Overcoming perfectionism - Ines Elloumi

00:00

Just like a lot of people, I'm sure, I'm really sensitive to the type of work I do. If I feel drained at the end of the day and it's been multiple weeks or multiple months that I'm drained working on a certain project. I think I would quickly understand that sort of project or that sort of work is not really what I should be doing. But when you find a project or a product that actually energizes you and you end your days wanting more and feeling really excited about it, I feel like that's something to chase.

00:41

If you are someone to tiptoe around different topics, whether that's electrical engineering or machine learning or design. What are the pros and the cons to having that kind of range?

00:59

That's a good question. I think the benefit of exploration is obviously having that range, having exposure to multiple topics and multiple areas of different disciplines seem a lot cooler from the outside or some of them have a shiny aspect to them and people go there out of FOMO. I would say, "I've been guilty of that." But anyway, things look differently from the outside. So, I would say always explore it, put yourself in the shoes of that role before really committing to it. So that is to me, a big pro. One of the main cons in my opinion, is that by tiptoeing too much and not persisting, sometimes we may miss out on what it actually gets good.

01:58

And what I mean by that is that when learning a new discipline, let's say, coding or machine learning or something like that, the early days will feel difficult, because it's new, there's a learning curve. And so if you just enter it, then tiptoe around it. Then within a month say, it's not for me then maybe you're missing out on actually a moment of breakthrough that you could have had say, a few months later where you actually start. It starts clicking for you and you start understanding it more.

02:37

But isn't this the dichotomy that it is so very difficult to know when that time comes? If we knew when that time would be, then in some ways I'd imagine that would all make the right decisions.

02:52

Yes, I agree. It's hard, honestly. It's hard to understand the difference between, "Oh, I'm struggling because it's hard right now. I'm not fully grasping it or I'm struggling because it's not for me." I'm trying to fit myself into something. That's definitely not the right thing for me. It's a challenge. I would say something that helps sometimes is just to wait it out, even if it's uncomfortable, the duration can I guess, vary depending on the career, but maybe six months, typically for me, six months has been the inflection point. By six months, I would know if the topic was for me or not. So, I guess maybe that's, I mean, everyone can define their own sweet spot, but that, I think that was mine.

03:49

Yeah. When you're trying to make these decisions, what kind of timeframe are you using to make them? Because in some ways I could imagine you moving from one company to another, maybe two or three times and building up a base of experience that over a three year period might be really valuable. And you could then use that and play your cards and get somewhere that you wanted to go or it might be that you use a longer time frame where you think about it over a 10 year horizon where you want to achieve something in 15 years and you structure your working life accordingly. How do you figure out how long to put these things into frame?

04:40

That's a very good question. I don't think I have a specific framework around it. I think it was the exploration part of my career was more specifically in the beginning. I think the first two years after college where I was not really sure what I wanted to do. I think the cycles get longer as you go because you start getting closer to where you want to be.

05:05

Are you saying that it gets longer the closer you get to the thing that you want to be doing?

05:15

Yes. I mean, at least that was my experience because in the beginning... So, I can maybe walk you through some of my background in the beginning. After I graduated from EPFL in Switzerland, I joined a small startup. I was one of the first employees. And so being in such a small unstructured environment really allowed me to explore a lot. I was working for six months. I was working as a Machine Learning Engineer and then we had a need for a designer and I had a very strong interest in art and visual designs.

05:52

And so, I raised my hands and said, "I'll do it, I'll do the designs." And so, I spent six months doing designs and then after that, I understood that where, I really had fun and hit my stride was basically the intersection of design and engineering. Which was for me, I saw it as product management, being able to work across so many disciplines and understand the key issues and benefits you can get from each and putting it all together as one set of decisions or trade offs that you make.

06:33

I found that to be really the space where I can really have fun and enjoy my work. And so that's what I mean by exploration, being able to explore machine learning and design and then tiptoe into product management is what allowed me to find what I wanted. I think it would've been difficult for me to immediately understand after university that PM was my thing. So, it took a few iterations and trial and error to find what I wanted to do. And so that's why after that startup experience, it became more clear to me that I wanted to be a product manager. And so I started chasing product management opportunities. And so that's what I mean by longer cycles, because then it was, okay, so product is my thing. Now let me find the company that more closely aligns with my values and the type of topics I want to work on. So, that's how the cycles get longer as you make progress and learn about what really hits it home for you.

07:55

Sounds like you're picking up something precious from each one of the experiences that you're having. It's not when you initially started talking about it, I thought to myself, "Oh, I wonder whether you did jobs that you just really didn't like, and then at the end you moved on and did something new." But it sounds like actually was more that you did really enjoy those jobs, but it taught you something new about what you wanted to do next and where.

08:19

Exactly. Yeah. Each of them, I had an interest in for sure, machine learning. I got into it out of FOMO quite honestly, because everyone was going into it. And so I wanted to see what it was. So, I jumped into that and it was really cool. I really enjoyed the topic, but I think I have an interest in design as well, and being customer facing and all of that, and PM really was the better fit for me.

08:55

It's so interesting that you made that decision because of FOMO, but it's even more interesting that you can reflect back on it and recognize it. With the benefit of hindsight, and perhaps when you project out to the future. How do you want to decide on what skills you want to pick up or what industries you want to work in? I'm assuming that now you've had that learning. You don't make decisions based off FOMO necessarily. What's replaced it?

09:37

That's a very good question. I see those decisions are getting harder. Honestly, the more I move forward, the more it's about refining details. I discover for example, that I care a lot about having values that are compatible with the values of the company. That is something I didn't even think about five years ago, but now that I've seen it, and now that I've experienced how different company values can impact the working culture differently. I see it clearly as something I really care about. So, in my next decision, I would for sure consider alignment of values. Another thing I would definitely consider is finding work that energizes me. I think I'm just like a lot of people. I'm sure, I'm really sensitive to the type of work I do. If I feel drained at the end of the day and it's been multiple weeks or multiple months that I'm drained working on a certain project, I think I would quickly understand that sort of project or that sort of work is not really what I should be doing.

10:57

But when you find a project or a product that actually energizes you and you end your days wanting more and feeling really excited about it, I feel like that's something to chase. Definitely because that's when I do my best work, when I'm energized at the end of the day, even if it's difficult, even if it's ambiguous, there's something that energizes me. And I'm trying to chase that feeling for my next decisions.

11:27

Risk must also play a part in it too, because the decisions get harder because you have a clearer idea of what you're doing and maybe that narrows down the choices available to you. But it also gets harder because all of a sudden, you now have a skill set and a wealth of experience that is an asset that you need to deploy somewhere and where before it didn't feel as important. Now, there's a risk attached to whatever professional decision you make and where you choose to deploy that asset?

12:05

In terms of risk. I'm curious what you mean by risk here? Is it more risk of wasting time or risk of wasting money or I'm curious for it?

12:18

It could be any of those. It could be a risk of not fulfilling your newfound potential. It could be a risk that you maybe that's not right. I think it's more the risk that you all of a sudden have built up this skill set. That you can now go and use, and I don't know, all of a sudden it feels like it's valuable and you need to make the right decision now, whereas before it was, well, I've, I don't know. I don't have a skillset. I'm just going to go and do whatever I can to find one.

13:08

Yeah. There's a risk, of course. Any decision you make is a jump into the unknown. What I would try to do now, moving forward is vetting more asking people who are in that realm. Let's say this decision is about, I don't know, joining another team or joining another company. Before I wouldn't necessarily take the time to vet and try to talk to people. But now I would definitely do, because I know that it's important to project yourself in that situation to try and see if you would actually enjoy it. Like I said earlier, sometimes we get attracted by the big shiny company or the big shiny project and end up realizing it's not really your thing.

14:02

So, now for sure. To do a risk a little bit, I would definitely try to call my friends who are in that situation, or maybe through LinkedIn or some other tool, try to reach out, talk to them like, "Hey, how's your day to day, or what do you think of your manager or this other person on your team? Do you think, are they easy to work with, what are your honest thoughts?" And well, sometimes people won't be super honest with you and maybe they will try to sell you to hire you, but it's, I guess it's all about asking the right questions and trying to dig more under the surface. I think it's a necessary step as you move forward to risk your decisions.

14:58

I think when you're finding work, you experience both turbulence in the outside world where you are having to deal with an employment market or you're interviewing with different companies, but then you're also dealing with the turbulence in your own mind where you are maybe try trying to quiet and some voices in your mind that are telling you to don't take the risk or do take the risk, and it's a constant. I think, battle against yourself when you are deciding where to spend your time and how to make big, important decisions. When in your life have you struggled with that inner voice?

15:48

That's a good question. I would say in my case my inner voices have been the words to me after I would take the risk. So, before making the decision, let's say to go to change to this role or go to this company, I would just feel excited by the potential of it. And after joining, I would realize that, or not really realize. But I would get to through some very anxious spaces. Honestly, the biggest one for me was after I left that startup and I started joining bigger companies. Coming from my background in Tunisia and in Europe, I came to this. It was my first American corporation. And getting into that, I felt I started comparing myself to other people. I started noticing that I wasn't as articulate as other people. I was handed very ambiguous problems to solve.

17:03

And when I wouldn't find the solution easily, I would feel maybe I was not smart enough. And then I got into a cycle of self doubt, and you can call that probably imposter syndrome. I don't know if I can diagnose myself, but getting into this cycle of self doubt and thinking that maybe you were not, you fooled your interviewer and you weren't supposed to get hired for this role, but you made it through the system. And it feels pretty bad. I've been through sometimes where I got really anxious because of it. And it was counterproductive because none of it is true. It's mostly your head talking to you.

17:55

It's fear talking. And but it's hard to realize that in the moment, I think in the moment, the feelings can be a bit overwhelming and you can feel you actually don't belong at all, and you should just give up and go somewhere else. And but yeah, that's when persistence matters in a way persistence and staying in this situation and accepting the challenge and talking to people as well. I think that's what really helped me.

18:32

When was one of those moments for you?

18:36

It was when joining my first American company. It was Yelp. And it's funny because Yelp was actually the most friendly workplace ever. Full of really great people, but I don't know, somehow I just got into my own head. I just started, I got into these narratives of not being enough and not being hired for the right job or something. So, I just got into that negative cycle that was working against me because I was then much more tense in doing my work and probably a lot less creative. When you go through stages of stress and anxiety, that causes your brain to be very bad at being creative and innovative.

19:33

So, it worked against me at that time. I didn't quite realize it, but it prevented me from thinking creatively and actually finding my best work. But as I learned to tame it, tame the voices in my head and keep that imposter syndrome in check. It started to get way better. And yeah, it still creeps in from time to time. It says, "Hi, I'm here, I'm your imposter syndrome". But yeah, the more I move forward, the more I'm able to keep it in check.

20:20

How much of it? Is a... Because I've almost on the one hand imposter syndrome, I guess, to a certain degree is healthy because if we thought that we knew everything, when we went into a situation, we'd probably cause a lot of problems. It's good to be humble and imposter syndrome in some ways on the one hand can be helpful there, but then on the other, it borders on anxiety and it can become deep and entrenching. And like you said, "Crippling." Whereabouts on that spectrum, was it for you? Because it sounds like it was almost bordering less on the... This is in it, sorry. Pardon me? This is less inhibiting my day to day decision making, but more actually this is just crumpling me a bit.

21:17

There is definitely a balance, of course. I've definitely met people who never felt it. And someone told me, so at some point I was talking to this woman who works as a manager in a company and she felt the similar feelings as I did, even though she was crushing it at her work. She felt similar feelings of being an imposter. And she told me, "You know what, at the end of the day, what makes this hard for you also makes it a strength for you because you have that sensitivity and that awareness and that vigilance that helps you understand situations on a level that other people might not be able to." I think she translated that as emotional intelligence as well. And she encouraged me to cherish it and accept it as a strength at the end of the day, because at some point it felt quite isolating to feel I was maybe the only one experiencing these feelings.

22:41

I would turn to my colleagues in these companies and most of them were male colleagues and I would be like, "Do you ever feel overwhelmed? Or do you ever feel work gets too hard?" And they would always be like, "No, it's fine. I'm fine. The work is pretty easy." And so, it would feel quite isolated in that feeling. And I would feel alienated almost because I felt different from them and thought that it was a negative thing, but through talking more about it and understanding myself, I saw that there's actually great strength in being aware and being able to be vulnerable. And because that creates better situations. That creates... I feel sometimes stronger teams because you notice these situations when they happen and you can you reach out to your teammate because you saw something that other people might not have seen.

23:44

And honestly, it helps me a lot in also working on products and the consumer features. It gives you some a sense of empathy for what other people might maybe be experiencing. And I've really found that I've really tried to embrace that side of it. And I don't know if there was the right answer to your question, but I do feel there's strength that comes out of it, but it's just about finding the right balance so that it doesn't become crippling. It doesn't become counterproductive for you. And that balance is difficult to reach, it takes work.

24:33

Also, it sounds like in some ways you're trying to find the truth of a situation and you're not trying to... If that male colleague really does feel they're completely on top of it. They're like, that's great. Go and be on top of it if you actually feel that way. Which I don't know if they do, but they might not, but it's almost as we think about these things, we want to try and make them positive or negative in certain circumstances. But actually in that scenario this is just, it is there's it is what it is. And if we can accept it and fully embrace it, then we can probably then use it rather than not accepting it and then letting it cause the harm that it will go on to, cause if you didn't accept it in the first place.

25:44

Definitely. Yeah, I think there's there's hurdle that comes from resistance, trying to resist the situation or wish you were different. I think it just causes more negativity that than the original problem. Right? Because you start feeling feelings of disappointment and like feeling different and feeling like you've been dealt the wrong cards in life or something like that. Which the narrative is actually pretty destructive. But when you decide to be okay with it, like you said, when you decide to say, "Well, it is what it is. That's just how I am. That's how the situation is, how can I make the best of it?" And I think that's important. That's because yeah. Life never really goes the way you exactly want it. So, it's important to be flexible and be okay with what is.

26:56

Yeah. It's interesting that only by accepting it, can you then progress through it and if you don't then like you said, it reminds me of that. I can't remember who says this, but if you don't accept these types of worries that you have or whatever, then they'll lead to, it leads to bitterness and which will lead to resentment and you are this whole time you're then living a narrative that actually isn't yours. It just happened around you. And in some ways, by accepting it, you're then setting your own narrative and then you build it in the way that you want, rather than just existing in the one around you.

27:44

Definitely. I saw a tweet recently that was saying, "I don't understand why people go to therapy when you could just look at the mirror and say it is what it is." That made me laugh, even though therapy is important. I believe therapy is great, but it was funny. Yeah. Because it is about that, right? It's about accepting what.

28:12

What things in your working life have you accepted that after you accepted them, enabled you to do better things than if you hadn't?

28:24

I think in the beginning I was I guess maybe struggling a little bit culturally with my... How articulate am I or how effective my communication is. And I think I felt a little bit behind maybe compared to other people in the workplace. I mentioned earlier, I was comparing myself a lot. And so I started maybe resenting the fact that I was not better at public speaking or that things. And then at some point I can remember, I can pinpoint exactly to which point it started being more clear to me, but I realized that it's okay. It's okay to not be perfect at everything. I've realized that my strengths reside in other things and yeah, I can pinpoint exactly to the right moments, but the moment we you realize that we're all just doing our best and no one is perfect at everything.

29:49

And you just have to continue to try to improve and continue to lean into the things that you're great at. Then it starts to feel better, but you need to have that moment of acceptance. In my opinion, there's a book that really changed things for me. I'm going to sound like a hippie maybe, but it's "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz or something. And he, talks about four principles of life that help you cope with every situation. And my two favorite ones were, "Always do your best and don't make any assumptions."

30:42

And it's going reading through the book and it's a very quick book. I recommend it to everyone going through the book. You realize that, you know what, life is hard. We're all going through our own struggles. And as long as you commit to yourself that you'll do your best, then it will be fine. Because you can't really blame yourself for anything because you've done. You've done your best. You were given a certain situation and maybe you were tired that day and you did your best and that's fine. And just move on from it. And to me, it was really a powerful book to read because it gave me the tools to accept and move forward.

31:29

It almost sounds like there are two circumstances or two examples of acceptance that you're talking about. On the one hand, there's acceptance that you might be good at some things and not good at other things. And by accepting what you are and are not good at, you can then spend your time focused on the things that you should be focused on rather than spending a hard time worrying about the things that don't come naturally to you, that don't give you joy. But then the other is that by accepting that you are not perfect in some way, that gives you more freedom in a way, which one of those is more important to you?

32:16

Between freedom and?

32:19

And by accepting what you're bad at and what you're good at, and you can spend more time doing what you're good at. And it sounds like you're saying two things in some ways it's on the one hand, if you accept what you are good and not good at, then you can spend more time on the things that give you joy. That you're really good at and less time on the things that you're not good at. But then the other was that, if you accept that you are not perfect, then that gives you freedom because before you were constrained by this worry that you weren't enough. And I wonder which one of those resonated with you the most because they almost came out at the same time.

33:08

Yeah. I would say that the latter being okay with not being perfect. I think that's important. The part about optimizing for the things that give you joy, I think definitely is also important. Trying to lean on things that, like I said, energize you and bring something to you, something additive, I think that's important to find areas that do that for you. But we can't be always a hundred percent joyful and great and enjoyable. Some part of work are hard and some days will be a bit draining and stressful and that's okay. It's all about having balanced, but yeah, I think for me, it was really about being okay with not being perfect. I think growing up, I attached a lot of my self-worth, and self-esteem to my work and my grades at school and how good it was in certain disciplines.

34:24

I was attaching a lot of that to it. Growing older as an adult, I've had to detach myself from that. I've had to detach myself from the perfect scorecard or being good in all of those disciplines. It's okay. On some aspects you'll be average and you'll continue to do it because you have to, I still have to show up and speak to people and sometimes I'll speak at it in all hands or I'll do interviews or something like that. So, you still lean into it and you get yourself out there, but the burden of perfection or that burden that your head is trying to impose on you. That is a narrative that's unnecessary. So yeah, definitely yeah. Freedom comes from removing yourself from that perfectionism.

35:24

And lastly, how do you balance that with ambition?

35:29

I guess ambition, the way I see it is the force that tries to get you out of your comfort zone. Where you want to be and where you want to make progress in a certain way. And without ambition, I guess we would all be probably satisfied with our current position. So, why bother challenging ourselves or why bother making progress? Ambition is I feel important for that. It's like that magnetic pool, that forces you to put yourself out there to take a risk, to challenge yourself, even if it's hard and it actually show up. So, I definitely think ambition goes hand in hand with all of this.

36:23

Thank you so much for sharing your story and sharing how specifically acceptance has helped you. It's so difficult to balance both that force, that magnetic pull that we all have. We've feeling like we're enough and I've really enjoyed exploring it. Thank you.

36:49

Of course. Yeah, it's a journey it's really non obvious. And I think asking yourself these questions is important. I think, especially with work, there's a lot of fake news out there. We see especially growing up in the millennial generation, we see all of those overnight successes and people who were coding out of their dorm and became overnight billionaires and it makes it feel and look easy, and smooth, and obvious when actually it's not obvious and it's not always easy. It's actually, it's not smooth. So, I think it's important to break that narrative and normalize just the difficulty that it takes. It's a lot of thinking you do a lot of thinking and mental gymnastics to define your path and yeah, it's fine. It's okay. Doesn't have to be like those stories that we hear on the media.

38:10

No, I agree. And in so many ways it's not like that ever. Yeah. I really enjoyed that. That was great. Yeah, and thanks for sharing this. How you've managed to balance the anxiety and the imposter syndrome and how to balance it on that spectrum. It's so ridiculously difficult. Cool. Well, take care. Thanks a lot.

38:40

Thank you. Bye. Have a good one.