Career Growth Advice from Wendy Wallbridge, business Leader | Career Tips for Women in business

2B Bolder Podcast – Episode 111
Featuring Wendy Wallbridge, CEO of SpiralUp

Episode Title: #111 Career Podcast: Wendy Wallbridge's Journey to Empowerment

Host: Mary Killelea
Guest: Wendy Wallbridge



Mary Killelea (Host): Hi there. My name is Mary Killelea. Welcome to the To Be Bolder podcast, providing career insights for the next generation of women in business and tech. To Be Bolder was created out of my love for technology and marketing, my desire to bring together like-minded women, and my hope to be a great role model and source of inspiration for my two girls and other young women like you, encouraging you guys to show up and to be bolder and to know that anything you guys dream of, it's totally possible. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversation.

Hi there. Welcome to the To Be Bolder podcast, where we feature inspiring women who have achieved remarkable success in their careers. I'm your host, Mary Killa-Olea. And today I have the pleasure of speaking with Wendy Walbridge.

She's a trailblazer in coaching field and a fierce advocate for women and gender equity. Wendy is the founder and CEO of Spiral Up, as well as the previous Women's Evolutionary Leadership Forum of Silicon Valley. She is also the author of Spiraling Upward, The Fiive Co-creative Powers for Women on the Rise. Wendy has a unique talent for creating cultures of belonging and helping the next generation of business leaders harness the full potential of the diverse workforce. Her journey, marked by overcoming life-threatening lupus, has empowered her to guide women in living true to their values and unique calling, something dear to my heart. Wendy's work has been recognized by Fortune and the New York Times, and she has spoken at numerous prestigious events, including TEDx and the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. I cannot wait to dive into this conversation with you and hear all about your journey. Thank you so much for being here.

Wendy Wallbridge (Guest): Thank you for having me. It's a privilege and an honor, and I love your podcast. And I can't wait to talk with you.

Mary Killelea: Thanks. Okay, so let's get started. Take us back down your career journey to where you got to today in your coaching and authors. So I'll hand it over to you.

Wendy Wallbridge: Like start at the beginning? It's been a long road. I mean, I feel like the thing that I want to say first is that we're, this moment that we're living in, you know, right now, we could have been born into a lull, but we've been born into this tipping point that is, there's a lot of contradictions, there's a lot of chaos, there's a lot of uncertainty, people are anxious. We want to, you know, we want to presence that because that is the climate that we're all trying to survive and thrive in.

And I just want to say that you know how they say the Chinese symbol has both, the crisis, symbol for crisis has opportunity and danger in it. So, there is this paradox that we can find ourselves in, where, in fact, the most publicized things that we see look really scary and bad. And then there's also, if you're tuned in though, to a lot of really like thousands upon of organizations and people across the planet that are working towards making the planet a better place, making climate change, all the good things. So, I feel like there's an opportunity here to, where everything is changing and what you want to do, what you feel called to, there's room for it. There's just room for it. I mean, this is the time when, and they even say in quantum physics, and believe me, I don't know that much about it, but what I do know is they say that at the point where the system is the most chaotic is where the most opportunity for innovation is.

So that's happening now. And I just feel like, you know, we've seen for, we've way over indexed on the masculine, you know, fight for scale and profit and speed. And we really need to rebalance into bringing in some of the feminine strengths. And when I say feminine, I don't mean that it belongs to any one gender. It's really something that not even all women embody it. It's a quality. It's an archetype, as you know, that is really more about like connection, relatedness, inclusion, compassion. It's about relationship. So, I think what we're doing now is we're starting to come back to, or at least we desire to come back to, a rebalancing between this masculine and feminine kind of over indexing. And that's, I would just want to mention where we are in life, because if I start talking about anything else without addressing the fact that every woman I talk to is anxious, and because women I think are a little more sensitive than men in general and are tuned into it. So yeah.

Mary Killelea: Absolutely. So I mean, women offer emotional intelligence that I think that just is a natural innate quality of them.

Wendy Wallbridge: It's socially conditioned in us, as well as, you know, maybe it's the way that our brains are developed. There's some controversy around that because gender is a social construct and there's so much fluidity now. And we have to be careful about talking about the binary, but we live in the binary. So, no matter where you identify, you're still, if you identify as a non-binary or woman or any queer or anything, you're going to be affected more negatively because of the dominant culture, you know, being that it takes priority.

Mary Killelea: I think that's great that you started out this conversation as grounding us in acknowledging the chaos that we're living in. And I wish that we had more eyesight or amplification of the good that's happening, because I feel like it is very low compared to the negative that we see in the news, see in our feeds, see around us every day, which is why I think it's creating the anxiety to start with.

Wendy Wallbridge: But people like you who are broadcasting all these wonderful women, there's so many people like you that are doing things like that, that are so like bringing light into the picture. So yeah, I mean, it is an imbalance.

They say that this time we're living in, that we're moving into is called the Sophia Century, meaning that it's a time when women and men could come into co-equal balance of power. And I don't know if you had a chance to read the preface of my book, but I tell a story. Did you read that part?

Mary Killelea: I've touched on it, but touch on it now.

Wendy Wallbridge: Okay, it's pretty crazy. I went on a beautiful journey with about 12, I guess 15 people that are very connected to two of the tribes in the rainforest in Ecuador. So the Ashwara tribe and the Separa tribe and the organization is called the Pachamama Alliance. And they lead very private eco tours into really having experiences with these tribes. And I went because I wanted to bring my son who was turning 18 that summer. And I just really wanted to get him away from his phone and I wanted to have an experience. And they were good friends of mine and I trusted them. So we went.

The first experience was we flew from Quito to deep inside the jungle where we flew for a long time where there were no roads underneath us. We were just over the jungle. And then we landed in a little field that had, at the end of the field there was a forest and it was like, are we going to stop? And we turned around and then we got out of the plane. And as I was getting out of the plane, I noticed there were these two palapas, like ,huts. And there was a fellow in full headdress with paint on his face. And he was a shaman and then there was other tribesmen with him. And we did some things to shake off the energy from where we were coming. They wanted us to brush it off. So, they brushed us with these branches and did different things to us. We dumped our heads in the water, and it was very ritual.

And then at the last, this shaman who didn't speak English but the fellow next to him was translating, was looking at everybody individually and naming them. And they looked at my son and they said something about the handsomest man in the jungle, which he sure did not need to hear, honestly. He was like, oh yeah, I'm that. I can't remember what the word was. And then other people were getting plants and stuff. And I don't know, anyway, they said what my name was and they said it was Tirowicha. And I said, okay, what is that? And they said it is the woman who brings equal power to the men and the women. Something like that. I don't have the exact words right now. Yeah, it was pretty surreal because I've been studying. This has been my path my whole career. And it just felt very mysterious and unbelievable. And how will I live up to that? But yeah, that happened.

Mary Killelea: So tell me about that. So how did you start on this journey and come about to SpiralUp?

Wendy Wallbridge: Yeah, the very beginnings. Okay, so I wanted to do this kind of work. When I was in college, I took a course on Freud and I realized that I was neurotic. And I was totally freaked out that I was neurotic. I thought I was the only one who was neurotic. So, I immediately was very self-conscious and went through this whole dark night of the soul thing. But then it made me curious about how the mind works and why we suffer and what that's all about. And I really got interested in it. I thought maybe I would become a Gestalt therapist. Came out to the West Coast and started doing other things that were faster to understand the mind. And I just was totally obsessed with learning everything I could about how to alleviate suffering and how to be whole. And so then I had to figure out how to get paid for it. I was obviously going to study it anyway and do it.

So, it just so happened that I ended up meeting these two medical doctors who put together a company called Natural Learning Center that was doing coaching and teamwork back in the 70s. And so, it was very early on. And I was the youngest one. They were these two doctors. And we ended up working at IBM. That was our first actually crossover. That was the first. I'm the one who got us in there. So, I was good at marketing and we got into IBM. Then we did some stuff with other places. But eventually I left them, and life went on.

But I would say that the thing that probably was my biggest teacher was that when I was 24, while I was still working with those doctors, I woke up one morning and I couldn't move. And I was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness called Lupus. And it really was like a complete pivot turning point. I figured I should change everything in my life because maybe I could somehow switch it back so that what had happened and that one of the doctors wanted to marry me. I left him. I left the business. I ran off with a guy on a motorcycle who made me laugh. And I just tried to like shake it off. That didn't actually work. But in the process of that, eventually I came back to really studying what was my part in this crisis? How could I embrace it? What could I learn from it? And also, if I was going to live a short life, I wanted to live my purpose.

And I was again just really, I've always been loyal to trying to figure out why I'm here. And so I kept doing it. So even while I was sick for 14 years, I did was always doing things that were about transformation, personal growth. And then at around 14 years of the blood disease, I lost my kidney function, ended up getting a miraculous kidney transplant. And it was completely miraculous. I mean, I received a six antigen match kidney from a donor that cleaned up my body. And I just started over a new life and no lupus.

Mary Killelea: That is amazing.

Wendy Wallbridge: It was pretty amazing. And I'm 33 years coming up this week.

Mary Killelea: Wow. Congratulations. That's amazing. Amazing. And I can't even imagine psychologically what that journey must have done and how you approach life.

Wendy Wallbridge: Yeah. You know, here's the funny thing about Lupus. Lupus is an autoimmune disease where your body misreads your own tissue and attacks itself. So, I had to really look at how was I a foreigner to myself? In what way was I and how was I a perpetrator against myself? Like how was I attacking myself? And I mean, it is a metaphor and but it was a curiosity. And I definitely, it drove some of the ways that I developed the thinking that I have. And, you know, the funny thing about any kind of illness like that, it's an initiation. There's something that happens when you meet someone who's had a life threatening illness and come around from it or anything big like a loss. I'm sure, you know, most people listening to this have had something that was big for them that if they've come around from that, there's just a different outlook that they have on life. It's not that we're great at always sweating the small stuff, but we definitely have a bigger perspective about why we're here.

Mary Killelea: So then let's talk about your book and how did you end up kind of focusing in on this and naming it SpiralUp?

Wendy Wallbridge: Well, the spiral in all cultures represents a similar thing, even cultures that have never communicated with each other. And what that represents is transformation and change and growth. So, I think that the reason that we're here is to grow. And if that's true, then we want to know that we also know that in life, life is full of ups and downs. It's not a straight line. And we there are times when we need to have a plateau or we need to go in order to go up. And it is only the failures in life that give us any kind of teaching. We don't learn anything from success. So, the process of the spiral is really about giving people very practical access to these five powers that we all have, men and women, that we use kind of unconsciously, but that we can use really intentionally, both in a feminine way and in a masculine way to evolve ourselves. And they're not complicated, but when you get access to them, we could spend the whole hour on one of them because there's so much to say, so much to say about it.

But I think of it this way, like, you know how the statue of David came as he cut away, he said, I'm just cutting away the stone to reveal the actual statue. That's really transformation is a function of subtraction more than it is addition. We think we're supposed to become something else, but really it's a process of letting go the layers of things that we thought we should be like if we're going to be a professional woman, what would that be and how do I have to change? And it's not that it's more like how do you unleash yourself? So yeah, so the powers are about that.

Mary Killelea: There's this amazing Peloton guy who I love Peloton for the reason that their guides or their exercise coaches are so in tune. Anyways, he talks about being layered with mud and chipping away at it. And that just made me think of it because it is so much so true. It's not about what we're adding. It's about what we're unleashing. And it's funny that we chase success, even though the growth and fulfillment is in the learning comes from failure.

Wendy Wallbridge: It does really mean you would think hello, would we get it? But no, we don't. And it's natural. Our culture is really set up for a masculine way of success, which is get this, get that, do that. And then once you have that, you'll be that. But when you get there, how many multimillionaires do you know that have said like, wow, is this all there is? I mean, I meet them a lot. I meet them a lot. And I feel like it is why don't we get that sooner? And why don't we just stay present enough to realize that the juice is in the learning? But I don't know.

Mary Killelea: OK, so I know listeners are telling me to circle back with you and ask you what those five principles are.

Wendy Wallbridge: Sure, sure, sure. I want to remember to touch on this imposter syndrome thing because you just mentioned something that reminded me of it, but we'll get back to that. So, the thing about the five co-creative, I'm going to say a little bit about each one. How's that?

Mary Killelea: That's perfect.

Wendy Wallbridge: OK, energy is the first one. You know, energy is like the raw material for everything. It's who you show up to be. When I first met you, we kind of perceived each other's energy like that's the exchange. I never remember people's names because I'm so getting them like who they are. And that's what you pick up on somebody when you first see them. But do we author that or do we just like show up with what the mood is that we happen to have that day? Like, oh, I'm in a bad mood or, oh, I, you know, something happened that made me mad. How do you just be more how do you be more riveted about life? How do you just show up like that instead of waiting to find the thing that's going to light you up, that's going to be your purpose? How about if you just bring that and then guess what? It's going to be tracked. Yeah, so totally. So energy, that's energy. And there's so much to it.

The next one is mind. You know, we all know what it's like to spiral down. We all have that mental thing where we're like, even when we have a good thing happening, we do this weird thing where we bypass the thing that we just got to and we start to worry about like, well, will we be able to do it again? It's so strange how the mind does that. So that that thing in the mind is, Richard Rick Hansen, the neurobiologist talks about the mind, the brain is set up this way, that the road to negativity is like a four lane highway. And the road to positivity and peace is like a dirt road in the jungle. But the good news is that they know that the brain is plastic. And so, we know I don't mean road plastic, but like a plasticity, you can make the road to positivity and peace a four lane highway if you travel it on a regular basis, which is why meditation is so important or any kind of intentional thing where you don't get caught up in your thoughts identification. So that's mind in a nutshell.

Feelings is a big one. The co-creative power of feelings really overlooked and undervalued in especially at work, because people are like, oh, don't have feelings, whatever you do, don't have feelings. But you know, the thing about feelings is that when we can identify how we're feeling and when we can be more intimate with what we're feeling, it gives us such good information about what we care about. And it is the access to a lot of passion. So, we do a lot of things in that section on feelings to help people to not be how can they not be hijacked by their feelings? How can they get information from their feelings and become more like rainbow, like have all your feelings? Like what if you could have a, you know, they say you can't really have joy if you have, if you can't have grief and sadness. And Brene Brown said that, believe it or not, the one feeling that people are most not wanting to have is joy. Because when we have it, we have that thing where we're like, now what's going to happen? You know, it's so unbelievable that, but I'm, it's, I mean, I miss quoting her the way she says it, but it is what she says.

The fourth one is the co-creative power of speech, which is so important. I mean, we don't speak intentionally. We throw away our words. We do disclaimers that throw away what we're about to say. We set up our list, other people's listening with these, you know, well, don't really listen to me. I really don't know what I'm talking about, but here, you know, or something like that. Not quite that bad, but so the words we use just like energy thoughts, feelings are creative forces and they shape reality. And in default mode, we might be complaining all the time or withholding our truth or gossiping, but it's something really powerful when you can speak in ways that lift yourself and others to a higher possibility. And we can all do that. We can all say something to someone that is, that we walk by that appreciates them or that, that we know that we, that we see every day that we never thank or acknowledge. We can give them that. We can be generous with that. That's, that's just like letting the light move around more.

So the final one is action. And you know, the thing I love about action is the quote by Pema Children. She says to be fully alive, fully human and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest, to live fully is to always be in no man's land to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. Now that's a hard, you know, that's a, that's a tall order, but I will say that if you're willing to not know, and you're willing to move towards the things that you, that light you up, you'll be rewarded. And not only that, but not only rewarded in your, in your heart, but when you take steps towards what scares you and that calls to you, you get a dopamine reward. So your body is set up to move you towards what you're afraid of and to walk through those things that you feel called to, but that you're a little afraid to do. Don't put it off. Do it.

Mary Killelea: Those are fascinating. And I, and I've read your book, and I appreciate you sending it to me in advance because it really was, you know, great to dive into it. And so I hope everyone goes deeper into each of those principles. In your book you talk about the tipping point. Let's, let's talk about that and tell me what you meant as far as it being an incredible opportunity.

Wendy Wallbridge: Yeah. Well, I mean, I mentioned it, I mentioned about it being, you could have been born into a lull, but we're born into this time when everything's changing. And so let's put, you know, whatever creativity you, you feel that you, here's the thing, women in particular, whether you have children or not, you have a very strong creative urge. We all do. And we need to do it. We need to do creative.

So right now, for instance, for me, I am, I'm learning how to write songs. I'm in a band, believe it or not. I'm in, I'm a backup singer in a Bob Seeger tribute band. I love it. You haven't gotten any gigs yet. I'm just saying, but like find things that you really want to do, whether it doesn't matter if you make money from there or not, but to include that in whatever it is that you do, because you got to have joy. And what I meant when I said we're born into this time is that women really are in a cultural flashpoint where the demand for feminine strengths and power meets this opportunity for our values and strengths. I don't know if that made sense actually. So it's where the confluence of women rising into power meets the demand for the strengths that we have. So, by the feminine strengths, I mentioned before, I just mean things that come very naturally to female identified people like connectedness, relatedness, compassion, inclusive, the way we take turns, all that stuff. That is the demand for that. And I'm going to tell you how that's true. The demand for that meets how women are now moving into power. So we have more women in decision-making roles than ever in our lifetime. Yes, they're leaving in senior roles. Yes, they're leaving. And we can talk about why, but let's talk about why it is also, there's a demand for feminine strengths.

But before I do that, let me finish saying what I was going to say about this time that we're in of women. I think different people were saying, oh, it was just the summer of women because of the Taylor Swift and Greta Gerwig and all the big box office money that came in as a result of women created things. Yes, that is true. But it's not just a flash in the pan. It was a sign of a seismic shift that's happening in our world. And I don't know if you know this, but the more women in the workforce than ever before between 25 and 54 years old hit an all-time high last summer, 77%. Women start more businesses than their male counterparts. They earn more or they earn as much or more than their husbands in 45% of heterosexual marriages. You've probably seen these quotes. Solo households, they own more homes. And this is the real kicker. Women are gaining more economic power. There's this whole, you know about the transfer of wealth. So, you're nodding. So, she knows. It's at the end of this decade, McKinsey's study found that the women are poised to control much of the $30 trillion in wealth expected to be possessed by baby boomers.

To underline just how staggering that figure is, researchers note that it's close to the annual GDP, US GDP. And why they say that is, is that men die six years earlier than their partners, and they're going to give that money to their wives, I guess. And also we have our own money. So, I mean, we're coming into this power and here we come. It's happening. So when we, when we say we want different ways of the workplace, you know, we want the workplace to accommodate us better. It's not a favor anyone's doing for us. It's because we are now, you know, the majority of degree earners and we are the talent coming into the workforce.

Mary Killelea: I was nodding because I do know those stats, but I was so glad you were bringing them up because I do believe there's this wave, this momentum. And I do want to talk about the women leaving, you know, partly because of COVID and partly just because it's hard to rise up the ranks in some of these corporations. But I know you wanted to touch on the role that men play.

Wendy Wallbridge: Yeah, that you're so good, Mary. You're really good at linear getting it, coming back to things. I wanted to say that when I say that feminine strengths and values are rising also, I just want to say that in our work, and we've been deeply embedded in tech companies for the last 10 years, solid applying these techniques and the tools from my book, and also from this whole other body of work that I developed that is summarized in the back of the book in that one chapter called Spiral Up for Dudes. And that comes out of directly out of the programs that we lead at these tech companies for men to become male allies. And the basic gist of it is that what men are missing to become leaders today, what they're needing to develop to become is their own wholeness too. Men are deprived of developing all of the human qualities, some of which are what we would deem as feminine. It doesn't mean that women embody them or that women embody them or that all women do. I just want to mention that again.

But what we find is that for a place to have really good teamwork and innovation, there has to be an ability to communicate and have relatedness and to trust each other. And what's missing for a lot of guys is that they were not trained in EQ. So what we are bringing in a lot of cases is the EQ to the situation. And that's what I mean when I say feminine strengths.

Mary Killelea: So, after COVID and even in this time where, you know, there's corporations losing money, cutting people. DEI is one of the first things to be defunded in what was looking like, oh my God, finally, we've got corporations embracing this. This is so amazing. You saw all these new roles. You saw all these new opportunities. You saw conversations like we're having now starting to happen and training and all that. And then it got defunded.

Wendy Wallbridge: Yeah. It's really sad. And they slashed it fast all of a sudden. It was like in a month, everything was taken out. Yeah. Do you have a question about it?

Mary Killelea: I don't know if it's a question or more of an acknowledgement and how do we make it? Yeah. Where do we go from here? How do we get that?

Wendy Wallbridge: Well, here's the sad thing is that women are doing the DEI work along with their jobs and not getting paid for it. So, you know this, you work inside a tech company, so you're very familiar with the fact that we see when these things aren't getting touched on or people are being left behind and we want to bring them along. We want to make sure they feel included. And so, we'll do the, we'll go the extra mile. And, you know, I want to make sure to say female-identified people and women in general are like that and non-binary probably. But I don't know, I don't think it's going away as much as the labels. A lot of the labels have gone away. I'm not sure how it is at Intel, but like I bet at Microsoft, I would bet that they're still doing a lot of stuff that's about humanity. Because really it's about humanity rising and becoming human-centric in companies. The progressive ones are going to keep doing that.

Mary Killelea: Yeah. And I will give Intel credit for sure. They see the value in diversity. They see the value in hearing and making sure everyone has a voice inclusive. I mean, when we do our own employee surveys, we rank very high in those areas of business, which makes me really proud to say I work for a company who values that so much.

Wendy Wallbridge: It's not because they're nice either. Let me just say they know that that is the bottom line. That's where innovation comes from, isn't it?

Mary Killelea: No, absolutely. What advice do you give women who are just starting out in their careers and want to make a significant impact, but aren't quite sure? One, they haven't been given the opportunity. Or two, they're afraid to put themselves out there in that vulnerable way.

Wendy Wallbridge: I feel like I need to just say one more thing about the DEI thing.

Mary Killelea: Oh, of course.

Wendy Wallbridge: Yeah. Just a little bit hanging. Here's the thing. The population of the United States is not going to be Caucasian dominated for very long, much longer. I don't know exactly the numbers, but I do know that in every generation, there is just much more of a mix of people. As that happens, that is the talent to choose from. I just feel like in terms of our hope around DEI, we want diversity. It is what makes America great. That's what we want to know. These young women that are coming up that are women of color, guess what? You're going to be the future leaders. I just want to say there's room for you. I want to leave them with a lot of possibility.

Mary Killelea: I'm so glad you circled back on that. Absolutely.

Wendy Wallbridge: But it ties to what you're asking now. What was the question? If you were a young person?

Mary Killelea: If you're starting out in your career and you want to make a significant impact, but you're not quite sure, one, if you weren't given the opportunity, how do you make yourself known?

Wendy Wallbridge: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's so much to say about that. I think one of the things that I was thinking about when I was reading your questions prior to this interview was how come I became a coach. One of the things I saw in working with people was that I had a strength in feeling like I could speak my truth better. I wanted to help women really be able to put their voice into the room. Also, I don't know if you're like me, but I bet you are, is that if you feel like someone is not treated fairly, you just want them to, you want to give them airspace, you want to push them forward. Yeah, there's a lot to say about that.

Even if you're in a meeting and one person, if you're the person who has an unpopular idea and you say it and someone else rolls their eyes or gives you a look, you'll think to yourself, oh my God, I shouldn't have said that. Oh my God, oh my God, I'm never going to say it again. Oh my God. But the opposite is also true. If just one person says good idea or I agree with that or something or gives them a nod, the whole system can change. That's a sociological study. So I just feel like we need to encourage young women to have put their ideas forward. And in cultures that are male dominated, it's harder to do because the loudest voice, you'll find the loudest voice wins and women come up through the academic world thinking that if I just get all the great grades and I do it right and I color within the lines, you know this. But then once they get in the organization, the rules are off. That's not how we do it. We just like whoever gets the loudest voice and takes the ball down the court and steals the idea because a lot of people that do that, have that kind of meeting behavior are people who've been in competitive sports and they're used to stealing the ball and running down the field. That's how you play. And then women are like, what? That is so not cool. You just stole my ideas.

Mary Killelea: And you end up feeling deflated.

Wendy Wallbridge: Yeah and you can't. You can't. I'm not saying become a man and act like them. I'm saying, you know, find your own style that is you. That is your unique authenticity and turn the volume up on it.

Mary Killelea: Mm-hmm. I love that. Do you have any strategies for effective networking and building professional relationships?

Wendy Wallbridge: Yes, I do. I used to do two things with people back in the day when I was coaching more people and one of them was called a spin statement and one of them was called a shining example. And the spin statements are basically, find out what you offer that is consistent with any of the big successes you've had. What is that thing you did? And so, I call it solution. It's the acronym spin. Solution Positioned with Identity to a Need. So, find the unmet need, find out what your solution is and position it with your unique style or signature. That's your spin. I mean, you kind of have to have me do it with you. I wish I could explain how to do it without it.

Mary Killelea: No, I know. I would love to have a case study or an example of this because that's fascinating.

Wendy Wallbridge: Yeah. I mean, it really it ends up being something like, I mean, I have examples here in my database somewhere, but let me see if I can find a quick one. Like how they turn out is, hold on.

Mary Killelea: I love that because it literally seems so tangible when you break it down that way.

Wendy Wallbridge: Yeah. So one of them is I am a high energy, creative leader known for my ability to envision and create successful outcomes in complex situations. So it's just like, how do you get it down to a nubbin? You know, the thing that is the same that you did in all of the other. Another one is as a leader, I am uniquely gifted at identifying and developing talented professionals and building teams that fuel growth and create positive change in organizations. So it's, you know, each one. So that's one thing.

The other thing is called a shining example. And the shining example is pretty self-explanatory. It's like, what are your examples of times where you've made a difference? Where something was at stake? What was at stake? What did you bring to the table? How did it change quantifiably and qualitatively? It might be that someone was going to quit, and you turned them, you kept them, you got them to stay. It might be something like that. And what was the result, right? Those things, you've got to have three of those ready for when you run into the CEO in an elevator and you tell them, they say, how are you doing? You say, oh my God, let me just tell you what just happened. You know, and you've got your, you've got your shining example.

Mary Killelea: And I love that to be thoughtful and prepared with those things thought out, because I think we, and I don't want to generalize, but I take a lot of a lot for granted. The things that I'm good at come naturally. So, I don't give myself credit for it and I don't shine the light on it. And then I only focus on, oh, I don't know this enough. So, I can't talk about that. And I don't think I'm alone in …

Wendy Wallbridge: No, I do it too. I even do it. So I think the thing, it's hard to see yourself. It's hard to see yourself. You have to have your friends tell you what you're doing that is special because it's hard. It's very hard to see yourself. But also the way the brain works because we're trained to look for what's missing. And that's, you know, it's just natural how we work. And I could tell you, when I got started in my career, I did a ton of that. I did a lot of talks too. I just, in those days, you know, you would do talks, you know, go out and do talks. Now you could probably get opportunities to do just broadcast on podcasts yourself and, create. My body of work came from trial and error, trying things, capturing the stories that happen along the way. I think everybody who's a solopreneur or an influencer, they can capture what they're doing along the way. You know, they start to see the through line.

Mary Killelea: I don't think there's been a better time in history for women to have the ability to hone their voice in a broad way. Meaning you've got your social media, it's a creator economy. Like you said, do start a podcast, join a conversation on LinkedIn, start engaging with where you want to be. And then not only build your own confidence, but it gains your visibility. And it's so important for women to do that inside and outside the office. So yes, in your company's topics, but also what are the next three companies that you might want to build a reputation at?

Wendy Wallbridge: Yeah, I mean, I agree with you and 100%. And I think you know that a lot of people inside companies tend to be a little insular. It's hard because they're so, we're all so busy. There's not time to do that but find out how to join an association where you will or an organization where you will get exposure to people that are from other ecosystems that are different than yours. That's how we grow also is to hang around with people that are different than us.

Mary Killelea: What are some of the common obstacles women face in the workplace and how can they navigate it?

Wendy Wallbridge: Loneliness. Loneliness is one of the biggest ones, especially at the more senior levels. And I think that's one of the biggest ones. And I think that's one of the biggest obstacles women face at the senior levels. As you get up the ladder, there aren't as many people that you can safely talk to in a very vulnerable and transparent way. As an executive coach, I've had the privilege of being that person for a lot of people who didn't have friends, honestly. They didn't have people they didn't know. But I would just say that loneliness is an epidemic in the United States, first of all, it's been declared, as you know, by the surgeon general.

But in addition, it's very, very hits older men very hard because they don't know how to make relationships. And when their wives die or when they don't work anymore, they lose their networks and they're not necessarily. But also, women in senior roles have a harder time because of what I just said. And so, I think that in the big picture, what's happening right now, the thing I said about the tipping point is that the solution is community, that community is the zeitgeist for what is coming that is going to heal. We have to look and find our communities that will make us feel like we belong to something wherever that is, whether it's your neighborhood, whether it's very local, whether it's something that is a common interest, whether it's a professional, however it is where you can be yourself. Community is really where it's at and how people feel more connected.

Mary Killelea: That's interesting that you say that one about loneliness, but I just heard that from another woman I was talking to on the podcast a couple days ago and it caught me by surprise to be honest, but about her being lonely and seeking out an executive coach just for that reason. But I also thought when you said that, you know, the networking group chief?

Wendy Wallbridge: Yes.

Mary Killelea: So, they exploded. They exploded because of what you're describing. There was no network community really supporting executive women and I think there was such a cry for community that I think that's, you know, points to their success.

Wendy Wallbridge: I see. Okay, good. Yeah, I also heard they had a little controversy though, is that right?

Mary Killelea: Oh, I haven't heard that. What's that?

Wendy Wallbridge: Oh, I don't know. I don't want to gossip, but you should look it up because I can't remember, but I think it was a while ago and I think they've recovered.

Mary Killelea: So that's interesting. I will look that up.

Wendy Wallbridge: I think for sure it's what I experience, you know, in the work that I do, one of the best parts of it is when I get to be in the center of a circle of women. I feel like I hardly do anything, but I'm holding the space, but I'm also coaching or whatever. But really what happens between them is magic. You know, they just want to help each other. They they're there for each other. They connect. It's beautiful.

Mary Killelea: So let's talk about your coaching. What makes you unique?

Wendy Wallbridge: Well, you know, the work that I do is not life coaching. It's transformational coaching. And what I mean by that, and I work with, you know, I take just a few people, and I work with senior people at this point, but the coaching that we do, my company does is really, I have 10 people who do the coaching. They do, it's about gender equity. So it teaches the women how to have a voice and how to get their ideas heard and how to articulate their value and be, you know, be fully expressed. And it teaches the men how to have male allyship skills. I can go deeply into all of that. That's in the last chapter of the book, but it's all about like the fact that women get interrupted we get our ideas taken, we get talked over. These are real things.

One of the things I think I want to do next is I want to help women recognize when things are happening like that because often, they think it's personal and they don't say anything because they think it's something they did or that they didn't do right. And they need to be able to recognize a microaggression right away and in a non-blamey way start to find ways to make it reconciled in their environment.

Mary Killelea: You wanted to talk earlier about imposter syndrome.

Wendy Wallbridge: Oh, just that, you know, I think I have a different take. You asked me what's different about me. Here's a good example of what's different about me. Why do you think imposter syndrome is happening? Now, some people say, you know, it's there is no such thing as imposter syndrome. It's been a cultural thing that we've taken on.

Here's what I think. I think self-doubt is there for a reason. It's there for a reason so that we learn how to come back to totally believing in ourselves 100%. We have to struggle with that internal self in order to completely get on our own side. We can't just be saying Pollyanna positive. Oh, I'm I believe in myself. No, we have to actually take that thing that I'm saying to myself that's saying that I'm not good enough and take it to court. Wait a minute. Let me show you why that's not true. Let me exactly show you the opposite of that, the evidence to the truth of that.

So, if we don't grapple with it and really overcome it, and I say this from my own personal experience, what I mean is in my life, when I've had real self-doubt and then eventually come around to the truth of it, that can never be taken away from me. But honestly, that's the only way. And so I think self-doubt is there for a reason and it's for us to return to our own perfection and wholeness, our perfection in our imperfection. We all have imperfection, but our wholeness, we're perfectly fine in our imperfect way and we want to be on our own side. And that's where we want to get to, but we can't until we question and interrogate and refute those negative things that are not true about ourselves. We have to really go against them and look at them. We can't just run away and say, oh, I am, I'm good. So that's what I think about imposter. I think it's there for a purpose.

Mary Killelea: I love that. I was recently in a group, it was Hudson Life Forward, and what we did is we took turns going around the room and we said what our negative voices were. And then we, each person in the group repeated that. And so, you sit there with your peers who were nice family, kind of family setting, even though it wasn't family, and they reiterate the negative voices and then you stop and then you go back and have them do the positive counter to those negatives. Yeah. It was such a powerful exercise.

Wendy Wallbridge: I hear you. Because when we give voice to our own inner advocate, we start to strengthen that voice. That's the voice we want to have stick up for us. We've got to strengthen it. If there's anything we should do, like if you want to, one takeaway from this book, if there's one thing that people would get out of it, it would be to have a stronger inner advocate to yourself to strengthen that voice. If you can just get that, that is a big takeaway.

Mary Killelea: I love that. I love that. Okay. Tell me what To Be Bolder means to you.

Wendy Wallbridge: Well, To Be Bolder was your cool podcast. I think I mentioned I listened to your one with Sylvia Hewlett, who's an icon, a legend really. She's been doing this for a long time, her research. It was a great interview. I think you're really up to bringing out the best of people. You let them shine in the way that they best come out.

Mary Killelea: Thank you. That's very, very nice. Is there anything before we go into the fun little section that you want to cover that we haven't covered so far?

Wendy Wallbridge: I would just say that if there's men that listen to this, that there's such a good chapter at the end, or women who have male partners, or even women who have worked with men, boy, that chapter is full of nuggets about what men need to do differently in organizations, but in a kind way, in a very accessible way, in a blame-free way. But we really need the men to be participating to allow us to rise in our, to get up the ladder and stuff.

Mary Killelea: I love that. I know some men allies in the company and they're very vocal. They're vocal on social. They're vocal internally, externally. I so admire that they're putting themselves out there. Many of them have siblings and sisters or mothers that have been so inspiring or impactful. Daughters.

Wendy Wallbridge: Daughters, definitely.

Mary Killelea: I love that you have a whole chapter dedicated to education.

Wendy Wallbridge: Yes. We love our men and we want to bring them along and help them grow also because this is a, yeah, we need to do this together.

Mary Killelea: Okay, fun section. Pizza or pasta?

Wendy Wallbridge: Pasta.

Mary Killelea: Favorite season?

Wendy Wallbridge: I think summer right now. I'm enjoying the heck out of it.

Mary Killelea: Beach or mountains?

Wendy Wallbridge: Interesting. I guess mountain.

Mary Killelea: Chocolate or vanilla?

Wendy Wallbridge: Vanilla.

Mary Killelea: Coffee or tea?

Wendy Wallbridge: Coffee.

Mary Killelea: Dogs or cats?

Wendy Wallbridge: Cats.

Mary Killelea: Awesome. Thank you so much for being here. I have had such fun meeting you and talking with you now and prior. So, I don't think this will be the last time we talk.

Wendy Wallbridge: I know it's not going to be the last time we talk. Let's make sure that, make sure that, and this has just been a delight for me. Thank you for taking the time for inviting me. I just really appreciate it and it's been a joy.

Mary Killelea: Thank you. Thanks for listening to the episode today. It was really fun chatting with my guests. If you liked our show, please like it and share it with your friends. If you want to learn what we're up to, please go check out our website at 2bbolder.com. That's the number 2, little b, boulder.com.