"No is a complete sentence." 🗣️ Breaking the Need to Explain Yourself with Jessica Goodfox & Taryn Reynolds

In this special episode of Insight in Indian Country, REDW HR Consulting Business Partner Jessica Goodfox sits down with Senior HR Consultant Taryn Reynolds to revisit their session at the 2026 WEWIN National Conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma — "Breaking the Need to Explain Yourself: Confidence, Boundaries, and Voice for Indigenous Women." What started as a breakout session filled to standing room only became a candid, packed-room conversation about the pressure many Indigenous women feel to over-explain, soften their message, or justify their boundaries in professional and community spaces. Jessica and Taryn share what stood out from the room, walk through their "Rewrite the Script" exercise for turning over-apologetic responses into clear, respectful ones, and unpack how cultural values of humility and respect can coexist with self-advocacy and a clear voice.

Grab your companion permission slips and worksheet HERE and get ready to build a healthier communication culture in your organization with REDW's HR Consulting team.

REDW Advisors and CPAs is proud to bring you the Insight in Indian Country Podcast, covering important advisory, accounting, and finance topics that impact Tribal Nations and business affairs. Thanks for listening!

👉 Visit our website

Transcript

Welcome And WeWin Context

Jessica Goodfox 0:00

All right, welcome to a special episode of Insight in Indian Country brought to you by REDW Advisors and CPAs. I'm Jessica Goodfox, a HR Consulting Business Partner, part of the HR Consulting Department, and I'm joined today by my colleague, Taryn Reynolds.

Taryn Reynolds 0:17

Hey Jessica, thank you. I am a senior HR consultant at REDW. I've been with REDW now for about almost five years, and I'm super excited to get to talk to everyone today.

Speaker 0:30

Yeah, so we recently had the opportunity to present at the 2026 We Wing National Conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where we led a session called Breaking the Need to Explain Yourself: Confidence, Boundaries, and Voice for Indigenous Women. The session focused on something many women can relate to, especially Indigenous women, Indigenous women in leadership, professional and community spaces. So the pressure to over-explain, to soften our message, or justify our boundaries. So today we really wanted to bring part of that conversation to you. We'll talk about why this topic matters, what came up during the session, and how the room really responded and how the listeners can use one of the tools that we shared during the workshop, which was called Rewrite the Script.

Speaker 1 1:25

Yeah, so exciting. This was my first WeWin, and I'm so glad that Jessica invited me. I had never been before, and she told me about her experience, and so I'm really glad I went. It was such a cool experience.

A Packed Room And Real Talk

Speaker 1:38

Yeah, so I'd love for you to share what stood out to you about the topic specifically and what felt so important for the audience.

Speaker 1 1:46

Yeah, it was just so fun to present with you, Jessica. Um it was especially meaningful because you came up with this great topic, and I just was so blown away by how everyone reacted to this topic and how relatable it really is. I remember being a little bit nervous when we selected the topic because I was like, oh, am I qualified to talk about this? Because this is something I struggle with myself. Um, but I learned through this experience, almost all women are struggling with this. Um before we even started uh our presentation, it was so cool because people just kept coming into our room. Um we had a ballroom and we were able to fill every chair. It was so funny because we ran out of pins. They had to bring in more chairs for us. I don't know about you, but it was just it was very um incredibly humbling that experience. Uh, standing room only in the room, everyone was super engaged. And even though the room was full, I think the thing that I'll remember the most was how it became such a conversation, and it wasn't just us presenting. Women were just openly sharing about their own experiences and how they've set boundaries with their families at work, in their communities, and the things that they learned were able to shape kind of my own experiences in that session itself, and so I was learning too, which is so cool. Um, I just love that.

Speaker 3:18

Yeah, and uh one of the um takeaways for myself was one attendee had told us, you're not the next leaders, you are the leaders now, and I know that meant a lot to both of us, and that reminder really had stayed with me because leadership is not something that we wait for, it's something you know that we practice every day, whether it's in our personal lives or our

You Are The Leaders Now

Speaker 3:40

professional lives. So at the heart of you know, this session was that this idea that many of us have learned to over-explain as a way to be understood or to avoid conflict or to make sure that we're not perceived as difficult. And sometimes that comes from very real experiences. And over time, overexplaining just becomes exhausting and it can make us feel like we have to justify every decision, every boundary, every

Why We Over-Explain And Soften

Speaker 4:09

request, or just every no. And what we wanted attendees to practice was the difference between being clear and feeling like they have to convince someone that their boundary is valid. So um so true.

Speaker 1 4:23

I feel like one of the things that we really focused on too is like being clear is kind. And so we don't have to overexplain and um go in depth on things. No is no, sometimes just a simple no. Um, as women, we can we can turn that into so many things um when really we're just we can just be firm in our boundaries, which is which is so important. Um and confidence, you know, it doesn't always have to be has to be loud. It can be soft, it can be again just clear and kind. And so I think that was one of the biggest takeaways um that a lot of people had from our session too.

Speaker 5:05

Yeah, and I we learned just as much from the session, I think, just as the audience did. So I think that was another really cool aspect

Humility Values And Self Advocacy

Speaker 5:13

of the presentation itself. And then again, one of the reasons this conversation is so important is in Indigenous spaces, because many of us carry those cultural values around respect, humility, um, responsibility in our community, those values are strengths. But in professional spaces, especially leadership spaces, we also have to um be able to advocate for ourselves, um, name what we need and communicate clearly without feeling like we're being disrespectful to.

Speaker 1 5:47

That is so true. Yeah, as Indigenous women, many of us value humility so strongly in our relationships and how we serve others in our communities, but we have to explore how we can still honor those values while also recognizing um our own voice, our time, and our boundaries matter too. Like we matter too.

unknown 6:07

Yeah.

Speaker 1 6:09

We are valid. We are valid. Even when brief. That's right. The room felt very engaged. What stood out to me was that people were not listening um politely, they were thinking about real situations and real conversations and um real patterns that they'd experienced. And so what was great was we were able to pass the mic throughout our conversations and everybody was weighing in. It was so engaging. And, you know, it we talked about like we learned too. I was actually writing down things throughout our session that other women were sharing with us. I was like, oh my gosh, that's such a great nugget. Like, I'm definitely gonna save that. Um, and it was everything from quotes to their personal life experiences, um, even down to like book recommendations and podcasts that had to do with our topic that they found really um important or that had shaped them in some way. And so we were even able to take our own notes from session attendees, which was super cool. Um, I think there was also a sense of recognition in the room of like, oh, I do that too. And so everyone was like so validating to each other throughout the experience, like, oh my gosh, I'm not this, you know, we all have these similar things in common. We're all experiencing this kind of same situation um in some capacity, or we've all been carrying the same um traumas or loads or or you know, family dynamics and things like that. And so it was just really cool to hear everyone talking about their real situations and these real conversations and how those patterns kind of shaped them and how relatable this topic really is for women across all, you know, all of our communities.

Speaker 8:05

Yeah, and I loved all the book recommendations.

Speaker 1 8:08

Well, they were so good. There were so many good ones. A few that I'd read before, but there were some that I had never heard of, and so I'm excited to dive into some of those too. It was really cool. Yeah, the other thing was, you know, we talked about having to bring in more chairs, but we had over a hundred attendees in our session. I know. Um, so cool. It was really humbling. It was like, oh, and I know we were a little nervous going into it. I think maybe um a little imposter syndrome, which was one of the things we talked about in the session, was like imposter syndrome and handling that. Um, but really what mattered most was that it wasn't just the number of people in the room, it was really the depth of those conversations and the way people were able to connect on the topic.

Speaker 8:53

Yeah. And I

Confidence For The Next Generation

Speaker 8:54

think back to the um very beginning, as we're waiting, is we had two people come in and save their seats, and that should have been our first like get ready. Yeah. But yeah, yeah. One of the moments from those conversations that really stayed with me after the session was even after the fact was that someone had stopped us on the way out and shared that she had texted her daughter during the session and said, next year you're coming to this, you know, you're coming to We Win. And that moment reminded me that these conversations are not just for us, right? They're for our daughters, our nieces and our students and young professionals and the women coming behind us, which is so weird to think about. But when we talked about confidence and boundaries and voice, we are also helping create permission for the next generation to show without feeling like they have to shrink themselves, which is such a humbling feeling, right? It it's a heavy load, but something that we're able to pass on. And I just love that.

Speaker 1 9:55

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it was that same woman that talked about like you are the leaders. Yeah, it's not the next generation of leaders. She's like, you you are the leaders. And it was a little validating, also. It was like, you know what, you're right. Leadership doesn't always have to be a title, it can just be like where you're at in the world and how you're serving others and how you're showing up for your communities or your families. You know, we we think of these big, these big titles, but really within our communities, we can be leaders. And so um, yeah, it's just really just learning how to how to be that person for the people around you.

Speaker 10:33

Yeah, and I think that really hones in on the fluidity of this topic from professional to personal settings. It it's for everyone.

Speaker 1 10:42

Absolutely. That's so true, yeah. Oh, goodness. So the moment reminded me that these conversations are not just for us. I think that's where it really stands out the most. Um, and you've already talked about that with our daughters. And I think I really want to just mention like we win, um, being my first experience at the conference was so great. And I think next year, you know, I I'm thinking about bringing my girls. Yeah, you know, they're teenagers, yeah. Because I think these conversations are so important for all ages. Um, and it was so great. Yeah.

Rewrite The Script Exercise

Speaker 11:18

That's also why this um the rewrite the script exercise felt so important too.

Speaker 1 11:23

My goodness, you're right. It gave uh attendees examples of responses that were overly um apologetic or over-explained, and that's what we do, right? We tend to over-explain or over-apologize for things that we don't have to apologize for. Um, and then we asked them to rewrite those responses in a way that was still respectful, but more direct and clear, kind of the way we should be doing this, so that we're not, you know, overexplaining ourselves.

Speaker 11:52

Um, we wanted the entities to see the confidence um does not always mean saying something bold or maybe forceful. It's sometimes it's just really removing that extra apology, or we talked a lot about removing the I a lot of the times, depending on the situation, but that extra explanation or the need to prove that your boundary makes sense. So we give um we gave a few everyday examples um and practiced them um in a clearer way. So one of the examples that we provided um was an over-explained version of I'm so sorry, I know this is probably inconvenient, and I really wish I could help, but I already have a lot going on and I don't think I can take this on right now, and I hope that's okay. So that was it's very like a lot, and I know that we're we've are so relatable in that. But the clearer response is I'm not able to take this on right now, uh, but I can I help identify the next step or the next best step. So that second version is is still respectful and it's not harsh, it just removes that unnecessary apology and the need to prove why that boundary is reasonable.

Speaker 1 13:05

Absolutely. It's so crazy how um we do that though, right? We're always like over apologizing or trying to kind of shrink ourselves to make everyone else more comfortable when that's not our job. That's not our job to make everyone else comfortable. Uh, we can still be respectful, but it goes back to that clear as kind. Right.

Speaker 13:26

Yeah, yeah. And I'd love to know like what did you notice about people working through that exercise? What do you think clicked for the room?

Speaker 1 13:34

So many things. So it was so fun for us to get to watch everyone else um going through their worksheets and working on that because I could tell the conversations were super like dramatic, right? As they were reading through those responses, they were all getting really worked up, like, oh, like I've felt this way before, I've been in this situation situation, or I've I've done this, I've done this over apologetic, or I'm ending my sentences with questions to sound um like less of a burden. I think we do that. Like maybe this would be okay if we did it maybe this way with a question mark versus just saying no, it should be done this way. Um, and so I could see the room get fired up, really. Like there was a lot of energy, and everyone was really excited to be like, oh my gosh, we can do this in a way we can say things respectfully with without being over apologetic. And so it was fun to watch. It was really fun. Everyone was super excited and really liked this works worksheet.

Speaker 14:40

Yeah, and it's something that they could take back and utilize, you know, over and over again. It's like a little manual to have to the side as you're trying to respond to somebody.

Download The Worksheet And Practice

Speaker 14:49

So for anyone listening or watching, that worksheet that we're referring to should be available through the download link connected to this episode. It's something that you can use individually, maybe with a team or just even as a discussion tool, kind of like we did with leaders who are working on communication in that boundary setting. So it does not have to be used only after a conflict or a difficult situation, it can be a proactive tool to help people practice that clear communication before they're in that high pressure moment.

Speaker 1 15:21

That is so true. Yeah, I wanted to add one more thing, and I think someone may have said this in our in the audience, and it did stick with me. Um, they said you don't have to set yourselves on fire to keep others warm. And I just love that because we do that sometimes. Um, you know, we put ourselves last or we put ourselves in situations as women, and um it's there it's not our job. It's not our job to make other people comfortable. That really stuck with me. Yeah, that's so exciting. I love that this is gonna be available for everyone to have and to be able to utilize. It's gonna be so great. Yeah.

Final Takeaways And How To Connect

Speaker 1 16:00

Jessica, before we close, is there one final thought you'd want listeners to take away from the We Win session?

Speaker 16:07

Yeah, I think the final thought I would leave with is that your voice does not have to be perfect to be valuable. You do not have to overexplain to be respectful, and you do not have to apologize for having a boundary. So for me, we win was a reminder that when indigenous women gather, share honestly, and speak from lived experiences, there is real power in that. And sometimes the impact reaches further than we realize, as we found out, even to the next generation watching and listening.

Speaker 1 16:41

That's so true. So true. Well, if you guys have heard something today that made you think about your own workplace or your leadership team or the people you support, we'd love to connect. These conversations are not just personal development, they really are about building a healthier culture, whether that's in your workplace or your home or your community, and ways you can communicate clearly and set respectful boundaries for yourself. I think lots of people can learn from this information. Um, and it helps you in your personal and in your career. So, REDW's HR consulting team, we work with tribal organizations and native serving organizations on leadership communication, workplace culture, and people-centered practices outside of our HR services scope. This kind of work can really help create environments where employees feel more confident, supported, and clear in how they communicate. Jessica, thank you for being such a wonderful partner throughout this workshop. Seriously, I had so much fun with you, and I really want to thank everyone who joined us at WeWin and everyone listening today. We hope this conversation reminds you that your voice matters, your boundaries matter, and you don't always have to explain your worth. No is no.

Speaker 18:03

And a complete sentence. It's a complete sentence.

Speaker 1 18:06

Yeah, I love that. No is a complete sentence.

Speaker 18:09

No, it was wonderful. Thank you. It was it was a great time. Yeah.

Speaker 1 18:14

Thank you all for listening and watching today. Please feel free to contact us anytime. You can learn more at redw.com.