Daisy McConville, co-Founder at ProfessorMe, recently gave a talk to fellow women founders on leadership skills and her journey as a female entrepreneur.

ProfessorMe co-Founders Dr Kate Smith and Daisy McConville were joined by Dr Ben McConville on a recent visited the offices of Eviden in London as part of the University of Edinburgh AI Accelerator cohort. Eviden provided some excellent sessions on digital marketing and AI futures.

ProfessorMe is a member of the University of Edinburgh’s AI Accelerator at the Bayes Centre.

ProfessorMe won ‘Start Up of the Year’, an award sponsored by Business Gateway, at the Women’s Enterprise Scotland Awards in October 2024. Pictured are co-Founders Dr Kate Smith and Daisy McConville collecting the award.

Contrary to popular belief, this is not due to laziness or poor time-management, but a coping mechanism developed to deal with the negative emotions associated with a task. Whether it’s fear of failure, overwhelm, insecurity, anxiety or boredom, our brain will try to protect us from these negative emotions for as long as possible. This is where procrastination steps in. It helps us to avoid the negative feelings in that moment, even though we know the stress will be worse later.

The basic beliefs we hold about ourselves are extremely powerful. Whether conscious or subconscious, they strongly affect what we do, what we want, and the outcome of either. Much of what we believe we comprehend about our personality comes from our “mindset.” Personal beliefs that can both propel and prevent us from fulfilling our potential.

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Research points towards self-sabotage being motivated by a need to protect oneself. Acting as a protection strategy, students can use it when we fear we are going to fail, or perform poorly, in something we associate with self-worth, such as grades. By consciously or unconsciously putting an obstacle in the path to success, an excuse or an alibi is created that can be used if the exam, essay or assessment doesn’t go well. Blame for the poor results is placed on the obstacle (e.g., lack of effort) rather than a lack of ability, effectively ensuring that external views on our competence levels remain unchanged and our self-worth undamaged.