Speak Your Mind Unapologetically Podcast

She Told Her Director "Your Actions Don't Support That Opinion." He Apologized. Harley-Davidson's Ashwini on Self-Advocacy, Disrespect, and Owning Your Career She had a new director who made every interaction feel disrespectful — no matter the topic, no matter how well she was performing. It wasn't the work. It was the treatment. She hit her limit, went to her manager, and said: "There are only tw...

She Won a 40 Under 40 Award and Kept It Private. It Took Her 12 Years to Say Out Loud She Wanted to Be an Executive. People2.0 VP Erika on Self-Advocacy for People Pleasers She received the SIA 40 Under 40 award. It was a big deal. And she kept it almost entirely to herself. She didn't know how to celebrate it externally without coming across as cocky. She treated it like a private accomplishment....

She Moved to the US with $800, Changed Her Name to Fit In, and Built a Career at Merck, Oracle, Tableau, and Amazon. Helen on Going From Terrified to Outspoken Her legal name is Hongyi, which means "the water is deep and wide." When she moved to the United States from China, she changed it to Helen so people could pronounce it more easily. She arrived with $800. She was terrified. At grad school,...

She Asked Her CIO for a New Challenge at Lunch. Got a "Poison Chalice" Role. Flew to Japan in December 2019. Beat COVID by Three Weeks. PVH VP Shatabdi on Small Acts of Courage With Big Consequences. At a lunch with her CIO, she asked a simple question: "Is there a specific role where you need help? I'm ready to take a new challenge, even change my domain completely." The answer was an invitation...

He Interrupted Her Mid-Sentence and Said "I Don't Agree." She Asked: "How Many Recruitment Drives Have You Led?" CHRO Deepashri on Standing Your Ground It was her first day in a new role. The leadership team was deep into planning the launch of a major production system. She raised her hand and asked: "What about the people strategy?" Everyone looked at her like she was speaking a different langua...

Disrupt Yourself Before Someone Else Does: How Thomson Reuters CTO Anuradha Turned Fear, Bias, and Discomfort Into Career Fuel She grew up in a small town in India, first daughter in a middle-class family, educated in her mother tongue through 10th grade. She was culturally trained to listen more and speak less. Then she accepted a role as an assistant professor straight out of university, in fron...

Getting a "no" at work isn't the problem. Not knowing what to do with it is. In this episode, you'll get a proven 8-step framework to turn workplace resistance into genuine cooperation — without pressure, without losing your composure, and without damaging the relationship. Whether you're asking for a raise, requesting flexibility, pitching an idea, advocating for resources, or handling a performa...

A Recruiter She Never Asked for Advice from Told Her to Lower Her Ambitions. It Derailed Her for Months. What Geetanjali Learned About Who Gets to Define Your Ceiling. She was doing great work, getting strong reviews, and waiting for someone to recognize she was ready for the next level. Nobody came. Finally, she went and asked. They said: "Yeah, we think you're ready." She walked away with one pe...

His Boss Told Him He'd Never Rise Above Engineer Level. Three Years Later, That Boss Reported to Him. Samuel Santos on Getting Noticed at Work Early in his career, his manager told him the company had a prototype for success: blonde hair, green eyes. Samuel Moody Santos was mixed race, Black, an immigrant who had started his working life as a waste picker. His manager told him he would never advan...

Her Dad Found a Rolex and Returned It. What That Taught Her About Asking for Everything. Her father came to the United States in 1989 with next to nothing. He found a Rolex in a locker room while working as a janitor and returned it. The owner gave him a job. He stayed 27 years. In that time, he asked his employer for a green card. They sponsored it. He asked for college tuition. They paid for his...

The Mirror Method, the WAIT Acronym, and Why "Learn Fast" Beats "Fail Fast": Lee Health CSIO Lisa on Challenging the Status Quo — Part 2 She walked into a conference room as the only woman in a room full of men in technical data roles. They introduced themselves to each other and started the meeting without acknowledging her at all. She paused, said "excuse me," stated her name, her role, and why...

She missed the scholarship deadline for her MBA. She asked anyway. She got it. She was the only woman in her group project cohort, a single mom with a one-year-old, living paycheck to paycheck. She told her group on day one exactly what she could do and when she was leaving. They respected it. On a business trip with a relatively new manager, she admitted mid-conversation that she wanted to move i...

For years, Daisy's performance reviews said the same things: hardworking, great team player, result-driven, quiet. Cycle after cycle, different managers, same words. Then she realized: those were her brand hashtags, and they were never going to get her to where she wanted to go. She wanted "confident," "influential," "driven," "leadership." And nobody was going to give her those labels. She had to...

When a new business leader walked in and told Malvika they were going to restructure the entire segment — 60% of company revenue — in a room with just the two of them, no leaks, no one else in the room, she didn't say no. She said: "I hear you. And here's how we get to the same outcome with the right people involved." Six months after implementation, he came back and told her it was the right call...

She watched a brilliant female CEO — strategic, skilled, accomplished — get pushed out of her company. And in that moment, Alejandra had a realization that changed how she thinks about her entire career: if it can happen to her, it can happen to any of us. A job title is the most fragile kind of power there is. The only power that can't be taken away is the one you build inside yourself. Alejandra...

Sixteen years later, she still tells this story. She was called into the office of a 6'4" senior executive she barely knew. He sat with his back to the door and said: "You will either make me a very happy man or a very unhappy man." Something in her snapped. She replied: "I was always told I'm not responsible for how other people feel." He slowly turned his chair around with a smile on his face. T...

She was called polarizing. She cried in meetings. She was written off as "the rookie." Then she spent 30 years rising through Oracle and Microsoft to become a Global Customer Success Leader for the Americas. Wendy didn't wait to feel confident. She built the skills to project authority even when she didn't. In this episode, Wendy breaks down exactly how she did it, including the practical strategi...

Mary Hope grew up learning not to make waves, not to get emotional, not to rock the boat. Those lessons followed her into the boardroom. When a male colleague made a sexist comment during a high-stakes presentation, she said nothing. She couldn't even bring herself to tell her husband that night. The shame of her own silence was that heavy. That moment became the turning point. Today, Mary Hope is...

Find out the real reason difficult conversations feel so hard at work, and how our mindset hurts our conversations and relationships. This episode gives you four internal switches you can flip in real time, so that you can have calm authority to fix conversations that go sideways. You'll discover what confident communicators do differently in difficult conversations. Because you don't need to say...

A new year doesn't require a long list of aspirational, feel-good goals. It requires the right specific goals — especially when it comes to speaking up at work. In this first episode of the year, you'll reframe goal-setting for speaking up at work — away from vague intentions like "be more confident" and toward specific, observable communication behaviors that actually change your impact, credibil...

As we navigate the holiday season, setting boundaries can be challenging. Find out how to respond confidently to intrusive questions and requests without guilt or drama. Learn why boundaries are hard to set during the holidays and discover effective strategies to assert your needs while maintaining relationships. From common boundary mistakes to real-life examples, this episode offers practical ti...

If you've ever felt like you're the one holding everything together at work — following up, reminding, double-checking, fixing last-minute mistakes, and caring more about the outcome than everyone else — this episode is for you. Because you shouldn't have to sacrifice your time, your sanity, or your career reputation just to compensate for other people's lack of follow-through. And you also should...

Have you ever shared an idea in a meeting… and nothing happened? No reaction. No acknowledgement. People move on. Then minutes later — or even next week — someone else says the exact same thing, and suddenly everyone thinks it's brilliant. It's infuriating. It's discouraging. And it makes you question your value, your credibility, and whether speaking up even matters. Here's the truth nobody teach...

When you're in a high-stakes meeting, job interview, panel, or senior leadership presentation, everything can be going perfectly, until someone throws a loaded question at you. Suddenly, confidence can turn into defensiveness. Preparation can turn into rambling. Months of hard work can collapse in 10 seconds if you sound insecure, reactive, or unsure. This episode of the Speak Your Mind Unapologet...

Most people don't struggle with speaking up in general. They struggle with one specific conversation that feels risky — a conversation with career, relationship, or emotional consequences. Whether it's a performance review, a promotion request, a conflict, a micromanaging boss, a workload pushback, a boundary conversation, or a situation where you feel overlooked or disrespected… avoiding the conv...