Hello, corporate badasses. Welcome to another episode of Maximize Your Career. I'm your host, Stacy Mayer, in super excited, as always, to be here with you again this week. I hope that you enjoyed last week's episode about how to overcome the too aggressive label that we're so often labeled with. When we start to put ourselves out there, ask for more, raise our hands, speak up, all of those things that the executive team around us tells us to do. But when we do it, we're pigeonholed because we all know about the double bind dilemma and that women are seeing differently than men when they start to assert themselves in different situations. So definitely go back and listen to that episode. But it also inspired me to do a live training for everyone this week actually. So the week that this episode is coming out, you'll be able to join us on Thursday. I will link to the link of that webinar in the show notes, but I'll be teaching you how to ask for promotion without being labeled as too aggressive. And I'll be walking you through my entire promotion process, and in particular the process that I teach about 15-minute ally meetings and how we can start to network and build relationships in a different way than what is traditionally done in the corporate world. And this particular process has worked for hundreds of women to help them not only land their next promotion but to be able to really build those allies all across those organizations so that they can get tapped on the shoulder for opportunities that they didn't even know were available. 

So this is a fantastic, amazing game-changing process that I just need to get to as many people as possible. So join us for that free live training this week. I will be there live to answer all of your questions along the way. It's a fantastic opportunity to work with me and to really start to brainstorm what it's going to take to get you to that next level of leadership. Go to Stacey Mccolm. Go to Stacey Mccolm, and ask for it. Go to Stacey Mare. Go to Stacey McCombs and ask for it Stacey Mayor Macomb ask for it and register for the webinar. And if you're listening to this, after the webinar has already gone live, you can still register and catch the replay. So definitely check that out. All right. 

Now into today's episode, I wanted to have a conversation with you about changing careers. And I wanted to just, like, be super blunt and obvious, but also it's probably something that you haven't really thought about. And it could be the single thing that's holding you back from really committing and stepping into that higher-level executive position. 

Now I want to start this conversation by talking about Shelly Archambault. So I interviewed her for this podcast last year in 2021, and you can we'll link to that episode in the show notes. But one of the things that she talked about is how early, early, early in her career, she always wanted to be a CEO, an executive leader, a woman who ran her own business, not necessarily an entrepreneur, but somebody who wanted to climb through the C-suite. And in her early twenties, she had that commitment to being an executive leader. And so basically all of the decisions she made about her career were based on how to be a better executive leader. And then, of course, she became one of the first black female CEOs in Silicon Valley and an absolutely incredible leader definitely go listen to that episode to learn from her. But what I want to point out is that as she started her career, she was focusing on executive leadership skills, right?

So even if she was an early senior manager or a manager, she was already acting like the executive ahead of time, which is the process that I teach. Right. She was already putting those tools into place in her twenties. I also had a client who was a CFO at age 28. Right. So these types of leaders early on in their career, they're focusing specifically on becoming that executive leader. But for many of you, for most of you, for all of you who are listening to this podcast, that was not necessarily the case for you. 

You wanted to work in a particular field based on a particular skill set. So if you were in marketing or PR or software or digital health or whatever, that field, biotech, whatever that might be for you, you were focused on being an expert in that particular field. So in your twenties, you were working really hard at being an individual contributor or perhaps an early manager, but based on a particular set of skills. Now, many of you might have also received education in this particular set of skills, or you fell into that role and you received on-the-job training in that particular set of skills. So you spent about 15 to 20 years mastering whatever it is that you're doing today. You might also have gotten promoted to director, level, senior director, or even vice president level, whatever that level might be for you. But still, you are seen as that executive leader. I mean. But still, you are seen as that subject matter expert. You might be leading a team, but you're leading a team based on your specific skillset and knowledge. Now you want to transition into a senior executive leadership position, so you start to apply some leadership skills to your repertoire, right? And maybe you learn how to manage up. You learn how to better lead a team. You might even take some executive leadership courses that teach you how to better manage a team, things like that, like basically how to be a better manager.

But you're still holding on to this idea of your old career, your first career, that career that you were brought up in for 20 years. Now I'm going to take you on a total sidetrack, which is basically like, what if you decided to go into a completely different career, right. You were actually this is a great example of my husband who was actually a scientist. Right. And he worked in science. He went to school for science. He got his Ph.D. And that's the career that he chose. And at some point, he wanted to transition into technology and he decided that he was going to switch careers. And he did it completely cold turkey. Right. He found a new job at a new company and he went into a completely different career for him. Looks night and day from what he did in his twenties. Right. He just totally shifted. He learned a new skill set and he committed to that skill set. And then now he's been rising in that new career that he has because it was a complete shift. It was totally different than what he was doing before. He didn't try and marry the two. I mean, of course, he could have had a technology job in science, but he decided that he wanted to work because we're in Silicon Valley for one of the big large technology companies. 

Right. That is the world that he was moving into. And it literally his job right now and has nothing to do with science anymore. But he still has that background and that knowledge and all of the amazing competence that he gained during that time in his life. So for him, it was incredibly obvious that you should just change, right? Change your habits, change your knowledge, change your skillset. Like I'm doing a different career. 

Now I want to point out that as you transition into executive leadership, it's actually beneficial to you to think about it as a complete career change. So many of you are calling it a transition, as I just said, the word transition where it's going to you're going to ease into it, right? It's going to be subtle. It's going to be different. Slowly, slowly, slowly. Right. You're just going to start to kind of sprinkle on these different skills that you have and start to transition into executive leadership. And what that does for you is cause a lot of frustration in the middle because you're holding on to one life, one skill set, and you're trying to transition into the new executive leadership. But you haven't fully committed to the executive leadership side. Now, for the women inside of executive ahead of time who have mastered the skill they have, they look back on their previous careers and they don't even recognize it anymore. 

It's a different career. They're able to look back and say, Hey, wow, that's not even anything that I'm doing now at all, right? I'm not attending meetings. I'm not writing press releases anymore. I'm not coding. I'm not working directly with the engineers. I have other leaders that work directly with those engineers. And that's not to say that your expertise doesn't help you at those executive levels, but it's actually beneficial for you to let go of that old life, to let go of what you used to do. Because what that's going to open up for you is the possibility of a new career. Think about that. When you start to step into the possibility of a new career, really thinking, Wow, for the next 20 years, I'm going to be an executive leader, a totally different career path, and it's going to feel scary, but you're going to figure it out. You're going to do everything that you can. So then when I say something like, we're going to schedule executive 15-minute ally meetings with the executive team, and you're going to talk about higher-level leadership and strategic problems for the organization. You're like, Heck yeah, I'm going to do that now, right? So even now, here's what I want to say. You don't have to quit your job, you don't have to leave your company. But you're knowing that you're building almost like a side hustle. 

You're building this career on the side. You're adding to what it is that you're currently doing. I think so many women get stuck because they're trying to do both at the same time, meaning like they'll have a 15-minute ally meeting, but yet they're a senior manager or maybe a director-level role and they're like these 15-minute ally meetings don't actually help my job. And my job is really busy and I'm overworked and I'm underappreciated and I've already got too many projects. So taking on 15-minute ally meetings is not interesting, right? But if you start to think of 15-minute ally meetings and all of the process that I teach inside of executive ahead of time as a side hustle, as another career that you're building on the side, then you can fully commit because it's you're curious, you're learning, you're growing. Now, here's the good thing along the way, you are literally becoming the executive ahead of time. It will help your current role. Hands down, you're going to get better at your current job. Once you start transitioning this and especially, you're going to get better once you hit that senior director and VP levels, right? You're going to be like the best VP your company ever had because you've been working on this second career all along. So then when you step into that vice president or even C-suite level role, you are good to go and you're willing to delegate, to let go, to not have to be the smartest person in the room, to not have to have your eye on every single detail because you know how to operate at that higher, higher level. 

So today's episode is really just to ask yourself, am I still holding on to my old career, that safe place, that place that feels comfortable because I spent a whole life doing it? Or am I ready to start letting go and shifting into this new way of being? Executive-level leadership requires a different set of skills than management inside of executive ahead of time. In module one, I talk about letting go of what you're good at, right? Being able to start to think about yourself as that executive leader instead of always relying on your subject matter expertise. And I have a little graph that I outline for everybody, which is like, these are the manager qualities and these are the executive leadership qualities, right? And with the executive leadership qualities, they look a little bit like. And here are some of the examples that I share. Core management skills are things like data analysis, technical aptitude, and institutional knowledge. Like, a lot of my clients will work with their companies for 18 years. An organization that literally is organized in planning, project management, troubleshooting, very reliable hits your deadlines, and has a little bit of leadership, right? You can lead a team. But the core leadership traits that are required to transition into becoming that executive ahead of time, to transition into that new career that you're creating are more like productivity, right? Which is different than organization and planning, right. 

Productivity implies saying no and setting boundaries. Focus. Can I intently focus on a problem for a very short amount of time? Am I able to make big, bold decisions? Am I able to discern, right, what is the most important thing that needs to be solved today? Am I deliberate in my intention? Right? Even becoming the executive ahead of time and choosing to transition into the second career has a level of deliberateness, am I resourceful and do I manage my energy right? Am I able to handle myself under stress? A lot of women receive feedback that they're too emotional. And really what's happening for them is they're unable to manage their energy because when do we get emotional? When we feel stressed when we feel threatened. So at that senior executive level, there is a different levels of skills that are required to be successful. And these are the skills that you're going to start mastering even in your current role. And if you think about it as this second career, you're going to have to let go of relying on your institutional knowledge, for instance, relying on the fact that you've been at this organization for 18 years because we've all been at that organization for 18 years and had them hire somebody for our boss's position from the outside. 

Right. Because those are not the skills that are valued at that higher executive level. What's valued at that higher executive level is decision making, discernment, deliberateness, and resourcefulness. And so you have to start changing your mindset and letting go of the old career that you used to have. The other thing that I like about this, this way of thinking about it, is that it also allows you to grieve. So whenever we say goodbye to something, we need to take some time and really reflect on what that career was like for us. Right. And feel a little bit sad. You know, I worked hard to get where I am today and now I'm starting over. But you're not really starting over, right? Everything builds on all of your life, right? There's no such thing as starting over. But it can feel that way, right? It can feel like going into the unknown and that can feel scary. But once you're able to take the time to acknowledge, to be proud of everything that you've created, to not say, Oh, I'm failing, and this is why I have to step into executive leadership, that doesn't even make sense, right? So in my husband's case, when he let go of science like he didn't hate science writing, you know, he wanted to transition, but he didn't hate that life behind. Right. He had to take the time to acknowledge his success, to be proud of his success, to be proud of what he accomplished. 

And so this way of looking at it as a second career, your career in executive leadership versus your career as a manager or even an individual contributor or the expert in your field? Is this idea of saying, wow, I am so proud of what I created, but I am making an active choice to do something different for the next 20 years. The other thing that this way of looking at it does for you is it starts to be able to show you that you can totally skip levels. Right. I have women who are at the director level and they'll interview for VP and VP roles. It can be internal. Usually, they shift groups at their company if that's the case or external, and they'll raise their hand for higher-level executive positions because they're basically looking at it as a series of job requirements for an executive level role versus the role that they currently have. And so one of the reasons that we're not applying is because we're looking at the job description and we're thinking, Oh, I haven't done those things yet. But if you think about it as, Yeah, actually I've done aspects of that and this is a new career. And so what you need to do is you need to interview at that executive level, you need to change your résumé to reflect your executive leadership skills. 

Not the amazing manager that you were for the last 20 years of your career. So start to do that over this next week. I'd love it if you could really start to think about what are the ways that I'm holding on to my own career, my old career, and not fully embracing the fact that I'm stepping into a new one. What I want is unknown. It is different. It is going to be a change, a shift. But I'm ready. I want it, I deserve it. And I am willing to do what it takes to get there, even if that means scheduling 15-minute ally meetings, shifting my communication with executive leadership, spending a little bit of extra time throughout the week, contemplating the strategy, and really thinking about the vision for my projects that I'm working on versus just that attention to detail, getting it done, relying on my work to speak for itself. When you can start to shift that whole your whole brain when you can start to think about How can I become that Executive Ahead of Time, then you are going to seamlessly transition into executive leadership and you're going to look back at the first 20 years of your career and not even recognize yourself. You'd be like, Oh my gosh, I totally switched careers midlife and it's the best decision I ever made. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next week.