Unlocking and Empowering Women of Color With Cynthia Pong

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (00:00.654)
I don’t think so. think I found you just through my Googling and stuff. But I loved how I think I either saw it from your email signature or somewhere else about talking about it. And I was like, yes, someone else who’s using it, who’s leveraging it. And I like it because it’s, I mean, it’s really smart how you do it like 1500 plus. My numbers are not that high yet because sometimes I also forget to use it. Don’t tell her, but sometimes I forget. And you know, but.

Skot Waldron (00:04.406)
Okay. Mm. Yeah. Yeah, I know.

No, that’s, that’s awesome. So that’s been, it’s been really good for me. Um, okay. Very cool. Let’s, uh, so have you ever, have you done Riverside interviews? Yeah. Okay. So don’t go anywhere afterwards. Let it upload. Um, it’s, it’s doing a high res on your side. How is it mine? If it gets pixelated for some weird reason, just let it go. Uh, if you don’t know what I said, then just be like Skot, dude, I have no idea what you said. Yeah. Um, and so then I can repeat it, but you know, we’ll be good.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (00:30.134)
Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. Okay.

Skot Waldron (00:57.518)
that. So, all right, we’ll go probably 30ish minutes, you know, something like that. sometimes it goes over less over. I don’t know. We just kind of go with it and just, well, all right, you good. Okay. all right.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (01:01.294)
Sounds good. Great. Yeah, I’m cool. Yeah. I got a buffer. Yeah.

Skot Waldron (01:18.03)
Let’s talk about this stuff.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (01:19.726)
Yeah. Let’s get into it.

Skot Waldron (01:26.586)
Hello, Cynthia. wow. This is gonna be fun. You’re like, I don’t know. We’re sitting there talking before and I’m going, this whole like conversation should just be recorded.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (01:26.926)
Hey Skot,  and conversation bit of that feeling too. But you know, we’re just riffing, as you said, getting to know each other. Oh, thank you.

Skot Waldron (01:43.609)
So. Just riffing, just riffing and you’re just so easy to talk to. So I think it’s a gift. That’s really cool.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (01:55.83)
You know, I would like to credit that to our shared introversion. We are very good conversationalists. I feel once, you you get past the surface level stuff.

Skot Waldron (02:06.576)
Well, somebody told me, and I shared this on the last podcast I just did that, you got to walk through the shallow end Cynthia to get to the deep end. You know, like, I’m, and I always have to remember that. And cause I always like dreaded that type of conversation. And I was just like, I just want to get to the deep stuff, you know? And yeah, a little too much.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (02:11.662)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

 I know. I’ll fully own that because I’m absolutely also like a person who literally jumps in the deep end feet first with a lot of things. So I got to watch that for myself to like, projects, collaborations, new ideas, you know, not to the extent of like total shiny new object syndrome, but I do know I have that tendency to kind of like, go all in. And that definitely has its pros and its cons. So, yeah.

Skot Waldron (02:55.118)
Well, I always like, I’m going, when you, when, when you start out with politics and religion, like right out of the gate, I’m just kidding. But you know, it’s things like that. It’s kind of like, you get to know a person, like you’re getting to their value system and their beliefs and their core identity. And, because those things are always going to be in flux and you’re always going to be kind of like, in this space of like, is there ever a right answer? You know,

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (03:03.579)
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah, I know.

Skot Waldron (03:24.1)
Like my right might not be your right. it’s just, it’s, that’s where human conversation and stuff happens. The problem is when it gets hostile, then it’s just, then it destroys whatever.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (03:32.832)
Yeah, right. Yep. I know then things can just totally break down. But, you know, I guess that’s where I could see the progression of shallow end to like the middle part, you know, like, maybe there’s enough trust and social capital built there to sustain a little more of the divergence that might happen in the deep end. But also, yeah, it’s hard. It’s very hard today, you know.

Skot Waldron (03:57.648)
Can you tell me, so let’s talk about you because enough about what we are talking about. We’re talking about me and you, but let’s focus more on you because I’m boring, Cynthia. That’s why I have guests on my show. I don’t do a solo show because people don’t want to hear from me. They want hear from you.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (04:06.764)
Yeah. Okay.

Well, I’m gonna say that’s a classic introvert deflection. I do it all the time. I don’t know. mean, only you can tell. I will say it’s partly a reason why in my so in my first profession and we didn’t talk about this yet, but you might have seen like I’m so I’m a lawyer. I don’t practice, but I’m technically still a lawyer. The only reason I became a lawyer was to be a public defender. And so I was a trial attorney.

Skot Waldron (04:22.114)
Is it? Is that what I’m doing? that what I’m doing?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (04:44.48)
And a lot of that, both in your relationship with your client and the whole kind of process, and then the rare times that you’re on trial, a lot of it really comes down to asking questions, you know what I mean? Which podcast hosts excel at. But then now, before kind of my job became more just really running and Braze Change, like I started out as a single career coach.

And a lot of that is also asking the right questions and helping people unlock, if you will, the answers for themselves. So anyway, I think about asking questions and stuff a lot. And I think I do that because I also would rather not talk about myself. But I’m happy to play. And I don’t know, I guess just some quick high level that I to tie it together. Kind of like what I just said is, I run Embrace Change. It’s a career coaching and a training firm.

We do on the B2C side specialize in working with women of color because on that side, it’s our mission to get all women of color the money, power and respect that we deserve in the workplace. I do sort of feel like, I know it’s kind of a wild pie in the sky mission. I think it will not be achieved within my lifetime, but it doesn’t mean it’s not worth striving for. And then on the B2B side, we work with government agencies, nonprofits, corporations, startups, kind of the whole range of folks on different leadership, employee engagement, employee wellness, training, PD kind of needs. So that’s like my elevator talk spiel or whatnot, but we’ve already, you and I have kind of talked about how I’m a big introvert. And I like to tell people that because like you were saying, we play extroverts kind of in these spaces. And I think leadership also really favors that like broadly. Aside from that, I’ll just say I’m based in New York, in Harlem. I’m obsessed with Rottweilers. I’m happy to talk about any of that. I’m a middle child, oppositionally defiant. Tracks? Yeah.

Skot Waldron (06:41.936)
Okay.

Wow. That totally, that makes total sense. And the fact that you love Rottweilers is just, you know, goes right with that. tell me about, I want to know about this transition from, I honestly did not know that, whole going from the legal world of, you know, all that to then…

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (06:54.743)
I know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Skot Waldron (07:10.236)
what was that? What sparked that whole thing? then you, even so just straight, did you go straight into helping women of color? Or was it more of a transitional thing where you’re like, whoa, what, how, what? need to do something.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (07:14.479)
Thank you.

I know I wish it was either of those options because that would be way more like coherent, but it was really far more accidental and messy than that. But to answer your questions, I was a public defender for six years. I started burning out around year three and then I just tried to like fix my burnout, you know, in all the kinds of different ways. And it took me another three years to realize this is like a more fundamental like misalignment, I, you know, I want to do this work, but really my personality and kind of who I am in some core ways is really not, it like, I just, in a way I felt like I didn’t have tough enough skin to really be in the system like that day in and day out. was, I mean, it was just very conducive to burnout. You know, high caseloads, just like demoralizing results, like senior clients in and out of jail and stuff and like feeling like going in thinking you might be able to make some kind of real difference and not really feeling like you can see that in the day to day. Like I hear that a lot from clients too, like executive coaching clients now, like we want to see the impact of our efforts, you know, and if we can’t see that over and over again, it’s just very discouraging. anyway, long story short, I burned out. There was like this one light bulb moment that I write about in my book, Don’t Stay In Your Lane, which I like had an out of my experience where I realized, Cynthia, like you got to do something differently. This is not what you came here to do. It was not my proudest moment. But then that catalyzed it all. And after that, had to take a… I took an unpaid sabbatical where I could like know that I had a job if I wanted to go back within a year, but I wasn’t paid that sort of like in between things. So that was really helpful as like a safety net. And then I just spent two months recovering from the burnout. Then I was like, okay, got to figure out what to do because go to do something, pay the bills, et cetera. And then I got into my head that I wanted to work for myself, start my own business. It was like a lot of hubris. And then I just failed forward my business from there, like a bunch of times. So it was not like A to B, that was my goal type of thing.

Skot Waldron (09:35.664)
And rarely is it, you know, I would, I would probably say my journey has been accidental in a sense as well. I just kind of followed the path that I feel was, you know, of least resistance and, um, using my gifts and the things that the doors that kept opening, kept walking through them. And I think that’s the opportunity we need to take. Um, and, some of this and, and that whole idea of self preservation and, fear and of.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (09:37.443)
I agree.

Skot Waldron (10:03.94)
Getting in our own and getting in our own way is what really holds us back from making the progress. And when you know what phrase I hate hearing almost more than anything else. my gosh. All your, all your alarms are going off. Yes. Live on the show. I’m going to tell you exactly what you just said, Cynthia, that really annoyed me, you know.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (10:05.932)
Is same.

Was it something I just said? Okay, I can take it.

Skot Waldron (10:34.024)
No, I’ll tell you after the show. No, I’m just kidding. the phrase, stay in your lane. Holy moly. Can I please not hear that phrase anymore? It’s like, I just need people to stay in their lane and I’ve been told I need to stay in my lane. And it’s like, when has that ever helped anyone to just tell them to stay in their lane?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (10:58.766)
I know. Yeah, like even if that’s kind of what you want to convey, like saying it in that way is not the move, you know.

Skot Waldron (11:10.326)
No, yeah, like, okay, I get what you’re trying to say, but let’s say it not that way. So when you’re writing the book, tell me about your I mean, I’m just barking off my whole, like, dislike of the phrase, but you use the phrase of don’t stay in your lane, which I really like, by the way, and look at that. it’s a bigger format book too.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (11:14.164)
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Thank you. I can show you the visual too for those who are interested.

Yeah, I kind of went, remember when I told you, I don’t even remember this on the recording, how I like, I’m a dive in the deep end person, I overdid it, like, obviously. You know, but it is what it is. It doesn’t read like a treatise. I’ll promise you that. It doesn’t read like a statue. It’s like, it’s very, you know, like, look, I put like my journal entries in here, you know, I was way too transparent. Anyway.

Skot Waldron (11:41.903)
Yeah. Did you get all lawyer on us with that book? Cynthia?

Wow. Okay. That’s awesome. I love it. I love it. But you know what? It’s like, what’s the whole idea behind that book and the whole idea of like, don’t stay in your lane.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (12:05.507)
Yeah. I know. So I’ll also admit to you, this might be foreign to you as someone who really excels clearly at marketing and branding and stuff. I’m not good at naming things. Like I’m a wordy person. don’t kind of like think in the right way. I think to like get the right words to really hit so much. So it took me a long time to figure out what to name this book. And I feel like I was like laying in bed one time being like, I’m going to meditate on this until I figure it out. And then that was like one of the options. But it was one of the last things I did after I wrote the whole book.

The reason I wrote the book, you’ll love this as like a business owner maybe is because I thought that, okay, so was coaching a lot of people. A lot of people were seeking me out because they wanted to change careers. They’re miserable in their career. They’re like, okay, career change is like the thing that’s going to, I don’t know, be what I need to do, et cetera. So they’re, you know, naturally like, okay, well, Cynthia did it. Let me just work with her. So that’s what I was doing a lot. And then there was more kind of demand than I had time to like work with people individually. Plus there’s also people who you know, could use the support, but don’t necessarily have the funds right now to like engage in coaching or something like that. So was like, I find myself repeating the same thing over and over again. Why don’t I put it in a book written format and then I can just give it to people and they can get it at any, you know, any time of day or what have you, and they can coach themselves through the process. That’s why I wrote the book. Little did I know that it would actually really just make people want to work with me more individually.

Like, I don’t know if you’ve had that experience, but I really wanted to create it as like another option. Um, but really, know, and it’s good for business or whatever, like it kind of just became this other part of embrace change, but the don’t stay in your lane part. I, I chose that in the end because I heard from so many clients and our, you know, community, which is mostly women of color, but a lot of people of color, a lot of people outside of those identities.

And it’s the same thing you said, like we get told all the time to stay in your lane. And it’s kind of like, well, why? Cause like there could be legitimate reasons that I fully understand that from like at all kinds of levels, right? But it happens a lot to women of color. And it happens for reasons that I personally don’t really think are legitimate. Like maybe this is getting some, some spicy stuff in the deep end. like reel me back if you need to, but like power hoarding or opportunity hoarding.

This happens to our clients a lot where like they’re it’s like kind of a pet to threat thing. If you’ve also heard of that, where either a black woman or a woman of color in the workplace, like she’s considered the pet, like as long as she’s kind of the workhorse and like getting the stuff done and like notice the grindstone type of thing. But then the second that we might express something like an ambition to climb a ladder or do something that might be a little innovative or out of line, then it like the person becomes a threat.

So that’s like, I think I wrote a LinkedIn article about this that like keeps popping up. like it’s resonating with folks and pet to threat was not my phrase. Like someone else coined that. But anyway, so this whole idea of like women of color, especially black women being told to do something or not do something like we also get unsolicited advice, like way more, including from other women and other women of color than other groups. like just this whole idea of like society, everybody telling us what to do, I wanted to really flip that and be like, we need to reclaim agency to walk through those doors, like you were saying, and like, make the opportunities, find the opportunities, take the opportunities, as opposed to like doing what other people say.

Skot Waldron (15:47.482)
So obviously, not being a woman of color as myself, being actually a middle-aged white man that grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, you know, what should leaders be aware of? when they’re, I mean, how, if I can’t truly empathize with you, like…

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (15:56.206)
And so it is.

Skot Waldron (16:15.028)
How do I still get to the area of compassion, of service, of leading you in a way that is empowering and you know where I’m not playing favorites right? But I’m treating you like everybody else but like are there certain things that I should be considering and thinking about?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (16:36.312)
Yeah, I love this. actually have our team shirt at Embrace Change for like our team members. It says pay, amplify, promote, support, and listen to women of color. So that’s not very catchy. I already told you I’m not good at that stuff, but like sometimes. Yes, yes. Pay, amplify, promote, support, and listen to.

Skot Waldron (16:50.629)
Hold on, on. me them again. I gotta write them down, right?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (17:04.674)
Which I’ll admit is clunky, sometimes internally we call it capsule. I know. I know. know. Hold on. Take, I’m taking that note. I’m to work on that. cause I do need to do that. love that tip. yes. So, you know, the, like, those are some concrete things and you can also, I know some of those words have multiple meanings and I actually do mean them in the multiple ways. Like,

Skot Waldron (17:07.034)
You got to make an acronym out of it or something, Cynthia. Like, that’s the cool thing to do. Either make a Venn diagram out of it or an acronym out of it. And then you’ll, then you’ll land it. Okay. Okay.

Figure it out.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (17:34.338)
So promote, maybe you’re not in position to literally promote a woman of color because org charts and like, I don’t know, it’s out of your control, what have you. But you can still promote in the broader sense what a woman of color is doing, like amplify their work. those to me are kind of like tied together. But two other things that I think are like stepping stones or the pathway, or if you will, the shallow end to get to there, to the papsel pay, amplify, promote support listen to is one, you know, get to know them. And like, if sometimes they’re not in a position to like, I don’t know, have a ton of time to like talk to you or whatever, like, you know, you can still sort of observe and like see and like notice things like, you know, I don’t know, Cynthia seems to be like doing this thing a lot. Like, is there a way that I could support? then maybe I could just shoot a quick message over and be like, hey, I noticed you’re like, heads down on this project, like, is there anything I can do? You literally did this, I think, before we started the recording. Now I’m forgetting when we hit record. But you were like, how can I support you, basically? You asked me that earlier. So things like that. And really just kind of like listening. And then if and when you see things that are unjust or unfair that are happening, like these are a couple of things that happen a lot in the workplace to women of color disproportionately, I would say.

People take credit for their ideas. People take credit for their work. They get erased from different things. They’re paid, you know, a lot of times inequitably. And so, or like there’s maybe a double standard with like, you know, the whole thing about you got to work twice as hard to get paid, you know, half of the pay or what have you. When you see things like that, or if you think they might be happening, you know, see if there’s something that you can do to either call it out, talk to somebody else about it and call it in.

Ask if support is needed, you know, it’s kind of really just. I don’t want to say just because it minimizes it, but it comes down to, would say basic things. but if you’re even thinking about it, I would argue that the compassion you mentioned earlier, that’s already coming out. And I don’t think we all need to fully empathize, like fully be able to put ourselves in other people’s shoes to empathize a bit, you know, and I’m a person that believes it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

So, I think all of those things count for a lot.

Skot Waldron (20:05.336)
If I am in this position of leadership and I have all types of diversity inside my organization, what do you think is the thing that you’re seeing that holds leaders back the most I would think, or what is it that you think is holding leaders back from being, you know, for, for supporting or amplifying or promoting or

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (20:08.576)
I’m to take a quick break. Thank you.

Skot Waldron (20:35.082)
Even calling out those unjust situations.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (20:40.302)
At first, as I was listening to you unfurl the question, my first thought was, I think people are afraid of like making mistakes, saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing, that type of kind of thought process. But then as you shared more about like, you know, and I thought more about the context that we’re in now, which is like pretty intense. Now I think there’s just, there’s so much going on that it really feels a lot more vulnerable and dangerous, honestly, to say certain things. And I think we’re going to see some people do some really brave things. I think we’re seeing it right now on kind of like a national stage. And we’re also going to probably encounter a lot of silence or people abstaining in a way. And, you know, I think it’s going to be telling.

I’m sort of a person that I always tell my clients in our community too, because we tend to, and I mean this generally, like we often tend to give people, I think a lot of the people in our orbit, I’ll just say this, tend to give other people the benefit of the doubt. Like, you know, I’m gonna take you at your word and give you a lot of benefits of the doubt, really. But I’ve seen that backfire on my clients so many times where, you know, there’s a supervisor who’s like, you just need a little more experience to get this promotion or this like pay raise or like, we’ll, you know, bring you into the C-suite when you do X, Y, Z. We’re not doing promotions right now this year. And then, like within weeks, months, sometimes days, there is evidence in the actions that are taken that completely just undermine the words that were said. So I’m always like, you got to pay attention to the actions of the words. What are people actually doing? That’s going to tell you what they genuinely care about what actually matters to them, their priorities, and we have to understand that to be strategic, both as leaders, up and coming leaders, you know, all that sort of thing. That’s kind of far field from what you asked, but.

Skot Waldron (22:50.37)
No, it’s good. That’s good. I want to, so, okay. So we’re, we’re talking about the, leaders responsibility inside organizations. Let’s shift it back to the, to, to your clients, right? To, women of color in their responsibilities, as far as workplace is concerned and their own success and what they need to fight for and who they need to be to feel empowered, to feel like they can make their own path. cause I have to, this goes back to.

I was going to say this real quick, just side note. You know what the title of my book was? How hard I worked on the title of my book, Cynthia. It’s called Unlocked. It was too easy. It’s just like, already got a podcast. I just named it the book that too. I call it brand consistency.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (23:20.494)
Yeah. I love that. But wait, did you? Yeah. You know, I, I am an overdo it person. Like, I’m kind of a maximalist. You know what I mean? Like, it’s, it’s, it’s really, I can see how it holds us back. Anyway, I’m like fully self aware.

Skot Waldron (23:53.008)
Okay. That’s fair. Okay. So what I was going to say is in my book, unlocked, I, I feature different quotes. have an inspiration, an application and a transformation section of each one of my books, right? It’s just the, each chapter it’s meant to be done in like five minutes. It’s just really short and punchy, but there’s two quotes that I feature in this book. Number one is a victim always needs a villain. The second one that I was going to share, dang it, what was the second one? anger is a great starter, but horrible finisher. so when we’re talking about something as unjust as workplace discrimination or anything that’s happening with and within a culture or to a whole race, gender, sexuality, whatever type of individual in the workplace, it can make us angry. There’s an injustice in the world that we are fighting. Right. And it’s a great starter, but it’s a horrible finisher. Like if I just stay angry, angry, angry, angry every day, all the time, all the time, I’m just an angry person. Then everybody just looks at me as like, well, they’re always so bitter. They’re always so angry. They’re always, you know, always this. And then I get labeled that my brand is that justified or not.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (24:54.068)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Skot Waldron (25:20.066)
And then I also, then that, that carries me over to the second one. Like a victim always needs a villain because then I start playing the victim role where I’m just angry all the time because I’m the victim of this. I’m a victim of that. And they did this to me and they did this to me. And now I’m in this position. So let’s talk about that mentality for a minute is it, do you see it the same way? Do you want to push back on any of that? Like, please, like whatever you have to say, I’d love to hear.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (25:34.946)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

No, I agree with all of that. Like it makes me think of I think there’s like a Buddhist kind of story or allegory, if you will, if it’s like, you know, you’re holding a hot if someone like throws a hot coal at you and like you’re holding it like you don’t need to keep holding it like another way I think that it’s a little more of a graphic one is like, okay, someone stabs you like that’s on them. If you keep driving that knife into yourself, that’s on you. You know, so like I’m definitely.

I think anger is a great and Dr. Brittany Cooper has that book, Eloquent Rage, which I highly recommend, but it’s all about like, you know, kind of harnessing, if you will, the power of the anger as the catalyst, because I think anger is a great warning sign that something is off, something is wrong. And then the thing about me is I’m always also about action, which I think you also are. And the book is called like, Don’t Stay in Your Lane. So like, get out of it or whatever. that’s on know, each person to do that and take that agency and take a bet on themselves and do it. in a way, I think for because, you know, we talked about the leader perspective. Now we’re talking about on the individual. There’s another, there’s another quote, I think it’s, man, I think it’s actually a paraphrase of Gramsci, like old school, you know, philosopher, whatever it’s like, about having pessimism of the intellect, but optimism of the will. So I’m a person that really believes even as we are existing in a lot of systems of injustice, that doesn’t mean we don’t have to try to still A, do our best if we’re gonna fight back, fight back in whichever way we’re going to, which that can look a lot of different ways, and then take responsibility for our own, what I think of as career insurance. So I think if there’s two things that I could say for anyone who is in a situation where they’re facing injustice at work, one, first, you got to make sure you have community support somewhere, somehow. may not exist within the same company or organization, but you need your personal advisory board, your advisors, your whatever, your work friends, your friends, friends. You need the people who are going to be able to support you because there will be times when you want to gaslight yourself about it and or fall into this place of self victimization and just always be stewing or like throwing the pity party. I’m a fan of a pity party, by the way, but like go deep, get through it and like keep going. You know, you can’t be in a pity party forever. So the community support is one. The second thing is what I mentioned about, I think women of color in particular really need to be disciplined about building what I think of as our own career insurance. So we have health insurance for medical stuff.

We have car insurance, house, know, homeowners insurance, renters insurance, all of those things, right? But what do we have for our career, which is arguably the most important asset in most of our lives in the society we live in. And so what does that mean? It’s not a policy, of course, that you can just go and buy, but it’s the things like, are you cultivating your network? Are you working on your brand and marketing? you just letting other people define it for you? Are you thinking about, okay, I’m in this job now, but what do I want next? What is my plan?

I think you talked about this in the Jerry episode about retention and recruitment. We don’t live in a time when people are at the same job for 35 years or even five years now anymore. It’s such a quick turnaround. We need to think about what is the backup to the backup to the backup? The rifts are not ending, the layoffs are not ending, they’re becoming more normalized. What do you have in place so that you’re going to land on your feet and even come out winning every time something unexpected and like bad happens in your career. So that’s a very practical answer to like a probably much deeper, more like painful experience of experiencing injustice in the workplace. But that’s how I think about it. And I don’t think we have a choice. Honestly, all of us, like everybody needs to have that. Like, what is your own safety net you’re building? What is your financial cushion? You know, like, my business could go sideways at any point, right? So like, what am I doing to future proof it every day.

Skot Waldron (30:01.88)
Why, you know, when, okay, let me, let me back up on, on, on that question. No, that was, that was really good. I want to, so let, let’s pivot to a little bit of like, okay, somebody isn’t necessarily experiencing the injustice in their, in their workspace. how, what’s the biggest thing you work on with women of color to empower them, to prepare them, to coach them through like, you know.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (30:06.018)
I know that was a lot.

Skot Waldron (30:28.708)
Well, actually I’m going to preface, I’m going go back. I’m going to, okay. Interview, interview brain. Okay. I’m going to start on this question. What do women color come to you the most about?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (30:34.734)
Okay. You know, it, I feel like this might resonate with you, but maybe not. They feel stuck. Like they’re stuck in some kind of way. They’re either stuck at the same job. They’re stuck because they want to change careers and they can’t get there. They’re stuck because they’re stuck on some part of the org chart, the ladder, what have you. And they start to sense that something is wrong, but they’ve also been sitting in that for some period of time. It’s kind of like how it took me three years to like move through my burnout thing. Like I was burnt out already at the beginning, but it took me three years to really like, you know make a decision to move out. So that’s what I would say. They’re, if you will, locked in whatever, you know, thing that they’re in. need, they realize they need external support and like a strategic, like outside person to support them. Okay. Yeah.

Skot Waldron (31:28.218)
So now I’m to move on to part B and that what I was going to ask originally, is the, do you help them move through that? What is, what is kind of the thing that you feel helps unlock them into that area of starting to make progress? Cause in my book, again, unlocked a 52 week guide to the intentional leader. can buy it on Amazon and there, also says, you know, it’s tough to ride a bike that is tough to pedal a bike that isn’t moving.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (31:50.146)
Yeah.

Skot Waldron (31:56.816)
And so, you know, you can get frustrated that you keep falling over on the bike, but. You know, it’s gotta be moving. So how do you get people to move? How do get people to start going beyond that stuck phase?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (32:09.736)
Yeah. Okay. I’m going to try to give you two answers. One is more like the philosophical one and then one is really more practical. So like the philosophical one, I came up with this is a different acronym. It’s a little clunky as well, but it’s C care. So one C.

Skot Waldron (32:27.896)
It’s what? I love this. I love it. Okay. What is it?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (32:33.23)
The first C is compassion, which you mentioned earlier, and then the rest of it, C-A-R-E, curiosity, action oriented, real time, experimentation. I feel like if you think about those, I think we’re pretty aligned on that, but like also, you know, interesting where we diverged and stuff. That C is first and it’s isolated separate from that first hyphen because I realized after coaching like, at this point, I’ve coached over women of color over the years, you know, and a lot of them are leaders and executives, women of color. It is not a skills gap. is not a deficit and like, they can’t do something good enough or whatever to like get that next promotion or like, you know, move to whatever company they’re trying to get to. It’s usually something around the compassion or the lack thereof that they have for themselves. So a lot of us got to where we are because we’re high functioning, high performing. We’ve like gone to the Harvard’s and like done all the things because of like just brute force and being really hard on ourselves, having really high standards at a certain point in your leadership that starts to, you reach the tipping point and it starts to actually hold you back. So I meet a lot of our exact women of color clients at some part of that kind of like fulcrum part. And they’re really used to really just like trying harder, fighting harder and more brute force.

Instead of thinking, okay, maybe this paradigm doesn’t really work for me anymore. And I actually need to like do less so I can lead more. I say that a lot to our clients. Um, and the way that this is like related to the whole compassion thing is like, if we are constantly like so hard on ourselves, it keeps us back from innovating. keeps us, it holds ourselves back from trying something that we haven’t tried before because we’re afraid of making mistakes. We’re afraid of our own shame response or like negative thought spirals around that. And so it really comes down to that piece. Like I’ve been through that journey so many times with, you know, people who are really kind of near the pinnacle of their career in law, in business, like all these places. And it’s around unpacking that stuff. The more practical answer is, I mean, it usually follows a pattern of like, all right, first I got to kind of get onboarded to this, person’s life, their background, understand them and like figure out through asking a lot of questions, like what is going on for them? And then it’s really like a, for me, it’s a pro it’s, it’s a really natural, like problem solving kind of thing that happens. Cause I, you know, I am trained as a lawyer. Like there’s a reason I ended up being a coach and stuff. Like I just really like to figure out problems, you know what I mean? And then what it comes down to, which is really not glamorous is like okay, well, once we sort out what it is that you actually want, where do you want to be? What do you envision for yourself? Like what kind of leader are you like striving to be? What’s your career mission? Then you just reverse engineering and figuring out like, okay, what’s probably the shortest path from A to B. And then what can you do on a weekly basis? That’s action steps. It’s like performance metrics, things within your control, not someone else’s control that you can do to get there. So, you know, it’s more gritty than glamorous for sure, but it just comes down to that. that’s what it is. We have to do certain things. have to be kind of like consistent and pivoting how we show up as leaders because there’s different stages, you know, to all of us for all of us.

Skot Waldron (36:09.114)
What do you think’s holding them back the most?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (36:12.59)
You know, for women of color, it’s that self-compassion piece. It’s really intense to try to unpack that, Skot. Like, you know, I was just talking to a client about it yesterday, I think. And like, you know, it’s so many years of conditioning where it’s like, you got to be perfect because you know, even the slightest misstep or mistake, you’re going to pay for that 10 times harder than somebody else. There’s also things like the glass cliff. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that phenomenon where it’s like, you know, related to the glass ceiling.

Yeah, it tends to happen for women or people of color. There’s a couple, if you Google it, there’s a couple of high profile examples on the Wikipedia page for Glass Cliff or something. But basically what happens is, let’s say a company is in turmoil, there’s some type of scandal, they’ve had a series of terrible years or something and they need someone to turn it around and clean up the mess, so to speak. It’s often at times like that, that you’ll see a company go from like white man, white man, white man, white man of a certain background and class usually and age. And then they will put a woman in place, like a white woman or a black man or like, you know, occasionally a woman of color. And then that is the glass cliff, because you got elevated up to this very high place, but it’s a cliff because you know, the one small misstep or what have you, and you are very, very easily made the fall guy. This happened at Reddit. I think it was, I can’t remember, it Yahoo, Xerox, I don’t know.

Fact check me on those for sure, but there’s a couple of really like high profile examples of what happened to the women who were put in those positions. And then, you know, look up what happens to them afterwards. It’s really hard for them to get another position of like a similar caliber.

Skot Waldron (37:56.004)
The self-compassion piece though, I think resonates a lot. I can see that quite a bit and that fear of the glass cliff and the knowledge that it happens and having worked their way up, I’m sure that they had probably experienced some sort of resistance as they’ve moved up the ranks in that organization or whatever organization in corporate America to get to that point in their career.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (37:56.278)
Okay, yeah.

Skot Waldron (38:25.856)
I doubt any of them have not experienced from resistance getting to that point. And that’s probably what’s made them so resilient and strong is breaking through and overcoming that resistance along the way. so what’s, what’s kind of like your number one tip to help, you know, people practice self-compassion. Do you have one?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (38:29.752)
Yeah. Hmm. you know, it might lead right into that second C of C care, which is the curiosity. So, you know, and this is not a new concept, but often we can, we can take a different approach and try to be curious about something instead, like, what might happen if I tried this, this particular technique or thing, or put myself out there in this way. And I try to just see what happens, like in a neutral, non-judgmental experimental way just see what happens. Like that sometimes can, kind of kick people out of that unlocked place because also the tendency for this kind of archetype is, it’s not only the really work really hard type. It’s also like, we are intellectually curious, you know, we did probably excel in different forms of academia and stuff. And so if I can get the person to have that little spark of like, I wonder what would happen. You know, sometimes it can, it can kind of get the ball rolling or so to speak. I usually try one of those kind of five levers out of the CKR acronym and usually that works. again, I’m clearly a very trial and error person and stuff is gonna get messy sometimes. In the real world, in real leadership, real issues come up, people are gonna be people and stuff is messy. We wanna pretend that it’s always gonna be nice and clean or whatever, but if we don’t get our hands in the dirt, we’re never going to have the garden that we want to cultivate.

Skot Waldron (40:20.666)
We’re going to leave it with that because that was like a mic drop moment. Cynthia, that what you, when you’re on stage, when you’re speaking audiences, you just like, you say that, drop the mic and kind of walk off.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (40:29.55)
I’m also like, you may have picked up on this by now too. I’m kind an awkward person. like, if I could, if I could do that, I mean, that would, that would be pretty epic, but you know,

Skot Waldron (40:36.272)
Yeah. You can do it Cynthia, you just did. You just did it. No, you’re awesome. Thanks for being on. I don’t say that very often, No offense to my other guests, but you’re someone that I just want to go hang out with and talk religion and politics with.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (40:53.994)
Ew, this was so fun.

Yeah, feel similarly like clearly you are good at what you do. And I don’t know, I loved everything about what you had online, including of course, the story of how you change the spelling of your name. Like that’s awesome. Like, I love that. But yeah, this has been really great. And hopefully, yeah, well, to be continued. Right.

Skot Waldron (41:21.496)
No, that’s fine. Thank you. Yeah.

Well, people, people want to contact you. they, they want some work from you. They want to understand more about what you’re doing, your platform, how you’re helping women of color or how you’re helping organizations in that space, you know, with your speaking or through your book or coaching, what, what do they do?

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (41:46.347)
Yeah. Love it. Great question. Thank you. You know, LinkedIn might be the easiest place so you can just kind of find me on LinkedIn, shoot me a DM. If you want to check out the website, everything is kind of consolidated back to there. So that’s embracechange.nyc. There is a whole story behind why it’s .nyc and not a .com or something, but that’ll have to be for another day. And then for those who kind of want more, just like they want the leadership tips and the nuggets and whatever, they can follow me on Forbes. So if you just Google Forbes and Cynthia Pong, you’ll find my page and all my articles on there. Thank you.

Skot Waldron (42:21.7)
You’re amazing. can’t wait till you are on Adam Grant show talking the same stuff because you know, if you do get on there, let them know that I’m interested to also get on there. So yeah, let’s do it. We’re a package deal Adam. So, all right. Well, thanks Cynthia. You’re awesome. Yeah, you’re awesome. Take care.

Cynthia Pong, Embrace Change (42:28.172)
Yeah, love Adam Grant. Yeah, let’s go on as a duo.

You guys are leaving us. Thank you.