Diana Robertson Career Conversations

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Hello and welcome to another edition of The Traveling Introvert and this time we are doing career conversations with, see? And this is what happens when I change my screen. We are doing an interview today with Diana Robertson and she is going to introduce herself.

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Hello, everyone! My name is Diana Robertson and I am a communication skills trainer and the TEDx coach and speaker, and also the founder of Skillsme, a Soft Skills Academy.

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Okay, and thank you. Thank you for that nice brief short introduction. One thing that I have found out about you that you actually told me, is that you consider yourself to be a shy introvert. Is that correct?

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That was in the past. I used to consider myself as a shy introvert. That's right.

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Okay, so then my question is, why did you consider yourself to be a shy introvert?

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Well, you see, if we talk some time ago when I was at school, for example, just to give you an idea what type of person I was. I was the type of person who would sit in the class, would know all the answers, but never raised her hand. In fact, I'll sit at the back end of the classroom because I would be afraid of just that attention I'm going to get or conceive the judgement from all those people if they hear my answer, if I say it out loud in front of these, oh my God, ten other students.

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Okay. And so, now what would you consider yourself to be?

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Well, I don't believe that you can change your personality trade. I think a personal opinion, I think that if you're born an introvert, you will stay an introvert. However, shyness and introversion are not the same thing. Shyness is the level of your confidence and the confidence level can be built. So, now I consider myself to be a confident introvert.

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Okay, and so what do you consider to be the not specifications, but there's a word in there that I'm trying to think of, that signifies that you are now a confident introvert.

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A word?

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I mean, I can't think of the word, sorry. What's the difference now between the shy introvert and the confident introvert in your mind? Like, what makes you a confident introvert?

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Okay, I would say I don't feel discomfort when I need to socialize. So, in my opinion, that is confidence for introverts. Now, of course, confidence can come in many shapes and forms. I mean, confidence can be, I don't know, in the way that you lead, that's one confidence. In the way that you speak, it's another confidence. In my opinion because you can build your confidence in anything that you do. But in general, when we talk about introversion, I kind of think of communication skills more. So, I'm a socially confident introvert. Does that make sense?

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Okay, that does make sense. Thank you so much for clarifying that because I was like, it's really interesting to hear what individual people think and how they think about it. So, you mentioned that you're the founder of this amazing organization and one question I have about that is, every industry has its misconceptions. Just like being an introvert has misconceptions. People assume certain things. So, can you tell me about what are the top types of misconceptions about your industry?

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Sure. So just to give you an idea of what exactly is it that I do? So, we teach at our school, we teach communication skills. Actually, we teach them not only to interrupt, we teach them to extrust as well. It's just that we notice that majority of people who come to us are interests. It's a nice observation there. So it seems that more interests want to develop social skills. When I say social, I mean all types of skills, communication skills, social skills like public speaking, I don't know, conversations, day to day interview skills, et cetera. And one of the challenges that we face, and it is also the misconception in the market, is that a lot of people who may struggle with communication skills, let's say they're not very good presenters, for example, a lot of them believe that this is just who they are and it's not something they can change as such. Well, it's difficult. It's a very difficult misconception to deal with because we need sometimes to first educate people that, you know what, actually changes possible. Yes, maybe you haven't observed it so much, maybe at school or in New Mexico, you don't really see people change this a 180 degrees like from being in a shy, awkward introvert to suddenly becoming a very confident and outspoken person.

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They don't see that very much. But it doesn't mean that it's not possible. It's just a question of working on your communication skills. So, what the issue this is causing us is that we can't just teach people communication skills with a lot of people. We need to tell them, “You know what, actually you can develop communication skills. Here are the examples of people who have done it.” And on the later, “Okay, here is how you can learn them”, if that makes sense.

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Yeah, educating the prospective client is huge. And thank you for talking me through that misconception because it's something that I think a lot of industries see. But it's really that much more pronounced in coaching and in courses because if someone already goes in with the mindset of, well, I can't change anyway, it makes it that much harder for them to be engaged and make those changes.

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Absolutely. And it makes it harder for them to even consider such change. So, I mean, in business language, they are not our clients because they are not aware, they're aware of the problem, but they are not aware that there is even a solution for it, if that makes sense. So that's one of the reasons we go to a lot of universities and just give different open workshops to students where we share with them that, you know what, it's important to develop soft skills and communication skills that can help you in this and this and this, and it's possible to learn them. And you're welcome to join us, for example.

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Okay, awesome. And so, you mentioned now being a confident introvert that is quite happy to go and socialize, so to speak. So, can you tell me about one of the most important connections you've made in your career?

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That's a good question. I think I can think of one really important connection who doesn't even probably realize he was this important to me. And that was actually at the start of my career, in fact, one of the people who started my career, I would say. I remember now, before I started teaching communication skills, I myself, I never considered that as something I would do in my life. Never. In fact, I told you I was quite shy, it was quite awkward. It's not the type of thing I saw myself doing, even speaking to you on a podcast or, I don't know, presenting at TEDx or things like that. It wasn't my type of thing. But at one point in my life, I realized that I do have an issue with communication skills. And I really struggled with job interviews and I absolutely could not do any speeches in public whatsoever. I would go red, my hands would start to shake, everything would go wrong. Absolutely everything would go wrong. And at one point in my life, I also realized that, okay, I need to do something about it. And one of the things I tried was joining a public speaking club.

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Now, when I joined the public speaking club, I started to see people who are absolutely fantastic speakers. I mean, I was just looking at them and I was just thinking, “Oh my God, I will never be like you.” And there was at this time when a speaker flew from another country to our club. And it was in the club, several clubs joined in, they made a conference and he flew to that conference and he spoke. And then, he spoke so well. I was just thinking, oh, my God, I mean, where do they even create these people? Or maybe he was born this way, he's a God! And then after the conference, there was this after party and I just came to him and asked him, how did he do all that? How did he manage to become an international speaker? And he was like, “You know, it's actually not that hard. Just need to put yourself out there and I'm sure you can do it too. Just send your applications in different places and just speak. Start small, then add the difficulty gradually, and then you'll start flying to other countries as well.” When I heard that, I was like, “Aha! Sure, I'm going to do that.”

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But later, you know what? I started throwing something like that. I started to see some opportunities and I thought, well, why not? I'll just send an application, see what happens. And you know what? You could accept it. So, I flew to Prague, which, interestingly, was the place where that person was from, and I met that person there and I said, “See? I did just like you told me.” And Janet, you know what he told me? It was like, “What did I tell you?” Don't you realize that the whole reason I'm here is you? He’s like, “Really? Sorry, I really don't remember what told you.” That was one of the most important connections that he doesn't even know about it.

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That is wonderful. But that's also a really good story for people to realize that no matter what you say, people are kind of listening. And even if you don't think you're influencing other humans, you are. They just might not come and tell you afterwards. I mean, you happen to go to Prague and tell him, but if your conference that you were going to was in Paris and he wasn't there, he never would have known.

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Yeah, absolutely. That is such a good point, Jance. Absolutely. People are listening, so you got to be careful about the type of things that you say.

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So that brings me now to scary stuff. What is the scariest thing that you have had to do for your career/work/business?

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Scariest thing? There are a lot of really scary things. I'm really not sure which one is the scariest, but I suppose I'll give you just the fact that I started this company that was scary. So, just to give you a bit of a background, this is my second start up. And my first startup, which I tried in Russia, I am half Russian. That didn't go so well, now that there were big opportunities for it, but it's just things did not go as planned and I lost a lot of money and I mean a lot of money. Some of it was my family's money. So, I was incredibly ashamed for the fact that that happened to me. Now, when I started that startup, I was fearless and I was like, “Okay, of course I'm going to do it. I can see the opportunity; I can see the growing market.” It was food delivery, by the way, but back at the time when it was a new, new thing, and in Russia, it was even newer, I saw it work in UK. I thought, well, if I do it, definitely it's going to work out. Well, it didn't, because you need loads and loads of money for marketing, which I didn't have.

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But anyways, that's not the point. The point is that I failed and I had to let my team go, I had to let my office go. And I lost my face because of all the promises that I made to various companies that were waiting for my product to come out. It didn't come out. And the result was that I just lost the money. Or at least that's what I thought. That's all. I wasted time and wasted money. Later, I realized that actually, I didn't waste anything because it was the knowledge that I got there helped me become the person I am. In a sense of, in that one, two years I was working on it, I learned so much about accounting, marketing, managing people. There's all these business things that are absolutely essential for any business. So, as such, I just see it as a paid, large tuition fees for skills I actually needed and I did lack. So, when I got to open this startup, I mean I came more prepared. But at the same time, it was super scary, because this time, skills I had is based in London, where I am based as well.

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Now, at this point, I left Russia. I relocated to the UK. I never started a business in the UK. I wasn't sure whether I would manage. I mean, I was still young and I'm still young. I mean I opened this one when I was 25. I don't know, my head, it's kind of this young girl trying something and it's really scary because you don't know, you don't know where it's going to get you. And I started only with my own money, so I was afraid I'm gonna lose all the money, and then I will end up with nothing at the end. So, another expensive tuition fees. So that was one of the scariest things I would say, just starting and opening it. But I'm glad I did it.

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And so, it was scary because of all the newness. But what inspired you to do it regardless?

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Well, I would say two things. One of them is the fact that I always saw myself being an entrepreneur, just always, since my childhood. And you know exactly why? Because I saw my dad being quite successful at it and I was just like, you know what, I'm going to be even more successful. But no, jokes aside, I always, I actually, this is something for me. I mean I really enjoy entrepreneurship. I also really enjoy managerial roles. I'm pretty good at them, even though I say so myself. But in general, it's just organizing things. I have strong abilities in organizing and managing things and I enjoy doing that at the same time. Which is why I figured out that either managing my own project, small project, or some project at another company, that's the perfect thing for me, just to be happy and enjoy my work, if that makes sense. So that's one thing that kept me going and another thing that kept me going is the industry itself. So, the reason I even went to it and remember, Janice, I told you that I never considered myself teaching people communication skills. I mean I myself was learning them at one point, but I just started when I was learning and I got better.

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A lot of people started to approach me to help them become better. It's something I never expected that would happen. They just came and I just helped them for free. No money or anything, just because, okay, well, this is how I learned it. And then they would be so, so grateful for the help, and then I will see actual differences in their lives. And once I started seeing that, my whole perspective on business has changed. And I realized that, well, maybe I shouldn't be chasing profits so much like I did with the first startup. Where I looked, there was growing markets, et cetera, but maybe I should be doing something that actually helps people and seeing the results of your help just by itself. It motivates you so much because, you know, well, this happened because of my health. And then people write thank you letters. They come to you, they call you, and you're like, wow, I actually did something good. So, I would say that's the second thing that kept me going specifically in this industry, because I know that, I do something good. I know that.

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Yeah, that is a good reason. That is a very good reason to keep doing what you're doing. Thank you so much for that insight and sharing that. And so, I have one final question that I ask everyone on career conversations that is not related to career conversations. Do you consider a hotdog to be a sandwich? It's not a trick question.

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Why does it sound like a trick question? Good question, Janice. I have never thought about it. But then if it's not the sandwich, what else would it be? I mean, bearing my English is my third language, so I'm not sure. What are you expecting to hear from me? For me, in my culture, we have this thing. We don't have sandwiches, we have a bread and then you put something on the bread. So basically, what's in English called an open sandwich. Now, we call these sandwiches. And every time I eat that in front of my husband, he's like, “Why are you eating a half-finished sandwich?” That's not a sandwich. He shouldn't be eating that. So, in my head, hotdog would also be a sandwich. Anything you eat with bread is a sandwich. But, yeah, I don't know if that's the right answer. Is it?

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There is no right answer. It's really not a trick question. It is a question that sparks debate all across the Internet. And one time I was doing an online coworking session with some humans and we had a break and I asked that question and it sparked conversation for a good 20 minutes. And then we kept coming back to it after every coworking to be like, we do a pomodoro. And then it's like, no, wait, but there's this. Because we had engineers and we had, like, chefs and we had different types of people from different types of professions talking about sandwich. Because it highlights just how different we all are, and how different cultures name things. And why things are named the way they are and how different our brains think. So, some people are like, well, it has to be two separate slices of bread. And some people are like, well, as long as it's bread with something in it, like, why isn't that a sandwich? Crisp sandwiches. Yeah. It sparked all sorts of conversations and so that's why I ask it. That's not really the final question. Thank you for your answer and I really appreciate it.

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And I love the fact that you are like, well, for me it means this, but I know other people think this and this. It was great. It was wonderful. But my real final, final question is where can people find you on the Internet so they can hear more about what you do?

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So, the best place to find me would be LinkedIn. If you type in Diana Robertson Skillsme, you will find me, connect me, or follow me. But if you want to connect to me and write a message to me, please write in the message that you heard about from this podcast. Because I don't accept everyone. That's not because I don't like people, there is a lot of spam in there. So, if I don't know who you are, I might not accept you. But this way I would know that you are a genuinely interested person who is not trying to sell me something again. And that's how you will become my connection. So Diana Robertson Skillsme on LinkedIn.

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That is a very good point. That's something that chaps me as well, where people just do the connection thing and don't personalize it. I don't know you. I don't know. And then I go and look at what they do and it's like, I help coaches do build six figure businesses. I’m not, we're good.

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Exactly.

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Okay, well, thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it. It has been a pleasure listening to your stories and I wish you the best of luck with this wonderful journey that you are on. Thank you very much.

[: 00:21:32

Thank you so much for inviting.