10 (Counter) Beliefs Helping You Succeed

Our beliefs, no matter how we ended up with them, affect our behavior and the way we conduct ourselves at school, at work, and in life at large. Oftentimes, we are held back due to these beliefs, but it’s difficult to realize we have these beliefs that are affecting our progress. Shifting our mindset can help us move forward towards what we want, and in this article, I’ll talk about beliefs that both I personally identified and overcame as well as from those who I’ve mentored over my career.

I grew up in California in the US, and I went to university nearby and ended up studying computer science. School was really hard for me. I studied more than anyone else I knew (my dorm mates played video games all day, didn’t really go to class, didn’t really study) but I still got the worst grades out of everyone I knew. It made me bitter and made me feel like life was unfair, but there was nothing I could do about that. What’s worse is that in my second year, I stumbled upon a ton of people who were literally geniuses because they had started coding when they were five years old. I started when I went to university, and I started computer science even later than everyone else because I took a bit of time trying to figure out what I wanted to do. It wasn’t fair that they were way ahead of me and understood much faster than me, and it wasn’t fair that I had to spend so much time studying just to get worse grades than everyone. I also ended up spending way more time interviewing than anyone else I knew. But what could I do about all of that? Well, I can’t really change other people. What I could do is work hard, and I did. I had discipline, I started my projects the day they got announced, started studying for exams way in advance. I did what I had to do to give my best shot, and that’s all that I can ask from myself. I need to keep learning, keep improving, and keep moving forward. I don’t need to compare with others, I just need to make sure that today me is better than yesterday me, that today me is better than a year ago me. Constant improvement, comparing myself to myself. I’m happy to say that 12 years after my first computer science class, I have indeed improved. Phew!

So what’s the belief that I want to talk about here?
Belief: I’m not good enough because everyone else around me is doing better.
Counterbelief: No need to compare yourself to others, compare yourself to you. Are you better than you were a year ago? A month ago? Yesterday? If your answer is yes, then you’re doing just fine. It doesn’t matter how well (or badly) everyone else is doing.

Eventually, I made it through university and got my first job. I often get asked from university students and new graduates about how they should spend time preparing for their internship or full-time job. I always say go play, devote time to your hobbies, take a break, watch Netflix all day, go travel. That’s how you can prepare — take a break so your brain is fresh to go, your mental health is in a good place, and you are ready to do work again. Because you got hired for the job, the company knows you have the potential, and you will learn what you need to know on the job. To help you learn what you need to know, learning how to ask questions. That was one of my biggest learnings in my first job, and I continued to improve upon it over the years. I quickly realized that part of the more senior people’s job is to provide mentorship and help to the more junior engineers, and this is true for all companies I’ve worked at. I learned how to provide enough context, talk about what I already tried, and ultimately ask the question I needed an answer. It’s definitely a skill that is part of the job. Nobody knows everything, and we all need help sometimes. And that’s okay.

So what’s the belief that I want to talk about?
Belief: Because I got this job, I need to know everything and I don’t want to bother people with my questions.
Counterbelief: Because I got this job, I have the potential to do everything. Asking questions after trying myself will unblock me faster. My take on asking questions (at work) is to search and do everything in my power to unblock myself, but when I don’t know what else to try or search, ask for help. Sometimes, the answers to your questions are tribal knowledge, so you might not be able to find the answer no matter how hard you try!

After my second job, I was looking for yet another job. I interviewed at Google for the third time, and that’s not counting the once or twice I did in university. I basically interviewed once a year since I graduated from university, and each time I did, I got a bit closer. Each time I would interview, I studied, had interviews at other companies, and then also interviewed at Google. Finally on my third time, I passed and got the job.

So what’s the belief I want to talk about?
Belief: If a company rejects me, I must not be good enough. Since I can’t get a job or a promotion, there must be something wrong with me.
Counterbelief: Keep trying. Get better. Also, for a job, it’s not (necessarily) you, it could be the company, economy, or bureaucracy. Or it’s simply not time yet. Don’t give up after the first try if you really want it, figure out how to get better, practice, and keep working towards it.

Before I started at Google, I went traveling for a few months and I got a rental car in New Zealand. Its battery died because I left the light on overnight. Got it jumped, drove to trailhead, after finishing the hike, found that it died again. Sat at the bottom of the hike asking every person for jumper cables, didn’t have any. My hiking buddy called the hostel if they had cables (yes they did), I rode in a trailer for the first time in my life thanks to a lady who offered to take us back to town if needed. Got cables from the hostel, hitchhiked for the first time in my life back to the trailhead. Asked first person I saw to help jump the car, but ended up speaking Chinese to him because he didn’t know English. He also didn’t know how to jump a car. I did, and he said it’s impressive for a woman to be able to do this. Day didn’t go as planned because I made a boo-boo, but I ended up having many firsts, broke some gender stereotypes, and had an amazingly great day!

What’s the belief I want to talk about here?
Belief: Mistakes and failure are bad.
Counterbelief: What is failure? To me, failure is not growing. It almost doesn’t matter if the result is what I wanted — if it is and I did it without learning, I failed. If it wasn’t but I grew, I was successful. The worst is if I didn’t get the outcome I wanted and didn’t learn from it. As long as I learned, it was a good experience (although maybe painful nonetheless sometimes). Also, accidents happen and they might turn into a great experience!

The first day I met my manager at Google, he told me I could get a company phone. I asked him if I had to, because I don’t have a smartphone. In my entire life, I’ve only had a smartphone for about 7 months, and that’s because I had to be on-call at my last job. I got my first phone in high school, and it was a flip phone because I’m old enough to be in that era. I got it not because I asked but because my parents decided it was time. I’ve been playing since junior high, and in high school on game days against other schools, I would borrow my teammates’ phones to call my parents after the games were done if they couldn’t attend. My parents finally decided enough was enough and got me a flip phone with only calling. I think phone plans back then didn’t come with an automatic texting plan. I basically pretended like I didn’t have a phone and would only use it for volleyball games, which was fine during high school. My parents didn’t appreciate it so much when I started university, because they would try to call me and I wouldn’t answer because my phone was out of battery or I was out and didn’t bring my phone. I told them to email me if they need to contact me, because if I’m out, I’m not going to talk to them anyway and would tell them I’ll call them back when I’m home…essentially the same as them emailing me, which I would check when I get home. So life was like that and every so often, my parents would ask if I wanted a smartphone. No, no, no. I got annoyed at them asking me. Life was great without one, I didn’t need it. As I moved through university, got my first job, second job, started traveling more, organizing events for meetups and for work, I didn’t need a phone. I would be in the present and present only when I was out, and I’d attend to all the messages and emails and everything else when I was home. I know how to read maps, and I’m good at memorizing directions if needed because that part of my brain constantly gets exercised. That’s the way I wanted to live my life, and that’s how I continue to live my life. So, dear Google manager, do I have to have a phone? After listening to this story, he said no, no you don’t. (But just as a caveat, everyone has the choice to get one or not get one).

What’s the belief I want to talk about here?
Belief: Things have to be done the way they always have been done or because everyone else is doing it.
Counterbelief: Maybe true to some extent, but if you don’t like the way things have been done, change it. If you want to do something differently, do it. You’re allowed to be different. In fact, you should be different. Do what you want, ask for what you want, make change. Your boss / manager can’t read your mind and won’t know what you want, and you might be surprised and get what you want if you just ask! Worst case scenario is they say no, which would’ve been the same outcome as if you didn’t ask. Best case scenario, you get what you want (or more)! This goes for general life as well — ask for what you want even if it’s unconventional, because if you don’t ask or try to get it, nobody else will give it to you.

A few years into my Google career, the pandemic hit. Thankful that I still had my job, but I got a bit bored because I was stuck at home and couldn’t do anything. I had a great app idea and got connected with another developer who had a few years of experience under his belt, both of us were front-end engineers. We mostly built it out and then started looking for others to help. On the way, I was constantly wondering whether the way we architected everything was the correct way, but there was not really any way for either of us to know since we were the most senior people working on this project. Now, I’m still not entirely convinced we built it in the best way, but based on our respective experiences, I want to believe that we built it out properly and in a scalable, maintainable way.

So what’s the belief that I want to talk about here? This one might not be very obvious, but
Belief: I must be the best person in the room in order to be successful.
Counterbelief: When you’re the best in the room, it’s difficult to know how to grow and have guidance / mentorship.

Also during the pandemic, about a year in, I got randomly re-org’d without being asked what team I wanted to be on (and others I worked closely with got re-org’d to the team I wanted to be in). I was extremely angry, expressed this to my manager as well as my skip-level, but nothing could be done as there was no room in the team I wanted to join. A bit of time later, in my performance review feedback, my manager told me I should be more positive about the reorg even though my performance was still the way it was before the reorg. No, I really shouldn’t be more positive. I gave him (and his skip) feedback on that feedback.

So what’s the belief that I want to talk about here?
Belief: I must take feedback and change accordingly.
Counterbelief: Think about whether the feedback makes sense for you. Have you gotten that feedback many times or just once? If the latter, maybe keep it at the back of your mind but if it doesn’t make sense, be unapologetically yourself. If you got it with regards to performance at work, you should probably listen to it in order to reach your work goals, but if friends or coworkers (or strangers?) give you personal feedback, you don’t have to listen to everyone who gives you feedback.

I seem to have a lot of pandemic stories. Last one, I promise. As I mentioned before, I had a lot of free time on my hands during the pandemic, so I volunteered at Google-sponsored hackathons to help students with Firebase, ideation, debugging, and general coding. Some colleagues from Google Cloud also did, and some would give presentations. One of them was a developer relations engineer, and as nobody ever knows what this is, he described it, and he described it as a social software engineer. Throughout my career, I’ve loved coding but have always wanted to do something more people-facing since I really enjoy talking to people. So, once I heard about this job, I reached out to him and other colleagues internally to figure out actually what this job entails. I talked to a ton of people and decided to try it, eventually switching to it full-time and is what I do now. If you asked university-me what I’d be doing today, I definitely wouldn’t have told you developer relations engineer! In fact, if you asked university-me what I’d be doing today, I would’ve told you I’m very far into my career as a software engineer, am married, still living in California, and have a kid already. Well, I clearly am not a plan follower because none of those plans were followed, and my life is great!

So what’s the belief that I want to talk about here?
Belief: I must follow a x-year plan for my career and life. Related: experienced people have their life figured out
Counterbelief: Roughly knowing what you want and working towards it is good — not planning also opens lots of opportunities, ones that you might not have noticed if you have a tunneled vision towards your goal. Being flexible and adaptable to change is the biggest lesson I’ve learned, both on a smaller scale (day to day life) and bigger scale (career, general life), and I can’t imagine my life without all the random unexpected changes I’ve had.

I went to Grace Hopper Conference in the US for the first time during my last year in university, and it’s a conference celebrating women in tech. Women who have done amazing things, and it was the first time I was exposed to the challenges of being a woman in tech. In university, of course I had noticed that there weren’t very many women, but I just accepted that that’s how it is. At the conference, I learned about inequalities due to the imbalance of gender, such as unequal pay, different bars for promotion, and different expectations for behavior. Because equality is such a core value for me personally, I wanted to change this, and I realized at my second time attending the conference that education is a way to try to increase diversity in tech. Trying to break the general stereotypes around working in tech — that it’s hard, that it’s not for women, that only “smart” people do it — is easier to do when people are younger, when people are still going through the education system. And since then, I’ve been involved in a lot of Google’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. We have a lot of programs in the US where we partner with historically black colleges which are historical because they were from the segregation times where black people and white people could not go to the same schools. These colleges were specifically for black people. We also partner with Hispanic-serving institutes, which are universities with many Hispanics but also have other ethnicities as well. I’ve led student teams to build an app from scratch, put together events at universities for resume reviews, mock interviews, and various career workshops. In general, I’ve done a lot of mentoring and teaching, and one of the programs I’ve enjoyed the most is one where we teach introduction to computer science full-time at these partnering universities, and we basically leave our day to day job to teach full-time at the university, which includes making the syllabus, actually teaching, and then creating lesson plans, homework, labs, exams, projects, and pretty much anything a teacher or professor would have to do. I can keep talking and talking and talking about all this, and if you have questions about it or want to hear more, I’m happy to share more. I want to get to the point of me talking about all this. I do a lot of work in DEI, but it took me a long time to realize I do so much that I’ve almost taken it as part of my job. All of this is voluntary, nobody told me I have to go do it, and it’s absolutely not required and it’s not part of my job. I even got an award recently because I do so much DEI work. And in the more recent years, when I get asked what I do or when I introduce myself professionally, I talk about being a developer relations engineer AND doing DEI work. It took me quite a bit of time to realize I should give myself credit for doing all the DEI work I do and tell people about it, because it’s a lot. It’s almost a second job.

So what’s the belief that I want to talk about here?
Belief: I don’t want to brag about what I do.
Counterbelief: Being humble is definitely a good characteristic, but that doesn’t mean you can’t tell people about what you do. Take credit for what you do and tell people about it. It might make others interested in doing the same, and maybe you can loop them into doing an activity that you’re passionate about! And, you never know what might inspire and motivate others.

As a kid, I didn’t like talking to people. I remember a story from when I was in 4th grade and my mom asked me to ask my teacher a question after school because my mom needed the answer. I didn’t want to because I was scared. Somehow, that changed in high school, more so in university, and even more so after university. I joined a bunch of clubs during my last year in university and met a lot of people that way, and at my last internship, I organized weekly intern dinners. After university, I ran a meetup group for people in their 20’s to go hiking, eating, bowling, photographing, and who knows what else. I got into Couchsurfing when I moved to NYC and met strangers almost on a daily basis. And from meeting so many people, especially different people thanks to living in NYC and traveling, my mind has opened to more perspectives, lifestyles, and general understanding of the world. Two important outcomes of my life that came out of talking to such a big variety of people are:
- I’ve become more empathetic and non-judgmental towards people because I realized that people always have reasons for behaving and believing what they believe, it’s just a lack of understanding that we disagree off the bat.
- I came across the idea of living nomadically from meeting people who do it. A ton of backpackers and low-budget travelers take time off to travel and explore the world to gain more understanding of themselves as well. A lot of these travelers work seasonal jobs too, like working at a summer camp or ski resort, work really hard and many hours, then take time off to travel. And yet others permanently travel — but not as vacation with a checklist. They, or shall I say we, stay in a place for a bit longer, and we work when we need to and go exploring otherwise, continuing to open our mind, meet people, and explore the world. This lifestyle is definitely not one I could’ve thought of myself, as my environment back in California did not have people like this. But, thanks to meeting people from different places and all stages of life, I became more accustomed to these thoughts and am now quite surrounded by people like me doing this. Needless to say, it has been life-changing, and I can’t imagine living a life not like this.

So what’s the belief I’d like to talk about here?
Belief: The world is a dangerous place and we shouldn’t talk to strangers
Counterbelief: Talking to people opens minds to more perspectives, increases empathy, and improves communication. It might change your life. I became better at my job because I was able to talk to people better, especially now since I’m doing developer relations engineering. If talking to strangers is difficult for you, it’s a skill that if you practice will get easier, like everything in life. Talking to people will also likely open up opportunities to you as you learn more about the world.

Conclusion

So what I’ve shared with you today are beliefs that many people have that may be holding them back from their true potential, along with the counter beliefs that can drive people forward instead. I’m quite an action-oriented person, so if I heard my talk today, I might be asking myself: how do I actually change my current perspective and authentically believe these empowering beliefs when my existing beliefs feel so real and so strong? Well, recognizing that these existing beliefs might be limiting you from your potential is the first step. Change isn’t instant nor is it trivial, and over time, hopefully reminding yourself that these empowering beliefs exist will drive change.

I want to also end by asking you: what is success? It’s personal to every person, and your definition might not be the same as your best friend’s definition. Often, I find that it could mean:
- Attending a “good” university, whatever “good” means
- Getting a “good” job at a “good” company
- Earning a high salary
- Supporting one’s family
- Continuous growth
- Being happy

For me, it means living the life I want to live filled with activities I want to do and meaningful relationships, and the ideas I’ve shared are mindsets and perspectives I have to help me get to where I am.