17. How to Tap into Your Potential - A Talk With Joanna Bloor (The Amplify Lab)

Listen and get insights about How To Tap into Your Potential in this talk with Joanna Bloor (CEO, Founder - The Amplify Lab).

We talk about: Joanna's inspiration for her Book 'Tales of Potential - The Cinderella Story You Haven't Heard'; Exploring the Concept of Now, Near, and Future Thinking; Cinderella's Story - A Tale of Ambition and Power; The Importance of Authenticity; Exercises and Tools for Unlocking Your Unique Potential. 

Guest Info

• LinkedIn: Joanna Bloor
• LinkedIn: The Amplify Lab

Resources

• Book: Tales of Potential - The Cinderella Story You Haven't Heard (Joanna Bloor)
• Book: Clever Lazy (Joan Bodger)
• Website: Joanna Bloor

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Transcript

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[00:00:00] Intro
Hey, Hello! Welcome to the Women in Big Data Podcast, where we talk about Big Data, Analytics, and Career topics. We do this to connect, engage, grow, and champion the success of Women in Big Data.

[00:00:13] Joanna
"Every decision made about you and your opportunities. is made in a room that you're not in. And that room could be somebody else's head. It could be an actual room. It could be all sorts of things. 

What I tell people after they go 'oh my God, yes', I say: the conversation they're having about you in the room that you are not in is not your title, or what grade you got at university or anything like that. It's actually this thing I call the Tale of Potential, which is the future story of you. It's who they believe you will be in the future. That's what they're saying. 

And when I figured it out for myself, I was like: oh, hang on a second, can I teach people my Tale of Potential?" 

[00:00:58] Desiree 
In this episode, we talk with Joanna Bloor about how to tap into your potential. Joanna is a futurist who believes in a proactive, innovative approach to the evolving workplace. She recognizes that your career path is as unique as your fingerprint and requires personalized guidance to flourish. Through her writings and speeches, including her book Tales of Potential - The Cinderella Story You Haven't Heard, she reshapes how we view and develop careers. 

Let's start!

[00:01:29] Desiree
Joanna, it's great to have you on the podcast. We're going to talk about Tapping Into Your Potential. It's based on your book: The Tales of Potential - The Cinderella Story You Haven't Heard, which is a wonderful book. For me, it was really a workbook and it still is.

But before we start, I like to thank Theresa Kushner. She was also guests on the Women in Big Data Podcast. It was about Women and Data Leadership. I really would like to thank her for connecting us. 

So, maybe you can start with what inspired you to write a book, and why is it important? 

[00:02:00] Joanna 
So, so, so many reasons. And yes, we should absolutely give out a shout out to Theresa because I think she said the sentence I'm known for: every decision made about you and your opportunities is made in a room that you're not in.

[00:02:11] Desiree
Yes, she did. 

[00:02:12] Joanna
I think she credited me for that one. I say that a lot and it freaks people out because it's an important sentence. Every decision made about you and your opportunities is made in a room that you're not in. And that room could be somebody else's head. It could be an actual room. It could be all sorts of things.

What I tell people after they go 'oh my God, yes', I say: the conversation they're having about you in the room that you are not in is not your title, or what grade you got at university or anything like that. It's actually this thing I call the Tale of Potential, which is the future story of you. It's who they believe you will be in the future. That's what they're saying. 

And when I figured it out for myself, I was like: oh, hang on a second, can I teach people my Tale of Potential?" Can I open it up? And so I've been obsessed with this idea for gosh, nearly a decade now. So, initially the book was because of a lot of people. When I would come in and talk about Tales of Potential, inevitably at the end of every session, somebody goes: oh, do you have a book I can read? 

And so really, I wrote it for all of the people who said: will you please write a book? But then also realized in the process that if you are working on figuring out how to tell your Tale of Potential - why you are going to be awesome in the future - one of the best things you can do is write a book. And, or, write anything down because you are forced to take what are a bunch of really jumbly ideas and put them into something that is cohesive and useful and very much you.

Yeah, I got a lot of people who were like: oh my god, Joanna, I need you to be able to change my life, or I need somebody else to be able to change my life. Somebody else has the power to actually make my life the most marvelous thing it can be. And I'm like: absolutely not. We actually have all the power.

The surprise in the book. This is not a fairy tale. This is actually a Tale of Power. And as you know, Cinderella is actually the one with all the power and she wields it so masterfully. And I think she's inspiring as all, heck. So, I was like: we're going to tell her story rather than anybody else's because it's surprising, right?

[00:04:34] Desiree
I fully agree with you. 

[00:04:35] Joanna
Well, now, I'm going to turn the tables on this interview. Do you have a different opinion about Cinderella?

[00:04:42] Desiree
Yes, after reading your book, what I really enjoyed is taking your fate in your own hands. That's so important, and especially since I became an entrepreneur. What do I want to do? What do people need? Why do they need it? And really, I became excited again. And that's also within your book. You learn how to change your thinking. Think differently, instead of well your past - yes these are your skills - but where are you going? What is your goal? 

[00:05:16] Joanna
I heard the most fabulous quote where somebody said: you can only mend the future. And I was like: oh yes, that right. You can only mend the future. Oh, that's awesome. Like, hooray, I'm glad you are all full of power. 

[00:05:32] Desiree
I absolutely agree. Everyone is full of power. But the question, of course, is how can you unlock it? And within your book, I saw three parts: The Now You and Cinderella, The Near You and Cinderella, and The Future You and Cinderella.

And what I really like is you take people by the hand, and lead them through a lot of things where they can learn. You give them the tools. So, tell us more about these three parts. 

[00:05:58] Joanna
Sure. Well, so first I want to talk about this concept of Now, Near and Future Thinking. There's a chapter in there that I talk about being a 'don't be a get shit done girl.' A lot of people are like: but hang on a second, my value is my ability to get shit done. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. That is a portion of your value. So, there's 'Now' stuff. 

Then there's 'Near' stuff, which is all of the strategic work that you're doing. And it doesn't matter what your role is. All of the work where you're like: hmm, what is it we need to be thinking about for like the next 6 to 12 months? 

And then there's 'Future You', which is: are you investing in your future self and the Tale of Potential of your future self so that people know that you are prepared for the future version of you.

I used to be a fancy pants tech executive at a startup here in Silicon Valley, because I am in California, and I literally lost my job because of that. They basically did the 'we don't think you're the right person to take this team into the future'. This is after I'd helped them scale from like a hundred million dollars to a billion dollars.

I'd done amazing, valuable work for the company, but they didn't have a tail potential about me in the future. And so, they came back and said: well, we're going to have somebody else who we think might. And we still want you to stay and do some other things, but you're not wielding your magic powers the way you used to.

And I was like, at first I was super mad because I was like: are you kidding me? A billion dollars. I was super mad. I was super mad at my boss because he hadn't given me any of this feedback along the way. And once I stopped being super mad, I was like: oh, you dummy, this was your fault. And I realized, when I had first met with a new CEO who joined the company, he was like: oh, tell me about yourself. I forgot to reaudition for my job with the new CEO that started. 

And so that was such a smack in the head that I was like: hang on a second, people need to be intentional about this future self. And it fit really nicely with the Cinderella story because everybody thinks it's the prince and the fairy godmother that have all the power. But if you look at the Cinderella story, there's actually a whole narrative before the fairy godmother shows up that tells you the story of why Cinderella is actually awesome: she leads without a title; she gets the mice and the birds and all of the other stuff to help her do her work with no money, no title. 

Cinderella was already freaking awesome before the fairy godmother showed up. 
Then there's the moment that she's interacting with the fairy godmother. The fairy godmother was the person who had skills to help Cinderella manifest her ambitions. And it started with the fact that Cinderella was courageous enough to engage. Cinderella was actually very sweet and kind to her. So, the Fairy Godmother was like: oh, I am now going to invest in you. And engagement with the Fairy Godmother is what I call 'Near', that strategic future, because it was about helping Cinderella have the tools so she can be chosen. 

The 'Future One' is where I think Cinderella completely blew my mind once I started studying - this was at the ball and after the ball. There's a whole chapter about the glass slipper that every time I read it now it still makes me laugh. And I'm not going to tell it because it's so good. And now I ask everybody what's your glass slipper, because you should all have one. And by the way, in the book, there's like: here's how you create yours.

So the story, it's not a fairytale. It's not: I need to be rescued by a Prince. The story is actually a story of ambition and how Cinderella wants to scale kindness, which I was all like: I'll sign up for that, I'm a Cinderella fan. 

[00:09:32] Desiree
I'm also a Cinderella fan. 

So, I also read in your book being authentic, but that's so difficult because in different situations, you often act differently because people are also different. So, how do you handle that: be authentic? 

[00:09:49] Joanna
Oh, there should be a whole book on that in itself. Authenticity is helping somebody else create their Tale of Potential. But helping somebody else believe the promise in your potential - who you are and what they get - that's what authentic is. Like, authentic is: I expect you to be a vintage Hermes bag, and when I go to get it checked, you are a vintage Hermes bag. Yes, I am comparing us to beautiful bags. That's what authenticity is. And so, what changes, however, is the context. 

[00:10:26] Desiree
Indeed. So being authentic also means preparing yourself for different contexts.

[00:10:34] Joanna
The question I always ask people, when you were thinking about what you want to offer the world, why do you want other people to invite you? What promise are you making to people about who you will be in the future? And that question really starts to unpack who you are and what you're all about. It's one of my favorite questions.

When I'm asking people, I go: what were you good at when you were eight? And it is such a window into who they are. And I'll give you an example. I was talking to a woman yesterday, so she's got an engineering background. She is all about process automation and efficiency and flow. We were talking about the value of all of that.

So I said to her, I was like: what were you good at when you were eight? And she said: well, I was the kid who was always putting the arts and crafts projects together. And I was like, really? I said: talk to me more about that. And she said that part of her process was getting all the materials together to be able to do the arts and crafts and then kind of enable everybody to be creative.

And I was like: well, so you do the same thing now, right? And she looked at me and she was like: oh, I guess I do. And I said: okay, so if your value is really tied to your preparedness on when somebody is trying to be creative and do something different, then that's the thing that you should talk about. But instead of saying I'm super prepared for taking people through change management, I like say to people: look, when I was eight years old, I was the kid who was the person who got all the bits and pieces together to do arts and crafts with my friends.

And, the promise that people knew about me was that I always had all the things, including the stuff that you didn't think you needed, because that's how I think. I now know her and who she is, and she's been able to add a bit of a creative element into this. And I just sit here and I say: what I'm saying is we all have stories about moments when we were truly ourselves, coming back to authenticity, that actually really tell the story of who we are and what we're all about.

Like mine is, I read a book when I was 12, called Clever Lazy by Joan Bodger. But the entire book is around this idea that if you invent a new way of doing a thing = because the character invents a vacuum cleaner and fireworks and all sorts of cool things - if you invent a way of doing things, you have more time to do the fun stuff.

And as a 12 year old girl, I had been told that my value was about what grades I have, and what did I make, and all of these sorts of things. And I was like, wait a second, value could actually be making things easier, value could be optimizing for play as opposed to productivity, and it had a profound impact on me as a person.

We have no control about what tales of potential other people are going to tell, but we can guide them. A lot of people are like: well, God, this seems really hard and how do I do it? I want everybody to buy the book because it is, as you have said, absolutely chock full of lessons. And I think each chapter, when I talk about the Cinderella idea, I then pivot it and say, like, here's the real world idea.

[00:13:53] Desiree
But you also have some exercises for the people. 

[00:13:55] Joanna
Yeah, I do. It's absolutely chock full of exercises on how to experiment with all of the ideas. Almost all of them require you to have conversations with other people. People already have a tale of potential about you. And hearing the language that they give you is actually the first step.

Like find out what other people are saying and not, how would you describe me in a room I wasn't in? And then just listen to what it is they say. Now, if that is still too scary for you, then the other exercise that I love people to do is select people who have the ability to help you make your future come true.

People who can actually open doors for you, etc. And people who are a fan of you. You know who these people are. And then you say to them: hey, awesome person. give me two positive words that describe me. And one, this is very important, positive word that does not describe me. The first two words you're gonna hear is how they would describe you in a room that you're not in.

The most common answer I hear, especially from women, is you're really good at getting shit done. Read the book, there's a whole chapter about how you don't want to be known as a get shit done girl. The positive word that does not describe you is actually an indicator of authenticity. I do this, by the way, for myself every year on my birthday. And because it's my birthday, it's kind of a fun thing to do. The word I've most constantly been given is gentle. And so, can I be gentle? Sure.

[00:15:40] Desiree
That's really nice. 

Besides the book, if people want to read more or practice, what do you recommend to them? 

[00:15:50] Joanna
Well, so as you've mentioned, the book has a link to a bunch of tools and exercises that I always recommend people go to.

I don't recommend going to the exercises without getting the context. We've talked about context of the book. So do both. It'll make the exercises much easier. The other thing is I'm a potentialist at heart. I'm always exploring ideas and things like that. And I'm a voracious poster on LinkedIn. I post almost daily either somebody who I think is thinking in an interesting way or I have a newsletter there called 'The Opt In'.

I think today I posted about a transformation I made on an HR tech company and their pitch on how to shift the conversation to an invitation rather than a pitch. But yeah, I post all the time there and love to ask questions and give ideas of experiments. There will probably be another book, but that's in the future. I haven't figured that one out yet. So LinkedIn is probably the best place to find out more. 

[00:16:47] Desiree 
Okay. We are already coming to the end of this podcast, but Joanna, is there anything you want to share with the listeners that I haven't asked you yet? 

[00:16:57] Joanna
I think the only thing is, you have all, as listeners, been creating a tale of potential in your head about this book, about me. What's inside the cover, it's actually a framework about how to wield your own magic powers. 

[00:17:15] Desiree
So you transcend the Cinderella story into a framework that people can use to unlock their potential. That's wonderful. 

[00:17:22] Joanna
Thank you. 

[00:17:23] Desiree
Joanna, thank you very much for being on the podcast, for sharing your potential and for giving us the tools to create our own tale of potential. So thank you very much. 

[00:17:34] Joanna
It was delightful and such a fun conversation. 

Thank you.

[00:17:40] Outro 
Thanks for listening to the Women in Big Data podcast. For more information and episodes, subscribe to the show or contact us via datawomen@protonmail.com. 
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