Have you ever been stuck in a job you hate? Have you been nervous that there's only one possible path for you to take to use your college degree, and that everything else is off limits? Keep your head down. Put in your dues. Everyone raising their hands? Me too.

Today's guest, Lata Hamilton, is on a mission to help other millennial women carve their own paths for a change in career, leadership and life, and find the confidence and authenticity to truly earn their worth.

Lata was born in India and lived in an orphanage before her Australian parents adopted her. It was the 80s and the orphanage was filled with girls – girls Lata says weren't valued.

"I always grew up knowing that I was adopted (…) it's really made me realize just what a big impact that actually was," says Lata. "It doesn't matter where you start, it's where you're going and the lives that you change along the way that really matters. And so, for me, that's what I'm always looking to do. It's almost like living up to my full potential."

She watched her father, the breadwinner, work at one company getting promotion after promotion and raise after raise. She says on an unconscious level, she thought that was the path to success.

Lata went to university and pursued a creative industry – media and communications. When she received her salary offer for her first job in advertising, she realized she could have skipped university and stocked supermarket shelves for the same pay.

"I went into the corporate space because at some level I was like, 'well, corporate is the way that you go in order to get a bigger salary,' " says Lata. "But that's not what happened because I'm not my dad. I'm not a 50-year-old white man."

In the first years of her corporate career Lata says she felt stuck and stifled as she came up against people saying "you've got to do your time." She wasn't getting promotions. She did graduate training for leadership and was offered an entry-level role. It was frustrating.

She did some coaching and moved to a new company that boosted her pay by $20,000 and it was there that she found change management, which had the variety, flexibility and challenge that she wanted.

"We're not going to work for fun," says Lata. "Otherwise, it would be a hobby, or it would be volunteering. We actually want to go to be compensated."

Lata loves to share her salary and salary progressions openly because she wants to inspire people about what's possible. As women, we often don't want to talk about money. But often, that means we don't understand what is possible out there for us.

For Lata, change management was a career path presented to her only once she was in the corporate world. She says if you're looking to make a change, have the courage to talk to people around you. She suggests that it doesn't have to be your leader or manager at work; it can be a neutral third party like a colleague or someone outside the company.

"There are so many ways of doing things, and often we just don't have that information, or we're not aware," says Lata.

Get Lata's free "Underpaid and Overlooked Coaching Action Guide" with her 5-step formula to change careers with confidence and earn your worth: https://www.latahamilton.com/worthit

Connect with Lata Hamilton : https://www.linkedin.com/in/latahamilton

Other GoG episodes you might want to check out:

Let Your Ambition Fly: https://sarahwalton.com/ambition/

Why Zigzagging Your Path Means More Success : https://sarahwalton.com/susan/

You can check out our podcast interviews on YouTube, too! http://bit.ly/YouTubeSWalton

Thank you so much for listening. I'm so honored that you're here and would be so grateful if you could leave a quick review on Apple Podcasts by clicking here, scrolling to the bottom, and clicking "Write a review." Then we'll get to inspire even more people!

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