Brave on the Waves: With Guests Bianca Valenti & Katherine Coffman

Bianca Valenti: I open my eyes, and I'm still underwater. I have no idea which way is up. All I see is dark. I remember thinking like, "Wow, I have never felt power like this before." Then my foot touches the sand, barely had enough energy to make it to the surface, and I thought, "Wow, if there's another wave behind this, I'm going to die."

Katy Milkman: This is Bianca.

Bianca Valenti: My name is Bianca Valenti.

Katy Milkman: Bianca is a professional surfer recounting a close call, a time when she was literally and figuratively out of her depth. It was a moment that changed her life and her ideas about risk in surprising ways. In this episode, we'll take a look at gender differences around confidence, risk-taking, and uncertainty and how we can all better calibrate our bravado.

I'm Dr. Katy Milkman, and this is Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. It's a show about the psychology and economics behind our decisions. We bring you true stories about high-stakes situations, and then we examine how these stories connect to the latest research in behavioral science. We do it all to help you make better judgments and avoid costly mistakes.

Bianca Valenti: I started surfing on a boogie board in Dana Point, down in South Orange County, so about one hour south of LA, one hour north of San Diego. My mom put her chair at the water's edge and said, "Don't make me come and rescue you," and that was the beginning.

Katy Milkman: Bianca Valenti caught her first wave at the age of seven.

Bianca Valenti: The first wave I caught was probably six inches, and that felt like a big wave. "Whoa, I can't believe I did that." That's the feeling that has kept me going back in the water every single day.

Katy Milkman: Bianca was laser-focused on becoming the best surfer possible. She wanted to compete, but competitive surfing was a male-dominated sport.

Bianca Valenti: I started competing a couple of years later. At that time, there were no girls' divisions. I would compete in the boys' and then the Open women's when there were Open women's.

Katy Milkman: Despite the hurdles, Bianca often reached the top of the podium in these surfing competitions. In college, her confidence grew, and so did her ambition. She wanted a new challenge.

Bianca Valenti: I went to meet my friend at UC Santa Cruz. We got up really early to go because we knew it was going to be a good swell, and everywhere we checked in the morning was already really crowded, so we kept going north, going north, and we ended up at Ocean Beach, and we were like, "Oh my gosh, we're so lucky. We just struck gold." There's offshore winds. It's sunny. It's cold, but nobody's out, and it just looked like these perfect waves that you could do anything on like the ultimate playground. What we didn't know is rule number one of Ocean Beach is that it's always bigger than it looks. We got really lucky on the paddle out, and then, all of a sudden, it was like a two-story-sized house was just teeing up and squaring off and about to crash ten feet in front of us.

Katy Milkman: Once a large wave crests and crashes, the water becomes a foaming, swirling mess. It can be very difficult, and potentially dangerous, to navigate.

Bianca Valenti: I had a really thin leash that you use when you fall, and you're attached to your board, but I didn't think this leash would last, so I decided to try to duck-dive it.

Katy Milkman: A duck dive is a technique where a surfer paddles the board on their belly toward an oncoming wave and then pushes the front of the board down into the wave. The idea is to dive under and let most of the force of the wave pass overhead. In smaller waves, duck dives help the surfer get out to the best surf with less effort. But when that wave is two stories high, a duck dive has to be timed just right, or things can go really wrong.

Bianca Valenti: The second I went underwater, the board was just ripped out of my hands, and it was the most violent, most powerful beating I had ever experienced. I was getting just throttled and smashed and thrashed, and in my mind, I remember thinking like, "Wow, I have never felt power like this before." And then the violence stopped, and I'm still underwater, and I opened my eyes. I have no idea which way is up because I've been spinning and flipping and twisting.

Opened my eyes, all I see is dark, and then luckily my foot touches the sand, and so I go, "Oh my gosh, OK, I know which way is up" and barely had enough energy to make it to the surface. I think I did three strokes, and I thought, "Wow, if there's another wave behind this, I'm going to die." There's just no question, and I had no time even to have any emotions about it. It was just fact, like, "I will die."

And so I came up, surfaced. I was gasping for air. My whole body was convulsing, like convulsions in my neck, my fingers, and you could literally feel all the blood starting to pump around the body again. And then I got to the beach, and I stood on the beach, and I thought, "I want to surf those waves."

Katy Milkman: Not a typical response to a near-death experience, but Bianca was determined to become a big-wave surfer.

Bianca Valenti: I never looked back from that moment. Yeah. So I almost died, and then that's when I decided to surf big waves.

Katy Milkman: Her path was set, but many of Bianca's peers were not convinced that this was a great idea, particularly for a woman.

Bianca Valenti: There has been, by far, more caution and warning than encouragement and celebration of risk. "Be careful out there. Oh my gosh, be safe." Whereas there were a lot of dudes going out with injuries, and they're like, "Look at him. He's so tough. He's going out there in a knee brace."

Katy Milkman: That double standard could be discouraging, but one of Bianca's goals became to help change attitudes towards female surfers. One way to do that was to surf bigger and bigger waves, and there was no better place than her home beach, Mavericks Beach in Half Moon Bay, California.

Bianca Valenti: Sometimes there are storms that pop up locally out of nowhere, and you can have this opportunity to surf big waves. That was the case with this swell. Just showed up out of nowhere a few days ahead of time.

Katy Milkman: It was morning at Mavericks Beach, fog was rolling in and out, and Bianca jumped in the water and spent some time tow-in surfing. That's where surfers ride towed behind a jet ski to catch fast-moving waves. She was a bit tired by the afternoon when conditions started to change.

Bianca Valenti: It was pretty cold, and there is fog in the distance. When it's foggy, it's unsafe to surf in big waves, so we don't know how much time are you going to have out there. These waves that are coming through are just huge, and people are getting really good ones, but it's scary, and it feels like the whole entire ocean is moving.

Katy Milkman: Bianca goes into these surf sessions with a lot of experience and a lot of preparation, and she's equipped with the right gear.

Bianca Valenti: My leash that's attached to me looks like a water hose. It's that thick, and so if I fall or if I have to dive under a wave, my board is attached to my ankle. I'm wearing a padded wetsuit. And then below that, I have a vest with CO2 cartridges that, if I pull a string, they deploy air. So that's called the inflater vest. And then I've got a safety out in the water that's looking out for me and ready to pick me up if something goes really bad.

Katy Milkman: Big-wave surfers have an assigned safety person, essentially a lifeguard with specialized training on a jet ski who's ready to race in to rescue them if they take a bad fall or end up in a really dangerous situation.

Bianca Valenti: We're all out there looking out for each other, and we take training courses in safety every year.

Katy Milkman: The stakes are high, and the risks are real.

Bianca Valenti: Well, if you wipe out, you could get injured. You could get a concussion. You could die. I mean, there's just all kinds of things that can go wrong.

Katy Milkman: With all of that in the back of her mind, Bianca was floating out in the ocean, waiting for the perfect big wave.

Bianca Valenti: I've been out for about an hour, and I hadn't decided to go yet. I'm a little tired. I'm a little cold. It's scary, but I knew I didn't want to go in that day without catching a wave. And so I sat a little bit outside of the pack. There was about 20 people out, and this wave came. When the waves get to be about 40 feet and bigger, the wave starts to sound like thunder or like a deep crack, or like a bomb going off.

For big waves, it is definitely a mind game. I actually need to calm down, so like breathing in with a four-count and then out with the eight-count to calm my heart rate. On the days when it's really big when I could catch a world-record wave, those days I'm focused.

Katy Milkman: Part of that focus is dedicated to getting in the right position and sizing up the wave and the precise moment to drop in.

Bianca Valenti: You have to be strategic. It takes a lot of courage because you're underneath the wave, and it seems like it's going to just come down on you with enough power to light up the entire city of San Francisco. I saw the wave coming to the lineup that, I was like, "This is my wave, and I'm going for it." That wave was 55 feet.

Katy Milkman: 55 feet tall. That's about the height of a five-story building.

Bianca Valenti: I just whipped around, and I started paddling with all my might and focus. Everyone was screaming, "Go, Bianca, go." And as I'm standing up, I'm like, "Yeah, I got this." As I caught the wave, my board immediately went into the air. So this wave was beyond vertical. It looks like you're standing at the edge of a cliff, and the water's below it, and then you have to fully commit and drop in.

Katy Milkman: Imagine the curl at the top of the wave hanging over the rest of the wave like a shelf. At this point, Bianca is basically falling until she hits the part of the wave where she can actually surf and control. This is known as an airdrop.

Bianca Valenti: When you're disconnected from the wave and you're in the air, your odds of landing are exponentially lower. So I'm in the air, and I was just thinking, "Oh no, I do not want to eat it on this wave." I mean, my heart was out of my chest in that moment, and I was so terrified. Some of my worst wipeouts have been on airdrops. Once you're in the air, you could decide, "I'm bailing. I'm just going to choose to cannonball." Maybe you don't get as pounded. You could get out before the wave has fully exploded. But 99.9% of the time, I'm the kind of person who goes for it.

So I start off in a really low squat compressed, and then when I'm in the air, my board drops below me. I stayed committed, and so I went into a full extension in the air. When the board landed, it just landed like butter, and I came right out of that air with more speed and then was able to adjust my feet and do a big turn and then make it to the channel.

Katy Milkman: The channel is the deeper, calmer area off to the side of the big waves.

Bianca Valenti: And everybody's screaming. That was a moment that I was savoring, and still can feel that moment when you're so scared, but you commit, and you go for it, but it's the best feeling when you almost wipe out but don't, or something goes wrong, but you handle it. I ended up winning the Mavericks Awards contest with that wave.

Katy Milkman: The Mavericks Awards is a digital video performance contest where big-wave surfers and videographers submit their best surf content each season. Last year, Bianca came out top in several categories.

Bianca Valenti: But I won the biggest wave, the best wave, the best overall performer of the year.

Katy Milkman: One definition of courage is the ability to confront something that frightens you. While big-wave surfing may not be for everyone, Bianca has found immense satisfaction in confronting her fears and pushing through them.

Bianca Valenti: Anxiety and excitement on the emotional spectrum, they fall in the same place. So the more afraid I am of something, the more enticing it is because I'm just like, "Wow, this is so scary, but maybe it's possible." I love the feeling of going for it. There's that saying, "You don't know unless you go." And there are many times when, if I'm not feeling it, I pay attention to that. I'm not trying to prove anything to anybody, usually just myself.

Katy Milkman: But Bianca is also trying to encourage more women to take up the sport, and she'd like to see female professional surfers paid fairly.

Bianca Valenti: We've started advocating for just access in 2014. I just wanted an opportunity to surf and compete against women at Mavericks, and then we were advised by the California Coastal Commission to also ask for equal pay. And at the time, that seemed really scary to ask for too. We won equal prize money for women in surfing across the World Surf League, and so that set a precedent.

There's still more opportunities for men to compete, but things are changing, and more guys are cheering for us, but we still need more women in the water. Part of the journey that's been fun has been just going out and not caring what anyone says and just going out for me and for my love of the sport. And then being able to use that to send a huge message like, "Hey, women can take risks and do amazing things too."

Katy Milkman: Bianca Valenti is a world champion big-wave surfer, speaker, activist, and entrepreneur. You can learn more about Bianca and big-wave surfing in the show notes and at schwab.com/podcast.

Extreme sports, like big-wave surfing or skydiving or mountaineering, are inherently risky endeavors. It takes intense training, years of experience, and tremendous skill and knowledge to participate safely. But what makes Bianca's story interesting to me, besides the thrill of imagining her careening down a massive wave, is the fact that she's a pioneer in a relatively small community of women who are big-wave surfers and big risk-takers. And while the gender balance is shifting, sports like these still skew heavily towards men. We see this gender imbalance in quite a lot of other settings that involve taking risks and entering competitions, too.

In executive boardrooms and at the top of organizations in the U.S. and abroad, we still see far fewer women than we do in other careers that require taking fewer risks. Gaps are still present at all levels in the hyper-competitive STEM fields too. And while there are known biases that evaluators hold that affect the opportunities women are offered, as well as historical inequities that contribute to their perceptions of what options are open to them, new research also suggests the differences in the ways men and women typically perceive and navigate risk may contribute to these gaps in women's representation in competitive careers.

My next guest is an expert on the role of gender stereotypes in shaping our beliefs and actions. Katherine Coffman is the Piramal Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. We both go by "Katy," so hopefully this won't be too confusing.

Hi, Katie. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today.

Katherine Coffman: It's my pleasure. Good to see you too, Katy.

Katy Milkman: So first, I was wondering if you could just describe in broad brushstrokes what we generally know to be true about gender differences in confidence and risk tolerance.

Katherine Coffman: Yeah. These are really areas that we've learned a lot about through academic work over the last 50 years. There is a body of evidence growing to document gender differences in self-confidence, so beliefs about how good we are, particularly in certain domains.

So those domains tend to be more stereotypically associated with men, so think male-dominated industries, things where you might think men have an advantage in performance on average, so STEM, business, those tend to be the spaces where we see the most robust evidence of gender differences in self-confidence.

In terms of risk aversion, there are some gender differences in risk aversion that have been documented as well. I think those differences tend to be smaller on average than you might expect, but they do seem to show up pretty consistently across different contexts.

Katy Milkman: The general tendency is in those stereotypically male domains, women are less confident, and in general, women are a little bit less risk tolerant. Is that an accurate summary?

Katherine Coffman: Yes. In these male-dominated, stereotypically male areas, we typically see women with lower self-confidence on average than men. And in terms of risk preferences, we typically see small but fairly consistent differences in how risk-tolerant individuals are, with women being less risk-tolerant or more risk-averse than men on average.

Katy Milkman: Could you talk about some of your wonderful research that's shed light on ways that gender differences in both risk aversion and confidence can change behavior and affect consequential outcomes?

Katherine Coffman: Yeah, you can think about confidence and risk preferences as being really fundamental to a lot of the decisions we make. Life is full of uncertainty, and anytime there's uncertainty, we sort of have to form beliefs about "How is this going to play out?" and "What's the likelihood that this is going to be successful. What's the likelihood that I'm right?" And so whether you think about raising your hand in a classroom, answering a question on a test, deciding to apply for a job or a promotion, all of these are sort of risky decisions that I have to decide, "Is it worth it for me to go for this, or should I just opt out altogether?"

And so my research looks at those types of decisions across different economically important contexts. I've done research on test taking and, in particular, multiple-choice test taking. Documenting that when you consider a multiple-choice test with a penalty for wrong answers, you can take two test takers who would perform really similarly if they were forced to answer all the questions. And yet we see women, on average, tend to skip more questions than men, more questions than sort of similarly talented men. And as a result, this can cause them to leave points on the table, right. They're skipping questions that potentially, even if you know it's not extremely likely, they're going to get it right. On average, there's some points to pick up by guessing when you're unsure, and so this can have an impact on test scores.

You can think about similar dynamics playing out in less sterile settings, whether you're thinking about people sitting in a meeting and deciding whether to volunteer their idea or deciding to throw their hat in the ring for a position. There also, we see these differences in the propensity to come forward, particularly in these more male-type domains, with women coming forward less often than men, and, as a result, being recognized for their talents and their ideas less often.

Katy Milkman: Katie, why do you think it is that women are generally more cautious than men in so many of these research studies and in the world?

Katherine Coffman: Yeah. I mean, that is a big question and certainly not my comparative advantage to think about exactly where these differences come from. I think there's evidence to suggest that there are sociological factors that play a role in shaping these behaviors. Think about the way you are received and treated by those around you and what types of behaviors are rewarded.

Well, we don't know exactly how these two things connect to one another. It certainly seems reasonable to expect that if boys, more so than girls, are encouraged or praised for taking chances or being loud, confident, eager, if those types of behaviors are expected and rewarded more so from boys than girls, that this could sort of reinforce these differences in behavior from an early age. And we can think about that playing out in classrooms and even in our home. That's probably at least part of the story.

Katy Milkman: Do you know of any cross-cultural research that tries to get at whether this tendency flips or is reduced in context where those stereotypes are more extreme or less extreme?

Katherine Coffman: Yeah, it's a really good question. So there are some papers that look at matrilineal versus patrilineal societies and, in particular, think about gender differences in competitiveness. And you can think about competitiveness as being connected in part to risk preferences and confidence, right, with men being more willing to compete than women. And we do see in some of those studies that the gender gap in competitiveness is reduced in matrilineal societies relative to patrilineal societies.

Even when we look within a society, the fact that we see different patterns when we think about something like business versus when we think about something like verbal skills again suggests that the stereotypes themselves are what's playing a driving role in producing some of these differences, right. It's not that women are never self-confident or never willing to put themselves out there. It seems to be that the stereotype is shaping the beliefs about yourself, and that's driving behavior.

Katy Milkman: Yeah, that's a really great point in terms of how we can isolate that this isn't just some innate difference. And, of course, there's sensitivity to the reward structure that we see in some of the research too, which points to nurture more than nature.

Katherine Coffman: Of course.

Katy Milkman: So why should we care about this particular gender difference? Where do you think this matters the most?

Katherine Coffman: I think, from an organizational or firm perspective, if we're thinking about how do we sort of capitalize on all the talent and the ideas that we have, these types of differences are really important to consider. If we sort of rely on systems and processes that say, "OK, well, the most talented, the people with the best ideas, they're going to raise their hand and say, 'Yeah, here's what we should do, and here's who should put themselves forward.'"

If we rely on that, we might be missing out on really great ideas, really great talent from people who are going to be less willing to put themselves out there like that. And that type of reliance on self-selection, I think, can really hinder our ability to capitalize on talent, especially underrepresented talent. And so I can give you a concrete example, which is I've had the chance to do a little bit of work with the Innovation Office at Mass General Brigham.

Katy Milkman: Mass General Brigham, the Boston Hospital Network?

Katherine Coffman: Yeah, and so think about innovation in healthcare, whether it's development of new drugs, forming new healthcare startups, there are all these big important ideas out there with critical implications for patient care. And what they've recognized is actually that, despite having a lot of female clinicians and researchers, that women are really underrepresented among the population of individuals commercializing ideas within Mass General Brigham.

And so they've been thinking about exactly these issues, which is how do we get women to come forward with their ideas and how do we provide the structure to make it both acceptable, exciting, rewarding for people to come forward with early-stage ideas so that we can help get those ideas developed and we can capitalize on the ideas from not just the most overconfident or established innovators we might have, but also from people in earlier stages of their career that may also have really exciting promising ideas.

Katy Milkman: OK, so we've talked a little bit about how important it is to think structurally about how do we change things and not blame women or men for the tendencies and the stereotypes that have trickled down and affected their decisions. However, this is a podcast where our listeners are always looking for ways they can combat biases and improve themselves.

And so I want to actually take the lens of the individual who might be worried that maybe I am too risk-averse or too underconfident. There may be male listeners who relate to that and female listeners. What kind of advice would you offer them to ensure they take good risks, whether it's with their careers or their financial portfolios?

Katherine Coffman: Yeah. In my MBA teaching, I teach negotiations, and so you could ask a lot of these questions about negotiations too. "Am I asking for enough? Should I be asking for more?" The advice I give there that I think applies to a lot of these other contexts as well is that information gathering is so critical, right. And these areas where gaps in self-confidence or underconfidence show up oftentimes are areas where we don't have all the information we would like to have, right. Where that question of "Am I good enough?" is really hard to answer because we just don't know.

And so to the extent that information is available, capitalize on that. Go ask people for advice. Ask people, "What would you do in this situation? Here's how I'm thinking about this. What am I missing?" And if you take it to the negotiation context and you want to say, "OK, well, what should I be asking for?" Well, find other people who took that job last year or who didn't take that job last year and ask them, "What did you ask for? What's reasonable? What's appropriate?"

And I think the more information you get, the easier it's going to be to see, "Oh yeah, what I'm asking for is reasonable. Yeah, this does make sense." Or "Gee, I was completely undershooting, and I've heard from all of these others who would ask for more." And that's sort of like evidence and information of "OK, this is good enough. This is enough," I think, can be really helpful in giving you the confidence to change behavior and maybe take a risk or ask for something more than you otherwise would.

Katy Milkman: I love that. That's wonderful advice. So, where you feel nervous, gather more knowledge, and that will plug the holes in your doubt. Fantastic advice. All right. Let's do the flip side too. What if somebody's worried that they're too risk-seeking, that they might go too far, whether it's a male listener or a woman who identifies with this challenge? Do you have advice on that end of the spectrum?

Katherine Coffman: I'd give similar advice there, which is that sort of checking in with those around you and getting that kind of feedback on, well, what others do. How is this perceived? What's appropriate here? I think that's still a useful exercise. And what I often encourage too, sometimes, when we build those types of advice networks, we tend to fill them with people who think like us.

That sort of homophily is an issue in lots of settings, but here it's particularly problematic. Because if you're, let's say, maybe someone who lacks confidence and you have a bunch of other friends who are also on the sort of shyer, maybe less-confident side, and you ask around, then everyone says, "Oh yeah, don't ask for that. Don't ask for that." So you want to have a diverse network of people to ask for advice from.

Katy Milkman: That's great. I love that the key prescription from all of this is just ask for a lot of advice and from diverse sources, and you can't over-ask. So I think that's a fantastic takeaway, Katie. This has been so fun. I have to say also I feel like we took a little risk because you're our first Katy who I've ever interviewed on the show. Anyway, I really appreciate you coming and doing this and taking the time to talk with me today. Thank you.

Katherine Coffman: It was my pleasure, and hopefully your listeners can keep us straight.

Katy Milkman: Fingers crossed. OK. Katherine Coffman is the Piramal Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. You can find links to her work in the show notes and at schwab.com/podcast.

If you'd like to learn more about risk aversion and underconfidence in financial contexts, there's a Financial Decoder episode titled, "How Can You Be a More Confident Investor?" It explores steps that women—and men—can take to feel more empowered to take charge of their financial well-being. You can find it at schwab.com/financialdecoder or wherever you get your podcasts.

Gender differences in confidence, risk-taking, the willingness to negotiate, and the choice to enter competitions can mean that women miss out on valuable opportunities, and that may lead to future regrets. All of these gender differences likely contribute to a lack of female representation in high-sstake settings, which isn't ideal, especially given research by Anita Woolley and others showing that gender-diverse teams outperform all-male groups on collective intelligence tests, among other things. Gender diversity isn't just good because it's fair to give women and men the same opportunities. It can also improve performance.

Some of the gender differences we've described today have arisen because women find they're less well-liked when they exhibit the bravado of their male peers. If this bothers you, like it bothers me, then you have an opportunity. All of us can check our double standards when a woman asks for a raise or a promotion or to enter an athletic competition or competitive career field. Just ask yourself, "How would I respond if a man had taken that very same action?" And for everyone trying to calibrate their own risk-taking, Katie Coffman's advice is excellent. Collect as much information as you can so your decisions won't have to feel risky. And so you'll have good reason to be confident when you make the choice to negotiate or compete.

You've been listening to Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. If you've enjoyed the show, we'd be really grateful if you'd leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, a rating on Spotify, or feedback wherever you listen. You can also follow us for free in your favorite podcasting app. And if you want more of the kinds of insights we bring you on Choiceology about how to improve your decisions, you can order my book, How to Change, or sign up for my monthly newsletter, Milkman Delivers, at katymilkman.com/newsletter.

In two weeks, a look at a consequential election and a spectacular failure in election polling. I'm Dr. Katy Milkman. Talk to you soon.

Speaker 4: For important disclosures, see the show notes or visit schwab.com/podcast.