The Strength of a Defined Identity

The key to success is much closer than you realize. Many have invested years in developing the perfect routines, best productivity hacks, and most efficient teams, but their efforts don’t necessarily pan out. Oftentimes, people miss out on the most important tool for success, and that is your identity.

Olga V. Mack, CEO and Chairwoman at Parley Pro, joins us in this episode. Olga believes that embracing yourself, is the best way to achieve success in the most fulfilling way.

For someone who went through diverse fields of work and built a truly unique career path, she’s not finished yet. Her journey has just proved that having a strong sense of self and embracing your identity could bring you to places no one has ever been before.‍

Embrace your “cringe”

Your identity is just as important as your environment and work ethic when it comes to success. Too often, what’s holding us back from showing up as ourselves is our insecurities. In an attempt to be perceived as perfect, we fit ourselves in calculated molds but end up like everyone else. This is not authenticity. This full understanding of self will allow you to show up with authenticity.

Showing up as yourself gives you the freedom and the ability to play on your unique strengths. And if you embrace them, you’ll have a recipe on how to succeed in life. – Olga V. Mack

Unfamiliarity with ourselves makes us think that there are parts of our identity that are cringe-worthy. If we keep on dodging these parts, we’ll end up being more self-conscious than before and held back even more. The best way to combat this is to familiarize ourselves with these cringe-worthy areas. Repeated exposure will let us become familiar with it until we are fully able to embrace them.

Olga was held back from speaking up for so long by her accent, but once she decided to speak, she became unstoppable. Once you embrace your insecurities, you can leverage that into advocacy to help others – something bigger than yourself.‍

Leverage your aptitude

When we look for opportunities, we tend to depend on our decisions on the things behind us – our history, past achievements, and experiences. For Olga, it’s more important to look at your aptitude and potential. She defines aptitude as our natural ability to do things.

I don't usually like to repeat the thing I've done before even if I'm excellent at it, because my values are all about learning and making an impact. This means that my next opportunities are in my aptitude, in my abilities to take one, two, three or four experiences. – Olga V. Mack

Shifting our perspectives could liberate us from living the same life over and over. To be concrete, your next job doesn’t have to be a similar version you have today. You can take your aptitude and potentials, then leverage them to something greater and uniquely yours.

Olga challenges us to look at our aptitude and passion, and find their intersections. These intersections could point you to new opportunities and to paths that haven't explored before. For Olga’s experience, she made the intersections of law, business, and technology her home. When you do this, you’ll end up carving a path that’s uniquely yours and still be excellent with them.

Reputation matters

The term “brand” has transcended from that only businesses use into something that any individual online creates for themselves. 

This rise of personal branding just signifies how important reputation is.

Reputation is something that everyone should safeguard now, more than ever. We live in the age of the internet where nothing ever dies. Your thoughts and beliefs are posted across walls, and the way you engage with other people are also exposed in the open. Thus, reputation is also something that should be proactively cultivated. You can build this by managing your behavior, presence, appearance, and, more importantly, what you leave behind.

Olga leaves a good reputation by building it around two things: what she has learned and what she has given in any interaction. This gift-forward approach to reputation simply means that there has been an exchange of value from both ends. It cultivates warm feelings with those you interact with, building a positive reputation for yourself.