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Stop Molding Yourself | Find Confidence & Conviction With Who You Really Are

Stop Molding Yourself | Find Confidence & Conviction With Who You Really Are

Your Leadership Power Comes from YOU: Listen & Harness It to Impact Others

September 23, 2024

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Opening Remarks

My reflection on my Operations and Talent experience following a recent conversation taught me something we can all learn from: Stop trying to package and position, mold or fit in, rather get laser-focused on YOU. Your ability to scale and leverage your energy is bottled in your belief in yourself. Your ability to impact others is held back by your clarity and confidence in you.

Taking the time to find yourself, believe in you and your core expertise, allows for the leadership potential to emerge that you are looking to unleash.

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Stop trying too hard —> attract don’t sell

Over the last few years, I really wrestled with rolling it all up in some “package” to tell people who I am in a fancy or impressive way- am I a TA Executive, a COO/Ops Leader, a Consultant, a Fractional COO, who am I? And this really was interesting, because I already did so much work over the last two years on figuring out my purpose: Empowering Organizations & Leaders to Unlock Greatness thru Scaling People, Process, and Technology. Which I firmly believe in. But you must be able to take that purpose and say ___ (title/role) is who I am so people know what you do and how you can help.

Recently, I realized a lot of this is not explaining it necessarily, but it’s the conviction and confidence behind what I am explaining. Yes, it’s about eliminating uncertainty, unclear side comments, and giving a succinct crystal clear message. But the concern over how it’s going to land with somebody else…you have to throw that away, scrap it, and not worry about it. That’s how you find your 1,000 true fans, is by talking about your truth and your purpose, and saying it in a way that is unique to you. People don’t like it? Go find other people, your people, not just people. Not everyone will understand and it’s not about giving up, it’s about not trying to convince, over-explain, sell, or teach someone who has no interest, is never going to get it, or just doesn’t have interest in you. And that is okay.

You must seek the people you want and how you’re going to get there is by making an effort to talk to people, in person or remotely, and you will find those that want to hear your story, that relate, impacts, and lights them up. I’ve seen it in real action- a lot of times it’s that higher quality audience that relates to your story, more than just more and more activity. Volume and quality are great, that is ideal. But choose quality first, because quality resonates with those who want to hear you, spend time with you, learn from you, buy from you, whatever it is you do. Volume comes from confidence in your quality of work, quality at scale in a sense. I have been thinking about this journey and thought I would share with you in case it helps with packaging up your own leadership or business journey, and provides you confidence in how to articulate it, and feel great about it.

For a long time, I looked at my experience, thinking how in the world do I explain this expertise and what I do. I would think people see talent acquisition and they think I’m a recruiter. Then I would think people aren’t going to see talent, they see operations experience and process or systems leadership, will they see that? Some people don’t seem to grasp the context to which I’ve done this work. I met with somebody a couple weeks ago that changed the way I looked at it. And that would create a shift my mindset. Confidence in your purpose is what grabs attention and makes you likable, not expertise. “Expertise” comes from building knowledge in a domain and recognition for it over time, but you can have confidence in it today. Confidence in your own abilities and value allows others to see your expertise. You just have to believe in yourself and find it. And not worry about what anyone else thinks or doesn’t - they don’t care what you are doing anyway.

Introspective

This is how I look at it. My operations, talent acquisition, customer account growth, managed services, bundled with people leadership experience is rare. That is a unique ability that you have so stop trying so hard to mold it into what others are looking for in a partner or person, and find those that see that’s where the magic is. Let’s break down what I mean by these core discipline areas:

Operations

Systems and process
Problem solving - solving problems creates happy clients and associates, allowing you to grow
Building, scaling, and transforming into a profitable business

Talent Acquisition

Recruiting strategy customized for your business
Talent provider to talent partner - teaching teams to be the best business partner, not a recruiter
Sourcing the best talent for the best roles - finding the match
Building great teams and clients through great talent

People Leadership

Empowering people
Helping others accomplish their professional goals
Building a team to achieve greatness
Growing the business by growing people

This combination of experience is rare. And it’s not for me to convince people or sell them on it, it’s up to me to find those who see it and appreciate it, and want to work with me because of it. It’s not for me to try to over state it and make it sound good, it’s up to me to openly share it with the power behind it, energy, and the years of results and value. The right people that want and need my help will see it - I will never convince those who don’t that they should value it. I think of it like this: are you building a magnet or are you building a blood hound. You want to be a magnet in most cases. Sometimes you can be a blood hound situationally, but in a very targeted and aligned manner, not a be all things to all people way.

Think of this in your own context to find confidence if you’re needing a little boost, and relate this to your own world. Here’s my version of uniquely what has built me, and what I should embrace, not shy away from:

There are only so many RPO programs in the world with 10,000+ hires per year annually, and 150-person+ teams. (Recruitment process outsourcing, which is outsourced talent acquisition or recruiting within a company, BPO for recruiting).
There are only so many operations leaders leading managed services, staffing, recruiting, and quality inspection teams within warehouses, engineering development centers, or automotive assembly plants
There are only so many people who have led global teams across Europe, South America, North America, Asia…
There are only so many people who have worked with the likes of Subaru, Caterpillar General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Cummins, BMW, Allison Transmission, and other large automotive, heavy equipment, heavy truck clients.
There are only so many with healthcare experience working with clinical, medical, Pharma, med dev, with clients such as Elevance Health (formerly Anthem) and Baxter Healthcare, along with formerly Acelity, Medtronic, Pfizer, and so on.
Only so many people that have an MBA, a love for business, passion for working, passion for leading teams, and an insatiable curiosity to grow and learn and do really big things in one’s life
There are very few that truly have a desire to increase their impact and surface area for “luck” (or opportunity through preparation and positioning, I prefer to say)
Few are interested in making an impact in others and scaling their leverage to grow in order to grow others and themselves
Few writing for basically $0, and continue doing it, and want to share with others about people, ops, and leadership

Take the above to think about what is all you - only you have taken the path you have taken, and can leverage that into your next thing. This is all about helping you find your next step, your bright idea, that confidence to find your thing whether it be in business or life. It’s all a numbers game, so if you’re out there and you’re looking for an opportunity to find the right company the right organization, the right customer, the right friend, or a community, keep going. Bring yourself and your ideas and find your tribe that supports you and everything you do. Be patient and don’t let up. You will find it. It’s just a matter of timing. So where do you start? Get crystal clear about what you want, who you are, what you do, and where you are headed, and then how you are going to get there.

And then go get this straight at it, and don’t look back, with quality work, and finding that volume level. I’ve learned through multiple iterations, it’s doing more, doing it better, and being more intentional with that activity. That works with recruiting, works with sales, works with leadership, and works with customer operations and account management. It works with a lot of things in business to get crystal clear and iterate as you go.

So take whatever time you need, carve out the time somehow, as it will be worth it, to figure out who you are, where you’re going, how you’re gonna get there, and what you need to do. And go do that thing. You can always adjust your course, while you’re on that path. You can’t get there if you don’t start, so do the thing that everybody says - you just gotta start. There is so much truth to that. You will find that opportunity. You will find your path, but you have to start somewhere so go start that thing, make that phone call, meet those people, take that meeting and reach out to that person you don’t know. Today.

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Takeaways

Find out who you really are, and go all in on, you. The job, business, industry, skill, those all follow the first step, which is the first step into the rest of your professional career and leadership journey. This “first” step leads you to who will value you more than anyone else.

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Supporting Content - For More to the Story

Graham Peelle

grahampeelle.com/founder-gtm

Hopefully, this added a little value to your business or leadership journey. Thank you for reading. If you think this may help someone else, please repost ♻️ or share. Thanks for being here. 🌍🏔️.

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