Chapter 2

Get your mind right

Throughout your career, despite your best efforts and intentions, you will undoubtedly experience setbacks. They will come in the form of disappointments, negative feedback, a failed project or a poor performance review. It’s not a matter of if, but when. At no point in your career will you stop being human, which implies that you will never be exempt from making mistakes. When you enter a new corporate environment, you are placed in unfamiliar situations with no blueprint to tell you how to act in them. So, on a daily basis, you learn by trial and error and deal with different personalities, figuring out how best to work with them. Sometimes these new experiences at work will make you feel badly about yourself, thus forcing you to rebuild your self-confidence.

Regardless of how a setback transpires or what it entails, you can never allow it to take you permanently out of the game. Setbacks are hard for everyone, and in my experience, high-achieving folks take these experiences exceptionally hard, exactly because they’re not used to them. It is therefore important for you to realise that you can always decide how you see a given situation. There will always be different strategies within your sphere of influence or control that can help you bounce back. Also, remember that you will be better off learning a difficult lesson – it will help you to never make the same mistake twice. Sometimes you can’t fix situations, but at the very least you can always change your perspective on them. In other cases, you can turn the situation around, create new alternatives to explore, or you can even completely restore what was lost. No matter what happens, push forward and don’t ever give up on yourself completely.

The extent to which you are able to deal with setbacks speaks to your resilience in the workplace. Resilience can be defined as a person’s ability to bounce back from unanticipated changes, setbacks, disappointments or failures. And this is where mindset comes in. Your resilience in bouncing back from setbacks completely depends on your perspective.

Mindset can be defined as your beliefs, thought patterns, perspectives and perceptions on situations in your life. Your mindset affects how you handle adversity, challenges, success and failure.

During my time at McKinsey, a consultant once asked to meet with me. She told me that she had been rated ‘Issues’ in her most recent performance review. (At the company, this was the belowaverage rating and it was not a good sign.) She started off our conversation by saying that no one really cared about her, nobody was willing to help her improve and nobody was invested in her success. Since I was on the Professional Development team, I knew the particular client project she was on and knew some of her team members.

‘Well, what about so-and-so, the partner on the study? How is he?’ I asked her.

‘Oh, he’s great,’ she said. ‘He’s always willing to help me and answer my questions. He definitely thinks that I can turn it around.’ ‘And what about so-and-so, the Engagement Manager?’ I asked. ‘Oh, she’s cool. She’s always very willing to coach me and we get along well.’

‘When you started this conversation, you said no one cared about you or your performance,’ I said. ‘You said that no one was invested in your success. But we’ve just talked about two key leaders on your team that are always willing to coach you so you can turn your performance around.’

She looked at me with an expression of defeat and surprise. ‘Yeah, you’re right.’

From that point, we started talking about how to turn her performance around. We discussed what she needed to do and how she needed to engage her supporters in and outside the project. Nothing about her actual situation – the client project, the leaders on the team, her performance rating – had changed during the course of our conversation. The only thing that was different was her mindset, the way she looked at her situation. She came into our meeting as a victim and left feeling more like a victor. She felt much more empowered because she now had a concrete plan of action.

How this young person moved from the mindset of a victim to that of a victor is a classic example of how important perspective is in a situation. Two people can have two different experiences and outcomes of the same situation depending on how they look at it. Victims blame others, make excuses and deny the role they played in getting themselves into the situation. Victors, however, own their part, take responsibility for what is in their control, and they have a can-do spirit. Victims ask, ‘Why is this happening to me?’, while victors ask, ‘Why is this happening for me? What is the lesson?’

Before I started writing this book, I was in a pretty despondent place in my life. I was feeling powerless and sorry for myself. Then it occurred to me that I’m passionate about, and have many ideas on, helping young people in their careers. Couldn’t I channel that energy into putting those ideas on paper? So that’s what I did . . . and that’s why you’re reading this book right now.

Maybe there are people who never fall into the trap of feeling like a victim. If you’re one of those people, that is awesome. However, the rest of us occasionally slip into the mindset of a victim. The real goal for us is to see how quickly we can talk ourselves out of it. And once we’ve done that, we can start focusing on what we can control or what we can influence.

Control can be defined as the ability to exercise direct influence or power over something, while influence is the power or capacity to affect an outcome in an indirect or intangible manner. Control says, ‘I make the decision’, and influence says, ‘I can persuade the person who makes the decision’ or ‘I can influence the outcome in some way.’ I recently co-facilitated a training event for women with high potential in the workplace. For one of the exercises, we asked the participants to write down everything that was getting in the way of their achieving their professional goals. We asked them to categorise what they’d written into three categories: areas that they had no control over; areas that they had control over; and areas that they had influence over. When the participants in the workshop categorised their challenges, 60 to 70 per cent of their obstacles were either areas that they had control over, or areas that they could influence. Many of the participants had an ‘aha’ moment when they realised that they had a lot more power than they originally thought.

Your mindset is one of those things that you can control. Remember that your mind is your most powerful asset, one that you should guard, manage, grow and challenge on a daily, even hourly, basis. Your behaviour always starts with a thought, so learning how to manage your thought processes about situations and people is critical to your success. This is often where we get tripped up in our careers. We look at situations and people through a particular lens, without challenging ourselves or working on our perspectives. We don’t push ourselves to see other possibilities or entertain the idea that we have blind spots.

As you start to examine your mindset and process your experiences at work, your first step will be to identify some of your own problematic thought patterns. Personally and professionally, I’ve experienced – and seen in others – a wide range of unhelpful mindsets. Some of the most common are a lack of self-awareness, not owning your career and doubting your internal net worth (with its counterpart, perfectionism). Then there are also those ‘F’ words that hold us back (failure and fear), what I call ‘checked baggage’, the go-it-alone mentality and the growth vs fixed mindset. We also judge ourselves too harshly when we do not take the long view, and when we measure ourselves by ‘the bubble’ standards and unrealistic timelines. At the same time, we have to contend with our own limiting beliefs and negative self-talk. Many of us suffer from impostor syndrome and we’re paralysed when we don’t know every step. We compare ourselves against others and we forget to bring what isn’t there. Also, as underrepresented minorities, there are certain mindsets that we sometimes struggle with – stereotype threat and learnt helplessness are prime examples – that keep us from showing up at our best. In this chapter, I’ll delve more deeply into each of these topics.

A lack of self-awareness

The cornerstone of a house is the brick around which other foundational bricks of the house are laid. In your career, your cornerstone is self-awareness. This entails having a balanced perspective on (ie not overestimating or underestimating) yourself, knowing what your strengths are and knowing that you can still develop. The first step in Bill Wilson’s famous 12-step programme is to admit that you have a problem. How can you work on a problem that you haven’t acknowledged? You can’t. Self-awareness is therefore the foundation of your development as a professional and as a person. Without it, you cannot leverage your strengths or address your areas of development.

Lacking self-awareness is similar to driving your car to a destination without knowing your starting point. If you don’t have a balanced, realistic view of yourself, you cannot know how far you have to go or the best path to get there, because you do not know where you’re starting from. I once worked with someone who was famously known to be horrible at execution. Everything she did started late, ended late and was a total chaotic mess. We took a personality assessment as a team and she scored very low in execution. She was surprised. ‘My job is 90 per cent about execution,’ she said to me. ‘How can I be in this job and score so low?’ It took everything in me not to say that I could have told her that for free several years ago. I was shocked that she didn’t know this about herself. It made me wonder: what had she been telling herself all those years about her chaotic projects and meetings? Had she been blaming the environment? The team? Her manager? Had she been honest with herself, she could have addressed those issues much earlier.

We unconsciously tell ourselves stories that aren’t entirely true, both to protect our own egos and to avoid the truth. But we need to grow up, take responsibility and work intentionally on the areas we have not been so great at. When you’re unaware or in denial, you cannot make progress. When I give feedback on one of my company’s self-assessments, the first result I always look at is self-awareness, because it gives me a sense of how much the person will challenge or accept the results. Usually, those with low self-awareness will challenge the results, even though the results are based on their answers about themselves.

Your ability to address the other mindsets that I discuss below is dependent on what you are able to admit to yourself. Our minds are powerful, so we should be truthful about ourselves and continue to grow as people and professionals. The only way to change is if you unpack and connect the dots of your story – the traumas, the triumphs, the defining moments and the key people. Learn to identify the elements of your character that will propel you forward, as well as the ones that could hold you back or overshadow other parts of you. This is the first step in building self-awareness, which is a critical element. It does not happen magically or unconsciously: you have to make a concerted effort.

Not owning your career and managing your performance

When you start working, you have to understand that nobody – not even your manager – is going to care as much about your career as you. You are now the CEO of You Inc, and a CEO doesn’t wait to be given the answers. She proactively seeks what she needs to be successful. You cannot wait for your manager to tell you what you need to do to be successful in the organisation. The onus is on you to understand what is expected of you, get the feedback you need and determine what you need to do to improve your performance.

Determine what you are being evaluated on and how your current role or task is preparing you for the next opportunity. This means finding out what kind of developmental and learning opportunities are available and determining whether you should take advantage of them. In an ideal world, your manager would proactively provide this information to you, but nine times out of ten this will not be the case. Take ownership of your career and your development and get what you need to be successful.

Doubting your internal net worth

The concept of ‘net worth’ traditionally refers to the amount by which assets exceed liabilities. Within the context of your career, think of your internal net worth as what you are worth as a person when you strip away your qualifications, achievements and labels. These things are not liabilities, but they are, however, external to you. Much like any asset or liability, your qualifications, achievements and labels may have value today but tomorrow they may be worthless. At the core of you, how much are you worth to you? If you strip away all of these external attachments, how would you describe yourself? Who would you be without those?

During my first job I questioned my internal net worth. I had always been labelled as the one with the good grades. In high school, I was in all the honours and advanced-placement classes and was selected as ‘Most Likely to Succeed’. I received a full scholarship plus room and board for university and graduated cum laude from the university honours programme. I had always done well in school, with a few notable exceptions (honours chemistry and honours pre-calculus might have been the death of me). I felt that doing well was the only option for my destiny. Doing well wasn’t just something I did – it was who I am. It was in my DNA.

The only reason I accepted my first job offer was because the company offered me an annual salary of $32 000 (or R560 000, which seemed like a lot of money in 1998), free parking, free benefits, free breakfast and lunch and free dinner if I worked late. I wasn’t certain about what my job entailed, but it was a reputable company that paid well enough for me to live on my own. That was all I cared about at the time. It turned out that my role was to be a systems tester for the company’s proprietary benefits administration system. It’s no surprise that I didn’t like the job, but the bigger surprise for me was that I was not the best at it. On top of that I also walked around looking like I didn’t like my job.

One day, my manager called me into her office. ‘Your performance is not what we would expect,’ she said. ‘If you don’t straighten up, I’m going to have to put you on a PDP (Professional Development Plan – a list of performance expectations) and you’ll have 30 days to turn your performance around. Otherwise we’ll have to let you go.’ This was the ultimate wake-up call. How could this be? If I wasn’t doing well, what was I worth? If I wasn’t top of the class, what value was I adding to the world? But the deeper question for me was this: if my identity was achievement, who was I if I wasn’t doing well? Who would I be without my achievements and my labels?

This was my first big lesson in the importance of managing how I was perceived at work. I don’t remember my work being that poor, but I realised that when people saw me looking unhappy, they put me under a microscope and they questioned my work. I had a come-to-Jesus moment when I realised that no matter how much I hated my job, I had bills to pay and I needed to keep my job until I could find something better. I decided to follow the ageold adage ‘fake it till you make it’. I started walking around with a smile (albeit fake) and my manager never had that conversation with me again. I also had to start answering my deeper questions about my self-worth. Around this time I started attending a new church and came to understand my worth in God’s eyes and from a spiritual perspective. This helped me place my worth and value in something other than achievement. While this approach worked for me, you have to determine what works best for you. It is imperative that you find something – besides achievements – in which to root your value.

This experience showed me that I have value and self-worth even if I never achieve another thing. I realised that I don’t have to be doing, achieving, adding more qualifications and living up to labels in order to feel worthy. The very fact that I take up space on Earth means that I have value; I add value by merely being. This is not to say that achievements and qualifications aren’t great: we salute others and ourselves when we accomplish milestones. But our worth is not dependent on them. They merely add to the magic, light and beauty that is already there.

A friend of mine in South Africa runs a modelling agency, for which I teach a confidence class. During my classes, I demonstrate an exercise that I saw somewhere on YouTube. It goes like this: I take out a ‘R20’ note and ask the participants how much it is worth. They say ‘R20’. Next, I crumple up the money in my hand and ask them again. Again, they answer R20. Then I drop the money on the floor and step on it. I ask them how much it is worth and they repeat, ‘R20’. Even if I say that the money in my hand is worth R10, we know that the money is still worth R20.

The R20 in the exercise I just described represents your self-worth. No matter what you do or don’t do, no matter what anyone says or does to you, you still retain your value. It is important for you to have a high internal net worth because when your identity is attached to achievements or labels, your emotions and self-worth fluctuate with every piece of positive or negative feedback. This type of mental volatility makes you an ineffective individual contributor, an unpredictable team player and, eventually, a very insecure leader. It doesn’t mean that you cannot get upset about feedback that you do not agree with. What it means, however, is that you do not doubt your value as a person, together with your ability to learn, to do well and to add value to the people around you. I also believe that when you have a low internal net worth, other people pick up on it and treat you according to the value you have placed on yourself. Another gauge of your self-worth is your relationships. If you are someone who allows others to misuse, abuse, disrespect or dishonour you, you have to ask yourself: ‘How much do I value myself if I allow people to treat me this way?’

Interestingly enough, Sharon Martin, a US-based psychotherapist and author, believes that perfectionism can be rooted in the idea that one’s self-worth is based on achievement. Martin espouses the idea that perfectionism can be said to have its roots in households where, either intentionally or unintentionally, perfection is set as the standard. I grew up in a household where, in my mind, there wasn’t much room for error. I remember the first time I accidentally broke a dish as a child. It wasn’t a fancy dish – just a run-of-the-mill, everyday cereal bowl. I thought my life was over and that the earth was going to open up and swallow me whole.

The more I reflect on the role of perfectionism in my own life, the more I realise how debilitating it has been. It has kept me from taking risks and sometimes even from moving forward. Mistakes I had made caused me to beat myself up for days or weeks. When others would make what I deemed ‘silly’ mistakes, I would comfort them, tell them that it was okay and that they would do better next time. But if I made the same mistake, I would criticise myself no end. Why was it okay for others to make mistakes but not me? Part of me thought that I was too good to make mistakes. Boy, was I wrong!

I once had an e-commerce business and it took me months to make the website public, because I was worried there might be mistakes on it. I checked, double-checked and triple-checked everything, and when I finally launched it I still found more mistakes. I realised that the site would never be perfect, because I was never going to be perfect. I had to accept that I’m not superhuman but the same brand as everyone else: the flawed kind. I saw mistakes as catastrophic, as opposed to what they really are: an opportunity to learn and grow. All I could do was apologise for the mistakes, try to make them right and make sure that I put processes in place so that they never happened again.

Many of us are perfectionists. Perfectionism may have helped us to be successful in school, but it may not serve us well in a corporate environment where time constraints and quick turnarounds are the order of the day. From a more practical standpoint, the idea that you can go off into a corner and emerge victorious three hours later with the answer is a fallacy. You become a risk-averse perfectionist who is afraid to make any type of mistake. This fear keeps you from speaking up – out of fear of saying the wrong thing – and makes you miss or almost miss deadlines because you’re always afraid that your work isn’t good enough. And from what I’ve seen, the pressure becomes too great; instead of propelling us forward to greater heights, it crushes us into silence and sometimes even disengagement. Because we feel as though we have no room for error, in our minds it is better to be silent than to be wrong.

Remember that when you are a new employee, you don’t know enough to do it on your own. You need the guidance and input of others. The perfectionist in us doesn’t want to show anyone anything that isn’t perfect, but you might need to work hard to remove your ego from the situation. This is not about looking perfect. This is about getting to the answer as quickly, efficiently and accurately as possible so that you deliver great results for your client or customer.

Avoiding perfectionism doesn’t mean your work should be sloppy or that you don’t have to double-check your work. However, it does mean that after you’ve checked it twice, you should ask yourself whether you should check it a third, fourth or fifth time. How much value are you adding with those additional checks? Is the additional value worth the time you spent on those checks? Did you sacrifice time you could have spent on other projects?

The ‘F’ words

Infants only have two innate fears: the fear of being dropped and the fear of loud sounds. All of our other fears are learnt fears, which means that we can unlearn them or, at the very least, overwrite them. At the root of much of our bad behaviour and poor choices is fear. You have to determine what your particular brand of fear is. There are various things we can be fearful of, for example failure, success, rejection and the unknown. It’s important to understand the root of your fear, how it manifests in your life and what your fear(s) gets in the way of. My number-one fear is failure. My fear of failure got in the way of my launching the website for my e-commerce business and learning the lessons I could only learn once I started it. I was also depriving myself of the lesson that I am still worthy, even if I am not perfect. I delayed learning that imperfections are not fatal.

Many of us have spent our whole lives trying to avoid failure. We were never given permission or room to fail. Failure was not an option. From a young age, we’ve been told that the bar is high for those of us who have the opportunity to be in certain spaces. We were told that we must not mess up this chance because it will be another hundred years before someone who looks like us will get another chance. Often we only want to go into situations where we know what we’re doing and what exactly we need to do to be successful. We carry a tremendous burden in thinking that we have to be right all the time and that there is no room for failure. But when we do not take risks and embrace the idea that we might fail, we hinder our chances to grow, innovate, push the boundaries, take risks and learn valuable lessons.

Some of the most successful people have endured great failures. Oprah Winfrey was fired from her newscaster job when she was 24; JK Rowling sent her Harry Potter manuscripts to 12 publishers before getting published. Part of the human contract is that we are fallible. It is a certainty that you will experience failure at some point. But it’s all a question of how you look at it, because failure and risk go together. If you never take a risk, you won’t be able to push the boundary, test a new idea or experience the growth that only comes from stepping outside your comfort zone. However, with every risk there is a chance of success and failure. In every venture, there are degrees of risk that you can take. You could start small by speaking up in a team meeting or asking a tough question. Or let’s look at it another way: let’s say you and your team are trying to solve a problem for a customer. In your mind, the path to the answer is a straight line and you fear your ‘dumb’ suggestion will derail the team. But what if the path to the solution isn’t a straight line? What if it is a complicated series of lines and curves that move forwards and backwards, ultimately leading to the answer? What if your suggestion helps the team get closer to the answer by eliminating a certain option? What if your suggestion helps the team feel more confident about the chosen direction? Then your suggestion, even though it wasn’t the ‘right’ one, helped the team arrive at the ultimate goal. Isn’t that the whole point?

Failure is never final unless you allow it to be. Failure is not who you are, but an event: ‘I failed’, not ‘I am a failure.’ During a talk that Oprah Winfrey gave at Stanford Business School in 2014, she said that failure is just a data point that leads you to your ultimate destiny, which the Creator has designed for you. You are not so powerful that you can interfere with the plan, so relax and focus on the next right step. When I started my online business, I learnt to think in this way. I never knew exactly if my strategies or business decisions would be successful, or how people would react, so I usually started off by trying certain things, learning the lessons, making adjustments and repeating the process. If you have disappointed someone, apologise, make the necessary changes to avoid it happening again, and move forward. Sometimes the lesson you learn is obvious, and other times you have to dig a bit deeper to find it – but it’s always there. Always remember that if you are putting yourself out there, if you are taking risks, and if you are being open and vulnerable, you will make mistakes. But wouldn’t you rather be a person who took a risk and failed than someone who stood on the sideline, wondering ‘what if’?

Most of us fear ending up in an ‘ultimate failure’ situation. To help consultants explore their worst-case scenarios step by step, I often conducted the ‘what if’ exercise at McKinsey. Here is an example of a typical conversation we would have:

Me: ‘Why aren’t you speaking up in the team problem-solving discussions?’

Fellow: ‘I’m afraid I’m going to say something stupid.’

Me: ‘And what will happen if you do?’

Fellow: ‘I might get a bad rating on the client study.’

Me: ‘And what will happen if you do?’

Fellow: ‘I might get rated “Issues”.’

Me: ‘And what will happen if you do?’

Fellow: ‘I might get counselled to leave [a fancy phrase for fired].’

Me: ‘And then what will happen if you do?’

Fellow: ‘I will be devastated.’

Me: ‘And then what will you do?’

Fellow: ‘I will be depressed.’

Me: ‘And then what will you do?’

Fellow: ‘Eventually I will start looking for another job.’

Me: ‘And then what will you do?’

Fellow: ‘I will start my new job.’

Me: ‘And life goes on.’

When we don’t face our worst-case scenarios, we become paralysed by fear. We think it will be the end of the world, but when we look at it closely, we realise that the earth will not open up and swallow us whole. Life goes on and so will you. If one opportunity does not work out, another one will. And who knows? It might be better than the one you were holding on to so tightly.

Checked baggage

When I talk about baggage, I’m not talking about suitcases and carry-on bags. Baggage refers to pain or strong negative emotions due to unresolved issues, experiences or traumas from the past. This baggage hinders your ability to live in the present and build healthy relationships. When it comes to your job, you may doubt that you have baggage, especially when you’ve never had a fulltime, professional job. But your baggage may have been created by the experiences and advice of others. The more cautionary the advice, the more it shapes how you feel about the corporate world or employment in general.

For example, many people are told that they shouldn’t divulge details about their personal lives at work. They’re taught that they should maintain a barrier between the professional and personal versions of themselves. While the people who gave you that advice may have had the best of intentions, it may not be relevant for the space you’ve stepped into. In addition, if a family member or friend went through a tough or unfair experience at work, we may take on some of his or her residual bitterness, anger or stereotypes about corporate culture, based on how we saw that person being treated. I’m not saying we shouldn’t take any advice from those around us, but we also can’t take every piece of advice at face value. We need to examine the source and relevance of the information.

Long ago, a Black friend of mine started working at a company I had previously worked for. We kept in touch after I resigned, and one day we were having lunch. I asked her how things were going, and the subject of where she was living came up. She said she was in the process of moving and looking at new homes, but she didn’t want to tell anyone at work because she was afraid they would use it against her. They might think she should have sorted that out prior to starting, she said. She had moved in with her father-in-law after the sudden death of her husband’s mother; after some time, she and her husband had decided to get their own place again. She said that she was always told to keep her private life separate from her work life.

I was surprised to hear my friend’s story because I was familiar with the company. I knew if she gave them the context, they would be willing to give her the time off she needed to go and look at places. It made me wonder why she felt uncomfortable about sharing something so innocuous. Would she be able to share anything deeper? Would she be able to form trust-based relationships at work if she couldn’t even trust her team with this situation? Could her colleagues trust her if she couldn’t even trust them?

Few of our parents ever worked in the type of environments (such as management consulting, investment banks, law firms) that we are working in. The world in which they lived was very different from the one we are in now. For them, it was probably easier to keep the wall up between their private and professional lives. Today, however, many of us are working 12to 14-hour days in collaborative environments where trust is fundamental to sharing ideas, building relationships and achieving business outcomes.

Examine the advice you’ve been given and see if it applies to your current work environment. If it doesn’t, how can you bring your full self – your personality, strengths, interests and areas of development – to work in an authentic way? This will help you to foster mutual understanding between you and your team, and build those relationships through which you may learn the culture, get the necessary sponsorship and advance in the company. Figure out what you’re comfortable sharing to build trust and start there.

When I started at Arthur Andersen, I worked in the human capital consulting practice, and was the only Black consultant on the entire floor. This was quite a contrast from my previous company, so I was in shock. The environment was much more hierarchical and sober-minded, and I felt the gravity of the company and its history in a way that I had not before. At this stage in my career, I still counted the number of Black people in every meeting or conference room. Because of the company’s storied history and because of the demographics of the floor, I felt a tremendous amount of pressure to prove that I (and any other Black person, for that matter) deserved to be there. I felt I needed to represent all Black people and that my failure would reflect poorly on all Black people. If I made a mistake, I thought it might call into question their decision about whether Black people should be in that space at all. My failures were all Black people’s failures; my successes, all Black people’s success. I thought every utterance that came from my mouth had to be profound and insightful. Eventually, this approach backfired: sometimes I didn’t speak up at all. I questioned if my contribution met the very high bar I had set for myself.

My particular brand of baggage was the imagery I had grown up with as a Black kid in post-civil rights Birmingham, Alabama. Those images of police dogs and firehoses being released against protesters; of Governor George Wallace physically barring entry to prevent the integration of the University of Alabama, my alma mater. I remembered the stories of my parents and others who had gone to schools outside their communities due to the racist segregation laws in force at the time. These images were burned into my brain and for some reason were triggered when I started working in a lily-white environment. None of my feelings about this space came from anything anyone had said to me recently. It was all purely me. Eventually, the weight of carrying one billion Black people on my proverbial professional back became too much for me and I realised that the only person I could truly and fully represent was myself.

Interestingly, I realised that my white counterparts didn’t seem to feel the same burden. Not that they weren’t afraid to say something stupid; I’m sure they were. However, they were not fearful of poorly representing – and thus further stereotyping – their entire race. Why should I carry such a burden just because I was born Black? I decided that day that I would always offer my thoughts. Some of them would be good and some of them bad, but at least I knew they were mine. If people wanted to judge all Black people based on what I said, then that would reflect badly on them, not me. I decided that the only way I would be happy, successful and not stressed out was if I took a risk every day to speak my mind, be myself and show up as my most authentic self.

The go-it-alone mentality

Many of us are taught to put our heads down, work hard and wait to be tapped on the shoulder and knighted as the chosen one. Our well-meaning parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and family friends give us this advice. We are told that our work will speak for itself and that we will be rewarded for our efforts.

Working in corporate environments for a number of years, I’ve realised that many of us were not taught to collaborate with each other (or anyone else). I know I wasn’t and neither were many people I know. But let me tell you now: every successful person has had a ‘hand-up’ in his or her career. No one has been successful all on their own. The hand-up doesn’t necessarily have to be financial. You might be introduced to someone – perhaps a person you would never have met otherwise – or receive great advice. A handup might be someone allowing you to sleep on her couch for free while you fleshed out your business idea. You could even be mentored or sponsored in a corporate space. Remember that we need other people in order to be successful. Let me say it more forcefully: we can’t be successful without other people. This is an absolute truth, especially in a professional environment. I once had a South African senior executive tell me: ‘Build a network and take people up on their offer to help. You think you need to do it alone or you feel that you’re imposing. You can either put your head down, work hard and hope that someone will appreciate you, or you can look up, look around and see who can help you.’

Asking for help doesn’t mean that you don’t have to apply your mind and think about how you should approach your work. You still need to do this because that’s why the organisation hired you. Rather, your manager wants to know how you would solve problems. You need to start with the end in mind and figure out the necessary steps to achieve that end in a timely fashion. Maybe your team has time for you to go off and try to solve the problem yourself, but if they don’t, then understand how you can work faster and more efficiently in that environment, especially if time is a metric by which you are being judged. You have to figure out how to strike the balance between asking for help at the right time and applying your mind to the problem. You don’t want to appear to be a lazy thinker who just immediately asks for help, but you also don’t want to waste time spinning your wheels trying to solve a problem on your own if you can’t.

In order to understand the idea of receiving a hand-up and how it relates to collaboration, let’s unpack the fallacies implied in the idea of ‘putting your head down, working hard and letting your work speak for itself’.

The idea of ‘putting your head down’ implies that you are not aware of what is going on in the company, that you are not building relationships and that you are not assessing the dynamics of power and influence in your workplace. When your head is down, literally, you are unable to assess the non-verbal cues of your colleagues; figuratively, it might mean that you are unaware of any corporate landmines. Even in a corporation you are working with people, so it is important for you to always be aware of what is going on with them.

Although Africa is made up of 54 countries, all with different cultures, languages and customs, the ideas of community and relationships connect them all. But when it comes to our professional lives, we are unfortunately not taught about the importance of connection and relationships. We are taught to put our heads down, to work hard and to be excellent. Where is the connection and relationship-building? Once you pass the interviews and actually get the job, corporate is all about relationships! How did we not incorporate one of our most basic principles? Going at it alone is very un-African!

We should also unpack the idea of merely working hard. There is no substitute for hard work, of course; it is true that successful people work very hard. However, successful people also work smart. They figure out what is the most efficient use of their time. They ask: ‘How can I achieve maximum impact? How can I put in the hours on the areas that matter most?’ Successful people don’t just put in the hours; they also figure out what great results look like and they focus their attention there. Working smart implies that you know what you should be doing, how you should be doing it and what great results look like.

When you’ve just been hired, it is almost impossible to know what to work hard on and what ‘great’ looks like in your company. You can learn and develop your skills through e-learning, but remember that most of what you learn will come from your on-thejob experiences and interactions with people.

Someone once told me: ‘Your work does not speak.’ And it’s true: when was the last time you heard a PowerPoint presentation, an Excel spreadsheet or a Microsoft Word document utter one word? I’ll answer that for you: never. Your work cannot speak for itself. In a corporate setting, you have to make sure that your actual voice is heard speaking about what you have done or achieved. When I worked at McKinsey, associates were expected to participate in office extracurricular activities. Those activities could be client-, associateor culture-building activities. The company sees its associates as office leaders who should take ownership of the office, which means they need to contribute to its growth and development. An associate’s participation (or lack thereof) can count negatively against him or her. During one particular review, the committee was discussing a specific associate, questioning her office contribution. They were under the impression that she had not participated in any of the activities. Luckily, the person who presented her case to the committee had a laundry list of activities that she had not only participated in but also conceptualised and led. Had he not presented those, the committee would have left the room with the perception that she had not contributed to the office’s growth and development. It was clear that this associate had gone over and above what was expected of her, but no one (except her case presenter) knew it. This is a perfect example of why we cannot assume that our work speaks for itself. The higher the pressure at your work and the higher the performance standards, the harder you have to work to differentiate yourself. Part of that differentiation process is being able to toot your own horn, talk about your work and create and manage a personal brand that aligns with your work.

Growth vs fixed mindset

The premise of Carol Dweck’s best-selling book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success is the introduction of two commonly held mindsets: a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. A fixed mindset is focused on outcomes, not processes, and people with this type of mindset believe that intelligence and talent are fixed at birth. They are often afraid of, and avoid, challenges because they see them as threatening. They are concerned that they will fail and their intelligence will be called into question. When they receive negative feedback, they take it personally and can become defensive.

People with a growth mindset, on the other hand, believe that intelligence and talent can increase throughout their lives. Growthmindset people are focused on effort, process and progress, not outcome. They are not afraid of challenges and see them as opportunities to be embraced; they are not focused on how they will look or what the outcome will be. They are focused on the learning, growth and development that will occur as a result of trying. When people with a growth mindset get negative feedback, they are appreciative of the helpful information and use it to grow.

As a PDM, I often saw individuals who were rated poorly in their annual review. They were then given a certain amount of time to turn their performance around and improve. I know of one individual who managed to lift herself out of the slump by the next review cycle; another person spiralled into another poor rating and ultimately left the firm. They were equal in intelligence and ability, but their mindsets differed. Person A did not see the feedback as fatal. She saw it as a singular event and not an indictment of her ability to be successful at the company. First, she analysed and internalised the feedback she had received, then she took responsibility for the part she played in her rating and met with her mentors to get their interpretation of the feedback. She created an action plan of what she needed to demonstrate to improve her rating, rallying her supporters around her and keeping them abreast of her progress. She had a laser-like focus on the areas she needed to improvement and she worked on them every day. She frequently asked for feedback so she could understand her progress and what she still needed to do to close the gap.

Person B was the opposite. He took the rating as an indictment of his ability to be successful at the company. Going into victim mode, he started to blame others for his poor performance. He was never clear on the essence of the feedback and never took ownership of his role in the poor rating. He did not rally his supporters, nor did he ask his mentors for perspective. He saw every piece of feedback as another nail in the coffin, as opposed to seeing them as data points to help him determine where he should spend his efforts and energy.

When the next review came around, Person A received a totally different outcome from Person B. I believe that Person A had a growth mindset and Person B had a fixed mindset. I’m not saying that Person B did not have some valid points in his outrage or in his desire to blame others, but his mindset didn’t help his case. It’s okay to be upset, but at some point you need to move on and focus your cognitive capacity on turning your situation around.

These two approaches show us that one’s mindset is everything. I’m not saying that your mindset will guarantee good ratings, but, when your time at a company comes to an end, at least you would be able to walk away with no regrets, knowing that you gave it all you had. If you have to leave the company because your performance didn’t improve, at least you know that you’ll be leaving with the respect and admiration of your colleagues. You definitely do not want to say goodbye leaving everyone with a bitter taste in their mouths because of your attitude. Failure or not doing well in the short term is never a waste if you can learn from it. When you learn a lesson, you grow as a person. If you don’t grow, you will continue to experience the same situations – even in different contexts – until you learn that lesson. Always challenge yourself and never get comfortable with the status quo. If you are the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room. It can be scary to continue putting yourself in these situations.

The trouble with the bubble

Sometimes we think our work environments are all that matters. It’s always good to remember that your work is just one type of environment, and that what matters there may not matter anywhere else. The expectations of that environment might not be realistic, so maintaining perspective on where you work and what matters in the bigger scheme of things is key. When I arrived at Harvard, I knew that I wanted to work in the non-profit space but I was not sure in which area I wanted to specialise. I discovered that people with business backgrounds were bringing their skills to work full-time in public primaryand high-school education. Soon, I was fortunate enough to land a summer internship at Chicago Public Schools, the third-largest public school district in the United States.

While I had a great experience in Chicago, unfortunately Chicago Public Schools was not extending full-time offers for the following year, unlike many of the investment banks or consulting firms that my classmates interned for. I remember how my classmates casually mentioned that they already had offers to start after graduation. I felt depressed. I felt like a loser because I did not have the same level of certainty. But then I reflected more on the situation: in what world do people know where they will be working 10 to 12 months ahead of time? Only in business school, I realised, and business school was not the real world. Business school was a bubble and I remembered not to judge myself by ‘bubble standards’. I had clearly chosen a less traditional route out of business school, so it could take me longer to find a job. But that was okay. It was not catastrophic. I was on my own path.

I also saw the bubble mentality at work at McKinsey. McKinsey is very specific about what matters in its culture – problem-solving, analytics, top-down communication. It was also very important for employees to be familiar with the tools of the trade – it was critical to be able to use PowerPoint and Excel effortlessly. I remember bright consultants coming into the organisation and beating themselves up because they were not as skilful as they thought they were or were expected to be. It was devastating for them. The rules and what mattered at McKinsey became their whole world. To succeed in this environment with these skills, using these specific tools was the only mark of intelligence and success. Nothing else mattered. Consultants felt like failures if they couldn’t be great in this environment.

One day it hit me: the things that mattered so much in this world did not matter in every world. Everyone in the office revered one particular senior partner – let’s call him Mason – because of his influencing prowess and his problem-solving ability. It dawned on me that, unlike Mason, Oprah probably can’t even open Excel; she probably doesn’t know how to create a waterfall graph in PowerPoint. By that environment’s skills and standards, Oprah is not considered successful. But outside that space, she is one of the most accomplished, inspiring, impactful and well-respected people in the world. This is why we have to work hard to maintain a broader perspective on skills that matter and how we define success. This helps us maintain our self-esteem and make peace with the outcome if we are not successful by the organisation’s standards.

Just because you are not good at something in one space doesn’t mean that you’re useless everywhere else. A job fit is like a relationship: sometimes it is just not a good fit even between two awesome people. When you spend all week in the bubble with other bubble people, and socialise with bubble people on the weekend, you end up talking, complaining and thinking about the bubble and its rules all the time. This type of insular existence causes you to lose all perspective, and you begin to believe that the bubble is the world, not a world.

One of the best ways to maintain a healthy perspective is to have frequent contact with people outside your bubble. Non-bubble friends are people who don’t work in your field or industry at all – whatever it may be. You’ll see that they couldn’t care less about your bubble; they are probably completely oblivious to your bubble and its rules. Contact with non-bubble people reminds us that there are other worlds out there. They remind you that not being the best in a particular space is not the end of the world. Make time to engage with the larger world outside to maintain perspective and to keep a healthy view on your company and your job.

Take the long view

Fast-forward and imagine yourself at your 80th birthday: what kind of celebration would you like to have? Who would you like to be there? What would you like to have achieved by then? What do you want people to be saying to and about you? Imagining this helps me to take a long-term view of my career and encourages me to be more vision-oriented. During our careers, we are often presented with many good options and we focus on what is right in front of us. Instead of questioning the options in front of us, we should rather consider whether they will get us closer to what we want to achieve by the end of our lives. Will your choices help you realise your vision? While several options may be good, there is usually one that stands above the rest in that it helps us to achieve our vision for our lives.

This exercise can also help you think about whether there is a disconnect between your life choices and your vision for yourself. In my experience, people often say they want one thing when their actions show the opposite. If you envision having your spouse, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren at your 80th birthday party, are you at least mindful of the choices and sacrifices that you have to make to realise your vision? Does your current attitude and lifestyle line up with what you say you want? The Japanese concept of ikigai is another lens through which you can view your career. Ikigai translates as ‘a reason to live’, and people use the word to refer to the intersection of what you love doing, what you’re good at, what the world needs and what the world is willing to pay for. Ideally, you want to have overlap between these four elements, so start thinking about the challenges you see in the world and how you can bring your unique set of gifts and motivations to solve this problem – one that the world is willing to pay you to solve.

If you’re missing a certain element, it eliminates the possibility of your achieving the sweet spot between all four elements. Spend time figuring out what problem you can solve with something that really energises you and then spend time getting really good at those skills.

The timeline keeper

When we are in our teens, we often create a timeline of how we think our lives will progress, highlighting the particular milestones we want to reach by certain ages. Maybe you had a timeline for your professional or personal life, or maybe it was a combination of the two. According to my timeline, I had to be married by 25, have my first baby by 27 and my second baby by 29. I was 100 per cent unsuccessful at hitting any of these milestones by the expected ages. On the eve of my 30th birthday, I was single (with no decent prospect in sight) and had no children. I remember feeling particularly down about the fact that my life was not where I expected it to be.

Despite this, I had just graduated from the world’s most prestigious business school. After two very cold years in Boston, I had just started a well-paid job with Deloitte Consulting and I had bought a townhouse in Atlanta four years earlier. My life was great and I was happy about those achievements, but it was tainted by my disappointment at not having ticked those personal-achievement boxes by the ages I had set for myself. Then, one day, I realised that I had made that timeline when I was a 13-year-old who knew nothing about the world, nothing about how my life would unfold and nothing about the challenges I would face. So why was I holding myself hostage to a timeline created by someone who didn’t know anything about anything? Why are you allowing that well-meaning but totally uninformed former version of yourself to drive you to self-pity, angst and anxiety?

I’m not suggesting that you dilly-dally; I’m saying that the idea that you should have accomplished everything by 30 is a myth. Have a plan and work at it, but be open to life. Be open to the unexpected, because some of life’s greatest lessons happen during those unexpected twists and turns. You are still figuring out who you are and what you want to do, and in the midst of it you are likely to make mistakes. A strict timeline leaves no room for mistakes or unexpected adventures. If someone had told me 20 years ago that I would go to Harvard Business School, meet and marry a first-generation Zimbabwean-American HBS alum and live in South Africa for almost a decade, I would have laughed in that person’s face.

The three scariest decisions I have made in my life resulted from events that I couldn’t have predicted, but they are also in the top four decisions I’ve ever made. Years ago, I would have seen these as interruptions that did not factor into my timeline, but today I’m eternally grateful that I did not let that timeline dictate my life choices. My timeline could easily have kept me from some of the greatest adventures and love that I’ve ever experienced.

Are you trying to live up to a timeline that someone else has created for you? Sometimes it might not even be you but the people around you that push you to achieve certain milestones. Family, friends, colleagues and/or members of your religious community might not only push you into a certain career, they can also pressure you in every aspect of your life if you allow them. If you’re not dating anyone, people will ask, ‘When are you going to start dating someone?’ Once you start dating someone, people will ask, ‘When are you going to get engaged?’ Once you get engaged, people will ask, ‘When are you getting married?’ Once you get married, people will ask, ‘When are you going to have a baby?’ Once you have one baby, people will ask, ‘When are you going to have another one?’

While most people are well-meaning, some of them are just nosy and would rather focus on your life than on their own. They are not going to help you pay for a wedding, nappies, childcare or university fees, so why should you let them push you into decisions when you will have to live with the consequences? A critical part of adulting is tapping into what you want and not what society tells you that you should want. It’s figuring out what your dream for your life is, finding the voice to articulate it and having the courage to live it.

When you close your eyes, what do you see yourself doing in 10, 20, 30 or 40 years? Do you see yourself in a high-powered corporate job? Running your own business? At a desk in a fancy office or out on the road talking to customers? Do you see yourself on a stage speaking? Or maybe writing books? I firmly believe that we all know what our dreams are, but to realise them we have to get quiet, spend time alone and drown out the noise of others, as well as our own limiting beliefs, to actually hear what we’ve known all along. Life is not a dress rehearsal, so make sure the life and the career you are living is your own and not someone else’s.

The timeline mentality pushes us to do things personally and professionally outside of when we would naturally do them. Sometimes, out of frustration at not getting what we want when we want it, we jump from job to job and role to role, letting our disappointment turn to anger. Our anger and anxiety then make us say and do things that alienate us from others, which defeats our long-term goals.

I’m not saying that you should wait forever for that promotion or developmental assignment, but in the grand scheme of your life, what is the big deal in waiting another six months or a year? When you look back at your career in 15 to 20 years, will you really regret waiting a couple of months, especially if you know that the performance or development concerns that your manager has are valid? When you have to make an important decision in your personal life or career, fast-forward 20 to 30 years down the line and envision whether you will regret that decision. This approach may not work for every scenario in life, but for those decisions that are time-based, it can be very helpful.

Limiting beliefs

A limiting belief is a false constraint that a person places on herself or others. Examples of limiting beliefs could be: ‘I’m too old to go back to school’, ‘I’m too young to be in management’ or ‘These people don’t want to help me.’ When I was younger, I used to have an either/or mindset. I felt I could have either this or that, but not both. From a very early age, I was steeped in logical, rational, practical thinking. I was not a dreamer: I cared about the here and now and what was directly in front of me. If I only had $5, my thought process was: what can I afford with $5? I didn’t think about what I wanted or needed and how could I make more money to purchase something more expensive. This mentality focused on what I had . . . but that was then.

I believe that my experience at Harvard Business School awakened the dreamer within me. There, we read many case studies about businesspeople who were not bound by their own resources or even the state of the world. For example, Henry Ford (1863–1947), founder of the Ford Motor Company, developed techniques of mass production of automobiles at a time when there were very few paved roads in America and very few people could even afford cars. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs made us believe in and buy a smartphone that we didn’t even know we wanted, and now we can’t live without it. These dreamers were not bound by what was. They dreamed of a world beyond what was in front of them and set out to create it.

Today, I focus on what I want; the how will come later. When I get to the how, I think about how I can get everything that I want, even if those things seem mutually exclusive. Instead of filtering your ideas through all your rational constraints, just say it. You can figure out the rest later. You never know, your idea could be the next iPhone; it could be an idea that revolutionises your life and the lives of others. You’ll never know the impact your ideas might have if you limit yourself based on what you currently have, what you think you can do or what the world currently looks like.

In my second year of high school, I took the PSAT (a pre-college/university entrance exam that matric students in the USA can take) and I did really well on the test. Unbeknown to me, colleges and universities were able to get the PSAT scores of high-scoring students. Soon, I started receiving letters from Princeton, Yale and other top universities congratulating me on my marks and encouraging me to apply. Regardless of what those letters said, I did not believe that I was good enough to get in. In my mind, they were just reaching out to me out of courtesy; there was no way they could seriously want me to apply. I didn’t know anyone who had gone to those types of schools. I just thought people like me didn’t go to those universities. People like me went to local colleges and universities in the city or state, and if you were really stretching it, you went to a neighbouring state, but that was about as far as I thought I could go. I remember putting the letters on my bedside table and thinking, ‘I’ll show these letters to my kids someday.’ It never dawned on me to actually apply. That’s how powerful our minds are. Even when I had physical, hard evidence to contradict my belief about what people like me can accomplish, I went with what my mind told me and not the physical evidence. I didn’t know anyone who had attended that calibre of school, so it seemed out of reach, even though the evidence to the contrary was in my hand in the form of those interest letters.

Throughout our lives, we put many limitations on ourselves, so it’s important to understand and question yourself, your assumptions and the stories you tell yourself about what you can or cannot do. Because I know how my mind sometimes limits me, I always try to take a step back: am I looking at a situation in a limiting way? What assumptions am I making about myself, others, the situation and the possibilities available to me? How can I have it all? How can I make this work? If I don’t have the skills, whose help can I ask for to make this happen? By the time I had to apply for graduate degrees, I had learnt from my limiting beliefs. This time, I decided to go the opposite of safe and apply to business schools that were, I thought, totally out of reach for me. And, thankfully, I was accepted to Harvard. Rather let someone else tell you ‘no’ before you tell yourself ‘no’.

Negative self-talk

Self-talk is talk or thoughts that you direct at yourself. You spend more time with yourself than with anyone else, so it’s important to assess if what you’re saying to yourself is positive or negative. If someone were to record your self-talk for a week, what would they hear? Would they hear you encouraging or belittling yourself? How you speak to yourself informs how you feel about yourself, which, in turn, informs how you show up in the world. I believe we come to the Earth with perfect confidence and the world slowly chips away at it. We grow up with the opinions of others – things said to us frequently as small children – and we begin to repeat them as if they were our own. As we grow older and unpack those opinions, however, we realise that we are merely regurgitating what was said to us.

I grew up in a household where I received a lot of criticism. Unfortunately, I took on that mindset and directed it towards myself, but in my later years, I have really tried to give myself a break. When it comes to managing your self-talk, sometimes you just have to tell yourself to shut up. You may even need to say it out loud. Interrupt your thought patterns, pause and begin to focus on what is going well, the strengths that you bring and the compassion that you need to extend to yourself as you would to a friend. Remember, if you want to have compassion for others, it starts with having compassion for yourself.

Self-talk is not about lying to yourself. It’s about maintaining perspective and having a balanced view of yourself and your situation. It’s about focusing on what is within your control and what you can influence. It’s about remembering that the more effort you put in, the more you can improve and increase your likelihood of success. Self-talk is especially about reminding yourself of your strengths and how you can more fully leverage them. It’s about reflecting on all that you’ve learnt in the past and remembering that if you could learn those things, you can learn new things. It’s about remembering how you were able to bounce back from setbacks, disappointments and failures. It’s about learning from mistakes and focusing on what you can do differently next time.

Impostor syndrome

‘Impostor syndrome’ is a term coined by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, and describes the belief that you do not belong in, or have not earned the right to be in, certain spaces. People with impostor syndrome fear that others will discover that they are frauds. I often saw this with the fellows in the leadership development programme I managed at McKinsey. I’m not sure if people felt this way because of the mystique around the company brand. Perhaps they could not believe how far they’d come and questioned if they deserved to be there. Maybe they felt intimidated by the environment – one that had been elusive to people who looked like them and came from similar backgrounds.

At Harvard Business School, it took me a while to believe that I had actually gotten in. Their alumni included the who’s who of the business world; it was a place that people like me didn’t attend. I kept waiting for someone to knock on my dorm room door or, worse yet, to come to a class to tell me that I was an admissions mistake and that I needed to pack my bags and get out. This is what impostor syndrome feels like.

Let me tell you: from the many admission interviews I attended for my leadership programme, we never accepted someone that we didn’t think could be successful. Speaking from a purely practical perspective, it would be a waste of everyone’s time and energy to admit someone that we didn’t think could make it in that environment. No one who recruits is there for charity. They are there to employ the best candidates – people who will fit well into the organisation. If a hiring manager is part of the selection process, why would they knowingly hire someone who is not right for the job? It would be completely counterintuitive and self-sabotaging.

Erase from your mind the idea that you are a hiring mistake. Your ingoing hypothesis should be: ‘I am here for a reason. The company selected me because they want me to be successful and they believe I can be successful. I have to put in the work to fully realise the belief they have in me.’

In my experience, one of the reasons people suffer from impostor syndrome is because they compare themselves to their seniors. We compare ourselves to those who have had more time, exposure and experience. As a PDM at McKinsey, I used to conduct onboarding for new hires. I always told new employees that every successful person was in his or her position at some point in their lives. They had a first day too; they weren’t the polished professionals they later became. Just like you, they knew nothing about how the company operates, but after the right experiences, coaching, feedback and effort, they were successful.

Comparing ourselves to our peers can also trip us up. Maybe your colleague is an Excel guru and you aren’t. You might feel inferior or think that you don’t belong there. But keep in mind that you probably have a skill that that person lacks. Remember that no one person possesses every skill needed to be successful at every level in an organisation. Different roles require different skills, and no one usually has everything. The person who is great at Excel is probably horrible at building relationships or presenting ideas. Instead of being intimidated, ask that person to coach you, and then, when the opportunity presents itself, you can coach him or her in your area of strength.

Another fact to keep in mind is that university teaches you the theoretical aspects of your field, but their application can only be learnt at work. In addition, each environment is different, with people doing things differently. For example, PowerPoint might be a widely used tool at your company, used in a very specific way. University will not teach you this: you will have to learn it on the job. The big takeaway is that you need to give yourself a break. Being new sucks, but don’t let it make you doubt your abilities or your drive. Think about all the new things you’ve done up to this point, how you persevered and how you succeeded.

The good news is that being new doesn’t last forever; the bad news is that it rears its ugly head with every new stage in your life. Every new level will expect a new skill set from you. No one would be paying you more money to do the same thing you were doing in your last role. You need to embrace or, at the very least, learn to live with the discomfort of being new. Don’t compare yourself to others, make sure you get what you need and put in the effort to improve. The great thing about barrelling through discomfort is that it builds your confidence.

Not knowing every step

Many successful people are planners. Planning and executing our plans are what has helped us to be successful. I am a planner by nature. I like to know where things are headed, how I will get there and exactly what the outcome will be. If I were to guess, I would say that many of the people reading this book are control freaks. That is part of the reason that we have been successful. We’ve had our lives planned out from a young age and we often write pro and con lists to make decisions. However, as we’ve gotten older, we’ve also realised that life doesn’t always go according to plan. Remember that every strength has a drawback.

I strongly encourage you to trust your gut, even when the pros and cons don’t add up. The most life-changing events in my life occurred when I had plenty of questions and none of the answers, but something in me said: Do it anyway. I have grown the most from experiences where I didn’t have the next 27 steps planned out. I remember that my whole village of friends and family prayed for me to be admitted to Harvard Business School. Once I was accepted, I had no idea if I would be able to keep up and graduate. Even though Harvard is in the same country I am from, for me it seemed like an entire galaxy away. I would have to give up many of the things I loved – my house, a salary, my church, a short and pleasant winter – to go to a place where I knew not a living soul and where the winter was 16 long months (okay, it’s nine months but that’s still too long). I had no idea what to expect. Would I be able to do well? Would I graduate and get that very expensive piece of paper? As a Black woman, the most pressing question for me was: who will do my hair? But I trusted my gut and went anyway, and it turned out to be one of the most transformational experiences of my life.

In my MBA class, I met so many interesting people (including my husband), travelled to Asia, Europe and Africa, and had some of the most stimulating debates and conversations I’ve ever had. I discovered new passions buried deep within me. And, yes, I even got the piece of paper. I would have missed out on all of this if I had allowed my fear of the unknown or my lack of control to keep me from taking that leap.

I decided to move to South Africa after Fungayi and I got married. It made no sense for us to be married and living on separate continents. I figured I would look back with regret if I didn’t take the opportunity to live in another country. This decision presented me with yet another set of unanswered questions. I had been supporting myself since I was 21. And now I was going to a foreign country, without a job, to be with a man I hardly knew. Yes, I was being a bit dramatic, but that’s how freaked out I was. How was this going to work? Could I find a job? Would I have to ask him every day for R50 (the equivalent of $3) to buy a sandwich? Who was going to do my hair, my eyebrows? I didn’t have all the answers, but I moved anyway. Moving to and living in South Africa has been one of the greatest decisions I ever made. I ended up working for McKinsey and discovered another passion, which is working in the leadership development space. I had the opportunity to be part of the journeys of some of South Africa’s brightest young minds. I also took the opportunity to start my own business, bringing my entrepreneurial spark to full flame. Had I needed to know every step, I might have missed out on some of the greatest adventures of my life.

The comparison game

When I was growing up, the only people I could compare myself to were my circle of friends and acquaintances. I thought I was doing okay based on what my circle was doing. Unfortunately, today, with the advent of social media and the internet, you can now compare yourself to the whole freakin’ world. The comparison game can be a two-edged sword. On the one hand, you can be inspired to do more and raise the bar for your own life. On the other hand, you can become depressed because you feel you haven’t achieved as much as others.

Comparing yourself to others distracts you from your purpose and your path. The time that you spend feeling bad or jealous is time you could use to sharpen your vision, master your craft and hone your skills. I always remind myself of Theodore Roosevelt’s famous words: ‘Comparison is the thief of joy.’ Comparing yourself to others literally steals your joy, as you shift your focus away from your unique value proposition. Remember that there are multiple paths and timelines to achieving your goals, so everyone doesn’t have to do everything at the same speed or age in life. We all have different gifts, talents and challenges that will impact our journey.

I’ve also found that people can be short-term in their thinking – another thing that fuels the comparison game. Today, there are myriad lists of achievers, such as ‘the 25 under 25’ or ‘the 30 under 30’. But you don’t just want to get on a list: instead, rather focus on longevity and having true impact in your industry. I would rather be on the ‘50 under 50’ or the ‘60 under 60’ list.

Bring what isn’t there

As a young (and maybe even as an older) professional, I often wondered (read: complained) about what I saw as the deficiencies of others. Why can’t this person do X? Why does this person do Y so much? As I’ve matured, I’ve realised that I could take another perspective. I could see work as a never-ending search to find an environment with like-skilled and like-minded individuals, or I could view it as an environment in which I brought unique skills, perspectives, gifts and talents. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a tool often used in the workplace to identify employees’ personalities. One particular section of this test speaks to your preference to be more structured (or ‘J’ – ‘Judging’) versus your ability to be more flexible and adaptable (or ‘P’ – ‘Perceiving’).

A consultant once came to me and said that she was really frustrated with her day-to-day project manager and her team. She said that she was a very strong J and they were very strong P’s. In her mind, problem-solving in her team was not structured and the execution thereafter was even worse. It was driving her crazy. I asked her a few questions about the team dynamics and her thoughts on what could improve. After hearing her responses, my advice to her was the following: instead of judging everyone for not being a ‘J’ like you, why don’t you bring the ‘J-ness’ to the team? As soon as you feel that the team is getting distracted, why don’t you step up and summarise the discussion? You could even go to the whiteboard and structure what they’ve discussed. If you are a structured person working with an unstructured team, bring the structure instead of complaining about the lack of it. You might see something that others won’t, and you probably have a skill that others don’t. Transform those moments of frustration into opportunities to add value to the team.

Stereotype threat

Stereotype threat is a concept developed by psychologists Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson. It describes a certain demographic’s preoccupation with, and fear of, living up to certain stereotypes. This influences them to behave in line with, and ultimately to reinforce, those stereotypes. Examples of these stereotypes can be: ‘Black people aren’t smart’ or ‘Women can’t do math.’ Steele and Aronson’s studies in the USA have shown that the fear of falling into stereotypes has negatively affected the standardised test scores of Black, Latino and female students. The biggest issue with stereotype threat is that people are expending their brain space focusing on the stereotype instead of using their cognitive ability to perform. Although this research was conducted in the United States, I believe many people who’ve grown up and/or worked in historically segregated and/or sexist environments struggle with the same thoughts.

Another offshoot of stereotype threat is when talented Black professionals worry that they only got their jobs because they’re Black. They are concerned about how this perception will impact them. I reminded consultants that other groups of people often get jobs because of their networks, or for other reasons. I told them: ‘Do you think those people question how they got their jobs for one second? Absolutely not. So why should you? For whatever reason you’re here, take full advantage of the opportunity and make the most of it.’

Learnt helplessness

Learnt helplessness occurs when a person is persistently confronted with a negative situation that appears to be out of their control. Despite having the power to do so, the person makes no attempt to change their circumstances. The term ‘learnt helplessness’ was coined in 1967 by the American psychologists Martin Seligman and Steven Maier, who showed that it can cause, or be caused by, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression. As a young Black professional, you can easily become discouraged when you consider the small number of Black people employed in the corporate sector. In the United States, there are currently four AfricanAmerican CEOs running Fortune 500 companies, and all of them are male. Historically, there have only been two Black women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. African-Americans make up approximately 13 per cent of the US population: based on that proportion, there should be about 50 African-American CEOs.

In South Africa, the data is even worse. While Black Africans make up approximately 80 per cent of the population, very few people from this demographic lead the largest companies in South Africa. In your corporate environment, you may not see many Black leaders. Maybe you don’t see many working mothers or women in leadership positions in your community. Maybe you don’t see younger people in leadership positions, or maybe they aren’t even acknowledged or heard in your organisation. Perhaps you’ve never seen anyone from your neighbourhood, village or town graduate from university, let alone attend a graduate school.

One of the symptoms of Black tax and the you-need-to-worktwice-as-hard mentality can be that you give up altogether. You might feel as though the whole system is working against you, so why would you even bother trying?

Remember that every person who has ever been the first at anything – the first university graduate in the family, the first to get a postgraduate degree, the first to buy a house – had to face that daunting uphill climb. Nevertheless, they were able to achieve it despite their circumstances and the evidence that proved the contrary. All you can do is focus on your situation, your gifts, the value you bring, the effort you put in and any other factors that you can control and influence. Don’t let whatever it is you see or don’t see in your working environment discourage you. You can be the first or one of the first. You can combat learnt helplessness by mastering your craft, building your resilience, learning to be optimistic, being compassionate to yourself and building your internal self-worth.

Investing in you

Our mindset is our most powerful asset, so build yours up daily. If any of these mindsets resonated with you, ask yourself: are these mindsets, beliefs or ways of thinking serving me or not? Are they helping or hurting my desire to have an impact in my workplace? How are they holding me back from making progress and building relationships? Once you realise which mindsets are not in your best interest, you might ask, what do I do now? Below I highlight a few ways which we can build up ourselves and our mindsets.

Reflect on your story, strengths and accomplishments: Many bright people are so driven that as soon as they accomplish one thing, they are on to the next challenge without taking a moment to reflect. I’ve been guilty of this myself many times. Take time to reflect on your strengths, what you’ve accomplished and the obstacles you have overcome. This will help you build confidence and resilience: if you overcame hurdles in the past, you can do it again. Knowing your story reminds you that nothing is permanent; hard times do not last forever. Reflect on the situations and people from your past and determine what meaning you attach to them. You can’t change the past, but you can change how you interpret and feel about it. Think about the role you played in situations and how you could be different in the future.

Remember that your areas of development do not represent the sum total of who you are, no matter how much you or other people fixate on them. Many people are so obsessed with their ‘faults’ that they forget that those are only a portion of who they are. Ask your closest friends, family and colleagues to tell you what they think your strengths are. On a more practical level, consider taking the CliftonStrengths Assessment – a test that has been taken by millions of people around the world – to get a research-backed analysis of your strengths. Once you know what they are, try to put yourself in positions where you can leverage them. Also, think about ways you can use your strengths to address your ‘weaknesses’.

See your differences from the majority as an asset: Think about how your gender, race, religion, age, etc, is an asset to your team. Think about the unique perspectives that you can bring because of your difference from the majority of people in the company. Spend time thinking about how you can leverage your attributes to add value to your working environment.

Pause and reprogramme your self-talk: It’s hard to have a positive mindset and life if your self-talk is negative. Take note of and consciously interrupt your negative thought patterns. Show yourself some compassion. It’s not enough simply to not be negative; you need to fill that space in your mind with positivity. Consider incorporating positive affirmations into your daily routine. Here are a few examples: ‘I am destined for greatness. I am strong and capable. I can improve and bounce back from disappointments. Everything is working out for my good. I am open and receptive to all the goodness that the universe has to offer.’ In the business world, we often talk about having a strong fact base for moving forward in a certain direction or with a certain course of action. A fact base supports a decision; without it, moving forward is not advised. I treat my thoughts in the same way. If I have an unhelpful thought, I ask myself: ‘What facts support my thinking?’ I make a point of challenging my thoughts, no longer accepting them as gospel. I no longer allow them to take hold of me and run me off course into an emotional vortex.

Conduct an emotional inventory: Conducting an emotional inventory will help you to understand your self-talk, your emotions and the energy you’re emitting in your professional and personal life. Over the course of a week, write down every emotion you feel. Are you happy, frustrated, sad, lonely, excited, content, etc? Jot down the details of each situation and assess them at the end of the week. Did you notice any themes or patterns? Are your emotions more positive than negative, or vice versa? Are there certain situations, people or times of the day that trigger certain emotions for you? How does the energy you bring to situations fluctuate with your emotions? What can you change about the situations or your perspective on the situations? What can you change about yourself? What can you do more of? Get feedback from people in your life (personal and professional) to understand how they experience you.

Examine your inner circle: I read somewhere that you can tell a lot about a person if you look at the five people they spend most of their time with. Does your inner circle affirm your greatness, challenge you and/or tell you when you’re wrong? Are they celebrating your successes and encouraging you to reach for that stretch goal? Or do they tear you down, telling you to play it safe so you can avoid failure? Are they trying to better themselves? What do you talk about when you’re together? The future, your goals, plans to achieve them? How to be better leaders? Will they be a sounding board for you and provide support when you experience setbacks and feel down? Can you be authentic, vulnerable and share your feelings with the group without their taking advantage of you or belittling you? It’s difficult to have a positive outlook on life when your inner circle is negative and disrespects you. Always examine your inner circle to see if they are a help or a hindrance to managing your mindset.

Read books on professional development: Evaluate the type of materials and information that you consume. The books you read should build you up, helping you to focus on your strengths and address areas of development. They can help you to unpack your story, the meaning you’ve attached to your story and what elements are propelling you forward or holding you back. Good books also provide tips to help you reframe your story and your mindset.

Invest in yourself and master your craft: When you know that you know your subject matter, you have the confidence to speak up in a meeting, to engage with a client or a customer, to push back on a colleague or raise your hand for a challenging assignment. Be a lifelong learner who is constantly upskilling. Take advantage of online and internal learning opportunities. The world is everchanging, so focus on staying relevant.

Meditation and spirituality: Meditation is a powerful tool to centre yourself and shut out the noise of the world so that you can hear your own voice and your life’s greatest longings. It also helps you to fully experience and enjoy the moment you are in without obsessing over the past or worrying about the future. Guided meditations help me to practise deep breathing, relax and stay in the present – something that improves your listening skills too. Having a spiritual base can help you feel connected to a power and a purpose that is greater than yourself. For me personally, knowing that God, the Creator of the universe, loves me, never gives up on me and that He created a great plan for my life, gives me a tremendous amount of hope and expectation for the future regardless of what is happening in my life right now.

Live a healthy lifestyle: Being a healthy person helps you bring your best self to work. Regular physical exercise releases endorphins that reduce pain, increase pleasure and elevate your sense of wellbeing. Exercise also reduces stress, helps you sleep better and, importantly, helps keep your mind sharp. Building your physical strength and pushing yourself physically helps to build up your mental strength and confidence. Find some form of physical exercise that you can commit to doing consistently. Getting enough rest helps to improve your memory, makes you more alert and boosts a positive perspective that assists in decision-making. Drinking plenty of water lifts your mood, reduces fatigue and helps with managing your weight. A balanced diet helps to energise you and builds up your immune system.

Practise learnt optimism: Earlier in this chapter, I mentioned Seligman and Maier’s concept of learnt helplessness. But Seligman also conceived a concept that counters learnt helplessness: learnt optimism. This is when we develop our ability to speak positively to ourselves and to explain our situations in a more balanced and productive way. People who are more optimistic achieve more, are healthier and live longer lives. Conversely, those who are less optimistic tend to give in and up more easily, and thus achieve less. They are more easily depressed and have worse general health. Pessimists see the world as it is, while optimists see the world as better than it is; where pessimists see reality, optimists see possibility. The biggest difference between pessimists and optimists is how they explain what happens to them in their lives. These explanations are based on three dimensions: personalisation, permanence and pervasiveness.

Personalisation – the extent to which you believe that whatever happens to you is all your fault and that there are no environmental factors or extenuating circumstances that may have contributed to the specific outcome. Ask yourself: was I the sole reason this situation turned out the way that it did? Or were there other circumstances that played a part? This helps you to take responsibility for your role but then also acknowledges that there were other factors at play that perhaps you couldn’t control or influence.

Permanence – the extent to which you believe that this situation or the consequences of it will last forever. Ask yourself: will this last forever or am I just in a temporarily stressful, disappointing situation or setback? If the situation is temporary, then it can change and you can have a role in turning it around.

Pervasiveness – the extent to which you believe that the characteristics in you that contributed to the situation are traits that can’t be changed. Ask yourself: do I believe that I can grow my intelligence, that the more effort I put in, the better my skills will be (more of a growth mindset)? Or do I believe that there is nothing I can do to change my situation because of who I am?

We might be born with a certain amount of optimism, but we can always grow it; the same applies to our resilience. Learning how to be more optimistic also ties in with your ability to be resilient. The more we intentionally think differently, the more we can build our resilience and optimism muscles.

Therapy or a coach: If you have suffered trauma that is holding you back in your personal and professional life, consider seeing a licensed therapist or a certified coach. Historically, therapy has been a bit of a taboo subject in our communities, but more and more people are talking about and taking advantage of it. If you had a broken arm, you would go to a doctor. Why wouldn’t you take the same approach for your emotional or mental wounds? Take advantage of this resource to make sure you’re able to show up at work as the most whole version of yourself.

Practise gratitude: In her book Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg talks about writing down three joyful things that happen to you every day. It could be as small as appreciating your cup of coffee in the morning, or that the radio played your favourite song. Practising gratitude is about acknowledging small joys, which reminds you of, and orients you towards, the good things in your life.

Setting intentions: A few years ago, I became very deliberate about setting my intentions. What type of energy do I want to put out into the world? What is my aim, my goal for my work? For my interactions with others? What feedback have I received and what were my intentions with it? When I have thoughts or behaviours that don’t line up with my intentions, or when I make mistakes, I remind myself: here is a sample of my list of intentions for myself and how I interact with others that I repeat out loud every morning before I go to work. My intention for myself is to have impact, to take ownership for who I am and how I behave, to interact from a space of love (as opposed to ego or fear) and to be distinctive in all areas of my life. In terms of how I relate to others, my intention is to connect, to listen and learn from others, and to be aware and sensitive to the emotional, mental, spiritual and physical needs of others

What is not on my list is to be right, to make others feel small, to overshadow others, to be perfect, to deflect or to make excuses. Do you have subconscious intentions? Consider exploring them further. Are they going to help you to create impact in your professional and personal life and build relationships?

Don’t expect that negative thoughts or thought patterns will stop immediately. Remember that cultivating a balanced, positive mindset is a long game. If you’ve held certain opinions, perspectives and thought patterns for a long time, it will take a while to overwrite them. Expect that, with time, you will get better and better at talking yourself out of them. Fifteen years ago, I would beat myself up for two days whereas now I only beat myself up for 30 minutes. You might make progress more quickly on some mindsets than others. You never know: perhaps, in five or ten years from now, and with the proper effort, the mindsets that you struggle with now could be a distant memory. #growth #progress