The Promotion Mindset Nobody Talks About | Christina Mora

Want to grow in your career without constantly chasing the next title? Learn practical advice on leadership, work ethic, mentorship, and preparing for promotion the right way. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Vanderblumen Ladies Leadership Podcast, where we help Christian women grow in confidence, calling, and leadership. If you want to excel in your career while staying true to your faith, you're in the right place. Thanks for being here. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us for another episode of the Vanderblumen Ladies Leadership Podcast. Today we have with us another one of my favorite people. I know it's a broken record. Everyone's one of my favorite people here, but Christina Mora. And Christina is our manager of the recruiting team right now, manager of executive search, I think it's called. Congratulations. Thank you. And Christina recently got promoted into this role. She's actually, she's actually currently acting as the interim, but just from me to you, she will be put into the position full time in a couple of weeks. So Christina is perfect for this topic. The topic today is how to prepare for a promotion before you're asked. And this is something that people at all levels kind of wonder about and struggle with and need some good solid advice on. So, Christina, I want to just start by talking to you. Your ad your thoughts on this have changed over time. Is that right? So, like you're let's talk about maybe young people starting out. Young people starting out, Christina interviews a ton, both for internal here for Vanderblemen, but also for roles that she's working with. So tell us a little bit about how your perspective on asking about promotions and really being wanting, really wanting promotions. How has that changed over your long career span, Christina?

SPEAKER_01 1:26

No, that's so good. I think when I was fresh out of college, I was like, okay, this is what I'm expecting to have because this is the degree I had. So I came out of, you know, getting an MBA and I was like, oh, naturally, I'm gonna have such a great job, really well paid. Like, who would it, right? Like you're just thinking, like, I'm gonna have all of these things. And so I came out of that thinking I was gonna be at a certain amount of dollars. And also I was trying to pay off my student loans. So I was like, I need to be making a certain amount of dollars. Yes. And so I think I was very ambitious when I was first coming out of college because I just thought the whole world was my oyster, and it was. It just wound up looking different than you know, my career turned out differently than I thought it was gonna turn out. And right. So I think that like a lot of fresh college grads are thinking through this lens of like, I need to be promoted almost immediately. So they're thinking through the lens of like, uh, what is my trajectory of growth? And I think that's a very valuable thing. It's just not always the number one thing to like be focused on so soon. So I think like when you're graduating, when you're finding that first job, it's okay for it to be the first job. It's just like, how do you steward well what you've been given in that season? So, how are you going to work like and learn everything you possibly can learn while you're there, whatever the job is?

SPEAKER_02 2:33

That's a really great, that's a really great perspective on it. Um, Christina and I disagreed on something a couple of weeks ago, which is that we were hiring someone for the recruiter position. And the candidate was very young. I I she might not have even been graduated from from college at this point. Right. And she she in her interview, one of her questions was, Well, you know, what's the career path? What does it look like? What does my promotion path look like at Vanderblumen? And I think I see exactly what you're saying, and I have come over to the Christina perspective on it. But what I was thinking is I think a lot of people are taught that that's a good interview question. Like if you don't, if you're not really um paying attention to the specifics of the interview, and when your interviewer says, Do you have any questions? A common question is, well, what is my growth path? You know, what is the ability for promotion? And if you're asking that and you're very junior, it does kind of make it look like you're not, you're not really excited about the current role, but you're already on to the next thing. So I understand the this the feel for why you would ask that question, but if you're asking that because you you really do think that you should be getting promoted soon, you shouldn't be. You shouldn't be. You shouldn't be. You really have to. I've I always say this to myself and Christina, and I talked about this before the podcast, that you have to steward well what God's given you. And to who God has given, what's the there's a Bible verse if God has given what God has given. Matthew 25. Yes, just please quote it.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

It's not Spider-Man, but Spider-Man feels the same way. With more responsibility, you know, comes more power. With more power comes more responsibility. Yes. So it's the same type of thing, like stewarding well with what you have. Like if you're given little, what little you have will be expanded. But if you're like not stewarding that well, what little you have will be taken from you. Yes. So that's the parable in Matthew 25, the gifts of the talents. Like gives away the talents.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

I think the main message of this that we want to communicate to the listeners is you really have to do a good job in your current role. Both if you want to get promoted, if you don't want to get promoted, just if you want to be a good servant of the Lord, like whatever position God has you in at whatever company, you need to work. I I say this often too that we're not working into man, we work unto the Lord. And you need to work onto the Lord with everything that you have, with all the gifts that He's given you. And that's just naturally, we'll talk, we'll dive more into it, but that'll naturally set you up for promotion if you're giving it your all every single day.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Absolutely. Yeah, and I think that's such a good perspective to have. Cause I think when I came into this role, I naturally had the thoughts of like, now I'm older, I'm looking for a career path. But it was like, how do I steward well what I have now and not just have my eyes so focused on what could be next because I'm thinking ahead of what's next. And I think that's kind of where we come with this company is we are small, so there is some opportunity for growth, but there's also sometimes not as much opportunity for growth because you have to wait for people to leave or transition or something like that. And so you can't always be so focused on that because then you're gonna lose sight of like where you are. And I think that's how I was able to learn and grow it here at Vanderblumen was just learning everything I could about recruiting, everything I could about the church world, and just really doing well, like trying to learn my job so well and just being happy with where I was and being content because I didn't want to like be vying for the next role.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

Right. That's exactly right. I always say you can't, there's not an unhappy path to happiness. And so you did a really good job, Christina. One of the reasons that we you've been promoted multiple times. So Christina was hired three years ago. Um almost two. Two. I mean, it just seems like so long. Seems like long. Christina was hired two years ago, but as a regular recruiter, as an executive search recruiter, and then she was promoted maybe a year later to senior executive search recruiter, and then now she's moving into the the manager of executive recruiting. So Christina's already had two promotions and she's already been here two years. So what are you gonna do next year, Christina? Who knows? Yeah, my job's not open yet, Christina. Don't don't get your claws all over that. Um, but Christina, I'll talk a little bit about your work ethic and what you've done to get promoted. Um, I don't think you ever asked for promotion at any of either of these stages, but Christina was always a really good role model of what the role should be. So in the executive search recruiter role, you were a model recruiter. You got great feedback from the people that you worked for, your cons the consultants, and the people that you worked with, your peers, and the the clients that worked with you, except for that one client. Except for the except for the one client, but that was unfounded, Christina. That was unfounded. Um but Christina always and and every day you showed up. This is something that seems like too small to even be mentioned, but you show up on time. Um you you show up on time, you leave on time, you're reliable, steady. Managers like to promote people that are predictable in their performance. Right. So if you're looking for promotion, you really do need to be stable. So you wouldn't want to be calling out sick for no reason. You wouldn't want to be taking excess vacation during the during a time maybe that your your church or your workplace really needed you. I also think that something that you did a great job of that people should be thinking about is you've poured into a lot of other people. So instead of just focusing on what can you do and how can you make sure your work does really well, you have poured into other employees and you've trained them, developed them, and given them encouragement and support to help elevate them. And that's like, you know, the rising tide rises all boats. Christina did a good job, but then she also helped the people around her rise. And that's another thing that you should really do when you want to get a promotion. A lot of times people think that if they help others, then they're not gonna do as well, or maybe it's gonna look like the other people are threatening that, you know, to get that promotion. But good managers will see that, and good managers will see, okay, well, Christina's good, but she's also making the people around her better. And those are the people that managers look to to promote.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Yeah, absolutely. And you just put you just touched on something. So I didn't ask for promotion, and so I've been very blessed. So very thankful that the Lord has kind of opened that door. But um, what is your like take on should employees ask for a promotion or should it just like come naturally?

SPEAKER_02 8:07

This is I really Avette and I talked about this, and Yvette and I have very different views, and mine are right, and Avet's are not right. Um, but my view on it is that you really have to have a solid relationship with your manager, and then that should just be a normal topic of conversation. So good managers will ask where you want to get to. So, you know, let's say, Christina, where do you want to be in five years? And your manager should always know that. And if your manager hasn't asked you, that's you can easily say to them, you know, in in source in the conversation, like William, in five years I'd like to be doing X, Y, and Z. So whatever development and training you could help me with to get me to that point so that I can serve your company in that way. So I think either your your manager should be asking you, or you should just tell your manager where you want to be. And then those are monthly conversations, development conversations. One-on-ones shouldn't just be Christina, do this, do this, do this. They should be like, where do you want to get to? How can I help you get there? So I wouldn't ask for promotion. I wouldn't say, Jen, I really want a promotion, but I would say what what I'd like to do eventually is X, Y, and Z, and I know that you can help me get there. So then you're kind of giving them the opportunity to mentor you too. Because my thought on mentorship, Christina, you can tell me if you disagree, but if you haven't seen someone in the role that you are aiming for, if you haven't seen them do a good job, or if you haven't like learned from their experience, you're gonna be unqualified when you get into that role. Right. So maybe tell us a little bit about the role that you're in. How did you prepare for that role?

SPEAKER_01 9:34

That's a good question. So um, right now I'm the team manager of the recruiting team. So I get to oversee about seven recruiters directly. Soon to be nine. Hopefully, hopefully more. Um, but directly overseeing four. And so, like you had mentioned earlier, just really pouring into those that I'm overseeing directly and having a good relationship with them to and trusting them to have a pulse on where their team is at. So I'm kind of like not even micromanaging. I don't believe in that because I just don't think it's fun for anybody, right? Sorry about that. You don't do that either. Just get it together. But um, just really trusting them. And so I think a lot of that, like how we got here, was learning from my previous manager and the manager before her. So since I came in, I've gotten to see great managers. And so the first manager we had was Sarah. And so I loved like learning from her, and I was just like, okay, got to take in a lot. And she was very thorough in her training, very thorough in her processes, onboarding, so relational. And even though I didn't directly report to her, I got to still see how she interacted with the team and how she like faced conflict, how she dealt with things. And so I think that was like number one, I got to learn from Sarah. And then when Emily stepped into the role, I got to learn from Emily, and then I had already been reporting to Emily the whole time. So I already had a good relationship with her. And a lot of it was just like by absorption, I would say. So a lot of the things that I've learned have been just absorbing everything that's been around. My number one strength finder is learner. So I just like naturally lean into that and I want to learn everything. So from Emily's perspective, it was like, okay, what are you doing well? What am I seeing that's like really, really good? What do I want to like take on? And then um helping her. So I like I felt like my role is to also help her. So when I stepped into the senior recruiter um lane, it was like, how do I help you better service our team? And I know for her that was like such a game changer because she was running it alone for a while.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

And so that's a huge point, and that's something that anyone that's looking for promotion needs to just really focus in on. You have to help your manager do their job better. So managers are gonna be more likely to promote people that have made their job easier. Right. And Emily was amazing at making my job easier. Like Emily, you know, any what can I take off your plate? I'll handle that. You don't have to worry about it. And then that made me want to continue to work with her and give her more opportunity. And that's the same thing with you too, Christina. So if you're helping your manager do their job better, they're gonna look to you when they're looking for someone to promote.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Right. Yeah. Right. And I think that was so key. Because when Emily left, she was like, Nationally, yes, like I wanna I know that you've been already helping me and kind of absorbing what I've been teaching you and like learning by proxy.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

Well, I would also say that it's much easier for a manager to have an internal candidate that's really good to promote that person rather than to go external. Right. So a big topic of conversation in our industry when people hire us is should we hire one of our internal candidates for this role or should we look outside? And for those of you that are internal to a company, you want a promotion, you really need to take the tips that Christine and I are talking to you about because your goal should be that your company does not need to go outside for promotion, but that you have already gained the skills and learned the learned the position and made enough of an emotional equity with your manager that you're the person.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Christina, this is just an interesting conversation. Um, you might not know the answer to this, but in the clients that you work with in the churches and the nonprofits, how often do they go with an internal versus an external?

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know like the percentage-wise, but um oftentimes we have been surprised where they would say, even like, you know, high school pastors or sometimes senior pastors, they'll do this, they'll say, like, well, we have this internal candidate. We feel like they already know the culture so well, like our teams. Yep. That's so huge. Having that relationship with your teams and someone that they already have that trust with has been like key to I think success. And so it can be hard for an external candidate to come in. And that's probably that's always the first thing that they're gonna like try to do is build relationship and equity.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

I have talked that I used to work at Lush, but almost 90, 95% of the time at Lush, we would go for internal promotions. And the phrase on that is the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know. The internal candidate, you know all about them. You've worked with them, you know their work ethic. And if it's good, you you should nine times out of ten, you would want to go with the internal candidate. So now we just have to make all of our listeners the prime internal candidate so that they don't even look externally. But I would also say that for the people that hire us, they maybe have already looked for internal candidates and they're hiring us to do their search because they don't think that they have an internal that's that's really qualified. So our statistics might be skewed on that.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yeah, it could be skewed because we are often, you know, brought in for like external searches. But yeah, I think you had mentioned something that was so key is building that relationship and building that equity with your leader. Yes. So how would you like to do that?

SPEAKER_02 14:12

I know, that's so crazy. That's just gonna talk about that too. Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you from my perspective, and then you tell me from your perspective. But the it's building that relational equity with your manager. Now, how do you do that? You make sure that you're reliable, the same thing we talked about, the stability, predictable, super important, um, and help make their job easier. I would also say be someone that they can run things by. So, one thing I love about Sarah, Sarah Megers, we talk about her in every episode because we all love for the cult of Sarah Megers here. Um, but one thing that Sarah's really great at doing is she's she's someone that we can bounce ideas off of. And if you as a leader, oftentimes the expression is you're it's lonelier at the top. And the higher you go up in the org chart, there's fewer people that you can talk to and that you can run things by, run so problems by solutions by trying to figure things out. And having a person, a go-to person that you can run an idea by and you know that you will get fair and unbiased feedback gives the manager kind of a sense of safety that this person could be a good person to support them when needed. So, in terms of building relational equity and emotional, um, emotional bank account with your employees, I would say try to find as many people as you can that you can kind of rely on for those type of things. And then those people will be the ones that you select from when you're talking about promotions. Sarah got promoted to consultant specifically because she was a good problem solver, and our consultants need to be able to problem solve with clients. So she already had a track record of solving all my problems. Yeah. Christina, I don't know. We I'm I'm not really familiar with your background before you came to Vanderblooming, but were you promoted at any other places that you worked at? Yes. And can you tell us how you got promoted? What were the characteristics that you had that got you promoted in elsewhere elsewhere?

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Absolutely. Um, I would say the first, well, I was first a teacher. So I was a teacher in the beginning. Um, got like teacher, uh lead teacher at one point. So, like a team lead, I think is what we called it. So basically overseeing the team. And then when I went into ministry, I kind of got promoted almost every year. So I went from You're right on track here at me right on track. Yeah. So I went from like his ministry to campus ministry to project manager for an executive pastor. And so through that was um, and I didn't really know the campus pastor that I had gone to to work at his campus. Like very personally, we didn't know each other yet. So our first meeting was just really getting to know each other and understand like what he was looking for, what he needed. And we just built that trust over time. And so he had, but like here's the thing, he didn't know me personally yet, but he had seen like the work I had done at the other campus. So he had like room by my reputation. Yes. Yep. And so he knew that I was like a hard worker. He knew that I was like going to make things happen at the campus, that I had a drive and an initiative. And so I think those things opened up the door for me to have that conversation with him. And we just built like equity over time. And then kind of the similar thing with the executive pastor, I knew he was looking for a project manager at the time. And I was like, hey, what can I do to take things off your plate? I would love to help you. And so that's kind of how we started, like that. Um, you know, how I went into that realm was like, it's like, how can I help you do things? I'm at a campus, I can help you kind of oversee things at this campus, at all the other campuses. And so as the need grew, he was like, Yeah, I think I would really like to have you because he, again, he had seen the work that I was doing before. And so he's like, All right, let's bring you over here. And I think that's how the door opened.

SPEAKER_02 17:39

A perspective that you just touched on there is that your reputation preceded you in that situation. That would be whether it was a good reputation or a bad reputation. So people that are looking to get promotions realize that people do talk. Right. So if you, you know, if if um William calls it managing up, if every time you're with your manager, you're really sycophantic and you like you pour it, you just you're really great right around them. But then when you're doing your actual job and you're not interacting with your manager, if you're not performing optimally, if you're on your phone all the time, if you're, you know, checking your personal email, that you know, leaving for long periods of time and no one knows where you go, that type of thing, that word will get around to the manager. Don't think that you can keep that separate. Right. So you need to be your best all the time if you're wanting to get a promotion. Because, and when managers are looking to promote people, they're gonna say, Alex, what do you think about this person? Christina, what do you think about this person? And they're gonna get information from multiple sources. So it doesn't do you any good to just have a strong relationship with your manager if your performance away from your manager is not good.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Right. It's kind of like what you do in private will be seen in public, right? So it's a lot of that. So it's a lot of like, how am I doing in my day-to-day? Am I stewarding, again, going back to stewardship? Right. Like, am I stewarding this well? Am I handling it well? Because, you know, with the more that you're given, the more like responsibilities you're gonna have. And if you can't do this part well, you're not gonna be able to handle it here. And especially as you're overseeing people, you know, those relationships will just start to kind of crumple if it's not like authentic and genuine and you're not really being who you are showing in front of your manager at the time.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

Well, and it actually is more of a problem than a good thing if you get a promotion and you're not ready for it. Right. If you get a promotion that you were not prepared for, you are not gonna enjoy yourself. You will enjoy the first two months of that paycheck and then you will be miserable and you will either get fired or you'll quit. So you have to trust the people that are making the decisions that they will vet for your skills to make sure you have what's needed. But if you try to rise higher than what you've learned and maybe than you're gifting at that point in your career, you're not gonna be happy.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Right.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

You're not, you're gonna be miserable.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And kind of circles all the way back to the beginning. And I think all the things we had talked about of like when you first graduate college, you're like really ambitious, really ready. But I think it's so important. That's why it's like so important to take time to learn to grow. Because looking back over the past several years of my career, I would have never thought that this was where I would be. But it's like every single opportunity that I've had, I've learned and it's all like culminated here. So I've gotten to use all of those skills in this job. So it's been really cool.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

Beauty from Ash is he will use out use absolutely everything in your life to build on and get to where you need to go. Um, something about the young people that are looking for jobs. You talked about it, Christina has her MBA, and sometimes people think, oh, I have this, I have this, so I expect this. But that's a kind of situation where you might, you might have potentially you might have education, but if you don't have the real world experience and you're put into a position that requires you to manage people or manage things that you don't know about, it could be detrimental to your career.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

For sure.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

We have an employee currently, we have someone interviewing with us, and she just graduated, and her salary expectations are a little unreasonable for someone that just graduated. And the advice on this regarding promotion is my my very strong advice is if you get offered a job and they offer you a salary, do not start negotiating at that point. You have to prove yourself. So, my big tip on this is if you get a job, you get in the door, let's say they offer you $50,000 and you really think you're worth $60,000, instead of being really difficult at the negotiation stage, my advice is if it's a good company that you're interviewing with, be super happy and accept at the $50,000. And then ask when they're how often they do salary reviews. Most companies, where churches do them once a year. And then if you've done a really good job for that first six, 12, six to 12 months, you will get that salary increase. And it might even be more, but your manager will see you as someone that is um there for the job rather than there to just get as much money as possible.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Right. And then it all boils down to like, is this somewhere you want to be? Cause then once you, you know, like we're talking about that salary, it's like, is this somewhere you want to be? Are you aligned to the mission? Because especially in churches and things like that, when we're servicing churches, a lot of times, you know, we have the salary conversation later in the in the interview process because we're like, we really want to make sure you're aligned to the mission first rather than the salary. And so I've had consultants tell me, like, if they're just Looking for a salary, they're just looking for a paycheck. They're really not looking to be a part of this church for any other reason than to like collect money and they're not going to last long. And so I think that to your point is like if you're just so focused on money, you're going to lose sight of like everything else, like the benefits, the culture, like everything, like how can you learn and grow? Because there's so many areas of learning and growing that never would have happened if I hadn't like stepped into this role. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

And I've said this before, but um if you think about your career as a ladder and you're climbing up the ladder, you want to make sure that your ladder is leaned up against the right building. Like, is this where I want? Maybe I start a little bit lower here, but then I move up and it's a company that I want to be in and a role that I want to be in. Right. Rather than putting your ladder over here in a company that you don't really want to end up with, but you get a little bit more money right now. So Christina and I are both in favor of finding the right place and then working your way up with using all of the skills that Christine has. Because it has worked for Christina, it can work for you.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

It can work for anybody. You know, you just learn at every opportunity. I feel like that's just the kind of the key. It's like you take everything that you are learning. And even if it's a hard season, there were seasons where my job was so hard and it was been so tough. And even here, there's been times where it has been tough and there's been hard searches or hot, hard things to navigate. Right. And so there's been times where I've just pressed in and asked God to like guide me in that. And um, he's just been so faithful to show me like all of these things are really working out, like you said, for the greater good. And so he uses all of it.

SPEAKER_02 23:25

And I often also say life is lived forward but understood backward. So if you go back to Christina, who just graduated with her MBA, and you said you didn't think you, you know, you couldn't necessarily see yourself in this career path. But can you look back and see all of the steps and why everything happened to get you to where you are today?

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that's it's so incredible. And I think even back then I wasn't closely following the Lord. Like I knew him, but didn't have a deep relationship. And so I thought I was going completely different. I was gonna be in sports and entertainment, like at the industry. I was like going that direction. Yeah, that's where I went to school for. And so I thought that's where I was headed. And then the Lord totally changed my plans with going into teaching, and I was like, that is not the plan. Um, and even like, you know, when I was in there, everybody would be like, Why do you have an MBA and why are you here?

SPEAKER_02 24:09

I couldn't follow the man. Did you follow the man? I didn't.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

I followed the Lord, yes, Jesus. Jesus is the man. Um but that all that's what prepared me for ministry. Ministry preparing me for here. So it's like, like you said, understanding it backwards. Now I see like how he woves everything together. This happened and even the difficult things. Right. Yeah. It's been incredible. So I'm just so thankful. I'm thankful it's not my plans. Like, I'm thankful it's the Lord because he really has been the one directing the steps. Yeah. So that's been such a blessing.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

Oh, that's a really that's an on time word for me too, Christina. Thank you so much. All right. So let's see if we have a vis a viewer question. Alex, our producer. We do. Alex is bringing you the question. All right, exciting. Christina, you asked me, and then if it's too hard, I'll have you answer.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

But if it's easy, if it's easy, I'd love to see this. All right, so I've been about been at my job for about six months now. Okay. How can I increase my visibility in my work without coming across as self-promotional? This is from Kelly in Kansas City. Kansas City. They're always self-promotional.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

Kansas City. Um, okay, we we touched on this a little bit, but this is what I will say. And then Christina, please feel free to weigh in. I think it's really important um to keep in mind you're not promoting yourself, you're promoting a skill set that will help the company or the church do better. So, what I would was the question, what advice would you get? Like what should we tell her to do? How can I increase my visibility if I'm coming across? Yeah. Okay, so something I always say is say yes to every opportunity that you're being given. So if your manager asks you to do something, you don't say, Oh, I don't know how to do that. Oh, I'm sorry, I can't do that. Oh, it's gonna take me a long time. You say yes to everything. So anytime that your manager or someone in leadership asks you to do something, even if it's something that you don't know how to do, you just say yes and you go back to your office and you figure it out. So the first thing is be a yes person at work. And yes, people oftentimes get promoted because they're easy to work with. So that'd be something I would say. Um, and another thing I would say is try to help as many other employees as you can. And that's got a variety of benefits. One is you're actually helping other people, which you should want to do. The second is that you'll feel good about helping the people. And the third is that from the outside, people are gonna see that you're a helper. So they see that you're a yes person, they see that you're a helper. Um, and then the other thing I would do is she's been there about six months. I would maybe spend a little bit of time putting together what you've accomplished. And then when you have your next meeting with your manager, I would show them. I would say, you know, I've been here six months, I just wanted to show you all the things that I've accomplished in that time. And you're not asking for promotion, right? You're just sharing that information with the manager. And at that point, the manager can redirect you and say, Those are great, Christina, but that's not what we wanted you to do. Or wow, you really have done a lot in these six months, Christina. And then that kind of opens the conversation for next steps. So those would be three, three pieces of advice I would give. Yeah. What do you got? I like it.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Um, that definitely reminded me of like, I remember there was a time when we were you were dealing with a client issue and it was my client, um, and you were like um a little frustrated because it was like a technology issue that something was happening and it just wasn't working. And do you remember this?

SPEAKER_02 27:03

Yes, no, I don't.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Okay, well, I'll tell you after like the exact details. But I remember you just being like, I need to get this to work. And I it had been like around the time that I was gonna be leaving, but you're like, Can you deal with this real quick? And I said, Yeah, sure. So got on open, it was we're trying to connect a Zoom account to something. So anyway, um, I was like, Yes, I'll do it. And I think I like jokingly was like, Jen, I want to be your protege. And you were like, Yes, that would be great. And so it's just like a moment of like taking that frustration for you and like doing it and making sure that it was like handled in the moment. So kind of like back to your point of like helping.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

What can you do? That's that's a really good point. So it's what can you do to help the people around you, and what can you do to help your manager? Because you're you're gonna become indispensable if you do that. Um, Missy recommended to me the movie Two Weeks Notice, and I watched that last night. And Sandra Bullock became indispensable to Hugh Grant, and they ended up probably getting married. So probably that could happen for you too. But um, I hope what's her name? Kate Kelly? Kelly, Kelly. Kelly, I hope, Kelly, I hope that helped you, and I hope you get your promotion soon. If not, come to Vanderblumen. Yeah. We'd love to have you. So thank you to Christina for joining us. Thank you for having me. Um, and thank you, listeners, for listening, and we will see you soon for another episode of the Vanderblumen Ladies Leadership Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

Thanks for joining us. Have a blessed week and lead on.