How should we negotiate in the corporate world to make our job satisfactory? In this fifth episode of this series, Brana Williams dives deep into the GENIUS Method to help you negotiate and to become more engaged in your job. Some of the takeaways from the interview is that we should stop hiding our uniqueness and gifts in business and our lives. It is also valuable to ask others how they see us, so we see our blind spots. Brana also shares two tips to make your negotiation better. So tune in to this conversation and gain more insights on how to negotiate in the corporate world!
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In this episode, we continue the How to Negotiate in the Corporate World Series. It is episode 5 of 8. I’m excited to talk to Brana Williams. Brana is the Founder of the GENIUS Method, an acclaimed speaker, a distinguished attorney, a leadership strategist and an all-around badass lover of life. Driven by her curiosity and abundant energy, she is sought out to disrupt the status quo. Her philosophy, the path to seven figures, is embracing who you are and celebrating your sparkle. Brana certainly has sparkle. She is also a certified mediator.
One of the things we’re going to be focusing on is her GENIUS Method, in which each letter in the word GENIUS stands for something. We’re also going to be talking about how important it is to own your uniqueness as well as what happens if nothing happens. Those are a few things that we’re going to be talking about. Stay tuned for my conversation with Brana.
Before we get into this episode, I want to remind you that if you go on my website, NoWomanLeftBehind.com, there are some awesome resources here. On the homepage, in the top right-hand corner, there is a Kickstart Your Career button and this is the corporate kickstart course. It’s about 45 minutes. If you don’t know where to start in your career, that’s a great course for you to start with.
There is a button that says I’m Ready for My Corner Office. If you are at the point where you want to talk to somebody and have a consultation with me, you can click on this and it’ll take you to my calendar. You will be able to answer a short questionnaire. You and I can talk for about 30 minutes about where you are versus where you want to be in your career. If you continue to scroll down on that same page, there is a section that says Let’s Find out Where You Are in Your Career. There’s another button that says Take The Quiz. This is the corporate kickstart quiz. It’ll take about ten minutes to take that quiz but it’ll give you some great information.
If you scroll down on that main page, you will see some additional freebies that you can download like Believe in Yourself. These are three steps for women in corporate to stop being left behind. If you click on that learn more button, you can download that one. There’s also the Conversations Starter Checklist. You can click on that Learn More button to download that one. Finally, the Productivity Strategies Workbook that you can figure out how to be more productive. You can download that one by going to Learn More. These are some awesome resources that I wanted to make you aware of. We are going on to our episode.
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Brana, thank you so much for being on the show. You are on a mission to disrupt the status quo for both business and life. Tell me more about that.
Thank you so much for having me, Rosie. I’m so excited to be here. I hate to say I’m old so I’m going to say I’m in the third quarter. It’s taken me a long time to get to the point where I realize that your individuality is what is so special about each of us. It’s also what we always all try to hide. I want to help everybody get the courage because it takes courage to be different but we are different and you need to celebrate that. My goal is to help people figure it out. I color outside the lines. I only color inside when I have to. Sometimes you have to but that’s what we do.
That’s interesting you saying that because you’re an attorney and certified mediator. One of the things that I am working on with you is everything that we talk about, I want to slant it towards negotiating and specifically for women in the corporate world. Women in the corporate world hold themselves back. I like that you said you color inside the lines when you have to. I don’t know if breaking the boundaries is the right thing but you’re pushing the limits. Am I right?
That’s true. I have a daughter who’s eighteen and she goes, “Mom, you’re so extra.” I’m like, “That’s what makes me cool.” That’s it. It’s taken me a long time. For a long time, I’ve woken up and said my New Year’s resolution is to be more demure but this isn’t happening. I’m like, “Fine. Let’s get rid of it. Let’s go. I am me and that’s okay.” That’s the best part about it. Everybody has that. If we hide our uniqueness, we’re hiding our little gift to the world. You hide it in business and we hide it in our personal lives and we need to stop.
If we hide our uniqueness, we hide our little gift to the world. We hide it in business, and we hide it in our personal lives, and we need to stop hiding. – Brana Williams Click To Tweet
We’re thinking about the women in the corporate world that want to advance in their careers and they’re trying to figure out how to go talk to their manager about getting a raise. Let’s say specifically getting a raise. Doing the same job but you’re not getting paid what you would like to get paid and you want to ask for a raise. Part of that is hiding because you’re not going out there and having the conversation. You’re second-guessing yourself. Is that what you mean by hiding?
Yes, a part of it. For instance, I’m a lawyer so you expect I have on this ridiculous jewelry because I decided lots of times that’s what I like. I like it sparkly so be it. I always go to court in pearls. I call them my power pearls. I don’t wear little plain ones. I wear power pearls by God. I wear ridiculous jewelry because I like it. That’s what I want to do. If people don’t like it, then they can get over it. When you think you’re worth this much, then you need to assert yourself for it. You need to go out there and ask. It’s not an easy thing to do.
A lot of people will sometimes say you have to be able to know your worth or you need to articulate your worth but it’s such an abstract and vague phrase. I’m excited because I’m putting together what knowing your worth mean. I’m identifying six different phases and this is part of what we’re talking about. Later on, I’m going to ask you, do you have powerful phrases that you typically use when you’re negotiating something? We’ll get to that. Back to hiding yourself, talents and skills, it is not knowing what to do. This is why I’m having this conversation so we can talk about that. You also talk about operating from a place of alignment and flow. When you say alignment and flow, is that to your job, your life or both?
It’s to both. My husband and I have six adopted kids so my life is busy. I have a law practice. I have my children. I went and got a new puppy. What was I thinking? The bottom line is it’s taking me a long time but if my bucket’s not full, I can’t do anything for anybody else. You have to take care of yourself and then do the best job that you can. It’s alignment in your personal life and your business.
When I think of alignment, I’m thinking of my desires, wants and needs for myself versus my husband’s, kids’ and puppies’ needs and all that stuff. You need to identify what it is that you want to be aligned with your dreams and desires so that they could come out. If you’re wearing jewelry that you think is sparkling and that you love and someone else doesn’t like it, who cares? You need to be in alignment with yourself.
That’s hard. This is the beginning of the year. It’s always a good time but it didn’t have to be the beginning of the year. It’s important to sit down and take a quiet space. For me, quite honestly, it takes me 20 to 30 minutes to get into a zone. It doesn’t just happen. You have to go sit down, get in the zone, be alone, be quiet and then think about it. You need to think about what you want in your personal life, professional life, friend life and health life. There are all different aspects and you got to lay it out and have an idea because I don’t know that we often take the time to do that.
The flip side to that is you also have to know what you don’t want. Knowing what you don’t want is as important, wouldn’t you say?
Yes. That’s one of the activities I was doing. I came across this exercise that in the last 90 days, write a list of the things that happened. Tell me about that one particular thing. Did you enjoy it? Did it fill your bucket list? Did it fill your soul or drain it? What part about it? What is something in that that maybe you have to do but you don’t enjoy? Determining what you don’t like so that you can remove that as much as possible. There are always things we don’t want to do that we have to do. The things that you truly can get rid of, get rid of.
Say you’re mowing the lawn. It’s something that you can easily outsource because it’s not that expensive. It takes you 2 or 3 hours but they charge you $30 a week. I value my time a lot so I’d rather pay $30 a week to get my 2 hours back and do something that I want to do versus mowing the lawn. It’s a simple example.
If that two hours of mowing that lawn is your Zen zone out, nobody can bother me because I can’t hear you over the lawnmower time, then fine. It’s okay for your time to be whatever you want time to be.
You also talk about the clarity of your strengths and how to utilize your uniqueness as the most valuable asset. Maybe during that time, you try to figure this out. Talk to me about the clarity on strengths. That’s one of the things that when people say know your worth so that you can be able to talk about it and showcase yourself, people aren’t good about highlighting their strengths and utilizing their uniqueness. Let’s talk about that.
When I coined the GENIUS Method, I was like, G, Gather your excuses and E, Embrace your sparkle because you want to navigate with the audacity to ignite your confidence and unleash the power that lets you shine your light. How do you do it? We all have our light. The best phrase I’ve ever heard is called a legitimate excuse. We all have them. “I want to do this but my child is sick. I want to do this but this deadline is coming up. I want to do this but I need to save that money.” They’re real reasons. They’re legitimate. You got to know what they are and recognize them. That’s one.
The other part of it, which is the toughest part of all, is to sit down and make a list of your characteristics. What do you think is good about you? What do you want to change about yourself? Be honest. Put it away, go back and look at it. The second part of that is to ask 2 or 3 of your best friends or people that you trust. As strange as it may be, what you’ll find out is what they say they love about you is on that list of, “I wish I could change this about myself.”
That happens so often. That’s when I say it’s our little sparkle and dark side that we keep hidden but it ought not to be. When you go through that exercise, once again, you’re figuring out, “Who I am? What are the things I like about myself? What are the things I don’t like?” Legitimately, there may be things you want to change. What do you want to be known as? What do you not want to be known as? When you get some clarity on that, then you can take it and go forth.
I had a guest. She was a very successful person in the corporate world and then she got fired because she was not a very nice person and she didn’t even realize that she was not nice. Once she got fired and started doing what you described of the characteristics, she was like, “I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror. I didn’t like that.” She went through this whole transformation to try to undo everything that she did. Part of it was when she was young, she didn’t have a lot of money and she hung up with all these wealthy college kids and they all behaved a certain way. She thought that to be rich, she had to behave that way. It carried throughout her corporate life and it got worse until she didn’t like what she saw.
Good for her that she found it in time.
It took her a long time to look at those strengths and then figure out those characteristics.
There are some things you legitimately need to get rid of but there are some things that we want to hide that we shouldn’t be hiding. I’ll go back to being a lawyer. Everybody thinks she got to be in a dark blue, black or dark gray suit. I got to wear a white shirt. I’m supposed to wear pantyhose all the time and any cool jewelry on. I’m supposed to behave in a certain way. I refuse to do it. I’m not going to. I don’t require my staff to. I don’t require my other attorneys to do it. There’s a certain amount of I want to succeed but I don’t have to look like a lawyer.
You went fast through your GENIUS Method. Let’s talk a little bit more about the GENIUS Method because this is a method that helps women build that seven-figure career or business. Let’s go through the GENIUS Method a little bit slower.
When I said G for Genius and Gather your excuses, that’s exactly what it is. It’s on its space. Sit down and figure out what’s going on and what’s stopping you. Back up. The first thing you have to do is to get clear about where you want to go. What it is? Once you have the picture, then let’s figure out why we’re not there. That’s when we sit down and say, “What’s stopping us? What gets in the way? How are you using your time? What’s getting in the way of your time? Is anybody having any respect for it?” We go through looking at all of those things.
The next one we come back to is Embrace your sparkle. It comes to sitting down and making a list of the hard inner look. It’s hard. Sometimes, it’s embarrassing. Sometimes, you find I wish you were this way. This is how you see yourself. You are but you’re not. You got to talk to your friends. You got to be willing to open up and be vulnerable. Figure out what everybody else sees. Once we get through that, then my N is Navigate with audacity. We start bringing it back together. “This is what I want to keep. This is what I want to get rid of. This is where we define it.” We refine it.
I is Ignite your confidence. We’re going to figure out where you’re going to go and how we’re going to do it. It’s like creating your personal brand. We all have a personal brand, we just don’t necessarily know it. Part of it is in the way you dress. I’m going to say that as simple as it is. You know when you get up and put something on and you’re like, “This looks good.” I feel good. You can look at people and tell when they know they feel right. We go through some of that. We look at all of it. What is it you want to do? Do you want to be a French minimalist?
I do think, as silly as it sounds, how you dress and do your hair. Do you do makeup? Do you not do makeup? Do you do earrings? The look matters because they talk about that first. In the first three seconds, it’s your first impression. You never get a chance to remake a first impression. We go through that. It then leads to unleashing your power so that your light can shine. I want to help you create your personal brand, know what it is, take it and go.
The personal brand is another thing that sometimes women are elusive about. What does a personal brand mean? You said it’s how you look and how you want other people to think of you as. If I want to be thought of as a badass attorney, then that’s part of what I am creating. I’m curious. What is your idea of your personal brand as an attorney?
Do you know what is so weird? I come across as a badass. The funny thing is I’m one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. I will take up for people but I’ll do it with a smile and be nice about it. I’m straightforward. I don’t pull punches. That probably is more of my brand than anything else. I’ve decided that the brand that you get now is the same brand that you get at 10:00 on Sunday morning in church, the same one you get on Saturday night at the juke joint. Whether that’s good or bad, it is what it is.
That lends to that phrase that you said, badass. You’re very confident. If you’re direct, that’s where that comes from, which is unfortunate because a man can do the same thing and be confident. You do those same actions and you’re a badass or worse, you’re called bad names or things like that. I will never understand that but that’s the society that we live in.
Some of it has to do with how you feel about those attributes. If you think, “I got to be a B**** to be direct and be taken seriously,” well then that’s what you’re being. That’s not what I want to be. I’m very direct, firm and hardheaded but I don’t want to be hateful. I don’t have to be. That’s one of the things I see a lot in law that a lot of the women who are lawyers think, “He said I was pretty. They commented on what I was wearing.” They need to. You went through the effort to put that outfit on. It’s about your attitude. That’s where it matters.
You also say that we need to learn how to differentiate and position ourselves for a new level of success. Tell me a little bit about what you mean by that.
Anybody, especially a woman, gets to a point where you decide, “This is me. This is who I am. This is where I’m going to be. This is where I’m going. I know where it is,” the universe will hear you and it will open. That sounds a little crazy but I do. I also think that it had to be with being genuine. You’re rewarded by that. Energy is real. You know when people are being fake with you.
Plasticness, for lack of a better term, is easy to detect. When people do not think that you’re being genuine with them, they won’t be genuine with you. Personalities and personal relationships take us to the next level. It’s not just the next level in business as in a promotion or more money but it’s also better relationships with your children, spouse and friends. You find out your true friends and who you enjoy being with.
I agree when you say that when you put something out in the universe, somehow it materializes and the energy is real. They say what you think matters. If you’re in the corporate world and you think that you are not able to get that job or a promotion and there’s no possible way you could have a direct conversation with your manager, then you’re never going to be able to do that because you keep telling yourself that.
I had this conversation with my friend about I need to hire somebody. My first thought was I got to find another A-Player. I’ve got a good one. There’s nobody else. I thought, “Nope. The time as I say that, that’s what will happen and I’m not going to do that.” I have to say, “There are A-players out there. We’re going to find them.” It’s the same thing. If you say, “I suck at this,” then you’re going to suck at it. You need to say to yourself, “I can do this. I can be real and confident.” You don’t have to be loud and brassy. If that’s not your style, don’t let it be your style. There are tons of people who are calm, cool, confident, quiet and uber-successful. They don’t have to be as extra as I am.
I like that you pointed that out because some women, specifically, the ones that get to an executive level, think that they have to be distant with their people, very hard, cold or sometimes, overbearing. The reality is you don’t have to be any of those things. You can still be a decent person that is compassionate and loving in a human way with your staff, even if you’re at an executive level or a C-Suite level because you’re dealing with people. It goes back to your brand and how you think how you are being portrayed to people is not necessarily the way they’re receiving you to them.
That is it in a nutshell. It is critical for each one of us to not only be who we are but to make sure who sees us sees who we are. I’m trying to figure out how to say it in a presentation. It’s not the words that you say but it’s what people hear and what you give off that matters.
One of the things that I recommend people to do and you said it a little bit is when you’re talking to your friends about your characteristics, one of the beautiful things that happen is that you uncover your blind spots about yourself. That’s key because you can’t see yourself the way other people see you.
As girls, you can sit here and say, “I can fix anybody’s problems. You can’t fix your own.” That’s the best way to describe it so it’s right. You don’t see your blind spots and the stuff that’s fabulous about you. You need to know them. Those are the things that your friends can tell you.
I want to shift the conversation a little bit. You’re an attorney. You deal with attorneys regularly. Can you give us some examples of things that you’ve noticed of differences that male attorneys do versus female attorneys and how female attorneys may hold themselves back?
The most that I notice and it annoys me is when the girls are so scared to be girls. Men don’t care. Women are supposed to be offended by chivalry and somebody opening the door but I’ll open the door for you. You can open the door for me. It does not matter that I’m a boy or you’re a girl. It’s whoever got theirs first. It’s about being polite. The main thing that I see more than not is more female lawyers are scared to be female. They want to be male or something other than that. That’s crazy because that’s who you are. Men and women are different. They think and do differently. Why can’t you be good at who you are and what you are?
Do not necessarily worry about how people are interpreting you, as long as you’re happy with who you are and how you dress, look, behave and all that good stuff. That’s very interesting. Anything else that you’ve noticed?
No, because a lot of the female lawyers are in that typical B word that we’re trying not to say about women but it’s true. I don’t know if they do that because they think they have to. That’s what they think a good lawyer is. I want to be the person who’s going to cut your throat. The reality of it is that’s not the person that you need. The old adage is you get more bees with honey than vinegar but I swear that’s the truth.
When you are in a position getting ready to negotiate, whether it’s a contract, what are some phrases that you typically use that are your foundational phrases or keywords? Do you have any phrases like that?
Lots of times when I’m going into it, it depends on what my role’s going to be. If I’m advocating for somebody, then I need to know what their ultimate win-win best situation is. I’ve also got to know what that’s the line in the sand. I’m not going there. That’s the deal breaker. Those things matter if I’m advocating for someone, I’ve got to know what the window is. We try to figure out what the other side is. We also got to know the pain that’s associated with it if I go below that. If I give this particular thing up, what am I really giving up?
If I am the negotiator, I go in. You try to make sure you start with some commonalities. For instance, I’m in family law so I do a lot of divorces. They got married at some point for a reason or they had a child for some reason or for some reason, we got into this contract together. We look at the good that we can figure out. I also point out that, to me, I’d rather be the master of my destiny. That’s one of the things I use. I would rather pick my poison.
When you’re negotiating, the idea is both sides end up with a win-win but realistically, neither side gets everything that they want. What you have to do is figure out what can you live with, rather than somebody telling you I’ve got to do this. That’s the big thing. I’d rather pick where I’m going and what I’m going to do. Those people are like that. They don’t necessarily always admit it but deep down they are.
What is your go-to phrase when you know you’re almost ready to close something and you’re not quite there? You say you’re direct. Is there any one go-to phrase that you typically use?
I don’t know that I have one go-to. Sometimes, I’ll tell people, “What’ll happen if we do nothing? Where will we be if we do nothing? If you’re negotiating with somebody, what happens if we’re in the same spot we’re in? Where does that leave you? Where does that leave this person?” I’m not usually negotiating for myself. As an advocate, I’m advocating for other people or I’m trying to get the two sides to get to the middle. The big thing is to figure out what happens if nothing happens.
When you say that, what happens if we don’t accomplish anything, does it make the person think about the pain, problem and issue that they’re still going to continue to suffer versus resolving it?
Yes. They’re still in the same boat that they were in to begin with, which is why they came in the first place. Nothing has changed. It’s going to continue to deteriorate. They wouldn’t be here in the first place if there wasn’t an issue.
That makes a lot of sense. I went through a divorce years ago. My divorce was three and a half years long. I can tell you the mental anguish and emotional drain of being in that limbo space for so long. It takes a toll on your mental and physical health.
Litigation is difficult. I don’t think that a lot of people realize that. The other thing, particularly being an attorney, if I’m going before a judge, especially a jury, one of my go-tos on a jury is snake eyes. Seriously, you have no idea. People don’t believe that because they see this mess on TV. I’m like, “It is not like it is on TV. I’m telling you.” Litigation is very stressful. By the time people get into litigation, they have tried everything they could to resolve it without that. It is not a good space for any of the participants.
You’re also a certified mediator. As a mediator, give me an example of a situation that you’re mediating. Is it with attorneys or the people that are divorcing?
The people that are divorcing and have their attorneys with them, the way we do it here in South Carolina. They can be what we call pro se or not represented. Our county is a mandatory mediation county. I probably settle 80%, 85% and 90% of the cases. Some people need to have their day in court. Some people are hardheaded. I deal with the attorneys and then the participants as well.
Some people keep them together. I go ahead and tell them I keep them separate because if they liked each other we wouldn’t be here. I’m not going to force them into the same room and let tensions rise. Lots of times I drill in the home and keep coming back to exactly what you said. The mental anguish is real. There is a very real price tag attached to dissatisfaction, personal stress, strain and strife.
I want to make sure that our audience read that because that also applies if you’re stuck in your position, in your job and you’re not doing anything to get out of it, whether it’s finding another promotion within the organization, talking to your manager for different opportunities or going to a different job. If you’re in a job where you’re not happy, that takes a mental and emotional toll, just as if you were going through a divorce.
It does. Here’s the deal. The old adage, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a change. You’re going to be in that same boat. If anybody who’s reading isn’t happy in their job, they have 1 or 2 choices. They have to figure out a way to change something. How do you change it? Either you change that job somehow so that it becomes more satisfactory or you change your attitude and be excited about where you are. Maybe that’s the beginning of it. If you can get excited about where you are, then the universe will open up all these opportunities that were there that you never saw or they’ll bring them to you.
Either you change that job somehow so it becomes more satisfactory, or you change your attitude and be excited about where you are. – Brana Williams Click To Tweet
I went to a TEDx Talk not too long ago and the speaker was saying that lives seem to be so long when you’re an eight-year-old because all of the experiences or most of the experiences that are happening in your life are new. You’re going to maybe Disneyland or a baseball game for the first time. Every time your brain does something new, it creates a new memory and starts paying attention. When you are doing the same thing over and over and you do nothing new, you’re so on autopilot that time goes fast and then you have no idea what happened.
When you’re driving somewhere and you have no idea how you got there, your brain is on autopilot. It’s not paying attention, which translates into you not being fulfilled. It’s the same thing with the job. If you’re sitting there and you’re like, “This job is so monotonous,” it’s almost like the living dead that you’re just sitting there.
I heard somebody phrase it. He said he rides bicycles. Every time he walks out of the house, he tells his kids to look for bicycles and you’d be surprised at how many bicycles you see because otherwise, nobody knows there are bicycles out there. If you’re looking for it, they’re all over the place. It’s like that with your job. That’s what you need. You need to tell yourself, “I’m going to look for bicycles today and figure it out.” That sounds silly but I promise it is the way to the next level.
If you can get excited about where you are, then once again, the universe will open up all these opportunities that were there that you never saw. – Brana Williams Click To Tweet
Brana, you’ve given us a lot of good information. We’ve talked about a lot of good things. Is there anything else that you think we need to address when it comes to negotiating for women in the corporate world?
No, because the first thing any of us need to do is figure out what it is that we want, who we really are and what is our unique genius. because nobody else can do it the way you can do it.
Are there maybe two tips that you can leave us with that are more actionable or concrete for women in the corporate world when it comes to negotiating?
One thing is you need to make sure you walk in knowing what you want but being calm and cool, prepared and confident. Sometimes, it’s easy to get rattled. I also think you also got to be pretty doggone persistent. If the first time it doesn’t work, nag them again because the squeaky wheel does get the grease. That’s persistence. Discipline was my word for the year. Discipline is being a disciple of the master, figuring it out and doing it over again. You nag them to the point they’ll give in to you and give you a chance. Give me a chance, if nothing else.
Walk in knowing what you want. Be really prepared, calm, and confident. – Brana Williams Click To Tweet
Was that 1 or 2?
I don’t know.
I think that was two. I like persistence. We’ll make the persistent too because being persistent is quite a good one. A lot of times women will go and ask for whatever it is and if they were told no, then they’re like, “Okay.” They walk away and are like, “It didn’t work,” and then they don’t try again. To your point, schedule a meeting 3 or 6 months from then.
Everybody in sales knows it’s the 5th or 6th time. You got to do stuff five times. That’s the way it is. Be persistent. That is one of the biggest things. Know your unique genius and be persistent, as persistent as you can be to push.
Brana, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. I love your GENIUS Method. That’s fantastic. Any final words that you want the audience to leave them with?
I want everybody to know and believe that each of us has a unique genius within us and you need to find your little spark so it can shine.
Thank you so much, Brana, for coming to the show. I appreciate it.
Thank you.
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Brana certainly has a sparkle. Some of the takeaways of our conversation is she said, “If we hide our uniqueness, we are then hiding our gift to the world. We’re hiding in business and our lives. We simply need to stop.” That’s great advice. Another thing that we talked about is that you don’t see your blind spots so you don’t see how fabulous you are. If you have a conversation with your friends and you ask them to tell you how they see you, you will then be able to see yourself how your friends see you.
Another thing she said that is important is either you change your job somehow so that it becomes more satisfactory or you change your attitude and become excited about where you are. That’s critical because that’s when you become more engaged in your current job. When you become engaged, then everything starts shifting. You have to make a conscious effort to do something different. Talk to your manager about what you’re currently doing and how you can become more engaged with your team and the company.
Brana’s two tips are as follows. Tip number one, she says, “Walk into a conversation knowing what you want. Be prepared, calm and confident.” Tip number two, she says, “Be pretty persistent. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” She’s right. If you ask one time for something and you don’t get it and don’t ask again, then it’s not going to happen. You need to keep asking until something happens. That’s all critically important. Brana was a hoot. She was very fun to talk to. I hope that you can take some of the information that we talked about and apply it to your career. With that, remember to be brave, be bold and take action.
Brana Williams is the founder of the GENIUS Method, an acclaimed speaker, a distinguished attorney, a leadership strategist, and an all-around badass lover of life. Driven by her curiosity and abundant energy, she is sought out to disrupt the status quo. Her philosophy? The path to 7-figures is embracing who you are and celebrating your sparkle.
