Speak like it's the weekend

For the next 5 minutes, let’s elevate your career.

In today’s email:

• Edit your story

• Speak like it’s the weekend

• Sunrise

• Avoid sinkholes

• Julie Sweet’s career wisdom

ON YOUR CAREER

Edit your story

I read Lori Gottlieb’s weekly ‘Dear Therapist’ advice column in The Atlantic. Gottlieb is a psychotherapist with a large audience from her books and TED Talk. She encourages us to edit our personal stories to achieve greater fulfilment.

Editing our personal stories isn’t about being inauthentic. It’s about breaking free from unhelpful self-talk. It’s about correcting incomplete, distorted, or self-limiting narratives. Gottlieb advocates becoming the ‘hero’ of our stories rather than the ‘victim’.

My interpretation of being an authentic ‘hero’ in the workplace is that we strive to add significant value to colleagues and customers. That we’re competent and kind. We want to be neither self-effacing nor self-important about our achievements.

Gottlieb recommends we seek ‘wise compassion’ from others to promote our growth. She discourages seeking advice from others who uncritically validate our stories. We want managers and mentors in our career who will give us constructive feedback.

Who helps edit your stories?

COMMUNICATION

Speak like it’s the weekend

Imagine it’s Saturday night and you’re at a fun dinner party. Or you’re walking with a close friend on Sunday afternoon. Your conversation isn’t filled with corporate jargon and acronyms. Conversation is faster, more playful, with entertaining tangents. Your language is simpler and more energetic. It’s the weekend.

Julie Sweet is the CEO and Chair of Accenture, a consulting firm that earns billions from corporate advice. Her communication style was influenced by the book Weekend Language by Andy Craig and Dave Yewman. Sweet encourages her employees to simplify their language. To make communication more engaging and relatable. To be more real.

We can all benefit by speaking like it’s a 7-day weekend.

PRODUCTIVITY

Sunrise

My favourite time to write CareerCoacha newsletters is just after sunrise. The words flow better. My brain has been rebooted by sleep.

Sleep helps reduce the stress hormone cortisol. Lower cortisol contributes to relaxation, concentration, and productivity.

I try not to fritter the first work hour on email. It’s a better hour to try to be creative — writing, designing products, doing strategy. Doing work we aspire to be valuable.

Sunrise is also a wonderful time to work on our careers.

1 MINUTE TO LESS STRESS

Avoid sinkholes

Some relationships are like impending sinkholes. On the surface they appear stable, but underneath there’s a lack of support. Often we recognise that a relationship is eroding. Communication deteriorates. Trust falls.

We then have a choice on how to avoid the sinkhole. We can end or minimise the relationship so we’re not vulnerable to its further deterioration. Or we can try and support the relationship.

Supporting the relationship can start with simple conversational bids:

✅ “Hey, just checking-in to see if we’re working together how you’d like.”

✅ “We’ve communicated really well in the past. I’d like for us to do that again.”

✅ “This relationship is important. I’d like to chat about how we can improve it.”

All of the above take courage. The ensuing conversation may be uncomfortable and challenging. If the other person rejects your concern that there might be a problem, you can try a different question: “So is this relationship progressing how you want?” Not everyone will be ready to talk at that moment and it may require your patience.

Asking empathic questions helps us avoid sinkholes. And directs us to the relationships where we should invest energy.

CAREER WISDOM

Julie Sweet

Julie Sweet (1967 — ) completed a BA at Claremont McKenna and a law degree at Columbia. Sweet became a partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where she specialized in mergers and acquisitions law. She joined Accenture in 2010 as General Counsel and later led its North America business. Sweet became Accenture’s first female CEO in 2019 and assumed the role of Chair in 2021. Early in the Covid pandemic, Accenture quickly adapted its operations. Client services including cloud, cybersecurity, and digital transformation were given urgent priority by Sweet. Accenture employs more than 750,000 people. Some of Sweet’s career wisdom: