Just doing the hard work doesn't get you promoted.
Being seen does. And if you're thinking this
year, Oh my God, I did everything I could but it still
didn't translate, then this episode is for you.
One of our biggest takeaways this year is that talent doesn't
necessarily equal success. It's whether that talent turns
into credibility, influence and revenue, especially heading into
a new year. Today we're doing our career
reset episode, and it's all built on this one fundamental
idea, the invisible game of power at work.
First you're going to learn how to control the signal that
you're sending. Then we're going to convert that
into influence that people actually.
Act on. OK, so Part 1 is how your
leaders or your team perceive you, and Part 2 is how you
leverage that to get it done. Got it.
Let's get into it. Welcome back to Tiger Sisters.
I'm Cherie. And I'm Jean, today is a start
the year strong episode and we're packaging it differently
on purpose. January is when teams reset
expectations, scope gets assigned and promotions are
decided way earlier than you think.
A lot of us had the same experience this year.
You were reliable, you delivered, you did the work, but
somehow the output didn't match the recognition.
That gap is what we're calling the invisible game.
It's basically how competence becomes credibility, credibility
becomes influence, and then influence becomes success and
compensation. So we're bringing you two of our
most useful conversations with tons of examples to create 1
Playbook. First, you're going to hear from
Lorraine Kaylee. She is an executive presence and
workplace visibility expert, and she's also a best selling author
and keynote speaker. And she's going to breakdown for
us how leaders are perceived in meetings, on Zoom and in.
High stakes rooms. And then next you'll hear from
Leah Wire. She's the president of
Entertainment, Beauty and Style at People, Inc, which is the
largest digital print publisher in America, which includes
People magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Brides in Style and many
more. She gives us the influence
layer, how to navigate politics, build real allies at work, and
how to make your work land without feeling performative.
Think of this as perception plus influence.
Equals power. OK, let's get started with Part
1 with Lorraine. Today we're talking to Lorraine
Kaylee, LinkedIn, top voice and author of Unforgettable
Presence. We're breaking down the unspoken
rules of the workplace on how to get seen, heard, and promoted.
Welcome to the Tiger Sisters podcast, Lorraine.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm really.
Excited to be here. We're so excited that you're
here it. Happened.
Yay. Could you please introduce
yourself to the audience in your own words?
Of course. Well, I'm Lorraine.
I spent the first decade of my career leading editorial teams
at various tech companies, most notably at LinkedIn, where I met
you, Cherie. And now I am a keynote speaker,
course creator and author, as you mentioned, and also a
content creator. Yay.
So excited. Get to dive right in, yeah?
Same here. OK Lorraine, in your book you
say that first impressions form in as little as 110th of a
second. So what are people getting wrong
in that 110th of a second? A lot of people are not thinking
about the non verbal. I think when we are about to
meet someone, we think about our introduction.
We know what we want to say. We're not thinking about what
our body is saying. So for example, there's the
obvious things like you need to have good posture, you want to
make eye contact, not have the dead fish handshake, right?
So have a solid handshake. And then there's other things as
well that we don't think about. So let's say I am doing a job
interview, right? And Sheree, you're going to
interview me. You come out of your office to
meet me and I'm on my cell phone.
That small moment even that takes me to look up, right?
Like you're already informing an impression, right?
I'm I'm looking distracted or phones signal distraction
usually. So something as simple as that
could also be negatively impacting our impression, even
like before we've actually said anything.
And there's other examples too, where perhaps we're on a video
call, and I don't know if this has happened to you, but I will
get on a call with someone and they will be like, oh, just one
second. I just have to like send off
this message really quick. I mean, that's a little bit
longer than 110th of a second, but that's still setting up the
call. Not on the best footing.
I don't have a good impression. I don't have a good feeling.
The initial reaction is, oh, you're not paying attention to
me. Like you're not really present.
Yeah, that actually reminds me, I think first impressions
obviously in the professional setting, how you show up, how
you bring yourself like what you're doing, the distraction
part. But I also remember listening to
a podcast and is talking about first impressions in a romantic
setting. And apparently on dates, like if
your person who you're going on a date with goes to the
bathroom, you're not supposed to look at your phone while they're
away. Because if they come back and
you're looking at your phone, it signals, like, distraction or
perhaps that you're not interested on, like, a very,
like, subconscious level, but also in a romantic place.
Like, you're not supposed to seem distracted.
That's what the podcast was saying, yeah.
I thought you were gonna take it in a different direction.
I thought you were gonna say that like when you go on a first
date, you kind of know in the 1st 110th of a second if it's a
no or is that just me? I think that just maybe.
For a few minutes, yeah, yeah. No, I feel like, you know, like
instinctually in the first second if it's a no, you don't
know if it's surely. Yes, yeah.
Vibes and also non verbal cues like right?
Yes, yes, totally. Yeah.
Like if someone has like bad posture when I first meet that I
don't like a date I'm like. No confidence signals no
confidence, Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, Exactly, Exactly.
Yeah. So whether it's like a
professional setting, romantic setting, like it applies.
Yeah. Yeah.
Continuing on first impressions, you call out RBF, which you call
resting business phase. I think other people might know
it for something else similar, but it's a major career killer
that could be silent. What's the fix?
For RBF, especially in the workplace.
And and describe it what it is first.
Yeah, resting business phase, we've all seen it.
Sometimes maybe we're the ones doing it right.
We're on a call and what happens is especially virtually, we're
usually at home, we're relaxed. So we get on a call and we're
just not thinking about our facial expressions.
So we're either neutral or looking kind of angry.
And on video, those feelings are going to be even more magnified,
right. And So what RBF is or the
antidote to RBF, it sounds really obvious, but first is to
smile and be aware of your facial expressions.
I think just so many of us just aren't thinking about it because
again, we're at home, we're comfortable.
And so smiling is, is an important one.
And then there's also, again, nonverbal cues and affirmations
that you can use on video. So nodding your head slowly,
maybe raising your eyebrows if someone said something
interesting, and again, smiling, right, if what you're what
they're saying resonates with you.
So there's those little things that you can do to break free
from that RBF and show that you're engaged.
Because especially if we're virtual, we only have so many
touch points in a given day. And so we want to make sure that
our video presence is allowing us to show up in the way that we
want to show up. I can't help but feel like this
advice is especially pertinent for women because that's sort of
what is expected of you in society to kind of like exude.
I think we'll get into this later, but like exude a certain
level of warmth. And I think a lot of women
naturally or are like societally trained to do that in person.
So like if you're not conveying that on Zoom or it's harder to
convey that on Zoom, then people are sort of like perceived that
negatively versus a man. I think men are, you know, often
times expected to be more stoic societally.
So like, it's not as much of A like a Ding against you as a
man, but I totally see how that's very applicable as a
woman. Again, something to be aware of,
like we don't want to go so over the top and do something that
feels unnatural. But again, it's perception is
reality, right? So how how are people perceiving
you? And you want to be aware of that
and make adjustments accordingly, Yeah.
It's something within your control that you can try and
change, yeah. Yeah, I love that.
I'm like, on one hand, it's so exhausting to like, it's like
so, so exhausting. But then on the other hand, I'm
like, well, I would rather know. Like I'd rather be aware and
have this information and then be able to like affect how
people perceive me. I don't wanna just have no
self-awareness. Right.
I think over time too, it will become more natural.
Like, of course, if your natural face is always kind of angry,
like going against that, it's gonna take a little time to get
used to. But I think like any skill, like
you practice and it'll become more natural.
Yeah, OK. OK, so Lorraine, you give
scripts in your book to talk about how to talk about your
accomplishments without seeming like you're bragging.
So how do you do this? The first thing to keep in mind
is that we need to be vocal about our work.
I think so many of us, and myself included, you think hard
work speaks for itself, but if no one knows about it, what's it
all for, right? So we need to know first and
foremost that we do in fact have to talk about our work and make
sure that we're being visible. So when it comes to advocating
for ourselves, to talking about our work, there's a few
different things that you can do.
So one thing, for example, there was data in Harvard Business
Review that showed that when you use more collaboratively
language like we, us, our, you're actually seen as more
senior and more impressive than someone who perhaps uses a lot
of I statements. People who use I statements are
going to be seen as more junior, for example.
There's other things that you can do as well.
If you are uncomfortable talking about your work, frame it in
terms of team learnings, right? How is this going to help
everyone else? Like I'm proud I did this.
Like, you know, I think this can be helpful to the rest of the
team. And so again, it's more of that
collaborative spirit that I think makes it a little bit
easier to talk about things, things.
And then always when, whenever you can ground it in data facts,
right? No one can really argue with
that. Tie it to the company's bottom
line. Every executive, every senior
leader will be so happy if you show them that you are doing
work that's helping the business, right?
So I think when you have those mindset shifts and you reframe
things in that way, can be a little bit more comfortable for
the people who are perhaps a little bit more hesitant.
At LinkedIn, where we both worked, we had a really.
Not sponsored, not sponsored, but maybe.
Apps in the future, LinkedIn Premium, well, so we had a very
clear outlet of how to do this in our company, which is there
are these emails that teams could send announcing some of
their wins and successes. If a company doesn't do that, or
if an individual is looking to gain more visibility, what are
some places where people can do so?
Like putting into place some of the things you just suggested.
I love that you brought up those emails.
When I went to Prezi, right after I immediately asked my
boss, I was like, how can I get like, how can I e-mail everyone?
How can I get everyone on this listserv?
They didn't have an e-mail like that or system like that.
So what I did was we did have a company intranet, so that
actually reached the whole company, which was even better
than a specific e-mail listserv. So finding the place where
everyone's going to be, asking your manager, where are the
senior leaders, the decision makers showing up?
I think that's a really good first step.
And then you don't have to always be so big and so wide
reaching necessarily, right? You want to make sure you're
reaching the right people at the right time.
So for example, that might be, oh, there's a slack channel with
the CEO or slack channel with the the marketing leader who I
want to reach. And it's not going to be our
immediate small channel, but it's going to be one that
reaches a few more people. So that would be a really
wonderful Ave. And then remember that we don't
want to just say things once, but we want to try to find
different places that we can repeat ourselves because
everyone's so busy. Some of us are in perfect
person, some of us are remote, and so maybe half the people you
want will end up seeing your message once.
But repeat it and make sure that people aren't missing it.
Can you talk a little bit more about the repeated exposure?
That part is really interesting to me and I often forget that
it's needed. Yeah.
So my former CEO used to say that you have to repeat things
seven times in seven different ways before people actually
retain the information process what you're saying.
And so it is really critical. Like imagine I send a Slack
message at 10 AM, right? I'm missing a lot of people,
perhaps in the AIPAC time zone, even Europe, right?
And then there's so many messages that happen in a given
day. And so to perhaps time your
messages or send it in Slack and then also maybe send it in an
e-mail. And then you also maybe mention
the whatever it is you're learning in the the team
meeting. So that's a way that you can
keep promoting yourself and also helping people at the same time
and making sure that people don't miss it.
I also, I loved your advice about if you want to sort of
like brag or talk about your accomplishment to sort of frame
it in, oh, this is what I learned.
So that it's useful for other people.
Because for me, one thing that was always very easy was to talk
about accomplishment when it was for like a group achievement.
Like we, you know, launched a major platform or like a major
feature. Because I felt like that was
necessary because I wanted to shine a light on everyone else
on my team and I wanted them to get the accolades.
I wanted them to get the praise, etcetera.
But when it comes to something that is like, just me, it just
feels so cringe and unnatural. Yeah.
So I think it's like more about like taking on that mindset, at
least for me. Yeah.
To be like, OK, the reason I'm sharing this is not just to,
like, show off about what I did, but it was hard to do this.
Like, these are all the things that I had to learn or I had to
push through. And if I can share it and share
that context, then it's actually useful for people.
I'm not just. Yeah, showing off for the sake
of showing off. Yeah, exactly.
Everyone always likes a helpful teammate, right?
Yeah, yeah. What I'm hearing is that it is
essential, yeah to have visibility within your company.
But it can be really uncomfortable to talk about
yourself and use I statements, which you don't want to do.
But what you should do is talk about your team, what you've
learned, use WE statements to sound more collaborative.
And it can take like, the ick feeling out of kind of bragging
about yourself because you're talking about your team.
Yeah, I think also this really applies to LinkedIn as well when
you're writing a LinkedIn post. That's what I was thinking
about, yeah. Like talking about your own
accomplishment. Yeah, because in your book you
also talk about like posting on LinkedIn is really important.
Yes, in this day and age, talking about professional
achievements, but how you do it can still feel uncomfortable.
So applying this like using the WE statements and posting about
learnings so that you're providing something of value to
your audience and you're not just being like, I'm so excited
to announce. I'm humbled and.
Honored. Humbled and honored I'm.
So thrilled. I'm so thrilled to announce that
I now have this investment banking job.
Yeah. This investment banking, Wow.
Yeah, yeah. Now we know how she really
feels. Yeah, no shame, no shame.
So, you know, going on a little bit tangent here with, with
LinkedIn, like, you know, I talk about the, the three types of
content on LinkedIn, personal, professional, educational, and
then of course the 4th sort of bonus pillar or promotional.
So anytime you can incorporate some personal education
professional tie in, right, it's going to be a little bit less
like I'm bragging about myself, but I'm either sharing some
insights, I'm talking about a challenge I went through or I'm,
you know, teaching you something.
So it's a way to like buffer it a little bit.
Well, you have a very large following on LinkedIn.
Did you just give us like the secret formula of how to write a
successful LinkedIn post? I mean, that's, that's one part.
There's a lot of other, other factors as well.
But I think, you know, I came up with those 3 buckets because a
lot of people do get really nervous posting on LinkedIn.
Me, yeah. I never do it.
I just like draft off of Sharia post where she tags me and I'm
just like I hope some people see that.
Yeah, like it's the question that I get most often about
LinkedIn is, oh, I, I have something that I, I want to say,
but you know, I'm hesitant to, to click post and I just, I'm
worried it needs to be the most original thought ever.
And what I tell people is nothing on LinkedIn is original.
Don't worry. Don't put that stress on
yourself. Yeah, the people who stand out
are the people who are talking about their experiences.
People are connecting to them as a person, right?
And, and, and maybe the way that they're framing things, again,
like everyone, the content is all the same, but the way people
are packaging it and the, the people themselves are different.
And so I think there's a, you know, people don't need to put
so much pressure on themselves. And so hopefully for the
listeners, that's something that, you know, gives them
encouragement that, yeah, it's OK to post.
And you don't have to be perfect or feel like, yeah, you're,
you're completely original. You're like the LinkedIn
therapist. Truly, they are.
Yeah. I feel so much better.
I'm like, oh, I could do this. Wait, So what were the three
buckets that you. Wanted so personal, educational,
professional. OK.
And you want to try to hit all of them, all three or as you.
Can you can Nixon match? Yeah.
I think what usually happens is most people will start off with
educational. I think that's the probably the
easiest, right. I'm teaching someone something
professional will be, oh, there's something happening in
the news or in my industry that I want to talk about.
And the hardest one but I think is but resonates the most is the
personal. So the personal stories, you
know, take some time to build up to it.
Again, you don't have to put that pressure on yourself to to
share all your deepest, starkest, you know, challenges
and stories right away. But in due time, like you'll get
more comfortable mixing it in. And then you'll realize by doing
that, you're going to meet more people.
More people are going to engage with you, resonate with you.
And so, yeah, those are the three.
I'm gonna, after this, I'm gonna go and study all of your
LinkedIn program like a workbook.
Nice. Let me know what you think
after. In our next section, we're going
to talk about writing like a leader.
And in your book, you share that adding the word because a very
simple word, adding that to a sentence increases people's
willingness and also compliance to do what you're asking by 93%,
which is a lot. What's an everyday way to use
that power without it feeling ick or kind of manipulative?
With the word, because I think the most common use case would
probably be with deadlines. Now, ideally your team is
meeting deadlines and following through, but sometimes you need
to give them a reason. So in my last role at Prezi, I
mentioned I sent out that weekly newsletter, right?
And so I needed my team to add things to it and to make sure
that it was complete so I could publish it for the rest of the
company. And so an example of where I
might use that is can you please fill this out by Friday because
I'm really excited to talk about what you did this week with the
company or even the study that you're talking about, Cherie's
Xerox study. You can even give not that great
a reason and people will still will still be more inclined to
actually do the thing. So, you know, instead of can you
turn this to me on on Thursday? I might say, can you deliver
this by Thursday because I'm going to be out of office on
Friday. So very simple.
I don't know why just that word just gives people a reason,
right? And when you have a reason, it's
like, oh, OK, now I know why I need to take action.
You're not just telling me to do something or asking me to do
something without a reason behind it.
Yeah, I vaguely remember the study.
It was like people, someone was standing in line and he wanted
to cut the lines, make copies, right.
And he had to skip people like a Kinko's or something.
And in some of the instances, they had him say nothing but
just ask. Some of the instances they had
him say because. And then, like a really good
reason. Yeah.
And some of the instances it was just like, because.
And then a lame reason that didn't even make any sense.
Or like, you wouldn't even. Exactly.
So it was like the first one was, you know, I'm can I, can I
skip the line? Like most people are going to
say no. And then the next one was, oh,
can I skip the line because I'm in a rush to make copies?
So then again, a lot of people said, OK, sure.
And then the next one was can I skip the line because I need to
make copies? So that was the one that was
like, yeah, duh. Like not that great of a reason
we're all here still. Like most people said, yeah, go
ahead. So.
The power of the word becomes even if the reason's not good.
Yeah. I'll be like.
Be careful with that power. It actually reminds me, one of
my friends just told me that her mom has this like superpower
where everywhere she goes, she'll ask for a discount like
just because, which I've like heard of people doing that.
But she says that she does it even at like designer stores.
And she said that like, for example, she'll be at like Louis
Vuitton and then when she's, you know, talking to the essay, the
sales associate, she'll be like, you know, what can you do for
me? Like I would like, I would like
a discount because, because. I want one.
Because yes, she wouldn't really have the reason, but she'd be
like, can I have your employee discount?
And then they give it to her. Wow.
So like, hey, I was so shook it when she told me this.
I was like, what? I'm like, first of all, I don't
shop at Louis Vuitton, but you know, I'm going to be walking
out. Maybe now Dior, like Dior, watch
out, I'm going to be coming in and asking for some sort of
discount because. I need one.
Yeah. It's so interesting.
I think generally I am a person who has a hard time asking for
things at all. Like whether it's in the
workplace, whether it's personal or romantic.
Like I just have a hard time asking for help, for example, or
just asking for things. But I think I should experiment
with being a bit more liberal with it and attach the word
because to see what would happen, yeah.
You should have a follow up episode where you just use
because and just like random situation and then like come
back and be like. What worked?
We can test it out ourselves. Yeah, yeah.
OK, in your book you introduce the concept of an e-mail haiku.
What is it and why do executives love it?
So this idea is actually Kim Scott.
So she's the author of Radical Candor, one of the three dozen
amazing, amazing business leaders I got to interview for
this book. And what she said was the e-mail
haiku is essentially a very thoughtful way of communicating.
And what you want to do is a haiku is very short, right?
When you write an e-mail, you also want your e-mail to be very
short and essentially be able to fit on a smartphone screen
without needing to scroll. I like that.
Yeah, because people are busy, especially executives are busy,
but you want to really think through like, what can I
eliminate? What's extra, So many of us are
go, go, go. So the way we're communicating,
we're shooting off messages here and there.
We're not really being thoughtful.
And then when that happens, OK, now my coworker has to follow up
for clarification or now, you know, they're missing the actual
question. We're going back and forth and
wasting time. But the e-mail high coach is a
very concise way of communicating your message,
being respectful about the recipient's time.
And then yeah, you're going to have to use a little bit extra
time, 20-30 minutes to think through that.
But it's going to lead to more productive, collaborative teams
and your Co worker is going to appreciate you more.
Yeah, I so I took a class at Stanford and it was a really
famous writing class called Winning Writing with Glenn
Cramon, who was a New York Times editor for 37 years.
Incredible. He's.
Hi, Glenn. Hi, Glenn.
Hope you're welcome. He's fantastic.
And you know, there's this one part of the class where we talk
about e-mail sell hygiene and how to write like a good e-mail
so that it gets a response. And like one thing like you
mentioned that's like super simple is like what will fit on
a smartphone? Like I think that is so smart
because most people are on the go now and they don't check
their e-mail at their desk as like the first thing that they
do. They're mostly on their phone.
So like figuring out what is the subject line because they'll
probably just read the subject line like that's.
Such that's really important too.
Important real estate. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, that's, I mean, that's the that makes them want to open
it, right? So subject lines are so
important. Action needed FY, just FYI, no
response needed. Due April 7th.
Like whatever information you can include that will make
someone open it, realize that it's time sensitive or even not
time sensitive, right? Like that's that's your opening.
That's your first impression, right.
But over e-mail, yeah. This might be taking it to the
extreme, but when I worked in finance, a lot of times we would
just write the whole message in the subject line and try to keep
it as short as possible. And at the end of it, we would
write EOM like in parentheses, end of message, I've heard so
that they never even have to open nice the e-mail.
They can just like read the subject line and then know the
information. Yeah.
That's a that's a hard exercise. You have to keep that tight.
Yeah, yeah. And I think it was just, it was
just like the common what everyone did.
So I never thought twice about it was like, OK, got to make a
really short message. EOM.
Yeah, perfect. Yeah, kind of a power move too.
Yeah. So the next thing we're going to
talk about is more of the non verbal cues that we kind of
started on. So you cite research that hand
gestures when you're talking increase anecdote recall by 33%.
Just basically people remembering what you say.
How do we use this in everyday life, and how do we also use
this while we're on a Zoom call? I wanna talk about the Zoom call
first because I feel like that's where most people miss using
body language. So there has been research that
has been shown that when you use your hands on camera, you appear
warmer, more personable, more energetic, more trustworthy,
right? Cuz you're showing your hands.
Is that what you're doing now? I'm not I'm just cuz I'm like so
used to using them so energetically on video.
It like translated to in person things.
But anyways, like all these really positive things on video
and that, I mean, we want those things right, simply by showing
your hands. And so everyone's just the, the
first way to do that is to make sure on video that you have your
framing correct. So what you want to do, a lot of
people, it's like way up close and personal with your face or
it's, you know, coming from the top.
So it's not really seeing your whole body.
So what you want to do is you want about like 3 to 5 fingers
worth of space above the top of your head between the top of
the, the camera frame. And then you want to actually
show a little bit of your torso on camera.
So a lot of people, they kind of cut it off here.
And so if you were to use your hands on camera with the video
cut off here, your hands are like by your head, which is
super strange, right? Like you're just like this the
whole time. However, down here now you just
have to lift your hands a little bit higher than it feels normal
to get them to fit in the camera.
What a lot of people do is they keep their hands down on their
lap. Again, we're relaxed, we're at
home on their lap, on their keyboard, on their mouse.
So they're moving their hands. But all what you're seeing is
little twitches of the shoulders, maybe a finger
popping in and out of the screen.
And So what we want is to again, adjust the framing so that we
can move our hands higher up and then use them naturally.
I think we shouldn't need to or shouldn't try to overthink it
too much because I know we can get in our heads.
And it's like, how do I use my hands again?
Like what's natural? But if you just relax, like your
hands will move naturally as you speak.
So yeah, a lot of a lot of really great benefits.
And then, yeah, like you said, should be like more message
recall, like you just see more engaging.
It's more interesting to see movement on screen, right,
versus just me sitting still with just my head, for example.
So yeah, very, very powerful thing to include on video calls
and presentations and meetings that still a lot of people
aren't doing. Yeah.
I think that makes so much sense psychologically when you think
through it because they do all these studies on like what?
What is that kids TV show on YouTube?
The reason why kids are so addicted to it is because they
change the screen every two seconds or something like Coco
melon. Coco Melon, Yes.
It's like psychological. They set it up so that they
flashed a different screen every two seconds, which is like,
that's why kids are like, so locked into it.
And so like, it's kind of the same idea if you're watching
someone and talking to them on camera, like adding the hand
movements is just more dynamic. Yeah.
And it just adds another element of interest.
And then it just like it's not just your head and your face,
like the whole time talking and you're like, you know, barely
changing your expression. Yeah.
So it's more, I don't know, It's just like human psychology, you
know, unless you do this, just human psychology.
There's like, more interesting. Yeah.
You're like following. Something, yeah, you're more
engaged when you also have like your hands free to like.
It's like a third element of interest.
Exactly. And also helps reinforce your
message too. Yeah.
So it's going to like add emphasis when you need to add
emphasis. And yeah, just more memorable.
Yeah, we had an executive presence class, like basically
public speaking class at Stanford, and we had one lecture
that was dedicated. Now I'm using my hands.
Yeah. So you just have to think about
it and then like, yeah, it comes naturally.
We had one lecture that was dedicated to matching your hand
movements to what you're saying. So making sure that the vocal
and the visual were aligned. And obviously like you don't
want to do too much hand movement, but if they can
complement each other, like the message really sticks.
For example, like if you're going to name things, and this
is mainly for like stage public speaking.
So not really like this, but like if you're on stage and like
you want to enumerate things, you can be like 1/2 and three.
Or if you're talking to an audience and it's broken up into
like threes, you can do like the first thing to like one side,
the second thing to like the middle, and then the third
you're looking to the other side of the room.
But there's ways to match up your physical presence with your
message so that people are like, not only deeply engaged but also
like following along. Yeah, exactly.
And I think it gives the impression also that like you're
locked in to your own message and what you're saying that you
have a lot of like, like belief behind it, basically, if you're
like putting your whole body. Emphatically.
Yeah, emphatically. You're like, it seems like you
believe your message more as opposed to like, oh, you're kind
of just like talking. Yeah.
And even if you're not on stage and you're saying like 1-2
three, I think like naturally when I enumerate, I'm like,
well, 12. Three.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the energy is also a huge
piece on video that we're lacking, so the body language
really adds. Adds to that.
I think I can trick myself, like if I'm on Zoom and I'm like low
energy for a meeting, I might be able to trick myself into being
higher energy if I use my hands more, yeah.
Yeah, I can trick myself if I have a huge cup of Marcha.
That's part of it. That works as well, yeah.
OK, let's move on to the section about confidence, language and
authority, OK? Are you say that one of the
phrases we should try to avoid is?
Does this make sense? Is it ever OK to use this
phrase, or is it always undermining your message?
That is by far when I teach about executive presence and,
and communication, when I talk about minimizing language and
the need to remove minimizing language, which are words or
phrases that weaken your message and then make you look less
confident or less sure of yourself.
Does that make sense? Whenever I give that one as an
example, everyone in the chat is always firing off like, oh, I
just use that like 3 times today.
And, and you know, I've used it too.
And so with that, it, it feels like you're being collaborated,
like I'm asking you, does does that make sense?
Yeah, let me know, right? But when you ask it like that,
it can make it seem like you're not actually sure if what you
actually said does in fact make sense.
And so small tweak, let me know if you have any questions.
So now you're sure about what you just said and you're still
inviting collaboration in. So there's a lot of phrases like
that that we use throughout the day without even realizing it.
But again, those small tweaks make you come across as a lot
more powerful, confident, authoritative.
Minimizing language, yeah. What are some other examples of
like minimizing language that we should avoid?
Because I feel like I probably have a lot of those in my
vocabulary. Another one that's really common
is because we're in so many back-to-back meetings, we're
sometimes running late. So we join a meeting and we're
kind of frantic and we're like, oh, my sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry I'm late instead. You might change that too.
Thank you so much for your patience.
Really appreciate it. So instead of coming in kind of
frenzied and forcing the other person to say no, no, it's OK
right now. The person feels good, you're
showing appreciation, You're starting the meeting off on a
more positive footing. Oh, no problem.
Yeah, let's get started. Instead of using I think all the
time, you might say I recommend or.
The data suggests that. So again, like really, really
small tweaks, but it makes a big difference over time.
Yeah, I think it's also like now we have like more confidence in
what we're talking about and more confidence in ourselves.
And that just comes across no matter what you're talking
about. I agree, but practice really
does help. The next question is, I guess,
is it spicy? Maybe a little.
A little bit, just a little, a little spicy, a little spicy.
OK, so I think we've all seen this in the workplace or heard
about it from a friend of a friend.
But like often times, confident people, confident women get
overlooked because they're interrupted and there's a person
in the workplace. Maybe it's a narcissist, like
someone who's very loud, they they get promoted because
they're the ones that are heard more.
Why do you think this dynamic plays out and what do you think
needs to change? I think it goes back to that
visibility discussion we had earlier where, yeah, if you're
if you're louder, people are going to see you.
Now, I don't think it makes sense to always reward the
really loud person just because they're loud.
Like you need to be able to back it up.
And my hope is if someone were promoting someone simply because
they were loud, at a certain point they would realize, oh,
this person can't go any farther because they're actually doing
the good work, right? But I think it is really
critical to talk about your work and make it known.
And I think what happens often during those critical promotion
times that we're not taught, and I certainly didn't know this
when I, you know, first tried to go out for a promotion, is that,
oh, you're not supposed to bring it up right when review time is
happening. Like this is a thing that needs
to be thought about months in advance.
So there's actually quite a lot of strategy behind it.
So instead of telling my manager after I wrote my review, oh, you
know, I'd love to get promoted this cycle, this is a
conversation I should have mentioned six months ahead of
time. I should have a better
understanding of who's going to be in the room.
And there are in fact, other people in the room, which I also
did not realize. I thought it was just my manager
just decided waiting. OK, Lorraine's ready, right.
So who's in the room? Do they know that you want to
get promoted? What are the skills that might
be missing or what what is potentially stopping you from
getting that promotion? How can you address it?
Again, give yourself that time, right, so that you can actually
prepare for when the actual discussion happened.
So I think that foresight and, you know, throughout the book,
I'm talking about being intentional about your career,
becoming the CEO of your own career.
That's really about taking things into your own hands.
And yeah, maybe that loud annoying guy is getting
promoted, but don't let him be a cloud over you.
Like make your voice heard too by being more strategic, by
being thoughtful about it, not just being that loud annoying
voice. I think people don't realize
that there is so much strategy that goes behind promotion and
promotion decisions. And I think just that sentence I
said sounds really ick, but I it's kind of the truth at the
corporate workplace. And I think a lot of people who
are early or mid career are like they don't know that are
starting to figure that out. And let me add a point there
that I didn't even mention is that you first have to let your
manager know that you want to get promoted and say it again.
I assumed that they would know. Of course, I'm ambitious.
Like, who doesn't want to get promoted?
Well, actually there's a lot of people who don't want to get
promoted and who are happy with where they are.
So we have to make it known in the 1st place.
And then again, like we were talking about repeating things
multiple time. I mean, you're not going to want
to bring it up everyone on one meeting every week, but make it
known like keep repeating it. Make sure your manager doesn't
forget about it. Yeah.
And I think the benefit of bringing it up early with your
manager is that they can kind of make a plan for you ahead of
time and then you can work on that plan together.
And then it feels like it's like this joint.
Effort they can advocate. For you or they have to advocate
for you, but yes, and they they can start to advocate.
They can plant the seeds early on on your behalf because then
like not only do you have to let them know, they have to start
doing the legwork like months in advance so that they figure out
who else is going to be in that room.
I guess I'm speaking about this from my perspective of having
been a manager and done this. They have to figure out who else
is going to be in the room. Who do I need to also, you know,
vote yes for my direct report and who do I think is going to
have objections? How do I like work against those
objections or start to, you know, mollify them months in
advance? What do they think?
How do I need to? How can I work with my direct of
course so that they can start to address these things directly
with this person? There's like so.
Much, so much to do. So much work that goes into it
and I think yes, you're totally, totally right that the first
thing you need to do is bring your manager on board so that
you're both like, it's the two of you, like against the world
kind of feeling. Yeah, they're going to be more
invested if if you bring them in.
Yeah, they have to be very invested because honestly, it's
a lot of work for them. So in the workplace, in the big
corporations where there is a lot of behind the scenes that
needs to happen for promotion to happen, does your boss need to
like you in order for you to get promoted?
Because there's a lot of things that you have to do, like you
just named. Yeah, they have to like you.
Even if they don't like your personality, they have to like
what you bring to the table. And you have to make their lives
like 10 times easier. Yeah, in some way or the other,
whether or not you're it's your like sunny and beautiful
disposition and presence every single day, or you're like the.
Results. Yeah.
Or like you're, you know, a 10X performer, Yeah.
And I think that they'll respect you, right?
I mean, maybe they don't like your personality or you're not
like best friends, but they have to respect your work, respect
what you do, like your career. Lorraine, thank you so much for
being here and giving us the real talk.
Of course, thank you for having me.
This was amazing, so fun. We didn't just talk about
communication and visibility, but really what it takes to be
unforgettable in the workplace. And you really gave us the
playbook on how to speak and how to present ourselves so people
listen. So we always say that we want to
be the internet's career mentors and Big Sisters that we never
had. And today you were the trusted
expert that we all needed. You were practical, you were
empowering and really just bringing so much wisdom and like
kind big sister energy and information to all of our
listeners. So thank you so much, Oh my.
Gosh, thank you. This was seriously so fun.
So guys, if this conversation made you rethink your presence
or your LinkedIn posts or any sort of announcements you were
trying to make, please take 10 seconds to like, follow and
subscribe and also rate US five stars on Spotify and also Apple
Podcasts. It really makes oh because,
because, because it really helps our podcast be discovered and
shared with other people. Awesome.
We'll see you next time on the Tiger Sisters podcast.
Bye. Wow, that was an incredible
episode and interview with Lorraine.
And if the first half made you realize so I'm being misread or
misunderstood, that's not a bad thing.
That's actually a really good thing to know.
Exactly, because once you know the signal that you're putting
out, then you can actually change the outcome, not by
necessarily changing yourself, but by really changing the
message that you're putting out there.
And so now we're switching to the second-half of our episode
where we talk about influence. It's all about turning
perception into trust scope. And new opportunities.
And as you guys listen to the next episode, we want you to
think about one thing that you want to make happen by the end
of Q1. Is it a comp bump?
Is it being more influential? Is it having a bigger role?
And listen to the exact language that you can borrow from Leah.
And the higher you go, the more you're managing perceptions,
politics, and honestly, your own nervous system.
Yeah, and I love how Leah is so honest about all the different
ways she's done it in the past with all these examples, and she
basically tells you how to do it also in real time.
Great. So let's get into Part 2 with
Leah Wire. Hi, Leah.
Hi. Hi, we're so excited that you're
here. Could you please introduce
yourself to the audience in your own words?
Sure. So my name is Leah Wire and I am
the president of the beauty, style and entertainment brands
at dot Dash Meredith. So those are people
Entertainment Weekly in style Birdie brides people in Espanol.
Wow. An iconic list.
It keeps going, keeps going it. Can't go no more editions, we're
good. Yeah, I feel like a a
misconception that a lot of people have is that beauty
editors just spend their whole day like playing with lip gloss
or something like that. But in reality, even when you
were at Cosmo, you were in charge of basically generating
the majority of revenue for for the business.
So when was the moment where you kind of realized like, oh shit,
like I am a really powerful businesswoman?
It was never lost on me that there was a business role to
play as a the beauty editor. Now, you had the creative side
of being a beauty editor, which was you had a blank slate of
pages every month that you had to fill.
You had to create a direct feature or something that you
were doing on set. So it's all this right brain
stuff that happened. But it was very clear from the
start. And I had first been hired as
the beauty and style editor for Health magazine, which didn't
you don't think that did a lot of beauty, but we actually did
do a lot of sort of Wellness beauty before it was, it's
really a trend and it was a lot of skin, a lot of science.
And I love that because the 1st 10 years of being a beauty
editor, I was at all these different Wellness magazines.
So it's at Health magazine and Self magazine, fitness magazine.
And so you had like, you learned how to be like a real reporter,
how to respect science, how to read studies, all of this stuff
that was that made the stories really meaty and interesting.
You had to balance the business side of of being a beauty
editor, which meant being super aware of who your advertisers
were and really meant like paying attention to what they
were launching. And you had to have this dance
of like, OK, so advertiser X was launching something that that
would be interesting to your readers.
That's what you had to focus on. Like, what's the hook for my
readers? And you just started, like with
every magazine, it was a different way of doing that
business. It was really like up the ante
when I got to Cosmo because Beauty drove so much of Cosmo
Cosmo's revenue. And that I think was the moment
where I was like, wow, I almost equally report in to the editor
in chief as I do to the publisher.
Constantly on sales calls with your sales team, with your
publisher, you're in the room with these incredibly important
and brilliant CMO's who are asking you to suggest ideas to
them for their business that would work for your readership.
And so you start to develop this marketing skill.
It was just a different way of doing the business side of being
a beauty editor. And that I think really happened
when I got to Cosmo. So that was maybe like 10 years
into my career. Like I'm just imagining being in
that role and the amount of kind of like, I guess like finesse
and also strategy that you have to have is I can just imagine
it's like very high level because you have so many
stakeholders and like every decision that you make results
in like kind of more or less revenue for your business, for
their business, for your interest, for your readership.
Like, yes, it's very high risk because the advertisers at Cosmo
was a mass brand. I mean, it still is.
So it's very much appealing to not just the coasts, right, Like
there were there are fashion and style magazines that are really
appealing to the coast. Different type of reader,
different type of advertiser. When you have a brand like
Cosmo, even a brand like people, very middle of America, very
just sort of everyday person, those advertisers are like the
money bags like PNG Unilever, L'Oreal, like all of these
brands. And so to be in the room with
these type of people, learn how to pitch an idea, learn how to
craft it in your mind in the moment, because usually those
things are coming up in a brainstorming session that's
live. You don't really have a ton of
time to prepare for it. And they want that like they
want you in the room listening. This is my objective.
What how does it work for your reader?
And you have to just do it quick.
And so it became very obvious to me that if I could get really
good at this, I could have a really long lasting career.
Because it's not just the creative ideas which are
important, but the creative ideas really, you can create an
idea that works in print, that also works in digital, that also
works in social or that works in an app, But they, they're really
just nuances of each other in some way.
The stakes are always changing in the world of marketing.
Everything is a new thing, a different thing, a shiny thing
like the next thing. And that's the piece that you
had to really pay attention to. Like, how's the world changing?
Like what do they want now? What, what's a new, new thing?
These these big companies want a first to market moment.
They don't want a recycled idea. Yeah, that you did with somebody
last month. They want something new and
fresh. And so you're just constantly
creating. I knew that if I could get good
at that, that it would have a long lasting career.
Yeah, I love that. I love that because I can tell
that this role, it uses so many different parts of your brain.
It's like, obviously like very creative, but then you're also a
connector between your readership, the audience and
these massive brands and trying to like, bridge that connection.
Like what do they want and how can I best serve them in that
way? Yeah, you almost have to be as
much of an expert about your reader as you are about your
partner or potential partner sitting across the table from
you. You have to know what they want
for their customer and how that can be as important to your
reader as it is for them to achieve for their customer.
That's like the magical moment that happens when you can do
that and you can hit that. Like, I mean, there's there's
like 3 or 4 moments of my career where I was like, I nailed it.
And I mean, yeah, where you were like, wow, that was like really
good. Yeah.
So, you know, when that happens, it gets like you sort of get
addicted to that feeling. And I and I really did get
addicted to that. That was the thing that I just
wanted to do for as long as I could possibly do it.
I love that. And you also met Holly at Cosmo.
Is that where your guys's story started?
And then for context, that is our mutual friend who introduced
us to Leah. Yes.
And so Holly came into my life, I think maybe it was 2000 and 12
or 13. Joanna Coles was the editor in
chief of Cosmo at the time. She had tapped Holly, who I
mean, Holly has an incredible career.
She was in movies. She did so many things.
And at the time, I think she was in the corporate side of Hearst.
And Joanna tapped her to be really her chief of staff and
also head up all of the comms for the brand.
And at the time, the brand was changing so much because Joanna
just had a totally different point of view that she wanted
just with a megaphone out to the ad community, out to the media
market. And so Holly was tapped to do
that. And we just really hit it off in
the very beginning. And now, I mean, we're, we are,
we call each other twin because we're just like, we just feel
like we're sisters in a lot of ways.
And that's the, I think a really special thing that happens over
time when you work with women, especially as like you become,
you sort of transcend just as work partners and you become
like life partners in a lot of ways.
We kind of want to dig into that a little bit more.
We shout out to Holly. Thank you so much for
introducing us to Leah. But I mean, you've said
previously, like work wives can solve, like World Peace, create
World Peace. Say that all the time.
It's true. I mean, work wives and the power
of female friendship is like so important for our career.
If you can find a work wife and also just like as career blends
into life, like can you talk a little bit more about just like
the importance of having a work wife?
Yeah. I mean, I think first of all,
these are people that men or women, you're spending the bulk
of your day, the bulk of your life with your work family.
Some families are super dysfunctional and making those
relationships at work even more important because at that point
then they turn into like your survival mechanism, right?
Like when you're working at a place that is, I mean, every
place has tough times. And but when you're working at a
place that overtime becomes a little more tricky to manage,
where it's sort of infringing on your life in some way, where
it's harder to create a boundary, whatever your mental
health like that is where you need, I think women in
particular, to confide in, to be able to cry with, to be able to
just vent and be real with. Because if you're not able to
have that outlet, how do you sort of get through those
moments together? It's harder.
I mean, it's I think it was for a long time, people just
expected that you like stiff upper lifted.
You were like, you know, I can that is not good for any of us.
And I think having those people that you can be real with who
you can trust with. I'm feeling this way right now.
I'm so frustrated by, you know, my boss or whatever.
It can help you just like flow into the next stage of less
frustration instead of just holding it in and being like
resentful and then just being like, oh, I can't work here
anymore, right? Like it's never, it's usually
not ever resolved by like jumping the ship and going
somewhere else. Like you're going to find the
same frustrations. And.
Is that? I relate to this set a nerve so
strongly because okay, I've had the privilege of having I think
like 2 work wives in my life and the first one, one of my best
friends still to this day, Maya. We worked together at Zynga and
there were times when both of us were like, I'm about to rage
quit right this second. Yes, and we would, the two of us
would go on a walk together and like the sole purpose of the
walk was to vent to each other and then give each other like a
3 minute long hug and it was like.
That. That's so sweet Yeah.
Like she and she gives the best hugs, you know what I mean?
Like just that kind of like connection and being able to
like share with your work wife what's going on.
They understand you like they have the.
Contest. Special.
Yeah, a level of empathy. Yeah, it's just because only
they know what you're feeling. My husband knows a lot about my
business, knows a lot about the people I work with.
But there are some weeks where and I work at a very mentally
sound company. Like it's not toxic, it's not
crazy. I mean, I sort of found finally
found a place that appeals to me in that way and and is, is good
for my mental health in a lot of ways.
But there are just weeks that are really, really hard.
And if I take that home to my husband, he gets it, but he
doesn't get it. Like my girls at work get it.
Like Holly with you, my friend Meredith, my friend Melissa, my
friend Joe. Like we are in it together now.
We've also every single one of those people -1 we've worked,
we've worked together since Cosmo.
So we've all like moved together and like now have this like
long, decades long relationship. It it's amazing because you
already know what the other person is thinking.
You can like you speak shorthand.
I'm a short pit for the people around us who don't have that.
They're like, you guys are crazy.
Can you fill us in on what's going on?
But you do, there are advantages to, to having those like very
long term friendships. And they really are like
therapists in your life that can get you through moments and get
you to the other side. So that, you know, I joke
sometimes with my therapist like, Oh my God, I'm having one
of these weeks where I'm like, I'm going to hit the eject
button. That's it, right?
Like I just got to go. And she's like, you have like go
take a walk with a friend. Go take a 3 minute hug.
Like those moments are actually really crucial.
And then the other thing that I think you can do with women that
is a little harder to do with men, maybe impossible to do with
most men, is that you can be grateful with your whole heart
to those women. Like, I can't tell you how many
times a week I'm texting or slacking or just in person being
like, I love you so much. Like, thank you so much for
being in this with me. Like, you can't do that to a guy
for the most part. And maybe some guys, but like,
not really. And so these are people who,
like, you can be fully open with and fully grateful to which it's
a different way of leading. It's a different way of walking
together. It's just a different way to
trust each other. And that isn't really important,
I think. Yeah.
So well said. In some ways, it really
transcends just the career or like professional aspect to when
you really trust someone that you've been working with for
like a decade. It's just like we not only know
each other in the professional context, but you've been with me
through a lot of personal milestones too.
Yes. And you can be truthful with
that person. I mean, they're think we're
going through a really big project right now.
And like I might disagree with the press plan or I might
disagree with the way the press release was written or like
whatever it is. And it's easier to just say,
like, I love you so much, but like, there's just this one
thing that I really think we have to just sit on for a
minute. It comes from a, it's a
different way of approaching it than someone being like, oh,
that's terrible. Like go change it.
And it doesn't make that person want to be on your team or like
get to a middle ground. And so there are huge
advantages, I think, to having the work life relationship.
And then even the people who aren't your, maybe your wife,
but like in it with you, they see that type of leadership,
they respect that type of leadership.
You trickle that down in some way and it just makes for a much
more collaborative environment. Yeah, that's a great piece of
like wisdom. It's just different.
I mean, it's, it's a different, it just feels like it's a
different vibe now than it was even 10 years ago.
Like where sometimes women, I think in that time period they
had, they felt like they had to almost like be like men in a
way. Like they had to feel like be
tough. They had to, you know, put out
like a, I don't know if the aggression is the word, but it's
like just some type of like like alphanus.
And you can have that, but you can also have it in a nice way.
And I think it makes for a much better environment for your team
and. More authentic environment too.
Your own leadership style. There's a different way of
there's a difference between being direct with feedback or
direct with a request or something than it is to be like
have an alphanus undertone to it that feels like, I don't know,
just it's a there's a different energy now that I think people
expect or want. Yeah.
Another one of the things you said to us is that your life
motto is just say yes. So what is like one of the
things that you, you kind of like took that approach to and
you were like, I'm just going to say yes.
And and then you did something that like kind of like changed
the course of your your life or your career.
Yeah. So I guess for better or worse,
just say yes, because when you say a lot of things, a lot of
opportunities can come your way, but it's a lot maybe on the To
Do List sometimes. So I think two things.
One That advice came to me from an old boss who I decided to
take a break with my husband. We had been together for four
years. He was many years younger than
me. He still is.
It's not like he morphed into an older person, but we were five
years apart and I had turned 30 and I was like, where is this
going? Like I need?
And so sort of such a cliche moment to have a milestone like
that. And, and we broke up and my boss
at the time was like, this is your moment.
Like just say yes to everything. I think for her, it was more of
like a romantic thing, like say yes to every date, say yes to
every whatever. I just took it then to mean, you
know, like, when you say yes to things, you don't know where
they're going to lead. I mean, going back to the
romantic piece of it, like, I met my husband at a Halloween
party where I wasn't even going to go.
And I said yes to my best friend from college who took me to this
party and semi knew my husband, and that's How I Met him.
So I look back on a moment like that thinking, well, I may never
have met him if I didn't say yes to that moment.
And I was not feeling particularly happy to go to this
party. I was exhausted and tired, and I
really just wanted to stay home in pyjamas.
But I said yeah, yes, right. So there is something that
happens sometimes where you like meet somebody random that can
potentially change your future in some way.
But you don't actually get to experience that if you're not
putting yourself out there in some way.
Now, sometimes you you can't say yes to everything and you have
to be choosy. But there is a habit that
sometimes can happen where you're saying no so much that
you're not going anywhere and you're not meeting new people.
And you're that's where that creativity comes into play.
That's where the serendipitous moments have been.
And if you don't have them or put yourself out there to say
yes to, then you don't have the ability to make that like
magical moment happen. And there have been multiple
moments in my life that were changed with that like
serendipitous energy, just like saying yes from the first time
that I put my resume in for my first job where like I had no
business getting that job on paper, but I just like said yes
and through put into a folder that went to somebody who ended
up hiring me meeting my husband like 1.
The probably the most impactful Say Yes moment was when I got to
my current company, I had gone there to start the beauty and
style vertical because they had no beauty or style brands.
They had bought birdie, they had bought brides, and they needed
somebody to run it. I went there great.
Like I was learning digital media for the first time.
I was bringing something to them that they didn't actually have,
which was magazine chops and sort of media chops.
Yeah. And then I did that for three
years. And then one day my boss pulled
me in his office and he said, you know, we bought this.
We, they, we acquired Meredith Corp, which had all of these
like incredible brands, people EW in style, better homes and
gardens, food and wine, real simple.
And he was like, we want you to run the Entertainment Group.
And I was like, no. And he's like, why?
I'm like, because I love beauty. I love style.
Like this is what I've done my whole life.
Like I, I don't want to leave this.
He's like just sleep on it. And I did.
And I woke up the next day. Like what am I thinking?
Like my whole mantra is like, say yes, like what?
Why would I not do this? And I did do it.
And it changed my whole life. Learning a whole new business,
learning how the two business businesses can intersect.
I eventually brought the two groups together, but I would
never have had this incredibly rich experience of running
people in EW and people in Espanol without.
Just saying I'm going to try it. And you know what, if I don't
succeed, I'll go back to beauty or like whatever will happen
from it. But if I could succeed, how
amazing could it be to learn all these new things?
And so that is trying really hard to just really be brave
trying. It's.
So scary getting out of the comfort zone.
I mean, I had done beauty for 20 some years and I never, I mean,
I obviously beauty intersects with the entertainment world in
a lot of ways and the celebrities, but that's a whole
other animal on its own. And to sort of learn that from
the ground up and make new relationships there, understand
that business, it was really hard.
It's the best decision I ever made.
And obviously I, I credit that to my boss.
Even being able to see that I could possibly do that.
I don't know if I would have raised my hand.
I know I wouldn't have raised my hand for it.
So sometimes, you know, somebody sees something else for you.
And when that happens, I think you really have to trust it.
Like if somebody is seeing something in me that I'm not
seeing in myself, I've got to try it, right?
Like I have to at least deserves a moment of just to try.
Yeah, I mean, this is super inspiring for for me, for us,
because I feel like we are at the moment now where you were
when the your boss was like, why don't you take on entertainment?
Because like for the two of us doing this whole startup, the
whole podcast journey, sisters Matcha, like everything is to us
because we come from the tech world.
Like we've never like ever built something that you can hold in
your hand that's not in an app on a screen green.
Like we've never been in front of cameras like this before.
So I don't know, that's really inspiring to see like where you
are today versus like where you started from being like a total
newbie and taking on an entirely new industry.
Totally. And I don't know, I mean,
there's there's something about creating something from the
ground up. I mean, look at this thing.
This came from your brain, right?
Like. And our hearts and.
Now you can consume it, you know, and you can touch it and
see it and read it. And it's unbelievable what
happens when you have something in your brain.
I mean, sometimes, I mean, I know that the best ideas I've
ever had, the things I look back on and I remember like I'm so
proud of that came from, I always say it came from either
one or two places. One I was in the shower washing
my hair. Shower thongs.
There's that. If there's something so
beautiful about showers, like I don't know what.
She's passionate about showers. I talk about this all the time.
It's like the water. It's the folk.
Like I don't even. It has to be a scientist, yeah.
So it needs to. Do a study.
Yes, because there is something it's either happened in the
shower or it happens either the moment like the 10 minutes
before falling asleep or the 10 minutes where I'm like kind of
waking up and just sort of thinking maybe it's because
those are places where or moments where you don't have
this in becoming inputs all the time.
You're you're separated. You're sort of.
You're kind of like in limbo or like your brain is, it's like
things are working in the background and you're not like
using probably like, I don't know, the creative aspect of
your brain just yet. You're like just waking up or
falling asleep. But don't you wonder how many
people in the world have a genius idea in that moment and
they don't do anything about it? And what did you guys do?
You had this idea. You went through all the steps
to like make this a thing and then now you have this thing.
So now you're like, we did it once, like what's next?
Like you right. If you do it once, you at least
have a playbook of sorts that can will be tweaked a million
different ways, but you have almost, you have the confidence
that like you went through it start to finish and that's the
secret to it all. It's like you got to just try it
and you have to figure out your own playbook and then you'll
have something to work off of in the future.
Your story before like, I feel like so many elements resonate
with me. I think firstly, like having
someone in your corner who like really deeply believes in you
and like sees the potential before you can even like see it
or feel it in yourself is really important.
And then also like that paired with kind of the mindset you
were talking about, like instead of saying like, what's what's
the worst that can happen? It's like what's the best that
can happen? Even if I fail or you know, it
doesn't go my way, like something good will come out of
it. Like I think the mindset is also
super important. Yeah.
And there's also a little bit of beauty in being naive.
Like, I don't think I had any idea what it was going to take
to go through those moments that I went through that I had to
learn from the ground up or build from the ground up.
And there was a couple of those moments.
I mean, my biggest one was when I switched from print media to
digital media. I mean, I felt as though I went
through some level of post grad work on the job because there's
moments where people are like saying these words, you have no
idea what they mean. And I'm sending myself emails to
be like, Google this later, like research this later.
I have no idea what this thing is.
And so you're sort of teaching yourself in the moment and
you're relying on people to not think you're totally stupid and
you know, a, a hire that shouldn't have been made.
You trust them, you like learn from them.
And I did have that opportunity. I don't know if I would have had
that opportunity at any other company.
There was just something special about the leadership at the
time. I mean, it still is the same
leadership, but the size of the company, the kind of like
familialness that was there that really helped me succeed in that
area. And then other moments where
you're just a little naive and you have to rely on everybody
around you to get you through it.
We are building an app right now and we're about to launch it.
And I knew nothing about apps. A lot of us didn't at the
company, but we just figured it out.
And you, you can really figure it out if you have some really
smart people in the room and that you can sort of give up
control to spread that, spread that empowerment around.
And you're all kind of doing the thing that you're best at and
you work the kinks out in the in the in the moment.
Yeah. I mean, it is such a blessing to
like, be in a really healthy workplace where you not only
trust the people on a personal, like, deep personal level, but
like, you can, like you said, shorthand with them.
And I feel really lucky to be working with Gene now because
there's like so many obviously 29 years of trust for me.
Yeah, With Gene, the place where I want to go next is kind of the
opposite of that in terms of like workplace politics.
Could you talk a little bit more about like how to navigate
workplace politics, maybe if it's something that people are
not super familiar with, Like do you have any tips for that?
It's a tough one, war. Stories.
So many war stories. So many, I mean which?
One to talk about, actually, that's like.
Some of them, some of it is when you are just starting out,
you're developing a thick skin in the course of the first few
years. And that is hard like when
you're raw. I mean, sometimes I wish I could
go back to the 22 year old Leah who had like, you know, who
didn't have like this much more skin than she has now and, and
remember what that was like. Because the vulnerability and
sort of the, the rawness of being in something new without,
I mean, the publishing industry, particularly when I entered, it
was cutthroat. Like it was just something I had
never experienced before. And that level of just, OK, this
person looked at me weird. Now I'm going down a spiral like
my boss yelled at me like, and you're just, you just go through
that for so many years and you're like, OK, now, like on to
the next thing. Then as you start to become
middle management, start to become more moving upward, you
are in a position where you're policing a lot of what's coming
down to you from your team, and you're policing a lot of what's
coming up to you from the people above you.
And you are holding this load in a lot of ways that it's really
hard because you have to please both sides.
It's like the Jelly and the sandwich, and you have to try to
please both sides. That's workplace politics like
at that's the start of it, I think.
And when do you side with your team versus your boss and how do
you influence one or the other or both?
And though that is like the learning how to lead with
influence versus force, that is a massive thing that I had to
learn in a lot of hard ways. Sometimes it's not fair.
Like there are things that you're being asked to do as a
middle manager from your boss and you think they're going to
protect you. You think they're going to be
there forever. And one day you wake up and
they're not, and you've just had to do a lot of dirty work for a
long period of time and now they're gone and you're like,
who's going to take care of me now, right?
It's very scary. And, and there was a moment that
I went through that in at my job at Cosmo.
And, you know, I was left in a different world.
It was left in it with new leadership that I didn't know I
didn't really have a relationship with 24 hours
before that. I had a Direct Line to the chief
content officer, right? Like, and that is like, that
rocks your world. Like that is like really, really
scary. It turned out that it was just
not the place for me anymore because I didn't necessarily
believe in the in the direction the company was moving in.
And it was just time for me to find something new.
And, and I am so grateful that I was given this, this opportunity
at my current company in that moment, if I had to tough it out
for, you know, another like year or two, I probably could have
just because I have, I had the thick skin and I could probably
figure out how to make it work in some way.
But I, I definitely wouldn't have been happy.
And there, there is a moment that happened for me and it
probably was when I had kids where I was just like, I do have
to feel like there's something else here for me aside from just
the paycheck. I have to feel like I'm being
respected, that I'm continuing to learn everyday, that I feel
like there's a path, a future path for me.
I just, there's something else that I have that I have to
prioritize other than the money. Because if I'm going to leave my
kids for 9 hours a day, I have to feel fulfilled.
Doesn't mean that every day is going to be perfect.
It doesn't mean that there's not going to be really, really hard,
hard time so that you're going to work your butt off and be
exhausted and you know, feel like, what am I can I keep going
like this? But you have to feel like you're
respected and when you if that's important to you and when that
stops, you got to go. Some advice that you've also
given us in the past is like don't let anyone weaponize you
and take the emotion out of it. Yeah.
I, I feel like that's related to this entire conversation.
Could you describe a little bit more about what you mean by that
and how you you learn that in in your career?
That's really hard. I I am a very emotion.
I'm an emotional person. I feel a lot of things.
I know. Especially when you care about
what you work on. Yes, yeah.
It's so intertwined. I have never been somebody who
has I I'm not a stoic leader. I am.
I feel energy really, really strongly, good or bad.
Like in a room, I am like, I'm almost sometimes paralyzed by
the energy that I pick up in the room, which allows you the
capability to read and respond very quickly.
You can't go in with a script. You have to go in with a loose
outline and read what's going on and then move to the next thing
or respond in some way so that you're keeping the thing going
versus like being so stiff that you can't.
So anyway, that's just I'm saying that the emotional
element and the energy reading that I have is a blessing and a
curse. And the curse is that it's
really hard to take the emotion out.
And I'm telling you, I've been working for since the year 2000,
So what, 25 years? I still to this day have to
practice that. I still to this day have to
remember that when my CEO doesn't like something that I
do, it's not that he doesn't like me, it's that he doesn't
like what's being presented to him on paper.
It's when my boss is giving me feedback and saying, you know,
if I were you, I might have done this a little differently.
It's not that he thinks that I suck at my job, it's that he's
trying to actually make me better.
And then of course, like you come up against really
challenging people that if it's sporadic and you have to just
deal with it every every couple of weeks or every couple of
months, you got to like steal yourself to get through it and
you push through it and it's over, OK, I can handle that.
If I have to be in that energy all the time, I might not be OK
with it. And so you have to figure out
how to, like, box up the energy sometimes for a moment and like,
put it on a shelf. Departmentalize.
Departmentalize it. And I have to constantly remind
myself that the the feedback that I'm getting, maybe it could
have been delivered in a better way.
Maybe it didn't necessarily need to be communicated in the way
that it was communicated. But what's the core of it?
OK, the core of it is something that I can fix and I'll fix it
and we'll move on. It's not as though it's a, it's
a crystal ball saying, Oh my God, I don't belong here
anymore, you know, so there's a little that it's just hard to
manage it if you're, if you are a sensitive person.
And I do think I'm, I don't, it's not that I'm sensitive to
the point where like someone gives me feedback and I'm crying
in their office. It's not that.
It's just a sensitivity that you have that you get in your head
for a minute and you have to figure out how to get out of it.
Now, I will say that prior to 2000 and one, I didn't think I
like needed a therapist. I didn't think that like had to
have somebody to kind of vent to like once a week.
It's changed my life to have that.
I love therapy. We just did a podcast episode
talking about mental health and therapy.
And our like their our journey with therapy.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, everyone has maybe a
core reason that brought them to therapy.
But then what happens in the first six months?
You start to like the onion kind of like on delayers.
What? Unwind like everything, just the
onion. Comes apart and you're like, oh,
right, that's why I feel that way.
Like that's why when I maybe get somebody speaks to me in a
certain way, I'm like, like the the cortisol rush comes and I'm
freaking out. Right, the three of us are
exactly. The same I'm like.
What did they say that in like a weird tone?
Am I overthinking it? I was just like do they?
Did I do something wrong? Like I'm just like.
It's not talked about enough. Yeah, the the impact that tone
energy has on on you no matter what stage of your career you're
in, no matter how long you've been in the workplace day one
day 100,000 and one you there it just if that's who you are and
there has been a you know, you were raised in a certain
household. You had a terrible traumatic
experience with a teacher or an old boss or whatever it was like
this stuff sticks with you. I mean, I have moments where I
have traced back to like a group of friends from the 8th grade
who like, didn't want to be friends with me anymore, right?
Like, and you're like, wow, this is not just me being a sensitive
girl at the age of 13, having to get over something.
This is something that roots in you that you have to deal with.
And it erupts in the workplace in weird ways.
It's not like it's just in the past.
It's in you. Like your first 18 years of your
life are so impressionable and these moments that you don't
think are important, like they stay with you forever.
And so that's why I think therapy is so important because
you can pinpoint it and then you have control over it versus
getting this rush of discomfort and anxiety and all of this
stuff. And you're like, why am I
feeling this way? Which makes you panic more.
At least if you know you're like, OK, I know this is like
coming from like my like weird trauma from like somewhere.
And I know how I can get through it.
I know it's not going to last forever.
I know what I what I have to do. It's a toolkit.
You have a toolkit, you can name it, you can place it.
And I think in addition just to just being like sensitive
people, like what we do for work is just so creative and so part
of like who we are that like it's really hard to separate.
I mean, we're putting ourselves out there like we're like
revealing ourselves and being extremely vulnerable with like
every. Aspect of our lives.
Totally. I this is this is the first time
at my current workplace where I've ever had a male boss or
male bosses because I feel like I have three of them.
And in a lot of ways, it's incredibly amazing to have a
different type of management, men and women, I'm sorry, they
just like managed differently. They, they show up differently.
And so I have actually thrived in the last five years with
that. Not because I didn't thrive, I
have, I've had incredible moments with incredible bosses
and leaders who were females, but it's, it just feels
different the way that a man delivers, particularly men who
have careers in finance versus careers in creative.
It's just different and you learn really quickly that you're
going to have to separate that thing.
You know, you're not getting the flowery feedback, you're getting
the direct feedback. Now that comes.
That has come from women too in the past, like many of my ex
bosses have been maybe even harder delivery than the the
people that I work with now. But it is different.
And some of it's good and some of it's bad.
And I think sometimes there is a there's a level of like, OK,
well, there's just a way that a man does things and I'm not
going to take it personally. I don't know there.
I've I've, I've felt that it was good for me in a lot of ways to
have this experience. And also I just want to say
thank you for sharing this part of yourself because it is very,
I guess, like heartening for us because like I also view myself
as a very emotional person. And to like see you and at the
level of success and all like your achievements in your career
and having done that and being like, I am an emotional person,
like this is how I walk through life.
And this is how I show up in my career as well.
And it's just really it's like, great to see you where you are
and be like, OK, it is possible for us to do.
So the other side of that goes back to the work life.
Thank you for saying that. But like there are other sides
of that. So there's in the last few
weeks, I've had a lot of difficult moments in this
launch. We've we've talked about this
app launch. It's been really, really hard.
Like there's been things that I've never done before.
There's that's it, that's vulnerability at its core form.
When you're like a going through something that you're just
trying to learn and figure out and you're now down to the
crunch time, you're like T -, 2 weeks and now you're getting
this feedback that's coming because.
People are singing for the first time.
They have feelings about the way the marketing language is or the
press release or like whatever it is.
And there are things that are delivered in ways that are
really, really hard. And you have to, in that moment,
absorb it, try really hard to just be completely unemotional,
figure out how you're going to fix it and fix it, right.
So that's this side of it. The other, the underbelly of it
is that you go to your work wives, you go to your husband,
you go to your friends. Right now you're serious raging,
right? And you're like.
I got that lace and he talked to me that way.
Or whatever it is. And but you need both sides like
you need to, you need to know that if you have the underbelly
there that like you can be real with and raw with and you can
like get it all out. You have your therapist, you
have whoever it is that can see all the feelings.
That's how you can show up unemotionally in a room and get
it done. Yeah.
And just. Execute.
That's just good advice. OK, I know if somebody is giving
me feedback that I don't love or giving it to me in a way that I
don't love, I know that I can talk to whoever I want about
that. But in this room, it stays out.
I am here to stone face. Walk in.
Take it in, buckle up, walk out that door, go for my rage walk,
whatever it is. I love a rage walk.
And then, you know, there's like muscle memory that shows me that
I've been through this kind of pattern a million times in my
career. I know I'll see through the
other side. I know I'll find the answer.
I know I'll get to it. It's just going to be like a
pain in the butt because I didn't really plan on having to
redo it, right? Like whatever it is you got to
have like the. Both sides of it.
It's such good advice. Well, I love it because it's
super tactical. It's like this is how you show
up in the room, and this is how you can show up outside of the
room. And both are very authentic to
who you are based off of the context and like what you need
to do. I love that.
You mentioned, Lee, you mentioned your husband a couple
times. One of the mottos of our podcast
is that we talk about power, money and love because those are
all such important aspects of like a holistic life.
So in that vein, maybe you can just like tell us a little bit
more more about your husband and like your relationship and just
kind of like your journey with like love, I guess, because also
for context, we're both recently single.
So like we're on that journey. Yeah, it's a beautiful journey.
It's hard to be on the journey sometimes it's hard to see it
like, Oh my God, of course you'll look back and you'll be
like, oh, I should have enjoyed it more, but it is hard.
It's stressful and it's anxious. And before I met my husband, I
was super anxious too. And we met when we were both
like totally poor and like, you know, living off of whatever
came our way, like, and we both kind of supported each other to
different levels of success in our, we've met in 2004.
And so now we've been together 21 years and that's a long time.
That's a long journey. There's dreams that you both
have that you have to figure out how to have in parallel.
You can do it in parallel. It's just it's a lot of
negotiating and but it's also incredible to watch the other
one. You know, you're like sometimes
you leapfrog each other and if you have the maturity to know
that that's like a great thing and you're not like competitive
with each other and you're really supportive.
It's just such a cool relationship.
I mean, we're as best friends as we are, you know, life partners
and parent, you know, parenting partners.
And he probably can't understand everyday what I do and I don't
always understand everyday what he does.
But like the crux of like what we're here to do together to to
allow each person to thrive is has always been like at the
center of our partnership. I dated a lot of people before
him that didn't want somebody to be more of a success than they
were or as equal of a success as they were didn't want it, you
know, and eventually that's why we didn't last.
I found my husband, Nick, and I think I mentioned this book to
you guys before, but he was five years younger than me.
Yeah. He was 22 when we met.
I was 27. I was like, there's no way this
is lasting. He was like, he's he was just 21
last week, right? Like, I was like, crazy.
But he was an old soul. And he just he, he was raised by
a single mom and she taught him to respect the crap out of
women. And he just did that my whole
our whole existence together. He respected me so much.
I was many levels of in my career above him when we first
met. He loved that.
He loved the idea that I was going after everything that I
had dreamed of going after. And he supported that every
step. That's the crux of who we are as
a couple. Is that how like you knew he was
the one? Like, is that like a realization
over time or was it Oh. Maybe I I knew, honestly, I knew
he was the one the day I met him.
Oh my gosh. Which is weird, I think some
people say that, but I truly made a phone call to my aunt the
next day I met him and I said I found my husband.
She was like why did I tell her about him?
She's like, you're not marrying a 22 year old.
Like what are you talking about? Like watching Bet Bet.
But I did know, I mean, there was maybe it was just that
universal like cosmic moment where you look, this is
something that I have not experienced before, but then,
you know, you over time start to understand like the depths of
what that stuff is and why he's so supportive of my success.
And honestly, to this day, we are he's Aceo.
I'm, you know, a version of that at like, you know, I'm running
your a bunch of businesses, right?
I travel and he stays at home with the kids.
He travels and I stay at home with the kids.
And we just have the an understanding that there are
going to be moments that are really hard and we're going to
be alone in New York City with our kids doing balancing at all.
And we just have to do it do like pull it together and be
there for each other. And it's, it's great.
It's hard, but it's really, really great.
So Leah, we have time for one more question.
And I think as Jean and I are looking back to our podcast,
like a theme is like giving advice to our younger selves.
And so if you were to give a piece of advice in your to
yourself in your early 30s, what would you tell yourself?
Being a mom is so important to me.
Oh, I'm going to get emotional, Yeah.
We're like locked in. Hang on.
Yeah, sorry. Yeah, Hmm.
Sorry guys, no, all good. I'm so glad.
OK, I'm so sorry. No, this is I'm, I'm.
I wish I had a tissue. Have a tissue, right?
Dinesh. I'm so sorry, no.
This is. A good conversation, Very good
conversation. No, don't apologize.
Yeah, really do not apologize. That's how we know it's a good
convo we got there all right. We're good, OK.
I think I like really came into my own when I became a mom and I
was working because all these like 3 things in my life
collided. It was like I was a wife.
I was on my way upward in the workforce and then I became a
mom and I became a mom like the first time I tried.
And so I, and that was maybe in like my mid 30s and I was like,
whoa, OK, like maybe I don't have to rush like the second
baby because I got pregnant right away.
And then I did have a really, really hard time getting
pregnant, my second one and went through like loads, rounds and
rounds and rounds of IVF. Couldn't get pregnant, couldn't
get pregnant. And it, those were like dark
days of my life because I wanted something that I like couldn't
make happen. And really to that point, I had
been able to make most things that I want happen.
Like, yes, I found an amazing person to spend my life with and
I really was moving up in my career and this thing just like
couldn't do and it was so hard. So I think like the advice to
the younger self is like, maybe like don't assume that something
is that comes to you easily. It's always going to be easy.
Like there are thing there are moments that you're going to
have to like climb a mountain and figure out how to get.
And it is a lot of hard in or outer work to do.
And it's not just maybe being a mom like this, this, it lends
itself to other areas of life too.
But like sometimes you start out in the workforce and you're
like, this is so easy. It's amazing.
And then you just hit a wall and you have a really horrible boss
or you, your company goes through a total restructure and
everything goes to crap. Or like, you know, this is just
life. Like it's like really hard
things happen that you have to figure out how to manage in your
life. Like that was one of the harder
things that I went through and I was so depressed for a couple of
years and then I just kind of gave it up.
I was like, all right, that's fine.
I have one. He's amazing.
I'm going to be fine with just one.
And I mean, out of the blue miracle like I had, I got
pregnant naturally with my daughter.
I joke that my, I, my, my gynecologist told me, Oh yeah,
this happens all the time. It's like an egg exfoliation.
She was like, you like go through, you go through IVF, you
get the bad eggs out and then like one pops up later and
becomes like a real human. So I had my like exfoliation, I
guess in my good egg popped up, but it worked out.
It was just a really, really, really, really hard, dark road.
And I think as women, even if you have a life partner there to
support every ounce of it with you and cry every ounce of it
with you, you, you take it so seriously and you say it's your
fault and it's really, really hard.
So that was a hard journey. And so there's levels of that.
It's like the easy and the heart of it all expect it.
But also as a woman like they're it really is.
We deal with biology that is in competition with our career
growth sometimes. And there's like no formula for
a universal answer or formula. Yeah, it's.
It's our blessing and our burden at the same time.
It totally. Is very special and it's super
emotional to talk about and everybody has a different
version of the story and it's like, I don't know, it's a
bespoke moment that everybody has to figure out on their own
because they're approaching it in different ways.
It's a blessing and a curse, but we have our best friends, we
have our work wives. We also have, you know, the
resilience that we talked about earlier.
We have our therapy, we have the toolkit to get through it.
Even though you know, rain falls on our lives, rain falls on
everyone's lives there, there is a way to get through it, so.
Totally. Thank you so much.
Thank you for sharing. That with us, Yeah.
Oh my God, That's a perfect wrap up.
Yeah, yeah. Oh my.
God, thanks. Thank you.
I wanted to give. You some sweet.
Oh my God. Thank you.
That was an amazing conversation with Leah.
I love Leah. And as you can tell, we're huge
fans of her, obviously in her career, but just her as a
person. We're so bad so much.
If you're doing an end of your audit of your life or just a
January reset, let this be the shift for you.
OK, so Lorraine just gave us the perception layer, which is how
your leadership gets read in real time.
And then Leah gave us the influence layer, which is how to
turn that perception into actual outcomes.
So if you're starting the new year with a friend who's also
working on self growth, send them this episode so you can
discuss it together. Thank you guys so much for
tuning in to this episode of Tiger Sisters.
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Time. OK.
We'll see you guys next week. Bye.