I attended my first "Kick Start Your Day" with APIW meeting today.  I was surprised at how good it felt to join up with a large group of women and just say hi from the comfort of my own home!  I have been to a few APIW gatherings and enjoyed talking to other women but sometimes it was hard to find common ground as strangers.  This zoom venue worked very well and made me feel more comfortable in speaking up.

I really appreciated that we heard from Angela Cecchinato, SVP Latin America, Operations, Chubb!  Her enthusiasm and positive personality was infectious.  Her key point was about resilience which resonated with the women who attended.  As an immigrant to the US I am always interested in women's success stories and hiccups along the way.  Her advice to me was that as a woman you need to speak up in meetings and get your questions or point across quickly.   There are still challenges we face as women whether it be from backgrounds that were not encouraging and sowed doubts in our minds or atmospheres that do not seem to lift up women enough.  As we have heard from others, many of us "fell" into insurance.  We didn't all have a plan or start off with confidence in the decisions we made but we have all learned and grown along the way and it is our responsibility to keep growing and bring along new women.  The resilience that Angela talked about has brought us all to APIW as we seek out other like-minded women.  We can lean on each other to expand our knowledge, our confidence and accept that it is ok to juggle, switch gears, occasionally fall but get right back up and forge ahead.   Thank you Angela for reminding me and others of the resilience we all have!