Career Growth Advice from Bonnie Low-Kramen, business Leader | Career Tips for Women in business

2B Bolder Podcast – Episode 78
Featuring Bonnie Low-Kramen

Episode Title: #78 Career Podcast Featuring a Celebrity Assistant Turned Full-Time International Speaker, Trainer and Best Selling Author

Host: Mary Killelea
Guest: Bonnie Low-Kramen



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.

Thanks for tuning in. Today's guest is Bonnie Low-Kramen. Bonnie is an inspiration to so many women. For 25 years, she worked as a personal assistant to a famous celebrity couple. From there, she became an international speaker and trainer. She's a TEDx speaker, CEO, bestselling author of Be the Ultimate Assistant, and co-host of podcast series by the same name. She recently authored her second book titled Staff Matters. She's contributing writer and editorial board member of Executive Secretary Magazine. She has a rare perspective that few others have, while sharing many of the same life challenges her followers have experienced in their careers. She is known for her authentic personality and personal warmth. She is also fearless about tackling the burning issues impacting the humans of our workplace every day. Bonnie, thank you so much for being on the show.

Bonnie Low-Kramen (Guest): Thank you, Mary. It's great to be here with you.

Mary Killelea: What a treat this is for me and for our listeners. Tell us the story of how you became the personal assistant to Olympia Dukakis.

Bonnie Low-Kramen: Olympia, Olympia. Olympia Dukakis, when I met her in 1986, which I'm sure some of your listeners weren't even born yet. She was not famous yet. She had not made the film Moonstruck, for which she won the Academy Award with Sharon, Nicholas Cage, et cetera. My story is about timing and luck and being in the right place at the right time and who you know. It's like one of those stories. I was working in New York City for the Schubert Organization. I was, you know, as with my theater and English major, I tried to be an actress for five minutes, it seemed. It was actually three months, but five minutes. And I was not going to make it as an actress. And I needed I wanted so much to be in show business. So, I took a job at the Schubert Organization, selling group tickets for, you know, the big shows of the day, like 42nd Street, I remember in Chorus Line, you remember those shows, right? And I was, you know, right in the thick of things in Broadway in New York City. And I thought, well, this is going to be cool for a while.

Well, I got a call one day from a colleague, who I had worked with at a theater in Texas when I'd been there a few years before. And he said, Hey, coming to New York, why don't we grab a drink together and just say hello. And of course, that's how it goes sometimes. Well, when we met on 42nd Street at a bar, he brought with him the marketing director for the whole theater in Montclair, New Jersey. And that is the theater that Olympia Dukakis was running for 19, ended up running it for 19 years. And over a drink, as happens, the friend of my friend tells me that he was looking for a publicity director. And did I know how to write? And could I write a press release? And we hit it off. And, you know, I was an English major. And so I'm like, yeah, I've never written a press release before, but I definitely could do that. And long story short, he set up an interview with Olympia because no one got hired at this small theater in Montclair, New Jersey suburb of New York City. But no one got hired until she met them.

And I remember my interview as clearly as if it was today. She was wearing ripped jeans. And she gave me one of the firmest handshakes I can ever remember. And she looked me straight in the eye. And she said, What makes you want this job? And we sat and we talked about theater. And I was a theater and English major at college. I mean, this was authentic. I knew my way around Shakespeare and, you know, Tennessee Williams and Oscar Wilde, etc., the classics and, you know, more contemporary work. And so, we had a great time talking about movies and television and plays. And at the end of the, I guess it was a little less than an hour, she jumped out of her seat, and she said, Okay, let's do this thing. But when can you start?

Mary Killelea: Wow.

Bonnie Low-Kramen: And she hired me on the spot. And I was so excited. I so believed in this woman who was not famous. I tried to do my research on Olympia Dukakis. And she was a respected theater actress, but she was by no means a household name. She was not famous yet. And so that we began, we began working just like you and I would work together. My intention was how are we going to get bodies in the seats, in the 200 seats of this little theater that we were running together. And we got to work with each other in relative anonymity. We just were working side by side. And it was quite wonderful for those 10 months until she came to me one day and said, Bonnie, I need to talk to you. I'm going away for a month to Canada. I got hired to play Cher’s mother in a movie. And I was excited instantly because Cher was a big name still, you know, at that time. She had only done Mask. She'd only done that one film. And I said, well, I remember asking, well, who else is in this movie, Olympia? And she said, this new guy, Nicholas Gage. But I said, Olympia, are you talking about Nicholas Cage? And she was like, Oh, yeah, yeah, that's it. Now, Nick had only done Peggy Sue got married. That was his big film before this before Moonstruck. And the more she told me about the movie, finally, I said to her, what's the studio Olympia because the studio would tell me how big this thing was going to be. And when she said MGM, I started screaming. And like everybody at the theater started coming around saying, Bonnie, what are you yelling about?

And that was the beginning of everything. That was the beginning of Moonstruck and how that film changed all of our lives. Because when she went off to Canada for that month, she needed someone, one person to be communication central. She couldn't have 20 people on the staff calling her every day. She wanted one person. And that person became me, so every single day, we would get our time on the phone. And this was even before computer. This was really pre high tech. And, and we did it. We did it. That was the beginning of our work together. And we never looked back. We never dared to think it would last 25 years, let me tell you. But that's how it began.

Mary Killelea: That's such a beautiful story. And I think one of the key things is, well, I guess a couple of key things that I take away from that is your willingness to say yes, to show up to that drink, you know, not knowing what it was not, you know, just making the connection, getting outside your comfort zone when you probably could have stayed home. Another thing is, is also believing in yourself to do the interview. And even though you didn't have the direct skills, you knew you could do it. What do you tell other women in relationship to those things?

Bonnie Low-Kramen: Oh, the saying yes part is a big one. My mantra in recent years has become, I'm going to keep saying yes until I have to say no. At some point, you have to say no. Right? And if the pandemic showed us anything, Mary, was that life can change like that, right? We were all busy making plans. There's a famous line from John Lennon, life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. And I'm going to just keep saying yes until I have to say no. And the pandemic made me say no. When March of 2020 happened, I had 12 speaking engagements that canceled in a matter of 48 hours, in person speaking. The universe ended up telling me no. So that was a big one. And and then the whole notion of that I didn't have, there wasn't ever a PR director before. But I did know I could I was a good writer. I always identified as a writer. And I did feel confident that I could do that, especially with Scott's help be the man who ended up walking my resume in.

Here's the data is true about women, you know, I train executive assistants who are 95 to 97% female. And the data shows that women feel that we need that in general, we need to possess 99% of the job qualifications in a job description before we'll apply. And then when we do apply, we say to the interviewer, Well, yes, I'm, I'm actually very right for this job, except for this one bullet, right? We're women are very quick to point out the thing that we don't have. Whereas men, the percentage is about 60, they need to possess 65% or less of a job description’s qualifications in order to apply and walk in with incredible confidence and say, I'm going to kill this job. This is mine. I'm all over this. You're not going to make a mistake hiring me. And they never point out what they don't possess. Mary, I see your nodding head. I know we're on audio. But you know this to be true, right?

Mary Killelea: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it's hard to when you say the truth. And when you say it like this, and back it with data, it's amazing as a woman that we do that. Or do.

Bonnie Low-Kramen: And so my advice for women is don't do that. If the qualification says that you must have a college degree, you know, I spend a lot of time talking with recruiters and HR people and say, please say, college degree preferred, not mandatory, because you know, women take it literally. And so essentially, women are self as they're self defeating, there's they're withdrawing, they're withdrawing themselves from qualifying for a position, even if they are really very right for something. So, I urge women to apply anyway, and to figure it out, meaning call the HR person on the phone, or because everything's online, and you have to submit and blah, blah, blah. Mary, I'm sure you would agree with me. Even in a high tech world, it still comes down to the relationships between people, right? Doesn't it?

Mary Killelea: Absolutely.

Bonnie Low-Kramen: That we had, you know, if they, the person who answers the phone, or who who's doing the interviewing has a good feeling about you, you know, if they really like you, you know, I'm going to overlook the fact that she doesn't actually have the college degree. And that happens every day. But women happen to be a pretty literal bunch. And I try to offer enough data to convince them, go for it anyway.

Mary Killelea: Absolutely. And so, so you became the central communication person, kind of her right hand woman. How did your role and responsibilities change? And what are some of the things that you did?

Bonnie Low-Kramen: Well, so simultaneously, I was functioning as the PR director for the theater, but then slash personal assistant to Olympia Dukakis. And I didn't even know there was a term for what I was doing. But actually, that's what I was doing. I was literally going to her home. And those of you listening of a certain age, I part of my job was to get messages off the answering machine. And to then triage it. That's when I came up with the whole notion of administrative triage, that whole notion that on any given day, I was constantly prioritizing and figuring it out, like, what are the top things that needed to get decided on what things could wait longer, because inevitably, I would get the phone call never knew when it was going to come because it had to be a break on in the in the shooting. And she would say, Okay, Bonnie, go. And I'd have to have my list of things that I needed her to decide on, so and so needs this, you know, what do you think about that? And this, this message came in, I would handle the things I could handle. When I learned just a great deal about, you know, prioritizing and organizing lots and lots of information, chaotic information, and then inevitably, I'd hear the knock, Ms. Dukacus, we need you on the set. And then she'd say, Okay, Bonnie, bye. And that was it. So I'd better make I had better have made sure that I had all the information.

That's when I learned about taking on the responsibility for doing all the things that Olympia didn't have to do, meaning, I couldn't memorize her lines for her. I couldn't do her costume fitting. I couldn't do the wig fitting or whatever. So those are the things that only she could do. And that's when I realized that's what assistants do is they their work permits their executives, their principal, their manager to do the thing that they were intended to do. And I did everything else. That means I was booking cars and hair and makeup and doing shopping, picking up dry cleaning, picking up prescriptions, feeding the dog when necessary. If one of the kids wasn't going to come home in time to feed the dog, I would run there and do that. And all of that was fine with me, mainly because Olympia and I had mutual respect from the beginning, that she viewed me as someone who enabled her to do the things, I gave her freedom to do the things that only she could do. And thatI loved the idea of the plays that she was putting on that meant a lot to people, the classic plays and the first show I ever did at the theater that I worked on was Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare. And it was just a dream job.

It was a great learning experience to work side by side to a powerful woman who did not sacrifice her femininity while she was being assertive. And she you know, I know, I'm very aware of the title of your podcast. And if there's any example of someone who is very bold, it was Olympia Dukakis. My ex-husband would probably say that and actually did say that she was a bad influence on me.

Mary Killelea: Because you became more independent.

Bonnie Low-Kramen: I became very independent and very bold. You know, there's a saying, you can't be if you can't see it. Well, for 25 years, I had a very big dose of taking in what meant to be bold and outspoken and to get it get things done without being mean or nasty. But there's a lot that you can achieve when you're assertive.

Mary Killelea: What a beautiful experience. And I can see how your career today emulates that and inspires other women. Yeah, so that's really amazing. You mentioned some of the importance was that you had mutual respect and that she treated you with respect. What do you what kind of advice do you have for women who aren't in the same situation, who are assistants and they're not treated with respect?

Bonnie Low-Kramen: And that is huge problem in the workplace. And I often joke that anyone who hears me gets to benefit from my thousands of dollars of therapy. And which is absolutely true. And one of the things that I'll never forget my therapist saying is do not reward bad behavior, no matter who it's from, not if it's your supervisor, not if it's your executive, not if it's your peer, not if it's your kid, not if it's your spouse. So therefore, I realized that as a young woman, I was bullied, I was sexually harassed. And women in general, I certainly was an example of someone who became mute, I became paralyzed by not knowing the words to say, like as women as young girls, we're not trained by hardly anybody about what to do, when and if that happens, what do you do? What are the words you say? And so I went on the search for the words to say, and that's why I teach it in my classes. And it's in my books, someone says something offensive to you, that I want to arm women with the actual verbiage for what to say, and you get them alone. And you say, you know what, Mary, I need to talk to you about what happened in the meeting yesterday, when you said x, y, z. So be specific, be detailed. When you said this, I don't know if you realize it, but it was really offensive. And I really want to work well with you. But we need to have a different way of talking with each other. So that's one way.

Or you can literally say to somebody, nobody talks to me like that. No one, that will be the last time. And when we women and men confront bullies directly, calmly, factually, they usually back off. And I know this because I've interviewed psychologists for the books. And I've practiced this. And it's absolutely true. Bullies will back off usually and go on to somebody else. There is no room for workplace bullying. And for leaders to be complicit and look the other way and tolerate these bad behaviors from anyone from a woman or a man. It is a dangerous and poisonous policy to enhance or to allow the culture of disrespect. Because what I've seen in 13 countries where I've taught is that when people feel respected and valued, they will work harder, they won't quit, they will be loyal. And they will do the right thing even when nobody's looking. If somebody feels disrespected, and undervalued, and feels demeaned and humiliated and diminished, they will do what in recent times, they've been calling quiet quitting, they will do the bare minimum of work that leaders are fooling themselves if they think well, the leading by intimidating, intimidation is going to get things done wrong, 100% wrong. It might look like that on the surface, but I promise them that it's not happening, that people will be looking for ways to get the heck out of there.

Mary Killelea: I totally agree. And there's also the time where women do it to themselves. What advice do you tell women to stop that talk track of minimizing what they do?

Bonnie Low-Kramen: Right? There's an article that I wrote some years ago called women shutting off the default. When women understand why we behave the way we behave, then it's so interesting to watch the lightbulb shoot on for women when we understand that when we're socialized as young girls, the messages we get are strong and powerful, and they stay unless somebody comes along to point it out. And some of those messages are, look pretty, not too pretty, pretty. Don't make waves, do not make trouble. Stay in your lane, know your place, and seek the approval of men. View other girls and other young women as competitors, as adversaries. They are not your friend. They are people to compete with, and they are not your ally. So then you see that the ridiculous junior high, high school behaviors of tearing women down.

And Olympia Dukakis made this very clear for me when she said, you know what Buns? The only people who benefit from women tearing each other down are men. Well, that certainly hit me between the eyes. And so it is true. We see women behaving badly with one another. And essentially, they're just it's not that I like it, but I do understand it. I understand that it is old behavior rooted in childhood. And when a person has therapy or when someone has the gumption to tell women the truth, as I try very hard to do in my workshops, then they it's like, oh, then they understand.

And the question for women when they're observing bad behavior is what is that person afraid of? Usually, the acting out the negative behaviors come out of a fear of something. What are they afraid of? They're afraid of losing status. They're afraid of, you know, even if they it's probably coming out of some insecurity as well, that they really don't think they're as pretty as, you know, women are very big on judging one another and judging harshly. We judge each other on everything, right? Our bodies, our hair, our jewelry, our partners, our friends, our cars, like, go on and on and on. And my message to women is that is so not productive. It is much better if you and I were working together, Mary. My question to you would be tell me what you're great at. Tell me what you love doing. And I'm going to tell you the same. And we are going to join forces and we're going to use the best of each of what we have. We're going to kill it. We're going to, we're going to join forces and be collaborators and cooperators, which is frankly what boys, young boys are trained to do. I have a son. I can attest to that. Boys are trained to have each other's backs to support each other. And young girls are not.

Mary Killelea: Let's talk about this first book, Be the Ultimate Assistant. So you wrote it kind of out of the fact that you didn't have a guidebook when you were an assistant and people were asking about it. And today, I think the creator economy has a huge new insurgence of personal assistance because everyone who's doing the TikTok and all the social media and becoming an influencer and focused on that, that is all consuming. And so they need people to support them to make them look good and make sure everything's, you know, happening, do brand deals, et cetera. So tell me about your book, who it's for and kind of some of the advice that's in it.

Bonnie Low-Kramen: Yeah, I wrote it out of frustration, sheer frustration. I literally went to the bookstore to… My question when I began working with Olympia was, how can I possibly be as great an assistant as she is an actress? How was that going to happen? I have a college degree. I believe in education. And so I thought, let's read a book about this. Let me just do some research. And I found next to nothing. So I wrote a book that not only explored my own experience as an assistant, but I had become involved with a group out of New York City called New York Celebrity Assistants. And I became the second president. Morgan Freeman's assistant was the first president. And it is now I'm very proud. It's now 27 years old, that organization, and it's still going strong. And I couldn't be prouder of what we began in 1996. And so, what we proved is that assistants are creative, resourceful, very intelligent people in their own right as individuals, but put them together as a group, then the power becomes exponential, because of the networking, because of the resources that become just this amazing resource. There was essentially nobody we couldn't get to as a group, which was very exciting and very empowering. So there's a chapter on New York Celebrity Assistants in the book.

But the book, the first edition came out in 2004, when I did it to fill a need. And I'm happy to tell you that in 2023, it's in the fifth edition, and it's still selling well, mainly because it's still filling a need. There hadn't been a book that fully explored administrative triage and the dark side of the business, because I do explore bullying and sexual harassment and the bad behaviors. The book does focus somewhat on Hollywood. And because of New York Celebrity Assistants, I was able to access many celebrity assistants for their stories, which come under the category of you just can't make this stuff up. So, I'm very proud that in the United States, there are 16 million assistants. And my own mother was a secretary. And it just isn't logical to me that in pretty much any profession you can name, there's training. There are books. And in this one, in recent years, there have been more. But when I was first starting, most every assistant understands the whole notion of winging it, winging it every single day. You know that expression, right?

Mary Killelea: Yeah.

Bonnie Low-Kramen: You just get faced with the situation and you just kind of go with it and learn by burn, baby.

Mary Killelea: Fake it till you make it. How does someone go about finding a celebrity or high profile assistant job?

Bonnie Low-Kramen: Yeah. So in the book, I talk about how to find work. And it is important for any candidate, any person thinking about wanting to work for a famous person to think about what flavor of celebrity they would be best working with. It doesn't take a big leap to think that if you're going to go to work for somebody like a rock star, your days are going to be very much about nighttime, because that's when concerts are. And it is about lifestyle. It's important to really be honest about what kind of life do you want to have? Do you want to be traveling all the time? There are assistants I know who have been on the road like 200 days a year. It's not possible to have a really meaningful relationship, kids, plants, dog. If you're going to live that kind of lifestyle. So, it's a real choice.

My strong suggestion is to create a resume that highlights the skills and talents that a person has to bring to the table. And then to explore that that genre, whether it's music, theater, film, that person's orbit. Meaning if you want to be in film, then we need to get to the people who deal with film actors and producers and directors. So that means agents, it means managers, it means attorneys, it means publicity, publicist type people, the people who touch the celebrity world. Those are the people you need, a candidate needs to gravitate towards to say, hey, I'm available because who are the people who a celebrity is going to contact if they need an assistant? Chances are it's their agent, their manager, their publicist, their lawyer.

Mary Killelea: Yeah. Let's talk about pay. I mean, sometimes it's taboo to talk about pay, but I like to break down that wall within this.

Bonnie Low-Kramen: Not for me.

Mary Killelea: Great. What can women expect?

Bonnie Low-Kramen: What, let's start there. Okay. Well, bad news is that there's a wage gap in the world. No matter what role it is that women hold, the data is clear that the wage gap exists. And unless something changes pretty significantly, we're not going to achieve equity for 200 years. And I don't know about you, Mary, but I don't have that kind of time. And I would like it to be better for my kids and my grandkids. And I'm sure you would too.

Mary Killelea: Absolutely.

Bonnie Low-Kramen: In the assistant world, you know, C-suite assistants, people who are supporting CEO and, you know, executives, high level executives in cities like New York and San Francisco are making six figure salaries. They're starting at $100,000 a year. In the smaller markets, it can be less money. And if, and if women are supervising other staff, that is valuable. That's a valuable skill that not everybody has, and that's worth more money if you supervise others. So that's something to be evaluated. My best advice for women, no matter what role you have, whether you're an assistant or not, is to seek out an ethical and knowledgeable recruiter in your market. So if you're in Kansas City, go to a Kansas City-based recruiter, essentially is what I'm saying, and have a conversation and evaluation of your resume of the, because job description, any job description should be equivalent to money. So this is not about feelings or emotion. This is about doing a job that has tasks and responsibilities, and that equates to a dollar amount. In the ideal world, that it would be equal if a man or a woman did that same job. And it's going to take being assertive, being bold with HR directors and asking for pay evaluations.

On the heels of the great resignation with the pandemic, that whole notion about pay transparency has become more common. That in order to hold on to people, so what was the problem in the great resignation is you had people quitting in mass numbers. And so HR directors and leaders were doing their very best to hold on to what they would refer to as the high producers. So what would they do to those people? They would maybe give them a new title. They would throw some money at them in order to motivate them to stay. So, we've got a situation in 2023 where it's a really interesting opportunity, I think, for both women and men to have a candid conversation with HR, to be bold about it, and to say, I'd really like to understand my career path with the company. Can we have a conversation about pay, pay transparency and where I stand, given my job description in this company? And HR people are responding to that because if you're a high producer, they do not want to lose you.

Mary Killelea: That is such great advice. And it leads right into your new book, Staff Matters. What inspired this? Again, frustration and actually concern. I shared with you that I've spoken and taught in 13 countries over the last 12 years when I resigned from my full-time work with Olympia and went off to teach and speak. And in a million years, I never thought that training people to be assistants would take me to 13 countries, but that is an absolute true story. And in the course of all that traveling, Mary, I had one-on-one conversations with, well, in the end, it turned out to be 1,500 people. I was talking with assistants and these turned into interviews where I was talking with them. I was talking with leaders. I was talking with HR directors and I was talking with recruiters. And then beyond that, I was talking with business school professors. And those groups are who I term as the constituencies of this workplace. They're the people who have a hand in creating what this thing is that we're dealing with.

Well, Mary, what I concluded after a few years of all of this activity was that there wasn't enough talking going on between these groups. There were a lot of silos and there was a lot of fear going on in the workplace. There was a lot that was going unsaid in the workplace. There was information that leaders were not privy to. Why? Because their staff was too afraid to tell them.

Mary Killelea: Oh my gosh, that happens.

Bonnie Low-Kramen: Right? That would say to me, Mary, they would say, you know, Bonnie, front row seat for everything that happens to the company. I see and hear everything, but I don't have a way to tell anybody what I see. They say things to me like, stay in your lane. Nobody asked you for your opinion. And they would say, I can't speak up. I'm afraid I'm going to lose my job. Or I'm afraid they're going to call me a troublemaker. Or they're going to view me as they're not going to like me anymore. And there's all this fear. And that fear has gotten even worse with the post pandemic world when we are now in, nobody thought we'd be out of our offices for more than two years. But now we have a situation that is very fragmented and fractured with part of our workforce working at home. And we're trying to communicate and connect over webcams like we're doing right now, but not everybody's good at it. And it's there's a thing called proximity bias in the world where the people who are choosing or managing to go in to the office, they have proximity to the leaders and the decisions that are being made. And they have an advantage over those people who are staying at home. It's proximity bias. And guess what? More men are choosing to go into the office than women are, because women are actually pretty satisfied working from home, many of them. And the big concern, of course, is the invisibility factor. It's very hard to advocate for more money and your value if you are literally invisible, if you don't turn on your webcam or you're not speaking up, then who is speaking up? It's a situation we're in right now that's very much in motion and volatile.

Mary Killelea: I am shocked at how few women go on camera and how few women ask questions in meetings or share their opinion. And I should say I'm shocked, like I'm saddened because I was that way. And now I've grown into my space. And so now it feels so like.

Bonnie Low-Kramen: You're impatient with it.

Mary Killelea: Yeah. So now it feels so empowering and so good where I am. And I don't know who that was, my old self. And I see others. I want to help encourage others.

Bonnie Low-Kramen: Correct. And the way we do that is when mentoring young women, and I think I'm optimistic because I think social media and our ability to meet in groups online is a game changer when it comes to the future for women that you can't be it if you can't see it. So for young women to have access to somebody like you, who is assertive, not giving up your femininity, kind of like how I was able to observe when I was a young woman, I was a member of Olympia one on one. Now I try my best to do that for as many women as I can. And I don't want it to take women till they're in their 40s or 50s to feel the feeling of what it's like to be assertive. We want them to get it in their 20s. I want I don't want it to take that long. And so that's why I do the work I do.

Mary Killelea: Tell me about the Speak Up Pledge.

Bonnie Low-Kramen: The Speak Up Pledge was born. I created a website called SpeakUpPledge.com and I think I am of a mind that the number one problem in the workplace, the number one most important thing is the issue of speaking up or rather the reluctance to speak up, the inability to speak up, the sheer terror of speaking up when we know we should, but we stay quiet anyway, we will ourselves to stay quiet. And Mary, it's painful when I move around the world and I speak with women on men, but mainly women when they tell me their stories of being bullied and sexually harassed and being intimidated, you can see it in their eyes and in their bodies. And the trauma has taken a toll.

I created the Speak Up Pledge, which is verbiage, which I include in the book, Staff Matters, about pledging to speak up to our peers, to our friends, to our leaders as an obligation, as a responsibility. And I have a Speak Up Pledge for leaders as well to speak up with their staff about in a transparent way about what's really happening as opposed to all of the silence that's going on. It's hurting us. And women will say to me, I can't speak up. I'm going to lose my job. I'm afraid. And, you know, my paycheck is putting food on the table for my kids. I can't put them in jeopardy. And I understand that. That said, what I say back to them is what I'm afraid of is if you stay, if you keep staying quiet, I'm afraid you're going to lose you.

I've met, maybe you've met women also who look like they're wounded, that they've been through a battle, that they've been hurt from the inside out, that it takes a long time to heal from that kind of pain. And it doesn't serve leaders to have men and women in the workplace who are sitting there feeling angry, depressed, sad, resentful. It is not possible to do great work when people, when your staff is feeling any of those things you're preoccupied with. Well, you know, when's the next attack going to come?

Mary Killelea: Right.

Bonnie Low-Kramen: So for leaders to think that these people are really working very hard at their desks, they're fooling themselves. If your staff is sitting there worried about how they're going to pay their bills because they're sitting there being underpaid. No, that's not happening. That person is sitting there wondering, huh, do I pay this bill or that bill? Which one can I get away with this month? And that doesn't serve any leader to have that be the case.

Mary Killelea: This is such a wonderful conversation and time is flying by. I have a couple more questions. What does to be bolder mean to you?

Bonnie Low-Kramen: To be bolder means to dig deep and ask the hard question, is this a battle I want to fight? Is this battle worth it? And to take the risk. To be bold has always felt to me like taking something of a risk. It makes us feel vulnerable, that there may be people out there who don't like it, who don't like me. And the older I've gotten, the more I've decided that that's okay. If they don't like me, it's okay. I admit in my younger years, I wanted people to like me, but the reality is not everybody's going to like you. And the most important person who needs to like you is the one who's staring back at you in the mirror in the morning. And being bold does not have to mean loud or nasty or mean. In fact, the best boldness can often be quiet, but direct and strong, but it doesn't have to be loud. And I think there's a, I think some people equate those two things. And I have seen the best boldness happen very quietly, haven't you?

Mary Killelea: Yes. Yeah. What would you tell your 20 year old self?

Bonnie Low-Kramen: To be curious always. Don't take no for an answer automatically. To question, to really question even someone you know, like and trust. To dig deeper. If your gut is telling you there's something wrong here, then I would tell my 20 year old self, I was pretty gullible when I was in my 20s and naive and bought into the idea of, well, if that person's your manager, then they must know everything. They must be right about everything. And wow, did I find out that was wrong? So the world around us gives us a lot of messages and tells us how to think. And as a woman, it's not that I want all women to agree with me. I just want women to think for themselves and to be curious about understanding, is that the right answer for you? That's what I want for women. I don't necessarily want them to agree with me. I just want them to stay curious to know more and to not just automatically follow along because someone is loud and saying what they should believe.

Mary Killelea: It has been such a pleasure. I am going to include links to your website, to your books, to your podcast library.

Bonnie Low-Kramen: Thank you, Mary. Thank you so much.

Mary Killelea 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 two little b bolder.com.