We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cory Steward a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Cory, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
I can attribute my confidence and self esteem to a variety of things. Seeing other successful men in my family and having the support of my parents was instrumental. As a young man, I have always been a leader. However, my confidence really took off after playing sports. I went to a large high school and being from Oklahoma we take football very seriously. You may not be able to tell from my fly photos, but I am short. In sports people often determine someone’s ability by height and size. This was the very secret to my success. I was a talented player and started on kickoff. Sports, being apart of a fraternity (Phi Beta Sigma) and taking leadership roles in college solidified my foundation to being the very confident person you see today.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I am a certified Career Coach. I help people with their resumes, interviews and salary negotiations. Helping people with their career is something I find very rewarding and apart of my calling on Earth. My favorite part of my coaching is getting my clients to do something in their interview that they were nervous about doing by trusting my advice. This builds confidence and is the most important part of finding a new career. It’s amazing to hear feedback on how happy they are by listening to my coaching. Helping to build a person’s confidence is the most important part of finding a new career. I love teaching someone how to negotiate their salary because it’s a skill that keeps on giving and can help people earn substantially more money over their career, which is rewarding. Something to keep an eye out for this fall is I will be hosting a Instagram Live with an Human Resources (HR) Director for questions and answers to some of your biggest career inquries. Feel free to follow me on IG and Tiktok for updates “@CareercoachCory”
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Humility, Confidence and Mentorship
Being humble is what helps you build relationships and be approachable. Don’t care about what others have to say. If you find your worth by impressing others, then it will be easily depressed.
Being confident in yourself is all you need to start. Most people will respect you if you respect yourself. Challenge yourself to grow outside of you comfort zone.
Find a mentor who is already doing what you want to do. Don’t worry about immediately getting on their level, but put in the work they did and learn from their mistakes so you don’t make those same mistakes.
We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
I believe it’s better to go all in on your strengths. You will waste time trying to develop several skills which isn’t a bad thing, but why be well rounded on everything when you can be an expert at one thing. A mentor once told me the riches are in the niches. One thing I have learned is you can always pay someone to handle what you don’t know to maximize your time to focus on what you do know.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.CareerCoachCory.com
- Instagram: CareerCoachCory
- Yelp: GetCareerConfidence
