#33: Roundtable with Grace Killelea and Claude Silver

Hi, I'm Sai Wakeman, and you're listening to No Ego, a podcast where we teach you how to ditch the drama, end entitlement, and drive big results in your workplace and your world place. Welcome, listeners. I am so excited to have two of my favorite. people here on this special edition of the No Eagle Podcast. First of all, we're in New York City and we are at VaynerMedia. We're here in the Hudson Yards in New York in these fabulous offices, and I get to have Claude Silver back on my podcast. Welcome, Claude, Chief Heart Officer for VaynerMedia. Grace Killelea. Yep. Another incredible woman I met at a cool Women's Conference. We were both speaking, and she is president of GKC Group, and you'll hear a lot more about the cool stuff both of these women do in their organizations. So welcome.

Thank you.

Good topics on the table today. It's March, Women's History Month, so we've got some, I think, great advice we all can give. I want to get started with some of your individual philosophies because you bring so much cool stuff to the table. Claude, when I think of you, I just think of heart and culture and climate. When I first met you as a Little Miss Because I'm like, oh, is she one of those that's like total engagement and cuddle the people and not hold them accountable? But that's not it at all. You're amazing at the whole heart plus calling you up to greatness. So you want to give just a bit of your philosophy, and then we'll get to Grace and her philosophy.

I'd love to. Thank you. So I think people sometimes mistake chief heart officer as having a lot of honey and being all oozy goozy, social worker extraordinary, da da da da da. And in fact, I think of Chief Heart Officer as taking care of all of the heartbeats here. And that means the humanity, the human beings. And that could mean ups, downs, engagements, death, hospitalization, just a bad, bad day. And you need to really be able to have connection with each and every person here to know how they're doing, really how the vibe is here. Like, what is the heart monitor? Do, do, do, do, you know?

With different medicines coming in at times, at times it is calling people to a higher consciousness and different mindset. And at times it's just, It's loving them up.

Yeah, that's right. It just depends on who I'm sitting with, really holding space for, and what I'm listening to. Most of the time I'm taking in data and getting 411 and listening for patterns really, and how I can maybe redirect or coach. I certainly don't have all of the answers and none of us do, but what I really—

Together we do though. We do. I love that. I heard a quote by Einstein recently, together we're genius. And I'm like— I'll take it. Yeah. Not one of us has the answers. I hope our listeners know that we're one data point in your big crowdsource. Yeah, there's 800 people here.

I mean, in New York City alone, there's almost 650. And for me, my POV is bringing the humanity back to the workplace, treating each other as humans, not employees and not our job titles, because that doesn't really mean anything.

I get misinterpreted at times too because people think I'm like badass, tough love. People don't see at times that I'm very big-hearted. And so reality-based leadership isn't tough love. I always say reality's tough, leadership's love.

Right.

Right? And sometimes my love for you is helping you move through the world at a higher level of consciousness. Because if I can help you elevate your frequency, and first I do that by elevating my own, and we get you seeing the world from a more expansive view, I don't need answers for you because we've just opened up that part of you that knows answers, knows the truth. It's fun to connect with you often. I hope that we connect a lot on lots more special edition podcasts because I love the work that you do and how we come at it from We come from different angles, but we really get to similar places.

I totally agree. I definitely think we meet in somewhat of the epicenter.

Yeah.

And I do love and I need where you come from, quite frankly. It helps me so much. Right back at you.

So I'm stoked to be here. Should be obvious to listeners by now, I'm a big fan of Claude Silver. Likewise. And speaking of huge hearts, I want to bring Grace into the picture here. A lot of listeners don't know this about me, but I'm an introvert and I get a little nervous. When you're walking into the green room and people are kind of making a fuss about you if you're a speaker, which is kind of uncomfortable for me. And then lots of times, sometimes you meet some mean girls in the green room. They're kind of full of themselves sometimes back there. Sort of true. There might be some egos. So imagine my surprise. I'm a little nervous. I walk into this big, big event, overplanned maybe event, and there's Grace sitting there. And Grace just is no mean girl. You adopted me minute one. And I love about you, you're such a connector. Like, you literally are like, hey, who Who are you? What do you do? I like you. Let me introduce you to 20 other people that need to know about you. Have you always been that way, Grace? As you talk a little bit about yourself.

Yes. And I think it comes from a real joy that comes when I put like-minded people together. So I'm not gonna say I connect everyone, but if you've got good mojo and you do, and I knew it when I saw you, I thought, this is a cool woman. And I'm also building a business and expanding my brand. And why wouldn't I want to share what I have with the belief that we all sort of, We do rise together. So I'm a big believer in it, and honestly, it's served me really well my whole life. And I have a great tribe and a great network of people, and I'm delighted to share it. And I've been blessed in many ways, and I'm happy to share that with people. So shine the light when you can.

What is wonderful about many people I'm meeting in a more modern workplace— and of course we talk about like, what's the modern leadership philosophy looks like, what's tomorrow look like, not the past— is we're meeting more and more people who just believe in abundance. And we don't have to have policies and hard rules. Be mature about things, but we don't have to scorekeep. And I mean, people are just willing to share and help and see where those connections go. Tell listeners, since they might not know about some of the great work that you've done and what you do bring to the table as far as leadership and especially some specialty in women's leadership.

Thank you. And I'd love to do that. So I spent 35 years in HR. I started in retail and I ended up the Senior Vice President of Talent for a Fortune 30 company. I ran talent management and recruiting for Comcast when I Retired. So it was a million resumes a year.

Dang.

27,000 hires a year.

And major diversity in skill sets. Yeah.

So there was a need for— and again, I ran talent and recruitment, and that had executive search and succession planning and all that was part of my world. But along the way in my life, I won the lottery, as I like to say, and I was sent to a women's leadership development program at the Center for Creative Leadership about 20 years ago. And I got to facilitate that program for 13 years with hundreds and hundreds of senior women. So at 53, the short version of the story is at 53, I woke up and I said, I'm done running this race. I want to do work, but it's not going to be in this environment. Lovely people, but time for me to branch off. And I started my own company. And what I realized was that companies were spending a lot of money and time focused on senior women. Right? You could go to Stanford or Wharton or pick a program. But women in the middle were just being ignored. Underserved, ignored, and honestly drowning.

And a lot of times it's a time of our life where it really is hard to connect. I know I kind of just went all into my home life when I was in that mid-management. I was, you know, for me, I had chosen to be married and I'd chosen to have kids. And it was like, yeah, it was like not only was I floundering and being underserved at times, but yeah, you've got so much else going on.

Well, you're in the middle of your career. This is the time of life that women who choose to have children have them. typically. And now we're also in the crush of elder parent. Now we've got parents living longer. So we're seeing this dynamic. So I, one day on the back of an envelope— and I'm a professional speaker and I was speaking and coaching and honestly bored out of my mind— I said I need to do more. And I wrote Half the Sky on the back of a piece of paper. There's a Chinese proverb that women hold up half the sky. And I drafted what I believed was a great program for women in the middle. What was it? I love that. And I started it April of— actually, 5 years ago this month. And I started then. And now I run 7 leadership programs in 3 cities. And we have nearly 1,000 women that have graduated. And I went co-ed a couple of years ago. Because here's what I learned. It's so interesting you're asking me about women. I think that we aren't talking to men about leadership. And 87% of women report to men. And men get promoted because they're good at the work. And they get into a lane. And then suddenly, they don't know how to coach. They don't know how to give feedback. Their emotional intelligence has been disconnected when they're boys because it's man up, suck it up, boys don't cry. And then suddenly they're in this world, they don't know what to do. So we want to help men be better leaders, and by default, women have a better experience at work. So it's a win for everybody. I think some of the best work I'll ever do will be with men. It's— I'm fascinated by this.

Isn't it interesting how it—

Fascinated by it.

You being the mom raising 8 men.

You have 8 men.

You know, it's interesting because people know that I do a lot as far as helping women, and I'm keenly interested in some of the ways we can enhance that experience. But I love where you went with that. If we are going to underserve anyone in our workplaces, and that's where that heart and humanity comes back in, we're not going to get there. You can't fix what— it's not even fixing. You can't go where we need to go next by just choosing a part of the group to try and compensate with. Yeah. It's like we've got to Everybody's hurting here. And that really, you know, as I talk to my husband about different stuff that has happened recently in workplaces and the nation, he reminds me of that. Because I mean, it's easy to go, 60-year-old white guy has lots of privilege. He's like, I get— I'm learning my privileges, but, you know, we're hurting too. We're worried about, you know, we want connection too.

We're not bad guys.

Yeah, and it goes back to the connection part.

I also think you raised it in the beginning. I think it's all about collective consciousness. So you were talking about raising the consciousness, and I think Here with 80% millennials at VaynerMedia, there's enormous amounts of competition. But when you strip away what's really left, it's same, same. We all have the same anxieties. Yes. I could be 20 years older than them. I've been there, done that. Still have imposter syndrome sometimes. Like, just taking away all of that, the shields that we put on and just getting down to brass tacks, which is we're all doing our best. And I think around women, something that you said really reminded me of how important it is for L&D with the entire org, obviously, but learning and development and really developing our female mid-managers as well as everyone in the organization, but not letting anyone, not leaving anyone behind.

Absolutely.

And we don't have to. Sometimes we start to see this as a zero-sum game, and we just, we don't have to leave anyone behind. We have so many different options for that.

But I think it's around intention though, right? So if your leadership comes from the intention of we lift all, right, and we're leading with heart, but this is the exception and not the rule today, right? I'm in companies all the time. I'm in industries all the time. And this is not a conversation— this is not your average CHRO, right? Yeah. So when you're in a company, part of it is the intention around, Are we doing this to check a box? Are we doing this because somebody's requiring us to do this by law? And sometimes they are. Or are we really coming from a place like we really want to fix this? And we're going to make some mistakes, but if your intention is good, you get a better outcome. And I'm at the place now, I only choose clients whose intentions are good. I know when I'm coming in to check the box. And I hate that feeling. I feel like, all right, a little Purell will go a long way— Get it. As I leave this place because I feel Like, okay, you paid me my lovely fee, thank you so much, but nobody cared. And you can see it in the eyes of the people. But so often now I see companies going, we're not doing it right all the time, but man, we're pointing in this direction. I'm all in for that.

You know, and it's interesting because when I first got into the business, I was, you know, oh my gosh, that company doesn't have the right intentions and they're kind of broken and I want to get in there and fix it. And there were many times that they maybe had different motives the worst part of it was they weren't being intentional. They're operating out of lack of intention. And there were times that I could make a difference, but a lot of the times I ended up just enabling by helping somebody check the box. I actually enabled them to feel better about what was going on than it merited. And so I started to just really activate the silent majority or work with, in a weird way, grow the disparity at times. And I'm talking a lot about this recently about do we take on and resist. And I'm like, you know what? I think we activate the silent majority and raise the volume up. So I went into a room and I was talking about some changes in an organization we'd been part of. And in the room, it was like a room of like 70, and like 3 people were just trolls. They were just old guard, doing everything they could to discredit me. And they just were resisting and dominating. And I stayed neutral and I did what I needed to do. I hadn't thought about it enough to be intentional, so I just tried to do no harm but stay firm. And as I went out into the parking lot, my phone rang over and over, buzzed, and people were texting me, I so support you. It was awesome what you said there. It was just amazing. I'm so glad you're in our company. And I wrote back each of them. I'm like, well, thanks for the support, but it'd be nice for you to do it verbally and publicly. Exactly. And I realized the opportunity we have to activate the silent majority. Because with most of the topics we come up from leadership and other things, there are people who do believe more in alignment with what would be really productive, and they're silent. And so a big part of my work is moving people, helping people who have good intentions be intentional and then be less silent. And so my first step with them is, how do we get you understanding your ego and getting intentional? Then how do we help you break the silence? And I think for Westworth, that's where some of the power is. I know in your leadership programs you do that to help people understand themselves so they can get more intentional and then have ways to be more assertive in the conversations they have to break some of the silence.

Well, I think there's that personal accountability piece, right? I mean, part of what we work on is that you may be in a system that isn't fully supportive, and there are a lot of them that are not. You may have a great company and maybe a crappy boss right now. How do you navigate in that reality But how do you show up your best self? Because you get to decide whether you're going to speak up, raise your hand. But I also think there's an interesting thing that happened with the whole Me Too movement. And I don't want to go too far down this rabbit hole. But my phone started ringing off the hook because people wanted me to come up and do sexual harassment training. I said, thank you, but no thank you. Thank you, Jen. I was doing that in the '80s. Literally in the 1980s, I was doing this. And I said, that's not the issue. It's, are you— I always say that making budget covers a multitude of sins in companies. We allow people to be bad actors because they make you a lot of money. And if that's your culture, there's no amount of sexual harassment training that's going to fix that. When you're starting to say, regardless of how successful you've been for us in terms of revenue, you aren't worth it to us, that's the company that's going to change the narrative. But the women that work in those organizations or the women that we work with is, how do you own your power inside a system that may not be fully supportive? And that today is the majority of women. There are really good companies out there that are well-intended, lots of them. But there are broken parts everywhere. And how do you show up when it's not perfect? How do you show up in an environment that's hard or that may not necessarily even know that they're not developing their women? Or, you know, gee, we haven't promoted a woman here in 5 years and nobody notices except for the women going, you know, you aren't promoting any women.

And that's why I think, you know, we're talking about it from different levels. Any problem in an organization, you know, if you're in the C-suite, you get to really Listen, and you have an obligation to protect that heartbeat, right? And remove if there's cancer or whatever. And I think then from each position, each place that people are, there's tips and coaching techniques that we can give them on how they stay in integrity but avoid some of the mistakes people do where they go from like silence to violence. And for me, it's connecting first with you and moving beyond ego and then connecting with other humans on a human level. And a lot of people want to know, like, what to do to change the other person. And that's like the number one question I get. So how can I make him or her do something different? How do you answer that? Like, I would like to hear from each of you. Like, when people come and they're like, so they're, you know, I have this boss or I have this colleague and how can I make them different? That's the number one question I get. What approaches do you take with that, Claude?

Well, first and foremost, I mean, self-awareness 101. It all starts from there. And I think if we are cultivating a sense of belonging and connection at our— at the base, at the soil bed, I think that allows people to bring their whole selves to work and thus have a sense of self-awareness. The blame game ain't going to go anywhere. It's certainly not going to go anywhere here. And I hear— I don't hear it that often. I'm very lucky. But, you know, people want to play the spot it, you got it game but backwards. Right. And we know that spot it, you got it most of the time means if I'm talking smack about that person, I probably don't like that Yeah, exactly, projecting. So how— I mean, again, I talk about holding space a lot because that's where you're just non-judgment and let it come out, whatever is going to come out. But it's really how do I hold space and reflect back to an employee what I'm hearing in a way that's not going to slash and burn them. That's not the point, but really pointing out where they are lacking self-awareness because it is about them. It's not about that. It's not about It's not their manager. I can deal with their manager. But it's really about where they're coming from and are they able to come from a place of somewhat of non-judgment because they're safe. Like, safety means the world. We'll work this through.

We will work this through.

You're not gonna get fired from reporting someone to me. And you're also not gonna get fired for losing a client. We have a specific culture where— and I recognize that that's very different. But if we are creating a place where people feel physically and psychologically safe here, I feel like Gosh, that just saves so much time.

It really does. And what I love about what you're doing in that example is, you know, the ultimate ego bypass, getting out of the judgment, is that self-reflection. And that self-reflection is really the ultimate kind of drama diffuser. Because if there is an— let's say there is something where a boss could do something more effectively— when you bring it clouded with all the story and all the, they did this on purpose and they're out to get me, when you just strip that away, it either comes down to one of two things. After I lose my story, I either don't prefer it, I don't like it, and then it's not the boss is bad, I just have a request and the boss can meet it. Or it's just a simple issue where it's like, I'm not on that email list, the roles aren't clear. And when you get away from story, everything is so fixable. Mm-hmm. Now it's either really fixable because it's really simple, like I'm not on that email list, or it's a personal preference. And then you can realize that if we can cater to your personal preference, great, but your preference can't trump potential for the business if something is going on. So I just worked with a company and they put in scanners where you have your face scanned now instead of putting a badge in. And there's a couple individuals that are just like, I do not want my face scanned, and they're really upset about what it means and what people are trying to do to them. And when we got down to it, I'm like, well, are there religious issues. I get that. Like, I just really want to know if it made sense to accommodate. I want to be kind about it. And at the same time, it really came down to just a personal preference that would cost the company a lot of money to accommodate. And then it comes down to, I just got to ask for your reasonableness. Is this something— we try and give a lot to you. Is this something you could spot us on? Yeah, right. And when you get it down to that, you really tap into this reasonableness about people where they can see the simple issues. But when you're looking at it from the lens of the ego, it's so clouded you can't see beyond it. And that's why that self-reflection, bringing it out in front of people, then you can see it not through the lens of ego but beyond it. People get really reasonable. So I love that approach.

Well, they're either reasonable or they leave, right? I mean, at some point you go, this isn't going to work for me. All right. But we've cleared the lens. We're all looking at this as the practical application. I shared this with you a little earlier, and I think it fits this scenario where we just spent a day giving mid-managers tools on coaching and feedback. That was their entire day. And for many of them, they're like these dry sponges in the desert. And we come by with water. And they're like, this is amazing. This is the most amazing thing. And we're like, OK, it was coaching and feedback. And we did a good job. But wow. They're so thrilled. But at the end, there's always a person that says, I have somebody we've given them this feedback over and over and over. And they're not changing. And I said, you know, you can't coach willingness. You can't go— you know, you've given someone all this information, you cannot coach willingness. And the thing that made me laugh was I went on to LinkedIn later and Sai's firm had posted a meme of her that says you can't coach willingness. And I'm like, okay, we're— Can't work with the willing. I love that. But you can't work with the unwilling. And the truth is, at some point, this is about personal ownership. The company can say, here's where we're heading. We're going to work on this. And there are people who are either going to turn that corner with you or they're not. And where I see so many managers get frustrated is they have a personal desire to fix. They get an investment. There's some win for them in being the rescuer or the hero in the story. And their companies want them. Their companies are saying, well, you've got to fix this person. When those things collide, you spend a lot of time and energy, right? Jumping in the water for somebody who doesn't want to be saved.

Which is so true. And a lot of times when we talk about safe cultures, we believe it's like the leadership's job to like overreach and make things safe. But I like your holding space because anytime somebody's always in my business, like, and doing like more for me than I'm willing to do for myself, it doesn't feel very safe. I'm like, get out of my lane. And even with those folks that you're like, you know, what's your level of willingness and what's your plan to get on board to leave, you're giving them a safe way to work that out. And a lot of people, when it comes to safe spaces, they're really worried that, you know, well, what about the bullies? And what about, you know, the people? What we don't realize is that they're less comfortable in safe places. Mm-hmm. And so people worry that if we all get vulnerable together, then we'll all be vulnerable to the bullies. But the key is, is to honestly— the bullies are less safe in those places. Because if you come with somebody who just really is upset, and as a therapist this would happen, where they just were blaming the world and blaming me and mad at everything, and I just would hold space for them to be safe, like they were about to get in touch with what's really going on. A lot of them will bolt. Like a lot of them are like, I'm not gonna— but if I feed into it, then I can— or try and save it, it actually feeds the bullyism. I believe that if you've got some bullies in your workplace, you've got enablers to that. Yeah. And you have feeders to that. And so it's just interesting. I love the whole safety concept. Part of being safe is having good boundaries. And one of my boundaries is I'm only going to work with the willing. Buy-in is a verb. I can't buy you in.

Right.

I love that.

I love that as well. And I wholeheartedly agree. And I think companies that shift, that mind shift, because then it becomes, well, you didn't do these 4 tasks, so we're going to put you on a performance management plan. And it's all about the negative and the shredding of the relationship versus being able to honestly say, look, you're perfectly capable, but you're not doing it. This is a real conversation we don't know how to have in companies. And the thing I just wanted to speak to when you talked about the safety and bullies, I'm of a belief— and I have no research behind this, but just a long time in HR and being in the world— that the majority of people in companies are not bullies. And the majority of people are not harassing on any level.

The evil ones go to the extreme.

However, however, we do have people who are witness to it when it happens and who are unable to step up. And that's what you're talking about, right? Creating a place where men and women will just— not that it's just happened to me, but this person is really abusive in their language. Or have you read these emails? And how do we allow— people to lift their heads and say, this is not okay. I am very proud of the career that I had of being a truth teller. And I was toe to toe on more than one occasion with more than one leader who would— but there was something in me. Now, sometimes my motivation was to rescue, not gonna lie. And some of it might have been my ego of I'll get accolades because I'm a good person and fighting the fight. But people used to say to me, we need someone to go tell the truth. And wouldn't it be great if truth was really what we valued? And we don't value it. I mean, clearly it's valued here, even when it's uncomfortable, when you've said, come tell me, you're not gonna lose your job 'cause you've told me the truth. But as one of the things we're trying to build, that muscle we're trying to teach women and men to flex, is that courage. The courage to be truthful and say, this is what happened. This is not OK. But you've got to— it's a risk. In a lot of organizations, it's a risk today to be a truth teller.

In my podcast, I like to give people some really concrete things, like tips that they could walk away with. We've had some good conversation around that. One of the things that I— in picking up what you said about obviously they don't value that. And for me, I would question, because I think in the same person you can have low self and high self. And sometimes our behavior may indicate that if you said, well, this means that we don't value it. I think that sometimes we aren't fully aligned. You know, there's high self and low self. And so we see some low self behavior that I don't think necessarily indicts it. The thing I wanted to get to, I guess, is when we talk about courage, that there's many ways to get there. So some people, I think, have some natural courage where I have seen you stick up for someone and be like, toe-to-toe. And other folks, I think no matter how much we would work with them on that, that might not be their way of it. But I think that there are really courageous things that people can do that aren't confrontational. So I think that courage and confrontation don't always have to be together. That's true. I think there's some personality in there. Sometimes my courage is simply— it's not confrontational, but like if you said something and it fell on deaf ears as a female and You said something, it fell on deaf ears, that I would just amplify that and go back. Yes. I mean, sometimes courage doesn't have to be confrontational. So a tip I use a lot, and it's not just female-male, but if we weren't able to pause and hold something at the table long enough for us to just consider or take in that data point, one of the things I am working on doing is, as a tip to other people, is just to go back and say, wait a minute, can we just slow down and And let's connect about that again. Let's let's do some more thinking about that. Those little pauses and just asking for small meditative moments when things are passing, so we don't just skim over and end up in the same place. That little thing has been really profound. It's something I would I would throw out there as a tip, and I'm wondering on you guys' tip. And another thing with activating the silent majority, like if you guys a minute to think is. There's a story that I heard that was a Cherokee Nation story, but I've seen it cited a lot of different times. But the main gist of it is there was a young man and he was going through transition into adulthood. And in that time, there's ceremonies where you ponder kind of big questions. And his big question, the way he described it, was there's like these 2 wolves that live in my head and they're very much in battle. It's like if I had to describe my dilemma right now, there's one wolf who's kind and loving and loyal, And there's this other wolf that is mean and jealous and aggressive. And his question was, given those 2 beings in his head, which one would win? He goes, they fight all the time, which one would win? And the answer from the elder was, whichever one you feed. And so that has struck me. I put that in my second book and attributed it to, I think, Cherokee. But that has struck me right now because there's a lot of things that I'll get in a tug-of-war with people about. And I'm just trying to use my energy in a way where I drop my end of the tug-of-war rope, but I feed what I want to manifest or what I want to see. And my ego gets so tempting to abandon that and go fight again. And so it's just— I don't know, I'm playing with this. So I throw that out there as a tip too, that you don't always have to go take on the resistor or the minority. You can activate the silent majority, or you can grow whatever you feed. And just making sure that we're feeding and illustrating things. So I would just put that out there, some tips. You guys have some tips as we start to wrap up a little bit for the person who does want to more often than not align with courage and truth and what our core values are of respect and inclusivity and safe places and heart?

Yeah, I think one of the things you just said reminded me of Marianne Williamson in terms of— Yeah, we both love her.

You love her too? Yeah, we're fans.

Yeah, big time. That there are really only 2 emotions, fear and love. And so which one are you going to feed is what really—

It comes down to, yeah.

What it really comes down to. And something else that I think is really interesting, and you mentioned it a little while ago, was around feedback or raising an issue. And one of the things we say over and over here, and I will continue to say it until I know it is in every single water bottle, is feedback is an act of caring. And when we withhold feedback, whether or not it's manager to person on the team or me to— so it's just, we just manipulate the entire situation.

Yeah.

And what is manipulation about? Just control. Just fear.

Control. And we distort somebody's view of reality.

Totally.

So they don't even get good data to make better decisions.

It's a setup. It's also— feedback is so subjective anyway, right? I mean, I'm talking about someone's heart, personality, effort. But we want to be able to provide the real deal to them in a way that they can hear it. That's the deal. Not in the way that I can hear it, in the way that I know they will receive it, because I want them to grow and learn.

Yeah. And one of the ways to do that when you do give feedback is to let that ego off the hook. I'll say a lot, this is one data point, but don't take my word for it. Go out and triangulate. Like, go out and check some other data points. And then here's an assignment for self-reflection. Check it out for yourself and see if that fits for you. And let's have more dialogue, because another thing I think we can do is get out of the one conversation and into the relationship of, you know what, let's have multiple pieces of dialogue. Right,

360 or whatever it is.

It could be 360 multiple points, but also even multiple conversations. Exactly, yeah. Like, there were times when I had my third baby baby, I'll never forget my mom was so good at feedback. She was not that thrilled that I'd named my first son George Millard Wakeman and my second son Charles O'Leary Wakeman, right? She was— they're very English and, you know, a little colonistic names. She was looking for a bit more, I think, ethnicity. And she said, what are you going to name this baby? I was pregnant with my third baby. And she— I said, oh, Mom, I go, Henry Albert Wakeman. And she goes, oh my gosh, well, you're only 7 months. Let's keep thinking. And that was such a nice place of feedback. Now, I still named him Henry, and she loved him to death, right? But it was just a way of saying we're in relationship and it's safe and we can have more conversation about that. And you get to name your kid whatever you want. She had some feedback for me, but it wasn't what I was gonna change.

But in the workplace, if you have a behavior or something that you're not even aware of that you keep doing over and over and no one tells you, but it's why you're not going to get promoted or you're not going to get invited to the table or you're not going to be included and no one ever tells you, then it's the sin of omission. And there are people— someone said to me the other day, I gave an example of someone who had some very challenging executive presence. She was dressed in a very inappropriate way at work on a regular basis. And she didn't know why she was getting promoted. And it was such— it was almost a caricature, it was so bad. And someone said, well, why didn't she just know it? And I said, because she didn't. It was such a blind spot for her. But when she was given the information, then she has a choice. Then she was able to say, I can choose this. And now I know the consequence. Consequence is I'm never going to get promoted. Or I can adapt, still be authentic— because I'm a believer in authenticity and appropriateness can go hand in hand. And she's been promoted 3 times since she got this information. But for 7 years in her company, not one person told her. No one. She came to us, and I told her the second day we were together, I said, I know you want to be promoted, but your insides and your outsides are incongruent. So let's figure that out. And she said, I'm in. But that opportunity to have that conversation with her never happened because people didn't want to hurt her feelings. People didn't want to get sued. They didn't— so all of these reasons we don't do things, and we leave somebody behind. And I love when we can be courageous enough to say, are you open to this? And to your point, triangulate. Do the math. You haven't been promoted in 7 years.

Yeah, look at all the data points. And I think those of us giving feedback, we need to make sure that we're not— that we understand our own biases and that what we're giving feedback on really matters. And I think my mom used to say all the time is If it doesn't make a difference, what difference does it make?

Absolutely.

But I'll remember I got hard feedback, man. I came back after college and I was like granola girl, Birkins. Like, I would totally fit into the workplace today. I was like, you know, why would my intelligence be judged by what I have on? And I had a boss and she was like, I want you in that Armani suit. I want you like high heels, like, you know, the little bow ties we used to wear. And I'm just like, That's ridiculous. And she said, you know, you can believe what you want about that. I'm not here to tell you what is appropriate. I'm here to tell you what might work for you. And she said, you know what, Sian? She goes, you can dress the part and add value if that's your ticket in. And she said, if you're gonna be— you have exceptions, then you can't be ordinary, and you've got to earn your exceptions in the early worlds. And I'm like, interesting. Once now, I could walk into that same place dressed in my pajamas and I've earned my value and they could be like, I don't care, sign. Now thank God the world's eased up, right? Right. That I think that organization like last year let people come to work without pantyhose on. But I don't agree with the dress code to this day. Right. But I had to really take a look at that. If I want some of these special privileges, then I need to make sure I'm being extraordinary in some other ways. And I was mad about that because I thought, you know, the world should just take us at face value. And you know what? That's a cool world that does. And I want to ease up on all dress codes everywhere, although being appropriate at work. But I remember me being that person. I was mad that they wanted me to dress like a clone of the rest of them. But I had to ask myself, would I rather be right or successful in that moment? Yeah. And it really wasn't giving up that much of my identity. Right. You know, to come in and comply. So I really had to learn to work through a lot of that with myself. And what the funny thing is, is I wanted a nose piercing so bad in the '80s, and I even petitioned HR and like, I wanted a nose piercing. I was so mad I couldn't get one. And that same HR rep, she retired recently. I went to her party and she goes, Sai, she goes, why didn't you ever get a nose piercing? And I'm like, I'm right. I always wanted one of those. And she goes, you fought me for 3 years for a nose piercing. You're in business for yourself and you don't have your nose pierced. Like, what happened? Was it really that big a deal? And it wasn't. It was a deal that I could just take on authority, all ego. You know, it wasn't that big a deal, or I would have one right now, right? It's like, because I write my own dress code. But we digress. I don't know how much of that is useful to our leaders. I like to end with kind of a personal piece. I say a lot to folks, We can talk about advice for others, and I think we all have some great things for people to consider, but I want people to remember that we're also human. And I tell people a lot, you know, I teach you this, but I screw this up, and only daily. And I say that because it's true, but I want people not to look at me on a pedestal. I want people to know that we're all in this human condition together. We all have low self and high self. We all have ego. We're all just like doing the best We can with what we got. Some of the things I screw up daily— I probably do better at work than home. I'm really non-judgmental at work, but you know, if my husband left his toothbrush on the side of the sink, I'm pretty sure that's an insult to me directly. It's not. Yeah, exactly. Newsflash. Can you guys just be vulnerable for a minute and just share something you're working on or something you might screw up more often than you'd like? Because we've given such amazing advice, I just want people to know we're also like super Totally.

I mean, I always go back to the imposter syndrome. And it's not necessarily something I screw up, but I mean, I hold space and grow and cultivate people all day. And yet, I don't know if anyone here knows that I also struggle with feeling like I can take up space and speak, especially if it's speaking about something that I consider IQ and I'm much more EQ. Mm-hmm. You know, I stutter and I'm working on it.

It's so interesting because when we meet, we tend to compare— I compare my insides to other people's outsides. It's a really unfair comparison, right? Because I remember how nervous I was, like, the first time I met Claude. I'm like, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna go talk to— and, you know, once we move through that imposter syndrome on both our parts, right, it's like, it's just good connection. What's one thing that—

I have 2, actually. So one is my feelings get hurt I get hurt very easily. So then I operate from a place of pain. Like, if I didn't get picked for something, it's very personal. So I have to every day, sometimes many times a day, depersonalize. And my team knows this about me. And I get hurt. I just get hurt. So I'm wired for that.

It's like that high empath.

I'm really wired. I have a very high need for respect. So I feel disrespected easily, even if it's not about me. Now I've got enough awareness to check myself multiple times, but that's one. And the other is I really struggle with being in my physical space. And because I'm at my heaviest I've been in a long time— that I've been 400 pounds and I've been 180 pounds in my adult life. And I'm on the higher end. I'm not near 400, but I'm on the higher end that I've been in a couple of years. And every day I have to push a hell no button when I start to feel like, well, I'm gonna be the biggest person in the room, and oh my God, I'm— but, but it's so real, right? And how many pairs of Spanx do I have to wear? And how am I gonna look in the podcast today? And oh my God, they're taking pictures. Because what that does is it makes me want to play small. And instead, I have to tell myself every day, you're gonna show up this body, this person. I'm almost 60, 59 going on 60. And, you know, society tells me there's no value for you. You're old and you're fat. And so every day I have to get up and sometimes multiple times a day, you know, my theme is— but my theme is if you can't hide it, decorate it, right? So I'll decorate it. Here I am, right? This is how I'm feeling. Hence our necklaces. Hence the jewelry and the sparkle. But it doesn't mean I'm not afraid and it doesn't mean I don't feel— so I tell people all the time, you can look confident, you don't have to feel confident. I mean, I fake it till I make it pretty much every day. And I wanted to share that because I think it gets unsaid. And I know people will watch this, and there was always judgment about externals, so here it is. And I would rather show up and be here in this space with you and you in this body than be home afraid because I didn't fit somebody's mold. Somebody else's category.

That's a whole other groovy podcast, but I relate to that. When I first made this, it's so vulnerable to say, I'm gonna just let people document, we're gonna put tons of video out there. And every once in a while, like, my bra strap's hanging out, and my team is like, we're publishing this great content, and it'll be like the highest rating because nobody cares. But I would tell you, after watching my video, it like broke me of the habit because I would be so self-critical. And then I produce so much content now that I just don't have the energy anymore for like— Period. It's like, I gotta just— I don't have time for that today, so just put it out there. But I think that is so true. But, you know, I look back at pictures when I was thinner, I look back at pictures when I was heavier, I'm not sure I felt any less imposter syndrome or any—

Right, exactly.

So what is so funny about that?

Right, the happy. And I look at young women and I'll look at the package. You look at the body, the external, and we don't know what she's walking through. Or young men. And we are so quick to go, oh, you have it easy, or this has worked for you. So I think when you can talk about that and just say, this is real for me, And I pushed the hell no button and I showed up anyway. I think it really changed because that— I love your hell no button. Yeah, but that becomes the decision. I'm gonna move through my day.

Everybody's got whatever their deal is that they have to push the hell no, I'm not gonna let this stop me. I think that's such a great place to end the podcast. I always give an assignment. I want you guys to listen in to what holds you back, and you don't have to do 10 years of therapy. You don't have to figure it out. You don't have You don't have to cure it. You don't have to become your perfect weight. Why not in the meantime just push the hell no button and say, I'm going to contribute anyway and bring all of that into the workplace and at home? I set a goal last year, being an introvert, that I was going to connect and network more. Really just not just show up and leave. Like, I would actually talk to the other person in the green room. Best thing I have done, because what it has helped me see is that We all have such similar aspirations and connections and hopes and wants. And, you know, together amplifying these conversations, I think will make a difference. And listeners, I hope you take what we have given you and share, share, share it. If you're loving these podcasts, make sure that you're pushing that share button because let's amplify and activate that silent majority. There's a bunch of us out there who believe and love what life feels like beyond ego and know that we're could be different and know that we really can not have to walk through what some people have walked through in the past. And so your best thing you can do if you want to take action is share the podcasts like mine and other people so that people know the conversation's going on out there and that they're not alone in this thing. Thank you so much for joining the episode today. If you're loving this podcast, just make sure that you check me out on Facebook and Instagram. And especially YouTube.