I am no stranger to taking a few risks in my career. I have worked with dozens upon dozens of vastly different organizations; from tech start-ups to multi-national companies, and everything in between. I have been an employee, company owner, founder of a philanthropic organization, volunteer with countless not-for-profit organizations and offered pro bono services to various organizations. To say the least, it’s been a wild career ride, and frankly, I have zero regrets.
Our world is highly competitive. We need to be constantly learning, pushing ourselves beyond our comfort zones and broadening our skills. We simply cannot afford to remain stagnant and accept the status quo. If you do, everyone else will go flying by you. Once you stop moving you run the risk of becoming irrelevant and obsolete, which could be career suicide.
A close network contact of mine, and expert in the social learning field Salima Nathoo, has always inspired me “to be constantly curious”. Further, humans learn through so many different methods — online, in the classroom, at work, traditional methods and untraditional methods. We also learn by expanding and pushing our minds to develop our own unique ideas. For me, I learn by doing.
I Made an Important Decision
At an early age I knew I was a visual learner. I used to fall asleep reading textbooks because they bored the living daylights out of me. I would read a textbook but I wasn’t digesting a single thing. I had to learn by doing, which is probably why I loved doing projects in business school. I also knew that in order to be successful in my career I needed to conquer my debilitating fear of public speaking. Of course it didn’t help that my hearing sucked and I had a speech impediment. I literally feared for my life during high school that the teacher would pick on me to speak during class. I was terrified, horrified even. This fear continued through university, even though I made the conscious decision to beat it. I became less terrified of speaking up during class, but it was still extremely difficult.
It wasn’t until I was working that I decided to do something about my fear of speaking. I asked for help. I worked intensely with a speech therapist to learn strategies that I use to this very day. Now 17 years into my professional career, and a very slow process to get to where I am now, I am a regular speaker at various forums throughout North America. I have been able to share my unique ideas about the awesome world of HR, talent, recruiting, technology and social media.
But this post really has nothing to do with me. Rather, it has to do with you. This post is a call-out to every single HR/Recruitment practitioner out there who have done some pretty awesome and remarkable things. You also have not “taken the plunge” and shared your ideas with your peer group. I know many of you are terrified at the idea of speaking publicly. You often tell yourself that nobody wants to hear what you have to say. You tell yourself that you are not interesting, not a great speaker or the million other things that I would describe as excuses. This is perfectly normal. I did it, repeatedly for years and years. But guess what? You have a unique story to tell — it’s unique because what you have done in your career is unique to you.
A Challenge to YOU!
So… I am calling out to every single HR and Recruitment practitioner in the Greater Toronto Area who a) have some awesome ideas about the work you do, and b) have had at least one thought at some point during your career that you would like to give it a whirl to speak to a group. I challenge you to submit a topic for DisruptHR Toronto 4.0. But here’s the catch! The deadline is Friday, April 29, 2017 so you need to act fast.
All you need to do is go to www.disrupthr.co/toronto and click on the “Sign Up to Disrupt” button on the right-hand side. Give yourself 30 minutes and you’re done.
Oh, and if you still haven’t registered you probably should because we are likely going to sell out the Masonic Temple with more than 300+ of your peers attending.
