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In this episode, Treehouse Teacher, James Churchill, talks to Kenneth Love about Imposter Syndrome.
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Welcome to the def team show, my name is James.
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In this episode we're going to be talking about imposter syndrome.
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Joining me is Kenneth Love.
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Kenneth is of teacher here a treehouse
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a jangle Software Foundation board member and active member of the Python community.
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Welcome to the show, Kenneth.
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>> Thanks for having me, James.
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[SOUND] >> So
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to start off, let's start by just defining what is imposter syndrome.
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>> Sure, so imposter syndrome is this idea that you shouldn't be in the community or
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the position that you're in because you feel like you're not good enough or
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you're not accomplished enough for that position.
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But really, you have the talents and the skills and the abilities to be there, and
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so it's feeling like an impostor when you really shouldn't.
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>> Okay, so if I was learning a new technology and so
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I'm brand new to that thing >> And
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I might like have a lack of self-confidence because I'm not or
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as familiar with that as maybe I should be is that different than impostor syndrome.
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>> Yeah, I mean what makes impostor syndrome where you're actually
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feeling like an imposter is that you know the things.
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You're perfectly capable of doing it, right.
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So when you're a beginner and
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you're just learning something you're just breaking into an area.
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Even if you're an experienced developer but you're learning a new language or
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a new framework or a new tool.
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That's totally different because you're brand new to that.
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>> Right. You're expected to have some sort of
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discomfort.
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>> Yeah.
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>> And maybe unfamiliarity.
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>> Right.
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>> But in processing dramas where you know all the bits and
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pieces you know all the tools but >> But
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you still feel like you're not supposed to be there.
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>> Right, so you're not acknowledging your own success.
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>> Right. >> Or your own skills,
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the things you can actually do.
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There's a difference or
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a delta between reality and what you think you're you're capable of.
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>> Yeah, lots of times people discount their own achievements, right?
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Somebody will have built something at a hackathon or
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they'll have built something by personally falling in a tutorial and
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the feel like well I didn't really do it right.
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I had home I was a hackathon so my team helped me, or I read it's a tutorial so
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you know the person who wrote that guide helped me.
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>> So you're downplaying you know what it is that you accomplished.
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>> Exactly you're cutting yourself down right.
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And really that's obviously not good to do, right.
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You should acknowledge your own
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accomplishments, >> [LAUGH]
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>> But that also is what leaves that
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feeling of being an imposter.
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>> Okay, so what are, I mean so that sounds like a kind of a tough problem.
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So what are the effects of that,
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like on one's person, if you're suffering from an imposter syndrome?
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>> Sure, you know obviously if you're disposed to having other emotional
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problems right.
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Maybe you suffer from depression or things like that imposter syndrome could make
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that worse, but also it often leads to feelings of increased pressure to perform.
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So yeah I use that library but really I should write my own library that does
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that or I should write my own middleware or whatever.
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And that can lead to things like burnout if it goes on long enough to where you've
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never written enough stuff or
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produced enough stuff to feel like you're good enough to be where you are.
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And you just exhaust yourself.
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>> Interesting, so you actually do more than maybe what is necessary and
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you just keep pushing it and
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pushing it because you feel like you kind of have to in order to do it right.
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>> Yeah, yeah, I mean, it almost leads into like a workaholic syndrome kind of
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thing, right, or it can't.
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Depends on the person.
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Different people are going to experience this in different ways.
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>> So if I if I work on a team and
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I have imposter syndrome, what are the effects on my team?
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Lots of times that can be, they can be different things, right?
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It's gonna depend on you,
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it's gonna depend on the team, but it can definitely damage the morale of the team.
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If you have somebody who's maybe always downplaying their own abilities or
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talking down about themselves then that can lead to where the entire team.
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Either they start to feel bad because maybe, they compare themselves to that
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person and they feel like they're on the same level, but if that person is not as
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good, then maybe they're not as good as they really think they are.
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Or it can lead to things where the team is constantly having to boost that person and
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team should totally help each other out and lift each other up.
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But if the entire team is focused.
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On getting one person boosted up to the right level of confidence.
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Then that team often can't accomplish the things they need to accomplish.
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>> Interesting, or it sounds like they may not even be able to
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get the things from that person that they would need.
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>> Definitely.
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>> They might be in a meeting and they might be afraid to speak up about
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something that they actually know about or might have the perfect solution, but
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they're not going to offer that up, it sounds like.
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>> Yeah, they definitely feel like they're not able to give the input,
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to give the feedback, because well, they're not good enough for that, right?
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They're not at that level even though they really are.
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They've accomplished these things, they've used whatever they've used.
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They have the knowledge and information that they have but because they feel like
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they're not good enough, they won't necessarily share and also that
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often leads to things where lay people may not make decisions on their own.
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So sending somebody who suffers from imposter syndrome to perform a certain
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task may lead to where that task is behind or not delivered at all.
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Because they haven't convinced themselves to get their work done and
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it's not that they're a bad developer or a bad performer,
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they just need to deal with the feeling of not being good enough.
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>> Okay, gotcha.
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In the long term it seems like this would have ramifications as well
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on your career, right.
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>> Yeah, if you're feeling like you're not.
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Out for where you are, then you're not likely to seek promotions.
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You may just go along.
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If maybe somebody at the company has a grudge against you like you don't fight
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for yourself in any sorts of things like that can come up
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it could definitely damage your career.
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And often it can lead to people being in ruts
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which again can lead to the burnout thing.
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Yeah, I've spent 15 years of my life writing PHP.
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I'm getting tired of doing that.
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But you're not feeling like okay, I'm gonna have go in the library author.
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I'm gonna have go write a book or gonna have to go be a manager or whatever.
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>> Got you, so I hold you back in the long run.
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>> Definitely can.
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>> And you just won't chase down those new opportunities and stretch yourself.
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How would I know I like what's a good way for me to know whether or not, you know,
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it's just a self-confidence issue or whether it really imposter syndrome.
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>> I mean I think one of the biggest things is
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looking at what you've done looking at what you've achieved and deciding.
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You know that, acknowledging that you've done those things and
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deciding that it is good enough, right?
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>> Right. >> Like okay,
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sure you went to a hackathon, and you had a team, and you used this library but
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you made that app, right?
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You made that iPhone app or that Android app.
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>> Yup.
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>> So acknowledge that you made that.
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All those other caveats of you use this certain library or
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you follow the tutorial or you're at Had this team or
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whatever those don't matter you still did the thing you did.
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>> So since this is a perception issue and some part right?
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>> Sure. >> So it sounds like maybe one way to
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help is to have others offer their own perspective right as to
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your accomplishments and what you've been able to achieve.
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It definitely goes a long way and having friends or teammates.
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Or maybe a mentor that you can
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talk to that can give you that outside acknowledgment of what you've done.
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>> Someone you trust, I would assume.
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>> Yeah and it's not like you're wanting ribbons or or
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accolades just for doing you know your everyday things.
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>> Right. >> But it's someone who's just helping you
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to get past the lens of seeing your own achievements.
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Right, so,you see it as like well it was just the thing I did.
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Right, off and it starts off or maybe even sounds like a modesty kind of thing.
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You don't wanna brag but the point is to have somebody telling you that,
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actually it's really good what you did and it actually does mean something.
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Then you have to accept that.
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So yeah having somebody that you trust having somebody that
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ideally is in the same realm as you.
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>> So it seems that there might even be an opportunity to do some
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self assignment too.
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Like a way to make sure your tracking your progress and
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maybe that's writing things down.
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Sure.
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>> Some way to be able to look back and say I have done these things, I have
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accomplished these things and not like downgrade them or be little them, right?
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>> Yeah. Even little tools like
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having a journal that you keep that track what you've done,
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looking at your GitHub contributions graph is a great way of doing it.
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I recently came across an app.
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I can't remember the name of it right now.
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I showed it in our company slack.
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We can find it and put it in the teacher's notes.
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>> Yeah, definitely.
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>> Or in the show notes.
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It was a list of like 10,000 things about web design or
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web development, like finance.
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>> Like know it all.
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>> Yeah it was like know it all.
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And the idea was to go through the list and
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you just check off all the things that you know.
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And then by the end, the purpose of it by the end you're to left with a list of
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things you need to learn, but it also works the other way around because
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it gives you this list you can look at of things you know and
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likely it's things you've done.
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So maybe that list doesn't work perfectly for everyone.
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A C Sharp developer may not need everything on that list, but
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you can make similar lists or you can make similar things.
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There's tools like things called ENKI, E-N-K-I which is a-
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>> Is like mobile testing app.
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>> It's a mobile app yeah where they give you short little lessons every day in
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whatever subject you want, and you mark it as already knew this or
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I learn something new and then they give you little quizzes and games to play.
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>> So this could be another way for you to assess yourself.
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>> Yeah. >> Yeah I do know that.
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>> Yeah go through the basic java script thing on that and
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if you can mark already knew for three or four days in a row then
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you should feel pretty good about your abilities with JavaScript, right.
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>> Right absolutely.
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So I recently watched a talk from Julie a pike on talk and
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she had a great bit of advice that she called kill your heroes.
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>> Yeah. >> So have you seen the talk.
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>> I have it's of a really, really good talk it was from a couple of years ago.
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Julie gave an amazing talk and her whole part about the kill your heroes is,
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I think is a pretty important part where lots of times the imposter syndrome is
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enhanced, by comparing yourself to someone else, right?
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>> Right. >> Like to relate this to a personal
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thing, the first year I went to Django con, it was in 2011 I wanna say.
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And I've been writing Django and Python for
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years, well 2, 3 [LAUGH] technically years.
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And so I went to the conference.
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I'd never been to a conference before.
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It was the first ever technical conference.
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And all of the big names in the Django world were there, and
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I had to go talk to Russell Keith McGee who at that time was president of
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the Django Soccer Foundation and I was like amazingly intimidated to talk to him.
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And when I talked to him, he was fine.
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He was perfectly nice, and wonderful person.
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But so, the imposter syndrome was there the whole time because I'm at
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the conference and there's talks about things I don't understand and
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there's all this stuff where it wasn't full blown like, I shouldn't be here but
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it was like well I've got a long way to go.
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But they do lightning talks which are you know five minute talks on where a subject
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you want and I got up and gave one about a piece of software recently released.
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And this being 2011,
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slack wasn't around somebody was on IRC chatting about the conference and
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Jacob Kathlyn Moss who also had an amazing Python talk from a couple years ago.
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He commented in the IRC,
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he was like I need this in the library, the thing that I released.
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And that immediately was like okay,
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cool I do deserve to be at least somewhat involved in this but
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because I was able to like get over the hero worship of these people, right?
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I had lunch with them, I talked to them they weren't these
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gods they were just average everyday people and then having them validate
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what I had done which ties back to what we were talking about before makes it,
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it really eliminates that feeling of not belonging.
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>> Yeah, that's great.
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It's really easy,
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I think when you see these people who are in the public you know all the time.
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And giving these great talks or super knowledgeable in whatever topic or field.
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They get followings right.
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>> Sure.
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>> We put them on the pedestal.
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Yeah.
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>> And they become these iconic figures that everyone looks up to.
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>> Yeah, tech very much has a cult of personality problem to it where we start
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to idolize these people and I think if we can eliminate that pedestal they
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put them on it helps to reduce the imposter syndrome as well because we're
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not comparing yourself to Sarah Gate or [CROSSTALK] Whoever, right.
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And they're normal people they have problems just like you do and I do.
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>> So if I'm a manager, a management team or I'm on a team and
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I recognize some of these signs and I think maybe someone might have imposter
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syndrome is there some things that I could do without just directly confronting
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the person is there ways I can support them and things I can do to maybe.
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Yeah, I mean I think some of the things that's really good for managers to do for
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people is trying to help facilitate showing
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weaknesses and strengths, in like knowledge.
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I think one of the things that I've seen a lot of people talk about I think is really
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good for managed to do is to admit like when they don't know something or
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I guess that's closer to maybe senior devs than managers but
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it's still that leadership thing of going.
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Yeah I don't know that either or I don't know that already.
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Let's look at up.
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>> Right some modeling that behavior and saying.
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So you don't look perfect all the time right.
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Say hey I can't do that but let's work on this, let's do the research and
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let's figure it out.
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>> And a big part of that too is.
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How you describe something or talk to something when you do know it, right?
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So I don't have to do a thing I come to you for help and
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if you go well actually it's just blah blah blah, right?
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Or that's really easy it's this this this or you scoff at what my problem is which
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you would never do of course but some people are a bit more grow.
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[LAUGH] They have to talk about problems.
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That can lead people to feel like, wow,
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I must really be stupid cuz I didn't know that thing.
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And if you can modulator that, right and
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you're like yeah no that was really hard when I tried to learn it.
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Let me show you what I figured out.
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>> Yeah.
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Well it's interesting.
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I have certainly experienced when you're doing code reviews you get in their
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mindset, that critical mindset, >> Sure,
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>> It's really easy to criticize and
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look for opportunities for improvement.
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It's much harder to give a complement and look for the things that are done well.
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>> Yeah, it is.
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And I think with code review especially we walk that thin line,
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right between where this is the thing that's measurable, right?
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I can, we can compare two different versions of the same algorithm and
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this one is cleaner and this one's more efficient, and we can weigh pros and
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cons and all these things.
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But, if I don't like the way you wrote your doc string or something, right.
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Like, that's completely arbitrary.
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And that's one of the places where it's like You can belittle people without
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meaning to and it's also most things where it's a great place to go in and
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add those little bonuses and compliments, right?
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Because maybe on your line comments you know, line by line it's gruff and
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clinical.
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But then at the end when you're reviewing the whole poor request it's you know,
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hey I really like how you did this thing and thanks for
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including this test and This is gonna speed up blah blah blah you know whatever.
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>> The praise sandwich as it- >> Right, exactly.
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>> Lead was something positive [CROSSTALK] in was something positive.
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>> Exactly, yeah.
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>> Excellent, Kenneth, thanks for joining me to talk about imposter syndrome.
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>> You're welcome. >> It's great having you on the show.
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>> Yeah, thanks, >> For more information about imposter
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syndrome, be sure to check the notes that accompany this video for
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links to additional resources.
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Also be sure to rate this video.
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Let us know how we're doing or
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if you have a topic that you'd like to see us discuss in the future.
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Let us know about that too.
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Thanks for watching and we'll see you next time.
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