Welcome to Superheroes in Heels, where powerful women rise, lead, and own the room! I’m Kimberly Borgens, your host, and in today’s episode, I’m inviting you into a conversation that’s not just bold—it’s personal, practical, and deeply empowering. After more than 30 years of navigating and succeeding in male-dominated industries, I’ve learned that the world isn’t defined as “a man’s world” or “a woman’s world”—it’s ours to claim, but only if we’re willing to show up, stand tall, and take charge.

This episode is all about challenging the narratives that keep us small. I’ll share how early in my career, I almost believed the story that I’d never be respected simply because of who I was up against. But I realized that letting those beliefs take hold meant handing over my power and shrinking back, missing out on opportunities I deserved. I’ll be real with you: bias exists—gender bias, racial bias, corporate bias. Acknowledging them is smart, but building your identity around them is dangerous.

We’ll dive into why your presence matters even more than your resume. I’ve seen it time and time again: women walk into meetings already braced for disrespect, expecting resistance, and unconsciously signaling that belief before a word is spoken. It changes everything, from your tone to your posture, and it sabotages your momentum. Instead, I’ll challenge you to step into every room with command presence—reading what’s actually happening, rather than reacting to what you assume will happen. I’ll talk about how respect is earned by your actions, your clarity, and the energy you bring before you say a word.

I’ll give you the actionable questions I ask myself—what skill am I missing, what relationships have I not built, and what results have I not made undeniable? It’s not about submission; it’s about strategy, preparation, and owning your authority. I’ll share stories from networking events, real-life phone calls, and the subtle habits that can keep women from being seen and heard: over-explaining, pre-apologizing, or shrinking before anyone’s even challenged you.

You’ll hear why strong women quietly dominate—not by announcing their oppression, but by preparing, building alliances, and making themselves hard to ignore. Powerful women don’t wait for fairness; they build leverage, deliver results, and become undeniable. I’ll remind you not to use systemic barriers as permanent permission to stay small. Instead, ask yourself, have you ever blamed bias when it was actually a lack of preparation? Have you avoided bold moves because it felt safer to expect resistance?

I want you to walk away from this episode ready to straighten your cape, take up your space, and own your role as CEO—of your company, your career, and your life. Superheroes don’t ask permission to exist. We train, adapt, and rise. If you’re ready to stop blaming the biases and start letting the room adjust to your authority, this episode is your call to action.

So share this conversation with a friend who needs to hear it, gather your courage, and let’s claim the world together. It’s not about waiting to be chosen—it’s about showing up, sharpening your edges, and leading the way. The world isn’t against you; it’s waiting to see if you’ll lead it. Are you ready? Let’s go!

Mentioned in this episode:

Superheroes in Heels is part of the eWomenPodcastNetwork

eWomenPodcastNetwork

Welcome to Superheroes in Heels, the podcast where powerful women rise, lead, and own the room. I'm Kimberley Borgens, your host, fellow trailblazer, and unapologetic advocate for women in the world of business. With over 30 years of experience building success in a male dominant industry, I'm here to empower you to do the same. Each week, you'll hear bold conversations with inspiring guests who embody strength, resilience, a little dash of sass, and a little bit of grace. Together, we'll challenge the status quo, break through barriers, unlock your confidence, and unleash your inner superhero. You ready? Let's go. Welcome.

Welcome to Superheroes in Heels. This is Kimberley Borgens, your host, and I just want to say welcome to this episode. Let's get something straight right out of the gate. It's not a man's world, and it's not a woman's world either. It's yours, but only if you're willing to claim it. Recently, someone said to me, if I only got half the respect of a white man in this world. And I remember thinking, oh, no, no, no, no, no. We are not doing that.

Because the moment that you decide that the world is stacked against you, you so high, guess what? You stopped climbing. You just handed over your power to somebody else. And I'll be honest, there have been moments early on when I almost believe that, too, where it would have been real easy to say, well, of course they don't listen. Look at who I'm up against. But then I caught myself shrinking back, hiding out and not allowing myself to be seen because the story felt comforting and dangerous at the same time. Comforting because it let me off the hook. Dangerous because it kept me small. And I don't know about you, but I didn't build my life and my career and my leadership just to bow out every, every time.

Early because of the story that kept me small. Now, I want to be, you know, real and honest here. Let's be intelligent. Bias exists. Gender bias exists. Racial bias exists. Corporate bias exists. Look, acknowledging the biases is smart, but building your identity around it, that's what's dangerous.

Because the moment that bias becomes your identity, something subtle starts to happen. You unconsciously look for proof. You walk into rooms already braced for disrespect. And bracing changes everything, right? Your posture shifts, your tone tightens, your energy sharpens. Not in confidence, but in defense. And. And here's the question I really want you to sit with today is, are you reading the room, or are you entering a room already armed for that fight that hasn't even happened yet. Let that sit with you for a second.

That's not awareness. That's self sabotage dressed up as realism. Like situational awareness is in business means reading what is actually happening, not reacting to what you assume will happen. Right. Situational awareness shows up in all the things around us. Can we pay attention in the moment to what's happening or are we just paying attention to what we think think is going to happen? Because, you know, I had a mentor who used to say, to think is to create. Look, respect is not given, it's projected. You know, my, I have a family member who was yelling at, at his kids and he was telling his teenage son, you, you need to respect me.

And my heart was like, no, he doesn't like. Right. It's, it felt a little cringy, like demanding respect. But the truth is you cannot demand respect. You have to show, has to show up in everything that you're doing. People respect you because of your actions. Most people don't want to hear respect, you know, is often a response to clarity. Authority is communicated, you know, non verbally first.

Before you tell them that I want your respect, they must respect me. I, I expect you to respect me. Okay, then show me your actions that show it. When your energy enters the room before your resume ever does. I mean, think about that, right? When that happens, you walk in, you have to own the authority. You have to own the space that you're walking into. If you're cringing and you're, you're, you know, pulling yourself back and you've already decided before you walk in the room, yeah, I'm going to go walk into this room. Look, I see it happening in network events all the time.

I go to networking events and there's the men who are in there, they show up early, they hang out, they, they build relationship and then they duck out. Women show up kind of halfway through and then they hang out afterwards having chatter, girl talk, right? No, I want to be where I can create leverage when I go out and network, where I can build the relationships with the people who are making more than me, who are making decisions better than I do. I want to be in that space. So I'm going to show up and I'm going to hang out with those people. Even if I never say a word, I'm listening. But if I do have something to say, I'm not going to shrink back and I'm going to put my 2 cents worth in. Also, I'm going to introduce myself. I'm going to do it with my body language that says, I'm here reading this room right now.

So often women go in and they say hello to a few men, and then they go into the women circles, and what do they do? They're chatting. They're being friends. Heck, invite your friends to dinner or lunch and hang out with them there. Don't do it at a networking event. You're missing opportunities. You're missing opportunities. So let me ask you honestly, do you speak like you expect to be interrupted? Do you over explain before anybody even questions you? That happened this morning. I was on a phone call, and somebody just wanted to just like, over explain all these little details.

And I was like, hey, can I just stop you for a minute? I understand all that. I just need the answer to this question. I did it respectfully. I didn't. I didn't make him feel bad. I was just like, I. I don't need to be mansplained. I don't need to be over explained.

I don't need to. Right? How about. Do you ever pre apologize? Right? Do you soften your power statements with just kind of. Well, maybe if this kind of kind of sounds silly, but. Because if you walk into a room waiting for half, respect your body language. It'll show it. When you walk in expecting resistance, your body goes into protection mode. Your shoulders tighten, your breath shortens, your voice rises or softens without you even noticing.

It's a habit. And suddenly, you're not leading. You're just reacting to the room, to the space, to the meeting, to the. To the people around you. And people don't respond to your intention. They respond to your presence. Look, I've done many podcasts all about presence. I talk about command presence over in the Hive Hangout.

So if you want to come over to the Hive Hangout, you know, go to kimberlyborgans.com and. And. And join me over there. But that command presence, right? It shows up. Like I said before, your resume even walks into the door. Let's talk about something that quietly wrecks women's momentum. It's the they narrative. They won't promote me.

They won't listen. They don't respect women. They only support men. Look, I've watched women walk into meetings where they've already convinced themselves that they won't be heard. And then they speak once and they do it softly, and then they retreat. You know, they. They sit back in their chair. They.

They are quiet the rest of the time because they decided the outcome before the conversation even started. Here's the. Here's the real question I have for you, is what conversation are you rehearsing in your head before the meeting even starts? You know, are you fighting ghosts of the past or are you executing strategies? Because when you're busy, you know, battling that invisible enemy from the past. Yeah. Somebody put you down in the past. Somebody didn't let you speak. Somebody told you to stop talking. Those are ghosts of the past.

Those are not today, in this moment, the meeting that you're walking into. If it is, honey, we need to. You need to hire me so that I can consult you on your command presence. Okay? What you're doing is you're battling an invisible enemy of the past. You're not building today's leverage that is necessary for you to grow your business. I call this pre shrinking. When women pull back because anyone. Because of anybody who's ever pushed against them, look, start paying attention.

Do you catch yourself, you know, pulling back, shrinking back? Are you pre shrinking? Look, once you see it in yourself, you can't stop seeing it. I know that you can see it in other women because we have a tendency of being able to see other people and not, you know, the nose. The tip of our nose. Right. So pay attention to that for yourself. Don't let yourself pre shrink. Let's reframe this a little bit. Instead of saying they're in my way, ask the question of yourself.

I asked this question when something didn't go right for me, when somebody asked me something, and I just kind of like, you know, tongue twisted everything. Right. I have to ask myself these questions before I give any blame to anybody else. Right. Is what skill am I missing? What political awareness do I need? What relationship have I not built yet? What results have I not made undeniable? Do I have the facts to back it up? Do I have the. All the. The results of why this is important and why you need to listen to me. Look, ladies, by asking yourself these questions and pulling back to pay attention to those questions, that's not submission.

That's command presence. You can't own the room if you haven't built the relationships, if you haven't made the results undeniable. If you're not aware of what's happening in the room, if you're missing skills, you know, I don't pick a. You know, some people pick that. The word of the year. I don't pick a word of the year. I pick a skill of the year. And then I take all year long to focus on paying attention to how that skill is showing up in my life, in my business, and the people around me.

I'm watching to see how other people are doing that skill. See, that's command presence. That's owning the space that I want to be in. You. Strong women quietly dominate. I've spent over 30 years in business and let me tell you, Let me tell you something that we don't hear often enough. Is that strong women, some of the most powerful women I've ever known, I've ever mentored with, I've ever watched. They don't complain, they don't announce that they're oppressed, and they don't argue for attention.

What is it that they do instead? They prepare, they deliver. They build alliances, they increase leverage, and they make themselves hard to ignore. They don't wait for fairness, they build leverage. Let me say that again, okay? Powerful women don't wait for fairness. They build leverage. They step in, they own their role. They become undeniable. That's how the respect is earned.

And listen carefully. I know. Look, nuance matters, right? I'm not saying go out and just work harder, okay? I am saying you have to work smarter. You have to work strategically. You have to work with authority. There is a difference between recognizing systemic barriers and using them as your permanent permission to stay small. This might sting a little bit, but have you ever blamed bias when it was actually your lack of preparation? Ouch. Right? Have you ever avoided a bold move because it felt safer to say, they won't let me anyway? Have you ever shrunk before anyone made a comment or asked you to? Ladies, that's not protection.

That's self limiting. All right, it is time to stop that. Look, this is not a man's world and it's not a woman's world. I mean, we are so close. In the United States, we have about 50.1% women and we have about 49.9% men. And yet we still have so few women out there in C suite situations taking their their role as the CEO. When I see most small business entrepreneurs avoiding the title of CEO because they don't want to look like the man CEO that they've seen, all that does is keeps us small. We have to own that role.

We have to own that title. We are the CEOs of our company. We are the chief Executive officer. We make the executive decisions. Nobody else is going to do that for you. And if they are, then you're not it. You're not the leader of your business. And I'm not trying to be bossy.

I'M not trying to be snide. I'm not trying to be mean. I'm just saying it would help all the women who are striving to reach the top if women could understand the role of a CEO. It's not a man's world, and it's not a woman's world. It's your world, if you're willing to claim it. Superheroes don't ask permission to exist. They train, they adapt, they. They rise.

And if you walk in expecting half of the respect, guess what? You're going to receive it. If you walk in owning your authority, the room must adjust to you. Because the world doesn't hand over power evenly. It just doesn't. Heck, it's been 50 years this last year since a woman could get a bank account without a man's permission. A woman could get a credit card without needing her husband's approval. It has taken a long time, and yet it some days it still feels like it. But that's because we keep allowing it to happen.

You do not need permission to step into your own power. I hope that this episode allows you to see that we're not going to blame the biases anymore. We're going to step into who we are and let everybody else adjust around us. I know God didn't make you as some, you know, shrink back woman. We're superheroes in heels. We don't wait to be chosen. We show up. We sharpen our edges.

We take up our space. Who's ready to do that with me? Look, if you have a friend who really needs to hear this episode, please share it. You can go to kimberlyborgans.com and all my episodes are under the podcast. Right. You can find it right there. You can give them that link and they can go and listen to it. You can have them listen to me on any podcast station because I think it's time that we as women said, this is not a man's world. This is not a woman's world.

This is our world and we have to do everything we can to step into it. So until next time, own the room. Straighten up your cape, and remember, the world is not against you. It's waiting to see if you'll lead it. Have a blessed day.

Thanks for tuning in to Superheroes and Heels with Kimberley Borgens. If you're walking away feeling a little braver, a little bolder, and a whole lot more powerful, mission accomplished. Be sure to subscribe to the show and leave a review. It helps us to reach more women who are ready to unleash their power and lead with confidence. And if you do leave a review, you might just hear your name in an upcoming episode. If today's conversation lit a fire in you, share it with your network and join us inside the hive society@kimberlyborgens.com where powerful women gather to break barriers and rise together. Until next time, keep showing up, standing strong, and heels or not, keep embracing your inner superhero.