[un]phased Episode 77

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

women, confidence, lisa, feel, endurance sport, people, girls, imposter syndrome, parenting, thinking, coaching, quote, podcast, william, world, sport, systems, folks, problem, late breaking news

SPEAKERS

Dr. Shaunna Payne Gold, Dr. Lisa Ingarfield

Hey y'all. Before we get into this week's podcast, we have some late breaking news. We needed to drop this in before we get into our podcast for this week. Lisa, tell him what's up what's going on.

Okay, so for those of you who got the newsletter this week, or last week, I guess you will have seen this, but I was browsing LinkedIn, and came across the USA Triathlon Coach of the Year honorees announcement. And so I glanced at who the winners were, and was a little frustrated to learn that all six of them are white people, four of them two men, and two of them two women, so not even half and half in terms of gender. I checked out the press release, and I checked out the websites and the links of the folks who were the honorees just to make sure. And they are all white appearing. And I have to say, I was pretty darn disappointed and obviously promptly texted Shawna to say, WTF

as you should have, because when I looked at the list, I was like, What the hell is going on. And I'm very disappointed and part of the reason why I'm really disappointed is because less than a month ago, my own trial team, which I will to their horn on this course sports, specifically launched their power up training program to get more folks especially more women of color involved in triathlon. So not only do they have the grant awardees, but they also have the powerup program coaches, Joy miles, Colonel Yvonne Spencer, Stacy windrow, Megan white, Angie brown, dark golden, every single one of them are women, and every single one of them are women of color. And that is only scratching the surface of the number of people of color and women of color, specifically, that are great coaches and great leaders in the sport of triathlon. So once again, I feel like we are in this network that that USAT does not want to get out of. I've partnered with USAT. I've worked with them in the past before. So that's why I feel comfortable mentioning this. There's some work to do, we have to get very intentional about making sure names like joy, Yvonne Stacy, mega Angela, Doc, that all of them are at least in the pool of nominees so that they can become selected. So this was late breaking news, we could not move forward without mentioning it. And Lisa, I really feel like there's work to do. So hey, USAT, if you're listening to this podcast, reach out to us or we'll reach out to you. But we know that we can do better. So Lisa, I'm looking forward to marking this down because next year this time, when I look at the slate, I hope to see great women and lots of melanin and ethnicity and LGBT and non binary folks on the list, let's say

yes, I agree wholeheartedly. I think it's particularly saddening to me, given the work that they have been doing around Dei, A, and the work that they have been doing to try and establish women's teams at college at the college level so that it can be an NCAA sport, the work they've made for us. We know as you just articulated, there are tons of women coaches, tons of women of color who are coaching, and it doesn't take much to find them. Right? It really does, right? I think this should be a little bit of a wake up call, right? How will you allow your teams and your staff and your awards committees and various bits and pieces accountable for this?

Absolutely. So look, USAT have your people call our people, our people call your people, but we can't let this happen another year. We can't do it. And we can't continue to speak about this movement of being great allies if we can't demonstrate it. And so here we're demonstrating it as CO hosts but more importantly as allies of all the communities that were excluded from this slate. I'm Dr. Shawna Payne gold and I go by she her her pronouns. And I'm

Dr. Lisa inglefield. And I go by she her hers.

Welcome to unfazed a podcast to disrupt your normal and challenge your brain to go the distance

Do you remember that article shoulder I sent you related to confidence in the Atlantic? I've been thinking about it a lot. Mm hmm.

Yeah. Well, you know, it's hard to keep up with how many articles fly in the interwebs between you and I in a week. But that is one of the few that I actually read as soon as you sent it over to me. It was very interesting, this this whole competence piece and what exactly should we do with it? You know, that's what's interesting to me. It's like well, we have it hope believe we're trying to say here.

Yeah, I just thought it was such a profound in some ways, because it's like, I understand these issues, and then someone like, expressly articulates that in a way that I haven't been able to unlike. That's it, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. So I think it really, really, really applies to women in sport. And so how do you feel about talking more about it?

Last ID. So, Lisa, look, the Atlantic always has something good that I want to read. But this one really hit home in a great way. So would tell me about how you felt about it when you first read it, because clearly, it was profound enough for you to send it over to me. So it must have struck a chord.

Yeah, I think I had to stop myself from almost entirely just copying and pasting the entire article in quotes and putting it in a text message, because there were so many that resume resonated with me. So this very, one of the early quotes says, whatever the problems faced by women and girls, the implied diagnosis offered is typically the same. She just needs to believe in herself. And when I think back about my life, and the kind of ways in which I've internalized girlhood and womanhood and what I can and can't do, I mean, I've heard that message a lot. I mean, even things like, I have a poster on my wall that says, she believes she could, so she did, or something like that, and other kind of insecurities. No, to me inspirational to me, quotes from this woman who were talking about women and girls and confidence, and they can do anything and how the world would be a better place if women were in charge and all of this stuff. And so it just made me think about who that's actually quite powerful that we, as women have perhaps bought into this cult of confidence, and in so doing have diverted attention away from the reasons why the fundamental structural reasons why women struggle in society so much.

Oh, girl, and look, let me just tell you, I completely agree, and the reason why I resonated so much with that particular article, a couple things. You know, I have the the same quote that you mentioned, she believes she could so she did, and then I also have the other variations of it. She believes she could, but she was tired. So she took a nap, or she believes she could, but she done enough. So she sat down, you know, those types of things to where they're countercultural, extremely countercultural, I would believe for women, and I would think, in many ways, in specific ways for black women and women of color. But yeah, it just struck a chord for me, because I'm thinking to myself, you know, okay, is confidence supposed to conquer all? Because, you know, I've been in situations where I felt I had 100% confidence in myself as a human being, and it still didn't work out. Right. And it I didn't overcome that issue, or I didn't overcome that thing. And it wasn't a blame game type of situation. It just was not the south to heal whatever was going on. And so, to me, I feel like it's, um, what do they call it? The, the snake oil salesman or sales person where they're selling you, they're selling you something that doesn't work and doesn't fix anything? I think it's important, but I don't think it fixes larger things. Right, right. Yeah. Does that make any sense? That makes

total sense, because I'm even thinking about, you know, organizations like Girls on the Run and other similarly, aimed empowerment organizations, women for try, and you know, that are designed to build the confidence of women and girls, or at least, let women and girls know that they are wanted and valued in a particular space that maybe has been historically male. And so it kind of throws into disarray, all of those things. And I'm just gonna read another quote, because it's so good. Just, it made me chuckle. So, inequality in the workplace, female employees need to lean in eating disorders and poor body image. Girls empowerment programs are the solution, parenting problems, let's make moms feel more self assured. So they can raise confident kids sex life in a rut. Well, loving yourself is the new sexy. So basically, the saying like each of these message just takes the inequality that's threaded into our culture, and frames it as an individual problem, right? Like, the reason why the parenting isn't going well is something that's deficient in you. And this is a total aside and a little bit out there because it's not exactly what I related to this, but I was listening to the radio and the Sackler family had to listen to family. I have victims of the opioid crisis. And one parent, or Mother I think, um, you know, had a picture of her child and said something to the effect of, you know, you're a shitty human being greedy, blah, blah, blah. And why didn't your mother raise you with compassion or something like that? Right? Like your mother compassion. And like, I totally, I totally get what she means, right? And it's not a critique of her. And I'm very glad that they got the opportunity to do this. And those folks had to sit there and listen to it. But it just immediately was like, Well, what about the dad? Right, right? Or any other parenting figure in that person's life? Like, why do they have like zero responsibility? So when I think about the parenting piece here, you know, it's never around, let's make dads feel more self confident as a parent, right? It's always around let's make mothers feel more confident. So they can do a better job raising their children like the dad or you know, other family member or other family members that are involved in like, absent. It's just all on them on the shoulder. So that was a little digression, but it just made me think of it because we focus this empowerment shit on girls and women all the time. And I think

all the time. Yeah, the time wobbling. Well, and and that's where, okay, so let's, let's reframe, as I always say, when I'm coaching people, let's reframe So, if you're only empowering one specific group that comes with the assumption that they are disempowered, right, right. There's no need and empowering if they aren't disempowered in some way. So then to me, what does that mean for the inequality and disenfranchisement and oppression? That perfectly confident women and other individuals still experience every day? It just feels like we're telling people to just power through it, and you'll be okay. And, and I think it's, it is so complex, because I know, especially in the black community, around the time of Kwanzaa, for example, but I know there are other cultural in, in other world traditions that believe in self determination. And it's that I get to determine what I experience in this world, I get to determine my life and how I want to live it, I get to do XYZ. And that is very true. But that still doesn't take away racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, that is still there. And so what happens when someone has literally, I'm joking when I say this willed and gritted themselves to death, you know, we talked about grit before on this podcast, they willed themselves to do exactly what they would like, they've exhibited this quote, unquote, grit that Angela Duckworth talks about in her book, and yet, it's almost like a distraction where, oh, go look at the self confidence you should have, but you've turned your head away from the systems that have exacerbated the already existing problems. Right? So it's like a distraction. Right? It's, it's, it's, I've been calling it a confidence porn, if you will, because it's like it's the the competence porn piece of it is that it's a distraction that makes you think that oh, well, you know, as long as I you know, pump myself up and feel good about myself for this short period of time, and everything else will be alright. And it's not. It's not it's it's just like we've talked about what have we talked about? Ability porn. What's the other one? I know I'm choosing the wrong term inspiration porn we've talked about and yes, inspiration for There you go. And and I think what that's the thing, I think confidence porn could possibly be like the, the cousin to inspiration foreign, because it's it too much of it in the wrong direction, can be a distraction from systems that also need to be torn down at the same time.

Right? You know, I think about salary. Right? So we know that women and folks who don't identify as male, let's say, who earn less right wage discrimination. And it doesn't matter in some cases, how hard we work, or how late we stay, or how outstanding before us that we produce these, this wage discrimination is still there, right, because it's a systemic problem that undervalues women's contribution in the workplace or assumes that they're not as smart or competent. And so sure, I can have a boatload of confidence But if I have too much confidence, then I'll probably risk being called a bitch or aggressive or difficult, right? And so where's this happy? Medium? Where's that equilibrium? But, you know, confidence in men is not interpreted the same way. And if they work harder than probably would get a pay rise, and that is the right groups of women. So to your point, right, like, right, right, right, leaning in, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. You know, that's all very individual focus. And, you know, if I want to negotiate my salary, sure, women don't tend to negotiate their salary. And the reason for that is cultural norms around negotiation and around assertiveness means, right. So it's, it's not an individual problem. Right? So but if we frame it as an individual problem, then we lose sight of the fact that this is a cultural problem.

Right? Right. Right. Well, and, look, this reminds me of a situation I just went through this week, Lisa, the the short version of it is, you know, working with an agency that wanted to, obviously negotiate the fee for a keynote. And I made it clear, this is what it is. And you know, we'd already signed contracts and so forth. But they were trying to add additional things on to that, that were going to be go really time. I mean, a huge time suck. And so, you know, I had the confidence enough to go back to the contract. That is the reason why you have contracts in place to keep everybody, you know, honest on what they've prepared to do. And the here's the rub, even with my 100% confidence around what I bring what the contract said, what we agreed to originally, it still doesn't take away the systemic disenfranchisement of women, women of color, specifically, who shouldn't even have to negotiate this because I have yet to meet a white man that's ever had to negotiate a fee for a Keynote or for speaking or for consulting. And so even with 100% confidence, sometimes I feel like it still kind of parallels the grit conversation we've had before. We're encouraging women to have confidence about systems that shouldn't even exist. Right? It shouldn't even exist, right? Have confidence that you're the most qualified? Well, the issue isn't being the most qualified. The issue is the mindsets and the systems that assumed that she wasn't to begin with. There's nothing wrong with her. It's the system. That's the challenge. And so, to me, I'm like, this sucks, man, because I love confidence. And I love self determination. But I don't like the systems that require us to have, you know, confidence, you know, ad infinitum, where you it almost feels like you have to have more confidence than what any natural person should have to have. Like, if you and I, as a white woman and a woman of color. Yes, we may have the confidence of a man, but the fact that we have to have more confidence than a man or someone else that's in a privileged group. That to me is where the unfairness is. Mm hmm. That's what sucks about this to me. It just it feels off, it feels

off well, and you would have to have even more than I would have to have. So we I would already be like on overdrive. Right. And you would have to be on overdrive on overdrive, right, because it's so much double overdrive. That sounds like there's gonna be a lot of caffeine needed for that, I think. Yeah, right. Yeah. And that that is, it's covered up, right. Yeah, by this. Well, how about we both just attend an empowerment workshop so we can figure out how to negotiate contracts and salaries?

Right, right. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And so, you know, to me, it's like, you know, the, again, it's a great diversion from examining the problematic systems. Right. And what was that quote? You were you were telling me about Kim Kardashian now? I am the least Kardashian focused person on the planet. But yeah, did she say something about working?

Boy, yeah, I also I joined you at the low end of caring about Kim Kardashian. But he said something to the effect of women in business, like, here's some advice, get your ass up and work. It seems like no one wants to work these days. Quote, unquote. And it sounds like the Twitterverse which I'm also not on, lashed out quite significantly in response to that. So yeah, so really the reason why wow, you know, women in business struggle is because they're not competent enough. And they're lazy. I mean,

Oh, oh, really? Oh, okay. Well, there you go, you know, and that's so sickening. Right? And I mean, I'm, and on the converse of that Lisa, I Heard Warren Buffett who I'm not a follower of necessarily or a fan, but the his quote resonated with me that sounds like the contradiction to Kim Kardashian. Warren Buffett said if hardwork made someone rich, then construction workers and school teachers would be millionaires. Right. Right. And so it's like, you know, let's not again, yes, be self determined, be confident, be a hard worker. But what are we overcoming here? No. I mean, it's, it feels it truly feels like, you know, the equivalent in the endurance sport world that, you know, the white male gets to, you know, start that marathon on time. On on pace, you start an hour later, I start two or three hours later, but we're all expected to cross the line at the same time. Right? What else? Oh, what planet? Does that happen? None. Not never, ever. And so it just, it doesn't work, even with the most self determination. And so, you know, I think we're on to something when it comes to the confidence porn issue. And so I'm wondering what, you know, I don't want to say what the happy medium is. But where do we settle? Right? Where do we settle with? Confidence? Because let me be clear, Lisa and Shawna are not telling y'all to run down the street and tell all women and girls No, don't have confidence. No, that's I, we are far from that. But I do think, you know, how do we get to a place where we can both have competence and examine the challenges? Because Lisa, usually, we get painted with the, oh, that's just an excuse, because they're not XYZ? Or, like, I think we've talked about Sega many times on this podcast, but, you know, there's, there's a not not as if they haven't been examples before. But Sega is a concrete example of being able to compete on a high level, and still knowing that there are systemic issues. I think it's a little different. If you're middle of the pack back of the pack, and you're making the same observations that are still true. Well, oh, well, you just can't compete. You know, that's, that's your excuse for not competing at such and such level? No, it's still very real, no matter where you are in the pack of any race. But, you know, that's my frustration is that the calling out of systems is seen as a cop out for not performing at a certain level, which I know is not true. And women are still performing at those levels. And they can call it out at the very same time, right? It just, it's strange, and it's not a cop out.

Yeah, it's this, um, this rabid attachment to individualism that we've talked about before. That's so fundamental, at least to the United States kind of psyche, but even even embedded in these programs and activities and races that are marketed as opportunities for women and girls to feel empowered and achieve. Like, in the middle of that, right, it's still this kind of assumption, that it's an individual problem. Like it's an internal issue that needs to be fixed. Like you could just, oh, you know, we've talked about one Ironman slogan, anything is possible. No, anything is not possible because there's a whole ton of systemic baggage that a number of people carry around so yeah, you're retired. You're a younger white dude who's able bodied with lots of money to travel short. Anything is possible. Anyone else? Anything is possible. Asterix Right? Like

I started laughing. I couldn't get myself together, Lisa, because I'm thinking about us arriving at that Ironman race and you're like the vandal? That's like marking out the side of the big the big truck. You know, how they have the big truck with all the gear and everything it just marketed out? Oh, if

possible. Yeah. Yeah. Anything is what is the little like triangle thing you put underneath and anything but not Yeah.

So So if any, so if it's any race where there's been vandalism of one of the Iron Man trucks just assume it was me and Lisa, okay. Just assume it. Well, but

I don't want to get arrested. He just won't vandalize. And he hired where anything.

Look, and we're not paying to get into vandalized.

Right. Because to pay to get into vandalize anything would have to be possible so I'd have to be a white dude, but lots of money and a lot of free time.

There you go. See, we're absolved from all There you go. We're absolved. Yes, absolutely. But but you're you're right, though. It's like it's the it's the little asterisk on endurance sport. You know, it's the, you know, you're yes, you're confident. And we have a bunch of words. You have a bunch of words on our sports.

That is a delightful image shot. No, thank you just is

it just is messed up, man. It's just messed up. But now Now, to your point, though, you know? Yeah, I think this really feels like, you know, Lisa, when you're watching TV, and they have those commercials for like, you know, the cold cream for women, and you know, all this, you know, age defying data data. And, you know, I feel like it's somewhat preying on people in preying on where their Achilles heel is. Right? Because, you know, most of the time, what they do is, you know, they market cold cream at the time when most women, you know, 35 and up are watching TV, they're not going to do it. Well, you know, you don't see cold cream commercials on Saturday morning during cartoons for the kids. Now you don't you see what I mean? Like, you don't see that shit. And so, you know, that's why I'm like, I feel like it's similar to this where, okay, anything is possible for all of you, women who are going back to last week, middle aged, and not quite sure if you're still an athlete or not, and trying to find your identity, because you've been through some shit, and you're trying to figure your life out after a pandemic. Right. I don't know, I just, I haven't settled anywhere. But I do think, again, this is another area we need to consider as we're tapping into markets as we do want to grow our sports, but grow them in a way where yes, people feel competent. And we're tackling systems that are raggedy as hell at the same

time. Yeah. I mean, I'm thinking back to the first time I ran two miles, and I felt so accomplished and so proud of myself. Yeah, so it's like, that's helpful, right? And I get it, you do a sprint triathlon, you do a half marathon, and you do a bike race, and you've never done it before. And that is holding. And we're not saying don't stop doing that. I think what we're suggesting that this cult of confidence, where everything becomes about women and girls confidence, and we'll just put a bandaid on it. That's the problem.

Mm hmm. Absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, I think that, you know, if you're going to talk about confidence, talk about everybody's confidence, not just women and girls, you know, let's do that. And still, at the same time tackle these issues in a way that's fair. And a way that, you know, begins to process equity, right, because we've talked about equity many times, here were one of the things I strongly believe in. And Lisa, you chime in on this to equity, to me is a process and an outcome. We want all these numbers. And we want these increases in the demographics of people in endurance sport, it's part of the process in order to get to that outcome. So your process doesn't include that confidence building of everyone. If it doesn't include the equity or the correction of historical wrongs in the process, then you still gonna end up with some raggedy stuff that's still inequitable at the end of the day. So, you know, I just believe it's process and outcome. And if you're just focusing competence on women and girls, yeah. What are you doing? What are you doing? So yeah, it's problematic.

I agree. I agree. So now that we've gotten all irate and passionate about this issue, we will include the Atlantic article link in our show notes so that you can read it and join us in our frustration article is good issue that discussion discussing creates frustration.

So that's right. That's right. Yeah, exactly.

I do think they don't mention sport, but I think it's absolutely applicable to school.

Absolutely.

Yeah. So how about some Hell knows and some hell yes. Hell yeah.

Hell no. Well, I would love to chime in on a Hell yeah, that's actually connected to this topic. Actually. I have a great friend. Her name is Christine sacks. And we went through our coach diversity training together but she is like a master certified coach. So she's gone up to all the levels with coaching. And I just want to shout her out and her coaching platform, Christine sacks coaching. She has an entire coaching program with three day coaching program that specifically tackles imposter syndrome. Lisa, I have never seen anything like this right. And so it's a three day intensive. You know, it's she even describes it on her website. I think she says something to the effect of three days 24 more hours and nowhere to hide. So you can't even hide from yourself in this process. And it's a it's a creative process where she's helping people to meet their goals and it's out of New York City. If you would like to participate, you have to be vaccinated. That's her policy. But I just thought it was so interesting that this program was called Turning Point imposter syndrome. Because, you know, again, Lisa and I are not saying don't have confidence, but if you do have challenges in this particular area, or you feel like you're unqualified to enter a certain space, whether it's endurance sport, or otherwise, this is I've never seen a program like this, Lisa, and she doesn't mention that it's just for women, or any of that it's open to anyone. And so I just wanted to throw that out there. It's coming up in June, June 24, to the 26th. And it's, it sounds like it's gonna be incredible. So, yeah, imposter syndrome. Let's tackle that, too. It's it's very real for many people. And so this podcast is not to dismiss folks who who struggle and really want to get through and beyond imposter syndrome. So yeah, check out Christie, my girl check. All right,

cool. And I feel like I have a litany of Hell knows. And while you were talking, I was thinking about which one should I choose? So which asterisk today? All right, I'm going to rain on your royal parade. Shawna, your love of the Royals? Yes, I am not a royal fan. I am a Republican, I guess would that be what it was called someone who's anti monarchy. And so William, and Kate, so William, Prince William is, you know, slated to be the king after Charles is king, hopefully for not very long after Elizabeth dies. So they these dominoes will fall fairly soon, I think. Yeah, I guess they were visiting some museum or something related to Ukraine, and made a comment to the effect of it's very unusual to see war in Europe, right. I forget exactly how he phrased it. But basically, the fighting and the wars only happen in non European countries. So countries that have predominately brown people that oh my god, people are super civilized and don't fight and don't have wars. That was kind of Oh my God. Amen. Aid. And then you know, a number of people have articulated how factually inaccurate his statement was given the number of wars that have happened at Europe. So yeah, that's kind of on the side of William Prince William you know, for me, I'm sorry that that might be troubling for you to hear Shona.

Well, look, first of all, Harry is my favorite. Anyway, that's the first day but but William, get it together, man. Get it to get what in the world? As if Europe has his war free and bloodshed free?

Well think about just like United Kingdom or England. Really. I mean, your England as a country, separate from the UK has been responsible for so much bloodshed and mud, and all whole host of stuff. It's just mind blowing. He would say,

I'm the worst historian on the planet. And even I know that didn't sound right. Okay. Period. No, there is no way in hell. No way. Get it together, William. And and here's my prediction. Again, my love of Harry, thank you very much, William. That's jacked up, and I'm just waiting for the first what do they call it? First of all pa whenever he is King, because if he has those sentiments now, and he's relatively young in the royal family, what in the world is he gonna say later on? I'm just like, Get out of here. That's incredible.

Yeah, yeah. Although is it really? I mean, a surprise. I feel like I'm not surprised.

Well, I mean, they lived in a bubble their whole lives. I mean, they learned what they were taught and spoon fed. So here we are. I mean, oh, William, get it together.

Get it together, man. A bubble King. There we go.

There you go. There you go. Exactly. Well, I need to be nosy and see how my girl the queen is doing because I thought she was COVID Positive. Right.

I think she's better. I think she might be coming out and getting parents so that's what I heard. Okay.

Okay. All right. All right. Sounds good. Because let me tell you I know you're not pro monarchy. But what is it you pick the the lesser of several evils and I'm like, the world is not ready for Prince Charles. Just not Yeah,

yeah. It would be great. Never be like, Yeah, shut it down right now. I mean, that would be great. But you know.

Exactly. Exactly. So anywho um, yeah, that that is is incredible but yet not surprising. We'll just leave it there so well there we have at least uh, we put together another decent podcast and you know, I have confidence people are going to reach out and tell us all about the podcast and how it resonated for them I have confidence and

yes, I have competence to that that's going to happen Absolutely. Unfazed, a podcast produced by Liv feisty media and supported by the outspoken women in triathlon summit

edited and produced by the fabulous Lindsay Glassford.

Email us at info at unfazed podcast.com and find us on social at try to defy at Dr. Gold speaks or at outspoken women and try. I'm Lisa.

I'm Shauna thanks for listening. Stay unfazed, folks. See you next time.