Amazing, pretty, courageous Sarah Nmachi Anueyiagu is a hustler, and I hope that her story inspires you and all the hustlers out there as much as it inspires me. 

We recorded this interview two days before George Floyd’s death, therefore you won't hear us mention it. I usually do minimal editing on my interviews and release them pretty quickly. However, with this one, we had a lot of connection delays and bleeps that I needed to cut out. For all the nerds out there who ever looked up data transmission, it was fascinating to me how much slower it is when it has to travel across the ocean floor between the US and Nigeria. It took me eight hours to finish editing and publishing of this episode over two weekends. 

Another reason for the delay was that I wasn't in the right mental space to work on the editing. I'm very distressed by some of the responses I see to the Black Lives Matter and anti-racism movement, and I'm asking myself and others a lot of questions. I'm working very hard on finding my own voice of change AND patience to see the change I want to see in the world. This interview is one tiny step in that direction and to use my own creator space to #amplifymelanatedvoices. 

In this episode, we talk about Sarah's journey in tech, how she taught herself to code through YouTube videos and free online resources, got accepted into the first ever Microsoft LEAP cohort in Nigeria, and got her first full-time job in tech. Sarah shares golden advice for those who are starting out on how to build your resume, stand out from the crowd, and the application and interview process for the Microsoft LEAP. 

We also talked career goals, tech landscape in Nigeria, what it’s like for Sarah to quarantine and WFH with her company in Lagos, and Nigerian food and comedy. :) 

You can find Sarah online on Twitter @sarah_nmachi and LinkedIn.  

Other people, websites, and companies mentioned: 

Turns out I have listeners in China, and WKU (Wenzhou Kean University) students sent me a bunch of questions. In this episode, I'm answering all of them: How to ace an interview? How to overcome anxiety during an interview? If HR asks me a question I don't know, how do I react? What personality is important in the workplace? How did you manage to stand out from the rest of the candidates? and other questions. Subscribe to get notified of the new episodes!

We cover a lot in this episode: the gender pay gap in WNBA/NBA ($50K vs $800K!!), is it true that WNBA players make $0.5M by playing overseas, Microsoft LEAP + WNBA, how do you build a winning team, what did you say to Barack Obama, acting, workouts, nutrition, and more! 

Give it a listen and subscribe to get notified of the new episodes!

This is part 1 of the interview with Sydney Colson, a WNBA player who is also doing a LEAP apprenticeship program at Microsoft. Outgoing, resilient, loving Sydney tells us more about that WNBA life, what's it like to be one of the only 144 WNBA players in the world, lessons learned from failures, and eating eel for the first time.