Hello, hello, welcome back to risky conversations. I just assume that this is not your very first time listening to my podcast, risky conversations. And if it is welcome, risky conversations, why? Because everything that's worthwhile is on the other side of a risky conversation, and one of the most riskiest conversations that I often help my clients with is salary negotiation, job offer negotiation. I also help my clients with leadership development. I help clients who don't like office politics navigate workplace conflict with confidence and poise. I help my other clients just be able to reduce their stress anxiety and cut imposter syndrome and make decisions that serve their authentic growth in a way that just feels good for them, in their bodies, in their nervous system. But I also still talk about salary negotiation, because it is something that we don't do very often, but it has a huge impact on our income growth, in our lifestyle, in how we can take care of our daily needs, how we can save for retirement, and often it also impacts how we feel about our career progression, how confident or how proud we can feel about the the growth of our trajectory. So salary negotiation, if you've been around my block for a moment, you would know that this is something that I've been talking and teaching for more than a decade, and in fact, in the most recent, the last episode that I released, I shared a full 90 minute webinar that I did on this very topic. And it included, you know, word by word scripts. It included very specific frameworks that you can follow step by step, it included chat G P T prompts, because you can ask chat G P T to help you come up with what to say in a negotiation, you can ask chat G P T to come up with recipes and gift ideas and help you code and so much, right? It could also help you negotiate. Having said that I just spoke with somebody who watched the entire 90 minute presentation, and she still hired me, because initially she thought I need the right words. I don't know what to say. So I mean, I just flat out told her, like, you know you could ask chatgpt. She's like, Yeah, but there's something else. I'm like, Okay, let me tell you what I think that something else is. And this is what I said, I think you want to feel different. She's like, yes. And I asked her, you know what comes up for you right now when you think about negotiating for the salary, for the pay raise that you want, and she said, Very interestingly, guilt. And this is something that comes up often in my coaching. This something that comes up with people who are experts, people who are at the top of their fields, people who have been amazing and earning lots of money, or earning not so great money, like almost everybody that I have talked to shares this sentiment, that they feel guilty when it comes to speaking up, speaking Up, engaging in a calculated, risky conversation, negotiating, advocating, asking for what they want. It's understandable, it's common, and also we want to get curious as to why. Why should we Why do we feel guilty about asking for what we want? Why do we feel guilty asking for money, even though we know we're really good at what we do and we bring value that turn into money for organizations or the firms that we work for. And here's a simple answer, guilt is a socialized emotion. Guilt is something that we are taught to feel by society, and society teaches us, especially if you're a woman, especially if you're a person of color, if you especially if you are a person of my marginalized identity, society teaches us to second guess ourselves, to second guess our worth to second guess whether we can earn the money that we feel we would be happy with. I'm trying not to use the word deserve, because I think that kind of puts us into another spin. Can I get what I deserve? Yeah, it's something that everyone says, even. Chat, G, P, T, and I disagree that we negotiate and we should get what we deserve. There is a really famous saying that I repeat often in my trainings. I believe this is accredited to Chester Karis, a negotiation trainer from the last century, and he said, you don't get what you deserve. You get what you ask for. You don't get what you deserve. You get what you ask for. But I went on a tangent, so let me come back. Guilt is a learned emotion. Society taught us to feel bad for, you know, wanting more than what is doled out. And why is that? It's because we're taught this emotion from a very young age. And when we are taught this at a very young age, what happens is it goes into our limbic brain. It goes into our unconscious mind. It becomes this, you know, automatic, pre programmed response, because we can anticipate being reprimanded. Oh, how could you be so selfish? Don't be so greedy, right? That's what we tell the little kids when we want them to behave, right? So we can understand why the emotion comes up. But we also want tools that can help us reliably change that feeling state, so we can move into feeling grounded, confident in our professional value. We're no longer the little toddler that was reaching for an extra cookie after bedtime. We are professionals that are delivering tangible, real economic value and salary negotiation is simply a conversation to reach an agreement about the price of your future services, right? So this is just a business conversation, and the price is something that reflects the value of your future contributions. It is not a reflection of how good you are, how moral you are, whether you are greedy or not, even though some people who you would think are greedy tend to get more because they ask more. Remember the saying, you don't get what you deserve, you get what you ask for. Anyways, I walked my client through a really simple technique to change her feeling state,
another tool that is derived from the world of hypnosis, but she doesn't have to close, you know, she doesn't go into a trance. It's very simple technique that works because the subconscious mind speaks through metaphors, right? And so we leverage that to help us get into a different feeling state. And from there, I asked my client to imagine herself having had negotiated, having already completed this conversation, and feeling proud that she did it in a way that is congruent with the way she wants to be in the role. To be in this leadership position, she's getting an offer for leadership position. And so as a leader, she would have to be serving the mission and goals of that organization. She would have to be in service, right and and when you are in service, you also advocate for the goals and mission of that organization. And just like how she would have to advocate for the goals and mission of that organization, salary negotiation is just one way to demonstrate how well she can advocate for herself and for others, because you cannot do for others what you cannot do for you, and that is the reason why, when you advocate for yourself in this way, in the way that I teach, in my trainings and in my coaching practice, self advocacy becomes an act of service, and I explained it to her this way, the once you are in that, let's call it spirit, in that grounded place of like, Hey, I'm just coming from a place that's congruent with the way I'm going to lead once I have this job. I'm just demonstrating my leadership and how well I'm going to advocate and go to bad and do the job, then the details are sort of immaterial. The details are just the details. What's most important is that grounded place from which she advocates for herself. And we can call this spirit. It's just a shorthand. I'm not trying to be woo, woo on purpose. It's like energy, right? It's how you are, how you are carrying yourself. In the reason why I chose that term, it's because it's like, you could also call it mindset, but we already know that the vast majority of communication is actually non verbal, right? The verbal communication part is like, I don't know, less than 10% according to some research, there's some data that like 70% 60 something percent of your communication is body language, and the rest of it is tone. And so most of your communication is non verbal. But where does that non verbal come from? It comes from within you and and what is that? Is that is within you that's determined, determining your body language, your tone, your you know, non verbal communication cues as well as the words, it's your conviction, right? And where does that conviction come from? The conviction comes from someplace deep within. It's like spirit or energy, or even, you can even call it executive presence, right? So it starts there. And so I explained to my client, that's where we start from, not the words, the words follow. It's like the spirit has to come first. That presence has to be there first. And then once that is in place, the rest follows. Yeah. And then when she thought about it this way, she said, Wow, that was like a light bulb that just went off. I had never thought about it this way. She thought, once she has the words, then everything else will follow. But we know what that's like. That's like, you know, if we were to think about this in the analogy of acting, it's like, you know, somebody just, you know, reciting the words off a script without emotion, without conviction, without presence, without spirit, right? When you see really great acting, it's not the words. I mean the words, of course, yes, they play a big part. But it's not the only thing. If the Spirit is not there, you don't feel it in your heart, you don't make an impact, you don't change the minds. And this is really important, because research has shown over and over and over again that decisions are made from emotions, like 90% of our decision making is based on how we feel, and then we rationalize, right? I know there are some people who would be the exception, but by and large, most people make decisions based on how they feel, and in order for you to be compelling in your advocacy, you also have to be able to speak from a place that is very congruent how you feel, matches how you think and how you think and feel matches what you say, and that is what I mean by matching Spirit, not matching, but coming from spirit first, and then the words, and then the strategy follows. So if you've been, you know, doing a lot of research and reading up online about all the different strategies and tactics and tips and scripts, and, of course, I share them too. Just look at the most recent podcast episode. You could, you know, check that out if you haven't yet. But I think this is really, really important. What is the spirit? What is the presence from which you are conveying those words? Because that is what's going to make you seem like a true leader. That is what's going to be, you know the conveyor, the delivery of your gravitas and how people see you, and therefore, whether or not they trust you and whether or not they're more willing to give you
what you ask for. So I
hope you found this helpful. The key takeaways are, number one, advocating for yourself from this grounded present place is an act of service. And number two, you have to first come from that grounded presence, spirit, and then the strategy, and then the words follow. And sometimes, when you do this, well, the words don't matter all that much. I mean, I, for one, I am not the most eloquent or the most erudite speaker, but people get me. My people, my clients. You know people who follow me. They really get me because. They connect with my presence, my spirit. And sometimes I'm clumsy. Sometimes I make grammatical mistakes. I have ums and ahs. But people are like, No, I get you. I understand. Yes, yeah. So this is completely possible for you too, and it will make a huge difference in how you advocate, negotiate and succeed in getting what you ask for. It will make you persuasive. It will make you influential. It'll also help you feel like grounded and calm, you know, like a leader when you negotiate and advocate for yourself, Okay, I hope you found this useful. If you would like to learn more about my coaching services, come on over to my website. Jamie Lee, coach.com I have a really fun leadership archetype quiz that you can take two minutes, and it will let you know what your superpowers are, how other people perceive you, and how you can make smart and strategic tweaks to how you communicate and show up to make your self advocacy even more compelling. I hope you found this useful, and if you did, please leave me a five star review on any of the podcasting platforms. I will talk to you soon. Bye. You.