Female Tech Exec: Recent Episodes
Lisa Kostova
For the mid-career female executive in technology looking to reach the VP level and beyond. Join Lisa Kostova, a former Product VP and mountaineer, and guests for honest and real tips, strategies and conversation to accelerate, and most importantly ENJOY, your career climb TODAY! Based on the Career CLIMB™ framework.
In the podcast episode, I show you what needs to happen for you to be able to fully unplug AND be a productivity superhuman at work. I give you 4 strategies to take control of your time, whether you're at work or on vacation.
You'll learn:
- The surprising reason why Henry Ford invented the 5-day work week and the impact of the industrial era on how companies work today,
- How face-time is still a big thing at companies, even when they don't acknowledge it, and most importantly, how you can work around it,
- How boundaries can get you more respect and recognition if you do it right,
- The key ingredient to checking email and messages less frequently and pushing back on time-sucking meetings,
- The calendar strategy that top writers and productive entrepreneurs use to get deep work done. And how you can implement it in meeting-heavy tech companies,
- The two modes of working that you need to set for yourself that will save you from burnout,
- How one of the most respected thought leaders in business successfully pushed back on weekend work in his competitive consulting firm and got away with it,
And more!
In this episode, I interview Tanya Bonamico, a Senior Product Manager at Amazon, leading a team of 50+ for seller risk management and a CareerClimb® client.
We discuss her career journey and the challenges she faced while working in a long-term role. Tanya shares her insights on the price of loyalty, the struggle for career advancement, and the importance of seeking support and making bold decisions. Her story sheds light on the need to prioritize personal growth and recognize when it's time to explore new opportunities.
We talk about
- The challenges of staying loyal to a company and its impact on career growth,
- The realization that flight risk often takes priority over merit for promotions,
- The importance of seeking support from peers and a skilled career coach,
- Making bold decisions and taking leaps when growth opportunities are limited,
- Tanya's personal journey and the lessons learned along the way,
And much more!
I dive into a juicy conversation with Gabby Bernstein's coach and author of the book "The Calling: 3 Fundamental Shifts to Stay True, Get Paid and Do Good" - Rha Goddess. We explore topics ranging from the practical to the spiritual. We discuss the importance of women connecting with themselves, the transformational power of community, and the need for conducive environments that foster growth and success. Especially at a highly chaotic and uncertain time when women need more support than ever.
Rha is an amazing woman and my interview with her put a smile on my face and charged me for days to come. I hope it does the same for you too!
Connect with Rha and grab her book "The Calling" here: https://www.movethecrowd.me/the-calling
Today I interview one of my favorite clients ever - Lori Edwards, a Director at Niche - an ed-tech leader in school search.
If you’re in the first decade of your career and looking to break through the Director level, this conversation can give you the mindset shift that will help you replicate her success, even if you feel stuck and frustrated at the moment.
Lori had spent seven years as a Product Manager when she joined her current startup as a Senior PM. That’s when things got complicated.
The head of her team didn't have a product background, so Lori found herself managing everything and everyone. She was clearly operating below her level. Frustrated at waiting on a promotion that never came, she struggled to figure out why she was not moving up in the company.
Just when she had resigned that there wasn't a role above her opening up anytime soon, she discovered the Denali Executive Accelerator. After the Program and while continuing to work with CareerClimb, Lori received two promotions. She had set her initial goals for a year but achieved them 3 months early.
Today Lori is a recognized leader in her company with a strong team.
In our conversation, I explore the secrets to her continued career success.
- How to cultivate the mindset of an athlete and a champion
- The critical importance of unlearning habits in order to relearn better ones
- How to deal with failure and being stuck
- How to get people to trust you, even though you may be the youngest in the group
Also, discover:
- The go-to framework Lori uses for change management that has gotten her visibility and results at her company
- The way she learned how to negotiate with authority during a hospital stay and how she uses this skill at work
- How Lori chooses who she surrounds herself with and learns from (hint: your environment trumps everything else)
And more!
Don't forget to opt into Lisa's email list to receive more episodes like this and to receive other news, insights and articles on how to grow your career as a woman in tech: www.careerclimb.co
Check out the Denali Executive Accelerator at https://executiveaccelerator.co/
Check out Lori at https://www.linkedin.com/in/lori-a-edwards/
Today I interview Alessandra Ghini, my very first executive coach and a partner at Go Partners. We talk about what it was like working with Steve Jobs at Apple and how Alessandra survived the most difficult working environment for years before walking away at the peak of the company's rise. Following her tenure at Apple, Alessandra worked with Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks on relaunching the Starbucks brand.
Alessandra and I discuss:
1) What was Steve Jobs like as a boss and how he would insult his people,
2) How to not get destroyed or infected by a toxic culture,
3) How to not sell your soul destroyed at the hottest company in the world, even if it's led by an iconic figure whom the whole world worships,
4) The bad name Steve Jobs had picked out for one of Apple's products and what made him change his mind (hint, it was not the input of his marketing team)
5) The difference between working with Steve Jobs and Howard Schultz and their distinct CEO styles.
6) How to be financially independent, so you can walk away from a bad situation
In this episode, I go through advanced networking strategies, especially for those who are looking for a job. Strategic networking beats transactional networking every time in terms of quality and quantity of results, hands down. Plus, it spares you from getting the reputation of a spammer.
In this episode, I cover:
- The biggest prerequisite you need before you start networking (it's not what you think)
- The precise formula and template for the reach-out message to your network
- What to ask for and how to ask for it
- Other considerations that will improve your connections, results and the quality and quantity of the opportunities that come from your networking.
So tune in to find out how to level up your networking in the New Year!
In this episode, I talk about the two types of networking - transactional and strategic. I then offer you a 5 step approach to kickstart your strategic networking if you've been doing transactional networking up until now. I also give you a framework for reaching out to your connections.
Nivedita Ojha has broken quite a few norms in her life. But none more significant than the decision she made to adopt an older child from an Indian orphanage as a single mom.
It was the spring of 2020 and as the world came to a halt at the onset of COVID, Nivedita was unable to travel to India to bring her new daughter home. What followed was 9 months of a forced wait as Nivedita's boss transitioned out and a new executive came in - one who felt threatened by the independence of an Indian woman who dared to adopt a child as a single parent and single provider.
Today as I sit down with this brave woman full of fire, passion, generosity, and optimism, I want to know the key to her ability to overcome challenges - both professional and personal - as a high-level female executive.
Nivedita is currently Chief Product Officer at FORT Robotics, in charge of a high-precision suite of products that combine both software and hardware. She loves her job, her company, and her team.
But the road to here has not been easy. It has taken her from leading her own startups to VP roles at companies like Citrix and Autodesk. There were many times in her career when Nivedita didn't exactly fit in with her big personality, big energy, passionate voice and bold vision in the package of an Indian woman.
But she persevered. And she's here to share the lessons learned and the keys to not just surviving some spectacular challenges, but to thriving and enjoying her life and work fully.
Connect with Nivedita at https://www.linkedin.com/in/nojha/
Today I interview Evelyn Chou who currently works in Product at Coursera (ex-Uber) and whose passions include creating great articles and content on Medium and LinkedIn, working with data and analytics, traveling and launching products in different cities, as well as offering her advice and mentorship to up and coming PMs. Evelyn is also one of the hardest-working, kindest and bravest people I've had the honor to know and coach.
In our conversation, Evelyn opens up about a challenge that so many women face in private and keep a secret at work - her fertility struggles. She shares with us how the journey has evolved her and what it has meant to open up to her manager and a few close colleagues about it, as well as the gifts of choosing to not isolate herself and feel alone.
Tune in to find out:
- How she built a consistent habit of writing content and found the courage to press the "publish" button and what are some of her key principles that you can try as well in order to start writing,
- Why trying to "check boxes" works for aspects of her career and professional life but not with her body and fertility,
- How feeling "out of control" has changed Evelyn's perspective on life, career and her purpose in life,
- What she found when she chose to share her fertility journey with her manager and a few colleagues, and why you should consider doing the same if you're going through this journey,
- What she learned from her bad*ss Taiwanese grandma,
And more!
Connect with Evelyn and follow her writing at https://www.linkedin.com/in/evelynchou/
This episode is intentionally missing the podcast intro music. It's intended as a guided visualization for you to use to create powerful change in your career and life by feeling into the identity you're trying to become - whether an executive, a CEO or an entrepreneur. The guided visualization starts with you picking a role model you'd like to emulate and practicing intentionally becoming them for a moment, in order to pick up how this person thinks.
I couldn't think of a more uplifting story and episode to share with you before this Thanksgiving Holiday (and at an economically challenging time for many when it's easy to feel down) than this conversation with Sabrina Ruelle.
I met Sabrina on a LinkedIn text message thread where she struck me with her thoughtful, well-articulated and insightful answers to my simple question: "What is the biggest challenge facing you in your career now?". She sounded way wiser than her years and I knew I wanted to talk to her.
It turns out Sabrina's story is a unique one. She was placed in foster care at 12 years old when her mom had to battle addiction and she spent the next few years defying the expectation that she would underperform in the system. After high school, the only college that would accept her was a community college but she didn't let that deter her either.
She ended up getting her master's degree at Boston University, and today, at 32 years old, is a Senior Director of Program Marketing and Management with a healthcare device startup. She's one of the best storytellers I've met and shows you what's possible when you choose career paths that follow your passion - healthcare for Sabrina, because of her mom's struggles.
Tune in to hear Sabrina's inspirational story and to see what's possible when you are determined to put down roots, bloom and count your blessings in any environment.
In this episode, I break down the trend that we're starting to see in tech - companies using creative "performance management" strategies to cut costs and people in order to avoid labeling them as layoffs and avoid paying severance. These strategies also help companies shift the blame for a downward trend and buy time with investors, while you're left holding the blame bag.
Tune in to this episode to find out:
1) How to recognize a "sneaky PIP (Performance Improvement Plan)" is coming,
2) Why most companies use sneaky PIPs during downturns to conceal layoffs and hiring freezes and buy time with investors,
3) How to proactively manage your situation in a way that saves you money and time.
Getting support during this time of your career is critical. If you're interested in joining a confidential support group of female peers in tech who are affected by these trends, please indicate your interest by filling out a 1 minute confidential survey here: https://forms.gle/xvwfQV4SMLnLTQRV9
In this episode, I review the lessons learned from my most recent trip to Japan, where the environment is so calm and peaceful, it's easy to feel grounded and centered. In our more hectic reality in tech in the Western world, I offer you three simple strategies for cultivating a calm and peaceful attitude - the most important advantage you can have in your career.
Tune in to learn how to:
1) Cultivate a presence practice,
2) Cultivate a straight spine,
3) Adopt the Rule of One
In this episode, I challenge an often-held belief that success is working hard at a job you hate in order to retire early and not work anymore. I talk about the example of the late Queen Elizabeth who was working into her mid-90s until 2 days before her death at 96.
We examine the path of finding work you enjoy doing forever and how to use the little-used and little-understood concept of VALUES to accomplish the seemingly impossible feat.
In this episode, I discuss something that a lot of us tend to overlook but can destroy even the best thought-out career plans and roadmaps, and I show you how to effectively manage it.
Join me for a conversation with Shyvee Shi, a PM at LinkedIn and a LinkedIn creator with over 50,000 followers, to understand how to create content successfully and grow your LinkedIn follow-ship while holding a full time job. Join us in an information-packed interview to learn:
- What type of content should you create and how often,
- How to choose your topics and audience based on your career goals and objectives,
- Tools and strategies to sustain the pace of your content creation,
- Why daily or even weekly content production may not be for you and what you should do instead to be successful with a less frequent content schedule,
- How to apply to become a LinkedIn instructor,
- How to overcome any doubts and fears you may have about not having done it before, not being an expert, not being a native English speaker, having an accent, not being confident and other challenges you may face in becoming a content creator.
Here are resource links generously shared by Shivee. An accompanying LinkedIn newsletter article will be posted shortly. Subscribe to the newsletter HERE.
- Shyvee's LinkedIn Learning course: Personal Productivity for Product Managers
- 10 steps to create a LinkedIn newsletter from the LinkedIn Learning team
- Creating LinkedIn Newsletters – a 21m course from Gemma Leigh Roberts, a popular instructor on all things emotional resilience and whose own LinkedIn newsletter has 500K+ subscribers —shares tips on how to create and publish newsletters on LinkedIn
- Apply to become a LinkedIn Learning instructor
- Creator Weekly newsletter published by LinkedIn's Editorial team to get a sense of trending topics
- A form to subscribe to receive emails about LinkedIn Trending Topics to write about to be featured (click "Yes" in the last question)
My conversation today is with the author of Adventures of Women in Tech: How We Got Here and Why We Stay - Alana Karen, a tech leader in Google and an articulate and successful woman in tech. In her book, she interviews 80 women and traces their triumphs, challenges, fears and misconceptions about tech and what it takes to be successful in the field.
In my conversation with Alana, learn:
1) What she learned from talking to 80 women about whether the myth of "it's hard for women to be successful in tech" and the #metoo articles presented a true picture or not,
2) Her advice to her younger self starting out in tech,
3) The gifts and pitfalls of responsibility and loyalty for women in tech,
4) How to ask for what you need,
5) The 5 tools in Chapter 8 of her book that will help you transition through the most vulnerable part of the journey - your mid-career,
6) The questions to ask if you're convincing yourself to stay at a job "too long" and how to get unstuck,
And much more!
Alana Karen is an award-winning tech leader, author, and speaker whose work impacts many of our everyday lives. From Google Search to Ads, Fiber to Google Grants and beyond, Alana has been leading the charge to develop, scale, build and drive team and product development that has seen a rippling industry impact. Alana has spoken at conferences and summits on technology, leadership, DEI, talent and innovation. Her award-winning book, Adventures of Women in Tech: How We Got Here and Why We Stay, aggregates hundreds of stories on these topics as well. She lives with her three children, husband, two dogs, and a cat in the San Francisco Bay Area.
More info and mailing list at: www.adventuresofwomenintech.com
Connect or follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanakaren/
Dalia Ramos Guerra is the Head of Build and Test for the BWT Alpine Formula 1 team, one of the most successful teams in Formula 1. She's also one of only 11% of females in the space and one of even fewer women in a management position. In her role, she is responsible for the last part of the process before the championship cars are delivered to the track every weekend race.
Dalia radiates a high degree of professionalism, combined with a refreshing curiosity and seeming fearlessness. She thrives on solving thorny problems. That's her job and it takes nerves of steel to do that at the round-the-clock pace that the role demands.
In my conversation with Dalia, we explore:
1) The drive to mastery and the secret ingredients behind her success,
2) The importance of childhood conditioning,
3) How she cultivates a trait that is shared among all top CEOs (and how you can too),
4) How to not believe people who may doubt you,
5) Finding the right culture that will support you and why that matters,
and much more!
You can connect with Dalia at https://www.linkedin.com/in/daliacarolinaramos/
In this episode, I talk about my experience working with the famed Prof. Clayton Christensen, author of "The Innovator's Dilemma" and "The Innovator's Solution" and one of the most influential business thinkers of the past 50 years according to Forbes.
In 2014 I had the privilege of collaborating with Prof. Christensen and 18 other people, including Heads of Innovation for major corporations, other Harvard professors and a few alumni of Prof. Christensen's class on his work on the "Capitalist's Dilemma". It resulted in me being named a "community thought leader" in the Harvard Business Review in June 2014.
But more importantly, my interaction with Clay taught me a few valuable lessons beyond innovation, business and the theory of capital, including how to:
1) Lead and get the best out of people
2) Think in a disciplined way
3) Get amazing mentors who believe in you
4) Not get crushed by the pressures and expectations of your job
Tune in to listen to my lessons from working with this amazing person - the episode was recorded on what would have been his 70th birthday.
Books and resources:
- The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail by Clayton M Christensen (NY Times Best-seller, 1997)- The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth by Clayton M Christensen (2003)- Seeing What’s Next: Using the Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change by Clayton M Christensen (2004)- How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton M Christensen (2012)- The Capitalist's Dilemma by Clayton M Christensen and Derek van Bever + collaboration by Lisa Kostova and other alums (2014) - Investor's Business Daily: Clayton Christensen's Thinking Revolutionized Innovation (2022)- - The Christensen Institute: https://www.christenseninstitute.org/
In this episode I explore the hidden costs to overwhelm - both for you if you are relying on overwhelm to get help from your manager or colleagues, and for you as a manager who may be tempted to rescue people out of overwhelm. I also show you how to handle overwhelm in a constructive way that helps you rise in your career and cultivate self-sufficient teams.
Many women don't see ourselves as "worthy" of working with a wealth advisor. That is especially true at the start and middle of our careers, when we are paying off student debt and living in expensive cities. Today's conversation with Financial Advisor and husband of one of our CareerClimb members Chris Welton will change your way of thinking about the wealth that is already yours and show you how to:
- Overcome the syndrome of “I don’t have enough money in the bank to get professional help in managing my wealth”
- Manage the value of your future earnings (Do you know you’re already a future millionaire and that managing that wealth starts TODAY?)
- Overcome any feelings of guilt or shame for not having saved or made as much money as you think you should (compared to your classmates, peers, where you think you should have been by now)
- Deal with the gut punch from finding out you’re underpaid
- How to think about your stock options or RSUs
- How to evaluate the equity of a startup you’re thinking of joining
Contact Chris at christopher.weltcon@nm.com and mention this podcast to get a complimentary session.
Our CareerClimb community has had phenomenal success, as expressed in:
- 40%+ raises in compensation
- Accelerated promotions
- Senior roles negotiated
- VP roles landed
- Industry and Function switches,
and more. How did these mid-career women in tech achieve all this in less than 18 months? I reveal the keys to their success in this episode. A quick preview: It starts with the vision crafted during the Product VP Challenge. The next Challenge is coming up in mid-May 2022 - register for free at www.productvpchallenge.com.
The topic of Review Cycles and how to plan your promotion has become one of the most requested ones in our community at Club Denali, so we've decided to dedicate our May 2022 Product VP Challenge to a deep dive of that topic (www.productvpchallenge.com). It's the "Plan Your Promotion" edition of our 6th Product VP Challenge and we kick off May 12th!
This podcast episode gives a preview to the next Product VP Challenge by reviewing the top four critical mistakes that mid-career women make when it comes to Review Cycles and Promotions and how to avoid them. If you want to take this topic further, join us at www.productvpchallenge.com. We'll have recordings available for the duration of the Challenge if you need to miss any of the live calls.
In this episode, I share with you my take-aways from spending a weekend with a small group of our clients in one of their beach homes. Here's the twist - I didn't organize it, I was invited to come as a guest. And when did, I was blessed to discover just how tight and close this group of women is and just how passionate they are about our community and about us growing this community more.
I share with you my impressions from this amazing weekend, so you too can unlock the power of community for your career and your life. My hope is that whether you join our intimate and thriving community by joining our next Executive Accelerator cohort, or you find your community elsewhere, you will do something to connect with powerful and inspiring peers who can help you feel more confident and less alone.
Ketanji Brown Jackson's appointment to the Supreme Court is a huge milestone for all the communities that she represents - Black women, African Americans and all women. And I would argue she also represents all of us, professional women, especially professional women of color, who are working tirelessly and deserve not just representation in the highest echelons of power, but also acknowledgement and respect.
In this episode, I break down what Ketanji Brown Jackoson's appointment to the Supreme Court means for you as a woman in tech, why you should pay attention and celebrate it and why You personally have a responsibility to pave the way for other women like you in tech and how to do it.
The question I get the most hands down from women looking to progress in their career is "How do I become a strategic thinker?" In reality, there are several questions and assumptions made in this question. In this episode, I break down this common request into the components of what's really going on and how to find your way to not just thinking strategically, but being perceived as strategic by the people in charge of promotion decisions.
Tune in to find out:
Why are you getting this feedback and what it really means to be "strategic" The four layers of "I'm not strategic" challenge in front of most women and how to overcome each one.
Why are you getting this feedback and what it really means to be "strategic"
The two important paths to establishing your reputation as a thought-leader inside and outside of your company
Join me and the Head of GlobalRecruiting for HubSpot, Becky McCullough, to discuss how to build your career as an executive in tech while having a family and a full life.
We discuss:
- Breaking the myth that you can't have "it all" - a career as an executive and a family
- What makes it possible to build your career in tech while having a family or other priorities
- How to vet prospective employers for a supportive culture
- The emergence of "returners" programs for people who have had a career break
- The importance of sponsorship vs. mentorship, and how to find it,
and much more!
Resources mentioned in the episode:
Opportunities at Hubspot: www.hubspot.com/careers
Continuation of the episode about why you should be submitting speaking proposals to industry events. Here, I go through the single most important part of a speaking proposal - the headline. I teach you specific frameworks to write winning headlines for your speaking proposals to industry events, as part of building your brand as a thought leader in the tech space.
I go over:
- The four principles of writing winning headlines for speaker proposals (or articles)
- Examples of winning headlines from our CareerClimb community
I follow up on a huge wave of speaker submissions from our CareerClimb community that came in for the 2022 Women In Product conference and discuss why every woman in tech should immediately start submitting to speak at industry events and how to go about doing it.
In this episode we discuss:
- Why speaking at industry events is the fastest way to build your brand inside and outside of your company.
- Why you should start submitting proposals immediately, even before you feel you're ready.
- How to submit winning proposals, even before you know what exactly you'll be talking about.
- How to deal with rejections and evolve your identity as a speaker and thought leader.
Resources:
Headline Analyzer: https://aminstitute.com/headline/
In our 100th episode, get a short-cut to the 10 most popular episodes on the Female Tech Exec podcast, so you can quickly catch up with the hottest topics!
Nir Eyal is the author of two bestselling books, “Hooked: How to build Habit-forming Products” and “Indistractable: How to Control Your attention and Choose your life”. Nir and I met in 2014 and I was a guest contributor to his blog www.nirandfar.com, writing about addictive online auctions: Auction Addiction: This Online Industry’s Dirty Secrets.
In our conversation with Nir, we explore:
- Why humans did not evolve to be happy all the time
- What is more important than happiness in making your life productive and fulfilling, and how to cultivate that quality
- The dangers of “overtraining” when embarking on new goals and what to do instead to not fall off the bandwagon
- Why external motivators don’t work in sticking to your goals as well as evolving your identity and how to do that
Check out these resources mentioned by Nir:
“Indistractable” book: http://geni.us/Indistractable
“Indistractable” bonus content is here: http://nirandfar.com/indistractable
“Indistractable” summary article: https://www.nirandfar.com/skill-of-the-future/
Distraction guide here: https://www.nirandfar.com/distractions/
Habits vs routines article here: https://www.nirandfar.com/habits/
Why schedules are better than to-do lists: https://www.nirandfar.com/todo-vs-schedule-builder/
Time boxing article: https://www.nirandfar.com/timeboxing
Values article: https://www.nirandfar.com/common-values/
Habit tracker - https://www.nirandfar.com/habit-tracker/
Also, the schedule maker tool Nir mentioned is here: https://nirandfar.com/schedule-maker/
In this episode, I walk you through the importance of writing your own playbook, as a Product Manager and as a team leader, even if you're just starting out and think you don't have anything important to share. One of the biggest mistakes professional women do in their careers is fail to write down and understand the mechanics behind the failures and successes, not only in the projects they drive personally, but in the companies and products around them.
I learned the critical importance of writing a playbook in my first product role at Zynga where we turned every experiment into a recipe that could be replicated predictably. The playbook you write and document as you're learning from your experiences will provide you with the tools that you need to demonstrate as you interview for your next position.
Tune in to learn:
- How to use any work experience to write your playbook
- How to start writing your management playbook as a new manager
- How to use failures or even experiences you weren't responsible for directly in your playbook
In my experience working with lots of ambitious hard-working women in tech, there is one skill that stands head and shoulders above everything else when it comes to being successful at any tech company. And that's the ability to build trust.
Hands down every time I hear a horror story from work, it's about lack of trust. Similarly, anytime someone is getting supported and promoted quickly, there's usually at least one solid relationship built on trust.
Tune into this episode to learn:
- How trust is like a bridge - the stronger it is, the more truth and vulnerability it can support. Just like a bridge, it requires intention, time and investment to build it.
- How to build trust starting today, even though you may have hit bumps on the road with some relationships at work.
- How to deal with a challenging group dynamic.
- How to be vulnerable with the right people and not overshare with the wrong people.
In this episode, I talk to Mengmeng Chen, Sr Director of Product at F5 and a member of our CareerClimb community and Executive Development Program, at the end of her 23 day brutal quarantine in China, where she was visiting family.
We talk about:
- Straddling two different cultures,
- The future of tech in China and the role of the new generation in driving the tech sector in China and the US.
- The perils and advantages of being a rapidly rising star in your career
- Building trust, cultivating patience, turning challenges into opportunities and constantly stretching yourself into unfamiliar territory.
Mengmeng’s sense of adventure and unapologetic go-for-it attitude are infectious, so prepare to be seriously inspired and challenged to reframe your thinking about what it takes to succeed in your career (hint: you don’t need anyone’s permission to go for it)
In this episode, I take you back to my climbing adventure on Mount Shasta, transporting you to an icy hill up in the clouds, close to the summit, aptly named Misery Hill. That's the place where 50% of the climbers who make it to that point on the mountain give up and turn back. We face many Misery Hills in our career - whether it's a last minute setback on your product launch, a reorg just before your raise, getting passed over for a promotion you thought was in the bag, not getting the offer you want after 24 rounds of interviewing, or having a partner or co-founder quit on you - it really sucks.
And it's super easy to give up at that point or take whatever you're given and not ask / negotiate for what you deserve. And fully half of people in your shoes WILL quit at that point if the statistics are consistent with what we're seeing on Mount Shasta climbs.
Tune in to learn how to not give up and push yourself in that last 5% stretch. The payoffs are huge - raises, promotions, career opportunities, better satisfaction and of course, the feeling of accomplishment at reaching the summit!
In this episode, I address something I've observed recently in our CareerClimb community - women who haven't worked with a coach before are sometimes intimidated and at a loss of "how to use" their executive coach. That's normal, we've all been there with our first coach. It's like we're gingerly driving a powerful car but we're afraid to go out of the parking lot and drive it on the street.
My very first executive coach is a coach on our platform today and I still joke with her that I put her on a pedestal and was very deferential to her when we first started working together.
This podcast episode is an attempt to provide a "user manual" of sorts to your executive coach if you're so lucky to have one. Learn:
1) How to uplevel yourself faster with the help of your elite coach
2) What to ask and what not to ask of your coach
3) What to prepare for your coaching session
So that by the end of the episode, you're empowered to pick up some speed in that Ferrari of yours!
Today I speak with Nalina Murthy, a technical Product Manager and a member of our CareerClimb Community, who has shown great resilience and perseverance in building her tech career in the US. She has managed to gain over a decade of experience in retail, banking, data centers and social media platforms, despite facing immigration-related challenges, taking a break to have her child and experiencing a set of conscious and unconscious biases from her colleagues.
Tune in to learn:
- How Nalina refused to cover up her 4 year gap on her resume.
- How her experience as a South Asian female in tech had additional layers of challenge when working with South Asian male colleagues and homogeneous teams.
- How Nalina refused to give up even after a drawn-out immigration process that took her out of work.
Connect with Nalina on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nalina-murthy/
In this episode I share a common mistake that I’ve seen many women make including myself. In fact, it even got me fired once - I share the story in the episode. There’s a big misconception that a certain behavior most professional women adopt will get you noticed and promoted, but that’s a HUGE trap that is waiting to swallow you.
In this episode, I walk you through:
1) The costs to your career and wallet of falling into the promotion misconception trap
2) How to avoid being a “low light plant” in your office, ignored and kept away from sunlight and opportunities
3) Four key strategies of positioning yourself for promotion the smart way.
Ready to start implementing these and other key strategies to start climbing your career today? Sign up for the next free VP Challenge - open to all mid-career women in Product-related tech fields - Product Managers, Product Marketers, Program Managers, Business Analysts, Designers, etc. Register at www.productvpchallenge.com.
In this episode, I discuss the KEY factor in making your career dreams and goals come true in the New Year and beyond. Without this ingredient, your career goals are likely to join the graveyard of failed New Year's resolutions - data shows that over 90% of them get scrapped by February. Don't let this be you!
Tune in to find out:
- What separates mid-career professional women who successfully get raises, promotions and more senior opportunities from the ones who remain stuck in their careers
- The most important key to your goals' success and 3 strategies of getting this key if you don't have it yet
- How to stop blaming yourself if your goals haven't happened in the past and how to turn them around, so you can hit them out of the park in the New Year!
Want to dive deeper into not only figuring out your career vision and goals for the New Year, but actually making sure you hit them? Then don't miss our New Year's special "Hitting Your Career Vision and Goals in 2022" edition of our famed free Product VP Challenge (for any female in Product or related fields, from PM to Sr Director). We start January 15th! Register here: www.productvpchallenge.com
The market for talent is "hot" in tech. Just how "hot"? Tune into this week's episode to find out.
Andrew Abramson of Riviera Partners provides a timely update for anyone looking to land senior product roles in tech today (or just getting constantly stalked by recruiters) and answers your burning questions.
Find out:
- How hot is the market and what does it mean for you?
- What can you ask for and what can you negotiate if you know how to play the game,
- How to be noticed and considered for senior roles today,
- The one hot emerging sector that is friendly for industry switchers right now and how to take advantage of that opportunity,
and much more!
Interested in accelerating your career further? Join us for the next free Product VP Challenge experience to jump-start your climb to VP (even if you're still just a Senior IC). Sign up at www.productvpchallenge.com
Riviera Partners is the premier recruiting firm for senior-level product and engineering roles in tech, having placed some of the top executives at companies like Airbnb, Grubhub and Uber. Follow Riviera here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/riviera-partners/
In the midst of the "great resignation" and with the New Year just around the corner, many of you may be wondering if you should leave your current job in tech.
In this episode, I explore a question I get often from successful driven mid-career members of our community who’re feeling stuck and unappreciated at their tech work: “Should I stay or should I look for something else?”
I lay out a few key considerations for you, so you end up in a stronger position instead of shooting yourself in the foot, including:
- The reasons you may be feeling frustrated,
- The three traps that women in tech fall into that cause them to want to leave,
- How to avoid or extricate yourself from these pesky traps once you’re in them,
- When is the right time to leave,
and more!
Looking to get clarity and inspiration for your career? Consider joining our next free Product VP Challenge (New Year's Edition) at www.productvpchallenge.com. For mid-career female professionals in product and related fields.
This is one of the most important interviews I've done. It's a conversation with two brave individuals - Natalie Egan and Joseph Schneier - who talk openly and honestly about their experiences as male and female in tech and about their experiences after their transition to the opposite gender.
It's a unique opportunity to put a lens to the effects of gender and gender identity on people's careers in technology, answering questions such as:
- What are the prevalent gender biases in tech and how to navigate them?
- Do women have to work harder at getting promoted or raising capital?
- How does biology influence our perception of power and decisions on who to promote / fund / listen to?
- Do women have to work harder and how to get ahead in an uneven playing field?
- How to create an inclusive environment that celebrates our uniqueness without triggering blame or fear?
Natalie Egan is an openly transgender, B2B software entrepreneur and a recognized thought leader living her life at the intersection of technology and Diversity & Inclusion. Natalie has
over 20 years of experience driving digital change, developing high performing teams, building complex products, and selling enterprise solutions.
Today, Natalie is the CEO & Founder of Translator, Inc., where she and her team are on a mission to scale empathy and equality through technology. Prior to founding Translator in 2016––and prior to her transition––she was CEO & Founder of PeopleLinx, a venture capital backed sales technology solution that was acquired in 2015. In addition to her entrepreneurial pursuits, Natalie has also worked in sales leadership positions at large public companies like LinkedIn, Autonomy, and Ecolab.
Joseph Schneier is a serial entrepreneur who co-founded and exited two companies in the educational technology space. Following that, Jo worked with behavioral research scientists productizing their research with technology-based solutions for patient behavioral change, focusing on HIV drug adherence, health literacy, and addiction. In 2013, he co-founded Cognotion — a company solving the talent shortage of healthcare workers. In 2020, with James Firman, the former CEO of the National Council on Aging, Jo founded Bellage, a company empowering older adults in healthy choices.
In 2018, Jo founded Trusty.care, an InsurTech company that modernizes and simplifies health and Medicare insurance sales and the business processes that surround it so that agents and insurance carriers can focus on what matters most: beneficiaries. It’s Jo’s mission to make sure no one goes through bankruptcy because of out-of-pocket healthcare costs.
This Thanksgiving I'm grateful for one year of CareerClimb and most of all, grateful for YOU, the over a thousand women who have followed us and gotten to work with us in our Product VP Challenge or by listening to this podcast - my biggest hope and dream is that you have gotten support, inspiration and have accelerated your CareerClimb and picked up valuable momentum.
I want to especially thank the close to 60 members of our CareerClimb programs, who keep showing up to weekly calls, coaching sessions, workshops and even to our live events and doing your homework, even with a full plate of life-responsibilities. The fantastic results you're producing and your faith and trust in me and the nascent CareerClimb project, is the sweetest reward I can ever wish for.
You have the choice to give your hard earned dollars to any large corporation or male-led company doing the “next Masterclass” getting millions of dollars of VC money thrown at them. Instead, you chose to invest in yourself with a female-owned business, and with someone who’s been in your shoes. And for that I thank you.
PS. Focusing on women in tech is too niche for most of the VCs and they’re yawning at it. Most of the men in those investment funds don’t understand the market, they don’t understand us. They would rather serve the biggest audience, even if it means lumping us into the big pot that’s still largely dominated by white men.
But here's the thing - as women, we DO have special needs, unique requirements and challenges. The types of conversations that often happen in our CareerClimb safe space could not have happened with guys in the room - about crying in a meeting or in the office bathroom or whether we should let our manager know about our upcoming IFV.
Ultimately, the bro culture will change. I want to thank you for starting a movement with CareerClimb and changing the prevalent culture by modeling a different type of leadership and becoming successful while being authentically you.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Today I sit down with a true powerhouse - a woman whose drive, unapologetic courage, contagious smile and boundless generosity made her a rising star in our CareerClimb community early on in her Product Executive Accelerator cohort.
Linda Lee started the year as a stuck and frustrated Senior Director at Walmart.com and is now head of her own startup - Wonderblocks.io, which she started in the third month of our program and which aims to transform the gaming and leisure industries through blockchain innovation.
You would never guess that as a child she was called the “dumb one” and that she felt she had to compete with her “perfect” brother. When it came time to go to Cornell, her father was told that he was wasting his money sending a girl to an expensive school. Her childhood was all about adapting to new environments - born in Taiwan, she was raised in Costa Rica before moving to the US and beginning her adventures in tech.
Linda and I talk about getting unstuck in your career, recognizing when you’re operating below your level (as Linda was when she joined our Product Executive Accelerator) and being able to imagine the future in order to take big leaps instead of small increments.
Linda's success today is testament to grit, perseverance and courage. Linda’s message to every single girl is “just go for it”, even if nobody else believes in you but you.
If you’re buying into the notion that you should be "networking" a ton, congratulations! You’ve bought into the lie perpetuated by social media networks who want you to believe that sending canned messages and clicking on people’s stuff is authentic connection.
It’s not. It’s spam. Copy and pasting messages on LinkedIn to people who don't know or asking them to give time to you without offering anything of value in return is transactional and it’s actually closing doors for you with people, rather than making them want to talk to you or help you. And over time, it will negatively impact your reputation.
In this episode, I share with you a smarter way to "network" - one of the biggest keys to success in advancing your career and one that we coach our members on all the time. Once they really get it, it changes everything for them. It opens doors for them, it fulfills them rather than drains them, and it totally transforms their careers. And the joke is that it will end up saving you lots of time in the long-run over the watered-down spammy version of transactional"networking".
- The biggest lie about networking and what to do instead to be successful in building relationships and advancing your career.
- How to build authentic relationships and a strong reputation in a smart way, so it’s fun, effective and is not time-consuming.
- A deceptively simple strategy to leverage your existing connections and relationships to get people to be interested in you.
- Why it's crucial to give something of value in every connection you make, and how to do it, even if you're junior, have no experience or expert knowledge in the other person's domain.
I was so excited to record this interview with Jackie Bavaro, one of the authors of "Cracking the PM Interview" where I had my own interview chapter as a VP of Product back in 2014.
In this awesome reunion and the first time we met face-to-face, Jackie and I talk about the three phases of the PM Career, Jackie's new book about growing your product career and how you can take charge of your career today, regardless of your present circumstance.
Jackie shares the story about her manager wanting to bring an external manager of PMs and how she not only asked for the opportunity for herself, but managed to change his mind and land the promotion. We talk about the elusive career ladder and how it really looks more like a zigzag path. I also challenge Jackie if she can take credit for never having had to deal with a difficult manager, or if it’s pure luck. Tune in to hear her answer and to learn about building your career in Product management.
Check out Jackie’s new "Cracking the PM Career" book here: https://amzn.to/38q6jGV
Follow Jackie on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jackiebo.
In this episode, I talk with a powerful female executive, who is also a member of our CareerClimb Community - Deepa Chand.
We talk about:
- The brutal culture of financial services,
- The dangers of isolating yourself as a female in hostile work environments,
- How to surround yourself with support structures,
- How to not only survive, but learn how to thrive and be a role model for compassionate leadership,
- Going for it and having kids while not putting the brakes on your career if you want to be a mom.
Deepa is a Product Lead for Enterprise Product Platforms at Capital One and a member of our CareerClimb community and our Executive Development Program. She is an accomplished product leader with over 20 years of experience in financial services, focused on innovation and disruptive technologies. Her values are Family & Relationships, closely followed by Integrity and her passion is Compassionate Leadership - the idea that the best leaders act as coaches.
I talk with Personal Branding Expert and CareerClimb trainer on Content Creation, Ryan Foland, about why it's critical for you to create a personal brand outside of your company to stand out in the marketplace and how you can easily start doing that today.
In our conversation, we address:
- How to establish yourself as a thought-leader by creating “brand crumbs”
- How to amplify your impact by plugging into existing thought-leadership networks and conversations
- How to use your existing experience instead of waiting to become an “expert” to differentiate yourself
- How to be relatable and establish personal rapport without being “unprofessional” or oversharing
- How to create content easily and quickly while having a busy life
Ryan Foland is a ginger, high-energy keynote speaker, host of 3 podcasts, the inventor of the 3-1-3™ method and a consultant to teach executives and brands how to build an authentic personal brand. He also teaches our Executive Development Program members how to start establishing their content platforms and develop their reputation as thought leaders in their markets.
Find him at www.ryanfoland.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanfoland/
Twitter:https://twitter.com/ryanfoland
Ryan's book "Ditch the Act" can be found here.
Join me and my mentor Lydia Bradey - the first woman to climb Everest without oxygen and a mindset trainer at CareerClimb - as we delve into what made her not just successful, but one of the best, in her field of climbing and high-altitude guiding.
Lydia has climbed Everest 6 times, most recently as a guide leading clients, and was recently invited to become the first female lead guide on a K2 expedition. She has been awarded the Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit award for her services to mountaineering. Lydia's story of being publicly accused by her male teammates of not reaching the summit on her record-breaking climb is the subject of an upcoming movie.
Lydia and I talk about:
- Her incredible story of not just accomplishing something that many have died attempting to do, but overcoming accusations and bullying by the men in her field.
- What she has learned from working with our CareerClimb members about women in tech and their fears, doubts, strengths and talents.
- How the lessons she has learned in mountaineering can be applied by YOU in your career as a woman in tech.
More about Lydia here:
www.lydiabradey.com - Lydia's website
My article in the Mazamas magazine about my first encounter with Lydia and what I learned from her in the mountains (hyperlink to: https://www.dispatchesfromthe45.com/home/2018/12/29/daring-to-be-lydia)
A short movie about Lydia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8ScFjRPdMg
A news report about Lydia's award: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ezCZuB3FDc
The recruiting market for tech is the hottest it's ever been. We sit down with top executive recruiter for Product roles - Andrew Abramson of Riviera Partners, a firm that has placed the senior leadership at companies like Airbnb and Uber - to find out the latest and unpack what it means for YOU as a potential candidate.
Tune in to find out:
- What sectors are the hottest,
- What concessions are companies making to candidates to get them,
- Which skills and experiences are most in demand,
- How to position oneself as a strong candidate,
- How to evaluate the financial opportunity in startups,
And much more!
In this episode, I explore the link between neuroplasticity and the road to becoming a thought-leader in your field - a goal that 9 out of 10 of our clients have for their careers. The key is the distinction between CREATION and CONSUMPTION. I explain how and give you the steps to take to break the cycle of brain decline that comes with being only a consumer.
Links to the books mentioned in the episode:
The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge
The Brain's Way of Healing by Norman Doidge
Join me and CareerClimb acting and improv coach Michael Schreiber as I vent to him my frustration about so many talented mid-career women in our community being asked by their (usually male) bosses to develop "executive presence". I get Michael's perspective as a man and as an acting coach trained to develop "stage presence" about:
- What exactly is Executive Presence and what to do when you're being asked to develop one by your boss.
- How to not get trapped in an outdated stereotype about what "Executive Presence" looks and sounds like (aka white guy in a suit with a North American or a Commonwealth accent).
- How can we start developing our own brand and flavor of Executive Presence that feels authentic and effective as women and minorities in tech.
As a tech culture and society, we need to start being able to imagine an executive looking not only like a white guy on Wall Street but also like a South Asian (or East Asian or Eastern European) woman in a flowing dress and with an accent.
Michael Schreiber is a former actor, director and coach to actors and creatives and to our community of mid-career women in tech, working on developing voice, speaking skills and presence.
In this episode, I talk about a very useful distinction that Adam Grant makes in his book "Think Again" - that between personality conflict and task conflict at work. If you're like most of our clients, you find it hard to say no and to engage in conflict at work, which holds your career back. That's precisely the reason why the second key to the CareerClimb™ framework is "Lead, Don't Be Liked".
Tune in to see what the difference is between these types of conflict, why it's critical that you understand it as a woman in tech, and how to use task conflict to finally get ahead without feeling bad.
In this episode, I break down two long-term trends and one more recent trend that affect every woman's career in tech. The good news is that all of these factors increase the value of your talent in the marketplace. Tune in to hear the breakdown and more importantly, to learn HOW you can take advantage of these trends to increase your market value in tech as a mid-career female professional.
One of the biggest drivers of tangible results in our CareerClimb community is the work that our clients do with our acting, speaking and improv coach Michael Schreiber. We're talking about strong presentations, confidence in negotiations and the ability to tell powerful stories in conversations and interviews.
I took the opportunity to sit down with Michael at the back of our first in-person live client workshop in Portland, which was all about Improv, telling stories and developing voice.
In this episode, learn:
- What is Improv and why should you care about it as a woman in tech
- The tangible benefits to you and your career from adopting the Improv mindset (you don't have to become an actor or a comedian!)
- How to negotiate with "difficult" people, not take conflict personally and create bigger results in your job, your teams and your life through simple Improv techniques.
The first 30/60/90 days at a new job is a critical time. It can make or break the next stage of your career. And it is also one of the most popular topics in our CareerClimb community.
In this episode, I list the most important proven strategies for your first month, first 60 days and first 90 days at a new role in a recommended sequence. These are strategies that have worked for our members with great results, so put some headphones in and listen on as I walk you step by step your plan for the first 30, 60 and 90 days at your new role in tech.
Warning: May result in glowing manager feedback early on.
The next Product VP Challenge is a month away! Sign up for this free interactive live event that has created momentum and real results for dozens of mid-career women in product and related fields. Perfect for Senior PM to Senior Director level people who identify as women or nonbinary. Program Managers, Contract Product Managers, Designers and Business Analysts with a strong product mindset also welcome.
Register here: www.productvpchallenge.com
Should you be vulnerable or not as a female in tech? If so, how to do that?
In this episode, we tackle the hyped-up concept of VULNERABILITY. We examine the risks and lay out which risks are worth it and which ones are not. We explore the advantages of using vulnerability intentionally and purposefully for building and strengthening key relationships.
Listen in to find out how to be vulnerable safely as woman in tech to forward your career.
The next Product VP Challenge is 5 weeks away! Sign up for this free interactive live event that has created momentum and real results for dozens of mid-career women in product and related fields. Perfect for Senior PM to Senior Director level people who identify as women or nonbinary. Program Managers, Contract Product Managers, Designers and Business Analysts with a strong product mindset also welcome.
Register here: www.productvpchallenge.com
I share a framework we recently play-booked in our Executive Development Program that provides a useful set of tools that will allow you to:
1) Decide how much direction to give to your team, based on each person's individual experience, readiness and capabilities
2) Give you a step-by-step approach to gradually give more responsibility and ownership to your team as they earn it
3) Allow you to judge if someone is coachable or not or if someone is a good fit for the role or if you should help them find a new opportunity
4) Develop you into a wise leader who is respected and loved by her team and stands head and shoulders above insecure micro-managers.
The next Product VP Challenge is 6 weeks away! Sign up for this free interactive live event that has created momentum and real results for dozens of mid-career women in product and related fields. Register here: www.productvpchallenge.com
In this episode, find out:
- The three key strategies to acing your interviews, especially as you grow in seniority
- What prep work you should do and what’s a waste of your time
- Key frameworks for applying these strategies
The next Product VP Challenge is less than 2 months away! Sign up for this free interactive live event that has created momentum and real results for dozens of mid-career women in product and related fields. Register here: www.productvpchallenge.com
Over the past year, I’ve worked with many mid-career women in tech in planning and reaching for their next career level and I’ve learned that there are several common stumbling blocks that challenge almost every one of them.
In this episode, I describe the four most common career challenges encountered by mid-career women in tech on their way to the executive levels and simple but effective ways to turn them around to your advantage. These challenges are well documented in behavioral research by people like Adam Grant, Daniel Pink and others. I have tested ways to overcome them through my own career and through the experience of dozens of women in our programs.
The traps are surprising and the ways of avoiding them have to do with simple mental adjustments and hacks that really work to set you on a strong track to climb your career mountain.
This is the first of a series of market updates with select partners who have their pulse on the market for tech executives.
Today's market update comes to you from Andrew Abramson, the Partner in charge of the Product practice at Riviera Partners, an executive search firm in Silicon Valley. Riviera has been responsible for filling CPO and other Product leadership roles at companies like Uber, Airbnb, Lyft, Instacart, Doordash, Credit Karma, Reddit, Udemy, Thumbtack, Masterclass, Eventbrite, Stripe, Atlassian, Dropbox, Upwork, Zendesk, GitHub, Asana, Twilio, Okta, Snowflake, PagerDuty and others.
In this excerpt from a client-only live call, Andrew covers the following:
4:40 - What are the current major trends in the recruiting space for Product leaders
8:10 - What are companies flexible on when they evaluate less experienced Product managers
10:58 - Expectations a candidate should have to succeed in the current marketplace
13:24 - How to recognize red flags with startup founders and investors as a candidate
15:35 - Tension between wants and needs of founders and their product companies
17:42 - Tips for positioning one’s self in early stage startups
20:46 - Key experience that candidates should focus on to become a desirable candidate for a Product leadership role
Members of our executive development coaching programs have access to the full call content, including the live Q&A section. To learn more about our programs and to get a jumpstart on your career climb to VP, join our next free Product VP Challenge here: www.productvpchallenge.com. The next one is coming up in September 2021!
Today I interview Yvonne Markgraf Stoehr, a creative Director of Product with deep experience in film making and film production. She demonstrates how you can extract the strengths of your creative and “nonstandard” background to make you a strong and uniquely skilled executive in technology.
Yvonne’s design sense includes understanding how to connect the dots and being genuinely curious about different people and their talents. This skill led her to identify a little-known band called Nirvana in the early 1990s for one of her first film projects and also led her to an Emmy-award winning project. Later Yvonne used the same creative and personal skills to navigate complex products and large teams in different tech companies like Microsoft.
In the interview we explore the early vulnerable side of Kurt Cobain that Yvonne saw before Nirvana got famous and we talk about the importance of fueling one’s creativity. Yvonne stays close to her roots through rock and roll portrait photography and playing the drums in her family band. Unsurprisingly, Yvonne’s Board of Directors small group of four female tech executives in our Executive Development Program bears the name “Nirvana”.
Connect with Yvonne on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yvonnelevaymarkgraf/
Check out the first film recorded interview of Nirvana which Yvonne produced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__8UDylv7WU
Are you a star or are you a star-maker?
What does hydroponic gardening, fermenting jalapeno peppers and organizing half-birthday parties have to do with your career success?
Today's guest - Rosa Welton, Director of Product Management at ServiceNow and a member of our Executive Development Program - will share with you the secrets to her success in tech and Product Management. Rosa's journey took her from her humble beginnings helping her family with their Spanish music cassette store to leading large teams and products, speaking on the Women In Product stage and emerging as one of the Latinx role models for women in tech.
To connect with Rosa: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwelton/
To sign up for the next Product VP Challenge that Rosa did with us: www.productvpchallenge.com
In this weeks episode I cover the three important steps to take when confronted with a bully in your workplace:
- How to identify a bully at work (it's a lot tricker than you think and you may be tempted to blame it all on yourself)
- The 3-step strategy to dealing with and most importantly, neutralizing, a bully.
- The key skill you'll need to master as a Product leader to effectively deal with bullies as you climb the ranks.
I'm coming off the heels of a major scaling push inside our business and my next priority is to make my podcast and blog schedule reliable and predictable. So, very soon, expect to see a lot more (and a lot more regular) content from me and my guests on the "Female Tech Exec" podcast, so that YOU can get up to date and relevant guidance in climbing your career peak!
Don't forget to subscribe, like or comment - I'd love to hear what your thoughts on the topic!
In this episode of "The Female Tech Exec", I talk about human skills or most commonly referred to as soft skills and how it is oftentimes overlooked and undervalued. There is a key reason why you should pay attention to this skill and look into to developing it further.
And here is the link to Simon Sinek’s talk: https://youtu.be/o9uzJ0LgvT0
Tune into today's episode to learn the 3 critical sets of skills in order to master the "executive test" and become an executive in tech. They relate directly to the 5 keys of the Career CLIMB™ framework and they will surprise you!
In this Episode of the “Female Tech Exec”, I reveal a simple but powerful clue from mountain climbing that’s relevant if you truly want to climb to the top of your career as a female in tech.
If you're a mid-career female product professional in tech, sign up for the next free Product VP Challenge here: www.productvpchallenge.com. We start Feb 8th!
In this episode, I describe the impact of a simple Gratitude practice on my life and business and how you too can derive 3 business and personal benefits from implementing it for as little as 5 minutes a day.
I mention my keynote speech at the Graduation of my school, which you can find here (13 min long)
As a tech executive or as an entrepreneur, chances are that you're an overachiever - always onto the next thing, always wanting more. In today's episode, I explore the pitfall of climbing the next mountain without stopping to question whether you even want to climb it. I attempt to answer the question: "How do I make sure I'm not climbing the wrong mountain?" through the lens of my mountaineering and professional experience.
With the New Year, it's time for New Year's Resolutions. Only, the stats are stacked against you. Depending on the study you read, you'll find that 80-90% of New Year's resolutions don't even make it to February.
So, the question is not why your New Year's Resolution is destined to fail (it's not). The real question is how to ensure your New Year's resolution lasts not only until February, but delivers results at the end of the year as well. And that's what we discuss in today's episode.
In this Holiday podcast episode, I explore the spirit of generosity and kindness and offer controversial advice to female product executives - stop being nice. I break down for you the HUGE costs of being nice for your career and your life and coach you how to avoid falling into that trap.
I'm excited to walk you through a simple but powerful 3 step process that will allow you to take the useful parts of any critical (or positive) feedback you receive without falling apart or beating yourself up. I know it can be difficult dealing with the feeling of being criticized but in business and in life it is crucial to learn how to turn the "negative" feedback into a positive.
I have been asked by a couple of my coaching clients (amazing women executives in tech) to give tips and strategies on how to think strategically and specifically, how to develop oneself as a strategic thought-leader in a field. In this episode, I lay out the two key ingredients to Strategic Thinking and give you specific tips on how to foster them in your life.
With the New Year, it's time for New Year's Resolutions. Only, the stats are stacked against you. Depending on the study you read, you'll find that 80-90% of New Year's resolutions don't even make it to February.
So, the question is not why your New Year's Resolution is destined to fail (it's not). The real question is how to ensure your New Year's resolution lasts not only until February, but delivers results at the end of the year as well. And that's what we discuss in today's episode.
In this Holiday podcast episode, I explore the spirit of generosity and kindness and offer controversial advice to female product executives - stop being nice. I break down for you the HUGE costs of being nice for your career and your life and coach you how to avoid falling into that trap.
I'm excited to walk you through a simple but powerful 3 step process that will allow you to take the useful parts of any critical (or positive) feedback you receive without falling apart or beating yourself up. I know it can be difficult dealing with the feeling of being criticized but in business and in life it is crucial to learn how to turn the "negative" feedback into a positive.
I have been asked by a couple of my coaching clients (amazing women executives in tech) to give tips and strategies on how to think strategically and specifically, how to develop oneself as a strategic thought-leader in a field. In this episode, I lay out the two key ingredients to Strategic Thinking and give you specific tips on how to foster them in your life.
In this episode, I describe the impact of a simple Gratitude practice on my life and business and how you too can derive 3 business and personal benefits from implementing it for as little as 5 minutes a day.
I mention my keynote speech at the Graduation of my school, which you can find here (13 min long)
As a tech executive or as an entrepreneur, chances are that you're an overachiever - always onto the next thing, always wanting more. In today's episode, I explore the pitfall of climbing the next mountain without stopping to question whether you even want to climb it. I attempt to answer the question: "How do I make sure I'm not climbing the wrong mountain?" through the lens of my mountaineering and professional experience.
In this episode, I share a recent failure with a client project and how I took my own advice of "failure is feedback" that I gave to my sold out coaching program. The hardest part is dealing with the emotion of having made a mistake that was preventable and resisting the urge to obsess over it or beat yourself up about it.
The book I mention in the podcast episode is "Mindset - the Psychology of Success" by Carol Dweck. Here is the link.
I share three stories from an action-packed week that all follow the same thread - how to have personal responsibility, even when it's tough, and resist the urge to cuddle in the safety blanket of victimhood. The three stories are - my mentor Lydia Bradey becoming the first woman to ascend Everest without oxygen and being attacked by her male teammates for it; a high-powered Silicon Valley executive recruiter sharing with a group of women how to talk in interviews about a difficult work situation; and hearing a talk on the Holocaust by Prof. Peter Hayes, author of "Why? Explaining the Holocaust".
Lydia Bradey's book "Going Up is Easy"
Prof. Peter Hayes talk on "Why did the Holocaust Happen?"
Prof. Hayes' book "Why? Explaining the Holocaust"
In this episode I show you how I unexpectedly became a good presenter and communicator despite 1) having a childhood stutter, 2) having an accent, 3) being told by my public speaking trainers that I have a quiet voice that cannot be heard well. I share three simple but effective strategies to ace your Zoom presentations, no matter if you're speaking to a large group of strangers or to a friend.
In this episode, I cover the three techniques, including a simple and quick Ninja trick to get your busy mind to calm down so you can sleep like a baby, even if you have a million things on your mind. Sleep and peace are rare commodities for an entrepreneur and today we walk through ways to change that.
Here are links to the resources I mention on the episode:
www.shivarea.com
www.thework.com
The Tao Te Ching, translation by Derek Lin
Loving What Is by Byron Katie
In this episode I interview Elizabeth Ames, the CEO of Women In Product, an amazing organization that has innovated its event-based business model since COVID-19. We talk about the experience of being the only woman in the room, the business value of diversity and the unexpected benefits of the challenges brought by the pandemic, which have forced Elizabeth and her organization to re-think their business model and flagship event completely.
To sign up for the Women In Product Virtual Conference in late October 2020, visit www.womenpm.org.
To sign up for the FREE Product VP Challenge for the Ambitious Female Product Manager, also in late October 2020, led by Lisa, go to www.productvpchallenge.com.
Prior to joining women in product Elizabeth held various Senior Executive roles at anitab.org, Apple, Verifone, Netcentives, Vontu and a variety of other innovative startup companies. She has been CEO of women in product since 2019.
Women In Product was started by several women in product leadership in 2016. It was created as a way to connect women in the product field while also advocating for a more diverse workplace. Today, Women In Product's mission is to equip women to thrive in product management careers at all levels and their vision is for all people in product to have equitable opportunities to build rewarding careers and shape the products of the future.
In this episode I cover the surprisingly simple exercise to get crystal clear on your market and product as a service entrepreneur. So many service entrepreneurs try to serve everyone knocking on their door (I've been there myself), which leaves them unfocused, with split energy and failing at multiple businesses instead of succeeding in one. In this episode, I'll show you how I'm using the exercise and the concept of USP (Unique Selling Proposition) to cut through the noise and get crystal clear what my one thing is.
In some cases, you won't be able to make a decision straight away and you need to wait for more data, or you may be equally excited about multiple paths. I show you a strategy of how to move forward and make progress without cutting off any of your options.
In this episode, I share a secret and proven Golden Rule to pricing your products and services as an entrepreneur. I share advice given to me about pricing by one of marketing's greatest minds alive - Jason Fladlien, the $100 million dollar webinar man, as well as price experiments I personally ran at scale as product manager.
I reference this Harvard Business Review article in the episode: https://hbr.org/2015/08/a-refresher-on-price-elasticity
I give a preview of my talk at the Women In Product 2020 Conference (Oct 20 - 22nd 2020) - register for the conference here: https://www.womenpm.org/
I talk about how to build resilience and progress in your career beyond the middle of the pack (Senior PM) where a lot of people get stuck and why I love being a Product Leader. This is relevant for designers, marketers and even engineers, not just PMs.
You're invited to be mentored by me for 5 days for absolutely FREE when you sign up for the Product VP Challenge here: www.productvpchallenge.com. The next one kicks off online on Saturday, Oct. 24th 2020!
Amy White is not your average entrepreneur. Nor is she your average "spiritual medium". She looks and feels like an incredibly grounded, modern beautiful woman. She and I talk about developing your intuition as an entrepreneur, learning to listen and follow inner guidance while at the same time empowering your mind. Amy shares a few simple and easy strategies to align yourselves every day and to ask for a spiritual "green light" before proceeding in a new direction in your business.
Amy White is an International Best-Selling Author, highly sought after speaker, and Intuitive Medium on a mission to help individuals heal the past, discover personal truths, and thrive. Amy's one-on-one coaching, digital courses, and public talks allow audiences to gain a deeper understanding of the beliefs that are blocking their most authentic lives. Her insights and techniques help usher in big, bold changes and more subtle "ah-ha" moments that lead us closer towards our dreams.
Find Amy at www.amywhite.co as well as Facebook and Instagram.
In this episode, my business partner Joe and I take on the 5 Myths that keep coaches and consultants stuck in low prices and one-off sessions and slay those dragons!
Join us in our next 7 Days to $7K Challenge for Transformational Leaders here: www.7daysto7k.com.
My guest Elizabeth became a Digital Nomad later on in life. In her 50's today, she shares a wealth of knowledge and advice about what it takes to be a digital nomad today and the impact of COVID on Digital Nomadism.
Elizabeth is a digital nomad running her company Thrive This Day while traveling the globe. An International Business and Life coach she has launched her podcast Entrepreneurs IRL to cut through the noise and misinformation about building a six-figure career in few hours a week while sipping margaritas on the beach. In real life it’s a bit different and her podcast shares the stories of the “messy middle” and proves that you’re not alone and we can get through this together.
Find Elizabeth on her site at www.thrivethisday.com and her podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/entrepreneurs-irl/id1519007958
One of the biggest AHA moments in my life recently related to a sudden realization that I have an addition - and that I'm a workaholic. In this episode, I explore the evolution of my workaholism from my corporate days in tech to my current life as an entrepreneur and I offer 3 simple questions on how to identify workaholism in your life.
Today I talk to entrepreneur extraordinaire Sean Malone who has built and scaled multiple 7 and 8 figure businesses online by sticking to his knitting and relentlessly pursuing one specific goal and objective. Listen to learn how to make it happen in a very competitive and increasingly noisy market.
About Sean:
You can connect with Sean in his private Facebook Group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/SalesAscendersInnerCircle if you're the business owner of the main sales person in your company.
Sean is a serial entrepreneur. He has owned five different businesses. His strengths come from nearly two decades of studying communication, business, and professional sales, as well as tireless hard work. After years of testing, tweaking, and successfully growing a few businesses on his own (his biggest business success was taking his electronics company from $250,000 to just over $8,000,000 in revenue), Sean has helped guide 4 additional organizations into the 8-figures. All the battle-field tested methods that he uses are part of the core of the Sales Ascenders Selling Systems & their proprietary Ascension Selling Method.
In this Episode, I talk about the various tools inside Facebook to grow your business - which ones work and which ones are a waste of your time and what to look for when deciding whether to go after an email list vs. a Facebook Group.
We talk about:
The Evolution of Facebook Engagement from the early days of the Facebook Feed, Page vs. Facebook Group, Finite Challenges vs. Ongoing Facebook Communities and the False Doctrine of the Email List.
Today I'm joined by Brian Mac Mahon, a serial entrepreneur and founder of Expert DOJO, the largest international startup accelerator in Southern California. We talk about the broken model of traditional VC financing and the competitive edge to be gained by implementing the one key strategy as a startup entrepreneur (that does NOT rely on subsidizing a flawed business model with investment capital). Brian gives some tips and examples from his portfolio of startups for how real non-privileged entrepreneurs around the world are taking advantage of the new opportunities in a post-COVID world.
Prepare yourselves for a dose of straight-forward punchy Irish talk!
In this episode, I tell you how we went from an absolute disaster and losing a major client to massive success in 10 days and the most overlooked place to find coaching clients.
Last week, my business partner and I ran Facebook Ads for the first time to a paid offer - a 7 Day Facebook Challenge. Although the Challenge has been a success, we ended up enrolling the participants ourselves, organically. And we hardly got anyone to join from our Facebook Ads. That's because the ads only really ran for a few days and we spent most of the time trying to get our Facebook account unblocked. At first glance it was a mystery, because anytime we had a human review of our ads, the ads were approved and no violation of Facebook policy was found. However, once I dug into it, three areas emerged as mistakes that we can correct going forward, which we plan to do. In this episode, I cover these 3 critical mistakes, so you won't have to repeat them.
Joe and I bust a very important myth that holds a lot of female coaches back from raising the prices of their services. And join us for our 7 Day High-End Offer Design Challenge which starts on July 9th here: www.thecategoryqueenchallenge.com.
In this episode, I introduce a LOT of new things in my business and my life:
1) My business partner Joe Brenneman
2) Our new Avatar - female coaches in the low 6 figures stuck with one-off sessions, low prices and hourly rates
3) Our new Program - The Category Queens
4) And an exciting new Challenge, which launches on July 9th: "The Category Queen 7 Day Challenge to Define Your Ideal Customer and Design Your High-End Coaching Offer" www.thecategoryqueenchallenge.com.
We also bust Online Entrepreneurship Sales Myth #1: That all you need is sales ability and the quality of the product does not matter for building a coaching business.
This is one of the most critical episodes for an online entrepreneur to listen to. I talk to my attorney, Michael Jonas of Rational Unicorn Legal Services (Yes, you read right - he’s very cool and he’s very Portland-y :)
We talk about some of the mistakes that could be making TODAY as well as some of the missed opportunities to grow the assets of your coaching business TODAY, even though you may not think you have any intellectual property (IP) -this is a common misconception - you do!
The areas we explore are:
1) Company formation and why it’s important to not just pull an EIN, but to incorporate
2) Contracts and why it’s a mistake to simply pull a template off the Internet.
3) Intellectual Property and how that can identifying it and protecting it can grow your business income and valuation. The difference between Copywriting and Trademarking.
4) How to start doing events in a Pandemic world in a way that protects you and your clients.
Find Michael at: Rational Unicorn Legal Services PC
Carolina Millan is an International Speaker, Business Coach and Content Creator and a Social Media Marketing Expert. She’s also the host of the podcast “Beyond the Hustle”, where she interviews people like Russell Brunson, Gary Vee and others on business, marketing and mindset for online entrepreneurs.
In this episode we cover a lot of ground, including:
- How to talk about racism, protests and other important issues on social media authentically.
- How to deal with difficult clients or clients that don’t do the work while requesting refunds.
- How to avoid attracting the wrong client with the wrong expectations in your marketing copy.
- How to authentically attract people to your products and services without exaggerating or lying on your funnel landing page.
- The importance of picking a clear market niche and customer avatar to serve
- Why Carolina is focusing on her native Latin American market after choosing not to serve that market initially 12 years ago, and why that strategy is starting to pay off.
Find Carolina Millan at www.carolinamillan.net for English and www.carolinamillan.com for Espanol. You can find her on Instagram here and her Podcast “Beyond the Hustle” is here.
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Two educated women - a black doctor in the UK and a white entrepreneur in the US - have a heart to heart about race today and how to change the system.
We talk about growing up black in a "white man's world" and the experiences of the police being called because you were driving while black and being asked if the house you're living in is yours.
Maya (not her real name) talks about how a 13 year old girl learns quickly that she's different and how she has to be twice as smart and work twice as hard as the white kids to be given a chance.
She considers herself an "anomaly" because of the education she was given and the privilege that she grew up in and how she used her doctor's position as a shield and protection against everyday racism.
We talk about her and other people of color around the world starting to speak up and starting to not ignore comments and signs of racism.
Maya has an Incredible fighting spirit that makes her believe that you can become whatever you want to become. Listen and learn from this beautiful soul with a generous heart!
And learn to find the answer to this question - who it is in your neighborhood that makes the decisions that will have the impact? And act on that information with your vote.
In this episode, I talk about a hot new funnel that all the big marketing names are jumping on right now. I analyze some of the metrics for my latest online summit and why it underperformed its goals and past summits I've done.
I break down a few funnels based on their ability to drive engagement and talk about what this new trend towards engagement-based funnels means for summits, standalone webinars and other consumption-based marketing funnels.
Today I reveal the 3 Keys to having the confidence and the ability to enroll high paying clients into your high end offers - one of the keys is the foundation of my Customer Lovatar Methodology that I have developed and will be teaching more and more.
I'm on a mission to make entrepreneurs fall in love with their customers and where they are on their journeys. I believe that the ONLY way to fill high end offers as a coach is to get very clear on your customer avatar and to tailor your products and programs to their specific needs (versus looking to "get" customers for the program that you want to offer).
I have successfully used the customer avatar validation approach in launching products from Silicon Valley to the coaching industries of her clients, generating millions of customers and millions of dollars in revenue.
I have recently co-founded Incubator B, a group program where service-based entrepreneurs test and validate their customer avatars and offers before spending a single dollar on marketing. The Incubator specializes in entrepreneurs who have deep expertise and existing clients but feel stuck at the lower end of the price range and feel ready to up-level their business and revenue with high-value high-end coaching offers.
We had too many questions to fit them all into one episode, so breakthrough coach and transformational trainer Lisa Kalmin answers the rest of your Pandemic breakdown to breakthrough questions here. We had a ton of fun - thank you for the thoughtful questions for Lisa!
Here are some of the questions that Lisa answers in this hot seat session of the podcast:
- Being vs. Doing - how do you balance the two?
- How do you get the motivation to do anything including unpleasant tasks?
- How to thrive without “selling your soul on social media"?
- Why are people taking away my power?
- How do I keep the enthusiasm and passion for my coaching business in the face of change and so many options?
- How to break through unconscious patterns that are sabotaging conscious creation?
About Lisa:
Lisa Kalmin has been shifting her student’s mindset for over 32 years. She is a wizard at cutting through the bs and getting to the heart of the matter. She is the founder of WorldWorks Trainings and co-founder of Inspire Coaching and iNSPIRE BUSINESS SUCCESS. Lisa is also the author of the book, “The Problem is How You See the Problem.”
Spoiler Alert - this episode starts with a Major Breakdown, which is only appropriate when you're interviewing a Breakthrough Trainer :)
Lisa Kalmin was my Breakthrough Trainer in Leadership Training last year and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get this "excuse ball buster" on my podcast to hot seat your Breakdowns around COVID and the pandemic.
When I reached out to the community to ask you what breakdowns you're struggling with, I got enough questions to fill two podcast episodes, so today's episode is just Part 1.
In this episode, we address "the Consciousness of Fear", how to know whether you're downloading fear automatically and what your language reveals about your thinking and mindset.
Lisa answers some of our audience's questions and gives amazing tips for working parents and single parents stuck at home with kids during Covid. We talk about managing expectations and the longer term effects of the pandemic, such as loneliness.
About Lisa:
Lisa Kalmin has been shifting her student’s mindset for over 32 years. She is a wizard at cutting through the bs and getting to the heart of the matter. She is the founder of WorldWorks Trainings and co-founder of Inspire Coaching and iNSPIRE BUSINESS SUCCESS. Lisa is also the author of the book, “The Problem is How You See the Problem.”
I interview one of the most important teachers and role models of my whole life - top mountain climber, Patagonia Ambassador, coach and entrepreneur Steve House.
For those of you who are not familiar with the world of climbing, Steve is the Oprah of that community. He is truly one of the most admired climbing leaders and role models of our time.
There is so much entrepreneurs can learn from Steve and the principles that made him successful in the mountains and make him a very thoughtful and successful entrepreneur and an outstanding coach. Especially now, during the Pandemic, which is so similar to being stuck in base-camp in a snow-bound tent - an experience that Steve is intimately familiar with.
Disclaimer: I was coached by Steve House and Mark Postle of Uphill Athlete in preparation for my successful summit of Denali in 2019.
In the past several weeks, I've spoken to dozens of entrepreneurs for my free interview series The Pivot Summit (www.thepivotsummit.com - you can sign up for free, we'll be airing interviews there through late May).
Most of these entrepreneurs are online and some who used to have brick-and-mortar or event-based businesses. I have noticed some patterns and trends and I share with you the three top strategies that I have seen these entrepreneurs deploy successfully to pivot their businesses during Coronavirus.
We're almost live with The Pivot Summit - a free online show featuring over 20 Entrepreneurs from all walks of life - coaches, marketers, business operators, agency owners and service providers, teachers and consultants - who are pivoting their businesses and their lives and minds BIG TIME.
In this episode, I give a sneak peak of some of what these entrepreneurs share on the Summit. Register to listen to the Summit for free at www.thepivotsummit.com.
In this episode, I talk with transformational trainer, speaker, writer, workshop facilitator, leadership development coach and a pioneering spirit Dr. Judith Rich.
I get deep and philosophical and at the same time, paradoxically practical with Dr. Rich - who has been a leadership trainer and coach on my own journey as well.
In the interview, we explore the transformational process and potential behind COVID-19 and what how we, as entrepreneurs, can make a powerful choice of how to respond to it.
Judith shares her decades-old wisdom, knowledge and perspective on these unique times and the opportunity ahead of us.
We've all been pushed off the ledge and Judith's message is simple: "You have wings. Now fly".
Find Judith at www.judithrich.com and find her International best-selling book “Beyond The Box - Lean Out, Break Free, Rise Up!" on Amazon.
PS. My side of the audio on this episode is not the best since Zoom switched to my computer audio and not my professional podcasting mike and I didn't double-check. But the conversation was so interesting that rather than re-record, I opted for keeping the original recording and sharing it with you :)
Today I explore energy hygiene and tuning our energy to a higher state with a master teacher and a dear friend - Nancy Mae.
Nancy shares specific techniques to connect deeply with yourself, so you can feel strong, confident and full of love for yourself. These techniques help you insulate yourself from the current current of fear in society. They even help you look forward to connecting with yourself with the same enthusiasm as watching Netflix :)
Here’s other things we explore on this episode:
- While obsessively cleaning your cleaning space may be a distraction. How not to be afraid of the silence of being with ourselves.
- How to overcome the fears and resistance that some of us may be feeling at this time of global change.
- How to ground ourselves to feel peace.
- How to separate your energy from that of other people and even from the energy of your business, and remove any emotional charge you may be feeling at this time of uncertainty.
At the end of the episode, Nancy leads us through a beautiful guided meditation.
Nancy Mae, MA, MS, MIM, is a Hay House award-winning author who went from being in both physical and spiritual pain to healed through the power of alternative therapies. Her transformational experience inspired her to radically change professions, create the Energetic Fertility Method™, become an award-winning author and she now works helping people improve and even transform their lives.
You can find Nancy Mae on her website.
You can find Nancy’s book “The Energy Fertility Method” on Amazon.
PS. We recorded this interview over Zoom and as part of the wide-spread internet usage during the lockdowns created some intermittent sound lags.
At this unprecedented time, it's ever more important that we stay healthy not just with our bodies, but with our minds.
In this episode, I give an overview of what’s going on in the skies at this time - not for you to learn astrology, but for you to get a sense of what the mirror of the sky is reflecting back to us about what is called forth from us.
I explain why it’s important to feel a sense of collective, not just an individual responsibility. If you have masks or other protective equipment, please use www.maskmatch.com to donate them to front-line health workers.
I explain the different ways to stay sane and healthy in your mind, which is going to be critical for our sanity in the coming months.
Remember to focus your efforts around creating, not just consuming. In the spirit of creation, I am launching a new tech app to help combat loneliness through human connection online. To be part of the invite-only Cafe Social beta launch in a few days (it's free), please fill out this Google Form.
I went off the grid in the New Zealand backcountry just to emerge into a completely changed world!
Listen to details of my crazy adventure and how I got just enough cell phone coverage on top of a mountain pass to discover the pandemic had been announced, the stock market had crashed and that the world had changed completely. That was the beginning of a few days without seeing another human being - days of brainstorming what the new world would be like and how we could help.
Going back to civilization was like emerging from a time capsule!
I talk about the crash of the notion of our individual freedom and the emergence of our collective responsibility for our wellbeing.
I talk about the importance of donate masks and other supplies if you have them at www.maskmatch.com.
I immerse you in the journey I and my partner took, giving you glances from the last vestiges of normalcy and trekking in the beautiful country of New Zealand, including the disappearing act of hitchhiking.
Finally, what to do to stay sane in this crazy time.
In this episode, I talk about spotting an opportunity and how that’s a critical skill to develop as an entrepreneur. I show you a few tricks on how to develop your opportunity spotting abilities.
I also tell you about the archetype of an important planet - Jupiter, which is all about opportunity. It’s is actively participating in the planetary alignment of 2020.
We find ourselves in a time that may change human behavior over the medium to long term. What are the industries and trends that I see that will help you spot opportunities and be successful as an entrepreneur?
I share the fears and blocks of one of my coaching clients. She has some amazing ideas for a business but is stopping herself from going after them because of some incorrect ideas about how entrepreneurship works, which are unfortunately very common.
Would you love to learn how to choose the perfect Niche? I talk about the 4 essential keys to determine your path to success as a Consultant.
Developing a foundation is critical to the future of your business. It's essential to figure out the WHAT you sell before you spend money on programs that show you HOW to sell.
I share my shortcut to finding your path in this lifetime. If you do not follow your souls calling then you will have no heart invested. The universe will give you clear signs that this is not working.
It's all about asking the right questions.
Fearful about the coronavirus and the stock market crash? Learn how to handle fears that may arise at this time and tune into the opportunities available to entrepreneurs in times of collective fear.
Find out why this is a great time for spotting opportunity and taking risks in working for yourself.
I talk about the power, death and destruction of Pluto, an important planetary archetype that is active now. It brings destructive energy, but it also makes life possible and gives rise to opportunities for abundance during the rebound.
I talk about change and the inevitability of change. Nobody likes it but it’s imperative for renewal and regeneration.
Around min 13, I mention Pluto coming in contact with Jupiter. I am correcting myself in the notes - in fact Pluto came in contact with Saturn in mid-January. The good news is that doesn’t change the meaning of what I'm saying very much since Jupiter was very close by and having an effect as well. Saturn and Pluto together reflect some deep fears and a potentially scary time.
In this episode, I explore the mysterious urge to change and reinvent that hits all of us around our early 40's and explain how that's actually intentionally programmed by your soul at birth.
How you navigate it depends on how much attachment you have to your safety, security and the structures in your life. Which is good news if you’re sick and tired of some structures of your life!
When the burden of unfulfillment becomes so strong, you feel like you have NO OPTION but to LEAP. And that can feel very scary, uncomfortable. It may even feel like you're doing something wrong! I show you how to mentally prepare yourself for the scary leap.
You also need to be clear on YOUR Zone of Genius and WHO you’re uniquely positioned to serve as a customer before you start buying solutions and coaching programs that show you HOW to sell through various funnels.
I explain my simple methodology to help you find your WHAT and WHO before you concern yourself with the HOW.
I was fortunate to be live-coached a second time by celebrity entrepreneur, teacher and coach of coaches Eben Pagan just a few days ago. Eben is one of the early online successes, having started several multi-million dollar businesses and being interviewed by the likes of Tony Robin and Larry King. Today he and his wife Annie, lead a fantastic coaching program for coaches that I'm learning a ton from!
One of the things Eben said to me not only stunned and surprised me, it really changed how I view myself and how much I believe in myself as an entrepreneur in the midst of change.
It made me realize how critically important it is to have someone in your life who's a few steps ahead of you in the direction you're looking to go, who takes the time to know you and believe in you. Sometimes, when we're climbing our first big mountain, we need that reassurance of someone who's been up it many times before.
You may have noticed that I just changed the title of the podcast from "The Teambuilder Playbook" to "The Star Guided Entrepreneur". This was a major decision for me and I tell you the whole dramatic story of why I am doing this. It's the scariest thing I've done in a long time, and yes, even scarier than climbing the coldest and highest mountain in North America!
I also realize I will antagonize people who don’t agree with what I’m about to say. But I've realized that anytime we try to people please and hide a part of who we are authentically, we get judged anyway - people who don't like us will always find something to criticize.
So, I've decided that we might as well go out there and sing our unique song.
In this episode, I take a look at the 5 most critical hiring mistakes I've seen entrepreneurs make in my experience and offer tools and suggestions on how to avoid them.
The first and most important principle of successful hiring is that it's not about the What or the How. It's really about the Who.
Listen to this episode to learn specific ways to avoid the pitfall of growth - hiring fast and firing slow.
I recorded this episode on the afternoon when I learned of the passing of one of the world's greatest minds, and someone I had the privilege of considering a friend and a mentor - Prof. Clay Christensen of the Harvard Business School.
Prof. Christensen was best known for his theory of "disruptive innovation", first introduced in his 1997 book The Innovator's Dilemma, which has been called the most influential business idea of the early 21st century. He was the New York Times best-selling author of many more books, including "The Innovator's Solution" and "How Will You Measure Your Life" [Marina - include hyperlinks to Amazon's site for those books and the Innovator's Dilemma]. He had his own Institute of Innovation at Harvard.
In this episode I share my his passing is so hard for me and three lessons I learned from this wonderful human being about Innovation, Disruption, Love and Humility.
Today, I sit down with best-selling author of “Mastering Leadership” Michael Strasner, who is also a master leadership trainer, a master leader, a coach and a dear friend, and who has trained me to be a leadership coach and facilitator.
We talk about creating SYNERGY on your team and how life is a team sport.
We explore juicy questions like:
How can a type A driver personality build a collaborative team without losing their sense of direction?
How to avoid burnout as a driven entrepreneur
What to do when the strategies that worked for you in the beginning of building a business don’t work for yo anymore.
Wantrepreneurs vs. Entrepreneurs
* How to avoid divorce and being “uncle daddy” while you build a successful business
Resources for the emotional intelligence trainings mentioned on the interview: www.bostonbreakthroughacademy.com.
Note, Lisa has completed the Heartcore Leadership trainings and the PhD trainings (Master Leadership Program) with Michael Strasner.
You may have heard the expression "Self Love" being thrown around and you may be surprised to see it used in the context of building teams.
It could sound woo-woo to you, but it's true - if you don't trust and love yourself, you will have a hard time trusting and attracting other people for the long-haul.
So, what to do? How to shift out of inner conflict, self-doubt and into self-love?
In this episode you'll discover an NLP technique for overcoming inner-conflict that I learned from Eben Pagan and his wife Annie Lala (www.ebenpagantraining.com). In fact, I'll walk you through the strategy right on the episode in less than 10 minutes! You can use this strategy on your own to build coherence and self-love in areas of your life that are causing you anxiety and stress today.
I also reference one of the most important books that I've read on the topic and it's "Letting Go" by Dr. David Hawkins - I highly recommend this and his other book, "Power vs Force".
In this episode, I tell crazy stories with experiments I ran at Zynga, the gaming company, which produced surprising results and taught me the value of experiments and the value of failure!
In the Tip of the Week, I share an incredibly impactful exercise taught to me by one of my mentors Eben Pagan that will teach you how to overcome fear of failure in as quickly as 1 week.
Also, if you're in Portland, I'm holding a free workshop on "The Art of Teambuilding - Critical Mistakes to Avoid" open to all entrepreneurs. It will take place on Thursday, January 16 2020 at 5:15pm at Industrious Pioneer Square. Click here to get your ticket.
At the end of 2019 and the end of the decade, I give you the tools to plan for 2020 and for growing your team and company in the New Year and the New Decade.
The key to building teams and businesses is the same as successfully climbing big mountains and that is developing an Endurance Mindset.
Often times, as entrepreneurs, we're tempted to do everything with a sprint pace, while building a business for the long-term requires us to run a marathon and not burn out.
In this episode, I introduce you to the Summit Success Coaching Methodology and how you can apply it in building your team and business. I share stories from my 3-week long expedition on Denali and the months-long preparation for it and how the lessons I learned can be applied in business.
I share stories from our crazy early days of running sprints back to back at Zynga, where I was an early product manager and what we learned from the crash-and-burn cycle.
In this week's "Coach's Corner", we talk about how to transition from that super early startup mentality of running fast into a longer term thinking and planning.
I introduce a new show segment: "Which type of unconscious bias is it?"
Finally, in our "Tip of the Week" segment I give you tools and ideas about practically planning for the long-term. One of the tools I mention is Impact Filters, which I've found to be incredibly useful when you start any project, including hiring for a key role. Here's a link to an Impact Filter template.
In this episode, I share a vulnerable personal story from my life, as well as a story from my my career and my mountaineering experience that shines light on an amazing character trait that can free up a lot of your energy and help you attract an amazing team like nothing else.
It's simple, but it's not easy and it requires your conscious awareness and intention to use it. I show you how to cultivate this trait in our "Tip of the Week" segment in 3 easy steps.
Today I share the strategy that has made the biggest difference for me when building teams in Silicon Valley and also when hiring my Virtual Assistant. Think of it as using the 80/20 rule - spending 80% of your time and energy with the 20% of the applicants who really matter.
Unfortunately most entrepreneurs today tend to hire fast and fire slow. And it really works much better and easier the other way around.
The strategy I talk about has been also successfully used by Russell Brunson of Clickfunnels and his company to hire their Facebook Ads person, as well as by other startups.
In this episode, I have a surprise for you! I set out to survey a group of amazing engineers who I've personally worked with to find out exactly what makes them say yes to taking a risk with an early-stage company and what makes them say no.
I gathered the data and I also ended up including parts of my call with one of them - an engineer by the name of Kelly, who lays out in a very articulate way several foundational principles for every early-stage entrepreneur to follow if they want to attract not just amazing engineers, but also strong team players in every part of their company.
Today I interview Adam Flores, a young revolutionary business leader and a radical student in leadership, social media, and Internet marketing.
Adam shares his story of going from a dishwasher at a golf course to building over $1M in revenue in his business through the power of team.
In today's interview, you'll learn:
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Why you need to be obsessed with getting people a result vs wanting to create a product you think is cool
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How you learn what your customers need when you start serving them
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Why it’s better to give 100% of someone else than 5% of you in an area of your business
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How entrepreneurs get addicted to feeling like they’re irreplaceable
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The biggest hiring mistake he made and the qualities he hires for today
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Using your bank account as a scoreboard,
and more!
Schedule your free demo with Adam's company - get a strategy session on how to build, launch and scale your business at:
www.dreamfactory.co
I introduce myself and my background with building amazing teams. I tell stories of teams from:
- my time building teams from scratch in Silicon Valley
- my mountaineering experience
- my experience growing my own team in my leadership coaching business
I also give you a quick win tip that you can apply right away to attract a lot of strong candidates to you, whether you're recruiting an assistant or an engineer. I also give you the opportunity to download my complete "How to hire your Virtual Assistant" Playbook here:
www.athenastrategypartners.com