 Sorry the Jenkins talk was full and you had to come here so So I'm David D'Ansilio and I'm gonna be talking about imposter syndrome I pretty much just threw Princess Leia in there to get the talk accepted so No, but there we'll talk a little bit about Princess Leia, so about me I'm David. I run the Cloud and Platform Automation team at Kovaris. We're a boutique consulting firm based in the Bay area I was previously at Constant Contact, which I see a lot of my constant contact friends in the room I'm feeling a lot less nervous because like 50% of the people in the room are friends I don't know why I thought it would be a great idea to come on stage and talk about my insecurities, but And I'm an open-source contributor to a number of projects and mostly in the public ecosystem, so One of the things I want to start out with saying I am not a psychologist I'm just a guy who knows how to Google and yes, I do appreciate the irony of Opening a talk about imposter syndrome with the spiel about how unqualified I am to talk about it, so So here here's where we get to Princess Leia actually Carrie Fisher, but Why am I here? I figured I'm here because Princess Leia told me to and I put the talk proposal together After listening to Terry Gross interview Carrie Fisher on fresh air and and Carrie was talking about her Struggle with addiction and she said something that really struck a chord with me It was it creates community when you talk about private things I felt very lonely with some of the issues that I had or the history that I had and when I shared about it I found that others had it too So I'm here to add my experience of the conversation in the hopes that it'll help others feel a sense of community Imposter syndrome The scientific literature doesn't really acknowledge imposter syndrome instead. It talks about something called the imposter phenomenon And and studies suggest that upwards of 70% of the population will experience the imposter phenomenon at some point in their life I take imposter syndrome sort of the pop psychology term imposter syndrome to mean people who experience it constantly okay and The imposter syndrome or the imposter phenomenon was first Described by Dr. Pauline Rose Clantz in the journal psychotherapy in 1978 And I highly recommend people take a look at some of the journal articles on it It's only about 50 pages And there's a lot of really good stuff in there if you're interested in learning more about the imposter phenomenon I've included a bibliography at the end of the presentation if you want to read more Clantz focused her research on high achieving women and it initially focused on women because at the time They had just started to make up a significant portion of the professional workforce But further studies have shown that men and women experience the imposter phenomenon at the same rate And so the literature talks about how women and men experience the imposter phenomenon differently Men are less likely to admit their feelings than women but in anonymous settings Men and women experience the imposter phenomenon at the same rate And the literature talks about societal influences on men and women with regards to how they cope with imposter syndrome For example men with imposter syndrome tend to push themselves and take more risks in order to prove their competency while women tend to Withdraw and take fewer risks in order to preserve other's perceptions Imposter syndrome is really all about perception management. So I thought there were some interesting Interesting topics with regards to how men and women handle these things, but so How many people here have heard of imposter syndrome before this talk by show of hands? Yeah, I mean everybody, right? basically Most of us know what it is but I wanted to take some time to talk about it and Specifically what it kind of feels like to experience imposter syndrome So imposter syndrome makes you feel like you're unqualified for the position that you've been put in It makes you feel like some mistake has been made Like you're standing on a stage in front of people talking about something that you have no qualifications to do Professors said that I'm not good enough to be on the faculty here. Some mistake has been made in the selection process This is a woman who went through the rigorous hiring process of a university or research institution a University department chair obviously I'm in this position because my abilities have been overestimated I Yeah, that's Astounding to me and and part of that what we'll talk about is that it is astounding, right? It's it doesn't it kind of defies logic Imposter syndrome makes you feel like you have to hide a part of yourself You have to keep up appearances in order to conceal the fact that you're a fraud and that can be exhausting Doctoral students said that I was convinced that I would be discovered as a phony when I took my comprehensive doctoral examination I thought the tested the final test had come in one and in one way I was somewhat relieved at this prospect because the pretense would finally be over I was shocked when my chairman told me that my answers were excellent and that my paper was one of the best He'd seen in his entire career That's pretty that's pretty powerful Another PhD candidate said although my grades were fine and I was there on a scholarship I was sure that my colleagues professors department and university would find out that they had made a mistake That they shouldn't have admitted me to grad school that they shouldn't have given me a scholarship this woman went on to talk about how She was convinced that a mistake had been made in her by her undergraduate institution and that they were going to revoke her bachelor's degree so Imposter syndrome makes you feel like you have nothing of value to add to the conversation makes you afraid to speak up If you've seen HBO's insecure, it's a fantastic show and Issa Ray has talked a lot about Her struggle with imposter syndrome. She had to psych herself out just to Convince herself that she was worthy enough to tell the stories the imposter cycle and It's sort of the thought process that somebody with imposter syndrome goes through so As I was writing my slides last night in this morning I was going through this thinking wow, this fits me to a T. So you're given a task Which triggers anxiety self-doubt and worry and you respond in one of two ways either over preparation or procrastination In my case it was both My house is really clean though But regardless you get that you get the task done right and you have that feeling of relief Somebody will give you positive feedback, but based on how you accomplish the task You're going to you discount that feedback if you over prepare it. It's because you put in Herculean effort to get it done Or if you procrastinated it was just luck and so that discounting of your positive feedback Feeds back into the loop where you know you continue to perceive yourself as a fraud It increases yourself doubt depression anxiety, and then it starts all over again So who are the imposters right imposters have high expectations for their own for their goals and have their own concept of ideal success imposters Disregard their successes if there's any gap between the actual performance and their ideal standard imposters are high achievers who also make unreasonably low assessments of their performance And some people are more prone to imposter syndrome than others if you're familiar with the Dunning-Kruger effect It's kind of the opposite of it, right and actually Dunning and Kruger found that People who are more capable consistently underestimate their capabilities introverts right studies have consistently shown that introverts are more likely to experience imposter syndrome and introverts tend to keep important aspects of their personality hidden from the world And that separation can make you feel like you're not seen for who you really are which is a central component of imposter syndrome I am an ambivert. So I'm about 50% introvert 50% extrovert. So I Kind of get some of that Imposter syndrome affects high performers. So if you're feeling like an imposter, you're probably just not This may actually be because of the imposter syndrome itself And I know for me fear of being seen as an imposter has motivated a lot of my own hard work Which in turn has resulted in success The key here is to understand your motivations Achievement in knowledge work can be hard to measure there. There's a Abstract disconnect between work and success preventing sort of that high fidelity feedback loop Some reachers has shown that imposter syndrome hits minority groups harder as a lack of representation can make minorities feel like outsiders and discrimination Creates even more stress and anxiety when coupled with imposterism. Just another reason why representation matters So are you an imposter? It's probably not And I Mean really if you think about it just in terms of Occam's razor Is it more likely that you've managed to successfully defraud everybody in your professional life or that you're just qualified? I definitely am So there are a number of different approaches to coping with imposter syndrome I'm gonna talk about some of these strategies in general and I'll go into a little bit more of a narrative about my experience So imposter syndrome is a cognitive bias and one way to combat cognitive bias is awareness Once you're aware of your biases, you're able to recognize them when you're falling victim to them and can work to counteract them This is this is mindfulness becoming aware of the superstitious and Magical aspects of your own imposter beliefs Allows you to consciously combat those behaviors and reinforce that reinforce those beliefs Knowledge is power imposter syndrome can leave you feeling helpless and one way to combat that is to spend time Understanding how imposter syndrome works and affects you Acquiring knowledge on a subject with which you're unfamiliar can make you feel like you're in control And feeling empowered is very important when dealing with something like imposter syndrome You're not alone Everybody feels like an imposter at some point just know that and And talk about it talking about your imposter syndrome will help others realize or Talking about your imposter syndrome with others will help you realize that you're not the only one who feels this way You'll start to feel less of an outsider and you'll help others feel better in the process Sharing your experience with imposter syndrome helps others see the absurdity of the imposter phenomenon By seeing someone successful Share their feelings about imposterism. They'll be able to recognize the absurdity in in their thinking Embrace it turn it around Imposter syndrome can be a powerful motivator, but it can also be a powerful demotivator mindfulness is important For recognizing when imposter syndrome is holding you back I Suggest you embrace your imposter syndrome and harness its power When you realize that imposter syndrome is preventing you from doing something make a conscious effort to step outside of your comfort zone This isn't easy and It's never going to be but your imposter syndrome Probably won't go away completely. So you'll need to learn how to work around it embrace being a novice Entering a new field or embarking on a new professional journey can make imposter's feel especially uncomfortable I'm currently experiencing this as I begin my journey as a new manager Recognize the benefits of being a novice when you're steeped in the conventional wisdom of a profession You can ask questions that haven't been asked before or approach problems in ways that haven't been thought of In order to do this you have to get comfortable with speaking up Which is something that's very hard for someone with imposter syndrome to do Watch for burnout Imposter syndrome can result in overwork people experiencing imposter syndrome tend to cope by putting an extra effort and This can quickly result in burnout if not tempered. So be mindful of your work habits and motivators Hard work is a valid path to success But because imposters have a skewed definition of success it may they may end up working themselves into the ground This is also important for managers to know about people on their team so Linking this back to open source. I wanted to talk about my struggle with imposter syndrome So as a kid I was always a tinkerer My parents love to tell stories about me taking my toys apart to figure out how they worked One day my dad brought home a Mac LC and I fell in love with it. It was one of the pizza box ones It was it was beautiful and I was shy nerdy and bookish surprise surprise I was never really a stellar student in school, but I was especially bad at math and My dad is an engineer So he was always really good at math and he never understood why I Had such a hard time with it I never really took any advanced math classes because I was afraid of being seen as as stupid and This carried into college. I ended up going to school for political science Even though I was really more interested in becoming a software developer than a political scientist But I was afraid of the math then, you know afraid of looking stupid So I ended up taking a job as an assistant administrator at my university I worked there through grad school where I studied business again not computer science This is really where my imposter syndrome took off and I was self-taught and I always felt like I was kind of faking it Never really making it I always compared myself to those Linux gurus who could tune the kernel from memory usually had really big neckbeards And even to this day, I still kind of feel a little bit of a Linux novice even though I know I'm probably more of an expert This comes out most often in job interviews When I'm asked some esoteric question about the kernel API or something that nobody ever really needs to know from memory As it became more comfortable with this administration the DevOps movement started And I was suddenly confronted with a whole new way to approach problems So I started to teach myself how to code which was really what I wanted to do anyway I started with Python and then moving into Ruby. I wrote a lot of code, but I was afraid to share it with people and I had this haunting feeling that there were some very obvious problems with my code That would be spotted immediately and I'd be out as a fraud So I never really got much feedback and we all know that feedback is key to learning, right? So I Went on with that for a little while. I was you know an okay coder And then I heard the term imposter syndrome. I was at puppet comp And I had read an Interview with Luke Kinney's who was the CEO of puppet at the time He described exactly what is what I was feeling and gave it a name imposter syndrome It was like a blindfold had kind of lifted it gave me something to Google something to research reading about imposter syndrome Helped me understand my own thought process and how to counter it So what does this have to do with open source? And Contributing to open source forced me out of my comfort zone It's really kind of key to how I became And became more confident and and better at being a software developer I recognized my imposter syndrome was holding me back So I decided to do something that made me very uncomfortable I decided to write code and put it on the internet for everybody to see and I Expected people to tear me apart. I expected Linus Torvald's level of criticism, right? I remember my heart pounding the first time I submitted a poll request on github. I was standing my office at Sandia and It was unreal I still I still Remember every moment of it I remember refreshing the page constantly waiting for someone to chime in and tear me to shreds And I don't think I got any more worked on that day. They just was waiting for the ball to drop But the next day I came into work To a comment saying thanks. This is great and unceremoniously merged pull requests. So Well, I talked about you know Unreasonably high expectations. I realized, you know, I'm a perfectionist And that's just how it is The first PR was a small change, but I spent hours on it, you know, I obsessed over it I wanted to make sure everything was absolutely perfect before I sent it out into the world I recognized today that I tend to put a lot of work into things like that and so I definitely cope with imposter syndrome by putting in a lot of effort and One of the you know, one of the key elements of imposter syndrome is skewed standard of performance and I'm a perfectionist. I had to learn To accept different levels of performance in order to stay sane Especially in the agile world of software development The search for perfection can keep you from making progress. So that's something that I had to deal with I joined a supportive open-source community After that PR was merged then the next one was much easier. I Started to realize that the co-changes I was proposing weren't just solving my own esoteric problems And I realized that what I had to say was valuable So I built up momentum. I started getting more involved in the puppet community I became a maintainer of a number of puppet projects Even published a number of my own modules Started a blog, spoke at conferences, began teaching people about puppet And I built up a lot of confidence through this process and ultimately I became a much better software developer because of my involvement in the puppet community And I never did receive any Torvalds level of criticism. So So I'm standing up here right now telling you about my experience so you'll be able to see That you're not alone that But it's also so I can hear from you. So The struggle continues. I Still feel like an imposter on a regular basis. I struggled with my imposter syndrome quite a bit writing this talk But I've learned how to fight my imposter demons and hopefully this talk will help you do the same That's it Hi You talk in the talk about how we can handle Feeling the imposter phenomenon ourselves and you mentioned briefly how openness about it and Watching for burnout can help others. Are there other thoughts along those lines that you've had? Yeah, I mean familiarize yourself with the people you're working with and I Think really the only way to overcome Imposter syndrome meaning fully it's to talk about it. And so being able to monitor your peers, you know Talk if you talk to them about it They're gonna talk to you about it a guarantee that they have some imposter feelings And so you can kind of crowdsource the effort that way Just it's really as a simple as just starting the conversation Hi It's interesting to hear what you're saying because What DevOps is is something that I've been doing instinctively for decades And it's in some ways kind of nice to have a name for it But I'm wondering if there's a lot of people in the DevOps world who feel Like an imposter because what this world is is a lot of common sense that they've accrued over over time So there's that aspect of it the other aspect of it that makes me feel somewhat uncomfortable is all the tools that are necessary to be used in an effective DevOps world is Overwhelming almost mind-boggling And so there's this sense of I know what to do. I just don't know the ins and outs of all the gory details of all the tools so I guess I'm making more of a statement as opposed to a question But I'd be really curious to know if other people feel that way and how they might deal with this Glut of tools that they need to become an expert Yeah, it would make a good open spaces talk I have definitely felt that You know, I Understand patterns, right? I know puppet, but I don't know chef, right? Does that mean I can't learn chef pretty quickly because I know the configuration management patterns, you know There it comes out a lot in job interviews. It comes out a lot in picking up new tools and for me I when I when I interview people I Make sure to look at the at the patterns or look at the the interface not the implementation, right? I don't care if you know a specific tool As long as you can you know how to learn it or you know Sort of the the patterns it deals with right so it's it's an attitude that we need to change we for You know lack of a Less vulgar way to say it we need to stop like measuring each other's Coneys by what tools we accumulate in our heads, you know It's that's not real learning that's rote memorization But it can contribute to imposter feelings quite a bit. Yeah So I have one question on something you highlighted. I think this talk Definitely relevant for a lot of people. So thank you for sharing Was on the management piece where you talked to that managers need to be Aware so do you have any suggestions or examples? What happens if you become aware, but and how do we how do you approach? What's the next action step as a manager who wants to you know help their employees leak overcome this like? Yeah, you address it directly or I'm curious to see your thoughts on that I mean obviously it depends on who you're dealing with but I think that I'm creating a place that's safe to talk about it, right ensuring A comfortable that you have an opportunity and lead by example talk about your own imposter syndrome The best managers are vulnerable, right? And if you talk about your own fears That's gonna lower the bar for your team to Open up to you, right? Things like understanding how imposter syndrome affects things like burnout, right? That's that's a hard skill That's knowing what the symptoms are, right, but also Providing your team a safe place to talk about these things. I think it's probably the most important most important thing So you mentioned sort of unreasonable expectations. I was wondering if you've seen anything in The literature that you've read or in your own experience about how those expectations are Applied to other people Do you have the same sort of level of unreasonable expectations for everyone around you or is it just for you? Yeah, so Dunning Krueger talks more about your expectations of other people But I think that if you look at it the expectations of the people around you with imposter syndrome is that They are more capable than you are, right? So you're by setting the bar especially high for yourself Imagine what the bar you're setting for other people is. I've had to learn how to accept different levels of success, especially as a manager and Yeah, I mean it's Dunning Krueger talks more about how you see others Whereas imposter phenomenon talks more about how you see yourself But yeah, it's they're definitely linked. I think that's it. Yeah, thank you so much. It was awesome talk