Have a passion or big ideas but afraid to show it? Step into your own and learn how to advocate for yourself as a woman in today’s podcast with Heather Hansen. 

This week’s episode of Good Girls Get Rich is brought to you by Uplevel Media CEO and LinkedIn expert, Karen Yankovich. In this episode, Karen interviews Advocacy and Credibility Consultant, Author, Keynote Speaker, and Host of The Elegant Warrior Podcast Heather Hansen on how to advocate for ourselves as women.

 

Heather Hansen is the premier expert on how to advocate for your big ideas. She is the CEO and founder of Advocate to Win and has given thousands of clients the knowledge and tools they need to become better advocates and win support, attention, loyalty and engagement for their big ideas. 

 

For over 20 years Heather has been an award winning trial attorney, giving clients the skills to share their big ideas with juries, who initially don’t want to be there and don’t understand the issues.  Heather has a degree in psychology, is a certified mediator, and has provided expert analysis for CNN, Fox News Channel, NBC, Fox Business, Good Day Philadelphia, and The Dr. Oz Show. 

 

Known for her insight and energy, Heather has been invited to speak to audiences across the world, everywhere from Kuwait to Ireland, to share with them the tools to advocate for their big ideas. Her interactive and energetic keynotes leave participants with actionable tools they can use that very same day to stop simply communicating and begin advocating. 

 

Heather is the author of The Elegant Warrior-How to Win Life’s Trials Without Losing Yourself, which Publisher’s Weekly called, “A template for achieving personal and career goals.” She is also the host of The Elegant Warrior podcast. 

 

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We want to hear your thoughts on this episode! Leave us a message on Speakpipe or email us at info@karenyankovich.com.

 

About the Episode:

 

I have to begin by saying this episode was one of my favorites! Heather and I have very similar passions in teaching people how to own what they’re good at and to advocate for themselves, especially women!

 

This podcast was FULL of expert information from Heather, however I want to break this episode down into three key points on how to advocate for ourselves as women:

 

Know the Difference Between Communicating and Advocating

 

Starting with the basics… communicating and advocating for yourself are completely different. Communicating is sharing information and distributing ideas to those who need the information. Whether it’s you telling someone about your favorite restaurant or a great book you recommend, that’s communicating.

 

Advocating however, takes on a whole new level of courage and confidence. Advocating is standing up publicly for an idea you are passionate about or believe in. Women often are great at communicating, however when it comes to advocating for ourselves, it can take a bit of time to get used to doing. 

 

However… if we don’t advocate for ourselves, our ideas and messages will never be heard.

 

Understand the power of your voice

 

 I LOVED this quote by Heather…

 

“No one can advocate for you as well as you can. No one knows your big ideas and what you have to share as much as you do. Once you step into that role of advocate, that’s when you get all those things you’ve been seeking.”

 

This means you need to be comfortable with your voice, and being seen and heard in order to advocate for yourself. 

 

Your voice serves as your most powerful tool in order to advocate for yourself. Your voice also can describe a ton about who you are as a person. If you don’t declare those things you are passionate about and those ideas you have and what you’re really great at, they will never be declared. Your voice says so much about who you are and it’s a very real part of advocating.

 

Build Credibility with Yourself

 

One important thing to note is often as women… we are our biggest objectors! We are often so much harder on ourselves than anyone else out there is. So along with how to advocate for ourselves comes a sense of self-awareness in the fact that we need to recognize the credibility we have within ourselves.


I teach all the time to my clients that they need to own what they’ve done and what they’re good at. Often when I get done working with a client on their LinkedIn profiles they feel a bit uneasy or somewhat braggy… and that’s good! After we list through everything they’ve really done, then they understand that they really are great and what they do!

 

Many times we have so many reasons not to believe in ourselves. We say we’re “too young” or “too old” or “not educated enough” or “can’t speak well”… whatever it may be! However, the biggest point here is… 

 

How can someone else advocate for you… if you don’t advocate for yourself?

 

That is why you need to learn to overcome those objections, because once you do, it’s easy to overcome everyone else’s against you, which, aren’t nearly as bad or plentiful as the ones we often have with ourselves. 

 

It will take some time and some practice, but own what you’re good at, girl! Learn to advocate for yourself and everything abundance will come into your life just like that.

 

Episode Spotlights:

 

  • Where to find everything for this week’s episode: karenyankovich.com/095
  • Audio review from Domonique Townsend, Founder and CEO of We Optimize Work LLC.  (2:38)
  • Introduction and background to Heather Hansen (5:23)
  • Heathers journey from a trial attorney to news personality (7:39)
  • Do women struggle to advocate for themselves more than men? (9:49)
  • The difference between communicating and advocating (10:47)
  • How using your voice is the most important part of advocating (15:27)
  • What started the conversation around this discussion of advocating for yourself (21:13)
  • Places to advocate for yourself and get your message out (28:01)
  • Resources that Heather has made to help step into advocating yourself (30:55)
  • Recap of todays episode (34:37)

 

Resources Mentioned In This Episode:

 

 

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Read the Transcript

Karen Yankovich 0:00
You’re listening to the good girls get rich podcast episode 95

Intro 0:05
Welcome to the good girls get rich podcast with your host, Karen Yankovich. This is where we embrace how good you are girl. Stop being the best kept secret in town, learn how to use simple LinkedIn and social media strategies and make the big bucks.

Karen Yankovich 0:23
Hi there. I’m your host, Karen Yankovich. And this is Episode 95 of the good girls get rich podcast brought to you by up level media, where we teach a simple relationship and heart based LinkedIn marketing system for women that gets you on the phone consistently with your perfect people. This is just people you love to talk to people that can take your business in your life to new heights, one person at a time. We’re not throwing spaghetti at the wall here spamming our networks. We’re just putting a simple process in place using this crazy valuable LinkedIn tool to help us do that. Simply, and I want you to be talking on a regular basis to people who you cannot believe are on your calendar, people you can’t wait to have the opportunity to chat with. Bottom line is we teach digital marketing with the human touch. And speaking of that, I always love to connect with you in person, check out my website, Karen Yankovich. com slash events, so that you can see where I’ll be in the upcoming months. And maybe you can join me and we get together and take a selfie and really get to meet each other in person. Personalized marketing really is a kind of tell it was kind of like Back to the Future, right? Like it’s the way that it always worked. But now we’re starting to recognize how it really is the way to grow your business with powerful, profitable connections.

Intro 1:45
So if you have listened to before or if you love what you hear today, I’d love to hear from you. So make sure you subscribe to The Good girls get rich podcast. Wherever you listen to podcasts, leave me a review because that way we can see what works for you. We love to showcase reviews on our upcoming episodes. You can also leave us an audio review in speak pipe. If you go to Karen Yankovich comm slash speak pipe, or check, click the link in the blog or the show notes for wherever you’re listening to this, you’ll see the link for that. When you leave us an audio review, you don’t have to just leave us well, when you leave us an audio it doesn’t always just have to be review, although we love that maybe you have an idea for an upcoming episode or a guest that you think I should interview on this podcast. We love your suggestions and speak pipe is a way for us again, that human touch. I love hearing your voice. So speaking of hearing your voice, we have an audio review from Dominic Townsend I want to you to listen to now. Thanks, Dominic. Hi, I am Dominic Townson, founder and CEO of we optimize work LLC, a consulting firm that provides continuous improvement expertise to companies that are looking to find out where they are wasting time and wasting money in their processes their day to day process. Is the good girls get rich podcast is absolutely amazing Karen Yankovich every week, I look forward to a podcast that has been uploaded it to listen to I have invested in several courses that focus on LinkedIn positioning LinkedIn training and LinkedIn. They provide LinkedIn strategies and they do not compare to the feed. The the insight and feedback that we received from the podcast alone in the girls get rich podcast. I give you five stars. I am very excited just to learn so much from Karen and her leadership in her podcasts and how she gets questions from the special guests that she features each week. I look forward to hearing it every week and I am super excited to give this review and I’m telling you I will get five stars and I recommend this to anyone else who is looking to position themselves the correct way in LinkedIn and also utilizing services that are provided as well. Okay, that was so great. I love that we’re inspiring people to up their game here on the good girls get rich podcast. So thanks for taking the time to let us know that Dominique, I really appreciate it. One last thing, if you are if you can take a quick screen share of this episode, then you know on whatever device you’re listening to it, you can share that on social media, use the hashtag good girls get rich, tag me, I’m at Karen Yankovich across all social media, and I’ll be sure to share your post with my audience. And that’s how we all get more visibility. Right. I also would love I love sometimes sending little gifts if we can find where to mail them in the actual mail. So thanks for sharing that as well. I love you know, the rising tide lifts all boats. So when you share my content with your audience, I will share you with my audience and we all get lifted up. So remember, we’re doing blogs for the shows now. So if you’d rather if you’d like to read this, not only do we have a blog For each episode, we’re also sharing the full transcripts now, so if you have contacts that for whatever reason are not in a place where they can maybe, you know, maybe they just don’t have the ability to listen to the entire show. Now, not just not, it’s not just the blog, they can read, they can read the full transcript. So we’re pretty excited about adding that to the girls get rich repertoire. So this week on the show, we have Heather Hansen and Heather and I have been connected through a business program that we both joined a couple years ago. And I recently saw some conversation she was having on LinkedIn. And I jumped in and said, You know, I think it was it’s really in line with the message for women that I’ve been trying to share recently, mainly about how important it is for us to advocate for ourselves. So I, you know, immediately said we need to take this conversation over to the podcast. So I would love to introduce you to Heather Hansen, who I think you’re going to really enjoy. Take it away Heather.

Heather Hansen 5:57
We are here today with Heather Hansen and Heather is the premier expert on how to advocate for your big ideas. She’s the CEO and founder of advocate to win and it’s given thousands of clients the knowledge and tools they need to become better advocates and when support, attention, loyalty and engagement for their big ideas for over 20 years how there’s been an award winning trial attorney given clients the skills to share their big ideas with juries who initially don’t want to be there and don’t understand the issues. She’s got a degree in psychology is a certified mediator, and is provided expert analysis for CNN, Fox News Channel, NBC, Fox Business Good day Philadelphia and the dr. oz show. She’s known for her insight and energy and she’s been invited to speak to audiences across the world from Kuwait to Ireland, and share with them the tools to advocate for their big ideas. She is the author of elegant warrior How to Win life’s trials without losing yourself, which Publishers Weekly called a template for achieving personal and career goals and is the host of the elegant warrior podcast. So Heather, you got a lot going on. It’s so great to have you here today.

So great to be here, Karen. It’s so fun. I listened to your podcast all the time. So it’s nice to be on this end of it.

Karen Yankovich 7:06
Yeah. Well back at you. And you know, it’s funny. Heather and I have been in each other’s worlds for a couple of months now. And we got to know each other maybe six months ago. And there was a conversation going on on LinkedIn. And actually, Heather posted a comment and we’ll talk about it. She wrote an article about something that had come out in the news. And I kind of just saw that article and wanted to jump up and down. I was like, Yes, I completely agree. This is so important. And and I thought it would be just a perfect conversation to have here on the podcast. So before we get into that, Heather, why don’t you tell everybody a little bit about your journey? What brought you to I mean, you’ve had quite the journey from, from trial trial attorney to a news, you know, to a news, personality, right.

Heather Hansen 7:50
So well, I am still a trial attorney. I’ve been defending doctors and hospitals when they get sued for over 20 years and Philadelphia and the neighboring counties and And in all those years, I quickly realized that when I stepped into the courtroom, the juries, you know, they wanted to hear from me a little bit. But really, Karen, they wanted to hear from the witnesses and ultimately, the parties in the case. And so I realized that my job was not just to advocate which I had learned to do between my psychology degree and in law school and and my experience, but more importantly, my job was to teach my clients and the witnesses how to turn to the jury and advocate for themselves. And I’ve been doing that for 20 years, and I have loved it. Some time, I’d say around 2009 or so I started doing a lot of speaking so I started speaking to health care providers about how to advocate for their patients and their treatment plans. And then that sort of extended to speaking with women’s groups and business groups and sales groups, and then at one of those speeches, someone approached me about doing some TV. So in around 2014, I started doing legal analysis for CNN Fox msnbc Good day Philadelphia. And now I do the occasional dr. oz show as well. So that’s all a ton of fun and has given me great experience in keeping my answers short into the point and also really knowing who my jury is, you know, your jury in the courtroom is the people that you choose your jury when you’re on TV or the viewers, and knowing your jury is an important part of being an advocate. So all of these experiences together have definitely given me a lot of insight on how to advocate and most importantly, how to teach other people to do it for themselves.

Karen Yankovich 9:38
So important, it is so important. It’s such a great, it’s such a great conversation to have, because I think so let me ask you this, let’s kind of get right to the meat. Do you think women have a harder time with this than men? Because I feel like we do and, and I try not to be I really don’t want to be I don’t want to put labels on people. But I just find that that you know, we Women are like, I got it, don’t worry about it. And we’re like, wait, no, tell me more about that. Like, what? Why do you think you’re the best person, you know where and and I just I just came off of a weekend where I spent five days at a women’s conference, and some believe it was a podcasters conference. So it was just amazing voice after amazing voice with so many amazing messages. And, you know, the important I just realized the importance of each one of those 800 people at that conference, the need for them to advocate for their own show and their own voice,

Heather Hansen 10:29
right. And they’re all really good communicators, obviously, you know, and so I think that that’s where we have to begin. There is a difference between communicating and advocating, communicating is sharing ideas. And I think women are fabulous at that we are fabulous at sharing things and curating things and making sure that everyone that we know and love has the information that we think that they need, but advocating is publicly supporting something, and that is very different. So as women, we’re really good at advocating For our favorite restaurant, you know, you’ve got to try this place, or our favorite TV show, you’ve got to watch this show. We’re amazing at advocating for our friends and our family, and Gosh, our children Forget about it. But when it comes to advocating for ourselves for publicly supporting our own ideas, I think that we do struggle. I think we feel as though you know, we’re stepping over lines, or we’re acting like we’re too big for our boots, or we don’t shouldn’t have to do that, because people should just recognize our competence. And the truth is that no one can advocate for you as well as you can. No one knows your big ideas and what you have to share as well as you do. And when you step into that role of advocate, that’s when you start getting all the things that you’ve been seeking.

Karen Yankovich 11:46
Oh my gosh, so true. And Heather, that really is fundamentally the reason why I do this podcast, because I think that women, you’re right that I agree that that we are great advocates for everyone else, but if We’re not great advocates for ourselves who’s going to be. And you know even more even when we’re great advocates for our friends, it’s still not the same. Like, I’m sure you have friends that advocate for you, as I have friends that I’ve been need for me, but, but we have to start learning how to advocate for ourselves if we want to accomplish the things that we need to accomplish, whether we’re in it,

Heather Hansen 12:19
and it’s not selfish, you know, I talked about the five C’s of an advocate in my keynote speeches. And the first thing is connection that second see is compassion. And that’s connection and compassion with the people we are advocating to. So this isn’t all about me, me, me. And I think that when we when we realize that women become a lot more comfortable with it, you know, a lot of us especially Generation X and that age, we were taught not to be too loud and not to talk too much about our endeavors and our successes. But when you start thinking about it as How can I serve, what do I have that can help me to connect with this person? Help me to show this person compassion. Help me to use my creativity and my curiosity And build credibility in order to win the support and attention and loyalty and engagement that I need. I think that when we see that it is, both sides can win, we’re a lot more comfortable with it.

Karen Yankovich 13:14
And then I feel like the people around us are lifted up as well. Right? Because I like to take this like out of your world, in my world and into, like, even just thinking about, like, for some reason, my what’s been on my mind lately, or even people that are, say, teachers, public school teachers, you know, they’re typically are advocates for their students and advocates for the for the upper education. But imagine if they were advocates for themselves and really went out there and said, you know, no, I know this better than anybody. So I’m going to give you my point of view, as you’re writing this article, you know, CNN or MSNBC, because you’re, you know, I’m the one that are in the trenches, and I, you know, I know this, and I feel like you know, sometimes we feel a little bit removed from the people that are advocating for the things that we’re passionate about when really, we are the people that should be advocating for them, regardless of what it is that we’re doing.

Heather Hansen 14:05
Well, that’s right. I mean, no one can do it better than you can no one knows what you know, no one knows your experience. Now, sometimes it takes a little bit of time. Like I know, for myself, stepping into my business, I had spent so much time teaching witnesses and clients how to advocate for themselves to the jury is that I didn’t even really recognize that that was a skill. And I really am, by the way, which is

Karen Yankovich 14:28
brilliant. I mean, maybe that is a typical legal strategy, but I’ve never heard it. I think it’s brilliant.

Heather Hansen 14:34
Well, thank you, but but it’s something that has come So naturally, as part of what I do that it didn’t even occur to me that it was something that I should be proclaiming. And I think for the teacher in your, in your example, Karen, you know, he or she is so accustomed to handling a bunch of children and trying to keep their attention focused on the lesson plan and advocating for the lesson plan over all of the distractions that are there in the room. That they don’t even think of that as a skill. And I think that once we start to take a step back and really look at the skills that we have, and what we bring to the table, then we start to see that we do have to publicly support those skills in order for them to grow.

Karen Yankovich 15:17
Yeah, and the more that we can have our voices recognized, the more people can hear them, and the more people we can help.

Heather Hansen 15:26
Well, and using your voice is such an important part of of what I teach people not only in the global way, but in a really specific way as well. So using your voice is important because your voice is as singular to you, Karen as your fingerprint is. And so if you don’t say what you have to say in the way that you have to say it will never be said. And just like your voice is as individual to you. So are your skills so are your ideas, so are your passions. And if you don’t declare those things, they will never be declared and then no more micro way, your voice tells the world a whole lot about you, we can learn more about someone’s emotion and their state of mind from their tone of voice than from looking at their body language or reading their facial expressions. So using your voice is a very real part of advocating both finding the confidence inside to actually stand up and use it. But also using it effectively, to make sure that when we are advocating for what we want, we’re doing so in a way that’s going to be sure to end up in beneficial results.

Karen Yankovich 16:34
Wow. So that’s, you know, that’s one of the reasons why I do what I do even on LinkedIn, not just with the podcast, but on LinkedIn, because I feel like so, you know, taking it back to this conference that I was just at, you know, all of these women, it was a women’s podcasters conference, it was she podcast live, which was amazing. And first year they were out they had I mean, just as an example, they had there’s lots of podcaster conferences out there and the first year that they put this conference out there, they had 800 Oh, was a, I think almost 700 people registered for this conference in year one. They’re the third largest podcasting conference in the country in year one. And I but I think it’s because I think women recognize that they need to have community to help, you know, to move their message and their voices forward. But what I so so here we are, my talk at the conference was the very last lot of the conference the last lot of the last day, but it ended up being a great place to be because, you know, everybody’s getting all motivated and learning all these skills and really feeling empowered. And I know what happens typically then we go home, we get on the plane and it’s a schlep to get home and we get back to our lives and our to do list and I loved having the opportunity to come in and say okay, like now what, right like now what are you going to this LinkedIn is where you can now start to step into this person that you’re starting to feel and hear and see. Right, you can start to tell the world about this amazing message you have and why you are uniquely qualified to share this message. And LinkedIn is a place for you to do that. You know, and I think that often, you know, one of the things my company does is write LinkedIn profiles. And very often, when we’re done people like I know, I feel like I’m bragging, like you have done all this, you know, you do this, right? Like, this is owning it, it’s owning it and stepping into it and really kind of putting out to the world, the person that you’re becoming, and and that it’s a place then when you’re advocating for things. You’re also kind of substantiating your credibility a little bit behind your words. Right. And I think it’s, it just becomes that’s where the power starts to come in. I think for the for the messages we’ve have.

Heather Hansen 18:43
Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s funny because a lot of the work that I do, you know, I talk a lot about building credibility, because in the courtroom, if I don’t have credibility with the jury, I can’t win. And we need to build credibility with the people that we’re advocating to. Whether it’s our clients or customers, our teammates are funding Our sponsors. But before we can do that, we have to build credibility with ourselves, you know, the people that you work with that you help to write their LinkedIn profile, they have to believe those things. So the way that we build credibility in the courtroom and the way that I talked about it with my clients is you set expectations and you meet them, and you make promises and you keep them. And when you can’t you own it. And you have to do that with yourself as well. So that if you set yourself an expectation that you’re going to do outreach for an hour, every day for a week, then you meet that expectation, and then you start to really feel as though you can rely upon yourself. You have your own credibility, and you can start to trust yourself. And then you’re more comfortable saying, you know what, this isn’t bragging. I can own this because it’s true. And if you don’t, you know, you do mess up which we all do. owning that mistake and trying to fix it is a huge part of building credibility. And the other part of it, you know, I teach people how to overcome objections in the courtroom. I have to overcome objections all day long, and in sales and marketing and building teams, we also have to overcome objections. But one of the things that I have found with the women that I’ve worked with is the hardest overcoming objections to overcome. The ones that hold us back most often are our own. We object before anybody else can You’re too old. You’re too young, you don’t have the experience. You can’t speak well on a stage. You don’t look good in that dress. I mean, there’s so many things people might laugh at you people might think you’re stupid people might think you’re too big for your britches. I mean, there’s so many ways that we hold ourselves back with our own objections. And once we can find a way to overcome those objections, and I actually have a series of questions that I use with my clients to help them do that, because once you can overcome your own objections, it is easy to overcome other people’s and usually other people don’t have nearly the number of objections that we have. So a lot of this work a lot of the work of an advocate starts with yourself, you know, building your own credibility using evidence to do so overcoming your own object. Asking yourself these questions using your voice and standing up. And then from there, it’s a whole lot easier to advocate for yourself to the outside world.

Karen Yankovich 21:09
Oh my gosh, I totally agree. I totally agree. Alright, so let’s talk about the article that started this conversation. So do you remember the article we were talking about? It was a Forbes article that came out early, early September 2019.

Heather Hansen 21:22
Yep. It was about America’s top 100 most innovative leaders and the Forbes Forbes put it out and included one woman. And there was a huge outcry. The woman Diana cap, who wrote girls who run the world dropped it alliterative for that was on by 60 well known and innovative women and asking Forbes to overhaul the criteria that determines who makes the cut. And, you know, I agree that the criteria could definitely be over overhauled. I think that the criteria so often there’s so many unconscious biases in the way that things are laid out, that puts women and other minorities at a disadvantage. So I definitely believe that that needs to be overhauled. And I do believe that more women need to make the cut. But I also feel as though we don’t speak up enough about how innovative we are. We don’t speak up enough about our big ideas. And women especially don’t brag and yell from the rooftops about all that they have to offer the way that men do. And because of that, we are not as often seen when it comes to these top 100 type of list. So sometimes it’s true that the loudest voice wins and you know, loud isn’t enough loud has to have credibility and evidence behind it. The loudest voice doesn’t win trials. It’s the but it but it certainly helps to be the one that the jury is hearing when you’re presenting your evidence and building your credibility and making your case. Oh my gosh,

Karen Yankovich 22:50
yeah, and you know, I it’s I bet because one of the things that it goes to me because I know this, I teach this I get this, but yet I still get a little cringe like do I have to be The loudest voice for myself, right? Because you think like, do I really want to be the squeaky wheel is not the pain in the neck like, but the answer to that is no, you know, but but the reality is the squeaky wheel does get the oil. Right. So, so where’s the balance? Where’s that? Where do you know? Like, I guess? I guess the I’m not asking you to answer that. But I think the question we need to ask ourselves is to find the balance, right, the balance of getting your message out there in a way that is empowering.

Heather Hansen 23:27
That’s right. Well, I think that we struggle. It’s funny because I was listening to a podcast this morning. And Simon cynic has a new book coming out that’s called, I think it’s called the infinite game. Don’t quote me on that. But he did an interview where he was talking about winning and how winning should no longer be the goal because you know, someone wins and someone loses. And that is certainly true. In my cases. When I step into the courtroom at the beginning of a trial, I know at the end of the trial, someone will leave that courtroom a loser, and someone will leave a winner, but that is one of the few places in life Where it’s a zero sum game, there is a definition of win in the Cambridge dictionary that says to receive something positive is the result of having earned it. And I think that sometimes we can recognize that the squeaky wheel gets the grease and that helps all the other wheels. You know, it doesn’t mean that you’re getting something. It is an abundant world, and there’s plenty of pie. And there are ways to make sure that everyone wins. But by you not squeaking and not getting the grease, you’re not doing benefiting anyone. I think that a lot of times, especially for women, when we start to think about the ways in which we serve by advocating for ourselves and make it about so one of the things I always talk to women about is you’re not advocating for yourself, you’re advocating for your idea. Your idea is a thing just like I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the children’s book, what did you do with an idea and it’s like a little egg with a crown on it and the child plays with it and gives it attention and gives it love and the idea starts to grow and I love that book, but I take issue with it the end the idea is grown in this beautiful wonderful thing, and then all of a sudden in the book, it just sort of floats into the air and explodes. And that’s where we get it wrong. Your ideas don’t just float into the air and explode, you have to advocate for them. So if you feel like you can’t do it for yourself, do it for your idea. Think of that as a separate entity that needs you to advocate for it in order for it to get all the attention it needs.

Karen Yankovich 25:23
Oh, my gosh, that I mean, I think I think that that statement, right, there was just so powerful. So the article that that, that Heather wrote basically talked exactly what she just said there. Right. And, and I’ll quote from it, when women start advocating for themselves, they won’t even need anyone to overhaul the criteria that determines who makes the cut, which, you know, which means we have to get our voices out there. We have to get our messages out there. Right We can have, we can and that’s advocating right advocating isn’t saying it to, you know, to your cats in your living room, right. It’s, it’s got a good two, it’s got to be out publicly and which is Also sometimes a little scary. So what do you say to people that that are feeling a little nervous about that?

Heather Hansen 26:05
I you know, I hate the phrase fake it till you make it because I think it makes us feel uncomfortable. It makes us feel like fakes. It makes us feel like Sony’s. What I urge my clients to do instead is to show it until you grow it. You may have a little bit of a sense of humor inside that you can show and it will start to get attention, people will start to recognize that and feed it and then it will continue to grow. Everyone has a thing that makes them a good advocate. I had a client one time, who was grumpy, he was a grumpy doctor. And if I had told him to be all sweet and cuddly on the stand, the jury wouldn’t have hated him. They would have found him not at all credible, not at all likable and not at all trustworthy. Instead I urged him to show how much he cared about the patient and how much he followed policies and procedures to a tea because that was important to him and caring for the patient. And when he started, just show that the fed off of it, they leaned forward in their seats, they gave him the body language that he needed, so that he could do the same. And that feeling grew until all of a sudden he was very confident in himself and not quite as grumpy. Those still grumpy because he’s a grumpy type of guy. But the jury appreciated his grumpiness, because they saw that it was the result of really working hard to take good care of the patient. And ultimately, they absolutely loved him. So you don’t have to do things that are outside of your comfort zone. In order to advocate for yourself, you just need to find ways to publicly support yourself. And there are different ways to do it. I have a seven x seven w program that I use with my clients where we talk about seven times seven ways to communicate the information that you need to communicate in order to publicly support yourself. So it doesn’t have to always be using your voice. It can be using data and evidence it can be using someone else as an advocate. But ultimately, as I said at the beginning, there is no one who can do it better than you can and when you know that and you realize that you’re doing it for your big idea. And not for yourself, it’s going to come a whole lot easier.

Karen Yankovich 28:03
So we talked about using LinkedIn to advocate for yourself other other places. And I love I know, you gave a few examples of ways that you can advocate. But how do you get that advocate, you know, whether you’re using data, or whatever you’re using, that you’re in a way that you’re comfortable doing? How do you get that other other ways to get the message out there? What are your Yeah, and you have any ideas for us?

Heather Hansen 28:21
So my preferred way is always in person. And I know that’s not easy in today’s age. But I do think that the pendulum is swinging and I think that advocating for you 100% agree with you on the Yeah, it’s advocating for your big idea in person. Karen allows you to make eye contact and to read body language and to read facial expressions. And also, there are studies that show that when we are in person, we actually feel the air between us differently and that’s another sense that sort of comes into play as you’re talking to one another. So that is, for me, the gold standard for advocating if you can be in person, whether it’s Across you know, so I do two day strategy days with some of my clients and then the first day we work on honing the message, the seven x seven w program, how do we figure out what ways you’re going to advocate that and the second day we do an across the table and on the stage and an on camera program where we go through each way that you can advocate because those to me are the gold standard. If you’re in front of an audience, like you were when you spoke at the podcasting event, that is a fabulous way to be standing up on a stage and publicly supporting who you are and what you do. Awesome. I love it. Or if you have the opportunity to be on camera, whether that’s in a video that you’re going to put on LinkedIn or Instagram or on your website. That is another great way to use your body language and your hands and your eyes and your tone of voice to advocate at across the table when you can look at the person that you’re negotiating with or you’re talking to or you’re selling to, and again, read their body language, listen to their tone, that’s ideal. And then the next step down is to do something like zoom or something Skype where you don’t have that same feeling of the air passing between you, but you can still see the eyes and read body language and the tone of voice. And then the next step would be the phone. Because there you still get the tone of voice and tone of voice is really important. It’s a great way to know your audience. I always say, you know, know your jury, who you’re trying to advocate to, is it your team so that you can be a better leader is that your clients or customers so that you can sell to them? Is it investors to get more funding, and when you know, your jury, and you’re really tuned into their tone of voice, you can learn a lot from them. And then sort of bottom rungs of advocating are, of course, you know, text messaging and emails because so much can be misread. But again, there are ways to do it effectively on each steps, each one of these steps.

Karen Yankovich 30:49
Awesome. I love that. I love that. So I think that I think that we’ve given the setting. I hope that we’ve inspired the people that are listening to this to understand The value of advocating for yourself. Tell us a little bit about how you blend to this, how you get this message out. I know you have a book and a podcast. Tell us a little bit about those.

Heather Hansen 31:09
So I wrote the book, the elegant warrior How to Win life’s trials without losing yourself as sort of a guideline for applying the lessons that I’ve learned in trials and applying them to life’s trials. So that book is out there. It’s available. It’s on Amazon and Barnes and Noble target anywhere that you buy books, you can certainly get that. I also have a podcast called the elegant warrior where I interview people about what their definition of elegance is and how they maintain it during times of trial. And we also talk about what their big idea is and how they advocate for it. I have a website it is in transition. It is currently at the time that you and I are speaking Heather Hansen presents calm, but it’s going to be advocate to wind calm. And there you can see links to the blogs that I do. I do a video and a blog pretty much every week. And then there’s also my speaking, my consulting and Hi, you can get in touch with me there if you want to work with me.

Karen Yankovich 32:03
Amazing, amazing. And you have all kinds of good stuff on LinkedIn also,

Heather Hansen 32:06
yeah, I try to I try to post the things that I do in all of the various places so that, you know, if you’re going to the time and the trouble to make a video and a blog, you know, you want to make sure that as many people see it as possible. It’s a big idea, and you want to get it out there.

Karen Yankovich 32:21
Exactly, exactly. It’s less, it’s less work to get an existing message out to all the people than it is to continue to create new, and you have to continue to create new content anyway. But But you know, why? Why would you continue to create new content if you’re not doing your best to get it in front of people. So I agree with that.

Heather Hansen 32:38
And then and you also get, you know, the interaction with the people who respond to it. So I get very different responses on Instagram that I do on LinkedIn. And they all help me with the next client, you know, so that you can really be I think, a big part if you’re going to focus on LinkedIn or Instagram or any of the other social medias to really make you Your audience or your clients, they’re as engaged as possible. And that means, you know, asking them questions, answering their questions, going back and forth with them in the messages being actually social

Karen Yankovich 33:11
on social media. That’s right. Just like you would in person, actually. So I was telling you, when we started this, I wanted it, I was trying to find the LinkedIn posts that started this conversation. The two of us are so social on LinkedIn all the time, it took me forever to find it. But that’s a good thing, right? Because it keeps us engaged. And plus, I love having these conversations. I’m not having these kinds of conversations, because it’s my job. I’m having these kinds of conversations because I love having these conversation kinds of conversations. But I love inspiring people to advocate for themselves and to think bigger and to really step into, you know, a role that I know can change their lives in the lives of the people around them very often.

Heather Hansen 33:50
Well, that’s right. I mean, I have learned so much from your big idea, Karen, and and all the things that you’ve shared about LinkedIn and corporate pages and all of that. So you’re advocating for your Big Idea has certainly been of service. And I think that as women especially, we need to remember that because when we remember that our bigger ideas are helping others, it makes us a lot more comfortable and advocating for them. Awesome.

Karen Yankovich 34:12
Thank you so much, Heather, for being here today. I think that that’s a great way to wrap this up. And I look forward to our continued social interactions, and hopefully not always online, maybe in person at some point. And I will share all of where to get your book and your podcast and in the blog in the show notes associated with this. So thank you for being an advocate for all of us. And thanks for being here.

Heather Hansen 34:36
Thanks so much, Karen.

Karen Yankovich 34:37
Thank you for having me. I hope that you enjoyed Heather as much as I do. You know, Heather’s a great role model for women of influence and we’re all women of influence whether we’re influencing our kids, or our neighborhood, or we’re teachers and influencing our classrooms or we are, you know, working doesn’t matter what we’re doing. If you’re interacting with people you are influential and and I hope that I am inspiring you With my guests and with this show, to kind of step into more of that role as an influencer. So I love that when we you know that I have people like Heather in my world to help you because we can’t be silent about this, we’ve got to start being more vocal about the things that we know are right, we know that we can support and we know that we can help. You know, you know that I think that the place to start with that is on LinkedIn to place to start to, to really own the value that you bring to the world to really showcase the value that we that you bring to the world. And that a lot of that work is done up front, just need to be looked at on occasion, right? But once you do the work on a great profile, to really start to own that woman that you’re becoming that man that you’re becoming, then you know, the person that you’re becoming, then you just start to incorporate. You know, once you get do that, and you get that work done and you get that profile and then you just have to sort of tweak it as things change and You know, I, my goal is to keep this really simple for you, you know that I want to support you in this. That’s why I do the podcast.

And if you want to dive deeper, we are having so much fun with the LinkedIn profile challenge. LinkedIn profile challenge. com, it is live folks LinkedIn profile challenge. com, the time This podcast is going live, we are in the throes of running this live. So check it out, you can still join us LinkedIn profile challenge. com. If you go to that link later on and you get a waitlist, no worries, we’ll get back to it. We’re going to be doing this a lot. Because I my goal is to move into 2020. With an end, my goal is to support thousands of people with their LinkedIn profile. So not only do I want you to go to LinkedIn profile challenge com and join us it’s completely free. I want you to share that with your friends. We haven’t done it in years. So I’m excited to get back to really getting back to basics with LinkedIn and making sure that everybody’s got the foundation set. And that’s your profile. And in that free course we’re not just doing the tax. Typical stuff, right? I know that I need to also kind of do the same that we talked about earlier lifting you up. I also know that sometimes we need a little kick in the backside to remember and to to, to really showcase our greatness. So we’re also going to be doing a little have little extra surprises along the way to help you really find that place where you can shine your greatness. So remember, before you go if you haven’t already, take a quick screenshot of this on your phone or your whatever you’re listening to this on, and share it on social share this episode with If you enjoyed it, share it with your audience and give me a tag at Karen Yankovich. So that I can share it with my audience and lift both of us up. The bottom line is I want this to be simple for you. So let me help you. Let it be simple. See you back here again next week for another great episode.