1. Be willing to bet on yourself. You may succeed if nobody else believes in you, but you will never succeed if you don’t believe in yourself.
2. Lead your life instead of accepting your life – making the right decisions and managing those decisions daily. The power of choice is the greatest power that a person possesses.
3. Love what you do and do what you love. Successful people – those who see and seize their dreams – love what they do and do what they love. They allow their passion and talent to guide them.
4. Don’t compare yourself or your dream to others – when you compare yourself with those superior, you feel inferior. When you compare yourself with those inferior, you feel superior. When you stop comparing yourself with others, you feel empowered. Success is doing that best you can with what you have wherever you start in life.
5. Believe in your vision for the future even when others don’t understand you. You are not an accident. You are here for a reason.
I finished reading this book for the second time, however I don’t remember talking about it, may be I did, maybe I didn’t.
I want you to understand how important it is for you to know yourself. We tend to always learn about others, specially a person we admire, a singer, someone successful or someone we like to have in our lives like a boyfriend/girlfriend, etc… but very seldom we try to learn about ourself.
I won this book in a raffle few years ago in a women leadership event at my alma mater Mary Baldwin University and I was so excited when my named was called.
If you are interested in knowing more about yourself, your strengths and how you can make an impact in your life and others I would recommend this book for you. It is never too late to start.
Sometimes we have a hard time trying to understand ourselves, that has happened to me and I always like to find all different tools possible that will give me more wisdom about how I am wired and where I can do better by strengthening my strengths. I do not want to waste my time working too hard on my weaknesses. I like for other people to help me where I need help, instead to spend to much time in things that I am not good at and things that do not interest me.
The strengths based leadership book is for great leaders, teams and to make you gain knowledge as to why people follow. This is developed by members of the Gallup organization. It is a survey that nearly 10 million people have used to discover their top five natural strengths.
Staying in your strength gives you an advantage. In a world where people spend much of their time shoring up their weaknesses your focus on maximizing your strengths will set you apart from others.
I am going to share with you my top five.
1. Learner: Because I have high Learner, I have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. The process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites me.
2. Responsibility: Because I have high Responsibility, I take psychological ownership of what I say I will do. I am committed to stable values such as honesty and loyalty.
3. Deliberative: Because I have high Deliberative, I am best described by the serious care I take in making decisions or choices. I anticipate obstacles.
4. Relator: Because I have high Relator, I enjoy close relationships with others. I find deep satisfaction in working hard with friends to achieve a goal.
5. Significance: Because I have high Significance, I want to make a big impact. I am independent and I prioritize projects based on how much influence they will have on my organization or people around me.
The more you focus on your strengths, the better you will be positioned to see and seize opportunities as they arise.
Speakers, alumni, and students share their perspectives on the Women’s Leadership Symposium
October 27, 2020MBU students, masked and distanced, gathered in the Student Activities Center to watch live-streamed keynotes and participate in Q&A sessions.
The second annual Women’s Leadership Symposium on October 24 wove together meaningful speeches, practical advice, and participation from industry experts, workshop facilitators, and attendees both on campus and across the country.
Three keynote speakers gave insight into their unique perspectives on leadership and mentorship, telling stories from their careers and summarizing key take-aways for the audience to put into practice in their own lives.
A live Q&A followed each speaker so both in-person and virtual attendees could engage directly with the experts.
MBU students also had the opportunity to attend break-out sessions and workshops during the day where they gained tools to help them prepare for entering the job market after graduation.
“I knew that the different guests and speakers would offer priceless advice on how to expedite my confidence in being a strong, working woman.”
— Courtney Rosenstadt ’23
“I would say that my mother, Dr. [Carey] Usher, and other strong women in my life influenced me to participate in the symposium, because we as women should learn from each other.”
— Savanna Nobles ’22
Speaker Dara Beevas ’02 placed her remarks firmly in the context of 2020 and all its challenges, looking back to her time at Mary Baldwin and thinking about the questions, fears, and plans her college-aged self would have been experiencing.
Throughout her talk, she identified three ways of being in the world and working through challenges: survival mode, hustle mode, and, finally, purpose mode. The first two are important to acknowledge, she said, but unsustainable.
“We often move along doing the thing we’re supposed to do, instead of doing the thing that we are called to do,” Beevas said.
The third option, purpose mode, is the path to conscious and effective leadership — and also the source of productive mentorship. It opens people up to curiosity, growth, and stretching themselves toward new challenges.
“In purpose mode, you are centering the voice inside, who already knows where they should be in this moment, and they know why,” Beevas said.
“The world is starving for your leadership, your creativity, your ideas, and your willingness to have tough conversations.”
— Speaker Dara Beevas ’02, publisher and author
“It was really meaningful to me when speaker Dara Beevas asked us to ask ourselves ‘Where am I being called?’ It was something that I had to actually sit there and think about. I am so focused on getting my degree that I haven’t asked myself ‘Is this my calling? Do my personal values align with this career?’”
— Jasmine Matthews ’21
Dr. Leigh Frame ’06 was the second keynote speaker for the symposium on the theme of mentors and allies in healthcare. She gave advice on how to find an effective, knowledgeable, and available mentor in the healthcare world, and how they can help their mentees develop into healthcare leaders.
“Mentorship is many things including sharing knowledge,” Frame said, “and then inspiration — how you can inspire others to become a leader or change healthcare or get into the healthcare field initially.”
She identified different types of mentoring — coaching, guidance, and inspiration — and the strategic value they each bring, together with shadowing a healthcare professional to absorb what the career is like day to day.
Thinking about attendees who are interested in joining a healthcare profession, Frame gave tips on different introductory and entry roles that are available, and on staying persistent.
“The moral of the story is just keep trying,” she said. “Don’t be discouraged if your mentor doesn’t respond to you at first. Don’t be discouraged if being a hospice volunteer didn’t work out for you. Try something else.”
“There are so many kinds of positions in healthcare that you have to find the one that’s right for you. And this is also true of your mentor, you have to find the right mentor or mentors for you.”
— Speaker Dr. Leigh Frame ’06, integrative medicine researcher and program director
“It really meant a lot to hear Dr. Frame speak about the many challenges and wins she has faced in her field, all while providing such impactful advice to those of us seeking healthcare-related careers.”
— Emily Carroll ’18, administrative assistant and graduate student at MBU’s Murphy Deming College of Health Sciences
MBU students had the opportunity to participate in sessions and conversations on career preparation, nontraditional mentorship, men as allies, networking for their first job, and salary negotiation; here facilitated by Nell Desmond, director of the Vantage Point, MBU’s office of personal and professional development.
“I am in a place where I would love to mentor anyone that would need to know all about my expertise in my field of dentistry. I have so much knowledge that I’m ready to pass on to anyone who would benefit from it. I want people to love what they do.”
— Janitza Rivera ’99, assistant office manager, Smiles for Life
I’m looking forward to next years women’s leadership Symposium.
Let's Be Real Authentic with Janitza 