[English] Devs on Tape x DOAG K+A 2023 - Breaking the Chains of Imposter Syndrome

00:00:00: [Music]

00:00:13: Welcome to a new episode of Devs on Tape.

00:00:16: Thank you for having me.

00:00:17: Yeah, I'm pretty excited to meet our guest today.

00:00:21: Today we are recording without Kai.

00:00:23: We are on the Doha conference and exhibition right now.

00:00:28: And Kai is currently in one of these panels.

00:00:31: So, we are just two people.

00:00:34: Two awesome ladies.

00:00:35: Yeah, that's true.

00:00:38: And would you like to introduce yourself?

00:00:41: Yeah, sure.

00:00:42: So, I'm Dr. Melissa Sassi.

00:00:44: And I'm trying to think of how to make sure I give you a succinct overview of how I fit into the world.

00:00:50: But I've spent the last ten years working in tech between IBM and Microsoft.

00:00:55: IBM, I guess it's been like a year and a half ago or so.

00:00:59: And I run a venture studio.

00:01:01: So, over the last ten years, I have scouted and accelerated 225 tech startups, 75 countries.

00:01:11: And more than $450 million in investment capital.

00:01:17: So, I don't want to take credit for the investment capital completely.

00:01:22: Obviously, when you're a tech founder, you deserve all the credit.

00:01:25: But lots of work went into scouting and enabling.

00:01:30: And I spent a number of years working on Wall Street, Build a Bank.

00:01:33: I'm very passionate about digital skills.

00:01:36: And we'll talk a little bit about what I'm talking about today in a second.

00:01:41: But, yeah, those are some highlights about my career.

00:01:45: I would say three things that I'm most proud of in my career.

00:01:50: One, I was part of creating the first world standard for what it means to be digitally skilled and ready.

00:01:56: So, imagine you are a minister of education in whatever country.

00:02:01: And naturally, all ministers of education, all teachers, all educators, or parents want our young people to be digitally skilled and ready for the future.

00:02:11: And keep in mind, I don't necessarily mean everybody needs to code.

00:02:14: I don't mean everybody needs to be an engineer, but we all need to have some kind of skills to help us thrive in the future.

00:02:21: And I worked with an amazing team of people.

00:02:24: And I'm the founder of creating the working group with an IEEE that led to the creation of the first world standard.

00:02:32: And it is an IEEE standard now.

00:02:34: So, that's one of my claims to fame.

00:02:37: It's been adopted by a number of different countries from around the world when young people are going through their educational journeys and learning what does it take to be digitally intelligent or digitally literate, if you will.

00:02:49: Second claim to fame, I used to build internet connectivity solutions around the world.

00:02:53: I wasn't the one with screwdrivers and hammers and lugging equipment around, but I was an impact investor.

00:03:00: So, I was the one who supplied the money from Microsoft.

00:03:03: That was my job.

00:03:04: As an impact investor, we built internet connectivity solutions around the world and got people digitally skilled.

00:03:10: I can say that the Dalai Lama has access to the internet because of one of my projects.

00:03:15: He has no idea I exist, but that doesn't matter.

00:03:17: He has access to the internet because of one of my projects.

00:03:20: And then my last claim to fame, and there's probably more, but this is the third thing I'd like to share.

00:03:25: When I was at IBM and I ran the Startup Accelerator, one day the music producer, Tim Blandon, I don't know if you or any other listeners know this.

00:03:33: Tim Blandon is the kind of guy who's worked with everyone, Justin Timberlake, Madonna, everyone.

00:03:39: And he is, a few years ago, was voted Time's 100 Most Influential People in the World.

00:03:46: The day that was announced, he was on my podcast and he applied to my program and I was part of helping build his startup called Beat Club,

00:03:53: which is all about democratizing access to the music industry.

00:03:57: So, a few cool things in my career that I'm proud of.

00:04:00: So, for me, it's not just a few cool things, you're full of cool things.

00:04:06: You know, I think it's really important, for me anyway, in my career and just in my life to kind of look at what are those crazy wild things that you think, or other people think, it's impossible to achieve that.

00:04:21: That's impossible. How are you going to connect these things together?

00:04:24: And I don't want to get weird and put a tinfoil hat on and all of a sudden go down this crazy pathway, but if you can dream it, if you can dream it, it's possible.

00:04:36: And sometimes you can connect all these crazy things that are not connected and make them possible as long as you dream it.

00:04:44: Oh, it's a nice message.

00:04:45: Yeah, yeah.

00:04:47: That's pretty cool.

00:04:48: But you did all these great and fantastic things and you are talking about maybe a completely different thing today because you're talking about the impostor.

00:04:58: But I think the two things are connected.

00:05:00: Yeah, that's true.

00:05:01: And we'll talk about that in a second.

00:05:03: But yes, I'm talking about impostor syndrome.

00:05:05: And I think most people, when they hear me talk and they're like, "Wait a second, I've seen pictures of you at the White House in like leather pants leading a meeting."

00:05:17: If you're an impostor, how did you go to the White House in leather pants?

00:05:22: I've seen you with prime ministers.

00:05:25: I've seen you on the red carpet in the south of France at the film festival.

00:05:30: You've went to all these amazing things and all this amazing stuff.

00:05:33: What gives you the right to talk about impostor syndrome?

00:05:37: And I think for whatever reason, a lot of people who are either overachievers or people who are on the stage, if you will, or are in the limelight and people who search for opportunities to be out there and be present, a lot of them for whatever reason suffer from impostor syndrome.

00:05:55: And they think, "Holy smokes, is this the day that I'm finally going to be found out that I'm a total fraud and I'm an impostor?"

00:06:03: Many of us think that if you, let's say for example, had a hundred things you needed to do for you to get an A+ on your assignment, for you to get 100% on your assignment.

00:06:16: And when I say assignment, I mean at work because it's been a long time since I've been in school.

00:06:20: But you've got all these goals that you're supposed to achieve throughout the year.

00:06:25: And let's just imagine you've got this really big goal and you achieve the big goal.

00:06:33: But let's imagine there are 10 little things that go into making sure that big goal, you hit it.

00:06:40: Let's imagine one of those things, like half of it I didn't do and half of it I did or half of it didn't work for whatever reason.

00:06:50: Instead of focusing on, "Holy smokes, I just achieved this awesome goal. Holy smokes, Timbaland is on my podcast. We're wearing matching sweatshirts and he just changed clothes so he can look like me."

00:07:02: Instead of thinking about that, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, you know what? My shirt was wrinkled though."

00:07:09: When you could see that the shirt was wrinkled or, "Oh my gosh, when I did that opening, I stumbled a little bit and I accidentally forgot to mention blah, blah, blah."

00:07:20: Nobody else pays attention. Nobody else realized you screwed that up.

00:07:24: But it's where your mind is focusing.

00:07:27: So I think sometimes what that does is makes you overthink, "Oh, do I belong here?

00:07:33: Am I getting kicked off the stage where they're finally going to find out that I'm a total fraud and I don't belong here? I don't know what I'm doing."

00:07:41: I'm getting over it though. I think I've gotten over it, but sometimes when I say I'm over it, then other times I catch myself thinking about, "Oh gosh, do I belong in this thing?"

00:07:52: Is it more, in your specific case, is it more topic-based or is it just from day to day?

00:08:00: Funny enough, one of the things that I talk about in my imposter syndrome talk is it's often situational.

00:08:06: And that could be – and each of us are different.

00:08:09: So a certain kind of person, like a personality type, if you will, that sets us off or triggers us or whatever, it may be a certain place or a certain kind of place.

00:08:21: It may be a specific person.

00:08:24: So I think what's really important though is understanding and knowing when do we feel that way and dissecting, "Okay, wait a second."

00:08:36: Because sometimes you realize, "Wait a second. When I'm always around this particular person, I feel that way. Okay, wait a second. Is that person actually a jerk?"

00:08:47: So I think sometimes you just have to really balance that voice that you have in your head and say, "Okay, I know I'm always beating myself up in my head like, 'Oh, you didn't do that. Oh, you didn't do this.'"

00:08:58: We all have that silly voice that we have to combat with the positive instead of negative.

00:09:03: But sometimes we also have to recognize that, "Hey, wait a second. Sometimes people are just jerks and they want to make you feel that way because of something going on with them and not you."

00:09:12: And I think over the last few years, I've seen a lot of instances where people will talk about this thing called imposter syndrome when in reality it's just a toxic work environment or a toxic team or a toxic person.

00:09:26: So I think it's really important for those of us who have that voice to recognize when is it that we really just need to work better with ourselves in that inner voice?

00:09:35: And when is it that we recognize that, "No, I'm okay. No, I'm okay. It's actually you."

00:09:40: Sometimes it's hard to stand up for ourselves and know how to do that in a productive way or tactful way, especially if it's our boss or someone more senior than us or someone even maybe we look up to or maybe had looked up to.

00:09:54: I also suffered from this imposter syndrome thing and I remember one specific situation and I would like to know what do you think about it and give tips, for example.

00:10:08: I'm a freelancer, so I'm self-employed. I go to my customers and help them developing things and databases, etc.

00:10:17: And I know I'm, I don't know, for 13, 15 years or so, so I'm an expert.

00:10:24: And in this specific situation, I remember I did something different than in my other project. So it was new, but it was not…

00:10:37: Is it like a new approach or just a new way of getting things done that the customer is familiar with based on working with you the last time?

00:10:44: Yeah, it was some kind of a new approach.

00:10:48: Like a technical approach to doing that? Okay, I understand.

00:10:51: Yeah, so it wasn't complicated. It was just different.

00:10:56: Something new, yeah.

00:10:57: And I remember that I wanted to do it perfect.

00:11:00: Yeah.

00:11:01: So I thought…

00:11:02: Perfectionism is a thing.

00:11:04: The whole time I thought, "Oh my God, I hope I'm fast enough, I do it good enough."

00:11:09: And every time someone looked over my shoulder, they said, "Oh, you're so fast. Yeah, nice."

00:11:16: And I just thought, "Are they lying to me? Are they hoping I'm doing it fast?"

00:11:21: What do you think, because you talked about this toxic thing, your boss saw or some mean colleagues or so,

00:11:28: and on the other side there's also the inner part you have to do.

00:11:33: I think in reality we're meaner to ourselves than anything that usually…

00:11:40: I don't want to say that in every instance because sometimes there's just some mean people who do some mean stuff.

00:11:45: But I think overarchingly, if you think about the voice…

00:11:49: Like the words you use with yourself are often much harsher than the words anyone would ever use with you.

00:11:56: You know what I mean?

00:11:58: And I think sometimes if you let it go unchecked, it just keeps going and going and it never stops.

00:12:04: And I realized when I first started talking about imposter syndrome,

00:12:09: I did this thing where I recognized that the voice was there.

00:12:12: But as I started recognizing that the voice was there, it felt like it was always there because I was paying attention to it.

00:12:19: And then I think early on a lot of people I heard talking about embracing your vulnerabilities and talking about them and blah, blah, blah.

00:12:29: And I found that I was verbalizing things that kind of almost were self-repetuating meaning.

00:12:38: It was just the focus.

00:12:40: And I realized that I don't think that is actually the answer to making you feel better or resolving it or combating it.

00:12:50: Yeah, it's okay to recognize that this thing is there.

00:12:53: But the moment you start to verbalize what's happening, there's this…

00:12:57: I don't know. A lot of people have used this flow where you think about it being your thoughts become your words become your actions become your blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:13:07: And then you get to your destiny.

00:13:09: And I think the more you focus on hearing that, verbalizing it, so saying out loud, it's like it almost becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy.

00:13:20: And so I think it's really important to recognize what happens.

00:13:24: But I go back on some things that I used to say about, "Yeah, let's accept it. Let's talk about it."

00:13:29: Yeah, but at some point it's like, "Why am I going to verbalize that my voice inside my head says, 'Wabalisa, you're too fat.

00:13:37: Wabalisa, you can't wear those same clothes anymore.'"

00:13:40: What does that do for anyone? It doesn't do anything good for anyone.

00:13:45: And why talk about it? If I recognize that it's there and I make a point to not talk about it, not that I'm trying to shadow it over or pretend like it's not there.

00:13:55: And you could call that this. It could be your skills. It could be something you're afraid of, whatever it is.

00:14:01: I just gave an example. But what good does that do for anyone? Not really anything.

00:14:05: And so I'm more focused now on really taking those negative thoughts and thinking about what's the opposite of that.

00:14:16: And how do I think about when I know I'm thinking something negative, I automatically do the positive of it and I say the positive.

00:14:26: Even if I'm by myself at home, I know it's really creepy.

00:14:29: And I'll just turn it into me talking with my dogs and be like, "Your mom looks so great today, doesn't she?"

00:14:35: And I know I'm using examples in my books. That's not always what I talk about. Trust me.

00:14:40: Or, "We're going to rock this presentation right now."

00:14:43: So I'm not a developer. I'm not an engineer. I couldn't code my way up a cardboard box.

00:14:49: And I spent the last 10 years of my life in tech working with very technical teams.

00:14:55: In some cases, managing groups of engineers or data scientists or whatever.

00:15:01: And I used to feel like an imposter thinking, "What am I doing managing these individuals when I don't actually understand what they're doing?

00:15:10: I don't understand their work."

00:15:11: And it took me a little while to get over that. I'm over that now.

00:15:14: Hey, I've got strengths. You've got strengths.

00:15:16: So what if I don't know how to make your peanut butter and jelly sandwich or your spetzel or whatever?

00:15:23: I'm trying to think of an example, which is not exactly the same, but there you go.

00:15:29: Okay, cool. Yeah, nice tip. If you think something negative, you should turn it into something positive.

00:15:35: Yeah, what's the opposite of that? And verbalize that. Talk about it.

00:15:39: Yeah. I have one more question because I am always part of this conference thing.

00:15:46: And I always try to motivate, especially young people, to do some presentations.

00:15:51: And they are often struggling. Should I talk about something? I don't have something to talk, etc.

00:15:57: But they're also struggling with their self-esteem.

00:16:00: I think if they're experienced enough to go out and talk about that.

00:16:04: Yeah, for example.

00:16:05: What I like to do is instead of pulling young person A, B, and C to come on and do solo presentations about something that they're working on or they're doing.

00:16:14: I often like to have those situations where I pull a panel together and will often say where you've got different people at different stages of their careers talking about their area of experience and what they're working on or doing.

00:16:27: And I'll often be incorporating that as the voice of youth or the voice of a new entrant into tech or into job A, B, or C, whatever it is.

00:16:38: Or the voice of a fresher, whatever the right word, the right politically correct word is, wherever you are.

00:16:44: So that it's a little bit less cumbersome and a little bit less stressful for them.

00:16:50: And that's just one of the things that I like to do.

00:16:53: I'll give you an example. I stumbled upon this young woman when I was at IBM and she attended one of my talks and it was just as COVID was getting started.

00:17:03: So I spent some time and she was 15 and I was giving this talk to young students about what they can do during this COVID craziness of your schools are canceled or you're out of school.

00:17:14: What can you do with this time and how can you use this time to better yourself and foster your career?

00:17:23: And this event had 2000 young people join. It was crazy. I was like, wow, I need to do this more often.

00:17:29: And there was this 15 year old girl who was like, and I joke about it now, she's totally spamming the audience. I want to talk to Melissa. I need to talk to Melissa.

00:17:37: And I was like, and I had all kinds of people reaching out to me as I was presenting in WhatsApp on my cell phone.

00:17:43: And I was like, what is going on here? And then I realized this, whatever I said, it resonated with this 15 year old girl in the UK.

00:17:51: And so they're like, will you agree to talk with her? I said, yes, just tell her yes.

00:17:55: And at first I thought, okay, I don't know what I can do for this young woman.

00:17:59: But I'd spent a lot of time like mentoring young people. And I have my own nonprofit that I started about eight years ago where we've taught tens of thousands of young people to code in 12 countries.

00:18:08: Which is funny. Like I say, I don't know how to code yet. Tens of thousands of people know how to code because of something I created.

00:18:15: Yet I still feel like an imposter with a bunch of tech people. Right. What's going on? Melissa, what are you saying?

00:18:20: And I got on the phone with her, this video call afterward. And we talked like that week.

00:18:25: And I was like, I just was like, okay, I'll agree to have a talk with her. And that's going to be it.

00:18:29: I got on the phone with this woman. And I say woman because she was absolutely amazing. She like blew my socks off.

00:18:35: She blew my mind. The way that she looked at things, thought about things, expressed herself.

00:18:41: Was like, hands down, more amazing than one, anything I'd expected.

00:18:47: And I realized like, I had judged her based on thinking she's 15. Here's what that's going to be.

00:18:52: I totally judged her wrong. And I used whatever my perceptions were to, I guess, capture in my mind what I thought the conversation was going to be.

00:19:02: And she said to me, I really liked what you're saying. I just wanted to tell you, I'd like to volunteer with you.

00:19:07: I'd like to challenge myself to see if you'd be willing to just work with me.

00:19:11: I was like, you know what? I made the split decision on the phone. I was like, would you like to be my student senator?

00:19:16: I had no idea what a student senator was. I came up to her, what's a student senator?

00:19:20: I said, I have no idea. You figure out what it is and what it does. And then you're that.

00:19:25: And I said, first thing, let's get you working on your LinkedIn profile so that it's something that other people can look at and understand.

00:19:33: Like, where have you been? Keep in mind, this girl taught herself to code at the age of seven.

00:19:38: She did her first hackathon with only adults at the age of nine.

00:19:43: Oh yeah, she's going to rule the world. She's going to be our boss one day.

00:19:47: Fast forward to today. Actually, let's fast forward to when she was 16.

00:19:53: She became an IBM ambassador in a program. Full disclosure, we totally sneaked her in.

00:19:59: I think she was not supposed to be a minor, but I got a letter from her mom and I thought, you know what? I'm totally making this happen.

00:20:06: So yeah, I guess it's not such a secret anymore, but that's okay.

00:20:09: She became the youngest IBM intern in the history of IBM across Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

00:20:17: She had someone contending for it in Canada. And they're really the, really one of two, if any, other minors that work inside the company.

00:20:25: I brought her into my team. Now she's spoken at the UN. She is an advisor for the UK government on digital skills, and she's a true voice of young people.

00:20:37: She, one day, I said to her, this is her first public speech with me. She and I were supposed to be doing it together.

00:20:44: She was a nervous Nelly. Before she first started talking and doing all this stuff, she would have to have the plan, the questions.

00:20:50: And I'm like, I can't wait till you get over this because plan and questions and having this every single time is getting old.

00:20:57: And I was purposely trying to push her to get outside of her comfort zone and second guessing herself.

00:21:05: Funny enough, we go to present to 10,000 people. My computer dies and I can't get it back up. I'm the moderator.

00:21:13: She and I were going to present together. And you know what happened? She had to present on her own for 30 minutes without me.

00:21:22: She did great. Everyone was like, holy, this is 15. She was 15.

00:21:26: She cried afterward and I had to buy dinner or something like that with her dad.

00:21:31: I'm like, I don't know. But now we laugh about it. And I think it's situations like that, that either someone helps to bring us up and reminds us that it's okay to get being over our head.

00:21:44: And sometimes things go well and sometimes things don't. And sometimes we think we crashed and burned.

00:21:50: When in reality, everyone is look at the resilience of that 15 year old.

00:21:55: And she could have come in and said anything, nothing didn't matter.

00:21:59: She was the 15 year old girl in front of 10,000 people sending a message about inclusion and sending a message about young women and girls in tech.

00:22:10: And showing how she can stand up and face whatever was in front of her.

00:22:16: Later on, she's like, oh my gosh, I was so embarrassed to come back. I'm like, no, you're like a superstar now. Like everybody loves you now.

00:22:24: And she's like, really? But I didn't. Nobody even notices any of that.

00:22:28: Yeah, it's really great. Unfortunately, we don't have any time no more.

00:22:32: I know I'm such a chatterbox. I used that time to talk about Lala, which by the way, her name is Lala Halloum.

00:22:38: If you want to look her up, Lala Violet Halloum. And she is an amazing young woman who I don't think suffers from imposter syndrome anymore.

00:22:46: So if Lala can do it, so can you.

00:22:49: Yeah, I will link the profiles in the show notes below. So have a look. And I just wanted to say thank you. You were so inspiring.

00:22:56: Thank you.

00:22:57: All your stories are so inspiring.

00:22:58: I've got so many more. You always have to stop me because I get down this rabbit hole and I'm like, I'm like there.

00:23:04: And all of a sudden, because I remember when that happened, for example, and I was sitting in my living room, I know exactly where I was sitting, what I was wearing, what was happening.

00:23:13: And I got transported to that time. And I think that's the power of storytelling.

00:23:17: So I try to do a lot of that in my talks.

00:23:20: I'm really happy. I hope you are a role model for all these people out there.

00:23:27: Thank you.

00:23:28: Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. I really enjoyed this interview.

00:23:31: I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I think you'll probably share how to get connected to me. But anyone who's listening who wants to get connected, wants to chat, I'm always happy to stay connected and see what can come of whatever comes.

00:23:44: Yeah.

00:23:45: Thank you.

00:23:46: Thanks.

00:23:49: Bye.

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