Daring To Be Different
Stories and Tips From A Woman Leader In Tech
In the book Daring To Be Different, Raji Rajagopalan shares her stories of growing up with biases and becoming a leader in tech. She shares her career lessons and practical tips, including how to calm pre-meeting jitters, how to deal with difficult people, how to make good career decisions, how to story tell at work, and most importantly, why you should be more audacious in your career.
Here are the few things that completely resonated with me and things I learned:
Work — a career — is more than just a way to make a living:
Even in this age and time, the notion around how a career is secondary or an option for women surprises me. I love how Raji explains that work is not a mere paycheck or just a means to living. Work can make you more confident in yourself. Work can bring meaning to your life, and it can help you develop new meaningful social connections. Even if you have no financial reason to work, there is a value that work brings on it’s own that makes career worth going after.
A mom with career inspires her daughter to have a career of her own too.
Say yes and then you can figure out the how:
Just because you become a seasoned professional doesn’t mean you will become fearless. You just need to learn how to manage your fears and deal with them. Little by little, one can travel far.
Often times we come across things we haven’t ever done, be it public speaking or managing a team. When an opportunity comes your way don’t hesitate to say yes because you haven’t ever done that. Say yes and then in the process, you can figure out the method to madness.
RAIN Framework:
Often, when we face difficult people or situations at work, we assume things are more disastrous than they are, more personal and permanent than they are. In moments like this:
Recognize: recognize the story you are playing in your head
Allow: Allow yourself to observe the judgments in your head with some distance
Investigate: Investigate facts from that of emotions
Non-Identify: Detach yourself from mental stories.
Present your ideas effectively:
Be it what you’re creating with your code, or ideas in your mind that need to be communicated, knowing how people work and what appeals to them is crucial. All of this requires storytelling.
contrary to popular belief, people building technology- engineers, and program managers need storytelling to persuade people of our ideas, to educate and inform, and to inspire.
Anyone can get better at storytelling with practice.
Most decisions in life are reversible, do not agonize and overthink them:
When it comes to decisions like promotions, and which career move to make next use rational and intuitive to make your decision.
no matter what conclusion you come to, know that most decisions are reversible.
have a strategy to roll back or course correct if things are not going as well as you expected. Then make decision and go on your merry way.
What do we long for and what are we giving up in return:
buying a home, getting promoted, getting your first million. Though some of the ambition is healthy, it never stops. The hunger for more intensifies and can lead us down an unhappy path.
All the while, we unthinkingly sacrifice health, the time we can spend with loved ones, our personal passions, maybe even our legacy. We need to pause and think about what we long for and what we’re giving up in return in this bargain.
Make a difference between beyond yourself and your family:
Some of the best words that Raji has written and are my favorite in the book that I would go back to again and again in the future:
Despite the numerous reminders from society ambition is not womanly — a woman needs to put family first, be a mother, be a caring wife/ daughter etc — I nurture within me a strong desire to make a difference in the world beyond myself and my family.
