The Importance of a Personal Brand - You Must Know!

The best piece of mentoring advice I've gotten, and this was a few years ago, and it stuck with me, is you were hired for you, and don't forget that. So I definitely had times in my career where I've suffered from imposter syndrome. And especially as I've moved up my career, I felt I definitely haven't arrived far from that. And I just felt like I couldn't possibly be worth this position. And it. And sometimes it was very difficult for me. And I had a coach, and she told me, you know, that your boss has hired you because of you, for your experience, your education and your personality and what you bring to the table. And I was very afraid because people were able to do things that I wasn't necessarily good at. They were good at accounting or other types of finance, and it wasn't my skill set. And I thought, well, if I'm not as good as everybody else, how can I possibly be part of this role in this team? It took me a while to really believe and trust in what she was saying, but it's really held true over the years that if you put yourself out there and you hired for who you are and you behave that way and you bring your best to the table at work each day, it shows maturity on your side as well, and you're able to give the best of what you're good at to your company, because it takes a village to run a company. So just be confident in what you can bring to the table.

And I got a cold call from a recruiter in the middle of COVID and said, hey, I've got a real opportunity here. They're looking for somebody who has treasury background and experience in financing, who understands capital markets. They're less concerned about what you know about accounting. They know you can hire somebody to do some of those things. Would you be interested? And I said, well, you know, not really looking for something at this big debt deal I'm trying to accomplish. And he was a little bit persistent. And so I kind of threw my head into the ring and went through the process. But the reason he found me is through LinkedIn. He just looked up and was looking for a certain profile. He was looking for corporate treasurers. He was looking for somebody, particularly in the Midwest, around where I was, for the size of company and the background I had, it was. I wouldn't say it was fortuitous, but he was looking for somebody with my exact qualifications. And when I went through the process, the entire situation started to fit like a glove. It was a perfect situation for what I thought I might be looking for at some point down the road, as well as a perfect situation for the background of the kind of person that they were looking for. But all that to say, a lot of that came about through networking. Another part of being networked is when I started H and R Block and moved to Kansas City. Terry Crawford, who many of you might know, who is a past chairman of afp. Terry is a treasurer at AMC Theaters, which is also in Kansas City. I was there two weeks, and Terry reached out to me and said, hey, I see you're the new treasurer at H and R Block. Let's get together for lunch. We have a little Treasurer's Council in Kansas City. I'd love to get to know you, welcome you into the community. And from that, that has led to me getting more involved in afp. This year, I threw my hat in the ring and joined the board of afp. So I'm now a board member. None of that would have happened if Terry, in his networking, hadn't reached out to me and said, hey, I see you're new. Let's get you connected and see if there's a way for you and I and some of the other treasures in town to get together and just talk about things that are happening. So kind of on the backside as well is when you network and put yourself out there. I think Leanne touched on this. Other people will start to reach out to you.