Career Confidence: How to Be Seen, Heard, and Relevant by Nada Nasserdeen


Video Transcription

Pretty excited to be here. My name is Natale and Naser and I'm the CEO and I'm the founder of Rise Up for you. And we get the great honor of working with organizations and individuals like yourself around the world on what I like to call power skills.So that's confidence, emotional and social intelligence, leadership, diversity, equity, and inclusion. And we've worked with companies Fortune 500 from Google all the way down to a local nonprofit and we're in over 50 countries. I'm the owner and the founder of company, a two time Ted X speaker and the number one best selling author. And today I'm here to talk with you about what I think is one of the most important topics specifically for women today in the workplace. And that is how to build confidence, to be seen, be heard and be relevant. So I'm super excited to jump in and to share and talk with you. Please. Um Don't be afraid to ask questions. I will take questions at the end and I want this to be a very engaging platform and of course, I will share my screen. So couple things. Um I did not start off this way. Of course, my first career ever was as a performer. So I used to tour the world internationally and I used to sing and dance similar to Broadway. And every time I walked into a room, I always got the center stage spot, which if you know anything about performing, you know, that center stage is the best place.

It's the spot that you want to be in. But here's the most important part that I want you to remember. My technical skills were never ever the best. OK? My technical skills were never the best. So I always had three or four people that were in a room with me that can sing me out of the water. They had a three octave range. I had a 2.5 octave range. They had parents that were musicians. I sang in my garage when I was a kid. But yet I got that center stage spot and they would always ask me ne how, how do I get to where you are? How do I stand where you stand? And I used to say everything you need is already inside of you. The only difference between you and I is I walk into a room and I own the room. But actually, you're a better singer than I am, right? But yet I still got that center stage spot now. Fast forward it 78 years and I decided I didn't want to perform anymore. I put up my tap shoes, hung up the microphone and I became the executive of an education course. I was 27 years old, leading a team of 200 people.

And I saw the exact same challenges happening in the workplace that I saw when I was out on the road as a performer, high functioning professionals that had phd s master's degrees, bachelor's degrees were getting in the way of their own success and they had a hard time being seen, being heard and being relevant.

They were struggling with perfection, mindset, the inability to make the ass to raise their hands, not feeling enough. So I just started to do some research and I asked myself, what makes some people more successful than others? What makes some companies more than successful than others?

How come one person can have the same exact resume and skills as another person? But this person is gonna go further, why? What is it? And we realize and I recognize and we're seeing this more and more today, we're hearing more about it today that it's no longer about the technical skills that help you to stand out, to help you to really build success. In fact, research shows that 80% of your success is determined on emotional and social intelligence. That's the human skills, not the technical skills. So the big question in particular for women is in a workspace that's overconsume that's inundated. How can we be seen, be heard and be relevant and that's what I'm gonna share with you today. So I'm gonna go ahead, I'm gonna share my screen, ok? And we are gonna go through this and I want you to just give me a thumbs up in the chat. Can you see my screen? Can you give me a thumbs up? Yes, beautiful. OK. So how are we see? How are we heard and how we relevant to the workplace? Ok. Now I will tell you that this training is the training that I do the most for women. I keynote speak around the world.

And I probably do this like 2 to 3 times a week in particular for women in leadership, right? And women that want to accelerate in their career and in their profession, not necessarily limited to the corporate space, right? We work with a lot of entrepreneurs as well and a lot of coaches. So the question is how do we be seen, be heard and be relevant? Step. Number one, I always say be the billboard that people stop to see, be the billboard that people stop to see. There are way too many women in particular that walk into a room show up on zoom as if they don't matter. I always say the greatest leaders in the world are the ones that recognize their leading before they even open their mouth. And there's too many women that don't recognize and realize the importance of their presence, your power has presence. When you walk into that room, your objective is to turn head so that people can look at you and say, who is that individual? I wanna get to know them. I wanna talk with them and I wanna know more about them. OK? But I walk into keynote events all the time. I'm constantly walking the networking events and I can't tell you how many women I see that walk around as if they don't exist. And if you show up that way, that's the way that you are gonna get treated. So how do we show people and be that billboard? Right? So number one putting yourself together, this first step is super simple. OK?

Putting yourself together, doing your hair, putting on a bright face, wearing colors that show who you are. When I walk into a room of 1000 people, I can count on one hand how many individuals actually show up in a color? Notice how I'm wearing a bright color today. Most individuals wear black, brown, dark, navy gray and white. And what does that do? It mushes you all together? So no one's standing out. But now what happens if you walk into a room with 50 people and you're wearing hot pink, you're wearing purple, you're wearing gold, right?

You automatically stand up before you even open your mouth because it takes confidence to wear color. Ok. So my recommendation right now is to go into your closet and ask yourself, what kind of clothing do I have that can make me stand out. Now, I love to wear black. More than half my clo closet is black, but I have this little section with clothes like this. So when I'm speaking, when I go into networking events, when I go into any kind of important events or anything, I pull in a color instead of wearing black so that I can be seen right away. OK. Yes. Time for shopping Stella. OK. Wearing appropriate clothes that fit your brand. The reality is, is that every single one of you has a personal brand, whether or not you know it, OK, you have a personal brand. So I want you to ask yourself what are the three values or what are the three characteristics you wanna emulate before you even speak? And is your clothing showing that? OK. Is your clothing showing that? So if you want to emulate confidence, if you want to emulate pride, if whatever nurture being warm, does your clothes represent the energy that you want to put out there and listen, you know, when I was an executive and I was 27 I thought I was the best executive ever.

I thought it was the most amazing leader in the world, but nobody came into my office and nobody came to talk to me and then I heard someone say, well, you're kind of intimidating. And I said, no, that's not true. And then another person said, well, you're kind of not approachable. And I said, no, no, I don't think that's true. Well, I decided to do an anonymous survey and out of 200 team members, 75% said that I was intimidating, not approachable. And I looked mad all the time. Oh, I cried, no joke. I cried. But I realized that what I felt on the inside was not permeating and wasn't connecting on the outside. I wasn't showing up that way externally. I was wearing black all the time. My energy was always geared towards the floor on my phone or focused on a task and it wasn't permeating warmth and it wasn't permeating, coaching and mentorship and support and I wanna help. So putting yourself together and have and strong energy is a game changer for being seen.

Ok? So talking about energy, having an open energy asking people how they are avoiding the resting face. We all know what that is, right. I'm totally guilty. I'm totally guilty, right? And I've had to work on it, right? Avoiding that resting face and lastly be engaged when you talk with others, even if it's on Zoom notice right now that like we're not even in the same room, we're not even in the same state or country for most of us. And I'm talking to you as if you're sitting right in front of me, right? This is the key of being seen and standing out is building relationships even through a computer screen, recognizing that you can make an impact. I didn't show up today, just mediocre because I'm like, oh, I can't see them. They really don't know who I am. No, I'm showing up today because I know that the 70 of you that are watching right now are being influenced by my energy even on this platform. OK. Now how to command a room? I always say walk with purpose. When you walk into a room, if you need to stop for a minute and decide where you're gonna go next. That's fine. I walk into a room. I stop. Where do I wanna go? And then I walk with purpose. I don't mosey around as if I don't know what I'm doing. OK? Always introduce yourself clearly and contribute to every event and engagement you go to even if you are in a room where you're not leading, always have your voice heard. OK?

Even if that means that you say hi, everyone. My name is Ned. I'm so excited to be here today. Hi everyone. My name is NEDA. Thank you for that meeting. I look forward to the next one. Even if it's just a small statement, always have your voice heard. OK? So that is step number one, be seen. Now we're moving on to step number two, be heard. I wrote an entire book on this, OK? It's called Rise Up for you. It's a number one best selling book on Amazon and I wrote an entire book just on confidence alone. This is the greatest tragedy we see today amongst human beings in my professional opinion and my personal opinion. So my team and I asked over 4000 working professionals in 2021 what their number one challenge was, 83% of working professionals said self-confidence and Posher syndrome, the perfectionist mindset, making the ass not feeling enough, letting self doubt cripple them. This is by far the biggest tragedy I see today is a lack of self-confidence. Now it's not your fault because as a society, we have been programmed to do the opposite. OK. So I talk about Macro and Micro Confidence. This is the blueprint I created in my book. The challenge is is that society has, has taught you to build what I call micro confidence. OK? So micro confidence is meaning that you build confidence in areas in life. OK? So for example, you go to school your whole entire life to build confidence in skills, right?

You become confident in math, you become confident in reading, you become confident in history, then you go to college and you get a certification, you confidence in that certification or that degree, right? So you're taught to build a bunch of confidence in these little micro areas, right?

You're confident, I'm confident as a speaker, maybe you're confident when it comes to selling you're confident when it comes to coding, you're confident when it comes to your career, you're confident when it comes to skateboarding, whatever it is, fill in the blank. This is what we call micro level confidence. The problem is is that micro level confidence is not sustainable because it exists outside of you and anything that exists outside of you, it's inevitable, it is going to change. This is what we saw with the pandemic. So thousands of people, thousands of our clients around the world, they defined themselves by their micro confidence. They defined themselves by their career by their job title, by their money, by their car. And guess what? When the pandemic hit and all of that fell away, guess what else fell away their self-worth, their identity. OK? Because we have been taught to define ourselves and to build our self-worth based off of those micro level areas when those things fall apart, which they will we as human beings fall apart as well. Why do you think 75% of the American population feels burnt out miserable and unfulfilled? Because we've been trained to build our self worth based off of these micro areas. What we really want to do is build macro level confidence. This is a belief in your ability to learn.

This is a belief in your ability to grow. Ok. This is growth mindset. This is a belief that you are not simply because you exist, not because of anything, not because of any job, but because of any title, not because of any relationship. Nothing but simply because you exist, macro level confidence is being able to say when I have nothing, I still have everything because I have my self worth and you can do everything with that. Listen, when I first started building my company, rise up for you all I had was $100 100 dollars. I didn't have a degree in business. Ok. I resigned from my executive position to move out of the country for love. And after four weeks, I was back in California with only two luggage, I lost all my money. Everything. I had a house on the lake, brand new luxury car, an executive position. I was an amazing executive making over six figures when I was in my twenties. And in four weeks, I lost everything because I took a risk for love. I came back to California with two luggage and $100. I started building my company rise up for you. 2.5 weeks later, I don't have a business degree, right? I have a master's in executive leadership. I lost everything but because I had macro level confidence, I had the ability to say, you know, what those things don't define me. I know who I am and I believe in my ability to learn, I believe in my ability to get back up.

I had macro level confidence and therefore, I was able to build micro level confidence. So what did I do? I went on the computer. How do you build the business? How do you build the website? How do you build the podcast? What do people need today? And today, five years later, my company is in over 50 countries and I have an amazing team throughout the US and Canada and Europe. And we're transforming thousands and thousands of people every single day. But I didn't have a degree in business. But you see, because I had that macro level confidence, I was able to build micro, more micro macro gets you more micro. But if you start with micro, it's really difficult to build your macro and this is where we need to start. OK? I always say the sky is not the limit, it's the mind. It is your mind to being able to push past any of those beliefs into positive thinking, positive thoughts. OK? So last part is step number three, we did be seen, we did be heard now it's be relevant. OK? How do we be relevant? So I always say you no longer need a boss to give you promotion. OK? We live in a world where you can do that all on your own. OK. We have social media at our fingertips. We have opportunities that are just oozing everywhere. So step number one, how do you become relevant in your industry? Even if you're not an entrepreneur.

You need to know how to do this step. Number one is building your linkedin asap as a thought leader as fast as possible. Go to my linkedin right now. Go to my linkedin when we're off of this call. OK? Look at my linkedin and replicate it for you. Look at what I'm doing. I have pictures, I put, I put posts and videos up there about this industry that I'm in. You can do that today too. Even if you're not an entrepreneur because you have to remember something. If you learned anything from the pen, it's never put all your eggs in one basket. You need to build a personal brand and you need to put yourself out there as a thought leader in your industry. Even if you're working with a company because that company might not be there tomorrow and you need to have a receipt of your expertise and credibility. OK? So building your linkedin as soon as possible. Again, go to my linkedin and just emulate it, replicate it for you. OK?

Step number two is add value V via video. Less than 60 seconds. They don't need to be complicated. You can pick up the phone. Hi. My name is Naina Nasty. Here's one strategy that I want to share with you about building your confidence, boom and then post it on linkedin because when you add free value, it shows people that you're credible and you're an expert at what you do and that's what we want. OK. And step number three, strategic networking. So I always say if you're gonna go out into the community and network, put yourself in front. So instead of just going to a networking event and passing out cards. No, no, no, no, no, sit on a committee volunteer on a board. If you're gonna get out through a network, you might as well be in a position of leadership so that you can be seen, be heard and be more relevant. OK? This is strategic networking and this helps you establish credibility and yourself as a thought leader. I always say the greatest tragedy is wasted human potential. Do not let that be your story, allow yourself to be seen, be heard and be relevant. Thank you so much. My name is Natale and Nasty and I always love to give free gifts. I'm gonna open it up to some Q and A. OK? But if you scan that QR code, it's gonna give you our free success kit that has 10 free videos and 60 pages worth of a workbook on emotional intelligence, public speaking, self-confidence, building to all completely free.

And you get a free 1 to 1 coaching call. You can bring any challenge and my team will help you work through. You just have to scan that code. Does anybody have any questions for me that I can answer anything at all? And while you're getting ready to answer those questions. I'm gonna plug in my laptop because the battery is about to die. So let me see. Let's get some questions here. Ok. What do we got? I plugged in my laptop. Any que any questions at all? What do we got? Nothing? This is the first time ever. Ok. What is your advice for people who are shy? Great question, Natalie. Oh, thank you, Carla. You're so sweet. Thank you so much. Please connect with me on linkedin as well. Everybody. What is your advice for people who are shy? Ok. My advice is this Natalie, everybody is shy. Everybody is outgoing. Everybody is an introvert. Everybody's an extrovert. Don put yourself in a box. Ok. That's part of the reason why I'm not a huge fan of um, like Brian, Brian Myers or um, you know, all those exams and assessments that we do, right? Because the reality is, is that when you get to find, you know, I'm enfg a or I'm just that, then we start to think that we are that. But the reality is, is that we all have all of it. Ok.

The key here is when do you use it? So it's ok for you to be shy. I'm shy too, but I'm not shy when I step on camera, but I'm shy in my personal life if you were to, if you were to hang out with me, like I have a totally different energy. Ok, so it's ok if you're shy, but where does it serve you and where does it not serve you? Ok. So obviously in the workspace, if you want to move forward and you want to accelerate or if you run your own business, you have to be more extrovert because you have to build relationships, you have to show confidence. So in that moment, we need to put on our alter ego. OK? We need to put on like a new persona that's not shy anymore. And then when that is done, then you can go back to being shy. So using those different energies is gonna be important and that's part of emotional intelligence. You guys are so cute right now, I'm looking about all the messages about how I'm like burning up my laptop. Oh, that's so funny. OK. Thank you.

OK, Alexis, I have a question regarding the right colors. You, I have a few pops of pink hair and my dark hair. Is this good with standing out or come up as unprofessional. Huh? That's a really good question, Alexis. Um It depends what industry you're in. That's what I'm gonna say. OK. It depends what industry you're in because some industries require a different type of look that yeah, maybe pink hair would be not considered as professional or they might not take you seriously. Some industries you can, right? And they think it's cool and it fits the industry and it fits where we're going and where society is going. So is this gonna depend again what industry you're in? But I would say from a professional standpoint, we want solid clothing that's bright, that's gonna make you stand out. Ok? That's what's gonna make you stand out and still be taken seriously. Ok. You guys are. So guys, thanks for grabbing my book. I I'm really um excited and honored to be here. Ok, please do a quick recap of the important point. Yes, be seen, be heard. Be relevant, be seen your energy, how you show up even before you open up your mouth, wearing bright colors, having positive energy, walking with confidence, be heard is your confidence. OK.

Having self-confidence, building that self work in yourself and not being defined by anything external, no job, no title. No, nothing is gonna determine your self worth. And step number three is be relevant, building credibility in your space. Even if you're not an entrepreneur getting on linkedin, putting out golden nuggets, sharing your thoughts on certain topics in the industry and that doesn't mean just share a post. No, if you're gonna share a post, put your voice on that post. So instead of just sharing it and saying, oh, this is so cool. No, share it and then put your opinion because again, we want to build that credibility. Uh OK. Anything else you guys are awesome, please take advantage of that free gift. Like I said, it's 10 videos. It's completely free and you get a workbook and a free coaching call and if you put my name down, then I'll coach you. I'll, I'll, um, make sure I get on the call. How do you know when is the right time to move up? My goals are to become a director, but I have only been a manager for a year and a half technical contributor before. Uh, there is no right time but it's whether or not you feel it's the right time or not. You know what I mean? So, I mean, I was an executive after only three months of being at a company. So I mean, that's uh yeah, the QR code Daisy. Thank you. So it just does it feel right for you? Um Isn't it in alignment with the company?

Is the company willing to, to make that move with you as well? So there's, it's not necessarily whether or not there's a right time to move up. And I think that that's the challenge that people have is they're always waiting for perfect time. There is no perfect time you just have to execute. If you want to become a director, Jennifer, then let them know, hey, this is where I want to be in the next year or two. Where, where do you see me? How am I doing? Is this something that's a possibility start putting that out there into the universe? Because what you put out is what you get back? Awesome. You guys are amazing. Please connect with me on linkedin. Please connect with me on any social media platform. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Thank you to everyone that bought my book, super appreciative and hopefully I'll see you soon. Bye everybody.