The 90-Day Plan to Become the Obvious Choice for VP

 

So if I had 90 days to shift how senior leaders saw me, here is the exact action plan I would follow.

Step 1: The VP Mirror Before you do anything else, you need to stop guessing how you’re perceived.   At senior levels, promotions are less about output and more about risk. Executives ask themselves whether promoting you feels safe, predictable, and aligned with the business.   The VP Mirror forces you to see yourself the way decision-makers see you, not the way your performance reviews read.   Run The Perception Audit Answer yes or no: Do I know who actually influences VP promotion decisions in my organization? Do I know what those people care about at the VP level? Can I clearly articulate how they currently describe me in one sentence? Does that description emphasize strategy, judgment, and outcomes, or execution and effort? If a VP role opened tomorrow, would they say “ready now” or “strong potential”?   If you answered “no” more than twice, you’re not behind. You’re operating without a mirror. That’s the fastest way to work hard and stay stuck.   Your Action: Write down: The 3–5 people who shape VP decisions What you believe each one would say about you today What you need them to say about you to be seen as ready   This becomes the baseline for everything else.   Step 2: The One-and-Done Visibility Plan Once people realize there’s a perception gap, they usually jump straight to “I need more visibility” and try to be everywhere. That’s a recipe for burnout.   Visibility is not about being louder or busier. It’s about sending the right signal, consistently, at the right altitude with the right people.   Senior leaders don’t notice who is everywhere. They notice who shows up talking about decisions, tradeoffs, and outcomes.   That’s why I teach a one-signal-per-week visibility plan. You invest your time in one action that gives you the right kind of exposure and doesn’t burn you out.   What counts as a real visibility signal? A visibility signal answers one question for senior leaders: “Can I already imagine this person operating at the VP level?”   Examples: Presenting a recommendation instead of a status update Leading a cross-functional discussion tied to a business priority Reframing a problem leadership is already debating Sharing an executive update that answer questions before they are asked   Same work. Different altitude.   What doesn’t work Speaking more without changing the substance Volunteering for extra work that stays invisible Being busy in the wrong rooms   Your Action: Plan the next four weeks of visibility. For each week, write: Where will I be visible? (email, meeting, 1:1, slack) Who will see this? (Manager, Skip, leadership, cross functional) What do they need to see? (Decision, strategy, impact…)   This is what strategic visibility is all about. Specific and targeted action that put you in front of the right people and create the right perception. Inside my program we provide a quarterly visibility plan with weekly action items so you never have to wonder “am I doing enough?”   Step 3: The Sponsor Matrix Senior promotions are a team sport. They happen when someone senior is willing to bet on you. Mentors advise. Supporters encourage. Sponsors advocate when you’re not in the room.   Sponsorship does not come from coffee chats or long relationships alone. You may have a standing one-on-one with your cross functional SVP but that doesn’t mean they’ll go to bat for you. Sponsorship comes from shared wins at the right altitude, with the right stakeholders.   Identify Your Sponsor Matrix You don’t need to be everyone’s BFF, in fact, you probably shouldn’t. What you need is to identify the 3 stakeholders beyond your manager who matter most for your promotion.   That list usually includes: Your skip level SLT members C-suite / Board   Then ask: What do they care about right now? How does my work make their priorities easier to achieve? Where could a shared win naturally exist?   Your Action: Choose one person from your Sponsor Shortlist and get on their calendar in the next 30 days with a value-led agenda. Less “let’s catch up” more “This [project] can help with [their agenda]”.   Step 4: The Reputation Ladder As you grow, your reputation must move up the ladder. Most high performers are described like this: “She gets things done.” “He’s reliable.” “They execute really well.”   That’s not wrong. It’s just not senior enough.   At the VP level, reputation sounds different: “She’s very strategic” “He can handle ambiguity.” “They make strong decisions under pressure.”   The Reputation Ladder is about intentionally moving your narrative to the next rung. It’s how you shape how people see you, instead of letting them make their own assumptions.   A great example of executive narrative done well is the 60-second executive introduction formula (I break down it down here). It’s how you go from: ”Hey, I’m maya, Director as ACME corp” to: ”Hey, I’m Maya, The Director of Marketing here at ACME corp. My team and I are focused on aligning marketing and sales to hit our revenue goals. In the last 8 months we’ve completely overhauled our brand positioning, a $1m project that has already landed us 2 new logos with 3 more in the pipeline. I’ll be happy to connect and share more offline.”   Your Action: Write two short paragraphs: Paragraph 1: How you’re typically described today Paragraph 2: How a VP-ready leader should be described   That delta shows you exactly what needs to change.   Step 5: The Promotion Case You won’t see this as a requirement anywhere, but a promotion business case is non-negotiable. If you don’t make the case for your promotion, no one else will do it for you.   A Promotion Case is not: a resume, a performance review, or a list of past accomplishments.   It is a future-focused argument for why the business benefits from you operating at the next level.   A strong Promotion Case answers: What scope am I already operating at? What problems do I own beyond my role? What decisions do I influence? What outcomes have changed because of my leadership? What additional value could I unlock at the next level?   This is not something you “send cold.” It’s something you use to anchor conversations with your manager and sponsors.   Your Action: Start a win bank to track your scope, impact and influence. To nail your future facing plan ask yourself: If I was promoted today, what would I do differently? That’s your plan.   The 90-Day Execution Plan Here’s how this actually turns into action.   Days 1–30 Complete the VP Mirror perception audit Draft your current vs. desired Reputation Ladder Identify your Sponsor Shortlist   Days 31–60 Build and execute your One-Signal Visibility Plan weekly Start creating shared wins with at least one sponsor Refine your executive narrative   Days 61–90 Synthesize everything into a Promotion Case Align with your manager on readiness and timing Strengthen advocacy behind the scenes   Copy-Paste Checklist: Are You VP-Ready? Use this as your working list.  I’ve completed a VP Mirror perception audit  I know who influences VP decisions and how I’m perceived  I have a 4-week One-Signal Visibility Plan  I’ve defined my Sponsor Shortlist (3 names)  I’ve drafted my Reputation Ladder narrative  I’ve started a future-focused Promotion Case

Your Next Steps This list above? That is your next move. It doesn’t get any clearer than that. Don’t try to do it all at once, but stay consistent. One action every week for 90 days will get you closer to a promotion than you’ve ever been.

The 3 systems that took me from overworked Director to thriving VP

 

If you want to grow into VP without sacrificing your sanity, you need three simple systems running in the background: A system for relationships A system for communication A system for visibility   Let me show you what that looks like in real life.

1. The Relationship Capital System For most of my career, I secretly thought networking was for losers.   In my mind, it was something people did when they didn't have real results. I had results. I worked hard. I figured if I just kept delivering, the right people would notice.   Then I joined Microsoft.   On my very first week, my manager looked at my calendar, then looked at me and said: "You need to spend at least 20 percent of your time building relationships. That is part of your job." I hated hearing that. I did not want to "schmooze."   And, to be honest, I was terrible at it at first.   But once I stopped resisting and actually learned how to network the right way, everything changed.   Those relationships opened doors. They made it easier to get approvals. They made tough conversations smoother. They created a chorus of people who could vouch for me when I was not in the room. Eventually, those same people were the ones advocating for my promotions.   That is when I understood something uncomfortable but true: My work alone was never going to decide whether I got promoted.   Every leadership team wants social proof. They want to know other leaders trust you, like working with you, and believe you are ready. If you ignore networking, you are basically leaving your promotion up to chance.   That is why you need a Relationship Capital System.   A relationship capital system is how you build real, sustainable relationships with stakeholders. The kind that does not require sucking up or doing more work. The kind that builds trust and rapport over time and turns leaders into advocates and sponsors.   Here is what my system looked like in practice: I mapped out the three to five most important stakeholders for my role and my next step. Then I did a listening tour. My first meetings were not about me. They were about them.   What do they care about? What are their goals and KPIs? Where are they stuck? What does success look like for them this year?   Once I understood that, my job was simple: find ways to be useful that lined up with what they already cared about.   Sometimes that meant sharing customer insights they did not have yet. Sometimes it was looping them in early on a project that affected their team. Sometimes it was pressure-testing a strategy with them before a big meeting.   To make this repeatable, I built a tracker. Five columns: Name of stakeholder What they need most / what they care about How I can add value Last touchpoint Next touchpoint   My rule was simple: three to five stakeholders, one meaningful touchpoint periodically. Not spam. Not "just checking in." Something that actually helped them.   That is a Relationship Capital System. It is focused. Strategic. Process-based.   You are no longer trying to be nice to everyone and chase every leader. You are intentionally investing in the few people who can truly move your career forward.   This is what I teach inside of Success Builders so you never have to sit there wondering, "Who should I talk to?" or "What do I even say?" You have a simple process to follow to build trust and rapport over time.   2. The Executive Communication System Being a strong communicator is how I got my job at Microsoft in the first place.   When I was interviewing, they did not ask me to prepare anything extra. But I knew that if they could see how I thought about the industry and the role, it would change how they saw me.   So I created a presentation about the exact space my role would focus on: What I had done in that industry, what I learned, and where I saw opportunities.   I walked them through my thinking. Not just what I knew, but how I would apply it.   That deck got me the job.   Later, communicating like an executive is what helped me become a VP, and then land my second VP role in a completely different country. I became the person who could take complex information and make it simple, relevant, and actionable for senior leaders.   That is what an Executive Communication System does.   It becomes your core engine of influence, because it is how you take everything in your head and share it in a way that makes leadership not just understand you, but want to support you.   Most people overcomplicate this.   They think they need to sound "more professional." They obsess over filler words. They write longer and longer emails and proposals that still fall flat.   So they try harder. Write more. Talk more… But all they create is more noise. Trying harder will not fix a broken communication approach.   You need a system.   For me, that system starts with three simple questions. Before I send anything or open my mouth in a high stakes situation, I pause and ask: Who is this for? What is the main goal? What do they need to quickly understand?   If you run every email, Slack message, update, and presentation through that filter, everything you say becomes more intentional.   Then you pair those questions with a recurring cadence of touchpoints that build your reputation over time instead of in random bursts: A weekly one-on-one with your manager where you talk about impact and priorities, not just status. A monthly update to your skip-level, aligned to their goals. At least one company-wide or org-wide touchpoint each quarter where your work is visible at scale.   Now your communication is not just "good." It is consistent, targeted, and tied to outcomes decision makers care about.   And we are living in an age where you do not even have to figure this out alone. You can feed a GPT who you are talking to and what your goal is, and get help shaping the clearest, most strategic version of your message.   That is exactly what my clients do with our custom GPTs and their weekly touchpoints. They are not spending hours wrestling with the perfect sentence. They are using a system to make sure every important piece of communication lands the right way and builds their reputation.   This is what makes communication a strategic lever, not a volume game.   3. The Strategic Visibility System I have lived both extremes of visibility.   At first, I wanted nothing to do with the spotlight. I put in zero effort to be seen and told myself my work would speak for itself. So I stayed in the background, worked harder, and waited.   Nothing happened.   Once I realized visibility mattered, I swung hard in the other direction. I tried to be everywhere. Joining every meeting. Offering to help with everything. Saying yes to anything that might theoretically get me "seen."   That did not work either. It was draining and unsustainable.   What finally clicked for me was this: There is a sweet spot in the middle called strategic visibility.   This is where you get seen by the right people, at the right time, with the right message. You are not trying to be everywhere. You are intentional about where you show up and how.   A Strategic Visibility System is how you build your reputation on purpose. You do the work. Then you make sure that work is actually seen and valued by the people who make decisions.   This is not about doing more. It is about distributing the impact of what you are already doing. And yes, it really can work for you 24/7, because once you build the system, it keeps running in the background.   For me, the game-changer was creating an actual visibility action plan. Not hoping. Not, "If someone asks, I'll share." I moved from reactive to intentional.   One action per week. One stakeholder per week. One moment where I intentionally reinforced my value and positioning.   That might be a short update tying my work to a key business priority. Sharing an insight in a meeting where the right people are present. Volunteering to present outcomes at a forum where I had not traditionally been visible.   It is a simple structure: three core stakeholders, one intentional visibility action each week. It is not loud. It is not needy. It is not "look at me." It is a distribution system for your hard work.   Do something once. Share it with multiple people in a leveraged way. Let that momentum compound. This is what it looks like when you do it right (you get this template when you work with me)

If you are exhausted from chasing every room and joining every meeting, you do not need more hustle. You need a better system.    Your Next Steps So here is the real question: Do you actually have systems for these three things?   Not just ideas. Not "I know I should network more." Not "I try to communicate clearly." Not "I know I need to be more visible."   Real structure. A repeatable way to do this every month without overthinking it.   Because knowing is not the problem. Everyone knows they should build relationships, communicate well, and make their work visible.   The gap is doing it consistently in a way that does not burn you out.   These three systems are how you protect your time and energy and still grow into VP. They let you spend less effort each time, get better results, and stop relying on hope or luck.   If you want a simple place to start this week, do this: Pick one of the three systems. Choose one small action that starts the process. Put it on your calendar as a recurring reminder.

3 Smart Moves to Make in January (While Everyone Is Distracted)

 In 1849, thousands of people flooded into California chasing gold, but most people found nothing. The ones who got rich, reliably at least, were the ones who outfitted and served the folks looking for their fortune. They were the ones who realized that when everyone rushes in one direction, the smart move is not to join them, but rather to position yourself in a way to benefit from the collective behavior.

The same pattern plays out every January in corporate life.

Right now, everyone around you is doing the same thing. They are setting goals, building roadmaps, fighting over OKRs, and trying to claim all of the shiny projects.

Which means this is the perfect time to point outward.

You'll still need to participate in goal-setting and planning exercises, or whatever the collective action at work is, but while everyone is competing for the same attention in the same way, there's a window to do something complementary.

To zig while everyone else zags.

Here are three smart moves to make right now, while everyone is distracted doing the same things.

Point 1: Learn What Other People Are Trying to Accomplish

Right now, everyone is fixated on goals and planning, whether it’s at their personal level or at the team or organizational level. It’s all about “me” and “we.”

But almost nobody spends any bandwidth on what other people are trying to accomplish.

Your manager has goals they're stressed about, and even your skip-level has metrics they're being measured on. That product manager you'll need to partner with later this year has problems they're trying to decompose into SMART goals or OKRs. The platform team that always seems to block your projects has their own priorities they're fighting for that are being developed this month and next.

And you probably have no idea what any of those are.

This is a problem because you will inevitably need to work with these people. You’ll need their support, their buy-in, their resources, or their cooperation, and when that moment comes, most people start from zero. They walk into a collaboration trying to figure out what the other side cares about while simultaneously asking for something. That’s a hard position to negotiate from.

But if you learn their goals now, early, before you need anything, you’ll be a step ahead.

At Amazon, I had a friend on a platform team my group depended on. Early in the year, I asked him what challenges his team was facing. He told me they were drowning in operational burden because every time a partner team asked them to extend the platform, it came with more on-call work and maintenance. I filed that away.

Later that year, my team needed new capabilities from his platform, and we weren't the only ones asking. Two other teams were pitching different requests. When we made our proposal, I included an operational excellence section showing that our capability wouldn't add significant load to their team. That ended up being the deciding factor. They committed to our feature over the others because I understood what they were optimizing for before I ever walked into the room.

If you take the time to do this, you’ll start noticing opportunities to help them throughout the year. You’ll hear something in a meeting and think, “Oh, that connects to what Raj said he’s trying to do.” You can make an introduction, share a resource, or flag something relevant. You become useful to them before you ever need to ask for anything.

When you do need to collaborate in the future, you already understand their motivations. You’re not guessing why they’re pushing back or what tradeoffs they’re weighing. I’ve noticed you earn a lot of trust when you express the concerns of others preemptively. You can then frame your ask in terms of what matters to them, not just what matters to you.

The action: This week, reach out to three people you’ll likely need to work with this year. Your manager, a key stakeholder, a partner from another team. Ask them the question: “What are the biggest problems you’re trying to solve this year?” or “What does success look like for you in 2026?”

Don’t pitch anything. Don’t ask for anything. Just listen and take notes. You’re not going to use this information today. You’re going to use it in March, in June, in September, when the opportunity to help them appears or when you need something from them. All it takes is about five minutes.

Point 2: Build Relationships While Calendars Are Open

January is one of the best relationship-building windows of the year, but everyone assumes the opposite.

Think about what’s actually happening right now. People are in planning mode, not firefighting mode. The urgent messages haven’t started yet because Q1 execution hasn’t ramped up. Calendars are full of roadmap meetings and planning sessions, but they’re not yet full of crises.

This is the window to reach out.

That skip-level you've been meaning to connect with? They might actually say yes to coffee right now. That stakeholder from another team you'll need later this year? They're available now to talk over use cases. Once they've finished their resourcing activities, they won't have time to listen.

The problem is that most people only reach out when they need something. But by then, you’re making a withdrawal from an empty account. The other person barely knows you, and your first real interaction is you asking them for something.

It’s like when you’re trying to get in line, but then someone taps you on the shoulder and points to the actual end of the line.

But if you reach out now, when you don’t need anything, you’re making deposits.

At Amazon, testers were always pulled in at the very end of projects, and they were always frustrated when strangers showed up with big requests at the last minute. During one planning season, it looked like my team was going to have a big, complicated release in the September timeframe. I had just moved teams and had recently been in that exact situation where we made a late request and burned out a ton of people.

So instead of waiting, I engaged the centralized testing team early and told them we were going to have a major release in late Q3. They started asking questions I didn’t have the answers to yet, but I learned that I needed to finalize my requests by the start of Q2 because they had hiring that needed to be completed and people onboarded in time for our release. They also asked to be involved in the design phase so they could develop a test plan well in advance. The project went amazingly well compared to our sister teams, which were scrambling with late requests. That early conversation in January shaped the entire year.

When you invest early, you’re someone they’ve already had a positive interaction with. You’re someone who showed interest in them before you had an agenda, which changes the entire dynamic.

I’ve also found that these early conversations surface information you wouldn’t get otherwise. You learn about projects being planned, problems being discussed, and opportunities being shaped before they’re announced. You become better connected to what’s actually happening across the organization.

The action: Look at your roadmap for this year. Identify a project that will require support from another team, whether that’s design, testing, infrastructure, or something else. Reach out to them now, not to make a formal request, but to give them a heads-up: “We’re planning a big release in Q3 that’s going to need your team’s help. What do you need from me, and when, to make that work smoothly for you?”

You’ll learn their constraints, their timelines, and what they need to be successful. And you’ll be the person who gave them time to prepare instead of the person who showed up in a panic.

Point 3: Start Your Brag Book Now

Performance review season just ended, or it’s about to. If you’re like most people, these last few weeks of the year were a scramble. You were digging through old emails, searching Slack for evidence of that project you shipped in March, and trying to remember what you even did in Q1.

Right now, you remember how miserable it was to reconstruct a year from memory. You still remember staring at a blank self-review wondering why you didn’t write any of this down when it happened. You remember the sinking feeling of knowing you did good work but struggling to articulate it with specifics.

In two weeks, you’ll have forgotten that feeling. You’ll be heads-down on new projects, and tracking your accomplishments will feel like a problem for future-you. Then December will arrive, and you’ll be right back where you started.

The solution is simple, but almost nobody does it: start a brag book now and update it throughout the year.

Early in my career at Amazon when I was still a mid-level engineer, I had a major launch in February. It was one of the biggest things I’d shipped. By the time performance review season came around, I had a different manager than the one I’d delivered with. I forgot about the launch, my new manager wasn’t there when it happened, and the evidence never made it into my review for that year. I got a “meets expectations” rating. By the time I remembered, it was too late. An entire year’s biggest accomplishment, invisible. I felt like such a dummy.

A brag book prevents this. It’s a simple document where you capture your greatest hits throughout the year. One page per year is all you need. What did you ship? What impact did it have? What problems did you solve? It’s not a novel or a low-level work-log, it’s a running record of the highlights.

It’s really important to keep this document in the cloud, not on your work computer. If you get terminated or laid off, you lose access to everything on your work machine. Your career history shouldn’t disappear because of a bad day. You’ll have enough to worry about if that day ever comes.

It’s also really important to write it like you’re writing a resume. Avoid company-specific jargon, internal project names, and cryptic technical terms. You won’t remember what “Project Artemis” was in ten years, and neither will anyone else. Describe your impact in plain language that would make sense to an outsider, because you will be that outsider in a couple of years.

The goal is that by the time you retire, whether that’s in ten years or forty, you’ll have a running document of everything meaningful you’ve accomplished. I use Notion, but you can also use Google Docs with a tab for each year.

The action: Open a cloud document and create your brag book. Add one tab for 2025 and one for 2026. Jot down the biggest things you accomplished last year while they’re still fresh. Then put a recurring 30-minute block on your calendar for the first of every month to keep it updated.

Thirty minutes a month. That’s the price of never losing track of your own career again.

Sell the Pickaxes

These three moves take almost no time, but they will compound. By mid-year, you’ll have context others don’t have, relationships others didn’t build, and evidence of your work that others have already forgotten.

Everyone else is rushing toward the same gold. You don’t have to join them.

26 supreme habits for 2026

 1. Rise with the sun and spend at least an hour praying, reading and running. Your days will never be the same!

2. Go complaint-free for a week. [You’ll feel so much stronger and better].

 

3. Stop focusing on the faults of people and, instead, seek to amplify their strengths. Simple idea yet practiced rarely in today’s society.

 

4. Walk for an hour every day. Period.

 

5. Read for an hour each evening.

 

6. Be the most prepared person at every meeting you attend.

 

7. Outwork everyone in your industry. Always giving your best effort breeds tremendous self-respect.

 

8. Make deep sleep a priority. Bonus tip: the key to a superb morning routine is an excellent pre-sleep ritual (and not much good happens after 9pm so why not go to bed then?). 

 

9. Finally forgive the people who hurt you, understanding that your hurters have helped you become you. 

 

10. Do 3 scary things every 3 months in 2026.

11. Work without your phone until noon each workday.

 

12. Turn your phone off every Sunday (for the entire day). Your family deserves the best of you, yes?

 

13. Hope for the best yet be absolutely prepared for the worst. Too slow is too late. 

 

14. Start your mornings focusing on 5 things you’re grateful for. The tone of your day will rise.

 

15. Be the best listener in your home.

 

16. Be the most enthusiastic student in your field.

 

17. Develop impeccable manners.

 

18. Go to art galleries often so that the stardust of the masters mesmerizes your consciousness. Leave your phone at home if you really want the benefit of this special habit.

 

19. End every creative project better than you started.

 

20. Stop being mean to yourself. You’re incredibly special.

 

21. Stop comparing your life to other lives. Your journey is perfect for you and there’s rich wisdom in you being exactly where you’re at.

 

22. As you produce more success, think even more like a beginner. Winning makes most people sloppy.

 

23. Tell your loved ones you love them daily. 

 

24. Speak like a leader not victim.

25. Be kind. Always.

 

26. Remember that your daily habits predict your lifetime results. So make them great.