Career Growth Advice from Cherilynn Castleman, Sales Leader | Career Tips for Women in Sales

2B Bolder Podcast – Episode 135
Featuring Cherilynn Castleman

Episode Title: #135 Unleashing Your Voice: Rising in Sales with Cherilynn Castleman

Host: Mary Killelea
Guest: Cherilynn Castleman


Mary Killelea: Hi there, my name is Mary Killelea. Welcome to the 2B Bolder podcast, providing career insights for the next generation of women in business and tech. 2B 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. If you've ever wondered how to rise in sales, lead with purpose, and succeed where few women, especially women of color, are leading the way, then this is for you. Today on the 2 Boulder podcast, I am thrilled to be joined by Cherilynn Castleman, a sought-after sales leader, executive coach, speaker, author with over 30 years of experience leading global teams at Fortune 500 companies. She's on a mission to help 1 million women of color rise to success by 2030. Whether that's breaking into the C-suite, dominating sales, or stepping into entrepreneurship. As the author of What's in the Cards? She combines her deep sales expertise with a genuine passion for helping others grow, overcome obstacles, and build careers that matter. Cherilynn’s story is filled with grit, grace, and wisdom. A combination I love and respect. Cherilynn, fantastic to have you here. I know we've had a couple side conversations offline and I just am loving you as a person. So, I'm excited for the audience to kind of meet you more.

Cherilynn Castleman: Thank you, Mary. That's very kind of you. It's been an absolute delight to chat with you and to just kind of share my story with you and I'm thrilled to be here today. So, thank you.

Mary Killelea: You're welcome. Okay. So, let's go. For those that may or may not know you, tell us your journey and how you kind of came about focusing on sales as like your wisdom, your you know, soul of expertise.

Cherilynn Castleman: So, to go in all in all honesty, Mary, I've been in sales since before Girl Scout cookies were 50 cents a box. Okay. Really really young. So when you say 30 years, I'm like, "No, it's a long long time." And one of the things I write about this is that I used to go up to the door and ring the doorbell and I would say, "Do you want to buy some Girl Scout cookies?" And people would say, "No." But I learned that if you just ask people questions like, and I would say, "Mary, what's your favorite kind of Girl Scout cookie?" Now you're going to tell me, you know, you love shortbreads or thin mints and you love and here's why you love them. And then after that, now I'm and then I'm like, well, would you like to buy some more of those now? What are you going to say?

Mary Killelea: Right?

Cherilynn Castleman: So, I learned how to tell stories and build relationships very young in sales. I learned that I was competitive. And so, that's what started when I completed college. I was a social worker and I worked with women who had committed involuntary manslaughter against their children. Now, what that meant was their partner, their pimp, their husband actually killed one of the kids. And in the state where I was, the woman was charged for not protecting her children. And I had to find funding for that program. I was passionate about helping these women. And what I learned very early in my career that it was all about sales. I had to sell the women on a legal lifestyle. I had to sell the women not to be prostitutes. I had to sell funders and donors on our program. And I realized that I didn't know how to sell. And so I started reading everything I could about sales and I went out and took a straight commission job selling insurance so I could build my sales skills. And my thought was I would go back to the nonprofit and I just never did. I just went from that to healthcare sales to education sales and on to SAS sales and until I was leading hundreds of millions of dollars of a book of business and leading sales teams and working with Fortune 500 companies.

Mary Killelea: Wow, because sales is one of the toughest skills to learn. I mean I put it up there, you know, like I think and I know you're going to correct me if I'm wrong because.

Cherilynn Castleman: Okay.

Mary Killelea: It's one of my biggest fears is there there's the fears are you know like public speaking some people it's sales I could say I would rather get on a stage than try to make a sale

Cherilynn Castleman: Okay and I'm going to challenge you right because you sell every single day on your podcast you are selling ideas you are selling them to listen to your speakers if you have children you are selling on them on getting up in the morning and going to school if you have a spouse you are selling them on something. If you're interviewing for a job, you're selling yourself to that recruiter or that hiring manager. If you have an idea and you're in marketing, you're selling your idea. If you're in product development, you're selling your ideas. Everybody sells. It's a gateway skill. So, if sales opens every door and sales gives you the opportunity to sit at the table of your dreams, why wouldn't you master it? And that's the way I approach it is that every single person needs to master sales because we all sell. So if you have to master it, you might as well get good at it.

Mary Killelea: I love that reframing. Then I'm like, well, yeah. I mean, that makes so much sense the way you say it. Let's take a step back and so you transition to different roles along your career path. What was it about the different roles that kind of attracted you? Was it like I want to build this skill so this opportunity looks attractive to me or I want to work for that company because I think that company on my resume would help position me. Did you like the strategy behind it or did it make sense?

Cherilynn Castleman: It was very strategic. It was called two daughters as a single parent. Okay. Most of my career, I was a single mom and I had two daughters. And I made a commitment to myself that my girls would go to the best schools that I could afford. They would go to the best colleges. I would give them the best foundation. They would travel. They would read. They would have life experiences. And anybody who has kids will tell you that it costs money. And so every job that I took and this why I tell people, be too good to be ignored. So when you are too good to be ignored, recruiters come looking for you. So every job that I took, a recruiter came to me and offered me more money than I was making where I was. And so everyone was, "Oh, I can put my daughter in this school. Oh, I can send my daughter to this camp or this program. Oh, my daughter can play competitive volleyball for the state travel team now because I can afford to do this. My daughter wants to go to the number one liberal arts college in the country. I can afford to do that. So, it was being a single mom and wanting the best for my children and sales. And I always tell women that women are the best salespeople. Harvard Business Review did a study back in May of 2020 that says women are the future of B2B sales and the whole article talks about the skills that women have that we are better at than men and why we make great salespeople. So, if it's pretty much unlimited income potential in a lot of sales jobs, flexibility, okay, and you get to work like you're an entrepreneur, you're like, why wouldn't women want to do it? And if you're a single mom, that's where you want to be.

Mary Killelea: So, that's why it's so interesting. So women are the best at it based on this study, yet it's a male-dominated field. And I think it being a male-dominated field tends to deter some women from entering it. What do you say to those I mean I guess you kind of said what entices them, but what advice what support?

Cherilynn Castleman: So I do a couple things. So you're going to have microaggressions. And what a microaggression is, think of it like a paper cut. Okay? A microaggression is something that can be so small that you don't really see it, but it hurts like it just hurts really bad, okay? Really badly. So, there are lots of different microaggressions, and this is something I learned, and there's a great book by Kim Scott where she talks about microaggressions and how to deal with them. I don't know if you're familiar with radical acceptance, I think that is the name of it.

Mary Killelea: I'm familiar with microaggressions, not this particular book.

Cherilynn Castleman: So, it's a great book. And what Kim tells us is that there are three types of microaggressions. And the first one is people who these are people who don't mean to. Okay, this is unintentional. These are microaggressions. I was with a guy once and he was talking to all the other guys and he said, "Mike, where are your kids going to school?" Jeff, where are your kids going to school? And Cherilynn, do you think your kids will go to college? Now, we have been working together for years. We traveled. We've been out to all these accounts and it hit me in my stomach hard. Well, that's a microaggression. And so, he wasn't intending. He didn't mean it, but he did do it. And so, with those people, you use an I. You say, "I this is how I felt." And you and you school them so they don't repeat it. The second one that happens is people who are just mean. Okay? I had a boss once tell me, he said, "Women are work horses, Cheryl. You'll never get promoted." That's just mean. Okay? And with mean people you say you. You can't talk to me that way. It's not okay for you to treat me that way. You just people are mean. You just set your boundaries. And the third one that she talks about are people who mean it. So there are people who don't mean it, people who are mean, and people who mean it. For example, I had a client recently who came to me and she said, Cherilynn, I asked my boss for a raise. " She was a Latin woman, and he said, "You make enough money for a Latin woman." He meant it. And that was a microaggression. And with those people, you use the law. You say it is illegal to do that. It is against our company policies. So if you can have your standard responses and ask yourself, okay, that was a microaggression. It hurt like hell. Did they mean it? Did they not mean it? Or were they just being mean? And once I learned that, because you're going to face them. I always tell women, you get a choice. You can choose to be the first and the trailblazer and you're going to skin your knees and elbows and expect that or go to companies that value diversity, value women, and then you don't have to deal with it. But don't come to me after you chose a company where you're the only one and you have the skin and your knees and elbows cuz you're going to do it. So make a wise choice when you choose a company. And if you are, be a trailblazer, you know, put on your armor and do it. And if you don't want to go work there's some amazing companies out there. You know, there's a couple companies that I coach and train with. Over 50% of their entire leadership team are women. And these are Fortune 500 companies.

Mary Killelea: That what you just said was gold. I mean, as far as what tools can a woman have in her toolbox when these things do happen. And I think that's so empowering and that's what this show is all about. So, thank you for sharing that. So in what other ways do you advocate for yourself in your career?

Cherilynn Castleman: So I think there are a couple things that I always encourage people to do and one is to be competent. Be too good to be ignored. Okay. Figure out what are the critical success factors for what you do. So mine is coaching. So, I went out and got my coaching certification. I took a course on coaching and learned all the strategies on coaching and read every book I could on coaching. When the pandemic happened, I had to go from being really good on stage to being really good behind a camera. So, I hired a coach who coached people on camera presence and learned how to be good behind a camera because I had to do that. So figure out what you have to do to be really really competent in your job. Number two, have a POV. Have the confidence to have an opinion. So when you're going into a meeting, you're going in you're meeting with a client, prepare your opinion. Even if it's wrong, be able to say, "Hey, mayor, I have an idea I want to run by you." And just state it. You get so much more respect from people because you have the confidence to have a point of view. Have a POV. And the third one, and I tell people all this time, is care. Give a damn. Care about your clients. Care about your customers. Care about your company. Care about your industry. Just really care. I And so you were asking me about some of my handouts, and I was like, "No, Mary, I give everything away. So if I say anything today and you want a handout that every framework that I talk about I have a handout for and so when I talk about POV, you want to know how to write your POV, just connect with me on LinkedIn and say Cherilynn, I'd love to have your hand out on POV or improving my LinkedIn profile, anything. And I just give it away because I care. And so I tell people to care. Yeah, those are the three things. Be competent. I mean, be too good to be ignored. Be confident and have a POV and be able to stand up and just have a seat at the table. Use your voice. And the third one is care.

Mary Killelea: That's so fabulous. Again, when I was growing up, I didn't have discussions with my parents where they asked opinions or what I thought. So, for me, it's been hard to find my voice. Through doing this podcast and meeting other strong women who have built their own voice or share their voice, I'm finding my own, which is amazing. What ways can women practice it in their everyday life?

Cherilynn Castleman: I would do a couple things. So, anything that you learn, teach it to somebody. So everything that I learned I taught my daughters because your daughter or your children if you have children or your spouse will either be very kind or very critical either one would be good for you. Okay? Just take the lesson and grow. So have a growth mindset and that's number one. Number two I tell people social proof is so important. Post on LinkedIn. Just just have a voice on LinkedIn. And I tell people here's what I tell my clients and and and there's a lot of jokes on on LinkedIn where people have post-it notes they post and they say Cherilynn says just post it or they have you know screenshots where they they're reminders but I tell people think of LinkedIn or social proof like a walk in the park. So Mary when you walk in the park what's the first thing that could happen to you when you run into somebody they do one of three things. What's one thing they do?

Mary Killelea: How are you doing?

Cherilynn Castleman: They ask you to speak to you. They say how are you doing? Okay. So they can speak to you. The second thing they can do is they can ignore you. The third thing they can do is they can actually engage and you can have a great conversation. LinkedIn is exactly the same way. You put up a post, you get two or three people to engage. They ignored it. So what post the next day? The next day you put up a post and you get all kinds of engagement. I put up a post and got hundreds of thousands over 100 thousand people engaging in it. Do you know what I will do the next day? I put up a post. The next day I got two people to engage it. You know what I do the next day? I put up a post. Some posts I'll put up and I'll get tons of comments and not you know and so I don't care whether people ignore me, people say hi and just like or people engage and have conversations and questions the next day I post again. So

Mary Killelea: You know that is so good because I think the fear of judgment or rejection holds so many people back.

Cherilynn Castleman: Yes. And if you and and do you have that fear when you walk in the park? How many people don't walk in the park because somebody might not speak to me when I speak to them? If they don't speak to me, you say, "Okay, you're having a bad day." You keep on walking, right?

Mary Killelea: Yeah.

Cherilynn Castleman: Okay. And if somebody stops and has a full-on conversation with you, do you say, "Oh, no. I'm not going to walk tomorrow because somebody will speak to me." It's the same thing on LinkedIn. People are like, "Oh, wow. Your post blew up." And I was like, "Okay." And the next day they're like, "Oh, that I was like, "Okay, it didn't do well. It didn't go well." And so, practice your voice on LinkedIn. You get to practice another one the next day. Prepare before you go into meetings. Prepare your point of view. And one other quick tip I tell people, and I have a handout for this if you if you've not seen it before, use the rule of three. Okay? Because as a woman, if you say, "There's three things I'd like to say." You know what everybody in the room does? They lean in to listen and they want to hear your three. And so before you go into the meeting, think of three things that you'd like to say or somebody says something and you you're not clear about it, you say, you know, Mary, I have three questions about that and then ask me questions and I always tell people and if you can't think of anything, think of people, process, and technology. That's a great idea, Mary. Tell me a little bit about three things. Tell me about the people that we're going to use for this project, the technology, and what and how are we going to be more efficient? What is the process? always talk about the rule of three. When I call people on a voicemail, I say, "Here's three things I'd like to share with you." It will make people want to listen to you and people will steal your ideas left because when you talk in threes, they're going to remember those threes.

Mary Killelea: You're absolutely right. It's captivating when I've interviewed women and they talk in threes, I think, "Wow, they think strategically. They sound like a leader." That is so interesting.

Cherilynn Castleman: And you can prepare that before the meeting. You know what the topic of the meeting is. You know what the agenda is. And the other cool thing is you can go into AI today and open a generative AI like ChatGPT or Gemini or any of them and say, "I have a meeting at 2:00 with these people and this is the agenda. Here's what I think about that. Help me come up with my own rule of three three things that I can say about it." And it's okay to have it on your phone or in a paper in front of you and say in the meeting, you know, I've been thinking about this beforehand. Here's some three things I think about this. It will blow people away.

Mary Killelea: You're right. I'm going to practice this. I will take this challenge. I am listening to you and I am going to practice this. This is gold. What about mentorship or sponsorship and how has that played in your career journey and for those seeking mentors or sponsors? Any advice?

Cherilynn Castleman: Absolutely. So, I've had tons of mentors and sponsors and my secret is Mary, most of them don't even know they were my mentor or sponsor. I never ask people, will you be my mentor or sponsor? But I think we as everybody needs three people in their life. So the first one is to remember what I said to be really competent. So go find who is the best at your job. So Bill Green was known as the customer service guy. He was the former CEO of Accenture. Okay. He wrote articles about customer success and customer service. I wanted Bill to be my mentor. So I read everything that he wrote. I looked at all his videos and then I found out that he sat on the board for a company that I knew and he was going to be somewhere and I would show up every once in a while and introduce myself to Bill and I had a list list of questions and to this day I say that Bill was one of my mentors because he was the best and I got great at customer success and customer service by what I learned from Bill Green. And I promise you that if somebody asked them today, did you mentor Cherilynn Cman? He would say who? I promise. Number two, you need somebody at your intersectionality. So for me, it was a black woman in leadership. And there was a black woman who was head of the University of Minnesota State System. She was a global leader. She was polished. She was welldressed. And I remember I met her at a networking event. And so I would just invite her to lunch every once in a while. I never said, "Would you be my mentor?" And we would talk about things. I would say, you know, the first time I stood in line for first class to fly off to meet with a client in the Philippines, somebody told me I was standing in the wrong line and what should and I was. I was rocked. I got out of line. Okay. I mean, a guy was very rude and very mean to me. This is a first class line. What are you doing here? And so I would talk to her about that because I couldn't blow and couldn't answer that question

Mary Killelea; Right

Cherilynn Castleman: You know, what do I do about being a mom when my daughter needs me here and my company needs me here and how do I do this? And so find somebody who is dealing with the same things that you're dealing with that you can have real conversations with. They don't have to be in your career field. They don't have to be at your company, but find somebody. And the third one is that advocate who will sit at the table and raise your hand for you. somebody who sits at the table when promotions, raises, special projects are given out. You want that person, that person that you can just update. Hey, I closed this big deal. Hey, I had this great idea. My project did well. You don't go to them about what to do about first class? Okay.

Mary Killelea: Right

Cherilynn Castleman: And so I've always had three mentors in my life. One that helped me get raises and promotions. two, somebody who helped me become too good to be ignored at what my job was. And three, somebody I could have a real conversation with and maybe even tears.

Mary Killelea: Wow. Strong, powerful advice. Let's talk about personal branding and building one that attracts opportunities. What advice do you give women on that?

Cherilynn Castleman: I would have to say that 100% of my business since I started it has been inbound from LinkedIn. So I coach clients in the C-suite at Amazon, Walmart. I have trained sales professionals for Pinterest, Spotify, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Granger, T-Mobile, Samsung, Fortune 500 companies, and all of them came to me and that happened by posting on LinkedIn. And so what I tell people is three things. Have an impactful profile and I have a checklist. So, if you want to, if you want my checklist, just connect with me on LinkedIn. Just say, "Hi, Cherilynn. Heard you on Mary's p on podcast. I'd like your checklist." And I'll send it to you. It's that easy. I promise. So have an impactful profile. Number one, because over 70% of everybody that you engage with is going to look you up on LinkedIn. So, do you have credibility instantly there? That's number one. Number two, prove that you know what you know by posting on LinkedIn. Pick three topics that you know about and post about them. Share successes, share tips, share frameworks, share articles, it doesn't matter. Share personal stories, share your struggle, congratulate other people, and participate in communities. So have a social presence on whatever platform makes sense for your business or your industry. Primarily most business people are on LinkedIn. It could be Facebook for some. It could be TikTok or Instagram for others. But have a social presence that you can prove. Social proof. Social presence. And I would say be authentic. Just be yourself. Don't try to be somebody else.

Mary Killelea: What do you think about how LinkedIn is integrating video into its evolving and it's becoming more commercialized, if you will? What are your thoughts on this new landscape?

Cherilynn Castleman: So, I tell people to be authentic. And so, here's what I can tell you. So, I'm an influencer for LinkedIn. I know what's coming down the pipeline in their product and what they're releasing and I know what's doing well. I will tell you that they don't chase the algorithm on LinkedIn. The algorithm changes. LinkedIn for weeks had Cherilynn post videos, post videos, post videos. I don't post videos. I don't like videos. I just don't like videos. I don't like looking at them. I don't like recording them. And if my audience wants videos, they're in the wrong place. I just don't do it. So, I tell people it's more important that you be authentic. If you like to write, write. If you like to do creative things on Canva, do creative things and post them. If you like to do poetry, put it in a picture and put it up there. If you like videos and you're really good on videos and you tell great stories, put them up there. I think it's more important to be authentic in your community and your community will gravitate towards that. My community knows that Cherilynn is not going to post a video and if I do it is produced by one of the companies that I'm working for and they put a whole lot of time and effort into it. I mean some of my videos you go in, you know, when I do videos for LinkedIn, there are six cameras in the room and there's a makeup person and a hair person standing next to me. that at home. I'm fine doing that. And so, I'm not going to do that. And so, if you like videos, do videos. If you don't like videos, I'm personally going to say don't do videos. The other thing I tell people is by the time somebody has figured out the algorithm on LinkedIn, LinkedIn has changed it. And LinkedIn has more than one algorithm. They have multiple algorithms. So, find your community. Join communities and participate in those communities. Create value for those communities. Create value for your clients. And that's why I guess I tell your audience, connect with me, ask for something, I'll send it. I'm creating value. That's how I build my community.

Mary Killelea: How did you become an influencer for LinkedIn?

Cherilynn Castleman: I have a handout with this story, actually. I'm gonna tell you that when I started my business, I went to a I have a growth mindset, so I'm also always doing training. And I went to a training and they had a score ourselves and I scored like 42 out of 500 points on LinkedIn. And at the time I was at the top of my career. I was a sales executive selling into, you know, United Healthcare and all the Blue Cross Blue Shields all were my clients. I scored a 42 and I was like, "Oh, wow." And for me, LinkedIn, you know, I don't know, Mary, have you ever had that nightmare where someone's chasing you with a knife and you're screaming? That's how I feel about LinkedIn. Okay, that's it. So, I used to go, I can't I can't I can't post. And so, I had to change my paradigm about walk in the park. And I just started posting and LinkedIn was like, you don't have a lot of followers, but you have incredible engagement. I was like, "Okay." And then they asked me, a couple people on LinkedIn asked me to look at their diversity strategy. They said, "We don't have any money." And I said, "Well, I don't charge for that. I'll just," so I just did that. And they said, "What can we do for you?" I said, "I don't know." And they said, "Well, how about we promote, you have a book? We could promote a book." I said, "I don't have a book." They said, "Well, if you ever write a book, let us know. We'll promote it." So, I wrote a book and it was Black History Month and they were like, "We'd like to promote your book." and I said, "Well, let's go get a list of the top all the black people who've written sales books and do those." So I was authentic. I posted, I gave it away. The same way I got all of my clients, I became an influencer for Salesforce and LinkedIn the same way. And I will be honest, the first time they asked me, I said, "What's an influencer and why do you want me to do this?" And because it helped me towards my mission of reaching a million women. That's why I did it. And I don't know if I've mentioned that I'm on a mission to empower a million women by 2030. So everything I do is focused on that. And so when they said if you write an article for us, it goes out to 600,000 people, I'm like done.

Mary Killelea: Let's talk about that. So, I'm so glad you brought that up because the banner is behind you and but what where did the idea come from and like take me back to that exact moment where you said this is it. This is my mission and I'm now hellbent on doing it because I know I can impact it.

Cherilynn Castleman: So, it's actually probably one of your colleagues. I was on a podcast and I was talking to a woman and I was telling her and so I was telling her about how I want to empower women. I want to empower but I want to. I want my beehive. I want a really big, hairy audacious goal. I want to do something really big. And she said, "Well, what's big to you?" And I said, "A million?" And she said, "So, do you think you could do that?" And I was like, "Yeah, I'll do a million women by 2030." And she's like, "I'm holding you to that. We've recorded that." And I was like, great, that's that's it. I will empower a million women by 2030. And then I finished that and several people on LinkedIn started contacting me. How are you going to do that? I said, I don't know. And I'll be honest with you, Mary, I still don't know. But this is what I will tell you is Harvard came to me and asked me to start teaching. I started teaching for Harvard. I'm going to write an HBR article which will go out all over the world. I have 60 online virtual courses that I will be re-releasing in a few weeks that are global. And so that wasn't a strategy. All of this came to me by being authentic and being mission-driven. And so with people like you, what you say, will you come on my podcast? I'm like, yes, it helps me. If I reach one woman and she sits at the table of her dreams, that's my one.

Mary Killelea: Yeah. I love it. This is why I love you so much is because you have these aspirational stretch goals that drive you and you figure out how to get there. And I think that example for women is what's going to help women.

Cherilynn Castleman: I hope so. And that's why I wrote my book because my book was all about it. There are some very strong stories in there about my struggles and things that I've been through. But I want people to know that we all have a story. And if you just be your authentic self and if what you're doing and if you care and you're really good at it, if I was not good at coaching, then that wouldn't work. If I didn't care about my clients and my community, that wouldn't work. And if I didn't have the confidence to come out with my point of view that women deserve a seat at the table, and one way to get there is to master sales. Yeah. It wouldn't work. So, that's what I have done and it just continues to open doors and like I said, when they contacted me and said, "Would you coach for Harvard Business School?" I was like, "Sure."

Mary Killelea: Yeah.

Cherilynn Castleman: But I didn't go to Harvard. I didn't ask them, you know, to do that. You know, when somebody comes to me and says, "Will you speak at our national conference?" I said, "Well, yes. It will help me reach more women."

Mary Killelea: Do you have a word that you like to associate with the year? Do you do it almost like a vision board but like a word for a year to motivate you to drive you or is this just an innate thing in you?

Cherilynn Castleman: Wow. I think that just growing up as an African-American child and wanting better for myself and my daughters was my driving force. And I've always been a voracious reader. My mother was a librarian. And so I've always read and I just set a goal that every time I read a book I would take three actionable insights out of there. And I had to do three things out of every book. And so I would read one or two or three books every week. So I was reading 100 to 150 books a year with actionable insights. That's 450 actionable insights in a year sometimes. Yeah. 300 to 400. And I still do that. I still read actionable insights. Here's what I'm going to do. I look at everything as an opportunity. There are no challenges. It's an opportunity to develop my sense of humor. It's an opportunity to begin again more intelligently or it's an opportunity to grow or learn. Everything that happens, I was like, well, I'm going to develop my sense of humor. I won't do that again. You know, that's it.

Mary Killelea: So, what does to be bolder mean to you?

Cherilynn Castleman: So for me to be bolder was a day on a podcast that I said I will empower a million women by 2030. That's it. I remember getting off that podcast going, what in the world did you just say? And then I made it my tagline and every single person I meet you're the woman who's going to empower a million women by 2030. And everybody that comes to me asks me to do something. I will help me empower a million women. So to be bolded, that's what it means that I will empower a million women by 2030 to be too good to be ignored. And what I mean by that Mary is too good to be ignored by their clients, too good to be ignored by their leadership or their executive team or too good to be ignored by recruiters. So whatever table you want to sit at, my wish for you is that you become too good to be ignored.

Mary Killelea: Fantastic. You are amazing.

Cherilynn Castleman: Thank you. Absolutely delightful. I had a great time.

Mary Killelea: Well, it's been a pleasure meeting you. And just to remind everyone, the handouts can get the handouts through reaching out to you on LinkedIn.

Cherilynn Castleman: Yes. And every single thing, every topic I promise that I talked about here, I have a handout for. And so if you and even if you're not sure, just say, Cherilynn, send me a couple of your handouts from the podcast. I'll send you three handouts. I promise.

Mary Killelea: You're amazing. Thank you for being here.

Cherilynn Castleman: Thank you, Mary.

Mary Killelea: Thanks for listening to the episode today. It was really fun chatting with my guest. 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 bbolder.com.