SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Risky Conversations. Why? Because everything worthwhile is on the other side of a risky conversation. I'm Jamie Lee, an executive coach for smart women who don't like office politics. I help them get promoted, get better paid without throwing anyone under the bus. This episode kicks off a two-part series, gracefully assertive for women who've been told they're too much. In this part, divorce coach Shade Curry and I dig into what happens when you've evolved and the people around you haven't. If the people who liked the old you are making your evolution feel like a problem, this episode is for you. Welcome to Gracefully Assertive with my special co-host, Shade Curry. And welcome everyone who's already joined and will be watching the replay. And so we kicked it off with asking people who have already arrived into the Zoom room. Let us know where you're joining us from, and also tell us about what kind of too much you've been told you are. And so I see in the chat here, Caroline's been called too opinionated. Josette has been told not assertive enough, too quiet. I've also been told I'm too quiet. But later on, then I got told I'm too loud. So like I can't keep these guys happy. Yes, they were all men. They just happen to be all men who said these comments to me. And Janet has been told that she's too talented. And Shade was just sharing with us some of her experiences. Shade, would you mind reintroducing yourself one more time just for the recording?

SPEAKER_01 1:41

No, absolutely for the recording and the new people in the room. I'm Shade Curry. I am a coach for divorced women. I help them with divorce, life after a divorce, dating after a divorce. I have been told I am too opinionated, too aggressive, too intimidating. Being told I've been told I'm too quiet, but just except when one of my ex-husbands, when I decide to emotionally detach and be like, you know what? I'm not having this argument with you. I don't think he likes that.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

And Robin says, too aggressive, sometimes not aggressive enough. And here's my follow-up question. Who gets to decide whether a woman is too much? Who gets to decide that? I'd love to see your comments in the chat. And Shade, of course, I want to hear your thoughts. Shade and I are going to ask questions of each other. And here's why. Because Shade first taught me the concept of gracefully assertive. And as soon as I heard it, I'm like, this is genius. First of all, I'm going to borrow it and start sharing it with everyone I know. But also, we believe in giving credit to where it's due, properly crediting the source of the wisdom we gained. I'm so happy that Shade is here to tell us more about her definition, her experience of gracefully assertive. We're going to ask questions to each other. And then we'll be engaging the chat. We'll also open the floor up for QA spot coaching if it makes sense. And we just want to make this a safe space for women who've been told they're too much or too little, too quiet, too loud, whatever. Yeah, so that we can be more grounded in our power. So sh with that said, first of all, would you like to comment on who gets to say whether a woman is too much? Would you like to comment on that before I ask you the questions that you say something about that?

SPEAKER_01 3:48

I think, and unfortunately, this is just the state of the planet, it's not culture specific, is that the fact that anyone gets to see what women, I think, is the problem. The fact that we're literally being told who we are. And you see this in the patriarchy, society, and men, in a sense, name what women are. You also see play out in all of the other isms, colonialism, etc., where the power in the social hierarchy, whoever society considers higher in the social hierarchy, gets to tell everybody else who they are. Like even recently, I've been listening to some material on the way we treat children and the fact that parents can also feel like they have the right to tell a child who they are. But we don't. Every human is their own person, and they are the only voice on who they are. Now, of course, we gotta set boundaries, we've got society all rules, but who you are as a person is for you to say. But we live in a world where there are hierarchies, and I think for some reason we've all signed on to live in these hierarchies, and you're going to find that people will try to tell you who you are. And I think the fight and the work is to reclaim our own personal narrative, right? We claim our autonomy. So there's some people who have just never fit in, right? In a sense, if you've never fit in, then it can be a gift. It's a gift and a curse. It's a gift in the sense that you get to hold on to your autonomy a little bit longer than most people do, and it's a curse because there's just always friction.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

So those are the two sides of that coin. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. And you're in agreement with Robin, who says, I believe it's me. Who gets to decide whether a woman is whatever? Yeah. And I would add, I agree with everything that you just shared, but I also think sometimes we think we are something, but even that is just a distortion or a convenient deletion or a generalization because we're like what seven, eight trillion cells living, somehow orchestrating this life experience. And sometimes who we think we are is based on the memory, and sometimes who we think we are is based on a perception, and the memory and perception we turn we it turns out, according to neuroscientists, is just constantly changing, and we also create it.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Yeah, so yeah, so we've internalized the hierarchy, and so we we actually do think we are what the hierarchy has told us, and we'll fight for it, we'll fight for our own limitations sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Okay, thank you for that. Here's a question for the divorce and dating coach, which Shade is, and she's an expert in relationships, and there's this worry that if I were to be assertive, even if it's graceful, that somehow it's gonna kill the spark. You know what I mean? And if you spell out exactly what you want, we talked about assertive being like you just tell them what you want cleanly and simply. If you were to do that, can it kind of kill the mystery and the sexiness? What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Oh, yeah, five questions in one. Okay. We're trying to go with through all the sites. So I remember I worked with this client who she had probably been dating before she came to work with me. And her profile, she'd been told, you know what, just ask for what you want and don't settle, get exactly what you want. So her profile was a list of what she wanted in a partner, and she was like, I want this, this, this, this. And if you're not these things, please don't message me. And so did anyone message her? Not the right people. Okay. Oh, the right people want, and that's the interesting thing about simply asking for what you want or being direct. Again, we have to establish the frame of reference, first of all. So that's one of the first things you gotta do. What are these definitions? Well, no one does too direct me. What is asking for what you want me? So in this situation, she was asking for what she wanted, but she wasn't reading the room. She wasn't coming, first of all, with an understanding of the lens. Because in some situations, what you're doing when you are too direct like that in dating is you're simply handing a man the answers to the exam. So for the manipulative man, now he just knows what to use to trick you. So he does not pretend to be all those things for as long as he needs to get what he wants, whatever the problem is. And for the men who aren't those things but think they are, again, not effective. So there is a certain, which is why we use the word term gracefully assertive, it's like this slippery theme where it's like you're gonna be like a ninja. First thing you want to do is let's read the room. I'm not reading the room in terms of I'm doing what I'm doing to please the other people. It's that I am stepping in with an understanding of what's happening so that I can get what I so my simple answer for the basic question of can you scare away someone by being too direct. The answer is no, you can't scare away the right person. However, you can play the game wrong if you're too direct where that's not the tool needed. So I think of relationships I'm like, you're building this masterpiece. And the very best artists have 22, 50 different size of paintbrushes. You've got to have the right paintbrush for the right texture that you want to put on the canvas. You've got to have all the tools and you've got to know how to use them. And so when you are going into dating, that's the fast forward for those who are thinking about that. The first step is to know what you want, to be willing to not settle for what you want. And then to know how to recognize what you want. A lot of people are saying, hey, I'm just gonna be direct about what I want, expecting the other person to show up as what they want. But that's not where the work is. The work is, first of all, you know what you want. You're really clear on that. Women tell me all the time, I know who I am and what I want. They're like, Well, I lost myself. I haven't done my hobbies in the last. And this is in a divorce context. You know, I haven't done my hobbies in the last 10 years. And I'm like, well, let's let's bring back who you really are. So knowing who you are, knowing what you really want, not being unwilling to settle for anything less than that. So that's the foundation. Then the second layer is can you recognize what you want when you see it? Because if you can, you don't even need to say a word. You don't need to go into the day saying this is what I want, because just through the communication, through the interaction, you'll know whether that person is what you want or not what you want. Again, we're taking that radical responsibility to be like, I know what I want, but I am the one who's implementing what I want. So you can't really scare away the right person because the right person shows up as what you want. What typically happens is they're not showing, they're not what we want. They don't have the capacity to be what we want. But we go in there and say, Well, I know you didn't walk me to my car yesterday, but I want to teach you how to walk a woman to the car so you can walk me to my car for the rest of my life. No, if you didn't walk you to your car on the first night, and you want a man who walks you to your car, he's not the one. And that was a long answer, but I was trying to cram a lot of nuances. Yeah, you answered the five questions in that. Okay. So, Jamie, what about at work? Like, yeah, does that can that backfinder work if a woman is too direct at work or if a woman just asks for what she wants at work?

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Yes. In fact, the short answer is yes. And I think exactly for similar principles, right? Not the similar example, but the similar principle that you just applied is do you know what you want? But do you also, are you clear with yourself who you are? And do you have your own back? And I think the through line to the story that you just shared is do you have the common language? Is there, what do they call it, shared lingua franca, right? Shared language. So you know that you're coming from shared understanding, common ground, right? Because if that client you just referenced, if she were able to articulate lived examples of things that she would like to see that she would recognize as the right person, and she told a story about what she's looking to recognize instead of making this itemized list, she could have had a different experience. And I have heard, and here's here's the professional corollary. I have read an article some years back about this professor. She was like negotiating a new job offer, and she wrote a detailed itemized list of everything that she wanted in this offer. And she didn't first engage in, hey, is this the right time? Is this the right process? She just boom, here is everything I want. I want it. And then the offer got rescinded. And why is that? Because it's because gracefully assertive, just as you shared, is like you have to be mindful. There is a shared understanding, common ground, and usually an understanding of an appropriate process if it exists, and if not, like being willing to co-create one. I think that's that's what makes the gracefully assertive different from too direct. Give me all everything I want now, otherwise, don't even talk to me. The person, the professor who sent that email with the itemized list, she probably wasn't thinking that way, but it probably landed that way, which is unfortunate.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Right? Yeah, yeah. Okay. I can totally see that. Again, going back to reading the rule, is this the way that the person you're working with needs to hear the information? The caveat to that is that there are some people, no matter how you frame the conversation, they're going to there's already been a decision made, but it also still goes back to reading the rule because I think that information can be available to us if we're looking for it.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Yes, reading the room is very important. And I think part of reading the room is getting curious about whether there is a process because that's part of reading the room. Okay, that's how the room is structured. There's a process. Yes, yes. Yeah, excellent. Shani, would you like to ask me a question?

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Yes. So next question is what are people who liked you better when you were accommodating than in journeys as we've women have grown, it's like, hey, wait a second, I don't have to put up with this, or I don't have people please. And so as women are growing and they're moving out of people pleasing and accommodating, what happens when you still have to interact with people? Have that. Who oh, sorry. Am I asking the right question? Oh no, sorry, I went too far down. Okay, it's all right, it's all right. All right, I scroll too low. Okay, is gracefulness assertiveness just one more thing that women have to get right? When a man says what he needs because why do women have to have grace on top of that?

SPEAKER_00 15:23

So it's an excellent question, and here's my take on it. The graceful and gracefully assertive for me is not a performance, it's not something that you do for the sake and the comfort of other people around you. It's something that you do with and for yourself, and here's why. Just as Sharay said, we live in the context of social hierarchies. We've all been taught you obey the teacher or you listen to the person in charge and you fall in line, right? And we inadvertently internalize a lot of the negative messaging directed toward women. And whether it's a man, a woman, or non-binary person, we've all experienced in this room, we've all experienced conflicting opinions about who we are and how we should be in all sorts of directions. And that creates internal strife, that creates stress, that create that is what leads to imposter syndrome, that's what leads to self-doubt. What if I'm not enough, right? And so grace and gracefully assertive is number one, acknowledging all of that is happening. This is the reason why you experience that doubt and the imposter syndrome and wondering if you're not good enough, not prepared enough, right? And so the grace is something that you extend towards yourself first so that you could create just a little bit of breathing room from the internalized messages that have you feeling small and from everything else that you are. Because no one, just as we established, no one is one adjective, no one is two whatever. We're like, I don't know, our experiences, when you think about it, it goes on and on. Our potential. We have like trillions and trillions of cells and neurons, 100 billion neuronal neuronal connections. We're so much more than that. So for me, gracefully is about extending that grace towards ourselves. And that's the work that I really focus on in my coaching with my clients. And then when they can really internalize that, this new way of being with themselves, then asking for the things that they want at work just becomes easier. And I'll tell more stories about that later on. But I'll pause right there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

I definitely agree. It's I'm like, I agree with the question, the framing of the question that yeah, it is unfair that women have to think about being gracefully assertive or even have to think about things like this at all. I think that's a lot of mental and emotional labor that women carry both in relationships and at work. Men really have to think about whether they're being assertive or not. They just get to be. So I think that it is unfair. It is a price that is paid. At this point, it's almost, oh, that is it's like the weather. We want to do the work to roll that, but you're also going to work tomorrow. We want to balance it where women are not seen as like ungraceful or aggressive when they're being assertive. But that is still the case as of today. It is the case today. So if you are in the workplace or you're in the business world today, you have to navigate the presence of that inequality, right? It's that we're not accepting the inequality. We're just acknowledging that it exists. And on the one hand, you're fighting to roll that back, whether through laws or education, things like that. But also, you want to negotiate your promotion at the end of this year while the laws are still unfair, and while the political climate is unfair, and while your corporate climate might be unfair. And so I like to acknowledge the unfairness of it and then encourage my clients to make a choice. You actually get to choose. So when women are dating and they're like, well, the men are doing that, you know, you can be single, right? That's not a bad thing. You know what? And you can choose not to deal with the unfairness and the wrongness. But if you choose to deal with it and you choose to engage and you choose to make money and pay your bills, because we don't have to, right? And go live in the live in the Grand Canyon if you want. Some people have decided, you know what? I'm going to the Grand Canyon, I'm not gonna pay my bills. I'm not gonna have any bills. That is an option, but most sane people are not making that option. We want to pay our bills, we want to have so we're choosing to go to work. And I think a lot of women feel like they're not choosing, and I think that's where the problem comes in. We feel like we're being forced to go to work, forced to make money, and forced to date, and forced to have partners. And I know that can be a little radical, but that's my take on it. We don't actually have to do any of it. So when we choose to, we can say, okay, I am choosing to navigate this political climate in my appropriate job, and I want the promotion. So I'm going to ask for what I want, but I'm also going to take the time to kind of go through the process, Jamie, that you presented to say, how can I navigate this unfair situation and still get one? And that's when you can get creative, when all the drama's gone, when you're no longer up in arms about it in the moment, the assertiveness doesn't come with reactivity. Because when you're still processing the unfairness, you're still angry about it, you haven't acknowledged that yes, it's unfair, but I want this, the reactivity comes. And so again, I acknowledge the burden, that emotional burden that women face. The fact that women have to figure out how do I go on this date and not get murdered at the end of the day, that's a whole burden. But if you're choosing to date, then we gotta take the time out to make sure that you're gonna be safe on that date. This is why women have to add grace on time. I think that's the that's my answer to that question.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Thank you for that. Thank you. And Sade, so this is the question I wanted to ask you, right? Yes. Being gracefully assertive, making sure you're safe, choosing to navigate, knowing that the system, the structure is not always fair, it's not always right, but also therefore choosing to not. Be a doormat, right? Choosing to not always accommodate and please other people and put yourself last, right? And so choosing to create change in how you show up, how you engage, how you relate, how you communicate with other people. That's what I'm hearing, yeah. And so the question is what if you're like, I still have feelings for the people who liked me when I didn't make this conscious choice, when I didn't choose to navigate these unfair systems because I don't have to, but I choose. What if, take for example, you're interacting with an ex and you had a child with them, and you still have to engage with them, right? This is an experience that a lot of women, I'm sure you have direct experience, right? People knew you before you were conscious of this, before you made that conscious choice. What do you suggest for people like that?

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Yeah, so I have I've had many clients who've had exes who would manipulate shared parenting time, pickups, drop-offs, changing dates and times. Yeah. Generally creating chaos. Yeah. And I actually told the client this recently. I said, you know, you empowered him to behave in this way by accommodating this for the last 15 years.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

And that's gonna be so hard to hear.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

That's gonna be so hard to hear. Listen, my clients hate me. What? Hate me in that sense. It's just that this is what divorce looks like, right? You've been living this idyllic, what you thought was idyllic life for the last 10 years. Everything was fine in your mind because you were enabling your ex. And then suddenly everything goes complete for whatever reason. He cheats, he leaves, you leave, whatever. So now the woman has been in the habit of enabling and accommodating and minimizing the man's harm for 10 years. She is a pro at it. She was practicing. The man is accustomed to receiving all of this entitlement for the last 10, 15, in my case, 17 to 20 years really was my case. We were good at that dance. And now you're in the middle of a divorce, and the woman now has to set some boundaries or like she's making changes, or she has a coach like me, and I'm like, hey, he did this. You need to write a note to your attorney and have your attorney and her mind is just leaking out her left ear because she's never done anything like that. So of course the anxiety and the overwhelm, the fear of the consequences, the fear of getting into trouble. So I'm asking them to do things that they have suppressed for decades that are difficult to do, even if you're someone who's practiced in it. I'm asking them to do the hardest things, the things they have avoided doing for decades, and I'm asking them to do them now. So when I say my clients hate me, that's what I mean. It's in order to win your case, in order to get what you want, you're gonna have to do the thing you've been avoiding doing for so long. It's a lot, it's a lot. But that wasn't the answer to the question. In that situation, what I tell my clients is that we do a separation between them and the other person. So the big shift is individuation, is breaking the enmeshment. Like there's you and there's this other person. And we go over and over again so that they can see that they're not responsible for that person's thoughts, feelings, and actions. Once they can see that, well, he's gonna get mad if I do this thing that is the right thing. Yeah, why do you care if he gets mad? He's uh he's an adult over there feeling his emotions, let him handle his anger. Or I don't want to be mean, I don't want to file a contempt thing because I don't want to be mean to him. Is this the right thing for you? Is this the right thing for your child? So if they can create that space, or he's not cooperating, they think that they're doing something, they need to do something in a certain way to get him to cooperate. No, that's not your job. He's an adult, and you're over here trying to get the right thing for you and your children. So the goal for the woman in relationships is to see, and I think society, we we create this image of relationships at the woman. The we is one human being, the family is a we, there's one human. No, there's separate humans in there. You're just all in the same house or you're all in the same car or whatever. There is no actual human we. So seeing that you're different from your ex or you're different from this person that you're dating can really help to say, okay, I don't need I could I don't need to accommodate to help that other person. I can just interact with them based on my values, my discernment, what I know is right and what I am asking for. And toss it over the fence and let them figure out what to do with the ball when it's on their side of the fence.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

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 jmecoach.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. Talk soon.