The concept of vulnerability and why it is so powerful has been cropping up in my life increasingly recently. On a personal level, vulnerability has always been a challenge for me to embrace (hi, fellow Virgos!) How could I be a strong, independent woman if I let it slip how much my mind can mess me up?

Interestingly, I feel like it was through the workplace that I have been able to start embracing and exposing my vulnerability. It feels like a complete contradiction to say that. I’m a female in a generally very male-dominated industry, one who has often had a complex about age and appearance and being taken seriously in the workplace.

So how did it come about that it was a professional environment that encouraged me to open up more? How could this seemingly huge wall feel smaller in a ‘scarier’ environment?

I’ve always felt that there’s a bit of a disconnect between ‘personal Nici’ and ‘professional Nici’. I don’t mean I’m a different person in the workplace (although I suspect sometimes my colleagues wish I was a little more professional), I mean my perception of myself is drastically different across those two worlds. For years, I battled with pretty severe imposter syndrome. It was something that always held me back slightly – not enough to impact my career, but enough to make me not quite be at the very top of my game. And not being at the very top of my game in any aspect of my life is not something that sits well with me.

Then, something changed. To this day, I’m not sure quite what or how. I suspect it is related to the time in my life when I had to move back to the UK for immigration purposes, work LA hours, be remote from my team, my peers and my bosses and still do as good a job as I expect of myself. I suspect during this time, something in my brain clicked and finally told me, you ARE good enough. You are more than enough. You deserve your job, and so much more.

This undoing of the thing that had not-quite-crippled me (let’s say more of a dodgy big toe) changed my trajectory professionally. It’s taking a while for my personal life to catch up – but more on that later. I’ve also discovered over the last couple of years that being open about my mental health challenges and conditions hasn’t held me back, or stopped me from being perceived to be a good leader. If anything, I feel like it has enabled my team to trust me more. Being open and showing my vulnerability is in essence showing I am human. I make mistakes. I fuck up. I have good days, I have terrible days, I have a lot of mediocre days. I’m relatable – and that helps me build stronger relationships with those around me. I try and understand where people are coming from, so that I can help them, or at least recognise I might need to walk away for now.

I have a lot more to say on this matter. A LOT. But, I think I’ll start by sharing a talk I recorded for the TransTech Summit 2020 on ‘How to grow your tech career whilst being your authentic self’. This talk was terrifying for me on a lot of levels – it’s a subject I’m passionate about, but have never done a full talk on, it was to a group of incredibly marginalised individuals who I fully support – but let’s face it, I’m coming from a position of severe privilege in comparison. And I was in the middle of moving apartments during this.

So here I am – opening up and being vulnerable about… being vulnerable.