[Music] all right welcome everybody i am your host this is the phoenix dev show my name is mark scott i am the solution consult or i'm sorry what is what's my title solution architect for uh now learning on the servicenow space and tonight i have a special guest uh joseph lauden is joining me on the stream hi joseph how you doing i'm doing great it has been a wonderful friday and this is great i've loved these things since you started doing them so it's great to be here to write a little insight and learn a little bit as we go awesome yeah well you know i'm super excited um because you had said that you know you're celebrating tonight um i i'm also celebrating slightly i mean i i saw an ad online for the very first time in like years i saw an ad online and i said you know what i'm gonna go buy some of that and i got this special like it's a modelo it's a light beer with like grapefruit and orange and lime and i already had one because i couldn't resist and it was pretty good so i'm excited all right do you have you've got a beverage there with you yeah i've got some i'm a sailor so i drink rum but i love tomadello too i grew up in texas and drank a lot of mandela in my day i don't i don't drink much at all anymore i only have celebratory drinks for people um that's pretty much how i get down now yeah yeah i i'm a big fan of like corona with a lime right like i'm like you right it's a celebratory thing i'm on vacation whatever like i'm a big fan of kernel with lime this is like corona with a lime without having to find the lime so i'm super super happy about this this is like oh you have no idea but we're not we're not here to talk about what we're drinking um we're here to talk about imposter syndrome and what it is who gets it how to deal with it all the way through i want i want us to take this entire episode and just talk about it get it get it defined and i think what a lot of people will realize is they may be feeling imposter syndrome and not realize it so i think it's good to get it out there in the open we'll talk about it you know no no shame no uh no judgments here um it's gonna be a lot of fun so let's jump in right away and define what imposter syndrome is okay okay i think i think a big thing that we have to be really careful of is saying syndrome and i do it a lot too but okay um i actually before i jumped on i made sure that i went back and looked but um psychology they consider it a phenomenon and not a syndrome so there's like stockholm syndrome which is i mean a really big deal and then there's imposter syndrome which is a feeling it's an emotion it's something that comes and it goes doesn't mean that in the moment or when we fight it that it's something that that's not serious right but it's not something like you can't be diagnosed with imposter syndrome you can be diagnosed with anxiety or depression and imposter syndrome is a symptom of that so that's kind of what i wanted to start off with um because it's not a clinical you're not going to go to a doctor there's no pill i mean it's not first of all not that we're looking for that but secondly it is it is a feeling it is a um you know it's it's that it it's similar to when you're getting on a plane and you go did i turn off the oven right it's that like oh no like why did i feel that way you know that anxiety that you get randomly for no reason it doesn't have a rhyme or a reason to it yeah yeah i i agree with that completely and i think a big thing too is realizing that if it's something that you do struggle with and it's it's common and it happens a lot there's nothing wrong with with going and speaking to a therapist about it because it could be something that's underlying i look at imposter syndrome and i've probably talked with 10 people this week about it and with the 1300 that i've worked in the past four years it's a common theme against a lot of high achieving people um it's just realizing that listen it's a symptom of something exactly um there could be so many different things but a lot of times it just comes from fear um is what i've learned and a lot of times you know it's something and it's scary and the last thing anybody wants to tell anybody especially on linkedin or professionally is that they're afraid of something and i think apostle syndrome a lot of times it's like i feel like a fraud right a lot of times you know um i still get on calls with people and before i have a whole routine that i go through anytime before i talk to somebody because in the middle of talking i can it can hit me um it can be i can something can trigger it and i've had to learn that there's exercises and there's things that i can do to prepare for it um because it is a very real thing and it's very very common among high achieving people sure yeah yeah and i think i think that's something to really kind of point out right like this isn't if you if you feel this it's not this feeling isn't something that you're getting because you're doing something wrong you're already there you're you're already where you should be right you someone's put you in this situation and and you have this feeling right and you don't quite like i i always say like i don't i don't really know what imposter syndrome is until i feel it right and then i go oh okay that's what that is but even even recently i just uh i rewatched a video so i i i'm a big fan of adam savage we've actually talked about him on the stream a few times um he writes a book called every tool is a hammer you also know him as a death buster um it it's he does a video about this and i'll get into it a little bit later um and i actually went back and watched his video again to to pull out some ideas for this stream and had an aha moment where i went oh no like that's that's impostor syndrome too like i have this feeling about something else right completely different um and i never really thought that it was anything you know like i always thought it was i'm a fraud in that box right i'm a fraud yeah it's not right it's it's fear like you say it's fear of reprisal it's fear of getting fired it's fear of failure you know i'm not good enough and and my favorite one that really kind of like said it for me is i don't deserve to be here right i don't deserve to be here and and even even like so i i just i just recently changed it's been two years now right like it's pandemic like all the craziness right i realized that and even even up until maybe even last week last month you would say this like i i felt like i wasn't doing enough at my job i felt like i wasn't doing enough with my team i felt like i wasn't doing enough for my boss like all this stuff and and i had just gotten a promotion i had just gotten all this awesome stuff and i still had that feeling of like i'm not doing enough i'm not doing and and i didn't realize that that was imposters and i wasn't you know i just had this wild thought that was rolling through my head and it is that's exactly what it is that's the exact same thing and so it's one of the you know you it's hard to really put a a label on it it's this like fear or shame or i i mean i i don't know it can come in a lot of different ways and i think one of the biggest things that i tell people is this is while you're feeling like an imposter some somebody else is looking at you as an inspiration absolutely and if you don't feel that realize something that you accomplishing your goals are you doing living your dream isn't just for you and i've told this to a couple people this week and i hope they're here and listening and it's it's not just for you because someone someone somewhere needs to see you successful because of representation it's a very very important thing not everybody looks the same thinks the same comes from the same place so you being successful and you're and being uniquely you and owning it and not being afraid of it give someone else the opportunity to then do it we don't look at people as that are inspirations and you know these these waymakers and these people that carve these paths for people they were not like accepted by the norm and i had to realize very early on in life because i was born with a hip disease and i walked with a limp my whole childhood and i got mocked and i got laughed at and i would walk as straight as i could as perfect as i could and it hurt so bad to walk that way but i just wanted to fit in because we look at everybody else and what everybody else is doing and they're successful so it's like that has to be the past yeah that's what i should be doing now that person's the same age as me that person's the same job title as me that person's the same and and i i want i i tell this to people you know early in career i tell it to anybody i can experience you need to look at experience as if it was a slide rule okay you're not going to catch like i i've been i've been in it for so you know chuck tomasi has been an i.t for 40 years right i'm not gonna i'm not gonna catch up to him like there i can't there's i can't put more time in than than he's already got right so the best thing you can do is realize that it's like hey don't don't compare yourself to that person right because their journey is completely different than yours right and it's it's that comparison that that really kind of throws that impostor syndrome into overdrive right where you start looking at it like look at all the things they're doing right look at all the look at all that yeah it just it it turns you into a different it turns your thought patterns in in the wrong direction right so and it will lead you it will also keep you away from reaching out to those people because again you feel like why would they even even ever talk to me yeah and i know what that's like coming into the industry with no i.t experience and looking at a lot of y'all i mean you are one of them and saying in the very beginning like oh my god these people are so smart and if i tell them anything i could even open my mouth i have a southern accent i was a cattle ranch manager in 2018. it's now 2019. why would anybody give me the time of day and it kept me for a couple months from doing analysis paralysis i was completely paralyzed right right and then i found garyvee we've talked about garyvee a little bit and he said everybody thinks like with creating content especially that you have to be the expert but what people actually want to hear is your your unique perspective on things exactly yeah and that's i mean that's and and and so what i want let's let's transition right into the next point who gets imposter syndrome it's everybody everybody the person you're looking at like you know uh chuck tomasi with 40 years i'm sure he gets imposter syndrome right like everyone gets it every single person will get it you will get it i will get it and if you're not getting it there that's a bigger problem right like you have you've got if you're not feeling imposter syndrome at some point in your career you're you may need to go get like a you're comfortable what you are is you're comfortable and you're not and pasta syndrome a lot of times it's just growing pains like when you're a kid in your legs hurting you're like mom dad why do my legs hurt and they're like you're growing pains it doesn't make it feel better but it's the honest truth you're just growing and it's one comfort zone pulling away from another comfort zone and you're just like in the middle like where's my identity it's like an identity crisis almost right right and it's okay i mean if you're if you're if you're sitting at your job and you feel comfortable with what you're doing and you're happy with what you're putting out that's awesome you know but you know you're not going to grow you're not going to to to move ahead if you're not pushed out of some of that comfort zone right so if you're not feeling impostor syndrome i i honestly think that you're you're kind of you're a bit stagnant in your career because you you need to you need to be feeling uncomfortable right you need to feel uncomfortable that's the way this works that's the way we get better that's the way we learn new things we go and ask people like joseph to your point right you looked at me and said oh my gosh like look at all the stuff that he's doing and it's so great right like we we learn from each other we you you wrote a bunch of copy today sharing the stream that i thought was brilliant right like i'm like that's great he's got a totally different perspective you you do a lot on tick tock i don't know tik tok like it's it's it's all sorts of things where you as an individual you're going to compare yourself to someone else and go look how successful they are and it's like reframe that right it's look how much i could learn from this person right i could you know i i could definitely cozy up to this person and and and make an impact or you know learn something i mean for crying out loud learn something um it's it's it's scary i mean it's really scary to kind of uh recognize that everyone around you has no idea what they're doing right i mean not you know not being a little over dramatic but everybody gets that imposter syndrome it doesn't matter who you are right you're going to get it and and and it's it's it's just a fact of of doing business in something that takes skill that's all it is it's also has a lot to do with living in a society that puts metrics on success and unless you meet them you're not successful and we're taught that as from from a child of you have to follow a certain path and that's the path of success yeah and again i learned early on that the path that i was going to take if it was going to be successful it wasn't going to be the normal path because normal don't work for me i mean i lost both of my parents before 20 i didn't have a support system i joined the military um battling you know at that point i think about seven years of mental illness like i knew the traditional path wasn't going to work sure but i knew i could learn from people along the way and take what they did and then apply it to the things how i can works best for me and again if you if you let pasta syndrome paralyze you you miss out on so much opportunity to not only serve but to learn from a community and be a part of a community you shut yourself out because you're like they can't know about it they can't know about it you know if they know about it they're going to judge and get listen i've lived in that hell for 13 years i battled mental illness and and for 13 years until i was 26 and i'll never get that time back but i have a lot of lessons from it and that's why a lot of my content is about mental health um because it was almost it was half my life when i when i first started creating content i was 26 years old sure and half of my life i had battled it the rest of it was my childhood so your imposter syndrome and the fear of judgment which is really i think what it comes down to a lot of times right well then couple itself with perfectionism exactly which is if i'm perfect nobody will judge me well guess what nobody is and if you try to be perfect the people that really do care are going to get pushed away anyway because they're like this person isn't authentic right right you know and that's the thing for me is i might not be the most technical person but i try to be the most authentic person i can be because people can learn from my mistakes exactly they can learn from my successes and they can only do that if i humble myself enough to say listen there's things i don't know but i'm gonna give it my best shot every single day and i'm gonna learn along the way because that's what we're all doing anyway yeah and you know here's a there's a there's a here's a actual concrete example of this that happened just this week that i i just like kind of connected all the dots as you were talking about that on last this week uh chuck tomasi had posted a little um there was a it was a little uh audiogram i want to call it right it was a little little it was a little video that played in linkedin and it looked beautiful right and he and um he had you know there was captions burned in and there was all sorts of stuff and i like i reshared it because i went this is this is beautiful content it was built you know earl duque did a lot of it i think too right in the back end and making everything like work and and get it out there and i'm like you know the two of you put this together really really well and i really really respect that and i'm like wow look at all the things that i learned from this i'm like don't don't hold on to that right like don't hold on like share that like share so i reshared it and then i was talking to chuck about it and he was like oh yeah i'm so glad that you shared that right it's it's don't be afraid like if you're learning something from someone tell them that like tell them that like like it it helps you try to you know not mimic the person but like learn from their mistakes as you had said right like yeah like understanding what they're doing is going to help you kind of fight that imposter syndrome just a little bit because you're like hey in like that 10 way like you know i digested something i learned something and then i i made my content just a little bit better right like it helps reduce the imposter syndrome to keep pushing and pushing and pushing and trying and trying new and new and new and iterating a lot yeah and the big thing that i've i mean again for me the most confident thing that i have any i mean anything in is the career advisory because i haven't done it for five years and i've done it so much but the the craziest thing to me is you know we'll i'll sit down with someone and they'll tell me about imposter syndrome and i said well you you literally processed it in order to get on the phone with me and they're like well talking to you is just different than talking to other people sure and the thing that i the thing that i always try to tell people is this is like none of us are taught any of those things like even in i didn't go to college i know colleges they talk about resumes and things but guess what nobody is sitting in a professor is telling you this is how you write a servicenow resume when i wanted to know how to write a servicenow one i didn't sit down and say i know how to write them because i know how to write other ones i went to robert for doric right and then robert walked through it he said you need to change this part this part's you need to change this part and i wasn't like oh no i know it because i've been doing it no i said that that's robert fedork yeah he's been here he's doing it and that's the most important thing to realize about asking for help is and having people there that support you that have been doing it as i can we can speed it up for you instead of you hitting your head against walls over and over and over again we can literally point you and say hey that door right there is the one you want to go through because i've tried all the other ones and a lot of other people have and you're more than welcome to but just understand that like we're here to try to help you like not have to go through as much struggle as we went through that's the whole purpose of it and that ties it all back the nature of imposter syndrome right the actual nature of it is going to make you feel alone it's going to make you feel like you're by yourself nobody cares this is a stupid idea i shouldn't be doing this it it's it's not true you're not alone everyone's doing the same thing everyone has the same problems everyone not in the same problems but everyone feels you know that same imposter like like this isn't good enough you're not doing good enough or you know there's and we'll get into this there's a couple of different types i think of imposter syndrome imposters right like that you can you can actually identify with right like we'll break it down i found a really awesome uh time time article um let's just do it right now so let's get into it so i found this time article um it's called yes imposter syndrome is real and here's how to deal with it i really like it if you're watching this later in video on demand it'll be down there in the links go check it out for sure it's a good article please um so uh there's five types that that this article describes okay and we'll go through each one and you tell me if you agree with like the kind of the the grouping on this okay um the first one is perfectionist so perfectionists set extremely high standards for themselves and even if they make like 99 of it if they got just just up to almost there and they don't quite get it they're a failure it's done like oh no one loves me it's it's terrible like like i failed at this toll like i i do this every once in a while right where it's like it's not like i just didn't get it to look as good as i could have and like i failed at everything second one okay experts ex so this is this is the other one that i'm this i i'm this at work all the time all the time they need to know every piece of information before they'll speak before they open their mouth they need to know exactly what they need to do you know word for word step by step it needs to be a very calculated and um you know i would say deliberate approach right you have to know because if you say the wrong thing you're dumb right and you shouldn't you shouldn't have been in the meeting anyway so why are you there right and it it that one that one gets me quite a bit quite a bit right me too me too um natural genius so this is the person that says i have to struggle i have to get through this i i'm not as good as everybody else because it just seems to come to me right so i have to really you know hit the books hard i've got you know study twice as hard i've got to push twice as hard um this is that person that really is hey you're you're being way too hard on yourself right because you think that you need to compensate for something because you you're just kind of it's clicking for you and it makes you kind of second guess yourself that was me and that's been me and that's probably my biggest biggest thing that i have to work on and i continually work on and i'm in therapy on because it'll probably be something i always face because i took the non-traditional path exactly well and and and and beyond that right like it's it's a um you know when you take when you take a path less traveled when you when you decide hey i'm going to try something just a little bit different than what everybody else is doing right and and you're out there kind of putting it out like for you tik tok right like you're doing a lot of tick tock videos i'm like i don't i'm i don't do i don't see a lot of other people doing tik tok like it might you might go well why like why maybe i'm do like maybe nobody else is doing this for a reason right like i'm but you know you're out there putting it out there get it like because because you know it's that that old sales saying right like you know some guy comes in you know flies into the like some place i don't remember where it was and and nobody's like wearing shoes and he says you know get me out of here nobody wears shoes and the other guy comes in and goes it's an untapped market right like it's the same kind of feeling right i'm alone nobody else is doing it i shouldn't be doing this because somebody else has tried and failed and i'm not as good as them yeah and the thing to think about this is too is you think about fred luddy when he made his service now do you think he was like oh everybody's doing that so i'm going to do it no he said there's a need i'm going to feel the need yeah i look what it's become and be because one guy you don't think that you don't think fred luddy faced imposter syndrome of course of course yeah you know what i mean yeah like he's a billionaire now he doesn't i mean he can pay not to have impostor syndrome but you know it's it's it's man it just i i've been out there pushing pushing pushing like at one point i was working for a startup we were trying to get it funded you know et cetera et cetera like it was it was that idea of like well if nobody else is doing this right like you can either capitalize on it or you can just give up right and that's those are the two things and it's like you've got to get that soloist mentality out of your head of like no no there's a reason like you might just be the guy forging the path right you might be the fred luddy that's just founding the you know defining enterprise software company of the 21st century like i don't know um okay the last one and then we can just kind of talk about these ones are super people so super people look at everybody else around them and they say i need to be working twice as hard as that person right like put the rubber to the road like i've got i've got to be putting it in to the point of like blood sweat and tears like they'd run themselves ragged because they think that everybody else on the team is doing more than them you know getting more done contributing more and they don't want to let the team down right so they're going to be that superhero kind of mentality of of making sure everybody um you know is supported which i don't know i don't know that i've ever felt that one i've always felt like i could rely on my teams so that's an interesting one do you so those five ones are i i i think you and i probably look at the expert right and it's like we've got to be an expert before we open our mouths i i i blame that on my consulting upbringing right because you know we talked about this on a stream previous you know when you speak client right you've got to speak client like i would you know we don't talk in yeah i can get that done in like three weeks right like you don't say that to a client right so you know i wouldn't want to answer questions because i am an expert like i don't want to say the answers because even if i think they're the right answers it's like i don't want to commit to it i don't want to make sure you know how many times you've been in you know some some session somewhere where someone goes you know well how long do you think that'll take it's like oh i don't know about you know maybe a sprint or two and then all of a sudden like it comes down and it's like this will take two sprints and it's like whoa whoa whoa that's not what i meant right so i have this i have this fear of like opening my mouth over committing not having all the information i i have worked in consulting i mean the whole time that i've been in servicenow so i don't know the other side so all of that is 100 true um and as a consultant at the imposter syndrome is something again that you i have to face every day i now look at myself as a consultant because of what not because of what i do as a consultant but because of what it means to me and it's just solving problems for people right right but if you let that imposter syndrome get in your way you're not going to be a good consultant and now there's there's times don't get me wrong there's plenty of times where the joseph me that's a consultant and the joseph me that talks about mental health all the time they have to separate because i can't i ha again i'm speaking client here you know what i mean i'm speaking in a different way because that's what the need is um you know but again when it comes to like being an expert and and needing to be better than everybody else just just think about it this way i i came into the industry and the only thing the only piece of content that i was type of content i was putting out was mental health like i wasn't talking about all the servicenow work i was doing i just had found my niche and it was just helping people and i was like well i mean people you know it works and by that time i mean we i had the veterans roundtable and we were working with people all over the world but i was still on food stamps i was still homeless and servicenow gave me the opportunity and i came into it not knowing anything about it so i'm like i can't talk about any of this because i don't even know like what a business rule is anyone to use it so i just kept talking about what i've always you know what what what my niche was and i think everybody has one i think a lot of people are just afraid to be their transparent selves and all of those things come into play on why people are afraid to live their truth whatever it may be no i mean i mean like again with robert i mean he robert fedoric he talks about making soap i think that's cool you know i sometimes talk in my content about fly fishing because it's a passion of mine like all your content all the stuff that you put out into the world it doesn't have to all just be about what you do for work like you are a human with other passions and sure problems and things that you're going through like if people are really care about you and they really want to be a part of your network and part of your community they want to know those things and everybody else guess what they don't matter yeah everybody else i think that's a it's a great way to kind of um you know circle that back to you know if if you do have a hobby of this so let's let's start talking about you know dealing with this stuff like how do we start dealing with this stuff um you know if you do have a hobby right it's it's tying that that feeling of success right potentially something that you're doing somewhere else right and going like look you're not you're not a failure right like you have the ability to to do this stuff right you can do this you can you can do you know i don't know what it is right like whatever your hobby is right it you can do that if you can do that you can do your job it's this isn't hard like it's not this is really not hard stuff we're not really you know doing anything that's crazy here um it it's it's just you know you've got to really try to try to tie your success together right try try to try to put those two things together and say you know if i can do this i know i can do that right it's yeah you know putting those two things together i think is important and and one thing that it's kind of a veteran thing but i'll say to myself and i'll say to other people and i've said in a couple meetings before like internally with dev teams you know everybody's a little flustered about everything going on and i say hey listen guys nobody's shooting at us yeah and that what that does is i mean as a vet i mean that brings us back to zero like we're not getting shot at right now it could be a lot worse and again i mean i think the biggest thing is to address your fear what is your fear what's the worst thing that could happen and let me tell you again i've experienced a lot of the worst things that could happen like being homeless it sucks but guess what it's not your final destination right and there's a lot of things that you learn in the process that will ensure that you're never homeless um you know what's it like to lose a job i've lost jobs what's it like to be unemployed i know what that's like and none of it it's so much more scary in your head than it is when you're actually living it because you're like i'm not gonna stay here like this sucks too bad like i'm yeah i'm gonna be successful and i'm like i said i made a promise to my wife in 2018 when we were homeless we would never be homeless again yeah and guess what every day that i wake up i remember that promise so i'll never be that again so if your worst fear comes and it actually happens like then you just address it you adapt it you overcome that's as humans that's what we do but a lot of times our fears just come so much because we're so good at creating these false realities like i'm a over analyzer i can before i sit down and talk to somebody i can analyze everything that they could potentially say my goal is to think about every possible scenario and i'm like a lot of times i'm like why do i why do i even do that like i make it so much more heavy than it needs to be yeah well you you get you get yourself you get into your own thoughts right and i think that's that's the big thing is if you're gonna overcome imposter syndrome right if you're gonna overcome this this like thought process you have to acknowledge that they're there right you have to it's it's the same thing of you know really understanding i i think you know anxiety and depression i i too have i i go to the doctor i take meds i have anxiety and depression i have the whole thing right it's it's the same thing you have to realize oh man this is this isn't a problem that like i i'm doing to myself right it's something that's just happening it's a thought process and you've got to get yourself out of it and once you get yourself out of it you can find help and start asking for help i think that's the go ahead i i shared a post about that specific thing about how to process it in the moment and it was actually happened to me in the moment and it was probably it wasn't really something i wanted to share because i thought people would be like oh he's making it up but in the moment i made i took a tick tock video in the moment while i was having an anxiety attack and i'm like we're going to go through this together and i walked through the process that i was taught in therapy again i will always go back to therapy and the things i've watched [Music] created a framework for myself and the first part of what you just said it's actualized you have to actually actually stop for a moment and say what is this what's happening and then eliminate eliminate as much as you can of the extra weight you're putting on yourself you have to plan okay what am i going to do now and then i have to prioritize it like if it's something that's coming up all the time then i need to have i need to start implementing self-care and then i just need to execute that's the framework a-e-p-p-e and i've i've taught it to a lot of people and i promise you right now i would not be here without it because there has been so many times and it's nothing like it used to be now it might be like once a week sure there was a time in my life where it was every waking moment and when i laid my head down at night there were night terrors i i literally would wake up sweating and i didn't sleep for days on end because it had just become so debilitating and overwhelming and that's why i'm so passionate about talking about it because i don't want anyone to live to live yeah don't like it's the worst thing but if you don't actualize it and you don't address it and you think it's oh this is me like i'm depression or i'm anxiety no you're feeling depressed and you're feeling anxious and you're feeling like an imposter that will pass but if you take it on as an identity that's that's that's hard to break well and it's it's a self-fulfilling prophecy too right if you say if you say i'm not good enough for this and i'm not gonna do this and i'm like if you put that impostor syndrome or you know you put that you put that thought process into your head you're gonna make it happen right and a lot of times and i mean i mean if you you know if you come at a problem with this negativity of like hey this is going to go badly for me or this is not going to turn out the way that i want it to right immediately it's going to start happening it's because you're going to first of all you're just going to see it that way so i think you know you've got to reframe that thought of like you know it they're not smarter than me they're not you know they didn't do anything different than i did right like if you're comparing yourself to somebody else right it's it's it's it's a new skill that you have to build right they if you look at someone you go they don't have imposter syndrome first of all they did or they did they do and they're just not you know outwardly showing it which is great um but if if you look at someone and say you know that person's awesome and they're doing this great job right it's just a new skill that you have to give to yourself they didn't they learned and they learned a skill just like you can learn a skill it's not a um you know it's not an unknowable thing and it's not something that you have to continue on with your entire you know career you can look at someone and say hey they're they're doing great right now and sometimes like they got to take a back seat right and just like let off the gas and that's totally fine you can you can do that with imposter syndrome right give yourself time to heal give yourself to you know time to get over that feeling understand where that feeling is coming from right like that's a that's a huge thing and and learn to think learn to think like a non-imposter right learn to think like that person that isn't they're not going to you know they're not going to let that thought permeate they're not going to let that anxiety you know push through or make them feel any worse than they already do right and the crazy thing to remember too is imposters don't feel imposter syndrome no like the people that out there scamming people aren't like i'm an imposter and i love it right it's a whole different mindset the fact that you feel like an imposter is something that people that are actually imposters they don't feel that yeah it's it i won't i don't want to say it's a measure of your success because that's a bad i don't want to say that yeah if you're successful you should feel really bad about yourself right no that's not what i'm trying to say it's it's a it's an indication that you you you have the emotional intelligence to understand and read the room right and if if you were sitting in the room and you think everyone else around you is smarter that's the that's the best room that's the best room to be in yeah if you look around and if you're not if you're walk if you're in a room and you're the smartest person in there and that happens consistently you're walking into the wrong rooms walk out man yep i had i had a mentor that said if you're the smartest person in the room walk out because you do not need to be there and it just it's like it's that same feeling right of if you if you look around and you go hey these are i respect these people's opinions i think that they're you know they're they're saying the right things like like that's all the feelings that you're gonna get and that's it should make you feel like they know what they're doing but that's it that's where it stops it shouldn't be they know what they're doing and i don't that's not it there's a reason you're in that room right no one just gets drugged into a meeting because it's so funny right like like no one no one goes to these zoo meetings because they're having fun like it's it's honestly it's it's about really understanding that you can do this you can and there's a reason that you are where you are you got the job because you made the criteria no one said well they're really really under qualified and there's no way they can do this job let's hire them anyway right yeah exactly that's not that's not how it works it's not if the at the very least this is what they say this person person is worth the investment because when it comes down to this is business and especially in corporate if they're hiring you they're saying this person is worth my investment of time and money congratulations you've got the one shot the one opportunity don't take it as this huge weight that you have to carry around like i did when i first came in and i had an architect tell me and her name was rebecca whitney she deserves all the praise in the world and she told me she said joseph you are so much harder than anybody else is on you you are you period and you know what she started doing every meeting she made me run it yeah and she's like you're going to keep going and you're going to keep doing it and every fear that you have we're going to put you in a situation to prove that you can prove to yourself that it's not it's not as scary as it is and she's like joseph you are a natural people person like i hate talking to people and i'm like i was like becky like you're you're incredible with customers she's like yeah and i have to prepare for like 30 minutes every day you can just go in and do it like right you don't understand that for me this is difficult and i've learned this over years and years and years to you it comes natural and she's like i can f i can feel imposter syndrome on when it comes to you because it comes so natural but instead we work with each other and everybody has their unique skills and their unique abilities and that's why variety is so important that's why diversity is so important that's why representation is so important because if we all look the same and all sound the same and all do the same thing that we live in a boring world and i don't want to be a part of it i really don't that's that's a great point right like if if you are in a situation where you look around and you go everyone looks and sounds and talks and and thinks completely differently than i do like wow i must be an idiot it's like no you're there because they value your opinion they like the way you talk about something or you have you have some inner inner knowledge that they need to get to and that it's valuable for you to be there it isn't a measure of well everyone talks and looks and feels differently than you and you're a failure it's like no that's the perfect situation right you're there to prove that you know exactly what it is because you've already proven that and that's why you got an invitation to the meeting so it's you know it it it sounds scary because you go well i'm you know like i've got to put to your point right like i'm going to go run this meeting it's like that's how you're going to get over a lot of this stuff take on some responsibilities do something a little differently than what you're doing in your day-to-day job and write it down write it down before you do it write down your accomplishments 100 percent because you won't remember you'll look back on it and go like yeah look how i'm still like i'm still failing at all this stuff and i'm doing so bad it's like dude six months ago you weren't even leading this meeting you didn't even have you know this accolade you didn't have this on your goal sheet or whatever it is right like there's so many things that you can do um you know and talk to your manager talk to your mentor talk to somebody that could come up and and give you a different you know insight like and and and kind of you know maybe even like i i don't i hate saying slap slap some sense into you right but if like like no like don't don't go don't worry about that thought like get that thought out of your head right and and honestly if you're if you're struggling to find these people first of all there's a great resource out there it's called the servicenow developer mentorship program go sign up i'll put the link down below right like go sign up and get yourself a mentor right go go reach out to any community every single community that you're a part of is gonna have a mentorship program or at least someone that wants to mentor because let me tell you what mentorship does it makes you feel less like an imposter right so there's people that want to do it because they feel less like an imposter and there's people that need to have it done so it helps them feel like that's positive and and i i created now vets because i realized that there was a need in the community and that there wasn't a community within the service in our community for vets and if you have questions and you the last thing you're going to get from me is judgment because i promise you i've probably asked every question and done everything imaginable to get to where i'm at because i was not going to give up until i got here um and just again realizing that the one of the most empowered powerful things about a mentor is they're not in your reality with you so they can say listen joseph where you're at right now like pull yourself out of it for just a second and let's logic let's really stop and think about this right let's really and that's why follow-up calls are important that's why i want you to go execute on what we've talked about and then come back and tell me what happened yeah a senior developer or senior consultant one of the most powerful things that they do is they don't give you the answer right they want you to go find it tell them the process and explain what happened and why you can't figure it out and then they say well guess what you were only like one step away or this line of code has one error in it and the entire time you're like i can't take this to the senior deaf because it's not working he's gonna think i'm an idiot and he's like no man listen like you've only been doing this for a certain period of time i don't expect you to know that well and and that i i think that like i i don't know like there's probably someone in your life at some point right where you could see where they they gave you a task that was way outside of your wheelhouse right where you're supposed to have imposter syndrome like i have no idea what i'm doing right and the idea is to come to a a stopping point right where you're like i don't know what to do with this next and then you take that and you bring that up to that person and they say oh here's what you need to do then they send you off on your little way right and you go and do so until you screw it up again or you do whatever and then they come back you come back you need those people right you need to find that safe person that can come through you know and and make sure that you you know hit the goals don't have too much imposter syndrome like make sure that you're not feeling like and there's a difference right there's a difference between you know having imposter syndrome and and actually failing right like that kind of a person is going to tell you what the difference is like hey yeah you did really mess up in that meeting here's how to fix it right that's that's the the mentorship kind of you know solution to this problem i've got one more solution to this problem right which is just hitting the books i mean you know it's the worst solution i in my opinion don't go and do this to solve your imposter syndrome because like we you know you get you get you become a perfectionist you become a perfectionist right you can be an expert and you become the soloist right where you're just like i'm all or the natural genius like it can be any of those right where it it it fits into this like box right don't do that like don't don't don't use this as an excuse to go and study your ass off and like try to get every question right on the test that's not what i'm saying i'm saying if you recognize hey i'm in a meeting and i didn't know any of the you know i don't know what grc stands for go do the research right like go find out what that is understand i used to go to meetings and i would keep a lexicon i know that sounds really weird but i would literally just write words down and then go later like define them right vocabulary i still do it i still do it because i throw myself into situations to where i know i don't know everything and i listen to what people are saying i used to do this with your stuff all the time mark you would be talking about something and i'm like i have what is in i'm literally writing out sentences and then i would type into google what is this what is flow designer what is like literally like the most fundamental things you could think of people would have conversations about or i would watch a live and i'm taking notes the entire time researching everything right right yeah everything i i mean look uh here's the other thing that i'll tell you uh especially with the imposter syndrome when i was a consultant this is it's it's a bad practice it's a bad habit you can't keep doing it but i would hide behind my notes right like i'd sit in a meeting and i would take notes i'd take diligent very detailed notes one for me two for the other people in the meeting where i'd be like oh hey i also took notes right but three it kept the hot seat off of me right if i'm the one sitting there like with my tab you know and then writing and like they didn't really kind of pass the hot seat to me all the time you can you can still learn you can still be good like you know it if you need to hide behind your notes that's fine i like to hide behind this microphone oh man i just realized oh no that's not good yeah there this stream is in no way uh sponsored by servicenow just by the way um but yeah uh it's uh it's one of those things where you know you can you can research your way out of it you can note take your way out of it right it's you know if you can get really organized i feel like when i when i have this imposter syndrome sometimes where i feel like i'm not doing enough i go get organized i organize my notes i organize my meetings i organize my calendar it's like just go get organized you know chalk check off a few things off of your checklist the easy things right get get a little serotonin boost by like checking oh yeah i did finish that oh yeah i did finish that right and then that's why it's important to have like i said a framework right right and again one of the biggest things i say to people because i want to caveat everything with this and there's somebody out there that says but joseph mark you don't you don't understand there there's a wound in me where the apostle syndrome came from somebody that said something to me one time and i still live with it um a notebook was one of the most pivotal things in my life where i could write down things and i never i never in a million years imagined that that notebook would become what it's become because a lot of my content comes from me reading things that i wrote in therapy and on this side of it now where i can talk about both sides yeah but in the moment that notebook was a way for me to process but again kind of inventory myself every day and say this is the things that i dealt with okay what process that i handle but a lot of times in the moment your brain kind of feels foggy when you're like i i'm not my normal self in this moment right but it when as soon as it starts to happen that's why like i've recorded that video out about talking about finding your breath more than anything let yourself calm back down a little bit yeah and and realize what's happening and more than anything this is i think one of the most important things i can say in this whole thing is if there's something where the imposter syndrome comes and it feels really really heavy and you feel like you can't process it the best thing that you can do is again go find the help and there's nothing wrong with realizing that listen it goes right back to what we're talking about and servicenow dev right i don't know i know i'm not an expert on every aspect of the platform if i need help i ask for it but what's crazy about it is we're much more likely to ask for help in the sn dev slack channel than we are to go find a trained therapist or that can help us work on the things that are setting us back right yeah and it's like a check engine light so you have a check engine light on your car it looks yellow and this is my best metaphor for it when you're driving down the road nothing turns on you're not like oh it's no big deal you're like oh my god something's wrong i need to take it to a mechanic you don't go take it to the guy that makes subs down the street you take it to a mechanic yeah when things are happening in your mind and they're continually happening over and over again that's the check engine light in your head telling you there's something wrong right you need to go get it looked at and there's nothing wrong with it no no i mean nothing imposter syndrome again will make you feel like you can't because you're like what if they find out i'm you know what if what if my job finds out what if so-and-so finds out whatever listen the best investment you can ever make is in yourself right and again because your dreams aren't for you and the things that you accomplish in your life if they are actually meaningful they impact a lot of people and the fact that imposter syndrome are all these different feelings and emotions and and things that you're battling are keeping you stagnant and sitting still is limiting your impact and all of us have the ability to impact people we really truly do and sometimes it comes down to us simply just talking about things that we're going through or talking about the fact that hey guess what listen guys i'm not an expert on this but i would love to learn from you and if you look at anybody this is a perfect example if you look at a lot of the students going through my tech best friend tiffany harper if you're on here i can't see the comments she's done an incredible job about saying listen coming to you to ask you advice this is what i'm working on and she posts content every single day and there's a couple in my tech best friend and they're just talking about what they're learning they're not trying to claim to be an expert but look at all the people that are in their comments look at the big names and servicenow saying please more more more content like this right that's everything that you need to know about imposter syndrome which is you don't have to be an expert no not at all not at all no one's and and and the the nobody is really in truth tiffany's here tiffany's here the price to pay like here's the thing the the price to play is free right so first of all anybody that thinks that they're an imposter on social media like look this this stream gives me imposter syndrome right like i i you know i look at chuck i look at earl i look at everybody else you know the the the live coding happy hour the all sorts of stuff right i'm like they're doing it's so good like what they're doing is so good like i i'll never be as good as what they're doing right and and and so you just have to get it out there right and and for me it was just just do it just do it just do it just do it and my mentee ebony um she she was like you gotta get you know she's so awesome she's so awesome isn't she awesome um you know it's and and you never know you know if if you're having trouble if you think that it's awkward to talk about you probably need to be talking about it like even amen oh my god amen so i i want to do a full stream on um you know just anxiety depression i.t like you know the whole thing right because it is something that we need to talk about and there's no reason that we're not talking about it right but you know let's let's pull it back to imposter syndrome just a little bit here right like i think it's it's you know i want to make a distinction here that people understand when we talk about imposter syndrome there's a difference between you know feeling you know being in a meeting and feeling outgunned or or feeling you know that you don't belong there or feeling that maybe someone's going to come and like pull you out and then there's a difference between having anxiety that is consistent right that you're having all day that you know that's a different feeling and i want to make i want to make it painfully clear that it can feel very similar and i i want people to understand that you know it could be one or the other it could be both it could you know you know you may have an underlying thing that's causing this feeling um i i for the longest time thought you know like i was telling you like i i thought i was like at any point i thought i was gonna get tapped on the shoulder and told hey man like you're done yeah you gotta get cold out here you know i don't know why i don't know where it came from right i had no idea like no clue and so like i and i swear i swear i started taking anxiety and depression meds because i stopped sleeping right like i said like all sorts of weird stuff that happens when you know your mental health isn't quite where it is my imposter syndrome comes down like you know 45 right where it's like it's totally manageable right so don't ignore these things like these these could potentially be something that that is alerting you to either a bigger problem that you may have or better yet right you know it's it's it's a motivating factor to get you to reach out to someone that you might not normally reach out to like and and i i will put it out there right now like dm me my my my messages are open you can hit me up on linkedin twitter wherever you know youtube if you want to leave a comment i don't know how i'll chat with you but we'll figure it out right like and you know just be open you know i'm open i'm open to people you know talking to me if you if you want to talk about imposter syndrome let's do it because if we're not talking about it right it's we're giving we're giving credence to that stigma and i don't want to giving the power to it yeah and it it wants us to keep quiet it really and truly does because it's the only way it's going to stick around right is if you if you recede into your own thoughts and you just let it happen you're just going to be it's it's so oh it's so terrible it's so terrible i mean there were like i mean there were points where like i had to meet with my manager like more than twice you know more than you know two times in in you know a month or so right like like it was like i have to have more feedback i have to have this like there's a lot of contributing factors so don't don't ignore it there's there's reasons that you're feeling this don't let it overcome you but at the same time listen to it like understand what it is switch your train of thought and and push through it because you can do it i know you can and an important thing i think to to understand too is if you can't in the moment like stop and think about what is this like you know that is a that is almost kind of to a signal that hey it's okay it's like it's time to go get help um that's when i started to realize it took me a lot of time to realize like i'm actually fighting like ptsd i'm actually fighting anxiety i'm actually fighting i never wanted to put a name to it because there's a stigma behind oh yeah absolutely you know what i mean especially in the military and this is when i was in therapy in the military like if you say hey guess what i'm battling mental illness when i was in it was basically like okay you're basically saying your military career is over right right that's that's what it was and that's the original reason why i started talking about it after i got out is because i was trying to break that stigma right um and and it's just again i think one of the most important things is again imposter syndrome is a symptom of something something underlying yeah and it can be something that you can handle on your own and there's something it can't and there's immense power in saying i'm willing to say that this is a little bit like i'm not trained in this yeah this isn't there's a there's a saying in psychology that no one goes to be a psychologist like they go there to try to figure themselves out that's what that's the whole thing you know and you're not an expert in everything you're not supposed to be and nobody teaches us i mean you don't sit through a class in any time that i was ever in a classroom where they were like today we're going to learn about mental health and emotional and emotional like health awareness we're not going to talk about any of it none of it so i mean honestly how much exposure do we really have on understanding how our behaviors affect us how our thoughts affect us we don't unless somebody says listen you've been through a lot let me teach you how to process it because there are ways to process right and then you're like oh my god i've been driving around for 13 years with a check engine light going off and my car is literally dying on the side of the road and all i i didn't know the entire time that i could have done something about it it's it's freedom well like imposter syndrome and the most important thing to think at it it doesn't have to be a part of your life right right it doesn't have to you don't have to live in it when it comes you need this you can process it and let it go about its business you know imposter syndrome doesn't make you more successful it doesn't make you happier it's not for you it's something that's coming and it's just a it's just a reminder that there's still work to be done internally and there's nothing wrong with that and that's your human you're you're imperfect you're not a perfect being so they're going to be things that come that make you feel doubtful and things like that that's all natural that's the human exactly yep yeah and and everyone's feeling it don't you know don't don't if you if you feel impostor syndrome about your job right if you feel imposterous i don't know you know it could be the knitting circle it could be any any any number of things right like it you know it could be your your you know putting out you know redwood js stuff like jace does and it's a redwood js meetup right like if you feel impostor syndrome enough that you think that you shouldn't be at that whatever it is like realize that you probably shouldn't be like trying to tackle it on your own either right like if you're not qualified to do that you sir you sure as hell aren't qualified to tackle all this like psychological imposter syndrome stuff it's like so go find somebody like go go reach out to someone like like you know make that connection and and and try try as hard as you can right to break that cycle and and pulling someone in is definitely i think it's going to be a really is you know reframing your thoughts pulling someone in and and potentially just you know hitting the books trying trying to do it a little harder if you can yeah and and and and be be willing to use your network i mean yeah like the the thing that kills me is i've had a couple people tell me over the years man you're a self-made man and i'm like listen you have that completely wrong completely because i wouldn't even i literally would not be sitting here talking to you if it wasn't for my network if it wasn't for the therapist that changed my life if it wasn't for the people that said listen you're capable of so much right like the network all of the people and the larger your network i mean the better but you can't have that network if you're afraid to admit to yourself that you need a network like but people convince us that we're supposed to like you said solo we're supposed to do it all by ourselves i'm a self-made listen you can be self-made i mean if if that's what you really think you are i think those are impostors when somebody says i'm self-made i think that is the imposter yeah because they're lying to themselves if you i mean well i just don't understand yeah i just don't understand how you can be like self-self-made you might have done a lot by yourself and i completely understand that because i mean there were times where my family my friends i like i there was a time where i didn't talk to any of them because i was having to process all of this stuff and i needed to just be on my own for a little bit and that's when i made the most improvements in my life you know when i came into service now my circle was very very very very very small because what i was going into i needed people that spoke that language right right and nobody where i come from has i'm like yeah i'm a technical consultant or i'm a developer and people like i grew up on a farm right nobody has any idea and it's nothing to say against them they're experts in farming i still love farming but again you need to put yourself in new rooms sometimes i mean yeah yeah you talk about farming right you can be a farmer and have imposter syndrome right there is a lot to farming like you can lose there's a lot you know like in entire years where the crops could just die right it's like oh my gosh like that's you want to talk about imposter syndrome like you could hit the wrong button on you know when the database goes down or whatever it's like this guy could like you know incorrectly fertilize his crops and kill an entire year's worth of work right like that there's it doesn't matter who you are what you're doing you can get this kind of a feeling you can you can feel um inadequate in anything that you're doing embrace it understand that it's part of the process and move past that idea it's growing don't let it stop you from hitting you know publish on that post you know send on that email or or or you know anything like let it you know do do what you're going to do don't let that voice inhibit you know your your forward growth so yeah and remember you're not getting shot at yeah you're not getting shot at like that's my favorite it could be a lot worse but you brought it because i would like i said i was 22 years old on a flight line with planes flying and i had a senior nco tell me hey leslie every person on this flight line their lives are in your hands and when you sign this people piece of paper to say that plane can go fly if somebody if something happens to them that's on you and you want to talk about imposter syndrome i'm like i'm not ready for this and in the military they don't ask you if you're ready right it's the time it's time it's time right now today's the time these people need you the people to your left and to your right they need you so whatever you've got going on it's time to figure it out and work through it you know and i will never forget that and i still look at things that way if i'm on a team the person to my left and to my right we listen if hell's coming we're going through it together we're going together and i look at the same thing with a network if somebody reaches out to me for help yep i'm now emote like i'm now invested yeah they took the initiative you're you're going to pay them back yeah yeah i'm invested yeah yep so yep all right well hey joseph thank you so much this was amazing time i you know again my imposter syndrome sometimes i'm like i had a weak outline of what i wanted to do and i'm like i don't know if i can talk about that like i don't know like we went through some of that like real fast i'm like oh man will it be an hour and it totally we are at 102 right now i'm like this is amazing like we totally did it like without a problem um you know hey i give you a chance uh throw throw you on the big screen here and you know pitch what you're selling tell us about you know anything that you're working on um where we can find you all that good stuff okay um the biggest thing for me right now is now vets it's a community for veterans transitioning service members and veteran and military spouses building the community for us within the servicenow community uh you can find me on linkedin and tick tock it's joseph louden um pretty much anywhere you can be um and the biggest thing is just again this is a full circle moment for me you want to talk about imposter there was once upon a time where i looked at mark scott as somebody that i would never get the opportunity to talk to because i thought i was the dumbest person in the world and i come to find out that mark scott's probably one of the coolest guys you can meet so if that tells you anything it's what's what you think can happen i mean there's that's the the power of probability oh there's so many things that dream higher than me dream higher than me like absolutely it's the thing about it is this when you come into an industry i mean it's everybody looks like you know a hall of famer right right you know and you come to realize these are all people you know so i'll sum it up with that it's just if you if you need support if you need help um if you just want to talk to somebody you know if you're saying hey you know i'm considering a couple different things and you just want to talk it out feel free to reach out to me anytime on linkedin that's where i'm the most i'm at the most of the time and then all it's like of course yeah absolutely joseph thank you again um if you're watching this on demand later after the live stream please don't forget to hit like and subscribe i'm really trying to get the youtube up and running and it helps uh you know fight the old uh youtube algorithm there so uh smash that like and subscribe button i can't believe i just said that but uh absolutely joseph thanks again um we're gonna close it out thanks everybody in chat um had a great time and uh same time next week same batch that time same bat channel um 5 30. uh pst um thank you man i appreciate it thanks everybody thank you absolutely i had a fun time thanks chase joe it was a blast thanks guys absolutely thanks chap bye everybody