This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - How To Be Yourself At Work: Authentic Presence Over Executive Presence with Claude Silver | 366

Starting point is 00:00:00 Get no frills delivered. Shop the same in-store prices online and enjoy unlimited delivery with PC Express Pass. Get your first year for $250 a month. Learn more at pceexpress.ca.ca. I am Nicole Khalil and you're listening to the This Is Woman's Work podcast. We're together. We're redefining what it means, what it looks and feels like to be doing woman's work in the world today. With you is the decider.

Starting point is 00:00:38 Whatever feels true and real and right for you, that's how you do woman's work, which sounds beautifully simple, right? Know yourself, be yourself, do what feels true. Except try doing that at work. Try showing up as your full, messy, evolving human self in a place where authenticity is one of those words that looks great on a company values poster. but rarely feels as valued in practice. We say we want people to bring their whole selves to work, but the second someone actually does, everyone gets real uncomfortable, real fast.

Starting point is 00:01:11 If you're too emotional, too direct, too honest, or too you, someone inevitably will tell you to read the room or tone it down or my personal favorite anti-authenticity catchphrase, fake it till you make it. But maybe there is a little truth in all of that because let's be honest. We can't and shouldn't just say or do whatever we feel like in any given moment at work in a meeting or with a client. When your paycheck, promotion, or reputation depends on other people's perception of you,

Starting point is 00:01:40 authenticity starts to feel like a luxury. And as you know, I've done a lot of work on confidence, which is often associated with and even interchanged with authenticity. So let's separate the two real quick. Confidence is when you trust yourself firmly and bold. authenticity is the quality of being real or true, and yes, I just looked that up. So let me say that all another way. Confidence is trusting yourself. Authenticity is being yourself. And in an ideal world, those two things would overlap so much that they just be one big circle. But here's the

Starting point is 00:02:18 problem. We live in a world that teaches us to look everywhere but within for both. We tie our confidence to how we look, what we achieve, how successful people think we are. We filter our authenticity through other people's comfort, approval, and expectations. We outsource what can only come from the inside and then wonder why we don't feel real or rooted in who we are. And while this shows up in a lot of areas, I found that work is one of the hardest places to get it right. How do we walk that thin line between authenticity and professionalism, confidence, and perception. How do we show up as our full, real selves, not the polished, filtered, executive presence version while still being taken seriously? How do we bring our heart into a workplace that's still

Starting point is 00:03:10 obsessed with our hustle? Well, our guest today has built her career answering those exact questions. Claude Silver is the world's first chief heart officer at Vayner X. Yes, that's a real title, and she's on a mission to revolutionize leadership, talent, and workplace culture. She's worked alongside Gary Vee to redefine what success looks like from the inside out. She's earned ad weeks changing the game award and captivated audiences everywhere from Google to the U.S. Armed Forces. Her new book, Be Yourself at Work, The Groundbreaking Power of Showing Up, Standing Out, and Leading from the Heart explores how authenticity, courage, and connection can change not just the way we lead,

Starting point is 00:03:56 but the way we live. So, Claude, thank you for being here today, and I have so many questions. I want to start with what I think is maybe the root of the entire conversation, which is how do you define authenticity and very specific, how do we do that at work when we are faced with things like professionalism, expectations, and other people's perceptions? So let's start with what is authenticity and then like, how do we do that at work? Amazing. Well, thank you again for having me, Nicole. That was a beautiful introduction. And so I almost named the book, you know, showing up with your messy self.

Starting point is 00:04:36 That's really what I wanted to name the book. And then I realized a lot of people might not pick it up if it says messy, but it does say messy internally. Showing up to me is the same exact thing as authenticity. That is stepping forward, as you said, be in the being of who you are, not the doing of what you do, but the being. And so it doesn't take, I'm not saying that it takes confidence. I'm saying that it takes self-awareness and self-assurance that you can walk forward just as you are and be accepted,

Starting point is 00:05:10 just as you are. Very, very difficult to get our brain around that because we think that people are looking at us all the time and judging us and criticizing us internally or externally. Even if they are, it's not our business. What is our business is to show up as the best we possibly can. And the best we possibly can sometimes is going to be a little hectic because we had a frantic morning with the kids,

Starting point is 00:05:37 you missed your workout, you've gotten to a fight with your partner. I don't know. You got engaged the weekend before, all kinds of things. And then we have to show up at work. And we do our best to not silence everything, but to put everything in a little box until we can open it up again. And what I'm suggesting is you don't need to do that. You don't need to put armor up or box your emotions away. I don't think that's going to work anymore. I think that's an archaic way of working and living. However, I do realize that what I'm asking people to do is do a little bit of tippy towing into the water. I'm not saying you need to go take the plunge. There's no cannonball here. But what I am saying is through your own self-awareness, spending time with yourself, understanding how you can emotionally regulate, understanding your triggers, where you tick, where you talk, those types of things, understanding your communication style. That's the genesis of all of this. Otherwise, if you don't know who you are, you will show up, hey, you know, hey, I'm here and I'm everywhere.

Starting point is 00:06:46 And that's going to be too much for people. Right. You take the time to figure yourself out. And that's how the book actually starts, which is, what is the benefit of showing up and what are you costing yourself when you don't show up? And that's a hard one unless you get very present with what you're costing yourself. meaning every day when you show up at work and you put more and more stuff into your backpack, that's just more weight you're carrying, more weight, emotional weight, more indecision, more uncertainty, more ambiguity, and then you have all of that to deal with at work as well

Starting point is 00:07:25 in a very volatile climate that we're in. That's the cost. The cost is that you are going to be hunched over metaphorically, maybe in real life too, from carrying all of this stuff that you don't need to carry. The workplace is changing. We have Gen Z in the house. We've got Gen Alpha coming up. They are not going to take what you and I took as Gen Xers.

Starting point is 00:07:50 They're just not. They're not going to take what millennials took either. Right. They are going to demand, they are demanding something very, very different. And if we want to retain them, we must change with the times. Okay. there is a lot in there, and I kind of want to pull a few things out. First, when you were talking about being our best selves and knowing who we are,

Starting point is 00:08:14 I think sometimes we confuse authenticity with just doing or saying whatever we feel like in the moment versus how you're defining authenticity is knowing who we are and bringing our best version of that to the table. So any thoughts on like this, I don't know, paradox is the right word, but where people are like, oh, that's just who I am. And they use it to dismiss bad behavior

Starting point is 00:08:46 versus the version of authenticity that we're talking about here, which is bringing your best, growing, evolving, messy self, but still the best of who you are and being rooted in who that is, on a consistent basis. Is my question making any sense? It is. And you just said the magic word, consistent. That is the magic word. You cannot show up as yourself grounded today, as I am, and then tomorrow freak out. Then why would people trust who I am? They need to see a consistent

Starting point is 00:09:20 Claude, a consistent Nicole. And that's what, by the way, I think that's what leadership is about. And I also think that's what executive presence is about. There's a consistency that. that we don't talk about a lot. The difference that you brought up is I do not think, someone that says, well, here I am, take it or leave it, is coming from a mature place or a self-aware place. I think that's a fearful place. I think that's a place of,

Starting point is 00:09:46 no, I haven't, you know, working on myself is just too tough or I don't have money for therapy or whatever the answers are. And so just take it as it is. Not fair. That's not fair. The people at work, the energy at work, the culture at work, doesn't just have to take it as it is. I do think it's a two-way street.

Starting point is 00:10:05 The person I just interviewed for three months, you interviewed your hiring managers, you came here, you were consistently, Nicole, as I see her now. And then day three, you're like, well, take it as it is. Well, then we get either, we didn't catch anything or you really pulled a fast one over us. In order to show up, in the way I'm talking about, as you said so clearly, it is. about showing up and standing out as who you are knowing yourself, or at least on the journey to knowing yourself. It'll be a lifelong journey for most of us, right? So that's really what I'm saying. When you come in, I'm just like, well, this is who I am, take it or leave it. There's no self-awareness there. There is just a mess, a puddle that you are expecting people to either jump in

Starting point is 00:10:57 and have fun with your personality or step over and ignore you. And that's not going to work for you. Yeah. I often feel like when people say that, it's a masking, it's a insecurity that they're trying to cover with some sort of arrogance or ego or something like that. It falls into the category of things that only dicks say. Don't be a dick. Don't be a Richard, right? It's totally laced in fear. It's totally laced in fear. And it comes across, in sarcasm to your point or just like, this is who I am and it's like, no, that's not really who you are.

Starting point is 00:11:32 Yeah, and who you are sucks. What's close enough to you? Yeah, no, no, no, I don't want to hang with you. Exactly. Okay, so I hear the term executive presence a lot. I think because I work in the space of confidence, people bring it up, like how do I present myself confidently is basically what they're trying to say.

Starting point is 00:11:50 You coined the term authentic presence, which I love, because, yes, we can probably teach people to fake confidence for a period of time, but it's not going to be consistent and it's not sustainable. So what is authentic presence and how do we create and achieve that for ourselves? I'm glad you brought that up. So I first came about that phrase that landed on me maybe seven years ago or so when I was just thinking about writing the book. But what I was saying to people when they would come in the room and I would do this high performance coaching is one of the first things I would say to them, whomever, is, who are you when you're brushing your teeth?

Starting point is 00:12:28 Who are you when you're just in the morning, woken up, you haven't spoken to anyone, you're just brushing your teeth? To me, that is the authentic you. To me, that is it. You probably've got a song in your head. You're probably thinking about what you're going to wear. That to me is very, very real. And so that's how it started, which is, who are you when you're just chilling out? And I don't me chilling out on the sofa, eating Fritos. I mean, chilling out in preparation to start your day. So authentic presence to me is all about, again, knowing who I am, being at least semi-comfortable in it because I'm learning, and showing up that way, being present that way, which is not going to be perfect. It's not because I'm not perfect. No one is. I think the term executive presence

Starting point is 00:13:19 calls for something that might not be as valid as it once was in the way that I think about the workplace today. But often authentic presence, I think, is this is who you are. And sometimes you're funny and sometimes you're goofy and sometimes you're really serious. And I know that because you're consistently showing up like that or you're consistently showing up as a jerk. So that is, if that's your authentic presence, no, thank you. It's not going to work here. Right. So it is the actual you. When you are you, when I'm I am driving to work in the day and I'm listening to music or listening to a book on Audible or something, that's just who I am. I'm chill. That's who I am. Some other people are

Starting point is 00:13:59 road raging and frantic. That's just who they are. So you said the word perfect. And I think that's ultimately what I hear when people ask about executive presence or speak confidently. It's like, how do I show up perfectly? And in my research, which I call perfectionism, one of the confidence derailers that chips away and does damage. And one of the things that I sort of realized for myself is perfectionism does the opposite of what we want it to do. We think if we show up perfectly, then everybody will like us, accept us, appreciate us, want to be around us that we'll be happy and everything will work out the way we want it to. When the reality is perfectionism actually creates

Starting point is 00:14:41 distance from the people in our lives, the people we work with and from ourselves, we're setting an expectation that everyone knows they can never live up to. It's too hard. It's too unreal. And so we end up creating distance. So let's talk about this messy, flawed, imperfect version of ourselves at work. What are some ways that we might be real about that without tipping over into imposter syndrome or sounding like we're discounting ourselves all the time? or getting into information that people don't really need to have. Saying inappropriate things. Right.

Starting point is 00:15:24 Yeah. Well, this is the beautiful thing about work is you are going to meet enormous amounts of people that are going to have some similarity with you, some identical similarities with you, and then nothing at all. I would say if you are talking to another mom that has a kid under seven, there's probably a lot you can relate to. So my kids made a mess. There's syrup all over the counter.

Starting point is 00:15:47 today. They yelled at me. They said they hated me last night. Whatever, something that this person can probably relate to. Why? Because you've talked to them. You're both parents of seven-year-olds or six- and five-year-olds, right? You have that connection already. You've established that. The first day you met this person, you may not have said, my kids told me they hated me last night, or you may have thinking that you're talking to another mom, right, or another parent. But that's what this is all about, which is forging those connections where you can find not only safety but belonging, meaning I can breathe here, my hair down here. I don't have to be perfect.

Starting point is 00:16:25 There's nothing. I can tell you for sure that, like, I had syrup all over my hands today, and then the dog had an accident on the floor. Like, that is my life. And then I come to work. Then I open my laptop. And it's still with me because I refuse to put that away. I refuse to put that part of my.

Starting point is 00:16:44 life and compartmentalize that over there in Albuquerque, right? That's not fair to me. Then I'm leaving parts of myself behind me. I'm leaving. I'm keeping myself away from me and thus I'm keeping myself away from you, right? Shielding you in some way. So the way I think that you can find opportunities to just share the authentic you is with people that have similarities that you've already met or join an ERG. It's called parenting ERG, women's ERG, LGBTQERG. There's all of these ERGs in most of our workplaces now where you can find almost subsets of the culture that you best fit into that you identify with. And that's a wonderful place to get real. What was it like when you first came out? My parents didn't talk to me. They still don't talk to me. Whatever it is.

Starting point is 00:17:38 This is one of the things that I learned a long time ago and I recognize that it is not everyone's journey to learn. There are so many similarities between us. The only difference is the lived experience. But the similarities of emotion are very, very real, right? You and I both are empathetic people. We might express empathy a slightly different way, but we both know that empathy is an emotion and the output, the outpouring is kindness and compassion. You and I both can agree on that. Right. Right. So we have some commonalities right there. And then we can talk about whatever it is, our kids or that meeting or gosh, I felt like that meeting just went way over my head. I was like talking to a PhD person. Oh my God, that's, you know, same thing here. We have to

Starting point is 00:18:30 get real. We have to. I don't think we can afford not to be anymore. I think this society and this culture is burning us out too quickly now. Right. It's not sustainable. for us, and it's certainly not sustainable for the generations that are coming up. And it's not fair. Yeah. And as you're talking, I think that there is a huge component of this of bringing our full selves into the workplace and feeling that we belong there, like who we are both inside and outside the workplace. I'll also add, too, under the umbrella of perfectionism, I think one of the things that we can also do is within the workplace is letting people know when we, we, messed up or when something didn't go according to plan or like, ooh, we tested that out. That

Starting point is 00:19:16 didn't work. Or, you know, I hit these goals, but I didn't hit this one. And here's what I'm learning from it. This idea that we don't trade polished, proving perfection for real, authentic, growing, learning. And that's the presence that I'm hearing when you talk about authentic presence versus executive presence. That is exactly it. You absolutely nailed it. It is the real, real. It's the real, real. And there are places in the workplace, the workspace, that you will find you can be real, real, real. I'm not suggesting you go into your CEO's office and get real, real, today, unless you already have established that wonderful connection.

Starting point is 00:19:59 But what I am suggesting is you find people similar to you. You find commonalities. And that's how you make friends. We made friends on the playground a long time ago. And by the way, what you brought up is so important, which is it's not only just to share the fact that there was syrup all over my hair. It's to share like, I really had a hard time with my review today and I need to talk to someone about and I don't want to go to HR and I don't want to go to my manager. Now, the caveat there that I'll say is that what I would advise people not to do is go down the road of cynicism and gossip. I would try to take the higher. road on that one because you don't want to all of a sudden create toxicity where there doesn't need to be. So it's just real, real. And that I think as parents, we are trying to do more and more of. And I know as women, we are having harder and harder conversations in the workplace, whether or not

Starting point is 00:21:00 it's miscarriage, whether or not it's infertility, whether or not it's peri or menopause. We're having these conversations, thank God, doesn't have to be such a secret. Because those secrets cause shame. Yeah. Okay. I don't know if this is universally true. This might have just been my lived experience, but I found it a little bit easier the more positional authority I had to be truer to who I am. I felt like once I sort of moved up to the ranks or was in more of a leadership position, then I felt a little more comfortable to be myself, not thoroughly comfortable, but more comfortable. Any advice, and you kind of gave some already, but any advice for those people who aren't in a leadership role or maybe new to a team of how to be consistently authentic

Starting point is 00:21:50 when you're still sort of navigating the waters a little bit? Well, exactly. I think you said it. It is literally trying different things out and it is dipping your toe in the water. So what do we all love to talk about. Music. What do we all love to talk about? Shows we're binging on TV. What do we all love to talk about? Where we went to college, all that stuff. So there right there is three things that you can talk about. What else? Where I interned, like there are so many commonalities. Oh, I am a creator on the side and I take fashion photography. Oh, cool. I'm a model. Whatever it is. I don't mean to be coy about that. But you never know unless you, try. And if you don't try, then you are missing out on sharing parts of you and you are missing

Starting point is 00:22:39 out on learning about other people. And we spend so much time in this workplace, whether or not it's on Zoom or in the room, I do think that we owe it to ourselves to forge connection, to find a way to enjoy the eight, nine hours that we're at work. Yeah. Right? One of the places I've always found it the most challenging to hold on to my authenticity, especially in the workplace is when you find yourself in an environment where somebody says something that feels so contrary to who you are. It's so the antithesis of what you believe or your lived experience. And especially if there's a power dynamic, like a client says something that you just fundamentally don't believe in or somebody you report to makes a joke that doesn't

Starting point is 00:23:28 feel like a joke. Any tips for how to hold on to your authenticity, how to be true to yourself and be consistently yourself in those challenging moments? Yeah, because you're right. We have them and we're going to continue to have them, even if you are in the C-suite. You will have something. Someone will say something and it will jar you. And you were talking about it and you could see my body. I was like this. You know, get away. So there's a couple things you can do. One, ignore it. Keep yourself safe. You don't need to engage. Just know that Mayday, that might not be the person that you want to go out for coffee with. That's one thing you can do. And I don't think there's harm in that. I think that's called self-preservation. It doesn't mean you're going to

Starting point is 00:24:12 ignore the person. You just don't want to be around that person when they're talking about whatever topic it is that triggered you. It's a trigger, right? That's the first thing. The second thing you can do, is not in public, in private. You can say, if you feel like it, hey, you mind if I just share something with you? Sure, go ahead. You know, when you just said X about that person's body, it really, it didn't sit well with me. And I don't know what it is. Like, I don't know, I guess it was a joke, but it just didn't sit well with me and is something that you think you can work on. Okay? that person might be like, you got to be crazy, or, oh, my God, I didn't realize I said that. Or you can take that to your manager and say, this person continues to talk about my body in a way that is

Starting point is 00:25:02 disparaging and it's embarrassing and I don't want to be in that. So there's choices here. You have to know yourself and your limits. And what I mean by that is I know where I begin and end and this is my space and you have your own space. When you come into my space and I did, didn't invite you. That is when I'm going to say Mayday, you came too close, whatever I need to say. So, and I remember saying this, even as a C-suite person, I said this to someone else on the C-suite seven, eight years ago, I said, can you please stop interrupting me within a group room? And the person said, I'm so sorry, I didn't realize I was doing that. And it's never happened since then. You have to figure out where you feel safe enough to state your

Starting point is 00:25:54 truth. And I'm not saying go hang yourself out there to dry. That's not safe. But where you feel safe enough that you can still hug yourself afterwards and say, you know what? Good job. I'm proud of you. Way to go. You know, that's often the measurement that I use is did I feel proud of myself on the other side of it. And, you know, sometimes the answer is no. And then I learn and try to figure that out. I'll also say that, you know, there is a testing that I think happens for ourselves. Like, when something happens, I'm going to test handling it this way and see how I feel. I'll see what the response is, you know, there's that. But what I have found is, and I don't have data on this, I'm making up percentages, but I'm going to say like 70% of the time, if you give people the

Starting point is 00:26:39 benefit of the doubt. Yeah. And you bring like, hey, I'm not sure if you're aware or I don't think this was your intention or I want to bring this up because I want to be a team player and help us all be better or whatever it is that people are often open. They often are like, oh my God, I didn't know or I didn't think or you're right or I'll do better. And then there's the 30% of the time that people get defensive or aren't open or refuse to. And then you've got some decisions to make about how you interact with that person or what you say or don't say. I think the ultimate decision is if through testing and over time, you cannot be yourself. You cannot be authentic in your workplace. Then there also is the decision to go find someplace else to work. That's that's

Starting point is 00:27:32 absolutely right. You need to know your limits. And hopefully you're as a human being, you're able to stretch a bit as long as it's not going into your values and as long as you're not with someone that is completely saying something that is against your values and you need to sit there night after night at client dinner saying that. I would definitely then say, you know what, I need to change clients because I don't believe in this. And this is this person's talk track every time we go to dinner. Or, you know, okay, I'm willing to sit there. I'm not going to debate. I'm going to ignore it. But you said something really great, which is test and learn. You're not going to know unless you try. And you can't take that advice from, you can't say, okay, well, Sally, what did you do?

Starting point is 00:28:17 You have to know what's right for Claude. You have to know what's right for Nicole. And you said something that I think is completely awesome, which is when we look at someone as though they had positive intent. They didn't mean to hurt us. They were just saying what was on their mind. They had a busy morning to at home, whatever happened. When you can say, you know what, I know that person isn't a jerk, then, you know, it's easier to accept that. It's easier to forgive that. It's easier to say, I get it. That person probably had a bad morning. Well, if we want to value authenticity and messiness and imperfection and learning as we go, we need to not just give ourselves permission, but other people permission as well. We have to allow it,

Starting point is 00:29:04 which can be challenging for sure, but I think that there is something to that. You said this earlier, and I just want to circle back on it. There is a cost to not bringing yourself into the workplace. And I think sometimes people think of this as like woo-woo or like, oh, that sounds good, but let's be practical. What is the business case? What is the cost to ourselves and to the, you know, workplace that we're in if we aren't ourselves or if we're not allowed to be ourselves? Well, eventually you will quit or eventually we will let you go. There will be some disconnect there at some point. The cost is attrition. The cost is it costs more and more and more to recruit after someone leaves, 33% if not more, just to backfill you with the recruitment.

Starting point is 00:29:59 you know the cost is absolutely i would say less collaboration less innovation creativity all those things why would i want to sit and share my deck with that person when i don't like that person or i've already put a a wall between me and that person rather than a bridge so the cost is enormous to a company and the cost is enormous to you and i liken it to a relationship work is a relationship that we're having. And obviously, we're building relationships with the people in them. We often, most of us, find a partner and forge a relationship with them. That takes something called intimacy. I'm not talking about sexual intimacy. I'm talking about the intimacy of connecting with another person. And we've all, myself included, have kept people at bay, whether or not that is

Starting point is 00:30:53 in a romantic relationship or whether that is at work. you're too close. I don't want to get close to you. You don't know me. You've crossed my boundaries. That's what I'm saying internally. Right. Right. Or in a romantic relationship, it's like, I'm scared. So I'm going to keep myself at a distance. And you know what? You're going to end up feeling that. And if I'm not able to find my way to share that with you, the relationship might be over. Right. And vice versa, right? Claude, thank you. Such an important topic. And I appreciate you being here to talk about it for our listener. I want to make sure you know and get your hands on the book. It's called

Starting point is 00:31:29 be yourself at work. It's available wherever you buy books, but let's keep our local bookstores in business. And we'll put every other way to find and follow Claude in show notes. Thank you for being here today. Thank you. All right, friend, authenticity isn't a permission slip to ignore basic professionalism, dump your unfiltered thoughts on your clients, or turn your Monday meeting into a therapy session. It's about alignment. It's about who you are privately, matching who you are publicly, consistently. It's about trusting yourself enough to stop performing and proving and start showing up in ways that are real. And while being confident and authentic matters, so does being in motion, growing, stretching, challenging

Starting point is 00:32:11 yourself. That's how you become more of who you are. Because the real you isn't static. She evolves. She experiments. She screws up and learns and tries again. What I'm trying to say is that the goal of authenticity isn't to stay the same. It's to stay true as you get better. Work is designed to support and test all of that. But if the goal is to belong rather than to fit in, to lead rather than to please, then your only real job is to keep bringing you into the room, even when it's uncomfortable and even when it's imperfect. Because being yourself at work isn't naive, risky, or reckless. It's brave. It's human. It's productive. And it's woman's work. Thank you.

This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - How To Be Yourself At Work: Authentic Presence Over Executive Presence with Claude Silver | 366

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.