Episode transcript The transcript is generated automatically by Podscribe, Sonix, Otter and other electronic transcription services.
Ricardo (4s): Hello, everyone. Welcome to the five minute PM Podcast around one year ago, a young guy reached out to me in a Congress in Brazil. And usually, in these congresses, I usually delivered one or two workshops. So he was attending one of them. And at the end, he came to shake hands, take a photo. And then he said to me, Oh, Ricardo thank you for the course. And then I look at to him, he looked so young and I said, Oh God, it's so nice to have such a young guy attending my course. And then he said to me, Ricardo, I'm not too young. I'm 28.
Ricardo (44s): And then I looked scared because, he really looked like someone with 18, 19 or 20. And then I start joking with him and say, Oh God, I would love to be like you. Can you tell me the secret of keeping so younger forever? Because I was not fortunate of being like you. And then we said goodbye. I went home and then maybe one week later on, maybe five days later I received an e-mail from him. And then he started saying, Oh, Ricardo I am the guy with 20 years old that reach it out to you. And he said, almost the opposite that I was thinking, he said to me, Ricardo one of the biggest dilemmas of my professional life.
Ricardo (1m 35s): It's because I look so young. So, people, they are not respectful to me as they should be because I look like an intern. And then it took me almost one year to reply to him. And I decided to record this podcast because this may be a problem for other people too. So look, let me tell you, if you are a senior leader in one organization and you are recruiting based on the visual aspect of your employees and you do not, work on a top model agency. You are completely wrong. This is not a successful criteria for a project.
Ricardo (2m 17s): And the biggest challenge. And this I'm saying to you, to the guy that wrote to me the first thing you need to have to be a good project manager, is self-esteem. Because if you don't give the value, you deserve to yourself then who else will give, nobody will give you the respect if you don't respect yourself. So the first thing you need to know it, I am good. I am capable. And then you need to speak up to others on that. You can not be intimidated because unfortunately today we live in the bullying world, every single one with a little bit of power.
Ricardo (3m 3s): Fells the right of a bully other people. And this goes from a middle manager to the governors. The presidents of extremely powerful countries that use social media to bully people. So the first thing there is no single research on project management that attributes success or failure of your project-based it on the color of your skin, based on your gender based on your age, on how you look, or based on your sexual orientation. I never saw. And I challenge every single one, listening to this podcast to show me a research and a reliable research saying a different thing.
Ricardo (3m 47s): So what is important is that if your self-esteem, you can't go to the meeting with your head up and say, look, I am here because it doesn't matter if I look young. And if I look young is a benefit to me, but it doesn't mean that my experience is a smaller look. Thirty years of pointless experience is nothing compared to two years of great, wonderful project experience. So think about that. So Success was never related to the amount of gray hair you have in your head.
Ricardo (4m 30s): So you must understand that, but it must start with you what you need to believe. When I started my career, it was the same. I started with 25, 26. And of course it's not easy, but you need to give your own value, you need to understand your own value and this when you start to grow by yourself, you can spread out this positive mindset, this sense of value that you must have if you want to be a project manager because if you behave in a very shy way if you behave thinking that you were lower than other people, then when the critical moments in your project, they become a reality.
Ricardo (5m 15s): Then you would be in real trouble show. This is what you need to start fresh with a very positive behavior. You are very young, you have a huge future ahead of you. Think always about that and create this environment of self-esteem despite of all challenges. And Respect yourself search for knowledge, search for support and look honestly if you need look for a professional support, it's not something bad. Okay? I did that many times when you feel that you are too shy or if something is really disturbing you look for professional support.
Ricardo (5m 57s): This will help you to not become a victim of your aspect of your religion or your gender because none of this matter, if you want to do great things and if you want to deliver great projects, see you next week with another five minutes PM Podcast.
