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Barriers to Promotion: Addressing the Articulation Gap at Work · No Shrinking Violets Podcast for Women

• 0:00
  Rosie: You need to get clear on your measured impact.
• 0:04
  Rosie: That's the biggest thing out of everything.
• 0:10
  Mary: For centuries, the phrase shrinking violet was used to diminish women, to suggest we were meant to be small and meek.
• 0:17
  Mary: But in nature, violets are anything but weak.
• 0:20
  Mary: They're resilient, beautiful, and essential to the ecosystem.
• 0:24
  Mary: Hi, I'm Mary Rothwell, licensed therapist, and each week I sit down with women who remind us that being compared to a violet isn't an insult.
• 0:32
  Mary: It's a testament to strength, endurance, and the power of taking up space and living by your true nature.
• 0:38
  Mary: If you're ready to stop shrinking and start thriving, you're in the right place.
• 0:43
  Mary: Hey Violets, welcome to the show.
• 0:47
  Mary: In my chosen career, there weren't really paths to promotion.
• 0:51
  Mary: I started as a school counselor and I certainly did not want to be a principal, so it was a no-upward movement position.
• 0:58
  Mary: Then I moved to a faculty position at a community college.
• 1:02
  Mary: I was part of a counseling staff.
• 1:04
  Mary: We did not have a director at our campus until a few months after I started when the position was created.
• 1:10
  Mary: And while I knew deep down that I had leadership potential, it never occurred to me to pursue the director position.
• 1:16
  Mary: For one, I had only been at the institution for a short time, and I knew there were others who aspired to the position.
• 1:23
  Mary: But the dean at my campus saw something in me and encouraged me to apply.
• 1:28
  Mary: Reluctantly, I did.
• 1:30
  Mary: And over the course of four years as the director, because I did get the position, I also filled two interim dean positions both at my campus and another location.
• 1:39
  Mary: When I took my next job at a four-year university, I was the one that requested that a position be created at my campus to recognize the work I did beyond my job description.
• 1:50
  Mary: The position was created and I was promoted.
• 1:54
  Mary: Would I ever have imagined making that request if I hadn't been encouraged to pursue more by someone who saw my potential?
• 2:01
  Mary: I'm thinking not.
• 2:02
  Mary: For one, I would never have known how to make that move.
• 2:06
  Mary: While I knew I could lead, I hadn't really done it.
• 2:10
  Mary: I did a lot of the behind the scenes stuff.
• 2:13
  Mary: So I'm supposing I would have talked myself out of it.
• 2:16
  Mary: Since all those experiences years ago, I realized that women often don't actively pursue the promotion.
• 2:23
  Mary: They, on some level, expect that their work will be recognized and that the accolades or promotions will just happen.
• 2:30
  Mary: It ties into the tendency for women to engage in what some call invisible labor, both at home and in the workplace.
• 2:37
  Mary: This involves unrecognized tasks that often smooth the path for others to succeed or that literally undergird the daily processes of a workplace.
• 2:46
  Mary: I discussed this invisible labor, what my guest today refers to as quote, unmeasured labor, with Christine Nowick in both episodes 5 and 10.
• 2:54
  Mary: My guest today found herself limited in her career trajectory by the very assumption that Stein meets many women, the belief that if we just work hard and elevate others, we'll be recognized for that.
• 3:05
  Mary: Her wake-up call was a direct statement from her supervisor that left her stunned, but also, as with so many of my guests, spurred her to create a way to help other women avoid the same trap.
• 3:16
  Mary: My guest today is Rosie Zelinskis.
• 3:20
  Mary: She spent 32 years in corporate America before uncovering something most career coaches completely miss.
• 3:26
  Mary: It's not a skill gap holding high-performing women back.
• 3:29
  Mary: It's not even a confidence gap.
• 3:31
  Mary: It's what Rosie calls the articulation gap, the distance between the impact a woman creates and the impact leadership actually sees and rewards.
• 3:40
  Mary: Rosie developed the articulation gap framework to give women the tool she never had, a clear, repeatable way to translate hard work into the language leadership responds to.
• 3:52
  Mary: She hosts No Woman Left Behind podcast and speaks nationally to corporate and finance organizations.
• 3:58
  Mary: Welcome to No Shrinking Violets, Rosie.
• 4:00
  Rosie: Oh my gosh, Mary, thank you so much for sharing your story.
• 4:03
  Rosie: I love your turtle to your trajectory, and it highlights exactly what we're going to talk about for the articulation gap.
• 4:11
  Rosie: So I'm excited.
• 4:12
  Mary: Yes, and I know you have a lot of really good information.
• 4:15
  Mary: And the what I have listened to from your podcast and your guest spots on other podcasts, you have a way of looking at this that I truly love because it is just one of those things that with women, I think we need to start to talk about and give air to.
• 4:32
  Mary: But before we get into all that good stuff, um, I'd love if you could start by sharing what was your wake-up call and ultimately how did it lead to the work that you do today?
• 4:44
  Rosie: Yeah, well, first of all, um I just want to say that the name of your podcast really stood out to me because no shrinking violets.
• 4:51
  Rosie: And I heard your explanation about violets are actually resilient.
• 4:55
  Rosie: And so it's such a beautiful way to say that we all have that moment.
• 5:01
  Rosie: And for me, that it was that moment that where that uh executive was like, you never said anything.
• 5:08
  Rosie: And I was just literally Mary sitting in my desk waiting for people to just notice my hard work and see the value that I brought.
• 5:18
  Rosie: And when he actually said that to me, I was like, Oh my gosh, how could I have just waited?
• 5:26
  Rosie: But what was interesting, kind of similar to you, is four months after that conversation, I stepped into a management role.
• 5:34
  Rosie: And I I reflect on that moment, going, like, gosh, if I didn't go talk to that person, I would have never started my leadership trajectory.
• 5:45
  Rosie: It would have been years.
• 5:47
  Rosie: And so for me, it was that moment.
• 5:50
  Rosie: I I finally got into a management role, and then it happened again about five years later.
• 5:57
  Rosie: I actually landed an executive role and I was in charge of onboarding new higher college graduates.
• 6:05
  Rosie: And the the moment that that was like so uh impactful for me was first day of, and I did this like four or five years, it was always the guys that were answering and asking questions, and the young women were sitting there quietly.
• 6:24
  Rosie: And so I always pulled the women aside and said, and back then I was like, you have to have more confidence.
• 6:31
  Rosie: Now, granted, I do want to say that younger, like people women that are younger in their career, that are just either starting out or building, yes, they have to build confidence, they have to have that um that muscle.
• 6:47
  Rosie: But once you're experienced and especially you're a high performer, and those are my my uh clients, high performing corporate women, they no longer need confidence, they are already building all that.
• 7:00
  Rosie: So to me, it was those two moments where I was like, wow, like something has to be different here.
• 7:09
  Mary: Yeah.
• 7:10
  Mary: So to clarify, you're going along and you're knowing I'm doing well, you knew that you were competent, you were good in your position, and there was this assumption, and what in the therapy biz we call an underlying belief.
• 7:22
  Mary: You had this belief that if I just keep chugging along, surely it's going to be noticed.
• 7:27
  Mary: And it wasn't until your boss said, You never said anything.
• 7:31
  Mary: Yes.
• 7:32
  Mary: Okay.
• 7:32
  Mary: And that was your wake-up call to like, wait a minute, here's this huge assumption.
• 7:36
  Mary: So I think two things happen, and and this this narrative for women is what is so fascinating to me.
• 7:44
  Mary: So I think on one hand, it almost seems like people don't expect women to want a promotion.
• 7:53
  Mary: And women expect that people will just see that, as you call it, unmeasured labor, right?
• 8:00
  Mary: That other people might call it invisible labor.
• 8:03
  Mary: It's the things that we do just because we notice it, it's like I think about the curling team, you know, where the people go in front of the stone with like those brooms, and these they smooth the path for also other people.
• 8:18
  Mary: So I want to tease apart these ideas.
• 8:21
  Mary: So, first of all, do you think that it's often assumed that accomplished women aren't interested in promotion?
• 8:27
  Mary: And do you think that's different when someone looks at a man in a job role?
• 8:33
  Rosie: You know, I don't think it's often assumed.
• 8:35
  Rosie: And here's the thing uh when I talk about the articulation gap, I talk a lot about it from the individual contributor perspective.
• 8:44
  Rosie: However, there's this whole other gap from the corporate perspective, from the organizational perspective, where they are losing amazing, high-performing women because all this time goes by and they're not recognized and rewarded because the women are not articulating their value in that measurable way that can align with the impact.
• 9:12
  Rosie: So it's it's both ways.
• 9:14
  Rosie: I don't even think that a lot of organizations are really seeing this right now.
• 9:19
  Rosie: So it's not even that they're like, oh, well, we're just not gonna promote her because she's not saying anything.
• 9:25
  Rosie: We're they don't even know that they're not promoting her because she's not able to show that that impact.
• 9:34
  Rosie: So it's this has been, and this is also very new, Mary, because I kind of put this, I had like a an epiphany in March of this year, and I was like, wait a minute, you know, and so I've been putting all this together and I'm like, oh my gosh.
• 9:53
  Rosie: And and I have been listening to a lot of podcasts and books, and it's like everybody kind of always goes to the confidence.
• 9:59
  Rosie: It's almost like we're putting the responsibility on the individual, on the women, but we're not putting the responsibility on the organizations to educate the women on how to do that.
• 10:13
  Rosie: And then uh also you being from you know the uh your background, men just automatically do those things.
• 10:22
  Rosie: I was listening to a podcast, and it was saying that men are like, oh, well, I just bought a house and my wife is pregnant.
• 10:29
  Rosie: So to another man, that automatically assumes and implies that he needs the promotion and the raise because he's a care provider.
• 10:39
  Rosie: But if a woman is pregnant, they don't automatically think that.
• 10:44
  Rosie: So it's so fascinating, you know, the psychology of all of this.
• 10:49
  Mary: Yeah, and I think if we pull us the thread of that and we look back at the beginning, you already alluded to this, that men just seem to step into that role in we'll say just in a corporation, because higher ed education where I worked, it's a very different idea about what is promotion because it's more siloed.
• 11:09
  Mary: But when we think about corporate promotions, there is, I'm gonna say, I think there's a tiny bit of the confidence in it, but it might also, we could probably frame it as something else.
• 11:21
  Mary: So here's what I mean.
• 11:23
  Mary: I had a guest episodes ago, and she was talking about having just a conversation with her people in her family, and they were talking about if a plane was gonna crash.
• 11:31
  Mary: And her nephew was like, Oh, I could totally fly the plane.
• 11:35
  Mary: And of course, the the female, the young female in this discussion was like, Well, wait a minute.
• 11:40
  Mary: Like, I think we think about what are all the parts that might go into flying the plane.
• 11:44
  Mary: And I really believe in, and maybe it's not confidence as I'm talking, but as we are socialized, male and female, there's some kind of what's the word, like this sort of sense of assurance that men are given that this is what you're supposed to do.
• 12:03
  Mary: You're supposed to step up, and women tend to sort of lean back and they're doing a lot of work and they see a lot of potential, they help others succeed, but they don't see that same path.
• 12:15
  Rosie: Yeah, that's so interesting because uh that's what I call the conviction.
• 12:21
  Rosie: So the articulation gap has clarity, composure, and conviction.
• 12:25
  Rosie: So clarity is measure your work, the composure is talk about your work, and the conviction is own your work, own your expertise, even though you don't know everything about the one topic, own your craft.
• 12:42
  Rosie: And I think that's exactly what you're talking about, Mary, because men automatically and innately do that.
• 12:49
  Rosie: And we women are now, you know, at least um from my observation, like in the last 10, 15 years, we're finally stepping into it.
• 13:01
  Rosie: But I've never really heard anybody talk about this conviction component.
• 13:06
  Rosie: I've always heard of like the confidence, and that's why I'm like, it's no longer at our level, it's no longer confidence.
• 13:15
  Rosie: It's that conviction.
• 13:16
  Rosie: And if I may, I had a uh somewhat a similar experience with my husband.
• 13:20
  Rosie: We went to Glacier National Park and Montana, very hilly.
• 13:26
  Rosie: The roads are like very curvy up and down.
• 13:29
  Rosie: We were driving somewhere and he was really tired.
• 13:31
  Rosie: So I'm like, you know what?
• 13:32
  Rosie: Let me take over.
• 13:33
  Rosie: You can rest.
• 13:34
  Rosie: So he fell asleep for a couple of hours.
• 13:36
  Rosie: We got to our destination, and I was white knuckling it the whole time.
• 13:42
  Rosie: I was like going at the speed limit.
• 13:44
  Rosie: I was like concerned, and my daughter was in the car.
• 13:47
  Rosie: So we got to our destination, and I was like, So, babe, when you're driving these hilly rows, like, do you think about like, are you concerned about the curves?
• 13:58
  Rosie: And he's like, No.
• 13:59
  Rosie: And then I was like, So you don't think about like the speed or the vehicles?
• 14:05
  Rosie: He's like, No, and so I kept pressing, and he's like, What are you talking about?
• 14:10
  Rosie: And I was like, So I told him, I was like, I was just very concerned.
• 14:14
  Rosie: I was like white knuckling, and I was like thinking about it, like uh second guessing my abilities.
• 14:20
  Rosie: And he and I was like, So does that happen to you?
• 14:22
  Rosie: He's like, No, like he looked at me like I had three heads, and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is exactly how women, careers, life, we tend to second guess ourselves, and I think that's the thing.
• 14:38
  Rosie: Men don't do that, they just go for it without even a thought or consideration, whereas we are more strategic and methodical and thoughtful about what we're doing.
• 14:53
  Rosie: So it's it's so such an incredible dynamic.
• 14:57
  Mary: Yeah, it's very fascinating.
• 14:58
  Mary: So I want to make sure that people understand what you mean when you talk about articulation gap.
• 15:03
  Mary: So, can you let's clearly define that before we go forward so people are understanding?
• 15:08
  Mary: Because I think you you gave the a good idea, but I want to make sure people, when you say that, they understand what you mean.
• 15:14
  Rosie: So, how I define the articulation gap, it's the distance between the impact that you create and the impact that your leadership recognizes and rewards.
• 15:28
  Rosie: And so there's through that that distance is those three pillars that I mentioned the clarity, which literally is taking an inventory of the things that you do on a day-to-day basis and putting a measurement against that in numbers, in real numbers.
• 15:48
  Rosie: The so that's the the biggest pillar out of all of this because that funnels into your resume.
• 15:55
  Rosie: I review a ton of resumes, and most of them don't have any metrics.
• 16:02
  Rosie: Some of them have a few metrics, and a tiny portion have the adequate amount of metrics.
• 16:09
  Rosie: And when I tell people metrics, they're like, Well, what do you mean?
• 16:13
  Rosie: Like, how do I do that?
• 16:14
  Rosie: How do I measure?
• 16:15
  Rosie: And so I built the tool that what you get your guests actually have access to to start helping them put numbers to those, to whatever they do on a day-to-day-day basis.
• 16:29
  Rosie: Now, here's the thing: when someone asks a female, what are you working on?
• 16:36
  Rosie: Generally, we start talking about, oh, well, I process files, I process this, um, or I um manage this project or whatever, whatever you do on a day-to-day basis.
• 16:49
  Rosie: But you're talking in task language.
• 16:52
  Rosie: You're not saying, well, I processed 10 applications and that brought in $30,000 last quarter, and that goes along with earning revenue for this year.
• 17:05
  Rosie: That is what I'm referring to when you need to get clear on your measured impact.
• 17:12
  Rosie: That's the biggest thing out of everything.
• 17:15
  Rosie: And every time that now I talk to clients, I talk to you know, prospect clients, and they're like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize that I needed to be speaking in impact language.
• 17:28
  Rosie: So that's the first component, that clarity.
• 17:32
  Rosie: The second component is composure.
• 17:35
  Rosie: And a lot of times, you know how they say in real estate is location, location, location.
• 17:42
  Rosie: For me, career preparation or career advancement is about preparation, preparation, preparation.
• 17:48
  Rosie: The worst time that you can try to figure out what to say to somebody is in that moment.
• 17:54
  Rosie: I want to teach my clients to think strategically.
• 17:59
  Rosie: Now that you've defined your impact, how are you going to present it?
• 18:04
  Rosie: How are you going to share it to whomever is talking so that?
• 18:09
  Rosie: And here's the thing I always tell people you know the question is going to come eventually on what are you working on, or how are you contributing, or any number of variation of that type of question.
• 18:23
  Rosie: So why are you not preparing for that question in advance?
• 18:29
  Rosie: And that's the other thing.
• 18:31
  Rosie: So it's like predict you, you are we already know we can predict that some type of question is going to come.
• 18:37
  Rosie: We need to prepare the answer and then we need to deliver it with assertive words.
• 18:44
  Rosie: So all of that preparation needs to happen through what I call as a story vault.
• 18:49
  Rosie: So it's a compilation of your accomplishments.
• 18:52
  Rosie: And now that you have measured accomplishments, now you start working on how are you going to present those accomplishments.
• 19:01
  Rosie: And then that way it takes the pressure, and I call it composure because it takes the pressure out of, oh my gosh, what am I going to say?
• 19:10
  Rosie: So that's the composure.
• 19:12
  Rosie: And then the conviction, like they said before, it's like looking inward to claiming that expertise.
• 19:20
  Rosie: And I talked to a woman uh two or three years ago, she was the director of an engineering department.
• 19:26
  Rosie: She had 200 engineers under that reported to her.
• 19:30
  Rosie: And we, you know, I wasn't talking about the articulation gap then, but after the conversation, she's like, Rosie, I still don't feel like I belong.
• 19:41
  Rosie: And I was like, oh my goodness.
• 19:43
  Rosie: And that was that.
• 19:44
  Rosie: All she had to do is own her expertise.
• 19:48
  Rosie: And again, it's it may not happen overnight, but when we claim it and say, I am the expert of my craft, then you're on your way to looking inward.
• 20:00
  Rosie: And then it's directing it outward, but to the right people in the right alignment.
• 20:07
  Rosie: I was interviewing uh uh another guest for my podcast, and she said she had a great year, according to her.
• 20:16
  Rosie: She thought she was going to get a great review.
• 20:18
  Rosie: Her review, her performance review came back and it was average.
• 20:22
  Rosie: And then when she asked her manager, he said, Well, yeah, you're doing all these things, but most of that doesn't matter to me.
• 20:30
  Rosie: And so we need to make sure that as we're working on our day-to-day, that it is aligned with the key performance objectives, goals, whatever of the organization.
• 20:44
  Rosie: So it's such a complex, but at the same time, it's an easy process because I have a framework now for each component of the articulation gap.
• 20:54
  Mary: Okay.
• 20:54
  Mary: So we're going to tease each of these apart a little bit.
• 20:57
  Mary: Um, because the whole time you're talking, I'm like, this is socialization.
• 21:01
  Mary: It is socialization because as women, we will, let's, if we think about, take us out of the corporate world for a second.
• 21:09
  Mary: Think about it, and then I'm just going typical.
• 21:11
  Mary: Typical home, if we have a partner, we have children, we will typically be that household engineer.
• 21:19
  Mary: We see all the things that have to happen simultaneously.
• 21:23
  Mary: So we're doing many, many different tasks.
• 21:26
  Mary: There it really is not a way to measure them.
• 21:29
  Mary: And so as, you know, times have changed over the past several decades and we've started to move into this world.
• 21:36
  Mary: I think we're still taking along this idea that I see all the things that need to happen.
• 21:42
  Mary: I'm we are facilitators.
• 21:44
  Mary: I feel I feel like even in a corporate world, we facilitate success.
• 21:49
  Mary: We see that, okay, um, Mildred down the hall seems to be struggling today.
• 21:54
  Mary: We might go check in with Mildred.
• 21:55
  Mary: We might, you know, recognize that somebody's kid is sick, so they Didn't get this part of the project done.
• 22:01
  Mary: Like I think we tend to be more observers.
• 22:05
  Mary: And so we're doing a lot of these things that we don't know how to measure.
• 22:10
  Mary: And I almost think because sometimes there's also this language of if you're choosing work over home things or whatever all those role conflicts have been, that's selfish.
• 22:22
  Mary: And so now we start to bring in, unfortunately, these labels that we may have somehow picked up along the way, which are not true, but we pick up along the way.
• 22:31
  Mary: So then you're telling people, okay, you need to have clarity, you need to measure this, and they're like, well, I don't really, that's bragging, isn't it?
• 22:38
  Mary: That's saying I did these.
• 22:40
  Mary: We don't think in those terms.
• 22:42
  Mary: So I know one of the things with clarity for you, you talk about task language, which you already mentioned, versus impact language.
• 22:49
  Mary: So you help women start to change that from, okay, here's what you're doing to here's why it's valuable.
• 22:57
  Mary: Is that does that sound accurate?
• 22:59
  Rosie: Absolutely.
• 23:00
  Rosie: Absolutely.
• 23:01
  Rosie: Here's why, here's what you're doing and what's changing because of what you're doing, and why does it matter?
• 23:07
  Rosie: That's exactly what it is.
• 23:09
  Mary: And I think it's interesting that you had that person, the client or person you knew that said they weren't really performing to what the supervisor or the boss wanted.
• 23:19
  Mary: And again, I think sometimes we see all these other incidentals that we do things that we may, that other people may not even recognize the impact or the importance of because they are unmeasured, they are unseen.
• 23:34
  Mary: And so when you have helped women start to develop this clarity, what are what are obstacles that they they seem to run up against?
• 23:44
  Mary: What do the challenges seem to be in sort of changing this thinking?
• 23:49
  Rosie: Stop helping other people.
• 23:51
  Rosie: And and I mean, it literally boils down to that because, like you just said, we're facilitators, we're, you know, we're observers.
• 23:59
  Rosie: And so if you see, like you said, you know, Mary or uh whatever, Susie down the hall didn't finish the project because her child was like, we jump in and we want to help Susie.
• 24:10
  Rosie: So we take ownership.
• 24:11
  Rosie: And what does that do?
• 24:12
  Rosie: It takes, you know, it just piles more work on top of our desk.
• 24:17
  Rosie: And so one of the conversations is this is where discernment comes in, and you can either help her or do your work, and then this is where you have to have a conversation either with her, her boss, your boss, whatever, you know, the situation is there.
• 24:33
  Rosie: But we can't drop all of our work to help everybody else, or we can't identify 10 different projects that have to be done and be like, oh, I'm going to work on all these projects, and then lose focus on what we are tasked to do in that alignment of the company objectives.
• 24:54
  Rosie: And I don't want to say that the company objectives are the only thing that matter.
• 25:00
  Rosie: I am stating that this is why high-performing women are not getting recognized and rewarded because we are not going through that exercise that proves that we have evidence that our work is changing the organization for the better.
• 25:21
  Mary: And something again occurred to me as you're talking.
• 25:24
  Mary: So I'm thinking about men being socialized, men competing against men for jobs.
• 25:29
  Mary: We're used to that, right?
• 25:30
  Mary: It's typical, it's kind of like if you think about maybe on the, I don't know, the soccer pitch or you know, you you're one team against another, somebody else wins, it's like, okay, that's all in it's work.
• 25:43
  Mary: I feel like again, women are socialized differently.
• 25:46
  Mary: That it when we compete with each other, it's a different feeling that to step out and say, I'm measuring this, here's my worth, here's what I'm doing, it can feel cringy because we can have other women look at that and say, who does she think she is?
• 26:01
  Mary: Is that something you've come across, or am I just sort of making that up in my head?
• 26:06
  Rosie: You know, it definitely comes across, but um one of the core principles that I teach is collaboration over competition.
• 26:13
  Rosie: Collaboration over competition because I win if somebody else wins.
• 26:19
  Rosie: If they, if I help them develop, get whatever in a project get promoted.
• 26:24
  Rosie: It's a collaboration.
• 26:26
  Rosie: So that's my mindset.
• 26:28
  Rosie: I know there's other people.
• 26:30
  Rosie: I mean, I have had people throughout my career that will throw you under the bus all day, females that will throw you under the bus all day all day long for their success.
• 26:41
  Rosie: I'm not built that way.
• 26:43
  Rosie: I want others to succeed.
• 26:45
  Rosie: So it's just a mantra of mine.
• 26:48
  Rosie: Uh, I just stepped in as um president of National Speakers Association for the Illinois chapter, and my theme is growing together because I want everybody to succeed.
• 26:58
  Rosie: And again, it's collaboration over competition.
• 27:01
  Rosie: Uh, so so that's what I say.
• 27:03
  Rosie: And then the other thing is like paying it forward.
• 27:06
  Rosie: You know, whatever you learn, share that knowledge.
• 27:09
  Rosie: Don't hoard that knowledge, don't hoard that expertise because that's how we're all going to be growing together, succeeding.
• 27:18
  Rosie: And, you know, Miriam, I have this like kind of uh weird vision of whatever, like uh an image of in this day and age, we're so aware of all of the things that women have to do that for the first time I feel like we're all collectively pushing the same way.
• 27:39
  Rosie: And I'm talking like Rosa Parks, uh Ruth Bayer Ginsburg, you know, Joan of Arc, all these amazing women that have come before us, that have literally kind of like you said, like they're like laying the ground, you know, before us.
• 27:54
  Rosie: And we're now it's our turn now to give all this knowledge and um and wealth of you know, wisdom to those women that are coming up, you know, behind us.
• 28:06
  Rosie: And that's why I think I'm super passionate about this because I've seen not only myself get left behind because I didn't have anybody, and I'm a uh, you know, Gen X too.
• 28:21
  Rosie: So my parents had no knowledge about uh personal professional development.
• 28:27
  Rosie: They were like, figure it out, you know.
• 28:29
  Rosie: So, and it wasn't like until like 2007 that I was like, wait, what?
• 28:34
  Rosie: There's personal development, there's professional development, like, oh my gosh.
• 28:38
  Rosie: So it so I love this work and I truly believe that this is the path for us to start breaking down those mindset barriers of we do need to brag about ourselves, but bragging about it in a way that's authentic, that is organic, and that is um just kind and not boastful, you know, that kind of thing.
• 29:07
  Mary: Yeah.
• 29:07
  Mary: And so that's I think where composure comes in.
• 29:10
  Mary: I think this is my favorite part of your um your model, because we can sit in our offices and and figure out our metrics and make notes and write it down.
• 29:21
  Mary: But when we're on the spot and somebody asks a question, and I would say, even sometimes in an interview, if we know we're going into a job interview, that discomfort with just simply stating what we're good at, I think is a stumbling block.
• 29:38
  Rosie: Absolutely.
• 29:39
  Rosie: And that's where that uh story vault comes in.
• 29:42
  Rosie: Like I want people to have that bank of stories that they can just kind of go back and look at, you know, refresh their memory.
• 29:51
  Rosie: And this is something that people could be doing.
• 29:56
  Rosie: I just spoke to a young lady, she was looking for a career coach, 22 years old.
• 30:02
  Rosie: She hasn't even started her job.
• 30:04
  Rosie: And I was like, why, what, what made you decide, you know, to look for a coach before you start your full-time, first full-time job ever?
• 30:12
  Rosie: She's like, I want to show up so that people don't think that I'm that I don't know what I'm talking about, you know.
• 30:20
  Rosie: So it so it's it's so interesting because you know, and I'm 57 years old.
• 30:26
  Rosie: When I was in my 20s, I was like, man, by the time I'm in my 50s, I'm gonna have it all figured out.
• 30:33
  Rosie: Well, guess what?
• 30:35
  Rosie: You know, throughout my years, nobody has it figured out.
• 30:38
  Rosie: It doesn't matter how old you are, how much money you have, any like you're constantly in different phases of life, you know, and so, but composure is one that we can prepare for, we can anticipate the types of questions that are going to be coming our way.
• 30:59
  Rosie: And now with artificial intelligence, you have a wealth of information that you no longer have an excuse to not be prepared.
• 31:11
  Mary: Yeah.
• 31:11
  Mary: And I think when we get to that step of practicing this composure, one of the things that I think can come in is what if they don't believe me?
• 31:20
  Mary: Or what if they disagree?
• 31:21
  Mary: Well, that's always gonna happen.
• 31:23
  Mary: And I think that is another thing, especially now that we have been, you know, sort of socialized by social media, we can see that anybody can have an opinion and they will be attacked.
• 31:34
  Mary: It doesn't matter.
• 31:35
  Mary: Like if they say, I love puppies, there's gonna be somebody saying, well, that's not okay.
• 31:40
  Mary: You know, so I think that moves us to the next thing, to have conviction in who you are, what you're good at.
• 31:49
  Mary: And so, how do you then make that transition?
• 31:52
  Mary: Because I think if we can say anything connects to showing up with that confidence stance and believing in yourself, it seems to me it's the conviction part of this.
• 32:06
  Rosie: Yes, and the conviction, um, it's not gonna come overnight.
• 32:10
  Rosie: And one of the other things I do as far as like my coaching practice, I'm a high performance career coach.
• 32:15
  Rosie: And so I bring in, I just had my first uh conversation with a client yesterday, and it's so incredible how when you actually sit down and think about what you want, about what you don't want, and do we we it was just a goal setting session, and she got so much out of it because I was like, Well, why are you doing that?
• 32:38
  Rosie: Does that need to be done?
• 32:40
  Rosie: And so it's a dismantling of those thoughts, and you will know about those preconceived notions or or ideas that you have about yourself.
• 32:50
  Rosie: Oh my gosh, I'm not good at sales.
• 32:52
  Rosie: Well, guess what?
• 32:53
  Rosie: I have to be good at sales if I want to keep my business going.
• 32:57
  Rosie: And it's that conviction of I am declaring myself a salesperson, and I need to dismantle those fears, those thoughts, those ideas that I had that I always never ever imagined myself as an entrepreneur.
• 33:12
  Rosie: When I was in the corporate world, I'm like, oh no, I need my paycheck in my bank every two weeks.
• 33:17
  Rosie: And now I'm like, oh crap, I have to make payroll.
• 33:20
  Rosie: You know, so it's like, but you know, it's it's a process, but it can be done.
• 33:26
  Rosie: And you don't necessarily need a coach, but it's easier with a coach so that you can start owning that person that you want to step into.
• 33:35
  Rosie: I was coaching another one of my clients, uh, she's uh very high executive, and this is kind of she was the one that helped me kind of see this.
• 33:45
  Rosie: She's like, you know, I need more confidence.
• 33:46
  Rosie: I'm like, no, you don't.
• 33:48
  Rosie: You don't need more confidence, you're at the top of your department.
• 33:53
  Rosie: It's that ownership of you now get to, and then a little side tangent.
• 34:00
  Rosie: She was like, Well, I don't know if I can do that.
• 34:02
  Rosie: I need to come into the office.
• 34:03
  Rosie: I'm like, you are at the top of your rank.
• 34:06
  Rosie: You don't have to ask permission to do that, you just get to decide.
• 34:10
  Rosie: And then if someone asks you, then yeah, you can explain whatever.
• 34:14
  Rosie: But it was like she didn't feel that she had the ownership of her own schedule.
• 34:21
  Rosie: When I was like, you absolutely do.
• 34:23
  Rosie: It's almost like I, as her coach, had to give her permission to take that ownership.
• 34:28
  Rosie: So it's not that women don't want to take that ownership, it's that they almost need someone to be like, hey, you're it's okay for you to take that ownership.
• 34:40
  Rosie: And then that's when that transformation happened.
• 34:43
  Rosie: And now she talks about, I have the conviction to do X, you know.
• 34:47
  Rosie: So it's just it's such a beautiful development.
• 34:51
  Rosie: Um, and again, it doesn't happen overnight, but it does happen, it can happen, and it can happen to your listeners too.
• 34:58
  Mary: Yeah, and I think the term empowerment is what kind of was highlighted in my mind that you're empowering them.
• 35:04
  Mary: And I think to circle back to this idea of what you said about stop helping everyone, that's a hard choice because it can mean what if people don't like me anymore?
• 35:13
  Mary: But I think there's a choice you want everybody to like you, or you want to progress forward.
• 35:20
  Mary: And so I think again, if we think about how do I measure what I'm doing or how do I step away from taking responsibility for sort of this, as I said in my intro, undergirding the success of everything.
• 35:35
  Mary: It's just is what is my lane here?
• 35:37
  Mary: What lane do I want to have?
• 35:39
  Mary: And I I talked to somebody else, a guest that I talked about in my intro, Christine Nowick, and she said, I just stopped doing the things.
• 35:46
  Mary: And that's exactly what you're saying is that you, if you want that progression, then it's looking at your landscape, what is serving me and what is serving the company or the institution that they don't even really either care about or recognize?
• 36:02
  Mary: And so I think that can be the hard thing.
• 36:04
  Mary: So if somebody's listening and they're inspired, because I think this is a very inspiring way to look at it.
• 36:11
  Mary: I think it's so doable.
• 36:12
  Mary: How would you tell someone to start?
• 36:15
  Mary: What would be the first couple things to consider or step into to lessen or close this articulation gap for people?
• 36:23
  Rosie: Well, uh, before I answer that, I wanted to say like there's one more.
• 36:27
  Rosie: So I uh am passionate about helping women get promoted.
• 36:32
  Rosie: But I'm not, I the one thing that I never ever have time to kind of go back in circle is because I want them to take care of themselves and take care of their families.
• 36:41
  Rosie: So, you know, that whole thing about I have to stop helping Susie over here.
• 36:46
  Rosie: So, do you want to be liked or do you want to be promoted so that you can take care of your family?
• 36:51
  Rosie: And that to me is the difference, you know.
• 36:54
  Rosie: So, um, and I come from I had a very terrible first divorce.
• 37:00
  Rosie: I had to leave in the middle of the day, and so I had my family helping me and stuff like that.
• 37:06
  Rosie: But I think of women that could potentially be in a situation where they need to make more money, they need to move forward, and that's kind of part of why all of this is like I have this fire in my soul to help women be promoted so they can take care of themselves and their family.
• 37:23
  Rosie: So I just wanted to answer that.
• 37:26
  Rosie: But the very first thing that I would do is start going through your day-to-day activity and identify which of those are measurable and how can you start thinking about the objectives for the company.
• 37:44
  Rosie: So saving money, uh, keeping clients, um, anything, making money, any measurable result like that.
• 37:53
  Rosie: But that's the biggest thing.
• 37:55
  Rosie: Start inventorying the big tasks that you do and identifying that, and then start building a story vault.
• 38:04
  Rosie: And I have plenty of YouTubes and all kinds of things out on my website that you know that talks about this, but creating that story vault of your measurable accomplishments, that's how you start the process.
• 38:18
  Rosie: That's the biggest thing.
• 38:20
  Mary: Okay, I love that.
• 38:21
  Mary: And I like the context that you gave about what is the reason or the mission behind wanting these promotions.
• 38:29
  Mary: It's the context of family, which, you know, of course, so important.
• 38:33
  Mary: Um, so Rosie, thank you so much for today for being here and talking with me.
• 38:38
  Mary: Can you review for us where to find you and how you can help?
• 38:42
  Mary: And I will put all of that in the show notes.
• 38:44
  Rosie: Yeah, absolutely.
• 38:45
  Rosie: So the easiest way to find me is through my website, nowomanleftbehind.com, and that's W-O-M-A-N.
• 38:52
  Rosie: And I'm very active on LinkedIn.
• 38:55
  Rosie: So uh they can just look me up, Rosie Zalinskis on LinkedIn.
• 38:59
  Rosie: And one of the biggest ways that I help women is through high performance uh career coaching, because we talk about how they can design their life, but it's all through the lens of the articulation gap.
• 39:13
  Rosie: So that that's how they can find me.
• 39:15
  Rosie: Okay.
• 39:16
  Rosie: Thank you again for being here, Rosie.
• 39:18
  Rosie: Yeah, thank you.
• 39:19
  Rosie: This was fun.
• 39:20
  Rosie: And I'm I'm surprised we already are a time.
• 39:22
  Rosie: So this is yeah, I could talk about this all day long.
• 39:25
  Mary: Yeah, it was a great conversation.
• 39:27
  Mary: And I want to thank everyone for listening.
• 39:29
  Mary: I would love to hear from you whether you have comments on today's episode or you have ideas or other feedback.
• 39:34
  Mary: Use the link in the show notes to leave me a voice text.
• 39:37
  Mary: You just might hear your voice on a future episode.
• 39:40
  Mary: And until next time, go out into the world and be the amazing, resilient, vibrant violet that you are.