Speaker 1: Hey fam, Hello Sunshine. Today's show could literally change your life,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to tell you why.
Speaker 2: We're joined by.
Speaker 1: Julia Borston, CNBC Senior Media and Tech correspondent. She's on
Speaker 1: a mission with her book, When Women Lead. So let
Speaker 1: me ask you a question. Has anyone ever called you
Speaker 1: too emotional? Too shy, too ambitious, too inquisitive? I've gotten
Speaker 1: too sensitive? But what if I told you that your
Speaker 1: biggest weakness could actually be.
Speaker 2: One of your greatest strengths.
Speaker 1: Our guest, Julia Borston has the stats to back it up.
Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, September third. I'm Danielle Robe and.
Speaker 3: I'm Simone Voice. And this is the bright side from
Speaker 3: Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together to
Speaker 3: share women's stories, laugh, learn and brighten your day. Danielle,
Speaker 3: I cannot wait to talk to Julia Borston today. I
Speaker 3: know are both huge fans of her and her book,
Speaker 3: When Women Lead. When I've read that book, I'm sure
Speaker 3: you had the same feeling. I just felt so empowered.
Speaker 3: I felt like I could go out and negotiate. I
Speaker 3: felt like I knew how to advocate on behalf of
Speaker 3: other women. I mean, I tore through that book so quickly,
Speaker 3: and it's so dog eared and filled with so many
Speaker 3: post it notes, because you know how much I love research.
Speaker 3: I was just so impressed by all the deep research
Speaker 3: that she did to bring this book to life.
Speaker 1: Deep research, but she made all the research really interesting.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that stuck out to me
Speaker 1: is that I think most women have constantly been told,
Speaker 1: at one time or another, that were too much of something,
Speaker 1: And Julia's book tells you and shows you how to
Speaker 1: use whatever character trait that is to your advantage. So
Speaker 1: maybe you're quote unquote emotional, but what that really means
Speaker 1: is you're filled with empathy and are great at connecting
Speaker 1: with people and are more likely to consider diverse viewpoints.
Speaker 1: Or maybe you've been told that you can't lead because
Speaker 1: you're shy, but Julia's research will show you that maybe
Speaker 1: that means you actually just spend a lot more time
Speaker 1: listening and therefore learning. I grew up thinking that men
Speaker 1: were great leaders, that men were smart, that men had
Speaker 1: the answers, And then I actually grew up and I
Speaker 1: realized that women were the ones with the answers, that
Speaker 1: women were leaders. And I think our society caught up too,
Speaker 1: and women are so powerful, and we just don't know
Speaker 1: our own powers sometimes, and so Julia has the facts
Speaker 1: and the stats to back it up.
Speaker 3: That was so beautifully, said Danielle. For anyone who may
Speaker 3: not know Julia Borsen, she's a senior media and tech
Speaker 3: correspondent for CNBC and the creator of the CNBC Disruptor
Speaker 3: fifty List. It's an annual list that highlights the most innovative,
Speaker 3: fastest growing private companies. And for this book, When Women Lead,
Speaker 3: Julia interviewed over one hundred women across multiple sectors and backgrounds,
Speaker 3: and she paired their stories with dozens of studies.
Speaker 1: Today we're chatting about what happens when women lead and
Speaker 1: why we are actually the leaders we've been looking for.
Speaker 2: Julia Borston, Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 4: I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 4: I'm a big fan. This is a bit of a reunion.
Speaker 3: Julia and I used to be colleagues together at the
Speaker 3: NBC Bureau in Los Angeles, and Danielle has interviewed Julia separately,
Speaker 3: of I've interviewed Julia separately, and now we finally get
Speaker 3: to have a conversation together all together.
Speaker 1: It's a party as Julia said it. She said she's
Speaker 1: a fan of the pod, but I think we're Julia fans.
Speaker 2: Oh, totally, one hundred percent. It's a love fest.
Speaker 3: Yes, Julia, you write quote In reporting this book, I
Speaker 3: wasn't just testing hypotheses about female entrepreneurs. I was learning
Speaker 3: to better navigate the world. What's the most surprising fact
Speaker 3: you learned about women in leadership through your research that's changed.
Speaker 4: The way that you viewed the world. You know, when
Speaker 4: I started off this project, and it really started with interviews,
Speaker 4: and I interviewed over one hundred and twenty women, and
Speaker 4: then those interviews led me to research a lot of
Speaker 4: studies and data to explain what it was that those
Speaker 4: women were doing that enabled them to be so successful.
Speaker 4: I kind of thought I was going to find a
Speaker 4: playbook for successful female leadership, and what I found was
Speaker 4: something totally different that absolutely changed the way I think
Speaker 4: about what it means to be a successful leader. And
Speaker 4: what it really comes down to is authenticity. The best
Speaker 4: leaders do not follow any sort of playbook. They are
Speaker 4: true to who they are. They really understand themselves, their
Speaker 4: strengths and weaknesses, and they use that self knowledge to
Speaker 4: push themselves to set goals, but also to surround themselves
Speaker 4: with people who are going to help them. And I
Speaker 4: think there was something about this that female leaders already
Speaker 4: don't fit the model of what a stereotypical male leader
Speaker 4: is going to look like. And the ones who have
Speaker 4: really managed to succeed are the ones who say, not
Speaker 4: only do I not fit that model, Maybe I just
Speaker 4: need to figure out what my own model is, and
Speaker 4: we can be most successful if we're really true to ourselves.
Speaker 1: Julia, I entered the workforce in twenty thirteen for the
Speaker 1: first time, and I felt so ill equipped. I realized
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to communicate in a corporate atmosphere.
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to disagree. I really felt like
Speaker 1: I had no tools. So I do what I always do.
Speaker 1: I turned to books, and I got every book that
Speaker 1: I could on female leadership, and each book told me
Speaker 1: about the qualities that I needed to acquire to succeed.
Speaker 1: And the reason that I love your book so much
Speaker 1: is it does the exact opposite.
Speaker 2: Your book is about how women can leverage.
Speaker 1: The qualities they already have to succeed in the workplace.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel shamed one time reading your book, which
Speaker 1: is so rare in these scenarios. So you refused to
Speaker 1: be demoralized by what you discovered about gender disparities, and
Speaker 1: you decided to create this positive framework.
Speaker 2: So let's begin with connections.
Speaker 1: You lay out that women are more likely than men
Speaker 1: to have wide ranging personal connections, and women with an
Speaker 1: inner circle landed in leadership positions that were two point
Speaker 1: five times higher in authority and pay.
Speaker 4: Why is that it's about that inner circle, a trusted
Speaker 4: and diverse inner circle. What was so interesting to me
Speaker 4: about that study, and I'm so glad that stuck out
Speaker 4: to you as well, is this idea that we can
Speaker 4: all create what a lot of people are calling like
Speaker 4: your own personal board of advisors. This old fashioned idea
Speaker 4: that you're going to have a mentor who's older than
Speaker 4: you at your organization who's going to tell you what
Speaker 4: to do. That's really out moded. That is not how
Speaker 4: mentorship really works. But we all need a community, a
Speaker 4: network of people who are going to help us figure
Speaker 4: out our own path, who are going to push us,
Speaker 4: who are going to hold us accountable, and women who
Speaker 4: have that tight knit circle of people who are not
Speaker 4: necessarily in the same field as them, not necessarily in
Speaker 4: the same industry as them. But those are the women
Speaker 4: who are going to say, hey, what about that goal
Speaker 4: you set for yourself, what's holding you back? I know
Speaker 4: that you can do this, and you should know that too,
Speaker 4: and so I think that's why having that tight knit
Speaker 4: circle so important. There's another piece of research that I
Speaker 4: found really interesting that I include in the book, and
Speaker 4: that's about how women are afraid to draw on their
Speaker 4: broader network when it comes to professional stuff. And this
Speaker 4: one study said that women feel very comfortable offering professional
Speaker 4: help or advice to their female friends, but they do
Speaker 4: not feel comfortable asking for that professional help. So the
Speaker 4: reality is that men feel comfortable asking for professional help,
Speaker 4: and that might be what kind of salary are you
Speaker 4: asking for? What kind of rais did they offer you?
Speaker 4: What kind of terms should I be asking for in
Speaker 4: this deal? Men don't feel what these social scientists called
Speaker 4: an ick factor. Women described feeling icky and anxious about
Speaker 4: asking other people for professional help. I felt it myself,
Speaker 4: and my book came out and I was afraid to
Speaker 4: ask people for things, and so many women said to me,
Speaker 4: this is crazy. You literally wrote the book on this,
Speaker 4: but you're still feeling it. That's how powerful. These feelings
Speaker 4: are that are socialized so thin as women, we need
Speaker 4: to acknowledge that the guys are asking each other for
Speaker 4: professional help. There's nothing wrong with it, and statistically women
Speaker 4: feel comfortable offering the help. So just ask your friends.
Speaker 4: And I have a couple of female friends who are older,
Speaker 4: and when they organize group dinners, they'll say, everyone needs
Speaker 4: to leave here and ask someone else for something they
Speaker 4: need and don't feel ashamed about it.
Speaker 2: Oh, I love that question.
Speaker 3: Where do you think that comes from? That ick factor
Speaker 3: that's so deeply ingrained.
Speaker 4: It's this idea that women are supposed to be warm
Speaker 4: and nurturing. If you look at all of the double
Speaker 4: standards that women face, underlying pretty much all of them
Speaker 4: is this expectation that women are supposed to be warm, nurturing,
Speaker 4: and if you vary from that expectation, you're in violation
Speaker 4: with this stereotype. And it's confusing to people, or it's
Speaker 4: off putting to people, and they don't like it. And
Speaker 4: there's something about saying this is what I need, can
Speaker 4: you help me? Then you're not at the person offering
Speaker 4: the help, you're asking for it. And I think it
Speaker 4: just stands in contrast with that very old and I
Speaker 4: would say old fashioned stereotype.
Speaker 1: We need to take a quick break, but when we
Speaker 1: come back, Julia Borston tells us the traits that effective
Speaker 1: leaders have in common, stay with us, and we're back
Speaker 1: with Julia Borston.
Speaker 3: Another thing that's really energizing to me about your book
Speaker 3: is that the women that you interviewed weren't born with
Speaker 3: this perfect leader starter kit. They learned the traits that
Speaker 3: make them such effective leaders. So what do these leaders
Speaker 3: have in common?
Speaker 4: So yes, even though each of these leaders is incredibly
Speaker 4: different from each other, I have over sixty women featured
Speaker 4: in the book. They come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, backgrounds, interests,
Speaker 4: and different personality types. But there are a couple of
Speaker 4: key skills and strategies that women are more likely to
Speaker 4: have and deploy in successful leadership. One is a communal
Speaker 4: leadership style. I was actually arguing with my husband last
Speaker 4: night and I was like, I think I'm just more
Speaker 4: communal than you are, and you know what I think
Speaker 4: you are. But this communal leadership style basically means and
Speaker 4: instead of one person running something making hierarchical decisions top
Speaker 4: down management, communal is trying to get consensus, trying to
Speaker 4: make sure you really understand what people are thinking, and
Speaker 4: trying to figure out how you can learn from everyone
Speaker 4: across an organization. Another key one here is empathy. Women
Speaker 4: rate higher on empathy tests. You can test your ability
Speaker 4: to imagine what someone else is failing or thinking, which
Speaker 4: is really what empathy is. In this test that I
Speaker 4: actually linked on my website, and again, social scientists, I love,
Speaker 4: all these geeky studies figured out how to test this,
Speaker 4: and what they found is that women are more clued
Speaker 4: in to what other people are feeling, are thinking. And
Speaker 4: a lot of times that's derided like, oh, empathy, that's
Speaker 4: just the same thing as kindness. It's like, no, it's not.
Speaker 4: Empathy is a very specific skill and it's not just
Speaker 4: a soft skill. And I hate the term soft skill
Speaker 4: because it's so demeaning to me. Empathy is a power skill.
Speaker 4: If you can figure out what the person you're negotiating
Speaker 4: with is feeling or thinking, we're going to do a
Speaker 4: better job but coming to an agreement that's actually going
Speaker 4: to be better for both sides. If you could figure
Speaker 4: out what someone's real motivation is, if you're working on
Speaker 4: a team, if you can understand what your teammates real
Speaker 4: motivation is, what makes them get out of bed in
Speaker 4: the morning, you're able to figure out how to get
Speaker 4: them to work a lot harder. And another one I
Speaker 4: like to talk about a lot is vulnerability, and that's
Speaker 4: being not performing vulnerability, but being really honest about your
Speaker 4: strengths and your weaknesses and not being afraid to admit
Speaker 4: where you have weaknesses. There were some interesting studies about
Speaker 4: the pandemic about how employees would much prefer to work
Speaker 4: for a female leader during a time of crisis, and
Speaker 4: I was so curious about why that was, and what
Speaker 4: it came down to is the fact that female leaders
Speaker 4: show their vulnerability. In the pandemic, no one knew what
Speaker 4: was going on, and the women admitted it. They said,
Speaker 4: we're not going to try to come up with the solutions,
Speaker 4: and they communicated with empathy. I know this is really hard.
Speaker 4: I'm struggling too, This is not easy. And the combination
Speaker 4: of those two things make female leaders very appealing as
Speaker 4: leaders to their employees. And then one of my other
Speaker 4: favorite ones is gratitude. Women in general are more likely
Speaker 4: to practice gratitude than men, and gratitude to me never
Speaker 4: had anything to do with business. It was just a
Speaker 4: thing that was about friends or family. So if women
Speaker 4: are naturally socialized to talk about things they're grateful for,
Speaker 4: when you apply that to a work setting, it means
Speaker 4: you're like, Okay, I'm okay with the state of our
Speaker 4: business right now, I'm not going to make an anxious
Speaker 4: decision for a short term. When we're okay, no, we
Speaker 4: could plan for the long term.
Speaker 3: I want to talk to you about a study that
Speaker 3: you highlighted that speaks to one of those perceived weaknesses
Speaker 3: that is often attributed to women. And this study illustrated
Speaker 3: that men tend to speak up up to seventy five
Speaker 3: percent more often than women in the workplace.
Speaker 4: So not only do women speak less than men, but
Speaker 4: they are perceived to speak more than they actually do.
Speaker 4: So if you ask a man how much did those
Speaker 4: women speak, they report that the women spoke more than
Speaker 4: they actually did. So it's just like again, double standards
Speaker 4: all over the place. So one of the CEOs I
Speaker 4: featured my book, Jennifer Holmgrin. She's the CEO of a
Speaker 4: very cool biotech company called Lanza Tech. They literally turn
Speaker 4: pollution into fuel. It's amazing just the technology is just fascinating.
Speaker 4: She's an introvert, she hates to speak, she'd must rather
Speaker 4: never public speak, even though she's the CEO of this company.
Speaker 4: And what she said when I asked her, how on
Speaker 4: earth have you been able to raise money from Richard Branson,
Speaker 4: who's this super charismatic, high profile guy pitched to raise
Speaker 4: hundreds of millions of dollars to grow your company when
Speaker 4: you are the most introverted person, you hate doing interviews
Speaker 4: on TV. How is this even possible? And she said
Speaker 4: that she's been able to use your introversion as an
Speaker 4: advantage in that what she understands is she's a really
Speaker 4: good listener. She's not anxious to get a word in edgewys.
Speaker 4: So she turned this trait of introversion, which has always
Speaker 4: been seen as a negative thing in business, into a
Speaker 4: superpower by saying, I don't have to speak. I'm going
Speaker 4: to listen, and I'm going to listen past the point
Speaker 4: where they say the thing they want me to hear
Speaker 4: actually reveal what they really want. The other thing is
Speaker 4: she figured out when it was appropriate to push herself
Speaker 4: and so we all have our strengths and weaknesses. She says,
Speaker 4: you know what if I go into a meeting when
Speaker 4: I'm surrounding myself by a bunch of men who are
Speaker 4: my colleagues, and I have to go raise money. I'm
Speaker 4: not going to talk. I know it's not going to happen.
Speaker 4: The investors will ask the questions to the men, because
Speaker 4: that's what happens. They don't assume that I, as a
Speaker 4: batite woman, are going to be the CEO. I just
Speaker 4: won't talk. I'll just avoid it. So she said, I
Speaker 4: know myself and I will push myself to go into
Speaker 4: those hard meetings. I won't invite my colleagues to come
Speaker 4: with me. I'll be the only one in the room.
Speaker 4: So it's a combination of leaning into her strengths and
Speaker 4: her particular traits and figuring out when she should really
Speaker 4: push herself to overcome her challenges.
Speaker 1: You interviewed Hello Sunshine founder Reese Witherspoon as part of
Speaker 1: this book. We're both curious what your takeaways were from
Speaker 1: that interview.
Speaker 4: Well, you guys are part of the Hello Sunshine of family,
Speaker 4: and I also inter and CEO Sarah Harden as part
Speaker 4: of this And what's so awesome about Hello Sunshine is
Speaker 4: that they saw this white space. They saw that there
Speaker 4: was not enough content made for women by women to
Speaker 4: tell the stories of strong, complex women. And it all
Speaker 4: started when Reese Witherspoon wanted to help herself as an
Speaker 4: actor and she was so frustrated by the lack of complex,
Speaker 4: nuanced roles as she got older, and she said, this
Speaker 4: is really a missed opportunity, and she saw this huge
Speaker 4: audience of women. But the other thing that I think
Speaker 4: was so powerful about Reese Witherspoon and Sarah Harden is
Speaker 4: this idea that you don't need to tell a generic
Speaker 4: story to be appealing to everyone. Like I think of
Speaker 4: little fires everywhere. They really wanted to make sure they
Speaker 4: had people in the room who were connected to the
Speaker 4: narratives of that story. They weren't just hiring generic writers
Speaker 4: to tell a generic story. They really wanted to feel
Speaker 4: authentic and specific, and doing so, they had this story
Speaker 4: that had mass appeal. I think it's really impressive.
Speaker 1: I also think one of the things I think about
Speaker 1: is how much money Hello Sunshine has put in women's pockets,
Speaker 1: including the two of US comedians, untapped artists. Authors, yeah,
Speaker 1: authors that wouldn't have had a platform or a place
Speaker 1: to go when I started here. Sarah Harden posted something
Speaker 1: on Instagram that I wrote down. She said that her
Speaker 1: mom told her that the best business strategy is human decency.
Speaker 1: And I find that as a through line in your
Speaker 1: book as well, actually with women and women lead.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think you're right. I think this idea
Speaker 4: that if you do the right thing, people are going
Speaker 4: to see it and remember it and acknowledge it. And
Speaker 4: I think there was a stereotype for a really long
Speaker 4: time that women did not help other women. Yeah, And
Speaker 4: in the eighties and nineties when I was growing up,
Speaker 4: that was a stereotip. If there was a woman who's
Speaker 4: lucky enough to get to the top, she was definitely
Speaker 4: not going to help the women below her. And I've
Speaker 4: talked to some older women about this, and the reality
Speaker 4: is it wasn't in their best interest. They knew that
Speaker 4: there was room for one of them at the top
Speaker 4: and that was it. But times of change, and I
Speaker 4: think with that we have seen this movement where women
Speaker 4: are so eager to help other women. But the reason
Speaker 4: you really should do it is because it's better for business,
Speaker 4: Because there is an audience out there that wants to
Speaker 4: see content that doesn't just feature people who look or
Speaker 4: sound just one way.
Speaker 3: Well, as I hear you talking about women investing in women,
Speaker 3: I think about that stat that you cit in your
Speaker 3: book that less than two percent of venture capital goes
Speaker 3: to female founded businesses. I've personally interviewed a lot of
Speaker 3: women and venture capitalists who are making it their mission
Speaker 3: to change that, to make sure that money goes into
Speaker 3: the hands of female founders. It's all very encouraging.
Speaker 4: It's all very encouraging. And one area where there has
Speaker 4: been a real growth is investments into co ed founded companies.
Speaker 4: So for a long time, over eighty five percent of
Speaker 4: all venture capital dollars went to male only founded businesses.
Speaker 4: Over eighty five five percent male only founding businesses. We're
Speaker 4: talking about teams with five guys, not a woman on
Speaker 4: the team. So I think that companies are realizing that
Speaker 4: they will be more successful if the people were creating
Speaker 4: the products and services that are used by people all
Speaker 4: over the world are not just men.
Speaker 3: It's time for a shortbreak, but don't go anywhere, because
Speaker 3: when we come back, we're talking about unlocking your leadership
Speaker 3: superpowers with Julia Borston.
Speaker 4: And we're back with Julia Borston.
Speaker 1: So we've talked a lot about the people that you
Speaker 1: interviewed for your book. But I want to ask you
Speaker 1: about a personal experience you had. You interviewed an executive
Speaker 1: for Warner Studios, and after that interview, a PR rep
Speaker 1: called and said that you had been mean during the interview.
Speaker 2: MEA n mean. I'm curious how you responded to that.
Speaker 4: Well, so I try not to be mean, right, I
Speaker 4: try to do a good job. I want to be
Speaker 4: a fair journalist, and sometimes being fair of means asking
Speaker 4: tough but fair questions. And I was shocked and actually
Speaker 4: really concerned when he said this. I really pride myself
Speaker 4: and have built my reputation on being incredibly fair and
Speaker 4: mean is such such a tough word. He also used
Speaker 4: the word harsh. He didn't use the bitch word, but
Speaker 4: I've been called that before as well. Oh my god,
Speaker 4: And so I was just really taken aback. And I
Speaker 4: think when I had been accused of similar things for
Speaker 4: prior interviews over the years, I used to really spiral out,
Speaker 4: and I think, oh my god, was I mean? Was
Speaker 4: my tone too harsh? And I not watch my tone?
Speaker 4: And I would go back and I watched the interview again,
Speaker 4: and then I'd pull on my colleagues, and my pure
Speaker 4: chief was as okay. And this time I'd seen a
Speaker 4: study because I was in the middle of writing my
Speaker 4: book when this happened. I'd seen a study about how
Speaker 4: women are more likely to be judged on their style
Speaker 4: than on their substance. And I also saw the state
Speaker 4: about how when women act in a way that is
Speaker 4: not warm and nurturing, they are perceived as like breaking
Speaker 4: that stereotype, and then it scrambles people's brain, scrambles men's
Speaker 4: brains mostly, And so this is a man who said
Speaker 4: this to me, And so I said, would you have
Speaker 4: said the same thing to one of my male colleagues?
Speaker 4: Because I know the tone that my male colleagues used
Speaker 4: to ask questions, And I feel like I could hear
Speaker 4: his jaw hit the floor. And I wasn't being mean
Speaker 4: in the way I was asking that. I was just like, seriously,
Speaker 4: would you have said the same thing to one of
Speaker 4: my male colleagues? And he's like, you know what, probably not.
Speaker 4: I didn't think about it that way. Wow, And it
Speaker 4: really made him pause and think. So that was a
Speaker 4: really empowering moment because I sort of stopped myself from
Speaker 4: criticizing myself and instead said, Hey, this guy's comment says
Speaker 4: everything about him and his perceptions and his biases, and
Speaker 4: very little about me and what I said in an interview.
Speaker 3: Please tell me you sent him a signed copy of
Speaker 3: the book.
Speaker 4: No, he retired before the book came out, so I'm
Speaker 4: sure he's seen it.
Speaker 2: Julia, there's still time. There's still time.
Speaker 3: I learned something from your book that I quote all
Speaker 3: the time, which is true.
Speaker 2: Story. She's quoted it to me so fatter, which is yeah,
Speaker 2: it's true.
Speaker 3: So this is one of my favorite stats. It's how
Speaker 3: confidence looks different for men and women as we age.
Speaker 2: Can you break that down for us?
Speaker 4: So the statistic about confidence in this study is that
Speaker 4: when men and women graduate college and enter the workforce,
Speaker 4: men start off with a much higher level of confidence.
Speaker 4: So they're entering the workforce full of confidence. Their confidence
Speaker 4: is way up here. When women enter the workforce, their
Speaker 4: confidence is down here. Now, there's not necessarily a reason
Speaker 4: for that confidence gap other than what is socialized. But
Speaker 4: over time, men's confidence actually declines and women's confidence increases.
Speaker 4: Those lines cross around age forty. So round age forty
Speaker 4: is when women start to feel as confident as men,
Speaker 4: and the social scientists said that they think it's because
Speaker 4: women's confidence increases with age. Why is men's confidence decreasing.
Speaker 4: Maybe that's because they realize that their goals and home
Speaker 4: and aspirations we're really crazy and maybe unachievable, or as
Speaker 4: they're in the workforce, they realize how hard things are
Speaker 4: and so then it sort of levels out for men.
Speaker 4: But women's confidence continues to increase with age. But I
Speaker 4: love that stat because I'm over forty and I feel
Speaker 4: like my confidence is only increased with age, and I
Speaker 4: think it makes sense for confidence to increase with experience.
Speaker 4: And you see more women founding companies when they get older.
Speaker 4: Men tend to found companies out when they're younger, So
Speaker 4: it all plays out in some of the trends weras
Speaker 4: seeing in society. I also think there's.
Speaker 3: A motherhood factor to that too, you know, just anecdotally
Speaker 3: speaking to moms. And obviously it's not every woman's calling
Speaker 3: to become a mom, and I love that for them,
Speaker 3: But for the women who do become moms, I think
Speaker 3: a lot of us feel this like superpower within us
Speaker 3: that gets unleashed because birthing a human, however you do it,
Speaker 3: or welcoming a child in your family is really like
Speaker 3: a superhuman feat and I think that spills over into
Speaker 3: other aspects of our lives.
Speaker 4: And for me, I feel like becoming a mom having
Speaker 4: kids really helped me put things into perspective. Yes, so
Speaker 4: I think I used to get really anxious about little
Speaker 4: minute shit work, or I would really worry about something
Speaker 4: ahead of time, or I'd agonize about something after the fact.
Speaker 4: But having kids and being a mom, it really just
Speaker 4: helped me realize this is not that important. At the
Speaker 4: end of the day, I'm going back at work again tomorrow,
Speaker 4: and keeping this little human alive and happy is really
Speaker 4: is really the most important thing. So I found it
Speaker 4: very liberating personally to become a mom one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: Thinking back to something that you said earlier, which are
Speaker 3: those stories from older generations of women who remember working
Speaker 3: in an environment where this scarcity mindset was really ever
Speaker 3: present and feeling like there was only room for one
Speaker 3: woman at the top. And I think we all collectively
Speaker 3: feel like that is not the case anymore. So I'd
Speaker 3: love to discuss how we actually can be supportive of
Speaker 3: other women in the workplace, And one of your negotiating
Speaker 3: tips is to imagine that we're advocating a salary or
Speaker 3: pay on behalf of a friend. Oh, I like that,
Speaker 3: which is really powerful because sometimes we aren't great at
Speaker 3: advocating for ourselves.
Speaker 4: Yes, So what they found is that the strongest negotiators
Speaker 4: are women, but negotiating on behalf of other people. There's
Speaker 4: a stereotype that men are great at negotiating, But the
Speaker 4: strongest negotiator is not a man negotiating on behalf of
Speaker 4: himself or a man negotiating on behalf someone else. The
Speaker 4: strongest negotiators of women negotiating on behalf of someone else.
Speaker 4: So that's great news. It means that women have negotiating skills.
Speaker 4: It means that they're afraid to unleash them on behalf
Speaker 4: of themselves because they think it would be greedy or rude.
Speaker 4: And so just knowing that you have that ability, it
Speaker 4: also is why women should coach each other and push
Speaker 4: each other and practice negotiating. Practice that conversation with your boss,
Speaker 4: brainstorm about it.
Speaker 3: Are there any other ways that we can advocate for
Speaker 3: each other in the workplace.
Speaker 4: The more women are an environment where they're in the minority,
Speaker 4: or the more you're in any situation where you're part
Speaker 4: of a minority group, it's really important to have a
Speaker 4: context where you could surround yourself with other people like you.
Speaker 2: If you're in a.
Speaker 4: Company that's eighty percent men and twenty percent women, or
Speaker 4: ninety percent people who are white and ten percent people
Speaker 4: of color, if you're in that minority group, you're going
Speaker 4: to inherently feel like I either don't belong here or
Speaker 4: wonder how I'm supposed to navigate being here. And there's
Speaker 4: actual research showing that it is valuable to be around
Speaker 4: other people like yourself, and so that's the value of
Speaker 4: micro environments. But at the same time, you need to
Speaker 4: have a bridge into the rest of the culture, and
Speaker 4: that's why I think it's so important that you have
Speaker 4: people who are like men should mentor women. I don't
Speaker 4: think that women should only seek out female mentors because
Speaker 4: there aren't enough senior women to go around. But I also
Speaker 4: think that sort of ties back to this conversation earlier
Speaker 4: about making sure you have your own personal and board
Speaker 4: of advisors to give you help. And I think that
Speaker 4: in navigating our workplaces, whatever it is, some of the
Speaker 4: best advice may come from someone in a totally different field,
Speaker 4: from a friend who doesn't work. Some of my best
Speaker 4: advices come from my friends who are stay at home moms,
Speaker 4: and they say, I remember this, or this reminds me
Speaker 4: of a situation, and even though they had a very
Speaker 4: different context than what the life is that I'm living
Speaker 4: at work, they had great advice. So I just feel
Speaker 4: like knowing that your support system and your advice could
Speaker 4: come from unexpected places is really important, and also helping
Speaker 4: you hold your friends accountable.
Speaker 1: Julia, you wrote this book two years ago now, which
Speaker 1: is wild. Is there any new research that's come out
Speaker 1: since then that you wish you could include in the
Speaker 1: book if it were being published today, would you add anything?
Speaker 4: Well, it's obviously we're at a turning point right now
Speaker 4: because we have the second female candidate for president, which
Speaker 4: to me is almost more important from a sort of
Speaker 4: contextual standpoint, because there was so much focus on Hillary
Speaker 4: Clinton as the first female presidential candidate. Now you really
Speaker 4: see Kamala Harris trying not to make that part of
Speaker 4: the conversation. Obviously, we're very aware that she would the
Speaker 4: first if she were to be elected in the second
Speaker 4: to be the candidate. But I think that what we're
Speaker 4: seeing right now is this question of like, when can
Speaker 4: we get to a place of normalcy of seeing a
Speaker 4: woman who's running to be president not have it be
Speaker 4: such an unusual thing anymore.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I just thought of one last question
Speaker 3: for you. What is the best way to sign off
Speaker 3: an email?
Speaker 4: Oh? Man, I'm a thanks person.
Speaker 2: You're a thanks person.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm a thanks thanks. I also use a lot
Speaker 4: of exclamation marks, which people find sometimes confusing. But I
Speaker 4: love a good exclamation mark.
Speaker 2: I love the intonation in which you said thanks, thanks, thanks.
Speaker 3: I'm a best kind of girl, your best most of
Speaker 3: the time, I'm the best. If I have an affinity
Speaker 3: towards the person, it'll be a warmly formally, it'll be
Speaker 3: a warmly.
Speaker 1: Interesting how about you. I do a slower case X
Speaker 1: and then just my name, okay, or it's really yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really personal.
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sometimes a little too personal.
Speaker 1: I think like I'm emailing people and it's like, why
Speaker 1: are you hugging and kissing me via this email?
Speaker 2: But who I am? Julia?
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us today and for
Speaker 1: your insights in your heart.
Speaker 4: It was really my pleasure. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Julia Borston is CNBC's senior media and Tech correspondent and
Speaker 3: the author of When Women Lead, What they achieve, why
Speaker 3: they succeed, and how we can learn from them.
Speaker 2: That's it for today's show.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow, we're back with another edition of Wellness Wednesday.
Speaker 2: You don't want to miss it.
Speaker 1: Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3: I'm Simone Boyce. You can find me at Simone Voice
Speaker 3: on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 1: I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2: That's ro b a Y. We'll see you tomorrow. Keep
Speaker 2: looking on the bright side.