Hoda Kotb’s Excellent Advice for Women at Forbes 50 Over 50: “Say It Out Loud.”

Issue 214— December 12, 2022

“Say what you want out loud.”

That was the most quoted takeaway from the fireside chat interview between Morning Joe co-anchor and founder/partner with Forbes in the “Know Your Value” initiative, Mika Brzezinski and NBC’s Today Show cohost Hoda Kotb at the gathering of women chosen for Forbes 50 Over 50 2022 on December 8 at Forbes’ New York headquarters.

Say it out loud. And then it will more likely come true.

Not a new thought, but clearly one the women assembled needed to hear, as women so often do. Hoda’s example of having said out loud that she wanted to be a mom at a time when she thought she would never have that opportunity touched hearts as well as minds. And we all knew in our bones that we’d had to muster the courage to do exactly that in our professional and personal lives, in a way that men seem never to find challenging to do.

Despite many gains, women still talk about the struggles we’ve had finding our voice, embracing our power, and being brave enough to share our highest intentions.

The world still believes a narrative that says women’s lack of ambition, rather than the remaining implicit and systemic biases, keeps us from parity in pay, power, and leadership positions. We make about 20% less than men on average and hold 75% to 80% fewer of the top leadership positions. Women of color make as little as 57% of what white men earn. When it comes to negotiating compensation, women ask for 3% to 32% less than men ask for. Because we often don’t know our value.

That’s why Mika Brzezinski’s leadership for women’s pay equity is so important.

Brzezinski, who is also the author of Knowing Your Value: Women, Money and Getting What You’re Worth, has been using her bully media pulpit to exhort women to take charge of their financial lives since the book was published in 2011. Providing women with usable negotiating tips for securing fair salaries and compensation packages, in 2018 the book was updated as Know Your Value: Women, Money and Getting What You’re Worth, and Brzezinsky began to create an even more visible platform.

The initiative is very much aligned with Take The Lead’s mission of intersectional gender parity in leadership. And 50>50 has the special twist of highlighting 50 diverse women over the age of 50 who have achieved significant achievements later in life. We’re a generation that has often had to overcome daunting cultural, personal, and systemic barriers to success, including ageism on top of sexism.

I’ll say it out loud: I’m proud and honored to be chosen of one of the 2022 50>50.

In fact, I said out loud that I wanted to be selected for this accolade after I learned about it last year, when my awesome cousin Marsha Hendler was among those honored. She is the founder of Texas’s largest woman-owned oil company, TerraFina Energy. And in true Take The Lead #SisterCourage fashion, she nominated me this year.

I might have been the most over 50 in the 2022 cohort.

I had a chance to thank 

Mika Brzezinski personally for highlighting the many ways women leaders are #intentioning and accomplishing great things at all ages. I couldn’t resist telling her the story of how Joe, a former very conservative Republican Congressman, had sparred with me several times on his first MSNBC program, Scarborough Country.

I was then president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America; needless to say, Joe brought me on the program to berate me about women’s reproductive rights and access to our health care services. At one point, he equated Planned Parenthood to a religious institution. He did not mean the allegation as a compliment.

But I took it as a positive, and replied with a big smile and “Thank you!” This did not go down well, because he clearly didn’t have a comeback. I doubt he remembers the incident. But to me, it was hilarious and a good example of a time when I was able to say out loud what needed to be said, instead of answering a ridiculous statement as though it were true.

Mika gave me a big hug when I told her that story. And I thanked her for making Joe a better man.

It’s just as ridiculous to say women have less ambition than men. I wrote No Excuses and later cofounded Take The Lead based on it, to disrupt the prevailing narrative that women hadn’t reached parity in leadership in any sector because they have less ambition than men. I instinctively knew that could not be true, so I did my own research.

I concluded women and men are socialized differently around power and intentionality. And since women have borne the brunt of so many negative aspects of power — war, rape, the belief that resources are scarce so we have to fight each other for crumbs, etc. — it stands to reason that we would present our ambitions differently than men.

We change that by shifting the paradigm from power over, which is oppressive, to power TO, which is generative. This shift frees women to embrace the phenomenal power they actually have with confidence, authenticity, and joy, and thereby say what they want out loud, without fear. It sounds like a simplistic solution, but as Kotb shared, it works.

Oh, and my most embarrassing moment? Let me just say there’s probably a cleaning person at the event venue wondering how that black petticoat she found under a luncheon table got there…

GLORIA FELDT is the Cofounder and President of Take The Lead, a motivational speaker and expert women’s leadership developer for companies that want to build gender balance, and a bestselling author of five books, most recently Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take The Lead for (Everyone’s) Good. Honored as Forbes 50 Over 50 2022, and Former President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she is a frequent media commentator. Learn more at www.gloriafeldt.com and www.taketheleadwomen.com. Tweet Gloria Feldt.