BONUS | Free Webinar August 12 | Why Doing Good Work Is No Longer Enough

Your work can’t walk into a leadership meeting and explain what you solved, what changed, or why the team’s results improved. That’s the uncomfortable mid-career truth we’re tackling in this quick bonus drop, along with an invitation to my free live webinar, “Why Doing Good Work is No Longer Enough,” happening Wednesday, August 12 at noon Eastern (with a limited-time replay if you can’t join live).  

Register for the webinar here.

I break down why being dependable and delivering strong results still isn’t enough in today’s job market, especially when promotion, compensation, and opportunity decisions get made behind closed doors. We talk about self-advocacy without bragging: communicating your value with evidence, data points, and clear examples that make your impact easy to understand and hard to ignore. If you can’t clearly name the problem you solved, the action you took, and the result that happened because of your leadership, you end up asking others to interpret your value for you. Sometimes they’ll get it right. Sometimes they won’t.  

You’ll also hear why I prefer “take command of your narrative” over “control your narrative.” You can’t control restructures or every decision, but you can take responsibility for how you show up, how you build relationships, and how you position yourself for what comes next. I also give you a simple pre-webinar exercise and explain why professional development without action turns into educational entertainment.  

If you want stronger career visibility, clearer professional branding, and a realistic path to your next role, subscribe, share this with a friend, and register for the webinar on August 12th.

Click here to register. 

Transcript

Quick Bonus And Webinar Invite

John Neral 0:00

Hey there. I hope you're having a great summer. And I'm dropping this quick bonus episode because I want to invite you to a free live webinar. I'm hosting on Wednesday, August 12th at noon Eastern. The webinar is called Why Doing Good Work is No Longer Enough. How to make mid-career easier.

Your Work Cannot Speak

John Neral 0:23

But before I tell you more about it, I want to give you something useful to consider right now. Your work cannot advocate for you. Your work cannot walk into a leadership meeting and explain all the problems you solved. It cannot tell a hiring manager how your decisions or your processes improved a result. Your work cannot remind your manager that the team's success was partly driven by your leadership. And your work cannot speak on your behalf when promotion, compensation, or opportunity decisions are being made behind closed doors. That is part of your responsibility.

The Mid-Career Lesson

John Neral 1:13

And that was a hard lesson I had to learn at a very specific stage in my career. I was raised and taught to believe that if you just do good work, you don't have to brag about yourself or tell people how wonderful you are. They will see it and you'll be fine. But then I sat back and I did those things and I did great work and I watched other people advance quicker and more effectively than I was. And it frustrated the heck out of me. I had to find a way to show up differently in a way that felt genuine and authentic to me, but still found a way for me to advocate for what I wanted in my career. That's

Evidence-Based Self-Advocacy

John Neral 2:02

what I want you to learn in this webinar. Yes, doing good work is important. Being reliable and dependable is essential, but you and I both know this job market is tough. And if you're currently employed, continuing to prove your value day in and day out is vital to your success and longevity in that organization. So you can be indispensable in your current role while remaining invisible as a candidate for greater responsibility, or you can show up differently and be your biggest advocate. Self-advocacy is not about making yourself look more important than everyone else. Self-advocacy is communicating your message about why you are helping people understand the value you create with evidence, with data points, with facts. What problem are you helping them solve? What action did you take? What changed because you were involved or because of your leadership? If you can't answer those questions clearly, you are asking others to interpret your value for you. Huge career mistake. Sometimes they'll get it right, sometimes they won't. And look,

Take Command Of Your Narrative

John Neral 3:36

I don't like the phrase control your narrative, but I do like the phrase take better command of your narrative. What would taking better command of your narrative at this stage in your career right now mean for you? You should not be the only person who knows what you are capable of doing inside your current organization or at another one. When I hear people say, control your narrative, what often comes up for me is that you cannot control every decision, organizational change, promotion, or job opportunity. But you can take command of how you communicate your value, how you grow your network, how you build those professional relationships, and how you position yourself for what comes next. Because, my friend, you are 100% responsible for your career. That does not mean that every disappointing outcome is your fault. Yes, sometimes bad things happen to us in our careers. There are layoffs and cutbacks and restructurings and reorganizations that don't always work out in our favor. But having better command of your narrative and communicating your value, that is how we make mid-career easier.

Webinar Signup And Action Plan

John Neral 5:11

And that is what I'm going to help you with on this webinar. So I want you to do two things. One, I want you to check the show notes or go to my website, johnnerrill.com forward slash webinar. J-O-H-N-N-E-R-A-L dot com forward slash webinar. And I want you to sign up for the webinar on August 12th at noon Eastern. I'm going to go live with all of you, but don't worry if you can't attend live, if you've got other things going on, I want you to sign up anyway because I'm going to give you access to the replay for a limited time. That's one. The second thing I want you to do before you get on the webinar or before you watch the replay, I want you to write down one problem you are currently facing in your career, the specific action you took, and the result. And then I want you to answer who needs to know about that. Maybe that belongs in your next performance review or your next one-on-one conversation with your supervisor. Maybe it's something you use for your interview preparation. Or perhaps it's something you share with a trusted colleague within your network. In my live webinar, we do work. I don't want you to sit there and just passively take it all in. I'm going to ask you to do some specific work on this webinar and take action from it. Because professional development without action is nothing more than educational entertainment. So you can read all the books and the blogs and watch the YouTube videos and the podcasts and things like that, but none of that changes unless you are willing to take action because of what you learned. We will take a look at three specific shifts that can strengthen your visibility, help you communicate your impact, and position you for what comes next. And because you're going to do a little bit of work on the webinar, you will identify one immediate action you can take over the next 30 days. The webinar is Wednesday, August 12th at noon Eastern. You can register at johnner.com forward slash webinar. That's johnnarrell.com forward slash webinar or check the show notes. And again, if you can't join me live, register anyway because you will have access to a replay for a limited time. Doing good work matters. I will never tell you otherwise. But at mid-career, doing good work is only one part of the equation. At mid-career, it is vital to your professional growth and success to learn how to advocate, connect, communicate, and take action so the value you create can lead somewhere. I hope you will join me on August 12th. And until next time, remember this how we show up matters.