ThriveWithNancy

Three Success TouchPoints

December 07, 2021 Nancy Fredericks Season 1 Episode 26
ThriveWithNancy
Three Success TouchPoints
Show Notes Transcript

You want career success, right? You'll learn exactly how to do so in this episode through Three Success TouchPoints that will make all the difference in your career.

ThriveWithNancy Podcast addresses the tricky points you run into daily as a woman executive. Nancy Fredericks shares all the secrets she’s acquired as an experienced thought-leader. She’s passionate about sharing practical, insider solutions with women executives to tap into on your way to achieving all of your career hopes and dreams. 

Chaos isn’t the only stumbling block getting in the way of the career you’ve aspired to achieve. You can have Nancy Fredericks in your back pocket through YOUR STRATEGIC EDGE coaching package…it comes with a ton of extra goodies. Check it out at: https://thrivewithnancy.com/executive/

Speaker 1:

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Speaker 2:

Welcome to thrive with Nancy, a podcast for executive women that is intended to untangle any career concerns. You might have our podcast centers on taking a healthy dive into who you are and where you want your career. To end up through three touchpoints for success. It's a soft side of business. And in my mind, the most crucial of all the qualities for generating success and a fulfilling career after all, one of the traits of leadership is actually self-awareness authentic. Leaders have the capacity to understand themselves and create a future for themselves because they have identified their yeses and their nose. The three touch points we're going to be talking about today are your defining values, heart's purpose and activating vision. It sets the foundation for generating a perfect fit career for you. These touch points aren't to be frenetic career drivers, rather than utilize your natural energy. And they have you noticing and responding to your job in a way that generates satisfaction. So let's start out with the first touch point, which is defining values. They reveal the essence of who you are, how you choose to travel the pathway of your career in life. They should be at the root of every decision you make, but how could that work unless you actually recognize them? And I have to tell you so many women I've coached through the years. Haven't taken the time to explore at their truth level, thus pushing themselves unconsciously toward careers that are unsatisfying for them and leave a big fat hole in their life. Begin simply by creating a list and identifying what you hold most. Dear. It is sad for me to see executives who have lost their way because they weren't in touch with their values. Please don't let that be. You let me illustrate the importance of this concept by sharing a client story. She vehemently claimed family is my most important value. And yet she worked late every night and over the weekends as well, rarely spending any time with her three boys, she was stressed out, beat herself up black and blue, judged herself every day, every week as a terrible mother. Can you imagine how little of yourself would be showing up at work with this attitude? No matter how many promises Sandy made, she rarely was home to eat dinner with her family. Why she got caught up in her job. You see, despite what society may be telling her or you work was a bigger energy draw than her family. Hey, Hey, Hey, let's not make any judgements here because there's nothing wrong with that. It was just that she was lying to herself. You see, she loved being a mother that just wasn't all that brought Sandy fulfillment, a huge piece of her enthusiasm about life and her joy about life emerged from her work. Be very careful what you express as you're defining values because your company and everyone, including you, is observing your actions. The reality is if you speak a value and then you don't walk it, your personal power is diminished. More importantly. It isn't just, what about the outside world sees and thinks about you? It really is about you saying my family is number one and then not walking your talk. Has you viewing yourself as unworthy? It's difficult to be confident or even to grow your career, to gain the next promotion. When you measure yourself internally as falling short, it's this place, this center where careers stall or are derailed. You see often when I'm coaching clients under stress, it's not externally. That's creating the stress. It's actually values warring against one another and they don't even realize it. Let's put this into helpful action through a challenging scenario. Exercise you've already created your list. First thing you do is identify your top two values for this challenge. Exercise, create a story where these two values are in dispute and then observe yourself, check out what's going on internally. Let's imagine family is an important value. And suddenly your company offers you a big, huge leap assignment to China for a whopping salary increase way more money than you could ever hope to ever get in five years at your current rate, there's not a wrong or a right answer. Some will say yes, believing this will give them enough money to retire, to be full-time with their family. Others respond by saying, no, this is a crucial juncture in my children's lives. I'm not leaving for anything. No amount of money is going to get me out of my home. Do you feel the underlying stress? If you imagine these scenarios clashing with one another, what factors will go into your decision as you move forward in your career? Now in a small pretend way, perhaps you can distinguish what it feels like when your values have been conflicting. If you do, it will help you diagnose yourself when you're actually experiencing your values colliding with one another, you'll be amazed at how much more powerful you'll feel about yourself. Once your values are in alignment with your desires and how much more powerful the outside world will perceive you. Let me wrap up defining values with a memorable story for me. And I hope for you. Imagine me speaking in San Francisco on this topic, I'm standing on a stage asking me audience of about 200 women to identify their top three defining values. Yes, it was a woman's program. And yet I could clearly see eight men after giving them time to think of their three defining values. I questioned how many of you have money as one of your top three eight hands rose, instantly several moved to shoulder height, but no higher. The rest remained motionless. Do I have to tell you the hands jutting proudly upward? We're all men. Now. I'm not arguing whether money is a value or not. The point is this. What is honored in business? You got it. Profits, which is money. So if in your secret heart of hearts, money doesn't have value. How many steps behind the men are? You? You have to know that any ambivalence on your side regarding money as a value may just be what's holding your career back without you even knowing it. The next touchpoint is heart's purpose. It's my very, very favorite because it's the most fun to explore and the most creative to explore. And in my mind, the easiest to spot, this is the verb that drives you. It's the why that explains your career choice. It is the fuel that energizes you. It is your passion and more often than not your strikes. The first part is easy, or at least it should be because it's getting in touch with the feeling part of your being, where you find your joy in your work, where it feels as though three minutes has passed. When in reality it is three hours, the journey isn't a linear process. So when you start feeling boxed in or limited, stop, take a deep breath. There are no shoulds in this exercise and connect again with the creative hopeful aspects of your being. It's first out of a tomorrow, driven target begins in my mind with a simple statement or one such as this that you create on your own. My simple statement has always been my career fully passionately alive, and that starts you off into exploration. There are no rules except to open yourself up to contemplating your future, your longings, your secret wishes regarding what you would like to be doing and who you want to be in the future. Ask yourself what activities fascinate you as a child. What do you find the most fun doing? What are you good at? And yes, I do mean when you were a child, you know, one woman who was answering this question challenged me back, which you all know I love. She said, perhaps you really meant to say college experiences. My college experience, not childhood. No, I am sincerely and completely asking you to focus on childhood memories for a moment because that's where the essence of your passion first comes to light. What issues or causes or elements of your current job bring you the most satisfaction is the next place to go. What activities are you involved in that are most rewarding? What energizes you? How do you want to be remembered? Don't rest until you understand yourself and what makes you tick? Because this search will bring you a level of job satisfaction. You've never experienced before exploring your heart's purpose. It's not about a simple, quick question answering exercise. You see heart's purpose is an inner drive that motivates you. It compels you to do the kind of work that fulfills you by not connecting your future. With your joy. You may end up as so many senior women executives do wondering is this all there is, they may be highly skilled, but for all intents and purposes, their quote unquote careers, armies marching toward retirement. After gaining a new realization about herself Sherry's career trajectory shifted mightily. She was highly honored for her work as a process grew, but then Sherry identified that strategic thinking was actually her heart's purpose. And it lit up her heart from this one, aha, her conversations with bosses and leaders focus more on the strategy aspects of process, drawing her to a far more satisfying. And by the way, a far more influential career. Next let's talk about your future. Mary Catherine Bateson, an anthropologist identified that women typically put their careers together. Sequentially crafted from odds and, and as she describes like a patchwork quilt, what does Mary Katherine mean by this? It's a career where doors open a woman steps in and does a fabulous job. One event, one promotion, and one opportunity at a time. What they aren't doing is proactively designing a career for themselves. One. They love patchwork quilting, ultimately harms women. Long-term because when you don't even know what you really want, particularly if you're not articulating your future, how can anyone else know or support you? Patchwork quilting. Isn't all bad. Please. Don't hear me saying that in today's fast clip business environment, resiliency and flexibility are particularly prized. However, if you're only tapping into your patchwork quilting skills, you're at a disadvantage you need to know and be able to express who you intend to be and where you're going. This leads to what I consider your next touchpoint. It's activating vision. This is sometimes challenging. It isn't merely a goal. It's your end game. This is a single statement that represents the biggest boldest and most breathless dreams of who you want to be 20 years from now. It's who you intend to be. And what you'll be known for it is an aspiration of being rather than doing, when you say it out loud, your knees start knocking and your lips tremble. It's so much more majestic that anything you judge yourself to be right now. I know, I know some of you may not even be planning on being employed that far in the future, but what I'm talking about is a state of mind, your dream, can't be attached to the smallness or mental limitations of who you consider you are today. As 20 years out, you can be anything. And your 20 years out starts today and it isn't stuck in stone one and done. Instead as you accumulate new insights, you make adjustments. And in all probability, they will be bigger and more impressive than what you create today. Hallelujah, this type of thinking is reframing your brain to dramatically transform your career. Once you know where you're headed, you speak differently. You hear differently and you're perceived differently and that's what will advance your career. Try it out. Is it time to fire up your future? What do you lose by exploring your defining values? Heart's purpose and activating vision. If nothing, nothing shifts. Well, you waste a couple of days and you get to call me and say, no, no, no, no, no, Nancy, it didn't work. However, what if I'm right? What if this is the beginning of you designing and developing a powerful career for yourself? What if, as I said, senior leaders perceive you in all your power and glory. What if this is the pathway to attaining all that you've ever hoped for? What will you have gained from those few days here? Whole future. So overcome your resistance. You too can be one of the women executives who call me saying you won't guess what happened? Why are these touch points important to you? You have to appreciate every decision you make today does determine your tomorrows. So what are you going to take on as your touchpoint moving forward? Okay. So I hope you're feeling energized and I hope you are feeling possibility. Ready to knock down anything standing in your way. What's holding you back. Imagine working with me to take on your strategic edge right now. Can you imagine how much more effortless and faster your career March to success and fulfillment will be dusted out. Sign up for a free discovery session@wwwdotthrivewithnancy.com forward slash executive forward slash and you'll see a tab to sign up for a free discovery call with me.

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