Reverse Engineering Stereotypes

[Music]

take a look at me

is it obvious that i’m a qualified

mechanical engineer

don’t worry it’s not obvious and i’m

used to it

i’ve never fit any of the stereotypes

i’m not wearing greasy overalls a hard

hat

or a fluorescent jacket and i’m

certainly not a man

so how could i be an engineer the thing

is i was always

expected to study engineering as the

eldest of three daughters with a sri

lankan dad who’s also

an engineer i was always going to end up

following in his footsteps

it was either that or a career in

medicine

education is considered to be a passport

to freedom

especially for immigrants it earns us

respect it gives us choices and social

status

and when you come from humble beginnings

but say you’re a phd from a great

university

people are impressed my parents and

ancestors came from developing countries

so

and western education was a sure way to

build a decent life for themselves

but regardless of where any of us come

from and what any of us have

we all want the same basic things in

life we all want

safety stability and security

an education in stem was a sure way for

me to get those basic things

stem stands for science technology

engineering and maths

you know those subjects that girls can’t

do or

is it won’t do girls don’t fit the stem

stereotypes we’re supposed to be

nurturing carers and meant to always

look pretty and get along with everybody

boys on the other hand are expected to

be competitive

assertive and dominant what must these

stereotypes do for people long term

for those boys who aren’t confident and

outspoken

they’re told that they’re weak weak

that’s a label that’s bound to shatter

anybody’s confidence

and similarly if girls are said to be

outspoken and confident

well they’re labeled as intimidating or

even arrogant

and those labels can certainly crush any

person’s strength

1.6 million elementary high school and

university students were surveyed in

australia

and ironically girls actually do better

than boys across

all subjects at school it’s

self-confidence that lets

students down eleven and a half thousand

females between the ages of 11 and 30 in

europe

were surveyed by microsoft and the

results revealed that they enjoy stem

between the ages of 11 and 15

and 60 percent of them would pursue stem

careers

if there were equal opportunities for

them

a recent study by the education policy

institute and the prince’s trust

conducted over two years and based on

data from the millennium cohort study

found the proportion of girls that felt

unhappy about their appearance

rose sharply between the ages of 11 and

now if you combine all of this data it

seems that

around early teens girls experience an

inner conflict between how they look and

what they study at school

and that is influencing their career

choices

and it all originates from stereotypes

to me these statistics also suggest that

girls

who are more than capable in stem don’t

want to spend their careers in

discouraging

unsupportive environments and it makes

sense right

i mean life is already tough enough

stereotypes just invite judgment and

criticism and ultimately

disconnection we need to embrace those

that want to be pioneers and

trailblazers

people who want to use their talents and

skills to really make a difference

i didn’t fit into any of those

stereotypes

up until the age of 15 i was really

terrible at maths and

i certainly wasn’t pretty i kept getting

50

in all my maths exams i had no

confidence no self-esteem but like i

said i had a whole load of pressure

and expectation to become an engineer

i had to make my parents proud and i had

to make their struggle to get to london

to give their kids a british education

worthwhile

so i put my mind to it i work really

really hard

literally sleeping three hours a night

sometimes solving one

maths problem after the next and my

grades

went from 50 to over 90

all that hard work paid off because in

2004

i got my doctorate in engineering it

took me almost

eight years to get those qualifications

but the hope of providing myself with my

own safety

stability and security through a job of

my own

was now closer than ever before

i love that quote by nelson mandela

education

is the most powerful weapon you can use

to change the world

using my school education i could help

change the statistics

of the number of female engineers of

color in the uk

in 2017 11 of all engineers were female

that’s an improvement to the statistics

that were around when i

graduated back in the early 2000s

the number of people of color in

engineering was so

insignificant back then but that no data

even existed for us

today in the uk nine percent of all

engineers are from ethnic minorities

according to a report by engineering uk

in 2018

on a positive note studying made me

realize that i could do

anything i put my heart and mind to we

all can

my school education really developed my

brain it taught me to think

logically approach things methodically

and see the world

rationally but i must say i also picked

up some really bad habits which have

taken some time to shake off because at

school

i also became competitive

egotistical and absolutely terrified of

failure

i was constantly comparing myself to

others never truly believing that i was

smart enough or

good enough or talented enough i was at

school to build my personal statement

and cv so i could get into the best

schools

and get the best jobs and live the best

life

in the best neighborhoods and i kept

falling short of

every one of those ambitions which is

fine you know you aim for the stars and

you end up reaching the moon

but while i was on my moon i gazed out

at those stars

feeling like a real failure i wasn’t

building confidence with every

accomplishment

i was destroying all sense of who i

truly was

at my core i’d become a human

doing rather than a human being

obsessed with driving my life forward at

breakneck speed

and it was everybody else’s opinion of

me at the steering wheel

i was so focused on pushing this my iq

to its limits and i was pushing this my

heart

and emotional intelligence to one side

just so that my feelings wouldn’t

interfere

with my well-thought-out plans emotional

intelligence or eq was first

brought to a mainstream audience through

a book written by psychologist daniel

goldman in 1995.

he talked about eq as having the ability

to recognize

and manage emotions goldman told harvard

business review that emotional

intelligence was crucial for leadership

for steering companies in the right

directions

let’s be real emotions are really

difficult to talk about let alone manage

for a start they can’t be graded or even

quantified so

schools aren’t teaching us about them

emotions are messy

inconvenient and make us feel really

vulnerable

and girls are usually judged to be way

more emotional than boys

even though statistically men and women

have equal capacities for eq

it’s true that men and women are

hardwired differently

meaning that we have different

neuroanatomies or brain structures

which means that we think and behave

differently

at a basic level but that doesn’t mean

we can’t learn from one another

women have a natural tendency to be more

empathetic

better interpersonal relationships and

more socially responsible

which are all indicators of emotional

intelligence

whilst men score higher in areas of

assertiveness

stress tolerance and self-regard which

are also

emotionally intelligent traits but

surely

women can be more assertive and men can

be more empathetic i mean

why not stereotypes

that’s why not leaders such as gandhi

martin luther king and nelson mandela

all had empathy and in my opinion

were all true examples of men

female leaders today such as german

chancellor angela merkel

new zealand prime minister jacinda

ardern or vice president kamala harris

are all really assertive confident and

composed

especially in stressful situations

none of these emotionally intelligent

traits are reserved for either gender

in the same way that stem subjects don’t

need to be just for boys

all these skills from iq to eq can be

learned

if that’s what you want to learn for

yourself

so where do we go to get an education on

emotions

einstein said that education is what

remains after one has forgotten

what they’ve learned at school and you

know what i couldn’t agree more

i had to get a wholesome einstein

education

through reverse engineering reverse

engineering myself

reverse engineering is a process where

engineers take a device apart let’s say

an airplane and they study every single

component of their aeroplane in massive

detail

to either make an exact copy of that

plane or further improve components to

make a better plane

maybe one that flies faster or higher on

less fuel

for me about eight years ago i found

myself with a great college education

and fantastic career prospects

but absolutely no meaning or purpose in

life

earning loads of money and accumulating

status symbols like clothes and

cars and holidays just didn’t feel

fulfilling enough

through reverse engineering myself i

took myself apart

and examined every aspect of my life in

great detail from my job

to the people in my life to the dynamics

between me and my family

i even analyzed my values ambitions and

dreams

it was a proper self-introspection and

at many moments

it was confusing and uncomfortable and

messy

[Music]

but my iq and my eq had become so

detached from one another

that i had to make that journey back

from my head

to my heart sometimes life can get so

busy for us that we don’t

ever get to do this kind of

self-analysis the day-to-day rigmarole

of our lives can turn us into machines

where we just eat sleep

and work eat sleep and work

we can get so distracted by our to-do

list

that we don’t have time to feel our

emotions or be fully present for our

lives

a caterpillar does the exact same thing

it just munches its way through as many

leaves as it can

until one day it stops eating it hangs

itself upside down and spins itself into

a cocoon

after some time in this cocoon it grows

parts of itself

that it never had before like wings

and when the time is right it’s then

ready to break free

so it wriggles and tussles its way out

of that cocoon

struggle to escape is essential for

building strength in its brand new wings

and eventually it flies away from its

former self

as an iridescent butterfly it’s one of

nature’s greatest transformations

and something similar to the process i

went through as i reverse

engineered myself everything i thought i

wanted i had

and everything my parents hoped for me

i’d already achieved

so i turned my life upside down and

spent several years in a

cocoon through meditations and

long road trips through america where i

was living at the time

and plucking up the courage to go on

dates by myself

i was reawakening parts of me that i had

shut down

in order to excel academically

i explored my ability to paint to create

to perform

and i spent a lot of time journaling my

thoughts

i did acting courses made wall collages

out of

old magazines and created a podcast

where i listened to other people’s

stories and experiences

i did things that couldn’t be marked

graded or stereotyped

and all throughout i broadened my

awareness of my outer and inner

experiences

companies are recognizing the positive

global impact on life experiences

on business success they’re hiring more

and more diverse and inclusive teams

because

people from all backgrounds cultures and

traditions

bring different perspectives to the

table and it’s emotions

that determine our experiences what we

think

and feel can be the difference between a

good experience and a bad one

it’s all about our attitude the breakup

of a relationship

the jobs we didn’t get and the friends

that led us down all seem like

personal catastrophes really bad

experiences

that were just there at the time

but looking back they were actually

blessings

because they nudged us in directions

that we hadn’t planned for ourselves

all experiences good and bad have shaped

me who

into who i am today and my school

education was just a small part of that

jigsaw puzzle

my attitudes towards my past present and

future

are at the steering wheel of my life now

and it’s life

that’s teaching me how to drive remember

in maths class where the teacher didn’t

want to just see the answer

but actually all of the workings out

reverse engineering allowed me to

explore all of my workings out

we put far too much emphasis on getting

that right answer

but the journey is way more important

than the destination

that cheesy saying that never seems to

get old

i wish emotional intelligence was taught

in schools and i also wish that students

had the time

to get messy and fail i’ve learned so

much from my own mistakes

rejection disappointment and loss have

all been my greatest teachers

and are all part of the turbulence we go

through to reach

higher and higher heights

but let’s be grateful for the education

that we all get to have

from the school of life it’s not

essential that we have

the most prestigious educations or

perfect parents or

privileged childhoods what is essential

is gaining self-awareness to learn from

every experience we’ve had so that our

lives are full of meaning

and purpose for me reverse engineering

myself

gave me a greater sense of who i am

which means going forward

i have a better chance of choosing

exactly who

and how i want to be self-awareness and

emotional intelligence is where we build

self-esteem and

where we gain the self-confidence and

self-belief

to flip off the stereotypes

martin luther king said we must remember

that intelligence is not enough

intelligence plus character that’s the

goal

of true education the complete education

gives one not only power of

concentration

but worthy objectives upon which to

concentrate

yes iq is important but so is eq

and everybody is on their own individual

journeys with that

concentrate on your own transformation

from caterpillar to butterfly

and you too can reach your very own

cruising altitude

thank you