#IamRemarkable Session
Welcome to a Remarkable Journey - Empowering Individual Success Stories
Hello, everyone! I am Harald Hacker, working as a content writer in a prodigious IT company. In these challenging times, I hope you all are safe and healthy. Today, I want to share with you a powerful initiative that aims to encourage people to openly express their personal achievements, an initiative known as 'I am Remarkable'.
Understanding The 'I am Remarkable' Initiative
'I am Remarkable' is an initiative that was conceived internally by two inventive minds at Google. The primary objective was empowering women to speak confidently and candidly about their accomplishments. As the initiative took shape, it became evident that it was not confined to just one gender but was pivotal in empowering all underrepresented groups. There are two salient points to this initiative:
- Boosting confidence among individuals, encouraging them to talk openly about their achievements.
- Challenging societal perceptions about self-promotion, which often bear a negative connotation.
There is a pressing need to view self-promotion as a critical tool for personal and professional growth rather than as 'bragging'. This realization accelerated from my personal experiences where my inability to discuss my achievements cost me career opportunities.
Addressing the Challenges of Self-Promotion
It is essential to understand how societal norms have conditioned us to avoid self-promotion, a hurdle we need to overcome actively. Negative social perceptions around self-promotion often deter us, creating a fear of being overshadowed by more vocal peers. Unconsciously, these notions also reinforce stereotype and biases against individuals from different race, gender, age, or ability, wrongly assuming their success as a result of sheer luck instead of recognizing their hard work.
The 'I am Remarkable' initiative focuses on changing these narratives and promoting a culture of appreciation for individual success stories.
Importance of Inclusivity in the Work Environment
Inclusivity in a work environment is crucial, reinforcing the notion that everyone should have the chance and opportunity to openly discuss their accomplishments. Language is an important factor that often leads to discrimination in a work environment if it isn't the individual's first or even second language.
Compelling research data sheds light on the importance of diversity and inclusivity in the workplace:
- Companies with women on board as directors have recorded 53% more returns.
- Firms demonstrating racial and ethnic diversity have outperformed financial returns by approximately 35%.
However, we still face alarming situations where nearly 47% of the LGBTQ+ community leaves their jobs due to prevalent discrimination, leading to a loss of a staggering $64 billion solely for companies in the USA.
Countering Discrimination and Encouraging Self-Promotion
In the current era, it is now more than ever essential to talk openly about your achievements, holding on to your narrative. This exercise serves as not only an empowerment tool but also advocates positive change within societies and work environments.
To uphold the essence of this initiative, I encourage you to participate in this exercise and share two of your achievements you are most proud of, with the prefix: 'I am remarkable because...' In the spirit of leading by example, "I am remarkable because I take care of my home, and I had the honor to speak at the Women Tech Global Conference."
So, what makes you remarkable? Let's start this discussion in the comment section below. Remember, every achievement counts, and we are here to applaud it. Thanks for being part of this session!
Video Transcription
Hello, everyone. My name is Harald Hacker and I'm working as a content writer in one of the it companies over here. I hope you all are safe and sound. Let's start with, I am remarkable.It was an initiative which was started by an two Googlers internally with an aim to empower women to talk openly about their own achievements. And over the course of time, we realize that it is not only for women. So the people of underrepresented groups needs to open, needs to be boosted to speak openly about their own achievements. The initiative has major two aims. First is to encourage everyone to be part of it and especially underrepresented groups to give confidence, to speak openly about their own achievements.
And second is to challenge the perception around the self promotion which the society has built. I do remember one such incident where I was not able to openly talk about my own achievements and due to which I lost a job opportunity. And that's when I realized that I need to start talking openly about my achievements because it is not bragging. If it's based on facts, the society has always taught us to be more modest and to not openly speak about our achievements. But that's not the case at all. Because if we do not speak about our achievements, it is not going to speak for itself. And we need to understand this thing and challenge the society's perceptions when it comes to self promotion. I do remember recently I had a review meeting which went very bad because I was not able to talk properly about my own achievements. And that's when I realized that I need to flex up this muscle and find my own narrative. When it comes to talk about my own achievements. That's not only the case, another major impact which most of the week face but self promotion is that we all have a fear that we might lag somewhere behind in front of our peers who are better or who are way better at self promoting.
This is an alarming situation being in the 21st century that women and men both do not like women who promote themselves. This is socially fraught because of the societal pressures and the cultural norms which we are taught. Number one, it is said that the women, a research shows that a woman who self promotes herself is very likely to not be loved by the society and is le less. Hi. Hi, and is proud to be less attractive, which is wrong. And another thing which society has embodied on us is that we need to be more modest in to make sure that the people around us are comfortable with us and like us, that's not the only problem. Another major issue is when we see people of different race, gender age ability, we instantly have this unconscious bias that they are successful just because they might have got lucky. But that is something which is not true. We really need to change this narrative for people and stop and accept the people and their achievements on the basis of their hard work. Furthermore, the underrepresented groups also has different levels of self advocacy and we need to understand these levels. And the major impact is of language.
If we are working in a company where l where our, our spoken language is not the first or even the second at the workplace, then there are highly chances of people being discriminated on the basis of their language. So it is extremely important to have a safer and inclusive environment where everybody has a chance and an opportunity to speak openly about their own achievements. There was a research done which showed that the women who are at the, who are the board directors, such companies are very high has 53% of returns and have performed fairly well. Another research has shown that the companies having the f racial and ethnic ethnic diversity have outperformed the financial returns by 35%. This shows that how much does diversity and inclusivity has an impact in the world. It is such a shame. It is such a bad research which just shows that how discrimination happens at the workplace. It shows that 47% of LGBT Q community had left their job because of the discrimination which they face in their everyday life due to which in us alone, companies have faced loss of $64 billion.
This is alarming situation and we really need to understand the impact it is creating in our day to day lives. Hence talking openly about your own achievements and holding on to your narrative is extremely important. And we need to understand the importance of spoke, speaking openly about it now that you know the importance of talking about your own achievements. I really want you to participate in a group exercise and share two achievements of yourself which you are proud of. I want you to write in the comment section, two achievements which you are proud of stating. I'm remarkable because I'll go first that I am remarkable because I take care of my home. And I'm remarkable because I got an opportunity to talk at Women Tech Global Conference. Thank you for attending the session.
