've seen in my own personal experience, where they will empathize with someone coming in with fake tears, you know, that looks like them. But when I say, actually, that person is lying right now, you know, like, that actually didn't happen, this is how it happened, I have documentation, there's less empathy for a woman that looks like me, you know? And I've seen that, you know, we see it in hospitals, you know? I don't know if you saw the most recent where that woman was in active labor and the nurse was carelessly not looking at her and taking her information and punching it into the computer. And she's screaming at the top of her lungs. And we're watching it. And thank God she had someone there filming, you know. But after they finally decide, I think it was like a half hour went on like this, she delivered 12 minutes later. Could you imagine? You know, it's like— but that's the lack of empathy that I'm talking about. You know, it's like, it's just, it's a human empathy that's missing, you know. And it's not to feel sorry for us, right? But it's just like, empathy. Empathizing with our experience on a human level and getting curious about it. And I think that's missing, you know.

Is that empathy or is it just racism and not thinking that we're even human?

Well, and that's a part of it. That's, and that's, that's a part of it.

They're not humans. They're not suffering. Black women are supposed to be strong. You're not, you're not a real human. You're not, you can't be suffering. You're, you're, you're strong.

I think it's a combination, to be honest with you, but, but it starts with yourself. Like, we hold the power to choose how we show up, how we— the things that we learn, things that we want to unlearn. You know, you talked about the lineage, right? The, the history of racism and maybe one's family. It's like, you hold the power today to break that.

Oh yeah.

But if you don't choose to do that, then, you know, then it perpetuates and it continues. And, and we're seeing it now because it's so openly and it's blatant now, you know. Administration, it's contagious. So now it's very contagious and now people are, you know, very open with their, their racism and, and we're seeing it more and more. So I love that you touched on a lot of stuff, like, you know, you touched on LinkedIn a little bit and I'd love to, um, to kind of pull on your expertise there, but you led at LinkedIn, you know, and now you're coaching others on how to leverage their personal brand and you know, and kind of get themselves out there that are out right now in the wilderness and maybe haven't even had to look for a job. This is the other thing that's really real. Like there are so many executives in, you know, middle management that have not had to look for a job for years and now navigating the waters and it is not the same waters as it was when they went into those jobs. So they're not only having to relearn things. you know, in real time. And, you know, this is where I think a great coach can come in. So I'd love to kind of pull on your expertise here, but what do you think is the most overlooked ways professionals like are leveraging LinkedIn or maybe not leveraging LinkedIn for their visibility?

I think LinkedIn first is a landing page. It's not a resume, it's your landing page, and there should— it's a conversion funnel. So what is the core message that you wanna portray at the moment when somebody visits your page. So it has to, to be magnetic. It has to be updated. It has to reflect your capabilities. This is, it sells for you while you're sleeping. So most people are not leveraging their LinkedIn. Even just, let's say you don't post, even like having an idle profile, you gotta optimize your LinkedIn profile. And that's so important from the headline to the picture, to the banners. You can have multiple rotating banners to your about story, to— there's so much, there's so much you can do. It's, it's— I get so many leads. So LinkedIn is a lead generation engine. So I would say first things first is understanding what is your goal with your profile or in your life, and your profile should reflect that. Updating your profile to reflect that main goal, to receive the leads that you want to receive, whether it's finding a new opportunity, whether it's creating a portfolio career. Let's say you want to have a fractional role, fractional HR, fractional sales, whatever you're thinking about, or speaking engagements. So you have to really create that magnetic presence for yourself. Welcome to Driving Impact.