Produced By - Numbers to Lightsabers: How a Career in VFX Began with Passion for Maths | #45: Alisha Huxtable

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

Part 2: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/produced-by/episodes/Pixels--Purpose-The-Line-Producer-Championing-Change-in-VFX--46-Alisha-Huxtable-e2ft816 Pixels & Purpose: The Line Producer Championing Change in VFX | #46: Alisha Huxtable Beyond the title of VFX Line Producer lies a diverse skillset forged from experience in film, animation and digital marketing. Alisha Huxtable seamlessly blends technical expertise in studio software with strong leadership, communication and scheduling abilities. Her data-driven approach incorporates valuable analytics insights to create visually stunning and effective content. But Alisha's passion extends beyond technical mastery. She's a pragmatic strategist and a creative thinker who thrives in collaborative environments, constantly seeking innovative solutions while fostering inclusivity as she dedicates efforts to integrating individuals into the VFX community and aiding them along their creative path. Her adaptability and eagerness to learn to fuel her continuous growth, ensuring she stays ahead of the curve in the ever-evolving world of visual effects while using her VFX skills to empower others. Tune in to the first part of our conversation where Alisha unveils the pivotal role Star Wars played in igniting her passion for visual effects. Witness her academic journey marked by excellence and discover how she secured her dream position at one of the world's leading VFX companies. 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Hello and welcome to Produced Buy. Just quickly before we begin, if we enjoy the show, please consider supporting it by joining our Patreon. You can choose from a list of memberships and we'll receive some exciting rewards. Thank you and back to the episode. Hello, Alicia, thank you for joining us today and welcome to the show. So Alicia, can you please introduce yourself?

Of course, I'm Alicia Hoxtable. I am currently a line producer at D-Negg with over-4. four years of production experience within visual effects. And can we start with your background? Can you tell us more where we come from? Where are you growing up? What was it like? Yeah, of course.

So I was born and raised in London. Both my parents are Jamaican and I was born here. I have a majority of my family here. I have an abundance of nephews and nieces. So a lot of family time. And that's pretty much it really. I would say it's quite boring, considering that I was born and then went to school here, and then I also went to university here, and now I work here.

So, yeah, a proper Londoner, I would say. Proper Londoner, yeah. So how was it growing up, were you, you know, creative people as a young child, or were interested in film or VFX? Growing up, I was always interested in creative things. I would say I was quite a hands-on, in my youth I was quite a hands-on person. I was always interested in making things, doing things, whether it was technical on computers or like physically making something in terms of like arts and crafts.

I was surrounded by, I would say mostly no one that worked in film. I would say my parents and my brothers did dabble in, I think, the music industry. I would say. My mom did work on top of the pops for a brief period of time. So I was, my brother was also involved in that. So I was able to see backstage, meet some celebrities, which was quite cool. But nothing that really drew my interest into the industry at a young age. I will say also my brothers are like major film buffs. So they love films and movies and always testing if I know the actors. So I think that was one of the. the main things that enticed me because I thought it would be more quite cool for them,

for them to be like, hey, my sister works on this film. So that was pretty much it. So were you interested in working like a person behind the camera or maybe even in front of camera as actress or something like that? Interesting. I think my likes and dislikes have evolved over time just of course growing up naturally. When I was quite young, I was definitely into a lot of drama. I did a lot of staging, dancing, ballet, acting, all that sort of thing. So initially, quite a young age, I did genuinely think I would be more so in front of the camera until I realized that I would get quite embarrassed as a young child. If I made a mistake

in front of the camera, I would get super embarrassed. I didn't have the, I guess, the emotional management at that age. the people I was working with wasn't necessarily, I guess, great at teaching me yet. So I feel like I kind of resolved to going behind the camera. Yeah, yeah. So what was then, like your first step? Did you decide to study it, you know, at school or at university? Or, you know, how did you start pursuing this career?

Of course. So, again, a little bit of a complex story. I delved into more academics as I found. that was something I was easy. It was easy for me to do. I was able to do calculations, write English essays. It was all quite easy for me. I decided that I wanted to be an engineer. Oh, engineering. I did also feel like, yeah, I went to an all-girls school. So we was very advertised to women in STEM. And I feel like that caught my eye. So I thought I want to be an engineer. I decided to study, I think it was, A-level maths.

product design, and I can't remember what else, but essentially just all the curriculum items to be an engineer, until I realized that A levels are incredibly hard, and I realized that maybe being an engineer is not something I actually want to do, as opposed to something that's being advertised towards me. I left Sixth Form, and I did an apprenticeship in digital marketing. which kind of kick-started my career, I would say. It definitely broadened my horizons in terms of careers available, what my abilities can do, what my skills, where my skills can bring me. And then I also went to a careers fair, I believe it was. At the time, I was still trying to figure out a lot of things.

And I saw an advertisement for a visual effects breakdown of Star Wars. and from seeing it, yeah, I was pretty much sold. I said that was cool. That's what I want to do. And the specifics that sold me on it was they showed algebraic graphs and calculations on how they did waves. And doing A level maths, I realized that that's something that I understand. And also having the creative side, I realize that it's also something I can execute. So, yeah, that sold me and that was it.

Yeah, like a perfect moment, perfect realisation. Honestly, that was it. Were you into Star Wars, or was it kind of coincidence that it was just a film that looked cool and was, you know, well-known and popular? Yeah, it was just a film for me that was well-known and popular. I wasn't necessarily a Star Wars fan, but it was generally the mathematics of it all. If I didn't take A-level maths for that period of time and never saw that, Star Wars breakdown with the mathematical graphs. I don't think it would have grasped me in the same way. It was more that familiarity and realizing that is something I can actually do.

So that was the moment and then you decided this is the carrier I want to go for. Yeah, so I did some research. Again, I'm quite a hands-on person. So as soon as I like have an idea, it's like all go green light. Let's do this. I did a lot of research. I found Escape Studios. I created my own personal portfolio because keep in mind I was now I had moved out of my apprenticeship I was now a digital marketing manager so I wasn't in academics anymore I didn't have the grace of like teachers to guide me into that specific field I just knew that escape studios was doing a bachelor's degree in visual effects and that's something that I was highly interested in so I created a portfolio on my own using resources such as YouTube and YouTube channels I honestly

can't remember what YouTube channels I used. But at the time when I researched the pipeline, I realized that the two routes I probably wanted to go into was digital map painting and compositing. So I had a lot of photo bashes using Photoshop, which I was comfortable with considering my digital marketing career. And I applied and I gratefully got in. And you said you created board.

So did you basically get a software and made some, you know, simple VFX stuff? Or can you explain a bit more? Because you as a starting person who doesn't have any knowledge, how did you start from zero? So I started with what I had in honesty. I started with the skills that I had within myself, which was I was an avid drawer just for my own record. I would always like do little doodles and drawings and I decided that my first step was to keep all my drawings within a theme. So I had to show that I could practically do something. Visual effects is an art form as much as maybe a lot of the world doesn't recognize it as such, but it's definitely an art form.

A lot of artists do come from an artistic background and able to recognize references and etc. So I thought it was important to strengthen the skills that I had. So drawing within one specific theme and then knowing that I wanted to go digital map painting route, so finding out the pipeline, I think that was the first step for me. What is visual effects? Some quick Google searches can show you that there's multiple segments and departments in visual effects. As you and I both know, there's too many that I was able to kind of, diversify and look into each one and just understand what aspects of each department that I liked.

And I wouldn't say that was necessarily from actually delving in and going, okay, this is layout, this is build, this is this. It was generally just watching YouTube videos and seeing what these artists were doing and saying, okay, that looks cool. I want to try that. And digital map painting, again, reached out to me the most. And I realized that I could use my images. and import them into Photoshop and kind of make them look real.

So photo bash them in order to make them real with real elements. So for example, if I drew a robot, I would take the image, put it into Photoshop, and then overlay certain materials in order to actually build the actual real life character. So I started with doing that. And then I moved on to, I wanted to really do landscapes because I think those are the most, amazing, beautiful DMPs that you see, like these elaborate landscapes with like castles and spaceships. And I said, okay, that's what I want to do next. So then I just kind of watched YouTube videos of how to get there. And it was just a whole bunch of photo bashing. Luckily enough,

the place in my life, I was already accustomed to Adobe, to Photoshop, to all these utensils where it allows you to photo bash. So I was able to just pretty much utilize my skills and just go for it. And before we move on, can we do a little explanation of some terms, VFX related that you just mentioned? In some simple terms for someone who doesn't know? Of course, my apologies. So digital map painting is somewhat what it sounds like. So it's digital, it's online, well, virtual, and it's painting.

with a map background, so meaning 2D. So you use flat images in order to build an overall image. So in my example, I was photo bashing, which essentially means that you get a whole bunch of photos and you amalgamate them together in order to look overall like one, a pleasing image. That was pretty, that's DMP, I would say. That's what we would say in industry, digital map painting,

compositing is the end of the visual effects. pipeline where essentially an artist composites the values together to create the overall image, meaning that again, 2D images are combined and used in combination with additional effects such as colour grading in order to create one image. So yeah, I think that's all I said. I think that's the most terms I used. Yeah, and how would you describe a pipeline? Oh yeah. So pipeline is more of just the process. So beginning to end. Any projects that you work with will probably have a pipeline in general. Probably 10 steps, five steps, two steps. Regardless, it will always be a beginning and end. And the visual effects pipeline has multiple steps with a plethora of people, all doing amazing things. And digital map painting is a part of the pipeline and so is compositing. Yep. And now with your years of experience in VFX, are these still the areas of VFX that you are most interested in or the most excited about or did your opinion change over time? Good question. I do feel like naturally I do gravitate towards compositing and digital bat painting as a line producer and in the roles that I have worked in previously now that I think back.

And even currently, I think I do naturally gravitate towards them. However, I do have a sense of appreciation for all departments, especially having artists' friends that work in different departments. I'm able to have appreciation for layout and have that dedication for each individual department and essentially see the light within them all. And also discussing these specific areas, Are there maybe some examples from any, whether for well-known films or your favorite ones that you would, you know, that would be worth mentioning that you like it the way they did it in the film? That I've worked on or in general?

You can say in general. I would definitely say, I would say based on recent watches. I watched Aquaman 2 recently. And there was some really cool elements that was done in Aquaman too. Definitely the underwater scenes. The way his hair was actually moving within the current of the water, I think that was amazingly executed. You could tell some time was taken, and there was definitely 100% references that would definitely precisely taken from.

And I feel like it was executed really beautifully. Because hair is such an intricate thing. if you work in visual effects you know hair is probably like one of the hardest aspects to work with especially because such of the fine details that come with it so I was really impressed by the hair and I think especially if you consider that it's in water it's so challenging and hard to make it so that it looks realistic and beautiful at the same time so yeah good example exactly and coming back to your education then You got accepted into Escape Studios thanks to your portfolio.

Yes, I was accepted into Escape Studios, which is a university that specializes in visual effects specifically. I studied 2D compositing for three years, and in those three years, I learned the entire pipeline from beginning to end, which was really, really helpful for me. So everything, including build, so that would be modelling, CGI. computer generated images. We also had to do like a foundation year where we had to understand the background of photography, cinematography, art foundation, meaning real-life drawings. So it was a lot of information jam-packed into a concise three years which I really enjoyed. So you said you were studying compositing. So was the course the effects in general focused on compositing or was it compositing and a bit of

general or what was actually in the course? Yeah, of course. So the first year was a foundation year where as I mentioned we did all the art basics. So life drawing, cinematography, photography, I believe there was a couple of others as well

but really sodded foundations in order to understand art and cameras. The first, the second year was then we actually looked at the entirety of the pipeline. Mostly focusing on build so modeling and then 2D which is compositing which is understandable because those are like the fundamental

basics between the two sides of the pipeline and then from that point onwards we essentially chose our disciplines so then we chose the areas of the pipeline that we wanted to focus on for the third year and that would be our final project yeah and you still focused on compositing yes that was my sole focus I did enjoy 3D modeling, but I just found I was better at compositing naturally. So I just went for it. And are there some projects that you worked on during your studies that were maybe interesting or are worth mentioning? I think maybe interesting and worth mentioning would be the final project that I worked on, which was called Boxwats. I worked with a number of artists with it that are currently in the industry as well, and we have won an award for it.

So that was an amazing opportunity. It was really cool to work on a short film from beginning to end and actually understand what it takes to get to the end product, the references, the research, the understanding, the problem solving. It was really fun and really interesting. So was the award specifically for VFX? It was a B-I-A-F award. B-I-A-F. Yeah. Wow, too. I mean, that's impressive. Well done.

Thank you. Yeah, so the B-I-A-F-F film festival, so the Batium Batumi International Art House Film Festival. If you want to boost your online presents, check out our digital marketing agency called Trailblazed. You can also enroll in a skill share course. called the 10 tips on how to succeed in your creative career, which was inspired by the podcast. Lastly, make sure to subscribe to our weekly newsletter called Creative Spotlight to stay up to date with the show and more. Links are in the show notes. Thanks. So looking back at the studies, did you enjoy it? Was there something that met your expectations, didn't meet your expectations?

Would you recommend it to people? So I did enjoy it. I really, I'm an academic person. So I do enjoy academics. As much as it, of course, comes of his stresses. Everything has its pros and cons in life. So I did enjoy it. I would say I enjoyed the course because it allowed me to get back into the roots of art, which I say I enjoyed the most and then understand the future of art in terms of visual effects. honestly, I didn't have much expectations going into it because I was not from the visual effects world in the slightest. So I was just ready to go. I guess small things that I did notice was I was probably the only girl in the room. Maybe there was two girls in the room. Yeah. And I was like the only, I would say, yeah, the only black girl at all.

So, which didn't necessarily phase me. For some, I can understand maybe a sense of uncomfortability, being the only type of person in the room. But I feel like I never really noticed I was the only girl until my professor pointed it out to me. One day she asked me, she was like, oh, Alicia, how does it feel to be the only girl? And I was like, what are you talking about? And I looked around and I realized I was the only girl. So it never honestly phased me. I feel like at that moment I was driven by the passion for visual effects and it just pushed me towards my goals and just kept me doing what I wanted to do.

That was it really. And just to get an idea, what was the number of students in your class? Oh, I want to say average about 30. Max, I would like to say. But this was in my class only. There was three different classes just to, I believe, this was a while ago, but I believe it was just a, to split the schedule so that we weren't doing all the same thing at the same time. And I believe there was three classes. So three classes are 30, 90 in general, the year.

Yeah. And then, so then how did you start planning your way into industry? Oh, okay. So Escape Studios, I would say, is really well orchestrated simply because it's run by industry professionals, meaning they've worked in industry, They've worked in studios, they know the process, etc. So in our final year, one of our projects is actually to focus on the studios that we want to work at and create CVs, to create cover letters, to create showrills. So we were already prepped. Before we had left the university, we were prepped on how to get a job and where we want to get a job.

So the course actually entitled us to look for where we wanted to go. So luckily enough, I had a lot of push and help in order to get to that position. I focused on the journey of a compositing artist. So again, this was a part of the course. And in order to be a compositing artist, at that time, I would like to quote, because post-COVID, a lot of things have changed, especially in the visual effects industry. At that time, it was best to start as a roto or prep artist.

So, Roto and PrEP work just for clear understanding. Voto essentially means that you virtually cut out items. So if there's an image of someone, you would essentially trace the entire image and create them as a cutout. Sort of like what you do on stickers on iPhone devices now. So it's quite a lengthy, detailed process where you need to be patient, right? Oh yeah, extremely patient. The recommendation is to have a playlist on go, put your headphones on and just put your head down. It's very lengthy, especially when we were talking about hair as well. If you're going on hair, there's going to be finite details and as you can imagine. But I guess the way I described it seems like a 2D image. We're doing this for 3D images. So we're doing this for every single frame. We do have tools now that some will auto generate the roto but refinements do need to be made

and potentially for a lot of sessions it does need to be hand done And would you be able to just say estimate Like let's say per hour how long footage you can do If it's not something too complicated No of course I honestly wouldn't know I think I did This was so long ago now when I did Roto and I feel like when you're not using these skills is somewhat knowledge that

you do forget. Working in the industry it takes depending on how much needs to be done it can take up to a numeric of days in honesty so a big project could take maybe 20 days um within the industry we sort of break it up between artists so we have at least maybe three four artists working on one big piece of a moving image. Something small, again, if you're using tracking tools, could take maybe a day. Yeah. Yeah, it was just to get an idea, thank you. No, of course.

As well as prep work as well. So I wanted to do prep work, which some way also known as Clean Up, which is essentially, I think this is more well known now, which is just removing things from moving images. So people do a lot of Photoshop where you just remove something, remove someone in the background, remove a poster. But within visual effects, this prep and clean up because this work is done on a moving image, meaning it's just not one still frame, just not one image. But a consecutive image is pushed together to make one long image. So you can imagine it will take a little bit more effort and a bit more work.

So that's what I wanted to do at first. It may be a silly question But Because to me it sounds like As we said, work that takes time A lot of effort and you need to be patient Why did you want to do this specifically? Such a good question

I enjoyed clean up I enjoyed prep work I saw it as a sense of magic I guess You can just take away things from an image and no one ever noticed there. It kind of gives you the ability of a sort of a wizard. So I just thought it was quite fun.

Also, the problem solving that it takes to get there, as easy as it sounds when I'm explaining it in layman's terms, there's a lot of mathematics behind it that needs to be figured out, and I found that interesting. As I described growing up, I was a hands-on person, So puzzles, arts and crafts, that was really interesting to me. So be able to do that in the mathematics sense, it was fun, I would say. Yeah, good reasoning.

And I remember you mentioned before that you were already doing your education, preparing to apply for a position. Did you say in a specific company as well? So, yes, funnily enough. So you had to write in your final, I think. think it was our dissertation, if I'm not mistaken. We had to focus on specific companies or company and write why you'd want to work there based on their history, the projects they've done, their culture, and create your CV towards it, or cover letter towards it, your show real towards it. So yes, I did do that. I believe it was two companies you had to focus on,

if I'm not mistaken. And the two companies I focused on, the first was, D-Neg, double negative, which I currently work at now. And the second was ILM, which is another larger visual effects firm. That's what I was curious about. I was about to ask you. I wasn't sure if you would be comfortable to share it, but I was, I had like my idea as well. What would I apply for? And it matched what you said.

So well done. Oh, yeah. And I was also about to say that if I was a student and I was, was listening to this, you just sold me to apply to study at this university because it just, you know, sounds like it's not going to lie, competitive industry, hard to get in, but with all this preparation, I mean, what else can you do? This just sounds perfect. It's how to get into the industry. I agree. I do. Sometimes I sit and think about escape and genuinely how it helped me and I would recommend it. I would just want people to understand that when you're going

into escape, well, you're actually going in for because I had a lot of, let's say, peers that, I guess, thought visual effects was what they wanted to do, but while doing it, realize that this is not what they want to do. As such, with any university degree, I guess, you jump into it and you realize that, okay, this is not what I want to do. So I'll say be careful with that, being the first, and also I guess understand that it's not your traditional university experience. So it's in London. A lot of people are either in local accommodations or coming from home before the journey. It's in a building in London.

I believe they've moved locations now. I think they're in Greenwich. So it's not like you have a campus per se, like a large campus where you can walk around and X, Y, Z. it's quite different. It's not the same. So definitely go for an open day first and see how you feel about it. And also compare your choices. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. I believe a lot of people promote Bournemouth as well as an amazing university for visual effects and animation.

A lot of people I work with in the industry went to Bournemouth, a lot, more than escape, probably the most known university. as well as Portsmouth. I think I signed up for Portsmouth as well. I thought they were a great option. Yeah. So yeah, just look around search. Escape is definitely a great one in terms of understanding the pipeline and preparing you for the future.

Yeah, it sounds like great tips. And I think I heard it from more people from VFX as well, so it really sounds like a good choice. I agree. Then with your application, how successful was it your applications? Because it's usually quite difficult with rejection. So how is your situation? I guess I'm not necessarily sure.

So I created the portfolio. We went in for an interview per se, but it was more of like a group interview. And it was compromised with a bunch of tasks and challenges. and then we was all given individual evaluations. I believe the majority of people that I did see an interview did make it through. But again, this is a different time period. This is pre-COVID and I feel like visual effects has changed a lot since then. So I can't necessarily say how difficult it could be now.

But I would definitely say that if you're passionate enough and you want it enough, you can get it. It may not be this time, like the first time you apply, and it may not be the second time you apply. But eventually you will get what you want. And it could be a short course. They offer a whole bunch of short courses for different specific things as well. So definitely take a look into that. But I'm not necessarily sure how difficult it was to get in. I will definitely say I'm very grateful that I did.

It did definitely take me off guard. And I will consider myself very lucky for making it. So does it mean that it was your first kind of first application and you got in? Yeah, that was free of watch it. Oh, wow. Oh my God. That's awesome. Yes. When I do tell people this, everyone usually asks, can I see the portfolio? Like, what did you do? Especially considering I had no experience in the field whatsoever.

But I would definitely say that the University of YouTube, as a lot of people will say, you can learn so, so, so much from YouTube, so much from YouTubers that are currently doing the absolute lot just to help inform and teach people. Don't take it for granted the information that we have access to today. And yeah, just genuinely apply yourself. I utilised all physical time I had possible. I'm not promoting that because I wouldn't say it was healthy. Definitely not. but I definitely utilized as much time as I physically possibly could in order to reach my goals.

And yeah, it just takes sacrifices, really. And what about some maybe interview related advice, some tips and tricks? Interview advice. So tips and tricks, I would say, always practice before the interview. I was actually had a conversation with a good friend of mine who works at EA Sports. recently and he gave a really cool trick which was to take the job roll and use chat GBT and ask chat GBT to ask you interview questions for this job role. Oh that's smart yeah yeah and just practice I think the key thing is to practice

to know how you are how you learn best so for example I'm a great under pressure a person. So for me, I will typically look at the job role within an hour or two before the interview and just cram as much knowledge as I can into my brain. Some people, it may take two to three days of just practicing. But I think the chat GBT method is a great way to utilize the tools that we have today, to utilize the information that we already have available to us, and just to get some really good practice in. So that would be my recommendation. Yeah, I agree. Practice makes perfect and yeah. Yep, I can only agree. So since it was your first job and then your only job, I understand there's some stuff we cannot discuss, but can we talk about your experience in Deneck?

Can you maybe take us through your journey when you joined your position until where you are now? Yeah. So Deneck wasn't my first. job and so I've done no funnily enough I when I did our we did another short film for Escape Studios in our final project and I was the I believe I was the lead compositing artist I think and also the producer also that final project considered as a as a job or just as a project so in terms of that this was just a project and during that project we had to give a presentation and during that presentation we had a number of industry professionals attending and due to that presentation I was

head hunted by MPC so I then got a job immediately at MPC I had no summer no break no nothing it was straight into it and that was my first industry job I mean that's another thing how you sold me at the university that there was something like this and it helps you to get a job in again such a big VFX company so impressed yeah it was really amazing they do advertise a lot their connections to industry professionals and we did have a lot of studios come in to talk to us ILM we had come in on several occasions I think they also graded our work at some point which was yeah such a great opportunity and we had a videos. I know. It's honestly, yeah, it's amazing. And we had collectives as well come and speak to us. So, for example, Access VFX, which was where I first got to know them. They're a group, a collective and organization, which essentially focuses on diversity and inclusion within visual effects. And mentorships, which is really, really helpful. So yeah, you get to know all these different groups of people, how they can help you navigate in the future and just work towards your, your

common goals, which is really supportive, really helpful. Again, I was lucky enough to be head hunted. I wouldn't say, again, that was the same for every scenario and situation, but I would say I'm grateful that it was my situation. And I just applied myself and pushed, pushed, pushed everything that I physically had into that time period. And it worked out for me. Yeah, I mean, must have had a really great portfolio. So then there's no surprise. I think so. Thank you.

Yeah. So can you then tell us about the D-NEC? How did you start there? Yes, D-Neg was a separate endeavor, I would say. I'm just thinking, how did I end up at D-Neg? Or if there was something between D-N-E-N-EG and university after you graduated, feel free to feel maybe I missed something. No, of course.

So I would say in order to get to D-Deg, when I was working at MPC, which was a great experience, I met so many lovely people and had worked on so many great projects and learned so, so, so much, honestly, I suffered from imposter syndrome, which I think is quite common in our industry, which is essentially when you aren't, it's just a feeling of, this can't be me that's achieved all of this and that everyone thinks is doing a great job. Like, I must be doing something wrong. Something's going to go wrong. Just that sense of just negative feelings towards yourself and your own accomplishments, which is crazy. But in ways for me to manage that, I essentially, I just applied for other jobs. I essentially, I said,

in order to see if I'm actually good at what I do, I want to go into an interview and see if I know what I'm talking about. So I'm currently, I was a coordinator at the time. I said, I'm going to apply for the company that I want to work at in the same position. And let's just see how the interview goes. Let's just see. So I applied and I did the interview. And the interview, I knew what I was talking about.

I knew the dialogue. I knew what they wanted. I understood everything. So that comforted me in a sense of like, okay, I know what I'm doing. I know how to get there. And incredibly, they actually offered me a job offer. Oh, so it was a result of such kind of unfortunate situation.

I know. So I declined it. Oh, really? I declined. Oh, my God. I didn't expect that. I know. I didn't expect it either.

it was so, I think it's because I, I don't know whether to say I applied for the wrong reasons. I don't know whether to say that's the accurate way to put it, but I applied before I was ready. I applied in order just to prove something to myself as opposed to move forward in a constructive way. So now I knew that I could do it. I said, okay, let me continue to build what I have here at MPC. let me continue to build my reputation, build my skills, work on these projects, build relationships,

and then move forward to the next step. Because keep in mind, when I had this imposter syndrome, I think I was only about three months into the job, which is, I think, way too premature to be like, okay, scrap this, I'm going to move on to the next one. Well, for me anyways,

of course, sometimes you're in a position and a job in a workplace where you feel like it's not a match for you, and you feel like it's not the best place for you to be in. So in that regard, of course, leave whenever you feel like you're ready to do so. But I feel like I wasn't ready. I was just doing it too. For other reasons, which worked out for me. However, the benefit of doing that was I was able to maintain a relationship with the recruiter

to which they continued to message me over the next coming year, years, I would say. To which one point I ended up randomly checking my junk one day, and I just saw an email saying, oh, Alicia, you still interested? I thought, okay, yeah, now I'm interested. Yeah. Yeah, so now's the time. It just felt like the perfect moment. My time at MPC felt like it was just coming to an end.

At the time, I felt like there wasn't much room for me to, to progress in the ways that I wanted to personally, which is fine. nothing against the people I was with or the company, etc. It's just more of personal stifling. So I decided to rip the band-aid off, applied for D-Neg again, and yeah, I gratefully got the job. Now I've been here for, I think it's almost two years, just about over. I'm not too sure. Two years average, I think.

And I've been enjoying it. And just to come back to imposter syndrome, since it's something that probably a lot of people face, Looking back at it, would you try to deal with it somehow differently? Honestly, no. I don't know if that's harsh to say, because I feel like sometimes you need to push yourself outside your comfort zone to realize that that is something that you're good at. So, for example, if you're working as a waiter and you just thought, oh, I'm no good at this, this is, I'm just a rubbish waiter, apparently, but everyone thinks you're amazing. I think we should take you out and make you work at the Hilton or the four seasons for a day. And if you can do it successfully, then you have to know by the end of the day that you're just evidently not as bad of a waiter as you think you are.

So sometimes I think it's good to just put yourself in those situations and just give yourself like a reality check. Like, hey, I'm actually quite good at this. And sometimes it takes more than other people telling you, like you need to see it for yourself. So I think it was a good way for me to see it for myself and create relationships based on that. And it's probably hard to say, but can you think of any ways how to prevent imposter syndrome in the first place? Oh yeah, I think. So one advice that I do give a lot for preventing imposter syndrome is to always ask for constructive criticism. meaning that with imposter syndrome, I feel like you generically feel like you're bad at certain things.

I would say when if you, typically you'd probably have a line manager or a team. So asking your line manager primarily, secondary your colleagues, if there's anything that you can possibly work on. So instead of you hyper-fixating on negative values that probably aren't real and maybe you're just all in your head, actually ask for the truth from your colleagues and ask them, hey, what am I bad at? Just ask. And when you find out what you're actually bad at, you can actually focus on making those things better, as opposed to focusing on something that's not actually real. You could think you're bad at, I don't know, writing in general, that your vocabulary is very poor. But when you actually ask your team,

they say, oh no, your writing is amazing. It's your, numerics, you get numbers wrong all the time. So then you can now focus on the numbers and actually focus on your skills and improve. And then when the next month comes around, you ask, okay, what else can I work on? You may hit a wall at some point where everyone says no. You are amazing. There's nothing else you can possibly do, but you may not. You may find things that you can actually work on. And then you can actually focus your imposter syndrome into ways that actually benefit your life as to focus on things that just make no absolute difference. Yeah, that sounds like a great advice.

I'm pretty sure that I spoke recently with someone and he mentioned it as well that he faced imposter syndrome. So it just proves the point that it's something that happens more often. Yeah, and have you experienced it again? Oh yeah, I think imposter syndrome is not something that necessarily goes away as far as I'm concerned. I would love to meet anyone or if anyone can, can talk about experiences where they've completely eradicated their imposter syndrome. I still experience it on a general basis.

I do think it is maybe a bit controversial to say, but a part of it is healthy to have that sense of imposter syndrome, as it does create that. It does keep you in a sense of being humble and grateful for the position that you're in and not necessarily feeling like you're too good to be here and you're too amazing. I think it keeps a hold of your ego a little bit, which is great. But I'd say I definitely struggle with it still to this day. And it's just a sense of, I feel like whenever I do get to that point where it becomes an internal panic, just asking, hey, how can I do better at this job? If you as my team, as my colleague, as my peers, I feel like I'm doing a bad job at the moment.

I would say not say that, but internally, I feel like I'm doing a bad job at a moment, externally. hey guys what can I do to be even better at this job and at least you know that you're trying at least they know that you're trying and if you genuinely are not performing into the best ability everyone's aware now that you're here to put in effort to do better and it will give you that sense of a comfortability as well yeah sounds like a great advice thank you for listening if you enjoy the show please leave us a five-star review on your favorite podcast app get in touch to provide or share any ideas for future guests. Thank you and see you soon.