Anna: Welcome back to the Noyack Expert Series. I’m your host Anna and today we’re here with Karen Manga. She’s a globally recognized thought leader on business transformation, leadership, the future of work, just a variety of things. She’s a four-time author, TEDx speaker, adviser to various companies on scaling their growth and unlocking their human potential. Her work has just shaped how organizations reimagine success and performance. How did you get into this field?
Karen: It’s not a linear journey. I would love to tell you I woke up one day and thought to myself, I will spend lots of time with people trying to understand and predict their behavior and help them be at their best. I didn’t know that. And so perhaps like many of your listeners, I tried a variety of different roles and those skills all came together. So for me that was three big technology companies followed by a tech startup and then jobs in sales and sales leadership, customer experience, market strategy, thought leadership and that all came together into this passion for growing people and teams.
Anna: I love that when it’s not a linear journey to get where you are, but you end up loving wherever it took you, however it got you there. Now, for our listeners out there, they might be wondering why on earth is this episode on a financial podcast. Like, this is kind of strange. Our latest edition of our newsletter had talked about earning power and how people can calculate their earning power, work on maybe increasing it, being able to control how much there is. And I know there’s a lot more that goes into that than just the finance side of it. So today we’re here to talk a little bit about what are some of the things that you can do in your careers, in your life to give your earning power that boost. It’s supplementary to the financial side. And going off of that, Karen, in your experience, what are some of the most overlooked professional development opportunities that sometimes have a really big impact on earning power when they’re utilized?
Karen: First and foremost is storytelling. And that does not mean that you need to start a blog or write a book. Storytelling is important because that’s how we negotiate for something like a raise or a promotion. The way that you encapsulate the story of the impact that you are specifically providing with your skills, the more articulate and better you can do that, the better you position yourself to ask for what you deserve and what you’re seeking next. People often think, well, I’m not a marketer or I don’t want to write a book or I’m not great at public speaking and so therefore I don’t need any of these skills. The reality is at the end of the day, the raise and the promotion belong to the person who knows how to confidently ask for it.
Anna: That’s a really good angle to look at it. I guess that’s one thing I think even myself I’ve never really looked at it from that angle, but it is super important. And when we’re talking about getting these promotions, getting the money for the work you put in, this isn’t necessarily just for people at the start of their careers. This applies to people who are already high earners, who already have big jobs at big firms or maybe have their own businesses. This is for them, too, right?
Karen: It’s for everyone. And here’s why. Every organization I know has a limited amount of money each year to fund people’s raises and to fund people’s promotions. So, at the end of the day, if you sit down with whoever the person is that’s in control of your financial well-being inside of your profession, and you say, “I’ve been working really hard. I’ve delivered lots of things this year, and as a result of that, I deserve the above average raise. I’m an above average performer. I’m a team player. I always say yes and I deliver.” Now imagine I walk in next and I have a conversation with the same person and I say here’s the thing. The company said that the number one goal this year is to grow customer revenue and the work that I did in fill in the blank whatever your job might be contributed to that growth target by and then providing an example. So, as a result of that, the work I’ve been doing is directly connected to the growth of the company. And so, I want to make sure that my raise this year reflects my contribution. Now, who do you think’s going to get the raise? Probably all competing, right, for this limited amount of funds that are available. And the better you’re able to articulate the impact that your differentiated skills and effort provide, the more likely the outcome of success. At the end of the day, it’s about building a compelling business case. It’s just you’re the business.
Anna: Yeah, that’s I think a lot of people forget and see themselves, oh, I’m just a cog in the machine of this company. I’m just an employee here. And don’t look at themselves as no, I am more than just that. I am more than just a cog in this machine. I can grow. I can learn. There’s more things I can do. What are some other ways that people might be able to get out of that mindset and maximize their earning power more?
Karen: What I think about is what are your differentiated skills? What is it that you somewhat effortlessly do or you think, “Wow, everyone must be able to do this” or you get complimented on it a lot or it’s why your colleagues seek you out. Zero in on what are those skills? What is your contribution that makes you unique? We all bring something and our ability to articulate that helps. The other aspect is being able to verbally connect what you’re doing to the impact that the company cares about. At the end of the day, we all want to be operating in kind of that Venn diagram, the intersecting circles between what it is that you love to do really well and what your company needs and is willing to pay you for. The other piece too that always resonates is being able to articulate how you are upskilling, how you are continuing to stay relevant so that you help your company or your team continue to be the best. So right now, regardless of what your job is, you might be saying to your leader, you know, I’ve been taking an AI class because I understand this is important. I’ll bring some ideas into the team for how we can use AI. I’ll help everyone scale up. Leaders tend to value people, especially with financial rewards and promotions, who continue to stay current and also who are proactive. You’re looking ahead and anticipating what’s next on the horizon. You’re preparing yourself to rise to meet that challenge or be a part of that shift and you’re bringing others along with you on the journey. Those are differentiated skills. They’re ones that all companies would rather pay the employees they have than go find and hire someone new and take a chance on whether they may or may not be successful.
Anna: I feel like this ties a lot into something I’ve seen you talk about a lot, which is personal branding. How does that translate into being able to turn some of these skills into higher income opportunities?
Karen: Think about the moment when you go to the store or you’re browsing online to fill up your shopping cart and you have a choice between multiple brands for the same product. Imagine you’re buying cereal. I mean, think how many cereals are available. At the end of the day, there’s a reason that you’ll pay more money for one cereal than another one. Now, it might be you just happen to love it, but usually at the end of the day, you view that there’s a value to buying some specific brand name of cereal versus another one because the reality is if the only reason that you were buying something was for price, then you would probably just buy the cheapest one, right? It wouldn’t really matter. The same thing happens in the world of work. There are a series of employees. Your employer is evaluating you and trying to make an assessment of where are they willing to invest at a higher level because they see that there’s a premium. They see there’s something that’s of value. And I often think about this as your personal brand is that value statement. It’s why you as the brand name, you the human being have something more to offer than just a generic set of skills, something worth paying for. And just like marketing a cereal brand, they always have some kind of a tagline, right? Somehow in my head, the Lucky Charms leprechaun just popped up. The people who are great at personal branding use those words to differentiate themselves. It becomes your tagline. That three to five words that you want to be known for. Now, the reason that building your own personal brand is so powerful and something you can monetize is that when you are thoughtful about your brand and you describe those three to five words for which you want to be known, you shape the perception that you want that leader to have of you. So your expertise might be growing teams and leading change, solving complex problems in times of trouble, turning chaos into calm. Whatever that is, it’s this miniature campaign where you are putting out to a person who’s placing evaluation on you every single day to say, “Here’s what makes me special. Here’s why I’m worth the price premium.” And the people who do this well are able to articulate it in three to five words or one simple sentence with as much confidence and calm as you would say your own name. You want it to be something that’s natural and that then you can reinforce that brand with specific examples. Right? If I’m great at growing teams or leading change or bringing order to chaos or leading the team through times of transition or keeping the finances in order and helping people build their financial acumen and then when your boss says, “Tell me more.” Ideally, you have a couple examples of how you deliver on that. And it just starts to cement that you know your value and your values and therefore other people will value you in that same way.
Anna: Are there any differences to this thought process or the way you just go about it for someone who is early on in their career versus someone who might be more towards the middle? They’ve been in the field a little longer. Think like a young Gen Z professional versus someone who is more in the millennial older millennial range.
Karen: A couple I will tell you one difference and one commonality. The one commonality I find is regardless of people’s age, typically the challenge in articulating that succinct brand or value statement about yourself, the biggest barrier tends to be confidence. For a lot of people, they think, “Am I really that great at this?” Or, “Will it sound like I’m bragging if I’ve thought this out?” And so that lack of confidence often intersects with a lack of preparation. So now I haven’t been thoughtful about this brand or this answer. And so suddenly it’s the performance review time and when the boss is saying to me how they perceive me and I’m like no no no no this isn’t who I am is sort of too late. We haven’t been prepared in doing that groundwork. When you prepare and think about those things that make you unique or your one-sentence tagline of yourself, it helps you be more confident because each time you deliver it, it just starts to feel more and more natural. So the confidence, the preparation, the practice helps that become organic, confident, ingrained. And I find this at every stage. You would be shocked. Some of the most accomplished people very senior in their careers struggle to describe what it is that makes them different from everyone else around them and to deliver that calmly and confidently. Now, the flip side of it, I will tell you, is when you’re early in career, and I’ve felt this myself as well, you want to be relevant. I mean, you want to be taken seriously. You want to be seen the same way that these other people around you who are getting promotions and raises and power or whatever that currency looks like are gaining. You think, I want this. I want to be taken seriously. So, the temptation at that level is to say too many things, right? As opposed to having the confidence to say, there’s one or two things I know I do really well. And it could be that you’re bringing a beginner’s mind. Like you’re seeing these problems at this company or in this team for the first time. That’s a gift. That’s a strength. You only get that for a short period of your career. But there’s a temptation to say too many things in an attempt to be relevant. The simplest statement is the strongest. So when you choose one or two things that make you unique, regardless of how consequential those feel to you, you come across as being more confident and knowing yourself and knowing your fit. When it gets to that mid level, what I find starts to happen is people tend to dial into the people pleasing or I’ll call them political descriptions. So as opposed to saying and describing what truly they contribute that’s of value that’s monetizable as a skill and valuable to the company, they start to tune it to well what does my boss want to hear? Or in this political environment, you know, if I say I’m good at this, is Anna going to say I’m terrible at it and then I’m going to get into this big struggle. So by middle career, people have usually been passed over for a couple promotions. They’re turned in or tuned into what they think other people want to hear and that clouds the answer because you dilute some of what makes you fantastic and sometimes you try to say things you’re not great at that become jobs you don’t want to have frankly right because it feels like the right thing to say or do so I think those are some of the pitfalls to be aware of.
Anna: I think that’s super important those differentiations are big even though there is a very common ground and that common ground seems to be finding the confidence to be able to market yourself, present like this is who I am as an employee. These are the things I’m really good at. What are just some basic tips you’d give someone who’s trying to figure that out, trying to figure out a way to phrase it. They might have a performance review coming up. They might be starting a new job. They might be looking to just ask about a raise. How would someone go about creating this sort of this is who I am?
Karen: An easy starting point is taking the free StrengthsFinder assessment because that StrengthsFinder assessment returns back to you based on many many many many data points five words that make you unique. They are your strengths and there’s a description tied to each one of them. That’s easy because someone else gives you those words. Then what you can do is have a starting point that’s narrowed down and I’ll call it somewhat factually baselined. Right? These are your answers relative to other people’s. When you read those descriptions and when you read those words, be tuned into what you gravitate toward. So if there’s five words, you might pick three or there might be two sentences in there that you think this is true. I love to do this. When I’m doing this, I am in my flow state. I’m at my best. I’m doing my best work. It’s a great starting point. Next is you can take those five words or your sentence, try it out with someone else, including a friend, right? Because what we are good at at work, we tend to be good at personally, right? If you’re great at planning and organizing at work, and maybe you’re a project manager, you’re probably great at throwing a party at home. You know why? You have a plan, right? Or you’re great at figuring out the weekend night meal plan, whatever that looks like for you. So ask your friends and family, do you see me this way? What do you think I’m good at? But if you had to pick the top two off this list, what would it be? Because then you get some validation. Last is once you narrow this down to a couple of talking points, say it out loud. Right? If I tried to say to you right now, I am the best at assembling IKEA furniture. I can’t even get through that sentence without laughing because I’m the person who has to pay someone at IKEA to put that furniture together because I cannot do it. So, I would never say that because it’s not true.
Anna: Or if you’re using I put I was doing a bookcase and I took the back and I flipped it so it was just all wrong and then my friend had to come over and take out all of the nails.
Karen: Yes, I’m this person too. I lure my friends to my home in an unsuspecting way and then I just say, “Wouldn’t you like to put this together?”
Anna: They might start avoiding me.
Karen: I don’t know what to tell you. But then you have to get this into something you could reasonably say, right? Don’t use a word to describe yourself that you would never normally use or when you say it, you think, “Ah, that doesn’t feel quite right.” That’s why it’s important to say it out loud a couple times to make sure it just feels natural.
Anna: Yeah. Because then if I guess using our IKEA analogy here, if let’s say you say, “I’m fantastic at assembling IKEA furniture.” And your boss was like, “That’s great. Now go assemble that IKEA furniture.” And you can’t do it. You’re kind of stuck.
Karen: Exactly. And I think the other part that goes with that is and do I want a job doing something that I guess if I tried really really hard I could do it but it’s going to drain so much of my energy and probably my joy. Whereas for all of us when we do things that we’re good at it’s either neutral on energy or it’s energizing. It’s like yes I can do this. I did it. And it doesn’t take you 4x the amount of time it would take someone for whom it is their strength.
Anna: Yeah. When it comes to sort of the future of work, I know AI is thrown out there all over the place. What are some skill sets that you see as non-negotiable for someone who wants a career in this sort of evolving workforce that could translate into higher earning potential, but still staying in that lane of things that aren’t tedious, of things you enjoy, of things that fit within who you are as a worker.
Karen: What I like about AI is that it has the power to offload the routine, mundane tasks that come with every job, which frees you up to do more of your value skill. For example, I do quite a bit of consulting with companies who are trying to improve their sales or improve their customer loyalty and retention. What AI does is it speeds up writing a proposal for me to do that work for them and put together all the documents that are needed. What it doesn’t do is show up in the room and facilitate the workshop and talk to people and harvest their wisdom and turn this into a plan. What that means is they don’t want to pay me to write the scope of work or to take the notes from the meeting and put that into something that they can use later. AI can do that for me. Because AI does that for me, I’m freed up to spend more time preparing for the human interaction that that AI generated content supported. So I think about how do you work with the technology versus against it or being afraid of it. So start to experiment with how could you use AI in your job in a safe way. Don’t put confidential information into ChatGPT for example. But really be thoughtful about experimenting. You know, what could I try that could speed up the things that just have to be done? If you have to do a weekly report or a weekly summary to your boss, it can probably speed that up. If you’re not a great writer, it can help you with that. If there’s a lot of technical terms or you’re new to your role and you’re trying to understand some very specific terminology, it can be a very quick tutor for you. If you do marketing and content creation, it can be a great brainstorming partner. At the end of the day, it’s how do you offload things that are just routine, mundane, that we don’t love, but we have to do and that’s why they call it work and that’s why they give us money so that you have more time to do what it is that brings and delivers value and impact to your team and to your company. So being adaptable is more important now than it ever has been.
Anna: Adaptable and experimental.
Karen: I mean, if you try something and it doesn’t work, it’s not like you’ve invested a year of your life in it. It might be 15 minutes. It’s recoverable. So, learn from the experiment and also be curious. Ask other people, how are you using AI in your job? Right? People think exclusively almost of ChatGPT. There are lots of other AI-driven tools, including some that help you improve your calendaring and scheduling. It will dynamically allocate your time and you can put in, hey, after I’ve had four meetings in a row, I need a 15 minute break. It will do that. If moves, it will do it for you. I mean, there’s ways that we can all be enhanced, more productive, and create more value and really scale our impact with these tools.
Anna: Beyond the AI boom, everything that’s happening with that, what are some other skill sets you see as non-negotiable for someone to be, oh, what’s the word? Successful. That’s the word. Such a basic one and it completely slipped my mind. What are some skill sets you see as like non-negotiable that someone needs to be successful in the evolving workplace landscape?
Karen: We still have to learn to get along with other people. We’ve got to be able to come together and figure out how to get to an outcome. And I find that people who are great collaborators ask great questions. They’re great listeners. And they create an environment of accountability where everyone feels accountable for their part in delivering a project or getting to an outcome. I also think successful people are great communicators. So much of the stress and misunderstanding that happens in the workplace comes from lack of clarity and miscommunication. You know, not understanding the goal, the resources, the timeline, who is actually the decision maker. We all go to these meetings, right? Who has decision-making authority? That lack of clarity, that communication gap creates a lot of struggle so be a great communicator. The other one is be curious. Curiosity is a transcendent business skill because curious people are always asking what else could this be, is there a better way, what could we do differently and when people lead with curiosity they often discover new ways of doing things that are better.
Anna: How does all of this tie into trying to maximize your earning power? All of these skills, all of these just honing in on this, how do those things connect?
Karen: You create options for yourself. First and foremost, you create the option and a path to get promotions and raises in the role that you currently are. The second is the more skills you gain. And you don’t even have to master all of them, but the more exposure you have, the more marketable you become. You also get opened up to a wider range of job options. So, for example, if you were going in to interview for a new job at a different company and you have your baseline skill, if you’re a finance person, let’s say you’ve got great finance skills, and the other candidate interviewing has finance and AI skills, they’re more marketable, they’re more likely to get the job. So, it has to do with creating future potential options and choices for yourself by having a range of exposure that gives you choices beyond just, you know, I have this type of job and now I’ve got to go look for that same type of job. It just gives you more choices and it makes you more desirable. People start to feel like, wow, we’re kind of getting two jobs in one from this person. Look at all the skills they have.
Anna: That yeah that makes a lot of sense that the more marketable you are the better the chance the more opportunities you have to grow and that growth is what’s very important when it comes to maximizing the earning power that you as an individual can have. It might open doors for you that wouldn’t have been there otherwise. Is that right?
Karen: Yes. And it gives you transferable skills is how I think about what you’re describing. So perhaps you have always worked in banking and finance and now maybe that environment the jobs are drying up or maybe you work in high-tech and there’s all these layoffs that are all over the news. Well, when you have transferable skills like being a great communicator, staying current on skills and information that are important, broadening the range of your expertise, having exposure to different parts of the business, it means that you don’t necessarily have to stay in banking and finance or tech. Now, the skills that you have are also useful in consulting or hospitality or wherever else you may want to go. It gives you some skills that have a market value regardless of where you apply them. And sometimes those places you can go have a higher market value and the baseline pay is higher in those places.
Anna: I think a lot of this is important to consider especially in an economic and job market situation like you have today. There’s a lot of uncertainty, a lot of volatility in a lot of different fields. In your view, how can this continuous learning and skill development kind of help hedge against that, kind of give you control over what you can control?
Karen: What I like about what you’re saying is focus on what you can reasonably influence. And when I think about futureproofing yourself, we will always need people who are great thinkers, great problem solvers, can work independently, can collaborate with people effectively, and produce outcomes on time and on budget. Those are universally useful skills. And the more that you discover the tools of the trade, whether that’s AI or software or a new way of thinking or facilitating or a new technique or skill, the easier and better that will be. You’ll just have more choices. So, it just comes down to doing what you can control, growing yourself that will ultimately help you in some of these situations when I guess it’s kind of the reverse of what we’ve been talking about as opposed to who gets the raise, who gets the hire. A lot of this might apply to the opposite.
Anna: It does.
Karen: And what goes with that that your comments reminded me of is continuously building and keeping a strong network of people. So often jobs come from people that we know. And the more diverse your network of people and the more you stay current with them, even if your version of staying current is you regularly post new content on LinkedIn and they comment on it, even that is an effective way to build and maintain a network and visibility so that people associate you with something. And when you’re ready for that next job or if things go sideways or you’re caught up in a layoff, you instantly have a base of people you can reach out to. And if you’ve done your personal branding work, it’s even easier to reach out and say, “This is what I’m great at.” It seems like you might have those kinds of roles in your team or organization. If not, who could you refer me to? And now it’s a warm conversation. You know your brand. You know what makes you unique. You have someone to tell that story to. And that person is more than likely going to open some kind of door for you.
Anna: I think networking is something a lot of us I know it’s so easy. It’s everywhere with Instagram, with LinkedIn, with the internet, with even walking in and out of the office. You’re seeing different people. It’s something that’s so present in most aspects of our lives. But it’s something I think a lot of people especially, I mean, in the younger generations, a lot of people just forget that this isn’t just a fact of life. It’s a tool.
Karen: It is a tool and it is a monetizable tool. Because at the end of the day, when you think about how many people find a job on Indeed or LinkedIn and just apply, what are the odds that you are going to get selected out of this huge electronic pile of résumés if you don’t have a relationship or at least a contact with someone? That could be someone who’s a fellow alum of your university. There’s a whole range of what that connection could look like, but a warm lead is always more likely to close and lead somewhere.
Anna: How this is a big question. So this might we might have to break this into a couple of different parts. But how do younger professionals, think that again that that Gen Z millennial age range. How can they think about their career choices and their skill choices today if they want to maximize their earning power over the next decades that they have to be in the workforce? Because you’re going to be there for a while.
Karen: You will be there for a while. First is unless you are absolutely crystal clear that you know what you love to do and want to keep doing it, try a couple of different roles. Right? If you get a job and you’re sitting in a desk and at a cube all the time and you think this is miserable, I cannot go on like this. That’s okay. You learned something about yourself. Change up the kind of work you’re doing. Also, work for different types of leaders. You will discover that there are leaders who are great coaches and will help you maximize your potential. You will discover some others that will make you excited to go find a job somewhere else. And you will never have been more motivated to gain new skills as a path to find something else to do. Experiment a little bit and start to understand the kind of working environment that puts you at your best. That’s an excellent baseline. Next, never burn a bridge. So, if you need to resign from a job, give two weeks notice, do it in writing or in a live conversation, not as a text, for example. Also, when you’re leaving whatever job or team it is, document what work you were doing. Make sure all the handoffs are done. Tie things up well so that later when you go interview somewhere else, what if that person ends up on your interview committee and you decided to send a text on a Sunday night and say everything that you were thinking and then two jobs from now you go to interview and they’re one of your interviewers. Never burn a bridge. That’s the next one. The other one is start to document areas where you’re making an impact. So, even small things that you’re doing, you’re saving time, you saved a customer, you sold the first of something, you designed or and created and put in place a social media campaign that really grew sales. Start to document some of those wins very early on. And then show your learning path, right? So, it doesn’t always have to be that you got a promotion. It can be trusted with more responsibility because at the end of the day if a boss comes to you and says start with this now I trust you to take on the next bigger thing and the next bigger thing it shows that you’re learning, growing and can be trusted and that is something that people always want as you go from job to job. Managers love people that they can trust with more.
Anna: That seems to be something that’s also very good to track long term across different positions across different companies you can show this is where I started and this is where I’ve grown to. And that’s something that over time, like let’s say in 10 years you want a major career shift. Being able to show I’m adaptable. I can grow. My position didn’t change very much. I might have switched companies, but this is a consistent progression that I’ve had. And then you’re more likely to get into a higher earning position. You’re more likely to be able to make that big career shift that could change your life.
Karen: Exactly. And it’s just the one step at a time. The other thing I would say, and I think about this a lot, and I work with a lot of students who are at the end of university and just coming out and graduating, we want it all to come together and happen right now. I mean, we’re trying really hard. We want the payoff right now. Some of this takes time. It takes enough work experience and enough of a network to start to see this come together so that to your point, you can get your big break, the big promotion, the big industry change. And so think to yourself, you know, 5 years from now, where would I want to be? What would I want my work environment to look like? Would you want to be managing people? Okay. Well, what do I need to do now to set myself up for that? Now, imagine it’s the 10-year horizon. Where do I want to be? What are a couple of skills I could pick up? Or what kinds of people do I need to start exposing myself to now so that my network grows in a way that five and 10 years from now, those things are a little easier to achieve?
Anna: When we have a lot of these younger earlier career professionals and they’re trying to build these skills and they’re trying to grow their there’s obviously the clear the more skills you have the more valuable you are in the workforce the higher the raise that you get but there’s also another sort of path to being in that to get that income increase from these skills and that’s this could totally be wrong so let me know if I am wrong at all but it seems that there is some connection with the more skills you have, the more adaptable you are, the let’s say your work life balance is not going well. You can shift to a job that allows you to just be happier and your output is better, your work is better, and then that’s another way that these skills and being able to switch up that helps you get there faster.
Karen: Yes, you create choice for yourself. And I think about it this way, tying back to money, financial freedom is a phrase for a reason. And it’s important along the way to understand that some of the hard work you do now that might not always be enjoyable sets you up to have more choices later when you don’t have to exclusively be working for the money. At the beginning, almost all of us have to have a paycheck and that means we oftentimes have to work in jobs we might not love. It pays off a little bit later in the form of having choices. It’s also the reason that being a saver is a very important skill because when you have an emergency fund, when you are saving your money, even if it’s small amounts of money, you create the flexibility and choice to leave a job situation that might not be right for you. If you’re in the emergency situation and maybe your mental or physical health has become compromised and you think I can’t go on like this, financial freedom says, I have enough of a savings buffer that I can take that leap maybe without having another job for a little bit.
Anna: I think another thing a lot of people forget is you think about that happening a lot with people that are on the lower income side of things. Maybe retail, maybe first job, not making too much. But these are things that also apply for your higher earners as well. Is that correct?
Karen: Yes. And you would be shocked to discover how many people who are higher earners have had their lifestyle creep to at the same level as their earnings and don’t have the savings buffer that you would think they would have if they’re making this much money. And then along comes the downsizing or they get ousted for some politics in the organization and suddenly they’re in a financially distressing situation because their lifestyle is at or exceeding the money that they’re making. And so I’ve seen it catch up with people at every stage of life. It’s just proportionally saving money and having that behavior creates even more flexibility and choice for you to be in your most optimal job situations. And from my experience, the other thing that happens is when you know you have enough of a financial buffer or a lifestyle in check that you can support yourself for a while without full-time work, you show up even better at work because you know you don’t have to be there, you want to be there. It’s a very different way of being.
Anna: It seems very cyclical like you get this in let’s say in the situation in which you’re super stressed your lifestyle creep has creeped up to your income maybe a little bit higher and then there’s a layoff and then you’re even more stressed and then it’s harder to get back and you don’t have the time to grow your career and you’re just sort of in this cycle. It seems like it’s kind of reverse but still a cycle for the opposite side. You’re able to be adaptable to move out of the situation before you’re even in a position to be laid off because you have these skills. And even if you are laid off, maybe those skills aren’t what they want. It’s a lot easier to find a company that will want you. When you can personal brand yourself, when you can be like, “These are the skills I have. This is how much I’ve grown.” You’re in a better position. You have less stress. You’re able to put more time into that. And that benefit just keeps going and your earning potential just increases from there.
Karen: Yes. And when you show up for that interview, you’re going to be showing up at your best from a position of strength and confidence. The person whose finances have gotten way ahead of them and now they’ve lost their job. They’re in a state of distress. It’s the career version of desperation dating. You can feel it. They’re desperate. None of us show up at our best when we are feeling desperate or afraid.
Anna: What are in simplest terms how sort of everything we’ve talked about the connection between this career growth and your earning power and your finances. What are some of those core connections?
Karen: Discover what you love. Find someone who will pay you for it. Become an excellent storyteller about the impact of how what you do creates value for the person you’re talking to. Collect a range of skills. Stay current with your skills and your network and build a financial buffer that gives you freedom of choice.
Anna: And then all of this will come together and help you maximize your earning power as an individual.
Karen: Yes.
Anna: Is there anything else you’d like to touch on on any of the many topics we’ve covered today that we didn’t really get a chance to go into depth or something that I just didn’t bring up at all?
Karen: The other one I would add is along the way as you’re making money, a great principle that I learned from my now 101 and a half year old grandfather is always make your money work as hard for you as you work for your money. So if you are the person who has all of your money sitting in your checking account earning no interest, your money is not working as hard for you as you work for your money. One step would be a high-interest savings account. That’s at least something. Then it’s maybe the CD. Then it’s maybe you get into the stock market. And if you don’t know anything about these things, there are people to help at your bank, through your network. There are people who do this for a living. But when you invest your money wisely, your money can grow over time. And the earlier that you start saving and investing, the more that compounded value of money works for you so that over the longer term that money is working hard to grow beyond the pace of inflation and giving you more choices the further along you get in life.
Anna: So there’s so much that you can do from the career growth standpoint, but you need to make sure that your money is also working just as hard as you are to get it.
Karen: Yes, that’s super important.
Anna: That’s something we actually over here at Noyack, we focus on a lot, our newsletter, Noyack Wealth Weekly. You can subscribe right here. Every Sunday we go over a different financial topic. Sometimes it’s about career growth and earning power, things like this. And then sometimes it’s about how you can get into alternative investments, get into the stock market, explaining savings accounts. We try to break it all down for you as simply as we can. Are there any last words you have to say?
Karen: You are capable of doing the work to make the money that you deserve and to make that money work hard for you.
Anna: Well, thank you again, Karen, so much for sharing your valuable insights, thoughts, all of this about how earning power can be impacted by your career choices and career growth. And to our viewers, if you found this conversation helpful at all, I encourage you to subscribe to our Noyack Wealth Weekly newsletter that I just mentioned over at wearnoyack.com. We are committed to delivering financial literacy content that empowers you to make informed decisions both about your financial future, but also your career. Financial literacy is far more than just understanding terminology. It’s about making that terminology work for you and building the confidence to take strategic action. Thank you again, Karen, for joining us today.
