How to Overcome Imposter Syndrome and Share Your Value With Others With Gretchen Keefner

 

“Gretchen, we know you’re good. But we don’t know why you’re good.”

A VP said those words to Gretchen Keefner, VP of Enterprise North America at Bullhorn, and it led to a career-defining aha moment.

After hearing the words, Gretchen dug deeper and realized that she was keeping all of her value from the people around her.

As a very service-oriented leader, she was uncomfortable with self-promotion.

But when she became aware that she wasn’t sharing her value with others, she realized she was actually doing them a disservice and robbing them of the opportunity to learn from all of the great things she was doing and accomplishing.

Christina Brady put it this way: Naturally talented leaders don’t think about what they’re doing. They go with their gut and intuition and lead with integrity. They have a special something, and they don’t know how to identify it, or bottle up into a teachable process.

In order to draw that special something out, you have to want it and be intentional about it. Gretchen worked with a leader to identify a few key people who would really help her scale what she was doing.

She started one conversation at a time, sharing herself in a different way. She learned that there’s a big difference between bragging and self-promotion and truly connecting the dots between the value that you add and a person’s path to success.

Most of us are scared that we’ll be accidentally braggadocious.

But by talking about your process and what you do, you’re taking the success that some people have innately and teaching other people how to do the same.

You have something great to offer, and everyone can learn something from you.

Host: Christina Brady, President of Sales Assembly

Guest: Gretchen Keefner, Vice President, Enterprise North America at Bullhorn

Highlights:

  • Gretchen Keefner’s career journey [0:33]
  • A VP made a statement to Gretchen that led to a career-defining aha moment: “We know you’re good. But we don’t know why you’re good.” [1:58]
  • As a service-oriented leader, Gretchen was uncomfortable with self-promotion. But the moment she became aware that she wasn’t sharing her value with others, she realized she was actually doing them a disservice and robbing them of the opportunity to learn from her accomplishments [2:32]
  • Naturally talented leaders don’t think about what they’re doing. They go with their gut and intuition and lead with integrity. They have a special something, and they don’t know how to identify it, or bottle up into a teachable process. [3:16]
  • How to draw out your special something and turn it into a teachable process [4:00]
  • There’s a big difference between bragging, blatant self-promotion, and truly connecting the dots between the value that you add and a person’s path to success [4:38]
  • Gretchen’s book recommendation: How Women Rise [5:40]

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