What should a music teacher, passionate about ethics and physics with no college education and a generous helping of dysgraphia, depression, and anxiety do professionally? Become a Product Leader, naturally.
In June of 2016 I got hired at my first “big person” job as a business analyst for a custom software development shop. Within five minutes of walking through the office door on my first day, I was asked to jump on a client call and “keep the conversation going” (this sounds made up but hand to god it happened). Boy does that do wonders for your anxiety. I had no idea what to do except listen and avoid asking dumb questions. This might sound like an immediate red flag, what kind of job would do that? But in reality, I was extremely grateful to even have a job. Hell, they could’ve asked me to do jumping jacks all day and I would’ve with a smile on my face. I barely squeaked into the company after getting fired from a sales role two months prior; a role where I cold-called universities to sell educational magazine adds. I hated that sales job almost as much as working in fast food during high school. If it wasn’t for a few connections to this consulting company, and just enough online classes in website-building and books about software development, I would likely be struggling to pay the bills today.
I was playing a dangerous game. No collage degree. No meaningful work experience. No career path. And frankly, a Venn diagram where my “passions” and the ability to “make enough money to live” looked like our solar system. Mix in dysgraphia and enough anxiety to keep the therapy industry employed for years to come, and I knew my options were limited, I was desperate.
So why am I telling you my story? Is this just another “started from the bottom now I’m here” story? Sorta, except I’m not “here”, I’m not a VP of product and I may never be. I also didn’t start from the bottom. Nor was my success somehow due to my personal work ethic or shear “willpower”. Honestly, I continue to feel like my story is one of luck, good fortune, and somehow “failing” my way up in my career. When I look around a room full of product people I still feel out of place, (gotta love imposter syndrome); like a misfit hiding in a suit of professional clothing.
My hope is that this story gives you some motivation and confidence to be honest, open, and teachable beyond belief. And if you’ve already got that nailed, then please shoot me a message, cuz I’ve got a lot more to learn.
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Shortly after becoming a BA (business analyst), like five-minutes after, I felt like a fish out of water. I WAS a fish out of water. Or more actually, I was a bird in a submarine. Completely unsure of where I was and what to do. I was convinced my manager and the people around me would find out any minute that I didn’t belong. So what did I do? After panicking for a week while building up lots of anxious energy, I decide to take a leap and approach every professional relationship around me like an opportunity to learn something. I knew I didn’t belong, everyone else would learn sooner or later, so might as well try distracting everyone by asking so many questions that I delayed the inevitable. I asked my manager question after question - till he got so annoyed he told me to go “google more shit”, “learn how to code”, and “read [software, design, agile] books”. So I took that and ran with it. I studied, I leaned the basics of coding, audible was my best friend as I listen to book after book. My peers gave me additional advice about how to learn, so I took it, and watched how they did their jobs. Asking questions and learning from them. It didn’t mater who I was talking to - software designer, sys admin, software architect, project manager, they all could teach me something. I took all this learning and tried to never say no when asked to do something. Could I handle another project? “Yep, you bet!”, I was fortunate to be in a company small enough that I got exposure to all these different roles. Here’s what’s great about being teachable and asking questions - you repel people who don’t want to teach you and you attract mentors and teachers. It wasn’t long before a couple coworkers took me under their wing.
The lessons I take away from this job are as follows
The habits that helped: Question asking, being teachable, taking ownership of everything I could get my hands on. Take note of the things you are good at, and what you suck at - this information will guide you. These are your implicit professional signals.
The habits that hurt: When you’re inexperienced, taking ownership of everything tends to bite you in the ass, a lot. You end up with too much on your plate, and then you commit to doing things you have no idea how to do.
It’s not obvious to me what sharing my professional story will accomplish. If anything, maybe it will encourage you to build a passion, in spite of not being credentialed. Or maybe it will provide a useful mindset shift. Hell, it might convince you to never try this approach. I don’t know. What I do know is that my misshapen journey doesn’t make sense to me. And if there is one less I took from this early phase of my professional career, it was to fall in love with the things around me that don’t makes sense.