At the time of this recording in 2026, in the last 18 months, over 600,000 Black women have been displaced from their jobs. I just want you to sit with that statistic for a minute. Over 600,000 Black women. Now, here's what that number is doing to the ones who still are employed, to everybody who's still getting up and going to work every day. It is literally making them silent. It is making the black women who still have a job to go to grateful for a paycheck that was already too small. It is making black women who are still employed, it's making them believe that this is not the time for them to advocate for themselves. And that belief, that quiet, fear-based gratitude is exactly what's keeping black women underpaid right now. Today we are talking about the trap and how to get out of it. The first is getting promoted to the executive suite. The second is once you land your executive level role, I help you close any skill gap that you might have when you're there. It could be executive presence, it could be how you communicate, it could be how you set strategy, it could be your leadership brand, how you manage your team, it could be any of those things. And the third problem that I help you solve is setting up your new department or new team. Let's dive into today's topic, which is directly tied to problem number one, how to get promoted into the executive level.
What we're talking about today is what I call the just be grateful trap. And the just be grateful trap is not new, right? It's not something that came up in the last day or a couple of months or even this year. Black women have been handed this message in various forms for generations, ever since we actually entered the paid workforce. Be grateful that you got the interview. Be grateful you got the offer. Be grateful you have a seat at the table. Hey, just be grateful that you still have a job when so many others don't. And on the surface, all of that sounds like wisdom. But here's what it actually does: it converts fear, your fear, into compliance. It takes the very real anxiety that you and every other black woman feels about job security, and it uses it to silence the one conversation that could actually change your road to financial freedom. Because here's what I want you to know. And I need you to actually hear this clearly and to sit with it. Your company isn't paying you less because the economy is tough in this current market. They're paying you less because you haven't asked for more. And this current economy is giving them cover to do exactly that. Gratitude is a virtue, yes. But gratitude that keeps you underpaid is not wisdom. It is a
trap. Now, one of the things that I often used to think when I thought about negotiating for my salary is I don't want to rock the boat. Like, I don't want to cause trouble. I don't want to disturb the peace that I currently have in my role and on the job. This is the most common unspoken fear that I hear from my clients also. And it deserves to be named directly. You are not just afraid of being told no. You're afraid of what advocating for yourself might cost you with the relationships that you have with your boss, with your colleagues, with other leaders across the organization. You are wondering if you negotiate or ask for something different than what you currently have, will you be seen as difficult? Will people perceive you as being ungrateful? Will you start to get known as the problem team member? Black women carry a specific burden here. We carry the double weight of racial and gender bias that makes self-advocacy feel riskier than it does for our peers. You have watched other women ask and you've seen them being labeled negatively. You've seen people start to treat them a little bit different. So as a result of that, you stay quiet and you think that you are safe by doing that. But you know what staying quiet is actually costing you? And no, it's not just costing you money, though the money is significant and particularly significant over time. It's also costing you the ability to make decisions from strength instead of a place of fear. It's costing you choices and options that you don't feel comfortable making and that you'll never get exposed to. And it's also reinforcing the belief that your needs need to come last, need to come after everybody else. And that belief starts to seep into every other area of your life. Rock in the boat is not the risk. The true risk is actually when you stay silent. So here's what I know after spending decades in HR making
compensation decisions. Companies are not cutting salaries because the market, the current market, happens to be tough. Companies are managing costs in other areas, but compensation budgets still exist. And the professionals who understand their market value and can articulate it clearly and professionally are still getting increases, even in our current economy. The woman who walks into that conversation armed with data, a clear business case, and a professional approach is not the one who gets passed over. She's the one that they can't afford to lose. So the current economy is not your enemy. But your silence, you staying quiet, that's the enemy. There is absolutely no market condition, not a recession, not mass layoffs, not an employer's market that makes it acceptable for you to be underpaid for the work you are already delivering.
Now, if you're ready to change this for yourself, then I want to give you a few steps that you can actually think about. I want to give you a few things that you can start thinking about right now to shift away from this silence, this fear that you are having, keeping you kind of stuck when it comes to your salary and salary negotiation. The first thing is knowing your number, knowing that your number actually exists. There is a market rate for your specific role, for your specific industry, for your specific level of experience and scope of responsibility. That number exists, whether you know it yourself or not, whether your company tells you about it or not. Your first job is simply to accept that the number exists and that you have every right to know what it is. The second thing that you can do is you can start to separate your feelings from your facts. The gratitude trap works because it is emotional. The antidote becomes the data. What I want you to do is I want you to start paying attention to what the market is saying about roles like yours, not what you are feeling about roles like yours. Not to make yourself angry. You're not collecting this information to make yourself angry, but to get grounded in reality. Because feelings are absolutely valid, but feelings alone will not win compensation conversations. Actual facts and true objective data do. And the third thing I want you to think about is I want you to notice who is having salary conversations, salary negotiations, and who isn't. Actually look around your organization because the clues are all there. Look at who is getting increases, who's getting promoted, who is being rewarded. And I promise you that the ones moving up are not the ones that are staying silent. They're the ones who have learned how to advocate for themselves professionally and strategically. And you can learn those skills too. And the fourth thing I want you to do is I want you to decide that you are worth the discomfort of the ask. I get it. It actually can feel very icky when you start to think about you taking the action of making an ask, asking for something different. And sometimes it's related to salary, but sometimes it has other financial rewards for you. It could be asking for vacation days. It could be asking for a new laptop. It could be asking for anything like that, where it may not necessarily be about a salary. It could be about a bonus, it could be anything. But if you're afraid to ask for one of those things, you're likely afraid to ask for the others. So deciding that you're worth the discomfort of the ask, that's the one that nobody actually talks about because negotiating can be uncomfortable. Full stop. It may never feel completely comfortable for you, but you can do uncomfortable things. You already do uncomfortable things in all other areas of your life. So why not this? You have also done uncomfortable things in your career as well. Negotiating for your actual salary, the salary that you deserve, is just one more thing. You do not have to have it all figured out to take the first step. You simply have to decide that staying where you are at the salary rate and compensation that you currently are is no longer acceptable.
Now, if you want to go deeper on this topic, if you want the how and not just the what, that's exactly what we're building together in my free two-day intensive. Name your number, how to negotiate your salary with confidence, even in an uncertain economy. I'm hosting this workshop. It's two hours each day, and it's completely free for now. We're going to figure out what the market says you should be making, who in your organization you should be talking to about that, what to say when you actually get in the room with them, and how to say it in a way that feels authentic to who you are. The link to the two-day workshop is www.thechangedoc.com forward slash nameyour number. Again, that's www.thechangedoc.com forward slash name your number. The link is also in the show notes. Signing up takes less than a minute. If you're coming to this workshop, and if I were you, I would definitely show up because you don't get this type of information in any other place. If you're coming, come ready to work because we are going to actually be doing work in the workshop to get you ready and to make sure you're prepared. Gratitude did not pay your mortgage this month, but advocating for yourself actually might. Until next time, lady leader, keep leading your introvert way.