Women in sports leadership are still way too rare, especially in men’s professional hockey.
Toni Will is one of the only women in the country leading a men’s professional hockey team, and her story challenges one of leadership’s most stubborn myths: If you don’t already know the room, you don’t belong in it.
In this episode of Is Anything Real?, Adam W. Barney sits down with Toni Will, General Manager of the Kalamazoo Wings, women’s leadership coach, keynote speaker, host of Women In, founder of Empower Her, and author of Rebellious Success.
Toni entered men’s professional hockey after earlier chapters in banking and economic development. She didn’t walk in pretending she already knew everything. She walked in honest, curious, and willing to learn. That became part of her leadership advantage.
This conversation is about women in sports, leadership, outsider perspective, gatekeeping, access, community, confidence, and what happens when difference stops being treated like a weakness and starts being trusted as intelligence.
Adam and Toni unpack why “I don’t know yet” isn’t a disqualification, why curiosity can be a serious leadership tool, and why the rooms most convinced they know exactly what they’re doing are often the rooms most allergic to change.
Toni also shares how her outsider lens helped her see the Kalamazoo Wings differently. She wasn’t emotionally attached to hockey in the same way a lifelong hockey purist might be. Instead, she was emotionally attached to the people, the organization, the community, and the experience being created for fans. That perspective mattered.
Because most people walking into a minor league hockey arena aren’t just looking for pure hockey. They’re looking for entertainment, community, memory, and belonging.
The episode also explores the Kalamazoo Wings’ Guinness World Records, including the largest lightsaber battle, and why those moments are not just fun stunts. They’re proof of culture, discipline, execution, accountability, and leadership that knows how to bring a community into the room.
The deeper thread is access.
Toni and Adam talk about unequal starting lines, allyship, women in sports, and what it means to use access not as a trophy, but as a door handle - or, in Toni’s language, an elevator - for someone else.
In this episode:
- Why women in sports leadership still matters
- What Toni learned walking into men’s professional hockey
- Why “I don’t know yet” isn’t weakness
- How curiosity became a leadership advantage
- Why outsider perspective can reveal what insiders miss
- The business cost of sameness
- Why fun isn’t frivolous in leadership
- What Guinness World Records teach about culture and execution
- How access can become architecture for others
- Why allyship requires more than good intentions
- The Outsider Advantage Audit for leaders, founders, sports executives, and allies
The big takeaway: You don’t need permission from the room to lead it. Sometimes the leader the room needs is the one willing to question how it’s always been done.
Guest: Toni Will
General Manager, Kalamazoo Wings
Women’s Leadership Coach
Keynote Speaker
Author, Rebellious Success
Host, Women In
Website: https://www.toniwill.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonildaniels/
Email: tonilwill78@gmail.com
Host: Adam W. Barney
Transition Leadership Coach
Author of Make Your Own Glass Half Full
Creator of EnergyOS
👉 Book your 20-min Exploration Call: https://calendly.com/adamwbarney/explorationplugin-20min
Subscribe to Is Anything Real?: https://isanythingreal.adamwbarney.com/
00:00:09
Here's a leadership myth
00:00:10
that needs to be
00:00:11
legit checked into the boards.
00:00:13
If you don't already know the room,
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you don't belong in it.
00:00:16
And that's some beautiful gatekeeping, I guess,
00:00:19
but it's absolutely terrible leadership
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because the rooms most convinced
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they know exactly what they're doing
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are often actually the rooms most allergic to change,
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and nothing exposes that faster
00:00:31
than a woman walking into a male-dominated industry.
00:00:35
And daring to lead
00:00:36
without asking for permission
00:00:38
from the ghosts of how it's always been done.
00:00:41
Today's guest is one of the only women in the country
00:00:44
leading a men's professional hockey team.
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Now let's let that land for a second.
00:00:50
Not commenting on the room,
00:00:51
not adjacent to the room,
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but actually leading the room.
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And I think the most dangerous sentence in leadership
00:00:58
might not be "I don't know";
00:01:00
it might actually be
00:01:01
"We've always done it this way."
00:01:03
Welcome back to "Is Anything Real?",
00:01:05
the reality-first leadership show
00:01:07
where we test advice,
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publish the receipts,
00:01:09
and ship what actually works under pressure.
00:01:11
I'm Adam W. Barney,
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transition leadership coach,
00:01:14
author of "Make Your Own Glass Half Full",
00:01:16
and builder of Energy OS,
00:01:18
where I help leaders rebuild their operating system
00:01:20
when the tools that got them here stop working.
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Today's guest is Toni Will,
00:01:25
women's leadership coach,
00:01:27
keynote speaker,
00:01:28
and general manager of the Kalamazoo Wings.
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And that title matters.
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Now, Tony is one of the only women
00:01:36
leading a men's professional hockey team in the country.
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Under her leadership,
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the Kalamazoo Wings have earned
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two Guinness World Records in 2019 and 2024.
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And she's spent more than 11 years in sports
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after early chapters in banking and economic development,
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which means she's also seen leadership
00:01:57
through wildly different rooms
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where power doesn't always love being questions.
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Toni, welcome to "Is Anything Real?"
00:02:05
Hey, Adam, what a great intro!
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I need to bring you around to all my meetings.
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I mean, I could have added
00:02:11
you're also the host of Women In,
00:02:14
that podcast.
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You know, founded Empower Her,
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an annual women's leadership conference
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in Kalamazoo,
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and also is an author of
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Rebellious Success.
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So.
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But Tony, let's let's sort of start there.
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When you entered men's pro hockey,
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what did people assume you didn't know,
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and what did they not realize you could see?
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Well, it was interesting
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because I didn't even stop to consider
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what other people thought back then,
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because I, one,
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I was just so focused
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on understanding the business side of hockey,
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because as you pointed out in that beautiful intro.
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The first half of my career
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was spent in banking and economic development,
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so this was a completely new path for me.
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So, how I led
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was saying right up front,
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"I don'tknow what I'm doing,
00:03:02
but I'm going to figure it out."
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And over the years,
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I've caught some heat for that,
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but I know what I'm doing now,
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and that's what matters.
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But I, one of my core values
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is integrity and authenticity.
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Two core values there that I listed,
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and I wasn't going to be anything other than that.
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So.
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I didn't know what I was doing, and that's
00:03:21
how I've been since day one with the Kalamazoo Wings.
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That's that's that's incredible actually, right?
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And you know that that distinction is everything
00:03:29
because gatekeeping loves to disguise itself as expertise.
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You know,
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it says you don't understand how this works,
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and sometimes that's true.
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So you know, teach me,
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but sometimes it really means
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you don't already belong to our club,
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our language,
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our habits,
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our assumptions,
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or our comfort zone,
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and those are really different things.
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You know,
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and you said in our first conversation
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that you walked into pro hockey
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asking, "What do you want me to do?
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You know,
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why do you want me to do, rather, this job?"
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You openly talk about
00:04:02
those things that you just mentioned.
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It's not weakness;
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it's leadership in motion.
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You know, nobody knows,
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nobody knows until they learn.
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Nobody has experience
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until they're allowed to get it.
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What did you have to learn fast there?
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Yeah, I mean,
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really, everything from the ground up.
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What I did know when I walked in
00:04:20
with that 15 years of experience at that point,
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I knew how to build a culture internally,
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and I knew how to sell.
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So I knew how to do those two things.
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I knew how to teach sales and coach people.
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So that's what I knew.
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What I didn't know was just the basics of,
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okay, how do you run a minor league hockey franchise
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on the business side?
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I loved my community too,
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so those things I could take with me.
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I had to go find people,
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which wasn't hard,
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doing the exact same thing I was doing,
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and it wasn't hard
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because I just started in our division in the ECHL,
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which is the league the Kalamazoo Wings play in.
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So I started, I went to the Cincinnati Cyclones,
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the Indy Fuel,
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the Brampton Beast
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when they were still playing,
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just to name a few,
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and I went and met with
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the Tonys of those teams to say,
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"How do you make this happen
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in your community?
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And I just started to learn
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because I'm a very curious person.
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So curiosity got me in everywhere.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And quite frankly,
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none of us know what we're doing
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when we start anything.
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So, like, anything,
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like, I mean, life literally.
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We don't know how to crawl.
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We don't know how to feed ourselves.
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I mean, we don't know how to do our first job.
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We don't know.
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So this notion that we're supposed to just know.
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And only people
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who know how to do things
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should get hired is complete BS.
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So, I dissolved that myth
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and really just asked other people.
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I love, I love that.
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That's such a strong proof point, right?
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I don't think
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we should take I don't know yet
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as a disqualification.
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It's actually the cleanest starting point in the room.
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Yeah, I want to push into this
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a little bit
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because it feels like
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the heart of your story.
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You know,
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in our first conversation,
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you described hockey as archaic.
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It's very white,
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not exactly overflowing with diversification.
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You said actually,
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being a different gender
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and thinking differently,
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and having a different perspective,
00:06:22
those things can be viewed as a weakness.
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But the truth is that difference
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can be the advantage.
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Where did your outsider lens become useful?
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Oh my gosh, I noticed,
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It took me a minute to notice
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that my gender made me unique.
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I never thought as a white woman
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in the Midwest
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that I'd be the minority in anything.
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But when you walk into hockey,
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my race didn't make me a minority
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because it is a very white sport.
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It's 97% white male.
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It was my gender
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that made me in the minority.
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And I've never felt that way before.
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And it's hard.
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But, I have a choice.
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I could choose to be like,
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"Woe is me, this is hard."
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Or I can say
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this is an advantage,
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because being a woman,
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I bring certain characteristics
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to leadership that are different.
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I can look at this through a different lens.
00:07:11
Right.
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And then not having a hockey background
00:07:15
also lends itself to me,
00:07:16
as in, a leadership perspective.
00:07:19
And, I'll give an example.
00:07:20
Sure, please.
00:07:21
A lot of the men in this,
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well, most of the men
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are very emotionally attached
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to what's happening on the ice.
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They are hockey fans.
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I'm not.
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I'm not emotionally attached to any of that.
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Now, do I recognize the importance?
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Yes.
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I'm emotionally attached
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to the people in the organization,
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to the people in the community,
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to Kalamazoo.
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And so that brings a different perspective
00:07:46
to how we run these minor league sports teams.
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Because only 20% of the people
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that walk through these doors
00:07:54
are hockey purists,
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so the other 80%,
00:07:57
they're looking for entertainment,
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and that is where my strength comes in.
00:08:03
Yeah,
00:08:03
Well, that's something, you know,
00:08:05
that the old systems rarely understand, right?
00:08:08
The outsider sees, you know,
00:08:11
they think the outsider, rather,
00:08:13
lacks context,
00:08:14
but sometimes the outsider
00:08:16
actually sees that context.
00:08:18
They see those patterns.
00:08:19
They see the customers differently.
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You know,
00:08:23
what did hockey teach you
00:08:24
about the cost of sameness?
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Let's say.
00:08:28
Oh boy, I mean,
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I blew that cost of sameness right up.
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I really did,
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and I don't encourage people
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to blow much up in their lives,
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and only because I've experienced it,
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but it costs a lot
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because if you continue to market
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the sameness of hockey,
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you're gonna get the same fan,
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or buyer,
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in return.
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But not everyone is, you know,
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there's just not one demographic in Kalamazoo, Michigan,
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you know, in my example,
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so it's like,
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well, let's look outside of this,
00:09:02
and really, you could start in-house.
00:09:04
You got a female GM,
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but you have a black head coach
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in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
00:09:09
So you put Joel and I together.
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Yeah.
00:09:11
And we represent something really important,
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not just for Kalamazoo,
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but for the next generation of business
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or sports leaders.
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And so, we just take that small sample.
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And we say, okay, well,
00:09:25
Kalamazoo is made up of something similar.
00:09:27
Yeah.
00:09:27
So let's go to where the people are
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and talk about this stuff.
00:09:31
And that made a huge difference.
00:09:32
Wow, wow.
00:09:33
And that's, I mean,
00:09:34
that's that's the difference of when it,
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you know,
00:09:36
when difference gets real,
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when it stops being tolerated as just optics
00:09:41
and starts being trusted as intelligence there, right?
00:09:44
A hundred percent.
00:09:45
And now,
00:09:46
have Joel and I had to prove ourselves more
00:09:49
than, say, the white male?
00:09:50
Yeah, I would argue that hands down.
00:09:54
But we've done it through execution
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and through our longevity with the organization
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and our outside the box thinking,
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and being willing to say
00:10:07
what the obvious is.
00:10:08
Yes, I'm a woman.
00:10:09
Yes, he's a black man.
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And yes, we have different perspectives.
00:10:13
Now, are they always welcome?
00:10:14
Of course not.
00:10:16
But we still stand in what our truth is.
00:10:19
Yeah.
00:10:20
Yeah, yeah,
00:10:20
and that's absolutely beautiful
00:10:22
in the scheme of things, right?
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And, you know,
00:10:26
I want to take this
00:10:27
and because I think it's incredible, right?
00:10:31
And talk about those Guinness World Records,
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because I think they're fun
00:10:34
and also because they're not just fun.
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You know,
00:10:37
under your leadership again,
00:10:39
the wings earned two Guinness World Records,
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and to me,
00:10:43
records like that are not only about the record;
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they're about what a leader makes possible.
00:10:48
What do those record-setting moments
00:10:50
teach you about leadership, though?
00:10:52
Oh my gosh.
00:10:53
Well, first off,
00:10:54
you hit the nail on the head.
00:10:55
Fun.
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They are fun,
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and fun is not just a frivolous three-letter word.
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I write a lot about it, about fun,
00:11:01
in my book
00:11:02
because it is one of my leadership pillars.
00:11:04
There's a lot of science to back up
00:11:06
why fun in the workplace or just in life matters.
00:11:12
But we're in minor league pro hockey,
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and I mentioned earlier,
00:11:15
80% of people come in
00:11:16
for the entertainment aspect.
00:11:19
So what's more entertaining
00:11:21
and a brand that brings the fun
00:11:23
than Guinness World Records?
00:11:25
And when you have a facility
00:11:27
that seats over 5 people,
00:11:30
this is a great opportunity.
00:11:31
So then we pair this.
00:11:33
Our first Guinness World Record
00:11:35
was the largest lightsaber battle
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for Star Wars fans out there
00:11:39
back in 2019.
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So you take the Star Wars brand,
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you take the Guinness brand,
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and then you take
00:11:45
the punchiness of Kalamazoo, Michigan,
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where there's a ton of Star Wars fans,
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and we sold that arena out.
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That picture hangs in the front office.
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It's just a beautiful visual
00:11:56
of what leadership and community is
00:11:58
when you bring it all together in hockey,
00:12:01
and it just showed
00:12:02
that we can have a lot of fun,
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and even those hockey purists were like,
00:12:07
"This is pretty freaking cool."
00:12:10
So.
00:12:11
Behind the scenes, though,
00:12:12
setting a Guinness World Record
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is no joke.
00:12:15
It, from a leader's perspective,
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it takes an incredible amount
00:12:19
of discipline, organization,
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and accountability
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because there's
00:12:24
a whole team of people coming together
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to meet the criteria of Guinness,
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and these are not,
00:12:30
they just don't hand these distinctions out
00:12:33
like candy on Halloween.
00:12:35
You have to earn it.
00:12:36
So, it was exhausting.
00:12:38
Well, it's funny because you know,
00:12:41
that's the part that I love there
00:12:43
because leadership is often invisible
00:12:45
until something visible happens, right?
00:12:47
You know, the events, the records,
00:12:50
the launch, the win, the campaign,
00:12:51
that's what people see.
00:12:52
But underneath that,
00:12:54
is that culture.
00:12:55
It's the decision-making.
00:12:57
The belief,
00:12:58
the people who felt trusted enough
00:13:00
to bring ideas forward.
00:13:02
And also, the leader
00:13:03
who didn't need to be the center of every spotlight.
00:13:06
And then that ripple goes
00:13:07
way beyond the walls of the arena.
00:13:09
It tells people what kind of team this is,
00:13:12
what community it is they live in,
00:13:14
and what kind of leadership is possible.
00:13:17
What do you think those moments
00:13:19
signal to people watching you lead?
00:13:21
Because I love to think
00:13:22
about those ripples that we emanate,
00:13:25
you know,
00:13:25
that emanate from each of us in the world.
00:13:28
I've gotten some good feedback on that over the years,
00:13:31
you know,
00:13:31
because a lot of times
00:13:32
when you're in a position like mine
00:13:34
of general manager,
00:13:35
you're not getting
00:13:37
a lot of the love and accolades publicly
00:13:39
because people love to tell you
00:13:42
how to do your job,
00:13:43
even though they really don't know what your job is,
00:13:46
and publicly so.
00:13:47
But that's the world of professional sports.
00:13:50
So I just smile, and you know,
00:13:52
but, you know what it shows,
00:13:54
it goes back to that
00:13:56
creative, outside-the-box thinking.
00:13:59
It goes beyond
00:14:00
just what's happening on the ice.
00:14:03
It brings the community in
00:14:05
and I can't emphasize that part enough
00:14:08
because in hockey,
00:14:09
there's three tiers of hockey.
00:14:12
There's the National Hockey League,
00:14:13
which is the NHL.
00:14:14
Then there's the American Hockey League,
00:14:16
which is the AHL.
00:14:17
And then there's the ECHL,
00:14:18
which is the league the K-Wings are in.
00:14:20
Our players move up and down that system.
00:14:22
And so, when you get to the higher level.
00:14:25
And even any level, for that matter,
00:14:28
these teams are in communities
00:14:29
that are way bigger than Kalamazoo,
00:14:32
like a million, like a population of a million or more.
00:14:36
Kalamazoo, 75 proper is our population.
00:14:42
So, community,
00:14:43
we have less people to sell to.
00:14:46
It's more work to get people in the door.
00:14:48
So, going back
00:14:49
to the Guinness World Records
00:14:51
or Rainbow Ice,
00:14:51
which I know hasn't been mentioned,
00:14:53
or Green Ice,
00:14:53
or just some of the other things that we do.
00:14:56
It's bringing community in
00:14:59
so they can get a feel
00:15:00
for what professional hockey is.
00:15:02
Because, if you're born and raised here like me,
00:15:04
you're taking this for granted
00:15:06
because you think every community,
00:15:08
because we've been here for 52 years.
00:15:10
It's not like that, it's super special.
00:15:13
That's incredible,
00:15:14
and that's where that legacy gets real
00:15:16
when what you build
00:15:17
gives other people more permission
00:15:19
to believe they can build too, right?
00:15:22
You know, and in that realm,
00:15:23
one of the reasons we connected fast
00:15:25
is that we both care so much
00:15:27
about underdogs and access.
00:15:29
You know, and I remember saying to you,
00:15:31
as a white guy in the world,
00:15:32
I've had, you know,
00:15:33
confidence and access handed to me
00:15:36
just by systems
00:15:37
that don't hand it equally to everyone else.
00:15:39
And that doesn't mean I didn't work hard,
00:15:42
but it means I don't get to pretend
00:15:44
the starting line was equal.
00:15:46
You lit up around that, I think,
00:15:48
because your work, also,
00:15:49
is about helping people
00:15:50
step into rooms
00:15:51
where the rules aren't written for them.
00:15:53
How do you think about access there?
00:15:56
Yeah, and I did light up to that
00:15:58
because most people don't want to
00:16:00
talk about this stuff.
00:16:01
Especially, and I say this with love,
00:16:05
because I have all kinds of white men in my life,
00:16:07
including my husband,
00:16:09
my son, my dad.
00:16:10
Right.
00:16:10
But, it is a different start line.
00:16:13
And then when we call out the obvious,
00:16:17
I think it just shows the humility that we have,
00:16:22
and that our activism comes from a place
00:16:25
of really being authentic and genuine,
00:16:29
and, maybe for me, a little naive,
00:16:31
and I don't think that's a bad thing.
00:16:34
But I think, to answer your question,
00:16:36
of what I believe,
00:16:37
if I were going,
00:16:38
cause you get me going on this, Adam, but,
00:16:41
is you know it.
00:16:42
Well, ask me the question again
00:16:44
because I got going.
00:16:45
Well, just how do you think
00:16:48
about access, at a baseline?
00:16:51
Yeah, exactly, we have access.
00:16:54
So how do we bring that access
00:16:57
to other cultures,
00:16:59
religions, gender, sexual orientation,
00:17:03
all of that?
00:17:05
How do we,
00:17:05
who our start line is at a different spot,
00:17:08
be able to bring that same start line
00:17:11
to others who are not us.
00:17:13
And so, that's my mission.
00:17:15
And the biggest part of this,
00:17:16
or one of my many missions,
00:17:17
the biggest part of this
00:17:19
is just saying it out loud.
00:17:21
Like, two people like you and I
00:17:22
just saying it out loud
00:17:24
because we're not ignoring it.
00:17:25
We're going headfirst into it
00:17:27
and doing something about it on a public platform.
00:17:29
Yeah.
00:17:30
And I look at that almost as a door handle test,
00:17:33
right, Toni?
00:17:34
When you get access,
00:17:35
do you use that as a trophy for yourself,
00:17:37
or a medal around your neck,
00:17:38
or use it as a door handle for someone else?
00:17:41
Because the work isn't only
00:17:43
becoming the exception, right?
00:17:45
You know,
00:17:46
I don't want women actually in sports leadership
00:17:48
to have to be a once-in-a-generation,
00:17:50
undeniable to get,
00:17:51
basic opportunity.
00:17:53
You know,
00:17:53
I also don't want underdogs
00:17:55
to feel like they need a perfect resume,
00:17:57
they need perfect timing, tone,
00:17:59
or perfect everything.
00:18:01
I just want better rooms.
00:18:02
What does a better room look like to you?
00:18:05
Yeah,
00:18:05
you say door handles
00:18:07
and I'm all about elevators.
00:18:09
You know,
00:18:09
you open the elevator
00:18:10
and bring anyone in there
00:18:12
who wants to do this work
00:18:13
to go up with you.
00:18:15
So those rooms, it's really about,
00:18:18
okay,
00:18:18
how can we get a seat at the table?
00:18:21
What rooms do we want to be in
00:18:23
as women in sports in particular?
00:18:25
It doesn't have to be
00:18:26
the board of governors room,
00:18:28
or even a layer up the executive committee room,
00:18:32
which I've broken through both of those barriers,
00:18:35
but it doesn't start there.
00:18:36
It starts,
00:18:37
what rooms do you want to be in?
00:18:38
So, when I stepped into this, well,
00:18:41
when I started to take the blinders off
00:18:44
as I was getting past
00:18:45
the first few years of this,
00:18:47
I'm like, wait a minute,
00:18:48
there's no room in our league,
00:18:50
a proverbial room for just women.
00:18:54
So I'm going to start that.
00:18:55
Because if I'm going to talk about this stuff,
00:18:57
I want to do something about it.
00:18:59
I can't just say,
00:19:00
"Oh, here's the problem.
00:19:01
Someone else go find the solution."
00:19:03
No,
00:19:03
I will help find the solution.
00:19:04
It's not about Toni Will.
00:19:06
It's about everyone else.
00:19:08
So I created this space,
00:19:09
and this is my definition
00:19:11
of servant leadership.
00:19:14
I don't want to get paid.
00:19:15
I don't, you know,
00:19:15
I create a committee.
00:19:16
I help mentor these women,
00:19:18
and then I'll bring speakers in,
00:19:20
and we do all these things together
00:19:22
to help facilitate change,
00:19:24
so they can get
00:19:24
in these rooms they want to be in,
00:19:26
and that first room starts with
00:19:28
the ECHL Women's Sports Network.
00:19:30
Yeah, and I mean,
00:19:31
that's a proof point there
00:19:33
where allyship gets real
00:19:35
when access becomes architecture
00:19:37
and not simply charity, right?
00:19:39
Exactly.
00:19:40
Toni, I want to move this
00:19:42
into one move our listeners can run this week,
00:19:44
and I want to call this one
00:19:46
The Outsider Advantage Audit,
00:19:48
and I think it's for leaders, founders.
00:19:51
sports executives,
00:19:52
or people who want to enter that room,
00:19:55
women in rooms
00:19:55
that still confuse sameness with credibility,
00:19:58
and men who want to be useful allies
00:20:01
instead of just motivational furniture.
00:20:03
And it's four simple questions.
00:20:05
The first being,
00:20:06
what am I treating I don't know yet
00:20:08
like weakness instead of learning?
00:20:11
The second is,
00:20:11
whose difference in the room
00:20:13
am I minimizing
00:20:14
instead of mining for intelligence?
00:20:17
The third being,
00:20:18
what rule am I following
00:20:19
that was not built for the leader I'm becoming,
00:20:21
And the final one,
00:20:22
where can I turn access into architecture?
00:20:26
Toni, what might you add to that list
00:20:29
or amend on those questions there,
00:20:30
for someone who just wants to start today?
00:20:35
I would encourage, on that list.
00:20:37
to when you look at that.
00:20:39
I love this audit, by the way.
00:20:41
Who's one person
00:20:43
that can help me get to where I want to be,
00:20:47
and it could fall into any one of those
00:20:50
because there's always someone walking the similar path,
00:20:54
and they can help become allies
00:20:56
in this on similar missions.
00:20:58
I love that.
00:21:00
That's simple,
00:21:01
and that's where leadership gets real
00:21:02
when the outsider stops apologizing
00:21:05
for seeing what the insiders actually normalize, right?
00:21:08
So.
00:21:09
Tony, I think you know how we end here.
00:21:11
After all of this,
00:21:12
but especially that myth
00:21:14
that not knowing means you don't belong,
00:21:16
is anything real?
00:21:18
Is anything real?
00:21:19
That's a great question.
00:21:22
Yeah, I do think we make it real.
00:21:26
Those of us who are executing
00:21:28
and who are listening to this,
00:21:30
they want to make it real.
00:21:31
So yeah, it can be real
00:21:32
if we make it that way.
00:21:34
We don't wait to be invited.
00:21:35
We create the space.
00:21:36
I love that.
00:21:37
I love that.
00:21:38
What you know, what feels real to me
00:21:39
is the outsider advantage, actually, right?
00:21:42
But then the courage
00:21:43
to enter a room that wasn't built for you,
00:21:45
and the humility to say,
00:21:46
"I don't know yet."
00:21:48
Maybe even that discipline to learn
00:21:49
and that nerve to challenge
00:21:51
what insiders call normal,
00:21:52
and then that generosity to make the next room
00:21:55
easier for someone else to enter.
00:21:59
Absolutely, and that's what it is.
00:22:00
Just making it a little easier
00:22:02
for the next person
00:22:03
to walk through those doors.
00:22:04
I love it.
00:22:05
Toni,
00:22:06
where can folks find you,
00:22:08
Women In...,
00:22:08
Rebellious Success,
00:22:10
Empower Her,
00:22:11
and your beloved Kalamazoo Wings?
00:22:15
The K wings can be found at
00:22:17
Kwings.com
00:22:18
and then everything else you mentioned,
00:22:20
the book, my coaching, podcast,
00:22:22
all the things, ToniWill.com,
00:22:25
T-O-N-I-W-I-L-L.com.
00:22:27
Beautiful,
00:22:27
and we'll of course link to that
00:22:28
in the show notes below,
00:22:30
but, you know,
00:22:30
I would say Toni and I are saying today,
00:22:32
you know,
00:22:33
for our listeners,
00:22:34
stop confusing familiarity with competence.
00:22:36
The person that's always been in the room
00:22:39
shouldn't automatically be treated
00:22:40
as the smartest person in it,
00:22:42
and the outsider
00:22:43
is not automatically the risk there either.
00:22:45
Sometimes I think that risk
00:22:47
is actually the rooms that are so addicted to themselves
00:22:50
that can't recognize the future when she walks in.
00:22:55
You know, so this week.
00:22:56
Say I don't know where it matters.
00:22:58
Ask the better question.
00:22:59
Trust the different voice.
00:23:01
Stop treating women, underdogs, and outsiders
00:23:04
like they need to prove 10 times more
00:23:07
just to be heard once.
00:23:09
And if this hits,
00:23:10
send it to a leader, coach,
00:23:12
sports executive, founder,
00:23:14
woman trying to break into a room,
00:23:16
or a man with enough power
00:23:18
to make that room less ridiculous.
00:23:20
And if you're navigating a leadership transition,
00:23:22
there's also a 20-minute foundational call link
00:23:25
in the show notes with me.
00:23:26
No pitch, no pressure there.
00:23:28
But Toni, thank you for the grace,
00:23:30
your own patience, your leadership,
00:23:32
and the reminder that not knowing was never the weakness.
00:23:35
The weakness is actually having those rooms
00:23:37
being built too small
00:23:38
for different kinds of knowing.
00:23:41
Thank you, Adam.
00:23:41
It's been a pleasure.
00:23:42
Great work.
00:23:43
Awesome.
00:23:44
Thank you.
00:23:44
Well, until next time,
00:23:46
stay grounded,
00:23:46
stay human,
00:23:47
and keep questioning the noise.