This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 022 / Thriving in Male Dominated Industries With Megan Taylor

Episode Date: July 8, 2020

I love talking with women who are breaking stereotypes and finding a name for themselves in traditionally male dominated careers. My guest today is doing just that. In this episode I welcome Megan Taylor - International DJ who performs at events all across the world. Megan shares the key steps she took in the early days of her career that helped make her a trailblazer in her field. By redefining the role and what it would look like for her, setting boundaries and truly embracing both masculine and feminine characteristics, she has created a career that she loves. When masculine leadership is balanced with feminine, when environments are created where both genders thrive, when people can bring their whole authentic selves to work, everybody wins. Men have been leading imperfectly for centuries, we don’t need to be perfect or have it all figured out to lead, but we must lead, just as we are. This is Woman’s Work To learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast, visit us at NicoleKalil.com

Welcome to the show. I am Nicole Khalil and today's episode of This is Woman's Work, we're going to talk about how to thrive and how we can lead in traditionally male-dominated industries and fields. I've invited Megan Taylor to join me because she has both personal experience on this topic as an international DJ who performs at events all across the world, signature corporate events, private parties, and weddings, and also because she has a master's degree in transformational leadership. Megan, thank you so much for joining us today. My first question is, how did you become a DJ? And second, and I'll repeat this if you need it, but what have been some of the challenges or advantages of being a woman in a very male-dominated industry? Hi, Nicole. It's so good to be here. I love telling my story about how I became a DJ

because I think as I've been beginning to share it, I've realized how influential my childhood was even to where I'm at now having this almost 15-year career as a DJ. The very, very beginning, my dad used to work for Sony Records, but not in the sexy way. He basically managed all the distribution of music. So he would make sure CDs and music got to stores. But the advantage for me was as a young girl, I was the first girl in my class to get a CD and get music, go to concerts. My dad had a great hookup. So my dad loves music. I come from a family that loves music. So I've always loved music. So I was always the girl that made playlists. And I was always the one that was researching new music growing up. But I had no,

no, no idea I would actually become a DJ. And when I was in my early 20s, I worked for a company. I had graduated with a math and art degree. I had found myself in like the video editing film world. So I was working for a company that did events. So we did videography and we did photography and we had DJs. And for a long time, the owner of the company was like, why don't you, why don't you try DJing? Why don't you come over and like assist on these events? And I don't know why, but I was like too cool for school or I was intimidated. I was like, I'm not going to DJ. Heck no. And what we realized, we had this like really big party coming up. That

was a bunch of like high schoolers. Everyone realized that I was like, I knew the music. Like I knew what 16 year olds wanted. And so they were like, please come out and help us with this event. And so I ended up going to this event and I ended up starting sort of like assisting DJing. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I did know music and I did know how to pick music. And I remember that event. I was like, oh my God, this is so fun. You really get to create the party. You get to create the flow of the event. And my perspective really, really changed at that time. And I was like, wow, there's so much power that a DJ has. And I think I kind of opened my mind a little bit and it was sort of a hobby, right? I would go out and help here and there. And then I don't know why I just had a really big switch, you know, within

doing this after a little bit. And I was like, you know, if I'm going to DJ, I should really go for this. And the owner of the company that where I worked, James Gustin at Big Media, he was like, you should really interview DJs and understand them and get to know them. So I picked like five DJs I love in Chicago that I loved. And I like took them out for coffee. You know, this is like the early days of networking. And I can't even tell you how much those relationships paid off. And I asked people to help me and I got pretty serious about it. And I also looked at, you know, the demographic of who DJs were and we had our hand, our company at our hand in like private events. But I, you know,

there was a few females at the company, but just really a few in the hundreds of DJs in Chicago and everybody that were the other rest were males. And it seemed that everybody wanted to jump into the clubs and DJ. And I was like, I think there's a big opening in having me being a female DJ in the private event space. And so I really decided at that point to like work super hard. I would take any gig, like little pay, no pay, a lot of pay, and really decided to pursue this idea of being a DJ. And I think, you know, to your question of being a woman, it's been so interesting because in some ways I've had a huge advantage. I think people will ask for a female DJ. People want that for a brand perspective, which has been very helpful and very led to a lot of relationships.

And I also think, you know, and we can elaborate a little bit more, being a female though in the industry has been hard because I think one, there's not a lot of role models. I saw from a female DJ perspective, I saw a lot of people leading more from their looks and their image. And that's kind of what was pushed out in their branding as opposed to like their strength and who they were. They were just over-sexualized women DJs at that point. This is like literally like 10, 15 years ago and not across the board, but like generally speaking, that was my experience. And so I just didn't know, like, was this possible? And I think that I just felt like I was like, just this like rare bird wanting to do this, these things. And so I had to kind of find my own

way in that respect. And then, you know, it's so funny. So even like last year I went to a DJ convention and like this man comes up and he met me and he, you know, the's so funny. So even like last year I went to a DJ convention and like this man comes up and he met me and he, you know, the first thing he said, he's like, Oh, you're one of the female DJs that gets all the gigs because you're pretty. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is like 2019. Did you just say that to me? And I've been DJing for so long. So it's an interesting stereotypical world, you know, I sort of still live in. And I think I really juggle both. It's difficult. And then there's also advantages as well with it. Yeah, I think you said that very well. Anyone, and I can relate working in male-dominated

industries, I think that struggle with knowing there are advantages, but also when you do well or when you have success, that there is still people who write it off that it is easier for you because you're a woman or you're having success because of the way you look. Or yeah, it can be really frustrating. I think there are probably a lot of head nods as you were sharing that. So what in all of that led you to go get your master's degree in transformational leadership? What was compelling about that in your journey? I know. I'm glad you're asking that because it's like I have like parallel like lives of the way that I progressed through my career. Well, and I think what happened was

when I was becoming a DJ and I really credit a lot of my success to sort of doing like personal development work and personal growth work. When in my twenties, I had found an organization in Chicago called the Right Foundation. And I had, I just, I stumbled upon a women's weekend that really changed my life because I really noticed how I was living for others. And I didn't have like a strong internal locus of control. And I think a lot of women maybe struggle with this, with this, like they're, what is your identity? I think we're really taught, you know, how, how a woman should be rather, but, but not, we don't really give the time to get to know ourselves. And so I have just done a lot of personal development and growth. And so I jumped in and I've really, really parallel as I was growing my DJ career, I was doing all this work on myself. So understanding my emotions, understanding what it means, feminine, masculine leadership, it is, you know, understanding the belief system. And so naturally, and then I also became like a leader and I saw so much success in my personal life and my professional life as I started digging into who

I was. And I really, really believe, I really believe like, this is like the, you know, the, the mix that's really going to make people thrive and no matter what career you're in. And, um, so I, I was really dedicated to my own personal journey. And so one of the next steps, the foundation that I worked, they launched this social and emotional, um, intelligence degree, which is like a leadership degree. It was so hard. It was this master's in this degree. And it felt like the natural progression of what I was doing. And so I did this degree. And also I was thinking about getting my MBA at certain times. I mean, I was really thriving as a DJ, but I just like to learn. I always want more. And I think that

people really narrow this box around being a DJ. It's like, oh, you just play music, you know, and you know music, but there's so much psychology that goes into DJing and understanding an event and understanding music that I really saw the two connected. And it's also like all sales. And so I did this beautiful degree and the degree was so impactful because not only are you really studying like how a person becomes great, how they become a leader and what a leader can look like, but you also, everything you do, I'm like not a reader. I'm like way better like in the moment, but it really forced me to study and really be academic in a way I had never been before, which was really challenging for me.

And then you wrote these papers about how you're transforming yourself inside and how you're transforming your world. So everything was super applicable. I'm not going to just go study it. You really had to apply it. And I think it really, really made the difference in my degree and then also translated to like success in what I was doing. Yeah. And I think the two of us could probably geek out for hours if we started talking about masculine and feminine leadership. This is one of the topics I train, like on-site events or keynotes, one of my favorite things to talk about. Maybe would you be willing

to share with us a couple learnings around feminine leadership, anything that was surprising or impactful to you as you began to see leadership from that lens, but also the necessity for both feminine and masculine leadership to exist. Yeah, absolutely. And honestly, I would love to learn from you. So I so love that you keynote on that because I think it is a game changer in the world. And I think especially now as we're kind of looking at that the world is somewhat overly dominated

by masculine values. And I don't mean like, oh, we like, you know, by men, it's one of the biggest things that was me was a game changer is I learned how, you know, the idea that we all have masculine and feminine in us. But like, I kind of looked at like, God, well, men really need to, you know, learn about the power of the feminine leadership. And I realized that it's, it's not really about men. It's like us, like as women, we don't often honor and we don't often like believe in our feminine. We, we overvalue the masculine inside of us. So in lots of ways, I would like, I have a lot of gifts that are more in the feminine sort of way of being,

but I was like, Oh, that doesn't matter. Because what matters is like my drive and my results and how I do versus like my being. And the interesting thing about how this all connects to DJing and why I think DJing is so surprising, because so the world of DJs is like very male dominated still. There's so many more females, you know, kind of coming up, which is so exciting. But I just know in the

music world, in production and producing, it's like less than 6% was like the last statistic I heard of women. So this is like a huge gap and a huge area. And the thing that's so mind boggling to me about being a DJ is I think that feminine skills really thrive in DJing because you have to really use your intuition. You have to use your resonance with the crowd. You have to attune to the crowd and to the people. And so men can do this too, but it's, I just think that there's so many cool things in ways that your feminine skills can thrive in this way of being. And I think it's just been overlooked for so long in the approach of DJing. So it's such an interesting thing as I started to understand like the set of skills that I have and what I do. And I really had to look at

like changing the value system of it. You're really hitting the nail on the head. I have experienced, observed, and heard this so often when you look very specifically at male-dominated fields, but I think this could be true pretty much everywhere. But in male-dominated fields, you look at what it takes to be successful. You look at how to thrive in that environment or in that field. And for a lot of women, they don't see themselves in there because what it has become, what it looks like it takes to thrive in that environment is a lot of masculine character traits or tendencies. So the women who do thrive in those environments both tend to have more masculine styles as well as they leverage those. They highlight those and sort of stuff down their feminine. And by the way, the men are doing

that too in those environments. The men that have and possess feminine leadership traits are stuffing those down because they don't really work or make sense in that environment based on how it's, and I'm putting this in air quotes, how it's always been done, right? And so I think one of the biggest challenges for women who want to break into male-dominated industries or want to become leaders in male-dominated industries is to set aside the way it's always been done and to really think about how you can bring your unique talents, your unique abilities, both the masculine and the feminine that's within you to the role. And that can be really challenging because there's not a lot of examples of it, right? Yep.

One of the things you shared with me before we hit record that I wanted to touch on, because I think it sort of plays into this masculine and feminine, but maybe more importantly, the feminine expectations sometimes that people have. You had shared with me that you're 38 and single. And I know for a lot of women, there's this pressure of wanting or needing to get married. And if somebody wants to get married, more power to them. But I talk to a lot of women who've decided that that's not the route that they want to go.

Or maybe it's just not the top priority and they want to focus on career or self-development or other aspects of their life. Talk to us about that choice and if it's been a struggle or how you came to own that choice for yourself. Yeah, thank you. You know, I think that, I think the whole game for me, and I kind of touched on this before, is understanding, you know, and knowing who you are and what you want and not, and not just being and not just being like a robot that's like living for other people's expectations and rules. And for me personally, I thought that was the game.

I thought you got a great job. I thought you got married. I thought that, you know, and I thought that, you know, this is very like in simple terms, but I, um, I'm so grateful for the time I took in my, to be single. And, um, I sound like I was like, oh, now I'm going to be single. But I, I really saw a lot of friends and a lot of people like getting married, not consciously though, like just because it like makes sense. And I was like, oh, I don't even know like who I am. So how can I know, pick up a, pick a partner for myself. And so I really am really grateful that I was, took some time and developed myself and learned to be okay by myself and learn to be single and learn to thrive

on my own. And I'm not knocking anyone's journey because everyone has their own journey. But I do think that there is such pressure in the world. There may be less today. And I love that you're hearing women deciding, like deciding, because that means they know themselves. Like I still would love, you know, to get married. But I really was just like, I think before it was because I like, I needed to rather than supposing now if I choose it. And it's just like a very big different come from. And I, I think, I think the same thing for motherhood. I think people are really not struggling. Luckily, like when I was, I've always had like a coach and I was able to consciously look at like,

do I want to be a mother? And why do I want to be a mother? And like, am I okay? Like, can I mother in other ways? And I think that in the world today, that if we have, if we give ourselves a moment to like understand ourselves and think about ourselves, I think it's just such a different game to play when we choose things versus like, you know, feeling like we have to do these things. But, and it's been super hard. Like it's been, I mean, I'm like, I get lonely and I get like, I've regrets and I'm like, oh my gosh, am I going to be like older and regret things? And so I for sure have to like kind of work past feelings about it. But I think that's with everything. And I think the feelings have like shown me what I've like want. So it's been such a great and

under, and I don't have a lot of models for like what I'm doing, you know, as well, but I do feel as I've gotten older or stronger in this opinion, I'm really glad that I have given myself time on these things. Yep. You mentioned having models and having a coach. I think one of the challenges sometimes women who work in male dominated industriesinated industries face is finding sponsors, mentors, coaches, because for a lot of us, it ends up being men. So talk to us about the importance either from your experience or from your learning about leadership of having coaches and mentors and sponsors? And, you know, do you seek out women in this space? Do you have

a combination? Have you mainly been mentored by men? Just share with us a little about that. That's great. Yeah, I've had, I've really had consistent mentors since really I was like probably in my 20s and I sought them out and I really found value in them. And, you know, like the coach that I've had when I, you know, I would and coaching is expensive. Right. So I would like forego like I would spend a lot of money. I mean, I spent a lot of money on personal development and like coaching and things rather than like buying clothes and shoes. And I was, I just made that decision because, um, it felt important to me. And, um, one of the things that I love about the coaches that I've had is, you know, it's, they really teed up the answers inside of me. So what I realized is we all have a lot of power. We all

have our own answers, whatever way you want to get there. And I think a lot of people have been strong reflections back at me. And I've also picked a lot of women, and I'll talk about men in a minute, that will tell me the truth. It's not what I always want to hear. Most of the women are in different industries than I am. You know, they're very successful, like businesswomen or, or they're just, they're in their own entrepreneurial field. And I really believe you are who you, who you keep close to you. So I've give tons of credit to my mentors. And I also think that you have to like enable your mentors to like give you strength, like, and give you answers. I've had to really use them. And I didn't know how to use people before I was shy and I

wanted to look good. And I really need now, like I'll bring them like, here's where I messed up. You know, can you please help me with this? Or here's a huge problem I have. And it makes a world of difference of how you show up with them. And then I had realized that I had too many female mentors and I needed male mentors and I had to do my own sort of sort and work, um, and sort of kind of looking at myself and my relationship with men, because I was just way more comfortable with female mentors and male mentors. And to that point, I was just, I was missing out. And so I've switched to having like a male coach, um, the last few years, which has been really, really helpful for me. Um, because I was just way better at being like open with women. And I, it was such a growth for me to really show myself in the same way with men.

It taught me very much professionally and understand their perspective, understand how men work because I just didn't know I was just shy. I didn't get it. So having both has made a tremendous impact in my life. And I also just realized they're not necessarily like, we haven't written a formal contract. You're my mentor and you're my coach. But I just think there's a lot of goodwill towards people. And I try to mentor people when they ask me, because I know I would not be where I'm at had I not had mentoring. And I think that idea of supporting each other and abundance and sharing advice and skills is 100% like the way the world should work. And I'm really, really grateful for the people that have supported me. You brought up two really important lessons that I learned in my professional life.

One of them being the need to have both women and men as coaches and mentors. I had predominantly men mentoring and coaching me, and it wasn't until in my early 30s that I saw the light. And I wish I would have learned that lesson a lot earlier. The second thing is that you need to ask. I had it in my head that if I worked really hard and did really well and produced results, people would come and want to mentor me or want to meet with me to find out what I was doing or want to promote me. And it was a really hard lesson to learn that you need to ask for people to be your mentors. You need to ask for people to be your sponsors. You need to ask for people to be your coaches. And of course, you know, they might say no and that's okay. But you got to ask. So two really good points there. I know we're getting

close on time here, but I want to make sure to ask two more questions. One of them being, how do you handle any microaggressions like comments or, you know, blind spots or whatever that you might face in your work, as well as any blatant sexism or harassment that you might have dealt with working in male-dominated industry. I think you get exposed to that a little bit more, whether it's conscious or blind spots, either way. How do you handle those? Well, I have definitely learned. I think I probably have spent many years not really sticking up for myself and not saying anything. And I had a recent like huge turn of events. I think last summer I did three events in a row where I had instances of, and so sometimes like what happens is if I'm DJing a party, there's alcohol involved. So that's, I get in some of these positions where people are like drunk or they're not

conscious. And this is like my least favorite thing about DJing. And I had thought I had protected myself like in, in a many ways, but I had three instances. They were just like small instances where people were very rude. I didn't like, I didn't feel, it's not that I didn't feel safe a hundred percent, but I didn't like the space I was in. And, um, and then just someone said something that was so out of line, like, and that happened a lot more. I just took it. I just didn't say anything. I didn't know it was wrong. And, um, I just sort of like, just, just turned the cheek. Right. And didn't say anything. So, and I think after that, I think obviously like the whole wake up movement, I just thought

I was like, I was tough and you just took it. And I really upset me, you know, and I realized I was actually like a lot more emotional about it than I had thought. So I brought it to the, our company and they were really upset too. And so I rewrote my contract. I rewrote my, um, we rethought about like having an assistant, always me identifying like where I work and who I work and like the lines that won't be crossed. And so I, for me, I think it was like, it was really, really healthy to do that. And it was really healthy for me to like claim like what wasn't okay. And like my own boundaries around things, because I think I, before I would try to be like cool and like, I'm easygoing. And, um, there is an element an element of you really have to let people have fun when you're

doing these events. But I was not to my own cost. So I think that was actually a very significant moment when I rethought everything. And I realized I didn't have to do it alone. A lot of people, it's not like I had to go and figure it out by myself because I wouldn't have. And so asking people and sharing my upset was a really big deal to change things for myself. Yeah. Yeah. Well said. Any advice or what's one piece of advice that you would give to women who want to chase their passion in a male dominated industry or want to chase a leadership position where they see mostly men and any quick pieces of advice there? I guess the thing I would say about that is I think that if we can dream something, then it's possible. And I think that the only thing standing between like you and that is like

doing. And I believe that we can't, you know, wait for a model of, oh, well, I saw her do it, so now I can do it. I mean, it's really nice, but I really encourage women to follow their curiosity and follow their passions. And if you can believe it and you can see it, then it is a reality that can come true. So I am, I just like to, I like to light that fire and fuel that flame. And I think it's really, really important. And I really think that also sharing that what we want, I just, I found so many women who, and including myself that want a lot, but we like consciously or unconsciously are like, oh, I can't do it or I can't have it.

And I love to like just shatter that sort of way of thinking and let women fly in many areas too. So I guess it's not really advice. I'm just like more of a cheerleader for like go for it. Yeah. Well, I can speak for all of us. We appreciate it. We all need more cheerleaders out there. So thank you, Megan, so much for sharing your knowledge, your wisdom, your experiences. If any of you want to follow Megan on Instagram, it's at DJMeganTaylor, so D-J-M-E-G-A-N-T-A-Y-L-O-R.

Or you can find her at figgy, F-I-G-G-Y.net. Let's close out with this thought. I know not everyone wants to be a trailblazer or be in a formal leadership position, and that's okay. But for those of you that do, you are needed. Your voice, your perspective, your talents, and your femininity is needed. When masculine leadership is balanced with feminine, when environments are created where both genders thrive, when people can bring their whole authentic selves to work, everybody

wins. Production, profitability, retention of talent, and brand loyalty all increase when women step into their confidence and their power. This is true across the board, but most notably in male-dominated industries at the highest levels of leadership. Men have been leading imperfectly for centuries. We don't need to be perfect or have it all figured out in order to lead, but we must lead just as we are. This is woman's work.