Virginia Schabbing

I think a big part of my success has been just doing the job that needs to be done. A lot of times we get so concerned about what is and is not in our job description, and I've really stood out from my peers and made myself an asset in every organization I was a part of because I did the job that needed to be done. Regardless of whether that technically fell within my scope or not, I made myself valuable, and I solved problems that needed to be solved. Even if it's not technically my job, hey, it's a problem, and it needs to be fixed, let's fix it.

"Everything has a season", I think has been some of the most impactful advice that I've received. Especially when I was a new sales manager and I had two kids under the age of 2, and just trying to do everything all at once. I feel like that's something I've learned over the last few years - there's a seasonality to things. There's going to be a season when my kids are little, and there's going be a season when they're not. There's going to be a season when I can travel more. There's going to be seasons for promotions and growth and expansion, and there's seasons when I just need to focus on my family and relationships. And that's okay. I think a lot of times, especially for women, we feel like we have to do it all, all the time, and that's not fair expectations to put on ourselves and, ultimately, it can ultimately lead to stress and disappointment when you're actually building a life that should be celebrated.

I would say, "Take chances and bet on yourself". I think women innately, we're hardwired to seek security and stability, and because of that, we will stay in small, safe spaces, because it feels comfortable and secure. But there's a cost to that, and the trade-off is our potential and our growth. If I could encourage young women to step out of their comfort zone, especially when you're young, especially before you have kids and a family, and take all the risks. Nothing is wasted - every opportunity grows you - even if it's not a good fit, even if it didn't work out - you still learned something extremely valuable. You grew as a person, and you're learning to trust yourself to figure it out. I think learning how to fail early has been so important for me, developing that grit. Looking back I would say my success in sales wasn't that I fell less, I just got up more. If young women could learn that lesson early on, they'll be unstoppable later in life.

Finding balance has been a big challenge for me over the years. One of the mentors in my life said, "There's no such thing as work-life balance, it's just peace with the choices we make", and I think that was a really hard lesson for me to learn. I would also add finding a way to advocate for myself, finding the ways to professionally brag, if you will. I used to use a lot of 'we' words - oh, well, we did that, we accomplished that. And it's like, no, I did that, I accomplished that. And just learning to take credit and take up the space that's provided to me. I think often as women, we feel like we need to shrink and make ourselves smaller all the time, and I've built my brand on taking up all the room available and then making sure that others have seats at the table with me.

There's definitely an opportunity for me to go into higher-level leadership roles within my organization that would require expanded responsibility, more travel, things of that nature. So again, going back to seasonality, I'm excited to take on those new roles when it's right for my family. It's great to know that I can continue to be a high-level achiever and build my brand, and I'm just unlocking all these doors in front of me, so that when I'm ready to walk through them, I have as many options in front of me as I possibly could want.

One of my personal mottos is, People are the Purpose, so putting people first has been a guiding point in my life. It's important to make sure people know how much you care before they care how much you know. To do that effectively, it requires slowing down. You can't be so busy to get to the next action item, that you miss the person in front of you. Take a breath. Listen to what they're actually saying. See the person first, then help them solve their problem.