Intentional Leaders Podcast with Cyndi Wentland

Confidence Coaching & Reclaiming Power with Anita Miller, Certified Coach

• Anita Miller, Certified Coach • Episode 122

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Ever felt voiceless and choiceless in your career? Wondered how to navigate the complex power dynamics in business? Join me today as I chat with Anita Miller, a certified coach and a role model of confidence and career success. Anita generously shares her inspiring journey, from the corporate world to entrepreneurship, highlighting the critical lessons she learned during her challenging times, particularly the power of asking for help and valuing strong support systems.

As we journey through the conversation, Anita and I explore the significance of building a community when transitioning from corporates to startups and how we can reclaim our power and voice.  Our discussion deepens into how our beliefs about power can make us feel voiceless and choiceless, and how we can break those barriers to find our authentic voice, and the confidence to succeed. We further delve into the intricate dynamics of power in business and the role diversity and inclusion play in shaping a more equitable workspace.

Anita enlightens us with insightful strategies to navigate these power dynamics, the role thoughts play in shaping our self-beliefs, and how we can cultivate authenticity in our work. We wrap up with a powerful discussion on Anita's journey to success and how she is fostering personal and professional agency in others, through her coaching work. So tune in, and get ready to be inspired, and who knows, you might find a new perspective that could change your career trajectory.

Find Anita: https://sisyouareworthy.com/

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To sharpen your skills and increase your confidence, check out the Confident Leader Course: https://www.intentionaleaders.com/confident-leader

Cyndi:

Hello and welcome to the Intentional Leaders Podcast. This is episode 122 and it's a leadership lessons learned interview with Anita Miller, certified coach.

Cyndi:

Welcome to Intentional Leaders. This podcast is not just for leaders, rather for anyone who wants to make an impact on the world, professionally or personally. My passion and purpose is to provide tips, tools and resources that I've learned throughout my career working with large and small organizations, profit and non, and also as an entrepreneur. I've had the joy to teach thousands of individuals who, like you, are trying to navigate this crazy and complex world. So here's to doing that successfully and intentionally.

Cyndi:

Today. I want to welcome Anita Miller to the podcast, and Anita is a confidence and career success coach, and Anita and I had a chance to meet in our coaching certification. Do you remember what year that was, Anita? 2019. Time is flying, so I want to welcome you to our episode today and thank you for taking the time to be here. Thank you so much for having me. It is my pleasure. When we met, you were still working in the corporate world and you transitioned as a career and success coach in mid-year of 2022. I would love to know a little bit about that journey. But also, your business is about confidence and success, and one of the things the stories that you mentioned was a story that really changed your life and the trajectory of your career, and that happened in 2008. Can you share a little bit about that moment and why that was so powerful and how that changed you and your career?

Anita:

I have always loved business and entrepreneurship and in 2006, I had started my own company and it was doing well until the recession hit, and my company was in logistics and trucking specifically, and so I had built up a good company, good rapport, good clients. But when 2008 hit, it meant that trucks stopped moving. So anytime we're going to see here coming up, anytime there's a recession and people pull back, that means trucking also pulls back, and so what ended up happening was I had not been in business long enough to sustain what ended up being quite a period, so it's that I actually lost everything. Oh, no, yeah, I mean it wasn't the most pleasant time in my life, but it's okay, it worked out.

Cyndi:

I love how you say that A nita. It wasn't pleasant, but it was okay. That's your positivity shining through.

Anita:

What ended up happening was I had to start my career over. It also meant that I had to learn the lesson of asking for help, which I think is a key skill and trait to learn as we move forward and think about who we want to be as leaders is really asking for help, whether that's from the people that report to us or from other leaders, et cetera. So this was the first time in my life where I didn't have a choice but to ask for help, and so with that I ended up going back into the corporate world. I had been in the corporate world before this business, but this time I started over, and I started over actually as an executive assistant. I kind of went there temporarily for the logistics role, and the only opening they had and I had responsibilities was executive assistant. So I took it and I'm glad that I did.

Anita:

I am a hard worker, I believe in a good work ethic and that proved to be useful for me. It benefited me and I was able to take that one and then two, really hone my skills to move into a more I'll call it corporate style role and to move into making additional monies, additional titles and things like that as a part of that opportunity. So again losing everything, including my home, everything, my job, my business, all the things not pleasant, but looking back on it now I'm not upset about it. It worked out all right. So I think sometimes when we have these moments in our life, we look at it as if it's the end. But it could just be the beginning.

Cyndi:

Yeah, what a wonderful perspective and what a great mindset to think about those pivotal moments. And you said something important too, Anita, that I do know about you is I know that you are an incredibly hard worker, I know that you have a strong work ethic, and when we rely on ourselves, sometimes, when we work that strongly as well, we don't want to ask for help. It's kind of like I can do this on my own, and I think that's a beautiful message in your story too. Is you had to open yourself up to that and do you remember how you did it? Like, how did you open yourself up to that help? Because you are fiercely independent.

Anita:

I'm fiercely independent and I continue to work on, as a part of my own leadership development, asking for help, or knowing when to ask for help, right, doing it earlier in the process, if you will. In that moment, it really came down to asking friends, family, for support. So when it came to certain things, my friends helped me. I had a daughter, they helped me care for her while I went back to work. They took care of her after school, things like that. When it came to finances, family helped to support, so it was a really a community effort.

Anita:

Asking for help is requiring vulnerability and when you're fiercely independent, when you are or consider yourself to be a leader, a changemaker, asking for help sometime is a struggle. Right, it's like an internal challenge, and so for me it was. But if I looked at what were the options, like I could ask for help or I could go to a shelter, and sometimes we have to think about our ego and our pride as leaders, as parents and all of those things, and do what is best as a whole so that we don't make the situation or our suffering more than it needs to be.

Cyndi:

Sure, yeah, what a powerful lesson. Right before this call, I was literally putting together a class for tomorrow on people evolving through change and talking about resilience, and one of the components of resilience is a strong support network. I just saw an article recently that, when it comes to longevity in our life, the stronger our support system and friend network is, the longer we actually live. So, as you said, it is about ego, it is about pride, but then it is about your entire life and it's about surviving, and how do you want to survive? So I think that's a really beautiful way to describe the hard choice that you had to make, but seeing the benefit of doing that and also probably teaching your daughter that as well, which is a beautiful thing.

Anita:

Yeah, absolutely Definitely a pivotal moment, but a good moment. Like I'm not upset about that moment in my life at all.

Cyndi:

Yeah. So then in 2022, you started full-time in coaching because when you and I went through coaching certification I think we were both working in organizations I had half my foot out the door and you had your feet both in the corporate world. So what made you decide to go full-time into coaching? How did that happen for you?

Anita:

I went into certification knowing that I ultimately wanted to be a full-time coach. I do love corporate, I love being a corporate leader, but again, my heart speaks to business entrepreneurship. It is something that I truly deeply desire, and I'm not sure that everyone deeply desires that in the way that I do. Right, it's one thing for it to sound good to have a business. It's another thing to love business, to want to do all the things we don't want to do in business, and so for me, it came down to.

Anita:

By the time we had got to certification, I had already made the decision I had already started saving to be able to walk away and make sure that I could maintain my quality of life. So, in leaving, one of the things I thought about was what happened in 2008 and the lessons that I needed to learn there, and so there were two. One I needed to improve upon my administrative side of the business. Right, so it's one thing from the operations to work, bringing revenue, there are still administrative pieces that need to be done, and I learned during that business that if you don't do those administrative pieces, it does mess with your money.

Cyndi:

Yes, wise and clever, I've learned that too.

Anita:

And then two, also building the reserves and the savings to be able to sustain up and down cycles in the marketplace. What's the lessons I took away from that? So, as I got into coaching, having been coached, learning more about it, going into certification I had started saving to be able to comfortably walk away. So I probably saved from 2017 until I left. So those were probably like the big two lessons that I took into it and then walking away.

Anita:

Biggest lessons that I have learned is that one of the things we don't contemplate in going from corporate to entrepreneurship is community, and it's funny that you just mentioned that right. As a part of being resilient, we think a lot about the financial aspect, whether how we're going to pay ourself, how we're going to get the business up and running. A lot of our focus as individuals, going from that, is to really sustain the life that we had. Yeah, but in reality, we become leaders in a different capacity, yes, and so when we go from being a leader in someone else's organization to being a leader in our own organization, it really means that we have to build all the things that we likely didn't notice at work, and for me, one of those things and things that I see in the women that I coach and the communities I coach in is lack of community is a hindrance to our success.

Cyndi:

Okay, oh, interesting. I'm so intrigued when you think about confidence and career success and the brand you're building. What are some of those key issues? You see, how does that translate into challenges women are having as leaders? So, when you talk about community, what's the gap? How does that contribute to people struggling a little in their career?

Anita:

Yeah. So for many of us, especially if you're in the online kind of space, right, or if you're doing consumer to consumer, you are likely working alone, working at home, and you somehow, by accident, have isolated yourself. It wasn't an intentional choice, you just thought you were leaving and now you're just at the house all the time and you're trying to work. But little things that happen in the workplace that we again don't think that we need myself included like collaboration I call it volleying in my business.

Anita:

But the ability to talk to someone else, to talk it through, to talk it out, to brainstorm, that can only happen kind of in a silo when you're by yourself. So being able to have community to talk it through, accountability partners, co-working, is really helpful. And for many women that I coach, they don't do that until it's too late and now we have to coach to undo the thoughts that they've had about who they are and their ability to be successful in business, and so they might have walked away thinking, yes, I'm really successful and I'm confident. But now I've been sitting over here in this room for six months by myself and things are not quite going how I thought they would go.

Cyndi:

Yes, and what should I do with this room or with me?

Anita:

Yes, and I'm starting to question a whole lot of things. Right, and so community allows you to replenish, right? Your community, your circle, will tell you, they will remind you of the qualities in you that you don't see in that moment. That's awesome. They will help you redirect your thoughts. They will provide a pouring into you that you likely need when you run your own business. That you don't get if you don't have community.

Anita:

And in some cases it means that you have to put yourself out there to build new community, because for many of us walking away from the corporate world, all of our friends are at work, so they can't talk to us during the day. It's weird, right, it is. I mean, it's not fair. I don't understand. If we were at work, you would stop by my desk and talk to me. I don't understand why you can't talk to me now, right. But it's also an awesome opportunity, though, right. If we're willing at the beginning to go build the community, build a culture for ourselves, a way we want our company to run in the beginning, it will allow for exactly what you said that resilience in the community aspect, resilience for when times are frustrating, when times are hard, you have someone that you can lean on, someone, you can brainstorm with, someone who can motivate you and someone maybe just to partner with. Sometimes we just need to be in community.

Cyndi:

Yeah, absolutely, and so I'm curious are most of the women that you coach in the corporate world, or have they left the corporate world and now they're more on the entrepreneur side?

Anita:

I have two feet in and I want to get promoted. Okay, two, I just left.

Cyndi:

Okay, you can talk about the women with the two feet in. They want to get promoted. What do you see as the major hurdles for women being promoted, or that they believe are the hurdles?

Anita:

Yes, which is important, right. From my perspective, I would say they believe that they don't have any power, or that everyone else has the power. And so if we believe that we have no say, no choice, no voice, as women we tend not to use that voice, and so that also means that we fade into the background. And human nature, though, says we think about people from a promotion perspective. When they're top of mind, when we have relationships with them, when we see them, those are the people that we tend to be closest to. And as you move up, you recognize why leaders surround themselves with people they know. When you're earlier in your career, you're like why do they do that? But as you get further up, you realize there's a reason for surrounding yourself with community right, With people that you know for us, who are part of your community. Because you've worked with them, you know they'll work ethic, you know the congruency of how you together. But we can't even get there if no one sees us earlier in the process.

Cyndi:

Yeah, so how do you help women with that? Because, as you think about that power and as you said, it's the belief that they don't have a voice, they don't have a say, they don't have a choice. As you think about your coaching, what are some of your key strategies to help them get back that power?

Anita:

So we do a lot of work in the beginning around owning your voice, which ultimately means owning who you are today and deciding what is true about you and what is not. So for a lot of the women I coach, there are unprocessed thoughts and beliefs that they got from childhood and that someone said to them in the corporate space. That in their mind, in their conscious mind, they kind of shook it off and it's done with. But in reality, when we start to coach and we look at their beliefs about who has the power, why they have the power, who told them that this was true, we start to see patterns around where we have diminished our own power, where we have not decided on purpose if it's true about us or if it's the truth that we want to accept for ourselves right now as adults.

Cyndi:

Yeah, and that that you just described is so powerful. You talked about three things. When have we diminished our own power? Do we want to decide, on purpose, to continue to do that, and what do we really want to accept right now? What do we want to believe about ourselves? That's a lot to unpack for people.

Anita:

It is a lot to unpack for people, and if they're willing, if they do the work, though, the shift in their confidence takes place pretty quickly. If they really decide to participate in the process, as I teach it and as I coach them through, so that they can really own what is true about themselves and be able to navigate in a way where they can stay grounded in who they are, regardless of what people say and think.

Cyndi:

Oh, Anita, I love that so much and that's got to be really rewarding to you to watch that transformation, because when you get to see someone own their power or believe something different about themselves, it's really inspirational.

Anita:

It is really inspirational and to see them realize that they do have a choice, the shift on.. I do have options, I do have choices. This is not a one and done. No matter what the situation is, I get to decide from here, and if I decide, I can also minimize my suffering.

Cyndi:

Yeah, that's a pretty powerful one. I think what's ironic about the corporate world in a way and I just more I look at it in hindsight is there's some belief that it's good to suffer, Like see how hard I'm working, see how many hours I'm putting in, see how much I'm committed to this, and it's almost like people revel in that suffering as if it's a really good thing. And a friend just gave me a book and I haven't read it yet, but it's called Rest is Resistance of that whole philosophy, Like why do we have to believe that suffering equals success? And you're kind of getting at that, You're kind of getting at the fact that that's not even true. And why would you choose to suffer?

Anita:

Yeah, right, because when we give away our power, we say we have no choice. Yeah, but that equates to suffering. Yeah, that's how it plays out, even if we look at I created this once, I can create it again. Then there are options, there are choices, and if we're open to that, it allows us to think about the next best step for ourselves versus sitting in suffering and silence.

Cyndi:

Yeah, my mom always talked about that when we were little. Silent sufferers, people that were, you know, martyring themselves and just like sitting there being miserable and actually choosing that. I think a lot of times it's unconscious, and I think that one of the huge benefits of coaching is bringing those things, as you said, to the surface. Now I have to look at them, though, and decide. Am I going to continue to believe that and suffer, or am I going to make a different choice? And, as you said, what is the next best step? What can I do that would help me feel better and more powerful? Absolutely, I love it. I love coaching. I see the opportunity to change the narrative in so many women. Would you say your primary audience is women of color. How does that play out in terms of your business?

Anita:

In terms of my business it plays out probably 60/40. With yes, the majority is a more of a group or membership model for women of color, and then the rest is open to other women or into training speaking corporate type of engagements.

Cyndi:

And so do you see any differences in power dynamics, with women of color as an issue? Is it similar in terms of belief system, I guess. How do you see the nuances there?

Anita:

So there is nuance there. For sure, because what I teach is corporate is a reflection of our country and some of the things that we just see in our country. So if we have that understanding, though, then we can navigate it with a lot more ease. Right now, or at least for my generation, we were taught that it was different, and when we bumped up against it, it wasn't different. We didn't kind of know what to do, sure, so for many of my women of color, the way our parents told us was that this was like promised land. Oh okay, so that's how it was taught to us.

Anita:

We go to school, we get a good grades, we get our degrees, we go work in corporate or in a professional environment, and that, for many of us who are first generation college students, it's progress for our family and our lineage, which is true, but what I often tell women, no matter who I'm coaching, especially if I'm coaching all women is that the difference is there was no one before us.

Anita:

So what that means for us is that things that our leaders probably feel like we're doing that's wrong or that we're doing intentionally, we're not. There is no one to have given us how this works before. So part of the work I do is transferring that knowledge, like how does this work? Yeah, what is happening? Because when we suffer, we start to resist, and resist just because more suffering, because you tell yourself you don't want that promotion, but you really did, yes, you tell your thing so that you find some comfort or, for many women of color, you go back to school because that at least equates to another level of success that you're earning, but it's not really the success that you want and it's not the success that will actually lead to that promotion.

Cyndi:

That's a really interesting insight, Anita. And back in my corporate days and again, this was 20 some years ago I was in a big company 5,000 people and there were less women in leadership at that time and I felt isolated just for the gender perspective. And then you add on those layers of race and color and what that means for me. It's hard to imagine that sense of isolation and what do you do with that? Which is again why I love your business model, because not only are you helping coach people, but you're building that membership in that community. So people get to talk about those things and they get to talk about them openly with you, transparently, and I can only imagine how powerful that must be for people to be able to talk about that, what it means that is absolutely one of the most powerful.

Anita:

People will tell you that I should just own that I have a hypothetical couch. Now, I am not a therapist, I made a choice to be a coach or a therapist. But in their minds, yes, having community where they can speak openly about their thoughts and beliefs, without judgment or with someone else understanding their experience, is a big part of why there is community and why I do have that particular model for that segment of my business. And it does help. It does help to know it's not just you, it does help to know that you're not alone and it does help to see other people asking for help, especially with women of color, so that they're more willing to ask for help, whether it's with me, in our community or even at work.

Cyndi:

Yeah, you bet. So when you think about that, you are creating a community, you're creating a platform and an experience where people can share that and you just said then it helps them to transition to those conversations at work. When you think about the broader spectrum of diversity, inclusion and belonging in the business world, what are some of the biggest challenges then that you see there and that you probably experienced yourself?

Anita:

I like to think of myself as a bridge, that's one of my strengths. One of the challenges is in order for diversity and inclusion to really take hold, it really has to be a belief from the top down, and that doesn't mean that it has to be a belief that hinders anyone else's ability to be themselves, but mostly just open to new perspectives or open to how things the way we've done them, could be detrimental to someone else. I think there needs to be more conversation in corporate that there's not a zero sum game, because corporate teaches that there is, but that in and of itself makes people not want to participate in diversity, because if it's a zero sum game, then that means I'm losing something for someone else to gain something.

Cyndi:

Excellent point, which doesn't feel good for anybody right. It creates some resistance there. Yeah, so you mentioned belief from the top down. Allow people to be authentic, being able to talk about new perspectives. Looking at the historical view that maybe someone has been either minimized or marginalized in the past, what else do you see needs to shift or happen?

Anita:

I think we have lost, I'll venture to say it's probably going to give me in trouble, but it's okay, the days of leadership, true leadership have been lost. We are in a place in the workspace where we say little things that we don't realize, keep things kind of the way they are systemically. That doesn't benefit anyone.

Anita:

So they say things like don't start over, don't recreate the wheel, but innovation happens when we recreate the wheel, efficiencies happen and as we see the rise of technology, getting back to allowing people to really share their ideas, allowing people to speak up and voice their perspectives and I don't mean disdain and things like that I mean I think there would be less disdain if we were in a place or if we evolved to a place that may not like the past and it may not look like right now, but if we're thinking collectively about our futures as people, as humans, against technology, against the challenges that we're seeing globally in this world, even if we think about it from a country perspective, how are we all going to be successful and sustain in the future? And I think one of those ways is by getting back to leadership that allows people to think openly, which also gets us to diversity of thought. I'm a big believer that we could simplify it all if we were open to diversity of thought.

Cyndi:

Yeah, and I would totally agree with you on that. We both went through a certification around our thoughts. You know, believing things on purpose, looking and challenging in our thought process, our beliefs, and choosing deliberately what we want to believe, not just choosing whatever thought comes into our head because those are not facts. So you and I both had the benefit of getting schooled around how to do that. But I have come to believe as well that what differentiates good leaders and great leaders, that open-mindedness and the willingness to allow other perspectives, honor them, respect them and not only that, to ask for them. They seek it out. They don't just listen and say, oh, that's a good idea. It's like what are your ideas, Anita? What do you see? How do you see the world different from me? And they're asking for diversity of thought and I think that's super powerful and I don't see that a lot.

Anita:

I don't think it has to be this complicated, whether we're talking about diversity and inclusion, people, you know, feeling like they belong. Those simple things that you just said would cover all of those things. You're going to get a diversity of thought when you ask. You're going to get innovation if you're open to it. When you ask, People feel included and like they're a part of the process.

Anita:

So even if they're not getting the promotion that they wanted at that time, they still feel like they belong there. They're a valued member, because as humans, we all want to be seen, recognized and heard. We all want to feel that way, regardless of any of the other parameters or things and labels that we attempt to put on it. That's what we all want. And then there's very levels of competition, of course and that also goes to the second thing that I would say about. That is right now, what we see in the marketplace when it comes to how we should resolve the DEIB issue. I'd consider myself a thought leader and as a thought leader, I would say is counterproductive. Anytime that we say that the power is in someone's hands outside of the people's, it means that there's no real movement for the people.

Cyndi:

So what do you mean by that? Who is it, if it's not the people, the leaders you mean, or when we use systemic things or when we use corporations as a whole.

Anita:

So if we were to read the Lean and Studies or the McKinley studies, in the end it says these are the things corporations need to do to fix diversity and inclusion. Okay, but what we're saying is that we, the people, have to wait for the corporation to do it in order for us to feel, believe or have those things.

Cyndi:

That's a really interesting point. It's talking about the business or the corporation is. Is it an entity outside of the people. Like t hese are two separate things, even though it can't exist without the people, right.

Anita:

In reality, when we think about business, or especially bigger corporations, that is how it works we think that it's one, but it's actually separate. So if we're saying that we, the people, have to wait for this separate entity to do it well in our history, that's never really proven to work for the people.

Cyndi:

Yes, in fact, that sets up the people to fail. Yeah, it's like wait, wait and then get really, really super frustrated and annoyed and feel victimized and then figure it out what, how's that going to work?

Anita:

Right, which goes to why we see a level of discontent in the workplace right now. Right, it's because the people feel like they have no say, and when I say people, I mean all the people. I think everyone feels some level of being overworked and frustration, and I think it's because all the messages says there is nothing we can do to change what is and we have no say in it.

Cyndi:

So I'm going to ask you two questions, Anita and I, and these are advice questions and I know as a coach, we are trained not to give advice, but I legit want your advice. One is I want your advice as a coach, so my space, similar to yours, is leadership. I do a lot of facilitation, but I still do leadership coaching. I want you to give me some advice as I think about diversity, inclusion and belonging as a coach. What are some things that you think it is essential that I am mindful of?

Anita:

I think authenticity is essential, especially for us as business owners. It serves no one if you're doing something that is not in alignment with your values. The person or persons that will show up in your community and your space will feel that and that is detrimental to your business. It is okay, from my perspective, to say you serve a specific population of people for this program, for this resource, for this thing.

Cyndi:

Okay, I love that. I think I'm discovering a sense of authenticity is I've leaned into that, probably the last few years more than I ever have in my life, because it was kind of like, well, what am I doing? I supposed to be over there? That's not authentically mean. Why am I choosing to show up that way? So I love the message because that's a conscious choice I think we have to make and there's a lot of risks inherent in doing that. Like what if people don't like the authentic me? What if I never get work again? Those are scary things for a business owner. My second ask is if you could give advice to young women today to step into power at an earlier age, and even if you think of young women in high school, what would you say to the parents out there of these young women or to the women that you think they need to understand or know?

Anita:

One, the sooner you can learn about the power of thoughts and how they create our beliefs, especially about ourselves and what we have the ability, capacity, opportunity to do is powerful, and I see this in my community all the time. There is a stark difference between how I see things, not having been given limiting beliefs in my childhood to some of the ladies that I coach in the limiting beliefs that they were given in their childhood and just because someone else does it doesn't make it true. That is something that the earlier we talk to young ladies about that, the better served they will be from that perspective. And then I would say for women, really understanding how business works.

Anita:

There's a lot to be said about understanding how the corporation you work for makes money, and for many women we do not understand that, and so we think that the work we're doing is highly valuable. But when you think about it in relation to how your company makes money, which also lends itself to exposure and promotions, there's not typically a one for one correlation and the work that we're doing to that, so being mindful, so that you can also articulate how what you're doing is adding value to the organization in a way that speaks to dollars and cents, because that's business right. That's how business works, especially in our country. So just really understanding how business works is shifting how the corporate space works will save a lot of time. It'll save a lot of frustration and move you forward faster.

Cyndi:

Yeah, I want to circle back to one thing you said around limiting beliefs. For those who don't know what that is, what is an example of a limiting belief that someone might be told as a young woman that they start to believe about themselves. Because you said you weren't really affected by that, you didn't have those in your life? What's an example of someone who does and what it is?

Anita:

I would say for my women of color, the limiting belief has a lot to do with race, has a lot to do with, especially for those who probably grew up somewhere in the or Midwest, and what was available, what their grandparents experienced and what they told them about other race, and so they carry that. So like, for example, next month in my community we're going to talk about how do we as women of color manage and have successful relationships with white men at work, because I have found when I'm coaching, when there's a disconnect or conflict, it's because of beliefs about a party that they were given, especially in childhood, right. So my granddad said this about them and I'm taking that into adulthood and into the workplace, which is why I don't talk to them, which is why I probably can't find a mentor in these type of things. I would say collectively for women, we tend to say that it's a male dominated world or business place, and I really want women to know that that holds true, no matter what industry you're in, and to give ourselves some grace and I talk to my community and those that I coach a lot about this.

Anita:

For many of us we are trailblazers, we are pioneers and I think that we forget to your point earlier point that women in the workplace is only a generation old. Interestingly Right, I know we think it feels like it was long ago, but truly women in the workplace is really only a generation old. So if we think about it from that perspective, how long it takes for people to change, for things to change I like to celebrate it versus saying we're not where we want to be. The numbers tend to say, oh, we only have this amount, but we didn't have any of that before. Good point. So if we look at it from a positive place and the ability to build on it and to take lessons learned for the next generation to build upon, then I think it will be more successful from that perspective.

Cyndi:

That's a pretty powerful reframe when you think about it in that way, and again you're kind of thinking big picture. Let's look at the positive, just like you did at the beginning of your story about like oh yeah, I lost my house and everything and all my money. I changed my life.

Anita:

My grandmother gave me a belief and it was we couldn't, say can't, and I really did not think about how powerful her giving me that belief as a young child. So if we said we can't, there was a whole lesson we were going to get. We're going to get a whole speech, we're going to get the whole thing. You can do anything you put your mind to like. We're going to get a whole grandmotherly speech around. There aren't limitations. So again, this is what makes it different for me and the experiences that I've had in the workplace. Not that I haven't had my own set of challenges, but what I went in thinking was possible, what I've been able to accomplish because of what I believe is possible I won't say regards of other factors, but knowing that those other factors exist and still moving forward.

Cyndi:

Yeah, it's kind of that I'm just going to keep going. I'm going to keep going and believe I can keep going, and that's what I'm going to do. And then it becomes true. That self-fulfilling prophecy, I think, also becomes true.

Anita:

I really do believe that your belief in yourself trumps all the other things.

Cyndi:

I share that belief because it's a beautiful one and I've seen it and I experience it and when you know, people are dropping into that belief and then they experience it for themselves and feel the power of that and feel the success of believing something different, it's just, it's transformational, and I think that's a great experience for us to see as coaches and for us to experience as human beings. It is.

Anita:

It's one of the best benefits I think of our job is being able to be a witness to people's transformation.

Cyndi:

Anita, I am so overjoyed that we had a chance to get together and that I got to hear more in depth about your journey when we went through certification. It was so interesting because we had a very eclectic group and I thought Anita is a rock star, she's gonna make it happen. And I didn't know when, I didn't know how, and now I get to see that in your life. But I always was 100% confident that you were gonna be successful and you were gonna shine. And there you are, doing what you planned on doing and I feel so grateful to get to hear your story and to be able to participate in your community, even in the background. But I really appreciate what you're doing and I want to support it wholeheartedly. I appreciate your time today and your story.

Anita:

Thank you so much. I appreciate all that. It's so sweet. Thank you so much.

Cyndi:

Isn't she great. I love talking about the power of coaching and when it comes to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, she's got some great ideas about how to do that.