Ep. 33: 7 Corporate Habits That Actually Grow Your Career
New year, new me but make it practical. In this solo episode, I’m sharing seven simple corporate practices that quietly compound into career growth, confidence, and leverage.
In this episode of The Pivot Point, I’m breaking down seven corporate practices that helped me navigate 18 years in corporate and that I still use today as an entrepreneur. This is a “New Year, New Me” conversation, but without the pressure to reinvent yourself overnight. These are small, strategic shifts that actually move the needle.
I walk through habits that support performance reviews, raises, promotions, and long-term career clarity, from documenting your wins to intentional scheduling and smarter networking. These practices are not about hustling harder. They’re about being more deliberate with your time, energy, and visibility.
Even if you’re an entrepreneur, business owner, or self-employed contractor, this episode applies to you. I share how these same ideas translate outside of corporate, especially when structure and accountability disappear.
This episode is an invitation to stop running on autopilot and start treating your career like something you actively design, one intentional practice at a time.
What You’ll Hear
✔️ Why small career practices compound over time
✔️ How to prepare for performance reviews without scrambling
✔️ The importance of tracking accomplishments consistently
✔️ Smart networking that works even when you’re not job hunting
✔️ How intentional scheduling protects your energy and focus
✔️ Simple mindset tools that keep your goals top of mind
“You don’t need a total reinvention. You need intention, consistency, and ownership.”
If one of these practices stood out, pick just one and start there. You don’t need to do all seven at once.
Download the Heart-Aligned Career Transition Starter at Download the Heart-Aligned Career Transition Starter at https://www.leadintact.com/freebies/heart-aligned-career, and if you’re ready to talk through your next move, or Book a 20 Minute Clarity Call at https://leadintactwithlaura.as.me/free-clarity-call You don’t have to figure this out alone.
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You are listening to the pivot point where we unpack the defining moments that shift careers and lives. I'm your host, Laura Dionisio, a founder of Lead Intact, and my mission is to spotlight the raw real stories behind career pivots, the fears, the hopes. The messy middles and the bold decisions that follow if you're feeling stuck or quietly wondering what's next?
I hope these stories help you see yourself a little more clearly and inspire you to start moving toward your own dream life. Let's begin.
Hello. Welcome to the Pivot Point Podcast. Today's episode is New Year, new me Corporate edition. Now hear me out if you are listening and you're like, well, I'm an entrepreneur, or I'm a business owner, self-employed contractor, that kind of thing. This still applies to you, but I thought I would talk more about some of the corporate practices that I've.
Mostly done. I have a list of seven here. Most of them I actually did do when I was in corporate. Some I had the intention of doing and never did. And I'll also talk about how I've used this as an entrepreneur. it's a little bit different the way I do it because it's not as standard. Obviously, the work as an entrepreneur.
But stay tuned if you're a business owner, an entrepreneur. 'cause this episode is also for you.
So why is this important as someone who works in corporate, right? Like you might be thinking, well, I mean, corporate's pretty standard, right? You just show up, you get paid every two weeks or every month, depending on the structure of the company, and you have a performance review, most likely, at least once a year.
Like, why do I need certain corporate practices? Well. I mean, you're right. Technically you don't need to. You can just show up, do your work, go home, wash, rinse, repeat as the saying goes. But if you're listening to the Pivot Point podcast, it's because you care about your career and you care about maybe getting a promotion or a raise, or you care about advancement, whatever that looks like for you.
And that being said, that was me for 18 years. So here we go.
number one, make sure that in your email inbox.
Whether it's Outlook, Gmail, or whatever it is that your company uses, you have a folder dedicated to all the thank yous that you've gotten from other people, whether it's directly your manager or, an adjacent teams manager. Maybe it's a coworker, maybe it's somebody else, but have a folder of thank yous.
Why? Because when it comes to performance review season. In preparation for the conversation you're having with your manager, you can talk about like, oh, so and so really appreciated the work that I had done on their project, or, aside from the scope of work that I was responsible for, I also helped this team do like X, Y, and Z and.
then name the team lead has shown appreciation, that kind of thing. So basically you have evidence. Now you don't necessarily have to show the emails to your manager, but at least for me, looking back at these emails, it gave me more confidence when it came time to talk about what I had done throughout the year, because maybe this is just a me thing, but I suspect not.
I didn't. And in some way still don't feel comfortable. Kind of like talking about my own accomplishments, right? Like I call it, oh, I hate tooting my own horn. Or like, I just feel like I'm bragging. So if there's any part of you that feels this way, having this practice is going to help you because it's like, oh, I'm not just making it up.
Like, here are these people who have sent an email saying thank you to me for something that I have done. Okay.
Number two, this is super important and also related to the, the thank you folder.
Regularly write down the things that you've done, whether it's daily or weekly. I wouldn't go monthly. That's, uh, too long of just like accomplishments. For the week, if you're doing it on a weekly basis or if you're doing it daily, just what did you get done that day? Why? Because before I started doing this, when it came time for the performance review, and most companies are like this, you have to like write your own thing first.
The only thing that I could remember and in my immediate notes were things from like the past month. Maybe the past two months, maybe the past three, but definitely not from earlier in the year. And sometimes I be kicking ass early in the year and I'm not even writing about it because it has left my memory bank.
So what I started doing is on a weekly basis, every Friday actually, I literally blocked off time in my calendar dedicated to writing down what I'd gotten done that week. it's important for two reasons. One, yes for the time when it's like time for performance review. But the second part is it's like a way to celebrate your wins for the week or the day if you do it daily.
And as an entrepreneur, by the way, this is also a great practice. I have a virtual assistant, so like it's baked into our process, but as an entrepreneur, sometimes it feels really thankless because. Oftentimes, unlike when you, maybe you've been working in corporate or in a big team, you won't get those thank yous from teammates or whatnot.
And if you are a highly motivated person, you probably are. So go, go, go. That likely you don't take the time to think about what have I gotten done this week? So whether you are in corporate or you're running your own business or you're contractor. I highly recommend having at least a weekly practice of looking back at the week and seeing what you've accomplished.
So that's number two.
Number three, Networking. I just had a guest on this podcast and we were talking about the power of networking, and the guest mentioned oftentimes. People think to network only when they're looking for a job. In fact, it's important to network all the time.
Maybe not all the time, like every moment, every day, but even when you're not looking for a job. So I broke it down to four types of networking. One, when you're looking for a job. When you network with previous coworkers or your previous boss and hey, you know, looking for a job, et cetera.
Two informational interviews. This is So important, even when you are currently happy in your job. Why? Because at some point you're gonna wanna move on maybe you want to get promoted, maybe you wanna do a lateral move. Maybe you wanna go to a completely different area.
You wanna make sure that people know who you are and also that you have an idea of where you wanna go before you get to the point. Where you're just like, I just have to fucking leave. Okay. I learned this the hard way because my first pivot, I basically waited until I was just like, I hate it here.
I can't, you know, I must leave now. this is kinda like prep work for that. And it also keeps you top of mind for people the other type is like when you're. Looking for a mentor, it doesn't have to be a formal mentorship thing, but for example, I did this a lot when I was in corporate.
I would just talk to a bunch of subject matter experts and be like, Hey, you spoke about this topic. I wanna learn more about it. Like stuff like that. Say there's an opportunity in that person's group that you weren't even looking for. Well. They're gonna think of you like, oh, Laura. Yeah. She was always so good about reaching out to me to learn about these things, and I can tell that she's just like a self-starter, that she really is a team player.
She loves learning. I think she'd be perfect for this role. Networking is super important. If you're looking for a job, I think that's the most obvious informational interview. And then I briefly talked about having. Uh, meeting set up for those who are your mentors.
The fourth type is for you to mentor somebody else. if you are even just three years into your career, you know enough to be able to mentor someone. I think it is so important because, because one, if you at any point want some sort of leadership position, if you've shown that you have mentored other people.
Taught them some things, like walk them through the process. Then you are showing leadership capability right there. Okay.
Now kind of jumping off the mentoring thing. Type of mentors. I read this in an article I believe a long time ago. Don't remember who wrote it. I believe it was a LinkedIn article though.
So there were three types of mentors that they talked about. There is the, kind of like, I guess you'd call it the traditional mentor that you think about somebody who is like 10, 15, 20, 30 years, into the game, so to speak. So for example, my role, um, before I left corporate was as a systems engineer and this kind of mentor might be like a chief engineer.
Or might be the director of engineering, right? So like that level. So there, there's that type of mentor, there is the peer mentor. So this is somebody who's like maybe two or three years ahead of you. And you know what's interesting is like. As I've gone through a lot of like career development stuff professional development stuff, conferences.
I haven't heard a lot about the importance of having peer mentors, but just in my experience, it is so important. Why? Because somebody who is like 10 or 15 or 20 years, ahead of you, so to speak on their career, may not remember what it was like to be where you are now, but a peer mentor, someone who's just like two, three years ahead of you.
They remember what it was like and they can better teach you in a way when it comes to your specific project maybe, or like the specific role that you're in. And so peer mentors highly encourage having it. Now, the third type of mentors is actually that you are the one that does the mentoring.
So I mentioned this earlier, it is. First of all, very satisfying to mentor someone to see them grow. And also it makes you a better leader even if you're not in a lead position, because if you can explain the thing that you do or that you used to do to somebody else who's never learned about it before or is unfamiliar with it, then it makes you even better at your job.
Okay, so number five.
Intentional scheduling. I didn't start doing this until my 17th year or maybe my 16th year working in corporate. I mentioned it briefly right when we were talking about the regularly writing down your accomplishments, what I would do specifically on Friday. You don't have to do it Friday obviously, but you just have to pick a day where you likely won't have.
Meetings where people aren't looking for you, which for me at the time happened to be Friday and I would put an hour block called career block. Now part of that career block was looking through the week and basically, writing down my accomplishments. And so the other part of career block were things like, this is when I would schedule some of my, mentoring sessions.
My mentors didn't know they were mentoring me, but like any type of learning type of thing. This is when I started thinking about my career intentionally, because what happens is if you don't have a dedicated time slot to really think about your career, you just end up being in the grind, doing day-to-day things like trying to meet deadlines, and then you don't think about your career until it's performance review time and your manager's like, what are your career aspirations? And you're like, uh, I don't know. My head has just been down, working on stuff. You know, your manager is unlikely going to be like, oh, well, you know, I was just thinking of you for this role, or maybe you can consider this, you have to be the one to own your career.
And what that means is you need to have dedicated time and dedicated space and dedicated energy into thinking about your career and be strategic about it. Other things that you may wanna do. So like, for example, for me, I had like standard work, so to speak, in my role. And so I would do certain blocks of time, because my previous company, it was such a meetings culture, there were so many meetings, it was typical to be double booked, et cetera.
And so like, I really guarded my calendar and so what I would do, I couldn't necessarily do the other blocks on specific dates and times because I did have to be open with my schedule. But what I did was every Monday when I had my list of things to do, and for example, I had a big meeting that I'm leading, let's say, and I knew that I needed to prep for it, I would block 30 minutes before the meeting.
I know this sounds so simple, but like. I didn't think about it until way late and even things like, okay, if I knew, let's say I have a meeting on Thursday, but I knew that I needed to meet with like three other people, then I would even put in my calendar, like a 30 minute block of scheduling meetings with people.
Because I, I mean, it depends on the culture of your company, but if your company culture is similar to my last company where it's like a lot of meetings and people just get on your calendar, this is how I made sure that I was very intentional with my calendar. The other thing that I would do is because I worked from home for like the past five years of my career is I would block off lunch so that it looks like I'm unavailable during that time because.
Otherwise, for me at least I got into the habit of like anytime somebody pinged me or emailed me, that I would respond right away. So that is intentional scheduling. I just realized that I have been talking mostly about corporate and I don't wanna forget about my self-employed peeps who are listening and touchable scheduling is even more important as an entrepreneur.
I'm gonna briefly, I think I'll do a, a whole separate episode on this, but as an entrepreneur, like, let me just tell you. As much as I complained about, oh my God, there were so many regularly scheduled meetings and then like people scheduling meetings that I was, I had to do this and like, ah, meeting, meeting, meeting.
Let me tell you, when I left that world and suddenly there was nothing, I was just like, what do I do with my time? So intentional scheduling is important for those in corporate. Yes, it is. Even more important. As an entrepreneur how might you do this? You can start by thinking about what are some of the key things as an entrepreneur or as a self-employed person that you need to think about?
Maybe it's something simple like checking emails. Okay. Intentionally block out time or a day to do that. Maybe like me, you have your own podcast. Okay. What day of the week are you planning to do that? What time? Maybe you need to have like a block for taking care of finances. Okay. Instead of like, oh shit, bills are due.
Intentionally schedule it into your week. Or if you wanna do it monthly basis. So some things to think about. Alright. Oh, this is a fun one. Number six.
Password. Okay. I read this in an article once. Now, this was especially true when I was in an engineering job that had a contract with the government.
There were so many different systems that I needed to have a username and password for, and the password needed to be , I don't know, 14 letters with. Special character numbers, lowercase, uppercase, you know, it was a lot. and by the way, I had to use multiple systems all the time, so I would be constantly typing in the password.
And, because I was a rule follower, I did not actually save my passwords on my computer because you're not supposed to do that. So this article that I read talked about whatever, trait or vision or whatever it is that you would desire to have, use that as your password because every time you have to log into the 10,000 systems, you were typing that thing over and over again.
So as an example, let's say one of my desires is to own my own home. I actually did do that, but let's just say that I wanna own my own home. So my password might be of, of course, don't make it too easy, but maybe I'll be like, I don't know, exclamation point x, y, ZI am a homeowner, you know, so I still do this by the, I don't really have as many like password things now that I am self-employed, but I loved doing it.
Because you basically have to think about your password every time you log in to your multiple systems or whatever. You're basically saying that word or that desire or that outcome over and over again. So I love that. Okay.
The last one I have is, oh, I also read this somewhere, have a calendar title that is eye catching or fun.
Now, if you're in corporate, you're like, how can I make that? Fun. Right. Well, here's the thing. As an example, I did a lot of, um, like I would schedule, like I said, with a lot of people who are way smarter than me, so I can learn from them. So let's just say this person's name is Kim. Okay. Rather than have a, meeting of Kim and Laura discussion, you know, I would say something like.
Kim teaching Laura cool things, like really, I would just have a title that would stand out. This is especially important, by the way, in my opinion, as an entrepreneur. If you're scheduling something with someone because you have more leeway, I guess, to have fun with your titles.
Why? Because we live in a society of booked calendars. So imagine you're looking through your calendar and there's one. That says like, I don't know what would be a good one, badass strategy session with Laura. You're just like, oh, it stands out. Right? It, it's so, such a simple thing, but it also makes it a lot more fun in my opinion, and.
Please put something in the calendar body, like an agenda. Because I have gotten a lot where it's just like my name and their name because, we'll quickly schedule something. It doesn't matter how quickly you schedule something. Put something in the event body, because again, if you are, in a corporate culture.
Where there are so many things on a calendar, by the way. Even if you are an entrepreneur and you are booking a discovery session with someone or whatever, if somebody gets double booked, they're gonna click on the event title. If there's nothing compelling about the title or the body or nothing descriptive about it, they might cancel or not show up.
So anyway, Those are my seven. Corporate practices Now, did I do all of them? Like I said, no, I definitely didn't do all of them. At one point I did them, but like never consistently all seven. So don't think like, oh, I gotta do all seven.
Let me just, New Year knew me? I'm gonna do all seven of these. Pick one or maybe two and then try it out. Yeah, and then maybe later on you're like, okay, after that, that thing has become more of a norm. Pick another, right? Don't think that you have to do all seven, and if you're an entrepreneur or self-employed, same thing.
Just pick one. Pick one that resonated the most with you. By the way, if this was super helpful, I would love to hear from you. Tell me which of the seven were you already doing? Which of them were you like, oh my God, I didn't even think about that. And which are you going to start doing starting tomorrow?
All right, friends, as always, thank you for being here with me. I am so happy that I took the bold action of starting this podcast. I was very nervous at first, but this has been so fun for me. I have started talking to other people now because I have guests on here. I feel like I've gotten to share a lot of my experiences and things that I've learned along the way.
I hope this has been helpful. Please like, comment, subscribe, share this with your friends, and if you want more customized support for your corporate career or as a self-employed person, please book a free 20 minute call with me, and as always, proceed as if success is inevitable because it is till next time.
All right, friend. That's it for today's drop. If this episode hits something deep, don't just sit with it, act on it. Share this with a friend who needs to hear it, and then head to www.leadinta.com to grab your free heart aligned career transition starter, or book a free 20 minute call with me. I'm here when you're ready to stop feeling stuck and start moving toward what you really want.
Catch you next time.