344: Why Your Career Strategy Isn't Working Anymore

If you are a mid-career professional doing everything right but still feeling stuck, this episode will challenge how you think about effort, visibility, and advancement in today’s job market.

I see this pattern all the time. You are producing high-quality work, hitting your goals, and showing up consistently. Yet you are not getting promoted, not being tapped for bigger opportunities, and not being recognized for the value you bring. The issue is not your work ethic. It is how your value is perceived and understood by the people making decisions about your career.

In this episode, I break down what is actually required to move forward at mid-career. The job market today rewards more than performance. It rewards clarity, visibility, and the ability to communicate your impact in a way that others can quickly understand and advocate for.

We start with a simple but revealing question. Can your boss clearly explain your impact in 10 seconds? If not, you may be more invisible than you think.

From there, I introduce a more strategic way to approach your career. I want you to think like a portfolio manager. Every project, responsibility, and initiative is an investment. The return on that investment should not just be completed work. It should be visibility, influence, promotability, or growth into your next role. If your work is only keeping you busy, it may be keeping you safe but also keeping you stuck.

We also explore how to build credibility beyond your organization so your reputation is not limited to one environment. When you engage on LinkedIn, participate in professional associations, speak, or lead workshops, you create external signals that increase your visibility and strengthen your positioning both inside and outside your company.

If you are ready to stop guessing and start building real momentum in your career, this episode will give you a more strategic lens for how to show up and move forward.

Resources and Next Steps:

If you are ready to take a more intentional approach to your career and leadership growth, I invite you to join the SHOW UP Leadership Lab. This is my monthly membership where mid-career professionals build clarity, increase visibility, and position themselves for promotion and greater impact.

Learn more and join here:
 https://john

Transcript

Welcome And The Real Problem

John Neral 0:03

Hello, my friends. Welcome to the Mid-Career GPS Podcast. I'm your host, John Narrell. This is the show for mid-career professionals who feel stuck, undervalued, or unsure what's next, and know that doing more isn't the answer. Here we focus on how you show up, how you make clear decisions, build influence, and take control of your career. Let's get started. Hey there. How are you today? Are you dealing with some spring allergies? Mine have started to kick in, so I'm going to do my best to get through this episode with you. But here's where I want to start today. If you feel like you're doing everything right, but nothing is moving forward, I want to challenge you on something. You are not stuck because you're not working hard enough. You're stuck because the way you've been taught to succeed is no longer the way this job market rewards. And if you don't adjust this now, here's the harsh truth. You're going to stay exactly where you are for the next one to three years. In this episode, I'm going to walk you through what you need to stop doing and what you need to start doing if you actually want to move forward in this job market. Now, I have said for months this job market is tricky, but it is not impossible. And so as you're navigating, as you're building your mid-career GPS and figuring out what exactly is going to be next, we have to take a look at assessing exactly what's going on right now for you. See, at mid-career, most professionals double down on what got them here. The things that they did that made them successful, they worked harder. They always said yes. They were reliable. They delivered high-quality products. But here's the problem at mid-career, that strategy only makes you valuable. It doesn't make you visible. And if you're not visible, you're not promotable. And if you're not promotable, you start getting passed over. In fact, you might be so valuable that the organization doesn't want to move you out of their role because they don't know who can replace you. And as you start thinking about where you are in your career and where you want to go, you may think you can do this all on your own. But truthfully, how well is that going? When will you know if you need some help? I'm really glad you found this podcast episode. So if you've been with me from the start or you just found me today, I'm really glad you are here. Because the first thing I want to offer you to do in this job market is to optimize yourself for perception and not just for performance. See, your work no longer speaks for itself. That may be uncomfortable to hear, but it is true. At mid-career, your job is not just to do great work. Your job is to make sure the right people know and understand the impact of your work. Let me say that again. At mid-career, your job is not just to do great work. Your job is to make sure the right people know and understand the impact of your work. If your boss or senior leader or supervisor cannot clearly explain what you do and why it matters within 10 seconds, my friend, you are invisible. So here's the shift. Stop asking yourself and stop asking others, am I doing good work? The question to shift towards and the intentional conversation you need to be having is Is my work being interpreted the way I want it to be? Is your visibility exactly what you need it to be in order to help you advance, get that next project, get that next promotion, skill up to the next level? Another thing I want to offer you to do in this job market is to start thinking like a portfolio manager. Here's what I mean by that. You cannot think like an employee anymore. You have to think like a portfolio manager. And the portfolio manager of your career. So every project, every task, every assignment you take on is an investment. And some of those investments will increase your visibility, some will increase your influence, some will increase your promotability, and some will simply keep you busy. And this is where a lot of mid-career professionals get stuck. You are excellent at managing work that no longer moves your career forward. You think if I just do more, I'm gonna be okay. Yeah, you're gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay exactly where you are because that's where the organization sees you. They never see you differently. And oftentimes, what I see, what happens in my work with clients, is that they get to a point that they have to make a decision. And that decision is whether or not it is worth it for them to continue to invest time, effort, and energy in their present organization with their leadership and their superiors to see if it is possible for them to get promoted and elevated to a new level? Or do they have to leverage their talents and expertise and take it elsewhere? Are you seen as a doer, or are you seen as a strategist? Are you seen as someone who only executes and does things? Or are you seen as a strategic and visionary leader? When you take a look at your career like a portfolio manager, you do not need more work. You need better career management. And when I work with my clients on how I help them show up, we talk about a specific strategy about protecting and promoting your brand. So, where does that visibility fall for you? The third thing I want to offer you in terms of doing in this job market is to start creating external signals. If all of your credibility lives inside of your current company or organization, you have no leverage. None. All of your work, it's like putting all of your eggs in one basket. All of your work goes inside your company, and nobody knows anything about you outside of it. And the scary part is when you put all your eggs into that one basket, you are dependent on that organization to validate your value. I got passed over again. Oh, they really like me. They put me on this project, or they're sending me on this work trip. They never let me lead. When you are dependent on an organization to be the one to validate your value, it is risky. It is dangerous. Because as you think about moving your career forward, why would you be so dependent on one organization to validate your professional worth? So the reframe here is that you need a signal outside of your organization. You could be a voice on LinkedIn. That doesn't mean posting content. It means just thoughtfully engaging with other people's content. You could be speaking, you could be speaking at conferences, you could be delivering workshops, you could be involved in a professional association. You could be engaged in strategic conversations with people in your industry that are outside of your organization. Where are you positioning yourself as a thought leader at mid-career that is going to help increase your visibility and start gaining you some much-needed and more importantly, much-desired attention? When you build your brand outside of your organization, you create internal visibility. So I know this only too well because in the early stages of my mid-career, I was working as a middle school mathematics coordinator in the district where I taught. But I also had a tutoring and consulting practice outside of my school job. And one of the great things about that was I was serving as an educational consultant for Casio America. I was one of their first teachers to be a part of what was called the Casio Teacher Advisory Council. And our job was to work directly with the software developers and engineers to help provide input on new calculator technology that would be used in the classroom. And one of the great things about that job was it exposed me to people whom I never would have had an opportunity to meet. People at the secondary and university level, people who were well established in the field and people who were the new up-and-comers, if you will. There were a couple of times I was able to deliver a keynote at a national conference where I stood up in front of 1,600 people and delivered a keynote about where we were at in terms of emerging calculator technology and why it needed to be at the forefront of classroom conversations. The people I met through those experiences are still part of my network today. But because I had stepped outside of a comfort zone, I stretched to provide an experience that was different than what I had been doing. It increased my visibility. And when it came time for me to leave that job and go somewhere else, I was able to leverage that experience and opportunity because of all the things I was doing and had done beyond my current role to increase my visibility. It upped my worth. It upped my value in terms of my place in the job market at the time. So I invite you to consider where you can increase your external visibility. But before you do that, especially if you're thinking about taking on another role or like a part-time job or something like that, if that were to be the case, if you're doing consulting work or something like that, just please make sure that it doesn't violate anything with your employment agreement. Okay, sometimes companies have an outside working agreement or you have an NDA that you have to be mindful of and stuff. So just be careful of that, especially in this job market right now. But I definitely encourage you to think of ways to increase your visibility. Now, there are a few things I want to encourage you to not do, or I recommend not doing. The first one is having your narrative lead with your experience. And in this job market, I just want to say something that may surprise you right now. No one is impressed that you have 15 or 20 years of experience. That's hard to say, but that is the truth. That is expected at mid-career. You are supposed to be experienced. You are supposed to have results. It is not a differentiator. When you're thinking about how you want to stand out in the job market, what matters is this. How well are you communicating what problems you can solve today and at what level? Companies want to know what you're going to do for them. And that includes your current employer. If you're thinking about moving to the next level in your company or you're looking to get a new project assigned to you, they want to know what problems you can solve for them today and at the level you're going to do it at. You should be thinking about the competencies and the skills at the level above where you currently are and start modeling and demonstrating them. Experience is your background. The value you bring is your currency. It's your cash, it's your value. It's where you get to um negotiate from a much different position. So think about your narrative and how you're crafting that. The second thing, and oh, I am so guilty of this at times in my career, and I know when I get stuck in a thought cycle, I have to pull myself out of it. The second thing to not do is wait for clarity. Clarity is important. You need to know where you're headed. But I hear from a lot of mid-career professionals who will say, I just need to think about it before I make a move. I need to have more clarity about what I want to do. And I understand that completely. But here's the truth, and here's the problem in that. Clarity does not come from thinking. Clarity comes from movement. If you want clarity, it is the result of an action you took. Who did you talk to? Where did you research? What did you try? That's where the clarity comes from because it's a direct result of a particular action you took. Sitting around and staying up at night and journaling and thinking about things about what you want to do is not going to help you move forward. Yes, you got to think about it, but you need to take an action. You need to have some kind of movement. If you wait until you feel a hundred percent certain you will stay exactly where you are. Very few things in life are 100% guaranteed. When we think about promoting ourselves, advocating for our career, leveling up our leadership, it is all about taking a risk. And admittedly, taking a calculated risk. You do not need certainty to do that. You need direction. You need direction on where you're going and where you're headed and why that move is important to you. So as we start wrapping up here, if you take nothing else from this episode, take this. At mid-career, success is no longer defined about doing more. You're not going to get the gold star and the little check marks next to your name about all the things that you did every single day. At mid-career, it is about positioning yourself more strategically in this job market and inside of your organization. How are you demonstrating your value every single day? How is your work perceived? Where are you investing your time? Who knows who you are? How visible are you? And how clearly do you communicate your value to the decision makers and the people of influence inside of your organization that need to know who you are and can clearly describe the value you bring in 10 seconds or less. That is the differentiator. Now, if you're listening to this and you're realizing you've been doing everything right, but you're still not moving forward, that is not a motivational problem. That is a strategy problem. And that's exactly why I created the Show Up Leadership Lab. The Show Up Leadership Lab is the room where mid-career professionals stop guessing and start building a clear strategic path forward. If you want to start gaining momentum, this is an opportunity for you to start taking that action, to figure out those next steps, to be held accountable, and have a group support you in doing that. Inside the Show Up Leadership Lab, this is where you get support, structure, and coaching to help increase your visibility, strengthen your leadership presence, and actually move your career forward. So if you want to start showing up differently, I want to invite you to join us. Check the show notes, visit my website, johnnarrell.com forward slash show up. Right now, you can come into the group for$47 a month. This is a monthly membership program. There's an annual option of$470,$47 a month for you to come in and get the support structure and coaching you want. So again, johnnarrell.com forward slash show up. And so my friends, stay safe, be well, be kind to each other, and remember this. You will build your mid-career GPS one mile or one step at a time, and how you show up matters. Make it a great rest of your day. Thank you for listening to the MidCareer GPS Podcast. Make sure to follow on your favorite listening platform. And if you have a moment, I'd love to hear your comments on Apple Podcasts. Visit johnnarrell.com for more information about how I can help you build your mid-career GPS, or how I can help you and your organization with your next workshop or public speaking event. Don't forget to connect with me on LinkedIn and follow me on social at John Daryl Coaching. I look forward to being back with you next week. Until then, take care. And remember, how we show up matters.