Hello and Welcome to the second blog of SLP Session 2! Our day was packed with amazing speakers who taught us more about Leadership Within the Workplace.
For breakfast we had an asortment of goods from Mitchell’s Coffee House. Our first speaker of the day was our very own Katie Worthington-Decker who gave us an overview of Lakeland. Even though I have heard Katie give this talk before, and I’ve lived here all my life, I still manage to learn something new about Lakeland every time I hear it.
After Katie, we welcomed Dr. Katherine Loh who talked about culture shock and how to buy in where you are. Each table group was presented with three questions: “What makes you happy?”, “What is an inclusive team and how do we get there?”, and “What is a cohesive team and how do we get there?” The different tables discussed these questions and shared their answers. Since Dr. Loh is a professor and advisor at Florida Southern she was able to provide a lot of insight about culture shock and how it affects college students. I thought she did a fantastic job of explaining how it happens and giving practical ways to embrace it and make the best out of it.
The next speaker of the day was Chris Hammond from Allen & Company, who shared with us a financial literacy talk. He walked us through his 4 keys to success financially. The idea of finances has always really confused me, but Chris made it seem very simple which helped me a lot. Following his talk he held a very interactive Q & A, he even stayed after as we had lunch and a lot of participants were very eager to chat with him more.
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Our lunch was served to us from Our Noire which is located here at Catapult. I had a very delicious Pork Belly sandwich.
Next on our list of amazing speakers was Sylvia Blackmon Roberts from South Eastern University. Her talk was titled ‘Building Belonging through the Values of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity’. I loved how she talked about the value of bringing up problems instead of telling people what to do different. One of my favorite things she said was “I don’t have to be anti you in order to be pro me”. Hearing that sparked a lot of thought in my head of how I can actively be aiming to include everyone.
Finally, our final speaker was Michelle Ledford from Made. She lead us through how to build your personal brand. Participants were walked through a handout which did a very good job in helping you assess yourselves. Through session 1 and up to now I realized I am very bad at assessing myself but Michelles handout has helped me more than anything to figure it out somewhat. Another thing Michelle walked through was how to have a good LinkedIn in profile, which I desperately need. Feel free to add me here.
After our long, very educational day we had our social at Revival.
Thank you so much for reading!
- Carter Sandman (SLP Intern)