Rise of the Feminine Voice as the Key to Our Future

what if the rise of the feminine voice

was the key to our future

that simple question probably triggered

a visceral reaction for some of you

positive for others resistant maybe even

a little panicky or angry

but would you agree that the world is

out of balance right now

maybe even in a period of chaos

why is that

i believe the key

is voice

ideas and the way we communicate them

are critical to our very survival

especially in this global world

voice determines how we’re perceived

who gets heard

and as a result both change and lack of

change

so how did the world come to shift to

such a state of imbalance

all the world is energy and we all have

both masculine and feminine energies

and yet

the feminine voice has been discounted

and sometimes outright suppressed for

generations

it’s recent history that women secured

the right to vote to hold property even

to be recognized as persons in the eyes

of the law

and in terms of our human experience

it’s still relatively recent history

that powerful women were burned at the

stake as witches and men

who tapped into their feminine embrace

their feminine were persecuted

we bought into the myth

that it’s a man’s world and we came to

define success almost exclusively based

on the masculine model

so it’s not a surprise that people

hesitate to step into the force of their

feminine power that both men and women

eschew that feminine in favor of a take

no prisoners approach to negotiating in

business

and in life

and so we tipped the balance

and i i was guilty as an attorney my

clients called me the barracuda

and they meant it as a compliment but

i’m now embarrassed to say i wore that

like a badge of honor for many years

i bought into the myth that toughness

carries the day

and that to have my voice heard i needed

to stifle my feminine

and to be fair there was some truth to

that because studies show that women are

still consistently talked over

in social settings in board rooms even

in the supreme court of the united

states

in fact in an exhaustive review of the

u.s supreme court transcripts they found

that the female justices were

interrupted in significantly higher

percentages than their male counterparts

on the bench

so perhaps you’ll forgive me if

sometimes i hate to admit i actually saw

my feminine as a liability

and note this wasn’t conscious

in fact i’ve come to believe it’s the

insidious nature of these unconscious

gender biases that make them so powerful

and dangerous

and i’m not going to put you on the spot

but i bet if i asked how many of you

believe that you’re biased against women

very few of you would put your hands up

and you would almost certainly be wrong

because we all carry deeply conditioned

gender biases

and i’m not talking about biases just by

men against women i’m talking about

biases by women against women even women

against ourselves

did you know that in a study of young

women

writing their s.a.t exams where half the

control group were asked to identify

their gender in advance of writing the

test simply check off whether they were

male or female

they performed more poorly

i want you to think about that for a

moment the power of a bias where the

simple act of bringing our attention to

our femaleness makes us underperform

and in another study they asked the

participants to select the best

candidate for the job seemed simple

enough but unbeknownst to them the top

two resumes were identical

except for name one man’s name

one woman’s name and i’m sure you can

see what’s coming in overwhelming

numbers both the male and female

participants picked the man for the job

based on identical resumes

and for too long we’ve had too few women

playing in our symphonies and

allegations of gender bias were scoffed

at

until they were called on to hold blind

auditions and suddenly lo and behold

more women started getting selected

and so with that as more and more men

and women reject their feminine in favor

of masculine believing with some reason

that that’s the only way to get ahead

you can see how we continue

to shift that balance

so what’s the impact of that well some

say we’re now in the best of times and

the worst of times technological

advances that would have seemed

unthinkable not long ago are now

commonplace

the average cell phone holds access to

more information

than jfk had at his disposal as

president of the united states

we have such potential at our fingertips

and yet

and yet suicide rates are at an all-time

high depression and anxiety are on the

rise as well across all ages and

cultures

we’re feeling the effects of climate

change and now the chaos of covit

we have more tools for communication and

yet we have less connection

we have more resources and yet we feel

more helpless

so what are we to do how can we take

control in a world where so much seems

to be out of our control

well you may not be able to control

what happens

but you know what you can control how

you choose to react how you choose to

show up

how you choose to negotiate this thing

called life

and make no mistake it is a choice

and it is a negotiation

as an attorney negotiating high stakes

deals for 30 years and now as a

negotiating coach

i came to have an epiphany

all of life is a negotiation whether

you’re negotiating with your kids or

your intimate partner or at work or

multi-million dollar deals

and so i dug in

and i researched and i asked myself what

if everything we thought we knew about

negotiation was wrong

what if in fact it was counterproductive

and sure enough when i

looked into the elements that make and

mark the most effective negotiators it

came down to six key skill sets

assertiveness rapport building empathy

flexibility intuition and trust and

don’t worry i’ve created a simple

mnemonic to make it easy for you to

remember just think are fit a-r-e-f-i-t

you are fit to be a great negotiator

and leaving aside assertiveness for a

moment

did you notice that 5 out of 6 of those

qualities that mark the most effective

negotiators are considered soft skills

or feminine traits

and even with assertiveness which most

people think of as a masculine trait

that’s usually based on a misconception

where they conflate assertive with

aggressive they are not the same thing

assertiveness comes from confidence and

confidence comes from knowledge and

knowledge comes from preparation

it’s that simple

my first whisper of what i’ve come to

call the art of feminine negotiation

came when my daughter our firstborn was

diagnosed with a serious heart defect at

only two months old and had to have open

heart surgery and everything that could

go wrong seemed to

as we were negotiating for her life

every day it seemed and we spent three

months in the hospital in critical care

and you would have thought if there was

ever a time that i was going to bring

that barracuda that would have been it

when we were having to negotiate for her

life

and yet i didn’t

i came from a place of pure feminine

intuitive strength

i was using the rfit model before i’d

even developed the concept

and every day i was having to build

rapport with the nurses the doctors the

administrators

i was bringing empathy to the table

commiserating with each of those groups

and beyond i had to stay flexible as the

ground seemed to shift beneath our feet

every moment

and tapping into my intuition as medical

terminology i’d never heard of before

coming to that hospital seemed to

channel through me when i needed it to

advocate for my daughter

and trust i had to trust myself and

build trust with all those other parties

and was i assertive

you bet when my tentative input at the

beginning was routinely rejected only to

turn out that i was right

i started to trust my intuition to use

my voice going head-to-head with the

country’s leading cardiologists setting

my intuition against their medical

degrees and decades of experience

like the time when jade spiked the high

fever and they tried to insist on a

barrage of invasive tests for everything

including meningitis and my suggestion

that perhaps she’s just teething was

dismissed out of hand as medically

insupportable

until the next day when her first tiny

tooth burst through those tender gums

and her fever

disappeared instantly

or the time when she was turned just

four months

and i asked them to please take out that

ventilator

because at that point she had been

breathing longer on that artificial

machine than she had been breathing on

her own

and they said nope she’s not ready that

can’t work and i had to dig deep to

trust my intuition when those seconds

counted down when they grudgingly did a

trial removal of that ventilator

and she wasn’t breathing

and she didn’t breathe and then they

called time and the team rushed in to

get ready to reintubate and i still

don’t know where it came from but i said

wait just five seconds and time seemed

to freeze as everyone in that room

looked at each other until one nurse

just started counting five and i was

like come on jade please maybe you can

do it four breathe honey just take that

breath three you are stronger than you

think you are sweetie please jade two

take my strength take my breath if you

need to one and then

and she took that first breath on her

own in two months

but then

just before five we hit five months

those cardiologists called my husband

and i into the office and they said

we’re at the end of the road

she’s not responding she’s barely back

at her birth weight we’re going to have

to take our chances and go in and

operate again and i said no

she’s not strong enough she will never

survive that

and i still remember that one

cardiologist looking me in the eye and

saying fine but we don’t think she’ll

make it and it’ll be on your head

when i had to trust myself and persuade

my husband to trust me as they had the

chief cardiologist come down and say

so what is it you think we’re not doing

that we should be doing mom

and i told them

and it worked and using that our fit

method

we were able to get out of critical care

and on our way home within one week of

that

and even then they said that jade would

still need a minimum of three more

surgeries

as she continued to hit her growth marks

in life

and i am happy to report that jade is

now 24 years old and has never needed

any of the many surgeries that they said

she would need and not even the heart

medication they said that she would be

on for life

so

for those of you who tap into your

feminine you already use these skills in

a myriad of ways every day

you’ve probably just never thought of it

as negotiating

and for those who tap into your

masculine

you’re able to

choose with intention to bring these

qualities to your negotiations

you’ve all likely been conditioned to

see these feminine traits as a weakness

so i invite you to flip that perception

turn that story on its head

it’s easier than you would think to use

these skills to elevate your influence

and your persuasive abilities and in

fact studies show that people who invoke

these so-called feminine traits into

their daily negotiations get better

results more creative solutions longer

lasting deals better buy-in better

relationships and overall more positive

impact both personally and

professionally

the world is out of balance today

the feminine voice is being diminished

and that imbalance is creating chaos

so i invite you to close your eyes for

just a moment

and imagine a world where we all

negotiated from a place of powerful

feminine persuasion

where we look to build stronger

relationships not coming from a place of

competition not looking to just have our

needs met but looking to understand and

meet the needs of others

valuing and respecting our differences

and stepping into the best of our

humanity

and the the gift of that approach is

that not only will it amplify your

ability to get what you want but it will

pave the road for better solutions for

everyone than could be anticipated under

the current competitive model

imagine a world where we all negotiate

from that place

the ripple effect of that transformation

cannot be overstated

and so i invite you i call on you to be

the change

to shift the world out of fear and

uncertainty into a place of powerful

resilience and possibility

because we all deserve that

thank you

[Applause]

you