Advocating for Yourself, join me in welcoming Lisa Warren, Chief Executive Officer at Andrews Sports Medicine as she takes the stage to guide us through the art of self-advocacy. Learn how to confidently assert your needs, navigate challenges with clarity and conviction, both in your career and your personal life. Thank you, everybody. All right. So, they asked me to speak, which is a real honor, but here I am, the last person, and I could probably give my presentation in about 15 minutes after everybody has already gone because as I looked at my outline, I'm like, oh my gosh, that's what I was going to say, that's what I was going to say, that's what I was going to say. So, instead of feeling bad, like, oh my gosh, everybody's taking my stuff, I'm going to approach this in a positive way and say, I'm the closer, and I'm the closer, and I'm going to run through everything everybody has said, because while I did score as my first one was the visionary, I've forgotten already what the word was. White border. I scored as a white border, but I was two points from an outliner. So, I am an outliner. You guys are going to notice that I have a lot of words written up here. I'm not going to read them to you, I promise. These presentations will be available. So, hey, if you want to read the words, you go read the words later, but we'll kind of run through this. When I was asked to speak, I said, well, what do you want me to talk about? And they gave a list of topics. And I saw self-advocacy, and I thought, oh, mm-mm, mm-mm. And then I was reading through again, and I thought, why did I think that? Because I thought that that is exactly the reason why I should do this presentation. And I thought about, I have two daughters that are now 18 and 21, and I thought about them. Like, as we've talked about, the women and the girls. If we don't talk about this, and we don't do this, we will get nowhere. And so, the sticker I chose is, the future is female. And so, that's my sticker. And so, that's why I chose this topic. It is uncomfortable to talk about, you know, for me in particular, but I think for all of us, and we've touched on that. So, we'll kind of run through. So, we've talked a lot. What is self-advocacy? It is speaking up for yourself, you know, raising your hand, doing all this. But the other thing we touched on, and I want to spend a minute, is to be a self-advocate, you have got to know yourself, right? You have to know yourself, and you have to go through. So, we're going to talk a little bit about knowing yourself. But the other part of being a self-advocate is, a lot of times you think, well, extroverts are best at this. You know, if you're an extrovert, you can be a self-advocate. If you've got a position, you can be a self-advocate. If you feel comfortable communicating in a group, you can be a self-advocate. And that is not true. Being a self-advocate can be learned. It can be practiced. So, even if you're introvert, even if you don't like speaking up in groups, you can be a self-advocate, because guess what? It's about you. It is about you. Why do we do this? Well, we just talked about this, burnout. We talked about, I have not even moved my first slide. There you go. There we go. Why is it important? It's important because if we don't, we're going to burnout. We're not going to be good at our jobs. Our personal relationships are going to suffer. And here's the other thing, if we don't speak up, nobody can help us. You don't have to do it by yourself. And I think that's one of the big problems, particularly as female managers, we kind of become just controlled and self-contained. I'm going to do this. I can do this. We don't want to ask for help. We want to do this. But if you don't speak up and ask for help and tell someone you're struggling, you will never get out of that cycle. Okay, so we're going to spend some time just talking about some tools about how to build your self-worth and how to build your confidence. So, the first thing is building on your past experiences. What do you do that makes you feel good? When you walked out of the room that day and you thought, I nailed it, I nailed it, right? Reflect on your past experiences. Those things that you nailed, those things that you felt good about, those things that you got compliments on, carry that with you. Those are your strengths. Those are the things you bring to the table. Ask for feedback from others. So, we've talked about our network. I think Olivia said something about her personal board of directors, right? Ask for feedback, the honest feedback. You know, what am I good at? What am I not good at? Get feedback to know. And once you can recognize what you're good at and you're not good at, this will help you build confidence and gain your self-worth. We've talked some about personality tests, and I'm not going to lie, I did every single one of these. That's why it took me about seven hours to work on this presentation, because I was like, oh, look at this free test. Free personality tests are fun. Can they be, you know, are they all inclusive? No. But what they do is they give words to your personality, to your strengths, and to your otherwise. Because sometimes we kind of just feel it, but we don't have the words to describe it. So, using these personality tests, you can pick little pieces and parts about how you want to describe yourself, both mentally and to the outside world. Consider your values and goals. So, this is one of the things that, again, Olivia and Andrea talked about. Olivia had the pretty tree and the roots, your values and goals. Andrea talked about her little notes from her therapist, right? Like, I want to be valued. I want my work to be recognized. I want these kind of things. You have got to know what you want, or you will never get it. So, find those things. Fine, because you can't ask if you don't know what the baseline is. So, figure out what your values and goals. And this last one is be honest with yourself. And we kind of talked about this. Now, we all have strengths, and we've talked about strengths. And I want to take 30 seconds on weakness. And why I say 30 seconds on weakness is because we all have them, but you don't need to dwell on them, okay? We all have them, but you don't need to dwell on them. And this came out of, I think this might be similar to what you guys talked about, about Strength Finder. But I worked for a firm, and the book was called Now Discover Your Strengths. And you took a personality, kind of a personality test. You did this, and it came up things that you are naturally good at. And there are things that you are not good at, right? That's the way we are. But the premise of this book was kind of life-changing for me, because the point was the things that you're naturally good at, get better at them. It's easier. You can go from an 8 to a 10. You cannot go from a 2 to an 8. You just won't. So, spend your time focusing on what you're good at. The stuff you're not so good at, learn enough so it doesn't hold you back. But the reality is, it won't ever become a strength, because that is not you. All right? It may be a weakness, but it is not you. Find people around you who have that, right? You have this, they have that. Make sure you have, you know, again, look at what you're not good at, develop it enough where it doesn't hold you back. But focused on what, become a 10. Become a 10 at the stuff that feels good, that comes naturally. Focus on your strengths and get better at those. Now, just because you're good at something doesn't, really good at this and weak at this, doesn't mean it has to be defining. So, for example, if you don't like public speaking, okay, that's fine. But if all of a sudden there's something you're super passionate about, you may become a public speaker, right? So, it can morph. It can morph. But don't focus on your weaknesses. This comes back to negative self-talk and some of the other things that we've talked about. Focus on what you're good at, know you're good at it, and become excellent at it. And I think I wrote on somebody's crown, I am excellent, or drive to be excellent, right? We're going to be excellent at what we do. We're not going to dwell on what we're not good at. I don't know why the cut at the top, there we go. Okay. So, if you don't like personality tests, what I can promise you is that every single person in here can circle 10 words that apply to them at least, right? So, find your words. This comes back to you cannot be a self-advocate unless you can find your words of what you need. So, look at this list and find your words. And everybody in the room, whether we're talking about leadership development or otherwise, they have these words, right? And hold on to these words. And I could do a whole another presentation, again, as I was digging through because I'm an outliner and I'm researching and I'm doing all this. If we take a minute to talk about self-esteem, you know, who in here has been a teenage girl? Who in here has raised a teenage girl? Like, raising a teenage girl is worse, I think, than being a teenage girl. And so, I've got two girls that are 18 and 21. So, this is relatively recent. Self-esteem is hard because I am 54 years old and I still, every once in a while, feel like I'm 13. You know, that self-esteem thing. Why do we struggle with that 40 years later? You know, we're still struggling with that. So, how do we do this? And so, I Googled, how do you make teenagers feel better about themselves or something like that? I mean, it was legit. I wanted to know, not just for this presentation. So, there are a couple of things and it's been touched on. And I guess, in a way, this is why I feel good that I'm going last because everybody has talked about this. But the number one is don't compare yourself to others. You are unique. You bring something special to the table, something on this list. You bring special to the table. You are unique. It is hard in this world of social media not to compare yourself to others, right? Whether it's somebody's marriage. Oh, my husband's my best friend and I'm just so great, da-da-da. And you're thinking, I want to punch him. Like, he's not my best friend. Like, what is wrong with me? You know, so you get kind of some of those things. You get the LinkedIn profiles that, oh, I'm moving up, I'm moving up. Or there's this really cool job title. Like, I'm going to tell you about job titles. We've talked a little bit about it. Who really cares what their job title is? Nobody. But you get that little thing. Like, I got my Master's in Health Services Administration. So my peer group, they're all CEOs at health systems and all these special something, something. And I'm running a doctor's office, right? And I'm like, what is going on? Do I feel bad about it? No, because frankly, I don't want their job. But you could if you stop just a minute and think, I could have been the CEO of Ascension Health System. Like, that's what one of my peers is. What, did I go wrong? What, am I not enough? Why didn't I do that? You know, so it's hard for us not to compare ourselves or others. Find people around you who appreciate you for who you are. And that will make it a lot easier for you to appreciate who you are. You know, find your people. We've talked about the mentoring. We've talked about otherwise. Another thing to really think about is give yourself some grace. We've talked about this a little bit too. You know, we are our own worst critic. I think we tend to be kinder to our employees than we are to ourselves. And that's not right. You know, how would you treat this person if it was somebody else? And I had this conversation with a friend who was having troubles in her marriage and her husband was not particularly great to her. And I said, let me ask you, would you want your daughter to be treated this way? And the answer was no. And I'm like, then why is it good for you? So give yourself some grace on that one. I mean, and the last thing, and we've beat on this too, is helping others. Helping others improves your own self-esteem. It makes you feel good when you make a difference. I don't care who you are. It makes you feel good when you make a difference. So we've talked about mentoring. But look, we can work for not-for-profits. I've been on the board of a couple of not-for-profits, and I always end up on the medical advisory committee, and I always do that, right? So we can do good, whether it's mentoring, whether it's working for a not-for-profit. You know, I actually, and this, I guess, is going to be my self-esteem moment. We have a fellowship program, and we've got a couple of female physicians in our fellowship program, and one of them reached out to me, and she said, do you have time next week to meet so I can talk to you about being successful in a man's world? A female surgeon is coming to me. How cool is that? You know, and so, but back to, that is a serious responsibility. I now have to talk to this female surgeon about how to make it, right? So, but that's a self-esteem thing. Like, oh my gosh, I really have made it. Like, a surgeon is now asking me to help them. So it's pretty cool. So I'll get off the self-esteem thing, and we'll get back on, okay. Building confidence and recognizing your worth. My slides are a little jacked up here, so we're going to roll. Okay, setting realistic goals. You know, and this is one of those things where all, we've got the drivers out there, and we're all doing this. And so, again, my second highest was the driver go-getter kind of person. So I had this goal that I was going to do a gratitude journal. So everybody heard of gratitude journals, right? You're supposed to write in them every day and all of this. Yeah, I was not good at that, right? And so then I'm beating myself up because I'm not doing my gratitude journal every day. So what I did is I found, okay, what is a realistic goal for gratitude? So what I did is I took two thank you notes, and I put them on my little blotter thing. Like, yeah, I still have one of those on my desk. You know, one of those old-fashioned blotter things. And I put those two thank you notes on my desk. And at the end of every week, I have written two thank you notes to a staff person. Easy, right? A lot easier than writing a gratitude journal. But still, I'm grateful, right? I'm grateful for these. And back around to self-esteem and gratitude, I've done that now, and then I increased it to five a week, and then I've cut it back to two because that really wasn't realistic as a goal. But when I walk around the clinic, I see them pinned to their corkboards. Right? Easy, cheap, free even, you know? So set realistic goals, and they can be achievable. Challenge negative thoughts. We talked a little bit about this. My oldest daughter really struggled with self-esteem, and that's really hard to watch. So one of the things about the negative thoughts is she would always say, well, of course it happened to me. Like, of course I'm the one that this happened to. Of course I'm the one that whatever else. And I'm like, what do you mean of course? Like, you're the victim in this world? Like, you're the only one in this world that this deserved to happen to? And she's like, well, I'm like, not of course. It's more like, oh crap, that was unfortunate. Like, it's not about you, of course. It's that was unfortunate. So changing the narrative in your head, these negative thoughts, and you know, shout out to Jodi, who said I was talking about how nervous I was. And she's like, no, you're excited. You're excited to give this speech, right? You're not nervous. And I was like, you know what? You're right. I'm excited to talk to these amazing ladies. I'm excited to be the closer on this whole thing. Just that one word, from fearful to excited. It's easy. It's easy. Celebrate the progress and celebrate the small things. And that's the problem, too, is we're so busy. We're going on to the next thing. We don't stop and think about what we've done. And so I have a small story about celebrating small victories. When I was pregnant with my youngest daughter, I gained a lot of weight, a lot of weight. So I gained a lot of weight, and I was upset that I had gained this weight. But it wasn't really about the weight. It was about the fact I couldn't fit into this favorite pair of black pants that I wore all the time to work. Like, you gotta, when you have a good pair of black pants, you just gotta wear those black pants. And I couldn't fit in them, and I was just mad. And not even sad, or like, it wasn't really a self-esteem thing. I was just pissed I couldn't wear my pants. And so work and work and work, right? And so I'd get back in there, and I'd be trying to get them shut, and I can't sit. So finally, one day, I was close. I mean, close to getting those black pants to close. And I remembered the rubber band trick. Do you guys know what I'm talking about, the rubber band trick? Yeah, where you take the rubber band, and you put it through the buttonhole, and then you hook it on your button. I put on those damn black pants, and I wore them to work that day, and I was killing it. I mean, small victory. I got to the rubber band size on that pants, and I was happy. So it's the small things. And eventually, I could close them all the way, right? But that was eight months down the road. But six months down the road, I got the rubber band. And so pick those small things, even though they're small, and celebrate them. Kind of go forward. Self-compassion, we've talked about this. Give yourself some grace. Visualizing success. We've talked a lot about imposter syndrome. Why should I be here? Look, if you don't think you should be in the room, nobody else is gonna think you need to be in the room. So remember that. Visualize, like my daughters call it manifesting. Manifesting, picture your success. Picture that successful conversation. Picture walking in, and my youngest daughter was talking to a teacher, and she said, yeah, all the students find you intimidating. And I was like, well, why do you think they find you intimidating? And she said, because I walk down the hall like I'm ready to kill somebody. I said, okay. You know, but she's walking down the hall. I'm like, good, good. Walk down the hall like you're supposed to own that hall. Heck yes, you do. You know, and so visualize your success. Step out of your comfort zone. So hey, stepping out of my comfort zone right here. But I'll tell you another funny story about stepping out of the comfort zone. And I actually have documentation on this on YouTube. I was asked by a friend of mine who did a fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Club of Birmingham, and she said, hey, we're doing a Dancing with the Stars version of Birmingham, and we're having local leadership participate. Would you want to ballroom dance? I was like, I was a soccer player. I was not a ballroom dancer ever, a dancer ever. I don't even do box step. And so I was thinking about it, and I was like, really, ballroom dance? And I thought about it. I thought about my girls, and I thought, they need to see me do something uncomfortable, because they know I'm not a ballroom dancer either. So I went for 12 weeks, and trained to do the Argentine tango. And I got lifted up. I got flipped. I was, I mean, it was unbelievable. And so, fast forward, here I am, in a ballroom, full of 300 people, in my Argentine tango dress I got from Sheehan, and my, in my ballroom dancing shoes, which they're special shoes to ballroom dance, by the way, so my ballroom dancing shoes, and in front of 300 people, and the music starts, and I am dancing the Argentine tango with Fabian Sanchez, who was on season seven of Dancing with the Stars. So he taught me the dance. He's the one who flipped me up and turned me around, and he was a good-smelling Latin man. I did not regret any of that at all. But I did it. I did it. It's on YouTube. My husband put it up there. It was, so wow. Talk about getting out of the box, right? I'm in this sexy dress. I had the fake eyelashes. I went all red lipstick. It was epic. So, I feel like I can do anything if I have danced the Argentine tango with Fabian Sanchez, of all things. And so, anyway, get out of your comfort zone. It can be fun. It can be surprising. And truly, after that whole experience, I thought, I think I might wanna ballroom dance. You can competitively ballroom dance. Again, who knew that was a thing? Not the time in my life where I had the time to take that up, but I might. Now I'm an empty nester. That might be kind of fun to do. So you might learn something new. Seek positive influences. We've talked about mentorship. We've talked about that kind of thing. And take care of yourself. Andrea touched on this, too. Your sleep, your nutrition, your exercise, all of that is your mental and physical health and if you can't bring yourself a hundred percent to your job You're not going to be successful at your job, and you're not going to be successful at home because what I found is If I'm halfway at my job, and I get home I'm at about 1 8th right if I don't have that energy, and I don't have that that time So take care of yourself Develop confidence, so that's part of what we're doing now right we are getting out there. We are learning our skit craft We are getting better from that standpoint All right self-promotion This is a little different than self-advocacy But not a lot because this is back to building confidence and you go through We've talked about studies show that women are more likely like this did a study they were 50% of Professional women surveyed said that they felt like they had been overlooked for by it for a promotion because they didn't raise their hand They didn't talk about their competencies They don't brag They don't want to see be seen as arrogant So we're doing it to ourselves back to not raising our hand and and this actually was a study Google Interestingly enough the way Google promotes people is if your division has had a successful to two Successful quarters in a row you can put yourself up for self promotion You can put yourself up for a promotion if you put yourself in the queue Men were four times more likely to put themselves in the promotion queue than women Why the criteria was your division had two successful quarters? Doesn't make sense so we do it to ourselves So, you know, we've got to learn to self-promote. So how do we do that where it's not uncomfortable like, you know I'm in the south. I didn't really grow up in the south, but I'm there now. So it's particularly acute I think with southern women, but I think in general this still applies The first thing you can do to self-promote externally is own a compliment Have y'all heard about this own a compliment? So if someone tells you wow that project went well, you don't say oh it was nothing You don't say oh, it was my team Okay, what you do say is thank you very much. That was the difficult project What you do say is Yes, it was a difficult project and you appreciating it just makes it that much more worth it All right own a compliment This one's a little easier and I think it comes to women a little more naturally and it's offering your service to others If you have knowledge and you have skills that you bring to the table and we all do Teach it Train it mentor it coach it and Then you're seen as the expert right? You're the go-to person. I think that was on Andrea's little evaluation Right, she's the go-to person right? You're the go-to person. You're seen as an asset to the organization You're seen as a leader. You're bringing this to the table. You don't even need to talk about it because you're doing it That's easier to me but it's really important to realize you a need to be intentional and be When you're doing it realize this is part of it, right? This is part of of elevating myself by helping and doing these others This next one as I was doing the research was a really interesting Approach and I hadn't thought about it this way So I'm gonna read it word-for-word and generally I'm not a fan of reading things But I want y'all to listen how this worked with this dual promoting statements All right It says okay you guys did that project went great. All right, and you're like, okay, here's your response This project was successful because of our teamwork I took care of all the financial analysis and technical processes Alex really impressed me with how he handled the employee communications and training We both took charge of what we do best and it led to a great outcome And that awesome That I was like I need to do this Right because not only did it give a very specific definition to my skill set to what I brought to the table But you're not bragging. You're just saying this is the part of the project that I did that went well But you're promoting someone else in a very specific Positive way, which is the way you want to give feedback, right? So I loved this and I'm really gonna try to do that better like as we go through To do projects or when we give credit or if someone's trying to give you a compliment for that. I think the last thing is It has been said as well. Don't be mediocre. I Mean have you met a surgeon that says yeah, I'm mediocre No, right and I think unfortunately as women and And and minorities as well. We do have to work harder and we do have to be better to stand out That's just the fact So, what do we do freaking embrace it and own it and do it? Don't be mediocre and I don't think anybody in this room is mediocre and no you're not mediocre, right? Go with your strengths be excellent at what you do All right. I'm gonna take I'm gonna breeze through this because we all know these I do want to stop on a couple of them and then I'm gonna give some specific examples of ways I've applied this as far as being a self-advocate and doing doing my thing The first or the middle one I think is being clear and direct and I'm going to talk about a conversation we had at at dinner last night and So we were talking about a situation where this person was feeling overwhelmed. They had a lot of job they felt like they had too many job duties that the clinic needed to restructure and so I'll give Tina the credit Tina said Well, what do you want? Like figure out write the job description you want And what you don't want and go to them with that you have got to be clear and direct When you're when you are communicating when you want to be a self-advocate because here's the deal surgeons don't get subtle They don't they're not gonna pick up on it. They're not gonna give you a promotion just because Right, they're not they don't know what you do And that's okay. Like I look at what I do I do what I do. So doctors can practice medicine, right so they can take care of the patients. I do the business They take care of patients But they don't know so you have got to be clear and specific about what you are asking for And by the way husbands don't do subtle either You know, we know that is it a male thing? I'm not sure but but they you know, they don't do subtle So be clear and direct about what you're looking for. And the other piece I want to talk about just briefly is practice the conversation Get a card from at least three people in this room, whether it's an e-card or a real card practice your conversation with them Right, that's why we're here. And so that's what we did it at the dinner table We're like, well, you need to say blah blah blah or what do you say about this, you know, and it was fun But it could be practice administrators It could be you know friends that are in a different industry but practice the conversation and that is going to give you the confidence to walk into the room like you're supposed to be there and Have the conversation So now I'm going to kind of run through Some of the most awkward work conversations you can have right and I'm and I've had one of these and so I'm gonna take my Communication tips and give you my story. So asking for a promotion asking for a raise Asking for time off reduced hours working from home and this one I added actually Because of an experience I just had a few weeks ago with a with an employee in my office Asking why someone else got the promotion? How brave is that? and I loved that. She came into my office and asked me why she didn't get it. I Could have been pissed I could have been like because I'm the boss And that's what I wanted to do. But what that showed me is she cared She wanted to know what to do differently to get to that next level and that is awesome But oh my gosh, how scary I don't think I would have done it when I was her age to be honest But she did and so you know what she's in the back of my head for the next one Because she did that so I thought that was just I was like wow I'm gonna write that one down because that's not an obvious one, but we should all do it You know, why why didn't you choose me? It's okay. I want to get better and Then get better do whatever the reason is to get better. So I'm gonna talk about my my experience asking for a raise Yeah So the first is talking about to prepare yourself emotionally and so there's a couple of things I know about myself The first is I need to eat so I am a hangry Person for real like when I before I took this job a million years ago I worked for a hospital that ran primary care practices And so I was the operations person and I was in and out of all these practices And what I realized is they kept asking me if I was hungry every time I got to the clinic I'm like, no, I'm fine. Are you hungry? No, I'm fine. And finally somebody admitted to me like yeah You're really mean when you're hungry. And so that's why we offer you food every time you come to clinic and I thought wow Okay, so when I'm gonna have a difficult conversation, I make sure I'm fed like I know this about me Another thing that I do and I'm gonna own this because this is one of my favorite shirts I put on my armor, right? Like I prepare myself emotionally by wearing something I really like like a shirt that I like or a suit that I like something that makes me feel good That's me. That may not be a thing for you, but that is me so The other thing I realized as I was running through these clinics is I had this pink suit I loved this pink suit and what I didn't realize is I wore that pink suit every time I fired somebody because I Was not coming It was kind of like my pink slip seduce But that irony was not there like I just liked the suit and so I wore that suit every time I had to do something I didn't like right like I was uncomfortable with and so and it wasn't every time I wore the pink suit other times But the people in my clinics lost their mind every time I walked in the pink suit like they're calling me Hey, you know Lisa's wearing the pink suit today. What do you think's gonna happen, right? So that's part of how I prepared myself Emotionally was I put on my armor right I put on something that I felt really good in before I had these conversations The other thing I'll do and you're gonna learn something about me When I play this song is I have a playlist and so I believe everybody should have a rev it up playlist right, so I'm gonna play you the song on my playlist and Y'all will learn just a little bit of it and y'all will learn something else about me So So this players in my car on the way to work and some other like a Rihanna girls run the world That's another good one You know, but everybody's got to have a playlist, right? So when you're in the parking lot feeling like you're gonna walk into machine-gun fire Like we've all we talked about that you're in the parking lot crying, right? Like you're wondering do I really want to go there put on your playlist take a moment Turn it up. I'm lucky. I got this weird speaker upgrade in my car I really didn't know that that was a thing but it was there and buddy like the car vibrates I love it. Like I'm in the parking deck and they're probably about to arrest me, but But do it right find your playlist. So get yourself right emotionally. So I'm walking into the Rays. I'm wearing one of my favorite suits I've played my music. I've eaten my breakfast. So I'm ready to go. So this I've now prepared myself emotionally Choose the right time and place so we know doctors, right? They have about a 15 minute attention span when it comes to a meeting so Do it first, right? And so, you know have your meeting schedule it when they're gonna have time Don't try to do it at the end of the meeting. Don't put it out do it first So know the time in the place the other thing that I will do and I do this with my managing partners I have five managing partners that I meet with monthly and there they would be the ones doing my evaluation in my raises as I would go to two of them Two of my favorites to that I'm closest to two that I have the best relationship with and I would kind of pregame them I'd be like, okay, we're gonna talk about this. This is what I'm gonna say Does this make sense and they would help me right? So I'm ready not that there's anything against the other three, but I've got two on my team when I walk into five, right? So we're ready to go. I Provided them benchmark information like all of the managing partners I provided them benchmark information that I kind of get down to specific examples, but So I provided them the benchmark information, but this is preparing for the meeting, right? And I do this too when I have a big board meeting or an all physicians meeting. I've got my five managing partners They know the deal we've planned the agenda. So I've got five out of 24. I got five on board So then what I'll do is I'll find maybe two or three that used to be managing partners and I'll pregame them I'm like, okay. This is about what we're gonna talk about. I need to know how you're gonna vote I need to do so by the time I walk into a board meeting with 24 doctors of which 14 vote I usually know how 10 at least 10 I've touched Before that meeting even has a vote right so time and place being prepared for that clear and direct so I don't like surprises surgeons really don't like surprises. So what I did and I'll read this to you again I'm not a big fan of word-for-word But I'm gonna read this this came out of the email that I sent them to talk about raises and about clear and direct So here's what I said I wanted to discuss my current salary and explore the opportunity for a salary increase over the past year I've taken on new responsibilities and have consistently met or exceeded my targets. Can we address this at the next managing partners meeting? They knew exactly what we're meaning about They're not going to be surprised. They've had time to process it, right? So I've sent this to them two or three weeks before I'm sure just like the little sorority girls They are they all went and talked about it You know before they even got to me. I'm sure that doesn't happen in y'all's practice, but it doesn't mind You know, so they're ready and prepared but that makes for a better meeting for all of us You know, they know what to expect and going in and I know what to expect going into So the clear and direct they knew I were there. We knew what my plan was Using the I statements we've kind of touched on that I'm not a big fan of I feel when you're in this kind of situation. It's I did Right. I didn't feel nothing. I did something. This is why you need to give me this race, right? So So there's the I did part of that You know, I I am really bad about moving from project to project and not remembering what happened last week You know, we're busy crisis managing And so what I've started doing because I'm an outliner is I keep a spreadsheet It could be a Word document, but I'm more of a spreadsheet person as I keep a spreadsheet after I've finished a project like We purged all of our medical records and storage and that saved us $7,000 a month, right? I did that in February. Am I gonna remember that in October by the time, you know That's $7,000 and overhead has gotten eaten up by God knows what probably at this point But so I make a log of that new initiatives. We opened a satellite location We added a doctor like all these things we just kind of do right and we just keep rolling So as you finish it, I just have a spreadsheet that says 20 24 Accomplishments and I just put it on there takes a few seconds and some of them are minor and some of them are major But at least it helps me remember back to you know, giving myself credit tracking my success. It helps you do that So I'd really recommend go back because again, I can't remember what I did last week much less what I cost-cutting measures I implemented in February So I had those examples ready I actually developed my own self-evaluation form and gave it to the doctors You know, here are my accomplishments. Here's what I've done. Here are my goals for next year, you know So I wrote my own self-evaluation form and gave it to them So they could kind of see and look if that's not what their goals were. I need to know that too So we went through that that was my providing specific examples. I contact in body language. We talked about this a lot I had one of the most horrifying Experiences starting grad school and I can't believe they do this to him, but they still do it to this day 30 years later So our first day of grad school and in the program for my master's in health admin They make you do a speech Your very first day So I'm 21 years old and I have to do a presentation to all the rest of my peers about anything I want And then they videotape you and then they make you watch it Okay, so what I noticed is that I touched my hair a lot When I was talking and I noticed I touched my face a lot, you know, it was kind of a fidget As women we tend to do that right like that you can see the studies we touch our hair and we touch our face We might flick our hair and particularly teenage girls for the love of God But but the problem is like and I watched my daughter do a zoom call With a professor and I was like girl keep your hands in your lap Like quit touching yourself all on zoom. It becomes even more obvious when it's just that little square So, but I noticed that and so be aware of your body language because you may have one of those tics You know that you don't even know you're doing and it just subconsciously just kind of takes you down a little bit I am thankfully not one of those people who gets blotchy Right. I know they're out there. God bless them. I interview them and I just want to hug them I'm like, it's okay. Like, you know, there's just going from here to here to here So if you're a blotchy person wear a high neck shirt Like you'll just feel better like knowing that you're not projecting like your anxiety all the way up your neck But what I am is a person who when I am nervous my cheeks get flushed Right and so I put on extra makeup like I cover all that up So nobody can see that my cheeks are gonna get flushed I mean does anybody notice other than me probably not but it's just back to putting my armor on to be able to have that Conversation. I know they're not gonna be able to tell I'm sweating like yeah Okay, but nobody's gonna see it in my face, right? And so so body language to be aware And then practice the conversation. So what I did is I I Called some friends from the grad program. They were indifferent. They weren't in Birmingham anymore. So we talked about that I called one of my professors and practiced the conversation and the way it turned out is I got about $15,000 more than I would have asked for Because I just gave them the surveys, right? I had in my head what I thought it would be but I gave them the surveys we had that conversation They went and taught the managing partners talked to the rest of the physicians and they came back with more money So so it can be done is it stressful Absolutely. Do I regret it? Absolutely, not. I deserve it. That is the part about self-advocacy You deserve deserve it. You deserve it speak up And so this I'm back to Body language or however else so the Wonder Woman pose So I gave this back to me trying to develop my daughters. I gave this presentation to my daughters I was like, so what do you guys think? You know, I want you to know this whatever and my oldest said well mom Don't you know about the Grey's Anatomy superhero pose? I was like what y'all know about the Grey's Anatomy? So some people are nodding. Okay, so Shonda Rhimes came up with this that if you notice and so I googled Grey's Anatomy superhero pose if you look there are literally Thousands of images of the female surgeons in the viewing rooms or in conversations or in the OR standing like this Leg spread arms back straight up Wonder Woman pose, right? Wonder Woman pose Well, there's actually a study that Harvard did in 2012 that showed People who stood in the Wonder Woman pose for two minutes Actually had more testosterone Had more endorphins More more likely to take risks were more likely to have a higher pain tolerance and more likely to tolerate stress two minutes ladies That's it So in close to the whole dang thing. I want everybody to stand up I Might stand up. I want everybody to get in the Wonder Woman pose All right, we don't have to do this for a full two minutes, but this will be our closing anthem

self-advocacy

self-worth

confidence

self-promotion

women empowerment

goal setting

emotional readiness

Wonder Woman pose