You Are Much More Than Your Job
A few months ago, I received a call from a woman looking for help to position herself for employment. She had been out of work for 18 months having a baby and was now ready to begin the process of finding a job. So I asked her what she did. There was a long pause and then she replied in a soft voice. “This is my problem. I can’t talk about myself at all, let alone articulate why someone should hire me.”
Wow! I thought. This was an extreme case of someone who had identified herself with her job and because she had been away from it for a while, she was lost. She was no longer connected to what she believed was her identity and value (her job).
Most of us spend more time at work than we do with our families and friends. We work long hours and our jobs consume a tremendous amount of our energy and focus. It’s understandable that we begin to “become” our jobs, and it’s a challenge to separate our identity and value from our work. That being said, we need to take the time to understand what value we bring to the job and how our value benefits the company and our clients if we want to be successful in moving our careers and businesses forward.
We are much more than our jobs. If all of you reading this had the exact same background and experience, the same position in the same company, you would still be unique and special because of the way you DO your work. Each of us brings something different to our work that defines us and sets us apart. Zeroing in on how you “deliver” the work is the first clue to identifying your unique value proposition and what differentiates you.
Charlotte Beers, former CEO of Olgivy and Mather, writes in her new book, I’d Rather Be In Charge, that it’s not about the work, but the way you deliver the work.
The way you deliver the work comes from an interior place. You know all about the exterior you; it’s right there on your resume. But your delivery is about the essence of who you become when you’re at work, your deepest, truest self sent out to play in the field of work.
Delivery means the way you get your work in front of the right people. It’s how you manage to get the work used properly and, drum roll please, ‘appreciated’.
Ask yourself this: How do you “deliver” the work? What is your contribution? This is your value and identity that will follow you to any job or any company because it’s not about the job, it’s YOU.
When you want to promote or position yourself for a job or attract new clients, remember this. Your value and how it benefits others is what people want to know about; not just what you do but how you do it.
Making a Difference in the World
Today we are going to hear a story that I hope will stimulate you to look inside yourself to discover what you can offer others. We are each here for a reason and we each have unique gifts to offer the world. As you listen to my guest, Jeanne Staples, today, think about what it is that you have to offer and how you can help others with your unique gifts and talent.
Featured Guest
Jeanne Staples has spent her entire professional career working in the arts. She is a full-time, professional artist who lives and works on the island of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, and is represented by galleries in Boston, New England and beyond. You can see firsthand the beautiful work she does on her website, www.jeannestaples.com.
She is also the Founder and Director of PeaceQuilts, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, humanitarian organization dedicated to relieving poverty in Haiti by establishing independent, self-managed and self-sustaining sewing cooperatives, and connecting them to international markets. This organization is best described in a book called Patience to Raise the Sun: Art Quilts from Haiti and their power to change women’s lives.
Listen to the May 16th show at 12 noon EDT or download the podcast.
Are You A Disappearing Woman?
I got married right after college. I had never lived on my own. I had no idea who I was. I knew that I wanted a career. I wanted a family. I wanted it all. 
Well, the family came quickly and I had two children, but then I began to feel very unfulfilled. I loved being a mom, but knew that I needed more in my life in terms of my “own thing”. I was lost and unfortunately, because I lost myself in this marriage, I ended up divorcing my husband.
I can’t be too hard on myself. After all, I saw my mom give up much of her identity in her marriage to my father. It was my role model. She built her life around him, his family, his friends and it worked fairly well. I think they had a good enough marriage, but I wanted more in my life and I had no idea where to begin to find myself.
In her Huffington Post article, author, Vicki Larsen addresses this. She quotes Psychoanalyst Beverly Engel, author of Loving Him Without Losing Yourself, who calls this the Disappearing Woman — what happens when women lose track of what they believe in, what they stand for, what’s important to them and what makes them happy just because they happen to be in a relationship.
No matter how successful, assertive, or powerful some women are, the moment they become involved with a man they begin to give up part of themselves — their social life, their time alone, their spiritual practice, their beliefs and values. In time, these women find they have merged their lives with their partners’ to the point where they have no life to go back to when and if the relationship ends.
Why can’t we stay true to ourselves in a relationship? Engel says that we want to be nice because we’ve learned that being nice is important in order to sustain a relationship. Engel says,
She’ll pretend to agree when she doesn’t really agree, she’ll go along with things she doesn’t really believe in, and if she does that long enough, she’ll no longer know what she feels.
Author Larsen says,
How many women do you know who will break plans or give up a favorite activity for a guy? Not that it’s not OK to do that from time to time or for certain situations; it’s just that somehow in the togetherness of coupledom too many of us forget to have a life of our own. Instead, we look to our partner to fulfill all our needs — and get frustrated and resentful when he doesn’t. Then we see the problem as something wrong with him, and not us.
What are your thoughts? Are we just fulfilling the nice girl syndrome or is it that we don’t have a clear picture of our identity and core essence as a woman before we enter a relationship?
Is Thinking BIG About Your Business or Career Like Bragging?
It’s common knowledge that many people have issues with boastful people. We have a bias against those who seem “full of themselves” and constantly let everyone know how wonderful they are. If the person happens to be a woman, there is even more of a negative reaction to her lack of humility.
If you follow my work and my blog, you know that I help professional women identify and connect with their value and talent and thereby gain
the confidence to promote themselves. (This isn’t bragging or boasting, by the way, but authentically talking about your accomplishments and value proposition.) There is much evidence that communicating your value helps you to advance your career and get more clients.
If you understand your value proposition, what plan do you have to offer your gifts and talent to the world? I mean, what is your BIG plan for your business or career? Do you dare to go there?
I believe that we think small because we are afraid that if we let others know the dreams we have for ourselves, people will think we are “full of ourselves”. We may get the skeptical looks, the rolling eyes, the “are you kidding me?” look. Who do you think you are that you could achieve that?
Well, guess what? If we think small, we stay small. If we keep our ordinary story, we stay ordinary. (I am borrowing that from Suzanne Evans. I just spent three amazing days at her Be The Change Event where I heard this over and over again.) If we want to be extraordinary, then we need to ditch our ordinary story for a bigger one, and we need to be able to articulate that new big story with the same confidence we do our value proposition.
Everything changes when you understand your value. This includes your story and your plans for your career and business. Don’t be afraid to dream big. Don’t be ashamed to create a new big story that expands the way you offer your unique value to the world. It’s not bragging. It’s simply you acknowledging that you have these gifts. It’s simply you understanding your value and believing that you can achieve great success because of it.
What’s your extraordinary story?
Join me Thursday, April 26th for a FREE teleseminar on The 3 Insider Secrets to Marketing Yourself for Success in Business Today.
Learn everything you need to know to position yourself in business today in 3 simple steps!
Is Self-Confidence Your Friend or Foe?
I often talk and write about the importance of having self-confidence for business success. I believe that when you connect with your value proposition, you can talk about your accomplishments and talk up your business with confidence and authenticity, and that most people associate your confidence with competence. 
But here’s another take on the subject. According to author, Margaret Heffernan’s article for CBS News,
The best work isn’t done when you’re confident. The best work comes from pushing yourself beyond what you know you can do.
And she quotes Steven Spielberg on the topic:
You know how many movies, I woke up in the morning, gotten to the set and said, ‘What the bloody hell am I going to do today? I have no idea how to attack this scene.’ All the planning that I did from the safety of my office is no longer valid because the day, the weather we have, the new ideas the actors came to the set with that morning, have trumped every single of my best laid plans and I have to start from scratch.
I get stage fright every single morning. If I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t be a director. You can’t make a great movie from a position of great confidence. The more nervous I am, I think the better the films turn out. Confidence sometimes is a bit of an enemy.
Margaret goes on to say,
Sports coaches will tell you the same thing: Confidence is an outcome. It’s what you get after you’ve done the work, taken the risks, pushed yourself beyond the comfortable, the planned and the knowable. It’s your reward for courage and, if you use it correctly, it will encourage you to take big leaps next time. But it will never offer guarantees, real or imagined.
The question is what comes first here, the chicken or the egg?
Does it take confidence to stretch yourself and move out of your comfort zone or does confidence come from knowing that you took the leap and succeeded?
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!
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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.
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.
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