Ep #119: Building Confidence for Working Women with Elyse Conroy

Hi, friends, and welcome back. So today I have a special guest.
Her name is Elise Conroy. She is a Fortune 500 beauty industry executive turned
confidence coach and career advocate. She is dedicated to helping high achieving women
build career confidence, elevate their leadership, and achieve executive success.
Through her coaching, electrifying keynotes, the Confidence Lounge Podcast and
Transformational Retreats. Elise is on a mission to help women stop doubting
themselves and step fully into the executive influence, presence and success they were
born for. And with that, I would like to welcome confidence coach Elise Conroy.
- Oh my goodness, that was such an incredible welcome. Thank you so much for having
me. I'm so excited to be here. - I am so excited to have you to. And I want to
tell the story of how we met, not met. I was on a retreat with a bunch of our
coaching friends. Maybe it was only a year ago. And everybody who I'm friends with,
who you're friends with, kept saying, "Well, you know Elise Conroy, right?" And I'm
like, "No." And they can go, "How do you not know Elise? You're going to love
her." And I was like, "Why would I know her?" And they're like, "Oh, because we
know each other through this and that. And we had so many things sort of in common
from the coaching world. And I just kept hearing your name, hearing your name. And
then we ended up in another mastermind together and met and were, of course, instant
friends. And so I love that now you're in my orbit. And Elise Conroy, I can say,
is my friend. But your reputation preceded you, which is just positive energy, great
confidence. And You help so many other women develop their confidence in both their
careers and in their personal lives. And I love that. So with that, I would like
you to tell the audience your backstory because it's always fun to hear where people
came from and then tell us how you became the confidence coach that you are today.
Yes, it is so surreal to think about this because if you would have given me a
crystal ball to look into my future, this was never ever what I saw for myself. So
I actually spent almost two decades in the beauty industry before I became a coach.
And it's interesting looking back because all of this makes so much sense. And when
I got into the beauty industry originally, it came from a childhood dream because
when I was a child, I was bullied really bad as a kid and I used to seek refuge
inside of my mom's makeup drawer. So I really believed at a very young age, if I
could just make these products that made me feel so good. And ironically, it was a
fuchsia pink lipstick with blue sparkle. And I loved it. And my mom, just with the
Avon, she always had all these samples around. So I would play with it and it made
me feel so good. And it was my safe place where if I had a bad day, kids were
bullying me, I could feel safe putting on these products. So that dream was born
and I wanted to work for Estee Lauder. So I started reading all these books and I
just started immersing myself in how do I become this person who makes makeup? And
fast forward, I ended of having an incredible time in the beauty industry. But when
I got to the top, the pinnacle of my career, there was a lot of loss to the
connection of the consumer. And it really became about the almighty dollar. And how
do we monetize women's insecurities? And I'm sitting at boardroom tables with men,
and it just took me back to this moment in my childhood of, hold on, I really
thought that I was coming into this from a good place to make these products, to
make women feel confident, make and feel beautiful and make them feel good enough,
but then when they wash their face at the end of the night, there goes their
confidence right down the sink. And I really thought that I was going to retire or
die as a CEO of a beauty brand and life had a very different path for me. And in
October of 2018, I was on a business trip in Milan working on an eyeshadow project
and I got a call that really changed the trajectory of the rest of my life and
found out my dad was sick. He was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer. So for
the first time in my life, and this is an area where you and I deeply bonded on
this, is I put career second and I prioritize family first and I walked away from
a massive career. And anyone who has had a massive career knows what it takes to
make a decision like that. And it was one of the most terrifying moments of my
life. And when I went into that decision, I had every intention of going back into
beauty. But when I walked away, it was almost like a soul calling as cheesy as
that sounds because I kept thinking about why did I get into this in the first
place? It was to help women feel confident, but I'm doing that on a very surface
level. I'm giving women a temporary solution to this confidence piece, but it's not
lasting because we can't create confidence from the outside in. And going on my own
personal development journey, I learned that on a very deep level and that is what
inspired me to launch my business in 2019. And I haven't looked back since because
I knew I had a winning formula to help women truly create this feeling. But this
is where so many women make the mistake, right? We're trying to lose the weight to
get the confidence. We're trying to get a higher title at work. We're trying to
make more money, but this is created through the mindset piece. And this is what I
now am committed to teaching women and have done for the past few years, helping
thousands of women all across the world build confidence from the inside out, which
has truly been a dream come true all in itself. - That's amazing. There's so much
to unpack in the statements because the beauty industry both prays upon women's
insecurities and then tries to build them up through makeup and even you,
it was the fuchsia lipstick that made you feel comfortable and made you feel pretty,
made you want to pursue a career in makeup and you had one, a really successful
one. I mean, you worked for one of the biggest brands in the world and as you
have told me off this show, you traveled around the world, you went to all the
great cities and you went first class and all the things and it was a whole
different life. And to come back to the origin idea of I just want to help women
feel more confident but I'm going to do it from the inside out instead of the
outside in is such an interesting transition. And it took your father's illness to
really kind of create that alignment for you. - Yeah, I think it just brought me
home to what was really important. And why am I doing this in the first place? And
I couldn't unsee the things that I had seen once you get to that level of doing
big business. And morally, it just did not feel an alignment to continue to stay
doing that work. And in a weird way, it almost feels like I'm riding a wrong. And
ironically, 75 % of my clients are in the beauty industry and there is so much
insecurity present in that industry. There is such a cutthroat environment. There is
so much scarcity and not enoughness feeling that industry and to be able to make an
impact on an industry that I love. Like I will always be a beauty junkie until the
day I die, but to be able to impact an industry that I love from the inside out
to make this a healthier place to be that's not rooted in insecurity. That is truly
one of the biggest honors of my life. - Yeah, yeah. Tell me a little bit about
your process with women. So do you coach one -on -one or do you coach group or do
you do both? - I do one -on -one coaching and a lot of the coaching that I do is
just through powerful conversations and I have a formula that I use for all of my
clients because I'm really focusing on career confidence and I call it the care
formula. And everything for me in my life has really come back to care because when
I was in that Fortune 500 job, I was not caring for myself. I was extremely
unhealthy. I was the most I'd ever weighed and I looked at myself in the mirror
and I was like, what happened to you? You used to have this sense of aliveness
and, you know, the sparkle everywhere you went and that job really, it ate that
part of me alive. And when I was bringing myself back to life, it happened through
really taking a gap year and applying luxurious unapologetic amounts of self care. So
I was thinking about how I wanted to incorporate that into my fundamental teaching.
So care is an acronym for clarity, action, resilience and energy because this is
really the foundation upon what we build our career confidence upon. And when we are
in a place where we don't know who we are, we don't know what we want. We don't
know where we're going. We're in a place where we're not taking action because we're
confused or we're having too much insecurity or self doubt. When we have a low
level of resilience and and just come and it spins us out. And then on top of it,
we're facing a low level of energy and we're really burned out. We're not gonna be
feeling our best. And so I have found that the easiest place to start building our
foundation upon is care because it really all starts there.
- So go through the acronym again. C is for clarity. - Yup, A is for action. R is
for resilience and E is for energy. - Got it. And does that formula have actionable
steps or is it different for every person? What I love to do is seeing out of
these four steps where it feels most out of alignment, where the struggle in their
life is really consisting, because it always comes back to one of these steps. And
when we're in a place, especially with the C where we have low self -belief and
we're not clear on why we're valuable or we have high self -doubt and we're having
that imposter syndrome, but We don't necessarily know why, we can't change what we
don't see, so it really all starts with the C, but when I am diagnosing somebody,
I look at all four steps and take an assessment of where they're at in every
category, and typically all four are really low. And you work with people for three
months, six months, what's your process? Yeah, four months. I do executive coaching
for four months. And when they're coming to you, presumably they are employed,
they're burned out, A lot of them are in the beauty industry. They've had, just
like you, very little self -care because it's go, go, go, go, go. Travel, travel,
travel. Everything was corporate -first. Where do you even begin? Give me an example
of where do you meet them? Yeah. No, that's such a great question. It's meeting
them exactly where they're at and just owning that and admitting it. I find so many
women come to me and the first thing they tell me is, "I'm so that I'm here. And
I'm like, I'm not embarrassed. I'm not sad about this. I'm celebrating this because
it is so courageous to ask for help. And for so many women and a lot of the
women that I'm working with are director to see sweet level, they feel like they
should have it all together. And I say should with air quotes, right? Because
there's this rule book and you know, this being a very successful woman yourself.
It's very hard to admit for the first time. And I went through this when I was
seeking help as well. It's very hard to admit that you are struggling when it comes
to confidence, when you have this very high level of an outward perception of
success. So we've got to meet the person, exactly where they're at, honor the
struggle, honor the realness, and really be honest about what's happening. Because
once again, if we're not being real about it, if we're not getting past that first
stage of embarrassment and that fear of judgment, we're not going to make any
changes that are actually going to be of value. That is so powerful. Do you think
it makes it worse? I know because I worked in Hollywood for 30 years, there's
always the comparison to what people see on the screen, right? You know, and then
not that executives look like movie stars ever, and I'm not that the executives at
Estee Lauder or any other makeup company look like their models. But do you think
because the focus is so much on the final product of the light,
the shot, the video, the commercial, the this, the that, that it creates this
unattainable image of what women are supposed to look like, sound like,
be like. Is that a percent? Yes. Yes, yes, yes. It's kind of like, it kind of
reinforces the reason maybe they got into it in the first place, which was, I want
this thing to cover up what feels scary for me. - Yeah, 100%. And what people don't
realize about the beauty industry as a whole is as much as it is a female
dominated industry for an end consumer aspect, it is run by men. And I can't tell
you how many times I faced moments where I was about to run into a meeting and
I'm an executive and I didn't have any makeup on my face and I would have a man
stop me and say, hold on, you can't come into this meeting like this. And they
would have me. Yeah, They would have me go put on makeup and it created a lot of
conditioning for me and this showed up really hard when I launched my business of
if you're not perfect, don't show up at all. And I think for so many women in the
beauty industry, perfectionism takes over because think of what we think we have to
be, right? And when you believe that everything has to be flawless, this can lead
to so much not enoughness or so much procrastination that is induced by perfectionism
and avoidance because you feel like you're always falling short. So if you're not
perfect, don't show up at all. And that's what I had to unwind when I started my
business. And I think about another factor of what really motivated me,
and I didn't realize this at the time, but what motivated me to get into the
beauty industry is my dad, because when I had my makeup on, I always got a lot of
praise. So if I was working in an industry where beauty was at the forefront, I
was going to make everybody happy, right? And who suffered the most? Me. Wow. Isn't
that interesting? And I'm sure this is true for so many other industries, you know,
the weight loss industry, like think about, you know, how big that is and the
perfectionism that goes into that of people having to look perfect, you know. And
then on top of it, you're not only just dealing with the facade of makeup, but
you're also dealing with the facade of lighting and photoshopping and editing and
just everything. I mean, that's not even what the model looks like. - Right, well,
and let's talk about aging. I just saw Mel Robbins posted a new podcast and it was
about anti -aging and there's no such thing because I think we as women are
conditioned to think that aging is bad, right? And I posted a comment on there and
just saying how many industries would suffer and how many businesses and brands would
suffer if we were taught as women to love ourselves, to think we are beautiful
without makeup, to see that wrinkles are something to be celebrated versus shamed.
And I can't tell you how many times I sat around a boardroom table and we would
have images where they say, "Oh, retouch her dark circles more. Oh, enhance this."
Because if we do that, it will trigger an insecurity within us as women to buy
more product and generate more money. So I always tell women, you've got to know
what conditioning has been offered to you to understand your purchasing decisions,
because if we loved ourselves, if we truly felt confident, there's a lot of business
that would suffer. - Oh my God, it's just like, I think about like how the way
advertising has gone from magazines and newspapers and commercials to some degree now
to social media, which the instantaneous nature of scrolling and seeing something that
you want or them keying into something that's a pain point and social media is so
prevalent because it's on your phone and while you're looking at your emails, texts,
friends, new baby, what have you, there's that ad for that eye cream or that
concealer or that eye shadow or eyebrow pencil, like that thing that's going to like
make the difference. That's going to make me feel younger, more beautiful, less
embarrassed, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. - And then we wonder, why do I feel
bad about myself? Why am I comparing myself to this person? Why am I sitting here
thinking like my mom used to do something where she would go in the mirror and she
would lift up her jaws and she would go 20, 40? So this is no coincidence that we
are in this place. Why we feel this way? And this is when I said, "Writing my
young. This is what I mean. And I had a friend go to a plastic surgery appointment
because I live in Los Angeles. That is a very normal thing for so many of us. And
especially when we get into our 40s. And that was what was happening to me in
beauty. When I was 29, they were telling me I was aging out, which is insane to
me. It's a very young industry for women. And people would say, like, Oh, are you
going to get plastic surgery yet? And so I had a friend who was in beauty going
to get plastic surgery. And I told her, do not do this. this is not going to
solve what you were feeling. You think if you get this procedure done, you're going
to feel a certain way, but you're not. And what ended up happening is she went
into the plastic surgeon's office. He then mentioned she was getting a breast
augmentation. And so he mentioned, you know what, you could actually benefit from
some filler in your lips. You could also do the tightening here. You could also get
injections here. And so she not only left with more insecurities. Now she's thinking,
I have to pay to fix all these problems. And she still doesn't feel better about
herself. And this is the lie that we're sold as women. And this is why I'm so
deeply committed to showing women, this is not an outside end problem. Confidence is
really an inside job. But men don't age out of the beauty industry. No. And they
don't wear makeup to meetings. No. That's interesting.
Only women. And the idea is when you're at a pitch meeting or what have you, that
you need to look young and youthful like the product. Yeah. And it depends on the
brand too. It also depends. Is it a male -owned brand or is it a female -owned
brand? Because there's big differences in the operation of how each work. Oh, why is
that? Because I think there's gender roles. I think there's standards. I think there
is this internal operating system of how women are supposed to show up versus how
men are supposed to show up. And I've worked for both. And I've had female founders
that say, come in your pajamas, come comfortable. I want you to feel comfy. And
that was so beautiful. And then there is the idea of the men in the industry
saying, we have to always be air quote on brand. And that was what was hard. And
that was even coming down to when we interviewed candidates and them wanting to see,
and This is so legal, by the way, right? It's like them wanting to see pictures of
these people or having me as the hiring manager go down Google rabbit holes to try
to find what these people looked like to make sure that they were on brand. And
that to me is just absolutely disgusting. - Wow. - Mm -hmm, wow. - I'm spilling all
the tea today. - I know, I like it. It's fun to know that there's other
dysfunctional industries outside of Hollywood. - Oh my God, I know. But especially in
LA, it's so bad. And it's funny 'cause some of the New York brands, you know how
different New York and LA are, New York isn't all about the makeup and the over,
you know, it's like LA is such a maximum, just everything over the top environment.
New York isn't the same, right? New York, I think you can get away with a lot
more, but it is also very male dominated in New York as well, so. - And you only
work with women, yes? - Yes. - And all of your clients are professionals. I present
whether they're in the beauty industry or not. Yeah. And they come to you because
their confidence is low or they're burned out or both. Yeah,
it's usually imposter syndrome and not enoughness, which go hand in hand are some of
the number one reasons because they struggle with things like as simple as speaking
up in a meeting and not getting in their head and doubting themselves. And when we
get into the space where we're overthinking and we get into that trap where we
think, oh God, let me think about this a little bit more. And now all of a sudden
we're silencing ourselves in meetings, we're not going for it, we're not putting
ourselves in the big room, we're not taking the opportunities and they end up
holding themselves back. And they know that if they could just have that barrier
removed where the confidence was high, the courage was high, the belief was high,
the trust was high and they were able to actually take the action that they could
do the thing. So I help them figure out whatever barrier it is, whether it is
perfectionism, imposter syndrome, analysis, paralysis, compare and despair, all of our,
our friends, right? And I help them remove those barriers so that way they can live
up to their own potential and get out of their own way professionally. That's so
good. I love it. So good. Yeah. It must feel like a salve on a burn,
you know, to have that permission to be authentic, to be yourself,
to speak up, to not be afraid. Do you find that a lot of that imposter syndrome
is met with people pleasing? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. They're perfect partners.
Because if I say no, and we talked about this when you came on my podcast, if I
say no and I don't do what they needed to me to do at work or if I go to the
doctor's appointment then I'm going to get fired or whatever it is. So I've got to
say yes to all the things professionally, say no to all the things that I want to
do and right then here comes people pleasing, burnout, bitterness, resentment, all the
things that we don't want to feel. So I've noticed this really interesting connection
between women that have the desire for perfection and the desire to people please,
typically at some point confidence is going to run low.
And when you see this happen in the workplace with the career women? Do you see it
also echoing into there or trickling into their personal life as well? Of course.
Yeah. They go hand in hand. And it's funny because people hire me to coach on
career related things, but for example, a Fortune 500 company just brought me on.
And during the consultation process, it was a man and he's like, I don't know what
it is. She just never seems to feel good enough. And she feels that she's a woman
and something's going on. I was like, it typically is going to be something that
happened in childhood where it created this not enough monster vibe. And he's like,
how did you know that right away? And it's so clear for me to see that there's
some pattern that happened very young and it is now trickling into life stuff. And
so in our first session, I was like, tell me what happened as a kid. And right
away it was parents putting so much pressure on her to be perfect. She only got
praised when she achieved at a high level. So now she is killing herself every
single day, overworking, hustling, working a hundred hour weeks trying to prove
herself, but she's already holding an executive title. There's nothing left to prove,
but she can't get out of her own way because that little voice in her and that
little version of her, her inner child still just wants to be validated. She's still
seeking that praise. And right now she's being haunted by, I always say, the not
enough this monster where we can keep feeding that monster, all the things, all the
achievements, but yet it's still not good enough and I went through that too in my
career. I remember one of my biggest years in my previous career. I had just gone
through this project. We had developed this product that went in all doors of
Target. It was a massive success because things like that did not happen and I went
and did the pitch to Target. I developed the whole formulation. That year I ended
up winning Employee of the Year. I got a massive raise. I got a title jump and I
didn't even take a second to enjoy it. I was just like, okay, well, that I could
have made more money. I should have pushed harder. And I didn't even let myself
relish in it because I was always moving the bar. So how can we ever feel good
enough as women when we have these high standards for ourselves? We don't even know
what the end result that we're trying to go for is because we're always moving the
bar. We can never live up to our own standards. And I have women come in and I
have an exercise that I call SPF and I have all these acronyms that are beauty
acronyms. I can't get away from it. It's still just in me. But SPF stands for
success, perfection, and failure, because most of us don't have a clear definition of
success or we're still following this idea of what the American dream is. You know,
gotta have the house, gotta have the car, gotta have the perfect husband, whatever,
make lots of money and have the status, but that's a broken dream at this point
because nobody has the same idea of what that even looks like anymore, right? So
we've got to identify that. We've got to know when we achieve it. Same thing with
perfectionism, same thing with failure. And what do we make all of those things mean
about us? And if we don't have clarity there, it's going to be a real shaky place
to build our competence bond. Yeah, so good. Could you distill down if somebody's
listening to this podcast and thinking, Oh my God, I so suffer from imposter
syndrome. I'm in that middle management, you know, on my way to VP or senior VP
role. I don't have the confidence I need. Do you have like a little like teaser or
appetizer for what somebody could do today, a thought or an action,
just to kind of get them unstuck on that feeling? Yeah, absolutely. And I think it
really comes down to you empowering yourself to see your own value. And especially
when it relates to business, If you can answer the question, when you walk into
this company, why does the bottom line of this company become more valuable because
you fear presence there? Oh my gosh, that's going to deal with so much of it
because you need to be able to know that about yourself. And I always tell women,
the foundation of confidence and you operating as a confident woman in the world is
going to come down to your self -belief, your self -trust and your ability to take
action while feeling uncomfortable. Because for me, that is my success guarantee. I
don't think any emotion is bad or good. I just know that there are some emotions
that feel more uncomfortable and that's what stops so many women because we wait for
the confidence to do the thing. But no, it's courage comes first. You've got to be
in a place where you have to be able to courageously say, "This is why I'm great,"
and not dull yourself down and not feel like you're too much and not feel like
you're tooting your own horn too loudly. There's a way to do that where when the
confidence is inherent and you really believe in yourself that you're going to be
able to just speak to that with ease. So if you can answer that one question about
yourself and not worry about coming across this air again or not worried about
having to say too many words to make your point, that's half the battle right
there. So I would really encourage anybody who's listening to just go look at
yourself in the mirror and tell yourself why you're valuable and look in your eyes
and see what you want to pull back on. See what feels icky. See where there's a
high level of resistance because that's going to show you where your growth is. Hmm,
that's really good. Tell people how they can work with you, where they can find
you, how they can follow you, all the things. Yes. Come visit me inside of the
confidence lounge. It is one of my favorite places to be. So that is my free
weekly podcast where we break down all things career confidence. So you can find me
on Apple or Spotify or wherever you love to listen to your podcast, you can learn
more about the work that I do on my website as www .soulmakeup .com. And if you
want to come hang out with me on LinkedIn, that is my favorite place to show up
on all the different platforms. So you can find me at Elise Conroy. E -L -Y -S -E. I
know it's a weird one. I always have to tell people it's like take out Elise on a
car because if not, they usually say LC. Oh, that's funny. Elise, thank you so
much. I encourage people who are in that corporate hierarchy, who are looking for a
coach to build confidence, gain confidence, gain insight to their own success, reach
out to Elise, follow Elise. She is full of great information and she has been there
and done that. So thank you. Thank you for taking the time. It was an awesome
conversation. - Yay, thank you so much for having me. - All right, I look forward to
talking to you soon. And bye for now.