Levitt Auditorium • October 28 • 4:40 pm
We get a lot of advice on success about ourselves and our careers, including “be yourself” or “be authentic”. Often times we take for granted that we are being ourselves by simply being. Or we allow ourselves to be defined by our profession of choice. Too often, we don’t stop to take the question earnestly and respond to the prompt.
But have you ever tried to seriously answer, “Who am I?” Even the most confident, successful people aren’t always able to answer–because it’s actually not all that obvious. Women are especially prone to neglecting this type of introspection because it’s ingrained in our gender norms to be validated externally.
The ability to know yourself, your needs and wants, motivations, strengths, and weaknesses, has a cascading effect on the ability to effectively excel in personal and professional life. Knowing yourself helps you ask for a raise, know your value, know your boundaries, know if you’re on the right path, be empathetic, drive change, create opportunities for yourself and others, make intentional decisions, and be a great collaborator and leader.
Knowing who you are provides the solid foundation of trust and confidence in yourself that is essentially empowering and liberating.
It’s that foundation that steadies you through necessary confrontation, conflict, crisis, inner and outer turmoil, confusion, and all the other challenges life likes to throw your way.
This talk is a deep-dive into the process of defining “who you are”, separate from “what you do” and makes the connection to greater satisfaction and success in both a personal and professional capacity.