"From Ordinary to Extraordinary" - Women's Leadership Program inspires book on professional achievement

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"The main theme is the lack of professional fulfillment, which invariably affects professionals at numerous moments in our careers," Cristina began by telling us, adding that during her 20 years of experience in the corporate communications market, in multinationals and large companies such as Avon, Pão de Açúcar, and Wallmart, she found herself asking the same questions that many of her colleagues were also asking: "I'm not happy. What is missing?".

"During the efforts to change, we would change jobs, embrace a new project, change careers, start an entrepreneurial project, but when the romantic phase passed, we would come back to thinking that that our professional fulfillment was missing."

It was WLP that inspired her to make an immersion in her own thoughts and to realize that looking at the ordinary of everyday life it is possible to find extraordinary and little explored things. And this "book is especially for today's employees who are suffering from so many rapid changes. We don't even have time to process what is happening, let alone to stop, to be silent, to look inside ourselves and realize what is our extraordinary, what is our ability and the gift that life has given us."

"What was amazing about WLP is that we always went deeper. There was provocation. In every class, we were challenged to look inward. There were people who did the reflections and expounded and people who did the reflections and stayed silent. I was one of them." However, it was in one of the program sessions, when a colleague in a breakout room commented that what she liked to do was similar to her reflections that she realized that sharing was the way to go.

"In addition to being sparked by one of these colleagues, I began to learn stories of incredible women who came to these conclusions without knowing they were implementing a self-reflection methodology. I realized I needed to tell their stories, so I could inspire other women and men. I collected five testimonials from classmates in my WLP class, out of twelve. Almost half!"

Networking was not the only thing Cristina kept from the WLP, a program 100% by and for women, focused on female leadership, and in which all faculty members and participants are female.

"When one woman stops to help another woman, a great strength is created. The WLP class has a group that is superactive. It's an all-female networking , which doesn't happen in groups in other courses I've taken where it's men. We need to be surrounded by people who bring out the best in us and not let what is around us contaminate us. We created a movement within WLP of mutual support that we carry to this day."