Overcome Networking Challenges

Being a woman in a room full of men. I’ve never been in any other type of room. I work in technology. That’s the situation. And every woman is really different. You have a huge advantage because people remember you, if there’s a hundred people in the room and only three of them are women. People will be like, “oh yeah, do you remember that woman with the glasses? or the woman, the black woman, there were only three of them. So there was a woman with glasses, the black woman and the tall woman; that was the women”. So you have an advantage. Remember you have an advantage because of that. But you’ll have to develop your own style. Do remember people do want to talk to you if you’re a woman; and, be very upfront with your ideas. Be like, “oh, that’s a great idea. I was thinking about this… and this… and this. And again, men also do want to help you; and asking for their advice is helpful in those situations, in networking situations. But you can also ask for advice in a way that will make it obvious that you know what the hell you’re talking about. So it can be, you can ask a very specific question that makes it obvious that you are just as technical as they are. So that allows them to listen to you starting out to speak, as you’re not superior. Because, “oh, I wanted to ask you this question…”. And then, as you go through it, they’re like, “Oh wait! This person really knows what they’re talking about”. So, asking questions is very helpful.

This is very specific, right? Somebody’s asking you for a date. Again, that’s culturally specific. If you’re attracted to them, there’s no problem; if you want to go on a date. I think we’ve all been in that situation. I’ve definitely been in situations where I’ve been set up to go out with clients who wanted to go out with me, as a dating situation and not a professional situation. And I wasn’t clear that’s what was going on. As you get older, you get wiser. Look, saying “no” is fine; and moving on. As I get older and go through life more, I realized that I have to recognize what I’m not willing to put up with; and not be given by, “oh, well, this person is more important, and without them, my career won’t work”. Again, this is part of what’s breaking in the old-world order. It’s this order of dominance and control. And, I won’t put up with it. I’ve quit jobs recently. I’ve changed the organizations that I’m willing to work at as a volunteer, even though I really believe in the cause. I’m just not willing to put up with it anymore. And I think we need to walk away from those situations, and not be given by the power that that particular individual has. It’s okay for somebody who’s single to be attracted to somebody else who’s single and ask them out. And, if it doesn’t occur, it’s fine. You can say, “no, thank you”. The thing is, there’s two different things, right? There’s, I’m attracted to you and I want to go on a date with you and there’s, I don’t regard you as professional; and those are completely different. And then there’s also situations that I’ve been in the situation too, when somebody was hired and they literally put their hand on me, just put their hand on my shoulder, but to show that they were in a dominant position as a man. Fortunately, really in a bizarre way, because I didn’t think of that as particularly offensive, but the person who was in the room at the time was religious, and he went and complained to my boss about it. He said, “you know? somebody sexually assaulted her”. And it wasn’t a sexual assault; it was clearly a gesture to show the other man in the room that I was inferior, and the other man in the room wouldn’t put up with it. So that’s also an interesting situation, where some of those physical things that we tend to slip by and ignore. Be clear about what you’re not willing to tolerate.

A lot of people think that I’m an intimidating person. I just have that personality. When I walk into a room, I have energy around me, and I’m intimidating to other women, to other men. What did my best friend (we run three businesses together and we’d been friends for 10 years), It’s like, “you know, you’re intimidating”. I’m like, “it’s been 10 years; you never told me!” So you can also say that. You can say, listen, “when you said that it was a little bit intimidating for me”. Or, “when people say that to me, it helps me be less of a witch”. Ok? So, even just saying, “listen, I felt a little intimidated by that, and it turned me off”. I had another story, where I had a boss who was in an executive meeting. Every two weeks we had an executive meeting; and every week he would pick on somebody else to yell at. We were just like… that’s how we did it. And one week it was my turn, and he yelled at me; and that turned my brain off -even though I am intimidating, it is possible for me to get intimidated. And that turned my brain off. It was like, “oh, my God!”. So I went to his office afterwards and I just said to him, “Listen, when you did that, I got brain freeze. Because my mom used to yell at me, and it just reminded me of her. And I’m really sorry. So, could you please repeat whatever the problem was so I can fix it?”. He never yelled in a meeting again. He apologized to me and he never did it again in any meeting. So just telling somebody and, like I said, it doesn’t even have to be at that moment. If you have the presence of mind at that moment to say, “oh, that really triggered me”. You don’t even have to say, it was intimidating. “The way you said it. That kind of triggered me. Let me just kinda recalibrate”. They will know they did it. And if they’re an asshole, they’ll keep doing it. But you don’t want to be around that person. And if they’re not, it will help them get better. I mean, we’re in this together. We have a certain culture that needs to change. And letting people know that they’re overly aggressive, even if it’s me, it helps them to improve. Another way to say that is, when you take responsibility for your stuff, the other person has an opening to take responsibility for their stuff. So you could say, “in my culture, people don’t speak so loudly”, or whatever. You know, sometimes it could just be very simple, like, I know that I feel physically intimidated by men that are taller than me, which is most men. So you could just say, “listen, I know this is kind of silly, but you know, you’re a guy, you’re a little bigger than me.I just feel a little intimidated. So let me just breathe for a second”. And when you take responsibility for; it’s not his fault that he’s tall, then it gives him responsibility for saying, “oh, you know what? I never really thought of that”, you know, whatever. Even though he probably did.