Catastrophic Gifts: Resilience & Other Life Lessons from Almost Losing It All

As a third-generation female attorney, Katia Bloom is passionate about helping women achieve equality and success both in the legal profession and the corporate world as a whole. She is a fast-paced and strategic commercial lawyer who thrives in high-growth environments and on challenging the notion that it can't be done. 

Katia’s entire world came to a halt in late summer of 2019. Katia was travelling in Ukraine with her mom, niece and oldest daughter when on the way to the airport, the entire family was involved in a catastrophic car accident where Katia came as close to losing it all as one can without, thankfully, actually doing so. As a result, Katia spent a month in Ukraine in a coma and was subsequently air ambulanced to the United States where she spent an additional two months in the hospital. By all medical accounts and metrics, Katia is a walking miracle defying all the textbook odds of what should have been. She has always had a “Go Big or Go Home” approach to life, and even in a near-death experience, that wrang to be true. Her recovery journey isn’t for the faint of heart, she wouldn’t trade this experience for anything in the world because of the many incredible gifts it gave her.

In this talk, Katia will impart her learnings on the following:

1) You are enough just the way that you and all of the "criticisms" you've heard are the reason you get through unbelievable challenges with flying colors.

2) True freedom is actually understanding with the entirety of your being that what other people think doesn't matter and isn't even about you in the first place so be kind and gentle on yourself and put the “should” stick you use to beat yourself up with away. Permanently.

3) Perspective. We all have it intellectually. We all know to appreciate the air, sunlight, trees, using the bathroom, walking on our own two legs….but only when every ounce of dignity gets taken away, do you fully appreciate those things on a molecular level. So let go of your need to control, because the only thing you truly control is how you respond to a situation.