Latest / You're Overqualified Podcast - Career and Leadership Strategies for Women / 106. What Nobody Tells You About Success in a New Role

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106. What Nobody Tells You About Success in a New Role · You're Overqualified Podcast - Career and Leadership Strategies for Women

• 0:08
  Hi, I'm Danny Tan and if you are here, you are in the right
• 0:11
  place. Welcome to the Pivot and
• 0:13
  Promotion podcast where we say forget the rules because they
• 0:16
  weren't written for us. I'm Danny Tan, I'm your host as
• 0:19
  well as career and leadership coach and a proud advocate for
• 0:21
  redefining what success and leadership looks like.
• 0:24
  And here's what I know. You can lead at any level, you
• 0:27
  can pivot at any age, and you can make moves that feel right
• 0:30
  for you, whether you're climbing the perfect ladder, starting
• 0:33
  something completely new, or just figuring out your next
• 0:35
  step. I've got you covered with
• 0:36
  strategies, stories, and straight up inspiration.
• 0:39
  So let's make some moves. OK, so today we're going to talk
• 0:47
  about what nobody tells you about when it comes to success,
• 0:51
  success in general, success and a role.
• 0:52
  So let's go ahead and break it down.
• 0:54
  So the first part is when it comes to success is that winning
• 0:59
  or success doesn't always feel like a sense of relief or the
• 1:02
  relief that you would expect. So whether you have received a
• 1:05
  new role, a new title, or even like the funding for something,
• 1:08
  you would sense they're like, OK, now there's going to be the
• 1:10
  sense of ease and I'm going to go ahead of no more pressure.
• 1:15
  But you may realize, wait a minute, actually still feel this
• 1:18
  like a bit of pressure. And it's a different kind of
• 1:20
  pressure. So for example, you thought the
• 1:21
  hard part potentially was getting what it was or what it
• 1:25
  is that you want to achieve, but now you are starting to question
• 1:28
  whether you can actually deliver on it.
• 1:29
  So that's where this starts to creep in.
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  Now, I don't want to say this is imposter syndrome.
• 1:33
  I'd rather say it's an emotional lag.
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  And that happens when your external world changes faster
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  than your internal identity and you're trying to get them to
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  catch up with each other. So I want to reiterate that one
• 1:42
  more time. It's an emotional act of what
• 1:44
  your external world currently is and how fast it's changing
• 1:47
  versus your internal identity and how they are matching.
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  And so while you felt potentially that the hardest
• 1:53
  part was going to be able to get this thing, now there's a whole
• 1:55
  new layer of potential pressure and unease that you're facing
• 1:59
  of, wait a minute, can I actually deliver on the things
• 2:01
  that I push forward for? So for example, I have a client
• 2:05
  who's a senior leader and she wanted to land this dream role
• 2:09
  where she was going to be at a higher level and doing some
• 2:12
  really mission LED work, which she was super excited about.
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  When she got the job, she was like, Oh my gosh, I just don't
• 2:17
  know if if I'm the right person for this job.
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  I don't know if I'm properly qualified for this job and I
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  have the right experience for it.
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  Even though she lands it, even though they offered her, even
• 2:26
  though she's in the role, a big thing for her was constantly
• 2:29
  feeling behind like she always had to catch up right?
• 2:32
  Or like she's questioning her capacity like how come I can't
• 2:35
  get all the things done? And so she thought there was
• 2:38
  almost something wrong with her of I thought I supposed to be
• 2:41
  like at ease now, supposed to feel better than I'm here.
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  But now I feel like I have to make sure they don't find me out
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  right in the sense of like, maybe I'm not everything that I
• 2:49
  said I was. And so she started to question
• 2:51
  herself, question her capacity and her ability to just to get
• 2:53
  the stuff done. And so the biggest thing that we
• 2:55
  did because outside of helping folks like get their role, it's
• 2:58
  also about the transition of being in your new role.
• 3:01
  So when we started to realize that unpack was that the new
• 3:05
  pace that she was going at was exposing these like old habits
• 3:08
  that she was having of like overworking to feel secure.
• 3:11
  And so once we started to say, like, wait a minute, just
• 3:13
  because you're in a new role and it's your dream role does not
• 3:15
  mean you have to like push, push, push to an unrealistic
• 3:18
  pace to prove yourself that overworking does not necessarily
• 3:21
  create security because it also can create insecurity if you
• 3:25
  feel like you're doing things on at the level that you want to do
• 3:27
  them. And so with that, we have to
• 3:28
  kind of take a step back and understand like what our true
• 3:31
  capacity is. And so once we were able to name
• 3:33
  that and she stops this thing of having to prove herself and more
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  so just leading with the fact of how can I like get a foundation,
• 3:39
  have an understanding of learning.
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  She started to lead with a more like confidence and calm
• 3:43
  direction. The verse is in this like sense
• 3:45
  of scarcity and trying to find security through overworking.
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  So that is something that's really important when it comes
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  to you're not necessarily going to feel the relief always once
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  you've achieved something because there's other emotions
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  that come up and sometimes there's a lag between our
• 3:58
  external and our internal. And so, you know, the question
• 4:01
  that I have for you is where is maybe a time that you finally
• 4:04
  had gotten something that you've been working towards where
• 4:07
  you're kind of like, wait a minute, I don't feel at ease
• 4:09
  quite yet. And I'm just kind of curious of
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  what comes up for you for that. The next phase, I would say
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  outside of realizing that winning doesn't necessarily
• 4:17
  always attribute to relief is you could be in a new role, but
• 4:21
  have the same patterns. So when you step into something
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  new, you can bring your old beliefs with you.
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  And so if they don't just change overnight, it could be that
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  you've always measured your value by output or being the go
• 4:32
  to person for everything. And it's really easy to carry
• 4:35
  those habits forward when they no longer necessarily serve you
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  anymore, right? Like being, you know, based off
• 4:41
  of your output, being the go to person, super helpful for a good
• 4:44
  amount of time. But if you're especially
• 4:45
  somebody who's trying to go to something that is more strategy
• 4:48
  focused, that can actually not help you anymore.
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  It can kind of hold you back in some ways.
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  And so new rules typically require new operating systems or
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  new beliefs. And so if you kind of just like
• 4:58
  barrel into the next thing, trying to like prove yourself
• 5:01
  and trying to work super hard and you actually don't like
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  pause to recalibrate, you'll create a similar cycle of
• 5:08
  burnout in this new container. So you want to understand and
• 5:11
  identify like what patterns you've had previously enrolls
• 5:14
  when you're stepping into this new role.
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  What do you actually need to feel set up within this new
• 5:19
  role? Are there some things that maybe
• 5:20
  you could potentially leave behind or adjust when you're
• 5:22
  going into this? So for example, I have a founder
• 5:25
  who definitely was falling back into her.
• 5:28
  I do it all mode. She hadn't like redefined her
• 5:31
  role as she had built out her business and grew it so well.
• 5:35
  Yes, she brought on some people on her team.
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  She did not realign her role with the new members on her
• 5:40
  team. Therefore she was still doing it
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  all. And her calendar looked
• 5:42
  identical to what it did before, which was super packed.
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  So the biggest things that we had to do was talk about like
• 5:47
  what we're going to be her focus, her vision for herself,
• 5:51
  right? Whether that was going to be
• 5:52
  revenue goals, people goals, partnership goals, and then what
• 5:55
  the priorities were to be for those on her team that she had
• 5:58
  hired. Once we made that big shift
• 6:00
  there of like this is what her focus is versus their focus, She
• 6:03
  was able to actually start to get to the work that she needs
• 6:05
  to get done versus being the person who does it all.
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  Because at the end of the day, when you cannot simply be an
• 6:11
  individual contributor just because you're high performing,
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  especially when you are a founder or CEO, right?
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  You have to be able to depend and lean on your team.
• 6:17
  And so being able to make that shift and realizing that before,
• 6:20
  when she was first starting and fundraising and she was, you
• 6:23
  know, a solopreneur, essentially, it made sense for
• 6:25
  her to be to do it all for everything.
• 6:27
  But that's not going to serve her in this new role, those old
• 6:29
  patterns, this new role is going to take her to have to delegate,
• 6:31
  to have to communicate, to have to hire and develop people as
• 6:34
  well. So I'm curious for you, what
• 6:36
  patterns maybe are you holding on to that no longer match the
• 6:40
  role that you're currently in? Some things that you're having
• 6:42
  some hard times like to kind of release or let go or essentially
• 6:46
  like evolve in the last piece, I would say is success.
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  I thought this could be kind of brutal, but success does not
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  always feel safe. So success does not always feel
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  safe because sometimes it can feel uncomfortable, it can feel
• 6:59
  threatening. It could be this energy of like,
• 7:01
  what if I lose it? What do I have more to prove?
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  And so it can feel better and more safe and aligned if you're
• 7:07
  able to redefine it. So if you don't redefine success
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  and what it means to you in the season or for your life, you'll
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  constantly have this old version of you chasing, facing this
• 7:17
  version of success. So this is the biggest thing
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  that I would say if something comes up that you want to
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  achieve or go after, right, make sure it makes sense for who you
• 7:26
  are. I always think about it in the
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  sense of like there is this idea of success and goals, but is it
• 7:31
  your version of success and goals?
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  Is it something that has been out there and put out there?
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  So you think that's like the gold standard, something you
• 7:38
  must achieve because that is like a societal norm?
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  Or is it something that is truly in alignment with what you want
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  for your life, for your values, what you prioritize?
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  Because that's when success feels more aligned versus empty.
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  And success can feel empty and unstable and insecure while
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  we're just going after things that are kind of like name
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  brand, let's say. And so I always say it's best to
• 8:00
  define it based off of what you want for your life, what you
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  want for this season versus trying to chase something that
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  is just a label or a title. Understand what the
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  intentionality is behind that. And so that way your brain can
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  start to create some certainty around what that success looks
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  like and it can start to identify with that versus just
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  chasing something that feels kind of like just pretty, pretty
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  and shiny. We don't need shiny and sparkly
• 8:23
  here anymore. OK.
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  That's how we feel more aligned. So the thing that I would say
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  for this would be one of my clients, she she definitely was
• 8:31
  very focused on changing her job search to find a new company.
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  We had to do an we I had to do an exercise essentially that's
• 8:38
  called like the priority checklist.
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  And with the priority checklist, what you do is you list out no
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  matter what the role is. We don't have to have a title,
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  we don't have to have an industry, we don't have to have
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  anything. You create a priority checklist
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  of what it is you want in your next role.
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  Now that could be something like a women LED Organism, it could
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  be mission driven, it could be XY and Z salary, it could be
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  location based. It does not matter.
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  You get to make your party checklist and you rank it based
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  off what's most important to you.
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  This creates a filter for what it is you're going to go after.
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  It's not like hard, you know, fast and the only thing, but
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  it's a good guideline. This kind of defines for you
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  what success looks like for you, taking into account what you
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  want your life to look like holistically.
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  And so when she was able to do this, we had that as a baseline.
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  I always have you do this at the beginning of coaching because
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  you're in a different headspace. You're like excited, you have
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  the energy, you're invigorated. So we do it.
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  Then when you start the search, our minds go up and down.
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  We're in waves, All the different emotions pop up.
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  So for example, when she started doing her search, she started
• 9:32
  looking at all the shiny companies.
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  She was like, well, I want to work at this company because
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  it's like, you know, a big company, it's Netflix.
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  I want to work at this company because it's a really big
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  company. It's meta.
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  And so my question for her was, if you look at your party
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  checklist of what's most important to you, how do these
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  things fit back to that and how are you really defining success
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  for yourself? So when she did the comparison
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  for herself, she realized that she wanted to work at more of a
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  smaller company. She wanted to work at a a
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  mission based company. She wanted to work at a company
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  that was led by women. So the organization she started
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  to list out, she realized we're not matching.
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  So the biggest question is, OK, how are you defining success for
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  yourself versus where do you see it from a society standpoint and
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  what do you want your life to be?
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  It's OK. You can want to have shiny,
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  fancy new big brands, but also just be realistic for yourself.
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  But what's going to really make you happy because that's the
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  thing that happens is that then we dive into the next thing.
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  And we're not a jest about it once we're there because we're
• 10:19
  not leading with the right part of either our heart or mind when
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  we are making that decision or that choice.
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  So that goes to say, it's really important to figure out like
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  what to success feel like for you to create that safety around
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  it and knowing that it's what you want for yourself.
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  And so the question, of course, I want to ask for you is what to
• 10:35
  success actually look like for you, you now.
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  So what does it look like for you now to be successful?
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  And are you living it? And success doesn't have to be a
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  number. It could be something as simple
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  as having the flexibility and freedom to wake up and go to a
• 10:46
  coffee shop. It could be to read a book.
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  It could be something of a title, of course, or a salary
• 10:50
  range or a place to live or the work that you're doing.
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  But knowing like, what does that look like for you and are you
• 10:55
  living it now? And if you're not, what do you
• 10:56
  want to do about it? So overall, just to take away,
• 10:59
  this is again, what nobody tells you about success when it comes
• 11:02
  to a new role of how when you get that win, it's not always
• 11:05
  how you feel, how you think it will feel that you can beat a
• 11:07
  new role and have still the same patterns as before.
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  And then last but not least, you want to be able to find it for
• 11:11
  yourself. Awesome.
• 11:12
  Well, if you have any questions, let me know.
• 11:15
  Hopefully found this helpful and you can always find more
• 11:16
  information at www.dannytan.com. That's DANITA n.com and I will
• 11:22
  talk to you soon. Bye bye.