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Christine delves into the concept of the 'authorizing environment' in the workplace, particularly focusing on the dominance of the 'boys club.'
Drawing on her experience from a Women in Economic Development Forum speech, Christine shares compelling statistics, strategies for navigating male-dominated spaces, and practical advice for women to assert their authority and break through workplace barriers.
This episode is packed with insights and actionable tips for women aiming to rise professionally, from understanding gender communication differences to crafting compelling value propositions.
Drawing on her experience from a Women in Economic Development Forum speech, Christine shares compelling statistics, strategies for navigating male-dominated spaces, and practical advice for women to assert their authority and break through workplace barriers.
This episode is packed with insights and actionable tips for women aiming to rise professionally, from understanding gender communication differences to crafting compelling value propositions.
00:00 Introduction to the Series
01:36 Understanding the Authorizing Environment
03:32 Statistics on Gender Disparity in Leadership
06:50 Health Impacts of Workplace Discrimination
09:45 Effective Communication Strategies for Women
14:54 Overcoming Self-Doubt and Assertiveness
20:05 Personal Anecdotes and Lessons Learned
21:58 Purposeful Participation in Meetings
23:24 Effective Salary Negotiation Strategies
26:55 The Power of Assertive Communication
32:54 Crafting and Communicating Your Value Proposition
38:08 Navigating Workplace Dynamics and Building Alliances
40:34 Final Thoughts and Encouragement
Creators and Guests
What is F*ck Fear with Christine Spratley: Living Like a Head Bitch In Charge ?
This podcast is for anyone who wants to live like an HBIC—or lives with, works with, marries, dates, or is raising one. Let’s be real: being a Head Bitch in Charge is messy, bold, and unapologetically badass. This is not a guidebook—it’s a pantry.
My guests and I will share the ingredients that we use—what’s worked and what’s failed—as we say “fuck fear” and take action to live a fulfilled life. We cover real-life hacks and deep philosophical pillars to navigate the chaos of everyday life—where some days, my only accomplishment is having a bra on and my teeth brushed.
We’re tackling the daily shit women navigate, from workplace politics to relationships, raising kids, and building careers, all with humor, audacity, and zero filters.
So, tune in—tell your friends, and even your enemies. This isn’t about aging with grace—it’s about aging with mischief, audacity, and a damn good story to tell.
21 Fuck Fear
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[00:00:00]
Christine Spratley: Hello ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to fuck Fear with Christine Spratley, living like a head bitch in charge. I am really excited about this next couple episodes. Um, just to give you a preview of what's coming, we've got starting today, and the next few episodes are gonna be related more on the authorizing environment at work, and it's [00:01:00] called Welcome to the Boys Club, um, their game, our rules, your style. And it's based off of a speech that I did The conference name was Women in Economic Development Form put on by Area Development. And the last time I did it was in their 2024 conference in October. And it, they got the condensed version because it was just a, it was just my kickoff, um, speech for the conference.
However, I've gotten so much feedback from them. And the audience that, and I still send these out today. We're gonna, I'm, I'm coming up and I'm gonna give you, and Joe's gonna put up a list of different things, um, that I'm gonna talk about, but the whole idea around welcome to the boys club is really about understanding our authorizing environment and in business as much as we would like to say how far women have come. I think the, it's, it's [00:02:00] very apparent for every woman in business, um, how far we still have to go.
And the authorizing environment is a boys club. And if there are any gentlemen out there listening to this that, that beg to differ, I've got some stats I want you to listen to and it's not a 'cause again, I'm not gonna go into feelings. Um, I'm just gonna talk about stats and I'm gonna also talk about what it does when we interact with an authorizing environment, who and how their perception is of the.
Information we give them through the way we talk, through the task we take on, through how we show up. And yes, it sucks. It absolutely sucks. It isn't fair that, that we do, we have to do things a little different, work a little harder, um, and prove ourselves time and time again. I was coaching a woman the other day and she's like, I'm so tired of defending, you know, my word is just not good enough.
That sucks. How do we, how do we do [00:03:00] that? Deal with that, and then how do we change that authorizing environment so you don't have to defend? And so today, in the next few days or the next few episodes, we're gonna talk about this and I'm gonna try to give you some things that I use in my pantry.
And I've actually gained a lot of insight from speaking with other women of how they navigate, you know, how do you swim that because. We are always like walking that tightrope. So today, we'll get on, boy, welcome to the boys club. Their game, our rules, your style. Let's take a look at this. 73% of global manager positions are held by men.
Okay? That is an authorizing environment. Who's, who's your management? I. Look at that. 72% of senior leaders are men. Who really has the power to affect and to see, and to do, and then 62% of managers making promotion decisions are men. I'm not here to debate or discuss this.
These are, [00:04:00] these are facts. These are numbers, and I can give, um, Joe, I'll give you the, the sources for all of these and then. For every 100 per 100 men promoted to manager. This is manager, it's not executive manager. Okay. Only 81 this was taken from, um, the McKinsey women in the work port workplace study in 2020.
And I can probably update these numbers. Um, but again, I'll, I'll come back and I'll give you guys a source sheet so you can go look and figure out where you want to. But again, these are just the numbers. So first of all, the management positions is, is more, is mostly male. The senior leaders are mostly male.
The people making the decisions around promotions are male for the most part, and then. This is what kills me about the, the McKinsey study about that 81 women for every 100 men getting promoted is that [00:05:00] there's not enough women in the pool when it comes to getting into senior leadership positions to pick from.
Because there's less of us going up, being promoted to manager even. So again, this tells you your environment. How do we break this and again, you've heard me say this before, is how do I help you help me? And one of the, the things that I learned during my marriage, um, was the person that is listening on the other end.
May or may not hear what I say if I keep using the same words to convey that message. You know, Joe, we've talked a a little bit about how, how you talk to men and what men hear versus how, how, what women hear. And this works in the same way in, in business, in, in the corporate environment. So it's important to understand that the people who define leadership potential most likely don't look like us. I think the numbers and the stats that I just [00:06:00] gave you show that. And because they don't look like us, they typically don't speak like us either. And so they don't hear like us.
They're not the words we say and the phrases we use aren't heard the same way. And this is really impactful. I don't know if you've ever heard of the Clone Club, um, theory and, and what that is, we tend to gravitate towards what looks like us, thinks like us, and, and acts like us, right?
And so. When we're in a situation where our authorizing environment is, Mel, it's important to understand what we do. Say and think. Not think so much, but do and say, um, how that resonates or doesn't resonate within that authorizing environment. So again. The shit isn't your, is is not just unfair, it's unhealthy.
And what's unhealthy about it is, and this is the impact, the impact of why you should, why [00:07:00] you should care. Because what we're seeing is 50% of women, all, all women, um, in the workplace experiencing de discrimination are at a higher rate of heart risk, disease, and hypertension. Okay. American Heart Association study showed that 60% of women say workplace stress leads to anxiety or depression.
Okay. That's n We've heard that before. We've experienced that before. Um, so, and then suppressing emotions, That increases the risk of cancer by 70% and it doubles.
The early death risk rate, it doubles that. when we show up and when we come out and we talk about it and we express our anger at work. Um, it's met by 75% and this is a study done off of Jennifer Cox's book. Um, women Are Angry in 2022.
75% of women feel they can't [00:08:00] express anger at work without backlash. So this is the cycle. If I have, if I am feeling those microaggressions or I get frustrated or I have anxiety, or I'm, you know, I'm in that environment that is compressing on me, I can't, I don't feel like I can express that with anger, um, or in any other fashion a lot of times.
And what does that lead to? Suppressing emotions, increased risk of cancer by 70% and doubles the early death risk rate. That is incredible. So that's why it's important. Okay? So the constant code switching. The softening the apologizing, it kills more than your credibility. It kills your health. Women, we gotta think about this.
just came off some segments on, on our physical health. Think about that for a second. When we suppress, when we are in this environment it's not that we don't know how to businessly navigate, you know, like how, like what the [00:09:00] strategy is, how to show up for meetings and things like that, but it's other things.
So again, who is the authorizing environment? Okay, how do they do that? How do what, what, what can we control about how we show up to maybe navigate that authorizing environment? And again, this is not, this is not about placating, this is not about switching who you are. This is just their game. Okay? Their game.
But now I'm gonna talk about our rules, and one of the themes is. That I wanna get across is politeness does not get you promoted. Um, and it doesn't even guarantee that you're gonna get your job and keep your job. So what I did when I started working on the speech is I started looking up the words women use versus the words menus.
Okay? And the words women use mainly. Um, and think [00:10:00] about this, just how often do you, do you use these words? Feel, I feel maybe try, we'll try to do that. Could could you do this? I mean, when you're talking to your team, when you're talking to a client, suggest, I suggest this one was a big for me, big one for me, I suggest, because again, I didn't wanna come across as, you know, this is how you need to do it.
And this is a big one, I think. when I'm talking to a client, um, and just like I talk and most of my clients were men in my land development and negotiation area, it was men that I was dealing with. And I say, I feel like this is what we should do. Maybe we want to try this avenue I use maybe, and try both in that same sentence.
You know, could we do this? I. Then I suggest, I always used to [00:11:00] say, consider this because again, I wanted to put a little sugar in that medicine to help it go down. Um, now men, men typically say, I know we must, let's do, you should. Women, we know, they say you should. But in work we've heard it. We, we should, we must.
And then they'll say, I tell you this. Okay? And a big one that men typically use is they say, here's the plan instead of, I think they give it to you. So if you are talking to a client, and this is the way I approach it, which one is gonna pay you more? Who's gonna make them feel more confident in your skills?
Which words are they going to say? I, I suggest, or I tell, or I advise, you know, you must need to [00:12:00] do X, Y, and z. I know that our expectations are this, and so I want to, and, and so I'm gonna present this as I know. Again, these are just subtle things. I, one of the biggest, when I started looking at it, 'cause I started looking at this when I was in corporate.
Because I had an interaction with, um, a male counter colleague of mine, and he said, I know you're more confident than you sound. I know you're more confident than you sound. And I said, what do you mean? Because I felt like I had conveyed my point. But he was, he, and we went through, he said, you say things and, and this is what he said to me.
This is the line that got me. He said, you said, I feel we, like, we might want to consider.
And I was like, think about it. I feel, well, no one really gives a shit about how you feel in business. [00:13:00] Okay. We might, I'm telling a client we might wanna do something. Hmm. Want to consider. Okay, well how confident is that? But here's some things that I learned to say in instead, let's move forward with our plan is this, and then ask for feedback on the end. We can do this even if, I don't wanna say I, I can say we can do this. In meetings where I would meet with teams, especially in ppmd, I would say, we can do this. Let's move forward with this and then present my idea. Because if they don't wanna do your idea, they're, they're not, they're gonna tell you. If they don't agree with you, they're gonna tell you. So why am I. Not presenting it, just let them.
It's almost like disregarding my thought or my idea or my advice [00:14:00] before it even gets to the table. So again, just present the facts. The other thing that I want to convey or whatever is, or that I'm going to, I should watch what I say, what I'm going to convey is that I didn't realize how much of being nice.
Was important to me in business. I thought being nice was very important in the sense of if you liked me, if you agreed with me, if your interactions didn't have, um, you know, weren't gruff, if I was the one that always got along and, um, and that that shit doesn't get you promoted nice girls finish last.
It's the behavior trap and, um, stop mistaking compliance for collaboration. I had to learn that I had to stop mistaking compliance for collaboration. And what that means is I, you know, this scenario, [00:15:00] we want to be recognized for promotion, right? We want to, um, we want you to see what we're doing. And when I say we women want men, um, our bosses, our team, to see what we're doing, okay?
We're just kinda hanging out, waiting to be asked out on a date. You know, men, what do they do? They typically ask directly or they say, it's time for my promotion. It isn't even, I want to be a promotion. It's I, it's time for my promotion. And they bring it up and they proactively go get it. And this goes more than just promotion time.
It means all of those little things that we do. And I learned this in big four, you've gotta teach your own horn. And it was very uncomfortable. I remember at EY, we would have to do our reviews. Oh my gosh. And I hated 'em. And I remember everybody hated them. And what it was is that [00:16:00] we would typically have to write up a whole list of everything we did.
And I say we, everything I did. That was the key is you couldn't say, my team did this. You had to put, I did this, I did this. I am the greatest thing since sliced bread, and nobody else is better than me. I mean, it had to be hardcore, and that was really hard for me at first. And then it started. Then I started, you know, thinking about this.
The other thing that I, I realized when I was doing that again is I can't wait to tell. I need to tell you. And the best way for me to tell you is typically if I've done something great, what I will do is I will send an email or I used to, I will send an email to everybody and say, this is, you know, and, and everybody knows that I've done this, right?
They all know it. They've all seen it, whether it's closing the deal, whether it's do return on margin, on an [00:17:00] account, whatever it is. And then I email 'em and I'll say, Hey. This is what I did. Um, you know, I did this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This was the outcome. Boom. And typically I get back, great job, dah, dah, dah, dah.
And you know what? That goes in my file That now becomes part of my file. That is a quote, that is documentation that I have done good. So when it comes around time for promotion, I can put it together and I can say, Hey, it's time for my promotion. Here's the evidence to back it up. And I'll get to later what we typ, what I typically did instead of documentating.
The other things is leadership offers. I've heard this before and I can't remember the exact stats and I should have had them. Um, maybe I'll put them up. When we actually, um, publish this podcast, but I think it's like 90% of men apply for jobs that they are only have like 50% of the [00:18:00] qualifications for, and it's like 60% of women, you know, would, would who have the same high or higher qualifications would apply for that job.
And I've done this, I've done this tons. I can't do this because I'm not qualified. All right. And we decline because of self-doubt, because we are holding ourselves, and I don't know if it's self-doubt, but I think we hold ourselves to a higher standard. You've all heard the, the expression. I wish confident.
I wish women had the confidence of a single white or a of an average white male. I wish women had the confidence of an average white male. I mean, think about that ladies. And so when leadership offers come, when that project that everybody wants comes, we typically go, no, draw it back. Because again, we have a lot to [00:19:00] lose if we, if we don't show up and do it right.
But we typically go die back. Men are like game on. Even if they're unqualified, most likely, if they're unqualified. I mean, they, again, there's no, it's, and it's one of those things where, but they accept it. And typically I have turned it down. I'm too, I'm too nervous, I'm too scared. Um, which again, it's, it's that fear of I don't have all the boxes checked.
No one has all the boxes checked, meetings, women, I do this. Women tend to listen and take and support men. Dominate and assert authority. And if you don't believe me on this, watch your, watch your meetings. Watch who's talking typically, and watch who is being collaborative and then saying, oh, I like that idea.
What if we did this? But they're not really being assertive. And that was me. I would [00:20:00] always do this. Um, one of the things that I used to do. When I would get nervous, and I saw this, this is a big tattle on me, Joe. I was in a meeting and it was a subcommittee meeting that I attended and it was at the Raleigh Chamber, um, and it was for the economic development committee, and then there was a subcommittee meeting and I was on the subcommittee meeting and we had a lunch and everybody's sitting at the table and I didn't know all these people.
I was new to the committee and. Oh my God, this is, this is just what I used to do. It just kills me. And this is probably, I mean, this was in my later years at ey. It wasn't like I was a newbie in business, but when I got nervous, this is what I did. I would go, Hey, do you want some more tea? I'm gonna get some more tea.
Do you want some, oh, that, that's nice, right? What the hell am I doing? Waiting on other people? So I was carrying back like three cups of [00:21:00] tea. I chose to put myself in that position of being a little nanny waitress, like, like, and I'm not saying you don't have to do nice things, but for one of my first meetings, that's not how I need to show up.
Get your own goddamn tea and bring me mine. And it's, it's just this really weird mentality that I brought to it. And I literally sat down. And then what happened afterwards is, um. Someone in that meeting who I brought the tea to, asked me to take notes. And I don't take notes, I don't take notes. One, because I I, you can't read 'em.
And I, I can't do that when I'm in a meeting. I have to be there present. And that's how I remember. But two, I'm not there to take notes, but I had almost set my, I had literally set myself up for that because what happened was while they were talking in, in their groups, I was getting tea for everybody.
Again, I was supportive. I was listening, I was being kind. Ah, I'm not there to [00:22:00] do that. I'm there to do what the committee needed me to do, which was offer my advice, my insights, and my guidance. So again, how are we showing up? And I used to, um, Herman Tinsley, he, he used to work for the Alabama Chamber or Mobile Alabama Chamber.
And I, if I get this right. He said in every meeting, have poise, has and have purpose. He said, you cannot leave a meeting without adding to the meeting, even if it's just a summation of this is what we're gonna do coming out of this meeting. And he said, and the way you need to do that and give that is you have to have purpose.
You have to say something that adds to it, but you can't deflect from it before you say it. And again. I'm not just there to listen. The reason why you are in the rooms you are is not just to to [00:23:00] listen, it's to give advice. It's to hold court for yourself and your opinions and your insights. So again, the scenario criticisms.
I used to self-reflect, right? Like, oh, we're gonna take this. You get this back and you take it and you listen. And typically men, they just defend. They defend their point of view, they defend their stance. Salary negotiations, I coach on this a lot and I used to, um, kind of just modestly request and men walk into salary negotiations for the most part and say, Hey, this is what it is.
This is what it is, this is what I'm worth. And I truly believe that, um, and I tell this to people that I, I coach when we're working through kind of where they wanna be [00:24:00] is you start at the, at the sun, you come down to the moon, you bounce through a cloud. You, you, you know, come down on a store and then you hit a tree, and then you slide down the tree and then you punch your feet on the ground.
But you start at the sun. Okay? And so why am I negotiating against myself before I even enter the room? If there is room for negotiation, I definitely wanna be on the higher end of that negotiation. If they want me, they will make me a reasonable offer coming back. And the other thing that I've learned through negotiation
it tells people when my request of either salary or coming back with a counter offer or anything like that, even if it's a first offer, um, in negotiations and I don't confidently demand or I don't confidently set that high enough, they're gonna start to, to wonder about my credibility. Why are you willing to [00:25:00] go for so cheap?
We did this the other day when I was looking at, um, houses to rent. You're like, why is that? Why is that only that, that amount in that location with that yard and those things? But it does, and it sets the perception. But again, from a negotiation standpoint, why am I meekly going in there requesting I'll just take half when I ask for everything and maybe I get half, you know, you can always end up at half.
At a lower amount. You, I've never been able to negotiate up once that bar is set. If I've set that bar, I've gotten offers and negotiated up. Okay. But I've never put in an offer low and then negotiated up because they, why would they that, that, that doesn't make sense. [00:26:00] a lot of times women, we are over mentored and under [00:27:00] promoted.
Because we are perceived as being nice. Okay, so how do we flip the script? This is a big one for me. Um, stop saying I'm sorry. And I feel like, and I think
state. Your position without those things when you show up? A big one for me is, I'm sorry, and I will, I will have a list that I got, um, I think it was at LinkedIn. Um, someone put out there instead of saying, I'm sorry, things you can say. Now, the way that I think about this is, and typically people focus on the first few words that you say, 'cause we're so.
Attention span, and that will, if we say those F through words, then those are the imprint, and then they kind of go, okay, well I'll listen. I'll continue to listen. And if I say, I'm sorry for being late. [00:28:00] Okay, what does that mean it, what do you hear it means I made a mistake with, sorry for being late again, I'm reiterating the bad thing that I did.
Okay, now people are gonna go, well, we, we have to admit our mistakes. I got told one time by a client that he doesn't pay me to say, I'm sorry. Okay. I got told by a client, I don't pay you to say I'm sorry. And then he said, I pay you to fix it and not make it again. And so. What should I be focused on? I'm late.
Okay. Hey, thank you for your patience. I'm here. Let's get started. One, I'm thanking them. I'm giving them a compliment, so I'm diffusing their pissed offness for me being late. Okay. Or you bring cinnamon rolls like I did this morning with Joe. Um, but I am, I'm diffusing that. I'm giving 'em a compliment, so if they still [00:29:00] wanna get yell, whatever, or scream, I'm, they're making that choice after I've given them a compliment and then I'm taking it on to the solution.
Because again, the people around you, they know you made a mistake. If they haven't, then you address the mistake and you say, this is the mistake, you know? Okay. Alright. Yes, and I use yes and a lot and we'll get into that again, but, and I got that from a speaker on, um, that, that he teaches about communication.
Yes. And. Instead of saying, I'm sorry. Yes. And oh, yeah. Yes. I, that's, that's a good point. I, I did make that mistake and let's, let's do more, but take that out of your vocabulary. I'm sorry.
And I feel like it feels like, I think it's this way. What if I said the data shows my experience is my experience tells me. Okay. Then when you [00:30:00] challenge yourself to state it without the disclaimer,
and again, they can always tell you, no, I'm not gonna do that. That's a crazy ass batshit idea, Christine. But put it out there. So the mantra drops, assert over, apologize. Okay, we got it. You're late. You're here. I'm here now. This is what we're gonna do. I appreciate you for being patient. Understand your time is valuable.
Let's go. Okay. And stop waiting to take your seat. Stop waiting to be invited into the conversation. Jump in. This is, I read, and I can't remember what McKenzie report it was, but there was a quote that said. You know, I don't see people at the table that look like me, and so I don't feel like I can do that.
And [00:31:00] I thought about that and it really stuck in my head because it really bothered me actually. I understand that, but I can't wait to be invited to take my seat. I would rather grab the fucking seat and be told it's not my seat. And then when they tell me it's not my seat, I wanna sit there and go, are you sure?
Can you prove it? Whose seat is it? If I'm leaving? Whose seat is it and why? You know? And if that's not the table you belong to, you want to belong to, then build your own damn table, okay. And say what you mean, and then stop. That was hard for me to do. I over explained, and thank God for chat, GBT and Grammarly because I could take something and, and condense it down and just let it land.
Give them the silent treatment. Let them [00:32:00] figure out what to say next. Okay,
so one, you know, let's edit our language. Ask for what we deserve. Speak it, say it, practice it. I practice it at home all the time. Reclaim the room. Interrupt the interrupter. This one I love. It's when someone's dominated in a meeting or, and, and we've all been there and it took me a long time to figure out how to thank you for sharing.
Now let's hear what, let's see what everybody else has to say. That was great. Share. Interrupt the interrupter. Okay. Redirect the spotlight. If it's not on you, redirect it to someone else. If you, if, if you want to do that, but re redirect it. And then the other thing that I'm gonna tell you ladies, is to stop with [00:33:00] the elevator speeches.
And I think that one of the things that I did at the area development conference, , was, I was like, all right, we're, we're gonna walk outta here with, with value props. What is your value prop? What is your value prop, not your elevator speech? Because people, when they ask you, what do you do, tell me something about yourself, especially in networking, they're not asking you.
To tell you what you do, how many time sheets you filled out, you know, they're not asking you how you did on your Excel files. What they're really saying is, what value can you bring me? What do you have of value?
So when we're talking to our authorizing environment, use the words that I said before that, that the guys use, but give it [00:34:00] to them in the value prop. One of the things that I learned very late was that. My superpower and there'll be a, the next one is about kind of understanding and finding your superpower in business. But one of the things that I learned was my superpower and how to explain that in a value prop. And I remember telling this to someone, um, well, actually it was a, we were on a client call and my background was in land development.
Before I got into big four corporate negotiations on land development and site selection, and so I used to be a permit runner. It was like my first job. I couldn't tell building plans from a site plan, and so I learned a lot about land development and I also learned a lot about how to maneuver in a room and how to hear.
I can swat analysis room pretty good. [00:35:00] And so I got, I was asked by this client who I had done some negotiations for, to get on a call with. We had done all the negotiations, I'd gotten the millions of dollars of incentives, and now they were ready to go forward, build and do permitting and all of that stuff.
And the client at the time that was leading the, the executive stakeholder didn't know anything about that, that stuff. And so they just kinda wanted me on there because they didn't know how to interact with these vendors. They had never done. This type of permitting, this type of development before. And so they needed someone that could translate to them.
And I got on this call, and I am a woman in Big Four, which is an accounting firm. It was Deloitte at the time and on a call with like five other guys and from big engineering firms, um, construction firms, you know, all these real estate boys. And um, it was really interesting. They got. You could just [00:36:00] hear when, when I was introduced, you could see it.
And women, we've all been in those rooms where they introduce you and you could just see and hear the eye rolls and the size. And I got it. I got it. I mean, where does this, this check and this big four accounting firm, what the hell value does she, she's just gonna get my shit and mess it up. And this is why your value prop is so important.
Okay. And it's not an elevator speech. I do this to, no. When I went in and I said, I said, guys, listen, I can tell y'all I'm not here to jam up your stuff. First and foremost. That's not my job. I'm not here to tell you how to make sure your, your, your plumbing isn't horizontal and your CFS works, right. I'm not, I'm not here to do any of that.
What I'm here to do is, and I told him my value prop, my, you know, and basically my value prop is I can walk into a meeting and we're gonna have a meeting with all of these stakeholders down at the city and down at the county. And you guys are gonna go in. Everybody's gonna be in there. [00:37:00] Okay. You're gonna all interact, you're gonna show 'em your plans, you're gonna, you know, talk through things.
And then we're gonna walk out and we're gonna debrief. And my value that I bring is I'm gonna be able to tell you which one of those people actually does shit and get shit done. Which one of them is giving you a line of bullshit that'll never get you anywhere. Which one of them is scared to death, acts like they're really great, but has no poll whatsoever.
But most importantly, I'm gonna probably be able to tell you which one's gonna jam your ass up.
And it was like the meeting just turned on a dime. They all relaxed. They all were like, great. And then what else happened was once I stated what I could do for them, they started coming to me and saying, Hey, I was told this, this, and this and this. I wanna do this. What do you think? And that was my value prop.
I can help you read the [00:38:00] room that you don't, can't, can't see, don't see, or don't need to see because you're so focused on what you need to be focused on. 'cause you're the expert in here. So women, what is your value prop? And then communicate it without the disclaimers. Without the words that we say, think, feel, and and, and all of that, put it out there and see how it lands.
There is a double standard. We all know that. And until that changes, how do you navigate through that? Think about that. How do you navigate through the bullshit? Are you navigating it to the best of your ability? I think one of the biggest things for me was having inside moles, and I would tell you ladies up and down, get yourself an inside mole [00:39:00] and ask them, that guy who said, I know you're a lot more confident than you sounded,
and go, what? Start learning. Start learning how your author, envi authorizing environment, hears you. Sees you. Okay, and the other last thing is stop doing those soul sucking, unfulfilling, mindless tasks. Don't take notes. Tell somebody else to take notes. She's the one that I used to tell. One of the girls, one of the women that I worked with, she was younger, so I, I call her a girl, but she's a woman, and I used to say, she's like, I hate taking notes.
I said, great. Then when a meeting comes in and you see the list of people on that meeting, a assign a note taker, she's like, oh, I can't do that. I said, why not? Well, I'm not the PPMD. I'm like, [00:40:00] so assign it. Oh, so and so you do. You take these notes. It'd be really good. Again, choose the role you want. Step into it.
Sit, take that seat. Make sure it's the table you wanna sit at. But understand the boys club. It's their game, but our rules. And then you do it in your style with words you're comfortable with. But find the words. Find the words that land. Give yourself that opportunity.
Again, we are gonna have a few of these and, um, I think the next one's really gonna wanna be resonating with people because it's how to tell people off basically to fuck off professionally and, um, and how to kind of maneuver that with, with your anger in there. So until next time, ladies, thank you. And gentlemen, thank you.
And gentlemen, if you're [00:41:00] listening. You see a woman that is in your business that knows her shit, 'cause I'm sure you got a few of them.
Go talk to her. Go tell her how things land. Give her the inside scoop. You know, and women when, when people, when men come up and they tell us and they tell us and they say, Hey, this is how you're landing. Granted, we've got the assholes out there that are gonna just put you down. But the ones that you know, you know the ones you know, the ones that, the ones that did it for me were Carl and Brandon and Anthony, and even my manager Jason, in my later years, Dan, in my earlier years,
and they pull you aside and they say, Hey, what's up? I know you. I know you. I know you've got this. Listen, figure it out. Navigate with them, conquer with them. Go get what you want with them. You know, I always say, [00:42:00] you know, get as much into your toolkit as possible and then go kick ass intake names. So until next time, ladies tubs.