Success doesn’t always arrive with the confidence to match it. Sometimes a career moves faster than a person’s own sense of belonging in it, and someone can look entirely accomplished from the outside while still quietly unsure whether they’ve earned the room they’re standing in. Gaby Sittová knows that gap firsthand.
Gaby is a Creative Director at YORD, a creative technology studio working across XR and AI, where she’s contributed to more than 200 projects for brands including Škoda, LEGO, and L’Oréal. She’s also a film director: her feature debut, První hvězda (The First Star), reaches Czech cinemas in November 2026. By the time she joined Femme Palette’s mentoring program, she wasn’t short on ambition, opportunities, or ideas. What hadn’t caught up yet was her own sense of herself, strong and certain in tech, but new and unsure in film, even after she’d already directed a full feature.
She came in looking for help with personal branding. What she found went considerably further. Here’s what came out of it.
I’m Gaby, a Creative Director working with immersive technology, and an independent film director. My career has never followed one clean line, I’ve spent years moving between technology, creativity, storytelling and leadership. At the same time, I was developing my feature film debut, První hvězda (The First Star), which is coming to Czech cinemas in November 2026. I also speak and run workshops about creativity and technology.
When I joined the mentoring program, I wasn’t at the beginning of my career or looking for someone to tell me what to do next. Quite the opposite: a lot was already happening, but I don’t think I had really caught up with it myself. My career had grown faster than my own perception of myself. In tech, I felt stronger. I knew what I could bring. In film, I suddenly felt like someone else: new, unsure, and not really knowing whether I belonged. I had directed a feature film and still felt that way.
I wasn’t very confident about that part of my life, and honestly, I didn’t want to admit it to myself.
I reached a point where I had plenty of ambition, opportunities and ideas, but I was very much inside my own head. I had this strong feeling that I needed to step up. Professionally, but also in how I saw myself. I wanted to be able to stand behind my work, talk about it, and handle what came next. I could feel that I needed support.
I’d had a mentoring experience before that hadn’t worked very well. Maybe I wasn’t ready then. But this time I knew I didn’t want to keep trying to figure everything out alone. Especially with the film, I was carrying a lot and feeling quite alone in it. I needed someone I could be honest with, including about the things I wasn’t confident enough to say out loud yet.
At first, personal branding and visibility. I felt I’d done valuable work, but I wasn’t giving it enough attention publicly. I wanted to work on my PR and figure out how to talk about what I do. I was also trying to understand how tech, film and my personal life fit together. I didn’t want to feel like a different person in each world. I wanted to find a way of presenting myself that actually felt like me. Then other things started coming up: trusting myself, confidence, boundaries, taking care of myself. Confidence was funny, because I hadn’t really thought of it as something I needed to work on. But I did.
One thing I’m proud of happened very early. My first mentor match wasn’t right for me, and I managed to say so and ask for a rematch. I was really scared there wouldn’t be someone else, because I was counting on this support so much. But Femme Palette found another mentor, and that relationship made such a difference. Looking back, asking for what I needed was already part of the work - which I’m sending a big thank you to my coach.
I also became more confident speaking and running workshops in Czech (which is a paradox because Im Czech but for some reason speaking, presenting and networking in English is for me more natural)... I still feel a difference between my Czech and English personalities, but I’m less afraid of putting myself out there. For example in my last conference - ČERNÁ.AI, where i facilitated workshop, people were engaged and laughing, and I really enjoyed being on stage. That felt good.
The mentoring also helped me keep going with finishing the film when I felt very alone with it. And I started learning to celebrate what I’d already done. Being invited to a Microsoft panel was something I initially almost brushed off. Then I stopped and thought about how excited younger me would have been. I want to give myself more of those moments. Because I in past took all those situatins as “not enough” or “not worthy enough for celebrating/apprecieting”.
I stand behind myself more now, especially in film. I’m still learning that world, but I don’t feel I need everyone else’s permission to be there. I can trust what I bring and give myself room to take up space.
It also changed how I think about ambition. I want to achieve a lot, and I’m very used to pushing myself. My mentor helped me notice how quickly I move on to the next thing without appreciating what I’ve just done. Sometimes I needed someone to remind me: you’ve done a lot already. You’re allowed to rest. She literally told me to take myself on dates, and I started doing it. Spending intentional time alone helped me learn more about myself and what I actually want. I still have big ambitions. I’m also asking what kind of life I want while I’m pursuing them, and trying to stop treating myself as someone who can just keep giving endlessly.
One of our later session went much deeper than I expected. I usually prepared for mentoring, but this session I arrived with no clear agenda and just wanted to talk about what was happening in my head. There was room for that. That session opened up some difficult things inside me that I needed to face. The following two weeks were really tough. But by our last session, I felt relief. I could see how much we’d worked through, and I felt so grateful that Kat was my mentor.
A big realization through the process was that I don’t need everyone to validate me or feel good about every decision I make. I can care about people without carrying all their emotional responsibilities. Some things are theirs to deal with. That’s something I’m still learning, but it has helped me stand up for myself.
I found someone who really saw me. I knew I needed support, but I hadn’t expected how much it would mean to have someone listen so closely and reflect things back to me with such an intention. Kat was a mirror, especially when I couldn’t see my own patterns or give myself credit. Every session was different. Kat shared reflections and resources, and the relationship felt absolutely natural. I didn’t feel I had to force every conversation into a goal I’d written down at the beginning.
I came in wanting help with my personal brand, and we ended up talking about things that affected how I work, how I lead, and how I treat myself. Having that space to be honest was probably the most unexpected part. I could bring what was actually happening, and we could work from there.
If Gaby’s story resonates with you, whether you’re stepping into something new while still proving it to yourself, learning to celebrate what you’ve already built instead of rushing past it, or just ready for someone who reflects things back to you that you can’t see on your own, that’s exactly what mentoring is for.
Your story could be the next one we tell. Explore the Femme Palette mentoring program and take the first step today.
