Finding Your Voice: Toby Myles & Karen Laos on Speaking with Confidence

I'm curious, uh, I mean, you talked about your upbringing, but do you think that that, um, women between, you know, 40s and 60s have had sim- similar upbringings? Like, is that where so many women struggle sometimes because of their upbringing? Is it, you know, the business world? Is it, you know, our culture? Like, can you point to one thing that, that is really the culprit and why we don't feel confident to speak up?

I'd say it's multiple things.

It's a combination of upbringing and culture outside of your home.

Because even people with upbringings where they were encouraged to debate.

For example, I think about a woman that I used to work with.

She would always push back with my boss, and I would marvel, almost jaw-droppingly look at her and thinking, "I can't believe she's talking to my boss like that."

Mm-hmm.

But she garnered respect from my boss, and the pushback was...

And I rem- anyway, the pushback was very strong, but the respect was also there.

And I remember asking her, "What was it like in your home?"

Mm-hmm.

And she said, "Oh," like, "We debated all the time at the dinner table." Well, that was not at all my experience.

My experience was you don't, you don't speak up unless you are asked a question.

Mm-hmm.

Or, you know, it's that whole be seen, not heard.

So I'd say that there's a combination, but the, the...

And there's so many interesting studies around this too.

There's also a documentary called Pioneers in Skirts.

Oh.

And this mother-daughter team went around and were following girls in elementary school who were really into robotics, and they had a lot of confidence, and then over time, that confidence eroded.

And so then it was trying to figure out at what point did that erode, and it's...

I, I don't know that there's exactly, like, here's the one thing.

Yeah.

But I do think that we have been s- as women, so culturally conditioned to put everybody's needs above our own.

Even I did an interesting research, very informal research study once going to a big conference for three days, and I might have had probably 10 meaningful conversations, and I asked each of those women, "How can I best support you?" Or, "What are you looking for?" Some version of that.