#10 I am not a good student (Eng & Fra)
The story of the day I turned my professional life around
*Scrollez pour la version française, my friends*
So today, allow me to tell you a story.
It’s a story I told many times over the years in talks, podcasts, TV shows and never get tired of it because it makes me re live the day my perspectives completely changed, my horizons broadened, my relationship to work was taken upside down and I broke free. I still get that kick you know? It’s a story that is a bit magical because sometimes the person I tell it to breaks free too. So here we go:
I had been working for a year or so, not that much in the long run, but enough to have experienced a good load of fustrations, found myself unable to promote my work and be visible, become aware of a subtle double standard regarding my voice, my work and my presence in comparision to my peers. So I was a bit wound up.
And so one bright morning my boss comes to me and says “Clara, I need you to take care of this for next week”. “This” was a very thorough super complex market study, that would take me the entire week and a few evenings and I was to present the conclusions the following monday during our weekly meeting.
Comes that day. I completed the study, overcame the challenge by myself and am proud of the result I must say. The meeting starts as usual, each one talks about the week ahead, the perspectives, the strategies, and time passes. The markets are going to open and I know I have about 15minutes of presentation, but I stay calm because I trust my boss knows what he is doing. He is the one who asked me to do the job, isn’t he. And time passes. And then, after an hour or so my boss looks at his watch and goes: “Opa! the markets are open, have a nice week everyone!”. I jump: “But O. what about the study, all the conclusions are ready?”. “Ah yes, we don’t have time now, we’ll see that later” is the answer.
I go back to my desk shaking a little bit and I do something I have never done before: I open an email, put all the conclusions of the study in it, the charts, the graphs and send it to all the traders of the group worldwide. People in the US, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, South Africa, Switzerland, the UK, Singapore, China. People I have never met before, who don’t even know my name, but whom I believe could be interested. And then I fall back on my chair and meditate about the crazy audacity of my action.
It’s not much an email is it? But that email completely changed my relationship to my work. Because for the first time I had defended my interest without anybody authorizing me to do so. For the first time I had taken the initiative to say “look, I did a good job here”, I had allowed myself to make it visible. It was radical because I realized there was a whole continent of initiatives I had never explored. I had been waiting. For people to notice, to validate, to congratulate, to legitimize, to push me forward. And that email put me in the driver’s seat after a year of passivity.
That email made me understand that my progression depended on a whole different mindset: “what can I do that nobody asked me to do?”
And there has been no turning point since.
Now, I know how difficult it can be and that the day to day at work leaves us little space to shift our mindsets. After years of attentism and not knowing how to reach that driver’s seat, even though we identified what we do wrong, we don’t necessarily know how to change our attitude.
!DRUMS!
This is why I am very proud to announce that I partenered with the great team of Voxe (the best news newsletter out there) to create a Masterclass to help you do so. To get rid of your impostor syndrome, know how to promote, ask, propose, negociate, get that mindset and embrace that attitude.
Going from passivity to taking the reins, from “I did everything right” to “I did everything I could”.
It’s called “4 semaines pour reprendre les rênes de ta vie pro”, and we could have called it “I am not a good student” because its objective is to breeze that air of freedom in your wings.
It’s in french, it’s a 4 weeks program that merges Voxe’s expertise in pedagogy and the essence of the message I have been passing on for the past 8 years. It’s 100% online so you can do it whenever, it’s made of videos, exercices and bonus ressources and it’s basically super smart Ondine and myself talking to you.
I had great fun doing it and am thankful to the Voxe team for thinking of me to create that program and for supporting my work for many years now.
It just lauched, so if you feel it’s time to free yourself from the good old inner blocages that keep you from going out there and be who you are, you can jump in with your eyes closed, I put all I got in there for you.
Now, on your saddle, and off you go!
Clara
*Et nous voici en French-speaking zone, enjoy!*
Aujourd’hui, j’aimerais vous raconter une histoire.
C’est une histoire que j’ai racontée de nombreuses fois, lors de conférences, dans des podcasts, des émissions de télévision, et je ne m’en lasse pas parce qu’elle me fait revivre le jour où j’ai renversé les perspectives, élargi mes horizons, transformé ma relation au travail, et me suis libérée. I still get that kick, you know? C’est une histoire un peu magique aussi car parfois, la personne à qui je la raconte se libère aussi. La voici :
Je travaillais depuis environ un an, ce qui est peu mais suffisant pour avoir engrangé pas mal de frustrations, de sentiment d’impuissance devant ma difficulté à promouvoir mon travail et être visible, pour avoir pris conscience d’un deux poids deux mesures subtile mais certain concernant ma parole, mon travail, et ma présence par rapport à mes pairs. J’étais donc déjà un peu remontée.
Et un matin, mon chef annonce : « Clara, j’ai besoin que tu t’occupes de cela pour la semaine prochaine. » « Cela » était une étude de marché approfondie et complexe, qui me demanderait toute la semaine et quelques soirées, et dont les conclusions étaient attendues pour le lundi suivant lors de notre réunion hebdomadaire.
Arrive ce lundi. J’ai terminé l’étude et relevé ce défi by myself, et je dois dire que je suis fière du résultat. Intéressante cette étude finalement. La réunion commence comme d’habitude, chacun parle de la semaine à venir, des perspectives, des stratégies, et le temps passe. Les marchés vont ouvrir, je sais que j’ai environ 15 minutes de présentation, mais je reste calme parce que je me dis que mon chef sait ce qu’il fait. C’est lui qui m’a demandé ce travail, n’est-ce pas ? Et le temps passe. Et puis, après environ une heure, il regarde sa montre et dit : « Opa ! Les marchés ouvrent, bonne semaine à tous ! » Je bondis : « Mais O., et l’étude ? Toutes les conclusions sont prêtes ! » « Ah oui, pas le temps, on verra la semaine prochaine ».
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