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