Professional Visibility with Sas Petherick
I'm excited to share this series on Professional Visibility with you. I want to help you overcome cultural, social and gender-related barriers to being visible. Talking about yourself and your work is a skill and I want to shine a light on the multitude of ways women do this. I hope I can provide you with role models you can mimic and learn from. Over time, I hope that you will find a way of being visible that feels true and powerful to you. This work is one way I'm learning how to do that for myself.
Next up, is the brilliant Sas Petherick who I found through my ongoing research into confidence and visibility; Sas specialises in self-doubt.
WHY ARE YOU INTENTIONALLY VISIBLE?
Technology has democratised visibility. In the past, only those who had means and power were seen, so there is something incredibly defiant about being willing to take up space - to be seen, but also to share opinions and preferences and ideas. We take a long time to update our collective ideas and even as we enter the 2020s, there are prevalent cultural narratives about who gets to be visible, who gets to take up space. I am very interested in subverting these. And I am a 46-year-old white woman, so I want to use whatever platform I have, to amplify other voices and experiences. Who we see, who we listen to, what we believe about ourselves and the world is always evolving - I want to participate in this. I also run my own business as a coach helping folks transcend self-doubt. For many people, being visible carries an enormous amount of psychological risk - that we will be judged, criticised, rejected, ignored - self-doubt tells us all kinds of stories to protect us from these risks. I have these doubts and fears and worries too, and I’ve learnt that the risk almost never materialises, by holding back we can miss out on so much connection, resonance and belonging.
HOW ARE YOU VISIBLE?
Imperfectly and consistently!
WHAT IS YOUR ONE PIECE OF ADVICE TO PEOPLE READING THIS WHO WANT TO BE MORE VISIBLE?
If you are holding yourself back from being seen, be very curious about why. Have some compassion for yourself as you look at what might be at risk for you. Even if it feels disproportionate or illogical, your experience is real to you and I guarantee its happening for a damn good reason. Once you have identified the risk (the Big Seven Risks are a great start point: rejection, conflict, success, judgement, failure, complexity, disappointment), consider what you are attempting to protect yourself from. The truth is the worst that will happen is you will feel a feeling that is uncomfortable. If you’re willing to allow it instead of resisting it, and you’re willing to look at it with curiosity instead of resistance, that’s where your sense of resilience is going to come from. It’s powerful to recognise that you can change how you feel.
WHO IS YOUR VISIBILITY ROLE MODEL?
Jess Phillips MP - for being unapologetic in standing for what she believes in.
You can read the last interview with Daisy Onugobu here.