Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Lessons - Stop Talking, Start Intentioning | Gloria Feldt - Forbes 50 Over 50

Transcript

Lessons - Stop Talking, Start Intentioning | Gloria Feldt - Forbes 50 Over 50 · Success Story with Scott Clary

• 0:00
  In this lessons episode, examine how intentional action transforms personal growth and career progression,
• 0:05
  discover-wise shifting from passive ambition to active intention creates momentum,
• 0:09
  understand how uncovering core values, strengthens authentic leadership,
• 0:13
  and explore how modulating confidence and choosing aligned workplace cultures
• 0:17
  empower long-term advancement.
• 0:26
  Why that particular word for the title?
• 0:29
  What does intention mean to somebody? Because that's what I've never heard that word before.
• 0:32
  I've made it up. I made it up. I was wondering. I'm like, I don't think I've ever used that
• 0:40
  in the sentence before. But I wanted to be in the dictionary. I wanted to be the word of the year
• 0:45
  next year. No, it's good. So it's like it's like the act of doing something with intention.
• 0:51
  Exactly. And that's exactly how I was trying to find the right word. And I looked in the dictionary,
• 0:56
  looked in the thesaurus. I googled for it, and I couldn't find exactly the right word. So,
• 1:02
  I made it up. I just made it up because that's what you say. What you say is exactly what I wanted
• 1:07
  to do, which was to take a noun, which is a very perfectly good noun. And intention is something
• 1:13
  we talk about a lot these days. But I wanted to exemplify the fact that I intention is great,
• 1:20
  but unless you're doing it, it doesn't matter. And it's all about what you're actually doing. And I
• 1:25
  also differentiate between ambition and intention in that regard. Because to me, ambition is I hope
• 1:31
  I wish I want. I've got a dream about it. Intention and intentioning is I, I will. I am. I'm doing it.
• 1:40
  I see myself having already done it. I know it will happen. So it's a qualitative kind of
• 1:46
  difference. And I feel that that is a linchpin. That is an absolute linchpin for helping women get
• 1:53
  to parity in leadership because they have to have that belief for themselves and the courage to act
• 1:59
  on it. I love that. Okay, so let's break down. You said there's a few like very tactical takeaways in
• 2:07
  the book. So there's nine tools, but we don't have to go through nine. Obviously, that's why you
• 2:13
  would go get the book. But pick a couple. Pick like one or two things that if somebody is, you know,
• 2:18
  they're sitting in a career right now. And they, they want to move their career. They want to get
• 2:23
  a promotion. They want to do something more or do something and move up. I don't know what that
• 2:28
  move up looks like. And maybe you can describe what they should be looking for. Should it be another
• 2:32
  company? Should it be a tip to negotiate? Should it be finding a mentor or a sponsor thing your own
• 2:36
  company? What's the actionable thing that somebody could do? I'm going to start with the first one
• 2:42
  because I believe it is the bedrock and it is uncover yourself. And by that, I mean know who you are,
• 2:50
  get in touch with what your values are. I believe that the greatest leaders and the most effective
• 2:54
  leaders are very clear about who they are and what they believe, what values they will stand on.
• 3:03
  And they know themselves and they show themselves to others. But you have to know yourself first
• 3:09
  before you can show yourself to others authentically. So that is the first tool. And you know,
• 3:15
  both men and women say they cover themselves in the workplace because they're trying to fit in.
• 3:22
  Women more than men and both men and women of color more than white women because the culture was
• 3:29
  built by white men for white men who had women and people of color at home at the time,
• 3:34
  250 years ago, doing the kind of taking care of their lives. And so the world has changed.
• 3:40
  The world has changed. The families are different. They're usually, if they're two partners,
• 3:46
  they're usually two breadwinners. And if there's one person, you know, that breadwinner has to cover
• 3:52
  everything. So it's very different. It's very different and not functional anymore. And
• 3:59
  and so there's there is this need to uncover ourselves in a particularly in a society that is
• 4:07
  increasingly diverse. And we need to use that diversity as a strength, not as a divider,
• 4:14
  which is that we could do a whole program on, but I'll move on. I will move on.
• 4:19
  One, I'm going to take one more here. And then you can ask me some other questions about them,
• 4:24
  one that is counterintuitive. So I have three, three of these tools are what I call your self-definitional
• 4:31
  tools. In other words, how you are introspective. Three of them are counterintuitive. Very often,
• 4:37
  their things your mother told you not to do, but you should, if you want to be a great leader.
• 4:41
  And the third bucket of these tools is the change leadership tools. So big systems change,
• 4:49
  how to make big systems change. So a counterintuitive tool that is I think super important for women
• 4:57
  is modulate confidence. There is a whole industry out there making tons of money trying to show
• 5:06
  women how to become confident. Confidence, however, is not something you can just learn. You get
• 5:14
  confident by doing things, by practicing, by actually growing up your sleeves,
• 5:21
  and doing the thing that scares you. And that's how you get confidence. You can't inject confidence
• 5:27
  into your veins. It really takes doing. And frankly, the reason I say modulate confidence
• 5:35
  is that if you're totally confident, why do you have any reason to learn something new? If you're
• 5:40
  totally confident, what's the bur under your saddle that helps you to want to learn new things,
• 5:48
  to try new things, to do better, to ascend to a higher level of a position. So we need to learn
• 5:54
  to do things long before we're confident. We need to learn to do things. Maybe as Jonathan Kennedy
• 6:00
  said, we go to the moon, not because it's easy, but because it's hard. You know, we do those things
• 6:07
  because they're hard because that's where the growth is. That's where the growth is. That's what
• 6:12
  really teaches us how to be bigger and smarter and greater and build bigger businesses or
• 6:20
  run for Congress or whatever it is that we might want to do. So those are a couple of them.
• 6:26
  And when you say you want to say these are things that yes, there are things that everybody should
• 6:31
  really try and internalize. But if you are, if you want to champion some of these things,
• 6:41
  do you think that you should try and champion them in the organization you're already in,
• 6:45
  or is this something that maybe the organization values has to align with your own personal values
• 6:50
  to really get the best effect? Because you're going to come up against some people that are
• 6:55
  not with it, not in line, like super bigoted, like old school, and that's a block or two.
• 7:01
  It can't just be one-sided because it's never going to happen if you're a media boss,
• 7:06
  it's just an absolute asshole, right? It's not going to happen. So what do you suggest people
• 7:12
  look for, another sort of like a practical thing? If somebody's trying to find an organization that
• 7:16
  will help enable these things, what do you look for? Is there a process for like interviewing the
• 7:23
  interviewer? Is it finding the organization that I don't know has some sort of, some sort of
• 7:30
  person or cultural or something in place that can, you look to and like this is an organization
• 7:36
  is going to help support my growth because I know there's a lot of organizations that may not,
• 7:40
  or there's a lot of people with an organization that may not, and I want to keep people away from
• 7:44
  those and give them the best possible chance of succeeding in their careers, right? So how do you
• 7:49
  find that? Right, the first step again is to know yourself and decide what is that important to you
• 7:56
  because you're probably not going to ever get everything you want in, if you're working in an
• 8:02
  organization, you will make some compromises along the way, most likely. Actually in any situation,
• 8:08
  if it's your own business, it doesn't matter what it is, you'll probably make some compromises along
• 8:12
  the way, but you need to know what is it you care so much about that you will walk away rather than
• 8:19
  violate that. I have one of the power tools in my previous book, Nox Kisses, is called Where the
• 8:26
  Shirt, and what that means is, what do you believe so strongly you'd put it on your shirt and let
• 8:33
  other people see it? That you hold that belief so, so, you know, so strongly. I have, this is a
• 8:41
  shirt somebody gave me, actually, I saw, I saw, yeah, I know, yeah, and I'm wearing that shirt today,
• 8:46
  that's my shirt for today, but so, so you have to first of all figure that out and your question is
• 8:53
  a good one for people to ask at different stages of their careers because when you're just starting
• 8:59
  out, you have more of the luxury to research organizations and zero in on, okay, this is where I
• 9:08
  feel like it's a fit for me. I know there's a young woman who was in one of my courses a few years
• 9:15
  ago and I just noticed on LinkedIn that she had taken a new job and when I read her logic for
• 9:23
  taking this new job, it was all about, you know, I've had some great jobs before and I've learned a
• 9:29
  lot, but I wanted to go with this particular company because they put together my core value
• 9:36
  of belief in the power of education with making it more democratized for, you know, available
• 9:43
  to people. So, you know, this is like consciously, she was intentioning that she would be able to
• 9:49
  work in a culture that a set of values, like a company that had the same value set that she had.
• 9:58
  That's, you can research that. I mean, things are much more transparent now and I, I think they're
• 10:04
  probably, it's not true of every company. I mean, that's true. But increasingly, companies are
• 10:11
  having to be more transparent about what their values are and what their mission is. I mean,
• 10:17
  their mission may be to make money, but how did they do it and how are they serving the world when
• 10:22
  they make money? They're telling you that on their websites. Those are questions you can ask
• 10:27
  in interviews. You can, it's perfectly legitimate to ask those questions and I'll tell you
• 10:32
  as somebody who has hired a lot of people over the years, I appreciate it when people have done
• 10:37
  their research and they know what matters to them and they ask me those questions. No, but what I
• 10:44
  was going to say is I just want people to feel comfortable like asking these questions because
• 10:47
  that's how you really set yourself up for success, right? You want to, you want to make sure you know
• 10:52
  what you're stepping into. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And I think, I think, you know, as you grow in your
• 11:00
  career, you have more, even more opportunity to be very straightforward and discerning. It may take
• 11:08
  you longer to get a job, as for sure, but it's worth taking that time and making sure that you feel
• 11:15
  it's a culture that you will thrive in and that you can contribute. Thanks for tuning in. If you found
• 11:20
  this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you
• 11:24
  want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full
• 11:29
  episode. See you in the next one.