CEO Janine Garner reveals 4 things you must do to succeed at work
Janine Garner was a busy, successful but stressed-out working mother when a comment from her child made her question everything.
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Janine Garner can clearly remember the moment an offhand comment from her young daughter made her rethink her life.
At the time, she and her husband were working full time in demanding careers while juggling three kids under seven – and it was exhausting.
Then one night during a family dinner, her then five-year-old turned to her and asked suddenly: “Mummy, why are you so unhappy?”
“I was working so hard and it was all about toys, putting food on the table and holidays, but in that moment I realised my five-year-old was right,” Ms Garner told news.com.au.
“I was existing and operating and doing a lot of stuff, but I was not living.”
She ended up quitting her corporate job and building her own business – The LBD Group – which is a huge networking group for women.
Over the years she has become a leading networking expert as well as an internationally-acclaimed entrepreneur and Fortune 500 mentor, keynote speaker and best-selling author.
Ms Garner’s latest book, Be Brilliant, is a guide on using times of uncertainty to unlock your true potential – a theme that’s all the more relevant during the unprecedented coronavirus crisis and subsequent economic downturn.
She told news.com.au it came down to four key “laws”.
The first involves “reconnecting with who you are and “owning your spotlight” – in other words, ignoring that self-doubt and impostor syndrome and owning your dreams and your character, skills and experience.
Next, it’s essential to look after yourself physically and emotionally by setting healthy habits which will allow you to “harness your energy” and take back control.
The third step is to surround yourself with people who support and believe in you – so make the time to reach out to mentors, friends and family members who have your best interests at heart and who will push you to be better.
Finally, it’s about “leading with influence” – which means beating the habit of keeping your thoughts and feelings to yourself and speaking out with authority.
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If you’re uncertain about how to go about increasing your influence in the workplace, Ms Garner also shared her top tips.
“Step one is to find out what you want to try to do in the next three months – make it really clear what you have to do from a professional perspective,” she said.
“Step two is being clear about who will help you – and if you don’t have people in your world who will, go out and find a support network or mentor and don’t be afraid to ask for help.
“Step three is making sure you are managing yourself – so adopt good habits that will help you manage your mindset. Too many of us let bad influences in – we sit at home watching Netflix or listen to negativity – and we have to shut that off.”
The next step is to manage your output, and the key is to do one thing every single day that will help you feel you are contributing to your plan, such as having a conversation, connecting with someone on LinkedIn or sending one resume.
The last step is to “manage self gratitude” by writing down three things you are grateful for every night, which will help rewire your brain to think positively instead of negatively.
“You can only control what you can control – we can’t stop conversations in the US or our own government or how many toilet rolls are on the shelves, but we can control how we respond to the people making us coffee, what we eat for lunch or what we watch on TV,” she said.
“It’s important to control the controllable instead of getting lost in the sea of stuff we can’t control.”
Another key theme of the book is how to own – and overcome – your own limitations which will help you thrive.
For example, if you’re an introvert you might find it hard to speak up during large work meetings – but Ms Garner said that issue could be easily overcome by simple but smart strategies such as organising one-on-one chats with your manager or individual coffee meetings with people in your network.
She said during the current climate of uncertainty and increased stress, it was more important than ever to slow down and turn our focus inward which will help us lead a successful, fulfilling life.
Originally published as CEO Janine Garner reveals 4 things you must do to succeed at work