Bragging, Achievement Dysmorphia, and Empowering Leaders with Sarah Bierenbaum

Are you feeling stuck on your leadership journey? 

Wondering how to turn your challenges into opportunities? 

Trying to figure out how to "Brag better?"

Sarah Bierenbaum, CEO and head coach at Nimble Penguin will explore the intricate world of leadership, personal development, and overcoming her STICKY FLOOR.  

We cover:

• Learning to speak up for yourself and sell yourself.
• What happens when you FAIL to clearly state your skills.
• How to "choose your own adventure."
• Empowerment Instigation,  Achievement Dysmorphia, and Bragging
• Jamie Ellis and coining the term: Achievement Dysmorphia

Talia Kovacs talks about "that was hard and I did it!" (Referenced in the pod!)

SpeakUp Program: https://www.nimblepenguin.com/speak-up

ERICA'S RESOURCES & LINKS

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Transcript

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1:11

Are you ready to transform your challenges into your greatest strengths? Or have you ever wondered how the top leaders navigate this type of corporate success without losing their authenticity? And do you find yourself at a crossroads? Maybe you're longing for a change, but you're not sure about the path you should take. Today, we are going to dive deep into the world of empowerment of resilience and the art of thriving admits adversity. Sarah beer and mom is a true pioneer in leadership and personal growth. As the CEO and head coach at nimble penguin, Sarah has transcended the roles of a VP in various companies to spearhead a movement that champions the cause of high performing leaders everywhere. Today, we're going to talk about something that I honestly had never heard about before. And that is achievement dysmorphia. We're going to talk about bragging versus celebrating and how you can keep doing hard things, root yourself in resilience and lead authentically. We cover a lot in this short episode, so get ready to be inspired because you are listening to the podcast from now to next, the podcast that empowers women to get seen, get heard, and get promoted. I'm your host, Eric Rooney, and I've made it my mission to help you break free from the sticky floors. Those limiting beliefs and toxic behaviors to bust through the glass ceiling. I'm obsessed with all things, growth and abundance. And I'm here to talk you through the tried and true secrets to get you to level up your career and your life. We talk about the hard stuff here. Imposter syndrome, perfectionism, fear and burnout. So pull up a seat. Pop it in near bed and let's dive in. Y'all, we have Sarah Bierenbaum with us today, and Sarah is what I like to call a decorative corporate soldier. We are talking someone who has had the VP title with a few different companies, but she is now the CEO and head coach at Nimble Penguin. So I am super pumped to talk all things sticky floors with her today. Sarah, how are you? I'm doing well. Thanks so much for welcoming on here, Erica. It's great to Get this chance to chat with you on. I know I am so pumped in one thing that already has me intrigued is you are all about choosing your own adventure and you have had quite a few adventures. So I'd love to hear a bit about who you are in your back story. Yeah, absolutely. I think to lead into my backstory, it sometimes helps to talk about where I am now and then how I got here. So I, today I work with high performing leaders and, um, in my experience, leadership is Remarkably lonely. Um, I bet you hear that from a lot of the folks you talk to. Um, I, my superpower is that I am an empowerment instigator. So I help exceptional leaders transform uncertainty into empowered growth as a coach, a guide, an advisor, a consultant, and a fractional leader. I meet leaders where they are, and I bring the full breadth of my experience, including years as a professional stage manager. As a nonprofit arts manager and over a decade leading post sales operation and operations and startups, all those tools in my toolbox. I bring those on the part and turn together to build a path to extraordinary results. So I work with leaders one on one and pairs and teams are small groups. Um, and it's tons of fun. A lot of a lot of joy out of empowering other folks in case you can't tell. And how the sort of short version of how I got here. I mentioned I was a professional stage manager for years. Which I loved did that for over a decade and at some point figured out that I want to do something else. Just the lifestyle of freelance. And in America, we don't pay artists. Well, so I was ready to maybe earn a little more money and found my way working in tech startups. And, um, in that period, I also worked in arts management at a nonprofit for a bit, but I found that, um, in the world of tech startups in particular, there's an incredible amount of talent. Creativity and collaboration that is not dissimilar to what I have experienced working on a new play or a musical. And I like to joke with my theater friends that I'm, I'm, I'm still herding cats. I'm just working in a different industry. You know, it's sort of this, uh, that the element of being a stage manager where you are. The person who is taking all of the creative energy outside of the room and all of the creative energy inside of the room and making sure people are speaking the same language and talking to each other, and everyone knows what's happening, um, it relates very easily to then working in post sales and operations at a startup where you are looking at all the customers who are outside of the room, so to speak, and all the people who work at the company and making sure that they can communicate with and understand each other. so over time, it's been interesting to really see those consistent threads throughout my career, even though I have, tried many different things and, and yeah, it all comes back to this, piece in the middle that I just get such a joy out of, empowering others to figure out what makes them thrive and work in life. But, but, uh, wherever I go, that's what I keep doing. Here's what I love is that you already knew what I was going to ask because I was going to say, Sarah, what the heck is that one thread that ties together a stage manager with a VP of customer success, but you did it for me without even having to ask and empowering others is such an important. Purposeful work, right? Like, we all need people who are going to help us hype each other up and pull out our best superpowers. But the question I have for you You make it look so easy. You you've had all of these different adventures and you're doing great things. What are some of those sticky floors that showed up for you? Kind of throughout your evolution? Yeah. I mean, it's, thanks for saying I make it look so easy. I mean, there's, I can think of so many moments, um, especially. You know, early in my career as a young stage manager, feeling like I just, you know, was making it up as I went along. But, I, the one that comes to mind in particular, that's more recent, as you were mentioning sort of my, VP roles and companies is that, you know, everyone has that first time. That you do certain things. And that first time that I got to have that VP title next to my name, which I don't know, I'm a person who's likes to try to think that titles don't matter, but they matter. They matter to us and to the world. And so I was super excited to have that VP title But, you know, it was also the first time. And so, a lot of imposter syndrome or as my friend, Jamie likes to say achievement dysmorphia where you are. Um, you have this giant book of achievements and somehow you have lost sight of them and you're just standing here thinking, I haven't done anything that's actually relevant to this job and everyone's going to figure out that I'm a fraud. and that, I love that you call it a sticky floor because I think about myself in that role. And of course there were things that I probably, I did well, or even extraordinarily well. I mean, I am good at what I do, but the feeling of. Being in this role and feeling like maybe I'm not supposed to be here. It is this cat or can be this like self fulfilling prophecy or this like cycle where I was sitting there feeling. I can only describe it as this clenching feeling this sort of internal tightness where, um. And we, we, as humans, I, I find are our best selves when we can sit more in that feeling of abundance and, and freedom and, um, comfort and hear all the things that I'm great at. And of course, there's some things that are going to be a struggle for me, but I'm going to lean on my strengths and I'm going to do great things. And for me, standing in that. VP role, I had the celebration of hooray, I made it to this role and now I have to actually do it and feeling like, um, every little thing that went less than perfect just was a little further chip on this tight little armor that I was trying to build from feeling so uncertain and feeling so Insecure about whether I should have this role. And there were any number of other things happening in my environment and that role that didn't necessarily foster a sense of self confidence. And so I don't want to layer that all on myself. Of course, you know, our environment is a huge impact, both the internal environment and the external, right. but all that said at the heart of it, when I was feeling uncertain and insecure about my abilities. I then just fell on my face a lot more and was not my best self. I was not showing up as the strong leader that I am and that I can be because I, the more I doubted myself, the less I was able to show up in the way that I know how. And so it, it, it was, Um, and it was like, I couldn't turn it off. I couldn't turn off this cycle in my head of, um, that negative self talk, I guess is the best way to put it. Hmm. You said something earlier and it really caught my interest. And that was achievement dysmorphia, because that is not a term I had ever heard before, but you talk about being that internal resistance to how awesome we are. And I was like, Oh shit, that's me. Because how often. Yeah. Do women achieve something great? And then we say, Oh, it's not a big deal, right? Or even if we comment on like, you look nice today. It's like, Oh, this, I just threw this on. I just did this really quick. Like we always talk ourselves down. Why do you think that is? I mean, it's a great question. And I, you know, first that I have to credit Jamie Ellis, the incredible Jamie Ellis with coming up with the term achievement dysmorphia. In terms of, like, why we resist acknowledging and celebrating our accomplishments, I think that there are a couple things that come into that. I think, in all honesty, especially for women growing up in America, because that's who I, what I know, because that's who I am as a woman who grew up in America, there's a huge amount of Um, social pressure and expectation not to, be too bold, not to, you know, brag about yourself, not to, whatever. And so I think we are taught early on, I think, unfortunately, this idea that, A version of humility that is instead essentially ignoring all of the amazing things that you're doing rather than saying it is you can be humble and also celebrate yourself. And so I think it is actually a skill that we don't necessarily teach well, which is how to look at what you have accomplished and. Celebrate it, acknowledge it, and then maybe even take a moment to say, how are all of these accomplishments going to help me on the next thing? Like, what, what specifically are the puzzle pieces that I have created that are now going to help me do this next thing? I think about even having a simple, a coaching conversation with someone the other day, and they were facing this challenge that they felt like, Oh my God, I can't, this is impossible. And. We broke it down to what was that little thing that was super hard for them. and I said, well, tell me about another time in your life when you have. dealt with something like this. And suddenly they had three, four different examples of like how they, you know, I was like, great. So like, what did you do then? And how can we apply this here? And it's, it seems so simple, but we just really don't teach that. And I, and I, at least I don't remember learning it. I feel like, uh, other than learning it myself through trial and error. And, I think that. there's, and of course, there's other external factors as well, like toxic work environments where people are, you know, pushing negative energy at you, even when you are doing extraordinary things, whether it's someone who's envious of your success or Um, having their own insecurity issues. There are all sorts of things can happen, but I, but I want to think about the things that are like a toxic work environment. How much can you control that? You can leave, but what we can control is our own, the own ecosystem we have of ourselves and our internal thoughts. And so when I think about learning how to just actually celebrate your own wins. And understand that humility can coexist with that. instead of this idea that humility only exists when we just pretend we don't do stuff. Yeah, I think is, is, is key. Yeah. Well, and I think one of the big things too is. We were always taught, you know, don't brag, you know, don't be this whole big, you know, bodacious person who's out there doing those things. But it isn't that hard to just change a little bit of our language instead of brushing off our accomplishments to just say, thank you. I worked really hard at that. And own that because number one, you know, you worked your ass off for it. So just acknowledge it because you're not doing yourself any favors. And you're also not doing any of the other women who are behind us any favors easy. Because if we sit there and say, oh, it's no big deal, you know, don't worry about it. Then other people think that it shouldn't be a big deal. And when they struggle and they're like, well, Erica didn't struggle and Sarah didn't struggle. We're not doing anyone any favors by not actually showing up and saying, yes, that was a very hard thing, but I did it. Damn it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love this phrase that my, my friend told it, Talia Kovacs uses, and she actually works with kids, but she has this phrase that she encourages parents to use, which is that was hard. And then I did it. With kids and I love that because she really is teaching this idea of resilience, you know, and and being able to celebrate but it's not a bad thing to say to yourself either. I know that's a that's a really great way to start just showing up for yourself and teaching that to everyone around you. Like, yeah, that was really hard, but I did it. Oh, I love that tip. So I want to talk about another sticky floor of yours and that is all about speaking up, hyping yourself up, highlighting that expertise, advocating for yourself, all of that wrapped up in one. Can you tell me a little bit about how this showed up for you? Yeah. So, um, when I had had this first VP role and I was like, all right, I'm a VP, I've done it. And, and, you know, once I think as much as that first role I struggled with, as you're saying, like imposter syndrome, achievement dysmorphia, all those things, I also realized, right. Everyone in these roles is just a human like me. And we're all at a certain level of figuring things out as we go. It felt less. scary. So I thought, okay, I'm ready for the next thing. And I was interviewing for, roles. But I was interviewing for these companies, you know, head of customer success for early stage or VP of customer success or whatever. And I felt like these are roles I could clearly do. And I, at least in some cases, which was really not progressing. And one in particular. I think about this role. and I honestly can't remember the company. Now. I just remember the internal recruiter because she was so kind and helpful. but, you know, I was not progressing in these jobs. I was not getting job interviews. I was not getting feedback because you almost never do. So I didn't really know. They were just like, we just went with someone who was a better fit. And I'm like that. Great. So I have no idea. So at that point, we get to the end of the process. I don't progress to whatever final round. And this recruiter agreed to give me feedback and she hopped on a call and she said, well, you know, the truth is this role is for a very technical leader who, really has deep implementation and project management experience. And I thought, and I said, really, well, that's. But that's me. That's literally the essence of my career. Like, how did you, and she was genuinely shocked, she said, Oh, I didn't realize that you had this kind of experience. I'm sorry, we didn't talk about this. And I sort of went, Okay, this is clearly my failing that we've had several interviews at this point. And no one knows that my entire career is built on all of this work. And so, That was a huge light bulb moment for me that, you know, sometimes we can be our own sticky floor because I literally just wasn't talking about, and I think at the time I thought, um, my resume speaks for itself. If you can see what I've done and I talk about project management and implementation, then you know, those things, and I just need to now. interview and connect with this person and feel like we could work together well and, and that will, that will get me the job. You know, I'm a kind, interesting, engaging human and my experience speaks for itself. which was clearly wrong. and, but it was an important lesson. And in the end, I, of course, since then have had other jobs and I founded my own company and been a consultant and all that. And so. It all, it was, it worked out, but, what I really learned is that I had to figure out how to talk about myself and my achievements and my expertise to other people in ways that felt true to me, so I didn't sound like a robot, and were interesting enough that they didn't feel like I was just reading my resume. And that were, um, that translated to them thinking, Oh, I want to actually work with this person because they have these skills and this expertise. so through like a lot of trial and error, I figured out better ways to talk about myself, but, that was a huge lesson was to realize, Oh, I just, this thing that seems so obvious, literally no one's going to know unless I say it. and it's, again, sounds. I don't know. It sounds obvious, right? You don't talk about it, no one will know. But somehow, it didn't occur to me. And I've certainly talked to plenty of other people who have had similar experiences where you think that your, work would speak for yourself. You maybe feel awkward or uncomfortable promoting yourself, right? Or I think that as you were saying earlier, talking about yourself is like boastful or self involved and like, who does that? No. Absolutely. Um, yeah. Well, and here's the real deal, right? Like this is a huge problem for women across the board because they sit back and we say like, Oh, they know how much work I'm doing. I'll get the promotion or they'll give me the promotion or the title. When I deserve it and like, they know better than I do. I don't need to talk about all of the things that I'm doing. But here's the deal. You do have to talk about all the things that you're doing because your leader or your manager, whoever, they truly don't know. Even if you have the best manager, they don't know all the amazing things you're doing. So you have to advocate for yourself by actually talking about those things. Do you have a Recipe, a roadmap, a tip, whatever, in taking that first step to advocate for yourself? that's a great question. there are so many things to think about there. I think the, honestly, the biggest one is, I find is when people have a long list of accomplishments or they've got a whole bunch of information they want to share. It's really easy to get lost in the weeds of it. Someone, you know, someone says, Oh, even just a simple example, like you hop on an interview and someone says, Oh, tell me about yourself and how you got here. And they're like, well, you know, I was, my first job was like scoop an ice cream at Haagen Dazs and you get like, so like long does that matter? Right, exactly. And so, you know, I think. about, you know, any executive or leader who's been working long enough, you know how to manage up, right? We know that the people above us, whatever that means at your company, are busy. And I always say that we have to assume that. If you're sending an email or telling someone something that assume that you get maybe one or two sentences and then they've stopped listening. And so it's key to figure out. It's like when you write a paper in college or high school or whatever that I don't know about you, but I used to do this thing where I would write my papers and I would like save some like a big. Interesting reveal for like the last paragraph, my teacher be like, Sarah, like, this is, can you just put your thesis statement and the first pair? Like, why are you saving all of this to the end? And it is, it's the same thing in business, right? That we like want to build to something. And that's fine. If you're telling a story, but. If you're in the work environment, if you're interviewing, if you're talking about yourself, if you're trying to convey some key piece of information, if you only had one sentence to say, the most important thing, what would you say? Say that, and then of course you can add more details or 17 charts of all the research you've done or whatever, if your CEO or whoever has time for that, but chances are they don't, they just want to know. So, is it, is this taken care of or not? And like, what is the most important thing I need to know about this? The, the example I always give people is when I was a stage manager, so the stage manager is usually sitting in the theater. You've got your headset on, you've got a table there, everyone is working on the show as in the same space. There's a whole lot of crazy shit happening and you're rehearsing, let's say a transition from one scene to another, there's moving scenery, there's moving parts, and you have an assistant stage manager backstage. On headset with you and you get to the transition and it's like people go off stage and it's like a giant train wreck. Everything falls apart and you stop and as the person sitting out in the theater, I can see the train wreck. I'm running this whole ship and I have to say, my assistant, what happened? What I want to hear is some version of, let's say. The cart ran off the stage and got into some trouble at the traffic jam. We're going to figure it out. Give me five minutes and we can run it again. Amazing. Right? It's one sentence, two sentences, maybe. And I will sit, I will turn to all the people in the theater and say, Hey guys, we're going to work through this again. Here's what we're doing. The not helpful version as well. You know, the car came off and then they tried to turn left, but they really should have turned right. And like, these people were changing costumes over here and they got run into and like all of that information did impact the train wreck, but I don't care. And maybe later in a debrief, my assistant and I can have a long chat about all the things that went wrong but in that moment, I don't care. I just need to know we need five minutes. And so I feel like that is a, as a metaphor for any kind of communication, especially communicating up where it's what is, if you had like one sentence, what would you say to make sure that the most important point gets across and then from there, if they want more of your amazing details, great, have those ready, dig into challenges or the charts or the analytics that offer background to how you got to this key point, but, you If they only hear your first sentence, at least they know what's the amazing thing you accomplished and, how much of that did you do yourself versus with your team, What's so important about that too, is. Exactly what you said. People stop listening, especially if you're rambling on and I don't know if it's from nervousness or whatever has you putting in too many words. That clear, concise language is so important. And it, it just made me think about executive influence, which is often a piece of feedback that women get where they're like, you need to work on your presence. You need to work on your executive influence. And everybody's like, but how? Clear, concise language, right? Getting to your point from the bat and then you can fill it in on the back end, I think, is so critical. One thing, too, when it comes to owning your accomplishments, What it makes me think about is this one time when someone asked me, how do you do it all, Erica, right? Number one, the key answer is I don't do it all, but I also recognize that I do a lot, right? I do podcasting. I have a full time job. I'm a mom. I like to work out. Like, there's all these things that I do. And I used to be that woman that would just brush it off and be like, no, no, no, it's not a big deal. Or it doesn't take that much time. And I was really Not owning how much work I was doing, which was minimizing everything that I was doing. So I started to switch that language, and I actually started telling people, I'm like a productivity queen, right? Or a productivity expert. I've really learned how to maximize my time. And I actually had somebody say, Oh, she likes to brag because I said that, because I called myself a productivity expert. And I thought about that. And that bugged me for a little bit, because I was like, well, I guess I shouldn't say that. Or, you know, maybe it comes off wrong, but then the truth of it was, I don't know that they would say that about a man. And so I'm going to continue owning that. I am a damn productivity expert, a productivity queen, and I am doing probably a lot more than most people. the reason I share this is I want to share the message with other women that it's. It's going to be hard for others to accept that. And usually that is a direct result of how they feel about themselves, or what they're doing or not doing, versus you. So I think that's a big, important thing to remember, that usually it says more about the other person. Absolutely. And I think also I want to sort of couch this in the context that like, I am a white woman of a certain level of privilege and I can't, I can't speak to the lived experience of, for example, a black woman who has any number of other barriers against up against speaking up for herself in the workplace and how people react to that. And I think, I hope that, one of the things that. We can do as, all women, as we start to speak up in different ways is create. spaces for, people who are even further marginalized to be able to speak up and feel safe doing so as well. and that's easier said than done, of course. And just because I, as a white woman, I'm getting better at speaking up for myself doesn't magically mean that that space will somehow be safer for an Asian woman or a black woman or any number of things. But I do think that, any of the work that we do to create Conversations around, well, okay, but like this response that you think that I like to brag, because I talk about myself that way, like, what's that about? And, you know, how do we start shifting that perspective? And how do we start just asking questions? Like, oh, that's so interesting that you, hear me say that and think that I like to brag. What does bragging mean to you? You know, like, what does that word mean to you? Tell me more. Okay, Sarah, all of that is fantastic. So tell me about your new program speak up because this program really plays directly into this whole thing that we've been talking about imposter syndrome and also advocating for yourself. So tell me all about that. Sure, I'd love to. It's a four month accelerator for leaders who are ready to get promoted or hired and recognized. The framework is you are an exceptional leader, and it is time to hype yourself. so many folks I talked to are they know they're good at what they do. They deliver value every day. Colleagues see them as a high achiever and they are hungry for that next thing, a promotion, the next job, or they just want more recognition at work and something isn't clicking. And so, um, whether it's like they deliver amazing results and senior leadership, isn't. Noticing or they land initial interviews, but they're not progressing to the next round. and so it's, it all is rooted in what we were just talking about. This idea of no one will recognize your value if you don't promote yourself. and so speak up is. Built around that. So, um, so I love that. Well, what we will do is I will link that in the show notes for anyone who's interested in the speak up program or anyone who might struggle with really advocating for yourself. And. Promoting yourself and essentially speaking up for yourself, but Sarah, what I love to do is I always in the podcast on this note is what is that one piece of advice you would give the Sarah who was a stage manager turned VP, but the Sarah who wasn't getting that next job. What is that one piece of advice you would tell her? Oh, that's a great question. Um, I think that, it comes back to, you are amazing at what you do and If you're, anytime you're feeling stuck or maybe like you're not progressing in the way that you want, sometimes it's worth just taking a moment to look in the mirror, whatever that means to you, whether it's journaling or taking time to go back and look at your career and Actually document some of your accomplishments or, talking to friends who have seen you work and can reflect that back to you, but really find a version, a way to look at the mirror and see what you've done to get where you are today so that you can build on that to get to the next thing. I love it. And that's a great first step, right? Document, document what you've already freaking done already, you know? Oh, well, Sarah, thank you so much for being here. This conversation was so important. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you, Erica. It's been a real pleasure to talk to you. Oh, that was such a good one. Today. I am obsessed with talking about bragging and achievement dysmorphia now. C'est, but thank you for tuning into this conversation with Sarah, her journey from corporate soldier to empowerment instigator. It really shows us that the path to leadership isn't about climbing the ladder. It's about building your own ladder one, empowering step at a time. Now if today's episode resonated with you, I would be so incredibly grateful. If you would take a moment to rate, review and subscribe to our podcast, your feedback, it helps me grow. It also enables me to bring more inspiring stories like Sarah's directly to you. So please make sure hit that little five-star button and let's keep this rolling. One thing I want to remind you of though, before you leave me, is stop putting ceilings on what is possible and start smashing through them. Thanks again. And I'll see you next time.