How to Get What You Want
Your career isn’t built by waiting for someone to notice your value. It’s built by learning how to advocate for yourself with confidence.
You’ve been told your work will speak for itself. Yet despite doing everything asked of you—and more—you’re still feeling overlooked and uncertain about your next step. Leadership isn’t just about managing a team; it’s navigating the complexities of internal relationships and consistently advocating for your growth.
On Get What You Want, Susie Tomenchok is your silent partner, empowering you with the mindset and tools to negotiate your career—and life—with intention.
Unlike podcasts that focus on climbing the ladder or hustle culture, this show is for women who want to own their careers authentically. You’ll learn practical strategies for everyday negotiations, from asking for what you deserve to confidently handling tough conversations. Because negotiation isn’t just for raises or promotions—it’s how you navigate every opportunity in your career and beyond.
Susie is a negotiation expert who understands the challenges of being in a male-dominated industry and the struggles women face when advocating for themselves. She’s helped countless professionals unlock their potential and will show you how to do the same.
If you’re ready to stop waiting for your career to happen to you and start creating the opportunities you want, hit follow and join Susie each week to build your confidence, advocate for yourself, and finally Get What You Want.
How to Get What You Want
Crush negative self-talk in 3 simple steps
Have you ever let a golden opportunity slip through your fingers, paralyzed by a nagging voice of self-doubt? I have been there too, and in this episode, I take you through my journey from hesitation to harnessing the power of negotiation in everyday aspects. We unravel the PACE framework, a beacon to navigate through the murky waters of self-imposed limitations, and share how preparing, staying aware, closing confidently, and evaluating can transform your interactions.
The path to self-empowerment is a marathon, not a sprint, and as we lace up for this run, I'll guide you through shifting your mindset for success. We'll dismantle the self-doubt that undermines our achievements and replace it with powerful advocacy for our worth. Whether it's taking the reins in a meeting or simply stating your value boldly, this episode is your starting block for a race towards personal and professional growth.
In this episode, you'll learn the following:
1. The importance of adopting a negotiator's mindset in various aspects of life.
2. The common challenge of self-doubt that many professionals face.
3. The significance of effective communication and self-advocacy.
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🚀 Ready to Get What You Want?
Listening is great, but real change happens when you take action. Join my newsletter for exclusive negotiation strategies, scripts, and real-world case studies you won’t hear on the podcast. Sign up now at www.negotiationlove.com—it takes 10 seconds and will change how you view and negotiate forever.
📖 Continue Your Professional Growth with These Resources:
Get my Book: The Art of Everyday Negotiation without Manipulation:
www.susietomenchok.com/the-art-of-everyday-negotiation
Work With Me: Speaking, corporate training, and executive coaching:
www.susietomenchok.com/services
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Remember, negotiation is more than a skill—it’s a mindset.
💕Susie
www.linkedin.com/in/susietomenchok
Welcome to the Leaders with Leverage Podcast. I'm your host and negotiation expert, suzy Tomonczuk. It's time to be your own advocate and negotiate for what you really want out of your career, not simply the next role or additional compensation. I want to show you that negotiation happens each and every day so that you opt in and say yes with confidence. Together with other business leaders, you'll learn the essential skills you, as a leader, needs to become that advocate in growing your professional skills, to increase confidence, gain respect and become the future leader you're poised to be, and when you face a high-stakes situation, you're ready, no matter how high those stakes are. So let's do this. Let's lead with leverage. Hi and welcome. I'm Suzy. I'm so glad you're here. I am going to be talking now. The theme that I really want to dive into is this theme of adopting a negotiator mindset, and the reason it's so important to think about adopting a negotiator's mindset is because, while we go through all of these different scenarios and situations every single day, they're not always negotiations, the circumstance is not always, but when you have a negotiator mindset, you're more intentional, you have a goal in mind, you're prepared and you know what happens. When you do that is, you increase your confidence. Negotiators know this. Negotiators know that the power is having this mindset in a negotiation so that you can really continue to focus on that, so that you move forward with this confidence. And sometimes negotiators need this mindset to give themselves confidence because them alone don't feel like enough. But for them to really be really committed and diligent about moving toward what they want, they have to adopt this negotiator mindset. And the way they get there is through preparing my pace, framework preparing, being really intentional and aware in the moment and then knowing when to close, and then always looking at how they can get better prepare, aware, close and evaluate. But when you think about every situation like this, even when you take a few minutes to be authentically ready for whatever circumstance you go into this adopting a negotiator mindset, then you will increase your confidence moving in.
Speaker 1:And the thing I wanted to talk about is that self-doubt that we all encounter professionally is something we all deal with. We know that other people deal with it because we read about it, we talk about it, this imposter mindset some people say just the self-doubt and believing that we're not enough. It's really true, but we kind of believe that the experience is personal, that it's just us, even though we know it's somebody else. So hearing the stories of others, I think, really helps it shed light, so that you know that you're not alone. And you know what's funny, my friend Micah, who I just think the world of she quoted I don't remember who said this, but it was from a book she recently read that the only time that we believe our imposter mindset or our imposter syndrome, whenever we believe the self-doubt, is when it's something negative about us, when we believe what we believe about ourselves are the things that are negative. And what if we could switch that? What if we could switch so that we believe the things that are really positive? And what's really crazy about this is that other people have more faith in us than us. They don't doubt our ability and they're really rooting for us, yet we get in our own head and then what happens is we perpetuate it on and on and on. So I want to talk about an example and I was thinking about just so many examples of how this has gotten my way in my professional experience and one came to mind.
Speaker 1:And one time I worked for this guy his name is Bob really, his name is Bob and great boss, one of the best bosses I ever had and I remember we were sitting in a staff meeting and he was talking about somebody was going to lead this great project that's going to go across all the different departments, it's going to really increase influence, whoever's going to lead it, and that the CEO asks somebody on his team to lead it. And I remember in my mind thinking, wow, that'd be so great to have that role, but I'm not ready. I couldn't do it. And my coworker ended up getting it because after the staff meeting he went up to Bob and said I want that role. And then what happened was the next time I had a one-on-one with Bob, he asked me why I didn't ask for it and I said I assumed that you were assigning it. And he was like no, I really wanted you to take it, but I didn't want to just give it to you because I wanted you to want it, I wanted you to have it.
Speaker 1:And I wonder I was glad he said that to me, because it was a bit of a slap in the face for me that not everything was going to be handed to me, that I needed to seek some things out for myself and put myself out there, because it's harder on a boss to make that choice and making the right decision. They want somebody that opts themselves in, and so what got in my way in those moments were just these little voices of self-doubt. It wasn't even being presented to me and I was still opting myself out. So think about that self-doubt for you, and when that shows up for you we believe that that is this obvious thing that we're going to be just flooded with this self-doubt that's going to bring us to our knees and we're going to be like, oh my gosh, I need to fight off this self-doubt. But really, the way it shows up, are these little voices? These little voices like raise your hand if you have a question and you're like I want to raise my hand, oh, but my question isn't as good as that person's, or my question's not good enough to ask, to voice that out loud.
Speaker 1:I remember so many times in my career when I was just had self-doubt that I didn't believe that what my opinions were or my ideas were warranted, and so I allowed everybody else to speak up. And when I left one of my big career roles, the person that was in charge my boss I asked his boss had a final meeting with me and he said the only thing that I really want to tell you that was really disappointing to me was that I knew you had some great ideas and there were so many times that you were in a room full of people and you didn't speak up and it was really disappointing to me. And that was another time, like again not having enough faith in what I what's going on in my head, that there's this filter that happens, that doesn't allow it to even come out to see, and even when it does, we want to say, well, I'm not sure this is a good idea or I'm not sure this is going to add any value to the conversation. Like, we water it down with this. Don't expect a lot from me. Hey there, love this podcast. I'm taking 10 seconds out of this episode to ask you to leave an honest review. More reviews on the show help us to reach more professionals who are ready to lead with leverage.
Speaker 1:Now let's continue the conversation. So let's talk about what do you do about that? How do you see it? I think the only way to see it is to pay attention to when those voices are getting in your way, and even taking a time, maybe spending one focus day. Start with one focus day where you can say I'm just going to go for everything that comes in front of me, or I'm going to be really bold and confident and I'm going to ask for things that I normally wouldn't voice my self, put myself in the ring or voice my interest.
Speaker 1:Or, if you're going to go into a meeting, try to be the first person that throws your idea out, or the second person if that's challenging for you, because when we don't acknowledge those voices that are getting in our way, we don't know that it's happening to us. And those people like Bob, that former boss's boss that was waiting for me to talk. I was glad that Bob said that to me, but the fact that that person didn't tell me for 10 years that that bugged him. People don't tell you feedback about you always. That can help you. You need to be your best advocate. So understand your value and be bold. Put your words out there, but be careful not to limit yourself by adding a note of. This may not be a great idea or I haven't really thought this through just drop that stuff and say it.
Speaker 1:So pay attention to what you do, because when you don't, you miss opportunities that you could have been yours. Nothing's assigned to you. You have to ask. But the first thing to do is to get on your own way. And the other thing is, when you don't believe in yourself and provide yourself strong value statements, then you don't naturally believe in your value, because you're more, because you're used to listening to those voices of doubt in your head. So this is what I want you to do.
Speaker 1:I've given you a couple of things, but I'm going to really boil it down. I want you to do three things. One is I want you to pay attention to when you stop yourself or when you might say, oh, that's not a good idea, or oh, they've already gone past that idea, I'm not going to bring this up. Pay attention to that. And then, when you do speak up, make sure you're not diluting your message by starting it out with I don't know if this is a very smart idea or this may not go with what we're talking about. Don't dilute what you're going to say, just leave that out. It's almost like this thing that makes us more confident to say what we're going to say, because we're. It's just. It's such a weird thing that we do to ourselves to make it feel okay that our voice is strong enough. But we don't. We don't judge people like that. So you're by dropping that dilution of your idea. Nobody's going to notice, but you may feel a little weird, but just get to your idea. Start staying things with boldness. So pay attention and just go right to your point and then pick a timeframe when you do this and start to understand what you need to do. But the what my TEDx.
Speaker 1:I talked about having a value statement that you believe in yourself. You, you write it down and you put it over your head. And I really believe that, because the strength of being able to put something over you and saying I'm confident, I'm worthy, that just gives you this. Oh, it feels good when you do it. When I do it right now. You can hear it in my voice. So celebrate you every day. You celebrate other people celebrate you. So pay attention, see what's happening. Don't dilute your message and then give yourself power statements every day. But you got to say it out loud so you can hear yourself say it. Believe in it. Stop perpetuating your own self doubt. Start feeding yourself with strong statements. Start noticing how you're showing up, because the only person you're diluting that for is yourself, and people want you to be bold. People want you to put your hand up. Other people around you believe in you. Start believing in yourself.
Speaker 1:It's all about adopting a negotiator mindset, and the first step is to think about when you're getting in your own way and hearing those voices in your head and what you need to do to shift those. I'm so glad that you're on this journey with me. I love when people say this into this podcast, although it's it's kind of humbling, because I just try to bring things that that are coming to mind for me. So I'd love to hear from you. It just energizes me when people say something that you said, I tried and it made a difference. It made an impact for me. So thank you, thanks for joining me. We're going to be all around adopting a negotiator mindset. Feel free to subscribe here. I have some cool stuff that's going to be happening, some tips and habits that I'm going to offer. So stay tuned for more of that in this new year as we march forward in 2024. So glad you're here. Thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Leaders with Leverage.
Speaker 1:If you're ready to continue your professional growth, commit to accelerating your career development and say goodbye to that anxious feeling in your stomach. Anytime you need to advocate for yourself, then get my book the Art of Everyday Negotiation Without Manipulation. In this book, you'll learn the essential steps to take before entering into any negotiation or conversation, any interaction in your day to day. You'll discover what the other party really needs and be clear about what you're going after. You'll bust through your fears and boost your confidence and embrace that negotiation truly happens all around us. Get to the link and the show notes for more, and you can even get a bonus if you buy it today.
