Listener Voices: Responding to Feedback on Staying vs. Leaving in Tech

Listen in as I respond to the generous and conflicting feedback that you sent about my last episode, “Bravery in the Meantime.” Your feedback was the full range responses—positive, relieved, dismissive, and angry. I share your feedback and also offer my own thoughts on what comes next for us all.

Key Takeaway:
What you want to reject because it threatens you might be exactly what you need to work on right now.

Connect with Nicole:
You can be a woman in tech and enjoy your career. When you build the skill of bravery, you will stress less, work less, and then earn more. Check out the following resources designed to help you thrive in your career:

 

 If you can’t work less or speak up less, because your identity and your personal value rests in your profession, your career, your title, your paycheck numbers, I need you to lean all the way in.

Please, earballs open. Exactly what you want to reject because it threatens you is the most important work you could be doing right now for yourself.

Welcome to the Build Your Brave Career Podcast, where we flip the script on the tired stereotype that women in and around the tech industry have to be stressed out, overworked and underpaid. I’m Nicole Trick Steinbach, the International Bravery Coach and your host.

Forget what you’ve been taught. Bravery is not a personality trait available only to the brash.

Bravery is a skill and you already have it, which is great because building the skill of bravery is the most powerful way to creating the career and life you really want as you build your brave. You will stress less, work less, and then earn more.

This podcast will help you do just that. Let’s dive in.

Three things upfront before I get into the content.

The first one, this episode is in response to your response to my last episode. My last episode was called “Bravery in the meantime: how to Use a Tough Career Phase for Long-Term Success.” If you haven’t listened to that one, pause this, go listen to that one ‘ cause this one is again a response to your response and holy moly, was there a lot of response.

Okay.

Number two, thank you for following up and asking what’s going on with this podcast. What’s going on with this podcast is what’s going on in my life. My family, and I’ve mentioned this a couple of times over the last like year or so, we’re navigating some pretty big topics. They aren’t all my story, and so I won’t be sharing them here.

Those threads have me prioritizing very clearly my health, my family, my delivery, and then marketing and other services like my podcast. To be clear, I remain committed to the longevity and the quality of this podcast, and in remaining in conversation with you.

Yes, please do keep sending me emails, hit my dms on LinkedIn, and I hope that experiencing me ruthlessly, delightfully prioritizing inspires you to identify your brave prioritization and for you to put that into place.

If you have any questions about that on my website, there’s something called the accountability triangle, and that might be a really helpful exercise for you to go through.

This is number three. I am going to be graduating two of my long-term clients. I’m very proud of them. So that means in the next couple of months, I will be opening up two spots in my coaching practice.

If you want to be on the wait list, send me an email. Nicole@steinbach.com. There are a few people on the wait list, however, things change. I haven’t accepted new clients in a bit, and when I have accepted new clients, I’ve only accepted one at a time.

If you’re interested. Please reach out to me and we can talk about what design would actually support you and what my practice would be able to offer you.

All right, here we go. Now on to the content, as I mentioned. This episode, there’s one thing that I really wanna clarify about the last episode, and then we’re gonna get into the actual responses. I sent that episode out because of two specific people.

And I knew if there are two people in my brave community dealing with the same sort of situation, an unhealthy, disappointing, frustrating, career phase, then I know many other women are dealing with the same situation.

I too watch the news, right? And I know that many big names in the tech industry or tech industry adjacent, they aren’t exactly bringing their best, so to say, right?

They’re not doing well by their employees, their customers, their vendors, the planet. I think it’s fair to say basically they’re not doing well by anyone who isn’t a big time shareholder. . I knew the topic was gonna resonate. I did not expect the level of conflicting feedback.

I got, text messages, emails, dms, I got tagged in a few posts that was more or less a new thing. I got feedback in person when I went to a networking conversation, and feedback was all over the board.

Listen, I often get feedback on my podcast episodes and I am so grateful for every single one. I’m grateful you download this. I’m grateful you listen to this. I’m grateful you take a slice of your time and share your perspectives. But I have never gotten this wildly different feedback.

There really have only been two other episodes that got this level of feedback, but the feedback was pretty in line with one or two out outliers, and those were an episode called “The Glass Floor: a call to men in tech, your opportunity to lead the change” and the second episode was “Recognizing toxic career surroundings, create clarity to stress less and craft positive professional growth.”

Since then. I get feedback, but not as much, and I’ve never gotten this different feedback, so it’s taken me a while amongst all of my priorities to reflect upon that feedback, to enter into conversation with people about their feedback, and then really structure the feedback.

As I worked through this feedback, I realized I could organize it around four key buckets. Now, of course there were outliers. These are the most common grouped into buckets. All right. I am sharing example quotes for each bucket, and I’m sharing all four here again, as an example of leading in my brave.

We far too often only hear and share the positive feedback that we get. And we only notice or comment on the negative. And so I want to role model being brave enough to share the full range of responses for successes, failures, everything in between, right? So as you listen, I want you to, yes, definitely listen and notice what you agree with right away.

Notice what inspires you to think a little differently and also notice what you want to reject firsthand because there’s lessons in all of it. And that was very true for me as well. As I mentioned, four buckets.

Bucket one, and put underneath the heading of positive feedback.

One person said, ” this felt realistic. I appreciate that you didn’t sugar coat how hard it is right now. It felt validating to hear someone say, yeah, it sucks. Instead of pretending everything is about hustle and reinvention and leaping to the next thing and et cetera, et cetera.”

Two: ” I love the reframing of staying as bravery. The idea that sticking this out can be an actual strong choice right now- not a weak one- really landed with me.” That’s what this person wrote.

” It helps me feel less ashamed about not quitting or launching something new in this economy.”

And then the third sort of representative quote was. ” The tiny habit idea that feels doable.” And as a reminder, the tiny habits were, the sticky notes, the phone background, identifying and implementing the minimum necessary for success. So doing your job well, but doing your job well. Alright? All right.

The second big bucket was relieved feedback.

The number one quote around here, and then I’m gonna, read a quote and I’m gonna try not to tear up: ” thank you for saying I am not weak. And she wrote, I didn’t realize how much shame I was caring about staying, especially when I think about my parents and how much they struggled all their lives. Hearing that staying can be wise and intentional made me exhale. My parents struggled so I could have choices.”

Good, goodness gracious. Said, tear your, I tear up every time. ‘ cause that’s what it’s about, right? I struggle, so my kids have even more choices than I did.

The second representative quote was, “I feel less alone. The part about layoffs, rising costs, and specifically watching underperforming men earn more, that’s my reality. It was comforting to hear it named out loud. I’m not alone. I need to remember that, and I don’t have to make a big shift to be okay.”

And then the third representative was, “I needed explicit permission to stop over achieving. I’ve always overachieved and to be told to just achieve felt like someone finally gave me permission to protect me. These past years have been so hard, and I wanna just be a human, not a professional all the time anymore.” Whew. Tears up.

Now we get back into maybe the other side of feedback, which was dismissive feedback.

Again, remember you’re noticing what do you agree with? What inspires you? What do you reject? ’cause there’s something to learn there for everyone. Okay?

Dismissive feedback.

” This is just rebranded, coping, calling it bravery in the meantime, that’s just a nicer label for staying in a bad situation. Women have stayed in bad situations for too long, wash and repeat.”, And then it had this hilarious set of emojis when I was like, yeah, speak your truth, right?

The second representative quote for this one was, ” this sounds like quiet, quitting with better branding.”

I was like, oh my gosh, I wanna know more. So I asked some questions and the answer that came back was, “it doesn’t feel strategic. It feels like disengagement. I don’t want to quiet quit. I want the promotion and I want the money I already deserve.”

I was like, yeah, I get that. I get that.

And then lastly, the angry feedback, like truly angry. Some of these conversations I had in person, some of them I had in writing, text message.

” Your advice to ask fewer questions, stay quieter in meetings, do the minimum is just another way women are told, make yourself smaller, don’t push change: that isn’t brave Nicole.”

Oh, okay. I was like, yeah. All right. Let me think that.

Number two, ” this still centers individual coping instead of systemic justice. I am tired of being told, and I’m tired of women being told to build resiliency while these executives and shareholders and billionaires benefit from our brokenness. Where is your anger of structural inequality?”

Whew.

And then lastly, “therapy and coaching aren’t accessible to everyone. Suggesting therapy coaching courses. It makes you look like an out of touch white woman. You have so much privilege. Some of us are out here barely covering childcare, rent, debt after all these irresponsible layoffs.”

Yes. So before I share my reflections, even though I set the tone, I want you to take a moment for yourself. Right now. I took many moments.

Perhaps even pause after I share three questions with you as you just listened to the feedback I got. What feels true for you right now? What inspires you for your growth right now and what do you reject now or through this particularly career phase for yourself?

Okay. I really hope you took a moment to think about that. Stretch your brain. I’m gonna share my brain with you and my heart because here’s my response. Now that I’ve shared all the responses I’ve got, now I’m gonna share mine.

First, thank you. Thank you to every person who sent your thoughts, responses, recommendations, critique .

You are brave. It takes courage. It is a choice to tell someone what you like and what you don’t like, what you appreciate, and what you reject and why. Even if you don’t know why. I appreciate you for being here, listening to my respective, reflecting for yourself, and then gifting all of that to me and this entire brave community.

More than a handful of people wrote, I hope you’ll address this on your podcast. And I’m like yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you.

We need relationships. We need direct conversation. We need bravery.

Second, quite a number of people, myself included, sometimes, often, especially when it comes to parenting, need to be reminded: take what’s true for you right now in your face. Leave or set aside everything that isn’t or doesn’t. If speaking up less isn’t a growth area for you because you’re working on your voice, taking up space being visible or seen, ignore it. Ignore it. If getting permission to work less goes against your goal to follow through more, ignore it.

Hold on until a time when you are following through a boss. And you need to stop with the perfection, right? Take what is true for you, what is a stretch for you, and leave everything else.

That’s not for you right now, that maybe was for a past you or is for a future. You do not need every grain to be for you to gain something from a resource.

And again, I’m not trying to preach at you. I’m trying to remind you because I need this reminder sometimes too. Okay.

But, and this is the third part of my response, if you can’t work less or speak up less, because your identity and your personal value rests in your profession, your career, your title, your paycheck numbers, I need you to lean all the way in.

Please, earballs open. Exactly what you want to reject because it threatens you is the most important work you could be doing right now for yourself. If you cannot

exhale, put some things down. Be where you are now because it threatens you. That is exactly what you need to be working on.

Lastly, and this is my last response, quite a number of your messages made me realize I really have to check my own privilege, and maybe you do too.

You’re right, therapy and coaching is inaccessible to everyone. Not as everything gets more expensive, more threatening, I needed that reminder.

And for some of you, not everyone, but for some of you, not everyone has the privilege to move home to their parents or take on debt or leap without a net. Some people literally escaped their parents. They’re rejected for loans based on racist, sexist, and broken systems.

And some people, specifically one of my clients is a single mom one of her kids has special requirements and literally no safety net. Another one of my clients is endangered every single day if she leaves her home by the American Ice patrols.,

I need to check my own privilege. And some of you do too.

That’s not a challenge. It’s a call in because if we all bring more awareness, if we all bring more reflection, if we put our voice out there or not, and we get the feedback, good, bad, ugly that reflection is how we become more brave.

It is how you build your brave career and it will not look or sound or feel like what you think it’s going to do. We need more awareness and we need more reflection. We need more direct conversation. And we need a lot more bravery.

And that brings me to how I’m gonna end this episode. For so many of us, these moments, days, weeks, and months are hard. You want support. You want guidance, you want to build your brave, and honestly, I really wanna help. Yes, my company is a key source of my income. It is also my purpose. So here’s what I wanna hear from you, please, if you could be ever so generous, be bold and be brave:

in this bizarre moment of our shared experiences: what can I create? What can I host? That will support you to build your brave career?

Remember I said my focus is right now on health, family and then delivery, then marketing and podcasting, which is essentially what this is, right?

What can I create? What can I host that will actually support you in building your brave career? My email is open, my dms on LinkedIn Open, both are linked all over the place on my website and on the podcast notes.

And. I am really quite serious here. Be brave as fuck and tell me what can I offer that will support you to build your brave career.

Till next time.

If the Build Your Brave Career Podcast is helping you flip the script in your own career, if it’s helping you reduce your stress, work smarter or create more income, please share this with a friend. Until next time, you are already brave. Now go build your brave.