Jason Van Ruler

Sometimes the person getting promoted isn't the smartest or the hardest working.

They just seem to understand something everyone else missed.

There are unwritten rules at work, invisible dynamics about perception, office politics, negotiating, and knowing how to position yourself so other people see your value.

And if you don't know those rules, it can feel like you're playing a game where everyone else got the instruction manual except you.

Here to pull back the curtain on how careers really work is Courtney Johnson.

She's a personal brand educator, entrepreneur, and she's the creator of a viral series on TikTok called Problematic Career Cheat Codes.

And she is also author of a book called Career Cheat Codes, The Unspoken, Unconventional, and Unfiltered Rules of Career Success.

Hi, Courtney.

Welcome to Something You Should Know.

So if life was fair, the people who worked the hardest, did their best, were the most loyal, always showed up, that those would be the people who got ahead, who made more money, who got promotions.

And I think that a lot of people still believe that that's how it works.

So when you say it's the most visible person, what does that mean to be visible?

Because I think people worry that, well, I don't want to brag and I don't want to be a show off, but I don't want to be hidden either.

But I don't know where that line is.

Wolfgang Puck.

And we do that by doing what?

If we're not going to brag and boast, then what else do we do?

And so when I send my boss my note that I got from a client, how do I do it in a way that doesn't say, hey, look how wonderful I am?

Or do I say, or is that okay?

Sure, sure.