For the past few years, we’ve compiled our greatest takeaways from our podcast, The Career Contessa Podcast.
This year, we found ourselves grappling with topics we hadn’t considered much before, like how to manage stress when returning to the office, or how to navigate the feeling of languishing.
The result? Over 50 episodes of The Career Contessa Podcast in 2021, with amazing guests brimming with advice on managing self-doubt and negative thought spirals to researching how to actually get the salary you want, and so much more. Here a few of our favorite takeaways to inspire us as we enter a fresh new year.
Dr. Kristin Neff’s research on self-compassion, as opposed to self-esteem, has shown it to be a more effective motivator and a more essential part of maintaining a growth mindset—across all aspects of our lives. In this episode, we speak with her about what makes self-compassion so important, and how to quiet your inner critic to make room for the voice of your loving, kind, inner self.
“We already know how to be supportive and helpful to others. We just have to give ourselves permission to do it for ourselves,” she says.
We’ve all experienced the disorienting feeling of scrolling on social media, only to “snap out of it” and see that twenty minutes have passed. If you’re feeling this a lot—or you’re having trouble focusing at work, there are exercises that can help train your mind to pay more attention.
On this episode of The Career Contessa Podcast, we talk to Dr. Amishi Jha about learning how to truly focus. She explains the three types of attention and how to “train” them, and she walks us through a short (and totally doable) mindfulness exercise that strengthens each attention type. Dr. Jha recommends committing to one minute per day and working up until you reach twelve minutes of mindfulness.
“[This practice] is focusing on particular breath-related sensations, noticing your mind wandering, and redirecting back to the breath (the same target) over and over again...it’s a push-up for the mind.”
In this episode, we discuss the near-obsession with being liked, but that's not all. Women are often caught in a bind, where we're asked to balance our ambition with our outward likeability.
In this episode, author and time management expert Laura Vanderkam explains why we should view our time in weeks, not in days. Vanderkam explains:
"Things don't have to happen daily, and they don't have to happen at the same time to 'count.' If we do things a couple of times a week, it's great. We can't view one day as all of our time."
We discuss the value of feedback a lot around here—but it’s a tool that’s wildly underutilized in workplaces everywhere. Some managers don’t know how to give feedback (or they feel uncomfortable doing so). Some offices simply don’t emphasize it.
And what’s worse, when it is given, employees often don’t find it valuable. Therese Huston, Ph.D. and author of Let’s Talk: Make Effective Feedback Your Superpower, speaks with us about the art of feedback. With actionable tips like how to handle it if you’re quick to become teary or how to request genuinely helpful coaching from your manager, she fills us in on everything feedback-related.
“‘What would support look like?’ You want to be asked that as an employee because [then] the reins are back in your hands," she says.
In this episode of The Career Contessa Podcast, speaker, author, and leadership expert Shanna Hocking shares her tips to create value at work. Hocking shares:
"Successful leaders are lifelong learners. This can mean that you're reading books or taking webinars. Think about what you want to be known for—the area you want to be seen as the expert in—and then start to identify ways you can develop that expertise even further. Give yourself grace. Learning is a process that happens over time."
Nike’s Global Compensation Manager David Buckmaster is a compensation expert due to his years of experience and the research he conducted for his book, Fair Pay.
We speak with him about how to figure out what salary requests to make when you’re accepting a new job or looking at a promotion. He recommends going further than a quick skim of the more general salary websites and instead paying attention to your company’s leveling guide. By comparing what you are doing to what your company says someone with your title should be doing, you can see if you’re acting at your current “level.” If not—it’s time to ask for that raise...but with lots of preparation and accurate data to back you up.
“Figure out what you’re actually doing day-to-day and compare that to your job description...if you can point out that your job might be mis-leveled, that’s a really clear indicator to have a follow-up pay conversation," he advises.
In this episode of The Career Contessa Podcast, were talking about money with the founder and CEO of You Need a Budget, Jesse Mecham. Mecham shares his best (judgment-free) tips for saving money. One of his rules is to never spend money that's less than thirty days old. He explains:
"The idea is that a dollar I earned today and spend tomorrow is a baby dollar. The dollar you spend today is not needed for anything for the next thirty days. Create [at least] a thirty-day buffer between when you earn the dollar and when you spend it."
In this episode, Belma McCaffrey of Work Bigger shares her three-step framework for defining your purpose. McCaffrey explains why attaching yourself to a purpose, rather than a job title, will help you find more fulfillment in your work.
"I spent all of my twenties trying to find a job instead of my purpose. I spent years just stuck in a cycle...I had to understand what I was looking for and what I really wanted. [I finally learned] that purpose is actually a core human need."
This year brought some of us back to the office, through regular in-person work or through a hybrid work model. While some of us are undoubtedly ready to get some normalcy back (hello, socialization!), heading back into the office brought pretty intense feelings of burnout for many of us.
On this episode of The Career Contessa Podcast, we speak with Yu Tse Heng, a burnout scholar from the University of Washington. She shared with us some helpful tips about how to handle it if you’re feeling super burned out. Starting with diagnosing yourself and your specific type of burnout, she recommends some specific actions to take if you’re feeling this way...and it’s more than treating yourself to a new candle (though that can’t hurt, either, right?).
“One thing we wanted to highlight with our research is that...small acts can really go a long way in reducing burnout. So we’re not talking about people signing up for a ten-week wellness seminar to reduce burnout or to go for a yoga class for a few months. What we found in our research was that just small five-minute acts of kindness towards yourself or other people can alleviate your burnout.”
In this episode, we discuss how the “dream job” mentality may be wearing us down. Somewhere along the way, many of us were taught to make our “passions” our jobs—but that may actually be bad advice.
Trying to find a job that provides a comfortable lifestyle and entails work that you’re passionate about is just plain difficult. We argue that the “good enough” job is where the magic happens. Of course we want everyone to enjoy their job—but it’s freeing to accept that your work may not define your whole “self.” This episode contains our four arguments that will have you considering a “good enough” job over that elusive “dream” job. Our founder, Lauren McGoodwin, notes:
“I don’t think we should focus on what we’re passionate about and then pursuing that for work. Maybe think about what you’re good at. I often find that if you feel good about what you’re doing and know you’re good at your job and you get success in that...you’ll enjoy what you’re doing because you’re working within a strength.”
In this episode of The Career Contessa Podcast, Bola Sokunbi, founder and CEO of Clever Girl Finance, tells us how to build a seven-figure portfolio—with pretty much any salary.
If you’ve dealt with one negative thought that leads to another, and then another, you’ve experienced a negative thought spiral. It’s tough—and hard to get yourself out of the cycle. On this episode, we speak with Dr. Gail Saltz, psychiatrist and bestselling author, about how to get out of a negative thought spiral when it happens—and how to keep them from happening in the first place. Dr. Saltz tells us:
“You don’t want to actively push [the anxious thought] away, and you don’t want to answer it. You’re going to let it float there, you’re going to accept that you have it, you’re going to tolerate the discomfort of that (which it will be uncomfortable)...Over time, when you do that, it breaks the loop. You’re not giving it positive reinforcement, and the thoughts actually dissipate, so that really, over time, you’ll have fewer of them.”
We know that stress can be detrimental to overall wellbeing (which is stressful to think about in itself, right?). In this episode, we speak with Dr. Audrey Tang, psychologist and author, about dealing with stress at work. While the root causes of stress are different for everyone, it can usually be felt physically. This might mean an increased heart rate, sweat, irritability, sleep issues, and more.
From dealing with toxic coworkers to when and how to say “no” to things you don’t have the bandwidth for, Dr. Tang shares actionable advice for how to lower your stress levels.
“If you are thinking ‘I actually need to calm down here,’ and counting backwards from 10 is not going to work for you, then count something you can see. Count the flaps on a blind, count the paving stones on the ground. Count the bricks on the wall, because that gets you out of your head and gets you focused on something outside of yourself.”
In this episode of The Career Contessa Podcast, we discuss a popular topic, toxic workplaces. We are joined by D'Arby Rose, a filmmaker, artist, consultant, and co-founder of Color Film, who shares her best advice on navigating toxicity in the workplace. Rose defines the toxic workplace:
"When we talk about safety, we don't think about emotional, mental, or health safety. That is something that needs to be paired with inclusion. I've been the diversity hire many times and [when I arrived] there was no safety."
In this episode, part of our four-part series called "Black Women in..." four ambitious and successful Black women—Chei Burris, Jasmine Anderson, Stephanie Kimou, and Neveah Bradshaw—discuss being a Black woman in the workforce. On the future of work working better for Black women, Stephanie Kimou notes:
"What I wish I had known in my early twenties is to not try to be the Black woman who knows everything. You'll get more [unpaid] work and you'll lose out on opportunities. I wish I had normalized sooner that I don't know everything and, actually, it's not my job to know that as the only Black person in the office."
In this episode, we talk about managing up. We are joined by Jackie Ross, author and managing up expert, to share her tips for managing up successfully—with any type of boss. Ross explains what managing up actually is:
"Managing up is really about influencing the perception your boss has of you. When you manage up you can really change, improve, and strengthen the rapport you have with your boss...Regardless of your relationship with your boss, managing up is a critical skill because it can make your work experience more enriching or empowering."
Here, we talk about five common habits that destroy confidence at its root. From there, we figure out how to stop the habits and replace them with confidence-building habits. Lauren McGoodwin explains one big confidence-killing habit:
"A common [anti-confidence] habit is staying silent when you want to speak up. One of the best ways to practice confidence is to speak up for yourself and others, so when you stay silent you are depriving yourself. By speaking up, you are able to advocate for yourself and others, which is crucial for confidence-building," she says.
Looking for more confidence-building? Enroll in The Confidence Crunch, our course designed to help you build and keep your confidence.
In this episode, we discuss about creating a truly inclusive workplace. Inclusive workplaces don’t happen overnight. They require consistent learning, changes in habits, and leadership commitment. We are joined by Karen Catlin of Better Allies, who shares her best advice on creating truly inclusive workplaces. Catlin talked about inclusive language, which was a real eye-opener.
"The language that we use every day can be very exclusive to people. It's important to focus on language. Language can be hard to change and it can be fraught with discussion. It's great to have a place, like a 'language matters' Slack channel," she shares.
We are joined by Amina AlTai, a career and business coach in this episode. She explains why the frozen middle is an under-resourced and overlooked segment of the workforce that, if supported correctly, could turn businesses around.
"The frozen middle is the middle of an organization that people dub as 'resistant to change.' [In reality], it's an incredible section of the organization that has been really overlooked in terms of resources and potential. I think that enough is not invested in that section so they become 'frozen.'"
Author of Brag Better Meredith Fineman speaks with us about how to effectively “brag” on yourself. Usually, the word “brag” has a negative connotation of being a little *too* proud of your accomplishments. But Fineman explains why we should reclaim and redefine this word—and start using it in order to regularly keep track of and highlight our own accomplishments without shame.
“I use a controversial word, which is ‘brag’...I decided I would rather redefine it as ‘stating true facts about your work, strategically and cohesively to advance your career.’”
In this episode, we talk about growth mindsets at work. We are joined by Career Contessa coach Kristin Evenson, to reframe from fixed to growth mindset thinking. She notes that:
"Emotion is a natural part of life and many of us grew up thinking we should push it aside or repress it. When we're experiencing intense emotion the limbic system lights up and sucks up energy from our brain. The simple act of recognizing and naming the emotion quiets down the limbic system and increases our capacity to think creatively again."
