This is the final episode of Ever Better Today, Season Two! 

I'll be back at some point in the future so stay tuned! 

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It’s Coach Question Friday when I ask a question that I often ask clients! 

For the final episode of Ever Better Today, I’d like you to consider how you can share your ideas more widely. How can you reach more people? How can you have a greater impact? 

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Welcome to Ever Better Today: the daily podcast for creating your optimal business, career, or overall life in ten minutes or less. I’m Lisa Conners Vogt, Executive and Leadership Coach and founder of Ever Better Coaching and Consulting. Let’s jump in!

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How can you share your ideas more broadly?

Set your goals. Who do you want to reach and why? 

When I set out to produce Ever Better Today, Season Two, I said that I was going to do 250 episodes. That was roughly one episode per weekday for a year. My main goals were to become more comfortable with creating ideas, articulating, and sharing them. I knew that this would help me to document my body of work and identify patterns that I could focus on moving forward. Before I knew it, I had reached 100 episodes and I recognized that I had achieved my goals. Creating another 150 episodes wouldn’t help me move the needle on achieving my main goals. So I’m turning my attention to client work and other projects….at least for now!  But….I’ll be back!What are your goals?  

Identify key topics and themes.

As I created daily podcasts, I narrowed down my topics to leadership and related tactics and tools. What are you key topics and themes? It’s totally normal for your topics and themes to evolve! But they can’t evolve until you get started. 

Identify a platform to share your ideas.

Think about how you can share your ideas. Try podcasting, blogs, creating workshops, webinars, seminars, or being a guest on podcasts. If you try something and it’s not working for you, it’s totally fine to try something else! What platform seems most natural for you? Remember, it all takes practice!

Have a team to support you.

On my end, I have a wonderful editor named Ryan Higgs and virtual assistant named Louisa to help me produce, publish and publicize each episode.Who’s in your corner?

How can you stretch yourself to get your ideas into the world? 

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To learn more about working with Ever Better, send me an email here or book a complimentary call with me here

It doesn't have to be lonely at the top!

As you move up the ranks from an entry-level job to senior managerial positions, you have fewer peers to confide in. And if you're a founder, you have even fewer peers. You’ll need to create an evolving circle of confidantes. It may not be easy, but it’s important to achieve. And when you do, it won’t be lonely at the top. 

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Welcome to Ever Better Today: the daily podcast for creating your optimal business, career, or overall life in ten minutes or less. I’m Lisa Conners Vogt, Executive and Leadership Coach and founder of Ever Better Coaching and Consulting. Let’s jump in!

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It doesn't have to be lonely at the top. Here are some tips: 

Find a coach. Identify someone you trust to share your challenges and success with on a confidential basis. This relationshop can cover all aspects of your business, career, and overall life. 

Surround yourself with people you can trust. Find your circle of advisors and people you can trust to share your challenges with. This should be a two-way relationship. They need to be able to rely on you just as you rely on them. 

Speak at conferences. This will help you create more your connections and meet people who are also in senior roles. Put yourself in places where you’ll be among peers. 

Involve yourself in hobbies and activities. Build relationships with people who can become confidantes outside of work. As you pursue hobbies and activities that you enjoy, those relationships will evolve and you’ll learn from each other. 

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To learn more about working with Ever Better, send me an email here or book a complimentary call with me here

Leadership involves articulating your vision, creating alignment within your organization and driving execution.

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Welcome to Ever Better Today: the daily podcast for creating your optimal business, career, or overall life in ten minutes or less. I’m Lisa Conners Vogt, Executive and Leadership Coach and founder of Ever Better Coaching and Consulting. Let’s jump in!

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The Work of Leaders DiSC Assessment identifies and describes your work style, and explains the benefits and opportunities for growth within the framework of vision, alignment, and execution. 

Here are the three Work of Leaders elements: Vision, Alignment and Execution. 

Vision is an imagined future condition for the organization or team. It expands assumptions about what can be accomplished. It unifies people and provides purpose. 

How you craft your vision and how you communicate your vision is related to your DiSC style. You might prioritize details, or you might prioritize the big picture, you might be extremely bold, or you might focus on analysis. 

Alignment involves gaining buy-in from the organization and your team. It takes a team to achieve a vision. Alignment sets the stage by proposing a plan for effective implementation, provides a forum for questions and concerns, brings people together behind the vision and it generates excitement. 

If a team is aligned towards a vision and they understand the strategic plan and where they're going in the future, they're going to be much more resilient and less likely to jump ship when things get tough.

Execution is how you turn vision into reality. Vision is achieved through tactics. Choose the right person for each position, consider resources, and finances for your organization. 

Using OKRs - objectives and key results - or another form of metrics is important for managing execution. They provide team milestones and the opportunity to recognize and celebrate progress. 

The work of leaders varies at different levels.

CEOs should be focused on vision and alignment while delegating execution. 

Middle managers should be focused on some vision and alignment with a greater emphasis on managing execution.  

Entry level managers will primarily focus on execution and managing execution. 

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To learn more about DiSC Assessments and working with Ever Better, send me an email here or book a complimentary call with me here

Do you sometimes act as if you are not qualified for a role even though you know you are?

Do you downplay your ideas and accomplishments so that others won’t feel threatened? If so, you are acting like an "intentional imposter." 

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Welcome to Ever Better Today: the daily podcast for creating your optimal business, career, or overall life in ten minutes or less. I’m Lisa Conners Vogt, Executive and Leadership Coach and founder of Ever Better Coaching and Consulting. Let’s jump in!

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Why would anyone be an intentional imposter? 

Avoiding Conflict

We’ve all seen examples of women who confidently speak their truth and face a firestorm of criticism because of it. Maybe you’ve witnessed this or even experienced it yourself. This can cause individuals to play smaller. 

Consider Dr. Christine Blasey Ford who was harassed, ridiculed, and experienced death threats because she shared her experience of being assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh in high school. 

Avoiding the Spotlight

Sometimes being in the spotlight can result in public shaming and people speaking out against an individual whom they don’t know. This very real experience of trolling can cause individuals to avoid the spotlight so that they can continue to live their lives as they have been. Unfortunately, they may not be living and speaking their authentic truth and they are not making a difference in the world as they might. 

Consider what happened when Dr. Brene Brown gave a TEDx talk in 2010 that becamse wildly popular. Word of her research and her relatable explanations of shame became widely quoted - and the trolls came for her online. She openly discusses how hurtful and potentially damaging the barrage of negative comments about her looks and her work could have been. She discusses this in her Netflix special, The Call to Courage.

Avoiding Responsibility:
Which May Reveal Symptoms of Imposter Syndrome 

Sharing your ideas in a meeting or public forum can result in being assigned with leading a task force or taking on a special assignment. This can be great for your career. But it can also be one more responsibility for which you won’t receive additional compensation. It may also put you into a role for which you don’t feel qualified. This can cause imposter syndrome to reveal itself. Listen to Ever Better Today Episode 104 to learn more about Imposter Syndrome. 

How to break the cycle of intentional impostering.

Take steps to stop intentional impostering little by little. 

Practice sharing your authentic ideas a bit more every day. When you do this regularly, people will get used to hearing from you and expect it. You’ll create the understanding and expectation that you have valuable ideas and qualifications. 

Expect to be invited in as a leader. And if you’re not, remember what Shirley Chisholm said: “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” 

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To learn more about working with Ever Better, send me an email here or book a complimentary call with me here

If you feel like you’re not qualified for the role you’re in and you’re going to be discovered…you may have imposter syndrome. Even if you don’t, chances are that someone you know or work with does.

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Welcome to Ever Better Today: the daily podcast for creating your optimal business, career, or overall life in ten minutes or less. I’m Lisa Conners Vogt, Executive and Leadership Coach and founder of Ever Better Coaching and Consulting. Let’s jump in!

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Imposter syndrome is the feeling that you are not qualified to be in your current role, and that you are going to be found out and humiliated.

What drives feelings of Imposter Syndrome? 

1. Comparison 

Comparison is addiction to failure. Comparison also drives imposter syndrome. 

Imagine you’re a CEO who’s struggling with a challenge and you compare yourself to another CEO who handled a similar situation gracefully. You may judge yourself harshly in comparison and conclude that you aren’t qualified. In reality, every CEO struggles with challenges and no two CEOs have the same qualifications. 

Rather than comparing yourself to someone else, think about the valuable skills and experiences you bring to your role. In addition, seek a different perspective from people around you like your leadership team, coaches, and someone who knows your capabilities and will provide honest feedback. 

2. Lack of Practice and Negative Feedback

Individuals are often afraid of speaking up in meetings or sharing their ideas in other forums because when they’ve done this in the past they’ve been discouraged, laughed at, or had their ideas hijacked. They may feel that they are jeopardizing their job if they share an idea that isn’t accepted by others. Overcoming this belief takes practice. 

To elevate your voice, you need to practice saying your idea authentically while making eye contact with key people in the room. And if someone takes your idea and presents it as their own, call them out with a direct and matter-of-fact statement. 

3. Reinforcement of Inconsistent Qualification Requirements 

Women and people of color are often judged to be lacking in qualifications for roles even when their academic and business successes exceed those they are being judged against. This can lead individuals to start believing that they are truly not qualified and that they have to work twice as hard to gain the respect of their colleagues. 

Address feelings of inadequate qualifications with your support system and with reminders of all you’ve accomplished.  

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To learn more about working with Ever Better, send me an email here or book a complimentary call with me here

How can you get better at your job?

Each Friday, I share a question that I often ask my clients. Today’s question is inspired by “Born Standing Up” by Steve Martin, and “So Good They Can't Ignore You” by Cal Newport.

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Welcome to Ever Better Today: the daily podcast for creating your optimal business, career, or overall life in ten minutes or less. I’m Lisa Conners Vogt, Executive and Leadership Coach and founder of Ever Better Coaching and Consulting. Let’s jump in!

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Here’s how you can get better at your work if you are a CEO, Founder, Co-founder, or Senior Manager…

1. Create a coaching relationship with someone you trust, who can guide and mentor you.
2. Broaden your network and informal relationships so that you have people who you can share ideas with and brainstorm with.
3. Ask for feedback from customers and keep in touch with your entry-level employees to ask for their input on what they're observing and what they're experiencing.

1. Strive to become a subject matter expert
2. Collect and study information to learn about your company, business sector, competitors, and your job.
3. Create and share your own perspective! Identify transformational concepts and ideas that others haven’t considered.

Become someone who is so good, that they can't ignore you!

Episodes 99, 100, 101, 102, and 103 describe just some of the takeaways from So Good They Can't Ignore You and Born Standing Up.

There are many other lessons in these books so I encourage you to read or listen to them. yourself! You can find them here.

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To learn more about working with Ever Better, send me an email here or book a complimentary call with me here

Feeling fulfilled and passionate about our work comes from having autonomy, competence, and relatedness. 

So what do those three terms mean and how can you achieve them?

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Welcome to Ever Better Today: the daily podcast for creating your optimal business, career, or overall life in ten minutes or less. I’m Lisa Conners Vogt, Executive and Leadership Coach and founder of Ever Better Coaching and Consulting. Let’s jump in!

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Cal Newport talks about Self-Determination Theory (SDT) in his book “So Good They Can't Ignore You”. SDT is actually composed of six mini-theories and one of them is Basic Psychological Needs Theory. To learn more, go to selfdeterminationtheory.org/theory

Psychological well-being and optimal functioning are a result of

autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

Autonomy

This is the feeling that you have control over your day and that your work is important and meaningful. Don’t expect this in the early days of your career. Strive for a blend of autonomy and guidance by finding mentors and role models to help you navigate your profession. As you gain experience, you’ll enjoy more autonomy than you’ve earned. 

Competence

There are four levels of competence. As your skills and awareness develop, you’ll move through the phases of:

Unconscious incompetence; conscious incompetence; conscious competence; and unconscious competence.

Learn more about this model by listening to Episode 7 of Ever Better Today.

Relatedness

This is the feeling of connection to other people. You have to feel a connection in order to feel very engaged and passionate about your job and mission-driven.

Episodes 99, 100, 101, 102, and 103 describe just some of the takeaways from So Good They Can't Ignore You and Born Standing Up.

There are many other lessons in these books so I encourage you to read or listen to them. yourself! You can find them here. 

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To learn more about working with Ever Better, send me an email here or book a complimentary call with me here

Do you focus on the value you're offering in your job? Or are you thinking more about “what's in it for me”?

These are two very different mindsets that create vastly different outcomes.

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Welcome to Ever Better Today: the daily podcast for creating your optimal business, career, or overall life in ten minutes or less. I’m Lisa Conners Vogt, Executive and Leadership Coach and founder of Ever Better Coaching and Consulting. Let’s jump in!

In chapter four of Cal Newport’s book entitled “So Good They Can't Ignore You”, he describes two different approaches to thinking about work - a craftsman mindset versus a passion mindset.

In Steve Martin’s book, Born Standing Up, he describes his constant work to craft better performances. His passion for the work grew with his expertise and accolades.

Crafters and entrepreneurs focus on the value they are producing for someone else. Entrepreneurs collect information, interpret it in their own way, and create something transformational for the world to consume.

They take in information, apply their interpretation and create something new - transformation. 

Passion mindset vs Employee Mindset

In the employee mindset, individuals are focused on how their jobs make them feel and what they're getting out of their jobs rather than emphasizing the contribution, transformation, and advancement of others. This revolves around the “what's in it for me?” culture.

• Steve Martin took information about magic tricks, comedy, entertainment at Disney, and quirky personalities. He interpreted all this information in his own way and created an act that only he could do. He made an artform that entertained his audiences and shifted comedy forever. 

• With this podcast, I’m interpreting information from books, my professional and personal experiences, and my education and transforming it into podcasts. My hope is that these podcasts help you and others to elevate their businesses, careers, and overall lives.

Episodes 99, 100, 101, 102, and 103 describe just some of the takeaways from So Good They Can't Ignore You and Born Standing Up.

There are many other lessons in these books so I encourage you to read or listen to them. yourself! You can find them here. 

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To learn more about working with Ever Better, send me an email here or book a complimentary call with me here