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In this episode of the She Lift Project Podcast, Cynthia Kirkpatrick sits down with Lauren Colbert, Principal Strategic Facilitator at Filament, a one-of-a-kind analog thinking space located in the Cortex Innovation District in St. Louis. Lauren helps smart people think better together, working with organizations ranging from local nonprofits to Fortune 50 companies to unlock honest conversation, eliminate political noise, and produce real momentum inside rooms where teams have been stuck for years. This episode explores how Lauren built her career, what Filament actually does, and why the way most teams meet is quietly costing them everything.
This episode is for leaders, team builders, and women who have ever felt like the culture around them was slowly suffocating who they really are. Listeners will learn why the best leaders stop trying to have all the answers, how to replace performance with genuine thinking, and what it looks like when a room full of skeptics becomes a room full of believers. After listening, you will walk away with a completely different way of thinking about meetings, leadership, failure, and what it means to show up fully as yourself.
0:00 Introduction
1:15 What Filament does and why it exists
3:20 Why Filament banned PowerPoint 11 years ago
5:29 The value add is the thinkers at the table
8:07 Why we have been conditioned to perform instead of think
10:49 Reframing failure as tuition you paid
13:27 The tuition receipt practice for teams
15:07 The unlock: what it looks like when skeptics come around
17:09 The give a damn button and why broken culture hurts everyone
21:00 Taking stuck and becoming unstuck
22:44 Why people call it magic and what it actually is
25:16 Space holds memory: why neutral territory matters
28:38 The Wish, Wonder, Worry tool explained
30:34 Balancing power and sweeping away eggshells
34:21 Why Lauren is grateful Filament exists
38:25 Thanksgiving: the nonprofit and business partner program
42:16 Wavelength: the women’s professional development community
44:45 I was building something I didn’t know I needed
49:22 Lauren’s origin story: being a twin and b testing her whole life
53:00 Her dad said soften your edge. She sharpened her sword.
55:10 What she does for her granddaughter Milena now
59:00 The Filament job she didn’t get the first time
1:01:02 Why the rejection needed to happen
1:08:48 You were never lost. You’re not a $10 bill.
1:11:50 Getting divorced with nothing and grinding back
1:14:26 Truly collaborative, not performative
Content Notice
This podcast and all She Lift Project content represents the opinions of Cynthia Kirkpatrick and her guests. The content here is for informational purposes only, and should not be taken as professional advice – financial, legal, medical, or otherwise.
Views and opinions expressed in the podcast and across all She Lift Project media channels are our own and do not represent that of our places of work. While we make every effort to ensure that the information we are sharing is accurate, we welcome any comments, suggestions, or correction of errors.
“I got to a point in Frank’s office where I realized there was kind of a ceiling. People that I had come in after me, I was training, were now moving up. And my ego got to the best of me. This is the dream job. Like, what happens after Frank Gehry? What could possibly be next after that?”
“Research actually shows when there’s this lack of trust in a relationship, this lack of connection, the same part of our brain that processes physical pain gets activated when there’s an emotional pain. Right? And so if I’m feeling rejected or I’m feeling like I’m not part of the team or I’m not valued in any way, that part of our brain activates and says, like, pain. And so if you think about it in that way, think about the number of people who are walking around your office every day in pain.”
“Women in their 40s start to disappear from photographs because they think that they’re not young enough, thin enough, pretty enough. But the truth is that when you are in your 40s, you are leading a company, you’ve had children, you have a family, you’re doing things in your community. This is when you should be photographed.”
“You have to be cautious and mindful of the board of directors you invite into your head. And we as women especially listen terribly to that board of directors. And if you have one bad seat on there, one bad teacher, one bad classmate, one whatever from your history that you are listening to, it can really sabotage you.”
“You just have to do it, come back and face what is new and different and learn and grow. You can’t stop thinking. You have to keep thinking, how can I go forward with this. Nothing has to be the way it is. It isn’t going to be a straight line, it’s going to take its own path, and you have to be ready to follow that path and move forward.”
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