by Solange Lopes | Jun 12, 2014 | Career
Stretch cotton sailor pants – $69.50 – loft.com
It’s lunch break time! We are in a nautical mood today, so we’ve picked these stretch cotton sailor pants! It’s always tricky to find a nice pair of well-fitting, flattering white pants for the summer; we all know how revealing white can be (i’ve had my share of unfortunate white fashion experiences…)
Loving the chic wide leg and nautical details of these elegant pants, making them very office-friendly and super fashionable! The Julie Fit is also a curvy fit that is really flattering to curvier corporate sisters like myself. It’s $69.50 at Loft.com!
Seen a great, office-friendly fashion pick you’d like to recommend? Please share with us at corporate@thecorporatesister.com or post a comment!
The Corporate Sister.
by Solange Lopes | Jun 12, 2014 | Career
galleryhip.com
Happy Thursday!
Hope all my corporate sisters are well and striving along as we come near to this week’s close!
Speaking of striving, after so many years fighting to be successful at work despite unfair race and gender-based prejudice, we tend to raise defensiveness walls which can at times stand in our way to success.
From my own experience in Big Corporate, I know I’ve exhibited more defensiveness in some cases than was necessary. Due to our experience with race and gender-based prejudice, we may at times mold our thought process, and resulting reaction pattern, to excessively rely on defensiveness in many a professional situation. I know I have…
Yet I’ve also come to understand that while prejudice is real in many a corporate or other professional setting, it’s also not always about race or gender. Raising our defensive walls at work can certainly have its benefits, yet it may also hinder us from leveraging the feedback we may be receiving from colleagues, superiors and even simply situations at hand.
How do we then differentiate between the positive and negative messages we get from our professional environments, so as to respond accordingly? Is it even possible to tailor our response to the many changing factors at work in our professional environments? And really, is being defensive hurting us more than it actually can help us?
While I strongly believe that each one of us has a responsibility to leave our workplaces a bit better than we found them, we must also carefully pick where it is most productive to expand our hard-earned energy.
Raising our defensiveness walls to ward off prejudice may be necessary in some instances, yes! Yet choosing to act instead of reacting, and responding with stellar performance instead of defensive words or actions may not only ward off prejudice if need be, but also set a positive precedent in all cases.
Do you think raising our defensiveness walls may at times stand in the way of our success?
The Corporate Sister.
by Solange Lopes | Jun 11, 2014 | Career |
Muller Greek corner yogurt – mullerquaker.com
It’s coffee break time, and incidentally, snack time as well! Just about that time to grab your wallet and rush to the vending machine, right? Wrong!
Observing a healthy diet is hard enough as it is! Now observing a healthy diet between 9 and 5, while you’re dealing with the stress at work, attending pizza lunches and desperately trying to avoid your co-worker’s cupcake-themed birthday celebration, is literally close to impossible…I said close, because there are ways to get around the 9-to-5 diet trap and actually manage to eat well…healthy snacks at work (at least, reasonably so, baby steps here….)
So instead of your usual M&M’s peanut candy (and stop arguing that you don’t eat the yellow ones), here are a few tried-and-true mid-afternoon snack alternatives that will keep you satisfied and feeling a bit better about that bathing suit shopping trip this week-end (arrrghhhh!):
- Yoghurt : Love, love Muller Greek Corner greek yoghurt and peach combo, tastes like a treat, and at 140 calories, feels like one too;
- Larabar fruit and nut bar,love love the key lime pie flavor;
larabar fruit and nut bar – she knows.com
- Dark chocolate: enjoy a few squares (we said a few, not the whole thing…);
- Hummus and carrots is a nice alternative if you’re craving something salty;
- Salsa and blue corn tortilla chips for an “Ole” snack time;
- and for those who are better than I am at packing their snacks, almond butter or peanut on celery sticks or an apple (working on this one).
And please, you, yes, you, get away from the vending machine…
Do you have other suggestions of healthy snacks for work?
The Corporate Sister.
by Solange Lopes | Jun 11, 2014 | Career
Delphone heel – $98 – nastygal.com
Hello again….For our lunch break today, I’m going on a limb, and departing from my usual classic mid-heel, conventional pump for work. I’ve been eyeing these Delphone stacked heels from NastyGal.com for a while, and decided it should be our unconventional fashion pick this week!
Loving the comfortable yet height-lending stacked heel (I do need it!), and the style of the front buckle! And need I mention the cushioned insole! If you’re a corporate sister constantly on the go, yet unwilling to give up on style or comfort, this may just be the pair for you! It’s edgy yet office-friendly, alluring yet comfortable, and just perfect for summer!
It’s $98 on nastygal.com, and is even available in pink (I’ll stick to black for work, but have to admit the pink pair did make me swoon…)
Seen a great, office-friendly fashion pick you’d like to share? Please email us at corporate@thecorporatesister.com, or post a comment!
The Corporate Sister.
by Solange Lopes | Jun 11, 2014 | Career |
What is your career’s mission statement – mybbwo.com
Happy Hump Day! We’re half-way through the week, time to re-evaluate what we’ve done (or not) thus far this week, and set to accomplish the remainder of our goals for this week. In our careers and our lives, we’re on a mission! And speaking of mission, what is your own mission statement as a career woman? Do you even have one?
In my years in Big Corporate, I’ve come to value the importance of purpose, especially as a corporate sister and a woman of color at work. Add to this the major changes on the corporate and economic landscape, the serious lack of gender diversity, the fear and uncertainty plaguing the corporate world lately, and you’ve got a great recipe for career instability we have to strive against.
As corporate sisters, we ought to take ownership of our careers as a business, and market our own brands to the companies, departments, groups, etc, we aspire to work with/in. Hence, the importance of a mission statement to keep us focused on our goals and aspirations, even as job transitions, careers shifts and other professional detours and bumps in the road present themselves. And there’s just something about a mission statement that feeds the individual’s vision for the future, thus setting in motion a natural mechanism of cause and effect towards the realization of success.
The first time one of my mentors asked me about my career mission statement, I went: “Huh?” And it still took me a few years to actually draft and complete something that looked anything like a mission statement.
So what does one look for when preparing their own career mission statement? One of my favorite questions to start anything at work or in life is “Why?”. And that’s exactly where a mission statement should start as well: “Why? What is your career’s purpose? Why do you do what you do? Why do you want to achieve what you want to achieve?” This will help in drafting a brief summary of your goals, personal values, previous successes and how YOU, as unique as YOU are, can contribute to your current or potential employer.
Here are some great examples of career mission statements:
My career mission statement is to become the first woman CEO of X Engineering Company and to build a network of women CEOs in my field.
My career mission is to develop my skills and abilities in my field so as to become an outstanding person in my work.
My career mission is to contribute in the development of a cure for cancer.
One famous mission statement that is often spoken about is that of John F. Kennedy, which reads: “This nation should dedicate itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth”. And didn’t it happen just as he predicted? Sure did…
What is your career mission statement?
The Corporate Sister.
