Atlanta Women Leaders Association Chapter Meeting: Find Your Voice
Sime Patel of Operations Zoominfo discusses ideas and strategies for finding your voice at the Atlanta Women Leaders Association Chapter Meeting.
Transcript
hello everyone can you hear me yes she's so wonderful awesome pull up your slides and say hello yeah hello everyone it is so nice to be here um give me one second while I figure this out okay there there we go okay I think I'm all set up now thanks for that um that was amazing I really appreciate that Stephanie I love what you said about your mom she sounds so incredible um it's just really nice to be here so thank you so much for having me um so as she said before Jer said my name is SEMA Patel and um I've been in operations for about 20 years um over eight Industries so kind of been all over the place I'm currently head of legal and compliance operations at Zoom info um and I recently released my first book which is uh find your people your tools and your voice a blueprint for professional success um and I love helping people grow in their careers so that's one of the reasons I'm here I'm really excited to share today with you and so today I'm going to talk about finding your voice and battling impostor syndrome so here we go so first I want to start by asking a question have you ever walked into a room and looked around and felt completely and totally oh this is what happens when you on your own sides sheer and utter panic because all of a sudden you look around and you feel like everyone is so much smarter and extremely accomplish and just better than you and you want to run right back out of that room because you think that they're better than you and it takes every ounce of you not tow down to do that do you want to know a secret the secret is that at least half of that room feels exactly the same way you do you want to know why it's such a big secret it's a secret because we don't talk about it we don't we love to hide all of our flaws because we don't want anyone to see that side of us we don't want anyone to not think that we're not completely put together all the time and then what happens is the worst feeling is when someone asks a question and you think you know the answer but you don't want to raise your hand because what if you're wrong because can't be wrong right when you somebody asks a question and then someone smarter than you raises their hand and they get the right answer which is what you were going to say those moments are as validating as they are extremely frustrating and then what's born from that is an entire generation of people who think everyone else has it together except for them and the is the worst most unproductive evil that impostor syndrome because it's such a confidence killer it is tailor made for our own device because it comes from our own mind and thoughts of not being good enough or deserving enough or just enough drown out the actual facts of what's real and what's in your head is so much worse than what's in real life did you know that 80% of people walk around feeling imposter syndrome according to the Harvest Business Review that 80% of us just think we're not good enough that's crazy see what happens as we start with our own facts like okay you're in a new uncomfortable situation maybe it's new setting but you're kind of excited and you get there and you look around and you feel good and then you start seeing people and meeting people and then all of a sudden you start looking around and and you start doubting yourself and those those doubts creep in and then you look for signs of why you shouldn't be there in the first place and then all of a sudden all of that turns into some distorted version of reality that's not actually true but those assumptions disguise themselves as facts in your head and they really do a good job of that because then you start to believe it see every time we're faced with something new and challenging you never think you're ready for it like do you remember going into eighth grade you were royalty right like you walked in and you ruled the school and then you're a freshman in high school and all of a sudden you're small again and you don't know anything and you think I can't do this I remember um my freshman year of Washington State University my very first school my very first class 900 students 5 hours away from my parents I looked around I'm like there's no way I can do this but I was ready I had taken every step to get to that point and we all do just like you're playing a video game right you know you pass a level and you have to pass a level to get to the next level you don't realize you're ready for these moments but you really are so wherever you are and whatever you're doing you're supposed to be there I want to challenge everybody today I want you to start thinking about talking about all the moments that you felt your own impostor syndrome to other people talk talk about your mistakes your missteps because to everyone around you you look completely put together and you look so successful and it makes it impossible for anybody to feel like they can't do it because they just think everybody else has it together but them and it's this this part of it is so important not only for our own Learning and Development but it is vital for our growth to be able to learn from our own mistakes so how do you kind of keep this impostor syndrome monstrosity at Bay there's three things that I've done that's helped me number one give yourself a break you're not supposed to know everything and it's okay to make a mistake and number two find a symbol that's going to help you symbolize all of your successes and number three have the courage to fight for
yourself so just in case you know you don't know like I have not mentioned this enough you're not supposed to know everything um it's a shocker right uh like I mentioned before I've been in operations for 20 years in eight Industries I never know what I'm doing and it was really hard in the beginning of my career and I would get hired for a role and I'm leading a team and they definitely knew more than me and I just kind of showed up and I I felt really insecure um and then at some point over my career I just started getting frustrated I'm like you know what I don't know what people are talking about so I just started saying can you talk to me like I'm eight years old just pretend I'm eight because an 8-year-old would you know need everything in in like a simplistic way right and um the first time I said that felt weird but then I had people come up to me afterward and say thanks for saying that I had no idea what anybody was talking about so the next time you don't know try it say talk to me like I'm eight and then it just makes it a lot more simple and I promise other people will thank you for it another confidence killer is when you're making a mistake it's the worst right I always laugh because people will say oh I hate making mistakes well yeah like doesn't everybody I don't think anybody wakes up in the morning and says hey I'm going to go to work and screw it all up today it's a mistake because it's unintentional but the worst part the hardest part is to admit when you've made a mistake but I'll tell you that admitting your mistakes and learning from your missteps is not weak it actually incredibly powerful and it builds your credibility because it allows it allows yourself to be humanized and to connect people and be vulnerable
I I had a job once when I was very early in my career um very new to leadership and I was hired to run a center because the previous manager for me just displayed a lot of unethical behavior and there was no real leadership people just kind of did whatever they wanted right so I had come in and I was supposed to get everybody in gear and like get the center going and I did that and the person that you see on the screen that face that you're looking at right now that is exactly what I probably came across as and I just didn't know it at the time um but I came in barking my orders ready to get everybody in gear with my guns blazing oh that backfired on me my team hated me like they hated every moment of me and they would talk about me behind my back and Whisper about me and it got so bad one day that I kind of like ran out of the office and I sat in my car and I cried and I called my manager and I said hey I'm sorry I suck at this I can't do it they hate me and I'm pretty sure I made it worse so I'm not really sure what to do and he's like hey I know we gave you a hard job and you have two choices you could walk away no one's going to blame you for that or that's the or right or you could go back and learn from your team take a step back take a breath a beat and get to know them understand why things are the way they are and just like take a minute he's like just think about it overnight you know go home sleep in sleep on it and let me know what you want to do in the morning so I did I thought about like my confidence is totally shot and I'm so embarrassed and then I kind of got mad I'm like didn't they know I was trying to help them like I was there to help them and then I stopped because I'm like no I don't know did they know that I was trying to help them I don't know did I say that I don't think I did I just kind of came in and started barking orders and I wasn't being a leader I was being a manager and then I felt really bad because oh my God I really screwed up now this I I have to go back because wanted to run for the hills but now I'm like I have to go because I really messed this up so I took a deep breath kind of regrouped and I went back the next day which I'm sure they were shocked to see me walk in the door so I came in called a meeting sat everybody down and said I'm really sorry I apologized I was humble I asked for their forgiveness and instantly their faces their glances just sort of softened to me you know and you know we talked a lot and it took some time for me to build their trust and we started working together as an entire team and we went from like being the worst performing center to the top five in the whole organization and with the same team okay so I didn't hire anybody new but it took it took that team together and and there's moments I look back and I'll never forget how I felt sitting in that car crying or you know how I felt when I heard them talking about me but if if I didn't go through that if if that wasn't so impactful I wouldn't have learned such an important lesson the way that I did so I don't want to Discount the fact that those moments suck we have to go through them but they're so important they are absolutely important for our growth and our development you know at the end of the day they're all just these are learning opportunities you know so um instead of thinking of them as mistakes or missteps let's redefine them as beautiful learning experiences and embrace them because those are what make us different and unique they bring us New Perspectives and Innovation and they help increase your confidence
so how do we begin to change our mindset well in order to start really seeing and feeling all these things it's important to start to intentionally symbolize them so I want to go through a little exercise that I've done um in the past that kind of helped me to kind of go through this and the goal oh okay sorry like my mouse just got stuck so there we go
um okay I'm sorry about that um so here's how we're going to go go to this slide here okay first thing you're going to do is build your achievement list so find a nice quiet place where you can reflect think back on your school years um these can be like as big achievements or small achievements any anything really that you can think of just a laundry list of all the things that you've done in your life your career all the good things that you've done so here's my example I took and obviously you'd have maybe more than three but I just picked this for example sake so I was selected um out of 500 people for a job I got a 3.8 GPA while working in college and I climbed two mountains in a day um and now next to each of those achievements I want to see like how did I do this so um when to maybe for the job I I know I really prepared I prepare for the interview I worked hard I practiced interviewing so much while I had that GPS I prioritize studying I um practice good time management um climbing mountains I didn't give up we we made a plan and we stuck with it I really wanted to give up but I didn't so those are things that I did right so now as I'm looking at those it's I'm starting to see a pattern right so taking the time to prepare not giving up being consistent those are all core values those are things that I did in order to to be that way right so now um I want to make a this is a goal list so you've got your your achievement list aside right now the next thing is to build a goal list so these are all the things that you want to do on a separate sheet of paper um another laundry list all the things that you want to do in um maybe expanding but for me I chose to expand my footprint at work and again these can be personal or you know professional goals sharpening my presentation skills becoming an expert in my job all of those things maybe getting a certification and again it doesn't mean that you have to do all these but just making a list of them so now I want to just assign a level of difficulty okay so want to be really intentional like all right if I want to Sharp my presentation skills maybe that's a level one a level one is like lwh hanging fruit obviously it still work but it's stuff that you can kind of get through and you can kind of handle in your in your week um getting a certification is like a level three I'm going to have to really study be intentional and carve out the time level two is somewhere in
between so um now I want to figure out all of the things that it's going to take so these are the action items I only chose two notice that I have two goals for the first six months in the moment it's really easy to get really motivated and be like I'm going to do all of these things um but then when life happens it's like an all or nothing we tend to be like I don't have time for any of that and we just like don't do it so just be really realistic as to what you want to accomplish so if I want to expand my scope at work then maybe I want to speak up more at meetings um ask more responsibility sharpening my presentation skills I could take a LinkedIn learning course or something like that right so these are things I can add into my day but the whole point of all of this is to find small goals things that you can do one bit at a time and have those little wins because those wins than snowball and bring you more confidence for the next wins and now here's where it all kind of comes together so starting to um look at this achievement list that's important because all right I know if I did that I could do this and then these how did I achieve these accomplishments my core values all right I know that for me to win at my next goals I'm going to have to take the time to prepare not give up be consistent these are things that I'm going to have to do and so it's a reminder all the time and then as you start doing your level ones maybe you put in your level twos and just kind of go wherever it makes sense in your schedule but it's important to kind of let these Snowball Effect keep
happening and then the last step is to symbolize successes so you don't forget about them okay I'm going to stop for a second because this is my favorite slide it'll let you take it in um and I know I'm 100% aging myself right now um but can you smell that freshly sharpened pencil or that new box of Crayola crayons um it's got to be 64 pack because that's the one um or even like for some Unfortunate Souls not only the smell maybe you had some friends that tasted the glue I don't know um I remember sharing lip smackers with my friends or that cloud of offet and for a second you all went back right you can you can smell the smells you can hear the noises you can feel everything and it's because our brain is so good at symbolizing certain objects to certain moments of your life so use that to your advantage find your special object you know it can be anything can be something that you keep at your desk something that you wear you know it'll it's the thing that you want to intentionally look at and Channel all of your accomplishments and all of the things that you have in there so every time you look at that object you remember all of those accomplishments you might have noticed that I have a Lotus symbol like throughout my deck and I'm I'm not you can maybe see it but I'm wearing my Lotus bracelet right now there's a reason for that it's really special to me it was given to me by somebody who I really admired who I thought was an amazing intelligent just like a badass woman I thought she was so great when I left my previous company I had gone through some rough times and it was a little broken and while I think I've had a pretty good career I was still like not quite myself yet and she pulled me aside one day and noticed and just said hey um I think you're amazing and I've heard all these great things about you and I kind of got a little uncomfortable because I'm like well how do you even know that you know she's like no I can tell but I can also see that you lack a little bit of confidence and I want to give you this this Lotus bracelet because to me Lotus is represent rebirth and I want you to think of of this moment and and of all the great things and and every time you had to claw your way out of something or you had to work hard and all of that represented into this one bracelet and I want you to wear it and I want you to think of that every time and know that you can do anything because of that and I thought that was interesting so I did I I channeled it and I look and it has really helped me in so many moments of my life and because here's the thing at the end of the day you anyone can take other things away from you but nobody can take away your successes nobody can take away your experiences and if you use that and and channnel it all in there it'll be easy not to forget because that's the thing sometimes we forget all of the things that we've done right so use that to find your own voice that brings me to my last Point have the courage to ask for what you need Having the courage to fight for yourself is so hard because it goes against everything that Society has ever taught us you know but what you want and what you need absolutely matter how many times did you kick yourself for not taking that job or putting your you know hat in the ring for something you wanted and you think okay next time I'm going to do it but why not make next time this time because at the end of the day you can ask for something and maybe you don't get it but at least you know you try don't let yourself down and a shout out to all my people Pleasers out there you know who you are because I'm right there with you as a woman it is almost impossible to ask for something because you don't want to disappoint someone or hurt their feelings or worse yet sound ungrateful we are hardwired to constantly apologize or not try to be too much and we just do our best and hope that somebody notices or gives us what we deserve but the truth is we have to take control of the situation and ask for what you need and want because at the end of the day you want to be in the driver's seat and be in control of your journey I remember one time I started a job and I I really like my manager and she was so well respected and had an amazing reputation of being such a great leader and I was so excited to learn from her and about 3 months into my rule we went through a reorg you know those are right like everything is going great and all of a sudden there's a reorg and you know it obviously disrupts things and I thought okay that's fine I can handle this I'll you know I'm sure it'll be great and it'll be okay so I was going to meet my new manager and I prepared I got everything ready ready to ask him about you know how he was going to lead the team and what plans he had and then I met him and I could instantly see he was in experience and thrown into the role and just he didn't bring anything to the table and I walked away feeling so disappointed and I you know and it's not because I thought I was better than him it was just because all of a sudden I'm like I'm not going to learn I'm not going to be pushed I um he's not going to challenge me and I just felt frustrated so I went home that night you know and I thought about it like okay what do I really want to do you know well I chose to work for this company for a reason and I just didn't see my new manager man someone who is going to help me get to where I wanted to be so I emailed my current manager and just said hey you know I think I've really thrived since I've been here and I think a lot of it has to do with your leadership and I can appreciate that you made this decision for a reason so if you think this guy is great and he's gonna be amazing then I'll do it and I will I will follow the lead and I will work for him but if you think that perhaps I'm going to thrive better under your leadership I really want to ask you to reconsider being my manager I trust you I know that you know me I know you'll make the decision that you think is best and then I I I wrote it all out right and then you know you sit there where you're like I don't know if I should actually hit send or not you know it's all there all the feelings are there and before I knew it I hit send and then it was too late so that obviously agonized the whole night right um but the next day I got an email back from her she told me she appreciated my honesty and respected my Approach in fighting for myself I took the chance I stood up for myself I got what I wanted and not only did that strengthen our relationship but she probably respected me so much more because of it because if I just accepted the situation as it was it might have taken me so much longer to get to where I wanted to be you know and I would have been miserable at the same time so the next time an opportunity face like brings itself to you focus on your symbol find the courage to speak up and ask for what you want the last point I want to make is especially important we are women and we need to support other women it's hard enough in this world to find our equality let's stop competing with each other and instead seek one another out to provide kindness and support I'm so glad to be here a part of this organization right now because I can feel that energy as our young girls they need to see shining samples of this I want to reiterate the point that I made earlier where I said start vocalizing about your challenges that you face and how you overcame them let's normalize these mistakes as beautiful learning experiences so we don't have to feel ashamed you know let ourselves learn from these missteps so we don't make it seem impossible for anybody to reach their level of definition of success you should do it for each other our daughters nieces sisters friends let's help each other find our voices by remembering to give yourself a break be kind to yourself and remember that you don't have to know everything and it's okay to make that mistake find a symbol that can hold all of your amazing memories of your accomplishments you can turn to it when you need that extra boost of support and speak up don't be miserable take control of the situation and ask for what you want because you're happiness matters if we do these things it creates a ripple effect to normalize being kind to ourselves remembering why we're so great and standing out for ourselves because the best gift that we can give our daughters is the ability to not think twice of it advocating for themselves to be 100% confidence that their voices will be heard and to fly high because that ceiling was already broken and the next time you walk into a room remember that so instead of feeling like this you can stand up tall focus on your symbol and battle your impostor syndrome by walking into that room ready for your voice to be heard thank you so much for your time if you like what you heard you can read more in my book find your people your tools and your voice of blueprint for professional success what what was relax SEMA thank you so much for that wonderful presentation and yes just as a reminder if anybody has any live questions please somebody out there is not needs to go un mute um yeah if um that's a wonderful presentation yes so just as a reminder if anybody has any live questions please raise your hand and I can um unmute yourself
okay I'm okay I'm going to figure out who it is that's talking oh I see who it is I apologize I found the person that is talking and oh wait and I muted them me see SEMA SEMA can you say hello I to make sure I didn't unmute hello everybody awesome thank you so much and just as a followup for for you um you have great confidence in your presentation skills can you give us one tip on how you built that confidence I think it's just like I'm pretending like I'm talking to all my friends right now so you are all my friends and I'm just talking to you I'll be honest somewhere in the middle of that and I apologize because I I think I I had that Mouse and I'm clicking it I'm clicking all over the place but somewhere in there I I lost even my I couldn't see my face and I just kept talking to the camera so I'm hoping you could see all that but um I appreciate all of you this is such an amazing amazing organization well thank you so much and I guess one final question before we go to our panel discussion and Ela says was there a time where you lost confidence all the time um it's because the thing is it can take one small thing you know anything can tip us and any moment and I try to focus on what's good the moving forward part is the best part because life is a journey and anything is going to stumble you and and I don't know in a day at least three things bother me where I'm like ah I should have done that I didn't do that right or whatever but tomorrow's a new day and no one's going to remember what happened in the past and you just have to keep moving forward because it's not a destination so if I lose confidence in one thing I'm gonna just push that aside forgive myself and move forward to the next thing and one more final thought from Gail she says social media has increased imposture syndrome I feel it even in the it negatively affects children and teens and it's so sad yeah it is it is really sad because we all want to be put together right and what do we do we're not going to be looking like a hot mess on social media we want to be looking good all the time I think a is is having those conversations with your with your kids right like hey this is um not normal it's like TV it's not normal and you're seeing something like are you going to put any of your mistakes out there you're going to always try to look put together for your social media too but we all are human and 80% of us are walking around feeling that same way so just continue to have the conversations with everybody in your life well that's fantastic well as we move along to our panel discussion any um any final words of wisdom for all of our viewers today um no I just want to thank you all again thanks for the opportunity I really appreciate it well we thank you so much for your time today
yourself so just in case you know you don't know like I have not mentioned this enough you're not supposed to know everything um it's a shocker right uh like I mentioned before I've been in operations for 20 years in eight Industries I never know what I'm doing and it was really hard in the beginning of my career and I would get hired for a role and I'm leading a team and they definitely knew more than me and I just kind of showed up and I I felt really insecure um and then at some point over my career I just started getting frustrated I'm like you know what I don't know what people are talking about so I just started saying can you talk to me like I'm eight years old just pretend I'm eight because an 8-year-old would you know need everything in in like a simplistic way right and um the first time I said that felt weird but then I had people come up to me afterward and say thanks for saying that I had no idea what anybody was talking about so the next time you don't know try it say talk to me like I'm eight and then it just makes it a lot more simple and I promise other people will thank you for it another confidence killer is when you're making a mistake it's the worst right I always laugh because people will say oh I hate making mistakes well yeah like doesn't everybody I don't think anybody wakes up in the morning and says hey I'm going to go to work and screw it all up today it's a mistake because it's unintentional but the worst part the hardest part is to admit when you've made a mistake but I'll tell you that admitting your mistakes and learning from your missteps is not weak it actually incredibly powerful and it builds your credibility because it allows it allows yourself to be humanized and to connect people and be vulnerable
I I had a job once when I was very early in my career um very new to leadership and I was hired to run a center because the previous manager for me just displayed a lot of unethical behavior and there was no real leadership people just kind of did whatever they wanted right so I had come in and I was supposed to get everybody in gear and like get the center going and I did that and the person that you see on the screen that face that you're looking at right now that is exactly what I probably came across as and I just didn't know it at the time um but I came in barking my orders ready to get everybody in gear with my guns blazing oh that backfired on me my team hated me like they hated every moment of me and they would talk about me behind my back and Whisper about me and it got so bad one day that I kind of like ran out of the office and I sat in my car and I cried and I called my manager and I said hey I'm sorry I suck at this I can't do it they hate me and I'm pretty sure I made it worse so I'm not really sure what to do and he's like hey I know we gave you a hard job and you have two choices you could walk away no one's going to blame you for that or that's the or right or you could go back and learn from your team take a step back take a breath a beat and get to know them understand why things are the way they are and just like take a minute he's like just think about it overnight you know go home sleep in sleep on it and let me know what you want to do in the morning so I did I thought about like my confidence is totally shot and I'm so embarrassed and then I kind of got mad I'm like didn't they know I was trying to help them like I was there to help them and then I stopped because I'm like no I don't know did they know that I was trying to help them I don't know did I say that I don't think I did I just kind of came in and started barking orders and I wasn't being a leader I was being a manager and then I felt really bad because oh my God I really screwed up now this I I have to go back because wanted to run for the hills but now I'm like I have to go because I really messed this up so I took a deep breath kind of regrouped and I went back the next day which I'm sure they were shocked to see me walk in the door so I came in called a meeting sat everybody down and said I'm really sorry I apologized I was humble I asked for their forgiveness and instantly their faces their glances just sort of softened to me you know and you know we talked a lot and it took some time for me to build their trust and we started working together as an entire team and we went from like being the worst performing center to the top five in the whole organization and with the same team okay so I didn't hire anybody new but it took it took that team together and and there's moments I look back and I'll never forget how I felt sitting in that car crying or you know how I felt when I heard them talking about me but if if I didn't go through that if if that wasn't so impactful I wouldn't have learned such an important lesson the way that I did so I don't want to Discount the fact that those moments suck we have to go through them but they're so important they are absolutely important for our growth and our development you know at the end of the day they're all just these are learning opportunities you know so um instead of thinking of them as mistakes or missteps let's redefine them as beautiful learning experiences and embrace them because those are what make us different and unique they bring us New Perspectives and Innovation and they help increase your confidence
so how do we begin to change our mindset well in order to start really seeing and feeling all these things it's important to start to intentionally symbolize them so I want to go through a little exercise that I've done um in the past that kind of helped me to kind of go through this and the goal oh okay sorry like my mouse just got stuck so there we go
um okay I'm sorry about that um so here's how we're going to go go to this slide here okay first thing you're going to do is build your achievement list so find a nice quiet place where you can reflect think back on your school years um these can be like as big achievements or small achievements any anything really that you can think of just a laundry list of all the things that you've done in your life your career all the good things that you've done so here's my example I took and obviously you'd have maybe more than three but I just picked this for example sake so I was selected um out of 500 people for a job I got a 3.8 GPA while working in college and I climbed two mountains in a day um and now next to each of those achievements I want to see like how did I do this so um when to maybe for the job I I know I really prepared I prepare for the interview I worked hard I practiced interviewing so much while I had that GPS I prioritize studying I um practice good time management um climbing mountains I didn't give up we we made a plan and we stuck with it I really wanted to give up but I didn't so those are things that I did right so now as I'm looking at those it's I'm starting to see a pattern right so taking the time to prepare not giving up being consistent those are all core values those are things that I did in order to to be that way right so now um I want to make a this is a goal list so you've got your your achievement list aside right now the next thing is to build a goal list so these are all the things that you want to do on a separate sheet of paper um another laundry list all the things that you want to do in um maybe expanding but for me I chose to expand my footprint at work and again these can be personal or you know professional goals sharpening my presentation skills becoming an expert in my job all of those things maybe getting a certification and again it doesn't mean that you have to do all these but just making a list of them so now I want to just assign a level of difficulty okay so want to be really intentional like all right if I want to Sharp my presentation skills maybe that's a level one a level one is like lwh hanging fruit obviously it still work but it's stuff that you can kind of get through and you can kind of handle in your in your week um getting a certification is like a level three I'm going to have to really study be intentional and carve out the time level two is somewhere in
between so um now I want to figure out all of the things that it's going to take so these are the action items I only chose two notice that I have two goals for the first six months in the moment it's really easy to get really motivated and be like I'm going to do all of these things um but then when life happens it's like an all or nothing we tend to be like I don't have time for any of that and we just like don't do it so just be really realistic as to what you want to accomplish so if I want to expand my scope at work then maybe I want to speak up more at meetings um ask more responsibility sharpening my presentation skills I could take a LinkedIn learning course or something like that right so these are things I can add into my day but the whole point of all of this is to find small goals things that you can do one bit at a time and have those little wins because those wins than snowball and bring you more confidence for the next wins and now here's where it all kind of comes together so starting to um look at this achievement list that's important because all right I know if I did that I could do this and then these how did I achieve these accomplishments my core values all right I know that for me to win at my next goals I'm going to have to take the time to prepare not give up be consistent these are things that I'm going to have to do and so it's a reminder all the time and then as you start doing your level ones maybe you put in your level twos and just kind of go wherever it makes sense in your schedule but it's important to kind of let these Snowball Effect keep
happening and then the last step is to symbolize successes so you don't forget about them okay I'm going to stop for a second because this is my favorite slide it'll let you take it in um and I know I'm 100% aging myself right now um but can you smell that freshly sharpened pencil or that new box of Crayola crayons um it's got to be 64 pack because that's the one um or even like for some Unfortunate Souls not only the smell maybe you had some friends that tasted the glue I don't know um I remember sharing lip smackers with my friends or that cloud of offet and for a second you all went back right you can you can smell the smells you can hear the noises you can feel everything and it's because our brain is so good at symbolizing certain objects to certain moments of your life so use that to your advantage find your special object you know it can be anything can be something that you keep at your desk something that you wear you know it'll it's the thing that you want to intentionally look at and Channel all of your accomplishments and all of the things that you have in there so every time you look at that object you remember all of those accomplishments you might have noticed that I have a Lotus symbol like throughout my deck and I'm I'm not you can maybe see it but I'm wearing my Lotus bracelet right now there's a reason for that it's really special to me it was given to me by somebody who I really admired who I thought was an amazing intelligent just like a badass woman I thought she was so great when I left my previous company I had gone through some rough times and it was a little broken and while I think I've had a pretty good career I was still like not quite myself yet and she pulled me aside one day and noticed and just said hey um I think you're amazing and I've heard all these great things about you and I kind of got a little uncomfortable because I'm like well how do you even know that you know she's like no I can tell but I can also see that you lack a little bit of confidence and I want to give you this this Lotus bracelet because to me Lotus is represent rebirth and I want you to think of of this moment and and of all the great things and and every time you had to claw your way out of something or you had to work hard and all of that represented into this one bracelet and I want you to wear it and I want you to think of that every time and know that you can do anything because of that and I thought that was interesting so I did I I channeled it and I look and it has really helped me in so many moments of my life and because here's the thing at the end of the day you anyone can take other things away from you but nobody can take away your successes nobody can take away your experiences and if you use that and and channnel it all in there it'll be easy not to forget because that's the thing sometimes we forget all of the things that we've done right so use that to find your own voice that brings me to my last Point have the courage to ask for what you need Having the courage to fight for yourself is so hard because it goes against everything that Society has ever taught us you know but what you want and what you need absolutely matter how many times did you kick yourself for not taking that job or putting your you know hat in the ring for something you wanted and you think okay next time I'm going to do it but why not make next time this time because at the end of the day you can ask for something and maybe you don't get it but at least you know you try don't let yourself down and a shout out to all my people Pleasers out there you know who you are because I'm right there with you as a woman it is almost impossible to ask for something because you don't want to disappoint someone or hurt their feelings or worse yet sound ungrateful we are hardwired to constantly apologize or not try to be too much and we just do our best and hope that somebody notices or gives us what we deserve but the truth is we have to take control of the situation and ask for what you need and want because at the end of the day you want to be in the driver's seat and be in control of your journey I remember one time I started a job and I I really like my manager and she was so well respected and had an amazing reputation of being such a great leader and I was so excited to learn from her and about 3 months into my rule we went through a reorg you know those are right like everything is going great and all of a sudden there's a reorg and you know it obviously disrupts things and I thought okay that's fine I can handle this I'll you know I'm sure it'll be great and it'll be okay so I was going to meet my new manager and I prepared I got everything ready ready to ask him about you know how he was going to lead the team and what plans he had and then I met him and I could instantly see he was in experience and thrown into the role and just he didn't bring anything to the table and I walked away feeling so disappointed and I you know and it's not because I thought I was better than him it was just because all of a sudden I'm like I'm not going to learn I'm not going to be pushed I um he's not going to challenge me and I just felt frustrated so I went home that night you know and I thought about it like okay what do I really want to do you know well I chose to work for this company for a reason and I just didn't see my new manager man someone who is going to help me get to where I wanted to be so I emailed my current manager and just said hey you know I think I've really thrived since I've been here and I think a lot of it has to do with your leadership and I can appreciate that you made this decision for a reason so if you think this guy is great and he's gonna be amazing then I'll do it and I will I will follow the lead and I will work for him but if you think that perhaps I'm going to thrive better under your leadership I really want to ask you to reconsider being my manager I trust you I know that you know me I know you'll make the decision that you think is best and then I I I wrote it all out right and then you know you sit there where you're like I don't know if I should actually hit send or not you know it's all there all the feelings are there and before I knew it I hit send and then it was too late so that obviously agonized the whole night right um but the next day I got an email back from her she told me she appreciated my honesty and respected my Approach in fighting for myself I took the chance I stood up for myself I got what I wanted and not only did that strengthen our relationship but she probably respected me so much more because of it because if I just accepted the situation as it was it might have taken me so much longer to get to where I wanted to be you know and I would have been miserable at the same time so the next time an opportunity face like brings itself to you focus on your symbol find the courage to speak up and ask for what you want the last point I want to make is especially important we are women and we need to support other women it's hard enough in this world to find our equality let's stop competing with each other and instead seek one another out to provide kindness and support I'm so glad to be here a part of this organization right now because I can feel that energy as our young girls they need to see shining samples of this I want to reiterate the point that I made earlier where I said start vocalizing about your challenges that you face and how you overcame them let's normalize these mistakes as beautiful learning experiences so we don't have to feel ashamed you know let ourselves learn from these missteps so we don't make it seem impossible for anybody to reach their level of definition of success you should do it for each other our daughters nieces sisters friends let's help each other find our voices by remembering to give yourself a break be kind to yourself and remember that you don't have to know everything and it's okay to make that mistake find a symbol that can hold all of your amazing memories of your accomplishments you can turn to it when you need that extra boost of support and speak up don't be miserable take control of the situation and ask for what you want because you're happiness matters if we do these things it creates a ripple effect to normalize being kind to ourselves remembering why we're so great and standing out for ourselves because the best gift that we can give our daughters is the ability to not think twice of it advocating for themselves to be 100% confidence that their voices will be heard and to fly high because that ceiling was already broken and the next time you walk into a room remember that so instead of feeling like this you can stand up tall focus on your symbol and battle your impostor syndrome by walking into that room ready for your voice to be heard thank you so much for your time if you like what you heard you can read more in my book find your people your tools and your voice of blueprint for professional success what what was relax SEMA thank you so much for that wonderful presentation and yes just as a reminder if anybody has any live questions please somebody out there is not needs to go un mute um yeah if um that's a wonderful presentation yes so just as a reminder if anybody has any live questions please raise your hand and I can um unmute yourself
okay I'm okay I'm going to figure out who it is that's talking oh I see who it is I apologize I found the person that is talking and oh wait and I muted them me see SEMA SEMA can you say hello I to make sure I didn't unmute hello everybody awesome thank you so much and just as a followup for for you um you have great confidence in your presentation skills can you give us one tip on how you built that confidence I think it's just like I'm pretending like I'm talking to all my friends right now so you are all my friends and I'm just talking to you I'll be honest somewhere in the middle of that and I apologize because I I think I I had that Mouse and I'm clicking it I'm clicking all over the place but somewhere in there I I lost even my I couldn't see my face and I just kept talking to the camera so I'm hoping you could see all that but um I appreciate all of you this is such an amazing amazing organization well thank you so much and I guess one final question before we go to our panel discussion and Ela says was there a time where you lost confidence all the time um it's because the thing is it can take one small thing you know anything can tip us and any moment and I try to focus on what's good the moving forward part is the best part because life is a journey and anything is going to stumble you and and I don't know in a day at least three things bother me where I'm like ah I should have done that I didn't do that right or whatever but tomorrow's a new day and no one's going to remember what happened in the past and you just have to keep moving forward because it's not a destination so if I lose confidence in one thing I'm gonna just push that aside forgive myself and move forward to the next thing and one more final thought from Gail she says social media has increased imposture syndrome I feel it even in the it negatively affects children and teens and it's so sad yeah it is it is really sad because we all want to be put together right and what do we do we're not going to be looking like a hot mess on social media we want to be looking good all the time I think a is is having those conversations with your with your kids right like hey this is um not normal it's like TV it's not normal and you're seeing something like are you going to put any of your mistakes out there you're going to always try to look put together for your social media too but we all are human and 80% of us are walking around feeling that same way so just continue to have the conversations with everybody in your life well that's fantastic well as we move along to our panel discussion any um any final words of wisdom for all of our viewers today um no I just want to thank you all again thanks for the opportunity I really appreciate it well we thank you so much for your time today