✅ Today’s checklist:
- Building confidence & avoiding pitfalls in 3 critical career stages
- Gabby shares a DE&I lesson learned
- A healthy meal prep recipe for the week
🤔 Trivia: Which American author wrote a series of books under the pseudonym “Richard Bachman”? Find out.
QUICK LINKS
💵 Negotiations: Learn the best way to answer the salary question in interviews.
📁 Organization: Declutter your digital space.
🗣️ Communication: The ultimate guide to giving constructive feedback.
🙅♀️ Boundaries: 35 phrases to set boundaries firmly.
🌟 Personality Types: Learn about the different Myers-Briggs personality types.
FOR THE ASSIST COMMUNITY ONLY
Special Announcement from Joanna:
How to Set (and Achieve) Quarterly Goals Without Losing Your Mind
- Skyrockets everyone’s productivity
- Strengthens internal comms
- Improves happiness at work
Learn this simple process and you’ll get more ish done in less time with less stress.
I’ll show you, step-by-step, the tried and true goal-setting process I use with my team every week to achieve massive productivity gains and breakout results.
The Zoom gods have us capped at 500 attendees and 80,000 are seeing this email (don’t dilly-dally).
I’m so excited for this, see you there!
Joanna, The Assist Co-Founder
CAREER JOURNEY
Building Confidence & Avoiding Pitfalls in Three Critical Career Stages
Navigating your career can often feel like steering through uncharted waters. Each phase of your professional journey presents unique challenges and opportunities for growth.
Here’s a roadmap for building confidence and avoiding common pitfalls through three critical career stages:
Early Career: Seize Every Opportunity
In the early stages of your career, the focus should be on absorption; soak up knowledge, skills, and experiences.
This is the time to be sponge-like, taking advantage of every learning opportunity that comes your way and volunteering for projects that can stretch your capabilities. The key here is to remain open, curious, and fearless.
Pitfalls to Avoid:
- Not Speaking Up: Young professionals often hesitate to voice their opinions. Remember, your fresh perspective is valuable.
- Being Intimidated: Don’t let more experienced colleagues intimidate you. Confidence comes from facing your fears and contributing actively.
Mid-Career: Maximize Wealth Acquisition
As you transition into the mid-phase of your career, your focus likely shifts towards maximizing earnings and seeking roles that offer substantial financial rewards.
This stage is about leveraging your accumulated skills and experiences to climb higher on the career ladder and secure your financial future.
Pitfalls to Avoid:
- Staying Too Long in One Place: Loyalty is commendable, but don’t get stuck in comfort zones. Assess and make moves when growth stagnates.
- Listening Too Much to Others’ Opinions: While advice can be invaluable, trust your instincts and make career choices that align with your personal and professional goals.
Late Career: Mentor and Give Back
In the later stages, after establishing a solid career foundation and achieving financial stability, shift your focus to legacy-building.
This can involve mentoring younger professionals, sharing your knowledge generously, and perhaps even starting initiatives that benefit the industry.
Pitfalls to Avoid:
- Not Making Friends/Networking: The value of building a broad professional network cannot be overstated, even late in your career. It’s about who you know as much as what you know.
- Comparing Your Career to Others: Every career is unique. Measure your success on your own terms, not against the achievements of others.
While these stages provide a framework, remember that learning, asking for what you’re worth, and generosity should be constants in your career.
The adage in business that you can only pick two between cheap, fast, and good holds true in careers as well.
Sometimes, you might trade a high salary for a role that offers incredible growth opportunities or for a chance to work in an innovative environment.
Just like any good business strategy, managing your career effectively requires understanding the trade-offs and making informed decisions that will benefit your long-term professional goals.
Navigating your career confidently is about more than just climbing the corporate ladder; it’s about making strategic decisions that align with your personal and professional growth objectives at every stage of your journey.
10/10 CONTENT MANAGEMENT TOOL
Where Has This Been All My Life???
Let’s be real…
Organizing, managing and tracking DAILY content across all platforms can be an unmitigated nightmare.
Even on a good day it’s enough to make anybody’s head spin.
(Which is why so few succeed at building and monetizing their following.)
But it doesn’t have to be that way for you. Because this free content management tool completely changes the game 👇
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With this FREE content calendar you will:
- Save countless hours
- Produce better content
- Get ahead of the competition
- Accurately set and achieve goals
- Organize and plan more effectively
DE&I
POV: Your Leadership Totally Blew It
Juneteenth, celebrated on June 19th, marks the day in 1865 when the last enslaved African Americans were informed of their freedom, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
This day is a powerful reminder of the ongoing fight for freedom, equality, and justice. As we commemorate Juneteenth, it’s essential for all of us, especially non-Black individuals, to reflect on our roles in promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) in our workplaces and beyond.
I worked in HR at a high-growth company that owned lifestyle brands, gaining popularity. Internally, our company was woefully lacking in diversity.
Externally, though, you would’ve thought we were one of the most inclusive companies in the US. This caused some tension within the workplace, especially because we had no people of color on our leadership team.
At the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, we were actively interviewing for a new CFO. Leadership felt extreme pressure to make the right decision and practice what they preached. We were thrilled when told to prepare offer papers for a highly qualified woman of color.
But unbeknownst to us, they had already offered the position to a colleague of our CEO—a straight white male.
Our HR team was left confused and we braced for impact as the new hire announcement went out. Not only had the leadership team lied to save face, but they also instructed us to write a preemptive email to the company backing their decision.
The email falsely claimed that the position had originally been offered to a woman of color, who had declined for personal reasons. There was no offer, and there wasn’t even a conversation with the candidate about her backing out.
Sending this email felt so wrong, knowing the actual story. It ultimately led to a few team members quitting out of frustration and disillusionment.
In hindsight, I deeply regret not speaking up more forcefully against this decision. It was a clear case of performative allyship—actions taken to appear supportive of marginalized groups without making real changes.
Juneteenth teaches us about the importance of standing up for what is right and challenging injustices, even when it’s uncomfortable.
When faced with decisions that contradict DEI principles, speak up and demand transparency and accountability from leadership.
Gabby (TA Content Mgr)
P.S. Give these a read:
PRODUCTIVITY HACK
That Meeting Could Have Been a Guidde
Manifest this: instead of summoning the entire team for another round of snooze-inducing meetings, why not let Guidde work its AI magic?
Transform your instructions into engaging how-to videos that your team will actually watch and enjoy.
STAFF PICKS
Stuff We’re Loving This Week
📘 Master your emotions with Emotional Intelligence Habits by Dr. Travis Bradberry.
⏰ Stay on top of your tasks with Clockify’s free time tracker.
🛁 Indulge in relaxation with these colorful bath bombs.
🖊️ Add a splash of color to your notes with these gorgeous ombre pastel gel ink pens.
JOB OPPORTUNITIES
🚨 Job Alerts
- ABS Kids is hiring for a Behavior Analyst in Training (Kernersville, NC).
- DraftKings is hiring for a Software Engineering Manager (US/Remote).
- GE Aviation is hiring for a FLRAA Senior Systems Engineering Lead (Grand Rapids, MI/Remote).
- Lumen is hiring for a Account Manager II (Colorado,US/Hybrid).
- Confluent Health is hiring for a Accounts Receivable Specialist (Louisville, KY).