[Music]
[Applause]
all right so my first job in tech was an
internship at a blockchain company and
in true startup fashion interns did
everything from writing documentation to
getting milk at the grocery store so
these interns had a variety of
backgrounds and about two weeks into my
internship I decided to be social and I
joined some of my colleagues for beers
and I met the previous intern whose job
I had taken over and she was perfect
really like an MIT educated engineer she
had some experience in back-end
development and she was also just like a
really really nice person and I was
terrified
really I just kept thinking about like
how I couldn't compete with her and if
you're thinking yourself like Carolyn
like why do you need to compete with her
like she didn't even work there at the
same time then you need to understand a
little bit about my background so I come
from print journalism and there
everything feels like a competition
there just aren't enough jobs or bylines
out there for everyone and it doesn't
help that almost every journalism
student I know thinks that they're gonna
be like the exception to the rule myself
included
but because of this I considered all of
my peers competitors and this escalated
to the point that even when some of my
closest friends were successful I was
left with this like horrible feeling I
was happy for them like sure but I just
felt so inadequate and if you let it
like this kind of feeling can really eat
you alive
so back to my supposed intern competitor
well we did end up being friends but
that was only because she introduced me
to this concept called shine theory so
shine theory is a concept created by
Amina to sew and Ann Friedman and
according to their website shine theory
calm it's defined like the
Shyne theory is an investment over the
long term in helping someone be their
best self and relying on their help in
return it is a conscious decision to
bring your full self to friendships and
not let insecurity or Envy ravish them
shine theory is a commitment to looking
around at the people in your life and
asking yourself would we be better as
collaborators than competitors and the
answer is almost always yes and when I
first heard about this I was like nah no
way this is impossible like there's no
possible way that this can happen which
is an understandable reaction if you've
been socialized to think otherwise but I
gave it a shot and I made the decision
to evaluate all of my newfound tech
relationships through this lens and it's
wilds like how wrong I was before turns
out that this community can be
incredibly kind to you if you let it and
for me just this small mindsets which
really enabled me to establish a group
of like unbelievably supportive people
who have like seen me through a career
change they support me and take me
seriously when I explore new ideas
despite what my CV might say and you
know they pushed me into new
opportunities like public speaking or
organizing a meet-up and while some of
these relationships are kind of like a
mentor-mentee structure most of them
aren't rather I've learned how to look
horizontally and learn from my peers
which wouldn't have been possible with
my mindset that I had four years ago on
the other side I'm slowly learning how
to pay it forward
so I'm trying to learn how to find the
joy in watching other people achieve
their goals and supporting them along
their way towards that goal and it's
been a process but so far investing in
others has turned out to be a really
good way to invest in myself but it can
be hard to practice shine theory I
understand that and even after years of
working on it I still fail sometimes for
example a new junior developer was added
to my team about a month ago
and before that me as the current least
experienced developer on the team was
like immediately freaked out and I kept
asking questions like okay but what if
she comes in and she's better than me or
what if she comes in and she's better
than me now and like wouldn't that be
really embarrassing will I still get a
promotion like I spiraled really but now
I'm able to recognize those feelings and
not let them consume me because I know
that they're misleading and even if
something does go wrong I now have a
support system to help me through it and
I would have never learned how to do
this without the community to teach me
that this is even possible so thank you
[Applause]
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