Shedding the Bitch Radio - RICHtip Tuesday, Your Questions My Tips

Hello and welcome to Shedding the Bitch Radio, where you can discuss, debate, and get advice on how to discover and shed the bitches of angst, attitude, and negative mindsets so you can realize your dreams and life purpose and create and accelerate the riches you want in life. Join us here live every Tuesday at noon Eastern and dialogue with us at 818-572-2910. You can also chat with us at blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitch or share your stories on our website sheddingthebitch.com. Whatever the bitch is that's holding you back from living your life to your fullest, it's not worth giving up the riches in life that you deserve. So call in now and let Bernadette Boas know what's holding you back.

818-572-2910. I am so happy that you are joining us here on Rich Tip Tuesday. Woohoo! I need to get a horn or something. But it's Rich Tip Tuesday, which means for any of you novices or virgins out there, which means we take the questions, stories, and challenges that you have been sending in on any one of our many social media platforms. It could be Twitter, could be our Facebook page, it could be LinkedIn, it could be directly to me. I get emails from you with your questions, stories, and challenges. And throughout the month, I'm actually taking those questions that you're providing and I'm answering them and providing some tips and advice and tough love each Friday on our Shedding the Bitch Facebook page. Then at the end of the month, the last Tuesday of the month, which is today, I take those, all those questions again and any new ones, or if any of you want to call in to 1-818-572-3000, 2019. I then take them and I drill into them even further because you can only get so much on a Facebook post, right? Let alone 140 characters on Twitter. So I drill into them even further, hoping to maybe give you some additional insights as well as opening it up for the rest of the community to learn from. And today we have a lot of specific business career, um, um, kind of growing your business type of questions. So it's gonna be a great program. And, uh, again, last Tuesday of each month. I'm also videotaping today, so, uh, what will happen there is not only will you have an opportunity to see my lovely face during the program, but what I do is I splice up the Rich Tip questions and then pose them out and present them out on our Shedding the Bits YouTube page. So at any point in time, if you need a quick, you know, 5-minute, 8-minute type of tip or piece of advice on a particular question or challenge, then you'd be able to get them right there on our Facebook page. Now be sure though— or I'm sorry, on our YouTube page. Be sure though Like us on our Facebook page, Shedding the Bitch. Like us on YouTube. Subscribe to our Shedding the Bitch radio program on BlogTalkRadio. Just go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitch. Make sure you subscribe because you get all the information and the announcements in regards to upcoming shows, and you can stay tuned to when our Rich Tip Tuesday is on Shedding the Bitch radio. And not only that, but you'll get a lot of other good information, a lot of tips, advice Like I said, I like to be a little bit tough love on you because I just know for myself, unless I get a quick kick in the butt, I might not take any action. And this program and everything that I do with you is all about getting you acting and creating some great results in your life. Okay, the other thing too, I started this a couple programs ago, is I'm actually live on Facebook And should you pose, wanna pose a question, pose a story, pose a challenge out on Facebook, you know, comment to me, whatever the case might be, go to Facebook, our Shedding the Bitch page, and I'm gonna be watching that throughout the program because I'm also gonna be referring to your questions and comments that you've been sending in all month so we can address them right here on Shedding the Bitch Radio, okay? Another couple quick announcements, obviously Rich Tip Friday is coming right around the corner, so continue to send your questions, comments, and stories. The month of April, oh my God, do you believe basically first quarter if you look at it from a business sense, but 3 months of the year is already gone. Ugh, ugh, ugh, where's my life going to? Anyway, so first quarter is almost up, it's April. Next week happens to be, next Tuesday at noon when I join you again, it happens to be April Fools. Now I'm not gonna play any tricks on you, maybe, but at the same time what we're gonna talk about all the month of April kicking off next Tuesday is just kind of getting over the bullies and the bitching and the bossy people that are out there. What can we do? What solutions? I don't wanna hear any bitching and complaining, that's not what we're about here. We're about solutions, we're about actions, we're about things that we each individually could be doing and then supporting one another in doing in order to kind of eradicate the onslaught of bitching and complaining and lashing out on people and just going about life, going about who you are in a very negative and loud Thanks, Charlie, that was a good segue. A loud way. So the whole month of April is going to be focused on that. Next week we're going to start with, you know, who are you kidding? You know, bitches and bossy people think that— and I can speak from experience, people— they think that they are gaining people's respect, they're commanding people, getting, you know, commanding people to do what they want them to do. And bottom line is you're not getting anything out of anybody. Yes, you might get what you want materialistically, but apart from that, you're not gaining anything from who you are and the contribution that you truly want to be making to the world. So next week we're going to kick off with a month-long conversation about what can we do to, you know, work on ourselves and then help other people work on themselves. To eradicate just the onslaught of all the junk and the crap that are out there. So we're gonna talk a lot about that. So I won't take up our time with Rich Tip Tuesday all about it, but stay tuned next Tuesday, April 1st. We're gonna kick that off all month long, and I even have some special guests lined up. One of them is Cheryl Axarod of the Axarod Law Firm. And she and I are gonna get in it about, uh, bambossy.com, even sheddingthebitch.com. Are those type of campaigns effective when it comes to trying to eradicate, um, how the perceptions— the perceptions and the realizations of not only women and how women go about trying to command respect and trying to command position and power and influence But at the same time, whether or not they're going about it the right way, what do we do to make sure we're all going about it the most effective, the most successful, the most prosperous, and the most supportive way? So that's what month of March— uh, April is going to be all about. Okay, so stay tuned for all of that. Let's see, what other announcements, what other announcements? Oh, I want to thank our sponsors. That would be nice. Um, our sponsors, I call them They're my partners, they're the people that really, you know, have been with the Shannyn the Bitch community, helping me drive out whatever it is that you need from us, and they've been with me all along. So we have Total Communications Coach. You can go to totalcommunicationscoach.com, and that's Joan Curtis, and she's just, you know, fabulous, and I talk about her all the time, but she is one of our partners and overall supporters of our community, as well as TSR Tax. It is that time of year, so TSR Tax, and you can go to tsrtax.com. Debbie Snelling is also a critical part of what we are doing here at Shannon Novich Community, as is Voice Work On Demand, Sandy Weaver Carmen, as is Epiphany Consulting, which is Rick Meekins. And let me think, who else do we have? And a whole bunch of others. But if you want to be a part of the community, if you want to be a sponsor, if you want to have some airtime, so to speak, then reach out to me at BernadetteBoas@sheddingthebitch.com and just, you know, put in the subject line sponsorship or partner or some, some comment like that. Leave your name and contact information, and I'd love to get back to you and talk to you about it. All right. Okay, I think that is it for all of our announcements. So Rich Tip Tuesday, woo-hoo! I'm telling you, I have to get a horn. I have to get some sort of whistle, something. What, what ideas do you have? Okay, so we're gonna take the questions that you've been presenting me. I'm gonna be keeping track of Facebook, so if you have any comments while— if you're listening to this live, And if you are not, because a large part of our community either waits for the videos that come out or they even just go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitch and they download the program right from BlogTalk. You can go to iTunes, you can even go to sheddingthebitch.com to our radio channel, and you can find our programs basically just about anywhere. And a good amount of our community listens to us in archive, so they download and take me with them. And that's great too. And what if you do, but yet you have a question, you have a comment, you didn't understand something? Go to Facebook, go to Twitter, send me an email, and just let me know what it is that, that I can do for you.

All right?

Or maybe it was one of my guests, which I get a lot of that as well. Okay, so I'm gonna take a look over at our Facebook page to begin with and just see if anybody right off the bat has comments. If not, I'm going to go down to LaShonda's question. Alright, so LaShonda from Mosaic Hub, if you're not familiar with it, just go to mosaichub.com. She had a question. She has a leadership consulting firm and she's wondering where, what social media platforms would be best for her to not only kind of communicate and educate and get her message out there, but also to find potential clients. Now, haha, she lucked out, which I told her, since I'm a leadership consultant and a great part of what I do as well is the things that she wants to be doing. So what I basically told her would be, obviously from a professional perspective, LinkedIn is the place to go. Now, that's not to say Facebook and Twitter are not professional. That's not what I mean. What I mean is if her client base is more in the corporate or the business, even like small to medium size, even corporate size, one of her first places she wants to get involved in to communicate her expertise, to demonstrate what her skill set is, what her talents are, is to get actively involved on LinkedIn. And I would propose the same for any of you as well. And it doesn't matter if it's a, you know, a solopreneur type of business or you're part of a larger organization. The one beautiful thing about LinkedIn and what it's providing you is a platform to not only contribute and serve other people through your expertise and your knowledge and your giving through the groups, through status updates, through just connecting one-on-one. But it more so is providing you a database, almost like a Rolodex of potential clients that if you do your homework right, you do your research, you build a relationship, you can actually find business through LinkedIn. But you have to do it right. Now that's not her question, so I'm not going to spend time there. But for anyone like LaShonda who is trying to figure out where she should be communicating, educating, and marketing what it is that she does, one, and if it's to a professional nature, meaning if it's B2B, business to business, if you're a business and you're serving other businesses at, in any capacity, in any size, in any industry, LinkedIn is a place for you. If you're looking for consumers, the end consumer being somebody that walks into a store, walks into a restaurant, goes into a nail salon, you know, even goes into like a printing press, maybe they're a soccer mom, then a Twitter or Facebook— you have to do your research to figure out where your customers hanging out, so to speak— but of the popular, most popular ones you'll find them there. But then there's smaller ones. There's Reddit and there's DiggIt and there's Google+ is becoming, you know, more pronounced. But I did mention to her, 'cause she asked about those, I mentioned to her I personally being one that works B2B, being one that works with corporate clients, I don't find corporate out on Reddit or Google+ even right now. I really do truly find them on LinkedIn Maybe MosaicHub, I mentioned them, maybe Quero, maybe SkillsetPages or SkillPages.com. Those are places for professional people owning your own business or not to go out and kind of build a profile, build a resume, have their business card out there, all right. You have to understand who your target is very specifically and very well to then decide which social media platform or which few you should be participating. Spending your time on platforms that your customers not residing at is not, you know, a good use of your time or your money or your effort. So have a really good definition of who your client is and then go and research where they're hanging out. You can even pose a survey question like SurveyMonkey free survey and LaShonda, for instance, you could be asking your potential target audience where they hang out. That would be an idea too. So that's what I provided to LaShonda for a rich tip this month when it pertains to as a leadership consulting firm that she has, where could she, what social media platforms could she be spending time and contributing to in order to promote herself, her business, and the opportunity to engage with potential clients. Alright, so you're listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio. This is Rich Tip Tuesday, which means I am taking your questions, stories, and challenges, whether live today or throughout the month of March, and the last Tuesday of each month I then bring them here to Shedding the Bitch Radio so we can delve into them even further than I could be doing on a Facebook or Twitter post. And making sure that you have what you need to take action on that question, challenge, or story that you presented.

Alright?

So, our next rich tip question doesn't come from anybody. I think I found this actually on LinkedIn. It was, someone posted a question on LinkedIn, didn't make a note of who it was, but basically the question was, "Spring fever, it's here." So how do you stay focused? How do you stay energized? How do you stay motivated to work when finally, after such a nasty winter— they didn't say this, but I'm adding it— after such a nasty winter, the sun is finally out, the warmth is finally out, and it's just a glorious time of year, and staying inside after being inside for weeks and months on end is hard. So what can you do? What tips do I have in order for you to stay focused on what it is that you need to get done, whether in your own business, whether for another company, or whether it is that you're just hanging at home with the kids and you just need to get some things done. How do you stay focused? So let me see what I provided to them. Um, you know, I, and I truly believe this, the rich tip I would provide is the key factor in staying focused is acknowledging that you're not, or that you might not be, knowing that, for instance, spring is coming around the corner or it's here, and therefore you're going to find a hard time being focused when your bike's sitting outside or your dog is you know, at home, how, you know, therefore that you know that there's distractions that could interrupt you. That's the first key, is to recognize and acknowledge and be aware of what are those things that sabotage your focus or your motivation or your energy towards something. And because in the middle of winter, you could be sitting down and acknowledging those things and coming up with solutions to how to handle them. And that's for anything. If you can stay aware and stay ahead of the game, so to speak, when it comes to what you know sabotages you in any way, shape, or form, spring fever or not, and you acknowledge them, you lay them down, and you come up with a solution for each one of them, whether it has to do with eating, whether it has to do with, um, going out too many nights of the week when you have so much to do, whether it's you know, you're nervous about picking up the phone and making a cold call. In this case, whether or not you know you're gonna get distracted because of spring fever, acknowledging that those are distractions and those are energy suckers is your first step. You can write them out and then you can come up with solutions for them. And basically what I mentioned to this individual— I really do wish I had a name— but I said, okay, so once you've done that then be okay with taking a timeout so you can take in, you know, this, the beautiful weather, the beautiful sun, the beautiful time of year. But that said, you have to, you have to structure yourself. You have to hold yourself accountable and limit yourself to a certain time block. And you want to determine that before you go out. You want to say, okay, I'm going to go out and walk the dog for 20 minutes and I'm going to be right back at my desk and doing what I need to do. Or I work for a company and I'm at the headquarters and I'm going to go and stand outside or maybe take a walk around the building, and then once I do that, I'm going to come right back in. Um, you can even set your phone alarms. People have no excuses anymore that they don't know what time it is or that they didn't have an alarm clock because everyone's phone has some sort of application or gadget that allows you to do that. And I do that quite often. I do that quite often. So you can set the alarm, put it for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, whatever the case might be. Do what you need to do to kind of get yourself out of that distraction, out of that, you know, demotivator. Because if all of a sudden you you force yourself not to acknowledge that, you know, time sucker, that spring fever, then it's just like a diet. When you deprive yourself of something, you're just going to want it that much more, and you're not going to have any willpower when it comes to that 5-minute restriction, or maybe you said 15-minute restriction. You're going to go, "Oh, what the heck, I'm just going to, you know, bail out for the day." and grab my bike and go hiking or mountain biking. So acknowledge it, set a boundary around it, allow yourself to enjoy it, but at the same time make sure you have some sort of tool or some sort of alarm or something that says, okay, you're done, turn around, I gotta have— I have to go back in. That would be my one big rich tip when it comes to how do you deal with productivity issues and focus and energy when spring fever has hit. Alright, I hope that answers your question and provides you a valuable tip to use. This is Shedding the Bitch Radio. You're listening to Bernadette Boas, and I am taking your questions, stories, and challenges. It's Rich Tip Tuesday, and I am drilling into them even further than what I could do on a Facebook or Twitter post. And providing you some additional tips and advice and tough love so you can ensure that you're taking action in creating a rich business, career, or life. Alright, and I am watching Facebook, so let me just take a look and see if anybody has any— whoops, I'm always afraid I'm going to disconnect. You know how sensitive BlogTalk is with— for me. Let me just see if I can see any activity, if anything is going on. There are a lot of people looking, but no one's— I find it funny that no one, you know, wants to have a question. I mean, they're getting free advice, right? You're getting, you know, I'm a decently paid hourly consultant. Take advantage of me, will you please, with your questions, stories, or challenges. All right, let's see what else is next. Oh, what is next? Okay, this touches on the spring fever. So our rich tip, a rich tip for today is: what is your number one time management tip to keep your work and life balanced? So again, didn't catch— oh, Jodi, Jodi, um, Jodi, and everyone else out there. First off, there's no such thing as balance. Get rid of that idea, because if you get rid of that idea, then you won't struggle as much trying to figure out how do you keep all the balls up in the air. Alright? If you're a good juggler, you might be able to do that, but give yourself a break. Forgive yourself for every once in a while one of those balls, plates, whatever you got tossed around up there falls and you're no longer, as you say, in balance. Try to get all of them to be integrated. Try to get at least some degree of all areas of your life pumping and humming, because at least if they're pumping and humming, you know you're moving forward and you're not just either, you know, staying, you know, complacent in your current space space, or you're not moving backwards. But get over the idea of balance because it just doesn't happen. It's just impossible to do it. Um, you know, they say that, you know, a woman's career is going to suffer, their family is going to suffer, or something's going to suffer when they're trying to do everything and they're trying to be Superwoman. And I think if they try to say that they're going to do all of it and they're going to do all of it perfectly, you're right, they're going to fail. Anybody's going to But if you say that you're going to really, you know, put effort and prioritization and focus on key areas and you're going to do the best you can in those areas, then you're working toward integration, you're working toward kind of more of a holistic approach as opposed to expecting that all of them are going to be balanced, means they're kind of even. It's impossible. It's a muscle-up. However, that said, that said, I do need to give you a tip. So the tip, first tip was get over being balanced, try to just get integration of all those areas of your life. But the next tip would be, I am huge and talk about it periodically on the program, I'm huge at time blocking. And what I mean by that is basically making sure that all the activities that you have to do, all the responsibilities you have, all the commitments that you have, all the tasks that you need to you need to complete, and I kinda look at things on a weekly basis, that they're all blocked out, that there's time allotted for all of them, and then making sure that you literally put them on your calendar. I'll never— well, I don't forget, and I mean all of it, that every time I walk into my sister's home, she has 5 children and then, you know, herself and her husband and she has a calendar on the wall, and I will look at that calendar and become overwhelmed because there's so much that she, you know, that she's doing. I mean, there's so many things that those kids are doing, and there's so many activities that she and her husband are involved in, and yet she is the most organized and most focused and most timely and most effective mom, wife, sister because she time blocks everything. She makes sure everything has its place on her calendar. So whether it's, let's see, your balance, you know, you want balance, right? Or what we'll call integration, and that's going to include your finances. So your budget, your savings, whatever the focus might be around your finances, around your career, your business, whatever that might be, around your relationships inside, outside, friends, lovers, family, it doesn't matter. All of those things get— come into play. It might be your spirituality, whether you, you know, go to something structured like a church, or you just want to meditate and pray and make sure you have time allotted for that. Then there's your fitness, there's your health, You know, there's a whole kind of, you know, kind of Pandora's box of things in one's life that they may want to focus on. So say you have something in all of those things and, and you're trying to figure out how to balance all of those things. Make sure they are blocked out on your calendar. Make sure you allot time, whether it's going to the gym, whether it's walking the dog, whether it's sitting down and writing in your journal, whether it's praying or meditating, whether it's going to work or going to clients or spending time writing or blogging. Maybe you have to do some networking events. Maybe you need to go and visit the parents or some family member. Maybe you have to go grocery shopping, doing your errands. Block it out on your calendar, and whether or not you use it to execute against, but at least block it out and dedicate and assign time Specifically to all of those activities and treat them like appointments. And this is one thing that I do work with my clients on is they'll sit there and tell me that they're not making enough money, that they are not earning enough income, they're not finding clients, and then I have them do this exercise and most of their 9-to-5 day, 9-to-5 day is doing all personal errands. And then I say, oh, are your clients available or your prospects available at night or the weekends? And they're like, no, they work 9 I work 9 to 5 on Monday through Friday. And I'm like, then why are you not working 9 to 5 Monday through Friday? So, if you really want to find productivity, a lot more time in your week, a lot more opportunities, a lot more so-called balance or integration, then make sure you're realistic about where your time is being spent and then what you're allocating to various activities and events, and— but yet schedule it so you have focus on all those areas. And if you can, you know, adhere to that schedule, then you will find that integration that you're looking for in your life. Alright, I hope that helped, Jodi. And for everyone else out there, that was our Rich Tip, and you are listening to Shading the Bitch Radio. This is Bernadette Boas, and I am taking your Rich Tip questions for the month of March and providing you a drill-down, even more detail than I can give you on Facebook or Twitter. But yet, if you have questions, stories, or challenges, post them on any one of our social networks, especially our Shedding the Bitch Facebook page. And then each Friday I spend the day on Facebook sending you out tips, advice, and tough love regarding your question, story, or challenge. We bring them right here on the last Tuesday of every month so we can drill into them even further. Okay, so that was our Rich Tip as it pertained to another time management question, which I get quite a bit. Alright, so let's see, this was a question from LinkedIn. It was actually a number of people contributing to this question, and I thought it was important So I posted it on our Facebook page during one of our Fridays. And it was all around, is there a, is there a danger, is there a danger to having and bringing humor into the workplace, especially if you're a woman. So the emphasis was on a woman. So the Rich Tip question was, is there danger to bringing humor into the workplace as a woman? And my tip was more of a question. And, and those of you who follow me a great deal, especially in writing online, you'll notice that when you ask me a question, I often answer it with a question because I want you to find your own answers. I'm more than happy to give you tips, advice, and tough love. At the same time, if I can get you thinking and changing maybe your thought process, it will help you find the answers for yourself. But until you do, I'm more than happy to provide you them. So, is there a danger? The first question I did pose back was, are you naturally funny? Is that a part of who you are? Because if so, then leaving that part of you at home or out at the front door of your office is not being true to who you really are and is limiting what other people and how other people experience you in the workplace. So if you are naturally funny, or even if you're not naturally funny, like people actually laugh with you, and yet you're just a goof, or you know, every once in a while you might have some dry sense of humor that you throw out there, I find it to be perfectly okay. Laughter is part of life, and if we can't laugh at work, then, you know, the ultimatum is that we're just either crying or we're being horrified or we're just being complacent or we're being very robotic. And I'm not sure any of us want a work environment like that. Now, that said, I think just the trick is, especially for women, and this question was geared toward women, and I'll kind of assume it's also geared for women that might be in a very male-heavy, whether it's an organization or an industry or team, and they're concerned that, you know, their sense of humor or them just joking and kind of goofing off with the guys will be perceived improperly, incorrectly, unprofessionally, whatever the case might be. And again, it comes down to what is the content. If the guys are sitting around, you know, the water cooler, even in a conference room, and they're talking about, you know, the strip club they visited or even took a client to, or they're talking about their trip to Vegas or to the to some sort of retreat or conference or business trip, and they're, you know, kind of getting smutty about it and shady about it. And with all due respect, guys, ya do, alright? I, you know, I would never recommend a woman to kind of try to jump in and engage in that conversation and try to be funny about it or try to joke about it. I'd also tell them not to get all, like, worked up about it. If you're offended, you should raise that up At the same time, don't try to infuse humor, one, where it just isn't needed. It's not the right time, it's not the right place, not with the right people. Don't try to infuse humor that is just to kind of play along, that isn't congruently aligned to who you are, what your values are, forgetting whether you're funny or not. And I just wouldn't do it just to be, you know, just to do it, just to be funny. But if it naturally becomes part of the conversation, if it naturally becomes part of the situation you're trying to create or the atmosphere you're trying to create, then please bring humor, you know, into the workplace. Because I think too often, you know, too many things are taken too seriously that people just have a hard time letting go. And I was that person. I was that person who, you know, would have fought you every step of the way to just kind of get kind of lackadaisical, what I perceived lackadaisical, joking, you know, kind of not serious. I would have been the first person to kind of act on that. And yet, you know, that's when you hear a lot of like, oh, she's a bitch, or he's uptight, or what a prick, or whatever the case might be, right? So humor, yes, bring humor. Make sure it's appropriate, make sure it's authentic, and I don't even care if you— if it isn't funny or not, because if you think it's funny and/or you intended it to be funny but the room didn't, oh well. But yes, just make sure that it's done appropriately. All right, so that was Rich Ship question about, is it dangerous to bring humor into the workplace. And I think— I'm not sure who, because that doesn't have a name next to it— for that question. All right, this is Rich Tip Tuesday on Shedding the Bitch Radio, and I'm Bernadette Boas. Thank you so much for joining. I am live on Facebook. If you're listening live, I am live on Facebook, and I'm taking a look for your questions, your stories, your comments, your whatever you want. And if not, and you're listening, maybe you're listening to this in archive, and maybe you have a question, you have a story, you have a challenge, you didn't understand something, go back to Shedding the Bitch Facebook page, like us, and make a comment and let me know, and I'll make sure that it gets addressed. Alright, so Rich Tip, our next question is Oh, Bobby T. What options do I have if I don't agree with my yearly performance review or the bonus that I received? What options are there? Now, it is that time of year. It's March, and it is that time of year for yearly performance reviews. I'm sorry, I'm just going to look to see if I can find his specific. I apologize, Bobby, if you're a woman and I'm thinking you're a man. Okay, I can't find it. But I mean, I know the answer. But so, what options do I have if I don't agree with my performance review or the bonus that I received? Well, there's a few things you need to think about. So my Ridge Tip to you would be, one is I would hope you were able to address those disagreements while you were there in the performance review. So being that you're asking me, I'm assuming it's post I'm assuming you've already gotten up and walked out, and I don't know what happened while you were in that room. Okay, so my advice is going to be proactive as far as what you could have done going in, what you could have done while you were there, and then what you can do now that you've up and left. Alright, so let's start backwards because since you've up and left and you're not there anymore, your options are this. I'm gonna assume you didn't agree and you told them that you didn't agree and you didn't sign off on it, you didn't kind of like declare guilty, so to speak, and you left it open for further discussion, because I would hope you did. I would hope that if you didn't agree with it, you weren't happy with it, If you didn't get it resolved while you were with them, I would hope that you said, "You know what, I need to, I need to kind of walk away from this. I need to provide some follow-up and some documentation or some feedback to support why I don't agree or disagree with your, your input to me." And in this case, disagree. And so you've opened, you know, you open the door to a to be able to go back and kind of show or demonstrate why you disagree with your performance review. And if that's the case, then what you should be doing is you should— the options you have is to certainly challenge the performance review, go through the performance review, and they didn't say— the individual asking this question didn't say whether or not it was a self-review first. And then the manager's review, and that's where the disconnect is. Or maybe it's straight manager's review, never a self-review. And in either one of those cases, you just need to show facts. You have to remove the emotion from the conversation, and you have to simply say— and hopefully your goals and objectives and expectations were documented, and if they weren't, the next time you need to be sure that any of your goals and objectives and expectations are documented and the two of you, you and your boss, have sat down and agreed and you understand what it is that they're looking for from each one of those goals and measurements. And then that way you could be tracking them all year long and even going back to the boss, so to speak, and saying, okay, so, you know, this is what we set out to do, this is what This is what I've done. What do you think? Where can I improve? What needs to go next? And so your actual performance review should never be a surprise. Your performance review should never have a disconnect in any way, shape, or form. I'm leaving out the money for now.

Okay?

So they should never— if you're doing it the proper way and if your boss and manager and company is initiating performance reviews appropriately, appropriately, as long as there are performance reviews, then the process should be your goals and objectives and measurements are documented up front. You review them with them, ensure that you have an understanding of what it is that your boss and manager and company is expecting of you. You, you kind of sign off on those and you agree to them. And then whether it's monthly, quarterly, I would initiate it yourself first and then whatever the company process is, but you can't blame the process if you're not even taking initiative on it yourself. So for instance, a lot of companies don't do quarterly reviews. They don't even, you know, touch base with you throughout the year. I kind of blame that on the manager more so even than the company, but that said, I find it The ultimate person responsible for it is the employee. They can go and say to their boss, "You know what, I'd like to sit down and talk through, you know, what my performance is, what we've set out to do, what I have done, and where I need to go from here." And that can be done all year long, so then your performance review is not a surprise. Right now, what you should be doing post, because now you've disagreed with it, you've up and left, I'm assuming you've let the door open. You, you're going back and you're compiling a rebuttal, so to speak. You're compiling your evaluation against your goals, measurements, or that feedback that your boss provided you, and you're taking it back to them and having a very mature professional conversation to kind of show them. Now, if they continue to disagree and you continue to disagree and there isn't kind of a sign-off, so to speak, then you should be getting HR involved and asking them to facilitate kind of this review process, alright? But you need to kind of bring back the evidence, bring back the business case, bring back the achievements, the facts, against what your performance review view was and presenting that back to your employee, or I'm sorry, I'm sorry, to your manager. Now, as far as the money, money is always a tricky question or a tricky thing because a lot of times the managers don't even have a say in it. A lot of times there's a percentage or a dollar figure passed down from the top, and that's just the way it goes. Now, you could ask how they come about these numbers. How did they come about this this percentage? What do I need to do in order to get another couple of percent? So you don't have to be happy with it, but one, you want to understand, understand how they came about it. And then two, you want to, you want to ask, can you know, can you be— excuse me— can you be considered for an adjustment? And if not right then and there, The next question you should have is, then what can I be doing between now and say 6 months to then bring myself to that, that other percentage? Because that's what I was expecting. That's where I feel that I contributed my value. That's where the results kind of sit, is not at a flat, which a lot of them are. I really believe I went over and above. This is why I believe I did. These are These are the facts, these are the figures, these are the results, and therefore, if the company is unable to give that to me now, what could I be doing over the next 3, 6, 9 months to bring myself to that number? Just have a very mature negotiating, what I call a hot potato type of conversation. You present them your rebuttal, your business case, your reasoning. They come back and they either agree or disagree. You go back to them with a counter until you both come to a point where you are happy and satisfied with the result. And if you're not, then the options you have, you know, are a little bit tougher. They could be easy or they could be tough. Depends upon how you approach them. It could be that you do go to HR, get them involved. It could be that you decide that this is this isn't a company, this isn't a boss that you want to work with, you're not happy, you deserve more, whatever the case might be. At the same time, I want to emphasize, and then we'll move on, you need to be realistic about whether or not your actual performance aligned up with your perceived expectation. All right, because a lot of times, and you know, I've been a boss since, I don't know, I think I was a boss when I came out of my mother's belly, um, being one of 12 kids. Anyway, I too often find that there's more employees that overinflate what they think they've accomplished and what they think they deserve than those that deflate themselves. So be sure you have a realistic, um, reality check against what it was that you're tasked to do, what you actually accomplished, and what that accomplishment deserves as far as compensation is concerned. Because one big sabotager is the person themselves, that they don't have a very, very clear, realistic perception of themselves. All right, I hope that answered your question, Bobby T. Bobby T, this is Shading the Bitch Radio, and you're talking to froggy throat, dry throat, Bernadette Boas. I forgot my water today. And you're listening to our Rich Tip Tuesday on Shedding the Bitch, and we're taking your questions, stories, and challenges. We're drilling into them even further than what I did on Facebook or Twitter. But at the same time, it is Tuesday, therefore Rich Tip Friday is coming along. And all through the month, post your questions, stories, and challenges right onto our Shedding the Bitch Facebook page. And I will answer them there each Friday throughout the day, but I'll also bring them here at the last Tuesday of every month for a drill-down into that specific question that you had. Alright, I'm also videotaping these. Oh, I did want to mention at the top of the hour, for those of you who are watching, I wanted to mention, uh, thank you so much for understanding that last Tuesday, very abruptly, I decided that I couldn't go live on the program, so I played one of our recent, very popular programs about when I got fired, you know, and how getting fired made me a leader. But anyway, and I had to make that decision very abruptly because I been going through a cancer treatment on my face. And actually, for those of you watching on video, actually right above my lip. And the cream that I'm using to eradicate this cancer spot has left my mouth and my lips full of blisters. I'm not trying to gross you out. I'm just trying to— one, thank you for all of your understanding and sentiment and all the comments that you've, you've sent me through Facebook and Twitter and, and through email, because it is extremely painful. It is just very irritating. And last week I basically could not talk. I was having a very difficult time opening my mouth, and it was stinging and burning, and I just was not going to be present and as energetic as I typically am. And it was going to be a very big challenge for me to do the program. So thank you, thank you very much for that kind of last-minute abrupt change in plans there. And then thank you for your ongoing comments. For those that are watching, you'll see it's actually a thousand times better than what it was. And I stopped the application last week because of it, because it just got to the point that I couldn't tolerate it anymore. So my doctor recommended I backed off for a week. So now I've started back up on it yesterday. You might see some remnants of the old, and I'm sensing I'm going to have some new ones popping in because I can feel them kind of under there. But, um, and hopefully it won't impede any future, future conversation with you. 'Cause at the same time I need to make a living and be on the phone and be out with my clients and, you know, it was pretty ugly so I pretty much canceled my week last week that I had planned. But thank you very much for that. And for those of you watching on video wondering what that big scabby thing is on my face, you'll now understand. Okay, this is Rich Tip Tuesday on Shedding the Bitch Radio and you are listening to Bernadette Boas. Let's see, what Rich Tip question do we have? Kareen, Kareen, shy Kareen, shy, shy, shy Kareen, and she is asking about, and I want to make sure I get this question right that she had. She's asking, I am shy and not the best out in networking or social events. What tips can you share? And I basically told her, which I'm sure she did not believe me, but I basically told her right up front that, and many of you won't believe me I'm sure too, is as much as I love engaging, talking with you, and I do look and act like a social butterfly when I'm out and about, I kind of have to do it on my terms, or not even on my terms, but on my mood. So I can often go to networking events, especially if I'm not familiar with the group and I really don't know anybody there, and I can kind of be a wallflower. I can kind of hide in the corner. So I totally appreciate it when Corinne was brave enough to bring up this question. Um, but I'm shy and I don't like to go out to networking or social events. What tips can you share to help me overcome that? So I mentioned that. Now, what ultimately will help you tremendously with that issue is to just do research, do some homework before you go to the event. So say it's a business event, or maybe it's a matchmaking event, maybe it's like, you know, Match.com has those stir events. Yes, I am single. They have these stir events. Maybe it's you're just being invited to a party from a new friend, and yet you really don't know, you know, beyond that person, anybody there. So what can you do? Well, first I would see if you can do research on the event or the party that you're going to. And what I mean by that is do research on the type of event it is. Who's holding it? What's the purpose of it? What type of people are they inviting to it? So get some facts underneath your belt, even just to build some conversation starters around why other people might be there, because that could be your first open starter question is, hey, what brought you here? But do some research. And then, especially if it's a business social kind of structured, organized event, see if they have the registration list online. So a lot of meetups, a lot of eVite events, even registration events that go through like a GoToWebinar or some other type of professional functional organized event calendar, they might— may post who's coming, who's not coming. And if they do, then do research on the group. Find them individually and even go to LinkedIn or go to Google and see if you can find out information about them. Find out a conversation starter. Where did they go to school? What college did they go to? So maybe you could talk sports. Where do they work? What do they do for a living? What might have tied them back to the group event or, or or business association meeting that they're going to. So try to find and do some research, okay? Take the time to do it before you go because that'll kind of arm you and make you feel a little bit more confident about the fact that you're going into a room, potentially to a room full of strangers, and you already know them. So I'll give you a for instance. I went to an event several weeks ago now, 175 people maxed out. I went, found the registration list, I went and LinkedIn with every single one of them, which you could do, and I said, "Hi, this is Bernadette. I see that you're going to this event on Thursday evening and I look forward to seeing you there. I'm very excited about, you know, the opportunity to engage with other professionals.". And so by the time I showed up, by doing that, by the time I showed up, most of the room already knew me. They'd seen my name, they didn't know me, you know, they probably saw my picture because I LinkedIn'd with them, but they saw my name and they said, oh wait, I just heard from you, didn't I? Or why do I know your name? Or yeah, I got your email, thank you very much, I made a note to look for you. You know, I got all those kind of comments. So here I walked into a room of complete complete strangers, 175 of them, and felt perfectly comfortable and actually welcomed because people were already looking for me. So do some of that work, do some of that prep work. It'll make you feel a lot more confident that you're not going in with a blank sheet, so to speak, even if it's just a blank invite, um, and you, you just don't know anything about the people that are inside. Well, now you would. And now you do. The next thing I would do is stand in the middle of the room as opposed to going to the corners because you're safe in the corners. Go to the middle of the room. And why I say that is because people are going to be drawn to you in the middle of the room. And the number one icebreaker is simply, "Hi." Right? "Hi, my name is Bernadette Boas." "Hi, what brought you here?" "Hi, I have no clue what I'm doing here. I don't know anybody." I mean, there's so many questions and so many things that you could ask, you could say to kind of, you know, break the ice, get somebody to laugh, get somebody to put up their hand, say hello to you, whatever the case might be. And you'll be very grateful and you'll get over that initial, like, nervousness type of thing. Of course, there's smile, you know, everybody loves a smile, everybody loves a hello. And no one's going to turn away from you. And if you do, you simply say, okay, want nothing to do with that person. And, uh, you know, that's one less person you have to, you know, kind of engage with. All right, so keep that in mind. Now, I made a note to her, I said, P.S., if number 2 sounds like a lot of work— all right, so identifying people and— oh, I missed that, I'm sorry. So some of the work in the, the prep work, the research, you're getting to know people. Pick 2 to 5 that you want to meet. You're obviously going to that event, going to that business function for a reason. Make sure you get something out of it. Find 2 or 2 to 5 people that you want to meet for some purpose that you have for being at that event, and go and search them out. Like, now you have faces potentially if you're LinkedIn or Google+ or something, you might have a face, you might have a job description, and you could be already armed with information for you to go and make an introduction to somebody, okay. So I made a note, if that sounds like a lot of work, you're missing the point. Knowing who was at the meeting and how you can serve them and then you is smart and productive networking, and it is, and it will just make your networking that much easier because you already will have some familiarity with the people in the room. Alright? So, I hope that helped Kareen or anybody out there that may be shy and not sure what to do when they have to go to an event or a party or a business function where they don't know anybody and they're not the most gregarious, outgoing people in the world. Um, my rich tip is basically just to do your homework, Say hi and smile and you'll be good. Alright, you're listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio and this is Bernadette Boas. This is our Rich Tip Tuesday and I'm so glad all of you were here to join me and to learn and maybe to support one another. And join me on Facebook during the program each and every Tuesday. We'll be making sure that I am live out there so you could be posting live your comments, questions, challenges, or stories for us. Alright, and then keep in mind, like I said, April's— the full month of April we're talking about somewhat banning bosses, banning bullies, banning, banning, banning bitches, banning the things that are really holding women back and not allowing us and our workplaces to be the most productive, rich environments they can be. That's going to be our month of April. And go to our Facebook page, Shedding the Bitch. You'll see all the radio programs listed there. You'll see them on sheddingthebitch.com. And go to our YouTube channel to see these rich tips broken down and provided to you for you to be able to kind of learn more and use them as you need them. Alright, so for everybody here at Shedding the Bitch Radio, I want to thank you for joining us and come back right here next Tuesday at noon Eastern time for another Shedding the Bitch radio program.

Thank you for listening to Shedding the Bitch radio with Bernadette Boas. Join Bernadette every Tuesday at noon Eastern as she helps you shift your bitches to riches. And the dialogue is always going on at sheddingthebitch.com. See you next week.