In this solo coaching video, Natalie Fisher explains that constantly feeling the need to justify or over‑explain past work gaps or mistakes is a clear sign that you are undervaluing yourself. She argues that both gaps and errors contain hidden value that can be extracted, reframed, and packaged as a "box of gold" to present to potential employers. Fisher advises viewers to own their decisions, adopt an ownership mindset—imagining they are supporting a loved one’s choice—and to articulate the learning and wisdom gained from those experiences during interviews. She emphasizes that hiring managers are more interested in how candidates handled their biggest screw‑ups than in flawless success stories, because mistakes reveal character and growth. Throughout, she promotes her paid program, "How to Value Yourself So You Can Finally Get Paid What You Deserve," offering a free class and replay as a next step for viewers who want deeper guidance on extracting and presenting their value.
Chapters
The biggest sign that you are not valuing yourself, that is feeling like you have to justify or over-explain your decisions in the past or mistakes that you have made. So I'm not saying you never explain yourself, but here's what I want to make really clear. When you feel like you have to over-explain something or justify something or give somebody a good reason To say, okay, that's fine. You're allowed to have that work gap. You're allowed to make that mistake. You were allowed. It's okay. Like, if you feel like you need that approval from somebody, then that is a sign that you are not valuing yourself. Okay, so the, the biggest one is work gaps. People think like they have to justify their work gap. They have to say, oh well, I did it because I had this really good reason and I had to take care of my whatever, my elderly parents, or I wanted to stay home with my kids, or Or if you made a mistake at work, you, you'll be like, oh, I'm like, I'm so sorry, I missed that. Or I, I'm so sorry, like I should have done better. And you end up feeling terrible about either the work gap or the mistake you made or whatever it is, right? And when you approach the thinking about the circumstance, so the gap or the mistake in that way, you are missing the value that you could be extracting from those situations. So there's value in taking a work gap and there's value in making a mistake. And both of those are value that you can now bring to the person that you are offering to work with, right? And I like to see interviewing and, um, I like to see interviewing as offering something, like you're offering value. And sign up for my class because I'm going to talk to you about how to present that value like a box of gold. Like you're, you're so excited because you're like, I have this box of gold for you, instead of being like having to explain why it might still be valuable even though you took a break or whatever. I really don't advocate for that, and I think that that line of thinking totally devalues you. So when you are thinking about, oh, I need to— oh, I need to explain it, I need to justify it, I need to prove that I'm still capable, I need to prove that, you know, just because I made this mistake, I'm, I'm still valuable— that is the wrong way to think about it. So here's how I suggest instead. You own your decision. You look at it as if you are looking at your best friend and they made this decision or they made this mistake, or you're looking at someone who you really love and say they took a work gap. And I don't care if it was for a good reason or not. You, you can decide to do something and then you can own it and you can say, I did this. That was my decision at the time. I'm supporting myself with that decision. And you, like, if you don't support me, then that's okay, but you're not my people. And I know people are like, oh, but what if they don't like it? What if they don't approve of me? me. That is the, the, the subtle undervaluing that's going on in your head, right? And I know this because I— when you show up like that, you— people just respond to you differently. And then you end up attracting and keeping different people in your life because that's how you conduct yourself. And that's one of the things I'm going to teach you. I teach in my program, I teach— I'm teaching on the free class, How to Value Yourself So You Can Finally Get Paid What You Deserve. is you instruct people how to treat you, okay? And that doesn't mean we don't get people coming into our lives that don't treat us like we would, like we prefer, but we get to set that standard for ourselves. And then we ultimately do decide who we end up keeping around and having as part of our lives and who has access to speaking to us and getting our gift of what we have to offer. So if you find yourself doing this, I want you to switch your approach. So your approach, instead of thinking, oh, I have to overexplain. I have to, I have to, if it's any subtle subtleness of like, I have to prove that this is okay, you wanna switch that to, I'm owning my decision. And look at it as, as someone you love made that decision and say, how would I look at what they did and how would I completely understand it and think that and not question it whatsoever? Just be like, nope, I trust them. They made that decision. They had a good reason. And that doesn't take away anything that they could do now in the future. Right? It doesn't take away their value. It doesn't take away their capability. It doesn't take away anything. If anything, it adds to them because they have more experience now. They have had a real-life experience that now they are a richer person. Their life has been enriched. They have more knowledge. They have more wisdom. And they have more value that they could extract from an experience, whether that be a work gap or whether it be a mistake, which are the 2 examples I'm just using. So I'll give you an example. When I make a mistake, I will always think— I will always look at it neutrally. I'll be like, okay, okay, that was a mistake. I wouldn't do that again next time. How would I want to do it differently next time? And what did I learn from it? And how is this going to make me even more valuable, right? So I look at my 10-year relationship as that. I would say I would not enter that relationship again. How do I want to enter a relationship differently this time? And what did I learn from that? And what made me a much better, stronger person. And that framework just completely resolved— resolves any of the shame or the embarrassment or the problems that I might have had with myself for making that mistake. And now I bring that to the table when I'm speaking to other people, and I give them value from those experiences. And the right people appreciate that value, and they want more of it, and they want to hire me because of it. And the wrong people don't. And that's how it goes, and that's okay. Some people are like, I don't care about that. Stop whining. I'm like, okay, well, this is just not for you. I'm not putting this out there for you. So, the same with employers, right? You will come to them and you will explain. Like, the biggest— the best question people like to ask, because I work with a lot of hiring managers, is what was your biggest screw-up? And they want to know, you know, how the person screwed up and then what they learned and how they managed themselves throughout a screw-up. That's what they want to know. They love hearing about that because that is going to tell them so much more about your character than any success you had. Because like one of my mentors likes to say, he says success is a crappy and quiet teacher. Success doesn't teach you a whole lot, but a mistake teaches you a lot more, but only when you have the wisdom and the focus to get the value from the mistake. Because what most people do is when they're beating themselves up, when they're feeling bad about the mistake, when they're trying to explain their way out of it, when they're trying to justify it, they miss the wisdom that was there to learn. And that wisdom is the value that you then take, and then you then package, and then you then offer for an increased amount of salary later on. You're like, yes, this is the mistake I made. This is what I learned. This is how I'm going to do it better. And this is why I'm so glad that mistake happened, because now this has made me become the person who dove really deep into fixing this problem, or made, made me really skillful at researching these types of things, or made me so mindful of looking for this, these things before I made that decision, right? Like, All this value comes from those mistakes and from, from the— I have another video on work gaps and how to talk about them. So if that part interests you, if you have a work gap like a resume gap or whatever, check that video out. That will help you. But we do not need to undervalue ourselves in these situations because our value actually gets greater. It actually increases when we, when we make a mistake or we have something, we have a setback, and it can increase. Like, it's your choice. Right? The only reason that it wouldn't is if you are in that shame, blame, embarrassment, trying to explain it away, trying to justify it, trying to make it like it didn't happen. And while you're like— if you're still in the place where you wish the mistake didn't happen, then you haven't extracted the full value from it. And that's where the work is to do. So if you're interested in learning how to extract the value from your mistakes, learning how to extract the value from every area of your work history, no matter how scattered it is, or no matter how much you think people won't think it's the perfect work history, or they won't think that you have the perfect amount of experience or the perfect amount of education. If you want to learn how to extract the value from what you already have and package it up so that it literally feels like a box of gold that you're then going to offer people, sign up for my class. It's called How to Value Yourself So You Can Finally Get Paid What You Deserve, and you'll be able to sign up for that class below in the link in my Linktree. And if it's already passed, you'll have access to the replay, and I highly recommend you watch the replay. I will be doing these live periodically, but if, if I'm not doing a live one coming up, watch the replay. Don't miss it. Don't postpone it, because the insights that you'll get from this class will help you show up differently and instruct other people what to think about you and how to treat you and whether or not to hire you. So sign up for that class now, and I will see you there.
