2nd Ep - Reboot

The podcast hosts, Abby and Kate, discuss the "Eat the Frog" method, which involves tackling the most difficult tasks first to increase productivity and career growth. They mention an article by Emily Vernon, who shares her experience of being overwhelmed by taking on too many tasks without intention. Emily learned to be more strategic by identifying tasks her manager avoided and excelling at them. This approach helped her stand out and increase her value to her company. The hosts emphasize the importance of being intentional and building a positive personal brand in the workplace. They also discuss the four steps of the "Eat the Frog" method: being good at your job, identifying tasks your manager avoids, learning how to do those tasks, and performing them well to become a go-to person. This strategy can lead to promotions and professional advancement. Am I starting? Yeah. Yeah. Ready? Yeah. Hi, and welcome back to Reboot, the podcast for the unconventional rethinking their personal brand's career and conversation. I'm Abby, a LinkedIn personal brand coach and content writer at Bold Mood. After spending 10 years climbing the corporate ladder, I realized my true calling is in reshaping the perceptions about personal branding and careers. Now I'm dedicated to showing others how they can use LinkedIn to increase their influence, make a difference, and create their own success. And I'm Kate. On LinkedIn, you'd see me as a marketing and HR graduate who spent a few years dipping my toes into the corporate world. But instead, I'm here now, designing my journey in life instead of running in default mode with the bonus that I can help equip others to do the same. So let's jump in. So today, we're gonna chat through an article I found on Mamma Mia by Emily Vernon that is titled, I'm Getting Ahead in My Career by Using the Eat the Frog Method. Have you heard of this before? Or did you have any perceptions? The title got me. I was like, what is eat the frog method? I've heard of eat the elephant, like just kinda take one small step at a time kind of thing. Don't look at the big picture and overwhelm yourself. But I have heard, eat the frog, to me, my perception on that was doing the most difficult task first and then kind of, yeah, starting with the difficult and working your way to do kind of like the easy tasks. So yeah, it's an interesting term. Yes, what's your perception? So I actually hadn't heard or seen anything about it before. But I think it was just one night, I was just scrolling on Instagram and came across it on like the Mamma Mia account. And I was like, oh, that has caught my eye. I'm gonna give it a read. So essentially, what it is and what the article focuses on is Emily's telling her story about how she was in the workplace and she was a yes person, which I think we can all probably relate to at some point from our career. She was putting a hand up for absolutely everything, saying yes to any task. And where it got at her was she was just ended up being burnt out by just overloading herself and not being intentional of what task she was taking on or what she was committing to. So what she did, she was like, okay, I need to be a little bit more tactical about this. I need to be having a little bit more purpose behind the tasks that I'm taking on, the things that I'm learning and helping apply those to her career goals and where she was going. So essentially, what she did was she, which she later realized was the frog method was she found and realized the task that her manager was putting off or the task that her manager didn't like. And she was like, okay, so how can I really stand out in my career if I can take that workload off my manager and I'm gonna help them out a little bit so they see me as a little bit more valuable, but also she was growing her own skills. So what she's doing is she's showing her value to not only her manager, but to her whole company as a whole as well. I think it's, especially when you're new to your career, it's easy to, when you're first starting out, it's like, I'm gonna say yes to everything because I'm like, you wanna impress your boss. You wanna kind of, you know what I mean? So a lot of people do fall into that pattern of just like, yes, I'll do this and yes, I'll do that. And it eventually does kind of lead to, it is a buzzword, but burnout. And I just feel like the word intentional rings true here because it's, with your career, regardless if you're kind of starting out or not or you're like mid to senior level or whatever, I think being really intentional with what you wanna get out of your career kind of thing. So it's just like. I think maybe what you're trying to say is, because I've been in this spot, you, when you're, especially in the start of your career, you wanna learn as much as you can because everyone says to you, you need to soak it up. You need to jump in the deep end and learn everything you can, which is amazing and so great. And then I think maybe you get to this point where you're like, okay, I've learned so much, but I need to be, like you said, more intentional about what I'm doing and here are my goals and what things can I do to get there. Yeah, and I think that just comes with age. Like, and it just becomes, like, you kind of just find that, obviously when you are kind of starting out your career, you wanna be like that yes man and you know what I mean? Just because the beauty in that is you get to figure out what your strengths are. Like, for example, when I first started at my previous corporate gig, I was quite fresh to marketing and I knew that was the direction I wanted to go in. And this role that I started in, it was a blank canvas. And the beauty of it was I got to find my strengths in the process and the role was built around those for me. So, you know what I mean? I kind of dipped my toes in everything across that brand marketing space and then I eventually kind of found my feet in copywriting and personal branding. But look, just with everything, Kate, I feel like there's pros and cons to everything. So, like, being that kind of yes person, you know what I mean? It opens up a lot of opportunity to growth and new experiences in the workplace. You know what I mean? Broadening your network as well. So, yeah, saying yes to mentoring opportunities and kind of promotions and things like that. But just like with everything as well, like I said, it can kind of, you can fall on the other side of it of just getting so overwhelmed because you're not being intentional with the tasks that you really want to focus on for your career kind of thing. And it goes to the saying, I guess, it's quality over quantity. Yeah, absolutely, definitely. And I think Emily from this article goes on as well. So she was, she found, I guess, motivation of getting credit in the workplace. Like everyone, everyone wants to be, I guess, recognized for the work that they were doing. But a quicker way that she realized she could kind of get a promotion or get a little bit further in her career was applying this eat the frog method. And it wasn't until after she kind of got there that she stumbled across some, I guess, research or conclusions from this former Google employee, Andrew Young. And he clearly defines the four steps that people usually take to apply the frog method. And so step number one is to just be good at your job. It kind of sounds silly, but I think sometimes when you become a bit stagnant or something in your career, you get a bit comfortable. So the first step is just to be really good. Be invested, become an expert, and just be really motivated in your role to learn more too. And this kind of goes, I'm just going to slide on in here with the personal branding tip. There she goes. I feel as though with your personal brand, it follows you online and offline as well. So I feel like building your reputation in that workplace is, you know what I mean, if you're kind of showing up every day and you're kind of giving it your all and you know what I mean, you're kind of investing in learning and listening and yeah, just doing a good job and showing up and you know what I mean, your body language is positive and yeah, just want to kind of have that positive mindset every day when you show up, people will remember that because first impressions count kind of thing. So yeah, I really like that first step. I feel like it keeps coming back to just being intentional, like just being intentional in your career and just you're in that role, especially hopefully you'll want to be there. You're just being super intentional, as you said, like with your body language and your tasks and how you apply yourself to that as well. Yeah, the second one is, so find out what tasks your manager avoids or doesn't enjoy. I really love this because it's finding out what blind spots that your boss has and you kind of filling the gap. So yeah, I really like that because it's kind of like, it's a team effort. Yeah. We're team players. Our team plays around here, Kato. So, and then that kind of moves on to the third step, which is learn how to do these tasks that your manager avoids or I guess it falls to the end of their day because they might not enjoy them. So what you can do is you can be asking, do you need a hand on these things or even just expressing that you have, I guess the passion or the desire to learn those. Yeah, and it's going to score you a lot of brownie points. I guess it's going to earn us a little bit of brownie points. Yeah, so you're taking, you're learning those tasks to take them off their hands, which I guess is helping your team in like an overall sense, especially in like the projects or anything, but of course also you're earning those brownie points from your manager. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, number four, have we covered four? And then just do them, and then just do them really well. Yeah, I love that. Andrew knows what's, he knows what's going on, doesn't he? So I guess in simply, you're figuring out those blind spots and then you're doing them really well. Yeah. And you're becoming that go-to person that your manager might look for and then they might, I guess, pump off those tasks to you. So in this case, I think Emily in the article outlines as well that she became one of the only few people in her company who knew or could do these things really well. So she was like not only broadening her skills, but like I said before, she's increasing the value that she has to that company, which at the end of the day is gonna help you get the promotions or help you get the pay rises. Yeah, do you have an experience, like have you experienced that in any of your kind of like your previous works, if your works, so that's, it's getting to the afternoon, I have a morning brain. So do I. Yeah, do you have an experience, like have you experienced that in a previous role? I think so, I guess in the past I've been like a bit of a one-man marketing man. Really? Those are kind of right. Bravo, that sounded great. Where you just, and I've definitely been that person, it's the inner people pleaser coming out of me. I'm like, of course I can help you out on that, or yes, I have heaps of tasks, but let me help you. And you kind of lose track of your priorities, but I guess the beauty of that as well was learning a lot of tasks that only you could do and the company had to rely on you to do. Yeah. I relate to that as well, because I feel like we were kind of in similar positions, Kato, where we were in a, we both worked for recruitment agencies, and we were both in, we were one-man band in the marketing team. Well, I was for a few years anyways. And until we kind of built a team. And yeah, what that kind of taught me is, because I kind of stepped into a industry where they didn't really have a marketing person there consistently before, I think, and like I said, it kind of, I got to find out what my strengths were by saying yes to everything. But then I, yeah, in that big brand umbrella, I got to kind of work on my skills as like a copywriter, content writer, and personal brand, like personal brand coach inside like my previous job. And yeah, I got to, I felt like I, where am I going with this? Kind of like I got to hone in on those skills. So underneath that brand umbrella, like I was doing full-scope brand marketing. So anything to do with internal events, external events, PR, copywriting, graphic design, and I'm being kind of the go-to social medium. I was a social media manager as well. So like I had all these different hats. Yeah, and it got to the point, Kato, where I was like, okay, events, I, don't get me wrong, I enjoy them, but it's not where I want to take my career. And they took, like doing events internally and externally, and for like a company that was like, we had four different regions, I found I was just an event manager. And I was like, Abby, that's not where you kind of want to take your career. So I sat down with my boss and I said, look, Embo, this is not where I want to kind of go anymore. And she was like, so cool with it. She's like, all right, well, let's kind of like change it up and what do you want to focus on? And that's when I became like super intentional on that like content writing advisory piece to our recruiters where I could, yeah, really hone in on personal branding. And I still obviously was a big part of like the social media management component. And yeah, so that was a really pivotal moment in my career where I finally said no to something and it kind of just like took me to that next level of my career. Yeah, for sure. I think as well, like in my experience, when I had my last role, when I first started, I was in a like a bit of a hybrid recruitment marketing kind of role. And then like something that helped me realize what I was more passionate in, like what was driving me more was, I started to think, okay, like what tasks do I, what tasks do I move to the top of my to-do list? Like what things do I enjoy doing and what's the things that I leave to the end of the day that I'm gonna keep avoiding? And I'm just gonna keep pushing them back. Like they might have a deadline and obviously I'll achieve them before that deadline, but I'm gonna delay it as long as I can. If you're anyone like, I don't know if Kate or if you're like this, but I, even at university, I was the same, I would always leave it to the last minute because I just would need that adrenaline to kind of push me to get it done. And to be honest, I got good marks. Like it's, yeah, I think it's just how you're kind of wired and yeah, I feel like a lot of people can relate to that with uni kind of leaving it to the last minute. But yeah, I, everything, it always kind of, it always gets done. And I think like coming back to the article as well, I mean, I was in a very fortunate position where I was given the opportunity to learn and to be supported in, if I wanted, if I found something that I was like, okay, I'm really interested in growing my skills and growing my skillset in this particular area that I was able to do so. I think it's just, it's like tricky. Like it's that fine line of enjoying something and like figuring out what's next and how to develop those skills more. And I think this is what Emily did from Mamma Mia is identifying the tasks that can get you further in your career as well, which is just another thing you can add to the list. Another thing to add to the to-do list. Absolutely. No, it's been a, it was like quite an awesome, yeah, quite an awesome article and super relatable. I feel like a lot of people kind of like relate to this, especially, like I said, if you're early on in your career and you're kind of in that limbo stage where you're just like saying yes to everything and feeling a little bit like, okay, well, is this actually where I kind of wanna head in my career? So what we'll do is we'll link the article in the show notes so you can kind of have a bit of a look and yeah, when, leave a comment for us or reach out to us on our social media platforms. So you can find us on Instagram and TikTok at reboot.pod and on Facebook at Reboot the Podcast for yeah, all the behind the scenes, catch-ups and of course some laughs. But if LinkedIn is more your style, like it is mine, you can catch our content on our personal profiles at Abbey Nayland at Kate Crookshank. Nice one. Awesome. That will be. Thank you so much for tuning in today and listening to us, yeah, just chat all things, career, personal branding, social media. Eating the frog. Eating the frog. It's such a funny term, isn't it? It's like a grudge. Yeah, it does. But no, it's, yeah, it's been awesome to have the chat as per usual, Kato and I could sit here and chat all day long about it. But we will leave it here and yeah, if you have any questions, please slide into our DMs. Yep, always there. Thanks guys. Bye. Reboot acknowledges traditional owners of country throughout Australia and recognises their continuing connection to land, waters and community. We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to the Elders past, present and emerging.