Women Who Lead by Bloom

Kinda chic to negotiate your own severance package instead of just accepting whatever they offer first.

Most people treat the first number in that letter as final.

It’s an opening position, same as any other negotiation.

Extended notice, outplacement support, a reference letter with actual substance, all of it is on the table if you just ask.

Comment FREEDOM and I’ll send you my free Career Freedom Assessment, and let’s get you paid, babe. ❤️‍🔥

I wish more women in leadership knew this.

If you name the number before they do, you land closer to what you're actually worth. Every single time.

The first number spoken in any negotiation quietly sets the whole range that follows. Say it first, and the conversation anchors around your figure, not theirs. Simple as that.

Most women wait to be asked what they want, babe. I did too, for years. Waited so nicely.

That wait is expensive, honestly. Every single time.

Comment FREEDOM and I'll send you my free Career Freedom Assessment, and let's get you paid.

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Sylvia Kwan told herself she didn't want the CEO seat for years.

And then she became CEO of Ellevest anyway.

I asked her what she'd say to that version of herself now.

She didn't say you were wrong. She didn't say you were selling yourself short. She didn't say you should have believed in yourself more.

She said: don't let the scripts you've written for yourself limit your options.

Because here's the thing I love about how she said it. She meant it both ways.

If this hadn't happened she would have been genuinely happy. A brilliant career. Meaningful work. Enough.

That's not false modesty. That's someone who actually knows herself.

Every path is not for everybody. And there is something so quietly radical about a sitting CEO saying that out loud.

What she's really saying is this.

Don't close the door based on a story you told yourself so long ago you've forgotten it was ever just a story. Keep your options open. Stay curious about what might be possible. And then trust yourself to know when something is right for you.

Your career doesn't have to look like anyone else's to be exactly right.

Episode 2 of CEO Season is out this week. Link in comments.

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Big scary meeting coming up?

I got you.

Find a comfortable seat and press play.

The breath matters here. You want to actually hear your own sniff, in and out, through the nose. As you do it, imagine you're waking something potent at the base of your spine and edging it up, vertebrae by vertebrae, breath by breath.

Keep this going for the whole track if you can.

Come back to this any time, darling. Especially right before you walk into the meeting with the difficult one. This is how you walk in already locked in.

Join me at my next class TOMORROW ⬇️

Men are often the ones who bring me into organisations to run women's leadership programs, and I am truly grateful when they do.

But this is not because they're better than women at spotting the need, or more invested in it.

It's because there's zero risk in a man recommending a women's leadership program. None. Nobody questions his judgement for suggesting it.

There's a quiet risk for a woman doing the exact same thing. IYKYK.
She might get read as less confident. Less competent. Like she's flagging a weakness in herself, or her team, by asking for support.

The risk just isn't equal. So no shade at all if you're a woman who hasn't brought a program like this in yet. That math is real, and you've been doing it correctly.

To the men reading this. A quiet word from you costs you nothing and can open a door for an entire room of women.

You know what to do 🫡

If I could go back and whisper in the ear of the woman who walked into her first executive level interview, absolutely terrified she was asking for too much, here's what I'd tell her.

Honey, you are not going to get the number by being grateful for the opportunity.

You're going to get it by naming it. Plainly. Before anyone else does it for you.

She did it anyway. Shaking a little, if we're being honest, and repeating the sentence in her head about four times before it actually left her mouth. £30k more than her last role. A four day week nobody offered her, she asked.

Two years later, she did it again. Same fear. Same shake in her voice. Same result.

That's it, genuinely. That's the whole secret, gang, and I wish someone had told me sooner.

Comment FREEDOM and I'll send you my free Career Freedom Assessment, and let's get you paid, babe.

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When you have to act completely nonchalant in the meeting so your boss doesn’t know you’re about to firmly enter your career baddie era.

Casual voice.
Steady eye contact.
Absolutely no indication that you rehearsed this sentence in the mirror four times this morning.

That’s the ask. Deploy when ready.

Comment FREEDOM and I’ll send you my free Career Freedom Assessment, and let’s get you paid like a career baddie ❤️‍🔥

I run my whole business on experiments. Every quarter. Try it, see what happens, move.

Some land. People go wild for it.

Some don't. Crickets. Or a very polite no.

I used to let that mean something about me. Now I don't. It's just data. Nothing more dramatic than that.

Here's what I actually want you to take from this, honey, because you don't need to own a business for this to apply to you.

You're already running experiments. Every time you ask for the stretch project. Every time you apply for the role that feels a size too big. Every time you finally say the honest thing in the meeting instead of the safe version.

Your job was never to know if it'll work first.

Your job is just to run the experiment.

It lands, great, data. It doesn't, also great, also data. Either way you know something you didn't know yesterday, and you're one step closer to the career you actually want, not the one you're currently tolerating.

Stop waiting to be sure. Sure was never coming.

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I'm proud of my silver crown coming through.

Had a call with the brilliant Anessa Fike the other day, and we were virtually high fiving each other as two silver fox sisters.

(Also side note: DOPE podcast on the Women Who Lead pod with Anessa coming SOON 👀)

Both of us clocked how many women comment on our grey hair, and what a beautiful thing that actually is.

No shade if you dye your hair my darling. We get to age however we want to.

But there's something quietly revolutionary about just letting your silver crown do its thing, or however else you embrace your own journey.

I am proud of my stripes. Anessa is of hers tooooooooooo!

Side note: yes, I know my hair doesn't look as grey as it really is in this light, the sun's doing its thing haha

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