Tag Archive for: Career

Kelli Hill: Senior Director of Planning, Central Region, Wells Fargo Private Bank

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Kelli Hill

“In the moment, you might think that your path in life doesn’t seem clear. It might seem like it’s going in a direction that’s not what you had planned,” says Wells Fargo’s Kelli Hill, based in Minneapolis. “I’ve learned to go with it and have confidence that life will take you right where you need to be.”

From unexpected career and personal turns to crossing the finish line at an Ironman Triathlon, Hill shares on navigating towards growth and fulfillment.

Trusting A “Zig-Zagging” Career Track

“Prior to joining Wells Fargo over eight years ago, I would have described my career path as a bit of a zig-zag road. That’s the way that I thought of it.”

While at the University of Minnesota Law School, she wanted to become a public defender. But Hill remembers sitting in a tax class one day and turning to the student next to her and saying, “Isn’t this fantastic?” The reaction she received was quite the contrary.

That was the moment she suspected this might be the field for her.

Out of law school, Hill took a job in public accounting at Deloitte & Touche. She left Deloitte (now Deloitte Tax) to practice law and spent most of private law practice in the trust & estates and business transition planning groups at Minneapolis-based, Fredrikson & Byron, PA. She enjoyed the work, the firm and her colleagues, and was learning a lot, but felt like something was missing.

“I didn’t want to look back and say, ‘I was a successful attorney and worked at a terrific firm with so many talented colleagues, but was never really completely fulfilled.’” reflects Hill.

Hill left private law practice to run the tax, trust and legal group of a single-family office headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota.  It was during her time at the family office that Hill discovered the benefits and impact that having a financial plan and, specifically doing strategic wealth planning, can have on high net worth families.

When she joined Wells Fargo as a senior wealth planning strategist in 2012, she began to see congruency in the experiences she’d accumulated and where she was going, eventually rising to a Senior Director of Planning in Wealth Management.

“I thought to myself, ‘my entire career path has been tailor-made for this role and this experience,’” says Hill. “It was no longer a zig-zag to me.”

Working with Individuals and Families

What Hill loves most about her work in wealth management (and wealth planning, in particular) is supporting and advising clients on personal and financial decisions that are otherwise difficult to make, to greater outcomes than you might even imagine.

“As a professional, when you help somebody to make financial decisions, it has a qualitative impact that often far outweighs any tax dollars saved,” she says. “It can have such profound impacts on their lives and, when that happens, the appreciation and gratitude is overwhelming.”

As an exemplary moment of this, Hill recalls working with a family to transition their business to the next generation.  Her work led to conversations that, as a family, they had not previously been able to confront.

“We had this moment where they actually told each other how they felt about the business and their desired places in it,” remembers Hill, “I will never forget it.”  Beyond ultimately being able to identify solutions that enabled the family to achieve their financial goals, Hill recalls this moment and how important to the family their work together had become.

Being Open and Receptive to Mentorship

“I would not be in the position I am today without having had the benefit of supportive mentors and sponsors,” Hill attests. “I’ve worked with some pretty wonderful people in my career, especially while at Wells Fargo.  In fact, most of the mentors and sponsors with whom I’ve had the privilege of having were/are managers of mine.”

If you want to attain strong mentorship and sponsorship, whether you are the mentor or mentee, Hill recommends listening, being receptive and open, and most of all—being yourself.  Early in her career, Hill recalls a mentor saying to her “don’t try to fake it, people will know.”

“I always try to be open to feedback, even if it stings a little.  I want to continue to improve and work on my professional and personal development,” she notes. “The individuals who have become my mentors and sponsors have pointed out that my openness to feedback and focus on self-improvement are characteristics they enjoy most about working with me. The other is my being authentic, being me.”

Hill says her professional self is just who she is. These days, that includes embracing the realness of her seven year old daughter wanting to say hello to her colleagues on a Zoom call.

“This is me,” says Hill. “I always try to be my authentic self.  To really connect with people —your colleagues, your clients —you have to let them see you. I’ve learned that to be a great leader, it’s a good thing to be vulnerable, authentic, natural. To be you.”

Hill also recommends implementing the advice you receive.

“It’s one thing to solicit and ask for advice and guidance,” says Hill. “It’s another thing to actually take it, and I do my best to do so and will continue to.”

Growth Through Change And Adversity

On a personal level, Hill values personal growth through challenge as well as learning through making mistakes.

In her early thirties, she experienced an unexpected divorce that shook her world.

“I took the opportunity to work through a big change in my life very seriously,” says Hill. “I remember saying, ‘This is an opportunity for me to really figure out who I am.’ It impacted my life tremendously, it was traumatic—and yet I would do it all over again, every bump, every hurdle. My life experiences have helped shape who I am today and, as painful as some may have been to go through, I appreciate them all.”

In both personal and work life, Hill is aware the road of transition can be a time of discomfort and challenge, but keeps focused on the vision.

On an organizational level, Wells Fargo has embarked on an evolution to create greater consistency around bringing financial products, services and solutions to all clients through a more horizontal structure.  While the work will result in “a more effective and efficient organization for our clients and shareholders, the change can be challenging.”

“When we look back six months from now, we’ll see how we’ve transformed and know that it is right where we are supposed to be.” Hill tells her team.

Trusting Your Own Strength

Hill never for a moment doubted her own vision of being personally successful.  Though she came from a single-parent household with modest financial means, Hill is proud of being the first in her family to go to college and then on to law school, which was the beginning of her career path.

While recovering from that divorce years ago, she remembers a moment of personal empowerment that taught her she was capable of anything.

A few years into her career, she was a self-confessed coach potato who realized it was time to change. The first time she put on a pair of tennis shoes and ran a single mile, it took her 14 minutes. But she was thrilled.

Then, she was hooked—training up to participate in marathons and eventually an Ironman triathlon.

“I remember crossing the finish line of the Wisconsin Ironman and thinking, ‘There is nothing I can’t do’” beams Hill, who also met her husband through the triathlon community, with whom she is raising their daughter.

Her contagious enthusiasm has encouraged several others on the running path, and she keeps up a morning workout which she loves, though being a mom is now her number one priority.

Her favorite time with her daughter is bedtime reading. It began with she and her husband reading to their daughter when she was an infant and now it’s listening to their daughter read to them—and Hill wouldn’t trade it for any finish line, not these days.

Abbot Downing, a Wells Fargo business, offers products and services through Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. and its various affiliates and subsidiaries. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. is a bank affiliate of Wells Fargo & Company.

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Andrea Mygrant; Managing Director, Major Accounts; FIS Global

Andrea Mygrant While hard work is important, there’s another key predictor of professional success, says FIS Global’s Andrea Mygrant, and that’s the importance of your network.

“I saw that it was vital early in my career to make sure I had a great mentor who guided me  to prioritize meeting everyone I could—both within my firm and externally with clients—and then to keep in touch.” As she notes, it’s a small community and industry, and she has frequently seen people who have circled back into her life. “They have helped me build new relationships and boosted my progression,” she notes, adding that not everyone realizes how important it is to focus on building that strong network early on to help open doors throughout your career.

Client Service at the Core

Although Mygrant was pursuing a pre-vet track in college, she changed directions after an internship at financial services firm Brown Brothers Harriman which was her first time working in fintech and with clients.

Working at a global custodian firm like that provided an important perspective on how the entire industry worked, thus kicking off her new career path. Ever since, she’s been focused on client relationships, up to her current role where she builds those relationships at an executive level.

With an insatiable curiosity, Mygrant has always looked forward to the next big thing as there’s always something innovative happening in this space. Just recently she helped a large client she’s partnered with over the past two years successfully launch a complex, integrated solution.

“It had very high visibility in the organization.They were looking for a solution of different products to link together using tools that hadn’t been deployed in conjunction before,” Mygrant explains. “We were able to jointly put together the pieces, thus fulfilling a complicated deal with a lot of moving parts and unknowns.” They achieved a successful go live in January 2020. “I’m really proud that we were able to build something brand new that was important for them to be successful, resulting in such a satisfied client.”

In an industry that’s always changing, she’s currently observing the new “blurry lines” separating pure technology firms that are veering into territory occupied by financial institutions. “I’m watching big companies like Amazon or Google and seeing what they will do going forward. It’s vital to be quick to market, and they have the resources to do that.”

Giving Women the Support to Be Successful

As a new mom, Mygrant has been particularly focused on new challenges she’s encountered by being a working mom in the finance industry. Of course, she realizes that many things have improved over the past decade, from extended maternity or paternity leave to funding for IVF to the ability to ship milk when you travel. But here are still disparities—such as the fact that there might be a space set aside to pump, but it’s not always comfortable or convenient. And while some states are improving laws and implementing steps forward, she believes that it’s up to senior women in the workforce to help get the message heard throughout organizations. “Having key programs and options in place makes people want to come back,” she notes. “Support your employees and they’ll be loyal.”

Another way Mygrant sees that companies should support their employees is through robust mentorship programs. “I can’t emphasize enough how much my mentors molded and shaped me in the right way early in my career.” She now pays it forward to other women in her organization but is well aware that in a cost-cutting environment, formal programs may become downscaled or vanish. And that’s a shame she says, since helping guide young professionals is a huge win for companies.

Her advice to newer talent is to never be afraid to ask for what they need or to take chances. “The worst that can happen is that someone says no.” You will never feel 100% confident about something new and so you have to go for it.”

Baking as Relaxation

While free time is at a premium with a young child, Mygrant is still able to indulge in one of her biggest passions—baking. She is a member of a cookbook club and a baking club, and every year around the holidays, which also coincides with her birthday, she takes two days off and bakes upwards of 30 items for a huge holiday party and as gifts for friends. “Baking is a fantastic way to relieve stress and remove yourself from a job that today is a 24-hour endeavor, given all the ways we are connected. It’s a huge relief to do something I enjoy, and at the same time, it allows me to give back to my friends.”

 

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Why Less Is More: Advice for Female Overachievers Everywhere

Women-Cheering-featured

By Aimee Hansen

With the recent International Women’s Day 2019 mantra being #Balanceforbetter, we have proof that giving less of yourself at work could be the best move for you and your career.

Being overly conscientious and accommodating in your work approach – which women are far more likely to be – may diffuse your energy and impact, without helping you advance in the office.

Overcoming the compulsion to overwork is about more than being mentally strategic and discerning with the work you do, though changing behaviors can change beliefs. The hardest part of choosing not to do too much may be riding through the emotional discomfort of not being as overly conscientious as you’re used to.

As girls and women, we’ve come to believe we have to work very hard not even to get ahead, but just to stay safe.

What did we really learn as girls at school?

“What if those same habits that propel girls to the top of their class — their hyper-conscientiousness about schoolwork — also hold them back in the work force?” writes Dr. Lisa Damour in the New York Times.

At school age, girls have the edge on performance and they also work harder, have greater discipline and perform better. Damour finds that girls are more likely to grind away and to leave as little as possible room for error. Anecdotally, it’s observed that boys are more likely to up their game if something slips, while girls are less likely to allow the possibility of slippage, holding the energy of maximum effort.

Damour writes, “We need to ask: What if school is a confidence factory for our sons, but only a competence factory for our daughters?” She asserts that with girls, we need to stop applauding ‘inefficient overwork’ and start rewarding ‘economy of effort’.

Part of this is encouraging girls to acknowledge how much they already know and then where to focus their mastery building, as opposed to only building up capacity for work. The confidence gap and stress gap between genders is only widened when girls and women put disproportionate stock in their ability to work extra hard, as opposed to their innate abilities to deliver good results.

We think we have to work harder (and we do) at work.

A study designed to monitor the impact of privacy filters on productivity at 3M also verified the suspicion that women employees work harder. “During a ten minute experimental trial, female employees worked longer without (2.5 minutes vs 2.1 minutes) or with (4.9 minutes vs 4.3 minutes) a privacy filter. 52 percent of male workers walked away during a waiting period while only 38 present of women did.

Across three decades of studies, professional women in both Britain and the United States are also significantly more likely than male peers to agree to the statement “My job requires that I work very hard.”

“Between a man and a woman who hold the same job, shoulder the same burdens at home and have the same education and skills, the woman is likely to feel she must work harder,“ said co-researcher and sociologist Elizabeth Gorman.

The researchers speculate that “the association between gender and reported required work effort is best interpreted as reflecting stricter performance standards imposed on women, even when women and men hold the same jobs.”

Being too conscientious adds up to emotional exhaustion.

Women tend to experience more stress in the workplace – and a UK survey found up to 67% higher stress levels for women between 34 and 44 compared to men.

Research on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) explored five types of behavior for impact on individual well-being: “altruism (helping a colleague), conscientiousness (going beyond the minimum), civic virtue (involvement in the organisation), courtesy (avoiding work-related problems with others) and sportsmanship (tolerating inconveniences and impositions of work).”

The research showed that employees who regularly put in hours and effort beyond the call of duty experience more emotional exhaustion and work-family conflict – especially for those who carry out responsibilities at a high level.

The study also found “employees who already performed well in their job and had a high level of conscientiousness also suffered significantly higher emotional exhaustion and work-family conflict. Those who exerted greater effort in their work and family roles, with a general sense of not wanting to let people down, found they had little left in reserve, increasing the challenges of balancing work with a healthy family life.”

Doing well at work, not surprisingly, leads to more work: “Managers are prone to delegate more tasks and responsibilities to conscientious employees who are likely to try to maintain consistently high levels of output.”

If you get hooked to hyper-conscientiousness as your success card, you’ll feel you have to keep it going, even when it grows.

What if we just cared less?

Beyond the external demands, clinical psychologist Dr Jessamy Hibberd, co-author of This Book Will Make You Calm, notes the internal demands that we create for ourselves on top of external demands. “These are the pressures you place on yourself,” Hibberd told The Guardian. “For example, checking and rechecking work, spending too long on each task, taking work home and setting excessively high standards.”

As Lauren Bravo writes in the same piece, “As promising students we were told ‘aim high! Join in! You can do anything!’ – but nobody thought to mention we could also aim lower, opt out or do exactly what our pay cheque required and no more.”

“The happiest people at work seem to be the ones who don’t care as much,” writes Bravo, “they might just be on to something.”

How do to less and more.

University of California, Berkeley professor and author of Great at Work, says our approach to work is “broken.” He said to Forbes, “We pursue a paradigm of ‘more is better’ — but more hours doesn’t lead to better performance. And it leads to worse work/life balance.’”

From a survey on what really drives performance, Hansen found some secrets behind doing less to create more impact:

Do Fewer Things: Top performers are very selective in what they do and don’t scatter their efforts too much across too many tasks or too many meetings. Hansen says, “It’s counterintuitive. It’s not how much you can get done in a day, but how few things you have to do in order to excel.”

Sarah Knight, author of “The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**k,” encourages us to declutter our mind and care less. She also suggests ditching corporate formalities like conference calls, when the time can be used more productively.

Push Back: If you’re asked to stretch yourself across too many things, Hansen suggests pushing for prioritization. “Say: ‘You asked me to do two things last week and now you’re asking for a third. Which should I prioritize? I can do all three, but it won’t be high-quality work.’ You’re not saying ‘I don’t want to do it.’ This requires some courage and tact.” Another tip: Say no to additional responsibilities with low visibility that won’t truly advance you.

“Do Less, Then Obsess”: Hansen suggests to do less tasks, but put attention into doing the things you commit to with excellence. Take time putting the attention into the details and making the work you commit to high quality. Do less, and do it better.

Women have been devalued in the workplace. You can stop devaluing yourself by finding ways to trim away the work that’s draining your energy more than its advancing you towards your own career desires.

Author Bio:

Aimee Hansen is a writer here at theglasshammer.com.

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Voice of Experience: Beth Renner, National Director of Philanthropic Services, Wells Fargo Private Bank

Beth Renner featured
As a mentor, Beth Renner knows that women often need to find their voice—and when they do, it can be a powerful booster charge to their career.

As she recounts, she was recently working with a long-term mentee who had finally applied for a position. When Renner had asked why she had hesitated, the mentee said she believed she didn’t have the entire skill set, but as they walked through the skill set and experience, it became clear that the position was a perfect fit. “Sometimes the biggest challenge is the messages we tell ourselves.”

Finding the Ideal Niche to Blend Personal and Professional Interests

Renner’s clear confident voice has brought her a 28-year career in the financial services industry, during which she has essentially touched every part of a financial services company. She started on the retail bank side as a personal banker; then was a credit officer with a small business lender; went into the fiduciary side as a private banker and trust manager, where she subsequently oversaw the fiduciary investment and brokerage side; and for the past eight years has worked in philanthropic services, where she currently has $26 billion in charitable assets under management for clients.

“The lifeblood of our business is the advice we provide our clients around their donations and assisting nonprofits in making sure they are sustainable,” Renner explains. Having always been personally involved in charitable work with both her time and treasure, the chance to marry that in her professional life is the achievement of which she’s most proud.

“For me it’s not about achieving a certification or designation, but about what I do every day, and I’ve really found a home for myself in this area that allows me to align my personal and professional values,” she says.

A Sea Change in the Philanthropic World

As the country prepares for an impending generational “wealth transfer,” Renner finds several themes consistently emerging. First, as a matriarch or patriarch who is naturally at the maturing point is engaging in legacy planning, they are asking how they can ensure that their values will be represented. The goal is to engage multiple generations from the family in their philanthropic pursuits.

Others are wrestling with the question of how much to leave their kids and wondering how to engage philanthropy as a tool to stave off entitlement.

“Donors are viewing themselves as an investor in these causes more than ever before, and we are adjusting the advice we provide them to create a more disciplined process.” To that end, she has helped develop a series of philanthropic planning modules that they are currently honing through focus groups, and she looks forward to rolling them out. “It’s a pleasure to be able to work more deliberately on these issues and adjust our business to how our clients are telling us they need counsel.”

Renner has become attuned to the absolute value of listening with intention and mindfulness which is helping inform this new initiative. When her father passed away shortly after she turned 50, she hit a point of reflection. “It causes you to look at things differently, and one of the things that has stuck with me is the art of listening and how it helps you understand others and yourself. Being mindful means that if I’m in a situation where I’m listening to clients or my team and find myself having an internal reaction, it spurs me to dig deeper to figure out where it’s coming from.”

Finding a Mentor Helps Your Career Path

One thing Renner learned from her mentor early on in her career was to focus on developing transferrable skills. For example, you don’t just want to be an expert in credit analysis, but you need to know how to solve complex problems. “In any position, consider what skills you can learn that you don’t yet have or want to cultivate,” she says.

And today she encourages women to be intentional about mentoring other women. “Don’t wait to be asked; when you see someone with potential, proactively reach out to them,” she suggests. That’s because we all are a collection of our past experiences and to give someone that gift of your accumulated knowledge will allow them to make progress faster.

She takes that outlook to her work on Wells Fargo’s Women’s Team Member Network, a diversity and inclusion employee resource group she finds valuable for its focus on broadening everyone’s lens around diversity and how to foster and develop it.

Her outside philanthropic pursuits are a perfect match for her professional life: She is absolutely passionate about the American Red Cross, and is the national chair of the women’s giving group called the Tiffany Circle. The group has flourished in five different countries, and in her role she helps develop the strategy around mobilizing this women’s segment. “A lot of the work I do at Wells Fargo helps the Red Cross with their fundraising and stewardship because I can share national trends and the emerging role that women are playing in philanthropy,” Renner says.

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Taking an Early Career Setback into an Opportunity

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Career setback, opportunity
For many, a career setback does not come strictly by being fired or laid off although.

As a woman in business, there also are subtle ways you may experience bumps in the road. Maybe you were just passed up for a promotion or you are coming back from maternity leave to find the company’s culture has changed for the worse. No matter what kind of setback you’re experiencing, here are a few steps to turn your negative experience into an opportunity for career growth.

Make Financial Independence a Goal

When you experience a setback, start working toward financial independence. To be able to make a move to a new company, city, to work for yourself, or going back to school, you’ll need to have money saved. If it’s possible to stay in your current job for a little longer to add to your savings, do so and bide your time. Even though you may be ready to move on, hold on while collecting your regular paycheck.

But remember, don’t stay too long if you’re not mentally prepared for the work ahead of you. If you’re not operating at your best, those around you will notice. Leave a great impression on your colleagues when you finally depart, because you never know when your paths may cross again in the workplace.

If you’re ready to leave or have been fired, take steps immediately to stabilize your financial situation. Even if you can afford your current lifestyle, cut back on those little expenses that add up. Especially if you have less than 6 months’ expenses saved up, take every precaution to use those savings sparingly until you’re back on your feet.

Keep A Positive Attitude

Just because you’ve experienced one setback doesn’t mean you can’t accomplish your goals. Find some time for yourself to take do a little self-care to put your mind in a healthy place. Operating at your best is an important step to being able to tackle the next opportunity head on. You are your best ally, and it’s key to take good care of yourself.

Find Mentors

Having other driven and successful women on your side is an invaluable resource. Reach out to women in your field who have achieved your goals or that you want to emulate. You would be surprised how each person’s path to success varies greatly. Join a professionals group in your field, especially one for women. There are other women out there that understand the unique challenges you may face in the workplace and how to navigate those successfully.

Remember, you won’t want to ask your current peers or supervisors for recommendations if you’re trying to apply for other jobs quietly. If your employer learns you’re leaving before you have an offer in hand, you may be seen as less committed or lose valuable leverage for negotiating. Having mentors outside of your current company helps you have additional flexibility when asking for references, testimonials, and letters of recommendations.

Add To Your Resume

Find opportunities to collect your resume and portfolio assets while you still work for your current organization. You might lose access to some of these projects when you leave. Take an inventory of what you’ve accomplished and save anything you can legally use for your future. Depending on your current employee handbook and contract, be aware that there may be some proprietary information you cannot leverage for a resume. However, save everything else that you can because you never know what may be useful in a future job.

While volunteer experiences won’t directly benefit you financially, you can learn a lot from volunteering and add valuable interest points to your resume. Employers love seeing that a potential candidate is engaged in the community because they are better equipped to create a positive culture in the workplace. Find a volunteer opportunity that is directly applicable to your career, and you may find connections to other people who are in your field.

Get Organized

If you are working towards specific career goals, break it down into manageable pieces. When you set a lofty goal, it can seem too far away to accomplish in the short term and it may become overwhelming. By giving yourself a roadmap to success, it’s much easier to visualize the path you need to take and show each step with the final intention in mind.

In addition, write a list of what you like and don’t like about your career. How can things be better? What type of company do you want to work for? By answering these questions, you know what to ask your next interviewer to get to the heart of their organization.

When you ask the right questions in an interview, it quickly sheds insight on how the organization operates and where the potential problems may lay. Simply asking “What is your culture like?” doesn’t give you everything you need to know about a new company. Instead, ask questions like “do you feel like you have the resources you need for success?” If you’re looking for a job where you feel more supported, this question will open an honest conversation with the interviewer about those attributes.

Check out the infographic below for some more tips on how to deal with career setbacks from entrepreneurs, investors, and creative minds.

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6 Ways to Mentor Others to Change their Trajectory and Yours!

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women working mentoring
In all great ‘mentor-mentee’ relationships, both lives are changed for the better.

As a mentor, not only can you share your experience to benefit another, you also gain from their unique perspectives and insights that differ to yours. Mentoring is a two-way street where, if maximized, can contribute to both you and your mentee’s growth and success in surprising ways.
If you desire to create successful mentoring relationships, here are six essential “do’s” and “don’ts”:

Tip 1: Don’t advise

Considering the traditional meaning of mentor is “advisor,” shouldn’t the one thing a mentor definitely be doing, is giving advice? Sharing your experiences and making suggestions is not a bad thing, but a truly empowering mentor knows that what creates more than giving someone an answer, is asking them questions. Asking questions allows you to invite the unique leadership capacities of another to come to the fore, rather than mirroring yours.

What if it was never about getting someone to do it your way? Even when someone comes to you for advice, ask them simple questions like, “What do you know about this?” “What are you aware of that’s required here?” and begin empowering them to find their own way.

Tip 2: Do Inspire

Inspiring others is ten thousand times more effective than advising them. By you not holding yourself back from being successful, being committed to never giving in and never giving up – and going for it with the speed, perseverance and determination you do – you become an inspiration for others to go as well.

Inspiring rather than advising also helps you avoid the trap of trying to get people to become more than they are willing to be. Most times, you want more for other people than they want for themselves. Trying to be the motor for people that don’t want to go takes a lot of energy and doesn’t lead anywhere.

Put your energy towards those you know can and will go further. Ask yourself: What unstoppable greatness can I choose to be to inspire others? Who can receive my contribution? Who is willing to be successful? Asking these questions will make you aware of those who can go and those who can’t and where you can make the greatest difference.

Tip 3: Don’t set goals

Particularly in a business mentoring relationship, the expectation is for the person you mentor to succeed by setting goals and attaining them with your help. The danger of setting goals however, is clearly indicated in the origin of the word, meaning “gaol” (a limit or boundary). With goals, your sights are fixed on an outcome. You become hyper-focused and invested in that result, excluding any new information that potentially threatens it – even if it would mean a change for the better.

Do set targets

Instead of identifying fixed goals, create broader targets of what you would like to achieve. Unlike goals, Targets are movable and more flexible. You can shoot at them numerous times and you can adapt and change them. As you create a project or run a business, you have to be open to constant change and re-evaluating your targets to match the next level of where you want to go.
Ask yourself every day: What is my target? Is it still relevant, or do I need to change it? Adaptability is a highly desired and required leadership skill. By setting targets in your mentoring relationships, you will increase your ability to use adaptability to create greater than expected.

Tip 4: Don’t visualize

Visualizing is great, but it has one big limitation: your mind. When you visualize, you can only see as far as your brain’s capacity to visualize things. It cannot go beyond that. And there is much more available than what your mind can come up with!

Tip 5:Do actualize

Actualizing is not just about visualizing or talking about what you desire, but making it show up in physical reality. Trajectory change occurs when you actualize beyond what you can visualize, and it starts with a question. Ask: What can I truly create that is far greater than I can imagine? What steps can I take today so that what I am asking for can come to fruition? What action is required for this to actualize?

A question takes you beyond your mind and imagination. It takes you beyond definitions – definitions of success, of what is possible for you, your business, or another person. Definition by definition alone is a limitation. If you don’t define your future, your success, your capacities – there are no limits to what you can achieve.

Don’t forget to allow mentoring to be easy! Successful mentoring should not be all about what you do, but about what you choose to be in the world and with others that creates the future you would like to see.

Guest Contributions are not necessarily representative of theglasshammer.com’s views. We have no formal or informal connection with our guest contributors.

About the author

Susanna Mittermaier is a psychologist, psychotherapist and author of the #1 international bestselling book, “Pragmatic Psychology: Practical Tools for Being Crazy Happy.”  A sought after public speaker, Susanna has been featured in magazines such as TV soap, Women’s Weekly, Empowerment Channel Voice America, Om Times, Motherpedia, Newstalk New Zealand and Holistic Bliss. Susanna offers a new paradigm of therapy called Pragmatic Psychology and is known for her ability to transform people’s problems and difficulties into possibilities and powerful choices. Follow on Twitter @AccessSusanna.

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3 Easy Ways to Know What Job You Want to Do Next

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By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Staying in the job, after the love has gone?

We have all done it, we have all stayed in a position at work that just did not excite us anymore on any level. The reasons that keep us there can vary but more often than not, it is a combination of wanting the security/ money and not believing that there is a better situation out there for us. Confidence, or lack of it for people who have never had a confidence issue before, can be very daunting.

It is normal to ask yourself, ‘But what would i do?’

The answer to that question is very personal and individual but in broad strokes my bet is that you could do a range of things inside or outside of your current firm and even industry.

Isn’t it time to do what you want to do? I mean, you probably have more skills than you give yourself credit for and probably most of them are entirely transferable.

Here are 3 steps to get closer to your ideal job.

1. Make a list of what you like doing
2. Then make a list of what you do not like doing
3. Make a list of the tasks you would be doing in a more ideal situation 12 months from now.

I am mentioning tasks, because often we talk about roles or responsibilities instead of tasks. Roles like, I want to manage people doesn’t actually define what is your task or the tasks they are doing that you will be responsible for, so go granular in this exercise.

What comes out of this simple exercise for you?

If you want to work with an executive coach on this and and then the advanced exercises that will take you to your next job, contact nicki@theglasshammer.com

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Time to look for a new job

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By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

So you figured out that you need a new job!

There are many ways to start a job search yet sometimes it can seem so daunting to start the process.

There are general strategies to job hunting, such as if you know vaguely the target companies that you would like to interview with then start investigating the opportunities there. LinkedIn is a great way to see if you know anyone directly or indirectly at your preferred firms and a good place to start is to mine your current network to build your future one. Apply to job postings but know that any personal connection will probably help you so it is worth checking your network and refreshing your relationships with coffees and lunch with influencers and mentors.

What people don’t tell you is that what you will want to do in the hunt matters. What you tell yourself and your own perceptions of yourself will also matter as does your confidence and level of extroversion.

If you don’t know what is next, it is worth working with a coach ( such as myself and the vetted coaches who partner with theglasshammer) to help you refine what is the next stage of your career and help you secure the job you want, whether it is within your current industry or perhaps a pivot into something new altogether?

Contact nicki@theglasshammer.com is you would like to hire an executive coach to help you navigate the path to optimal personal success at work.

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Doing the work of others

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By Nicki Gilmour, Organizational Psychologist and Executive Coach

What are you recognized and rewarded for?

How does what you are supposed to be doing and get paid for, stack up against the other stuff that just creeps in? Task creep as its known happens to most of us, but in excess it can stop you from optimally performing,make you tired and stop you from getting to your real work.

Think about what your job is supposed to be as defined by your boss, your year end review criteria and the job spec and then think all the other things that happen 9-5 beside the official stuff. Be a team player by all means but learn to recognize systemic dysfunction.

Make a list of what you do every day for a period of a week to see what is officially within your remit and what creeps in there. It might be illuminating to see how you are paid for driving the train but also at times asked to lay the track, clean the engine etc which is time consuming and often not conducive to your time management or skill set.

Contact nicki@glasshammer2.wpengine.com is you would like to hire an executive coach to help you navigate the path to optimal personal success at work.

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Not to Be Missed Articles

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Did you miss these popular articles?

Take a look at the articles below previously published on theglasshammer:

The Long Hours Game

By Aimee Hansen

The 24/7 hour work week marches on and on. The get up and go and keep on going. The long hours game. We all do it from time to time.

How can you have a healthy, sustainable lifestyle and build your career?

The action-packed day of the executive continues to be a glorified image of leadership, and arguably one that is dangerously unsustainable and at best questionable in effectiveness. At theglasshammer, we’ve covered how the 24/7 work week is not only disastrous for gender equality on a whole, but also diminishes your personal leadership effectiveness and your health.

Read more here

Motivating Millennial Lawyers: More About Possibility Than Precedent

By Aimee Hansen

“Millennials bring new ideas and expectations to the workplace, as did the generations before them,” states a 2016 Thomson-Reuters report on The Generational Shift in Legal Departments. But, as the story goes, senior lawyers are resisting those changes.

By 2025, Millennials will comprise 75% of the workforce. The real question is not if change will happen, but how it will unfold.

What Do Millennials Want?

Millennials work preferences are characterized as valuing mentorship (vs bossing) and collaboration (vs hierarchy), wishing to be involved in processes and decision-making, receiving regular feedback, having opportunities for growth, working for a firm that aligns to their values, and desiring work/life flexibility.

According to an article in the National Law Review, managing Millennials “means an almost 180-degree change in the way associates have been managed in the past.”

Read more here

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