Don’t Be So Ambitious
At some point in my 36 years of life, I learned a few rules:
Don't take up too much space. Don't say too much. Don't want too much. Don't be so ambitious. And definitely, don’t be so bossy.
If you asked me whether I believe those rules, I'd actually LOL. No, of course not. I'm an ambitious eldest daughter, raised in the Barbie girl era where she casually swapped from homemaker to astronaut to surgeon. Of course I believe "I can do anything." AND, I did. I got a PhD. I wrote a book. I've lived in 3 countries in the last 6 years.
And yet, I still catch myself following these rules. Softening my emails. Waiting for a gap in the conversation that never comes. Typing "just checking in!" when I mean "this is three f*cking weeks late and you know it."
I've wrestled with this contradiction for some time. How is it that I can hold both of these beliefs and act in these seemingly juxtaposed ways simultaneously? And how does holding both influence what I do and don't do? The opportunities I go for and don't go for? The promotions, the leadership roles, the responsibilities I think I'm capable of?
Here's what I've come to learn (while on safari in South Africa of all places!)
The lion problem
A few years ago I was on safari in Kruger Park, watching a lioness snap at a male who tried to steal a bite of her kill. Our guide, Joe, said businesspeople have the wrong animal. We talk about leaders like lions. Big, loud, takes the kill, keeps the kill, will eat while the cubs go hungry.
Then he told me about painted wolves.
Painted wolves hunt as a coordinated pack. Everyone has a role, including the injured wolf, who stays back to watch the pups. They communicate through the whole hunt. They vote on their next move by sneezing, which remains the greatest fact I have ever learned. And when a kill happens too far from the den, they eat extra and bring it back up for the pups. (#grossbutcool)
The smaller, collaborative animal is winning by a mile. Painted wolves have a hunt success rate around 80%. Lions? Only 30%.
And we built the entire leadership industry around the latter! We spend over $350 billion a year on leadership development, and somewhere between half and three quarters of leaders still fail.
That's the curriculum drilled into your head. The one you were tested on. The one you are judged against. Yes, the one that only has a 30% success rate.
Why this lives in your head
If the lion is the only picture of leadership anyone ever showed you, then everything about you that works differently looks like a problem.
You want to bring people with you? Not decisive enough. You think before you answer? No executive presence. You push credit to your team? Not visible enough.
Every single one of those is painted wolf behavior being graded on a lion rubric.
And this is wrecking men too, btw. The guy who wants to say "I don't know, let me find out." The guy who leaves at 4:30 for daycare pickup. The guy who's collaborative by nature and gets called soft for it. He got handed the same lion suit on his first day as a manager. It fits almost nobody. He was just told it was tailored for him, so when it doesn't fit, he thinks he's the one who's wrong.
Everybody's losing. Some of us are just losing more visibly.
Okay, but a girl's gotta eat
This is where these conversations usually fall apart, so let's actually sit in it.
Knowing the curriculum is broken does not make the consequences of ignoring it go away.
You still need the job. The paycheck is groceries. It's rent, it's daycare, it's the flight home for the holidays. So when your boss tells you to smile more, you smile. When you're thinking about kids and there's no safe way to even raise it, you say nothing. When speaking up could cost you the thing you can't afford to lose, you get a little quieter, a little more palatable, and you hate it the whole drive home.
That's survival math. This is the opposite of girl math. Real numbers, real consequences.
So no, I won't tell you to just be braver. Wanting to fight the system while needing the system to pay you is a real tension, and anyone selling you a clean answer to it is lying.
What I'll tell you instead: change rarely comes from one heroic moment. It comes from a hundred small, strategic moves made by women who knew exactly what they were doing and exactly what they could afford.
That's leadership too, by the way. The quiet, strategic kind nobody puts on a poster. It doesn't always come with a title, and it doesn't need one. And according to the actual science? This is the heart of good leadership. Influencing people toward a shared goal. Reading the room and moving. The real thing looks a lot more like this and a lot less like the "5 things all great leaders do" BS you read on IG or LinkedIn.
Which brings me to The Den
Painted wolves have a den. It's where the pups are. It's where the injured wolf has a job. It's where the pack regroups before a hunt and returns after. And nobody stays there forever.
That's what I'm building.
The Den is for the women who want to fight back and also know that burning their bra and standing on the boardroom table screaming WE RIDE AT DAWN probably won't get them promoted.
Three parts.
The head. Tools and tactics. How small moves become big change without blowing up your life.
The heart. Hearing from women who get it that yes, you're reading the room correctly, and yes, it's exhausting. And when you finally do the thing? A whole pack screaming HELL YES as you do it.
The guts. Because the whole point of a den is that you leave it. You go back out and lead like the world actually needs, knowing the den is always here when you need to refuel. Oh, and Vegas rules don't apply. What happens in the Den? We want you to spread that everywhere. Like wildfire.
Doors open in September. Waitlist link below.
xoxo Kels
JOIN THE DEN WAITLIST HERE.
This Week's Thing: Belief Audit
This week, you're doing a belief audit. Not the beliefs you'd say out loud. The ones your behavior gives away.
Start a note on your phone or grab your favorite notebook and answer these three questions:
1. What did you almost do this week but didn't? The comment you drafted and deleted. The role you read the posting for twice and never applied to. The idea you saved for a meeting that felt "safer." Now finish this sentence about it: "I held back because I believe ______." That's a rule you learned.
2. Where did you shrink something before anyone asked you to? The email you softened with a "just" or a "no worries if not!" The ask you rounded down before you even said it out loud. What's the rule underneath? Something like "I believe wanting more makes me difficult" or "I believe my full ask won't survive contact."
3. Whose reaction were you managing? Think of one moment this week where you edited yourself for a specific person's comfort. Your boss, that one guy in the meeting, whoever. Write down what you were protecting yourself from. That fear is usually a rule with a face attached.
Look at your three rules. You didn't make them up. Somebody taught them to you, and you learned them because the consequences were real. This week you don't have to break a single one. Just know they're there. You can't question a curriculum you can't see.
And if you’re ready to start changing those beliefs for you and the other women around you (because I PROMISE you aren’t alone in holding them), hit reply to this email and let’s chat.