This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil

We tell women to speak up, set boundaries, advocate for themselves, negotiate for more, and stop waiting for permission. Great advice. But there's one tiny problem: What the hell are we actually supposed to say?

Because knowing what you want and knowing how to ask for it are two very different skills. Especially when your brain decides to take an unscheduled vacation right when you need it most.

Joining This Is Woman's Work is Emily Lampkin, author of Duct Tape and White Lies, founder of the Women Leader series, and a speaker and advisor with more than 25 years of experience helping women lead, succeed, and get what they want.

In this episode, we explore:

How to ask for what you want without overexplaining, oversharing, or apologizing

What to say when you freeze in a difficult conversation and can't find the right words

How to set boundaries and say no without feeling guilty or needing to justify yourself

Why self-advocacy and self-promotion aren't bragging, and how to confidently communicate your value

Practical strategies for asking for a raise, negotiating a promotion, and creating career opportunities

Why every woman needs a "swimsuit friend" who will tell her the truth

How to handle rejection, follow up when you're ghosted, and stop taking every no personally

Why taking action before you feel ready is the secret to building confidence and getting what you want

Because confidence doesn't come from getting every conversation right. It comes from trusting yourself enough to have the conversation.

Thank you to our sponsors!

To see what Scribe could look like for your team, head to https://scribe.how/TIWW and mention TIWW for your first month of Scribe Capture free on select plans

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Connect with Emily:

Website: https://www.emilylampkin.com/

Book: https://www.emilylampkin.com/author

FB: https://www.facebook.com/emily.k.lampkin

LI: linkedin.com/in/emilylampkin

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Women are taught to be agreeable, accommodating, self-sacrificing, and well-behaved. To stay quiet, make everyone comfortable, and take up as little space as possible.

Yeah, no thanks.

What if the goal isn't to become a better-behaved woman, but to reclaim who we were before the world taught us to shrink?

Avril Millar, author of Feral: A Grown Woman's Guide to a Free and Ferocious Life, joins Nicole Kalil to challenge societal expectations keeping women small. After five careers, losing everything in her 40s, and starting over at 50, Avril is now 74 and has plenty to say about confidence, self-love, reinvention, and refusing to be tamed.

We explore:

What it means to be feral and reclaim your authentic self

How societal conditioning teaches women to be agreeable and self-sacrificing

Why midlife and menopause can be opportunities for reinvention

How to recognize the expectations and "shoulds" holding us back

Why trusting your intuition starts with learning to pause

How to stop worrying about what other people think

Why self-awareness is essential to confidence and personal growth

How to build a healthier relationship with yourself and practice unconditional self-love

What Avril has learned about resilience, starting over, and embracing life at 74

Being feral isn't about being reckless or selfish. It's about questioning the rules we've been following, trusting ourselves, and deciding which expectations no longer deserve our obedience.

Perhaps the most important relationship we'll ever have is the one we have with ourselves. So it's time to stop becoming who everyone else needs us to be and start embracing who we actually are.

We were never meant to become less of ourselves. We were meant to become more.

Thank you to our sponsors!

To see what Scribe could look like for your team, head to https://scribe.how/TIWW and mention TIWW for your first month of Scribe Capture free on select plans

Protect your loved ones without spying on them. Go to https://heypolo.com/work or use code WORK and get 70% off your first year

Connect with Avril:

Website: https://www.avrilmillar.com

Book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Avril-Millar/author/B00DCLLFUS

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/avrilmillar

IG: https://www.instagram.com/avrilmillar/

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We've traded ancient oracles and crystal balls for algorithms, but our desire to predict the future hasn't changed. Today, AI predictions influence everything from hiring and healthcare to loans and personal decisions. But predictions aren't facts, and prophecy isn't destiny. So who's really in control?

Carissa Véliz, Oxford AI ethics expert and author of Privacy Is Power and Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI, joins Nicole Kalil to explore the intersection of prophecy, artificial intelligence, privacy, and power — and why we should think twice before letting algorithms decide our future.

We explore:

Why AI is a prediction machine, not a truth machine

How AI predictions influence hiring, healthcare, loans, and major life decisions

What ancient prophecies can teach us about modern algorithms

How algorithmic bias and self-fulfilling prophecies threaten fairness and freedom

Why ChatGPT can sound convincing while being completely wrong

The hidden privacy risks of using AI tools

How to protect critical thinking, personal agency, and decision-making in an AI-driven world

AI can make life easier, but that doesn't mean it should make our decisions. Understanding how these systems work helps us question their predictions, protect our privacy, and reclaim our power.

Prediction is not destiny. Data is not the whole story. And an algorithm doesn't get to decide what's possible for us.

The future isn't something we wait to have predicted. It's something we create.

Thank you to our sponsors!

To see what Scribe could look like for your team, head to https://scribe.how/TIWW and mention TIWW for your first month of Scribe Capture free on select plans

Protect your loved ones without spying on them. Go to https://heypolo.com/work or use code WORK and get 70% off your first year

Connect with Carissa:

Book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/759692/prophecy-by-carissa-veliz/

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carissa-v%C3%A9liz-a5781555/

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What happens when a confidence expert has a wardrobe malfunction in front of hundreds of women? One hell of a lesson in self-trust.

After an 11-week European sabbatical, Nicole Kalil returned to the keynote stage feeling rusty, nervous, and full of self-doubt. Despite 20 years of teaching confidence, her brain was busy imagining everything that could go wrong.

Turns out, none of those things happened. Instead, her left boob decided to make its own keynote presentation.

In this unfiltered and unhinged solo episode, Nicole shares what an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction taught her about overcoming self-doubt, letting go of perfectionism, and trusting herself when life doesn't go according to plan.

We explore:

Why even confidence experts struggle with self-doubt

How overthinking and catastrophizing fuel fear of failure

Why perfectionism can't protect us from embarrassment

The power of vulnerability, humor, and embracing imperfection

How to build real confidence by trusting yourself through the unexpected

Confidence isn't knowing everything will work out. It's trusting that we'll be okay even if it doesn't.

And sometimes, that lesson comes with a little unexpected exposure.

Thank you to our sponsors!

To see what Scribe could look like for your team, head to https://scribe.how/TIWW and mention TIWW for your first month of Scribe Capture free on select plans

Protect your loved ones without spying on them. Go to https://heypolo.com/work or use code WORK and get 70% off your first year

Start your risk-free Greenlight trial today at Greenlight.com/TIWW. Don't wait to teach your kids real-world money skills!

Connect with Nicole:

Subscribe to Nicole’s Substack: https://nicolekalil.substack.com/

Related Podcast Episode:

On Sabbaticals, Reinvention, and Getting Older | Unfiltered & Unhinged

When a One-Star Review Means You’ve Officially Arrived | Unfiltered & Unhinged

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Comparison is the thief of joy. Or so we've been told. But what if comparison isn't the problem? What if the real problem is what we do with it?

We compare everything. Careers, salaries, bodies, relationships, parenting, success, and whose kids somehow unload the dishwasher without being threatened. And thanks to social media, we can feel inadequate about all of it before we've even had our morning coffee.

But here's where things get interesting: What if envy isn't something to overcome, but something we can actually use?

Dr. Stacy Kim is a social scientist, life coach, founder of Life Junctions, and author of Envy: Why Wanting What They Have Is the Key to Getting What You Want. She's challenging everything we've been taught about envy, jealousy, and comparison, revealing how these uncomfortable emotions can become powerful tools for self-discovery, personal growth, and building confidence.

We explore:

The difference between envy and jealousy — and why understanding it matters

How to recognize benign envy versus malicious envy, and turn comparison into motivation instead of resentment

What the Korean approach to envy can teach us about admiration, ambition, and wanting more

How the SIREN framework helps uncover what envy is really trying to tell us

Why what we envy isn't always what we actually want, and how to identify the deeper desire

How social media comparison can impact confidence and self-worth

Why some feelings of envy disappear quickly while others deserve our attention

Practical ways to turn envy into action, personal growth, and meaningful change

Envy is information, not instruction. It can point us toward what matters, but we still get to decide what we want and what we're willing to do about it. So instead of letting someone else's success derail our confidence, let's get curious about what it's telling us — and use it to build a life that actually feels like our own.

Thank you to our sponsors!

To see what Scribe could look like for your team, head to https://scribe.how/TIWW and mention TIWW for your first month of Scribe Capture free on select plans

Protect your loved ones without spying on them. Go to https://heypolo.com/work or use code WORK and get 70% off your first year

Connect with Stacy:

Website: https://stacyskim.com

Book: https://www.amazon.com/Envy-Wanting-What-They-Getting/dp/1538776715;

IG: https://www.instagram.com/stacykim.phd/;

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacyskim/

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Share the Love:

If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform!

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Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices