216-SYB-choosing-womens-voices.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Carol Cox:
Here are why we are choosing women's voices and you should too on this episode of the Speaking Your Brand podcast.
Carol Cox:
More and more women are making an impact by starting businesses running for office and speaking up for what matters. With my background as a TV political analyst, entrepreneur and speaker, I interview and coach purpose driven women to shape their brands, grow their companies, and become recognized as influencers in their field. This is Speaking Your Brand, your place to learn how to persuasively communicate your message to your audience.
Carol Cox:
A year ago, in March 2020, as part of Women's History Month, I released this episode and our challenge called Choosing Women's Voices. I was thinking about recording a new episode for Women's History Month now along the same lines of choosing women's voices. And then I read listen to this episode last week and realize that it is perfect and just as relevant today as it was a year ago. So I thought it would be an excellent opportunity for you to listen to it again. If you listen to it originally or to listen to it for the first time, I know that I'm taking this opportunity myself to audit the podcast. I listen to, the books I read and the people I follow to make sure that there are preponderance of women's voices and of diverse women's voices. Among those podcasts, books and people. Before we get into the main podcast episode, I want to make sure that you are registered for upcoming Brave will be on Live Virtual Summit, which happens live April 1st, 2021, is coming up in just a few weeks. It is entirely free to attend. This is our thought leadership project.
Carol Cox:
A way for us to choose women's voices and to make sure that we are showcasing, amplifying and champion women's stories and women's experiences. This is a day long event where you're going to hear from 12 diverse women's speakers sharing their ten minute TEDx style talks. They've been getting coaching from our speaking coaches to create their talks and to practice on delivering them. And I cannot wait for you to hear them deliver their talks. In addition to hearing their TEDx style talks, you'll also be able to listen to two panel discussions that will have that day one on building your thought leadership platform, the other one with our speaking coaches on crafting a stellar speech. And in addition to all of that, you'll also be able to participate in breakout sessions where you can come on video and audio to chat with our speakers, our coaches and with each other. This is an event that you do not want to miss. We held it last October and attendees said it was the best virtual event that they've ever been to. It was incredibly inspiring and motivating. There were tears, there were laughter. They were fist pumping in the air. The chat was lit up the entire time. It was just such an incredible opportunity to have women share their experiences, their stories, and to get that validation from everyone who was in the audience. You can register for free by going to speaking your brand summit. Again, that's speaking your brand slash summit. Now here's the prior episode. Hey, everyone, welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast. I'm your host, Carol Cox. And with me today is Diane Diaz.
Diane Diaz:
Hello.
Carol Cox:
And we are doing a challenge this month, the month of March. And this is so this is the first episode in the month of March. If you're listening to this relatively live. And the challenge is called Choosing Women's Voices. And we did it to coincide with Women's History Month, which is the month of March. And as I mentioned in one of the earlier episodes, I don't think women should be relegated to just one month of history, really. We have always been part of history because hello, we've always been 50% of the population. But that's a whole another story for maybe a whole another episode. But right. At least it gives us a reason to do this challenge. Choosing Women's Voices. So let me give you a little bit of a back story about why we decided to do this challenge in the first place. So during this past holiday break, I was kind of organizing everything, catching up on podcast episodes, doing a lot of reading, nonfiction, fiction, both. I'm the type of person where I keep a listen every note of every book that I read. And then I just got a couple of notes down about whether I liked the book or what I liked about it, or if I didn't like it or if I did not finish it. Which happened sometimes. And I was looking back through my list through 2019 and even to 2018, and I was looking at all the business and marketing books and nonfiction books that even politics books.
Carol Cox:
And I'm like, Wow, a lot of them are by men. And I hadn't really put that together. And then I was listening to the different podcast. I'm looking through the podcast that I'm subscribed to and I listened to. I'm like, Oh, a lot of these are male hosts as well, and I hadn't really thought about it. Of course, I listened to a lot of women podcasters. I read books by women, but I, I feel like there was a preponderance of male voices. And so I started kind of doing an audit for myself and thinking, Well, where can I find? Other podcasts that are on these similar topics but that are hosted by women instead. So I started doing that, but then I started thinking, Well, why? Why was my default to go to the male voice? So it could have been a book on productivity, it could have been a book on politics, it could have been a book on marketing. And then I kind of had to admit to myself, well, I kind of assume that the male is more of an expert and more of an authority on that topic. And then I wanted to slap myself when I realized this. And I hate like I hate admitting this to myself, much less out loud. But that's because we live in a patriarchy. This is how we grow up. And there's so much about visibility and voice, which is what we're getting into today.
Carol Cox:
And so the recognition that we're due that we have this implicit bias is the first step because most of us have it. It's the awareness that causes us to make different choices. But if we grow up in this society and culture, we tend to have this implicit bias. I'm like, Okay, so what am I going to do about this? So I said, Well, let's do a challenge so that we can raise awareness of the voices that we listen to and that we read, whether it's podcasts, books, audio books, even movies and TV, the news sources that we get information from, science, technology, all of those different things, as well as our specific industry. And really thinking about how many of those voices are women is our diversity within those women voices? Because I also realize I didn't have enough diversity in what I was listening to and what I was reading from women's voices. And then where can we find some other some new women to put in there? And so you may be wondering, well, why does it matter? Like literally, what does it matter whose voices I'm listening to or whose voices I'm reading it? The content is good. Why does it matter? And I would argue that there is a reason to choose women's voices and to listen to women's voices, because the content that goes in is what we internalize as women.
Carol Cox:
And the more that we hear women's voices, the more becomes the normal. And then it becomes the expert, the authoritative and the universal as much as the male voice is as well. Before we get more into this, for those of you who want to sign up for the challenge, you can do so. It's a free challenge and it runs for seven days and we'll be repeating it each week in March. So no matter when you're listening to this episode, you can still sign up for the challenge and you'll receive an email prompt each day for seven days with a short activity for you to do, along with some recommendations of new podcasts, books, movies, TV, journalists, things like that that you can follow. So to sign up, go to speaking your brand challenge again, that's speaking your brand challenge or you can text the word speaking to three three, seven, seven, seven again text the word speaking to three three, seven, seven, seven. And that information is also in the show notes for this episode. So now before we get into a little bit of how we got here to this history of women and where we're at, and then we can go from there. I want to ask you a question, Diane, and this is not a trick question. And I want you to I want you to answer, like, really? Okay. When I say the word CEO, what image comes to mind?
Diane Diaz:
It's a dude.
Carol Cox:
Okay, so tell me tell me about the dude.
Diane Diaz:
He's in a suit and tie and probably older. Not older. I'm probably in his fifties. I'm in my fifties. And I don't know why I'm saying that, but, you know, experienced, right, I guess, authoritative looking and looks like he's got a lot of knowledge and experience and.
Carol Cox:
Kind of like a stock image of what you would.
Diane Diaz:
Yes, yes. Istockphoto.
Carol Cox:
Yeah, exactly. I put on Google and put in the word CEO.
Diane Diaz:
That's probably where you're going to come from, what you're going to find. Yeah.
Carol Cox:
So if I say the word to you, president or politician, what comes to mind? Really what your first answer.
Diane Diaz:
You know? Well, honestly, I'm just going to say, Barack Obama comes to mind for me because I mean, I've been voting for a very long time. And I would say he's the first president that I felt was personable and I could be friends with. So he comes to mind for me, which again, a man but.
Carol Cox:
Right be the exception to the rule of all the presidents we've had because he was black and not white. Exactly. So here's what I was as I was typing out these questions for the outline, you know, I was typing out the politician President one and I said, you know what? For the first time probably ever, I have a kind of I don't have a super clear image for that one like I do for CEO. And I think it's because we have multiple women running for president this cycle. So and this is where the visibility part is so important because we've seen all these women on the debate stages and the town halls out there campaigning. You'll see them on our social media feeds. So it's becoming less of a given that the president slash politician role is definitively for a man. So that is the benefit of visibility, the representation, this idea of, if you can see it, you can be it. And that's what we want. Obviously, younger girls and younger women growing up. But now if I say to you, Diane, and for those of you listen, you think about this as well. Remember back to the 2016 election, which feels so long ago yet not long enough ago, and when when Hillary Clinton was running in the primary, but then when she became the Democratic nominee, what were some of the comments people made about her voice?
Diane Diaz:
Oh, well, I mean, she was shrill. She was yelling. She was, you know, hysterical. All of the things all of the things that they say about any woman who takes command of any stage or platform.
Carol Cox:
Yes. Yes. Shrill is what you hear a lot for women who are in positions of leadership and power and the whole yelling thing because she would use a microphone and our voices just don't have the same tenor as male voices. Right. And then.
Diane Diaz:
To raise your.
Carol Cox:
Voice, people would and then there would be pundits on TV who would make fun of her laugh because she didn't laugh the right way. As in, there are so many different ways that people laugh, so you can see the criticism that women get. So this is why for me, I think the actual voice is so important because we're not used to actually hearing a lot of women in positions of leadership in power. We're seeing them more like we see them out there, but we're not hearing them as much as we need to be.
Diane Diaz:
And I think we also not not we as in you and I, we as in just the population and media tends to ignore the voice, literally, and start to pick on how they look because we don't want to hear the voice. Right? So then we start to say, not only is she sound shrill and she's yelling, but also look how she's dressed. Why is she wearing that? Why is her hair like that? She looks too old. She looks too young. She looks to this, to that. So then we start to go to all the visuals.
Carol Cox:
Yes, absolutely. And this is why I and I think about podcasting as a medium and podcasting as a new medium and what an opportunity it is for women to take advantage of, because it is such a it's an intimate medium. It's a relational medium. Yet if you look at all of the top podcasts in Apple Podcasts, they have all the rankings. Most of them are hosted by men. Joe Rogan, Tim Ferriss, the daily podcast from The New York Times is hosted by a man like Yes. He'll have guest on there who are women, but it's hosted by a man, Bill Simmons. There's a bunch of them that are all hosted by MIM, so they're getting the top rankings, which is like a feedback loop. So the more popular you become, the more listeners you get. So that makes you more popular. So you get in this feedback loop. And it's interesting that even a medium like podcasting, that does not rely on how someone looks. So you think for women they're not going to be criticized for how they look. They don't have to have their hair and makeup done like all the things we expect for women, yet we're still not seeing women at the top of the rankings. I don't have an answer for this. I don't know what it is, but I'm hoping that the challenge at least raises some awareness for all of us and we can give more of our lessons and our downloads to women podcasters.
Carol Cox:
Yeah. So before we get a little bit more into kind of what, what we can do to choose women's voices, I want to just share a few things from history because of course I love history that I rather shocking, but maybe not that surprising. For millennia, women have been silenced. They've been shamed, they've been ridiculed. They've been harassed. They've been harmed. They've been killed for speaking up, especially in public. So this is the literally the legacy and the history that all of us women today are dealing with, even if we don't personally feel like we're going to be physically harmed for speaking up. But that may not always be the case and we can chat about that. Maybe we're still left with that legacy because of the stories that we grow up with. There is a woman. Her name is Mary Beard, and she's a classicist and she's she's English. She wrote this great book called Women in Power. And she has a story in the beginning from Homer's Odyssey, which is, you know, the ancient Greek tale from 3000 years ago and part of and it's a long tale. So part of the tale of The Odyssey is that and I'm not going to go into detail, but they have one part of it where the mother comes down to talk to one of the sons, not Odysseus, but another one.
Carol Cox:
And he basically tells her mother, go back into your quarters and take up your own work like the Loom. And he says speech will be the business of men and only for men. So literally, women's voices were not allowed to be in public. They were not allowed to speak in public. Then she ends up actually having her tongue ripped out because of course, we had to prevent women from speaking. Then we have the witches who are burned at the stake. We have Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel from the 19th century. We even have the suffragettes. That was only 100 years ago. They were beaten. They were imprisoned for wanting women to have the vote. So that's not that long ago. Then we think of today, just in the past ten years, Gamergate, which was when there were some women who were in the video game industry who started criticizing gently video games for portraying women the way that they were portraying them and saying, why can't we be more inclusive with having more girls and women be involved in the video game industry and making the games more appealing to them? And men lost their shit. Yes, because of course they can't have anything come in ruin. What they feel is their client like their clubhouse, like their boys clubhouse, and they didn't like that. And so actually the women who were at the center of Gamergate were publicly harassed and were physically threatened for what they even had to cancel some public appearances because they were afraid for their physical safety.
Carol Cox:
I mean, it's crazy to think that we're still dealing with this in this day and age. And then, of course, you have in politics Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren and Michelle Obama and Anita Hill, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford during the Kavanaugh hearings, all of them shamed, harassed, ridiculed and told basically to shut up and sit down. And then we see movements like MeToo, Time's Up, Black Lives Matter. So we finally are listening to more women, especially aggregates of women who are coming forward and credibly accusing men in power in all different industries of what they've been doing to women for all, for forever, but especially for the past decades. And so I feel like we're getting to the point where there's a lot more awareness, there's a lot more recognition. So I think we're in a really unique opportunity to start leveraging what these movements are bringing to the fore and then making sure that as women that we use our voices that we're out there speaking up. So then let's talk about what are some podcasts or books or things that you have found, Diane, that you've enjoyed that are written by women or hosted by women or women journalists, women reporters, things like that.
Diane Diaz:
Yeah. So I recently read the book The Moment of Lift by Melinda Gates. And, you know, obviously I knew who she was, obviously, and I knew that she had this foundation with her husband, but I didn't know that much about her and I didn't really know her story and how she got into the philanthropic work that they do through their foundation. And this book I liked because while it did talk about the foundation, it really talked about it from her perspective and why it was so meaningful to her as a woman. And it goes into she calls it the moment of lift, because when you just lift one woman up, that creates lift for huge communities of women and for the world at large. So her whole belief is that there are so many women's issues that if you can help to solve women's issues and let's say a country in Africa, it has a greater global impact just on women all and families, frankly, all over the globe. So I like that idea of how she looks at it as not not solving one problem. She's solving bigger problems, but it means something for the family, too, and the children in that family.
Diane Diaz:
So it has much bigger ramifications of the work that they're doing. But again, the story is told from her perspective and how the travels that she went on as she's building this foundation and the work they do, how it impacted her emotionally and what she sees about the world through that. And interestingly, how she was able to change, not necessarily change, but impacts some of the ways her husband saw some of the issues like he at first didn't think family planning was in other countries was necessarily an issue they should try to work on. And then she started to point out the ties that has to education, to poverty and all of these things. And so she was she's been able to sort of change him as well, which then obviously has greater meaning if we can as women start to change how other people, men namely, think about situations. Right? So we can have a much larger impact through using our voice in the way that she's done.
Carol Cox:
Yeah, yeah. It's a great book. And I started reading it thanks to your recommendation, Diane. And here I highlighted some of it. And let me I'm going to read towards the beginning what she what she wrote, because I think it's it's really important. She's reflecting back to earlier on in her career, she said, the first time I was asked if I was a feminist, I didn't know what to say because I didn't think of myself as a feminist. I'm not sure I knew then what a feminist was 22 years later. I'm an ardent feminist. Being a feminist means believing that every woman should be able to use her voice and pursue her potential, and that women and men should all work together to take down the barriers and in the biases that still hold women back. And I think feminism got got kind of became a dirty word sometimes. I don't know if was in the nineties or so. I feel like it was kind of like when I was between college and grad school. And I think that generation kind of wanted to separate themselves from the second wave feminist, kind of their mother's generation of the seventies. And it got this dirty word. And people, I think, fell under this idea that it meant that women were going to be superior to men or women felt that they were superior to men or there or that men were going to lose things because women were going to advance. And really, all feminism means is that you believe that all genders are equal and deserve equal rights, right? That is it. And I struggle nowadays when people say I'm not a feminist. And I think, well, you don't believe that all genders should have should be equal and should have equal rights.
Diane Diaz:
Right.
Carol Cox:
I don't understand the argument on the other side of that.
Diane Diaz:
Right. I don't either.
Carol Cox:
But it's interesting for Melinda Gates to admit that, like, she didn't really understand if she was a feminist or not back then. And now she proudly and publicly proclaims herself as an ardent feminist. And then she goes on to say that this came to her after many years of listening to women, and especially women who are in extreme hardship. And this gets to the point of choosing women's voices, of course, is about the podcast that we listen to or the books and the movies and the TV. But it's also about listening to the women who don't have podcasts, who don't have public platforms, but like Melinda Gates is doing, going to these countries, going to the areas where women never get asked about their situation, never get asked about what would improve their lives and listening to their voices and listening to their stories.
Diane Diaz:
Right. Yes.
Carol Cox:
So yeah. So absolutely. There's so many different things in there. So that's a great example. Melinda Gates book and I can share that. I've been reading a few books recently and I mentioned at the top of this episode that I realized that I didn't have a lot of diversity within the women that I was listening to and that I was reading. So I came across this book called Me and White Supremacy by Layla Sayeed, and she had run an Instagram challenge back a few years ago called me and white supremacy which the hashtag where really asked white women to look at the roles that they're playing and helping African American women, women of color and being true allies and advocates for them. So it's a 28 day kind of journaling book where you go through and you answer questions highly recommend. It's a great book. And the other book that I'm currently reading of about halfway through is called Eloquent Rage A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper. And it is in his memoir. So it's not about theory or, you know, she obviously brings in some history in theory and part of it, but it really is a memoir and it's super well written. She's a fantastic writer, but it really gives you a perspective. Growing up as a black woman here in the United States that frankly, I don't have as a white woman and that I haven't heard or seen or read from any other source up to this point, because I studied women's history and gender and gender theory and college and grad school, but it's different than reading someone's memoir from the present day.
Diane Diaz:
Right. Yeah, I like that.
Carol Cox:
So those are really good books that I highly recommend. So let's share a few podcasts that we have found. And then during this, the challenge, when you get these email prompts for the seven each of the seven days, you also will receive some more recommendations because we've been asking people we know for recommendations as well. So there'll be lots of recommendations in there. Yeah, we have a lot. So we're going to kind of trim down the list because it will be a lot. But I'm thinking so some of the podcasts that I had been listening to are like Pod Save America, which is by the the three guys who worked for Obama speechwriters. And again, they are great, like they are super smart. And this is not about saying that men don't have smart things to say or that like I'm never going to listen to a read a man again. Like, it's not about being a purist. It's about seeing, well, where is there an imbalance and how can we make sure that we're balancing this back up correctly? But so passive America I've been listening to but now I found some other podcasts like Pantsuit Politics, which is by two women. I actually had them on this podcast. Oh yes, man. Was it last year? Yeah, it was in a 2019. Yeah. I had them on this pilot on this podcast, Pants Geopolitics. There's another one called the Brown Girls Guide to Politics. So they talk about how present day politics is affecting women, women of color and people of color, and then does a great kind of series, podcast series called Ordinary Equality, about the Equal Rights Amendment, which we still don't have in our US Constitution.
Diane Diaz:
Yeah.
Carol Cox:
So those are some good ones. Again, like thinking about like broadening our horizons, right? There are so many great there's so much great content out there. How can we support the women who are putting it out?
Diane Diaz:
Yes, I totally agree. And I I've been listening for a couple of years and of course, I listen to a bazillion podcasts. So I kind of will start bingeing one and then forget that I have these other ones. So these two I haven't listened to in a while, but I've now, since we've been talking about this, I've now gone back and I'm like, I got to start listening to these again because I really love them. One is called unladylike and first of all, I just love the name of that because I love the kind of in-your-face counterculture, you know, unladylike is so like be who you are, right. And they and then the other one is called Stuff Mom Never Told You. Both of those podcasts talk about issues of everything from politics to cultural things to just any sort of topic that relates to women and then kind of break things down and sometimes they'll have guests on to explore it further. If if it's a topic that's very kind of in-depth or complicated, they'll have an expert on to help explain the cultural references behind it. And I just love how they take these ordinary top, what could be ordinary topics, and then connect them to us as women, society at large, just the world. And and the hosts are amazing. And the host I think the hosts are kind of on the young ish side, I would say probably late twenties or early thirties. So I also like to get that perspective because I'm in my fifties, so I like to kind of get the perspective of the younger generation because sort.
Carol Cox:
Of the kids up to these.
Diane Diaz:
Days. I know, right? Like, I mean, obviously I have a different perspective and so it's nice to understand where someone coming up behind me is coming from, too. Right. And what's impacting them. So so those are two really good ones.
Carol Cox:
And I'm also really enjoying Katie Couric's podcast. Next question. She has great guest on and she's quite the feminist herself with the questions that she asked and the topics that she brings up. Just the one I listened to most recently was on Women in Sports. So it's something like, you know, why aren't there are more women coaches for women's teams, much less for men's teams, and they're talking primarily about college. And the guest that she had on is the head basketball coach for Notre Dame, I believe. And she's been there for years and years. And I think her name is Muffet. I think that's her first name. That's where I remember because Katie kept calling her Muffet, but she she, she and she was quite the she speaks up for women quite a bit. And she said leadership is about not being afraid to use your voice. So especially when you're are in a position of leadership or you have a platform or you're on a position of privilege and you have an ability to have a public voice. Really, it's upon us and it's around you, those of you listening. And that's why you're you're speaking and you're out there, is to use that voice to benefit more of us.
Diane Diaz:
Well, and just like you're doing through the podcast. Even talking about this, right? You have a platform, so you are compelled to use it to help everyone, to help all the women. Right. To speak out.
Carol Cox:
Yeah. So I would just say, for those of you listening, think about the podcast that you're listening to and if one of your industry is like if you're in technology or you're in science or you're in health and wellness or whatever it happens to be, think about are there women podcasters and diverse women podcasters that you can go and find instead to replace some of the ones that you're listening to right now and just kind of immerse yourself? That's what I've been doing for the past couple of months is I'm really been trying to immerse myself in listening to, I would say like 90% women of the podcast that I listen to. Now, there are still a few podcasts like The Ezra Klein Show. He talks about politics and current affairs. So. But I've been listening only when he has a female guest.
Diane Diaz:
Yes.
Carol Cox:
So I don't listen to it. If it's two men talking to each other again, I will go back later and catch up. But this is just kind of the experiment that I'm doing for myself because I want to see like, how am I feeling by immersing myself in women's voices.
Diane Diaz:
Yes, yes. Good point.
Carol Cox:
Oh, I just I just had this I just remembered this. So back in December, I think this is what kicked off this whole thought process for me. I was listening to a Tim Ferriss episode and I had read the four hour workweek back 12 years ago, or however long, a long, long time ago. And I had enjoyed Tim Ferriss podcast. And as I use the past tense, I've enjoyed his podcast. He has a lot of interesting guests on there. But then I was listening to an episode in December and I forget which one it was, and he I think it was in the intro or he was introducing the guest and he said something like, you know, people tell me that I should be more intentional about having diversity of guests or having more women or more people of color on. But I believe I should just have the best guest on that represents that topic. And then he goes on and on. Typical response you can imagine, right? Yeah, I think that was the point. Well, that was the point where I deleted his show from my podcast, my podcast. Q because I thought he just doesn't get it. Like fundamentally the reason why people, white men primarily are at the top of the rankings of whatever it happens to be is because that's how it's always been. So again, that feedback loop, that's how it was always going to be unless you make an intentional change.
Diane Diaz:
Exactly. Exactly. That is disturbing.
Carol Cox:
Yes. So I was done with him.
Diane Diaz:
Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting because I remember when you had mentioned that in I think when you sent a newsletter out or started talking about this challenge, that you notice that you listen to a lot of podcasts for men and consume a lot of content from them. I actually went through my podcast because I was like, I wonder what mine looks like because I don't I don't feel like it turns out I actually listen mostly to women and I don't know. I was trying to figure out why that is. And I partly I think it's due to my age because I think you and I have had conversations about this. But as I'm 53 and I feel like when you get to a certain age, you're just over it all and you just can't deal anymore. So I have to be content heavy with women to balance out everything happening in the world because I just can't can't deal with it. And I think also because I worked in a male dominated industry before years ago, which was land development and, you know, having listened to men for so long, again, not that there's anything wrong with men, but I've had to kind of pretty much just kowtow to whatever they wanted to do. I want to hear from women. Right. And so I feel like even if it was a subconscious choice, that I sought out women's voices. I looked at my podcast and I was like, Oh, look at that. I was like.
Carol Cox:
I'm so glad to hear that.
Diane Diaz:
I know.
Carol Cox:
Well, so in the entrepreneur space, like women's entrepreneur space, obviously women. Yes, like my podcasts are all women like, which is great I think is when I get to news, politics, technology, those fields tend to be tend to be more male dominated and the male voices tend to be the top voices. And so that's I think, where I kind of got stuck.
Diane Diaz:
Yes.
Carol Cox:
In that.
Diane Diaz:
Yes.
Carol Cox:
That area I.
Diane Diaz:
Was going to say. And they probably a lot of times when they rise to the top of their field, they have a lot more access to resources to start a podcast or write a book or do all those things. Right. And so then it's easier for them to get that content out there.
Carol Cox:
Yes, absolutely. I mean, you know, like someone like like Tim Ferriss, I think he has like a million podcast, million downloads a month. I mean, at least it's the numbers are incredible. So obviously, it just begets more more listens and more ads and all of that. Okay. So let's talk about what has given us more confidence. You mentioned age. So for sure, like as we get older, we just.
Diane Diaz:
You just don't care what people think.
Carol Cox:
Because you care less about you're more willing to speak up. Yes, yes, for sure. Age is part of it. As we get older, we're more willing to speak up because we just don't care as much what other people think, because we've been through enough to realize that it is. It's going to be what it's going to be.
Diane Diaz:
And I think you have less risk as you get older because now you're. Either very settled in your career or you've, like me, has made a career shift. Now I'm in a position where it's going to have less impact on me when I do speak up, right? So so there's so much less risk to doing so.
Carol Cox:
Another thing that I know we've talked about is just being around other confident women about, around other ambitious women, being around other women who are also speaking up because it's almost like it's contagious. And this is why choosing women's voices, this is why as women, we need to speak up because it is contagious. As more we see more women doing it, we'll be more likely to do it. Absolutely. Yeah. And really the seen the benefits of speaking up because of the impact that it has another people around us, both women and men. But really, I would say the benefit of speaking up is really on ourselves because we grow more confident in our own abilities. I have found.
Diane Diaz:
Yes, and I also like to think about even though I don't have kids, I like to think about what I'm modeling for future generations and how how what I'm doing is going to leave the world because I, I don't want to have had the opportunity to say or do something and didn't do it for whatever reason. And then women coming behind me, it's harder for them, right? So I can't change everything, but I can certainly have my own voice and speak out, right?
Carol Cox:
Yes, absolutely. Again, if you'd like to sign up for our Choosing Women's Voices challenge, we would love for you to do so to get those email prompts and just to be a part of the experiment and the and the effort that we're putting together. So go to speaking your brand challenge to do so again, speaking your brand slash challenge and follow us on social media where primarily on LinkedIn, someone on Instagram, a tiny bit on Twitter, but mostly LinkedIn. And we'll be sharing during the challenge. We'll be sharing them. So we would love to hear what you're finding for yourself. New women's voices that you're finding recommendations. We'd love for you to share them with us and with the other women who are doing the challenge as well. So in the show notes, here will be links to our social media accounts, so be sure to connect with us there. Diane, any final thoughts to add.
Diane Diaz:
That if everybody makes a even a tiny effort to speak up more, I think it has huge impact. And even if it's, you know, it can be scary. So even if the tiniest thing that you can do that feels not as risky for you, it's still something.
Carol Cox:
Yes. Like we're we're building the muscles a little bit like like a little bit. You're not going to go lift £200 the first time you lift a weight. I don't even know if we ever will lift £200 personally, but.
Diane Diaz:
Right. But if we lift a little bit together, it makes a huge difference. There you.
Carol Cox:
Go. We could lift £200 together.
Diane Diaz:
Together. Yes, absolutely.
Carol Cox:
I love that. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Diane.
Diane Diaz:
Thanks, Carol.
Carol Cox:
Thank you all for for listening and tuning in. Oh, and if you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend. Share it with someone who, you know, would love to hear what we talked about and would like to participate in the challenge shared on social media as well, and leave a review on Apple podcast because it helps new people find the show. Until next time. Thanks for listening.
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