So I just looked him square in the eye, I put both feet on the ground and I said,

you ever speak to me like that again and this meeting will be over. Tracy, welcome to Women of Impact. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. I am so excited to be here. I've seen your show, I've had podcasts of yours, I've read your book and the very first thing I want to start with, I think I'm so resonant with the audience, It's something that a lot of us struggle with.

You are amazing.

Amazing. Hot class of yours, I've read your book, and the very first thing I wanna start with, I think I'm so resonate with the audience,

is something that a lot of us struggle with. You are amazing, amazing, at standing up for yourself. Ha ha ha ha, you're- Apparently. You are so amazing and not letting people push you around at sticking up for yourself if someone's cluster boundary and that's exactly where I wanna start. And I think the perfect place would be for you to talk about the TED story where in public,

someone said to you, oh, you win your period. Yeah, that was fun one. So I was at, actually, the little Soho House on the beach. I had a meeting with a developer at the time. And I was representing half a billion in real estate of his in Malibu. I came across a particular buyer that was interested in potentially purchasing the entire portfolio. It's a lot of real estate. So I set up a meeting and so I was sitting between them and I just remember the egos going back and forth between these two guys. And at the time I had Erica, who was on my team, who was my assistant for many, many years, and then she was sort of a junior agent. So I brought her along as well. And when we were sitting there discussing it, I just remember getting a little bit irritated because it was just male egos going back and forth about who had more money and who knew more about Malibu real estate and what the values were, but not actually talking about the portfolio in and of itself. And so I chimed in and pretty much said, you know, can we get to business here? Like, enough with the male egos just bouncing back and forth. I was sitting there like a little tennis ball with my eyes just looking at each one of them getting more and more bruised as we went on and sort of beating their chest

and I was candidly tired of it.

I had actually other meetings that I needed to be at.

So at one point I had gotten a little bit testy, I guess, you would say with them and he

looked at me and said, you know, is there something wrong with you? Are you on your period or something? You seem a little off. And I was so taken aback that I didn't actually respond. I didn't respond the way I wanted to respond. I was sort of having like this out of body experience. Now on one hand, I was completely humiliated in front of Erica, who is supposed to be looking up to me as her mentor in business. And I'm sitting between these two men and I was caught so off guard that he would address my period in a business meeting that I didn't even know how to respond. I also knew that there was a lot of money on the line to the tune of $10 million to me. So I sort of excused myself from the table. I went to the bathroom. Because you could feel yourself kind of getting... I was getting so fired up inside. My heart was racing. I had that intense nervous energy that I knew because I am an extrovert. Like my feelings I wear on my sleeve. And I knew if I did not leave the table, I wasn't gonna be able to execute what I felt in a way that was gonna be received. I knew that I wouldn't be able to control my message in a way that would then land. So I just, excuse myself, I'm receded to pace back. And I mean, if you entered the bathroom at the Soho House that day, while I mean I was like tearing up I was fucking pissed, I was pacing back and forth and I was just trying to gather my thoughts. And after about 10 minutes I came back down, I sat down at the table, I let it be for a minute and I just began listening. And course, by the time I had gotten back to the table, they had started discussing the actual deal in play. And so when I went to respond, I said, are you ready to listen to me or receive what I have to say? And he said absolutely. And the other guy turned to me and said, you know, I'm really sorry if I offended you. I mean, I was just kidding. I mean, come on, Trace. Like, it was a fucking joke. And I feel being too sensitive. Exactly. So I looked at him and I was very still in the moment because I remembered like there's nothing, when you sit across from someone, and this is just from life experience. And you see them fidgeting or fussing, and their eyes are darting. It's like they're not centered. And then, in turn, you're having a hard time focusing on what they're trying to say, because you're so invested in going, what's happening to them right now. They're obviously having some sort of weird experience that I don't really understand. So I just looked him square in the eye, I put both feet on the ground and I said, you ever speak to me like that again and this meeting will be over. But I'm ready to move on if you are. And that was the end of the conversation and he was like, he was a little nervous, he was taken aback and we finished the meeting about 30 minutes later, I got in the car and I cried all the way home. And that's because it doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt. When you experience that kind of shit from a man in a room or any sort of powerful person sitting across from you and you're called out like that, you have an emotional response. But it's about learning how to be effective while being emotional, and that's sort of the piece that is hard even now today, but I think when you're in the moment trying to navigate how to be effective and emotional at the same time is what sets apart, I think, women for men. It's not about reeling back the emotion, it's about learning how to effectively communicate the emotion. You know? So that was such a huge lesson for me. And people ask me about it all the time, because I think everybody's so taken aback that someone would have the balls to say something like that in a business meeting, you know? That decision, that when you're feeling that emotion, when the overwhelm starts coming in, when maybe you're you know you offended your upset whatever, it's very hard to say walk away right now because it won't serve you. I think in the moment I was so overtaken by emotion that I knew that if I stayed there, there was potential for a tear to come streaming down my cheek. And I did not want him to feel sorry for me. I did not want. That was not how I wanted to be effective. And that's not how I wanted to be perceived. I'm an emotional creature. I am also incredibly tough. So people perceive me as being a tough boss female. That does not mean that that does not come with emotionality. It does, it comes with humility. It comes with all sorts of different personality traits that I think a lot of women have that in business we try to conceal. So in that moment I I knew I was gonna, like, not be effective. And so I had to remove myself, and I candidly, it was almost in tears, and I was humiliated. So taking a minute, excusing myself, before I let my, like, there could have been venom. Immediately, my reaction would have been, I don't know who the bleep you think you bleeping are.

You can tell you swear. I don't know like fuck you think you are and why you think you can fucking talk to me that way, but I'm going to assure you of one thing you ever do it again and that will smack you silly. And that's but that's the thing. I so would have wanted to say that in that moment. I didn't have the energy or the power I was overcome by emotion I am motion and the stakes were so high.

And I think we're always, we're always, you know,

particularly when you're an entrepreneur or a woman, a woman in business or trying to be successful and you're coming up the ladder, you're gonna be presented with that almost every day of your life. And there's gonna be moments where you might be able to react in the moment and be effective and then there's moments where you're overtaken and it's in that moment you have to make a decision. I need to get I need to get a handle on how I'm feeling. Am I humiliated? Am I like am I upset? Am I angry? And you know I was able to sort of take five minutes in the bathroom and figure out where I was with it so that I could get a hold of myself and then come back down and and and be more effective in communicating that that wasn't okay with me. But not from a place of insecurity, not from a place of feeling sabotaged in the meeting and certainly not from a place of being a weak female. I won't be spoken to that way. That's so powerful. Oh my God, that's so powerful. Thank you.

Having the, obviously, the guts to say that out loud,

like, just even the way you took us through it is so beautiful because I'm all about process. Like, I even said, like, I would have wanted, I'm a bit of a hothead myself. So literally, I would have wanted to stand up like don't you dare talk to me like that. And the thing that I have realized as I

enter have entered business is that that doesn't serve you. Like in those moments

if someone had thing that I have realized as I have entered business is that that doesn't serve you.

Like in those moments, if someone had said that,

I would have felt like, I've got every right to tell him where to go. Okay, but what's my goal? Right. Like if my goal is to put him in this place and not do the business, still, then go ahead. Tell him exactly what you think. when you leave you feel good about yourself that you said that and you knew that you weren't going to get towards your goal.

But to me it's like well if you're trying to make this still like you said,

of course and you don that you weren't gonna get towards your goal. But to me, it's like, well,

if you're trying to make this deal, like you said,

...