OG Tuesday Issue #294

🐶 Upgrade your dog’s bowl with science-backed recipes made with real, sustainably sourced ingredients.

🏆 Recognition is the most underused leadership lever, and this employee recognition platform might be the right fit for your team.

🌱 Hard work alone won’t get you to the C-suite.

💼 If you’re the one everyone goes to at work, this one’s about you.

Mid-year reviews get a reputation for being stressful, and most of that stress is avoidable. The professionals who walk into these conversations feeling confident aren’t necessarily the highest performers on the team. They’re the ones who treated the review as something they could shape instead of something that was happening to them.

Start your brag book now

If you don’t already have a running document of your wins, start one today. Create a folder called something like “Brag Book,” “Promo Pitch,” or “Raise Receipts” and make a habit of adding to it in real time. Every time a client says you were crucial, every time you improve a process, every time you deliver something great, log it. Include tangible numbers wherever you can: revenue brought in, money saved, people trained, metrics moved. The goal is to have qualitative and quantitative proof of your impact ready to go so you’re never scrambling at review time.

If your review is coming up and you haven’t been tracking, don’t panic. Go back through your calendar, emails, and Slack threads for the last six months and reconstruct your highlight reel. You’ll likely find more than you remembered.

Know what you want out of this conversation

Before you walk in, get clear on what you’re actually asking for. More money? A higher title? A stretch assignment? A clearer path to promotion? Your performance review is your meeting to lead, not just receive. Come in with your story already framed, your wins prepared in STAR format (Situation, Task, Action, Result), and a specific ask ready. Know what your peers are making. Know what the job description for the next level looks like. Do your research so your ask is grounded in something real.

A strong opening sounds like: “Thanks for sitting down with me. I’m excited to share some of my recent accomplishments and talk through what’s next for me.”

Collect your evidence

Reflection is one thing, but proof is what gets remembered. Pull your top three to five wins and write them out with specifics: what the situation was, what you did, and what the outcome was. Numbers carry more weight than general statements, so be as concrete as possible. This is also the time to think about the moments where you showed leadership, solved a problem, or went beyond the scope of your role, because those are the stories that stick.

Prepare for the raise conversation

If a raise or promotion is on your radar, don’t wait to be asked. Come prepared with a clear case. Lead with your accomplishments, then make a specific ask: “Based on my experience, skill set, and what I’ve contributed this year, I’d like to discuss an increase of X.” Then stop talking and let your manager respond.

If the answer is no, that’s not the end of the conversation. Ask what skills or accomplishments would need to happen before an increase is possible, and get specifics. Ask about timing. And if there’s a budget constraint driving the decision, ask how you can help make the case when that window opens. Whatever is agreed upon, follow up in writing the same day.

Set goals for the second half of the year

Come in with two or three goals already drafted for the rest of the year. This signals that you’re invested in your own growth and gives your manager something to respond to rather than leading the entire conversation themselves. If your goals from January have shifted, that’s worth naming too. Mid-year is the right time to check whether your original goals still make sense and adjust accordingly.

Prepare to actually hear the feedback

Preparation for a review includes preparing to listen. Hearing critical feedback can send even the most self-aware people into defensive mode, so go in with pen and paper and consciously practice staying open. If something catches you off guard, it’s completely okay to say you’d like time to process it and follow up. Ask for specific examples rather than reacting. Graceful responses to hard feedback leave a stronger impression than defensiveness ever will, and they set you apart.

Follow through after the meeting

What you do after the review matters as much as how you showed up in it. Write down what was discussed, track any action items, and send a follow-up email that day summarizing what was agreed upon. Getting things in writing protects you and keeps both parties accountable. If your manager committed to something, follow up. If you committed to something, get started.

Your mid-year review is one of the most direct opportunities you have to advocate for yourself, shape how your work is perceived, and set the tone for the rest of the year. Walk in prepared, lead the conversation, and walk out with more than just feedback.

You’ve sat through enough gift openings to know the difference between “oh wow, thank you” and oh wow, thank you. Most graduation gifts are thoughtful in theory and forgotten by July. The picture frame. The monogrammed journal. The thing that was perfect for who they were, not who they’re becoming.

Apple Gift Card lets them decide what they actually need once real life starts:

• Apps for the new job
• Music for the new commute
• iCloud storage for a phone full of graduation photos
• Apple TV for the first night in a new apartment
• Subscriptions like Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple Fitness+, and even third-party subscriptions
• Products and accessories whenever they’re ready

It works for right now and six months from now.

Available from $15 to $200 in physical and digital formats.

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“My biggest challenge is pointless meetings!” — Tara B.

Pointless meetings are one of the biggest drains on focus, energy, and actual productivity at work. But before you start declining calendar invites left and right, it is worth slowing down and being strategic about it. Not every meeting you dread is actually pointless, and not every pointless meeting is one you can skip.

Context matters. A lot.

How to tell if a meeting is actually worth your time

Before deciding whether to attend or push back, run it through these questions:

• Is there a clear agenda? A meeting without one is a meeting without a purpose. If you do not know why you are there, that is the first red flag.
• Is a real decision being made? Meetings that exist to make decisions or solve problems in real time have value. Meetings that exist to share information that could have been an email do not.
• Is your presence actually required? There is a difference between being essential to the conversation and being invited out of habit or courtesy. Ask yourself honestly: would anything change if you were not there?
• Does it conflict with a higher priority deadline? If attending means a more important deliverable suffers, that is a legitimate reason to have a conversation about it.
• Is it a recurring meeting that has lost its purpose? Standing meetings often outlive their usefulness. If the agenda has been the same for months and nothing actionable comes out of it, it might be time to revisit the format.

Understand who is inviting you before you respond

This is the part most articles skip. How you handle a meeting request depends enormously on who sent it.

If your manager or a senior leader is inviting you, declining without context is rarely the right move. You will likely need to explain your reasoning, offer an alternative, and make clear that you are not just trying to get out of something. That is a conversation, not a quick decline.

If it is a peer or someone from another team, you have a bit more flexibility, but the approach still matters. Being thoughtful and offering an alternative goes a long way toward keeping the relationship intact.

Swipe these scripts

• When a senior leader or manager invites you and you have a priority conflict:
  “I want to make sure I am in the right place at the right time. I am currently heads down on X which is due that day. Could we find a way for me to contribute beforehand, or would it be okay if I reviewed the notes after? I want to make sure I am adding value in the most useful way.”
• When you need more context before deciding:
  “I would love to attend. Could you share a quick agenda beforehand so I can come prepared and make sure I am the right person to be in the room?”
• When you are genuinely not needed:
  “It looks like this one is more relevant to the other team. Would it work if you looped me in on the notes afterward? Happy to connect separately if anything needs my input.”
• When a recurring meeting has run its course:
  “I want to be respectful of everyone’s time. Could we revisit whether this meeting is still the best format for what we are trying to accomplish? An async update might get us there faster.”

The mindset that makes this easier

The goal is to be intentional about where your time and attention go. Research consistently shows that unnecessary meetings are one of the leading causes of workplace frustration and lost productivity.

Advocating for your time is a skill, and when it is done thoughtfully and with the right framing, most people will respect it.

Your time is valuable. Protect it like it is.

If you’re like me and always on the hunt for ways to get smarter — whether that’s leadership, strategy, productivity, or just the books everyone’s been talking about — I highly recommend checking out Shortform.

With my schedule getting busier every quarter, it’s become my go-to for getting the knowledge from books I’d never get to otherwise.

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If you’re serious about learning more this year, give it a try.

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 Work Wisdom of the Week:

“Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel, said, ‘Nobody owes you a career. Your career is literally your business. You own it as a sole proprietor. You have one employee: yourself. You need to accept ownership of your career, your skills and the timing of your moves.’ Early in my career, I realized that if I wanted to grow, be challenged, and feel fulfilled, I couldn’t wait for someone else to hand me opportunities. I had to create them. So I started thinking of myself as the CEO of my own career. That meant taking ownership — knowing my goals, understanding my value, and making decisions like I was running my own business. Because I was. And you are too!”

Hallie Warner, Co-Founder & Coach

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