Welcome everyone to evolve the first event in this series. We're so happy to have you all here. We see the engagement in the chat. Thank you so much for your time. We're kicking this event series off and we are hopeful that you find this time very valuable. Stay tuned for other events in the series as well. So welcome. My name is Veronica Aguilar. I'm currently the assistant Vice President of outreach at Arizona State University. I am located here in Phoenix, AZ. I'm also very proud teach for America alumni here in Phoenix. I joined the core in 2012 and I'm currently still very involved with Teach for America. I sit as the alumni chair for the region, which has been so incredible and I. I'm also a founder of a nonprofit that. Focuses on female empowerment and like I mentioned, proud Teach for America alumni. I taught 4th grade at a school in downtown Phoenix called ASU Preparatory Academy and also coached a high school cheer team as well. And I am so excited to chat with you all about this topic and to support you all throughout this event. Thank you for joining us today. Today again and we really appreciate you taking part in these critical conversations to help you move forward in your career. So this may be a little bit new to you all. It was to me. So how to participate, right? So before we get started we wanna take care of few housekeeping items. So if you have any questions at all, put them in the Q&A using the Q&A function in your menu bar. Click the attendee chat icon on your menu bar to chat with fellow attendees. If you would like and teach for America staff are also on this call in the chat that they can respond to. To answer any type of logistical questions so we have closed captioning available which B could be controlled using the closed caption icon on your media player. Now we know this might be a new platform like I mentioned for many of you. So just to let you know this is completely customizable for your needs, which is really awesome. So if you want to make the video bigger, for example, feel free to resize it, move the media player around to suit your needs, whatever. Whatever fits your fancy with this, you're able to customize it. Alright, so I'm really excited y'all to lead you through our event tonight. We'll be engaging in two parts, so first I'll share a framework for crafting your story of impact and take your questions. Then we're going to do something really great. We're going to hop into breakout sessions together to workshop our stories alongside each other. Virtual face to face. Now your story of impact, as you know, is a representation of you who you are, what you're passionate about, and how you're working toward following that passion. It communicates the impact and outcomes you've had in a compelling way that shows you know versus tells the recipient that you aren't impact driven changemaker, right? So why craft a story of impact? Well, there are many reasons to do this now. First, people lean through, you know, they learn and lean in with a lot of vivid. Stories stories have a unique power of persuasion. So instead of rattling off numbers, details and outcomes, arranging these things into a story really allows you to stay memorable and for people to be inspired by your passion for change. Next, whether you're still in college or a seasoned professional, having a story of impact ready is just useful for any situation. I literally just met with a few business owners earlier and had my story of impact ready to go. And there are other things that we have, including on the screen here, like LinkedIn in an interview. Of course cover letter being able to network with an employer, speaking engagements, scholarships. I mean honestly in my own personal experience, both working as a recruiter for Teach for America and also in my formal role as a crew services director for a university. I often saw that candidates really did struggle the most when trying to articulate their own passion and. Impact specifically when they've been in roles were sometimes the outcomes and impact are traditionally difficult to identify right, and it may be very ambiguous, so it's hard to create clarity around those results. For example, right teach for America when applying if you apply in the future when teach for, America asks candidates to write reflections about why they're interested in the organization and what their most meaningful comp. Lishman TCe have been. So you know, it's really important to make sure that you have. A trend in your story. So for example, with me it's service education equity, right? It really helps you shape your story in a way that makes sense to you and for why you are applying for a specific role and the position that you want to be in. Now before we get into the basics of writing your own story of impact, I really want to make sure that you had an example to guide you along the way. So I reached out to a teach for America. Alumni will smart and he had. He has an amazing story of impact and I want to show you an example of how he's able to tell his own story. I want you to pause and take a moment to think about someone who made you feel like you can achieve something that you originally didn't think you could. Now imagine how did you feel after you cheat that thing? Good, right? Well, that feeling is the feeling of being in power, and that comes from a person who believed in you and pushed you to succeed. I wouldn't be where I'm at today had it not been for the many people who empowered me when I doubted myself. Like when I was playing high school basketball, my coach constantly pushing to dig deep into finished drills the right way, even though my legs felt like spaghetti and because of that I was able to outrebound players who were taller than me on game days or even how I got into the dryer Honors college at. Penn State I had no intention of applying. I thought I couldn't get in but my teachers at the time told me well they evaluate you on a holistic basis. So write those essays and apply anyway. We have nothing to lose and so I did. When I got in. I don't say this to brag, but to highlight the origins of one of my passions. I am passionate about empowering others because of those who believe in me. When I struggle to believe in myself. And I know I can never pay them back. The only thing I can do is pay for it, and what better way to pay it forward than become a teacher in my hometown of Philadelphia to empower my students to see their own life that lives within? So today I would like to share with you snippets of an initiative that I lead at my school and attempts to do just that. So when it came to my school, one of the main focuses of our mission was holistic development and ensuring that our students had a clear representation of themselves and their educational experiences. So when collaboration with other teachers of color at my school, we decided that it would be so great to have black and brown professionals come and speak to our students to share their experience and their career journeys. I was particularly passionate about this mission because growing up, I never really had professionals that look like me to come back and tell me about their lived experiences. And life in the in there in life in the real world, and their journey. And so I took the lead on this initiative because I wanted that to be a reality for our students. Because you know what they say, you can't be what you cannot see. So let's get them to see as many possibilities as possible. So we got to work. We got to work deliberating and planning on how we could partner with members of our community to join our work and our mission. And we also began to plan and how we can incentivize our students to attend. Due to the nature of what was at the time of new virtual world, we were unsure what the event would look like or if many people even be interested in coming. However, we were more successful than we anticipated. What we thought was only going to be one or two small events ended up turning into an entire speaker series of six events were over 40 plus attendees at each event. The power of the event came from the attendees being a mix of students, parents and staff members all coming together as a community outside of an academic setting to listen and to engage in dialogue with compelling professionals from a variety of fields and all in different stages of life. One of the professionals I would like to highlight was a young man who was a business owner. Now there were two things that were particularly compelling about this young man. He wasn't alumn of our high school and at the time he was a recent graduate, only two years old. He wasn't the lame cookie cutter nerd like I was right? No, his story was a little bit more complex, a bit more interesting, a bit more inspiring. He was a strong student leader. But he would sometimes get in trouble inside and outside of school and to protect his identity. I won't go too much into the details, but yet here he was in front of us, sharing his lived experiences, his ups and downs, his reflections and life lessons. His struggle to find his motivation, his path and his passions, and his perseverance through it all. He spoke with such a maturity and a wisdom that the crowd was in awe, watching and listening. Students began to raise the asking questions and even ask if he was hiring for the summer during our question and answer, part of the panel and his story was not only amazing to listen to, but impactful because he was just in their shoes few years ago. His story was really one of challenge, triumph and transformation which spoke directly to students who are in a similar position to where he was. They're on his time at school. And just like how his story appeal to a certain demographic of students, our engineers from Penn State appeal to another hour actress from Broadway appeal to another just and so on and so forth. Where radio hosts our lawyer, financial advisor, and so on. It was my goal to empower my students to have them see the light that lives within by bringing dynamic professionals who look like them and shared some of the backgrounds to them and also inspired them to see their own potential no matter where they're at in life. Matter who they are. And so seeing my students enthusiasm to ask questions and receiving positive feedback directly from them, hearing things like, hey, I actually might consider studying engineering when I go to school. Well, I didn't think it was possible to start a business this young. I can only hope that I was able to make at least half the impact that many of my life mentors have made on me because I know I can never pay it back. I can only pay it forward. And in closing I shared this story the way I did to highlight where my one of my passions stemmed from my passion for empowering others stem from those who empowered me and I sought to work to do that in the very work that I did. After I graduated from college. And when it comes to sharing stories and impact, it's so important. I have to say it's so important you have to own your own story. It's so easy to look at someone elses story and feel like maybe I don't have something to value because they did XY&Z I reject that I don't believe in that. In all of our lives, we have impacted the people in our lives and our communities in really cool ways. Whether they be big or small. So I encourage you to look within and really own your story. Thank you for listening. I'm wishing you all the best with this workshop. Wow, I really do agree with what will said about making sure to own your story. It's so easy sometimes to hear someone elses and wanna changers right? I mean that right there he owned his story and he clearly showed the impact in different ways. So you know as we craft our own stories of impact, these are some principles. So we want to make sure that we keep in mind we'll be walking through each of them together. So when you know first writing your story of impact, it really is important to ground yourself and what you are passionate about, right? Just like Google said so, for example, you know in my own story I would ground it in advocating and empowering others, especially those in vulnerable communities to achieve equity through education, right? I did this through my time with Teach for America. Now my work at Arizona State University and with my nonprofit that I founded to inspire young women. To break the gender gap, right. So when you write about your own passion, it's really easy to bring in the emotion. This will hook the reader the listener into your story and really allow you to be authentic and passionate about the work that you have done and the work that you wanted to do. Storytelling really builds and shows empathy, right? It allows others to relate to us in a meaningful way instead of just looking at statistics and numbers that storytelling creates that relationship. When we understand our audience, what they value, what inspires them were able to tell a much more compelling story about ourselves. That really leaves the listener or reader be even more connected to us. It leaves a memorable impression, so when we? Our first thinking about storytelling. We wanna ask ourselves the following questions, right? Who's my audience? What does this audience value? What will inspire them? What is the purpose of the story that I'm telling? How will this story be digested right? Is it through an interview? Is it a written statement? And what emotion do I? I want the reader to feel. And this is something that is so important, right? Show don't tell. So this aspect of your story is very important. It's very easy to tell someone you are hardworking. You are caring, you are funny which I'm sure you are, but actually demonstrating that to them through your actions and showing that you are hard working or whatever characteristic that you have of yourself, that you're able to sync up words to your actions. So this is a bonus tip for your resumes as well. By the way, showing. Through concrete fats, facts and statistics and actions that you did something achieve something versus simply just listing it out as a characteristic, right? So show that you found an organization and took the following concrete steps to bring in members to 100 people in the first year, right? You know instead of telling, I'm very hard working right? Showing that really allows someone to paint the picture of how hardworking you are and for impact driven work. Especially don't tell me. You are passionate about social justice. Show me how you took action on that passion. Another thing that's important is imagery, right? It's that literary device that creates a mental picture for the reader using five senses, right? We know the five senses. They're sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Now these senses are used to paint a picture for the reader. While you might not invoke all the senses right to your reader or listener, you can definitely invoke several to help paint the mental image storytelling. Really, through vivid imagery also invokes this areas of memory. That allows us to retain a story for a lot longer, right? It really does stick to us. So for example, take a look at this image right here. If I said it's hot outside, which in Arizona, by the way, it's always hot outside. That's not quite memorable, right? And doesn't really paint the picture for you in the experience, so you know when you think about it. If I said the sun was relentless as its rays enveloped the day, casting a red hue across the horizon. As it flames were streaking across the sky, the sidewalk felt as though it could melt away at any moment. First of all, my goodness, we should get inside somewhere, right? But this really does give you a very different experience of how hot I was experiencing my data. Being now you can do the same with your own experience. As you know you think about it, and there's a definite difference between stating I had an impact and truly painting that picture of your impact to the audience. Oh my goodness, be specific. 100% details are compelling y'all giving specific details of your story is very important. It really allows your audience to understand the depth of impact that you had. And please don't sell yourself short to everyone out there listening. Yes, be humble, but don't sell yourself short being general about your impact doesn't allow the audience to see the full extent of your actions and the resulting impact. So for example. Saying I made an impact is different from I found an organization right that serves young women and has led to thousands of jobs and placements. You can see the example right here on your screen as well, right? I raise money for an organization versus I fundraised for a nonprofit where I raised $10,000 through planning three events over four months. That really shows how you made the impact through details. Make it real. I love this so people tend to be right. I can assume everyone here kind of would agree with this. People tend to be more motivated by stories about a single individual as opposed to a large group, right? So there is power in a relatable story about one person, but that power really can sometimes be lost if you try to extrapolate it out of large groups. So for example, if I were to tell you a story about my former students and how they experience a ton of growth during my time teaching. They may feel like a nameless group of students, right? That you may or may not connect to. However, if I were going to tell you about my story, Claire, who I taught at ASU Prep in Downtown Phoenix, who was a 7th grader that I met, she was overcoming poverty homelessness. Her mother was ill as well. She ended up overcoming these obstacles by getting involved in school, working with Community resources, she achieved excellent grades, became captain. The cheer team that I coached actually applied and got accepted into the Honors College at ASU and eight years after me being her coach, she worked for me at Arizona State University during her senior year of college and is now working at a full time, high wage, high demand job. Now you're likely to have a deeper emotional connection. Once you heard about Claire right as an individual instead of the greater group that is a nameless group. Keep it simple and brief. Yes, keeping it simple and brief, it really is essential. You often only have a few minutes to make that impression, so following these guidelines really will allow you to maximize the attention that you have from your audience. So focus on your message and make it clear. Don't use, you know 50 words when ten will do the job. Now this shouldn't be at the expense of course, of that vivid imagery that we talked about, but it does mean to take a look and determine where you can make cuts without losing your impact and losing your message. So get your idea across without using jargon, right? Include you don't want to always include acronyms, right? Because your audience may not know those acronyms. Adding lots of long or technical words fools no one and can really diminish the impact of the message that you want to make. Throw away anything that doesn't help your message. Truly balance here is important. Now your writing needs to be clear and accessible and easy to read, but also needs to have soul. It needs to be interesting and also have personality. Choose your words wisely and make every word count. And like I mentioned, know your audience, know your audience. You really do. Sometimes may need to vary your story depending on the person or employer that you are speaking with and what they would find the most compelling. Do your research on an organization. Do the research on employees, maybe people you're interviewing, right? Let's say some of y'all out there are part of Greek affiliations or student organizations, and you look your interviewer up on LinkedIn and see that you have something in common. Right, that's one way to start up a conversation to really tailor your audience in a specific way in the employer that you talk to, because that will really resonate with them, right that you went that extra mile to do your research, but it will also make that deep connection to the mission that you have as a person with their organization. Well, let's return and listen to our friend will, right? So as you're listening I'm, I'm sure as we were talking through this year like, Yep, wielded, this wielded this. Let's try and identify where we'll incorporate these different elements of our storytelling principles. I want you to pause and take a moment to think about someone who made you feel like you can achieve something that you originally didn't think that you could. Now imagine how did you feel after you received that thing? Good, right? Well, that feeling is the feeling of being empowered, and that comes from a person who believed in you and pushed you to succeed. I wouldn't be where I'm at today had it not been for the many people who empowered me when I doubted myself. Like when I was playing high school basketball, my coach constantly pushed me to dig deep and then finished drills the right way even though my legs felt like spaghetti and because of that I was able to outrebound players who were taller than me on game days or even how I got into the shower honors college at Penn State. I had no intention of applying. I thought I couldn't get in, but my teachers at the time told me will they evaluate you on a holistic basis. So write those essays and apply anyway, we have nothing to lose and so I did. When I got in. I don't say this to brag, but to highlight the origins of one of my passions. I am passionate about empowering others because of those who believe in me. When I struggle to believe in myself. And I know I can never pay them back. The only thing I can do is pay for it, and what better way to pay it forward than become a teacher in my hometown of Philadelphia to empower my students to see their own life that lives within? So today I would like to share with you snippets of an initiative that I lead at my school and attempts to do just that. So when it came to my school, one of the main focuses of our mission was holistic development and ensuring that our students had clear representation of themselves and their educational experiences. So when collaboration with other teachers of color at my school, we decided that it would be so great to have black and brown professionals come and speak to our students to share their experience and their career journeys. I was particularly passionate about this mission because growing up, I never really had professionals that look like me to come back and tell me about there. Experiences and life in the in there and life in the real world and their journey. And so I took the lead on this initiative because I wanted that to be a reality for our students. Because you know what they say, you can't be what you cannot see. So let's get them to see as many possibilities as possible. So we got to work. We got to work. I love this. I for those who are here right now. Feel free to drop in the chat which elements the storytelling principles that you heard. Just now I've heard and saw right that painting a picture. I felt like I was there right when his legs were were feeling like spaghetti. I felt like I understood his passion, right? You know your passion used empathy. He was very specific. He made it real and he also showed us right the the story and showed us what experience. He had instead of just telling us so, we'll did a fantastic job, so you know, when you're thinking about your stories, kind of think of it this way. Write your story. Take a look at this and see what principles that you've checked off there. Now we just covered. Like I mentioned, the essential elements of your story of impact. Now in a moment, don't worry, we're gonna be putting all these elements together so you could really leave here today with a solid foundation for your story. That's our goal today, so let's briefly review the steps for writing your story and then in our workshop portion, we'll be able to go through them together. Now first you want to research your audience. Like I mentioned before, who is your ideal employer, right? For example, maybe Google and maybe piskor. Maybe teach for America. Yes, it's probably teach for America. Either way you want to get a sense of what the employer really values, who they are, the mission and the work. Now next you want to determine how and when your values align with your audience and employer. So using Teach for America. As an example, we value education and equity, so if you were to demonstrate outcomes or a story for Teach for America, you'd want to begin thinking through instances where you can show your commitment to equity. Now that leads us to step three here, which is to list out your values. Align stories right? So going back to our equity example, you'd want to list out the stories you can think of where you've done something or move towards creating greater equity. Maybe you were a leader of an organization or lived, worked, or volunteered in a low income community that really solidified your in your commitment and impact to creating equity. Any story that could be helpful here listed out, take a look and after listing your stories, you'll want to pick one that you feel the most passionate about. The one that you can really show, not tell. Write something that is exciting or has those inspiring details you want to think about, where the emotions you want to bring out in this story. What was the initial problem? How did you solve it? What strengths did you demonstrate in this story? What was the end result? This is a big one, y'all. Make sure you're able to communicate your end result and the impact that was made. Why does it inspire you? Now finally, like I mentioned before, your end goal is to get it all out, right? Ideally, writing it down even in bullets may be helpful, right? You'll want to choose a way of thinking through your story in a way that is best for you, where you'll remember the key points that you would like to express. Then you're going to want to refine it, making sure to use positive action verbs, vivid detail, and imagery. Just like the sun example and the empathy and emotion that we spoke through earlier. Now we're going to walk through these steps together. As I mentioned in our breakout session in a moment. But before we do, please feel free to ask any questions, whether in the chat or in your Q&A module there. And I'll take a look at the chat, see if there's any questions. See here. There might be a little bit of a delay, so we're going to wait a moment. OK. I love that I have a question here that says how many stories would you have ready as a college student interviewing for jobs? Great question. So when I think about this, so for example kind of paint a picture for you all. When I was graduating at Arizona State University I was applying to teach for America and I looked on the website which we're going to be practicing in the breakout sessions and I looked at their values and I had about two to three different stories for each of their values and you might go, Oh my goodness, that's that's a lot right? But when you think about it when you're in that interview and talking to that employer, if they ask you to show an example of. How you showed leadership right? You have a couple of examples that you can use based off of your conversation with the interviewer or employer, right? They may ask you how have you stayed organized, right? You're able to pick and choose. It's always better to be over prepared to have more options than underprepared. So like I mentioned, it really depends on how many values the employer has. But I always recommend two to three because you might get a little nervous too, right? So knowing two to three may help you pick and choose in that moment, in case your nerves can act up. That's a great question. Any other questions? Yes I agree shout out to long history of impact and passion for the work 100%. I see we have another one in here. We got two more. I imagine sometimes you'll have one minute to Share your story of impact, other times you'll have 5 minutes. Very true. Do you prepare different versions of your story of impact because of this? That's a really good question. So when I think even for example of my experience and stories with Teach for America, you know you. You think about that 32nd elevator pitch is sometimes what they call it, right? Really, shortening your trend in story in that one minute. If they say, just hey, tell us about yourself, not even asking about the the star questions or the values, just tell me about yourself, Veronica, right? That right there, that's my like one minute. Hitch of myself sharing my story of impact and you know obviously will took a few more minutes there to dive deeply into one part of his story. So I would have both ready to go your one minute story of yourself and then obviously the five minutes like that was asked in here examples of each of those values, so I would kind of do a little bit of both. Good question. How personal is too personal in storytelling? I would say it really does depend on what organization or employer that you are applying to, right? So some organizations like nonprofits that are emotionally heavy, they may ask you experiences specifically that might tie to their mission, right? You may need to get a little vulnerable there, but my. Always go to answer for this as whatever you feel comfortable with while still being professional, right, showing your passion and emotion in an interview is absolutely OK. Don't stay away from that, but if you feel uncomfortable as certain parts of your story sharing, practice it. Practice it with a friend. Practice it with a roommate, right? So when you do get those questions to be a little more vulnerable, you're ready for that, and you're prepared. Yep, I agree. Being effective I love it, yes. Uhm? I'll do one more question here. Before we do breakout groups, so would you encourage us to be our authentic self when it comes to our stories that may include cultural components, yes. Always bring your authentic self to an interview. Like I said, but of course being strategic and aligning it to the goals and missions of the organization. But being your authentic self when you think about interviews, y'all, it it really is. Yes, you're being interviewed, but you're also interviewing the employer. Don't forget that. So when you're being your authentic self, you want to make sure that it's a good fit both ways, so I would never discourage you from not bringing your full self to the interview. Of course, maybe don't lay all the cards out on the table in the first one. Minute story of yourself, right, but I think. But when you're in those interviews and you're sharing your story, also make sure to ask questions so that interviewer as well to hear their story right. That is one of the things I love to do. An interview is tell. Tell me your story right. Like I know I shared mine. The interviews with me, but I'd love to hear about you, right? 'cause in your head you're like, is this also something that I would be able to bring my authentic self to and be my best self right? So yes. But also make sure to keep it professional as well. I think we're going to move into breakout groups. I did see one more question that popped in here. I know there's a little bit of a delay. Do I have any tips on how to make your story more concise? I really liked earlier what we talked about. The bullet points of having the outline. I think that is super key, and being able to practice that sometimes individuals have a tendency to carry on in their story for a long time, especially a part of their story that they're super excited about, right? So I would. Outline it with bullet points to make sure that you're giving specific parts of your story the the time and and the space that it deserves, especially if it's time to one of the missions of the employer. So that's how I would do it. I've actually timed myself a few times with different behavioral interview questions on my phone and recorded it on on zoom. Very uncomfortable. Watch afterwards, but it was very helpful with timing and you can also see how you're answering the question as well so you can perfect it as well. Good, I'm glad this was helpful. Awesome y'all. So what we're going to do now? Thank you all so much who are listening right? Some of us aren't here right now communicating, but thank you so much for those who are listening. We're going to be transitioning into our breakout sessions. But before we do that, I just have to say again, thank you all so much for attending and listening to this session. It really is amazing the time that you are all taking being here today wanting to develop as a leader through your professional development opportunities such as these like this is the first step. Right to knock these interviews out of them. _1713597885651