Ladies Get Paid

Mandy loves movies with a passion. For the last decade, she’s been a writer and editor in entertainment journalism and thrived. But the past few years have been rocky as the industry has downsized and..so has Mandy’s career. She came to me wondering if she should get creative and stick it out, or pivot entirely. With her heart and her bank account at odds, Mandy needed an outside perspective ASAP.

Janine came to me suffering from what’s called “baby bear syndrome.” It’s when you get hired in a junior position or supporting role, are really good at it, and then can never seem to break out of it. As Janine describes it, she gets pigeonholed and not given new opportunities because she’s so good at the thing they hired her to do! The other issue she’s running into is job descriptions that require team management. As an executive assistant, she’s constantly managing everyone and everything, just not in a formal capacity. So how can she convince people that she has the skills, if not the title?

Deidre came to me feeling unmotivated about her business. She’d been successful for the last five years, business just falling into her lap without any marketing. But now things have dried up and Deidre is at a crossroads. She hates marketing and sales with a passion and given the lack of new clients, her self-esteem has taken a hit. She’s wondering if she should just give it up to become a W2 employee again. But in her heart, she knows that’s not what she wants.  Well, what DOES Deidre want? And how can she get it? Take a listen as we work through it - together. 

Sarah was feeling defeated and for good reason. She’d been let go, rehired, and then let go AGAIN. Went through seven rounds of interviews over two months…and didn’t get it. In her last interview, they told her she didn’t have an executive presence. The first thing I told her was to look at this interview process like a bootcamp - albeit high stakes - where her job is to learn as much as possible. Every interview is practicing for the next one. (It’s also an opportunity to network!) But as you know, I’m not into toxic positivity or silver-lining BS. Sarah needed real tactics to make tangible progress in a frustrating job search. Since she was landing a fair number of interviews and getting pretty far in the process, we focused our coaching session on how to up her interview game and finally get a yes. We also talked about how to make each interview something she could be proud of, regardless of whether she gets the offer. Because there’s only so much we can control, in fact, I think the entire job search process is an exercise in pushing forward and letting go. Which is very very hard. So kudos to Sarah for putting in the work - I’m proud of her and I’m proud of you. You’re here, and that counts.

Feretesh came to me looking for job search strategies. But what she was really looking for, was herself. I could tell by the way she wrote in her podcast submission, there were clues that whatever I might tell her, she would have trouble following through. Why? She was disconnected from herself.  Because here's the thing: to know what you want to do, you have to know who you want to be.  Now of course lots of things get in our way: various wounds and traumas and toxic situations we’ve experienced but as you’ll see in my session with Feretesh, I have a theory on how you can actually find your superpowers amidst these traumas. Superpowers that when you tap into them, motivate you to take action, more than any kind of attempt at willpower or accountability. I invite you, as I did Feretesh, to scour your past like a detective, searching for clues that will propel you into the future. Because everything is there for you to learn from and once you open your mind, you’ll see that it can open your world.

​Coaching thousands of women to negotiate millions of dollars, Ladies Get Paid founder & author Claire Wasserman has seen her fair share of misconceptions and mistakes. ​Here’s the truth: HR makes getting a raise purposefully hard. Here’s another truth: Don’t wait till you need to negotiate to learn how to do it. This episode is a recording of an earlier presentation of 12 common misnomers people have about negotiating their salary and what to do instead.

In this episode, you’ll meet Summer who recently got feedback at work that she’s not speaking up enough in team meetings. She told me that she feels comfortable in smaller settings, in her words, it’s more "organic", but once there are more people, especially on Zoom, it feels awkward to interject. We talk through what it means to have an executive presence grounded in authenticity because the worst thing is to pretzel yourself into someone else to be successful. 

In this episode, you’ll meet Jackie, who struggles to find balance and feel confident. Because she’s been told before by important men in her life that she’s “too much”, she frequently finds herself pretzeling so as not to take up as much space. We talk through strategies to strengthen her self-trust and at minute 15:45, Jackie reveals something amazing about herself that blows me away. It turns out her confidence has been there all along, she needs to shift her attention towards it, and honestly - learn from herself. Because here’s the thing: every one of us has innate wisdom. We just need to learn how to listen to and honor it.

In the latest episode of the ​Ladies Get Paid podcast​, you’ll meet Elizabeth who came to me deep into unemployment and wondering if she should make a pivot. However, pretty quickly into our session, it became clear that there was something else that was blocking her. Elizabeth went to school to become an artist, something that used to give her a lot of joy. But now, whenever she tries to make art, her inner critic is so loud, it’s become a source of anxiety. As you’ll see in the session, this becomes the basis of my diagnosis: until Elizabeth learns how to create art again without self-judgment, everything else, including looking for work, will be a struggle. Whether she makes art her career is not the point, it’s the process of learning, of being quote “bad” at something that will alleviate the burden of perfectionism so that she can embrace the process of becoming. Elizabeth shares that she is in mourning for the artist she was, which in some ways may be true, but what is also true is that she is still that same artist, it is just her relationship with it - and herself - that must evolve. I give her tips for how to shift the mourning to a celebration and so if you also find yourself in a sort of “no man’s land” - that uncomfortable and often painful season in which you’re transitioning from one understanding of your self to another - this episode is for you. Just a note, this session has been recorded with her consent and edited for clarity. If you’re interested in being coached by me or simply have a question you want answered, go to coachmeclaire.com

In the latest episode of the Ladies Get Paid podcast, you’ll meet Jessica who is mid-career and feeling a lot of regrets. From a very young age, she felt a calling to sing and so put in a lot of training - and student debt - to become a professional opera singer. But by the time she was 30, and struggling to land a manager, she gave it all up. That was 12 years ago and Jessica hasn’t sung since. She came to me, feeling a lot of anger and disappointment, because as she says, she keeps getting in her own way. I know I’m not supposed to pick favorites, but I think Jessica might be one of the best coaching sessions I’ve done so far, mainly because of her eloquence in articulating her struggle and her openness in digging deep.