You’re Not Too Masculine, You’re Effective | Ep 287
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Nobody is going to question when a guy taps into his intuition or creativity, which are traditionally feminine traits, right? They're going to say, oh, wow, that's amazing. That's so great. But the moment that a woman becomes decisive or assertive, we see so many women now saying, oh, she's too masculine.

What's up, guys? Welcome back to Build. And today I want to talk about something that I have not hit on before, which is masculine versus feminine energy in the workplace. So I want to make this podcast because it's actually a question I get all the time when I'm making a Q&A. Like when I do an Instagram live, you guys are like, how do you stay in your feminine? How do you stay in your masculine? I'm too masculine. I'm too feminine.

And then recently I had three people actually make posts about me and how my brand has gone more from masculine to feminine and how the way that I speak and how I present myself and all these other things, as well as some people who are criticizing just the way that I show up in general and how it's just an exhausting state to be in if you're always in your masculine energy. And I really want to fake this podcast because

I don't actually think I have controversial beliefs about this. I think I have rational beliefs about this. And I think I want to offer a new perspective to you guys because a lot of you reach out to me about this. And I feel like it just needs to be fucking said because as a woman who...

I would say, has more masculine tendencies that are displayed publicly. I get a lot of questions about this, and I think a lot of you don't have good advice coming your way. So I'm hoping that I can extrapolate this out with some of my thoughts. Okay, so here's the first thing, is that when people are talking about masculine versus feminine energy, I want you to remember this concept, and this is a scientific concept. If you cannot define it, you cannot measure it. If you cannot measure it, you don't really know what it is.

So how do you measure feminine energy? How do you measure masculine energy? It is subjective for the most part rather than objective. But for the purpose of this conversation today, I'm going to think about it like this, right? Masculine energy is direction, structure, logic, action. That's what I associate with masculine energy, right? Whereas feminine energy, I would say, is receptivity, creativity, intuition, empathy.

Right. At least that's what I associate it with. Right. And so the thing is, is that those are, quote, energetic modes. Those are ways of operating. Those are traits that you can embody, which what do we know about traits? If you've listened to my podcast, traits are skills. Right. This is not a fixed identity. You are not masculine or feminine as a person. You're using masculine or feminine skills, traits, depending on the situation.

And guess what? Here's the thing. Everything also exists on a spectrum. So nobody is 100% masculine or 100% feminine. And even within one day or a circumstance, right, how you express your energy is going to shift depending on what you need to use. What's the right tool for the job? And so when people come to me and they say, well, I feel like you're in more of your masculine, I'm running a company. I personally...

purposely lean into, quote, masculine energy. Now, am I thinking about it? No. I have never once purposely thought about using masculine or feminine energy. I just want to be honest with you guys. I don't think about that. It's not something that's on my mind. I'm not like, oh, I need to go into my masculine or my feminine right now. I think about the skills needed to get the job done, to get the outcome I want in the situation I'm in. So if I'm running a company, I'm going to lean masculine. If I'm in the sales room talking to the sales team, I'm going to be extra masculine. If I'm caring for somebody who's in pain,

I'm gonna lean feminine. If I'm talking to my team, investing, strategizing, mentoring, all of those things require a different type of energy you bring to the situation. And when I say energy, I mean mode, which is bundle of skills. And so when you're sitting here thinking that there's something wrong with you because you're like, well, I'm in business and I feel like I'm in more of my masculine,

There's nothing wrong with that because in business, if you are too soft with people, if you're too passive, if you're too caring, they're going to take advantage of you. They're not going to understand what you said. They're not going to understand the direction you want them to go. And so the right tool for the job is often to be more direct, to be more action oriented, to get things done.

There's nothing wrong with that. It's about using the tools in the appropriately given situations. Right. So I can be incredibly masculine, quote, at work for, you know, six hours of my day. But I also know that when I come home, when I come home, that's not the right tool for the job.

When I come home and I'm with my husband, I am not in that place because being direct, being action-oriented, telling him what to do, like that would result in a terrible marriage, right? And so I talked about this a lot in the beginning, which is you have to be able to switch hats. As I say, like when I'm at work, I've got my boss hat on, right? And even depending on the people I'm talking to, it's a different type of boss hat, right? But I have my boss hat on versus when I'm at home, I have my wife hat on.

Right. And so how I dress, how I speak, how I act, the way that I'm speaking, the way that I'm showing affection or speaking to the person in front of me, it changes completely because it's not very tool for the job. Right. And so I think what the issue is, the real issue of why people talk about masculine versus feminine energy is because they're using the wrong tool for the job at the given time.

And that is often because they just don't know the skills. They haven't learned them, right? So this may shock a lot of you, but I actually had to learn all of the, quote, masculine skills that I now use in the workplace. I was incredibly empathetic, soft, passive, and guess what?

It did not build the best team. It did not build the best business. And it didn't make me feel great about myself at the end of the day. Now, why was that? Because when I was too soft, too feminine, too caring, people walked all over me. My teammates didn't pick up the pace. I had to fill in for a lot of their deficiencies because they knew I would have their back.

I had people use me as a therapist all the time. And I realized that it was getting in the way of me getting my business done. And so I was like, oh, I really need to learn how to flex both of these skills. And so here's the thing. I am not interested in

I'm truly not. I'm not interested in fitting into someone else's outdated binary perspective. I'm interested in being effective at whatever I'm doing. If I'm in a conversation where somebody just lost their spouse and they work for me, I'm going to show up however I need to show up to make them feel better and get the job done. If I'm in a situation where my husband wants to go on a date with me, I'm going to show up in a way that I would never show up at work. And if I'm at work, I'm going to show up in a way that's completely different than all of those things.

And so the real problem isn't whether someone is too much of something, but the fact that one, we keep tearing each other down because we want to feel righteous and we want to protect our own identity and say that we're right. The way that we live is right. And because we use these labels, right? And we don't think in terms of nuances. And here's the thing. Life is nuanced.

It's a series of detailed nuances. And this is one of them, which is, of course, when you see me talking about business, doing business, making podcasts about business with my team, why would I be in my feminine?

You know, one of the, literally, let's get really real for a second here. I remember people say, even like the way I dress, do you know how uncomfortable it would make my male colleagues and male direct reports feel if I showed my tatas every day? You know, it's funny because people say, they're like, oh, you should dress more feminine. I'm like, why? Why would I do that in the workplace? Like, I don't want to make people feel uncomfortable. That would be like if my husband walked around in boxer shorts and his shirt off all day.

Like, it's not because I don't want to dress that way or because I feel embarrassed or feel like I'm not feminine enough. It's because I don't think it's appropriate tool for the job. Right now, when I go on a date with my husband, am I going to wear the same clothes that you guys see me wearing when I'm making content? No. Sometimes I dress like a hoe. And guess what? I like it. And it's fun for me.

And so I want you guys to understand that it's about what's the right tool for the job and labeling yourself is not going to help you. It only harms you. Just like in any other area, I think we can all agree that being like, you're a narcissistic, you're OCD, you're too anxious, you're too angry, you're an asshole, you're a bitch. All of those things, not helpful, right? Labels just keep us stuck in the past. They keep us negatively hinged rather than focused on the future and thinking about what we can do next and what we can do better.

And so the same goes for labeling yourself as feminine or masculine. You cannot be a thing. So like you are not feminine or masculine. You are a mix of different traits that people associate with either feminine or masculine. And it changes based on the circumstance, day, time, et cetera. So one of the worst things that we can do is to each other, especially woman to woman, to look at somebody's choices, to look at the way that they live their life and say, she's too masculine. She's too soft. She's trying too hard. She's not doing enough.

Here's the truth. Talking poorly about another woman's way of living, how she leads, how she nurtures, how she builds, rest, whatever, is worse than being too feminine or masculine. Labeling people doesn't help them. Labeling people does nothing to help them grow. Instead, what it does is it puts them in a box and reinforces shame.

And you know the reason why so many of you ask me about being feminine or masculine is because you feel shame because of these other people who have no fucking clue what they're talking about making content on the internet saying that you're too masculine or you're too feminine or you're not going to get a guy. Wake up.

They don't know what the fuck they're saying. They have zero credibility to be telling you this shit. And they're making shit up, pulling it out of their ass so they can get money from you. I have no incentive to make this podcast right now. I'll probably lose fucking listeners from this because people don't want to hear this shit. But the truth is, it's just judgment dressed up as feedback. It's judgment dressed up as something that you should do. If anyone tells you you should be away, run in the other fucking direction. Okay? There are no shoulds. There are choices and there are trade-offs.

And so it's just moralizing energy instead of understanding the context of the situation. If you want someone to change, model something worth emulating. Inspire them through action. Don't perform this superiority under the guise of feminine wisdom or embodiment or you're masculine, you're going to ruin yourself. That is not helping people. And so many of you come to me and say that that's the advice you're getting. And I'm like, well, get better advice. Now,

There's another piece I want to talk about here, which I wrote down, which is your identity is what you do consistently, not what you feel like in the moment. Okay, so quote, energy is not who you are. It is how you deploy effort. So if somebody is in a season of pushing, of building, of creating, of course, they're going to pull from more energy.

societally associated masculine traits. That is not a flaw. That's in alignment with the goal they have. Those are the skills needed to do the job. The skills don't give a fuck if you're feminine or masculine. They just give a fuck that you have the skills.

And what's wild is nobody is going to question when a guy taps into his intuition or creativity, which are traditionally feminine traits, right? They're going to say, oh, wow, that's amazing. That's so great. But the moment that a woman becomes decisive or assertive, we see so many women now saying, oh, she's too masculine. It's complete hypocrisy and it's fucking exhausting to keep up with. And the reality is that we all move through different ratios of energy depending on the moment, the mission, the environment.

Here's what I want to tell you. That is not a problem. That is not dysfunctional. That is fucking intelligence. It's intelligence. It's being smart. Smart people use different skills based on the situation they're in. You can measure intelligence by someone's ability to exert different skills based on the circumstance at hand. So if you feel like you're building your business and you're using too much, quote, masculine energy,

Please know there's nothing wrong with you. There are no rules. Be as fucking masculine or feminine as you want, quote, end quote. I do not use these terms, so it's very foreign to me to be using them right now. But I feel like you guys need to hear this. Your, quote, energy, right? Again, a word I don't use, is a tool, not a costume. At the end of the day, feminine and masculine, quote, energies are not performances. They are resources. They are bundles of skills that we associate with feminine or masculine.

And here's the thing, the healthiest people, the most productive people, the happiest people I know, men and women, do not cling to some identity, right? They just intentionally use the tool that they need given the circumstance they have. And they don't get stuck in defending like a type. They just commit to the results. And so if somebody tells you that you're too much of something, I want you to ask yourself this question, okay? One, are you doing what aligns with your values? Are you doing what aligns with your values?

Is it a bad thing if it aligns with your values? Maybe it leans one way or the other. And the second thing I want you to ask yourself is, are you becoming someone you respect? If we lose respect for ourselves, that's when we lose everything. Because that's what matters at the end of the day, right? Not whether you're feminine enough or too masculine or whether somebody likes how you show up, but whether you are becoming the person that you set out to be.

We get so lost and so easily influenced by people on the internet who have no fucking clue what they're talking about, telling you to be masculine or feminine or your energy. It's a problem. Come to my retreat. I'm going to fix you. You're never going to find a guy. You're never going to do that. Like, what? What are we talking about?

Where did this come from? And I just feel like I needed to say this, guys, because I want you all to know that you don't owe anybody a performance. You just owe yourself the truth and you owe yourself the self-respect you give yourself when you use the skills needed for the job at hand. And I just am sick of hearing all of this bullshit about feminine and masculine because guess what? I'm in my masculine right now. Why? Because I feel pissed about it. I feel pissed about this subject because I feel like so many women are being misled.

And I will say to this, to a personal note, right? A lot of people say to me, they're like, Leva, you're in, you're masculine. I see, of course, I'm in my studio recording with four men who work for me. What do you expect? Right? Go look at the content when I'm talking to a woman, completely different. And so understand when you're looking at somebody, you don't have the full picture.

And if somebody is spending time talking about you, preaching to you, rather than themselves and working on themselves, no bueno. Not going to fall for it. So that's what I've got today, guys. I just...

When I did my Q&A, I saw this question. I had a few people post about me in the last week, and I was like, you know, it's just interesting. I'll even tell you this. What's really interesting is that I have had multiple people talk about how I've changed my brand, and now it's much more feminine. And nothing inside of me has changed. It's just that my clothing, I have a stylist now. My studio, it looks very cute. It has like flowers and stuff. And the editing, it's softer lighting.

And suddenly my brand is more feminine. They're just things that people associate with feminine and nothing I'm saying is any different. And so we have to understand, again, define it. If you cannot define it and you cannot measure it, you don't really know what it is. So like at the end of the day, do I think that we really know what masculine or feminine is? No, I think that they are bundles of skills and traits that we associate with one or the other. And the second thing to that is just think about it in terms of everything exists on a spectrum.

You're never going to be 100% one way or the other. And depending on the circumstance, you're going to shift into one or the other because that's the tool for the job. So that being said, I love you guys. If this hits home for you, please send it to somebody who is tired of being told how they should be. If they're tired of feeling labeled or boxed in or like something's wrong with them, you do not owe anybody anything.