Welcome to the celebrate brave podcast. 

I’m Nicole Trick Steinbach, your host, and the international bravery coach. On a mission to redefine brave. How we identify it, live it, and most importantly, celebrate it. Because when you build your brave, you change your world and that changes the world. Talk about something to celebrate. Let’s go. 

Who are you making it easier for? A lot of times, my clients, they come to me, right? Because they’re successful women in technology and they’re ready to go to that next level. Before too much time has gone by some sort of statement comes up that’s all about the discomfort of someone else. Something about my boss wants it that way, or doesn’t want it that way. My stakeholders complain when, or I’ve always done it this way, and so the product manager or the project manager, or the scrum master, all of these things, that’s their expectation because that’s how it’s been done. Right. And I understand that. I definitely get to that point as well. My kids expect this. I expect coffee in the morning. I expect a dinner where we sit down and really talk with each other. Right. I expect my clients to show up on time. My clients expect me to be truly present. In my time with them.

And so, yeah, of course, there’s going to be expectations, but here is the point of transformation. When you want to earn more money. When you want to have deeper relationships, and remember deeper relationships, lead to more opportunities. 

And when you want to have those opportunities, the offers on the table, the stretch, the promotions, the travel and relocation opportunities, and the ability, the opportunities to work on the brand new product line, when you want those things. You cannot continue to do what you’ve done in the past. We hold this to be true. Okay. So it’s true. And we’re headed on.

Here’s the thing. Transformation. Somebody’s going to be uncomfortable. And I hope that that discomfort, that stretch, that, your body feeling your stepping into your awesome feeling. I hope you know, that this feeling has to be shared. So the question becomes, who are you making it easy for? 

If you are miserable and your boss is happy Guess who doesn’t have a problem. Your boss, your boss does not have a problem. You’re miserable. You’re doing your job, not his problem, not her problem, your problem. So it’s easy for them, for your boss for your direct line. Sucks for you. Who are you making it easy for? When you say, Ok, performance evaluation time.

Let me share a really concrete story with you guys. So this was a client and,  I believe at the beginning of 2020, maybe the end of 2019. And, client came to me, they were working towards a specific growth role and had been for over a year. Brilliant person. All of those certificates you can imagine, all of the bachelors, the masters, I believe even most of a PhD. Spoken at conferences. There was so much there and yet. This stretch goal, this promotion. Let’s keep it simple and just say promotion. So this promotion remained elusive. 

So we’re working together and it’s time for the performance evaluation. So she goes into the performance evaluation and she gets told and wait for it. Cause I’m sure you’ve heard this too, that she needs to quote, “build her leadership skills”.

Sometimes women will hear “strengthen their leadership skills”, “broaden their leadership skills”, but it’s very, very often it’s around these leadership skills. Okay. Or if it’s not, it’s more on the technical skills, whatever. Anyhoo, so leadership skills. 

Comes back to me, I need to strengthen my leadership skills. Okay. How was the conversation? I ask .The conversation was fine, it was pleasant, it was easy. Okay, dear client, what do you now need to do to get your promotion? I have to strengthen. I have to build my leadership skills is the answer. Okay. How? To what end? Which specific leadership skills and because my clients, they do an intake and then we track what we’re doing, and I track the insights that I’m having that aren’t on their intake or aren’t on their resume. Oh my gosh. There’s usually a huge list. I look at this and there’s all kinds of leadership. All kinds of leadership that my client has already demonstrated within the company she was working at, within organizations for her profession, within conferences. 

So what specifically needs to happen? What specifically is missing from this enormous topic called leadership? She doesn’t know.The conversation was lovely, it was easy. It was easy for her manager. Not for her. Not really. Did it feel good at the time? Yeah, it felt good at the time. Did she have clarity of what she needed so that she could do those things, she could meet expectations, she could get the promotion that in my humble opinion, she’d already earned?. And was actually doing a large section of what stood in the job role description? No, no she did not. So we work through that. We work through the discomfort and the question is, who are you making it easy for?

She sets up a follow-up meeting, goes into the conversation, long story short, and it didn’t happen in that meeting. It happened in two or three other meetings. It finally came out that her manager already knew who she wanted to have in that promotion. And that person was going to have that promotion when it became possible according to corporate practices, policies, and norms. 

It did not matter dear listener. It did not matter what my client did. It did not matter. How she showed her leadership skills, how she showed her growth, how she got evaluations and testimonies, and all of those wonderful things. It didn’t matter. The manager had already made a choice, was working inside of a system of lack and limitation, and was not telling my client, any of that, cause who wants to say that out loud? 

And if my client was willing to make it easy for her manager, I mean, come on, we can all be human, right. We can have empathy for the manager and for the client, both and.So what did my client do? Well, first of all, let’s be real. That’s hard. That’s a hard piece of information. It’s especially hard because of that first question, what do I need to do to get the promotion? That statement of want, that statement of goal, the clarity, the clarity, right? That is scary. That is already building your brave. And then in the learn act cycle or spiral, excuse me, learn act spiral of experience at like a kindergartner she had to go deeper with questions and make it easy for herself, midterm and uncomfortable for her manager short term. And with that new knowledge, then it was going to own it like a boss and with the additional knowledge and experience, discomfort. It became a choice. Stay where you are and know the promotion is not coming. Not this year and most likely not next year, or make a different choice. Make a different choice.

And the only way. You can know, what’s really happening. The only way you can really, really, really commit to your transformation, whatever that is, more money, better relationships, more opportunities, a life that you just fricking love, and a career that’s making an impact that matters to you. No matter what it is, who are you making it easy for? It better be you.

Thanks again for listening today. If you are ready to build your brave for more money, deeper relationships, and more opportunities in your life. Reach out to me, Nicole Trick Steinbach. I would love to help you. And please remember to rate and review this celebrate brave podcast so that more people can support our movement to redefine brave, how we define it, live it, and celebrate it.