Ep. 19: Owning Your Story

Career Design Podcast

Episode 19 Owning Your Story

SPEAKERS

Surabhi, Lindsay

Lindsay 00:00

I'm Lindsay Mustaine and this is the career design podcast made for driven ambitious square pegs and round holes type professionals who see things differently and challenge the status quo. We obliterate obstacles and unlock hidden pathways to overcome and succeed where others have not stagnation feels like death, and we are unwilling to compromise our integrity and settle for being average in any way. We are the backbone of any successful business and those who overlook our potential are doomed to a slow demise. We do work that truly matters aligns with our purpose, and in turn, we make our lasting mark on the world. We are the dreamers, doers, legends, and visionaries who are called to make our most meaningful contribution and love what we do. Welcome to the career design podcast today I am so excited to introduce you to my guest and her name is Surabhi Sawhney. And she is somebody who has been a part of my intentional career design program and really going through the milestones of how to really expand your career and design the kind of impact that you want to make professionally in the world. So thank you so much for joining me today.

Surabhi 01:03

Thank you for having me.

Lindsay 01:05

So tell me a little bit about how you got started on this journey. And what made sense to you about career design.

Surabhi 01:11

I've been an entrepreneur, most of my life, I did have a life incorporate for a while, and then just opportunities came my way. And I challenged myself to deliver and to over-deliver in most anything that I did. And I didn't stop to say this is not what my career path is, I need to be in corporate America I need to be in or as an entrepreneur, I just saw them as challenges and as goals and as something that I would like to deliver and kind of rise from and learn from. So most of my life has been spent in opportunities that came my way and then making them into successes. But you know, COVID affected the last business that I was running, that I had chosen to do here in the US. And I really kind of took a pause to look at my career, what I've done, what I've accomplished, what I've learned, and what is it that I want to do next. And the growth that I've experienced over the last, you know, 10 to 15 years kind of channeled me to be an individual contributor in, in a field that I'm good at, which is helping others seeing what's needed, and then just giving my best to help them achieve their goals. That's what I realized my happiness came from is to see others succeed. And that was my success. So once I kind of channeled that information into my goal, I started looking at what I wanted to do, because I had done a little bit of recruiting and I had done sales slash business development slash customer success. And I happened to be looking at LinkedIn every day. But nothing really resonated internally until I found this specific job that really spoke to me and I decided to apply for it. But I didn't have the structure to because I've been an entrepreneur all this time, I haven't really worked on my resume or you know, made myself into this candidate-focused approach. And I happen to come across Lindsay's international career design, it was some kind of a web Facebook or LinkedIn podcast that you were doing, or video seminar. And I I hooked on to it. And I've heard a lot of career coaches, the one thing that really stood out from international career design was your spirit was your energy was everything that you were saying were so spot on, to everything that it all resonated with me. And that's the reason why I decided to join because not only was there a structure where there was accountability, and there was it was it's a very total package. And there's a lot of expectations from me, personally, there's nobody holding your hand and taking you somewhere but you need to be on that journey yourself and deliver to each module that's in there. So that's how I got on to career design. And started focusing on more I would say more like it was it's a complete package of not only a resume and the tactical things but also a self-development, networking Ninja, just learning how to become a candidate of choice for companies. But then I also linked into your dreamer collective that you give an option to kind of, you know, look into and experience for yourself. And that really got me hooked on because that got my wheels in my head turning about self-development, having a community to kind of bounce ideas off of, and practice my skills. With my friends and community members as to, you know, hearing the voices that are from outside, what do I sound like when I'm talking to somebody else? What is the reaction that I'm getting from four different people that I trust, and it's a safe place to kind of talk and grow as a person? And that I think really, really helped me to be where I am today. So I really thank you for that Lindsay to create that environment, and you apparently attract the best of the best. So that's been really good.

Lindsay 05:32

I'm honored and that means so much to me. And yes, I think our community is filled with the people who are going to change the world. Absolutely. So and you are an amazing part of that community. So thank you for being a part of it.

Surhabi: 05:45

One thing I do want to kind of say is that the biggest thing that kind of came across me and the reason why I am succeeding at my job search my interviews, is the self-awareness part of it and controlling what I can control, which is myself, I can't control the external, you know, factors out there, I can't control companies, I can't control the people who interview me, I can't control a lot of other things. And what I did was change my focus and make my focus more on me, how do I show up? What do I align myself with, and doing my best in everything that I did, but not expecting success from the other side? And I think that has been, you know, a total game-changer for me, where, when you don't expect and you're very calm in your you know, you just bring your best self to the table. And you don't expect the other person to either appreciate or on appreciate. You just be yourself. And you talk about yourself. And the lucky part was right when I joined your program, I was I also started interviewing with a company. And the first interview that I went to was rough. It was my first time I had done a practice interview with coal. But when I went on this interview, the feedback I got was, you know, you're not following the star pattern or you know, the star. What is it called the kind of star? The superstar forward method is how we write.

Surabhi 07:22

Right, which is wonderful. I love the superstar forward method. But I was not even following that I was he was digging to find out answers, I was not owning my story. I was like, Well, my, you know, experience may not be exactly relevant to what they're talking about. So I was holding back. And right away, the interviewer came back to me with great feedback, saying, here's the great part about you. And here's what you need to work on. And one of the things that you need to work on is, I had to really dig to find answers in your, in the questions that I asked you. And that took a lot of time, and you need to work on that for your next interview. So he did put me forward to the next interview. But I learned from that and you know, I think you and I spoke and I told you about me not owning my story. And then Becky saying, you know, just be who you are. And it really made a difference. I started practicing more. I called on my good close friends to listen to me answer the questions. They kind of reformatted it for me and say, you know, what about this, what about this, you've done sometimes you don't see what's inside of you, others do. So it's very important to bring in the outside to kind of look inside you and say, Here's where you're not even looking at what you've done. And these are, you know, your achievements or accomplishments. So that really helped me be better at answering the questions, being more substantive acts ask, you know, owning my own story and just being me and that's what got through me through the last interview, and you know, was offered the job because of that. So that became really clear. And the more interviews I've done, the better I've gotten it, the more comfortable I've been at it just being me because I realized that my experience means something, I am bringing things to the table, I don't need external validation for them to tell me what I've already achieved. So those things owning your own story being clear in what you want being targeted, not wanting perfection. I'm a perfectionist overall. And I realized that perfection is the enemy of progress, which I've heard from so many people unless you own it and kind of practice it in your life that I'm making progress every day, whatever little is. Maybe I work on something small on myself every day that 1% will bring about you know, those little atomic changes that you do in your life and having confidence in myself and kind of standing in my own power. The reason why today I'm very comfortable walking away from things or going into things or talking to me anybody at any level is that I stand in my own power, I kind of own my own. You know, my insight into life, my experiences, my challenges, everything that I need to work on, as well as what I've done well so that that kind of sums up where I am today. It's all about attitude and self-awareness.

Lindsay 10:25

I love that so much. So if you were to give a piece of advice for somebody who's thinking, Okay, I'm ready to do something more, I feel called to make a greater contribution, I'm looking to do work that truly aligns to my purpose to my power. What would you say about intentional career design?

Surabhi 10:42

I think the biggest thing that you can do to start anywhere in life, whether it's your career, or your personal life is having clarity, and kind of honing down into one or two things. If you want to do too many things. The people outside are confused as to who you are and what you bring to the table. So I've kind of intentionally stuck to one thing, I can do a lot of things, but what am I really good at? What is the end result of what I do? I kind of stuck to that. And there were other people who started looking at me and saying, Oh, my God, I see you're really good at this. Could you work with me on that? So when your abilities and your USP kind of becomes visible to the outside, I read somewhere that really resonated with me, where they say your confidence in yourself is seen as capability by others. And that I think really resonated with me is my confidence in myself to do what I've done my experiences, is seen as capability as others if you don't have confidence in what you can do. Others won't either. So my advice to people is always to have clarity in what you want and what you present to the world. Don't make it very wide, make it more targeted. Don't try and be perfect. Have confidence in yourself, because you've done it before and have consistency. Show up. Do the work that's required a little bit every day. don't overwhelm yourself. Don't try and, you know, apply for jobs, interview, work on yourself, read books, like everything together, sometimes can be too much. So do a little bit every day, the day that you're not interviewing, work on yourself the day that you are interviewing, just focus on that. So focus on little things at a time and I think that for me has been successful.

Lindsay 12:36

I love it. Thank you so much for giving your words of wisdom and congratulations on all of your success. Here we are so very proud of you.

Surabhi 12:43

Thank you.

Lindsay 12:44

All right, thank you so much for tuning into the podcast today. Now we are moving towards releasing intentional career design. So stay tuned because more details are coming and thanks for listening today.