Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Maximize Your Career. I'm your host, Stacy Mayer. And super excited, as always, to be here with you again this week.

Before we get into today's episode, I want to tell you about another podcast. Now, I know that's unusual to be pitching another podcast at the beginning of my podcast, but this is one podcast in particular that I am very, very, very proud of.

The title of this podcast is A Life You Love: Sales Tips with Jennifer Fisher. And Jennifer is someone that you have heard on my podcast before several times. She is one of my clients and she has used everything that I teach to get herself promoted into a senior vice president position.

Now, that is not even the tip of the iceberg as to what Jennifer has accomplished over the last couple of years in her career. And namely, one of the things that she created at the beginning of this year, at the beginning of 2021, was her very own podcast.

So before I get into today's episode, and this is going to tie in beautifully with what I'm talking about today, I want to talk a little bit about the creation process of her podcast.

So when I first met Jennifer, she had no ambitions to create a podcast. This is not why she signed up for coaching. She was a vice president of sales at her organization and she loved her job, but she knew that she could be doing better.

She wanted to build better relationships at work. She wanted to pull herself out of the weeds, to really understand how she could better lead her team instead of doing the work for them. You know how this is. We can all fall into that trap no matter what level of leadership that we're in.

So essentially, she wanted to be the best vice president that she could be. And of course, she had ambitions to move into higher levels of leadership. But at first it was mostly about understanding her role and really maximizing her capacity.

And then as we continue to do that work, as she continued to become that executive, to really understand her own leadership and along the process, position herself for that next level, for that senior vice president role. She also started to ask herself, what else? What else do I want to accomplish before I retire? What else do I want to give back to the world? How do I want to be seen as a true thought leader in my community? And that is when it became super obvious to her to start her own podcast.

Like I said: it wasn't that she always wanted to start a podcast. She just wanted to share and find an outlet for her message, for her ideas. As she started to understand her own leadership and the value that she brought to the table, she wanted to share that with others. And that is where A Life You Love: Sales Tips with Jennifer Fisher was born.

I am so stinking proud of her for creating this podcast. But over the past five months, she has created episodes where she's been giving her tips and tricks and ideas that she has learned throughout her career. She's brought on guest speakers to share their own leadership advice in sales. But more importantly, she started to get so much recognition both internally and externally.

So people at her organization know not only know that she has a podcast, they listen to it. And they bring it up in her one-on-ones. 'I was listening to your episode with such and such.' They quote it to their customers, to the clients. That Jennifer Fisher has this podcast. You need to listen to this.

Other external people are noticing that she has this podcast that she's really seen as this leader and ultimately. What this does for her is it boosts her confidence. It reminds her continuously every single day of the value that she brings to her organization. They continue to see her value as well. And she's happy. And Jennifer is one of those people that you meet and she's all smiles all the time, so she's normally a pretty happy person anyway. But through this experience, it has even magnified that.

So inside her and inside, she has this greater level of confidence, this greater level of ambition, this greater desire to do more for her organization. And she's continuing and continuing and continuing to do that.

So I wanted to take a moment and applaud her at the beginning of today's episode, and you should definitely check out her podcast, I'll link to that in the show notes. But it also ties in beautifully to today's episode.

Today, I'm talking about interdependence. And just to define interdependence for you before we get into this, it's the dependence of two or more people or things on each other. The dependence of two or more people or things on each other. And specifically in today's episode, I'm going to be talking about your interdependence, with your work, with your leadership.

And this is a really funny thing. And I was actually thinking about this episode because I have said repeatedly that starting my own business is the best thing that ever happened to me. And what I mean by that is it has forced me to show up so powerfully and to step into my own confidence and to do things in just such a bold, strong way to make really powerful decisions. And these are decisions that I never even thought were possible several years ago. And now it's my new identity. My identity has shifted. I've become a more powerful version of myself because I created this business, because I became my own CEO.

And I see that same transformation happen in my clients all the time as they step into their executive power, as they step into higher levels of leadership, even just in how they see themselves and how they're having conversations at work, as they start to embody that executive leadership, they become a higher level version of themselves. They become so powerful. I mean, they were already powerful, but now they're almost unstoppable. In their power, in their confidence, in their strength and their ability to pivot, to make bold decisions, to have difficult conversations, to change the way that their work works, to actually change the system from the inside. And that comes through their ability to step into this higher level leadership position.

And when we think about our work and I want you to do that for a minute, think about the word interdependence and ask yourself, am here's my own self worth tied in to my organization, into the role that I play at work.

Now, I'm going to give you one of those podcast episodes where I say one thing and then I actually say the exact opposite of it as well. And they're both the same. So I just asked you to ask yourself, is my self-worth dependent on my job and how I see myself in my job? So our first goal in the world is actually to detach ourself from the work.

So I have a background in Buddhist meditation, and I actually used to be a meditation instructor and studied that path for a very long time. And there is the concept that you have heard of detachment, where we're not really attached to a specific outcome that if we want to feel powerful. As I described, we know that that power is within our own hands. We don't need our company or our organization, our boss, to help us feel powerful. And if you've been following me for a while, you know that my main core value is ownership. That we own our choices, that we own our life, our destiny, our path, everything that we're doing in life, we are truly owning it. So when I am talking about interdependence and really understanding how you're showing up at work, if it's tied into your job and how you feel about yourself, I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about my work defines me as a person. My work makes me feel better. All of that stuff.

And so what I think is we know that idea of detachment to be true. So we understand that we are not our work because especially as women or mothers, you are listening to this podcast and you're like: what is your biggest priority? At the end of the day at my funeral, are they going to say; 'she was an incredible manager?'

Is that going to feel good to you. Or are they going to say: 'She was an incredible woman and she gave back to her community? And she cared about people. She cared about her family. She cared...' Whatever that was for you, what is it that you want them to say at the end of the day? And it's usually not. She was an incredible manager.

So we know that. So what we do is we detach ourselves from work. And this is what's called work/life balance. So that we have separation. We close our computer at a certain time. We make sure that we don't cross that line, OK? And so all of that stuff is extremely important. I want you to keep doing that. Know that your self-worth and everything that you think about yourself and how you want to be seen at the end of the day isn't defined by your work.

Now, I want you to imagine if you were interdependent with your work and interdependent does not mean dependent. So dependent means that I rely on my work to make me feel better about myself versus interdependent where we're both equals. We're both relying on each other. And so when you look at my business, I am myself and I create this business. But my business also relies on me to run it. And to show up. And to show up powerfully. And to make decisions and to do bigger, bolder things than I ever thought was possible.

So all of that stuff is true. And now I want you to think about your own leadership and how you're showing up at work. Is your team, your organization, your own leadership really a true representation of what is possible for you?

Are you showing up every single day as your best self? Now, many of you are not. And that could feel really frustrating. So you can look at it like: 'Ugh. It's because of this company. This organization is doing this to me. I'm just in the wrong job.'

But what I want you to start to see is that if you're interdependent with your role at work, if you're truly interdependent with it and it's not defining you and your own self-worth, then you start to become that Executive Ahead of Time.

You don't need the role to have the influence and the impact that you want to be making at your organization. You find ways to start to have those higher level conversations.

So I want you to start really embracing this idea of interdependence. How do I want to be seen at my organization that's a true reflection of me at my core.

And we talk a lot about the word authenticity and me showing up authentically at work. And we know that that's a very powerful leadership trade to be authentic at work. And we understand that that's a great idea. And I just want to redefine authenticity for you as being powerful. Powerful beyond imagination. Power. Not power over people. In our traditional... If that word triggers you. But power, you are powerful. Power with other people. You are an incredibly powerful person. We are all born that way. It's our birthright to have that level of influence and power and to really start to find that in ourselves.

And so in today's episode, I want you to start to examine am I interdependent with my work? If I look at my work, is it a true reflection of me? And if the answer is no, how can I start to shift that now, your first reaction again is going to be extreme. That means I need to leave. I need to get out of here. It's my boss. It's my company. They don't have the same core values. I need to work for this nonprofit that's giving back to the world and all of these things. In order to feel that and that's not actually true, you could no matter where you're working, you can find that level of peace and power within you to really show up every single day as the best version of yourself.

And here's the beauty of this. When you start to do this, when you start to understand that you are interdependent with your work at work. When you really embrace that and you stop trying to distance yourself from it, still close your computer at five o'clock. You don't need to be working around the clock, but you're fully owning your power and the influence and impact that you want to be making at your organization. What's going to happen are a couple of different things. You're going to start to realize what corporate badass you really are. You're going to understand how much power you really do have in your own hands. And you can decide that you don't need that organization anymore. You can leave. But when you leave from that place, from that place of sufficiency, from really understanding your own self-worth and your power and the value that you bring to any organization, to whatever job that you have, if you really believe that it's an interdependent, it's this yin and yang. They work together. I'm moving my fingers in circles. If you really understand that cycle, then you're like: 'Oh, I need to be at a different organization.' And here's where this episode gets really juicy. That actually does reflect my core values. I want to work at an organization that truly supports diversity and it shows.

I want to work in an inclusive environment. Whatever those core values are for you, maybe it is the company that's giving back to the community. Whatever those core values are, you can start to choose and make choices and shift your behaviours according to your own personal values. But the only way you're going to get there is to understand that you are a true corporate badass and that you are completely interdependent with your work and you were meant for something more. You're supposed to be at a company and representing a company at that higher level, at that higher level of impact.

Or perhaps once you do this work, you're going to realize what is my own personal thought leadership, how do I want to start to share my message and what I've been learning with the world? Maybe it's a podcast like Jennifer. Maybe you want to be on a board. Maybe you want to serve on panels, give talks, make videos, whatever that is, write a book, write whatever that might be for you. You can start to give back to the community in other ways.

So but the first thing that you need to understand. Is it matters how you're showing up every single day. And inside my program Executive Ahead of Time, I teach you how you're not actually showing them that you're the executive. So many people are frustrated because they're not actually getting that recognition, but they're not truly showing up as the executive every single day already.

And so that is what I want you to start to do when you're asking yourself, am I interdependent with my company, with my job, with my work, how I'm showing up? Am I really making the impact, the influence? Do I have the energy to sustain this? So if you work at an organization that's killing you or has these expectations of 80 hour work weeks or whatever, you might want to find something different, whatever that core value is. But you're going to do it from this place of power, from that corporate bad badass mentality.

You're going to go out and you're going to figure out that best perfect fit. That is exactly for you. Every single one of my listeners is a total corporate badass. I know that you are. One, because you apply what I teach. That makes you a corporate badass. But truly, because it is your birthright to be powerful. You are an incredible human being and you are an incredible leader and an asset for your organization or any organization that you might work for.

So challenge yourself, ask yourself, am I interdependent? Do I want to be interdependent with this particular company, how I'm showing up every single day and then start to change? Do something about it if you are not.

Alright. Thank you so much for listening. And I'll see you next week.

Bye.