Your Iconic Image : Conditioning, Competition and Claiming Your Power for Women

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Kon Apostolopoulos

Fresh Biz Solutions

Kon Apostolopoulos is the Founder & CEO of Fresh Biz Solutions, a Human Capital Management consulting group that provides performance improvement and training solutions to help organizations develop a pipeline of leadership talent ready to implement their strategy. He is an award-wining coach, a master facilitator, and the coauthor of the timely book, “7 Keys to Navigating a Crisis: A Practical Guide for Emotionally Dealing with Pandemics & Other Disasters.” As a Thinkers 360 Global Top-10 Thought Leader, he is a regular contributor to popular industry and cultural publications, such as Management-Issues, Achievers Engagement Blog, and Thrive Global.

When not working with business leaders, “Coach Kon” gives back to his community by developing young soccer players in local, state, and Olympic Development Programs. After all, sports is a great way to teach important life skills!

https://www.freshbizsolutions.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/coachkon/

https://twitter.com/Kon_Ap

https://www.amazon.com/Keys-Navigating-Crisis-Practical-Emotionally/dp/1734943815

www.marlanasemenza.com

Audio : Ariza Music Productions

Marlana

Kon Apostolpoulos is the founder and CEO of Fresh Biz Solutions, and award-winning coach, Master facilitator and the co-author of the timely book Seven Keys to Navigating a Crisis: A Practical Guide for Emotionally Dealing with Pandemics and Other Disasters. But when not working with business leaders, Coach Kon gives back to his community by developing young soccer players in the local state and Olympic development programs. Thank you so much for being here.

Kon

Pleasure to be here with you Marlana.

Marlana

So, that's where I really want to start, and use it as a jumping off point; your work with athletes, because competition is a very interesting topic to me. And I really think that women and girls are conditioned and trained differently than boys to deal with it. And I was just curious, what has been your experience in how men and women differ when it comes to competitions?

Kon

That's a very interesting question. The simplest way that I answer that question, when I get asked is that boys need to play well or play good to feel good. Girls need to feel good to play well. The origin of their validation for themselves, typically, and without trying to be stereotypical. But in general, there is an element of thoughtfulness to a girl's play, to a woman's play, she needs to understand why they're not opposed to getting dirty and getting out there and working hard and doing all those things. But they have to understand why boys don't give it a second thought. They'll jump in there. And they have to get out there and get dirty and wrestle with things in order to feel good, because it's that activity itself, that brings joy to them and satisfaction, whereas with the girls, they need to understand why we're asking them to do that, in order for them to commit to go down that path. And much of the origin of that has its roots in how we raise boys and girls. Talk to me about that.

Kon

Well, there's an interesting thing to think about it this way, we spend a lot of time for anybody that has children of both genders. Typically, with the boys, we have no problem, sending them out to go get dirty to wrestle in the mud, to go play, to be physical to do all of those things.

Anything that they do, and they beat up on each other, we see as healthy competition between males. We don't do the same with girls. We typically emphasize prettiness, we emphasize good behavior, we emphasize speech, we emphasize other elements of who they are, as opposed to the physical attributes, which are associated with athleticism.

Marlana

So, let's go back to good behavior. Because it seems to me when we look at instances, and I'll use the Olympics, because I know that you coach at that level. And it's also interesting to note, too, that you coach girls. So, I want people to understand that aspect of this as well. Do you think we advocate for ourselves enough? Because it seems to me that girls are also taught inherently to just take it because somehow you don't deserve the spot that you have earned. We've earned these spots. But for some reason, it seems that if we speak up, if we advocate for ourselves, that will be taken away, even though it is something we earned, and it seems like something that men and boys never wrestle with.

Kon

I think there's a lot of truth to that. And part of it is the way that we look at the commercial aspect of sports. Where does the money go? Follow the flow of the money and you realize where the emphasis is. You look at where the marketing dollars go and how TV channels or streaming services promote their different events. They'll promote the men's events very differently than they do the women's events, which is very interesting. And again, that is a general blanket statement across the board of athletics as opposed to certain events that are specialized towards one gender or the other. But in broader terms. We tend to emphasize a lot more the male and the men's events, we look at that, we commercialize them differently. The sponsor dollars, the advertising dollars, the rewards for the athletes themselves are much higher on the men's side, and therefore the flow of the money dictates where the emphasis is on so many different levels. It's only recently, for example, that the women's national team in soccer, was able to get a ruling that allowed them to get equal pay, or at least close to it start moving in that direction, even though the women's soccer team, and by all accounts has been more successful, from an athletic perspective, from an accomplishment perspective in their space than the men's team has. But yet, when people put the comparisons out there, and this is not the athletes This is everybody around it, that are putting it out there. They always put those accomplishments with an asterisk that, oh, yes, but it's in the women's space. And it forces the discussion, puts that kind of pressure on where there's an assumption that women should apologize for being excellent at what they're doing, or that somehow their accomplishments are diminished, because they're not on a quote, unquote, even playing field. I tend to differ; I tend to have a very different opinion about that. And even when I coach at the younger student athlete ages, I would never hesitate to put my girl’s teams up against boy’s teams and vice versa, because I think it does, it breaks down those artificial barriers that we set up.

Marlana

Yeah. Do you think that because sports in general seem to go way back and start off more as a boy’s thing as a men's thing that there is that carry over that somehow, but with a little asterisk that? But this is a really a man space. And so, we have to differentiate that this was in the women's division.

Kon

the fact of where women's athletics has come into the mainstream, it's only been in the recent years, it's only been since a lot of the rulings that forced colleges and institutions to be able to look at women's scholarships on an even playing field as part of the equity efforts. That really allowed colleges or forced colleges, if you will, to look at women's athletics in a different way. That in itself allowed the rise of women's sports at a higher level. But going back into history, I mean, sports, athletics, even war from as an extension of that has always been the realm of, it's very male dominated. It's been a place of pageantry, if you will, for men to be able to showcase their prowess and their abilities and everything else. Whereas the pageantry for women has always been about appearance. It's all about our intellect about, you know, proper manners and everything else. That's traditionally the role models that we've worked off up until, you know, mid-20th century, when finally, women started feeling like they had a they demanded a place at the table. And they were starting to earn that right across the board. And it's been an uphill battle. I mean, I'm an advocate, I've been surrounded by strong women all my life. I'm married to one, I'm raising one I've had my siblings are strong women, my mother was, I mean, I've been surrounded by that, I've been operating in the sphere, where a lot of my professional career has been spent surrounded by very strong female role models. I operate on the people side of the business. So, it tends to have a lot more proportionally women in that space. So firsthand, I've seen and I have so much respect for the people that I work with, and it has nothing to do with their gender.

Marlana

Yeah. You know, and it's interesting that you brought up pageantry here, because a lot of my clients to compete in that space. And that's just another area of competition, right. And what I see with women, and I'm not picking on pageantry at all, because it's across the board with women in every area is that when a woman, we cheer for each other, right up until one of us wins. And then the minute she wins, the tide changes, because it's almost like, since she has taken the spot that means there's one less spot for me, where men look at it. Well I'll just take the 15 other spots. Do you see that in sports as well?

Kon

Very much. So, with certain areas, especially with individual sports, individual sports have a very different impact on the psyche and on well being versus Team sports. By their very nature, individual sports cultivate a sense of me against the world. So, it's not uncommon to have that

even when you're in within a team, let's say a cross country team, where or swimming team where you have, yes, a team, but they're competing individually and sometimes against each other within the same team. So, there's a pecking order, but it's the sense of scarcity of avail a Bull opportunities that drives that behavior. I think somehow between women, there's an element of that, where if there are only so many spots to go around, if you take one, that means that I don't have that chance. And then or if I have to compete for that chance, I have to tear you down in order to do it. And it's not uncommon. I mean, I work with, again, with young student athletes, and many of them are getting into that pre-pubescent and pubescent age, which is very difficult, regardless of which gender, you're, it's a difficult time of starting to realize who you are, and how you're transitioning in your life. But I've always found that when I have kids that are part of a team, a cohesive team, a truly high performing team, and that transition into puberty is much easier for them, they have a greater sense of self, they have a greater sense of confidence, self- esteem, their ability to relate to others, their social intelligence, which is much higher, the sense of collaboration is much higher, all of those skills that we build through team sports, find their place there and make that transition so much easier, because they have a tribe, they have people to fall back on, they don't feel so isolated. But again, with women, it's a very tricky thing that I've noticed, indeed, that if one successful, that means these fewer places around the table for us to sit. And that leads to bad behaviors. The Dark Side of collaboration, because women by their nature are collaborative creatures, they want to be able to partner with others, they don't have any problem with that. So, what ends up happening is they collaborate against this one person that stuck out. And now it's all of them against that one outlier, that one person that's trying to be exceptional.

Marlana

And now, let's just pull that into all the other areas that you work with, in business and things. Because that behavior then translates later on into business relationships too, because if there is one woman that succeeds as a CEO, or something like that, or gets promoted and accompany once again, there seems to be one less spot for the other women. And I think that's not something that we've made up in our head, either, because there are fewer spots that seem to be given to women.

Kon

I've researched, I've talked about it, and I've written about that concept of you know, that that leadership pipeline, that pyramid, we have to have a much broader base of female leaders, if we are to hope to have the number of leaders that will potentially can fill those senior positions, when less than 5% of the Fortune 500 companies have any sort of senior leadership from women, that's a very disproportionate thing, considering that women represent more than half of the population. So, you're talking about a very disproportionate representation there. And if the people that are making the decisions don't represent, like in any structure, the majority of the people that are under them, from that perspective that they are supposed to be representing

how can they voice that opinion, because their perspective is very skewed towards their own needs, their own desires, their own frameworks, their own perspectives, we need that participation at the most senior levels, but how do we get there, we need to broaden the base at the beginning. That's why I look at my, my work. And I and I value that as my mission. Because when I can help young women advocate for themselves, be able to grow up with a sense of confidence within their abilities in their not just in their physical abilities. But in their critical thinking and their ability to solve problems and their ability to work together and their ability to lead. They are much better positioned to do that, in their high school years, and their college years in their professional careers. To me, it goes well beyond the game.

Marlana

So, let me ask you for the people that don't have you in their lives, how do we start to do that for ourselves?

Kon

Well, start talking to your kids differently, start talking and showing them different examples, different role models. I mean, there's nothing wrong. I have a large part of my client base is supporting the construction industry. While the construction industry if you want to talk about a male dominated environment that has a very, very long history of how it is. And many people see it as a very rigid, monolithic kind of place. I can tell you in the last years and 10 plus years that I've been working in this industry right now supporting organizations, there have been significant efforts to diversify to bring in and attract women, minorities, a lot of different people into leadership roles and developing them into stepping into those roles. But you got it starts with talking to your kids differently. Stop emphasizing just the looks have the smarts or this emphasize the qualities that you would expect of a good leader. Treat your kids the way that you know that they can be. And they will rise to the occasion. I've chained all sorts of different levels of talent. I've worked with different teams Marlana. And I can tell you, I've treated all of my kids as champions before they won even their first medal. When you treat them like champions, they'll rise to the occasion they'll behave like champions. And I'm not talking about spoiled brats, I'm talking about champions with the expectations and ownership that goes with that.

Marlana

So, how So? Define that a little bit more for us? Because I am going to guess it is not a situation where everybody gets a trophy, kind of a mentality.

Kon

not at all. So not at all. No, because I want to make sure that that we celebrate our team victories, because that's where we are all pulling together without sacrificing individual excellence, I'm not about everybody gets a participation ribbon, I'm not about we're all the same, I treat my kids not the same, I treat them consistently. There's a big difference between that I give my kids consistently what they need to hear from me. And sometimes it's more direction, and sometimes

it's more support. But whatever it is, I consistently provide that with some of them, I need to leave them alone with some of them, I have to be in their business all the time. And some of them, it's somewhere in between. And that from a practical standpoint means as your kids master certain things, help them, empower them, to rise to that occasion, show them that you believe in them. And then make sure that you allow them to own it. All of the top performers that I've worked with, whether that's in sports or business, follow this very simple three step model. One is they own the results of their work, good, bad or indifferent. They own it, and especially the stuff that they didn't succeed with, they own it, they take full responsibility for that. They don't blame others, they say what could I have done differently, then they use that for step two, which is they learned from it. We don't deal with failures; we deal with learning opportunities. And that's what we do, we never fail, we just learn, it's a way for us to get to success. So, they use every opportunity, especially when they've missed something as a learning opportunity. And then the final step, and probably the most important is they let it go. Once you've taken what you need from an experience, you don't allow that to hamper or to impact the future. It's done, you let it go. If I carry around the weight of my mistakes, that's another 50-pound bag that I have to put on my shoulders to compete with. That's not very effective. I also don't want to ignore the lessons of the past. Because if I keep making the same mistakes, it's no longer a mistake, it's a choice. So those are the things that we bring forward as we coach kids as much physically as we do mentally, because it is about a Champions mindset. As far as how they approach them. Successful people simply do the things that unsuccessful people don't want to do, because it's too hard.

Marlana

How do you think the fear of failure plays into these things?

Kon

It's a big part of that. And that's where the mental illness piece comes in where a lot of the stressors come into play. Let me give you two examples, one from a sports perspective and another comment from a professional perspective. But they are the same thread when your entire validation of who you are. Your identity is surrounded by performance and success. That's a problem. You have nothing else to lean on. You will do things that are unreasonable. It might drive excellence, but it will also just as often if not more lead to failure. So, if I view failure as a way that it says that I'm not worthy, that I have no value, it devalues me as a person, then that's a problem. I will look at failure as a horrific thing. It's devastating. It's worse than death. But if I view failure as a feedback mechanism to get to my success, that's all it is. Failure is not the opposite of success. It is a feedback mechanism on the way to success. So, it's very different with athletes. It's the same thing. Look at the cases that we've had now with athletes that are devastated, that agony of defeat that you see, because they've spent all this time working towards that one moment. And if you have nothing else to fall back on, it's devastating.

Marlana

And it's interesting because it is a moment. I know I spoke with a gentleman who competed in it rowing in the Olympics, and his