Challenging What You Tell Yourself
A Leadership Consultant Shares How She Expanded Her Vision & Expectations
It’s time to get your fill of another edition of Generation Si! In Part One of my profile of Denise Musselwhite, we learned how the Latina with the tech background channeled her leadership skills, even at a young age, into opportunities to create a consultancy-based business, Tech & Thrive.
Now, in Part Two, you’ll discover the following:
🌴 How Denise Musselwhite recommends you approach the proverbial battle over work/life balance.
🌴 How to get speaking gigs and be considered a thought leader.
🌴 The books Musselwhite recommends; one for quieting negative thoughts and the other for exploring your “creative” side, even if you don’t think you have one.
🌴Read on to learn more from executive coach and leadership consultant, Denise Musselwhite…
WORK/LIFE BALANCE IS A MYTH
“Work/life balance really can’t be achieved. It’s a lie.”
Denise Musselwhite isn’t about to tell you to juggle it all. The tech leadership consultant says there’s a way to manage responsibilities, without feeling as if your work life is competing with your personal life.
STOP THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN YOUR WORK LIFE AND PERSONAL LIFE
She says, “… when you show up as yourself in your work, and that self comes with children, with spouses, with bad days and good, it’s not so hard when you acknowledge that they are part of who you are.”
Musselwhite believes that “when you find out how you work best and what about your work triggers your worst, you can work around it. And, then, it doesn’t feel so much like such a struggle…”
This is coming from a woman who started working as a consultant as a side gig when she was in her 30s, while raising three kids and working her full-time job.
FIND OPPORTUNITIES TO ESTABLISH YOURSELF AS A SPEAKER IN YOUR INDUSTRY
With that kind of schedule, I asked her how she was able to start and grow her side hustle as a consultant.
Musselwhite says the key was speaking at industry conferences.
“And every single time I spoke at industry conferences, I got clients.”
She calls it a “wonderful, free marketing tool.”
LEARN SOMETHING FOR YOURSELF AND THEN SHARE IT
But how do you pitch yourself as a speaker for conferences in your industry?
Musselwhite’s answer focuses on learning something of value to you and, then, sharing it with others.
“I would pitch either innovations that I helped support in my own organization, or I would learn a concept that I needed to learn for my job. And, then, I would teach it to other people.”
Since Musselwhite was part of an independent school district, these speaking engagements helped her expand her personal brand as a consultant to other schools. That, in turn, established her as a thought leader in the industry.
SURROUND YOURSELF WITH SUCCESSFUL PEERS
To get to the point of building that level of confidence, you have to quiet any negative self-talk. Musselwhite suggests you surround yourself with other women, like herself, who have done it.
“They know how to decode the challenges. And, if you put yourself in a space with them, you, too, will learn how to decode the challenges and show up more confidently in your authentic leadership.”
To lean on that mindset of authentic leadership, she recommends two books that she’s found particularly helpful.
DON’T BE YOUR OWN WORST ENEMY
One is “Positive Intelligence” by Shirzad Chamine.
According to Musselwhite, Chamine is a Stanford University professor who has “developed the framework and operating system to support rethinking your thoughts so that you can intercept those thoughts that sabotage you.”
And here’s the part that drives the point home of why it’s something you need to work on internally.
“Because, really, we sabotage ourselves more than anybody else does.”
EVEN ANALYTICAL PEOPLE CAN BE CREATIVE; TAP INTO IT
Musselwhite says there’s another book that helped her discover something about herself that she did not think she had – creativity.
The book is called “Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear” by Elizabeth Gilbert.
“And she [Elizabeth Gilbert] really inspired me to see the ways in which I am creative. Because I don’t naturally see myself as a creative, having been in an analytical field my entire career. So tapping into that creativity has really changed the way that I interact with the world…”
For the woman who started out showing leadership qualities at a young age, it’s been a journey guiding others on their path to leadership.
In the process, she’s discovered surprises along the way, like her own untapped creative side.
INSPIRATION FOR THIS ISSUE:
Growing up, everyone in my family was artistic. They could draw and were really good at it. Everyone, except me.
Most kids loved going to art class. For me, the idea of going to art class made me anxious.
I didn’t like drawing, and I knew I wouldn’t be pursuing a career in architecture, like my dad.
I didn’t see myself as “creative.”
But I did find my creativity eventually – in journalism.
While most people think of journalists as presenters of facts, which we are, we also want to present the facts in a creative way – through our stories and storytelling process.
That’s why you can have five reporters with the same set of facts. Yet, the way they will each tell the story will be different.
The point is that, after I discovered my passion, journalism, I never again felt that I wasn’t creative.
Denise Musselwhite knew she was a leader at a young age. But she discovered her creative side later in life.
We all figure out our strengths and weaknesses through trial and error.
Some of us figure it out early, and some of us are late bloomers (that would be me).
In both cases, we give ourselves labels about who we are and what we’re good at - and not good at doing.
But I thought Denise’s story about being analytical and a leader in tech, while also discovering her creativity, served as an excellent reminder that we may be limiting our own possibilities with these labels.
It’s important to look beyond what we “think” our jobs or abilities mean. Just because you’re a “techie” doesn’t mean you can’t be creative.
Just because you’re “creative” doesn’t mean you can’t be analytical and great in business.
See how you can stretch the traditional definition, or try your hand at something you or others may not have considered as an option.
In other words, challenge expectations.
And, yes, I’m talking about “your” expectations for yourself. #theskyisNOTthelimit
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🌴 With a heart of gratitude, I wish each of you a week of productivity and fulfillment. 😺