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The second speaker during the “Be Your Best Advocate” Ted-style talk at the 7th annual Women of Color and Their Allies (WOCA) event was Jarrod Harden, DEI Strategy Implementation Manager at BASF (No. 22 on the 2024 Top 50 list). Following a talk on the value of self-advocacy from Marriott International’s Porsche Pettiford, Harden spoke about building confidence in yourself.
He started the conversation by asking the audience to think about a scenario. The scenario was to think of a friend who is talented and dependable. Someone you can count on “when things go left,” he said. This person tells you they are ready for their next thing. Maybe it’s a new job or a promotion at work or opening a business. Then, they tell you they are going to go for it.
Harden asked if you were the type of person to tell your friend to stay where they are, or do you tell them to pursue this next thing? As WOCA attendees, he said audience members were likely people who would tell this friend to take the right steps and go for it. Then, he challenged attendees to be that supportive friend for themselves.
Be Confident and Say ‘Yes’ to Yourself
Advocating for yourself or being self-confident is challenging for a lot of people. One reason it’s difficult is fear of someone saying, “no.”
“If you tie your value to an outcome or to hearing ‘yes,’ well then ‘no’ becomes even bigger,” he said. “I encourage you to remember that you’re bigger than hearing ‘yes’ from some external source.”
Needing to say “yes” isn’t invalid when it comes to paying bills or putting gas in your car. But it’s important to “let that ‘yes’ come from you,” Harden said.
Own Your Accomplishments
For many women, it’s hard to self-promote and own their accomplishments because they fear being boastful. Harden mentioned a free program called “I’m Remarkable,” which was initially built for women to help them own their accomplishments. He said one of his favorite slides from the program says, “It’s not boasting if it’s based on facts.”
“There’s some real societal and cultural reasons we don’t own our accomplishments,” he said. “For women, very often, society has had them in roles where you’re not supposed to speak up. You’re not supposed to be the person leading. We know that’s not the case anymore.”
Watch the full recording to find out more out what Harden had to say about building confidence and owning your accomplishments. Visit our WOCA 2024 event page for other recordings and article recaps!