Heather Bruce: Daring Greatly in Real Life

by Heather Bruce, AVP, Audit Manager, State Street Corporation

The following is a featured entry in our Share Your Story contest, which celebrates our 10-year anniversary with stories from past attendees.

The Massachusetts Conference for Women inspired me to create the Audit Women’s Network at my company. In her 2012 speech, Dr. Brené Brown challenged me to get in the arena and “dare greatly.” If I failed, I would fail while trying.

I spent the next year influencing Senior and Executive Management to sponsor my idea for empowering women in the workplace. I went meeting to meeting with my PowerPoint presentation and enthusiasm.

I won them over and created a team of five women with a small budget. Our first event was a panel discussion on Developing Your Brand. I had the audacity to invite three Executive Vice Presidents (EVPs) to speak to us. My peers still talk about the EVP who challenged us to humanize others with her outlandish example of putting everyone that made a mistake in front of a firing squad. It was exciting and everyone took away something useful.

Through this experience I learned that women will help other women succeed. I learned that asking someone for help is scary and empowering at the same time. I also took another lesson from Dr. Brown. I ignored the naysayers because they were not in the arena daring greatly.