From Secretary to Ceo: A Guide to Climbing the Corporate Ladder Without Losing Your Identity

By Natalya I. Sabga

From Secretary to CEO: A Guide to Climbing the Corporate Ladder Without Losing Your Identity is a book that speaks to how individuals can maximize their impact in any job, career, or life circumstance without compromising their identity, and still preserving their most precious human resource: integrity. By leading its readers through a series of illustrative anecdotes and ending each chapter with a summarizing "lesson learned," this book studies human behavior to unfold the not-so-secret secrets of understanding how the actions of others can help you understand and master your own. From Secretary to CEO: A Guide to Climbing the Corporate Ladder Without Losing Your Identity contains stories and insights that will be helpful, entertaining, and encouraging to individuals at every stage and circumstance of life. Readers will also be introduced to an innovative concept coined by the author and learn how to become a "Black Belt" of their own identity.

Written by business and academic advisor Natalya I. Sabga, From Secretary to CEO: A Guide to Climbing the Corporate Ladder Without Losing Your Identity makes liberal use of inspiring personal examples and achievements that every reader can relate to in overcoming and reaching any personal or professional challenge or milestone while still maintaining a self of self and self-preservation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 16, 2009
• ISBN: 9781449058036

Natalya I. Sabga

When Natalya Sabga chose her college major, she did not realize that the better part of her adult life would be spent as a student of human behavior. Natalya's natural inclination to observe has it made it both easy and enjoyable for her to perform cause and effect analyses on her own situations and those around her...from which the majority of the anecdotes in this book were written.   Natalya earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Social Psychology, a Masters in Economics, and is a Certified Project Management Professional (PMP®).   Her background and rite of passage for writing From Secretary to CEO includes seven years practicing in the private sector, gaining the most exposure as the manager of a team of diverse professionals and equal to her once-superiors.  Subsequently, she entered the public sector and the field of Executive Education at a state University, in which she maximized the synergies between her passion for education and her vast experience in the corporate sector.    Natalya is currently working on her third nonfiction narrative and dispensing related professional advice when asked. ([e-mail])

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Contents

Introduction

Foreword

Preface

PART I

BLACK BELT OF YOUR OWN IDENTITY

Chapter 1

Black Belt of Your Own Identity

Chapter 2

No Limits

Chapter 3

Going Where None Had Dared to Go Before

Chapter 4

Corporate Pilates

Chapter 5

Sometimes You Have to Lose to Win

Chapter 6

If You Don’t Stand For Something

Chapter 7

The Biggest Mistake I Ever Made

Chapter 8

Follow Your Instincts

Chapter 9

Changing You, Changing Me

Chapter 10

Can Versus Should

Chapter 11

I A A M: It’s All About Me

Chapter 12

TANSTAAFL: There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

Chapter 13

Be Careful What You Wish For

Chapter 14

You Got to Know When to Hold ‘Em

PART II

SWITCHING SIDES

Chapter 15

Switching Sides

Chapter 16

Everything And Nothing All At Once

Chapter 17

An International Affliction

Chapter 18

Mirror Image

Epilogue

Destination: Mindfulness

Author’s Note

Final Lessons

Acknowledgments

About The Author

Endnotes

Copyright Information

Introduction

These were the best of times, and now are the worst of times. Whether back in the boom of 2005 when this book was initially penned, or today in the deepest economic slump this world has seen in centuries, we face daily and virtually momentary tests of character, inner faith and integrity. When there is so much scarcity to go around, and so little apparent abundance, our choices feel limited and the choice to act with character and believe in our beliefs is tested to the limit.

Too many of us, young and old alike, are the direct victims of our own virtues and integrity, simply because we are surrounded by a majority who possess neither virtue nor integrity. From Secretary to CEO: A Guide to Climbing the Corporate Ladder Without Losing Your Identity is a book that speaks to how individuals can maximize their impact in any job, career, or life circumstance without compromising their identity, and still preserving their most precious human resource: integrity. By leading its readers through a series of illustrative anecdotes and ending each chapter with a summarizing lesson learned, this book studies human behavior to unfold the not-so-secret secrets of understanding how the actions of others can help you understand and master your own.

Whether we care to admit it or not, many of us identify ourselves as human doings and not necessarily human beings. We are what we do and where we work. I work, therefore I AM. I could go on and on regarding the work-life and work-identity issues that plague so many of us. Over the past twenty-five years, there has been a substantial increase in work which is felt to be due, in part, by information technology and by an intense, competitive work environment. I No longer content with the traditional nine to five workday, average working hours are increasing exponentially, and the wages we are being paid can no longer compensate for the price we are paying emotionally, physically and mentally. For the overworked, the vices reflect the lives we lead. Hunching over our computers ten hours a day, we spend hundreds of dollars a month on luxury spa massages to loosen those aching neck muscles; we drive luxury cars because they embody everything we are sacrificing in order to earn what they cost; we stay at four-star hotels, if only for a day or two because we cannot take too much time away from the office despite being electronically leashed to all-things-work anyway. In modern society, the most highly-titled and highly-compensated are not the most successful. In fact, they are hanging on by a more precarious emotional footing than those who earn minimum wage.

From Secretary to CEO introduces the unique concept of becoming a black belt of your own identity and features a page-after-page subtle analogy between the challenges of earning the highest honor in the martial arts and the journey of self discovery on the road to success. At the crossroad where success and self-preservation meet, readers will learn to trust their instincts, know when to lose in order to win, and move through each colored belt until they, too, can wrap themselves in the ultimate black belt of mastery.

Written by business and academic advisor Natalya Sabga, From Secretary to CEO: A Guide to Climbing the Corporate Ladder Without Losing Your Identity makes liberal use of inspiring personal examples and achievements that every reader can relate to in overcoming and reaching any personal or professional challenge or milestone while still maintaining a sense of self and self-preservation.

Foreword

We are taught in life to be independent, and not dependent, but a truly successful and fulfilled life is found only if we are interdependent.

This book would not exist without the experiences that fill its pages, and I would not have survived and thrived in each situation were it not for the people who walked through each one with me. Everything you never want to learn about the real world but should anyway was made easier with the never-ending support, encouragement, and wisdom of friends and family.

Preface

I was overeducated and underqualified, and the only thing I knew for sure was that I had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

The real truth was simple: the gilded degrees hanging on the big white wall, where they still hang today, never really help at all. It became obvious after six fruitless months of applications, interviews, and recruiters that my job-hunting skills were not very sharp. My resume told a boring story of higher education, academic awards, and a much coveted postgraduate degree from a prestigious Northeastern school. It was filled with past promises of the future that an education could buy, as long as I worked hard. And it also told a story I was trying to hide. The story of a young girl with straight As and no street smarts, whose five-year plan included bibs and baby wipes… far, far from the world of executive summaries and sales pitches.

So where did that leave me? The greater question would be, where did that lead me?

In this guide, a book of lessons will unfold, from what began as a social experiment and end to a desperate job search, to what became my life for the next ten years. From Secretary to CEO is a book that will speak to how you can maximize your impact in any job, career, or life circumstance-without compromising your identity,