This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - Powerfully Likeable with Dr. Kate Mason | 364

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

Being “powerful” and being “likeable” aren’t opposites — they’re a killer combo when we stop contorting ourselves into someone else’s definition. In this episode, we get tactical about... communicating with influence and warmth, minus the people-pleasing or performative toughness. Our guest today, Dr. Kate Mason, PhD, is an executive communications coach and former Silicon Valley operator who helps women leaders at companies like Google, Netflix, Uber, and Microsoft communicate with influence and ease. A world-champion debater, she’s the author of Powerfully Likeable—a smart, funny field guide for navigating credibility, warmth, and authority without playing small or playing a part. Kim Scott (author of Radical Candor) calls it “compelling, compassionate, and funny,” which tracks. We cover: Ditching the fake either/or: what “powerfully likeable” looks and feels like (for you), and how to build from what already works in your communication. Finding your calm, “unruffled” baseline so you can lead the room instead of reacting to it — especially when emotions are high. The downside of over-preparation (hello, rigidity) and how to use Kate’s lightweight prep approach so we stay flexible and persuasive. Fight / flight / freeze / fawn at work — how to spot your threat response, interrupt it in real time, and re-engage with credibility. Practical scripts and moves to de-escalate, ask for what we need without apology, and buy time when our “fight” response wants the mic. Debate lessons that actually help at work: choose the win you need today, get curious for better data, and frame the shared goal so you’re on the same side of the problem. “Imposing syndrome” (being afraid to ask) vs. imposter syndrome — and tiny language shifts that stop us from undercutting ourselves. We also nerd out on authenticity without the buzzword BS and how to integrate our sharpest strengths with our actual personality. Thank you to our sponsors! Get 20% off your first order at curehydration.com/WOMANSWORK with code WOMANSWORK — and if you get a post-purchase survey, mention you heard about Cure here to help support the show!  Visit beducate.me/womanswork69 and use code womanswork69 for 65% off the annual pass.  Black Friday has come early at Cozy Earth! Right now, you can stack my code WOMANSWORK on top of their sitewide sale — giving you up to 40% off in savings. Connect with Kate: Website: www.katemason.co   Book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/745694/powerfully-likeable-by-kate-mason-phd/ Related Podcast Episodes The Fourth Trauma Response You’ve Never Heard Of (And How It’s Running Your Life) with Dr. Ingrid Clayton | 342 The 3 N’s: Negotiation, Networking & No with Kathryn Valentine | 327 Be A Likeable Badass with Alison Fragale | 230 Share the Love: If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! 🔗 Subscribe & Review:⁠Apple Podcasts⁠ | ⁠Spotify⁠ | ⁠Amazon Music⁠ | ⁠YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:57 A conversation with InTouch CX. I'm 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 women's work in the world today with you as the decider. And on this episode, we're going to talk about a concept that feels elusive to so many of us, being powerful and, and and being light. I could fill this whole episode with all the ways
Starting point is 00:01:35 this feels like a double-edged sword. All the times that we've been told directly or indirectly that we have to choose one or the other. All the Cirque de Soleil level, tightrope walking it takes to try and balance both. All the times, I've failed at it in real life. My guess is most of us feel like
Starting point is 00:01:53 we lean naturally to one side of that coin. One comes easier, fits our personality, maybe even feels more practiced. And I'm stereotyping here, but I bet a large percentage of women have over rotated towards the likable over the powerful. After all, we've been socialized in that direction since birth. But if I'm being fully transparent,
Starting point is 00:02:15 I mostly struggle in the opposite way. Power comes easier to me. Two decades in a male-dominated world of finance gave me plenty of practice. But here's the thing. many times it came at the expense of likability. At times, it even felt necessary to get ahead. And if I'm being really honest,
Starting point is 00:02:36 it has also been a bit of a protection mechanism for this introvert who doesn't really love meeting new people. And in my darkest, most head trash-filled moments, I even worry, maybe I'm just not all that likable. How's that for a podcast opening? But you didn't think you'd be walking into my therapy session today, but here we are. So how do we actually find our way between being influential and impactful while also being
Starting point is 00:03:03 authentic and well-liked? If I had the answers, I would give them to you. Instead, I brought somebody who does. Dr. Kate Mason is an executive communications coach, world champion debater, and author of the new book, Powerfully Likeable, which publishers weekly called a Game Changer. She works with women leaders at Google, Netflix, Uber, Microsoft, and more, helping them navigate the tricky act of communicating while female. A veteran of high-stakes Silicon Valley roles, Kate coaches leaders to discover versions of power and likability that feel true to them. Kim Scott, author of Radical Cander, one of my favorite books, calls Kate's book, Compelling, compassionate, and Funny, and I cannot wait to hear her insights. So Kate, thank you for being
Starting point is 00:03:48 our guest and possibly my therapist for the day. And I'd love to have you start by explaining what being powerfully likable means. How is it different from the awkward compromise most of us are living in between? What does this look and feel like powerfully likable? Thank you so much for having me, Nicole. I'm delighted to be with you. The powerful and likable binary is what I call it, which is exactly what you've articulated so beautifully, this cirque de salase tightrope between these two poles, that does feel like this one-way choice. You know, once we've chosen one of those doors, the powerful or the likable, it feels like like we can't go back to the other.
Starting point is 00:04:27 And I certainly felt this in my career and felt like it was an unfair or sort of unacceptable binary to be stuck in. So part of the project of the book is actually unraveling that and saying there are tons of ways between those two poles to be able to show up. But to your question, what does it look like? it actually looks like when we found a calm and comfortable place to communicate from because power and likeability are both extremely subjective. What is likable to you may be likable or disunlikable to somebody else. So what we're wanting to do is actually understand where we're
Starting point is 00:05:05 already thriving, what our power already is. Inhabit that more and understand how we might want to mitigate anything that's not feeling as as strong for us. Okay, I love this version of this, because I think sometimes we think powerful looks one way and likable looks one way. And what I'm hearing you're saying is there are lots of ways to be both of those things. And it's a little bit around getting connected to our authentic way to be that. Am I hearing you correctly? Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, I think authentic is one of those overused terms at the moment. It's kind of lost a bit of meaning. But I think about where, in an individual, where is the place that you're already feeling strong? Is it that you build rapport easily? Is it that you collaborate?
Starting point is 00:05:52 Is it that you're empathetic? These are things, for example, that don't necessarily code as leadership traits, but actually make incredibly powerful leaders. You're able to corral a team or motivate the people around you. That's absolutely a leadership quality. So what I think about in communication is instead of you're all doing it wrong and here are three things you need to do, which is seductive but doesn't help everybody, where are you currently actually powerful? Where do you feel like when you've left an interaction or a meeting, oh, that went exactly as I hoped it would? How do we get more of that into your communication? And how do we help you sort of feel buttressed or supported in the areas that were perhaps feeling less good? So that will work if you are,
Starting point is 00:06:34 as you say, somebody who finds likeability, the easier door in, well, then we can help you feel like that's actually a strength. And if it's something on the other side that you're feeling I'm more transactional maybe by nature or I get to the point quicker, we can help you find ways of actually amplifying that such that you're feeling like you're effective and getting good cut through and persuasion. I liked what you said earlier, calm and comfortable place to communicate from. I don't know that very many of us are seeing this exampleed at a very high level in leadership, either in our organizations or like on a national level. Can we talk a little bit about how we do that? When we're talking about something we care a lot about or talking with
Starting point is 00:07:20 people we care a lot about, what are some techniques to help us get into that calm and comfortable place so that we can communicate powerfully and likeably. Is that even a word? Let's go with it. I start every coaching session and I start the beginning of my book with an exercise, which is to say, tell me both where you feel powerful to you, what that looks like for you and the conditions that are surrounding that. And what I mean by that is, are you on stage? Are you with people you know? Are you super prepared? What are the things particular to you that give you a of energy. I have a client at the moment who told me, I find myself doing much better when I'm in casual work environments, when I can take a client meeting in a cafe or on a walk because I feel
Starting point is 00:08:09 like I'm showing up less self-conscious and more in my zone of excellence. And so for her, she tries to take those first initial prospective client meetings in social places where she feels like she's lit up more and more in her own self. That's an example, I think, of finding a space or a place, and obviously sometimes that has to be the office, but finding a condition that helps amplify or support that communication for her. So it's a very personal journey in a lot of ways. But once we find, actually there are a ton of places I'm doing this well, and I want to double down on those, it can be a really nice way to actually realize I have a lot of comfort. And when I say calm, it doesn't mean no emotion, because emotion is part of
Starting point is 00:08:57 of our every day. But it means I'm unruffled. I am unbothered. I'm bringing a sense of stability or certainty to this interaction. You can't knock me over or blow me over in the wind, right? I'm bringing my opinion and my energy has that nice unruffled sense. And that's, I go through a ton of ways in the book to help regulate and make sure that you're bringing that self, that unruffled self, if you like, to an interaction because it's much more likely to result both in a productive, generative discussion, but probably a persuasive one, right? And much of what we have to do is influence and often influence without authority, like formal authority, like a title. So that can be a really powerful level when you're looking at influence, especially. You mentioned earlier,
Starting point is 00:09:45 super prepared as an example. It buzzed out at me because I think as women, one of the things we default to is planning preparation, what I call overthinking. What are the downsides of over preparation when it comes to communicating or getting into this calm, comfortable place? Yes, so many. I have a whole chapter actually on preparation. And so one of the things I want to make clear is I'm all for preparation. Preparation is really important and I don't think anyone would disagree with me there. What I find in my female clients particularly is that we overprepare, We've spent our early careers as high achievers who have done everything. We've gone to the mat to get things ready to make sure we've rehearsed it four or five, ten times.
Starting point is 00:10:32 And at some point in our career, that starts to become unsustainable. We have eight big meetings that day, for instance, that we can't prepare to that extent. So one thing is in the book I talk about a preparation framework that's a much more lightweight that helps you get to where you need to go much more quickly. But to your point about the downsides of preparation, often we can become too reliant or over-rotate on the thing that we have prepared. And so we're not as creative. We're not as nimble in the meeting if somebody else says, actually, I was sort of thinking it in a different way or I had this other idea. We feel like, oh, no, but I've spent, you know, all of last night or all of last week preparing for scenario A, I'm unwilling to let go of it.
Starting point is 00:11:16 And that can cause a lot of discomfort in ourselves, but oftentimes it lets us, or it fails to let us be more creative and agile in the moment, which very often is what we need to be. So sometimes the downside of that preparation can actually be that we don't allow ourselves to show up in the best way we can in that interaction. This completely aligns with my personal experience. I'm a recovering overthinker. And I often joke around in my work, too, like thinking is not a problem. we should all be doing it is the over part that is the problem, which is I think what you're saying with preparation. I will tell you, too, from my personal experience, I found that I actually do my very best work when I'm slightly underprepared because of what you're saying. It allows for
Starting point is 00:12:01 flexibility. I'm not so rigid or like I can go with the flow or roll with the punches because I'm not so tightly wound around how it's supposed to go. Yes, absolutely. When I was a debater, We had 15 minutes to write a 10-minute speech. And if you've ever spoken for 10 minutes, that's quite a long time. And 15 minutes doesn't feel like a long time to prepare for that. But in the book I outline, what's a 15-minute framework to break the back of a really gnarly problem or to get ready for something? And the 15 minutes is a little bit of a provocation. If it's 10, if it's 20, it doesn't really matter.
Starting point is 00:12:38 But setting a framework or a time-bound framework for yourself is one way to think about reducing that preparatory. burden, but also allowing yourself to bring, you know, your natural energy and inclination. So that's a really helpful way to start if there are some overpreparers listening who think that sounds kind of scary. It's a nice framework to begin with. Okay, I want to go back to this calm, comfortable place. As you were describing it, the words that popped into my brain were maturity and confidence. And I will tell you that as I look back, the times where I overreact, rotated to what I thought was powerful at the sacrifice of likability. And the times where I look back and I'm the least proud of how I showed up are those moments where I was like reactive or I was
Starting point is 00:13:27 lacking confidence in maturity. I was defensive. I was feeling hot emotionally. Like so in those moments when emotions feel high or where you might default to feeling defensive or I know sometimes people instead of defending, they sort of downplay. I know you have scripts that you talk about in your book. What are some of these scripts that we can employ that have us not get defensive or not downplay, but actually productively and powerfully likeably own our communication? Yeah. So when I say scripts and when you say scripts, it's less use this exact verbiage, right? But here are some examples and you can adapt to your own language because that's obviously really important. One of the ways is to think about, I have a chapter on what are the
Starting point is 00:14:18 communicative threat responses. So you mentioned being defensive or feeling, you know, antagonized by something. There are four main threat responses that I go through in the book. And you probably heard them in pop culture, but I think of that them in the communicative sense. And they are fight, flight, freeze and fawn, right? And these are, I think, relatively well understood in terms of how we refer to them in the culture. But I talk through what are the ways to recognize those own responses in your own communication, right? If I've noticed an aggressive feeling coming up or a defensiveness that's probably
Starting point is 00:14:55 fight, for example, if I notice that I'm minimizing or undercutting myself, like it'll just take a sec or no worries if not or all the disclaimers that we can use, that might be a fawn response, right? making ourselves small in the face of a threat. And part of this is not that any of these are wrong. We have very well-developed lizard brains that are pulling the strings on this one. But let's recognize what they are and understand how and when we might want to deploy them to our advantage or how and when we might want to regulate away from those. So that could be like something in a really heated meeting, for example, and you feel like it's not going anywhere. You might be able to say,
Starting point is 00:15:39 look, there's a lot of blood going to this right now. I'm going to, let's put a pin in it for now, and I'm going to put some time in for us to catch up tomorrow, for example. And that's a really helpful way to say timeout. I just, this is not going the way that we all want to and we only, we need to come back with fresh eyes. That's a way that I think for a lot of my early career, I didn't know that was an option, right?
Starting point is 00:16:01 That felt like an impossibility. And a lot of this is, if I can show that there are so many different ways, so many different tools in those difficult situations that you have. That can be a very helpful way of just knowing that they're there. The other thing about noticing these threat responses is we can start to recognize them in others. So we can start to realize, oh, this person is exhibiting that type of a response. Maybe they're afraid. And that can lead us to asking better questions of them, for example, Nicole, can you tell me, I'm noticing some resistance here or some reactions from you, can you tell me what's going on or can you talk me through what's on your mind in terms of
Starting point is 00:16:42 this issue? Because I'd love for us to be able to, you know, get really aligned. And that can open up a beautiful doorway for you both to have this kind of side conversation to the main conversation, which is, yeah, actually, I'm really worried or my team has already invested three months in this. You know, I feel like you might be taking it away. And then you can get very good data and at the same time help de-escalate that situation together. Leaves are falling, lattes are being questionably flavored, and it's officially time to get cozy. And nobody does cozy like cozy earth. For me, fall and the holidays are all about curling up on the couch, lighting the fire, and changing into my PJs the second I'm done for the day, which is tricky
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Starting point is 00:21:17 few months on Fawn, like the Fawn response, I think is probably something maybe more women employ and know the least about. And then I will tell you, I think I also have a freeze response. I can think of that when I am around, typically, men who are in a much higher position of power than me, that freeze. It's like my brain and my mouth no longer coordinate. So can you help us think through maybe a couple of those examples of responses that we could use in those moments? Yes.
Starting point is 00:21:53 So, I mean, a foreign response, if you think about it in the animal kingdom, it's exactly the same. It's a smaller animal knowing that there's a bigger purpose. predator, right? And so it's absolutely like, I'll make myself small. I'll not be a threat. I'll keep my eyes down. So they pass me by. And a lot of that is applicable. I find myself often saying, I think we forget in a corporate context that we're actually animals, right? And the thing that's setting us off is, you know, not a physical other predator, but, you know, an email from someone called Greg, right? Like it's a very, very different kind of activation, but it feels the same. It feels as scary or as urgent as if it might be a physical threat.
Starting point is 00:22:34 And I think anyone who's ever felt physical body symptoms of nervousness or anxiety or dread in their body knows what I'm talking about here, that it's very, very real despite only being maybe, you know, an email or something like that. An example, in terms of like what do I do if I freeze or if I fawn, part of that process is, and this sounds boring, but it's very important, is actually noticing when and where it happens. I want everybody who reads the book to have a very clear sense of, for me, in these situations, I tend to be more activated. I tend to dislike it when. Or conversely, I tend to do really well when, because mapping that from the outset is what's going to give us our own personal
Starting point is 00:23:21 kind of workbook through it. Because I can't give you the panacea for everybody do X. It's very seductive, but it doesn't work, right? So mapping that is the first really important part. The second part is to understand what regulates me. So I work with people who say, you know what, I lift really heavy weights because I can't be nervous when I'm doing that because I have to physically exert or I run or I meditate or I do yoga or I sing in the shower. It doesn't matter. It's not a health nut thing. It's a what's going to help my body move out of that response and into a place. where I'm feeling good. And that can look so different from all of us. I have people who go to the sauna. I have people who swim laps. It doesn't matter the thing, but it's usually some sort of
Starting point is 00:24:09 physicality that can help literally ground us to get into a place that feels more human and more natural for us. So I even say, obviously, there's not necessarily time to fit in a yoga class before that 11 a.m. meeting or whatever it might be. So what's going to be your shortcut to get there? Maybe it's that you've done it that morning. Maybe it's that you've chewed some gum and gone outside and had some fresh air before you come back in. Find something that becomes your shortcut, a hype song maybe, that you can embody and bring into, to tap into that type of energy for yourself can be, again, it sounds a little woo-woo, but it's amazing what it can do. And we can build up then over time and associate that with a really positive. sense of, oh, this is that self, that authentic self of me that's showing up in the way that I
Starting point is 00:25:02 would really like to equip myself. What I'm loving is there is a high level of, I'm just going to use the word customization or individualization to this, right? So you gave us two really powerful questions. First, where are you most powerful, right? Like thinking about you, personally, individually, where are the examples of places, spaces, environments, examples that you feel powerful. And then the second question is, when am I most activated? And preparing, though not over-preparing, for what am I going to do in those moments? What is going to work for me specifically?
Starting point is 00:25:40 You said this, and it is really sexy to just be like, here's the three-step process. Any one of us can follow. But this isn't that. Right. Okay. No. We love a listicle, you know, 10 ways to get ready for summer and three ways to look good at work. They're very seductive.
Starting point is 00:25:55 and I totally understand that, but unfortunately, communication, or fortunately, is super complex. And it's, as you say, it's super custom to all of us. So telling everybody the one thing to do is probably, you know, at best, not going to work and at worst, probably quite dangerous, right? So I've, I say in the book, this should feel like we've written it together, right? I'm going to give you frameworks and outlines, but you're going to be filling in the dots as to where you fit on that spectrum or where you sit on the map. And that's, I think, where our own sense of actually power and likeability can come together because it is in the way we would like to deploy it and the way we feel comfortable. I'd add to that, the worst thing I think you can do in communication,
Starting point is 00:26:40 which I did and learned from, is to perform a different persona that is not you, right? To step into something else that doesn't, that the delta between you and this persona is quite broad or quite wide, because it's very, very exhausting and actually longer term unsustainable. We kind of are feeling this like high degree of self-surveillance and performance, which dims a lot of our own natural energy. So I would say the more aligned you can be to actually who you are, and I say that as someone who's tried on many of those personi. So as a debater, I was hyper-masculine, hyper-aggressive, very adversarial. And in a lot of
Starting point is 00:27:23 ways, I still have that in me, right? I'm naturally competitive. I see 27 problems quickly. I say no fast. But I've learned that that's probably not the best way to collaborate or to work together in an effective way. And my own sense of self is actually someone who's kind of smiley, who I'm fairly warm and I'll still deploy that same sense of like rational or incisiveness that I have taken from debate, for example, but with my own personality and persona. And that's sort of I'm encouraging or provoking in the book, which is what is that part of yourself? And can you actually incorporate it in a way with your true self, if you like, incorporate those
Starting point is 00:28:08 superpowers that you might have of being good with numbers or really good at detecting an argument or understanding the implications of something and reconcile that with our own sense of self such that we're showing up in a way that feels grounded and authentic to other people. I want to reiterate how important this feels because I define confidence as firm and bold trust and self. And it's going to be really hard to trust yourself if you practice your way into the belief of thinking that in order for you to do well, you have to be someone. else. Yes. It's why I hate the fake it till you make it. Got it. Right. Me too. It's semantics, but I've replaced it with choose it until you become it. Oh, I love that. A hundred percent. Yes.
Starting point is 00:28:55 So this is firing a lot of things in my brain. I am wildly curious about your debate background. I think when people think about debate and communication, it's let me convince you of my point. And I am not by any stretch of the imagination, a debater, or a skilled, in that way. I'm curious what you've learned about effective communication and being powerfully likable from being so good at debating that we can carry forward. Yeah, I think it's choosing your win. So in debate, one of the things that sets it apart, and I admit one of the things I was drawn to is that you go to the mat for your argument and you'll take no prisoners in doing it, right? everything you say is wrong and everything I say is right and it's very zero-sum and there's there's a
Starting point is 00:29:46 great intellectual appeal of that to me which is like oh I'm assuming a side it might not even be a side of the topic that I agree with but for the sake of this performance I will go to the map for it in work oftentimes we don't necessarily or we can't or we shouldn't try to say here are the 27 reasons you're wrong right it doesn't foster a longer-term collaborative relationship in the same way because the debate isn't over in half an hour, right? You have to work alongside that person. So one of the things I talk about is, or one of the things perhaps I learned best, is what is it that I need to convince you of in this meeting or what is the win that I need? Is it that I get you to say yes and greenlight everything I'm working
Starting point is 00:30:30 on? Or is it that I need you to start considering that that's an idea I'd like to discuss further next time, right? And I know that's subtle, but part of what that does is understand how I'm going to deploy my own influence and persuasion is actually when I'm not trying to hit you over the head with something. Few people like to be hit over the head, right? It feels abrasive. It can feel a lot. And I don't mean, this is not tone policing. This is being strategic with how you bring someone over to your side of understanding how to see something in your way. So I think we think, persuasion means here's my list of grievances or here's my list of why I'm right. And actually sometimes persuasion is tell me more about what you're thinking about that. I'd love to understand
Starting point is 00:31:18 how you've gotten there. Tell me what's keeping you up at night. I'd love to understand more about how we can work productively or for you, what would someone in my function be excelling at that would help your team. These are types of questions that don't feel powerful on the face of it. They feel smaller. But actually what you're doing is getting very, very important data to be able to come back and shape what you're asking for in terms or in language that that person will resonate with. So if you think, oh, actually, they're really worried about metrics, for example, right, that they're getting pressure from their boss. Maybe I'm going to frame up what I'm doing as something that's going to be really critical for the longer term
Starting point is 00:32:03 metrics of the project, right? That's a vague example, but I'm trying to show that sometimes persuasion is, comes from better data, better relational quality than it does from like, here's my 27 reasons. And I've learned that absolutely the hard way, but it's fascinating once you can open up those doorways to get that data and then have a better understanding of it. It cuts down the time at which you are at loggerheads with someone and more quickly puts you on the same side of the problem. And that's oftentimes what influential communication is trying to do. So is part of that understanding the win for you, but also the potential win for the person you're communicating with or the whole? So like I think, okay. So I think about it like what's the
Starting point is 00:32:49 win for me? What's the win for you? What's the win for the business or the department or the team or whatever? And you might not have those answers going in, but exploring that it might be part of this. yes? Absolutely. So one of the frameworks I walk through is the shared goal framework, which is even your most vitriolic, you know, enemy, right, in the business, there's probably something that you share. There's probably something that you both are understanding is a collective North Star for the business. So talking to them in those terms, right? I know your team is really interested in X, something that we're trying to do here is, I'd love to grab some time with you to talk about how we might be able to align those better or a brainstorm even, right, what some
Starting point is 00:33:37 options might be here so that we're, you know, in lockstep together. That can be a way of, in some ways, defanging that socialized buildup of like, oh, they don't like me or they, you know, they're out to get me or they're against me. Because suddenly you're actually bringing together a shared goal that you can energize around or that can motivate you together. And we forget that those goals are shared because we, you know, it feels like they're at odds with us sometimes. Absolutely. Okay. You said earlier that you, you didn't say this. I'm saying this, that you had a beef with a word authenticity, that it's being overused or oversimplified. And I have that with so many words. I am the self-appointed word police because they feel like there are such
Starting point is 00:34:22 powerful words that are being oversimplified or commercialized or just misinterpreted in ways that aren't serving us. And we talked already about this is complex. There isn't a three-step process that'll have you be an effective communicator in five minutes or less. Like, yes, that sells on social media, but that's not the reality of things. And when something is really complex and challenging and individualized, it can feel hard to figure out where to start. So you gave us a couple good questions, but can you leave us with potentially a simple or powerful shift that we can make or first step that we can take as we begin to move towards effective communication and being powerfully likable? So I think part of it is what we've already touched on is that
Starting point is 00:35:16 sort of inventory, where do you sit right now and keeping that in the back of your notebook or in a document that you can find easily, that you're actually understanding the patterns that will emerge over time. You might not see a pattern the first time you do that, but over time I promise that they're there and that will be very illustrative. In terms of something you could do like tomorrow or going into a meeting, something I talk about is imposing syndrome, which is the idea that we're often really afraid to make an ask. So if you have found yourself ever thinking, I couldn't possibly ask that, or are they going to hate me if I, or no worries, if nodding your way through meetings, think about the concerns that are coming up for you. Why are you afraid to make that
Starting point is 00:36:03 ask? And then think about how you might be able to ask it in a way that doesn't take your legs out from under you. So instead of, I'm not an expert, but something I've been thinking about, you could just say, something I've been thinking about is, right? Or instead of, it'll just take two seconds, hey, Nicole, I've put in 30 minutes for us to catch up on this issue. Let me know if that time works for you. Right. So we're just making an ask with a pure intention of getting to a better place together rather than feeling like, oh my God, the sky is falling. You know, that's a pattern I see with so many of the women I coach and something I'm very personally keen on helping them move away from. Well, I can tell you you're speaking directly to me because I don't know that I have
Starting point is 00:36:49 personally experienced many moments of imposter syndrome. I have, but not often, not many. But imposing syndrome, I have that all day. Right. I know exactly what that looks and feels like. And that would be a huge opportunity for me. And then let me just add, if you really are looking for one simple, powerful next step, go get the book. Powerfully likable, available on Amazon. or whatever it is you buy books or order it from your local bookstore. Let's keep them in business. And of course, you can go to Kate's website. It's at katemason.com. We'll put all the links and all the ways to find and follow Kate in show notes. Kate, thank you for both a powerful and likable conversation. This is so important and necessary and I appreciate you
Starting point is 00:37:35 doing this work. Thanks so much for having me, Nicole. It was a pleasure. Pleasure was all mine. All right, friends. We have been taught for so long that power and likeability are at odds, that you can have one but not the other. But I'm saying this for you and for me, that's simply not true. Power doesn't have to mean harsh or arrogant. In fact, it probably doesn't. And likeability doesn't have to mean small and self-sacrificing. In fact, it probably doesn't. Both are available to us when we stop twisting ourselves into pretzels to fit someone else's definition and start owning what it feels like to be true and real and right for us. So maybe the question isn't, can you be powerful and likable at the same time?
Starting point is 00:38:19 The question is, what is your version of powerfully likable? Because when we figure that out, we stop walking the tightrope and start changing the rooms that we walk into. And that, my friend, is woman's work.

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