Speaker 1: Hey, it's May here. To what extent are you seen as somebody suitable for more senior roles? You know, no matter what career stage you're in, if you want to advance, then somebody in a decision-making position has to see you as somebody ready to take on more responsibility. So most of us think about this as, well, I'm going to do really great work. And yes, that's a big clue to whether you're ready, but it's not the only one. There's also the impressions and perceptions that they have of you when they see you in action. So this is about your interactions with those senior people. And those come in two varieties. We happen to mostly focus on the first one, which is those formal meetings where we're presenting or we're part of the team that's presenting. And those times we're really prepared because we know those are formal set piece situations, but equally important, if not more important, are those informal situations, those seemingly casual conversations with senior people. And they might even be just ones where somebody senior asked you, so what's going on? Or Hey, what's up? So you need to know how to handle those. And someone recently wrote in to me saying that that was a real issue for him and that he never knew how to answer that. And that it made him be perceived as someone who's not ready to take on a top role. So I don't want that to happen to you. And let me share with you what I told this person, which is first, congratulations for realizing how important these informal conversations are. And then second, you're now ready once you realize it to really arm yourself. And the strategy I want to suggest to you is one that my friend and colleague Catherine Clayton and I like to share, which we call the business update. And that is simply synthesizing and summarizing into three key points, something business related in answer to a casual, Hey, what's going on? Or, well, you know, what's, what's hot in your area. So the business update, these three key points typically come in two varieties. So thinking about what's going to most resonate with most of the senior audiences. The first cat kind of business update is about your work, what you're doing and what projects you're working on. So I like to think of them as the three key projects or three key initiatives that you are driving, that you and your team are working on and make sure you choose them with a alignment with the audience that you're talking to. Okay. And oftentimes you're going to be looking at things that are not the day to day, um, tactical things, but elevate those three key projects to talk about them in a way that really aligns with your organization's priorities. You know, what's really going to move the needle. The other kind are three key points about the three strategic themes going on in your sector or the three strategic trends in the market and how those are going to affect the people that you're talking to. So right there, you would be taking huge advantage of those informal sidebar conversations. And I'd recommend that you come up with, um, a 10 second version, like, ah, someone asked you what's going on. You say, I'm really glad you asked. Well, we're working on these three major initiatives that are going to really move the needle for the company. And these are boom, boom, and boom. That's 10 seconds, right? And then you can have a 30 second version where you go into a little bit more about each one and why it matters. And you might want to stretch it out to a two minute version, but you really don't want to go much beyond that. And um, then you also want to make sure that you're morphing these over time as the situation changes. So, uh, jot down those three key points for the work that you're doing, you know, the interesting projects that are going to drive the organization and then the strategic trends and themes. And I just want to say that casual does not mean unprepared and effortless to come across as effortless and knowing all this requires that you really practice. Think about it. She looks like she does all of her performances effortlessly, but she is definitely practicing. So I hope this helps you to really master those casual conversations with senior people where you really can use those as a big opportunity to show that you are on top of the business. Now if you're watching this from anywhere other than my blog, head on over to maybush.com forward slash blog. I look forward to welcoming you there. And in the meantime, I invite you to be bold, play big and spark joy for yourself and everyone around you.