Muse and Metrics S5 EP10 — Ladders and Leaps with Polina Ruvinsky [Guest Bio, Summary, Audio and Transcript]

Guest Bio

Polina Ruvinsky is currently making strides as the Founder and CEO of Hype Her, an organization dedicated to revolutionizing visibility for aspiring women in the tech industry. Her work focuses on uplifting and empowering women, fostering a supportive community where they can thrive. As a Women Techmakers Ambassador, she champions the cause of women in technology, leveraging her extensive background to inspire and mentor the next generation of female tech leaders.

With over 23 years of experience in the technology sector, Polina has built an impressive career at renowned companies such as Disney, ABC, ABCNews, ESPN, and Rosetta Stone. Her journey from a full stack developer to Director of Software Engineering is marked by tenacity and a passion for technology, achieved despite not holding a traditional technical degree. This trajectory underscores her belief in the power of grit and vision in overcoming industry barriers.

In her role as the Executive Director of To The SHE Power, Polina continues her mission of mentorship and coaching. She creates educational and inspirational content aimed at guiding women through the nuances of a tech career. Her initiatives are tailored to address the challenges faced by women at different stages of their tech journey, from those entering the industry to seasoned professionals navigating the complexities of senior leadership roles.

Polina’s work extends beyond professional mentorship. She actively engages in community-building efforts, establishing and leading women in tech groups at Disney and Rosetta Stone. Her approach is holistic, emphasizing the need for personal and professional growth. She advocates for creating one’s path in the tech world, encouraging women to boldly design lives that surpass their aspirations. Polina’s story is a testament to the transformative power of dedication, continuous learning, and unwavering commitment to empowering women in technology.

Summary

Key Highlights:

1. Journey in Tech and Women Empowerment:

• Polina Ruvinsky, a Women Techmakers Ambassador and the Founder of To The SHE Power, discusses her tech journey and dedication to women’s empowerment.
• She recounts her rise from a full stack developer to Director of Software Engineering, a remarkable achievement without a formal computer science degree.

2. Founding To The SHE Power and Mentorship Focus:

• Polina established To The SHE Power to mentor and coach women in tech, creating content to educate, inspire, and build a supportive community.
• She details her efforts in mentoring, emphasizing the value of guiding women through the various stages of their tech careers.

3. Leadership and Influence:

• Reflecting on her leadership roles at Disney and Rosetta Stone, Polina led women in tech groups, signifying her commitment to impactful change in the industry.
• Her transition to executive roles exemplifies her resolve to drive meaningful advancements in tech.

4. Women Techmakers Experience:

• Polina shares her enthusiasm about joining Women Techmakers, aligning perfectly with her values and goals.
• She appreciates the supportive nature of the community and the opportunities it presents for new initiatives.

5. Education and Lifelong Learning:

• She stresses the importance of education and adapting learning methods, advocating for systems thinking over traditional methods.
• Polina promotes a joyful approach to learning, urging others to accept discomfort and value progress over perfection.

6. Personal Reflections and Aspirations:

• Polina connects her Russian roots and the significance of International Women’s Day to her personal and professional life.
• She expresses optimism for her future projects with Hype Her, aiming to continue uplifting women in the tech sector.

Conclusion:

Throughout the Muse and Metrics episode, Polina Ruvinsky offers profound insights into her extensive tech career, her initiatives for mentoring women, and her future plans with To The SHE Power and Hype Her. Her narrative underscores the essence of facing challenges head-on, the continuous pursuit of knowledge, and the pivotal role of mentorship in cultivating a supportive environment for women in technology.

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Transcript

(This is a raw transcript — there may be errors)

00;00;06;29–00;00;16;22
Philippa Burgess
Hello and welcome to Muse and Metrics. This is your host Philippa Burgess. This is season five episode ten. And today’s topic is Ladders and Leaps.

00;00;16;28–00;00;49;12
Polina Ruvinsky
I’m Polina Ruvinsky. I am a Women Techmakers Ambassador. I’m a recent ambassador. Just joined about two months ago. Right now I’m executive director and founder of to the Sheep Power, which is a company I started to help fellow women get into tech and thrive once they’re there. So I spend a lot of time mentoring, coaching and trying to create content that is meant to educate and inspire and connect.

00;00;49;14–00;01;14;03
Polina Ruvinsky
Before that, I spent many years in software engineering and I even stumbled into that sort of accidentally. I started out as a full stack developer more than 20 years ago with ABC News. Then later I became a Java developer. And probably more than ten years I was a Java developer with Disney and a variety of different teams of products.

00;01;14;06–00;01;39;01
Polina Ruvinsky
Then I stepped into leadership roles, so that was a big shift. I became a team lead, then later manager, senior manager and so on. And when I left my corporate career, I was director of software engineering, which kind of blows my mind because I don’t have a computer science degree. But that was just something that led me to my real passion, which was women in tech groups.

00;01;39;01–00;01;57;07
Polina Ruvinsky
I ran those for some time both and Disney at Rosetta Stone, and I decided during the pandemic I needed to try something new. And so here I am. I have a board of advisors, and I’ve just been working on the variety of ways of really making some impact out there among other women.

00;01;57;10–00;02;02;18
Philippa Burgess
Where do you sort of see or get connected with women tech makers?

00;02;02;21–00;02;28;10
Polina Ruvinsky
Yeah, and so I saw this on, I think one of my connections. His wife and business partner is pretty tightly involved with the program. When I saw something about it on LinkedIn and it said, apply. And, you know, I just found it so interesting. But to be honest, I think I was like the only person who didn’t realize that it’s affiliated with Google until after I was.

00;02;28;14–00;02;48;26
Polina Ruvinsky
Because when I started telling people I had been selected to be an ambassador, people had much bigger reactions than I did. I was just I just thought, this seems like something that’s really aligned with my values and what I’m doing. And, you know, I’m excited about this topic, so why not all apply? And then when I started looking at it further, I got so excited.

00;02;48;26–00;03;14;18
Polina Ruvinsky
So I’m really glad that whatever it was, I kind of I have a thing that I really, you know, with age, I have started to really follow and anything that resonates with me, right? Like when I feel that little like resonance and magnetism for something and I think like, what’s that or that’s curious or that person. I’m curious, you know, that I follow whatever it is because I always find it leads me to something great.

00;03;14;18–00;03;38;05
Polina Ruvinsky
And I’ve just been so excited by even just the onboarding and the conversations that we’ve had with the North America group. I’m just so excited. It’s for me, being part of community is just I love that it’s such a supportive community. I mean, it just even with the few interactions I’ve had. So it’s such a perfect place to try something new that you’re just starting to be like, Okay, if I really am not ready and step out.

00;03;38;06–00;03;55;21
Polina Ruvinsky
And I mean, I feel like I’m in the same place with all the things I’m trying, but just even in our onboarding session, there was so much talk about how like, well, I’d never done it before, and I just stepped into it and I learned the hard way and everyone’s like, Yes, yes, do that. And so, yeah, I love that.

00;03;55;21–00;04;18;04
Polina Ruvinsky
And I think, you know, and I also have to say one more thing, because I have I have such a connection with International Women’s Day. International Women’s Day because I was born in Russia. And so my first ten years I lived in Russia and then Russia. March eight is a huge holiday. And you give flowers to your.

00;04;18;04–00;04;19;02
Philippa Burgess
Teacher.

00;04;19;02–00;04;45;03
Polina Ruvinsky
And your mom and like your grandma and you know anyone else, your neighbors. So it’s really, really focused on it’s there to celebrate women and it’s truly Internet. And it wasn’t until, I don’t know, maybe ten years ago that I feel it started having a place of celebration in the U.S. and I just was so excited because it was like a connection to my youth.

00;04;45;03–00;04;50;02
Polina Ruvinsky
And this this point where it was always that celebration of women.

00;04;50;05–00;05;10;10
Philippa Burgess
I love that. Yeah, they I’ve seen that. I mean, obviously, I’ve realized that we have global politics going on right now, and I’ve been paying a lot more attention to what’s happening with Russia and Ukraine. I’ve been learning Russian and Ukrainian, and I’m at a point where I actually at my keyboard, I have all of the Cyrillic letters and stickers on.

00;05;10;10–00;05;20;11
Philippa Burgess
So I can I can practice and I enjoy, but I see a lot of the holidays that they celebrate, which actually I think is actually quite special Now.

00;05;20;14–00;05;24;15
Polina Ruvinsky
Yeah, well, I’ll have to practice some Russian.

00;05;24;18–00;05;33;07
Philippa Burgess
Yes, it is. No, actually that’s that’s what they actually say. They say when you’re learning a language, the best way to learn a language is connect with native speakers.

00;05;33;09–00;05;37;17
Polina Ruvinsky
That’s amazing. I do. Language is, yeah, another passion of mine.

00;05;37;17–00;05;55;26
Philippa Burgess
So I I’m loving learning. And I think that once I got past the alphabet, once I learned the alphabet, then I realized how many words are so similar once I could read them. Passport is passport. I mean, there’s hundreds and hundreds of words that are the same. And I know.

00;05;56;02–00;05;57;10
Polina Ruvinsky
Olga, you know.

00;05;57;14–00;06;02;13
Philippa Burgess
Like it’s like it’s not like Plage beach because that’s French.

00;06;02;15–00;06;03;21
Polina Ruvinsky
Language.

00;06;03;23–00;06;16;21
Philippa Burgess
And so there’s a lot of and they’re also looking at Dutch. And I’m actually really fascinated by Dutch because I know some French and isn’t German and it is basic and I speak English. Dutch is basically a mash up of English, French and German.

00;06;16;23–00;06;34;06
Polina Ruvinsky
I love that you’re learning multiple languages at once. That’s that’s like a multi-threaded. You know, that makes me think of multithreading and software engineering, because as a human brain, you know, we have a hard time really multitasking, but.

00;06;34;08–00;07;02;10
Philippa Burgess
Well, I’ll do it in simple ways. For example, like with Bard, I like the other day I was with Bard, I was like, What are the colors in French? And then like, what are the colors in Spanish? What are the colors in Dutch? What are the colors in Russian? What are the colors in German? And you realize how when you actually start looking at multiple languages like Rose Pink is is basically a rose in like most languages.

00;07;02;13–00;07;19;20
Polina Ruvinsky
Wow. So it’s like horizontal language learning because it’s not intuitive. I always feel like, you know, we think of it as a vertical concept, you know, that you dig deeper into a single language but kind of learning it. Wow, I’m really fascinated by that. I have to think about that. Well, sure.

00;07;19;23–00;07;31;29
Philippa Burgess
Well, there’s a fabulous book called The Bloom of Language, which another language teacher said This is one of the best books and part of what they say is comfortable being uncomfortable, be comfortable making mistakes. There is no perfection in this.

00;07;32;01–00;07;57;04
Polina Ruvinsky
What you said about being control with being uncomfortable. That’s such a I don’t know. That’s such a topic with everything. I feel that that’s something that, you know, there’s no perfection. Make mistakes, learn from mistakes. I feel like this is a topic I think about in my business. It’s what I talk about. And all like my various I volunteer as a mentor at an academy where they’re training women to get into tech.

00;07;57;06–00;08;19;18
Polina Ruvinsky
I do lots and lots of mentorship sessions. Like that’s something I talk about all the time is that, you know, don’t progress over perfection, don’t get all caught up in it. You know, be casual, be uncomfortable. It’s what I tell my son. My son just started high school that his has a focus on design thinking. So it’s all about, you know, idea make mistakes, learn by doing.

00;08;19;18–00;08;32;26
Polina Ruvinsky
And I just I don’t know. This is just like as soon as you said that it’s just so close to me on so many levels and so many different things that I’m involved in right now. So yeah, that’s just sparked that in me.

00;08;32;28–00;08;57;28
Philippa Burgess
Yeah, No. And that’s this part of the learning journey, I think also. And there’s a whole other thought process, but one thing that I never really encountered or understood was educational trauma, because I’ve had such a positive environment both in school and at home. I was an eager learner. I was a quick learner. I was a relatively good student.

00;08;57;28–00;09;18;22
Philippa Burgess
Unless I got lazy, I really got my I, I got really in trouble when I transitioned from a very cushy elementary school environment where I still learned a lot and had a very solid foundation into high school where it was a lot more independent study. And I didn’t. It took me a while to sort of go, I got to up my game here.

00;09;18;24–00;09;39;28
Philippa Burgess
And I but I, you know, I went on to university. I just I’ve always loved learning. And I had a really good experience with it. And then I started meeting people who had anxiety and trauma around learning and then made it about themselves, like, I’m not smart enough, I’m not good enough. And it’s hard to explain. Like, No, you just really weren’t taught that well.

00;09;40;05–00;09;54;02
Philippa Burgess
Your teachers or family or other people around you kind of failed you in that. And that was not you, but you’ve internalized it. You made it about yourself. And now there’s a panic and a fear around learning. Or some people have testing anxiety.

00;09;54;04–00;09;56;25
Polina Ruvinsky
Yeah, yeah. And yeah.

00;09;56;28–00;10;18;12
Philippa Burgess
And so I think that that’s another thing they say, like in order to be able to learn, you have to be calm and joyful. And I did a teaching course. USC kind of offered a certificate for future faculty and it was a free certificate. And USC does not always offer things for free. I signed up for that. I said, okay, let’s let’s kind of learn about teaching.

00;10;18;12–00;10;37;12
Philippa Burgess
And there was a graph where it was they were part of it was the board on the graph and part of it was anxiety. And the teacher, the path was keeping students like not tipping them over into too much anxiety, but not also tipping them into too much boredom. Like you’ve got to find that happy medium between being appropriate.

00;10;37;12–00;10;41;03
Philippa Burgess
And so at times I’ll use the word appropriately challenged right away.

00;10;41;04–00;11;14;06
Polina Ruvinsky
And it’s so individual, right? Like what works for one kid is completely different. That works for another kid. I mean, I think, you know, being in technology and being in the private sector and being in these, you know, media company where the focus was on things that really feel like steps way back or fluffy. Right. Like what I would love to see is all these companies that are focused on the perfect ad serving solution or, you know, the perfect streaming.

00;11;14;06–00;11;35;11
Polina Ruvinsky
You know, I love streaming. Now, don’t get me wrong, but I would love to see them focus on education as that, because I think it’s just woefully outdated. What’s being taught in schools is completely not relevant to the kind of skills they need these days, and kids are just bored out of their minds. I mean, like I said, I have a teenager, He just turned 15.

00;11;35;13–00;12;02;11
Polina Ruvinsky
And being around these kids, they’re just they’re not they are not no longer suited to take in information the way that it’s being presented to us, the way it was present to us and the way it’s still being presented to them. And what they really need to be taught is systems thinking, you know, and things which are much more complex than making them remember a bunch of dates or, you know, so so there isn’t it’s not moving.

00;12;02;14–00;12;27;05
Polina Ruvinsky
Education is not changing fast enough to really suit what the modern world needs. And for me, it’s obviously very relevant with the child. And so, you know, I’m grateful we were able to find this public school. It’s a public school that offers this incredible program. But yeah, that’s what I would love to see, is all these powerful, huge companies really focus on revamping.

00;12;27;05–00;12;29;24
Polina Ruvinsky
Education is just really sorely needed.

00;12;29;24–00;12;50;01
Philippa Burgess
I completely agree with that. And also, I mean, I just take it for my own. So though I didn’t have any educational trauma or educational anxiety, I, to me, like learning is fun. Learning is easy. I’m honest. I got a master’s degree and I just it’s a joyful place for me. But I also feel that a lot of people just don’t connect the dots.

00;12;50;01–00;13;03;23
Philippa Burgess
And that also that was the one failing that I did see is that if you gave me an instruction, I would take it. So when I was in a trigonometry class, okay, we’re doing it. Nobody framed it with a real world application.

00;13;03;25–00;13;04;16
Polina Ruvinsky
Yes.

00;13;04;22–00;13;32;07
Philippa Burgess
And when I had my one of my first summer internships was with a video production company editing this video editing company. And it was digital technology. And we’re talking about like in the early nineties. And I was asking about, well, how does this technology work? Those are the kind of questions that I was curious about. And the owner of the company who is basically saying, Well, it’d be really hard to explain to you because you have to understand trigonometry.

00;13;32;14–00;13;52;06
Philippa Burgess
And I’m like, I’ve just finished that semester. I’m all in, Tell Me More. But I usually was like, Why couldn’t they have framed it at the beginning of the semester, how applicable it was, and also is as a woman, and I don’t know if it’s as a woman because my my dad’s an accountant and an engineer. So I got home, I got a really solid math foundation like it was.

00;13;52;06–00;14;30;20
Philippa Burgess
I remember him like drilling me on my times tables, like, and joyfully. Like it was just something that was really important that I knew and understood math and that and I really was told all of its real world applications. But in school, in an academic environment, I was never really encouraged in the maths or the sciences. and now I’m going back because I’m in a master of science and I’m learning spatial data science and basically a lot of them and machine learning and AI are saying you really need to know statistics, you really need to know calculus.

00;14;30;22–00;15;02;11
Philippa Burgess
And fortunately there are things like Khan Academy. Fortunately there are so many free, low cost resources. So in addition to my academic program, I do a lot of self-study, whether it’s learning how to do video editing, because now I’m doing a lot more with content or learning foreign languages or learning, you know, just getting better at programing in machine learning or now, you know, folding in statistics and calculus into that, because I’m understanding that the leaders in my field are saying this is important and why it’s important.

00;15;02;13–00;15;05;24
Philippa Burgess
And so if you give me that context, I’m going to do even better.

00;15;05;27–00;15;23;29
Polina Ruvinsky
That’s amazing. You know, we just met, but I love just how much like your joy of learning. I mean, it’s come up in every which way. I just I really love it, like and I could see it on your face that you’ve got that is true excitement and the joy of learning this. It just kind of emanates from you.

00;15;23;29–00;15;25;09
Polina Ruvinsky
So I love that.

00;15;25;11–00;15;46;29
Philippa Burgess
And what I’m trying to do now is, is in my small way is just inspire that in others and and make it so that it’s not so scary. And I think a lot of it I think one of the joys I also have in being a graduate student is I absolutely trust the process. I know that the professors in the department have planned a learning transformation for me.

00;15;47;01–00;16;07;12
Philippa Burgess
And no matter how out of my depth I am, For example, I just did a lightning talk for women and G.I.s, and I just the topic was education. As I just said, you know, I’m going to just share my journey of how I got into GIS from urban planning into the human security degree and sort of the process in between.

00;16;07;15–00;16;32;22
Philippa Burgess
And I had a question came up in the chat. She said, This is a serious question. I’m not joking, like this is totally serious. Did you cry when you were learning the software? And my answer was yes. Yes, there were a lot of tears and lots of gray hair, which I have since covered with it. But yes, it absolutely brought me to tears.

00;16;32;22–00;16;51;29
Philippa Burgess
And I think that that’s what happens, is that that’s where that educational trauma kicks in is if you have trauma now, you’re going to make it about this is my stopping point. This is where, you know, all that past nonsense is going to which is real, just hasn’t been worked through, is going to come up and now get in your way.

00;16;52;02–00;17;09;12
Philippa Burgess
Whereas if you don’t have trauma, you’re just like, this is really frustrating, but I’ll get through it and I’ll figure it out. I’ll find the lifeline, I’ll call a classmate, I’ll set up office hours, then my professor. I will just I’ll look for the tutorial or I’ll just poke around with this through my tears until I figure this out.

00;17;09;14–00;17;45;24
Polina Ruvinsky
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, when I see it’s interesting you brought up the term. I didn’t know this was a term, I guess. What did you say? Educational trauma. Yeah. Yeah, Because, I mean, I can see it, you know. You know, I’m. I’m a perfectionist, so I’m sure I contributed to my son becoming a perfectionist. But I find it all the time, you know, I’m conscious of it and I try, but watching it and this kid, you know, like go to school and put so much pressure on themselves and just as there has not been any joy in him in years and it just it’s really hard to watch.

00;17;45;24–00;18;11;29
Polina Ruvinsky
It’s really like it’s really it really hurts me to see that. And, you know, during the pandemic, I think we talked a little bit about how the pandemic was such a game changer for everyone. But also so many of us decided to take different paths. And during that time, I mean, there was a day where he you know, he called me and he was just crying so hard and I couldn’t even understand what he was saying.

00;18;11;29–00;18;32;03
Polina Ruvinsky
But he was in this you know, he was in advanced classes, but not enjoying it. And so, yeah, he was in this algebra test and he, like, left the test because he was so upset that he couldn’t figure out something that he was in the bathroom crying and he was like, Come and get me, I can’t be here anymore.

00;18;32;05–00;18;51;27
Polina Ruvinsky
And it was that was really the moment where I said, What the hell? Like, what am I doing? You know, to him, Like, this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. If it feels like that, if he is just so disconnected and dispirited and stressed out and, you know, has so much anxiety about it, like, why are we doing this?

00;18;51;27–00;19;12;21
Polina Ruvinsky
Like, what’s the point? So yeah, so that’s when, you know, we started more of an alternative, which thankfully I live in Seattle. So in Seattle we have a lot of the public school district. I mean, it’s not great, but it has, it has a lot of options, right? It’s a big district. So there are some alternative programs that he could get into.

00;19;12;21–00;19;35;14
Polina Ruvinsky
And so that’s been the journey now for like going on third year, just trying to reawaken some engagement and excitement about learning. And this is why I commented on Years, because it’s such a joy to see that in others, like anyone who is, you know, my mentees, anyone who is like, I’m enjoying learning this so much. Like, it’s such a joy to see that in people and not to see that my own son has been really hard.

00;19;35;14–00;20;01;08
Polina Ruvinsky
And yeah, I’m just hoping, like I think this year things are finally shifting and so I’m grateful for the changes because yeah, being, you know, being from Russia since your somewhat been following the cultural. Yeah, I mean we were the value of education and education was just drilled into us. Since you are a kid, it’s like education, education, education, get in there and learn.

00;20;01;10–00;20;16;20
Polina Ruvinsky
And so, you know, so I followed that. And then as many parents do, you kind of start doing the same thing to your kids, you know, where you’re like, you have to you have to learn and you know, you have to go into a good cause. Like I said, all the same things. They told me, you have to get into a good college.

00;20;16;24–00;20;38;09
Polina Ruvinsky
And then one day when he was ten, he said, I said, All right. And this is like amazing how insightful these, like, kids are sometimes. Is that okay, let me get this straight. So I have to work hard in school so I can get into a good college, so I can work hard there, so I can get a good job, and then I can work hard there and be stressed out all the time.

00;20;38;11–00;21;00;08
Polina Ruvinsky
And then I die. Like he literally looks like, like he’s not wrong. I mean, that is our society, right? It is. I mean, hopefully you have found the joy along the way, but that is what our society teaches and it’s been an amazing shift for me. I feel so happy that Kovac helped establish this shift in me.

00;21;00;11–00;21;28;10
Polina Ruvinsky
I my story of the pandemic is just so it’s so unexpected because if you look for so many of us, right. So but when you go back if you go back to December 20, 19, I had just accepted the position at Rosetta Stone. They were like recruiting me. I was doing great at Disney, but they were recruiting me and they said, We’ll make you a director and then, you know, the my my boss said, I’ll groom me for my role.

00;21;28;10–00;21;49;14
Polina Ruvinsky
So I was, you know, I was climbing the ladder. I was fully committed to that. I was like, Yep, okay. Director And then I’m going to take his VP spot when he moves on. And I had zero. If you had told me then that lesson two years later, I was going to walk away from my career, no one would have predicted that.

00;21;49;14–00;22;13;09
Polina Ruvinsky
I mean, my family is still shocked that I did this. But, you know, I moved into this this new role three weeks after I started. We weren’t fully remote, so I never even met most of my team. I had a team that was distributed across the country. We even had plane tickets to go meet a bunch of them out in Virginia, never got on the plane and never, you know, I never met them.

00;22;13;09–00;22;41;06
Polina Ruvinsky
And just trying to do that work completely remotely in that I had no relationships. Right. So I was starting from zero building relationships with all these people. And it was very draining. It was like incredibly draining because I had my own stressors at home and my own anxieties about pandemic like everyone else, my son and virtual school and you know, we’re doing it.

00;22;41;06–00;23;00;10
Polina Ruvinsky
I was going through it. It was it was hard. But then my boss, who was the one who recruited me, got pushed out and the guy who stepped in had been with the company for us for some time. But he was he was in an I.T. function. He’d never worked with product engineering, which, you know, my whole career was product engineering.

00;23;00;13–00;23;25;12
Polina Ruvinsky
And he was just honestly the ultimate bro, like that ultimate guy who was like, just scared to do. You were in like, he would just tell me, just like, well, is that your team? And he, he wasn’t willing to listen to what the real needs were. He wasn’t understanding that, that is a house and inspire engineers, right? Like engineers don’t do better work if you scare them.

00;23;25;14–00;23;51;09
Polina Ruvinsky
That’s just I don’t know, maybe he hasn’t learned that. Maybe he has. But ultimately, after about four months reporting to him, then I started to get the kind of and I told you, I’m pretty I’ve been very focused on women in tech. So I know about the types of feedback women tend to get. I know a conscience bias looks like I’ve done the training for other people.

00;23;51;11–00;24;17;24
Polina Ruvinsky
I’ve held trainings that were good big, large group trainings and just seeing that this is now my boss and he was saying things like, Well, just don’t think you look like a leader and you know, just these kind of it was it was so incredibly frustrating. So I hit this point where I thought, what? What am I doing this for?

00;24;17;26–00;24;42;23
Polina Ruvinsky
So much of my energy, I have nothing left to give after this job. I’m on 10 hours of calls a day. I have this guy who has these expectations of how I’m supposed to act like him. I have. And I’m not really nothing really productive what’s happening here? Like I’m a problem solver. And they they didn’t want to solve the problems that they had.

00;24;42;25–00;25;07;03
Polina Ruvinsky
And I just was it was just that moment was I just was done. I was done and I collect my bonus and then the very next day I gave notice and I had no plan. I just knew I wanted to really focus on something that was more aligned with my values. And also I felt was giving something good to the universe.

00;25;07;03–00;25;29;05
Polina Ruvinsky
It was a, you know, for me to place my energy into something that I thought was doing good, not something that was pointless or placating somebody I didn’t even respect. And yeah, and so I just left. And yeah, there is more. But I applied for a couple of jobs thinking like, maybe I’ll do a full time D-I role.

00;25;29;07–00;25;49;29
Polina Ruvinsky
And the more information I gathered on that, the less attractive that seemed and a couple of other things. And yeah, and then ultimately I just said, okay, I have to think bigger now, right? Like this is the universe is telling me I have to think bigger. And I never ever thought of myself as an entrepreneur. And then I just stepped into that role.

00;25;50;01–00;25;50;28
Polina Ruvinsky
So yeah.

00;25;50;28–00;26;16;15
Philippa Burgess
That’s exciting and scary at the same time because there’s, there’s a lot of there’s a lot that goes into it. You just wear so many hats when you’re an entrepreneur. There’s just so much that you have to do. I remember my first time coming out of corporate, going into an entrepreneurial life, and I defined it as swimming through tar because in corporate you could just put something in your outbox and somebody would stamp it and they would mail it, and they had all the supplies there.

00;26;16;15–00;26;30;07
Philippa Burgess
So they would have given you the envelope in the paper and the computer and the printer and like. And then when you were an entrepreneur, you’re like, I got to go buy a I got to go to the post office. Like, you know, I just remember, like how much we were doing a lot of in the script world.

00;26;30;07–00;27;01;11
Philippa Burgess
So I had to go get photocopies at my own cost. I had to like, just buy my supplies. I had to just everything that had been so easy and corporate. They just took care of so many things and they had so many people doing those things. Now it was you doing all of those things right. And that was a big transition mentally like to to understand that the pace and the the ease that corporate life kind of gives you and that security that it gives you, you have to kind of rethink that.

00;27;01;11–00;27;02;17
Philippa Burgess
Yeah.

00;27;02;19–00;27;29;24
Polina Ruvinsky
Surprise. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know. And you’re right. And it’s all you. And then, you know, I think for me I do get the one thing I miss. There’s only one thing I miss about, well, my paycheck. But I also as I also miss that sense of being part of a team, working towards a common goal. And it is hard to get that kind of inspiration from when you’re on your own right.

00;27;29;24–00;27;57;05
Polina Ruvinsky
You have to really seek the inspiration. And there isn’t that sense of we’re in it together and let’s solve this problem together, which I really did inspire me. And I loved the people I worked with. And yeah, so that that’s one thing that’s missing when you’re when you’re solo. So right now, more and more, I’m looking for collaboration opportunities, having that back and forth.

00;27;57;05–00;28;12;01
Polina Ruvinsky
And then how much richer ideas become when you’re working with someone else. And that’s not just all in your head and is. So I’m thinking more and more ways to have more of those types of interactions and get back.

00;28;12;03–00;28;41;20
Philippa Burgess
I agree with that. And I understand that instead of a different way, there’s the internal team that you work with, but there’s also being part of an industry and that you work in a larger community. You go to conferences, you meet, there’s like cross industry communication. I’m starting to identify as part of guilds, and now now I’m sort of even networking and building a community within the ICI community and this sort of this little sense of belonging is now showing up again.

00;28;41;23–00;28;49;20
Philippa Burgess
And so I think that it takes time not only to build it internally, but also to build it externally.

00;28;49;23–00;29;18;13
Polina Ruvinsky
Yeah, Yeah. And, and I it’s interesting because even in our onboarding calls, so many of the ambassadors spoke about how that really they also were found themselves coming to community less and how much that meant to them. And I mean for me that just resonates so much being part of something. I mean, we all read like that’s, that’s a basic human need and desire, right?

00;29;18;13–00;29;44;20
Polina Ruvinsky
Being part of a tribe, being part of a quest, being part of a mission is is what what we all seek. So, yeah, that that makes a lot of sense to them. Yeah. About I think about five months into me just saying like, wow, I’m just starting a business. Like I don’t have a plan. And you think, But I was like, I’ll figure out branding, I’ll get my website going, I’ll do this, I’ll do that.

00;29;44;22–00;30;29;01
Polina Ruvinsky
And then I hit that point where I said, I really want to bounce ideas off of others. I want to get input. And I felt that, well, it seems everyone’s so busy with their own lives and so how do I, how do I some I have some very valued connections and colleagues and friends that I thought, well, I’d be imposing on them if I was saying, hey, let’s me and like bounce ideas or so this is, I mean, it’s not revolutionary, but I, I decided I was going to start a board of advisors and I thought, okay, who, what’s the most sort of like diverse group I can create on some different levels?

00;30;29;01–00;30;54;15
Polina Ruvinsky
And I just reached out to some of my contacts and I said I knew they were passionate about women in the workplace and women’s empowerment as well. And so asking them, so will you be on my board of advisors? And it was such a it was like such a vulnerable moment because I thought that they would be able to see that I just needed input from other people and that it was about me.

00;30;54;18–00;31;15;25
Polina Ruvinsky
But then surprisingly, they walked to the first one. I felt so much better because this is an amazing woman and she just said, I’m so honored that you asked me. And she was truly, really touched. And she was she’s I believe in the same values. And we shared these values. And I would be so honored to be on this journey with you.

00;31;16;02–00;31;39;26
Polina Ruvinsky
And I thought, wow, okay, okay. They were so much better than what I thought. I thought people would say, I have limited time or you’re calling in a favor, right? Like, I really thought I was calling in a favor. But then having that reaction emboldened me to ask a couple more people. And so now I now I have I build my little team to collaborate with.

00;31;39;28–00;32;03;10
Polina Ruvinsky
I have to say that some of the time I still feel like I’m calling in a favor and they have to they have to remind me that that’s not what they’re there for. But our conversations are so fruitful and it’s so amazing to have that support in the different viewpoints. Right. Because my my entire career was in product engineering.

00;32;03;10–00;32;33;09
Polina Ruvinsky
So I have that more more of the engineering side mindset. But I have some people who are really focused on the product side and they remind me of what it takes to product types of thing and think about market fit and differentiation and all these things, which were not really things I thought about, right? I thought about building and so I love the viewpoint, I love the just the variety of, of, of inputs.

00;32;33;09–00;32;57;17
Polina Ruvinsky
It just makes the whole experience so much richer. I really just love these women. They’re fantastic because I’m also in a space where I’m not really making my name, but just to kind. I think so many women have that relationship with money where it’s just a little bit like you are a little uncomfortable asking for it. You’re a little uncomfortable reaching for it and you want it saying you should keep it.

00;32;57;22–00;33;26;22
Polina Ruvinsky
But you said, you know, this is mine. I’ve earned this. It’s it’s it’s in the thing. It’s an evolving relationship that I think women a lot of women have with money. And. Yeah. And even, you know, for me, whenever I get bogged down in focus on monetization, I mean, that’s not a place I like being I like being in the creative space, like you said, where it’s just really value driven and impact.

00;33;26;27–00;33;48;24
Polina Ruvinsky
What is the impact that I’m making? And I’m yeah, I’m letting myself, myself stay here a little longer. But yes, monetization does need to happen and, and yeah, and to say that like what you said, I deserve it. I deserve this. I earned this. I was the one who took this risk and got us to where we are.

00;33;48;27–00;34;25;14
Philippa Burgess
And another thing that if just from a financial point of view and this is my my dad is the accountant with the name that you should also always have three accounting sheets. And what I like about accounting sheets is that just open up a sheet and just like vision, what’s possible with your numbers? No attachment to it. You don’t actually have to rely, but just sort of say, If I did this, what’s possible, You know, if I sold this many units at this price, this many people, what’s possible, and then, you know, understanding what are some of like your fixed costs that you just can’t get around and that gives you some goals and things

00;34;25;14–00;34;52;18
Philippa Burgess
like guardrails of like, okay, I really need to sort of get myself here. But the three, we’ll see if I get them right. I know one of them is your profit loss making versus what are your spending profit loss. The other one is your your net worth, like your whole thing. Like your, your, your you know, so the big picture net worth kind of things and the other or the first one is cash flow because you can put some things on credit and that’s cash flow.

00;34;52;18–00;35;12;13
Philippa Burgess
You need to just kind of like keep the lights on cash flow, but then you need to make sure like profit loss, like expenses, income, and then you need to see like the whole picture. Like for me, like I said, right now, like with my student loans, I’m just not really looking at that. But it’s there and at some point I need to have a plan to be like, and how do I address that?

00;35;12;15–00;35;21;25
Philippa Burgess
Right now I’m focused more on when cash flow. Cash flow is really where I’m not. I haven’t even gotten into a profit loss statement yet, but that’s kind of where I want to get to next.

00;35;21;28–00;35;28;03
Polina Ruvinsky
I think your dad would be proud of you. Look at that. You’re you’re following his advice. I love it.

00;35;28;06–00;35;48;28
Philippa Burgess
But it’s three ways to talk about money, because I do hear business owners kind of just talk about the the the cash flow piece of it, but without actually saying and what’s my profit versus those expenses and and how long am I willing to sort of run this out? Because I think you also need to make peace with and with yourself and your family.

00;35;48;28–00;36;18;20
Philippa Burgess
Like, how long does this work for, you know, versus do I actually need to go get a job? And probably the biggest lesson for me as a as a small business owner was I actually quietly became queen of the part time jobs and because that actually gave me a much longer runway and I found the things that I could do that didn’t conflict with my business, the for example, I was working as a and this is where it was hard because there was a glamor piece to it and a perception piece to it.

00;36;18;20–00;36;47;23
Philippa Burgess
So I was a Hollywood literary manager. It sounded fancy and I had the clients and I had the relationships and things were moving and we’d get small paychecks. But because we were on commission, we could not move it any faster, change a very fixed business model, and anything we did outside of that was considered out of integrity. And so we could never charge writers anything but the 10% and and all of like in the beginning when it was actually physical photocopies, like we had to go copy the scripts at our expense.

00;36;47;23–00;37;10;06
Philippa Burgess
We had to ship them out or when we got a better reputation and messengers services to come pick up those scripts that are at our office. And I had a little office, I had overhead and I had, you know, people I worked with. And anyways. And so I always found and whether I was a paralegal, a nanny, an apartment manager, a conference coordinator, like I did all sorts of things, but I never wanted to be your barista.

00;37;10;10–00;37;32;01
Philippa Burgess
Like I never wanted people to see me in a public forum because it sort of broke the the narrow, you know, just it’s like I had to kind of have these two personalities. But then as we grew as a business, we realized that we could do marketing consulting, stand up website, social media, marketing, other things to other clients in a more consulting capacity that, that.

00;37;32;07–00;37;55;03
Philippa Burgess
And so now our company had two departments we work with scriptwriters over here, a 10% commission model. We work with experts and authors and small businesses in this other thing where we and that’s when I started doing the stopping the outside work and just kind of could bring it inside. But I still realized I needed another kind of department to supplement sort of what really was our passion work.

00;37;55;05–00;37;55;26
Philippa Burgess
And so I was.

00;37;55;26–00;38;20;20
Polina Ruvinsky
Like, services are so in demand that that’s such a natural transition. Like you said, digital marketing, social media content creation, like all of that is so in demand. I, you know, I do I was I had some of those girls, but I happened I actually love my side hustles my, my one that I started which really I love because it pays for my mortgage.

00;38;20;20–00;38;50;13
Polina Ruvinsky
I Airbnb the downstairs of my house and it’s it’s just been it’s kind of a funny little side business and it really I mean it like I said, it pays for my mortgage so that we live for free. That’s nice. And then taking project jobs and I don’t know, there is just even the whole concept of side hustles like makes me feel kind of more flexible.

00;38;50;13–00;39;11;16
Polina Ruvinsky
And you get a little bit here, a little bit there. I don’t you know, it makes me feel more creative. I really love it. I actually would want to find a third side hustle. But yeah, my second one, I do. Well, I did this big project as a technical project manager recently and that went really well, So I’m looking to do a little bit more of that.

00;39;11;16–00;39;19;25
Polina Ruvinsky
And I don’t know, maybe you should give me advice on what other side hustles I can add because I’m liking this idea.

00;39;19;27–00;39;42;01
Philippa Burgess
Well, I think it what it does is it gives you more runway as an entrepreneur because there is, you know, and it gives you less pressure from fam because usually often this the significant other who is the one saying what are we doing here and or you know sort of extended family, everybody want you to be safe. And so it gives you that sense of safety and a lot of times like these just things to take longer than we anticipate.

00;39;42;04–00;39;53;00
Philippa Burgess
I believe it’s Bill Gates quote where he sort of says, we overestimate what’s possible in two years. We underestimate what’s possible in ten years.

00;39;53;03–00;39;54;03
Polina Ruvinsky
Okay.

00;39;54;05–00;40;03;01
Philippa Burgess
And some of this is related to technology and how much technology will change over a period of time. But I also think it’s in terms of how much we can actually accomplish.

00;40;03;03–00;40;19;25
Polina Ruvinsky
And I love that I’m really going to think about that quote because, yeah, I can. Yeah, that’s I think that’s very true. And it is inspiring for me to think what I could accomplish in ten years and that’s very exciting to think about.

00;40;19;27–00;40;39;20
Philippa Burgess
And so I think that that runway is key. So and that and I think there is another thing in terms of, you know, how do you again, find out like what is that side hustle? And I think you’ve identified some of it very well, which is, you know, what is a resource or inventory, an asset inventory. Your asset is a home with additional space.

00;40;39;20–00;41;19;02
Philippa Burgess
Your asset is your skills and experience, your corporate, your resume. You speak multiple languages like things that you know, those are all your in your in your assets, your first of all and friendly your part of a community. You’re you’re you’re generous with your ideas and input. I think that but I think one of the things I also sort of seen is like you find a communication line, it doesn’t matter what it is, find a communication, find out what the needs are, and and then, you know, create and produce what is needed and wanted where there’s a budget allocated to it, whether it’s a personal budget, whether it’s a business budget, I have always found

00;41;19;02–00;41;28;21
Philippa Burgess
selling to business is easier than selling to people for services because services, corporate budgets are very different than personal budgets.

00;41;28;24–00;41;29;11
Polina Ruvinsky
Right.

00;41;29;18–00;41;47;07
Philippa Burgess
And and services. You need to kind of mark up your time because it’s very finite. There’s only so much to sell. So I do find that. But if I have maybe a widget that I was selling a book that I was selling something that was productized, then selling it at a low price point to a lot of people makes sense.

00;41;47;09–00;41;48;11
Polina Ruvinsky

00;41;48;15–00;41;53;16
Philippa Burgess
But when it comes to services, I definitely sell services to companies, not people.

00;41;53;18–00;42;24;22
Polina Ruvinsky
Yeah, no. And I like that because even when I really started to market my coaching, I, I really, you know, I don’t want to charge individuals who are just starting out on the career who need advice. Like, I love the idea of just sharing of my gifts. I just just being generous with that And and you know, at the same time I talk about the need obviously, we need the financial stability.

00;42;24;22–00;42;47;12
Polina Ruvinsky
But when you’re selling to a corporation, I mean, yeah, like you said, it’s very different. It’s what an individual would consider. Big money is pennies on a corporate budget. And and also you don’t have that sort of like I don’t want to take this from you. I want to share my gifts with you. I want to take that from you.

00;42;47;13–00;42;53;26
Polina Ruvinsky
We’re very happy. I’m ready to take that from you. And let’s, you know, pay up, show me the money.

00;42;53;28–00;43;15;04
Philippa Burgess
Yeah. So this is, you know, those sort of thought processes of really sort of. But a lot of it is is it same thing. It’s like you’re looking for a grant, you’re looking for a scholarship but you don’t tell them what their needs are. You just it’s a listening exercise and then you shape yourself to say, I’m a really good candidate for what you’re looking for.

00;43;15;06–00;43;35;02
Philippa Burgess
And so I think that it’s similar in in product izing for a small business. It’s also the exercise as well. Like where are the gaps in the market? What’s needed are also starting with I think there’s a was the phrase the fresh in the familiar. So familiar is like who else does this and what’s working? What are what do they sell?

00;43;35;02–00;43;57;21
Philippa Burgess
Are they doing events? Are they doing conferences, Are they doing an info product? Are they doing one on one? Are they building out a team and having those people deliver it? You know, what’s the structure? Is it based on a book? Is it based on media? Like, what is that? And then adding your own take to it? Like, where are you Fresh?

00;43;57;24–00;44;18;10
Philippa Burgess
What’s new and different from your point of view? But I think one of the reasons why I fell in love with the idea of YouTube monetization was I have in in all of my transitions. And I think being a student, I think I’m really out of wanting to sell anything to anyone. I just don’t want to be in sales.

00;44;18;12–00;44;50;27
Philippa Burgess
And I have a background in marketing, which is to say like what is marketing? Marketing is getting people to care. So I’m interested if it’s me, like the product, I was really like, explain to my mom, you know, she’s like, Well, I can make money on you. Like, what is that a job? Like, what are you doing? And I was like, Well, it’s kind of like you do Airbnb, Airbnb, Uber and YouTube actually are very similar in their business models because all of them, you come with an asset, a vehicle, a house, or in this case a camera and and some editing.

00;44;50;27–00;45;10;22
Philippa Burgess
And your final deliverable is a video and they bring the audience, you turn on the app, you set it up. And as long as the audience likes what you’re doing, you get good reviews. You get served up in the algorithm as a if you do a good job, like they’ll continue to deliver you the customers. And YouTube’s not different.

00;45;10;24–00;45;36;00
Philippa Burgess
And so to me, you really do need like millions of views to actually kind of get to a monetize, like I could make a living from this, but you get their consistency quality. Like there’s just to me it’s like I’m in this big like learning curve. But the idea is like if people show up at my restaurant and eat in my like, well, YouTube land, they’re charged by the ads or they’re charged by their subscription.

00;45;36;02–00;45;54;04
Philippa Burgess
Like they I never have to say buy something from me. I do have to say, please subscribe, please, like, please come back. Please engage, you know, and eventually, later, later, later. If there’s if my audience were to demand a product of me, well, it’s like, hey, so many people actually put it in the book. Hey, so many people ask.

00;45;54;04–00;46;15;21
Philippa Burgess
They put it in a course. He people asked in, I need to charge to go speak at that conference. I’m like, I’ll get there, but I’d rather be hired for my services and spatial data analyst like project manager and other kind of contract positions where I can actually like apply all these technical, educational, academic things that I’m learning.

00;46;15;24–00;46;34;22
Philippa Burgess
But from a content point of view, I’d love to monetize, but based on the idea of I’m just delivering enough value that I let the technology and they figure it out, all the monetized Asian strategies, they’re the ones who have whole sales teams working with those advertisers.

00;46;34;25–00;46;42;28
Polina Ruvinsky
Yeah, well I and it can be such a goldmine. So how far away are you from starting your channel? Want to hear about this?

00;46;43;00–00;47;06;19
Philippa Burgess
So you know, baby steps with all the things. It started with the podcast. It started with just straight audio and it started in January 22 where I was saying, okay, just like let’s say I met Lori and it was like, okay, I’m doing this. But then it was like playing with YouTube and just actually realizing how much goes into it and also realizing I’m like, I’m interested in so many different things.

00;47;06;19–00;47;26;16
Philippa Burgess
And that that was kind of confusing. And a lot of people are like niche down. And that’s where I got the idea of like, I can have multiple channels that each focus on a particular aspect of my interests and in that way, like I have little universes of stories and there’s a like I read a lot of means.

00;47;26;18–00;47;47;18
Philippa Burgess
One of them was or short videos where, you know, sort of the husband is like, you know what? What are you going to go buy at Target? And she’s like, I don’t know. Target will tell me what I’m going to buy at Target. Like, I’ll figure it out when I get there. And I sort of feel like once you build a channel and you sort of start the channel, kind of tells you what’s next, kind of the channel kind of reveals like, that’s the next video.

00;47;47;21–00;48;08;24
Philippa Burgess
I have now literally thousands of ideas for videos. But I realized, like, there’s a there’s a whole skill set. And the one that I’m missing right now is editing. So when I very, very first started, I’d make a slide presentation and it kind of get in front of camera and they kind of talk through my slide presentation and and like make a little cover that I had, like a little picture of me like doing a silly face or something.

00;48;08;26–00;48;31;19
Philippa Burgess
And, and then my sister was like, your video videos, Like, I’m super supportive of your channel, but your videos are really boring. So I just thought and I don’t know if I should have stopped or not stopped. I think they may have gotten better faster, but I ended up just doing a lot of thinking about what do I want to do and what kind of ideas and like, what are all these different little channels I want to create.

00;48;31;22–00;48;55;04
Philippa Burgess
And then now it’s just starting slowly. But really it was when I went to that conference, actually it’s Little pieces. It was January of 2023 that I read a white paper within my field and they wouldn’t it be great if we had a YouTube channel to answer these questions about geospatial intelligence? And I looked it up online. If you see anybody doing it.

00;48;55;04–00;49;22;16
Philippa Burgess
And I was like, I think I can I can step into that. And yet at the same time realize because it was so professional and government and stuff like that, I was like, I’m also like I have the skills and the fact that I’m willing to be on camera and a lot of them don’t have a spokesperson, like in terms of a personality they like very corporatized videos, they’re very professionally produced, but they lack a face and personality.

00;49;22;16–00;49;48;24
Philippa Burgess
So I was like, okay, cool. I can I see potential to step into that gap, but also realized that I just had more of a learning curve. And then recently collaborations have just become a thing where I’m sort of saying, Hey, come and let’s, let’s do something, let’s have a conversation. It’s just an interview style or, you know, let’s run through a PowerPoint or a course presentation together or let’s yeah, let’s get, let’s see what we want to do.

00;49;48;24–00;50;09;24
Philippa Burgess
And, and those are coming together. Well, we did Google introduced us to a one hour intro to machine learning. And I when I saw that, I was like I they said, take the materials and make it your own. Go teach it. And I found myself thinking that I wanted to do it. And one of our North American hangouts, someone sort of was like, man, I’m an expert.

00;50;09;24–00;50;33;15
Philippa Burgess
And I said, Hey, do you want to teach that intro to middle class? And she said, Yes, let’s do it. And I said, on YouTube. And she’s like, Yep. So she created the PowerPoint, She updated all the code and we just delivered that one, and I’m so proud of it. But what it’s missing now is an intro video to say, Hey, I’m so proud of this video, but if you really want to get the value out of this, don’t be sitting on your phone, on your couch, like scrolling through this and just watch it.

00;50;33;15–00;50;55;17
Philippa Burgess
Like you need to be sitting in front of your computer. You need to do a split screen and you need to like have the video and then have the code and like, run through the code. And these like, prepare people for like how to get the most value out of this intro to machine learning video. And then with the podcast, I’m now starting putting a cover and starting to that week by week, release them a month after they premiere on 360 talk radio.

00;50;55;19–00;51;25;04
Philippa Burgess
And I’m also wanting to write a blog that kind of introduces the gas and the topic and just some highlights and encourage people to go and listen. So it’s begun. I’m probably feel like I’m about a year into thinking we’ve got a year to monetize a of these. Like maybe one will pop sooner, but it’s it’s going to be a year long process for me to really learn how to be a good editor, to learn how to to just dial it all in.

00;51;25;08–00;51;46;08
Philippa Burgess
And it’s and that’s why I when people are like, let’s rub share this. I’m like, well, what? I spent the entire day editing. There’s no way I’m sharing a dollar until I hire an editor because I to learn how to edit first. But then there are tasks that once I figure them out that I can sort of bring other people into to do those things at once.

00;51;46;08–00;51;50;18
Philippa Burgess
But the key for me is once I know how to do them.

00;51;50;20–00;52;03;08
Polina Ruvinsky
Yeah. Well, video. I’ve just started dabbling in video editing and man, there’s a lot, a lot to learn. So I feel you. I would love to hire somebody to.

00;52;03;08–00;52;32;04
Philippa Burgess
Do, but it’s also pretty basic. Just, you know, if again, getting out of that, I’ll fix it in post mindset and try to get your production right so that you’re just trimming the end, trimming the the during the beginning, doing the Met and, and trimming any of sort of the, you know, transitions but I do find like some of my favorite YouTubers have templates they do that once they get it they do the same thing over and over again.

00;52;32;07–00;52;36;05
Philippa Burgess
I think what I don’t have yet a template, I’m just experimenting.

00;52;36;07–00;52;37;05
Polina Ruvinsky
Yeah.

00;52;37;08–00;52;54;13
Philippa Burgess
And I also think that the thing I also don’t have yeah, like I have when I’m super excited is I have a community of collaborators that the collaborators are showing up when I go out in the world, I meet people who are like, Tell me about your channel. So I also think as my channel gets better, I’ll be more proud to like direct people to it.

00;52;54;15–00;53;16;26
Philippa Burgess
Right now it’s like if the algorithm doesn’t find you, don’t worry about it. And that’s one of my favorite things about YouTube is that we’re not producing super Bowl commercials, meaning we’re not capturing the attention of millions of people who are going to watch it no matter what and just don’t have a choice to be there. And that will have an opinion about how did you do in your Super Bowl commercial.

00;53;16;28–00;53;39;03
Philippa Burgess
What I love about virality is if it’s not great, it’s okay, because not a lot of people are going to see it and you’re okay. Like it’s so even the perfectionist in you has to understand, like you’ll make bad videos before you make good videos, right? And so you have to just there’s a point where and I think that was that was like the big takeaway from that conference.

00;53;39;03–00;53;57;28
Philippa Burgess
When they came out of that conference, I was like, I’m owning my identity as a YouTuber. And that was a big like. And then I just kind of was like, I don’t even have a word. And then I realized my computer was kind of at capacity for editing. And then I realized I was like, Wow, Like, I need to, like, work on, like infrastructure file organization, understand where are my assets?

00;53;57;28–00;54;14;29
Philippa Burgess
So when I actually say, okay, I’m ready to do this video, the pictures, the ideas, like all those things that I gathered, can I even like, put them to pull them together to even get them in editing software? And then I realized that that the editing software that I use for audio editing has video features, but I don’t really optimize them or use them.

00;54;15;02–00;54;44;19
Philippa Burgess
I was trying to learn Premiere Pro, which is super sophisticated. I get a great student discount on it, but the problem with Premiere Pro is that when you use an asset it doesn’t pull the asset into the software. So when called the SDC where it pulls the asset into the software if you were if you once you sort of save your your working file if you were to then delete all your assets off of your harddrive or wherever you were storing them, it would not have a problem proceeding.

00;54;44;22–00;55;02;19
Philippa Burgess
It just because it’s there in the software. Now it takes them, uploads them and it uses them. The problem with Premiere Pro is all premiere Pro does is point to the assets and if you change anything on the back end and you move any of those files, as I learned the hard way, it suddenly gets a media error.

00;55;02;22–00;55;12;06
Philippa Burgess
And so you have to be really clear about like where things are stored and not move them. Otherwise your whole video will fall apart.

00;55;12;08–00;55;27;08
Polina Ruvinsky
Yeah, that’s I think those are way more sophisticated than the software. I’m just looking at like cap cut and trying to move it. And even that is kicking my butt a little bit. But, you know, I’ve learned.

00;55;27;11–00;55;48;11
Philippa Burgess
I’ve used I’ve used AI and actually that’s one thing I did. I don’t know if it helps or not, but I actually downloaded several different edit on my phone editors and tried them and compared them against each other. So I use cap cuts, Blaze, Powerdirector, a whole bunch of others and I ended up with Powerdirector as being my favorite among them.

00;55;48;14–00;56;08;20
Philippa Burgess
But I would suggest trying a couple of side by side and a lot of them give you like a seven day free trial or a 14 day free trial and just see where they work for you because they all have different pros and cons and different features. Another thing I learned is that Dropbox takes a lot of my files, but they’re not stored in the cloud.

00;56;08;20–00;56;31;18
Philippa Burgess
They’re still taking up room on my desktop. But and so I was like, well, maybe I can just like buy extra storage and move things to Google Cloud. I kind of tried that, but I put a lot of photos in Google Photo. There are advantages and disadvantages to that. But what I realize a lot of these cell phone editors all can sync and even Canva can sync to Dropbox.

00;56;31;23–00;56;56;08
Philippa Burgess
They don’t think to Google photos. So now I’m realizing like I can clear up storage by maybe perhaps taking my PDF files and and non picture and video files over the Google hard drive where I bought more storage but leave all my photos and videos on Dropbox so that I can easily sync and access them from both Canva and my cell phone video editor.

00;56;56;10–00;56;57;21
Polina Ruvinsky
Nice.

00;56;57;23–00;57;09;21
Philippa Burgess
So yeah, there’s all of these little details that I have learned and that’s why I think the challenge is like it’s just beginning is just begin. Because there’s, there’s magic in that.

00;57;09;21–00;57;30;20
Polina Ruvinsky
Thing that I feel like corporate pressure actually, you know, it saps your creativity. So that idea where people are just given like more and more and more on their plates and they’re like just, you know, keep up and where you’re constantly just trying to keep up and you have all these things taking up space in your brain, it’s very hard to be creative.

00;57;30;20–00;57;51;18
Polina Ruvinsky
Like I, I think that’s a big missing link. And a lot of these big companies where if you overload people, you don’t give them space headspace to be creative as that happening, they’re just going to keep doing what they’ve been doing. You’re not going to get any innovative ideas or directions. And, you know, I mean, we see it all the time, right?

00;57;51;18–00;58;13;24
Polina Ruvinsky
Like it’s normally the startups that come up with the good ideas and the big corporations are get bogged down and aren’t able to keep it going, right? They just acquire smaller companies that that have that creativity in their culture until they become part of a of the machine.

00;58;13;27–00;58;48;00
Philippa Burgess
Yeah, yeah. No, I’m excited. I mean, you have such an incredible resume from Corp from a corporate point of view, and it’s interesting and exciting to see you now step into your own space and sort of how that’s going to continue to grow and evolve. And you have so much value to add because so many people don’t know how to succeed within a corporate environment who want those jobs and that there’s plenty of opportunities there and there’s also plenty opportunities to do and start your own thing or contribute to smaller entities where you get a little bit more flexibility, freedom, creativity.

00;58;48;02–00;59;06;16
Philippa Burgess
You’re obviously clearly showing up as a leader, which is super exciting. And you’ve obviously I’ve led in a corporate environment and now getting to lead in ways where the world needs you and I am very excited for you. So as we wrap this up, you know, just give us some parting words of advice you have for people and, you know, just some of your big away.

00;59;06;16–00;59;09;28
Philippa Burgess
It’s things that you’d like to to leave people to take away.

00;59;10;01–00;59;35;13
Polina Ruvinsky
Yeah. I mean, I think we already touched on it when when you mentioned something about it and I said how much it resonated with me it was about that idea of don’t seek perfection, learn through doing learning or making mistakes. And just especially for women, just be comfortable being uncomfortable because it’s always there’s always going to be something that’s going to pull you out of your comfort zone.

00;59;35;15–00;59;54;21
Polina Ruvinsky
And you know, if you care about growing, which I care about growing deeply and I think a lot of a lot of people do, and I think that’s where you really need to make sure that you let go of that need for comfort. Right. Because there’s really no growth while you’re in your comfort zone. It’s not happening.