Risky Conversations with Jamie Lee

How to Say No to Glue Work Without Losing Your Cool or Your Values

Jamie Lee Episode 112

Glue work is the invisible, unrewarded labor that keeps teams running—but too often holds women and people of color back from promotions and pay raises. 

In this episode, I share the research, the myths that keep us stuck, and a practical framework to say no with clarity, calm, and confidence.

⏱️ Timestamps:

  • 0:00 – Why glue work matters (and why saying no feels risky)
  • 8:30 – The research on non-promotable tasks and gender bias
  • 18:55 – Myths that keep us over-committing (comfort fallacy, tiara syndrome, imposter feelings)
  • 26:55 – The RESPOND framework: a step-by-step way to say no with respect
  • 34:53 – Neuroscience-backed tools to calm your nervous system in tough moments
  • 44:20 – Final thoughts + free resources at JamieLeeCoach.com

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0:00  
Welcome to risky conversations with Jamie Lee. Why? Because everything that's worthwhile is on the other side of a risky conversation. I'm an executive coach for smart women who don't like office politics, and I help them get promoted, get better paid, without throwing anyone under the bus. In today's episode, I'm sharing a presentation that I recently gave. It was titled navigating office politics without losing your cool or your values. But it's really about how to say no to glue work without losing your cool or your values. We're going to dive into glue work in this episode. Glue work is the invisible, often unrewarded labor that so many women and people of color are asked to take on saying no to glue work can feel risky, but as you will hear in this episode, it can also serve as an opportunity to advocate for yourself and for your career growth. And in this episode, you're going to hear the research about glue work. You're going to hear a simple framework that you can implement. You can hear me demonstrate some very useful, simple research backed techniques. And I hope you enjoy. Hello. Welcome to how to navigate office politics without losing your cool or your values. My name is Jamie Lee. I'm based in Newark, New Jersey, and it is my great pleasure and privilege to be presenting this workshop. I'm an executive coach, and here's a little bit about me. I specialize in helping women, people of color, immigrants. I'm all of the above. I'm a woman, I'm a person of color, I'm an immigrant who feel allergic to office politics, and I help my clients get promoted, get better paid, without throwing anyone under the bus, and that's going to be our focus as well, because when we talk about glue work, the inverse of glue work, I believe, is self advocacy and productive conversations that drive Your career forward. So today we're going to talk about some tactical, tangible solutions to address glue work. But before we get there, what is glue work? What are we talking about? And before I get there, let's first acknowledge that this session is for those of us who do a lot, who care a lot, and often, guess, get asked to hold it all together with little recognition. And I think that sort of addresses already addresses a little bit of what is glue work, right? You get, you keep being asked to hold it all together, right? Like a glue without the recognition, without the visibility, without the the work that gives you credit towards your promotion or pay increase. Yeah, let's think about the workplace as a community. Let's think about it as society of people. And here is this really fun photo of a diverse group of people, and it looks like it's a party scene, and people are dancing and people are smiling, they're having a good time. And we love it when our workplace can feel like this is almost like it's a party, right? But we also know that behind the scenes, someone had to volunteer their time, to put together a party, to string the lights together, to get the DJ to get the baked goods or the drinks right. And I know many of us are now working remotely. So even remotely, there is some work that needs to happen behind the scenes, whether that is, you know, inter departmental newsletters, or, you know, meetings to help set the agenda, or to work with clients who just need that extra hand holding. There's all this work that happens behind the scenes. It's, you can't see it on this screen, right when people are together and happy, but behind the scene, somebody had to do the work that went unrecognized, that you know feels invisible, to bring the people together. So that is, in a sense, the definition of glue work. But to dive a little bit deeper, there's actually research, academic research done by Professor Linda Babcock at Carnegie Mellon University. Linda Babcock has written several books that have literally changed my life. She has written the book Women don't ask. She has written, co written the book Women don't ask. She also. Who co wrote, asked for it. So like, here are the reasons why women don't ask. And then she they followed up with, Okay, here's how to ask, right? How to negotiate, how to advocate. How do we, how do we, you know, make requests that drive our careers, our income growth, forward, right? And recently, this was in 2022 she collaborated with other women leaders, and she also wrote the book called The no club. Why? Because she uncovered through her research that up to 48% that's the increased rate at which women, especially women of color are assigned or volunteer for non promotable tasks. Non promotable tasks, you know, and 44% is the increased likelihood of being asked compared to men, to take on non promotable tasks, right putting together events or supporting other colleagues, or, you know, things that don't necessarily directly contribute to your organization's mission and do not directly tie to your performance metrics, but you're asked to do it anyways, right? That's glue work or non promotable tasks, and she found that in her research, and I believe this research was grounded in an academic setting, so I don't know that's the caveat here. I don't know how it translates in non academic settings, but she found that 200 that's the increased number of hours that women, on average, spend each year on non promotable tasks compared to men. And when you think about that, that's really mind boggling, because on average, there are 2000 average working hours in a year, so that's up to 10% every one out of 10 hours that you devote to work is being spent on things that do not help you gain visibility, that do not directly lead to your career growth, that do not lead to you getting promoted or being seen as a potential leader, right? And so with this in mind, I think this begs the question, how do we change this? Around this? This really ought to change, right? When we see inequities, it's just, it's just like human nature, right? We want to see it change, but how do we make that change happen? And here's how change ripples out from top to bottom right, collective organization level, team level, individual. And then I added that little star on the left hand corner of the slide. It says it all starts here, right? So let's, let's go from top to one, cross group, solidarity, systems change. It's intended to work towards this collective system, system level change, right? Where we have a coalition, where we're sharing tools and we can work together and to to advocate for change together, but we really want to see change at the organizational level, right? That means we need to see managers come up with policies and support and champion and execute structural changes, as well as establishing accountability, right? And one, one obvious way to change this, this pattern around of women and people of color doing more of the glue work, is to rotate, to identify the work that does not lead to promotions, and rotate it equitably, right? And also that is a result of culture building through conversation at the team level, where we normalize within our teams, equitable task sharing and supporting people who speak up, right, who say, hey, you know, we just noticed that Nancy's been doing all of the party organizing. And, you know, Nancy's got work too, so let's, let's support her, and maybe, you know, Bob or Tim can help around this time, right? Maybe we can come up with a simple roster. We're really smart at this organization. We're all very we can, we can come up with a simple chart or Excel spreadsheet, and we could just ensure that we all get to contribute equally to this kind of work, right in that way, supporting others who speak up. But ultimately, it all starts here at the individual level, self awareness and micro shifts, noticing your internal.

10:00  
Scripts that lead to that can, that can be conducive to you taking on work that you actually don't really want to take on, right and noticing it and changing that pattern around one conversation, one exchange, one meeting at a time, setting boundaries and advocating clearly for you. Tonight, my client and I are reading this book, and it's called Love is a business strategy, and it's written by men, and it's written by CEO of an actual company that exists, called software, and it's it's real Chronicle, genuine case study of this entire business that turned its entire culture and therefore their performance, their outcome, completely around by implementing love As a business strategy. And the book talks about how, yes, there is a saying, very widely known saying, that culture eats strategy for lunch, no matter what good plan of action or fancy strategy you come up with, if the culture you know is not is not congruent with the strategy you come with, then you know nothing's going to change. But the book makes the case that individual behavior eats culture for lunch, right, even if there is a particular culture that has been established, or you know that that is the common behavior. If one person changes, the behavior that change can start rippling out, right? So if we were to think about this, this change, and how it can ripple out from one person at a time, one person noticing their their pattern of saying yes out of fear of retribution or fear of being misunderstood or fear of being you know, somebody saying something behind their back, right, remember to notice that and just do a micro shift so that you're not communicating or avoiding communication out of here, but communicating from Hey, you know, just understanding a desire to understand from a place of compassion, right? Then you set a different way, a different paradigm for the team that can help influence culture, and then that can help influence policy, and that can ripple out to change the collective as a whole. So in summary, system, systematic problems absolutely do require systematic solutions. We're not here to overlook that. But let's remember systems are made up of people, teams, managers, peers, individuals. And the reason why I'm making this point is because it's so often for us, we're like, oh, but that's just the way it is, right? That's just the way this culture is. I can't do anything about it, right? And so we want to turn that around, because if we give into the narrative of that's just the way it is, and that's just how culture is. Right, we sort of concede to a position of disempowerment and victimhood, and also we want to direct compassion towards ourselves, acknowledging that women, people of color, you know, immigrants, people of African ancestry, we've all been conditioned, whether it was explicit or subtly, by the media and the culture that we are in, to over accommodate, to believe that we need to over perform. I remember before I became a coach a decade ago, I remember saying these words to another female colleague, we just need to work twice as hard compared to the other guy, because we were women. I remember saying that because I believed that I had to over perform because I am different, because I am a minority in the workplace, and that leads to, of course, second guessing ourselves, right, and that leads to prioritizing others comfort above our own. How does this show up? How does this show up? So here's how I see this show up. You know, I've directly experienced this myself, but I see it also with my clients. With every one of my clients that I've worked with, it's because of myths, very compelling, myths that feel real. Now it feels like the truth. It feels like just the way it is. And these are the reasons why we over commit and under advocate. The first one is comfort fallacy. Comfort fallacy is when you believe that keeping other people comfortable is what keeps you safe. And many women of color have told me that they they feel the sense of hyper vigilance, and they're always they notice that they're looking, they're looking, and, you know, in the faces of the people around them, making sure no one's like, you know, frowning, or, you know, making sure other people faces reflect safety before they can feel safe, even if, even if, on the inside, you're boiling with resentment. So this, this happy smiley face, that icon is, is a mask, right? Perfectionist fantasy, if I do everything I'm told perfectly, regardless of whether it moves the needle or not, regardless of whether it addresses our larger mission and goals, whether it actually helps me meet my performance metrics, if I do everything that they asked me to do, then maybe I'll finally belong, or I'll be a failure, right? It's kind of similar to this comfort fallacy. It's either black or white, it's all or nothing. And perfectionist Fantasy has us feeling stuck, because perfection does not exist, right? Perfectionist fantasy is getting stuck in an idealized image of how things can be, but this idealized image is not real, and so we get stuck. Tiara syndrome is something that is also very, very common. This is coined by Carol frollinger, who is a negotiation scholar, and it's this pattern when you believe that if you keep your head down, do everything you're told do a good job. In other words, keep your head down. Don't make waves, right? Don't stand out. Don't put your neck out. Don't stick your neck out. Then they this mysterious, omniscient authority figure. They will place a tiara on my head. They will, they will reward me. Somebody knows. Somebody knows everything that I'm doing and how much it matters and how good I'm doing, even though I haven't made it clear, even though I haven't made a case right, even though I don't know if people forgot, I wouldn't even have to ask for I shouldn't have to ask for my reward. This is something that I've encountered myself, as well as hundreds, hundreds of women I have talked to. And there is the insufficiency myth, aka the imposter syndrome. I haven't done enough. I don't know enough to start making waves by setting boundaries, even though you know you don't need to make everyone comfortable that's that's an impossible standard. There is no such thing as doing it perfect. And even though you know that, like you don't, shouldn't really have to wait for other people to notice, because other people are almost always too busy to notice how well you're doing your job right. And then you still have this thought, I haven't done enough. I don't know enough. And I want to encourage you to think about this, not from a lens of personal failure, not from a lens of, oh, if I feel this way, maybe it means there's something wrong with me. I want you to consider that may simply be emblematic, that that simply may be the after effects of of you know, being exposed to culture, society and systems that have that are not set up, that are not set up

18:55  
to accept, fully accept diversity, Right? It's not you, it's the it's the the weight of systematic shortcomings, so to speak, right? And we can't help but internalize, right? If we don't see other leaders like us, other leaders of color, other leaders who are women, other leaders who are minorities, of marginalized identities, right? It's not as easy for us to feel that we're just sufficient the way we are. So let's not blame ourselves. Let's distance ourselves from like the the mirage that we've all that we're all conditioned in. So with that said, how, oh, actually, here's, here's one more point I want to make. How do we go from the myths to taking concrete forward moving action? How do we go from myths to say no and saying. It with respect, right? And setting clear, respectful boundaries. I think it starts with acknowledging, acknowledging that, you know, if you hear these voices, you know, I got to make sure everyone's happy. I can't piss anyone off. Or, you know, I shouldn't have to ask for that, or I need to do it just right, or maybe I haven't done enough. I want you to consider all of this. The the the total effect of this is you hear the sound of what I lovingly call the itty bitty, shitty committee. Itty bitty. They're itty bitty. There are several voices, and they and they intend to keep you safe, but the result of listening to all these little voices is that you remain feeling itty bitty and shitty. Okay, so let's move on to before you say yes next time, next time someone asks you to do something that is non promotable work, next time somebody asks you to do, you to do glue work, and you genuinely feel like, Oh, my God, I have so much work to do. I'm I'm feeling overwhelmed and this, and yet I feel like I can't say no, right? Remember myths that feel real, right? So the next time you say yes, when you really want to say no, I invite you to slow down and let's think about the respond framework. There is a difference between reacting, you know, just knee jerk reaction, to taking a moment and responding thoughtfully. And the first letter, as you can see, is R. You do not need to overthink regulating your nervous system. I know it sounds kind of scientific, and what is that? How do I regulate my nervous system? What does it take? Does it take years and years of meditating and silence? No. In fact, I just learned from somebody who has spent literally 25,000 hours a Zen Buddhist monk in the Korean tradition, American born, but went to Korea, and he meditated in the mountains for years and years, and He shared this really fascinating statistic, which is that when you allow yourself to be just quiet and still for 30 seconds, just 30 seconds, right? So that could be even like five deep breaths, right? Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, you do that just like five times. That could be 30 seconds when you just allow yourself to be still and silent for 30 seconds. This is fascinating. Your brain processes more information than 30 years of data by the Hubble telescope. 30 years of data by the Hubble telescope. Yeah, that's how vast and fascinating our brain, our nervous system, really are, and so regulating your nervous system. Don't overthink it. It could be as simple as before you have to respond. We have to before you feel the urge to just, you know, say yes or no or whatever. Just give yourself 30 seconds. You're going to process more information than 30 years of Hubble telescope data, you know, taking in the galaxies, fascinating, right? And then, you know, after you've taken some breaths 30 seconds, then let's re evaluate, what is the request. And then you want to think before, before you start worrying, oh, if, if I say no, someone is going to get mad or they're going to try to get back at me, like, please think about like, what's the bigger context, just for a moment, and then s scan for impact and possibilities. And what I mean by this is not like, oh, how important is this? Or what's going to go wrong if I don't immediately say yes, is think about what can go well if I offer a different perspective, a reframe or redirect that makes it so that other. Are that the inequity of glue work doesn't perpetuate, right? What could be the impact and possibility of that, not just for you, but for other women, for other people of African ancestry, right? What can go well for other people like me and for others who don't look like me, if I reframe, reframe this ask, reframe this request, and presume positive intent. And I just earlier today, I was coaching a client who is high achiever. She She works really hard, just like all of you, right? She works really, really hard, and she knows she works hard, but she feels that her direct boss, who is not a person of color, who is not of the female gender, just keeps moving the goal post for her performance metrics. And it's frustrating, right? And so these things do happen, yeah, and the strategy moving forward is, how can she move her career forward, right, and not be bogged down, not be bogged down by what has happened, or even if somebody underestimate or misinterprets, her, her intention, right? Her, her possibility, her potential, right? I suggest, just for the time being, even if it feels inauthentic for a moment, pretend that somebody means well, even if it means like, pretending they mean well to say, you know, I appreciate you, you know, making that suggestion out of concern for my continued growth, right? And we talked about this being like,

26:55  
like, how can we even if it feels like it's not completely true for you. How can we think about the overall, you know, the bigger the bigger strategy, though, the long game that we're playing, not little skirmishes, right? So if you get an email and you're like, why are they talking to me this way? Like, do they look down on me? Or, like, what is this? And you feel that disrespect, it can be very tempting to again, knee jerk, react, and just for a moment after having spent 30 seconds right, processing all of that information, just like, Okay, if I were to presume, or even if it feels a little bit like pretend, if I were to pretend that they meant, well, what might I? How might, how differently might I phrase this? And I have specific suggestions for phrasing, and that's coming just in a few more slides, and then open up space for shared ground, meaning, you know, what is it that this other person, the requester, and I, both agree upon right? What are we both working to achieve? Right? That helps to clarify mutual interest, and when once you have clarified that mutual interest, then you can use that as a way to pivot right or to ask for something different, right? Or for you to suggest a different solution, whether that is, hey, maybe, you know, you want to give Steve and Matt an R D, an opportunity to address this, right? Or, you know, maybe we can revisit this. Maybe I have some concrete ideas so I won't go too ahead of myself and then and name your decision right? Communication, you have to tell them what you think. Tell them clearly, right? Deliver the message with clarity and show that you genuinely care. So let me give you some examples of this. Say no, does not have to be aggressive. Saying no, this is not disrespectful by definition. You can say it with clarity, respect and with calm. So again, going back to the example of somebody asks you to do something and it's obviously not going to help you get promoted, and you've been asked to do this many other times, and you notice that there's a pattern of women or people of color being asked to do this. Okay? So you just tell them, hey, you know what? Thank you for thinking of me. Appreciate that I've taken this on a few times already. Who else might be able to take the lead this time? Right? This is asking open ended question. Who else right to redirect the conversation? And if you wanted to go even further, I suggest you know the one you. Next to that, to the right of that, you know, this really isn't my lane, but I'm happy to recommend someone who's great at this. And here are their names, and here's how you can contact them, right? So not just saying no, but here's who else can do it. And now we're going to the on the left hand column the bottom you know, I appreciate you appreciating my organizing skills. What would make this doable for me is if you can help me get approvals on my project plan with your peer. So here's what's going on with this one. When people make requests of you, sometimes it's sort of silently assume that if you need something to make it happen, that you would let them know. And people don't always type it out, because it just feels like so obvious, right? They'll let me know. They'll let me know if they need something, right? And so you let them know. And by doing this, what you're doing is you're turning the request into an opportunity for you to make a counter request. You're turning this into a negotiation, right? So you say, here's what's going to make this doable for me. Let's make a deal. I'll do this this time. But can you help me get approvals? Can you help me with this thing that I'm trying to do so that you know, we get our objectives met, and also I continue growing my role right. So I want to, I want to invite everyone to think about it. When people ask for your time, think about it as if you have leverage. This is a quote from Chris Voss from the negotiation book. Never split the difference. Great book. And in the book, Chris Voss, who used to train FBI hostage negotiators, so the people at the FBI would go, you know, negotiate with, you know, really bad international criminals to return hostage, hostages back to our country like these are the people that Chris Voss used to train. And he says, If anyone is talking to you, if they're just talking to you, you have leverage. You have something they want, right? So you could use that as an opportunity to be like let me also advocate. Thank you for reaching out to me. But here's what would really help me, right? And I, you know, respect that you're asking for my time because you appreciate something that I can do, and I appreciate something that you can do, yeah, which is help me get assigned to a project, or help me get approvals or help me get resources. Let's make this a mutually beneficial conversation. And also the final one in the in the bottom right corner, with the puzzle icon. I was thinking about, if your boss, if a supervisor, or somebody who has more authority over you, we're asking you to do something that you know isn't really going to help you get promoted. You can ask, you know, I'm happy to but can we also revisit which tasks are high priority and aligned with our performance goals, right? So you're redirecting the conversation, and you're asking them for mentorship. You're You're eliciting their support. So you know they're on your side, it implies that they're going to come on your side and help you make decisions about what's the most important and what's going to help us meet our performance goals. Okay, so with that said, I know I haven't seen all of the comments in the chat yet, but I can easily imagine for some of us, especially if we are sensitive to conflict, sensitive to even like, the thought of like, oh, initiating or engaging in something that can be perceived as conflict, even if there's no conflict, you're like, oh, I don't want people to think that there's conflict or or if you have had stressful experiences, setting boundaries, redirecting conversations, reprioritizing if you've encountered pushback, and just the idea of engaging in these conversations feels stressful to you, I just want you to know you're not alone. It is not your fault, and I want to offer you some very simple but effective and powerful, research backed tools and techniques to

34:53  
down regulate not just your nervous system, but also the other side's nervous system. The first. One. It's called lowering your voice tone in never split the difference. By Chris Voss, he cheekily calls this the late night FM. DJ, voice, I know for some of us who are very young, we may not even have the privilege of listening to Late Night FM DJ voice, but some of us who did grow up before Facebook, who you know, who remember, like dialing the FM dials, you know, adjusting the dial so we could hear the smooth talking late night FM DJ, and they're always talking in this sort of mellow, lower tone, right? Sometimes you listen to podcasts, and if the podcast host has a really nice voice, you just notice, oh, it's just kind of puts you in a nice mood. Sometimes it helps you fall asleep. Okay? The point of this is not to get the other side to fall asleep. But here's the reason why, lowering your voice tone, okay, assuming that you're going to have a verbal conversation right, lowering your voice tone, especially when other people get sort of excited, or they start to raise your voice right, and you Lower your voice tone, you automatically entrain other people's oral neurons, the neurons associated with listening, with hearing, right? It automatically happens. They can't help it, and it entrains their frequency to a more steady, calmer frequency. So a lot of high level executive women that I have worked with that, when I tell them, they're like, Oh, I've been doing that for years. Oh, I didn't even really know that that was a thing. But, yeah, I've been, I've been doing it, and now I know the science behind why it works, right? So just lower your voice toe, okay? And second one is something that you can do if you are, you know, just feeling kind of anxious. Or if you are in face to face, or even zoom to zoom, teams to teams, right, you're in a virtual conference, right? You could be just sitting there and you just, you know, shimmy your shoulders, sit up tall, take a deep breath, exhale twice as long. And in fact, I want to have, I want to invite everyone who's here to do this with me right now, because it's so simple, it's dead simple. We're going to engage in peripheral vision. Okay, here's what you're going to do. You're going to sit up straight. Just relax your shoulders. Take a deep breath in, exhale twice as long. And now I invite you to pick a focal point. And maybe it's a point right above that little camera or the little.on your laptop or your computer screen, or maybe it's just beyond your computer screen. Just pick a focal point and notice what it's like to really, really focus on that focal point, right? Almost always we're engaged in this narrow, foveal vision, right? When we look at our screens, we're looking at our phone, right? And so notice the texture, notice the feeling of that. And now you're going to soften and diffuse your focus without moving your eyes. Without moving your eyes, just notice that your eyes are now taking in more information. I have lots of house plants to my left. I have my bookcase to my right. I can feel the sunlight from my window. I can I just noticed I'm not looking, but now I'm just noticing everything in the periphery of my vision, right? I wear glasses, and every time I engage in peripheral vision, I'm reminded. I wear glasses. I forgot. I've completely forgotten when I was looking at my phone screen. Now I'm reminded, right? And so as you engage in that peripheral vision with your soft and diffuse focus, just noticing how much more visual information you can notice now also notice if you can be aware of other sensory details, like the ambient noise in the room, the feel of fabric on your skin, maybe even the feel of breathing right notice you can be doing this, and you become even more present where you are. You can do this with a person in front of you. You could make the focal point their third eye point, so you never lose eye contact, right? You just become more present and you notice more information. You're shifted out of tunnel vision. You've shifted out of panic, and you're engaging the parasympathetic nervous system that's associated. Rest and digest and creative, alertness, cool, I'm going to trust everyone did this with me. So simple, right? And then here's the final one, if you just feel like heightened social anxiety about engaging in conversation or, you know, replying, you know, thank you for thinking of being but no, thank you. Here's other people you can reach out to. Or can we revisit this? Or can you help me? Like, if you feel that social anxiety, I'm going to invite you to just pick an object that's easy to pass back and forth. And we're going to do this. We're going to do bilateral stimulation. You can do it under your desk. I'm doing it right now. And you may, you may just slightly notice that my shoulders are moving and maybe not right. So you're going to take this object a small pen. Will do right. Hold it in one hand, cross the midline of your body, put it in the other hand. Now you just keep doing that right. And you could do it under the desk. You can do it under your your screen, right? Nobody can notice, right? And what's happening is that you're stimulating blood flow, impulses, neurotransmitters to both sides of the brain, and that anxiety doesn't really have a chance, because anxiety is when one hemisphere of the brain is over activated over the other. And I did this bilateral stimulation in person with some clients, and my client just happened to have a heart rate monitor on her, and then she sent me this she noticed that right before she was very, very anxious. She's like, Oh my goodness, I'm going to be in a workshop with all these people. And then just you see that second pink circle. Her anxiety completely dropped. Her heart rate dropped. And she was doing this parasympathetic nervous system activating, bilateral stimulation. It's like taking your brain on a walk around the block, and it could also boost dopamine. Okay, cool. I trust that folks have tried that. So in conclusion, yeah, Google, work is real. There's data, there's research data that shows women and people of color in particular, are more likely to be asked to do it, more likely to spend their working hours doing things that doesn't lead to promotion, leadership or pay raise, right? But let's also remember that we have choice, and choice is power. My favorite teacher, Byron Katie, says an honest no is a yes to you, right? And in inverse, a fake yes is a no to you. And also, I really do believe, just as Chris Paul said, if they're talking to you, you have leverage, right? You have an opportunity to use these moments to pivot toward sponsorship, stretch roles, better pay. You have an opportunity to use that to ask for the growth you really want. So I hope this was useful for you, and we're going to open up the floor for Q and A. And in conclusion, if you would like to learn more about the work I do, or if you're just curious to you know, hear about my perspectives on other things related to office politics, getting promoted, women's leadership, people of color in the workplace, I have 100 plus podcasts, totally free. I have 100 plus blog posts all on my website. And also, when you land on my website, there's a completely free and fun leadership archetype quiz that you can take and you get type specific guidance tips and scripts. You will be enrolled in my weekly newsletter, and of course, you can unsubscribe at any time you like. But if you want to learn more about the work I do, come on over to Jamie Lee coach.com thank you very much.

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