 How's everybody doing I really don't need the microphone, but I'll go with it anyway, but uh, just labor. You know, I'm Excuse my screen here. This is a little nonsense right here, but I want to welcome everybody first and foremost Thank you coming out to word camp, you know, Phoenix rocks as usual And the community has been really really really amazing so we're gonna begin with understanding a little bit about what imposter syndrome actually is and Having a give you a little bit of foresight about that. I'm gonna give you a little spiel Kind of give me a little bit of notes and details and then from there We're gonna go in and we're gonna have a little Q&A and kind of divide up You know me so we can have a better understanding of what imposter syndrome is from different perspectives So I'm I came into this I'm a graduate of the full stack web development program here in the first cohort here at galvanized Phoenix. So I'm July of our 28th of last year. I was I was Freshly graduated. So I've only been a dev for about a year and a half Roughly, so with that in mind, I'm really new to this and I have felt an imposter syndrome First-hand feeling like you you don't you don't belong feeling like you're not qualified. Everybody's smarter than you Understanding that you know feeling like you know, you're totally lost You don't have a clue of what you're doing and this translates across more than one area So it's anybody show of hands. Who has ever felt that way? Be honest Show of hands. We all have right right that that's that's normal. So to be a little anxious to be a little nervous, you know It's normal. It's a normal feeling. It's a normal human reaction but when that feeling becomes more than that where no matter what happens You never feel like you're good enough When you feel like you're never gonna make it no matter how much you try Everybody is in the room. It's more than you and you know what you feel like a phony You feel like a fraud and you really like you don't belong and you just are just praying that you don't get exposed It's not true. It's a myth. It's just all in your head but we all feel that way from some time to another and I began with Being from in and on the software development and you know full stag, you know JavaScript angular react You know that whole world. I would always hear in meetups that These mones and groans about WordPress and I never understood why and it probably it was a newbie in me because I didn't I didn't know Maybe I would you know what was the knowledge with the time and I it made me dig deeper Why all the mones and groans from the from the these guys that are doing all this great, you know Multi child component, you know, you know stacked inside of each other layered stuff, you know I mean it it elements and I Can't find out you know what we're no different We're all the same and So it speaks volumes to the community as a whole that things are changing Diversity of course has always been brought up as an issue within the tech community and There are ways to be able to come that but it starts a lot of times with the imposter syndrome Feeling like you know because that you don't belong feeling like that based on the fact that you are a woman a person of color You're particular. You're a background. Maybe, you know, you maybe you started later on in life like I did, you know and And for other reasons that you don't feel like you fit in You'll feel like you don't belong in that that's Where we're trying to get that get past that and get you all to be able to use some tools to be able to get past that so With that in mind We want to make sure that when we do talking about imposter syndrome that we know exactly who we're dealing with So I was just brought this up because you know what? Everybody here's a dev rockstar and you don't know it Right We are You know, it's funny and it's I'm gonna bring the conversation up because he's actually in the room right now my partner right here He's um, we had a conversation and we were just talking shop and he said this conversation He's like hey man, you know, um, I just I really want to be you know more You know, I want to you know get my skill set up to where you are and I'm like You're already there we were talking shop. We were talking complicated shop talk that the average person would not understand right and So I'm like there's no difference. So I came to realize that you know, whether I'm using a framework a library I'm using a graphic user interface a GUI whether I'm you know cutting and pasting dragging and dropping whether I'm typing in Two or three lines from the command line, you know, it's all the same We are all the same we're all devs And so I want everybody to understand that you need to rise to the occasion and Understand and empower yourself that you are a dev rockstar and you really don't know it. And you know what other people don't know it either So a lot of this deals with the concept of has everybody heard fake it till you make it So that's that's normal. It's a normal reality and Sometimes you have to do that, you know, I mean not saying that you're you've given out a false impression Or you're leading people on and leading people astray sometimes You don't realize the power of magnitude within yourselves And I want to tell you here now that you guys have the power and ability to create awesome and amazing things through wordpress But continue to strive to grow develop your skill set even more and Trust me as the technology is progressing at such a rapid rate as we all know that you got you have to learn more I mean literally you're learning something Consistently that you just it's just going to be a part of the plan Um, I actually stepped on my own made me realize that I needed to Do something different because after I graduated I Had a problem. I had applied to many jobs and I was receiving a lot and lots of attention I mean like constantly even before graduation and So this is my big reveal It was something that was that is from my past that was kind of holding me back And it was always in the back of my mind that I it was there and that I couldn't do it And that I couldn't really make anything of it And I always held it inside and I really didn't want to tell a lot of people and I was very discreet about who I told about my situation and I had to be honest and do a reality check with certain people, especially the staff here at galvanize and They were aware of it and they were very receptive to it. They understood my situation but I was concerned that I wasn't going to be able to make it and It actually, you know kind of worked its way into and it's still a work in progress light was still a work in progress So I never give up and one of the tools that I'm gonna teach you now is that Famous tenor players you may not realize it or not when they go to take their time out on the bench Some of them actually have no cars to themselves and their affirmations to reiterate in their head over and over again That they are still there. They're good. They're in the game They're not they might be down, you know, like I gave five love, but they're still in the game to get back in there You're a champion you got the heart of a champion in the win And that's the same level of encouragement that I would spread to you guys in spite of anybody's situation Despite of anybody's demographic despite of being a considered a product of your environment You guys are so amazing and just embracing that, you know, I mean take that in take that moment and get that clear I say, you know what I Know I feel nervous right now and I'm a little anxious But I'm really there. I'm in the middle of it when some people around you may not realize it That you need to talk to them That's another thing that we go into is like communication. It's extremely important Talk to others in this community. We just saw all the hands a sea of hands just now, right? So we all feel the same way when you're really feeling down and you're really not feeling like things are not going your way That's the time to reach out to someone. I really want people to make sure that they today at some point Go on Twitter and hashtag out You know, I mean that if you if you feel like you need to talk to somebody and you're feeling like you're an imposter Please reach out. I'm gonna have them do that. Your time's almost up. Gotcha So my big reveal is this I'm a formerly incarcerated person I said seven and a half years on an eight and a half year sentence in the Arizona Department of Corrections. I Decided that you know what I was not gonna be a product of my environment I was not gonna let that control me and I wasn't a sum of all that I Was gonna live up to my potential and I was gonna be the best man that I could be and So even when things have not necessarily gone my way and there's been stumbling blocks And you know, I've been knocked the flat down on my face You know being a part of that environment and being told no, you know growing up in that sense It kind of molded me for this. So This is also a part of a pasta syndrome me standing before you Exposing what my flaws and weaknesses are I'm taking that tool and using it to my benefit So that can spread my message of how important it is to make sure that you affirm yourself and that you are valid and that you do exist And with that I'm gonna pass it over to my partner. Thank you day Sean We're both gonna answer questions for you, but we had an agreement I was gonna stand up and let him know and as time was almost up and then I realized I'm not really standing right now, so So Yeah, I actually but not only was gonna have you raise hands but I had a thought that it would be fun for you to take just a minute and Find somebody you don't know and share with someone near you We're not gonna take a long time because otherwise I don't get to talk But some it's story of how you felt like you were an imposter So go ahead and do that right now just for a minute or two Be sure you both get a chance to talk so switch up Okay, we're gonna wrap it up now. Can we get your attention back up front, please? Well, you can hear me. I'm One more time. Thank you. Thank you day Sean's got the whistle. That wasn't me. That was oh, thank you I can't whistle that that's another thing. That's another thing. I can't whistle at all like nothing at all I can't even do it like nothing Thank you all for playing along and doing that. Um, I think when Carol said we each had a very different story I want to share a little bit of my story and then what I hope to do is also share with you some things to do about having Imposter syndrome and I may have to refer to my phone for that list, but um when day Sean said that we're all developers I kind of feel like I'm an imposter because I don't write code and I think developer means you write code, right? So I'm already like I haven't been to school. I haven't learned all the stuff that day Sean's learned I'm a 68 year old woman and If I had been born a lot later, I might have been a dev But I was a graphic designer. I was not a trained graphic designer In fact, most of you probably aren't old enough to remember desktop publishing when some of you are nodding. That's good When they first came out with Page maker I taught myself page maker and did a little four-page newsletter with black holes for the Photos and the two fonts were times in Helvetica So that's how far back I go and that was on a PC not a Mac. I just have to say And along the way I've evolved so I took a half-day workshop in Dreamweaver And I started doing websites in Dreamweaver and then my clients started wanting blogs and I figured out a very bizarre way of taking a Page in HTML and putting you know here and copying up to here and making it the header and after here and Making it the footer and then I had a I had a blog that matched the HTML website I designed for my clients. So that's how I've evolved into Using WordPress and then I took a half-day free workshop from somebody. I live in Seattle Who was teaching kind of WordPress 101? but I Got enough in a three-hour free workshop that I went home and I started doing this thing called Designing WordPress and it's like well, but I'm a designer and I don't really want to use Themes because then I don't get to be creative right, but I don't really want to learn how to code either and so I discovered a thing called Visual frameworks and I worked first in headway and then in page maker or excuse me in page lines and now I work in Divi But the the relevance is that I feel like I live in With my one foot in the design world and one foot in the coding world because I really don't code and I often feel imposter syndrome because The bottom line is I have to build my network and and that was something Deshaun said when you know talking to people but WordPress community is so fabulous and It's one of the things we have in common is that we're both actively involved in our communities me in Seattle and Deshaun here and By going to meet-ups and learning people learning who people are and what their skills are You find people that can kind of fill in where you might not be quite as good So one of the notes I had I did all this research I mean like I could do a two-hour talk on imposter syndrome But you all have Google and you can look up and read there's a bazillion articles about this whole thing One of the quotes that really stayed with me was from Rachel Andrew who's a woman who writes She created CSS grid. She talks about it. We're actually bringing her to Seattle to speak the end of March and She's from the UK and she says that and and Carol alluded to this with the social media thing, you know We are comparing our kind of cutting room floor with everybody else's sizzle reel You know and that's not reality and in the tech world. We all know that we have to know So much more than any one human being can know which is why you need the community you need to meet people that you can Team up with you can ask questions of you can get help with you get on slack They have a really active slack here. They have a lot of meet-ups here in in the Phoenix area So if you're not already so how many of you are already like plugged into the the local community for WordPress See not so many. How many of you are here at word camp for the very first time? Oh Well, that's what it is. Wait. Wait. Leave your hands up. Leave your hands up I want those of you have been before Yeah, not only to applaud them But I want you to make a point of going and finding these people and welcoming them and getting to know them because that Helps you not be an imposter. It helps you be part of a community, right? So I do have a list. How's my time? Okay, I've got a little list I from one of those articles I looked up and it says what can you do and it says Focus on the value you bring not on attaining perfection. So that's one of the things I am a perfectionist I have been all my life and I when people say to me, you know, like I'm starting a client project I work alone. I'm a freelancer and and I kind of do soup to nuts for my clients and when I Start a job with a client. I start looking for inspiration for you know What's it's gonna look like and I get so intimidated comparing comparing mind is really our enemy Comparing what I do which I I describe as very utilitarian To the beautiful stuff that's out there like I can't do that. Yeah, I'm a designer, but I'm not a trained designer People are gonna find out that I'm really not as good as I think I am or I want to think I am so that that's a piece of it um Own your successes you really didn't get successful by luck Then that's what people with imposter syndrome think they think it's just luck They they don't own that they're successful and and I already said this but cease comparisons They're they're an act of violence against yourself. This article says And hold firm to your ambition. It says risk outright exposure, which is what Deshaun just did, right? Um There's a woman named Margie Warrell. She wrote a book called stop playing safe And this quote is from her while playing safe removes the immediate risk of exposure It opens up the greater risk of never knowing just how capable deserving and more than worthy you actually are So that's an important message I'm just looking to see if I left anything important out before I move on Can I interject for a second? Please. Yeah, definitely So a couple things I want to say that how to beat imposter syndrome And so the first one is we said mention for accepting and embrace it The next one is remember you are not alone. So I always go to Michael Jackson. You are not alone Talk to others in tech, which we just we just recommend it If you doubt yourself talk to your colleagues and get to get a different perspective reassure yourself motivate yourself and Be a pioneer when I mean be a pioneer as you know members of underrepresented communities in tech and just in general You know, I mean we are vulnerable to a fears of inadequacy So self-doubt is again knowing what unhealthy and we just how do we deal with it? Is we go about making sure that we reach out to each other because that's what this is about overall take This is about communities big on community. So make sure you keep that in mind So thank you. So we just got the 10-minute warning, which means we want to start our Q&A now We'll take from all parts of the room and I will repeat questions that I can hear. So go ahead Can you repeat that question? I Should have given you the mic I think he's referring more to like you've done you've done something done done this project and you've worked on it and you know, you put your heart and soul into it and Literally, you're pretty much spent and like that just that sense of completion You know, I mean and just like you know what the world I'm done with it Now it's done and just move on, you know, just kind of am I kind of pepper is it great? Then you're to the next one. So so you don't have really a time to celebrate You know we per se you just kind of like on to the next one there my my lead instructor used to tell us all the time And I'm not gonna put him on the spot. He said we go from one era to the next So that's what we do every day all day. We go from one era to the next We learn how to document it find the research on it and go from one to the next Interesting did that address it for you good. Okay, somebody on the side. Yeah You're not You're in the wrong, right? You've got to she said you've got to love change or this is the wrong industry for you How about over on this side? I totally agree. I experienced that firsthand I was I was in a sea of just like a 70% of the conversation I didn't understand But I stayed anyway, and I googled I wrote down every single word that I didn't know and I went home And I googled it and then I could find the answer I would google it something else and then I learned how to advance Google search Google is your friend And I never gave up. So yeah, that's that's a part of it You know me and sometimes that high-level conversation Don't be discouraged by it because there are other people in the room They really don't know all that high-level information just to select few so don't be dissuaded by it Come back again and again because you're the more that you're exposed to it the most of your Immersed in it the more your grasp it Given that everybody's laughing I think you can hear him But I think for the recording we're supposed to try and repeat you Okay, did everybody hear me should I say it? Yes say it again Okay, so my question is how do you want a personal level address what I refer to as the paradox of Information or knowledge which means that the more you learn the more you realize you don't know anything But is there a certain point that you feel okay? I've turned the corner where I have a certain Level of proficiency in this or that for you for me. It was Defining my own niche like getting clear who my market was that I'm not for everybody, you know, I'm not gonna work for big corporations I'm not gonna work for and and by defining my niche I'm kind of in my comfort zone and that's dangerous, too, you know, you do want to stretch yourself and Yet you don't want to try and do be all things to all people It's actually a marketing lesson is to get clear, you know What is your value proposition and you're what you have to offer so I kind of I think I've addressed it that way I don't I I'm comfortable because of the networking I've done in the community that when I don't know how to do something I know who to contact to get help with something even though I work mostly alone I don't have a partner like you two or partners. I I work in isolation a lot Which is why I started a monthly meetup for WordPress freelancers in Seattle We've been doing that for a year and when people talk to me they are about How they they on board people or you know do do this or do that how they track their time I don't track my time. I get very I start. I know it's like people go. Oh my god How do you do your business? You don't track your time, but I don't track my time I've gotten comfortable over time that my way works for me. It may not be right for anybody else But I I stopped the comparing mind problem and just found my own way and that takes time I mean, I've been at this a long time. I started doing this before half of the people in the room were born, okay, so There are some advantages to being all I would chime in and say that you know We were um We were exposed to in our galvanized in the program here We were ready. We had the last quarter because it's four quarters We did unfamiliar environments and I always bring this up because literally the whole entire time of the six month program I was lost. I didn't know anything. I was at the but literally I was I was drowning the whole entire time I could not see the sea the light of water at above me, right? So where the light actually happened was about three or four weeks prior to graduation They kept doing us this thing called unfamiliar environment So literally every day we go in a github we don't have a repo waiting for us and it'd be a different programming language Python Ruby on rails, you know, like every single day be something different and we didn't know the language We had no clue but we started to see familiar patterns things that we've seen before over and over again Like that kind of looks something like familiar And so that's when the light bulb actually finally came on for me, you know And so you can't know all the knowledge. It is impossible. There's this tube. It's too much but if you Know what you know what you're good at understanding strengths define your strengths be able to identify your weaknesses and be able to minimize Exposing those but at the same time still being you know true to yourself. Then I think that's you'll always be able to do that Do so We've got two questions one in the back and then these are the last two because we're almost out of time Go ahead in the back first Thank you, sir So what students, you know, any of you who all our teachers know you learn more from your students sometimes and your students are from you I've been programming for 20 years I started probably around the time that you started back in the day when dream weaver was pretty much the bees knees Now dream weaver is like I still have it on my computer, but I never use it but What I want to say though I learned from Deshaun was that as far as the imposter syndrome goes Really what you have to do the whole ecosystem and to echo you know your question about well How do you how do you survive if it's always changing is always growing? It's almost like the development world is this big ocean and There's as you know, the ocean is just almost as infinite as outer space So there will you'll never be able to swim that whole ocean, but if you stay in the water long enough you're gonna master that lagoon or bay or Gulf that you're in and you won't master it But you'll you at least have a familiarity because you've been in the water You know where the dock is you know where these fish swim, you know and after a while it gets easier So you can swim in other territories because you've just been in the water and what Deshaun taught me really is just you just have to Stay in it. It's his level of persistence. You know and this dog get determination That's really what makes you win in this environment So really for those you there probably people in here who've been programming 20 years like me other people two three years five years It doesn't matter if you pick a stack So you're the PHP stack it still has a lot of juice in PHP if you might pick Ruby or whatever JavaScript Just staying in that stack long enough. You will find that eventually it does get easier Because the stuff new new frameworks will always be coming out, but it's always a variation on something that you did before So I guess that's my contribution Deshaun is an ultimate teacher of that. So, um, you know, that's been my experience Yay So we just got the one minute warning and there was one hand up over against the wall. Yep That's such a great message to end on We had an expression givers get The being generous and giving giving is powerful pays back to fold, you know I'm from believing the power redemption, you know, and I always said that's my speaking piece and This community is so embracing as a whole if you have a question say something Somebody's gonna help you. It's not cutthroat. This is not a cutthroat industry People are gonna champion your cause if you just say help you say you need help and that's no matter where you go You know, I mean if you have a voice speak your voice speak your mind You know me and say that you need help because guess what that's how we go on I didn't thought I thought I knew nothing and then all of a sudden I went around people that were newer than me And all of a sudden they thought I was a sage. I thought I was a Jedi and I'm like You talking about me right the same guy, right? And so so we need to wrap up But we will be over at the happiness bar to answer any other questions if you'd like and the happiness bar in general It's a great place to get questions answered not just from the speakers But there's people there to help you with any problem you you are having that has to do with wordpress So thank you all for being here. All right, you guys be rock stars. Make sure you rock stars believe it and feel it Thank you for coming. We really appreciate it