100: 100 Episodes Deep - The Black Introvert Woman Stories I've Never Told You

In this milestone 100th episode, host Dr. Nicole flips the script and gets interviewed by colleague LaShaunique Plummer. With zero prep and maximum vulnerability, Nicole shares stories she's never told publicly - from being a work addict to turning down five marriage proposals, from her Caribbean roots in Brooklyn to negotiating that $500K package. This unscripted conversation reveals the real woman behind the leadership coach who's helping Black introvert women claim their seat at the executive table. 

Guest Interviewer: LaShaunique Plummer

Website: https://www.balangize.com/

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hi and welcome to this very special milestone episode of the Leading Her Introvert Way podcast. If you don't know me, my name is Dr Nicole Bryan and you are listening to the one episode of Leading Her Introvert Way. Now I had to think long and hard about how to celebrate. There was no way, no way in hell. I was going to let the 100th episode go by without doing something special to mark the occasion, but I didn't know what to do, so I threw it out to you.

Speaker 1: 0:39

I asked those of you who are on my email list, I asked and put a poll on LinkedIn and basically, you said you wanted to learn more about me, more about my background, which I am completely flattered about. So, in thinking about how I could uniquely tell my story, or more of my story, I actually invited a good friend and colleague, another career coach, to interview me. Her name is Lashanique Plummer, and although she and I have a great number of things in common, we have many, many things that are different about us as well. She is completely fun, but she is also a little unpredictable, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I think you're going to love this interview. She asked some very great questions, ones I did not know beforehand, and we both kept it 100% real. So, without further ado, thank you for all of the support that you have given me up until this point. Thank you for being a part of the Leading Her Introvert Way community, and here is our 100th episode.

Speaker 2: 2:03

Hello, hello, I am so excited to be here. I know you are not familiar with this voice that you're hearing right now, but I am Lashanique Plummer. I am excited to have the moment and to be asked to interview Nicole today on a special 100th episode. So I will just share a little bit about me and then we'll hear a little bit about why are we, why are we even doing this.

Speaker 2: 2:30

But I have been a colleague and a friend and a supporter of Nicole. We have crossed paths, I want to say two or three years ago starting our coaching businesses and you know both being in the HR space, and we just, you know, love what each other does. We've met in person and I think that connection has just grown into a wonderful partnership and friendship and we help and support each other in so many different ways. So this is truly an honor to be here and to support her episode and so, like I said, I'm also a career coach.

Speaker 2: 3:03

I help HR professionals and aspiring HR professionals who want to pivot into HR to get their next role to be successful in their next role, because that was my journey and that was my story, and Dr Cole and I actually share that as well. We both pivoted into HR. So lots of overlap, lots of things we share. But this episode is not about me, so I will turn my first question to you, Nicole. Why did you let a stranger come on your podcast and interview you and ask you a bunch of questions that you don't even know what the questions are? What made you go down this journey as an introvert?

Speaker 1: 3:38

First of all, you are not a stranger, but I decided to celebrate this way for a couple of reasons. One I actually put a poll up on LinkedIn and asked my community how they wanted to see me celebrate the 100th episode, and this was one of the options. Telling my story was one of the options, and I just thought doing an interview would be a fun way to tell the story. The second reason is it's 100 episodes, you know, and so it is. I think, just like so many of us, I tend to not necessarily pause and celebrate the big milestones. I get so excited working toward those milestones, but not necessarily pausing when that reached the milestone, and so this, to me, is a celebration Having a colleague that I admire come on and interview me who's I'm usually the interviewer, being able to share something new and different with my audience, and basically just having an opportunity to tell my story in a different way is the way that I think is best to mark the occasion.

Speaker 2: 4:52

Amazing, amazing. So, like I said, Nicole has no zero clue. I'm giving her no idea what questions I'm going to be asking her.

Speaker 1: 5:01

She'll be a little scared, but okay.

Speaker 2: 5:04

Don't be scared, don't be scared. But I just want the audience to know like we are getting the raw version of you right, not the prepared version of you, and so that's brave, let's do it. So my first question I would love to just start with you know the younger version of Nicole. What were some of the things as a child that are, like, really unique to your background and your story that you haven't yet shared on the podcast? Like where you're from, what were, what were your, what were your parents like? You know, if you could sum that up for us and a little bit, what would you share?

Speaker 1: 5:41

So I am. I describe myself as a Caribbean American, so not necessarily African American, but Caribbean American, and I do that because my both of my parents, in fact my entire family, is from Barbados, west Indies. Okay, so that's. That might be something new and different for many of our listeners to hear. I grew up in Brooklyn, new York, which in a section of Brooklyn called East Flatbush, which is a predominantly Caribbean community, and why that is significant is because you know, when I think about my parents, they were both. We were working class, so I would say lower, lower income, working class professionals. They were both working class professionals, so it was a two income household, but the Caribbean heritage was prevalent.

Speaker 1: 6:43

So what that meant was I was always taught to work hard. I was always taught that education is one of those things that no one can take from you. So, whether that's education via degrees, via your own self-teaching, via books, however, you can educate yourself as long as you're learning something new and different. That is important. Education was always stressed in my household, primarily because my dad only was able to get a sixth grade education before he had to go out and become the head of his household when he was a young man. So he always stressed for myself, my brother, my sister that education is big, get it, get it while you can. Education is big, get it, get it while you can, because not everybody can get it.

Speaker 1: 7:27

I would also say, like I said, working hard was a very. Whatever you were doing, whether it was in school or at a job, working hard and contributing the best that you can. That was always stressed as well. My first job was my first official employed job, I should say, but I need to 14. And it was at a time where you had to have working papers in order to get a job as a. What my parents instilled in me it definitely was a life of discipline. So when your motivation stops, you always have discipline. It was about being a leader, but not in the traditional way that we might think now. It was always about you know, making the best decisions for yourself, getting as much information as you can. It was not following the crowd right, being an independent thinker Primarily, I think, because they didn't always have those things as options available to them, so that those are things they instilled in us.

Speaker 2: 8:42

Wow, wow, that's amazing. I'm so glad you shared your background and amazing that you know your father didn't have, you know, more than a sixth grade degree yet, and we'll come back to this. Yeah, you have three master's degrees, right, and a PhD. So I'm curious how all that may be tied into that. But before we even go there, when you were younger, what was your dream for yourself? I mean, right now, you are a leadership coach for introverts, right, you are an executive. Did younger Nicole envision this type of life for herself?

Speaker 1: 9:17

Perhaps not? Yeah, absolutely not. So when I was a, the very first thing I ever wanted to be when I grew up was a teacher, and I think that's common because most of us that's the first profession that we see, besides our parents, you know that's the first profession that we see. So the very first thing I wanted to be was a teacher. Then I quickly learned that teachers did not earn a lot of money.

Speaker 2: 9:42

We share that same revelation.

Speaker 1: 9:44

I was like that's probably not going to work for me, but maybe I could be a teacher in some other capacity, but not necessarily as a profession. So the very first thing I wanted to be was a teacher. Then this is going to might sound a little weird. I remember when I was a very young girl I was walking home, it was dark, I was walking down the street with my mom, I was holding her hand and we got to the corner of my block and I had this I guess the best way I can say is a vision. But I saw a picture of myself in my mind and I was in an office and I knew nothing about office at the time because I must have been like five or six. So I was nothing about office at the time, because I must have been like five or six. So I was in an office, I had a suit on, a double-breasted blue-gray suit. There was wood behind me, like a wood desk in front of me, wood cabinets behind me, like. I had this picture in my mind and I remember pausing, I stopped. We were right on the corner of our block and I stopped my mom and I looked up at her and I asked her had I lived before and she was like what? And if you know anything about Westy and Nene, what are you talking about, child, just be quiet? And so I explained to her what I just saw in my mind and she was like. She was like I don't know what you're talking about, but let's get in this house so you can get in a suit, you can wash up and get in the bed. So she completely dismissed it, but I always remembered it and I think about it often now when people ask me what you just asked me like.

Speaker 1: 11:14

What did you want to be when you grew up? I didn't necessarily know then that I wanted to be a professional working in an office environment, but I had the picture in my head. So, after you know, it wasn't until I went to college, where I even had an understanding of the fact that there's so many different professions that were available to you, and I chose business, to major in business, because of that picture that I had in my mind, or the picture that I saw when I was a little girl. So the very first job that I had outside of college was actually a procurement specialist. So if anybody knows anything about that, purchasing like a buyer for you know, a buyer of goods and services for a company and I went to work for IBM down in Wally Wally Research Triangle Park and I knew, probably within the first week or two, that I had made a mistake. I did not like it. I was like what?

Speaker 2: 12:23

Yeah, what were you? What were you purchasing?

Speaker 1: 12:26

So I was in charge of purchasing goods and services for the campus. So Research Triangle Park is a for IBM is a huge, huge campus Like it is multi acres, and we would have to the upkeep of a campus. If you think about any large company, you have the lawn maintenance, the electricians, the cafeteria workers, all the things that keep the infrastructure kind of running. That's what I was responsible for. So I was responsible for buying contracts and services to maintain the actual brick and mortar of that campus. That's what I was doing.

Speaker 2: 13:12

And why was it? How did you know? How did you know it was going to be blank?

Speaker 1: 13:16

Yeah, it totally sucked. So I knew within a week or two that I had made a mistake. But the person next to me I was sharing an office and the other purchasing professional next to me he was purchasing talent, so he was responsible for securing contract contracts, people to work at the, you know, to work like in technology, the technology team or the HR team or whatever team, and his stuff seems so much more interesting and that's where I got turned on to HR and I was like you know what? I think HR is where I want to be, because he was. He was acting as an extension of the IBM HR team.

Speaker 2: 13:56

Got it.

Speaker 1: 13:57

So that's where I got interested.

Speaker 2: 13:58

So all that to say, yeah, my road into where I did not know that I was going to ever be a senior HR professional or a coach, but my road to get there took me to two or three different professions before I actually got here, which is so common, right, like, and I'm sure, as you think about um, when you talk to your career, uh, folks, a lot of people are like, well, you know, why didn't I know right away, or why can't I figure out the career path I want? But I think one of the things that stood out to me when I went to business school as well, there was a gentleman that came and spoke to us and he was very wealthy. I can't remember what he did, but I'm so glad that he came and spoke to us because he was. He basically shared that he had went through a crazy amount of career changes. So it was like I don't know like six or something like that.

Speaker 2: 14:46

And that broke my brain because I was, you know, I was, you know, kind of thinking and kind of taught, and the people around me had shared like you know, pick your path, know what your path is, be certain about it, and then you're going to stay there as long as possible because, like, that's how you grow.

Speaker 2: 15:03

And so his, his message, whether he said it directly or not. What I took away was oh, I can, I can pivot and do different things and try different things until I find what works and sometimes at some point in your life it's going to work, and then at other points then you're going to be like this ain't working, no more, and then and that's okay, and you can still be successful, right. And so I think you're, you know, you're definitely a testament to that. So I don't, you know, I know that that's what we're taught and I don't know if that was part of your growing up or thinking as well. But yeah, I mean you can change, you can, you can shake it up. You've made, you've made multiple pivots. It sounds like in career, your career, right.

Speaker 1: 15:39

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, here's what I like to think about it in terms of when I think about, like my mom and my dad. My mom worked for her job for the same company, the same responsibility, same company, for 45 years, and dad probably for about 40 years, and they both became. They were both individual contributors, right, they didn't both of them became supervisors in like the last two to three years of their entire career, right. When I think about our path, our generation, I, you know, and I think about all the pivots that I make, you make everybody else might be making. I don't look at it as you know, and I think about all the pivots that I make you make everybody else might be making. I don't look at it as you know, choosing the wrong thing or not. You know, like I feel like all of the skills that I got at being a purchase, a purchasing professional, I still use to these to this day, right.

Speaker 2: 16:37

I just One thing per se. It all works together.

Speaker 1: 16:40

Please, I'm in a different way. Everything that you know when I first started out, and, like you know, I use purchasing as when I'm now ahead of, ahead of HR, I'm using it to recruit like that. That's what I, that's what recruiting is. It's it's purchasing, it's purchasing talent in one way shape, form or fashion. So all of the skills, all of the pivots that I have made even sometimes you stay in the same field, but the environment that you're doing it in is so very different that it feels think it's a culmination. Where I am now is a culmination of all the stops that I've made up until now, and 10 years from now, I'm sure I'll be doing something slightly different and I'll be using the skills that I gained today.

Speaker 2: 17:31

Exactly Well, I love that. Thank you for sharing about your early kind of career and thoughts. There I'm curious. I want to pivot a little bit to education. So one of the things that stands out about me it stands out about you right, and I've mentioned it earlier is that you have multiple degrees right and high level degrees. So I would love to share love for you to share. You know what was your kind of like thought in pursuing so many different degrees and then what, how has it helped you and did it help you in the way that you thought it would? I know that's three questions, but just your overall thoughts about you know how so many degrees? Because I look at it I'm like dang girl, how you had time for that.

Speaker 1: 18:16

Listen, it's a great. It's a great question. How, where did I have time for that? Listen, it's a great question. Where do I have time for that? I honestly don't know. But okay, so I think the multiple degrees are a curse and a pleasure, right, I think there's pros and cons to it. I will say that, like I started out, I said you know, education has always been stressed in my household, it was the epitome of all things. But what I will also say is that I that didn't necessarily mean that I needed to go get a PhD, right, I didn't. I didn't have that in mind. And I will also admit right now, freely, two things. One, all of the degrees that I had, they served a purpose, but it was a means to an end. And then two, if I had to do it all over again, I probably wouldn't.

Speaker 2: 19:07

Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1: 19:09

All right. So those are the two. And let me let me explain. Yep, so getting a undergraduate degree was all I ever actually aspired to. That Right. And that was at the insistence. That wasn't even my desire, that was the insistence of a high school coach who became a mentor to me. So shout out to Coach Ski, who is no longer with us. But she was like you're going to get that degree and that's, that's it, right. Because my parents knew nothing about college degrees. They had no idea. So it was her at her insistence. Fine, so I get the undergraduate degree. I got the undergraduate degree in business.

Speaker 1: 19:45

But remember what I said once I went and worked for IBM. I was like, oh, I need a whole nother career. The whole nother career instantaneously meant to me that I needed to get another degree, right. So this was before. There were people like Lashanique who coaches individuals and instills in everyone you don't need to get a separate degree, you can pivot based on your skillset, not necessarily and your experience, not necessarily, with another you know, bachelor's, master's or whatever. So that was before. That time, right. And just to set the this was this is mid nineties that we're talking about here so decades ago, right. So, um, and by the way, mid nineties, the internet was just coming online. So it's, it's. It's a whole different, you know a whole different way of accessing information at that point.

Speaker 1: 20:40

So I went and got my first master's degree in human resources, because I was now thinking that I was switching from procurement as a profession to human resources. Now, if you know anything about Nicole, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it big, I'm just not going to just do it. So I just if I said, hey, if I'm going to go get a master's degree in human resources, then I am going to not just get one master's degree. If I could get two for one, I'm going to get two for one. So I went and got my master's in human resources from Cornell. But Cornell also had an MBA program that I could get two degrees for in the same time, right in the same two year time. So I just worked hard and got to. I got an MBA as well as a master's in human resources. Okay, great, went and worked again.

Speaker 1: 21:37

I had the pleasure of going and working for Citibank once I got those two degrees and loved every second of every minute of my time with Citibank. And then I worked several years probably like 10 years or so and I started to get interested when I was a human resources professional. People come to you with all types of things. They come to you with their business issues, but they also come to you with their personal issues, and I found myself counseling people on their personal issues right, in order to get beyond those personal issues so they can contribute in the workplace and I was like you probably shouldn't be doing this, nicole. You don't got no training in personal counseling, you don't have any, right. I'm like this might be a dangerous and slippery slope, and that's when I got interested in counseling versus HR, right. So I worked.

Speaker 1: 22:35

I continued working full time in HR and I applied to PhD programs. However, phd programs were like you don't have any experience, right, your background has nothing to do with psychology. The only way for you to get into these PhD programs is to get a degree or experience in some type of therapeutic environment, some type of therapy. That's how I went for my other degrees. To be frank, I went and got another counseling degree from Fordham counseling master's degree from Fordham only because I wanted that PhD in psychology. Right, I really wanted that PhD in psychology, not because I wanted to. At the time I wasn't even thinking I wanted to switch professions. At the time I was thinking I want to continue in human resources, but I also want to be qualified to be able to counsel individuals, not just when it comes to workplace issues but when it comes to their personal issues.

Speaker 2: 23:36

Which is amazing. I just one of the things that I've been thinking about, and you know whether you needed a degree for it or not, right, or if you still feel like without it you wouldn't have been effective. But I do think companies do need to figure out how do they help people with mindset, how do they help people navigate their personal things, Because a lot of times when people are underperforming or not doing or not motivated or not doing the things that we desire in an organization, it usually has nothing to do with the organization. It has a lot to do with so many other factors, and I mean even just like crazy self-doubt, right, and so I'm just it boggles my mind. I'm like, how are companies going to really invest in understanding the person underneath the person, especially in our, the climate that we're in right now, and I don't know if that will ever happen? Do you imagine that that's going to be the case, Nicole, or no?

Speaker 1: 24:35

No no.

Speaker 1: 24:37

I don't think so. I think the best that we can do which is something that I mean, I chose to do it personally. I know that there are companies I have I work for companies and consult with companies who also choose to do it this way but I think the best that we can do is train our leaders to be able to support their team members personally as well as professionally. But I don't think any, I don't think companies will ever do it, primarily because, well, it's just, it's just really difficult to be able to do things well. And then there's also a liability issue. Now I'm putting my chief HR hat on. There's a liability issue too that I don't think most companies would ever kind of take on.

Speaker 1: 25:23

But for me personally, it was important to that that PhD and learning how to help individuals personally as well as professionally. It was important for me to do that for the people who work for me. But you know, in all transparency, it was also important for me to do it for myself, meaning that I was suffering. You know I had my own problems when it came to doing both, you know, being a leader in the workplace as well as being a leader at home, and there was a period of time where and I haven't talked about this publicly very much, and I haven't talked about this publicly very much but there was a period of time where I was truly addicted to work and the psychology degree really helped me to come to grips with that and to start my healing journey when it came to my work addiction issue. So there were multiple reasons and multiple ways that that going for that PhD helped me. I just didn't necessarily need, you know, four or five degrees in between my bachelor's and my PhD.

Speaker 2: 26:26

Yeah, Well, yeah, well, that's a powerful thing to share. I mean I've I just wrote recently to my email group like I'm a, I'm a workaholic. So I and I, you know, left corporate to not be a workaholic, but it's, it's innate in me as well. So I can definitely empathize. But I, when, sometimes, when people say you know workaholic, you know that might mean different things to different people, like what? How was that presenting itself in your life?

Speaker 1: 26:55

You know it's so funny because I, so I, I went to a new dentist yesterday and she was like well, how'd you find me? And I was like I literally Googled black female dentists in my area and she started giggling and I was like why are you giggling? And she was like I was like do you hear that often? She was like I hear it all the time. Wow, I was like okay, and so she asked me what I do and I told her right, and you know she was like well, what did you get your PhD in?

Speaker 1: 27:25

And just so everybody the way, I got my PhD in psychology, but my specialty was work addiction. Like I counseled individuals who were addicted to work. So for me, how it shows up differently for everybody, and what she and I was talking about. And she was like I think. So here I am in my dentist's office. She hasn't even started services yet for me yet, right, and she's like I have so many questions. She's like I think I'm a workaholic. How do you? How do you? How do you diagnose it? So we, we spent literally 30 minutes. I was like we might be bartering here. I might be helping you and your issue and you're about to help me with my issue with my dental work. Anyway, the it shows up differently for everyone, right? That's the first thing that I think everybody needs to know about work addiction.

Speaker 1: 28:14

But the challenge, the biggest challenge there is about being a workaholic, being a work addict, is that society rewards us for it. There's no other addiction that's out there, right? No other behavioral addiction gambling, sex addiction Right? No, no other behavioral addiction gambling, sex addiction, game addiction, like all of those are true behavioral addictions. There's no other rewarded addiction like work addiction. Right, because when you're a work addict, when you're a workaholic, your company benefits. You benefit from it, right, in terms of the money that you earn, maybe the title that you're trying to achieve, the self-esteem that gets boosted from all the rewards and the achievements that you make. It's rewarded and that's part of the problem.

Speaker 1: 29:03

But for me, it showed up in I was working extremely long hours, even when I wasn't at work, even when I was at home physically, or even, you know, with my family. I was on my phone responding to emails. I was, I was thinking about or planning, like, my next team meeting, like, even if I'm not my, my body is physically with my partner or my family, but my mind is still at work. I wanted to turn it off, but I couldn't turn it off, meaning I would go on vacation and I would say I'm not going to check email, I'm not going to even think about work, but I couldn't do it, even though I wanted to do it. It's a compulsion, right, and it shows up in, like I said, in a variety of different ways.

Speaker 1: 29:53

So, for I knew and at first I would say that you know, it actually started when I was working for Citibank. I'd be like, oh, it's the demands of the job. But then I left Citibank and I went and worked for Philip Morris Same thing. And then I left Philip Morris and I went to work for a startup Same thing. At some point I had to say you are the problem, nicole. So, yes, the environment may be demanding of you, but they're definitely not demanding that you work 24 hours. I don't care where you're working, even if you're working in a hospital setting or a clinical environment where you have a 24-hour shift, at some point you get off. But if your mind and your energy and everything about you is still on the job, even when you're supposed to be off, the problem is with you, it's not with the job. So that is how I realized that I had a bigger problem than just being a high achiever. I literally was addicted to working.

Speaker 2: 30:57

Yeah, and just I know so many of us are in different ways and that's amazing that you did kind of a whole understudy on it. I didn't even know that was a thing. But one thing that stood out about what you shared is something we haven't talked about yet and I, admittedly, don't know a lot about this facet of your life. So you said that you were, you'd be with your partner and you'd be thinking about work. So I would love for you to share, like, what has your romantic journey looked like and how has your career shaped your romantic journey and vice versa.

Speaker 1: 31:33

Wow, yeah, I wasn't expecting that question.

Speaker 2: 31:36

No, I told him I didn't expect that. No, boo.

Speaker 1: 31:39

I didn't expect that. I ain't afraid of your questions, lashonique. That's fine, bring it so okay. So this is again. I've always known my dad has shaped my life in so many different ways, but I'm starting. I'm going to answer this question starting out with him again, so you guys will get to see it as well which is when I was a little girl.

Speaker 1: 32:06

My dad would always ask me questions like when you, what's your first boyfriend? Would always ask me questions like what's your first boyfriend? This is what my dad would ask me, believe it or not. What's your boyfriend going to be like? When are you going to get married? And I always used to say to dad I'm not going to get married till I'm old, old, old. And at the time I was like when I'm 30, that's what I was saying. I was going to be old, right. That's what I was saying. I was going to be cool, right.

Speaker 1: 32:39

So I say that because I always knew I never had the get married. You know a lot of us as little what our adult family life would be like getting married, having a family. You know all of that. I actually never had those dreams. If I'm completely honest, I will say I always wanted a wedding dress, but I never actually wanted to be married or to have children like that. That just wasn't my, that wasn't my dream. So I what how that kind of played out for me is that I had I had long-term relationships, I had partners, meaning boyfriends and et cetera. I was probably asked I've been asked for my hand in marriage five different times.

Speaker 2: 33:32

Five times Nicole. Why are you just going out there?

Speaker 1: 33:35

casually. But I've always been very clear, like when I start dating someone, I've started dating someone. I've been very clear, like that's not my dream. I've also been clear if it's really important to the person that I want to spend the rest of my life with, I'm not opposed to marriage. It's just not my dream, right? I say that because the trajectory when I think about my romantic life I have always centralized my career and my education, as you guys can probably see at this point. Yeah Right, that's always been central for me and it's probably one of the reasons why I specialize.

Speaker 1: 34:19

My work now specializes in helping other Black women get and achieve their career dreams. Not that you know they have to be, they have to be like me and not necessarily want to get married, but because my clients and the people that I work with, they span the diaspora. Some are married, some are single moms, some are married with kids, some are single with no kids. They span the diaspora, believe that the reason why I became a leadership coach and a career coach is because I wanted to help women achieve their career goals regardless to what's happening in their personal life. I did not settle down. I'll say settle down because I never married. I'm still not married to this day, but I did not meet my long-term partner until I was 42. I'm 54 now, so until I was 42. So, but I had a lot of good romance for sure I mean well yeah, you were proposed to five times.

Speaker 2: 35:30

My goodness, I have so many questions, but whatever.

Speaker 1: 35:37

Let me tell you, okay, I know that we are all still. You know we are all modern women, right, and I think, for me, the beauty of being a modern woman is you get to choose the path that you want in terms of your personal life and your professional life. I love that. That's the era that we are in right now, but I will say I chose not to go down the married path and I have had a freaking ball. I've enjoyed every freaking second of it.

Speaker 2: 36:07

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if you want more than that Lashonique, but that's yeah, yeah, no I just, I love More than that, but that's yeah, yeah, no, I just I love because I'm all for it, right, like design the life that you want.

Speaker 2: 36:19

Yeah, you know, I think that just means different things to different people and empowering them. And even though you went, it sounds like you started off like what I, what I consider sometimes a traditional journey. Like you know, the job, the degrees, the everything you still have aspects of your life, real life, but I'm also going to claim this part of my life as well right, and there's nothing wrong with you know what your ambitions look like, whatever it looks like, right.

Speaker 2: 36:45

So, I mean, there's just so much power in that and, I hope, so much freedom for people who hear that right. And then also your message too, though, is like and if you do want to have a family, if you do want to be married, right, you can still make money as well. And so you support people on all ends of the spectrum. So that's amazing.

Speaker 1: 37:05

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:05

I want to. I want to talk a little bit about things you haven't shared. Okay, so recently you were. You shared your five, your journey to negotiating a 500K total compensation package, which is a very powerful story. If you haven't heard that, I think it lives on LinkedIn. I don't know if it's on your podcast as well, but definitely hear her story there. But I also want to hear cause you shared. When I was listening there live right, like you were hesitant to share that story. Right, it took you a long time to get to sharing that type of story. I'm curious, again, putting you on the spot, what other career stories have been on your heart to share that you have not yet shared?

Speaker 1: 37:51

Well, the work addiction is one of them. Yeah for sure. The first time I was able to negotiate a 500K total comp package, that's a second. That's another one and that is in episode 98, if anyone wants to go and listen to it or haven't heard it yet, heard it yet. The story of when I became my boss's boss. Okay, that's always a good story, that when people hear it they're like why aren't you talking about that? That's life. I'm like, I don't know. They're like that's not a usual thing. I'm like, but so I became my boss's boss. Meaning that, I mean meaning exactly that it was.

Speaker 1: 38:31

I was a VP of human resources, I was working. It's funny because when this person, when she first hired me, she didn't want to hire. Well, she wanted to hire me, but she almost didn't hire me. And so you know, four years later she was working for me instead of me working for her. It was and you know, I'm sure people are like, oh, that must've it. It was not catty, it was not, it was not, you know, adversarial. But when? When you? I think I can humbly say that I was able to. It was all about leadership brand at that point. So I was able to position myself, not actually knowing more than this person because she definitely knew more than me but I was able to build relationships, I was able to establish my thought leadership in a way that she had not at that point and, yeah, I became my boss's boss, which was kind of cool.

Speaker 1: 39:31

Yeah, other other stories. I have some very interesting HR stories, but we don't need to get into that. I think I'm trying to think about my.

Speaker 2: 39:46

You know, nothing's really nothing else is really popping okay, so you've been an open book, otherwise it feels like it's real, like it.

Speaker 1: 39:55

I mean, you know, people also ask me like what was the, you know, largest compensation package that I ever had at any one given time? My largest compensation, my annual compensation package, was about 800k. So I mean that, that is. I say that because I think more people need to know more women, more black women, more people need to know more women, more Black women in particular need to know that that is available to them, and I don't think enough of us do realize that.

Speaker 2: 40:23

I think you just need to do a whole other episode on that, because I know people are going to have questions like okay, well, like what was your life like, especially if it was a certain time you were a workaholic, like all the different things but, but I do love.

Speaker 2: 40:36

You know that you're sharing what's possible and becoming more open to that because, yeah, I mean, people really don't understand compensation behind the scenes and how much money people are really making. Uh, yeah, yeah, throughout the c-speed and everything else, all right. So we just got a few minutes left. I want to ask a couple questions about the podcast and then I'm going to end us with some rapid fire. Okay, you ready? Okay, all right. So let's think about because this is your 100th episode. So I'm just going to ask you a couple quick questions. What surprised you the most about this journey of making 100 episodes?

Speaker 1: 41:14

I mean.

Speaker 2: 41:14

I'm not surprised, though, that you got to 100. Everything we've learned about you in this episode, I mean, you are, like you said, very disciplined, Like if you're going to do something, you're going to go big. So this is not really a surprise to me looking on the outside, but I'm curious, like what surprised you looking back from, like episode one to now, making it all the way to 100? Surprised?

Speaker 1: 41:36

you looking back from like episode one to now, making it all the way to 100?

Speaker 1: 41:40

Honestly, I'm surprised that I enjoy it as much as I do. When I first started, the podcast was actually a dream of mine, and it was a dream of mine that probably popped into my head about, you know, over 10 years ago it was closer probably to 15 years ago and it was at a time where, I mean, honestly, the first thought I had about it was more of like a radio talk show versus a podcast. And then I just put it on the back burner and it kept popping up. You know, I felt like I had things to say, but not necessarily the platform to say it, but I also didn't. I mean, the thought of talking to hundreds and thousands of people scared the hell out of me, honestly, so I kept putting it off, putting it off. And then, you know, a couple, about three years ago, I was like, okay, nicole, you either got a shit or get off the pot, it's just something. And so I started very reluctantly. I started like one episode a month and I think I mentioned this to you last, shanique. I started one episode a month. And then, you know, everybody was like, if you want episode a month, you're not going to reach the people that you need to. Like, you got to do a little bit more frequent than that, and so I then I reluctantly did two episodes a month, and then I then finally I went to weekly.

Speaker 1: 43:02

Right, I am very, I'm very surprised that I did make it to a hundred, not because, you know, I'm not disciplined I am disciplined. It's just that I guess I didn't realize that people would want to hear it, like it's one thing for me to put it out there, but it's a whole nother thing for people to actually find it and listen to it every week. That's the piece that was the big question mark for me as well. So it's not just a podcast that's there, it's a podcast that's growing and I think, as you and I know you know, most podcasts don't make it beyond episode seven or 10. And so episode 100 is huge.

Speaker 1: 43:47

But then also there's a lot of podcasts that are out there. That's been, you know, publishing for years and they're not growing. People are not actually listening to it, right, it's it's more of a hobby for the, the podcaster. So I think all those things make me really proud that you know we're here, and when I say we, it is really the collective we, it's not just me putting it out there and you Lashonique being a supporter of it, but it is all of the women and men who are listening and coming, you know, coming as new listeners every month to the podcast.

Speaker 2: 44:27

Yeah, yeah, for sure, it's such an amazing thing. I mean even putting your voice out there. Yeah, yeah, for sure it's. It's such an amazing thing. I mean even putting your voice out there. As you have grown and as you have seen the through the 100 topics, what, what has been your favorite episode and then what, what have been the episodes or topics that your audience has gravitated to the most, especially if somebody's just finding you through this episode, where, where would you kind of serve them next as kind of like your top topics episode?

Speaker 1: 44:52

where, where would you kind of stir them next as kind of like your top topics. So the episodes that everyone seems to like the most are the first three episodes. Wow, and those episodes are my. They're my story and how to get promoted. It's like my, my best tips on how to get promoted. Those are the episodes one, two and three, but there have been recent episodes or later episodes that I think people have really gravitated towards. There's an episode that I did around career anxiety. People love that topic, which scares me a little bit, because what that means is that there's way too many of us who are probably suffering in silence through, you know, being anxious about going to work, being at work, what's going to happen next at work. But career anxiety, that's been a big drop. A lot of people go to that episode. What's the other episode that I well? The K is already surpassing so many other. Episode 98 is a big hit, has been a big hit as well.

Speaker 2: 46:06

Okay, great, great, great. All right, so rapid fire in our last few minutes, so I will go through a few questions here. What is one word that would describe your journey to this 100? Exciting, the best advice you've ever ignored.

Speaker 1: 46:38

You don't need another degree.

Speaker 2: 46:41

A podcast guest that you would be excited to have on. That's a dream guest, but you haven't yet. Hmm, Hmm. Anita Hill. One habit you can't live without.

Speaker 1: 47:11

Working out every morning.

Speaker 2: 47:14

What gives you energy when you feel depleted?

Speaker 1: 47:23

Being by myself.

Speaker 2: 47:24

Okay, introvert your favorite leadership book that you've ever read.

Speaker 1: 47:32

The Bible.

Speaker 2: 47:34

Do you ever feel like you have introvert energy, or sorry, extrovert energy? No, and then last one, one thing you wish people understood about being a black, introverted woman leader.

Speaker 1: 47:51

We're fucking awesome a black introverted woman leader. We're fucking awesome.

Speaker 2: 47:55

Well, this has been super, super, super amazing. That is my last question. You got raw, you got real, you got vulnerable girl, so I don't know if there's anything else you want to share with your audience, but it has been honestly a pleasure. I've learned so much about you and it just gives me more insight into why you and I are so connected and have so much in common. But thank you again for letting me do this.

Speaker 1: 48:20

Thank you, boo boo. You're welcome. That's a wrap for this episode of Leading Her Way. Thanks for tuning in. If you have thoughts, questions or ideas for future topics, connect and send me a message on LinkedIn and if you enjoyed today's episode, subscribe. And please take a minute to write a quick review on Apple Podcast. Your review will help spread the word to other ambitious females so they know they're not alone and that this podcast is a community of support for all of us leading her way to the top, Remember your leadership is needed. Your leadership is powerful, so lead boldly Until next time.