The power of belief
How a few simple words can change someone's path
December 2015. My flight had just landed in Vancouver after a 24-hour journey flying standby, sleeping in airports, and trying to get home for Christmas. The deadline for finding my first internship was 10 days away, and let’s just say I wasn’t having much luck applying for tech jobs with my resume that read: landscaper, burger flipper, first-year university student who knows nothing. I turned my phone off airplane mode and saw an email notification from someone I’d spoken with a few months earlier about what a “Product Manager” was.
I showed up in a suit and tie for that initial meeting. This was a tech company. He laughed and took a chance on me. I started two weeks later. Over the next 8 months, I learned more about life, work, and relationships than I had in my previous 17 years.
It was here that I met a mentor who has had an immense impact on my life and became one of my closest friends. Why? He believed in me. Out of all the things I learned, all the advice I got, and all the people I met, the most critical thing that has stuck with me over the years is that feeling of confidence instilled in me by somebody believing I was capable.
At 20, I started another internship at a research lab in Berlin that was building and spinning off companies in niches where machine learning provided a significant competitive advantage (this was in 2017 so pre-LLM craze). I was by far the dumbest person to set foot in that office, which made it the perfect internship experience as I learned and failed nonstop for the entire Summer. Like many ambitious university students, I spent a lot of time “networking” with the various people who worked there to try and get signal on what I should do upon graduating the following year.
One day at the end of the Summer I was having coffee with one of the ML engineers (of the astrophysics PhD variety) talking about various high-status career opportunities like management consulting, investment banking, or big tech (I know, I know, insufferable), when he asked me what I wanted to do, not what I thought I should do. I told him I wanted to work at Palantir Technologies because I strongly aligned with the mission, heard lots of interesting people work there, and because they had generalist job roles which meant I didn’t have to make the dreaded (for me) choice between being a software engineer, product manager, or something non-technical. He mentioned that while the interview process was challenging, he believed I could succeed. The result of that small comment? I made a strong bet.
While my classmates were applying at banks, I spent the next 4 months in my room preparing for one interview (well, actually more like 10 interviews with one company). I still have an entire Moleskin notebook that is filled with my notes, cover to cover. My flights to NYC for the interviews got canceled two weeks in a row due to snow storms (I was living on the east coast of Canada). Then by some combination of luck, hard work, and yet another person’s random comment that I could do it, I got a job offer and a flight to London to go work with some of the most incredible people I’ve ever met.
Everyone has potential. Yet, not everyone realizes it. Believing in others and communicating that belief can be hugely impactful, especially for young people with self-imposed limitations. Good things happen when people push beyond their perceived limitations!