89. The Cost of Waiting: 3 Ways to Choose Yourself Today

Speaker A: What if the thing keeping you stuck isn't a lack of confidence, experience, or opportunity? What if it's that you're still waiting to be chosen, waiting to be invited into leadership, waiting for certainty to arrive? In this episode, I'm going to show you how brilliant women just like you unknowingly give away years of their lives waiting for permission and how everything changes the moment you choose yourself first.

Speaker B: Welcome to the Balance Leader, hosted by Yan Dang um, a leadership and life coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second generation immigrant, Yan understands the unique challenges women face in male dominated workplaces. Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills, and building emotional intelligence. Join us, uh, to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.

Speaker A: Hey, podcast listeners. I am so fired up about today's episode. We are talking about the cost of waiting and why women wait. I have been just going to school on, uh, myself this last few weeks as I am inviting more and more women into my world and into different offers that I'm doing and connecting with more and more people. Because if you've been a longtime podcast listener, you know that my impossible goal is to impact a thousand women a year. To learn to trust themselves, to learn to be on their own side, to make choices from their core and from their inner authority, and to not burn out. Right? So I am very excited about today's episode because I have also been gathering more information and research as I have been coaching myself and other people. And one of the big things that I noticed this week was I was looking at the McKinsey Women in the Workplace report from 2025, and it actually showed that women are just as ambitious as men. What happens is that they lose hope. They're waiting. They're waiting for their company to sponsor them. They're waiting for more women to arrive. They're waiting for that female leadership program to really hype them up, right? They're waiting for certainty or some sort of invitation. And, and what I'm here to tell you is that waiting and waiting and waiting and not getting and not getting and waiting for somebody else oftentimes has us build resentment. And the energy that we have to go out in the world and do the thing and to show up strongly starts to be depleted. Because we're waiting. Waiting creates inertia within us. Waiting tells us that we're not ready, we're not ready, and that we're waiting and we're waiting. And what happens is waiting Gives somebody else a lot of power about your future, about you, about. About what you want. And what I oftentimes see is that it's not that women are just sitting back waiting, they're working really hard, they're actually showing up really powerfully. And I'm going to give you an example from my own personal experience, professional experience, from when I was in my early 30s. Oh no, I think I was maybe late 20s, you know, I was working super hard and I was on an international assignment in London. So I was in the New York office but was asked to come to London to run a part of the finance team. And I was super excited about the opportunity. It was sort of a big transition for me as I was ready for new things. I had just ended a long term relationship in New York and sort of heartbroken, but also excited to start something new for myself. So I was in London. This was my, I think this was my second year in London and there was a huge project that was going on that required support. There was the, um, biggest project, the biggest investment in the international businesses area. And they were kicking off it. It was going to be managed by London, which was headquarters, which is where I was working. But the first place that we were going to launch this product, this international product was going to be in Australia. So I was working my ass off. And this was such a high profile project. It gave me a lot of visibility. I had a big, you know, opportunity to be seen. And I was thinking how hard I would work, right? And that this hard work would just speak for itself. I was like, oh, I'm the chosen one. I actually felt very, I had got a lot of attention from it, right? I was the one that was on these calls. It was very tough because it was us. Part of the company actually developed the investment first and we were changing it for international requirements. So it was a very complex project and I was actually well placed for it because I knew the US team very well because I had started my career off in the New York headquarters, which was the global headquarters. And then I went to the international group and so they asked me to step in and basically be the finance controller of this huge project and create new protocols and be able to investigate the business case and, you know, get funding from our headquarters. And I was working with a managing director and this was kind of like the hot project, right? A lot of people were getting promoted at this time because this project was so hot. So what happened to me was I was remembering, I came from Australia, I was there for about Two weeks working like crazy doing all this stuff. I came back to the London office, and guess what? Everybody was celebrating. Everybody was celebrating Andrew, who got promoted. He was a peer of m mine who I was like, oh, how did Andrew get promoted? Because here I am again, working my ass off. I didn't even realize that there was a role that he could get promoted into, Right? I wasn't waiting for a promotion. I was waiting to be chosen. I actually realized when I was starting to talk to other people, like, how did Andrew get this job? Of course I'm happy for him, but I was also jealous, and I was also angry. I was like, how did he get this job? I didn't even realize that this was even out there. And the people around me, the other male colleagues that I worked with, that were more senior to me, they were like, don't you know? Andrew is constantly talking to the CFO about getting promoted. He's been doing it for a year. He's been in the office, or he's invited him to golf, or he's all these things, right? So I want you to notice how Andrew was just going in and asking for things, and he worked hard, but I would say I worked harder. And I would say that I knew more than him and I was a better manager. Um, like, I feel, like, very solid that I could say that. And you probably feel the same way. I'm sure you listening to this podcast are like, how did that person get promoted? What was going on? This is where I want you to notice for yourself. Where are you waiting to be chosen by your boss, by your client, by your partner, by the market, by your audience, by your family, by some future version of yourself. This is what happens. What happened to me was I was hoping that hard work would speak for itself and that I would be asked. And to be clear, I was super hardworking. And people did ask me to do things right. They did ask me to move to London because they were like, you seem amazing. Why don't you come work for our team in London? And in some ways, I never had to work this muscle of asking for things, this muscle of going for things. I would kind of, like, wait and things would happen. And it was working for me until it stopped working, until I realized Andrew is getting promoted and I am not. And, yes, I've been a manager for about two and a half years by then, but I was getting ready to get promoted. But here's the thing. Andrew went and asked. Andrew made his ambitions known. I made my hard work known. I was going really hard after things, right? But people weren't saying, hey, Yan, why don't you go do this? Right? This is where I want you to notice for yourself what is happening with this waiting, right? Because so many women that I coach and me, myself, I notice myself when I think about my leadership edge. It is me no longer waiting, right? Because there's a game that women play with themselves of like, let me wait, right? But it doesn't sound like just let me wait. It's actually, we're so much smarter and so much more sophisticated than like, let me just wait, right? Waiting rarely sounds like I'm scared. It sounds more like I need more information. Let me think about that. I'll do it after the summer. I'm still new to this team. Let me see how all of this is rolling out before I decide what to do next. Let me size up the leadership team first. Let me get some wins. This is a huge one that so many of them, the women that I coach, they're like, I'm going to have that tough conversation once I get some wins under my belt, or I need a clearer plan. But sometimes it's wisdom, sometimes it's fear in a blazer, right? So we really need to discern ourselves. We need to be able to go to school on ourselves and know, am I full of bs? Am I just waiting to wait? Or am I waiting for a really good reason? Because oftentimes we wait to wait and we don't question ourselves. And there is a cost to waiting. There is a bitterness that happens. There is a loss of hope that happens when we're waiting for someone else or we're waiting for our future self to show up. The brain's job is certainty. The brain will always go after predictability, our survival primitive brain will always want comfort over moving into the unknown. We'll always want certainty over uncertainty. We'll always want predictability over powerful. Our primitive brain, you know, tells us to, hey, let's wait, let's wait, let's wait. But in the world of business and leadership, waiting and holding on again creates inertia. People are like, sarah is brilliant, but she doesn't seem to actually go after her own ideas. She is more of an executor. She is more of the person we call in to execute our ideas. She's more of the person that comes in after we have really started this project, right? She's not the innovator. And so you start to put yourself in a little box or a corner by waiting, waiting for somebody else to lead Especially when uncertainty is high and there's a lot of chaos, right? Women will find themselves waiting versus stepping in and doing the thing, right? Leadership's job is to create movement. Leadership is showing up with certainty in uncertain situations. Leadership is actually your job is to create the certainty, right? Your job is to actually show up convicted before the evidence arrives. But what I am seeing in myself and a lot of women, right, we're so good at talking ourselves out of it. We're so good at saying, let's wait until later versus learning how to use that muscle, ask for things. Because here's the cost of waiting. And I want you to notice this for yourself because these are the things that are causing women to burn out, right? They feel like they've waited for so long, they're holding back on their words. They're not feeling that activated, excited, that like life is for them. They have so much power invested in the people around them. So I want you to notice, is this you? Are you outsourcing your, you know, power by waiting? Waiting for the leadership room to change? Waiting for other people to invite you in, Waiting for yourself to finish your MBA before you can speak up, Waiting for yourself to feel ready. You want to notice yourself because there is an enormous cost to waiting. And this is where you have to go to school on yourself. Because what I'm not saying in this podcast is like, go recklessly in the direction of your dreams, right? I am saying really question yourself. If you are pushing the brakes on yourself constantly and you're feeling more and more hopeless and more and more resentment builds up, this is where you need to take care of yourself. This is where you need to decide the cost of waiting. It's not just missed opportunities. It's your identity. It becomes who you are. Am I somebody who waits for permission? Am I somebody who goes and does it? The version of you that never gets built and you're not pushing those muscles, you're becoming that person. You're becoming a person that says, hey, I wait for life to happen to me. I don't make life happen for me. Hey, podcast listeners, if you've been feeling like your ideas aren't landing the way they should, or you're working harder than necessary to be taken seriously, I want you to grab my free leadership brief. It's called five Subtle Ways High Performing Women Undermine Their Authority. Because most women don't lose authority in big moments. They lose it in small signals. A softened sentence, waiting a little too long to speak, framing a strong idea like a question. And the thing Is you don't notice it while it's happening. Inside this brief, I break down exactly what those patterns look like, what the room hears and what the room is actually reading and how to shift them immediately. It's simple and you can apply it right away. This is my proven strategy that has helped hundreds of women. You can download it using the link in the show notes. Now back to the show. So I'm going to say it again because it's like, I think this is a huge thing that a lot of women find themselves unconsciously in, right? I'm waiting for life to happen to me versus I am conscious consciously creating life for me. And for me, when I started doing coaching, this is when those like light bulb moments really popped for me. I realized that in every conversation there was me showing up activated, me showing up, taking risk, me showing up, you know, not waiting for permission. But it's an in the moment thing, right? I think oftentimes in our brains we think it's like this big splash or this big activity. But look at Andrew. He was just knocking on the doors, asking all the time. It was just many, many, many, many steps, right? But he kept not just waiting like me, of course, I wasn't just sitting, waiting, fiddling my fingers. I was working my ass off. But I wasn't asking for the things that I really wanted. I wasn't actually moving my career forward in the way that Andrew was. So I want you to just notice that for yourself because that is the cost. That's the cost of waiting for permission. But also, women are so good. We busy ourselves, we become productive with things and we hope that that production will create certainty and that people will notice and that there's nothing in the way of us after that thing. But the real work here is to embrace that uncertainty is happening all the time, but that you have an ability to move forward. For me, there was never a great time to have kids, right? I used to ask people all the time, like, hey, how do you have kids? And they're like, they would literally just be like, you do it and you figure it out. And I'd be like, what? I like, wanted to control things in my world. I thought moving forward is like controlling things and being able to manifest things through control, right? Versus I want something, I'm going to go out there and there's going to be bumpiness along the way, but I am going to figure it out. So when I decided to leave corporate and go all in on my business, this was many, many, many moments of questioning myself. Asking myself, let's go, let's go. And if I wasn't actually having those conversations and moving my thought process forward, I would have never made those moves. So I decided, hey, I'm going to go. And then it was another decision. I'm going to go invest in myself. Like, I know that as a coach, as an entrepreneur, I need to learn how to sell. I need to learn how to be a salesperson, right? I'm, um, a good coach because I've, you know, got my coaching certification, but I don't know how to sell. I don't know how to run a business. So how do I go and do that versus waiting for it to happen? Waiting for somebody to be like, oh, this is the way you should do it, right? I had to go boldly after every single move, right? It was the same thing in dating. And I got to tell you, in my 30s, it was a struggle. Like, I would just, like, keep waiting for people to choose me. I'd be like, oh, this person likes me. I guess I like them too. It was just such a, uh, not a fun place to be. I would wait, I'd feel hopeless. I'd feel like, why isn't the universe or God sending me like my partner? Right? Versus going to school on myself, learning, actually I want to be in a relationship. The truth was, like, I wanted to be in a relationship to feel worthy. I was waiting for somebody to make me feel worthy. This is actually what we do in a work sense too. We're waiting for somebody to see us, to make us feel worthy, to give us permission to feel certainty before we show up fully, right? And what I learned in dating was like, at, ah, some point, I was like, no more. I'm not sitting around hopelessly hoping somebody's gonna come. And I remember talking to people at work. They were like, you are such a go getter at work. You just go, you're tenacious, you get stuff done and you're like such a powerhouse. But like, why is it like, in your personal life and dating you, like, seem like such a wallflower? You're just like, waiting for things. And I remember it was one of my, you know, good friends who was saying this to me, and I was like, she's so right. I was like, you're so right. Why am I like this? Why am I waiting and waiting, right? I started really watching myself and understanding all of these, like, thoughts and lies that I was telling myself like that. Like, I just needed to wait for the perfect person, right? Then I started getting serious about finding my partner. And I started getting really serious about being the right partner. How can I work on myself and feel worthy within myself before I even was in a relationship? And that was such a game changer, because here's the truth. When I started valuing myself, when I started seeing myself as worthy, I started going out in the world and being that way. I started asking more, better questions. I started dating a lot more. I had a rule that I was just going to go and date as many people because I wanted to discover myself. It wasn't about them. It was about me and engaging in this process for me to learn about me. And that was the same thing at work. Like when I decided, hey, I'm just going to start showing up at work, having hard conversations, practicing my executive presence, not expecting it to just somehow show up. The art of engaging in things and not waiting was so powerful. I love this person that I am. I'm so activated when I'm not waiting, right? The saddest thing is a woman standing, staring out of the window, waiting, waiting, waiting for life to happen. When you're like, get out the door. You can do this. You can create opportunities for yourself. But I do think that societally, we have conditioned ourselves. We've also internalized a lot of this, like, sexism that women have to wait. And we've internalized it. And we're waiting for permission. We're waiting for somebody to say, hey, it's okay for you to go out there and date a whole bunch of people. Or, hey, it's okay for you to go talk to your boss about wanting bigger and better things for yourself. And, hey, it's okay to show up powerfully asking for things, showing up with executive presence, you might get hurt, you might learn a few things, you might get pushback, you might get rejected. But this is all a part of that learning process. And it's so much more to be like, I went for it and I got hurt, but I'm freaking proud of myself, right? This is really what I coach people on. It's like, you become different because you choose to be the person who is creating life, not life is just happening to you. And that is such a powerful thing. And what happens when we're waiting? When we're waiting, we start becoming that person who's just waiting for things to happen. So I want you to ask yourself this this week, because this is not just listening to this podcast. It's like going out there and going to school on yourself and starting to do things. Here are three ways to choose yourself this week. Number one, name the thing. What decision have you already made but haven't admitted, Right? What is something in your mind that you're like, I really want this thing, and here's where you can tell yourself the truth, right? Where am I telling myself? Some BS about why I'm waiting for it now? Number two, ask a different question instead of, what if it doesn't work? Because your brain will automatically when you start noticing yourself holding back, right? It's because. Because there's a part of your brain and your body that's like, this is not going to work. Like, that's the survival brain coming up. But I want you to say, what happens if I keep waiting? Right? I really want you to ask yourself that question. What happens if I keep waiting? Because this will bring up the cost of waiting, right? And, um, this is where you get to decide. Take one visible action. Not a plan, not research, but movement. Do an email, apply for something, have a conversation, make an investment in yourself, even if it's a small one. I just had this too, recently. I was like, I need to start doing ads, right? And it's been on my brain forever. And the reality is, if it's been on your brain forever and you keep pushing it away, there's like an energy thing that happens where you're just keep telling yourself, I'm not capable of handling all of that right now. I'm not capable. I'm not capable. I'm not capable. And then it's like this inertia, like, it becomes such a huge thing. This is how I felt about ads. Like, I was like, this is too complicated. I'm gonna get swallowed up in all of the dynamics and going to get overwhelmed, right? I'm going to be overwhelmed. Well, guess what? I decided I'm not going to be overwhelmed. I decided that there is a coach that teaches this, and I'm willing to learn. I'm willing to invest, I'm willing to learn, and I'm going to figure it out. Because when I'm this person who is no longer waiting and ready to figure it out, I figure it out again. I'm no longer outsourcing my power to something else, some other time in the future, someone else. I'm like, I'm taking the reins of my life. I'm owning my decisions, and I'm moving forward in that powerful way. Because nobody came and chose me. I had to choose myself first. Every single time. I had to choose myself first. When I decided to leave corporate and own my own business, I had to choose myself first when I was like, hey, I'm going to date people until I find the love of my life, who, by the way, I'm about to go on vacation with my husband. And that was me. That was me showing up for it. That was me not waiting for the perfect person to arrive. That was me working on myself. And that was me inviting other people into my life and to see what was possible, engaging in my life, not just waiting. And every meaningful thing in my life happened after that, when I chose myself, when I believed in myself. And it can happen for you, too. So I want you to really take this seriously, take yourself seriously, and ask yourself, what am I waiting for? What is the cost of me waiting? And what can I do? What. What small steps can I do to start moving this thing forward? Whatever dream it is, whatever desire you have, you have the ability. You have the power to move it forward today, here and now. You don't have to wait for anyone. You don't have to wait for permission. You don't have to wait to even feel ready. You just need to be willing. Willing to learn, willing to figure it out. Willing to believe in yourself even if you are not fully there yet. You're going to figure it out. If you choose to be somebody, who's going to figure it out. And this is exactly what I do in the command container with the women that I'm coaching, right? I'm helping them choose themselves first. I'm helping them lead before they feel ready. I'm helping them learn how to use their emotions and exercise these muscles so that you can command yourself first and then command the room and then command your career. And when I say command, it's not control, it's commanding. And being able to say, I'm going to show up. Up even when there's uncertainty, I'm going to show up. Even when I don't know how things are going to unfold. Um, I'm going to show up for me, because this is how I choose to live my life. And I will not wait. I will not be somebody who waits for their life to happen to them. I will be a creator. And if you are a creator and you're excited to be a creator and you want the support, I'd love for you to learn more about command and come on a call with me so we can see if this is a good fit for you. All right? Have a beautiful day. Go out and make things happen for you. There's no waiting. There's no one coming for you. You get to choose you. You get to choose you yourself every single time. I know you can do it. I believe in you. I see you, and I'd love to hear from you. Tell me how this lands for you, how you are going out there and choosing yourself, giving yourself permission to do the thing, to take the step. All right, have a beautiful week ahead. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.

Speaker B: Thank you for being a part of the Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Jan, visit us at Aspire Dash Coaching co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.

Speaker A: Hey, before you go, if you've been noticing moments where you hold back, soften your message, or question how you're coming across, I want you to take a closer look at that. Because those moments might feel small, but they're happening more often than you think. And they are impacting your authority as a leader. I pulled together a brief leadership guide called five Subtle Ways High Performing Women Undermine Their Authority. It will help you see the patterns that are easy to miss in real time and give you simple shifts you can start using immediately. This has been my proven formula to help hundreds of women. Nothing complicated, just awareness and precision. You can download the brief through the link in the show notes.