Authenticity Awakened:
The Path to OWNING Your Life's Story and Fulfilling Your Purpose
By Vicki Znavor
Embracing Your Life's Story & Values -
And Living Them at Work & In Your Communication with Others Paves the Way for Fulfillment and Purpose
Vicki Znavor learned to be self-sufficient early in life. Despite being a great student, attending college right out of high school was a distant dream because she had to support herself financially. She
postponed college and jumped into the work force as a typing/filing clerk. With perseverance and resilience, she learned on the job and advanced by working hard and learning ways to add value at work despite not having a degree.
After spending more than a dozen years juggling work, marriage, parenting and night school, she realized her dream and graduated with a BA and then an MBA.
It wasn't until she began to acknowledge and honor her life story, her truth and values, and make them her coda, that she found her place in the world, ultimately becoming a top C-Suite human resources executive.
In her four decades of work, she not only found a path to being herself at work, but she became passionate about helping others do the same. She learned from her own experiences that people only do their best, purpose-driven work when they bring their authentic selves to work in a way that feels right to them.
Knowing and living her Authenticity, she learned how to stand up for herself and her beliefs at work, to communicate honestly and frankly with co-workers and superiors and to foster diverse and inclusive workplaces.
In her new book Authenticity Awakened: The Path to OWNING Your Life's Story and Fulfilling Your Purpose, Vicki guides readers on how to mine their life story to discover their pivotal moments, values and their purpose which together create the foundation for ultimate success and a rewarding work life.
She helps others understand their pivotal life stories, their values and their purpose by providing tools, exercises and real-life examples. She has also incorporated significant research on the topic. As the awareness that one has of their authenticity deepens, it becomes increasingly more difficult to show up as someone they're not.
"When you know your truth," she says, "you are more confident and resolute in your decisions and your relationships."
By awakening your Authenticity, you stop living someone else's life, cease simply going along with others' expectations of you, have the courage to admit your mistakes, ask for what you are worth, and have the courage to have difficult conversations with bosses and co-workers. She guides you on all of this!
All of this is interwoven with Vicki's heart-warming story of a young Hispanic woman determined to prove herself and find her place in the world, while creating an enriching and loving family life. And in so doing she left her mark on the people she met, served and lead at Sara Lee Corporation, Northern Trust and CIBC Bank USA, previously known as The PrivateBank.
Her incredibly practical guidebook holds great wisdom on how to communicate honestly, frankly and effectively in ways that will open doors, prevent conflict or resolve it, ask for what you are worth and make you feel more comfortable in your own skin. The book concludes with a great chapter on 100 Ways to Authenticity!
Vicki addresses in Authenticity Awakened:
· How to find your 5 pivotal moments and why this is important
· How to identify your values and apply that knowledge
· When and how to share personal information in a work setting
· How to face your fears at work (and elsewhere!)
· The role curiosity plays in your success
· How to decide whether to stay or go
If you would like to have Vicki Znavor on your show to inspire Authenticity Reawakened, please send an email with the name of the show, your contact information, a proposed date and time, and the call-in details.
Vicki Znavor rose from typing and filing clerk with only a high school diploma to a highly recognized Human Resources top executive at some of America’s leading global companies.
She did all that while raising a family and earning her college and MBA degrees.
And now she is teaching some of the most critical lessons she discovered about being Authentic in the workplace to others with her new book Authenticity Reawakened: The Path To OWNING Your Life’s Story and Fulfilling Your Purpose.
Her years in the corporate sector encompassed an impressive array of roles with major impact on the lives of people she served and supported.
Vicki was the Chief Human Resources Officer for CIBC Bank USA, previously known as The PrivateBank. In that role, she served as a member of the U.S. executive leadership team and was accountable for the strategic leadership of the bank’s people strategy focused on building a more diverse and inclusive organization, attracting and retaining top talent, and incenting behaviors that resulted in long-term value creation.
Prior to joining The PrivateBank, Vicki was Vice President, Learning & Development at Northern Trust where she helped develop global people programs linking behaviors, performance and strategy.
She spent most of her career at Sara Lee Corporation in a variety of positions in Tax, Treasury, HR and Change Management. She was the global HR leader for Sara Lee’s transformation where she focused on managing the impact of massive change on more than 140,000 employees worldwide.
Vicki has an MBA with a focus on Leadership and Change Management from DePaul University’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business. Selected as a Notable HR Leader by Crain’s Chicago Business in 2020 and one of ALPFA’s Most Powerful Latinas in 2019, she serves on several not-for-profit boards focusing on literacy and alleviating human suffering.
Vicki lives in Indiana and likes to spend her free time with her husband Tom visiting their children and grandchildren.
