The Secret Language of Work with Erin McGoff EP 451

00:00:09
Speaker 1: Hi.

00:00:09
Speaker 2: I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker.

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Speaker 3: And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer and course creator. We are two working parents who love our careers and our families.

00:00:24
Speaker 2: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun. From figuring out childcare to mapping out long.

00:00:33
Speaker 1: Term career goals.

00:00:34
Speaker 2: We want you to get the most out of life.

00:00:41
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.

00:00:43
Speaker 2: This episode is airing in late March of twenty twenty six. Sarah and I are recording this intro in Q and A to gather in Vero Beach, Florida. We're here on our annual podcasting retreat. We've been coming up with great ideas to share with you the rest of the year and having a fun time as well.

00:00:58
Speaker 1: So today's episodes, Sarah is.

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Speaker 2: Going to be interviewing Aaron mcoff, who is the author of the new book The Secret Language of Work. So we're very intrigued about that idea and looking forward to hearing what Erin is going to share with us about how we can understand the secret language of work and maybe use it to help advance our careers as well. So, Sarah, does medicine kind of have a secret language that people don't know about.

00:01:22
Speaker 4: I'm not even sure if it's secret. I thought it was a secret, Okay. I feel like half of the point of medical school is learning to speak medical.

00:01:29
Speaker 3: I mean that's a little bit of an exaggeration, but the vocabulary is immense. The way you describe patients as immense. There's so much slang, there's.

00:01:36
Speaker 4: So many abbreviations people use. And so I watched The Pit and I love it.

00:01:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's an HBO TV show that features Noah Wiley, who was an er. If you're not watching it, and I have found that there is a stark divide, not universally, but in general. People who are medical or have any kind of a medical background, maybe even in their own medical complications, they love it, they eat it up, and then people who have really no medical background are completely bored by it because there is so much medical speak that it's just.

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Speaker 4: Easy to get long.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:02:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I always love the language of the person is presenting with this like of presenting, like where did that come from?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 4: Like that to me, that's like England.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, he present the patient or you know, the residents presenting, the medicindents presenting, and like.

00:02:21
Speaker 4: That sounds normal to me, but it sounds weird to you writing.

00:02:23
Speaker 1: You don't.

00:02:24
Speaker 4: You do not speak the language of medicine fluently.

00:02:26
Speaker 1: No, I do not. Although script for prescription. Well that was fun to learn that one.

00:02:31
Speaker 4: That's so funny. Yeah, and it's funny. Probably any of them that you say.

00:02:35
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess that is jargon, but I don't even hear it as jargon anymore.

00:02:38
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:02:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, So a lot of semi secret medical language. I guess.

00:02:43
Speaker 2: Writing definitely has its own language. There are certain things with it, various conventions. When you're in the journalism or like the freelance writing world, a lot of publications pay a rate per word, and so people who don't know about the world of content creation are always like, well, wouldn't you write more words to get paid more?

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Speaker 1: It's like, well, no, that's not how it works.

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Speaker 2: You're just recognizing that a one thousand word story takes a lot less work than a five thousand word stories. So by paying by the word, you set a rate that is appropriate for the different links of a thing. You are writing for it, and you are always contracted for a certain number of words. It's not like you just turn in whatever you want and get paid that number of dollars per word for.

00:03:28
Speaker 3: And even vocabulary there, Like you have a concept in your head of what a one thousand word piece would be, and I have no I mean, I have no idea how any words or in a random blog post or not.

00:03:39
Speaker 2: Don't use that language or think about that concept. Yeah, I'd probably do it less now. I mean when I was doing more of that, I would definitely have a sense. Okay, this is an eight hundred word article, this is a twelve hundred word article, This is now set up to be a twenty five hundred word or this is a four thousand word feature piece for a magazine. So you do various different amounts of stuff that can go into it, like interviews or material you can't it's not even the same amount of stuff.

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Speaker 4: That would be done for it. But I know my book was like sixty thousand words.

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Speaker 2: A book is about sixty thousand words, usually fifty thousand to seventy five thousand for most nonfiction, and fiction can go a bit longer than I often do. But word counts are things that we learn in there, or just the idea of how publishing works, like that what a literary agent is and that you probably need one if you are going to do a publishing deal with a major publisher.

00:04:29
Speaker 3: Or the fact that when you sell a nonfiction contract, you don't actually write the book.

00:04:33
Speaker 2: Yeah you haven't written the book before. Yeah, you write it afterwards. Fiction it's usually different. Usually you have the manuscript with fiction, unless you are an established fiction writer, like if you're selling the fourth book in a series.

00:04:43
Speaker 4: That you know you don't actually have to write it before you sell it.

00:04:46
Speaker 2: But yeah, no, that's a Every industry has its own stuff. And there's also the psychological secret language that I know you guys probably talked about too, like figuring out what people really mean by stuff.

00:04:58
Speaker 3: Yes, because I mean it, and that's very important. If you're in a high stakes meeting and someone says something that's a little bit less overt and you don't understand it, you can get yourself in trouble pretty quickly.

00:05:08
Speaker 4: So this was a fun conversation.

00:05:09
Speaker 3: We mostly focused on kind of more corporate settings, but I mean this would also apply to freelancers that interface with businesses and even myself in the.

00:05:17
Speaker 4: Medical world as well. So I hope you enjoyed the conversation. I thought it was fun.

00:05:20
Speaker 1: Let's hear what Erin has to say.

00:05:22
Speaker 3: Well, I am so excited to be here today with Aaron McGoff, who is the founder of Advice with Aaron and also the author of The Secret Language of Work, which is the book and content we're really going to focus on today. So we were excited to have Erin on because we know that even though many of our listeners are in maybe the later part of their careers or are seasoned in what they do, there are still sticky moments that we need to get through, many of them involving different life phases like negotiating for a maternity leave or figuring out how to get a more flexible arrangement. And we've had so many questions along those lines that we thought Erin would be a wonderful person to tell talk about them.

00:06:01
Speaker 4: So welcome Erin. Go ahead and introduce yourself.

00:06:04
Speaker 5: Hey, yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm really happy to be here. I love the podcast and love the concept, and I'm here to be a resource to her listeners amazing.

00:06:13
Speaker 3: Can you start by telling our listeners, I guess where you are in your life and career journey, just so we can understand where your perspective comes from.

00:06:22
Speaker 5: Absolutely. Yes, I'm thirty, so I'm rounding a corner into seasoned career hood. I pivoted. I originally started out my career in the film industry. I was working in journalism. I was a documentary filmmaker. I was a freelance video editor. I was kind of multi hyphenated living in New York. It was great, and then the pandemic happened, and that's when I started advice with Aaron and it kind of slowly grew over time, and it reached a tipping point where I decided to dive in with two feet and kind of take that full time because I was making such a big impact there and I wasn't having to deal with a lot of the politics that comes along with the film industry. Hollywood is just not my jam really, so I'm really happy, yeah, founding advice there, and I have this book out now, I have a new company called Stupid Fish. There's a lot of different things going on, but I did recently announce that I'm pregnant too, so yeah, that's why I was really excited to be on the podcast today to speak to your listeners and kind of relate to this new world of work.

00:07:19
Speaker 4: That is amazing.

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Speaker 3: Yes, definitely shifts your perspective and I'm sure has given you lots of new things to think about, even though I'm sure you've also worked with clients or listeners in the past that have had issues of related to pregnancy, so this isn't the first time you've thought about those things.

00:07:35
Speaker 5: No, I've been making content for working parents since day one. One of my first videos is how to Tell your Boss You're pregnant, so it's always been very top of mind.

00:07:42
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, I love that.

00:07:44
Speaker 3: Well, before we get into specific scenarios, and maybe that can be one of them, that's a common one that I mean, we can all remember those moments or maybe you're listening to this and thinking about having that conversation right now. But I guess why did you decide that this was your It does seem like you all of a sudden I realized like that you had some very real things to say in this area, and then it resonated with many. But why did you decide to build a business around helping people how to speak work to succeed in their careers based on how they are conversing and presenting themselves in the world.

00:08:17
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I think we've become the person that I knew we needed when we were younger. I've always been a very helpful person, and I've always been the go to career best see ever since I was young. I've just always been very ambitious in my career. And I was in a very cutthroat, difficult industry, the film industry, and so I had to become very sharp and learn how to have the best resume and the best golding and on the best networking and the best LinkedIn. And I did it, and I helped with the people along the way, And so it seems random from the outside, but really, when I created that first TikTok in like January twenty twenty one, it was just me going online and giving my advice that I was already giving to people, just in a video format, which was very second nature to me as a filmmaker. So I originally started making the content just for fun. It was just something that I could do on the side while the pandemic was happening, and I was in New York and the world just felt really awful, and I was like, what's something I can do that's positive and you know, I could make a difference in the world. And so I started creating the content. And I immediately like deleted my app when I went viral, and I didn't want to be an influencer at all. I was like, I'm already not taken seriously in the film industry. I'm definitely not going to get taken seriously about an influencer. But then I started to get messages and emails and dms from people saying how much my content was truly in the movement, impacting their lives, like they watched my video and that day negotiated a raise and therefore have more money for their family. It was like, Wow, that's extremely fulfilling and meaningful. So over time those messages, my account just kept growing growing, and I kept getting more and more messages and dms just from people telling me how much I had changed their lives. And that became very addicting, that feeling of being hyper helpful to people and making an impact. So I just kind of followed my heart and kept doing it, And yeah, I guess people like what I'm putting out.

00:09:59
Speaker 2: So.

00:10:01
Speaker 4: That is awesome.

00:10:01
Speaker 3: I mean, how many interesting career pivots and especially to more independent businesses got born out of the pandemic.

00:10:07
Speaker 4: I started my planning podcast around that time, twenty twenty.

00:10:11
Speaker 3: It's very very interesting, of course, not to minimize all the losses and the businesses it suffered as a result, but it is interesting to see that also there were shifts in other directions as well. All right, well, let's get into the content and the meat of what you talk about. And I feel like I could sum it up as a lot about what determines your success in the workplace is about how you sound and how you present yourself. Yet some people are going to come of that naturally. You have a great vignette in the book where you have a very polished prep school grad named Samantha who walks into her job interview, who just nails it, and then other people are going to struggle and poor Jesse, her counterpart in the book. So if someone is listening to this and they're like, yes, I feel this, and I'm already suffering.

00:10:55
Speaker 4: Even maybe middle or later of their career, where would you start.

00:11:00
Speaker 5: Yeah, strategic communication, interpersonal skills, learning how to talk to people. You know, especially in the age of AI. Everybody's shocked. They're like, why don't you read a book about AI skills? And I'm like, because AI's AI, it's going to do it's thing. One thing that it can never do is talk to other people and inspire people and lead people. It's all that interpersonal communication. It's the number one thing companies are looking for right now is can you be adaptable? Can you handle conflict, can you collaborate? Can you lead? Because that's something that technology will never be able to do or replicate. So that's what's really important to me with the book. My advice for people who maybe feel like they've reached a point in their career where it's a big stagnant is to do a little inventory. So I always say, you can't find your dream job without knowing who you are. And so people oftentimes do this thing where they kind of float. They book a grades in high school, then they go to college, they pick a major, they get a job on that major, and then they wake up ten years later and they're like, what am I doing with my life? How did I get here, and it's because there was never really an intentionality along the way. They just kind of did the next step. And so it really takes a moment where you have to sit down and think, what do I want out of my life? What do I want my days to look like at the end of my life? What do I want to look back and see what it looks like? And then you need to work backwards from there. So like, for example, I always recommend that people make a five year plan and then throw in the garbage. It's not necessarily about making the plan to stick with it. It's about imagining your future and dreaming and being inspired about your future so you can have something to work towards.

00:12:26
Speaker 4: Yes, I love that.

00:12:27
Speaker 3: Okay, So let's actually you mentioned kind of like looking towards other opportunities perhaps, And something you talk about in your book is something that you refer to as the hidden job market.

00:12:38
Speaker 4: What exactly is that?

00:12:40
Speaker 5: Yeah, so the hidden job market is where all the good jobs are and a lot of people don't know it exists. It's part of the secret language of work. It's something that you only know if somebody taught you about it. And that's who I am as advice are there, and I'm your career advice bestie. I'm the mentor that's going to teach you about all these things. That's what I do in the book. So the hidden job market refers to the word of mouth job market, and it is bigger and stronger and more powerful than it ever has been in the age of AI. And with the higher process being so broken down and the weak job market, everyone's getting jobs to work of mouth now. It's just how companies are preferring to hire. So it refers to when maybe a company will post a job on the internet to be compliant legally, but they're really hiring somebody's recommendation or somebody's referral. And so in order for you to actually get that job, you know, if you're applying to the online portal, you're kind of ignoring. You're not going to break through. You have to know somebody who knows somebody. And so it all goes back to networking, which is a word that a lot of people are scared of. They're networking. I'm an introvert, I'm shy. I don't know how you know. And that's why one of the chapters in my book is called how to network without being cringed. There's four different styles of networking that I came up with. And I'm an introvert. I work from home and I love it. But I still love networking because if you know how to do it right, it's just making professional friends and it's not cringeing at all.

00:13:56
Speaker 3: And what are the four different styles? I think you can't leave that cliffhanger without giving us details.

00:14:01
Speaker 5: Oh gosh, well, it's like a quadrant. So it's a little hard to like. Honestly, it would take me a while to explain. But there's like reach networking and peer networking, so I can talk about that. So reach networking is when you go up. So it's like if you're trying to network with somebody who maybe you can't offer a lot too, but they can offer a lot to you. And that's obviously where a lot of people focus. They're networking because they want to network with somebody who can give them things. However, you should also focus, if not just focused, but more of your time on peer networking, which is where you network with people on your same level quote unquote. So people think, oh, why would I waste my time, you know, networking with people who can't do anything for me. They're just like on my same level. And it's because in the book we have a great graphic that shows it. They don't stay on your level. They go up. And the people who you were reach networking with, the CEO's, the directors, they can fall down. So to say, so people move in their careers. You know, people don't stay staging, they don't stay companies. It's important to make a lot of connection. So that's just one example of the four examples in.

00:15:01
Speaker 3: The book awesome, and I can imagine that, aside from reach and parallel that like even networking a rung down like well not I don't mean down, but like less experienced people on being a mentor probably also serves an important purpose because also you, yeah, you never know who's going to be that rising star or if you help somebody else flourish, that can benefit both of you.

00:15:21
Speaker 5: So absolutely, yeah, the reciprocity principle. Give a lot earlier in your career and you'll get it back.

00:15:27
Speaker 4: I love it.

00:15:28
Speaker 3: We're going to take a quick break and then we are going to talk about job interviews. All right, we are back, and I just also wanted to revisit the fact that you talked about how the hidden job market was especially important given AI and I had not thought about that, but that makes so much sense, just because it is now so easy for someone to just send out like two hundred like you know, oh, I'll answer this like generate, generate, generate, And so I can imagine that the recruiters are waiting through more than volumes than they have ever seen before, and what is going to stand out someone that they know or who have they have heard is awesome or maybe have already worked with in some other context. So that is actually very very interesting and maybe could be a good thing in some ways, depending on of course, who you are and where you are starting from, could also be terrible. But it is what it is, so we'll work with what we've got, Okay, So, thinking about the job application part on the job market, you definitely have a lot of advice about how to conduct yourself during a job interview, even with that initial vignette that's kind of a fun like peek inside of a job interview, but you also talk about different ways to present yourself and how to answer tough questions. And one thing you address is how do you answer a question that's not totally legal, like, hey, are you pregnant?

00:16:53
Speaker 4: Is that a bump by sea? Are you planning to have more children? Things like that.

00:16:58
Speaker 5: Yeah, So it could be a little tough because sometimes when you're interviewing and you're not interviewing with a professional recruiter, they're not trying to ask you in a legal question, they're not trying to discriminate. They might just be trying to make small talk and don't even know that it's so protected right for you to not so the information. However, on the other side of the spectrum, it can be really nefarious and it can be them trying to poke at you. So I always recommend to get people the benefit of the doubt. You don't have to be specific, and just bring it right back to the interview. So, for example, if you go in which by the way, a lot of interviews are over video now so it's not as hard as it used to be for women indiause you can just be seen from the chest up essentially. But you know, yeah, if they ask, you know, hey, do you have kids, you can just ask, hey, I'm not quite sure that's relevant for the role. I'd love to stick to talking about my qualifications. Just something that's kind of like direct but not rude necessarily.

00:17:47
Speaker 3: That totally makes sense. Is there ever a time when you would just I don't know. That's hard because like part of it's like, oh, well, maybe they want to know if I have kids, because we're going to be in the secret people who have Kids club when we're going to bond over that, and that's going to help me. But at the same time, you're like, that really is not relevant.

00:18:01
Speaker 5: Yeah, that can absolutely be true. People love to hire parents because they know that they're focused and they're probably going to be really committed to their job. So like, yeah, and if you see a picture of their family on their desk, they probably are asking not to discriminatory. But the thing is you just never know, and a lot of people do discriminate against that, and they think that you're not going to be focused or you're just going to get pregnant again and leave. So it's just important for you to protect yourself in a way that doesn't make you come off as litigious or difficult. But just saying, hey, you know, I'm really of thirty minutes. I'd love to just tick into the interview. I see you know, do you have kids behind you, like you can kind of feel it out. It's almost impossible to give advice too for this because anything I say to somebody's like, well what about this and what about this? And you know, I'm just doing my best over here. But it really depends on the situation. I just I stress that women protect themselves because discrimination is very, very real, and there are so many people who love to hire parents, and but there's a lot of people who also don't like to hire parents or mom's specific So always protect yourself.

00:19:02
Speaker 4: That makes sense.

00:19:02
Speaker 3: And you never know who you're talking to because you can't judge that by gender or anything else. Okay, well, let's go through I thought it would be fun to do. I don't want to call at thele lightning rounds. I don't want to rush you through these answers, but I'm going to give you a lot of common scenarios that we get asked about and just hear your take and especially I mean, I think your specialty is coming up with a number of really versatile scripts that like, some of them might be different, or you might come up with three different ways to answer the question, but as people hear them, it might give them ideas of how they might handle some of these difficult things. So we'll start with the one that you disclosed to me and that you are pregnant. Now, you probably do not have to negotiate a maternity leave because you work for yourself. So Laura, the other host of this podcast, she works for herself as well, So she talks about how she really enjoyed having total control about how much she wanted to work after her kids, and she often actually worked a lot after she had her kids, but she liked owning that.

00:19:52
Speaker 4: Me totally opposite. I'm in medicine.

00:19:54
Speaker 3: It is very not flexible, and I absolutely had these difficult conversations include arriving at my very first job after finishing my training pregnant.

00:20:04
Speaker 4: Wow. Fun.

00:20:05
Speaker 3: Anyway, So what advice do you have for listeners who are trying to negotiate their maternity leave. Maybe it's their first kid, maybe it's their fifth, but it is always a tough conversation.

00:20:16
Speaker 5: I think it's really important to remember that statistically speaking, most working people will already have kids or will have kids, so you're in the majority here. It's not weird to be asking for a maternity leave or to be discussing your pregnancy or what needs to go down. So I think the first thing is just removing any stigma that this makes you less than or makes you less desirable than a man. You know, men should be having these conversations too. It's about them making to step up as well. So first of all, just to can remove any weirdness. This is just a normal humans have kids, It's a normal conversation to have, And what's really important is to keep it positive, to say, I love this job, I want to keep contributing. Here's what I'm going to need from you. In order to do that, I'm going to need three months off and then I'm going to need three months flexibility. Now, the thing that usually happens is companies have their policies. So what you need to do is review the policy. I recommend for any women listening to this when you first started a new job, get all the policies right away, because the last thing you want to do is be in a situation where you're not ready to disclose your pregnancy but you need to ask HR for their policy and you're like, I don't want them to know I'm pregnant, but how do I do this? So like, right, you start a new job, like ask for all the policies and stay them to your computer and that might be what you're working with. Like, that's why I encourage people to ask about family leave in general benefits and job interviews, so that you can know going into it, because some companies have greatly If my one friend I think works for Google just six months of completely one paid maturity leave and then six months of remote flexibility, you know, it's amazing. And some companies have zero because in the US it is not required to give any and even an hour of paid maternity leave. So know your rights. No FMLA too, no short term disability. There's lots of things you can hodgepodge together in the US. It's kind of cruel the way that we do it. I could talk about that forever, but I'll stop there.

00:22:05
Speaker 4: That'll be another episode and I'm just kidding. You know that makes total sense.

00:22:09
Speaker 3: Okay, So speaking of flexible, because you talked about like I want to be off for three months and flexible after that, I would say, like, one of the most common questions we get is I used to work remote. Now I'm in the office. My drive is two hours each way. I want to die well, okay, that's you get what I'm saying. I'm really really struggling and I don't like my job anymore, but I otherwise feel like I like this company, I like my role, but I need to negotiate for some kind of more flexible arrangement or a less in person arrangement.

00:22:40
Speaker 4: How would you go about that?

00:22:42
Speaker 5: The million dollar question? I love this, It's funny, just a little side where I'm working on a substack right now about how corporate and bosses are for the boys. And I think women are designed to be self employed and work with themselves for this reason. I think we need flexibility like we do, and I think we're actually really really good at anyway. That's for another episode. But if you're trying to negotiate, yeah, working from.

00:23:04
Speaker 3: And I just want to say we also, we can't just be like okay, women, never mind forget it, don't even ask for any of this stuff. You just all can go work for yourselves. So, now, assuming we're not going that far, no.

00:23:15
Speaker 5: Like ask first of all, yes, just ask, like nothing can hurt from just asking. The most important thing to remember in any negotiation are two things. The first thing is your leverage, So do you have the ability to walk away. So that's why I always encourage people to be very very very very good at what they do. Just I'm not saying a work hard, stay light. I'm saying to be good at what you do. That's different. Bring a lot of value to the company. Understand, especially nowadays, what role you play in the company and how they make money off of your role, and use that to your advantage. Because if you're extremely valuable to the company, and again I'm not saying you work hard, I'm saying you're valuable to the company, you can negotiate whatever you want. The second thing you need to remember is your audience, because if you're working for a small company, like if one of my employees came to me and they ask me for aratorney leave, I make that decision. That's up to me, following the laws of course, But like I don't have to go convince a finance team or HR team or whatever to collaborate on this. I can just make the decision. In most companies, however, they're going to need to go up a chain of command and get approvals, and so you actually need to make your case to them so that they can make their case to somebody else. So the most important thing is to say I love working here, just like you just said, I am very good at what I do because of X y Z, I want to keep working here, which is kind of like a subtle threat like I can go work somewhere else if I want to. However, this is what I need from you in order to do that. And so again, if you have that leverage where you're an extremely valuable employee and they're obsessed with you, which you have spent the last X number of years planting in the ground, then they should want to work with you. And if they don't, go find somebody who will. And if you're a good enough employee and you produce enough value, you're not going to have trouble finding a job at a high quality company.

00:24:58
Speaker 3: Do you think it's important to have that alternate job kind of in hand before approaching for a meeting like this. I mean, I can imagine that might make it a little easier.

00:25:08
Speaker 5: It's always easier when you have alternative leverage. But I don't think it has to go to that level quite yet. I think you can just serve the conversation and something that I talked about in the book, which is one of my favorite communication tips is to swap a close ask for an open ask. So a lot of the times people will go into these conversations and they'll say, can I work from home on Fridays? Yes?

00:25:25
Speaker 3: Or now?

00:25:26
Speaker 5: And it corners the boss into having to make a decision and having to do yes or no, and it's very difficult for them. Instead, go in and say, Hey, I'm curious about the company's policy regarding remote work on Fridays. I love to have a conversation about this because I feel as though I can do my best work when I have flexibility on Fridays. I love working here. I love what I do, I love the value that I produce. However, I would very much like to discuss this as part of my compensation and part of my work plan here. So can we have a conversation and just keep it open like that? And that takes the pressure off your boss. And if anybody listening to this is in a management position, you're like, yes, that I would be so much happier if an employee came to meet in that way.

00:26:09
Speaker 3: No, that makes total sense, and it's harder to do. It's like more elaborate, But I can see how it would absolutely lead to a more productive conversation. Okay, so what if someone has done something dumb at work? So they're an excellent employee, but they just sent an email where they see the wrong person and there was something in that they didn't want to see. Do you have any advice for someone who might need to get out of something like that?

00:26:36
Speaker 5: Yeah, you mean, like just making a mistake at work, Yes.

00:26:38
Speaker 3: Making a mistake at work. I just I thought, try to think about what a common mistake would be.

00:26:43
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's hard to think of things on the spot from toms. So making a mistake of work is a spectrum. You know, there could be small mistakes, like a typo, and then there are big mistakes, oh like accidentally deleting a client's entire folder and you can't get it back, and then again a quadrant. I love like visuals. It's so I have a lot of illustrations.

00:27:02
Speaker 1: In my book. You do.

00:27:04
Speaker 5: Yeah, there are problems that can be fixed immediately, and there's problems that can't be fixed immediately, And so it's about assessing where in this quadrant this mistake lies. And so if it's small and it can be fixed, fix it. It's kind of like the Eisenhower matrix. It's like, you know, fix it right away. But if it's big and it can't be fixed, if it can't be fixed in the moment by you, you need to escalate it. You need to go writ to your boss. You need to say, hey, this is what happened, this is my plan to fix it. Here's an alternative plan. Which one do you like better? And just go handle it. But again, you said a lot of your listeners are more seasoned and they're probably management positions, and they love hearing that. You don't want your employees to come to you with problems. You want them to come to your solutions. So go to your bosses to solutions, let them know what your plan is, and then fix it. And you know, people make mistakes. It's totally fine. One time I posted a TikTok where I just asked people to write. I was like, can you make us feel better? Everybody write a mistake that you made it work in the comment section and there are thousands of commons and you can just read through it if you need to feel better.

00:28:01
Speaker 4: I bet that one went extremely viral.

00:28:03
Speaker 3: No, that makes sense, all right, We're going to take another quick break, and I got a couple more juicy scenarios for you. Okay, we are back, and I'm asking Aaron for her advice on since that is her specialty on all sorts of interesting work scenarios.

00:28:28
Speaker 4: So what if you have a.

00:28:30
Speaker 3: Boundary problem at work where you are getting texted at all hours, things are coming at you in a sort of emergency fashion. Sometimes they're not even emergencies, or maybe it's even like more minor than that, Like you're just getting constantly interrupted by like synchronous communication with things that really do not need to be stopping you in the moment.

00:28:49
Speaker 5: It's a really good question. That's why I have an entire chapter in the book on how to set boundaries without getting fired or without people thinking less than you. A lot of people think that boundaries are sent thing that you say in the moment, and you're like, I'm setting up boundary with you. But what boundaries usually are are silence. It's what you choose not to respond to or not to react to. And actually the most important person I set boundaries with is yourself. So saying I'm not going to respond to that text while I'm on vacation because people will take what they can get from you. So if you're on vacation and you're responding to work emails here and there, people think, oh, Aaron's responding to work emails, maybe that makes her feel better. Richie's on vacation, I'm going to email her. But if I'm not responding to any emails and I have my vacation responder on and I'm not even I personally delete my mail app when I go on vacation. I don't even want to see it. People know that about me, so they don't bug me. And that's because it's a boundary that I set with myself first that makes other people respect it. And so it's also not other people's job to set your boundaries for you. You have to set them and then reinforce them over time. So yeah, one of the most important boundaries you can set is with yourself, and usually it's just through silence. That's the best way to reinforce it.

00:30:03
Speaker 3: I love that because it can be very difficult to say. Although I'm going to admit that I have done it on occasion, please don't contact me. Well, I try to do it in a very positive way, like, oh yeah, I definitely did need to know about that, but like the easiest way is to send me a staff message because I always tackle all those at four o'clock. So that way, you know, you'll know you get me at a.

00:30:21
Speaker 4: Predictable time or something like. Frame it as like this is better for you.

00:30:25
Speaker 5: Actually, So that's great. I love that tip.

00:30:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I can see the silence being especially if someone maybe if you said something like that and it was like being ignored, then you can go ahead and be like, well, I told them I'm not gonna deal with these in the moments, so I'll handle that it for you know, or whenever you have said so.

00:30:42
Speaker 5: Absolutely set the boundary and then reinforce it.

00:30:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's awesome.

00:30:46
Speaker 3: Okay, how about this is a very popular and common one. I am sure, negotiating for a raise And is there I think we've had experts talk about this before specifically, but is there data on gender differences on asking for more compensation that you know about?

00:31:03
Speaker 4: If not, that's okay.

00:31:04
Speaker 5: Well, there was a research typically that people would site that said men asked for raises more than women, But I believe eighteen months ago actually a new study came out. There's thousands of studies but it was a notable one. I can't recall who was right now. I want to see it as Oxford, and it was showing that actually, women negotiate at the same rate. And I actually credit social media for that. I think accounts like mine have spread like wildfire throughout the female community and have empowered women to negotiate. And I think women love negotiating. They just don't like making other people feel weird or awkward, and a lot of guys don't either. But people are afraid of negotiating. They're afraid of feeling awkward. They're afraid of feeling rude or getting rejected. But if you can learn how to negotiate correctly, as I teach my book, it's the thickest chapter in the book. It's such a great chapter. You look forward to it. You're like, this is gonna be great. I'm gonna go and I'm gonna negotiate. Everybody's gonna feel good. I'm gonna get what I want and that's that. So when it comes to getting a raise, it's really important to remember. I always say that it's not personal, it's just professional. So people will go in and they'll say, well, my boss, should it gives me a raise and I deserve this, and they make it like very emotional and personal. It's not. Your job is transactional, although your job is a big part of your personal life. You're at your job for a huge chunk of your waking hours. But when it comes to your compensation, it's completely transactional. So the company need you to do a job, and you do the job, and they pay you, and that's the transaction. They give you money and you bring value. That's it. So all you need to do is make sure that the deal is being upheld on both ends. So if you're holding up your end of the deal, they need to hold up their end of the deal. And if your responsibilities and d these go up, their compensation needs to reflect that. And that's just math. But there's nothing else going on there. So I'd recommend going in and having data and statistics. You know, in the past twelve months, I've taken on this extra assignment, this intern, I've stepped up in this way, I've earned this extra skill. The market rate reflect this should be my compensation. So I'd like to discuss that with you and make that happen. And then what's really important that a lot of people forget is to remind them, and it'd be the squeaky wheel, because what's going to happen is your boss is either going to say yes, I'll do it right now, which is probably not gonna happen. They're going to need to go talk to other people, or they're gonna say no, sorry, the company is like really struggling right now, and then that's a whole other can of worms. Or they're going to say, most likely, I need to go talk to someone else about this, and so they're going to go talk to finance or HR or whatever and try to figure it out. So your only job is making the case to them for making them make the case to somebody else, and that's it. And then afterwards they're going to get busy with their stuff because that's not that un worandt priority. And so don't again get mad that they got distracted, because it's not their job to be all over you know, everything that's important to you. A great boss will, but most bosses won't, and so you just need to remind them. Being the squeaky wheel, Hey, i'd like to redus the compensation Conversation's really important to me that they get that resolved by the end of the month, like and just say that over and overget.

00:34:00
Speaker 4: As much as you need to be somewhat annoying.

00:34:03
Speaker 5: Yeah, don't be afraid. It's not annoying too. It's it's no, it's not. It's important because of course.

00:34:11
Speaker 3: And then this is a side question, but you mentioned something about like finding out the market rate, but that's not always so straightforward.

00:34:17
Speaker 4: Do you have tips for doing that?

00:34:19
Speaker 5: It's a really good question. It's definitely not straightforward, but it is more transparent than it ever has been. Again, I credit a lot of this to social media pay transparency, but a lot of I think fourteenth stats now have pay transparency laws. So you can go in and see how much does your status in pay transparent you can go to an equivalent state with a similar economy and look at how much editors are getting paid in that or doctors are getting paid in that state, and you can kind of get a general vibe. Also, a you can kind of use AI, like I'd recommend using like an intelligent AI and like really, you know, doing it properly because it can like low volume. There's actually a study done that if you have a female name and with chat GBT, then it would like give you a lower recommendation insane because of the gender pay gap.

00:35:02
Speaker 4: So that's so I know, I so upsetting.

00:35:07
Speaker 5: Wow, And I made a video about it salary dot com, glass door LinkedIn just kind of like go to a hodgepodge and try to collect like the base number. But at the end of the day, what do you want? Like, what you want is the most important thing. And again, if you have the leverage to walk away from them, you can ask just for what you want.

00:35:26
Speaker 4: Awesome.

00:35:27
Speaker 3: Well, final scenario, what if you want to quit, but you want to quit and leave a really nice vibe in your absence so that if you wanted to come back or make connections or freelance, that things would be open for you.

00:35:39
Speaker 5: Absolutely. Yeah, always leave an open door. People think that quitting is like killing the company. It's not. It's just saying, hey, you know, I'm moving on to my next thing again, like having kids. It's something that most people do. And your boss, this is the first time that they've had somebody quit on them. It's like the last time they're gonna have somebody quit. Just because you quit something doesn't mean it's a failure. It's to quit something that's no longer serving you. Nobody says why did you do that? When you quit smoking, it's like it's okay to move on to something else. Need to quit something that's not working for you anymore or is unhealthy for you, like a lot of jobs are. So remove the sigma that quitting a symptype of failure or that it's offensive. It's a normal thing that people do, and it can be very, very very much the right move. I encourage people to quit their jobs constantly. So the most important thing to do is sign your new opera letter unless you're going to try to use it to negotiate a current race. But if you're leaving your job for any other reason besides money, you got to cut the cord. If they're going to try to counter with you, and there's other reasons you were leaving besides salary, you don't tempt it. Like, just sign your new offer letter, have that job in writing, have your start date figured out. Then instead of meeting with your boss for you, notify them, Hey, you know, I've really loved working here. Keep it genuine, keep it short. However, I was approached with the opportunity that I can't turn down and I'm putting in my two weeks. Notice today my last team this date, and then tell your boss I really appreciated working here. I really appreciated work interview. I learned a lot from you, and I wish you the best of block moving forward. I'll be on for the next two weeks to help delegate my task and to aid in a smooth transition. But yeah, and I hope to cross pads again in the future, you know, just like keep it nice in light.

00:37:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm trying to picture a medical provider leaving with two weeks and I just got like it would not work. But this would work in other professional contexts. I am sure, just a little bit more to transition. I think maybe a little bit more personal when patients are involved. But super I know that is a nice, nice way of looking at it, like, oh, this is a next step and not a failure. And to make sure that you I think approaching it with gratitude too, like thank you for all the great experience I've had here and I've learned so much and it's enabled me to grow so I could do it elsewhere.

00:37:49
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly.

00:37:51
Speaker 3: Well, anything that we didn't touch on during this interview that you feel like our listeners need to know about the secret language of work.

00:37:57
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, I mean there really is. Just this secret language is a hidden curriculum. There's a very subtle way of speaking that's both direct without being rude and confident without being copy And the one thing I will say about my book that I've never experienced in any other professional development book, and I've read all of them, trust me, is that I'm not trying to change your personality. Like, you can be exactly who you are and be a confident, powerful leader and strategic communicator. You don't have to be super intense through you know, lead with truth, Like I'm meeting you where you're at and I'm helping you use your words in a more powerful way. If you notice listening to me, I use fillers, and I use them on purpose because that's part of my personality. So it's totally fine. I'm here to empower you to be a strategic, powerful communicator and leader and also yourself at the same time.

00:38:42
Speaker 4: I love it.

00:38:42
Speaker 3: Well, thanks so much for coming on. Just remind our listeners where they can find you.

00:38:47
Speaker 5: Yeah, follow me on Instagram. Add advice with Aaron on TikTok LinkedIn threads YouTube by do long form video on YouTube, which is really helpful. And yeah, the new company called Stupid Fish to fish on app and that is designed to help you pivot in your career. So that's really exciting. We're launching pretty soon. And of course, by my book The Secret Language of Work, you are going to absolutely love it. It's great.

00:39:11
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for coming on erin. This was so much fun.

00:39:14
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for having me. This is great.

00:39:16
Speaker 1: Well we are back.

00:39:17
Speaker 2: Sarah was interviewing Aaron mcoff about the Secret Language of Work. Lots of helpful tips for navigating some tricky situations. Well, this is another question that we had come from Patreon from our group, Sarah, you want to read it.

00:39:30
Speaker 3: Yes, So our member asked virtual assistance, what are they used for, how does one find a good one, and how much do they typically cost? And I'm going to let Laura answer this because i have never yet used a virtual assistant.

00:39:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I've had one for the past couple of years.

00:39:45
Speaker 2: And I had been working with somebody years ago who had done a lot of similar stuff for me and then she went off to do other things. But she had eventually a virtual assistant, and so I was like, well, where did you find the person?

00:39:57
Speaker 1: And she referred me over to Peachtree, which.

00:40:01
Speaker 2: Is one of the virtual assistant agencies, and I've really liked working with them, but there are others, and you can search around online for places that have good reviews, and basically they will help you find a person or they will find a person for you that matches up your skills, like what you want in a person, and then you pay the agency and so the person is not your employee. Usually you are just paying a fee and then the agency employs them and so they're dealing with the things like withholding taxes and Social Security payments and unemployment conference payments and stuff like that. But obviously you can hire someone on your own as well as an assistant, and then you would be responsible for those sorts of things. But the idea with virtual is that they're just not in the same place as you, right, so it could be anyone in the entire world who is doing administrative help for you, and they are often working from home or something like that, and so it's often a job that people who maybe want a little bit more flexibility, like they want to work for hours a day while their kids are in school, you know, twenty hours a week or so, and that could be a great opportunity for them. And you can get some people who are really amazing. They just want the flexibility. So I think it's an awesome idea. Now, what do you use this person for, Well, anything you would use yourself for but that you are too busy to take on. So I have help with formatting my newsletter and maintaining that list, coming up with ideas, making my blog posts more like SEO friendly, helping out with my social media stuff, coming up with One of the things I had a person I'm working with now do is come up some more like catchy subs tech newsletter titles. So for posts that would be more engaging, I guess in the headline themselves, even though the topics I normally write about, but I don't necessarily think about engagement with the headline. And so she did some research with that, and she's helped me find podcasts that were related to time management or productivity so that I could start listening to them and getting to know the host and having them become context. So all those sorts of things that you should be doing or you would need to do, but maybe you're trying to focus more of your time on other things. And I know people are listening to this and thinking, ay.

00:42:26
Speaker 4: I could probably do a lot of that.

00:42:27
Speaker 3: But there are certain things where it's just nice to have like a human involved.

00:42:31
Speaker 4: And I'll say, like sometimes I've worked with.

00:42:33
Speaker 3: People who use a virtual assistant for scheduling, and I prefer to be a human.

00:42:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I prefer to be a human.

00:42:40
Speaker 2: And when you're doing back and forth on scheduling or if somebody would ever wind up on the phone or on zoom with people that you work with, you would definitely want somebody who was polished and good and a human. But there's all sorts of yeah, other things people use them for, I mean like booking travel or reading through contracts and flagging anything if they have some you know, specialized knowledge there, or if you give them a list of things to look for, research, drafting things, all sorts of stuff, anything that an assistant would do.

00:43:09
Speaker 3: Cool and a ballpark idea of cost. Do you have anything for this, listener or is it just very so much?

00:43:14
Speaker 1: I think it's going to vary.

00:43:15
Speaker 2: I mean there's probably places that would be cheaper. That would be more in the like twenty dollars an hour range, especially if it's somebody who's maybe overseas. If you're doing something like Peachtree, which has people in the United States and tend to be very well qualified, that's obviously going to be higher.

00:43:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you can even do there are certain market places where you can kind of hire a rea for like a one off job as well, if it was.

00:43:40
Speaker 4: Something you were just curious to try out.

00:43:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.

00:43:43
Speaker 2: Well, our love of the week, because it may or may not have happened during the interview, Sarah, what's.

00:43:48
Speaker 1: Your love of the week.

00:43:49
Speaker 3: Well, I'm sitting here listening to the sound of the ocean and wondering if it's making it to the microphone. I feel like we could like to stick the mic outside. But no, it's really lovely, it's calming. It never really gets old.

00:43:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, the noise of people in the pool might be less, might be more distracting if we have that in some later episodes.

00:44:05
Speaker 1: Today, Ah, I'm gonna say soft pretzels.

00:44:08
Speaker 4: Oooh okay, yeah they're good. I mean I like salt so.

00:44:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, no like wa wa soft pretzels are really good or there's this place that sells them in the Philadelphia Airport that have stopped in Terminal A a few times.

00:44:19
Speaker 4: You've been mustered on it. I do not. I just have them plane. Yeah, but I still think they're good. Yeah.

00:44:25
Speaker 3: I like them either way, plane or mustard. Give me some soft pretzels, All right.

00:44:29
Speaker 1: Stuff, all right, well, this has been best of both worlds.

00:44:32
Speaker 2: Sarah has been interviewing Aaron mcoff, the author of the Secret Language of Work. We will be back next week with more on making work and life fit together.

00:44:41
Speaker 4: Thanks for listening.

00:44:42
Speaker 3: You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram.

00:44:49
Speaker 2: And you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.