For those of you who don’t know who Tina VanSteenbergen is, she is an empowering public speaker that travels around the country to try and “ bring the heart back to students leadership styles and voices back to their organizations and relationships”. She focuses on talking to women about relationships and empowerment by showing them that real experiences by other students in order to feel empathy.
Image and above information from: https://www.forcollegeforlife.com/tina
The program that I had the pleasure of attending what her presentation on confidence being a team sport. This program was aimed to help show women that in order for us to start feeling confident in ourselves, we need to build one another up. We need to empower others in order for us to empower ourselves.
Before I went to this program, I am not going to lie, it was one of the last time on my to do list. I had so many exams to study for, so much homework, and I was running on such little sleep. I felt like this would be just another speaker trying to feed me some BS that I would forget about the next day, but boy was I wrong about that.
Image from: https://twitter.com/tinaraevan
Tina Vansteenbergen was hands down the best speaker I have ever seen in my life. The program was so empowering and so personal that it left me in tears about myself, and those around me. The program led me on a roller coaster of emotions and left me feeling like more humble.
I think one of the reasons that her presentation was so empowering was because of how raw and uncut she was. She was herself. She was funny, heartfelt, and swore like a sailor. Because of all of these things, you could see how truly authentic she was not only as a speaker but as a person in general.
She shared personal stories about her life, the good and the bad, and allowed the audience to share personal stories as well. I got the chance to share a personal story about how I first started to struggle with body image at a young age, and as someone who never opens up, this was a real accomplishment for me.
Tina helped me open up to a room full of complete strangers because she showed me that everyone struggles with confidence in someway. By everyone going around the room (if they wanted to) and sharing a personal story about themselves struggling with confidence, it showed me that I am not alone. By her showing all of us that we are not alone it also showed us that we need to work together to bring out the confidence in each other.
Her Campus Behrend’s Social Media Director, Megan Kirk, with Speaker Tina Vansteenbergen
The one idea that she kept expressing in her program was how confidence was a team effort. It is so easy for us to see the good in others, but it’s so hard for us to see the good in ourselves. We are constantly putting ourselves down, to confine others expectations. When in reality, if we started to build others up, we would be less likely to put ourselves down.
It was really hard for me to open up, but I am so glad I did. It is crazy to say, but in the hour and a half that I spent with her, I left feeling so much more empowered and inspired. We as a community of women need to work together to build up confidence in each other. We need to have personal conversations with each other and show each and every person that we encounter that are so special. If you ever get the chance to hear Tina speak, I strongly encourage you to go and put in the effort. You really do get out what you put into it.
On behalf of Her Campus Behrend, and Penn State Behrend in general, I would like to thank Tina for coming to our campus and helping to make the community a better, and more safe space for not just women, but for everyone to be a part of.