Women, Work, and Winning: Creating Your Ideal Life – ep.148

In this episode, we explore Dipti’s incredible journey—from her early years growing up in Kenya and Nigeria to her impactful career in technology and financial services. She shares how a significant life event catalyzed her transition from corporate leadership to the coaching industry, where she now guides women to step into their power and achieve the lives and careers they truly deserve.


Join us as we discuss the challenges women face in the workplace, the importance of redefining success on our own terms, and how to break through the barriers that often hold us back. Dipti’s insights are not only inspiring but also a call to action for every woman looking to embrace her potential and find fulfillment.

The Founder of Impact Forward, Dipti is a Product Leader turned career and leadership coach. She has 2 decades of consulting, data and product experience. She started out her career in data analytics and consulting, and grew into different leadership roles. In her last role she was head of product for her company. Last year she decided to lean into a new chapter of her career, one she has always been passionate about and finds it to be more purposeful, coaching mid-career women in leadership roles that are navigating their way through burnout, stagnation or looking for new ways to grow or uplevel in their careers. She believes in empowering women to find career success, and redefine success on their terms.

Melyssa Barrett:  Welcome to the Jali Podcast. I’m your host, Melyssa Barrett. This podcast is for those who are interested in the conversation around equity, diversity, and inclusion. Each week I’ll be interviewing a guest who has something special to share or is actively part of building solutions in the space. Let’s get started. Welcome to the Jali Podcast. Today we have another special guest who’s not only helping women navigate their careers and their lives, but is a force of empowerment, and she is in the coaching industry. So she is a life coach, entrepreneur, a speaker, and she has a passion for helping women achieve the life and career that they deserve. So she is the founder of her own company and we are going to dive into her story, her mission, and how she helps women step into their power. So welcome to the jali podcast, Dipti Patel, it’s such a pleasure to have you here.

Dipti Patel:  Thank you, Melissa. This is wonderful.

Melyssa Barrett:  So I just want to start. I have known you for so long. I was trying to think back. It’s been decades I know, but you’re still very young in your career, so you started way earlier than I did in the industry itself, in technology, all of that. But I figured I might start by just asking you a little bit about your background and your journey and how you even got to where you are. It has been quite the journey for you.

Dipti Patel:  It definitely has been quite the journey, and I’m happy to go a little bit even back in terms of some of my background in places where I grew up, which is I’ve actually grown up in Africa, so initial four years, I grew up in Kenya and then we moved to Nigeria. My dad was working over there. So that my childhood has pretty much been that. I grew up over there for a few years. Then I moved to India for my college and did my bachelor’s and a master’s there. And I was okay with just staying there, but my siblings had moved to the US and so my dad was wanting to make sure that I wasn’t the only one who was going to be there. And so he enticed me to go, why don’t you go visit the US and then see for yourself if you’d like to actually go study there again, I felt at that time that I was done with my studying, but then when I visited here and went back home, I think I could do this.

I think I want to do this. So I moved here for my master’s. I finished my master’s and right after that what I loved working on was data and technology, and that’s essentially where I kind of mastered and started working. And when I started working was the company that we’re doing consulting work, and that was my, I think second or third month into the work itself. I started getting exposure and working directly with clients. And part of that, I think our journeys crossed at that point in our career where you were working for the company that we were doing some consulting work for. And so that’s how far back we go in terms of that work. And then just through that I just kept getting a lot more different positions in terms of just leadership roles to grow within that career itself. And so I feel very blessed and lucky in terms of all the things that I’ve been able to do.

And last year I was head of product at my company and I would say for the last five years I’ve been thinking about making a change in my career. I’ve had two decades of experience in the financial services, data and technology sector, and I knew I could continue growing in this place, but I also felt very strongly about wanting to do more purposeful and something more meaningful to me. I knew if I stayed where I was, I was still going to get a lot of opportunities to grow and there were enough indicators that people wanted to see me grow or they wanted to invest in me. But there was a calling that I just felt like something pulling me towards that, but it was a hard thing to kind of navigate towards going, how do I make this choice? And I would say that it took a big life event for me to actually finally decide, I’m going to do this, and that was the passing of my dad in July of 2021.

And when that happens, you kind of go looking at life in a very, very different way. What’s the meaning of being here? Am I actually impacting other people? And I was in my little circle or bubble of where I was working, but I felt like I needed to actually go explore this. So I kind of kept doing more research in terms of how do I navigate through this, how do I navigate through this and who do I actually want to continue working with? So I spent more time on that. And then finally I made that decision last year that I had to take the step so it wasn’t completely out of the blue, but it was thoughtfully put together in terms of how do I make this next step in my career, this next chapter more meaningful for me, but also more impactful and purposeful for everybody else that I work with as well.

And that’s how I chose this particular field in terms of going, I’d worked with different coaches and I’d always realized how an impact they made in the choices they helped me make. Or eventually it was me doing the work, but it was always the kind of people that come along your way. I was like, this feels great. And being a people manager, I actually saw that. I saw people grow, I saw what it takes. Sometimes you just have to nudge them in a certain direction and then just take a step backwards and let them figure it out for themselves. And those are the things I really enjoyed. And part of it was also discovering who I was. I realized I enjoyed working with people. Yes, there’s a lot of fun doing data and technology and processes and all of that stuff and building things for sure, but there is something different when you’re actually working with people and helping them change or transform or helping them go from one stage to the other even though they’re filled with fear or scared about or trying to figure out, navigate through the unknown aspect. And so I took that step for myself and I said, okay, I’m going to do this.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yeah. Well, and it takes a lot. I mean, it’s beautiful how you said it because I think a lot of specifically women struggle with, in some cases we may be the breadwinners and in some cases we don’t think we have as much choice or control over our own career to kind of take some of the risks because we’re looking out for others, we might be focused on our aging parents or kids or all sorts of different things. And so I love the fact that you are specifically really focused on women and really kind of helping them step into their power because you are a power within yourself. And I’m going to give a shout out to Chris Linquist here because one of the things that I loved is the company that you worked for, that consulting firm, they were so diverse. The team was probably way ahead of their time in terms of, I mean, you had to have been like 95% diverse. I don’t even know it was lot and every ethnicity, I mean everything under the sun you could think of. But I think what was awesome was just the structure of how he would get quality of people, the best people for the job. And they were all, I mean, he had no lack of diversity

Dipti Patel:  For sure. I would say that that was the best part of actually being part of it. And I jokingly in fact refer to that just a few days ago. I was referring to somebody and I was like, oh yeah, it was great to actually get started in a place where almost it felt like it was a representation of different countries. There weren’t that many people. We were a small team, but that’s how it felt.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yeah, no, that was awesome. So what inspired you to focus on helping women?

Dipti Patel:  I actually thought about, I will share that I eventually want to get to the part where I can work with younger girls. That’s where I started out with saying the version of me 10 years ago felt so lost in a way and confused where I had actually done really well for myself in my career, but I was also kind of lost as to what’s next. And from the outside I was perceived as being successful, as doing all the things that I was being asked. I was also being put together in terms of a leadership path of things that I could go do, but I really felt like I could actually use leaning on somebody else to help me figure out going, am I making these right career moves? Am I actually doing the right things? And I feel like there are a lot of people like that out there today just thinking about it, thinking about how do I navigate this next chapter of my life?

It’s either through burnout and I experienced that too, or at some level you’ve just kind of plateaued, you’ve stalled, you’ve stagnated in your career and you’re trying to figure out going, what’s the next challenging thing I can work on? And the other part of it was just coming, being an immigrant and having grown up in all these different places, lived in different countries. There’s another aspect I also realized for myself that I would hold myself back, which is basically that immigrant mindset. Stay in the lane, do this stuff and do it the best you can versus actually taking some risks for yourself where you could actually go a little bit outside of the lane and figure a few things out. So that’s essentially how I picked this is where I’ve worked with different men as well, but I feel like there’s that aspect of where women are struggling a little bit and they need a little bit more of that person or that guide who can help them and just help them boost their confidence. That’s essentially how I picked working with women.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yeah, I love that. And I think there are so often where I like how you said sometimes it’s almost like we get in our own way because we’re constantly analyzing and eliminate, we don’t think we can do it, but we actually can. And it’s like you have it in, you can do it if you want to do it, but you end up having all these other priorities I guess. And so I can identify because I made the transition myself. So I think when I was going to ask you about some of those challenges, but it’s like I do think women, we get to this point where we’re like, I feel like I want to make a change, but I just am not sure or I’m not being looked at properly or I’m training my managers over and over, or I’m at the C level and the CEO is going nowhere or whatever. And I think there are lots of common misperceptions just about women and success. What does success look like because it doesn’t always look the same.

Dipti Patel:  Exactly. I think what you just said, the success part, which I feel like everyone needs to redefine what success looks like for themselves.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yeah, no doubt. And I think a lot of times we focus so much on the professional that success doesn’t incorporate all of the personal component. And I know for me anyway, I was all about work. It’s like work comes first, anything else is like, okay, leftover. Obviously I had a focus on my family, but it was like work always came first. And so it’s nice to see how you have transitioned and really kind of embodied the entire world. It’s not just about work.

Dipti Patel:  And it took a lot to get to that point as well. I shared it took same thing, work came first, if anything at all. It was sometimes a crazy lifestyle I was living, which is like you start your day at 6, 6, 6 30 and your day sometimes ends at 7:00 PM Sometimes you’re actually coming back and looking at stuff and again, taking a break and not realizing that I had to prioritize those things for me. Nobody was going to tell me going, oh, you have to end it this time and then if there is more stuff, you can actually pick it up at this time. But I was the one doing that for myself. And so there’s only so much you can do at a certain point before you start hitting burnout. And then it becomes like, am I listening to myself? What am I doing in terms of how I’m actually living?

And at some point I had to start prioritizing going, I need to bring more kind of life into the way I’m living itself and more joy into the things that I’m doing. Yes, I’m doing it. And I had this, I think a lot of other people struggle with this, which is trying to do things with perfection is almost the first version of something is not good enough. So you spend a lot more time on just trying to get that to a perfection state. And then you just pouring so much time and energy into all of those things. And that was definitely me. So it was like, oh, if I’m going to put something out there, it has to be really good, or else I’m just going to take my own time and work over over the weekends and make it to that point, but it comes at a price then.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yeah, no doubt. Well, and I think that inherently, I think there’s this underlying, I’m not good enough thing that goes on in your head, heart, I don’t know where it is. And that you have to realize, and sometimes it’s hard to step into your power, especially when you have those micromanages that question everything in light or see even if it’s your CEO, it’s like, I mean you are a C-level, but a lot of times you end up with people in roles where it’s like we’re just not aligned. So what was it like for your own transition when you decided to do it? What kind of came to you to say, you know what? I got to do it.

Dipti Patel:  I just kept asking myself, how long am I going to keep doing this? Like I said, I was working on this idea for five years saying I somehow figured out a way to transition out, and I kept looking for other people who have done what I wanted to do, and I rarely saw anyone who had already done it before me. I’d heard about people who had done that, they’d left completely left corporate, started something else, and now they were doing that. And so I was kind of figuring out for myself going, but given my condition, given where I am and my life, what I’m doing, how am I going to make this work for myself? And it came a time and there’s this book that I read two weeks notice by Amy Porterfield. And in that she talks about the fact going, you’ll always get, you’ll talk yourself out of it out fear.

So what you want to do is give yourself a time period when you actually believe that you are comfortable leaving and that gives you enough time for planning all of those things, and then eventually getting to that point and saying, okay, I am going according to my plan and this is my two weeks notice. And I actually liked that because then I followed that time, that whole frame of it was a framework. So I like that framework of saying, this is how I can get to where I actually want to be. And there’s part of me that’s loyalty to a point of no good for yourself. But I also was still committed in the work that I was doing. So I wanted to get the team to a certain milestone. And then I was like, okay, if this milestone happens, then I feel comfortable that I can actually leave.

I feel like I would’ve done a good job of leaving them in good hands and at the point that I’m leaving, that’d be actually good. It all started for me from doing that as a year out planning in terms of let me take these micro steps and then move towards that thing. And then when I decided to do the big thing before that, I’d already started thinking about how am I going to make this work? I went and got my certification, not that I needed that certification because when you do 12, 15 years of just people management coaching itself in there, that is real time coaching. But I wanted that to basically, I think it was an internal confidence thing of check I did this too. So I did that. I went and got that before I left my job. And then I started actually working with different people in terms of saying, do I actually, and this is the thing that I actually, when I worked with women and they want to try something, I say, go experiment, try something and see if you like it. And so during that time itself, on weekends, I started coaching different people and I really loved that people that I didn’t know, people who were new to people I’ve met at different networking events. And that feedback was kind of just a validation for me that this is going to work and I actually like this. So I was like, okay, I just need to just figure out a plan of how am I actually going to leave my job and make this night full time? And that’s how I worked through transitioning through that.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yeah. Wow, that’s cool. So then if I can ask, I think we talk a little bit about what goes through the mind. How do you think mindset plays a role in creating the life and career you want and how can women start to shift their mindset for success?

Dipti Patel:  That’s such a great question. I believe mindset is everything. In everything we do. That first step is mindset. Even in our professional work, even in the things that I was talking that I did, mindset is so important in just in terms of believing in your own innate abilities to do certain things. And if you don’t have that, the rest of it is all feels like tactical to me, which is like, I want to do this, I want to do this. But if there’s an underlying belief or if there’s underlying limiting beliefs on your own, if your own confidence, you doubt yourself. There’s the aspect of self-doubt. There’s an aspect of, am I really worthy of these things? Am I good enough for this? There are so many more better people than who are doing this than I’m doing this. If you start with that mindset, it really just puts so many more obstacles in your way.

So if there’s anything you can do is you take that first step in terms of saying, where am I? And how can I actually clear some of those limiting beliefs for myself? And from there on, then I can actually keep going. And part of it is just being comfortable failing. I wasn’t comfortable failing early on. Even in my career. I wanted everything. If I was given project, I wanted to ace it. And I think that’s a way we taught in school as well, that you want to become that student with a grades and everything. And that’s the mindset I got into work as well. But that also stops you then from the first time you fail, you are really hard on yourself. And then that just lets a lot of limiting beliefs start coming in, which is like, am I really good enough to do these things? Can I really actually achieve all that growth and success that I think I really want? So yeah, to your question, mindset is everything. And I still even on this path of this journey, I still struggle sometimes in terms of questioning the things that I’m doing, but I have to really go back and then realize going, it’s my mindset. I really need to go fix my mindset or adjust my mindset before I start doing some of the other actions or experiments that I want to do.

Melyssa Barrett: Yeah, I feel like the self-discovery part of, especially when you talk about coaching and kind of creating the life you want, I think we spend so much time being busy and sometimes we don’t spend enough time discovering what we truly want for our life. You know what I mean? Like it goes so fast and then you look up and it’s like half your life is gone. So I love that mean. Are there any routines or practices that maybe help you stay grounded that you want to share?

Dipti Patel:  Absolutely. And before I get there though, one word that came to my mind as you were saying that is alignment. It took me a really long time to figure out going, why do you sometimes not feel satisfied even though you’re doing great work and you’re in a good role, you have a great title that you’ve transformed as you’ve evolved as a person, and you are no longer in alignment with what was important to you in those initial phases. So it’s just that every time it’s realigning yourself and what you really want from life, and sometimes it’s going to change. It’s meant to change all meant to actually grow and evolve as human beings as well. And I would say that the routines and things that I started using to ground myself was just very simple. Now I’ve become good at meditation, and I do that as a daily practice of at least 20, 25 minutes in the morning.

But I started out with two minutes. I would literally put in my crazy day of go everything. I would start my timer and I would tell myself, I can give myself two minutes. I have permission to do two minutes. And that’s how I started. So I would just put the timer on my phone and just meditate for two minutes and I gradually increase that, and that helped a lot. And then something as simple as just a hot cup of water, I just sit with that first thing in the morning. I don’t want to do anything. I just sit with my hot cup of water, take five minutes for myself, think through what the day is going to be like, and then just move forward from there. Now I’ve integrated more because I actually have more freedom of time. My calendar’s a lot more open than was actually working and now actually go make sure that I’m out in the sun at least 30 minutes of a walk, a minimum, if not for an hour, take some time for reading and take some time for writing. And writing could be anything. It’s like journaling or writing on a topic that I’m really interested in. But there was just a few things that I started doing to help myself get grounded.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yeah, I love that. Well, and I know you started your blog and started writing. I feel like you got kind of reignited on different topics in the space. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

Dipti Patel:  Yes. So I’ve always journaled from how far back I remember. I’ve always journaled. I actually have journals going back even as a teenager writing books in the books and stuff. And now obviously I do online. It just became a way for me to just express myself. And over time I realized that it’s a part of your creativity as well. And I’m not necessarily really great at it right now, but I just also feel like I need to give myself a chance to do more of the things that I wanted to lean into. And that’s essentially where I started it out from. I started it out from looking for topics that were important for women and if they actually felt, if I got a question, if I got asked a question going, how did you deal with this? Or how do I develop this? Then it was like, that’s an idea.

How about I write that down and maybe that’s useful for at least one person. And so from that perspective, I just started putting things out more. I would say that I still hesitate because I know that we live in a time when I see so many great people writing and they’re such great writers and everything. But then I also tell myself going, why am I being critical of myself? Even if one person finds what I’m writing, taking this complex idea and simplifying it or finds joy in just reading my thing, that’s just another reason for me to do more of the writing itself.

Melyssa Barrett:  That’s awesome. So then I guess one of the things that I was going to ask you, because you talked a little bit about your personal background and your experience in corporate and now that you’re coaching, how has all those experiences shaped your coaching style or how you connect with your clients?

Dipti Patel:  Yeah, so I realized my coaching style is, and coaching is a lot of letting your clients have their own insights and sitting back and actually just coming to those aha moments by themselves. And I’ve actually been doing a lot of coaching and mentoring. I, I feel like there was a time that I was so busy I never actually had time to give back even though I had the intention, but I never made that happen. So when I started out the year, I also read a lot about give back and it comes back to you. And so I was like, okay, what aspect of this can I actually give in some way? Whether it’s women just starting out or who’ve lost a job, who can I be a mentor to? And so I started out on different platforms and just being a mentor and being that and I realized there’s a difference between mentoring, coaching, mentoring is a lot more where they’re asking you for your advice and you’re feeling sharing that and coaching is a lot more of letting them get to that point on their own and insights.

I feel my style has been a little bit of both regardless, and I like to actually incorporate mindset and the strategic side as well as we talked about the mindset stuff first, which is really talking through where do you really want to go and what are your own obstacles. We forget we have so much agency on the choices that we can make and how we can actually, no matter where you are, there’s always a different option as to how you want your next chapter to be. And so many times we just give our power away to everybody else, but my environment is this, but my manager is like this, but you don’t understand I’m tied by this, this and this. And then if you just take back and think about that mindset piece that becomes so important. So before just going to saying, I’ve had people where I want to get to this next level, this is the title, this is what I want to do.

And when you actually go back into the why of it and the core of what it is, it sometimes turns out to be they’re either running away from something that’s the reason why they’re picking that title, which is that the environment they’re currently in, something has changed and they don’t like it or their values, their own values has changed with where that current environment is right now. And so basically there’s a little bit of realignment and then it goes back to it’s not actually that title. I actually want to do more work that is like this. That’s how I feel that I take a little bit of the mindset part of it into this whole thing because I feel like life and career can’t happen separately. It’s all your career is just part of your life, so you have to look at it as a whole, not just as one sub component of my resume and my LinkedIn, all of that comes later. It’s all about what you really want. And then aligning to that.

Melyssa Barrett:  I love that. Who do you usually work with?

Dipti Patel:  Yeah, my typical clients or mid executive women in tech and in product. I’ve also worked with women in healthcare as well. There are women who are navigating their careers, figuring out what’s that next level of success for themselves and success being they want to redefine success for themselves. They’re either kind of working through burnout or through feeling like they’ve been stagnated in their career or they’re just basically saying, I’m not finding this role challenging enough. And I would say mid-career to mid executive is like minimum. They’ve already been in their work for 10 years, they’ve seen a few things, they’ve gone through a few things themselves, and they’re kind of figuring out what’s that next level where they can even grow in their leadership and then go towards that next level of growth for themselves.

Melyssa Barrett:  That’s awesome. Well, and I think there’s so much in the mid-career, mid-level where, I mean, I wish I would’ve had more coaching at that level because I know it accelerates your whole process of where you want to be. And so you end up, I understand why people feel stagnated because it’s like you need just some extra guidance or push to really help you steer your way to where you want to go.

Dipti Patel:  Exactly. I just remember at that stage, again, to your point as well, I wish I had leaned at that point. I felt like I was asking at times, I wanted to become a manager. I became a manager and wasn’t great at first. Just like anything, you’re never great at first and then you’re just putting out all the fires so you feel like you are getting pulled in all directions and you almost feel like you have no agency over what is happening in your life. And just helping sitting down with somebody to help you navigate through that, that would’ve been so helpful to actually just basically say, you can do these things. You can say no to these things and this is how you can actually envision what you want to do as your next step or how you want to actually deal with all these things that you’re dealing with.

Melyssa Barrett:  I love how transparent you’re being because I think sometimes we get on calls or podcasts or whatever and we think that everything is just peaches and cream, but it’s like the journey. I think that’s what really makes the journey more impactful in your work because you’ve been there, what some of those potholes look like.

Dipti Patel:  Yeah, absolutely. Some of it is, I remember even still at one point there was a particular project that I was working on and it was so stressful that every single day the things that we are doing, it was just, it was impacting clients online and using the platform. And at that point I had an hour commute back and forth, back to home, and then I would jump on all of these high priority calls daily in terms of escalation calls to a point where the only way I actually felt like I could deal with them was actually to cry it out. And sometimes I just had to do that because there was so much of the stress building up and I didn’t have anybody to talk about it in terms of saying this. And in some ways I would think about it going, but this is what I asked for.

I actually wanted to be able to lead for this, and then I doubt myself going, am I not good enough to lead these things? I just didn’t understand that it was all part and parcel of just doing that work, but also it didn’t have to be so hard. But I liked the fact that when I look at it now going, I at least had a way to know that that was my stress relieve. I would cry it out and I would be fine, and that would help me again, get back again on it. But I also knew that was the beginning for me where I started aligning going, this isn’t how I actually want to be living the rest of my life.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yeah, well, that’s a good thing. So I mean, I don’t think anybody wants to be crying too much about kind of where they are. So I mean, it’s kind of that point of look at your own life and see whether you align or not. And if you have that kind of stress, probably you’re not in alignment because joy usually brings you to where you should be, not the opposite.

Dipti Patel:  And just to add to it, I know that sometimes in the work that we’ve done and people do in terms of working with products and data and technology, there’s going to be ebbs and flows. There are going to be times when it does get really stressful. You have to do that final push to get something out or launch something or work with many, many people and sometimes difficult clients as well just to get stuff done. And that’s just part of the whole progress. But when you actually do that for way too long, if it is not just a small phase, if it’s not like saying, oh, and when this project finishes things actually go back to how they were, then something’s off that. Okay. It’s one of those things, and I’m probably going to not say it the right way, but I think Steve just said this, which is like you wake up and every day in the morning you look at the mirror and say, do I actually want to be doing what I’m doing today? And if that answer is no for too many days in a row that something’s wrong, you need to figure out something for yourself to get on the right track or get aligned with yourself again.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yeah, well said. Powerful advice. So then can you talk about, I mean, if somebody is maybe thinking about making a big leap or whether they feel stagnant in their career, what advice would you give to them?

Dipti Patel:  Yeah, I would say first of all, just kind of zoom out every day. We’re so working in the weeds that we don’t even take time for reflecting on our own career journey so far. And I’ve worked with so many women so far in terms of just knowing that they just don’t take enough time to reflect on how well they’ve done so far and what do they want that next phase to look like? So as simple as even if you don’t work with anyone, but if you work with someone, it does definitely accelerate where you’re going towards. But basically you can just do the simple things as to where am I today and what do I want my next chapter? What do I want in the next phase of my life to look like and what’s really coming in my way? It’s essentially just these three things and you’re working through those things in terms of doing that, but that does require you to actually zoom out. That does require you to actually say, this isn’t carved in stone and this isn’t permanent. But I actually do have to put in some thought as to how do I want to envision my tomorrow and what can I do about this in terms of how I want to get somewhere?

Melyssa Barrett:  I love that. Are there any other kind of advice that you would talk to, and certainly we want to tell people how they can connect with you and learn more about the services that you provide. I know when you are doing strategy sessions with people so that they know kind of where it’s like they get the gift of you actually helping them navigate where do they want to go? Because a lot of times people don’t know.

Dipti Patel:  Exactly. Yeah. So I love that you brought up the strategy sessions because that’s essentially where I love that Pat when there’s that insight or that aha moment when the person I’m coaching actually goes through that whole exercise and then halfway through and they’ll be like, I now know what’s actually holding me back. And one of my favorite ones to share is where one of my clients actually felt that they wanted to transition from the current role to another role, completely different. And then the aha or the insight was it’s because the caliber of the people that I was working with is no longer as strong as it used to be. So the company’s values on how they’re hiring has changed from when I joined this company. And so our values have become different. So that’s not necessarily anything to do with me trying to join a different team altogether. It’s about it’s time for me to actually leave the company itself and transition to a new company.

Melyssa Barrett:  Wow, that’s powerful. Great insight. So then how do people get ahold of you and learn more about what you do?

Dipti Patel:  Yeah, absolutely. I am mostly active on LinkedIn, but I also have my website, which is deepti patel.net, and they can send me a message there. They can DM me on LinkedIn. And what I love to do is just have connection calls, which is a quick 15 minute chat in terms of who they are, where they are. I actually like to get a good vibe on both when we connect. I like to actually talk to people, I want them to actually know me and I want to know them as well. And then sometimes it may be something I can help with and if I can’t help them with something, I can recommend something else or someone else as well.

Melyssa Barrett:  And I know you’ve been doing a lot of speaking as well, so tell me about what you are seeing out there. Just in terms of how people can navigate

Dipti Patel:  What I love right now, and I remember I would say about 10 years and I was still kind of figuring out going, what other groups can I join? What professional networks can I join for more networking events and stuff. And now I would say some good out of the pandemic that came out was there’s more online presence of everybody joining different networks. And some obviously had good presence even before that, but it has made it easier for people to find those type of networks. And I would say there’s so many networks, professional women networks now in terms of whichever field they’re in, whether it’s in technology, it’s very specific to product, it’s specific to data, it’s software engineers, it’s hardware engineers, you name it. And there’s so many great networks that you can be part of. And I highly encourage people to actually do that because once you’re part of those networks, you actually get access to all the events and stuff that they’re doing.

And a lot of these networks are doing such a great job. They have such great program managers behind the scene who are looking for great speakers who actually want to bring the best, and just sometimes at no chart, just have all of these events for people to actually connect and also to learn something from the speaker itself. So I’ve had the opportunity to speak at a few different places, and that’s been a lot of fun for me. At the same time, I’ve been able to get a good response on people’s questions as to what are they curious about? And sometimes their question is more about, I just want to focus on being in senior ic, or I actually have been a senior IC for way too long. How do I actually progress into becoming a manager and eventually a leader? Are they just very, very specific topics about how do I get better about my communication?

What do you think is the next way to actually grow in executive presence? It’s a whole lot of great topics. And what I love about this is also just the networking opportunity for them. Because again, the aspect of one thing, and I did this as well, which is when you’re working, you’re so heads down just doing the work itself. You forget about networking with people. And women actually start networking when they’re ready to find a new job. And it doesn’t work that way. It’s like you have to actually have that network, and when you actually want to find job, it makes it much more easier. So the best way to do this is do something you enjoy, which is part of your work, which is find these professional groups, attend events that are actually of your own interest. It’s either hard skills or soft skills, whichever way you feel like you want to actually develop yourself in and then connect with more women and just actually get on short calls and know each other and goes a long way.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yeah, definitely. Well, and I love what you’re doing because we know there’s such a gap in having women in technology as representation goes. And so anytime there’s opportunity for women to provide some assistance in terms of just navigating all the stuff, I’ll call it, that you have to deal with when it comes to whether it be bureaucracy, I tend to see that every time you think you’re going somewhere, then all of a sudden there’s new levels. It’s like they changed the whole pathway, and so now you got to go up three more stairs instead of the one that you anticipated. And so I think it’s great when you have folks that are available to say, okay, everything is not always vertical, so sometimes you have to move to the right and go around and then go up the stairs or something.

Dipti Patel:  Exactly. I love that you bring that up because I usually use this also analogy in terms of saying, for women of color, if you’re thinking of your career, let’s just say compare that as a race. There’s just more obstacles for you to get through compared to everybody else, right? So it’s like more that you have to navigate more that you have to figure it out going, how do I actually deal with this situation? And it’s sometimes even personal, but sometimes external as well.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yeah, no doubt. Well, awesome. Well, this has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much for joining me. And you can get to Dipty again@diptypatel.net. And so if you have questions for her, if you’re interested in maybe setting up a strategy call or even just a connection call, give her a call. She has great resources available. I know she’s doing newsletters now and blogs and providing all sorts of tips and inspiration for women that are navigating their careers and their own personal growth. So I just want to say thank you so much for joining me. It’s been an absolute pleasure to hear about your journey and the incredible work you’re doing to uplift and empower women.

Dipti Patel:  Thank you, Melyssa. Thank you so much for hosting me and having a conversation with you at any point is such a joy for me. Always such a joy. So thank you. Thanks. Thank you so much.Melyssa Barrett:  Thanks for joining me on the Jali Podcast. Please subscribe so you won’t miss an episode. See you next week.

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