Lenny Rachitsky: belief

Transcript context

…Well, I just remember I was talking to this ERG group and I was asking about... There was an upcoming calibration and self reviews were due in a couple of days. And I said, "Well, what are you doing for your self-review?" And somebody raised their hand and said, "Well, I'm really bad at self-promotion. What advice would you have for me?" And I said, "If you think your self-review is self-promotion, you're just not going to do a great job at it." What if I called it educating your manager about all the great work your team has been doing? What if I called it helping people see why your team should get more resources? Suddenly you're cracking open, you're changing the question right from, "Oh, I was self-promoting to actually I'm helping my team get more resources and support." And suddenly she was like, "Oh yeah, I never thought about it that way." But I think often if you frame it one way, it looks like self-promotion. I wouldn't want to do that because of self-promotion. But at the same time, if it's education, what if I said, "I was talking to a PM who's really incredible. I've mentored him and sponsored him for a long time." And I said, "I don't understand why you don't have more of a voice. You've learned so much about the craft. You've done this at multiple companies." And he said exactly what you said which is I'm not really self-promoting. And I said, "If you see it as self-promoting, you will never do it." And so let's talk about why you don't actually do this. And he said, "I've seen a lot of people who are really great on LinkedIn write these articles, but they have nothing to back it up." And I don't want to be like them. And I said, "Okay. Well, you read my blog, you follow me on LinkedIn, do you think I have nothing to black back it up?" And he's like, "No, of course not." And I said, "Well, then why do you put yourself in his category instead of mine?" And I think it was just a moment where we just came to an understanding where he in his mind was like, "I don't want to be that person. It's an empty vessel that has no substance behind it." And I said, "Do you think the things I write have no substance?" But it was an interesting conversation because he had taken this mantle that it was self-promotion and that behind what if people think I'm nothing behind it?" I'm like, "I know you have something behind this. I have been your manager. I have worked with you for many years, but you see how just reframing it has really changed his way of thinking about it." Still working on him. But I actually think he has so much to give and I think he has learned so much about the craft, and I wish that more product managers feel comfortable that they have something to give to the world. I think what you're saying right now will resonate with a lot of people when they see people posting. I feel the still of just like, "I don't want to be this guy that's just posting nonsense on LinkedIn just to get likes," even though it's kind of what I do now full time. Hopefully it's not nonsense. But it is all substance. So, Lenny, we know the substance behind it.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.