This week, we’re taking on the complex topic of crying at work. There’s a lot to unpack here: sexism, institutionalized misogyny, the habit of blaming others for our feelings, and how we expect everything around us to change so we can be happy again. If you’re the type of woman who cries when things get tough at work and then you feel embarrassed by it, this episode is for you. Hear why there is no logical reason to feel shame for feeling emotional at work, understand how sexism and misogyny play a huge role in creating our shame, and learn one smart way to manage your emotions and become much better at communicating how you feel with words.

This week, I tackle how to deal with being fired from a job and how difficult the experience can be. And I should know — I’ve been fired more than once. Being fired, or laid off, can feel embarrassing, confusing, humiliating. Worst of all, in my opinion, is how being fired can steal away your sense of career direction for a long time. Being fired more than once was extremely difficult for me because at the time, I internalized the experience and turned it into a personal judgement of myself. For the longest time, I thought I wasn’t good enough to do the jobs I really wanted to do, disliked by the people in my industry, and totally unworthy of achieving my ambitious career goals. In fact, I carried those negative judgements with me for years before learning how to navigate my way out of the pit of despair. The result? This podcast, a career coaching business, and really realistic and TRULY HELPFUL ways to deal with being fired.    KEY TAKEAWAYS:    Your being fired may be a scapegoat for larger problems at the company that have nothing to do with you.  Your being fired may have been a dumb mistake made by the company. Even if they should have kept you on, learning how to tell that story in a future interview in an elegant and informative way (not bitter or arrogant!), will serve you and your future career self.  Your being fired may have little to do with your skills and talent, and more to do with a personal conflict you have with your boss. If this is true, the sooner you can take ownership for your part and apologize for contributing to a conflict, the sooner you can move forward and feel much better.  RESOURCES: Registration for Love Your LinkedIn is now LIVE and class starts on February 29, 2020. Go to to register for only $298.

This week, I’m talking with Chanèle McFarlane on what it’s like to transition BACK to corporate employment years of self-employment. We often hear about the joys of “going freelance” but rarely about “going back to corporate. There are many joys to be experienced in leaving freelance behind for corporate work. Chanèle is a bright light in the personal branding profession and I can’t wait for you to hear how intelligently she approaches the intersection of personal style and career development. Plus, what the heck is a portfolio career? After years of struggling to settle on an “official” title for my career type, learning about the ins-and-outs of a portfolio career seals the deal.    PLUS:  Registration for Love Your LinkedIn is now LIVE and class starts on February 29, 2020. Go to to register for only $298.

I’ve received questions on how to respond to recruiter on LinkedIn who don’t disclose the salary, how to market yourself for a new job when you don’t have any experience, and how to inform people about your new business after leaving corporate life in a way that brings in new clients.  I’m also talking about some really interesting things on News With Rebecca, like how women now hold more payroll jobs than men in the US but it’s actually hurting the economy, how Gen Z are shopping sustainable retail and happy to spend extra money doing so, and how companies are spending $325 Million on employee engagement software in a desperate attempt to find talent amid the Gig Economy boom. Get full show notes and more information here: .

This week, I talk with Jenny Hargreaves, Founder & CEO of Tellent, a Toronto-based flexible job board and resource for professional women to pursue flexible careers.  When we talk about the new work economy, we’re talking about flexible work. And in my opinion, flexible work is the answer to the number one pain point that professional women experience when they’re newly self-employed or have just “gone freelance.”  And that pain point is how to sell.  When I’m coaching new entrepreneurs on how to get started off — the first thing I coach them on is to change their work mindset to focus on sales.  At least for the first three years.   No matter what you do for work — whether you’re a writer, an HR consultant, a chef, a caterer, a project manager — whatever it is, the first three years of entrepreneurship rely heavily on your ability to sell your services and develop your business.  But sales and business development don’t come naturally to everyone, they can be a huge barrier to success for women in business who haven’t been trained in productizing their services, cold-calling and prospecting new clients, asking for the sale, knowing how much money to charge, how to write a proposal, how to write a legally-binding contract, how to create and send invoices, and the list goes on.  Finding new clients and selling them your services is tough, especially if managing the sales process doesn’t come naturally to you.  And if you are currently self-employed and struggling with sales, OR somebody who wants to leave full-time work, or has to leave full-time work for anyone of a variety of reasons — like maternity leave, for example — flexible work is the saving grace you’ve been hoping for.  Just wait until you hear what Jenny Hargreaves and the Tellent community are doing with flexible work, it’s a game-changer for those of us who are already self-employed and the thousands of women who REALLY want their career to change shape in the near future.  It’s all happening.    Key Takeaways:    Flexible work is the answer to the number one pain point that professional women experience when they’re newly self-employed or have just “gone freelance” — a lack of confidence in selling.  Flexible work is equally beneficial to companies as it is individuals, giving them access to top talent committed to a career in the new work economy and project-based or temporary contract work.  Just in from the World Economic Forum: The jobs of tomorrow are those that women happen to particularly skilled at.    Resources: How To Access The Tellent Talent Ecosystem  Talent Ecosystem: Website: Social: @wearetellent LinkedIn:

This episode is all about how to get a job in 2020. It’s common for business media to cite a confidence gap holding women back from positions of power and leadership roles, but I disagree with that. I think the only thing we have is a self-promotion gap, and that’s not our fault — it’s just not something we learned to do growing up or in school. The biggest injustice that women have dealt with for far too long is the idea that we have to be more, and bring more to the table, and be better before we can get what we want. It’s simply not true. We just need to get smarter about how we promote ourselves to the world. The entire point of career branding is to sell yourself so you can get a job. Just like Nike is a brand with products, you are a brand with products AKA skills, that you need to market and sell to your ideal customers AKA your ideal clients or employers. Career branding is your own public relations strategy. It’s for improving the perception of YOU in a competitive career marketplace. In this episode, you’re going to get a simplified breakdown on the complexities of career branding so you totally GET IT, and know exactly what you can do DIFFERENTLY than you have probably been doing to-date to grow your career and/or get a new job. This episode covers career branding in a way that makes sense to both employees and self-employed professionals whose new “jobs” are new clients. No matter what you do for work or how you earn an income, this episode is going to coach you to think differently about self-promotion and how you think about growing your career. Also in this episode, introducing News With Rebecca: I’m kicking off the episode with a new segment called News With Rebecca. I’m pretty much an amateur news anchor for my friends in WhatsApp group chat and talking about what’s going on in the world is my favourite pastime. This week on News With Rebecca, I’m talking about:   The Iranian missile attack on Flight PS752 Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan moving to Canada NikkiTutorials and her “I’m Coming Out” YouTube video   Resources: The waitlist for Love Your LinkedIn is now open. This is my career branding course that will teach you how to design YOUR career brand and put it into action with just one of the marketing tools I talked about today. Love Your LinkedIn is a self-directed online course, meaning you’ll listen to audio lessons from me and then go through the workbooks and exercises I’ve created for you. Each week we’ll meet on a webinar for live coaching, and you’ll get one 30-minute private coaching call with me too. The entire course is four weeks long and costs only $298 because I want to help as many of you as possible get off on the right foot with career branding in 2020. Class starts in February, you’ll have to standby for the exact date but It’ll be soon — trust me. If you want to put your name on the waitlist, go to . Watch: A 13-Year-Old Gave An Emotional Speech About His Dad Who Died In The Iran Plane Crash:

Let’s talk about imposter syndrome and a fear of failure. They’re both so heavy and so negative and, frankly, so annoying to have to deal with. It doesn’t matter if you’re a junior coordinator or a senior vice president, we’re all struggling with imposter syndrome and how it negatively impacts our ability to stay in action and moving forward in our careers.  In this episode, Rebecca works to improve your relationship with imposter syndrome by breaking it down, easing the shame associated with low self-esteem, and sharing her action plan for getting on with it regardless of lingering self-doubt. You’ll also learn a communications strategy for moving past imposter syndrome by changing how you talk about your work (hint: by making your god-given gift the focus of conversation and not your damn job title!) If you’re sick of feeling burdened by imposter syndrome and a fear of failure, and just want to move forward in reaching your goals in 2020 — but don’t know HOW to do it — this episode is for you.  Key Takeaways:  Learn what imposter syndrome actually is, by definition Understand how imposter syndrome interacts with fear of failure Discover how imposter syndrome creates “numbing out” compulsive behaviours Hear Rebecca’s personal strategy for overcoming imposter syndrome Try a new communication strategy for changing how you talk about work despite imposter syndrome still being present   Resources: Registration for Love Your LinkedIn is now open! Learn how to edit your LinkedIn profile like a genius. Go to to register. The class starts on January 31st, 2020. Does career branding feel like a mystery to you? I've got you. Sign up to receive a complete breakdown on how to create your career brand from scratch with the step-by-step strategy nobody else is openly sharing. To download the Holistic Career Brand Starter Kit, visit .  To listen to the episode of Kara Lowenthiel’s podcast referenced multiple times by Rebecca in this episode, head on over to and search for the episode titled UFYB 91: Numbing + Compulsive Behaviour Vol. 1 and then listen to Vol. 2 too.

Well, the holidays are over. Most of us are going “back to work” today with our NYE 2020 buzzes worn off and reality firmly set in. Returning to work after a holiday is always sobering and sometimes stressful too but this year (#2020) the pressure to seize a new decade with vigour, clarity and confidence feels exceptionally strong. So, what if you hate your job?  I’ll cut to the chase: it’s more normal NOT to love your job than to be obsessed with it. Not all of us can expect to feel a sense of purpose and fulfillment that Ruth Bader-Ginsburg surely does when she rises for work each morning. No, many of us are effectively “paper pushers” caught somewhere between our last jobs and the ones we ultimately want. But spending time hating your job is a wasteful mistake. The way I see it, having a temporarily lacklustre career affords us the time to think strategically about the future, write a mindful plan of action, and lay the seeds of change for creating loveable careers for the longer term.  In this episode, I discuss:  How to get a grip on your perfectionism to shop shaming yourself for your performance at work.  How to stop falling into the trap of wanting/needing external validation. How others see you, and judge you, at work is irrelevant and the sooner you truly know that — the better. Learn instead how to collect evidence that showcases your effectiveness on a daily basis. With the facts down on paper, you’ll feel authentic confidence that you know how to do your job really, really well.  How to broaden your perspective for a 3, 5 and 10 year action plan rather than focusing on the minute day-to-day bullshit you encounter on the daily at work. Start thinking like a CEO and less like a minion by thinking about your career from a higher-level.   Resources:  Instagram: @rebeccaperrinEmail:

In the inaugural episode of Women Talk Shop, host Rebecca Perrin talks about why working on changing our career mindsets is super smart as we head into 2020. We modern career women are about to embark on a new decade full of hopes and dreams for our professional lives. However many of our careers are beyond chaotic as we struggle with imposter syndrome, a crippling fear of failure, and a truly disastrous lack of job security. Listen to this week’s episode to take a crash course on the future of work, why career branding is about to take on a life of its own, and how you are destined to be the CEO of your future self at work.

Welcome to Women Talk Shop, the best podcast for changing how we think and talk about work. I’m your host Rebecca Perrin and this is the pre-launch introductory episode of Women Talk Shop. In this episode, you’re going to hear what to expect and what to get excited about when the podcast officially launches on December 30th, 2019 with weekly episodes published every Monday afternoon in 2020. Today is December 15th, 2019 so we’re just two weeks out. By the way, here’s a hot tip on the podcast name ‘Women Talk Shop.’ Just in case you didn’t know this already, “talking shop” is a colloquial phrase for talking about work. So, this podcast is about how women think and talk about work… but in a totally not boring way. For example: We need to talk about how chaotic our careers are. Of course everybody is busy all of the time but nobody is talking about how chaotic our careers are, and chaos is very different from busyness. Chaos is not knowing how long you will be employed, what your average day looks like, what you’re responsible for really, how to develop your skills, having TIME to develop your skills, knowing how you got here and where you’re going to next. Chaos is just crazy and probably the best word to describe the average careers of women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. We also need to talk about our career confidence or lack thereof, the widespread dumpster fire of emotions that we all know as imposter syndrome, fear of failure, and how the heck we all got here. So Women Talk Shop is going to be a safe space to share all the thoughts and feelings we have around our chaotic careers and confidence complexities, but it’s also going to be your favourite place to get mini-trainings on career branding — how to create one from scratch, and how career branding is your smartest strategy for the future of work. I’m a Virgo so I’m a huge fan of being practical. My approach to career branding and life coaching is about 80% tactical and 20% emotional so, you can expect to learn a lot of super helpful information that you can implement into your career brand portfolio, like your LinkedIn profile, your resume, and how you talk about yourself in sales meetings or interviews. The way I see it, Women Talk Shop is this perfect storm of communication strategy, career brand coaching, and positive thought-work for changing how we think and talk about work. Like I said earlier, I’m your host Rebecca Perrin and I’m a communication expert, a certified life coach and career brand marketer. I studied communications and media at University of Ottawa, got my life coaching certification at George Brown College in Toronto, and my certificate in career brand management online through Coursera and SUNY. I have 15 years experience as a writer and digital editor for some of Canada’s top lifestyle magazines and media brands, 3 years experience as a self-employed marketing communication consultant, and almost two years as a career brand coach to ambitious women all over Canada. I am so excited you’re here and I can’t wait to see you back here on December 30th when we kick-off with Episode 1 called “Put Yourself First This Year”. I know for a fact that it will inspire you to change your career mindset based on facts about the future of work. This episode is not sponsored but I am interested in working with brands and partners who align with my mission to help more women change how they think and talk about work. Email [email protected], that’s [email protected], to get in touch with me. And my email is always open to listeners with questions or comments, episode ideas or introduction to new friends. If you’re not on my email list yet, I suggest popping over to to get your name on the list so you never miss an episode. I’ll talk to you soon….