7 Empowering Ways to Smash the Glass Ceiling and Make Powerful Friends Along the Way
Do you sometimes feel like you’re fighting a constant battle to get noticed. Being talked over by the men in the office and then overlooked for that next promotion.
You deserve and want to progress but you don’t want to become bitter, mean or have to be someone else to achieve it.
I recently interviewed Sophia, a member of the Women’s network Ellevate who gave some amazingly simple but powerful insights into how she overcame these problems.
Each tip is so simple you can effortlessly begin implementing them today. They are so powerful that you will be shocked how quickly you will elevate your position..
1) Be Certain of WHAT and WHO You Want to Be.
Imagine getting that role you want. Being the CEO of a company in the future or whatever that dream might be. But what if you lost your soul getting there. You had to leave your principles behind and jeopardize your true self.
The victory would be hollow. You will have lost a sense of your person and your soul.
Similarly. You have all the money in the world but are doing something you hate. Something that you feel doesn’t really bring the world any value. Something that doesn’t allow you to really express your talents.
These sorts of situations would be awful. But they are ones in which many executives and high flyers find themselves in.
Women have the added challenge of balancing all of this with the expectations put upon them. Juggling family life vs work vs social. This is not an easy task!
This is where Sophia recommended her Vision Boards. This has nothing to do with magic, chants, or spirit gods.
Her words describe it best:
“Creating a vision board is allowing yourself the time you need and deserve to think about yourself and your needs. Outside of all the commitments and expectations of work, friends and family.”
2) Set Your Compass By Looking Up to Great Women.
Hero worship is a waste of time (IMHO)
But admiring and acquiring the qualities and characteristics of great people sets you moving in the right direction. Their achievements come from actions. All of which you can curate, test and apply in your own life.
Having great role models can also serve to help anchor you in tough times and give you strength and fortitude.
“If they can do it so can I”
Why Women First?
Apart from their strength, beauty and intelligence?
A man trying his darn hardest could only ever sympathize at what you have to go through. He will never be able to fully understand.
This means although men’s success is great to emulate. It doesn’t fully represent you. The male business mogul’s story doesn’t involve his pregnancy and maternity leave mid-career.
Or how he dealt with his period and searing lower back pain when he needed to nail that meeting and clinch the deal.
The great news is this. There are so many great and inspirational business women success stories.
You can still learn a lot from men but Sophia hit the nail on the head when she said that the stories she learned about women:
“Really spoke to me and how I felt and made me believe that it was possible”
Having that final push of belief will make all the difference helping you keep moving when times are rough.
3) Enjoy Greater Success by Celebrating Success.
If you don’t celebrate success you won’t experience it.
You should probably read that back again. Even the most successful people often miss this one.
Yes, celebrating your own wins is an obvious way to help you recognize success and experience it. But the biggest gains to be won here for you is by starting with other people.
Sophia told me she regularly celebrated other people’s success on her social media. When I connected with her on LinkedIn I was quickly reminded of this.
Barely a week goes by without Sophia celebrating and lifting up another woman’s success in business and entrepreneurship.
Celebrating women’s success raises awareness. This is a great way to erode the glass ceiling structure by affecting the general public’s subconscious perceptions. But also there is more.
She treats every woman’s success equally from the awards given to superstar leaders at Vogue to the accolades to the local boutique patisserie. She gives everyone a platform and people appreciate it.
“It actually helps me connect with people. It’s a nice thing to do and it makes the world a nicer place, which on Social Media is desperately needed!”
Sophia is constantly building up goodwill in the communities she works within. Building these relationships is helping propel her further and further forward. To outsiders it’s seemingly effortless but it’s foundations like this that make it possible.
4) Promote Others Then Promote Yourself.
Don’t you get so frustrated when that pig headed person walks into the office and just drones on endlessly about themselves.
What about the person who tells you about the great coffee shop they found or cutsie vintage store downtown?
If both came up to you and said they were opening a new restaurant. Which would you go to?
Although business is made out to be a complicated affair. Almost all does boil down to these simple human interactions.
Now I doubt in real life you act in any way like person number one. But I do feel on social media we all are at times a little guilty.
But you can apply these principles and post useful information and promotion of other useful services you use more frequently than you do about your service. You can share insights of who in your market is helpful or impressive, great people to work with.
Your opinions will be unique and people will remember you and appreciate you for it.
Undoubtedly you should not promote trash or it will tarnish your reputation. But this can also be another way of lifting people up and building your network of powerful allies that will smash that glass ceiling.
5) Share Your Wisdom.
You have experience and you have ideas and insights. But if you hold onto them for yourself who will ever know? They will be lost forever in silence. The good news is you have multiple options to help you share:
You can use social media. Here’s a few ideas from Sophia of things you can share:
- Share your insights from events or trade shows you’ve attended.
- Write long-form posts or articles on LinkedIn about your field of expertise.
- Create short form video content on Instagram or TikTok (yes people are now using TikTok for business)
There’s also lots of possibilities outside of social media to spread and share your wisdom and ideas. Even beyond the water cooler or coffee shop. ,
Sophia often applies to and gets offers to speak at industry events. If you haven’t spoke publicly before this can seem a little intimidating. But it is possible to start small.
Just speaking at a networking group you attend is a great start. Giving a presentation or talk on your zone of excellence will get the ball rolling. Being among your peers and friends is a much safer place to begin if you don’t feel ready to take the plunge.
Then don’t wait but start applying and offering at events that interest you.
6) Host an Event or Run a Workshop.
Hosting your own event puts you in the driving seat to unleash your own ideas and creativity. You gain control of the forum and setting which can provide comfort but takes a little additional planning.
The best thing is that you get to share your insights and simultaneously grow your network at the same time. The connections made at personal events are always stronger than purely virtual.
An interesting point made by Sophia is that these events do not need to be crazy complicated or technical. Remember the spin on vision boards Sophia had?
She wanted to share it with her specific ethos to help empower female entrepreneurs in a workshop that reflects her artistic flair and helps other women unleash their creativity.
This is a hands-on workshop.
You will spend time cutting and pasting to create a visual representation of the life you want to create.
For those who like to share, we will also have a discussion to help get clarification, confidence, and access to the collective mind for help to get you started in the right direction.
We will provide notebooks, magazines, glue, scissors — almost everything you need.
Get ready to share your ideas, successes and needs with other . Together we’ll help drive our collective success. You’ll meet new friends and make connections that will boost your business and broaden your reach.
Sharing skills and helping others grow builds deep connections and the experience will increase your confidence in presenting yourself and your ideas.
Remember you can start small and the snowball will grow so long as you keep taking action.
7) Be Different, do Something Daring, be Inspired and Inspiring
You don’t need to reinvent the wheel or beat down a revolutionary new path. But bring together and give what reflects you best.
You have something unique and special to give to the world.
Taking chances and risks is scary but can be exciting and give opportunities for growth and finding out more about yourself.
Sophia told me she had recently tried improv. It wasn’t necessarily because she was a die hard improv fan. It’s probably easier to let her explain:
“I was watching Sara Blakley (founder of Spanx) MasterClass. From selling machines to cutting out the feet of her pantyhose to kicking off her company with just $5k she quickly got into Neiman Marcus Group from channeling everything she ever learned in her 2 years of improv classes.
I’ve always admired Sarah’s hustle and I was doing more speaking engagements so I emailed every improv theater in Houston as soon as the episode ended.”
Just listening to her stories is so interesting. She has so many life experiences because she takes up random opportunities. I’m inspired by how quickly she takes action and juggles these different tasks.
These are all options open and available to you. What things would you like to do that you’ve been putting off?
How to bring everything together in Bite Sized Chunks
This improv story is a great example of how these activities once they become a habit can blend together to give outstanding results.
- Sophia new who she wanted to be and was studying a masterclass to get there.
- She was looking up to a successful woman who she related to saw a characteristic that she wanted to gain for herself
- Noting the success of Spanx and celebrating it.
- When telling me about the improv she sandwiched telling me about her experience between promoting Sara Blakley’s experience and how amazing the classes were.
- This was a story she shared on social media to give other people ideas and let them know about the Impov school in Houston.
All of this comes together and works in harmony with each other. Smashing the glass ceiling does not require brute force.
Piece by piece you can weaken it from above promoting women and the general consciousness of the workplace will continue to shift.
But this doesn’t mean that you wait behind aimlessly. At the same time you are building up a force of allies, friends and power behind you that will make you too big for any glass ceiling to contain.
The main thing I learnt was that women together were stronger than they were in isolation.
These actions at first take a little effort but eventually become effortless and just habitual. You just need to start.
Sometimes it is quite difficult to get started alone. You might not have realized but there are a number of really strong networks that support women in business that are set up to help you grow and develop your career.
I asked Sophia which was the “best”. She smiled and said that it really depends on the individual. But it’s important really to just sign up to a few and get started.
“Eventually you find your fit and your tribe. But a good place to start is Ellevate”.
Eventually Sophia has even set up a few smaller groups herself.
So why don’t you take your first little step today at smashing the glass ceiling. Just try the link below:
