Benefits of Participating in a Professional Development Fellowship during a Career Transition

Written By: Camila Magendzo

Inspiring Capital’s Purposeful Growth Fellowship is a thought-provoking, action-oriented, customizable learning experience for leaders who want to accelerate the movement toward Inclusive and Sustainable Capitalism. The Fellowship provides knowledge, tools, guidance, and community during a fully virtual, 10-week program. Ideal Fellows come from diverse ages, industries, and backgrounds but share the desires to better align their professional work with their personal purpose and uniquely contribute to Inclusive and Sustainable Capitalism.

Today we are interviewing Abi Vervalin, a Fall 2020 Inspiring Capital Purposeful Growth Fellow who is currently in a period of career transition. Abi walks us through how the Fellowship shifted her mindset around purpose, and how she left the program with a clearer sense of the ways in which she intends on having impact in her life moving forward.

Tell us about yourself!

My name is Abi Vervalin, I am originally from Colorado, but I’ve been living in New York for the past seven years. I was working for a large consumer packaged goods company for about five years and then moved on to a smaller company, both in marketing roles and largely within the beauty industry. I am currently in a period of transition because I was unfortunately laid off due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

What struggles/questions did you have coming into the Inspiring Capital Purposeful Growth Fellowship?

I had been to an Inspiring Capital (IC) event before and I remember being impressed, so I started following IC after that. Coming into the Purposeful Growth Fellowship, I viewed purpose as a lofty thing. I felt like I knew what my values were and I was highly engaged in trying to live those out. However, when it came to purpose, it seemed like such a big and existential concept that I was unsure how to navigate around it. Throughout my career, there has been a disconnect between my values and the work I was doing every day.

I was looking to get more focused and aligned in terms of my career and way of life, especially now that I am in a point of transition.

What key learnings did you take away from the program that helped you become more intentional in these previous question areas?

The program really helped me understand that finding your purpose is an iterative process. You don’t need to decide on your purpose and stick with it for the rest of your life, which is a way I had never heard purpose articulated before. The other thing that was particularly helpful was the My Why Dashboard and the Spheres of Impact framework because it allowed me to understand all of the ways in which I was already having impact. This tool gave me peace of mind because it made it clear that I was having a lot of impact in different areas of my life other than through my job. I left the Fellowship with a much clearer idea of the many ways in which I’d like to have impact in my life moving forward, the types of communities I’d like to involve myself with and actions I’d like to take.

How did the tools and insights from this IC Purposeful Growth Fellowship help you collaborate productively with colleagues/classmates?

One of the major benefits of the program is the weekly discussions with our cohort. It’s extremely valuable to be a part of a community of like-minded individuals.

Having the space to engage with the other Fellows and listen to how others are putting their learnings into practice encouraged me to dive deeper in my own self-reflection.

The community aspect of the Fellowship helped me understand the need to be intentional about bringing impact to the relationships with my colleagues and the greater community.

The curation of the tools and resources that are provided throughout the Fellowship is top notch. The material encompasses a wide spectrum of topics. You start off by doing deep self-reflective work, and then are prompted to think about the multiple ways in which you can then expand this work out on several levels. Some of the questions I asked myself were: How do I contribute to my community? How do I push my impact further in my relationships? How am I contributing to the type of world I’d like to see? Overall, throughout the program I was incredibly impressed with the variety and scope of the tools and resources that were provided.

In your own word, what are a few benefits of participating in a professional development Fellowship experience?

The community is a key benefit of the program. Being a part of a group of individuals who are also interested in living out their purpose is inspirational. It was invaluable to have the support and compassion of my cohort, especially during a time of crisis.

The structure of the Fellowship was another great benefit. There is a powerful combination of individual work, weekly engagement with your peers and exposure to multiple high caliber speakers.

Having access to the speaker series was incredible because I realized that throughout their careers, they struggled with many of the same things that I was struggling with on a daily basis. I benefited a lot from listening to their stories and the ways in which they overcame obstacles in their lives.

Ultimately, I loved the multifaceted approach of the Fellowship: I had the opportunity to work on my own, connect with people who were in my same stage and hear from people who I can aspire to be someday.