The ‘Did I Series’… Grow
On April 13 2023, I posted a blog… A blog to self, a public articulation of my deliberate intentions for the next 4 weeks. April 13 was the start of my SAP Social Sabbatical in Hanoi, Vietnam. My full time occupation for the period since then, has been Pro Bono consulting for a social enterprise supporting ethnic minority women.
Before I embarked on this engagement, I made four commitments to myself, which I publicly shared. As we near the end of this unforgettable experience, I am not only answerable to myself but to all of you. More specifically, I owe it to all the people that have supported me and made this experience possible.
In the next few days, I will seek to answer to you all, what I demanded of myself on April 13. This I do as my way of giving an elaborate ‘Thank you’ to the many people who without their support, this experience would never have been possible. I want them to know, I did not ‘dare waste my time’.
- Did I Grow?
Is growth a good thing?… why would I commit to pain, discomfort, exhaustion and even pressure? What was I thinking? I guess I did not think so much about the process of growing, I just thought of the result of growth. Well…the result… Its worth every bit of the process. The growth was worth the chase.
I learned to mold my skills, my expertise, my communication to be fit for purpose while still maintaining my core, my authentic self. Because as I discovered, my expertise is tasteless if I cannot serve it with compassion, understanding and a genuine shared passion.
To honor another person’s culture is to celebrate their identity, to understand another persons purpose and passion, is to gain entry into their soul. To combine the two, gives you the ability to serve with relevance. This is the depth of growth, I experienced while serving a social enterprise whose full name I could not pronounce correctly at the beginning, but which is now engrained in my brain as beautiful rhyme ‘Chie Dupudupa’
And then there was the expected growth, the growth that was bound to happen when one is surrounded by like minded people. The wider group of the SAP Social Sabbatical team in Vietnam, a cohort of 12 people from different countries, different backgrounds, different skill sets, different life experiences. They say that ‘Iron sharpens Iron’ and that is exactly what happened. I am wiser, more skilled, more sharpened, more resilient because of shared experiences with every member of the ‘2023Hanoi-12’
To you all, my family, my friends, my team, my management team, SAP CSR team I say Merci! Danke!, Gracias! thank you!
