3 Lessons in Building an Innovative Career with Judith Platz and Melissa Pollock
When we share our professional journeys with others, we sometimes mask or downplay our setbacks and only present a highlight reel of our achievements. After all, we want to show the best version of ourselves. But ultimately, we miss the opportunity to paint a realistic and empowering picture of career innovation.
While sharing their experiences, our April Webinar speakers, Judith Platz and Melissa Pollock, emphasized the importance of embracing our rougher moments, using our life lessons to equip others, and becoming the change we want to see in our communities.
Here are three of their main takeaways.
1. Discover the beauty in your career mistakes.
No one tries to make mistakes; they happen naturally. For some, it takes a long time to realize that the path they took wasn’t ideal. However, Platz and Pollock stressed the importance of practicing self-compassion and using reflective practices to find meaning in our errors.
“...We make a majority of our life decisions in our 20s and 30s,” mused Platz. “We spend the rest of our lives either thanking ourselves for making those decisions or trying to unwind from them.”
“It’s much more valuable to tell the story like: here’s what I did and the consequences. Here are the diamonds in the rough that came out of it all,” responded Pollock. “Part of it is thinking, okay, I did this. What can I get out of it? Where can I grow? How can I give and add value, and take something good out of this?”
2. Share your story to empower others—and yourself.
It can be difficult for women to peel back the layers and expose genuine emotions or struggles without feeling inadequate. But vulnerability, while initially daunting, becomes our key to empowerment and career innovation.
“I have never realized the value in sharing experiences together. It’s not a thing I’ve done,” admitted Pollock. “But I find it to be very beautiful, powerful, and humbling to give and receive that way.”
“We’ve been in a world and an industry where women have to show up differently,” added Platz. “There’s something in our realness that’s very empowering. It’s also how we innovate ourselves. We need to stop drawing lines between business and home and figure out how to bring them together naturally, where people can see the real you.”
3. Embody the community you need.
We all need a reliable network to champion and challenge us. For Pollock and Platz, they strive to be the community that they once needed to ensure that other women feel belonging as they navigate the ups and downs of their career.
“It takes a village. It is the epitome of beautiful emotion to be with a group of people doing anything, whether it’s right here, right now, doing this—or doing some work in a church, creating a marketing flier,” said Pollock.
“One of the best gifts I could ever give is to offer people a safe place to land, even if it’s for one hour, a night, or a month,” noted Platz. ”Crash on my couch, whatever that means. Come into my office and just get it all out. I could have done more of that. I do a lot of it now; it’s one of my superpowers.”
Nurture your career innovation with CCWomen.
CCWomen is a membership community for women in the customer contact and business world. Like Platz and Pollock, we strive to be a steady source of empowerment for one another and ourselves through constant growth.
After all, when one of us wins, everyone wins. We’re writing our career innovation story together, toward a brighter, more equitable working world for all.
