Owning up to weaknesses is not fun. But we all have them. In order to become better we have to face them.

One of my heroes, and all around super successful dudes Dan John says:

“Mastery demands falling in love with the plateaus”

Plateaus point out where your weak points are, so instead of running from them, embrace them. Easier said than done! This is why writing about personal branding (yes, I know it’s a silly buzzword!) has been terrible awesome for me. Self-promotion is one of my sticky points, which is also true for so many people in HR and recruiting. This could possibly be because of the higher percentage of women in HR. Women, in general, kind of suck at bragging. We’re not even all that great at the humble brag, and it’s the easiest form of self promotion!

A great example of this is with female athletes. Elsbeth Vaino noticed, while coaching a co-ed ultimate team, that after tryouts even the very best female athletes were shocked that they had made the team, whereas the very worst of the male athletes could not understand why they hadn’t made the cut.

So, in order to help my sistahs out a bit, here are a few tips on self-promotion and personal branding for, and by, women.

Links!

Some theories about why self-promotion is so hard for women and four awesome ways to improve! This article is very informative and references the movie Election, so it’s pretty much the best thing ever.

According to Fistful of Talent, HR people have low self-esteem and it’s bad for business. This article made me feel kind of weepy – shhh don’t tell!

Advice on how to do business with men (if you’re a woman). Robin’s article is blunt, hilarious and informative.

5 Personal Branding Tips for Women by Dorothy Dalton. These tips are so obvious that they’re not – number four is one I really need to work on!

Stacy Zapar, the most connected woman on LinkedIn (the opposite of me, though my mom thinks I’m cool). This is a break with format – it’s not a link to a particular article, but to her entire website! She’s the Yoda. I’m Luke Skywalker… except she has a fantastic command of the English language and no idea who I am.

Okay ladies, enjoy these links and guys, remember, girls of the world ain’t nothin’ but trouble! And by ‘trouble’, I mean equally good at stuff.