For today’s show, I’m going to do something a little bit different. I’m going to give you a behind the scenes and read you my Me Manual. If you’ve never heard of this before, you don’t have one, don’t worry. Most people have no idea what this is, but I have found this can be one of the most underrated tools for any leader, especially if you are managing a fast-growing team.

You have to manage up to demanding stakeholders. You’re trying to make a name for yourself and establish yourself in a new organization, or you have different work groups that are constantly coming together. So what the heck is a Me Manual? Well, at its core, it’s exactly what it sounds like. It is a document about you that captures how you think, what you need to be at your best, what drives you crazy, what makes you feel supported, all of it.

And it’s written down in one place. So the people who you work most closely with, they don’t have to guess.

Now I’ll explain much more about how it works in a minute. But first, let me give you some context of how we got here, why I am doing this. This past year my company grew more than it ever has been, which has been amazing and such a fun ride and such a great gift.

And look, growth is wonderful. It is good. It’s what every business owner or leader it, it’s exactly what you’re constantly working toward. But, if you have ever been in that position, then you know maybe all too well that rapidly scaling comes with its own particular brand of chaos. Suddenly there’s more people in the mix. There’s more places where balls can get dropped, more meetings, more decision points. Both major and minor. There’s just a higher sheer volume of tasks and communication coming at you and every single person in your organization every day. And sometimes it can feel a little like you’re trying to keep this runaway train on the tracks. And despite all of your best efforts, there inevitably are going to be breakdowns because of the just speed and complexity at which you are moving.

When your team doesn’t know how you like to receive information or what things they should or should not loop you in on, then they are just guessing. They can’t read your mind about how you want feedback delivered or what kind of problems you want escalated versus solved without you. They don’t know how to evaluate new directions or priorities. And on your end, you are probably moving so fast that you don’t have time to explain your thinking on every single issue. You are context switching all of the time. You’re making judgment calls that seem obvious to you, but might feel completely random or disjointed to everyone else because they don’t have visibility into your reasoning.

And this is exactly what happened to me. What worked for my programs, my philosophy, my team, and the business we had in 2020, 2022, even 2024, that worked then. But the requirements of me as a leader have changed massively, and I have had to evolve with that, but I never paused to articulate that. Yeah, so for example, I have had to become much more decisive in areas where before I might have slowed down, I might have invited a lot more discussion and approach something with much more consensus seeking bringing other people in, asking for their opinion, having more meetings.

But now we can’t always afford the time to do that. Sometimes we need to make a move. Now in this moment, and frankly, sometimes I have to keep a cap on how many cooks are in the kitchen. I have had to get comfortable with making faster judgment calls with less information than I was used to having previously, and possibly even disappointing people when I didn’t or couldn’t take their specific requests into account.

And in other areas, my expectations had become clearer over time. Things I used to be flexible about, I now had stronger opinions on because I have seen what has worked and what hasn’t. But in other places, my expectations were just emerging and I was just starting to make them come together because we had never had to deal with certain situations before.

So I in certain places, have been figuring out my preferences, in real time, which meant that my team was trying to hit a target that was still forming. And I knew that if I didn’t step up, if I didn’t use this opportunity to be abundantly clear and specific about how I was working now, we wouldn’t be able to continue to scale at the rate we have been.

I also like to think I’m a self-aware person. Keyword, there is think. Now I am a trained therapist, and so self-awareness is kind of my thing. It’s baked into so much of my philosophy and how I see the world. But my natural default, and if you are into Myers-Briggs, then this may make sense. I am more on the intuitive side.

And what I mean by that is I am someone who subconsciously I pick up on patterns. I can just sense when something is off. I have a strong direction about what may be right or wrong or and instincts about how things should be done. But this is the crucial part. It takes me more time to be able to literally put that into words, to put language behind why I do or don’t like something, why I want certain things done a certain way, and I can’t always explain it in the moment.

Which is fine when you’re working alone, but when you have other people who need to understand your thinking so they can execute without you and without you hovering over them, that becomes an issue. And I’m willing to bet that almost everyone you work with, that they want to do good work, right? They want to meet expectations, but when the expectations just live inside of your head rather than in an explicit guideline that they can reference and that you can come to a compromise on, then you’re kind of setting them up to fail or setting them up to miss the mark. And that’s not fair to anyone.

This is exactly the kind of work that we do with so many of our clients inside of Lead From Within. You’re gonna hear me refer to that throughout this episode, and Lead From Within is our premier advisory program where we specifically work with mid to senior level leaders and we show you how to scale yourself so you can take on bigger roles, you can build that org-wide influence quickly, without everything falling apart. Because maybe you have just landed that career changing opportunity. You want to walk in there confidently from day one. Or you’ve been handed that larger scope, you need to quickly navigate the people, the politics. Or you’re trying to build your credibility with a new team, new stakeholders, new executives who are all watching to see if you can actually pull this off.

I wanna mention this now because for the first time ever, we are opening up applications for Lead from Within to the public at my brand new free masterclass on March 10th. It’s called Rise Into Your Next Big Role. So make sure you go to the link in the show notes or head to melodywilding.com masterclass where you can RSVP there. And up until now, Lead from Within it has only been open to former clients of ours, people who have worked with us in some capacity before.

But at this class, for the first time ever, we are opening up applications to the public lead from within is the highest touch way to work with me. And because of that, the space is extremely limited. So if you are even curious about this, you wanna make sure you’re at that masterclass.

And this is a common inflection point clients come to lead from within having reached. They have to translate their intuition, their just natural way of operating. They have to translate that into language. How do I like to get things done? What even are my preferences? What patterns have I noticed in the feedback that I give? What are the things that constantly bother me? What makes me feel supported?

So what my team and I decided to do and something we’re going to now make a regular practice is we had a retreat first thing in the new year. We took a half day to just step back and more so focus on the how and the why of our work. How we do our work together. And why we are choosing to prioritize certain things over others.

And as part of that retreat, we did a version of the Me Manual exercise and then we each pulled three elements from ours that we felt were most important to share and talk through as a team. And that is important because I wanna clarify that your Me Manual, it is not a list of demands. It’s not a. You must do this or you’re going to be fired type of document and you are not suggesting or expecting that everyone give you preferential treatment.

Your Me Manual is meant as a jumping off point for conversation and compromise between you and the people you work most closely with. It’s you saying, here’s how I tend to operate. Here’s what tends to work well for me. Let’s talk about how we can work together in a way that works for both of us, depending on what works for you. We can meet in the middle here.

All right, so with all of this groundwork, let’s dive in to my Me Manual.

All right, so I have my Me Manual pulled up in front of me, and first I wanna walk you through the sections that I chose to use. And I’m saying that intentionally because inside of Lead from Within and also in my other program Speak Like a Senior Leader. We actually do give you a template for creating your own Me Manual.

However, the important thing is a template is never meant to be fully prescriptive. It’s meant to be a starting point to help you wrap your head around what a structure for this could look like, and to get your creative juices flowing about what you might include. But ultimately, you have to think about what’s going to be the best fit for you, what you need to communicate, and how it might need to be structured for the people you’ll be sharing this with.

So here are the sections I went with based on how my brain works and what I believed my team needed to know the most. So the first section is called my communication style. Then we have things I enjoy. The next section is things I dislike, and then we have important things to know about working with me, and that’s broken down into subsections of how I think and make decisions, how to best support me, and how to deliver quality work.

All right, so let me go back up to my communication style. If you are at all familiar with my work, then you might also know this idea that I have of the four Cs. And this is based on the fact that tons of psychology studies over the past, let’s say five decades, have shown that primarily your communications.

Communication styles break down into two dimensions. One dimension is dominance, the other dimension is sociability. And so you can be high or low on either of those, and in my vernacular, we break that down into the four Cs. You can be a commander who is someone who is highly dominant, lower on sociability.

Cheerleader. Someone who is high on both dominance and sociability. A caretaker, lower on dominance, higher on sociability. And then last is a controller, someone who is low on both dimensions. And so I’m gonna read you my section on my communication style. My typical baseline is a mix between a caretaker and a controller leaning a little more towards a caretaker.

In other words, I tend to naturally skew lower on dominance, lower on directness and speed, and higher on both people and process orientation. Okay. That said, running a company requires that I flex into the commander and cheerleader styles more strongly and more often, even though it’s not my quote unquote default, I have to be focused on outcomes and results to be a steward of what’s best for the business, I need to make quicker decisions with less than perfect information.

I have to be willing to move forward without gathering everyone’s input. And sometimes I can’t incorporate every perspective, even when I do ask for it, because ultimately, as the leader. I need to make the final call. Likewise, especially when in front of our audience, I need to turn up my cheerleader’s side, projecting enthusiasm, energy, possibility, and a little bit of sass and humor.

Another area that takes real muscle building for me, getting out of my comfort zone of execution, and actually doing the work, and instead being the one who defines the direction, my natural inclination is to roll up my sleeves and get things done. But as the leader, I realize it’s imperative for me to spend more time setting the vision, clarifying priorities, even when it feels less tangible than just tackling the task.

This is a growth edge for me because I tend to be more intuitive in how I operate. I’m ambitious, yet I often forget to articulate the what and the why before I just pile on and drive onto the how. Okay, so I just wanna talk through why I wrote this the way I did and, some of this has been my own journey of realizing, you know, as a leader of my company and my organization, how I show up has had to evolve.

And I’ve realized that, you know, in other areas of my life, I may be more caretaker, controller. Caretaker is, someone who wants a lot of context upfront, really wants to sit with you to understand the background and how people are going to be affected. They may be a bit more, cautious and, slower to change.

A controller is someone who’s very methodical, really prioritizes accuracy, precision, sometimes can be a bit perfectionistic and maybe even a bit, colder in terms of their communication style. That may be the way I naturally skew, but the way the business has grown has really required me to step up and embody those other two styles, commander and cheerleader, much more often than I would naturally be inclined to.

And this is important because we’re always talking in both of my programs lead from within and speak like a senior leader about how, yes, we may all have a dominant communication style, just like you have a dominant hand. But the ultimate mark of professional maturity is being able to step into any of the style styles as the situation calls for it.

And so what I have learned as a leader is that I have to. Stay in the commander and the cheerleader much more often. And so I wanted to share this with my team because number one, they may have noticed, I’m sure they did notice a shift in how I make decisions in how I am willing to make, maybe changes much faster than I may have in the past.

How, I may say, you know what, we’re going with this direction. I understand that. People may have different opinions, but this is what we’re going with. ’cause I think this is the best for where we need to head next to make those judgment calls. So I wanted them to have context for why that has happened. And this other part, about, my growth edges, how my natural inclination is to just do the work, jump into the task is because I need them to help keep me in check as far as that goes, and that’s gonna get into these next sections.

So moving on to things I enjoy. Let me read this to you. I said The highest and best use of my time and talents is being the face of the company and the primary idea generator.

I am most valuable when I’m creating content, teaching, performing publicly, and building relationships that expand our reach. This has been tough for me to be able to articulate because, for any of you who relate, it’s sometimes it feels a little uncomfortable to say this, this is what I enjoy doing the most, even when,

officially, other things may fall into your remit or your purview of responsibilities, but this sort of clarity, when I shared this with my team, they, they were like, thank you, this is so helpful because now we know where we can step in to help you stay in those areas. And actually what was really useful is, one of my team members, said,

this is so valuable because I actually really like being in the systems and figuring out all the problems with our software and why things don’t connect and how we build a workflow to automate something. And here I was thinking, no one really wants to do this, right? They, they wanna be also more on the strategic side. And so it, it gave me permission to hand those things off.

All right, moving on to things I dislike. I’m gonna read you my bulleted list here of things I dislike. Having to follow detailed instructions. Troubleshooting or setting up tech, please just make it work for me. I dislike unspoken tension or lingering conflict, and I dislike feeling rushed. My preference is always to be ahead of major due dates.

Okay? These are things that I included here because I asked myself, when have I felt annoyed or frustrated, not even necessarily towards my team, but sometimes even with myself, if I’m working on a task. Or things I avoid doing. That’s really where this following detailed instructions came from because if I have to follow a 20 step SOP, it just, I will put that off forever.

I just wanna be able to dive into the thing and feel my way through the best process. For myself rather than, okay, click here, click there, do this, do that. That really just drains me. So being able to articulate that and also the unspoken tension and lingering conflict, that when, when I think about, nights I have been kept up, whether it’s personally or professionally, it’s because

I feel like relationship matters are unresolved. Maybe someone was upset about something and, I didn’t, I didn’t really ask what was wrong or it didn’t feel like it, it reached a full conclusion. And so this gives me air cover almost to, to say, to come to my team and say, Hey, one thing you know about me is, i, I don’t like when things feel off, so I just wanna check in. Is everything all right? How is this going for you? You have full permission to share that with me, right?

And this last one, feeling rushed. My preference is to always be ahead of major due dates. this is important as well because it contextualizes when I ask my team to, Hey, for this certain

program launch we have coming up, I wanna make sure that we have everything done at least two to three weeks ahead of time. That that is not coming as a surprise. It’s not coming out of a blue. They understand that this was my expectation from the start.

And if you’ve listened to past episodes, then, you know, I like to say, and a belief I have is that it is so much better and easier to set expectations than it is to set boundaries. Boundaries are often reactive and responsive once something has gone wrong, but an expectation is an upfront, guideline or guardrail about how you would like something to go.

Right. So why not just me be clear upfront about, Hey, my preference is we’re at least two weeks ahead. And going back to what I said before, that the Me Manual is meant to be a starting point and a discussion point for compromise this, this allows my team and I to actually, as a result of having this discussion together, we

created this prioritization system. So now in our project management software, we have a format for each task that defines what level of priority it is, and we have a shared definition of priority level one, number two, number three, and how much flexibility there is within that priority level.

We also have a code system, in our project management to show, hey, these are the things that are absolutely time sensitive and cannot be moved or need to be done at a certain time and day. You cannot skip these. Right? So it’s allowed us to shortcut a lot of that and work better together.

Alright, moving on to this section. Important things to know about working with me. The first subsection under this is how I think and make decisions. So let me read you what’s under here. I struggle to generate the big picture and vision in a vacuum. If you need direction or clarity on where we are going or why we are doing something, ask me questions to draw it out.

Next. I have a lot going on, between client calls, developing content media, program delivery, everything else that comes with running a business. My brain is in a lot of different places and my schedule is usually packed. So when you’re communicating with me, please respect my time. Give me the bottom line upfront. Keep things moving. Come with an agenda. Stick to it. End on time. Please be mindful not to ramble or give me excessive background and context when a few sentences will do. Send a few bullets in advance or afterwards to get things out of the way that don’t absolutely need to be done in real time. I know this might feel more transactional than my natural caretaker style would suggest, but that’s what I need from you to protect my capacity.

Third, bring your own thinking. I value expertise and ownership. So don’t just say, what do you think about this? Tell me your thinking first. I don’t need the ins and outs of everything you considered. I just need your main recommendation. I suggest X because of Y. My brain works best when I have something to react to, refine, and build on. I make better decisions when I can react to your informed perspective rather than starting from a blank slate.

Next is I am a verbal processor. I find it valuable to hash things out out loud, talk through options, and explore different directions. But where possible, this should be scheduled as dedicated time, not something that derails an otherwise focused meeting.

If you see me spiraling into processing mode when we should be focused on tactics, it’s okay to say, should we schedule some separate time to talk through this?

I need runway to make decisions, so flag things for me early so I can sit with them. Give me a heads up in advance. Hey, in the next eight weeks we need to be thinking about X. Do you want me to get the ball rolling on that? Do not cry wolf and make everything urgent, but do let me know when something is on the horizon so I can process it in the background.

And the last one in this section is I tend to refine decisions after I make them. I’ll make a judgment call after deliberating on it for a while, but inevitably, once we set the decision in motion, I realized there were more angles or implications I may not have initially considered.

This often leads me to update, evolve, or sharpen that decision or direction. I’m not backtracking or second guessing myself. I’m trying to make the most sound choice possible and prevent issues for you and our customers. So if I come back to you after a day or two with a tweak or clarification, that’s why.

Okay, so in this section about how I think, how I make decisions, I wanna be clear that I didn’t just sit down one day and say, I’m gonna give myself 30 minutes to write my Me Manual. And all of this just came pouring out of me. You could probably hear in how I make decisions. That’s not how I work. Maybe how you work.

It’s not how I work. And so what I did was, for probably weeks in advance. I just had a little note file. It was actually an Asana task, and I had an Asana task where I would brain dump some of these things, in there as they came up to me. So this idea of being verbal processor, Struggling to generate the big picture and vision in a vacuum.

That one actually came about because, my team gave me feedback at the end of the year, which was so helpful to say, Hey, we really need to understand where things are going so we can help offer ideas or streamline things, or whatever it may be. And, and I said, I’m happy to give that to you. Actually, why I haven’t is because that’s hard for me to articulate and so it would be very valuable to me if you asked me questions. It’s hard for me to just sit down with a blank document and say, here’s our vision and here’s where we’re going. Again, I just don’t, my, my brain just doesn’t work that way. I have more of an editor mindset. This may come from, writing two books now, but it is much easier for me to edit than it is to sit with the blank page. And so you heard that running through all of these different bullets here. and this runway to make decisions. It’s interesting on this one, someone on my team came to me, this week and said, Hey, I know you like to have some runway to make decisions, so I wanted to get this in front of you now.

Here’s what we’re gonna need to decide in the coming weeks. Here’s a preview so you can start percolating on this. And that was such a great example of the Me Manual in action that it allowed, it allowed them, ultimately, they will get better results from me and for the project, for the thing they are working on, because I’ve had time to sit with it and think about it and it just creates a better dynamic for both of us that, instead of them kind of what I would perceive as springing this on me in a meeting where I’m like, you know what? I actually need more time to think about this. And then they have to say, well, that’s gonna set our deadline back a couple of weeks. Now, now we can both be on the same page. Alright. All right.

The last one I wanted to underscore here was this last bullet about I tend to refine decisions after I make them. This one I phrased very specifically because for a long time I beat myself up for this. This I will make a decision and then I come back and say, actually there’s this other piece to it. And, for a long time I blamed myself as backtracking, waffling, you know, being inconsistent, which to me, I really, what my, one of my top strengths and values in life is being disciplined and consistent. So it was almost against my identity to feel like I was being an inconsistent leader and jerking my team around.

But when I realized actually, this is just part of my decision making process. I’m not changing what my core decision was. I’m not making a 180 and saying, actually, you know what? I said this, but actually I wanna do that. Usually it’s these, slight pivots where I’ll realize. Hey, after I thought this through more, there was this consideration or this use case that I didn’t think about, and so the way I phrased it as refinement instead of second guessing, that’s important because the way you phrase things in your Me Manual, it makes a difference for how other people respond to them.

If I said, yeah, I can be a little flaky when I make decisions, I can backtrack on what I say and then I may say something later. How do you think the team is going to receive that? They’re not going to feel great about that. But when I approach it as this is a refinement, which is what it truly is, that, you know, we teach people how to treat us and so they respond to that, that confidence and conviction I have in, in how I am approaching that.

Okay. Let’s move on to how to best support me. I’ll read you the bullets in this section. One of the best ways to support me is to take work off of my plate proactively. Don’t always ask me if I want you to handle something, coordinate with the rest of the team to handle it and let me know it’s done.

Then brief me on what you did and why. This frees up my mental bandwidth. I may not 100% agree with how you did it, and that’s okay. I’m not going to get mad if you didn’t do it right or exactly how I wanted. I consider it a good opportunity to do better for next time. What matters most to me is that you took ownership, you made a thoughtful decision, and can explain your reasoning, and then we can course correct from there.

Shield me from negative, critical, mean, or rude comments, I will ruminate on them and it sucks my energy away from the more important work I need to focus on. That said, if you are hearing or seeing a pattern, bring it to my attention so we can decide if it’s something we need to address. I produce a lot of volume. I am generating ideas. I’m creating new content constantly. I count on you to turn that into systems and infrastructure. Document and build a repeatable process.

Likewise, this business requires us to be responsive to the market, to experiment with new ideas, to move quickly on opportunities. I appreciate it when you’re open to that pace and you’re willing to try new things, but I also need you to periodically check in and ask, do we still need to be doing this?

You are often closer to the day-to-day and the data and execution than I am. So don’t assume I just know what’s performing well or isn’t performing. Tell me what you’re observing, bring a point of view about whether we should keep going, pivot or kill it. In order to keep deadlines moving, if you need extra time with me such as, you know, a 20, 30 minute touch base, just ask for it.

Alright, so these, these were, some of the things that I thought about. The question I asked myself for this section was when I have felt like things are moving most smoothly, I was really happy or felt like we were firing on all cylinders. What was happening then? How was I operating and how was I interacting with the team?

And so some of these, especially the one about shielding me from negative, critical, mean, or rude comments that has emerged as the business has grown, as we’re on more platforms, as my social media and my email marketing gets more visibility, right? The, the criticism also grows exponentially with that as well.

And something that I have realized is I was the one checking every message, responding to everything, fielding every single email, and it was 110% derailing me and draining me. And most of it was not even actionable feedback. Most of it was trolling or just people being mean and rude to be mean and rude. And so that allowed us to put up a layer between me and the team.

But putting this in my Me Manual, it, it means that they don’t come to me as much anymore and say, Hey, we got a comment about X, Y, and Z. Do you wanna deal with that? Because they know, unless it is turned into a pattern that is legitimate and has some, meatiness to it, that’s the time to bring it to my attention.

Okay. And this says more about how I want them to be operating. My, I’m looking to them to build the systems and the infrastructure. I’m the face, I’m the idea generator, but, that is a obligation and expectation I have of them. And giving them permission. If you need, you know, because we do tend to work so quickly and we are a fully virtual team,

I was sensing that there may be some over reliance on email, Slack, using our project management software instead of just saying, Hey, do you have 10 minutes? We can talk this out and knock this out in that time. So we wanted to give people permission that if that’s something you need, just ask me for it. Because ultimately I’m trying to prioritize for us moving quickly and getting things done well, and if that’s what does that, great. Okay.

Last section. How to deliver quality work. I have high standards for client facing work and for good reason. Our reputation, our credibility, our client’s trust depend on the quality of what we put out into the world. So I expect you to follow any instructions provided and to double check your work before it gets to me.

This is about professionalism and respecting our audience’s investment in us. There is a low tolerance for repeated mistakes, especially when documentation or precedent exist. If we’ve documented how to do something or if we’ve done it before and there’s a clear example to follow, I expect you to reference that and get it right.

Making a mistake the first time or two is understandable. It’s totally fine, and how we learned and build those systems. The first time we do something, especially if it’s content related, expect revisions and feedback. This is the most true for messaging and marketing where I’m very particular because we have a lot of nuance in how we approach topics.

Our voice, our frameworks, our perspectives, our what, differentiate us in getting that right takes iteration. This is not a reflection of your abilities. It is me safeguarding our brand and making sure the deliverable accomplishes what we need it to. That said, if I’m not clear or forthcoming in my feedback, ask me why I wanted certain changes so you can learn.

Okay, this one about delivering quality work. One thing I like about the Me Manual is that, I feel like it, I can be much more direct in the Me Manual than I may be in just everyday conversation. And so it’s been great for me to be able to set these expectations so clearly and directly in written form and then have my team go through them on their own time.

instead of that me feeling like a militant as I’m giving these to them. And notice, again, when I say I have high standards for client facing work and for good reason, I hear this a lot from the people we work with in all of our programs, that I have high standards and I feel frustrated that my team doesn’t follow them.

but I don’t want to talk about those standards because I don’t wanna be perceived as difficult or a micromanager or a perfectionist. So notice I am saying why we do this? This is not about me. Just being difficult for difficult sake because I am neurotic. This is about professionalism and it’s respecting that people often pay a meaningful investment to work with us.

And this one about if this is the first time we’re doing something, especially if it’s content related, expect a lot of revisions and feedback. This, came about as something I learned the hard way because whenever I work with someone on content, whether it’s a copywriter, it’s someone on my, my core team, it was always shocking to them how involved I was, especially with the first drafts.

And, you know what? I just wanna get that out upfront because it is one of those areas that I want to stay very heavily involved in that I feel it is very important for me to stay heavily involved in. So, you know what, I’m just gonna say that right up front. That with, anything content or writing related, you’re going to get a lot of revisions from me. Don’t be surprised when that happens. And again, contextualizing it in, this is why it’s important from a business perspective. This is not just about me having these preferences that I expect you to follow for no reasons there. There is a true purpose behind this.

I would love to hear what you thought of this, what stood out to you about my manual and what it sparked in you for creating your own. I’m very active on LinkedIn, so come over there and message me to let me know. Now, we talk a lot inside of Lead from Within about how you have more power to shape the dynamics around you than you probably realize.

So even if you never literally hand your Me Manual to someone, if you never give them the document and say, Hey, here’s my Me Manual, let’s discuss this. Even if you never do that, the act of going through this exercise, it has the potential to completely transform how you show up because it forces you through doing the work of articulating your preferences, your boundaries, your expectation, and that clarity.

And assuredness. It comes through in everything you do. It allows you to start saying things like, here’s how I would prefer to handle this. Does that work for you? Or, I’d be able to deliver this sooner if we had X, and we can go ahead and get that underway unless you object to that.

This, this action of creating systems, building clarity, operating in a fundamentally different way than you did at earlier stages in your career, this is the only way you will ever be able to truly scale yourself and advance into bigger roles, to take on new and more exciting work that actually challenges you. And to grow the people around you, which I know if you are listening to this, you care a lot about. Or even leave your current organization and team on good footing so you can pursue your next opportunity without guilt or just feeling like you’re leaving them in a lurch.

You can’t do any of that if you are still operating the way you did when your scope was smaller, the stakes were lower, and you could just keep everything in your head. The rules of what it takes to get ahead and what it takes to be successful, once you hit that mid-career ceiling, they completely change.

And so that’s exactly why I’m hosting that free live class on March 10th called Rise Into Your Next Big Role. Make sure you head to that link in the show notes. You go to melodywilding.com/masterclass to grab your spot. Thanks for tuning in today. That’s all for now. I will catch you in the next episode.