There has never been a better time to be different

“Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.”

― Margaret Mead

It’s so good to be here. Writing for you as someone outside the box in the midst of a powerfully evolving career — the thing I’m obsessed with most. As a recruiter, all I think about are resumes, ikigai, and how in this world someone can translate their skills, abilities, experiences, and identity into an unparalleled force of employability and influence. Especially that influence part.

My first professional love is Career: how to find one, shape it, and own it. This all got started when I was searching for my first job out of college, with nothing but a backpack full of young life baggage and “baby’s first” resume of part-time jobs and an internship. I was asking big questions then and I’m still asking them now.

My second professional love is Inclusion, Diversity, & Belonging, particularly in the workplace. (I prefer to use “Diversity & Inclusion” or “D&I”because that was what we were calling it when I first learned about it eight years ago. It’s stuck with me ever since.)

When you look at the intersection of my two loves, Career and Diversity & Inclusion (D&I), you’ll naturally consider D&I jobs — which I considered pursuing. These are folks mostly in HR or Talent or the People function shaping policies and behaviors at organizations for the better. The day-to-day work is steeped in corporate programming and has its roots in social justice. The people doing this work are nothing short of inspirational. They’re fighting to change the destructive workplace behaviors girded by strong capitalist structures. The biggest nut for them to crack is changing systems so that minorities can advance to positions of power.

I want to crack that nut for individuals.

For decades D&I has been gaining momentum: expanding within organizations, growing public support (a special thanks to Millenials!), and most importantly, proving the business case for D&I. This is the reality that Diversity leads to noticeably greater profits and better organizational performance. Seriously — if you didn’t know that, it does.

I’m Exhibit A in the department of D&I beneficiaries. I’ve worked the majority of my career for organizations with progressive policies, who have protected me from discrimination and given me fair — and oftentimes tremendous — benefits.

So moved by the positive experiences I have had — in addition to access to privileged environments with the hunger to hire talented, diverse people — a year ago I was ready to shout from the rooftops, “Stay strong everyone. Keep going! Organizations need you. They’re slow to get you on-board but we’re making progress!”

But that sounds wholly naive and I would have been sugar-coating my own challenges and career struggles, as well as the countless careerists who are people of color, LGBTQ, women, and everyone in between grinding away in the pursuit of a big, impactful career. Only to continually face prejudice and identity obstacles.

It was time to go deep. It was time to understand what to make of a workplace moving at blinding speeds, and how people who are not necessarily white or male are getting somewhere.

I wrote Pull Yourself Together because the career advice available to most young people is written by organizations looking to get work out of people. Fairness is not their modus operandi. I wanted to understand who was finding success as an Other (women, people of color, LGBTQIA, and everyone in between), and how they were gaining access, influence, and breaking glass ceilings.

So while I have a deep love for D&I, it’s not the road or advice I would give individuals in pursuing a powerful career. We are not all equal in the eyes of the marketplace, and we’ll never get ahead trying to tell everyone “be more inclusive”. We need distinction as individuals. We need to bring unique value. What I learned in writing this book is that the diverse individuals shaping inspiring careers are pulling themselves together and actually leveraging their difference to win.

It’s complex, dynamic, nuanced, and totally doable. This is the journey I want to take you on: how to own your difference to access, influence, and soar. My mission is to help diverse high-performers break through organizational barriers to achieve their dreams. Pull Yourself Together is the guidebook I wish I had when I was launching my career, and one for which I am eager to share with you now.

Over the next weeks, I’m going to be sharing excerpts and stories from my latest book in this blog series. I hope you’ll join me for the ride!

To Kick off the series, here is an excerpt from the Introduction of Pull Yourself Together. Enjoy!

It’s time to change the narrative. Our narrative.

This book is about how you can confidently do the work to gain access and bring value to organizations — to become a top performer as the person you were born to be. An army of change agents is working to make those organizations better in the long run for us.

We’re going to explore how to move beyond the uncertain and common career advice of “bringing your whole self to work” to true action. This is about cultivating and developing individual power and distinction while reversing the view that the unique parts of yourself hold you back.

Companies need workers who are different. They need talent who deeply understand their diverse customers and help them connect with new and different markets. The broader marketplace is moving at such tremendous speed — and not to mention the mind-boggling technological revolutions of today — that companies can no longer afford to discriminate or staff themselves in a homogeneous way.

People are messy. Workplaces are messy. The trick is diverse high performers have found a way to organize the parts of themselves to excel in a prescribed professional setting while preserving and cultivating their uniqueness enough to stand out.

They have found a way to pull themselves together. They know themselves intimately and use their differences to have a competitive advantage — by bringing unusual backgrounds, perspectives, ideas, and skills to companies in desperate need of growth and innovation.

Here’s how we’re going to pull you together to give you a competitive advantage:

The Four E’s

• Explore. Find the personal and professional spaces you want to occupy.
• Energize. Generate the support, energy, inspiration, and drive to overcome opposition and prejudice.
• Engage. Opportunities always come. Prepare for them and leverage your toolkit when they arrive.
• Expand. Get in the game and test your limits!

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Ready to take your career to the next level? Email me at kate@drivendifferent.com or connect with me on social: LinkedIn or Twitter. To read more, check out Pull Yourself Together on AMAZON.