Everything Changes When You Understand Your Value
An amazing shift takes place when you connect with your unique value. It’s an incredible ah-ha moment!
When you truly understand your value, you present yourself with confidence; your body language changes; your communication changes; your relationships change and the way others perceive you changes dramatically.
For years, women have come to me for guidance on how to promote themselves. They struggle with feeling authentic and comfortable talking about their talent and accomplishments even though their resumes and experience tell a story of great success.
Why is this?
Because we struggle to fit in and be like everyone else in order to be liked. Now, as professionals, we are told that we need to differentiate ourselves and it doesn’t feel right. Somewhere along the line we get messages that we should be quiet about our talent. As a consequence, it becomes more difficult to make the connection back to what makes us truly unique.
We lose the vital connection with who we really are and our unique value proposition. We listen to everyone’s advice on who we should be, what we should do and how we should do it. This external focus distracts us from our own inner wisdom and our core essence.
What does it take to find ourselves again?
In her new book, Take the Lead, Betsy Myers says,
Leadership is a function first and foremost of self-knowledge and honest self-reflection.
How many of us take the time to figure this out?
How can we present ourselves to the world or promote ourselves authentically if we don’t do this self-reflection to find our unique value?
Understand that authentic comfortable self-promotion can’t be faked. It comes from a true understanding of who you are and what unique value you bring to the world.
Take the time to discover your value and this will be your foundation for career success and fulfillment.
I am offering you the opportunity to discover and connect with your unique value proposition so that you present yourself to your clients, your prospects, your colleagues, your friends with authenticity.
The GPS Your Career Group Coaching Program is a journey of self-discovery that will dramatically change your business and career by helping you to position yourself successfully.
This four week course starts February 15th, 8-9pm Eastern and includes four 60 minute coaching sessions, worksheets and stimulating exercises to help you do the deep dive and de-clutter to re-discover who you really are and what you have to offer your company or your clients.
No more struggles with self-promotion! No more struggles trying to get clients or be noticed at work!
The class is limited to 10 participants, so please register now.
Overcoming Nice Girl Behavior
It’s our nature as women due to our upbringing to defer to others and consider others before ourselves. And we need to understand how this type of behavior can sabotage our careers; how being a nice girl result in you being invisible in the workplace; how you can lose respect and you may be perceived by others as not being competent. The nice girl syndrome will hold you back from leadership positions.
Featured Guest
My guest today, Dr. Lois Frankel, will help us to define the nice girl syndrome, understand why this type of behavior sabotages our careers, and what steps we can take to change our behavior. President of Corporate Coaching International, a Pasadena, California consulting firm, Dr. Frankel literally wrote the book on coaching people to succeed in businesses large and small around the globe and she is associated with helping women overcome their Nice girl behavior. Her books Nice Girls Don’t Get The Corner Office and Nice Girls Don’t Get Rich, and Nice Girls Just Don’t Get It, co-authored with Carol Frohlinger, are great resources for women who want to win the respect and success they deserve. Sought-after as a public speaker, Dr. Frankel is among the top names of international speakers. She has appeared on The Today Show, Larry King Live, CNN, and Fox News and been featured in USA Today, People magazine, and The Wall Street Journal. Drop Dead Diva creator, Josh Berman, has optioned the rights to all three nice girls books for a comedy series. For more information about Dr. Frankel’s books, speaking topics and services, please visit her website, www.drloisfrankel.com.
Listen or download the January 30, 2012 show.
13 Tips to Build Assertive Communication Skills
For the past two weeks, the focus of this blog has been how you would handle a situation at work when someone takes credit for your idea. Unfortunately, this happens quite frequently according to many of my readers, and their responses demonstrated a wide range of communication styles from passive to direct and assertive.
Communication experts agree the clearest, most productive and most effective way to communicate is honestly and openly, which is assertive communication. This type of communication allows for the potential for people to also communicate openly and honestly with you.
Assertive communication is defined as clear, direct, honest statement of feelings; use of “l” messages; speaking up appropriately for oneself while considering the needs, wants, and rights of others.
It is important to note is that women who communicate in a direct and clear manner are viewed more favorably in the workplace!
There is a new study from Stanford Graduate School of Business http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/womencareerresearchbyoreilly.html that shows in the business world, women who are aggressive, assertive, and confident but who can turn these traits on and off, depending on the social circumstances, get more promotions than either men or other women.
This is certainly encouraging, yet I find that learning to assert oneself appropriately in the workplace still remains an issue for many women. One of the most effective ways to communicate confidence is to use assertive communication and many women find this challenging. Part of the problem is the lack of confidence to use “I” statements in assertive communication, (that goes against some of the lessons we have learned about always putting others first).
Here are some tips and guidelines to build your assertive communication skills.
- Visualize the person you want to be. How would that person behave and communicate? Do you currently exhibit this behavior and what do you have to change?
- Ask for feedback from trusted colleagues about the way you are coming across. This would be a great discussion with a mentor as well.
- Practice using “I” statements. Stay true to your feelings without blaming others.
- State your opinions clearly.
- Accept compliments with grace. Say “thank you”. It’s simple but somehow we always find the need to give credit to others or discredit the compliment. Give example of someone saying you did a good job and you say the team did it. Well, what was your part in the team effort? What was your contribution? Acknowledge. Don’t downplay the compliment. Take credit.
- Practice giving your opinion at least once during every meeting.
- Make it a goal to speak during every meeting.
- Practice saying “no!” especially when people (your boss or direct reports) delegate inappropriately to you. Don’t fall into the trap of taking on the work when it’s not appropriate.
- Ask for what you need. No one knows everything and the best leaders are those that acknowledge this. Not asking for what you need may sabotage your efforts in the long run.
- Practice expressing your opinion clearly and confronting issues head-on using “I” statements. Avoid the inclination to backpedal and negate your true feelings.
- Build your self-confidence and stay focused on your value. This gives you the courage to communicate effectively. Make sure you are balancing your communication style so that it is not aggressive or passive aggressive.
- Focus on unhooking emotionally from situations with difficult bosses and colleagues. Instead focus on your reaction. You can’t control their behavior. You can only control your reaction.
- Do your homework. When you are negotiating for a raise or asking for a promotion, have all the history and facts about your specific accomplishments and how they have impacted the business. Use benefit language that includes specific outcome and results rather than your effort involved.
My advice is to start practicing assertive communication in a non-threatening situation such as with a customer service representative, waiter or bank teller. When you are faced with a situation in which you feel compromised or disappointed, use “I” statements to clearly express your opinion and build your comfort level with assertive communication over time.
She Stole My Idea and I Don’t Know What to Do
Sometimes ideas come to me at the strangest times, like when I’m taking a shower, at 2 am when I can’t sleep, or when I’m driving my car. But when a great idea comes along you know it right away, right?
This happened to me a couple of weeks ago. As I was driving my car, a light bulb went off. I suddenly thought of a terrific idea to move a struggling project forward. I was certain that this new innovative approach to a stale project would have a positive impact on the project as well as my department and I couldn’t wait to share it with one of my co-workers.
The next day I met my colleague for lunch and I was bubbling over with enthusiasm as I told her my idea. She was equally excited and validated my strategy and creativity. I couldn’t wait to present this at our next senior staff meeting later in the week.
In the senior staff meeting, we made our way through the agenda and the troubled project became the focus of our discussion. I was already thinking about the best way to present my idea when my colleague addressed the senior team with a potential solution; MY SOLUTION! She stole my idea!
My face immediately flushed and I could feel my heart rate accelerate. I didn’t know what to say or do.
This a theoretical situation but my question to you is this: What should I do in this situation?
Has this ever happened to you? What did you do and how did it turn out?
Please email me your thoughts and I will post them next week along with some of my suggestions for how to handle the situation.
Reclaiming Your Identify During Life and Career Transition
Do you ever look in the mirror and ask yourself where the “real” you went? After having a baby or losing a job, all of a sudden you realize that you are no longer in touch with the “old” you, and you’re not quite sure who the “new” you is? Where did that person go or better yet, who are you now?
Being out of the workforce for any reason can cause us to lose our identity because we are so connected to our work that often our jobs become who we are. Any separation from that job, whether for motherhood or other reasons, can sever our relationship with the self that we are accustomed to being.
Now you are ready to reinvent yourself and re-enter the workforce or change professions, but what do you have to offer? Perhaps you are so out of touch that you don’t know where to begin.
The answer is there within you if you take the time to unveil it. What you have to offer is much greater than any position you have held in the past or will attain in the future. Your core essence transcends all of your jobs and is the unique value that you bring to everything you do. This needs to be an internal journey. If you look to others to validate your accomplishments, you are confusing a desire for fulfillment and life purpose with the need for recognition. This external validation will not give you the foundation you need to uncover your purpose and focus.
A clear understanding of what you have to offer gives you the sense of purpose and direction you need to move your life and career forward.
Ask yourself these five questions to start:
- What do you like about yourself right now? What do you dislike?
- Describe a successful situation when you felt totally fulfilled and alive.
- What did you personally contribute to this situation to make it successful?
- What do these qualities tell you about your value proposition?
- What do these qualities tell you about where you should focus your career efforts?
We feel most fulfilled and alive when our strengths are aligned with our work.
Marcia Reynolds states in her book, Wander Women: How High-Achieving Women Find Contentment and Direction,
When you are clear about what you are meant to offer the world in a larger sense, you are better able to make in-the-moment decisions as well as significant life choices. Your sense of purpose gives you both the contentment and direction you’ve been missing.
When you are clear about what you have to offer, you can look in the mirror and recognize immediately the “real” you. This is a reflection of your core essence and value that is not defined by a job but does indeed help you to find the right career.
Living the Life of Your Dreams
Women certainly face many obstacles in business but perhaps the biggest challenge we have is to keep our lives in balance and maintain our own well-being. We are great multi-taskers! We think nothing of running a business, a family, doing volunteer work and putting our energy into keeping everyone happy and healthy. But what happens to our well-being in the process? Often we put ourselves last and burn ourselves out. My guest today, Marilyn Tam, has done it all with great success. She came all alone to the United States from China as a young girl, put herself through college and rose to become a high level executive; President of Reebok Apparel, VP at Nike, and CEO of Aveda. Tune in to hear Marilyn’s inspiring story as well as her valuable tips on how to keep your life in balance and live your life with passion and purpose.
Featured Guest
My guest today, Marilyn Tam, has done it all with great success. She came on her own to the United States from China as a young girl, put herself through college and rose to become a high level executive; President of Reebok Apparel, VP at Nike, and CEO of Aveda. She is also a successful entrepreneur, having developed and built three companies. As a corporate consultant, speaker, author, executive director and co-founder of US Foundation, Marilyn speaks, trains, and consults with companies globally on Leadership, Change Management, Diversity, and how to integrate social and environmental issues to develop successful organizations. Marilyn’s book, How to Use What You’ve Got to Get What You Want, combines her business acumen with her goal of giving back to guide others to achieve their highest potential. In her newest book, Living the Life of Your Dreams: The Secrets of Turning the Life of Your Dreams into Reality, Marilyn reveals the secrets, principles, tools and strategies she and other experts learned and used to achieve a balanced, healthy and joyful life. You can learn more about Marilyn’s books on her website.
Listen to the December 12th, 2011 show.
Being Comfortable in Our Own Skin
Two weeks ago, I attended a Saturday night wedding in Rye, New York. The location was spectacular. The bride and the wedding party were stunning! It was truly a lovely event. It would have been easy to get caught up in the celebration except for one thing. I was so uncomfortable in the strapless dress I was wearing, that I literally felt uncomfortable in my own skin.
Has that ever happened to you?
I think we instinctively know what feels right and authentic; what fits and what doesn’t. In this case, I was so uncomfortable that I couldn’t be myself that evening.
On the flip side, when we are connected to our authenticity, to who we really are, we truly experience not only joy, but personal power. It’s like being plugged in to an energy source that can never run out of juice.
Authenticity is about connecting to the real you. I don’t pretend that this is an easy task. From our childhood forward, we constantly receive mixed messages from our family, teachers, and friends about their expectations for us and what we they think we should do. As we strive to meet others’ expectations for us, we lose sight of who we really are and where we belong.
The insecurities we have can further complicate the issue for they cause us to focus more on others than ourselves. We think more about what we are NOT, than who we are and what we bring to the table. Have you ever wished you were thinner, or smarter, or more successful? When we do this we lose our authenticity and power.
In her new book, Take the Lead, author Betsy Meyers says, “Leadership is a function first and foremost of self-knowledge and honest self-reflection.” She believes that one of the most important aspects of good leadership is authenticity.
Authenticity simply means finding “the real me” within ourselves and being comfortable in our own skin. When you step into who you truly are, you access a source of inexhaustible power. People see you as real, and that causes them to feel a level of trust and confidence that no amount of spin or PR can possibly manufacture.
This connection to authenticity is an important factor in our success. Authentic people show up as genuine and elicit trust. Like them or not, we know where they stand and we trust them. There is no hidden agenda.When we show up as who we really are, we attract clients. People trust us and instinctively know w e are genuine. When we are connected to our value, it becomes much easier to market ourselves in the workplace to advance our careers or grow our business.
Taking the time to discover who we are can take some time and effort. Once we take this journey of self-reflection, however, we will not only be much more comfortable in our skin, but will reap the benefits in long term success and happiness.
Have you lost touch with who you are?
A prospective client called me last week about my coaching services. She had read an article of mine about how to prepare for an interview and was seeking help to better position herself for employment. We talked for a couple of minutes and I asked her what she does. It’s a simple question, right? We are asked this question all the time, but when I posed the question to her she could not answer it. There was silence on the other end of the phone.
“See”, she said. “This is my problem.” I can’t talk about myself let alone describe what I do. Turns out she is a financial analyst and had dropped out for 18 months to have a child and seems to have lost her way.
Of course, I hear this from men and women who are employed as well. We all get so tied up in our daily lives and everyday tasks that it is easy to lose touch with who we are and what is special and unique about us. We lose touch with who we are. I mean who we REALLY are.
Why do we lose touch? Well, we get distracted by the clutter in our lives. We are bombarded daily by the media with new promotions, new opportunities, new gadgets and technology, new theories. It’s easy to get distracted from the essence of who we are unless we are willing to take the time for introspection and meditation.
What’s missing is the connection with our core essence. What makes each of us unique?
I do many workshops to help professionals connect with their value and what I have discovered is that many of us are so disconnected that we lose our way. We need a foundation. We need to re-establish this connection with our value and establish a strong belief in ourselves and our capabilities and strengths. I’m not talking about the normal hype or the mundane adjectives we often use to describe ourselves, but the connection with our true authentic selves.
Do yourself a favor and take some time to re-establish this connection. What are your strengths and what do you contribute to your organization, your family, your community? How would others describe you? Dig deep until you truly understand your value, not what you think others expect of you or what you think you should be. If you dig deep enough you will find your core essence.
It is this core essence that provides the foundation for your confidence and well-being. It is this foundation that will free you to talk about yourself in a positive way and promote yourself with conviction.
Does this article make me look fat?
We live in a culture that adores thin women. To be thin represents the ideal body image and in fact, is also often associated with success and confidence. The media worships thin “beautiful” women on the red carpet in Hollywood or in fashion magazines around the globe. For women this ideal image of beauty has been a long standing struggle.
The obsession with being thin has led to many disturbing eating disorders for women. In fact, a recent estimate of the lifetime prevalence of eating disorders is provided by the National Comorbidity Survey Replication, a face-to-face household survey of 9.282 individuals. According to this survey, 0.90% of women are suffering from Anorexia Nervosa, 1.5% from Bulimia, and 3.5% from Binge Eating Disorder. Altogether, about 9.18 million women have struggled with an eating disorder.
This battle with body image starts at an early age for females but is especially prevalent (or at least more often reported) in high school and college age females.
With this in mind, I looked for experts in this field to better understand this disorder among young women today. Eating for Life Alliance (ELA) is a non-profit organization that provides educational resources on the prevention and treatment of eating disorders to colleges and universities nationwide. I posed some questions about eating disorders in young women to ELA co-founders, Whitney Post and Dawn Hynes. I met Whitney last year at the Massachusetts Conference for Women and was immediately enamored with her passion and mission to help young women
1. How prevalent are issues of body image and eating disorders for young women today? The issue is quite pervasive; 91% of women recently surveyed on a college campus had attempted to control their weight through dieting, 22% dieted “often” or “always.” Also, an estimated 64% of college women exhibit some degree of eating disorder behavior. And on college campuses, administrators report a 24.3% rise in reports of eating disorder concerns among their students.
2. Is diagnosis or identification of the problem an issue? Absolutely! Eating disorders are of the most secretive of mental health issues and often go untreated because of the lack of awareness, education, and resources available. Although there is a lot of hope for those struggling, and recovery is possible with the right interventions, support and effort, it can be a challenge to get some people to treatment. According to the Eating Disorders Coalition (whose mission is to advance the federal recognition of eating disorders as a public health priority), eating disorders can be successfully and fully treated to complete remission, but only 1 in 10 people with eating disorders receive treatment. And for those who do get help, only 35% do so at a specialized facility for eating disorders.
3. Why do you feel it’s more prevalent now? The big picture is that we live in a culture that sets up women, and increasingly men, for body dissatisfaction. Our culture promotes an impossible physical ideal, and then litters the media with advertisements and messages that having the perfect body will in some way solve all problems. Unfortunately, there are no advertisements for how to deal with challenging emotions that are the real issue. It is also often ”invisible” — people can struggle for a long time and still perform in their daily lives, at school, etc., but be emotionally distressed and physically compromised at the same time. And for women in particular, although some may never struggle in earnest themselves, statistics reveal that they will know someone who does, so understanding this issue and knowing how to talk about it is invaluable.
4. What is ELA and why did you start this organization? The name Eating For Life Alliance was chosen purposely for its positive focus – ideally we would all be eating and thinking about our bodies in a way that supports life, not its destruction. We are professionally and personally invested in bringing about a real and lasting change to eating and body image pathology. On a professional level, we have years of experience providing eating disorder treatment, consultation, and advocacy. Our personal investment comes from Whitney’s history of an eating disorder that started in college; in the absence of proper recognition treatment, that disorder continued for almost two decades. Dawn worked as a volunteer for a suicide hotline, and saw that a huge percentage of those calling were local college students dealing with an eating disorder. These experiences resulted in ELA’s leadership to commit to being part of the solution, by working to support college students with these issues.
5. What resources are available for young women? Excellent resources do exist – there are more and more high quality treatment facilities and advocacy organizations, and an increasing number of clinicians are being specially trained in working with eating disorder and body image issues. In addition, there is more research being conducted on causes and effective treatment. That being said, these resources aren’t available in all communities.
6. How can people get involved in ELA or access help from your organization? Visiting the website is the best way to get information. The simplest way to support ELA is to join the alliance on our site – there is no cost, it takes under a minute and it helps support our mission. Additionally, people have volunteered their expertise and resources since the beginning of ELA. We are currently focusing on fundraising efforts, and looking for advisors with expertise in this area as we build our board. We are also eager to work with individuals who may be willing to host fundraisers of any size to benefit our organization.
Have you ever suffered from an eating disorder or poor body image or perhaps know of someone who struggles with this? If so, please get them the help they need to get healthy!
If you have a daughter, what steps do you take to instill confidence and self-esteem in her?
Revisiting the Double-Bind
Women have had to deal with the double-bind or “backlash effect” in business for decades and it has frequently been the topic of many discussions about how women can overcome this prejudice to advance their careers.
In a nutshell, this double-bind is:
To be successful, you must be assertive and confident, but if you are aggressive as a woman you are sometimes punished for behaving in ways that are contrary to the feminine stereotype.
Now, there is a new study from Stanford Graduate School of Business that shows:
In the business world, women who are aggressive, assertive, and confident but who can turn these traits on and off, depending on the social circumstances, get more promotions than either men or other women.
The research suggests that for women to be successful they must simultaneously present themselves as self–confident and dominant while tempering these qualities with displays of communal characteristics.
Women who had more masculine traits (defined as aggressive, assertive, and confident) AND who could temper their behavior (self-monitor their behavior) depending on social circumstances, were actually more successful than either men or other women.
The key is to learn how to self-monitor your behavior. It is still vitally important to assert yourself confidently in the business environment. If you want to advance your career, you need to establish visibility and credibility for yourself. People associate competence with confidence so the more confident you are, the more others will perceive you as competent.
“There is no evidence that ‘acting like a lady’ does anything except make women more well liked,” O’Neill said. “Women with ultra–feminine traits, in fact, are still seen as less competent in traditional managerial settings.”
That being said, it is also important to know when to listen, acknowledge others, and work and empower your team. When your behavior comes across as too self-serving, you will get that “backlash effect”.
“The interesting thing here is that being able to regulate one’=’s masculine behavior does not simply put women on par with men, it gives them even more of an advantage,” notes O’Neill. “This shows that for women who do want success at the managerial level, the paths are there.”
This is certainly encouraging news. Yet I find that learning to assert oneself appropriately in the work place, still remains an issue for many women.
What are your thoughts about the double-bind?
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