Transcript #93. The one thing every successful executive has in common.

Click here to see the episode show notes.

Renata: Welcome back, everybody. I hope everybody is doing well. It is a Friday evening here in Melbourne, as I record this podcast, and I have been super busy preparing for the job hunting masterclass, which I'm delivering next Tuesday. There are two times available, and I spent the week just doing a lot of promotion and preparing the presentation and this slide deck. And it's, it's a great time for me. I get really excited when I do things like this. And I, I look forward to seeing a lot of you. I mean, we have a few hundred people that have already registered, so that's amazing. Thank you so much. And I hope that many more people will listen to the masterclass recording when it's available. If you're interested in job hunting in 2021, I will make the recording available for a few more days after we record it live.

Renata: So if you're interested, there will be a link to it below, and you can register to watch the recording of that live event. And because I've been thinking about this so much, and I know people get back to me and think, oh,  I wish I could do it, but the times don't suit me. I don't have the time. It made me want to record this podcast today. And I guess you. You can tell what it is about. The one thing that every successful executive I know has in common, and yes, you guessed it. It's time. It's the realization that if you want to succeed in your career, you have to make that a priority in your day. And the first investment that you have to make is investing in your time, your time management and how you spend your time during the day is really important for the success, and the speed of the outcomes of, or you feel a job hunt or in the long-term of your career success.

Renata: So let's, talk about what that means exactly because it's very nice for me just to come and tell you,  need to invest in time. You need to manage your time, but I want to dissect this and give you four. Let’s say very practical approaches that you can apply tomorrow if you want to make those changes and make that investment in time count for you. I have a quote here from Andy Warhol. They always say time changes things, but you have to change them yourself. You can't just wait for time to go by so that things will change in your life. You need to take control of that time and use that time and invest that time to make the changes yourself. That's how it happens with career progression, promotion, job search.

Renata: And I know that many of you listening may be thinking, but I am. I'm here sitting, investing in the job search. but let's see how we can maybe best use that time.  I'm obsessed with this. If you've been listening, if you've already accessed my workshop from a few months ago, the optimized job search was all about the best use of your time during a job search. But it's really about the ongoing time management that we are going to be talking about in this episode, number 93. But before we move on forward today, the day that this podcast is out and available to you is on Tuesday. 

Renata: The 3rd of August is the opening of the registrations for the job hunting made simple program, which is my online course and group coaching program that I run twice a year. The last time I ran was in February 2021. Now it's August 2021. And if you are looking for a job, or you are looking to be promoted, or you want to make better plans for your career before the end of this year, you have to really seriously consider joining the job. Hunting made a simple program. It's designed for you. It's designed for executives who have over ten years of job experience and work experience in their field. These are seasoned professionals with experience and the skills and the corporate sector and nonprofit and government sectors. And I designed this framework to support you. So we go through it over seven weeks, twice a week, we catch up live.

Renata: These webinars are recorded and available so that you can access them at any time. They are yours to use whenever you need them in the future. And in addition to those seven weeks of live recording, we then have templates, resources, and workbooks. It is a comprehensive program with lots of tools that are available to you. The website that has the information about the job hunting made simple program has testimonials from previous students and clients that have done it. So if you are interested in learning more, I suggest that you go to my website now, Renata bennati.com, where you will find all the information about the job hunting made simple program. And I hope to see many of my listeners doing the job hunting made program with me now or in the future. The next time I run, it will be in 2022.

Renata: So if you're not in a hurry to find a job, then you can wait. But,  I have, somebody who is joining, carts aren't opened yet, but he and I had a conversation, and I said, look, it's the best thing to actually learn before you actually need to find a job. So he has a contract ending middle of next year, 2022. And if he can access the job hunting made simple. Now when he still has a job, he's not in a hurry. There is no anxiety, no stress then, by the beginning of next year, let's see February, March when he really starts to pump up his job search, then he will have all the tools, all the knowledge, and he can go back and watch the recordings again. So he's signing up to do it this time. And I, I was proud of him for making that decision, because I think it's, it's really the way to go,  learning these skills. They are skills that you'll learn for life. And the information is available to you at any time, not just during the live events.

Renata: Anyway, without further ado, let's talk about time and time management and how important it is to be successful in your career to manage your time really well. What are the four things that I recommend that you do? First of all, make a date with yourself once a day, once a week, once a quarter, wherever, whatever suits you and the stage of your career that you are in right now. So, for example, if you're fully employed, very happy where you are, you're not necessarily looking for a job right now. You don't need to book a time to manage your career once a day. It can be once a quarter, but I would say once a quarter is a good thing to do when you don't need a job. If you are actively job hunting, once a day is great. If you're a job-hunting but also in the middle of a pandemic, you're managing kids studying at home and, exit,  very tired from exiting your previous job, then do it once a week.

Renata: But schedule it, look after yourself, look after your career. How many times,  I remember feeling like my career was not going anywhere, but then I remembered I wasn't paying any attention to it anyway. So no wonder I felt like it was out of control and not going where I wanted it to go. I wasn't really attending to it. I wasn't giving it any of my attention. So if you want it to go in a specific direction, you would want to spend time planning, reflecting, and writing things down. Flowcharting understanding what the steps are that you need to take to achieve your career goals. If you need a push to do this, and some people do, I, that's how I operate.  I have, at this point, as I'm recording this podcast, very bad knees, and I cannot fix them myself. I need help.

Renata: So I have just started a very sort of comprehensive exercise routine that was designed for me by a coach. And it's the sort of thing that you would invest in if you were a sports person, but frankly, I need my knees to work. I'm only 49. And I really don't want to sort of do all the guesswork of what is, what is it that I can do or can't do to improve my muscles on my legs so that I can have better knees. I don't want to do it all, all of that guesswork by myself. I want professional help. So I engage the coach. If your career needs that sort of care, considered either signing up for the group coaching or at least book a consultation with me. So many people book a consultation with me, you really to reflect on their careers and see where they're going next, get my advice and intelligence on what's happening in the job market so that they can make the best decisions for them.

Renata: Even if it's that sort of smaller investment, it is still very important for you. The reset your career program that I have is an on-demand workshop that helps you identify improvement areas. So all of these different tools are there for you. If you need a push, go to my website and see what suits you right now. If you like group setting, then I would strongly recommend it. The job hunting made simple program because the results have been really, really great for the people that have done the program. And you can see the testimonials on the website. 

Renata: I have templates to support your career. You don't have to know everything by heart. So that's my second piece of advice for you, right? My second piece of advice is that you don't need to have everything is falling off your tongue, especially if you're new to thinking about your career in a strategic way. Spend some time preparing templates that you can use to support your career plans.

Renata: They could be emails that you might send out regularly. They could be your professional pitch. People often tell me they don't know how to answer questions. Like what do you do? Or why are you interested in a promotion? Why are you interested in a job? Have those things written down and cheat, cheat by looking at those notes. Read them before you walk into a meeting if you're with somebody on the phone or with somebody on a video call. So spend the time with these things that are important to you, and that sometimes in hindsight, you look back and you think, oh, I could have said this in a better way. I could have been better prepared if you have that feeling often. It’s worth investing time on the left side of that equation. So before, before the event happens, spend time preparing for them. Okay. So that's tip number two.

Renata: And tip number three is to test the waters when you actually don't need a new job or a new promotion. So that example that I used of the client that's signing up for the group, coaching is a great example. He doesn't need a job right now. In fact, he has quite a long lead time. His contract ends in the middle of next year. So it's basically almost 11 months of time to plan, test things, test the waters network with people, without an agenda, without needing anything from them, without the anxiety of being without a job that networking ongoing in your career is really important. If you can help somebody else, it's even better, catch up with people for the sake of getting to know what's happening to them, getting news from them, seeing if there's anything that you can do to support them that will also allow you the opportunity to test your pitch,  and let them know that 11 months from now you're, you might be out of a job and looking, to, to work somewhere else.

Renata: It's important to let people know because they will keep you top of mind if they find an opportunity for you to speak to somebody they know and apply for a job that they see they've seen advertised. If they don't know that you need help, they will not come to you with opportunities and applying for jobs when you don't need a job is actually really good too, because you, whichever way it goes, you're a winner and you then practice skills that you haven't used in a long time. So the anxiety of walking into a meeting will still be the same, even if you have a pretty good job. You’re not interested in actually moving on, but just the fact that you call the recruiter to find out information about an opportunity that you're testing the waters. I have a client that has done just that this morning. He saw a job he's perfectly well employed.

Renata: He's not actually looking to go anywhere, but he saw a job, and he thought, this is great. He sent me the details. I'm like, yeah, this is great. Maybe that's something you might want to consider. Not that you need anything. I know you're not looking, but give the person a call. And that's exactly what he did. There was a number there for him to call. He called and figured out that that wasn't an opportunity for him, but it was great to connect with that recruiter. The recruiter actually really liked him as a candidate for that job. But I, I have a feeling, it was a short-term job. It wasn't a permanent role. And he said,  not this time, but can, can we stay connected? And the recruiter was interested in being connected. So I think that this is important because those jitters that you have before you call a recruiter, those that anxiety that you have before walking into an interview, if you can become more resilient over time by doing these things when you don't need a new opportunity, then you will, you will become accustomed to that stress and, perform better when that super great job comes around.

Renata: The fourth tip that I'm going to give you today to manage your time better is to be in the moment when you are at meetings. When you are talking to people, when you are at work, be mindful and slow down time unwind. Don't think about the other things you have to do that day. And the other things that you,  you haven't done yet be present and take a few minutes even to reflect on how you want the outcome of the next meeting, to be how you want to present yourself in this next zoom call,  spend a few minutes reflecting on that and what you need to get out of it. And then walk into that meeting and be present in that meeting. I, I‘m good at doing that. I was didn't, I don't know how else to put this, but I have always done that.

Renata: And I think I had done this because English is my second language I'm I had to prep myself a little bit just before I walked into a meeting. Sometimes I am not thinking in English, I'm thinking in Portuguese or especially on Mondays. I felt really off at work because I had spent the weekend speaking Portuguese and I would go to work and I. I felt rusty. I had to be mindful and be present and in the moment, and maybe jot down some notes before I walked into a meeting to make sure that I had my mind where I needed to be for me to perform at my job. But even in Brazil, when I had my business, I was such a newcomer. I was so young, and I had my own business, and I was working with people who were twice my age.

Renata: I really needed always to be present and in the moment and learning, and like, I felt like I was a sponge. I was absorbing everything all the time. And I, I would strongly recommend that you try to do that later in life. I found Buddhism. I'm not a Buddhist, but I read books and know about mindfulness and mindfulness mindful meditation, which I trained for when I was at Monash University. There was this opportunity to be trained to teach mindfulness meditation. So I did that training. It was so good. And even though I don't teach people how to meditate, mindfulness training has helped me become president at the moment doing my work and as a professional. So those are my tips on managing your time better. And I hope that these four tips can make a big difference in your career.

Renata: Let me know what you think of what I've proposed today. And let me know if you have enjoyed this podcast. It’s quite strange that time management was a big thing two and a half, three decades ago. It’s such a trend. It was such a trend back in the nineties. If you're my age, you may remember a time when time management was everything. Now, nobody talks about it anymore. And this it's so important. We learn those skills with time management, like planning, making decisions, prioritizing, setting boundaries,  learning how to delegate, and outsourcing learning, which is not perfect. Perfection is basically procrastination. And if you want to listen to another podcast about that, if that's an issue for you, you can certainly affect the way you manage time. If you are aiming for perfection and you've, you feel like you're a bit of a perfectionist.

Renata: I have interviewed an expert on this, Lynn Cazaly. She has a book about it. And I will link the episode where our interviews in, below. So you can watch that one next if this is important to you, but build the system that works for you. Use those four tips to design a time management system that works to support your career and be diligent in following that system. And if you fall off the wagon one day, one week, or a few months, you go back to it. Don't feel like you failed in any way. It's absolutely fine to get off track. You get back on the wagon again and carry on. All right, because that's the thing about time. Once it's gone, it's gone. You're not going to get it back, but you can always make the most out of the time ahead of you. So don't forget that. 

Renata: All right. I hope to see many of you at the job hunting made simple program. Please go to the website and learn more about it. And if you have any questions, of course, reach out to me.  I'm everywhere on social media. I'm assuming that by now, you are subscribed to my newsletter. So if you haven't subscribed yet, then why not make sure you do? There’ll be a link below for you to do that as well. And if you're subscribed, of course, all you need to do is just reply. If you have any questions about the job hunting made simple program, I would be happy to answer your questions and make sure you make the best decision for your career. Bye for now.