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VANESSA CHRISTINA DSOUZA
M.Sc. Learning & Development in Organisations (2018) | MBA Human Resources (2012)
An AHA MOMENT💡
For years I was told (indirectly and directly) that I needed to know everything ...I felt the pressure, and still do sometimes, but I have a strong group of people who remind me that I still got what it takes to get things done and be my true authentic self.
I've worked with leaders, employees, friends, acquaintances who have felt the pressure and responsibility to have the right answers. I think its an ongoing battle, but we can try out new ways to feel more confident and be prepared to face these situations.
Here are some tips I shared with them that worked well!
❇ When possible, co-create! -> When faced with a problem (esp. in a team setting), what you might think is the best solution, might not always be
❇ Take time to understand the context
❇ Listen intently
❇ Be patient with yourself and others
❇ Leverage the power of communities, like-minded people, knowledge-sharing events, and take time to reflect and practice what you've learnt
❇ Be kind to yourself, please! If you feel like you're not in the position to do so, reach out to a friend/supporter
🌍 10 organizations + 4 countries + 7 cities since 2012, my journey has been anything but linear!
When I spoke to my family about this few weeks ago, they were pretty surprised.
Interestingly, although I started working in 2012, I haven’t had a continuous 12 year career trajectory.
I made some unconventional choices- to study again, take up temporary job contracts, a personal break and looking for a job, which is still an ongoing quest today.
It's a journey I don't take lightly. Sharing this journey with recruiters and hiring managers has been a constant endeavor... to validate my worth in this competitive job market, where I’m put against such amazing professionals, hasn't been easy.
Yet, I try to put on my 'growth mindset' cap 🎓, celebrating and learning from each experience, no matter how challenging it might be.
This morning, I made a list of the sectors that have shaped my career:
- 💡 EdTech & HR Tech
- 🏦 Financial Services
- 📚 Education
- 🏦 Banking
- 🚗 Automotive Industry
- 🏭 Industrial Automation
- ❤️ Volunteering in NGOs (Education, Art, Children/Youth Mentoring)
And not to forget:
- 🌟 Freelance support for coaches
- 🎨 Being a solopreneur in Creativity, Art & Design + People Development projects
This reflection has helped me to recognise the value of my experiences, especially the value add in the L&D/People space, where Business acumen is as crucial as content creation and LMS management - a balance and perspective often overlooked.
🤔 Have you taken a moment to reflect on your journey? I'd love to hear your stories!
#SquigglyCareer #reflections
Inspiration, inspired, inspiring.. ☀️
🌷Some inspiring things that I’ve come across in the past month:
• A fun newsletter by Joey Cofone - It definitely tickles my brain. I highly recommend subscribing to it!
• L&D SHAKERS community events- I’ve been catching up on the YouTube recordings of the events. Thank you catalysts for putting them up and helping me in my learning journey
• Offbeat fellows and the inspiring newsletters- The community of fellows are always buzzing with new ideas, challenges, learnings and the events have been so helpful and useful too. Thank you all!
• Getting deeper into evidence-based research around learning agility and behaviour change. This one is really exciting for me and it’s definitely keeping me busy
I’ve decided to share my learnings more frequently here, it helps me stay in check. Also, I will slowly get back to connecting with people. Watch out, I might drop you a message to chat soon
Image: lluseum Berlin, such a fun place to visit ✨
'The Emotion Wheel'
I learnt about 'The Emotion Wheel' a couple of months ago and I'm sharing this with you today.
This helps me to pause and check in with myself from time to time. Sometimes its hard to put the feelings to words and actions, and that's when this tool could help.
Miro Board template:
https://miro.com/app/dashboard/?tpTemplate=emotions-wheel&isCustom=false&share_link_id=607259879714
More about Emotion Wheel:
- https://positivepsychology.com/emotion-wheel/
-https://www.betterup.com/blog/emotion-wheel
A Learning log.. 🤔
Over the years I've tried to come up with different ways to record all my learnings in one place and be consistent with it.
For this, I've started using Notion more proactively to help me keep things simple. The AI feature helps to summarizes my learnings of the week and it's fascinating to view the broad a range of topics I cover. Besides this, Pocket has also been useful to save important and interesting links to read/listen to later.
I guess I'm trying to follow 'Addition by Subtraction' and eliminate the tools methods, practices that don't serve me.
Authentic Self ✨
They asked me (..and still do)
- What are you doing with your career?
- Aren’t you too old for this?
- Why do you have these career gaps?
- Why Art? Why HR/ L&D?
The truth is, I wouldn’t change A THING!!
All my experiences thus far, have made me more resilient and given me some interesting transferable skills too😊
Cheers to the people who dare to dream, take risks, speak up and most of all, work towards making this world a better place 💛
P.S.: This pic was taken at one of my first solo Art exhibitions in The Netherlands. Good times :)
📣Leaders aren't defined by their job title, but by their behaviour
I truly believe that there is a leader in each one of us. We don’t need a title to prove it.
I read an interesting take on being a Spark (leader) by Angie Morgan, Courtney Lynch and Sean Lynch, and I had to share 👇🏼
Hope you embrace the ⚡️ you always had within you, to lead 🙂
What's Your Recipe?
#foodforthought
Sometimes it’s easier for me to express myself through my artwork 😎
I’ve been thinking a lot about what creativity means to me and the image below is my recipe 👩🍳 it makes me really happy!
Art is a fun way for me to get my message across, a good conversation starter and also super interesting to hear what other people think🙃
What's your recipe for creativity?