The Quiet Warrior Podcast with Serena Low

78. The Outsider’s Edge: How to Take Charge of Your Career with Vimala Thangaveloo

• Serena Low, Introvert Coach for Quiet Achievers and Quiet Warriors

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Serena speaks with Vimala Thangaveloo, a former Fortune 500 attorney turned executive coach. Vimala’s journey from the courtroom to coaching is a story of embracing transitions and using personal differences as superpowers. She shares her transformative GPS framework, which helps professionals — especially those who feel like outsiders — step into their career genius zones and increase their income while remaining true to themselves.

Vimala talks about how to navigate the corporate world as an outsider, particularly when your personality or background doesn’t fit the typical mold. She explains the importance of building authority and how visibility plays a key role in advancing your career. Whether you identify as an introvert or simply feel out of place in a loud, extroverted environment, Vimala’s insights will inspire you to take ownership of your career path with clarity and confidence.


Key Highlights:


  • The Outsider’s Journey: Vimala reflects on her career transition from a litigator to an executive coach, helping outsiders leverage their unique perspectives as strengths.

  • Building Career Authority: Learn why building authority early in your career is essential, even if you believe you’re in a “recession-proof” industry.

  • The Power of Knowing Yourself: How self-awareness, understanding your value, and aligning your messaging with your strengths are key to creating a powerful personal brand.


3 Key Takeaways:

  1. Know Yourself: Start by identifying what makes you unique and what energizes you. Self-awareness is the foundation of career success and helps you align your skills and passions with your professional goals.

  2. Build Authority: Don’t wait for the “perfect” moment—build your authority consistently, whether through your LinkedIn profile, internal resume, or public visibility. Position yourself as a go-to person for solving specific problems.

  3. Embrace What Makes You Different: Instead of trying to fit into traditional molds, embrace your outsider perspective and turn it into a superpower. Leadership today requires authenticity, and the world needs your unique contributions.


Resources:

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This episode was edited by Aura House Productions

Speaker 1:

Hi, I'm Serena Loh. If you're used to hearing that introverts are shy, anxious, antisocial and lack good communication and leadership skills, then this podcast is for you. You're about to fall in love with the calm, introspective and profound person that you are. Discover what's fun, unique and powerful about being an introvert, and how to make the elegant transition from quiet achiever to quiet warrior in your life and work anytime you want, in more ways than you imagined possible Welcome. Welcome to another episode of the Quiet Warrior podcast. Today we're talking with Vimala Thangavelu, who went from Fortune 500 attorney to an executive coach specializing in helping outsiders increase their income. Growing up, she did everything right, got the degrees, climbed the corporate ladder, but after a back injury that her doctor ranked second only to childbirth, she started counting the real cost of her success. Now, through her signature GPS framework, she helps ambitious professionals who don't fit the traditional mold transform their differences into their superpower. Welcome, vimala, to the Quiet Warrior podcast. I'm so glad to have you here.

Speaker 2:

Hi Serena, it's so good to be here. I've been a fan of the podcast since I can't remember when, so this is an honor. Thank you for inviting me, oh beautiful.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much. Tell us more about your career story, because we all want to know what made you decide to switch away from law.

Speaker 2:

Talk about pivots, serena, I know you've pivoted as well and I characterize my pivots from the rooms that I've been in, so from a courtroom to boardrooms to now the coaching room.

Speaker 2:

So I started as a litigator when I was a baby lawyer and then I joined Shell, had an amazing career, it was an incredible workspace and I got to work and live in Europe, asia and Australia and life was good until, if you remember, 2022, the pandemic happened and I was in a foreign country country, living alone in my apartment, and this is a great privilege.

Speaker 2:

I understand that being in a foreign country when you had a potentially a life-threatening pandemic swirling around you really isolated me in my apartment and I had time for the, I think, first time in a long time to think and as I reflected, I reflected how I had mentored lawyers in my career, but I was really bottom line orientated.

Speaker 2:

So as I sat down and you know again time for reflection I started calling up my fellow colleagues who looked like me, because I realized that I carry this shadow around me and the shadow was really being an outsider in the spaces that I've been in, whether it's because of my voice, my accent, the way I thought and when I started reaching out to other women and men who are like me, I realized a very similar story. So that got me thinking and when I came back to Australia about a year later, I certified as a coach because those conversations sparked something in me and I really wanted to see outsiders succeed in their own terms, not to have to twist themselves up into a pretzel. So a year ago I started full-time coaching outsiders to really be the best versions of themselves and living in their career genius zone and knocking their career out of the park.

Speaker 1:

I love that identified that some of us feel like outsiders, even when we have the same qualifications. We have the same experiences, the same abilities, but something about the culture makes it hard for us to fit in. What do you think that is?

Speaker 2:

That's such an important question and before going into that specifically, may I say that I actually am an ambivert, so not an extrovert, not an introvert, but somewhere in between. But I've always loved your podcast. I love the term the quiet warrior because to me it was part of being an outsider as well. I knew a lot of introverts where, in the places that I worked, that felt that they didn't fit in, because the corporate world generally, generally, is rewards more extroverted, bigger, dare I say, louder voices. So whenever you have the power structure not looking, sounding or thinking like you, unless leadership and the people around you make a real concerted effort to include you in and appreciate your differences, you're going to feel like an outsider I imagine, especially in the early years, it would be even more so because not only are you a newbie, but you're a newbie plus an outsider and you don't have the power to influence decisions, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

As you're talking. It just got me back to when I was a new litigator and I was in a courthouse that was not my home courthouse. I was in a different state and I had this opponent who was an older gentleman, seemingly smiley but of course you know he's a litigator and he wanted to win the case for his client and I was I would have been a year, not even qualified and he came up to me and he said so, I'm, my mother tongue is Tamil, and he knew that. And he said he referred to me as a small girl. Papa, how are you doing, small girl? This is the first time I had ever spoken to him and it was, of course, intended to put me in my place.

Speaker 2:

Know that he's the man and he was the one in charge. He had authority and I didn't, and at that time I didn't have the vocabulary or the insight or the wisdom to know what he was doing. So I felt very intimidated. So 100% correct that you don't. The more lower you are in the hierarchy or the authority ladder, the more disempowered you're going to feel.

Speaker 1:

So what does one do in a situation like that, aside from biding your time until you have gained more authority?

Speaker 2:

What I think social media has done really well is brought awareness.

Speaker 2:

So there's a lot more discussions around how you respond to people who are abrasive, rude or put you down, rude or put you down. I feel that today's lawyers who come out are far more aware, emotionally aware, and are far more educated to be able to fend off those kind of attacks. And I'm putting the bunny ears here. They're attacks, inverted commas, because it's not a physical attack, but it's certainly an attack that's attacking your authority before you get into the room and say that I have qualified, I deserve to be here, and if anyone is going to put me down, I'm going to stand my ground. So in that situation I would have been. If that happened again, I would have been a bit cheeky and said well, hello, tata, and Tata in my language means grandfather. So to be able to just bring it back and not being so shell-shocked, to be a bit playful about it, humor is a great authority and that sometimes doesn't come, especially for outsiders, doesn't come automatically, especially when it comes to if there's an age difference as well. So it takes a bit of practice.

Speaker 1:

I love that you said that, because I can think of all the situations when I was a newbie lawyer as well, in open court, in chambers, and that feeling of ooh, I am so small, I'm so new, I'm just a small fry. And then, on top of that, there's also our cultural conditioning we are trained to give respect to older adults right, it's the hierarchy of the family and then the hierarchy of society. There is a pecking order and it's almost like we need to know where our place is, and I suppose that that was what your senior opponent was trying to remind you. And so for newer lawyers coming into this new space and with the aid of social media, greater awareness, being more mindful, more grounded, having all these tools and resources, I think it's perhaps, in a sense, it's much more, should we say it's a bit easier to be a quiet warrior these days easier to be a quiet warrior?

Speaker 2:

I think so, and I don't say this lightly. I think it is easier being a quiet warrior because there are voices for quiet warriors. Take yourself, serena, what you're doing with your podcast and how you show up on LinkedIn. You are a self-proclaimed quiet warrior and by your actions you show that. Hey, you can show up in a way that is very aligned to the personality that I am, and I see many other examples of that on Instagram, on LinkedIn, and that is the good part of social media.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I think it's that visibility that gives others permission to speak up, to feel that my voice is valid and I do have a place in this conversation. I think it gives courage to other people who are still contemplating and still worrying that speaking up is somehow going to disrupt the status quo, going to take away that feeling of safety. So I think that's the good part about social media. So that's one way the job market has changed since you were a lawyer. Are there other ways the job market has changed?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so when I let me just share this by telling a story. Many years ago I got a role as a lawyer because I ticked many boxes. I was a litigator, so I understood how the courts worked. I was a company secretary. I trained as a commercial lawyer, so they hired me because of the range and I had great range and they knew that with all that I had I could get in more fast and get the job done. That range was seen as an asset.

Speaker 2:

Today that range could get you overlooked because you don't come up really neatly packaged so people can't pinpoint what it is that you do, especially for the more senior roles. And I think visibility is really important now compared to even five years ago. And I think what's even more important is authority. Are you speaking in a way that makes people take notice, makes people understand that your value translates to solving their pain point? And for outsiders this is difficult for two reasons.

Speaker 2:

First reason is because you are in a room that doesn't appreciate what you are putting down, as the kids say nowadays. So, for instance, if you're an introvert and you know you're in a room where loud voices, I wanted to say charisma, but charisma is often wrongly translated to being louder and more forceful, a certain type of leader. So if you are in that room, then no matter what you do, it's going to be very difficult to break through that. What you do, it's going to be very difficult to break through that. The second reason is because the translation could be better. You could be using your voice and speaking words that the other person understands in a more effective way. So in my coaching room we do both work. We do both work identifying the rooms that you feel really comfortable in and also being able to translate your value in a way that really resonates with the market.

Speaker 1:

I think a lot of listeners will be very curious and want to know more about this translation process. How does one take years of experience and specific examples of working with different kinds of clients, different settings, a different range of skills, a different range of skills, and then translate that into something that not only is understood by the other party but also appreciated by the other party, in that they can see straight away that you bring a certain kind of value that would be an asset to their organization?

Speaker 2:

Really important question. So I use a bit of a framework to do that. This is years after working with engineers. They have a. I have a framework for for most of the things I teach, and this is the framework that I'm talking about. Is the three no framework? Three no?

Speaker 2:

So you know yourself, you know who you're speaking to and you know the landscape. So, firstly, knowing yourself. This is why I often talk about the career genius zone. You've got to really understand what lights you up.

Speaker 2:

I don't believe in doing work where we encourage people, especially women, to get yet another certification. I was speaking to an artist recently and I commented that she had everything labeled and was so organized and she said she used to be a scientist and she wasn't a very good one, but because of expectations, she went on gathering certification until one day she realized in her 40s that she loved art. So knowing yourself is really important. It's going to be a lot of energy to translate something when you really couldn't be. Your heart is not in it. So that's one knowing yourself, knowing them.

Speaker 2:

And when I say knowing them, so let's say I'm talking to Serena. Serena is hiring me to work in her organization. So what is Serena really after what is serena's pain points? In fact, one of the exact questions I ask my clients in the questionnaire that they they do and I work together is what would your future client stroke employer be so worried about that they'll be up at 3am thinking about it.

Speaker 2:

So if serena is going to be concerned about how the energy transition is going to play up in western australia, then I'd advise my clients to to really dig deep on that topic and then knowing the landscape. So again, first know yourself, know them, which is your client and knowing the landscape. So what's coming up that can threaten not only Serena's business but you as well, and one very I mean. We are having this conversation in May of 2025, and, of course, the discussions on AI is many and prolific now, so that is something that we've got to consider when we are talking to Serena. In summary, it's not about telling you whatever I want, telling Serena whatever I want to tell, but picking and choosing the things that accord with the tree norm.

Speaker 1:

Got it. So your framework sounds like a way to zoom out, starting from within, meaning that first I need to know myself very well, because that gives me clarity, but it also tells me what the boundaries may be. And then I need to zoom out to you, because you are the focus of my efforts at presenting, at communicating, at persuading you that I'm the right fit for what you're looking for. And then I've got to take an even larger view, zooming out even more to take into account what the threats may be, where the opportunities may be, maybe the strengths, the weaknesses of the organization or the industry. So I get that bit, or the industry, so I get that bit. But starting from ourselves, I think that actually is the greatest challenge, because a lot of clients tell me they haven't got clarity.

Speaker 1:

They're still waiting for clarity, especially people in a mid-career, mid-life transition, considering their next steps. They've been putting in a couple of decades doing the work and they've become highly competent in what they do. Now they're considering what should I do with the rest of my life? And when we talk about knowing ourselves, actually I know very few people who spend time getting to know themselves, because everyone is just so busy, so overwhelmed, juggling so many things. It feels like taking time out to know yourself and ask yourself those questions. It's like a luxury, like an optional extra. So how do you make the case for people to take this time and make the effort to know themselves? How do they even start the effort to know themselves.

Speaker 2:

How do they even start? So there's a lot out there about knowing your purpose. Start with your purpose. People say Now that was one of the more unhelpful advice that I got when I was in corporate. Not because it's bad advice, but because it was so big and it wasn't something that I could latch onto. My brain just didn't work that way. I'm sure it would for a lot of people. That wasn't me.

Speaker 2:

So what I do with my clients is just get very practical and we talk about what gets them in flow. We have a series of questions. For instance, what is it that you speak about a lot? And there's a series of six questions which we do in 10 minutes, which we really get into, which gives us a lot of data. So we start with the data and it doesn't really take a lot of time. So within, if you're asking the right questions, let's say it's yeah, what do you speak about? What do you think about? Look within to come out with the things that interest you and what you know a lot about.

Speaker 2:

So when I've done this with my clients, there are typically two ways that they go. The first is they aren't really interested in what they do, and then what we do is we do a bit of benchmarking to see how they are placed in the market. So these are the clients who I consider are swimming in a stream that is clear and wonderful, and we've just got to help them swim in in um more shallow water so it's easier for them. The other type of clients are those who are not swimming in the stream that they that they love.

Speaker 2:

In fact, when I was growing up um in kuala lumpur, there was this river called the klang river, and if there are any malaysians hearing uh this, you would know that the clay who used to live in kl have seen the klang river. It's the, unfortunately, the most brown river that you could ever see in your life. And this is what swimming like a clang in the clang river feels like that you are not in flow, that you're not doing the thing that lights you up. For instance, I had a client who was, who is, an accountant, and this person was highly valued for doing the detailed work because they are smart, but their stream, their clean stream, is where they actually get to see the big picture and help organizations with business transformation, not to do more of the finer details, but to make sure that they are showing up with the big picture, painting the actual business transformation story adequately. I know we've moved a little from your question. I was trying to show by example of what that means.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So in the case of someone who is swimming in the wrong stream or maybe is swimming upstream when they could be swimming downstream and having an easier time, how do you help them find their genius zone? So you ask them these six questions to bring some clarity to their thought processes. But how does someone know when they have actually identified their genius zone?

Speaker 2:

So they will be looking at what they are speaking about, what they think about, what do they love to research, what gives them energy, what do they really love to action? And when you answer these questions, you get a story. You get a story that tells you a little more about you. And then we get some more data. And then we get some more data.

Speaker 1:

We test this and see whether or not it makes sense so it sounds to me like a very data-driven approach, because a lot of us, you know, when we are first embarking on something like, let me find my purpose or let me figure out what to do in this next season of life, you are right, it is very amorphous, very vague.

Speaker 1:

We are used to, step-by-step, something concrete frameworks, something to latch on to. We need some kind of linear, you know, some kind of structure that makes us feel safe that this is achievable. I can do this, I can take one step at a time, but when we make a big leap into what is my life purpose, that just feels really out of reach. And so what you're doing is you're you're putting supports in place so that they can go from one place and then jump to another and another and it feels safe. They're not going to fall in between the cracks. They're not going to, you know, jump off the abyss. You're not asking them to make any massive commitments to something that they can't see yet. It sounds to me that you're providing a safe, supported process and you're walking them through I think you've summarized it really well.

Speaker 2:

The picture that comes in my mind is, instead of really jumping off the bridge and swimming in this deep ocean, you have stones in place that you you're walking on. Now you might not have guardrails, but they are. The stones are broad enough that you can walk on slowly and as you go through this discovery, you can see yourself with a 360 view in. In fact, one of my clients, after finishing the process, she said well, you know, I actually feel seen holistically, even if it's in my career. And just to be clear, I don't think that the advice and just follow your passion and the money would come.

Speaker 2:

I don't subscribe to that. I don't think it's, especially, you know, if you've got kids and you've got a mortgage and you've got to make it work with many people don't have that luxury. Someone came to me and spoke to me the other day and said well, I have the golden handcuffs on, I can't just leap off everything and do what I like. My response was well, you're not going to. However, if you don't, if you're still stuck and you don't do anything new, as Mr Einstein said, doing the same thing and expecting different results that's the definition of insanity.

Speaker 1:

Yes. So this is about also taking self-responsibility for the way our career is progressing. So if you're swimming in a brown river, if you're swimming in the wrong river, do something about it, but don't make any sudden moves without actually weighing through the consequences. I understand that, but what about people who say oh, you know, I don't think anything is going to happen to my industry? It's really resilient. Maybe it's AI proof, it's redundancy proof. What do you say to people like that?

Speaker 2:

I hope there are. I don't think that even safe industries are safe. So five years ago I would have thought that teaching and teachers are in the safest industry and jobs that one could ever imagine, until I heard that the place where I'm in, which is Western Australia, were laying off teachers. So it just shows that we are in times that are very different than the 1990s. So in the 1990s, for instance, there was this concept of career. Resiliency was born Before that. If you imagine yourself on a train. You got on this career train. You joined a company, especially if it was a stable company, the company. You went along with that company and that company took you to retirement. In the 1990s, we started having recessions, job and restructuring, so people booted you off the train and you were expected to then have your own career parachute. Now, of course, with AI and energy transition and all the weird and wonderful things that are going on, you're not having a parachute. I think it's not enough. You've got to learn to pilot your own career plane.

Speaker 1:

So we need a pilot's license as well, on top of everything else that we need to learn. What is the biggest takeaway, you would say, for professionals who are navigating these complex times? What is the one thing they should pay attention to? They should really look into. They should start doing now, not wait till next year or further down the line, further down the line.

Speaker 2:

If there's anything that anyone takes away from this conversation, I'd say this Build your authority and build it early. Build it even though you think that you are recession-proof. This is how it was different. When I was trying to get into the job market in Perth because my family was here I was told that well, as long as I worked in X industry, I was in the energy industry and in Perth there was a resource boom at the time. So as long as I worked in helping people in an industry that helped people take minerals or resources out of the ground, I'll be fine.

Speaker 2:

It's moved very differently, of course. The economy is different and your results are no longer your, no longer safeguard that it's going to get you anywhere, especially if you don't have the connections in a new country. Actually safeguard that is building your authority, really getting, for instance, practically what that might look like is if you work in a big company, making sure that your internal resume is sharp, you know your pain points of the clients that you're going to help In an external world. It can look like a LinkedIn profile that has more than your job title.

Speaker 1:

When you say building your authority, how is that different from building your personal brand, which is what a lot of experts and marketers are telling people to do? Is that the same thing?

Speaker 2:

You are building your personal brand, but in a way that's very targeted. It's not just about having a LinkedIn profile, but it's about having a LinkedIn profile, firstly, that's aligned to you and you are looking to solve the problems of the industry and the employers that are going to serve you.

Speaker 1:

So you almost have to be very exclusive, in a sense that you are targeting a certain set of problems or a certain problem and you're not really talking about the other things. You want people to remember you for being the problem solver in this particular area. Is that what you're saying Exactly?

Speaker 2:

And that's why it's not only about building your brand, but it's about building yourself as the go-to person for the problems that your future employers are going to be looking for.

Speaker 1:

So a specialist approach, not a generalist approach, because other people may say you know, oh, I can do everything. I've got a wide range of skills, I can solve all kinds of problems.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think, going back to the example that I gave, that when I pitched myself as a wearer of many hats, especially if you're going into more senior roles, I don't think that approach is what employers are looking for. In fact, that approach can actually really be an impediment to your authority building. And in your authority, if you think about it, you're known for one thing Like Serena, you're known for being a coach and a spokesperson for introverts. Would that be right? Would that be the right way to say it? That would be right. So, in that sense, you're seen as the authority for that. So extroverts, people who want to, for instance, be louder, would not go to you. But that's okay. You're an authority in a place that you're comfortable with. That's what you want to be known for, that's what you're passionate about about, and that is also your genius zone.

Speaker 1:

Is that right? That's right, that's right. So that's a that's an intersection between that area that you choose to specialize in with where you think your talents and your genius lie, and to do it in a way that is very specific, very targeted, very helpful. So you almost make it easy, you've almost done the work for the person that is considering you and making it easy for them to say yes, this is the person, this is the authority, this is the one I want on my team to be solving problems because of the way they've positioned themselves.

Speaker 2:

That's exactly right, I think. In today's market, it's no longer about getting people to translate your expertise for you. It is a very fast-moving market generally a very fast-moving market generally and people's attention spans are getting shorter. In fact, there's been countless tests to show this. So what happens then is that there's no patience and a proliferation of people in the market who are really good at what they do. So you need to be or rather, we need to be really sharp with our messaging.

Speaker 1:

And that applies whether you're in corporate, whether you are starting out a new venture. It is still about the messaging, it is still about the impression we are making, it is still about the presence and what do people take away from that first contact with us and what do they see us as the authority in. So I think you've explained that really well, vimala, and I really appreciate that. You know this reminder that there is no industry now, in this current situation, with the way the economy and the world work. That is AI-proof, that is recession-proof. That is recession-proof that is forever stable. Things that were once stable are now being shaken at the roots, and so it is incumbent, I think, on all of us, as the managers and the CEOs of our own career, to take charge and take responsibility for that.

Speaker 2:

We need to get that pilot license for our own careers, Serena.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely so. Where would people go to find out more about what you do, and is there something you're working on at the moment that you would like to spotlight?

Speaker 2:

Thank you for asking me. My LinkedIn profile is the best form of contact and I have a free newsletter that's called the Outsider's Edge. Now I'm really practical in my approach and what you talked about, and taking small steps, but practical steps to help us get that pilot license. That's what I showcase in my newsletter, so I'd love it if you come join me on the other side of the.

Speaker 1:

Outsider's Edge Fabulous. Thank you so much for giving all our listeners the Outsider's Edge in a time when everything is complex and volatile and ambiguous and just really shaking under our feet. But you've given us something to hold on to and you've given us some thoughts and a way to get started on taking charge of our own careers. So thank you so much, Vimala, for coming on. The Quiet Warrior podcast.

Speaker 2:

It's been such a pleasure.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for having me here, and that was another episode of the Quiet Warrior podcast. If you've enjoyed listening to this episode and hearing Vimala's insights, do give a like and subscribe, and write a review as well, so that the Quiet Warrior podcast can get in front of more introverts around the world. See you on the next episode. I'm so grateful that you're here today. If you found this content valuable, please share it on your social media channels and subscribe to the show on your favorite listening platform. Together, we can help more introverts thrive To receive more uplifting content like this. Connect with me on Instagram at Serena Lo Quiet Warrior Coach. Thank you for sharing your time and your energy with me. See you on the next episode.