Carol:
Hey, hey, hey, Rebels. Welcome back to another podcast episode. I have an amazing guest as usual, who's here to share some fabulous insights on confidence for women. I think it's such an important conversation. I think it's such an important topic, and I know something that women struggle with, women in midlife struggle with. I think women at all ages do, but really, and how that really impacts our career, and I'm just so excited to have her here today. Without further ado, let me introduce Kelli Thompson, who is a women's leadership coach, a speaker who helps women advance to the room where decisions are made. I like to think the room where it happens, right?
Kelli:
Yes.
Carol:
She has coached and trained hundreds of women to trust themselves, lead with more confidence, and create a career they love. She's the founder of the Clarity and Confidence Women's Leadership Program and is a Stevie Award winner for Women in Business Coach of the Year. She's the author of the soon-to-be-released this coming fall, Closing the Confidence Gap: Boost Your Peace, Your Potential and Your Paycheck. And with that, I am so happy to welcome you to the podcast, Kelli.
Kelli:
Oh, thank you so much for having me. I loved the little Hamilton slip in there, the room where it happens. One of my favorite confidence-boosting soundtracks, by the way. Yes. If you ever need a little oomph. Yeah.
Carol:
Yes. We're absolutely sure. Absolutely sure. Kelli, I would love to just learn a little bit more about you, your transition. How did you go from where you are to now author and coach and confidant to helping women become empowered leaders in the workplace?
Kelli:
Yeah. Well, you know what? I started out by following all of the rules, probably like a lot of people did. I grew up in a very small Midwestern town. I went to Catholic school, so there were lots of rules, like how long my skirt should be, and how many times I need to go to church every week. I should get married young so that I have energy to have babies when I'm young and get young before all the good ones are taken. My parents were educators, so they were very big on, "You've got to go to college, and then you got to get a master's degree, and make sure you get a stable job where you can climb the corporate ladder and get benefits and not get laid off." I mean, there were just rules.
Kelli:
And so probably, like many high-achieving women or people-pleasing women, I was like, "Ooh, give me that list. I'm just going to go and check all those boxes." Check, check, checkity check. So I did all those things. I went to college. I got a degree. I went and worked at a bank, a very stable institution. I got married young. And because I did all those things, I had some good career rewards and accelerated my career in financial services. I was in marketing. I was in human resources. I was primarily in training and development. But I also found myself divorced at a very young age. And I also found myself having a career crisis at a very young age. I think, honestly, because I was working so hard to climb the ladder, I never even stopped to ask myself, "Is my ladder against the right building?"
Kelli:
That really created, I think, I always call it my third-life crisis, because I had it when I was about 30. I really had to ask myself questions like, "What do I really want? What do I really enjoy? What am I looking for in a partner versus checking things off a list?" That really, I would say right around age 30 caused me to start to do a lot of career exploration, really digging into, what lights me up? What do I want to do? Not what other people want me to do. I started to make my first career transition. I left the company I'd been at for 12 years and went to go work for a technology company, found a role that was really aligned with my values and my unique talents. Then I went to go work for an author, and I traveled around the country doing leadership development programs and loved it. Loved working for her. The travel got to be a lot, though.
Kelli:
And so in 2019, one of the things that I noticed I really loved to do was coaching. Even in my leadership roles, I loved one-on-ones with my team. Some people don't love managing people. When my people came in for their one-on-ones, I was ready. Let's dig in and all the things. I just had always loved coaching. I thought to myself, "If I'm ever going to leave corporate and try this, now is the time." So, of course, right before the pandemic, I went off on my own, started my own business. That was full of ups and downs, but I've made it. Here we are. Honestly, through the pandemic, it was a big aha for me to get really clear about who I served and who I loved working with. Ultimately, going through the pandemic helped me get clear that working with women was who I wanted to work with. Since 2020, that's who I primarily serve, is women in leadership and helping them advance to the rooms where decisions are made.
Carol:
Wow. Wow. What a journey. I love hearing that. I can so relate. I think so many can. What did you say? Give me that checklist.
Kelli:
Oh, give it. Hand it on over. Yep.
Carol:
Hand it on over. We were definitely raised with this one path to getting where you want to be, to getting the career that you want. I'm curious, when did you decide to throw it out and how did it feel when you decided to say, "I am no longer going to follow that"? Because I love how you talked about following it, leaning against the wrong ladder, marriage. I could totally relate. Ditto, ditto, ditto. Try to follow the path. But what was it like when you finally felt like, "Okay, I'm not following this anymore"? What was going on and what came up for you?
Kelli:
The first little nudge that maybe I was on the wrong track was when I got divorced when I was 30. Against better judgment, and honestly, listening to probably pretty sound advice, I hopped right back into another relationship. That one was equally as unhealthy. But I couldn't see the red flags waving in my face, because at least it was different and a little better than what I had had before. At age 30, I had hopped into this new relationship. I also then had left the job that I'd been at for 12 years because I was working for a bank, and it it was a great company. Don't get me wrong. Flagship institution. Pillar of the community. Great place to work. But I'm a really creative person. I love to try and test things and break things. In banks, they really like to follow the rules, like compliance. They're heavily regulated.
Carol:
They don't like when you break things.
Kelli:
No, they don't like it when you want to constantly be creative and stretch the budget. No fault to them. There's people who love that environment, it just wasn't for me. So I went and found a technology company that was a little faster-moving. That transition felt good, because it was slow. But I want to talk about that first transition. I honestly told myself, "Kelli, it's probably going to take nine months to a year to find the right move, because if you just gun it into the next job, you might make the wrong choice, because you might be leaving for a certain title or a certain salary, and those just aren't the reasons you should leave." I was really intentional about finding a company that aligned with my values and offered me a role that allowed me to do things, that allowed me to geek out every single day.
Kelli:
And that took time. That was slow. But I will tell you when it really fell down was I went to go work for that company, and I was overseeing human resources and talent management. It was my dream job. We got bought out by a publicly-traded company. When the publicly-traded company came in, they're like, "Hey, we see you have some skills on leading change management. We would love for you to lead the merger and acquisition. But at the end of this, you won't have a job." At that moment, they're like, "We'll find you a job," and they did, but it just wasn't, I mean, I liked it, but I wasn't in love with it.
Kelli:
Also, about that time, I was starting to realize that the relationship that I was in, I was engaged at the time, was just not working as much as I wanted it to work. It just was all wrong for me. I still remember the moment at my kitchen table. I talk about it in my book as my kitchen table moment, where I woke up one day. I had called off the engagement. We were supposed to get married in three months and I called off the wedding. The role that I had accepted and my new position, it was fine, it was great. But it just wasn't what I left for.
Kelli:
I was really down on myself because here I am, this nice Catholic girl who's been divorced once, which, if you know anything about Catholicism, or even just sometimes in the Evangelical church, that is a grave sin. That's your front row seat to hell. At least, that's what I was taught. I just remembered I carried so much guilt. I'm like, "Oh, my God. If I'm so smart, why can't my relationships work? If I'm so smart, why can't I find the right career for me? If I'm so smart, why am I in so much debt?" I was in a lot of debt from that relationship and my divorce. I remember that morning at the kitchen table. I couldn't even go to work. I was just sobbing.
Kelli:
Ironically, I will never forget, though. There was a liberating truth that came, and that was there's a common denominator in all this, and it's me. Which feels like crap. You talk about how that felt. It felt like crap. It just burned. My whole body burned. I mean, they always say, "The truth will set you free, but first it's going to wear the hell out of you." That's just what it was. I was crying. My whole body just felt like it was on fire from the inside out. It was just like accepting this truth, that I am the common denominator in all of this. I can blame other people. I can blame that my picker is broken. I can do all of these things and tell myself all these stories, but the common denominator was me. And that hurt. I wish I could tell you that then I woke up the next day and everything was wonderful. But it wasn't. It took months. It took months of me really getting clear.
Kelli:
I love that you opened this up with Hamilton, because this is 2016, so Hamilton has just come out. There's a meme going around, and it's Hamilton to Aaron Burr. He says, "If you don't know what you stand for, what will you fall for?" That meme was going around. That was a huge wake-up call for me. I was like, "I have no idea what I stand for. I've been falling for everything. I've been falling for crappy relationships. I've been falling for jobs that aren't for me because I literally didn't know what I stood for." So I love this tie back to the beginning of the podcast where I really had to get clear on what I stood for and define my values. What do I want in my life and in my career and in my relationships? And once I got clear on those, I was much more conscious and intentional about saying yes to the right opportunities, and quite frankly, having to make some hard decisions about saying no to things that were no longer serving me. That's a long answer to your question of it felt awful, but the payoff was 100% worth it.
Carol:
Well, I love that. I think it's important to hear and to listen to those stories, because I think too often we think, "Oh, I woke up one morning, and then the next day I knew what I wanted to do." I think it's so stressful. People beat themselves up so much. Women crucify ourselves because it's not overnight. You made the comment, "If I'm so smart," which I think, "Oh, my God. That's so powerful," because we do say that to ourselves. "Well, if I'm so smart, why do I need help? If I'm so smart, why am I stuck? If I'm so smart, why is it so challenging? If I'm so smart, then why didn't I figure this out overnight?" And I think that is used as a weapon against us. You are smart, but it doesn't mean you know everything.
Carol:
Like you said, for you, it was a kitchen table moment. It was a life event, this kitchen table moment. It wasn't overnight. And it takes time to really build that clarity through that work, through that thinking about, "Well, what do I stand for?" And realizing that it was you, I mean, I just love everything you said, because I think understanding that it is a process, that it is a journey, that it's not overnight, and that it doesn't mean you don't know something or something's wrong with you, it's just a process of understanding and gaining clarity that we all go through to get to that. And so I love that you shared that. I'm glad it was a long story, because I think too often we skip over all the juicy bits from "I was confused, and now look at me now today." It doesn't always work that way.
Kelli:
Oh, the transformation stories, the rags to riches. No, mine was a lot of rags, a lot of struggle, a lot of missteps, then you have glimmers of hope. But I love what you said, too, because I think sometimes discomfort sucks. Let's just be honest. In my own experience and my clients' experiences, when I see clients try to sidestep discomfort, all they're doing is just delaying it, because I did it. I had little nudges in my gut that maybe I was on the wrong path or in the wrong relationship, but I didn't want to deal with the discomfort at the time. So we go to all of our good coping mechanisms. "Well, I'll just work. I'll just stay really busy, and then I won't to have to feel it. I can ignore my gut." I think the longer you sidestep it, the more uncomfortable it is.
Carol:
I love that. Okay. That's a tweetable. That's the first one. When you sidestep discomfort, you're only delaying it. You're not getting rid of it. And that, I think, is so true. Just to stay embroiled in this space of, "I don't know. I don't know. Let me just avoid, and then work, work, work." You're only delaying the inevitable. So I think that is absolutely, absolutely brilliant. On the journey to clarity, I know, for you, I love the story you talked about. When you work with your clients, what do you see are some of the biggest challenges that they face in this process besides trying to avoid discomfort, but on this journey of clarity that then yields this confidence to be able to make this move to where you want to go?
Kelli:
I would say the biggest obstacle is actually two things are coming to mind. One, they don't know what they want. When I ask them, "What do you want?" Sometimes they're so in the muck of it, they're so overworked, they're so burnt out, their confidence is shot, that they just don't even know what they want. They're like, "I just don't. I just don't even know. But I know I'm not happy." And again, that's normal. It's very normal. So I really encourage them to do one thing. And the first thing is to list what you don't want, because in every single client I've ever talked to, in my own experiences, oh, I can tell you exactly what you don't want. And I bet if you're listening right now and I said, "What are some things in your life that are stressful, frustrating, challenging that you could eliminate?"
Kelli:
You're like, "Oh, let me give you a list." Right? We often know what we don't want. And so I encourage them to start eliminating some things that don't feel good, what they don't want. I've heard it been said that a woman can change her life simply by cleaning out her sock drawer. And I think that's so true. We clean up one thing in our life and we're like, "Ooh, that feels good." And then the sock drawer, and then it's the bedroom, and then it's the bathroom, and then it's the kitchen, and then it's our jobs, and it's our whole life. So that's the first thin.g let's clear off what we don't want, because I think sometimes they struggle with knowing what they do want. I would say the second thing, and I love that you use the phrase, the journey to clarity. I wrote that down. It's really powerful, because I think what gets in their way is needing certainty.
Kelli:
And so lots of times we struggle because we want to get clear. We want to get clear on what we want. We want to get clear on the right career for us, and where I actually allow my clients to struggle a little bit is sometimes they keep coming back to me because they want me to give them an air of certainty that this will be the right move that will solve other problems. That quitting this job will be the magic bullet. That ending this relationship or taking on this project, they want certainty. And so I really encourage them in this journey, you're going through what people call liminal space. So liminal space is like that weird in between that feels gross, because we know the old doesn't fit, but the new hasn't arrived yet, so we're just boggling along in nowhere land. Right? And so the ego hates uncertainty. And so they're always grasping for certainty. "I just want to be certain that I'm making the right next choice." And so I really try to just get them to embrace a little bit of uncertainty and know that if they can really clearly define what they don't want, what their values are, what they stand for, and they're taking itty bitty, tiny steps in alignment with those values, that's all the certainty they need. So that can get a little tricky, too.
Carol:
Yeah. I love that. And I'm sure what keeps coming back is that, "Well, if I'm so smart," because you said the ego hates uncertainty, right? So it would probably say, "Well, if you were so smart." Our brain loves to feed us bullshit sometimes, so we have to be able to be on the guard for it.
Kelli:
Yeah, absolutely. I had a mentor once tell me like, "Don't believe everything you think." Exactly.
Carol:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So when you were making your changes and going through the transition, and I'm curious with your clients, too, how did you deal with your family or friends or the naysayers or the people who had so many lovely opinions about the path that you should be on and that ladder you should have stayed on?
Kelli:
Yeah. I remember when I made my first big career transition, I had people who loved and supported me and knew I'd been looking, and so I really had to make sure that I was dialing up those voices. And then I had, of course, other individuals who were like, "Are you sure you want to leave the bank?" Because I worked at a bank. "Are you sure? Is this going to be a bad choice? You built so much of your career there." I mean, I was on their commercials. "People know who you are," and I just addressed them as kind of well-meaning concerns, but I had to start learning. At that point in my life, I was already hyper-aware that I was very good at people-pleasing, or not even people-pleasing. I just didn't like people upset with me. I didn't want to please them, per se, I just didn't want them mad. And so that was a very big aha for me, that this will make some people confused. This will make some people ask a lot of questions. There was a big part of me that was like my "what will people think" monster. That was huge.
Kelli:
"What will people think when they see my update on LinkedIn that I switched jobs? What will people think when they see I left a big company for a small company?" And I really just had to get focused on people are going to think a lot of things, so I got to make sure I care about what the right people think. And that's easier said than done, but it was just this little constant reminder that it's, "What do the right people think? What do the right people think?" Including myself.
Carol:
I love that. Care about what the right people think. Oh, that is so gold, because everyone doesn't matter. And you really want to think about what is important to you first and foremost, and then surrounding yourself with the people that can support you in that journey and not the ones who are against you. So, I mean, you just dropped so many great nuggets about knowing what you don't want, getting rid of the need for certainty, letting go of having to please everyone, and thinking about the right people that you want to have in your community to really support you. And I think I could see how that would help with the doubts or the negative feedback or even your own doubts and internal negative feedback that you're getting in the process. That kind of brings me to our topic of confidence. So I'm sure a lot of this is related to even the title of the book, Closing the Confidence Gap. Where did that come from? When and how did you decide to really glean into this area of confidence and how does that play out in the work that you do with your clients?
Kelli:
It's so interesting, because I have heard that people say, "Your mess is your message." And I always think I really focused on confidence, clarity and confidence. Mostly confidence for a couple of reasons. One, I never had any. And so, and two...
Carol:
Listen, I grew up Catholic, too. All the way through high, even [inaudible 00:20:27] college. So I don't think we're designed to be confident.
Kelli:
No, but guilt. If you want to have a master class on guilt, like we can talk about that. Guilt and expectations. And I grew up in male-dominated environments. So I grew up in a Catholic patriarchal school system where women just didn't have voices. I went and worked in financial services in college and that was my first job, so it was not uncommon for me to be the only woman in the room, or to look up the org chart and see all white men. And so that just became really apparent to me, that I'm just like, "Gosh, I just really struggled with some things," but it honestly, wasn't a huge aha until I left corporate America and I started my own business. And when I started my own business, I started to get into these women's business groups of other entrepreneurs who were just in there like me, just literally trying to figure out life, like "How do we build a business?"
Kelli:
But what was so powerful about that is I was in a room with all women. We were talking about women's topics, like speaking up at work, patriarchal issues, how organizations are designed by men for men. The unpaid workload of women, how women tend to take on a majority of the tasks. And we were just talking about different things as women that we had dealt with, and this was such a huge aha for me. It named everything I felt in corporate, but I just didn't have language for at the time. No language. And so it just became very clear to me when I thought about, "Well, what am I absolutely passionate about?" I reflected, actually, back a lot on my one-on-ones that I had with my employees as a leader.
Kelli:
And I'm like, "What is a topic that I could have talked about all day long?" And with my women employees, it was confidence. Because I was in HR. It was confidence to negotiate your salary, confidence to apply for the promotion and not discount yourself because you only meet like four out of the five requirements. So many of those coaching conversations that just lit me up had something to do with confidence. And that's how it came to be. And there's actually a study out of Wharton called the confidence gap, where they had individuals take a standardized test. And what happened was, is they wanted the folks to take the test and then based on how they thought they did, go advocate to potential employers about their perceived performance and then advocate for a job. So as you probably know how this is going to turn out, men did a better job than women advocating for themselves saying they did great on the test, whereas women really struggled. But you probably also know this, women actually did a little better on the test.
Kelli:
So the researchers suggested, "Well maybe we just need to tell women they did better and their confidence will follow suit." And so in my book, Closing the Confidence Gap, which ironically, I titled before I even knew that was a study, I advocate that that's actually not going to cut it. And in order for women to fully show up as themselves and be fully confident at work, it's actually a both-and approach. Yes, we need to address our own internal doubt and imposter thoughts and feelings and those sorts of things. And women need to be in the rooms where decisions are made. So many of women's issues with confidence come from a lack of representation. We look up the chain and we don't see ourselves. For people of color, is even a bigger issue, because they really don't see themselves. They've been historically excluded. Workplaces and systemic issues arise because work was built by white men for white men and then everybody else just kind of fit in. And so the book is not about being disgruntled about that. It's about just giving a name to some of the systemic issues that we see every day at work and giving you tools to succeed in spite of those facts.
Carol:
Mm. Oh, my gosh, this is required reading, people. Required reading. Because it is so true and I see it manifest itself in so many ways, and you're right. We tend to, as women, we look at where we're lacking versus everything that we bring to the table. And I do believe it is a long lineage of gender oppression and patriarchy and being in a larger social system that's very patriarchal by nature and not really designed for us, but has found we've had to fight for the ways in, but still not really creating a space for us. I mean, we see it still in the pay gap and things of that nature that are still perpetuated. We see it in the amount. I think I saw an article where someone in Australia did a study and found that there were more CEOs named Andy or Andrew than there were women.
Kelli:
Yeah. In the US, there's more CEOs named John than there are women CEOs. Yes.
Carol:
Yes. It's crazy. So I could see where just societally and systemically that this really comes to bear. What are some of the other ways that you've seen women struggle in terms of their confidence and ways to move around it through your work?
Kelli:
Yeah. So where I see women struggle with confidence is one, speaking up and sharing their ideas. Being in the meetings and holding back for fear of what other people think or getting talked over their ideas co-opted or taken over. We've all seen the mansplaining graphics. And so one of the things I talk about in the book is I give women a framework for advocacy, like how to speak up in the rooms that matter in a way that feels authentic to you. Because one of the things I offer women is I don't want you to show up more like John, because that takes your power away. So how do you speak up and share your message in a way that feels authentic to you, that feels authentic to Carol, that has your fingerprint on it?
Kelli:
The other thing where I see women holding back and their confidence impacted is asking for what they deserve. And from an HR perspective, I have very unique insight into this because I would see it all the time two ways. One, women would apply for jobs and very rarely negotiate. And if they did negotiate, they often asked for less than men, and this is substantiated by a lot of data. But I saw it with my own eyes. When men applied, they just asked for more money point blank, probably because they were being paid more money. But the other thing I saw as an HR person is just the demeanor in which women versus men would come in. So men would email me and be like, "Hey, so that job on the posting board, that looks awesome. I want to apply for that. Who do I need to talk to?"
Kelli:
They wanted the in and they wanted to talk about it. They were excited about it. But women would email me and be like, "So there's this job and I'm really excited about it, but I only have nine of the 10 qualifications. And I think maybe I need to go get another degree or I should go get a certification first." I mean just the instant downgrading. And so a lot of that I think has a difference in internal self talk. Men's internal self talk is like, "Well, this looks great. Let's go for it." Kind of like Kanye running for president. Like that sounds fun.
Kelli:
Whereas women are going to have a little bit different internal self talk and that's really how I see confidence show up. And so in the book, I examine a lot of our own self talk and how to have more confident talk tracks. I examine ways that we hold ourselves back from fully owning our worth and the five money conversations that every woman needs to have about her career, her money, et cetera. I talk a lot about trusting yourself and really going in and trusting your gut and trusting that your body is trustworthy and it knows the right thing for you and how to show up in alignment with your values so that you're climbing the right ladder against the right wall.
Carol:
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Trusting our own intuition. I always say feminine power is just as powerful as any other type. And so we don't need to acquiesce who we are and authentically and what feels intuitively natural to us as a way to say that's invalid, as opposed to the way men operate, which is very different than a lot of women operate. We've been trained to try to disassociate ourselves with those type of things in favor of a more male or masculine way of leading and showing up, and that just doesn't work. All it does, I think, is perpetuate our lack of confidence or our imposter syndrome, if you will, because we just can't operate in that vein.
Kelli:
And who wants to anymore?
Carol:
Right. Right.
Kelli:
That's what I told them all the time.
Carol:
When you look at all the studies today, they're talking about why we need more women in leadership, because we're missing empathy and all these other skills that are so necessary.
Kelli:
A sane work schedule. Nobody wants to work 80 hours a week. I'm sorry. Even men went off the hook from that. I talked to plenty of men who were like, "I'm ready. I can't do this anymore."
Carol:
Absolutely. Oh, I love that. Where do you see, I'm curious about confidence at the intersection. I mean, you talked about some of the systemic issues, but I'm curious with confidence at the intersection of age. As we get older, I mean, are we getting more confidence or are we losing it? How does it go across culture or ethnicities? I mean, have you seen some of those differences? Universally, we all pretty much lack it.
Kelli:
Yeah. Yeah. Well I think it does. It does impact it. So you said race, ethnicities, age, and I think it all impacts. A funny thing about age. I actually see many women grow a little more confidence with age, because I think they start to realize that they don't have to follow the scripts. They kind of come into their own. Now, this is not all women, but some women just start to realize, "Oh, like nobody is really thinking about me anyhow." They just grow a little older, grow a little wiser. I don't know. I'd be curious. Have you felt that at all, that maybe you just felt a little more confidence as you've gotten older? You just don't buy into some of the same stuff.
Carol:
Yeah. I definitely, I'm approaching 60 and I give less F's, as they would say.
Kelli:
Yes. Yes. So just validating that. But I do still see confidence issues and sometimes, too, the women in the workplace who are aging can have another set of issues. Maybe they want to switch careers and they're saying, "Oh, nobody's going to hire me at 55." And so I really send them on a search to say, "Actually, let's find some examples of individuals in the wild who have switched careers at 55. Let's find more evidence that actually switching careers at 55 is an asset and not a liability." And so when it comes to that, because I do see that, I really send women on an assignment to find evidence to the contrary. Let's find some evidence to the contrary that 55 is the perfect age to switch careers. And lots of times once they start down that journey, we're always finding what we look for and they can often find that. When it comes to...
Carol:
That's gold. That's gold. Yeah. That is true. I just want to put a pin in that, because that's so true. You always find evidence of what you look for. So if you're thinking that it's not going to work or "I'm too old" or whatever the case may be, and not to say that there's maybe not some truth somewhere in that, but if you are constantly with that vision, that's exactly what you're going to find every time. So you have to really change the rhetoric, change your thinking around it so that you can change your outcome. That was really important. I just wanted to note that. I didn't mean to interrupt you.
Kelli:
And I'm here to tell you that I've had plenty of clients at 50 and 55 find amazing jobs. So that's just my pin of evidence for you all listening who don't believe it. But we have. When it comes to the intersection of race and ethnicity, you had Deepa. She wrote the book, the one, the only, I'm going to go crazy on the title, but you can go back and listen to that episode, because it was an absolute masterclass in women of color, systemic inequities. And I that's a lot of, even what I mentioned in my book, too, is I think sometimes the lack of confidence comes from a lack of representation. And so I am not the expert on being that ethnicity or that race, but what I can tell you in stories of what I've learned from my clients or people that have reported to me, I've had some of my black colleagues tell me, "I feel like I can't be myself in meetings because I don't want to be perceived as too loud or angry."
Kelli:
They've told me things like, "I'm really nervous about how I come across based on how I wear my hair." I remember sitting in these one-on-ones and feeling this extra burden of extra effort, extra energy. I have privilege as a white woman. Everything that I had to deal with in terms of using my voice, showing up authentically, I felt like they had an extra backpack to carry, because there was always one more layer of, "I don't see people like me. And I feel like I have to try extra hard. I feel like I have to be extra polished. I have to be extra good." And there was almost this element that they had to work harder. And I just remember talking with one of my colleagues in particular. She just felt exhausted a lot and I don't blame her.
Kelli:
And I know that that impacted her confidence at work. And so I think it's just being aware and cognizant, that that's why representation matters. People need to see themselves in the room that decisions are made. And when I talk to executives, sometimes executives will call me and say, "Hey, can you coach this woman leader on my team? She needs to work on her executive presence." I'm like, "Okay." I'm like, "Well, how do you define executive presence?" And of course they give me a very narrow definition, right? It's stoic and professional and buttoned-up. And so we have to have an uncomfortable conversation about that's probably a very white male view of executive presence. And I think when we can start to open that up and more people can see themselves represented in senior leadership, I'm hoping that that burden drops, because I know it impacts their confidence.
Kelli:
When it comes to ethnicity, like I have clients who are from India. I have clients who are from other countries, and the extra layer, the extra burden, the extra backpack they have to carry. I hear things like, "Kelli, I have an accent and I really want to speak up and I want to share my ideas, but I have this constant message going through my head that people aren't going to understand anything I'm saying. And so I censor myself or I wait till after the meeting when I can put it in writing." And so we just really have to talk about, again, "Your voice matters and people will adjust. Accents are normal. They are normal and they're everywhere and people still need to hear your voice." And so I just want to be mindful that I do talk a lot about confidence in this book and I think we also need to be aware of the extra layers and the extra burdens that people who are not in the core center of power, white men, I think white women are probably adjacent to that, carry at work. And again, how do we amplify those voices?
Carol:
That was so awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that. I mean, I think that's so important to understand. I love how you talked about just the exhaustion and honestly, I think that's across the board. I think this lack of confidence, and this constant people-pleasing, and the constant worrying about what other people are thinking, and the constant editing, and the constantly trying to show up in a way that people will respect you. I mean, that just overall sounds so incredibly exhausting. And I think that that's such an important point to bring up and why it's so important for us as women to really start owning our voice and owning our power and to get that internalized confidence and stop looking for external validation of it. And I love the conversation about it.
Carol:
I totally agree that with more representation, we can change the narrative so women aren't dissecting so much of themselves to fit in these tiny holes that the patriarchy has created. But instead of expanding the definition so that we can easily walk into a room as who we are authentically, powerfully, and confidently, and not have to check to see, "Well, I'm the only one here and how do I fit? Or what are they thinking? Or what are they saying?" Because that is incredibly exhausting. I think it's why the number one killer of women is heart disease. Because I mean, the stress of all of this is crazy.
Kelli:
It is. And I wrote down the phrase, "editing is exhausting." I heard you use the word editing. I agree. I talk about that in chapter three of my book. And when I'm talking with leaders, I really encourage them, when you talk about representation, what books are you reading? Are you only reading leadership books from white men? Now is a great time to pull up Deepa's book, to pull up books from, like Tara J. Frank wrote The Waymakers, a wonderful leadership book that addresses some of these inclusion efforts. And it's like, what are you reading? Are you just reading books from a certain genre? Who are you listening to? What podcasts are you listening to? Make sure that you're listening to leadership podcasts, culture podcasts, business podcasts from a wide variety of individuals, because you'll start to see, and just like you said, that it comes in all sorts of different forms. My first call to leaders when we are having the conversations about diversity and broadening executive presence is like, "Let's do an edit of who you're listening, reading, and watching. And let's just expand that a little bit."
Carol:
Yeah. Oh, fabulous. Fabulous. So, Kelli, my last question for you is, tell me, what does it mean to be a career rebel? When you hear that phrase, what does that mean for you?
Kelli:
Yeah. So when I think about being a rebel, I always think about, it sounds so bad. I always think about knowing all of the rules, so you know exactly how to break them.
Carol:
That's a Catholic girl answer.
Kelli:
It is. It is. So my husband and I have this argument all the time, because he is a rule follower. You follow the rules and I drive him nuts sometimes. I'm like, "Honey, you have to know all of the rules so you know exactly which ones you can break." And so when I think about knowing exactly which ones I can break, I ask myself all the time as a business owner, "Okay. That's a norm, that's a rule, but do I have to do that? Or did somebody make that a rule because they're making money off of me?" Little things. Lots of times, I believe in continuing education and I've taken a lot of coach continuing education, but some coach continuing educations want you to pay them to get a certificate. So my little rebel is like, "Do I really need that certificate? Or did somebody say that was a great way to make money is to sell a piece of paper?" And so my career rebel is like, no, I'm going to do things that feel right for me and follow my own rules. And I'll just be better about questioning what are those rules? Like actually have ROI, whether they produce revenue or they're just a cultural norm or somebody's making money off of them. And then I just know which ones to break.
Carol:
I love it. I love it. I love it. That's so great. So tell us, when can we get our hands on the book and what's next for you?
Kelli:
Aw, thank you. So the book comes out November 1st and it's available where books are sold. I'm sure the links will be in the notes. You can learn more about it at closingtheconfidencegap.com/book. What's next for me? I always give, somebody else asked me this and I have a very wildly unimpressive answer, and that is, I don't know, because I think my whole life, I had a list of all the things that were next for me and all the things I wanted to do. And that often led me off track. But what I can tell you that I've gotten really good at is I know what my mission is. My mission is to help women advance to the rooms for decisions are made. And I have some values by how I want to run my business.
Kelli:
And so I say yes to things that are in alignment with that mission, whether it's keynote speaking, whether it's running my Clarity and Confidence Women's Leadership Program, working with organizations to develop their women leaders. And if it feels good and it aligns with my mission, then I'm going to explore it. And if it doesn't, then I'm not. And maybe that makes me a rebel, because I can't tell you what's next, but the only thing that I know that's next is my book is coming out November 1st. I have some amazing organizations and amazing women I'm working with to help them develop their leadership skills and it feels good and my gut says, "Hell yes." So I'm just going to keep going.
Carol:
I love it. I think that's amazing. That's amazing. Kelli, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been such an insightful, informational, and instructional conversation. I think this is going to be one that my Rebels, you're going to want to listen to this one again and again. Pin it, make it your favorite, go ahead and just know that you're going to have to listen to it again and again to pick up all the nuggets that were dropped in this episode today. So Kelli, thank you again for being here. I really appreciate it.
Kelli:
Oh, thank you so much for having me. I love your show. I love your guests and I'm just so happy to be here.
Carol:
Thank you. All right, Rebels. Well that is it for this week. Join me next time, where I'm sure we're going to have another amazing guest. I'm just so excited about the season and the people that we're talking to, giving you some really deep, incredible information that'll help you have a life and career you love and listen, until next time have an amazingly rebellious week. I'll see you soon.
