Brag Anyway. Move your one-liner & bios from basic to powerful in 7 hours

New
·

3 Days

·

Cohort-based Course

Claim your victories. Back them up. Gain the recognition you deserve via thoughtful, frameworks I've co-created with Fortune 500 leaders.

I've coached and trained leaders at

Google
Dell
CHANEL
The Walt Disney Company
Caterpillar

Course overview

Turn your vague wins into clear, specific, well-told stories that get you places

“It’s not bragging if you can back it up.” So said Muhammad Ali — the late boxer, social activist, and cultural icon known as The Greatest.


He was right. And yet, too many of us resist bragging when we update our leaders, write our self-appraisals and self-assessments, even introduce ourselves to others and interview for dream jobs. Crown achievements—the gems of our work or career—we bury or leave out. Sound familiar?


I’ve coached and trained shy and humble leaders just like you. I've found that combining my journalism with coaching skills, we can unlock the truth and bat down the cultural barriers getting in the way. I’ve created this workshop so you can write the one-liner, bio, and whatever copy serves you most, to attract that legacy work or job you've dreamed of, because your story will stand out.


You'll apply journalism tools to your work stories. They'll be clear, compelling, specific, without sounding pompous nor arrogant. And you won't feel cringe-y. You'll feel great.


Through Brag Anyway, you'll:


Receive 4.5 hours+ of live sessions followed by 2.5 hours of Q&A, advice, and networking.


Learn to write beautiful copy about you and your work victories that you'll want to use right away.


Apply the learnings to a project... Web copy, your bio, your LinkedIn profile, or your PERF review.


Access me as an editor for the duration of the course via email or WhatsApp.


You'll also:


Find brevity tools that serve you in the written and spoken word and bring you confidence.


Find clarity on your true value and offerings, and how that's genuinely unique to everyone else.


Understand your barriers to claiming your wins through coaching and deep discussion.


Join the next cohort. Bring your team. You'll begin to challenge how you write, speak, and think about your work for the rest of your career.

Who is this course for

01

Humble leaders from cultures where it's impolite, dishonorable, or risky to talk of their success and struggle to blow their own horn

02

Driven leaders who tend to downplay their success, especially in interviews and PERF sessions, losing opportunities and bonuses

03

Rational leaders who want and need to replace vague, jargon-y descriptions of their legacy work with specificity, but don't know how

What you’ll get out of this course

Nail your one-liner, bio, and elevator pitch or PERF response

Learn journalistic frameworks for snappy one-liners. Write your first bio that's substantial, timely, and anchored with well-written facts. Develop a memorable response to: "Tell me about yourself" or PERF responses that delight and uplift

Address and counter any cultural blockers so you can brag anyway

Fear of disdain. Lost confidence. Awkward childhood messages that praised humility. Blockers on bragging and specificity run deep. I'll feel them, ask about them, and offer counters

Learn about narrative thread, hooks, and brevity from a former correspondent with the Economist, FT of London, and Guardian

Learn to keep bottom-line-on-top, share the impact, apply interesting narrative, quirky details, and why this matters, anyway. Hear my tricks on cherry-picking facts, showing a range, and adding vital, interesting context that makes your story pop

Get peer and instructor feedback

Language choice is nuanced. You'll gain live feedback on how your audience receives your message. Learn where you can brag more, and back it up with substance, outcomes, and meatier vs. wishy-washy language.

Win a timeless toolkit for communicating your value

You'll learn and practice communication and storytelling tools that stick, resonate, and (with practice) open doors. You'll start to intrigue vs. frustrate your audiences who truly want to hear you blow your horn.

What’s included

Debbi Gardiner McCullough

Live sessions

Learn directly from Debbi Gardiner McCullough in a real-time, interactive format.

Lifetime access

Go back to course content and recordings whenever you need to.

Community of peers

Stay accountable and share insights with like-minded professionals.

Certificate of completion

Share your new skills with your employer or on LinkedIn.

AMA

Ask me anything you want about bolstering and sharing the story about your work and life that you hope and need to tell.

Maven Guarantee

This course is backed by the Maven Guarantee. Students are eligible for a full refund up until the halfway point of the course.

Course syllabus

Week 1

Sep 9—Sep 11

    Sep

    9

    Session #1. Brag Anyway. A coaching & writing workshop for Humble Leaders

    Tue 9/94:00 PM—5:30 PM (UTC)

    Sep

    10

    Session #2. Brag Anyway. A coaching & writing workshop for Humble Leaders

    Wed 9/104:00 PM—5:30 PM (UTC)

    Sep

    11

    Session #3. Brag Anyway. A coaching & writing workshop for Humble Leaders

    Thu 9/114:00 PM—5:30 PM (UTC)

    Sep

    11

    Ask Me Anything. (Optional)

    Thu 9/116:00 PM—7:00 PM (UTC)

What people are saying

        Working with Debbi has been life-changing; she helped me understand and communicate my professional value authentically. Debbi's coaching bridged the gap between my cultural values of humility and the need for confident self-promotion, showing me how to be true to myself while effectively communicating my work.
Stephen Lancaster

Stephen Lancaster

Vocal artist, baritone, Professor of the Practice at University of Notre Dame
        Debbi is one of the best coaches that I have worked with. She has been my coach for the last 2.5 years, and I have learned so much from her. She is caring, wise, and extremely good at listening. I highly recommend her to aspiring leaders and professionals trying to be better communicators.
Ali Khodai

Ali Khodai

VP of AI Product - SandboxAQ
        "I trust Coach Debbi with my communication goals and even with my story and positioning at work. She listens well, has empathy, and probes to help me articulate my wins clearly and with substance. She helps me realize and confidently express: I've driven meaningful outcomes and created real value."
Laura E. Jackson

Laura E. Jackson

Assistant Manager, Learning and Development
        Coach Debbi has helped me make my course content and any other descriptions of my work--even products I'm building--clearer and more impactful, helping me build my business along the way. She helps me remember all the amazing feedback from Sales Rocket Fuel sellers & alumni and weaves them all together to sound memorable and colorful.
Chris Bogdan

Chris Bogdan

CEO and Founder, Sales Rocket Fuel

Leaders at the world's largest global corporations and military agencies trust me as their communications coach

Debbi Gardiner McCullough

Debbi Gardiner McCullough

I've coached over 1,000 leaders to ditch wishy-washy terms and speak their truth

New Zealander Debbi Gardiner (DG) McCullough has reinvented herself three times across three continents and industries, most recently leaving academia after 19 years of service to train as an ICF-certified coach.


Debbi’s coaching has helped over 1,000 leaders at the world’s largest tech, manufacturing, and financial corporations tell beautiful stories about their lives and work. With that, many go on to higher promotions and bigger titles internally, externally, or feel inspired to launch their own venture.


She has taught over 3,000 MBA and journalism students at top-tier universities, including Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC Chapel Hill which inspired her entry into coaching.


Her reporting and writing on social trends and struggles, women leadership, and sustainability has featured in the Economist, the Financial Times of London, Engineering News-Record, the Guardian, and NPR. She's interviewed Fortune 100 leaders, the Property Brothers, Hector Garcia, and the Dalai Lama. It's these reporting skills she brings to her Maven communications workshops.


Debbi has a Master’s degree in Journalism from the University of California at Berkeley, where she won the Bloomberg Prize for Excellence in Business Reporting two consecutive years. 


She hosts two podcasts, writes on Medium, and is publishing several memoirs and communications guides for the joy, and to democratize the life-changing effects of communications coaching.


Connect with Debbi on LinkedIn.

Leaders at these firms hire me to coach

Google
Caterpillar
Dell
Cisco
The Walt Disney Company

Career highlights

  • Former lecturer of business communication at Kenan-Flagler Business School's MBA@UNC program

  • Former correspondent of social trends and struggles in U.S. swing states for the Economist magazine with 6.5 million readers

  • Former correspondent for the Financial Times of London, Guardian Newspaper, NPR, and Wired News

  • UN Foundation Press Fellow for reporting on enterprising ways women save their money when traditional banks won't permit them

A pattern of wavy dots

Join an upcoming cohort

Brag Anyway. Move your one-liner & bios from basic to powerful in 7 hours

Cohort 1

$899

Dates

Sep 9—11, 2025

Payment Deadline

Sep 3, 2025
Get reimbursed

Our schedule: Brag Anyway. A coaching & writing workshop for Humble Leaders

Three 1.5-hour live workshops. Q&As

  • Tuesdays

    11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. CST

    One first live, interactive workshop with robust discussion, coaching, and training. You'll leave with more clarity on why you downplay your wins and training to write your own crisp, journalistic one-liner for your LinkedIn, resume, or self-introduction for when you need it most

  • Wednesdays

    11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. CST

    Our second live, interactive workshop with robust discussion, coaching, and training, this time on your full bio. Walk out with a reasonable first draft of a new, confident bio incorporating storytelling, journalism, and specifics we learn (and apply) together

  • Thursdays

    11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. CST

    Our third live, interactive workshop with discussion, training, and more brevity, specifics, and storytelling techniques to apply to showcasing a recent (or memorable) work success. Use this training as fodder for Web copy, resume, PERF or LinkedIn—however helps you most

  • Ask Me Anything (AMA)

    Thursdays, 1 p.m to 2 p.m. CST

    Each live session extends an additional 30 minutes for Q&A. We also offer a devoted final Q&A when class wraps up. Hit me with your lingering questions on personal branding, positioning, and language

Learning is better with cohorts

Learning is better with cohorts

Active hands-on learning

This course builds on live workshops and hands-on projects

Interactive and project-based

You’ll be interacting with other learners through breakout rooms and project teams

Learn with a cohort of peers

Join a community of like-minded people who want to learn and grow alongside you

Frequently Asked Questions

A pattern of wavy dots

Join an upcoming cohort

Brag Anyway. Move your one-liner & bios from basic to powerful in 7 hours

Cohort 1

$899

Dates

Sep 9—11, 2025

Payment Deadline

Sep 3, 2025
Get reimbursed

$899

3 Days