Bragging about yourself and your accomplishments isn’t always the best strategy for personal relationships. However, in today’s business world, bragging is an essential skill to advance your career, even though most women experience discomfort in touting themselves. If you need to learn how to brag better with style and professionalism, then today’s show is just for you.
Meredith Fineman is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, podcast host, and women’s advocate. She’s also the founder and CEO of Fine Point, a leadership and professional development company, and a freelance writer with bylines from Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Best Company, and many more. Meredith’s other endeavors include hosting It Never Gets Old, a podcast on secondhand and sustainable fashion, and writing her book, Brag Better: Master the Art of Fearless Self - Promotion. In this episode, Meredith and I discuss how the workplace is shifting amid the global pandemic, and how to combat job insecurity by advocating for yourself with a Brag Better skillset. We also talk about the need for self - advocacy among the qualified quiet and the importance of using privilege to advocate and champion for the underrepresented.
Women and bragging
Meredith begins by explaining that bragging, especially for women, hasn’t always been the cool thing to do. Instead, women have been told down through history to look pretty and be quiet. Meredith is passionate about women learning to tout themselves, despite the fears and inherent dangers. Her demographic is the qualified quiet, those men and women who have done the work but don’t know how to talk about it. Her book is for men and women because the world needs to hear male voices speaking up and advocating for women as strong allies. The truth is that everyone needs to learn to brag better instead of feeling ineffective and awkward. Better bragging is for everyone.
Why bragging is difficult but necessary
Especially during this global pandemic, it’s more important than ever to know how to brag better from home. Bragging is necessary for your career because you must turn people’s attention to your work to get the recognition you deserve and to propel your career forward. We are in an extreme emergency situation right now, and this time of fear, uncertainty, and incredible joblessness forces us to be more explicit than ever before. Many of our normal tools are lost as we work from home, so we have to hone other skills. Depending on your goals, Meredith shares advice about asking for a raise or asking for an appointment to a panel with focused bragging. Focused bragging includes strategically offering up yourself and talking about your background and skills to get what you want and propel your career forward.
Do it for others
Bragging also requires that you’re committed to lifting someone else up when possible and not being jealous of them. Meredith explains how we can be strategic in the way we brag for others, and she uses the example of the racism crisis in America right now. Speaking as a white woman of privilege, she believes that our duty is to highlight other people and share our voices to expand their reach. Elevating your voice and advocating for others is a way to use your power to speak up for those who aren’t usually regarded with the same level of respect.
Meredith’s sensitivity
How did Meredith develop a lens of sensitivity? As the daughter of DC journalists, she grew up with a liberal background, and her Jewish heritage gave her a feeling of other - ness and white privilege. The history of Jewish people gives them a right to speak up for all oppressed people, so advocating for others was a natural progression. Growing up with diversity everywhere helped Meredith know that she wanted to educate herself about speaking and writing to highlight the perspective and opinions of others.
Key elements of Better Bragging
Better Bragging is about stating the facts of your accomplishments in a strategic, cohesive way to get what you want. Bragging is less about the word choice and more about the sentiment. The three pillars of Better Bragging are proud, loud, and strategic. Being proud is the most difficult for most women because we are too hard on ourselves. Being loud isn’t about your volume, but it’s about consistency and repetition. Being strategic means working backward from what you want as the end result, and often it means applying PR tactics to yourself.
Thirty seconds or less
Since the pandemic, Meredith has added a fourth element of Better Bragging. It’s important that you are explicit in your bragging, not leaving any room for inference. Your message needs to be distilled into a pitch of thirty seconds or less. People have short attention spans, so it’s necessary to be very specific and concise about what you mean. Meredith shares an exercise she uses to help clients be specific and concise like never before. Another tip is to reduce your pitch to two sentences, and even then, she helps clients eliminate words that don’t add to the message.
How to use LinkedIn
There are many benefits to LinkedIn, even though many people don’t see them. There are canned and cheesy messages sent by people who communicate in great volume and play the numbers game, but the platform has many opportunities. Meredith advises clients to put their email addresses high up on their profile in a visible place. She also explains how she handles networking and connections on LinkedIn to maximize the platform as a useful resource.
Highlights of this episode:
Resources mentioned:
www.brag-better.com Get a free chapter of Meredith’s book!
Brag Better: Master the Art of Fearless Self - Promotion by Meredith Fineman
The Witches are Coming by Lindy West
Wow, No Thank You: Essays by Samantha Irby
Dear Girls by Ali Wong
Leapfrog: The New Revolution for Women Entrepreneurs by Natalie Molina Nino
Fem Five:
Favorite book to recommend for women? “The Witches are Coming, Wow, No Thank You, and Dear Girls.”
Favorite self - care hack? “Putting parental controls on my phone (for me), and turning it completely off at night.”
Best piece of advice and who gave it to you? “My best friend told me that 100% of nothing is nothing.”
Female CEO or thought leader you’re into right now? “Kimberly Drew, Tarana Burke, Brittney Cooper, Jamia Wilson, and other prominent black women.”
One piece of advice you’d give your five years younger self? “Stop buying expensive handbags!”
Today’s episode brings clarity to the frustrations that many women feel in their careers. Are you working independently, but struggling to get the recognition you deserve? Do you understand the value of relationships in the workplace? My guest today puts it all in perspective, and she shares the nuts and bolts to help you take effective action steps.
Dr. Rosina Raccioppi is CEO and president of WOMEN Unlimited, an organization that for over 25 years has worked with hundreds of leading corporations focused on creating corporate cultures that nurture the development and advancement of talented women. Their three-pronged approach of mentoring, education and networking allows corporations to accelerate the leadership pipeline of high potential women. In this episode, Dr. Raccioppi and I talk about her book, Relationships Matter: How Women Use Developmental Networks to Step Into Their Power and Influence. We also discuss the challenges and opportunities in the workplace for women. We pinpoint what it takes for women to move up the career ladder, and why it’s not just what you know, but who you know and who knows your work. Dr. Raccioppi explains how WOMEN Unlimited’s programs guide women to the C-suite and help them stay there.
Independence vs. Relationships
From the beginning of a woman’s career, there are moments of key inflection points where a leader or mentor’s influence is critical and impactful. In 2019, for the first time ever, women made up over half of the professional workforce in organizations. What Rosina sees from young women starting out is that their independence keeps them from building key relationships and seeking out support in their careers, so they rely instead on their own capabilities. This is a big mistake. Those key mentoring relationships are crucial as leaders provide guidance and feedback that allow women to continue to evolve their capabilities as they grow their careers.
Painful feedback
Rosina shares a personal example from her career when she learned a hard lesson through feedback. Her manner is extremely direct, and that was good and effective until it wasn’t. People had told her that there were issues with her somewhat intimidating communication style, but she would blow off that feedback. One day, a colleague made a statement about her direct leadership style that shocked her and caused great reflection. Rosina looks back on that feedback as a gift that gave her insight and realization that have helped her learn to find innovative solutions and to listen to others more fully. This lesson has helped her become more inclusive as a leader. Listen to learn specific techniques to get the feedback you need and deserve.
Why Rosina wrote her book
We’ve all heard about mentoring as a leadership skill, but WOMEN Unlimited takes it a step further. Their platform is based on mentoring education and networking. The content is bookended by the relationships created by mentoring and networking. For women in the workplace, these relationships are crucial to success. Rosina built upon existing research about how women used mentors, but she took it a step further to see how those mentoring relationships were developed. Rosina says, “Mentoring turns learning into leadership.”
Using a crisis to your advantage
Generally speaking, during the pandemic crisis, men are looking to make strides to stand out in the workforce while women are hunkering down to get the work done. With any organization, during a crisis, you have to figure out how to be profitable and take care of the customers. The important thing is to map out a path forward for the organization to preserve revenue. Rosina says that successful women will stay engaged and embrace the leadership role even during a crisis.
Building a network
Think about the people who will help round out your perspective. Those who impact the customer are the ones who matter most in an organization. Rosina says to think about how to frame the work you do in ways that are important to the customers. You want to stay in the game, be relevant at the table, and create an impact for the customer. If you aren’t doing that currently, then take a good look at your role and what it should be.
How to find a mentor
It doesn’t make much sense to approach someone and ask them to be your mentor. Being a mentor is a vague concept to many people; they just aren’t sure what that means. Rosina encourages people to create a board of directors group of 3-4 people who will challenge your thinking and help you grow. Don’t look for people who will tell you what you want to hear, because that won’t help you grow. Often, someone in a different department in your organization is the best person to expand your thinking and round out your perspective. Start with one person, and add others that give you a diversity of perspective on how you want to move forward.
Highlights of this episode:
Resources mentioned:
Visit www.nextfem.com for this episode for your chance to receive a free signed copy of Rosina’s book, Relationships Matter: How Women Use Developmental Networks to Step Into Their Power and Influence.
Fem Five:
Favorite book to recommend for women? “My book, Relationships Matter.”
Favorite self-care hack? “Exercise and taking time for me.”
Best piece of advice and who gave it to you? “My mother helped me see that the only thing I can control is me.”
Female CEO or thought leader you’re into right now? “I can’t name just one, but it’s all the women who are CEOs in traditionally male-dominated industries.”
One piece of advice you’d give your five years younger self? “Push yourself even further than you think you can go. Don’t be afraid. There will always be a net to catch you.”