Speaking to 8,000 Students about Joy

“ABSOLUTELY!”.

… this was my response when the recruitment team at Google reached out and asked me if I was interested in delivering a “wellbeing keynote” as part of the ‘Google Summer Insights’ event - a virtual recruitment event created for university students interested in working in tech.

I had been working at Google for 3 years at the time and had been involved in a number of different wellbeing initiatives, which I guess was why my name was top of mind. Saying yes to this opportunity was a no-brainer for me. The thought of offering some guidance to a group of ambitious university students who wanted to have a purposeful career was something that deeply inspired me.

This was during the thick of the pandemic. Which meant everything at the time was virtual - including this event. “How’s this going to work?”, I asked the recruitment team. They proceeded to tell me that an agency would reach out and schedule some time to do a formal recording, afterwhich they would complete all of the editing and production - making the video appear “live” on the day. It was the first time I had done something like this - so I just followed their lead.

I set up my home ‘studio’, which as you can see from the photo below, was incredibyl make-shift. But it worked!