Hello Reader,

Today I want to share something I've never told publicly before - a bit of my story and how I got here.

Let me start by telling you this:

I was not supposed to be here.

Not working in tech.

Not teaching Python, data, and AI on YouTube to thousands of people.

Not ANY of it.

If you look from the outside, you might think I must be a "natural." That I had some special talent for this stuff, or some special credentials.

Nope.

It actually took me years to stop feeling like a fraud, dare to trust my own ability, and give myself credit for the effort I put in.

So, let me tell you my story...

After finishing my economics degree in 2016, I applied for a PhD in Econonomics. I thought it would be cool. Luckily, I failed 😅.

My first job was as a data analyst, and that's when I discovered what I actually loved: data.

But I had a problem. A big one.

I barely knew how to code - just a bit of R I picked up for my master's thesis. And Excel just didn't cut it for the projects I was working on.

My day-to-day was basically patching together code I'd copied from Stack Overflow and hoping it would do exactly what I needed.

Sometimes, the code didn't work, and I couldn't understand why.

Sometimes, the code did work, and I ALSO didn't understand why.

After a year, I moved to data science consulting at a Big Four firm in the Netherlands, working with financial institutions on machine learning and automation projects. (It was probably as hot back then as Generative AI is today.)

Honestly, until now, I still don't know why my manager hired me. I didn't speak Dutch, which was the office language. I needed a work visa they had to sponsor (you know, to legally work here as an immigrant). But I guess I did cleverly mentioned I knew some R programming, and Python is a bit similar so I'm sure I could learn it blah blah... Well, I guess that was enough to get a job back then lol.

Luck aside, I suffered badly from imposter syndrome. From day one.

My colleagues were waving magic wands with Python scripts, building predictive models, automating hours of manual work, creating web apps to handle data quality checks and automate reports.

Meanwhile, I barely knew how to run a Python program.

(I think I'd throw up if you told me back then that I'd one day create a whole course on it.)

Every day, a little voice in my head would say: you're not supposed to be here. You're not cut out for this. Someone's going to find out.

To be fair, there must be some truth in that.

I'd nod along to jargon I didn't understand in meetings, hoping no one would ask me to explain what it was. And you can imagine how lost I was when those meetings were in Dutch, which was my third language 🥲.

So I started spending evenings and weekends learning learning Python, machine learning, AI, Git, the terminal, cloud deployment. All the "basic" things.

I still remember the relief when I finally understood what my colleagues meant when they said to "push" changes to GitHub.

It was so hard and confusing at times. But I'm glad I stuck with it.

My only goal was to get better. To stop feeling like a fraud. I never wanted to become a professional programmer. I just wanted to understand how things work, have a solid foundation, and actually contribute to what we were building.

Things did get better. As I got more senior and started leading projects, I felt more confident. I raised my ideas. I voiced my opinions.

I even started a YouTube channel, and well... the rest is history.

But I also wasted a lot of time along the way.

I spent years learning in circles. Taking courses I never finished. I even pursued a Computer Science degree while working full time. It took me 6 years to graduate (I really took my sweet time lol).

So here's what I want you to take from all of this.

No matter where you are in your learning journey, you will fight imposter syndrome. Probably more than once. And probably for longer than you'd like.

What helped me was simple: keep your head down, stop comparing myself to others, learn the stuff, and trust that you can do it.

Very helpful advice, huh? 🫣

The honest truth is, my imposter voice never really went away. I just got better at not letting it stop me. From getting my hands dirty. From trying new things. From sharing what I make and learning from my mistakes.

And speaking of mistakes, I have plenty of stories. But that's for another day 😁.

If any of this resonates, hit reply and tell me your story. I read every single email.

Chào!
Thu

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P.S: Work with me:

If you want a comprehensive program to learn from Python fundamentals to building AI applications, check out my Python for AI Projects course.

You'll join a community of 450+ learners who are building their projects while getting direct access to me and supporting each other along the way.

​👉​ Learn More​

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