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A week ago, I delivered a virtual keynote to a group of women in tech. The title was “Breaking Models: The Three Keys to Success That You Already Possess”. I wanted to inspire them to rely on themselves — rather than on external role models — to achieve their goals.

During the talk I shared

• The contrast between my career in 2017 and now.
• How the process of launching my website on diversity and inclusion in tech in 2018 became a pivotal moment in my professional career.
• How the emphasis on “role models” and the mantra “You cannot be what you don’t see” hindered my professional progression.
• Three tools that can accelerate our career advancement and that we already have in ourselves.

The feedback from the attendees was so positive that I decided to share the highlights more broadly. 

Let’s start with some context about the attendees.

The audience

Venezolanas in Tech (ViT) is a nonprofit organisation aiming to give Venezuelan women and young girls the opportunity to develop their professional skills, gain exposure to job opportunities in tech, and find a safe space where they can meet others who are facing similar challenges.

Last January, I was approached by the organiser of their mentoring program to give a talk. She shared

• The ask —  To be their keynote speaker for the last session of the mentoring program. 
• The audience — Many of the women in this mentoring cohort were in the process of transitioning, either between different tech roles, arriving from a different sector into tech, or coming back to tech after a hiatus working in another industry.
• The topic —As the common denominator among the audience was reinvention, the organisers believed that many of the mentees might be wondering what to do after the program ended. They wanted the talk to inspire them to continue on the path they’d started.

As a native Spaniard who also holds a Venezuelan passport and a woman in tech, I couldn’t say no to them.

The transformation: From Patricia v.2017 to v.2024

My LinkedIn profile portrays me as a successful tech professional with a reasonably straightforward corporate career.

It didn’t feel like that seven years ago.

Patricia v.2017

I shared with the audience a photo of myself smiling in Paris, more precisely, in front of the Arc de Triomphe, in 2017. I was there for a company meeting.

The image was of a “happy” Patricia but underneath I was very disappointed with my career progress.

At the time, I had been Senior Manager of Scientific Support for 5 years. I had learned that I was considered a high performer with low potential. I had reached my career ceiling.

I was also stuck regarding my diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) impact.

In 2016, I founded the first gender employee resource group in my workplace. A year later, I was eager to participate in the public debate about the role of diversity and inclusion in organisations. However, I kept postponing it month after month, preferring to reserve those conversations for discussions with like-minded work colleagues.

Patricia v.2024

Today, I have a fulfilling — even if somehow unusual— portfolio career 

• I’m a Global Director of Scientific Support and Customer Operations for a Fortune Future 50 corporation.
• I have a business as an inclusion strategist where I help tech leaders leverage diversity in their business strategy to boost innovation, protect their reputation, and attract and retain talent. I also help non-tech C-suit and board members seize responsibly AI opportunities.
• I’m a certified work-life coach who helps ambitious women in tech make more impact, work less, and design a life that they love.
• I volunteer for European Women on Boards, an NGO with the mission to increase gender equality in decision-making; We and AI, a British NGO that aims to increase public awareness about the benefits and challenges of AI; and I’m a trustee of the Booth Centre, a community centre run with people affected by homelessness.
• I’m a writer and a keynote speaker. I’ve published research on the effect of covid-19 on the unpaid work of professional women and I’m writing a book about how women succeed worldwide based on feedback from over 400 women in tech living in 60+ countries.

But I’d lie if I said the transition was seamless.

The path to launching my website 

I first thought about launching a website dedicated to the intersection of DEI and tech in 2016. But I became a master at talking myself out of it.

I told myself that 

1. I was not a DEI expert — I compared myself to people who had the title of Head of DEI or who had written books about unconscious bias. Without a diploma in Human Resources, who I was to be vocal about diversity and inclusion in public?
2. My “Good Girl” manual — I had been socialised to believe that it was not serious for a woman with engineering and Ph.D. diplomas to take a 90-degree turn and “waste time” focusing on DEI.
3. Perfectionism — As Brené Brown says in Men, Women and Worthiness, many women are raised with the expectation of perfection. I never had a blog on DEI or any other topic. Still, I had decided that if my blog ever had a typo, it would have catastrophic consequences for my reputation. It was either perfection or nothing.

What I discovered through a journey of deep introspection and coaching was that

1. I was protecting myself from criticism — Starting a public blog in DEI exposed me to others questioning both my views and the relevance of my background to speak about the topic.
2. I was hooked on praise —My worth was tied to others’ appreciation of my work. I was concerned about what my professional and personal network would think of me if I started a blog about DEI.
3. I thought I needed to find a role model —At the time, the only people working in tech that I knew were interested in DEI were those on the HR team. As I didn’t know anybody who worked in tech and had a blog on diversity and inclusion, I repeated to myself that “I couldn’t be what I couldn’t see.”

From the three, let’s focus the “need” to find a role model as a prerequisite to stretch ourselves out of our comfort zone.

The myth of the “role model”

There are three top reasons why focusing on finding a role model didn’t help me

1. I fell into productive procrastination — Whilst searching for my “elusive” role model, I would spend my time busy with further certifications, courses, and workshops creating the illusion that I was working towards building my website. It was a lie, I was procrastinating.
2. I used comparison against myself — Once I found my unicorn — aka “role model” —I proceeded to dissect how great they were and find shortcomings in myself. I am the same age as Sheryl Sandberg. When I read Lean In in 2017, the gap was obvious. She had been a student at Harvard University, VP at Google, and at that time she was already a millionaire and COO at Facebook. I felt like a failure.
3. I missed my uniqueness — By trying to find and imitate a role model, I discarded what made me distinctive: the combination of having a strong scientific and technical background, a career in services in tech, and experience living in 6 countries on 3 continents.

Luckily, there was another way. What if I already had the role models I needed? What if you already have them too?

The three tools we all possess

Our past self

We use our past to berate ourselves. 

My blog and my promotion to director have brought me joy and recognition. It’s easy to look back at Patricia v.2017 and recriminate her for neither getting the director role after five years as a senior manager nor being bold enough to start her blog until 2018. She used to be my punching ball.

Instead, what if we flipped the script and took the time to thank our past selves for believing in our potential?

For example, I’ve learned that I can access the memories of Patricia v.2017 to give me confidence when things don’t go as planned or take longer than expected.

In those moments, I pause and thank her for believing that Patricia v.2024 was possible. For not giving up on me — her future self — when people around her told her to put her head down and continue to do what she was doing.

IN PRACTICE: What relation do you have with your past self? Do you use it to reprimand yourself or to energise you? 

Our present self

Sometimes, I use “time” as a tactic to talk myself out of what I want to do but I’m not doing. For example, I tell myself

• Writing an article takes a lot of time.
• I don’t have enough time to network.
• It’s impossible to manage my corporate career, my volunteering work, and my business.

In those moments, I also default to using verbs like “should”, “have to”, or “need” to catastrophise about my stretch goals.

• I should be posting every day on social media to grow my business.
• I must write a new article every week to show I’m serious.
• I need to network to be a successful businesswoman.

Notice a pattern? In those moments, I talk to myself like a victim of my business, my writing, and my time management skills. 

Alternatively, I can stop being a martyr of my stretch goals and become a strategist of my life. In those moments, that’s how I talk to myself

• I decide to spend one hour per day on social media to build my brand as an inclusion strategist and technologist.
• I choose to spend my Sunday writing articles because I want to share my point of view about tech, DEI, careers, and feminism with others.
• I prioritise networking in my business because it helps me to find clients, connect with interesting people, and explore synergies.

In summary, I talk to myself as the person who has authority over my life.

IN PRACTICE: Which kind of language do you use to prompt yourself into action? Do you treat yourself as a victim or as a decision-maker?

Our future self

We talk endlessly about SMART goals — objectives that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.

SMART goals are great when we want to play it safe and have a plan in place to reach our objective.

But what if you are a trailblazer? What if you want to escape a cookie-cutter life?

If you’re not convinced yet, can you imagine Mahatma Gandhi, Emmeline Pankhurst, Nelson Mandela, and Florence Nightingale accomplishing their bold vision by using SMART goals?

Let me introduce you to impossible goals. Those are goals that are so bold that you don’t know how to achieve them. Yet.

There are four key benefits of setting impossible goals

• They remove limiting beliefs you didn’t know you had about what’s possible for you.
• They teach you to embrace uncertainty.
• You discover that you can trust yourself to learn what you need to know to achieve your objective.
• You transform yourself through the journey to attain an impossible goal.

Tempted? This is how it works.

In 2022, I coached 5 women and they got the promotion they wanted. In 2023, my impossible goal was to coach 50 women and people from underrepresented groups to get the promotion they deserved. 

I’m happy to report that I coached 58.

Was it easy? No. Did I know how to do it when I set the impossible goal? No. But by trusting my future self — that version of Patricia that would have already succeeded — and using it to help me focus when I wanted to give up, I exceeded my impossible goal.

IN PRACTICE: What outrageous goal do you want to achieve? Now, imagine who you’ll be once you reach that goal. How does that feel?

How to use your three role models at a juncture

In June 2018, I finally launched my website. It was not perfect then and still isn’t today. But it has been an incredible laboratory to learn about myself and show me what I’m capable of when I rely on my own role models rather than wait for external inspiration.

How can we use those three tools when we are at a crossroads, like ending a mentoring scheme, completing a degree, or feeling that we’ve outgrown our current role?

In those moments, there are three typical traps where our past, present, and future selves can help us.

Ruminating about the past

When we complete a chapter in our personal or professional career, we may look backward and reprimand ourselves for the things we did and didn’t do. 

For example, we may scold ourselves because we missed the opportunity to connect more often with our mentor, regret the classes we missed at the university, or lament that we didn’t invest more time in broadening our network. 

Instead of having a pity party, go back in time and remember that version of yourself that signed up for the mentoring scheme, started the degree, or applied for the job you have. And then, thank your past self because they made a decision from which you’re benefiting today. 

The upside? Reminding your brain that you’re a person who makes sound decisions.

Trapped in analysis-paralysis

We may be fretting about what road to take as we feel “on our own” after reaching a milestone – worrying about wasting our time, making the wrong decision, or missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime.

Don’t let your brain make you a victim of the present. Be your own ally. 

Rather than stressing out about the “right choice” and “the lack of time”, I dare you to believe that

• All alternatives are valid — Your job is to pick one and then tell your brain the reasons why you like your choice. 
• It’s possible to timebox tasks — You can decide in advance how much time you want to dedicate to an activity rather than working on the assumption that tasks “take the time that they take”.
• Done is better than perfect.

Feeling uncertainty about the future

When we complete a phase in our career, it may be hard to get past the obstacles we foresee in our future: Our first job application, asking for a promotion, or starting our own company.

Here is where your future self can be priceless as your mentor and guide.

Imagine the version of you who already got the job you want, was promoted, or is a successful entrepreneur. Then, use it as your mentor and guide. 

• What advice can they give you about your next steps?
• How can they inspire you to continue working on your goals? 
• How can you use them as accountability partners when you are tempted to give up on your objectives? 

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I want to thank me — for believing in me and doing what they said I could not do. And I want to say to myself in front of all you beautiful people, “Go on girl with your bad self. You did that.”

Niecy Nash-Betts, Acceptance speech after winning the 2023 Emmy Best Supporting Actress Award

Stop searching for external role models. 

Instead, learn to appreciate your uniqueness and talk to yourself — past, present, and future versions — like your friend, mentor, and coach, rather than your most hated enemy.

Ready to become your own role model? Let me know what you think in the comments!

PS. You and AI

• ​Are you worried about ​the impact of A​I impact ​on your job, your organisation​, and the future of the planet but you feel it’d take you years to ramp up your AI literacy?
• Do you want to explore how to responsibly leverage AI in your organisation to boost innovation, productivity, and revenue but feel overwhelmed by the quantity and breadth of information available?
• Are you concerned because your clients are prioritising AI but you keep procrastinating on ​learning about it because you think you’re not “smart enough”?

I’ve got you covered.