A year to be thankful for - 2021

Another year gone by! Reflections of 365 days that made year 2021 what it was! A year that each of us hoped would be better than the previous year - the year 2020!

And it certainly was better, as it brought me numerous opportunities to create the impact that I wish to. As my LinkedIn headline says "Passionate to bring about a positive mindset shift among women and students with every interaction that I have with them", this year made it possible to interact with many.

Panel discussions are always thought provoking and insightful. They enable diverse perspectives, educate, inspire and spark the audience's curiosity. A format of conversation that is highly impactful not only with the listeners but for the moderator and the co-panelists too.

The Grief to Growth Roundtable series hosted by Hopeworks Foundation was an initiative to help people who had gone through grief or supporting someone who had gone through grief. It was launched when India was experiencing the devastating second wave of COVID with the country facing innumerable loss of lives. Topics that were discussed as part of these series ranged from 'How can Organisations become Safe Spaces for expressions of Grief', 'How and Where does one start to Rebuild their Lives after Loss', 'Enabling Children to Grow after experiencing Loss', and 'Leadership Lessons from the Crisis'. I had the opportunity to moderate the Roundtable on Enabling Children to grow after experiencing Loss. As a moderator, I learnt as much as the audience did in terms of what children go through, how they react and respond, and what we can do to support them through the period of loss and grief.

I was invited to several other panel discussions in the course of the year too, both as a moderator as well as a panelist, and I learnt immensely from each of them.

Podcasts are growing in popularity. Many platforms and organisations are using it as a medium to inspire social change. I was thrilled to be invited as a guest on many podcasts in the year 2021.

Taking her Lead is one such podcast where Joshua provides a platform to women leaders who are at different stages of their career, to tell their stories and and share their experiences of how they lead. I had a great conversation on this podcast sharing my Learnings, Experiences and Events that have shaped my path!

You know that the impact multiplies when one of the podcasts gets played on a broadcast medium like Radio!

Was such a pleasant conversation on Success with Savitha with was later aired on Chennailive 104.8

Why do I do what I do? Why do I find and utilise every opportunity that comes my way to speak at events, mentor women and write on various platforms? My style of narration, be it as a speaker at events, as a mentor or as a writer is of sharing experiences. Narrating stories and experiences of my challenges, my successes and the journey in between, has always captured the audience attention! I see them committing to taking action after listening to me or reading my articles! It's a pleasure to see them transform.

I discovered Mentza , an audio platform where listeners can catch all conversations live. These are 20 minute long conversations which also fits in well with the audience attention span. I shared my experiences of how it is important to speak up, any time and every time, to make one's presence felt as part of Mentza's audio series called "Inflection point".

A few years ago I came across this talent pool of women who were willing to restart their careers after taking a career break, but were being held back. Held back by demons in their own minds and demon like employers who believed that the break had wiped out all the knowledge, experience and skillsets that the women possessed before going on that break. Hence, any project or initiative that would open doors for these women (both in their own minds and in the organisations looking to hire women) has been an area of interest to me. One such satisfying interaction that I had in 2021 was with the community members of Mums and Stories. Speaking to them on what it takes to get back to work after a career break was such a happy experience.

Webinars continued to dominate the virtual scene in 2021. And last year, I too had my share of attending and also delivering masterclasses virtually. Effective Networking, Storytelling as a Communication Tool, Work Life Integration were some of the topics that I spoke on through the year.

Platforms like Zoho Projects, Aspire For Her, VMinclusion Taara, JobsForHer, Shevolve, Sipping Thoughts, BANC, Women who test, Society of Women Engineers, Herkey, Project Management Institute, IEEE, HEN enable networking, building communities, learning, knowledge sharing, giving back to the society, building one's personal brand and more! 2021 saw me delivering masterclasses on all these platforms!

I was also impressed with the various platforms that educational institutions had started for students, to interact with their peers as well as gain exposure to the external industry. Today, there is no dearth of learning resources available for anyone, especially for students. All one needs to do is manage their time effectively and take action to see the results.

The year also put my emotional resilience to test, like it did for many others. Physically and mentally fighting COVID that my immediate family went through, made me reflect and thank the almighty for the blessings that I have been bestowed with. Support from family and friends, known and unknown people through WhatsApp and social media, the healthcare workers, support staff from home and from friends' houses, all put together helped pull us out of the nightmare that lasted a few weeks. Having faith and something to anchor oneself on is most important to sail through such difficult times. That's why when The Bulletin Box approached me to speak about a topic that would benefit their audience, I decided to share my thoughts and experiences on Building Emotional Resilience

Year 2021 brought many clients who were invested in grooming their employees and equipping them with skills of the future! Interesting engagements came my way in the form of curating events for employee resource groups, conducting workshops, delivering keynote addresses, coaching people and designing and delivering series of leadership development programmes.

Choose to Challenge being the theme for International Women's Day 2021, I was glad to be able to build interventions for several corporates, which helped trigger mindset changes in the participants. Importance of Networking, Building one's Personal Brand, Bridging the Gender Gap, Work Life Integration, Women in Leadership, The Glass ceiling for women, Understanding Purpose - Ambition| Goals| Life, Understanding Unconscious Bias were some of the topics that organizations focused on in 2021!

Year 2021 was a powerful year because of the power of communities that I belong to. Madhura DasGupta Sinha's platform Aspire For Her, with a vision to create a generation of financially independent women by turning every woman's aspiration into action, was the much needed Oxygen to keep the energy going every day of the year! Shilpa Ajwani's community Shemantra and the micro-communities that exist within it reassured me every day that we were all together in whatever we did and achieved. It also pushed us towards our goals and nudged us to move out of our comfort zone. With Shewrites, Shereads and Shefilms, I found the much needed catalyst to reach larger audiences in different creative ways. Kicking off the video series with my favourite (and signature) topic of Networking was definitely a step outside my comfort zone. What was challenging initially became a part of my journey, on the path of continuous improvement.

I also had the opportunity to interact with the ecosystem that enables Persons with Disability - by skilling them, by believing in the potential of every person and guiding them towards employment or entrepreneurship. Maya CARE is an organisation that offers free services to the elderly, supported entirely by a team comprising of Persons with Disability. The interactions that I had with their team of volunteers and employees made me wonder why most of us judged people based on disabilities rather than their capabilities. This realisation was further enhanced when I got an opportunity to curate an event for the International Day for Persons with Disabilities. I now try and bring in inclusiveness in everything that I do - as an example, in the past, if I had to book a venue for a social gathering, I would have criteria like location, cost, size of the hall etc. Now I ask whether it is enabled for Persons with any form of Disability to enter the venue comfortably and enjoy the event just like any other person!

I was thrilled to be featured as one of the 40 women in the book published by Career After Family - stories of 40 inspirational women who found courage and motivation to swim, not letting age or anything else be a limiting factor. They dared to dream, take action and aim higher for their life.

Did everything that I worked on in 2021 create the impact that I wished to create?

Bring about a positive mindset shift among women and students with every interaction that I have with them

Winning JobsForHer's Herrising award was a validation that my work was having the desired impact. It now propels me to do more, and I will do more in Year 2022!

I have a lot to be thankful for Year 2021 - the year that was better than 2020. I also have something pending from this year that I'm now carrying forward to the next year.

Writing the NeerSpires series for Aspire For Her had triggered the thoughts of compiling them into a book which I wanted to see published by my milestone birthday. The birthday went by, but the book is yet to be published. I take this as my top priority among the many items in my To Do list for Year 2022! The love and respect that I have received from my followers across the globe who are keenly waiting for the book to be published is unimaginable. I will not disappoint and let them down.

As Irving Berlin said - “Got no checkbooks, got no banks, still I’d like to express my thanks. I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.”