Ok, good morning. Everybody. Slight change of plan here as these things never seem to uh go as they're planned. I'm having trouble sharing my screen. So I'm going to give you a live talk. You'll get me all the way through.Um I think everybody can see me and can hear me. Thanks Maggie. Uh Looking forward to talking too. So welcome to this uh talk. I'm absolutely delighted to be here and to be sharing with you today. Standing tall a mindset, not a measure. So that for those of you who are just joining me, my slides aren't working. So I'm gonna just do what we have to do here, which is stand tall in my space and do this uh without the uh actual help of the slides. So stand in tall a mindset, not a measure. What does that mean? And I'll come back to that in a minute. But first of all, ladies, I have a question for you. Have you at any time in your career? Had moments of feeling, lacking in confidence, questioning your self belief and just feeling that you're not adding value. And I can see already that the questions are coming through. Yeah. Lots of times. Ok. Yeah. Doesn't feel great. Does it really doesn't? OK. So let's flip this on its head now. So I'd like you to think about a time when you've achieved something great. You've nailed a presentation like today without your slides, you've um got the dream job that you've always wanted. 

You've turned up on a talk and, you know, you're standing here doing it or you've maybe overcome a difficult conversation with a colleague. So I'm sure you can actually think of something like that. Just have a moment, just channel in. When have I been? Great? Yes, Catherine, thank you. So, how much, how different does that feel in that moment of achievement? How does it feel? Feels great? Right. So imagine that you could tap into that sensation, that feeling at any point when you needed it rather than what we talked about right at the beginning, which is that you feel lacking in self belief and confidence. We'll come to the three, the three steps shortly. So I'm Jo Riches. I'm a life coach, a mentor and a positive influencer for women in the workspace. Women like yourself. It's my job to make women feel brilliant, to stand tall as I am here today and I'm in bare feet, but I'm standing tall to stand tall and really feel they've got it because let me tell you ladies, as I'm sure some of you have experienced already when you lack confidence. You don't feel great about yourself. It resonates through your, your work and, and, and through what you do in life and the likelihood is it could impact your ability to progress in your career and to really have the success you want. 

So in today's session, I'm gonna do two things. I'm going to, first of all, just share some insights with you from some of the women I know in it in the tech space who I've spoken to recently about their learnings and the advice they would give to their younger self to help them to stand tall. And then I'm going to share with you the three steps to help you stand tall in your career. So what does it mean to stand tall? Well, as I said, I am standing up today, I'm standing here, I'm present, sharing with you um and standing tall, but it isn't about height because I'm only 5 ft four or 1.63 m for anyone who's doing it in metric. But I actually stand here today, feeling tall, confident, sure of myself. And it's something that comes from inside. So it's that inner feeling that I've got this, that I really know what I'm talking about who I am, what I'm doing. That's what standing tall is. And I asked a few of my female friends and connections, you know, what does standing to mean to you and some of the things they said to me were knowing my strengths and limitations, not being afraid to ask for help when I need it. 

And I tell you what, as women, we all feel that we have to be everything, don't we? But you don't. And asking for help is not a weakness. It's a strength, having a positive mindset and being confident and knowing who I am from the inside. That's what standing tall is about. And it's about owning your space, but not from AAA you know, an external perspective. It's what you feel in your head, in your heart and in your gut. So why is it so important? Why am I here today talking to you about this? Well, in a recent survey, by my confidence matters, they asked women how confident they s they feel in the workplace and 79% yet, 79% said that they lacked confidence in their work. I mean, that's just crazy, right? And so for me, it's all about helping women like yourselves to really feel that you stand tall. And there's another reason as well. It's true to say that your careers will not be smooth sailing all the way through. I'm sorry to break this to you now. But like it is in life, you will hit obstacles, things that you had least expected. And probably at times when you either really don't need them or when you really haven't planned for the hap for them to happen. And so as as a coach here today. For me, it's about helping you to understand that when those things happen, you already have everything you need within you. It's about just really tapping in and understanding that. And how do I know this? Because this happened to me. I've been that woman. 

I've had to leave a job because I lost my confidence and didn't get treated as I should. And I don't want that to happen to you. I don't want you to be the women that have to leave. And if you do leave, I want you to be the women that leave because it's your choice and to give you the tools and techniques. So um my next slide was gonna be a a few statements on the screen. Um As I said, I haven't got my slides here. Ah That was just terrible. But anyway, um yeah, I wanted to share with you some of the, the sort of the comments and the statements that I get from my clients when they come to me. I want to hold. So here are a few of the statements I want to hold the space and feel that I'm giving value, but I don't feel like that I've lost my sense of self. I don't make a difference. I don't feel I add value. I don't feel I'm awesome. I feel anything but awesome. So these are some of the comments and I'm sure if I ask you ladies do these resonate are these the sort of things you hear yourself saying? And sometimes you actually believe about yourself. I'm sure they are. It's my job in this session and in the work I do through uh the linkedin posts that I write the coaching, I do the way I show up to move women who feel like that women who may be like, you know, you may feel like that yourself to move you from feeling that way. 

Feeling like you, you just don't believe in yourself and you don't add value because it breaks my heart when I hear women talk like that to move into a place of feeling, truly kick ass. And that's what it's all about women. We need to feel kick ass uh in ourselves and really just yeah, own it. Yes, Lindsay, thank you. So I'll come on to the three hours in a minute. So before I do that, I just wanted to share some of the insights that I got from. Um some of the women I spoke to before I came to do this, you know, I asked them, you know, what are, what are your learnings? What have you got over your career? You know, these are women who are part way through their careers, maybe further on. But what would you do uh differently? What advice would you give and how do you stand tall? And I came up with a number of themes because interestingly enough even though they were different questions. They all seem to have uh themes to them. And I've got seven here, the seven. That's 57 here. This is me improvising without the slides I had. So I have seven to share with you. So the first one was about learning, training and qualifications. What they all said was as you go through your career, continue to learn, continue to grow. And that's not just necessarily about the job you're doing, but about how you grow personally and the things that you do that inspire you outside of the workplace. 

Because as we all know, it's not all about work and those things will help you to grow and be stronger in yourself. That was number one, number two, seek help. So I think as women and I know this personally, there are many times when I've struggled and not asked for help when I needed it. And all that does is leads to me getting frustrated, not being able to do the work I need to do and ultimately further down the line having to ask for help. So what I won't say to you now is it's not a weakness to ask for help. In fact, actually, it makes you ever stronger to be able to say I'm not OK. I need help here and seek that help through your line manager, through your, your peers and your networks, but also through um coaching and mentoring. Obviously, I'm a coach So I'm gonna say coaching, right? But actually coaching is something to tap into when you, when you get stuck somewhere and you really need help and I really advocate mentoring and for, for, for you ladies to seek out uh role models, people that can work with you and really help you along the way. 

The next one, the third one, trust, honesty and openness. And that's not just about being uh honest and open with other people. It's about being honest with yourself and just checking in every now and again, am I ok? And if I'm not ok, why am I not? Ok? And what do I need to do about that? Do I need to ask for help or what do I, you know, what do I need to do? Enjoy the journey is number four, this is really important. So it was a comment that somebody made to me about the fact she's been so keen to get to the next level and to keep, you know, progressing through her career. And I think this is something we all do in, in the work we do in life is you're so keen to get to the end goal that you forget to enjoy the journey. And so you're so focused on the future, you forget to be in the present moment and there's so much to enjoy by being present. And in the moment, number five of the things that I had for standing tall from the women I spoke to was about your health and well being. 

So I've seen lots of interesting and really inspiring talks the last few days, talking about things like this and as women, we have a number of factors that our male colleagues don't have that we have to manage and deal with periods. Let's call it out menopause, um health related issues around pregnancy and being pregnant and all those things are things we have to manage alongside all the other stuff. So it's incredibly important that you look after yourselves and that you treat yourself with care. So really maintain that health and well being and wherever possible that work life balance, build your network is number six. So the high recommendation was that, you know, you have a strong network. And I think what's incredible to see these days through things like the women tech network uh through the things I see on linkedin and other platforms is that, you know, there's such AAA an ability to connect with women, like minded women, inspiring women, et cetera and to have those people you can go to when you need to. 

And so yeah, building your network is an incredibly important thing as you go through your career. And then finally, on those things that they the the other women shared with me was be you and don't be afraid to be you. And that for me is incredibly important and I'll talk about that now as I go into talking about the three steps and I listened to Barbara Roosky earlier on and she talked about never saying sorry. And I couldn't agree with her more. That thing of don't say sorry for who you are. Be tall. Stand tall. Yeah, loud and proud and shout about it. Ok. So now let's think about that. So I've shared you some advice from, from other women, but how can you tap into your own brilliance? So I'm gonna share with you. So I'm gonna talk about the three R's now. Um And I want to do this by, by talking to you about uh a client that I work with a brilliant client. A woman who's in her four mid forties has had an amazing career, but came to me feeling that anything but confident at a certain point in her career. And interestingly enough, she'd stepped out of it for a while and had then come back and found that all those things that she was really good at all the strength she had, she just had found herself questioning. I'm gonna call her Lizzie for this for this scenario. 

So scenarios Lizzie came to me and said, she'd had a really challenging conversation with one of her colleagues where he said to her, it, we're talking about learning and increasing their knowledge. And she said to him, what platforms can I visit to, to learn from? And her colleague said to her, well, I think you'd be better at the admin stuff, not really the technical stuff. Now, whether or not that was what he really meant by his comment, it didn't land well with, as with Lizzie, as I'm sure you can imagine how would you uh choose to receive that comment. So what she did was she internalized it and chose to say that this must be about her that, you know, she's not got the skills, the experience. Now, I know Lizzie well enough already by this point to go, this isn't the case. So what I asked Lizzie to do and this is where we start to talk about. The three Rs is I asked her to draw a line, just a simple line on a piece of paper and you can do this at any point. And then I asked Lizzie to just highlight go through and we were looking at sort of the last 10 years or so of her career, just go through and, and think about the highlights you've had. So I gave Lizzie a few minutes to, to do this. 

And then Lizzie came back to me and said, I haven't really got that many highlights and I thought, well, no, we're not having that. So let's talk about this. So what I've got her to do in that first instance was one reflect, hey, we've got to the Three R's the first one reflect. Look back, see what you've got in your, in your you know, sort of toolkit of, of experiences. So then I said to Lizzie, OK, tell me about some of these experiences, you know, what, what was going on. And as she started to talk it through rather than suddenly still being stuck in that place of feeling like, oh, I haven't actually got that much, this wealth of amazing, incredible experience came out things that she'd achieved that she'd totally forgotten about. And so what I got Lizzie to do was really step into those spaces. Think about where was she, what she was doing? Who was she with? And what did she achieve? And by doing that, what I enabled her to do was number two, reconnect, reconnect with her old self with all the things that she'd already achieved. So Lizzie's starting to feel, oh, that's really good. That's really good. So I'm, I'm already feeling better about myself. 

I'm starting to, you know, feel good. And then I said to her, OK. So with all of this in mind now, so you've reflected on things you've reconnected, what can you do now to change the way you feel going forwards? So she had to think about it. And as she was thinking about it, she said, I asked her the question, you know, how do these things make you feel? And she said, they make me feel good. They make me feel confident and I was like, yes, they make her feel confident because they so So, so so should because ladies, the truth is we all have everything we need already within us, but we really lose sight of it sometimes of everything else that goes on. So by reflecting reconnecting, I was able to hear her say, I feel confident. And so I asked her, how would you approach that conversation next time? And Lizzie's response was well for a start, I wouldn't be having any of that. I know I'm, I'm really good. I've got loads of stuff that I'm, I'm good at. And I said, how might you reframe that, that response to your colleague next time? And she said, well, I would say thank you. I appreciate how you feel about this. But you've vastly underestimated my experience. How about you? Let me have a go at this technical stuff and if I need any help, I will ask for you. Who? So what's that? That's the reframe. So there we go. Three, the reframe. 

So we have the reflex, go back and have a look, reconnect, step into that space and think about, ok, what was it? What did I achieve? How good was it? And then the third one is the reframe and just to sort of reframe, your thinking, your behavior, your conversation, there's actually 1/4 a secret, fourth one as well. And that's the result. And the result was the, the way Lynn, um the way Lizzie felt as she stepped forward from our session and that for me is uh any coaches that are on here. I know there's a few will say is the magic in coaching because ultimately all we do is just help you to draw out what's already inside you because you have it all ladies, you have all the magic within. So my last sort of thought to you and a statement because I'm a great believer in making uh positive statements. I'm a journal, I journal on a daily basis and I write a number of I am statements and the statement I want you all to think about as you go away from here is I am enough as in, I don't need anything else right here right now. 

I am exactly as I need to be. I have enough and I believe in myself and that's, that's what it's all about ladies. That's what standing tall is all about. And I want you all to walk away from here thinking about reflecting reconnecting and reframing and walking forwards going. Yes, I have this. So thank you ladies. Sorry, you didn't get my slides. They were brilliant, but I hope that the session proved to be just as brilliant without them. Um I will. So I'm available on linkedin. I was gonna share some details with you, but I'm available on linkedin. So please, you know, connect with me that way. I'd love to continue this conversation with you and check it out. I have a workshop on exactly this next Wednesday evening, which I'd love to invite you all to join. So, thank you so much for today. I think we are out of time. I've been timing myself, so I'm at 20 minutes. Um I would just like to say thank you for all your comments as well. It's been absolutely wonderful to have this opportunity to share this all with you and uh I wish you all um uh a wonderful rest of conference this morning.