Going Beyond YOUR Ceiling

Welcome to Your Worthy Career, a podcast with me, Melissa Lawrence. I’m a career and life coach with all the corporate credit and talent development and organizational psychology, and I help women like you get extraordinary results by being more you, not less. I won’t just help you have a career experience worthy of you, but I will help you build your self-worth to shift what you think is possible and take the action that will create career you’ve always wanted, whether it’s more meaningful work you’re passionate about, making more money, getting to your next level, or being more effective as a leader. We are shattering the glass ceiling here, the one that exists for women at work and the one we put on ourselves with our doubt and inner critic. Each week, you will get practical teachings grounded in neuroscience and effective career development strategies. You’ll experience deep mindset shifts and the perfect amount of woo so you can run your career with ease rather than career running you. You were born for more, and I’m going to help you get there with maybe a few dance parties along the way. Your up level begins now. Welcome to this episode of the podcast.

I am so happy to be with you here today. Coming on the podcast and talking with you is one of my favorite things. It’s a space where I feel like I can just talk to you. It’s just you and me at a coffee shop having a conversation. I can share with you tips or insights or a strategy to help you have a better career and feel better about yourself, but also just connect with you. With my clients, I get to be with them every week, face to face and engaging with them on email or in an online community or on a call, and then here. I feel like whether you coach with me or not, you’re someone I get to just talk to and hopefully help you see that whatever you want in your career, you can create it and to listen to your voice the way that you’re listening to mine right now. It’s so important to listen to yourself, your intuition. When I worked in the industry, I did what my clients do, which is to look to other people or external circumstances to tell me what I could have for my career, what was possible.

I looked for examples from other people, what they were doing to advance their career. I looked at org charts to see what structures or types of jobs existed. I looked at education to see, Okay, if I go get this master’s or if I go get this certification, then maybe I could get this type of job. And it was all really focused on my learning and growth, advancement, as in climbing that ladder, getting recognized, getting promoted, and of course, making a positive impact. That’s what’s really important to me. But as I was searching and navigating through the corporate world, it didn’t occur to me until later in my career that I could actually just figure out what I wanted And if I got really specific with that, then I could create that. I didn’t have to use a precut mold like a cookie cutter and fit myself into that shape. That didn’t quite fit right. Instead, this entire experience that I’m having in my life is a playground. And I get to decide what is for me, what I want to play with, what I want to leave behind. It doesn’t have to be so serious.

You don’t have to follow a predefined path that your family or friends or colleagues are following. You can make your own. Our whole construct of how we live and what we set as expectations, it’s all just made up. It’s a social construct. It’s human nature. Everything that we have been taught has just been passed down by generations of what good looks like, what success looks like, how much money is too much, how much is too little, where we should live, how we should live. None of it, in fact, is real. It’s just opinion. And who we surround ourselves with can make certain opinions louder than others. If you were raised around a lot of higher education and big accomplishments and needing to overachieve to even celebrate anything, then that plays into how you see yourself in your career and how well you’re able to celebrate yourself. If you were raised that you just need to get any good job with benefits to be able to take care of yourself, and any education is a celebration because maybe you don’t have a history of a lot of education in your family, then that also plays into how you see yourself in your career.

And that can be something that limits you as far as the potential, how far you can go. Maybe you’re more prone to settle. But that’s also probably coming from needing to feel safe and secure because that security value was just instilled in you so strongly. And so anything that makes you uncomfortable or can seem like a risk can prevent you from really doing what you want to do. But it’s so much bigger than that. It’s not just how we were individually raised and our influences, it’s also society at large. And it’s also our brain chemistry. When we have influences from our family and friends and society, and we match that up with a brain, that is the human brain that is designed to avoid rejection and desire, acceptance and belonging. What does that give us? It creates people who look to others to make decisions. It creates a situation where it is really hard to go against the norm and choose something different. It creates people that don’t know how to make decisions for themselves and are just very doubtful or have a hard time putting themselves first when they’re making those decisions. Even if you have an idea of what you might want in your career or in your life, you have so much doubt and fear about it that you can talk yourself out of it.

Just think about it. We aren’t taught to make our own decisions. We are taught to make our caretakers happy. Even when our caretakers tell us to make our own decisions, there’s an underlying expectation there that your decision will have a certain type of outcome or will be aligned with their expectations, right? We’re taught to make our teachers happy. We’re taught to pass the test. We’re taught to go into the workplace and do what we need to do for others to be able to offer us a job, right? We have to do whatever we think they want from us. So it’s no wonder that it’s hard to make decisions, to know what you truly want or what the right decision is. You’re taught and designed not to. Not because no one wants you to be able to make those decisions. They’re not coming from a malicious intent. It’s just the way that our society is. It’s the way that our brain chemistry is. I take just all of my clients regardless of their specific goal, through my career protocol process because it teaches them to get in touch with themselves. It teaches them what they really want.

It helps them see what they enjoy and what they don’t. It helps them separate what they could do from what they want to do and see where they have been making decisions just to please other people or what they think they needed to do. And it puts those blinders on you where you can’t really see what’s possible, what options exist from all of your transferable skills. It helps them see that they can do things that maybe they didn’t consider before because they were bogged down with all of these societal norms and the brain confusion. It just parts the clouds so you can see really clearly letting the sun shine through. So whether they want a new job, a promotion, to be a better leader, to make their three or five-year plan, it’s super helpful to have your career protocol because it’s going to steer the ship in the right direction. And once you learn this method and you continue to use it, it always makes you the compass. You are the center of your decisions and not other people. Now, of course, you can use other people as advisors or get opinions, but you also can let go of their authority being greater than your own.

You become your own authority of your career and of your life. And that is freedom. Coaching and my method, specifically, have career strategy, and I have an expertise I use to give advice based on my education and experience in the industry. But it’s also a lot of helping you decide what you really want, what is best for you. That’s why it’s different than reading a book or taking a class or doing something at work. You can learn all these different concepts and tools, and they’re going to be a little bit different than mine because I created mine based on my education and experience and expertise. But those things that are generic, they don’t teach you how to make the best decision for you, right? You’re still putting yourself in that cookie cutter. So sometimes going through my process, it gives you permission to do what you know deep down you have always wanted, but you needed to explore it in a systematic way. You needed a process to validate that it was the right decision. Some of my clients will come to the call just wanting me to tell them what to do. But they quickly find that what I start with is exploring with them through questioning what they want to do, why they are even asking that particular question, what is the outcome they’re trying to achieve.

And from there we can explore options, and I’m helping them make their own decisions. The more you do this, the better you get at it. The more you have someone helping you make decisions for you, the more you are changing the way that your brain works because you want to have that skill of making the best decisions for you so you don’t live the rest of your life making your decisions for other people. You can literally rewire your brain to override what you’ve been doing your whole life and making changes for others and start making them for yourself or making changes based on what makes sense and making changes based on what you This is why good coaching can be so helpful, and having it for a longer period of time will increase your capacity to do this on your own. I don’t offer one-off coaching packages, I’ve said this before because it would be a disservice to you. It’s not that I don’t want to just meet with you one time, it’s that it’s not going to be helpful. I don’t want you to pay me for me to tell you what to do.

I want to give you the strategy you need and have you implement it and fail at it because things don’t always go perfect. And then have you learned how to evaluate it and have the courage to improve and do it again. I want you to build that resilience. I want you to learn to be a decision maker that considers yourself first. I want you to be able to understand why you might get down on yourself, why you doubt yourself so much. I want you to understand what it takes to create the changes that you want so that you are always able to create them. I want you to have sustainable results. That’s the way that I work. We can’t undo the patterns of your entire life in one session. And how you do one thing tends to be how you do everything. Also, the processes and methods I use, again, they’re for sustainable results. If we met one time or even for one month, that’s not enough time to go through my processes and it’s not enough time for you to implement them. This isn’t you learning in school. This isn’t a semester of classes where you read a textbook.

It would make sense that you would learn something, but then you’re not actually held accountable to actually change your behavior. You’re not learning how to take action from courage and to stop waiting to feel confident. You’re not building momentum and not seeing your goals through. So that first time you go for that job that you’re so excited to get and you get turned down, you don’t give up or think, well, I just have to settle now. Or the first time your boss says no to that promotion, you think, well, I guess I just need to leave now or I need to wait. You get creative. You learn how to solve those problems differently. Or when you have challenging stakeholders, you don’t just leave because you don’t like them and they’re challenging. You learn how to build relationships with them because you’re going to have challenging stakeholders forever. So we can certainly have breakthroughs and solve problems in one session. But my clients come to me because they want to know what they want for their career. They want to feel more confident in their decisions, get a new job, get promoted, have a job created for them.

And those big results, they take more than one session. We can solve a small problem in one session and you can have breakthroughs and understanding of where something is coming from, why you are behaving the way that you are, what you can do moving forward. But we need to build the momentum on that by doing that over and over and over again for a more extended period of time. Just consider what it would be like if you knew exactly what you wanted for you, that you were in the right place in your career, and that you knew how to solve every obstacle that came your way. And you could easily decide what you wanted your career to be and know how to create it now and in the future. You would never feel stuck again. You would never let a no stop you. You would have the skill to make your next step or job a reality even when it doesn’t exist. Imagine the impact you would have, the enjoyment and fulfillment you would have from your career, the difference you would make, your entire career trajectory would change. And on top of it, with every woman I help do this for themselves, they become the evidence for themselves and everyone around them.

The more people that learn this method and coach with me, then you become the example. There are more examples of women that make their own decisions, create jobs that didn’t exist, and are happy in their careers. So then, whether it’s a friend, a family member, or someone you know that know someone, then they tell you about this person they know that created a job that didn’t exist, that figured out what they wanted, that are actually happy in their career, that actually feel like they’re in their dream job, then you start to see that evidence. And then the more people that see that evidence, the more people want to create that for themselves. So more women won’t just see what we’ve been taught to do our whole lives. They will see or hear examples of how you can create the career you want. The ripple effect of you doing this work for yourself positively impacts more people than you even realize. This is what I refer to as going beyond your ceiling. There is a real ceiling in society and in the workplace for women. I talk about it in the intro of this podcast. We do have hidden obstacles we have to overcome to earn our seat at the table.

But some of those obstacles come from us, from our self-doubt, our fear, our need for belonging and not wanting to ruffle any feathers, our lack of self-confidence. It all contributes to this. We can be really confident technically and be really frustrated because we have so much to offer and we have so much we can give and we have such good ideas. But if we don’t know how to actually get them heard in the workplace If we don’t have the confidence to build these skills and to become a person who always just has her own back and can go in and share ideas, and when they get shut down, know how to handle that, then we’re not going to go as far. We have our own ceiling that we put on ourselves. Whether we tell ourselves we can’t have what we want, that we need other people’s approval, that we aren’t worth the investment, that we don’t want to take a risk when we fall into perfectionism and overthinking, when we fear failure, this is our ceiling. It is the one that is instilled in us, but also that we create and make stronger when we stay perpetuating and living in our cycles that are not helpful.

So I hope you dismantle the ceiling. We use career strategy and coaching, specifically for women in Pharma/Biotech, so you know the how and the method for getting what you want. You have a proven system that works. We also work on your inner fears and perfectionism and doubt, so you have the courage and confidence to take up space, to make your own decisions, to be visible. These things need to go together. You could use the best strategy, but if you have that inner ceiling, you’re not going to go as far. So I help you with both. This is how you get confident and clear on what you want and have the ability to create it. And with anything, there are levels. So you can reach those initial goals, and then you can get to your next level of growth. Everyone starts similar but at a different place. You have unique situations and experiences. You are unique as a person. So my process and coaching are unique and personalized to you. That is why it works. I have some clients who work with me for four months and some that have worked with me for two years or more.

We’re just peeling back the onion and getting into their next level of growth because that ceiling can be dismantled, but then it can come up again or it can start to creep in. And you have to be able to be aware of it and dismantle it and shatter it over and over again. Or you can get to that next level. So you get into that dream job, right? And then you’re on a succession plan to lead your department. A new ceiling might emerge from that, right? And so you can work through that so that at every stage of growth, you’re becoming unstable. The more practice you have shattering that ceiling, the better your skill to eliminate it. So I named my group coaching program, Beyond the Ceiling, because we’re going beyond the ceiling you’re having at work and your ceiling. You see testimonials from my client saying, I changed their life or the experience was life-changing or best investment they’ve ever made. Now, they don’t say this just because they got a new job or a 50K sign on bonus. They say this because they became someone different in the process. They learned this skill. They stopped overthinking and doubting themselves.

Their marriages got better because the conversations they were having with their partner changed and they weren’t stressed all the time. They became more present as a parent. They started doing things they love and have a better quality of life. They have this in addition to the tangible career changes that they initially came to coaching for. So sometimes you’ll see in my testimonials, my clients will talk more about their personal growth changes, the confidence they have, how their life has changed, how they approach problems differently. And I sometimes have to remind them, Hey, remember, you got this new job, too. Hey, you got promoted. Let’s talk about those results, too. Because I know that when you’re starting coaching, you don’t know the experience you’re going to have. You haven’t done it yet with me. So you’re coming for that big result and you don’t know all of these other amazing results you’re going to get in the process. I take the work I’m doing seriously. It truly is my calling and privilege to be able to help you to be even in your ears right now. I want you to take away that you can have what you want.

You can figure it out. You can create it. It’s not impossible. You can stop taking pride in being a perfectionist who doesn’t make mistakes and instead not be afraid to make creative mistakes, to have freedom, to feel good about yourself, no matter what. To know what you want and how to make decisions, putting you first without feeling guilty. You can have the job title you want. You can have jobs created for you. You can start a business. You can literally do anything you want, no matter how far along you are in your career right now. Throughout my business, this inner ceiling that I talked about that we all have, it’s resurfaced for me too. I broke through it when I started my business. I broke through again with different phases of growth in my business. These ceilings, they just exist to keep us safe and to remind us that we are breaking through another barrier. When we are presented with doubt or fear, we have a decision to make. We can choose to make the choice that gets us closer to what we want but makes us uncomfortable, or we can choose to stay in the comfort of doing things the way that we always have.

A mistake we make is thinking we can’t have what we want or that if we have doubt, that it just isn’t meant to be. But that’s just not true. It’s just a reminder that we have an opportunity to break through another ceiling. So if you want help to do this, of course, I can help you. When I created my coaching business, this is an example of me following what I teach. I went through a much longer, tedious process with a lot of ups and downs to figure out what it is that I wanted. I had a longer process to get a job created for me than what I’m able to help do now in just a matter of a couple of months. A lot of trial and error. Then I created a process to expedite it to just a few weeks, and I tested it the last four plus years, and it always works. We go through this in Beyond the Ceiling, my appropriately named group for women in pharma or biotech. In this group, you create your career protocol through my process. It tells you exactly what you want and helps frame the business case to get it, whether it’s internal or external.

Then we work together to make it happen, whether it’s a new job, a promotion, upgrading your current role and changing your responsibilities, knowing where you’re headed in the future. And we break your inner ceiling together. We together identify what it is. If you don’t know it, then we dismantle it. So you have the courage and confidence to make the changes you want while also changing the way that you currently approach work. Whether it’s overworking, delegating appropriately, a frustrating boss, difficulty in speaking or being visible, we identify it and we work through it. Each person’s individual ceiling is going to be a little different, but at the same time, because my clients are all struggling with the same things, that is what makes the group format so valuable. You see, you’re not alone and you learn from each other. Each person’s wins and struggles benefit you. In fact, the community aspect is one of my clients’ favorite things about the group. They were hesitant. Most of them were hesitant coming into this last group to speak up. They were worried about taking up space, but found it to be a safe space that they didn’t know they needed.

It’s so important to have this support in the industry, not just to have the emotional and psychological support, but this is also your network. These are relationships you’re going to have for the rest of your life. So I want to share with you something that one of the members of this last cohort of Beyond the Ceiling sent to me and gave permission for me to share with you. Here’s what she says, I have really loved Beyond the Ceiling. I’ve gotten so much meaningful support from you and the other women in the community. Our group calls each week have helped empower me to persevere through difficulties in my current role and in the job search. I felt a genuine connection with the group. I definitely had some vulnerable moments, which was initially stressful. But looking up to see everyone nodding in support and validation gave me such a sense of belonging. I sometimes felt bad if I ever took up a large chunk of time, but realized that some days I’d have a lot to go through, and other days the focus would be on someone else, and it was always okay. You make sure everyone feels included and has the opportunity to be heard.

I think having two calls a week really gives everyone the room to feel okay taking up space. I also appreciated the accountability our calls provided. It never came across like an admonishment, but more like a gentle poke to make sure I was remembering my goals and what I had committed to. So see, that’s an example of the power of being in this space. Not to say anything negative about one-on-one. I still offer one-on-one coaching on a limited basis. But this group is where you get so much more from a support perspective, a community perspective, and you see you’re not alone. Things are a lot more painful when we think we’re the only one that’s struggling, but you get to see you’re not. And you also get to learn from people that are at different stages than you. The current group has people that are scientists and has people that are directors, and everywhere in between. So you’re learning from a lot of different women, a lot of different departments, but you all have the same problems. So let’s talk about the details so you could decide if this is the right next step for you.

Now, the reason you don’t have the results you want right now is because there is something you’re avoiding or missing. When we coach together, we identify the root cause and we solve it. And when it’s hard, we process it and identify the solution so you can take the right action. You are so supported and held in this space. Your peers are there to cheer you on. You see what you’re capable of. Now, Beyond the Ceiling is an industry-leading career development program that gets unheard of results because this isn’t a cookie cutter or generic solution. What you achieve in Beyond the Ceiling changes the way you see yourself, your career, and your life. It opens you up to possibilities you can’t see right now that are stopping you from getting what you want, whether it’s something like a new job or a promotion. Or an everyday thing, like working only when you want to and knowing how to navigate a difficult boss or stakeholder, no matter what you want to achieve, it’s relevant. Beyond the Ceiling is for you. If you are a woman in pharma or biotech who sees herself as smart, open-minded, and wants to be challenged and grow in her career, and if at least one of these bullets is true for you, so just one of these is true for you.

You have the nagging feeling there’s something more for you. You want to get promoted right now or in the next year. You aren’t sure what you want in your career, but you want to figure it out. You are considering changing jobs, but you’re not sure if you should. You started a new role and you want to wow your boss and your team. You’re stressed about your job. You are considering moving into management, but you’re doubting your abilities. Your boss sucks and you want to have a better relationship with them. You’re tired all the time and you want to be energized by your work. You want to feel passionate about what you do and make a bigger impact. You overthink and struggle with making decisions. You want to get into the best role, feeling confident it’s the right one and with the best compensation package. Or you want to create your three-year plan and drive your career forward. If any of those things are true, just one of them, then Beyond the Ceiling is the place you want to be. Beyond the Ceiling, you upgrade your career to the one you want. It is the absolute best thing to feel empowered and be in control of your results, even when you’re hitting roadblocks.

Nothing gets in your way when you have the skills you build and the strategy you use inside Beyond the Ceiling. You are going to change the trajectory of your career. You’re going to make changes to your current role so you are stressing less and doing more of the work you love while offloading the stuff you don’t, even when there’s limited resources, even when you can’t see who would take those things, we figure it out. In fact, you’re going to see a measured improvement in your current circumstances within 30 days. You’re also going to decide what major result you want, whether it’s to fast track your way to promotion, get promoted, know exactly what you want in your career now and for your three-year plan, or get a new job. You will also have the skills to communicate effectively with even the most difficult leaders who don’t get it, influence others to get your ideas heard and used, feel confident and stop overthinking and doubting yourself. You’re only going to work when you want to. You’re going to be able to interview with confidence and negotiate job offers. Even if the industry is slow, budgets are tight, and your dream job isn’t posted, you get what you want.

You will create these results by attending group coaching calls with me and your peers twice per week, where you will personalized coaching directly and learn from the coaching of others. The coaching calls are a combination of teaching and coaching, giving you both personal growth with proven career strategies at work for women in pharma or biotech. You leave each call with a personalized action plan so you always know what to do. You will get real-time 24/7 support for issues that just can’t wait until the next call in our private community. And by using my proven process to create your career protocol that tells you exactly what you want for your job, now and in your three-year plan, so you are always driving your career forward. The process is simple. It’s proven. All you have to do is follow the guidance and you will get the results. In this last round, we had two people that joined that were impacted by a layoff and they secured their ideal job within weeks with more money, and one of them negotiated a substantial sign-on bonus. One person who joined because she wasn’t sure what she wanted next in her career but wanted to get promoted or see some growth.

She loves her current company, but she didn’t see a way to advance with their current structure. She followed the process and my coaching, and she’s getting a new role created for her. We have people who join to coach through challenging bosses and learn how to communicate and influence effectively while making sure they’re driving their career in the right direction. We have someone changing groups from more early drug discovery to translational sciences. We have someone who has built a successful career in project management and recently got her MBA and wanted to figure out what role would be best for her, where she could combine all of her experience with the business education that she has. She is moving from human into the animal side of the industry and is so excited. So whether you want to identify the direction of your career on your terms while improving your effectiveness at work, building your professional development skills and working less, or You know that you want a new job, you know that you want a promotion. This is the space for you to take control of your career and know that you are in the right place.

It is the space for you to continue to elevate your skills and create a career that you feel good about. You can’t underestimate the skills that you will learn. When you aren’t overworking, you are able to delegate effectively. When you’re managing your time better, when you’re able to manage up and influence, you work less hours and get more done with less effort. And that means you’re automatically getting a pay increase because you’re not working as much with the same salary. When you have these skills, they follow you the rest of your career. When you know how to figure out what you want, negotiate offers, manage up, communicate with the most difficult stakeholders, guess You’re more successful. You’re seen as a leader, and you grow faster, again, on your terms. Doing what you know you love to do, having the impact you want to make. No more good enough career, taking what you can get and hoping something works out. This is the simple, effective and efficient way to have the career you want. Now, here is everything that’s included. Beyond the Ceiling is four months long. There’s a virtual kick-off event on March 15th, where you will immediately shift your perspective in your career, learn the Career Protocol process, and you’re going to create your measurable goals for the program and your measurable 30-day goal.

There’s going to be two live coaching calls per week. During these calls, you will be guided through my proven process that will walk you into meeting or exceeding your goals. You will get coached on any career-related issue you’re facing and get personalized strategy and support from figuring out what you want next to communicating with influence and getting a new job or promotion. These calls are personalized to you and the group. You get a private portal with on-demand resources and career development tools that are specific to getting the career you want in pharma and biotech and video call recordings. So you never miss it. All the calls are recorded. You can rewatch your coaching, you can rewatch other people’s coaching. If you have to miss for some reason, they’re there for you. There’s a private podcast. So this is my public podcast. You get a private podcast for you to binge prior calls, get immediate answers, and take the program with you anywhere. You also get a community of the best women in Pharma/Biotech where you will network, you will grow together, you will peer-mentor each other, and rise up in the industry together. Plus, there are a couple of bonuses.

You get a time management training that has digestible and short solutions to common time issues. So you can go in and in five minutes get a solution to help you save time. And you get my hands-on Confident Decision-Making Workshop that stops the overthinking and analysis paralysis and helps you make quick decisions that you feel confident about. You get everything you need, the best resources, tools and coaching, specifically for women in the industry. Enrollment opens on Friday, February 16th, and closes March first. To join, you’re going to schedule a consultation call with me where we’re going to confirm you’re a good fit. This is a small group program, and I’m curating each person to make sure that this is the space that will be beneficial for every member. If you want to hear more about my process or you want to see what it would be like to work with me, then register for my training. It’s coming up on Friday, February 16th. This free training is where I’m going to teach my strategy for getting your dream job right now when the industry is having budget cuts and layoffs so you can get results like my clients in the last round of the program.

So the training is how to get your dream job as a woman in Pharma/Biotech, even with budget cuts and layoffs. So this Friday, 12:00 PM Eastern, you can register at the link in the show notes. And at the end of the training, I’m going to share all of the details about Beyond the Ceiling with you and answer any questions you have live. Plus, I have a bonus just for those of you that register for the training. If you register for the training and schedule your consultation to join Beyond the Ceiling within 48 hours of open enrollment, you will receive a one-on-one call with me to create a career CAPA, where we will solve a career problem you have right now and prevent it from happening again. Last week’s episode was all about how to use the CAPA process to approach your work problems. I am going to guide you through this process one-on-one, and we will solve a problem you’re having right now. You will get this bonus on top of everything else when you’re registered for the training and schedule your consultation within 48 hours of enrollment. So you just have to schedule your consultation by the 18th and be registered for the training.

All right, I cannot wait to see you at the training and invite you to join this next round of Beyond the Ceiling. If this feels right for you, then now is the time. And remember, you can have what you want in every facet of your career or life. You just have to do the work to create it, and that takes external and internal accomplishments. Time to go beyond your ceiling and into the career that you truly want to have. I will talk to you soon.