Category: New Job

Our own version of success

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Words by me (Fiona) based on an interview with Nada
Image by me

Nada talked to me about stepping out of her comfort zone to find a career that aligned more closely to her values. “I think it’s so important to plan your career from the right place and not to be restricted by someone else’s version of success. I think it’s so important to really define our own version of what success means. Create that vision. Often, it’s that lack of clarity and vision that keeps us stuck. So, it’s important to create the vision of the future we want to create, and then to empower ourselves and give ourselves permission to create it.”

And Nada did just that!

“I think the biggest time I stepped out of my comfort zone was leaving the security of a well-established career and corporate role when I decided to start my own business – very much a leap of faith.”

Nada started her career as an accountant, but gradually realised that her interest lay in people not numbers! She was able to move into people and company management roles, but “I realised that companies don’t always have the person’s best interest in mind when it comes to development. I saw poor leadership practices, for example, and wanted to develop these people as leaders. But I was not able to do that. Because as long as they’re bringing in the money, it doesn’t matter if they’re burning people and there is a revolving door of new hires and departures”

Having people’s best interests at the core of what she did was the driver behind Nada’s move to starting her career as a career development and transition consultant.

“One of my passions was also helping people make the transitions from technical roles to leadership roles. It’s not just a simple step of you’ve been really great at your job, well we’re going to reward you now. It doesn’t work that way unless there’s some extra work put in developing the people skills. Helping people to find their alignment because of my long career journey of finding my way from numbers to people.

“And it’s been a long hard road because I didn’t really have that advice available. I didn’t have that support available to help me even develop my self-awareness in terms of what are my strengths? What are my natural preferences? It was really hard to identify what’s the true me versus the ‘shoulds’ of this is a good profession or this is a good organisation.

“Letting go of that security blanket, stepping out of that comfort zone was a really big leap of faith, as I said, but a very rewarding one. Because it has given me the freedom and the ability to do things my way, to pursue what really lights me up, but also to see that reward of lighting other people up and helping them to elevate themselves.”

Some of the benefits (aside from finding alignment between her values and her work) Nada found stepping out of her comfort zone include increased self-belief and also realising the awesome determination to succeed that was a central part of her nature.

Nada also had some great insights into how careers are different in the modern day “Because we just can’t rely on going to uni, learning a set of skills and we’re set for life in our career. We can’t tie our self-identity to that role or to that organisation. Because they’re not guaranteed. So it’s critical we invest this time in self-development and self-awareness, in understanding and even treating ourselves as the CEO of our own careers, not leaving it up to someone else, and not leaving it up to chance where we end up, where we drift.

“I think stepping out of your comfort zone is going to be the new normal.”

You can find out more about Nada’s work at www.elevateme.com.au, or reach out to Nada on www.linkedin.com/in/nadamatijevic if you’re struggling with your own career challenge.

Thank you Nada

Get Messy

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Image by me (Fiona)
Words by me based on an interview with Stacey

Stacey loves to challenge herself! She says it comes from the example her Dad set.

“My Dad started his business when I was only a few years old. So I didn’t know anything different. He built it into a very successful company and sold it many years later.

Over the years, I saw the hard work and sacrifice. But he used to say how fun it was too!

I always knew I wanted to have my own business one day. My Dad was my inspiration. I was drawn to the freedom of being my own boss — I’m a very independent person and freedom is one of my biggest values.”

Despite the goal and inspiration being there from an early age, Stacey’s journey to becoming a business owner took many more years! She started out her career in the corporate world. An ambitious high-performer, she worked her way up into her first management role in her mid-20’s.

But as her 30’s approached Stacey gave herself a deadline!

She stepped out of her comfort zone, leaving her corporate job days before her 30th birthday with the goal of starting her own recruitment business.

Doing the right thing by her former employer, Stacey had a 6 month break. Being very risk averse, she also took the time to do her due diligence and make sure her business was financially viable before opening the doors.

Although her business quickly became a success, it wasn’t always easy. ‘I’m a very self-motivated person but I think it’s a real shock when you first step out on your own. You’re no longer accountable to a pay cheque, having to be at your desk at 8am each morning, a boss, or anything like that!”

5 years after starting her consulting business, Stacey began to feel like something was missing. “I wasn’t fulfilled by my work and knew I had to find something more meaningful.” After months of exploration, she retrained as a professional coach and pivoted her business!

“I’m naturally a very driven. I love to challenge myself and always want to do and achieve more. But it has to be aligned and fulfilling — I have to be energised, fired up and passionate about what I’m doing.”

Stacey finds being challenged helps her learn and grow — both of which are very important to her. “When I start to stagnate and feel that’s not there anymore, then I’m ready to take on the next challenge.”

I asked Stacey what advice she would give to someone considering a step out of their comfort zone and she shared “Ask yourself — ‘What have you got to lose? And how much more do you have to gain?’

“You can choose to stay where you are, playing it safe, doing what you’ve always done. Or, you can choose to step outside your comfort zone. It’s not going to be the easiest path and it will be scary — but the benefits far outweigh the initial fear.

“So, I would say take the leap — just do it.

“I’ve learned, particularly in recent years, that life is short — and it’s there to be lived. You can’t do that by staying in your comfort zone. You need to get uncomfortable, get messy sometimes to truly experience life and all it has to offer.”

Great advice Stacey — thank you!

Stacey Back — Profile Careers

Stacey Back is the Founder of Profile Careers and a professional coach + mentor to aspiring and early stage consultants. She helps them launch and grow their own consulting businesses and develop their careers. Stacey’s professional background includes ten years’ in consulting with international companies in Australia and the UK. After a career in corporate sales, HR and recruitment, she founded her own successful consulting business in 2013, before launching Profile Careers in 2018. For the past 12 years, Stacey has coached hundreds of professionals and entrepreneurs, supporting them to execute their professional goals. Her approach is highly strategic and based on the proven methods used successfully in her own career and business. She is passionate about sharing the lessons from her own journey to success to help others achieve the same

Understand your why

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A waterbird sitting in the middle of a pool of water
Words by me (Fiona) based on an interview with Brian.
Image by me.

Brian didn’t feel that stepping out of his comfort zone was a choice. He had reached a point in his life where his high-powered career was costing him physically, emotionally and mentally. He had a tipping point at an international airport, and the story he shared is what happened after that.

As a little back story – Brian moved to Australia with his family as a transfer for the company he was working for in South Africa. Shortly after he arrived the dotcom crash meant he had to close his division! He continued on for 12 months before moving to an IT security business where he moved from ops director to COO to being part of running the Asian arm of the company. By this point he was away more than home, and this was having an impact on his relationships with his family and others.

It was sitting in Bangalore airport that Brian found himself silently crying – pointed out to him by a stranger! “And I’m embarrassed to say that I now realize I was having an emotional breakdown in Bangalore airport. And that I was living an unaligned and therefore unsustainable life. I was getting paid a lot of money but I was disconnected from family and friends. I was unhealthy physically, mentally, emotionally, and it just all came to a head.”

Brian feels that, since then, the next 12 years has included two parallel journeys – one above the line and one below the line. The below the line journey was about better understanding his struggle with anxiety and depression and being able to manage ‘it’, rather than ‘it’ continuing to manage him. The above the line journey was all about “becoming the person I was designed to be. We all are unique. And it’s about really trying to understand how that all comes together into some sort of uniqueness”. This above the line journey has led to Brian becoming an ‘Alignment and Movement Strategist’.

Some of Brian’s above the line journey was accidental. An offer of a senior position at a big company fell through at the last minute. Taking that job would have led to a different outcome “I don’t think I would have survived. I know it wasn’t right for me.

“Increasingly though, I am living a life of increased intentionality, and a lot of what I help my clients to do is live more intentionally too.”

Six years ago, Brian started his own practice, as an Alignment and Movement Strategist, and has not looked back!

His advice for anyone planning – or being forced – to move out of their comfort zone?

“Don’t do it alone. And be kind to yourself.”

Brian also reflected on using what you have experienced rather than always looking forward: “I find that leaders live in the future. It’s part of why they get paid. They’re thinking about what’s coming, what’s happening, preparing themselves, their teams, their business for the future. I think the mindfulness movement has been quite helpful in slowing people down and being more present. However, an area that I think leaders tend not to go is the past. Yet so much learning in the past. Take the time to learn from it.”

“If someone’s wanting to step out of their comfort zone I would love to explore why. And I would say what they want probably has something to do with their backstory and the past”.

“For me part of the intentionality thing is, what is it you are moving away from and what are you moving towards? And appreciating what you have now.”

Brian finished with some last words that I loved: “Really engage with your why!”

A little about Brian:
Brian describes himself an Alignment and Movement Strategist – working as a Mentor, an Executive Coach, a Facilitator, and is passionate about helping both organisations and individuals, operate in a more aligned, more sustainable and therefore more effective manner, with a strong sense of movement in the ‘right’ direction.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianrichardgardner

Find Your Own Path

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Image by me (Fiona)
Words by me based on an interview with Gordon

Gordon wants to make a difference in the lives of the majority – the 99% not the 1%. He wants to help people achieve extraordinary outcomes. He says he gets called a square peg in a round hole.

I think he is a man with great passions and an unconventional approach!

One of Gordons biggest steps outside his comfort zone was when he put his hand up for a C-suite role in the international firm he worked for. He was only about 20-25% qualified for the position! What Gordon did was obtain the support of the COO and a really respected financial adviser so when he asked for the role he went in with support ready to go! His first task was to make part of the team redundant – so he certainly stayed uncomfortable once he started the role.

Gordon believes that our experiences shape our comfort zones “I think it stems from my childhood.  I think there’s five or six different instances that change your life. Maybe it’s being bullied three times a day school. And the way I got myself out of that was to learn martial art. Then I came to Australia where I didn’t know anyone. And the first question you get asked in Australia is which football team do you support? Which school did you go to? Well, I don’t support an Australian football team. And I’ve never been to an Australian school so I had to find my own way.

“I’m dyslexic, so I can’t read well.  So, I can’t write a book. But I can produce a book, I found a different way to produce a book. And then that book was produced in four days. It cost virtually nothing to produce it. And it’s sold over 4000 copies. And I haven’t paid for any advertising at all. “

Gordons advice is not to follow other people’s paths. That may be the right path for them but not necessarily for you.

The benefits Gordon finds outside of his comfort zone are often side effects! One example is that his wife was very ill, requiring a double lung transplant. Unable to keep working in the corporate world, Gordon discovered a passion for medical science and research – and started a very successful charity as a result!

“Life’s too short, a we’ve got to make every day count. And the last thing we need to do is go to the cemetery wondering what if!

“And when you take that step forward, tell people why you have taken that step. Tell people what it means to you, when you take that step. And what you’ll find very quickly is a group of people (I call it  your ecosystem), who are really supporting you. Supporting you in terms of that advice, that support network, that healthy support network that will encourage people to push through. And what will happen is all those toxic people, those people that love to say no will suddenly disappear. So, do it, ‘just do it’ and take people with you . It’s your pathway, but it’s our journey. I’m here to – help and encourage you and support you along the way. I may not have taken the actual step, the same step as you. But I’ve got experiences.”

Thank you, Gordon, for your great story and outlook.

A little about Gordon:

Gordon Jenkins is an authority on visibility and unconventional business growth. As an executive coach, accomplished entrepreneur, speaker and author of Network with Purpose, he helps entrepreneurs and professionals breakthrough their plateau to achieve sustainable business growth and personal life goals. His intention is to facilitate growth that aligns with an individuals’ values and strengths so they achieve success that is meaningful to them

Gordon’s success and that of his clients stems from the strong belief that it’s okay not to conform to the system, it’s refreshing to be different, and that being a square peg in a round hole is a good thing. He is a supporter of the underdog and his purpose is to help ordinary people achieve extraordinary and meaningful outcomes every day. For more information about Gordon, please visit www.iamgordonjenkins.com or LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamgordonjenkins/ There is also a free resource: 30 ways to make networking feel less like work

Writing for your tomorrow

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Story by Fiona based on an interview with Shilpa
Image by Fiona

Until 18 months ago Shilpa was very comfortable in her life. An amazing career spanning 16 years had been everything she wanted. Until she was made redundant.
This was a wake up call for Shilpa – that someone else had control over her career like that.

Shilpa decided to take the opportunity to take back that control and try something completely new – follow her passion into a coaching career!

After years of staying comfortable Shilpa now steps out of her comfort zone on a daily basis!

Today she speaks regularly at public events and live videos. “I was a very shy person. I used to be a loner, very comfortable in my world and with my thoughts. And then I said, ‘Okay, let me go out there and put myself in front of the public. How bad can it be?’

“Speaking from the stage has been a great part of my journey! And today when I’m teaching other people to do the same, I know each of them can do it because I have walked that path myself”

Shilpa took a non-traditional approach to her new career!
“So my initial feeling was okay, this is exciting. And then when I started, the biggest question I faced was ‘where do I get the credibility?’ I had a comfort zone for years; I was fully established there. People knew me, I had the relationships. And how do I create that credibility immediately in this new field when I am doing something totally different? It all came together somehow, but initially there was some, I wouldn’t say fear, but a hesitation whether it would work or not. But then I realised that I had built credibility all along, it was all that commitment, dedication, result orientation, everything that I had built in those 16 years. I just have to pull them along from my previous life and create some amazing results in the new industry and there you go- my credibility was there.“

Well done Shilpa!

There are good reasons why Shilpa regularly challenges herself “When you are sitting in your comfort zone, you get rusty. You’re just do what you know, over and over again. And you feel that you know it all. Whereas the fact is that you’ve not seen the world outside. And slowly you start getting this feeling that I’m comfortable here, but can I survive in the world outside, if required? Ultimately life does throw challenges. But if we can figure out a way to respond to it with whatever we have, that confidence and action orientation is the success mantra. Constantly getting out of your comfort zone, no matter how small the step is, gives you unlimited confidence, those juices which tell you that life is in control, no matter what “

Shilpa’s advice to anyone considering stepping out of their comfort zone is to just do it – don’t look for the 1000 reasons why not to do it, Reasons are for not doing things rather than for doing things.

I also asked Shilpa her favourite part of stepping out of her comfort zone “My favourite bit is the experience. Each of us have our own experiences. And if we go and we embrace more of such experiences, our life becomes richer. I’m not saying that everywhere there will be a win – there will be failures as well. But definitely there will be learnings.”

“So I would say, don’t overthink, JUST DO IT and whether it works or not, the learning you will get out of it, will go a long way in building that story that you’re writing for YOUR tomorrow.”

My favourite quote – “that story that you’re writing for YOUR tomorrow”. How powerful!

About Shilpa:

As a Career Strategist, Peak Performance Coach and #1 International bestselling author of the book “Play it Full”, Shilpa believe that you can attain incredible results in all three aspects of life- Achievements, Health and Relationships. You can have it all!

She is on a mission to impact 1 million people move from the role of a creation to a creator.

Her mentees are rocking their life today by performing at an elevated level, creating outstanding results for themselves.

Shilpa has mastered the magic formula and so is on a war against the average game.

The purpose of her life today is to share this formula, this awesome sauce with the world, so that each person gets an opportunity to fly high and through a ripple effect, it creates an exceptional world for all of us.

Linkedin Profile: www.linkedin.com/in/shilpa-kulshrestha

Push the boat out

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Words and image by me (Fiona)
Words based on an interview with Johnathan

Johnathan is a serial ‘step out of your comfort zoner’, but shared with me one of his 9 career transitions!

He was working as a recruiter: “I’d recently removed from New Zealand to Australia. So I was very fortunate enough to come over with a job when we moved here. I was working in in recruitment but my heart wasn’t really in it, I was getting frustrated with how recruitment worked. But one night I thought I know what a good CV and a good LinkedIn profile and I know what a bad one looks like. No one’s actually telling the candidates this we’re just rejecting, rejecting, rejecting. We’re not actually saying ‘hey, this is what you are doing wrong’, there was nobody providing sort of feedback. I felt that everyone was working for the client as a recruitment consultant, but no one was working for the candidate.

“And so I had a like an epiphany moment as I was sitting on the couch off to the shower and I thought, I’m going to try something tomorrow and I’m going to push this boat out as far as I can before it sinks.”

Johnathan ran with his epiphany immediately, talking ‘the mother of all epic sickies’ the very next day and calling a local school that taught Microsoft technical education. He was able to secure a meeting with the head of the school for that afternoon “I said, ‘hey, look, I’m a career coach. And I specialise in helping people build their technical careers. I’d love to come in and talk to your students, if I can, about how to set themselves up for success.’ “

“He said to me, ‘Well, this sounds like a really good idea. When can you come in and talk to one of my classes and share these tips?’ And I say, well, as luck would have it, I have some time available this afternoon!”

Once there Johnathan told the head of the school about his background and his idea – and found himself in front of the students that same visit!

“The guy said to me, ‘this sounds amazing. Tell you what, I’ve got a class running right now. Do you want to jump in right now and just have a bit of a chat to these students?’”

Despite having nothing prepared, Johnathan continued to push that boat out and spoke to the students for an hour and a half!

“I walked out of there really, really invigorated because I kind of reconnected with my passion. So the interesting thing is that he said to me, at the end of it, ‘look, that was fantastic. When can you come in again, we’d like you to develop a programme.’ And I thought to myself, ‘okay, look, I’ll come back to you on that one’ – because I knew I had to go back to work the next day.

“I was so far outside my comfort zone, but I was being kind of propelled by this energy in this interview. And this, this wow feeling. And at the same time I was also had that voice in the back of my head going, What the hell are you doing?”

This huge day led eventually to the business Jonathan now runs.

Johnathan has some great advice for people thinking about stepping out of their comfort zone “One thing that I teach people is reframing the comfort zone or reframing the tasks that you want to accomplish. We’ll call it an experiment, which means if you think about your career, and it’s on a long sort of line, why don’t we take a small part of where you’re sitting at right now, and let’s just extract it out. Let’s find something that you can do. That is not going to impact in your career. If it doesn’t work, we’ll try another approach. So this is not the be all and end all of your whole entire life. But most times we put in a good framework and we set the experiment up for success.”

Johnathan had other great techniques for stepping out of your comfort zone, but instead I am going to share with you his final words – you can always contact Johnathan to find out more!

“Sometimes getting outside your comfort zone means confronting yourself and your professional self in a mirror and going, what am I? Where do I want to go? How do I need to position myself to get there? How do I understand the full range of what who I am and what I do and the value that I bring to an organisation?

“So part of getting out of your comfort zone means going on a journey of figuring out and finding out who and what you are. And that can be an incredibly rewarding experience and one that can really build and foster a greater sense of self confidence in people. So getting outside of your comfort zone can produce an enormous amount of reward, career acceleration, and purpose and fulfilment.”

Thank you so much Johnathan!

About Johnathan:

Johnathan is a Career Consultant who specialises in Professional Identity and Personal Brand Management. Using a structured method, he enables his clients to de-clutter their heads so they can gain a greater understanding of who and what they are, their capabilities and most importantly what makes them valuable. He also helps them increase their professional self-awareness so that they can move their careers forward with greater confidence and clarity of direction. Johnathan typically works with professionals at mid-career phase (Gen-X), to define their professional identity and then build a powerful Personal Brand to help them re-energise their careers and attract exciting opportunities. You can read more at johnmaltby.com. au or connect with him on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnathanmaltby/

Know your line

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Photo by Alexandre Chambon on Unsplash
Words by Fiona based on an interview with Tanya

I started my conversation with Tanya talking about her amazing business – Girl Shaped Flames – but then she mentioned a time she stepped out of her comfort zone and it didn’t work out. And she kindly allowed me to focus on that part of her experience – but I will start by saying Tanya has had success outside of her comfort zone both before and after this particular experience! 

When Tanya was 24 she got a role as a film production manager in the UK with very little experience and was very good at it! 2 years later and one of her contacts wanted to work with her on a film he was the 1st assistant director on.  

“And he called me up and said, ‘I’m working on another film and It’d be so cool if we could work together again. They already have a production manager on the job, but I wonder if I could find another role for you to come on as.’ 

“And, as it turned out, he managed to wrangle me into a second assistant director role, which is very similar to production manager because essentially you’re in charge of organising things, but the difference is that you’re organising people (and let’s be honest egos.  I was more used to managing resources, crew, logistics etc.” 

“I sort of went into it a little bit naive thinking I can figure the differences in the roles out. I’m sure it’s fine. But very quickly, within a few days of me being there, I started questioning whether I actually knew how to handle the nuances of the job or not.  That partnered with a pretty unsupportive production manager on set who was frustrated that the 1st AD had hired someone inexperienced for the role. I certainly went in just trying to do the best job I could, and it was fairly challenging circumstances. But the whole time I just had this feeling in the pit of my stomach that I wasn’t sure whether this was all going to plan. 

“We did six weeks of prep, and then we were supposed to have a six-week shoot, but about three and a half weeks into shooting things just dissolved to a point where I was really struggling in the role. I imagine it was partly a conflict of my skillset not being quite right as well as the challenges presented clashing with the PM.   

“But there came one day where I basically had not been able to give the lead actress the attention that she needed while she was waiting to be called to set, because I was just overwhelmed with other work and I lost track of time really. She was in a very fragile state. She was away from her family. She’s had very  emotional and draining scenes in the film, and she had a bit of a meltdown, essentially.  

“And this was a situation that was really my responsibility to keep under control, and I hadn’t. It all came crashing down on me.  

“So off the back of that it presented a good time for myself and the film to ‘mutually part ways’, which is the polite way of saying that I was pretty much fired because if I hadn’t chosen to go, they were going to have to fire me anyway. 

“That was hands down the most confidence shattering experience that went against all of the beliefs I had in myself and the world. The world where I thought ‘you can take on any challenge, you can throw yourself into anything. If you work really hard, and you try really hard, you will find a way to make things work and succeed’. And the fact that I had done all those things yet it had still not succeeded really shook the foundations of how I functioned as a human being. Two days later (which happened to be my birthday) I got on a plane and flew back to Australia and I hid out at my mum’s house for five weeks, refusing to go back to London because I was so distraught over what this meant – my film career, and my dream, felt over.” 

Tanya has found that processing is critical in recovering from an event like this. “We’re all really quick to say ‘Don’t worry, brush it off, it’s fine. It doesn’t matter. Keep going, it’s all good.’ But that’s not how we work as people. It’s not how we work mentally or emotionally, really, we do need time to process and we need time to cry and be angry and it’s almost like you go through the stages of mourning: denial, bargaining etc until finally you come out the other side of it.” 

Tanya started slowly and, with lots of support, got back into the producer and production manager role that she was confident in. 

I asked Tanya if this experience changed her willingness to set out of her comfort zone, and the answer was that it didn’t necessarily change her willingness, but she is less emotional when she decides to do so “it has definitely made me think a little bit more, consider a bit more thoroughly.” 

But she’s determined to continue to promote confidence development and risk taking within the younger generation coming through. Tanya gives the below advice to high school girls on her Girl Shaped Flames program: 

“What’s really important is developing a very clear understanding of yourself and trying to understand what excites you, what terrifies you, what you’re good at, what you’re not good at, what you like and what you don’t like as early as possible. 

Because the more you do that, and the more you understand yourself, the greater your belief in your capacity becomes – and whether that’s capacity to succeed in a professional environment, or whether it’s capacity to survive in an adventure opportunities. Because when we believe, when we understand our own capacity, it positions us in such a better place to say yes when opportunities that sit outside of our comfort zone arise. 

“One of the talks I give the girls is about your ‘line of perceived ability’. We talk about how you might think that your line of perceived ability is here. If you try this new thing that is over that line, and you don’t reach all the way there, but you reach part way you move your line a little bit further out. That line doesn’t come back. It’s not elastic, it doesn’t snap back, that line stays out.  

“So once you’ve spoken in front of 100 people, you spoke in front of hundred people, no one can take that away. It might not have been 1000 people but it was 100. That is what you know you’re capable of doing. 

“So I guess my advice to people around stepping out of their comfort zone is yes, 100%: do it. But the more you can spend time and effort really developing a solid understanding of yourself and your strengths and passion points, then when you have the opportunity to expand the line further and further out. So eventually so many more things are IN your comfort zone!” 

Awesome advice Tanya! 

A bit about Tanya:

Originating from regional QLD (Yeppoon) Tanya Meessmann is an internationally-experienced Communications, Branding and Film professional and the founder of Girl Shaped Flames: a Brisbane-based organisation connecting Secondary girls with Extraordinary Women across a variety of industries for experiential opportunities that help them identify the fire within and break through limitations to reach their full potential.  Over the past 2 years months she has connected over 2500 girls, parents and educators with over 170 strong, female role models through more than 80 live events across the state.

Being You

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Photo by Brandon Hoogenboom on Unsplash
Words by Fiona based on an interview with Julie

“More concerned about the success of others than their own personal gain” are the words that caught Julie’s attention in the job ad, and I am not surprised as that describes her accurately! 

The fact that Julie was living in San Francisco and the ad was posted by a friend in London about a job in Sydney, it was all too far fetched? However, the idea of getting the job had Julie dreaming about Sydney summers. Quickly followed by ‘who do I think I am? I can’t do this. I’ve never been a tech founder. I’ve worked in start-ups, but you’re crazy.’ 

Serendipitously, Julie then read an HBR article about men applying for jobs when they only have 2 of the 10 criteria, so she decided to at least have the conversation. And ignore the imposter syndrome rearing it’s ugly head. 

Julie has a name for her ‘imposter voice’. I think we all have that voice that says we are not good enough? Julie has named hers Beatrice. Well, Julie quietened Beatrice by taking things one step at a time. ‘You know what, I’m still going to have this conversation. I’m going to talk to Annie. I wasn’t really looking to move or take this job and I was just having the conversation. So, I just kept saying yes, and here I am. 

‘Annie flew me down here [Sydney] when I had my interview. She turned on all the works. It was January so the sun was out. We walked from downtown to Rose Bay and I went stand up paddle boarding in the bay with the Harbour Bridge behind me crystal blue water. She flew me up to Brisbane and I met with Steve Baxter aka Shark of Shark Tank, I had no idea who he was.  

I just decided to show up as myself. We were talking about investing in start-ups and I said “there’s market-based solutions for social impact. We can we can do good and make money at the same time.” And again I did not know Steve Baxter at that point. And I couldn’t understand why everyone was on the edge of their seats hanging on my every word! Steve said “No, no, no, we make our money first, then we give it away”. Which was fine. I’m glad that I showed up in what I believe but also knew not to have continuing argument with him. Steve and I are good friends now.’ 

This was not the first (or last) time Julie stepped out of her comfort zone! Julie helped set up the Salesforce Foundation after meeting Marc Benioff and making such an impression with her advice about his plans that he offered her the role! She moved from Atlanta, where she had been a student, teacher and technology specialist over the span of 12 years, to San Francisco based on the regrets she would have if she didn’t. ‘There is nothing I have to lose’. 

Julie has found that being around the right type of people and energy is really important to her resilience but learning to not try and control things and focusing on seeing the glass as half full help her to bounce back when she finds herself ‘curling up’. 

I asked Julie what drives her to step out of her comfort zone, and her answer was as beautifully original as she is ‘Knowing that there’s support and trying new things. Creating new synapses. Being able to be creative and try that try new things. Being unique. Trying to be the only one doing it so I’m not compared to anyone else. So you don’t have to have that judging. And not being afraid to ask…..’ 

‘When I was in school I was a technology specialist in the middle school. I was the only tech specialist in that school amongst all the teachers. You couldn’t really compare me to anyone else. That’s maybe a safety mechanism. I’m protecting myself. There’s no other bar. I have to set the bar.’ 

I think that is fabulous motivation for trying something new! 

Julie finished off with her passion about celebrating failure. 

‘I’ve become more comfortable [with failure] and when I do talks I get people to be more comfortable with the little tiny mistakes and being okay not to be judged. Think about your body when you make a mistake and what happens – you physically curl up and you change your whole body. Think about times when you won a race or completed something – your body goes big. 

‘It’s a totally different feeling and you can move on and continue. So, next time when you make a mistake how crazy and odd would it be to trick your body into celebrating and throw your arms wide open? It is counterintuitive, but if you physically celebrate your failures you feel differently about them and are more able to go on.’ 

Thank you so much Julie for sharing your story and viewpoint. 

Remember Your Why

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Story by me (Fiona) based on an interview with Tessa

I heard Tessa speak recently and I immediately found (stalked?) her online and asked if she was willing to be interviewed for this blog. To my excitement she agreed – and the interview did not disappoint me! 

Tessa believes that stepping out of your comfort zone helps you grow. And that sometimes you need to do it to get where you want to be in life. 

“I’d worked in marketing for some time, probably for about 10 years of my career. My comfort zone got pushed, but I’d say moderately, such as when you learn a new role you step up.  

“I had this conversation with my GM of HR at Spark Digital. And she said, ‘What is your ambition? Where do you want to go?’ And told her that one day I’d love to be a CEO of kind of moderate sized organization. ‘I’m trying to work out the skills I need to get there. And I think I need more commercial skills.’ 

“And you know, that moment where you put something out into the universe, but you never expect anyone to act on it? Probably within about three days, she came up to me: ‘We’ve had this business manager resign in our enterprise sales team, one of the sales managers, I’m putting you up for the role’.” 

Tessa wondered what she could add as the leader of a team much more experienced than she was, particularly in sales. But her GM encouraged her (strongly!) to take the jump, to get those skill she needs. There was a full interview process and testing, and Tessa got the job! 

Her new boss told Tessa that she needed a marketer in sales, a big thinker. Someone to shake up her leadership team. 

The announcement of her new role – alongside an internal promotion announced at the same time – was really hard “It was deathly silent, you could have heard a pin drop. And then there were a couple of people who knew me from marketing who started to click. This was the most embarrassing moment of my life. I was taking on sales in a big portfolio. And I had a room of 80 people who had no idea who I was and were confused as to why a marketer was given one of the most preeminent positions in sales.” 

Tessa realised that she needed to focus on coaching her team as a leader, not trying to coach them in sales. This she realised would stand her in good stead as a CEO – after all you cannot be the expert in all aspects of the company you run. 

It was not easy! “About the 10-week mark, I had a complete meltdown. I didn’t know how to coach these people. They were much older. They were older than me, and more experienced than me in sales. I ended up back in my GM of HRs office in floods of tears. And with my GM of Sales basically picking me up off the floor because I said ‘I can’t do this, I have to leave. I’m not the person you need. I’m not doing anything.’ And they quickly got support around me. They listened and then said, ‘Okay, so how do we move forward?’  

“And they gave me a leadership coach who helped me to separate fact from myth. I had a whole lot of language in my head. I suppose that voice that you talk to yourself with was really highly critical. And that voice kept saying to me, ‘you’re getting this wrong and you don’t know that, you don’t know this’, and I couldn’t hear the things that people were actually saying to me. I had a person on my team, who said to me ‘You’re a breath of fresh air. You just bring something different. I love watching you in front of customers.’ And I couldn’t hear that I could only hear. ‘I don’t know what to tell them to sell and I don’t understand the system well enough to sell it.’ 

“My coach helped me to grow my understanding. ‘Listen to the voice in your head and write down what it says and then see if there is any data that supports it. Is there anybody said that directly to you? Is there anything that backs it up?’ and then ‘Okay, now write down the facts. What are people saying to you?’ Understand that difference between fact and myth. 

The lessons Tessa learned in her first 12 months – that it is ok to ask for help, and that sometimes you don’t know what help you need until you hit rock bottom being two of those lessons – aided her in putting up her hand when Spark Digital decided to go Agile. 

“I learned at that point that ambiguity is fine. And I don’t know what I don’t know and no one else does either. So we’re going to learn and I think the year of sales had taught me how to learn again, taught me how to walk into something that’s really uncomfortable and realize you’re going to be okay. My husband said to me at one point ‘What’s the worst that can happen? You leave sales and get another job? Is that so bad? You know, there are worse things.’ 

“And sometimes I think we compare up too much. We imagine if this was better, or if only this was like this. Instead [we could be] saying ‘at least it’s not like this. I haven’t got an illness, at least I’m not struggling to make ends meet at the moment. I’ve had a successful career so far’. And I think sometimes comparing down is a really helpful technique to make you realize that you’re okay.  You’re just learning, and learning can be uncomfortable when you’ve been really good at knowing everything. 

“It did fundamentally shift me as a person and my ability to then take on the next challenge, and to now help other people take on bigger challenges.” 

Finally, Tessa advises to remember why you are doing what you are doing. What your north star is. That can help in tough times. 

Thank you Tessa for sharing your story with us! 

About Tessa:

As Product Director Tessa is responsible for designing and delivering products and service experiences that customers value. Tessa is also responsible for shaping Spark’s investments and maturing capability in digital, IT, data and experience design to deliver on future business needs. 

She joined Spark in November 2015 as the Manager of Brand, Communications and Events for Spark Digital before moving on to become Business Manager. In 2017, Tessa joined the team that was responsible for successfully transitioning Spark into an Agile organisation, and is regarded as one of New Zealand’s leading Agile and product development practitioners. 

Tessa brings to the role more than 16 years of experience in information and communication technologies, having previously held a variety of roles at Vodafone New Zealand. She has a Diploma in Communications Studies from Manukau Institute of Technology. 

The Other Side of Yes

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Words by me (Fiona) based on an interview with Natalie Peters

Imagine taking on a challenge that was completely out of your comfort zone, a role that was totally new to you and largely unknown by many people in your company. A role that instantly opened you up to criticism and conflict in ways you weren’t really anticipating. That was the position Natalie Peters found herself in when she took on the task to lead the ways of working transformation at Telstra. In her words ‘I think in every possible way, professionally, and personally, the last 2 years has pushed me outside of my comfort zone’.

Belief is a topic that came up several times in my conversation with Nat, including why she persisted to get the results we can now see in Telstra as it clearly wasn’t easy. ‘What kept me going was the belief that it was the right thing to do for Telstra and for our people. Even though at times people were resisting the change and were afraid of what it meant, my belief in it overall being the best for our company was always strong’.

Other things that kept Nat believing in pushing forward: ‘Changing a large complex organisation isn’t easy and is never a lone mission. I had an amazing team of people to work with and as we experimented with how we adapt ways of working in the company, the momentum grew and grew. That gave me hope that more people believed and I was in fact on the right path. And the other thing was being able to talk quite openly about what was going well and equally what wasn’t going so well, being open to talk about the learnings was really important along the way. I think I learnt so much more from what didn’t work well than from what did. In a strange way, that builds belief. Personally, I didn’t do the things you should do. I should have been focused on looking after myself a little more so didn’t do meditation, I didn’t exercise, I also didn’t sleep much or take care of myself. I don’t recommend that! I am just saying I personally didn’t do any of that and I really should have.’

As you can imagine, Nat learnt a lot while being so far out of her comfort zone ‘I think with the benefit of hindsight, I got more and more comfortable as my knowledge grew. On reflection I do think I went too fast at particular times. So what I’ve learned is, it’s all well and good to have a vision in your mind as to the end goal but you have to bring people along with you at the same pace. Everyone working in this new way is in some respect outside of their comfort zone, its all new! So checking in with people is really important to make sure they feel prepared to adapt to the changes. That’s the resistance you get as the answers aren’t always clear so it does make people more anxious than in perhaps more standard transformations.’

I asked Nat about the other benefits of stepping out of her comfort zone ‘whenever anyone asks me what it was like doing this role my answer is always the same – , this has been the best and hardest period in my career. It’s the best now because I can see how special it was and how much people have grown from the experience. I know how much I have been able to grow from this  and I have learnt so much about organisations, supporting people through change, but also about myself. I have to unlearn a lot of things to do this role and I think I am better for it. I would never have known these things if I didn’t go and do something that made me feel unsure of myself. Because in that experience you see the best and the worst of yourself. And it prepares you for whatever’s coming next.’ In Nat’s case next is another big step that will take her to London!

Nat shared with me a specific learning – this is where she talked again about belief. ‘one of the things I did quite early on was running the enterprise leadership meeting with circa 200 of our leaders across the company. And I was trying to teach them some agile tools in a day basically, and I was doing it a very disruptive way solving real company impediments. This was the first moment of stepping out of my comfort zone, I’d been in the job six weeks when I took this task on. I was always determined to be bold. And I was about to get on stage for the first time and the pressure was massive and I remember I was nervous about the event being successful and having the right impact. As I was about to get on stage, I had this moment where I thought ‘How do I be confident?’ And I said to my co-facilitator on the day Dominic Price from Atlassian, ‘How do you have so much confidence when you’re speaking like that?’ And he said, ‘I don’t have confidence it’s belief.’ And it was the first moment where confidence was something different for me. I’d always thought that being confident was the right mindset but actually that was perhaps more about pretending…. Belief however allows you to be vulnerable, more open and connect in a very different way with what you are doing. I know that sounds corny for some people, but during this transformation, everything that tested me has actually given me more overall belief. Because I had belief in what I was doing, I knew what my thresholds were, what my limits were and what I was able to do. I was able to ask for help more openly and I would never have asked for help before because I wanted people to think I was in control and had total confidence. But belief is something deeper and subsequently that created more belief in others that they could trust me and follow me.’

Nat had one last piece of advice: ‘the reason I step outside of your comfort zone is because I am curious. I think life is a massive adventure, made up of a series of adventures. And unless you say yes to things, you will always be stuck in ‘no’ and wondering why things aren’t changing or moving for you. And when I get stuck in the ‘no’ I have no one to blame but myself. And it’s not always the best place to be. And when I am feeling frustrated or disappointed, nine times out of ten I can look back at decisions I’ve made and see that it’s because of a decision I made or didn’t make that has kept me there. And it’s really hard sometimes to say yes, because it’s going to push you. But every time I’ve done that I have looked back and I’ve surprised myself with what I’ve been able to do. And it’s given me so much more in life to keep moving forward to the next adventure. So I guess the other thing I’d say is when you’re when you’re faced with a decision and you’re thinking about it and ‘no’ is the safe answer…. maybe be curious and see what would happen if you actually said yes.’

Thanks Nat!

BIO

Natalie has been in variety of Human Resources roles for the past 21 years across multiple industries including professional services, financial services and telecommunications.

Natalie joined Telstra in 2013 and has led HR teams across multiple parts of the HR  organisation including leading National and International business HR teams.

In January of 2018 Natalie was selected to lead part of Telstra’s transformation to fundamentally change the ways of working across the company with a goal to create a simplified organisation that was enabled to deliver higher quality products and services for customers. The ways of working transformation included leading the agile at scale transformation at Telstra.