This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - Same Ask, Different Outcome: The Double Standard in Negotiation with Attia Qureshi | 411
Episode Date: May 13, 2026Let’s get one thing straight: women are not bad at negotiating. They’re doing it just as often—if not more—but getting worse outcomes. So no, the wage gap isn’t because women just need to �...�ask better.” That’s lazy advice… and frankly, bullshit. In this episode, negotiation expert Attia Qureshi—founder of Atiya Qureshi Consulting, co-author of Never Settle, and trained in FBI-informed negotiation strategies—breaks down the uncomfortable truth: women are playing a game that wasn’t designed for them to win the same way men do. Same words, same ask… wildly different outcomes. And she’s not here with fluff—she’s here with strategies that actually work. Because here’s the deal: opting out of negotiation doesn’t protect you—it guarantees you get less. What We Cover: Why women are negotiating just as much—but still losing The double bind: too nice = weak, too assertive = “difficult” The internal negotiation happening in your own head Why relationships matter more than you think (yes, it’s annoying, but it’s real) How to use data as your secret weapon without triggering defensiveness The “we strategy” that helps women get better outcomes (even if it feels unfair) Why over-preparing can actually screw you over How to handle rejection and turn a “no” into a “not yet” At the end of the day, negotiation isn’t about becoming someone you’re not. It’s about learning how to advocate for yourself in a system that doesn’t always reward you for it—and doing it anyway. Because you don’t get what you deserve. You get what you’re willing to ask for—and hold your ground on. Thank you to our sponsors! Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free! Families are better when they’re working together… go to myskylight.com/WOMANSWORK for $30 off your Skylight Calendar. Become a Fora Advisor today at Foratravel.com/woman Connect with Attia: Website: https://www.attiaqureshi.com Book: https://www.amazon.com/Never-Settle-Persuasion-Negotiation-Skills/dp/1668070375 LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/attiaq/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/attiaq/ Substack: https://substack.com/@attiaqureshi Related Podcast Episodes: The 3 N’s - Negotiation, Networking & No with Kathryn Valentine | 327 Be A Likeable Badass with Alison Fragale | 230 162 / Compensation Myths with Kelli Thompson 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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I'm Chris Stewart, and I invite you to come and join us here at the History of China podcast.
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All this and so much more here at the History of China podcast.
I am Nicole Clill 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.
And around here, we believe that you are the decider of what that means for you.
Woman's work is about you living your life as the truest, realest, proudest version of you.
So it could mean a lot of things.
But what it will never mean is you settling.
because we've been taught to, right? Somewhere along the way, we were told and sold that asking for
more is not okay. It's selfish, aggressive, cold, and calculating, that wanting more makes you difficult,
that it's risky. So better to just keep your head down, work really, really, really hard,
prove yourself while staying likable to literally everyone and then somehow someone will notice
and give you what you've earned. And I say all of this because I,
I've tried all of this, and it's not just outdated advice, it's bad strategy.
We've been told that the real reason that women aren't getting what they want,
the reason things like the wage gap exists is because we're not negotiating well enough,
that if we just speak up, push harder, lean in a little further, everything would even out.
Yeah, that's a convenient oversimplification,
because it ignores bias, access, and the reality that relationships, opportunities, and
influence often move through networks that we're not invited into. It ignores the double bind
that we navigate. Where being direct can cost us and being agreeable can cost us. So no, we're not
going to pretend that negotiation is the only problem and therefore fixes everything. But we're also
never going to get what we want by opting out of the skill altogether. Because negotiation, real
negotiation isn't about being louder, harsher, or becoming somebody that you don't recognize.
It's about knowing how to advocate for yourself in a way that actually works. It's about
influence, clarity, and yes, being unwilling to settle for less than what you want and deserve,
in your career, in your relationships, in your everyday life. Here to help us develop our negotiation
and persuasion skills is Aetia Qureshi, founder of Atea Koreshi consulting where she supports
companies through negotiation, conflict resolution, and organizational strategy. She's the co-author of
Never Settle, a negotiation guide that moves beyond surface level persuasion tactics and into real
practice skill, drawing from decades of experience, including insights from FBI negotiation strategies
and others, and is ultimately here to help us build trust, navigate conflict, and walk away with more.
So Atia, thank you for being our guest. And I think probably the best place to start is by asking you, are women really negotiating less or are we somehow worse at it? And if so, why?
Women are not negotiating less. Studies now show that women are negotiating equally, if not more, but we are less successful. And I really appreciate the framing you provided because we do get penalized both ways. If we are too accommodating, we get penalized.
and are seen as not being able to be efficient and sufficient at the jobs. And if we are, if we
advocate too much for our needs and ask for what we want, we're seen as aggressive and too assertive
and people don't want to work with us. So we are getting hit every which way. It feels like it.
It really does. Like I believe strongly in the power of persuasion and that negotiation is a necessary
skill. And I just get so infuriated when something like the wage gap gets simplified to this one
cause issue and like, son of a bitch, it's like way more complex than that, right? It is so
much more complex and it's outdated. Women are advocating for themselves, but it's not as successful
as when men do it because a man can walk into a room and say, this is exactly what I want
assertively and he's seen as confident. And a woman walks into the room and says it the same way and
she's seen as a bitch. Yeah. I've been called that a fee too many times. But me too. So in your book,
which you co-authored with a man, and the reason I bring that up is I'm wondering how often or
not often, you guys had to navigate any differences or nuances in negotiation and persuasion
with gender is a difference. Like, how often did you see it differently or experience it
differently? Very often. And one of the things that surprises me is, even with my co-author,
it always surprised him when I shared a different perspective that I faced. And a lot of times
people try to find other reasons than gender or race for that difference because it makes them
uncomfortable. And I came across that quite a few times because I can't be as assertive. I have to be
more relational. And a man can say five words and I have to say 50 to get the same thing across,
but in a way that's acceptable. Agreed. Okay. Drives with my experience. Are there actual studies
support this? Do we have examples of somebody walking into a room saying the exact same thing and the
exact same way in getting very different results. I mean, I know there are, yes, certain things that
can't be controlled, but I'm curious about what the research shows. Yes, the research does show this.
There are some really good studies by Babcock out of Carnegie Mellon that talks about how when a woman
does walk in and says the exact same thing as a man, she is penalized. And it is not just penalized
with the ask, but people don't want to work with her because they see her as being too difficult. So the
studies absolutely support this. But luckily, there are other techniques that we as women can employ
that are going to help us around that. Now, here's what I hate. And I have a really hard time with
this is we as women do have to negotiate and influence differently. And it's actually a lot more
work for us. And a lot of times my students or clients are like, well, why can't I just do it the way
that I want to do it.
Why can't the world be fair to us?
I'm like, yeah, I wish.
But it's not.
So let me give you the tools
that are actually going to work
because until we get to that fair world,
I want you to get more.
Okay, so I want to talk about these techniques,
but before we do,
I think there might be the inclination
when we talk about these differences
to visualize a woman walking in
and negotiating with a man.
And I think it's really important
that were being penalized by men, but also by women, too.
Like, there are women who don't want to work with us.
And I almost sometimes in my experience felt like women were harder on other women than men were on women for, and I'm just going to put in air quotes, doing it wrong or being too aggressive or what have you.
That's in alignment with what I'm seeing and what I have experienced in my own negotiations.
women have always been harder from my perspective on me than men have. And I think that to a certain
extent, women have had to work harder to climb to the top. And that creates a sense of rigidness
and a little bit of hardness. So as other women come up, I think that there's a little bit of this
internal dialogue that happens within women that make us harder on other younger women or other
women in general that are also trying to come up. And I think you're spot on with that experience.
Yeah, certainly something I'm going to encourage you, the listener, to really think about.
I think we all, myself included, need to be better about that if we want anything to change
for all of us. Exactly. I think we have this, like, we climbed up the hill both ways in the snow
with bare feet version of our like professional success. And it's crazy that we're trying to
to create similar environment or using that as the standard for other women coming up when we do
want it better and we wouldn't wish that on our younger selves or anyone we care about.
Exactly. And part of it might be high expectations too. We have really high expectations
for other women and sometimes we might penalize them for not doing it the way that we think
they should. And so I agree with you that we can change the way that we interact with women who
are negotiating with us, which would ideally change the dynamic over time.
So let's talk about some of these techniques.
Negotiation and persuasion are both in the title of your book.
What's the difference and is one better than the other for us?
Yeah.
I think that we are negotiating or influencing dozens of times per day.
It is not just those salary or promotion conversations.
It's the workload conversation.
and the who's going to go grab lunch today conversation or the household chores conversation.
Who's going to pick up the kids?
Where are we going to have a Christmas this year?
We're doing it dozens of times per day.
And that's why we wanted to expand the title and the idea of what negotiation is because
it's not just those big ones.
It's constant.
And those constant ones add up to whether we are happy or not.
And in my perspective, I think if we can think of things.
as influence and persuasion, it is particularly better for women because it sets us up long-term
for success. I couldn't agree more that we are negotiating or influencing and persuading all the time,
and I would add that there is no better negotiator than a two-year-old. Oh, my gosh. I are so good.
Oh, I just dealt it with this with my son. I have a two-year-old, and he is just an expert.
It drives me. Teach me your ways. Please. Oh, good. Just this morning. I was like,
this is going to be my like biggest negotiation ever. Like it's going to last 18 years and it's
or more and I'm going to fail. No doubt. I have a 12 year old and I can't say it gets much better.
But okay, so what can we learn from our two year old FBI negotiators, all sorts of people
about the techniques of influence and persuasion? You talk a lot about confidence and I love how much
you speak about it. And I think that the first negotiation that we often don't think about is the
internal negotiation. What is it that what's the self work we are doing before we walk into any
conversation that we know we need to have? First of all, 90 to 95 percent of our decision making
happens through unconscious emotional processing. So we are underpinning everything with emotion.
And a lot of times in situations of influence, we have a spike of emotion, often negative emotion, right?
We worry about being rejected.
We have anxiety about the conversation.
We have fear that the thing is going to be taken away or somehow it's going to become worse for us.
So we have to manage and navigate that piece first because going through that process is what's going to help us build the confidence when we get to the conversation.
And for my perspective, confidence isn't innate.
It's something that you have to build just like negotiation skills over time.
And you have to improve that skill set.
And one of the ways that I've found is really managing those internal conversations and those dynamics to set yourself up for success.
Okay.
Makes perfect sense.
It all happens in our own mind first.
And often we are our own worst negotiators, right?
We talk ourselves out of things.
We all the what ifs, all the worst case scenarios.
Makes perfect sense for me and aligns with confidence. It's an internal thing first and foremost. And as you said,
something we have to, we get to practice over and over. And it's not innate. It is a skill we get to
develop. And because that's true, it requires a lot of practice. All right. I'm with you. Now what?
Now we need to figure out what it is we actually want. You will be amazed at how many times I've run
into clients, students, myself, and we don't have a goal. And just having one specific goal makes you
twice as likely to succeed. And we don't necessarily think about our interests. And oftentimes we
think about it positionally. I need $5,000 as a bonus. Or I, you have to take the trash out right now.
And those are positions. But what is the underlying interest? I feel alone at home. And I need
support. And that's the interest that we have. And if we go in positionally, it's not going to be
very fruitful because what we're doing is making a demand. And influence or negotiation always has
another party involved with it. So framing it as something that are your needs rather than demands
opens up the door to a conversation. Stating a demand is a closed door. Okay. A lot of things in what you
I like the distinction between having a position versus an interest and really getting underneath
the what is the experience I'm looking for or what is it that I really want. I think we do have a
tendency to focus on the thing. I want $5,000 or I want a day off or I want the trash to be taken
out. But what we really want is something deeper and more meaningful. Now, you also made the point
that there is another party involved and they also have interests.
and positions as well.
I'm going to use this example because I've heard it a lot.
It drives me a little crazy where people will say,
you know, I want the raise or I want more money because the interest is,
you know, I want to travel more.
I want to live a better life or I want to be able to do X, Y, and Z at home.
And it's not that those things aren't meaningful or important,
but the other party involved, their position isn't about caring about,
your travel or your home life, nor should it be if you have a business relationship.
Yeah. So how do we align our interests in an example like that? So here's what sucks.
I'll be really honest with you. Women are more successful in a negotiation with what we call
a we strategy. We love when women negotiate on behalf of others. And women get penalized when they
ask for something for themselves. So it is actually helpful to have a reason. And that sucks because
we shouldn't have to have a reason. But if you can come up with a reason that touches upon your needs,
but also a broader need, that is much more receptive because our whole, everybody, right,
men, women, everybody has this orientation that women are caregivers. And that's how we enter and frame
and that's the dynamic when we're interacting with women. So we have to think about that when we're
making an ask. So if you're negotiating on behalf of your team, bring that up. If you're negotiating
on behalf of yourself, bring up where it's going to be helpful for a we, right, but also how it's
going to facilitate a benefit to them as well, right? Like let's say you need $5,000 for child care, right? Because
that's impacting your ability to get started in the morning.
That's a wee piece.
Or there's aging parents that you have to take care of.
Or there's, you know, all of these pieces that we can think about in that we strategy
are actually really helpful for framing it in a way that feels acceptable.
And that sucks.
Yeah.
But that's what we expect.
Sorry to break in, but this part matters.
Rate the show, share it, and support the sponsor.
so I can keep making episodes worth interrupting you for.
It sucks and it's important that we are aware so that we get more and we can change
the game and then not have to do that anymore.
But I think our brains go to the value of the role is this.
Like if I were to go get this role somewhere else or if I can do the measurable impact
of my role to the organization, therefore I deserve.
I have earned this salary.
that's really the way it should be done.
And yet we don't get to do that.
No, men get to do that.
We don't.
We will absolutely be penalized for doing it that way.
So let me take a step back because I want to touch upon that.
The next piece that I want all women to start doing right now
is making sure that you have a really strong relationship foundation
with the key people in your life.
So with your boss, with your colleagues, with your colleagues,
with your spouse, with your neighbor, right?
Anyone that is going to have a material impact in your life,
make sure that you have a solid relationship.
And the first thing you can do today to do that is go take them something small.
A cup of coffee to your colleague, a pastry to somebody that you're going to interact with today.
Even a kind word can actually be a small gesture that makes people feel better about you
and improves the relationship.
And that's something we need to be doing over time because when we've,
finally do have an ask, it sets us up for success because we can almost always help somebody.
It just depends on if we want to or not. So we need to make sure that we're putting the building
blocks in place to make people want to help us. Now I have a caveat here. This has to be done
authentically. You can't just give someone a cup of coffee and then immediately make an ask today or
tomorrow. That's just quid pro quo and everyone can see right through it. What you're doing is actually
giving something without an expectation of anything in return other than a better relationship.
Okay. So again, I go back to, you know, I hate that we have to do this. And I think that there is
truth universally about this. We want to help and support the people who help and support us,
regardless of gender, I think. And we are in a stronger persuasion or influence position
with anybody in our lives if we have a strong relationship, if they,
care about us or like us in some way. And human behavior, again, regardless of gender,
we tend to like and care about people who like and care about us. And again, that sort of help
and support feeling that it goes both ways. So on one part, I hate it. Yeah. And on the other part,
this just feels like human behavior. It is just, and studies show this. There have been countless
studies that show that the idea of reciprocity, the idea of giving someone something,
is hardwired and that it really does materially impact behavioral change. So men can also do this
very successfully. It is just a quick tip that we can start working on right now to make people more
receptive. And honestly, it's even more important for women because, again, we're seen as more
relational, as more like caregivers. So having that relationship matters more for us.
Let's dig into what we can do before the conversation, right? We did the self-work. We thought about
our emotions, we thought about what we want, we're building the relationship. Now is the prep for the
conversation. So thinking through what they care about, right? What is it that they, if you're
walking into a salary negotiation, what do they care about? Well, they want to keep you happy because
replacing people is hard. They have a budget that they have to be mindful of. They probably have
their own dynamics with their boss. So what does it look like if they have to go to their boss for
and ask, et cetera? Right. There are going to be a laundry list of things they care about. The more
that we can think about their interests from their perspective, the more impactful we can be.
Because when we enter into a conversation and frame it in a way that we've understood their
perspectives, they're going to be so much more interested in that conversation and open to it.
So that's learning about their interests. Now, we talked about something that you mentioned earlier,
which is data, right? I should be able to bring data. And data is actually very powerful for women
in a negotiation. Go do research. We call it objective criteria or external benchmarks. Go find out
what the value is on glass door or level, I think it's like levels and or just use an LLM. And it's just
going to give you a laundry list of what for your role in your industry, what competitive salary ranges
are. And then I always like to anchor at the spot that's best for me. So if I'm negotiating a salary,
I'm going for the very top of the range that I found because I can justify it with data.
And this is very powerful for women in a conversation because it's not about you making a demand
personally. You're bringing data and that is the support. That is, we call it a sword or a shield.
It's the sword in that it gives you an opportunity to put a stake in the sand and it protects you
against someone else combating that number. And it's not about what you are asking for. It's about
what external pieces say are fair. So we don't get penalized. We actually, it's better for women to have
that external data. What about internal data? So if we go back to what do they care about?
Yeah. I'm sure we have metrics, objective things that we can point to and say, we accomplish this,
or we generated this or we change the trajectory of this.
I'm assuming that's also important.
That's also very important.
Yeah, anytime that you can bring in the things that you have been able to help achieve,
that's very powerful in supporting your ask.
So I think that's really spot on in bringing those pieces in.
Now here, I would say, let's say that you know the salary of your male co-worker.
Do not bring that up.
it's only going to hurt you because all it does is it makes the other person very defensive.
And they will find every single reason on the planet why that person is making more.
So that's where I would be very careful.
Yeah. Again, it fucking sucks.
Yeah.
But if it's not going to get you what you want and it's not going to get you more,
then I think that's really good advice because you're right.
It absolutely puts the person on the defensive and they're going to go searching for any possible justification that they might.
might have other than I'm biased or, you know, sexist or racist or whatever because nobody wants
to accept that about themselves. Exactly. Okay. So I want to circle back because as you were saying,
like preparing for the conversation, what do they care about having this external and internal
information to bring to the table? I had the reaction of like, I think this is important across the board,
but I've experienced being in leadership positions
where employees or people who are newer
do this really badly.
And I wish, you know,
they could hear something like this
because where they often miss the mark
is they'll go looking externally
and they'll just look for titles.
And you need to look into the job description
and compare apples to apples
because I had somebody come to me
and be like,
a director of training is making four times more than what I'm making. And I'm like, yeah, but you're not
doing any of the things. Based on, like, out there, you're actually more of a training coordinator.
Should I change your title? Yes. You know, it was just, it is a really uncomfortable situation
and recognition that we didn't title them appropriately. But, and then also, you know, things like
location. Yeah. Same job description in Manhattan is not going to be the same compensation.
range if you live in Paducah, Kentucky. So this is an important skill to practice and develop. Is there
some benefit to getting some outside more experienced perspective as you're preparing for the
conversation so you don't inadvertently put yourself in a tough spot? Yes, yes, absolutely. And you're right,
it does need to be apples to apples. So someone who's a marketing, you know, in a marketing associate
at a nonprofit, cannot go look at what a marketing associate at a tech firm.
makes. It just doesn't make sense, right? You have to look within the same industry, same sized
company, same type of company, and location is really important as well. And I love the idea
that you're mentioning of validating it, right? Go pressure test what you've found with someone who is
a trusted mentor or anyone within your circle who can help you with that. Because, and ask them,
ask them, can you look at it from the other perspective? Pretend you are the boss.
where are the flaws in this? And that's super helpful. And if you don't have someone, again, go to an
LLM and ask them where the flaws are. Ask them to act as the boss and give you a counter argument.
Amazing. Okay. So we've got the internal negotiation, clarifying what it is we actually want,
like what we really want, that relationship foundation and reciprocity, preparing for the conversation.
Is there anything else? Yes, I have two more pieces. So in prep, what can be really
helpful is having an alternative. What if it doesn't go the way you want it to go? This is helpful for two
reasons. First, if you can develop an alternative, you know to a certain extent what the market
values. And it also gives you confidence in the conversation. So we talk about how confidence is a
skill. When you have an alternative and you walk into that conversation, people can smell it on you.
You just interact in a different way.
Now, here's where I want you to be careful, women.
Don't bring up the alternative, right?
Be very careful.
If you do want to bring it up, bring it up at the end and make it sound like disclosure.
Hey, this is something I didn't want to mention this, right?
This I'm really hesitant to even share, but because women, again, the study show, if you share an alternative, women, it really penalizes women.
it will not help you. Men can walk in and say, hey, I have an offer from Goldman Sachs for 20% more.
Are you going to match that or beat it? For women, you're going to get penalized in that conversation.
So be very careful. It's helpful for you in your confidence. It's helpful to know what the value is.
And it's very important to share it carefully if you are going to share it.
So that's part of the prep, right? That is all part of the prep. And through that,
process of prep, it'll also help you build your confidence because what you're doing is taking all of the
tools, adding them into your little toolbox so that when you go in, you have all of these pieces to support you in that
conversation. Now, one last piece is how do you prepare for the no? Right. I always like to make sure that I am
prepared if no matter, you know, we don't win every negotiation. We don't influence exactly how we wanted to in every
conversation. So what I like to do is rather when I prepare for the no, first of all, I like to
imagine it in my mind so that I can feel a little less scared or worried about the rejection.
And studies show that if you do that, you inoculate yourself a little bit and you get a little
less fearful. And then the other piece is to figure out how you would pivot and turn it into a
not yet. So what is it that you say, if you get a no, to make it a not yet, right? What is it that we
have to do in the next month? What conversations should both of us have? When can we revisit this?
And what's the right time? And what, you know, what are the right pieces of information we need?
Because it's almost never a hard no. So let's pivot it to a not yet and figure out what we need to do to get it to a yes.
Okay, all very good advice.
I want to circle back to something that you said, basically, that preparation builds confidence.
Yeah.
And that is supported in everything I've ever looked at, read or understood about confidence.
But just loving reminder that over preparation becomes problematic.
And I do think we as women have a tendency to overthink, over prepare, over practice.
And so just a loving reminder that if you are.
stuck in in action, then you are in the over preparing phase and you've got to just get into action
in some way somehow. So big, big, big proponent of preparation, but like preparation should lead to an
action. It's actually, it's so funny you say that. I think that it should lead to an action,
but what happens if we're overprepared sometimes is we walk into the room and we word vomit.
And we don't give them an opportunity to speak because we're so amped.
up and we have to share everything that we know. But one of the biggest, most powerful moves you can
make in a negotiation is active listening, because knowledge is power. So asking questions and
remaining silent and paraphrasing back what you heard is going to get you more information on what
they care about, what the blockers or boundaries might be, and you can use that information
to continue the conversation in a way that's going to be effective for you.
You cannot do that if you are over-prepared because you're locked into the structure in your head
and you don't provide any flexibility.
That is 1,000% accurate.
You become rigid.
You can only see it one way because you've over-prepared yourself that way.
And we lose all ability to practice flexibility or to pivot or even to listen to a certain extent.
It's interesting.
I say this often in speaking.
think it's also true when I host the podcast, really all of my work, is I tend to do my best work
when I come in slightly underprepared. And what I mean really is I do have a tendency to overprepare.
I'm an overthinker by nature. And so I know that my standard is not the healthiest. And so I need to
come in slightly underprepared for me. And that's typically where I do my best work.
I'm right there with you. I'm right there with you. I was coaching a woman.
who was amazing at her job.
She was crushing it and she was about to quit.
She had just landed her firm's biggest client to date.
And month after month, the CEO recognized one team that had been contributing hugely to the company.
And for the past several months, her team had never been recognized once.
The marketing team was recognized.
The development team was recognized as helping with this client.
and not her team, even though they were the ones who brought it in.
And she felt disrespected.
She felt undervalued.
She was furious.
And she came to me.
Yeah, I'm pissed for her.
Me too.
Me too.
And she came to me and she asked me, how do I tell my boss how fucked up this is?
Right.
How do I tell him that this is unacceptable that I am the one who, me and my team are the
ones who actually brought this person in and we are being treated so poorly?
I was like, yes, you can absolutely say that.
But what is it that you actually want as the outcome of that conversation?
Because in the back of my mind, I was thinking you're going to get fired.
And she was silent.
She was completely silent because she hadn't thought about it other than that she wanted
to vent all of these negative emotions out over months and months of building up inside of her.
And while that might feel good in the moment, it is absolutely all it's going to do is damage
her career and her relationship. Then I didn't hear from her for a couple of weeks. And I was like,
oh, man, she went into her boss's office and she's fired. And then she came back and she realized that what
she wanted was a recognition for her team and for it to be acknowledged that they've been passed over.
And that was a conversation that we could sort out and figure out how she could have productively
with her boss. And I asked her to think about it from her.
boss's perspective, kind of all of the tips that we talked about so far. And she went in and had the
conversation with her boss. And you know what her boss said? Her boss was like, oh my God, I've been so
busy with this client. I haven't even paid attention to those all-hands meetings. That is actually,
you know, messed up. And he went and talked to the CEO. They were recognized the next month. And it worked
out really well for her. But she had to make that internal mental shift, had to think about it from the
boss's perspective and have the conversation calmly with a goal.
Excellent example.
I think one we can all relate to where the anger, the frustration, the disappointment,
that's in the driver's seat.
And we don't take a second to stop and ask, what is it we really want here?
What's the end goal?
And is there a better way to accomplish that?
And I'm a, you know this.
I'm a big venter.
sometimes we do need to vent, just vent to somebody you can vent to, like, you know, not your boss.
Exactly.
But sometimes the feelings build up.
And that happens.
And so we have to self-manage that a little bit so it doesn't spew out in a way that's going to hurt us.
This has been so helpful.
I love every one of your steps.
I wish I would have heard them all earlier in my life.
I would have saved myself a lot of heartache and actually ended up with a lot more along the way.
So I want to make sure people know where to find and follow you.
Again, listener, the reminder that the book is called Never Settle.
It's available on Amazon or wherever it is you buy books, but let's keep our local
bookstores in business.
Then you can also download a playbook for free on Atea's website.
Again, it's Atea Qureshi.com.
We'll put that link and all the other ways to find and follow Atea in show notes.
Atia, thank you for doing this incredibly important work for being here today and for helping
us all get more of what we want.
Thank you for having me.
My pleasure.
All right, friend, here's the part that I hope sticks with you.
You are already negotiating all the time.
Every time you say yes when you mean no, every time you stay quiet instead of asking,
every time you accept what's offered instead of advocating for what you actually want.
That's negotiation too.
It's just not working in your favor because, and I hate this, but it's true, you don't
get what you deserve. You get what you ask for, what you're willing to hold your ground on,
what you're willing to negotiate for. And no, this doesn't fix broken systems or erase bias
overnight. But opting out doesn't fix it either. It just guarantees that you get less.
So decide what it is that you're available for or not. Decide what you're no longer willing
to accept. Decide what it is that you really want. And then practice asking for it.
again and again and again because every time you refuse to settle,
you rewrite what's possible for you and for everyone else.
And that, my friend, is woman's work.
