The Career Game: Build a Personal Brand That Gets You Promoted (and Paid)

If you’ve ever watched someone less skilled get chosen over you, this episode will change how you play the game. 

We’re unpacking why “great work” doesn’t automatically create opportunity, and what actually does.

📌What’s Covered:

• Why being “excellent at the work” can secretly keep you stuck (and what visibility signals actually move decisions).
• The “Quarterly Five” concept: the small circle that quietly determines your next opportunity.
• Networking without feeling fake: the real line between building relationships and “using people”.
• The hidden rules of the career game: what nobody teaches, but everyone’s rewarded for knowing.
• Posting on LinkedIn when you’re employed (or building a business): how to grow your brand without triggering backlash, or breaking company trust.

Kendall Berg is an internationally published author, TEDx speaker, and career coach dedicated to helping professionals master the career game and accelerate their success. After experiencing her own transformation from being stuck at the manager level for over five years to earning five promotions in six years, she became passionate about empowering others to navigate corporate politics and build their leadership presence. Her recent book, *Secrets of the Career Game: 36 Strategies to Get Ahead in Your Career*, uncovers the often-overlooked soft skills that can set you apart and propel you forward.

🌐Learn more about Kendall https://thatcareercoach.net/

🤝Connect with Kendall https://www.linkedin.com/in/kendall-berg-347b5a40/

🚀The Founder’s Voice Quiz is the foundation for a client attraction system that works with your strengths, not against them. 

💛Share with a friend who would enjoy this conversation.

Thank you for listening in! See you next week.

Transcript

Priscilla: If you've ever watched someone less experienced, less qualified, or less committed, leapfrog you in your career, this is the conversation for you today on The Entrepreneur's Kitchen. I'm joined by Kendall Berg, and she's an internationally published author, TEDx speaker, and a career coach who went from being stuck at manager level for five years to getting six promotions in five years.

So think about that. She's got something to share with you. That transformation has led her to write Secrets of the Career Game. 36 Strategies to get ahead in your career. Today we're talking about the visibility game, taking control of your personal brand at work in business, and by the end of this conversation, I hope that you'll stop waiting to be chosen.

Start playing the visibility game and do it on purpose and become the obvious choice for the opportunities you want next.

[00:01:00]

Priscilla: Kendall, thank you so much for joining us here. It's gonna be awesome. Please let us know who you are and what's your mission.

Kendall Berg: Thanks, Priscilla. I'm so excited to be here. And after that intro, I too am excited about what we're gonna chat about. So I'm Kendall, I'm that career coach. As you shared, my entrepreneurship journey was born out of difficulty. And my professional career, and I share this story often, but this was a number of years ago, almost a decade now, where I had , an executive who I thought really highly of who told me.

Nobody likes working with you. Like your communication's not strong. The visibility you get's not strong and you're great at your job, but everybody wants you to just go do your job and not be part of the leadership conversation, not be part of the strategy. And that was , a real kick in the behind for me to figure out what is the visibility game?

Figure out how do [00:02:00] you communicate effectively with people and really understand how this kind of career game. Works. And then as you said, that kind of propelled my career forward and then ultimately led to me starting my coaching business and writing my book to help other people do the same. 'cause , I wish some of this stuff we just talked about instead of pretending like it , wasn't actually happening behind the scenes.

Priscilla: Kendall , a lot of people are in that situation where they're good at what they do, but they can seem to figure out how. To get that promotion hard to get that recognition, how to get in and have a stake in what they're creating. That moment your manager says that, and then what do you immediately think or how do you think about going forward?

Kendall Berg: Yeah, so I think it's impossible not to hear that and like hurt a little. It's kind of harsh and , in that moment I had the option to become defensive or to learn from what was happening. And we've all been there. We wanna get defensive, [00:03:00] right?

We wanna go, I'm a joy to work with and you should love me and promote me and I'm great and look at all this stuff I delivered. Right? , We want that. Opportunity to defend ourselves. But what I have found is in that moment, leaning into that and saying, Hey, I have a lot of respect for you. I think you're a great leader.

Tell me what it is that I'm not doing that I need to be doing for that, not to be the reputation that I have. And. He was really funny. He's like, Hey, I want you to meet with this woman. She used to have a really bad reputation. She was difficult to work with. Now everybody loves her. I feel like, excuse me.

I feel like she could give you a really great perspective. And I met with her and she said, do you make small talk? And I went, no. It's a waste of time. , Why are we wasting five minutes every call talking about the weather? I need to get stuff done. I'm busy. She goes, yeah, that right there.

I need you to start doing small talk. I need you to start meeting people where they're at, building authentic connection, being curious about them, and [00:04:00] then go from there. And I think that lesson is so vital, whether you're in a corporate world, whether you work for somebody else, whether you are the founder, CEO, whether you're working with people that now report to you in this business that you've built, whether you're talking to clients.

In my experience, the number one thing that gets you ahead is authentic interest in other people, right? If I say Priscilla, I wanna understand,, why did you start a podcast? What made you passionate about this? Talk me through your journey. You already like me better. 'cause you're like, oh look, she's interested, she cares, she wants to know me.

And sometimes it really is that simple. And there are gonna be times where you're faced with somebody you don't jive with. It, right? Not everybody's gonna be your people. I think it'd be unreasonable to expect we like everybody we meet, but if I go in with authentic interest and I want to understand them and I wanna know more about them, they're gonna like me more than if I hadn't, even if we're not each other's people.

And so [00:05:00] I find that coming outta that situation, I had the opportunity to either lean in and fix the problem or get defensive and stay where I was. And the latter was just not an option. So I started really authentically taking an interest in people. And I'll share this quick story. Over each summer, I volunteer with underprivileged and low income girls in my state, and we do business coaching.

And we talk them through how to start businesses, how to think about their careers, how to network, how to talk to people, how to open a bank account, and how you should set up your savings. And this past summer, there was a girl I wanna say she was 16, 17. She. Asked such a great question that I think shows a lot of maturity beyond her years, and she asked, what's the difference between networking and using someone? And I think a lot of the time we shy away from networking because we don't want it to feel like we're using someone or we shy away from meeting with that leader and having a tough conversation. [00:06:00] 'cause we don't want it to seem like we're being difficult or we don't want it to seem like we need something from them

and we get so up in our heads about what we don't want, that we don't authentically go, Priscilla, what do you want? How do I help you? What do you need out of this? And so I think the number one takeaway, if you get anything out of this, is if you seek first to understand other people, and then put that in context of your perspective, your objective, your goal, whether that's finding a job, whether that's landing a client, whether that's getting promoted, whether that's.

You've hired somebody and you're like, man, I want you to work out, but you're really stressing me out. You're not doing what I need you to do in any situation. If we start with them and not us, we will be more successful. And I think that was the biggest catalyst for growth for me.

Priscilla: That's such a good one, because I see so many times even you see founders, they have a thing that they do and they just wanna do that. And they only wanna talk to someone if it's leading to a [00:07:00] transaction. , It's the same kind of thing that you're an employee and

you just wanna do your work and go home, and you don't want to have to talk to anyone. And building those connections and those, relationships, that it matters how people feel around you.

Kendall Berg: Absolutely. , I just got back, I gave a TED Talk this weekend, actually. I flew back this morning and while I was there, I'm on stage with amazing entrepreneurs and business owners and leaders, and what I found was unique in that room is when we were all backstage, everybody's talking, Hey, what do you do?

How are you? It's so great to meet you. Oh, I've got this friend. You should totally connect with them, right? I met Pete Sena, who does a lot of AI and marketing work, and instantly he's like, I have an executive coach I want you to work with. Like, let me put you in touch with 'em. I think you guys would learn a lot from each other and get along really great.

There's no transaction in his favor there, but there is authentic interest in me, authentic interest in [00:08:00] someone else connecting us so that we can both learn and both become better and who knows. Six months from now, I could be coaching A CMO who needs a marketing person. And I'm like, Hey, you know, I know a guy who's really great that you should bring in.

Who does freelance? His name's Pete, let me call him. Right? The difference between the people who build really big companies or who build really big teams or who build really great organizations or really great networks, is that they talk to everybody and not about themselves. But about those people.

And one more story that I'll share quickly is if you are familiar with Alex Hormozi, , in his book, he talks about how he gets invited to this event. And tickets to this event are like 10 grand just to go. And it's, you know, for a good cause. But it's really because everybody who's there are the people that you want meet.

And he said , he rolled up, I'm gonna misquote, but , his car was. Not up to par. He parked down the street so nobody would see it. And he walked in and he gets in and it's all these people who make millions upon millions of [00:09:00]dollars. And his business is just starting to grow. And he walks in and he wants to talk to everybody.

He wants to understand what everybody does, where everybody is, what everybody works on. How are they interested in this? And what he found was there were very few people in that room that he was going to sell to. But there were amazing connections in that room that would lead to businesses in the future.

And so , it's very shortsighted when we think, oh, I'm only gonna talk to somebody who could become a client. Or it's very shortsighted if we say, oh, I'm only gonna invest in that relationship if I think they can help me down the road. Versus saying, Hey, I'm interested in you. I wanna help you.

I wanna build these connections. And then later. You may introduce me to somebody. You may not. I may introduce you to somebody and that may work out better for you. But especially within the corporate world, and I talk about this a lot , in my book, in my podcast, when you have a performance review, you're not in the room, right?

Kendall doesn't get to walk into her performance review and go, I'm a [00:10:00] great employee and you should promote me. Right? We're not given that platform, but what happens is you have a bunch of other leaders in that room. And somebody goes, what do we think about Kendall? And you want everyone in that room to say, oh my gosh, she's so great.

Ah, she's so hardworking. Oh, she helped me with this. Or, oh, she called me last week just to ask about my kids. She's really thoughtful. She's really gracious. She mentored somebody on my team and it went really well. It doesn't have to be the work, but they will talk about the person and putting yourself in a good position where the people in that room think highly of you.

Is wise, and if you're a founder, you're probably sitting in all the performance reviews. But if you weren't, how would you want your team to talk about you? Do you want your team to just say, oh, well, he's great at closing the deal, but he doesn't care about us. Or, oh, do you hear He was short tempered with Susie last week and yelled at her.

Oh, did you see she discounted marketing the other day in that meeting? You don't want that reputation as a leader. [00:11:00] Even if you're not reporting to anybody else. So building that authentic connection helps so much with all of that.

Priscilla: It's so interesting because it becomes clear that people are never like, oh, you should meet so and they're so smart. Or, it is always like they're really nice or you'd love their personality or you'd get along with them. , That's what people are looking at when they're connecting you with another person.

It's never oh, they're a superstar doing this. It's, they're great to be around or you would like them. 

Kendall Berg: Nobody has ever said, you should really meet Priscilla. She's a whiz at Excel. Like it never comes up that way. You're right, right now, maybe for a very specific project that could happen, but for the most part, It's Priscilla is great. She's really nice. She's so, you know, authentic. She's outgoing, she's soft spoken, but she'll love her when she talks, she says something so meaningful.

, It's always about the person usually. And I think we overlook that at work and we think, oh, but I'm great at Excel. I'm like, cool. That's not your tagline on your resume though.

Priscilla: Oh, it's interesting, you know, stuff that you can like overlook in a [00:12:00] way. It's so obvious, but it's not, you think, oh, if I really show everyone how good I am at this, then surely, you know, everyone will notice how good I am and that I'm deserving , of something better.

But like you said, it's about the people skills. For someone listening who feels stuck. First of all, how do you define the career game , 'cause a lot of people are like, oh, I don't wanna get caught up in politics, what is the career game and give us a frame that we can look at this from.

Kendall Berg: So I, I think the career game gets a bad reputation, , because there's always at least one person that we've worked with who played it really, really well, and we hate them. Like almost always. That's why we dislike the career game, right? We're like, man, when I worked with Suzanne. Man, she was so good at that.

I hate her. Right? Like it's always somebody like that. So I always equate the career game to playing chess. And uh, it doesn't matter if you're familiar with chess for this, but , when I was learning to play my husband, huge mistake taught me, and he only told me some of the rules [00:13:00] when we started. Okay. And then I would go to make a move and he's like, oh, well, that piece can't move like that.

And I'm like, that. That wasn't in the rules that we talked about at the beginning. And he's like, yeah, but it's, it's like this really specific situation where like that one move can't do this. And if they do that they die. And you're like, okay. So like that would've been helpful to know four moves ago.

So that I, for that, and I feel the career game works a lot the same way. We're given the base rules. Do good at your job, show up on time. Listen to what your boss says. Have proper meeting etiquette, right? Those things were taught. And then there's all these other secret rules. That you either learn because you do them and somebody goes, oh, no, no, no, you can't do that. Or you never learn at all. And you keep losing game after game, and you don't know why. And the most amazing thing about chess is that the pawn that's arguably the weakest piece on the board can become a queen, which is the strongest piece, but only if you know all the rules. And you know all the strategies and you play the game well.

[00:14:00] And to me your career works very similarly, which is we're all flying blind, generally coming out of school. This is why I think a lot of the time people who come from wealth or who come from parents who own companies or have run large businesses, they have a huge advantage 'cause their parents are teaching them these things, right?

Yeah. Do your job, but also make sure you invite your boss out for lunch once a week. Make sure you talk to. Steve in accounting and get to know 'em like their parents are helping them, which gives them a huge advantage in a lot of situations, right? The rest of us, we just learn this by fumbling around in the dark, and the career game is all of those unspoken rules that can make or break your success.

And what happens is the people who learn those skills quickly, they move up much faster than their counterparts. And going back to how I started this, we probably kind of hate them a little bit for it because very rarely are they the best employee. Very rarely are they the hardest working, the best at Excel, the best at sales , it's very rarely those [00:15:00]people.

More often it's the guy who's not doing anything but goes to all the happy hours, or the girl who planned the Christmas party but didn't do her day to day job. It's always somebody like that. And to be perfectly candid, I have been that person. I have been the girl who had a good job. I did my job. I was good at it.

But what got me recognition was I planned the town hall or I planned the company Christmas party, or I did something that wasn't in my job description, but it got me a lot of visibility with. The CEO where it got me a lot of visibility with the team of execs, or it got me a lot of visibility with a certain VP who I needed in my corner.

And there were times I did that on accident or out of necessity, right? Where some boss was like, Hey, can you plan the company Christmas party? And you're like, sure, I'd love to, right? But there were other times where I knew that was gonna get me exposure to somebody that I didn't know very well that I needed in my [00:16:00] corner, and I did it intentionally.

So the way that you navigate this, if you're feeling stuck. In your career, whether you work for somebody else or you run your own business, I'll kind of answer in two parts. If you are working for somebody else and you feel stuck, you need to stop thinking about your job and start thinking about your boss's job.

What problems are they faced with? What struggles do they have? What difficulty are they facing? And start to solve those problems and then get visibility for it. Hey, Priscilla, you know, you mentioned you're having a really hard time getting the reporting going. Well, for this dashboard, I'm gonna go meet with the tech team and see if I can't build something that's a little more automated.

I'd love to take that off your plate. Maybe that's not my core job, but it's part of my boss's job and it's something that my boss has complained about and it's something that my boss finds difficult and it's something that's a time suck. And now my boss is like, oh, that's so thoughtful. Thank you so much for doing that.

I really needed help with that. Right. Stop focusing. So tunnel vision on. [00:17:00] I have to do my job, and it has to be really excellent and start thinking, okay, what problems is my leadership trying to solve? What problems does my boss have? How do I fix those? And then second, you invest in your network. There's this common misconception that your boss decides if you get promoted or not.

And there are piece of it, right? That's why we wanna solve their problems. But if Priscilla's my boss and she goes into the room, she goes, Kendall should get promoted. And everybody else in the room goes, who? It's much harder for Priscilla to get me promoted, right? So making sure that my boss's peers know who I am, my boss's boss knows who I am.

That can be one-on-ones that could be, Hey, can I buy you a coffee? My favorite is, you are really good at X skill, and I'd love for you to teach me that, right? A lot of the time your boss's boss is probably really good at executive presence, or they're really good at communication, or they're really good at schmoozing.

Pick a soft skill. You say, Hey, I've noticed you do a great job diffusing tension in meetings. Like, I'd love to learn how to do that more. [00:18:00] Can you meet with me and kind of gimme some advice? Great. Now they get to talk, which we talked about earlier. People love to talk about themselves. They love to be asked questions.

You get face time with somebody who's influential. You're likely to learn something that's gonna help you on your career anyway, so it's benefit. And then that person's gonna walk into your performance review and maybe they don't work with you at all, but they're like, ah. She's really great at diffusing tension in meetings because they taught you and they think, but I taught them so they must be good at it, right?

So within the standard corporate world, the best way to get unstuck is start fixing your boss's problems and expand your network. When you run your own business, when you feel stuck, it is generally due to two things in my experience. One, you're not putting yourself out there enough. You don't wanna network and meet people, so you're not going to the networking event.

You see mean comments on social media, so you're not posting that video that you know you need to post in order to draw in the right [00:19:00] clients, but you're afraid, or you have some clients and you're not asking them for feedback. Hey, what could I do better? If you were gonna refer me to somebody else, what would you want me to do to make sure that that referral was worth it for you?

We get. Very afraid of putting ourselves outside of what we know. And to your point earlier, most founders think I'm really good at this thing and I'm just gonna do that over and over and over and over and over again. But at some point, that thing, the well runs dry. So how do you bring in more people?

How do you start to expand your business? How do you start to grow? And that starts with putting yourself out there. I built my business on social media. Love it or hate it. Mostly hate it. But I had multiple videos get between four and 10 million. Views. All right, so very explosive growth. Now with every single one of them.

Half the comments hate me. They think I am stupid. They think I'm young, they think I shouldn't be on social media. They think I shouldn't be giving advice. You know, there's always gonna be hate, and you have to be able to look [00:20:00] past that to keep putting yourself out there. It's the same as being told, Hey, no, I don't wanna work with you.

Great. Thanks so much for letting me know onto the next person. Great. So. Step one, if you're stuck as an entrepreneur, as a founder, you're not putting yourself out there enough. Step two is you haven't built the right processes in the right scale. You're two in your business to lead your business. And when I started my business, I kept my corporate job for years four, four years, okay?

And everybody was like, why would you do that? Your business is successful. You should quit. You should be full-time in your business. I said, yes, but because I have my corporate job. I can't be in my business. I can only lead it. So I had to hire a va. I had to hire a sales team. I had to hire associate coaches.

I had to hire an accountant. I had to hire these people, and I had to build systems so that they could do their job effectively because I did not have time. And when you're the founder and it's your lifeblood and you're a hundred percent in it, you're like, I can just send follow up emails to [00:21:00] every potential client I can just.

Do the operational fulfillment myself, and I have the process memorized in my head, or I can do the accounting and the bookkeeping. But if you are the leader, if you are the visionary, if you're the innovator, you cannot be stuck doing the work. You have to be doing the thinking. And that doesn't mean you don't take clients.

That doesn't mean that you don't execute whatever your business model is, right? I still coach people all the time. But it means you have to build a process where if you take it a week off of vacation, the business still runs. And I think you get stuck in your business when you don't build enough scale and you're not putting yourself out there.

And then you're like, well, all I do is work and nobody's coming in. And you're like, well yeah, but you're working all the time 'cause you didn't build scale. Nobody's coming in 'cause we're not putting ourselves out there in the right way. And if we can find the balance in those two, generally we can get unstuck.

Priscilla: Yeah. So many good things you said there, Kendall. I'm like, oh my gosh. Somebody should be taking notes. I hope somebody's taking notes right now. You spoke [00:22:00] about, doing those extra things that are outside of what your job requirement is so that you do get known by the people who make decisions

that's something that people overlook a lot because you think it should be obvious. And in business, in career,. Take nothing to be obvious. Play the visibility game. Let people, see who you are, know what you're about. Now, Kendall I wanted to ask you about your book. Tell us if someone were to read your book, what is it that you want them to walk away with?

Kendall Berg: So my book is written more like a textbook. And less like a self-development book. And I did that very intentionally, which is, I studied mathematics. I am an A plus B equals C kind of person. And when you're trying to improve your people skills, people never work that way. It's never person A does thing B, and it leads to C like it.

It's so much more complicated. [00:23:00] And what I found when I was trying to upskill after I got that feedback that people didn't like working with me and I was trying to connect with people more, I was trying to invest in people more. I was trying to build my authentic self and what my branding was, I found that there was no how to on how to do that.

And it's really hard when you're a logic person. To go into a room with a bunch of people and be like, cool, I have no idea how I'm supposed to do this. Let's wing it. Another reason people hate networking. 'cause what if I get there and I don't know what to say and it's awkward and we just stare at each other?

So the book is written with templates for how to do everything. There is a template for how to build your personal brand. There is a template for how to build your network. There is a template for what to talk about with your network. There is a template for how to. Build and set up for your performance reviews.

There's a template on how to build a good team culture, how to progress your career. And the reason that I wrote the book this way is very short. It's to the point is because I would've taken that course [00:24:00] in college if I'd known how much I was gonna need it, right? Just tell me what to do, tell me how to build connection.

Um, I saw a funny meme I think on Instagram the other day, said me at nine years old, I don't wanna go to bed and I don't want you to tell me what to do. And then it's like me at 35, I want to go to bed precisely at nine, and I want you to tell me exactly what to do. Right? , It's very true because as we navigate the world, we find out there's so much that doesn't have an answer.

So what I would say is, if you read the book, the objective is that it would arm you with tools that you can apply over and over again to different situations, right? There's a whole chapter on what if my boss hates me? How do I handle it? How do I fix it? How do I improve that relationship? What do I do if a coworker hates me or if I hate them?

Which is more likely, right? Like, how do I handle these things? And the goal is that somebody would go into that book, they feel confused, they feel overwhelmed, they feel frustrated with their career like we all have, and they come out going, okay, I know what I need to do next. Because for me, that was my [00:25:00] biggest sticking point, was like, if you would just tell me what I need to do next, I'd go do it.

But nobody tells you. And most leaders today, , there was a fascinating survey by Forbes said the average manager does not receive training till 11 years after he starts managing people, which means your boss has likely never managed anybody before and has never gotten training unless they've been managing people at least 11 years, which is crazy.

And so they don't know how to give feedback. They don't know how to coach you. Yeah, they don't know how to help you get better. They don't know how to tell you to do the next thing because they don't know what the next thing is. They just did it and they don't know what it is tactically. And so the goal is you would go into the book confused.

You would come out with a game plan, you would come out with tools that you can use over again, and that you would feel confident choosing to play the parts of the game that you want. ' cause you mentioned earlier there are parts we don't wanna play, right? I've sat in meetings where somebody's like, Hey, I wanna get person B fired.

I'm not about that. That goes against my [00:26:00] ethics and my morals, and I'm not gonna help you set this person up for failure. That's a no for me. Now, maybe helping you would've helped my career not worth it, right? Not a trade off I'm willing to make. And there is this component of value and ethics where I'm not telling you do something that goes against who you are as a person or goes against you know what you think is right, but if you don't know the rules, you can't play the game.

And there are moves you might not be willing to make, and that's totally fine, but do it on purpose and not on accident.

Priscilla: So good. I'm excited for this 'cause I'm also one of those people who is like, just tell me what to do. I know I'm doing something wrong, that's obvious. You don't have to tell me that. Just tell me what to do to make it right.

And you mentioned a lot of people have sort of a grooming, whether that's like from the kind of family they come from or maybe , their first organization they were part of they were groomed into the workplace. But the majority of people don't have that.

And like you said, these are the struggles that people [00:27:00] face because they don't know what to do. And you don't know what you don't know,, you kind of like, just keep circling. So I'm grateful to have you on , to really speak about this and I want to mention the book again.

It's called Secrets of the Career Game, 36 Strategies to Get Ahead In Your Career. Very exciting. Very exciting. Now, I wanted to ask for, we're talking about people who. Aren't part of the system. People who, whether they're women or people of color or a minority or whatever, who have sort of that extra layer of like maybe culturally you don't even understand how to move in this space, which I think a lot of people experience and give up.

Because , I guess, this is not meant for me because , I can't quite gel with the culture here. I'm interested to know what you would say to that Kendall.

Kendall Berg: Yeah, anybody who says there's not biases in the workplace have never been in the workplace, right? Like we, we all face it. I've shared this story on my podcast before when I was in my first corporate job. So I graduated [00:28:00] college early. I was very young and I worked for a CFO.

And my CFO left the company and my org changed. I was reporting to a new head of finance and I gave this big presentation every month where I talked, you know, here's our cash flow, here's what we're doing from an investment perspective, here's what's happening in the company. And I ran it every month for years, and my new VP sat in on his first session, and this is a boardroom, so I'm one of two women in the entire room.

I think we had one minority member on the board at that time, and then a lot of men. White men, and I was giving my presentation and talking, and I remember still so vividly, my VP cut me off and he said, you look like you should be dancing on the table instead of sitting at it. Visceral reaction.

And at the time you're so shocked. Because who would say that out loud? That's an inside thought. It's not a thought you should have at all, but if you're gonna have it, it's like a locked in your brain kind of thing. And I just kept going , I [00:29:00] just kept presenting and I pretended like he never said that.

And I just finished and I walked back to my desk and by the time I got to my desk, my head of hr, my female vp, and the one other woman who had been in the meeting were sitting at my desk. And they were like, all right, would you like to file a lawsuit? Would you like to quit? Would you like to be transferred to a different department?

Like, how do you wanna, how do you wanna handle this? And I tendered my two week resignation immediately. I didn't have a job yet, and I was like, yeah, I'm not, I'm done. Thank you so much. He did get fired for it, which I think is kind of a rare occurrence. A lot of the time. People who do bad things get away with bad things, and that's why that perpetuates.

But it was a very eyeopening situation for me 'cause it was my first job. I hadn't been in corporate very long and I was faced with this like brutal awakening of you're still a young woman in the corporate world and we don't take you seriously and we don't listen to what you say. And it was just really alarming.

And I think anybody who thinks that's not happening is wrong. Right? It [00:30:00] happened to me on LinkedIn two weeks ago. It's been kind of viral. I had a video go viral, get 7.8 million views on LinkedIn. Because a lot of men and women in the comments were talking about my clothes and my chest and my shoulders and the way that I looked in the video, and so it went viral for all the wrong reasons.

In my opinion, it was great advice that I talked about in the video, but I don't know that anybody listened to it because the comments don't seem like it, and it's hard because the feedback is gonna be disproportionate, right? I've been told so often, you know, you're so direct. I'm like, yeah, but I work with a lot of really direct people.

What made you think I was more direct than everybody else? Right. And it's because I'm the only woman on the call. Right. I've worked in, , financial services for a little over 12 years. Not a lot of women in banking. And then I work in tech within banking. So even fewer women within tech, within banking, within an executive level, right.

I had one female executive peer, who left the company earlier this year. And other than that, I have had none in like my entire [00:31:00] professional career. So , there's going to be a stigma and there's going to be harsh times. There are gonna be people who say dumb things. , There's going to be a higher level of scrutiny on what you do.

And I can't relate to being a person of color. I've never been a person of color, and so I'm not gonna pretend like I have, but I imagine it's similar but worse. And what I would say is you have two options, similar to when I was told nobody likes working with you. You have the option to get defensive.

You have the option to argue. You have the option to file 50 million complaints with HR and constantly fight against it. Or you have the option to do what you can to get yourself as successful as possible so that you can create a better workplace for other people. I don't think there's a right answer.

Right. I understand both perspectives. I personally chose the latter. I said, Hey, you want me to be soft and bubbly and sweet and never argue? I can do that. I [00:32:00] can do that, and I can build a team that has hundreds of people in it where they don't have to do that. Where I can create an environment where they can be successful, where I can give feedback that's constructive and helpful and aids them in where they want to go and build something different.

People struggle with that. 'cause they're like, yeah, but you were wronged. So I'm like, yeah, but that VP who said that to me, he's never gonna feel bad about that. There's nothing I can say or I can do that's gonna make him go, you know, you're right. I really shouldn't have said that. Like , he's not going to, and it's not worth my emotional bandwidth to try to convince him that he should.

And so I always took the stance. Great. I'll become the best at building authentic relationships. I'll become the best at executive presence. I'll become the best at communication. I'll become the best at my job. I'll move up to the top, and then I'll create a world. For myself and my team where it doesn't have to work that way.

My most recent boss in the corporate world is excellent, fabulous, super supportive. He [00:33:00] has like a mostly female leadership team. He's really, really great and he has never once said or done anything that made me feel uncomfortable, right? He's a great boss and it does exist, but I faced it. All kinds of places over the course of my career.

So long answer to your question, but what I would say is if you're facing that type of animosity, that type of scrutiny, you can choose to fight it the hard way and like file all the complaints and argue with everybody and be really adamant that like this isn't fair. Or you have the choice to become really good at the game and build a culture for other people that allows them to be successful.

And what I have found is some of the feedback that was given to me that was maybe disproportionate. It still wasn't wrong. I was too direct. I was too argumentative. Now, maybe my male counterparts got away with it easier, maybe, but it wasn't untrue that I needed to improve in those areas. And so I think being able to step back and look at the situation, there's times I've been given advice where I was like, I don't [00:34:00] care about your opinion.

That's not one that I'm gonna. Put in a brain wrinkle for long-term thought processing. Like that's a dumb thing that you just said. There have totally been those times, right? Like what my VP shared. But there are other times where somebody says, Hey, nobody likes working with you. And I go, okay, tell me more.

What does that mean? How do I get better at that? So, I think you've gotta choose that for yourself, but I have built wonderful teams with wonderful cultures full of wonderful people as a result of being able to get a senior as I have. And to me that's a better situation, right? And now in my business, I help people of color all the time.

I help women all the time. I help minority cultures who move to the US from Europe and they don't understand our culture or they moved here from Asia. I've had clients in Singapore and Sydney and China and India and all over the world. And their situation is just like, I don't get it. They're saying these things and it doesn't make sense.

And so it's provided me a huge opportunity to help a lot of people, and I've appreciate having chosen that path.

Priscilla: Yeah. That's so good. I'm very good , at dusting off [00:35:00] comments. I'm just like, I did not hear that. , And they're like, what? She didn't hear that. Uh, I did not. Thank you very much.

Kendall Berg: For your sake, I did not hear that. We're just gonna move on.

Priscilla: , So I get it. it's those things that people don't talk about, but they're critical to. Moving forward as a founder, as an intrapreneur in a company, uh, pushing your career forward. So I'm so grateful, Kendall, that you spoke to that, that really you have a choice and how you take what someone is saying.

, You can't change another person. But if you have a goal you need to figure out the best way to reach your goal, equip yourself to get ahead even more so if you are overlooked and, that this is even more important to that person. So thank you so much. I get what you say about people coming from different cultures.

It's like the smallest thing of, like, even a greeting, it can be confusing. I mean, why do people greet each other that way? So bridging all those things, to get ahead in your career is very important. Get the help you need. Read the book. Kendall. Just to finish off, if we can just do a rapid fire quick four questions.

We can go for it.

Kendall Berg: [00:36:00] Let's do it.

Priscilla: Okay. A visibility habits that you wish everyone would adopt.

Kendall Berg: Have a core group of five people that you meet with every single quarter who are gonna sit in the rooms where they discuss whether or not you're good at your job, whether that's your boss and his peer group, or that's, I run my own business and it's my leadership team, or it is investors who I may need to work with in the future, whatever it is.

Have a core group of five, meet with them every quarter, non-negotiable.

Priscilla: A career growth myth that you wish. People knew that this is not true.

Kendall Berg: Uh, your boss knows what you do. They don't, they're too focused on what they do. They're not paying attention to what you do. Like they know if they've asked you for something, if you give it to them or not, but they're not paying attention to the day-to-day or the complications. And so your job is to educate up and tell them, Hey, here's what I did.

Here's who I worked with, here's. The effort it required, here's how much of my capacity it took. I think it's a huge misconception that people are like, yeah, my boss knows what I'm doing. No, they don't. If you're , have [00:37:00] any amount of autonomy whatsoever, they're not checking on you.

Priscilla: you mentioned even your boss probably, hasn't fully stepped into leadership and you're spending all your energy hating the boss and really, they can't do much 'cause they're maxed up what they're doing and they're not even doing that well. So you gotta advocate for yourself.

That's a really important. One question every listener should ask themselves about their personal brand today.

Kendall Berg: What is it that you do uniquely well, not just what are you good at, but what do you do if you were to line you up with five other people in similar positions, what do you do uniquely well that they do not do? So whether you're the founder of a company and you're like, Hey, I started this AI company.

Great. Five other AI founders. What do you do that's uniquely skilled? You personally, that's what your personal brand is about. And for me, I am uniquely good at learning things really fast, and that has helped me in a million situations where I had no idea what was going on and I had to figure it out [00:38:00] really quickly.

Right? But if you don't know what it is that makes you uniquely special. Your brand will never be powerful enough to help get you where you want to go.

Priscilla: So good. Now for the listener who's you know, in their car or is debating whether to play bigger or to stay comfortable, what's the one challenge you wanna leave with them today?

Kendall Berg: I want you to meet with someone who is good at something you are not good at, and ask them to coach you. So if you're a founder and you're not good at fundraising, I want you to ask a founder who you know is good at fundraising. Hey, would you help? Give me some tips and advice over coffee one day this week.

If you are an entrepreneur and you're in a company and you're trying to get promoted and you're struggling, find somebody who has been promoted five times in the last six years and say, Hey, what did you do? What lessons do you have from that experience that you could share? Find somebody who can fill your gaps.

And ask them for advice because those relationships I find tend to be the most authentic and the most rewarding.

Priscilla: And [00:39:00] success leaves clues there you go. Kendall, I know we've come to the end of our time and I just remembered something when you're talking about LinkedIn, for those who feel like, Hey, I'm an employee and I don't know, I feel weird about posting about myself on LinkedIn. Like, how will it appear to my peers, to my boss?

You've done both, so I just wanted to get a quick take on that.

Kendall Berg: So first I would start with understanding what your company's policies are. I have seen too many horror stories of. Hey, I posted on LinkedIn and I got fired for it. So before you listen to my advice, check what your company policies are. 'cause if your company has a, like, hey, don't ever post under any circumstances policy, do that.

But what I would say is LinkedIn is a great platform when you work for a company for two things, for giving recognition to other people. And it's a great platform to show your unique special skill in the context of your workplace. What I would say is, you know, you work for a company, you have a big launch. I just wanna come in here and share how excited I am about the company's launch. This is such a great experience. Huge [00:40:00] shout out to Kelly who helped with marketing and John who helped with the accounting piece. And Susie and it, and whoever it is, is a great opportunity to give shout outs that makes people like you.

It looks good on LinkedIn. And most companies are like, look at them. They're such a like good collaborator with other people, right? It's considered a strength. So that's one way to use it. And the second is for your unique special skill. Talk about it and talk about how it interacts with the workplace and talk about articles you find interesting.

Right. Like I said, I love to learn things really quickly. AI is obviously up and coming. I may publish an article and say, Hey, one of my big investments for 2026 is I wanna get more up to speed on what's happening in the AI space. Here's a list of five trainings I've taken that I thought were actually really helpful.

It doesn't share anything proprietary about what my company's working on. It doesn't have anything to do with them really. It's more about me and my personal growth. But if someone is looking to recruit somebody like me, they're gonna look at my LinkedIn and if they see, oh, she's such a great collaborator.

She worked with all [00:41:00] these people, and oh, she's investing in her self development. She did these five trainings. They're much more likely to call me for an interview than somebody else. And so I think LinkedIn is a wonderful platform for building that kind of community and network. But like I said, I would just check your company's policies first because we don't wanna go too far rogue but we definitely want that opportunity to speak to our own brand.

Priscilla: I feel like I could ask you like a million questions and still keep going, but that's why you wrote the book., Secrets of the Career Game, by Kendall Berg please. 2026. Let it be a different year for you. If you wanna learn more about Kendall, you can head to thatcareercoach.net 

And Kendall, you're also active on LinkedIn @ Kendall Berg 

Kendall Berg: Yes. Yep. Active on LinkedIn, and I'm thatcareercoach on every social. Media platform.

Priscilla: Thank you so much, Kendall. Thank you for everything that you've shared with us. To the person who's listening, if this has helped you, please share it with one person. Share it with a friend, someone you know who's brilliant, but is overlooked in the company and what they do. Let's stop treating visibility like an [00:42:00] accident and start treating it like a strategy.

You've got it here. You heard it, share it, and let's make 2026. Great. Thank you so much, Kendall.

Kendall Berg: Thank you for having me.