Power Women: Michelle Acosta of Acosta Sheet Metal Manufacturing On How To Successfully Navigate Work, Love and Life As A Powerful Woman

An Interview With Ming Zhao

…Short term and long term goals. Goals help guide you. Without a guiding light, it’s difficult to stay on track, and it’s easy to get lost in the day to day of work and life. Set short term goals that can actually be met (seriously, be realistic), and set long term goals that can be grandiose, yet flexible depending on the twists and turns that life brings you. For example, set short term goals of taking that online course, and a long term goal of earning that career-changing job.

How does a successful, strong, and powerful woman navigate work, employee relationships, love, and life in a world that still feels uncomfortable with strong women? In this interview series, called “Power Women” we are talking to accomplished women leaders who share their stories and experiences navigating work, love and life as a powerful woman.

As a part of this series I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Michelle Acosta.

An emerging leader in her industry, Michelle Acosta serves as the Vice President of Operations and Marketing at Acosta Sheet Metal Manufacturing, a prominent San Jose-based manufacturer founded in 1972. Already recognized as a leader in numerous collegiate, young professional, and nonprofit organizations, such as the Silicon Valley Young Professionals and Peoples Associates Structural Engineers, she is a seasoned marketing professional who seamlessly dovetailed her extensive experience in outreach with her work in the manufacturing industry. Michelle represents a new generation of leadership in the manufacturing industry. In her spare time, she also serves at 99Bridges, a sustainable data exchange company.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood “backstory”?

Thanks so much for having me! And absolutely. I’m a Silicon Valley native, born-and-bred in San Jose. Growing up, I spent a lot of time on my aunt’s farm when I was very young. The memories of vast land that reached the horizon, and running around with the chickens, holds a very special place in my heart. I also spent quite a bit of time roaming around our manufacturing warehouse, blissfully ignorant as to what it all was.

My daily life, after starting school, consisted of honing in on my passion for music, creativity, and helping my grandfather build and fix things around the house. Solving more mechanical-type problems with a creative mindset was shown to me at a young age. Fast forward to today, I’ve had some time singing in a few bands, and I’m the “handyman” in my own home.

The family business has always been rather inescapable. Family life and work life has always blended, which has allowed me to learn about the business and industry over the course of a few decades. I’ve been working at the business, even if just over summer break and after school as a receptionist, for about 15 years at this point.

From a cultural perspective, my upbringing was a mix of Mexican-American on one side of my family, and 3rd generation-American (of Western European descent), on the other. The music lovers reading this will get this: I grew up with Vicente Fernandez and Led Zeppelin. The combination of cultures, coupled with growing up in Silicon Valley, is an undeniable influence on who I am today.

Can you tell us the story about what led you to this particular career path?

My childhood experience heavily influenced my decision to go down the career path I’m taking. I never expected to stay in the family business, and even though I’ve had other jobs since high school, I never fully left the company. I started out as a receptionist, and eventually focused on areas such as marketing, project management, operations, etc., much out of my interest in solving problems. When I really started influencing the company’s day-to-day, we were already 35+ years established. But we were missing refinement in marketing, sales, and other areas, and I wanted to dive into that. Almost 15 years after having redesigned our catalog for the first time, I’m now holding the title “VP of Operations and Marketing”, and report directly to our Vice President and CFO. Her and I essentially run the business.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

March 16, 2020 was a day I will never forget. It started like a typical busy day. Morning was filled with in-person meetings, and minimal screen time. It was about noon by the time I started diving back into emails. And there it was, the first subject line I saw alerting the shut down. I remember thinking, “What is this? Is this real? Do we have to do this?” So I checked multiple news outlets, government websites, and literally stared at the screen trying to digest what I just read.

To put this into context: Acosta Sheet Metal Mfg. is a manufacturing facility. Almost 100% of our team can’t do their job unless it’s onsite. For those of you thinking, “well, what about Slack? Couldn’t you just message everyone?”. Ya, no. Several people still had a flip phone, a handful didn’t even have a personal email or access to these tools, and possibly didn’t even have access to the internet at home. And even the ~10 people that had a work email couldn’t access it, because of our email not being accessible without VPN access. My options available were primitive and few, to say the least.

Mere moments passed when I realized that I didn’t have validated contact information, if any information, for 75%+ of our team. And we were closing at 2:30pm. Not only that, but nobody else knew what was just published, and by when we had to comply (11:59pm that night, if I remember correctly). After a few phone calls, and about 30 minutes of frantic updating to my out-of-the-loop management team at the time, the decision was made–we were shutting down at 2:30pm that day, and that’s as far as I could plan.

I had less than 2 hours to prepare for crisis: Collect contact information for 50 people; write and print copies of a letter to inform our team about what was happening and how to contact me; have a group huddle to ensure all of our non-English speakers knew what was going on (I ran out of time to translate the letter); and tell everyone not to come to work tomorrow.

But even up to this moment, the most memorable minutes were the last. It was just before 2:30pm, and I was standing at the gate that was the one way in, one way out for all of our team members. It was the last moment I had to ensure they had the letter, and could ask me any last questions until, well, I didn’t know when. I lost count as to how many people looked at me with fear that broke my heart and asked me, “What’s happening? When can I come back? What’s going to happen with my healthcare, and my job? What about my kids?” And the only answer I could give at that moment was, “I don’t know. I don’t know right now. But I will find out.” For a few people, that was the last time I ever saw them.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

Patience. Curiosity and an open mind. Resiliency.

I finally figured out my answer to the famous interview question, “what’s your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness”. Patience. When the solution to a problem becomes clear, or when I finally know how to describe and reach a goal, I want to execute right then and there. But when others are involved, my strength of patience kicks in. While my lack of patience is derived from passion, excitement, etc., I quickly learned in life that not everyone is in the same emotional “space” as you. They don’t always see the vision that you do. I’ve learned to be patient with the process not just for my own benefit, but also for the benefit of others on the journey with me. We all arrive at a destination in different ways, and in a leadership position, I have to accommodate for that if I want everyone to arrive at the destination feeling happy, successful, and overall better than when they started.

Moving on to the next trait: curiosity and an open mind. Do you ask questions to try and satisfy your doubts? Or is it to learn? Approaching every situation from a place of curiosity, and with an open mind, is key to any of my success. I go into virtually every situation as though I don’t know anything (even if I’m the “expert”). This leaves my mind able to accept new information that was never on my radar, which often turns out to be vital information. And my team knows this. Because they trust and have seen this in action, they feel safe to share with me.

Resiliency. Although trying on the mind and even the body, emotional resilience is essential. My definition of success is to keep going, to keep pushing, to never give up because something is “difficult”. It’s about getting to the finish line, wherever that may be for you. Only with resiliency can you make it through to the end. Especially in leadership positions, there are always curve balls being thrown at you. And they come at you from all angles, your work and personal life. Life is hard, but with resiliency, you get to choose how to live it, not your pain. And for the record, “success” is a never ending journey in my opinion. There’s no one end-all-be-all finish line, but rather a series of them throughout our life. Making resiliency even more essential.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. The premise of this series assumes that our society still feels uncomfortable with strong women. Why do you think this is so?

I would like to give the following context for the remainder of the interview: I am not deeply educated on women’s history, social studies, nor psychology. Moving on…

Speaking in generalities, I think people tend to be uncomfortable with anyone who challenges them, is different than them, or isn’t what/how they thought they should/would be.

From my personal experience, I have been told that I’m “too much”, “too strong”, “too direct”, the list goes on. At first, I considered feeling that these comments might be true. But I took a step back, as unbiasedly as possible, and realized I just wasn’t what these people expected me to be. They were uncomfortable around me because of their own limiting beliefs, closed mind, insecurities, or just lack of a wide range of life experience.

Without saying any names, can you share a story from your own experience that illustrates this idea?

I was struggling to communicate with someone at my workplace. And I mean REALLY struggling. We weren’t just disagreeing, but I was being ridiculed and belittled daily by this person, and often even cursed at. Not just one-on-one, but also in group meetings. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one experiencing this on our team.

I finally got to the point where I felt that I had to address it to someone who was “higher up”. Calmly and respectfully, I described what was going on to this higher-level manager. After just a few minutes, I was cut off, and was told, “Michelle, you need to dumb yourself down. You’re just too much for him.”

I was in absolute shock. Not only were my concerns being instantly rejected, but I was being told that I was to blame. Looking back, it reminds me of how victims of abuse are asked, “well, what did you do to provoke it?”

I was in my early twenties when I lived this unforgettable moment. Very formative years. And in that moment, I felt I had to make a choice: internalize this directive, or reject it. I vocalized my instantaneous decision by responding, “I will never dumb myself down for anyone. Ever.” And I left. And I left a lot of respect for that person behind as I walked out of that room.

To tie this back to your previous question, I believe that these people struggled with a closed mind and major insecurities with themselves. They unfortunately decided to project this onto others.

What should a powerful woman do in a context where she feels that people are uneasy around her?

There’s this meme going around on social media right now that I love. It reads, “Am I intimidating? Or are you intimidated?” In the context of this interview, here’s my take: A powerful woman should stay powerful, and never dim her light because of the insecurities of those around her. If people are uneasy because they don’t know how to quite “take you in”, that’s on them, and you can’t control that, anyway. But you can influence that. You can show them that you are powerful in a way that enables others to learn how to reign in their own power. You can show them that you’re a force for good.

To reiterate: the kind of power I’m referring to DOES NOT equal intimidation with intent to control by fear, it does not equal brute force, it does not equal any negative, toxic qualities that tend to get confused with “power”.

For the record, “powerful” and “strong” are very subjective. You don’t need a C-suite job title to be a strong, powerful person. Strength and power lies in skills like the ability to influence and put things into motion.

What do we need to do as a society to change the unease around powerful women?

As a society, we should look at powerful people as a learning opportunity. Looking up to a powerful person and asking ourselves: How did they get there? What do they know, that I don’t, that I can learn from? As a society, we need to look at powerful women as a source of experience, knowledge, strength–all the positive things that we think of when we look up to powerful men.

And you know what, people need to regularly take a long, hard look in the mirror. If you’re uneasy around a powerful woman, why is that? Is it really a feeling of unease because of her? Or is it really a feeling of inadequacy in comparison to her? It’s not about her. It’s really about you.

In my own experience, I have observed that often women have to endure ridiculous or uncomfortable situations to achieve success that men don’t have to endure. Do you have a story like this from your own experience? Can you share it with us?

I can’t think of any headline-making experience in particular. My experiences have been smaller, more quiet, and insidious. The kind that if taken to heart, limits you and causes you to stray from success and your full potential over time.

Here’s an example: I was working a usual day in our customer service office where we serve our walk-ins. At this point, I’ve been working in there for a couple years, and felt pretty confident in my working knowledge of our product and the industry we serve. And I had the track record to support it. A customer walked in, in a hurry as they usually are. As always, I said, “Hi there, how can I help you?” He blatantly says, “You can’t help me. You’re a woman.” I respectfully responded, without hesitating, “Well, I’m the only person in here that can help you. And I know I can. So you can either wait for 30 minutes until my colleague comes back from lunch, or I can help you right now. What will it be?” He looked at me in shock. Obviously not expecting that kind of response. Funny enough, after that day, he asked for me by name every time he came in to order parts.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women leaders that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

It seems as though women leaders, especially young leaders (in terms of age), tend to be doubted more often. They have to spend more time “proving themselves”, even if they’re clearly more knowledgeable and skilled with something. Ironically, the more women and young people have to “prove themselves” in the eyes of skeptics, the stronger and more skilled they become. While challenges like these will never disappear, in my opinion, they can be used to our advantage.

Let’s now shift our discussion to a slightly different direction. This is a question that nearly everyone with a job has to contend with. Was it difficult to fit your personal and family life into your business and career? For the benefit of our readers, can you articulate precisely what the struggle was?

Is it really about fitting our personal life into our business and career? Or vice versa? The answer to this question is different for everyone, for a variety of reasons, and it changes throughout our life. Whichever you choose at any given time will take away from the other, especially in the beginning stages of building your life. This will always be difficult, and it’s just a part of life. But being content with your choices is what makes the struggle manageable.

Part of my struggle every day is in actively choosing to have faith in myself, and faith that what I’m sacrificing now won’t all be for naught. I see so many people at my age in life enjoying their children, families, etc., and sometimes I feel like I’m missing out. Or that I might be prioritizing the “wrong” things. Or that they “have it all” somehow, and I don’t know the magic formula to do the same. When my family questions me about marriage, and when I’m going to have kids, when I’m going to “slow down”– I sometimes find myself wondering the same thing. But then I remember that what others want for me, and when they want it for me, simply doesn’t always align with the goals I’m working towards. And that’s ok. I do want children and to build a family of my own, but I want to build them on a solid foundation. And how I define “solid” is completely up to me. And I’m just not there yet.

What was a tipping point that helped you achieve a greater balance or greater equilibrium between your work life and personal life? What did you do to reach this equilibrium?

The tipping point was realizing that I can’t do and be everything for everyone all the time. It’s impossible. When I started feeling the effects of the pressure to be everything, be everywhere, do everything, never falling short in being the perfect student, perfect family member, perfect team member…I realized that something had to give. I started to learn the breaking points of my mind and body, and accepted that time is limited. Realizing that if I break down, I can’t do anything for anyone, forced me to have to make some tough decisions. I had to learn how to say “no”. And believe me, it was very hard at first. Going from being a “yes person”, to sometimes saying “no” was just as difficult for some of the people around me to get used to as it was for me. And I did lose some relationships. But the people that truly loved and accepted me for me, not for what they were getting from me, are still there for me.

I work in the beauty tech industry, so I am very interested to hear your philosophy or perspective about beauty. In your role as a powerful woman and leader, how much of an emphasis do you place on your appearance? Do you see beauty as something that is superficial, or is it something that has inherent value for a leader in a public context? Can you explain what you mean?

The appearance we choose when we interact in the world is incredibly influential, whether we like it or not. Notice I use the word “choose”. Let’s ignore the characteristics of our appearance that we can’t change for now, for the sake of brevity.

Beauty is both superficial and contains inherent value for a leader. There is a reason why people hire stylists, why people running for President of the United States wear a suit during their debates, Steve Jobs’s iconic turtleneck-and-jeans look, the list goes on. And it works, for what (I’m assuming) they intended. Human beings are naturally judgemental creatures, and we tend to be drawn to people that are like us, people we want to be like, and people that we find attractive. We also tend to make assumptions about people’s authority, etc., based on their appearance. As a leader in a public context, it’s important to understand this, and be intentional about it.

At this point in my life, I feel like it all comes down to this: emphasis and decisions about your appearance should be determined by what end result you want and what you value. Do you want your beauty to be seen at the forefront, and do you value augmenting your natural appearance? Then spend a lot of time on it. Do you think that anything other than personal hygiene is a waste of time? Then ignore it, and realize you will be equally judged for that, too. There is no right or wrong answer here. Remember, at the end of the day, your appearance is only a PART of what everyone sees. It does not replace who you are, and everything else you bring to the table.

I used to have a very unhealthy relationship with my personal appearance. Thankfully I’ve grown past much of that. I have chosen a balance that seems to work for me right now. For example, I still wear makeup everyday when I’m in public, but I don’t spend as much time and effort that I used to. I spend money on clothes and dry cleaning, but I know my budget and what works for me in the environments that I’m in. Because for ME, I feel that I am presenting “my unspoken self” in the way that I want by doing so.

How is this similar or different for men?

I think men fight a similar battle. They’re humans too, so they are judged for their appearance as well. I remember a conversation with a young man who said something along the lines of, “…it must be nice that it’s socially acceptable for you to wear makeup to hide your bad skin days. I can’t, and I hate being seen as gross and ugly for my acne.” This comment really opened my eyes. My initial thoughts were, 1) acne doesn’t make you gross and ugly, and it’s sad that he was having that experience, and 2) men are probably just as self conscious about their appearance as women. I will say, however, that it seems that society, since the beginning of time, puts more pressure on women to prioritize maintaining a certain appearance. And that is where the battle for men and women are different.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Powerful Woman?” (Please share a story or example for each.)

1- Know yourself. Truly knowing and always learning about yourself is instrumental to one’s success. I feel that it’s impossible to lead and serve others if you don’t know how to lead in your own life. What do I mean by this? Think of a time that you were in a high-stakes situation. How did you react when the situation sparked a fight or flight response, and why? How did you react to a passive aggressive comment, and why? Did you keep yourself from over promising and under delivering? Why or why not? Knowing what happened isn’t enough–the “why” is everything. These are the kind questions that you have to know the answers to, and you have to accept that the answer changes over time. Think about it, knowing yourself means being in complete control of how you present yourself to the world. Now that’s powerful.

2- A support system. This could be a group of friends, a coaching group, an industry organization, whatever feels right for you. Once I became more connected and involved with organizations outside of work, the game changed for me. I highly recommend starting out by joining an industry group, and volunteering to get involved. This will not only help you network for business, but also help you grow and naturally build relationships that will be key to your long term success.

3- Short term and long term goals. Goals help guide you. Without a guiding light, it’s difficult to stay on track, and it’s easy to get lost in the day to day of work and life. Set short term goals that can actually be met (seriously, be realistic), and set long term goals that can be grandiose, yet flexible depending on the twists and turns that life brings you. For example, set short term goals of taking that online course, and a long term goal of earning that career-changing job.

4- Boundaries. Without setting boundaries, it will feel impossible to get anything done, to make progress, the list goes on. Set boundaries to help maintain expectations that others have of you, and the expectations you have for yourself. For yourself, think of this like setting rules. Examples are things like, “I will only go 2 days without exercising”, “I won’t spend more than 30 minutes a day scrolling on social media”, “I will read something positive or educational before I read my emails”, “I will not let the negativity of others affect me, so I will limit my time with those people”, etc. I’m sure you get the idea.

5- Confidence. I’m sure we’ve all heard this a million times before, but here it is again. Have confidence in yourself, no matter what. No one else can give it to you, and no one else can take it from you. It’s easy to allow others to manipulate our sense of confidence, but don’t let them. Of course, I’m not suggesting that you be arrogant or let your ego take over. Those things will end up hurting you more than helping you. But find your balance of being confident in yourself, yet listening to the feedback around you. Feedback won’t always be vocalized to you, so be open to the social cues around you.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Wow, what a loaded question. There are so many admirable and interesting people in the world, it feels impossible to pick any one person. But I’ll go ahead and put myself out on a limb here and say Sara Blakely. She’s been in the news a lot recently since selling a majority stake of her Spanx empire, and she thanked her team in such a noteworthy, generous way. But even more exceptional is her story. She literally started her company from nothing but an idea, stemming from the need for the right undergarment to get ready for a party. Insane. Her self-confidence, endurance, and mind-blowing ability to figure out an industry and how to build a business is just incredible. If I was ever so blessed to meet her, let alone have a full blown conversation with her, I can’t imagine the words of wisdom I would hear. She’s the kind of person society should look up to.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.