Boris is the wise ol’ CEO of TNW who writes a weekly column on everything about being an entrepreneur in tech — from managing stress to embracing awkwardness. You can get his musings straight to your inbox by signing up for his newsletter!

This morning I spoke at an event for professional athletes. The subject was ‘innovation versus winning’ — and I was obviously invited to talk about innovation. Feeling a bit out of place as a person with only a passing interest in sports, I joked I wasn’t a professional athlete, but could still relate as an amateur bodybuilder. If you’ve seen what I look like, you know why I got big laughs on that joke.

But joining me were some actual athletes as well. Marianne Timmer , a famous speed skater and Olympic gold medalist, was also a speaker at the event. After she ended her professional career as an athlete she became a coach, and she had some interesting learnings from the time she’d just started coaching.

She admitted her main mistake was thinking she actually knew how to be successful. She figured, “I won my medals, I know what it takes to become a winner, so just do as I say and you’ll get there too.” That didn’t quite work.

She soon learned that achieving success is a personal challenge, and needs a personalized path. She had to first understand each pupil and find out what barriers they had to overcome, and which talents to develop. Only then could she help them succeed.

I’ve seen similar mistakes being made by successful entrepreneurs. The truth is every time period has its own challenges and opportunities — and every person has their own plan, talent, and network. There’s no ‘get rich quick’ formula that works for everyone, and simply mimicking the path a gold medalist took isn’t going to get you across the finish line.

This might feel discomforting, but it should also give us hope. If somebody else had all the answers, there wouldn’t be a challenge left for you to conquer. It also means you have an active role in your own success, understanding where your strengths and weaknesses lie.

Obviously that’s one way to comfort myself in these challenging times. TNW is almost 15 years old, and for a while I thought that gave me answers others didn’t have. Of course I do benefit from my experience, but often I’m reminded that the future is wide open: full of opportunities and challenges. It takes hard work, but you hold the key to your success.

Can’t get enough of Boris? Check out his older stories here , and sign up for TNW’s newsletters here .

3 big mistakes I’ve made in my career as a software engineer

This article was originally published by Emma Bostian on ult by Honeypot , a Berlin-based community platform for developers. For the latest updates, follow ult by Honeypot on Twitter , Facebook , Instagram , Linkedin , and YouTube .

I vividly remember my first week as a Software Engineer at IBM. I was bright-eyed out of college and slightly egotistical.

“I deserve this job,” I thought, “Web development is easy; I’ll get promoted in no time!”

And then I made my first huge mistake: I forgot to test my code before merging it to master.

In college, I took one entry-level web development course, where they taught you that HTML, CSS, and JavaScript exist and you should use Bootstrap and PHP. Testing was never discussed and as a result I was embarrassingly unaware that just because my pull request was approved didn’t mean I could merge without second glance.

I promptly received an angry phone call from a Scottish senior developer reprimanding me for my lack of oversight. I had broken everyone’s development environment. We quickly rolled back to the previous version while I scowled in my office.

I never forgot to test my code from that day forward.

We all make mistakes; it’s part of the learning process. But making mistakes doesn’t have to be a bad thing as long as you learn from them.

Here are three of the biggest mistakes I made during my career. I hope you can learn from them, as I have, and grow as a developer and as a person.

1. Not asking questions

As a new hire, and even more so as a woman in a team full of men, I was nervous about asking questions for fear of sounding stupid.

I was afraid to ask questions which would expose my programming ignorance, and this greatly impeded my growth as a developer.

Once I built a strong rapport with my team members, I began asking more questions. I learned how to strike the balance of researching the answer and not wasting time looking on my own. And once I got over my fear of asking questions I learned more quickly.

Every developer starts from zero, and while we all learn at different speeds, we all have to go through the same process.

It is vital to ask questions if you don’t understand.

When you ask questions in-context, both you and your colleagues waste less time. If your question can be easily solved by a quick Google search, first take the time to do some high-level research. This will save your colleague the frustration of answering a question you could have found the answer for on your own, and it will save you the embarrassment of being told so (this happened to me at IBM and I will never forget it).

2. Assuming everyone communicates the same way I do

At IBM I worked with international colleagues, and now living in Germany as an American I work on a team with six different nationalities. And it wasn’t until a year of living abroad that I realized every culture has a different idea of what “good communication” means.

I had numerous miscommunications with my German manager as we would both walk away from a meeting with different ideas of what the next step was, and this led to frustration and inadvertent turmoil within the team.

Then I stumbled upon the book The Culture Map by Erin Meyer in the Frankfurt Airport and it changed my outlook on life.

Different cultures have different communication processes; some are high-context communicators and read in-between the lines (like people from Germany) while other cultures are low-context communicators and require explicit and redundant communication (like people from the United States).

It’s no wonder I had massive communication problems with my team and my manager; we were communicating differently!

From that day forward I vowed to learn more about communication and building solid professional relationships, and it has greatly improved team rapport.

Multi-cultural teams need low-context processes. All communication should be explicit, spelling out exactly who is responsible for which task, and backed-up in writing which is then distributed to the team through Slack or email.

Learning some of the cultural differences between you and your coworkers, as it relates to giving constructive criticism, communicating, even scheduling meetings, will greatly enhance your interpersonal relationships and your team dynamic.

3. Taking constructive criticism personally

Constructive criticism is important to grow as a developer and also as a human, yet to this day I struggle with taking constructive criticism personally.

When someone gives me constructive criticism, my first instinct is to interpret this as a reflection of my personal identity; it feels as though they’re attacking who I am.

In reality my colleagues are helping me by identifying the areas for improvement, and this is truly a gift. It demonstrates that they see potential for me to be successful, and they’re helping me reach that milestone.

Create a safe space to receive and give constructive criticism. It’s best to set a meeting to discuss this topic, where both parties know exactly what to expect, and to do it in private.

And when someone gives you a piece of constructive criticism that you don’t believe is true, don’t immediately get defensive and shut down. Take some time to process what they’ve just suggested and truly see whether their feedback holds some truth.

These are only a handful of mistakes I have made during my career, and I hope you can learn from them. You’re not expected to be a perfect employee and teammate, but having the ability to understand your flaws and learn from your mistakes will improve your job performance and set you on the road to success.

How to celebrate LGBTQ+ employees every day — not just during Pride Month

This article was originally published by Built In .

I was called gay for the first time when I was 11, before I even knew what the word meant. It was then that my journey to find belonging began. When I finally found refuge in New York City after college, I naively thought everything would change for me overnight. By the end of my first week, I had already encountered homophobic slurs on the street. I still felt bothered everywhere I went, and, as I began my job search, I desperately looked for a place where I would fit in.

I landed my first job at a company run by a gay CEO. The company held regular pride events, had LGBTQ-focused products, and had more LGBTQ+ employees than heterosexual ones. I have to admit, it was a huge culture shock. It was terrifying to be asked and expected to be myself at work. I didn’t know who I was.

In my next job, I took my learnings from the previous company and was unapologetically myself from day one. It was a culture shift to say the least — I was the token gay employee. I ran the HR department and I quickly realized that the founders were rejecting many of the queer candidates I was moving forward. When our first trans candidate moved through the process, one founder told me to reject her. I knew it wasn’t because of her qualifications, but I stayed quiet in order to keep my job. I felt like a sellout.

A few months later, I was asked to be a part of a meeting that would just be me and a founder representing the brand. It seemed like a great opportunity, so I naturally said yes. When the meeting began, however, it soon became clear why I had been asked to join this particular meeting: the representative was gay. After the meeting went south, my boss flew into me. Why didn’t I speak up and try to identify with him?

I felt like an idiot. Here I was, thinking I had come so far — a queer kid from Mississippi living this big , authentic life in New York. By 23, I had already experienced both belonging and tokenism. As I grew in my career, I aimed to take my own experiences with me as I created and fostered inclusive work environments in the tech startup space.

Here are some ways that startups can create these environments for themselves:

Establish inclusive policies from the start

Nuance matters, not just visibility. It’s not enough to just hire LGBTQ+ individuals, have LGBTQ+ employee resource groups, or orchestrate a Pride campaign.

Inclusivity should be at the core of your company. Take some time to review your company’s policies, benefits and perks and ensure that they’re applicable to LGBTQ+ employees and their families. This includes domestic partnership healthcare coverage, healthcare coverage for LGBTQ+ medications and medical surgeries, and fertility benefits for LGBTQ+ employees. Additionally, expand parental leave to include LGBTQ+ individuals who aim to adopt or use surrogacy or other fertility means.

Internal documents and corporate communications should also use “they/them” pronouns, instead of “he/him” or “she/her.” Using inclusive language in corporate communications lets queer employees know they are valued and seen at your organization.

Remember: Prerequisites are not required to establish inclusive policies and expectations. For example, a company shouldn’t have to wait to have an openly trans employee to provide gender-neutral bathrooms, ask employees their pronouns, or establish more inclusive benefits policies for transitioning individuals.

Create a safe work environment

While startups can often blur the line between work and play, many employees still aim to have some level of separation between their personal and professional life. While you should create an environment that allows for more authentic connection, you can’t require it.

Safety is still a major concern for many in the community. Not only physical safety, but emotional and psychological safety as well. As early as possible, create an employee resource group for LGBTQ+ individuals and give them a small budget to use at their discretion. This will create a micro community and space for LGBTQ+ employees to find and share thoughts with one another.

Creating a safe work environment includes respecting an employee’s right to privacy while working to ensure they feel comfortable bringing their authentic selves to work. One way to do this is by creating a mentorship program that allows individuals to seek advice and counsel from leaders within the organization. HR can also play a role, by creating channels for LGBTQ+ employees to approach them regarding personal safety and security. While HR might be a known resource for employees, some LGBTQ+ employees might not know how HR representatives can support them specifically. Ways to show that you are an ally and open to conversation are to post LGBTQ+ signage on your office or desk, send memos and messages out to the company about LGBTQ+ issues, and create methods for anonymous questions and feedback that respect privacy but allow for discrimination, harassment, or other issues to come to light.

Belonging doesn’t happen overnight. Many queer individuals have trauma they are still working through when they enter the workforce. It takes time for individuals to work through that and get to a place where they feel safe enough to belong. That might not happen during their tenure at your organization, and that is OK. You still can help by creating the opportunity for them to do so during their time with your company. The more you provide them with security, safety and inclusion, the more they will start to feel that they belong.

Celebrate the community

Many startups celebrate and advertise their unique approach to company culture. As you strive to create your own, make sure yours embraces the queer community through your culture initiatives and corporate giving. In addition to using inclusive language, avoid gendered events, like gender reveals or events of that nature, and attempt to honor all employees through everything that you do as an organization.

Not sure where to start? Create strategies around LGBTQ+ holidays to shape your efforts. This could include honoring the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots or the Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality through programming and education of LGBTQ+ history. Communicating resources and educational tools through email or planning roundtables or fireside chats with leaders in the LGBTQ+ community to discuss the movement is a great way to honor the history.

This strategy should not just be limited to cultural offerings or employee events but company wide. It should factor into your product offerings, by considering your potential LGBTQ+ consumers; your services, by thinking about your LGBTQ+ users; your external campaigns, by including LGBTQ+ representation in your corporate communications and marketing collateral.

Offer your LGBTQ+ voices an opportunity to share their perspectives and to be active participants in these strategies. One way to do this is by reaching out to the employee resource group to see if anyone has thoughts or wants to be involved. Remember, this option should be presented — not required — to avoid employees feeling exploited, tokenized, or pressured to participate if they wish to opt out.

My journey is not unique, and I’ve chosen to embrace my queerness every day at work. I had to first learn how to be my authentic self before I could be asked to bring that self to the workplace, and I’m grateful to where my journey has led me today.

As you work to provide the opportunities, resources and spaces necessary for LGBTQ+ individuals to truly thrive in the workplace, don’t be afraid to reach out and gain their perspectives on how you’re doing and ways to improve. Acknowledge where you need to grow, speak to that publicly, and hold yourself accountable to that growth by tracking your progress openly and sharing the results often with the company. And, most importantly, be earnest and human.