Career Management

We Are the Stories We Sell Ourselves

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By Wendy Terwelp, Author, Speaker, Executive Coach

“Who are we but the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves, and believe?” —Scott Turow, “Ordinary Heroes.”

In fact, we sell ourselves on these stories, even when they are not true, are outdated, unfounded, and easily rewritten. And these negative stories can be tremendously detrimental to our careers.

What do these stories sound like?

I’m too… busy, overqualified, under-qualified, old, young, shy, ashamed I lost my job…

I can’t because… it’s not the right time, I’m not ready, I won’t know anyone, my childhood was terrible, I have health issues, I can’t afford it, I’m a CEO and it’s uncomfortable for me to ask for help…

They… won’t let me, won’t reimburse me, said I couldn’t, said so, said it’s not in the budget, said I’m too…

Do any of these phrases resonate with you?

Take a closer look at what’s impeding your progress. How real are these stories you’re selling yourself? Are they still relevant? What is the real truth?

Break them down and kick these stories you’ve sold yourself to the curb.

Uncover the truth.

One executive told me she couldn’t get advanced training because “they won’t let me.”

“What’s the real truth?” I asked her. “They won’t let me” was not the truth because, as I’d coached others at her company who had earned advanced degrees.

“I don’t have the time and they won’t reimburse me,” she said.

“How bad do you want it?” I asked. This training would benefit my client’s ultimate career goal and add leverage toward a promotion.

She thought about things for a while and said, “You’re right. I really do want it. I guess I can make the time and I can write off the training on my taxes, so I’m really not out that much.”

Bottom line, my client made the choice to earn the new designation and, through our coaching work, won a promotion and salary bump with her current employer.

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our stories, and how we believe in them, can hold us back or drive us forward.

An engineer was downsized after 20+ years. It was devastating and he was angry about the situation. Additionally, relatives told him he was too old and shouldn’t have too high of expectations in getting another management job at his age.

Through our coaching work, he decided it was best to move forward, leaving anger and resentment behind.

He was less concerned than his relatives were about his age, and the action step was to see those relatives less often, while in career search mode. His new attitude and proactive approach enabled him to dive in and learn new ways to search for a new gig. He got more comfortable with social media and made many connections on LinkedIn. He also picked up the phone and revived his network.

Result? He landed several interviews — and offers. He could choose which offer to accept. He chose a role that was not only a higher-level position and salary than before, but the new employer, a global company, offered him more opportunities for ongoing career growth.

Despite what happened to us in our past, we are still here.

We can rewrite our stories.

In “How to Rewire Your Brain for Success,” author Geoffrey James wrote, “Rather than video playback, human memory is more like video editing. When you remember something you are recreating, changing, and re-memorizing. The memory is subject to change every time you remember it.”

That means you can edit your bad memories and strengthen your good memories. You can rewrite your stories.

Two ways to start building your new stories: 1) Keep a career success journal or “Me File.” Start tracking your hits – both personal and professional. 2) Track what you are thankful and grateful for each day. Some days it might be as simple as, “I’m thankful I woke up on time today – High Five! No snooze button.” Other days it might be, “Wow! I am so grateful I got rave reviews after my Zoom presentation today!” Identify and document at least one hit/success and one grateful/thankful-for item each day. (More is better.)

Work on creating your new story, a story that reflects how you wish to be known now. You’ve got this!

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© 2014 – 2021 Wendy Terwelp | All rights reserved. | Wendy Terwelp is the founder of Opportunity Knocks and author of Rock Your Network®. She was named one of Quintessential Careers’ Top 15 Career Masterminds and her Infoline, “Jumpstart Your Job Search and Get Hired Faster” was included in the Association for Talent Development’s “Best on Career Development” anthology. Wendy was also named in Inc. magazine’s “Top 10 Career Helps.” Are you ready for your next big gig? Want to up-level your career? Reach out to Wendy at www.knocks.com/coaching today!

A version of this article first appeared in Quintessential Career’s 2014 Job Action Day.

6 Tips to Create a Networking Plan that Works

Wendy Terwelp 1 Comment

Would you like to get more results when you network? Here’s how to create a networking plan that works:

1. Schedule a regular time each week to network. Without a plan, we all get busy, and suddenly, when we need it most, our network is outdated or scattered. By scheduling regular time in your calendar to network, it not only gets done, but you’ll feel more confident and comfortable in networking situations, avoid binge-watching your fave show, and meet people who want to help you propel your career. People want to help you and see you succeed.

Think about how you feel when you help others, whether it’s recommending a favorite restaurant or referring someone to your preferred service provider, like a financial advisor, lawyer, career coach, or other service.

2. Schedule 10 minutes each day to use social media. I say 10 minutes or you’ll end up down the internet rabbit hole. Determine what actions you’ll take online. Here are a few to try: status updates, relevant links that demonstrate your thought leadership, and quick emails to those who’ve updated their statuses with wins. For example, if you read your LinkedIn notifications and a friend has landed a new position or received an award, send her a brief congratulatory note.

3. Determine which offline, in-person groups you will join and how often they meet. Take an active role in the organization, such serving as the chapter ambassador. This helps you meet more people and overcome some of the jitters of being in a new group. Click here for ideas on which groups to join.

4. Set networking goals for yourself. For example, when attending a new group, set a goal to meet three new people. Three people who need to know about you based on your career or business goals. Write this goal in your calendar where you’ve scheduled the meeting.

5. Prepare and rehearse your sound bite. Networking can take place any time, any where. Be prepared.

6. Update your network regularly with the action steps you’ve taken. If a friend referred you to a contact and you set up an informational interview, let your friend know that you made the connection and got results.

You’ve got to fuel your network to fire it up! Scheduling networking activities makes your network thrive. And regular contact with those in your network will help you achieve your career goals much faster.

Want more networking tips? Check out Rock Your Network®, the book.

Copyright 1998-2019 Wendy Terwelp | All rights reserved.

Wendy Terwelp, author of Rock Your Network®, writes, speaks, and coaches on career management, networking, social media, and personal branding. Need a speaker for your association, company or private coaching to rock your career? Let’s talk!

How to Use Social Media to Boost Your Personal Brand

Wendy Terwelp 4 Comments

Personal branding on social media can feel overwhelming for some professionals and consultants. Maybe you’ve struggled with it, too.

You want to be warm and approachable, but you don’t want to overshare. You want to be professional and polished, but you don’t want to be thought of as the boring guest at the cocktail party.

Decide How You Want to be Known

The first thing to do when using social media to uplevel your personal brand is to decide how you want to be known.

Pick one to three subjects you’d like to focus on, so you become THE Expert in those subject areas. And they should be things you’re excited about because you’ll be sharing and writing about these topics for some time in order to become known as a Subject Matter Expert.

Choose Your Networks

You can have a profile on every social network if you want. But most professionals and consultants find their clients and cohorts stick to one or two social networks, depending on their industry or profession. If you’re in the training and development field, you’ll find Twitter and LinkedIn are traction builders. For someone in leadership at a design firm, you might find Facebook and Instagram are where your best clients hang out.

If you’re in a tech-related field, you might notice your community prefers Reddit instead. Don’t stress about this. Simply pick the two social networks where you get the most traction. These two social networks are ones to update daily.

Keep Your Social Media Profiles Consistent

Review your profiles on all your social media channels. Would someone who’s not familiar with your brand be able to tell you’re the same person? If not, it’s time to align your social media accounts. You’ll want to use the same profile picture, bio, and header image across all your social platforms. This makes it easy for visitors to recognize your brand, regardless of the social network they’re using.

Post Frequently

Maintain an active profile on the most popular social networks in your industry – and your target audience, those people who need to know about you. Some networks are better for posting multiple times a day (like Twitter), while for others posting only 2-3 times a day (or a week) works better. This is another reason you want to choose only one to three platforms; activity helps you gain traction with your target audience. And you want to be able to effectively manage the social media channels you choose.

A dormant account can negatively impact your online brand.

To determine the best posting frequency, run a few short experiments. This will help you discover how frequently you should post and what times work best for your followers.

If you’re not sure what to post, follow the 4 out of 5 rule. This rule means posting 4 pieces of content that are useful to your audience for every 1 piece of promotional content. Don’t be afraid to promote great content to your followers, even if you didn’t write it. When you’re the one that shares the latest news in your industry, followers will view you as the go-to source on trends and news in your industry. Curating great content counts.

Join Communities

Once you gain some traction on social media with your personal brand, look for communities of like-minded professionals or your ideal client tribe. Facebook and LinkedIn have groups. Twitter has lists and chats, like #lrnchat for learning pros and #TwitterSmarter and #SocialROI for social media fans. But they all mean pretty much the same thing – they’re an online gathering of people around one central subject, whether that subject is learning and development, social media, HR, healthcare, etc.

The great thing about groups is that they give you a chance to form connections with other members and give them value. It’s also an easy way to do customer research and create your own professional learning network. You can discover what questions your audience frequently asks, what they struggle with, and what they would love to know more about.

Using social media to brand yourself and enhance your online reputation is a smart idea. Just remember to post and share valuable content that benefits your target audience.

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Wendy Terwelp is an award-winning career expert and personal branding strategist who works with high-performing leaders and organizations who want to advance careers, rock networks, and up-level their brands online and off. Click the link to get your free personal brand self-assessment.

© Wendy Terwelp / www.knocks.com / All rights reserved. / Updated 2023.

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Owning Your Personal Brand Starts with YOU

Wendy Terwelp 3 Comments

When it comes to designing your personal brand, it’s essential to understand yourself. If you don’t, you can’t possibly represent your best self to your ideal clients and others who need to know about you, like colleagues, cohorts, and coworkers. You need to know how you’re wired and be able to communicate this effectively. From there, people will choose whether to work with you or not based on what you’ve shared about yourself.

Understand how others see you.

Do you know how others see you and how you come across at work? If not, take a survey. Ask friends, family, colleagues, coworkers, managers, and others whom you trust what they think your top five skills are and the top three words that come to mind when they think of you.  

By knowing who you are, what you want, and what makes you unique, you will be able to clearly communicate your goals and unique value to people in your network, whether they’re internal people from other departments, potential clients, or potential employers.

Consider your top priorities.

Your top priorities can help you design your personal brand and attract your ideal client or other professionals who need to know about you to help you advance your career. One healthcare executive I coached regularly posts photos of her marathons, family, and speaking engagements. This shows she has a solid work/life balance with a focus on health, and can easily wow an audience. Ideal positioning to attract leadership opportunities in healthcare, her target audience. She landed a senior leadership role with a major healthcare organization and was also elected to chair a board with her professional association.

By sharing her interests and values online and off, she’s attracted people and organizations with similar values, which helped advance her career. (That and a stellar work history with bottom-line results.)

Choose your career goals.

Choosing your career focus is an important part of your personal brand. When you love what you do, that enthusiasm is going to shine through to your potential clients and other professionals in alignment with your brand – and your career – and attract them to you. As a result, people will be eager to work with you.

Before you decide on your career focus, it can be helpful to consider other jobs you’ve worked. What did you enjoy doing—presentations, leading others, teaching, etc.? What did you hate doing—researching, administrative tasks, etc.? When you know what you enjoy, you can fill your business and career with more of those tasks. As for the tasks you hate, consider delegating or outsourcing them to someone who enjoys them.

Own your experience.

There are many ways you can show your expertise. Maybe you’ve been quoted in a popular trade magazine, news media, or well-known website. Maybe you’ve been thanked for your insight or your help with a difficult project. Ask for recommendations about your work on LinkedIn or, with permission, display your recommendations and testimonials on your website or blog.

Don’t be afraid to let your personality shine through your work. Enhancing and owning your personal brand can help you create a career you’ll love for years to come.

For more help up-leveling your personal brand to attract right-fit opportunities to you, book a complimentary Clarity Call with me and we’ll discuss your career, goals, and next steps. If your organization wants to up-level career mobility with your personnel and attract top talent, check out my online and in-person programs.

© Wendy Terwelp / www.knocks.com / All rights reserved.

Wendy Terwelp is an award-winning career expert and personal branding strategist who works with high-performing leaders and organizations who want to advance careers, rock networks, and up-level their brands online and off. Follow her @wendyterwelp.

Personal Brands are Portable

Wendy Terwelp 1 Comment

“No matter where you go, there you are.” —The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (motion picture) (1984).

And everywhere you go, your online reputation follows.

If you haven’t searched your name online recently, do so. Put your name in quotes, like this “Wendy Terwelp,” to narrow the search parameters.

Next, use these questions to assess your online brand and visibility:

Your Social Media Profiles: Have you chosen the right social media networks for your target audience? Do your social media profiles contain a current professional photo, your one word that represents you, and a clear brand story about your background and experience? Does your profile pop with your personality?

Your Network: Who’s in your network? And who needs to know about you? Invite those who are a fit for your current goals. And those whom you’re confident in referring to others. Is it time to review and prune some of your current connections? Your network reflects your personal brand.

Your Thought Leadership: TED talks say “ideas worth sharing.” Are yours? Review the content you’re sharing. Is it relevant to your goals and helpful to your network and target audience?

Your Personal Brand Hub: If you haven’t done so already, grab your name as a domain. This way you can create and curate content about you in a personal brand hub. When people search on your name, this on-brand content will rise to the top of the search.

Time Savers: Maintaining a highly visible brand online doesn’t have to be time consuming. You can repurpose your content. If you’ve written an article or blog post, use quotes from it in other social media, like Twitter or LinkedIn, and include a link to your post. Take advantage of tools like Hootsuite to schedule posts in advance for consistency. And keep the conversation going by addressing responses in real time.

I invite you to share your results in the comments.

And if you’d like help in up-leveling your brand online, let’s talk!

©2018 Wendy Terwelp | All rights reserved.