 Hey, everybody. How are you doing today? Pretty good. Let me get a show of hands. Who is happy to be here? We're missing a couple hands. Let me get a show of hands. I'm just happy to be here. Alright, there we go. That's what I'm talking about. So, how many of you all had trouble finding the place today? I think we're missing a couple more hands. I actually moved the block a couple of times. I don't know, about five or six. So, I actually found it. I'm the owner of America's IT Doctors. We're an IT management company. And that's just a little feel about me real quick. Essentially, I don't know if you can tell, I'm really nervous when it comes to public speaking. So, a buddy of mine actually told me the other day. He said, hey man, you want to know a tip for public speaking? And I said, sure, what should I do? He said, just imagine everybody in their underwear. So, as I'm up here now, I'm going to ask all the gentlemen to move to the back. They're going to come over. But no, really. How many of you all actually have had some sort of age discrimination incident in your life, or day to day? I'm seeing some hands. I think it's more than hands, okay. If you don't want to be calling Adele, rolling the beat, that's how I'm going to remain. She's awesome, from Georgia Tech. So, give me what was your experience with age discrimination? That's good, that's very good. I saw another hand and we were young and they were gay. More specific, my doctor's got criteria for when they want to do certain tests. And I had a family history, a physical ministry of cancer. And because I had a surgery, I wanted to have a baseline so that they wouldn't have their test when the doctor tried to tell me no. Because I was not old enough to have a mammogram and I didn't specifically want to be living here. Okay, wow, that's a good example there. Anyone else, I think I may have seen a hand too over here. Oh, she's like no calling, please. I think maybe something similar. When I was younger and in different positions, I felt whether or not it was valid that people that were given the older than me had a different impression of my new abilities. I would want to show up stronger and knowing more and to prove that I'm able to be able. Exactly, yeah. I think the feeling is definitely mutual. I can't say the same for mammogram, unfortunately. I don't think they're there, right there. But like you're saying, the feeling of needing to do more and be better and do twice as much because you want to show them that they're capable and even like Adele said, just people not taking it seriously per se. So essentially my day-to-day life, I do a lot of Chamber of Commerce meetings, a lot of networking, and a lot of people I run into who are usually ages 45, most of them are CEOs, a couple marketing representatives, most of them are usually older, though. And one common trend that I've found is that at first, they may not be willing to give you that shot initially. And as you talk to them some more, they can see that your variety or whatever the case is and then they open up to you a little bit. And sometimes that age, that age discrimination barrier gets there, there's no getting past, but it's fine, move around essentially. So one thing that I've noticed is that I don't tell myself that, oh, I'm not old enough, or they're looking at me this way because, once again, the age-to-age difference. But it's not always the case. A mentor of mine, I actually met him, he was in North Carolina, I drove about four hours in a cast so I could learn from this guy. I told him, I said, well, people aren't taking a serious career, he told me, he said, don't even think about it. It's not that serious, essentially. What he was saying was that, look at it as a plus, and so the age barrier, look at it as a plus. So he said, when people look at you, they're gonna say, wow, that's a young guy, and he grew up in IT and he knows what he's doing because that's all he knew growing up. And so I thought, wow, it's really good. That is really good. And so, day-to-day, I've known him, Chamber of Commerce, and hey, how's it going? My name is Nick, at UIT, this is what my company does. And actually, the moment I had that confidence and I didn't see everybody as being, oh, older and younger type of deal, I broke down so many barriers. And what I found was that these discrimination was there, still in here. And one thing I will say is that if you let it get to you, it will. But if you look past it and you can see past it, the stars, you can see through the stars, essentially. So I would definitely say that it's not who you are that holds you back. It's who you think you are not. If you wanted to play basketball as a kid, oh, I'm not tall enough. If you wanted to be a, I don't know, hockey player, well, I'm black and I don't really see many black hockey players, take all that out of your head. And the first thing I have to tell everybody is that I'm not old enough. The moment I got over that, I've been excelling ever since. So essentially, I would say discrimination is clearly there, but don't let it get to you because when you tell you who you are not, when you tell yourself you're not something, that's the moment it holds you back. If you tell yourself that I am old enough, I am going to do this, I am tall enough to play basketball if you're only five feet tall. You can shoot the ball, I don't know. Figure it out, one way or another. So essentially, that is my talk on age discrimination in the business world, I guess you could say. So any questions, comments? I'm gonna, okay, here we go. This lady right here. So I'm almost 30 and I was now considering getting into tech type stuff, thinking about learning how to code. What about, like, I think when you grow up in tech as a lot of people have now, people do expect that knowledge to be there. I don't have that. I'm going to be an older person learning how to code and getting into tech. Like what kind of advice do you have for somebody who maybe didn't grow up with tech stuff? Really true, I would say do the reverse even. Find, I think this gentleman over here was talking about the code A and whatnot. And Mike, you know that as well, cool off with the younger generations, the ones that grew in it, and then just make it happen. I would say that would be the best way to bring it through. Anyone else? I'm gonna pick on Mike. I know, I know. Okay. It's true. So essentially, there are concrete examples. What you've done differently with that confidence around older. How's your approach been different? I would say I've been more so a little bit older, I guess you'd say. I'm not so timid and shy of approaching people a lot older than me. Instead, I'll just come at them and say hey, how's it going Bill? Or whatever the person's name is. I'll say hey, how's it going my name's Mike. What can I do to make it work for you? They're like, holy cow. Either they're anything. This guy's potting up, or he's prongs to you better. Let me talk to this guy. I'm gonna get to know more about him. I guess that boldness and the confidence out of it is what really propelled me forward, I would say. Mike, question now. How do you think that age difference kind of affected your brand? Because if I'm not saying you started a company and you was the young guy coming in with a company, that's not something that people see at all. So I guess, how did it influence your brand? I would say a century or the brand that the company essentially has at least when they see my face people think, oh, that's Nick. The young IT guy. And so that's actually the basis of my talk essentially. I had a lady who approached me and said, how old are you? And I said, how old do I look? She said, you can't be any older than my son. He's 13. So this is what. So yeah, I would say it also helped the brand. I looked at it as such a negative that I didn't realize it was a positive. So now people associated with me as being that out-soaking, out-soaking, friendly IT guy that's a young guy, the youngest guy most of the time is in the room. So they just say, hey, do you need IT work? Talk to Nick. He has a company that do all that stuff. Who's Nick? Oh, he's the youngest guy in the world. And it's worth it as well. So I see a hand in the back. To the comment earlier about starting later in life with technology, I'm curious, you're a hiring manager now and you feel like your experience is making more open to, more aware of, you know, any prejudice that you might have on the flip side of people saying it's like you all do a job. That's good. That's actually really good. I would say that I necessarily have any prejudice in this or something like this older. I prefer just because networking is being a little older. Simply because networking hasn't really changed much over the past couple of years. Pro-cold are most the same as they've been for a while now. I would say I have any reverse prejudices or any that I've seen. Hiring life so, I do know other companies, they will go for older people in the field for positions simply because they feel like there's more experience there. But myself, I don't even look at it. I look at what the person knows, how well they can articulate about it and then I go from there. I've actually, just as a comment, I've experienced a lot of reverse of that and I'm in software engineering, I'm in my late 30s and I see a lot of people as they go into their 40s and later they have a lot more trouble getting hired because people feel they can't continue to learn in the case because technology is changing for so much of it. I would say I have heard of that as well. I guess isn't I seeing that correctly? Another thing that I normally see at least with IT is by time, an IT person makes it to about 50-55, either they go into teaching or they just go into starting their own company simply because they reach the pay grade point where some companies will just say hey, I can be a younger guy at half the cost. I would say that is pretty valid. Any other questions? Comments? Comments? Compliments? Well, if there's nothing else then I will say it's great talking to you all. My name is Nick Wack with American IT Doctors. You take an essay, cut an IT and it works for you. And don't let each hold you back.