How Career Pivots Can Strengthen Your Personal Brand with Nina Blackshear

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Description

Nina Blackshear has turned career pivots into an art form. As the owner and principal of Nina Blackshear Coaching and Consulting, she's a certified executive coach and in-house corporate attorney. Her unconventional path, from law school to real estate, to fundraising, to employee relations, to marketing communications, and back to law, has become her greatest professional asset. Her specialty is helping others overcome impostor syndrome, intense perfectionism, and the burnout that results from constant striving —challenges she has navigated personally.

What started as a series of unexpected career detours has evolved into Nina's mission. Helping others (especially women of color) discover their superpowers and write their own stories in professional spaces that weren't designed for them. Her love language, as she puts it, is helping people discover their power, and she's built both her personal brand and coaching practice around that core belief.

In this episode of Branding Room Only, Paula Edgar and Nina dive deep into the importance of self-awareness and emotional intelligence in building an authentic personal brand. They explore how to build EQ as a muscle, the unique challenges women of color face in professional spaces, and why knowing your non-negotiables is essential for leading confidently. Plus, they discuss the power of coaching, the importance of strategic networking, and why Nina believes we should all "do more giving and less taking" in our professional relationships.

Chapters

1:31 – What personal brand means to Nina, how she describes herself in three words, and her favorite motto and hype song

4:51 – How being a Philly girl has shaped Nina’s personal brand

7:45 – Nina’s education and multi-pivotal career, from law school to executive coaching

16:20 – How Nina was able to hone her emotional intelligence (EQ)

20:47 – How to build your emotional intelligence muscle (and find organizational leaders lacking it who can develop it)

25:37 – How Nina helps clients (especially women of color) navigate professional spaces and write their own story

32:00 – The key to leading confidently and working authentically and the power of having a coach

38:13 – What causes most people to make personal branding mistakes (and how it often shows up in immigrant families)

45:32 – The importance of a strategic supportive network to prep for a career pivot

49:24 – The need for more reciprocity in professional relationships and building your own community

51:56 – Nina’s “garbage soup” and the foundations of her personal brand and Branding Room Only magic

Connect With Nina Blackshear

Nina Blackshear is an executive coach and former corporate attorney. As a professional, she often felt stymied and had to overcome limiting beliefs, identify her issues, shift her mindset, break unproductive habits, and seek out new settings that supported and aligned with her goals. Now, she helps other women reinvent themselves and overcome their obstacles to forge their own paths.

Throughout her career journey, Nina has worked across several fields in a vast array of settings. Her career pivots include the roles of fundraiser, realtor, marketing communications manager, human resources/employee relations specialist, and judicial clerk. She’s also coached and counseled colleagues and partners throughout corporate, non-profit, academic, and government organizations around the globe.

As a proud graduate of the University of Virginia for her undergraduate and law studies, Nina also holds a Graduate Certificate in Strategic Communication and Cross-Cultural Leadership from Temple University’s Klein College of Media & Communication.

Nina Blackshear Coaching and Consulting | Instagram | LinkedIn

Mentioned In How Career Pivots Can Strengthen Your Personal Brand with Nina Blackshear

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Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC.

PGE Consulting Group LLC empowers individuals and organizations to lead with purpose, presence, and impact. Specializing in leadership development and personal branding, we offer keynotes, custom programming, consulting, and strategic advising—all designed to elevate influence and performance at every level.

Founded and led by Paula Edgar, our work centers on practical strategies that enhance professional development, strengthen workplace culture, and drive meaningful, measurable change.

To learn more about Paula and her services, go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn.

Transcript

Paula Edgar: Welcome to The Branding Room Only Podcast where we share career stories, strategies, and lessons learned on how industry leaders and influencers have built their personal brands. Now, let's get started with the show. Hi everyone, it's Paula Edgar, the host of Branding Room Only, and I'm going to be excited throughout today's conversation because it is with my friend Nina Blackshear. Let me tell you about her. She is owner and principal of Nina Blackshear Coaching and Consulting. She's a certified executive coach and in-house corporate attorney whose love language is helping others discover their superpowers. Her specialty is impostor syndrome, intense perfectionism, and the burnout that results from constant striving. In her practice, she works with successful and high-potential professionals to overcome limiting beliefs, remove obstacles, and supercharge their confidence so they can achieve outrageous levels of success. I'm here for outrageous levels of success. Nina, welcome to The Branding Room. Nina Blackshear: Thank you, thank you. I'm so glad to be here. Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited for our conversation today. Paula Edgar: So am I. And for those of you who are listening and not watching, jump on over to YouTube because Nina is wearing a fabulous purple dress, which has a cape on it. I'm loving it because she told me she did that because my brand color is purple. So she's already doing my love language and supercharging my confidence. So it's all good. Nina Blackshear: I know the rules, Paula. I know the rules. Paula Edgar: Tell me this, how would you describe a personal brand? What does it mean to you? Nina Blackshear: Personal brand is how you show up and what you're known for. How people remember you when you're not in the room. I think it's just as important as what they see when you are in the room. I think it's about how you convey what's important to you, what's aligned with your core values, and how you make people feel after they've had an interaction with you. Paula Edgar: What an awesome description. I love that, particularly the feeling part. Is that like that Maya Angelou quote? “People remember how you made them feel.” While I know this to be true, it's often not put in a definition. So I love that you call that out because it's so true. Well, tell me this, how would you describe yourself in three words or short phrases? Nina Blackshear: Hmm, I would say confident. I would say authentic. And I would say kind. And kind is not one that I might have used 10 or 15 years ago. I'm proud of that one. Paula Edgar: Okay, all right. Here's to kindness. Do you have a favorite quote or motto? Nina Blackshear: I do. It's a quote that goes—I have it in my email signature—and it says, “See the light in people and treat them as if that is all you see.” Paula Edgar: Oh. Oh, that's a good quote. I needed to receive that right this exact moment. I needed to hear that reminder. Nina Blackshear: I'm glad this is right on time for you. Paula Edgar: The message is so on time. And I appreciate that as a thing. Hmm, I needed the moment to think about that. Because these days... But anyway, to that end, do you have a hype song? When there's going to be full Nina coming into the room, what is playing in your head? Nina Blackshear: Yeah, so I actually have a full—I call it the “Goddess Nina Playlist.” So it is sort of like my theme songs. Like if I was in a movie and something was playing and I'm bopping along the street, I've got songs that definitely get me there. Some of them are safer for work than others. But I would say for me, probably the best one is “Soulmate” by Lizzo. Paula Edgar: Wow. Nina Blackshear: Have you heard this one, Paula? Paula Edgar: Something came to mind as soon as you said it, but I also have a DJ in my head, so it could be a remix or some other song that I'm putting towards Lizzo. But there it will be. I’ll make sure I find it so I can listen to it. Is there a specific message in it that resonates for you? Nina Blackshear: Yeah, it's basically, “I'm my own soulmate.” It's basically, the whole song is her hyping up, like, you're amazing, you're a catch, you're your own catch. So treat yourself to you first before you look externally for validation. I love that message, that we're enough by ourselves. Yeah, we can join forces with others and augment and complement, but I'm not looking to anybody to complete me. I am complete all by myself. The reason it might sound actually familiar to you, I attended your very wonderful workshop at the beginning of the year, sort of the Goal-Setting, Intention-Setting workshop. I think at the end of that, maybe you asked for people to add their playlist. Paula Edgar: Thank you for reminding me. In the playlist, exactly. So one of my favorite things to do—all of you know this—is just to play that random playlist because it goes from hip hop to gospel to country to rock. It spans all of that. I play it on random, so I never know what's going to come out. I do know the song. And thank you for sharing that. Nina Blackshear: Absolutely. Paula Edgar: So tell me about how Nina started. Where did you grow up and how do you think that shaped your brand? Nina Blackshear: Yeah, so I am a Philly girl. Although I guess if you get really, really technical, I was born in Boston. I know if you're from Philly, like, that's a problem. But my parents are both from Philadelphia. They were just up there—my dad was in school—so I was only there for a year or so and then came back. So really, Philly born and bred. Then for my dad's job, we did a stint in upstate New York, which was interesting, and maybe a different environment, let's just say that. But then we came back down to Philly. And so I think that coming up in Philly, we have a sort of a city brand. Paula Edgar: Yes. Nina Blackshear: We are bold. We are audacious. Some people would call us rude. We love with our whole hearts. We also detest with our whole hearts. So it can be a little all-or-nothing here in this city, especially when it comes to our sports teams. But what I have heard and what I take a lot of pride in being from Philadelphia—and I try to carry this through—is that people go to other parts of the country and they just have a hard time, if they're not from there, sort of getting into the scene, feeling like they're accepted. Like everybody's very polite, but not really feeling like they've integrated in. People see—even though Philadelphians are tough—when you come here and you've kind of made some inroads, then we sort of embrace you with our whole hearts, whether you like it or not, in a huge bear hug. So I try to carry that through the rest of my life. So it's shaped, I think, my confidence level. I think it's shaped the amount of nonsense that I'm willing to put up with—or not, as the case may be. Also, understanding that good or bad, I want to be authentic. Paula Edgar: I love that. It is the city of brotherly love, so you're going to get loved. Nina Blackshear: And sisterly affection. That's right. Paula Edgar: So that's interesting because I don't think I realized that about you, that you were Philly-raised. So I'm a Brooklyn girl. Everybody knows this. It is the heart of my brand. When I was away at boarding school, my parents moved to South Jersey. So South Jersey is very Philly-esque. It's not New York. It's Philly. You know, Jersey has the side of what is going to maybe Philly or New York, and South Jersey is definitely Philly. Nina Blackshear: They know it's because they know it's good for them. Paula Edgar: I mean, here it is. What it is. I have to say that what you said resonated, particularly about, I think that the people from Philly are straight shooters. That authenticity about them is refreshing. Again, sometimes it's challenging, but refreshing for the most part. I love that Philly has its own language. I was like, "What is jawn?" I don't know what that even means, but so many things. Nina Blackshear: Exactly. So many things. Paula Edgar: It is so many things that can be used in so many... It's a versatile, it's flexible, it's fantastic. So when you're saying that Philly has some brand, that is so very, very true. So very true. I love it. So tell me about, from growing up in Philly to your education and career journey. Nina Blackshear: Yeah. So again, went to school in Philly and then ended up going to Virginia for college and for law school. Needed to be far enough away from home that they really had to think about it before they were popping up on anybody. So just created a little bit of space. Went to the University of Virginia for both, and went straight through. I went to law school—and anybody who's heard me speak anywhere knows this already—I went to law school because I didn't know what to do after undergrad. I had this liberal arts, multidisciplinary degree in political and social thought. I wasn't getting a job with that. So everybody had always said, "Oh, you're so verbal, you'd make a great lawyer, you're a great debater." Okay, I'll go to law school, I guess. So I just sort of defaulted into it. Most—almost all—lawyers know. When you go to law school, it gets kind of grim halfway through. Like, it's a slog. I think you need to know why you're there. You need to know what your shining purpose is so you can latch on to that when it gets tricky in the middle. I just didn't have that. So halfway through I was like, "This sucks. I don't want to do this. I don't want this to be my job." I made a very, very hard pivot. I was the social committee chairperson for the Black Law Students Association. So I planned a lot of events for us. Paula Edgar: Shout out to BALSA. Nina Blackshear: Yes. Shout out to BALSA, which is where I specifically direct my contribution every year when I give back to the University of Virginia Law School. But yeah, I just thought, "Oh, I really like this, this is great, I'm going to be an event planner." I mean, like a hard pivot. So I didn't do a second summer at a firm. I went and worked at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in their event services department for like $12 an hour. We're doing something else. I knew I wanted to finish school. I knew I wanted to take the bar. I didn't want to have debt for nothing. So I'm on my plan. I graduate and doing the bar stuff, fine, fine, fine. As you know more acutely than others, I graduated in 2001. So in that fall, 9/11 hit. It hit some of us much harder than it hit others. But what it meant for me was that it was a very somber time, rightfully so, in the country. People weren't having events. People weren't throwing parties. So I was now just sort of home off the planned career track, sitting in my parents' basement, wondering, "What is going to happen next?" I reached out to a mentor. She said, "Maybe dip your toe back in. What about clerking?" And whenever I tell this story, people who've gone to law school are like, "It's not that easy to get a clerkship. Why did she think that was the thing you were going to dip your toe back into the law?" I realize how preposterous it sounds, but it actually worked out because she put me in touch with a judge in the Superior Court of Delaware. Just as I went to have just sort of an informational convo with him, his clerk who was doing a second term got a job and had just given notice. Paula Edgar: Oh. Nina Blackshear: So all he saw was warm legal body coming from the floor and he did not want any interruption in the— Paula Edgar: "Thanks so much, gotcha." Nina Blackshear: "Welcome to the team. Come on in. We saved a seat for you." So I actually just sort of, again, like, stumbled into this clerkship. I did that the rest of his term, then my own term. So I thought, "I could do this. I could get back into the law." But I was interviewing at law firms and because I'd stepped off that very traditional track, they just didn't know what to do with me. I mean, I'd had a taste that what you do may not be what you learned in law school. And those things aren’t necessarily the same. So it seemed a little more exciting, but I just couldn't get sort of tracked back in. It's just such a conservative profession. And it was then as well, right? So I had to pivot and I thought, "Okay, what else can I do with this law degree?" In Pennsylvania, you can sit for the real estate exam without taking real estate classes if you are a barred attorney. So I was like, "All right, going into real estate." So did you write that down while you were like, "Let me tell my people"? So I went into real estate. I did that for a couple of years, and it was fine. It was interesting. You know, the money's very up and down because you're working on commission. I was getting married. I was buying a house. I needed something more stable. So I ended up getting a contract attorney job doing doc review, which— Paula Edgar: Fun. Nina Blackshear: Yeah. So much fun. They treat you really, really well when you're a doc reviewer. So shout out— In case you can't see me and you're just listening, that is sarcasm. So shout out to all my doc reviewers our there. I know that is not an easy gig. So did that for a couple of years. But while I was there, my dad had worked at a pharmaceutical company for a very long time, and some people that I knew there reached out and said, "Hey, we're standing up this new function called Employee Relations in HR. We think with your legal background, you might be a good fit. Do you want to interview?" So I was able to transition into this pharma company doing HR, doing employee relations. I always tell people—in case you don't know—employee relations is when you're doing internal investigations: sexual harassment, discrimination, policy violations, all that stuff. People stealing off their expense card. You always have the most interesting stories at cocktail parties when you do employee relations or if you're an employment lawyer. Paula Edgar: That's what I practice. Nina Blackshear: You have the coolest stories. But it also means if your phone is ringing, it's probably not great news. Nobody's calling the employee relations person with an amazing story. Like something's gone terribly wrong. So after several years of doing that, I was like, "I just want to do something else." So I did two special projects in marketing communications at that company on top of my regular job and was able to kind of transition over into the business side. So I did marketing communications for several years, working on a number of their different drug franchises. So that was a really good experience for me because working on the business side, I'm now working across the table from lawyers. Some of them were very helpful. Some of them were not so helpful. So I think it actually helped me later in my career as I kind of transitioned back into the law to say, "Well, what kind of lawyer do I want to be when I'm working with the business?" I want to be somebody who partners, who takes another beat and says, "Hey, let's talk this through. Come see me. We'll find another 15 or 20 minutes." Not the person who says, "No, it's wrong. Come back next week. Too bad. We don't care if your marketing team is going to scream at you because you didn't get it through our review process." So, all right. So, then I'm at Merck. Sorry. This is very—this is— Paula Edgar: All these pivots are fascinating, so please. Nina Blackshear: So I'm at Merck, I'm doing this job. Again, as I said, I did two special assignments on top of my job. So this is a job I wanted. When I really got into it, it is legit like the worst job I ever had. It was like a constant high-speed hamster wheel. Just to take a couple of days off required so much prep and handing things off to people and just trying to keep this endless cycle of review and submission and review and submission and five days ahead going. It was relentless. Paula Edgar: Wow. Nina Blackshear: I was miserable. I was also working in a very toxic environment where I felt like I had to sort of pretend a lot to fit in. Paula Edgar: Which is so heavy. Nina Blackshear: Yeah. To fit in, to get noticed, to move ahead. I talk to people about this constant striving—you sort of mentioned that—but like these blinders you get on when you're in an environment and you think, "This is the only place you can work and you have to make it work here." So you start compromising your own values. You start doing things that are a little bit iffy for you because you think, "But that's what it takes to make it work here." You forget there are other places you can go. So I was miserable, and we were going through our 50-hundredth round of layoffs, and my number came up. My job got eliminated. And so I got severance, I got to take six months off with money, and it was amazing. So many people don't get a chance ever to take a break. And it was imposed upon me, but it was like the best thing that ever happened. I was able to sort of heal, get over some of the PTSD from being in what I realized was a really abusive work situation. So I ended up connecting with somebody who used to work at that company, and she was doing fundraising for Temple University here in Philly. She said, "Oh, you should come and try this." I was like, "I don't have any fundraising experience." She’s like, "Ah, you can learn it, it's no big deal." So we Googled, and she sent me some stuff, and I figured it out. And there was a job, and I interviewed, and I beat 30 people out for a job for which I had zero experience. Paula Edgar: Wow. Nina Blackshear: See, that’s part of when I work, especially with lawyers and as a coach, I try to— We take for granted how quickly we can assimilate very large amounts of information. We’re trained that way. We assume everybody can do that. Not everybody can do that. Paula Edgar: No, not even some lawyers can do that. Nina Blackshear: Right, right. Exactly. But what it does is it means that you can, in a weekend, get really good at talking about something that you might not have had previous experience around. So that’s sort of what I did. So I did that. I was covering the West Coast, I was going out on visits once a month on the West Coast and meeting with donors. This is where I really developed my EQ. I'm sorry, I'm not letting you ask any questions, Paula. Paula Edgar: No. Nina Blackshear: Jump in wherever you— Paula Edgar: Don’t you worry, I'm going to be ready. I am literally sitting here, riveted hearing all of the pivots and all of the trust that has been put in you for people being like, "You can absolutely be an astronaut." So it’s been raining, shmaining. You can do it all. I mean, and I think that says a lot about your brand. So I love hearing this. Nina Blackshear: Okay. So I'm going to leave it to you. I know you’ll tie it together with a beautiful bow. So I’m going out, I’m meeting with people that I’ve never met before for 30, 45 minutes. At the end of that, I am expected to ask them basically for $50,000. So, you better build rapport quickly, right? Like your EQ better shoot through the roof. That’s where I really was able to hone—I think I had some of that raw talent from an EQ perspective—but really hone that. I found that people in those short conversations, first of all, they would extend longer than we had planned. And people would say—and I’m sure you get this a lot too—they would always say, "I don’t know why I’m telling you all this." Paula Edgar: Yes. Nina Blackshear: "Like, I never talk about myself like this, but there's just something about you that makes me feel like I want to tell you all the things." I took that very seriously. You know, that’s a real privilege for people to feel like they can let their guard down and be open with you. So I just sort of filed that away. "What does that mean in terms of what I should be doing out in this world? What my purpose is?" But I didn’t really know where it fit in. So I did that for a couple of years. And then between the pharma company and working at Temple, I’d met a lawyer who was at another pharma company. I met her at a job fair where I was looking for a job on the business side, and she said, "Oh, you know, but you’re a lawyer. What do you do? What’s all this stuff you’re doing?" I was like, "That’s all in the past." She’s like, "Oh, I don’t know. It’s not what you hated in law school. Maybe we’ll bring you back to the dark side." So we kept in touch. She moved to another company and she reached out and she said, "Listen, I know that you don’t have the technical piece of this. I can teach you that. But I need somebody with good EQ. I need somebody with confidence. I need somebody who’s not going to get steamrolled by these clients who are very legally resistant that we’re going to be supporting in this business. So if you’re ready, come on." So I came on and I worked there for six years and then came to my current company, also followed her here eventually. So then the coaching thing came up in terms of talking to friends and always giving them advice. But realizing I really created co-dependence when they were like, "Oh, I need your help. I need your help. I need your help. I’m glad I got you. I don't know what to do," and I thought, "I'm giving you advice so you can be confident on your own." I started looking into coaching and realizing this was really the modality to give people confidence in themselves to be able to navigate their own lives. Paula Edgar: It's such a powerful thing to have people trust in you. So I'm going to pull everything together in the story of Nina, which is that my takeaway is that when you're uncomfortable, the wind is going to push you or pull you to the next thing that's going to give you the next thing that you need on your path. I love that you did something that a lot of people, I think, are resistant to, which is you say yes. That you were willing to trust in yourself and their trust in you for those things to combine to be whatever the next step was going to be. There's not a lot of people who I think can do that well. So if you were just like, "Hey, hey girl, nice to see you. Can I have $50,000?" I'd be like, "Okay, bye Nina, clearly." Because also I did fundraising years ago. That is definitely a skill. But all of the things you just mentioned, for me, that's the hardest one because you're getting people to give up something consistently. That relationship, that rapport, that EQ that you talked about is so key. It just brought up a question for me that I actually made this comment yesterday during a presentation. I want to hear what your thoughts are. So I said, EQ is easy to understand when someone doesn't have it, but hard to teach them how to have. I am willing to be wrong in that. I hope that I'm wrong because I want people who don't necessarily have it to gain it. But do you think of it as a muscle that can be built? Nina Blackshear: Oh, 100%. Paula Edgar: Tell me more about this. Nina Blackshear: Absolutely. I absolutely do think it's a muscle that can be built. The thing is, people want to skip to "have EQ." "Have EQ" is sort of a destination. Think of that as a destination. Yes, it is a building block to other things, but if you think of it as a destination in and of itself, what are the building blocks that get you there? I would say the first one is having an open mind. So people who can't understand or don't have the self-awareness—self-awareness is a piece of it too—to know that this is a place where maybe they struggle, are never going to get there because you have to be able to admit that there's a gap. People always say, "I don't want to work for a micromanager. What do I do?" I'm like, "There's nothing you can do. You have to rely on your spidey senses because you will ask any manager, 'Are you a micromanager?' All of them are going to tell you no." Because the ones who aren't truly aren't. The ones who are don't have enough self-awareness to know that they're micromanagers. So you're never going to get a good answer on that. You've got to discern that for yourself. So I think it's the same thing. You've got to see openness. You've got to see self-awareness. You've got to have people who are willing to admit that they don't know everything. People who are willing, as you just said, willing to admit that they might be wrong about something. People who are willing to unpack, we talk a lot when I'm coaching about people's inner voice. Like, the voice in your head and how that voice sounds like you. You know, it talks like you. It sounds like this. But when you really think about it, maybe you just morphed it into sounding like your voice. Where did that message really come from? Did it come from a parent? Did it come from a cultural background? Did it come from a religious affiliation? Whatever it is. What did you just sort of wholesale swallow and adopt? When you really think about it, you think, "I'm not sure I truly believe that." Paula Edgar: Okay, so I love that reflection on it. I'm glad I asked you the question because I kind of said the statement that I made out of frustration. Because I used to tell this joke when I was giving presentations. I would say if I was going to write a book, it'd be called Be Self-Aware, but nobody would buy it. Nina Blackshear: Well, I am. Paula Edgar: That's how I think about EQ. So your point about the building blocks of EQ makes a lot of sense for me, and I hope for my audience to understand it a little bit more. Because I think in a totality, you can't just get it. But when you understand those building blocks that lead toward it, then it makes it easier to get when people don't have it. Because it's usually one of those core pieces that they need, but you need to be able to receive them as having it as well. So I really love that kind of breakdown of it, particularly the self-awareness piece. It's where I find that it's like, I can't give you self-awareness. It's literally your self-awareness. Nina Blackshear: Yes. Yes. So I would say for an organization or a corporation who's looking to develop a leader who maybe is lacking in the EQ department, saying, "Okay, is this a person who's willing to have some self-awareness? That there are some gaps? Who's willing to admit?" Because I think if you can't even get that far, you're far away from developing EQ in this person. So you might need to really evaluate whether or not this person is a good fit long-term for the culture that you're trying to build. Nina Blackshear: No, I love that. I love, love that response. Paula Edgar: So thinking about your laying out of your career—and I have to say, you probably have gave the most robust... but actually, Paula Boggs did. Because Paula Boggs was like, "And then I was in the White House." I was like, "Oh my gosh." Anyway, add that to the show notes because everybody should listen to that one too. It's the power of the pivot that really resonates for me. I think that because no matter when anybody is listening to this episode, there's always a pivot that has been experienced or maybe is about to be experienced. And ease in the pivot is not always there. Let's just put it that way. Nina Blackshear: Rarely, rarely. It is rarely there. Paula Edgar: Exactly. People just don't love change the way I want them to, but they don't. Yet we're always experiencing change; the only thing that is constant. So that is how I connect this piece of everything to branding. Because your brand is never static. You can say your brand is strong, absolutely, but is it the same? My brand is not the same as it was six months ago. It should shift as you learn and you grow, et cetera. So I want to talk a little bit about how you work with clients. You talk about giving them the power to write their own story. You and I are both women of color. I'm specifically thinking about how you would address women of color and their ability to write their own story, and the struggles that we know exist when we try to write our own stories in places where the pages may be blank, but they don't want us to write in. So tell me a little bit about your work with the folks, the clients in those spaces, and what you would recommend. Nina Blackshear: Yeah. I mean, look, it's tricky. Everything about being a woman of color is a tricky balancing act all the time. At some point, you just have to decide how much of that you still want to do and what kind of spaces you still want to operate in. So I think, again, with those blinders that can kind of get in, or even in, like, let’s say in a profession. I know your audience is wider than lawyers. I obviously coach people in all kinds of industries, but law’s a really good example of, like, not a lot of great things, unfortunately. So I think for lawyers who come up in a very sort of rigid, narrow space, it's built in us to conform. It’s built in us to, “You do this, and then you do this, and then you do this.” There’s a formula for how you approach your career. There’s a formula for how you show up. There’s a formula for what an executive or a partner or whatever it is looks like. And I think at some point, you have to decide—again, listening to that voice—do you subscribe to that, or did you just swallow that? Or have you been doing it because, quite frankly, it’s just been a survival tactic? And no shade to that. People have to feed their families. We all put up with things that we don’t love in order to make sure we can put food on our table and keep a roof above our heads. But how much of that are you willing to do? So I think for women of color, it is extra tricky. And certainly, when you start compounding that with other dimensions of people’s makeup, it gets harder and harder and harder. Those are—no matter what anybody says these days—those are just facts. So I would say really getting in touch with who you are, what’s important to you, what your core values are. Then examining how you’re operating in your current environment, whatever that current environment is, whether it’s personal or whether it’s professional. I mean, I’m an executive coach, so I focus a little bit more on the professional side. So when you think about where you’re working and what you’re being asked to do, how much of that feels like it is clashing with your core values? It’s never going to be 100, very rare to get 100% match with your core values and where you are. Paula Edgar: Unless you have your own business. Nina Blackshear: Right, exactly. Then you truly are writing your own story when you have your own business. But if that’s not—you know, if you’re “paraprenuring” it or that’s not an option at the moment, just trying to align yourself as closely as you can. Or carving out space, even within a greater environment, to create a space where you can have it aligned more closely to your own value. Sometimes a department is a place where you feel, “Okay, this resonates with me, even though company-wide, maybe it’s not the greatest fit. I report to a leader who I truly respect, whose vision I can buy into, and who makes me feel included and like I belong here.” That can be it too. But yeah, it’s not easy. I do think also, yeah, if you decide it’s not the right environment for you, being really strategic about how you approach a move, a pivot, an exit, a next chapter, coaching can help with that. Your kitchen table board of directors, your girlfriends, they can help with that. So just making sure you’re also leveraging those resources. Paula Edgar: I love that piece of advice. Because you probably, so I started off my career as #CoachPaula after I stopped practicing. I loved it because I was so passionately intertwined with the people who I was coaching. It was our success as opposed to just their success. That can also be very draining. So to that end, when you just said, “Make sure you’re tapping into resources, which could be a coach, it could be your personal board of directors, et cetera,” I want to double click on that. Because I do think that it seems sometimes so low, so like you’re so alone, and remembering that you have a squad. Sometimes, I was going to have my paid squad, and I have the squad that just comes with me. But I got some squad to make sure that my success story is one that I continue to write. And I think that as women of color, we are often told so often to just take all the things on our backs and figure it out, as opposed to leveraging those resources to make sure that we are not alone. To your other point about knowing when it’s right to leave, I can tell you right now, everybody listening, you know, if you heard any of my podcasts, pretty much, I say this all the time: God, whatever the source, whoever you believe in, makes me literally uncomfortable in every seat I had where I have a W2. Period. That is a challenging space for me because I then had to realize, “Hey, the world is saying you gotta do your own thing.” But that is a very scary thing. I’m not saying to people, “Okay, if you feel uncomfortable, go get your own gig.” But also, if you want to, please do. But I am saying—no—to your point, Nina: when enough is enough. When enough is enough. We take on too many things. And your point about us being so in the space where we think there’s no other option, “I have to conform,” that hit me really hard. In thinking about so many people who I’ve worked with—and myself—that you think there’s no other chance. But there’s always somebody else. There’s always something else. It may be challenging, but it always is. That, I promise you. Nina Blackshear: And more than people think too. I just think that it’s not like, “Hey, work this W2 that you hate or start your own gig with no safety net.” There’s stuff in between. And again, we go right from “I have a cushy life” to “I’m going to be living in my car.” There’s a lot of in-between. Paula Edgar: Right, exactly. You can live in the foyer. I’m just kidding. Anyway, so we started talking about this a little bit, but I want to come into this a little bit more. Conformity and code-switching and all of the things that people need to do to stay in spaces. A lot of my listeners are lawyers, but to that end, I think this happens everywhere where you are not your own boss. Even sometimes when you are, in order to get the clients that you may want, you have to pivot and conform and do some things you may not want to do. What do you think is the key to being able to have the confidence to lead and to work authentically? Nina Blackshear: Again, I mean, it all kind of goes back to you have to know yourself. “Know thyself.” That's a big tenet of authentic leadership and showing up authentically in lots of different spaces. So if you don't know who you are, there's no chance you're showing up authentically in any kind of spaces. You're not going to feel confident about it. You're certainly not going to feel confident about showing up authentically in a way that sort of swims against the current a little bit. So you need to do the work first to figure out who you are, what's important to you, and ground yourself in that. What are your non-negotiables? Then figure out how you're going to step confidently in that direction. Only then will you have the confidence and the courage to go out and do the next scary thing, which is say, “This is how I'm going to show up. This is how I'm going to lead.” It's a bit of a take it or leave it. Yes, we are women of color, but we're also women. There is, for a lot of women—whether they like to admit it or not—it's sort of inculcated, at least in our culture, to be a little bit of a pleaser. So, as confidently as you may think or speak or try to lead or try to show up—for many of us, there's still that little thing in the back that has you softening the way that you write the email, and this, that, and the other, right? Men don't think about that. Ever. Paula Edgar: That's true. So true. Nina Blackshear: So you have to understand who you are, what's important to you, get grounded there. That's unshakable. So now I am able to step forward and say, “This is how I want to show up here and this is how I want to lead.” “You guys like it, you don't like it, this isn't about pleasing.” I want to get along. I want to collaborate. I want to keep it collegial. But I'm not going to bend myself into a pretzel to make you comfortable. Paula Edgar: So when you have clients, how do you get them to know their non-negotiables, to understand their values? Are you using—I don't know, what are all the letters—ELF, DP, whatever the numbers are? Nina Blackshear: Was that your Myers-Briggs? Paula Edgar: Yeah, exactly. I'm like, is that an elephant? I don't know what I am. All I know is that I'm the loud one. Nina Blackshear: All I know is that Oprah and I are the same. Paula Edgar: Exactly. Correct. Perfect. Nina Blackshear: So not really. I mean, for me, it's really—quite frankly, for a lot of people, it's just that they have not had a safe, quiet, set-aside space to even think about it in a really, really long time. So the fact that this is, for a lot of my clients, actually at the very beginning, they're almost a little bit uncomfortable because it is a whole hour where we're just talking about them. That's it, your thoughts, your feelings, what's coming up for you, your hopes, your dreams. And especially for women, they're like—and they want to talk about the—nope, we're talking about you. I gotta bring them back. So I think for a lot of them to understand what that is, it's just getting comfortable with having this space where we can just talk about them and they can sit and they can think. Nobody's interrupting them. I am very comfortable with silence. So take all the time you need, I'm not going to jump in and fill it. Work through it. That's what this space is for. Let me tell you, let me warn your audience. I am not inexpensive, okay? Paula Edgar: You shouldn't be. Nina Blackshear: Right. Yes, exactly. Free is definitely canceled. But I am not inexpensive. But that is what you're paying for. I've heard from client after client, that in itself is worth its weight in gold. Just having a space where they can just think, not be interrupted, really get to the root of what they want and what's important for them. Paula Edgar: Yeah. So I am a big fan of coaching—not just as someone who used to coach, but also someone who—I have several coaches myself, because I understand the power of having, I call coaching a foot in your back. It's a paid foot in your back. Because you still have to be the one doing it, but a little prompt, and somebody to be like, “Hey, did you do the thing?” It is a powerful thing when you actually can focus on yourself. But it is scary, to your point. And I do find—and I wonder what you think about this—a lot of people spend a lot of their lives lying to themselves until they get to a place where it's just you, them, and themselves. It's like, “Hey, do you think that's true? Because remember last week when you said XYZ thing?” I find it's a little bit of therapizing. A lot of bit of being like, “Hey, is this what you want for yourself?” I'm calling this out because I think what I want people to understand is number one, how great you are at coaching, but also to understand not to be scared of it. That there's much more power in the getting it, doing it, and making it work for you, than there is in not doing it at all. I do believe in outsourcing some of the things that we find hard for ourselves. Nina Blackshear: Yeah, no, I agree. 110%. It's not scary, but it's also not, for a lot of people, to your point, it's not easy, because they are used to telling, and I call them these little lies. They just sort of accrete. They don't feel like lies even when you're saying them, but they are. They're not authentic to who you actually are. And whether it's out of fear or out of trying to mask something or trying to impress somebody, a lot of people do it a lot of the time. Again, that is a muscle that can be built, or a habit that can be broken. A lying habit that can be broken. Paula Edgar: I love that. So because of what you do, I'm sure that you also see people making some mistakes. And I would love to hear some of your reflections about places where you've seen people make personal branding mistakes and how it's sort of shown up, and maybe how you've helped them to navigate the fallout of the mistakes that they might have made. Or anything that you want to cover in that space, because it’s all the things you need. That part, please. Nina Blackshear: You know, I think where I've seen people make the most mistakes is, again, when they're not being true to who they are. They're sort of putting on a costume of what they think it means to be something, right? Be a leader. So they've got this sort of picture in their mind of what it is to be a leader and what those characteristics are. Do I think that there are some good core characteristics of a leader? Of course I do. But do I think that there is literally a baked cookie cutter template of exactly, you know, check these six things off and you're a leader? No, I don't. So I think where I've seen people make the most mistakes is where they're sort of trying something on that doesn't feel right to them, but they think this is the only way to be successful. "I have to be just like everybody else who's come before me." I mean, you may see some measure of success, but you probably won't be very happy. So I don't know, depends on what your definition of success is. To me, happiness is a component of that. So I think coaching people, again, getting back in touch with, "Let's talk about what's really important to you," that sort of constant striving thing, the hard hitter, the hard charger—again, in law, very common. I saw it in the business side when I was working in pharma—very, very common. Just go for the next, go for the next, go for the next. And really taking a beat to say, "Do you want that next thing?" So many in-house lawyers say, "Oh yeah, I want to be a GC, gotta be a GC, need to figure out how do we get me to GC." And when you really sit down and unpack it with them, and you unpack what it means to be a GC—which, by the way, there's only one at every company, so those jobs are hard to come by—people are like, "Oh, I don't want to do that. Oh, I don't want to do that." Well, okay, so you want the title or you've got this sort of idea of what success looks like. If you're at the top of the mountain peak, you must be successful. There's all this stuff down here in the next level or the next level down where you'd be perfectly happy. You'd be leading the department of your particular subject matter of law in a company and be happy as a clam. Maybe that's it. But again, people are putting something on or they're just sort of swallowing other people's definitions of what success looks like. So I think, again, it's all about you have to be true to yourself. I know that sounds repetitive and silly and simple, but so many people don't do that. They don't take the time, or they feel so much pressure not to. I do work with a lot of lawyers of color, particularly women lawyers of color, but even within some of those groups, there's sort of the divide. Like if you look at Black women lawyers of color, the ones who are Black, like African American, descended from slaves who were brought over in the slave trade, versus Black women lawyers whose family may be more recent to the Americas in sort of an immigration scenario, I hear very different pressures from those populations. The people who came over more in an immigrant way—that’s how they got to this country—the pressure is real. Tripled. Paula Edgar: It is real. Nina Blackshear: So many came over and slept on auntie's couch for three years so they could bring you. The amount of guilt those people feel and the pressure to, "You know, all their people know is, 'I cleaned whatever I need to clean, so you go to school, you better get that top job whether you want it or not.'" So again, people understanding what they bring with them. I call it a picnic basket. You've got all this stuff in your picnic basket. Just take two seconds, you don't need a coach to do this, but it helps, unpack that. Look at everything in your picnic basket that makes up who you are and why you think you want the things you do, and why you are the way you are, and why you strive the way you strive. Look at it all and really critically evaluate whether all those things still belong in your basket, or somebody else put them there, right? Are there olives in your basket and you don't really like olives, but you've been carrying this heavy jar of olives around for what? If you look at all of it and say, "Nope, this is all me. Absolutely, I believe all this." Pack it right back up. Paula Edgar: Then so be it. Nina Blackshear: That’s your chance to take out the olives if the olives don’t work for you. Paula Edgar: I love that reflection, and I want to bring in the—I don't think there's a better or worse way of being anyway. It's all who we are and what we bring to the table. But I heard you loud and clear. I was like, "Me, me, me." Because my family is from Jamaica and Barbados. I remember being like, "Oh my goodness, entrepreneurship is in my blood." My grandmother was like, "I'm selling something. You're going to buy it because I gotta get to the buy." It is what it is. I don't think that folks who are from the Americas, et cetera, have different goals. But the recency of it, I think, prompts so much of the "You got it, you got it, you got it." I see this amongst immigrant populations, period, women of color or not. But I do think it shapes up in a different way. Like I tell my daughter, "You stand on the shoulders of every single person who got you here." That's a heavy pressure, even as I say it, and yet it's also very, very true that to squander all of the blessings that have come to you, it doesn't work. However, that doesn't mean that you have to do what I tell you to do. I'm very strong about that. You still need to choose and understand that you have agency, that you get to decide, and also with the knowledge that people have sacrificed to get you agency. Nina Blackshear: Yes, yes. Agency and choice. I do think that's the gift. That’s the legacy. That's the generational gift. Unfortunately, I think for people, maybe more in our generation—I feel a little bit older than you, Paula—but you know, there was a little bit more of an imposition. For folks who were first-generation or whatever, there was more of an imposition of like, "It’s doctor, lawyer, engineer, if you're lazy." Like, "We had four jobs you're allowed to have. I didn't make sacrifices for you to be an artist, okay?" So I do like to see folks like you who, you can acknowledge what it was. You can acknowledge the gift and the sacrifices that were made. You can also acknowledge the extraordinary pressure under which you came up and know that that's the piece of the cycle you want to break, not the whole thing. You don't want to have your kids not acknowledge all the sacrifices. But that one piece is the piece that you'd like to sort of surgically remove before you pass it on? I think that's lovely. Paula Edgar: A hundred percent. So in thinking about, again, no matter when anybody hears this episode, there's probably a pivot. If it's one that they're anticipating, are there some things that you would recommend for your clients when you work with them about how to think about their next step, your career step, strategically, proactively, as opposed to, I would say, trying to make things happen to things versus them happen to you. But life will life. But if they have agency to be able to shape, what are some of the things that you coach folks to do to prepare for whatever that pivot might be? Nina Blackshear: I think one of the first things is to expand your network and your circle. You can't just keep talking to the same five people. You can't just keep talking to the same people—even if you talk to a hundred people—if they're all in your industry or they're all in your profession, you're probably going to start to get a very sort of linear way of thinking. In order for you to be, I think, best prepped for a pivot, to feel the most resilient, to have confidence in your ability to engage in different areas, you need to get a little more jungle gym with that. And you need to go lateral, and you need to talk to people in different areas. I think a nice way to do that is you might find some point of commonality, whatever it is. It could be, hey, you kind of plug into some sort of network, let’s say at your church. Maybe there's a women’s network or there’s a Black women’s network, or there's a—I don’t know—some network here. But there’s some sort of a network that there’s sort of like a loose affinity. But in that setting, you're going to be getting people from a wide swath of different backgrounds, and somebody could say something or you could say something that sparks something in them and says, "Oh, you know who you should talk to." You're just stretching your network in different ways. I think flexing that way. I'll say this—you and I have met on several occasions at a bajillion conferences. I am an introvert, and people don't believe that when I tell them, that I am an introvert. I like to talk, I like to meet new people. I do. I really love it. I love to have deep conversations. But I do find it exhausting. Everybody who wants to go out after the day of the conference, I'm like, "I'm just going to crawl into bed and put the robe on and order room service and I’ll see you all tomorrow." So sometimes people who are more introverted struggle and think, "Well, I'm not good at networking. It's so awful." You don't have to go and high-five everybody and shake every hand. You might find two, three people at an event that you sit down and you have more of a deep conversation. It goes beyond "Let’s talk about the weather" and "What do you do?" and "How many kids do you have?" or whatever. You might have a surprisingly deep connection. Making two or three deep connections, to me, beats making ten surface connections any day. Those people are going to remember you afterwards when you reach back out to them and say, "Hey, really enjoyed chatting, can we set some time up?" Or, "You mentioned your friend John who’s working in XYZ and you thought maybe he and I could have an interesting conversation, still willing to make that connection?" They're going to remember you. So I think you can network and expand yourself in that way, no matter how you're built. Paula Edgar: I agree, agree, agree, agree. I actually think introverts, to your point, are much better at networking, the strategy of it and the acting of it. I think of myself, because I think we all know that I'm an extrovert. I'm like a butterfly. I'm going to talk to every flower. Flower, flower, flower, flower, flower. But the folks who are like, "I'm going to talk to the blue flower, green flower, and red flower, then that's it," are, to that point, making those deeper connections. Those are the ones that stick. It's why I like having the podcast, because so often people will be like, "I feel like I know you." I'm like, "You do. You hear me speak every week. You listen to my podcast. You have a better understanding." So I feel a benefit of having light touches and being like, "Hey, you listen to my podcast? If you want to know all that I think about all the things, you can probably find an episode that includes that in there." What is something that you want to tell folks that maybe you have been seeing recently, or just in general, to do more of X and less of Y. Period. What might that be? Nina Blackshear: I would say do more giving and do less taking. Paula Edgar: Okay. Nina Blackshear: So I was just at a conference and I was one of the panelists, and we did something called the Ask and Offer. It’s actually inspired by you. And so don’t be afraid to ask for things, right? But there’s a difference between asking and taking. There’s a difference between it being really one-sided and not having an offer on the back of that to say, whatever it is. Things that we take for granted. I would like people to do that. Take stock of all the things you have to offer, and don’t assume that they’re not worth anything just because they come easily to you. I think people sit in that a lot. Again, we talked about lawyers assimilating information very quickly, and that’s not a skill that everybody has. You may do something on a very regular basis. You bake amazing cookies. I don’t hear that, "Everybody bakes cookies." No, they don’t. So if you say, "Hey, my ask is," your ask was about the TED Talk. And say, does anybody—somebody might know. And then say, "Hey, Paula, I heard you bake amazing scotcheroos or whatever." That was a really interesting reference for somebody who’s never made a scotcheroos. Paula Edgar: I like to—everyone, I bake that thing. Nina Blackshear: Yeah, no, no, no, no. Okay. Chocolate chip cookies. And that’s all they want from you, that’s a little gifty they would love from you. It builds community. It means that we’re turning inward and we’re taking care of each other, which I think is very nice. And that can feel very comforting, particularly, we talked about networking. Sometimes people just don’t have a network. So you feel very alone at your company. You might feel very alone geographically, where you live. So I would also encourage people: find other ways to get out and build different kinds of community, even if they’re people who you meet at a conference and you have a lovely time and you’re all sort of scattered across the country. That’s okay, right? You start a little WhatsApp chat or whatever. You just keep it going. It’s somebody you can bounce an idea off of and get out of your own head. Paula Edgar: I love that. So I ask everybody who comes on the podcast the same three final questions. So number one—because I’m nosy—is: what do you do for fun, Nina? Nina Blackshear: Ooh, I cook. So I make something that my friends, I guess, lovingly call garbage soup. Yeah, I love to cook lots of different things. I also love to bake, which again, it's just why scotcheroos was a weird— But I do love to make soup. So one of my fondest memories is my maternal grandmother and I—we were very close—she would watch us sometimes. One time she's like, we're going to make—she called it refrigerator soup. I was like, "What's that?" She's like, "Oh, we just take whatever's in the refrigerator and we're just going to make soup out of it." I was transfixed and then we ate it and I had helped her. They've shown that when kids participate in making a meal, they're more likely to eat it because they feel invested and proud. I was super proud of this soup that we made. But I was also like, "What sorcery is this?" So I like to cook, I do not enjoy when people waste food. I save things in my mini-freezers and just throw things in pots and make delicious soup. I give it to my friends and their kids. Now their kids are like, "I worked with Auntie Nina coming with the garbage soup." Paula Edgar: Yep. I'm going to just put a little mark there, say that I'm going to ask you to bring some soup. Nina Blackshear: That is my perpetual offer to you, Paula. Always garbage soup. Paula Edgar: Love it, love it, love it. Okay, so—and I think I know the answer to this but I'm going to ask it anyway. Standing by your brand, what is something that you will never compromise about your personal brand? Nina Blackshear: Telling the truth. I will never compromise on telling the truth. Unfortunately, I think we live in a time where people are feeling pressure to be silent. Paula Edgar: Yes. Nina Blackshear: Yeah, my socials don't really reflect that for me. A thing is still a thing, even if somebody wants to intimidate you or wants to try to gaslight you into thinking that it's not a thing. I've been in relationships where I've been gaslit in my life. It's important to call a thing a thing, to tell the truth, and to shine light in places where there is none so that people can feel connected and healed. Paula Edgar: Yes, yes, yes to all of that. Also yes to reflection on that one guy who gaslit me. But anyway, okay, so— Nina Blackshear: Always a guy. Paula Edgar: Always a guy. It is what it is. So, Branding Room Only is a play on the term “standing room only.” Again, because I'm clever. Nina Blackshear: You're very clever. Paula Edgar: So that part. What is something that people be in a room with only standing room only to experience about you? Nina Blackshear: So I have something I like to say, which is, "My love language is helping you discover your own power." And I think that's what it is. I want people to walk away feeling that I brought them in. I made them feel seen, heard, included. In some small way, even if it was just an hour webinar, I gave them a little spark to say, "Wait, I might have more power inside me than I thought before I talked to her or I listened to her." So I think that's the brand. Paula Edgar: Love that. I feel that alignment as well for that. So I feel heard, I feel seen by you and I want to know how people can see and find you. So how can people see and find you, Nina? Nina Blackshear: So they can go to my website, which is www.ninablackshear.com. I offer coaching, group, and individual. I work with corporations and organizations to do webinars and workshops. I also do keynote speaking, so feel free to go check me out. I wrote all the copy on my website myself, so it gives you a very good idea of what you're getting. If you listened to this, you've also got a good idea of how I am and how I operate. But that voice on that website is all mine. So would love if anybody wanted to reach out, see how we could work together, and see what's next for them. Paula Edgar: Fabulous. Fabulous. Thank you for joining me today. I knew this conversation was going to go by quickly. All of you, tell everybody who you know needs to hear the conversation we had today about being more authentic, owning and figuring out their values, having self-awareness, all of the things. And make sure you share, download, and in general, stand by your brand, please, y’all. Okay, talk soon. Bye, everybody. Nina Blackshear: Bye-bye.