#8 From 'Good Girl' to Empowered Woman: Embracing Authenticity

Welcome back listeners. Today we are diving into the topic of the good girl mentality. Society often conditions women to be polite, accommodating and follow along. But what happens when careers demand assertiveness and authority? How can women navigate this balancing act? Today we will bring you an amazing role model who defied the good girl expectations and achieved remarkable career accomplishments. She shattered barriers reaching a director level position in investment banking at the age of thirty five. Join us as she shares her inspiring story revealing how she overcame the hurdles of the good girl mentality. Without further ado, I hand it over to Laura to introduce our special guest.

Thank you, Christine. I'm so honored to introduce our guest. Her name is Divya Kamat. Divya was born and raised a good little girl. I put that in quotes in a modest, loving and very protective family in India. Her childhood dream was to live and work in London in the UK, and she manifested this by the age of twenty two with no financial support or guidance from anyone. So I wanna share a little bit more about Divya cause she's remarkable. So over nearly two decades, Divya's career spanned four countries, five investment banks and a big four consulting firm. She has experienced several human setbacks including: failure, job loss, visa restrictions, sudden bereavement, anxiety, and depression. She’s also numerically challenged and English is not her second, but her fourth language. Regardless, she became one of the youngest female directors of her time in a predominantly male, highly competitive environment at a major global investment bank in London. And throughout her career, Divya has mentored and coached young adults, equipping them with the knowledge she wishes she had much sooner in life. She's also writing her first book that unveils the human behind the title and I can't wait till she's finished and we could read it. Divya we are just so inspired by you and lucky to have you as a guest on our podcast. Perhaps you could start by sharing a little about yourself and why you wanted to share your story with us and all of our listeners today.

So, Christine and I met at this online authors’ community. So firstly supporting a fellow author, someone who focuses on heart-centered leadership, which is absolutely fantastic in my view, and also empowering women. I mean, I think we need more of that. And might I add, not only women but anyone really who feels stuck and stagnant and can benefit from people like us or people anywhere. Who can distill their experiences and share so that the others can avoid some of the pains. So yeah, very happy to be here.

Well, thank you Divya. If you're ready, we're ready to dive in and start to bust the myths for sure. Let's do it. And shed some light on this. So I want to start by asking you a question, just again to get to know you more.

If you would, how did your experiences of growing up in India and studying in London influence your career aspirations and play a role in your journey to achieving that Director level role by the age of thirty-five? I think I'm going to start by bursting a bubble here, Laura.

When I grew up in India, or even when I studied in London for that matter, I did my masters here. I didn't dream of becoming a Director, I didn't dream of the title, I didn't dream of where I'd work. I grew up in a very loving, close-knit family, also a large family. I grew up in a society where, outside my immediate bubble, women faced a lot of challenges in the way they were treated in terms of societal expectations. And I appreciate that's changing and continuing to evolve over the decades. But at the time, I remember thinking, I don't feel like I can be entirely myself here. And the dream was always what kind of life do I want? What do I want to feel? What do I want to be able to do? Who and what do I want to surround myself in? And then kind of continuing to put myself in those environments where I could experience all of the things I wished and dreamed for. And I write a lot about that in my book. In fact, it's fresh in memory because I've just finished drafting that chapter. It's about visualizing. I used to be someone who would lock myself up in the room and make checklists and write in my diary. And we didn't call it journaling then. That was the nineties and there was nothing like a vision board. I’d just stick pieces on my soft board or my whiteboard and close my eyes and listen to Led Zeppelin or listen to Sting and think that's the kind of environment where I want to feel free and want to go and immerse myself in, where people can express themselves, where they can be what they want to be. And my gender doesn't define me or my role in society doesn't define me as much as it does here in my immediate environment. What made me go on to doing whatever it is I've done in my career is the drive to constantly evolve and to see how much I can push myself to the extent of my intellect, my emotional abilities, my experience in life. I was fascinated by people meeting people from different countries and different cultures. And I thought, London, for reasons I’ve mentioned in the book, absolutely fascinated with it ever since the age ten.

And then I worked backwards from there, which is what’s the biggest thriving industry? Finance. Numbers make my head hurt. But anyway, it’s fine. There must be other things to banking. I don’t always have to number crunch. Let's try and see what I can do there. And so on and so forth. And then there’s also, the sense of, I love the sense of achievement. I'd be lying if I said, I don't because that adrenaline, that high. That sense of having done something difficult and come out the other side and feeling that

yes, I did it and then trying something else. I think that's what's kept me going. And for anyone who is adrenaline fueled like I am, I think they'd get it. And for everyone who's kind of on the fence. I'd say try it.

That's an amazing story Divya. And one thing I get from what you're saying is your curiosity. You’re loving of challenges. That really propels you forward and I just want to bring this up because, it’s like we can see challenges as something that gets in the way of what we want or we can see challenges as something that propel us to get what we want. And you are on that ladder like to do that and you say something about you know you don't like numbers, but you go to investment banking anyway.

There’s a creative way, there’s like revelations where no, we don't like this but I know this or I'm good at this. Therefore I'm going this path of cannot kind of like shifting a little bit but still in the same path, what is that?

Do you know, I ask myself that every day? Well, most days. I did a Bachelor of Management Studies. So I studied in Bombay in India. It's called Mumbai now, but I still call it Bombay. And I took up Marketing. I didn't take up Finance. I did get offered a job at a local marketing firm and I nearly accepted it until a friend came and said to me, well, JP Morgan are doing walk-in interviews and you should go and try. And I have to thank my dad because I wasn't really aware at the time, I was twenty, and my dad said, Oh my God, they're big and they're global firm and you’ll get amazing exposure. And he pushed me and he said, well I know this isn't your field and this might not be what you think you want to do but what's the harm in going in for an interview. And I said OK. But that walk-in interview actually, was if I remember rightly, it was six to seven rounds of absolutely grueling challenges. But a lot of them were sort of, take a topic and discuss it or you're given a scenario and how do you problem solve it or kind of role-playing. Sure there were some competency based questions and some skill based questions which I was very honest about. And I said to the interviewer then and I thanked them for hiring me despite my answers. I said well, I don't really know Derivatives. I don't understand it. But if you offer me the job, I'll make sure I learn and I'll deliver. And so they took a chance on me, and there I was working at JP Morgan.

That is very interesting. And I have a couple questions, but I think I want to ask this one first. I think this is important and then I will go back to the one about the good girl thing. So what are your steps? I know one, underlying everything, is like you are up to the challenge. You want to learn. And I know before our podcast we were talking about, you're manifesting and therefore you do certain things before you get into this, when you're thirty five years old what are you doing like what did you do?

My mum's a very spiritual person. And my idea of manifesting. Without coming across, you know, much later in life, the likes of Louise Hay or lots of other manifesting tools that are out there in the world today. Back then, I gather my strength from within. So whenever I feel overwhelmed or I feel unhappy in any way, I tend to naturally retreat in my own space. And then I start thinking about what might make me happier than I am right now. We're sensory beings, human beings. I think it's about engaging the senses. Longer term, I think in terms of goals: it's really about what do you want to feel, what do you want to sense? And not just in the immediate, not just in the now, but on an ongoing, consistent basis. And the thing to remember is, there's no room here for saying ohh, but that can't happen or, but how will I do that? No, the beauty of dreams is that there are no limitations. And for that I thank my father, because regardless of our situation and we've seen a lot of highs and lows as a family, I think what I love about my upbringing is there were never any restrictions on dreams and we were never taught that's really arrogant, you know. How dare you think you can do that? No, it was always - fine. Go and think about it. You want to do it. Go and try and do it. And I think that's the secret to manifesting.

That's awesome and. And you remind me of the idea that the mind is where everything is created from. So like a chair we sit or even this podcast you listen or audience listen to it starts from an idea and that idea become reality because someone has an idea and then work on it. One thing that I'm curious, it seems like you go forward, right. Like you have a dream, you move forward, you don't see anything impossible. You're very curious. But you also mentioned something like it's not just beautiful smooth ride, you have failure, you have job loss, anxiety, you have depression.

I think my question is how you get over it. And what is the lesson learned from that?

Honestly, it was ugly. I didn't know the answers. And it took me a long time, much longer than I would have liked because now in hindsight I think oh my God my twenties - I was the fittest, I could eat anything, I looked a certain way that now in my thirties I have to work to look a certain way. Or I had all of my get-up-and-go. It's before I had COVID and my energy was just amazing at the time. Now I have to really conserve it and plan on how to do certain things or when to do them and that's alien. So it's not been easy is what I'm trying to say and I don't think it is for many people but I think what got me through is, just the atmosphere my parents cultivated in the family. Yes, we're all having a bad day and it's really shit and we don't have a lot of money. But we dream and we know it's going to get better. And it’s a lot easier, now in hindsight, I realize it's a lot easier to kind of do that when you have some kind of support system around you. It could be family, it could be friends, it could be siblings or anyone. Whereas in London, something that I really, really wanted to do, I wanted to learn to be independent. I wanted to learn to live on my own. And that has its flip side, which is

I did get to be on my own. So you know when they say be careful what you wish for because you might just get it? I got it. I was extra independent. I was highly self- sufficient, and with that came being alone. Also in the Pandemic, even when you wanted to socialize with friends and family you couldn't really see people, you couldn’t meet them for whatever reason and that was challenging. In the different pockets that you've mentioned and I talk about that in my book, which is how did I deal with all of these things. I think it's believing, more than in anything else, it's believing in myself and knowing. I think it's just tapping into your inner knowing that this isn’t it. Like, this isn't my story. Just refusing to accept that this is how you're going to end up and being really stubborn about it and saying fine, today I might feel absolutely exhausted. Tomorrow I might feel like staying in bed under my duvet all day. For the next week I might not feel like eating anything. I might not feel like showering. I might not even think about basic hygiene. And I'm sorry to bring that up, but it is real when you're depressed, you tend to not think about these things. And it's embarrassing, but it's true. And I want people to not feel ashamed if they're going through something like that.

And just remembering a point in time where you were this alive, bright, vibrant self and sadly for some people where they can't access the past, then engage your imagination. And think of the person you can be and think of the fact that you have this life to do this. That it is possible and only you can do it. So pick yourself up and take yourself there step by step. That is the longer version of how I did it.

And the other arm to it is not being afraid to ask for help. So I think one of the flip sides of being raised a good girl or even learning to be or wanting to be very independent after growing up in a very sheltered protective environment. It's OK to ask for help. Some people are not even aware that they need help. I wasn't aware that I needed help because I firmly believed, fine this will pass. What can someone do? They can't help me, but actually they could. I think it takes a certain kind of strength which sometimes is hard to gather, but remember that you have it. And a certain kind of willingness to be vulnerable. And shedding your ego a little bit and say I'm really struggling today, I can't do this. Can you help me? And you know be willing to help people back. Don’t just be a taker, be willing to give as well. And I think it's a great basis for kind of human connection if you have the sort of people around you to do that with. If not, reach out. I mean there are official formal support systems in place these days where informal social support’s not there. But ask for help. And I think one of the best things that I've done, which has really, really changed a lot of my beliefs and a lot of my life around over the last three years, was engaging the help of a therapist and a coach. And Linzi, if you're listening to this, I love you and I'm so so so grateful for everything we've done along the way.

So much determination and belief. I mean, the word belief just kept coming up to me, like as I'm listening to all of your story and you just have this unwavering belief even in the moments that you've been really down, right? Like even the moments when you feel like you've been knocked down, you believe that you're going to come back. Like you’re going to come back bit better, stronger, you know, however you’re going to come back but you come back. Like you have a belief in that, and I love that about your story. I really do. And I want to go into a little bit, though. Like we all have our personal things that we go through right in life, the challenges and the feelings and the conditions that we deal with. What about the societal expectations for women in this, like nice girl thing? Like this is something I know I've personally struggled with and I hear other women struggling with it, like, that's just another hurdle to get through on top of everything else, right? Like, how do you deal with that?

Well I didn't for the longest time and that's when I struggled. So I think one of the things that influenced my decision to move country was, was the systemic belief at the time. And I'm not saying this is an India specific thing or even a regional thing. I think it's global. Like you've said, you know we come from different parts of the globe and we’ve both experienced similar things, as has everyone else in between. So for me personally it was the word ‘too much’. And there's a little bit of pop culture reference here. In lockdown, I was watching Emily in Paris and for people who haven't watched it, it's this young exec who's like this go getter and a believer and she's very bubbly and you know she’s a workaholic. She wants to go to a completely different culture and try and do things. And her boss there, just has a massive culture shock saying and she's kind of appalled by everything this Emily is. And there comes a point where she has to go to this designer who invites Emily because he sees her authenticity and immediately, her boss, Sylvie says, you know “You're too much” ... you know “Be less.” And I think women, often in my experience and observations, do get asked to be less.

And it might not be so overt in the workplace, but definitely in society, someone like me, who had a voice and who wasn't afraid to use it, got told at home. No, people aren't going to like that. I mean, on the one hand, here's a family who absolutely loves you and supports you, and by the same token, they say “no, but that's too much. You're not supposed to. It's OK.” You know the number of times I've been told even to date “you're too much like a man. You need to be more like a woman.” And I’ve spent the majority of my life wondering “well what is it to be more like a woman? And why is this that I am not OK and not enough?” And I think it's just the needing to fit into a mold. I think societally and it comes in different forms. You have to be married by certain age. You have to start a family. You have to have a number of children. Have to do a certain kind of thing, play a certain role at home or elsewhere. It's difficult and I think my way of doing this or getting around these things is being self aware. And saying “what is it I really feel that I want and what feels OK for me and what doesn’t.” And making choices

that align with what I'm doing. And it didn't come easy because obviously I was discovering myself in the early phase of my life. And these answers are fuzzy. I was once on a weekend speaking to my dad again and he said “Can you send me your CV?” And so I sent him my CV and he's like “Not this CV the other one” and I said “What other CV is there?” “Ohh no no.. the bit where you describe yourself, and your bio and your height...” and I said “What?” I was shocked. And I thought my immediate family was different. And it turned out that you know, the most loving, the most modern, the most global, the most broad-minded families sometimes in many cultures still want your bio so that you can marry a good-on-paper-checklist and I refused to do that. And there was a lot of backlash, and there were several arguments. But again, I stayed true to myself. And I think the stubborn streak and the belief that no, this isn't my story, this isn't how my life is going to end up. It stood out and I think that's what's carried me through.

In a work context, there's also very subtle ways. Initially in my career, maybe not so much now since I've learned to find my voice and use it. Initially in my career there was a lot about “It’s OK, you'll do some admin jobs” and that's fine. And, as a junior, as an Analyst, everybody does adminy work, everybody does grunt work, everybody does things they don't like. Absolutely fine. But when you have three four five years in the industry, when you're continuing to prove yourself, when you're continuing to bring results and you know it's not just you singing your praises. Your clients are happy with your work. Your stakeholders are happy with your work. They clearly see potential in you, but sometimes your immediate manager, and sadly, in my case, they've been women. And sadly also in my case, they've been Indian. And I don't think it's an Indian thing. I hear that from a lot of people across Europe, across America, across, everywhere, to say, well, it's really sad. People from my own country kind of feel that it's OK for them to speak to me in a certain way here just because it's acceptable back home.

I just want to recognize the fact that you broke through all of that. I mean what you just shared is very, complex, right? Navigating the pressures of society, family, even on the job, in the workplace. That a woman's role in this, in defining her success and defining her happiness in these ways. And you just kept pushing it down. You just kept pushing it aside and fighting through it. So I just want to really recognize that for the moment. I hope everybody heard that, because that shows incredible strength, maturity and, you know, personal insight.

That's lovely. Thank you. You're welcome.

So we're going to go to the next questions. I think two more questions that I have in mind. At work, right? It's interesting what you're saying. Sometimes it's not just men who said be quiet. But sometimes women leaders say, “you’re too much.” And what is the balance between being assertive, and also being polite?

That's a great question. I love that question because that's something I've been exploring myself. And I think balance is something that doesn't innately come to me. For anyone who believes in these things, I'm a Scorpio Sun with an Aries moon. My default was okay, be a good girl because I love my family, I don't want to upset anyone and that carried on into work, that carried on into relationships. I don't want to ruffle any feathers. I can't lose my job. I can't lose my visa. I have to conform, conform, conform. Now I was an extreme good girl. Not internally always, but externally. Yes, I behaved in a certain way and that caused a lot of conflict. I wasn't really at peace with myself. And then when I started exploring what the other end might be.

Now the good thing is I'm kind of slow to take action on these things. So, firstly I sit back and observe. And in my observation were many brilliant women, and kudos to them for trying to break those barriers at the time. The one thing I noticed that didn't really resonate with me was they were coming across as aggressive and I felt like there isn't always the need to be. You know, for the lack of a better word, the opposite of a good girl is not cold, harsh-hearted b*tch. It's somewhere in between. And I think it's through observation, but also through my own exploration, and then working with this coach that I talked about, Linzi, is to say, well where's my happy medium? Because what works for me won't work for you, won't work for everyone else. So it's experimenting with that.

I think people pleasing is very closely linked with being a good girl. And after years of doing that, there's a certain kind of resentment and frustration that builds in, that doesn't always have the appropriate outlet. And when you try and finally find your voice or assert your true self, that can come out in really awkward, clumsy, ugly ways because you've never explored that in your life. You don't know what it looks like. You don't know what to say. You don't know how to behave. All of these feelings and emotions being provoked within you and you're so uncomfortable thinking “Is this me? Is this who I am? Like what am I becoming?” And all of these things that you've got to deal with. And all I'll say is, just practice. Practice until it feels comfortable.

Like someone said, you can't shed the weight in two months what you've gained over twenty five years and I think in this case it's not physical weight, it's emotional weight. We've been carrying this weight with us for years and years. We can't expect to be masters at it, you know in a week two weeks, not even two months. It took me a year and a half to be comfortable enough to say to my mum. I don't agree with this. I know

this comes as a shock to you, and I'm really sorry that this is hurting you. But I have to tell you, I've never liked this. I've never agreed with this. I've just done it because I didn't want to upset you. And I'm nearly forty now and I don't want to carry on living like that. Mum, I'm so sorry. Can we talk about this? And it was horrible. And I had to say something similar to my brother, whom I love very dearly. And his response was to be expected because his idea of me is - she’s a certain way, she's always done these things. Why is she suddenly changing what she's doing? Like, who is she speaking to? Who is she being influenced by? I'm not saying he thought all of these things, but, when you interact with people for a large part of your life who've known you to be a certain way. Suddenly you start behaving dramatically differently. They're going to need that adjustment period and time as well. And, I think navigating through all of that, my only lesson in hindsight was give it time. Just give it time. And you will want to give up, find an outlet to scream into the journal, into to kickboxing, to dance, whatever floats your boat. Let it out. But, go back and remember why you're doing this. You want to be more at peace with yourself. You want to be more congruent with yourself. You want to be more authentic. And what do all of these nice fluffy words mean? You just wanna be happy. You just wanna be yourself.

Just wanna be you, right?
Just wanna be you.
Yes. And we have to fight for it sometimes.

It’s amazing that at the end of the day all our fight, all our struggles our journey is to find ourselves, to be more comfortable, to be ourselves and I can see what you're saying. There's also patience and compassion.

Oh yeah.

That journey to be a good girl is like being kind and being compassionate to ourselves as we are expanding, as we are changing, as we become more mature, become more brave and become more comfortable with our own skin. Now before we close, is there message that you want to, or advice you want to give to young women who maybe hesitant to challenge this normal fear of potential backlash?

I think so. I’d say start by taking responsibility. It's very counterintuitive when every instinct in us wants to say, yeah, but he did this to me and she did this to me, and my society did this and my family did this and my workplace like this and the politics and you know you can give yourself as many excuses and place blame externally as much as you want. But I think beyond a certain age and beyond a certain time in life, we're all

adults. We're all responsible for the choices we make. And I think it's definitely not easy. However, it’s extremely important. In fact, it's critical to acknowledge that you've played a part in whatever's happened to you. So for example, in my instance – yes, I was afraid of how my father would respond to something, or what would happen if a certain boss was to get really angry. But I’ve been responsible for cultivating that image. Had I started saying sooner, “But I feel differently. What about this? Can we do this?” Have that conversation. Start taking responsibility, is my message. Because you and your life are the culmination of your choices and I think it's great that we're having these conversations. It's great that in 2023 this is an all-women's podcast. It’s by women. It's for women. It's amazing. But let's not feel victimized, and let's not approach what is an empowerment forum by feeling disempowered. By being disempowered. Let's just say, alright, I've been a good girl, let's own it. It's like me — you know numbers make my head hurt. It's not like I don't like it. They physically make my head hurt. So I say in interviews, “Look, if you want someone who's going to number crunch, I'm not your person. You want someone who gets things done, brings people together, manages projects and programs, then I'm your man.. or woman.”

And it’s the same thing. I think it comes with owning things that you've felt ashamed of, even admitting to yourself. Things you don't like about yourself. And it's part of taking responsibility to say well, I tend to people please. I tend to be compliant. How can I turn that around? How can that be my superpower? And I'll give you an example. People, pleasers, good girls have the amazing ability to conform to laws, to rules, to restrictions. So if there's anything that needs you to be very diligent, to be focused, to be proper, to get things done in a certain systematic, methodical, organized, diligent way. Then boom, that's you. So if you're managing a project, for example, and you're working with different stakeholders with ridiculous personalities, how can you use your good girl persona to try and be gentle with them, to approach them from a human context and say, “Hey, what's going on? What’s not agreeing with you? Can I help? Really, can we just talk?” Bring them together, get them to talk to each other. It's a lot of what I do, by the way. Bring people together, get them to talk to each other and get things done.

And I want to leave everybody with an exercise to do:
“What's the label you identify with? Onstead of being ashamed of it, how can that be your superpower at home and in work?”
And I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to look me up on my website it's www.divyakamat.com. There will be a little box for you to send comments. I’d love to know your labels. And I'd love to know what you've done to own those labels and then to turn them in your superpowers. So reach out.

What an incredible call to action. I'm going to be putting mine on your website for sure.

Fabulous!

Thank you Divya. Very inspiring. And a great way to look at it right? You can still keep the good girl persona, but use it to your benefit.

So before we close. Before we go to the closing. I just want to do a quick disclaimer and maybe you want to help me with this? Everything that we shared on this podcast today. Your opinions, our opinions are by no means a reflection of our employers or the work that we do. This is strictly for the Women's 's Career Mastery podcast.

That's right.
OK. So Christine, over to you to close this out.

Thank you so much for this talk, for being our guest speaker in our podcast, Divya. I really appreciate it. I’m really lucky to bump into you. That’s not a coincidence in the author communities. We hope this is going to bring more inspiration to other people, especially people of color, women of color, who come from different countries and race in different cultures, and have to, like to progress in a different culture and to find herself and to be herself. And I think that's the way we make the world a better place is to be ourselves, to be authentic. And because that's when we are in the zone or genius. And you've been showing that to us through your story today. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.