Lessons - Stop Talking, Start Intentioning | Gloria Feldt - Forbes 50 Over 50

In this lessons episode, examine how intentional action transforms personal growth and career progression, discover-wise shifting from passive ambition to active intention creates momentum, understand how uncovering core values, strengthens authentic leadership, and explore how modulating confidence and choosing aligned workplace cultures empower long-term advancement. Why that particular word for the title? What does intention mean to somebody? Because that's what I've never heard that word before. I've made it up. I made it up. I was wondering. I'm like, I don't think I've ever used that in the sentence before. But I wanted to be in the dictionary. I wanted to be the word of the year next year. No, it's good. So it's like it's like the act of doing something with intention. Exactly. And that's exactly how I was trying to find the right word. And I looked in the dictionary, looked in the thesaurus. I googled for it, and I couldn't find exactly the right word. So, I made it up. I just made it up because that's what you say. What you say is exactly what I wanted to do, which was to take a noun, which is a very perfectly good noun. And intention is something we talk about a lot these days. But I wanted to exemplify the fact that I intention is great, but unless you're doing it, it doesn't matter. And it's all about what you're actually doing. And I also differentiate between ambition and intention in that regard. Because to me, ambition is I hope I wish I want. I've got a dream about it. Intention and intentioning is I, I will. I am. I'm doing it. I see myself having already done it. I know it will happen. So it's a qualitative kind of difference. And I feel that that is a linchpin. That is an absolute linchpin for helping women get to parity in leadership because they have to have that belief for themselves and the courage to act on it. I love that. Okay, so let's break down. You said there's a few like very tactical takeaways in the book. So there's nine tools, but we don't have to go through nine. Obviously, that's why you would go get the book. But pick a couple. Pick like one or two things that if somebody is, you know, they're sitting in a career right now. And they, they want to move their career. They want to get a promotion. They want to do something more or do something and move up. I don't know what that move up looks like. And maybe you can describe what they should be looking for. Should it be another company? Should it be a tip to negotiate? Should it be finding a mentor or a sponsor thing your own company? What's the actionable thing that somebody could do? I'm going to start with the first one because I believe it is the bedrock and it is uncover yourself. And by that, I mean know who you are, get in touch with what your values are. I believe that the greatest leaders and the most effective leaders are very clear about who they are and what they believe, what values they will stand on. And they know themselves and they show themselves to others. But you have to know yourself first before you can show yourself to others authentically. So that is the first tool. And you know, both men and women say they cover themselves in the workplace because they're trying to fit in. Women more than men and both men and women of color more than white women because the culture was built by white men for white men who had women and people of color at home at the time, 250 years ago, doing the kind of taking care of their lives. And so the world has changed. The world has changed. The families are different. They're usually, if they're two partners, they're usually two breadwinners. And if there's one person, you know, that breadwinner has to cover everything. So it's very different. It's very different and not functional anymore. And and so there's there is this need to uncover ourselves in a particularly in a society that is increasingly diverse. And we need to use that diversity as a strength, not as a divider, which is that we could do a whole program on, but I'll move on. I will move on. One, I'm going to take one more here. And then you can ask me some other questions about them, one that is counterintuitive. So I have three, three of these tools are what I call your self-definitional tools. In other words, how you are introspective. Three of them are counterintuitive. Very often, their things your mother told you not to do, but you should, if you want to be a great leader. And the third bucket of these tools is the change leadership tools. So big systems change, how to make big systems change. So a counterintuitive tool that is I think super important for women is modulate confidence. There is a whole industry out there making tons of money trying to show women how to become confident. Confidence, however, is not something you can just learn. You get confident by doing things, by practicing, by actually growing up your sleeves, and doing the thing that scares you. And that's how you get confidence. You can't inject confidence into your veins. It really takes doing. And frankly, the reason I say modulate confidence is that if you're totally confident, why do you have any reason to learn something new? If you're totally confident, what's the bur under your saddle that helps you to want to learn new things, to try new things, to do better, to ascend to a higher level of a position. So we need to learn to do things long before we're confident. We need to learn to do things. Maybe as Jonathan Kennedy said, we go to the moon, not because it's easy, but because it's hard. You know, we do those things because they're hard because that's where the growth is. That's where the growth is. That's what really teaches us how to be bigger and smarter and greater and build bigger businesses or run for Congress or whatever it is that we might want to do. So those are a couple of them. And when you say you want to say these are things that yes, there are things that everybody should really try and internalize. But if you are, if you want to champion some of these things, do you think that you should try and champion them in the organization you're already in, or is this something that maybe the organization values has to align with your own personal values to really get the best effect? Because you're going to come up against some people that are not with it, not in line, like super bigoted, like old school, and that's a block or two. It can't just be one-sided because it's never going to happen if you're a media boss, it's just an absolute asshole, right? It's not going to happen. So what do you suggest people look for, another sort of like a practical thing? If somebody's trying to find an organization that will help enable these things, what do you look for? Is there a process for like interviewing the interviewer? Is it finding the organization that I don't know has some sort of, some sort of person or cultural or something in place that can, you look to and like this is an organization is going to help support my growth because I know there's a lot of organizations that may not, or there's a lot of people with an organization that may not, and I want to keep people away from those and give them the best possible chance of succeeding in their careers, right? So how do you find that? Right, the first step again is to know yourself and decide what is that important to you because you're probably not going to ever get everything you want in, if you're working in an organization, you will make some compromises along the way, most likely. Actually in any situation, if it's your own business, it doesn't matter what it is, you'll probably make some compromises along the way, but you need to know what is it you care so much about that you will walk away rather than violate that. I have one of the power tools in my previous book, Nox Kisses, is called Where the Shirt, and what that means is, what do you believe so strongly you'd put it on your shirt and let other people see it? That you hold that belief so, so, you know, so strongly. I have, this is a shirt somebody gave me, actually, I saw, I saw, yeah, I know, yeah, and I'm wearing that shirt today, that's my shirt for today, but so, so you have to first of all figure that out and your question is a good one for people to ask at different stages of their careers because when you're just starting out, you have more of the luxury to research organizations and zero in on, okay, this is where I feel like it's a fit for me. I know there's a young woman who was in one of my courses a few years ago and I just noticed on LinkedIn that she had taken a new job and when I read her logic for taking this new job, it was all about, you know, I've had some great jobs before and I've learned a lot, but I wanted to go with this particular company because they put together my core value of belief in the power of education with making it more democratized for, you know, available to people. So, you know, this is like consciously, she was intentioning that she would be able to work in a culture that a set of values, like a company that had the same value set that she had. That's, you can research that. I mean, things are much more transparent now and I, I think they're probably, it's not true of every company. I mean, that's true. But increasingly, companies are having to be more transparent about what their values are and what their mission is. I mean, their mission may be to make money, but how did they do it and how are they serving the world when they make money? They're telling you that on their websites. Those are questions you can ask in interviews. You can, it's perfectly legitimate to ask those questions and I'll tell you as somebody who has hired a lot of people over the years, I appreciate it when people have done their research and they know what matters to them and they ask me those questions. No, but what I was going to say is I just want people to feel comfortable like asking these questions because that's how you really set yourself up for success, right? You want to, you want to make sure you know what you're stepping into. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And I think, I think, you know, as you grow in your career, you have more, even more opportunity to be very straightforward and discerning. It may take you longer to get a job, as for sure, but it's worth taking that time and making sure that you feel it's a culture that you will thrive in and that you can contribute. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.