Brag Like a Boss

New
·

1 Day

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Cohort-based Course

Self promotion and storytelling tactics for humble leaders on the rise and go.

I've coached and trained leaders at

Google
Dell
CHANEL
The Walt Disney Company
Caterpillar

Course overview

Your leaders and team want you to claim your victories. Do so. And back them up.

“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 plum jobs. Crown achievements—the gems of our work or career—we bury or leave out.


I’ve coached and trained rising leaders just like you. I’ve created this workshop so you can turn your vague wins into clear, specific, well-told stories that bring you and your team pride, more exposure—even that better-paying job.


I know the blockers: You may feel unrecognized at work. Or the culture you emerged from did not pause to celebrate, and taught that it’s impolite or "pompous" to speak with pride about our work.


Brag Like a Boss brings you tactics I've built as a trusted executive communications coach with Fortune 100 and 500 leaders who feel the same pain.

 

I’ve helped them re-find lost confidence, become briefer, more compelling, and less awkward with sharing their wins—and those of their teams. I've given live feedback on how I receive their story, and where they're downplaying, vague, or ambiguous.


Most rise and help their team do the same. It's these very tactics I bring to you. This course gives you the exact frameworks and specific skills to:


-Build awareness on why we struggle to blow our own trumpet anyway; realize (most) people want to hear and celebrate with us


-Create new, better ways to self promote and claim your work victories when it matters the most


-Add specificity to anything wishy-washy


-Share the facts and context. Add personal narrative that enriches your share. (A Fortune 100 product leader I coached connected her love for building tech products to bill paying automating in India, which won her more time with her mom who’d previously spent a day in line to pay. This story stands out vs those who share nothing about their starts.)


-Synthesize giant projects in tight, colorful, outcome-focused sentences.


-Gain live feedback on your brag message, from me and your cohort, and insights on making it even better. Collaborate as fellow storytellers and humble braggers.


We've one, three-hour fast-paced workshop with discussion, reflection, tactics, and practice.


In this time, we'll:


-Unpack our blockers to bragging like a boss.


-Write a compelling bio with facts and narrative insights, no fluff or vague language.


-Workshop the prompts like a journalist to your self-assessment/PERF reviews. Or refine Web copy, a project update, your LinkedIn profile, or your resume. (You apply the learnings and coaching to what serves you best. We refine and write the copy live.)


-Notice (without judgment) the language we use to dim vs shine our light. Re-cast with active vs passive voice, real vs corporate language, and with concrete facts.


-Add in vital context. Simple adds like the numbers of employees and customers at the company where you serve boosts self pride and heightens awareness, too.


-Insert interesting gems and details. A prosaic sharing of what we do elevates when sharing the 5,000 contracts our legal team closes each year or the $80,000 inflated salary you noticed your company over paying in Malaysia.


This workshop is not for those who:


-Want instant fixes and a "playbook" without self awareness. This workshop combines group coaching with journalistic and storytelling training to help you claim your victories in ways you'll implement immediately.


-Dislike substance. Come ready to tell us what you change exactly (where, why, how, and for whom) if you're a "change agent."


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 who come from cultures where it's impolite or risky to talk of their success and struggle to blow their own trumpet

02

Driven leaders who lost promotions and opportunities, even reduced their bonuses by downplaying their success and leadership

03

Job seekers and promotion seekers who must articulate their value with substance, clarity, and brevity to convince audiences: Hire them

What you’ll get out of this course

Overhaul your one-liner and elevator pitch

Learn journalistic frameworks for snappy one-liners. Write your first bio that's substantial, timely, and anchored in well-written facts. Develop a memorable oral version you can use to reply to: "Tell me about yourself." Swim away from the sea of sameness.

Make your resume or self-assessment a springboard to something big and a conversation starter vs. a dry workflow list

Craft meaningful, well-anchored vignettes (mini stories) about your work and its impact for your self-assessment and/or resume. Learn to bottom line, cherry-pick facts, show a range, attribute who or what helped, and offer vital context.

Address and counter our cultural blockers around bragging to capture vs hide from opportunities

Fear of disdain. Critical, cautious loved ones. Lost confidence from missed promotions. Awkwardness from childhood messages that praised humility and branded confident as pompous. Blockers on bragging run deep. We examine, coach to, and counter them in this workshop.

Apply brevity, clarity, and narrative to your work victories so you'll feel more comfortable claiming them

Transform how you describe your work in your resume (even simple updates) from forgettable to clear and inspiring. Learn from a former Economist correspondent to keep bottom-line-on-top, share the impact, apply interesting narrative, quirky details, and why this matters, anyway.

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.

Walk away with a 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 and hopeful leaders 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 self promoting and your story you hope and need to tell. 60 minutes. All for your questions.

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

Jul 9

    Jul

    9

    Live Workshop: Brag Like a Boss

    Wed 7/94:00 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

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 Like a Boss

Cohort 1

$449

Dates

July 9, 2025

Payment Deadline

July 7, 2025
Get reimbursed

Brag Like a Boss Schedule

Three hours. One live workshop.

  • Wednesdays

    11 a.m. to 2 p.m. CST

    One live, interactive workshop with robust discussion, coaching, and training. You'll leave with more clarity on why you downplay; a crisp, journalistic one-liner, bio, and work description for your self-assessment, resume, or LinkedIn that you can integrate right away.

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 Like a Boss

Cohort 1

$449

Dates

July 9, 2025

Payment Deadline

July 7, 2025
Get reimbursed

$449

1 Day