Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Good day, wonderful people, and welcome to another edition of let's Be Diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stout. This episode is dedicated to all my loved ones who supported me through this journey. Those who have left us will always be in our hearts and will never be forgotten. In today's episode, we're going to be talking about promotion, timing, when to make your next career move. And I am so thrilled to welcome to our podcast today our guest, Heather Grubb. Heather, thank you so much for coming on today. It's pleasure to have you on.
[00:00:42] Speaker C: Well, thank you so much for inviting me. I'm really excited to be here.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you here. How are things with you? What's going on? Give us the tea, give us the deets. What's happening? What's going on?
[00:00:53] Speaker C: Oh, gosh, it's crazy. As always, right? It's life, it's work, it's, you know, friends, it's stuff outside of work. It's everything all happening at once. And it keeps us busy. And I love it. Right, yeah. Lots of changes happening at work. We're going through business changes. So it's actually really interesting that we are talking about. It's perfect timing that we're talking about when to talk about promotions, when to look at making career moves. Because I think, especially in a time right now in all industries, that that's really a prevalent topic for a lot of people that are looking at potentially making changes, not maybe in a timing when they thought they were going to. A lot of companies are doing cutbacks. They're looking at that bottom line, looking at numbers, and it's forcing people to make decisions for themselves.
Yeah. Perfect timing to have this conversation, for sure.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: I thought it was as well. And yeah, you're absolutely right. There's all kinds of things changing, and it's organization, but it's also people, too, I find, that are looking at their situations. And I'd say years ago, they might not have been looking at it this way, but now they're so, like, in tune with what's going on around them, their surroundings in the organization, and they're just deciding, okay, well, what do I do? Do I need. Do I make a move? Do I do something different? So it's, It's. It is different to see for sure.
[00:02:11] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And I think too, I mean, the world of business has really changed. The workplace, this. The landscape of a workplace has really changed ever since COVID really when we realized, oh, we can actually make a work life balance that works for us. We don't have to be in an. We can work from literally anywhere.
And it really, I think, has given people the opportunity to really think, what are, what are the changes that I can start making to make my life what I want it to be instead of really living to work when really we want to work to live right? And I think people are really, we're in a time now that's really exciting where people are seeing that and we're making decisions that work for us and not the other way around. And I think that's really exciting.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: I am excited to get into this conversation, but. But before we begin, Heather, I always have a fun, thought provoking question to ask my guest to get things going. Are you ready for yours today?
[00:03:04] Speaker C: Probably not, but lay it on me. Let's do it.
[00:03:06] Speaker B: So I asked this question to another guest in another episode and I thought it would be fitting to ask you today. Do you believe in destiny or do you think life is in our control?
[00:03:17] Speaker C: Both. Definitely both.
[00:03:19] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:03:19] Speaker C: Yes.
I think really interesting question because I've been doing a lot of self work in that kind of area in my own journey. And I think, I think we help lead ourselves to a certain end or a certain destiny or certain situations and we may not even realize we're doing it. I think there's a lot of intuition involved. We all have those moments where we just go, oh, that was weird. I was just thinking about that and the universe just threw it in my face. Or, you know, things like that happen to us all the time. And I think we don't realize how much of that is actually coming from ourselves. We just have to really tune into it. So. But when you do tune into those things and you do tune into that intuition, you still have a choice. You, you can either listen to it or you don't. And you make a choice. So wherever you're supposed to end up, I truly believe you will end up there. It's just the choices may change how you get there and when you get there.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: What a good answer. I just love that answer. It's so poignant and so direct. And I think that there's just so many like you said that are thinking or deciding whether things are going okay or whether they like stuff and they're looking to. You mentioned the word self work. They're doing a lot of self work and trying to figure stuff out and that what you just said is so poignant and so true. I love it.
[00:04:31] Speaker C: Yeah, I think we just need to sometimes slow down and just really, our gut will tell us. Our gut will tell us what we need to do in any moment. And I kind of call it the flip a coin theory. Like, you flip a coin and you'll know if you like the answer the second the answer comes up. If you go, oh, no, that's not really what I wanted. Even if you thought it was, your gut will always tell you, and that's kind of how. That's what your compass can be, and that's what can get you to where you're really supposed to be.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: Wonderful. Well, listen, thank you so much for your answer. Really appreciate that. Why don't we start off with you telling us a little bit about yourself, and I'd love to hear about your why as well.
[00:05:08] Speaker C: So.
A little bit about myself. Oh, gosh, I hate talking about myself. This. I always feel like I'm on a bit of a dating app when that question comes up, right. It's like, where do I start? What do you really want to know? So little about myself, my career. I have always been the helper. I've always been that person where, you know, I'm.
Anybody needs an answer, anybody needs anything, they come to me because I seem to somehow be the one that knows what's going on. Probably because I've been curious enough to just figure it out because I don't like asking other people for help. So I've. I've gone through a number of different roles, kind of starting frontline in hospitality. I've worked in customer service, I've worked in operations. So I've done a little bit of everything. And I really love to be hands on so that I can really understand people, the people that I work with, the clients that we serve. And when you're working with a large company, understanding what's happening in the C suite, those people that you don't see that are. That are giving you the initiatives that you need to try and drive through your team, understanding them as well, and kind of being that glue to pull all of those things together, to work really closely together and make things seamless and easy and efficient. I think we've all worked for. We've all had jobs where it's challenging, it's difficult. It just. It feels hard going to work every day. And I want to make it easier for people. We spend so much time at work. I want to be able to help make it just a little bit easier and a little bit better in the day. So that's what I Always do, no matter what job I'm doing. That's my why, and that's always what I'm trying to achieve.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: I always talk about the Sunday scaries, and what you just said was totally on point to that, because there's so many people and I've had so many conversations with different people who have been in a situation where they're sitting there on a Sunday night and they're like, oh, my God, I got to go back to that place tomorrow. And yes, you're absolutely right. Do we want to be in that situation where we're, like, dreading going back into that place? We want to have people excited to go back to work. And I know people are going to think I'm weird by saying, why excited to go to work. But you got to have that excitement because like you said, we spend so much time there. We spend more time there than we do at home. So why not have it a place that you're excited to go to?
[00:07:26] Speaker C: Oh, absolutely. And I think.
And talking about knowing when it's time to change is when you wake up and you really no longer want to go to work and you're dreading it, that right there is your sign, right? Like, that's that big red flag going, hey, it's time to look within and see what's really going on.
Is it time to go and have a conversation with your leaders to find out if there's something that can change, or is it that it's just not aligned with what your passions and what your values are anymore? And that's okay, but it's really important that we understand our own why. Why are we there, and what are our values? And do our values match the values of whatever job it is we're doing at the time? And if they don't, it's time to go.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: So, Heather, let's get into the meat and bones of this here. Why is there so much anxiety around promotion conversations?
[00:08:19] Speaker C: Because a lot of people have a hard time, I think, promoting themselves and saying, putting their hand up and going, hey, I'm worth it. It's hard to do.
And I think because we typically will look at it from a very personal standpoint of why I'm great and everybody loves me, or maybe I've been here for a really long time and I've been a dedicated employee, and we make it very personal. Looking for a promotion or looking for a wage increase can actually, it's just as simple as looking at the numbers. You can actually take yourself out of it and just look at the numbers and go, this is, this is why I should be promoted. This is why I should get a wa wage increase. These are the things, the tangible items that I bring to the table. And as soon as you put it more into that business sense rather than making about you, the rejection isn't as hard because it's scary, right? Because if you say, hey, I want this, you put your hand up and you're told no, that's a huge rejection to yourself. But if you take yourself out of it and it's just business, right? That's all it is. It's just business. If you take yourself out of it and look at the facts, if there's, if you do get rejected, well, now you know exactly what you need to work on next time. But it has nothing to do with you as a person. It's just what can we do to improve so that next time it happens. But it is a scary conversation to have. No one wants to go into a conversation and be told you're not good enough because that's what it feels like.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think a lot of people too, not only that they're not good enough, but also think that people are. They're. Well, they're afraid to start it, but then they're afraid of the reaction and then they're afraid of trying, like you said, trying to figure out, okay, what do I do next? What's my next thing? Because now if you are told that you are just not going to be seen in that limelight or in that situation, you then your engagement is going to drop off. Because now you're like, well, they don't see me doing anything. Well, I'm not going to do anything extra. I'm just going to throw my hands up and I'm going to come in at 9 and I'm going to leave at 5 and I'm, and I'm going to do what I'm supposed to do in front of my computer. But that's it. I'm not asking or I'm not giving myself up to give extra work or I'm not saying that I will help out anywhere. I'll just do this and that's that.
[00:10:35] Speaker C: Yeah. And I think, I mean going into those conversations and like we say, it's scary, it's nerve wracking and it might feel like they're saying you're not good enough when really that's not what's happening. What they're saying is you're not ready right now or you're not quite what we're looking for and that actually has nothing to do with you. That's just whatever your leader or the company is looking for. And you. And talk about choices and destinies, you have a choice of how you want to respond and perceive that response from whoever you're talking to. If they say you're not ready or you're not quite what we're looking for, it's now up to you to say, okay, why did, why was this promotion so important to me? What was I looking to get out of it? Do I want to put in whatever work my leader is asking me to put in so that I can get there eventually? Or do I want to say, you know what, maybe this isn't quite right for me right now and I'm going to find something else, or am I just going to kind of quietly quit? Right. But it's, that's where the choices come in. You're being presented with an answer that you maybe don't like, but it's completely your choice how you respond to that and how you perceive it. And that and how you perceive and respond is what's going to propel you moving forward.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: I love when you talk about destiny. I just think that's so poignant and such a great way to put it.
What I want to know from you is how do you align your next move with your long term goals, knowing that it could be your destiny?
[00:12:01] Speaker C: Yeah, that's. That's an interesting question. And to be honest, I'm not entirely sure how to answer that. It took me a really long time to figure out kind of what I wanted to do. I knew my why, but I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with it. I just sort of kept ending up in these roles that kind of worked out. They paid really well, they kind of gave me some autonomy and that was really great. They weren't. I didn't love them all, but I knew why I was there. How you make that decision, it's a tough one. I think you have to do some really serious soul searching to see what do I want, where do I want to go. And honestly, I went to counseling for months having those conversations, trying to figure it out. Right. Like there's some, some pretty hard conversations I was having with myself going what do I want? And then once I figured that out, I was then looking at any of the jobs that I was looking for or working as a stepping stone to get there, which what that did. It was a really cool thing. It allowed me to not put so much of myself into the role that I was losing myself because I was no longer looking at that particular job is end game. I was looking at it as a stepping stone to help me to get where I wanted to go. And what that did is it allowed me to reduce my burnout. It allowed me to relax when I got home. I could turn off when I got home a little bit more. So I was able to let go a little bit. And it was fantastic. It was the best thing that ever happened to me because now I can still give 100% while I'm at work, but I can also give 100% to myself when I'm at home because it's no longer this role is no longer the be all end all for me because that's not necessarily where I want to be. Eventually, I think you hit the answer.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: To this question on the button when you said soul searching, Heather. Because I do believe that when we're talking about how the next move aligns and then our long term goals, then, yeah, we are soul searching. We're figuring out, okay, yes, is this where I want to be? And if it's not, then like you said, what do I do? Who do I.
Who do I turn to? Who are my people that I trust or who's in my circle that I could turn to to get some advice and turn the table if I, if need be and find that place where I feel that my ideas or that I'm seen and heard in the organization that I'm in, or that they see me and they value me in certain positions or to move up within the organization. So I love the soul searching answer. I think that hit it on the button right there.
[00:14:30] Speaker C: Yeah. And, you know, I went through a really cool exercise. I was working with a career counselor actually, and he was helping me put, you know, revamp my resume, revamp my LinkedIn profile, all that kind of fun stuff. And we, we went through this exercise of just. He was asking me very simple questions of like, what do you love when you go into your work? What is it that you love about it? And we just started writing down the key pieces of things that I was responding. So he just let me talk, he wrote it down and then he gave it back to me and said, okay, here you go, here's what you love. These keywords, go and put them. There's really cool web apps where you can search keywords and you can do surveys to find out what kind of role would be really good for you. So we went through that whole exercise and I learned a lot about myself. What I learned too was that I hadn't just fallen into certain jobs or careers. It really was. I was there because that's what my strengths were and that's what I loved. And sometimes it can be very easy to just think, oh, I'm just here because I got this job and you know, now I'm gonna move on to the next role and I'm gonna get promoted. But I don't really love it. It's. Sometimes it feels like life is making that decision for us. And what I found out was actually, no, that really is playing to my strengths and I really do love it. There's parts that I don't like, but that's okay. And owning that there are going to be parts about whatever job you do that you don't like. And that's okay as long as you really love. There's more of what you love than what you don't love. So I would strongly recommend to anybody that's interested and that wants to kind of get creative with it to go seek out a career counselor. There's people out there that help with that. And it was so super helpful. And it was actually really fun and really eye opening.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: It's a great idea. I mean, I've been on several vacations and I've talked to different people in different lines of work. I've talked to police officers, I've talked to doctors, nurses, owners of big corporations.
I met an executive at, from Xerox one time on a vacation. And the regular answer that I got from everyone was absolutely, like you said, there are certain things that they enjoyed and there's certain things that they didn't.
Now do we look at. So now you know, like, is there any perfect job out there? Probably not. As long as you're like you said, as long as you're happy and as long as you are doing most of the tasks that you enjoy, I think then it's going to relate to you having more happiness and being there and along being there long term, as far as I'm concerned. But if you're not enjoying it, then yes, you're gonna, you're gonna start to have some doubts for sure.
[00:16:58] Speaker C: Absolutely. And I think when you start looking at the things that you really love and really start exploring that, what that does is it also opens up the opportunity to look at all sorts of different roles, different industries. Because lots of roles and lots of different industries have those same offer, those same key elements that you may be looking for that that you never would have thought of and that's the cool thing about it is now you know what you love. Okay, well, who can give that to me? Where can I find that? And you can find it all sorts of places. And that's where the adventure gets to start and that's where you get to start having fun with it. Going to work and having a job and having career doesn't have to be hard, it doesn't have to be exhausting. It doesn't have to burn you out. It can be fun and it can be an adventure. It can be a journey.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: Heather, can a promotion actually amplify your voice at work?
[00:17:45] Speaker C: It can, I think it can go either way. And I think that really depends on you, on who you are and how you lead. Because if you're wanting to have your voice amplified, if that's something that you're looking for, that's about leadership. And you might have to be leading your leaders to have your voice heard. So really, it's about really becoming the best leader you can. And that takes again, a lot of self awareness, a lot of self work to get to that place where you can have your voice heard and you can influence others to hear you and potentially make changes or go along on the ride with you. So it absolutely can. But I think it's not about the promotion. It's about who you are and you can have your voice heard in any job. It does not matter if you've been promoted or not. It doesn't matter if you're frontline, if you're corporate, C suite like you can have your voice heard if, if you're leading well enough.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: I think it has to do a lot of your communication and the tone and the way you're communicating your message. I think it has a lot to do with it as well.
[00:18:48] Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. You've got to be able to relate to people and that's, that's the key, right, Is it's got to be honest, it's got to be authentic, it's got to be relatable. That's how you're really going to be heard.
[00:18:58] Speaker B: I've learned from a leader a long time ago that it's not the message that you or what you're trying to say, it's how you communicated it and how you treated that person while communicating to them. That's what people will remember. So they will remember a lot of times. They'll remember a message a lot of people will always remember. Oh my God, this is how that person treated me. And I will never forget that.
[00:19:24] Speaker C: Yeah, it's it's all in how you show up. It's all in how you show up. Absolutely.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: So can promotions help shift power dynamics towards greater inclusion?
[00:19:33] Speaker C: Oh, I think so, but I think it's more in the way that it's. The promotion might just give you a different platform in order to help drive more inclusion, but again it's going to come down more to who you are as a leader and a communicator and how you show up. But the platform that you're doing that from. Absolutely. Can drive more inclusion, but again it's not. I think a lot of times we get stuck in promotions and getting, if, if we get to that next step up, they'll hear me and they'll listen to me and I'll be able to make a difference. And honestly that it doesn't always work that way. And probably some of the best changes and the best voices I've ever heard have been the people that are working frontline with everybody. They're not necessarily the people that are rising up the corporate ladder. They're the ones that have the hands on experience and are in with the team and really know everybody and they have the most honest voices. So yes, the promotion can help, but again it's, I think it's really comes down to the person because if you get the wrong person in that promotion, it can go completely the opposite direction too.
[00:20:37] Speaker B: So as we wrap up here today, Heather, what would you say is your biggest takeaway for audience today?
[00:20:44] Speaker C: I think really just taking the time to get to know yourself and knowing what you want, listening to your gut and be adventurous, be curious, be creative, look outside the box, get yourself outside of that box and think of all the different things that you might really love to do and try it. And if it doesn't work, okay, it doesn't work. Try the next thing. But get, get curious and get adventurous and that's when you're going to start really propelling and getting to where you really want to be in life. Whether that's a promotion or not, that's a promotion for yourself and that's the most important thing.
[00:21:22] Speaker B: I love that. Yeah, it's being innovative and creative. I just love that.
But you are absolutely right. We can be innovative and creative ourselves and we can create our, our own opportunities. We just have to, like you said earlier, just trust in ourselves, trust that we can do it and trust that it's going to happen and we just have to let all the chips fall as a, as they may.
[00:21:44] Speaker C: Absolutely. And sometimes things won't happen. Exactly. When or how you think they're going to, but you trust the process and you will get there. You will get to where you want to go. It's just maybe isn't going to look exactly how you have it envisioned. Just let go and and just be and trust and you'll get wherever you want to go really well.
[00:22:03] Speaker B: As my call to action to like everyone that's listening to like share Follow this episode I really feel that there's lots of golden nuggets here. I want to take the time to thank you, Heather, for coming on today. Heather, I just admire your ability to lead by example, your ability to trust, your professionalism and your passion for greater good. Thank you for being such an authentic leader.
And I. I'm sure I speak for many when I say that you inspire us all.
[00:22:30] Speaker C: Thank you so much. That's just. That's amazing. Thank you and thank you for creating this space for us to be able to have these conversations. It's really fun. It's just. It's a really great way for us to all kind of support each other and, and like you say, here are those golden nuggets that, that help us all grow and be better together.
So thank you.
[00:22:47] Speaker B: On behalf of myself and my guest, Heather, I'd like to take the time to thank you all for listening today. And until next time, be safe. And remember, everyone, that if we all work together, we can accomplish anything.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
