Finding your next adventure
How telling my story renewed my confidence and helped me turn the page.
This week I had two conversations with people at very different parts of their careers. One person is fairly new to his profession; a few years of UX Design consultancy under his belt. The other has been building his career over the better part of a decade and is now seeking to advance as a VP of Product Management. It surprised me to see that both conversations had a similar outcome: they needed to know themselves better to understand where they were going next. Don’t we all know ourselves? Honestly, I don’t think we do. Let me use my own example to help you understand what I mean.
Reeeeewind. (Dating myself: I see Wayne and Garth doing their time travel hand motions to take you back in time).
Self-doubt, losing steam.
A few years back, I went through a period of deep self-doubt. Outwardly, things were peachy. I was leading a team spanning many functions: UX Research, UX Design, Strategy & Operations, and Program Management, essentially the UX and Business focused functions of the Next Billion Users team. The team was healthy and productive; effectively leading the charge on a wholesale pivot to become an incubator for international-facing product launches at Google.
Personally, however, I was losing steam. In the year prior, I had lost some of my closest supporters. NBU’s founding VP Caesar Sengupta and our Chief Business Officer David Shapiro had embarked on a new adventure outside of Google with a few close friends. From Caesar I had learned what audacity was. It was to dream big, work hard, and not fear failure. From Dave I had learned the importance of caring deeply and challenging directly. Their support meant the world to me. In their own ways, they emboldened me to reach outside of UX and to dream about impact beyond our team. (There’s so much to write about their leadership — perhaps in a future post.) All this to say, when they left, I felt a deep void. I doubted my path forward. I constantly wondered if I had overstayed my welcome. I had reached 13ish years at Google — maybe it was time to try something new?
A false start
And so I started answering the LinkedIn messages and cold emails I received from recruiters about “exciting new opportunities” in UX Leadership. Within the first week of opening the door, I thought I had found my next landing spot: a young tech company with brilliant leaders and a very strong sense of identity, culture, and mission. It sounded perfect. I got myself so hyped — spending nights scrolling their website on my phone as I drifted off to sleep, imagining how my new adventure would take shape. The interview with the hiring manager was scheduled and I was nervous with excitement. “Tell me about your leadership style,” they prompted. “I don’t know if I’d call myself a leader…” I started. I wouldn’t call this false humility. I would call it stupidity. Ignorance maybe? Throughout the interview, I failed to recognize and respect my own journey and who I had become in the decade+ since I had last interviewed externally. I don’t have to finish the story. You know it didn’t work out. My dream came crashing down and I fell even deeper into my conviction that I was a one-hit wonder, a Google-only success story.
Learning to tell my story
After a few weeks, I decided to give it another try but this time with an important change in intention: I wasn’t trying to get a job and I wanted to get beyond my resume. I wanted to tell people my story. I found a few people to listen to my story. Oh, so you were practicing how to interview? Nope. It was much deeper than that. A few key things happened:
I became more familiar with my own narrative. What was the story arc of my life? Outside of my resume, what were the key events and experiences that, when strung together, explained the growth I had experienced and got to the heart of who I am?
I’ve always been a listener, an observer. My heart has always found contentment in building experiences that were useful and usable. I built many products at Google including the first version of Google Maps for Mobile, Google Pay for India, Files by Google and more. The most pivotal year in my career (and maybe my life) came when I moved to India in 2008. It was there that I learned to appreciate the importance of studying the intersection of culture and technology.
I started to feel in my body and hear in my own voice TRUE excitement. I started to realize what the real special moments in my journey were, worthy of repeating, and which I would be fine leaving out.
We built a small product area, scrappier and leaner than any other at Google, that changed the culture of how Google thought about and built for emerging markets. We proved the naysayers wrong and built for emerging markets and scaled to the world.
I owned my wins. Rather than shying away from accepting credit, I became more confident in acknowledging my role and contributions.
“I led an effort that had a tangible impact on how a multi-billion dollar company understood, prioritized, and built products for a global user audience. I built a culture that cared about people — inside and outside of our organization.” No hesitation in my voice, no stutter. It was the truth, and I learned to speak it with confidence.
I learned what got others excited. What stood out as powerful to them? What excited them about my experience? What did they see that even I may have glossed over? Where were they left yearning for more?
“You led user experience and business functions at the same time? That’s not common — but it’s powerful.”
As I turned the pages of my story for others, my next page started to materialize. Taking stock of what excited me and what others saw value in made me feel energized to do right by myself.
I relish the challenge of getting people to believe in themselves and in a mission. Building, caring for, and motivating a team to take up this challenge with me — sign me up.
A few weeks into these calls, I regained my step. I started to believe in myself again. Recalibrating my confidence showed me that I was exactly where I wanted to be, working toward a mission that was still exciting to me, with the stellar team that I had built. More importantly, I gained a vocabulary to speak about my strengths and dreams.
What’s your story?
With COVID and the recession, many people have either lost their jobs or are looking for a new purpose, a new direction. Here’s an experiment for you:
Setup some time with someone who knows you and walk them through your career story.
You:
Start at the beginning. How did you get to where you are today? Include your childhood if it’s relevant! Don’t leave out a detail.
What did you accomplish along the way?
Who made your journey special? How?
What did you learn about others? What did you learn about yourself?
Try not to analyze or synthesize; let your partner do that.
Them:
Have them reflect back to you the things that stood out to them.
Where did you appear excited?
Where did you face the most difficulty?
What patterns did they recognize?
What would they say are your strengths?
Trust me, you’ll learn so much about yourself and see yourself in a new light. (Feeling adventurous? Do this with someone you don’t know. It’s just as mind-blowing. Can’t find anyone? Reach out to me at asif@listenlabs.io and I’ll be your partner.)
I have a lot more to say on this topic and will likely do so in a later post. For now, I’m going to stop doubting myself and my writing abilities and hit publish on this post.
Gratitude
Before I go, a bit of gratitude. Why? Read my first post. A heartfelt thank you to the friends and recruiters who took me up on an offer for an informal chat. No strings attached, just there to listen and reflect. You helped me rediscover my confidence. Thank you to the two individuals I coached this week on their career journeys. I appreciate you trusting me with your stories and your time.
Thanks for reading! Hope you all have a great rest of your day.
Asif