How To Find and Articulate Your Leadership Story: Lessons From Copenhagen

Four years ago this summer, I was learning Danish in Copenhagen, Denmark. I had started months before, spending hours with flashcards and recordings. By the time I landed, I could tell you "I see the elephant and his friend, the crab" -- theoretically.

But when I tried to express the simplest thing like: "Danish is hard," I tripped over my words. Got frustrated. Switched to English. Felt defeated.

How do you react when your manager asks: "What do you want out of your career?" or your boss' boss asks "so, what do you do?"

The answer to either question is not about the right words (though they help). It's about conviction.

Learning Danish and talking yourself up aren't the same. For one, the latter is MUCH easier, I promise. But they both take clarity and practice until they become your second language.

Getting clear about what you want from your career can seem hard. Thankfully, there's a method I teach that is for sure more successful than changing your Google settings to Danish (where they remain to this day). 

As my client Michelle, a Group Manager at a Fortune 500 company put it:

"I have my own dreams. For the first time, I [...] spat out my own vision. This [process] has helped me identify and internalize my own career path. Before it was this fuzzy thing I couldn’t articulate. Now it’s crystal clear."

Once you find that nugget of what you do and what you're looking for, I recommend finding low stakes places to practice. That can be amongst friends, to the mirror,  with your partner - as a great way to start.

Soon your diction gets better, you find your style, and people sit up, lean in and reach out.