Week 2: Expanding Business Boundaries – #AlphaFemaleFriday

“ WEEK 2 / 133 – 133 WEEKS TO SUCCESS ”

At this point, we have established that business is a game. Well, that’s great. So where do we go from here? Now that we’ve seen opened the door to possibilities, we must access ourselves: what boundaries have others created for me, and what boundaries have I created for myself? The second tip provided by Lois P Frankel’s Nice Girls Still Don’t Get the Corner Office is the mistake that women make when we play the game too safely and create boundaries for ourselves.

 

Last week, I made the decision to embrace the reality of business as a game of chess. I did not want to be a pawn the rest of my life. I want to be a queen: confident, self-assured, and firm although genuine and loving all at once, holding onto the line separating the delicate balance of assertive and forgiving.

 

 

 

This week, I’m determining what the limits are, and to what extent I can stretch this limits to. At this point, it’s not just about being proactive. Being proactive is not going above and beyond anymore; being proactive is doing what you are supposed to be doing. At this point, you take the initiative to call the shots on your own, and decide for yourself using common sense and creativity what the next best course of action to take will be. This applies both personally and professionally.

 

I was racking my brain for a while to decide how this applies to me a practical and non-theoretical level. I’m a big believer in the phrase “God helps those who helps themselves”, so while just yesterday I was making the decision to finally get together and figure out what it means, pragmatically speaking, to expand my business boundaries, I got an e-mail in my work inbox. It was an invitation to attending a networking event geared towards millennials in my field.

 

 

The metaphorical light bulb went off. If I was looking for a sign, this was it: the chance to expand my business boundary and exit my comfort zone. God helps those who help themselves, so I took the initiative to sign up for this networking event. This is a special occasion for me because it will be my first big girl network that I have decided to attend on my own accord, all by myself. I may only know a handful of people who are attending, if that, and of those who I may know are attending, they are all acquaintances.

 

 

Despite my initial fears—fear of failure, fear of loneliness, fear of confusion when trying to find this hip looking east side tavern in the middle of the night—I knew that if I didn’t take this opportunity being waved in my face that I would ultimately regret it. The event is about two weeks away, so in the meantime, I will be boning up in my hospitality lingo, doing research on who runs the event, and practicing my elevator speech until it rolls off my tongue. Here’s to taking calculated risks!

 

 

Cheers,

Kelly

@AlphaFemSociety tweets by @KellyRGonzales

 

About:

Each week, I take a tip from Lois P. Frankel’s book, Nice Girls Still Don’t Get the Corner Office, and explore how each of these tips affect myself and other women in similar positions on the road to becoming the women we want to be. There are far and few between who are a few steps behind me, and many more who are far advanced. I found that Lois P. Frankel’s advice applied to novice, intermediates, and experts alike. It helped me see that I was already doing right, served as a reminder to keep on doing what I was doing and how to keep that momentum going. The book also showed me areas where I could improve, and gave realistic tips to jump on board. There are a total of 133 tips, and explore one tip per week in a program I call: 133 Weeks to Success.

Join the movement using the hashtag #133WeeksToSuccess with posts which are posted every #AlphaFemaleFriday.