On this episode of the Humans of DevOps, Jason Baum (@JasonEBaum1) is joined once again by Pauline Narvas (@paulienuh) and Leonardo Murillo (@murillodigital) for the first-ever Humans of DevOps panel! They chat with host Jason Baum on what imposter syndrome is, why imposter syndrome affects certain groups more, how to identify imposter syndrome, how to combat it and more.

Pauline Narvas is a Community Engineer at Gitpod and community founder of Ladies in DevOps. Pauline is an international speaker, blogger at pawlean.com and host of the By Pawlean podcast. Pauline is also an ambassador for Code First Girls and the author of the DevXDigest newsletter. Pauline was on episode 58 of the Humans of DevOps where we learned about her journey into tech, including starting to code and build websites at age 8, the importance of community and finding your tribe, cloud developer environments and so much more! If you didn’t catch that episode, please be sure to listen.

Leonardo Murillo is a Cloud Native Technologies Expert, DevOps Institute Ambassador, Co-Chair GitOps Working Group. Leo was on episode 45 of the Humans of DevOps where we learned about his journey into IT at 13 years old, founding the second BBS in Costa Rica, being an assistant network administrator for the first commercial ISP in the country at age 15, becoming an IT Director at age 20. If you didn’t catch that episode, please be sure to listen.

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Find a lightly edited transcript below.

Narrator 00:02
You’re listening to the humans of DevOps podcast, a podcast focused on advancing the humans of DevOps through skills, knowledge, ideas and learning, or the SKIL framework.

Jason Baum 00:18
Hey, everyone, it’s Jason Baum, Director of Member experience at DevOps Institute. And this is the Humans of DevOps podcast. Welcome back. And thank you for joining us for another episode. If you’re in the US, I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. I know for one I did and ate way too much. And, and we’ll leave it at that. Over the past few weeks, we’ve changed things up a bit on the podcast and started to dive deeper into human skills and human issues. And if you’ve joined us for those then you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, please go back and listen. And today we’ll be discussing imposter syndrome. So according to a recent article published in the International Journal of Behavioral Science, an estimated 70% of people experience imposter syndrome at some point in their lives, which was a startling statistic to me. I am familiar with imposter syndrome, I have felt imposter syndrome, I had no idea that everyone else was feeling it too. So clearly, this is an important topic. And here to discuss this topic. With me are two of my favorite past guests. Pauline Jarvis, community engineer at GitPod and the by Pauline podcast and so much more. Just a few episodes back, Pauline was on to discuss her journey into tech, including starting to code and build websites at the age of eight. The importance of community and finding your tribe, and Cloud Developer environments and so much more. You’ll definitely need to listen to episode 58 To hear for yourself, Pauline. Thanks so much for coming back to join us on the humans of DevOps podcast.

Pauline Narvas 02:00
Well, I did tell you, I’ll be back then like Jason,

Jason Baum 02:03
I did just like Arnold Schwarzenegger, you will be back. And here you are. Thank you again, Pauline, for joining us. And also joining me today is Leonardo Mario. Leo is a cloud native technologies expert, DevOps Institute ambassador, co-chair of GitOps working group, and also a child tech prodigy. And if you listen to his episode, you know that he got his first job in tech at the age of 15, and became an IT Director at the age of 20. Before I was legally able to have a drink, so be sure to listen to more about Leo on episode 45. Leo, thank you for joining us.

Leonardo Murillo 02:42
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Again, I great time last time. And it’s also very appreciated by

Jason Baum 02:49
one of my favorite guests. And I wish I had you on when I was 10, I guess and hosting podcasts in my, in my living room. So thank you again, both of you, Pauline, Leo, for joining me today to discuss imposter syndrome a topic I know you’re both very passionate about. Pauline, I know that you’ve discussed this very issue on the by Pauline podcast. And Leo, we touched on the topic briefly in Episode 45, when you were a guest on our show, and so I’m just excited that we can finally dive further into it with you. And so that said, Are you both ready to get human?

Leonardo Murillo 03:30
Good human.

Jason Baum 03:32
That’s awesome. So this is our first time having a panel discussion. So we’re gonna just, you know, see how this goes. Go with the flow. You know how we do this on this show at this point. So I guess really the first place to start is the beginning. What is imposter syndrome? And I guess let’s start to Pauline, why don’t you start? And then we could go around the room?

Pauline Narvas 03:57
Yeah, amazing. Yeah. Okay. So what is imposter syndrome? I feel like it’s one of those questions that you can’t, I struggle to define it. And the thing that I always go back goes back to is the is googling it and Googling the definition of it. And the definition is spot on because it’s just put into words exactly how I felt in the past. And that is the persistent inability to believe that your success is deserved, or has been achieved as a result of your own efforts. So it’s basically lacking self-belief and feeling like at any moment in time, people also going to figure out that you’ve somehow managed to make your way into I don’t know, into tech or into whatever it is by faking it till you make it and you actually know nothing. So yeah, that is my sort of definition of what imposter syndrome is.

Leonardo Murillo 04:55
That’s really interesting. And one thing because I of course, in preparation for this show I googled it myself,

Jason Baum 05:02
what did we do before Google?

Leonardo Murillo 05:06
I know exactly right. One of the things that I found very meaningful that I that was kind of in my, in my search results, is the fact that it is not a mental condition because I think a lot of people might be wary of identifying the fact that they have this, this mental pattern, right this behavior, because they don’t want to feel like they have some form of conditioning or you know, like, it’s, but it’s not, it’s just, it’s, it’s just a behavioral, it’s just something of your behavior, right. It’s a way that you perceive yourself. It’s not a medical condition, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s, as you pointed out, rightly so and it’s very, very common. And one of the aspects that I think it’s, it’s really valuable to have Pauline, here and myself, is that Dino, right, is that it does affect minorities, right. And it does affect groups that for one reason or another, over time, have been perhaps neglected or otherwise had barriers to overcome, such as females, such as Latinos, right, and otherwise. So? Yeah, it was very enlightening to do that, that kind of very, very quick research. And as you pointed out right things, and I think I think we’ve all experienced it. At some, at some point in time, particularly when we’re kind of getting to new. We’re gonna say, new layers of experience, right? New, exploring new capabilities, or, or being exposed to new challenges. It’s a point in time where one is usually more subject or kind of, it’s easier for you to fall into that trap, right?

Jason Baum 06:51
Yeah, yeah. So that, so hearing you both talking about it, and the definition of it, you know, that now, that statistic of 70%, I feel like 30% are lying, or at least not being honest with themselves, you know, at least not being honest with themselves. Because we all experience it, I think, in some in some manner, if you haven’t walked into a room at some point in your life and felt like, Gee, I don’t know if I belong here. I don’t know. Are you human? It’s very human. It’s very real.

Leonardo Murillo 07:20
Yeah, yeah. And there was an interesting concept also, that it’s hard sometimes to differentiate humble, humbleness, and how you said, like, humility, you know, and self-trust, or lack of it, to the imposter syndrome? Because they think like you, at least myself, I’m always in constant dialogue, to keep yourself humble to keep yourself grounded, right. And it’s difficult sometimes to find the boundary between that voice inside you to keep that keeps you grounded. before it turns into this loud noise that doesn’t allow you to experience your own self-worth. Right. I don’t I don’t know what you think fully, whether you’ve kind of have this internal dialogue, to try and assess where you are in terms of your own humility, right?

Pauline Narvas 08:17
Yeah, no, I totally relate to that. I think it is a struggle. And another thing I struggle with is like, sometimes I can’t, I find it difficult to understand if I’m experiencing, experiencing imposter syndrome. Like as in I can do it. It’s just I don’t believe I can do it. And not actually knowing enough in this space, or like the foundational knowledge of whatever it is that I’m struggling with. And figuring out sometimes that oh, it’s actually not imposter syndrome. It’s actually something for me to build on as a skill, like what, you know, a knowledge gap for, for example, so yeah, yeah, totally relate to that.

Jason Baum 08:56
Yeah, there’s two things there, I think that we just sort of hit on. The first is like, you’re always told about don’t get a big head about it, don’t get a big head, right, you know, and then the other piece of is, well, sometimes you need that hype person. Like if everyone had flavor following them around, I think we’d all feel pretty confident, you know, you need that confidence to sometimes when you walk into the room, and the other thing is, yeah, how do you know when you’re experiencing imposter syndrome?

Leonardo Murillo 09:20
The way that I understand that I’m experiencing imposter syndrome is because of the surrounding emotions around the experience okay. Because I think when you look at humility or when you look at like the ground yourself, it is after all surrounded with positive with a positive experience right, there is a level of pride. There is a level of satisfaction, but with imposter syndrome that surrounding aura to the experience is negative. There is fear. There is Self, what’s the word that I’m looking for? Isolation? Yeah, and truly,

Jason Baum 10:05
it’s an isolating feeling

Leonardo Murillo 10:07
and degrading experience, right? It’s there is the surrounding aura, that usually tells me there’s something here that you should be paying attention to. Because this is not your inner voice. Effectively, evaluating your current condition, there is an underlying discourse that’s happening, that is trying to, to convince you that you’re not worth it. Right, at least from my experience. I’m curious about to fully like how to tell whether you’re experiencing apostasy. And

Pauline Narvas 10:40
for me, it’s really tough. And sometimes it’s when I’m right at the end of feeling really bad, where I’m like, Okay, let me take a step back. And just think about why I’m feeling really bad about I don’t know, not completing something, or not understanding something, or I don’t know, just like being unable to feel good about what I’m doing. And then when I talk to someone about it, and I’m like, I just don’t feel like I’m good enough doing this, maybe the task is too difficult. Maybe it’s way out of my league. And then someone says to me, but pulling, you’re doing such a good job, do you not realize that like that piece of work, only, you could have had a positive spin on you could have had your own spin on it that makes it successful, because you have this quality that makes you really good at doing this one thing. And then I’m like, I can’t see it. And it’s hard for me to identify that I’m actually doing a good job when other people around me are like, you’re doing great, but in my head, I’m like, No, it’s not good enough. It needs to be perfect, or it’s, it’s not as good as other people are saying, I somehow like my brain somehow convinces me that I’m not doing a good job. And it’s when there’s that horrible voice in my head, that’s like, you’re not good enough, this isn’t good enough. Like, it’s just chipping away at me. And that’s when it’s sometimes hard for me to see that until it gets to the worst point where I’m like, upset because it’s not good quality. And the only way I can like convince myself that actually, it’s just imposter syndrome is when I don’t know, I get sort of affirmations from other people around me. To the point they have to keep repeating like you do a good job. It’s not just one person, but a few people repeat. And I’m like, oh, maybe it’s just imposter syndrome, you know, and that’s, that’s, that’s how I feel.

Jason Baum 12:37
Yeah, I’m not I’m not a psychologist. But you know, none of us are psychologists. My father was a psychologist, my grandfather was a psychologist. Wow. Yeah. But I just pretend to be one. I was a psych minor and psych major dropout. So but I can tell you that I think that what you said originally, Leo about it not being a diagnosis. You know, it’s not a mental health diagnosis, per se. That said, I think it can lead to two of the most common diagnosis, which is anxiety and depression. And sometimes it’s because it’s that feeling of being a fraud, right? It literally can make you feel, I think, Pauline, you just like hit that feeling, right? And how easy it is to go into that slippery slope of depression and anxiety because of that feeling. Especially at times when maybe nobody looks like you, or nobody, you know, acts like you in an environment is one of the top reasons that some people might have imposter syndrome. So maybe we could touch on that. But first, maybe we could before we get into that because I think that’s a big, big piece of it. So I think it’s gonna take up a lot of what we’re going to talk about. When was the first time maybe that both of you felt imposter syndrome? Pauline?

Pauline Narvas 14:07
Okay, yeah. So I’ll jump in. Yeah. So I think the first time I ever experienced imposter syndrome was actually it wasn’t when I was in tech, but when So back when I was a lot younger at school, I was part of a drama group, a theater group at school, because I really enjoyed acting. I told myself one day I’d become an actress, but I joined I was very productive in that group. And I think it was like, it was during the first time I had to go on stage. After practicing my little play that I created, going on stage and seeing the audience full of like friends and family and thinking to myself, How did I manage to convince myself that I can actually act before this whole sequence of things that I created myself, I was like, How did I manage to convince people to come to this show? How did I manage to convince myself to learn the script and then get other people involved? Yeah. And I think that was the first time I experienced imposter syndrome. And I remember the first few minutes of that performance, I was very aware that I was in front of everyone. And that I was like, there was that voice in my head saying, You’re terrible. People are going to like, boo you and it was like me catastrophizing in my head that I’m not doing good. I’m not, I’m not actually meant to be on stage with all the other people. And also, there were people in my group who, obviously more experienced than me, and that they had joined the drama group before me like years before me and I had just joined that year, and I managed to convince myself that I was just as good as them when I was practicing. But then when I was in front of everyone, I was very, very, very aware that everyone could act and remember the script more like just quickly, but I couldn’t. You know, I remember having multiple, like, stressful moments during that, like 20 minutes, where I forgot my lines, and I had to improvise. And I was just stressed. And so yeah, I think that was probably the first time I genuinely felt that. I heard that. I think that was the first time I heard that voice in my head. And that voice in my head is still bad. It creeps up in my career in my personal life. But yeah, I think that was the very first time I felt somewhat of an imposter. And that, you know, when you’re acting and you’re on stage, you’re in front of everyone. And it’s almost as if I was, it was like, my, my brain was saying, Oh, you’ve literally outed yourself in front of everybody. And this is the worst situation you could find yourself in, if that makes sense. So yeah, I think that was the first one. And then, later on, it was in tech jobs. So I wanted to include that story anyway. Yeah.

Jason Baum 16:55
Isn’t it so funny? Because I think that’s the number one fear that people have is public is speaking in public or performing in public in some in some way. And, you know, stage fright, right? And, but even beyond stage fright, we start telling ourselves, all those things, those horrible things, so, yeah, and it’s, it’s very common, and yet we feel very isolated in those moments.

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Jason Baum 18:09
Leah, what about you?

Leonardo Murillo 18:10
So it’s funny because for me, this imposter syndrome, it didn’t happen in my early career. Okay. And I think that’s because I was so old, he mentioned something very interesting that I also found in my Googling, the Assos, how there is a relation between perfectionism and imposter syndrome. And she probably knew you mentioned it, right? Like, it’s not perfect. That’s actually words that you use, right. I think when I was just getting started, I, I was just kind of going with the flow, you know what I’m saying I was just doing something that I really enjoyed, and I was just having fun, and nothing hinged on my success. I wasn’t even thinking about success, they were thinking about fun, you know, like, this is just a lot of fun for me. But as my career progressed, and as the level of challenge progressed, and that’s my matter of fact, it’s interesting, because as I learned more, this picture of what is great, what is perfect, what is all possible, right started to grow within me, right. So the goal, the end goal that I was able to visualize for myself, became larger and became further out than I had at the beginning, right, because my perspective was much more limited. So as my perspective grew, therefore, as my career progressed, right, it started to become more common, right. as I dealt with more complex projects, as I climb the career ladder, right. Every new step can like mate it made it so that what was at stake was higher was larger than what was expected. To me was larger. And also I think the knowledge necessary to succeed became more ambiguous, right? Because when you’re just getting started, you follow a tutorial for some documentation and you get to a very for like, determinant and goal. But as you move into like leadership roles where you’re dealing with other people and where you’re trying to influence in ways that may not really show their outcome right away, but you start to question yourself more, and you start to, to, evaluate yourself against a larger target. So it wasn’t, I really can’t say when my first experience of imposter syndrome happened, because, again, it was, it’s it, it’s this kind of silent thing that starts to grow in volume right over time. And I think that’s also important to highlight, right? It doesn’t for me, it wasn’t kind of like, oh, I have never experienced imposter syndrome, and boom, I experienced it once. It’s this gradual process that starts introducing doubt and hesitation in your day-to-day up to a point where you kind of walk into a meeting and workout and you’re like, everybody thinks I’m an idiot, everybody thinks that I don’t know what I’m doing right? And boom, it hits you, you know, like, this, this isn’t right, like, evaluate what you actually accomplished, you know, so that’s kind of like how it’s how it, how I’ve experienced it over time.

Jason Baum 21:35
And I’ll just keep mine brief. But yeah, I experienced it. You know, I didn’t realize that I had it. I think the first time actually reflected on imposter syndrome is making me realize that I did was the first time when I went to university to college to university, I experienced a pretty bad actually, I felt very isolated, felt very, you know, felt like everyone was smarter than me that I didn’t belong, I actually had to transfer I needed, I needed a different experience. I didn’t just needed a new space, actually to start over. And then the second time was, you know, I was lucky enough and earned a promotion very early in my career. It was only a year and a half into my career. And I was made a manager. And I felt like, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. And here I am being made a manager. And obviously, that couldn’t have been true. I would have not earned it. But I think very when you have that experience early on, honestly, even when you still have it sometimes I think we all just doubt right doubt seeps in.

Pauline Narvas 22:47
Yeah, absolutely. I don’t think it’s gone. I don’t think it’s absolutely it’s gone at all, like, I’m just thinking of like when I jumped from being an engineer to then being a senior Dev Rel person when Dev Rel and community was a roll that I’ve been doing sort of as a hobby. And then git pod gave me the opportunity to be in this space. And I was just like, I can’t believe they believe in me, because I hardly believe in myself. And yeah, I think I still experience that they like every time I wake up, I’m like, Oh, my dream job. This is incredible. I’m doing everything I want to do. But then it’s like, oh, I did. Can I actually do this? Because I don’t have any qualifications. I’m a self-taught engineer and didn’t do a computer science degree. Like how can they trust me with this? Opportunity? So yeah, I totally feel.

Jason Baum 23:40
So talk about it doesn’t matter where you are in your career. I’m going to read a quick quote from Michelle Obama. And then I want to talk about it and talk about what we were we’re kind of mentioning earlier, on who is impacted, we are all impacted by imposter syndrome, it certainly would seem, but who might feel it more, more often than not. Michelle Obama has this quote, with all the practice of just going into the room that you weren’t supposed to be in an occupying those seats, just doing and knowing that your thoughts are just as relevant. Your experiences are just as important. Your insights are just as valuable so that you will share it and use it and practice being there. That’s the work you have to do if you feel like an imposter. It was just so interesting because she was speaking about imposter syndrome and feeling it herself. So let’s talk about that. And potentially some of the barriers that must you must have to overcome in many instances when you feel like you weren’t supposed to be there.

Pauline Narvas 24:47
Oh, can I just say like Michelle Obama is incredible. And I’m like, I’m a little like emotional disappearing math because she’s fantastic, I believe. But ya know, in terms of that, from My perspective. As I mentioned, I’m a self-taught engineer, I don’t have a computer science degree. I’m a woman, I’m Filipino. And when all of the things that just described, I have not met another Filipino woman who is self taught, like me, and when you walk into the tech industry, I’ve sometimes I am in a conference or a meet up or in even a conference room. Sorry, like a Yeah, like a meeting room. And I just think to myself, How did I even get here, because I look around, and no one looks like me. No one speaks like me. No one can relate to my story, because they all have computer science degrees, they all have trained as an engineer for the last 10 years. And, you know, I was like working alongside them, it just didn’t make any sense. And during those times, I felt it’s like psychological safety. I didn’t feel safe in the environment that I was in. That doesn’t mean that the people around me weren’t kind or like treating me unfairly, it was just because I didn’t fit in. And I felt like an outsider. And it was during those times where I would like, look around me, and I’d be like, Okay, I’m the only person and then feel isolated. And then I question everything I did, because it wasn’t, because I don’t have the same background. I don’t have I don’t speak the same sort of language as everyone else who knew the lingo and acronyms who had been working in tech for years. I felt like a massive imposter. And I think a lot of a lot of women and ethnic minorities, I think we touched on this earlier, but it’s definitely something we all struggle with. And luckily, I’ve been able to form as I mentioned, in the other podcast episode, that we’ve got, like Lady, I, the reason I created ladies in DevOps was to find women, who were a DevOps engineer like me, before I joined GitPod, and we could all come together and talk about, you know, being the only woman in the room and being supporting each other in that journey. Because when you don’t have people around you that look like you, you tend to feel like you tend to. I mean, personally, I tend I ended up questioning everything I did. Is it good enough? Is this? Is this like, perfect? Is this? Will my colleagues like it? Or will they? I don’t know. Sometimes my brain goes into like over catastrophizing mode where I’m like, oh, no, they’re gonna fire me, because it’s not to the standard that they expect when it’s perfectly fine. It’s like a small feature, but no one really will find you no one really cares about that small thing that I ended up implementing. But you know, that’s just where my mind goes. And when I started ladies in DevOps, it was really refreshing to have that support group, because I found out that it wasn’t just me. And sometimes, that’s what you need. But I definitely think there is as a woman, and as someone who’s not from the majority of like, I’m not white, then I think, yeah, I think we do experience it a lot more. And I’ve spoken to other people in who are women. And they’ve said the same things. And it’s just interesting to hear as

Leonardo Murillo 28:29
well. Yeah, I think for Latinos and Latinas, it’s, it’s a very similar story as what you’re sharing with those pulling cars, as a matter of fact, to a point where I think it’s crippling that people really will not even consider themselves capable of trying, because of this, just down. And I think there’s a lot of there’s a big component to our culture, and kind of the society that one’s immersed in, affects, affects you in that way. And I love to hear how we’re using community to solve that problem, right? Because, like, at least from a chronic Latino or Latina perspective, there’s always this grandiose view of what, for example, the US is all about, right, or Europe is all about everybody wants to leave their country, everybody wants to go to the United States because that’s where you become successful. Right? And, or they want to go to Europe because that’s where you become successful. And that has a counter effect, which is really the kind of internal internalizing of the fact that you are inferior, right, that you’re, you’re surrounding your culture, your society is inferior to something else. And it’s something that is embedded in the culture. It’s in the TV shows that you watch is everywhere, right? So overcoming bad is a big challenge. I think there are also other barriers, bad that affect minorities such as Latinos, I guess they’re telling Filipinos as well,

Jason Baum 30:16
a language it happens and who it happens to? How do you combat it? How do you overcome it? We already touched on some of it. But Pauline, why don’t we start with you? And, and, yeah.

Pauline Narvas 30:31
So for me, I, I start when I, when I was like a university and I was still trying to find my way into tech because I did the biomedical sciences degree, I come, I felt that imposter syndrome every single time I tried to like apply for roles. And I kept convincing myself that I should just give up, because it’s not, it’s not going to happen. But I continued, I kept going, and the only thing that kept me going, but helped you fight through that imposter syndrome that, you know, motivated me to apply for those roles, and then eventually landing my first tech job was actually on Twitter. Someone said, I don’t remember I can’t, I don’t remember where I had, I think I read a tweet about it. But someone had said, what I do to help me combat imposter syndrome was, I, every time someone says something nice to me, like on an email, or tweets, or whatever it is, they screenshot it, and then they upload it onto a folder in on their computer. And whenever they feel terrible, they have the folder that they look at. And then they’ve read all of the messages and all of the compliments that people have given them. And that usually gives them a boost of inspiration. So I was like, this is a good idea, I might do the same. And it because I was very, I am still very active on Twitter. I people would tweet after I gave a presentation, like a talk or meetup or a conference. And they would be like, That was a great, that was a great talk. I learned this on that thank you for hosting it. So then I ended up creating Twitter moments. I don’t think it’s talked about that much. But it used to be front and center as one of the Twitter features where you can go on and then post all of these Twitter’s and create all these tweets. And so now I have actually four, four Twitter moments and a private folder personally on my Google Drive, that just shows all of these like compliments that people have given me. And honestly, it really helps whenever I feel like I’m not good enough. And I shouldn’t I’m not deserving of this amazing job. You know, my dream job in tech, I’m not deserving of it. I just look at those things. And then it sort of rewires my brain. I’m like, actually, I am good at this because people can see that I’ve got this, I’ve had a lot of success doing this. So that’s definitely my number one advice to people. And, you know, also, it’s like, I’m scared that I might come across as someone who like, needs the external validation, because that’s, you know, external validation will only get you so far. But for me, as well, I’ve actually been going through therapy and doing like journaling. And all of these things have helped coach me into thinking in more of a self-acceptance way. So if I am like struggling with something, I’m quicker to identify, like, what I need to learn to help me get through it. Or if it is imposter syndrome, I managed to talk myself out of it without needing someone to say, you’re amazing, you’re doing great, I, you know, I’ve been able to, like, take a step back be a bit rational, rather than going down that emotional rabbit hole. And yeah, I think it really is more of like self almost like self-coaching, telling yourself, I’m actually I am good at this. And I just need to, you know, find my way out of the rabbit hole of you, you know that that voice in your head saying you’re not good enough? And

Jason Baum 33:54
that’s it. That’s hard. That’s really hard to do. I love that you have that like Twitter moments. And when we wrote this when you’re talking, you reminded me of a guest that we had on Alanya Ford and who’s if you’re not familiar with her, please listen to that episode. It was she is amazing. And just has the mindset of no one’s going to give it to me, I’m going to go take it and you should do the same. And like this, that mindset is great. And she’s so strong, like with that, and that’s not everybody. Everyone doesn’t necessarily have that ingrained in them. I’m mostly thinking, you remember as an old SNL Saturday live, Stuart Smalley you’re good enough. You’re smart enough and doggone it people like you like saying it into the mirror. It’s like we all kind of do. There’s some truth to that that you need to do.

Pauline Narvas 34:41
Yeah, no, absolutely. And just the one last thing. I would say, I’ve managed to coach myself into reminding myself when I feel the imposter syndrome because I’m not like, I don’t look like everyone else. I’ve managed to convince myself that diversity is good. And I have coached myself that no matter Why, like, even though I don’t have a computer science background, or whatever it is my difference is a superpower. And I need to like, keep focusing on that. And somehow, you know, when on my bad days, I still need reminding, but I’ve got it wired in my head. It has taken years of practice, though.

Jason Baum 35:16
So that’s so true. So true. And God, how boring would it be if we were all the same? Leo? What about for you?

Leonardo Murillo 35:26
Yeah, so for me, I think, what the first advice that I would give is, it’s important to give yourself the freedom to, to, I have to say to yourself, I feel like an imposter right now, right? Like not fight it. It’s okay, we all feel it, we all are experienced, we all share that experience, right? We have to know what’s happening before you can actually solve it, I found myself that it’s also important, it’s valuable for you to kind of flip the coin a little bit and use it, if you can actually get to kind of dominate the emotion and you can actually use it as a driver, right? Because you understand, alright, this is something that’s taking me out of my comfort zone, this is something that I find challenging, so use it a little bit to your own benefit, once you can identify to, to realize that you’re put yourself through something that is going to help you progress, right, that it’s going to help you move forward. I do journaling myself, and pulling mentioned it, I think it’s phenomenal, both to keep track of all the successes that you’ve accomplished over time. Like if you go into, like the habit of just writing down what you are proud of right? Every day, when you have you’re experiencing one of those moments, go back and read that right and see all the things that you that you’ve managed to accomplish over time, and towards identifying it, you know, like having the capability to see it happening as it happens. I’m I don’t know if we talked about this on my past episodes. But I’m, I’m a meditator, I meditate every, every day I find mindfulness, super important towards being able to well see yourself without an emotional attachment. Right? So I really encourage people to find their proper way because everybody’s different, right? Like, whether it’s meditation, or whatever it is that works for you, you know, but find ways to increase your mindfulness.

Jason Baum 37:32
I’m a huge believer in mindfulness meditation, it’s gotten me through very hard times in the past, and I still don’t do it as much as I should. I think I saw all of us I used to be very good at it. And now I need to get back to it. But yeah, I am a huge believer that and, and this is such an important topic we can go on and on. I feel like this might need around to at some point. But if you’re interested in this topic, well, first of all, you can Google it as we learned. But some of the sources you know, that I had referenced earlier if you’re interested in looking them up. It was the International Journal of Behavioral Science. Psychology Today has a great article on the reality of imposter syndrome. bbc.com has a lot on why imposter syndrome hits women and women of color harder, time calm, how to deal with imposter syndrome. And there’s a ton of resources. Harvard Business Review also has a great section in there on overcoming imposter syndrome. Lina, Leonardo, Pauline, thank you so much for being on today. And coming back to the show. And really just opening up being honest and diving into a topic that is sensitive in nature. And just sharing. I really appreciate it.

Pauline Narvas 38:53
Thank you so much, Jason. And I’m just really glad that we had the chance to speak about this topic. It’s one that’s near and dear to my heart. So I hope that whoever’s listening, has picked up some of the advice and the comments that we made and hopefully makes you feel less of an imposter.

Leonardo Murillo 39:13
Yeah, definitely. Thank you, Jason. Thank you, Paul. It’s great to spend this time sharing with you. And I guess for anybody that’s listening as well. You’re not alone. Right? Like, you. You can reach Pauline, you can reach me you can reach Jason like we are a community. We’re all in this together. So you need if you need a sounding board if you need a word of advice. We’re all the same. And we’re all here for each other, right?

Jason Baum 39:43
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And in this way, when we post this will, you know, give your social if that’s cool. We’ll give your social handles and you can reach us and I encourage you now we have an email address. Please shoot us An email tell us what you thought about this episode. Ask questions if you have them. Who knows, maybe we’ll be able to do this again and regroup its podcast at DevOps institute.com. So shoot us an email there. And thank you for listening to this episode of the humans of DevOps Podcast. I’m going to end this episode the same way I always do, encouraging you to become a member of DevOps Institute to get access to even more great resources just like this one. Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, and most of all, stay human. Live long and prosper.

Narrator 40:37
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