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Thanks for listening and see you next time. Welcome everybody. So we're about
five minutes after the top of the hour, so I'm going to go ahead
and kick off our very exciting webinar that we have today with Coach Farah.
Today's webinar, Well, first of all, I'm Jamie Cosmar. I work
for IDMS as head of Client Experience, and I will be in conversation today
with Coach Farah, who I just can't say enough wonderful things about. She's
going to be speaking with us today about how to make yourself sponsorable at work,
boost your professional image to get sponsored. Just a note about IDMX coaching.
We work with leaders and companies to achieve professional personal goals with the help
of qualified expert coaches. Check us out and learn more at THEIDMX dot com.
So I'm super excited to have Coach Farah with us here today speaking about
this topic that I often think about when we first she first proposed this.
You know, this is something I definitely could have benefited from very early on
in my career, and I think it's, you know, a topic that
everyone could use a refresher on regularly, just to make sure that it stays
at the top of mind. But before we begin and get into the topic.
I'm just going to give a brief introduction. So Coach Farah is an
experienced executive coach and she's a multifaceted people development professional. She specializes in partnering
with Fortune five hundred leaders as a people operations business partner and an executive coach,
helping them and their executive leaders and senior teams to develop talent management strategies
that prioritize attracting, retaining, developing, and promoting critical talent in ways directly
tied to game changing business objectives. In addition to her work though with businesses
and this is this is what you know I think is so amazing about Coach
Farah. It's like she not only has the organizational experience, but she brings
as well the people level experience. And for the last fifteen years, she's
helped grow and develop thousands of professionals with her own trademarked frameworks and tools designed
to help people understand themselves deeper and show up authentically and with intention. She
of course, holds several certifications, including a professional Coaching certification and one from
the Hudson Institute of Coaching. In addition to holding an MBA and she come
she, as I mentioned at the very beginning, multifaceted. She's not only
a coach, she's a consultant, a speaker, oftentimes in a keynote way,
facilitator, and actually one of the things that I learned about her that
she and I haven't had the chance to discuss that she's a fellow poloton enthusiast
and a traveler. So while I'm very tempted to ask you who your favorite
instructors are, I think that we should we should probably start delving into our
topic today. So Coach Farah is going to help us understand what you can
do to position yourself as a high potential employee. Deserting of sponsorship by key
leaders a topic that she told me is of critical importance to her because people
just don't realize the conversations that are had about them when they aren't in the
room. And I'll be the first to admit I fall into that category.
I have never in my life thought about that people were talking to me and
what are and what are they saying? And more importantly, what do I
want them to be saying? And she believed that individuals have a responsibility to
themselves to self advocate because nobody is going to do it for them. So
without further ado, please join me in welcoming Coach Farah. Thanks so much,
Jamie. I think I'm going to have you join me in all of
my future panels and speaking events and zooms all that, so I appreciate the
intro. I'm so excited to be here with everyone this morning. This topic
is one that actually is really important to me personally as I'm someone who's benefited
a great deal from sponsorship. I'm loving the peloton love too, and I
think this is something that just investing the time together on can be so powerful.
So my hope is that I'll share some insights, some experience my conversation
with Jamie here today. I welcome any and all questions, and more importantly,
I hope this sparks continued conversation for you after this conversation, maybe even
with someone that is already sponsor you, with peers who you want to continue
the conversation with. There's no shortage of areas to focus on as it relates
to sponsorship. So thank you. And it's so good to see familiar faces
as well. Hi, Jasmine and a few others that I'm seeing joint,
so very excited, right, thank you, coach Farah. So let's you
know. I love to start, you know, any sort of podcast or
webinary by laying out definitions and an understanding of what we're talking about today.
And it seems very basic, but I tend to think it puts us all
on the same page, so there's no confusion, you know. And I
my first question is a very basic one. What exactly do we mean by
sponsorship and in particular, how does it differ from, for example, mentorship?
Awesome? Thank you. So when I think of sponsorship, what I
think of is the engagement of a leader with someone as the process of leveraging
their time and their credibility to make sure that you equipped enabled and empowered to
succeed. That's general enough, in my opinion, definition such that you can
apply it wherever you are, whatever industry, whatever profession, whatever time or
phase of your life and career you're engaged in. So shorter than that,
more simpler, it's just working with someone who has time, credibility and power
to help you achieve specific goals. Great, thank you for clarifying that definition
of sponsorship. And how does that differ like, what is the difference with
a mentor? Like? What does a mentor help us do? It's the
power aspect, right, So mentorship anybody can mentor you. And I believe
in the power of mentorship. And when I say anybody, I just I
think all of us have the opportunity to learn from anyway. It doesn't require
seniority, it doesn't require title. Mentorship just requires experience and expertise. So
I have mentors who are more junior than me, more less quote unquote experience
than me from a professional standpoint, but have expertise and an area of focus
that I'm interested in. And it runs the gamut of different areas of engagement
in your life. So you know, your peloton coaches can be your mentors.
There's not that direct relationship that you better believe. Tinday is my mentor,
right, she doesn't know it yet. We'll get to her when we
can and let her know. But it's a different area of life in which
one has an expertise that I can leverage. You know, when I think
of more junior folks who I've worked with former direct reports, They've mentored me
in areas in which I'm learning. So my previous company, I was new
at a particular time. One of my direct reports had been with a company
for sixteen years at that time. I'm her manager, I'm more senior than
her, I'm more experience than her, but she mentored me in my onboarding
phase to learn the ways of the company. I find myself in another corporate
transition as we speak. There are people here are more junior than me by
title, but they're experts in the company, in the areas of work that
we're executing against in different facets. They're mentoring me. And so I think
the critical piece to understand is that mentoring can come from anyone and everyone with
more experience, more expertise in a particular area of interest or focus for you.
But it's a sponsor that really comes in with power to lead to some
form of change for you, most usually in the form of progression, exposure,
and elevation. Amazing. Thank you for distinguishing that and that power pieces.
I think a very important point when we think about, you know,
having sponsors versus mentors, and that we need both absolutely and we need both.
So talk about what does the mindset and behaviors of a sponsorable professional look
like? So you know, how would you describe an ideal sponsorable professional The
ideal sponsorable professionalist one who's just really, really open to learning. That sounds
so basic, but I always prioritize practicality here because I want you to be
able to apply this as we leave this conversation today. So operate with the
mindset of a learner. You're open to learning from others who have time,
credibility, and power to help you. It's not about showing up as someone
who fully understands anything and everything in your domain. It's really coming in as
a learner. The second piece of that is someone who is invested in their
own continuous group. You cannot expect a sponsor to be someone who just downloads
everything to you without you having to make some investments. I'm just always really
candid and transparent. So I'm just going to call out something that Jamie highlighted
in my intro. I've never looked at it this way, but you did
say, you know, multiple certifications, right, multiple areas of continued learning.
That's a personal commitment I've made to myself. But when I think of
the sponsors who've partnered with me in my career journey, these are folks who
saw that I was invested in specific areas of growth and could call that out
as they advocate for me. So not only are you a learner, but
you're someone who invests in your continued learning and growth. And then I would
just say again, with that learning mindset, that investment in learning, that
you stay curious. It's easy to fall into what I will call a trap
of trying to be the expert at all times. That's what we're most rewarded
for. But there's power and curiosity and showing up with a curious approach to
your work. People want to teach, Sponsors want to employ engagement by sharing
knowledge sharing information sharing perspective. Operating with that mindset of curiosity in the day
to day also goes a very long way. The last piece I will say
is really proactively managing your sponsorship relationship. Sponsors. I mentioned they have time
as one of the critical components being a really good sponsor. But the folks
who I sponsor, I know that if they don't hear from me unintentionally for
quite a bit of time, I'm going to hear from them. And it
is an intentional approach to setting time consistently and a good use of that time.
And so I think that's another thing that's critical here is that you're proactively
managing that relationship. Usually with is being those who are more senior, more
experienced, and who operate with power, corporate power. They need a little
help, We need a little bit of help and managing all the relationships that
we have. And I think it goes a long way to know that,
oh, I've forgotten to reach out to so and so, I wonder how
he or she is doing right now, and then I'll get that email for
me. My closest sponsor is I get text. You know, it just
helps manage that relationship such that they fit. They don't feel like I've forgotten
about them. They know they can come to me and we're proactively partnering together.
Amazing. Thank you so much. So. Curiosity learning, being open
to learning, staying curious, and being proactive is what I'm hearing. I
can't help myself. I've got a follow on question that I just have to
ask. In particular. You know, it can be really I think intimidating
or hard to reach out to people who are senior to you and that they're
super busy and checking in so you know, if it's appropriate. I would
love a little maybe anecdotal information about like you know, what do your text
say, or like how do you check in with somebody who is senior to
you and you know who's super busy? How do you do that? So
this is such a critical question because I think one of the first things to
think about as you're positioning yourself to be more sponsorable. I would ask you
to think first, if we think of corporate or organizational sponsorship is what kind
of organization are you in? You really have to think about this is sponsorship
or conversations about sponsors typical? Is it the norm? Is it part of
the culture? I would hope that it is, and that you can just
lean into that. It does make it easier. If it is not,
that's more challenging because you do have to take a prescriptive approach. I'm going
to start with the cultures in which this is as a topic of norm,
right, I think the first thing is see what work you have that is
already tied to the person whom you really want to have as your sponsor.
I caution everyone, do not go around kind of like that book are you
my Mother? Asking people can you be my sponsor? Are you my sponsor?
It should really feel natural and something that flows out of the work,
because it shouldn't be a relationship that is forced. And I know that's really
hard because what we do first is we think, oh, I want so
and so to be my sponsor, right, and you go chasing the person
instead of what you should really be doing is focusing on being excellent in your
work such that people see that you're a learner. People see that you're invested
in your learning, You show up in the work with a curious mindset,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. All the things that I mentioned,
And so I'm going to give the endidote of when I first benefited from
the power of sponsorship. I was working at Price Whie house Coopers. I
was a director at the time, and Maria Motz was a partner in the
organization. And Maria, she had just come into a new role and I
happened to be presenting on a particular area of work from my area of focus,
which was the Northeast region, and I got to showcase my work,
I got to meet with her. She ended up partnering with me in my
career journey. Very fortunate, you know, grateful. It doesn't always happen
that seamlessly, but that it was through the work. The person who also
served as my sponsor was my direct manager at the time. He noticed I
excelled in my work. That's not a bride, that's not a pat on
the back. It is this is critical. You have to be excellent in
the work that you do. And so these two individuals I noticed how I
operate and continue to just leverage that area of focus for us to build our
relationship from that rapport was built from that rapport responsibility, So excellence in the
work rapport they took on the responsibility of sponsoring me. And these individuals I
still have relationships with to this day. Last week Maria announced her retirement and
I get to celebrate with her. Those relationships are still there. And the
other individual is very neuros at Price when I was Scoopers. When he retired,
that relationship was one that I got to celebrate with him. So that
is kind of a model of when sponsorship is part of the culture. When
it is not part of the culture, you do have to approach it a
little bit more prescriptively, but again to not go around saying, well,
you'd be my sponsor. What I would do is focus first, and this
is what I do with clients, my coaching clients, especially those who are
in transition or starting a new role. Keep an eye on the stakeholders of
your work. Focus on who is at the table when you're having to present.
Who do you need to make sure knows what your work involves, how
that work is landing. Those are your stakeholders. Then determine, based on
the goals that you already have where you want to go and progress in your
career, who you could really lean on and benefit from a sponsorship relationship with
focus on making sure they here see and know what value you're adding. Slowly
but surely, you'll start to engage with them naturally through the work. Again,
rapport will be built, and over time there will be a responsibility that
they feel is part of their job, which is what it's should be.
And then over time that partnership in your progression and your development is there.
And so two organizational types, if you will, one in which sponsorship is
part of the culture, one in which it may not be. Both focused
on work as kind of the entry point of making sure you're being viewed as
sponsorable, let it flow, it will happen, rapport relationship, and then
your partnership on meeting your goals amazing. So you know, one of our
questions was actually, and I think you already answered it, was determining who
our key stakeholders are. And it's about paying attention to who's in the room.
Yes, you're presenting and engaging with them around sort of more again,
not going around and saying will you be my sponsor, but around sort of
organic conversations. Right, So maybe you're sort of seating a little bit of
the you know, reason to interact or or maybe it gets back to that
point that you're saying about being proactive, right, absolutely notice, and then
you're saying, Okay, I'm going to proactively make sure that I they're in
my touch point. I'm going to find a reason to speak with them.
The other thing I think is really important about what you're saying, and I
just I want to highlight it because in the age of Amazon, I feel
like we think that everything should be instantaneous. This idea that I meet somebody,
I speak with them on zoom once or I'm you know, in a
room with them once and then that's it, like they should want to sponsor
me, they should want you know, and which gives this type of exercise
a very transactional nature. But what I hear you saying is this is not
transactional. I mean, obviously there is a shared goal at the end,
but it has to be developed, and it has to be developed of time.
So I'm curious, you know, if we had to put a timeline
on this, could we do that? And how long would you say that
probably would take. I'm going to answer that question, but I do want
to go back to one piece because I think it's critical to understand it is
not instantaneous, and that phase of rapport and relationship is where you really really
want to focus. Right when you're building rapport with someone, you're kind of
setting the seeds for relationship building. You're setting the foundation of trust. Because
remember early on in the definition of sponsorship, there's this piece about credibility that
the sponsor has to have. And so if part of that is my credibility,
I need to have rapport with you to know that I can trust that
if I'm expending my credibility that it's worth it. That that's just kind of
the breast tacks of part of building that right, and that comes from rapport
building. Once that report is built, then relationship happens, and it's so
much more seamless. And so I just I wanted to pull that threat a
little bit more to make sure that that's fully understood. With that understanding,
I think I love the acknowledgment of this kind of Amazon approach to just living
nowaday where we nowadays, where we feel like everything has to be instantaneous.
I'm not gonna lie to you, there's no timeframe, we can't that you
can't put that on there, because well, let me take that back.
You actually can, and you will sell yourself yourself short because you are focusing
on transaction more than you are focusing on relationship. Yes, there's an endgame
here, and you're trying to benefit from this relationship, but remember you're benefiting
from a relationship one of the best things. And I'll point to Marie again.
When I was actually leaving Price Waterhouse Coopers, she sensed that I was
worried that I was going to lose this relationship, and she said the most
beautiful thing to me a sponsor can say. When I and she did use
the sort. When I agreed to sponsor you, I was not sponsoring Farwer
Bernier, the price Waterhouse Cooper's employee. I was agreeing to sponsor Farwer Bernier,
and I will sponsor you forever, and she has. And so if
you think about what that means in terms of I can call Marie at any
time, I can email her any time I know that I will, she
will hear me, we can connect. Then that means in the beginning,
it was not transactional. There was no period of time set to show my
work and then build report and then hopefully the relationship will come start out because
I just wanted to engage with this individual who was clearly engaged or committed to
engaging with me. And over time this relationship has built so strongly that not
only do I know that I can tap into her, that relationship is there
such that I feel a responsibility to continue paying it forward. When you think
about the comprehensiveness of that, I hope that you will be more comfortable understanding
that this may take a longer period of time because the benefits are significantly longer,
and that it may take a shorter period of time depending on the type
of organization you're in, but it is not a thirty day process or a
ninety day engagement. It does take time, but trust that the investment of
that time has yield for your life more than your career. Yeah. Yeah,
that's a beautiful story actually about your personal experience with your sponsor from the
early part of your career. Thank you for sharing that with us. You
know. It does leave me to this other question though, I'm thinking in
my head, like, how do you know when to give up? Like
you're you're working on developing a rapport with someone and it's you know, is
there is at a certain point where it's just like, Okay, this person
is not there's something just not working. I really appreciate that question because kindidly
I've never thought of that. You know, when do you give up as
a sponsory. My reaction to that is, you'll know from the very beginning.
Again, this relationship is one of care, is one in which someone
is really prioritizing you. You'll know that from the very beginning. You know,
again, if we go back to it starts with excelling in your work.
When you're showing up in your domain expertise and you're doing a good job,
right you'll see who's acknowledging you, who's empowering you even in that phase,
who's encouraging you, who's asking for more, who's already kind of in
my previous employee we would say plus wanting. You know, in this context
it's actually you know, as Jamie highlighted in my intro, it's acknowledging your
work, how you approach things, how you demonstrate your strengths. You will
know early on. But if you're a persistent person, of which I am
too, so I could see, you know, just continuing to give it
a shot. If it doesn't feel right, be comfortable letting it go.
Be comfortable letting it go, which is hard, especially if this is someone
who super super senior, who you feel like you really need their sponsorship.
Be comfortable letting it go, and trust that someone else is already showing up
that you probably don't even see. Trust that there are other options. And
if you're feeling from the beginning there's just it's not clicking with this person,
because again it is a relationship, don't be afraid to just deep dive with
someone else, lean into who's leaning in with you, and then you'll find
that person. Maybe your entry point to this maybe more senior individual who you
just couldn't get to and that's okay, that's okay, Yeah, yeah,
I love that. Like effectively, there's a bit of trust you've got on
this when you'll know when it's time and there is no time frame, there
is no you know, it's it's being intuitive about it. I'm I want
to take a sort of step back, and I know you've talked about this
a little bit, but like how do you you develop a personal brand that
gets noticed by leadership? Right? So that's like probably the very beginning,
Like how do you make sure that that beginning phase you are putting yourself out
there and the right people are noticing you? Yeah, I have a really
annoying response to this. Are you happy with your brand? You know you've
got to start internal? Not you, Jamie, Sorry, but I mean
by this is the question you have to ask yourself, right, you know
the and I guess this question a lot. How do you put your brand
out there? Well, before you start, you know, going out and
putting your brand out there, what do you feel about your brand? How
do you feel about who you are and how you show up? This is
why anyone who partners with me in the coaching experience, we always start internal
first. We have to make sure you know who you are, You know
what your strengths are, be really comfortable with what you do not know what
your strengths are not. I am very comfortable with acknowledging where I do not
have strengths or where it is actually worth this, worthless for me to learn
something because it's just not my summer willows. And you got to get to
that point first before you stop branding, because the best brands, the strongest
individual brands, are those that have clarity around who I am. Who I
am not what I bring to the table, what I do not bring the
table to the table where I may have an opportunity to learn and develop and
I want to and where I do not. Right, you just have to
have such a conviction of self and understanding of self before you start quotes putting
your brand out there, because if you start external first, you're going to
have a real reckoning with self that sometimes more often than not, actually lends
with wait a minute, I don't even know who I am, and I
don't mean that super existentially, I just mean that generally speaking, right,
such that maybe I need to pause and think about what am I putting out
there, and so that's the first piece. I always like to just make
things practical again. So what I will say is for me, that journey
started a long long time ago. So I am very comfortable saying that anyone
who partners with Fara Bernier in any form or fashion is always going to experience
someone who's engaging, someone who is who is committed to empowering, and as
a result, in every experience someone has with me, there's going to be
some level of elevating both for me, for that individual, for our work,
how we've work together. Those are my three e's that was developed years
ago as a result of taking that time to understand myself first. Again,
not a brag, not a pad on the back. It's just this has
worked for me, and I offered to you as just how to think about
this. Once that's there and you feel really strong about that, then it's
about putting it in a format that's for easy recall for yourself such that when
things get really challenging, you can prioritize the most critical piece about branding,
and that is consistency. So for me, everyone knows come hell or high
water. No matter how great things are, no matter how challenging things are,
you're going to experience two things Farah Bernier and her leadership model of engage
in power elevate And second, I always operate as a reflection of my name.
My name means joy. And again, even in the most difficult situations,
you're going to get that. It doesn't mean that it's happy, go
lucky every single time. There are real crisises in which I've had to partner
with leaders. You know, it's it is real things get difficult. But
joy for Parah in that moment might be just making sure I call out the
silver lining, making sure that we start with our wins before we go to
the challenges. But that again to being very self aware of who I am,
how I operate, and committing to consistency no matter what. Am I
muted or are you muted? I'm sorry about that technical difficulty. I was.
I was because there was some noise forgive me no worry, and then
I couldn't you that was beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. I I
just you know, I mean. The thing that resonates really deeply with us
here at idem next is this idea that Look, there's a lot of noise
in the world and very rarely I mean you know now too with social media,
it's like I'm on fire, right, You're always getting these external messages
and symbols of external ideas of what we should want and what success looks like.
And the beauty of a coaching relationship and working with a coach like you
is taking that time for yourself to figure out and get clear on these pieces
so you can be clear about who you are and what your personal brand is.
Actually, we say yeah, and that's that's what's very very valuable about
working with coaches like you, is is that that piece, because that's very
hard. I feel like it's it's become much harder to obtain in today's environment
to know who it is and what you want. Moving along to our next
question, how do you demonstrate your value and impact to your stakeholders? So
it's it's interesting, you know, I'm currently in a corporate transition right now,
shifted from my previous employer now with the new employer. This is week
two, and so I'm just I'm going to share candidly with you how I
focus on this, so you get inside peak a little bit. First,
and foremost, focus on your low hanging fruit early on. Right, what's
what's I don't want to say easy, but what's seamless for you to land?
You know, right from the beginning, whether it be a new job,
a new project, anything, what what's some low hanging fruit that you
can come in and show, Oh, I can do this, I got
this. But more importantly, I can leverage people to help me with this
because people want to help. And don't be that person who thinks you got
to do it alone. That I've done that in the past. It only
gets you so far. It can work, but it only gets you so
far. So look for low hanging fruit first. Once you get that low
hanging fruit land Again, this goes back. You got to be excellent at
what you do. There's no getting around that. That's pre requisite to being
sponsorable. And then you got to remind people, you know, I do
think generally speaking as women, it is very hard for us. And I've
done it here, by the way, multiple times I've said, not patting
myself on the back, not bragging, but we should be more comfortable do
it. I really wasn't. That's why I said it, just speak clearer.
But we can be more comfortable highlighting our winds. And that's why I
call it that instead of specifically your impact or accomplishments. I have found that
working with my coaches, especially generally speaking, again most women, people of
color, it's easy to call them wins versus accomplishment accomplishments. It's easier for
us to start to internalize that, and then we can more comfortably say no,
I accomplish that. So I just offer that too. And then once
you start acknowledging the wins for yourself, make sure you're celebrating with other people,
right, you know, I feel like I've really lucked out, even
in this moment with the person I'm reporting into. She's phenomenal, remarkable and
already landing a few things. Today's day seven, by the way, already
landing a few things. It's very easy to celebrate with her, and she's
celebrating with me, and she's celebrating me, and so I would offer that,
you know, focus less on the tactical, transactional. How do I
lay out my impact my accomplishments. This is a real mindset shift. Look
for a low hanging fruit, even now, even if you're not new to
your job, even if you're not new to your company, just think about
what are some opportunities, challenges or problems that for you could be pretty seamless
to win. Right now, acknowledge those wins that are probably wins for your
team, for you and your manager. Just make it a collective thing and
then call it out and celebrate together. From there, then, when it's
time to do the transactional thing of you know, your mid year, your
end of year review, it's easier for you to lay those out because you
will remember, oh right, I did celebrate that with so and so,
Oh right, we did have that meeting about X, Y and Z,
and commented how quickly we were able to do YadA, YadA, YadA,
And I lad that I did that. And so I would implore of you
again with this mindset of making yourself sponsorable, focus less and less right now
on the solo efforts and prioritize, generally speaking, more of a communal approach
to your work, because that's what people will see and want to tap into
as a sponsor. And so again, high level, but hopefully that's helpful.
That's very helpful. And I love that you're sharing as you're live and
your experience of transitioning into a new role and what you're thinking about, right,
I mean, you're you're an expert. But that being said, right,
it doesn't mean we're not all work in progress. I mean I can
definitely and I'm sure others on this webinar today can relate to the fact that,
like, I hate talking about my accomplishments. It just it feels And
I don't know if it's something with like the way I've been raised or what
it is, but it just feels wrong to me. So I can definitely
relate to that. You know how when we talk about and I think your
advice about like make it a communal effort, make it a celebration. What
does that look like? Though? Like, you know, is it just
like we're having a meeting and we're having a chat about it, like a
debrief? Is it? You know, We're we're toasting our our coffees and
our glasses. You know how, How how do we think about like how
that's executed. I there's so many different options. That's my pause. What
I will say, first and foremost, think of the culture in which you're
operating. Right, I've had the good fortune and I do count it such
as working in very different organizations across the board, and so I don't think
it needs to be as formal as a coffee toast. But if that's the
culture, lean into that, right, you know something, It is more
natural for me than I think I even realized except for the past few years.
I think COVID our adult time out twenty twenty until I mean still now
to a degree, but working from home or hybrid environments, I just got
really intentional about thinking people or what they were contributing to, for how we
were partnering, how we were working, what we were able to accomplish.
And so you know, no matter what your job is, no matter what
you're doing, there's some hefty world things that are happening that impact our day
to day and how we're approaching our work, and less and less can any
of us really do anything alone. And so I think celebrating with other individuals
is first personally for you acknowledging who's on team Milena, A team Jacqueline,
team Karina. I'm just looking at names across the board, right like who
are your ace players on your team? And who can you think in a
public forum if you will, for what the team is accomplishing with you,
whether they be your peers, director reports, and those more senior than you,
they don't get thank yous quite a bit, so I think they would
appreciate that. And when the opportunity comes up in team meetings, you know
acknowledge you know, X was really challenging. But I so appreciate Anastasia and
Jasmine and Tracy joining me in this journey to land. X Y and Z
thank you so much. I can't believe we did that and be you know,
again culturally appropriate. There's some situations which like clap all around or previous
company I was in, use use the it was Google meeds, so you
know, use the emojis there, I'm learning zoom, I will get there,
use the reactions here, find little ways that don't have to be over
the top to acknowledge with others, these these wins, these accomplishments, and
again it goes back to sponsorship. Other people will observe how you do this,
and they will want to invest in that mode of operating, I e.
You, so that that's not lost, that gets elevated, that gets
empowered. I really love that idea that it's really just about taking a moment
to acknowledge, and it doesn't have to be this like again, chinchin,
we're celebrating, but really just acknowledging and giving it words effectively or emojis,
but taking that moment to and and that is really a process of reflection as
well, right, making space for a reflection on what happened and what went
well than just moving on to the next thing, which you know, we
all get so busy, so I think again there's not always a lot of
space in life or in work for that reflection. Piece. One one final
question and then if we have time we can open it up for any questions.
Was you know, how do you communicate your aspirations and your career goals
effectively? So let's say you've built the rapport right, you are developing the
relationship, so in theory it's be easier to start communicating about this. But
then if you're somebody like me, I will admit, you know, this
is a conversation that would be hard for me. So so how how do
you talk about this stuff? So? Well, first I'd like to share
some signposts that will make it easier for you and are good indicators for you
that you have a sponsor. So first, and foremost you will probably be
asked before you have to ask. And I just I remember the first time
I was asked, and that was very neros and you said, so what
do you what do you want to do? What are you interested in?
And I was very open, which is great, but not very specific at
the time. Right, So this goes back to be prepared. If you're
really investing in getting this relationship, this sponsorship relationship and yielding the best and
most out of it, be prepared for that question, what is it that
you want? How can I help you? Where do you want to be
in the next three to five years? Be prepared for those questions. And
that usually happens once you've passed report building and are in that relationship building.
This is when you start having coffee or even launch your dinner with your sponsor
and it gets to be more relational than just focusing on excellence in your check.
You've done that building a rapport check, You've done that. You are
in the relationship building phase. People are asking you. If you are being
asked, know that person probably more than likely is sponsoring you, trying to
sponsor you. I e begin to advocate and champion for you. It is
more than mentorship at that phase. If that yet has not happened, or
you just have a sponsor who's that's not their approach. Sorry for the notification
noise. Start to ask them questions about how they got to where they are,
Start to really operate with curiosity with them, ask for insight into their
path, and then offer up you know what really resonates with me about what
you've shared about your path? Your experience is X, Y and Z.
Either add in I would like to ABC, or I'm thinking about the same
path, the same area of expertise, and where you are, how would
you suggest I get there? It just starts to get more natural. I
pause in understanding that this may just sound like it's theoretical, it's not applicable,
it's so high level. But sponsorship I can't stress enough it really is
about the relationship. It's not mechanical. If it is mechanical, it's transactional
and it doesn't last to I just offer up all of this from a perspective
of really think longer, long game, think relational. Especially if this is
about progression for you, it gets to be more about relationship the farther up
you go than it is about any transaction, any specific ask for a yield,
and so it gets easier. If you prioritize excellence in the work,
you get noticed. You get noticed by someone who then you get to build
rapport with That rapport is built a shift into relationship. In that relationship,
you will be asked, hey, what are you thinking about? What do
you want to do? If you're not asked, it's okay, offer it
up, be prepared and go forth. It does flow. That's great And
I can't help by myself, but mention you know, when we think about
the preparation piece, I just want to go back to something you said about
how you work with your clients to help them get clarity about who they are,
uh and what they want. And I think that when you work with
a coach and you have that, those conversations are easy for you, right
because you prepare. That's working with a coach is a is a great way
to prepare yourself for those future conversations with you know, potential potential sponsors.
I think, great, well, I'm going to open up. I think
we have time for like one question maybe too, if that's okay, somebody
asks I joined a bit late, but did we define sponsor. Is this
just a person who will support your desire for something like company to pay for
continuing education? And maybe it's it's worth repeating what a sponsor actually does and
and and sort of how it differs from a mentor. I do want to
call out here and it's and forgive me, it's Rebecca. I want to
call out the Is it just asking for something like continuing This is where it's
about. That's transactional. That may be your boss, that may be your
mentor. You can ask about that. And so when in early on you
can go back. I think this is recorded so it can be posted,
you'll hear. In short, the definition of a sponsor is someone who is
using their credibility time to champion advocate for you. And the difference is that
they have power to do so for your progression, for your elevation, asking
for something like continuing ed, yes, they can support it. I probably
actually want to go to a sponsor with that. There's probably internal processes that
you can leverage that's transactional in my opinion. And so if it's something that
yields just to on generalize and click of a button, that's mentor, that's
manager. Maybe even your HR team a sponsor, where do you need them
to use their time, power, credibility to advocate for you. That's the
difference that I would look at here and then as we if we just add
on to that sort of how the sponsor. What is the difference of the
sponsor versus the mentor? Again, Oh, sorry, I thought you were
going to say it. So it's that power dynamic. The sponsor is somebody
who really has power the mentor or. A mentor can come from any source.
It's anyone who has expertise, experience in an area more than you,
which is totally fine. They can be more junior than you, but you're
trying to learn from them. So mentoring can come from any anyone who has
insight or expertise that you need to leverage or want to leverage. They don't
always have power to get you from A to B. Yeah. Great,
Uh, I think that's all the questions that we have. So I would
love to thank Coach Farah for sharing her insight with us today. I know
that I have benefited greatly from this conversation, probably a decade too late,
never too and I want to thank our audience for being with us here today
and if you would like to work with Coach Farah, you will be receiving
a follow up email where you can book an intro session with her, or
you can go to theidmx dot com and uh find her profile there and work
with her as well. So thank you so much everyone for joining us today.
Thanks so much, Jamie, Thank you everyone, Thanks for listening.
Please subscribe wherever you listen and leave us a review. Find your ideal coach
at www dot viidmix dot com. Special thanks to our producer Martin Maluski and
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