One of my favorite things about blogging here is getting to hearing your brave stories. I love hearing how you are working out your brave! A text message that starts, “I did something that was brave for me today…”, an email or Facebook message that start in similar fashion, you all keep throwing them my way and I love it. Your brave, it’s contagious.
So this is where I get to share some of those stories, with permission, of course. Brave in Action is a running series of the real life brave I see, the brave I get to hear about. From the heroic to the everyday, our brave choices matter. For ourselves, for our family, for our future, brave choices always matter.
I got an email last week from a friend. A frustrated, almost desperate email that contained a letter she wanted me to look at for her. A letter she was writing to her soon-to-be boss. The story of her “brave fail” unfolded from there.
This friend of mine, let’s call her Lisa, received a completely unexpected job offer a few weeks back. In case you are wondering, this is a different friend and a different job offer than the one I wrote about over here. And no, I did not tell this friend she needed to poop. I only pull that advice out occasionally.
Anyhow, Lisa finds herself with a completely unexpected and rather sweet job offer that comes with great perks and benefits. Nice, huh? That certainly doesn’t happen every day.
Not having been in the market for a new job, Lisa quickly does some research and talks to some friends in the industry to find out what a competitive salary would look like for this position, given her education and experience. With that knowledge in hand, she comes up with a target salary she believes this job will command.
So far, so good. Right?
A few days later Lisa finds herself in a dinner meeting with her prospective boss to discuss and negotiate what her position with the company might look like.
Do you know the tension of this type of meeting? The tension of negotiating a job offer, a salary. The tension of trying to be realistic, yet trying to get every penny you believe you are worth. Trying to be gracious, yet a wise negotiator. Assertive, yet humble. Trying to own it, remember?
These meetings can be tough to navigate bravely, friends.
So, amidst casual conversation and discussions of the company’s fundamental values and what not, a more formal job offer and salary is thrown out. And Lisa, in the momentum of the conversation and the excitement of the good things she was hearing, casually agrees to the position.
The job offer was great. The benefits, great. The flexibility and perks, all great. But, the salary? It was just good. Not bad, but not great. It was about $10,000 per year less than Lisa was hoping for and not long after dinner she found herself a little deflated.
Not deflated because she needed that money, not deflated because that money was going to make a huge difference in her life, but deflated because a) she had done her homework and was fairly confident she was worth $10,000 more and b) in that moment, she was not brave enough to ask for what she really wanted.
So Lisa stewed on it for a few days and made up her mind. She would write a letter to her almost-boss and tell him she made a mistake. She would tell him she regretted not speaking up in the first place and would clearly and humbly layout the reasons why she felt she should be paid $10,000 more.
This is the point when I got the email from Lisa with a message that read something that something like this. I totally messed up being brave and so I’m about to send off this letter. I hope I’m not messing this up even more. I stink at being brave. What do you think?
I was never more proud of Lisa than in that moment. What she missed, what she didn’t notice, is that her “brave fail” actually became her opportunity to be even braver.
To admit you made a mistake takes bravery. To righteously fight for what you really believe you are worth takes bravery. But to do both is pure awesome. And Lisa did that.
Her letter was humble, yet direct. I think she fully intended to accept the job either way, she just needed to know that she was brave enough to ask. So she did.
And guess what? She got it. Without even blinking, they gave her exactly what she asked for. She proved to her new boss, to her husband, to her kids, and maybe most importantly, to herself, that she is brave enough to ask. And when you are brave enough to ask, you might just be brave enough to be $10,ooo ahead. Well played, Lisa. Well played.
I can’t guarantee choosing brave will always land you ahead $10,000 a year, friends. Wouldn’t that be sweet? But I can guarantee that every time you choose brave you are exercising that muscle for future use. You are more likely to choose brave in the future because of your brave choices in the past. Creating your brave track-record, your brave past, starts now. Get after it. That is Brave in Action.
Brave, yes, but now the pressure is ON. As for someone with experience, I would rather go in and prove myself, impress them far beyond their expectations, then negotiate. You will be far ahead of that 10,000. There will always be room for improvement. Figure that out, make that happen, in every little way, in big ways. Prove it, show it, earn it.
That’s a good point and one you have played well. But, do you think there is as much room for such in a corporate salary structure these days? With the complexity of salary ranges, pay grades and benchmarking, my much less experienced opinion is that mobility can be limited by the legalities of the structure. Believing such, at least for corporate employment opportunities, I think it’s to your advantage to leverage your position in early negotiations, as long as you are not negotiating beyond a level at which you can successfully perform. That is a tricky balance when starting a new job, but most us can fairly honestly assess what we are capable of and the motivation of a handsome salary will only increase that. What do you think? I’d love your thoughts on this.