The end of 2021 is approaching fast, and with that comes a perfect opportunity to plan ahead and get ready to step up to 2022. DataWomen is all about supporting and empowering DataWomen and our data friends, and this aim is what led us to we put together this session. We started thinking about three important aspects of our life that can have far-reaching impact: communicating with power, backing ourselves up for the next role and taking control of our finances.

Below, we revisit some of the highlights from of the recent event. You can catch the full recording at the bottom of the post!

Communicate with Power

We’ve long been inspired by Tara Mohr, and in the communicating with power section of the event, we highlighted content from her book, Playing Big. We discussed socialized speech patterns women have that often undermine what they say in the workplace. This can be conscious or subconscious and includes habits like saying “just” and “actually”, apologizing profusely and similar behaviors.

While many women are aware of their own speech habits, they often feel forced to keep doing them because of the double bind: if they do not speak this way, they will be perceived as threatening and unlikable. Women who don’t adhere to these feminine speech norms often convey more confidence and competence, but they are also perceived as unlikable, threatening and intimidating, whereas these same speech patterns are deemed normal for men. The tradeoff for women is that they can be perceived as likable and nice OR competent in the workplace, but not both. To navigate this, we discussed ways of being mindfully warm and kind in the workplace without diminishing what you have to say. Check out the recording for more detail. We even included a Before You Hit Send checklist that helps in identifying and eliminating undermining speech in emails.

Be Your Own Best Advocate

In our second segment, Beth discussed backing yourself for your next role. We know our pitch for ourselves is important and crucial for answering questions like “Why should we hire you?” or “Why should I promote you / pay you more?”. We also know women struggle to pitch, generally undervaluing their efforts and experience and being less likely than their male counterparts to put themselves forward for roles. In this section, Beth walked through how to pitch for three different personas – ladies lacking technical experience, business experience or general experience. We also examined how to construct and master our pitch, including how to pivot in novel contexts. Check out this article for more. It’s an oldie but still a great resource.

Manage Finances with Excellence

In our last section on finances, we identified three steps for sorting out your money matters:

1. Get your finances in order.
2. Catch the surplus.
3. Make your money work harder for you.

A great plan starts by acknowledging where you are at this moment in time. This is why we began by identifying your current situation: identify all your income, which can look like a paycheck but also rental income, dividends, income from a side job or from the gig economy; identify all your outcomes, including bills and utilities, lifestyle expenses and yearly provisions; identify all your debts, such as credit cards and buy-now-pay-later setups; and identify all your investments, including any retirement plan or superannuation.

Once you identify these elements, set up everything to catch all the surplus. We talked about two frameworks to help us do this: the framework of Scott Pape, author of The Barefoot Investor, and the framework of Ben Kingsley and Bryce Holdaway, authors of Make Money Simple Again and hosts of the podcast The Property Couch. For more details on these structures, check out the recording or the resources below.

Finally, we talked briefly about how make your surplus work harder for you, and a good start is to review your current retirement plan or superannuation in order to build your egg nest for the future. There are several ways of making your money do more, like getting started with investments early and saving for goals that could lead you to have more money-making assets. Education around knowing your options is important and the resources below will help with that. Seeking the professional advice of a financial adviser is also highly recommended!

Explore the Resources We Shared

Resources we talked about during this event are:

• Equity Mates | Get Started Investing Podcast
• ABC | The Pineapple Project Podcast
• Equity Mates | Talk Money to Me Podcast
• Barefoot Investor | Steps to Financial Freedom
• The Property Couch | Most Popular Downloads
• Melissa Browne | Financial Resources
• My Millennial Money | Podcast

We hope this session helped you get prepared for 2022 and thinking of how to keep growing personally and professionally! We’re certainly inspired and are looking forward to what the next year will bring us!

If you missed the session, check out the recording below:

Be a Part of the DataWomen Community!

DataWomen is intentional about relationship-building and empowerment. We cover meaningful topics in our events, like salary negotiations and productivity at home, host small group chats with amazing women in our community and support a mentoring program. You can learn more about our programming at our landing page, and check out our LinkedIn group to be the first to know what’s next!

We’re always on the lookout for stellar individuals to contribute to DataWomen and help it thrive. If that sounds like you or someone you know, reach out to Azucena Coronel, Beth Kairys or Debbie Yu. See you next time!