She was feeling shaky about asking to be paid what she had earned before.
Why? Because she had a story in her head: “I was probably overpaid in my last job.”

So she considered playing it safe, asking for a lower number—just to get her foot in the door.
But it didn’t feel good—or right.

Blatant injustice shakes our confidence and sense of well-being.

• Nor is it a lack of strength, power, or will that leads 75% of executive women to second-guess themselves (according to KPMG study) 

• And it’s no personal failing that 50% of women of color planned to leave their jobs, citing marginalization (according to Working Mother Media survey) 

My mom — a South Korean immigrant with ironclad grit who wishes nothing less than abundance and success for her children — would probably get mad at me for saying this: I delight in making less money, by design.

It’s not a failure of strategy or a lack of hard work. Choosing to leave money on the proverbial table is a deliberate, values-based choice.

Feeling like a "fraud" is super normal, even for me. The more I coach subject matter experts and executive women, the more I see that imposter syndrome is never an indicator of actual competency but a hypnotic spell induced by a society steeped in bias against women and minorities. We can break the spell of this terribly boring hypnosis by co-opting its language. So there, I'm a "fraud." 

She reached out for coaching because, in her words, she didn't want to make the mistake of being "too blunt, too forward, too much" in her negotiation-- a critique she's heard more often than she'd care to count over her decades-long career. So here are four things we worked on in coaching.

Too often, the approach women are taught is based on outdated models—confrontation, brinksmanship, and posturing.

Because the win isn’t just about getting a “yes.” It’s about learning to advocate for yourself in a way that feels grounded, genuine, and generative—even if the answer is “no.”

A client of mine, let's call her Jia -- a thought leader in her field -- is preparing for a showdown.

Doing what's in Jia's best long-term interest financially, professionally, and personally means communicating a decision that will anger her biggest client (for now).

Here are the three steps we took in coaching.

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My client, Kasvi, came into our session feeling frustrated, angry, and rejected.

Her boss had shut down a well-intentioned suggestion for improving team output—something Kasvi offered in good faith to support the team’s performance.

But instead of openness, she hit a wall: “That’s my problem to fix,” said the boss tersely. (Translation: “Stay off my turf.”)

“Do you do this with every client?” My client asked me yesterday.

She had already secured a promotion to Director during our coaching engagement and was gearing up to apply for another one.

I teach a concept called Itty Bitty Sh*tty Committee (not a new idea 💡 — I first heard it from Kara Snyder when she coached me about a decade ago, and I’ve run with it ever since).

Itty Bitty Sh*tty Committee, or IBSC, for short, is the voice of our inner critic.

Ask a bright, ambitious manager how they’d know they have executive presence — and you might hear something that sounds more like a hostage situation than leadership.

What if you don’t have to figure out office politics the hard way?

What if handling frustrating work situations didn’t require Machiavellian maneuvers—or pretending everything’s fine?

Here’s a simple guide to walk you through your options.

On a cold February night in 2008, I ran away from the South Slope apartment I'd been sharing with my husband like my life depended on it. In a full-blown panic, I ran down 4th Avenue shrieking, "JUST GO AWAY!" to the man I'd shared a life with for the last three years.

When you’re that rare woman, one of the handful of people of color, or the neuro-sparkly oddball in leadership…Navigating office politics and advocating for yourself is spiritual work.

As an executive coach I work for the 1% -- but not the ones hoarding wealth. The 1% I work with are stockpiling something even more powerful, even more in short supply these days: Courage, vision, and the guts to rewrite the rules. 

As with so many hard-working, conscientious professionals I've had the privilege of working with, the real challenge wasn’t the logistics of securing multiple offers. It was socialized guilt. Guilt is a learned emotion. It got ingrained in us by authority figures who wanted us to be—let’s be blunt—easily controllable.

The odds are stacked against employees, especially women and minorities. Macroeconomics, mismanagement, layoffs, discrimination—forces beyond your control determine your fate.
So why bother?
Why fight for a promotion?

Armed with confidence-boosting tools, my client aced the technical and behavioral interviews. When it became clear an offer was on the table, she reached out to me: "How should I negotiate this?" Here's how we approached it with three key steps…