We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful LaToia Burkley. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with LaToia below.
LaToia, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.
Learning Confidence at an Early Age I am fortunate and blessed enough to have parents who always saw the best in me and made sure that I knew exactly what they saw. I was raised in a household where, as an only child, I was taught both to respect those generationally older than me and how to communicate and express myself with them. That said, my parents gave me access to language and would let me thought-partner on items that were age-appropriate for me. My intelligence was nurtured and caressed so that, when I wasn’t in their presence, I could have agency – defend myself, speak up for myself and more importantly speak up for others when their voices went low. I often mention that as a child, I knew I was Black often times before I knew I was a girl. Both my parents grew up on Chicago’s Southside where knowing your cultural and ancestral roots wasn’t learned, it was something that was part of you at birth. The community supported intelligence, commerce, socio-economic advancements, learning, leisure and love that looked like them. Both my mother and father went to schools where they were picked on, teased, and had to fight for their academic place and that, “don’t let anyone tell you they’re better than you” was passed down to me. I was taught to take pride in who I was.
Challenges Entering the Workforce at a Young Age
I didn’t realize the richness of my upbringing until I graduated high school and went (almost) straight into the job marketing looking to make money at a young age. I’ve been drinking stale office break room coffee and walking around with an asset managed laptop since I was 19. Being in the corporate world as a young adult was a true test of both my confidence and my self-esteem — and I didn’t fair well for a while. I worked in an environment that made me question the parts of myself that I had always found grounded confidence — the type of confidence that wasn’t stubborn, but firm enough to be unmovable by external factors. It wasn’t as strong as I thought. I was faced with racism and sexism in new ways (different than what I encountered in high school) that had a salary/financial gain attached to it. I was living on my own and out of my parent’s house and felt the need to do what ever it took to make ends meet vs. admitting some kind of defeat I’d created in my mind and going back home. I assimilated (to the best of my ability) to the predominately white spaces I found myself in at work, I straightened my hair and got rid of my braids for a while, I made sure my pitch, pace and tone of my speech wasn’t threatening and made me sound extra articulate — I covered over the parts of me that I felt wouldn’t be accepted, wouldn’t help me get promoted, wouldn’t get me the accolades it took to move, shake, and be seen by higher-ups. The now well-defined lack of confidence that I was facing (where was that same agency and stand-up-ness I had as a kid? Where was that ability to use my voice and speak up for myself that was tattooed on my heart when I was younger?) drove me to lean into some rather unhealthy work habits that led to burnout that led to job dissatisfaction, that led to an existential crisis (or series of them) that made me ask who I really was. What was I really doing and who was it all for?
Support and Confirmation of my Voice
Fast forward to new places to work, new job titles and new responsibilities later, I was paired through a mentorship program with an older Black woman who was a senior leader in our organization. Yes, we went through the mentor/mentee motions, but she made it a point to give me that same feeling I had as a kid. I needed to be around a professional who would really SEE me, for everything that I was, all that I could do and, in this case, all that I was pretending to be because of what “they” thought I should be. There were three big lessons from that mentorship:
1.) Before I could establish/reestablish my grounded confidence, I needed to see ME for me. I needed to spend time with those existential questions and establish the core of self love, self soothing, and self solving. I couldn’t get back to presenting as confident until I could learn who I was, as a reintroduction. At the time of our mentorship, I was coming out of a serious relationship that left me raw and was thinking about seeking professional mental help to navigate the breakup. I moved forward with that and added the need to get to know me, the real me, make peace with her and learn how to stand in my own confident self again.
2.) My mentor, not only supported my therapy journey verbally when times were tough with the “you can do it” messages, but also made it a point to help me with accountability to the items I was exploring with my therapist at work. An example of this was how I needed to take advantage of opportunties to use my voice. When I was asked, “well LaToia what do you think?” she reminded me that those were my opportunities to play with confidence in practice. In my work day, I used more phrases like, “no thank you, I’m fine without that.” or “I plan to go in a different direction and will reach out to you if I need additional support.” vs. “well….I don’t know what do YOU think?” or “doesn’t matter to me!” (when it really did). Using my voice in the micro lent to using my voice in the macro.
And 3.) Having a strong support system that held me accountable to myself, my actions and decisions, would reinforce that I didn’t have to do life alone, I didn’t have to feel ashamed when I didn’t know something and I had a community behind me who would support me in establishing/reestablishing my grounded confidence. Confidence is both a work of self and community.
I’ve weathered the storms of lack of confidence, low self-esteem by acknowledging that I’m not immune to them AND success (on my terms) is possible. I’m not relegated to what a person or the world in general thinks of me or thinks I should be doing. My confidence is not tied up in my “ought” self, it lives and can grow best in the soil of who I am truly, My authentic self.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Your Big Debut, LLC is a coaching & consulting practice that helps women professionals gain career clarity and increase their confidence along the way. Our needs-based, curated coaching & consulting services help leaders serve at their highest sense of self by developing and reinforcing inclusive leadership practices. I have the pleasure of waking up everyday to help individuals grow, adapt to, shed and prune their professional path through executive coaching. In May 2024 we will celebrate 5 years in business and that’s a big deal for us. In the US, most small businesses don’t see success past the five year mark and close their doors before this milestone. I’m looking forward to celebrating our 5 year anniversary by offering coaching services to a new client segment for the business. We’ll be opening up coaching services and designing educational content specifically for those on the college to career track and our first-gen emerging leaders. YBD’s services have been tailored to those more mid to senior level in their career and, with Gen Z making up a larger population of the US workforce in 2024, we feel a deep sense of stewardship in offering professional development and coaching services for this age group. I’m also very excited to announce that very soon, we’ll be rolling out a coaching subscription service that allows clients to engage with YBD in more ways that serve their day to day lives. Our tiered subscription model will allow clients to pay for a set amount of sessions per month, engage with us on a deeper level with consulting and learning services, or combine both paths at a higher premium and spend what we call VIP Days with me to prep for items like a salary negotiation, big presentation or other professional main events.
As an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC) I’ll be increasing my knowledge and adding Mentor Coach to my list of titles in 2024. Part of my individual development plan includes deepening my coaching craft by mentoring coaches who are looking to get a credential through the International Coaching Federation or renew an existing credential. Personally, I’d also like to get deeper into some hobbies this year and do some more traveling.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
The three qualities/skills that have been the most impactful to my journey are Emotional Intelligence, having a strong sense of community, and effective communication. And I know what you’re thinking, the term Emotional Intelligence (EQ) gets thrown around a lot. I don’t mean EQ in JUST being able to read a room, but emotional intelligence including being able to self-regulate and learning how to respond vs. react.
Having a large measure of emotional intelligence is still a value-add and a competitive advantage for young professionals who are starting out in their career. The ability to stay fluid in conversation, demonstrate poise and communicate in a manner that can speak to all audiences and demonstrate self awareness isn’t something developed overnight. Mentorship and Sponsorship are two GREAT tools that young professionals should 1.) have access to and 2.) incorporate into their professional development. With a mentor, you get expertise, story, and background knowledge from an individual who has your best interest in mind and can hold space for you to ask questions and learn lessons. A sponsor is someone who can speak about your body of work in rooms that you don’t occupy, the person who can recommend you with their own social or professional capital to get you to where you want to go. If your organization offers mentorship opportunities, take advantage of them. If your organization doesn’t offer a formal mentorship program, start asking some trusted individuals in your network to recommend a mentor or serve as a mentor for you.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.yourbigdebutnow.com
- Instagram: @yourbigdebut
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/yourbigdebut/?viewAsMember=true
Image Credits
https://deespeaksvisuals.com
