96. Assertive Communication for Women Leaders: How to Speak with Conviction
Have you ever said yes while your entire body was saying no? You know you don’t want to take on one more thing, have one more conversation, or adjust one more priority, but you override yourself anyway. The challenge isn’t that you don’t have the right words. It’s that you may have become disconnected from your own conviction: your ability to know what you want, what you don’t want, and what you’re willing to stand behind.
In this episode, I’m exploring why you don’t have a communication problem, you have a conviction problem. You can have the perfect script, framework, or words, but if your body is asking for permission while your mouth is trying to lead, people can feel the disconnect. True assertiveness isn’t just what you say. It’s your capacity to hold what you say.
You’ll learn why so many women struggle to speak with conviction, how years of conditioning can disconnect you from your natural sense of will, and how practicing your no can help you create space for a more powerful yes. This episode will help you build the muscle memory to align your words, body, and decisions so you can communicate with greater clarity, authority, and confidence.
Interested in working with me? Book a free 1:1 consultation here!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why assertive communication isn’t just about finding the right words or scripts.
How to build embodied conviction so your words, body, and decisions align.
Why so many women struggle to say no, hold their ground, and honor what they truly want.
How years of conditioning can disconnect you from your will, preferences, and voice.
The difference between being louder and being more grounded in your conviction.
How practicing your no can create space for a more powerful yes.
How to strengthen your ability to speak with clarity, authority, and self-trust in high-stakes moments.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
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Watch my TEDx talk: Reclaiming anger: A woman’s birthright
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The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins
Episodes Related to Assertive Communication for Women Leaders:
79. Why You Don’t Speak Up in Meetings at Work (& How to Finally Cross the Line)
95. Why Brilliant Women Struggle to Advocate for Themselves (Self-Advocacy Isn’t Selfish)
Full Episode Transcript:
Have you ever heard yourself say yes while your entire body was saying no? Your boss asked, can you take this on? Sure. Someone wants to move a meeting into the one open hour you have all week. No problem. Your family needs one more thing. Okay. And then you walk away irritated. You're frustrated with them. But if you're really honest, you're also frustrated with yourself. Because you knew, your body knew that you didn't want to say yes. I know, I've been here before. And here's what I want to offer to you today.
Maybe you don't have a boundary problem. Maybe you've become disconnected from your will, your ability to know, I want this. I don't want this. I will. I won't. And this matters because if you're a high-achieving woman who's exhausted from carrying 10 different roles, but somewhere inside you, you still know you were meant for more. More is not coming from getting better at saying yes to everything. You're going to have to know what deserves your no.
Because here's the paradox. When you can say a powerful no, you create space for a powerful yes. And today, I'm going to show you how.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
Hey podcast listeners, welcome to The Balanced Leader. It's great to be here with all of you. I have such an exciting episode. We are going to dive into advanced assertive communication. It has been what I've been training and teaching my women in the command cohort, my six-month leadership accelerator. And I just had to share it with all of you because I believe that this is one of the most powerful episodes that you may ever hear.
And I know a lot of people are searching. I just saw recently somebody found me using AI because they were looking for assertive communication. And so I know a lot of you are out there and you want to know, how can I communicate more powerfully? How can I show up with more conviction? How can I be heard in rooms full of men? This episode is for you.
All right, and we're going to start somewhere very, very young that you might find surprising. We are going to start off with being two years old. When you were two years old, you had incredible will. It's funny because when I think about this, I don't remember myself having incredible will. I think it was just socialized out of me, maybe even before I was two, but we don't usually remember our memories until we're about four years old. So anyway, if you've ever been around a two-year-old, you know something fascinating. Two-year-olds are really good at assertiveness training, persistence training. They are very good at telling you, no.
This is me and my two-year-old. Put on your shoes. No. Come here. No. Give that to mommy. Mine. This is literally her. This is my little daughter. We call it the terrible twos. But something really important is happening developmentally at this stage with my daughter and with each and every one of us. The child is discovering, I am separate from you. I have preferences. I have desires. I have a voice. I have a will. I want. I don't want. Yes. No. I will. I won't.
So here's the question. What happens between two and 42? How does this little girl who can scream no with her entire body become the accomplished woman who spends 20 minutes writing an email explaining why she can't attend a meeting? She learned it. She learned what made people happy. She learned what earned approval. She learned what belonging sometimes requires.
This is me too. Listen, I was really far away from this. I was super angry in my corporate career. If you've listened to my TEDx talk, I talk extensively about, you know, performing the good girl, performing the great executive. But on the inside, I didn't have this connection to my will. So what happens to us? Let's dive into that next.
We socialize girls away from their will. Think about some of the message many girls receive. Be nice. Share. Don't be bossy. Don't be difficult. Don't make a scene. Don't get so emotional. Meanwhile, many boys have very different opportunities to practice physical assertion, rough and tumble play, wrestling, competing, standing your ground, being tough, get back out there. Of course, not every boy or girl grows up this way. But this is a generalized pattern, and the pattern matters because then we put the little girls into the corporate world 20 years later and suddenly say, be assertive, speak up, show up with executive presence and gravitas, negotiate, hold your ground.
Well, wait a minute. We've spent decades rewarding her for being agreeable, and now we're surprised when assertion doesn't feel natural in her body. I want you to hear this because this was my journey and this is the journey of so many women that are told to be more assertive and to show up more powerfully and to be able to, you know, put their stake in the ground and really argue and challenge. And this is a socialization, and this is a conditioning. And there needs to be a calibration and new rules.
That's why I don't think another communication script is enough, right? I think sometimes women come to me and they're literally like, what do I say? And I'm like, we're not focusing on what you're going to say. We're going to focus on who you need to be and what connection you need to be with your body to enable you to speak up assertively, right? We need embodied conviction.
And so I'm going to dive into what is embodied conviction because you're like, I don't understand what this is. So embodied conviction is when your words aren't just coming out of your mouth. You believe them. Your body, your voice, your emotion, your decision lines up. Think about the difference between, no, I don't really think I can do that. And no, that doesn't work for me. It's a hard no for me.
Same person, same words, completely different energy. And here's the important part. Conviction doesn't necessarily mean louder. In fact, I had a CEO who he would share with me, when I start getting quiet, somebody's going to get fired. Like he was sharing like that's his level of conviction when things are serious. So it doesn't always mean being louder. In fact, sometimes, like I said, it's when you become more certain, the quieter you get. You don't need to convince.
Sometimes people even feel more calm in their bodies because they're so convicted. You don't need 12 reasons. You don't need the other person to agree. You believe yourself, and that requires muscle memory. Because I don't want the first time you practice holding your ground to be when your compensation career, relationship, reputation or wellbeing is on the line. And I think this is such an important distinction because I think a lot of times women are wondering like, why can't I just say the thing? Why is this so hard? Why am I hesitating? Well, this is it.
You're not practiced in embodied conviction. The more practiced you are in embodied conviction, especially when the stakes are high, the better you're going to be able to interrupt the conversation, the better able you're going to be to speak up and disagree with people at the table. This is about you and your will and your ability to connect to that will in a convicted way where you can speak with this grounded command energy.
So this is actually the experience and experiment that I had with the women in Command this week. So in order to have more practice with this embodied conviction, I actually created in my Command container this week a way to practice saying your no and to practice your willpower. And I know sometimes people think this might feel performative, but it's really building that muscle memory inside of you, noticing your body, and noticing what happens when you're so convicted. So we've been doing work around anger, harnessing our anger, using it intentionally to impact, influence, and to create intentionality in our lives. Not anger as rage, not losing control, but anger as information and energy.
And I wanted them to stop thinking about it, right, cognitively in their brains, and experiencing it in their bodies. So, in this session, I gave them some context. I shared with them a list of items that somebody was pushing against this person to feel and authority outside of them, pushing them to do something they really didn't want to. So I asked for a volunteer. And I stood across from her and I told her, I'm going to represent the authority outside of you, the system, right? The system that wasn't created for you, the unrelenting expectations of other people, the person telling you that you don't get to choose.
And I'm going to say three words. Yes, you will. And this woman's going to respond, no, I won't. So we started. Yes, you will. No, I won't. Yes, you will. No, I won't. Yes, you will. No, I won't.
And we kept going and it started getting more and more intense. And I understand where people are like, this feels so performative, but I want people to take this seriously because there's the muscle memory. That's understanding. It's just like when I was embodying my TEDx presentation. Yeah, I practiced it. It was a performance. But the more I practiced it, when I actually got on stage to say it, I embodied those words. They felt very natural to me. There was muscle memory built into them. It wasn't like a performance. It was just something that was flowing out of me because I cared so deeply about the talk.
So this exercise is not meant to be performative. It is meant for you to feel what it feels like in your body when you have that conviction, when you are being able to say the words, own the words, own the no, go for it with full force and intensity and learning how to build that muscle memory inside of you because we are tapping into your will, your natural willpower, your natural ability to want things and to go for things. And because we've been socialized to not do this, it will feel a little scary. And sometimes people laugh and sometimes people feel scared about it because this is not a natural way of being. But if you want to be the type of woman who's able to interrupt in high stake situations, then this has got to be more of your muscle memory, not just something that you summon once in a while. It's something that is part of your toolkit and that you can intentionally tap into.
So when I was saying this back and forth, what we noticed in the person I was coaching, her body changed, her voice changed, her energy changed. And I stopped. Suddenly, I believed her. Basically, the assignment is, I keep going until I actually believe her, until I start noticing in her body, in her conviction, in her tone, right? Again, it doesn't need to be louder. It's just more leaning in with this conviction. So when I believe her, I stop, and that's the embodied conviction, right? That's the embodiment that I really want people to connect to.
Again, sometimes people will notice, they'll say part of this felt performative, and that's important because it can feel performative at first. You're saying words, your body may not be accustomed to saying with conviction. The goal isn't to manufacture anger. The goal isn't to scream louder. The point is to stay with yourself, to stay with the discomfort, to stay connected to your feet, to stay connected to your body. Stay with the words long enough to discover, where is my actual no? Sometimes we have to move through performance before we find congruence. Just like when I did my TEDx talk, I had to like remember the words, and then as I remembered the words, I embodied it. And that's why this is a practice. We're building muscle memory.
And I want you to be able to build that muscle memory so you can intentionally use your will to move things forward. And here's why it matters. This is where anger comes back into the conversation. Because women have been given so many messages about anger and assertiveness. Don't be the angry woman. Don't be emotional. Don't be aggressive. Don't be crazy. So we suppress it. We suppress this valuable connection to our anger, to our will. But anger carries something incredibly valuable: energy and motivation.
Anger can tell you something matters. Something isn't okay here. Something needs protecting. Something needs changing. That's why I think of this as harnessed intentional anger gives you energy. Your will gives you the energy direction. Without direction, anger can become reactive, right? But without access to anger, we become passive. We say yes to things that we mean no. We build up resentment and bitterness and we feel like we're slowly dying inside.
Listen to me. I know a lot of you listening to this, you're high-achieving women, and you look powerful on the outside, but on the inside, you want to feel powerful too. You want to feel like you have agency. You want to feel the freedom that people think you have. Rounded leadership is neither reactive or passive. I can feel the energy, and I choose what I do with it. This is that will to move that anger intentionally to harness it. Because let's be clear, nobody at work is probably going to stand across from you tomorrow and yell, yes, you will. Like that is not really what happens.
In real life, pressure is more sophisticated. It sounds like this. Can you just please take this one extra meeting? We really need you. Can you be flexible about this? Everyone else seems to be fine with this. Don't make this a bigger deal than it needs to be. Or maybe nobody says anything at all because that pressure is inside of you. You already feel that pressure. You already say no to yourself before you can say no to anybody else, right? I should. They'll be disappointed. What will they think of me? It's easier if I just do it. That's a huge one. Women will just say, it's easier if I just do it. And that's why you need your own back because life is tough. Leadership is tough. You're managing work, relationships, children, parents, ambition, money, health, friendships, and a household, as well as your own dreams and desires.
If all of those things get an automatic yes, what's left for you? If you want to do more than survive your life, you have to become willing to choose it. So here's your practice. Find one real no this week, not something manufactured, something you already know. Maybe, no, I can't take that on. No, that time doesn't work for me. No, I'm going to pass this time. No, I'm not okay with that. And then here's the hardest part.
Don't immediately abandon your no. Notice the urgent need to explain. Notice your wanting or desire to apologize, to soften, to offer three alternatives, to manage their disappointment. Let them have their response. This is like Mel Robbins, you know, whole book is like, let them, like let them have whatever they need. And you stay with yourself. Hear your no, trust your no, honor your no. Then make the final turn.
But I don't want you to build your life around no. Your no exists in service of something bigger. So ask yourself, what does this no make possible for you? You need to connect to that. I'm going to share a story, but I want you to notice this for yourself. No to another project might be yes to doing exceptional work on the priorities that matter. No to someone else's expectation might be yes to your family. No to staying quiet might be yes to your leadership. No to being chronically available might be yes to your energy. No to settling might be yes to your ambition. No to the life you're supposed to want might be yes to the life you actually desire.
You were born with a will. You have desires. You have preferences. You have a no. You have a yes. And if you are a high-achieving woman who's exhausted but still has that voice inside saying, there must be more for me. Listen to her. You don't need to work harder to hear her. You may need to stop overriding her. Connect to your will, connect to your desire, connect to your no. Because when you can say a powerful no, you create space for a powerful yes. And this is how you stop merely surviving life and start choosing it and authoring it for yourself.
All right, if this episode is hitting you and you are wanting to go out in the world and do things about it, go do it and tell me about it. I want to hear from you on LinkedIn or from the reviews in the podcast. I read them all. I would love to connect with you personally. So go and do that and if you know somebody in your life who could use this episode, go share it with them. Please share it with whoever in your life needs to own and honor their no and to speak up assertively about the things that they care most about.
This is not easy. We have years and years and years of conditioning to not own and honor our no and to not fight for it. But this is a new beginning. You can connect to your will again. You can connect to what matters to you. And I want to share this is just a last story about it, but I wanted to share this because I think sometimes people hear it and they're like, that is such a bold, you know, move and I don't think I could do it. But the reality is when I started doing this work, practicing my will, practicing my no, learning how to speak more assertively, owning what really mattered to me, getting super clear, discerning all of this stuff, I had a situation with my boss.
He told me to go to London and do a workshop and fix the situation because I was really upset with my peers who were, you know, I was in charge of the finances and I was in charge of being the advisor to my CEO and to my businesses. But accounting was done by transaction services. It was a shared group. So my peer owned accounting for the whole organization, and I wasn't getting what I need. And I was very upset and frustrated because my numbers were not accurate. We couldn't make decisions on them. And I felt stuck and I needed help. So my boss says, go over there and do a workshop. He actually said be very American, be very direct, fix it. So I create this whole agenda and I CC him on the email. I have my peers on it. I say, hey, I'm going to come and I'm going to do this.
Immediately after I send that email, he writes another email. He did not like that my training was two days long. He wanted it to be one day long, and he didn't want certain things to be on it. And so immediately when I read his email after I sent mine, I was angry. I was very frustrated, and I got on the phone with him and I shared with him very calm and grounded and said, I don't think you meant to do this, but your email is undermining my leadership. I am here leading people who are my peers who don't actually have to listen to me and I'm leading them into an uncomfortable conversation about what I need and what I'm not happy with. And here you are telling them not to listen to me and doing it your way.
And I was very calm and I used my will and I used my assertion to be able to have that conversation. And he of course said, I did not intend to do that. And I said, yes, I know you did not intend to do that. That's why I'm on the phone with you. And so it wasn't all rosy days, but it was important for me to assert and share my will. I want this to move forward. This thing you did was not helpful in moving it forward. So I'm going to name it and I'm not going to apologize for it. This is important work, right? But you can't speak with that embodied conviction or assertiveness unless you feel it deeply inside your bones. Unless you feel that level of certainty where you are showing up powerfully to have these types of conversations.
So that is my vision for you. If you are inspired by that story, I want you to create it for yourself, not just sit with the inspiration. I want you going after that level of connectedness to yourself, that level of conviction because you've got it in you. I believe in you. I know you can do it and I'm here for you. All right. Have a beautiful week. Take this episode and go use it. All right, bye.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
Maybe you don't have a boundary problem. Maybe you've become disconnected from your will, your ability to know, I want this. I don't want this. I will. I won't. And this matters because if you're a high-achieving woman who's exhausted from carrying 10 different roles, but somewhere inside you, you still know you were meant for more. More is not coming from getting better at saying yes to everything. You're going to have to know what deserves your no.
Because here's the paradox. When you can say a powerful no, you create space for a powerful yes. And today, I'm going to show you how.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
Hey podcast listeners, welcome to The Balanced Leader. It's great to be here with all of you. I have such an exciting episode. We are going to dive into advanced assertive communication. It has been what I've been training and teaching my women in the command cohort, my six-month leadership accelerator. And I just had to share it with all of you because I believe that this is one of the most powerful episodes that you may ever hear.
And I know a lot of people are searching. I just saw recently somebody found me using AI because they were looking for assertive communication. And so I know a lot of you are out there and you want to know, how can I communicate more powerfully? How can I show up with more conviction? How can I be heard in rooms full of men? This episode is for you.
All right, and we're going to start somewhere very, very young that you might find surprising. We are going to start off with being two years old. When you were two years old, you had incredible will. It's funny because when I think about this, I don't remember myself having incredible will. I think it was just socialized out of me, maybe even before I was two, but we don't usually remember our memories until we're about four years old. So anyway, if you've ever been around a two-year-old, you know something fascinating. Two-year-olds are really good at assertiveness training, persistence training. They are very good at telling you, no.
This is me and my two-year-old. Put on your shoes. No. Come here. No. Give that to mommy. Mine. This is literally her. This is my little daughter. We call it the terrible twos. But something really important is happening developmentally at this stage with my daughter and with each and every one of us. The child is discovering, I am separate from you. I have preferences. I have desires. I have a voice. I have a will. I want. I don't want. Yes. No. I will. I won't.
So here's the question. What happens between two and 42? How does this little girl who can scream no with her entire body become the accomplished woman who spends 20 minutes writing an email explaining why she can't attend a meeting? She learned it. She learned what made people happy. She learned what earned approval. She learned what belonging sometimes requires.
This is me too. Listen, I was really far away from this. I was super angry in my corporate career. If you've listened to my TEDx talk, I talk extensively about, you know, performing the good girl, performing the great executive. But on the inside, I didn't have this connection to my will. So what happens to us? Let's dive into that next.
We socialize girls away from their will. Think about some of the message many girls receive. Be nice. Share. Don't be bossy. Don't be difficult. Don't make a scene. Don't get so emotional. Meanwhile, many boys have very different opportunities to practice physical assertion, rough and tumble play, wrestling, competing, standing your ground, being tough, get back out there. Of course, not every boy or girl grows up this way. But this is a generalized pattern, and the pattern matters because then we put the little girls into the corporate world 20 years later and suddenly say, be assertive, speak up, show up with executive presence and gravitas, negotiate, hold your ground.
Well, wait a minute. We've spent decades rewarding her for being agreeable, and now we're surprised when assertion doesn't feel natural in her body. I want you to hear this because this was my journey and this is the journey of so many women that are told to be more assertive and to show up more powerfully and to be able to, you know, put their stake in the ground and really argue and challenge. And this is a socialization, and this is a conditioning. And there needs to be a calibration and new rules.
That's why I don't think another communication script is enough, right? I think sometimes women come to me and they're literally like, what do I say? And I'm like, we're not focusing on what you're going to say. We're going to focus on who you need to be and what connection you need to be with your body to enable you to speak up assertively, right? We need embodied conviction.
And so I'm going to dive into what is embodied conviction because you're like, I don't understand what this is. So embodied conviction is when your words aren't just coming out of your mouth. You believe them. Your body, your voice, your emotion, your decision lines up. Think about the difference between, no, I don't really think I can do that. And no, that doesn't work for me. It's a hard no for me.
Same person, same words, completely different energy. And here's the important part. Conviction doesn't necessarily mean louder. In fact, I had a CEO who he would share with me, when I start getting quiet, somebody's going to get fired. Like he was sharing like that's his level of conviction when things are serious. So it doesn't always mean being louder. In fact, sometimes, like I said, it's when you become more certain, the quieter you get. You don't need to convince.
Sometimes people even feel more calm in their bodies because they're so convicted. You don't need 12 reasons. You don't need the other person to agree. You believe yourself, and that requires muscle memory. Because I don't want the first time you practice holding your ground to be when your compensation career, relationship, reputation or wellbeing is on the line. And I think this is such an important distinction because I think a lot of times women are wondering like, why can't I just say the thing? Why is this so hard? Why am I hesitating? Well, this is it.
You're not practiced in embodied conviction. The more practiced you are in embodied conviction, especially when the stakes are high, the better you're going to be able to interrupt the conversation, the better able you're going to be to speak up and disagree with people at the table. This is about you and your will and your ability to connect to that will in a convicted way where you can speak with this grounded command energy.
So this is actually the experience and experiment that I had with the women in Command this week. So in order to have more practice with this embodied conviction, I actually created in my Command container this week a way to practice saying your no and to practice your willpower. And I know sometimes people think this might feel performative, but it's really building that muscle memory inside of you, noticing your body, and noticing what happens when you're so convicted. So we've been doing work around anger, harnessing our anger, using it intentionally to impact, influence, and to create intentionality in our lives. Not anger as rage, not losing control, but anger as information and energy.
And I wanted them to stop thinking about it, right, cognitively in their brains, and experiencing it in their bodies. So, in this session, I gave them some context. I shared with them a list of items that somebody was pushing against this person to feel and authority outside of them, pushing them to do something they really didn't want to. So I asked for a volunteer. And I stood across from her and I told her, I'm going to represent the authority outside of you, the system, right? The system that wasn't created for you, the unrelenting expectations of other people, the person telling you that you don't get to choose.
And I'm going to say three words. Yes, you will. And this woman's going to respond, no, I won't. So we started. Yes, you will. No, I won't. Yes, you will. No, I won't. Yes, you will. No, I won't.
And we kept going and it started getting more and more intense. And I understand where people are like, this feels so performative, but I want people to take this seriously because there's the muscle memory. That's understanding. It's just like when I was embodying my TEDx presentation. Yeah, I practiced it. It was a performance. But the more I practiced it, when I actually got on stage to say it, I embodied those words. They felt very natural to me. There was muscle memory built into them. It wasn't like a performance. It was just something that was flowing out of me because I cared so deeply about the talk.
So this exercise is not meant to be performative. It is meant for you to feel what it feels like in your body when you have that conviction, when you are being able to say the words, own the words, own the no, go for it with full force and intensity and learning how to build that muscle memory inside of you because we are tapping into your will, your natural willpower, your natural ability to want things and to go for things. And because we've been socialized to not do this, it will feel a little scary. And sometimes people laugh and sometimes people feel scared about it because this is not a natural way of being. But if you want to be the type of woman who's able to interrupt in high stake situations, then this has got to be more of your muscle memory, not just something that you summon once in a while. It's something that is part of your toolkit and that you can intentionally tap into.
So when I was saying this back and forth, what we noticed in the person I was coaching, her body changed, her voice changed, her energy changed. And I stopped. Suddenly, I believed her. Basically, the assignment is, I keep going until I actually believe her, until I start noticing in her body, in her conviction, in her tone, right? Again, it doesn't need to be louder. It's just more leaning in with this conviction. So when I believe her, I stop, and that's the embodied conviction, right? That's the embodiment that I really want people to connect to.
Again, sometimes people will notice, they'll say part of this felt performative, and that's important because it can feel performative at first. You're saying words, your body may not be accustomed to saying with conviction. The goal isn't to manufacture anger. The goal isn't to scream louder. The point is to stay with yourself, to stay with the discomfort, to stay connected to your feet, to stay connected to your body. Stay with the words long enough to discover, where is my actual no? Sometimes we have to move through performance before we find congruence. Just like when I did my TEDx talk, I had to like remember the words, and then as I remembered the words, I embodied it. And that's why this is a practice. We're building muscle memory.
And I want you to be able to build that muscle memory so you can intentionally use your will to move things forward. And here's why it matters. This is where anger comes back into the conversation. Because women have been given so many messages about anger and assertiveness. Don't be the angry woman. Don't be emotional. Don't be aggressive. Don't be crazy. So we suppress it. We suppress this valuable connection to our anger, to our will. But anger carries something incredibly valuable: energy and motivation.
Anger can tell you something matters. Something isn't okay here. Something needs protecting. Something needs changing. That's why I think of this as harnessed intentional anger gives you energy. Your will gives you the energy direction. Without direction, anger can become reactive, right? But without access to anger, we become passive. We say yes to things that we mean no. We build up resentment and bitterness and we feel like we're slowly dying inside.
Listen to me. I know a lot of you listening to this, you're high-achieving women, and you look powerful on the outside, but on the inside, you want to feel powerful too. You want to feel like you have agency. You want to feel the freedom that people think you have. Rounded leadership is neither reactive or passive. I can feel the energy, and I choose what I do with it. This is that will to move that anger intentionally to harness it. Because let's be clear, nobody at work is probably going to stand across from you tomorrow and yell, yes, you will. Like that is not really what happens.
In real life, pressure is more sophisticated. It sounds like this. Can you just please take this one extra meeting? We really need you. Can you be flexible about this? Everyone else seems to be fine with this. Don't make this a bigger deal than it needs to be. Or maybe nobody says anything at all because that pressure is inside of you. You already feel that pressure. You already say no to yourself before you can say no to anybody else, right? I should. They'll be disappointed. What will they think of me? It's easier if I just do it. That's a huge one. Women will just say, it's easier if I just do it. And that's why you need your own back because life is tough. Leadership is tough. You're managing work, relationships, children, parents, ambition, money, health, friendships, and a household, as well as your own dreams and desires.
If all of those things get an automatic yes, what's left for you? If you want to do more than survive your life, you have to become willing to choose it. So here's your practice. Find one real no this week, not something manufactured, something you already know. Maybe, no, I can't take that on. No, that time doesn't work for me. No, I'm going to pass this time. No, I'm not okay with that. And then here's the hardest part.
Don't immediately abandon your no. Notice the urgent need to explain. Notice your wanting or desire to apologize, to soften, to offer three alternatives, to manage their disappointment. Let them have their response. This is like Mel Robbins, you know, whole book is like, let them, like let them have whatever they need. And you stay with yourself. Hear your no, trust your no, honor your no. Then make the final turn.
But I don't want you to build your life around no. Your no exists in service of something bigger. So ask yourself, what does this no make possible for you? You need to connect to that. I'm going to share a story, but I want you to notice this for yourself. No to another project might be yes to doing exceptional work on the priorities that matter. No to someone else's expectation might be yes to your family. No to staying quiet might be yes to your leadership. No to being chronically available might be yes to your energy. No to settling might be yes to your ambition. No to the life you're supposed to want might be yes to the life you actually desire.
You were born with a will. You have desires. You have preferences. You have a no. You have a yes. And if you are a high-achieving woman who's exhausted but still has that voice inside saying, there must be more for me. Listen to her. You don't need to work harder to hear her. You may need to stop overriding her. Connect to your will, connect to your desire, connect to your no. Because when you can say a powerful no, you create space for a powerful yes. And this is how you stop merely surviving life and start choosing it and authoring it for yourself.
All right, if this episode is hitting you and you are wanting to go out in the world and do things about it, go do it and tell me about it. I want to hear from you on LinkedIn or from the reviews in the podcast. I read them all. I would love to connect with you personally. So go and do that and if you know somebody in your life who could use this episode, go share it with them. Please share it with whoever in your life needs to own and honor their no and to speak up assertively about the things that they care most about.
This is not easy. We have years and years and years of conditioning to not own and honor our no and to not fight for it. But this is a new beginning. You can connect to your will again. You can connect to what matters to you. And I want to share this is just a last story about it, but I wanted to share this because I think sometimes people hear it and they're like, that is such a bold, you know, move and I don't think I could do it. But the reality is when I started doing this work, practicing my will, practicing my no, learning how to speak more assertively, owning what really mattered to me, getting super clear, discerning all of this stuff, I had a situation with my boss.
He told me to go to London and do a workshop and fix the situation because I was really upset with my peers who were, you know, I was in charge of the finances and I was in charge of being the advisor to my CEO and to my businesses. But accounting was done by transaction services. It was a shared group. So my peer owned accounting for the whole organization, and I wasn't getting what I need. And I was very upset and frustrated because my numbers were not accurate. We couldn't make decisions on them. And I felt stuck and I needed help. So my boss says, go over there and do a workshop. He actually said be very American, be very direct, fix it. So I create this whole agenda and I CC him on the email. I have my peers on it. I say, hey, I'm going to come and I'm going to do this.
Immediately after I send that email, he writes another email. He did not like that my training was two days long. He wanted it to be one day long, and he didn't want certain things to be on it. And so immediately when I read his email after I sent mine, I was angry. I was very frustrated, and I got on the phone with him and I shared with him very calm and grounded and said, I don't think you meant to do this, but your email is undermining my leadership. I am here leading people who are my peers who don't actually have to listen to me and I'm leading them into an uncomfortable conversation about what I need and what I'm not happy with. And here you are telling them not to listen to me and doing it your way.
And I was very calm and I used my will and I used my assertion to be able to have that conversation. And he of course said, I did not intend to do that. And I said, yes, I know you did not intend to do that. That's why I'm on the phone with you. And so it wasn't all rosy days, but it was important for me to assert and share my will. I want this to move forward. This thing you did was not helpful in moving it forward. So I'm going to name it and I'm not going to apologize for it. This is important work, right? But you can't speak with that embodied conviction or assertiveness unless you feel it deeply inside your bones. Unless you feel that level of certainty where you are showing up powerfully to have these types of conversations.
So that is my vision for you. If you are inspired by that story, I want you to create it for yourself, not just sit with the inspiration. I want you going after that level of connectedness to yourself, that level of conviction because you've got it in you. I believe in you. I know you can do it and I'm here for you. All right. Have a beautiful week. Take this episode and go use it. All right, bye.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
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