This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

Every so often here on this show, I do may know we rerun a favorite episode that stuck out for us for one reason or another today.

Today we're revisiting my interview with a remarkable person who everybody should know about her insights on work are as relevant today as when this interview first was posted here on this feed.

My guest is Alicia Menendez, who is extraordinarily poised, seemingly confident, undeniably successful. She's a TV news anchor currently on MSNBC before that she was on vice ABC news fusion bustle and PBS.

She's a mother of two with a Harvard degree. She's the creator and host of the Latina to Latina podcast. She was named broadcast journalism's new gladiator by L magazine, Ms. Millennial by the Washington Post and a content queen by Marie Claire and her dad as a US senator.

So on the surface, at least she's got her stuff together and yet as you're going to hear she has struggled for a long time with a specific kind of insecurity at work.

She was weighed down by overthinking and excess focus on what other people think of her.

When I first conducted this interview, Alicia had just written a book called the likability trap, which is all about.

And I'm going to quote her exactly here. It's all about this dynamic in the workplace where women are constantly doing this dance of being told they're too much or not enough and they need to modulate.

She calls it the goldilocks conundrum where either you're too cold or you're too hot and it's never just right.

Quick note here, if you're a dude and you're listening to this and you're thinking, okay, well, there's not going to be anything here for me. Let me just say that if you're married to a woman or if you have a daughter or a mother who's in the workplace and you want to play a useful role, this is an interview you should hear.

And if you find that the psychology that Alicia is describing describes how you are in the world, she's got lots of interesting strategies that she has employed personally and you're going to hear all about them in this discussion.

In the conversation we talk about the aforementioned likability trap, which is actually a series of likability traps, as you'll hear her explain. We talk about the structural imbalance in feedback for women and men in the workplace, which got me thinking about the massive difference.

And the kind of feedback I used to get when I was a male news anchor as opposed to my female colleagues.

And we talk about things for men to consider as they engage with women in the workplace. There's a lot here and she is as you're about to hear just a really sharp mind and a great storyteller.

Just a quick reminder, we recorded this back in 2019 pre pandemic. So you're going to hear me reference my work on Good Morning America, where I no longer work.

Thanks for doing this.

Thanks to Harry. Good to see you.

Tell me your personal story of why you got so interested in this issue of likability.

I am a very sensitive person. So I am probably just very naturally predisposed to caring about other people, how I make other people feel.

Some of that's probably because I am a cancer and INFJ. I'm like, I'm very.

I am an INFJ introverted, intuitive, feeler, judge, or it's one of those Myers breaks things. But if you say it to someone who does that type of organizational psychology, they're like, oh,

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