Hi, and welcome to the Awfully Quiet Podcast. Today's episode is all about quietly bragging, and the reason why we're so uncomfortable with bragging as introverts and as quiet people in the workplace is because the way we perceive bragging and others feel so uncomfortable, feel so unlike us, can feel so loud and intrusive that.

Bragging about your work, sharing your wins, get such a bad rep with us. And today I wanna change a little bit of that and make sure that you feel equipped to start quietly bragging in the workplace and in your, you know, work environment in a way that feels natural to you, in a way that doesn't even feel about, feel like bragging.

And where I wanna start is with a story of how I recently uncovered that. I am also still. Struggling with bragging at work. I have always, you know, shared on the internet and with, people I worked with and clients I coach. I've always said, you know, you need to keep a list of little wins and quiet brags that you weave into the conversation at work.

You, you make sure that people understand what you do, what you're working on, some of the little wins you've had, some of the small achievements you've had. But recently I, I uncovered that I'm also not doing that to the extent to which I probably could. And the situation was that, I was being asked by a senior leader, like a very simple question of like how many media campaigns I have worked on in the past couple of years.

And it was about a potential next move. It was about a role on their team that was heavily involved with, you know, running media campaigns on a. Really high level. And then I thought back and reflected on the amount of media campaigns I had worked on and the level of scale they were, like, how big they were, what an impact they had and so on.

And what I realized that in the past three years of being on this role. I worked across eight different media campaigns, massive media campaigns. They're not small ones. It's a big brand, huge scale campaigns with quite frankly sizable media budgets behind. And so that's when it clicked for me and I realized, wow, I have a lot of experience in what I'm doing right now.

And the reason why, that was in front of mind for me is. Because I was always onto the next one. eight media campaigns also means that, you know, within the past three years, whenever I wrapped one up, I was already knee deep into the next one. Whenever we, you know, deployed one, I was already onto the next brief and already onto the next creative rounds and on with the agencies all the time.

So,we were running them so close to each other. That I never really got this moment of reflection of like, wow, I, I did that. And obviously we wrapped them up and we look into, you know, learnings and how things went and what we can do better next time. But I never really sat down to look at it as almost like a little bit of a portfolio of all the things I have worked on and all the things I've brought to life.

And now looking back over the past three years, I realized, you know what? I'm actually really good at this. I have a lot to be proud of, a lot of, you know, personal learnings that I've taken away, but seeing them all on one page. It's also quite impressive, and this is what I should be leading with when I'm being asked by senior leaders, like, how many campaigns did you work on?

What's your experience on this? I could easily say, you know what? I worked on eight campaigns in the past three years. That size, that scale, this is what stood out for me. I can take so much more of a driver's seat position in all this instead of just like. Being asked for and then starting to reflect.

It's more of so like. Having those things like, you know, ready as, as like fuel. Whenever I have the chance to talk about my work or whenever I, you know, weave some of these things in, I would've never been someone to, to introduce myself like that and say, you know what? I've worked on, this amount of, of campaigns in the past couple of years and therefore I'm, I'm really knowledgeable and skilled.

I, I think this is something that really stood out for me and where I thought to myself, I need to get better. And quietly weaving these things into the conversation and talking about them. Now, what I wanna do today is talk about what some of those quiet breaks are that you likely already have in your pocket.

But I'm not talking about, 'cause I think like sharing our wins in the workplace feels unnatural because it can feel like it is. You know, shouting to take up space, like it's intrusive. It feels like, you know, it can only be done a certain way, but the other reason why we don't do it is because we overlook the very things that are already worth breaking about the things we're already doing and the things we consider just doing our job.

And we don't talk about them enough. We don't. Actually see them as quiet wins or as opportunities to quietly brag about our work. And this is where I wanna start with this episode. I wanna give you five subtle brags that you already have in your pocket. If you are anything like me, if you are an introspective person in the workplace, I'm sure you will have a couple of these.

Already in your pocket ready to go, but you don't really see them as something that it's worth bragging about or worth being proud about in the first place. And that is the first thing I wanna change today. I want you to feel proud of them. I want you to see how powerful they are and not overlook them anymore.

That is really the first step. So let's get into the list. The first one is. The PowerPoint deck that you created and everybody uses now. Now this is one that is certainly true for me, and that is one that I tended to overlook because I just thought to myself, well. That is true for everyone. Everyone creates great PowerPoint decks, but the way you create them is likely a little different.

And if you've ever created a PowerPoint deck, a slide deck, or a one pager, a document, whatever it is, it doesn't really need to be PowerPoint. That gets shared beyond your team and that people reuse, that senior leaders take away to present in forums and when they update other people in the organization.

That is something you can be really proud about because creating a great PowerPoint deck, it's not just about creative skills, it's not just about visualization, but it's also a skill of making complex things simple of communicating. Creating a great PowerPoint deck is communication. It is bringing something onto a page that is then going to be understood, that then travels through the organization.

It is spreading information in a way that can be extremely effective, and all too often this skill gets overlooked and gets overlooked as something that is just like an admin task, especially if you're not the one presenting the deck. And you know, tends to be somebody else, tends to be a senior leader who ends up presenting it.

And so it's often something that gets lost in translation, but I want you to be proud of that. If that ever happens to you, like your deck is being reused, your document is being shared, you created a one pager that travels through the organization, be proud of it. And, find ways to make it, to attach it to you to, to make sure that people know it's coming from you.

It could be, you know, your contact information in the deck. It could be you, you know, openly sharing it to others.and, you know, letting them know how to use it or what they could potentially use it for. There are subtle ways to making that happen that I also wanna talk about. But in the first instance, this is absolutely something that you should feel proud of.

And that you should also should be bragging about a little bit, whether it just be in a one-to-one with your manager saying, you know what? I noticed they're using the deck I created in this and this forum, or this, and this team has picked it up and replicated it.is always something that feels like a little bit of an accomplishment that people should know about.

The second one that is often overlooked is the way you write emails. And emails are my personal pet peeve in the workplace. Like, I dislike nothing more than going through my email inbox. And part of it is my job and the amount of, the amount of emails I am copied to that I don't really need to be copied on.

And the amounts of conversation people have on email and, For me, I'm not just quiet and introspective, but I'm also extremely like what I value is somebody communicating in a very brief, concise, direct way. I don't like any of the fluff and I hate nothing more than long emails. Like if I get along email, I will literally skim it for my name.

And try and find out what, what it it has to do with me and what my action is and, and what I'm there to do. I rarely read through the full thing, which is, can sometimes be a problem, but it's just the way I work. I don't, I, I can't possibly read every email that I get, and it is extremely tough for me. So whenever I get an email that is well structured, well laid out.

Easy for me to read through fully. I admire that. I love that. And I instantly, I'm instantly in awe of the person who send it, and I instantly go, oh, what? What a great skill. What a great, what great ownership, what great leadership. I don't ever put off a well-structured email. Somebody doing admin work. I think it's God's work to be honest.

Writing a great email and putting words on onto, you know, not onto a page, but into an email that resonate with people that drive the right actions, that have everyone on board instead of just, you know, blurbing it out. I feel like we should put a lot more effort into our emails and I do feel. As introspective, quiet, observing people, we tend to put more effort into our written communication, which we absolutely should.

We should definitely own written communication, and so therefore, I feel like that is another place we could own and we could make. Something that becomes our signature. Like when other people get an email from us, they open it instantly because they know it's not going to be a long thing that they need to read through and decipher.

They know it's going to be spot on and they know it's going to be great. And having that reputation attached to your e to your name on in somebody's inbox is gold. It's solid gold. You should absolutely see that as something that stands out about you.that doesn't make you junior, doesn't make you like early career.

It's an absolute leadership skill to be able to write emails like that. So it's absolutely something that you should leverage, that you should make your personal signature and your brand and definitely something to brag about in my opinion.

The third thing I wanna talk about is. The way you get people organized, and this can be in many different ways, but I have a couple of people in mind in the team that I work in that do this brilliantly and I often am in awe of that. This is something that I don't do extremely well, but I know other introverts who do it.

Really, really well. And it's about getting other people organized, whether it be through an Excel file where you know, just kind of people jot down their holidays and you get organized in the way that everybody understands, you know, what the annual calendar is and when things happen, and some of those things that get sometimes.

that are sometimes seen as tedious tasks or things that nobody really wants to do, but getting people organized like that, organizing a calendar in a way that is really clear and, you know, has everyone in the right call at the right time or, setting a document up that everybody refers to, like frequently asked questions or something that the team is often asked about.

links that are often being shared. Th things that, that just, you know, that just come up on the daily where somebody thinks through, you know, what could be a way for us to tackle this that doesn't require us to do the same thing over and over again every day, but automatize things or makes things a little bit simpler, like this kind of thing.

Could be so valuable to any team because at the end of the day, this is what we're all struggling with, don't we? We all struggle with too many teams or zoom or Slack messages. We all struggle with endless meetings. We struggle with getting organized across teams. We struggle with being asked for the same links over and over again.

Like, you know that I'm a brand manager and the number one question I get. Every week is, can you send me the latest logo again or can you, you know, send me the brand guidelines or whatever it is. And so, I do the same thing over and over again until somebody else comes up with a brilliant idea to create a one stop shop and something that becomes.

A link that everybody has access to without even asking, but we're not quite there yet.so the way you get people organized, number three, I feel like it can definitely be something that stands out about you, that travels, that people recognize in you. And I'm not even kidding. This is the type of thing that, that people remember at work.

And again, it's not tedious. It is something that. Can really help make a difference. Number four is all about meeting setups and meeting facilitation. I've talked about this a couple of times now on the podcast in that I believe that introverts are killer facilitators, like, you know, killer meeting set up, from, you know, the way you organize a meeting, the way you think about.

Who should be invited? The way you set up an agenda, the way you follow through, the way you set the scene at the start of the meeting, to help everyone understand what the intention is, what the outcome is, the way you guide people through the way you make sure everybody gets a fair share of voice.

Everybody gets to say their opinion, their perspective, the way you invite in uncomfortable perspectives, the way you call out. Challenges the way you direct the conversation in a way that just makes it feel natural, and that just makes it feel like it really sets the meeting up for success. And then also the way you recap, you follow through.

You make sure people are being heard and seen, and that is something that is also quite rare. I feel like because nobody really puts a lot of effort into meetings, do they? Otherwise, we wouldn't have so many memes and so many conversations around missing agendas and back to back meetings and meetings where, you know, we don't really need to be attending.

And it's another one of those things that gets easily overlooked in the workplace. But to me, great meeting facilitators. Always stand out. I am in awe of everyone who facilitates a great meeting and make sure everybody's voice is being heard. I feel like it's quite unique and it is something that, again, introspective, observing people have an upside and have an advantage in, and so therefore, if you are somebody who feels like you are great facilitation skills could.

Mm-hmm. You know, potentially be strengthened or you could potentially lean into them a little bit more or recognize them in the first place. That is already a win. That is already, you know, a first step into realizing, oh, this is actually powerful. Like it feels like it's something that you do on this side that is just part of your job.

But if you are great at this, lean into it, become better at it, and then. Don't shy away from bragging about it. Don't shy away from positioning yourself as somebody who can do this really, really well. And then the fifth. Thing that I think could easily be something that you can brag more about, but gets overlooked a lot as well, is the way you mentor others, is the way you look after new employees in the team is the way you feel people, make people feel like they belong, like whatever, somebody joins the team.

It could be lending them a hand, it could be becoming their body and showing them around and how things work. Or it could be. Putting together a great onboarding deck or an onboarding system, or induction presentations, whatever it looks like. I often feel like this is the type of thing that, again, gets overlooked from a leadership perspective, but it absolutely is leadership.

It's like the empathy of making somebody feel welcome in the team of getting somebody set up. In a way that they understand how they can help and what the next steps are and where they fit in. And it's such an amazing thing to do for somebody else. And at the same time, it's also something, yeah, that often gets underestimated on a team, but if it's not there, I think people feel it.

And, there is nothing worse than. You know, feeling like you are joining a team and you don't really know how to help them and, and where to slot in and yeah, how to feel comfortable. So, um,this like making new team members feel welcome, but also coaching like a junior colleague or mentoring somebody in the business.

This is something that can be extremely valuable and can really help impact other people, and it's something that rarely gets forgotten. I always remember people who taught me something at work, people who showed me something, people who spend time with me to answer some of my questions. And so this is something that you should absolutely see as.

A, a, a decent and great trait that can make a big difference. And it's definitely something you should be bragging about. Like not loud, not intrusive, but here and there. Just let people know, you know what? I helped them get set up with this and that, or I connected these two people with each other and now they're working on this brilliant project together.

Like just kind of making, helping people notice some of those things that sometimes get. Unseen or they go unseen in the workplace. Now this list, these five things I wanna say, almost everyone has in their pocket some of the things that you just write off as just doing your job. But in reality, they're huge levers of value.

In reality, they are what really makes a difference in the way people feel. People feel like they belong. People feel seen in the workplace and, and you are really making a difference in helping the team and driving the business forward and really adding value. And I don't want these, some of these quiet, small.

Traits and skills and capabilities to stay overlooked because the reason they are overlooked is because we don't talk about them as much. We don't go out bragging about them as openly as the extroverts do. And I'm not saying we need to be louder, but I'm saying we need to spread these as like think of them as little breadcrumbs as like little cues of like, here's something that I did, here's the impact that it had.

Mention it. Just put it out there. It doesn't need to be loud, but it needs to land. It needs to be seen, and it needs to be said in order to be seen. And, to wrap this up with, I wanna leave you with two resources that I created to help you with this. So the first one is my free Guide to Subtle Self-Promotion.

Self-promotion, again, is, is very much connected to bragging and is gets as much of a bad rep as bragging does for all the same reasons. It feels awkward, it feels intrusive. But I wanna reframe self-promotion a little bit and show you ways of how you can self-promote in a subtle way, in a way that feels natural.

And so this guide has a checklist of things you should be doing weekly, monthly, and yearly in order to get a little bit more visible, but not in an awkward, cringey way. And then if you wanna take it a step further, I have just launched my Subtle Scripts pack, which is literally. 200 plus scripts that I wrote for you.

You can pluck and play at work to share your wins in a one-to-one share your achievements, your quiet breaks in performance reviews and job interviews when you interact with the team. But it also sets you up for senior stakeholder conversations, for coffee chats, for networking situations, small talk at the coffee machine.

Literally all of these situations where we tend. To freeze and not say anything because we feel quite awkward. We don't know what to say, and I wanna give you those words for you to get a feel for what it can, what it can be like to say something in those moments, and just to ease you into it and to make sure some of those quiet skills don't any longer go unnoticed, but are being seen in the workplace.

Thank you so much for tuning in today, and I hope you'll be sharing some quiet breaks these next couple of days. If you do, please let me know. Send me a DM at Awfully Quiet podcast. I would love to hear from you. See you next week.