How to Set Boundaries and Thrive in Speaking with Dr. Cassandra LeClair

Dr. Cassandra LeClair

Award-Winning Professor, Author, Communication Consultant, and Motivational Speaker

Dr. Cassandra LeClair’s mission is to educate and empower audiences to clarify communication tactics in order to enhance their relationships with friends and family members, in the workplace, and beyond.

Communication is the key to unlocking a deep understanding of your needs, setting clear boundaries, effectively dealing with stress, reclaiming your voice, and generally improving the experience of your daily life.

Using research-based methods, Dr. LeClair empowers you to take control of your own mindset through education, tools, and resources.

SHOW NOTES

Before becoming a Mic Drop Academy alum, Cassandra was already well-versed in public speaking as a communication expert and professor at Texas A&M University, but now she has the tools to make her goal of becoming a keynote speaker a reality.

She talks with Jess about her journey after Mic Drop, sharing tips for aspiring speakers on what to know, how to handle rejection, and why setting boundaries is key—even if that means saying no sometimes, and that’s okay!

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Rate Amplify on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review for Jess Ekstrom.

Amplify with Jess is produced by Earfluence, and brought to you by Mic Drop Workshop.

TRANSCRIPT

Cassandra – 00:00:03:

None of this is easy. There are still some days where, you know, I’ll think I had a gig in, you know, right in hand and then it slips away and it’s my immediate thought goes back to me. What did I do wrong? How did I mess this up and shame and all of these things, right? Those are always going to be my go-tos. I catch them a little bit before I spiral all the way down. Or if I do spiral all the way down, which I still do, I get back up quicker.

Jess – 00:00:33:

Welcome to Amplify with Jess Ekstrom, a show designed to help women get out of their head and into their zone of influence. Today, we welcome Cassandra Gaines, professor at Texas A&M University, communication trainer, and author of Well-being, and something I am super proud of, Mic Drop Academy alum. When Cassandra joined MDA, we call it MDA, Mic Drop Academy for short, she was already a seasoned speaker, but there was a major part of speaking that she wasn’t quite sure how to navigate.

Cassandra – 00:01:03:

One of the biggest things, and I actually told my business students this today, I said, you know, I’ve taught public speaking at the university level for years and was a speaker before I took your course, but I didn’t know how to be speaking as a business. I didn’t understand how to enter this keynote world. And so I encouraged them to really find mentors and people, even if you are in a field, you’d never know the things that you can learn from somebody or the ways that you can approach something differently. So for me, the biggest takeaways of Mic Drop were how do I understand what speaking is as a business? And then even from my professional career, you know, like you talk about so much, how can I, you know, take all of this knowledge I have, but not make it sound like I’m lecturing to somebody. And I do, I do have the benefit that I teach fun things. You know, I get to do a lot of things. I get to talk about emotions and feelings. And so I’m always telling stories. So that’s, I have, I have a little bit of a leg up versus my brother. Who’s a physics professor, you know.

Jess – 00:01:58:

A little bit different. Yeah. Yeah, I think that the way that you have been able to approach your speaking career, like using what you’ve learned and know as a professor, but then being able to add maybe a little bit more of like Cassandra’s fingerprints and personal stories to it and maybe have a more like flag in the ground, here is my message, which you’ve chosen to be around communication. And quite frankly, I feel like I’m good at communicating to a room of a thousand people, but communicating, and I think I’ve said this before on this show, but like one-to-one or having a tough conversation with someone or having to deliver or even having to receive feedback, something in me just stops working. I’m like, where did this confident person go? So is that normal or what’s going on here?

Cassandra – 00:02:57:

Yes. I mean, it’s so interesting because it surprises a lot of people that I’m actually introverted because they see you speaking and they see you doing all of these things, but like you, I find that space to be super comfortable that I’m in the flow and I’m talking to people. But when I’m having conversations with people, I’m much more aware of my own self, right? And that sounds silly, but I am. When I’m up on a stage, I forget everything that’s happening. And if you watch video, you’d see I’m kind of ridiculous sometimes, but- But when I’m seeing you face-to-face and we’re having a conversation, I’m more aware of your reactions. Did I say something that could potentially offend you? Oh, you didn’t smile at me like the way I thought you were going to, or especially if it’s something, for me being raised as a people pleaser, for a lot of women having that kind of in their DNA and in their societal upbringing of wanting to accommodate other people, it’s that a lot of times that fear of disappointing somebody or that you’re going to alter the relationship. And for a lot of us, unfortunately, goes back to the fact that we aren’t taught how to say things directly. So when we do say things directly, it feels like we’re being rude or we think we’re being rude.

Jess – 00:04:08:

Yes, or we’ve been conditioned to think that we’re being

Cassandra – 00:04:11:

rude. Oh, 100%.

Jess – 00:04:11:

Yeah. I want to hit on people-pleasing because I do think that… A lot of this business of speaking or, you know, just thought leadership in general is very centered around validation and wanting people to like you. Which can be absolutely gut-wrenching. Even outside of speaking, just like doing a post on social media. You’re like, this is, I’m creating something in hope that it literally gets likes, which if you had told me that years ago, that that’s how I’d be spending my time, I’d be like, you gotta be freaking kidding me. No, for real. Yeah, talk to me about people pleasing. Yeah, I’m just gonna toss it in your court because I know this is your MO, yeah.

Cassandra – 00:04:56:

This was so hard for me though, because one of the things that I wrote about in my book and one of the things that I’ve struggled with is really overcoming this idea of having to say yes to everything or people pleasing and not valuing myself enough to have boundaries, right? So I write my book, I get real solid on this, I’m teaching about it. And then I open up my speaking business where it’s like, like me, like me, pay attention to me. It’s what it feels like, right?

Jess – 00:05:22:

Everyone loves me, yeah.

Cassandra – 00:05:23:

Right, right. And oh my goodness, somebody didn’t like that or oh, I sent out a hundred emails and never heard back. Or whatever. And so it was this really weird thing for me to wrap my brain around in terms of, there is a certain amount of external validation, of course, that we all want. We’d be lying if we said that we didn’t. Of course, we want people to like us or of course we want to achieve things, right? But it’s when it starts to feel like your self-worth or your success depends on that, that then it gets icky for a lot of people, myself included, right? So all of a sudden trying to show up on social media when inside, keep in mind, I already said I was an introvert, I don’t want to be an influencer. I don’t want to make it all about me. But yet to show people what I do and to talk about my business, I have to talk about myself. I have to make it about me in a certain way. So that’s where I really like to, like how you’ve talked a lot about, about the making it about the audience, making it about the people that we serve. So that for me, even when I post on social media, I still have to think about that. I have to think about this is for people I want to help, not people I’m trying to get to like me. And that’s a good thing. It’s a good distinction for me because especially when I call LinkedIn the land of lurkers, because a lot of the gigs I’ve gotten are things people have hired me for. They’ll say, oh, I saw your post on LinkedIn about X, Y, and Z. And then I’ll go to that post and like they haven’t liked it. They haven’t engaged with it. They haven’t interacted at all. Yeah. So I try to remind myself that too. And I’m guilty of that too. You know, you see something, you think about it, but you maybe don’t engage with it. So for me, it was this weird space of knowing that I want to do good work, that I want people to like. And feeling vulnerable enough to put that out there, but then really not letting it hold me back in terms of like, well, what if I put something out there that I thought was going to be awesome and four people liked it, you know, then sitting with those feelings and things like that too.

Jess – 00:07:14:

It’s so like, it’s such a dance. It’s. Wanting to do things based and create things like based on what you have to say and what you care about versus like what you were saying in the beginning of like one of the things you learned from Mic Drop Academy is like, how do I use what I know and create a business out of it? And so people pleasing, I feel like can get super slippery in this line of work because it’s, it’s about wanting to get people to like you because then maybe they’ll book you to speak or buy your book or listen to your podcast. But then just like you said, is like, how much are you equating yourself worth on that result? So for someone like you who has had a very quick rise up starting professional speaking, you know, probably a year and a half ago now, and now you’re getting paid, you know, five figures a talk. How have you grappled with that of like monetizing your knowledge, being, wanting to be liked, even just the rejection of, Hey, I’m going to reach out to a hundred events and maybe one will get back to me.

Cassandra – 00:08:23:

It’s been such a toying with my mind, to be honest with you. So I’ve really had to look through a lot of different aspects of myself with this. And some of it is just reminding myself that I’ve been through hard things. So not hearing back from somebody who doesn’t respond to my email, is that the worst thing that’s ever happened to me?

Jess – 00:08:44:

Like, no, it’s probably not.

Cassandra – 00:08:45:

It’s really not.

Jess – 00:08:46:

You can make it through. Yeah.

Cassandra – 00:08:48:

But there again, like not equating those things to like a deep personal rejection, you know, like somebody not responding to my email or hiring somebody else over me for a gig, really reminding myself like, okay, I wasn’t the right fit or this wasn’t the right time. Instead of being like, oh my gosh, I suck or I’m terrible. Right. And that’s something where I have to actively remind myself of that. I’m not a person, you know, it’s taken me a long time to get a calmer nervous system. It’s taken me a lot of interpersonal work and a lot of education to figure out some of these things to, you know, have boundaries, like I said. So it’s still work every day. None of this is easy. There are still some days where, you know, I’ll think I had a gig in, you know, right in hand and then it slips away. And it’s my immediate thought goes back to me. What did I do wrong? How did I mess this up and shame and all of these things, right? Those are always going to be my go-tos. It is my job to catch them, you know, and the difference is, is like, I catch them a little bit before I spiral all the way down. Or if I do, spiral all the way down, which I still do, I get back up quicker, right. By reminding myself of some of these other things. And also, you know, even in terms of like putting myself out there or some of the reject rejections that we all feel, I think it’s, I have to keep going back to my, why, like why I wanted to do this. And the purpose for me is so much bigger than, you know, the number of likes I get on social media, even though sometimes those feel like they hurt just as bad or whatever, you know?

Jess – 00:10:25:

Yeah. I mean, it’s like, we can’t trick ourselves to think that we’re going to eliminate those responses, like, and put the pressure on ourselves to think that we’re going to eliminate any kind of negative reaction if we get rejected or not the kind of engagement that we want. It’s like, there’s a level of like delusion that I’m just like not going to amount to. I’m still going to be upset. But like you were saying, okay, well then there’s the length of time you’re going to be upset. And then there’s the good narrative that you’re going to tell yourself. And I saw, I think this was from your book. You said, stop creating storylines that you’ll be disappointed by, which I think is so important. It’s like, yeah, there’s what happened. And then there’s a story that we make in our head. Can you tell us a little bit about that, about like the storylines that we make in our head?

Cassandra – 00:11:21:

Yeah. I mean, this goes even, you know, to a lot of what you’re talking about, because another thing that happened for me is I noticed some imposter syndrome creeping up. You know, I thought that I had all these good things to say, and then I pop on social media and somebody else is saying it in a different way, or they’ve said it and they have millions of followers or whatever it is. Right. And so some of this too was every time I popped onto social media, then that’s what I would tell myself of like, oh, well, you don’t have enough followers or, oh, you can’t be a successful speaker because you don’t have, you know X, Y, or Z or you don’t have this online course or whatever it was, whatever obstacle is putting in front of myself, right. Letting that really creep in. Well, then that started to be my narrative even before I would open social media or even before I would do something, because that’s what I was routinely telling myself. So even like adding the word yet onto it. So even if I pop on and I see somebody’s stuff and I’m like, I don’t have that yet, or I don’t have that right now, you know, so sometimes it’s little tricks like that for my brain, but a lot of times it is active. Stopping my own internal voice and reminding it of some of a different story. Right. So I was a person, you know, who walked around with a pretty bad internal narrative. You know, if I lost my keys, it wasn’t just like, oh, I can’t find my keys. It was like, gosh, Cassandra, you’re so stupid. Where’d you put them? You’re always losing your keys. You probably lost something else, you know, just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, you know? And so really now like stopping that mechanism or reminding myself also, what is the counter to that? If I did mess something up, because especially if you have a tendency to have a more negative internal voice, which a lot of us do, there’s, you know, don’t shame yourself for that. Then that’s just one more thing to shame yourself for.

Jess – 00:13:00:

Right. Put it on my tab. Yeah.

Cassandra – 00:13:02:

Yeah. Right. You probably also are not a person who naturally celebrates all of the small things that you do every single day that are amazing. Right. And so sometimes I have to remind myself of like these little ridiculous things like, okay, yeah, you lost your keys today, but how many days have you found your keys? Okay. That number way outweighs the number I love. I mean, maybe not.

Jess – 00:13:24:

Yeah. I love that. So I want to like on that talk about the times that we have to show up in our communication that might be a little bit more challenging. And I used to like, anytime I had to. Give feedback or know that I was going to go into a conversation that, or even just telling a gig that, Hey, it’s, it’s just not going to work, you know, with what they’re offering me. I feel like I would make it in my head of like what I did wrong or what I could have done better or differently. And then I would also make a narrative around what they now probably think of me after this and spiral about that. And it would just become this like cluster in my brain. Anytime I had to have a difficult conversation with someone that would completely ruin my day or my creativity or anything with it. You are. Pro at this. Do you have any frameworks or tips around having some of these difficult conversations that are quite frankly, just inevitable when you’re going after something?

Cassandra – 00:14:35:

They are. And I think that’s part of it too, is remind yourself that they are challenging. And so if you feel stressed about them, you’re not abnormal. There’s nothing wrong with you, right? And this is also where a lot of times when we’re in those conversations, we start to pay attention to our physical cues. So for me, a lot of times in those conversations, my voice will start to shake and I can hear it and then I pay more attention to it and then it gets worse, right? So some of it is if you know what some of your physical cues are, bring attention to them and then try to breathe and let go of the fact that they’re there, right? Instead of hyper fixating on them. Another thing that I have to remind myself, especially if I know about the conversation beforehand, because otherwise we tend to think not only here’s what we’re going to say, then here’s what they’re going to say back. And we’ve created that whole story, right? And it rarely goes the way we have created it in our minds. So I have to step back and first of all, stop trying to create this. But then I have to also remind myself sometimes repeatedly during a conversation also is that it is another adult’s responsibility to tell me their feelings, to tell me when they’re mad at me, to tell me if I’ve done something wrong. So I don’t need to walk into every conversation anticipating that somebody might be mad at me or might be upset because as another adult, it is actually their job to tell me those things. So if I go in there and I really mess it up, then I’m going to trust that that person has the adult language to tell me, Hey, Cassandra, you know what? Actually, that’s not what we talked about it, or I’m not happy with the way this went. And then we can have a different conversation, but I have to really let go. And some of that’s that people pleasing stuff, right? Because we don’t want them to have any thoughts about us because deep down, we want to please them still. And what does it say about us if we can’t? So I have to work through some of that big time. And then when I’m in the conversation too, for me, it really helps me, especially if it’s a boundary. I’m like, I’m going to do this. I’m going to do this. I’m going to do this. I’m going to do this. Or like you said, something in the gig isn’t. Quite right. I also, because it’s difficult for me, I have to remember my why. Okay. So for me, when I say no, a lot of times it’s because I can’t get overwhelmed and burnt out, right? I used to keep saying yes to people because I feared what would happen. And then I would be overwhelmed and burnt out. So finally I had to keep envisioning that overwhelmed, burnt out person and ask myself why it was so much more important to me that I kept other people happy at the expense of me becoming overwhelmed and burned out. But again, like all of this stuff, I have to remind myself of these things. It doesn’t come naturally or easily for me. And so a lot of times too, before a conversation, I will, I’ll even call up a friend and be like, okay, I have this happening or I have to say this. And I really want to be open about that because I think there’s such a misconception that when people look like they’ve got it all figured out, or when they have degrees in this topic, that they just naturally act this way. And that’s not real. And sometimes too, it’s even after the fact, if it goes really badly, being able, or if I’ve perceived that being able to look back and not beat myself up over that, and then recognize, okay, here’s what I want to try differently going forward, or here’s why this felt bad to me. And really kind of allowing myself to understand what it was instead of just being like, oh my gosh, I’m so bad at negotiations. Or, you know, just like that story you tell where you thought you were bad at math forever, right? We tell these stories and I have to step out of that big time.

Jess – 00:18:06:

Well, and it’s like what you were saying, I think we weren’t recording yet. There was like, there’s the two different parts. There’s the knowledge of your boundary. There is the knowledge of what you believe to be true. And there is the deep understanding of your needs. And then there’s actually saying it. And those are two completely different things. And so your, like the importance of communication is the alignment of both. Is like when your knowledge of what you need and what you know reflects what you want to say and how you say it. And a lot of times the person’s reaction. I wouldn’t say is irrelevant, but is uncontrollable. And I love how you say it is up to them and their use of their own vocabulary to verbalize to me what they’re feeling. And I used to call that looking for cues. I would just constantly be looking for cues in other people of like, are they liking this? Are they not liking this? If I ask where someone wants to go for dinner and they say, I’m like, do you want Mexican? And they’re like, sure. I’m like, well, they didn’t use an exclamation point. Does that mean they really want Chinese? So the trusting that they have what it takes to tell me what they need. But I do want to touch on this lastly, because you have this amazing freebie that all of our listeners are going to get. And it’s 30 ways to say no. And I know that you have a lot of other amazing stuff that you can provide as well, which I want you to hit on. I think the more you do this and the more you put yourself out there, the more momentum you get, there’s also going to be opportunities that don’t align with your core values, don’t align with your budget, or where you want to be spending your time. Can you shed some light on maybe some tips of how to say no? Because I find that a two-second email takes four hours of my brain time to work up the courage to say no.

Cassandra – 00:20:03:

Yeah. Absolutely. And I think too, it’s difficult because like you said, in my journal, I’m really fierce and strong and I have the best boundaries and I always say everything appropriately, right? And then when I’m standing in front of another person or I have to email them, then that’s a whole different ballgame. So it’s much different when we actually have to state all of these things to other people. One of the things that I have to practice saying no also is saying things like, that sounds like a wonderful opportunity. Unfortunately, it’s not right for me at this time. So that’s… That’s a good one I like because I can acknowledge that something is wonderful. Because a lot of times when I get pitched things that people want me to come to, it’s not that I think it’s a terrible event. It’s that it doesn’t align, like you say, with where I’m at or my timing or whatever, right? So…

Jess – 00:20:48:

Do you feel the need though, and this is more of a selfish question? When you say no, do you need a reason? Because like and that’s the thing is I believe you, but I don’t apply that to myself. Like there’s this gig in July that is like, you know, we really want you to come. And the answer is no, but I’m like, well, I’m having a baby and I need this and I da-da-da-da. And it’s like, why am I? Providing an essay about why I can’t do this.

Cassandra – 00:21:21:

Yep. Because that helps you feel more comfortable, right? And so especially if you are kind of trying to be a reformed people pleaser and you need that buffer to get the boundary out, then don’t take it away. I know that no is a complete sentence and I fully support that. And I agree, we don’t have to explain everything and we want to watch why we feel the need to do that. But sometimes for me, the only way I’m going to set the boundary is if I do offer a little buffer. So I do that for me too, right? And so- Yeah, not because

Jess – 00:21:52:

it’s needed, but because-

Cassandra – 00:21:54:

Right, right. So sometimes it’s for me to understand, okay, I want to say that, or maybe this does feel, especially sometimes an email, it might feel abrupt or did they hear my tone? You might go through all of those things, right? But even just saying for that opportunity, unfortunately I can’t make it, done. That can be enough, right? And so even watching when you say that, you know, maybe I will do this, but I’m not going to do that. Don’t say that if you don’t mean it. You know, that’s kind of what it is. Or like, I’d love to talk about that another time. It’s like, don’t add that on if you don’t mean that, right?

Jess – 00:22:26:

Yes.

Cassandra – 00:22:27:

Stopping ourselves sometimes. And this is why a lot of us get into situations where we’ve said yes too quickly because we have to stop, pause, think about all of this, you know, all the scenarios that go along with that before we go to the immediate yes but a lot of times we go to that immediate yes, and then think through all those other things.

Jess – 00:22:45:

See, I, you know, I feel like my boundary setting has been gradual over time. It was like, first I was the yes to everything. And then now I’m slowly phasing out of this, but I’m still in it. I’m in a no, but phase where I try to compensate my no with something else I will do for them. And. Which again, no one asked. But the counter is like, if someone says no to me without any context, I have no judgment around that. In fact, I’m like… You go girl. Like I love that. I don’t need to know why or how or what. And so why am I expecting that for me on the other side? So this is helpful for me.

Cassandra – 00:23:31:

Well, and I think too, you know, I know we have so many women who are listening, who struggle with this. The best thing that I tell women who are raising kids is this is what you want to do for your kids. You want to set boundaries. You want to show them that you need time for self-care. You want to tell them that sometimes you’re too busy for yourself because you’re having your cup of tea or coffee or whatever it is, because then you’re modeling that for them. And you don’t want your kids to grow up and still be having these types of conversations, right? You want them to know how to set boundaries, to know how to talk about things, to be able to separate themselves. And I think that again, as women so often we’re, we’re used to just giving to all of these other people. And that’s also why boundaries are kind of some of this assertive language can feel harsher than it really is.

Jess – 00:24:19:

Exactly. Harsher than it really is, is key because it’s not harsh. It’s just the reality. So to close, what piece of advice might you have for an aspiring speaker or someone who’s just getting started in this industry?

Cassandra – 00:24:38:

I would say, you know, absorb all that you can, obviously, from people who are putting out wisdom like you, you give out so many good tips. But then I think it’s really about being able to be vulnerable and put yourself out there and stating that you’re a speaker and asking for gigs and putting yourself out there, even though you might get told no, especially because you will get told no, because you will, you will, you will get told no. And, but I think the reason that that’s so important is the number of people who I talk to say, oh, I wish I could do this, or I want to be a speaker, or I’d love to give a TED talk or whatever it is. And my response is, then you should. Okay, let’s talk about that. What does that look like? Why haven’t you? And so often, it’s just the, oh, I don’t know what, I don’t know how I would do that. I don’t know what other people would think. So we prevent ourself from starting, instead of just trying it a little bit here and there. So even if it’s something where, you know, okay, I don’t want to talk about it, talk about speaking all the time, but I’m going to try once a month, I’m going to put something out there that I’m a speaker. Like I’m a person who has to have like a lot of little goals for myself so that I can feel like I’ve achieved. I love that.

Jess – 00:25:48:

Yes. Yeah. I passed off your list.

Cassandra – 00:25:50:

So it’s like, yes, I did that. Right. And I think that that’s so big is because once you even call yourself a speaker, you tell people, oh yeah, I do speaking, that hits different. That hits different. Right.

Jess – 00:26:02:

So I think you gotta,

Cassandra – 00:26:03:

you gotta name it and claim it. That’s what I would say.

Jess – 00:26:07:

Yes. I love that. And, and some irony I realized as you were talking is I feel like the better I am at saying no. The better I am at also receiving those because it’s almost reshaped the way I think about it where it’s not this emotion-packed decision. It’s just a decision. And there’s a million different reasons why that decision came to be. And so I think like the work that you’re doing around helping people say no is also the same work that we need in helping receive it, which is such like a key part of this whole process. But CassandraLeclaire.com, you are amazing. I’m so glad that you joined Mic Drop Academy and so thrilled to have you as our first student on here. Where can people find you to, I know you have some amazing freebies, but also to book you as a speaker. Where can they find you?

Cassandra – 00:27:01:

There’s a form on my website. So it’s CassandraLeclaire.com and you can connect there and let me know what type of event you have or what you’re interested in. And hopefully we can connect. Also reach out to me on LinkedIn and connect with me there. And if there’s content too that given communication or some of these areas, please also let me know because back to our conversation about not knowing what to put on social media sometimes, that feedback really is helpful because I love to feel like I’m being useful.

Jess – 00:27:28:

Yes, you are definitely useful. I learned so much in this session and we’re going to include that 30 ways to say no in the show notes, but Cassandra, you’re the best. Keep crushing it.

Cassandra – 00:27:39:

Thank you so much.

Jess – 00:27:44:

Thanks for listening to Amplify. If you are a fan of the show, show us some podcast love by giving us a rating and review. And give us a follow at Mic Drop Workshop and at Jess Ekstrom. This episode was edited and produced by EarFluence and I’m Jess Ekstrom, your host. Remember that you deserve the biggest stage. So let’s find out how to get you there. I’ll see you again soon.