I’ve just published a new post on another site called ‘How Does Fear Of Failure Affect Your Business?’. The article is all about the irony that fear of failure in business can actually lead to failure, because when we’re frightened, we often don’t do the things we need to do in order to thrive.

In fact this phenomenon is as true of our career, or indeed of life in general, as it is of a business. It really is so weird that the deep-held desire to keep ourselves safe inhibits us from taking what we perceive as risks, yet that in turn can stop us from having the happiness we desire in life.

How many times have you looked at someone and thought ‘wow, there’s an incredible human being in there – if they could only show it’? How many times have you ever felt you weren’t realising your potential?

Years ago, when I truly wasn’t realising my potential, I always thought it was other people. I convinced myself I was doing everything I possibly could to be visible, to be successful, to make a real impact. I felt frustrated that I couldn’t seem to make my mark or be heard by the ‘right’ people (most of whom I perceived as idiots anyway).

With hindsight, it’s not all that surprising I didn’t make the mark I wanted. No matter how well you think you are disguising your feelings, if you are contemptuous of others, they will sense it, at some level, sooner or later.

But that wasn’t the only thing that held me back.

Back then I had several beliefs about myself which weren’t particularly useful. The belief that I was unloveable. The belief that I wasn’t good enough. The belief that I wasn’t intelligent enough when, at the time, I already had a degree from Oxford and an MBA!

It’s extraordinary how we manage to get in our way, through our fears, our beliefs and a mis-placed notion of what will protect us.

If you’d like to read more, here’s the link to the article on fear of failure and how it affects a small business.

Image: © Doug Wheller : ‘Fear Terror Eye’

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A few weeks ago, I was interviewed by Nicola Cairncross for her podcast ‘The Business Success Factory, which you can listen to here. Nicola is an outstanding example of someone who uses podcasting (and other social media) to expand her authority as an expert.

Whether your aim is to get to the top of your profession, or to get out and start your own business, having a reputation as an authority, an expert, or the ‘go-to’ person on a particular subject is SO important. I have two areas: career success and spiritually minded business leadership. Peresonal authority, expertise and reputation is something I’m looking forward to interviewing Dan Priestley about for our upcoming Career Sizzle Summit.

Dan is a master of the art of creating that go-to presence: something he calls becoming a ‘Key Person Of Influence’.

His approach is highly structured, but if you want to start the quick and dirty way, the first step is to decide what your chosen area of expertise is. It may already be glaringly obvious, but if it isn’t, then it’s time to look inside yourself, and find out what it is. The Strengths and Weaknesses exercise in my free download, ‘How To Get The Success And Recognition You Deserve’ is an excellent starting point.

Once you have your area of expertise, it’s time to decide how to bottle it, package it, and let people know about it, and you. As women we’re terribly good at hiding our light under a bushel, but from a career perspective this doesn’t actually serve us.

Time to get started!

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I was listening today to the amazing Rachael Taplin talking about how to get free publicity and media coverage at the start of the Career Sizzle Summit. Traditionally we tend to assume that PR and publicity are something that only business owners and large organisations will want – but that is not necessarily the case. Of course, you have to work within the constraints of your organisation and what they will ‘permit’ their employees to do in terms of getting on the media, but there are huge benefits both for the organisation and you when you become known as  a ‘go-to person’ in media circles.

Imagine being the on-call expert for a local paper or radio station, or even a national channel. What would that do for your career? Certainly as a coach, I often listen to some one talking about coaching, or leadership, or women in work, and I find myself thinking ‘I could do that’.  And now, thanks to Rachael, I know how!

What struck me, talking to Rachael, was that newspapers and radio stations, particularly smaller and more local ones, are desperate for stories. They want people to comment and contribute, so if you get it right, they’ll potentially bite your hand off when you present yourself as someone who is ready and eager to talk in an intelligent, expert fashion! At the same time, the key to successful PR, like so may other aspects of building your career visibility, is building relationships. As Rachael says in the interview ‘PR is a connection…it is not an ego trip…you are there to help the media.’ So start building those relationships before you want them to work for you. If there’s something current going on that is relevant to your industry, your organisation or your area of expertise, you can then step up and position yourself as a woman who has something to say.

Of course, there is probably more scope to put yourself forward in a smaller organisation. Larger organisations  often have a media and communications strategy with a dedicated team deciding exactly who can be interviewed and about what, and it’s important not to fall foul of this. However, many senior executives are disinclined to put themselves forward for comment or interview, regarding it as a nuisance, or even a threat.  If you’re in a large organisation, then work with the media and communications team. If you work for a smaller outfit, it’s generally much easier to put yourself forward, but as my old Mum used to say, ‘don’t ask, don’t get’.

There are many reasons why people don’t do PR: too time consuming, unrewarding, or fear of being made to look a fool. If you put yourself on reality TV, then you may well end up looking a fool, but this is not what we’re talking about here. What we are talking about here is giving yourself honest opportunities to demonstrate your expertise, and help out a poor journalist!

Seriously though, Rachael added over £30,000 to her business with a limited amount of effort. What might you achieve in terms of promotions or job offers by pursuing a PR path yourself?

If you want to join the Career Sizzle discussion, why not join the Career Sizzle Factor LinkedIn group?

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Four years ago this week, my mother died. Her anniversary found me reflecting on the cost of caring for her for the last 3 or 4 years of her life. I’m not talking here about monetary cost, but the emotional, mental and spiritual costs, as well as the costs to my career, my business and my confidence. Because caring for elderly, or disabled, or fragile, or mentally ill loved ones does indeed take its toll.

One of the challenges is that, unlike childcare where there is generally a lot of joy along with the exhaustion, and where you usually know there will come a point when they start to become more independent, when you care for adult loved ones it can become very joyless. In many cases you know they will become increasingly less independent, and it may not be possible to put a timescale on things.

Of course these are sweeping generalisations, and my care responsibilities have mostly been confined to older relatives with dementia. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have a severely disabled or terminally ill child, or even a severely sick partner. However, I know that many of the issues are the same when it comes to career.

Some Vital Statistics About The Cost Of Caring

According to Carers UK, 25% of women have caring responsibilities, whether it is caring for ageing parents or older relatives, or sick or disabled children, friends, relatives or partners. The figure for men is around 17%. The peak age for being a carer is 50-64. Women are more likely to be sandwich carers (combining eldercare and childcare)’ and ‘ are also more likely to give up work in order to care.’ (My italics)

Around 30% of carers have seen a drop of £20,000 a year or more as result of their caring activities. People undertaking a high level of care are twice as likely to be permanently sick or disabled, although much of this is due to to situations where the carer is an elderly, frail spouse.

Carers often become isolated or lonely, lose confidence and may even suffer discrimination. As the Carers Uk report notes, the peak caring age, between 40 and 60, often coincides with the peak of your career, and can add to stress and tiredness at work, and limit your ability to work extra hours or join in workplace social events.

Even if you are not a live-in or full-time carer, the stress of caring can still be profound.

Implications Of Caring For Health And Career

The caring question is a complex one. Among my friends, I was one of the first to be faced with this situation, and fortunately all my friends and relatives seem to have healthy children. However, as more friends have joined me in this journey, I see common themes of exhaustion, guilt (not giving the cared for enough time, not being patient, putting them into a home and more), loss of earnings, impact on other relations (you can become very grumpy and difficult to be around), the sense of ‘I just have to get on with it’, overwhelm at all the decisions that have to be taken, relief when it is all over, and an awful lot of tears along the way. And if you happen to be in your 60s you may be facing your own challenges – hips, knees, energy levels, that sort of thing.

I was lucky. I was self-employed, so could take time out at my own convenience. However, the problem was I could no longer serve my clients properly, particularly my training clients, and I was emotionally exhausted, even when my mother was living in an institution. I found, bizarrely in my book, that my work confidence suffered, as did my desire to socialise. I stopped looking actively for new clients, and the less I did it, the less I wanted to do it.

Recently a friend of mine who had been able to arrange full-time home care for her parents found herself being drawn into more active caring because there were things the carers could not deal with. This had a huge impact on her earnings, and on her emotional and physical wellbeing.

Another friend spent two years living like a yo-yo as his mother’s health deteriorated and she went in and out of hospital – sometimes several times a month. Again, the emotional toll and the impact on his ability to work were significant.

What Can We Do?

It is difficult to prepare for this kind of thing. It certainly isn’t something I ever factored into my own career planning. One of the biggest challenges is that you don’t know how long it will go on for. Another challenge is the guilt. I’m even tempted to feel guilty talking about the cost of caring. My ideas for what we can do are based on dealing with elderly parents. Caring for a sick or disabled child or partner probably requires other strategies.

Certainly the experience has taught me the benefits of making a will while you are still legally competent, and putting in place proper powers of attorney for both financial and health matters. This means that if dementia strikes, your nearest and dearest can take decisions on your behalf without having to jump through legal hoops. It is quite expensive to do, but well worth the money in the long run.

Talking about it beforehand is important. My parents made many plans for profound physical disability: we talked all about that, and even planned for it, but it never occurred to them, or to me, that the issue would be mental disability. If your family is like mine, mental health is a difficult topic for discussion at the best of times – but it really does need to be discussed.

There are some good sources of advice available. I found Age UK incredibly helpful and useful, particularly in the case of my uncle (who became my responsibility by default as my mother’s faculties failed). They were able to recommend a lawyer specialising in elderly care, so someone could take care of his affairs and fight for his rites where necessary – I was too busy with my mother to do it. If the issue is dementia, then The Alzheimers Society can be helpful as can Mind.

Talk to friends who have gone through similar situations.  Consider joining a support group: these are becoming much more common that they used to be.

Even though the government is busily trying to erode disability support, there are still allowances of various kinds to be had. Make sure you claim them.

Talk to your employer. People are much more sympathetic to the challenge of becoming a carer than they used to be, but if you don’t keep your boss in the loop, then they can’t help you. Unfortunately there is no carer’s equivalent of maternity leave….yet.

Take care of your own health and social life. Even if you are not a live-in carer, caring can have a profound affect on your physical and mental health. Caring can become socially isolating – often because there is no practical support and back-up – but having a social life is good for your emotional and mental health.

Is It All Gloom And Doom?

During the last 6 months or so of her life, my relationship with my mother changed significantly. We discovered a new affection, and their was a tenderness in our relationship which had been lacking for a long time, even before she had dementia. We learned to laugh together again, and I began to appreciate the feistiness that had so annoyed me during her extreme psychotic episodes. I’ve heard of this happening for other people, although of course there are no guarantees.

Inevitably we all react differently. I had two really bad periods. The first was around the time when I had to get her into a psychiatric unit. I really was in bits trying to handle that. The second was about 6 months after her death, when the full force of how I had been trying to hold things together for the last 3 years hit me with a great smack. It did take me a long time to feel really fully present in my work.

Time is great healer, and you have to be patient with yourself. I found the various release techniques I’ve learned, including Ho’oponopono, the Hawaiian forgiveness process, to be incredibly useful.  And the love of friends was most important of all.

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Thanks to an actress called Nicola Thorp, the ridiculousness of the rather mad ‘you must wear high heels at work’ debate has been thrust into the public consciousness of the UK . If you’re UK based and don’t know the story you’ve probably been living under a rock, but the basics are that Nicola, a resting actress doing some temp work, was told that, to be a receptionist at global accountancy and consultancy firm PWC, she would have to wear high heels. She refused, and told her story to the media, thus inspiring a huge discussion about the sexism of it all.

One of the best commentaries on this I have read appeared in The Guardian, where the writer, Caroline Cadwalladr (she must be Welsh with a name like that), rails against the curse of the high heel as an instrument of deformity, and comments on why we should speak out about it.

I adore beautiful shoes, and heels, but for the last 10 or 15 years I have had to leave them behind. I have hyper-mobile (i.e. weak) knee and ankle joints, so I am unstable at the best of times. Your high heel makes me more unstable. The hyper mobility has brought with it various knee and foot problems which I can only keep in check by wearing orthopaedic insoles, and you try wearing those with a pair of high heels! It’s really, really tricky, because I now have to wear extra wide shoes, and finding elegant versions of such things is a nightmare. I have heel-envy as only someone who can only wear old lady shoes can have heel-envy.

What Are The High Heels At Work Issues?

It seems to me that  there are several issues to disentangle from this whole story. The most obvious is the illogical attitudes of certain organisations to the professional dress code. Back in the day, it was regarded as bad form if women had bare legs, or wore sleeveless or low plunging blouses or tops. In certain organisation this is still the case.The reason? Immodesty. Now can someone please explain what is modest about a 3-4 inch heel? And in those same organisations, women were (and often still are) expected to wear skirts, not trousers. Trousers – which are generally so much more practical – were regarded as women trying to be too much like men; not feminine enough.

I’m not an image consultant, but I do believe this stems from a kind of sexism where women are expected to look the little woman. OK, Louis XIV wore heels for dancing and other courtly activities, and men wore heels to stop their feet sliding through their stirrups, but in general the men avoided the 4 inch plus heel. High heels make you unstable, and thus vulnerable and, er… womanly. Similarly pencil skirts (yes, some organisations still expect their women to wear pencil skirts). Have you ever tried to move at any speed in a pencil skirt? Like the high heel, it emphasises our femininity, and our bums.

We women also have to bear some responsibility in all this. For many women, heels signify empowerment, they raise us up, they make us feel taller, grander, more feminine, sexy and, yes, professional too. We choose to wear the bloody things on nights out, to weddings and garden parties (as your stiletto sinks into the damp grass). Why then do we complain when male-dominated institutions say we should wear heels to work, given we love them so much out of work?

While many men are supportive of the women who are protesting about the high heels at work issue, some still think we should just suck it up. The argument often runs along the lines of ‘women have more dress choice and men have to conform to dress codes too’ lines. This little gem from news.com in Australia is a great example. But of course, men have not had to put up with many years of sexism and inequality, and I think many of them feel challenged when women stop saying nothing, which is our more usual habit, and speak out for what we think is our right. In this case the right to choose to have healthy, comfortable feet.

Today if a client has something to say about my shoes (and it has happened), I talk about my infirmity. I no longer feel the need to hide it, and it generally embarrasses them into an uncomfortable silence. I have turned down job offers from organisations who told me I had to conform to a no-trousers dress code, or they didn’t like my jewellery. Because the way I saw it, and still see it, if you work full time, you spend more of your waking hours at work than you do with your partner or family. If your values and those of your employer don’t coincide, or at least match on the points that really matter, that’s an awful long time to be spending in that environment.

Photo via Pixabay under Creative Commons Licence

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