Karen Schofield, keynote speaker & trainer

Happy Friday! What a week it’s been 🙂

Not only have I co-authored and published a book which is *already* a bestseller on Amazon (woo hoo!!), we also hosted an event for International Women’s Day which went down a treat at Blue Yonder, featuring the wonderful Lara Meyer – thank you Lara!

Lara shared her story about her career, including her feelings of imposter syndrome, and gave the team some practical tips for how to deal with it. I love this for two reasons.

One is about vulnerability (and authenticity – one of our key values at Blue Yonder). Sharing personal stories about your own challenges can be difficult for many, so to hear about them from people who are confident and strong can really inspire, help us drive more open conversations and support each other better. A good reminder that others only see what we express on the outside, and that just because you might be experienced and seem confident doesn’t mean you’ve always got your shizzle together on the inside!

Secondly, being at Blue Yonder with our R&D heritage, our focus is always on the practical when it comes to insight, and that’s no different when we host events, talks or other activities. What can we learn? How do we apply it? There’s no point doing things just for the sake of them, there has to be purpose and a practical application. Thank you for joining us Lara.

In the session I also shared some of the content from my chapter in the book about gender bias in language. The top practical tip here is be aware of it, and then call it out, and since then we’ve had some fun playing a slightly weird game of ‘gender bingo’ in the office calling each other out on things like ‘manpower’ or if someone uses ‘he’ vs. ‘she’ or ‘they’. I’ve been called out myself, some of this is so ingrained in how we talk day to day!

Awaiting my printed copies which are due to arrive tomorrow – can’t wait to actually see it in print and read the other chapters!