Hello, and welcome to this episode of the Awfully Quiet Podcast. Now, you will not know this, but This episode wasn't really planned. I hadn't planned to sit down and record an episode right now. This is quite spontaneous and I'm still figuring out the best way for me to record these solo episodes. I've tried everything so far from, you know, a very detailed script that I can almost read from to bullet points and very rough notes all the way to speaking completely freely.

And I often find that I have the most fun recording when. I have a thought and instantly sit down in front of the mic if I can and just kind of record myself, you know, pondering, reflecting, speaking out loud, which is something that doesn't come naturally to me as an introvert, but I'm here all by myself.

And so I'm going to give this a try, because I often feel like if I start, if I have a thought and then I put it off and then I start to record at a different time, I put some notes down, I put some more thought into it, the magic of it is gone. So I'm just going to give this a try right now. And then maybe it never sees the light of day because I decide not to air it, but you know what?

Maybe it's going to work out. Maybe you're going to really like it. And that's actually something that I would really love to hear from you when it comes to solo episodes. What's the kind of structure and the kind of style you prefer? Do you prefer somebody, you know, speaking freely, like almost like having a conversation with somebody Or do you feel like it serves you better when it's more cohesive and it's off, it's, you know, more prepared and you feel like there's a clear structure to it.

You know, these kinds of podcast episodes where it's like five tips to do this, or here's how you do X, Y, and Z. Because obviously I've done these before too. And I really want to know what serves you best and what you really like listening to. And then. If you've got some time and if you really, really like this, please take two, three seconds to leave a review or a rating wherever you listen to this podcast on Spotify.

It's really, really simple. You just go on the awfully quiet podcast page. You click the three dots, rate show, and then It's very easy to just kind of, select the five stars, please do, because it always puts a smile on my face, firstly, but obviously also the more ratings and reviews this podcast gets, the more introverts, the more like minded souls out there are going to be seeing this content and hopefully tuning in.

And we're here to grow this community. We're here to spread the word about what it means to be awfully quiet. And. I'd love to see this podcast in this community grow. So what I wanted to speak about today, and I'm going to take a step back to the kind of thoughts I've been having in general, in my career, and this is now very personal.

So let's see where this goes, but, as you know, I still have a corporate job. This is what my career has been for the past. Eight plus years, I work in corporate and that's what I've always really wanted to do. So I've always been, striving for a position in, in brand marketing as a brand manager for, a CPG brand.

And that's what I ultimately got. So that's the kind of position that I work in today, but I would say in the past couple of years. I've always been dabbling with the thought of entrepreneurship and, online businesses and coaching. And I started to share content on Instagram predominantly a couple of years ago on career content.

And,just kind of quickly realized that all of this is almost geared towards a certain type of personality. And that personality was much like myself, more of a quieter, calmer, introspective personality. So therefore I decided to niche down into introvert friendly career tools and content, because I saw that.

conventional career advice was not really tailored for introverts. It was tailored towards extroverts. And it made introverts feel like they didn't belong and like they couldn't possibly succeed. So that's what I started. And. the more content I created, the more it just kind of started to resonate.

And obviously now we've built a career platform at Subtle Careers. It's really been taking off ever since the beginning of this year. And then I started the podcast in pursuit of spreading the word, in pursuit of adding a long form content format that we can, you Connect with on a different level where I can share my thoughts and career learnings, but also invite great interview guests to just kind of talk about topics and bring expertise in areas that I couldn't.

So that's where we are right now. And what I often find is whenever I speak about what I'm doing for a living, I often, it depends on the kind of person I speak with, but I often don't even talk about my business and my career. The podcast, I often talk about my corporate career because that is always what I identified myself with when it comes to my career and that's the easiest for me to share because it's so easy to say I work in brand marketing for this and this company.

but whenever I speak to somebody on a business side, whenever I connect with an interview guest or somebody with regards to the career platform, I almost feel. I almost feel embarrassed to say that I'm still working a corporate job because in the online world, you know, still kind of being in your corporate job is considered, you know, it's almost like you've not taken that step yet.

You're not successful enough yet to have made it out of your nine to five and into your 24 seven, if we're honest. so I often just kind of say, yeah, I'm still in my corporate job. And. I actually quite like it and I'm not too sure and it often feels like I'm half assing this whole thing and I think I beat myself up for the fact that I am in this limbo and I often think to myself, well, do I not feel ready yet?

What needs to be true in order for me to make that jump? But if I'm really, really honest, I think there is something to be said about. Paving a different way or paving a different way because I'm really quite happy in my corporate job. It's not that I hate my job. when I go back to what's really, really important for me in my career and in my life and what my values are, I really value personal growth and development.

I. I'm really keen to, to, to develop and learn on a, on a daily basis. I think that this is really something that drives me. And it's obviously something that my corporate job still gives me. The level I am at from a, you know, brand marketing perspective with the brand I work for. It allows me to constantly develop and grow to add new skills to my.

expertise to gain leadership skills and just kind of, you know, personal self leadership skills and so on and so on. I also really appreciate the team that I work with. Obviously there are things in the corporate world that I do not like, that I try to, that I try to make better ultimately for us introverts.

And therefore I also feel like part of this experience, part of these learnings also fuel. My content also give me content ideas of like, here's something that we really need to address that happens in corporate, for us introverts. So I don't really feel the need to quit my corporate job. equally, I, uh, Also want to step up my career platform and the podcast.

I have so many goals. I'm so ambitious with this. I have so many big visions for where we can take this thing. and I often think to myself, well, it has to be either or, and maybe it doesn't. And that's something that I thought about. When I was on my way to my workout this afternoon. So, I'm sitting here in front of the microphone.

My hair is still dripping wet from just having taken a shower. I have had a full day at work today. Lots of back to back meetings, lots of things, action, like full energy day with. Lots of socializing, giving presentations and so on. So what I often do when I have a day like this is I try and schedule a workout class.

I do the cycling classes that I absolutely love. I've been doing them for almost a year now. And it's like 45 minutes of pure, fun and exhaustion without your phone. And it really takes my mind off things. So that's what I did just right after work today. And then I came back,and I drove my bike there too.

I just kind of was on, on the road driving. I was just like thinking to myself, well, Maybe I just need to give myself permission and this goes back to a great conversation that I had with Jess Williamson on the podcast a few weeks ago. If you want to go back to this interview, it is episode number 42.

Please have a listen. It's a fabulous episode and Jess is just so great at just kind of setting, setting yourself up for setting the right mindset for growth and for success. But something that she said is you are the only person who can give yourself permission to go for something. And she was talking about this in the context of.

Entrepreneurship and she is an entrepreneur and she often tells herself, well, I am the person who gives myself permission. There is nobody who tells me, no, if I want to do something, I'm going to do it. And from a corporate perspective, and if we're in the workplace and we work for somebody else, there are many people above us who have to give us permission to do something.

If we're honest, who just kind of influence the next step we take, who influence whether or not. We're going to get the dream project that we want to be on, whether or not we're going to get the job that we really, really want. And so from a corporate perspective, it often feels like, yes, there are people who need to give us permission to do something.

But I also thought to myself, there are always also people who just have a different mindset and who just kind of feel like. They exude more ownership and they, they go differently about things. They show up to work as if they're already, you know, owning the thing as if they're already the CEO and they are far from it, but it's that, it's that level of, of ownership of leadership of here I am, I don't care what position I'm in.

But I kind of feel like I'm the, I'm the boss of this. I'm the CEO of this, and I'm going to make decisions just like that. I don't really care about the job title. It says, on my, on my CV or on my LinkedIn. And that kind of got me to thinking because

it's actually something that, somebody mentioned. When I was interviewing for the job that I currently have as a brand manager. So as I said before, and I said this many, many times on the podcast, being a brand manager for a big iconic brand in the CPG world has always been my dream job. So I interviewed for this position about two years ago.

And, part of the interview was obviously me asking questions towards the end of the interview. You, if you know me, you know that the questions towards the end of the interview are the most introvert friendly way of turning an interview around, of showing, leadership and ownership, again, of showing that you're really interested, and can really make or break The impression that you leave.

So always, always, always prepare questions for the end of an interview. And one of the questions that I had prepared was, what is the kind of mindset? What are the kind of behaviors that you need this person that you're looking for, that you're hiring for to bring to this role? What do they act like, behave like?

In any given setting in the day to day of the job they'll do. And the answer I got was super, super interesting. The answer I got was

if you're a brand manager for this brand, you need to show up almost like as a GM of this brand. You are the CEO of this brand. You own this brand and you need to act like that on a daily basis. You need to act like that, you know, when it comes to. You know, somebody using your brand colors or your logos wrong, and driving due diligence behind that.

But also when, you know, because a lot of people will, will come to you, a lot of people will, will seek advice. A lot of people will have ideas for you. You need to show up as you know, somebody who takes full ownership and is a full advocate for this brand. And you need to drive, it's your job to drive this brand.

If you're not going to do this, nobody is going to. And that really resonated with me and sparked my interest even more because I really liked the idea of being a GM of something, like a mini GM, a mini CEO. Obviously this was not a GM or a CEO position. It was like a mid, it's like a mid to senior level management role.

But it was interesting to me that this was kind of like the mindset of the business of like these people in these roles Are really, really important for the business and you need to show up as if you own this brand, you are the brand representative, you need to show up a certain way and then fast forward, I did get the job.

And it does feel like that most of the time, but sometimes I just need to remind myself, because obviously in the day to day of this job, I often encounter that at the end of the day, I still need a lot of people to sign off on things that I really want to do. I still need a lot of people to sign off on decisions, on approvals that I have given, on, you know, creative approaches that I'm proposing.

I'm still in a corporate setting and obviously I'm not the last person to make a final decision. I am often the opposite. I'm often the first person to decide and then I need buy in from multiple different stakeholders to make something happen, to approve something and to take the next step. If you work in the corporate setting, I think you will be very well familiar with this.

So I often think to myself, well, not the GM that I thought I would be, not the CEO that I thought this position would, just kind of lend itself to. But at the end of the day, I feel like It's about the mindset that you bring and how you show up, because it makes a huge difference for me to show up as, well, you know, I'm a middle manager here at the end of the day, I have so many other people to align to make a decision.

Nobody really cares, or if I show up and say, look, I own this brand. I know what I'm doing. Here's what I'm proposing. Here's what I need you to sign off on. And here are the next steps that I'm envisioning. What do you think? Can we move forward? And it's just a different vibe. It's a different style. If you own what you're doing, it's going to move you forward so much more than you think.

And so what I thought to myself today is even if we're in a corporate setting, or if we are, if you are an entrepreneur, if you have an online business as well, the same thing applies.

If you could do anything, if you could envision any role for yourself in the current setup that you're in, and you are the only one who had to give yourself permission to be approved in that job, to get the, to get the job, to get the role, to get the promotion, what would that job be? What would you promote yourself to?

What's the title? At the end of the day, the title doesn't matter, but it often fuels that mindset. It often fuels that inner leadership and ownership. So if you're currently in a role where you say you're the brand manager for a certain brand and for whatever reason, you don't feel that sense of ownership.

You don't feel like you own this brand and you don't show up like, to with a level of engagement that you're looking for. and you could give yourself permission to say, tomorrow you're the brand director, or you're the vp, you're the CMO, who, however high you wanna go, you're the CMO of this business.

How would you show up to work tomorrow? What would we be different? Would you be getting up at a different time? Would your first thought of the day be different than the one you would normally have? Would you be working out? Would you be taking some steps in the morning? Would you be getting some fresh air throughout the day?

Would you act any differently when it comes to your preparation, when it comes to your schedule? Would your calendar look the same? Would you? You know, would you go this in the same way? Would you set the right the same boundaries than you do right now? Would you take every call that life throws at you or would you say no to certain things?

How would you structure your day? How would you make sure that users change your energy? Would you work until 8:00 PM or would you decide same as me today? To go for a fucking 5 p. m. Cycling class, just because you know, you're going to be so much more energized and get some work done afterwards. What would it look like for you to step in to the role that makes you feel like you can take full ownership of your life?

Leadership, the role, the position that fuels you, that drives you, that gives you that feeling of, Oh, I'm doing something really important. I'm, I'm waking up and I'm, I'm actually, you know, doing something that's really relevant, something that is meaningful to me. Something that feels fulfilling to me. And I feel like there is so much value in that because what I often find when it comes to actual promotions is that the people who show up.

As if they are already doing the job, as if they're already that next level, already that future version of themselves, they're more likely to get the role. They are more likely to be considered for the dream projects, for the high profile projects, for the promotions, for the next steps, is because it all comes down to whether somebody can envision you in a certain role and whether somebody has you on their radar.

And it's actually, if you think about it, it's a very introvert friendly way of getting visible and see being seen too, because it's not like you put yourself out there or you're trying to become more visible, but you try to become More impactful. You try to make your work more meaningful and it's you giving yourself permission.

It's literally you deciding tonight or deciding tomorrow morning when that alarm clock goes off. How are you going to get to work today? Who are you going to show up as at work today? Is it going to be, you know, yesterday self in your old role that you had? Or is it going to be the damn CEO, the GM, the director, whatever it sounds like in your head.

And what will it look like? And this may not work every day. This may not work consistently, but I think it's a great reminder for us that the first step to getting a promotion is giving yourself permission. And then showing up as if you already got it, regardless of how far this is away in reality, regardless of how feasible this feels to you, regardless of how much of a dream this is for you.

The first step is giving yourself permission. And then all the rest, all the magic will follow. This is what I wanted to leave you with today. This is the kind of random thought I had on my bike today as I was driving to cycling class. And yeah, I feel really good sharing, in that way. So I really, I'd love to hear from you if you, you know, if this resonates with you, if this was helpful for you, you can always DM me at awfully quiet podcast.

I'd love to hear from you and yeah, I hope that I'll see you back next week. Bye bye.