Tech Exec Wellness Podcast: Conversations to Reignite Your Soul
In the fast-paced world of technology, where innovation and disruption are the norm, tech executives often find themselves caught in a whirlwind of high-pressure decision-making, long working hours, and constant connectivity. The relentless pursuit of success and the demands of their roles can take a toll on their mental, emotional, and physical well-being. However, a new narrative that emphasizes the importance of tech executive wellness as a crucial component of sustainable success is emerging. This is the story of the tech executive's journey to rediscover balance, prioritize well-being, and ultimately thrive in their personal and professional lives.
If you're ready to embark on a wellness journey that will empower you to live your best life, I invite you to subscribe to Tech Exec Wellness, Navigating the Digital Balance, wherever you listen to podcasts. Together, let's cultivate harmony within ourselves and radiate positive energy to the world. Each week, we'll explore a wide range of topics related to wellness, inviting experts, thought leaders, and everyday individuals who have transformed their lives through mindful living, self-care, practices, and holistic approaches. We'll dive deep into areas such as nutrition, fitness, mental health, spirituality, mindfulness, personal growth, and more.
Tech Exec Wellness Podcast: Conversations to Reignite Your Soul
Empowering Women in Leadership: Overcoming Obstacles and Shaping Success with April Little
Ready to unlock the secrets of career advancement and leadership? Join us for a transformative conversation with April Little, a distinguished career coach and VP of HR at a cutting-edge security startup. April shares her compelling journey from volunteer recruiter to executive leader, shedding light on the concept of the "broken rung" and the obstacles women encounter in their climb to the top. Her insights into the importance of representation and possibility models will inspire you to see yourself in leadership roles.
Discover the driving force behind April's mission to empower women in the workplace. Through her extensive experience in executive recruiting, she observed how men often ascended to high positions fueled by confidence and risk-taking, despite not always having stellar qualifications. This realization led her to create a company that helps women negotiate better salaries and promotions. April provides actionable strategies to overcome imposter syndrome, build unwavering confidence, and navigate career advancement without feeling the need for additional degrees.
But the conversation doesn't stop there. We dive into the critical role of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in leadership and organizational wellness. April emphasizes the necessity for leaders to genuinely commit to DEI initiatives, build relationships, and lead with empathy from the ground up. Learn how to enhance your personal brand on LinkedIn, particularly during uncertain job markets, and make incremental improvements in both your personal and professional life. Tune in to gain practical tips on articulating your accomplishments and securing your career future.
Please visit our website https://www.techexecwellness.com to stay up to date and subscribe to our newsletter!
Welcome back to another episode of the Tech Exec Wellness Podcast. I'm Melissa and I'm delighted to have April Little here with me today. Just to give you a little bit of information about April she is a career coach for women with over 15 plus years of experience in talent acquisition and human resources. She was previously the VP HR at a security startup. As a career coach, april helps women secure promotions into leadership positions. Her expertise has been featured in the Harvard Business Review and LinkedIn News. She holds a bachelor's and master's focused on HR and organizational development. So, april, welcome to the show. Before we get started, I'd like to know our listeners would like to know what your favorite music genres are and artists, and if you could share a memorable concert experience with us.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome. So, melissa, thank you so much for having me, and my favorite genres right now are gospel pop and R&B. There's some rap there too, but I would say that that's more of a number four.
Speaker 2:My favorite artist that I really like. I didn't mention country just because it doesn't feel country. His name is Shibuzy and it's the Bartizzi song that just came out. That's my favorite song right now. Yeah, it's very upbeat. And my favorite concert that I've ever went to would have to be the On the Run tour with jay-z and beyonce in san francisco back in 2014. I really enjoyed that concert and the concert that I always wish I went to, but I was too young to go. Just adding this in I would have really loved to go to a michael jackson concert in fallout. He wants to put water on me and go to the. That would have been. That would have been a highlight for me, but I I happened to be like 11 when he was doing those things.
Speaker 1:Well, my mother did see the I think there was the tour with the family, and then Jay-Z and Beyonce. I love them both. I did see Jay-Z at the Hard Rock something no, no, no House of Blues in Chicago. He puts on an excellent show. So, yeah, one of my favorites, for sure.
Speaker 2:He does. I would actually dare say that his set was one of my favorites, because they pretty much split the concert in half, so I knew all the Beyonce songs. Of course there's some ballads there, but in terms of if you want to get out of your seat and start jumping up and down, it was the Jay-Z part for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember that. Can you walk us through for the listeners? I met April on LinkedIn and she puts out a lot of great thought leadership and content and it really resonated with me. So, april, can you give us an overview of your career, like where you started, where you are now, what you're doing, all that good stuff?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So. I am graduated during the last recession with my master's degree, so I was saddled with 50K in debt. No one would give me an opportunity to work in HR. So I got my start as a volunteer. So I volunteered here at Rochester at the Center for Disability Rights as a volunteer recruiter. And I know some people are thinking April, that's extremely privileged of you. I can't afford to work for free and often when I tell that story I let people know. And in addition, I was working full time and when I was volunteering it was only for two hours on Friday every week, so it was not a lot of my time, but it was enough to get the basics down to then land my first recruiting job in staffing.
Speaker 2:I stayed in staffing for a while so I did, you know, customer service roles, tech roles. Eventually I moved into healthcare recruiting and that was recruiting for everything from a licensed practitioner like nurse practitioner all the way down to the support staff. Then I moved into academia recruiting where I recruited for adjunct professors and tenure track professors. From there I moved into engineering recruiting and then I went to government contractor where I did some recruiting and it was there during that last five years of my career that I started to accelerate.
Speaker 2:I was really comfortable being an individual contributor, but a lot of it was just I didn't think I could do it Right and I didn't see anyone like me and it really came down to okay, maybe I don't see anyone like me, so I'm probably supposed to be the person, and within a five-year period I went from individual contributor to executive. That is almost unheard of, but I took that path from being a fast tracker at my job and then leaping over to a startup to become a director, and then I performed so well for the CEO in terms of that role, for hybrid growth and all that he then asked me to do the VP of HR role.
Speaker 1:That's impressive. One thing that you said there is you didn't see people like yourself. I can relate to that. Why do you think that is? Why do you think we're not seeing women like us in these roles using?
Speaker 2:it correctly, but it's called the rung. Do you know something about women who never make it to their first leadership role?
Speaker 2:I'll have to find the term, but it's a term, a leadership rung term, about how most of us never make it out, and part of that is because men lead in a way that maybe we can't see ourselves doing it and we really need to think about, well, the way that we would do it, even with a feminine twist, is still just as impactful, and so we could be even comparing ourselves to. It's called that we have to fix the broken rung. That's what it's called. So the broken rung is essentially a glass ceiling for women that never make it beyond, like a high level individual contributor and that's where gender parity really fizzles out is beyond that high level individual contributor into the first leadership role, and I really do think it's because we often don't have anyone that looks like us. So therefore we don't have possibility models and therefore we can we convince ourselves that good enough is good enough.
Speaker 1:And I can certainly relate to that. So what inspired you? Do you think that's what inspired you to help women secure promotions and seek leadership?
Speaker 2:So the reason I think what really inspired me was first, before I made a decision to accelerate my career, I started doing some executive recruiting and so I started seeing you know, thought processes, experiences, talking to these individuals, and so I started seeing you know thought processes, experiences, talking to these individuals Most of them were men and looking at their backgrounds and you know, not speaking to a lot of women and one of the things I noticed, melissa, is that they weren't smarter than anybody else I knew. They might have believed in themselves a little bit more. I've said this before my last executive that I actually hired about five years ago. I wrote a million dollar salary package for this person and he had a bachelor's degree in finance from like 1988. Right, right, and that's not discounting his experience. He's a brilliant individual. He's actually still at the company that I hired him for today, presently, but that just goes to say they are, they're taking chances on themselves. They're also in environments I won't say that they're not in environments that insulate that but they're taking more chances on themselves and that's what really inspired me and that's what inspired me to start my own company, because people are like, well, you work for yourself, but you're helping people with their careers. But the truth is, the way I help someone with their career is not a way I could ethically do that in any role in corporate without getting in trouble.
Speaker 2:And really, what did it for me was I was extending an offer to a woman and it would have been her first mid six, her first mid five figure offer, and it was for a specialist role, and she said she wanted 60. I thought she was fantastic, and so I found myself, before pay transparency was even popular and even legalized knowing what the starting rate was, not being able to share it. But I found myself saying so you said you want 60? What do you want? She's like I want 60. I'm like.
Speaker 2:So you want 80? Yeah, yeah, I want 80. Okay, that sounds good. So you know, and I found myself doing that. Obviously that's not congruent with the role I'm hired for, and so I knew I had to take a lot of that experience and package that up. And yes, I'm on the outside, but pay position is pay position right, and I know that most, coming from HR, most people are brought in between 50 and 75% of paid position. So it's just up to us to do that research and for me to help empower you to go get what you want.
Speaker 1:I love that and, from my position, when I see what you do on LinkedIn, the content, the thought leadership, one thing that I've gone on and done on my own is how can I be better have you heard of self-concept and how it can empower you to better present yourself?
Speaker 2:I feel like I've heard it, probably a version of it, but would love if you can expand.
Speaker 1:I like to look at TikTok a lot, usually at night if I'm winding down, and it's kind of one of these things law of attraction, affirmations, a self-concept is getting a sense of who you are and presenting to people how you are, trying to think of an individual or something like that. Okay, you see actors and whatnot. A lot of them are introverts but when you see them out, you see this persona of confidence, of they're good communicators, but in reality that's just who they're telling themselves, who they are. You know, this is who I am. It's like forcing yourself to be that person. I think it's positive because some of the things that I've read and I saw a lot of us women out there we have imposter syndrome. We don't think we're good enough with self-concept. It kind of helps us remove an obstacle. It's confidence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree, and it's sort of like the book that I read. That action, that clarity often comes through. I often have clients now that say, hey, I want to work on my confidence and instead of me pulling something out to work on their confidence and we do we do some mindset work. A lot of it is putting things on trial, but it's getting really comfortable with the fact that, whatever it is that you already have, going back to what you said, the thing that's going to carry you, and it's your job to extrapolate what those things are.
Speaker 1:I like that You're doing some good stuff there, because I never would have heard of it I never would have dug into it if I hadn't seen your content and checked it out on TikTok. What is your advice to overcome these obstacles?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the obstacles, specifically when we were talking about women who want to accelerate their career and make incremental steps towards either of the environments that they're in or they don't feel like they have support, and there's a lovely quote by Lovey Ajay who said if you don't feel safe, find safe people, which goes into sort of what I've been talking a little bit about with them maybe just not feeling like they have a cabinet. And that's where that's the first thing right. I think the other thing is thinking that we always need something. I'm thinking we always need another infinity stone. Um, if anyone has watched infinity war, so going out and getting all these degrees, certificates, men are not doing. They're not going out thinking that they need to go get another certificate or degree. It rarely translates anyway.
Speaker 2:So the first thing when we think about confidence is writing everything out, because I am not one of those people that thinks imposter syndrome is always a bad thing. I think it's a bad thing when someone else has put a seed in you that has grown. I think it's a bad thing when you just are not empowered by the people that you are around to do better. And so it's a good idea to start journaling and write down the things that you do well. Write down some of the things that you wish you could do better. Write down some of those quiet parts that are unspoken, the things that scare you, the things that say you're going to write all those things out right. Put them on trial. If some of them, if there's credence to some of those thoughts, then that is where your gaps are and that's how you start building. Your confidence is covering those areas. So instead of trying to hide them, you can actually use them to your strength. I love that.
Speaker 2:I think the second thing is when we don't feel like we have support in the environment, it's looking for safe people. It's looking for building up that executive cabinet. And I always tell people I'm not just going to tell you to go get sponsors and mentors and peers I like to get even more prescriptive. I think you need at least two to three sponsors, I think you need at least two mentors and I think you at least need one to two peers. They all serve different purposes, but I call that your internal MBA. You should be picking those sponsors based off of maybe some areas of opportunity.
Speaker 2:So if you're not a great communicator, you're not great at influencing, but you've observed some of the leaders that you've worked with that have influence. They're likely these individuals are at least a level or two levels higher than you. Observe them for a while and then go up to them and let them know hey, I noticed you do this really well and it's actually an area of opportunity for me. Would you be open? Oh, having 15 minute check-ins bi-weekly and think about it. The further they are up, of course you can't have as many check-ins. So think about proximity as well and how many meetings you can have, whereas maybe someone directly higher than you can meet with them twice a month. But when it starts getting skip level, maybe it's once a month, maybe it's quarterly. When it starts getting skip level, maybe it's once a month, maybe it's quarterly. When it starts getting C-suite, get mentors.
Speaker 2:These are individuals that are really helpful, and I think one of these individuals need to be external for a mentor. So that way, if you are having workplace issues you're dealing with, like some issues of emotional intelligence, I always want to ensure always ensure that you are framed appropriately at work and you utilize that external person for that. And I think you can have an internal mentor too. But there's discernment that comes in with it as well. Right and the same with peers.
Speaker 2:We often overlook people just because they're not titled, and these are the individuals that are most knowledgeable about the organization. They've been there through changing leadership and they can offer you a perspective that no one else can. So I think that that's what solves that too. Right Is having that group of success partners for you, and I think you know. Think about how to fill those gaps in through experiences, leveraging the experiences of others to fill in gaps instead of looking to go back to school and that goes into the third thing, thinking that you need a degree and all that. You can do that through a relationship and leveraging experience. If you want to go back to school, if you are a lifelong learner, go right ahead. But I had someone reach out to me a few weeks ago that was making a decision about getting a PhD because she wanted to be an executive, and I can't tell you how many people I've seen extremely grossly under titled with masters and PhDs.
Speaker 1:I'm a lifelong learner. I like to go to school, but I think you're right. There's this misconception of I need to have all of these degrees, I need to go to this school. I couldn't even think about doing a PhD. I had some peers that did but that's not something that I aspire to.
Speaker 2:I do too. I just think that think about it. Now. We're at the age of AI. A lot of these school programs don't have AI built into the curriculum, so then it turns school into this big ivory tower and it rarely translates to what we're doing today. So if you're going to go back to school really, the basis of why I say not really to go back to school is obviously time Universities are not handing out scholarships to individuals who are just going back to school for another degree. They're just not. They're not doing, and so I'm seeing people go out and they take out educational mortgages for something that just doesn't have a guarantee or on ROI at the baseline.
Speaker 2:But definitely, when we start thinking about executive level, I want you to start thinking about experiences as the degree. I want you to start thinking about your skills that you have as the degree. If maybe you are a good project manager, your ability to manage the crap out of a project is probably going to be the thing that will get you to executive leadership. If you are a really good communicator and you all should be when you're trying to get there. In fact, that is the reason why, melissa, and I'm sure you can think of someone where you're like this person got a promotion and they're not even half as good as me. Well, let's reframe that. They are. It is a skill to turn mediocrity into something amazing when you communicate it.
Speaker 2:Now, that's not to say that there's probably not nepotism in there, favoritism, things like that. I understand that's independent of that, but the ability to talk about what you do is really important. I just want people to start thinking about isolating some of the things that have carried them, that have gotten them promoted. Those skills are going to be the things that will keep carrying you, and it's not a matter of what got you there, won't get you here, but those are still going to be some indicators, right?
Speaker 2:Those are those early indicators of some things that you have that help you shine, and you need to be opening those as you go along, versus trying to go get another skill set. Like, for example, if you are not good with data and you go get a certificate in data, you're probably not going to become an executive in data analytics anytime soon, right? Because that is something you need 10,000 hours in. They become an expert in, and certainly there are a lot of leaders who are not functional expertise leaders, but we are not in that time right now anymore. These just have what I call a visionary leader and they can lead the function without, independent of the expertise. That's not the time we're in right now and certainly when we get back there it's something you can look at, but you will still have some kind of expertise that will lead you to the next position.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic information. Let me ask you this on the flip side, what can organizations do to be more inclusive and provide more opportunities for women?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I'm getting ready to say something, because I know that DEI has been turned into a bad word recently, but I would be remiss if I didn't bring it up. As a TA leader, one of the things that we did was we ensured that the composition of the talent slate always were balanced. Looking at everyone and saying let's stack, rank them, okay, let's make sure that we have these individuals being considered for opportunities, and that is going to be the first thing. Right is making a commitment. It is also making a commitment to call out people who are upholding patriarchy in their departments, and I've seen it time and time again where we would send candidates over and they would find a way to articulate that the person was not a good fit.
Speaker 2:One of the things I really enjoyed about my last role my last leader did not go for it. If she saw that candidates were constantly being churned out, she was going in and she was a part of their interview panel. And sometimes, as leaders, it's not just a matter of you making this big declaration that you want the company to be 33% diverse, 33% female by 2030. It's also making sure that you and your leaders go in and you're on those star interview teams to make sure it happens.
Speaker 1:Dei let's talk about that for a minute and I want to pivot it toward wellness, because I think a lot of people I don't have those stats on me now, but it looks like a majority of the people that are in the unemployment sector are part of those DEI programs, and I think when we talk about wellness, there's some burnout and there's some was it me. Is there something I'm doing? What would you say to those people? What can they do to kind of boost themselves up?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I will say that I, while I did have a heavy, heavy touch on DEI I didn't work directly as a practitioner but what I can say is it's worth doing the work and it's worth making sure that you're also building those those, building those allies. So I have a client right now who works in DEI, but what she's doing, in addition to what her job calls for, is not only is she building out her own executive cabinet for her growth, she's building it out and getting them excited about why DEI is important. So it could be going that extra mile and building relationships with different people in different pockets of the organization. So it could be going that extra mile and building relationships with different people in different pockets of the organization so that way you can start to influence the room when you want to put things out there. Because right now what I'm hearing from DEI practitioners is that they feel like they're litigating every time they need to put a new policy in place or a new recommendation in place, and those recommendations will never pass if you didn't get buy-in beforehand. So I do think that relationships are critical in really identifying those, because that's where you're going to influence and get that work done.
Speaker 2:And two, just know that, even though you might be moving the needle, at one point it might have felt like we were making incremental steps of 10% improvement and now it feels like it's reversed back to 1%. Just know that even that 1% is better than nothing and you are still doing really critical work. And also, too, if I can even take it a step further, thinking about, even before you even accept these opportunities, what I have my clients to do to make sure that people are living these boilerplates that they have on their websites about being committed to diversity right. It's going on the website, it's going on LinkedIn and it's not reading the boilerplate. It's not even listening to what they say in the interview. It is actually going to the LinkedIn and looking at women and diverse individuals that have promotion lines next to them. That's gonna be an indicator if you're going to a company that practices what they preach.
Speaker 1:I find it so interesting. You know, I served in the military and we I mean you think of like every country in the world, every state, every different class, ethnicity. We had it all in the Navy and we all worked very well together and it wasn't until I got into the civilian life that I saw this disparity and I think I'm a little disappointed. I think it was Tim Cook or Steve Jobs Diversity drives innovation and I totally believe that If we want to create these wonderful things of the future, we've got to have people from different cultures, etc.
Speaker 2:And if I were to take it a step further, while that is a nice selling point, what leaders have to do is they have to understand if you have to use selling points of KPIs to bring in diversity, then you have a deeper root cause issue, because humans shouldn't have to have this additional extrinsic value tied to them just to give them a chance. If someone is qualified and they have a little bit more melanin or they are a woman, they should be given a fair opportunity. They meet the qualifications of the job and I'll even say this oftentimes, melissa, when I was hiring women and diverse individuals, they often let me give you an example maybe the job costs for seven years of experience. They often had two more years of experience. They often had one additional degree. Wow, that's interesting.
Speaker 2:They often had more experience, and so this whole idea or this concept that's coming about, that someone's a DEI hire, for example, the director of the Secret Service that got grilled and it was extremely just disgusting she was being called a DEI hire Wow, yeah, not the credentials, right, just the interesting.
Speaker 1:How do you think this is going to get solved?
Speaker 2:I personally think it can be solved by ensuring that people who are being hired meet the values of the company. We're still trying to solve it from a KPI perspective. That's actually where you get the term DEI hire from, because people think they're doing someone a fake. And so when these CEOs get up there and they start talking about, oh, I want to bring in a woman, I want to bring in someone of color, it's important that they back that up.
Speaker 2:And you remember that show that came on in the early 2000s where the CEO would go, get dressed up and he would work alongside the workers for a week and see the conditions that they were in. I forgot what it was called, but that is what needs to happen. Then you're C-suite right. Remember, like when they used to have workforce analysts come and sit and monitor someone and see what they were doing, to actually get a better idea of what they should be paid, how much work they do in the job class. Start doing that more. You can't just keep leading from the top. You need to lead from the middle and from the bottom.
Speaker 1:I would agree with that and I think I liken that to again. I'm going to bring up the military. Of course I wasn't an admiral or anything like that, but even when I was in a leadership position, you have to have an idea of what's going on, what are the challenges. And you know there's people that are introverts and they've got some, really some ideas. They may know of some missteps in the supply chain or something, but they don't talk because you've got the extrovert over here who's like oh, I did this, I did that, and I think you're spot on.
Speaker 1:Because I think if the C-suite was moving down the chain to see what's going on, I think there's going to be a couple of things happening. Right, there's going to be business risk, right, supply chain risk, cyber risk. On the other hand, there might be some really cool ideas that somebody has and they're not in a position to talk about it because they're being kind of shoved down. So I see, if we want to look at it from a financial perspective, you see people that can either cost the business to lose or win, and I think that is definitely something that needs to be addressed, because I think if you've got somebody who's sitting on a great idea for the company. That needs to be in a different position. Why not? Because they're going to go to your, your competitor.
Speaker 2:so I think it's a lose-lose if they're not having these conversations I agree, I agree 100 percent, um, and it's through those conversations that there needs to be some action, and I feel very strongly that the way to solve this is sometimes as a leader. It's that Zig Ziglar quote about leaders that go the way, know the way, show the way. You have to step down and you can't just have these big mandates from your corner office. You're going to either have to do it yourself or send your C-suite down to make sure things are getting done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would agree with that, because there's definitely going to be the telephone game, right, somebody's not going to get the full vision or the instructions.
Speaker 2:I agree and do? I think that there's things that we could possibly do as consumers. If it's a publicly traded company and we're seeing that this company at the very top of the pyramid does not reflect what their boilerplate say, it might be time to pull that stock. It might be time not to buy anything. Right, there are things that I think can be done, even externally, but internally I do believe that that really has to be what leaders begin to do. And it's really hard to teach people because at the core of this, melissa, it wouldn't be an argument if everybody were just decent human beings at four, evident in the high school. And that's hard to teach because people aren't racist?
Speaker 1:No, absolutely, and I think about how great the world would be if we had the communication, like you were saying earlier, that people could express themselves, their ideas or feel like their voice matters. Think about all the wonderful things that we could accomplish right now. Yeah, I agree. Let me ask you what do you do to take care of yourself? How are you incorporating wellness into your day-to-day activities? I'd love to know.
Speaker 2:You know, know that I knew this question was going to come up. I don't have the best answer at this time, other than I have been intentionally taking breaks from social media. I recently got off Instagram for two months. You know, eventually, over Christmas break, I'd like to do the same thing with LinkedIn. So I think, more mentally, that's what I plan on doing, because I want to fill my cup up with books a bit more than I'm able to, because having escapism is really helpful and I know I'm getting ready to say TV, but even sometimes sitting down watching my favorite show and I tend to watch a lot of period pieces because I prefer my drama to unfold more even than a text message Nice, you know, having some escapism has been helpful. I am making conscious efforts now to start working on my coat rack, I mean my peloton. It has been collecting dust and those are the things that I'm making incremental steps in terms of how I've been eating. I've been trying to have something green every day and that has been really helpful too.
Speaker 1:It's a start, and I have a peloton as well and I've been doing more strength training and running. But yeah, I'm going to get on the Peloton this week or maybe today. Actually, I'm with you on that 100%.
Speaker 2:It's definitely interesting. You know I have all these workout things and you know it's really hard to get on them, but making time to do it, and I'll also tell you this in terms of just my overall mental health. What has been helpful is it's also being more mindful about some of the choices that I've been making. Some of those choices even go back down to how I coach. So I recently changed my coaching schedule.
Speaker 2:I felt like I was coaching every day of the week and I was just letting people pick times at random, and then I never felt like I was able, because multi, there's no such thing as I'm not testing right. Sure, there's only a such thing in corporate, but there's no real place, no real thing for them. And so I have started coaching most of my clients on Mondays and Tuesdays, and then I don't coach on Wednesdays, thursdays, and that's been really helpful. And I'm hoping to get that down to just coaching all day on Mondays, because I work better in compartmented blocks versus trying to fit that in. I'm not going to work out on Monday, but if I don't have any clients on Tuesday, I'll work. And so I work within my limitations and trying to use those as tools.
Speaker 1:No, that's great. I want to pivot back to social media before we close out, if that's okay. I have Facebook, I have Instagram, but I don't go on it anymore and I think a lot of it was. It was just the same old thing. I don't really want to be invested in that. But when we talk about LinkedIn, is it wise for people to get on LinkedIn and post every day? Do you run the risk of posting too much?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really good question. A lot of my clients do. They do want to build a brand independent. I think it's important to think about. I call it career insurance. I think it's a good idea to have a personal brand outside of your company. How many layoffs have we seen in 2024? And so the easiest, fastest way to build a personal brand outside of your company how many layoffs have we seen in 2024? And so the easiest, fastest way to build your personal brand in 2024 is LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:It's not the old days of like going to different soirees and getting known by people, it's LinkedIn. Now, most people who follow me, they work a corporate job and while I have seen the call to actions and the viral quotes that your personal brand belongs to you and not your employer, that's not true. So this is where the whole just because it goes viral doesn't mean it's true thing kind of going. It's not true. And I know that from working with clients and being very careful with the pillars the content pillars that we choose Right. So we stay completely away from leadership because we don't want their leaders to think they're criticizing them when they tell a story about core leaders. Right? So we stay completely away from leadership, because we don't want their leaders to think they're criticizing them when they tell a story about poor leaders. Right, and so it's.
Speaker 2:I don't think you need to post every day, but I do think that you should get comfortable with the idea of maybe scrolling LinkedIn for, you know, maybe even a few months, start getting used to what cadences are and topics, start getting familiar and, you know, excited about what your pillars could be right.
Speaker 2:And once you do that, then start typing, start building community. I don't think that has to be huge. I don't think you need to do that in hours and hours a day. You spend an hour, hour and a half a day on LinkedIn. I'm not that person that's going to tell you 30 minutes you really do need to spend on LinkedIn. So it is something to think about when you've gotten your career in a place where you have a really good system right of what your job looks like, to start fitting that in. If you want to start intentionally building and in thinking about your pillars when someone works at a job, I'm going to say this this is a spicy take as long as your job is on your profile, your job should be one of your pillars. Now, that makes sense, you know if they is on your profile.
Speaker 1:your job should be one of your pillars Now that makes sense.
Speaker 2:You know, if they're on your profile, that means what we want to do, and let me also tell you the upside of that. So right, you're like. Well, this is my personal brand. It could be something as simple as saying here's why I like working at Microsoft. Here's a Microsoft. We're having a Microsoft conversational day where we get to get to know other leaders, highlighting certain things there, but also, too, from a career insurance perspective. We know that a lot of employers have their recruitment teams sourcing current and passive talent, and they have convinced themselves that someone who's actively working at their job and happy at their job are people that they want, people that are likely on succession plan, and so if they see you talking about your job, that's also a great way for you to get a source People want to talk to people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting. You know, now that I think about it, I've been recruited for every job and I think your formula is why I was happy and I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to leave consulting, and you know, it was three times. They came back with more stocks, more money, et cetera, but I was so happy where I was.
Speaker 2:So I think you're spot on with that as well. It's helpful for sure, and I think you know, and I think eventually, when you decide if you want an independent career and not work for a job, of course you can talk about whatever you want, but as long as you're not in stealth mode and your company is on your profile, your personal brand does not belong to you and regardless of you putting that nice little phrase or that nice little boilerplate that your thoughts are your views and not your employer, that doesn't matter If your employer's avatar is on your profile. Your thoughts and views are associated with your employer. It is, and it's good for you to start doing it while you're working. It's really good to start doing that.
Speaker 2:And the thing is is that people think jumping into in-mails and all that and building new relationships I will tell you right now from some of my recent client wins, sending in-mails to people that they're building fresh relationships with that helps tomorrow, not today, I mean six months to a year from now. So think of everything with lead time, that really your best ROI with reaching out to someone is someone that you have had a relationship with and you're rewarming that relationship. But jumping and hopping into the DMs for a new relationship is not personally something that I have seen be a great ROI for my clients right now in this. That's not to define it. That's not personally something that I have seen be a great ROI for my clients right now in this. That's not to define it. That's not to say it doesn't work. It's just not a strategy that we actively go after because we're working with it.
Speaker 1:No, I like that and I think there's something to be said to. I don't know if you've heard this, but authenticity is admired these days. So we think if you're genuinely trying to get to know somebody, I think that's going to be appreciated. Then I can tell you how many emails I get, and the first thing they'll send is their calendar link. I don't even know you and your heart's selling me. It's such a turn off.
Speaker 2:Yep and I had Robin's story on my live, on my lives.
Speaker 2:I saw that, yeah, and she talked about it too. And she talked about it too. The first thing she said really was, if there's a question mark in your first initial, a question mark that is not getting to know them, a question mark of an app, you probably won't get a response and that's not building relationships. I recently had someone who has not reached out to me since like 2020. And the person just got laid off from their job and, you know, hasn't reached out at all. And I'm not saying it doesn't go both ways, but it's really important to keep an active relationship with people because their first thing was a fake. Hey, how you doing? I'm like I'm good, how are you? Oh, I just got laid off. Do you have any leads? So, no, I'm like, well, I don't, I don't have anything. Okay, well, you know, I would love to chat with you. No, that's not genuine.
Speaker 2:No, I already work on limited time, so let me give you an example of why I'm sort of draconian with that. Sure, I have people on my podcast. I practice what I preach. So, yes, I'm an entrepreneur, but I still apply the principles that I give to my entrepreneur, especially when it comes to relationship building. Give to my entrepreneur, especially when it comes to relationship building.
Speaker 2:So I referenced earlier that before you reach out to someone to be your sponsor, they should be familiar with you. If you're around a project you got to win right. People don't have free time to just bet on people. Most corporate desks at this point are a desk and let's just keep it real. And so I'm telling people observe them over a few, get familiar with them, be peripherally in their view, you know, for a few weeks, even a few months, before you reach out for them to be your sponsor. I do the same thing when I'm reaching out to individuals to go live with. You did something similar. I followed Robin for a year and then I reached out and she was like yeah, I reached out to the ex-VP of Tesla. I had been following her for like six months, genuinely, enjoyed her content. I I've been following her for like six months, genuinely enjoyed her content. I wasn't a stranger when I dropped in her DMs, because she always saw me in her comments. There needs to be genuine lead time before you ask for something.
Speaker 1:LinkedIn is a great platform. I like it, but I want to get to know you and hopefully you want to get to know me.
Speaker 2:Absolutely no-transcript. Are benefiting from that. It's not the people that are getting jobs, I promise you. They're not the people that are just dropping into DMs saying, do you have a job?
Speaker 1:Nope, I would. I would 100% agree with that. 100%. Before we close out any movies or any cool things coming up on the horizon.
Speaker 2:I am working on Mini Hang in my head. I am currently building out a new accelerator right now for clients that want to get kind of exec ready, and that's somebody at any level right To get exec ready. It doesn't mean you already need to be one level below. You're going to be a hypo. That's going to happen at the manager level and and high right. So it's starting to think about your career and I'm putting together something right now that's a balance of value kind of communication along with exec skills that you can continue to take along with you along the way. So that's currently what I'm working on on and I'll likely start marketing that more so as a one to one offer before I move that into group. You know, the next thing that I'm sort of working on is getting my courage up for a podcast so you can catch me every Sunday on audio events, because that is the way that I'm doing that. Those are the two major things that I just have going on.
Speaker 1:No, that's, that's awesome, and I would encourage you to do the podcast. Somebody that I met through the cybersecurity community pushed me and pushed me. She goes Mel, you're a leader, you have to get out there, kind of like you do with your clients, and I said nobody's going to want to listen to me, I don't have anything to say, nobody's going to want to come on the show, and we've had some amazing guests. There's something to be said about just jumping in the water, the deep end, and just swimming for it, so I encourage you.
Speaker 2:Well, thank, you so much for that, Melissa, because I have been like, do I want to do it, Do I have time? So I'm thinking that the way for me to probably best do it is to leverage what I'm already doing and possibly leverage it as two pieces of content a live piece of content and go back and do it for a podcast.
Speaker 1:No, I think you should do it. I think, from what I'm seeing out there today, people want good, authentic, helpful conversations and you definitely do a lot for the LinkedIn community. We'd want to hear from you Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that that means a lot coming from you. I appreciate you having me on the show today?
Speaker 1:No, thank you very much. So, for our listeners out there, please remember to subscribe to our podcast on various platforms, such as Apple, spotify, iheartradio and many others. Thanks for tuning in and take care.
