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A Guide to Transforming Hope into Action for a Successful 2024

The year is coming to a close and your fate has been sealed. It often feels anti-climactic as you then have to ramp up to a new year of setting goals and “Hoping” you can achieve them or get that new role. Stop hoping and start “Owning” your future!

As you can see, I’m nudging you a bit to make sure you don’t get stuck. Within the last month, two people came to me who have expressed frustration in their current situation and through some active listening on my part, reframing back to them what I saw as their value and some self awareness on their part, they came to the conclusion that they can see the future and take control. Something magical happens when I speak with people, but until we speak, I’d like to impart a few thoughts with you.

Reflect on all the value  you have brought in 2023 and use that data to predict your future performance:

  • Can people see your future potential?
  • Can you tell stories to show how past data and performance is a predictor of future performance?
  • Do you know what words or phrases to use to project your value?

And let’s ask yourself another set of questions about the future:

  • Can you see the future?
  • Can you see yourself in a new role or project?
  • Can you see yourself at the next level?

When you can see the future, articulate the future and act like your future self, you will get pulled into opportunities either of your own doing or external factors.

When you see the future, you can identify the barriers or actions needed to be addressed in order to move forward. If you’re in a situation that you cannot control the environment, then it’s time to move to a different environment where you will thrive. No shame in moving on, but regret if you stay put.

I can help you whiteboard your thoughts and future state and close the gap on the current and future state. It’s that easy and the only thing standing in the way of your successful 2024 is your decision to work with someone.

I know this was a bit of a pep talk vs. a framework, but it’s actually simple. You can do this on your own or you can make the decision to work with someone like myself, a mentor or a trusted partner. Regardless of who you work with, move yourself to action.

If this was helpful, let me know!

If someone could benefit from this DIY lesson, please share it with them!

If you need some help, I’m here for you.

I’m here to listen and perhaps we can have a conversation and unlock your future!

To hear more about This topic and goal setting for 2024, please tune into my podcast that is releasing this Friday 12/29/23.

Be well

-Deb

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Three things you need to do to create your personal forecast for a winning year

I want to congratulate you on an absolutely amazing year! You met all your target objectives, got a promotion and you found balance in both your work and personal life! Congratulations!

I know I’ve had a great year for me and I’m sharing with you a festive moment with my husband Dan who has seen me through the ups and downs and hopefully a lot more ups!

If this is you, I’m so grateful for your good fortune and I’d love for you to share with me what went well. It’s important to celebrate your “High Five” with others!

If you’re looking around the room for who might I be speaking to, again, I’m speaking to you! This could have been a year to celebrate, but instead things just happened. You didn’t meet your objectives, you have uncertainty about the future and you’re not sure how to get back on track. I hope this is only a few of you, but if this is you, I’m here to impart a few things to get you on the right track. If it was helpful, might you share if this advice worked and perhaps we can connect!

Here are three things you need to do to set your personal forecast for a winning year:

  • Reflect on what went well and what would you Continue?
  • What would you Start doing to enhance what is working well?
  • What would you Change that could detract from what is going well?

While this is the same framework I use for giving or soliciting feedback; it is rooted in receiving external validation from others. I want you to look inside and ask yourself these questions; there is great power in creating self awareness and what will you do with this information.

As always, to help you to make this actionable, I’ll go first with some of my self feedback:

  • Continue: Leveraging my voice, investing in myself and my reach and well being- it’s been a winning combination and I will continue it this year. My clients and audience have confirmed these have served them well when we engage with each other.
  • Start: Video Strategy to reach all demographics where they’re at in the way they want to consume information. I write on LI and my website, I have a podcast that gets into your ear. I am now moving the podcast content into the YouTube. This will hopefully reach more of you and provide the value you want in visual form.
  • Change: Limit how much I work and focus only on the needle movers. Move away from distractions and it might even mean disappointing a few people. Forgive me in advance as I’m now laser focused on the most important things.

I really want you to succeed with this process, so I’m going to provide you an example that could be relevant to your situation:

  • Continue: I will continue to build up new skills / certifications to build my technical capability in my role. I will invest in my future
  • Start: I will practice telling stories when trying to communicate a message or a proposal. My technical skills are sound. Now I want to be influential through story-telling.
  • Change: I will not worry about trying to pull people along who are not on board with my initiatives. It wastes my time and energy. Instead, I’ll create a dashboard showing progress across all teams and where others are not performing it will be visible and they’ll have to change based on the visual pressure they will receive. Let the collective pull them along vs. myself carrying the burden.

So there you have it, three simple steps you can take to create and forecast a winning 2024.

I’m here to listen and perhaps we can have a conversation and unlock your future!

If this article or this year of connection has been valuable, follow me into 2024.

If you are a CEO who would love a partner to help you with a business challenge, be your #2 or help develop the team of tomorrow, let us partner in 2024.

To hear more about This topic please tune into my podcast that is releasing this Friday 12/29/23.

Be well

-Deb

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How to Craft Your Success Story

After you’ve taken inventory of your own self assessment, what stories can you tell others about the value you bring? This is the time to build up your arsenal of stories for your next role within the company or that next opportunity.

Resumes are boring and hardly articulate your value!

In a fast paced environment, hiring people need a quick way to put you in the yes/maybe/no pile to identify talent.

Assuming you’ve had some expert support to put in keywords to land you in the Yes pile, the challenge becomes how to articulate your value.

So many of you have come across my doorstep and shared with me your accomplishments, but few know how to articulate your value and even better in the context of storytelling.

The outcome of your pursuit will die at “Tell me about yourself” unless you’ve honed this skill.

I’m vested in your success as you reflect on your 2023 accomplishments and craft a message in pursuit of a new role, promotion or job so stick with me for a few more minutes.

Examples of data-based storytelling:

“I was able to impact $100,000 savings to the bottom line.”

Every other resume says that, but you are not your resume. You need to stand out. For every accomplishment like the $100,000 cost savings you need to learn to follow the Hero’s journey to tell the story and draw people into your value.

Value is created by knowing how to message what you did and the impact with the storytelling being the way to connect with humanity.

Here is an example of bad, better and best for implementing a new initiative that you successful led:

  • Bad: I was responsible for implementing a $100,000 cost savings initiative in 6 months.
  • Better: I was responsible for implementing a $100,000 savings initiative by leveraging good change management, engaging with others and ensuring stakeholders were informed and leveraged during the 6 month event.
  • Best: I was challenged with a $100,000 cost savings initiative in 6 months. Knowing it was a challenging task, I had to spend some time reflecting on how I would make this easy to adopt and maximize sustainable impact. I remember going to one plant manager who was often an early adopter. I tried a new way to message the initiative and how to customize it to his needs. He looked at my proposal and said he loved how I visually represented it so he could buy into it. We later tweaked the proposal based on his input and we moved forward. When I spoke about it at the next leadership meeting, he was quick  to share the value of the approach for which others then jumped in and spawned discussion. Had I not done this, I would have delivered the initiative with either crickets responding and hope I’d get compliance or possibly deflection and why we could not have done that. Through finding early adopters and collaborating together, I found the path forward to get the result and impact needed.

Do you see the difference? It takes practice, but this is what sets you apart and positions you for that next role, position or project.

If this was helpful, let me know, or if someone could benefit from this DIY lesson, please share it with them!

If you need some help, I’m here for you.

I’m here to listen and perhaps we can have a conversation and unlock your future!

To hear more about This topic please tune into my podcast that is releasing this Friday 12/15/23.

Be well

-Deb

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Empower Your Year-End Review: Mastering the Art of Gathering Data to Reflect on Your Achievement

December is a time of closure and take stock in what you’ve accomplished this year. The “year end” review is simply a data point for someone else to say if you have accomplished the objectives or not. However, I’d like to say that it does not define you. You are in control of your destiny and the year end review is simply information for which you have choices to continue in what you are doing or take inventory of your capability and passion and YOU DECIDE what 2024 looks like.

This past year I’ve been giving you tips for how to manage your career, and give you the essential skills needed to be seen, heard, respected and get a “seat at the table”. While I qualify it as the C-Suite, it doesn’t have to be. Some of you say you don’t aspire to that, and that’s your decision. But what is clear to all who I’ve spoken to is you want to do purposeful work, have an impact and have joy at work and at home. 

You are why I am here today whether you’re in the C-Suite or aspiring; I’m here to help you struggle less and spend more time doing the things you want to do.

My year end review…

I’m ending this year with what I would call a strong performance review having had 3 Drop In CEO clients, 3 coaching clients, continued with the podcast, launched a video strategy, managed the Drop In Collective, had a few paid speaking gigs and I’ve almost replaced my corporate earnings. I would rate myself as a target performance and I’m happy with that. 

However, that does not define me. I have started to feel joy in what I’m doing.  I’ve made choices to stop doing certain thanks such as stepping down as my curling  Secretary and WFFC President as well as delaying writing my book. Some people would feel those are failures, but I call them wins. I had the courage and leadership to walk away or delay certain things that were causing me stress.

Now it’s your turn…

So turning back to you as the “CEO of your domain”; it’s a mindset whether you are a CEO / President / founder of a company or the CEO of your department, now is the time to take inventory of your accomplishments and decide what you are going to do next.

To my CEO friends: I ask, what type of year was this for you? Did you survive another year of burnout and only meeting targets? Did you have crisis after crisis and applaud you and the team for the hours of hard work and sacrifice? Or are you at a point of stable operations, but need to do something different to grow, expand or be sustainable? Do you have the right people on your team or do you need someone external like myself who can extend your leadership capacity and capability so you don’t burn out in the next year? I’m speaking to you now because in 2024, I am dedicated to you to provide solutions to real issues I’ve faced and want to support you and be your partner.

To my leaders who may be stuck and who may not have had a support system, this past year’s podcast solos have been dedicated to you to give you the essential skills you need to navigate your challenges. To those who said it was helpful, I am grateful. For those of you who are still stuck; please know I’m here for you.

Follow me into 2024 as I speak to the leaders who are in the C-Suite positions or CEO’s and start to adopt the mindset, behaviors and practices to further elevate your leadership. Think about listening again to all the solo’s from 2023 to revisit what we’ve talked about. Please know that in 2024 I will distill down all these lessons for you into a single resource called The Secrets of the C-Suite so you have an invaluable resource as you move to higher and higher impact. Take it with you or share it with someone. Stay tuned so you can get your copy in 2024.

As I bring this to a close, I leave you with a few questions to ponder:

As you reflect on 2023, did you survive or thrive?

Did you feel fulfilled or fell short of job satisfaction?

Do you want to thrive in 2024 and do you have the support you need?

I’m that support and follow me into 2024 where we can grow together.

I’m here to listen and perhaps we can have a conversation and unlock your future!

To hear more about This topic please tune into my podcast that is releasing this Friday 12/8/23. 

Until we meet, I wish you well and much success!

-Deb

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