Gina Gotthilf: preference

Transcript context

…Next question. What is a favorite life motto that you like to think about? Come back to share with other people. One is "This too shall pass." And I will tell you this one right now is particularly meaningful to me right now because I'm going through a really tough moment because I have long COVID and lost my taste and smell, and it might be long-term. So, but I think it applies to the A/B thing that I was talking about when everything in life is moments except for a couple of diagnoses. And so, "This too shall pass," is something I say to myself a lot. The second one is also not particularly motivational, but I really believe in it, which is, "Fake it till you make it." That's something I've held onto for a long time. And even today, I don't mean lie. I don't mean pretend to be something that you're not, but it's almost like a way to overcome imposter syndrome and by opening rooms for yourself to be who you want to become so that you enable opportunities to become that. And I'm not saying lying, but early in my career, I did fake it until I make it from the point of view of not saying no to things. When companies were saying to me being like, "Hey, can you help us grow without a budget like Tumblr," right? I was 25, 26. I was like, "Yeah, and then go figure it out." And when Duolingo turned to me and said, "Hey, can you be head of growth?" And I didn't know what growth was and I had to Google and find Andrew Chen's blog, I read it and I found out and I just said, "Yes," and then kept going with that. So fake it till you make it as kind of that for me. But even today I have a lot of imposter syndrome, which I actually think is not imposter syndrome, is just acknowledging that I don't know a lot. My team says I have too much self-deprecating humor that actually puts the company down. It puts me down. So fake it till you make it to me means knowing how to stand in front of your team or a reporter or Lenny in a podcast and almost like being that person that you would like to be or being your best self. You could call it whatever you want, but I think it can really help you get out of the little hole that you would put yourself into and limit opportunities for yourself. Amazing. This question elicits so many interesting insights and stories. I appreciate you sharing all that. Final question. You majored in philosophy, if I'm not mistaken. I'm curious, do you have a favorite philosopher or someone that most influenced the way you think about the world?…

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