All right, it's game time. Let's kick it off. So welcome everyone to the design your career series. I am your host, Ashley Marie and I am pumped to be here with you today. I know um many of you are joining from around the world. So please pop yourself.Um your name in the chat. Say hello, let us know where you're watching from. Would love to, to know who we have in our audience today. And by the time you're done, I want to make sure it's very clear, right? You are literally going to have a framework to level up and design your career to finish out the next six months of 2021 with a bang. I want to encourage you to close out your other tabs. Put your notifications on silent, put your phone away, take a breath and remember why you signed up for these sessions, right? What are you really looking to get out of, of the women tech events and this um session specifically because it can literally change your life, right?

Get in a space of receiving all the goodness that we're gonna share here, not just myself, but all the other speakers and panelists that you will be hearing from today and for the next 20 minutes, I want you to just breathe in the possibility, breathe out the doubt that you may have for yourself and give yourself the permission to be 100% all in for you.

So thank you again for being here. Now, let's get real right. We're all short on time. We don't have a cookie cutter um approach in terms of how we approach our career, what we're doing. So let's just jump in 70% of what's taught in a workshop is easily forgotten and it's called the forgetting curve. You can look it up, Harvard Business Review. My goal today is that you leave the session with a fresh outlook on next steps that you need to critically take and own your career. You are the CEO of your career, no one else. And so I really want to empower you to own that mindset and leverage a tool that you can use to increase your visibility and impact um throughout your organization. So that there is an undeniable factor that no matter who you're talking to, they know who you, who you are and what you bring to the table. Thank you. Um Nice to see you. Obviously, we got some people from Virginia Seattle. I'm excited. Let us know if you're just joining, let us know where you're joining from. That being said, life is way too short right to be in a career that doesn't excite you, that you don't love and does not feel your soul. Right.

We've all probably had those jobs where it's like, what am I doing here? I'm just doing this to collect a paycheck and I'm over it. But instead we really need to think about what do we want in life, what do we really want out of our careers? And then how do we get there? Right. Like, maybe we have this grandiose idea, but we have absolutely no idea how to get there. So we need to think through critical steps in order to get us where we wanna go. Right? And I'm not saying that every second of every day, you're gonna love everything about your job, but you should be comfortable with how you spend your time. You should be excited about what you're doing. And that's one of the reasons I set up my coaching practice, right? Was to help more women and those who identify as women to really thrive in their workplace and do what they enjoy doing and I get it right? Like, not everyone can be doing their like passion job like, OK, that's fine. But let's figure out what you're really good at. What do you love and then how can you incorporate that into what you're doing? And if you can't, then maybe it's time for a career pivot, but that's another conversation for another day. So I really like to take my own experiences into, into account, right? And understand and help other women know that if they want to achieve more in their career and success and do what they love, they can do it.

And I want to help you understand a little bit more about your own career goals and then how you can get there. So with that being said, I will give us a quick kind of minute, would love to hear from you. So pop in the chat, your name, your current role and one word to describe something that you currently love about your job. And if you're just joining pop in the chat, your name, your role and one word um to describe what you love in your job. And if you don't love anything in your job, you can say that too. Yes, Kelsey freelance web designer, always learning, growth mindset, learning is key teammates. Yes. Having a good team, people that have your back, easy to collaborate with who you can vent with, who you can go to, to strategize with huge people, project manager, Claudia. Yes, people are key to make or breaking a job besides loving what you're actually doing. So keep that coming in the chat being mindful of time, I'm gonna keep a skull in. So when we think about career paths right? There is no one perfect way to navigate your career, right? As much as we all would like to think, OK, I'm gonna go to school, get this degree, follow these steps and then I'll be, you know, at this place that you think you want to get to, if you would have told me that when I was getting my undergrad degree in psychology and bartending until five o'clock in the morning that I would transition across six different industries and find my sweet spot in coaching women.

Um, and working a six figure de I corporate America job. I literally would have laughed at you. I would have thought you were insane because I thought I could save the world and make big changes with my undergrad psych degree. However, my New York City rent and entry level salary told me otherwise, right? So my path, all that to say, right, my path wasn't linear, it wasn't easy um or filled with jobs that were amazing that I love the whole time. So it takes a while to get where you're trying to go, right? And as you can see on this slide, it's not just straightforward to the top, right? You can go, you can go forward, you can go backward, you can go lateral, you can go out, you can go all over, right? It is not a one step upon the next approach to your career. So when we think through that, right, I wanna help under, I wanna help you understand a little bit more about your career goals. So really think like what do you want from your career, when you understand your desires, your absolute non negotiables that you are not gonna compromise on and the goals become more fluid around fitting around your kind of like red lines, right? Your absolute absolute nose, right?

So maybe it's at five o'clock every Tuesday, you have yoga class and no matter what, you're not going to any meeting because you're going to your yoga class, like figuring out what are those non negotiables make it that the reality of your work, right? It can then become really clear on where you wanna go and how to either evolve the current role that you were in or land a new role that allows you to have the flexibility and lifestyle that you want, right? Because work is way more than just like 9 to 5 stuck at a desk. It's literally integrated through everything in our life and you're joining this session, you're likely the type of person who's super successful, ambitious and probably even more so than, you know, you want to take control out of your career and you know that you are capable and you want more, you're driven and you excel in what you do.

You're unapologetically ambitious and what you want for yourself. And I love that for you. So if you want to know what to do next and how to get there, it's sometimes the hardest question to answer. And it can also change as you evolve throughout your career, right. So if we think of typical kind of corporate America, right? It's like set a goal, right? Goal setting, performance development year over year, same old nonsense that we hear all the time, right? Same cycle and goals are great. They have their place, but unless they're simple, we often get stuck on how to fulfill them and they don't necessarily take into the big picture of an entire career strategy that you need to design in order to get a career that works for you on your terms, right? So this is where your strategy comes in. For each goal, you need to understand how you're gonna fulfill it. So for example, I know we have a project manager in the audience if you wanna meet 10 program managers because you know that that will help elevate your visibility and get you to a new leadership position. Your strategy should be around focusing on how to meet them, where to meet them and how you will engage with them, right?

So think through not only just goal setting to advance your career, but big picture career strategy that ties in goals and ties in planning and different things. But when you have a clear strategy, you know what you're working towards. So those goals help support your big picture vision that being said, no one cares about your career more than you. Yes, many of us um are great. You know, we work for companies who care about our development and our success and likely have good bosses and networks and all the things, but you are in control of your career, right? You need to advocate for yourself and you need to be the person that is unapologetically sharing your skills, your strengths, your interests and the impact that you want to have in your organization. That being said, you also need to understand what barriers you face, right?

So most of the time, if you're thinking about where you want to go next, asking others how they got there, you have to take a moment to kind of think through what's your current situation because our mind plays tricks on us. It tells us we're not good enough, not smart enough, not qualified enough, et cetera. We have to actively identify roadblocks and understand how to navigate them. You need to be able to communicate your impact and your undeniable value. That being said, let's think of an easy tool that you can use and implement tomorrow or today in your current roles. When you think of networking, drop in the chat, the first word that comes to mind. I used to think about networking as imagining the room with sleazy sales people, cheese platters, business cards, like people trying to see, can you help me? And if you can't, I'm out of here, right? And it's not like that, right? It shouldn't be speed dating. It should really be relationship building. Networking is nurturing existing relationships and creating new ones and it doesn't have to be overwhelming to design a career that really, really works for you. You need to understand who needs to know the impact you're having and who you need to be visible to. So think about it in these three buckets on this slide, strategic con connect connections, operational connections and personal connections.

So when you think of who's in your existing network from a stra strategic standpoint, who do you need to network with to help you get to your big picture vision, what steps do you need to take to move up the ladder or into another role or take on a big project and who are those people?

Identify them and put them in that bucket? When you think of an operational contact, you want to think through who is a peer, who's your co collaborator, who is someone that helps you either thrive in your current position um or grow and, and connect you in other ways, right? So that can be people as like for me, right, in my diversity and inclusion role in my day job or my corporate, my corporate job or in my coaching job, right? I have to connect with people from our hr departments, our communications departments, learning departments. So think of those who can help you not only succeed in your role, but also you know that there can be a mutual relationship with, right? That that's a collaboration team that you're working closely with. And then think through how you can tangibly build that relationship to help increase your visibility, your impact and what you're bringing to the table to advance your career. And then the third bucket is really personal, personal context, right? So you might think what are my family and friends have to do with this? And sometimes they don't really have much to do, but maybe they can connect you to someone.

But I also think through your connections from maybe your undergrad or graduate degree or an internship program that you did or professional association that you are a part of, right? So I'm super passionate about helping women in leadership and career development, right? So those are the individuals that I connect with outside, right? If I was to give you an example from a personal personal bucket, so people who you can partner with, um who can help connect you to other people, whether it's inside your organization or out. And now we understand kind of the three big buckets because I'm being mindful of of time here. We understand the three big buckets you want to figure out what intentional actions you need to take to build these network connections to help you get into the career that you want, designed on your terms living the life that you want, right? So think about it in terms of intentional action. So what intentional actions can you take to cultivate relationships in these three areas, key takeaways. So if you want to skip over all of the guess work and get actionable career and professional development guidance, I would invite you, reach out to me. I'm happy to chat. Um on a one on one basis.

I also have an amazing career catalyst program which is a space where women can come together to support one another, develop the skills. They need to advance their career and really understand a safe space to lift and grow and advance yourself, right? So for me, women need to be inspired, they need to be empowered, we need to help raise each other up um versus kind of this like competition mentality that's there like I'm not for it, I'm community over competition, right? So I share strategies, tactics, skills that you need to get to the next level and in incorporating well-being mindset, career development, leadership development, accountability, mentorship, actual teaching of lessons, all all of the things are in this program. So would love um for you to join me.

And with that, I will say thank you so much for spending your time with me. Yes, community over competition. Um And I will put my linkedin in the chat Catherine. Thank you, but I appreciate your time. I hope you got everything that you wanted out of this quick session and wanted to share an opportunity, you know, take what you learn, bring in full circle, you have everything you need, go crush it. Right. Don't get in your head. Go make a connection even if it's one, pick one of those three buckets, go find someone, cultivate an existing connection and make a new one. And don't hesitate to reach out with any questions, further information and any way that I can help. Thank you.