On the go? Listen to The Stress Less Show as a Podcast!
NOTE: Due to COVID-19 concerns and Philadelphia's stay at home orders, the Self(ish) Philly Conference has been postponed to September 18th. This episode of The Stress Less Show was recorded prior to the postponement.
Read the blog post version of this episode here.
Carlee
Do you ever feel shy or guilty about putting yourself and your career goals first? Hi, I'm Carlee Myers. Your friendly stress management expert. And this month that we are breaking down the stigma around being selfish. And I brought on an amazing guest, Stephanie, too, who is a job search consultant that helps soft spoken women and men lend Soul aligned. Guys, Soul aligned six figure. I should I just repeat all of these six figure corporate careers.
Carlee
Her global online business has transformed the lives of thousands of underpaid and uninspired professionals by teaching them how to tap into their corporate worth, interview powerfully and negotiate high six figure salaries. Her work has been featured in LinkedIn as an expert voice, so she slays, the muse, she navigates.com, as well as in person and online workshops. She's turning awkward interviewees into confident multiple offer. Can I say that again? Multiple offer earners around the globe. I'm so excited to have you on the show.
Stephanie
Thank you. Carlee, thank you for the introduction. I love it.
Carlee
No problem. No problem. So, I mean, this is big stuff. The top two stressors in the United States are job pressure and money. And it sounds like you are tackling I mean, you are tackling the top two stressors in the United States. So I'm like I'm so excited to hear how you got here.
Stephanie
Awesome. Yeah. I mean, I started out in recruitment for a few different companies. First was the boiler room sales recruitment. I transitioned into just some corporate roles. Amazon and Sony, I built out a few recruitment teams there. And after taking a trip to Japan, dealing with some burnout and coming back and having, you know, some some interesting experiences with my last company, I decided to just go into business for myself. The thing that I love the most is actually just helping people one on one anyway. So it's been a blessing. And I'm happy to be here.
Carlee
Oh, my goodness. And we were talking preshow about your your trip abroad. And it's that it sounds like it was life changing and all of the things like all of the transitionary, like you've got to hit the. What what did they say? Like the shadows of the valley of death or whatever. But like you had an opportunity to just transform and blossom in such a way that a lot of us don't have that just at all.
Stephanie
I think everyone should do it at some point. For me, it was definitely needed. And I'm a completely different person because of it. So if any of you guys are going through burnout or just disillusionment, you can take some time off and go do something crazy, come back and just put on your LinkedIn. I went on a sabbatical and you still hirable. So I love that.
Carlee
So I'm curious, like in in terms of selfishness, because we are like just we're we're talking about putting ourselves first this month. What is selfish mean to you?
Stephanie
It's the opposite of what we're taught to be. And it's it's what other people are just given. They grow up with. So I love that we can just change the conversation about selfishness. I love that. Now we can embody it because there are so many other people walking this earth that have been embodying their whole lives. And, you know, it's our time now to do the same. So.
Carlee
So. How do we do that? How do we start putting ourselves first in our careers and our getting what we're worth? I'm showing my money fingers right now. Get it? Showing what we're worth and in the workforce.
Stephanie
Yes. So I definitely I I definitely sort of manage the job search. So in your job search, you can just understand that you're qualified already and that you know that there are other people that are your competitors that know they're qualified. And because of this, just unconsciously, a company, an employer, a recruiter will offer them 5K to 10k to you and 15k thousand more than they'll offer you just because of our unconscious sort of. OK, this person thinks they're worthy. They're probably worthy. So know that you're qualified already. I tell my clients that we recruitment teams typically don't get on the phone with you unless you're like a 70 80 percent fit. So we're not wasting time. We're not doing you a favor to interview you. We think that, OK, we can hire this person. So that's probably my number one. And I have some other tips we talked about before, just in terms of when you're actually working. But for job seekers, you guys should definitely embody that.
Carlee
So, OK, so when we're already working. Yeah, we're in that. What what should we do? Tend to be selfish.
Stephanie
Well, for me, what worked was just understanding that me playing weak or, you know, hiding parts of myself, you know, not being as big and as powerful as I could be was costing the company money. So you know me taking longer to answer questions or lead a meeting or share my views in a meeting or, you know, just really just be responsive and not really care so much about what other people think was slowing down. The meeting was frustrating. My my business partners was, you know, affecting how I would, I guess, move through that company. So. So, you know, for me that I know that's a little bit different from like the term selfishness. But just knowing that, you know, you're costing the company money by not embodying who you really are and just being as powerful as you deserve to be.
Carlee
Yeah. And, you know, it makes me think about the like a lot of the reasons why we want to be selfish because is because we want to make a bigger impact on the world. We want to be able to help other people. And I think that's that is important to know. I have to say, I have to stand in my confidence. I have to stand in my power. Because if I don't. There are stakes outside of just me.
Stephanie
Literally like dollar amounts attached to it raises.
Carlee
Yeah. And we were talking before the show that people. Not only that, not only are there dollar amounts, but people actually like people more that like themselves.
Stephanie
Absolutely. I mean, we all know that one person that can be, you know, come across as maybe vapid or vain or self-interested, but also everyone just really seems to like her. You know, I had someone in college like this. Everyone was obsessed with her. And we all, you know, did so many things for her birthday, like months in advance or planning. And we're just, you know, putting her on this pedestal. But, you know, if you look at her objectively, you know, potentially someone could say that she's like selfish and vain and like. But also, you know, all these other wonderful qualities, too. And so I like to invite all of us to kind of take that on, because we we cater to people like that. And as long as you're not hurting someone, you know, you're being kind. What's wrong with it? So, yeah,
Carlee
Yeah.It's almost it reminds me of that. Like old saying I'm not even going to try. I'm so bad you'll learn that I don't know how to do any idioms or sayings. But it reminds me of one of them that I'm gonna butcher, which is that you have to love yourself before you can love others. But more specifically, like we show other people how to love us. And so, like, if we are confident, if we love us, if we put our needs first, like other people understand and they follow suit.
Stephanie
Absolutely. It's like a catch 22. You can't get mad at the world or, you know, a spouse or potential love interest if they're not treating you nicely, if you know you're not treating yourself nicely. So, yeah, it's funny.
Carlee
I was just talking to a client the other day. One of her coping mechanisms when she feels insecure is to do self-deprecating jokes. So she would do these jokes all the time. You know, when she got uncomfortable. And what that did is that gave permission to other people in her life, in her office, her personal relationships, where they would start making jokes about her that weren't weren't great and they weren't helpful. And then we dug back. How did this start? Where did this come from? And it was the fact that she gave people permission for doing it because. She laughed at it. She laughed at her own pain so everyone else could, quote, unquote, too. Right. So that's huge. Huge. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for coming on the show. This was so good and there is so much more we're gonna dig into. I know. Later on.
Stephanie
Yes, I hope so. Definitely at the show, not at the conference.
Carlee
Absolutely. So for those of us who are at home, I want to know if we want to know how do you practice being selfish at work? How do you practice putting yourself first so that you can? First of all, you feel good. But second of all, so that you're not impacting the bottom line in a bad way. You're making money. You're making good stuff happen. Now, I also want to say at this point, you're probably wondering why we are so hype about being selfish and aside from the obvious. Right. It's important to take care of ourselves, to put ourselves first. I've co-founded a conference called Selfish Philly that Stephanie is going to be a part of. We are so excited about it. She's going to be sharing more of her expertise there. Look, we are going to be going to be real. We are going to have free facials. We're going to have free massages. We are going to have Philadelphia's best wellness resources. I'm like shaking my head because this is crazy. And not only that, incredible speakers. So we will be talking about. And here's the thing. We're also not to be talking about the easy stuff. We're gonna be talking about real stuff. We're gonna be talking about money. We're gonna be talking about pleasure. We're gonna be talking about the things that prevent us from becoming selfish, from being that person that puts ourself first. So it is going to be one of the biggest events, wellness events that Philadelphia has seen. I'm just so excited about it. So fun to be able to find more information. Here's what you're gonna do. You're going to click the link in the description. Or if you're watching on Insta, you're gonna click the link in our bio. All right. Thank you again, Stephanie, so much for coming on the show. We are so excited for you to meet everybody in person.
Stephanie
So necessary. And I hope you guys eventually continue it to so.
Carlee
All right. So this concludes this episode of the Stress Less Show. If you enjoyed this week's episode, let us know by giving us a big old thumbs up or hitting that follow and subscribe button. Thanks for listening. And we'll see you next week.