Colleen Slaughter | Nov 18, 2024

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Colleen, welcome aboard to the show. So happy to have you here. [00:00:03] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you. Happy to be here. I love the format, which is no format. So that. And having fun, just seeing where this goes, that speaks to me. [00:00:13] Speaker A: I don't mention this a lot, but we actually have no prepared questions, and you have no prepared answers. This is completely unscripted. [00:00:19] Speaker B: This is true conversation. Yeah. [00:00:21] Speaker A: So I did learn one thing about you, and I wanted to ask you your nickname. Ms. Independent. [00:00:27] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, I. My mom always called me Ms. Independent. She said Fourth of July was for me. Absolutely. Made a holiday for me, because I always wanted to do it on my own, whatever it was. And it always felt really natural until now. I have a daughter who's very much like me. She's 14, and even at a young. [00:00:50] Speaker A: Age, called payback time. Right. Is that where you're going? [00:00:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess. But it's more like. It's kind of cool, but at the same time, like, she'll just go in and she's been doing this since she was 10. Just goes in the kitchen and starts cooking or getting baking things or. But then I had to also do a reality check, especially when she was younger. Like, wait, you're just a kid. Like, I don't want you in there cooking by yourself or. Right. So it was somewhat of reality check with my own, let's say, independence at a young age. But overall, that's what it means. I've really been autonomous. And I guess people that aren't wild about my personality might say I'm stubborn. Other people might call it persistent or determined. Right. I guess it just depends on your experience of me or one's experience of me. But I definitely have this sense about me that it. It's strong intuition, and I tend to have a strong sense of what I should be doing, and I do it regardless of the naysayers. And so that probably showed itself really early in why I got called mis Independence or Miss Independent. [00:02:01] Speaker A: And when you think about your daughter, you know, there's these conflicting feelings. On this one hand, there's safety and risk. On the other hand, I'm assuming this is something that you want for her. Tell me. Tell me more about that. [00:02:13] Speaker B: I love that. Yeah. What I love about it is, I mean, I've been working on myself a long time. Right. And I'm just, in the last few years, getting to the place where I feel like I not only know who I am, but I'm really proud of it. And, I mean, I'm still putting the final touches on caring what other people think or not caring. Right. But while on the one hand, I do see my daughter worried about being cool at school, right. For sure. Like, she'll spend ages getting ready in the morning, but she also said that's to not be bullied. [00:02:53] Speaker A: Don't get me started. Oh, that's fair. [00:02:55] Speaker B: Yeah. But also when she's around me, and thankfully, I would. I hope that that's because she feels safe with me. And I would say, as a coach, that that's probably true. She knows who she is, she knows what she wants to do. She knows when, she knows how. And it's just. It's a big source of pride for me because I wanted to raise her differently than I was raised. And I see that. And what that has meant for me was really honoring. I have two daughters, right. So honoring what each of them is about, whatever that is, like, what they're here on this earth to do that I just paved the way for him to do it. And so I. [00:03:40] Speaker A: You're touching a. You're touching a painful point. I'm a father. I have three kids. Three kids. On the one hand, you kind of want to guide them. You want to put them on the. On the road. But I'm coming to this point in my personal journey, and this is very real, like, happening right now, where I'm like, well, I don't want to, like, force them to do xyz. I want them to just start making good choices. Because I've got, like, you know, six to eight years until they, you know, potentially leave the nest, if I'm lucky. And I want to make it all about the choices. So when you say, you know, them be theirselves. Right. How do you even do that? What's the. What's the tools, techniques? What's the balance? How do you even think about it? [00:04:17] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question. Well, as you know, as any parent knows, there's no hard and fast rule for any of this stuff. Right? We know that. But, you know, probably a good example of that would be with my younger daughter, who, as compared with my oldest, has a harder time in traditional school. Right. With the traditional subjects, however, you ask her to write a song, sew an outfit, sculpt some beautiful object, et cetera, she'd blow your mind. Especially for the age she is. Right. And what I've always said to her is, I honor her pursuing any kind of art she wants to. I would like her to take at least just some economics just for her own knowing how money works. And so she can take care of herself, but not that she has to major in business, just have some of that practical. But that I support her having. Whatever, whatever. Because she'll come back and say at times, well, my dad wants me to do, be a lawyer because I'll make more money. And I'll say, well, that's great if you want to do that, and that's something really interesting for you, but not because you feel like you have to. So that's one example, right? Is always letting them know, like, look, you're here to do something good for the world. I know it. And my job is to help you figure that out and help you get there. [00:05:53] Speaker A: I'll use your words against you, and this is evil. [00:05:55] Speaker B: Okay. Sounds like one of my kids, by the way, using my words. [00:06:01] Speaker A: God, I love it. I love it when they do that. Going through hard times makes us stronger. How do you balance that, you know, letting people do within. When I say people, I mean little people, kids. How do you balance this idea of you want to kind of force your kids to get stronger through doing things that they're uncomfortable with, that they're difficult. So they can know, and this is me speaking here, so they can know that they can do it. So they can have the confidence to know that they can do it and not just give up. But on the other hand, you also want to let them flourish in the things that they love. How do you balance those two things? [00:06:35] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that is azure. That's really current for me, too. So my youngest just started middle school, and she started a really good middle school. And I say that because she was really proud about getting in. She was offered the place right away during the interview we had. And last year, she went to a school where she had almost no homework, even though we would ask them, please give her homework. She's going to be. It's going to be too big of a transition next year. And. Well, I live in France, so. Sorry. Sometimes French words come out. But you would say effective men, like, effectively. It's been a very difficult transition for her. Right? Very difficult. And what I've said to her is, I know it's really hard right now, and you are just. I talk about the comfort zone. I'm a coach. I can't help it. Some of my tools come back in here and I say, we need to get this stuff down into your comfort zone, this way of studying, this workload, this routine. You come home, you have a small break. You get going, right? And it will get easier. You just need to go through this. And I said, you know, today, for example, she stayed home. Not with. Well, we don't live together, her father and I. You probably picked that up. But she called me at noon that she had stayed home because she didn't feel well in the morning. And then she said, should I go to school? I'm a little bit better. Should I go to school this afternoon? And I said, well, yeah, because even if ideally you would sit in front of the TV all day, in part of your mind, it's going to be less stressful later to go ahead and hear the material now. Right. And so those are some of the conversations we have now. She's 11 again. She prefers art any day over math or French grammar or English grammar or any stuff. But she, you know, I think she's trusting because then when you were saying, you know, yeah, I let her have a break. When she's done her work, she can go crash and watch her Netflix because she's. She stretched herself quite a bit. Yeah. But it's. Again, it shifts every day. That was my cat going crazy here. It shifts every day, and it means something different each day. Right. [00:08:55] Speaker A: I absolutely love what you said. I don't know if the audience picked up on it, but you said bringing it into her comfort zone. I mean, the way for me to say that would be to push them out of their comfort zone. But were you saying, I just love the positive aspect of it. You're bringing the things that you're uncomfortable with into your comfort zone. I thought it was just so beautiful. [00:09:13] Speaker B: Oh, thank you. Yeah. I guess that's how I have to talk myself into some things I don't want to do too. Right. Like, the more I do them, the easier they will get. [00:09:23] Speaker A: Yes. [00:09:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:24] Speaker A: Yes. I've never heard it just that way. [00:09:27] Speaker B: Well, thank you for. For reframing that for me, for putting that up for me. I didn't realize when you. [00:09:33] Speaker A: There's another thing you did talk about, which I think is incredibly relevant to what we're talking about now is this idea of limiting beliefs. Can you give us some examples and share with us, whether with the kids or, you know, kind of in your professional life, what does that look like right now? [00:09:49] Speaker B: I can tell you what's current. For me to speak about myself is like, big financial success happens for other people, but not for me. For example, like, oh, so and so can get hundreds of likes, but not me. Like, these are all limiting. Right. It could be I'll never meet someone that is truly a match for me. Right. I'm too have too high standards or I'm too difficult or something like that. So any time that I'm already and I'm doing a lot, it's funny you asked that question. It's almost like you're really intuitive too, Ari. Because I am currently doing a lot of research and listening to podcasts and audiobooks around our thinking and how it literally we know that it's a science now. It's not woo woo, it's science. But literally we create our world through our thoughts. And it's been a period where I am alone a lot by circumstances and that's given me a lot of megaphone into my brain like hello, what do I tell myself on a daily basis? And it's getting much better because I will say I had one of those moments right when Covid started and in France, I'm telling you, it was like you could hear a pin drop because we were not allowed to go out only one hour a day, one person at a time. And there I really had the amphitheater of what was going on in my head. And it was a lot of either catastrophizing or shooting on myself. Right. Shaming or fear. It's gotten a lot better. But I love your question because it's true that there are still thoughts that will come up and be really limiting. Right? And. And how do I know when they're limiting? Usually because in my body feels more stressed than when they're not. Somewhere in my body I feel tension when I think them. [00:11:53] Speaker A: I'll just give you a small compliment here that the thread that is coming across a lot of things that you're saying is the sense of self awareness that you've built for yourself. And I will argue separately because I have a question here that that is a superpower. So I'll just say that that is an incredibly, incredibly important characteristic, which I deeply appreciate. What is the now going back to my thread, what is the common thread throughout all of these limiting thoughts? Is there something that you're basically saying the same thing to yourself? What is that? And I'm going on a little bit of a fishing expedition here. [00:12:31] Speaker B: Yeah, that's fine. You can. Well, all of my thoughts, I believe and I tie so many things back to Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? And in particular the first three level or conflating the first two and so then they become one level and then two and three. So in other words, safety and health is level one. Level two, love and belonging and level three, recognition and self esteem. And for me, the biggest one is level two. So my stinking thinking, if you will, or limiting beliefs, as you call them, most of mine, have to do with Colleen. You're not good enough anyway. You're not going to get loved anyway, so don't even try, basically. Right. Because that whole love thing and belonging thing has been such a big theme for me in my life, so that's what it is for me. But I would say for most humans, we can all usually bring them back to one of the three, Right? Because in the same vein, if we were to log our triggers, the things that really set us off, and then categorize them, for most of us, we can also bring it back to one of the three. And for me, it's always level two. So. And I want to give you now a compliment. I've never thought about that with stinking thinking. It's just as you asked me that, that I was like, oh, actually, hello, I am. You know, I want love and belonging, but yet I'm the first one to take myself away from it, basically. [00:14:06] Speaker A: You know, there's this. We talked about how this podcast is the art of going down the rabbit hole. We never know where we're going to go. And I think that's what makes it exciting. I think that's absolutely delightful. I mean, one of the. As you're speaking, one of the insights that I. That I had about myself and people that I've heard similar stuff from is that we often conflate the levels, right? So we're thinking about, you know, maybe our job or, you know, maybe something that we really want to do, our dream, but we feel for some reason like we're physically in danger. And why. Why that happens is such a mystery to me. But what I tell people a lot is, what's the worst that can happen? They say, no, right? Are you in danger? Did you lose your house? Did you lose your job? Like, are you now somehow damaged financially, physically? Like, no, your ego got bruised. Like, that's not the end of the world. So that concept that you kind of describe of the Maslow levels, I absolutely love that. So we talked about, and this is going to be different for everyone. And I think everybody can kind of take a moment and think through their own limiting beliefs. What are the tools and techniques or approaches to overcome your limiting beliefs? [00:15:28] Speaker B: Well, the first thing I think you called it out is awareness. Right? But I would say awareness in two things. One, there's something in my life not working. Something. It can be huge, like a relationship that's Important to me. It could be tiny. Like, ooh, I just snapped at my kids. What's going on? I mean, I don't, I don't mean it's tiny to snap at your kids. I mean, if it were a pattern, that'd be a big deal, but if it was like a one off, you know, we all have bad days. That's what I mean. [00:15:56] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:15:59] Speaker B: But something's not working right regardless of the degree. So that's the first awareness. Like I would like it to be different. And given that there's only one thing on this planet I can for sure have control over, which is this one here. And sometimes not even that, I gotta say, but you know, okay, so what can I do to shift it, right? And then I go in and there's a number of things I can recommend if we ever want to go there. Like, I read some truly life changing book this year on that process. But learning, like I mentioned earlier how I used to talk to myself and you know, we hear this everywhere, and I used to think, what a bunch of hocus pocus, even though I'm a coach, right? I really did think, but now I like really get it. If we want the love, we have to give the love to ourselves, right? And what does it mean concrete? So I did need even help with that. Like, what does that mean concretely? And I've always been good. I'm an alpha woman, you know, type A. I know how to get stuff done. I've been good at, you know, exercising, get a massage, get my nails done. All this stuff that one could say is taking care of myself, loving myself. But the true game changer came when I learned how to speak to myself with gentleness and kindness. That rocked that. That changed everything for me completely. But for that, I had to be willing to be aware. And for that, I had to get quiet and still, which was quite challenging because for a big part of my life, I've been a human doing rather than a human being. [00:17:50] Speaker A: So there, there's some incredibly important points there that you kind of. I think we need to unpack because they're really, really important. This idea of our thoughts, creating our reality, what does that mean? [00:18:06] Speaker B: So, for example, if we go back to some of my earlier stink and think, and I mentioned, right, like everyone else can have a hugely successful business except me as an example, if I keep nurturing that thought, guess what? I'm not going to have a successful business, right? But if I start visualizing what is the business I want to step into, what is it? How do I want to feel, right in that business? How do I want to feel with my financial life, et cetera? That's how things. Gradually, all of a sudden, my subconscious gets triggered to be on the lookout for people things, right. That can get me closer to that vision. And the opposite is true. As I already mentioned, right. When we have the stinking thoughts, that's what keeps us from usually what we most want. [00:19:01] Speaker A: And I'll bring in some social psychology or social science in here. There's a bias called Pygmalion effect. And what Pygmalion effect basically means is what you just said, that whatever you visualize, you make it happen. Now, this is such. When I first learned about this, I was like, this is ridiculous. Like, how can my thoughts create a reality? This is clearly untrue. But, you know, it's a social researcher telling me this. I'm like, okay, I need to figure this out. So a couple years later, the following happened to me. One of my employees quits. Sorry. Gets fired. And in the exit interview, I'm like, everything was going so great six months ago. What changed? So he tells me, well, I was. You were going to fire me? I was like, no. Like, no, not at all. So it turned out that he got in his head. Maybe one of the executives had a bad day and had a bad interaction with him. He got in his head that he's going to get fired or that they're unhappy. We were unhappy with his performance because he got that in his head. He was like, well, okay, you know, if they're unhappy with me, then he was more defensive at work. And then his performance kind of got worse because, like, well, I'm going to get fired, so I don't have to work so hard. So the belief, which was completely false, nobody had any issue with him, actually caused deterioration in his performance. And then we were like, hey, you know, your performance is not doing as well as before. Like, we'd love to you to get back to that. He was like, oh, here it's coming. Here's the Pip, right? They're not happy with my performance. Now they're telling me. And that reinforced his belief due to his behavior, due to something that was completely fictional. [00:20:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:47] Speaker A: And it got so bad and the communication got so bad. And at that stage where he was like, you know, fired, basically. And it was kind of mutual at that stage because. Because the relationship had broken down, I was like, oh, my God, this is. This is Pygmalion effect. And how. What an awful boss I am. To not be able to identify this and help my employee. That's how I felt at the time anyway. [00:21:11] Speaker B: Yeah, but it's learning. It's about learning. [00:21:14] Speaker A: Oh my God. So this is not. I mean, this is not like, oh, your thoughts manifest into reality. There's very simple. [00:21:21] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:21:21] Speaker A: Feedback loops that go back and forth that create the reality slowly where you in reinforce your thoughts. And by you reinforcing your thoughts, you're enforcing other people's thoughts. Yeah, I was like. [00:21:34] Speaker B: And subconscious also, right. Our subconscious is also picking up on what we're telling ourselves. Just like there was his conscious, probably. And not wanting. Out of respect to him. I don't intend to speak for him, but as an example. But he probably also had his subconscious going about ways that he. If he's telling himself, I'm not good enough, I'm messing up, what do we do then? We tend to mess up, Right. [00:22:03] Speaker A: You're looking for it, you're looking for evidence, right? [00:22:05] Speaker B: Yeah. We tell ourselves we're a star, man. We are kicking some. You know what? We might be more inclined to go back and review and make sure we didn't make an error. Do you know what I mean? It just goes with it. When I want to have a hugely successful business, what have I done? I've hired a coach who's multi seven figure. Do you know what I mean? Then we look for people that help us get where we want to go. [00:22:30] Speaker A: Absolutely. I love that. Colleen, when you, when you look now as a coach in your professional arena and you look at the people that you've helped, what is the most memorable client story of somebody kind of knocking their head in that wall and then kind of being able to overcome it and run forward? [00:22:55] Speaker B: Well, I actually have two of them. I have two. [00:22:58] Speaker A: Rock and roll. [00:22:59] Speaker B: Yeah, rock and roll. One of them. I think he's okay if I say his first name, Xavier. He's wonderful. And you know, as with, it's funny because I tend to attract. Let me just say this. I tend to attract either people who are already deep and know it or people that don't yet realize that they're intuitive and deep. You know, they're connected but they're kind of fighting it or unaware. But yet there's a curiosity, right. And he was in the latter case, and a lot of this whole thing, what I just said, what we talked about, with thoughts creating reality, he thought I was in woo woo land. But because he knows I'm highly credible, you know, given where I went to school, given some of my clients et Cetera. He's like, well, okay, I guess I'll listen a little bit. Like, this girl's a little bit weird. [00:23:57] Speaker A: And keep me honest. It was. If I remember my research Friday, you went to insead, right? [00:24:01] Speaker B: I do have Insead and also Ashes, say Paris. And then, you know, one of my big clients is McKinsey, and they've been that for years. [00:24:09] Speaker A: So, yeah, I'm a big fan of Insead. I wanted to go there. I ended up going to UChicago, but that was like, one of my. [00:24:16] Speaker B: Not nothing to sneeze. [00:24:18] Speaker A: Yeah, sure, but, yeah, but no, there's so many wonderful programs that INSEAD does that. [00:24:24] Speaker B: That I was like, oh, my God, it's so international. That's what I love about it. It's truly global. But. [00:24:29] Speaker A: Sorry, I completely interrupted there. [00:24:32] Speaker B: No worries. [00:24:33] Speaker A: Your story. [00:24:33] Speaker B: No worries. But he's a Frenchman who at the time was living in Switzerland. His partner, Swiss, But Xavier, all he wanted to do was go to New York. And he would bring this up in the coaching, but it's just a pipe dream. It's never going to happen. His partner, they weren't married. And it's like, how's this going to happen? And then conversation led to the next where he's like, okay, I finally, he put the offer in at work, or like, you know, said, make it clear he wanted this. And meanwhile, we had talked about, what can he be doing meanwhile to show the universe he means business. And already he's like, oh, that's a little weird. But it came out that, oh, by the way, he was collecting clutter. And he's like, I can't bring all this with me to New York, so why don't I start getting rid of it? He didn't know yet that he would be going to New York. He didn't know this, but it was a dream of his. So he every week had this ritual where he would do that. He knew he'd need his driver's license. He didn't have it in Switzerland. So he decided to get his license because he knew it would make life easier. When he got to New York again, he had no formal offer to go to New York. Well, now he's been in New York, like, three years, and he's. I saw him when I was there last year and I mean, thrilled, Right? So that's one story. And he follow up. [00:26:01] Speaker A: What was the. What was the serendipity or the luck or the. What made it actually click and happen? [00:26:05] Speaker B: Well, I think we'd have to ask him out of Respect. Right. So I wouldn't want to speak for him, but he did say it's the fact that, I mean, I was so positive, like sure about it. Like he just had a. And I, I had a similar example in my own life when I was living in Raleigh actually and wanted to get back to France and started that process of just cleaning out the house. Right. Like every week we'd spend at least an hour and, and that this is the way. And I also sent him some quote, proof of what I was talking to you about with thoughts and, you know, and, and because he wanted to go to New York, but he hadn't even asked at work. And I'm like, well then the answer is for sure not going to work because you're not even asking. So, you know, I think it happened to be with just some of the testimonials I brought forward. And then he's like, what the heck? I, I have no other reason not to try it. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was. Plus, I think he trusted me. Right. I think that was the biggest piece. It's the trust building there. [00:27:08] Speaker A: Another interesting thing that happens is confirmation bias basically means that you are seeking evidence or events or stuff based on something that you believe or want. So, you know, many times confirmation bias works against us because it can lead us to strain decision making. But what's beautiful about your example is by doing that physical activity of clearing up and preparing for this trip that, who knows, confirmation bias actually leads you to notice things that could help you get that objective. So it's kind of a really hack, kind of positive usage of confirmation bias. I absolutely love that. Do you want to tell the other, the other story? [00:27:49] Speaker B: Yeah, we can, we can. This is a woman now. And she's also in the second category I mentioned, actually highly, highly, highly intuitive. It was a big leader in a very male dominated industry. Although I would argue which one is not right, just with respect, but it's true. And so she, like many women I do work with, wanted to suppress her intuition to be more like the men. And her initial, her initial request for coaching was literally, how can I be more impactful with them? How can I get them to see me? And so that turned into the direction we went was actually her hearing herself because she was wanting to get their kudos for being like them. You following me. And instead what I noticed is she wasn't giving herself kudos for being all how awesome she is. Right. With her unique characteristics. So the more she started doing that and then for me it just was so clear. Her intuition was so strong because she's an engineer, very strong left brain work with many of these wonderful people. Great. That's where the credibility for me comes in because otherwise they're like, oh, what am I getting myself into here? But I would say, you know, why did you choose me? I, not in a bad way, like she was never arguing, but say, hey, you chose me for a reason. If you think I'm woo woo, fair enough, but you chose me, so why'd you choose me? And she'd say, well, yeah, because I think you're right. I'm like, okay, oh, that's interesting. So let's talk about that. Right. And so by the end of it, the short of it, to wrap this up, she went from wanting so badly to be. Or my expression. She didn't say that. I observed in her that she wanted to be validated by this system which once she got clear what her own values are, what her own truth was, she actually didn't even like the system. She found it toxic and dis. Dysfunctional. Ended up leaving and, and starting her own business. Right. But she had a. And that was her dream always. She was afraid to start her own business too. But it's this whole believing in herself more. Right. And turning to, you know, they say don't worry what the competition is doing. Just be a better version of yourself, essentially. And that's what she started doing. [00:30:24] Speaker A: I love that. That's exactly what I told my son. If you're going to compare yourself to some arbitrary like level, that's either, that's either failure because your bar is too low or it's failure because the bar is too high. Either way, there's huge risks involved in that. All you have to do is just be a little better than yourself. And if you do that just a little bit every day. [00:30:47] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. That's the only valid comparison. [00:30:51] Speaker A: I absolutely love that. I mean, I am quite fearful of going into this next topic, so I'll. [00:30:57] Speaker B: I've already shown you that my vulnerability comfort zone is huge. [00:31:03] Speaker A: It might be larger than my own. [00:31:06] Speaker B: Well, we don't have to. I can keep it very G rated if you want. [00:31:10] Speaker A: Yeah, this, this idea of women in male dominated cultures. [00:31:17] Speaker B: Oh, there we go. Yeah. [00:31:21] Speaker A: On the one hand there's examples that it would benefit to adopt a quote unquote, and maybe it's even unfair to call this a male dominate behavior, but to negotiate more aggressively for what you're worth to get that higher salary. So on the one hand, that is a proven thing that can help you get that higher pay. But on the other hand, and keep me honest here, if you disagree with me, I think trying to be somebody else, that is, you're not comfortable with and you can't do well, and trying to kind of suppress your own strong suits, that's also a terrible decision. So how do we balance what are the things that we want to borrow, steal versus the things we want to shine through? Our own integrity? [00:32:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I probably will only be able to get to about a thimble full of this, first of all, because it is the debate in women leadership circles. It is the hot topic, especially given what just happened in U.S. politics, right. A couple of weeks ago and what's been going on for months. But the biggest thing that I would say, and I'm one person who works with a lot of women leaders, but I am not every women leader. I certainly do not proclaim to have, right, the expertise on everybody. But first and foremost, I think there's nothing to your point, like authenticity. There is nothing like authenticity. And I like to use the metaphor, probably because I'm a bit yogini, but I love to use the metaphor of doing yoga, meaning we are still who we are, but we also stretch to new heights, like you just said, for your son, right? Like better than you are. So if we take the example of being empathic, because this has come up a lot in some. I'll use two examples here. One is being empathetic and the other is self advocacy, because those are some big things that come up for women. Because I will hear from women often. Can I be. If I'm empathetic, I won't be seen as a strong leader. And I said, well, that's absolute bollocks. I mean, look at Jacinda Ardern, right? For me, she's one of the glowing examples of a wonderful leader in the world, honestly. But she. That's a mistake that a lot of people make is assuming because we're empathetic that we can also make these very strong and important decisions, right? They can go to hand in hand very easily, Right. It's not because we're empathetic or in touch with our feelings that we're going to be crying on the, you know, at the desk all day or something. These are sometimes, I think, some of the images people have. So it's like owning that strength of being empathetic and using it for. In service to the greater good. Right. Which is what a leader is supposed to do. I tell you an interesting story around Self advocacy, because that's another hot topic. I will say about a year and a half ago, this awesome bank, who since then has been a great partner of mine, but they came to me and they said, we want you to help us design, co design a program for our women leaders and it is about self advocacy. So we rolled it out and we did. The first pilot was for women only. It went like beautifully. And then in that was in the fall of 23 and in 24 they said, okay, we're rolling it out now to everyone. And this time we want to be inclusive. We'll bring men into the game. But they were really hesitant because they thought men don't have this issue too. Which by the way, I hear a lot of people say senior leaders don't have such and such problem and men don't have such and such. And I'm like, guys, I'm promising you they have it too. I also coach men. I can promise you. And so what's the number one thing really stopping us from clearly advocating for ourselves? Because that's a big piece that women are missing, right? And there's different ways to do that. There is in the salary negotiation, like you said, but there's also in being visible, right? There's making sure to have sponsors, there's making sure to have mentors, there's, you know, this, there always. We advocate for ourselves. The number one thing is our mindset. It's not actually how to do it. It's do I deserve it? Do I look like a, you know what if I do it? You know, it's, it's, it's the fear, the limited, the stinking thinking that can block us, right? And so if I were summarizing therefore my answer to your question in a very short, concise manner, I would say the answer is to be fully who you are, sticking to higher level values, period. Like, it's really not about what gender we are now. What's going to happen in different systems or different societies now that's a different thing, right? There's a whole systemic thing going on with women and leaders. Not always, right? Not always. And I think it depends on the, on the generation as well. But it's not because we fully step up to who we are necessarily that everybody else is going to follow suit. We have to be ready for that too. [00:36:56] Speaker A: Colleen, we have only one scripted question in this show and it's one scripted question. [00:37:01] Speaker B: Okay? [00:37:02] Speaker A: One scripted question. [00:37:03] Speaker B: Let's do it. [00:37:05] Speaker A: And this is a difficult question, but we ask it to all our guests, okay? If you had to go back to 20 something year old Colleen. [00:37:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:15] Speaker A: What would you advise her? [00:37:20] Speaker B: You know, I would advise her that she's already enough. [00:37:31] Speaker A: I love that. Colleen, thank you so much for coming on the show. [00:37:36] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:37:36] Speaker A: I appreciate you. [00:37:38] Speaker B: Thank you.