 Talk of the day if you attended the first talk of the day raise your hand if you attended the first talk of the day Okay, congratulate yourselves. Good job. Nice work. Thank you. Okay. All right, so Let's get at least slightly started here for a minute But before we get too far here's the deal is I like to capture every moment I can So I'm gonna need you all to like scoot in for a minute so I can take a picture with you all I'm gonna burn a little bit of time So I'm gonna need you guys to slide in this way need y'all to slide in that way get comfortable. We're all attendees We all know each other loosely. Okay, and you're we're gonna have a oh, we're gonna get a photo together So come on hurry. I only got 40 minutes y'all come on here. We go only 40 minutes. Okay, and give me your most excited energy Ready? All right ready and go All right, it's good. Don't go back to your seat. You can stay right where you're at I Didn't trick you. I'm just saying you can it's okay. You won't need your laptop. Trust me You won't even need a pad of paper and I mean these are all being recorded anyway, so you're in luck Okay, so to get some formalities out of the way. My name is Adam cuppy I work for a company called zeal where web and mobile applications consultancy We work a lot of teams all over the country and many of those teams have less experienced engineers and what we would Classifies maybe senior level engineers and we work with a lot of interns and apprentices and in that time I discovered a few things that were common amongst the ones that had less experience with the ones that had more experience now So that's what this is about so we're gonna talk about confidence and I'm assuming you probably read What this was gonna be called mechanically confident. I'll get into that here in a little bit before we get too far You know, this is generally when we think about confidence what happens is you know step one believe in yourself, right? Step two, you're confident now, right? That's like the the basic mechanics of it is number one Just believe it and I kind of really love this and I don't know if you're anything like me But I kind of felt this way kind of like you know go fuck yourself Just a little bit right that there was more to confidence than just simply believing in it Now I've been an actor for 20 years longer than I've been a software developer and there's one question I get asked more than any other question and that is do you get stage fright and the answer is every time But it doesn't matter Because there's things that we do to make sure that the moment we take that foot onto the stage all that kind of confidence That ingrained ability just kicks in we're gonna talk about exactly that okay So the thing that is that I want to talk about first that was conscious confidence and conscious confidence is the one that you think about Right, this is the one that you're aware of oh and and most of us can experience this You know multiple times in our life some things that are small or or or less Less overly relevant to the rest of our day and then other things that are much bigger But conscious confidence again is the thing that you think about right? You know there's certain things I'm really good at but then there's other things that I don't necessarily believe it So I don't know if about you, but I want you to raise your hand is How many of you have been driving a car for longer than a year raise your hand if you've driven a car more than a year Okay, how about five years keep your hand up if you've driven a car for more than five years ten years 20 years Okay, so many of us have driven a car a lot right and so we're familiar with this layout right? We've got a wheel and navigation what have you if you got one of the fans here ones well this last week I had this cool opportunity. I was speaking at Isle of Ruby Just got off the plane actually late last night right very long trip where things are just a little different Right, I don't know if about you But if whenever when I had this moment I was traveling with my family my mother and father and my wife were with us We were traveling and we're like, okay We're gonna drive a little ways up north and when we do or you know We're gonna rent a car and the moment this it happened right? We're like, okay, we're gonna have to get on the other side of the car and it's like I've got a drive and I'm thinking to myself. Oh shit. Oh shit. I mean the whole time I am freaking out right that I'm gonna have to drive this car But that's the conscious mind right? That's our conscious confidence The other side of the confidence to the kind of subconscious that that that underlying confidence was like hey It's all good think about this for a minute, right? Like what's different? I'll get back to that here in a second But first I want to tell you a story about a gentleman named Eugene Pauly Now Eugene Pauly In about the late 60s Was a gentleman that at the age of 59 it contracted a bacteria that ate away a substantial part of his brain and more Specifically the part of his brain that controlled short-term memory So until he died in his 70s He had no idea he was older than 60 to 90 seconds past the age of 59 No clue he had grandkids that as far as he was aware he never knew he had until he had met him and Similarly as he aged he had no idea. He was aging really had no clue now for the most part this kind of like ignorance is Okay, right? I mean if you think about it, but let's talk a little bit about what his routine looked like every morning The alarm would wake him up and he'd walk into the kitchen make a couple of eggs some bacon and toast He'd eat that and then head right back to bed for another 15 minute nap or so before you get up again But what would happen? He'd wake up again Walk into the kitchen make some eggs and bacon He did this on average about five or six times a day until eventually the Sun was high enough in the sky that he kind of was like Whoa, I must have slept in a little bit too long Now as he started to age his family started to notice that there could be some problems with this and doctors were recommending You know like he can't just eat bacon and eggs every single day and not get at least some exercise This is gonna be a little problematic, right? So what do you do? So every day or so his wife would take him out on a walk around the neighborhood and they would walk this path It would take about half an hour 45 minutes very leisurely But it'd be an opportunity for him to get some exercise and they would do this again most days Now one day for some reason I think she was sick. I can't entirely remember the story, but she wasn't available She wakes up and he's gone Freaked out, you know calling trying to figure out where he's at calling neighbors Nobody knows where he is and about half an hour 45 minutes later or so. He shows back up at the front door What what none of that makes any sense? He has no idea where the heck he is He doesn't even know what happened literally two minutes prior So they took him in and was examining this kind of phenomenon of like how would it be possible this individual has no Short-term memory would have this ability to remember a path that he didn't know prior and never knew any other day And in fact if you were to ask him well What path did you walk not only did he not even remember that he did it in the first place? But he definitely couldn't tell you what it was Similarly, they had moved during this period of time and while he could still make it into the kitchen every single day Or to the bathroom or even into his own bedroom. He couldn't give you the layout of his house He couldn't tell you consciously where something was but his body always knew where it was and it could always find its way there Now unfortunately again his daughter and his family was aging He had grandkids that he never remembered about and they discovered this real odd thing starting to happen Which was it was really quite unfortunate. I mean just imagine this if you were in this situation and that is that His when his daughter would come over His daughter would leave and he would get furious like she was just here. She just got here. She didn't even say goodbye Right, but the weird thing was this Was that he would get more and more frustrated like well, why wouldn't it be the same level of frustration? I mean he didn't remember the time he had had before but now he's getting more frustrated time and time again So psychologists in the 60s started to look into this and what they discovered was this that the conscious mind and specifically Short-term memory was controlled by a part of the brain that was totally different from habit and routine Totally different that muscle memory and the thing that drives you to know again where to go physically when you get into a car Just to how to turn it on and where to drive and gas pedal or what have you that automatic response that you do Every single day for many of you every single day is something that's done by a totally different center of the brain however When we disrupt that pattern Even just for a moment like the other side of the car even when that happens It's as if our conscious mind it trips out flips a table has no idea what's going on and tells us a danger danger danger danger thing twice Right. This is the way and this is the funny mechanics of the mind so When we look back at this example, right and I am again in London for the first time with my family I mean like my family my wife, you know, I don't have kids yet But like the whole idea like my whole future is going to be screwed and it's all responsible to me Like my conscious mind is tripping out and I don't know if you've ever experienced this before but it's tripping out any change at all It's tripping out, but then the subconscious mind is like, hey, it's cool. Like chill out. It's so good Like let's think about this for a minute. Okay. Um, well, what is the same if things are different? What is the same that we can build off of prior experience? It's like, well, let's see steering wheel check Well dials and gauges check in kilometers though, not no check on that one Oh gas pedal check brake Check. Well, oh, we've got turn signals and we've got wipers. We've got cruise control. Okay, check Oh, the weird button you press when you're you know, double parked and you want people to know that okay check But what is different? Oh that one. Oh Okay, so everything else for the most parts the same except that thing on the left, which is that still the same? Oh, well, we still have park and drive and neutral or if it's a manual We still have one two three four five or what have you I mean all of that's the same. It's just on my left So what happens is instantly in that moment the body goes through this acclimation process where it's like, hey It's okay 80% of what you're familiar with 90% of what you're familiar with is all the same There's only a couple things that are different Now I don't know about any of you But I'm particular about a couple of things right and some of those things can be things like editors Right sometimes color schemes are like really important to me or specific libraries are like really important to me And then give me just a little bit of time and I come I become a little more okay with it Yeah, this is part of the reason why now Back to my story here. So we're about to go driving and our first thing as well now We got to get on the open road I mean, it's all again like everything is screwed and we got to figure this out all over but again The conscious mind is like for a freaked out and subconscious mind like hey take a step back It's cool. Take a break. What's the same? Well We're still traveling forward. That's good Okay, let's see. Ah, we still have disasters on the left or on the right Oh, we have lines that tell us to stay in the in the in the right space in the road Now what's different is all the dangers coming from the right and not the left. It's the only difference, right? And this is real. This is the thing that our body will consciously acclimate itself to so once we get into that mode Now, I don't know if you've ever had this experience where you're driving either on the left or right in your switching sides But I don't know if it was anything like my own But it was a period of time where it was really uncomfortable and all of a sudden it became more and more natural and more and more Unnormal right because we're starting to like rebuild this routine We're rebuilding the idea and we're acclimating ourselves to what is different and what is the same Then this happened Right, I don't know if you've experienced roundabout, but we don't have a ton of these in the United States In comparison to like they are in Europe, especially not in England now The first thing I want to note is the excessive use of street lights No idea why there's so many but there are and the signage is really exceptional Almost a little bit too much, but I'll never forget hitting this thing. It's the same thing applies, right? I'm freaking out consciously, but then there's that moment of like, but what's the same and This again is what mechanical confidence is all about right like I said, I've been an actor a long time and I would class probably be classified as a senior engineer or a senior developer I've been writing code for about 15 years but what I've come to realize again is that That learning gap that difference between those with less experience than those with more rarely has to do with just simply time And it never has anything to do with intelligence ever It has everything to do in my opinion with routine and habit Now what was interesting to me was That while we talk about confidence is the byproduct of belief which I don't believe it is that if we can in grain Routine into what we do and when I started to ask and talk to a lot more engineers that had Experience this was the consistent thing. They were doing was they had simple routines. They were following day in and day out Right day in and day out. They were doing it like so I have an interesting question that I started to ask which was how many of you Ten well, let me first ask how many of you written software Regardless of the language, but written software for five years or more Okay, so for those of you who have written for five years or more I in maybe maybe less than five years This is also going to be true. So I don't mean to just call those individuals out But I'm curious of those of you who have written for multiple years How many of you tend to lay out your window with the with certain screens like the terminal and the editor and and so forth in the exact same way every time Right why does it really matter? Well, of course, it doesn't really matter, but Intuitively it does right how many of you tend to have preference towards new windows versus tabs display Right Now here's the thing I was discovering was and I was asking and talking to Developers that had some had less experience generally they'd have a chaotic sort of environment now I'm not saying that's necessarily just a total and leading indicator because I think some people can be very effective But generally speaking what I discovered was it was these basic habits and routine that we start to fall into and So we started to experiment with this a little bit We had a couple of interns that had joined our company for a period of time and and oftentimes they totally knew the answer But they weren't they didn't feel confident to like speak up to that answer And I think there's a lot of factors why this it's not just this there's many other things But what I started to experiment with was okay, so here's what I want you to do All I want you to do for the next week is put the terminal on the left and the editor on the right That's it It's all I want you to do and behind both of those I want you to put the browser That's it full screen put the browser behind it terminal on the left editor to the right You can always change it later Well, let's just do that for a week and see what happens And what I discovered was this weird and odd sort of thing which was Slowly but surely the degree of confidence and certainty about like oh like about what was the next step started to emerge My theory and there's no science to back this up that I have other than a theory But that my theory was is that by simply like pulling that out of the mental equation the cognitive equation The conscious equation by simply pulling that out for a moment It gave me an opportunity to build habit and routine that that informed me as a developer or formed them as a developer On how to jump through situations change in different issues. I don't know about you, but especially with rails That the moment that I see an error. I almost never need to read it anymore It's just the pattern of the error is enough for me to figure out what it is I mean I can pretty quickly under pretty quickly know just by looking at an error without even reading it that there's an end statement missing somewhere right, I don't know about you and There's like I've used better errors and other tools and man when they switch that thing up It screws me up for a few days like every single time and so again try to experiment with this now Was it because the editor was on the ride and the terminal was on the left that now they became, you know Far more confident. Well, yes and no right again It was it took that and created that habit and that opportunity for them to not have to worry about that anymore So that confidence could build in other very important ways Now in researching for this there was a book that I highly advise to all of you I really recommended it's really really good and it's called the power of habit if you've heard of it Great if you have it. It's really really good. It's a great audio book as well and it was written by a Pulitzer Prize winner and What he came up with was he was the story of Eugene Pauley is in it even in more detail Which was what really drew me into the whole thing in the first place But what he discovered was that for the sake of habits whether we the ones that we form or the ones that we change There's the same three-part routine The first is or the three parts are three stages to it The first is a routine of some sort right for many of us we eat in the morning for those about well Let me ask how many of you eat breakfast in the morning Okay, let me ask the opposite of that how many of you do not eat breakfast in the morning Okay, you're How many of you eat to breakfast? Yes, right Now here's the thing is the body can survive for a very long time without breakfast in any form Right, most of us do or don't not on the basis of whether or not we're hungry Legitimately hungry in our body is in a form of starvation of some kind, but it's because there's a habit around it, right? How many of you take a shower every single day every single day regardless of whether or not you took one the night before Right very much a part of the routine now interestingly there's something I was experimenting with this is In the biohacking community There's a lot of talk about cold therapy and one of the things they try and introduce is the idea of cold showers Now the idea the sheer concept of a cold shower some of the most freaks most people out I've been taking cold showers for about two years now and in the first like month It was like a real jarring event now There's a lot of benefit there's a lot of studies around this and there's a lot of potential benefits and what have you and to do it Or don't that's less relevant, but what I've discovered is now I can't finish a shower without making it cold Right and in Pittsburgh it is really cold Really cold. I'm from San Diego. It is not that cold when you turn it cold But I can't and if I don't do that one last step even for a brief moment Like there's a sense of there's a lack of conclusion that's happening now This is this is more habitual than bio than biochemical, right? This is more habitual, but it's a real thing same thing people who might lift weights or work out a lot There's an addiction that tends to happen and I think part of that is a very mental thing, right? There's a conscious addiction, but there's also physical addiction as well And I think also there are things that bake and build around that that say well when I either work out Or I do something physical the continued routine of that I have that routine matters to me Which moves into the second bit which was reward that there is some reward on the other side of the routine Whatever that might be It might be as simple as something like weight loss or a goal that you're making progress towards or of course in my case When it comes to cold showers, I like to punish myself viciously But it could be one of a million different things, right? But routine and war to the first two steps and the third is that there is a cue There is something that cues that off If we look at breakfast or something some morning routine that might simply be that it's the morning, right? I've taken a shower. I've gotten dressed the next thing within the routine is I'm now gonna eat breakfast Or what have you out of pure curiosity when it comes to breakfast? How many of you you know nine out of ten times basically eat the exact same thing? Now keep your hand up if it's not if you would know consciously That's not always the most healthy thing for you what you eat every single day, right? Well, some of you are like, yeah, definitely, right, okay? So it's this is that habit right and this is in that book and what he talks about and I highly advise checking it out So when it comes to mechanical confidence The the question and I think the the purpose of this talk is to talk about well, what do we do about it, right? So how can you create these things not just know about them consciously? But what can we do to actually form them and put them into context now again? I was talking about that I was an actor and so I'm gonna talk first about stage fright and improv now You can kind of see the photo, but this is just my one my one image So I this is a show that I did for a theater in San Diego The show you can't really see it, but the show was called a civil war Christmas I played 19 different characters This is a dying soldier. I also played two generals and a horse So a lot of different characters at one point during the show There's one line that has ten words in it and I'd go every two words go to a new character So it's five characters in ten words So the question that I'm often asked is like how do you remember that like how could you possibly do that, right? Well, I will tell you it's actually quite simple So I'm gonna give you all a quick lesson and how is an actor to create five different characters in ten words Okay, so here's what I want you to do is I want you to take a moment and stand up for me stand up All right and what I want you to do is I want you to close your eyes and I want you to think about either a person in your life or a crazy character or it doesn't really matter something really big and Audacious good bad or otherwise big and audacious I Want you to really visualize that individual in your mind like make that a really clear picture in your mind Okay Now what I want you to do is I want you to identify a part on your body a part on your body That you can put all of that attention into like let's say your shoulder And we're gonna call this this character center that the center of this character is a part of your body Okay Now what I want you to do right now is I want you to really visualize that I want you to accent that part of your body Right, so if you want to open your eyes a minute, and I'll show you what I mean by that So let's say it's a shoulder. I'm gonna say like it's their shoulder, right? They really accent like push it out as far as you can whatever it happens to be Okay, so close your eyes again when you think about this character you really visualize it I want you to find that part of the body wherever it is. It could be one single toe It could be a hip it could be your eyeball It could be your nose you name it and I want you to put all of your physical energy into that one part of your body Okay, but all your physical energy into that one part of your body Okay, now what I want you to do is I want you to open your eyes And I want you to move around the room watching out for everybody's stuff with that as the leader, right? So if you're gonna lead from your shoulder, you're gonna move around the room Go ahead and move around the room and go ahead and move your feet. It's okay Move around the room with that one apart. That's right Accenting that one part of your body the one part of your body Just the one part of your body sounds crazy, but trust me Okay, now stop stop for a second close your eyes again, and I want you to visualize an entirely different character Somebody totally different Okay, and do the same thing now for this character. I want you to pick a totally different part of your body totally different part of your body Okay Now accent put all your energy into that part of your body whatever it is So if it's your hand your forehead your back of your backside doesn't matter Okay, now I want you to move around the room with that side of your body as the driver It's okay. We all look crazy and stupid. Don't worry. This is acting Okay All right Now go back to the first character Go back to the first character use the other part of your body and go back to the first character Okay, now go back to the second character Okay, stop So here's the deal acting 101 is this which is if you pick a center You don't have to worry about whether your mind consciously will remember that So if I say that the character leads from here and the second character leads from there Just simply by physically going into that spot the conscious mind will pick up on the cue and the body will just take over So the answer to how do you do five characters in ten words as you pick a different center for each of the five? And they were all they happen to be a classroom of I think it was two boys and three girls I think is what it was and they were like under at the age of 11 or something I can't I can't entirely remember but anyway, so it was like pick a different center now The interesting thing was the audience when they look at that they think to themselves. Oh my gosh How are you doing? It's like no no literally its shoulder elbow hips left leg eyes That's all I got to remember is that okay, so go ahead and migrate back to your seat So I don't know if you if most of us are familiar with this troop of people This is whose line is it anyway? And this is a this was who is not familiar with whose line is it anyway? The improv troop. It's okay. Okay, great. So whose line is an improv troop that was they actually currently tour all over the place, right? and They do all sorts of improv and I don't know if you've ever done improv But improv is a really fun fun thing that freaks most people out, right? Because if you're not familiar so improv is improvisation where what will happen in a given scenario and like these four individuals might be up on a stage and they say okay, well there's an exercise that I want you to do and Here is a line of dialogue you have to integrate here's a character you have to integrate and the theme is murder mystery go and On the spot. They have to put something together. Well. Here's the thing most people don't realize is this is some of the most Rehearsed theater available is improv So kind of like Eugene Pauli like why would you why would you rehearse improv? Because what is rehearsed is all of the exercises all the patterns all the routines all of the themes the only thing They don't know is the content. That's the only difference. So I had a really cool opportunity. I actually got to do a show with them sort of been about seven or eight years ago, I think and Wayne Brady who's the second gentleman in on the left? He is incredible with music like he can do the most amazing things with musical interludes and themes But I was actually doing us. Sorry. I meant I jump by so Ryan Stiles is the one on the far left over here with the glasses. Well, I guess they all have glasses In the orange shirt. So Ryan Stiles. I was doing a scene with him and The scene that we were doing was one where you might have seen the exercise where the two of them are doing the dialogue But there are two other people that are moving them And so they have to adapt to whatever movement they're being given so they don't move their own body in other words Okay, now here's what's interesting about it is there is an actual routine that they go through Where they are in fact encouraging the audience member whoever is guiding them as to where to physically move And what they know when they rehearse is certain combinations physical combinations will create certain humorous events Like as an example, you'll see if you ever watch the show you can find them on YouTube That's sometimes it's actually quite funny where they will get them to move all the way down to the floor or stand up And they know that these combinations create humor Also, they also know that the psychology of the participants is that in certain configurations They're more likely to be led in the right combinations, right? Whether or not the participant realizes this in any way shape or form is irrelevant Because what in fact is happening is a combination of events that is fully Fully rehearsed so improv is a very very very rehearsed event And if you've ever done it and this is the thing like if you have a chance to do improv It can be a very it can be a very scary thing at first But I will say it's really really fun once you figure out the patterns because the patterns are really to do and then It's quite a party trick. All right Steph Curry well arguably one of the best basketball players in history now Here recently he is currently trying to break a record for the most consistent three free throws He's not missed and I don't know what his number is right now, but at the time of this it was like 49 Right, so he's trying to break this record now They were asking him in an interview was like whether or not he was starting to trip him out And he was like well honestly this past game is the first time I've actually even thought about it, right? I mean since I haven't missed one and it's on my mind I'm gonna be more laser focused on the mechanics and the rhythm of shooting free throws until the streak is over So for anybody who's done a sport of any kind this especially with basketball is it's all about the mechanics of doing it The same way get into the habit get into the routine if you've ever done golf or played golf This is even them even more so than anything else is like the mechanics the mechanics the mechanics and working Dilligently to get your brain Detached from as much of that as possible the less thinking conscious thinking you can apply almost the better, right? Oh God, okay. Well, we did our action round early. So we'll we'll we'll forego an action round today, okay? So for the sake of this, what can you do? And this is a message for not only you as individuals But definitely for you as leaders of a team or participants on a team because I think this is even more valuable in As far as if you have other people especially if you have newer developers that are joining your team experience levels Indifferent to experience levels. So the first is to create a routine So I'll give you an example So we're consultancy and we work with a lot of companies that have varying routines Some of them use particular frameworks or not and what have you but the one thing that every single company We'll work with we'll start doing if they don't already as they will do a stand-up at 8 30 Pacific time every single day We just start there What's in the stand-up is less relevant now I can there are some things that we do but what's most important is that there's a stand-up at 8 30 Pacific time every single day Now we call this our heartbeat now. I imagine many of you do stand-ups as a team But the more teams that we work with there's an interesting consistency where we discover that where teams start to have formed Disfunction or disc disassociation within their organization It is very common to see that specifically the stand-up will be the first thing to go Right people come in late early or it just doesn't matter But the stand-up is a really really simple routine to do okay another one is whether we need it or not We do an IPM at the beginning of every week the format of an IPM can change some people do them with particular card systems Others do them within their their planning software. In fact, it's not really that relevant in the grand scheme of thing What most important is that you do it. That's it, right? So that you have the routine and similarly we do a retrospective sometimes we change the format of the retrospective Sometimes we use happy faces sad faces question marks, you know, there's all sorts of things you can do But just the act of doing it is what matters now the combination of these three things the reason why we've seen value in it And what routine it forms is it it creates? Consistency and consistency creates certainty and when you as a team have certainty The feeling of confidence around things is greatly greatly improved So if you're working as let's say a contractor, you're a solo solo per newer or whatever basically working on your own One of the first things I can recommend is find a routine for yourself That you can practice every single day that is as simple as you can possibly make it yet maintain it every single day So create a routine is one then the next is finding a trigger and a reward So a trigger is basically like an acre So imagine again like acting where you have a shoulder or whatever a physical center The same thing can apply here where you have a specific event Something that you have total control over that can trigger the routine every single time just like waking up alarm clock Wake up shower breakfast or what have you the same thing can be here But the thing that's often overlooked is the reward So most routines die because the team forgets or loses a sense for what's the positive thing on the other end of it Right. It's routine for routine sake. It's not really about understanding the whole purpose of doing it in the first place And or the small reward that you can have so for ours. We've got to the first we have One of the well one of the triggers is 8 30 Pacific time. That's one The other one is at the end of every stand-up. We end with one power clap, right? It seems simple kind of stupid in the grand scheme things But in in reality like it's this incredible reward that brings everybody together in that moment. Okay, so a trigger and a reward Step three is close the presentation and start it up again. Okay I kind of beat this horse to death, but step three is to follow some sort of plan So if you look at as an example when I said we've got you know I want you to put the editor on the right side of the screen and the terminal on the left side of the screen Set a timeline and stick to it diligently Remember that change is a feeling that is not easily overcome So it's important to get over that hurdle And so if you give up too soon, you can actually work it can work against you, right? So when it comes to following a plan, you know a good timetable work that out as a team is at least a week Oftentimes upwards of four weeks, right? So a month or thereabouts and again faithfully follow it faithfully Do it just consistently do it time and time and time again. All right Just like with rehearsal as an actor. We do the same thing We might rehearse a show it might be it might be word perfect And then we'll go right back around and do it all over again, right? And that's the reason right you want to follow the plan get it really embedded in the body All right, and number four is to celebrate it and it celebrate all of it not just the successes with it Celebrate all of it and this is this is this is psychological mechanics. So there There there was somebody in my I'm forgetting his name unfortunately. I'm totally blanking it But he was working to beat the four-minute mile, right? And the four-minute mile had already been broken But his goal was to to run a mile under four minutes It was really struggling think he was he was coming in on average like four minutes and seven seconds four minutes and eight seconds Somewhere in that neighborhood and so we had hired a coach that worked with a lot of habits and practices And what have you and the very first thing the coach did was took him off of the track He was already on and had taken him out to a track that wasn't even circular one straight mile, right? And so all of this was an immediate change and when he had run at the first time He said the only conditions I have for you is this that I want you to play full out Do it exactly as I tell you to do it and celebrate regardless of the outcome every single time So he goes the first time it runs his heart out and he came in it over four minutes and ten seconds like it was again It was a total shift total change Conscious was totally debunked. He'd run into like four minutes And I think it was four minutes and 13 seconds and it was totally filling down It was like no no no what did I tell you you play full out and you celebrate so celebrate and he's like give it Your whole idea I failed miserably, right and he said okay So we're gonna have you do it again. So he did it again same outcome celebrate, right? Has him celebrate again All right, we're gonna take a day come back tomorrow We're gonna do it again this time he comes in at right around four minutes and nine seconds So he's coming close to the time he was consistent with running the track, right? But again not not under four minutes. So celebrate yeah, okay, and he's starting to wane So they did this for a period of three weeks and over that three weeks At the end he finally got down to four minutes and one second Four minutes in one second and this is when things really started to tank because it was like I'm getting so close But I'm not there and he goes okay. Well, let's try this again, but this time I'm gonna move the line back Move the line back. Yeah, so over the course of the three weeks. He'd been moving the line farther Right, so it was more than a mile every single time So sure enough he then runs the mile at three minutes and 58 seconds Right now you can celebrate, right? So the thing to remember in all of this is that if that celebration is a key thing for a lot of reasons Setting aside whether or not the line is moving But celebration is really important because it does a lot of things in the brain and one of the most important contributing things is that it opens us up to the possibility that we are in fact capable so where Mechanical confidence in my opinion does not have to do with purely belief conscious confidence does and So to believe in yourself and your ability to consciously be able to do a task does come down to the belief that you can succeed And so if you create the form of success and the feeling of success even if you haven't hit the mark you're shooting for You will in fact find yourself progressing further and further down the path and the way that you want to go So celebration is really really really important. So one things that we often will do with teams We don't do it every time, but we will do it when things start to wane is at the end of every workday We'll institute a show and tell the important part about a show and tell is that there is no room for criticism It is in no way an opportunity for a product owner or a product manager to come in and say oh, that's all you got done No, no, no, no, no, no, no not at all No instead what it is it's an opportunity to celebrate what what you were able to accomplish as small or as large As that was and the same amount of celebration that you have then and something small you get when it's something large And so you have that feeling every single time. Okay, so those are the four steps. So Where does conscious confidence come from again? It is it is a celebratory belief It's that moment in which you believe that the impossible is in fact plausible How does that moment? All right now last thing is of course remember you Jane He's a very important figure. I definitely recommend reading the book the power of heaven It's not long. It was really eye-opening for me that the mind is a very very crazy thing Okay Last thing and then we are good and if you have a question or two I can take one otherwise I'll see you out in the hall So I would love your feedback So if you go to mechanicallyconfident.com, it's a simple Google form and here's what I'm looking for is especially for those Regardless of how much time you've had either writing software if you've written it for, you know, 75 years There isn't that but anyway Is that I really want to know what are the things that you do on a day-in and day-out basis that create confidence in your life, right? What are the things that you are absolutely certain about every single time that would be conscious confidence and similarly? I'm going to ask a few questions on that survey about what are things that you do a day-in day-out routinely, right? Irrelevant to your level of conscious confidence that you do And I'm aggregating all that information along with information about you know, how long of you know What how do you identify your job? You know either junior engineer or DBA? Or what have you as well as you know years of experience in doing that And I'm trying to put together a much much more broader picture on what the rails and Ruby community looks like when it comes to the Topic of confidence, and I hope to have an opportunity to put that out there So it will be very brief. You're really really helping me out But more importantly you're helping the rest of the community out and I hope it helps you out as well So please take this time to do that It would be really helpful and if this is also something you're able to bring back to your teams if you're on a team I would really appreciate that as well This is not something a specific just a rails comp, but it's two teams in general. Okay. All right The last thing I want to introduce you to is we've got a podcast as a company at zeal cod It's podcast at coding zeal comm like 20 30 minute nuggets So you kind of a hard time like shuffling through all of the stuff on the internet that you could read This is a bunch of engineers talking about engineering like things We don't sponsor it or any like we don't have sponsors or any of that stuff and you're not gonna be sold anything But it's about 20 minutes or so so especially if you're new to the industry This could be really helpful to you Because we talk a lot about things that are coming up and as a consultancy We see a lot of stuff that is coming up because we're working a dozen or more companies every single year And so there's a lot of change so this might be really helpful to you. All right, and that's it Thank you very very very much. I'll take one question any one question at all All right, excellent. If you have any questions find me on the hall. Thank you