27. How do you become a SENG Board Member? Meet Finance Chair Carrie Pokrefke

Jul 19

Carrie Pokrefke is an Audit Manager for BECU, the nation’s largest Community Credit Union, based in Seattle, Washington. She is an accomplished and experienced leader with over 20 years of experience in financial services as both an internal auditor and as a state and federal regulator. She enjoys building inclusive, high-performing teams through developing and mentoring employees, building relationships, and connecting people. Carrie serves on the SENG Board of Directors and Executive Committee as the Finance Officer and is also Co-Chair of the Development Committee. She is a trained SENG Model Parent Group (SMPG) facilitator and presented at the 2020 SENG Annual Conference. Carrie loves to travel and has achieved her goal of visiting all seven continents. Besides traveling, she is a photographer, drummer, painter, writer, and humanitarian. Carrie enjoys public speaking; In 2020 and 2021, she presented “Auditing with Emotional Intelligence” to auditors across the country. Carrie was recently selected to BECU’s 2021 Building Inclusion and Leveraging Differences (BILD) Council. She serves on the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions’ (NAFCU) Compliance/BSA/Risk Network Steering Committee and the Northwest Credit Union Association’s (NWCUA) Awards Committee. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Banking and Finance with a minor in Speech Communication from the University of Southern Mississippi.

TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE:

It is normal for gifted people to feel stupid! Doubting you are gifted is a good indicator of giftedness!
Imposter Syndrome is something a lot of gifted adults struggle with. It helps understanding it and taking it for what it is!
It can be hard for gifted people to see their own giftedness, yet they usually have no difficulties seeing giftedness in other gifted children and adults.
The giftedness journey is usually a continuous research for more resources and insights into the giftedness theory and experiences.
The gifted population has this tendency to want to fit in. Being identified gifted can feel like you are even further away from the normal populations simply from a statistical standpoint.
Gifted adults may have perfectionism tendencies. Once you learn about your giftedness you will be able to set realistic expectations for yourself.
Gifted people may feel uncomfortable saying out loud they are gifted because the word “gifted” has this connotation that things are easy for us, but things are not always easy and it's not always a gift.
However, it's important for us to just roll with the word “gifted”. There are people who want to change it, but the value in labelling it is that we know which rabbit hole it is!
If you are gifted, finding a therapist who understands or is gifted themselves is really helpful because you don’t have to explain yourself.
Once you know about your own giftedness, usually you realize that most of your friends are also gifted!
Understanding one’s giftedness and neurodivergence helps to become a better leader! You will be more understanding and patient with yourself and your co-workers.
SENG stands for the Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted and was founded by Dr. James T. Webb in 1981. SENG provides resources for the emotional and social needs of the gifted. The gifted population does have different needs than the general population.
There is a gap in reaching the gifted adults!