SPEAKER_02 0:03

Hello, I'm Jamie Lee. I'm an executive coach for smart women who don't like office politics. And I help them get promoted and better paid without throwing anyone under the bus. How? By blending proven communication strategies with brain-shifting neuroscience techniques. In this podcast, we explore the stories and strategies of gutsy women who've braved speaking up and navigated their careers forward. We're here to de-risk the conversations that feel the most daunting, advocating for yourself and your growth. Let's dive in. Welcome to Risky Conversations. And why risky conversations? Because everything that's worthwhile is on the other side of a risky conversation. And we have with us today someone who is an expert on risky conversations. Ashley Paré is a leadership coach, speaker, and the CEO and founder of Own Your Worth. And she believes you're more than enough. Her mission is to activate your highest potential and deactivate your deepest fear. She helps clients connect to their inner confidence, encouraged to take bold action and make big ass. And we like big ass at risky conversations. And she helps folks create a bigger impact and receive more abundance without burning out. Ashley's been featured in the New York Times, CNN Money, Good Morning America, and more. And she's a former HR leader and sought-after speaker. And you can check out her popular TIDX talk called Have Your Cake and Negotiate Too. Welcome to Risky Conversations, Ashley.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Thank you, Jamie. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Yeah. We were just reminiscing about the last time you you and I were in the same room, IRL in real life. It was, I believe, about 10 years ago in a room full of women talking about asking for asking for the professional value they bring and getting better paid.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

You were leading negotiation workshops for AAUW. Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

And I remember you telling me about it. And I remember thinking, oh, I want to know everything she knows. So here's a question I ask everyone who comes on the podcast, which is what's one of the riskiest conversations you've had and why was it worth it?

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Oh, it's a good one.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

I've had lucky me, I've had several of them I can think of, but the one that's probably the most definitive in terms of the path that I've been on since this ask is, you know, in one of my favorite but most difficult corporate HR jobs. I had access to the salary data, I had access to leadership, I knew the ins and outs of how we were trying to retain people and throwing money at the problem and bonuses. And I also knew I was under underpaid from an HR perspective in the marketplace. And I also knew this company had a pay philosophy that paid towards the lower end of the pay range in the market. And they were kind of happy with that. But being an HR, I knew what they were doing to try to save and retain talent, and they were throwing money at the problem. So in my situation, I was doing the the typical but not recommended thing that I found myself in and these habits that I work with my clients on as well is hoping for the best, working really hard and waiting to be taken care of, and you know, giving my boss the benefit of the doubt that this performance review, I was gonna get my my due, my pay, and that wasn't working. My strategy was failing, and I was becoming more resentful and more agitated and just burning on the verge of burnout. And so I got a phone call from a big tech company and they started recruiting me. And so I I did, I made the ask like so many of the men that I supported in sales and engineering were doing at the time. If they were getting offers from outside companies, we were giving them money. So I used that same approach to ask my boss for a raise. I had waited too long, I was frustrated and like I said, resentful. I said, hey, I'm being recruited, but I want to stay, I would like a raise. And long story short, I was told no. I was also told I couldn't relocate to from New York to Boston. So I found myself not only not getting a raise, but was also without a job right before I was relocating. Even though we had agreements in place, but nothing in writing. So I learned a lot of lessons from making that big ass to be recognized, to be rewarded, to be paid, to be retained. I wanted to be, you know, knew know that I was valued as much as others. And when I heard that no, it was a huge catalyst for me to wake up. And I lost a lot. But I have also, you know, immediately, immediate term, I lost a lot, but long term, I've gained so much. What did you gain? Oh, for one thing, my own self-respect. I gained self-respect and the recognition that whether I liked it or not, having been an HR or having access, having the privilege of being a woman, a white woman, working with C-suite, like those things ultimately were not enough if I was not advocating for myself, if I wasn't saying no, if I wasn't clearing my boundaries, if I just kept rolling over and saying yes. And so, you know, I gained the courage to put myself out there, to gain clarity, to figure out what I really wanted, to find my voice and my passion, and to start teaching what I knew to help others. I didn't want anybody else to feel what I had felt. And so I thought, you know, I used my pain and turned it into fuel, right? That fire of like, F this, I'm gonna go do something about it, even though I didn't get what I wanted. And yeah, so I've just gained. You know, and also forgiveness. I've forgiven that version of myself, I've forgiven my boss, I've forgiven that company. And really, I think ultimately what I've gained is my freedom, and that is my deepest value. Great. You've gained your free.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

I have a very similar story in that I was working at a hedge fund and I didn't know how to advocate or negotiate salary. And so a year into the job, I found out I was making 50% of the going market range, and I felt so upset with myself in the situation like you. I I realized, oh, I need to turn this pain into a learning moment, I need to gain skills, and then that snowballed into similar to you, helping women advocate for themselves. Yeah, yeah. So and let's talk about. I mean, you like you said, like you advise your clients to not do the things that you saw yourself doing, and I saw myself doing too early in my career, right? Waiting for for the recognition, for the reward, you know, waiting for the next performance review. Maybe they'll finally do something, I'll get my due, even though I haven't asked for it, right? So the reason why we wait is because it doesn't feel good to speak up, to say no, to set clear boundaries, to ask for what you want. And what's what do you think is the reason that self-advocating feels so triggering or difficult?

SPEAKER_01 8:30

I mean, it's layered and complicated depending on a few different factors, right? But ultimately, if we were depending on our gender, our ethnicity, our economic status, our role, all of these factors, we we gather information in terms of how we've been socialized. And in general, right? Women are socialized to be caregivers, caretakers, to be kind, to be pleasing, to be the good girl, right? The good girl. Or on the other side of that, it's the rebel, or you're the bad girl. And so we we find ourselves by the time we're entering corporate after, see even in academia, right? Work hard, get the good grade, then you'll be successful. So there's a lot of factors at play, but ultimately our emotional world, our inner world, if there's this rub, if we're feeling any resistance, any withdrawal, any avoidance, right? It's it's an activated nervous system at our core of feeling unsafe, right, to speak up. And the reasons why we might actually not be safe, like we might feel like we are risking our job if we speak up or ask or tell the truth or put up a boundary. Sometimes that's true, and sometimes it's just the fear of that that literally keeps us silent. And, you know, for simplicity's sake, that's where I find a lot of people, right? It's like there doesn't seem to be an in-between. It's either I speak up and I risk a lot, or I stay silent and I handle the resentment, and okay, I can do it a little bit longer. But I think, you know, in our work, but you and I both do, is we find that third way, that third path of managing the internal world in our nervous system, healing, growing, providing safety within ourselves. So then we can take what I call inspired action.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

And what do you advise? What do you share frameworks with your clients? What helps clients find and access that third way?

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Hmm. I have a few different frameworks, but the one that applies here is my fearless fear framework. So fear, the acronym FEAR, right? My recommendation is that you number one, feel. So F is for feel. We have to just give ourselves permission to feel what we're avoiding feeling. And a lot of times we stay busy to avoid what we're feeling. And we take on more work or we pack our schedules. But if we can just stop and acknowledge that there's fear or there's resentment or there's anger or whatever it might be, if we make space for it, it can start to move. And there might be tears, there might be screaming in pillows, but in order to give ourselves permission to feel, it can start moving through our body, and we don't have to contain it anymore, wasting our energy to contain it. So feeling is number one. Uh F or F is feel, E is evaluate. So then you can start once you've made some space by moving the energy, the emotions, you can start to evaluate. Well, when have I experienced this feeling before? What information do I have? What are the facts here? Have I lived through something like this, or is it really just a fear?

unknown 12:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

And then you evaluate, you know, the facts, the situation, the fears, but then your options. You start to look a little bit, you know, move to that helicopter view and just evaluate what's really going on and kind of weighing those pros and cons. If you ask, if you don't ask, A is for acceptance to make sure you are accepting what's within your control, accepting what's not within your control, accepting that you cannot change somebody, accepting that you don't know the outcome, right? You can let go of the outcome, you accept that you might take this action, and there's four or five different potential scenarios. So can you accept that? And then lastly, it's moving into responding. What is your choice? What's your decision? How are you going to respond to this? Are you going to continue on the path you've been on? Are you going to respond differently? Are you going to, you know, how do you set yourself up for success so you feel like you're responding instead of and like being in the driver's seat of your life instead of just, you know, being pulled on a trailer behind you? So that is the fear less framework. Great. And then oh, less. So fear, that's F-E-A-R, less it becomes the lesson. What are the lessons you learned?

SPEAKER_02 13:32

Got it. So it's a framework to gain a higher level of self-awareness, emotional acceptance, and therefore agency.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Yes, beautifully said.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

And I'm curious, may I ask, you know, from your experience having been an HR professional working with C-level executives, you know, I'm curious. When my clients want to ask for a raise or they want to ask for promotion, they often feel that the first impulse is to run it by their HR people or that the HR people, you're smiling. I see a smile coming on. Yeah. Could you could you tell us a little bit about like what are your thoughts about that as somebody who has been an HR professional who has also been on the asking side? Yeah. What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 14:31

Oh. You know, I was always told I was not like the typical HR person.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

Ah, of course, because your value is freedom.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Yes. And so, you know, I would be that person that was a true business partner. My managers love working with me. This is where I get all of my coaching chops, essentially, is because I would try to bring everybody to the table and find solutions and encourage these hard, risky conversations at work and try to find ways to work within but around the system, if it made sense. Like what I would say, this is what you can do, this is what you can't do. And so if employees did come to me to say, I feel like I'm underpaid, or I want to ask my boss, or my review didn't go well, I would coach them. If they would ask me, you know, are you gonna tell my boss? Is this really confidential? Before they would say anything, I'd say, if you say something that I have to share, I'm gonna let you know that. But other than that, no. Like my intention here is to give you a safe space. But then I might go back to the manager and ask them, how was there a review? What's the feedback you're getting? You know, what's gonna happen, how will you handle it if your employees come back and follow up with you if it didn't go well? What can we anticipate here? So not every HR person has the bandwidth to do that, has the skills to do that, has the desire to be that type of business partner. So if you can, if you have a great HR department and there are, I don't know, ranges, if there's some sort of pay transparency, yes, I think that's a good place for you to start to say, hey, I'm just curious where where does my pay lie within the current salary range? What's the mean pay within our company for people at my level? Do you have a job description or the level descriptions for the one above me? Right? And you can just say to the to the HR person, you could say, I'm preparing for my annual review or I'm preparing for a career conversation with my manager, and I'd really appreciate your insight. And just know they might tell your manager that you're gathering that information.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

And could that become a liability?

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Only if the manager handles it poorly.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Ah, got it. So it's not always just cut and dry, but some key things that I heard is if there is pay transparency, getting that information through the HR professional about pay bans, job descriptions above you, around you could help, but also know that that information could go back to the manager because that's not completely within your control. And then how the manager handles that information is also an unknown.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Yes. And, you know, I just had a conversation with somebody recently who her boss had promised her a few things. She's a manager as well, a manager of people, and her boss is, you know, not following through. And he's kind of blaming HR. That it's the reason why he hasn't been able to give her the money that she has been asking for and deserves based on her title. And so even if there isn't pay transparency, you could go to HR because sometimes you're you're out of options, right? And the last option, if you've been talking with your boss and they haven't been advocating or following through, then you know, you might, this is where that risk comes in. It might be worth it for you to say, hey, I I haven't been getting this information from my boss. I'm feeling at a crossroads. Can you provide any of this? And could you recommend what I do next? You could really solicit HR to try to be, you know, an advocate for how do you recommend I talk to my boss if these are the things that they've said to me and haven't followed through. So again, it it's treading lightly and of course with respect and professionalism, and again, knowing that if your boss responds poorly, if you end up getting fired for asking for this information, is that the type of place you want to be working with long term?

SPEAKER_02 18:50

Yeah. Okay, so a couple of things I'm picking up. Again, it depends on the HR professional you have. Are they a partner? Are they willing to support and really show up as a sounding board, a coach, or are they really there to just protect the company's bottom line? And and what I'm hearing is sometimes it can backfire. And it can backfire poorly, unfortunately. And I'm just gonna I'm I'm really uh curious, what's your best guess as to why things like somebody asking for the raise that they feel that they deserve because of the contribution, their job title, they're and they're getting let go, or there is a you know, a pushback or backlash.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Yeah, yeah, you know, honestly, it's it's possible, and I think we've all heard these horror stories, but I wouldn't say it's typical. I think typically what I'm hearing is I'm not getting information from my manager. I really don't think HR is gonna help me, but I don't know how many people are actually engaging and building a relationship and a partnership with HR. And truly HR is there for you as an employee, but I I also find that employees have this gap of I shouldn't go talk to them, or it is too risky if I talk to them and they're not giving them the benefit of the doubt to be on their side because these conversations, I mean, look, we go to work to get paid. It's it's a transaction, right? And so if we're not able to ask, if the culture really is, we cannot talk about it, then what other hard conversations are we avoiding? How are we going to be effective in our job to get our job done? So really it's about moving through this fear. And yes, in some situations, the culture is not set up to support you gathering information for your own career. But that I would say is the sign of a really a failing culture at this point, right? And but you know, from an HR perspective, it was hard to walk that line. It's like you want to, you want to, I want, I wanted to help. I'm gonna speak from my own HR perspective. I wanted to help, and I found like I was walking this, threading the needle and walking this fine line all the time of, okay, if my real duty is to the company and protect them legally, I mean, most scenarios, these are not legal issues that we're talking about right now. Right? It's only if then there is retaliation or someone isn't promoted because they've talked about it and you know, they were a woman or a person of color and then they promote a white guy, right? So this is where all of the fallout is more of the concern. And and if you go about it, what I found, and I'm sure with your work too, from your client celebrations that I see, if you address it. Well, meaning, hey boss, we've had this conversation so many times. Like, I think I'm gonna go to HR because I just need some more information. And it seems like you don't have it. So giving you a heads up, I'm gonna go to HR and see what they say, and then I'll come back to you and we'll we'll figure out a plan from there. So it's more about engaging all your people around you within work as to be on your side and create like a team environment instead of me against HR against my boss. Got it. Okay. Yeah. Ultimately it's up to us, usually, the employee. And this is where it's frustrating and draining, and it shouldn't be this way. Like if you have a management that blows up, like that stinks. That means it's extra work for you to grow your career. But sometimes that's the place we find ourselves in.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

Got it. Okay, a couple of things. Number one, whether your manager advocates for you makes a huge difference, and that could be emblematic, that could be a symptom of the culture. And number two, it could create this misperception or misunderstanding that if you go to HR, like you're going to HR, like you know, you're rattling on somebody, you know, like that can create friction. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And the third thing I think, as you said, it's it's like it's not about you against them, right? I think that's that's like the biggest misconception that I think people like you and me would you know really teach self-advocacy and negotiation. We try to dispel, like it's not a fight. Don't make it a fight, don't make it a confrontation, don't make it a debate, don't make it an ultimatum. Yes, yes, right. I mean, I I I made this mistake when I was much younger, right? Because you're like, I'm supposed to stick up for myself. And if I stick up for myself, you know, like act like a dude.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Yeah, right, right. Yeah, that's yeah, those the those are the only only models we had at that time, right?

SPEAKER_02 24:01

Right. I had I had another negotiation trainer, also a woman, Catherine Valentine, and she told a story of how she negotiated during her NBA internship, you know, just straight out of a textbook, and then she got escorted out of the building. Yeah. And you know, it's it's no wonder. So what we do know from research is that there are more gender wise ways to approach self-advocacy, workplace negotiation. You know, like you said, it it really shouldn't be me against you. It's like, hey, but it's us against the problem, us, you know, against this shared goal that we're both we're all trying to achieve together.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Which I want to add here, Jamie, that I think, you know, in a perfect world, I think, right, I'm assuming a lot our client, our clients are in a similar space where they've had some level of success. Many of them are managers, right? And it becomes, it's even it's not just about negotiating for the pay, right? This is really about getting clear on your boundaries, managing your own energy. What are you saying yes to? Are you advocating for your team appropriately? Or are you always the one that says, oh, I'll take less and give this other team, right? So this shows up in so many ways that we have to manage our day-to-day. And typically I'm finding, right, by the time somebody's ready to ask for that raise, it's been that they've gone without for so long that it becomes even more emotional. And so we really have to unpack, okay, you know, where have you abandoned yourself? Where are their resentments? What's the one bad experience you've had in the past that's keeping you stuck here? But you know, how is this showing up in all the ways that either at home or at work that you're not really setting yourself up for success because you're letting that fear of consequence enter in? And because you know, ideally, if your team is successful, if you're meeting your goals, right, and if the company has a a pay program and paid philosophy that's somewhat put together, right, you will be rewarded. You can't expect to be promoted in two years if you meet X, Y, Z requirements. And that's what I hope we can all create if it's not being created now, right? Um if it doesn't already exist for the future to make it easier because it hasn't been instilled enough in our culture.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

Right. Like when we you and I first started more than a decade ago, I I I don't think Lean In by Cheryl Sandberg had been published yet.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

No, it was just the cusp. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Yeah. I think I I had just read Women Don't Ask, and it was it was a revelation for my life. That's where Sarah Lashiver and I forget the second author's name, it'll come to me at 3 a.m. today tomorrow. But they talk about the authors talk about the gender socialization, how it just as you said, it shows up in so many aspects of our lives. It's it starts as early as when we're really, really young, and we see fathers reach for their wallets and pay for things, and we associate men with money and getting paid or having financial resources, not women. And so, uh, yes, we we we started out a decade ago, we're like, come on, let's change this, and it hasn't changed as much. We know this to be true. We know that the pay gap still exists, the leadership gap still exists, and there's been some research that came out recently that women are opting out of the career path. I mean, I I I don't find that surprising because of you know multiple structural issues that we see in our society, in our economy, in our culture, you know. So I I I we briefly talked about this and I don't I don't see it as a personal failure at all. I don't I I think I it's definitely structural in my mind, but let me pause right here. Let me pause right here. What are your thoughts about you know that trend that's been reported? You know, there was a LinkedIn article that was going viral a couple weeks ago about how women are opting out of the career paths. And yeah, let me let me pause and ask what your thoughts are.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

Yes, I think it was, was it Lenin's annual article or the McKinsey? I know there was a few recent reports that were like missing data on some some really important structural issues that still exist that are preventing women from quote unquote moving up the ladder, right? And instead of really pointing out those structural issues, what I've heard is that you know, women are being blamed that we're losing motivation and that we're, you know, opting out is a failure and it's just because we can't handle it or whatever the case may be. And I don't believe, and I haven't seen that at all from my own personal life, but also in the work that I'm doing with my clients who are just deciding not to opt into a structure and a system that really doesn't serve anybody at the end of the day, Jamie. Like truly serves the elite few or right, the not definitely not the many. And so these conversations that I'm having with clients are like, what if? What if safety isn't really coming from your monthly, bi-weekly paycheck? What if safety and security can come from within you? What if your skills, your expertise, your passion, right, can be an economy all within its its own, right? What if you can start building and driving and using that energy that you've been putting into the system, right, in in a different way? And so I'm loving these conversations because I really do think, I mean, I think the fastest growing segment of people that are starting new businesses are black women. So the entrepreneur space is growing. I think, you know, funding for women is still an issue, but it's expanding a bit. And so more and more people are quote unquote opting out because we want to, and in some cases, we have to in order to be able to make it work. But we're doing so with like passion and a desire for impact and to maybe change the system or maybe just thrive differently in a different way and say, you know what, this is okay. I don't need the title or the office or whatever the benefits are that we were promised, right? In order to feel like I'm successful.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

Yeah, that makes me think of a couple of things. You know, black women were the largest demographic who lost jobs since the Trump administration, since they started cutting federal jobs and and also structural issues. We we don't have a standardized maternity leave policy in the US. And we're still I'm I'm I've entered paramenopause, and we there's so much there's such a big dearth of education and support around perimenopausal menopausal woman. And another thing I want to add is just what you said, right? What if we don't really need all this, you know, plugging into the system? And I and paradoxically, when my clients arrive at that point, they realize that I can actually become their source of power to ask even more boldly. Right? It's like this sense of detachment creates even more agents even more power to be like, oh, you know, the worst thing they can say is no, and I'm still gonna be okay, I'm still gonna figure things out. I'm still I'm still done some really, really hard things, and I still got resources in me. So that's amazing. And so tell me about women who feel like they have to burn it all down and start again.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Oh what you just described of like, you know what, I have nothing to lose here, I'm gonna go for it. That's that's the end point of where some of these women start with just like, oh no, there's no way I'm gonna even consider this this other way, this other path, because starting over feels exhausting and impossible. Number one. Starting over feels like I am going to risk everything I've just worked so hard to build. And there's no way, right? From our, let's just say 18 to 35, if you have hustled, if you have gone without, if you have overworked, if you have, you know, swallowed things that you, you know, that you just had to be. Metaphoric.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

Metaphorically.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

Yes. Oh, yes, metaphorically. If you just let things, you know, roll by and didn't speak up out of, you know, staying safe in some cases, then yeah, by the time you're 35, you're like, wow, I am not gonna go through all of that again in order to create success in a different way. And and so that's what we're talking about here, right? There's another way to create wealth, abundance, success, fulfillment that doesn't have to be the same way that you did it, that led to either burnout or self-abandonment or fear or feeling like you're risking everything.

SPEAKER_02 34:08

And so that didn't happen in a vacuum, that happened in a context of being undervalued or under consistently underappreciated or you know mixed mischaracterized, right? Because that's that's the experience that a lot of women and people of color, marginalized identities experience in the workplace. Yeah. And yes, I'm sure you have these stories too, but some of my most successful clients are people who are like, oh, I I can advocate for myself in the workplace, and I can take this courage and I could use it as a resource to something to start something for me or start something elsewhere, and that's even more invigorating, even more energizing.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

Yes, and I think what I love to do, I think what I'm able to help my clients do is actually paint the vision for what that can be and show them that it's possible. But many of them start, and and sometimes for myself too, it's like I can't start over. If I start saying this or doing this, it is gonna burn bridges. And you know, I think part of being a great coach is helping somebody acknowledge again the knowledge and feel what that brings up for them, but then also saying, but what if yeah, and what if those bridges weren't actually necessary in the first place?

SPEAKER_02 35:45

What if your capacity to build new bridges were never hampered?

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Yes, yeah, right, yeah, and it's it's letting go, it's like grieving the former versions of ourselves. And I, you know, I'm still going through this. It's like I'm further away from my corporate career now, but there's still a part of me that's like, you know, was attached to I the HR version of my success, right? And it's like, no, I can grieve, I can let that go. I can I can thank her and really start opening myself up to well, who am I becoming? Where am I going? Who do I want to be now? Like, what is this new vision and this dreaming piece? Like, when we're in it, when we're in survival mode, the dreaming feels unnecessary, like unimportant, no space for it, and even maybe again risky. And it's just like, oh no, I'm surviving. And that's what I mean about it. It feels very much like you have to torch the life you've built and start over instead of learning from it, healing, grieving, growing, and then creating a different path forward.

SPEAKER_02 36:51

Right, right. Humans dream. This is AI hallucinates. Humans dream. Right? It's a very human thing to do. And I think it's a very important skill. Perhaps now more than ever, when things feel kind of tough. Yes. That's a gross misunder, you know, understatement, but when things feel tough as it has in 2026, it's like, you know, our capacity to dream and hope and and turn that into action is is what's gonna help us move through this.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 37:33

Yeah, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

And I agree, and that's that's that's one of my gifts. I'm a Pisces, so I'm a I'm a dreamer by nature, and I'm a I'm a water sign, and I think that um like I if you think about the feedback that you've received over your career, yeah, whether it was quote unquote true or not. But I, you know, when I think about like my big ideas that I had an HR that were always said, oh no, not now, or you just need to you need to be more patient, or again, that's not the way we do things typically, right? Those are all the rubs or the the the feedback and the trouble that I had with trying to fit into the system ultimately has become what's led me to be the most creative in the gifts and offer in in terms of service, right, to my my business and for my clients. And so, you know, if you're listening and wondering, like, ugh, where do I belong or what do I want next, like really just get curious on the feedback that you've received, on what emotions have come up for you and as you're advocating throughout your career, because there's information there that you can leverage and feel grounded in. And that's where our power lives, right? We just want to take our agency back and advocate, ask, say no, whatever this bold big action is, you know, things might crumble, there might be big feelings temporarily, but it's all in, you know, in honor of rebuilding something even better.

SPEAKER_02 39:01

Yeah. Is there anything else I haven't yet asked that you want to make sure we do address?

SPEAKER_01 39:14

I think I just want to make a note specifically for managers. Because I think people leading people is a very, very difficult job. Just like there was no HR for HR. People managers are under serviced, under-resourced, and under pressure, right? And if you're listening to this, maybe you haven't advocated for yourself in a long time, and instead you've been advocating for your team. Maybe again, you're you have that unique position of managing up, managing under, right? Managing across and over. So it I think it's a you know, lean on your HR folks, push on your HR folks. If you're in that position of management, of leadership, ask more, demand more. I mean, AI is changing the workplace. HR is one of those big spaces that needs to, it's the needs to be reformed, reframed, re-restructured in in service of the business and in service of people. And I think I've seen a lot of managers not leverage HR or not push on them in the ways to be their support, to be able to have these hard conversations with employees. Even if you're giving hard, bad news, like I'm sorry, I can't really can't, an explanation of why or the information that you do have, it goes a long way with your team in terms of trust and transparency and gratitude. Because even, you know, even though people might be quote unquote afraid to look in the market right now, eventually that will that will change. And if you're the manager that isn't giving people, you know, the trust they deserve, then you're only hurting yourself in the end. So it's not easy, but do the best you can to enter into these risky, hard conversations as a people leader and ask for the support you need.

SPEAKER_02 41:03

Ask for the support you need. Great. Ashley, thank you so much for your time and your wisdom and your insights. Where can people go to learn more about you and watch that really cool TEDx talk?

SPEAKER_01 41:14

Yes, head on over to my website, ashleyporay.com. And yeah, you can check out my TEDx talk, learn more about my programs, the Activator, or yeah, connect with me there. So would love to hear from you. Thank you, Jamie, so much for having me on Risky Conversations. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 41:37

Thank you for joining me today on Risky Conversations. Remember, everything worthwhile is on the other side of a risky conversation. And when done well, your self-advocacy becomes an act of service. If you're ready to de-risk your own career evolution, I invite you to book a free hour-long consultation at jamwecoach.com slash apply. J A N I E L E E C O A C H dot com slash apply. We'll map out your custom blueprint to confidence and get you on the path to being better paid on your own terms. Let's make your next conversation the one that changes everything.