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You know you bring value to your work. But can you explain that value when it matters most?
If you’re feeling stuck in your career, preparing for a performance review, or job searching without gaining traction, identifying what makes you valuable is an important step toward greater career clarity and confidence.
In this episode of The Mid-Career GPS Podcast, I’m joined by author, trainer, and auditor Denise Cicchella to explore how you can uncover your career “superpower,” communicate your expertise, and build visibility without waiting for someone else to recognize your potential.
Denise shares how months of disability created an unexpected turning point in her career. Writing her first book opened doors to new opportunities, including training engagements in the Middle East. Her experience gives us a starting point for exploring how the expertise you already have can support a meaningful mid-career pivot.
We also talk candidly about money, ambition, and career fulfillment. What happens when you’ve worked hard to earn more but have little time to enjoy the life you’re building? I explore that question with Denise as we discuss redefining success while staying realistic about financial responsibilities and income changes.
Drawing on her book, Teach, Train, Transform: The Superhero Way, we examine how to turn expertise into meaningful learning. Whether you lead a team, facilitate meetings, deliver presentations, or teach on Zoom, I share our conversation about building trust through empathy, presence, and genuine connection.
We also discuss where AI can support your work and why human skills remain central to the relationships that strengthen your leadership and influence.
What I Explore in This Episode
- How to identify your professional value and communicate it with greater confidence.
- What Denise’s unexpected career pivot reveals about creating opportunities from existing expertise.
- How recognizing your “cape-fitting moment” can help you understand and own your strengths.
- Why career visibility matters when preparing for performance reviews, pursuing promotion, or navigating a job search.
- How names, empathy, and presence can help you connect across organizational hierarchies.
- Why effective teaching helps people identify their next three steps.
- How introverts can teach and lead without adopting a personality that feels unnatural.
- How to rethink career fulfillment while acknowledging the practical realities of earning a living.
A Question I Invite You to Consider
What do people consistently rely on you to explain, solve, or make easier?
Your answer can help you identify the value you bring. I invite you to think of one specific example that demonstrates that value, then practice explaining what you did and why it mattered.
That’s a useful starting point for your next interview, performance review, or career conversation.
If you’re ready to lead with more impact and make more intentional career decisions, I hope this conversation helps you recognize your strengths and consider where you want to take them next.
Subscribe to The Mid-Career GPS Podcast for more conversations about job search, promotion, leadership, and career clarity. If this episode resonates with you, share it with a colleague and leave a rating and review to help more mid-career professionals find the show.
Connect with Denise Cicchella:
Website | LinkedIn | Get Her Books | Podcast - Learn It. Grow With It. Own It.
Support the show
If this episode resonated with you and you want more support in how you SHOW UP for your career and life, there are two ways we can work together.
Learn more about my SHOW UP Leadership Lab, my monthly membership program, at https://www.johnneral.com/showup
If you would like to learn more about how I can help you as your leadership and career coach, visit https://www.johnneral.com/workwithme.
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- Connect with John on LinkedIn here.
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- Subscribe to John's YouTube Channel here.
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This podcast is listed in Feedspot's Top 90 Best Executive Career Podcasts.
https://podcast.feedspot.com/executive_career_podcasts/
