Transcript

Turning Disadvantages into Advantages | Aditi Hardikar | TEDxUofM

[Applause] the thing that's probably on a lot of our minds in this room is what we plan to do with our lives if it wasn't already on your mind it is now and you're probably furious with me for bringing it up on your day off but bear with me whether you're the type of person who has known from a young age what you've wanted to major in and what your career would look like from start to finish or if you're still figuring that out I think we can all agree on what maybe the typical path will look like after say undergraduate gradu uation you get an internship you intern for one maybe two years you get an entry-level position you maybe get another entry-level position and you get to this point where you feel like I don't have any more meaningful substance to contribute so you head to grad school after two maybe three years now you finally feel like you're in the position to think about what you actually want to do with your life instead of just AC crewing job experience we can agree that this pretty much sounds like an inevitable sequence of events right that's definitely what I always thought and did until I found myself at age 22 asking for a job I was grossly unqualified for I had interned for an organization back in college and two weeks before graduation in 2011 that organization approached me with a contract based offer for a whopping three months of certain employment I took the offer but meanwhile had been yearning to work on President Obama's re-election campaign so after those three months were up the organiz organization told me they would renew my contract but again not permanently and I took this as my cue to pack everything up and move to Chicago to work on the president's reelection campaign there was no certain job but I got an internship working with the LGBT fundraising team about a month and a half in the deputy director of the program got promoted elsewhere and I thought this was my shot surely this was a sign so I arranged a meeting with my boss I sat him down and I said I'd like to throw my hat in the ring to be your deput he all but laughed in my face you see I had just graduated from Michigan not but 5 months prior had no fundraising experience had barely any professional experience for that matter so it shouldn't have come as a shock when he said he wanted to go with someone with more experience looking back I can't help but laugh I was 22 asking for a job that someone with five years of experience would be qualified for not five months but you know what I think that if I hadn't simply had the gall to ask this wouldn't have happened a few months later my boss approached me with a job I was the new Deputy National director for LGBT fundraising and LGBT voter Outreach for President Obama's re-election campaign and I think that if I hadn't simply spoken up the thought might not have ever crossed his mind I Believe by asserting myself and having the confidence to suggest that I was qualified enough for the job perhaps I truly created the impression that I was and I became the candidate he was looking for simply by having the confidence to ask now this is easier said than done right asking there's something called The Imposter syndrome that psychologists at the California Institute of Technology Define as a collection of feelings of inadequacy even in the face of uh evidence that suggest the otherwise for instance the fear of being found out right for not knowing as much as others in the room countless Studies have shown that the Imposter syndrome has plagued women and people of color in profession settings it styes their profession to actually trust in their abilities to meet their fullest potential because they feel like they're on the brink of being found out because there's some sort of fraud even though they're clearly qualified to be in the job and I think the Imposter syndrome affects us young people in a unique way since we're young and inexperienced many of us already feel like imposters and so we fear even asking for the job because we fear of putting ourselves in the position where we could feel the impostor syndrome it prevents us from even putting El out there and so naive as I was at age 22 I trusted in my abilities right I had the confidence to ask for something I really cared about even though on paper my qualifications might not have matched up I like to think of this as my hack and no I'm not talking about a hack as gaining unauthorized access to a certain movie Studio's uh email database or a certain activist group that publicly shames on social media high-profile wrongdoers although those are great the way that I like to think of my hack is the way that the tech sector would Define it or actually the way that Urban Dictionary defines it which is a clever solution to a tricky problem and I like to think of my life hack as visually collapsing the rungs on a career ladder and I'm not talking about a corporate ladder although that's your path by all means visualize that but what I mean is hacking away at the steps hacking away at some of the rungs on this ladder those inevitable steps that we feel like we have to go through in order to get to a place where we actually care about what we're doing I'm reminded of the quote from the brilliant Amy Cy who's a behavioral scientist and she tells us we should fake it until we become it we should use our body language to exude the confidence to convince ourselves that we're good enough but how do we become someone who is still inexperienced but qualified enough to ask we reframe and reclaim our disadvantages as advantages and to do that the first thing you need to think about is to know what you don't know this is powerful think about all the things you don't know in the context of a job or opportunity you want write them down and thinking long term this is a great exercise to identify what you need to work on what are my disadvantages I have maybe four years of professional experience and that's a little generous I have a short resume I'm not published and I just have a bachelor's degree the list goes on in the example of my campaign story I didn't know the first thing about political fundraising I didn't know which LGBT community leaders in Columbus Ohio I needed to engage and I didn't purport to because I also knew what I did know right and when you know what you do know in contrast to what you don't know and you think honestly and clearly about those things this contrast allows you to reframe those disadvantages as advantages so the way I framed my limitations but as positive aspects were on the campaign I had cultivated great interpersonal and relationship building skills a lot of in of my time in college which rendered me a good fundraiser I had a keenness for Learning and learning quickly and so even though I didn't know specific knowledge I would work really hard and and learn on the job quickly I had and still do have a passion for LGBT issues and social justice issues and I had a fresh perspective and there's a beauty actually about being young in the professional world for one you have energy I personally was well accustomed to pulling all nighters in the Fishbowl something that unsurprisingly helps me on a campaign for another you likely don't have a demanding personal life a partner children family and those are actually attractive qualities about you I'm not kidding and I truly believe that there's an advantage when it comes to having a lack of professional depth those who've been working in a field for years maybe even decades are used to operating through a business as usual type of approach maybe the status quo a lot might be burnt out but you as an energetic new newcomer likely from a different generation than the veterans in your field are able to approach problems and ideas in a completely different way right and an Innovative way and I think that is a true Advantage so let's start to think about our disadvantages as advantages right let's turn those weaknesses into strengths and in the areas where you know you don't know make sure you're growing and make sure you're learning as possible because if you plan to keep hacking to the other steps on your career L you got to make sure that you're learning and growing as much as possible and above all it's got to be something you care about or I doubt this hack will work I have felt unqualified for every job I've had there are times where I walk into the White House and I'm in a meeting with brilliant people and I feel like an unqualified fraud but then I think about if that were the case I wouldn't have been hired and I remind myself this constantly as I Fe as I feel this imposter syndrome creeping in and I want us all to remind ourselves of this because too often we assume the attitude of an unqualified fraud and don't even try right we don't even ask and so naive as I was at age 22 I trusted in my abilities right and I want us all to trust in the things that we know we're good at and aim not just high but higher I think about you know the 22-year-old me who asked to be hired on a national presidential campaign right out of college or I think about the 25-year-old me who asked to serve at the White House I want us all to think about aiming for not just high but higher for those jobs that we think were not conventionally qualified for now I'm not saying you should ask to be the president of the United States tomorrow please don't I'm not saying you should ask to treat patients before you've ever attended medical school again please don't this is not blind confidence or Cockiness this is acknowledging that you have limited ations but there are positive aspects about you that deem you a good qualified candidate so let's reframe those disadvantages as advantages let's have the confidence to trust in those abilities and then ask and now you've not just faked it you've become this candidate that you think is qualified right that potentially your dream job is looking for and so I want us to stop having this internal Mantra of I'm not good enough I'm not smart enough I'm not qualified enough because we've just run through this exercise where you do know what you do know and you're good at those and those positive aspects are worthy enough with your meaningful experiences from college and whatever limited experience you have the passion you have those are all qualifications for you to actually reach for jobs that you deserve so just ask yes it's scary to think that you're young and asking for a big job yes it's scary to be young and feel like you don't have the tools to succeed at that big job but that fear should never prevent us from achieving well greatness thank you