B2B Community Builder Show (formerly Chief Executive Connector)

120 | Ways to Advance Your Career Through Networking w/ Diana Alt

June 28, 2021 Pablo Gonzalez / Diana Alt Season 3 Episode 120
B2B Community Builder Show (formerly Chief Executive Connector)
120 | Ways to Advance Your Career Through Networking w/ Diana Alt
Show Notes Transcript

Diana Alt is a career strategy coach on a mission to help you be the boss of your career so you can find ideal work, be valued, and get paid. She's a connector who uses her experience in corporate roles and as a business owner to help people make the most of their work life instead of feeling like it is a long, slow march towards oblivion.

In this value-packed conversation we discuss:

  • Career Strategy
  • Workplace Culture
  • How to Network Without Being Gross.


Connect with Diana!

Her Facebook Page 

Her Facebook Group

On LinkedIn

Her Website

Her "Resume Don'ts" Guide: https://dianateaches.com

Connect with ME!

Also, I'd love it if you connected with me on LinkedIn or Instagram.

Or shoot me an email at youshould@connectwithpablo.com with the "Heard CEC's Diana" in subject.

This that's a genius email address?  Me too, but I didn't come up with it.  It was the idea of my good friend, and super talented web designer, Nathan Ruff.

If you want your website redone, updated, and managed with unlimited updates for just $250/month (CRAZY GOOD DEAL RIGHT??), go to Manage My Website and hookup with one of the smartest, most talented guys I've ever met- THE Nathan Ruff.


Support the show
Diana:

Hi, I'm Diana alt. I connected with Pablo in the comment section of a virtual summit. and here we are. I just recorded this podcast. I think you should connect with Pablo because he is open to the coolness and the weirdness of all different types of people. And I just love that about him.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Nick your podcast. I am Pablo Gonzalez, your chief executive connector. And today we have a new friends, my new friend, Diana Ault, who I met at Justin shanks growth. Now movement summit is a career strategy coach on a mission to help you be the boss of your career. So you can find ideal work, be valued and get paid. She's a connector who uses her experience in corporate roles and as a business owner to help. Ah, to help people make the most of their work life, instead of feeling like it is a long slow March towards oblivion. We connected around the idea of the importance of corporate culture. As I had just finished reading Jim Collins, his latest book, and I loved the way that you were talking about it in the chat during Justin's event. We started aside DM, where we were talking about the things we liked and making fun of the things that we didn't and we became fast friends. And now you're on the show. Diana. Good to good to see you, how you feeling,

Diana:

I'm feeling great. I've been looking forward to this for awhile. I just it's not very often that you hang out in the comments section at a virtual event. The next thing you know, you're booked on a podcast, but I was really drawn to what you had to say about corporate culture. Cause most people think it's like foosball tables and office snacks and that there's one type of good corporate culture and all that as BS. So.

Pablo Gonzalez:

We're going to get into, we're going to get into all those different types of BS in this conversation. But Anna, I know that I know you did your homework. I know you listened to the podcast. You know that I have this like thesis and it's all about human connection. And the two quickest ways that you connect with people is you add value to their life. Or if you share which we're going to do on this conversation, right. Or if you share vulnerability and somebody hears you and they see themselves in your struggle, then they're more likely to connect with you and pay attention to what you're saying. So I ask all my guests to share something that you're either struggling with right now or something you've struggled with in the past so that our friend that's listening in his or her ear will hear from you think you're human. And then we talk about all your superheroes.

Diana:

I love that you do this by the way. one of my favorite people to follow on the planet is the woman that I call our lady queen of courage and vulnerability, Dr. Bernay brown. So I'm a big, I'm a big fan of discussing vulnerability in part, because just a few years. Yeah. I thought that this is not what you did. I thought you did. I thought you did strong. I thought you did. I've always got this, the whole nine yards. So my, my thing that I'm dealing with a lot right now is realizing how little I know about the, the business that I've chosen to go into. Right. And that sounds scary. Like, oh my gosh, she's a career college. Doesn't she know anything about career coaching? I know that coaching side, I've had a lot of success and I've been doing that for seven years, but I'm in the stage where I'm building digital products, building audience, trying to blow this thing up from where it previously is, side hustle level into. Maybe not quite a large empire, but perhaps a mini empire. And there's a lot of skills that I'm having to learn along the way and face the reality of delegation because delegation sounds good in theory. And then when you actually have to let stuff go, it's a lot harder than you think. So that's what I'm struggling with right now,

Pablo Gonzalez:

man, when I say that I echo with that, I I cannot tell you how much I echo with that. Right? Like I'm also very similar to you. I know what I'm talking about, but the execution as a business owner on all of these different things that you need to know, yes. It's pretty daunting, right? Like how do you, how do you move forward with it, Laura? Like, what's what's what are you learning here?

Diana:

So one of the biggest things that was an aha moment for me a few months ago, and actually, you know, I'm still struggling, but at least I have a plan of attack and I kind of know where I need to go is I'm not that great at execution which is a weird thing to say, because I spent 20 years in corporate, either leading teams to execute or executing myself, but I'm a big strengths finder, nerd, or Clifton strengths. They rebranded it been a big Clifton strengths nerd for over 10 years. And I use it in my coaching practice and about, I don't know, like maybe nine months ago or so, one of my clients that I had asked to go do their Clifton's strengths And we went through it as part of coaching and analyzed it, called my bluff and he said, you know what? We just went through all mine I want to see yours and I didn't have a problem doing that.? So I drag my assessment back out, but I hadn't looked at it in a while. And six of my top 10 strengths are in strategy. Three of them are in relationship building. None of them are in execution. And so that was a big aha moment for me of like, I'm struggling because I'm trying to do all the things. And my strength somewhere. I like to sit or not doing all the things. So I'm in the process of trying to hire an integrator part-time to help just take some of those project management and operation stuff off of my plate. And I also have already hired a VA team in the Philippines to do some website development and you know, the administrative stuff. And that's been the absolute best thing that I've done. So I'm on the path, but it was hard. I had to recognize that the thing I'd been doing for 20 years actually is not my top strength in order to even begin making progress

Pablo Gonzalez:

hoof man, once again, like, yes, I, that was me. That was me July of last year, when the opens up the heavens opened up and an integrator fell down from heaven for me and wanted to be my business partner, which has been amazing. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, but it's still listen, even, even when you have the integrator involved. There's still like this like final 5% of communication. Cause I think I'm like you, right? Like I am fully fully strategy and relationships and I hate replying to an email. Right. Like it's like, I, I can't do that stuff. Right. But and much less setting up a strategy to like set up my time to reply to emails or whatever. Right. Like, I, I, you know, I don't know if I'm describing you, I'm just describing myself on the, like, I, I struggled with the minutia, but it's, it's that last like 5% of connection to the integration that happens. And then getting used to the process that now as that flywheel spins a couple of times, it's starting to like catch steam, but it, it takes a while to just get used to it.

Diana:

It does. It takes a while. Well, this goes into team teams in general. So no matter what people's strengths are, it takes time. I mean, Tuckman said us, what is it? Forming norming, storming, performing. Like we have to give it time. For people to figure out what they're doing and working on a team together. I actually spent 20 years in corporate. It roles like development and project management, product management. Before I jumped out on my own to do career and business coaching and what I figured out as I'm pretty good at putting a structure in place, but then on individual projects, I would get tripped up. So for example, where I wanted have an integrator to come help me is to takes basically to be my Roy Disney. Like, let me be Walt. I need a Roy. Like I have Merla for my clients, but I need a Roy for myself. And so I will spend a lot of time just on putting together. What should my new mini course look like in Kajabi? What should the email campaigns be? All this kind of stuff I'm fighting against it and trying to teach me technology instead of spending my time being Roy. and I just need to separate that out. Nothing makes me mad. Then whenever I have to test stuff that my website team has done. I love that they've done it. I'm happy. I send work to the Philippines to this amazing team of people and it comes back, but I got, still look at it and I'm spending too much time on that. I shouldn't be testing it. I should be, you know, checking the box that, yes, I trust that my project manager and my website team has gotten it done and I have the final look and we're good to go. So it's just reallocating my time. That's a big thing I need to do.

Pablo Gonzalez:

So it makes a lot of sense, man. That is, that is super, super universal. I find when I, when I ask people this type of stuff, right? Like it has a lot to do with self-awareness and how to build a team out around you based on baseline that you're lacking. All right. Let's get into your superpower. Career strategy coach. How does, how does, how does one become awesome at that? Talk to me about, talk to me about your, I

Diana:

just wanted, because awesome at that. So I like to say that I started coaching cause I don't know how to not coach. So from the time I don't, you know, I can't remember when I really started being this kind of person, definitely by college, maybe back in high school and earlier, but I've always been the person that was trying to figure out what other people needed and wanted and point them in that direction. So when I was in college, you know, I was, I was the recruitment chair for my sorority. And then I was the new member educator for my sorority, like different things like that. Always trying to make sure people are oriented. And then when I went into corporate life, it wasn't too long before I was mentoring people that were just a little bit behind me and their it careers on how do I progress? How do I talk to my boss about things? How do I look for a job. I started my career shortly before the tech wreck of 2001 ish timeframe. So I had to teach myself pretty quick, how to effectively look for a job against people that were more experienced than me, and then had to go through that cycle again. In 2008, by 2008, I had people management experience and more confidence, and I'm a natural coach. So I started helping people. who'd been laid off due to recession with what they wanted to do, and it wasn't for me, simply a matter of, well, let's just tune your resume to make sure that at the time monster was like the biggest thing, monster and dice. Those were the two things. Everybody is, LinkedIn was barely a twinkle in and I, at the time, it wasn't about just getting your resume on monster and dice. I was advocating even during a recession, figure out what you want to do, figure out what you are good at, figure out what kind of role is right for you and then position for them. Instead of the approach people take when they're scared, no matter what the economy looks like, there's already some, some somebody scared out there of just, how do I make them like me? Well, I'm more concerned of, do you like yourself enough to figure out what it is that is right for you? And then do you like yourself enough to figure out how to position that and then stand firm on that as much as possible if you're gonna, you know, lose your house. I mean, we all like to eat and live in doors, right? So, you know, sometimes you have to make compromises, but I don't want people to be a victim of the job market or another their employer. I want them to take that power back, which is where I got to. I want to help people be the boss of their career. So

Pablo Gonzalez:

love it. Love it, man. I remember those monster.com days and the 2008 recession. I have a lot of friends in the legal industry. Right. And I remember 2008, 2009 legal industry got hit really, really hard, right? Like these like real estate lawyers, transactional lawyers. I had a bunch of friends that were laid off and just desperately trying to hang on to a job. And then I had one or two friends that were getting low ball offers. It'd be like, nah, I'm not going to take that. Like, they're they got a, they got to, and everybody looking at them like, you're crazy. You're not going to find a job. And it ended up working out for them. Right. Like if you're, what is the, what's the, the compounding effect of taking a scarcity mindset to your next job when you're in need? Like, have you, have you kind of seen that play out long-term of have somebody take lowball offer and then affecting them for the next 15 years

Diana:

Well, yeah. And what's funny about it is that, especially in an age where most jurist, a lot of jurisdictions, nobody's allowed to ask you how much money you're making anymore. That's the law and a bunch of states and a bunch of cities now it's not even in the past, whenever people would take a low ball offer and then have trouble getting that raise. the next time they jumped a job, it was because they were telling the potential new employer, oh, I make X thousand dollars a year, which is like 25, 30% less than they should be making. Now they can't even ask that question, but in their head, they're pegged to this list salary. So they're afraid to ask for more. And most of the time, people don't even have any idea what they're worth. Like they don't know how to research it. They don't take the time. They have all those imposter feelings and there's no possible way that anybody's going to want to pay me market rate all of that stuff, but it definitely compounds. But in this day and age, in this timeframe, most of the time it's compounding, not because of the external system of I'm trying to go get this new job. It's our own mindset that I can't ask for what my skills and experience are worth. So there's so much internal work involved in my job it's which I love I actually love that part. I love seeing the light bulbs go off when people realize, oh, I could ask for that. but yeah, it's an inside job.

Pablo Gonzalez:

I feel like we can go, you know, the, the inside job seems to me like a, a long process that you. That takes some like real intuitive knowledge of people and frameworks to apply and whatnot. But the, I guess, where I'm trying to go is, is there a tip right now that we can give that is a, how do you find out what your worth from like an external validation points so that you don't get hoodwinked like that? Is there, is there a trick like that?

Diana:

Yeah, so I love salary.com. there's a lot of different salary sites out there, including some new ones that popped up that I'm not mentioning because I haven't, you know, it's hard to keep up on every single new site, but salary.com for me for many years has been the best site that had a lot of data, about a lot of jobs, including base salary and total compensation. And you could get free data and you could get customized reports for paid data. So what I ended up having my clients do when they're working through a process. Is look at salary sites, preferably salary.com. But if they'd got one they liked better, they can do that. And look at job duties, not just job titles. Cause you got to figure out what level is it? You know, there's a lot of product managers or project managers go find the one that are you, are you performing like a senior? Are you performing like a mid-level? Are you performing like a director, whatever that is and look at those sites and really get a feel for how your experience compares to those pay ranges for the G geography that you're in. It's incredibly illuminating. Then if someone doesn't trust it, I haven't picked up the phone and start calling people in their network. but I'll tell you one time that it was to my advantage to use the salary sites over what people in my network told me was about five years ago, I was interviewing for a project manager slash scrum master position at a tech company here in Kansas city. And I done all the work. But I had never had the job title before. It was always like, oh, you're kind of doing half and half job, whatever, you know, you know how corporate is? You have three jobs, not one job. And I called some prior bosses and friends that had hired for that role. And they told me a number they're like, you're not going to get over X number. And then I went to the salary.com site and I vetted it against like Glassdoor, which I don't love their salary data. It's not actually very good, but I vetted it against a couple other sites and found out I could easily peg myself to 10 or$15,000 more. So I would have left money on the, and I'm not afraid to ask for money. I would have left. it turned out roughly$12,000 on the table. If I would've just said, oh, my old boss that knows my work really well. So don't go over X amount when you're trying to negotiate for this. If I had just stopped there.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Is there any downside to thrown out like a high number when you're, when you're trying to get a job? Like, is there, is there like a too high that you can't say or something like that?

Diana:

I think you've got to know your stuff and you've got to know where you're really at. So for me, I've always been a person that was not just performing well at my job, but I also had certifications, which are not the most important thing, but I would go get them, especially if work would pay for them. And I would speak at industry events. Like I did all the things I was not, I was like a regionally known industry thought leader and things that I did not just the great person in Q4 on the third floor. So for me, I felt like I could always ask for a little bit towards the higher end because I was doing above and beyond, not just for my company, but for my industry, if a person is, does not have. You know, X tons of experience and isn't active in the industry. They might want to ask for a little bit less to give some wiggle room, but I think it's up to every individual in that most people undersell themselves. That's what I've observed as most people undersell themselves, especially with tech people, which is most of the people that I've worked with over over the years, I came from the technology industry. So there's a lot of trust there, people like that. I understand that the field that they come from and they almost always are trying to undersell themselves. I do. I'm a big believer in trying to figure out the budget for the company before you start naming numbers. that's just kind of negotiation one-on-one for salaries, but it also depends on how badly you need to move. You know, if you're in danger of not being able to eat and live indoors, Your stance on that might be a little bit different than if you're a passive job seeker that someone's trying to recruit out of a situation. So as with everything, the answer is, it depends

Pablo Gonzalez:

as with everything, right. I want to, I want to move into, I think we're where you and I really, really can nerd out, which is the subject of networking. And I, and I, you know, I've never seen the last job that I got with a resume or, you know, doing this kind of stuff was career fair in college. After that, it was always, you know, my network, something like that. Like I, I went and when I talk to people that go through the monster.com or whatever, whatever the in indeed or whatever, I don't know what the job board is these days. Right.

Diana:

But like, everybody loves the indeed right now and I hate it.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Okay. Listen. I was rushed chair and pledge Marshall of my fraternity as well. Feta guy at USF.

Diana:

Sorry. I'm a Kappa Delta from Missouri university is Katie. Yeah. University of Missouri Rolla. Yeah.

Pablo Gonzalez:

So, so I feel like we're both, I do think that that like overlap of rush chair and new member educator or pledge Marshall is a, is a specific breed of cat that loves to chop it up that loves to help people. talk to me about the role of let, let let's start from the career lens, the role of the role of networking when it comes to career and career advancement. Talk, talk to me, talk to me a little bit about that.

Diana:

Okay. So to me, the whole networking thing is everything in career advancement, and it's really become very clear to me in the last few years. So I live in the Kansas city area and I've been here. Since 2002. And I had this stunning realization recently that almost everyone that I've done business with in the last two years, I have known for at least five years, if not 10 or 15, in some way, shape or form. So last year I had, you know, my biggest client last year was a business consulting engagement. It's a guy I met 12 years ago in a organization in town. And it was one of those deals where you look at each other and go, I know someday we're going to work together. I don't know how, but someday. And so we just maintained that relationship. and you know, same story as you I've used the resume, you know, I, haven't not had a resume. I do know people that have pulled that off. It's harder than it used to be, but career fair, same thing for me, it was. The last time I was really cold applying to anything was back in the college career fair days. So I figured out really fast after I got laid off two years into my career that I had to be talking to people because there were people with families and mortgages that had eight to 10 more years of experience than me that would literally work for the same money. And how are you going to compete with that? I mean that internet wreck people forget how bad it was, but there was nothing. I was in the St Louis market at the time. And it was so hard to find that any job at all for, for love or money. So but it's not just about when you're looking for a job. And I think that's the hugest mistake that people make. It's that I believe in constantly being open to meet other people in constantly being open to connect other people that you think will benefit from each other and constantly providing value to other people. I mean, that's just kinda, my ethos is it's about relationships and serving other people, not about what you can do for me. So I sometimes coach people on this because folks feel very uncomfortable. They're always concerned that if they try to start network start networking, especially if they decide that they need to do that when they are in the middle of a job search, especially if they got laid off that people are gonna think they're needy. They just want something, all these negative things that they worry about. And very often they use the excuse. I'm an introvert to avoid it. I'm a big fat introvert. People don't believe that about me, but I'm a big old fat introvert. I love to connect with people deeply in quickly, and I have a talent for it. And so I make people feel respected and heard, and that's what everybody wants. So if you do that and then you follow up having, after having built the relationship a little bit with, Hey, I'm starting to look for any position doing these kinds of things with my superpowers. do you have any ideas for me? That's a way different conversation than cold emailing somebody on LinkedIn and saying, here's my resume. Do you have a job? One of them is gross. And the other one is just figuring out how to let your friends know what you need.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Totally, man. Totally. So w if you are, so I, I, I believe everything that I completely agree with everything you're saying, right? Like build it before, build it before you need it. Right. Like that is, that is

Diana:

best time to plant an Oak tree a hundred years ago. Yeah.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Second, second. Best time right now. Right. So if you are. If you're at the point where you haven't built a network, you think you're an introvert or you are an introvert, right? Like, I, I I'm with you. I think some of the best networkers I know are introverts because at the end of the day, introvert isn't do you like people or do you not like people, it just means, are you drained when you and get energy out versus are you energized? Right? Like, I'm, I'm the opposite. I'm like an extreme extrovert. I come back from a conference and it's like, I'm on crack for the next three days. My wife can't stand me. She's like, go, you know, it's, it's, it's insane. It's like Superman staring at the sun. But introverts from what I have found are some of the best, the most astute observers of value. And, and you notice her of noticers of details and, and things that people are putting out in a way that my mind going a thousand miles an hour, getting charged up by the energy of people can't do. Right. And so how do you, you know, You're an introvert. You, you do need a job, but you haven't built a network. How do you, how do you, how do you start without, without, without feeling gross. And, and, and how do you, you know, w how do you get into conversations? What is the value that you can provide to people? Right? Cause it's about providing value. How can, if you need a job, how can you provide that?

Diana:

So, one of the interesting things about providing that I'm going to, I'm going to talk just about the concept of providing value for a second first. So a lot of times that's a, that's a phrase that I almost am getting sick up to. I told you before we got on the call, that the word networking is starting to drive me crazy. And the term adding value is also starting to drive me crazy too. But one of the things that I believe about adding value is that value add is different ways. Sometimes it's truly here is my skills to solve a problem for you. Or here is a piece of content I created this solves a problem for you, which is what content marketing is really all about, right? That's your life, you know, content marketing and connection through content marketing is as your professional domain, but sometimes I'm just validating or seeing someone is adding value. And that's actually one of the most intimate ways to provide value to people that gets people to sit up and take notice. So an example could be that you simply notice on LinkedIn that an old boss, she haven't talked to you in five years, switched jobs and just reaching out and saying, congratulations, Mary, I love, you know, I saw that you are now the director in charge of everything at acne corporation. I'm so excited for you. when things calm down, I would love to have coffee or do a, do a quick call just to catch up. That's how you start, that kind of networking is a long game. so it's not like that's going to turn into a job tomorrow, but if you start right now with those types of interactions, it's helpful. People that get promoted are very excited about that. And they'll probably message you back. If you validate them in a genuine way, and you may end up on the phone with them quicker than you, than you think I also always like to add, ask, what can I do for you? What are you worried about? Kind of like you ask at the beginning of your podcast, what is something you're vulnerable vulnerable about right now? I'm sure that you probably will send me like links to three articles about here's, how to leverage your VA information about how you use your integrator stuff like that. Well, if you talk to that old boss, Mary, about what's happening and you know, what she's thinking about is she takes her new promotion and then follow back up pretty quickly with here's something I think might help you. Or I just want you to know that you actually did a great job of that with our team back when we worked together at XYZ corporation that is providing value, it doesn't all have to be some big, big to do you do that three times a day with three people. And by the end of the week, you touched 15 people in a meaningful way. And then, then you start to feel first off more confident in doing that, because once you've done something 15 times in a week, you feel a little bit more comfortable with it, but then you also start to see which of these people are active. You know, which of these people might vibing with right now. And then maybe you can have that happier on that one or that zoom phone call and say, you know what, I'm interested in hearing what's going on with you and then maybe sharing here's what's going on with me. Hey, you know what? I'm looking at it for. I'm really interested. A product management role. I'm in a stage in my life where I need to be able to remote. I'm really looking for like a healthcare or a financial firm, smaller D like, are there any companies you think I should check out? And then they may say, Nope, can't think of anything, but send you something later. And they may say, yes, I know someone at great big health insurance company. you should check them out. and then when you ask the question of, do you know anybody there, you have a name and all you've done is just be friendly to people serve first and then say, Hey, here's, here's a little what's going on with me. Do you mind me telling you that? And then move from there? So you're smiling like really big right now. Cause I had this, like, I feel like I'm getting validation. You're adding value to me by validating them. I purchase them.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Yeah. That's not a, if that's not a microcosm of what we're talking about, right? Like my, my brain went, my initial brain is like, yeah, genius. This is, you know, like, I, I totally agree with what you're saying. People underestimate the amount of value you can give to people by acknowledging them, right. By being their cheerleader

Diana:

People just want to be seen. They want to feel seen another really good way. Now this takes a little more nerves. Sometimes like can be a little bit of a jump for people sometimes, but I like to show some vulnerability on social media from time to time. So my friend actually told me about something that she did recently that I almost consider a challenge. I haven't done it yet, but she runs an organization to help veterans start businesses And she realized she hadn't gone live in the group in a long time. And a lot of us, especially us girls, we want to make sure our hair's on point. We got our mascara on the whole nine yards and she realized, you know what, they need to know this and they need to know it. And they don't care what I look like. So she just challenged herself to get in that group with messed up hair and like her makeup wasn't on and just talk to them about what they needed to talk about. So that was her way of being vulnerable. I think that we can do more of that. One of the things that makes my heart go pitter pat right now is any time I'm scrolling through a social media. And I see one of my friends confess to suffering with depression. Not because I'm happy that people are suffering from depression, but because in so glad people are freaking talking about it it's prevalent. It was prevalent before the pandemic it's even bigger issue now after the pandemic, but just showing people a little bit of your life instead of acting like, you know, it all. Is a really good thing to do. I get asked a lot. I've sourced way more business in the last couple of years off of Facebook than LinkedIn. I'm working on building LinkedIn, more, paying more attention to it the last few months. But the reason is that people pretend on LinkedIn more. So there's not as much willingness to be vulnerable, but man, when you do it in an appropriate way, people eat it up and they get really interested in what's going on with you. And most people like to help others. So

Pablo Gonzalez:

there you go. There you go back back to the beginning of the show, right? Like vulnerability, the connection, right. And, and again, being vulnerable. is An offer of value, right? If you take the courage as our girl Brenédefines it right, like there is, there is no, there is no courage without vulnerability, right? Like, so if you, if you take the courage to be vulnerable and you open up that space for somebody to be vulnerable about something, D D de-stigmatizing depression off offering to, to even in the vulnerability, ask some people just feel good showing up for others when they're hurting. And that is a P that is a value you can offer somebody.

Diana:

Absolutely. It absolutely is. I think it was Fred Rogers that said whenever there's a crisis, look for the helpers. Like there's always helpers and that happens online. It can happen in a, some weird Instagram feed about something that you don't expect. It can happen in your real life. It can happen when there's a burning building. It can, it happens all over. Yeah, creation. it happens in the comments sections on virtual summits. And then here we are. So yeah, another thing that it did, a different kind of vulnerability is also just being open to stuff. So that's not necessarily sharing a problem or a struggle that you're having, but I promised you, I had a really good story about networking with someone you'll love this. So, and this is our mutual friend, Justin shank is involved in this particular story. So I was in Austin a week or so ago for a weekend for our mastermind. And there's 12 people, two, three coaches in our group that kind of volume of people. And on Friday night we, you know, people were going to go out to dinner. So we'd asked, Hey, Justin, you can come out to dinner with us. And he's like, Nope, I got a friend named Tom. He lives in Austin. We're going to go out to dinner. and we're like, cool, man. See you later. We've got the rest of the weekend together. Well, after I you know, had gone out to dinner. Other group of people from our mastermind, we go back to the hotel bar and Justin's there with his friend, Tom, who he introduces me to, and we just start chit-chatting. And one of the topics that came up was public speaking. Cause Tom it's Tom singer who has he's a podcast or an a speaker and does all kinds of things, but he was a full-time speaker and his business completely dropped off due to COVID. So we got in this whole conversation about public speaking and how does it fit into business? And I named dropped my own speaker mentor, Kim Becking who lives in Columbia, Missouri. So we're in Texas. Tom's from Texas. Justin is from Pennsylvania. I'm from Kansas. And my friend is from Missouri and I'll be darned if Tom doesn't know. her And within five minutes, like we're self sending selfies to Kim and texting back and forth and the whole nine yards, and we just completely hit it off and made this really great connection all because I was willing to say the name of a person that was helping me, that was in his industry. I didn't think he knew her. I'm like that didn't occur to me, but now I know that, you know, Hey, that's just another cool person. That's going to be someone I can help. And someone that maybe we can work together on stuff in the future. So

Pablo Gonzalez:

that is a cool story. That is a cool story. I never heard of, I never heard of vulnerability express as just openness to connect, but it makes a lot of sense, right? Like. If I was to reverse engineer what's happening right now, we connected really quickly. Cause I was like, you know what, I'll take a shot on somebody on my podcast that I haven't really spoken to for more than, you know, more than a couple of chats. Yeah. And that, and that's, you know, there's no doubt in my mind, we're going to be friends, right? Like just there's there's enough stuff happening around this. We're we're, we're clearly aligned on how we think and, and who knows what happens in 12 years, maybe you're my career coach. Right? Like w we'll continue that. and the other thing, the other thing that was making me smile big time before was when you were describing that the three reach-outs a day that leads to 15 open connections. I started thinking about it as a gratitude practice, right? Yes.

Diana:

Oh, I love that. Whoa. Like I just, and in the old school term of when J lo was a judge on American idol, she used to always say, I just got the goosies. So I got some goosies at that because it is

Pablo Gonzalez:

totally. And again, reverse engineering it to an introvert's language, right? Like I find that an introvert that is not comfortable with networking may still be comfortable with meditation and gratitude practice because they're used to being introspective. So if you think about it that way, if it's just a, a gratitude practice of reaching out to people, to be grateful for their impact, your impact, their impact in your life.

Diana:

Yes. I liked what you said. I liked what you said. It was helpful. What you said about, you know, how to do this thing that pertains to your role. I love learning about X that you taught me about healthcare. Like just saying, just saying that you liked something is huge. What do you do it in a PM or whether you do it in the comment section, it doesn't matter. So, and actually here's a real concrete tip for people. So very often people feel weird about trying to cold connect on LinkedIn or another social platform. But especially on LinkedIn, where connection is more about, did the algorithms serve up content in your newsfeed than whether you can see stuff? Cause you can see pretty much everything on LinkedIn, right? But if you have someone, like, let's say you want to be really strategic. Let's say you are a product manager. I use that analogy a lot because I spent almost 10 years as a product manager. And you want to network with the director of product management at XYZ corporation that you're interested in one of your target companies. If you first pay attention to them, follow some of their content and comment on their, in their threads so that they know your name. Then later on, you're like, okay, I want to make this LinkedIn connection requests because I liked the stuff you've had to say the last couple of weeks, blah, blah, blah. I want to learn more about X, Y, Z corporation. It's you're familiar already. You've made impressions on them by the fact that you. Just engaged in a conversation. So that's another tip. If people feel really uncomfortable and just cold, you know, reaching out to somebody. So

Pablo Gonzalez:

you have described my number one trick to finding new leads right now, right? Like I've, I've in the last, in the last six weeks, it became very clear that I needed to flush out my pipeline. Right. Like I was kind of talking to a lot of people that thought what I was doing was brilliant, but they were never going to be my client. Right. And I thought to myself, well, I'm just talking, you know, one part is I need to, I think I need explain what I do better. Right. But another part is I need to talk to people that once they think it's brilliant, they need to be able to buy. Right. So how do I do that? I've been networking my way through these COO and emerging CMO communities, ones on Facebook once on mighty networks, whatever. And one is very heavy on LinkedIn. And as I entered these communities, I realized that it costs me nothing to any post that somebody puts up, put a like, and put a comment like, oh, that's really cool that you did that. Whether or not I have any value to offer or not just commenting in there and showing up and saying, oh, that's really interesting. Congrats on that. Or, oh, wow. I didn't think of it like that. You know, I used to think of demand generation like this, right. Just going up a couple of them times, and then you send a connection request. I find that I got the connection requests back and they're like, oh my God, I love how you show up in people's comments. Do you want to take a call? And now I'm like booked up again with people showing interest in what do I do when all I did was lead in the door of value and the value was simply just showing up in comments, man, like just liking commenting very, very soon.

Diana:

We'll stop, man. I know. And people want it to be hard. the only thing it costs you is time, which is a real consideration for people. But several years back, I heard a presentation specifically about using LinkedIn more actively in your career, instead of just having it be the dead profile and the person that was speaking said, here's the thing, how much are you on Instagram and Facebook every day, take 15 minutes of it and move it to LinkedIn. And I found that to be the simplest advice ever. I literally had the market on my to-do list for about a month before I was really in the habit of it. Cause I'd been kind of, I wouldn't say I had the totally dead, like cobweb covered profile on LinkedIn, but I hadn't been very active until I heard it. in that presentation and it made an enormous difference. I mean, just stunning, how quickly it made a difference. And it didn't just make a difference in people wanting to connect with me. I started getting calls from recruiters and I wasn't even looking for a job because you show you're showing up. So another thing I like to tell people is they often are concerned about, you know, how do people know I'm legit? And if you put good observations in any discussion forum, even if it's just a sentence or two that shows people whether you're legit or not. So I'm in some product management and agile development forums on LinkedIn, because that's what I did for many, many years. And those people often have questions about how to manage their career. I'll tell you what I can tell within about three comments. If somebody knows what they're talking about. or not You know, that's not to be negatively judgmental about them. So everyone is there to learn. But if you see that superstar that is making intelligent remarks and saying, oh my gosh, I'm having trouble getting interviews. And then I go look at their profile and figure out your problem is that not your experience is bad. Your problem is that your profile is bad. Your positioning is bad. You're not clearly communicating to people. It's two different things. So folks that pay attention can figure out quite a lot from a few different comments or posts.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Totally, totally. And that even works. So that's actually one of my networking speaking points of before, before I became more focused on content, just in conferences, right? Like whenever, whenever you're in a public forum, there are panels and there's a mic for Q and A If you ask an intelligent question during that Q and a, it is wide opener, you know, like door to like everybody in that room to come up to you. Right. And it's the same thing. with commenting Yeah.

Diana:

Yeah. It's, it is the same thing. and I'll tell you what, like lately I have a pretty direct personality showing up how you choose to show up online as a really interesting thing, too. So I have a very direct personality, but like I said, everybody likes to pretend on LinkedIn and we pretend all over social media that they pretend in a different way on LinkedIn. And I had a very interesting experience about a year and a half or so ago where I had connected with a technology executive here in Kansas city on LinkedIn. I didn't know him in person, but I will connect with almost anybody that doesn't confuse LinkedIn with Tinder, or isn't trying to sell me SEO services, sort of my role. so I connected with this gentleman and later on, about two months later, I met him at a couple. And in this period, I was really not sure what I was going to do. So I was, I had kind of a softer message. It wasn't really like me, but nobody told me that this doesn't sound like you. They were just like, oh, I like your content, whatever. I meet him in person at this conference in Kansas city a few months before the pandemic introduced myself. And he said, you're way different than I expected. And I said, tell me more. That's one of my favorite sentences is tell me more. And he said, you're a lot on rear in real life. And I said, oh, well, tell me more. And he said, I think you are hiding the best part of you from LinkedIn. So he, his encouragement was, you're a direct person. You got a little bit of snark, a little bit of sarcasm, a little bit of humor in there. Show it off, stop trying to be so professional and show it off. And so I've leaned into that and I'm not, you know, there's different ways to look at that. and everybody has different limits that suit their personality, but the more direct Diane, the better the engagement, the easier it is to write the content because I'm being me, all of those kinds of things and the higher quality of people that get drawn into your community. So,

Pablo Gonzalez:

yeah, and I think that all, I was just having this conversation with my wife this weekend about Martha Beck's newest book about integrity and how her definition of integrity is not like, you know, how good of a person you are, how honest you are. It's just how true to yourself you are and how, and how being true to yourself and sticking to it. Is really hard at first. Cause you kind of shed all the BS layers and, and, and, and all these like stories that you've told yourself where people have told you that you've adopted the once you get into that, you really start to just attract all the things that,

Diana:

oh, it's the, it's so much the truth. Then, you know, I've been thinking about this a lot and doing a lot of work in that area. And I feel like I'm starting to hit the hockey stick. Like I'm real close to hitting that hockey stick. I hope so. That's what I taught myself. Anyway. It's a better story than nobody cares what you have to say. Right. Which is the story that we tell so-and-so, wouldn't want to network with me. They wouldn't care what I have to say. I hear that a lot from people who are, you know, maybe individual contributors or managers in their career and, you know, decision makers for them are at like a director or VP level a lot of times. And they think, oh, I can't, I can't reach out to them because that's not appropriate. Like, they're just people. So being willing to think of the openness and being willing to think about how do I serve people, like we've been discussing this afternoon, those are all the ingredients that you need to access anybody. If you send a message off to the CEO of whatever corporation or the VP in charge of your functional area and they don't write back, it's not like you've been blackballed. It's probably that they're busy. So try like trying is half the battle.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Yeah. This has been you know, like, I, I, I love this conversation, right? Like, like I, I, I looked like, I didn't think that we'd get so nerdy about LinkedIn networking strategy.

Diana:

I didn't either. I didn't either, but I knew cause I w I have more rule that I listened to. I try to listen to at least two episodes of any podcast then I'm going to be on. and usually I've listened to that before I even talked to somebody about being on it. And so I knew that this would go in unexpected places. I just didn't know which unexpected places. All

Pablo Gonzalez:

right. Well, this is a place you can expect. You ready for the lightning round? Yes. Bam. Bam. All right. What is your favorite restaurant? Where is it? And what do you order?

Diana:

So it's hard to say the favorite favorite of all times. So I'm just going to go with my favorite neighborhood place. It's called the peanut and it's a bar. There's several of them in the Kansas city area and they have the best BLT in the world. It's like if I was on death row for murder, this is the last meal that I would want. So I get a single BLT with avocado and a fried egg. And I used to always get onion rings, but like tater tots have made a comeback. So sometimes it's the tops these days.

Pablo Gonzalez:

There you go. The peanut is this in Kansas city, Missouri.

Diana:

It's called the peanut. Yes. It's a bar and grill kind of place. Then there's several of them.

Pablo Gonzalez:

I like it. This is, you know, that, that section is supposed to be like a traveling food documentary of if you want to visit somewhere, go to the, you know, like wherever and the chief executive connector thing. So the peanut and cats,

Diana:

the peanut in Kansas study. And there's no matter where, no matter what part of Kansas city you're in, you're within probably 15 or 20 minutes of one. Cause. Downtown ones I'm out like in the birds. There's other birds that have them. It's a, it's a great deal.

Pablo Gonzalez:

The city's full of payments. All right. What is your favorite? what content are you most into right now? This could be either what like Netflix series you're obsessed with or what book you're really, really into, or whose podcasts you're really listening to or whose Instagram or YouTube channel, but like, what is, what are you most kind of consuming these days? Content wise,

Diana:

I'm consuming all of the things. So I'm currently reading radical candor which is Kim Scott wrote it. And Kim Scott was, has been an executive at Google and apple and like all these big places. And it's basically about building leadership culture around caring personally and challenging directly. So there's a vulnerability component too. And in there too. It's have you ever read this? You're looking to have, so we're, we're mostly best friends, but we haven't read all the same books yet. That's fine. I need to read your Jim Collins book that you've been talking about too. So I really love that because some of the work that I've done and doing with my business coaching clients is actually around creating and operationalizing a clear culture. So not snacks and foosball tables, but what are your corporate values? What do they actually look like? How do you use them within performance management and those kinds of things? So that's a direction where I'm going with that part of my business. And then on the flip side, it's helping me because very often. My clients who are mostly like, mid-career kind of like that late thirties to early fifties, you know, still grown in the career kind of people, but they're just over the BS of working all the time and they find themselves in culture that doesn't work for them. So there's a lot of questions around how do I avoid a toxic culture? How do I avoid walking into something that's the same or worse is what I came into. So I'm reading a lot of books about that.

Pablo Gonzalez:

That was the other place that I thought that our interview would go is corporate culture, because we can get nerdy about that, but we can, we can plan another conversation around it. Oh yeah. I'm all about

Diana:

that.

Pablo Gonzalez:

I had just done my core values exercise with my business partner and that's why I was like super into it, but well, yeah. All right. Ready?

Diana:

Like really slow

Pablo Gonzalez:

lightning. It's lightning. What is something you were sure about in your twenties that you no longer believe?

Diana:

when I was in my twenties, I love this question, by the way, it is my favorite lightning round question. When I was in my twenties, I thought that what mattered the most was doing all the things and doing them well. And so, as a result, what you do is swallow feelings. And so I and now recognizing, cause I, I really had to have tough time in the fall during the pandemic. Like I did not know how I was going to make it a very dark time and I started therapy. And the therapist I've found is absolutely wonderful and helped me realize that I've basically been swelling. My feelings since I was like before kindergarten. And he's nerdy enough, like cerebral enough to explain here are the neuroscience reasons why that is a bad idea, and then also appeals to other parts of me to really figure out how to make progress on it. So now I am recognizing, embracing and processing my own feelings. I've done it for other people really well all along. I've always taken care of other people's feelings, but not my own. So I matter, I guess this is my thing. So another,

Pablo Gonzalez:

another, another big area of overlap of you and me, man. I like about two years ago, a bunch of therapy got me down that same path of just like this, like self-worth thing of like, you're ready to serve others, but not yourself kind of thing. And embrace that stuff. So

Diana:

yes, one of the questions my therapist asked me at one point was what would it be like. For you to choose yourself. And that's, that's like a mic drop right there. So,

Pablo Gonzalez:

awesome. What is either the best singular piece of advice that you've gotten or your favorite go-to piece of advice you'd like to get?

Diana:

So, one of my favorite pieces of advice is boiled down to a quote by a guy named Dustin Pittman. That is from here in Kansas city. He and another close friend of mine. Jeff Meyer had their own it staffing company. And it's this, the first rule of leadership is loving people. Hmm, that was another one. When you first hear it, you get the J-Lo American idol excuses. So I just got J-Lo you just got Jay load.

Pablo Gonzalez:

I'm just, I'm just Jenny from the block right now. I don't know what's going

Diana:

on. Indistinguishable from Johnny for luck. You look exactly the same. I know

Pablo Gonzalez:

it. yeah, listen, I, I have funny feelings about J-Lo, right? Like I as a, as a Hispanic male that grew up in a vicious, double standard for females, like, I, I very much respect how she's been able to completely normalize in American eyes, you know, the, the Hispanic female persona. But I also feel like. Every Hispanic woman now gets judged to a J-Lo standard or at least until very recently. Right? Like we're getting a little bit more whoa. But for the last 20 years to my sister, it's like, oh, your name is Maria Gonzalez. You must be dead. Oh, hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. You know, it's like, ah, but yeah, I'm going to link to your stuff, right? Facebook page DKA, coaching your Facebook group, your LinkedIn page, your website, your resumes dotes guide@dianateaches.com. But this is your moment. You know, what's the best place to connect with. You draw attention to wherever you want people to go to next, our friend that just listen to how cool you are for an hour in her ear. What's what's the next,

Diana:

I would love to connect with people on LinkedIn right now. That's probably the top place to hear some of my best stuff. Especially since my friend Brett fixed me. And now I'm being like direct and cool with myself on LinkedIn. that's probably the best place at this point. So no matter what.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Okay. Connect with her on LinkedIn. Do it. We just did it. It's been awesome so far. I'm

Diana:

a fan. I'm a fan. Awesome.

Pablo Gonzalez:

All right, Dan, the last question I ask everybody, where do you find community?

Diana:

Okay. I find community like everywhere. especially when you think online. So, I mean, I, I spend most of my time on Facebook and LinkedIn from a business perspective, but as an entrepreneur doing work that I love like business and personal start to bleed together quite a lot. So part of if you community is this mastermind group that I joined for this year has been amazing. It's a small group of people that is just. Like family, especially when you spend those three days together doing your weekend of climbing around and everybody's businesses in person is interesting because with my career change and then the pandemic, I actually feel like in person is more of a struggle at this point. So, so if you have friends in Kansas city that like to geek out about corporate culture and networking, like, I definitely want those people to connect with me.

Pablo Gonzalez:

I have to assume, you know, John Healon,

Diana:

I, I don't know him well, but I know the name and I'm pretty sure we're connected on LinkedIn. Does he need to, does he need to be my friend?

Pablo Gonzalez:

I think so, man, he's a Kansas city guy with an awesome vibe. Great networker. You know, like he's got a relationships and revenues podcast is a super cool guy. He's cool. He's a, I haven't dropped the episode yet. It comes out in two weeks, but he's been on my podcast too. So chief executive connector, alumni reunion it'll happen. I'll connect the two.

Diana:

All right. Awesome. That'll be great. So

Pablo Gonzalez:

no, this was cool, man. Like I I knew that this would be a really awesome conversation. I I knew I'd be pleasantly surprised with how much more you and I are actually in line then than what I even thought to just begin with when we were just talking about core values or whatever, but this is totally over-delivered right. Like I, I think,

Diana:

oh, I'm so glad to hear it. I'm glad. Yeah. This

Pablo Gonzalez:

is really fun. I, listen, I appreciate, I appreciate your vulnerability and going on some random dudes podcasts that you just met in a chat and and you know, I hope that we can be friends going forward.

Diana:

Cool. All right. You too. I look forward to getting to know you more

Pablo Gonzalez:

right on.