NATASHA KELSO

Learn how to make yourself known

Natasha had been with the Commonwealth Bank for 12 months when she was encouraged by her manager to take part in the Xplore Career Resiliency Program. Natasha's self esteem was pretty low at this point, after having lost her previous job in the banking industry due to the global financial crisis, and so she thought this would be a good way to build her confidence.

Even after the first few sessions however, Natasha was skeptical as to how the program was helping her. She had always considered herself to be an outspoken person and not one to be shy. The sessions were being held in Sydney, Natasha commuted from Brisbane once a month to attend the sessions, and so the stakes were high. She questioned, “why am I here?”

Natasha was glad that she stuck with it because during one particular session she started to understand why she was there. This shows that each person has their own journey to take during the program, and there is a point for everyone when they really start to learn something about themselves.

As mentioned, Natasha had always been confident and didn't have any problems communicating to people but what she learned was how to make herself known, and to whom she should make herself known to. Working in the 3 rd party banking space, Natasha started to apply this by conveying her confidence in her own abilities to the brokers she worked with, in a self-assured but unpretentious manner.

Before the program Natasha had really kept her successes to herself, when she received good feedback she often filed it and had just thought that people knew she was doing well. But she realised that most of the time they were just happy that she was getting on and doing her job and not really aware of her real success. “You really need to make sure people know what you're doing”.

Natasha also started to speak up about an opportunity that she was interested in pursuing internally. By making it known how much she wanted the position, pointing out her successes and ability to do the job, she was promoted soon thereafter.

At the time of the Xplore program in September 2010, Natasha had already submitted her entry to the Australian Mortgage Awards. She reached the final which was an amazing achievement but Natasha wanted to win! She believes her incapacity at the time to be able to write confidently about herself didn't quite get her there.

This year Natasha entered the Australian Mortgage Awards again and this time she was comfortable about writing about her successes. And she won Best Bank BDM 2011! A fantastic triumph. “What can I say, just WOW, I'm ecstatic! It's one thing to be recognised internally [Natasha had won an award at the Bank's annual conference], but to be recognised by the brokers that I work with and selected by the judges is a huge sense of achievement”.

It just shows that hard work and persistence does pay off with the right attitude and commitment to whatever it is you want to achieve. The reward is to be recognised for your efforts. Natasha cites the Xplore program as having given her the skills to unleash what was already inside of her. She just needed someone to line it all up.

Today Natasha is thinking about her next challenge and assessing her next steps. The goals she had set herself at the beginning of the year have been achieved so it's time to aim higher.

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