Episode Transcript
[00:00:11] Speaker A: Here we go.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Here we go.
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Here we go.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: I just wanted. This is more of not a topical conversation today. I know. You have no idea. Coming into this, you're coming in cold. And we do that sometimes. This is more. It's just on my mind, and I hate to use the word rant, but it's going to come off like a rant. And I'm just going in and I would like your response on this.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Go in.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: I'm trying to figure this out and I hope through our discussion and with the audience engagement we can come to some conclusions here.
[00:00:48] Speaker A: All right, so they should start tweeting now.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: Tweeting? We're not on Twitter.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: Oh, shit, sorry. Forgot.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Okay, so here's the thing. The other day we posted, we, Tommy posted a short. You know how we're interjecting shorts into our podcast?
And this is just one example, one example of what I'm going to talk about. But this is the most recent post, a short. And I believe the short. I don't think you were in it. I think it was just about a minute of me talking. It was something about hard work, right? I don't think it was a super polarizing topic. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but it was 1 minute about hard work and how I value it. So immediately somebody came back and said, I wonder how much her daddy gave her, or something like that. Right?
[00:01:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
We haven't even talked about this.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: And my initial response, I know I shouldn't respond back, but I was like, little bitch, I want to respond, but here's my question. I talk about hard work. If that were you, and this is true. You know it's true. I know it's true. If it was a male that sat there and we got pretty good amount of view, I think we got like 500 views immediately on this.
If it were you, nobody would have said, I wonder how much his daddy gave him.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on that.
Sorry, go ahead. If you have not finished your question.
[00:02:18] Speaker B: This is a preface to hopefully a longer engaging conversation today about. I'm just trying to figure out why is it and that there are certain things that females do that are taken so out of context or not seriously or not viewed the same. And anybody that knows me, I am for female rights, but I'm not as hardcore feminist at all. Many of my mentors have been males, equal, equal. I love males, I love females.
It's just reality. And I'm still trying to figure out why the reaction to something I would say would be so much different to the reaction you say, and that's just the start of this conversation. I have a lot more after that, but that is just. Let's start there. Because you are someone that has raised three daughters. You are always looking to hire fantastic female talent and you've always revered and valued females, males the same.
I think you're one person that really doesn't see gender and most people do, no matter what. And I think that's probably a product of having daughters and being around strong females, but that's uncommon. So let me punt the ball to you on your thoughts. Initial thoughts.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: I have 1000 thoughts.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: I know.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: At some point I wouldn't mind, so I just put this out there because a squirrel will run by and I'll forget the idea too. One of things the that I had to deal with as having the same name as the company after 65, 70, 80 years.
The idea of acting like you hit a home run when you were bored on third base. So that's just a little bit different piece so we can get into that. It's funny, I, as a younger male, was completely oblivious for any number of reasons. One, I was raised as an only child. There was just one boy in the house. It was me. I've said this a bunch of times, but my father was 50 years older, so I was raised like a boomer. There was any number of things, and good or bad, I can tell you that there was definitely that gender component that you're thinking about. And my father was incredibly respectful towards females. Incredibly. Like, I would get hit hard if I ever did anything to disrespect my mother and his wife. And he made that very clear. But at the same time, he definitely came from a very male dominated era. So that's what I grew up around. And then throwing the fact that I didn't have any sisters. My mom was there, but she was not that person for me or was not playing that role. To understand what females were doing or the plight of females is maybe an okay way to say it. So I was extremely ignorant.
But that said, I didn't have girlfriends in high school. I just wasn't that kid. I was on the golf course, they weren't particularly interested in me and I was incredibly immature, so I wasn't particularly interested in them. So I didn't have any guidance in that space at all. Fast forward getting a little bit older and started to get a little bit better. But then you're right, when the girls were born, I started to coach their sports. And that's where I saw it for the first time, where I would have players, three girls, two years between the first two, three and a half years between two and three. So when oldest Brooke came through, I would be coaching girls on the team who had a brother, and every once in a while, I would run into twins. And that was the things that I really stood up and took the most notice of when I got to watch the parents parent two children that were born in the same minute and how different they were parented. And that was something that really hit me hard, because you're right. I treated and coached and taught those girls as if they were mammals, not as if they were a particular gender under the class mammal. So it never occurred to me. But those were moments when I would go, wait a minute. What's that all about?
Why is Johnny a bruiser and Sally is expected to be a princess or something along those lines or whatever that stereotype you'd put on top of them. So I was very aware of that. I watched it. And then when we started to spend time together, the things that you taught me about what guys were capable of, some of the things you would show me that would be said to you or sent via LinkedIn or some social media, it blew my mind. I mean, I had no idea how naive and even dumb I was.
No question.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: Here you go.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: Hey, check this out. Like, holy hell. I would never write that in a thousand years. It blows my mind that that even goes on. And then when they were in school, this whole idea that I noticed early that a strong male is a leader and a strong female is bossy, and that's how they're coached and spoken. No, no. What's all this noise? Well, Johnny goes over and tears the cabinet door off of the nursery. Know he's now he man. It's just the way those behaviors are viewed and corrected or not corrected or celebrated or whatever the reactions to those would be. So you're exactly know. I hope that I'm on the planet long enough to watch it start to shift. Every once in a while, I see some great work being done. I'll look at the boardrooms that we're in, and I will just be able to pay attention to or realize the diversity in the room and across the board. Right? I mean, people from all different walks of life and colors and genders, and those are some of the best boards that we serve on. So, if I'm attracted to that, it's because I have witnessed the value of that diversity. And you and I make comments like, perspectives are important. And someone needs to watch our blind spots while we're leaned in. Well, the best way to do that is to have people that don't view the world like you view the world. And gender is a great one. And I'd love to know, back to your comment where that comes from. There's got to be some kind of insecurity around that, or even for a second as a male, that it would flash in front of my face or my mind that you could have only been given that there's no way that you could have worked for that. And I would love to be able to trace that back because if I could, then it would put me in a better position to start to rewrite it. Where when that was said, my first thing would be, bet. I bet she kicked some ass and took some names. That's what you'd think about a boy, right? And especially if it know John Smith of Jones Company. Well, shit, John Smith got to the top of Jones company. He must have kicked ass. Well, he could have been adopted by, he could have been adopted by Jones and kept his former name. You don't know. But the idea that that would be the first go to must have been a silver spoon or whatever daddy did, because certainly you would not, as a female, be capable of doing it on your own. That actually pisses me off as the father of three daughters, and that pisses me off.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:37] Speaker A: And for my gender, too. Why can't we get our shit together and act right?
[00:09:42] Speaker B: Well, here's the thing. I didn't bring this up to bitch about it. I brought it up as just a point. And I have offshoot of thoughts at going everywhere right now. So I'm trying to keep this.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: By the way, I love this topic. Thank you. I'm not smart enough as a boy to come up with this.
[00:09:58] Speaker B: I'm trying to stay on course, but my mind is exploding right now. So I don't bring this up to you. And I bitch about it. I'm making an observation, especially the position I'm in. I think I just see it more. I've also gotten numb to it a little bit. So I'm probably not even seeing everything or realizing, but I want to figure out why, to try to figure out the resolution. Because here's the problem with this, and I was talking about it with my team today. We're working with a particular female project manager who is very, very defensive and argumentative. And the one thing my colleagues who are male picked up on is that they're like, well, she's a female in construction and probably has had to approach every job site like a boss, thinking like, if she doesn't, she's not going to earn the respect from the males. And my point to them was, well, maybe I showed up like that in the beginning, but I don't feel like I have to show up like that anymore. I really do feel like I've earned my respect and I can walk in and be myself, and I get that back. So in my opinion, maybe if you're a female and you're a bit of a rookie and you're still trying to assert yourself, I get why you would have to overcompensate or feel like you do. But either way, that's the position females are felt like they're either put in so they're going to go one way, either be timid because they're getting comments like this, you're a bitch, or daddy must have handed it to, or going to try to overcompensate on the other side and be even more aggressive or whatever. More aggressive or what's the right, you know where I'm going with that? To overcompensate?
[00:11:39] Speaker A: Yes. Offensive.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: Being on offense outside of their natural character or outside of what their natural leadership skills, which are good, would be. So this is a problem now.
[00:11:51] Speaker A: Can I say one thing, too?
I'm sorry. Just the idea that that conversation or that thought, well, maybe she's compensating because she's in construction, but if a male showed up with the exact same behavior, that question would never have been asked.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: Of course.
[00:12:07] Speaker A: I think John's having a bad day. Maybe someone cut John off today on the way to work, because that's not, like, mean. That's the way the conversation would go in that moment.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: The truth?
[00:12:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: Now, I listen to a lot of podcasts with comedians and they make fun of. They'll talk about a female leader and they'll be like, oh, but females can't be leaders. And they joke about, I'm laughing like I can laugh at these jokes. They're funny, sure, but they do perpetuate the problem a little bit. I'm sitting there laughing. Don't get me wrong. I find all this shit funny, too. We can make fun of it. Yeah, but it's still there. Now, where is it coming from? That's what we're after, right? The stats say there are more females now enrolled in higher education.
More females started new businesses in the last couple of years than males. So you're getting to a point where you've got more females in education.
I'm not saying there are more females that own businesses, but in the last two years more females have started businesses. So the statistics itself are changing. Yet I don't think our people's perceptions or ideas or the way genders are treated or sexes treated are changing at the same speed. Right? So where is that discrepancy? Why aren't things changing faster?
Is it just because for so long males were at the helm and just were the leaders? And it's taking this long for people to come around and figure out, oh hell, females can be leaders and do a really fantastic job and can be regarded highly.
You're seeing it happen. You're seeing females lead really freaking awesome companies. You're seeing females that are coming and part of boards that are kicking ass. But why isn't this changing?
[00:14:02] Speaker A: I hope this isn't a cop out.
Walk into a customer's place and they say, well, we've always done it that way, right?
[00:14:08] Speaker B: This isn't wrong. This is your opinion.
[00:14:09] Speaker A: No, yeah, no, but I think there's a part of that. I mean, if we go all the way back, you know, my love of the animal kingdom and how I talk about us being mammals, simply because you're not going to rewrite 7 billion years of evolution in any kind of a hurry. So if you just look at that survival of the fittest and what it took for early man to survive in the wilderness, males certainly had a lot better chance than females.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: And protectors.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: Yeah, and protectors and strength, whatever all those things were. Which now fast forward, especially where we are at this particular moment in time with automation, right? Who's a better robot programmer, me or you? Because guess what? Neither of us are picking that thing up anymore. That machine is going to pick it up. And you and I are now exactly equal in our ability to program that machine. Pick something, program that machine to do that job. So my benchpress becomes far less important. If now it's about deploying automation and using smarts, AI is going to rewrite that too. I mean, who can write the code to solve the problem faster than actually having to solve the problem, right? So I think a big chunk of that is that technology is leveling the playing field in all spots. And we're now stopping for a moment to touch on the way. Technology is leveling the playing field among the genders because things like brute force and or what would look like survival of the fittest, right? Going back to the days of early mammals when we were both running from bears and dinosaurs, if we go far enough back, and I didn't have to be faster than the dinosaur. I just had to be faster than you. So I think we're just too slow to evolve. And then the other thing, and we love to travel. And my favorite thing about traveling is watching the different interactions where we go.
I think this is not just a part of where we are from an evolution perspective as humans. Then when you dig down into the individual ecospheres of countries and states, we don't have to travel that far out of the state of Maryland. Staying in the United States to absolutely notice the difference, are you staying in the south?
That's one of them. Not exclusively, but in other parts of the country, you can watch the interaction between males and females and how they approach their quote unquote roles, and it pisses me off. And part of it is versus if I go to the northeast, right? If I go to Boston, that's a whole lot different feel than if I travel to certain parts of the south. And that's just what I experience. You can dispute it all you want, and that's not stereotyping or broadbrushing, because there's big cities in the south, and they're incredibly forward thinking and incredibly evolved. But when you then break it down into all these different ecospheres, that's before you get to countries on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean where females can't. So this evolution has got to pick up and get going. Sorry, I'm slamming the table. I'm so frustrated. Sorry about that, everybody.
We have got to get our act together and make sure that we are intentional about leveraging the other half of the population. Because the way genetics works, it's 50 50 ish. It might slide a 10th or 100th every so often, but man, and especially here in the United States, bring it back home. If we want to compete in a global marketplace, if we are not leaning in heavy on this automation piece and leveraging the female component and getting everything as level, as fast as humanly possible, then we're ignorant and stupid. But that mindset that you talk about, that person, whoever wrote that, how the hell are they going to get there anytime soon, right? I mean, is that person ready to do anything we're talking about?
[00:17:59] Speaker B: No person's on the Internet trolling strangers that they don't know. Sure, let's put that into context.
[00:18:07] Speaker A: But that mindset, the mind certainly exists.
[00:18:09] Speaker B: And it's still reflective of a population of people. And you're not going to get away from the fact that I can have a baby, and you can't. So if you're talking about evolution, you could say females were intended to increase the population to have babies.
Yes. But that has also changed where while I still can have a baby now, I can still run a company and so can you. And I also think company dynamics before, like when your father ran Arnold, they were built on being stern and stoic and male dominated and just that mentality where now you have the mixing of masculinity and femininity and all kinds of perspectives and ideas. We're much more accepting of, not only accepting, understanding that we thrive with that fluidity of an interwovenness, interwovenness of both the female and the male. And it makes things better and more powerful. I think we're coming around to that mindset. But even as an example, when we travel, a lot of times, we'll meet a ton of people. We'll meet couples, we'll meet guys, particularly if we go out and we're meeting a bunch of businessmen that are at the bar, they'll ask you what you do, or they'll ask us what they do, what we do, but they'll look at you the whole time, right? And you always say, you always are like, well, Britt. And you have to say something about, well, Britt played pro soccer, or Britt went to Johns Hopkins, and you feel like you have to do that. So they understand that I've done something which sucks. I never have to be like, well, Mick. Mick played golf here, and Mick runs. Arnold, I don't have to position you as a certain. Where you feel the need to position me in a certain light. So they pay attention to, like, she, whatever she comes out of her mouth is actually right.
[00:20:15] Speaker A: There's some cred over there.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: But you feel the need to put me on this pedestal where I don't ever have to be like, I don't ever do that to you because I don't have to. Because whatever comes out of your mouth, they're.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: You bring up a great point about things that I have recognized along the way, that know, dumber, less mature Mick wouldn't have paid attention to. But now you're right. I absolutely recognize and been much more cued in to those types of responses or interactions that we have with other people around.
I will tell you two letters put together that I would imagine my father had no idea of EQ. I don't even know if EQ or emotional intelligence was a thing. That's not something we ever talked about. I'm not sure we ever talked a lot about IQ either, right, just to be fair. But you talked about that interwovenness of thoughts and feelings and how they work together. But the beauty of that is that it gets back to the story that I talk about. I talked about the dog whisperer and understanding the people that you're working with so that you can communicate better, and then the two of you can go do something together successfully. Right. And figure out what and where that alignment is, and you can get much further and much faster that one plus one equals five or ten thing that we talk about.
So important. But back to the topic is, yeah, I notice that a lot.
And here of our engineers in our automation division, 40% of them are females. Now, we don't have a big team, but 40% of them are females. And the excitement. But I also think surprise when I tour people through or I'm having a conversation, or we're pitching a big prospect and we're telling them about our team, and we'll even pull up our about us page on the website. And here's our team. And there's still a little bit of amazement that we have such a strong female presence in our engineering group, which is crazy, because those are our two engineers back there. They are badasses, and their creativity is fantastic. They see things a little bit differently, and it's as valuable as anything you'd ever want inside of your. On your team. I don't care what your team is. It's as valuable as anything you'd ever want on your team.
[00:22:33] Speaker B: Sure. Of course. We know that.
Yes. And it's simply not a female verse, male thing at all. It's just like, how can we get on equal footing here? How can we watch a video of a female saying something in a male and treat it the same?
And even the females have to support females. And there's truth to that. One thing I think I've really come around to, or maybe I regard more highly than I did before, and I've even told you about this. So I like to listen. If I hear about a female founder or a leader on a podcast, I really enjoy that, because it's not all that common that females, at least when I'm listening to ceos that are speaking on podcasts, a lot of times it's males. So if I hear about a great female leader, I make it a point to listen. And one thing I've noticed lately is a lot of the females I've listened to are very.
I'm not sure if this is the right word to use, but I'm going to use it maternal in nature, where if you said, what's your superpower? They would say, and they're leading big, some of them multibillion dollar organizations, they would say they're very empathetic, they're very sensitive, they're very understanding. They've got very much motherly. They're a motherly figure to the people in their organization. And you don't naturally think of any leader as having those. As a female, I think there probably is something to thinking that you've got to show up very strong in independent, and that's more how I show up, but that's just also more of my personality. Like, I definitely don't have as much of that empathetic, maternal. That's just never how I've showed up.
[00:24:22] Speaker A: Right. Nurturing, in other words.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: Nurturing. Absolutely. So I'm listening to more and more female leaders that have that. Again, I wish I have more of that. I'm trying to adapt more of that. But it's a really cool dynamic because people are males. Like a ton of males. They've got. A lot of males in their organization have really taken to that.
[00:24:45] Speaker A: Right.
[00:24:45] Speaker B: So in that regard, I'm very hopeful about seeing that business leader of what can evolve.
You want to get to the point where it's not just females are looked at or regarded the same way, but then females that are very female leaning into that femininity, it's looked at as very cool and attractive and appealing and engaging and thus successful.
[00:25:12] Speaker A: And successful. Right. Because people are subscribing to it, whether that's buying their products or whatever that is. Right. There's an attraction there that says, oh, I want to be over there.
We started watching the, and of course, I fall asleep like I always do the documentary with Steve Jobs, which talk about a level of attraction, right. The way that guy approached. And people around the world, they started this documentary with the day he passed away. People around the planet that never met this guy, didn't know him at all, were absolute devout followers because of his business style, innovation, creativity, and that's the same way.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: Charm, which I didn't realize.
[00:25:52] Speaker A: Absolutely. And his charm. But he's also fire on the elevator, too. So it could be very difficult.
But yeah. What does that look like? Because I think it's the idea, too, that you don't absolutely have to go to war to win. I think that's something from a mindset perspective that in business, right back to, we talked about that zero sum game. There must be one winner and therefore there must be one loser. Every dollar a stock goes up. Somebody's on the good, somebody's a dollar on the bad. Exactly. Inverse experiences, financially or whatever. I think that's the idea too. That because you'd say, well, how could the business ever be successful if the leader shows up nurturing and motherly. That's not a war stance. How could you possibly win? And win meaning sell, be profitable, however you would define that word. How could you possibly win if you didn't have a War stance? That's anti war stance. Yet going forward, I hope it not only has the ability to be successful, I hope it becomes the norm in the vast majority of spots.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: Inclusive and collaborative.
Yes, I'm really hoping that type of female leader starts to get seen more and more and celebrated and elevated. And again, I'm really attracted myself to that kind of female leader because I don't have as many of those qualities, and I'd like to have more and adapt more of that into.
[00:27:17] Speaker A: How about this? What if male leaders start to look that way too?
[00:27:22] Speaker B: That was my point about interweaving the femininity and masculinity. Because something I've been reading a lot about lately is that just because you could be male, right. You could be born a male, I could be born a female, but you could actually have more feminine qualities or tendencies or behaviors than I do. And in some ways, I probably have more masculine responses or however you reactions characteristics than you do in certain situations. And vice versa, for sure.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: There are things that you show up way more sensitive to than I do. That is very true in a lot, which is actually part of what attracts me to you.
[00:28:02] Speaker A: Right.
[00:28:02] Speaker B: Is like, you are sensitive in situations where I'm like, but you're scorching the.
[00:28:08] Speaker A: Earth and I'm running around with the extinguisher. It should be the other way around.
[00:28:12] Speaker B: Stereotypically, but I think that's so incredibly beautiful. And so if we could all realize that, and as a male, you're showing up with adapting all this, and so am I as a female. And then all of a sudden, I think if we can start to celebrate that and recognize that and adapt and evolve, we slowly start to get rid of these perspectives or natural reactions that we have to that video that we. You feel like I'm talking about world peace right now, but no.
[00:28:50] Speaker A: Yeah, well, listen, I think we had the group that came in from Chad, the Republic of Chad in Africa, and we talked about the fact and every single one had to stop on. We were spending our time together and just sharing some questions. And every single one of them had to stop and dove a little bit deeper into the idea that we work together as closely as we do. And their exact comment, I think I'm paraphrasing for sure, that ship has sailed for our generation, but we're going to take that back and start working with and on the generations that are coming through now. So I think the question know, if I went back to that team that I was coaching when Brooke was eight years old and I encountered the twins again, what's that look mean? Let's say another story. The youngest, Olivia, when she was in nursery school, somehow it worked out that her class was 15 girls. There were no boys in the class. I don't know how that happened, but that's how it happened. And she had an amazing teacher, and she was very aware of the fact that there were no boys in the room to demonstrate boy stuff. And she made this interesting comment. She said, well, if we had boys in the room, if you give a girl a spoon, she's going to stir the pot with it. If you give a boy a spoon, he's going to turn it into a gun. And that was one of the most interesting things that anybody said to me. And imagine if you flip it over and he handed the boy the spoon and he stirred the pot and the girl made into a gun. And it doesn't mean you have to take over the mantra or the Persona of the other gender. It doesn't. But back to that idea of if you had the ability to meet in the middle and celebrate each other a little bit more or understand what the common ground was so you could work together.
I would hope that if I also think, too, this is going to. I don't think we have any boomer listeners.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: Yeah, we do.
[00:30:50] Speaker A: Good. That's right.
[00:30:51] Speaker B: We have parents and all their friends.
[00:30:53] Speaker A: And all their friends. Yes. I'm sorry. That's our whole listening base. I'm not going to say it. I am.
I do think the oldest generation that's here now, I watch that generation and try to relate with the youngest. Right. If we're talking about boomers and Z's, I think some of that is still existing because there's still a very strong component of that in the oldest part of our generation. And as some of that starts to flush through, I think we're going to start to see a little bit of a change there. Now, that said, there are certain components of that generation that I love that I don't want to leave either I'm really torn on that particular topic. But I do think as you continue to evolve and these generations come through, and when I'm 80 years old and the things that I've learned and have trying to teach back down into the next generation, I don't know if a is next or what's after Z. I don't know what's up. But you'd like to think maybe we could hold some of the best in class that we've had along the way. Whether it was pride or I'm really killing the table today. I know I'm going to have to put on foam gloves, keeping the best demonstrated performance stuff, but doing a better job of getting along. I always talk about Martians just because if we have someone to get together and fight against, maybe we'll stop fighting each other. I'm hoping we can just figure out how to stop battling with each other. Where it's gender or country or religion or whatever, all of these tribal things we pick to align behind and cause a conflict with each other, I hope we can evolve past that, at least in my lifetime. It's going to be close.
[00:32:37] Speaker B: I think your boomer comment is generally, globally, domestically speaking, true. I think it's going to take some of those people to evolve for things to change. What's interesting and a little ironic is my parents and their friends are the most open and supportive people we've ever met. It's a bunch of hippies that couldn't be more open minded or supportive of female, male, whatever. So my demonstration, my personal, small little world demonstration by them has been the opposite.
[00:33:14] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Having met the vast majority of your friends. All of the parents friends.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:19] Speaker A: Sorry, Pete, very clear. All of the females in that crew are badasses. They are different types of badass. They're teacher badasses and strong yoga instructor badasses, while they're also working as a nurse.
[00:33:33] Speaker B: Does this have to do at all with the dynamic of their husbands, too? That the dynamic between them where they are supported and they are.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: Or were they that way all along and their husbands were attracted to that like I was to you?
[00:33:48] Speaker B: Don't know.
[00:33:48] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:33:49] Speaker B: Don't know. But I think we have come to. I think we're solved this, but a couple of the things that we're hitting.
[00:33:56] Speaker A: On now, we just need some massive listeners to go to play.
[00:34:00] Speaker B: Yes, but I think a couple of the things that we're hitting on, which I haven't really ever concluded until we had this conversation, is one. I think if males can start, first of all, any leader, just start supporting any other good leaders, whether it's male or female. That's one easy.
Males starting to recognize that there are feminine traits that are really valuable in adopting as a leader and not having to put on as this certain type of strong male, like adopting that. And on the other side, females not feeling like they've got to be something they're not and leaning into some of those feminine qualities that they have as great leaders. So I think it's females leaning into what they are and being confident in that and bringing that to the table. Males recognizing that they can bring some of that into them. It's really just maybe at the end of the day, it's just leaning into who you really are and not having to try to be something else. And I guess it's hard to do that if you don't feel supported or celebrated well.
[00:35:07] Speaker A: So let's talk about this word for a second. Security, or the opposite of that, which is insecure.
[00:35:14] Speaker B: But how do you become secure?
Luckily, I've gotten there, but I had to break through, and I had to earn a lot of trust. I want to get to that point, too, but let's say here, how do you do that as a female? If every time you show up assertive, you are called a bitch or you're just not taken seriously, how do you have security? I mean, it's like this vicious cycle, and I get it. And I see females show up overly bossy or overly assertive that aren't that way or don't need to be that way, but I get it. How do you just become secure when you're battling this every day? It's very hard.
[00:35:58] Speaker A: Well, what did you do?
You are an absolute demonstration of that.
What did you do?
I can't break through because I lack confidence, and I lack confidence because I can't break through. Right.
[00:36:12] Speaker B: And the biggest factor, I think, for any female, which is why I'm the biggest proponent of sports for young girls. I came into my business career in a position already of confidence because I played soccer very seriously from the age of 812 on, and I had already become, because I worked my way through the levels of soccer the way that I did, I became very confident in myself through that. So I was already entering in this position of confidence. So how did I build it? I was sort of already there.
[00:36:43] Speaker A: But hang on, though. So what's the transition? Because, yes, you played soccer, but you played women's soccer, right? So that wasn't necessarily competing in the man's world if you will, at least in sports. So what's the transition then that lets you confidently get across to the man's world of business which is where you were going to compete next.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: Okay. So part of it too, playing for Yukon and playing semi pro and playing in the preseason pro.
I do think being at the higher levels or being at a school like Yukon, even if you were a female you were really celebrated as an athlete. So even with the female component I did feel very empowered.
[00:37:24] Speaker A: Let me ask you a question.
Did the male athletes there have a high level of respect for the female athletes?
[00:37:32] Speaker B: Yeah, there's part of it, yeah, very much so. Absolutely.
[00:37:36] Speaker A: Okay. That's an interest. That's a start. Right. That makes all sense.
[00:37:40] Speaker B: Think about it. I mean, Yukon, you've got the winningest basketball team ever. I mean you've got one of the women which most people don't know, field hockey teams. So yeah, actually very much. And female sports generated a lot of money there. So maybe that's part of it. But I think to your question, sure there shouldn't have been this very smooth and seamless transition into construction as a female where it's 9% comprised of females to this day and most are not in management positions. So I think it was maybe just God, I don't know.
I don't know the answer other than just continuing to work through it and persisting. And now it's really interesting because when I'm working with ceos, management or even a lot of times I'm working with senior estimators now.
[00:38:33] Speaker A: Huge target audience for you. Yeah, huge target audience.
[00:38:35] Speaker B: I am their go to.
[00:38:36] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:38:37] Speaker B: And trust me, they're not thinking about female. They respect me and they know I'm going to get shit done for them. And I feel confident saying because I work hard at it, the best at this and that's why they come to me.
But it did take that breakthrough and I think for me it was like beating my head against the wall until I freaking broke it through and then I broke through and now I'm there and now I don't have to show up in any type of way because I have finally, I think garnered that respect. I don't feel like I have to. I can very much so be myself and have great conversations and I felt very respected.
[00:39:19] Speaker A: But you still show up the same way, right?
You're still first one back with a response. And we have a saying around here. You go to who gives you the best answer the fastest and you slowly condition those estocates estimators in that moment because they needed a partner, they needed an answer. They're under incredible deadlines. Right. The bids due Friday at five.
[00:39:38] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. They're texting me at 08:00 p.m. At night. Always.
[00:39:40] Speaker A: That's right.
Meanwhile, you feel like you show up differently, right? And you don't feel the pressure that you did early on. You also haven't changed your approach. You haven't backed off, you haven't slacked off. You haven't taken an opportunity to be lazy or to take for granted that relationship that you built along the way. You still show up the same way.
[00:40:02] Speaker B: But I think I'm getting at the point where that's my personality, nothing to do with female, right? And that's the thing. The second they realize it's personality, male, female, that is how I show up. That is who I am. But how do we get there quicker? How do you realize that female is the shit? And regardless of what body parts she has, how do you get there quick without that initial judgment? How do you do that so she doesn't have to work through three years of earning that respect that McArnold immediately had given.
[00:40:40] Speaker A: Know, here's the big difference too. Here's a term, benefit of the doubt. Benefit of the doubt gets the benefit of the doubt, Britt. And this is funny as hell too. We don't know if you talked about this or not, but how about just the simple fact that when you send an email to someone you don't know and it says Britt on the bottom, they'll come back and say, yes, sir.
That is the quintessential definition of what we're talking about. That given the benefit of the doubt, right? If you're given the benefit of the doubt, you would have said nothing for a while, right? If someone sends me an email and it's someone sends me an email and it's Dylan, I promise you, I'm going to throw some nondescript responses in there. I'm never going to assume what it is, but any number of times people you don't know, they come back to you with, yes, sir. Because it says Britain in the, is it once a day?
[00:41:32] Speaker B: At least once a day. And here's the thing I get Britt could be a female or male, but generally speaking, Britt is a female name. So that's even coming in with a fairly female name. So you've actually got to work hard at thinking it could be a male.
[00:41:47] Speaker A: Or they just assume it's Bret.
I get Nick and Mitch all the time.
[00:41:53] Speaker B: And I don't want to come off as victim at all because, oh, my gosh, I have experienced the best career, and this is not that. And so I definitely don't want people to think that.
I'm just wondering how we change it. So it's like, how do we change it so it helps everybody benefits?
[00:42:16] Speaker A: Well, I think we're just talking. Ignorance is another word, right? So we're talking about some ignorant traits or some ignorant behaviors. The idea that you would assume Brit is a male and definitely in the construction space. Guilty is charged where because it's the construction space. Someone reading quickly. Yeah, Britt's probably bred and let's say, yes, sir. I think we've got to continue to break some of this ignorance or whatever these long standing ideas are. Listen, mathematically, you just said it. 9% of females are in construction. That guy had a nine and ten chance of being right.
[00:42:49] Speaker B: So it's between nine and eleven. Now, I should correct myself, but it's between nine and eleven.
[00:42:53] Speaker A: Right. But statistically speaking, sir was going to be okay. He was probably going to be right just by virtue of what the norm is. And here's the thing, too. Why is construction male dominated? Because it's been a grunt, brute force job for a very long period of time. Sorry, I am really into this today. So that's all the pounding.
[00:43:11] Speaker B: I feel like you hear the pounding. It wasn't me.
[00:43:14] Speaker A: It's not me paying. No, it's me. It's me drumming on the table.
[00:43:17] Speaker B: Even though I show some more masculine traits sometimes, it's still mech.
[00:43:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And certainly I'm as passionate and pissed about this topic as you are.
Not pissed, but as passionate about this topic because I, too, want it to change as quickly as possible.
[00:43:35] Speaker B: I also think that the male leader could change, and I think there are a lot of males out there that would feel comfort in this conversation saying, man, I actually have a lot of those qualities and would like to exhibit them more.
[00:43:49] Speaker A: Yeah. If anybody was take a second and celebrate these, I'd actually do this, too.
[00:43:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Like that vulnerability or raw. And I go back to you again because I do find you to be a very empathetic person, which it might actually shock if there's some people from your organization listening that don't know that side, because maybe you don't exhibit that as much inside the organization. I'm not saying you're intentionally doing that at all.
I'm not going to speak for you, but I see that side of you and has been very attractive to that side of you, and thus, I think a lot of other people would be as a leader. I mean, gosh, that is relatable. That's what it is.
[00:44:29] Speaker A: Yeah. No, you're right. My entire career, I will say I'm definitely guilty of being very head down at work. And I think I hired an associate to the president for the first time ever. New role that I've created because I just need help. I need help. And we've talked about executive assistance, and you've been awesome in pointing me in some podcast directions of the conversation. And I could have gone and hired a badass executive assistant and been outside of our offices or whatever, but that wasn't the exact role that I wanted to fill.
And we'll get into that. We can share that a different time. But we did some paperwork signing and had a moment to talk today, and I have to actually have to brace or prepare people that I'm going to work with around the idea that I generally have two minutes to do four minutes worth of work. What you're going to get out of me is going to be succinct, and at times it's going to feel short or it's even going to even feel a little angry. But please give me the benefit of the doubt that I'm just moving quickly. And if there's something wrong in our relationship, I have enough respect for our relationship to sit down with you and clarify what's going on. And same time, you may come in at any point and shut the door and say, I'm a little confused by whatever. And I'd say, oh, gosh, that was a succinct moment. A short moment.
I was on the phone driving with a knee, eating a french fry, and texting a response to you and trying not to hit a guardrail. And that's why you got a four word response. So that's something I thought. I've been accused of being intimidating by any number of people in the sales organization.
That's not attractive to me. You say that to me, I'm like, bad trait. Don't want any parts of that.
But that's something that I have to work on or even prepare people for where they're no, Mick, he's fine. That's just his Groove. That's how he digs in on productivity or whatever he's working.
Yes. I mean, I absolutely have to come back over and embrace more of those. Like, all right, calm down. But a lot of that self imposed.
I'd love to have some conversations, and I've really enjoyed. We talked about female leaders right now still, the big three automakers are toe to toe with the auto workers union. And Mary Barra is the CEO of GM.
[00:46:58] Speaker B: Don't worry, we'll have her on this podcast.
[00:47:00] Speaker A: Oh yeah, absolutely. You damn right we will. She will be here at some point. We'll play this back as a prelude. But it's been great to watch her approach, right? I mean, that is a war stance, toe to toe moment when a union is closing your plants and putting everybody in the organization in jeopardy, union members and nonunion members and customers and suppliers and everybody in that ecosphere. The fact that it's tens and tens of thousands of people. And I have really enjoyed watching her approach because it has been very balanced between hammer and there's been some stick in there and some carrot and very tough when appropriate. But at the same time also, I wish I could be on a fly on the wall of those negotiations to watch some of the give and take and what goes on. But I've really enjoyed watching the three different heads of those audits, two males, one female. I've really enjoyed watching the dynamics of those negotiations play out. How they handle the interviews after breaking from or how they're handling news that's coming in.
I would say it's certainly on her part, I think a master class in handling it. I don't know that I love all of what I've heard of the strategies and the deliveries, but it's been interesting to watch how they lead. And maybe I'm a jackass for calling any difference to it because two are male and one are female.
But I've noticed a leadership style and not because her hair is longer than the other two. I've actually just noticed her leadership style and I would say the same thing if she was a male.
[00:48:44] Speaker B: Interesting. Yeah, because I'm not sure my leadership style would fall into what people would stereotypically think would be a female leadership style. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know, but I don't think so.
Stereotyping.
[00:49:00] Speaker A: I was going to say I would be happy. I would love the point where we don't actually stereotype any of those.
[00:49:05] Speaker B: I'm literally perpetuating the problem right now. That's what I'm doing.
[00:49:09] Speaker A: And I was going to say, yeah, you're right, you could be pretty tough. And definitely tough is only a male treat. Right? Which would be exactly what's wrong with.
[00:49:15] Speaker B: What we're talking about. But I love this conversation because I just think the more we talk about the more. We're. And I think the great thing is you're going to have so many more people agree with what we're saying. Yeah, I do notice this, but I also feel the way you feel about.
There are so many great things about female leaders and male leaders and what we can do to intertwine and learn from each other and value and respect, and hopefully we evolve.
It's been on my mind, and I just am trying to figure it out. I'm trying to understand people's reactions.
We're not going to solve this today.
[00:49:54] Speaker A: But we can start. We can start talking about every conversation that we have. We collectively as a society have about it, especially in the presence of our younger people, where I don't know. So I have mixed feelings on that. The better play would just be to start showing up differently and demonstrating differently for our kids. Right. Who are males and females doing whatever they're doing and the way they interact and what the demonstrations, words are one thing, but the demonstrations are something that are totally different.
[00:50:27] Speaker B: Yes.
And I have to say this because I've had debates about this with other females, and there are certain females that strongly believe we should never point out female owned business. Like, I am on the list of largest female owned business, or she's a female leader and she runs a hell of that. We should never make that distinction. And their position is, and I get it, their position is, no, I just run a great business or I should be on any list. While I agree this is not the way the world works, problems do not resolve themselves. We cannot act like this isn't an issue. Right. You got to freaking. I must have said what I didn't want to say. You got to sometimes hit the nail right in the freaking head.
[00:51:16] Speaker A: Right.
[00:51:17] Speaker B: You got to slam it in the face. We've got to address. I'm not tiptoeing around the issue, let's call it for what it is.
[00:51:24] Speaker A: Well, that would perpetuate the ignorance. Right.
[00:51:27] Speaker B: I'm hoping one day we don't make the decision. I'm hoping one day there's not a woman owned list. Right. But there is, and this is real. And if we don't talk about it, if we don't communicate about it, it's not going to change. So while I get the position, somebody told me, and somebody I really respect, right. And highly respect, one of the most successful women on the planet. On the planet, said to me.
[00:51:59] Speaker A: I.
[00:51:59] Speaker B: Can'T wait to hear, gender does not have a place in the workplace. And I don't agree because I think again. We're acting like it's not a thing. That's bullshit. It's a thing.
[00:52:11] Speaker A: It is a thing.
[00:52:12] Speaker B: It's a thing, and we've got to talk about it and we can resolve it. I think eventually we'll get to a place where it's not a thing and we're not talking about it, but right now it is.
[00:52:24] Speaker A: The first thing you can do is you can attack it inside of your own organization.
I really do hope, and maybe I'm just an ignorant old dickhead, but I would like to hope that people that work in our organizations do actually truly believe that gender is not a thing. I really hope, and I think I'll pull some of our people. In my travels, we have emerging thought leaders. Those are some great questions asked. It doesn't matter what I think. It matters what the experience they have is. And then I think that is driven down from my demonstration. Your demonstration. I mean, Jesus, if you and I just, how we interact isn't a demonstration of how each of us feels about the other from a gender perspective. I don't know what else we would do. I really don't know how we would change that. Or what would we even have to say if you were paying close attention to our interactions or how we work together regardless of our genders?
[00:53:15] Speaker B: The only thing out of this episode, I really like the conversation we had and how this all came together. Only thing I wish I had, the response that I sent when I was sent because I sent to this woman or her assistant the conversation I wanted to have, and it was about male, it was about female owned businesses. And the response back to me was great. Love it. But she doesn't feel gender has a place in the workplace, so that was the context. I only wish I could read her actual response back, word for word, not paraphrasing. And my response back, because I really was proud of the way because I said, I don't agree.
[00:53:59] Speaker A: Right.
[00:53:59] Speaker B: And this is why. And it's exactly how I'm. And I had time to sit down and think about it and articulate exactly the way I wish I'm doing now.
[00:54:07] Speaker A: Right.
[00:54:08] Speaker B: But I think my bigger, overarching message here is things just don't go away. They just don't dissolve into thin air.
[00:54:19] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:54:20] Speaker B: So if it's important, let's talk about it.
[00:54:21] Speaker A: Well, how about this? I'm going to go back. You made a comment where you were talking about comedians making fun of females and you laugh at it, right?
[00:54:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:28] Speaker A: Well, the reason that it is okay to laugh at that is because it's a stereotype. Oh, no, I'm just laughing at the stereotype. Well, let me tell you something important. Stereotypes just don't happen, right? You don't just show up with a stereotype that is a very long demonstrated behavior of some sorts. And in this case, let's just say we're making fun of women being in the house, right? Or if that joke were to be something about what a female looked like in the 40s or 50s. Right.
[00:54:58] Speaker B: Many still today. Many households that still look like that today.
[00:55:01] Speaker A: Absolutely. No question. So you're laughing about the stereotype, but let's understand that stereotypes just don't happen, and they're there for a very legitimate reason. It's because that demonstration of whatever it is has been going on for a long time. Those are not made up stories for me.
[00:55:17] Speaker B: I'm actually laughing at it because it's so ridiculous in my mind. I'm so far past it.
[00:55:21] Speaker A: Absolutely, you are.
Well, one thing I do want to say so back, the interesting response from one of, I believe there's 20 self made female billionaires in the US, right? Is it that number? And I only say that because I was watching Shark tank the other night.
[00:55:37] Speaker B: And Kendra Scott about to be 21.
[00:55:39] Speaker A: 21, that's right. Yeah. About to be a little wrong way.
[00:55:43] Speaker B: Hey, who says if you're on your.
[00:55:45] Speaker A: Way, you're on your way? Whatever. Kendra Scott was on there, and she quoted that, not me. She said for one of 20. So what is that response? No, since you're one of the 20220.
So since you're there now, all of a sudden, gender isn't a thing. I'm not sure that that's particularly authentic or genuine. I mean, okay, one of 20 that rose above it, now all of a sudden, it's not an issue anymore. I got a problem with that.
[00:56:11] Speaker B: The last thing I'll say is, and.
[00:56:12] Speaker A: I imagine your response had a very similar sound.
[00:56:15] Speaker B: Yeah, but to the point where I saw a male talking about how much easier it is to be successful as a female. So stop leaning into your victimhood and lean into the fact that you have serious advantage. Because if you look at the top richest males, like, the list is so deep and so long and so much depth and breadth where the female is not like that. So lean into that advantage because you can get there so much quicker and easier.
Something about that.
[00:56:43] Speaker A: What an asshole.
[00:56:46] Speaker B: There's not even footing here, guys. It's all relative, right?
Those are the conversations. But I take it in, and I'm.
[00:56:55] Speaker A: Just certainly entitled to opinion. All respect to the world for that, but I laugh out loud at that.
[00:57:00] Speaker B: But I still understand, that's the thing. I still understand where that perspective is. And I'm like, okay, sure, fine, I'm going with that. I'm just going to go with that.
[00:57:10] Speaker A: I got two x fours to sell. This has been fun and all, everybody, but I got two x fours.
I got some male dominated industry ass to kick. I'll be right back. Yeah.
Oh, boy. I'm glad you dropped this one today. Thank you.
[00:57:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I thought it was. I knew you would get a kick out of it.
[00:57:26] Speaker A: Kick out of it. We have to get the table repaired.
[00:57:29] Speaker B: I know some dents over there, more dents to make. So I think this is going to be continued because I think we could go on for a while here. This will be continued.
[00:57:43] Speaker A: I think there's observations for us to bring back into future conversations as we break here, because I will tell you, every time we have a conversation, I leave. Sorry, table. I leave much more in tune with what we talked about and therefore my observations get better about it. So we should be, you'll be more aware, there are opportunities to report back on what our observations look like. Now, having had this conversation, and please.
[00:58:09] Speaker B: If you're listening, do the same. It's just like if you notice a particular car on the road and you've never seen it, all of a sudden that day you see ten more rivian. Yeah, it's the same thing. Now that we're talking about this, other people are going to start picking up and it's so valuable to get the input to see what everybody else is seeing.
[00:58:25] Speaker A: This is how you break ignorance, right? You shine a big bright light on it. So everyone go, how about that? That is legit. And we need to make different, better choices. Yeah.
[00:58:32] Speaker B: Share this ship, people.
[00:58:35] Speaker A: All right. Clang to that one. Love you. Well done.
