What Are Your Favorite Photos Of 2019? Here Are Mine

What are your favorite photos of 2019? Nine of mine are below.
But first, if you are interested in my bulk book purchases for my second book early access offers expire on December 31, 2019 so act fast and take a look here for free coaching, keynotes, and leadership development work.

Back to my photos, I use the app PicPlayPost to create the collage on my iPhone, why not gather your favorite nine photos that tells the story of your year you want to share with your team and network?
First picture, Peter Bowes invited me back on his show on BBC Radio 5 live to talk about leading a productive and more focussed life.

Second picture, shows the two day learning experience I created with VP of Marketing at Ingram Micro, Jennifer Anaya and her senior leaders.

Third picture is taken when I was speaking infant of 1000 women in technology leaders at Women of The Channel East in New York in December.

Fourth and sixth picture is taken at Gartner's Evanta London Executive Summits. They have brilliant C-suite events in various cities around the world.

Fifth picture shows a preview of the book cover of my second book Rapid Growth, Done Right: Lead, Influence and Innovate for Success, published by Kogan Page in May 2020. Early access bulk book purchases including free coaching, keynotes, and leadership team work are available until December 31 2019 here so act fast.

Sixth picture shows my incredible publisher Christopher Cudmore, and brilliant Marketing executive Jaini Haria when I visited them in London to plan the 2020 launch. If you want to talk about your events or how I can support you in the coming year, reply yes please and we can talk.

Seventh and ninth picture shows the inaugural launch of The Wright Exchange, at Shutters in Santa Monica, an invite only executive event and community for CEOs, Board Members, and senior executives. The launch featured 25 executives who flew in from Europe, New York, Seattle, and Silicon Valley to exchange stories, exchange ideas, and exchange advice. Want to be considered for the next event? Reply and let me know.

What story could your nine pictures tell your team?

Dedicated to growing your business,

Val

P.S. I hope you enjoyed this week's VAL-uable Insights, sign up here to get them in your inbox each Monday morning: http://valwrightconsulting.com/newsletter-sign-up/

Watch Out For An Exciting Special Christmas Eve Announcement From Me

Research shows that the act of looking forward to an exciting event is as pleasurable as the event itself, now this debunks the idea that surprises are a good idea.

Given that research, I am giving you an exclusive preview into an announcement that I will be making on December 24. It won't be public on my social channels as the news doesn't officially go live until January, but as a regular reader of my work, I want to give you early access. If you are not on my email list already, sign up here www.valwrightconsulting.com or if you want my text updates enter your cell phone number here www.textvalnow.com.

As for the research saying surprises do not bring as much joy as the act of looking forward to something...My dad used to make everything a surprise when we were growing up, from the weekend long winding car journeys to mystery destinations, to where we might end up on vacation, everything was a magical surprise. With three young daughters of my own, I completely understand now why my dad did it, it simply removes the complaints and protests if you don't know.

I promise I'll not keep the surprise any longer and will tell you on the 24th, as long as you are on my email or text list. Everyone else will just have to wait until January.

Shhhh!

Until the 24th.

Dedicated to growing your business,

Val

P.S. I hope you enjoyed this week's VAL-uable Insights, sign up here to get them in your inbox each Monday morning: http://valwrightconsulting.com/newsletter-sign-up/

Do You Know How It Feels To Be The Only One In The Room?

"I’m the only man in a workshop with 50 women. I was just told this is how women in IT feel every day. The entire room had a good laugh. But I have a new perspective."

 That is what SVP at The Channel Company Robert DeMarzo shared this week. Sometimes you need to have a moment just like that to truly be able to begin to understand how someone else might feel every single day of their life.

There were 10 men among the 1000 leaders attending the event I spoke at The Women of The Channel East Summit in New York. GoogleCloud worked with the organizing team to create a parallel experience: Men As Allies to educate, understand, and inspire action.

It was a refreshing change. Hearing from men who wanted to be advocates for addressing pay gaps and career advancement support rather than gathering women to solve the issues. Same applies to other discrimination, don't gather your under represented minorities and ask them to solve the hiring, retention, and representation issues - take on the challenge yourself.

If your team all looks the same, thinks the same, and has a similar background, you won't create the best products and experiences for your customers.

It starts with understanding what it feels like to be the only one in the room.

What can you do?

Attend events where you will be the only one like you. Did you know Afrotech had 10,000 engineers, entrepreneurs and founders attend this year? 

Follow diverse voices online. Arlan Hamilton went from sleeping in San Francisco airport to investing over $5m in founders who are people of color, women, and/or LGBT. Listen to her podcast and pre order her book It's About Damn Time.

Attend events and conversations where you can seek to understand and take action. Watch this space for what the The Channel Company will be doing next at there events, I predict they will continue to lead in this area.  

Listen to those who are ahead of you in taking action John Zissimos VP at Google is on the advisory board of The 3% Movement he has a fascinatingly candid twitter feed where his honesty is refreshing.

Finally, probably most importantly STOP blaming your recruitment team for not delivering you a diverse slate of candidates - go out and build your own network and take this on yourself.

Share this article publicly and tag someone who is making a difference in this area so others can learn from proven success.

Share this article privately if you want to start the conversation in your company about what action you can be taking to change the game.

It's time to be thoughtfully ruthless.

Dedicated to growing your business,

Val

P.S. I hope you enjoyed this week's VAL-uable Insights, sign up here to get them in your inbox each Monday morning: http://valwrightconsulting.com/newsletter-sign-up/