{"id":6951,"date":"2016-02-23T15:42:53","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T20:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/?p=6951"},"modified":"2021-04-18T22:31:45","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T02:31:45","slug":"win-from-within","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/articles\/win-from-within\/","title":{"rendered":"Media Ventures graduate student learns to “Win from Within”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Cait
Garima Sharma and Caitlyn Jenner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Garima Sharma shares what she learned from MAKERS 2016, a 36-hour action-plan to nurture leaders of tomorrow.<\/h3>\n

Dr. Seuss said, \u201cThere’s no limit to how much you’ll know, depending how far beyond zebra you go.\u201d If the wise doctor had accompanied me to the MAKERS 2016 conference earlier this month, he\u2019d have been proud of me for all that I learned. I suspect he would have even prouder of the MAKERS team, who poured their blood, sweat, hard work and emotions for months to put together the day-long conference, which saw over 400 women come together for three days of unabated learning.<\/p>\n

First held in 2014, the MAKERS conference brings together influencers, thought leaders, innovators and key policy-makers for a dialogue on change. This year, the speakers at the conference included Gloria Steinem, Katie Couric, America Ferrera, Halle Berry, Caitlyn Jenner, Rosie Rios, Bridget Everett, Abby Wambach, Sheryl Sandberg, Megan Smith and Kara Swisher, among others. While feminism is the underlying ethos of the conference, the 2016 theme was #TheTimeIsNow and the subsequent call to action was clear for the panelists and the audience to battle toothless initiatives and brainstorm on real solutions for gender equality.<\/p>\n

\"From
From left: Megan Smith, Ayah Bdeir, Jessica O Matthews and Justine Cassell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was a unique opportunity for me to be part of such a dynamic cohort. More significantly, it was an absolute honor to be the first student from Boston University to attend the conference as part of the MAKERS @partners program, which celebrates and acknowledges female leaders within leading companies and organizations, and connects them to a network of remarkable women. For me, the conference was like a mini-MBA class packed into 36 hours, where I became part of inspirational conversations, attended exclusive master classes and spoke to countless female change makers.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite speakers was Carla Harris (Vice Chairman of Wealth Management and Managing Director and Senior Client Advisor for Morgan Stanley). I nicknamed her session \u201cThe Carla Harris Bootcamp,\u201d for that is exactly what it was. The senior banker shared several hard-earned and hard-learned pearls from her repertoire about building a powerful personal leadership.<\/p>\n

I got Takeaway #1 from her session: FEAR is nothing but False Evidence of things Appearing Real. Ignore it, move forward.<\/p>\n

MAKERS, as an organization, has documented the stories of hundreds of women who have changed history and many of these women were in attendance. One of those was Abby Wambach, two-time Olympic gold medalist and FIFA Women\u2019s World Cup champion, who holds the holds the world record for most international goals scored by a male or female player.<\/p>\n

I got Takeaway #2 from her session: You need to win from within. That\u2019s how you become a winner.<\/p>\n

There are perhaps a dozen more lessons to share, but I\u2019d like to conclude with something that Academy Award winner Halle Berry said during her session. \u201cI realized that I had to be in charge of my own destiny and I had to be a part of the change in the industry\u2014not just sitting around pontificating, talking about what’s not right. I had to actively start to be a part of the change. That is the path to real change, when we realize we do have that power,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

And that truly is what can make a difference \u2013 taking charge of your destiny, making positive but far-reaching changes in your personal and professional lives, and not keeping your voice silent. Feminism is not a simple men versus women battle. Yes, gender equality is the strongest rallying cry but sometimes, being a feminist is about battling on your own silence.<\/p>\n

Three days later, when I left Palos Verdes for Los Angeles, I realized that no one can be an accidental feminist, an accidental leader or an accidental achiever. #TheTimeIsNow for change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Garima Sharma shares what she learned from MAKERS 2016, a 36-hour action-plan to nurture leaders of tomorrow. Dr. Seuss said,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10118,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[983,977,972,976,974,982,968,970,973,980,971,157,969,304,979,981,975,978],"bu-publication":[],"discipline-type":[],"bu_edition":[],"media_type":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/6951"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10118"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/6951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28091,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/6951\/revisions\/28091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6951"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=6951"},{"taxonomy":"discipline-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/discipline-type?post=6951"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=6951"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=6951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}