Do you ever feel like you're the smartest person in the room, but the only one that's not getting noticed for those key senior leadership promotions?
Welcome back to Speak Up, the podcast for high performing introverts, including you social introverts. where we reveal the charisma and communication secrets of A-listers so that you get the recognition and the opportunities you have earned.
I am your host, Laura Camacho, your magical communication and executive presence coach, godmother, and strategist.
By the end of this short episode, you will know how to turn your overthinking into a superpower.
A trick from a Southern Netflix. famous comedian, and three powerful actions to shine in boardrooms or scrappy startups.
So let's be real. You're out there solving problems, crunching numbers, and quietly saving the day. while others are arguing over who gets the good conference room.
So brains are the baseline. Of course, you're wicked smart.
Highly attractive, plus analytical, emotionally intelligent, strategic, and yet, listen to this.
A 2023 McKinsey study, yes, very fancy, shows that companies are packed. with high IQ employees, leaders, coders, strategists, managers, analysts, you name it.
The thing is intelligence in our leading corporations and companies has become like corporate Wi-Fi.
It's expected to be there. And I see this with my clients all the time.
They are so brilliant. They could actually solve world hunger. while they're updating their LinkedIn profiles.
So this is the thing. You are part of that brain trust.
You are able to fix code bugs. You can drop game-changing ideas.
You fix things and you do it quickly. But you're not getting rewarded for being so smart because this is maybe counterintuitive, but...
Being really smart, that's considered something that you hire by the top people or investors.
Oh, we need to hire that. We need to find it.
The people who are deciding the direction of the company, they're seeing brilliant people as... tools resources to fulfill the plan and that can be where you get stuck okay so There's something more rare, more hard to find, a kind of a hidden ingredient that And it's called courage.
That can be what sets you apart. Not kidding.
I'm not talking... really about moral courage, although that's certainly important.
I'm a big fan of whistleblower Susan Fowler, She's a software engineer who called out Uber's toxic culture.
But in this podcast, we're talking about market courage, like to pitch an idea that's a little bit different. to push new thinking to actually stand out.
Because I think some of you hold yourselves back. because you're too risk adverse.
And a 2022 Harvard Business Review study found that only 30%, that's three in 10 folks, consistently demonstrate courage.
And why is that? Well, as I've told you before, senior leaders especially can be extremely risk averse because they have more to lose.
A lot of corporate cultures, especially in heritage brands, reward safety and so the feeling is like don't rock the boat don't make people nervous I don't want you to make people nervous either, but I don't want you to hold yourself back.
And I'm just going to bring you an example from outside the corporate world.
And it's a comedian named Nate Bargatze.
B-A-R-G-A-T-Z-E. He's from the Nashville area.
If you don't know him. Very funny guy. And he built a Netflix comedy empire not by shocking audiences, but by not doing that.
He has clean, relatable, everyday humor in his unique voice. kind of like a younger Jerry Seinfeld maybe, but that took a lot of courage because he plays the role of this not very smart guy like he pretends like and maybe it's true he doesn't like like reading and there's all these words and more words, like why would anybody read a book?
And yet to have that humor, stand-up comedians have to be extremely smart. to come up with all those jokes and courage.
So I want you to think about how would your career be different if you had more courage, if you owned your space more this is the strategy folks that's one of the promises that The strategy that will make you stand out is this. delivering or violating expectations in a positive way.
And that's what she has done. He violated expectations in a positive way.
That is your game-changing strategy to get rewarded for your contributions.
I'm going to give you now corporate examples so you can't tell me that, oh, that's okay in comedy, but doesn't work at my company.
Nonsense. Satya Nadella. He's now CEO of Microsoft.
But I think it was 2014, 2015. He pushed Microsoft into cloud first.
And that was not natural back in the day, especially for Microsoft.
He was... internally criticize a lot and push lots of pushback but that ended up tripling their stock value and they are now Microsoft is now a cloud leader.
That was a big pivot. Darren Murph at GitLab.
He championed remote work way before it was cool, way before COVID.
And he helped scale that company to a $12 billion valuation.
And I can tell you before COVID, I used to help people ask for a few days, not a week, but a month to work at home because it was considered so risky at a lot of companies.
One more example from a not tech company, Bill Phelps at Dave's Hot Chicken recently was acquired and he made sure that their employees got life-changing bonuses.
Not just the leaders, but employees. Of course, it was a small company, But again, he was going against the grain.
He was violating expectations in a positive way for the employees.
And it paid off. So, the thing is, your intelligence can hold you back.
If you overthink... every angle and talk yourself out of the bolder moves.
You can stop your career progression. The higher up you go, the harder it is to make it to the next level.
If you're telling yourself, oh, there's a 62% chance this pitch is going to flop, so I'm just going to email. mail it.
No, courage doesn't need a PhD. There are no PhDs in courage.
You need action. And I'm gonna give you a corporate example.
Sarah Blakely, I'm a big fan, founder of Spanx.
She was not a fashion insider, absolutely not, but she had an idea.
And she did have selling skills, folks. She was a fax machine saleswoman.
So she pitched and she got manufacturers to make her spank. and it's now a major company based in Atlanta.
What about courage? Where does it really thrive and where doesn't it?
Because not all workplaces are courage-friendly.
Startups, brands like Patagonia, you think, oh, they're built on boldness, on sustainability, on being the market leader.
But a traditional firm, a heritage brand, like if your company is 120 years old, It's more expected to just keep doing what you've been doing.
And yet your senior leaders know that they must innovate, that they must adapt.
So you can be the person to help that happen by taking bold action, by making bold suggestions.
So I'm going to give you three actions to build your courage.
Start small. So your number one step, make micro brave moves every day.
So that means speaking up even when you're not 100% sure.
Because I know a lot of you function well.
When you know everything, you know your expertise so well, you are just fully, fully, fully confident, then you speak up.
I want you to think about the words directionally accurate.
Directionally accurate is often more important in deciding strategic direction.
So think directionally accurate. So I want you to start sharing that. ideas more often and it doesn't have to even be in a big meeting.
You can share it one-on-one. And I want to encourage you to give honest feedback, what I call fun-sized feedback, little small suggestions more often.
Because daily acts of bravery will build your identity as a courageous leader.
And it will also train your brain to be more courageous.
Number two, name your fear. This is from psychology.
When you are feeling, you know, we have that feeling, I want you to name it.
Like I am afraid this idea is going to be rejected, but I think it's really good.
What's the worst thing that can happen? Will they really fire you for suggesting something?
The conversation might be uncomfortable.
People might make funny looks, but you can survive that.
You're tough. So name your fear, own it.
You don't have to tell everybody, but recognize when you're just being afraid and that can help you.
Use that analytical power that you have, that overthinking to...
Think about the positive side, the upside, and how can you...
Speak up a little bit more or be a little bit more bold and still live to play again.
And number three, surround yourself with courageous people.
Courage is definitely contagious. And I'm not saying that you can choose everybody that you work with, but make sure you're noticing the people at your company. or in your client base, in your ecosystem, identify who are the people that are more courageous.
Build relationships with them. Seek out podcasts where you're encouraged to be more courageous and bold.
That will help you because it helps rewire your thinking about what is possible and it gives you language to act so to quickly recap One, make micro brave moves daily.
How can you be 10% more brave? courageous in a conversation.
Number two, name the fear. And number three, look out for align with other courageous people.
Yes, I'm talking to you. You are the backbone of every team.
You're brilliant, reliable, and strategic.
But I want you to think about Nate Bergazzi, who became a successful comedian going against the grain.
He went with... clean humor, and he plays dumb even when he's super smart.
I'm not saying you have to play dumb, but it's... stepping out of character a little bit.
So if you would like more skills and strategy and support like this, then get on my newsletter subscription and you will get more information Just go to my website at www.speakupwithlaura.com.
There's a pop-up. Just slap in your email address.
Have a courageous day and I will catch you on the next episode.
