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Welcome to Risky Conversations. And why risky conversations? Because everything that's worthwhile is on the other side of a risky conversation. My name is Jamie Lee. 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. How? By blending evidence-based neuroscience with proven communication frameworks. And speaking of communication, today I want to talk to you about a particular style of communication that's really, really effective for risky conversations. And that style is called gracefully assertive. I first learned about this concept of gracefully assertive from my peer coach, Shade Curry. Shade is an exceptionally great coach who specializes in helping smart divorced women move forward with their lives and get back to dating. And Shade and I were once in the same mastermind with other peer coaches, and she supported me and I supported her. We would coach each other because we are all coaches. And so she told me about Gracefully Assertive when she was serving as my sounding board for a webinar that I was presenting on how to negotiate for a pay raise and actually get it. And when she told me this, you know, that this is something that she teaches her clients, I immediately thought this is so good. And it's also exactly what I needed to hear and what my clients need to hear. And these are the people who are navigating office politics, who are feeling underestimated by people around them, but they still have a mission to grow and expand. And you know that feeling when you hear something articulated in a way you've been searching for, unconsciously waiting for a long time, because you've been wanting to do something very, very specific, very particular in a way that isn't widely known, widely discussed, widely accepted. And when you finally hear it, you're like, oh, there's a sigh of relief, a tangible sense of, yeah, that's it, that's right. And how amazing is it somebody came up with a description that captures this very specific experience? And that's how I felt when I heard gracefully assertive. And here's the thing about a description like that, though. Every description is just a handle. And what's on the other end of that handle is a very unique combination of behaviors, approaches, mindset. And it's different for every person who picks it up. So let me share with you what gracefully assertive means for me. So, first of all, let's talk about what it is not. It is not a script, it's not a set of magic words you memorize before a hard meeting. It's not a list of behaviors like sit like this, phrase it like that, smile here, wear red lipstick. And I added the red lipstick bit because I read an article some time ago about how women should wear what rare wear red lipstick because it helps them seem a certain way in the workplace. I'm like, oh wow, that that is really bonkers. So gracefully assertive is not that. It is definitely not a nicer name for tone policing or policing women, you know, to behave and edit themselves. Gracefully assertive to me is a mindset, it's a way of relating to yourself, then to other people, so you can communicate with them in a calm, grounded, assertive way. Gracefully assertive is grounded in three things. Number one, your agency, number two, your authority, number three, your integrity. Gracefully assertive. So let me take the two words separately because both of them get easily misunderstood, easily misapplied, especially when it comes to women. Most of the advice women get treats grace as a tax. Here's what I mean by that. You may be assertive if you pay the grace tax. Soften it, smile more, make sure nobody's uncomfortable. Grace is the price of admission for having a need and a voice. That's not what I'm talking about. You're graceful because you recognize that you don't need to control other people. You don't need other people to be a certain way in order for you to be okay. There's self-sufficiency. That's the ground, that's that's the root of gracefully assertive. You're graceful because you're at ease in your own skin. And from that place, relating to other people with grace. And by grace, I mean mercy, spaciousness, a kind of genuine appreciation that starts with yourself and expands and gets exuded to other people. This graceful is a real win-win. It's not a performance, it is not a tactic. You feel good being graceful. I mean, I do. I like it when I'm graceful with myself. And when I'm graceful with myself, I can be graceful with other people. It's a choice, not an obligation. Ergo, your autonomy, your agency, your sovereignty. And a couple episodes ago of Risky Conversations, I talked about sovereignty. Yeah. Having having your own back, voting for your own self, sovereignty. That's when you make the best career decisions. And that's also when you do your best, when you assert your needs, whether that is at work or in life. So let me say that one more time because this is the whole difference. Graceful is a choice, not a have to, not an obligation. If you're being graceful because you're afraid what might happen if you're not, that's not grace. That's people pleasing. And that's managing all someone else's comfort, which you cannot ever actually do. So it's actually like an effort to control something that you cannot control that leads to a sense of disempowerment. And I know we we get conditioned into that sort of thinking that somehow if I were nicer, if I were softer, they'll feel better, but they don't. But are you at ease? Are you are you at ease under your own skin?

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Right?

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Are you coming from this place of I'm grounded in my autonomy and agency, and I don't need you to be a certain way, but I'm still gonna say what I need. Now that's true power. Assertive. Assertive means stating your needs, stating your wants cleanly, simply, straightforwardly, without hesitation, without three different qualifiers and apologies, right? It's just going straight to the point. Yeah. And here's why being assertive in this way, in this graceful way, is an act of service. Because when you're not assertive and tell people what you want to need without needing them to, you know, feel a certain way and allowing them to say yes or no to your request, right? How generous of you, right? You know that if they say yes, that's great. If they say no, you have options and you can take other options, right? You're assertive, but you're also grounded in your agency, autonomy, sovereignty. I know I said that about twice. So when you're assertive in this way, it's an act of service because people don't read your minds. We would love it if our bosses, our beloved, our spouses, our romantic partners, our you know, work colleagues can just just, you know, when you say, Oh, you know what I mean? You just you just wish they could just read your mind. I know I've done that. I know I do it still. But people don't. And so when you can articulate exactly what you you would need, you know, in this clean and simple, straightforward way, you do them a service. You take that cognitive load, all of that extra effort they have to make, you're like, no, I did it for you, I did it for us. Here's what I need, right? It's not about being aggressive, which has a tinge of violence into it, in it. It's not about being needy, it's about hey, plain and simple, this is what I need. Okay. So when you put it together in this way, you make it easier for people to support you, to be your ally, to be your partner, to be your colleague, to be your romantic partner. And when you make it easier for them, you know, you make it easier for the two of you to really get to what this is all, what the relationship is really about, whether that is professional value or just more love. So put them together gracefully and assertive. I mean you're grounded in your agency at ease enough that you don't need to control anybody, but you're clear enough to make confident requests. And you got your own back, right? It's okay for them to say no, you got your own back because you know what you're capable of, right? When you are well resourced, you're capable of adding more value, you're capable of becoming even more present, more loving. So I'm sort of mixing the situational context in this podcast, and that's because again, Shade, who is a dating coach for divorced women, shared Gracefully Assertive with me. And because Shade and I are going to have this conversation about Gracefully Assertive live together, and you're invited. Why? Because Gracefully Assertive, again, it's just a handle, and how people, you know, activate that handle is very personal, it's very unique. And if you want to apply this concept to your unique situation and you're like, wait, I want to talk to an executive coach about that, wait, I want to talk to a dating coach about that, wait, I want to, I want to get some expert, you know, perspectives on this. Come join us live next Thursday, August 20th, 2 p.m. Eastern. And it's a Zoom event. There's no cost to this. The registration link is in the show notes. And here's what we're gonna do, and here's what we're not gonna do. This is gonna be a live podcast style conversation between me and Shade. And, you know, Shade is coming from relationships, divorce, dating, family, you know, and I'm coming at from career perspective, negotiations, promotions, office politics, etc. And she and I are both going to share real client stories from both worlds. What women actually said, what actually happened next. And here's what this isn't: this is not a workshop where we hinge the one perfect script. We don't have one, no one does. And AI will pretend it does. And I will tell you what I'm most looking forward to. Shanet and I are really gonna, you know, spend some time asking the hard questions about gracefully assertive, some edgy questions, yeah. And we're going to open the floor for questions from you, and we're going to have an active chat. We're going to talk about when you're told too much, which many of us have, both Shade and I, we're both women of color, and we've both been told that we're too much, too emotional, too intense, too whatever, right? And if you've been told that, then how do you do gracefully assertive? We're we're going to we're going to really, you know, you know, unpack this together. And you are invited. I want to hear what you have to say about being gracefully assertive, even when you're told too much. So I'm going to close with something that happens to be over and over again, like almost every other week, this happens to me. And it's the reason why I reached out to Shade in the first place to do this collaboration, gracefully assertive event. I offer a free hour-long consultation for executive coaching. My executive coaching package is six months long. So, anyone who wants to be supported for six months, you get one free hour and we talk about it. We talk about what you want, and then I offer a custom plan, and then the client decides whether you know she wants to make that commitment. So the link to that consultation is also in the show notes. But here's the point at the end of the hour, after I've presented the custom bespoke coaching plan to my client, and I ask them, hey, what do you suppose would be the impact of doing this work? They almost always say this one thing. They almost always tell me that the skills are going to spill over at home with their loved ones. And I'm not asking them to say that, right? We just spent an hour on their promotion case, on their leadership confidence, and they start already feeling it that the thing they're about to practice with their colleagues, with their direct reports, with their manager is the same thing they've been avoiding with their partner, with their ex, which is gracefully assertive. So that's the ripple, right? You learn gracefully assertive, you take that handle, you apply it to your own life, and you start sho you start seeing how it shows up, not just in the boardroom, but also in the bedroom, in the kitchen, right? Runs both ways, yeah. And why? Because gracefully assertive is really about autonomy and sovereignty, and that power, you take it with you everywhere in your life. So, again, I welcome you to the free live podcast taping style conversation we're doing on Thursday, August 20th, 2 p.m. Eastern. The link is in the show notes, and I'll also link the link to my free consultation as well as the webinar that I mentioned. Um, and I will talk to you soon. If you've ever been, if you've ever been told you're too much or worry that you're not enough, this is the room where all of you is welcome. That free Zoom that we're doing on August 20th. And again, I'm Jamie Lee. This has been Risky Conversations because everything worthwhile is on the other side of a risky conversation. Talk to you soon.