For generations, women have been taught that being “nice” means being agreeable, accommodating and careful not to make anyone else uncomfortable. But Dr. Kela argues that genuine kindness has little to do with making yourself smaller. In her work and in her book Nice Girls Win, she challenges women to examine the expectations they have inherited and consider what becomes possible when they stop confusing people-pleasing with kindness.
Dr. Kela explores the ways women can become trapped by roles such as the dependable one, the peacemaker or the woman who can handle everything without asking for anything in return. She also addresses why setting boundaries can feel uncomfortable, why perfectionism can keep women from pursuing opportunities before they feel completely ready and how ambition can exist without turning another woman’s success into a measure of your own.
In this interview with The Inscriber Magazine, Dr. Kela discusses what it means to be “powerfully kind,” why women do not need to wait until they feel perfectly qualified to take up space and how the pursuit of work-life balance can become yet another impossible standard. She also shares her perspective on redefining what it means to win, moving beyond titles, money and outside approval toward a life that reflects a woman’s own values.
For Dr. Kela, the message is ultimately about permission: permission to want more, to say no, to change, to be ambitious and to build a life without constantly seeking approval for the space you occupy.
1. What does society actually mean when it tells a woman to be “nice,” and how much of that definition has very little to do with genuine kindness?
Most of the time, society is not asking a woman to be kind. It is asking her to be manageable.
Be agreeable. Be grateful. Do not make the room uncomfortable. Do not want too much, speak too directly, or take up more space than someone else has decided you deserve. Smile while you make it work for everyone. Then call the entire performance “nice.”
That definition has almost nothing to do with genuine kindness. Kindness is how you choose to treat another human being. Niceness, as women have been conditioned to perform it, is often how successfully you can disappear while meeting everyone else’s needs.
In the book, I call this a “historical hangover.” Women have been rewarded for staying in their lane and punished for becoming too visible, too ambitious, or too much. We learned that being easy was safer than being fully expressed.
But I am not surrendering the word. Real niceness has standards. It has discernment. It can be warm without being weak and generous without becoming available for extraction.
Kindness is not making yourself smaller so everyone else can remain comfortable. Kindness is bringing your full humanity into the room, backbone included.
2. Nice Girls Win asks readers to rethink some behaviors they may have been rewarded for their entire lives. Which habit do you think is hardest for women to recognize in themselves?
The habit of being a martyr because it often arrives wearing a halo.
It looks like being the dependable one, the selfless one, the woman who can handle everything. She remembers every appointment, fixes every crisis, carries the invisible labor, and never asks anyone to return the favor. Everyone praises her. Meanwhile, she is exhausted, angry, and keeping a private tally of everything she has done.
That is why it is so hard to recognize. The behavior has been rewarded. It feels like goodness. It may even feel like identity. But if your generosity comes with an unspoken contract – I will do this, and then you will appreciate me, choose me, or never be angry with me – it is not clean generosity.
Have you ever thought that people-pleasing is, at its core, a form of manipulation? That idea may sting, but it is supposed to. And that’s why I say it! People pleasing attempts to manage another person’s response by abandoning the truth of your own.
The way out is not to become selfish or cold. It is to become honest. Give because you want to give. Say no when the answer is no. Stop performing exhaustion as proof of love.
A resentful yes is not kindness. It is a boundary begging to be spoken.
3. Why can setting a boundary feel like an act of aggression to someone who has spent years being rewarded for being accommodating?
Because when accommodation has been your survival strategy, a boundary can feel like social exile.
Your nervous system does not hear, “I am protecting my time.” It hears, “Someone may be disappointed in me, and disappointment means I am no longer safe, lovable, or good.” So a completely reasonable no can feel physically dangerous. Your chest tightens. You overexplain. You add three apologies and a closing argument, hoping the other person will approve the boundary you supposedly just set.
And sometimes people do call it aggression. Not because the boundary is cruel, but because they benefited from your lack of one. Your clarity changes their access. Of course the old arrangement preferred the old you.
But boundaries are not punishment. A boundary is like a map. It tells someone: This is where I stand. This is what I can offer. This is how you can love me well.
You are not responsible for making everyone delighted by your limits. You are responsible for delivering them clearly and respectfully. The other person is responsible for what they do with that truth.
A boundary may create a difficult moment. The absence of boundaries creates a dishonest relationship. Choose the honest moment.
4. The book discusses women taking up space and asking for what they want. Why do you think women so often wait until they have exceeded every possible qualification before putting themselves forward?
Because perfectionism is fear with excellent branding.
Women are taught that confidence must be earned in advance. We wait until we have every credential, every answer, every possible objection handled, and a color-coded folder of proof that we belong. Meanwhile, someone with half the qualifications has already raised a hand, named a price, and entered the room.
We tell ourselves we are being responsible. Often, we are trying to make rejection impossible. But there is no amount of preparation that can eliminate vulnerability. At some point, putting yourself forward means allowing yourself to be seen before you feel completely ready.
In my experience, confidence is the act of starting. You do not become confident and then take the step. You take the step nervous, scared, and imperfect – and confidence catches up to your courage.
I also reject the idea that women must politely wait for a chair to open. Nice Girls build the room; they don’t need to ask for a seat. Apply for the role. Pitch the idea. Raise the price. Put your name forward.
Your qualifications are not what make you worthy of occupying space. They are tools. Stop polishing the tools while somebody else builds the damn table.
5. Is there a difference between being ambitious and being competitive? How does that distinction affect the way women approach their careers?
Absolutely. Ambition is a relationship with your own potential. Competition is a relationship with someone else’s position.
Competition can be fun, useful, and energizing. I am deeply competitive. I like to win. But competition becomes dangerous when another woman’s life turns into the measuring stick for your own. Then her promotion feels like your failure, her visibility feels like your disappearance, and her success becomes evidence that there is less available for you.
That is scarcity wearing a power suit.
Ambition asks a better question: What am I here to build? In the final chapter, I call it “sacred ambition.” The drive to see what beauty, impact, wealth, opportunity, and change you can create with the gifts you were given. It is not about standing above another woman. It is about standing fully inside your own life.
When women confuse ambition with competition, they may shrink their goals because they do not want to appear ruthless. When they separate the two, ambition becomes expansive. Another woman’s win can become evidence of possibility, not a threat.
I do not want her chair. I want all of us building bigger rooms. Compete when the game is worth playing. But never let somebody else’s scoreboard define your career!
6. What happens when being “the nice one” becomes part of someone’s identity? Can kindness become a role that a woman feels trapped inside?
Yes, that’s the whole point! This trap women have found themselves stuck in can be terrifying because everyone loves the version of you who never asks them to adjust.
When “the nice one” becomes your identity, kindness stops being a choice and becomes a job. You are the peacemaker, the fixer, the emotional air-traffic controller. You absorb the tension, smooth the edges, and make yourself endlessly useful. Eventually, you are no longer asking, “What do I want to do?” You are asking, “What would the nice version of me do so nobody is upset?”
That role may earn approval, but it can cost you a relationship with yourself. You begin to resent the people who rely on a version of you that you keep volunteering to perform. Then you feel guilty for the resentment. So you perform even harder.
I want to offer a different way to look at kindness: something that’s stable, strong, and doesn’t need validation from the outside world. That is being powerfully kind. You keep your heart, but you stop handing everyone else the steering wheel.
You are allowed to disappoint the identity people assigned you. You are allowed to be kind on Monday, direct on Tuesday, unavailable on Wednesday, and ambitious every damn day.
Kindness is one of your powers. It is not the cage you have to live inside.
7. You also address the pressure to balance everything perfectly. Does the pursuit of work life balance sometimes create another impossible standard for women?
Of course it does. We took an impossible workload, added the word “balance,” and somehow made women responsible for performing the impossibility beautifully.
Perfect balance suggests that work, family, health, friendships, ambition, rest, and joy should all receive equal attention at the same time. They will not. Some weeks the business needs more. Some days your family does. Sometimes you need to shut the laptop, leave the dishes, cancel the plan, and go take a nap.
In the book, I use the image of a seesaw. You are not frozen in the center; you are moving intentionally between the different parts of your life. I write that staying engaged is less about “finding balance” and more about being honest with yourself.
And here is the line women rarely receive permission to believe: “You cannot have it all at once, so stop trying.” That is not defeat. It is relief. You can have unequal, beautiful parts of everything you want across a whole life.
The goal is not perfect distribution. It is honest alignment. What needs you now? What can wait? What can be delegated, automated, or dropped entirely?
Balance is not a photograph. It is a living negotiation, and you are allowed to move.
8. How should women respond when they finally start establishing boundaries and the people around them react negatively because they are accustomed to the old version of them?
Expect the reaction. Do not confuse it with evidence that the boundary is wrong.
When you change, the system around you has to change too. The people who were comfortable with your endless availability may call your new limits selfish. The people who benefited from your silence may call your clarity harsh. The people who knew how to access the old you may push harder when the door stops opening automatically.
That discomfort is information, not instruction.
Be clear. Be respectful. Do not turn your boundary into a courtroom argument. You are not required to produce enough evidence to earn a verdict of “reasonable.” You are responsible for your delivery, but they are responsible for their reception.
Then hold the line long enough for everyone, including yourself, to learn that you mean it. A boundary you abandon the moment someone reacts is not a boundary. It is a suggestion.
Some relationships will adjust and become healthier because the truth has finally entered the room. Others may reveal that they were built around your compliance. That can hurt, but clarity is still a gift.
You are not betraying the old version of yourself. You are protecting the woman she worked so hard to become.
9. What does winning look like when you remove external markers like titles, money, promotions, status, or other people’s approval?
It looks quieter, and it feels infinitely better!
Winning is waking up inside a life that actually belongs to you. It is peace in your body, ownership of your time, work that feels meaningful, relationships that can hold the truth, and enough energy left to enjoy what you have built. It is being able to look at your calendar and recognize your values in it.
Money, titles, and promotions can be wonderful. I am not pretending they do not matter. I love ambition, abundance, and visible success. But those things are evidence, not identity. If the applause disappears and your entire sense of worth disappears with it, you never owned the win. The room did.
The final chapter calls winning “a personal scoreboard.” Because mo one is keeping score but you. Your real metrics may never appear on a resume: how deeply you loved, how bravely you told the truth, how often you chose integrity when nobody was watching, and whether people felt lighter because they crossed your path.
Winning is alignment – what you think, what you say, and what you do moving in the same direction.
The trophy is not the life. The life is the trophy.
10. Who do you think most needs to read Nice Girls Win: the woman who has never allowed herself to be ambitious, or the woman who has achieved a great deal but still feels guilty about wanting more?
Both women. Because they may look completely different while living inside the same permission problem.
The first woman has learned to bury her ambition before anyone can judge it. She calls contentment a virtue, but somewhere inside her is a dream she has never allowed to become a sentence. She needs permission to admit that wanting more does not make her ungrateful.
The second woman has the title, the business, the awards, or the beautiful life, and still believes she has to justify every new desire. She keeps moving the finish line, then feels guilty that achievement did not silence the wanting. She needs to understand that success is not supposed to cure her of expansion.
I know that second woman intimately. I built, achieved, carried, and kept going until I could no longer recognize myself. The answer was not to become less ambitious. It was to stop building success on self-abandonment.
The book is for any woman who feels stuck or simply wants more from life. Near the end, I write that sacred ambition is the permission to want what you want simply because you want it.
You do not have to earn your next desire by suffering for the last one. Want more. Name it. Build it. And do not apologize for the size of your life.
