[CLIENT INTERVIEW] Kristine's Story: How to Build Confidence as a Woman of Color in Tech

In this interview, you’ll learn:

• How being a minority or new to a working environment can lead to self-imposed pressure, and how to answer it with self-confidence

• How being more of yourself leads to having your own back and improved self-advocacy in the workplace

• What to stop caring about so you can free yourself from workplace anxiety

• How opening up to new perspectives led to greater emotional agency and getting on the promotion track for Kristine

If you’re a mid-career woman who wants to build self-confidence and to improve your self-advocacy skills, I can help you. On an hour-long 1:1 chat, I will help you identify custom solutions for your specific situation.

Book your consult today.

Start of Transcript

Jamie Lee:

Hello, everyone. My name is Jamie Lee, I'm an executive coach. I work with smart women who hate office politics, and I help them get promoted and better paid without throwing anyone under the bus. And I'm doing this interview series, interviewing some of my best clients and asking them about their coaching journey and their coaching experience. So today I have Kristine Johnson, who is back end engineer at Slack. And Kristine, I'd love for you to share with us where you're joining us from. And yeah, let's start right there. Where are you joining us from?

Kristine Johnson:

Thanks, Jamie. I'm sitting in my living room in San Francisco, California.

Jamie Lee:

Awesome, awesome. So would you share with us what was the problem that you were having in your career prior to coaching?

Kristine Johnson:

Sure. It's complicated. Let's see. So when I joined Slack, I was about five years into my career as a software engineer, and it was difficult. It was bumpy at times, and it was the biggest company I'd ever worked for at that point. And there was just a lot of self-imposed pressure, because it was also... I had always wanted to work for the company because I had always loved the product. It was something that I used at every single job, except for my very first quote unquote big girl job. So yeah, I was struggling with feeling valued, respected, feeling like my career was stagnating, and that was a difficult place to be in.

Jamie Lee:

Yeah. And I think your story is really important, because there are a lot of women in tech, especially male dominated industries, and when we're the minority, it can be so easy to feel demoralized, right? Lacking in self-confidence. And so I'm curious, what was it like for you before you got coaching to try to solve this confidence problem on your own?

Kristine Johnson:

Sure. Well, self-confidence is actually something that I've struggled with for most of my life. So I was a bit at a loss. I had worked with other coaches in the past, but it didn't... And I appreciated their support, but it felt like they were more workplace therapists and it felt like a lack of tangible results. It was good to have somebody to listen to me talk about my problems, but it was hard to get a plan of action or somebody trying to really help me develop that confidence in a way. It's hard to explain, but yeah. And it was really frustrating, and for me, as I know is the case for lots of other women, when something is a challenge it's hard to not internalize it. And so I felt very inadequate, and like something was wrong with me. And of course that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, right? And you enter this sort of negative cycle, and yeah. And I just knew I had to do something different.

Jamie Lee:

Yeah. And I just want to add, it's so normal for women to internalize this, because we've been socialized to think that somehow we're supposed to take care of other people. But we're not, right? And so you're not alone in feeling that it's hard to not internalize that. And I'm curious, you said you've worked with workplace coaches, so were they coaches assigned to you, or coaches that were hired by your employer?

Kristine Johnson:

We have... One of our benefits is a professional development funds. And some people buy books, I've done that, and you can also use them to purchase coaching sessions. So I had seen two coaches that I found on my own through recommendations from others at work. And then one coach was provided by a workplace program that involved mentoring and helping people out from underrepresented minorities in tech. Yeah. And he was great for other reasons, just really providing very solid emotional support. But I guess the general pattern is with previous coaches, they seem to more focused on just my life, and making lifestyle changes, and just sort of... They felt more like life coaches than they did career coaches.

Jamie Lee:

I see. And so, how has coaching with me different as a solution to your specific problem?

Kristine Johnson:

Well, I'm happy to report that I've gotten good feedback from my manager, and I'm on track for promotion, so that's really good. And I feel a lot more valued, a lot more respected, and that really began with myself. I think we've talked about this, and the analogy that we came up with is when people see nobody eating in a restaurant, they're less likely to go there than a restaurant they see other people eating. And so you have to be that person dining in at your own restaurant for yourself. Yeah.

Jamie Lee:

Customer number one. You have to be your own customer number one.

Kristine Johnson:

Oh, I like that. I like that. That's good. So, yeah. And I feel tangible results. I think I'm just able to feel better about myself, and I didn't have to... Obviously, I did a lot of work. But I didn't have to fundamentally change who I am, which I appreciate. And if anything, I guess the key to my thriving now at my current work place is that I just stopped caring so much about what other people thought, and I just focused on myself and working my way instead of trying to do what I thought would make me successful based on others' experiences. Because they're not me. And I was making myself pretty miserable like that, because I'm never going to be this person or that person. And that's okay.

Jamie Lee:

And I want to add that you also recognized you're already doing the right things. I think as your coach, what I see is that you learn to give yourself credit for the work you're already doing. You didn't have to go out and do a whole bunch more. You're like, I'm already kicking ass.

Kristine Johnson:

Mm-hmm (affirmative) Yeah, I'm just recognizing... Yeah, I value quality. I put out quality work, and that's important because correctness is important in software engineering. Ha ha.

Jamie Lee:

Love it. And so, describe a moment you realized coaching was working for you. What was that moment? What was that like for you?

Kristine Johnson:

So it was very early on. It was in our third session, and we had talked about a conversation I had with my manager and how it made me feel. And you introduced your framework for modeling scenarios like this. And so, just distilling it down, taking the emotional charge out of it. He said words. Okay. Well, that's a fact, he said words. And opinions are not facts, so let's discard that. And then focusing on how it made me feel, and I could see from a mile away, you're like... Okay, so if you were a Disney princess in this situation, who would you be? You know? And I was like, this is... Okay, okay. And then I picked Cinderella, even though honestly, I think she's one of the lamest Disney princesses. I do like how she can communicate with animals, but she's just... Cinderella is a boring story anyway.

Kristine Johnson:

But yeah, how I felt about it. And I was like, okay, I know where this is going. I have to internally act like I do feel respected and valued, and that will kind of come true in a way. But once we actually walked through it, I could really internalize the truisms, which I thought was really helpful. Because again, sometimes in the past getting advice from others, it's just like, I know that. Everybody says that. I get it. But I didn't really get it, get it.

Jamie Lee:

So what do you think it was that you got? Because for some people watching this or listening to this, will be like, what? Cinderella came up? What do they do? What do they talk about in these coaching sessions? They might be mystified. So maybe we could break it down for them. So what do you think was the truism that you got from seeing yourself as Cinderella in that specific situation?

Kristine Johnson:

What I got out of seeing... Well, it helped put some perspective. I could see what I really thought of the situation, and how it was making me feel. And taking that, and separating it from just the facts of the situation. There was this mental leap from things happening to me just becoming involved in that particular kind of narrative. So being able to put some distance between me and my feelings, I think was what was key there.

Jamie Lee:

Yeah. And then what became possible for you because you gained perspective, and you were able to distinguish between how you were seeing yourself and the emotion that was creating for you.

Kristine Johnson:

Well, I guess I had a little bit of internal resistance, because it's like, well then my feelings aren't important. But that's not the case. [crosstalk 00:11:56]

Jamie Lee:

But your feelings are very important.

Kristine Johnson:

Yeah. They're valid, and I can acknowledge them. But then that perspective allows me to take a closer look at the steps, the little hops that happen mentally, and see okay, so what is this triggering for me? Let's look into that. And then being able to I guess better manage myself, and not... I don't want to say just not letting things trigger me as much, because I still get bothered by things sometimes, and everybody has their things. But that what other people say about me says a lot more about them than it does me. And that means that there's less power in their opinions and words. And I can just hear them and acknowledge them, and I can feel bad. I'm going to react, I'm only human. But not letting that [crosstalk 00:13:11]. Yes.

Jamie Lee:

You get that power back, because then you don't give as much power to those people and their words, which you really don't have any control over. So now you have a little bit more bandwidth available to yourself.

Kristine Johnson:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jamie Lee:

Yeah. Yeah. Is there anything else there that...

Kristine Johnson:

I'm thinking. Yeah. Better looking at how, why I felt the way I felt about certain things, unpacking that, and yeah. The freeing of mental and emotional energy, because I... And it's not even necessarily a fact that so-and-so might have felt this way about me. It's just a fact that they said something, right? And there are all their possible interpretations, because I'm bringing my own stuff to the interpretation of it, and in reality the workplace is kind of a social construct in the first place.

Jamie Lee:

Yes. It totally is. Yeah. Yeah. But the office politics itself is really just an opinion. But for those of us who are watching this and listening to this for the first time, they're like, what? Okay, so then how does that connect to you getting on the track to promotion? So would you mind walking us towards that? How does opening your perspective lead you to getting on the promotion track?

Kristine Johnson:

Sure. Yeah, I think the key really being able to look at things more neutrally, which means with less emotional charge and if I'm not feeling as charged about things, then I'm not expending as much energy feeling things that get in the way of me doing my work, or getting caught up in certain narratives. And I just make that not my concern. And then I can actually focus on the stuff that I want to focus on, and I can do my work and I can do it well, in my own way.

Jamie Lee:

Yeah. And then what? And then how does that impact the conversations you have about your career development?

Kristine Johnson:

Well, when you are more confident in yourself, others pick up on that and they will be more confident in you. And it is a bit like fake it till you make it, which I've heard from early managers, really early supportive managers. And it's like, well, nobody's perfectly confident, you just have to kind of practice and get better at it. And it's like, this doesn't feel authentic, I don't know about that. Because I did basically equate myself with my feelings. But now recognizing [inaudible 00:16:19] prefrontal cortex. There's the adult brain, right? And feelings are valid, thoughts are valid, but not necessarily true in all cases. Anyway, I think I got off on a tangent here.

Jamie Lee:

No, no, no, I think you're right on point. You recognize your feelings are temporary. They're not your identity.

Kristine Johnson:

Yeah. They're not your core self.

Jamie Lee:

Right.

Kristine Johnson:

And if you let them be, you are in for a bumpy, bumpy ride. And I had been doing that for all of my life, and it wasn't making me happy, and it wasn't getting me the things that I wanted in my life and I know I needed to change.

Jamie Lee:

Okay. Yeah. And so then you had more confidence, they had more confidence in you because they saw it in you. And so then did you ask for promotion?

Kristine Johnson:

I had been bringing it up for a long time, so yes. And I made it very clear that that is the thing that I want the most right now in terms of my career there, and yeah. And it finally got the news, like okay, think you're ready. You have lots of great work under your belt the past two quarters, keep it up. So yeah, that was big. That was big.

Jamie Lee:

Awesome. And so, how is your career different now that you've been working in solving your self-confidence from the inside out?

Kristine Johnson:

I think my life is just a little bit better overall, honestly. And that spills over into with my career. I feel more free to be myself, not worry so much about what others think and all of the anxiety that comes with that. I'm still an anxious person, but it's one less thing to worry about. And just believing in myself, really believing I am smart and capable, I do good work, I'm here for a reason, and yeah. And I don't have to change who I am, or behave a certain way, or become somebody else's idea of what an engineer should look like, and how they should act and how they should work.

Jamie Lee:

Right, right. Because who you are is enough. Yes. Who you are is enough. Love it. So I think women out there who are women of color, minorities, working in tech or working in male dominated industries would find your story really inspiring. Is there any tips or advice or any final word that you want to share?

Kristine Johnson:

Oh dear. It's like you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, but I'd like to phrase that in a better way.

Jamie Lee:

Okay.

Kristine Johnson:

Let me think.

Jamie Lee:

Well, what does that mean for you?

Kristine Johnson:

It means even when you aren't 100% confidence in something, it's worth trying. What's the worst that's going to happen, right? It's rejection. And rejection sucks, don't get me wrong. I hate it too. But trying out for this thing or taking on this project, just do your best. That's all you can do. Maybe that's... Yeah. Not quite the same thing, but it's like what we were talking about earlier today. What you do is enough. And I'm still working on fully internalizing that, but I think it's a good place to start. What you do is enough, and you... It's like, things are not easy all the time, but you can do it, or at least try. Because my high school maxim, it's like, don't live with regrets. Yeah.

Jamie Lee:

Yeah, totally. Yes, it is hard. That doesn't mean that you're doing it wrong. It's just, it is hard. Doesn't mean that you're not doing enough. If anything, it means you are doing enough, you're doing your best, and keep going.

Kristine Johnson:

Yeah. Everybody's journey is different.

Jamie Lee:

Yeah. I really want to acknowledge you for being so gracious with your time. And I know this journey has not been always smooth. It's definitely not been easy, but I really want to acknowledge your tenacity.

Kristine Johnson:

Thank you. Thank you.

Jamie Lee:

Yeah. And I don't think you have... We're going to work on this, but I don't think you know how strong you really are.

Kristine Johnson:

Well, I started weight training a couple of years ago, and then I got a good sense of that. But thank you, Jamie. Yeah. It's been great working with you, and you've really helped me. Thank you so much.

Jamie Lee:

Oh, you're welcome so much. Thank you so much. All right.

Kristine Johnson:

All right.

End of transcript

If you’re a mid-career woman who wants to build self-confidence and to improve your self-advocacy skills, I can help you. On an hour-long 1:1 chat, I will help you identify custom solutions for your specific situation.

Book your consult today.