#33: Toupee or not toupee, that is the question.
Going boldly where no one has gone before.
Ironically I am also bald, and have been in the process of getting more so for 15 years.
The two words bald and bold do end up getting mixed up quite a lot.
Never understood it myself. Anyway.
This edition of the A Sterne Word is in two parts, both about being bold.
The first: I’ll take you through a mini case study of how someone dealt with damaging anxieties and confidence issues that stemmed from how she had been treated at work - and came out the other side.
The second: Subscriptions are changing. It’s time to take that bold step.
So, on with the first bit.
This week I went boldly where no one had been before with three clients. This lot were of no help whatsoever. 👇
Let me tell you about one of my clients and their epiphany. And you can watch a video about another of them at the end of this article.
Cerys’ story.
A lady I’d been coaching was struggling big time trying to explain why she’d left her previous company. Let’s call her Cerys. Not her actual name, obviously.
Cerys had left under a settlement agreement. Her and her employer decided they weren’t getting on very well. Cerys had been through the mill of some false accusations, taking the fall, perhaps, for her boss. With investigations dragging her internal reputation down, her self esteem was in the gutter.
Even though each subsequent investigation found in her favour, the damage was done.
The nature of settlements is you can’t talk about them openly. So “how do I explain why I left in an interview?” was her question.
Cerys had also answered “1” to the question “on a 1-5 scale how confident you are in interview situations?”. That IS low.
Now first of all, it’s quite possible she wouldn’t get asked why she left. You might not either, but it’s important to have an answer up your sleeve so you don’t accidentally blurt out “The pay was shite, and my boss was a narcissist and a bully”.
They’d be push factors and we don’t want to talk about those at interview.
We talked through the situation in the round. We dug around in the issue and found it was less about confidence with interviews and more about confidence full stop. The experience had affected her at home too, she wasn’t herself. Mojo lost.
We went back in time to explore why she was in the type of role and sector she was in. Her very first interview experiences in that sector. And the fact that she was surprised to have landed the first job all those years ago at all.
But then we explored the earlier experience that wasn’t on her CV. Family stories that inadvertently steered her profession. Slowly peeling back the layers of the onion to find the “self”. The formative experiences that have shaped who she has become.
We went back up through her experience, slowly revalidating her capability and value based on those stories.
And suddenly… it was like the fog cleared.
I completely rebuilt her narrative around what coach Rich Litvin calls a golden thread, something I’ve been doing for years when helping people work out what their life and career has been about.
I know, a bit deep, right? And it really is.
I played Cerys’ story back to her in a way that made sense. All those otherwise disparate bits, why she does what she does, the reasons why she’s great at it, the authentic value she provides - all laid out.
It had just been hiding in plain sight for nearly two decades. And now, she could totally own it, instead of it owning her, or just being her “career history”.
In the space of an hour Cerys had suddenly not only regained a good chunk of her confidence, but found a cast-iron, personal narrative she could provide for the “why have you applied for this job” and the “why did you leave you last job” questions she’d been so cripplingly worried about.
This cleared the way for us to focus on some more job-specific competency and behavioural questions.
I’ve provided her with a pack of tools to help her construct and remember her own interview examples. We used the STAR framework to help embed them through practice and refinement.
Cerys is going into her interview panel as a confident and prepared woman, having shaken off the shackles of the issues that had built up.
Here’s the feedback from another client who had a real awakening this week:
I can help you do this, but you can have a go yourself by asking yourself the following question: Why?
Start with the issue. Like “I don’t feel confident in interviews”.
Why? Because I can’t answer the question ‘why did you leave your last role?’
Why? Because I can’t explain it as I left on a settlement agreement.
Why do you want this new role then? Because it ticks a lot of boxes for me.
Why? Because I get so much out of the sector, and this takes me closer to the people I can help.
Why is that important to you? {explain}
… and slowly but surely you’ll get to the reasons you can give for wanting the new job. The real reasons. And you can talk about those as pull factors to take on the new role, rather than getting caught up in why you left the last role.
See how far you can go with the whys until you run out of places to go.
The second bit.
So what’s happening with your subscriptions, Phil?
Well, the toupee or not toupee bit wasn’t just a joke about the follicularly challenged, like me.
It was a pun. I like puns.
A pun about the choice you now have. You see, big news….
I’m going paid.
I’ve been writing A Sterne Word for over a year, twice a month. So that’s roughly 28 blogs crammed full of good-humoured career and life guidance, tips, and anecdotes. Around 30,000 words.
I have subscribers around the world that open every edition, and others that in a year have only opened one. Or fewer. I want to focus on serving you, my readers who open each edition, read it, and take something from it.
How much is gonna cost then Phil?
Less than a quid.
Yep, under one British Pound.
I wanted to set a £2/month subscription to make it as accessible as possible while still giving me a little bit of income, and ish-cover the time it takes to write, but the lowest Substack will let me go is £3.50.
So if you want to go that route you can, or you can get a whole year of my brain, case studies, templates, videos and wotnot for just £25.
£25 Phil?? That’s less than £1 per edition, you nutter!
Shaky comparison time… A Sterne Word for £1. That’s:
A Cadbury’s Flake from the petrol station – but you won’t drop chocolate all down your clothes.
A can of Coke from the canteen – but it won’t go straight to your hips or make you burp.
Two thirds of a litre of petrol – but cleaner and will get you further
A fifth of a pint (unless you’re ordering a 7 quid pint, or you’re at my local Wetherspoons where it’s £2.90) – I’ve already said A Sterne Word is cleaner. Though to be fair I do have a fucking potty mouth, and my local ‘Spoons is filthy.
You get the drift.
AND you get full, unfettered access to the prior 28 in the library.
So it’s more like 40p per edition, and forever decreasing.
I’d rather have many people reading at a lower price point than a handful at a higher one. At this point it’s about supporting what I do and helping me keep it going, so I can help more people be brilliant.
So you have a choice.
✅ Hit the subscribe button to support my work and keep reading all this great actionable stuff that’ll help you become a better you.
❌ Just get the free version (which’ll be about 6 lines telling you what’s coming in the paid bit), you’ll see next time
❌ Unsubscribe all together…
Option 1’s the best option for both of us by far, right?
Remember:
👌 26 insightful articles a year, in your inbox, helping you be a better you.
👌 Access to the ever-growing back catalogue in case you miss one.
👌 Opportunity to comment and steer future editions
You know what to do. See you next time!
Phil
In t’ socials…
Each edition I share links to even more content that’ll help you get on in life.
Here’s a 2min 50 second video about another epiphany - you need to watch it. It was powerful. What can you learn from it?
Here’s a post about 1 thing you should leave out of your CV.
Here’s another video (2min 20) about a guy who finally worked out what was getting in his way of successfully landing another board-level job.
Oh and just throwing this back in here 👇👇👇👇
And finally…
My coaching practice is growing. I have just 5 spots available.
So if you’re
Getting in your own way (or believe something else is)
Not sure what you’re doing with your life, or
At a dead loss to know what to do next
Book some time in with me via the button below, and we can have a chew through it. No charge. No bullshit sell. Just value. I want to give you a coaching experience you won’t forget.
I go to places no one has gone before, ask the questions other people won’t, and hold the mirror up like you’ve never experienced.
You may be able to go away with a nugget that’ll be just enough to help you make real progress.