EP 107
Welcome fellow confidence crusaders, neuro nerds and success equalizers. This is your podcast, Real Confidence. I'm your host, Alyssa Dver, and I'll be sharing a bit of basic brain science, some surprising social secrets and a touch of tough love. Why? Because I believe confidence is everyone's fundamental right and choice. So let's get to it.
Alyssa Dver:
I really do think I'm a very lucky person. Now, maybe it's I'm positive and I bring things into my energy sphere. But I did not expect to meet such an amazing human being this one day that I agreed to do a podcast for somebody else. And lo and behold, the podcast was very strange, but I got to meet this incredible human that I'm going to introduce to you right now, and I'm going to just give a very general introduction, because I want you to hear the story, because Trevor Boylston is with me, and Trevor you work at Boston Scientific you're an expert, and you've brought an incredible amount of supplier diversity to this very large organization, but you have a whole backstory that I'm going to just kind of open up the podcast to you to tell if you don't mind. So please do.
Trevor Boylston:
Well, thanks, Alyssa, and thanks for having me. That was a weird podcast that we were on, but I think it happened for a reason, and that reason was for you and I to come together. I do work for Boston Scientific; I'm the supplier diversity manager there. Been there for 10 years now, but my story starts long before that. For those of you that don't know me and haven't looked me up, I'm a transgender man, and I have been in transition for 20 years now, and early in my transition, I was so uncomfortable in my own skin, I just couldn't settle into any job. I didn't have a whole lot of confidence in my career skills, and early in my transition, I ended up temping trying to get back into a corporate world that I was frankly terrified of and terrified of for many reasons.
One, I didn't have a degree, so I was always saying that I wasn't good enough for any of the the jobs that I was applying for, and two, early in my transition, as my body was changing, as my as I was aligning myself to who I knew I who I knew I was, I was not really sure where I belonged. So temping was a great avenue for me to get back into that world. And I spent, you know, two weeks here, two weeks there, a week, a week in this role, two weeks in that role. And eventually, about a year into my transition, I landed with a company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was supposed to be a four day assignment, covering the mail room break for for someone. And I ended up with that company for eight years. And early in that in that role, it was the first time in my life that I had gone a week without thinking about my gender, and that was pretty cool, but it was not a place where I felt safe being out. So it was not the best environment, and I was just there, keeping my head down, doing my work and learning everything I could about working for a biotech company.
And eventually, after eight years, I figured out, you know, I'm pretty good at this procurement stuff. This is, this is a pretty good role for me, and I want to grow, but there's not really an opportunity with the company that I was working for. So I looked elsewhere and landed where I am now, at Boston Scientific as a buyer for finished goods for the endoscopy neurology divisions. Great company loved it. Knew nothing about their diversity, equity and inclusion pieces. Knew nothing about ERGs, knew nothing about pretty much anything other than this is a company that's willing to hire me because I don't have a degree. Still fighting that confidence fight. Thought when I got there, I'd keep my head down, do my work, and that would be the end of the story.
About six months after I started though, one of my teammates crossed the aisle in the cube farm, stood up and he told a transgender joke, and his teammate didn't know I was trans, and he stood up and he says, hey, hey, hey. And then he tells this joke, the people around us, laughed, chuckled. You know, supervisors kind of just rolled their eyes. No one disrupted this behavior. A little while later, he told another one and another one. I'm thinking, wow, this is, this is really not great. You know, I took my laptop and I worked from somewhere else in the building. My supervisor is thinking, well, I just hired this guy, and he's not here, he's not present, he's doing his work, but he's not here with the team. And I'm thinking, this guy has been here for 13 years. I've been here for six months. What? What's, you know, what's, what's going to happen? I don't know if this is the right environment. Why did I come here? I'm angry, I'm upset. I'm hurt. No one is disrupting this behavior. And then it kind of dawned on me, the company has zero tolerance policies for this language. They have an ERG that supports LGBT people. They had just started a transgender resource team to help folks with transition, to help managers who have employees who are transitioning, and they're sending all these signals that say this language is not okay, this behavior is not okay, but no one is changing this behavior, no one is challenging this behavior.
And I was getting more and more upset by the day, and I figured at some point, I don't have anything to lose except my mind. So I decided, if no one is going to confront this behavior, and I have to be the one to do it, I didn't go through HR. I took a chance on a conversation, a one on one conversation with this person. I brought him into a conference room, and I asked him, you know what's what's going on? You don't know who around you is trans and hears this, you don't know who around you has trans family that's hearing this and is upset by it. And I was kind of braced for a transphobic attack, because that's what I was expecting. That's how I conditioned myself, thinking that anyone that uses this language, anyone that's telling these jokes, must be coming from a place of malice. That's not what I got.
What I got was tears, and I got a person who was sad and afraid and hurt, and he told me he had a family member that was transitioning, and he felt like he'd been losing the person he'd been closest to his whole life, and he didn't know what to do, and he was dealing with it through inappropriate humor, because that's how he dealt with everything in his life. He'd never learned better coping mechanisms, better ways of dealing with things. So for me, it was kind of a big aha moment. It was realization that not everyone is coming from a place of malice. Sometimes it's coming from a place of need. Sometimes it's a cry for help. And it was a another realization that if he needs this, there's probably someone else in this company of 40,000 plus people that needs it, too. So I made a choice that day. It was, it was, was not one I ever thought I was going to have to make in this company. I just really intended to keep my head down and just be Trevor and never reveal that I was a member of the trans community, but that day, I chose to come out to him, and we spent about two hours in that conference from talking, and I let him ask me all the questions.
I tried to be a good resource for him, for his family member, and just show him that there are ways to deal with things other than inappropriate humor, that there are ways to ask. I put all judgment aside. I let him ask all the awkward questions he wanted to what I would call now first draft language, where we created a space where I was not going to get angry or upset or hurt by anything he was saying in that space, we came to that agreement that this is a place where you can just say it and we'll make it work.
And that was that changed the trajectory of my career, and it was really an incredible, incredible moment of confidence for me to show that I could stand up for myself in this environment and be okay. Now, years later, he told me he spent the next several months waiting for HR to come walk him out the door, because in his heart of hearts, He knew I had gone to HR. I never did. We ended up being pretty good friends while he was there, we still keep in touch. Occasionally, I see him around town. We don't work together anymore, but he ended up being a really great ally, and he ended up being just a really good human being that I don't think I ever would have gotten to know had I just taken it at face value for what it was with that language.
Now do I really wish that the emotional labor hadn't fallen to me to disrupt that behavior? Absolutely, absolutely, it's a risk to have to stand up and say something like that, especially when you're the new guy in the in the room and you're the one that's different. Do I wish that someone else had stood up and said, hey, you know, this is not okay. You need to knock it off. Yes. Worse, yes. And when we ask our allies to do things, you know, be an ally. That's what being an ally looks like. It is standing up and disrupting that behavior when you hear it. And I know that's not easy. It's not something that we teach people how to do. Sometimes, I think we ask people to be allies without really telling them how. You know, we say you need to disrupt the language, you need to deflect or defer or defend from situation, but we don't ever show them how to do that. So it, you know, spurred me to come out more. Broadly to the company, and that put me in a unique position to be able to help shape some of our benefits and some of our policies, even some of the way the construction is done in the company. Led me to a leadership role in our employee resource groups, leading our pride ERG. I never, never thought I would lead a global erg. I didn't even know what an erg was when I came into the company.
Ultimately led me to my role in diversity, which is the first time in my life I've ever seen a career path open up, and it is a role that I adore. I love working with my business community. It lets me use my purchasing skills and my networking skills and my ADHD brain just thrives on understanding and learning all about the business owners and what turns their business on and how they operate, and building the puzzle that becomes a unique and resilient supply chain. So it's really if, if Jeff hadn't challenged me that day, if I hadn't challenged myself to to be able to speak up in that situation, find the courage to be myself and to really be my authentic self at work every single day since then, you know, I'd still be sitting in a cube sad and miserable and hiding.
Alyssa Dver:
Wow, there's so much in that story, and I'm so glad that, oh, obviously, glad is an understatement. I'm thrilled that you have told it here to our listeners, because there's, there's so many gems in there, and I want to pull out some of those gems and maybe ask you to get a little bit more specific, when you know you said that it kind of sucks that you had to be the the ally, so to speak, the one that stood up, I mean, the company was giving all these signals that they wanted behavior change. You even said it that that was all well and good, but nobody knew how to do it. So, you know, has that changed in the company? Have you seen that? Because, you know, there's a lot to be said for putting policy in place, but if people don't know how to make it happen, it's kind of just words on a page, kind of like a mission statement, right?
Trevor Boylston:
Yeah, absolutely. You know, as our PRIDE, ERG grew and more of us became vocal. We started talking about ally training and what it means to be an ally. We started to try and show people that allies don't get to call themselves allies. You have to be you have to be told you're an ally by a member of the community. And we start, we start asking questions like, if you're going to be convicted in a court of law on the crime of allyship, what evidence would be used to convict you? So we like to say, oh, and that, that is a little closer to home nowadays than it did. Did it? Did we started using it. But after George Floyd, the company started looking, or folks in the company started looking at bystander training, up standard training, and that had helped bring people who were interested in learning how to insert themselves safely into situations where they could where they could disrupt that behavior or deflect and let someone else you know, have a break. Yeah, I think it's hard though, because you practice it and you learn about it and you hear about it, but until you're in the actual situation, I think there's a few things that happen your brain is like anything you're learning in in your brain, you're ready for it. And then when you're actually in the situation, it takes your brain a second to realize, oh my god, this is the situation that I was that I was learning about. And then it takes another few seconds for your brain to say, oh my god, I need to do something. And then another, another few seconds for your brain to say, What do I do? So it's one thing to learn it and to know it, it's another thing to practice it. So I think we need some more role playing situations, and we need people to we need people to have the time to dedicate the time to doing that. And I know role playing feels so silly sometimes, and it feels so over the top. There's a reason for that, because when you're in those situations, it gets you.
Alyssa Dver:
It’s like a fire drill, right? Like, that's why we do them, you know, there, there is, you know, you brought up the brain. I can't help myself. Here we do brain science and confidence. And you know, when you were describing Jeff, the other gentleman's situation, you know, he was operating from a place of fear. And when fear goes into our brainstem, we either fight or flight, kind of, not kind of fight or flight fawn that some people would throw in there. But in his case, he was fighting. He was in an aggressive, you know, the joke was an aggressive way. And I wonder when you said. He was in tears. It was obviously a release. Did he What did he say to you? Like, what was his excuse? Or did he make an excuse for why he was being so mean?
Trevor Boylston:
Well, Jeff has an apparent disability. He has a physical disability, and his view was because he can make fun of himself. He has the right to make fun of everybody. So he was coming at it, I think, from a little bit of a self defense place, because I think people had made fun of him pretty much his whole life too. So I think that was a learned behavior for him, and I think it was a little bit of a self defense mechanism for him. So I think that was more Jeff being an equal opportunity insulter.
Alyssa Dver:
Equal Opportunity insulter. Oh, my, you know, but it's interesting, because in the moment of trying to be like, like, Why is this person doing this? You never make the assumption that they're doing it as a defense mechanism or as a way to patch their own wound, right? And you know, obviously kudos to you for having the courage the confidence to go to him and say, look, it just wasn't cool, especially after you said, you know, why does have to be me, of all people? Why can't somebody else do it well, for all the reasons you said, right? So, you know, I guess you have a lot of confidence. There's no question, you know, here I am the confidence lady, and I'm telling you like, you know, you have confidence, obviously, to transition, confidence to talk to Jeff, confidence to come out. All these instances, there's evidence, but just know, being able to talk to you. We met in a coffee shop recently, like you have confidence, and I'm curious, like you often say that you don't have the confidence, or you lack confidence, but yet you're one of the most humble and confident people. So what do you attribute to that? Where did all this confidence come from? How did you get all the gumption to do the things that you did? I mean, it's amazing, not amazing, inspired.
Trevor Boylston:
Well, thank you. That is a that is a really good question. And I feel like there's been a lot of inflection points in my life where it's not necessarily that I feel like I had the confidence, it's I feel like I was not left with any other choices. So I feel like I got to a point where I simply didn't have the energy to continue operating the way I was operating, and in order to continue to live, to continue to work, where I wanted to continue to work, something had to change, and I don't feel like it was necessary to me. I didn't equate that to confidence, as much as my energy reserve has reached a point where it cannot continue to function and unless something changes for me, for coming out, when I when I came out as trans, it was coming out of an abusive relationship, and the choice was death or continuing to live. But if I continue to live, I didn't have the energy to keep hiding who I was. I needed to, I needed to live authentically, because there just wasn't energy to devote to this other part that was denying my my gender identity.
Alyssa Dver:
So, thank you for sharing, because those are very serious, traumatic situations and dramatic as well. With all these things that have happened, though, I would say that they've made you a stronger, more confident person. Yeah, would you agree?
Trevor Boylston:
I would agree. I would agree. You know, I can recognize it now. I think it's sometimes it takes someone else reflecting back to point it out. You know, I think the imposter syndrome is very real, and it has been for my whole life. You know, it's something that's crept in time and time again. And I think when I've been given the opportunity to succeed, when I've been given the opportunity to step up to a challenge, I don't think I always would have taken that on, but I think being able to come out and live authentically has given me the capacity to be able to take on those challenges, to have the bandwidth to do so, and I think that is where a lot of that confidence has come from, because I do have the energy to devote to that now.
Alyssa Dver:
Yeah, so thank you for saying it so beautifully. I mean, and live authentically. You don't have to change your gender to live authentically, of course, right? It's just absolutely find a person the kind of lifestyle, the kind of compassion that you want to give to the world, right? And I, and I love the fact that you said it gives you energy, right? It's not taking more energy to be that person. It's giving you more energy to be that person, absolutely. So I want to take a quick sponsor break, and it's going to be really quick couple seconds, but I want to come back because I'm curious on those days where the imposter syndrome, or whatever it is, something creeps back and gives you a little kick to the confidence, like, what are some of the tricks and tips that you've learned that you can share with our listeners that would help them get back on track with their confidence? All right? Is that okay? Absolutely. All right. We'll be right back with my new BFF, Trevor. Hang in there. We'll be right back.
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Alyssa Dver:
What do you do when the energy is low, when the somebody makes a comment or something, and you're just like, I don't have the energy in me to deal with it, like, how do you get your confidence back to that place of, okay, I'm an because you are an advocate, as an ally and authentic. You got all the A's now you gotta listen to just say, but you know, it does take energy some days and so, like, what do you do?
Trevor Boylston:
Well, first I'm going to acknowledge that there are some days where it's just, it's not going to be great. And it's recognizing that when you're in those days that there will be, there will be better days. One thing I learned from a wonderful, wonderful person, Jennifer Willie of Wet Cement, is keeping a confidence catalog, and I have a reminder set in my calendar every Friday morning at 10am to go into my confidence catalog and write. And it's not rocket science. It does not it's not a novel. It's it's three things. What three things did I accomplish this week? And I keep one professionally, and I keep one personally. What three things did I do this week? It doesn't have to be earth shattering. It's, you know, I walk my dog three miles this week. I went to the gym four times. It can be something really simple or, you know, this week, I had the opportunity to speak to a group of veterans through a business development program in New York at a virtual webinar yesterday. So that's going in my professional catalog of the week. But that reminder is in my calendar, and that is an appointment that I keep every Friday. It just an Excel spreadsheet. And, know, some days where things are really dark, I go back and I look and I say, well, what did I do last week? You know, what I do the week before? You know? Okay, that starts to add up. And you get a couple of years of that confidence calendar, you look back and you see all the things that you've done. That's pretty cool. So that's a trick I learned last year from Jen Willie. She is an amazing, amazing person that I've met through my supplier diversity network, woman owned business, disabled owned business, speaker, author, just a wonderful person.
Alyssa Dver:
That's great. You know, we have to meet her too. I have to meet her too, because, yes, one of our tools that we use in the Institute, we've been using it for about 10 years, is called a Confidence Collection, similar. Somebody teach that to you really quick, because it could be it's not an additional effort. It's not like every week you have to do it, but I always grab any kind of Kudo that you get, you get an email, you get a LinkedIn review, you get somebody who just says something to you, even during the day, maybe even doing this podcast, and I introduce you as one of my new favorite people. I mean, that's something you can literally write down in the comments collection. You just stash it into a file that you can get to on your phone and when you have that moment, whether you're going to speak or something, you look the same thing you look at and you say, you know, this could still go sideways on the stage, but I'm a pretty good person. I usually do a good job, right? So same idea, but different, different instance. But thank you for sharing. Now I have yet another tip. But what else? What else do you do? You know, like homophobia, unfortunately. Is everywhere these days, amongst other discriminatory, disgustingness. So do you correct every time every person you see and does it bring you down when you hear it and see it?
Trevor Boylston:
That's a tough one. Homophobia, transphobia, racism, xenophobia. It's huge right now, and social media is a real tough place for it. I think you'll see a positive article, and I've made the mistake of going into the comments section on a positive article, and that's often the lowest of the low places to look it's a challenge, for sure. I try to limit my doom scrolling. I have a ratio of puppies to doom scrolling that needs to be kept every day. It's in person, I don't correct everybody. It's really I try to look at it like a risk matrix. What is the amount of work it's going to take and what is the potential outcome for the work it's going to take? Is this person, someone that I'm going to interact with frequently, and do I care about that interaction moving forward? Is it going to take a lot of effort to bring them into a circle of understanding, or are they someone that is someone I'm never going to see again, someone that's rarely going to interact?
Is it someone that's probably saying this because they're trolling and they want the reaction, or is it someone that maybe is coming from a place like Jeff where they just need a little boost. So a lot of those I know are going to be snap judgments made in the moment, if it's a pattern of behavior, or is it a one off thing, but right now it is. It is more about surrounding myself with positive community and trying to make sure that my LGBT family, my LGBT brothers and sisters, even the ones I don't know yet, are keeping themselves safe sharing solid bits of information when we do have good news, sharing, sharing, newscasters, podcasters, social media accounts where there is positive news or news that can keep us safe in these times, we have World Pride coming up in Washington, DC this year that's going to be a really interesting event. I don't know if I will be attending, but there's a lot of good things that are happening out there, and it's going to continue, and we need to, we need to pull together as a community and find our allies across all communities right now. And we need to recognize that we're not going to win every fight. We're not going to even be able to fight every fight. So fight the ones that matter the most. Save your energy, because if you're wearing yourself too thin fighting every fight, you're not going to be able to be there for yourself and for your family and for the people that need you.
Alyssa Dver:
Amen. Yeah, absolutely so moral. Maybe of this podcast story is that, you know, there are good people in the world. There's one I'm staring at is a screen right now having this beautiful conversation. Have the pleasure of having a cup of coffee recently, hopefully, is one of many. But at the same time, there are good things happening around sometimes you we just have to put the bad stuff, the scrolling and all that other stuff, in context and keep moving forward, but you have given yourself and everyone else permission to, first and foremost, take care of yourself and your your energy level. And I love that. I'm sure there's people that have been inspired listening to you if they want to reach out and have a conversation or just connect. What's the best way to do that, Trevor?
Trevor Boylston:
Sure, you can find me on LinkedIn, Trevor Boylston. You can get me at connect, at Trevor Boylston.com or www.TrevorBoylston.com.
Alyssa Dver:
And the reason we do this podcast is to make sure people not only get good kudos, but you speak, you consult, you coach, you do everything to help make this world better. And I am so grateful that I'm just so grateful for your time today and just for the friendship that we've started. And I thank you for your courage and your confidence and just thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Trevor Boylston:
Well, thank you again. Alyssa, this is great talking to you.
Alyssa Dver:
Before we totally wrap up. I want to let you know that full transcripts and show notes for this and other Real Confidence episodes can be found on www.AmericanConfidenceInstitute.com/podcast. I also want to remind you once again that the best way to get confidence is to give it to others, and you can do it just by liking and sharing this episode on your preferred podcast and social media channels. You can even give me some confidence by noting topics you'd like me to consider for the future. So for now this is Alyssa Dver. Thank you for helping to bring more confidence to the world.
Master editing done by Ben Weinstein with original music performed and composed by Jeff Mitchell. Real Confidence is a production of American Confidence Institute. All rights reserved.
