Amber Dietz: “How One Can Thrive Despite Experiencing Impostor Syndrome”

Inner Mean Girl — We all have this inner mean girl that is telling us we cannot do something that is very loud in our thoughts. Every time the mean girl shows up, reframe the Impostor Syndrom to a positive belief or things you have done that make you qualified. Repeat positive affirmations out loud and often. The inner mean girl can be the #1 thing that holds us back, and this will quiet her down.

As a part of our series about how very accomplished leaders were able to succeed despite experiencing Imposter Syndrome, I had the pleasure of interviewing Amber Dietz.

Amber Dietz is a business & marketing strategist that helps the soul-preneur build a business, a brand, and their Instagram to become their own digital CEO. She has built a trusted business with authenticity by sharing her insights, growth, and scalable business tactics with her clients so that they can build a business from their passion. Living beautifully untamed and building a business doing it is the name of the game for Amber.

From a single mom to what seemed only to be a dream, to now helping others around the world take their passion from their soul and build a scalable business doing it, is what lights her up. She is an iced coffee enthusiast, she sees the world in bright colors, and will build you a road map of success so that your soul is set on fire.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?

I was raised by my father who was a single dad to 3 kids, so needless to say we didn’t have much growing up. As I got older, I thought that was how life had to be for me too, a constant struggle and always stressed as a single parent. One day as I sat in my cubicle job, dreading the day again, I thought there had to be more to life than a job I never wanted to go to, being stressed, and living by someone else’s rules. Although it sounded great to have a better life, I still didn’t know how to change things or if I was smart enough, deserving of, or even had the time to figure it out. But, in 2013 when I was only 29, I was told I had a rare condition that may give me only a few more months to live. The doctors made it clear that they could not guarantee that they could save my life so I had to write out my will and say goodbye to my 5-year-old son. I had to stay in the hospital for what could be my last month’s thinking about how I never lived out any of my dreams and the passions on my soul. I knew then, that if I made it out alive, I would chase the passion that lived in my soul. Once I had survived the odds, I began the journey of following what set my soul on fire. This began the journey of leaving the cubicle behind, traveling the world, and starting a business to help others bring their passion to the world.

Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

There I sat alone in Munich Germany for business travel, a girl who had never been out of the US or hardly her home state. I had dreamed of traveling for work my whole life, but I thought there was no way it could happen to me. I was a single mom who had nothing, struggled for an awfully long time and so many limiting beliefs as to why I could never be anything more. And yet, there I was, smelling the fresh pretzels, the bubbly beer, and watching the crowds pass the enchanting castles in Munich. I had made it, I made it farther than even my dreams allowed me to have. I learned that you can do so much more than you even realize possible. That everything in the world is just waiting for you to show up and be the best version of yourself and when you do, the universe will serve you more than ever imaginable. I learned to never stop dreaming bigger and following that calling.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

Soul on fire was created not only to help entrepreneurs create a business, but to really craft something from you’re their soul. There is magic when you not only have a strategy but you are living a life always meant for you right from your soul passion. Business and income can be easy when you are doing what you are meant to do on this Earth. The root of this is from I will never forget about the doctors telling me that they could not guarantee they could save my life. That There is a chance I only had a few months to live and that gut wrenching feeling of how I was to fearful to live out what I wanted to do in this world. Because of this, Soul On Fire is not simply a guide on how to make a business, but the real depts of what makes life meaningful for each individual.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

I will never forget Cheryl Calvo. When I finally decided to leave the cubicle I dreaded so much, I never knew meeting Cheryl was going to change my entire existence. At the time, I wanted to climb the corporate ladder and travel the world for work since that was not something I had ever done in my life. I began going to interview after interview and constantly being rejected. I started doubting I could actually chase this dream of being more. I got a call for what was my dream job at the time and Cheryl interviewed me. She was magnetic, bold, and didn’t care what anyone thought of her. We connected immediately, but I still doubted I could really get a job I had only dreamed of for years. Days later after the interview, Cheryl called and offered me the job. She was the first person to believe in me and give me a chance. For the next year, we went on business travel together and she showed me a world I never knew existed. She believed in me and took me under her wings and changed me to the person I am today. After an amazing year together, I got a message I will never forget. Cheryl had unexpectedly passed away in her sleep. Although Cheryl’s time on this Earth changed me in to the person I am today, I also didn’t know that going to her services would also change my life forever too. It was no surprise that hundreds of people showed up to pay their respects to her, but what shifted my perspective was how every single person at her service had a story. They had a story about how Cheryl changed their life. They didn’t just speak about how they knew her, they all had amazing stories of the amazing things she had done to impact them. This was a major moment for me as I realized that is what life was really about, how you impact someone else’s life. I will forever take on that mantra in Cheryl’s name.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the experience of Impostor Syndrome. How would you define Impostor Syndrome? What do people with Imposter Syndrome feel?

You know that feeling when want to do something amazing, and immediately think ‘’Who in the world am I to do this?!’’ even when you have all the credentials or have done it a million times? This is Imposter Syndrome. It’s that voice inside your head that wants to keep you safe and makes you question what you are doing. No matter what stage you are at in your business, that voice can always jump in and remind you that they might find out you are an imposter. You can feel nervous, anxious, and as if at any moment someone is going to tell the whole world you are a fraud.

What are the downsides of Impostor Syndrome? How can it limit people?

Impostor Syndrome will keep your passions and dreams inside of you forever. It will be that voice inside your head that says you cannot build that business or write that book. Unfortunately, so many will let that voice get so loud so that they never follow those dreams on their soul. They may start the business or begin creating, but once Impostor Syndrome rears it’s spiky head into our thoughts, that’s wear our passions get halted for years and sometimes forever.

How can the experience of Impostor Syndrome impact how one treats others?

Because Impostor Syndrome can make you feel anxious, and out of place, you may treat others with big ideas with the same kind of judgement as you are expecting to happen to you. You may question someone’s credentials or authority based off your own fear of being called a fruad.

We would love to hear your story about your experience with Impostor Syndrome. Would you be able to share that with us?

There have been many times I have experienced this, but there was a time when I was sitting in a very elite fortune 500 conference room. There were CEO’s, executives, and big names sitting right next to me in that same room. I looked around at everyone who had high fashion clothing, & big titles. At that moment, the Impostor Syndrome rushed through me like a ton of bricks as I asked myself who was I to be in this room sitting next to these people? I thought someone was going to stand up tell everyone that I was once a broke single mom with nothing, and I was not qualified to be there. I edged to the end of my seat just waiting for that moment to happen the entire meeting. Every time I was asked a question, I thought ‘’this is it, they are going to tell me to get out. I knew I couldn’t do this!’’ Of course, as much as I thought about this every time I went to a big meeting, this never happened so I began to trust that I was meant to be there.

Did you ever shake the feeling off? If yes, what have you done to mitigate it or eliminate it?

I don’t think it is a feeling that will go away 100% even when you reach the next level. I will still have moments where I question if someone is going to find out I shouldn’t be there. But, I have used a few techniques to help eliminate it. One thing I will do is write down all my accomplishments, and why I should be there with positive affirmations. This make me feel renewed and a reminder that I can do these things and I belong in that space. I will also use photos or videos on my phone as a visual reminder to myself of all the things that led me to where I am. It is a reminder that the only permission or credentials we need come from ourselves.

In your opinion, what are 5 steps that someone who is experiencing Impostor Syndrome can take to move forward despite feeling like an “Impostor”? Please share a story or an example for each.

I use the I-S-H techniques (Imposter Syndrome Hacks)

1. Inner Mean Girl — We all have this inner mean girl that is telling us we cannot do something that is very loud in our thoughts. Every time the mean girl shows up, reframe the Impostor Syndrom to a positive belief or things you have done that make you qualified. Repeat positive affirmations out loud and often. The inner mean girl can be the #1 thing that holds us back, and this will quiet her down.

2. Fail Forward — Don’t be afraid to take the leap and fail. Action will always create clarity even if you feel like it is a fail. That fail will simply be a lesson and the more action you take, the less you will feel the Impostor Syndrome.

3. Your Tribe — You tribe of people that you surround yourself with personally and professionally make a big impact to moving past Impostor Syndrome. Even though your tribe may experience the exact same feelings, they can either hinder you or help you move past it. Set yourself with success over the fraud feeling with people that are also action takers and align with your vision.

4. Stick It- Grab a few sticky notes and write positive affirmation and your accomplishments as many places as possible. Remind yourself that you do deserve to be in that place and the more you remind yourself of this, the less you will have the inner mean girl show up telling you otherwise.

5. Soul-cial Proof — This step can be overlooked as we typically look for outward confirmations that we are allowed to do something. But, the permission that we are seeking that tells us we are not a fraud, simply comes from within. Sounds simple enough, but so many seek outward approval we don’t look internally. This will come from your soul, the inner work that reminds you that you are exactly where you are supposed to be and there is no reason to doubt it.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I would empower a movement that allows anyone and everyone to follow that passion that lives deep with inside them so that they live with their soul on fire every day. Everyone would have the tools to do what they are meant for on this Earth so that there would be no more dreaded Monday’s or not feeling fulfilled. The movement would allow you to live a life of purpose and be less struggle and stress and more just being and making a living doing it.

We are blessed that some very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them 🙂

I would love to dine with Marie Forleo! I would choose her because besides her amazing dance moves, she embodies the same vision I have for a movement of helping others see their unlimited potential. She was the first person that made me believe that I could be more in this world and led me down my journey to do just that. Besides being such an inspiration to this world, her epic humor, business tactics, and beautiful soul would make having a lunch with her magical.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Follow me on Instagram at @soulonfireofficial and FB @soulonfire02

Website https://soul-onfire.com/

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!


Amber Dietz: “How One Can Thrive Despite Experiencing Impostor Syndrome” was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Carla Williams Johnson of Carli Communications: They Told Me It Was Impossible And I Did It Anyway

Trust your gut. I’ll say every time…. I cannot tell you how many times I went against my own intuition and got myself in hot water. Listen to your instincts and allow that to lead you. Having the confidence and the desire to follow through will be much easier once you feel aligned and at peace with the decision you’ve made.

As a part of our series about “dreamers who ignored the naysayers and did what others said was impossible”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Carla Williams Johnson, CEO of Carli Communications LLC.

Known simply as Carli, she is extremely passionate about helping others and giving back, volunteering her time and skills wherever she can. When she’s not working, she can usually be found in the company of her adult daughter and infant son in the beautiful Caribbean twin island Republic of Trinidad & Tobago.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to ‘get to know you’ a bit better. Can you tell us your ‘backstory’?

I just always knew that I wanted to get into the field. I think I was the only person in the world who would get excited when commercials would come on during a program or rush to get the latest magazine to see all the creative ways print ads were displayed. Even at a young age I was always in awe of creative executions and how absolutely brilliant one must be to convince someone to purchase from just a few words and an image.

As time went on, my passion grew and it landed me to work with some of the most prestigious advertising companies with global brands. It was there I learned that there was so much that went into the final product and I was finally part of the strategic process.

I realized that there was so much brainstorming and creativity that went into a single campaign and, working in media, I had the single most important job of getting that creativity out to the right people. Plus I noticed that the more innovative the approach, the more of an impact the campaign made, which resulted in increased sales.

Fast forward, now I have my own company where I help entrepreneurs and business owners increase their visibility through the creative and strategic uses of media.

In my years, the one thing I saw regularly that really upset me was businessmen and women being ill-advised by greedy coaches and consultants looking to make a quick buck. These ‘so called’ gurus would use the client’s lack of knowledge against them to sell them a product or service that made no sense and gave absolutely no returns on investment. That’s when my business was born.

I feel like a superhero sometimes, to be honest. Like I’m saving the day (and the dollar) of people who are in danger of wasting their money. On the surface, I help clients with promoting their business, but what I do is assist my people with finding the best and quickest ways to truly connect with their ideal clients so that they can serve them and, of course, make some money in the process.

Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Well I plan on taking the world by storm.

Seriously, with the current pandemic and literally everything else going on in the world, I am really focusing on helping others be a bit more strategic with their marketing plans.

Building brand awareness and standing out is the name of the game right now because it’s the businesses who are seen and heard that’ll be the ones that will undoubtedly be remembered. My goal is to show how to use the online space more effectively as well as encourage business owners to include publicity into their marketing mix to give their brand that extra edge. With everyone moving to the digital arena, getting featured will definitely add credibility to their brand and put them in front of their customers and ahead of the competition.

My vision is to help as many business owners as possible promote themselves in the right way to the right people and to make their lives better.

In your opinion, what do you think makes your company or organization stand out from the crowd?

A colleague said to me: “I see everyone selling different things but I always consider you to be a true marketer because you’re the one who puts it all together.” That pretty much sums it all up honestly.

I see people selling all different aspects of marketing, whether it be Instagram tips, LinkedIn selling, copywriting, branding whatever……and all these things are great but what is the benefit to the recipient if they have no idea how to use it effectively or do not need it right now in their business. I like to look at marketing as a whole puzzle and advise persons what are the specific pieces they need to build their brand right now based on what they’d like to accomplish and what’s happening in the market right now…..and if that looks like me recommending them to someone else who can help them achieve those goals then so be it.

There are too many people out here looking to see how fast they can make a sale; driven by money instead of the desire of helping others. What sets me and my company apart is that I am the exact opposite. I believe the sale will come if my focus is giving value and helping others succeed.

Ok, thank you for that. I’d like to jump to the main focus of this interview. Has there ever been a time that someone told you something was impossible, but you did it anyway? Can you share the story with us? What was your idea? What was the reaction of the naysayers? And how did you overcome that?

I think we all as business owners have been put down or told that we wouldn’t make it at some point in our journey. What sets apart the successful entrepreneurs from the rest is what we do with that information.

When I first started on my journey, I was outright old my numerous people that I should

  • Forget my ‘stupid business venture’ because no one would take me seriously anyway
  • Why even bother, the industry is dominated by a certain type (aka white males)
  • Get someone ‘lighter skinned’ to be the face of my company if I’m ever going to succeed.

To get specific, I remember this one time that I was working with a group of entrepreneurs to produce what was supposed to be an event that would take all our businesses ‘to the next level’. The speaker of the event who happened to be a business coach started making demands of us which initially were fine but when she insisted that she AND HER HUSBAND (who was not a speaker but his expenses to attend the event needed to be paid as well) needed to be featured prominently to the top of the landing page, I pushed back. I stated that firstly, we compromised to place her at the top of the page granted she was not as well known to our target, and it was not her event but that she was a guest but I was totally against her husband being up there when he’s not even a featured speaker. Her response was a condescending “Well if you want to have a sold out event, you’ll need to have someone white featured………it’s just how things are……if you want to make it and be successful.” Then she added “I’m just telling you what worked for me…you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to…but this is what made me successful so if you want to sell tickets you should do it. ”

So basically, the color of my skin was directly related to my success or failure rather? What’s worse there were others who agreed with her……like this is some kind of unspoken rule that just needed to be accepted.

Well I washed my hands of that event, needless to say it never materialized, but I was determined to prove that the very thing people said would cause me to fail would be the very thing that will make me succeed!

In the end, how were all the naysayers proven wrong? 🙂

Well…. as I say to all my clients when they’re feeling anxious and nervous…….I channeled my inner Carli!

I got to work making connections, being brave and putting myself out there.

No more being timid or nervous about it.

I showed up anyway…. and the most amazing thing happened….the very thing that was supposed to support my failure as a business owner was the very things that propelled me forward. People loved my Trinidadian accent, my Caribbean life and did not see my skin color as negative. As a matter of fact, they wanted to know more about me, my business and my exotic life. Some people even commented on how smooth my skin looked.

Business began to soar and before long I was making regional and international connections, being mentioned in Forbes, BuzzFeed Huffington Post & Thrive Global, and of course, making money helping my clients. I’ve been asked to appear on television, featured on radio and in the press.

I’ve even been named one of the 99 Limit Breaking Female Founders, one of the top Marketers to follow for 2020 and recently nominated for the Media Innovator Awards 2020.

Not bad for someone who wasn’t supposed to make it.

Sometimes I think about what if I had listened…..what if I allowed these people and this one ‘so called’ business coach to derail my greatness?

I would have missed out on sooooo much but I want anyone who’s reading to know that you must silence these people and dare to dream and achieve those dreams in spite of what anyone says. There are people out there who need you.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

There are so many people who have helped me in so many ways, but I would have to say my best friend who has been cheering me on from day one! Odessa Laulys has been by my side and is literally my rock and really, she’s more than a friend, she’s my big sister. She’s been there for everything in business and in life and I have no idea what I would do without her.

Another person I must shout out is my good friend Marlena Cole. She’s a Relationship Coach and she actually reached out to me because she knew I could help her build her business. Little did we know at the time that such a close friendship would emerge. She saw in me what I was so afraid to see in myself and truly gave me the confidence to step out and do what I’m good at.

It must not have been easy to ignore all the naysayers. Did you have any experiences growing up that have contributed to building your resiliency? Can you share the story with us?

I’ve been pretty lucky to have a family and friends that believed in me from a young age. I think my earliest memory of resilience would have been when I started in corporate. The story that stands out to me is I was working an 8–4 job and was unhappy with where I was to the point of being physically ill, and under-appreciated at my job. I had since graduated to managerial position but I was just so miserable, particularly by the way I was treated.

One morning I was called in by the Human Resources Manager who informed me that my job was now redundant. So here I am after sacrificing to stay in a job I hated only to be told that I was no longer needed. But you know what…….it was the BEST news ever!! I felt as if a weight was lifted off my shoulders and was happier than I had ever been in a long time.

When I arrived at my next phase in life, I was a young single mother, with no job, no plan of action, no money, and no clue what to do. I was a bit scared, but a lot determined that I needed to get focused. I fell back on what I was good at and what had always made the companies I worked for successful. I started to meet people, expand my horizons, and make valuable connections.

Sometimes I made no money at all, sometimes I made just enough to cover my bills and there were days I cried long tears and almost lost it because I knew I was working hard.

This was the turning point for me, after all a marketer should be able to market her own business, right? I dusted myself off and took the rest of the year to plan my strategy and fall back into my marketing roots. I had to remember that people paid me to get them out of the rut I seemed to be in.

I revisited my strategy and in six weeks I was able to land a client who, without hesitation, paid me five figures.

Not only that, I was getting numerous calls for interviews and to be featured in local and international publications. Clients were calling, I was getting referred left, right and center and I created and sold my first online program.

I let go of all the fear, self-doubt, and less-than-stellar results of my first year as an entrepreneur, rose to the occasion and trusted in the Universe’s plan; but even deeper still; I wanted to prove others that I could do it!!…….AND I DID 🙂

Based on your experience, can you share 5 strategies that people can use to harness the sense of tenacity and do what naysayers think is impossible? (Please share a story or an example for each)

  1. Ignore aka press the mute button. Seems hard at first but after a while it becomes much easier because you can spot the BS a mile away. There will be the ones who say you can’t do it to your face; there are are the ones who will wish you bad behind your back and still there will the ones who you thought would be there for you that will just disappear……..in spite of it all you just have to keep going, keep moving and understand that they are the problem. They are wishing that they could do what you are doing and that’s their burden, not yours. Silence them in your mind and keep moving forward.
  2. Community is key. Find a community of like-minded and ambitious persons to lean on when it all gets too much. Persons you can bounce ideas off of or can just give you that motivation to push through. Sometimes when I’m feeling stuck or depressed, I hop on a call with one of my business besties and I feel fully recharged. Having a community of people who have your back will ensure that none of that negativity even gets a chance to affect you….your people will keep you going.
  3. Believe in yourself and forget what others may or may not say. Think about it this way, you wouldn’t be in business if you didn’t know what you were talking about so think of yourself as the master of your industry and run with that feeling. You have what it takes to succeed; you absolutely have to believe that.
  4. Trust your gut. I’ll say every time…. I cannot tell you how many times I went against my own intuition and got myself in hot water. Listen to your instincts and allow that to lead you. Having the confidence and the desire to follow through will be much easier once you feel aligned and at peace with the decision you’ve made.
  5. Protect the asset. Negativity multiplies and you are the most powerful ingredient in your business and in your life and you’ve got to protect your mind. It will be harder for negative views to penetrate if you keep a positive space. Consider reducing contact with persons who are negative in general. That can look like unfriending and unfollowing persons on social media who spread negativity or generally makes you feel down or depressed; unsubscribing from mailing lists and reducing verbal conversations. Also consider cutting down the amount of news you consume daily. Replace with positive habits such as mediating and exercise. You’ll be amazed at how much better you feel and how much harder it would be for anyone to even try to put you in a bad mood.

What is your favorite quote or personal philosophy that relates to the concept of resilience?

My absolute quote is from Maya Angelou

“I did then what I knew how to do.

Now that I know better, I do better.”

I live my life by this because it reminds me to never stop learning, growing and improving.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I honestly feel that men are ‘groomed’ (for lack of a better word) a particular way and therefore they are ‘expected’ to act and react in situations that can be really unhealthy for them and the people around them. Society still expects them to be a certain way which is counterproductive to how the world is progressing. If I could I would create a movement to address this because while women are becoming empowered, men are still being held to the same outdated stereotypes with their worth measured by an old-fashioned value system. I think helping these men unlearn some of the traits they were exposed to can truly help the world become a better, less violent place.

Can our readers follow you on social media?

Everyone is invited to ‘Keep up with Carli’ on social media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carlicommunications

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carlicommunications/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlicommunications/

Thank you for these great stories. We wish you only continued success!


Carla Williams Johnson of Carli Communications: They Told Me It Was Impossible And I Did It Anyway was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Author Dr. Karen Morley: 5 Things We Need To Do To Close The Gender Wage Gap

Men then, are more likely to get the more visible roles, the high-profile projects and line and operational management roles. Being more visible, it’s easier to believe they work harder and achieve more. Ergo, higher pay.

As part of my series about “the five things we need to do to close the gender wage gap” I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr Karen Morley.

Dr Morley is an authority on the benefits of gender balanced leadership and how to help women to succeed at work. She helps leaders understand the value of inclusive leadership to organisational as well as social outcomes. She is the author of Beat Gender Bias: How to play a better part in a more inclusive world; Lead like a Coach: How to Make the Most of Any Team; and Gender-Balanced Leadership: An Executive Guide.

Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us the “backstory” that brought you to this career path?

It was a while into my career before I noticed the difference that gender played in the ambition women could express, and the opportunities and rewards that came their way; I felt rather blind-sided when it did. Fairness was such a strong value and I couldn’t believe that there was such inequality at work. When it hit me, I became determined to change it. That was 30 years ago, and while I can see a lot of progress in that time, there is still plenty yet to do to achieve gender equality.

I’d begun my career working in an organization that had a female CEO and a very gender-balanced workforce. The respect paid to everyone regardless of gender was high; it was the way things were. I was a psychologist working with women and children experiencing domestic violence. It wasn’t all ‘kumbaya’; I knew the world wasn’t fair for many.

It was still a shock to move into a more corporate world and find that inequality was marked. I believed that as a professional woman with excellent credentials and a high-performance track record I would experience the same opportunities as the men around me, but that wasn’t the case.

In those still early career days I experienced setbacks and missed opportunities; I felt passed over for promotional roles, with vague feedback as to why. I was certainly aware of times when male colleagues doing the same work were being paid more than I was, and it was extremely difficult to raise the subject and have a satisfying discussion about it.

Since then, I’ve been committed to doing what I can to advance the careers of women and promote inclusion. I want to change the way we shape and experience the world of work. Work should be a place where talent and potential shine, where people are noticed and recognized because of what they can do, not what they look like: no-one should be held back due to their gender, sexuality, skin colour, handedness or any other feature. We should all have the opportunity to rise to be our best!

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this career?

The most interesting and moving story in my first couple of years of working was helping a client who was subjected to domestic violence not just free herself from that violence, but go on to make a successful career for herself. It was also when I appreciated the full impact of extreme gender-based inequality and its nasty ugliness.

Assault, emotional blackmail and financial abuse by my client’s partner, whom she was attempting to leave, took a sickening turn when he ram-raided her car, threatening both hers and their child’s lives. What followed was days and weeks of creating a new identity, setting up a whole new life for her and her family, so that she could free herself from the violence. It was exhausting for me, so very much worse for her. She had to give up a great deal, including her name and her home.

The story has a beautiful ending. After a couple of years she was free of the violence, had completed her degree, loved her new home, had happy children and had become an eloquent spokesperson against domestic violence.

She was then living the life that she’d dreamed of and yet not felt was possible. To see her success and confidence was inspiring, and has remained with me.

Gender pay equity might not be at this extreme end of the spectrum yet violence towards women and unequal pay have their roots in the same set of beliefs; women are supporters, possessions, inferior to men.

Can you share a story about the funniest or most interesting mistake you made when you were first starting?

I think that the most interesting mistake that I made, and kept making for a while, was to believe that I wasn’t making gender-biased decisions too. That bias was something that (some) men did to women. That those who were biased were intentionally so. Sometimes that is what’s happening. But more often than not, bias happens outside of our conscious awareness; it’s accidental not intentional.

I’ll share an embarrassing example. I was walking along an airport concourse and saw two pilots, one female and the other male. There was a significant height difference between them. What flashed into my mind was: ‘She can’t be a pilot, she’s not strong enough.’

Whoa! I had to quickly apply the brakes to this automatic judgement — I made the judgement before I was aware I was making it and I most certainly didn’t agree with it. Still, I made it.

About 75 per cent of us use traditional gender roles when we make decisions — they are out of sight, but not out of mind. I know I do, so that means I can — usually — catch myself in the act. Unconscious bias isn’t something that men do to women. It is based on expectations that are unknowingly held by men and women.

Becoming aware of the impact of unconscious attitudes on choices and decisions was the biggest turning point in how I approached gender bias and inclusion. Once I learnt about this and understood how it worked in action, I was able to take a ‘lighter’ approach to helping people understand what bias is and how they can minimize it. Because we don’t mean to do it, if we discover we do, we’re usually motivated to change. We want the decisions we’re actually making to be the decisions we believe we’re making. Inconsistency spurs us towards change.

Even now, as such a strong advocate for gender inclusion, I have to keep reminding myself that I may be making biased decisions, and to remain vigilant in my decision making.

Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

The key lesson I’ve learned is that change is always possible. There’s no point getting caught up in the change we haven’t made, it’s always about what change can we make.

And I can’t make other people change their beliefs systems, but the thing that I can do is to help people understand how their beliefs work. Insight then may lead to motivation to consider our beliefs and to possibly change them. And that’s the only way to get change — people willingly identify the change they want to make, and then they go about it.

There’s another lesson that I’ve learned from my experiences that I’ll add to this one. When I was growing up I thought that I lived a pretty boring life. In my teen years life felt suburban, safe, normal; boring.

The experiences with my client above led to a massive turnabout in my thinking. I am now able to look back on my childhood and teen years as providing me with such a solid sense of who I am. I was safe from harm. I’d not seen it then as a privilege, but now I certainly do. I’ve lived an ordinary life, which is an immense privilege and I am extremely grateful for it.

Ok let’s jump to the main focus of our interview. Even in 2019, women still earn about 80 cents for every dollar a man makes. Can you explain three of the main factors that are causing the wage gap?

The overarching factor is that traditionally, we expect women to be warm, kind, gentle, and understanding while we expect men to be tough, competitive, assertive and competent. We associate women with nurturing, support and lower status roles while we associate men with power, authority and higher status. We like women and respect men. While these are traditional views, and some of us don’t like them much, they persist. They’re sticky stereotypes.

We don’t have to agree with these gender-based expectations for them to affect our decisions. Nobel prizewinning psychologist Daniel Kahneman has alerted us to the fact that our brains work on two very different levels, ‘fast’ and ‘slow’. While we believe that we know what we are thinking, we often don’t. Most of our ‘mental work’ occurs in the fast lane of intuitions and impressions. Most decisions are made without awareness.

A hefty part of the gender bias problem is that it’s not always possible to know when you’ve made a decision, let alone whether it was fair or biased. That’s a big problem when we’re working out what to pay people.

It’s one thing to make decisions and not know it. It’s even worse to make decisions you don’t know you’re making and not agree with them. See my pilot story above.

Bias hinders women’s progress in organizations in these key ways:

1. You can’t be what you can’t see. Affinity bias means that we like people who are just like us and are more influenced by people who are similar rather than different. This can have a significant impact on career choices. If I can see ‘people like me’ in a particular career or job role, I’ll choose that path. If I can’t, I won’t.

What that means is that there are fewer women in senior, decision-making roles — that’s where pay decisions get made. It also means that homogeneous groups of people generally make poorer decisions — they deliberate less, they ‘think they know’, they don’t question or challenge their thinking. With little diversity and no particular attention paid to bias, it’s not surprising that women get less pay than men.

2. You’re damned if you do and doomed if you don’t. Women’s progress is limited by expectancy bias. Women are commonly ‘demoted’ to roles that are in keeping with traditional expectations. Female doctors are often mistaken for nurses, female lawyers for paralegals. We do not expect women to hold senior roles, despite the fact that, increasingly, they do.

Women, even very senior ones, are still expected to do the ‘office housework’. When a man offers to help with these tasks, we praise him for his contribution. His help is less expected and more visible. If a woman declines to help, she faces backlash; she’s selfish. When a man says no, there’s no similar backlash; he’s busy. The time that women spend helping others penalizes them by taking them away from progressing their own careers.

Men then, are more likely to get the more visible roles, the high-profile projects and line and operational management roles. Being more visible, it’s easier to believe they work harder and achieve more. Ergo, higher pay.

What you see is not what you get.

This plays out in pay through two biases; confirmation and certainty.

Competence is how good you are at something. Confidence is how good you think you are at something. How accurate are people at assessing their own competence? Not very; men are much more likely to over-rate themselves than women are. If a man says he’s got what it takes and a woman says she’s not sure she has, he’s more likely to be chosen, but she’s more likely to be the better candidate.

‘Confidence’ creates a bind for women. It contradicts the female stereotype of women as supporters not leaders; submissive, kind and caring. If women conform to the stereotype, they’re not suitable leadership material. Yet when they act with confidence, they are penalized for being ‘more manly than the men’. This is confirmation bias at play.

Norms about masculine behaviour and its fit with leadership are barriers to women. They cause women to moderate their own expectations and guide decision makers’ choices about leadership potential, ability and reward.

Expressing confidence in your own leadership capability is an almost guaranteed entrée to the high potential track. Is it as important as we think it is? No.

Leaders who appear confident, regardless of their competence, can be very convincing. We are more likely to believe they have leadership potential. We prefer to listen to them than to someone who expresses doubts or identifies gaps, even if they are voicing those concerns because they are confident. We mistake doubt for a lack of confidence, and therefore a lack of leadership.

For women to be seen as influential leadership material, they need to be seen as confident and competent (masculine norms) as well as caring (a female norm). Men need to be seen only as confident. While they remain, these masculine norms for leadership set a much higher barrier to entry for women. Rather than expect women to become more confident, we should downplay the primacy given to confidence, and instead prioritize competence.

The more certain we are, the more likely we are to make biased decisions. Certainty bias means that we tend to think that our decisions are much better than they are; we tend to dismiss the possibility that we are biased. Frustratingly, because biases operate unconsciously, it’s hard to know when we are in their grip. Getting proof is tricky, and happens in retrospect, if at all.

There are good tools available for organizations to systematically reduce the impact of masculine norms on leader identification. Yet they are not used as much as they should be. Seventy-five per cent of HR leaders from top global companies say that the subjective opinion of the person’s boss is the most common way to identify leadership potential. Given the potential for affinity bias, that is, to choose people most like ourselves, this is as flawed as self-assessment.

And certainty bias is more likely, not less, when organizations promote merit as a cultural value. Leaders tend to believe that their decisions are impartial. They invest less effort in avoiding stereotypes, creating a paradox of meritocracy. Researchers Castilla and Benard have found that when organizations promote themselves as meritocracies they pay men more than women despite identical performance ratings.

Whether you know you are biased matters less than accepting that you are likely to be biased. We could all do with being more modest, less certain, about our decisions. That’s a great way to do the broader groundwork for equality.

These biases all spill over into pay — many pay decisions are not made on the basis of objective measures, but on the basis of affinity, expectancy, confirmation and certainty biases.

Can you share with our readers what your work is doing to help close the gender wage gap?

I’m working with senior leaders, men and women to make the impact of unconscious bias more transparent. The more we know about how it works and how it impacts decisions like performance ratings, allocation of projects and pay, the better.

One of the things that I’m particularly passionate about is finding ways that we can speak more collegiately, openly and candidly about the different ways that men and women experience work, the relative ease or difficulty they have in progressing their careers. If we can notice it, and talk about it, we’re on the path to rectifying the problem.

If we are oblivious, argue and disagree, we can’t make progress.

Conversations about gender and bias can be contentious. Nobody wants to see themselves as biased, as flawed. And while most of us mean well, that doesn’t mean that we have the conversations that we need to have or that the conversations go as we would like them to.

I’m encouraging leaders to face into the difficult conversations and have them rather than avoid them. We need to give up the idea that we can have the perfect conversation, the idea that this conversation will be the one to fix everything. Instead, those interested in more inclusion and better decisions can use their motivation to increase the number of positive conversations they have.

We can stop feeling like we’re walking on eggshells, look at the data, make the facts transparent and that will go a long way to equalizing opportunities and rewards.

Can you recommend 5 things that need to be done on a broader societal level to close the gender wage gap. Please share a story or example for each.

1. Become more aware of your own potential for bias.

At the most personal level, I recommend that people get curious about themselves and their own potential for bias. You can do a quick online assessment of your unconscious attitudes at https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/. About 75% of us have traditional gender associations and this is what can lead us into biased decision making.

When I conduct training on inclusion, I usually ask people to complete this before we start. There is always a really interesting discussion as people consider the idea that they have attitudes they’re not aware of. Women in particular find it confronting; perhaps we have the bias that it’s men who are biased, but if anything, the data shows that women are more likely to hold these traditional attitudes unconsciously. Women are less likely to have these as conscious attitudes — the ones they know about — so it’s intriguing to explore the interplay.

You can always try the story that’s used a lot in diversity training as a way to bring the unconscious to life. This is the story of the boy who has a terrible car accident in which his father dies. He’s taken to hospital and the surgeon says I can’t operate on him, he’s my son. Who’s the surgeon? I’ll leave that with you…..

The point of becoming more aware is that if you become more attuned to the possibility of bias, you are more likely to notice it. If you notice it, you can then make a choice about what to do about the bias.

2. Make it safe for people to share their views.

Attitudes and beliefs are contentious, and we are all entitled to what we believe. If people don’t feel this level of respect, conversations about gender beliefs and pay are too much of a struggle.

To set up a safe way to have these conversations, encourage people to be curious, ask ‘what can we learn?’. Encourage candour. When we’re dealing with contentious issues, it’s really important that people feel that they can say what they think without reprisals. We need to be able to name the elephant in the room. It’s better to know than not to. If people feel they have to suppress their true beliefs, they won’t tell you what they think. The bigger downside of this is that suppressing beliefs actually increases them. It’s counterintuitive I know, but if we ignore biases they have a bigger effect.

I was asked to ‘coach’ a senior male executive whose CEO considered him to be a ‘resistor’ to his gender diversity strategy. The executive started our conversation on the defensive, yet when I made it clear that I wasn’t going to tell him what to do and instead asked him, with curiosity, about his own experience of diversity, he told an amazing, positive story. Over time he went on to repeat that story to peers and colleagues and has since become known as a champion of gender diversity. What was the difference? For him, being guided by his own experience, and locating the value of diversity in that experience. It was also not about imposing a strategy on him; he felt like he would be saddled with targets that he wouldn’t be able to meet, affecting both his sense of status and self-esteem.

3. Be an ally

It can be threatening for people who feel excluded to speak up about their experiences, or their different needs. When women ‘raise the gender card’ they may well be greeted by eyerolling. Women may be reluctant or not know how to take action if they believe they are not being paid fairly.

With allies around you, it’s easier to speak up about different experiences. Allies share information that they have access to. Allies notice when someone’s anxious or upset and ask why. It’s much easier for someone who feels annoyed, threatened or unsafe to reach out to an ally.

Being an ally means that you are proactive in your support, and you call injustice out when you see it. By being an ally, you reduce bias. You show people that support counts. You show people that it’s safe to speak up about concerns and questions about identity and opportunity. You make inclusion matter.

Everyone in every conversation can make a contribution to supporting others. You can notice when others don’t get a turn, when they are talked over, when they don’t feel safe, or seem frustrated by not ‘being heard’.

Jasmine’s story is a good example. She was feeling more and more uncomfortable when she walked into the tearoom. Several times she’d interrupted conversations in which women’s bodies were being derided. It was clearly inappropriate. There were a couple of senior managers involved in the conversations. As a relatively junior staff member, Jasmine just wasn’t sure what to do about it. She felt embarrassed both by the topic, and by walking into the room in the middle of such conversations. She raised it with her team leader, John, who then raised the concern with the senior leaders. They claimed to be “just joking” and saw it as “harmless fun”. John disagreed with them and called them out for their inappropriate behaviour.

It was David Morrison as Lieutenant General of the Australian Army who popularized the saying “The standard you walk past is the standard you accept”. Let it go by once, and that gives permission to repeat these behaviours and for others to join in. Be an ally, call it out, and you can help make work experiences more inclusive.

4. Make people decision-making transparent

Given that many critical decisions, such as performance evaluations, leadership potential assessment and pay are often made without much recourse to data, that’s an important gap to fill. And the more transparency there is, the fairer decisions become.

If there are clear criteria for people decisions, the right measures can be developed to help make the decisions. Holding managers accountable for making fair decisions puts responsibility on them to do so. Their decisions can then be assessed for their fairness and support, and advice provided to rectify inequities. When such decisions are openly reviewed for fairness, again, the evidence is clear that fairness does increase.

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, pledged to create equal pay. He thought that it was equal, until he saw the data, that showed a 6% inequity in salaries. Two years later, they did the same review, after company acquisitions and salaries again had to be adjusted. As Benioff says, all CEOs have to do is press a button and they get the data. Measures are important and continuing to pay attention to them over time is equally important.

5. Advocate for inclusion

As humans, we have traditionally related to each other based on how similar or different we are. People are categorized as either ‘like me’ or ‘other’. This may have had advantages in the past. We now live lives that are highly interconnected and the social boundaries and role ascriptions that served us in the past no longer serve us. Diverse groups are of much greater importance to our future, which is exciting.

Inclusion promotes appreciation of different perspectives. When people feel a sense of belonging and that their uniqueness is recognized, they are more engaged. That is when the collective intelligence of a group to perform and innovate is more likely.

As an advocate you can:

  • Engage people to create their own solutions to inequities.
  • Work with volunteers and use curiosity as a key hook.
  • Increase contact and connection between under-represented groups and ensure that they work together; this minimizes status differences and focuses on work and learning.
  • Make responsibilities transparent and make people accountable for their actions — this will tap into their desire to look good to others.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Check your privilege. There’s a strange psychology of privilege that works like this: when we see group disadvantage, we tend to minimize the group’s disadvantage and play up our own.

We fear that others will see our privilege as unearned and in a sense, we dissociate ourselves from it. For example, people who use family connections to get a job don’t see that as advantage; they believe that they have won the job on merit. When they hear of others who used family connections to get a job, they see them as benefiting from advantage and judge them as less qualified.

The rules applied to others’ behaviour are different from the rules we apply to our own.

If we reflect on the privilege that we hold as part of a dominant group, such as men or whites, then we are less likely to minimize our advantage. We can reflect and remind ourselves of our values (for example, fairness) or we can reflect on our personal successes.

Checking your privilege means reflecting on the ways that you may have relative advantage in your workplace.

Metaphorically give yourself a pat on the back for what you have achieved, and it will be easier to see the disadvantage that others face. You might believe that others around you would also benefit from checking their privilege. Give them a pat on the back for what they have achieved. Then talk to them about group advantage and disadvantage. They will be more likely to appreciate their personal advantage and be more open to seeing the disadvantages that others face. If they can check their privilege, they are more likely to notice the disadvantage, and then they can act on it too.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Gloria Steinem’s ‘There’s no greater gift than thinking you had some impact on the world, for the better’ has been a guiding philosophy. I can be better, enjoy my life more and feel satisfied in my achievements if I can make a positive difference to others’ lives.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂

The person that I would most like to have a private meal with would be Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand. Her leadership style, particularly through the coronavirus crisis, has been noted by many. She stands out as a beacon for gender-inclusive leadership. I hope that her role-modelling encourages many younger women to consider pursuing careers in non-traditional areas, and younger men to consider different ways of leading. And all of us to lead with greater compassion. She’s showing the world that our notions of gender are outdated, and it’s a pleasure to see her in action.

This was really meaningful! Thank you so much for your time.


Author Dr. Karen Morley: 5 Things We Need To Do To Close The Gender Wage Gap was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.