Anna Kaic

The best career advice I ever received came from a professor years ago who taught me that things are just easy if you approach them the right way. He was someone who accomplished so many things - research, PhD, speaking engagements, getting married, buying a house - and he was the most unbothered person I've ever seen. His life philosophy was that if you see your duties as this whole overwhelming bunch of tasks, you're setting yourself up for failure. But if you think things are easy because you break them down and take it step by step, and you have this feeling that nothing is too difficult to achieve, then you view your professional life more as a steady marathon that you run very slowly, rather than sprinting uphill at 90 degrees. As someone who overthinks a lot and undermines my own success by questioning if I'm good enough, this advice to just break things down, breathe, and take it easy has been transformative. At the end of the day, we're all just a tiny dot in the universe, as Carl Sagan says, a tiny blue dot. So just breathe, it's okay.

Do your research, first of all, and understand that it takes time. The blockchain industry is quite specific because every project has their own language, and every sub-ecosystem carries different values and ideas. When you get a job as a marketer or enter one of these projects, don't feel like the outsider just because in meetings they might use language you've never heard. It's not about you not being professional enough - it's about this niche being really, really a niche. Give yourself a grace period of 3 to 6 months to sit through meetings and ask questions. When you come from a traditional marketing job in an agency and go into the tech space, specifically blockchain, you're going to be submerged into so many new things and dynamics. Be open-minded to try new processes at work, and be patient with yourself until you learn all the different lingos they use. It's going to be worth it. It's just not you - it's just the industry that is really a bit difficult to understand. But you're gonna make it. That's completely doable.

Right now we're experiencing what they call a bear market, where blockchain currency prices go down and people lose interest in the speculative part of it. The challenge is that people don't realize blockchain tech is not only speculation and coins - not at all. You see less projects being developed and fewer people being hired during these volatile times. But the positive thing is, if you can push through this bear market and moment of volatility, blockchain is a piece of tech that's meant to stay. It's permissionless and decentralized, and specifically now that we're very worried about data - where does my data go, who is controlling it - this layer of privacy that blockchain can provide is very good. Data is everything at the end of the day, and it decides what ads you see and what people know about you. In uncertain times, blockchain offers a way to protect your data and information, like your identity. If your passport gets stolen or burned, data on the blockchain is immutable and cannot be deleted. It's a tech worth knowing and building in for the long run, because when the bear times are over and the market is high again, there's always need for new professionals. Even if you don't start working full-time, look into what projects are out there - there are so many things in clothing, beauty, fashion, whatever you really like.

Having a very strong professional ethic is core to me - treating other people with the respect that you would like to receive, whether in your workplace or private life, regardless of whether they are your higher-ups, directors, managers, colleagues, or people you manage. Even now working with students who are 10 years younger than me and starting their own ventures, I learn so much from them every single day because they're such talented people with fresh, different perspectives. I would never look down on them - I treat them as the professionals they are. Even when there are hard moments in business and difficult collaborators, keeping your professionalism, keeping your frame and being calm will give you more than lashing out or exploding. It safeguards your reputation and keeps your own energy and power in the situation. Specifically as women in tech-dominated spaces where we're underrepresented, if we let our emotions out too quickly or abruptly, people might disregard us or see us as desperate instead of empowered leaders. It's not about suffocating our emotions - it's about using them to keep ourselves up and guide the conversation, delivering our beautiful perspective properly so we can be heard. And no matter how much we love working, success, and climbing the ladder, I think not forgetting your family and friends is crucial - they will always be there through bad and good times.