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Could you be making false assumptions which only serve to keep you from achieving your goals? Secret rules take self-reflection to discover, destroy, and replace with rules based on the truth. In addition to getting rid of secret rules, we can collect data to measure progress toward a goal. Even though our efforts working toward a goal won’t be perfect, data allows us to better understand that we are moving in the right direction.

In episode 274, we’re joined by guest host Jason Gass to discuss the following chapters from Finish by Jon Acuff:

Chapter 6: Get Rid of Your Secret Rules
Chapter 7: Use Data to Celebrate Your Imperfect Progress

Original Recording Date: 04-07-2024

Topics – A Book Discussion Series, Chapter 6: Get Rid of Your Secret Rules, Chapter 7: Use Data to Celebrate Your Imperfect ProgressA Book Discussion Series* This is part 3 of a book discussion series centered on Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done by Jon Acuff. + If you missed part 1 of our discussion, check out Episode 272.In that first episode we discussed the following topics: - Reasons Jason Gass (our special guest host in this series) recommended the book - Chapter 1 – The Day after Perfect - Chapter 2 – Cut Your Goal in Half + If you missed part 2 of our discussion, check out Episode 273. In that second episode in the series we discussed: - Chapter 3 – Choose What to Bomb - Chapter 4 – Make It Fun if You Want It Done - Chapter 5 – Leave Your Hiding Places and Ignore Noble Obstacles

2:56 – Chapter 6: Get Rid of Your Secret Rules* “Perfectionism is a desperate attempt to live up to impossible standards. We wouldn’t play if the game was impossible, so perfectionism promises us that we just need follow some secret rules. As long as we do that, perfect is possible. So over the years, as you chase goals, perfectionism quietly adds some secret rules to your life.” – Jon Acuff * One of the secret rules Acuff discusses is that a goal must be difficult in order for it to count (i.e. can’t be easy). + John mentions the goal to read books from an earlier chapter and the secret rules we impose on ourselves. When we think of reading books we might say that means the books must be paper books and a certain level of complexity. - This might make us think a book can’t be children’s books, an anthology of short stories, poems, an audiobook, a book of art, etc. + Nick mentions a secret rule related to technical conferences. People think they need to have a presentation written when they submit an abstract to speak. That’s not true at all. You just need a good abstract, and you can worry about writing the presentation if you are selected to speak. * Acuff tells us to deal with secret rules we have to: + Identify them + Destroy them + Replace them * According to the book, ask yourself these questions to identify secret rules: + Do I even like …? + What’s my real goal? + Does the method I’m using match who I am? + Is it time to quit? * Jason mentions people don’t often reassess goals to see if those goals are still things they want to accomplish. It may very well be time to quit. + If we’re studying a specific industry or for a technical certification in one area and things change (i.e. job change, etc.), the goal may no longer apply to our situation. + It’s ok to look at a goal and decide it needs to be replaced by something else. + The secret rule here is “winners never quit.” * John likes the question about the method being used matching who the person is. + He remembers hearing a stand up comedy routine from Nate Bargatze about the P90x in which Nate said he had ordered P90x after never having worked out in the past. + For the person who decides they want to run a marathon, do you even want to run? And furthermore, can you run? - Jason mentioned before he will run in short races for the experience but has no desire to run a marathon. * Maybe we should think back to why we’re doing what we are doing, if it’s actually enjoyable, and if there might be another way to accomplish the goal. * Playing a sport can provide some good exercise. Jason gives the example of his father-in-law playing golf and walking the course instead of renting a cart. It’s more fun than walking around a track, for example. - John says there seems to be a secret rule out there which states running marathons is a good goal. Consider whether marathon runners are healthy in the way you want to be healthy. * And why stop at just a marathon? What about ultramarathons? What determines the number of miles to run that gets you to “healthy?” * People have this idea that something difficult must be better. * Nick says deciding to quit is a hard one because of the potential shame, but we need to be careful. Quitting goal after goal may be a sign that you’re picking the wrong goal. + It’s not bad to quit, but pay attention to what you quit and why you quit to inform future goal setting. + John says it’s ok to refactor a goal. Maybe you want to be well rounded in your technical knowledge based on the technical position you hold today. - “So if you switch technical roles and it’s covering different technology, abandoning one set of certifications and replacing them with another set of certifications or even just general background knowledge isn’t quitting. It’s just reorienting around the new position and what it is that you’re doing.” – John White, on refactoring a goal - Changing positions a lot may be a different thing and a different goal. * Jason likes Acuff’s concept of borrowing someone else’s diploma. + At work Jason has his own technical specialties from studying, personal experiences, or previous jobs. + Take the example of Jason having a customer who wants to talk about networking. Though Jason has a strong networking background, he’s not a networking professional. - Should Jason set a goal to learn the company’s network product inside and out so he can go and speak to customers about it? Or, should he pull in a peer of his who loves networking to talk to the customer? The fastest path to achieving the goal of helping a customer would be for Jason to pull in his peer to help. - The section we’re discussing may mention borrowing someone else’s diploma, but it’s attacking the secret rule that we have to do it all on our own. John mentions it’s worth stating the secret rule here and how we can accomplish the true goal in Jason’s example (informing a customer). + “It’s the secret unstated addendum that is the problem. Sometimes these rules are secrets even to ourselves.” – John White - Jason feels it is about knowing your limitations and when to outsource. He gives the example of someone building a house who knows how to do the framing but decides to hire an electrician and a plumber instead of trying to develop the depth of expertise in those areas. * Once we have identified a secret rule we should state it explicitly and then the implications of the secret rule. Ask yourself “what does that mean?” + If the secret rule is I have to do everything myself, the implication is I need to go and learn everything needed / be an expert in all areas needed to inform a customer. + In the book Acuff gives the example that success is bad which must mean failure is good. * Jason reminds us that the last step after identifying and destroying a secret rule is to replace that rule. + If the secret rule is I must do everything on my own, it can be replaced with I need to know when to bring in outside expertise / when to ask for help. Or, more people in the boat is better and more helpful. + We want a new, flexible, reasonable rule based on the truth. + When Jason used to build things earlier in his life he wanted them to be perfect with no blemishes. He remembers his dad telling him no one would notice any imperfections in the finished work. This is another example of a secret rule. Jason thought he could never make a mistake in the process of building something.

14:27 – Chapter 7: Use Data to Celebrate Your Imperfect Progress* In this chapter Acuff brings up the idea of trying to achieve a goal you were not successful in achieving previously. Why were you not successful? + Jason reminds us that our memories are not as reliable as we think they are. This is easy to confirm by getting conflicting eyewitness accounts of an accident, for example. + Having the data keeps us directionally accurate. Jason gives the example of having data that shows 3 gym visits per week on average for a time and then only being able to make 2 gym visits one week. Maybe you did miss a day, but you might be doing way better than the previous 6 months. Your average is still quite good, and you may not remember your progress accurate in the absence of data. - Maybe you’re tracking waist size, shirt size, weight, bags of potato chips eaten in a month, etc. There could be any number of data points to collect. * "The funny thing about failure. It’s loud. Progress, on the other hand, is quiet. It whispers. Perfectionism screams failure and hides progress. That’s the reason a little data can make a big difference. It helps you see through perfectionism’s claims that you’re not getting anywhere and helps you celebrate your achievements. " – John White, on the thesis of this chapter, using some words from Jon Acuff * Jason says there’s not any guidance or warning in the book about how often we should check our data. Data can both encourage us and discourage us. We should collect the data, but consider how often you look at it. + Looking too often at data on your weight (like daily for example) may not show progress because our daily weight can fluctuate. Maybe checking every Friday would be better to show progress. + Were you looking at your weight daily before you started working out? Would it be better to think more carefully about what data you’re tracking and consider things like how many times you worked out in a week instead of weight lost? - “Maybe I didn’t lose any weight, but I lifted more weights. I walked farther. I went to the gym 3 times, which is more than I did the week before…. Having those…data points I think has a better rounded picture of what your progress is.” – Jason Gass, on taking multiple data points when measuring progress + There are many examples of possible points of data collection discussed in the book like: - How many items were donated, or how many trash bags were filled with things to donate? - A room can still subjectively look messy, but an objective measure is how many bags of stuff removed. Capturing the data moves us from subjective to objective. + Acuff would encourage us to start by choosing 1 to 3 data points to collect and no more. The intent is to start small and keep doing it. We might have to think carefully about what to track. + For Nick, tracking the data points is where the wheels fall off. Outside of financial things, he just doesn’t do this well. - Jason says find an easy way to track the data. He has a gym membership and has to scan an app on every visit. It’s easy for him to pull a report of gym visits over time. - Find something that does automated data tracking to decrease the required effort. Audible can easily show you how many books you have read over the course of a month, a year, etc. Amazon.com can also show you how much you have spent to date. - How much money did you save this year? We can setup rules at our back to automatically save specific amounts of money each month. Jason has a goal to max out his IRA and has a rule created to contribute to it automatically. At the end of the year or at any point he can pull a report to see how close he came to hitting the goal. - John mentions data collection might not be fun for some of us, but there are ways we can make it that way or gamify it. Fitness watches have done this by allowing us to track data against that of friends and others we know. The data collected from a fitness watch can be a point of accountability too (i.e. you remind yourself to wear the watch to track all activity so you “get credit for it”). - Jason mentions he has seen people print off a coloring book page that looks like a house as a visual reminder of progress toward paying off home debt. The idea is color in a small space each time you make a house payment. This creates excitement as people work toward their goal. * Other suggested data points in the book were things like meals made in a week, number of dates with a spouse, and many more. Jason points out the element of creativity present in how we collect data. We create the rules as to what will be collected. + This section we’re referencing is called “23 ways to measure your goal,” and it is not meant to be an exhaustive list but rather a reference to generate some ideas. Different types of goals may require different data. + Acuff encourages picking 3 data points at most when we start. There is nothing wrong with choosing only 1 or 2 data points. * Nick liked the encouragement to deconstruct goals we accomplished and pull some data points. This idea of reflection goes back to being intentional (something we don’t do enough). + How long did it take? + How much did it cost? + Was there a deadline? + What worked last time? + “If you don’t have the data from the previous time that you accomplished a goal, then you probably don’t remember how hard or easy it was. So maybe it’s not a good way to calibrate what it is that you’re doing this time and whether you’re making similar progress…. If you didn’t collect the data, then you don’t have anything to compare to.” – John White + Jason says the book also encourages us to reflect upon the goals we didn’t (something that many pf us probably do not do). Do we have data on progressing toward any unfinished goals? What went wrong? What would we change if we tried that goal again? - Jason recalls hearing personal development teacher Jim Rohn suggest attending a conference put on by someone who failed. The sole purpose would be for people to learn from that person’s mistakes. We can apply a similar idea to ourselves by analyzing where we failed and identifying what we need to change to ensure success the next time. - John references win notes about sales companies successfully make, but you don’t see a lot of loss notes about why a sales motion failed. These are probably even more important than the win notes. - “I feel like there’s so much information that we can learn from our failures so that we’re successful in the future.” – Jason Gass

Mentioned in the Outro* Just as noble obstacles are manufactured dependencies, secret rules are similar in that they are false assumptions we’ve been living by (even if we never knew that). + Maybe you thought only tier 1 applications at your company need a disaster recovery plan. But think about what happens if a tier 2 application goes offline. It likely also needs a disaster recovery plan. + A rule to replace the secret rule could be that every application needs a disaster recovery plan, regardless of categorized tier, and those plans can be different based on the tier and recovery time objectives. * We have the creative control of what to measure to track progress toward a goal and how to measure it, but we should keep it simple and keep motivations in mind so we continue to collect data. + If your goal is to build a better resume or LinkedIn profile, it will require improving documentation of accomplishments. Maybe you document 1 thing you learned at the end of each week that helped you deepen existing expertise in one area and 1 thing you learned in an area where you have very little expertise. + Another idea is document tasks completed that are related to milestones of big projects. + Notice there’s no guidance in the above examples on how detailed to get in the documentation, but having a documented list that is updated weekly (and backed up off the corporate network) will help us update a resume or LinkedIn profile much easier than having no data and trying to do it from memory. + We should also consider motivation in doing something like this. Does collecting the data and being able to update your LinkedIn or resume act as a reward, or are you motivated by the fear of not having the data? * For other book discussions we’ve done, check out: + Episode 87 – The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni + Episode 90 – The Inner Game of Stress by Tim Gallwey, Ed Hanzelik, and John Horton + Book discussion series on Deep Work by Cal Newport: - Episode 141 – Deep Work, Part 1 – The Why - Episode 142 – Deep Work, Part 2 – The Structure - Episode 143 – Deep Work, Part 3 – The Execution - Episode 144 – Deep Work, Part 4 – Embracing Boredom - Episode 145 – Deep Work, Part 5 – Quit Social Media - Episode 146 – Deep Work, Part 6 – Drain the Shallows - Episode 147 – Deep Work, Part 7 – Become Hard to Reach

Contact the Hosts* The hosts of Nerd Journey are John White and Nick Korte. + E-mail: nerdjourneypodcast@gmail.com + DM us on Twitter/X @NerdJourney + Connect with John on LinkedIn or DM him on Twitter/X @vJourneyman + Connect with Nick on LinkedIn or DM him on Twitter/X @NetworkNerd_

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In order to finish the goals we begin, author Jon Acuff says we need more time to work toward each goal, the motivation to keep going, and to maintain focus amidst any possible distractions perfectionism may throw at us along the way.

Based on that, what will you intentionally decide to bomb so you have more time? How will you stay motivated to accomplish your goal? And how can you avoid distractions?

In episode 273, we’re joined by guest host Jason Gass to help answer these questions based on our discussion of the following chapters from Finish by Jon Acuff:

Chapter 3: Choose What to Bomb
Chapter 4: Make It Fun if You Want It Done
Chapter 5: Leave Your Hiding Places and Ignore Noble Obstacles.

Original Recording Date: 04-07-2024

Topics – A Book Discussion Series, Chapter 3: Choose What to Bomb, Chapter 4: Make It Fun, Chapter 5: Leave Your Hiding Places and Ignore Noble ObstaclesA Book Discussion Series* This is part 2 of a book discussion series centered on Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done by Jon Acuff. If you missed part 1 of our discussion, check out Episode 272. * In that first episode we discussed the following topics: + Reasons Jason Gass (our special guest host in this series) recommended the book + Chapter 1 – The Day after Perfect + Chapter 2 – Cut Your Goal in Half

2:59 – Chapter 3: Choose What to Bomb* The only way to accomplish a new goal is to feed it your most valuable resource – time. We have to take time from one thing and give it to something else. Being good at one thing means being bad at something else. We choose what to be bad at to prioritize something we’d like to be better at. + Jason liked the examples Acuff uses from his own life and the lives of real people. + Acuff gives the example of using a specific block of time on Mondays to finish a book he was writing. His wife encouraged him to use that time. + For those listening who may be working toward a specific goal (taking a class or a degree, pursuing a certification, etc.), you might need to work on it while your kids are awake, and it may take time away from them. But it is intended to be temporary. - Jason used to enjoy mowing his yard, for example, but got tired of the time it was taking, especially in the heat of a Texas summer. He is able to pay for a mowing service and can now apply the 2 hours per week toward other goals. + Nick says the decision to be bad at something is really putting your time in the right place to accomplish your goal. But it also prevents you from having a mental conflict later or needing to make further decisions. It saves mental cycles. - Nick, for example, is choosing to bomb communicating with people a lot on weekends because he is podcasting. That’s just what he does. - Jason’s wife hated grocery shopping. Now they’ve invested in a meal service and only shop for the basics. This relieved a task they just didn’t want to do. - “There’s always something I feel in our lives that we just don’t want to do, and if we can trade or outsource so we can work on something that’s a little more energetic or more fulfilling, it’s a good handoff.” – Jason Gass - John stresses that these things are planned and intentional. If grocery shopping takes 90 minutes out of your week that you really don’t like spending, and a delivery service can eliminate some of that or most of it for a fixed rate, it could be a win. If grocery shopping did not get accomplished and we were forced to get unhealthy takeout that is unhealthy and goes beyond our budget, it may be the wrong tradeoff. - Every once in a while John will invest in fluff and fold laundry service. The tradeoff isn’t for the time spent doing the laundry but rather to avoid the time spent folding the laundry to put it away. - Jason would dry clean his shirts to avoid having to iron since he and his wife do not iron. He at some point moved to wrinkle free shirts. + Nick says the idea of choosing what to bomb is about where you will and won’t focus your time and energy. When trying to build expertise in a new area, it will require more time because you do not have the expertise (i.e. you accept you will be bad at doing the thing). So you may need to bomb something (or get rid of it) to give you the extra time. - John says things like television are mentioned in the book as well as other slack time in our lives. Cal Newport’s work has spoken about excessive social media usage and how it can give the dopamine hit or seem like you’re accomplishing something. - Jason mentioned he used to watch Breaking Bad but thought about how much time it takes to “binge watch” TV series for multiple seasons at 45 minutes per episode and has decided it’s no longer that important to him. He thinks about what else could be accomplished during that time and only watches a very small amount of tv now. - Jason has friends who are deep in their knowledge of music, live TV shows, or sports and spend a great deal of time in those areas. Jason has decided it’s not important to have that kind of knowledge depth. - Nick’s wife and daughter know he’s choosing to bomb watching television. They know just as he does that he is mesmerized by television. - Early in his career, Jason was not much into gaming but owned a PlayStation. He hasn’t finished many games. After realizing how much time he was spending playing, at one point he decided to spend the time working toward a certification to progress his career. Jason never finished the game he started after that. - “You know what…maybe this isn’t the proper use of my free time. And not to say that we can’t take for entertainment…but it gets into the point of how much time to do put toward that extracurricular activity versus one of the other goals that we really want to accomplish.” – Jason Gass - “Is it one of your stated goals? Because if it’s not one of your stated goals, then you are accomplishing something that is not a stated goal at the cost of something that is a stated goal….” – John White - If binge watching a show or finishing a video game is that important, then we should be conscious and intentional about spending the time there and let go of the shame.

13:39 – Chapter 4: Make It Fun* Jason started taking some entertainment activities like a tv show or movie and making it a reward. He gives the example of studying for a certification during the day and then rewarding himself with watching 1 or 2 episodes of an interesting television show. + “That was my reward of getting through those chapters or…doing that lab time. That became the reward or the fun side of the goal.” – Jason Gass, on rewarding himself with watching television for working on a goal + John feels like using rewards as suggested in this chapter definitely hit him in a positive way. Some people are reward motivated, but others are motivated by fear (i.e. fear of something happening if the goal is not accomplished). It is valid to harness what is going to help you. + “If you say you’re going to do this thing that’s a reward and then you have to abandon the reward, then sometimes you’re going to abandon the task. And that’s not a good thing either.” – John White + These categories of reward and fear motivation exist in financial planning as an example. We hear about the type of customer who wants to save money because they are looking forward to things like travel or spending time with family. We hear about others who are afraid of not having enough saved for retirement to cover medical costs, etc. - Both are valid drivers of you accomplishing your goal. Are you fearful of not having enough money, or are you more interested in having enough money to do fun things in retirement? * Nick thinks most people are not as intentional as they could be when making decisions. Many don’t think about whether fear or reward motivates them. We busy ourselves with many things and just are not that intentional. + John tells us his comments on intention come from cognitive behavioral therapy. + For example, if you’re going to watch television instead of exercising, make that decision up front. You could even say out loud that you’ve decided to watch television instead of exercising and see how you feel about it before sitting down to watch. If you feel ok about it, then let go of any shame as a result. + John agrees people are not intentional about setting up rewards or finding out if they are reward or fear motivated. For any given individual, they may have a mix of both fear and reward motivation. - An example of fear motivation is working on certain tasks because you do not want to be fired. - An example of reward motivation is performing tasks you don’t like first so you can then work on the things you do enjoy. - Nick shares a personal example of combining fear and reward motivation on accident. For a series of task deadlines, Nick had completed the tasks on the day they were due but worked into the evening to do it. When another deadline was given he felt there was no reason he could not finish by close of business on the due date. On the day before the deadline, Nick was sitting in a Starbucks and made the decision to stay 2 hours longer instead of going home to avoid any distractions when he arrived at home. That, and he loves sitting in Starbucks and drinking coffee. He hit the deadline by close of business the next day, and it made him feel great. Nick mentions this was not anything intentional until the very last minute realization. He could have been thinking about it days before when he knew he would be close to a Starbucks in the late afternoon on the day before the deadline. * Jason says this chapter looks at goals through the lens of fun in general. + Exercise is a great example. Many people think they need to go running if they want to exercise or lose weight. But if running isn’t fun, the person would likely stop running. What if we did something fun that can still help us accomplish our goals? + Perfectionism tells us a goal cannot be fun. That’s wrong. If playing pickleball is fun to you, for example, that’s a form of exercise that you could do instead of running. + Jason’s wife is a big runner and has run marathons. Jason has realized he’s not a marathon runner, but he will run a 10K. He and his wife have run 10K races at Disney World and trained together for it. But Jason’s wife wants to run half and full marathons too. Jason understands his goals don’t have to be the same as hers. + When we create goals, there needs to be a fun element to it. * Jason mentions most goal books suggest creating SMART goals. + This stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time bound. + Jon Acuff jokes that we could use those same words to describe broccoli or cauliflower. + Tony Robbins adds to these and would advise we need to be reminded of the reason for the goal (or the why behind it) and the emotion tied to it. + Eating healthy isn’t fun. Tony Robbins would encourage us to ask “why are you doing it?” - Maybe someone wants to be healthy so they can travel, to remain healthy and active so they can spend time with future grandchildren, etc. - Jason was never someone who enjoyed going to the gym. But last year Jason began to have back problems from working a desk job and could not even put on his socks without pain. He called a friend who is a personal trainer to develop a workout program for him. Jason says it was painful at first, but the training has helped him stay healthy so he can achieve more of the things he wants in life like the ability to travel (i.e. the why behind the goal). + John mentions this is another example of mixing fear and reward. Jason wants to avoid the pain but also wants to be around to travel and accomplish various other things. + John also suggests that perhaps to make goals achievable (the A in SMART) we need to think about making our goals fun. Part of a training plan for exercise might be running, it might be playing pickleball, lifting weights, or perhaps some of all of these. - John references Acuff’s story of reading 100 books in a year during which he redefined what counted as a book. Audiobooks counted, graphic novels counted, etc. It doesn’t have to be that only 500 page books read by candlelight count. - Jason says goal setting is like a game. If we define the rules that go along with the goal, we have a better chance of completing the goal. And it makes things more fun as well.

25:16 – Chapter 5: Leave Your Hiding Places and Ignore Noble Obstacles* Jason gives the example of it being April and people being focused on their taxes. + If your desk is messy, you might decide to clean it before you work on your taxes. But it’s really just a hiding place in disguise. + We might be fearful of working on a goal or a task toward a goal, and we can end up hiding in another activity that feels like an accomplishment. It only delays your goal. * According to the book, a hiding place is “the safe place you go to hide from your fear of messing up. It’s a task that lets you get your perfectionism fix by making you feel successful even as you avoid your goal.” + Cleaning up your office might be important, but what you’re really doing might be avoiding your taxes. + Nick can definitely identify with the distraction of hiding places. They often come to him in the form of new ideas that pop into his head once he is close to finishing production and publishing of an episode. He should consider writing these down and doing them later instead of acting upon the ideas exactly when they come. + Jason mentions once we get close to finishing our goal, it’s amazing how many ideas our brains come up with, and every one of them could distract us. When we get ideas we feel like we need to start them right then, and it can be very easy to walk away from your original goal as a result. - Goals will get us into creative mode and end up leading to ideas for other goals. - “But we have to be in the mindset of…I don’t want to forget this. This is something that I want to do. I need to write it down so that I can plan for maybe after I finish this goal…and not just forget.” – Jason Gass, on what to do to avoid being distracted by new ideas * A noble obstacle is the “very good reason” you cannot pursue your goal. It’s an attempt to make your goal harder than it has to be so you don’t have to finish but can still look respectable. + This might be phrases like I can’t do X until Y. + “I can’t eat healthy until I finish eating all the unhealthy stuff in my pantry.” + “I can’t work out because I’ll get too big. Then I’ll need a new wardrobe, and I can’t afford a new wardrobe.” + Jason has seen this happen a lot when working on home projects sort of like a domino effect. He feels like people get caught up because these statements happen in our heads. It could be worse than it really is. - Writing the steps we need to take down on paper allows organization and for us to see any true dependencies. It might also lead to smaller microgoals before accomplishing the overall goal. - This can also solve the problem of having a bunch of steps to complete a project and not knowing where to start. + John had an initial negative reaction to this section but after thinking about it again agrees with it overall. - He intentionally makes a reverse timeline for projects to map out dependencies and put the tasks in the right order to understand where to start. This approach doesn’t create a barrier. It’s a definition of what is needed to accomplish the goal. - “And I think that intentionality and the planning…and then actually starting is the difference between a barrier and a plan.” – John White, on noble obstacles vs. planning - Perhaps you have dirty dishes in your sink and say you cannot cook because you have a sink of dishes. That could cause you to stop completely. But if you plan to clean the dishes early enough to cook the meal on time, that is different. - Jason felt the chapter may have been lacking by not emphasizing planning / getting things out of your head. * Jason thinks this chapter in a way hinted at impostor syndrome though it was never mentioned in the book. + Jason gives the example building concrete countertops. He has in the past stopped himself from continuing and questioning whether he was talented enough to do it. It creates a noble obstacle of “until I’m a master, I can’t do this….I can’t even start because I don’t know all of the skill sets.” - It’s hinted on that this is where impostor syndrome starts. * John thinks his negative reaction warranted only a light critique. + He would have liked to hear some emphasis on the difference between throwing up a reason not to start and creating a project plan to start execution. * Nick feels he will be more mindful of calling people out for throwing up noble obstacles, especially himself. * The book tells us perfectionism says it can’t be easy to finish a goal. + “Instead of making things complicated and difficult, instead of giving in to noble obstacles, finishers stack the odds before they even start. Perfectionism always makes things harder and more complicated. Finishers make things easier and simpler. The next time you work on a goal…ask the following questions during the middle of the project: Could things be easier? Could things be simpler?” – Jon Acuff + For some reason we feel like if something is easy it is like cheating. Jason isn’t sure where this stems from. Getting to our goal is the most important thing. + John mentions we often calibrate accomplishment with level of difficulty. We know this is the case with judging Olympic gymnastics vaulting and in diving. Doing a simple dive perfectly, for example, is not necessarily as good as achieving less than 100% at a higher complexity dive. - “So level of difficulty somehow creeps in to our judgment of accomplishment as opposed to what’s important about actually accomplishing the final goal as simply and easily as possible.” – John White

Mentioned in the Outro* The phrase “choosing what to bomb” is a little abrasive. It’s like asking yourself “what will I fail at? What will I not be perfect at?” It’s an admission you cannot do it all, and you have to make a choice on where to focus your time by giving something up. * Could understanding our motivations (reward or fear) help us procrastinate less? * Hiding places hit Nick pretty hard. E-mail is definitely a hiding place since so many of us leave it open all day at work, and Nick admits it is a hiding place for him.

+ Maybe this means we need to close e-mail more often to focus or set some guardrails around making access a bit more difficult.

A noble obstacle feels like a manufactured dependency that can delay your goal. Making the project plan or a reverse timeline likely could show you if there really are dependencies in what you need to complete or if you are manufacturing a dependency.
The book discussion format is a little different from our interview format. Send us one specific thing you liked or did not like about the book discussion format and why (e-mail and social links below).
For other book discussions we’ve done, check out:
- Episode 87 – The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
- Episode 90 – The Inner Game of Stress by Tim Gallwey, Ed Hanzelik, and John Horton
- Book discussion series on Deep Work by Cal Newport:
  - Episode 141 – Deep Work, Part 1 – The Why
  - Episode 142 – Deep Work, Part 2 – The Structure
  - Episode 143 – Deep Work, Part 3 – The Execution
  - Episode 144 – Deep Work, Part 4 – Embracing Boredom
  - Episode 145 – Deep Work, Part 5 – Quit Social Media
  - Episode 146 – Deep Work, Part 6 – Drain the Shallows
  - Episode 147 – Deep Work, Part 7 – Become Hard to Reach

Contact the Hosts* The hosts of Nerd Journey are John White and Nick Korte. + E-mail: nerdjourneypodcast@gmail.com + DM us on Twitter/X @NerdJourney + Connect with John on LinkedIn or DM him on Twitter/X @vJourneyman * Connect with Nick on LinkedIn or DM him on Twitter/X @NetworkNerd_

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What if the reason you aren’t completing the goals you start working toward is really a symptom of being a perfectionist? Maybe you don’t think you have a problem with perfectionism. Think again, friend.

According Jon Acuff, author of Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done, perfectionism is the villain we each have to overcome on our quest to complete more of the goals we start. In episode 272, we’re joined by guest host Jason Gass for the first in a series of collaborative discussions centered on Jon Acuff’s book and the practical tips within. In this first discussion, we’ll talk through the thesis of Finish by Jon Acuff and reactions to its first two chapters – The Day after Perfect and Cut Your Goal in Half.

Original Recording Date: 04-07-2024

Topics – A Guest Host and Our Episode Format, Overall Thesis of Finish by Jon Acuff, Chapter 1: The Day after Perfect, Chapter 2: Cut Your Goal in Half2:14 – A Guest Host and Our Episode Format* Jason Gass joins us this week as a guest host. He is a Solution Architect at VMware by Broadcom and colleague of Nick’s who recommended Nick read Finish by Jon Acuff. + Nick admits he is a perfectionist and struggles with perfectionism. + Interestingly enough, it took Nick 6 months or more to actually buy the book and read it after Jason recommended it. He read it on Audible (his preferred consumption medium for books) and loved it. * Our episode format will be a boot review of Finish by Jon Acuff which has 3 specific framing questions throughout: + Do I believe this? + How did this affect me? + What am I going to do about it, or what have I done about it? * We will start with overall reactions to the book and then look at specific chapters.

4:01 – Overall Thesis of Finish by Jon Acuff* Jason says the main thesis of the book is centered on actually completing the goals we start. We get a number of ideas, set a goal, and tend to never finish / see them through to fruition. + John feels this could be on a macro scale or micro scale and span from changing your life drastically this year to what you might want to achieve over the course of a weekend. + Jason has micro level goals like taking his vitamins every day and still sometimes fails. - You’re not alone, Jason! + Making goals something we can achieve is extremely powerful, and part of getting there is conquering perfectionism. * Overall reactions: + John had a very positive reaction to the book and found it to be both consumable and believable. The advice within seemed to be something one could implement and achieve. Furthermore, John feels the book and its contents will help people accomplish more goals. + Jason reads this book every year now, finishing his second reading for the year a few weeks before we recorded this episode, and felt like the author was writing the book specifically for him. Jason recommended it to Nick and gave another friend a copy of the book as a gift. + Nick loves Acuff’s writing style, personal touch, and use of humor throughout. And Acuff narrates the book if you get on Audible! Nick really enjoys it when authors narrate their books on Audible. + Nick admits to consistently getting tons of ideas that he can never finish. Nick and John have never had a shortage of ideas for the podcast, and there have been so many times they have said something was a good idea only to leave it there and never take action to complete it. + Jason read the paper book but noticed some of Acuff’s other books on Audible had bonus content in their audio forms. Nick mentioned there is no bonus content on Audible specifically for Finish, but Audible did recommend Nick read some of Acuff’s other books (especially if Acuff narrates). + Nick feels like the theme of the book is frameworks we need and can use to shape the path to finishing, somewhat like molding the clay to shape the ideal environment to enable completing the tasks on the way to finishing. + Jason says the book is easy reading. He remembers reading it on a plane and being excited to read the next chapter. When Jason tells people about the book, the first thing he is usually asked is whether he finished it. + John listened to the book on Audible 5-6 times at 1.6x speed to do highlighting and note taking of relevant points. It was easy reading and easy listening. Though John would agree Acuff does well narrating the book, he does not think every author has the same skills as a narrator. Acuff’s performance did make John want to go explore other titles Acuff has written. + Structurally, John felt each chapter had a main point which was clearly stated. Sometimes the reveal of the main point was delayed longer than he would prefer. Each chapter had a series of points backed up by anecdotes and sometimes referencing data-backed studies. + Jason liked the way Acuff spoke about perfectionism as a villain in the first chapter and then each chapter shares how we can fight that villain. Jason thinks some points were repeated at times to make sure listeners really understand by the end of the book. - John agrees he liked the externalizing of the character of perfectionism as a 3rd party who wants to keep us from our goals. This framing is a lot like the way our self-talk works. + Jason never thought about perfectionism being the reason he doesn’t complete goals, especially since he feels a bit disorganized at times. After some reflection, Jason does like to “color inside the lines” and struggles when he feels he has gone outside them (a little obsessive compulsive at times too). - John thinks perfectionism with obsessive compulsion feels more like two different things. Obsessive compulsive might just be what we go to automatically when we think of perfectionism. John thinks you can be a perfectionist without being neat and without being tidy, but one thing may lead to the other (i.e. not being able to find a place for your stuff might keep you from cleaning up entirely). + Nick likes Acuff’s own stories of personal struggle with perfectionism. It makes you as the reader a bit more self-aware of how these struggles might manifest themselves in your own life. Nick hadn’t thought about some of the things covered in the book until he heard it presented in the book, which made Nick realize he definitely has the same struggle.

13:38 – Chapter 1: The Day after Perfect* This chapter’s thesis: + People tend to stop pursuing their goals once they can no longer perfectly accomplish what they set out to do. + We focus on the streak or unbroken chain, and when it is broken, we do not often restart. John mentions it is partially do to focusing on the wrong thing. The unbroken chain was a means to an end of the final goal. - If you’re trying to read the newspaper every day, it’s not that doing that task daily is the goal, but it becomes our focus. Being more well informed is the real goal. The daily reading is a means to an end. + Jason says it was a strong point right up front. We hear stories of people running or going to the gym consistently, and then something happens. - “The day after perfection is really the day that you choose to continue on or just quit, and that bar is unattainable. Let’s face it…. Ok, I couldn’t make it to the gym yesterday. What do I do? What’s more important? Well, what about tomorrow? If I get up and go tomorrow, then I beat that mindset that my track record is now ruined.” – Jason Gass - Any number of life circumstances could keep us from doing something like going to the gym (sickness, busy schedule, etc.). - Nick says the unbeaten sports team who finally loses a game in a season doesn’t just quit the league. They have more games to play. * When we create a goal, who are we promising? Jason reminds us that a goal is a promise to ourselves according to Acuff. We tend to remember the goals we failed to complete and forget about the ones we did complete. + Nick thinks of it as a loop that is not closed. It reminds him of the burnout discussion with Tom Hollingsworth from Episode 127. In that episode we talk about having things on your task list for months and not being able to complete them. It can eat away at you to have so many unfinished tasks. + These things take up head space according to John. Abandoning a goal means abandoning a promise to yourself, and this can create self-talk on the abandonment rather than the things you’ve completed. + “Moving forward imperfectly” is what John reacted to most strongly and plans to internalize. - “It’s not the streak. It’s not the perfection. It’s the overall goal…the metagoal of doing this that is the main point, the why of why I even started this…not the streak itself…not the perfection.” – John White - If we take the example of having one great work conversation per day, John might ask why to remind himself of the reason he set out to do it. Missing one day does not invalidate the goal. * Jason liked the story Acuff shared in the book on how we relate not finishing our goals to a train wreck (which in reality is an awful event that is expensive and may cause loss of life). + It was interesting how we relate not accomplishing a goal to a huge disaster. Nothing that horrible will happen if we miss going to the gym one day, for example. Tomorrow is another chance. * Developing a tolerance for imperfection is what can turn people into consistent finishers according to Acuff. + John says achieving the goal has to be more important than the perfect streak. + Jason mentions even starting in grade school, we want to get an A. This continues throughout school. But each person who completes their education (even if they didn’t make all As or any As) has accomplished the same goal of getting the diploma / degree. We can have the occasional B or C. + Nick says perhaps it’s submission of control. When we are focused on being perfect we may be trying to control the outcome. Once we become imperfect, it makes us feel like we have lost control of the outcome. + “I think we have to abandon the idea that we can be perfect period.” – Jason Gass + Acuff tells us in the book our goals will be imperfect at some point (whether quickly after we start or otherwise). Jason says we need to understand something is going to happen, and it’s more about what we decide to do when something does happen. + “It’s…regaining the control over the outcome and your ability to achieve it as opposed to measuring it by every little intermediate step that you might think that you need to do along the way.” – John White + “The day after perfect is what separates the finishers from the starters. The day after is the make it or break it for every goal.” – Jon Acuff (quote Jason wrote down) + We should also reject the idea that we’ve failed when the day after perfect comes. John may print out the sequence of quotes and hang it on the wall to help remind himself. * Jason says he’s read a lot of books on goal setting, and this book is different. + Many people think we have problems starting goals, but Jason does not believe we have problems starting the goal but rather the continuation of the goal. + We have to figure out how to keep up the hype and momentum to continue.

22:41 – Chapter 2: Cut Your Goal in Half* Acuff starts this chapter by essentially telling us we’re stating our goals incorrectly and that we’re a little overambitious. Maybe we should seek to make our goals consistently achievable. + The Planning Fallacy can be self-defeating. If someone wanted to run a marathon and didn’t run, maybe that person should start with working to run 1 kilometer and then set a higher distance goal. + Nick says cutting your goal in half is like immediately being told and having to accept you were wrong. It can be hard to accept this. * An alternative point here is to double the time to achieve your goal if you cannot cut your goal in half. + If you need to pay off debts, for example, you wouldn’t pay off only half of them. But you can give yourself more time to do it. Despite the potential for paying more in interest, giving yourself more time to pay off debts increases your chances of actually doing it. * Mention of the Planning Fallacy resonated with Jason. Sometimes he will go into even a weekend with a long list of tasks to accomplish, and once Sunday comes around, he may be nowhere close to finishing everything on the list. + Not accomplishing everything we set out to do makes us feel bad. + Now Jason makes his list for the weekend knowing he will only achieve so much and being ok with some tasks waiting until the following weekend. + John says we shouldn’t have a negative opinion of ourselves for not realizing the complexity of a task and incorrectly estimating the time something really takes. + Jason feels we are awful at estimating and gives the example of some home projects taking far longer than he imagined. He also references a study Acuff shares in the book about a group of college students underestimating the time it would take to complete their thesis for both a best case and worst case time estimate. + This idea of cutting the goal in half or doubling the time really helps narrow down what is reasonable to accomplish. + And if we do have success when cutting a goal in half or doubling the time, we get a feeling of success. Those successes can stack on top of one another, and you become someone who more consistently completes goals instead of just starting and abandoning. + Jason mentions the snowball effect of accomplishing even the smallest goals. He follows Dave Ramsey and references The Debt Snowball. This video is a great explanation of the debt snowball concept, which is the idea of starting with the smallest debt first and focus all effort there until it is paid. Then focus on the next highest debt. + Nick remembers reading Why Smart Kids Worry and the importance of helping children remember their wins to decrease anxiety. * John plans to incorporate these ideas into all of his goals. * Jason mentions we have work goals that don’t allow for doubling the time or cutting them in half (like the salesperson who has a specific quota). + When Jason was in IT Operations, he remembers migration or upgrade projects whose deadlines couldn’t be moved, and in those cases, they had to get creative and add more resources / personnel to help meet the deadline. That’s another idea on how to get creative to hit a goal. + We have to prioritize and might even have to put another goal on hold if something has an immovable deadline.

Mentioned in the Outro* For other book discussions we’ve done, check out: + Episode 87 – The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni + Episode 90 – The Inner Game of Stress by Tim Gallwey, Ed Hanzelik, and John Horton + Book discussion series on Deep Work by Cal Newport: - Episode 141 – Deep Work, Part 1 – The Why - Episode 142 – Deep Work, Part 2 – The Structure - Episode 143 – Deep Work, Part 3 – The Execution - Episode 144 – Deep Work, Part 4 – Embracing Boredom - Episode 145 – Deep Work, Part 5 – Quit Social Media - Episode 146 – Deep Work, Part 6 – Drain the Shallows - Episode 147 – Deep Work, Part 7 – Become Hard to Reach

Why Smart Kids Worry: And What Parents Can Do to Help (A Parenting Book for Children with Anxiety)

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Why would someone return to a company referred to as “the hurt locker” after a stressful first experience? After moving on from “the hurt locker” to decrease his stress level, Justin Kelly, our guest in episode 271, received a unique opportunity to work inside the special operations division of his former employer as an automation developer. In contrast to his first stint at this employer, the special operations role gave Justin the flexibility to begin what would later become Secure Bearing, LLC. And it began by first deciding to moonlight. We’ll share the story of his journey into entrepreneurship and the perspective he’s gained from working in technology operations and becoming a business owner.

Original Recording Date: 03-30-2024

Justin Kelly is the co-founder and CEO of Secure Bearing, LLC, an IT services provider. If you missed part 1 of our discussion with Justin, check out Episode 270.

Topics – Fond Memories of a Stressful Time, A Very Different Transition, Learning Systems Design, Back to the Hurt Locker and the Opportunity to Moonlight, Perspectives and Zooming Out, Leaning into Business Ownership3:59 – Fond Memories of a Stressful Time* Nick loves that someone helped Justin realize the impact of being inside his work environment (“the hurt locker”) despite the enjoyment of learning. It seems to be a pattern when people are in this scenario that they cannot see it by themselves. + This reminds Nick of Erik Gross’ reference to being that friend for someone else from Episode 268. + Justin tells us he worked shifts that were 24 hours sometimes. He would work 10-12 hour days and might need to get on a troubleshooting call at 2 AM. It really was the hurt locker. - The role was very taxing, but Justin looks back on it fondly. * Was it the growth Justin looked back fondly on or the stress and pace? + It was definitely the growth (not stress and pace). + The camaraderie at the MSP is something Justin wanted to recreate ever since he left. The people he worked with were a very tight knit group of people in the hurt locker together. + There were no cubicles in the NOC (network operations center) where Justin and his colleagues worked. + It was a military like culture. The regional manager was ex-military, and many other employees were also. Justin was somewhat of an outsider having not served in the military.

6:20 – A Very Different Transition* What type of company did Justin want to work for after the MSP? Did the exposure to many environments make him prefer any one specifically? + Justin began to notice the companies he worked with at the MSP and the way they treated their managed service provider and its employees. A few companies stood out as attractive (one of which was a software company he would go on to work for years later) because of how well employees and leaders at the company treated their managed service provider staff. + From Justin’s observation at the MSP, healthcare and retail workers were operating with a higher level of stress, and he didn’t want to work in those verticals as a result. + One very exciting part of working for the MSP was managing the enterprise network environment for Cisco as a customer. - “It was just a massive inventory. And just about everyone that we interacted with within Cisco was very knowledgeable, very professional. It’s always nice talked to someone who, whether they are genuine or not, they are putting off the vibe that they are enjoying what they’re doing or where they are working.” – Justin Kelly * Someone from a staffing agency reached out to Justin about an opportunity while he was still working at the MSP. + It was advertised as a “gem of a role” which seemed to align with Justin’s skillset at a company that had minimal turnover. He decided to take the time to learn more about the role. + “It was a very different transition compared to my previous transition where the school I worked for and the co-workers I worked with were supportive and kind and happy. The manager I had at this job when I left was not any of those things. For me that just helped me close the door with almost zero regret…. I netted all the benefits that I feel like I could while I was there, and I didn’t burn any bridges when I left.” – Justin Kelly - Justin was able to maintain relationships with colleagues and friends from the MSP all the way to present day. - As it turns out, the role Justin took was indeed a gem of a role. + Justin recounts meeting that same manager from the MSP again later. Looking back, Justin realizes the way he was treated upon exiting the MSP had little to do with him personally. * While at the MSP, Justin feels he probably was not the preferred choice for a technical lead or technical executive type of role. + The technical lead (TL) would support a customer account. A technical executive (TE) would be the throat to choke when things do not go well for a customer account (i.e. ultimate responsibility for the account). + Justin had done neither of those roles previously but recounts the story of being moved to 2nd shift and working closely on a specific customer with his manager at the time. - “Everything went really well, and he just started handing me TL and TE roles. The main TE role that took most of my time was with the software company that I eventually went to work for. So it was someone who took a chance on me, who was not playing any of the politics within my regional office, and it just paid dividends.” – Justin Kelly, on crediting this manager for giving him chances to grow

12:09 – Learning Systems Design* The role Justin took after working for the MSP was with an agrilender (a very large federal bank). + At the MSP he was supporting existing customer environments. + The role Justin took involved systems design and working with vendors and partners to procure and implement technology solutions. + The culture was fantastic, a night and day difference from the hurt locker. Many of the people who worked for this company had been there for many years. Justin recounts a network administrator retiring after 30+ years of service at the company. * What were some of the elements of design that were gaps Justin needed to fill quickly? + It was a big adjustment. Justin shares a story of needing to replace some aging Cisco 6509 and 6513 network switches, working with a vendor on a pre-sales design, and then the post-sales work he and his co-workers had to do in order to work out small differences in the IOS and its newer, less mature variant NXOS (both Cisco networking infrastructure software packages for switches, routers, etc.). This was a learning experience for Justin and involved a number of mistakes. + Justin was also involved in a project to implement Cisco DMVPN (Dynamic Multipoint VPN) in place of some Cisco ASA devices which were doing traditional policy-based VPNs for site-to-site connectivity. + “It was a really great learning experience and a laid back environment but also my first exposure to…measure ten times, and sharpen the axe, and then swing it.” – Justin Kelly + What drove the transition from point-to-point VPN to multi-point VPN? Did it have to do with organizational structure and its communication in any way? - Justin’s opinion based on his experience is that policy-based VPNs are not extremely reliable, and these tunnels can go down frequently. There are also some constraints when it comes to routing. A DMVPN establishes tunnels from spoke-to-spoke to create a full mesh network dynamically so all tunnels are not backhauled through a central hub. - One of the project drivers was bandwidth consumption at the head end. Moving to DVMP so that sites could communicate with one another took traffic out of the company’s datacenter and eliminated the need to increase spending on additional bandwidth. - Justin says it has been a while since he worked with DMVPN now that SD-WAN is quite popular. - But overall, the transition between VPN technologies was quite positive.

17:15 – Back to the Hurt Locker and the Opportunity to Moonlight* What’s the origin story behind Secure Bearing? + Justin passed the CCIE exam in July 2015. + At the time, Justin and his family lived in Chicago and found out Justin’s father-in-law was ill. He took the first job he could to help the family relocate to Austin to allow the kids to be close to their grandfather. + Not long after moving back to Austin, a former colleague of Justin’s from the company we’re calling the hurt locker reached out to him. This person was in the SpecOps division (special operations within the organization). - Justin mentions he had nothing but respect for the person who contacted him. The role was nothing like what Justin had previously done for this company in the past, but his former colleague encouraged him to strongly consider coming back. - “I had the call with, honestly, my favorite boss of all time. He just laid out all of the responsibilities and expectations for the role which were nothing like I had done in the past.” – Justin Kelly, learning about a new opportunity at a former employer - The focus of this role was automation development for a large private wealth management company. His first project was to help automate a specific vendor technology for a very large services contract. Justin would also need to work with systems, databases, networking, and many other areas in a technology environment from the perspective of automation. - Justin tells us he was excited about the role and ended up asking for a lot of money. He was still offered the job. - “And that was it. I had made a transition from networking and security and doing my own thing with network and security automation to being an automation developer.” – Justin Kelly + Before the relocation happened someone had reached out to Justin about doing some subcontracting for companies in the San Francisco bay area. He had declined at the time but later decided the timing was right to revisit this. - In order to revisit the subcontracting jobs he needed form an LLC (Secure Bearing, LLC). Secure Bearing has no special meaning other than being a nautical term for a secure direction. - “I didn’t really give it much thought. My partner and I formed it for $50 each, and the purpose of founding the company was to keep my skills sharp….” – Justin Kelly, on his reasons for founding an LLC + In his new role at the hurt locker as part of special operations, Justin was working with some of the largest global brands. - Justin mentions this was an opportunity to work with some of the smartest people he’s ever known and brainstorm with them to solve very complex problems. Justin’s boss worked directly for the CEO of the MSP, and the special operations team was referred to as the “tip of the CEO’s spear.” - The role was very unique and crossed into fields like data science, software development, foundational networking components…all with an automation layer on top. - Getting experience with technology in large environments (i.e. using technology at scale) is incredible to have on a resume. Many in our industry lack this kind of experience (which large companies may want incoming employees to have). It sounds like Justin was part of a think tank group in a lot of ways. - Justin describes “data refinement” projects that took unstructured data from ticketing systems or other places to analyze projected savings with automation. He says this type of work was a lot of fun. - “One of the key components of an organization’s success with network automation is buy-in, not just from the people turning the screws who did or do the technical work or even their managers but executive management…who are allocating cost centers and budgets specifically for automation.” – Justin Kelly, reflecting on his work with large customers both then and now * Justin tells the story of a specific customer who transformed their operations by adding in automation over a period of a few years across database, networking, security, and systems. + The moonlighting work was networking / network security specific. One benefit of working in the special operations group was the level of autonomy people on that team had. - “I had plenty of time on evenings and weekends to moonlight, to work with customers and to make new connections and relationships with customers. So I guess I went back to doing too much. Or maybe I never stopped.” – Justin Kelly

26:30 – Perspectives and Zooming Out* John and Nick have backgrounds in virtualization, and their bias is likely to look from the virtual machine or the application perspective outward. Is Justin’s perspective into an organization mostly focused the network? + “I’ve always said that whatever your background is, that is your perspective into an organization.” – John White + Before Justin became a full-time business owner, his perspective was very much network centric. Over time, his approach when working with new or existing customers is from the perspective of business. - “What are the business objectives of the organization as it relates to technology? How does technology empower customer X to ship more widgets or whatever it is that is at the core of their business?” – Justin Kelly - Justin tells us it’s about how different teams and departments can leverage their own goals, objectives, and roadmaps to support those of the greater business. This is in addition to the fires a team may be putting out on a daily basis. Teams might need guidance to get to these realizations. + John mentioned the encouragement from his employers has been to focus on the business problem to solve and think about a customer’s business just like they do. This forces one to abandon a specific point of view (whether database, virtualization, etc.). - At the core, it’s about how organizations create value and focusing on that rather than the perspective from different parts and pieces. - Justin has been emphasizing to his team the importance of zooming out from one’s expertise and “to focus on what’s relevant as opposed to what’s true.” - “But turning the question to yourself, ‘is it relevant to this conversation that this business can’t function without a database?’ Nine times out of ten it’s not….” – Justin Kelly - John gives the example of a school system. The point of a school system is to educate students. Having buses to transport students to and from school was important, and the database for the learning management system was important. But it was really about maintaining a terrific learning environment for the students, supporting the teachers, and how the administration supported that learning environment. Not understanding this would have been missing the point. People making decisions would have been focused on improving learning operations. Being unable to speak to that perspective would make your talking points irrelevant. - Maybe we should all learn to think like business owners to be more relevant and take the proper perspective?

32:35 – Leaning into Business Ownership* In the spirit of trying to think like a business owner, we know Justin learned how to do this after forming his LLC. But how did Justin decide when it was the right time to go into pursuing Secure Bearing full-time? + In 2019, around 3 years after the company was founded, Justin went full-time into running Secure Bearing. + Justin says the turning point was when he needed to hire some contractors to help with the work of Secure Bearing and change from being only a 1-man shop. + At the time, Justin knew little about hiring, but he hired 2 contractors who were referred by a trusted source. + “When it became more than just me is when I started to think about it more like a business than just a solo effort that would fill my weekends or evenings.” – Justin Kelly, on leaning into Secure Bearing + How does what Justin is doing now compare to the enterprise automation work he did in a previous role? - Right now Justin wears many hats and is involved in many things across areas like datacenter, network security (not the same as cybersecurity), and enterprise automation. - “Enterprise automation…really is my passion because it allows me to marry my operational and technical experience and my, I wanted to say, love for software development, but that’s not the right term. I’m enamored by it.” – Justin Kelly - Justin is thankful he works with brilliant programmers, which goes back to surrounding yourself with people who are smarter. * What advice does Justin have for those looking to start a business? + “After a certain point, being a business owner is being ok with being upset, being embarrassed, being frustrated, failing, and juggling the requirements of a business functioning. You live and die by cash flow or working capital management in order to pay yourself and the families that rely on you.” – Justin Kelly + The CEO of NVIDIA made a statement about naivety being sort of like a superpower. Knowing what one knows after becoming a business owner might keep you from starting one in the first place. Justin equates it to standing at the base of a mountain and seeing a summit that once reached, reveals many other summits beyond it you never realized existed. + “It’s been a really fun, challenging, difficult journey. And I hope to keep doing it.” – Justin Kelly, on being a business owner + Justin would advise others not to get discouraged. - “Don’t get discouraged when you fail. Don’t get discouraged when your back is up against the wall. Persevere and keep going. And if it doesn’t work out, just like if you fail a certification or any other challenge that life throws you, do a brain dump. Debrief. Reassess, and go back at it…. And take aim at what makes sense now.” – Justin Kelly - One very important list for Justin is the list of things not to do, which we can learn from as we make mistakes. * To follow up on this discussion with Justin: + You can find Justin’s company at securebearing.com + You can send Justin a message on LinkedIn here.

Mentioned in the Outro* There was a good discussion of moonlighting in this episode. Justin was only able to do that extra work on weekends and in evenings because his schedule would allow it. His first tour of duty at the hurt locker would never have allowed this. + While moonlighting could be something that helps us stand out in the job market and enables learning new skills (through self-study or paid work), there may be times in our lives when our life circumstances just won’t allow adding anything extra to our schedule. + It doesn’t make you a bad person if you don’t have the time to add extra things to your schedule but can certainly be a differentiator when you want to learn something completely outside your focus area at work. * The discussion of the technology project to change VPN technologies may have at first seemed out of place, but it was an important example of perspective. + There were technical reasons for the change and enabled learning new technologies. But it was really about improving end user experience and reliability of a service being provided to the business. As a result of providing this new service, the bandwidth cost and overall operating expense of the business decreased. + Describing the project in terms of what it did for the business in terms of outcomes it produced is important and not something we always think about when pursuing a new project. + It was a learning experience with mistakes made, but Justin could articulate the positive business impact as a result of the project. * Increasing the scale of Secure Bearing was what prompted Justin to move into it full time. There was more work than one person could do – “more than just me.” + Increased scale could be a decision point for a business unit whose workload increases. Does it make sense to increase the people need and capture more market share, or is it better to take the learnings and apply it to a new area? + The scaling event created the decision point. + This goes back to the way entrepreneurs make decisions on whether to keep going or decide to stop doing something. Check out the great discussion on this topic with Erik Gross in Episode 268. It makes a nice compliment to this episode.

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What do drumming in a heavy metal band, achieving Cisco networking certifications, being part of a supportive technical community and family, and going back to school to study Windows and Active Directory have in common? All of these elements contributed to Justin Kelly landing his first role in tech. Justin, our guest this week in episode 270, is a CEO, a co-founder, and an advocate of continuous learning for his employees. This week we share the story of perseverance in Justin’s own learning journey to gain the expertise needed to work in IT.

Original Recording Date: 03-30-2024

Topics – Meet Justin Kelly, Motivated to Learn, Thoughts on Technical Certifications and Job Candidates, That First IT Job, Leaving a Good Culture and Exposure to New Things, Noticing Stress2:29 – Meet Justin Kelly* Justin Kelly is the co-founder and CEO of Secure Bearing, LLC, an IT services provider. + Secure Bearing helps its customers (mostly Fortune 500 companies) with the full project lifecycle (architecture and design, implementation, migration, etc.) in the following areas – datacenter, campus networks, and network security. In addition to this, they help customers automate the operations of networking and networking security. * Justin has worked in technology for about 14 years but has had an interest in computers since he was very young. + Justin says his family was gifted a computer when he was young that ran IBM DOS and had 5.25" disks. + One weekend Justin took the computer apart, and it never worked again. But this created a spark of interest in technology even then. + One of Justin’s closest friends always had computers, and Justin was able to spend time tinkering with and learning about computers. + Justin knew at that time he wanted to do something later in life revolving around computers. It was only later in life Justin would learn just how many niches existed when it came to working in technology. + John mentions the pattern of the tinkerer that we’ve seen in other guests who would take electronics apart without a fear of breaking something. Justin feels he takes a tinkerer’s approach to many situations even today.

5:14 – Motivated to Learn* In his early 20s Justin was a heavy metal drummer. At that time, he met someone who encouraged him to try Cisco networking. This person let Justin borrow some networking equipment and an old CCNA book. CCNA stands for Cisco Certified Network Associate. + “It just changed my whole perspective, and I was hooked.” – Justin Kelly, on first discovering Cisco and then seeking to get into IT + Justin shares the catch 22 of our industry. We need experience to get a job but need the job to get the experience. John says we’re really not great about giving entry level opportunities (i.e. no previous experience required) in this industry. * Being a heavy metal band drummer might be seemingly one of the farthest away compared to what many think is a “typical” path into IT. + See also Episode 174 on Dominique Top’s origin story at the Dutch Pop Academy. + Being a drummer was not Justin’s day job. He had been working at various warehouses to support himself. The band was just something he and other bandmates did for fun. + The genesis of Justin’s desire to be a drummer in this band was to connect with his brother (a guitarist in the band) since the two did not have a close relationship growing up. + Justin credits becoming a drummer as teaching him perseverance through pain (in this case a lot of practicing) or what he calls to the ability “sweat it out.” + Justin had bought a book on drumming and practiced on the drum kit his brother’s band had stored in their garage. One day while they were playing he started playing the drums along with them. Listen to Justin’s retelling of the story. * John says teaching himself how to be a drummer sounds similar to Justin teaching himself Cisco networking via the CCNA book we mentioned earlier. + Justin says the motivation to learn Cisco networking was a little different than being a drummer. He had wanted to work in IT but was not close enough to break into it, and at the same time, desired to pull himself out of poverty. + Justin mentions going to LAN parties for video gaming at different times in his life, but he didn’t know anything about networking then. + “I knew nothing about networking. It was compelling to crack that book and see the possibility of learning something new.” – Justin Kelly * Did Justin tell someone he wanted to break into IT? We wanted to know if that’s how he ended up getting the CCNA book. + Justin worked for a technology equipment warehouse doing “data security.” Companies would ship hardware to this warehouse that would either need to be destroyed or have data that needed to be wiped out before being destroyed (i.e. hard drives erased). + Justin could wipe out hard drives on any computers sent to this warehouse as part of his job, but that was the extent of what he could do. + The friend who gave Justin the Cisco gear and book had heard Justin talking about it and encouraged studying to take the exam. It was a gentle push of encouragement. - John has experienced a similar encouragement when people suggested he get different jobs in the past. + Justin says the unsolicited vote of confidence from a friend was a big motivator. This same friend also invited Justin to attend a meetup group for people working toward a CCIE (or Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert). - “Just being in awe of people who have mastered a craft was another source of motivation.” – Justin Kelly, on attending a meetup group of CCIEs - Being a part of this community of people was a fantastic experience for Justin. Everyone in the group was extremely welcoming and supportive despite him joining as a beginner compared to many others. - One member of the group in particular stayed in touch with Justin and held him accountable to finish the lab portion of the exam after he had completed and passed the written portion. - “Even to this day I liked to be around people smarter than me. There’s just absolutely no room for my own personal growth…when I am ‘the smartest person in the room.’ It’s not what I’m about.” – Justin Kelly - John has mentioned in previous discussions his desire to work with smart people who are smart in ways different than him. That way not everyone has the same weaknesses and blind spots. - As the owner of a company now, Justin likes to give back by mentoring others, motivating them, providing feedback, and watching others grow. - John says we don’t all give back the same way. There is not just one way be supportive of others just like there are multiple ways to learn something new.

16:53 – Thoughts on Technical Certifications and Job Candidates* What are Justin’s thoughts on the certification path? + There are pros and cons to any certification program whether it be Cisco, Juniper, Palo Alto, or something else. + Justin admits to failing a number of exams the first time he attempted them. + “I’m so glad I failed because I learned so much more, and if I had passed the first time on any of those exams, especially the CCIE…. For me personally at the time it just had so much weight in my own identity and my own investment in myself. If I had passed I would have been a much worse engineer…. The failures were bigger wins than the pass.” – Justin Kelly, on failing certification exams + Justin walked away from many certifications with a lot of pedantic knowledge or book knowledge. + Justin’s take on the certification landscape of Cisco vs, Juniper from 2015: - Looking back on the CCIE, there’s around 20% usable knowledge and around 80% disappears. While Justin never took it, the JNCIA or Juniper Certification seemed to be something that provided 80% usable knowledge and only 20% that would be lost. + Justin holds numerous certifications today and feels people will learn usable things from any certification, but there may be some scenarios you need to prepare for that are not as applicable to the real world. * What motivated Justin to keep going back after failing a certification exam? + Once you take an exam, whether you pass or fail, take a few minutes to write down what you remember. + Failing is a possibility and should be considered ok. Certification feedback might not give you enough to determine where you made mistakes and where the gaps are. We should do our best and not give up. + “Don’t quit. If it matters to you, don’t quit. You’re not doing yourself a disservice to keep studying and going through the motions, building those chops. You’ll be better, at least in the field you’re studying, if you keep going back.” – Justin Kelly, perseverance when taking certification exams * When assessing a candidate for their skills through his current lens as a business owner, how does Justin weight certifications? + Justin says he does not care about certifications when assessing a person’s skills. + There are 2 reasons people who work for Justin now take certifications. Both of these are well supported at Secure Bearing. - The company has vendor requirements to maintain compliance - The person has a personal goal to accomplish more certifications + When hiring, Justin and team try to create a group discussion or conversation with the candidate to understand - How the person works / what makes them tick - How they approach things in a business setting - Fresh perspectives the candidate has - Any viewpoints the candidate has which might challenge the way the rest of the team looks at things (seeking diversity) * How were the interviews Justin went through to get his first job the same or different than how he might interview someone today? + Justin had to face a lot of “stump the chump” style interviews as a candidate. Justin was able to use his knowledge from pursuing certifications to answer some of the questions that came his way. + Secure Bearing does not take this approach to hiring. They do ask candidates about certifications as well as continuous learning. + Continuous learning is extremely important in our industry, and a lack of it can cause loss of competitive edge for the company as a whole or for an individual. + One form of continuous learning is building a lab. + “If you don’t have an enterprise network to work on and you don’t know how to build one just build something…. I believe a part of certification preparation ought to just be supplementing with labs and going through the paces of standing up what you’re learning and tinkering with it, turning the screws on it until it breaks; and that’s really where the aha moments are.” – Justin Kelly + When Justin was studying for his first few certifications, it was mostly just Packet Tracer and physical hardware. Justin references other tools like EVE-NG, GNS3, and CML or Cisco Modeling Labs. + “The sky really is the limit to how much hands on people can get hands on even if they don’t have access to a production network.” – Justin Kelly * Nick mentions the value of moving to service provider or MSP as a valuable career step because companies like Justin’s have a mandate to get certifications. Is it a risk for a service provider to take on an employee who doesn’t have certifications? + There are weights to determine a cost effective hire. + They know the cost to train someone from no experience to certified status and a general timeline, which means it’s easy to determine the savings from hiring someone who already holds the certification(s). + It normally depends on the need for the role at the time, cash flow, timeline for delivery of projects for the business, and of course on the individual candidate. + Justin admits hiring mistakes have been made in the past (people who were impressive in the interview process but didn’t work out, etc.). + John just passed the 1 year mark as a hiring manager. Interviewing and hiring has been one of the more difficult things. - It depends on many different factors (geography and candidate availability, expectation of salary in the area, the hiring process used, etc.). - Panel interviews, for example, can make for slow hiring processes. - It is hard to find a potential mismatch post hire during the hiring process.

29:49 – That First IT Job* Before Justin broke into his first IT job, it was a lot of interviews with no callbacks. He had to persevere through disappointment. * In 2008 he passed the CCNA and had obtained some CompTia certifications before that. + The warehouse incentivized getting the A+ for example, but he also had the Network+ and Security+ from CompTia. * It was 2011 when Justin landed his first real IT job working for a private school. At the same time he was going back to college, which was also a big contributor to landing the job. + Justin mentioned he had limited Windows and Active Directory knowledge at the time. + Justin had grown up in Reno, NV, and attended community college right out of high school for a short time (less than a full semester) in 2004. He was taking a networking course, hated it, and then dropped out. + In 2011 Justin started an undergraduate program through WGU (Western Governors University) because it was affordable and involved a number of Windows certifications. - Most positions Justin had seen open around the time were more generalist or jack of all trades roles. Windows was just part of that. - During the job search Justin understood the job market in which he had to operate, and it’s a valuable lesson. + The private school that hired Justin was the kind of place that valued education above everything else. He specifically remembers the headmaster who interviewed him asking about continuing education. Being in college at the time helped get Justin in the door. - Despite having gone to school during this time to fill a gap in Windows knowledge, Justin tells us his current company Secure Bearing does not do any Windows work today. - The role Justin took at the private school was a generalist role spanning systems, networking, Windows, laptop support, etc. Justin’s role involved supporting both teachers and students at the school. - Though he supported end users of different ages, Justin approached the role the same way – with patience and compassion. The private school had a small student body and faculty who were well educated. - “I was fortunate to work in a place where respect was table stakes.” – Justin Kelly, reflecting on his first IT job at a private school * How did that culture at the private school affect what Justin looked for in future employers and what he sought to create later at his own company? + Justin describes the culture at the private school as fun. He remembers playing drums in school assemblies with his boss and other co-workers who played instruments. + “It was a short experience. I was only there for about a year, maybe less…a very enjoyable break into IT. It was my next job where I got to see the other side of the house, which was more of a hurt locker.” – Justin Kelly

36:12 – Leaving a Good Culture and Exposure to New Things* When someone works in a culture they enjoy for a boss they like, why move to a different company? + Justin mentions things rarely turn out the way he thinks they will. + Justin says his wife would describe him as somewhat “insatiable” in pursuit of the next thing. + “I moved on and up in my career with a little bit of reckless abandon…probably didn’t give it enough thoughtful consideration until much later in my career.” – Justin Kelly + The next role was working for a Cisco Master Managed Services Partner (MSP), and Justin calls this a dream come true. He was determined to make the move, and nothing could stop him. + Everyone at the private school was very supportive and happy for Justin. It was a positive experience to leave that employer, which Justin finds refreshing. - John says perhaps hiring managers should realize people on their own continuing education path will eventually leave the company as a result. * Justin describes the interview process to work at this Cisco MSP as the worst in his career. But nothing would stop him from taking the job. + The job was in Austin, Texas where Justin’s then girlfriend (and now wife) lived. He wanted to move there. + Working as a red badge for Cisco and being able to touch many different technologies was “intoxicating.” - A red badge is Cisco terminology for someone who is a contractor / 3rd party but acts as Cisco support when they take calls. - A blue badge is a Cisco employee. + Nick mentions the excitement of exposure that can come from working for a MSP (much more than working for a single company like a school). - Justin says there was no comparison from the school to the MSP in terms of technology exposure. He moved from refurbished equipment and no Cisco gear to an entirely new environment. * How was the overall working environment at the MSP after the challenging interview process? + The interview was not difficult from a technical perspective. It was unpleasant in culture and communication styles. + “The job, like I mentioned before, was the hurt locker. It was just more work than anyone could accomplish…. You’re thrown into the ocean and a little tiny raft to hold on to and told to sink or swim. I thrived in that environment and learned more in 13 months than I thought was possible…. Nervous system fry, level 11 volume…I won’t say you get used to it. Major issues don’t phase you as much after sustained trauma.” – Justin Kelly + Justin got exposed to many different vendor technologies, company politics and cultures, outages, and differences in operating procedures. + Justin doesn’t feel there was anything he was exposed to at the MSP which he did not like. + This company was his first exposure to automation, and Justin has taken those principles into consideration when designing ang building systems at every job he’s had since then. Things like putting together a run book for a technician, turning unstructured data into structured data, etc. fell into this category. + The pay at the MSP was poor. When he left the company, it was a considerable bump in pay. But another reason for leaving was to decrease stress.

44:36 – Noticing Stress* Did Justin notice the environment he was in was causing stress, or did he notice it? + Having the support of his then girlfriend and now wife has been a foundational component of Justin’s success. She has supported him like no other in his life, and a support system is invaluable. + Listen to how Justin’s wife would describe the way he approaches things. + “I had absolutely no idea that I was burning the candle at both ends and in the middle. And it took gentle nudging and maybe not so gentle nudging to help me realize that.” – Justin Kelly

Mentioned in the Outro* Any resources mentioned in a show will have links in the show notes. Check out the networking utilities Justin mentioned earlier if you’re someone looking to sharpen your networking skills. * Read job descriptions carefully about whether certifications are required or expected after taking a role. It costs companies a certain amount of company to train and certify people as Justin shared in the discussion. + If certifications are something we want when interviewing for a job we should ask how the company views certifications and whether they have training budgets for people to get them. + Maybe asking for a training budget is something we can get as a concession if a company won’t increase the salary of a job offer. * There was a powerful theme of getting support from others to do difficult things and its criticality to our success. Justin had that in a friend who gave him a nudge to get the certification and introduced him to a community of others working toward Cisco certifications. + Holding someone accountable is a form of support.

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What if you could increase your earnings potential based on the things you know and the things that interest you? Erik Gross, our guest this week in episode 269, shares the Most Valuable Knowledge Framework to help anyone identify the combinations of skills and interests which would be most valuable on the open market. Erik will share examples of using this framework when deciding to start The Tech Academy and the value of boot camps as a route into the tech industry for those with little work experience as well as for the career changer.

Original Recording Date: 02-17-2024

Erik Gross is a technologist, a consultant, an entrepreneur and founder, and a career coach. If you missed the earlier parts of Erik’s story, check out Episode 267 and Episode 268.

Topics – Finding Your Most Valuable Knowledge, Birth of a Coding School, Boot Camps as a Route into Tech3:26 – Finding Your Most Valuable Knowledge* Eric ultimately found the thing he could monetize. He had a foundation from which to work and some idea of how he learned, but Erik needed someone else’s perspective to tell him what he knew was something valuable. Maybe we aren’t highlighting the right things on our resumes. If someone doesn’t know what they should monetize, how do they find it? + There were a number of skills Erik had such as sales, writing, managing people, electrical assembly, etc. He calls them “pockets of knowledge.” We each accumulate them throughout life through various experiences. - “I had this huge collection of…things I was either really knowledgeable and / or good at, had been paid to do…. What I didn’t know was the relative value of each of those pieces of information…. Back in 2011 I had no idea engineers made the kind of money we make. I literally didn’t know that this thing I’d been sitting on for at that point decades was so valuable.” – Erik Gross, reflecting back on his accumulation of knowledge + Erik remembers the feeling of elation after being hired for his first job in technology. Then for a brief period he was frustrated about not pushing himself to pursue a technology career earlier. Erik realized beating himself up was not helpful and put a stop to it. - “…I had all these things that were passions or areas of knowledge. What was lacking was what are they worth on the market.” – Erik Gross + Now as part of his work as a career coach, Erik helps technology workers / knowledge workers find out what their most valuable knowledge is. Anyone can go through the exercise, and the basic pattern works like this: - Sit in a quiet place and document all the things you know about (areas that you have studied or in which you have skill, deep knowledge, or experience) - Separately, list everything you are passionate and interested in, even if completely unrelated to the list of things you know about - Put the list of passions and the things you know about side by side to identify relationships you haven’t previously seen - Erik gives the example of having a passion for telling stories together with a skill of audio recording and editing as well as a passion for children and being a good parent. This combination resulted in a client of Erik’s realizing they could start a podcast focused on telling kids stories, do all the audio production, handle the creative work of crafting the stories themselves, and combine that with a number of monetization strategies. - “But ultimately all you’re trying to find out is, ‘this intersection of passion and knowledge that I just found…is anyone paying for that in any form out on the market?’ And when you find, and it can be really surprising what you find, that people are, you’ve got a handful of what could be your most valuable knowledge.” – Erik Gross, on your most valuable knowledge - After finding multiple intersections between passion and skill that can be monetized, Erik also mentions doing a sorting process based on long-term potential, the resources you have to start immediately, etc. + The process we just described is what happened for Erik (an intersection of skills and passion). He had a passion for technology and really enjoyed it, and he had deep, existing skill in computers, programming, and technology. - Erik did not know that in the early 2000s engineers (software developers) were making very good money. When he found out, Erik felt he should have pursued it many years earlier and was willing to do whatever he needed to do to get into that field. - Erik says is it really fun to watch others go through this exercise. - For the entrepreneur, knowing your intersection(s) of skill and passion is worth money on the open market helps you validate that the idea is worth investing time and energy to pursue. + The exercise we’re talking about here can work for anyone in any job and does not require you be an entrepreneur. Erik gives us a practical example to illustrate. - Erik tells the story of working with a talented co-worker who had earned the name “Optimizer Prime” from the work he had done to rewrite and significantly shorten the execution time of SQL database queries for health and financial record batch processes (from 6-7 hours to just over 30 minutes). - Erik found out the above co-worker had pigeonholed himself as “the SQL guy,” and this person later learned these skills alone were not worth as much as he thought on the open market. - “This sort of point of view, this idea of your most valuable knowledge is just a useful thing for anyone to do, even if they’re just looking to continue direct contribution as an individual contributor working their regular job…. Yes, be really good at your individual job, and make a lot of money doing it.” – Erik Gross, on the applicability of the most valuable knowledge to anyone - The most valuable knowledge exercise would have been really good for Erik’s co-worker to leverage to look for other areas in which he was both interested in and skilled in to lead with during a job search. Erik’s co-worker was not leading with something that was as valuable as he thought. - “When it comes to figuring out if you’re entrepreneurially minded…having the confidence and certainty that the idea that you have has legs before you spend a dime gives you a lot more confidence as an entrepreneur. I see people that do it backwards all the time. They pull in a bunch of investment and they design what they think is going to be worth something on the market. And then they launch it, and it’s a giant dud…. Don’t do that. Figure it out ahead of time before you spend any money.” – Erik Gross, on the most valuable knowledge exercise for the entrepreneur + After doing this exercise over and over with people, Erik refined the process and wrote a book called The Most Valuable Knowledge Workbook. - Erik tells us this works well as a self-guided exercise. He will often have his clients work on the exercise on their own for a while and then work through it with them. - Erik has shared this resource for free because he truly wants to help people. You can follow the link above to get your copy, and if you want, you can also sign up to work with Erik as a career coach. - “It is a proven, workable framework for how to sus out what combination of passion and skill is actually worth enough on the open market that it justifies you moving forward and how do you gain certainty on that before you embark on that journey.” – Erik Gross + If we do the most valuable knowledge exercise, how do we build evidence of expertise based on a skill we have? And what should that look like? - Erik says sometimes this stops the would be entrepreneur. - It’s an interesting challenge to determine how to get credibility when you have never done something for pay. - If you’re deciding to start an endeavor, it is quite possible you may have already been doing it for many years but not for pay. Erik shares his realization that he had been coaching friends and family with their careers for around 10 years. Every time something came up and someone needed help, he had a pattern of activities he would do with that person. In his case, he asked the people he had helped for a testimonial. - Erik tells us it is worth it to do the first few deliveries of a product or service for free. Many people might disagree with this approach and insist on charging, but Erik tells us it’s really not for free but more about what you are getting in exchange for your work (validation and feedback that your approach is working and testimonials and referrals once something does work). The testimonials and referrals help establish credibility outside the circle of people you’ve already helped / impacted.

16:57 – Birth of a Coding School* Erik recounts the story of his son coming home from school in early 2013 and saying he wanted to do a developer boot camp (something he had heard about in his computing class in school). + Erik says the very first boot camp took place in 2012 in the San Francisco Bay area and was called Dev Bootcamp. Now the boot camp industry has grown to become a big part of our technology industry. + The boot camp Erik’s son wanted to attend was a brand new idea and advertised things like: - Intensive full-time training in all practical skills needed to be a web developer - Being connected with employers + “Wait a minute. I’ve been teaching technology for years. I’ve developed over the years an ability to break down complex technical concepts in a way that anyone can easily understand. I’m already trying to hire junior developers on the side for a lot of my contracts that I do for people and finding them really hard to get. I could do this! And so I did…. There’s a whole story there.” – Erik Gross, on the genesis of The Tech Academy - On the day we recorded this interview, it was The Tech Academy’s 10-year anniversary. + Before taking any action, Erik started to apply what he knew about most valuable knowledge and spoke with other technologists and recruiting firms about the idea. Some were skeptical of it, but many people were open to the idea of hiring someone who went through a boot camp. Erik then knew his idea had legs / had been validated as valuable in the market. + After validating the idea, Erik mentions making a mistake that almost stopped him from starting the school. It’s a great lesson for the entrepreneur. - Erik did some research as to whether anyone was doing the same thing in his area (Portland, Oregon). - He found a code school that had been around for 3 months already, and it destroyed him. He was afraid the town could not support 2 coding schools and nearly abandoned his idea altogether. But then Erik remembered something important that he goes through with all of his coaching clients. - “If no one is paying for the expertise that you have already, that’s a bad sign. If there’s no competition in the area you’re going into that’s usually a bad sign.” – Erik Gross, on almost giving up before starting The Tech Academy - The presence of another coding school in the area was confirmation people were paying for the services / outcomes a boot camp could offer. There have been up to 5 code schools in Portland in the 10 year period of The Tech Academy’s existence, and the only one that has survived has been Erik’s. - To date The Tech Academy has helped thousands of people get into tech. And it never would have happened it Erik had been beaten down by fear and anxiety. + Once Erik had the business plan sketched out for the curriculum and how to give people hands on experience, how encourage team collaboration for students, and how to partner with other organizations he recognized some problems. - Erik was trying to do this by working full time. - Erik knew he was not skilled at building policies and procedures for the business and sorting out the hiring process. After realizing his gaps, Erik found a business partner who had all those skills – his friend Jack (the one who had made the connection to someone in tech for Erik). - Erik and Jack created a “self-paced, instructor supported methodology for breaking into tech as a well-rounded, entry level full stack developer.” - The Tech Academy has added many different programs since it began spanning areas like AI, game development, UI / UX, Python, JavaScript, etc. The school’s mandate was to provide exposure and skills in new technology in addition to providing a solid enough foundation to allow graduates of the school to navigate tech industry shifts. - To get involved with The Tech Academy, visit learncodinganywhere.com.

23:02 – Boot Camps as a Route into Tech* Some boot camps have ties into a local community, while others may not. This can vary across the board. * There are 3 routes into a tech career – self-study, college or university, or boot camp + Self-study can be difficult and has some risk of not studying the right things. But it can absolutely be done. + Looking at a boot camp compared to college… - One pro of college is having enough time to go deep in the area of study. There isn’t time for this in a boot camp. - Some of the cons of college are how current the technologies you’re taught and how much practical experience you get on how software is developed in the modern world. It can take 18 to 48 months for a curriculum change to happen at a university, and they cannot keep up with the technology field. Colleges and universities also may not have mechanisms to simulate a real world work environment. - “Having done it for years now, it’s not easy to put in place a live project that is on real world software that helps people experience what it is actually like to go through a sprint, to be assigned a user story, to actually do the work on their own machine, to submit their code for review, to make any fixes, and to do a push through the various stages and get it out into production…. That’s not easy to setup, and colleges were never built up around that model. And so they don’t have it. And that’s not to knock colleges. Because what they can do a boot camp could never do. We cannot do a deep, deep, deep dive into data structures and algorithms…and how compilers actually work and how operating systems work. We can’t do that. But the flip side is, in a boot camp you can get the practical skills that are needed on the ground right now in 3-6 months and get a job paying $60,000 per year and then keep learning.” – Erik Gross - The speed of boot camp is faster, but they cannot go as deep. If you’re looking at a boot camp, Erik would encourage you to look carefully at the emphasis placed on the long term success of the student. Erik tells the story of seeing a competitor do really well for a time by focusing only on a single programming language (Ruby on Rails). Once the wave of popularity died down for Ruby on Rails, students who had gone through that program had difficulty finding jobs. - Erik cites his experience in the Navy and the intense fundamental focus to prepare people for what recruits might encounter in the field. This focus allowed people to learn and fix what they encountered rapidly to prevent people from dying. Erik took all of this into consideration when designing curriculum for his coding school. - At The Tech Academy, people don’t begin coding until they have had around 80 hours of instructions on fundamentals so that students have some understanding of what is happening under the hood when they do start coding. - “They know all that minute one. And all that anxiety and worry about ‘can I really make it as an engineer? Can I learn coding? That’s gone by the time they’re done with the first course.’” – Erik Gross, on the fundamental knowledge students of The Tech Academy have when they begin coding * Are boot camps also for career changers? + Erik says they initially thought the clientele would be young people with little to no professional experience. + “A huge portion of our enrollments started to come from people over 40 who were looking for that career change.” – Erik Gross, on the target market for boot camps being slightly different from what he thought + Erik recounts the first time this happened. For context, he and Jack did everything at the beginning and would interview every incoming student of the school. - A plumber going into tech was worried he might be taking a step backward in earnings potential. - “For a lot of careers, technology is so well paying that you’re not going to have to take a pay cut to make that shift. And that isn’t true for a lot of areas. So in 3-6 months you can shift over to a new career, and you’re not necessarily going to have to take a pay cut. But what really shocked us was that those folks were getting higher initial offers than the young folks not because of age but because they had time out in the business world. They knew what it was to operate in that environment and to be part of a collaborative team…and so they did really well on their interviews and they were getting higher offers. So absolutely a boot camp, whether it’s ours or anyone else’s…perfect for a career change.” – Erik Gross * To follow up with Erik on this conversation: + If you’re looking at monetizing your valuable knowledge, taking your expertise as a knowledge worker / technologist and figuring out how to build it into a scalable business - Go to yourcareerarchitect.com. + If you’re looking at the boot camp arena - Go to learncodinganywhere.com.

Mentioned in the Outro* A huge congrats to Erik and Jack on 10 successful years of The Tech Academy getting people into technology! + It was not a surprise that the curriculum focuses on fundamentals. Nick loves the approach to balance abstract and concrete learning like we spoke about in Episode 267 so things make more sense during the learning process. * Nick had not heard of The Most Valuable Knowledge Framework before this discussion with Erik. But it is an exercise any of us can do to gain insight and validate whether taking action is a good idea. + This sounds like a much more refined version of Area of Destiny from Episode 20. + Nick likes the idea of quantifying the value of these combinations of skills and interests and then putting them in order / having a way to sort them. This way we know what might be best to lead with when looking for a job or trying to break into a new area. + It would be interesting to marry this advice with that of John Nicholson from Episode 225. Nicholson shared his perspective as a former hiring manager and which skills are perceived as both expensive and irrelevant to a specific job that a candidate should remove from their resume to be considered for a role. + Use job descriptions and requirements for deciding which of your most valuable knowledge should go on a resume. * The discussion of building expertise reminded Nick of Episode 163 with Louise Bunyan and her story of bartering digital marketing services for horseback riding lessons. + Anything you do for free or for something other than money is referenceable on a resume! Consider having people recommend you on LinkedIn for the work as a testimonial. In our industry, there is no shame doing something to gain the experience. + As we build expertise we’re going to notice gaps that we might be able to fill by gaining or sharpening skills. For the hiring managers out there, sometimes hiring people solves the skills gap problem. That was the case when seeking his co-founder Jack who knew how to establish the structure of the organization they founded.

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The entrepreneur, business owner, and people manager are faced with difficult decisions as a part of leadership whether it be deciding to abandon a goal or eliminate jobs through a layoff. Erik Gross, our guest this week in episode 268, highlights the importance of learning from our failures while also owning the decisions that led to those failures. Listen closely to the way Erik owned his decision to become a software developer after some very pointed feedback from a friend.

Original Recording Date: 02-17-2024

Erik Gross is a technologist, a consultant, an entrepreneur and founder, and a career coach. If you missed part 1 of Erik’s story, check out Episode 267.

Topics – Advice for the Technology Entrepreneur, Resilience or Blind Optimism, Three Perspectives on Layoffs, Managing People and A Good Manager, Paid to Work in Technology3:07 – Advice for the Technology Entrepreneur* Would Erik’s advice for technology entrepreneurs be the same? He thinks back to former guest Al Elliott’s description of an entrepreneur from Episode 235, emphasizing that the entrepreneur’s initial idea of the solution to a problem may look different than the ultimate solution. + Erik says as an entrepreneur he’s had both successes and failures. The form something was in when it became successful or failed was quite different than what Erik had thought in every case. + “There’s this thing I learned…over the years…moments when you find out that you’re wrong about something are golden. They are some of the most important moments you can ever have in your life. You find out a few really important things about yourself in that moment.” – Erik Gross + In those moments… - Do you have the self-respect to admit and realize you were wrong? - Identifying what you were wrong about, which could have been affecting your performance for years, presents an opportunity to never do that thing wrong again. + The above took Erik years to learn and handle and is how he generally reacts once he gets past the emotion of being wrong about something. In his entrepreneurial work and in his work with people trying to break into tech (via The Tech Academy), Erik coaches others to process these situations in the same way. + We know that no one can be right all the time. It’s the way we respond in those situations that helps us grow! Erik calls these moments “growing moments.” + Nick would point out two hurdles in these situations: - Getting past your ego and questioning your self-worth - Motivating yourself to keep going and change what you’re doing or decide to quit + Erik would agree and say there are 2 factors at play: - “What you say to yourself sticks. When you say positive, self-validating things about you, they have a tendency to stick. But when you say negative things about yourself…maybe you never voiced them out loud but they are inside…those unfortunately stick really, really well. I’ve found it really helpful to recognize that most of those things, they come from outside influences. They come from others’ criticism, others’ attempt to belittle you or cause invalidation or cause uncertainty or worry in your life. And you can grab on to them and hold them, and they start to feel like that’s actually you. But they originally came from outside of you. When you’re a kid, man, the world is your oyster and life is full of brightness and gold and goodness and joy. External influences can beat that out of you, but it never truly goes away.” – Erik Gross, on negative self-talk and its origination - When you have been knocked down, it is up to you to choose to stand back up and keep going. Others can help build us up, but the choice and decision to keep going is ours. - Erik tells us he’s been knocked down many times and gone through situations of both tremendous challenge and pain. Though he did not always get it right, he did get it right enough to learn something about himself that he says can be a lesson for all of us. We are each tougher and more resilient than the credit we give ourselves for those qualities. - We get to choose whether to stand back up when we are knocked down (no matter how badly or to what extent we were knocked down), but do we remember that in the moment? Exercising the choice to stand up more frequently can help us recognize how tough we really are. The toughness is a recognition that we will inevitably fail in different areas, but we can be joyful in having a choice to stand up and the ability to make tomorrow a new day. Erik tells us this is true for him, and he has seen it be true for many others.

7:55 – Resilience or Blind Optimism* How can we determine the difference between being resilient and having a blind optimism about pressing forward? + Erik says this is a question any of us could ask ourselves, but it is particularly applicable to the entrepreneurial minded individual. Knowing when to pull the plug on something because it is unwise to continue with it is a challenge, and our ego can often get in the way. + “Ultimately all you can do is attempt to be as objective as possible in the moment and look at the situation and analyze the two decisions you have in front of you – continue to plow down this road that so far has been kicking my behind or let go of it, abandon that purpose, that goal, and pivot…. Only you can tell and judge what’s going to do the greatest good over the longest period of time. It’s a very personal decision.” – Erik Gross + In looking at the above, there are several areas of your life which will be affected regardless of the decision: - Personal - Family - Groups / work - To some extent, the impact could be all people in the above categories + Erik is suggesting a mental framework here in which we try to strip out the emotion and be honest with ourselves about which of the two options produces the greatest good long term for you, your family, and the groups in which you are involved. + This is a decision no one else can make for you and that you must own. + Once you make the decision, don’t look back and get stuck in regret. It will destroy you. + Erik is not perfect by any means but has had to make decisions like we’re discussing here.

10:10 – Three Perspectives on Layoffs* Erik recounts a story from his time running and trying to scale The Tech Academy when he and his co-founder had to execute a layoff impacting several people. That was a very rough decision. + “These people that joined you in your mission, leaned into it like you are…and you have to tell like a third of them that you didn’t make it go right to build the business strong enough to be able to afford them and you have to let them go…that is rough. But you’ve got to analyze it objectively. And you pull the band aid off, but you can’t look back in regret on it. Otherwise it was for not, and you will still dwindle afterward because you’re stuck in the loss of what you had to do.” – Erik Gross, a founder’s perspective on executing layoffs + Nick says this sounds incredibly hard. There is the decision to reduce your workforce but also deciding by how much and furthermore who will be cut. Most people impacted want to know “why me?” * Suppose you’re a manager who is told they must execute a layoff and has no choice in the matter. What is the advice for this person? + In this situation Erik would encourage the manager to start inside themselves for clarity on the situation. Handle yourself first. + Moving into executing layoffs and exit interviews without assessing your own internal disagreement with the situation will make the situation even worse. + “If there’s still any part of you that’s like…‘why are we doing this’…any frustration on it…you’ve got to have your own conversation with your leader and fully resolve that before you just jump into…actually embarking on it or you’ll be doing it insincerely. You’ll be doing it with your own doubts and reservations about the action.” – Erik Gross + As for selecting who will be impacted when it comes to layoffs, there are many factors we could discus. Erik would say the front-line manager or leader should know the business need, the projects the team under you are working on, and some idea of what the next 12 – 36 months might look like in your area. From there look at the group of employees and decide which of them will produce the biggest impact in that future time period using a ranking system (even though most of us do not want to judge or be judged). Erik suggests the ranking is something that must be done even if we don’t like it. + “You have certain rights as a manager, but you have a responsibility. And that balancing of ultimately the company has to survive, and that’s your responsibility. You can’t get away from that. That’s why you took the job. You didn’t take it to be popular.” – Erik Gross, on the responsibility of the manager + Managers should still seek to be kind in what they are doing. + After ranking the members of your team based on the metric above, the people who stay should be fairly clear. + When it comes to having conversations with people impacted by a layoff, it goes back to understanding the viewpoint of others. Erik mentioned he’s been fired in the past, and it stinks! - Erik mentions a couple of instances where the person delivering the message to him about being fired or laid off was kind and gracious. The kind approach helped Erik deal with the unpleasantness of the situation quickly and move on. - Other times in his experience Erik has seen these situations handled crassly or cause invalidation. They were not handled with kindness. - “You can never go wrong by being kind and nice to other people.” – Erik Gross * Suppose you’re the person receiving the news of being laid off… + Something applicable related to interview processes and getting job offers came up recently when Erik was giving a talk for students of The Tech Academy and recent graduates. + “You have to prepare to be rejected in the interview process.” – Erik Gross + When interviewing for jobs, people will likely get more “no” than “yes” answers. + “Even in the most ideal work situation, there is always a possibility that something will happen and they’re going to have to let you go.” – Erik Gross, on the reality of layoff always being a possible outcome + If you have done a good job at the company you’re forced to leave and can leave proud of the work you did while employed there, it can be of some help. + Erik has no advice that would be worth anything if it were trite like “just get over it.” The situation stinks, and there is no denying it. + But, Erik feels a caring and compassion for the tech industry - Knowledge workers are very valuable according to Erik. We can apply soulless machines and tools (i.e. digital computers) to real human needs and problems to make an impact for good. That impact ends up being greater than the time spent getting to the solution. - It takes a special type of mind to be a knowledge worker. It takes someone who is hard working, persevering, and a willing to be wrong to solve difficult problems. - We should not lose sight of our value as knowledge workers, especially if we’re let go. + It’s ok to be upset, feel bad for a day or two, go take a walk, etc. - “But don’t for a moment think that that is you that’s invalid, that you somehow are lesser than…. Surround yourself with really awesome people who see what you really are and demand that you live up to it.” – Erik Gross, on receiving news you have been laid off - Erik uses the example of his wife not allowing him to wallow or be in a “funk” for too long after being laid off. She knows his strengths, weaknesses, and how capable he is. If at any point Erik begins to lose belief in his abilities, she will kindly remind him of his capabilities, the expectation that he live up them, and that the current attitude cannot stand. We can all be a friend like this for someone else. - Nick would put his wife in the same category. She has always believed. * What about the business owner who has to come to terms with the need to execute a layoff? + The owner may not be executing the layoffs at the lowest levels, but that person has to start the chain of events to head in that direction. + “Here’s the thing. When you decide to start an activity, when you decide to start a group. Whether you’re stating it out loud, or internally, or you’re not even looking at it, the fact is that you’ve made a contract with yourself and with anyone else who chooses to join you on that mission. That contract includes, for me at least, one overriding principle – you as the creator of that activity are 100% responsible for its success or failure…period…end of story…. At the end of the day you own that thing, good or bad.” – Erik Gross + Erik says we can ask others to be responsible for the activity’s survival, and the right people might lean in and commit. + A business owner must help people understand the decision to execute layoffs belonged solely to them as part of being responsible for the success or failure of the company. This is ownership. There is no abdicating the decision to someone else, blaming someone else, or dodging the responsibility placed on the owner. - Even if the economic climate is not good, the business owner is still responsible for the company’s lack of performance or inability to weather that environment. + Sometimes reducing the workforce has to be done for the company to survive. - Though this is a brutal message to accept, someone had an idea for a business and was brave enough to create it. Without that happening there would not be jobs for people at the company. - “I don’t like a management worker divide at all, but having done a lot of entrepreneurial work, it’s the truth. You put yourself out there to build this thing. You’re owning it fully. That means you’re responsible and have the right to cut off parts of it if it isn’t working.” – Erik Gross + There are so many things to think about if you’re a would be entrepreneur, business owner, or manager listening! - A manager’s department is a microcosm of the same concept we’re talking about with the business owner.

21:12 – Managing People and A Good Manager* What made Erik want to gain experience as a people manager? + Some of this is the impulse to teach others well. Erik says in reality he has a mixed rate of success as a people manager. + Erik has done extremely well as an entrepreneur. But, he knows his strengths and weaknesses and chooses business partners that will compliment him well. - As an example, Erik’s business partner Jack is very good at making businesses scalable and implementing policies and procedures. + Erik managed people when he was in sunglasses sales and when he was a store manager for a flooring company - “At the end of the day what drew me to that is that I get tremendous personal joy from watching someone become more of who they are. I can see a possibility there. I can see this tremendous ability that could be unleashed whether it’s as a salesperson or as an engineer or as a project manager or someone who can achieve consensus in a real divided group…. When someone doesn’t believe that about themselves, but I know it’s true from close interaction with them, it is tremendously gratifying to help them push through that and start to recognize how awesome they really are. And when you do that, as long as you operate within the confines of how the policies and procedures of that company work, then you’re a good manager of people” – Erik Gross, on being a people manager - The belief and self-confidence of the people on a manager’s team is what produces forward motion for the goals and objectives of the team (and the overall company). + Nick sees this as a form of but not quite the same as being that friend to someone which we discussed earlier. The manager can see capabilities of the people they manage and can help their employees grow and learn to unleash these capabilities. + Erik has an odd mix of things he does right now as the co-founder of a school (The Tech Academy) and helps with marketing and curriculum development for it, he works full time for a technology training company, and he spends time doing career coaching and entrepreneurial coaching for technologists. - In Erik’s regular full time job he has an amazing manager who is skilled at managing the needs of the business and the long-term career needs of the people under her. Because of this, Erik’s manager makes a big positive difference in his life. The people leader has the opportunity to meet the needs of the business but at the same time help people grow personally and professionally. This creates very loyal employees. - Erik has had other types of bosses in his career who were not so great and is very thankful to have a good one. We hope our listeners can work for a great manager for as much of their career possible.

24:48 – Paid to Work in Technology* Right now Erik’s public persona is made up of being a technologist, a cloud transformation consultant, technology entrepreneur, and founder of a coding school. * Erik was not professionally paid as a software developer until 2011.

+ Since Erik was 11 years old, he has been writing code and working with technology.
+ As a teenager, Erik would write code on Texas Instruments calculators (specifically the TI-84 model) to create games and for school exercises.
    - Erik would write programs independently of this to use for character development in the game Dungeons and Dragons.
+ In the Navy, Erik was not specifically programming, but he gained some very helpful experience.
    - The Navy had to equip people like Erik to go out into a fleet of ships which could have an array of technologies onboard. And no one knew which flavor or combination of technology they would encounter because the ships were built at different times. Ships could range from being deployed in the last 6 months to being as much as 40 years old.
    - The Navy had to prepare people for anything. This meant a deep dive into digital circuitry, components that make up CPUs and computer memory, how digital storage works, how to build logic gates, details of silicon, how to build an instruction set on a chip, binary numbers, etc. It was extremely deep.
    - Erik ended up on a ship commissioned in 1956, which had no computer stuff on it.
+ After the Navy Erik went into sales, but with 1996 came demand for eCommerce.
    - Erik’s business partners at the sunglasses company suggested the company needed a website.
    - Erik recounts visiting a large tent outside a shopping mall with books that had not sold when they were in retail stores. He bought 8-10 technology books for extremely cheap and learned HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Visual Basic. Erik built the company’s first eCommerce site.
    - Erik loved working with and learning the technologies but was off selling sunglasses.
+ In the early 2000s Erik was a salesman for a flooring company, and there was a very complex software used to manage the company’s financial operations (booking jobs, doing flooring installs, billing customers, etc.).
    - The company was the 20th largest flooring company in the country at the time and had specific software needs.
    - The company needed to upgrade to the latest version of the software they were going to use, and Erik recognized how complex and difficult it would be. At this point he made it know that he knew about technology.
    - Erik got looped into the implementation and customization of the updated systems, and he loved it.
    - “I really do love this. But I’m in sales. I’m in sales.” – Erik Gross, on his thoughts after being involved with a large software upgrade at the flooring company

“At each sort of job or chapter in my life, technology would come creeping in, but the actual shift happened at a very low point in my life.” – Erik Gross, recounting the years 2008 – 2010 when he was not doing well financially
- In addition to not doing well financially, Erik was also not doing well at home. It was causing a great deal of stress.
- It finally came to the point where a friend of Erik’s confronted him about the situation in a private setting. This friend said it was not ok that Erik was not making a lot of money and was very firm in the tone and delivery of this message.
- Erik understood this friend was right, knowing he was letting people around him down as well as himself. In fact, thinking about this consumed Erik for several days. He continued to think about it.
- Erik recalls being in the car with his friend Jack (who would later co-found The Tech Academy with Erik). Jack asked about his background and if Erik knew things that had potential to make a lot of money.
- Erik started talking about technology and computers when recounting his background.
  - “Wait a minute. You’ve been programming since you were 11. You did all this computer nerdy stuff in the Navy. Why aren’t you doing this?” – Jack, Erik’s friend who would later become a co-founder and business partner
  - Jack told Erik he was going to connect him with a friend who worked in technology.
  - Erik got on the phone with the friend of Jack’s and was asked all sorts of questions about what he knew.
  - “Erik, you don’t need to go do a degree. You just need to learn how software is being made now. What are the current technologies? That’s all…. I can give you the kind of things you need to learn. I can write it down for you. And if you’re willing to burn the midnight oil and just rip through this and get up to speed on how software’s being made right now, I can try to get you in on a contract I have with the state…. It’s going to be really rough, but if you’ll do that, I’ll go to bat for you.” – Advice for Erik from friend of Jack’s who worked in tech
- Erik went home and told his wife about the conversation and how much work it would take him to get up to speed, seeking her support if he chose to do it. He told her about the earning potential of putting in the work and how much he loved the discipline of computers.
  - Erik’s wife agreed she would support him.
  - Erik bought a cheap computer on CraigsList and a number of technology books from Goodwill.
  - He would stay up until the early morning day after day to learn the fundamentals of object-oriented programming, understanding databases, revisiting languages he had used and how they had changed, and learning about new programming languages like C#.
  - “Two and a half weeks into this that moment happens like it happened on the submarine, and it all clicks…. And I wrote up a resume and sent it out, and one week later I had a job for $84,000 a year. I had been making $38,000 a year or less. My life changed on a dime. It was that come to Jesus moment of a friend sitting down and saying ‘this is not ok.’” – Erik Gross, on technology becoming a professional activity
  - The tools Erik needed were there the whole time. He just had to realize it for himself.
  - Erik loves the tech industry and has done very well in it to this point.
- Nick loves the fact that Erik decided to take action based on a friend’s feedback. It’s never a bad idea to share your background and skillset in a specific area with someone else and getting some guidance from others in the same industry on how to improve or fully pivot into a new area.
- If you would like to follow up with Erik on this discussion, you can contact him using one of the following links:
- Career Architect – helping technology entrepreneurs launch and scale knowledge-based businesses without risky investments and years of trial and error, using an engineering-based approach to design, testing, launch and growth.
- The Tech Academy – a licensed trade school which helps people transition to careers in technology through delivery of online and in-person coding boot camps

Mentioned in the Outro* Nick was particularly struck by the mention of “being that friend” to others in this interview. + Being that friend involves holding someone else accountable for living up to their potential in a kind way. It’s making the other person own the action to do something about the situation. + People did this for Erik because they cared about him enough to do it. + Though not stated in the episode, Nick would classify this as mentorship. A mentor can hold us accountable in a kind way, make us own our actions, not let us off the hook, and not let us make excuses. A coach can do this too, but Nick immediately thought of a mentor’s role. * We discussed decisions and the analysis of the impact of those decisions. + This is especially important for an entrepreneur. It could mean abandoning a goal or shutting down a business. + A consistent pattern in former guests looking at job changes or other major life changes was the importance of getting input from their families before making a decision. This is a way of seeking support for a decision we want to make which could / will impact the rest of our family. * Kindness really does matter. + This immediately reminds Nick of former guest Al Rasheed, who consistently sends positivity into the community. - Al was our guest for Episode 73 – Journey to Presenting at Conventions and Episode 74 – Feedback and Career Impacts of Convention Presentations. + Kindness matters in difficult situations like layoffs and how we treat people who have been impacted by tough situations. + Kindness also matters in how we treat ourselves. Can we be kind to ourselves and forgive ourselves for making mistakes and failing at things?

Contact the Hosts* The hosts of Nerd Journey are John White and Nick Korte. + E-mail: nerdjourneypodcast@gmail.com + DM us on Twitter/X @NerdJourney + Connect with John on LinkedIn or DM him on Twitter/X @vJourneyman * Connect with Nick on LinkedIn or DM him on Twitter/X @NetworkNerd_

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As a boy learning about computers, as a Nuclear Engineering student and instructor, and as a franchise owner and successful salesperson…the early career experiences of Erik Gross, a senior technologist and our guest this week in episode 267, contain a theme of learning. Erik learned resilience, adaptability, mental toughness, business operations, empathy for the beginner, how to teach others effectively, and when it makes sense to leave a job.

Original Recording Date: 02-17-2024

Topics – Meet Erik Gross, Pursuing Naval Service, Perception and Reality of the Nuclear Engineering Program, Abstract and Concrete Learning, Selected as an Instructor, An Unexpected Career in Sales, Deciding to Make a Change2:32 – Meet Erik Gross* Erik Gross is a senior technologist with 3 principal activities: + Erik is a Cloud Transformation Consultant, he helps run a software developer boot camp, and he consults technology entrepreneurs on building scalable businesses. + If you would like to follow up with Erik on this discussion, you can contact him using one of the following links: - Career Architect – helping technology entrepreneurs launch and scale knowledge-based businesses without risky investments and years of trial and error, using an engineering-based approach to design, testing, launch and growth. - The Tech Academy – a licensed trade school which helps people transition to careers in technology through delivery of online and in-person coding boot camps

3:13 – Pursuing Naval Service* Right out of high school Erik went into the Navy’s Nuclear Engineering Program. It seemed an odd choice to others after growing up in Northern California. * Erik says the Navy is where his formal technology education began, but it isn’t where his love for technology originated. + Erik remembers the day his dad brought home a VIC-20 vividly. He was 11 years old at the time. + Erik’s father had programmed IBM mainframes in the 1960s, and at that time people wondered what it might be like one day to have a computer small enough to sit at your desk. When home computers came out, Erik’s dad got one right away. + “And he did something that changed my life…. He unplugged it, turned it over, pulled out a screwdriver, and popped off the back. And then over the next hour or so he proceeded to teach me EVERYTHING about the fundamentals of the internals of a computer…. Every bit of mystery about computers was removed from me in like an afternoon. My dad is a very patient, phenomenal teacher. And that’s where the journey really began.” – Erik Gross, on the first time his father taught him about computers * Erik’s choice to go into the Navy is really due to an overeager Navy recruiter, which he appreciates to this day. + Erik would tell you his grades in high school were not great and did not reflect his intelligence. They are also not necessarily a reflection of one’s future career trajectory. + Erik scored well on the ASVAB test for military service. Based on Erik’s scores on this test, the Naval recruiter gave Erik a second test covering math and science. Though Erik is not 100% certain how he really performed on it, he did get accepted into the Nuclear Engineering program. + “And it changed my life. So no, it was not originally what I was intending, but the things I learned in that program, I use them every day now…decades later.” – Erik Gross, on the influence of the Nuclear Engineering Program + A normal enlistment was 4 years, and it was 6 years to go into the nuclear program (2 years of school and 4 years of service in the fleet). Erik did not believe he was college material but was excited for training in electronics, physics, nuclear engineering, heat transfer and fluid flow, chemistry, higher math, etc. + The focus on technology was really what convinced Erik to agree to participating in the program. - Erik remembers his father getting kits from Heathkit like their ham radio to build together component by component. Erik’s dad was able to communicate with people in Eastern Europe in the early 1980s as an example. - “From a very early age, anything technology related, anything logic problem related…I would eat it up.” – Erik Gross

8:10 – Perception and Reality of the Nuclear Engineering Program* Was the Naval program what Erik thought it would be when he originally enlisted? + Erik’s father had served in the Navy (in Vietnam and other places), and his grandfather also served in the Navy as a pharmacist. Based on this, Erik had at least some idea of what the culture might be like. + The technology aspect that was laid out to Erik at the beginning was exactly what was covered, but getting used to the culture was an adjustment. + “The level of professionalism, discipline, communication required to operate successfully in that environment…that I did not know was coming, and I found very helpful. And it was quite the adjustment when I got out of the service to be in the civilian world.” – Erik Gross + Boot camp lasted 2 months, and Erik then went to 6 months of electronics school. - Six months of education on “Navy hours” (60 – 70 hours per week) is about 1.5 years of education anywhere else. + After electronics school came nuclear power school, and after a month or so they got into higher mathematics. Erik did not do well in math in high school. - The Naval Nuclear Propulsion school is rated the most difficult to go through in the military, holding the highest dropout rate and a nonzero suicide rate. - If you did not make it through the school you still had to serve your 6 years, but it would have a great impact on the job you were given. - The pressure was intense, and at times Erik wondered if he could actually succeed. - “I had to really look inside myself and decide, ‘what do you do when you get knocked down? How tough are you?’ Again, I’m an 18-year-old kid, and I decided there was no way I was giving up. And I push through and mastered that and now actually love math. But that was a rough, rough moment for me….” – Erik Gross - Instructors wanted people to succeed but also knew the students must have their own internal drive. Erik said they would keep you in the material and force you to spend more time on it if you were not doing well. In Erik’s class there was a low dropout rate. + After electronics school and nuclear propulsion school you get sent to something called Nuclear Prototype (a number of working nuclear reactors stationed across the country) for a period of 6 months. - These were operating nuclear reactors but were not at sea. Some of the “at sea” aspects were simulated. - Erik tells the story of being stationed at one of these in Idaho (an actual submarine) and being given the chance to do practical drills based on the theoretical knowledge he had learned.

14:00 – Abstract and Concrete Learning* Erik mentions two things came out of this which influenced the fact that he teaches people now as well as how he tries to help people when he teaches. + Students were given a book of over 400 items which composed a checklist of things they needed to practice and know. + Students would have to learn different systems by drawing them and then going to trace them throughout the nuclear prototype facility. There were 70-80 systems. requiring study. Each of the systems were things Erik had essentially learned in isolation from seeing them in a submarine. + “I remember looking at what I’m studying and all these things right next to it going through the wall. And all of a sudden this mental shift happens where I realized that not only did I know what almost all of those other things penetrating the wall were related to, what systems they were part of, but I saw how all of the systems I had studied so far were actually interrelated, where they actually met, and how one could affect the other. And all of a sudden my mind snapped open, and I got a grasp of the whole system…. And from that point forward every system I would study would…just add to the understanding of an already cohesive model of everything going on on that boat.” – Erik Gross + At different times in his life Erik has been in charge of teaching others. One example is his work to develop a well rounded software developer boot camp, which can be extremely difficult when there are so many different technologies to learn. + Nick mentions this is a lot like zooming in on a specific technology or system and zooming out to see the larger picture of how they are connected, much like we might do concrete example problems in math to help lead us to an understanding of the higher level abstract idea. + Erik says as engineers / technologists we should strike a balance between abstract principles behind something and concrete implementations of concepts. This balance between the theory of something and the practical application of the theory is something Erik and those he works with at The Tech Academy have needed to keep in mind when helping people get into the tech industry through avenues like software developer boot camps. + Nick feels it’s harder to go from the abstract to the concrete than in the opposite direction. + Erik mentions having spoken to friends who teach computer sciences and the challenges they have striking this balance. + Nick mentions technical certifications that may require one to study and take a test without forcing a practical application component as part of the test. Not that we would not learn some practical application while studying, but there could be a mismatch in theory vs. practical application. - “With certain rare exceptions when we’re teaching people technology, copy and paste is not your friend at the beginning. Type it out. Get your hands dirty. There’s no better way to really get that understanding…. Although, actually there is one better way…teach it to someone.” – Erik Gross

20:15 – Selected as an Instructor* Upon entering the Navy, Erik was not sure if he would stay in beyond his 6 year commitment. He imagined spending 2 years in school and then 4 years on a boat, but it turned out differently than he thought. + Erik had done well in electronics school and to his surprise was in the top 10% of his class at nuclear power school. The nuclear prototype (practical training) was when everything came together, and Erik did extremely well there too. + After graduating from the program, Erik was selected to be a classroom teacher for the very same program. He was scared at the proposition of teaching a class of people who were roughly 4-6 months behind him. + “Something happened about an hour into that first class. I don’t get to talk about this a lot. I’d found my home. I didn’t know that I had a gift for patience, for breaking down complex subjects, for paying attention to what’s going on in the learner’s mind, trying to grasp their point of view…and it just clicked and it came together.” – Erik Gross + During our discussion, Erik has a realization that this comes from his dad, a patient and effective teacher like none other. + Erik fell in love with teaching and even worked as part of a team to improve the overall program curriculum. * To graduate from the nuclear program, students were subjected to a panel interview. + The panel interview was 1.5-2 hours long. + The interview’s outcome would determine if they passed or failed the entire program. + The interview was with 3 experienced nuclear reactor operators who had been in the program 20 years or longer, and they can ask you anything from the last 18 months of your education in the program. + “I’ve experienced pressure at various points in my life, and sometimes that pressure has exceeded that hour and a half. But very few things come close.” – Erik Gross, on the panel interview to exit the nuclear program * Erik coaches people today on how to get into the tech industry, and when it comes to going through interviews, he has tremendous compassion and understanding for them. + It’s very easy to lose sight of what things were like at the beginning of our journey into technology, especially if we’ve been a technologist for many years. + In his coaching Erik tries to help people - Calm themselves for job interviews - Answer questions they do not immediately know the answer to - Showcase how they think to an interviewer + Nick says we were all learners once and continue to be learners. Remembering what it was like to be interviewed could motivate the interviewer to work harder to set the person being interviewed at ease and calm nerves. + “Any work you can do in any aspect of your life to be able to be willing to see something from another person’s viewpoint is time well spent.” – Erik Gross

26:17 – An Unexpected Career in Sales* Erik served as an instructor in the Navy’s nuclear program for 2 years and then as part of a group called the reactor controls division, he served on a nuclear powered cruiser for his final 2 years of service. * Erik left the Navy after getting tired of working with machines. + “Ultimately I wanted to move into something where I had more people interaction, and I didn’t see that as part of the career trajectory.” – Erik Gross, on leaving the military + Erik says as a way to foreshadow that technology kept creeping back into his life as his career as a civilian progressed. * After leaving the Navy, Erik went into sales for about 7 years. After first thinking he had no sales experience before this, Erik reflects on his time in Boy Scouts many years ago. + Many Boy Scout troops hold a yearly event called Scout-O-Rama, which is also a big fundraiser. + Erik and his troopmates were encouraged to sell tickets to Scout-O-Rama, and whoever sold the most tickets would get a new 10-speed bike. + “I found out that for the right motivation, I’m fearless. That’s not true. The fear is there, but I don’t care.” – Erik Gross, on being motivated to win a fundraising contest in Boy Scouts + Erik would knock doors near his Northern California home, and he even stood in front of the local Safeway for hours sometimes after school or on a weekend. + Erik sold 888 tickets and won the 10-speed. + When reflecting on what he wanted to do after the Navy, Erik thought back on that experience with Boy Scouts. - He believed in what he was selling and was passionate about scouts at the time. Because of that previous experience he knew he could pursue a sales role and succeed. * How was the job interview for the role in sales compared to what he went through in the Navy? + Erik had settled in Portland, Oregon after his Naval service. + Erik worked for a company that would work with manufacturers of home improvement products, create infomercials for them, put them on a looped video tape, and then ship a tv and vcr out to the different retailers (Home Depot, Lowe’s, etc.) to display on an end cap with the products in question. - Erik was hired to work for this company specifically to sell vcr tape duplication services. - Erik was not excited about the job and did not perform well in it. + One day, a lady who had helped get Erik the job asked if he would like to make some extra money on the weekend working for her husband’s sunglasses business. The job was manning a roadside booth selling sunglasses to customers. - Erik agreed. He drove up to a tent at a busy intersection in Portland and would there meet one of his future best friends. This person showed Erik what to do and turned him loose to sell to customers. - “Within a half an hour I realized the entire course of my life changed. I fell in love with that activity. Never saw this coming…at all. You get to meet person after person after person from all walks of life. You have a 2 to 5 minute sales cycle. You learn wonderful, new things about people. They walk away super happy. And, I was making bank! And so that’s how it started, and for the next 7 years, that’s what I did.” – Erik Gross, on selling sunglasses on the roadside - Selling sunglasses enabled Erik to travel across the Unites States and even to Australia at one point. * How did this activity of selling compare to how Erik felt when teaching for the Navy? + Erik eventually became a partner in the business and had to train people they would send to him in the field. It was very similar to when he was an instructor, requiring patience and an understanding of what it was like to be new. + Erik says the business was somewhat unusual and that they would refer to themselves as “roadside warriors.” Erik and others would be in a town for 7-10 days at a time, sell as much product as possible, and then move to another town. - Erik said those who worked this type of job would have to handle all logistics such as finding a new location to sell product, speaking to the property owner, securing permits and licensure to operate, and performing all setup. - He had a lot of compassion for new employees who suddenly relocated to a strange area to start this type of work. - “Teaching is teaching. You’re adding value to the person. You’re helping them accomplish their goals. And if you make it about them, you succeed.” – Erik Gross + Nick says this sounds like Erik was learning a new system when he had this role (all the logistics, interacting with people, etc.).

34:16 – Deciding to Make a Change* When does someone decide they want to stop doing this kind of work? + Erik got married young and had kids young. Two of Erik’s children were born during his time in the Navy, and one more was born during his time as a traveling salesman. + “I would leave March 1st to go on the road and come back around October, and I might fly home once or twice or three times during that period. It was brutal…. You’re making a good amount of money, but it’s brutal on home life.” – Erik Gross + Each year for a while Erik and his wife would tell themselves it was going to be the last one in the sunglasses sales role. While he had tried a few other things several times during the off season, once February came he would prepare to go back out on the road again. + Erik worked in this role from 1994 until 2000. After that he transitioned into flooring sales (an entirely different chapter). + Erik shares a story about finishing up his work in Hawaii and being told he would go to Australia next. Within a couple of days he had an operation up and running. These types of situations taught Erik a lot about himself. + The role was very much like being a franchisee in that there was a lot of freedom to run the business as long as they conformed to certain guidelines. This allowed for keeping the lion’s share of the money. * Nick feels the dynamic of knowing something needs to change or that continuing to do something is not a good idea can play out with any job. Maybe a listener out there doesn’t think what they are doing is wise to continue, but the motivation is not quite there yet to make the change. What did it really take for Erik to decide to leave and do something else? + Erik reflects back on the summer of 2000 when he and his wife told each other this was to be the last year in the sunglasses business. + Despite there not being a single moment of clarity, Erik started to look at what he was doing and wondered where it would end. He remembers seeing people working for the companies still doing the job in their sixties. + “As much as I enjoyed it…there were so many wonderful… moments of meeting great people and getting incredibly comfortable with sales. I couldn’t see myself doing that. It was this gradual shifting of that scale…and it just gradually shifted over.” – Erik Gross, on realizing he didn’t want to continue in his role as a traveling salesperson + Erik points to an internal struggle he had been having. Each winter when he wasn’t selling, he would try to start something new or make a change, but nothing seemed to succeed. He tried appliance repair, different sales endeavors, and even one idea related to DSL. + Erik works a lot with technology entrepreneurs and mentions it can be very difficult when we try to start something several times and fail. - “When you set out to start something and fail, especially if it’s a side activity or whatever…you do that two, three, four times…it can really hit you.” – Erik Gross, on failure - Erik lacked some confidence to make a change and rely entirely on himself to make it be successful, but despite that he decided to leave the sales role and trusted he had the toughness to transition into something else.

Mentioned in the Outro* Special shout out to listeners in Poland and Singapore for putting us inside the top 200 on the Apple Podcast charts in the business and careers categories! * People leave jobs for many reasons such as + Toxic culture / stressful environment + Poor management + Not getting pay raises + A mismatch in what the job expectations are compared to what you signed up for + Being on call all the time * It was a mixture of knowing the situation as a sunglasses salesperson was not sustainable for Erik’s family and looking at the end state with the understanding he did not want to be doing it for the rest of his career. + If you know you want to make a change but do not know how, you may need to talk to a trusted friend, a mentor, an industry peer, or a coach to get some clarity and some help building a plan to move forward. * We can all be mindful of people who are new to a situation or experience and have empathy for them. Let’s remember that in our interactions with others!

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Sean Tolram, our guest this week in episode 266, became a people manager because he truly enjoys helping others. In this episode, Sean will describe the gaps he needed to fill after taking on the role of managing technical people, the mindset shifts he adopted, and the impact of mindfulness principles on his team’s performance which eventually led to becoming head of mindfulness. We will also discuss the human stress response, business cases for wellbeing programs, and practical tips for using mindfulness to lower stress levels.

Original Recording Date: 02-10-2024

Sean Tolram is Head of Mindfulness at HSBC. If you missed the first part of our discussion with Sean, check out Episode 265.

Topics – Transition to People Management, Mindset Shifts and Becoming Less Technical, Defining Mindfulness, Shifting to Full-Time Work on Mindfulness and Wellbeing, A Business Case for Wellbeing, Stress Reduction Tips2:38 – Transition to People Management* Nick suggests the act of clarifying and simplifying your message is part of working with higher level leaders. * People management isn’t something Sean went looking for. He left IBM after no longer enjoying it there. * Sean started working for British Home Stores as a developer focused on building an e-commerce site. + “I wasn’t looking to be a manager or to manage a team. I was just looking to do my job. But then, as time went on, I found that I was really enjoying helping other people…. And it was from doing that that I then became known as somebody who is able to make other people better.” – Sean Tolram, on transitioning to people management + Sean spent time with some of the younger people on the team who were struggling. As a result those people were able to perform better, and their managers noticed. The people Sean had helped had told their managers he helped them. + For example, Sean taught one member of the team HTML after work in multiple short sessions. Putting him into a team became associated with people becoming better at certain things. + “When I think back now I realize that that was the point where I stopped chasing the money and chasing the promotions and I just stopped thinking about it. Prior to that when I was at IBM it was all about how to do I get rich…. At that point when I stopped thinking about that and I just started enjoying my work and enjoying the people that I was with, I realized that I enjoyed helping other people. That then led me into management roles…. I didn’t really go after it, but it was through the behaviors that I was showing that I put myself in that position.” – Sean Tolram - As the organization grew and restructured, people knew Sean was able to do the work of a people manager and put him in that role. + Are helping others to build technical as well as not technical skills looked upon equally as relatable experience or evidence that we are capable of being people leaders? - Sean would say yes and feels he was not good in his earlier career at managing up but good at working with his team. In fact managing up is still something he finds difficult to do well. Sean sought improvement in this area by forcing himself into areas of discomfort. - Sean eventually became a bridge between his team and senior management and would relay messages from senior management to his team. - “So it was all those little things that added up where it was kind of management type behaviors even though I wasn’t called a manager that then led to me being given that role.” – Sean Tolram + How is the way you manage up different for a front-line people manager compared to an individual contributor? - Part of this was learning what senior management do and do not care about. Sean was making the mistake of providing too much information. - Earlier in his career, Sean needed to provide a lot of specifics to his front line manager. He might provide, for example, details on what was done and the problems and challenges along the way. - “Managing upwards to senior management…it’s all about cutting out the fluff and getting straight to the point because that’s all they want.” – Sean Tolram - Sean suggests we need to work out the big impactful statements or headlines to share with senior management. For example, providing a slide deck full of information might be something they (senior management) decide not to read or do not remember. - Instead of communicating with everyone the same way, Sean had to change the way he communicated with his leaders to make it more effective and to achieve what he wanted to achieve. - At the time Sean was not seeking feedback from peers on how to better communicate with management (though he wishes he had been). Sean applied the concepts of testing and learning on the job to the social environment at work much like he did in his scientific study days and later when he was writing code. It took some time using this method, but Sean learned.

10:00 – Mindset Shifts and Becoming Less Technical* Sean tells us the teams he was managing were getting larger, and he went through a significant shift of mindset as a result. + “And it became less about me. So it became less about the work that I could deliver and more about the people because it was the performance of those people that was reflecting on me. So if the team were not performing well, even if I was, it doesn’t matter. It’s my team. If the team make a mistake, if there’s an error that goes live on the website, it’s not the fault of the person who made the error, it’s my responsibility because I’m heading up the team.” – Sean Tolram + Sean had to then start to think about supporting people to perform well / to the best of their ability. He knew there were talented people on his team but did not feel they were performing as well as they could be. Many errors were making it to the company’s production website during his time at HSBC. * Sean started reading books on people management and trying different things, but nothing seemed to work. + Then Sean began implementing principles of mindfulness to help people understand the impact of stress and how to deal with it. + Sean found that his team and many others he looked at were operating in a constant state of stress. At the time teams were measured on the number of daily updates they could make to the company website, and due to this choice of metric updates to the website were getting made that maybe should not have been. + Sean was in a position to change this. He slowed things down, allowed people to take breaks if they needed them, and enabled team members to think about whether they should push out their updates. This reduced the error rate by about 50%, and all they had done was introduce principles of mindfulness. + “So it wasn’t that we were all going off and meditating for hours. It was more around understanding how our brains worked and creating an environment where our brains could be at their best.” – Sean Tolram * Sean tells us he was surprised at enjoying people management so much and ended up leaving his technical skills behind. + He didn’t want to go back to being a designer or developer. Rather than be a specialist, Sean was more interested in helping others develop specialties in certain areas. + Sean enjoyed bringing teams together and getting them to collectively work toward a goal. Additionally, he enjoyed seeing people improve and enjoy the careers they wanted to achieve. + Sean had that same feeling as when he discovered HTML and it felt both easy and natural. Managing people and helping them with the challenges we have discussed felt like what he was supposed to be doing the whole time. * Was Sean concerned at all about becoming less technical? + Sean did struggle with that a bit. Our skills can get outdated quickly, and returning to individual contributor after a couple of years as a manager would require some learning and training to sharpen skills. + Sean thought about what he wanted to do for the rest of his career, and he found it to be an easy decision about what he enjoyed most (the work in management). But he acknowledges it won’t be an easy decision for everyone. - For those technical aspects of interest and that brought Sean enjoyment, he has been able to keep up with them over time. - Sean mentions doing freelance web development on his own time as a way to keep up with the technical side. It’s turned into more of a hobby he says. - Nick mentions the podcast being a hobby that allows him to meet and learn from new people. * Nick appreciates Sean’s emphasis on giving his team permission to care for themselves by taking a break when needed. + Nick recounts a situation where he encouraged a people leader to take time off because they were sick and emphasized the need to model that behavior for the people on their team. Nick says until he worked for a manager who modeled this behavior and communicated to the team it was ok to operate that way he felt far more pressure to work despite being sick. + Sean tells us the attitude and personality of the front line manager can impact the entire team. The manager being in states of panic or calm will affect the team accordingly. + “And I do see people management as a skill like learning a language or learning a musical instrument. There’s all these elements that have to be learned…. So I think it’s really important to treat it as a skill. Read the books. Do as much as you can to become an amazing people manager because at the end of the day you’re there to serve your people in the best possible way. And you need to continue developing that ability so that you can do the best for them.” – Sean Tolram - Sean says we might not find ourselves in a management position because we’re good at managing people.

17:40 – Defining Mindfulness* “Mindfulness is about having awareness of what’s going on so that you can make decisions about how you live your life. It’s that awareness.” – Sean Tolram * We often live each day on autopilot and let things happen to us without control of our attention. In a typical work day we might get contacted via e-mail, instant message, a phone call, or by other communication channels. + Sean references a study done that highlighted workers in the 1970s might get 3 inputs per day (a phone call or other interruption). For us today it’s more like 300! + This creates information overload for our brains and an inability to get to everything. + Mindfulness can help us notice when we are being distracted and bring focus back to where we want it to be. * Sean has used mindfulness to help with public speaking, for example. It helps him recognize symptoms of stress like faster heartbeat and rise in body temperature. He stresses the importance of practicing so we can notice these things are happening earlier (maybe before standing up to speak / being put on queue to speak). + Noticing allows us to apply tools to calm ourselves or put us in the right state of mind to do a presentation or have a conversation with someone. * Suppose you’re in a meeting and someone says something that triggers you. This engages what Sean calls the primitive brain, and we go into fight or flight mode. We might snap back verbally at someone and regret it later. + With mindfulness we can develop an ability to create a gap before we respond to situations that will allow us to pause, take a breath, think logically and respond rather than react. + Sean gives the example of receiving an e-mail from someone who is critical of you with other people copied. + There are many more applications in the workplace for mindfulness. * Mindfulness is not a new concept and has origins in the Buddhist religion. + In the 1970s mindfulness was brought to the West and made more accessible to others. + Today mindfulness is being used by different companies, by Navy Seals, and elite athletes. Sean mentions even his kids use mindfulness in school today and that it is becoming more mainstream once people see the benefits. + Along these same lines we have to be careful. Mindfulness cannot make all of our problems disappear. + “It may make you more aware of your problems and how they’re affecting you. But what I always says is that then gives you information that you can use to make decisions to make decisions about what you do next.” – Sean Tolram, on mindfulness as an information source * What do we mean by mindfulness practice? Are mindfulness and meditation the same thing? + Sean says mindfulness is something we can do in the moment when we need it. For example if we’re getting upset in traffic or because someone jumped in front of us in line somewhere, we can do a breathing practice or a body scan right then and there to notice tight or tense muscles. We can even practice mindfulness while doing the dishes. + As one progresses in mindfulness, meditation is a part of it. We might dedicate 10, 20, or 30 minutes even to meditate. What this really means is taking time to sit and focus on your breath, and when you get distracted, notice and make a decision to redirect attention back the breath. This is a mindfulness practice. - The dedicated practice for a period of time is meditation, while mindfulness can be done in the moment. + "We say mindfulness is a gym for the brain, and that’s like doing reps in the gym for the brain…noticing you’ve been distracted and then bringing your attention back…… The more you practice that, the easier and more automatic it becomes so you can then apply it in those tough situations when you need it the most. " – Sean Tolram, on a mindfulness practice + The above aligns with some of the books Nick has read, such as: - The Way of the SEAL by Mark Divine Allyson Machate talks about having a mind gym that we visit to practice - Peak Mind by Amishi Jha discusses the result of studies which found that 12 minutes of meditation per day is the sweet spot of dedicated time that can improve your decision making in any walk of life + Nick feels like there may be a misconception out there about what meditation is and means. Apps like Calm have made it more accessible. + Sean shares that he was doing mindfulness during our interview since it started. In the moments when Nick was talking. - “In the moments when you’re talking, I’m noticing signs of stress in myself. Because this is an unusual situation for me…but being on a podcast, unusual situation, my brain is saying potential danger, potential danger. So I’m noticing my shoulders are raised slightly. I can kind of feel like every now and again I’m starting to talk a little bit faster than I normally would do…. So when you’re speaking, I’m doing a very kind of discrete mindfulness exercise just to kind of bring myself back down and maintain a certain level so that I can speak to in a clear and coherent way.” – Sean Tolram, on the live practice of mindfulness - Sean tells us it is difficult to switch on mindfulness in the moment, but he’s able to do it because he has put in the practice.

26:40 – Shifting to Full-Time Work on Mindfulness and Wellbeing* In Sean’s previous role at HSBC, he managed the teams who put out content across HSBC websites. It was high pressure, and Sean saw a number of people who would burn out or get sick due to work. + These people would take time off work, get treatment, and then end up in the same situation again. + Despite Sean giving his teams the chance to take better care of themselves, they often would chose not to do so. When he would notice people not taking lunch breaks Sean would speak to people and try to make them comfortable taking those breaks. But there were team members who just couldn’t do it or were not comfortable taking the lunch breaks because of their experiences with the cultures of previous teams. + Sean realized we often go through our education and learn almost nothing about how our brains work. Once we are put into the world of work which isn’t necessarily optimized for our brains (i.e. might put our brains in a state of threat), we might not have the tools or skills to function well in that environment. + Sean became a manager because he enjoyed helping people. He found after teaching people about the way their brain works and how to create a brain friendly environment, it was helping people more than anything else. * Sean then got further into mindfulness because it helped him do the thing he enjoyed – helping other people. Sean tells us it was more luck becoming Head of Mindfulness than any one thing he did. + He became known eventually as the mindfulness guy. People knew it was something Sean was passionate about practicing because he let senior management know he was using mindfulness to help others and the results it was producing. + When the pandemic hit, many organizations wanted a way to support employee wellbeing. HBSC decided at the time to create a permanent mindfulness team after seeing the positive results Sean had communicated to senior management. Sean was asked to head up the mindfulness team. - Thinking back he feels this was a lot of being at the right place at the right time and a little bit of luck. It was also because others knew about the work he had been doing. + Where would a mindfulness department fall from an organizational structure standpoint? - Sean says right now his department is separate from HR because of the source of their funding, and this allows his team to operate across all areas of the company (HSBC) without limitations. - Nick sees a similarity here to when Sean was in HTML design and decided to work with other people in development, testing, etc. Th external organization to other groups allows looking at benefits of mindfulness to people across the company while examining challenges which may be specific to someone’s role, location, or job function. - In other organizations concerned about employee wellbeing (a big focus in the corporate world at the time of this recording), this function may reside within HR. Lately Sean is hearing discussions of why wellbeing should reside outside HR so it can have a greater organizational impact.

32:58 – A Business Case for Wellbeing* What if a listener does not have a wellbeing program at their company? + Sean says in his case they were doing mindfulness already and reporting on the results. There’s nothing to prevent people from doing it if they have the time and interest, but be sure to report on the results of the work you’re doing to prove the worth. + More and more studies highlight the link between health and wellbeing, performance at work, and organizational results. Check out actual studies on the internet to help create a compelling case that can impact a company’s bottom line. + “If you just look at the stats for stress, stress is one of the biggest causes of long-term absence from work. When you’re stressed, lots of things happen…. It has an impact on your health, and you can become ill. When you become ill, you need to take time off work. That then leads to absenteeism. Also it leads to staff turnover…. When you plug some numbers in you can see the cost of stress to an organization on average, and the numbers are massive.” – Sean Tolram - Sean also mentions presenteeism. This is when people are at work but not able to perform to the best of their ability. * Nick thinks creating a business case is the next iteration of managing up for Sean. + Proposing new ideas to leaders can be scary, and it is something we have to overcome. + People in leadership positions want passionate individuals to suggest new ideas. We need to remember this can be a way to make a senior leader’s job easier because they can’t get to everything. You can prove you have thought something through with your business case. + Sean gives an example of getting an instant message from his direct line manager about chatting for 5 minutes and the stress response this can trigger. - The stress response often has to do with social hierarchy and fear of being kicked out of the troop. There are primitive reasons for this, and they are not easy to overcome. - We’re trying to go against our natural human instincts, and it will be different for every person. As we have discussed, it’s noticing when these things happen and deciding to do something about it. + We also have to navigate organizational constructs like management chains and whether our direct line manager would support us communicating with a skip level manager.

37:29 – Stress Reduction Tips* It helps to understand at a biological level what happens when we’re stressed. + Your brain has sensed danger and reacted as if you are faced with a wild animal. But it likely is not a wild animal. It could be a manager or a colleague. + The stress response is not in and of itself a bad thing. When in a state of stress, our blood rushes to muscles in our arms and legs and our bodies flood with adrenaline and cortisol. Our pupils dilate, we breathe faster, and we start pumping more blood throughout the body. + “It’s almost like a superpower where you’re being primed to fight or run away.” – Sean Tolram, on the stress response - When you hear stories of someone picking up a car to save someone else, for example, that’s the stress response in action. + We can start to recognize stress symptoms as they appear. In fact, Sean did this right before dialing in for the podcast recording. He did a 2 minute mindfulness practice to help calm himself. - When we are stressed our breathing is more likely to speed up because we are tying to get more oxygen. - “Just the act of breathing is a really simple way to reduce the levels of stress….but there’s science behind it….By consciously slowing down your breath you’re signaling to the brain ‘I’m ok. I’m not in danger….’ That then creates a cascade that can calm down your nervous system and move you into a more relaxed state… If we’re looking for just one really quick, simple thing that we can do reduce stress, it would e to focus on your breathing and just to notice what’s happening with your breath.” – Sean Tolram - We can make our exhale longer than our inhale to help relax ourselves and slow down our breathing as well. Some people like to count, perhaps counting to 3 while they inhale and 4 while they exhale. - Another technique is a quick body scan. Sean gives the example of focusing his attention on his shoulders and easing the tension in them during our recording. We can use body scans to understand how parts of our body react during times of stress and then relax those areas if we want to. It’s the awareness that is key. * Book recommendations from Sean: + Your Brain at Work by David Rock - Sean tells us this is very practical and shows how mindfulness can be applied in the working environment. + How to Be a Productivity Ninja by Graham Allcott - This is not a mindfulness book and discusses how to value your time, manage your inbox, and manage your calendar. To Sean it’s a book about mindful working. * The best way to follow up with Sean is to contact him on LinkedIn – Sean Tolram. + Sean gets contacted by organizations who want to start a mindfulness program but are unsure where to begin, and individuals sometimes contact him for personal coaching or mentoring.

Mentioned in the Outro* We want to say a special shout out and thank you to former guest Leanne Elliott for suggesting Sean be a guest on our show. Leanne is the co-host of the Truth, Lies, Workplace Culture Podcast along with Al Elliott. We highly recommend checking it out! + If you want to listen to the episodes we recorded with Leanne, check out Episode 237 – The Psychological Transition of Layoffs with Leanne Elliott (1/2) and Episode 238 – Managers as Culture Keepers with Leanne Elliott (2/2). * Sean became a people manager because he liked helping others. The people he helped were communicating his impact for him to their managers, and he developed a reputation of helping others. Without that reputation, perhaps he would not have been considered for a people manager role. + It was a similar story when Sean got into mindfulness. Using the techniques made him more effective as a manager. He was passionate about the topic of mindfulness, he shared the techniques with his team, and he communicated the impact on his team to his leaders. That developed a reputation for Sean as “the mindfulness guy.” * For more discussions on mindfulness and stress, check out: + Episode 192 – Begin a Mindfulness Practice with Brett Hill (2/2) - This episode contains a number of great tips on mindfulness in interviews and details Brett Hill’s transition out of tech and into mindfulness + Episode 90 – Book Discussion: The Inner Game of Stress by Gallwey, Hanzelik, and Horton – a good book discussion covering all things stress and some tools to help + Episode 91 – Career Stress and the Healthy Mind Platter + Episode 214 – Across the Patterns of Burnout with Cait Donovan (1/2) - Burnout expert and coach Cait Donovan discusses the connection between stress and burnout - Be sure to check out Cait’s podcast FRIED: The Burnout Podcast * The impact of a poor culture / poor environment has an impact on us even after we’re out of that environment. Remember, managers, you are the culture keepers of your team!

Peak Mind: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day

Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long

The Way of the SEAL: Think Like an Elite Warrior to Lead and Succeed

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This week in episode 265 we’re joined by Sean Tolram (a part 1 of 2). We’ll hear about Sean’s experiences studying biotechnology and his discovery of HTML, how he got into web design, interview tips and how we can connect with others during interviews, ways to collaborate with people from other teams through curiosity, and thoughts on communicating the results of our work.

Original Recording Date: 02-10-2024

Topics – Meet Sean Tolram, A Scientific Researcher Discovers HTML and Web Design, Feeling Unprepared for Presentations, Elements of Interviewing, A Grad Scheme at IBM, Something More Creative, Learning from Others, Communicating Results2:11 – Meet Sean Tolram* Sean Tolram is Head of Mindfulness at HSBC. + There is a mindfulness team at HSBC focused on trying to embed mindful ways of working across the organization.

2:40 – A Scientific Researcher Discovers HTML and Web Design* Sean studied science in school. Around this time they had started to work with DNA and began talking about cloning. Sean mentions Dolly the Sheep, the first animal to be cloned. * With biotechnology seemingly taking off, Sean decided to go and study it. + “I then realized working in scientific research was not as glamorous as I thought it would be.” – Sean Tolram, on his work not being what he originally expected + Sean remembers starting out spending hours studying bacteria in a hot research lab. He realized continuing in that field would require him to live like a student for much of his life (getting research grants, etc.), which was not what he wanted. + Sean eventually wanted a job that paid more money and decided to leave biotech. * Sean applied to any company whose name he recognized, not caring too much about the specifics of the job. + Sean ended up getting a job at IBM as part of what he calls a “grad scheme.” This was around the year 2000. * As for the experience in biotech, Sean tells us every day was a real struggle because he had no desire to be there. + He worked through it to pass to be able to go on and do something else. + It’s difficult for young people to be able to pick a career they want to do for the rest of their lives. Sean would tell us most will go through several career changes throughout their lives. + Sean remembers one of the modules in his biotech course that covered web design. This is when he wrote his first few lines of HTML. + “I think it was just maybe a couple of days worth of work, and I found that far more interesting than anything else in my 3 year degree that I did…. Really at that point I knew that web design was the one thing that I’d sort of tried, and I was intrigued and interested to do a little bit more. I just didn’t know how.” – Sean Tolram + Sean mentions he reached out to technology companies and pharmaceutical companies after completing the biotech course of study. * After discovering web design and HTML, Sean started to tinker with it in his own time. The initial task he was given was to put an image on a web page (nothing more than that), and he explored headers, tables, and bulleted lists next. + “I just started to build up the page and add more and more. And it just felt very natural. It felt more natural than anything else I was doing in my degree. And I was finding that I was remembering things very easily.” – Sean Tolram, on learning HTML + Once Sean built something using HTML, he could easily remember how to replicate it. He would also think of different ways to do it. + Nick can see the transfer of problem solving skills from doing scientific research to building websites with HTML and changing your approach based on the observation of output on the page. + Sean eventually moved into user experience where they did a lot of testing. He recalls that his degree was really about running a lot of experiment , testing different things, and learning what works. + Sean’s thesis for his degree was a study on the effectiveness of popular types of mouthwash under different conditions. Changing the conditions and testing the results parallels the way Sean’s career ended up progressing.

9:21 – Feeling Unprepared for Presentations* It is likely researchers require a lot of documenting of their work. How did that experience improve Sean’s writing skills throughout his career? + In the scientific field it’s about documenting the hypothesis, results, method, and conclusion. + Sean finds himself using that same principles today. Now that he’s in senior management, a proposal for something he wants to do follows a very similar structure. * Nick asks if as part of the program Sean was in they had to give presentations sharing their results to others? + It reminded Nick of the challenge Neil Thompson had before starting Teach the Geek. If you would like to listen to the episodes we did with Neil, check out Episode 193 – Communication for Specialists with Neil Thompson (1/2) and Episode 194 – Question Askers and Problem Solvers with Neil Thompson (2/2). + Sean says when he was an undergraduate they had to present to a room full of PhD students and senior lecturers. - “At that point, none of us had ever had any training around how to speak in public. We’d never even thought about it. Then all of a sudden we have to get up in front of this room where everyone looks miserable. They don’t look like they really want to be there. You’re talking about something they’re probably not interested in, but they have to be there to observe you…. It’s a very intimidating atmosphere…. So most of my presentations at that time were a total car crash…. At the time I just thought wow, I’m really bad at public speaking. I’m never going to be able to get up in front of a room and speak.” – Sean Tolram - The atmosphere was quite stressful. caused impostor syndrome and a state of stress, and it was almost a feeling like one was wasting the audience’s time. - Sean didn’t understand at this time how stress can impact how we think and behave, but he remembers his heart beating rapidly, talking fast, and feeling sweaty during these presentations. + Nick mentions his eighth grader’s hesitance to give presentations and his encouragement to her to keep doing it. The exposure to doing this is a good thing. + When we say public speaking, it doesn’t mean giving some keynote at a conference. It starts with a room of your peers or people who have more experience than you (like presenting for a grade in school). It can be intimidating. + Sean says his kids (7 and 11) are excited at the chance to speak in front of a room of people and how interesting it will be to watch as they continue their education.

13:37 – Elements of Interviewing* Sean tells us the interview process for the role at IBM was not really technical and that it was assumed the company would teach you the skills needed. It was more about personality and culture fit. * As part of this “grad scheme” as Sean calls it candidates would rotate and learn various skills like coding, graphic design, testing, and project management. * Nick suggests when we are in interviews it is a good thing to ask about training opportunities to increase our depth in a specific area. For example, maybe you know something at a 200 level of depth and the company you’re interviewing with wants more like 400 level. Will they train or let you take training to get there? * In his current role at HSBC, Sean conducts interviews. He realizes he likely would not have hired his younger self, feeling that his interactions in those past interviews were not genuine or authentic but rather a bit exaggerated. + “For me it’s really impressive if somebody knows what they don’t know and they’re already thinking about how they can get there.” – Sean Tolram, on the importance of showing self-awareness of our skill sets in interviews - Sean feels this candidate self-awareness gives them an advantage. + Many people might feel showing your vulnerability in this way might prevent them from being hired. - If you go into interviews and exaggerate what you know, it “might” work in your favor. But interviews can figure this out by asking the right questions. Sean prefers speaking with people who take an honest approach. - Do you have the core of what you need to do the role, and are you showing it to an interview? - Sean likes it when candidates he speaks to have researched and understand the HSBC strategy (for being net 0 by 2030, for example). - “This is where the business wants to be. This is how I feel like I can develop myself to contribute to that…. Right now, this is there I am. This is what I can do. I feel like I can come in here and I can do a job right now, and I can do it well. In addition to that, I’m aware of those areas where I’d like to improve and I’d like to push myself so that I can continue to grow with this organization.” – Sean Tolram, sharing an example of tying current skill set and professional development to a company direction in an interview - Nick would agree honesty with our skill sets and experience is always the best policy in interviews. - Researching a company before interviews is always a wise thing to do, but understanding the company goals and thinking about how we can contribute to them by making ourselves better is a great suggestion! + Sean did not have LinkedIn years ago after his experience studying biotech. He would encourage us to connect with people at the company where we would like to work. - There was a time when Sean was considering leaving HSBC. He connected with people from other banks to find out what they do and even ask for advice. Doing this kind of prep work can help us learn more about a company and what is happening there to stand out as a candidate. - Consider also looking at the news about the company, whether good or bad. You can be aware of it and provide your take on it in an interview. Sean calls this out as a great thing we could do in an interview. - Nick says putting in the time to research like this shows a level of interest as well. People might find out through research the values of a company clash with their own personal values and would then need to make a decision on working there. + Knowledge of the business and organization is one side of interviews. The other side is human connection. - We will connect with some people more than others, but being nervous can prevent us from making connections with others. - Sean consistently encourages young people to practice interview situations. - “The more you practice, the more comfortable it becomes, even if it’s to yourself in front of the mirror…. You do the training so that you perform better in the game. The interview is the big game, so you don’t want to just turn up there with no practice.” – Sean Tolram - This preparation and practice allows us to be as comfortable as possible in an interview and allows us to make a connection with the interviewer. * Nick suggests connecting with and reaching out to others for advice is a form of interviewing, even though we are the ones asking questions. We should be making sure we ask questions during interviews as a best practice. + Sean mentioned it’s been fascinating to learn how the brain works in different situations (part of the reason he got into mindfulness). + When we are in an interview situation we are usually in fight or flight mode, and since stress responses are firing up, access to higher brain function may be cut off. We cannot operate at our best in these cases, but being aware that it’s happening gives us the chance to calm ourselves and enable being the best version of ourselves. - This is why people’s minds go blank in an interview or in a team meeting, for example. Sean says people can say crazy things when this happens. + Sean recounts an interview experience from years ago where the interviewer described the culture of the team and how they liked to go out drinking. Sean was nervous and wasn’t thinking clearly. When asked if he enjoyed doing the same, Sean said “yeah, I drink quite heavily.” - The truth is Sean rarely drinks (which has always been the case). - “And I said that in an interview because my mind was all over the place, and I wasn’t consciously thinking about the words that were coming out of my mouth.” – Sean Tolram

25:13 – A Grad Scheme at IBM* The role at IBM as part of the grad scheme did not match what Sean thought it would be during interviews. He tells us it was a little bit like being back at a university. + The incoming graduates (including Sean) were sent around doing all types of training, even getting to do some travel as part of the experience. + Once all the training was complete, things ended up being different than what Sean expected. He was sent on a rotation or a “placement” through different jobs for a couple of months each. - Some of the roles were roles Sean had never done or had no interest in doing. - One example of a job Sean did was software tester for Tesco. He didn’t have an interest in doing it or know if he would be good at it. - “But I sat there, I followed the instructions, and I did it. If you do that enough times, it becomes soul destroying because this amazing career that you dreamed of kind of seems like it’s been taken out of your control and you’re just being moved around onto these different projects.” – Sean Tolram - Sean says he felt much the same as at the university. He was doing it just to get through it and did not feel it was motivating him or giving him energy. He was getting paid, could support himself, and could live comfortably. It’s a fine balance. * What is meant by grad scheme? Is that a special program for college graduates? + Each year IBM would bring in a group of 30 or 40 percent graduates and train them / immerse them in the IBM experience. The company had hopes that those folks would eventually become future senior leaders within IBM. + IBM was making a big investment, and a number of people did the training and then left the company. + “When we did the interviews we didn’t realize fully that that’s what a grad scheme consisted of, so that was a bit of a surprise.” – Sean Tolram + Before Nick started working for a technology company 6 years ago he did not know companies had these types of programs for recent college graduates (academy programs, grad schemes, etc.). - If you’re in school now or fresh out consider these programs as an avenue to get into tech! * Sean now mentors and coaches graduates at HSBC. Young people in school aren’t thinking as much about their future career. They are more focused on getting through school. + In the UK, university students can take a year to do an internship at a company and then go back and finish their degree. + Doing an internship with companies who offer it can make it easier to get into a company’s grad scheme and end up helping your long term career. + Researching companies who offer these types of programs and how to get into them is a very beneficial thing to do. + Nick likes the idea of taking a year to do the internship without needing to do school at the same time. It can give you full exposure into the working world. + HSBC has global internships as do other large financial institutions and technology companies. They also have grad scheme type programs. + Sean tells us he is involved in helping the people who come through these programs get adjusted to the world of work. + “That’s the sort of support that I didn’t have back in the day when I was starting. And I think that’s one of the reasons that I didn’t enjoy it because you’re kind of dumped into this environment which is very strange, very unfamiliar. You kind of feel like you don’t belong there.” – Sean Tolram, on supporting people through internships and grad schemes + A grad scheme can be competitive to enter. Sean compares it to The Apprentice and mentions it’s a high stress, high pressure environment. + Making connections in these programs can be awkward. People want to be friends and make connections but at the same time want to be seen as a standout compared to everyone else to get the best roles. Sean says this can mess with your head and is not really a normal way of being.

32:11 – Something More Creative* During the rotation at IBM, Sean realized he wanted to go into something more creative. He had been working with HTML to build web pages that were both functional and looked nice / provided a good user experience. + There were not any roles that fit what Sean wanted to do despite communicating what he wanted to his management. + Sean was moved around to different roles and would do some HTML work here and there. Some roles allowed for graphic design work in Paint Shop Pro, for example. + Sean would do design work and present it to the development teams to apply it to websites. + "It was all about building functional websites that worked. Nobody cared how they looked…. The devs just wanted to get it through functional testing so that they could move on to something else. It kind of felt like I was on my own and nobody really cared about the same things. " – Sean Tolram, on the disparities he saw between functionality and design + Sean would make suggestions for button placement on websites, suggest a standardized look and feel, customized branding, etc. * Nick has seen instances where a company would hire one firm to design the website and a different one to build the functionality based on the design. Are design and build commonly separated like this? + Sean has seen examples even in recent years where the priority is on the build. Design would be after this and then content (the words on the page). + Having the content team, the dev team, and the design team pulled together working on requirements from the beginning and then building something that does the job works really well. - “Throughout most of my career that’s not really how it’s worked. You’ve had separate teams, often managed by different people with different objectives, not really collaborating as well as they could.” Sean Tolram - Nick mentions this sounds like the structure of a product team with a product manager, engineers / developers, and designers all part of the same working group or team even if they may have different managers. Sean says this is how he’s seen it working best. - At HSBC they have been moving toward job descriptions and roles that are not quite so fixed but rather focused on identifying an organizational need and pulling in the people with the right skill set to help. It’s about managing resources. Sean is seeing this work very well at present. - In the past Sean has consistently seen instances where the content team would be left without enough space for the text needed to go on a website because the website was not designed with the content in mind. This has to go back to the dev team, back through testing, and makes the process take longer. - Nick sees the design, the content, and the development as analogous to knobs on a sound board we need to set properly to achieve the ideal sound. * “As my career progressed, the one thing that I think really worked well for me was learning a bit about all of those different areas…. I was seeing a lot of specialists – someone who only does dev, someone who only does design. I started to gain experience in all of those areas, even SEO, user experience, analytics, A/B testing. I ended up not becoming an expert in any particular area, but I knew enough about those areas. I could work with a team. I could bring people together. I could manage a team of experts. It was when I decided to go in that direction that I started to be put into more kind of management type positions….” – Sean Tolram

38:27 – Learning from Others* Did the lack of people caring about the design cause Sean to seek to learn about the other areas? + Yes! Sean felt like no one understood him. But he realized he had been doing the same thing as everyone else – thinking his viewpoint or focus (design) was the most important element of a website. - Websites had to function properly in addition to looking pretty to be valuable. - Sean realized his designs would be better if he understood limitations the dev team had, so he went and learned more. - Testing teams were sometimes looked at negatively, but in reality they can save a company money and reputation by ensuring quality. - Sean made a conscious decision to learn more about how testers test and what they need to be more efficient to better inform his own work. + Sean would spend his own time working with and seeking to understand the roles of other teams. This was in addition to the work he was already doing. - Sean would ask members of other teams like the test team if he could shadow them to learn more about the work they were doing. It might be 30 minutes or for a shorter period like 10 minutes. - “I consciously spent additional time with those people so that I could understand what they were doing, and what happened was quite quickly I was able to link that to the work that I was doing.” – Sean Tolram - The dev team had limitations on button sizes, for example, so there was no point designing a button which did not fit that limitation. Everything was being built using tables, so too much complexity in design based on that would take longer for a developer to build. - “And it helped me to build relationships with those teams, and that was the most important thing. And once we had those relationships going they would then come to me and say, ‘Sean, we’re building this thing. Where do you think we should put this button?’ And that’s when it really started to come together.” – Sean Tolram - These principles can apply to other departments and groups adjacent to where we work. * How open were people when Sean asked to learn about what they did? Were people hesitant? + Most took the curiosity as a compliment, while others wanted to get on with their work and did not see value in spending time with Sean. + We have to brush it off when people don’t want to talk with us and not waste energy. + “It was finding those people who were willing to be helpful, and what I realized was the majority of people…want a sense of community. They want to feel like they’re part of a team. They want nice relationships nice conversations.” – Sean Tolram + It helps to compliment others when seeking to learn from them. We should always be polite and respectful when approaching others. + Sean would provide positive feedback to a team’s front line manager on something they accomplished, and that was very helpful. + “Making time to build those relationships rather than just focusing on my job, that was what made the difference.” – Sean Tolram

43:44 – Communicating Results* Nick likes the idea of keeping management in the loop and suggests they would see a benefit from the collaboration described here even if not quantified well. * Sean mentions people he’s had managers who became managers due to their technical expertise. Those people were not going to encourage a collaborative team culture because it was not part of their skill set. They were happy to let Sean do that part, however. + Sean had to learn how to sell the work he was doing in a way his managers would understand. + “I wish I did more of this in my earlier career…. It’s awkward to sell yourself and to try and show people how well you’re doing, but it’s the only way that people are going to know.” – Sean Tolram + Sean realized the things he was doing to increase collaboration within the company were important and that he was able to produce good results. He suggests sharing the end result with others (a product that delighted a customer) and letting them know it was possible because of the collaboration amongst those involved. * Nick says the persuasion, selling, and pointing out of bright spots to advertise internally we discussed is the on the job training for the next interview someone needs to be in. It’s transferrable to interviews. + Sean has started to think more about this throughout his career. When he began his career he was focused more on his own work and doing it well. + “I could complete 100 tasks really well, and to me I’d have a sense of personal satisfaction. But it would mean nothing to anybody because it hadn’t got out there. But if I can create a story around those 100 tasks in a simple, succinct way that outlines the value that those 100 tasks have provided, then suddenly you have the attention of the right people.” – Sean Tolram + Last year Sean wanted to show how his team is saving HSBC money. The team were simplifying processes and then recording the time savings. At the end of the year, Sean provided not a massive report but a single statement: - “We’ve invested 30 hours this year in simplification activity. That will now save us 400 hours of effort every year from now on. And that was it. One statement, and I got more of a reaction from that than any of those massive reports that I’d created in the past.” – Sean Tolram + Sean wishes he had known these things earlier. Only from experience and understanding how the world works was he able to figure this out.

Mentioned in the Outro* We want to say a special shout out and thank you to former guest Leanne Elliott for suggesting Sean be a guest on our show. Leanne is the co-host of the Truth, Lies, Workplace Culture Podcast along with Al Elliott. We highly recommend checking it out! + If you want to listen to the episodes we recorded with Leanne, check out Episode 237 – The Psychological Transition of Layoffs with Leanne Elliott (1/2) and Episode 238 – Managers as Culture Keepers with Leanne Elliott (2/2). * For more episodes on interviewing, we recommend checking out: + Episode 205 – Revisiting the Foundations of Job Interviews, Part 1 + Episode 206 – Revisiting the Foundations of Job Interviews, Part 2 + Episode 81 – The Joy of Interviewing with Manny Sidhu * Being honest about our current skill set and thinking about where our company is going can help us get a promotion to the next job level. The sane types of responses we might give in interviews can help us think on how to level up where we are. + Consider what skills need to be refined or added to get to that next job level and how they contribute to company strategy. How does your impact level inside and outside the organization need to change? Also, think about the technology landscape and trends so as to make professional development choices to help in your current role and beyond (even if you leave the company). * Being honest with ourselves may tell us we’re not as good as we would like to be in communicating the impact and value of our work and its impact to the organization. + Human connections with our manager or management chain can help us understand how to communicate in a way leaders understand.

Contact the Hosts* The hosts of Nerd Journey are John White and Nick Korte. + E-mail: nerdjourneypodcast@gmail.com + DM us on Twitter/X @NerdJourney + Connect with John on LinkedIn or DM him on Twitter/X @vJourneyman * Connect with Nick on LinkedIn or DM him on Twitter/X @NetworkNerd_

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This week in episode 264 we’re joined by returning guest Brad Christian. In this discussion Brad shares how he selected the technologies on which to focus certification efforts, the story of getting laid off, how he determined working for a VAR (Value Added Reseller) was the right next move, and how we should be intentional in connecting with others in our industry.

Original Recording Date: 01-15-2024

Brad Christian is a returning guest and is currently a Solutions Specialist at Computacenter. If you missed part 1 of this discussion with Brad or are looking for links to previous discussions with him, check out Episode 263.

Topics – Making a Bet on Technologies for Certification and Focus, Decision to Work for a VAR, Getting Laid Off, Making Connections, Discussing Money, Leaving Leadership3:01 – Making a Bet on Technologies for Certification and Focus* We’ve spoken to previous guests about making a bet on technology, and it has to be timed appropriately with technology waves. How did Brad know where to place his bet, and what was the decision process he used? + Brad says right now in our industry is weird. The largest security company in the world is Microsoft. It’s going to be difficult for anyone to see the future clearly from here. + Not every bet you make to train on a specific technology pays off. + “When I haven’t known what to do…one thing is clear. Doubling down on fundamentals is not going to hurt you.” – Brad Christian, on where to place your emphasis + Brad thinks the demand for cloud native tools in on-premises environments will only increase. - With the rise of AI, Brad would advise people not to put intellectual property on a cloud, especially leaders. Security would dictate that data come back on-premises, but some of the hardware requirements are pretty crazy. Preparing for this is smart. - Security will be come more important, and the number of breaches will increase. Brad also thinks GDPR will come to the US. - Brad prefers the distributed system approach as opposed to complete centralization. Many workloads will be right for cloud, but there will be those that have to live on-premises. - There will be more storage companies that rise like WEKA. - Brad also says baking FinOps into all of this is an important bet. - Brad foresees more workload variability and continued growth in the edge space. - Brad’s advice for younger listeners or those relatively new to tech is to go and learn networking (get certified there). * The future will be more about things moving around. Storage will be easier to learn when you need it. - Learn about the different workloads which exist and how that is changing. - There are a lot of missing tools and processes when it comes to Kubernetes. - There is a lot of FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt). - Brad also believes Red Hat isn’t going anywhere. + Brad shares the story of attending a Red Hat user group recently and being the youngest person there. - It would be wise for younger folks to get out and attend user groups like this. - VMUG attendance dwindled as a result of COVID and hasn’t bounced back to take one example. - Going to meetups is going to get more important moving forward! - If you only know cloud services like AWS today, Brad would encourage you to go and learn the on-premises technologies. - “Learn the hard things. If you’ve been taught to do everything the easy way at scale, learn why we built all that stuff in the first place.” – Brad Christian + John says making a bet on Red Hat isn’t so much a bet on a vendor but more of a bet on foundational Linux (even if some distributions have differences). - This is a solid choice but also something not a lot of people have in their toolbox (as evidenced by attending meetups and Brad being the youngest attendee). It’s also not a bleeding edge choice either. - Linux is used both in the cloud and in many mission critical systems on-premises too (think storage arrays that want a more lightweight operating system than Windows, for example). - Nick likes the back to basics approach. It’s back to basics but branching out into an area where Bad maybe hasn’t gone as deep previously. It’s in line with deepening breadth. - John mentioned Linux is the basis for Kubernetes as well. From there, Kubernetes is often the basis for AI workloads and tooling too. Making a technology choice like Brad’s takes into account where the industry is headed, the decisions organizations are making around these technologies, and also there is a lack of people who have the expertise. * Brad mentioned speaking to a startup that developed an appliance that delivered virtualization and Kubernetes to make it easier to operate and more secure to prevent developers from getting into the hardware layer. + Brad considered working for this startup, but after speaking to this company for several weeks, working for a VAR made more sense because it was more broad. That and there was a bad taste left in his mouth from the experience at the startup. + Kubernetes as a technology also isn’t that old, but if there’s something to come after it, it will be built on Linux!

12:59 – Decision to Work for a VAR* Brad worked at the startup for a little over a year (1 year, 3 months or so) before his team was let go. About a year of that was working as a cloud economist. + “So I didn’t even really get the masterclass in marketing that I had wanted. You know, I was heavily involved with it for a while, but I spent way more time learning finances.” – Brad Christian + When looking for his next choice after leaving the startup, Brad’s wife asked him where he was happiest. She pointed out that he loved working for a VAR. + At first that suggestion seemed like a step back to Brad, especially after working so hard to get the VCDX and later work for VMware. In his previous work at a VAR (Sigma Solutions, which later became Pivot), Brad was part of the delivery team that would stand up VMware environments for customers. - “I really worked hard to get my VCDX so I could move to what I thought was the next step, which was going to work for a big OEM.” – Brad Christian - All the effort paid off. Brad even wrote a book after joining VMware and had reached a comfortable financial level for his family. + Brad’s wife suggested he speak to some of the people he used to work with at VARs. Many of them Brad is still friends with today. + “There’s so much disruption and change going on. Who’s going to capitalize on all this disruption and change? The VARs are. Where are companies turning to for advice on designing solutions for what’s going on? They’re turning to VARs.” – Brad Christian + Brad started speaking to some of the VARs in the Dallas / Fort Worth metroplex and received a call from a former co-worker at Pivot. When asked if he had considered Computacenter, Brad had never heard of the company. + The company Brad worked for a while back, Pivot, was acquired by Fusion Storm and later bought by Computacenter in an effort to expand their reach into the Americas. - Computacenter was well versed in supply chain management, end-to-end capability management, and an international reach and scope that fascinated Brad. - They also had unobtanium levels of vendor certifications. Brad mentions VARs need to have a certain number of people on staff certified in a technology (hardware / software) to sell that technology solution. Computacenter had reached the highest levels of certifications in every category. - “What really sold it for me was…all the people that I had worked with 8 years before, 9 years before were still there…. That right there was what convinced me that this was the right company…finding out how many people had stayed with that organization through that many buyouts…hearing that people had stayed and being able to work with people I knew. So I walked in the door, and it felt like I was coming home…. It felt like I left my small town, went off to the big city, and now I’m back.” – Brad Christian, on the decision to move to Computacenter

17:34 – Getting Laid Off* Nick loves the clarity Brad’s wife provided in making the suggestion he consider moving to a VAR again. * Though Brad hinted at it earlier in the discussion, we clarify that he was indeed laid off from the startup before moving to Computacenter. + Brad was on a team of architects, and after a couple of them were let go, the rest of the team were let go, including him. + It was a random invite that showed up on Brad’s calendar that tipped him off it was coming. + Brad felt he had learned all he could from the startup but did learn a leadership lesson there. - Brad had only been in 2 meetings with his manager over the course of about a year. - For anyone who thinks this rare contact with your manager sounds like a good thing, it is not. Brad calls it out as extremely stressful. All he could do was try to make an impact in each meeting he attended, but he was not tied into the leadership chain. - “I cannot think of a meaner thing to do to somebody than be their manager and not meet with them at least once a month, once a quarter, something!” – Brad Christian, on interactions with your manager - When he was let go, Brad was not surprised a bit relieved in many ways upon being let go. * How can people pick themselves up after a layoff? + It’s a blow to the ego, and we cannot let it keep us down. + Americans often allow their job to define them. + “You’re not going to get a gold watch. That just doesn’t happen any more. What gives you longevity is your relationships in the industry.” – Brad Christian, quoting advice a leader once gave him + We have to get out and meet people outside our company, and Brad would advise we need to make sure we’re on LinkedIn. Try going to lunch with people you know in the industry once per month. + “Hang on to those relationships. And think about who you haven’t reached out to in a long time. Don’t call because you need something. Call to keep those relationships alive.” – Brad Christian + Upon being laid off, Brad put a post on LinkedIn about what had happened. He tells us every lead on a new job he received came from that post. + Brad applied online with Microsoft as a VCDX to work on their networking and security solutions but couldn’t get through any automated filters. It was a similar story trying to apply at other big companies like NVIDIA. He would recommend we not try to apply online with companies without knowing someone. + “It’s gonna be people that will help you get your next role. So don’t feel beat up by the situation. Just reach out and talk to folks. Take some time. Take a deep breath.” – Brad Christian + Brad thought he might retire from VMware, but that wasn’t the case. It’s critically important for us to stay in touch with others. + John loves the advice of not just calling when you need something. If given the opportunity to provide advice or a recommendation to others, we should do it. People will remember it. You’re putting positivity out there. + Two or three times per week, Brad likes to look on LinkedIn and see what is happening with people in his network. If someone was laid off that you know, reach out to them! - “The hardest thing about a layoff is not getting the new job…. It’s how psychologically torn up we get by it. You get really beat up.” – Brad Christian, on layoffs + Brad mentions many people have had a rough time through COVID-19 up to now. Our industry was impacted heavily by it. It’s up to us to help each other through the hard times. - Brad mentions he’s lost friends in the last several years. Some people just sort of disappeared. + We need to remind people of how smart they are if they have been impacted by a layoff. - Brad has received numerous calls from people he’s worked with or hired who have lost their self-confidence. - “And I think a lot of people just need to hear that…that, you know, they are good.” – Brad Christian - Pre-sales engineers for example require a level of confidence to go and do their job. - “I’m one of the people that loses energy from talking to folks, so the most precious thing I have to give people is my time and energy. So reach out to folks who need it, and give it to them.” – Brad Christian, on being an introvert yet investing in relationships with others

24:28 – Making Connections* “The more you give the more there is. The more positivity you put out there the more there is…and that’s how there’s a dividend.” – John White, on investing in people * There are herds of people who move between companies together. Since Brad isn’t really a joiner and finds it hard to join a group like this, he chooses to put out good karma. + “Every good thing that’s happened to me in my career came from just putting out good karma…. Just keep putting out good karma, and good things will come back to you.” – Brad Christian + Brad mentions taking over as leader of a VMware User Group was one of the smartest things he has done to date and has helped his career and earnings potential tremendously. Brad would tell you it was like another full time job, but he met so many great people that he still runs into in Dallas / Fort Worth. * Nick likes the idea of scheduling time to open up LinkedIn and check in on people based on this discussion. John feels inspired to create a systematic way to reach out to the connections he hasn’t connected with as frequently on LinkedIn. + Nick suggests John should write a script in NeoVim that he can run on a RedHat server to call the LinkedIn API to do what he wants. * Nick mentioned being asked by his wife at one point who he would call first if something happened and he lost his job. Though Nick had several names floating around in his head, he didn’t have the list prioritized and wasn’t sure who would be the first call. And yes, John was on that list! + This is a good thought exercise for anyone at any company. + Maybe we can also keep tabs on our company by staying close to the money and paying attention to how well the company is doing from a fiscal perspective. + Brad tells us the segmentation of the customers you serve matters as well. He would tell anyone in pre-sales to stay away from working with a single large corporation. One of the best ways to spread the risk is to work in a commercial segment with a number of smaller customers. + “That’s the other big thing when it comes to jobs and roles and all that…our egos get in the way.” – Brad Christian + Nick mentions there’s an unspoken caste system in pre-sales where people seem to believe working with big customers makes you the best of the best somehow. That is not true. There are talented people everywhere and at every company regardless of its size and what their role in tech is

29:51 – Discussing Money* Brad mentions talking about money is something we do not do in the United States. He’s spoken about this at VMUG meetings in the past. + “The only people that don’t want you talking about how much you make is leadership. We have this weird cultural thing in the US where we don’t want to talk about how much we make. It’s stupid.” – Brad Christian + Brad mentioned being shocked at the startup about how little people in pre-sales made, and the salary range discrepancies were significant between colleagues in the same role. It was because people didn’t talk to each other and didn’t know. + “When you talk to friends, talk about how much you’re making.” – Brad Christian, on sharing salary information with others + In our country (the US), we don’t seem to want to talk about how much we make. + It’s against the law for a manager to tell someone not to discuss how much they make. Reference the National Labor Relations Act. + “So before you go work somewhere, you should be able to walk into that conversation and know what to ask for.” – Brad Christian, on discussing salary information with others + John mentions there are a number of new laws requiring companies to post salaries / salary bands on job listings. Some states have even made it illegal to ask what you have made in the past because it’s a bias or anchor point. + “Just remember, good managers want to pay you what you’re worth.” – Brad Christian + A manager’s hands may be tied by HR when it comes to making the final decisions on salary. + Brad says it is really hard to justify a salary increase for someone not getting paid as much as everyone else on the team after they are hired (i.e. get them “caught up” to everyone else). + If your direct manager doesn’t want to pay you more, that person is the problem. In fact, Brad says a good manager should make suggestions and bring up some ways you can help justify pay grade increases. + Remember there are also pay bands based on your job level. Good managers don’t want to hire someone at the top of a pay band because there is no way to give you a raise. - Keeping someone at 10% below the top of their pay band is ideal. - It may be that you need to ask for lower pay in the next pay band up to have room for raises. - John mentioned in his role there is no personal benefit to pay someone less, and if there was, he would find a new place to work. Ideally you want everyone on your team being top performers and making a ton of money.

33:30 – Leaving Leadership* Brad mentions some advice on leaving leadership. He suggests debunking the myth that we need to climb a ladder to advance our career. + “You do not have to stop being an individual to advance your career…. There are ways to get promoted and to stay in your technical role and not become a leader. You don’t have to do it. Not everybody is comfortable doing leadership. And even if you do leadership, it is a skill of its own.” – Brad Christian + Brad mentions when he achieved staff engineer he was at the same level as a senior manager. We can stay technical without needing to become a people leader. + People leadership is a skill to be learned, and it is not for everyone. Brad tells us it is definitely political, whether you like it or not. + “So don’t feel like you’ve got to climb the ladder because no matter how high you go up the ladder, there’s more ladder. Even CEOs have a boss…shareholders.” – Brad Christian * Brad tells us if you become a manager it is not a big deal to go back to individual contributor. If anything, Brad feels like he is more skilled as a pre-sales engineer now after having been a manager. + Brad understands more about what is happening within the organization and the stress his boss has. + Brad mentions also having held a team lead role in the past. He now understands what his own team lead is going through. + “That makes me better at my job. If I make their life easier, they make my life easier, and we all have each others’ back. So don’t be afraid to go back down to individual contributor.” + While Brad may pursue management again someday, for now he is under less stress and having fun learning.

Mentioned in the Outro* If you’re looking for more resources on layoffs for yourself or someone else, check out Episode 237 – The Psychological Transition of Layoffs with guest Leanne Elliott. It is the ultimate layoff resource and episode jumping off point. * Though our discussion of risk and proximity to money was titled toward pre-sales, think about it like this for technology operations: + Check out the mention of the Business Unit Information Security Officer or BISO in Episode 253 – Building Trust as an Interim Leader with Russell Swinney (2/2). Though you may not be a BISO, working in technology operations for a business unit likely means your salary is paid by the operating expense budget of the business unit in question. - The scope and focus of your impact is likely limited to this business unit, and if the business unit is not doing well financially, it could put you at risk. - Maybe it’s less risky to work for a centralized technology team that services many business units. Does this centralization have potential to take you further away from money? Maybe. But, regardless of your situation, look at each project to determine whether it helps one or more business units bring in more top line revenue, increase potential customers, decrease risk, or decrease cost. + Hiring managers have to take risks when hiring someone. What if the candidate is experienced in the right technologies but does not have experience at the scale needed to service the organization? - It could be a perceived risk from the hiring manager’s perspective. The risk is less if everyone else on the team has the experience at scale and can help the person onboard / learn the principles of scale. On a very small team it might be much more risky not to have someone with experience at scale. * The idea of decreasing risk can apply to certifications as well. + Brad took into account market conditions in our industry and where he believes things are going (trends he sees happening). It wasn’t just about something Brad liked but also what he felt would be relevant for years to come. + Try looking at job descriptions for the type of job you want in different areas, and speak to industry peers about what they are studying / learning and why? Understand their reasons for the decision.

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This week in episode 263 we’re joined by returning guest Brad Christian. In this part 1 of our discussion with Brad you will hear why he chose to purse a role at a startup, what it was like learning FinOps as a cloud economist, thoughts on managers as both players and coaches, and Brad’s views on the benefits of technical certifications.

Original Recording Date: 01-15-2024

Topics – Welcoming Back Brad Christian, The Attraction of Startup Life, The Player Coach and Staying Technical, Becoming a Cloud Economist, Certifications Provide Structure2:47 – Welcoming Back Brad Christian* Brad Christian now works for Computacenter. + Brad is a repeat guest and was featured in the following episodes: - Episode 113 – A Series of Humbling Experiences with Brad Christian (1/2) - Episode 114 – Career Insight from the Manager Lens with Brad Christian (2/2) + Computacenter is one of the largest VARs (value added resellers) you may not have heard of. They started in EMEA and have grown into the US markets due to a large reach in supply chain. + Brad is located in Frisco, Texas and services customers in the TOLA (Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana) region. * Brad’s career revolved around the VMware ecosystem for a long time. He was the Dallas / Fort Worth VMware User Group leader for a long time and achieved the VCDX (VMware Certified Design Expert) certification at one point, which led him to working at VMware. + Most of Brad’s work at VMware was in the Networking and Security business unit. + Brad was promoted to front line manager at one point and did that for a while, being what he calls a player coach. + Brad started to feel technically stale and that it was time to move on. He tells us he will always have found memories of his time working at VMware. * Brad mentioned he has loved Linux his entire career, and at one point he was given the opportunity to work on Apache software at a startup. He had never done a startup and felt he needed to go for it.

5:10 – The Attraction of Startup Life* Brad felt like working for a startup was a gap in his resume to this point, but he was still nervous about it. Brad had worked for large customers in the past, for a VAR, and then at VMware up to the point of joining the startup. + Brad was going from a large, process driven organization into a startup. + “But it’s something I felt like I needed to do to just understand the way the world works.” – Brad Christian, on joining a startup * What does Brad wish he had asked about startup life before taking the role? + Many processes we might find in a larger organization do not exist. If you complain about a gap, be aware you may be asked to fill the gap you’ve just vocalized (i.e. a new task on your plate). + “The reason I went to this particular company…it wasn’t technical. It had to do with people.” – Brad Christian, on making the move to a startup + From a leadership perspective, Brad has experience as a front line manager / front line leader. He has never been interested in moving up to the director level (managing managers) or higher. + Brad shares a pattern he has seen where “herds” of people move from company to company normally centered around a specific leader. You may have seen this at a company that has a leadership change. A new leader brings in their people. - “I think it’s just a perfectly natural part of life that you want to work with people that you know and trust, that are going to have your back, so you can build out organizations. And when somebody’s built a dream team, you know, they like to keep the team together….” – Brad Christian - Brad has observed this pattern at multiple levels in different organizations. + Brad was invited to join one of these “herds” going to an Apache software company that was a startup with some proven leadership. + A leader at VMware asked Brad to come along with 7 others to go and build out the leadership organization for a marketing department at this startup. + Brad was invited based on his experience in field facing roles. He had built field teams and hired a number of SEs (solution engineers / sales engineers). + This role seemed like a next iteration for Brad. It was leadership, but it was about field enablement. + Brad suggests if you’ve been an SE or someone in sales, the natural career progression is going into leadership or into technical marketing. - “You’re crafting what the pitch is. You’re creating the decks. You’re doing the art of pre-sales, which is taking complicated subjects and breaking them down and making them simpler.” – Brad Christian, on the role of tech marketing + Brad was brought in to help with the employee onboarding process because at the startup, it was not great. - From here, Brad tells us things didn’t go very well. + The idea of going to the startup was pitched to Brad as being able to work with people he knew and trusted and who he knew were competent. - “It wasn’t just that I felt flattered or anything. It’s that I knew the people I’d be working with were smart…. I like to be around other smart people. Knowing around you’re going to be around top folks is awesome…and I knew that I would learn.” – Brad Christian + Brad did not have a marketing background (only what he learned from his field experience). Others going to the startup were well versed in marketing fundamentals like doing marketing research, creating marketing qualified leads, etc. - “There was a whole black art to that that I got really exposed to and really learned, which was very cool….stuff you couldn’t learn in school.” – Brad Christian, on learning marketing from his peers * John says we’ve spoken to people about various reasons they joined a company, but this might be the first time someone has knowing and trusting the people one would get to work with trumped everything else. According to Brad, there were too major things: + The religious disposition around Linux – Brad wanted to be involved in something surrounding an open source project a least once + The other thing was the people Brad would get to work with and learn from * We’ve spoken to other guests who have pointed out working for a larger company provides a perception of stability compared to a startup. But with the layoffs and happenings in the last few years in tech (including John being part of a 12,000 reduction in force at Google in early 2023 – listen to Episode 220 – John Got Fired for the full story), it is only a perception. + “There’s no certainty around working at an established company. There’s the illusion of that certainty though. And maybe that’s important for some people as long as they realize that’s all it is.” – John White + As a manager, Brad has been involved in layoffs. He mentions there is often very little careful planning, managers and directors have little to no control of who is impacted, and it is usually done on a spreadsheet. + John remembers his front line manager contacting him 2 months after being impacted (the manager mentioning they had just found out John was impacted). + There seems to be less differentiation in stability at a startup compared to a well established company than people might think. * On the flip side of the stability topic, startups may need processes and collateral to be built because it doesn’t exist like it might at a large company. + There were many things Brad already knew how to do (use Salesforce to build and align accounts to territories, hire and recruit new employees, train new employees, etc.) going into the startup, but he had not built all that from scratch. + “Being able to go into a place that maybe did not have things built out like they needed to be, knowing that I could come in there and I had a playbook and I that could quickly build the procedures and the structures…absolutely that was attractive and something I knew I could do quickly and be successful.” – Brad Christian, on the attractiveness of startup life

14:41 – The Player Coach and Staying Technical* Nick cites the above as architectural principles applied in a new area. + In Brad’s career he’s never wanted to stay in one area too long. It was his experience as an architect and a pre-sales leader that positioned him well for tech marketing. - Brad mentions being a manager / leader is absolutely a skill. + “Being in tech marketing meant that I could take all these things I knew how to do as a pre-sales leader and create stuff from the next level up.” – Brad Christian, on relatable experience * Brad was a manager at VMware for about 7 years, and in that role it is challenging to stay technical. + The number of meetings you’re involved in as a manager can make it difficult to spend time doing hands-on-labs, for example. + Managers are pulled in many directions and often times putting out fires. + Brad says managers look good because of what their people are doing. + “I considered it my job to make my folks look really good, to promote what they were doing.” – Brad Christian, on being a manager + Brad has managed teams of about 13 direct reports consistently during his time as a manager. He feels it was a high compliment that none of his former team were laid off when VMware was acquired. - Brad built teams around products such as Cloud Foundation, vSAN, and focused on networking and security while serving as a manager at VMware. All - Part of Brad’s skill as a leader was “picking the right folks and enabling them to succeed.” + Brad mentioned the servant leader (what he considers his management style / disposition) doesn’t have the time a leader who is tooting their own horn would have. * In Brad’s time as a manager he was a player coach. + It’s less about metrics and more about attitude. Brad gives the example of early football teams where the quarterback would also serve as the coach. + “Having somebody who is in there as the quarterback who hands off the ball…to me that’s what a player coach is. You are watching what’s happening in the field. You are watching, and you’re seeing where the holes are. You are seeing where the gaps are, and you’re filling them.” – Brad Christian + The player coach is also a player. In pre-sales, that means going to meet with customers. - Brad really enjoys whiteboarding and discovering customer business problems, especially when a customer realizes the solution to their problem will save time or improve what they are doing. - A player coach can be active in engaging with customers in this way, but once you reach a certain number of direct reports, it prevents you from going into the field. Brad says then you’re no longer a player coach because you are no longer a player. + “It’s not about responsibilities on paper. It’s the fact that you’re actually out there participating in the activity that the organization is busy doing.” – Brad Christian, on being a player coach - When Brad’s responsibilities become so much that he can no longer be a player, in his mind it’s time to change roles. + John says this really rings true along with his experience as a first time pre-sales manager and asks about what Brad meant about staying technical. Was that about product level knowledge or technical skills involved in managing people? - Staying technical in the product you’re focused on isn’t too hard. You can understand the roadmap and really have no choice but to know it well. - When Brad says technical, he means things happening in real businesses and the concerns which need to be addressed. * Brad was a customer for many years before moving into pre-sales, and he feels this experience made him better positioned to succeed in pre-sales. * This experience as customer allows a level of relatability with customers which people who went into sales out of college likely will not have. * “When I say technical, that’s what I mean…keeping your finger on the pulse of what’s happening in the industry.” – Brad Christian - John mentions if you didn’t experience logging into individual consoles to manage things and do everything now with Ansible or Terraform, you may have lost a level of technical relatability. That’s one example that goes along with our discussion. * Brad mentions cloud as crippling a generation of engineers in not experiencing earlier days of building it. He’s seen numerous folks who don’t know networking as well as they should, for example. * Being technical isn’t only about a depth in one area. It’s about technical breadth according to Brad.

23:39 – Becoming a Cloud Economist* There were a number of things Brad already knew how to do for field enablement purposes going into the startup. * A couple of months into working for the startup, the leader who encouraged Brad to join the startup left the company. + Brad has kids and remained committed to doing the best he could at the startup despite that leader’s departure. + Over the next several months almost all the others who had followed the above leader to the startup also left the company. + “If I ever do go join a group of people that I respect, I’m going to make sure that they have kids. The attitude is a lot different when you’ve got mouths to feed.” – Brad Christian, on a lesson learned from joining the startup + John mentions it’s important to think about the constraints other people have (family and age of kids, financial constraints, etc.). * In the aftermath of all of the above people leaving, the company changed Brad’s role and made him a cloud economist. + COGS = cost of goods sold + Any company providing a SaaS service has costs they incur as a result of offering that service (cloud infrastructure, HR costs, other product costs, etc.). The company would then add margin to this cost and sell the product. Brad says understanding COGS is extremely difficult. + If you’re running a service in AWS, for example, the rates can change and effect the rate you then charge your customers. It can also cause the SaaS provider to lose money on providing their own service to customers! + Brad needed to understand the economics of all this and started working with some accountants on staff at his company. + “I knew at a technical level how clouds worked back in the day. It wasn’t until I got the cloud economics hat on and started understanding the money involved with it.” – Brad Christian, on understanding how cloud works in his new role in cloud economics - Brad had to learn the nuances of import and export control, whether US companies could actually offer a SaaS service in specific companies (like Brazil, as one example), etc. + At first Brad didn’t want to have to talk about money all the time, but he decided to dig deep and discovered FinOps. - Brad got certified in the discipline of FinOps from the FinOps Foundation and read the book Cloud FinOps - “I have a feeling FinOps will be more and more important in our industry as time goes by.” – Brad Christian - Brad says the lift to learn FinOps is not hard for those who have worked in IT. The difficulty comes in most of us not wanting to talk about money or budgets. - Getting certified in FinOps can be valuable to anyone in IT. You do not need to work in sales or SaaS for a tech vendor to gain value from it. Note that there are several flavors of the FinOps certifications available. - Brad highly recommends reading the Cloud FinOps book and reading the FinOps Foundation website. You can take courses or just take the exam. - Brad learned from the book that Target was one of the first companies who really got FinOps working well. - The US federal government’s OPM (Office of Personnel Management) has a system in place to evaluate any SaaS offerings before they are purchased. This ensures the provider of the SaaS service is adhering top FinOps principles and can provide cost transparency to engineering teams. If the federal government can do this as the largest company in the world, likely your organization can do it too. - Nick mentions there are technical aspects to learning FinOps and that we should not be fearful of not being technical if we go and learn it. - Brad says it has long been a challenge for developers to really understand how making a change will impact the bottom line at a company. It’s very hard to show that certain activities moved the needle. Brad says getting FinOps in place for cloud cost containment or other cost containment is a powerful tool which can help justify salaries and head count. - “I think if you’re a manager and you’re worried about keeping your team fully staffed and not losing head count, you should be doing FinOps.” – Brad Christian - John references the Technology-as-a-Service Playbook: How to Grow a Profitable Subscription by Thomas Lah as another helpful resource. - John says FinOps could be another tool in the toolbox to justify projects / a team’s existence and show increases in productivity. * Brad has received numerous calls from people he’s managed or mentored asking for advice. + The term unicorn is something we apply to people who are technical and have people skills. People Brad hired for pre-sales roles are those he considers unicorns. + Brad would ask people how close they were to money. + “If you are tied to profit, the closer you are to that dollar symbol the better off you are when it comes to surviving cuts.” – Brad Christian + Brad tells the story of one of the most talented pre-sales engineers he’s worked with who was let go because the person was not tied to any future company revenue. + John says it’s a fascinating idea to measure your career using the metrics that will be important in the future. It’s about potential to do something important in the future perhaps more than what you have already accomplished (like the incoming pipeline or lack thereof for someone in sales). - John gives the example of being tied to a greenfield sales territory during his time at Google. The work was challenging, but the pipeline present in new customer accounts might not be a representation of how good someone is (if that’s the only metric).

35:56 – Certifications Provide Structure* After his time pursuing FinOps, everyone else on Brad’s team at the startup was let go, and he was the last man standing before also getting laid off. After taking the role at the VAR where he is now, Brad needed some goals stepping into it besides just sales goals. + As a starting point, Brad wanted to look at what would be most useful over the next few years for him to study and learn. + “Why are certifications good? They are good for me because I need structure.” – Brad Christian + Brad says he is obsessed withNeovim. This comes from roots in Vim, a text editor often used in many UNIX / Linux systems. - Brad follows Takuya Masumaya, also knows as devaslife and his YouTube Channel. This person uses Neovim to create and build software. - Brad has always wanted to be expert level using vim. He was decent at it from the Linux command line, but now Brad uses Neovim to write code, take notes, and do all kinds of things. - Brad also follows another YouTuber called ThePrimeagen who is a developer at Netflix. - Brad suggests we don’t need to use VSCode to write code but should instead adopt Neovim. The goal is to never need to touch the mouse and to save unneeded wrist motions. + After adopting Neovim, Brad found he would get obsessed with his setup and configuration to the point where he would lose focus. Certifications help him hold that focus. - Having a certification blueprint helps give you a syllabus or course of study. - Brad says the Red Hat certification probably isn’t a requirement for his job, but he has always wanted to achieve the Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE). - The exam for RHCE is a live lab exam, and Brad has always enjoyed those types of exams. - “It’ll force me to stretch myself out of my comfort zone, do some things I probably wouldn’t, and just have more breadth.” – Brad Christian, on pursuing a Red Hat certification - There isn’t a VCDX level certification equivalent on the Red Hat side, but there is an architect level. Brad plans to pursue this also. - Brad also wants to work on the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) line of exams as well. - “But the very first thing I did when I started the new job was ask for a Pluralsight subscription.” – Brad Christian * How do you link certifications back to revenue? + Brad says you can’t link it to revenue because it is a cost center and one of the prices of doing business.

Mentioned in the Outro* Following someone to another company does not protect you if they leave the company. What will do you when they leave, and do you have a plan for when that happens? It’s worth considering before making a job decision. * It’s always possible that our roles and responsibilities could shift, regardless of where we work. It’s not just for startups. + For more stories on leaning into these kinds of changes, check out Episode 210 – A Collection of Ambiguous Experiments with Shailvi Wakhlu (1/2). + A shift like these could be an opportunity we never saw coming. * The description of the player coach here is really interesting. Being the coach and the player is about being involved in what individual contributors are doing in more of a collaborative way. + Make sure as a player coach that you give your team members a chance to shine. Check out Episode 51 and Episode 52 for more about learning this lesson the hard way. * Brad’s certification choices involved knowledge of how he worked best and what motivated him, the kind of exams he did well on, and a willingness to lean in and learn new things to sharpen technical skills. + More on the decision process

Technology-as-a-Service Playbook: How to Grow a Profitable Subscription Business

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In episode 262, we’re joined by guest Brandon Seymour. This week we’ll share part 3 of an interview with Brandon that begins with the genesis of a blog he wrote called “The Crisis of Loneliness.” Brandon will share his struggles with loneliness and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic, how he recognized it was a problem, societal expectations of strength, and what he’s done to help himself feel better.

Original Recording Date: 12-18-2023

Brandon Seymour is a director of solution architects at Calian, a technology solutions company headquartered in Canada. If you missed part 1 of our discussion with Brandon, check out Episode 260. Part 2 of our discussion can be found in Episode 261.

Topics – The Crisis of Loneliness, Renew and Regenerate, Blocking Time and Sharing Resources3:09 – The Crisis of Loneliness* We start to discuss a different kind of blog article Brandon wrote in 2023 called The Crisis of Loneliness. + Previous to the above post, Brandon had written mostly technical articles on his blog focused on VMware technologies. This one was much more personal. + Before the pandemic Brandon had been traveling heavily across the United States to support and meet with customers almost daily. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, all of that stopped. - Brandon tells us New York (where Brandon was living when the pandemic began) was heavily affected during the pandemic. + Brandon was confined to working from his bedroom (which doubled as his office), and there was no separation between work and home life. The lockdowns prevented the social interaction Brandon enjoyed in his work. These collectively began to take a toll on him. + At first Brandon was afraid to share his story in blog form but eventually decided the struggles and experience needed to be shared in the hopes that it may help someone else. Getting the story out there was more important than his own comfort. - The pandemic caused a lot of depression for Brandon. - The blog was also important to highlight how men in particular deal with the amount of stress in their lives. * How was the mental strain this time different than his experience back in boot camp? + This experience was completely different, and at first, Brandon didn’t recognize the symptoms and signs. + “As I was going through it I started to realize that there were aspects of me that were getting lost in the moment…. Who I was was disappearing, and I was going down a hole that I didn’t necessarily know how to dig out of. And it was completely different than the mental mind games of the Marine Corps. This was very much on a personal level. This was very much internal struggles, not really dealing with the outside effects of somebody screaming in my face but more of trying to hold onto who I was while it was slipping away.” – Brandon Seymour + Brandon remembers a moment of vulnerability and clarity in a conversation with his wife. He had known it was going on for a while but was hiding it. - It was a period of uncertainty as we all entered a new situation (a worldwide pandemic). Brandon’s family was looking to him for comfort, and he wanted to be strong for them. - “I didn’t want them to see me fall apart.” – Brandon Seymour, feeling the need to be strong for his family * What advice does Brandon have for listeners who may be feeling similar to the above? + Brandon mentions he is not a mental health professional but shared his story in hopes people would gain something from it. + “There’s no real manual to follow when it comes to mental health…. There’s no real prescription for how you get from one place to the next…. You have to be honest, and you have to be kind to yourself.” – Brandon Seymour + We should be honest about how we feel and not try to downplay it. Men may want to downplay how they feel so they don’t look weak, but Brandon recommends we get away from that mindset. + Brandon had learned to ask for help in the Marine Corps, and this is part of the reason he had honest conversations with his wife about his feelings, discussing strategies he could use to lessen the brunt of those feelings (i.e. something to help separate home life and work life even though he had to work from home). - As things opened up, Brandon and his family started taking walks outside together to get fresh air. They would visit local parks as much as possible, consistently seeking to find ways to spend time together outside their home. It was also a form of mental break and something Brandon said helped turn the tide.

12:57 – Renew and Regenerate* Were there any things Brandon did that were just for him and no one else? + It’s tough to balance between work, a spouse, and children. We only have so much time and can only spread ourselves so thin. + Brandon likes to look at these things through a biblical lens and cites recent discussions with his daughter about leading like Christ in all aspects of our lives. - When Jesus spoke to the multitudes, he would be selfless and give people what they needed. As fathers we often do that for our children (i.e. help when they need something). - But we also see there were times when Jesus withdrew from the multitudes to take time to himself to recharge. In Mark 6:30 – 32, Jesus even encouraged his apostles to take time away to rest. We as individuals forget the importance of taking breaks for ourselves. - Nick agrees having time to ourselves to refresh and rest is important. + Brandon also found reading helpful. He sought out books that could help him grow as a person and as a leader in his family and at work. Anything which could help him discover something new about himself or learn something were fair game. - “I would set time purposely aside to just read.” – Brandon Seymour - Brandon likes to read books using different mediums – books in paper form, audiobooks, etc. - Brandon cites The Smartest Person in the Room by Christian Espinoza as a helpful book which changed the way he thinks about customer interaction. Brandon says this allowed him to take a step back and be a better, active listener (a different way of approaching customers). - Brandon also read books on servant leadership and would recommend Lead Like Jesus by Ken Blanchard, Phil Hodges, Phyllis Hendry as well as Servant Leadership in Action: How You Can Achieve Great Relationships and Results by Ken Blanchard and Renee Broadwell. - Books on servant leadership really changed the way Brandon interacted with his co-workers, his employees, and how he views things within his own family. - Servant leadership is about being a servant first and not a leader. Jesus set the example here of what servant leadership looks like. - “From a servant leader standpoint, I’m not looking for something from him, but I’m looking for what I can build in him and how I can support and help him with his career and make him successful. Because in return, his success is my success. And it’s the same way with my kids. Putting their needs before my own and building into them will ultimately lead to my success as well…. Your motivation isn’t necessarily what you are getting out of it but what others are getting out of it.” – Brandon Seymour, on servant leadership for his employees and his children - Nick sees the same approach of servant leadership present in the way Brandon helped others get into blogging from our earlier discussions.

20:02 – Blocking Time and Sharing Resources* Brandon tries to set aside time for himself on a daily basis, which can be a challenge when working in technology. He looks for pockets in his day and adds focus time to his calendar. + This focus time is for things Brandon wants to focus on for himself – things unrelated to work / family like something Brandon wants to do or learn (even if it’s watching a show). + Nick says we have to be careful about our own energy and have the need to recharge from time to time. Brandon says we need to be careful what we are using for recharging and how we spend out time. Recharging efforts should bring refreshing and renewal and not something that is detrimental. + “I always tell my kids, ‘find time to build into yourself.’ And that becomes a positive thing in your life.” – Brandon Seymour * What are some other things that helped Brandon come out of his depressive state in addition to the above? + Be honest about how you are feeling, be kind to yourself about how you are feeling, and look to resources around you. + Brandon had a supportive family that allowed him to talk through his feelings and brainstorm ways that could help change what was causing the problems. + “Sometimes you just have to remove yourself physically from the situation, and that helped us a lot.” – Brandon Seymour + Brandon has leveraged Employee Assistance Programs (or EAPs) in the past from his employers. These programs exist to support you as a person (and your wellbeing needs) and not just an employee. Brandon says leveraging these programs can connect you to the right resources based on your needs (i.e. a counselor to speak with outside your family, etc.). + The National Institute of Mental Health is also a great organization which exists to provide resources. + Don’t isolate yourself! Get yourself into places to connect with others. In IT, community groups can help support you as one example. * To follow up with Brandon on this discussion, you can find him on his blog site Virtualization Velocity.

Mentioned in the Outro* Kudos to Brandon for his willingness to be vulnerable and share his struggles on our show in addition to sharing it in blog form. * The idea of Brandon’s sharing his story being more important than his own comfort is really servant leadership in action. + Nick recommends listeners read Give and Take by Adam Grant to learn about reciprocity styles and how giving to others provides a benefit to us. * Societal pressures and expectations might make us think we need to be strong for others all the time, but as imperfect humans we can’t be strong all the time. Being that source of strength can take a toll on us, and we need to be aware of it. * Nick admires Brandon’s example of talking openly with someone else about how he was feeling. Hopefully we can find someone who will listen to us without judgment about the way we feel. * Brandon gained energy from reading during his struggles, and it goes back to his desire to grow and learn in what he goes. + This focusing / doubling down on something he loved makes a lot of sense based on other things Brandon loved being taken away during the pandemic. + Make sure to take some time for just you each and every day. The time should be for you and no one else. * This was a tough topic to take on. If you’re looking for other difficult topics, here are some recommendations: + Episode 160 – Anxious Living, Worry, and Hope with Andy Syrewicze (3/3)](https://nerd-journey.com/anxious-living-worry-and-hope-with-andy-syrewicze-3-3/) + Episode 85 – Impostor Syndrome, Anxiety, and Effective Listening with Cody de Arkland + Episode 255 – Adapting to and Overcoming Professional and Personal Challenges with Larry Roberts (2/3) + Episode 109 – Dealing with Personal Loss and Grief with Mike Burkhart + Episode 110 – Grief, Support, and Healing with Mike Burkhart (part 2/2)

Contact the Hosts* The hosts of Nerd Journey are John White and Nick Korte. + E-mail: nerdjourneypodcast@gmail.com + DM us on Twitter/X @NerdJourney + Connect with John on LinkedIn or DM him on Twitter/X @vJourneyman * Connect with Nick on LinkedIn or DM him on Twitter/X @NetworkNerd_

Servant Leadership in Action: How You Can Achieve Great Relationships and Results

The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity

Lead Like Jesus Revisited: Lessons from the Greatest Leadership Role Model of All Time

Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success

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In episode 261, we’re joined by guest Brandon Seymour. This week we’ll share part 2 of an interview with Brandon detailing how he perceives failure and how it has changed over time, the decision to become a VMware User Group (VMUG) Leader, the importance of presentation experience, why Brandon started blogging, and how working in IT may not be so different from working in a consultative role at a VAR (value added reseller).

Original Recording Date: 12-18-2023

Brandon Seymour is a director of solution architects at Calian, a technology solutions company headquartered in Canada. If you missed part 1 of our discussion with Brandon, check out Episode 260.

Topics – A Growth Mindset, Technical Brand Owner, A Culmination of Experience and Working for a VAR, Leading a User Group, Writing Blogs3:00 – A Growth Mindset* How did Brandon know he could trust his manager and have the conversation about doing something different? + If you don’t feel comfortable speaking to your manager, you might want to rethink your current position. It may be a bad manager. + Brandon also stresses the importance of stepping out of our comfort zones. + “I think the place that we tend to grow as humans is when we try things that we aren’t necessarily comfortable with.” – Brandon Seymour + Sometimes we stay within the things we know because it’s comfortable, and this can keep us from growing in our professional and personal lives to the point of stagnation. + Trying new things allows us the opportunity to grow. + In the last year Brandon has been reading about different ways to look at failures in his life. One book in particular was about having a growth mindset and not looking at failure as a bad thing. - Brandon gives the example of answering a question from a teacher in a classroom incorrectly and how we might beat ourselves up for not knowing. But when we don’t know and find the correct answer, we have grown in our intelligence. We just don’t think of the experience as a growth experience by default and have to change our mindset. - “It’s stepping out of the norms that we build around ourselves that become these comfort zones, but they don’t allow us to grow as humans because we’re afraid of stepping out and being made a fool of…when really it’s just another opportunity for us to grow into another aspect of our lives.” – Brandon Seymour - Nick says the word failure has a very negative connotation when it may just mean we made a mistake or got one thing wrong. We often judge ourselves harshly and place some kind of value judgment on the perceived failure. - Brandon recommends talking to people we perceive as successful about their failures. It is likely those individuals have a long list of what their failures are. - “The fact is…everybody fails in life. It’s what we do with that. Do we let it stop us in our track? Do we let it define who we are in that moment? Or do we press through it and we learn from it and we continue on our journey?” – Brandon Seymour - We don’t see the failures of other people. We often only see the things they did right or accomplishments they have that we do not or those we wish we had. - Brandon mentions this can be even more difficult if we’re really focused on social platforms. We often only share / show the best versions of ourselves on these platforms.

8:13 – Technical Brand Owner* At one point in his career Brandon became a technical lead. What would he tell others about stepping into this role? + After Brandon got into systems administration he ended up working for a teaching hospital. Getting exposed to this technology changed the trajectory of his career. + At the time the storage team owned responsibilities for the virtualization stack. Knowing nothing about storage Brandon got certified in NetApp storage technology and worked with his boss to transition over to the storage and virtualization team. + Brandon was able to work with DevOps teams in this role to determine the applications that could be candidates for virtualization. This was part of a larger project which involved datacenter building and workload migration. + Brandon tells us he became a fan boy of VMware technologies and has remained one ever since, writing blogs about the technology and started leading user groups focused on the technology. + All of this experience culminated into the technical brand owner role Brandon was in at Sirius Computer Solutions (which later became part of CDW). He had known a number of people in the VMware community who worked for Sirius, and these connections resulted in someone asking Brandon if he would be willing to take on the technical brand owner role (focused on VMware). - “It was like taking on a second job, but I was willing to do it. I had never done it before. I didn’t really know what all it entailed, but the first thing out of my mouth was ‘yes, I’m going to do this.’” – Brandon Seymour, on being offered the role of technical brand owner - Brandon cites his willingness to step out of his comfort zone and stepping up to lead when others do not as contributing factors to his taking the role. He also wanted to try something new. + In the role with Sirius as technical brand owner for VMware technologies, people were looking to Brandon for technical guidance, how the company should / could go to market with product sets as it related to VMware (including how Sirius could differentiate from their competitors and take advantage of / expand their partner relationship with VMware). - They also needed to figure out how sellers at Sirius would make money and how to train pre-sales engineers to discuss solutions that related back to the VMware portfolio. - Post-sales teams needed to be trained and certified to deploy the complex solutions from VMware’s growing portfolio effectively (which had become far more than just a hypervisor that enabled virtualization). Brandon was constantly thinking about ways to help customers be successful with the latest VMware solution offerings.

12:48 – A Culmination of Experience and Working for a VAR* Sirius Computer Solutions is now part of CDW, which would be considered a VAR or value added reseller. A VAR like a CDW can sell hardware and software solutions to their customers and can provide services to help design, install, and configure a technology solution for a customer. + Brandon tells us Calian would also be a VAR in the same way as a company like CDW. A VAR can help customers understand business challenges they are trying to solve with technology, help customers navigate / evaluate different solutions, and help select those which meet the business objectives and needs. A VAR can help a customer procure these solutions, deploy them, and potentially even help customers manage and maintain them over time. + Brandon’s collective work experience to this point had allowed him to work with many companies which we would call customers (companies which do not provide technology solutions to other companies but merely consume technology solutions). But the role if you work on the customer side isn’t so different from working for a VAR or consulting firm. + “When you are in IT, who’s your customer? Your business….You’re there to be an expert for your customer, which is your internal business, and you should be looking at ways to be disruptive with that technology within your own organization. Don’t just kind of sit back and do your day-to-day systems admin job. Look for avenues where you can learn about new technology yourself, and pursue new certifications yourself, and join community groups so you can…build your brand of who you are….” – Brandon Seymour + Brandon is a VMware User Group (or VMUG) Leader and tells people they should be making presentations at their company about new technologies and how those technologies can solve business problems for the company. - “Regardless of me, as an architect, coming in and helping you with that solution, you should be doing that for your customer.” – Brandon Seymour - If we’re making the case for new technologies inside our own companies, we should be able to extend that to presenting to user groups in our area. Brandon highlights the career advancement we can gain by joining a user group focused on any technology. + Nick suggests the jump from being someone working as a systems administrator / solution architect for one company in a specific industry to working at a company like CDW, SHI, or some other consulting firm that allows you to work with many companies in multiple industries isn’t so far. + Brandon says people may feel like this jump is bigger than it really is. - Are you looking to architect new solutions for you company? - Are you presenting those ideas (even if they do not get adopted)? - Are you collaborating with other groups inside the organization? - Are you seeking to understand how the business works and how different teams within the organization can collaborate? - “So if you’re involved in any aspect of that altogether, you’re already kind of doing what I do. I just get to do it for more than one company and more than one industry, which is one of the things I find so appealing about the job that I’m in. The conversations I’m having change from customer to customer…. It changes all the time, so there’s never any boredom in my job.” – Brandon Seymour, on similarities to consulting + With the similarities mentioned above, Nick suggests people miss documenting their work both on their resume and LinkedIn. - For example, do we document that we developed technical architectures and presented them internally to stakeholders (even if an idea was not approved)? What level were the stakeholders in the organization? - Doing the work and not having your idea approve still gains you experience. You are developing a solution to a problem. - We likely do not document this as well as we should to show as proof of work for getting a different job. - Brandon tells us if you’re not on LinkedIn today you should definitely sign up (which is free)! It’s easy to organize both your certification and work history on your profile, which can be updated as you gain new experience. - Nick suggests putting as much relevant experience on LinkedIn as relates to skills and experience. It’s free and discoverable by recruiters, which can lead to unexpected new opportunities. - Brandon also mentions the #OpentoWork setting on LinkedIn to let recruiters know you are available for roles they need to fill.

22:00 – Leading a User Group* There’s a difference between attending a user group and gaining value from it compared to leading it. Brandon mentioned preciously gaining value from staying connected to his classmates from the computer school. What made Brandon want to shift to be a user group leader? + Excitement about VMware technologies fueled Brandon to move in new directions. He wanted to learn more about the technology and meet others getting involved with the technology. It was also about learning from industry peers. + “One thing…I don’t necessarily think we realize is that there is a community of people doing the same thing that you are, and they might be going through the same challenges and things that you are. If you don’t have to reinvent the wheel then why reinvent the wheel?” – Brandon Seymour + Brandon found there was something called VMware User Group (or VMUG), but there was not one in his area. He knew creating a community would help both him and others, so Brandon reached out to VMUG leadership about becoming a leader. They were able to connect him with other VMUG leaders seeking to build community. - At the first meeting Brandon organized, only 3 people showed up. - Another important element of community is networking and making professional connections. - “Technology is really huge, but the tech community is kind of small. We constantly run into each other over the years in different jobs as we move along and we change.” – Brandon Seymour - One of the jobs of a user group leader is to attract more people to meetings and grow the community. Brandon sought to do this by working with VMware to educational opportunities to attendees. - Over a 3 year period in the Rochester, New York area they grew to around 300 users. People from other parts of western New York started attending meetings, and it extended beyond learning together into attendees developing relationships with each other. - When Brandon started the user group in Rochester, he had no other leaders to help him run it. It was like taking on a whole other job and not sustainable to do alone. Brandon began recruiting others to help him lead the group so they could support one another. + Nick mentioned being a user group leader means you’re in charge of coordinating topics for meetings, scheduling presenters, securing a venue, and marketing the event to attendees. - “It’s just all for the love of the technology, wanting to get others excited about it as well and…just build that community of individuals that are like minded and want to see their careers grow.” – Brandon Seymour, on being a user group leader - Brandon would often open up meetings by addressing attendees and saying “just think about the culmination of knowledge that we all hold in this room on technology.” He stressed the idea of attendees being there to support one another and would encourage people to share what they have learned to ensure the success of other group members. - “That’s one thing I loved. We were here to not only have all this knowledge but to help each other grow and not make the same mistakes.” – Brandon Seymour - Brandon had learned to ask for help back in the Marine Corps and applied that lesson when seeking to recruit others to help lead the user group.

29:03 – Writing Blogs* Even if Brandon wasn’t presenting at a meeting, he was doing public speaking by running the meetings and introducing speakers. What made him want to start writing blogs? + Brandon is going on his 11th year as a VMware User Group leader as of the time of this recording. + Around the same time Brandon became a user group leader, he decided to write blogs about what he was learning about VMware technologies. + “It helped me sort of get my thoughts out there on the technology that I was learning about…. When you start blogging about it and you start talking about the different aspects of it, I think that you just take on a different perspective of the technology altogether.” – Brandon Seymour, on blogging + Writing helped Brandon learn more about the technology than just implementing it. It was about sharing what he had learned by embedding himself with the technology so others could learn from his experiences. * What advice would Brandon give someone who has thought about blogging but hasn’t started or is fearful of duplicating topics others have already written about? + Listen to Brandon’s analogy of driving to a McDonald’s and looking around you to observe what else is there. + “Don’t worry that other people have been writing about this for a long time. They are writing it from their perspective…. Write about what is relevant to you right now. Start with your day-to-day job…. People will want to hear that story.” – Brandon Seymour, on blogging + Brandon recently encouraged someone to write about a day in the life of a VMware administrator from their perspective (which will be different than the perspectives of others). + If you’re working to present a new solution to your company through a presentation, you can take that and turn it into a blog article that is relevant to others. If you worked overnight troubleshooting a problem, write about your experience doing it. - Remember to sanitize / scrub anything you share to prevent leaking any information outside your company that is proprietary. + “There’s all kinds of different avenues to get started.” – Brandon Seymour, on blogging and writing * What if no one reads your blog? + Brandon says let the motivation be doing it for you and that there is a benefit regardless of who reads your work. - You’re going to learn while writing about your experience and may get additional ideas and insights during the writing process. - “Do it for yourself. Look for the benefits that you’re going to get in doing it for you.” – Brandon Seymour - Nick highlights discoverability of your work, proof of communication skills, and showing how you think through problems. Someone could find your work and think you are a good fit for a job opening they have.

Mentioned in the Outro* Presentations, wherever they are given, start with an idea (just like a conference talk). + We might have an idea for an improvement but not have the authority to say yes to the change. This requires communicating our idea to others in roles of authority, and that is a form of mini-presentation or pitch. Enough interest in an idea you have may require developing more of a formalized presentation with justification as to why it’s a good idea. + Maybe we could present to another member of our team or someone else we trust within the company to get and incorporate feedback before presenting to decision makers. This reminded Nick of the episodes we recorded with guest Neil Thompson (host of the Teach the Geek podcast). Neil struggled doing presentations early in his career and has build a business to help technical professionals improve their public speaking abilities. - Episode 193 – Communication for Specialists with Neil Thompson (1/2) - Episode 194 – Question Askers and Problem Solvers with Neil Thompson (2/2) + Presenting at user groups is one of the patters we’ve seen former guests and many in the technical community leverage to develop in their careers. Check out these episodes with guest Al Rasheed and how he used industry peers and community members to gain valuable feedback on a user group presentation: - Episode 73 – Journey to Presenting at Conventions with Al Rasheed - Episode 74 – Feedback and Career Impacts of Convention Presentations with Al Rasheed * Nick thinks being a user group leader is a lot like being a technical brand owner because you’re in charge of the go-to-market strategy for the user group as a whole including growing the attendee base and providing value to them in content of meetings. + Brandon needed to be part of a community of other user group leaders to have the proper support to keep going and keep building the community group. * If you’re a really active member of a user group (in person or online), giving others advice on solutions that helps them solve problems is experience you can claim on a resume / LinkedIn. Are we thinking of our contributions to the greater technology community when writing our resume? * Nick provides an example of documenting a disaster recovery project on your resume to show evidence of experience. * Blogging is a form of showing your work and documenting your accomplishments. + For some good advice on blogging from a marketing professional, check out Episode 61 – Blogging and the Subtleties of Self-Marketing with Amy Hervey

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In episode 260, we’re joined by guest Brandon Seymour. This week we’ll share part 1 of an interview with Brandon detailing his decision to join the Marine Corps and the experience of boot camp, the impact of a significant injury while serving, his transition back to civilian life, the decision to pursue a career in technology, and his shift in focus from networking to operating systems.

Original Recording Date: 12-18-2023

Topics – Meet Brandon Seymour, Joining the Marine Corps, Boot Camp and Leadership, A Medical Discharge, Transition to Civilian Life, A Focus on Technology, A Directional Shift2:29 – Meet Brandon Seymour* Brandon Seymour is a director of solution architects at Calian, a technology solutions company headquartered in Canada. + Calian acquired a solutions provider called Computex in 2022, which was similar to places Brandon has worked in the past. + At the time of this recording, Brandon has been with Calian for about 3 months.

3:09 – Joining the Marine Corps* Brandon is 47 years old now, and in his time at the University of Arkansas he remembers meeting someone who had planned to go into the Marine Corp after college. + Brandon feels many kids are seeking some kind of break between high school and college, a time of adventure. - “I needed an adventure to fulfill. But I also came from a home that didn’t have a father, so I needed something to help me discover who I was as a man. And I looked to the Marine Corps to kind of fulfill both of those things for me.” – Brandon Seymour, on pursuing the Marine Corp + It felt safer to pursue going into the Marine Corps since Brandon had a friend who would go through boot camp with him. + Brandon’s grandfather was a Marine, and he remembers hearing the stories of how the Marine Corps had the most difficult boot camp of any branch of the military. Not everyone who would go through boot camp would become a Marine. Brandon wanted to pursue it to prove something to himself. + Brandon had originally gone to college to pursue studies in international economics (which was a new program at the University of Arkansas built with Wal-Mart’s help). - Ideally Brandon would pursue the program and then go work for Wal-Mart someday, eventually becoming a billionaire. That never happened. + “I needed something to bring areas of discipline in my life. I needed something to give me a little bit more direction in life. I needed something to bring some adventure in my life. And it fulfilled all those things for me…. I finished around 2 years of college and then left for the Marine Corps.” – Brandon Seymour, on pursuing the Marine Corps + Brandon didn’t tell his mother about his decision to go into the Marines until she drove him to the airport to leave for boot camp. Despite this being very upsetting to his mother at the time, she recognizes now it was something Brandon needed to do. + Brandon did take advantage of the GI Bill for veterans to help pay for college after his time in the Marines. - Brandon was medically discharged from the Marines after breaking his back and his legs. He would use funds from the GI Bill to get certifications related to computers.

7:43 – Boot Camp and Leadership* How was Brandon’s experience in boot camp after hearing about the difficulty and deciding to join the Marines? + There is a mental aspect of boot camp with which many people struggle. Brandon has known people over the years who went through boot camp and were not successful. + “I think it takes a mental fortitude to get through boot camp where you learn how to deal with very, very stressful situations but how to remain calm through them and think logically through the situation to get yourself and those around you out of the situation you find yourself in.” – Brandon Seymour + Brandon tells us he was one of the first to go through something called The Crucible, and there was a camera crew that filmed his platoon during this process. - The Crucible was meant to simulate war. It involved very little sleep, little food, and a number of exercises and obstacles with those around you with the goal being to get through and think through the obstacles without falling apart. - The Crucible was conducted at MCB Camp Pendleton, and once it you are through it you are essentially a Marine and receive an eagle, globe, and anchor. - “That accomplishment of that boot camp has always stuck with me, so whenever I look back or I am going through something that’s difficult I can always look back at that and point back to that moment in time and say ‘if I was able to accomplish that, then I can accomplish other things as well.’” – Brandon Seymour, on getting through boot camp + Going into boot camp Brandon was pretty fit already and did not struggle with the physical aspects of it. - He had been a competitive swimmer for much of his younger life and played a number of sports recreationally. Brandon played basketball, baseball, and ran track at various points even if just for fun and received encouragement from his parents to consistently spend time outside. + Brandon didn’t really struggle with the mental aspects of boot camp either. He graduated as first squad leader and was promoted in boot camp. - Brandon mentions growing up in a home that was a lot like a boot camp in its own right. Listen to the way he describes it. - “Yeah, I don’t know how you can mentally prepare for something like boot camp. It’s a shock to the system. One of the aspects of the boot camp is that they’re tearing you down as an individual to build you back up again. And that tearing down I think can be very difficult for a lot of people.” – Brandon Seymour, on the mental aspects of boot camp - Brandon has known people who’ve had mental breakdowns during boot camp. In those cases the Marine Corps may have had the person leave. * Brandon’s only regret going into the Marines was joining so suddenly without a lot of long term thinking about his life. He had gone into the Marines with a friend and put a large focus on just getting in. + Brandon was classified as infantry in the Marines. This was a very positive experience for him. + In many situations when a task needs to be accomplished by a group of people, the group can be indecisive or lack clarity on who will step up and take on a task or lead the group through accomplishing it. + “I never had a fear of just stepping into the role and stepping up. Whether I failed or not, at least I tried is my mentality. If you’re going to lead, there’s always a possibility of failure. So don’t be afraid to fail, but at east step up and attempt to do something that nobody else is trying to do. That’s one of the reasons I became squad leader in boot camp….I stepped up and took charge, and that sort of followed me in my career with the Marine Corps as well, always being willing to step into leadership roles and take responsibility for things whether I failed or not. And I’ve had many failures in my life.” – Brandon Seymour, on stepping into leadership + In boot camp, many people are hesitant to take on any kind of leadership because it meant the drill instructor knew your name and might be harder on you than others. Brandon tells us there’s really no way to hide and that he would get seen anyway. + Leadership is about stepping up to perform as task no one else is willing to do, whether that is managing the people and directing their steps or just doing something specific because it needs doing. Brandon believes this is true in everyday life as well. + In his career, Brandon has adopted an above and beyond mentality because he naturally wants to be in leadership type roles that allows him to step up and do what others are not doing.

16:51 – A Medical Discharge* Brandon was injured 3.5 years after joining the Marine Corps, breaking his T11 and his tibias. How did the mental impact of this injury compare to what he experienced in boot camp? + Brandon learned to allow himself to lean on others for help during this time and not look at asking for help as a sign of personal weakness. - Brandon thinks he may have been trying to be a tough guy to this point, shouldering all responsibility on himself. + This time of injury (and loss of mobility) is something Brandon feels like God used to teach him some valuable lessons on the importance of having a willingness to lean on others for help. + “I couldn’t even walk to the commissary. I had to have somebody push me in a wheelchair. And things like that were very taxing on me as a man that I wanted to be seen as being strong, not weak. I felt very weak in those moments when I couldn’t stand because my legs were hurt and my back was healing….” – Brandon Seymour, on suffering injury + Brandon rejected visits from his family during this time because he didn’t want them to see him in his condition and perceive him as weak. + It was a very difficult time for Brandon. Other people encouraged Brandon to look at what things were within his circle of control and focus on those rather than things which were not. + The advice Brandon received was more impactful coming from others who were with him through boot camp than from family members or anyone else. - Hearing stories from other Marines who had been injured was inspiring to Brandon. - Someone gave Brandon a book about medal of honor winners, and he would sit and read the stories at night. Learning about what others had been through shifted Brandon’s mindset away from feeling so much self pity and realizing many others were not as fortunate. - Showing and embracing his vulnerability allowed Brandon to grow significantly as an individual. + The medical team triaging Brandon’s injuries originally focused on his legs and didn’t realize his back was broken at the time. He had to pass a physical qualification to return to the fleet. - Though Brandon did return to the fleet, and time he would put on the 60-pound back members of the infantry carried, he would complain of back pain. Upon taking him in for X-Rays (about a year after his injury), they determined Brandon’s T11 had compressed like a pancake when he was injured and now was naturally fused. - There was nothing that could be done for Brandon’s condition at the time, and he was medically discharged from the Marines. - “So I got medically discharged and left the Marine Corps, and that put me in a while other experience of learning how to deal with some of my limitations at that point.” – Brandon Seymour

22:20 – Transition to Civilian Life* Though Brandon went heavily into technology after leaving the Marine Corps, his first exposure to it came much earlier. + The accounting firm Brandon’s mother worked for was upgrading computer systems, and she had bought Brandon a used Commodore 64. Brandon would go to the library and check out programming books so he could try to create video games. + There were other exposure points through middle school and high school, and though Brandon originally chose a different direction in college, he always had a love for computers. * What are some of the things people don’t realize when it comes to people adjusting to life outside / after the military? + “Your best weapon in the Marine Corps is your mind.” – Brandon Seymour + Brandon feels like transitioning people back to civilian life is isn’t something the military does well. + “When you’re in the military, everything is taken care of for you….Transitioning back into the real world tends to be a little bit more difficult initially….You’re doing for yourself now, and you don’t have somebody making all these decisions for you. So now you need to make decisions for yourself, what you’re going to do and where you’re going to go.” – Brandon Seymour, on the transition to civilian life - Brandon tells the story of sitting in a restaurant and having to decide what to order. It wasn’t something he had to do while in the Marines. + If you’re part of a service branch during war time you’re looking at all situations as a possible threat to your safety and the safety of those around you (i.e. a different mentality). Civilians aren’t necessarily thinking this way. - Brandon tells us there are aspects of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) which may also need to be addressed in the transition to civilian life. + Brandon had help from his family during the transition. He cites his mother as a great help and advocate for him during this time. - Rather than continue to pursue economics like before going into the Marines, Brandon wanted to go back to school and focus on computers. He leveraged the GI Bill to help pay for school. - Brandon didn’t get heavily involved with the VA (Veterans Affairs) or any other aspects outside the Marine Corps once he left. - “That period of time in my life that was a chapter in a book…. I felt like I needed to close that chapter and focus on what I wanted to do next.” – Brandon Seymour + Brandon has stayed in touch with people who were in the Marines with him over time and is still in touch with some to this day. He mentions they have been able to support one another through different challenges. Some of his friends stayed in the Marines and made a career out of it.

27:55 – A Focus on Technology* Brandon found a small school focused on computer certifications and training. During his time there, he was able to obtain certifications in areas like Novell, computer hardware (A+), networking, and Microsoft. * Brandon’s first job was working for a company in California called Netport Internet Access, replacing broken dial up modems as one of his first tasks. + Brandon also did web page design for the company’s customers because they needed someone with HTML skills. Brandon taught himself how to do it to fill this need. * How did Brandon adapt to the need for communicating with customers in these technology jobs? + Communication was an important part of the job in the Marine Corps. Brandon remembers having to clearly communicate objectives to others and what would be done to accomplish the objective(s). There were no issues Brandon recalls related to communicating with others in his adjustment to working as a civilian. + The challenges Brandon had to work through were in the troubleshooting of the modem functionality. He gives the example of a dial-up modem misbehaving when someone plugged in a dryer in the same outlet, for example. * The experience working at this first company was a great starting point for Brandon in the technology field. + In addition to the work on modems and with HTML, he gained experience with networking technologies, operating systems like Windows NT, and even managing / administering Novell servers during his time there. + “Getting your hands into the technology is key. You can book learn all day long, but once you actually physically touch the stuff it’s completely different.” – Brandon Seymour * Brandon tells us prior to his first job the technology education program he went through was a mix of book learning and getting hands on with the technology. + For example, during the program Brandon built a computer and gained exposure to networking technologies. * The technology Brandon loved most at first was networking. + “I wanted to do everything networking. It was the backbone to everything…. If networking wasn’t working properly and secured properly, nothing was going to be working outside of that. That’s really what drove me deeper into technology initially was the more I got involved with networking.” – Brandon Seymour + At one point Brandon moved away from Netport to a different company in Los Angeles and managed all of their networking. He was a network administrator and continued to develop skills and expertise in networking.

32:53 – A Directional Shift* After focusing on networking for several years, Brandon got interested in other aspects of IT. Brandon had earlier achieved his MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) but had done very little with it. + Brandon decided to get recertified in this area and convinced his company to move him over to Windows systems administration. Network had become a little boring. + Being in Windows administration allowed Brandon to meet people on the development and operations teams and have conversations about the applications these teams wanted to deploy. Brandon was able to learn about the applications, their requirements, and their dependencies as well as what it would take to build systems which could run these applications. Note that this was happening well before virtualization came onto the scene or became popular. + When Brandon was doing networking, he wasn’t really involved in these types of conversations. The new role focused on Windows and applications brought a sense of enjoyment in being a part of the application focused conversations. * What was the role of mentors in Brandon’s decision to focus on Windows (if any)? + Brandon had stayed in contact with peers from the school he attended over time, developing friendships from the time spent being a part of study groups. + Not everyone took the same path after getting out of school, and Brandon would talk to his peers about the different aspects of what they were doing compared to what he was doing. + Brandon also spoke with his manager about things he wanted to pursue in his career, and the manager felt like Brandon would enjoy the new responsibilities of Windows administration and be more productive. + Nick feels like many people may be missing this element of asking their manager for what they want or what they want to change in their career (day-to-day work, within a project, overall focus and specialty, etc.). Some people may not feel comfortable approaching their manager on these topics, for example. - “I think a lot of the time we just do our day-to-day jobs, and we don’t really think about what could be next or whether or not we’re even happy with what we’re doing. Sometimes I think that doesn’t necessarily translate, you know. It’s just a job and we’re trying to do our job and pay our bills and go home. But for me…I felt like I needed to make a change. I felt being driven in a different direction.” – Brandon Seymour - Brandon would classify himself as a very open and transparent person. He felt comfortable speaking to his manager about moving in a different direction. Brandon’s manager was open to the conversation and supported the change, even making the proper introductions to the team where Brandon wanted to work to help him get there. - “I’ve been blessed with some fantastic managers…. If you leave the organization or you change and you’re changing for the better, then I think that they’ve been successful in helping you with your career. And that’s what managers should do.” – Brandon Seymour

Mentioned in the Outro* Are we conditioning ourselves to ask for what we want in our careers? * We’ve heard multiple guests mention that good managers support you even if it means you need to leave their team. Some episodes to reference on this topic are: + Episode 137 – Something to Offer, Something to Share with Don Jones (1/2) + Episode 138 – Apprentice, Amplifier, and People Developer with Don Jones (2/2) * The leadership qualities and skills discussed need not involve managing people (i.e. stepping up when no one else will). We can be leaders without needing to be managers. + Remaining calm in tense situations is a form of leadership. High performance coach Brendan Burchard cites lack of emotional control as a hindrance to career progression, especially for leaders. Stories of remaining calm and thinking through situations carefully could be good to highlight in a job interview. * Brandon stayed connected to others through struggle and gained support. + This includes staying connected to others in the Marine Corps and learning that it’s ok to ask for help. But it also includes staying connected even after being in the Marine Corps. + Getting support is especially important for our veterans transitioning to civilian life. For more perspective on this check out Episode 170 with guest Joe Chenevey. - Many companies today offer support for veterans and are looking to recruit them. For perspective on the value hiring managers place on a veteran’s experience, listen to Episode 93 with guest Paul Green. + Brandon stayed connected to those who went through computer courses with him, discussing how their careers were different from his and learning what else might be possible.

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This week we are releasing an updated trailer episode which explains the podcast, our vision, and how you can contact us to continue the conversation.

Original Recording Date: 01-20-2024

Topics – Restating Our Goal and Mission, Our Genesis Story, Show Format and Learning from Guests, How You Can Help0:00 – Restating Our Goal and Mission* The goal of Nerd Journey is to help you, the technology professional, accelerate your career progression, increase your job satisfaction, and be more effective in your existing role. We’re over 250 episodes in, and we want to make sure newcomers and existing listeners both know what they can expect from us. * We’d also like to ask for your feedback to make this a conversation, not a one-way broadcast. Email us at nerdjourneypodcast@gmail.com or DM us @NerdJourney on Twitter. * Your hosts are John White, @vJourneyman, and Nick Korte, @NetworkNerd_. + You can find detailed show notes for all episodes or search for specific topics or guests at nerd-journey.com. + We’re two former IT operations guys who have moved on to pre-sales roles with technology vendors. John even manages a pre-sales team now. Leaving IT Operations inspired us to start this show. We want to bring listeners like you the career advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers.

1:14 – Our Genesis Story* Our goal didn’t start out exactly like what we said above. Nick remembers getting a message from John the weekend before starting his first pre-sales job suggesting they start a podcast together. Initially Nick had no idea what he might talk about on a podcast, but he said yes to doing something like this with a friend and mentor. * John remembers the conversation well. It took place near the end of 2017 when technology blogging was very prevalent but a solo activity. We were strongly influenced by other collaborative technology podcasts like + The Geek Whisperers + Virtually Speaking + VMware Communities Roundtable Podcast – John had joined as a pre-sales co-host * We had the motivation to do something, and the initial idea was John’s. The kernel of the idea revolved around Nick joining VMware. Since this was the first large company Nick where Nick had worked, John felt the contrasts between working for small and medium sized businesses compared to working for a large company were things which would benefit others. + John had joined VMware just a few years earlier and wasn’t that far removed from working in small business IT. Explaining the contrasts was front of mind for John and one topic. + We toyed with discussing technology current events, but that seemed well covered by others. + We mined things like the process of applying for a job, constructing a resume, different interviews to expect, and how to prepare for success throughout that process. These were topics familiar to John as he’d been helping people with this one-on-one. + This helped us coalesce around the topic of career advancement.

2:58 – Show Format and Learning from Guests* When we started having guests, we stumbled upon the method of discussing their career history, especially major inflection points. Their stories were different than ours, and they are probably different from yours. + We have found the career decisions and lessons from our guests’ stories apply broadly to anyone in the technology field (and beyond). + We separate guest interviews into multiple episodes to make the show more consumable. + Our show is clean with episodes released weekly on Tuesdays. * Guest stories often include lessons they have learned, but sometimes it takes talking things out to see patterns. Some examples of patterns we’ve seen are: + There’s no typical path into technology jobs (or out of them) + Using relatable experience to get a new position + Reasons Managers return to being an Individual Contributor + The different (or not so different) ways to burn out and how to avoid them. Or how to deal with burnout. + The ways to excel at your existing position or become a top candidate for a different one + Handling being laid off + Improving communication with your manager * And the above list is just scratching the surface!

4:08 – How You Can Help* If you like what you’re hearing and want to hear more, please subscribe. + Give us a 5 star rating and a review. + If you found something helpful, please share the advice and the podcast with a friend! * If there’s a topic you wish we’d explore or go deeper on, please let us know. * We’re looking for your feedback! + Would it be helpful if we recorded episodes summarizing a specific lesson or pattern that we’ve seen, citing specific guest episodes? + We’re also looking for feedback on the type of guests we have on the show. - Do you want to see more people in a specific role? - Think we’ve missed talking to someone especially interesting? - Do you have a career story to share? Let us know. + Would it be helpful if we had full transcripts in addition to our show notes? + If you send us constructive feedback, we’ll send you stickers as a small token of appreciation (regardless of where you live)! + You can contact us by: - Sending an e-mail to nerdjourneypodcast@gmail.com - DM us @NerdJourney on Twitter. - Contact / connect with John White on LinkedIn - Contact / connect with Nick Korte on LinkedIn

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Welcome to episode 259 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 3 of an interview with Nicholas Aronne, detailing the responsibilities of being a manager and progression paths into leading people, experience that prepared Nicholas for product management, and the idea of being a divergent thinker.

Original Recording Date: 11-17-2023

Nicholas Aronne is a senior manager in product management for VMware with a focus in cloud management / cloud automation with VMware’s Aria Automation platform. If you missed parts 1 and 2 of our discussion with Nicholas you can check out Episode 257 and Episode 258.

Topics – Validating Assumptions and Becoming a Manager, The Player Coach, Preparing for Product Management, A Divergent Thinker3:10 – Validating Assumptions and Becoming a Manager* We’ve had previous guests whose managers kept validating assumptions that some of their employees wanted to go into management. Other guests who never wanted to go into management had their assumptions challenged and were encouraged to pursue it. How did Nicholas end up managing people in the first place, and were his assumptions about it challenged at some point? + Nicholas tells us pursuing a role as a manager was an aspiration early on, but he is thankful for the growth and maturity gained through other roles along the way to management. + Over the years people encouraged Nicholas to pursue management due to his communication skills, leadership qualities, and ability to teach and mentor others. + If you like being a mentor to others (regardless of your level or role), there are number of programs out there in which one could participate whether inside your company or external to it. + There are differences in being a manager compared to being a leader. - To Nicholas, being a manager makes him think of performance reviews and other HR / administrative tasks many of us would not consider fun. These types of responsibilities come with the job and cannot be exchanged for parts we like better. It’s more of an all (be a manager and accept what comes with that) or nothing (choose not to do it) kind of role. - Nicholas has held a number of roles as an individual contributor as well as a manager. Most recently he decided he would go back into management. - “It’s kind of grown into ‘I’m willing to do it and focus on what we need to do….’ I wish someone 15 years ago had sat me down and said a few choice things to me or said ‘you need to be worried about your career and here’s what you need to focus in on.’ So I’m trying to pay it back or pay it forward for the people that over the course of my career have done it in small ways….” – Nicholas Aronne, on being a manager - In many ways there is a lack of education on career out there. Nicholas says online forums are helpful for getting advice, but they aren’t personal. - “You want to get to know someone. And part of that is ‘well, I think you’d be good at this and here’s why….’ Some of us don’t always see what other people see in us.” – Nicholas Aronne, on the personal aspects of being a manager and developing people - Telling someone they are good at something is a form of encouragement. If someone else suggests we would be good at something, Nicholas would encourage us to try it. If we don’t like it, we can move in a different direction. * John says maybe we should look for organizations which would allow someone to take on the responsibilities of a manager, for example, but support taking a step back if needed without it being a negative in one’s career. Timing of making a move is also a consideration point. + Nicholas would agree timing is key to career moves just as location is key for real estate. There is also a fear of change and fear of the unknown to overcome. + Nicholas would encourage us to go back to the priority list discussed earlier (whether the list is mental or a list you wrote down). Consider what you want with a change and what is motivating you. + There is another scenario to consider. In your current role, you may have skills gaps preventing you from pursuing that next role you want. Nicholas would encourage the willingness to stretch ourselves to close these kinds of gaps. + Skills gaps might mean we need a manager to take a chance on us despite their recognition of our skills gaps. Managers also need to understand they may not find someone with a specific skill and would have no choice but to train their newly hired candidate in specific skills (whether hiring someone inside the company or external to it). + “From a product management perspective I’m really kind of bullish on making sure that we are mentoring and leading future product leaders….There’s always this question of academia versus the real world. Academia doesn’t tell you how to handle your career….These are the things you have to learn ‘on the job’ as they say.’” – Nicholas Aronne, on mentoring and learning from experience - Nicholas also mentions that academia doesn’t teach you how to navigate politics. + John says it might be ideal for someone to be able to work their regular job and take an extra course (perhaps even company paid) while getting a small slice of experience in something they want to pursue next. If the ideal state is not possible, perhaps someone could seek out a product manager and ask to shadow them for a day or two. + Nicholas mentions something he calls “fear of the what if” or fear of doing something new and not being successful. - This is a legitimate question it’s ok to ask yourself. - Honest feedback from a manager or mentor and can really help here because we need to hear it. Do they think you are trying to do more than you’re capable of doing? - Some companies have shadowing programs to leverage to better understand what a job role is about. This is one option. - Nicholas mentions product management can look different and is done differently by people. He suggests approaching someone we’re comfortable with, stating our interest in better understanding the role of a product manager, and asking to attend calls and meetings with that person. This would allow someone to see what a day in the life of a product manager is like. A shadowing experience may confirm product management is something you want to pursue and are excited about. Or it may highlight aspects of the role you really like and those you do not. * In terms of a manager’s willingness to take a risk on someone who may not have all the experience, how can candidates determine what an acceptable ramp time might be once they take a new role? + This can be addressed head on by the candidate in a screening call with HR. Share what you read in the job description (which you should always do) and ask about the areas where you have gaps (i.e. an area that needs work for you, an area where you have no knowledge / experience) and allowable tolerances and time frames (i.e. 30 days, etc.). - The recruiter or talent acquisition person may encourage you to have a conversation with the hiring manager about these areas or may tell you there is steep competition in the candidate pool and they need to check with the manager. It depends on how well equipped the person who screens you happens to be. - Nicholas believes being up front and owning your skills gaps is the best strategy here. Asking the questions mentioned above shows you care about the position and have read the job description. It also shows you have self-awareness about stumbling blocks which need to be overcome.

13:47 – The Player Coach* Is the player coach role that Nicholas holds today (part people manager and part individual contributor) a common stepping stone into full on people management? + It depends on company size and many other factors, but the player coach role can be found at many companies. + If a manager has 10-15 direct reports, there would not be enough time and bandwidth to own a product and its strategy in addition to managing a team of people, so in this scenario a full-time people manager makes more sense than a player coach. + A people manager in product management would own the overall product portfolio at a high level, both providing oversight and coaching to the team they manager. + John mentions our friend and former guest John Nicholson. When Nicholson went into Technical Marketing his manager at the time still had individual contributor responsibilities to do technical marketing work and did not cease all of it once he started managing people. - There is a difference between filling in for people on the team you manage and still having specific individual contributor responsibilities in addition to managing others. In the case of Nicholson’s boss, he seemed to eventually transition to acting only as a fill in for other team members. Is it possible being a player coach is only a transition point? - To hear more of John Nicholson’s story, check out Episode 224, Episode 225, and Episode 226. + Whether you are a leader of a team of product managers (i.e. a PM of PMs) or a leader of a team of technical marketers (i.e. a tech marketer of tech marketers), you are tasked with multiple things, such as: - Making sure each individual contributor is growing to better the team, to make the company better, and to better serve customers - Stepping in when people leave the team to ensure business can continue (i.e. backfilling some of the work on your own or dividing up the work of the person who left, etc.) - Seeking to backfill open roles when people leave the team - Restructuring the team (for a financial reason, to support the type of work, etc.)

18:10 – Preparing for Product Management* Nicholas had brought scrum methodologies and practices into development teams at IBM, and he took much of the transformation aspects with him into later roles such as experience restructuring teams, developing performance and productivity metrics and goals, etc. * Some opportunities came to Nicholas over the course of his career which were unexpected. * Nicholas has adopted a mantra similar to that of Mary Poppins, showing up when needed and leaving when no longer needed. + “At the end of the day I like to solve problems. I like to leave things better than I found them. I take heart and I take a lot of pride in working with others and trying to deliver the outcomes. And it’s not always easy…there’s bureaucracy and politics and the whole nine yards.” – Nicholas Aronne + Nicholas has found sometimes he hits a “glass ceiling” where he may no longer be in the right role. This could be a result of a lack the authority to make necessary changes or learning of a new opportunity in line with current career trajectory and aspirations. - As we discussed earlier, Nicholas makes decisions based on priorities (i.e. money, flexibility, etc.). * At one point Nicholas took a role as a consultant which involved heavy travel to work at customer sites. His wife was very supportive during this time, and it was a role which allowed him to grow. + “Even if you’re not the expert, guess what? You are the expert.” – Nicholas Aronne, on being a consultant + Nicholas learned many of the skills needed for product management in this role such as: - Understanding why the customer thought they had a problem and what the problem was - Bringing people together to collectively solve problems - Providing insight on a problem or situation based on experience which others may not see + Nicholas greatly enjoyed the consulting role but left it partially due to the travel requirements (wanting to spend time with family) and partially because he was contacted by a recruiter about a role on a new team focused on transformation. - Nicholas had a very good interview with the recruiter and then the hiring manager. He tells us it was easy to have a conversation with the hiring manager, the objectives and needs of the role were clear, and Nicholas was straightforward about his needs in a new role (i.e. what it would take for him to leave). - “It’s always good to be open to a conversation. That would be another piece of career advice I would tell you….Open up the possibility of what if to just having a conversation.” – Nicholas Aronne - Though Nicholas was not really looking for a job at the time this new opportunity came to him, and having the conversation helped him understand how much it sounded like something he would greatly enjoy. Nicholas and his wife decided together that he should take the new job. * Nicholas worked for a startup for a while and eventually landed at VMware. Though he was not part of SaltStack before it was acquired by VMware, Nicholas was hired by the former SaltStack Senior Vice President of Product Marketing. + Nicholas’ desire upon joining the company was to integrate Salt and SaltStack into the greater cloud management portfolio at VMware. He is excited that VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) will be using Salt for configuration and compliance management. + Nicholas’ company was a startup before coming to VMware that did work on top of vRA (vRealize Automation, now Aria Automation). Nicholas was at EMC before this focused on enterprise hybrid cloud. + But the story goes all the way back to IBM. Nicholas had a colleague and friend from IBM who left and got a role in PSO (professional services) at VMware. Nicholas and this person are still friends, and that same friend referred Nicholas for the role at VMware when he was looking for a new opportunity. - “We live in a much smaller world than anyone gives us credit for…. Making that mark and distinguishing your brand as a person and being someone that gets stuff done but also…because you get it, you’re willing to listen, willing to dig your feet in when you need to and make your point when you need to, you’re willing to bend and flex when that’s needed. That’s what gets you that reputation, that brand…so the next job opportunity potentially is looking for you, not you looking for it.” – Nicholas Aronne, on the importance of professional networking and reputation - We might think of a specific person being great for a certain role just like we want others to think of us for new opportunities. * Nicholas tells us he loves remote work, but there’s no way to replace the energy of in-person collaboration, especially standing face-to-face at a whiteboard. + The benefits of remote work are things like no commute time and not needing to leave an office early to pick up kids, etc. + Nicholas believes we should use the technology to help us be more efficient but not in a way that takes advantage of situations.

26:43 – A Divergent Thinker* John mentions the phrase divergent thinker is listed on Nicholas’ LinkedIn profile, and we’re told this is in a way part of a branding.

+ While we could certainly look up a definition for the phrase, Nicholas has prided himself on his ability to break down problems and think through them differently.
+ Nicholas sometimes sees others struggle with problem solving. Being a divergent thinker is highly associated with a willingness to take risks and relates to having a comfort level with change.
+ It’s about thinking through and solving hard problems and working with / collaborating with others who may have skills we lack.
+ Technology breakthroughs can happen because someone had an idea and took a risk, from thinking about a problem from a different angle (and perhaps having others invest in an idea), or from someone getting the opportunity to do something they were not previously able to do.
+ Nicholas would classify Steve Jobs as a divergent thinker.
    - Before the iPhone, we had the Blackberry. Nicholas references a recent documentary film on Blackberry.
    - At first people couldn’t imagine the usefulness of a phone without a keyboard (in the time before the iPhone). Steve Jobs helped reimagine the user experience with the iPhone and didn’t like anything he saw in the market before that.
+ “Getting back to the divergent thinker, it is about being able to just maybe take something and twist it 90 degrees or 22 degrees or whatever it is to figure out if there’s something more there. And from a product perspective we are always asked to be stretching the boundaries…. Some of these things on the surface don’t look connected, but maybe they are. Let’s explore that.” – Nicholas Aronne, on being a divergent thinker
    - Stretching boundaries with a product could mean gaining more market share, penetrating new markets, or developing a new product for a new segment of the market.
    - Mind mapping exercises are helpful to determine any connections between ideas / concepts which on the surface don’t seem connected.
    - “It goes back to what I said earlier…being able to see things that either other people don’t see and connect the dots or being able to recognize other people’s skills and apply them there. Because I don’t have to be good at everything, but I do know people that have passion and are good at other things…. Hey, let’s work together, and I learn something from you and you’ll learn from me. But ultimately we’re going to do it together. We’re just going to be the best of ourselves.” – Nicholas Aronne, on divergent thinking and collaboration with others
+ Though we should not completely ignore our weaknesses, Nicholas would recommend we embrace and know our strengths and work toward them.
    - This is the strategy Nicholas has used in his career, and he has grown and learned along the way.
    - A specific weakness may actually be a strength depending on how you use it. Nicholas mentions asking a lot of questions versus not asking a lot of questions. He likes to ask questions that challenge people to explain and validate their assumptions to move forward together with others in a common direction.
    - John mentions this goes back to the idea of writing down our assumptions from previous parts of the interview, and we revisit the idea of creating a visual representation of the idea in our head for others to see and help iterate upon.
    - “No one’s sitting there manufacturing ideas that turn into gold because…for every one great success story I’m sure those people and I know from my experience will tell you about 10 or 12 or more failures but again how we adapted that or used that to catapult us forward into the next endeavor.” – Nicholas Aronne, on successful ideas and concepts coming from collaboration and iteration

To follow up on this conversation, you can reach out to Nicholas
- On LinkedIn virtualnick
- By e-mail
- Nicholas is happy to have a conversation or to provide mentorship / direction.
- Mentioned in the outro
- Remember you can follow up with guests directly in addition to listening to their story.
- Some of the aspects of being a divergent thinker sound a lot like aspects of a really good manager. For those wanting to go into people management, don’t overlook the relatable experience points.
  - Knowing our strengths and weaknesses takes self-awareness and humility. Recognizing how other people can help us and that we need help in the first place requires humility.
  - There is a people development aspect to collaborating with others and pulling them in to help us with a task or project.
  - Collaborating with others is also a form of networking (which can lead people to recommend us for jobs).
- Job interviews and addressing skills gaps are an opportunity to show your work and how you are being proactive about filling those gaps.
- A consultant role sounds like relatable experience for product management such as:
  - Working intimately with customers and collaborating with multiple people in a customer environment
  - Understanding what a customer is trying to do
  - Exposure to many different customers potentially
- For more discussions focused on product management, check out our series of discussions with David Babbitt.
  - Episode 195 – Perceptions and Realities of Startup Life with David Babbitt (1/3)
  - Episode 196 – Manage the Product, Influence the People with David Babbitt (2/3)
  - Episode 197 – Connected to the Customer Base with David Babbitt (3/3)

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Welcome to episode 258 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 2 of an interview with Nicholas Aronne, discussing the required technical depth of product managers, hiring strategies in product management, reasons for leaving a company after many years of service, and applying adaptability throughout our careers.

Original Recording Date: 11-17-2023

Nicholas Aronne is a senior manager in product management for VMware with a focus in cloud management / cloud automation with VMware’s Aria Automation platform. If you missed part 1 of our discussion with Nicholas you can check it out in Episode 257.

Topics – Product Managers and Technical Product Managers, Hiring Styles and Proper Expectations, Moving away from IBM, Process and Outcomes, Collaboration and Politics2:49 – Product Managers and Technical Product Managers* Is a product manager usually an individual contributor? + Nicholas tells us individual contributors who are product managers are quite prevalent, even up to senior level product managers. + Nicholas manages a team of 4 individual contributors who are product managers today, works with other product managers (outside his team) in addition to this, and he has individual responsibilities for certain services and products. He is a player coach. + Nicholas believes strongly that we should be developing and giving back to others, especially since many believe the path to being a product manager is somewhat unclear. - There are many stories of people progressing into product management. Perhaps it is through certification, experience in development, coming into it from a field facing role as a sales / solution engineer, etc. - “So there’s all these different walks, but you absolutely will have your individual contributor roles. But then you’ll have your product leaders at various levels that are setting strategy and trajectory.” – Nicholas Arrone * How technical should a product manager for a software product be? We’ve heard about product managers and technical product managers. + Nicholas jokingly says someone just has to be “technical enough.” + Nicholas has worked with product managers who claimed to not be technical, but they knew how to communicate requirements, work with engineering teams, and talk to stakeholders (even if they didn’t fully understand the words they might have said). - Depending on the complexity of the technology involved, one must be technical to understand it well. The real answer of how technical is probably “it depends.” - There is an ongoing education element needed to learn technology. - Cell phones have changed from the early days of their use to present day, and people have adapted to that. - “And a job is the same way. You need to adapt, and you need to grow. If you’re in a certain role, I am sure hopeful that you are picking up some things because if you’re not, then that just means you’re not absorbing stuff.” – Nicholas Aronne, an illustration base don the above comment about cell phones + Nicholas has worked with very technical product managers (PMs) as well. Sometimes these folks have a tendency to start solutioning when in fact that should be left up to the developers (often called engineers, programmers, coders, etc.). - “The engineers are there to build the solution….From the technical implementation perspective, I wholeheartedly believe that the ownership is the engineers’ responsibility for delivering that, and it’s the PM’s responsibility for getting the information there and then validating it. And there may be some iteration there. They may be miscommunication. You gotta work through that as you do in any relationship internally or externally.” – Nicholas Aronne, on the relationship of engineers and product managers + John mentions that when we speak of a PM being technical we often think of how much they know about building software and writing code. But there are other elements to being technical like being an expert in the product, being customer facing in conversations around the product and larger solutions that contain it, or have technical expertise in all the different skills needed to be a PM (i.e. success with a different product or at a different company). - “We say technical, and we need to define technical.” – John White - Nicholas agrees with the above sentiment and mentions when we say technical product manager we need to define what we mean in the context of the conversation we’re having. Is the role technical because someone needs to write technical documentation or develop technical architectures? It can vary depending on the company, the expectation, and the people involved. - “What I’ve always found in my career is you do and you gravitate towards what you need to do.” – Nicholas Aronne, on being a product manager - Nicholas likes to find gaps and look for solutions (which could be automation, processes, unhealthy communication, etc.) because if the team is not healthy they cannot deliver on results to customers and to the business.

10:02 – Hiring Styles and Proper Expectations* Maybe it’s a good idea to ask what people mean when they say technical product manager. + A recruiter may or may not know the answer to the question about what a technical product manager is like. + A product manager might need to be extremely technical in the protocols a product uses (i.e. deep in networking protocols as an example) as opposed to being technically deep in the programming language used to build the product. * We also need to take hiring styles into consideration here. Let’s assume we’re talking about a product / technology that is new but is a known quantity in the industry (also assume not a startup or anything). Hiring managers might think about it like this: + Because the technology we’re focused on here is well known in the industry, there is a sizable talent pool from which to choose, and one can be more selective with candidates. Nicholas refers to this as skill-for-skill hiring. + If one finds the right person, that person can come up to speed to the level needed. The focus here would be on personality, skillsets, and previous experience. + A third category would be when building something new that depends on an emerging technology. - Nicholas gives the example of job descriptions he saw in the past that asked for 20 years experience in a technology which hasn’t existed that long. - It’s important for hiring managers and recruiters to be realistic in their expectations for incoming candidates. - “…I had to be reminded about this. Just as much as you’re interviewing for a job and they’re interviewing you, you should be interviewing them. And if something doesn’t make sense to you…you may have dodged a bullet….” – Nicholas Arrone, on expectations in interviews - We want to go into a new role with the expectations of what we are being hired to do so we can determine if we can / are willing to do the job, if the compensation presented is in line with the industry and other similar roles, and how we will be measured for success in a role. The measurement of performance piece is especially important so that we do not get surprised or have unmet expectations in annual performance reviews. * We should also think about whether taking a job is going to be a career opening opportunity for us and be thinking about what we want from our career. + “They don’t teach you this in university or anywhere. How am I caring for my career? Because I’ll tell you right now, you will meet some good people along the way. And there’s people that I’ve met along my 20+ years. I’m still friends with them. I’ve worked at multiple companies with them. They’ve been a referral for me. I’ve been a referral. So that’s that whole concept of networking. And good people want to work with other good people that want to keep working with those people even if you’re doing something different. So there’s also that extended work family that you’re building. So I think it’s really important that it’s good to know that there’s people you can count on to help you with your career, but if you find yourself…in a situation where…you don’t know anyone in the company but you took the opportunity or some life event happened and you had to take the job that you know how to market yourself, you know the value you bring to the company, and making sure they also know that you know.” – Nicholas Aronne

16:12 – Moving away from IBM* Nicholas left IBM largely because the business evolved over time in ways he didn’t like. To use his words it became “not my grandfather’s IBM.” * Nicholas tells us he was at a crossroad for him. He had been out of university and at IBM for 11 years. Nicholas could see where things were going inside the company and what his future might look like there, and the alternative was to step out and take a risk. + Trying to step out was hard after being at IBM for so long, but Nicholas sent out some resumes to positive feedback. + “Even up until I turned in my resignation there was a sense of apprehension… Here is a company that I have known, I have been with. They have been kind of an extension of my family. I moved for IBM.” – Nicholas Aronne, on leaving a company after a long time there + Nicholas’ wife was extremely supportive, and he had 2 kids already at the time. + “It comes again to that change. And you should never look at it and say ‘well I knew I shouldn’t have done that because I wound up, you know, 3 years later getting laid off or it’s not the experience I’d hoped for.’ My hope for people is that you look for the value that that next opportunity brought you….There’s no such thing as a perfect company. And a saying I adopted is ‘the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. It’s just a different shade….’ Just know why you’re leaving and what you’re leaving for .” – Nicholas Aronne, reflecting on leaving IBM and advice for choosing to leave a company - People leave companies for opportunities, pay bumps, titles, an experience to go do something new, etc. Some people don’t care for management or their direct manager. We need to understand our reasons for making a change. - If you continue to turn over jobs frequently, it may actually be you and not your company that is the main issue. + Nicholas likes to reflect on achievements he obtained at a specific company, people he met, etc. These things are best seen looking back on them. + “You can have a trajectory and a plan, but you better be ok with change and you better be ok with adaptability. Or else, you’re going to be really frustrated. And that’s probably more of a general statement about life, but in a career…you’re trying to hit targets.” – Nicholas Aronne - A target for people might be work/life balance, pay, a title, etc. The priority ranking of each of these will be different across different people. - Nicholas would encourage each of us to write down these priorities / targets. It is extremely helpful when weighing multiple jobs and not always obvious on the surface until we make the list.

20:19 – Process and Outcomes* John shares we’ve spoken about process over outcomes before on the show. There are certain things related to the interview process and taking a new job that we can control and others we cannot. + We can control the process we used to interview and search for jobs but not what happens after we take a job (i.e. if our responsibilities change or someone was dishonest during the hiring process). - Check out Episode 19 to hear more on process over outcomes and the idea behind it. + Nicholas shares an analogy of when we were asked to show our work in school so the teacher could see how we arrived at an answer. Someone may say we got a wrong answer, but they can at least understand our thought process. - Showing one’s work is especially important in product management as much of it is based on assumptions (target market and whether it currently exists, target demographic, the problem to solve with a product, etc.). - “It’s really helpful if you can think through it and not just say ‘we’re going there because I want to’ or ‘because I was told to….’ I’ve never inspired anyone by saying that we’re going to do this ‘because that person said so.’ Even if that person told me we’re doing it because of that, I’ve asked enough questions that I put together a story because people are compelled by stories. They like missions.” – Nicholas Aronne, on showing your work to create and provide purpose for others - We talk about how video games are so popular in that they provide us with a mission, a focus, and a purpose for playing. - In this same light, Nicholas had a manager tell him once to make sure he was not just living to work but more working to live and letting his work provide for him to live. - “At the end of the day, we are here for a purpose. Everyone has to understand what their purpose and their value is that they are bringing.” – Nicholas Aronne + Nicholas says it is also very much about mindset. - Many these days can work remotely, but when Nicholas worked at IBM he had the realization that he was spending more time with his work family (i.e. at the office) than with his actual family. - “Why are you doing what you’re doing? At the end of the day I’m here to take care of my family….I have been very blessed to be on a journey where sometimes I’ve loved things in my jobs and there’s other points where there’s been low points. But I tend to remember more of the high moments.” – Nicholas Aronne - Nicholas believes reflecting on the high moments has helped him grow his career and sell him for the next opportunity. Reflecting on these can breed confidence as well. - “It’s this evolution of adaptability. No one gets in a works a 30-year career and does the same thing, especially in our space, because the technology and the world around us is just changing so much faster.” – Nicholas Aronne

25:03 – Collaboration and Politics* Nick K mentions sharing (or showing) your thought process / how you think through problems with others is what we might call showing your work and would be extremely helpful during job interviews, even if you’re sharing how you would think through a problem or situation you have not encountered previously. * Sharing our thought processes can be helpful when we try to figure out what the value of that next job is to us and why we left a company.

+ The thought processes represent the reasoning which led to decisions.
+ This could be written down or shared verbally with someone else and can help us make these decisions better and easier, making it easier to adapt.
+ Nicholas mentions part of making decisions in our careers should be considering our priorities /a what we’re trying to balance (perhaps a top 10 list).
+ When we show people our work / thought processes, using visual aids can help get people on the same page / promote agreement. This is especially useful when speaking of complex concepts or when you’re trying to push the boundaries of what is possible (with things like products).
+ “It really helps work through complex conversations and gets people in the same boat together because 9 times out of 10, even if it’s technical…the engineers will figure it out. It’s the people aspect of our job that’s always the challenge. It’s communicating information. It’s getting alignment. It’s what people refer to as politics.” – Nicholas Aronne, on the use of visual aids to enable conversations
+ Nicholas has heard people say they wanted to stay away from politics, and these people remained individual contributors. We should be aware politics affect us all.
+ “As you further go up the ladder you definitely see and feel it more, and my goal as a manager is always to insulate…so that my people, engineers and so forth, can do their job because their time is most valuable because fingers on keyboard, designing architectural diagrams, stuff like that is what ends with us getting a product out the door. So if I can keep them focused the value of them is that much greater because they are purely engineers. Let me deal with a little bit of the politicking and so forth so that they don’t have to. And that’s another aspect to consider.” – Nicholas Aronne, on politics and management

Mentioned in the outro
- We likely do not need to have experience in using a software product to be a product manager for it because being technical can present in different ways. We can leverage our own relatable experience which aligns to the skills and experience needed to be a product manager.
  - Product managers don’t solve the problem of writing code for a new feature. Engineers do that. It’s a different type of problem the product manager is solving by being an expert in the problem statement and communicating it very clearly to everyone involved.
  - If we’re looking for a role as a product manager maybe we should build a story of how we’ve helped other people solve problems.
- Incorporating your wins (or what Nicholas describes as reflecting on his career high points) can help us build confidence needed to take a chance on a new job, even if it is at a new company.
- We should be mindful of times where the responsibilities, focus, or success metrics for our job role changed and how well we did as a result. That is evidence of adaptability.
- To have a mindset of adaptability, we need to expect that change will happen in every area of our jobs and lives. Perhaps the proper expectation will make it easier to adjust.

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Welcome to episode 257 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 1 of an interview with Nicholas Aronne, detailing his early interest in technology, setting and achieving the goal to work for IBM, adopting agile and scrum methodologies, experience in project management, and thoughts on the product manager and product owner roles.

Original Recording Date: 11-17-2023

Topics – Meet Nicholas Aronne, An Early Aspiration, Job Norms, The Invitational and a New Opportunity, Adopting Agile and Scrum, Project Management Experience, Product Owner vs. Product Manager2:14 – Meet Nicholas Aronne* Nicholas Aronne is a senior manager in product management for VMware with a focus in cloud management / cloud automation with VMware’s Aria Automation platform. Aria Automation, an automation and management tool for hybrid and multi-cloud environments, is the focus for Nicholas and his team.

2:59 – An Early Aspiration* Nicholas’ first exposure to technology was in the 1980s when his father brought home an old Packard Bell 286. It had an orange monochrome screen at the time. + Nicholas remember playing games like Centipede and others. + Nicholas remembers thinking he wanted to do something in technology because it was so much fun. His next computer system was either a 286 or 386 from IBM. + Around this time Nicholas developed an aspiration to someday work for IBM, feeling it ebbed and flowed as he got older and into high school. + Nicholas remained unsure of what he might like to do in tech but still focused in that area. - Nicholas would caution listeners about getting to myopically focused in tech and not taking into consideration the company where we work operates as a business and needs to make money. * Nicholas started attending community college to be more fiscally responsible (a fraction of the cost of a state university), still unsure of what he might want to do. + Nicholas obtained an associates degree in business administration and says be backed into it, transferring to a 4-year university afterward. * John mentioned early life exposure to technology brands cementing our view of what technology is (i.e. that brand becomes what “computing” is, for example). + Nicholas says much of this exposure to brands could be subconscious. Some people can break it down and give thought to the product itself and what it takes to produce it. + The aspiration to work at IBM mentioned previously continued to be an intense aspiration to the point of thinking IBM could be a place to work for Nicholas’ entire career. + It used to be get a job and work your way up the ladder / get a job and retire from the same company after 20 years. But as Nicholas got closer to entering the job market many companies were transitioning away from pensions and moving to 401K plans. + Many people began to think about working for many companies for a period of a few years in each case as opposed to working for one company for a long period of time. - Making the determination for yourself as to which strategy works best for you (i.e. longevity at one company versus the spread across many companies) depends on what you as an individual aspire to and what you feel comfortable with. - “I also think you have to live in the world in which we operate. And sometimes those align, and sometimes they don’t….Just realize and be open to what’s going on in the industry, and knowing that there’s always change, but it’s your ability to adapt to that change and to see opportunities…. You have to understand where you’re going, but at the same time you have to be adaptable to the journey that you’re on and the opportunities that are presented along the way.” – Nicholas Aronne, on the topic of longevity at a company or working at many companies for short periods

7:38 – Job Norms* John mentions we might grow up during a specific job norm, which may not continue to be the norm forever. In the 80s it was work your way up and stay at a company for a very long time. In the .com era it became change jobs every few years to get a raise. Now we see it being a poor reflection on candidates if they get flagged as job hoppers. * Nicholas had a co-worker who used to say “you gotta jump to get the bump.” + We need to ensure we know our value in the market. Nicholas uses the illustration of the last 4 years and how the pandemic and remote work emphasis drove company growth. Many companies overhired, and we are seeing this get corrected as of late since the growth was not sustainable. + Always chasing something may cause you to miss out on ways to grow and stretch yourself in new areas. + “…Also if you’re not in line with what the market is commanding, like anything in a supply and demand economy, you’re going to be in trouble because it puts you off kilter.” – Nicholas Aronne * Much in the same way technology influences us so do our families, our backgrounds, and daily interactions. + Nicholas’ mother was a stay-at-home mom. As a result of this he had the chance to learn a lot from her, attributing his resilience and optimism to his mother’s influence. + Nicholas’ father was an accountant who held many jobs. There were some things modeled as a result. - Changing jobs may be necessary to pursue an opportunity you want to take, and that is ok to do. - We are not always in control of everything related to our jobs even if we are top performers. There are decisions made at higher levels that impact our employment at a specific company. - Nicholas looks at his career as a number of different segments. - “You can’t look forward and say ‘well, here’s my career….this is how it’s going to lay out.’ I mean, you can, but you’re kind of setting yourself up for some disappointments because there’s so many other pieces and people involved that you can kind of plot a trajectory and maybe head north. But you may go more like north east or north west and so forth.” – Nicholas Aronne - Nicholas tries to take nuggets of gold from each segment of his career and consider how they helped prepare him for his next opportunity. - Those gold nuggets tell a story over time that is analogous to the story of a product (which includes the vision and strategy around the product) which can resonate with potential buyers and engage them to commit time or money to the product.

12:13 – The Invitational and a New Opportunity* After finishing his associates degree, Nicholas says he did go on to a 4-year university, continuing to think of ways to finish his education with minimal debt and landing on information technology as a major. + This was the early 2000s, and the program was new for this university. University program leaders were working to select the right set of courses to effectively prepare students for life after graduation. + Many companies are removing advanced degree requirement for jobs. To determine if pursuing a degree is the right choice, we need to know ourselves, our capabilities, and our desires. We would then need to determine the amount of work we are willing to get to a specific level of skill and expertise based on these things. + Nicholas’ university was very close to IBM’s Poughkeepsie, NY location. * After graduating in December, Nicholas began sending his resume out to various companies over fax. He didn’t think competition for jobs would be as fierce due to the time of his graduation not being in spring like many other university students. + Nicholas had been able to build knowledge and legitimate experiences he could share on his resume like working on AS 400 mainframes and databases through his father’s company. While he did work some jobs just to pay bills, his eyes remained open for opportunities that supported his goals. + “Hey, I’m willing to work, and I have goals.” – Nicholas Aronne + Nicholas was still trying to decide what he wanted to do in technology. He had some business acumen and was gaining experience as he could. * Nicholas had the opportunity to attend what was formally called an invitational from IBM held in Connecticut. People were flown in from all over the country to participate. + It was a chance to meet people who had worked at IBM for many years and hear their career stories (some starting in the mail room, for example). + This was also a chance to interview for a number of open roles. Nicholas describes it a bit like speed dating and ended up landing a job as a DB2 UDB DBA (database administrator). + Nicholas mentions the interviewers knew he didn’t know anything about DB2 at the time since it was rare for anyone outside IBM to know that technology well, but Nicholas had done some things with Oracle databases in college and knew the constructs around relational databases would be similar. + The company was looking for someone in the role who could learn, who could bring new ways of doing things based on educational background, and someone who could communicate well with people at different levels. + Over the next several years, Nicholas says he learned a ton about the political landscape within a large organization, technology, and classifies it as a very exciting time. + “I felt like I got my ultimate wish as a kid. I got to work at IBM. I got to have in the end I think 4 or 5 different jobs before I ultimately decided I wanted to have another challenge and basically left and went on to other companies….” – Nicholas Aronne + Over time, Nicholas learned he needed to continue to build new skills, rely on those he already had, and build his brand as an eventual product manager. Nicholas shares thoughts on the unique view of the business that product managers have.

18:31 – Adopting Agile and Scrum* In the last 5 years or so of his career at IBM, Nicholas was part of a development team inside the company acting as a software developer focused on Java programming (something he didn’t get the chance to learn while he was in school). + This role was part of a small team that was inundated with requests. There were many times where someone would provide requirements and then give the feedback that the team Nicholas was on had not provided what they actually needed. + Nicholas sought to figure out why this kept happening. Was it because his team was not asking the right questions, that the person did not know what they needed, or something else entirely? + Around this time (early 2000s), there were new concepts of agile and scrum introduced. The team wanted more agility and to show their value to the business more clearly. Nicholas and team started reading blogs and other material on topics of agile and scrum. + Agile wasn’t really a thing back then. The manifesto was written in 1994, but it had not caught on widely. It seemed more niche and something boutique software development shops were doing. But it worked for those companies. Nicholas and team went to management and made a case to introduce agile. + After gaining approval to use agile / scrum, Nicholas says management saw the return on investment quickly. + But Nicholas also admits that in many ways the team didn’t really know what they were doing. Some people refer to the capital A “Agile” as the process and lowercase a “agile” as being able to pivot quickly (which can cause chaos). + The process of adopting these new ideas was iterative. They did retrospectives to understand what was working and what was not working, adapting as needed from there. The team size was between 5 and 12 people during this time. + “We’re just not sure how you’re doing this this efficiently, but can you help us?” – Nicholas Aronne, recounting the reaction from other business groups inside IBM who wanted help (a sign the team might be onto something that could really make positive change) + Other members of Nicholas’ team didn’t really want to talk to others outside their small team, but Nicholas thought it was a fun opportunity to share what the team were doing. + “I can go talk to anyone, and this is fun. And I understand our products and I understand our platform. And I can talk the tech to the point where I understand it, and I can also convey it to our engineers and put in requirements.” – Nicholas Aronne, on becoming a product owner + Nicholas likes the term product owner because it communicates a sense of ownership or ultimate responsibility. Sometimes product managers do not always feel like they manage the product and don’t have that level of ownership. + “Really at the end of the day your goal is to make sure that you take ownership of that product, and you do the best you can for the product and for your customers and your stakeholders.” – Nicholas Aronne, on the job of a product manager, whether it is called product manager, product owner, or something else

22:51 – Project Management Experience* Just before coming to the development team mentioned above, Nicholas had worked on a major project on ibm.com. Keep in mind this was around the time companies were changing their websites to support online sales. + More specifically, Nicholas gained project management skills from work he and others did to provide IBM website users a way to customize the configuration of machines they wanted to buy (storage, memory, etc.). This was a direct revenue stream for the company and required a lot of heavy lifting. + Nicholas says his personality was well suited to assign tasks to other members of this team and keep them on track. + “There is a form or a skillset of being a product manager….You kind of have to project manage yourself and the moving pieces, but they are two distinct roles.” – Nicholas Aronne + A project manager may be constantly checking to verify things are on track, but a product manager consistently analyzes things like… - Am I returning the value the customer expects? - Am I growing? - Is the product seen as valuable? - Will the customer renew their subscription to / license of the product? This is extremely important in the age of SaaS (software-as-a-service). If a customer cannot justify to their internal stakeholders that a product is driving value, they may choose not to use it any longer. - Product managers want their products to be “sticky” with customers. They want customers to see their product as better and something customers can leverage to achieve their desired outcomes even if there are alternative options in the marketplace. - “It may not have a thousand features, but it has the features I need and provides the value I need.” – Nicholas Aronne, on customer choice of a product - It isn’t always about adding more features so customers will buy a product. This can create what Nicholas refers to as feature fatigue. - “If I don’t see value in Netflix because they’re not producing enough content, I just cut it off next week.” – Nicholas Aronne * Part of the exercise of product teams going to speak with customers that Nicholas discussed earlier is formally referred to as product discovery and is a validation mechanism to determine if customers are gaining value from using a product. + “Customers are really good at identifying when they have a problem. They’re just really not good at identifying what that problem is.” – Nicholas Aronne + If a customer shares that a button within a software product does not work some of the time, for example, Nicholas wants to know what they are trying to achieve by using the button. As a product manager he has a team of engineers behind him but wants to understand how to use those resources to deliver more value to a customer. + “I want to know the problem and let us work on a solution. And then ultimately, that is why people pay for products.” – Nicholas Aronne + Engineers like to build things, but before doing so they should consider the type of industry they are in and why their job exists. Writing products just because we want to is not servicing the larger goal. This is quite prevalent in the tech industry with IT teams not realizing they are charged with servicing the business and its end users and providing value.

28:34 – Product Owner vs. Product Manager* The product owner role Nicholas described is not the same as a formal product manager title, which John mentioned came from consumer packaged goods and was later applied to software. * Though it might be hotly contested by people as to what product managers do, some of the “big rocks” from Nicholas’ perspective are product strategy, market analysis (part of the product strategy), and developing roadmaps. * Nicholas thinks the product owner came naturally to him partially due to his engineering background. * In a product owner world, you’re usually (according to agile) embedded with a team and very close to them. + People can get quite creative with organizational structures (no one right way to do it), and there could be both a product manager (PM) and a product owner (PO), for example. It’s possible to have a strategic PM and a functional PM as well. + The product owner role in an agile world acts as eyes and ears of the product to ensure as things move forward the product stays in alignment with the strategy set forth by the business and the product managers. + The product owner may seek to determine why the requirements were missed or why they were not uncovered earlier in the process (seeking to improve upon this and shorten development cycles). + Sometimes you have to pay more attention to what the customer doesn’t say rather than what the customer is actually saying. We need to make sure we go back and validate assumptions we are making. + In startups, someone may need to wear many hats or do both the product owner and product manager role. In a large enterprise, things get more focused (i.e. doing roadmaps, just gathering requirements, facing the customer, or even internal product managers and product owners who stay close to the development lifecycle. * During Nicholas’ time at IBM, the company did have a formal product manager role, but that role did not formally exist on his team.
His understanding from those he knows currently at IBM is HR has now changed the titles for these to offering manager. But what we’re talking about is overall responsibilities similar to that of a RACI matrix + Nicholas says the team he worked on ran very similar to the way a startup does and ran lean, sharing the construct of the iron triangle – time, money, and priorities. + Budgets may be fixed, for example, so Nicholas and team would be very intentional about priorities and time and what they chose to deliver. + “That is just a natural progression of understanding the ecosystem that you’re working in and understanding the goals and what you own.” – Nicholas Aronne * John can see how it might be tough to embed a product manager with a development team working on a number of different projects for many different teams. Usually a product manager is aligned with the team that owns the long term roadmap for something and not just a short project. But maybe a product owner makes sense here. + Nicholas doesn’t think there is necessarily a right way or a wrong way to go about this, but it’s important to look at the overall goal and the metrics used to evaluate against it. + The challenge that still invigorates and excites Nicholas is the limitation of resources. It’s like a puzzle to solve. + “The idea is though…can you do it on time? Can you do it on budget? And does the customer see the value? I’m boiling it down to it being that simple, but in reality, we know it’s not. If we do our job well, it looks easy.” – Nicholas Aronne + There are many types of products out there (retail products, software products, etc.). For those who want to get into product, much of it is about working well with a diverse group of people like… - Marketers – is the product something they can market? - Salespeople – is the product something that can easily be sold? - Engineers – do they have interesting problems to solve and cool technology that makes their work exciting? - “Product wants to be solving problems. We are to some extent people pleasers. Yes, we want to make money. We’re all there to make money….but at the end of the day it’s got to be sustaining, and hopefully it’s growing.” – Nicholas Aronne + Nicholas highlights both the passion and the personality elements that product managers possess and how these present differently depending on the individual. - “We bring our experiences to it, and we have different ways of looking at it….Not all customers are the same, but we do have to produce one product that does cater to a mass audience….No one builds one product and says ‘I’ve made success because I have a customer.’” – Nicholas Aronne, on the product manager’s lens and definitions of success - Product managers need to be thinking about the next customer and the one after that. It gets easier to justify your existence as a product manager as relationships with customers are developed, especially since product teams want customers to have a long term relationship with a product.

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Welcome to episode 256 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 3 of an interview with Larry Roberts, detailing Larry’s discovery of and love for podcasting as a creative outlet, thoughts on personal branding, gaining personal and professional brand influence through public speaking, and some advice for aspiring business owners and entrepreneurs.

Original Recording Date: 11-11-2023

Topics – Discovering Podcasting, Personal Branding, Expanding Influence through Public Speaking, Advice for the Would Be Entrepreneur3:17 – Discovering Podcasting* Larry got out of rehab in January 2014. A friend from work knew Larry looking for something (though unsure of what). This person knew Larry was into fighting and UFC and knew Joe Rogan commentated for the UFC. At first, Larry dismissed the suggestion to listen to Joe Rogan’s podcast, thinking podcasts were for nerds. + Larry finally ended up listening to a Joe Rogan podcast with a couple of comedians on it (Joey Diaz and Tony Hinchcliffe). It was really to get his friend to stop bugging him about it. It was the same kind of comedians who liked to push the envelope similar to those Larry grew up following in the 1980s (like Andrew Dice Clay and others). - Larry loved what he heard and to his surprise thought podcasts were super cool. He knew he could use the medium as a way to say whatever he wanted and not get in trouble. + Larry decided to start a comedy podcast with his friend Kenny’s son Jamie, who was a stand up comedian in Dallas / Fort Worth. - Larry bought a single Yeti Snowball microphone that they would pass back and forth while recording their first podcast episode. + John thinks of podcast as a medium that is really democratized radio. Larry says there are around 114 categories on Apple podcasts today, making it easy to find almost anything you want to hear. - “To have your own radio show, there are massive barriers, but to have you own podcast, all you needed was…that Yeti Snowball.” – John White - Larry merely needed the microphone, a computer, and a free software like Audacity to record the audio. - “Plug in a USB microphone, and you’re off to the races.” – Larry Roberts, on starting a podcast back in 2014 * What kept Larry doing the podcast after starting? + Larry considers himself a creative thinker more than anything. Listen to his description of his high school class ring. + “Art and business were always my two favorite things….So creativity was always at the forefront of my thought process, and podcasting allowed me a creative outlet. It gave me that opportunity to be as creative as I wanted in an unregulated wild, wild west type of an environment, and man, that’s where I thrive.” – Larry Roberts + Larry’s podcast performed amazingly. They took it from a podcast to a live stage show (also very successful) which eventually became an open mic night. This became the largest open mic in Dallas / Fort Worth outside of comedy clubs. - “People would drive from all over the metroplex to come to this open mic, and it all started from our podcast.” – Larry Roberts + Larry’s co-host Jamie used the podcast to launch a comedy career. Jamie went on a tour with Eddie Griffin, had a residency in Las Vegas, and continues to do comedy today. - “He’s just crushing it, and all of it came from the podcast. So that…really showed me what the power of a podcast could be.” – Larry Roberts, on the impact of the comedy podcast on his co-host’s career * Larry continues to be surprised that he was never fired from his employer since he pushed the envelope a number of times. + He tells us the name of the podcast was an innuendo, and they had merchandise for it. People at the office eventually were wearing the podcast’s merchandise. Since the name of the show was an innuendo, it was a bit inappropriate for this to happen in an office environment. + Larry was called into HR at one point and given a choice to either quit the show or find a new job. Since Larry didn’t want to leave his corporate pay check behind, he chose to stop the show. - “Either it’s you or the show, bro. One’s gotta go.” – Larry Roberts, on the choice he was presented with related to his comedy podcast + The open mic Larry mentioned earlier remained in place and only shut down sometime in the last year as of the date of this recording. * “But when I had to walk away from the show, I still knew I loved podcasting. I loved that creative element of podcasting. So I end up starting a new show….” – Larry Roberts + Larry says he didn’t really understand how podcasting worked, how to find your audience, how to find a podcast’s niche, or how branding worked. Larry and Jamie had ended up with a successful show because it was content people enjoyed. They had guests on the show from a variety of backgrounds that made it really fun. Larry did not know how to replicate that success without staying in the same genre. + Larry’s next podcast was called Readily Random, which he doesn’t feel really told anyone what the show entailed. This show name came from the name of a blog Larry had back in the days of MySpace (which he says no one really read). - The show’s premise was Larry planned to talked to whoever he wanted and have engaging conversations. - With Larry being a big fan of origami, one of his guests was a MIT professor and the top origami artist in the world as an example. - “So that was really hard to go from a show that had a strong following and had engagement to a show that really not many people listened to. But I just enjoyed it, so I kept doing it.” – Larry Roberts + Eventually Larry learned how to market and grow a podcast as well as how to find an audience. + The show’s name changed over time (through several iterations), and its eventual name was You’re the Boss, focused on entrepreneurs and their success. - Larry eventually got burned out on the concept and killed the show. - “It didn’t feel creative. It just felt redundant.” – Larry Roberts, on the decision to stop focusing on a specific podcast - Larry reiterates how heavily he will focus on something until he reaches the point of burning out (once the creative aspect disappears). * Larry says the feeling of redundancy was a result of having the same conversations over and over and feeling like he was creating infomercials. + Guests were coming to Larry though booking agencies in a lot of cases. + Larry tells is there wasn’t a real emotional involvement on his part in the show. It felt like guests were coming on the show to talk about their latest business venture, book, or podcast. + Larry says there wasn’t an exchange of mutual benefits when guests would come on the show. He didn’t really get anything out of it and isn’t sure guests did either. + “Now I have to produce the show, I have to have it edited, I have to market the show, I have to do all this fun stuff…and they’re just gone. So I started getting a little jaded in that arena and wanted to go back to just having fun podcasts.” – Larry Roberts, on recognizing his podcast wasn’t enjoyable any longer + Larry says he didn’t have a podcast for 9-12 months and then started a new show called Branded with Sara Lohse focused on personal branding. They are just over 20 episodes in as of the recording of this episode, and you can check out the show here. - This has been a fun endeavor for Larry and is usually just him and his co-host Sara sharing tips for how to create a personal brand and how to leverage that personal brand to gain attention and clients.

14:58 – Personal Branding* Nick has never liked the combination of words “personal brand” but understands why we need it in our careers. John suggests it might be because marketing implies sales and has to do with the idea of selling yourself. + Larry says he felt this way near the end of his podcast “You’re the Boss.” + “I felt like I was on the podcast street corner and people were coming by and picking me up for a half hour and then…dropping me back off where they found me. And it…wasn’t fulfilling any more. It was more of a chore than anything else. There was no creative aspect to it. There was no fun to it. And I desperately wanted to get back to the fun of podcasting.” – Larry Roberts + To Larry, personal branding means getting attention. It means thinking about how you bring attention to your show, your business, your message, how to go about creating a community, and how you engage with people. + Larry says people look at him, see the red hat he wears, and mention his brand is very strong. But in reality it’s just a hat he started wearing by accident. Wherever he goes in the podcast space and now to some extent in the AI space, the red hat guy is his brand. - Larry had a speaking spot at the EO Nerve conference a few weeks before this recording, but due to an injury that put him in the hospital right before the conference he was unable to speak. - After getting out of the hospital with one more day left in the conference, Larry decided to go down to the conference center and have lunch. There were some people he wanted to meet. When Larry stepped off the elevator he was swarmed with people who recognized him as someone who was supposed to speak at the conference. They didn’t necessarily know his name, but they recognized his personal logo / personal brand / personal identifier (the red hat). - “But what people don’t understand is…this is just for people to recognize me. The personal brand is everything that you have that’s underneath this red hat. It’s the value you bring to your customers. It’s the value you bring to your community. It’s the way you bring that value to that community. It’s finding your uniqueness…. It’s not just having that red hat on your head that makes you stand out in a crowd. It’s the value proposition that’s underneath it.” – Larry Roberts - Larry Winget ones said “find your uniqueness, then learn how to leverage that uniqueness in the service of others.” – Larry Roberts - John says the red hat brand is an anchor point for people to remember what Larry brings to the conversation. - Larry is reading a book right now called Hook Point by Brendan Kane about grabbing attention with your brand within 3 seconds. + Maybe John needs to get a hat that matches the color of his employer’s brand? Larry says he is often asked by others what they can wear to make themselves stand out. It doesn’t have to be an article of clothing necessarily. - Larry cites Jesse Cole, owner of the Savannah Bananas, recognizable by the yellow tux he wears everywhere he goes. Cole also wrote a book called Find Your Yellow Tux. Jesse Cole created the Savannah Bananas as a brand and made baseball games family friendly experiences people look forward to attending. It’s like attending a family event that is focused on community and a memorable experience for all who attend. Many people may not understand how Cole has really taken attending a game to a whole new level. - As of this recording Larry is about to publish a book called Under the Red Hat: How to Stand out in a Crowded Marketplace. + Since we are a career oriented podcast, he wonders how we as advisors can bring the show to people trying to advance in their careers. - “It doesn’t have to be an article of clothing. It could be anything, but you want that thing to be memorable because you want people to know and understand what it is you’re bringing to the table…what your strengths are and the advantages they are going to have by having you around….A branding exercise is a memory exercise.” – John White, on brand recognition - John references the Intel Inside slogan we discussed earlier in the interview and how it is likely the first time a lot of people thought of Intel outside of the computer industry. - Larry refers to this as sonic branding (associating specific sounds with specific brands like the sound of Transformers). + From a corporate perspective it is about how people perceive you. - Even though people were not allowed to ask or talk about where Larry was during his time in rehab once he returned, he feels they knew where he was. - The brand he had at the time (an alcoholic who went to rehab) overshadowed everything. - “No matter what the quality of my work was, that still hung over my head like a dark cloud. And that became my brand. And it also became…an obvious stopping point for my career there. I didn’t necessarily have to leave, but I knew that if I stayed there, I wasn’t going anywhere. Any aspirations of a higher level position or a management position or any kind of leadership position, that’s toast…because I did exponential damage to my personal brand within the office.” – Larry Roberts, on his own personal brand at his employer after returning from rehab - Your brand in the office could be the quality of work you do, the quality of care you provide your co-workers, being a good listener, or taking something someone said into what they are asking for. - Establishing a personal brand within a corporate environment is not about what you see or hear. It’s about something you experience, and this is where people lose sight of establishing a personal brand within a corporate environment. + Maybe we need to figure out what our superpower is / the things we’re very good at and try to leave an impression on others with these. - Larry shares the story of someone who worked the help desk at his former employer who wasn’t the most technically savvy member of the team. Despite this, people knew every Friday at 2 PM this person would be filling up paper in their printers throughout the office. - Our personal brands can literally be anything. - Nick likes to tell his daughter people are watching her say / do ratio and whether she is known for someone who does what she committed to do. People are always watching, even when we do not think they are.

25:24 – Expanding Influence through Public Speaking* Larry went from podcaster to founding a business that helps others build brands through podcasting and leverages some of his technical skills from previous experience, including a focus on AI. But how? + Larry tells us it was many things, and he sort of stumbled into it. + Back when he was in the corporate world, he was leveraging the Microsoft BI (or business intelligence) suite. It had predictive analytics, and Larry had a basic understanding of how AI technologies could help businesses. + When ChatGPT was released, Larry felt it could streamline what people are doing in the podcast space (i.e. streamline much of the workflow). + Many people want to podcast but don’t realize how much work it takes to get from recording to releasing a podcast such as doing the recording, scheduling guests, making edits, and creating content for marketing. - During COVID, many of the creators who decided to start a podcast (Larry calls them “COVID creators”) faded within 3 episodes because they did not understand the workload involved. + In January 2023 Larry was chosen as a speaker at Podfest, the largest independent podcasting conference (geared toward independent podcasters). - There is also Podcast Movement, focused more on industry and big companies. + At Podfest Larry spoke about AI and was placed on the main stage, presenting to a room of around 400 people 2 days straight. The talk was focused on using ChatGPT for content creation (i.e. generating show notes, show titles, show scripts, social media posts, etc.). - In January 2023 ChatGPT was still text only. Larry focused on all uses of the tool for podcasting. - “That talk just launched so many opportunities for me.” – Larry Roberts, reflecting on his Podfest 2023 presentation - There were business owners in the crowd and some promoters for different organizations who approached Larry after the talk to come to their companies / organizations to discuss what AI is and how companies can use it. - Larry has been a regular on ABC during Good Morning Texas in the Dallas area. Check out his segments on Jobs at Risk of Being Replaced by AI and Top Artificial Intelligence Jobs. - These opportunities came to Larry because he understood what the impact of AI could be on the content creation industry and then sharing it with people. It’s channeling his collective experience into a new opportunity. * How did being a podcaster, a trainer, and attending Toastmasters mesh together to make Larry a better public speaker (often times delivering a keynote)? + Larry says the stages have grown over time and have grown fast as of late. He finds doing this a lot of fun. + Larry says he would attribute this to being a good communicator and participating in Toastmasters. + Larry recalls a conversation with someone recently about going from the cage to the stage. - “Going from the cage to the stage…it’s the same level of excitement. It’s the same level of fulfillment. When I go on stage, I have the same exact butterflies. I have the same exact nerves. It’s the same fears that I had ever time before I would climb in the ring. And then after I deliver that talk and if I see that the audience really got some value and I feel like I just crushed it…it felt the same as getting my hand raised after a fight.” – Larry Roberts + Larry says it was all the elements coming together to be comfortable enough to step on stage and perform at a certain level. - “When you’re keynoting, it’s a performance. You’re putting on a show. You’re having to provide value, you’re also having to make it entertaining, and you’re having to make a genuine connection with a room full, typically a large room full, of strangers….It doesn’t matter if I’m talking to a room of deca-millionairs at Entrepreneurs Organization or I’m talking to the state board of education in San Antonio just last week. I still go on stage in the same thing.” – Larry Roberts, on keynoting and staying on brand - Larry is consistent in how he takes the stage no matter where he is (including wearing the red ball cap), but he has to communicate at the level of the audience in usage of language and terminology. - Larry believes his skillsets in understanding both how to communicate and at what level to do it have made him successful in his speaking career to date. He also admits he has a long way to go.

32:13 – Advice for the Would Be Entrepreneur* Ensure you have a problem identified to solve. * One thing people don’t hear enough is you have to plan for going out on your own and stepping away from corporate life.

+ Larry didn’t just wake up in January 2021 and decide to leave the corporate world. He and his wife had agreed the year before that he would leave and had adjusted their budgets. Larry says they also paid off all their debt and went down to only one car since Larry would be working from home.
+ “Our debt was minimized, our outgoing expenses were extremely minimized, and we had saved to a point where I had enough money to give us a cushion….” – Larry Roberts
+ Larry says his wife doesn’t really understand the entrepreneur in Larry, but she has become more and more supportive over the last 3 years. Now she is his biggest fan.
+ “But again, we planned for it. I didn’t just wake up and have some wild hair that now I’m going to be a podcaster and everything’s going to work out….because it didn’t. When I left January 4th I had a certain business plan., and I tried to implement that business plan for 8 months….My wife was like ‘…you had this plan. Well it’s not really working, is it?’” – Larry Roberts
+ Larry says when things were not working (see quote above), he had to make adjustments and change the model and what his ideal client would be like, for example.
+ Larry began adapting until things started to work. After making very little money the first year, he surpassed his salary in years 2 and 3 with next year looking bright as well.
+ “It’s that planning, regardless of what it is, man. Don’t just wake up one morning and go, ‘I’m out,’ because it’s probably not going to work for you.” – Larry Roberts
+ John likes the idea of de-risking the process by handling personal finance, having a supportive spouse with a consistent income, and paying down debt. Larry says his wife is good at providing reality checks and honest feedback.
    - This process of decreasing risk is likely helpful not just for the entrepreneur but for someone who wants to work for a startup for example.
    - Larry agrees, especially if you have kids. We need to take all aspects of our responsibilities into consideration when making decisions such as these. In Larry’s case, his kids were already grown.
    - Larry shares how proud he is of his kids and feels they are much more successful than he ever was.

Larry says he’s lived a very Forest Gump like life with a wide variety of experiences.
If you want to follow up with Larry, you can find him on…
- The Red Hat Media website
- On Instagram – @thelarryroberts
- On Facebook
- On LinkedIn
- Mentioned in the outro
- Personal brand is the sum of our actions and words as perceived by others. Is your personal brand the same at the job you hold now compared to your previous job or even your previous employer?
  - Larry’s story is a lesson for all of us in that we can change our personal brand. It is going to take time and effort.
- The consistency with which Larry shows up on stage helps people know what to expect from him. Would others say you are consistent in how you show up?
- As a keynote speaker, Larry wants to make an impact on his audience. It takes a lot of preparation for this kind of presentation.
  - We as individuals should be thinking about tailoring our message in every presentation based on who the audience is (i.e. business focused or technically focused) and their level of competency in an area (i.e. advanced level, intermediate, or beginner).
  - Larry is still an effective trainer and instructor from the stage.
- There’s a theme of creative, fluid iteration in this discussion.
  - After podcasting for some time, Larry recognized a change was needed in his show for him to find enjoyment again. Consider this when working on long-term creative projects.
  - The fluidity applies to the business owner / entrepreneur as well. After working the first 8 months of his business on that initial business plan, Larry had to make changes and adjustments to improve the results he was getting. Business owners should assume what they start with is going to continue to change over time just like Todd Cochrane shared in our discussions from Episode 250 and Episode 251.
- For those wanting additional episodes containing stories of business owners / other entrepreneurs, check out the following recommendations (only a small sample from the catalog):o
  - Episode 13 – The Sniper Approach to Job Hunting with Tom Delicati
  - {Episode 14 – From IT Ops to Entrepreneur with Tom Delicati](https://nerd-journey.com/nerd-journey-014-from-it-ops-to-entrepreneur/)
  - Episode 96 – Sponsorship, Dreams, and the Path to Entrepreneurship with Ashley Connell
  - Episode 97 – Building Your Own Business From Idea to Operations with Ashley Connell
  - Episode 235 – The Best Bad Option with Al Elliott (1/2)
  - Episode 236 – Having the Vision, Charting the Path, Removing the Blockers with Al Elliott (2/2)
  - Episode 183 – Practice Makes Habit with Michael Levan (1/2)
  - Episode 184 – Dive Deeper and Enjoy the Process with Michael Levan (2/2)
  - Episode 119 – Tinkering into Specialty with David Klee (1/2)
  - Episode 120 – A Time to Build with David Klee (2/2)
  - Episode 216 – Experiencing a Neurodivergent Diagnosis with Kristen Carder (1/2)
  - Episode 217 – The Vulnerable Parts of ADHD with Kristen Carder (2/2)

Hook Point: How to Stand Out in a 3-Second World

Find Your Yellow Tux: How to Be Successful by Standing Out

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Welcome to episode 255 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 2 of an interview with Larry Roberts, discussing Larry’s experience as part of the IT group and his work on ERP system implementation, the cultural changes affecting him as a result of corporate acquisitions, his personal struggles with alcohol, and the story of his path to recovery and resilience.

Original Recording Date: 11-11-2023

Larry Roberts is a budding entrepreneur and owner of Red Hat Media. Red Hat Media focuses on podcasting, building better brands through podcasting, and building better podcasts through leveraging AI tools. If you missed part one of our discussion with Larry, check out Episode 254.

Topics – ERP and Implementation Experience, Acquisitions and the Struggles of Working in IT, A Changing Culture, Side Hustles, Getting Lost, Warning Signs and Recovery* Mentioned in the intro + We forgot to mention during the interview that ERP stands for enterprise resource planning. This is a business software with modules that integrate functions such as accounting, order entry, purchasing, warehouse operations, and perhaps transportation management into a single package.

3:36 – ERP and Implementation Experience* Larry was brought into the fold very early in the ERP system implementation process. This was around 2000 or 2001. + Larry feels like they had purchased the JD Edwards software already. + There were discussions on the version they would use (one that was an experience more like using Windows and one that was more of a green screen terminal experience). - Larry believes the decision had already been made to use the green screen version (JD Edwards World) of the application. + John says one of his first jobs was a search for an ERP system application. - John remembers being involved in determining if his company was going to choose the version with the GUI version or the green screen version. - The green screen versions of the software usually ran on a mainframe and were extremely fast, having a number of keyboard shortcuts users would need to learn. It was a high ramp up time to get proficient, but once trained people could do everything without needing to use a mouse. - The Windows versions looked prettier but were slower to use (lots of mouse clicks needed). + Larry says the team went with the green screen version of the JD Edwards software due to the very customized versions of WMS (warehouse management systems), and this was also a big RPG Programming shop. The company wanted the customizability on the back end. - Larry tells us he never really understood this decision, feeling like there was customization at each facility to match the way that facility did things instead of facilities adapting their processes to the way the system worked. It felt like each facility’s customizations were completely different. - This decision is a tough one for any system according to Nick – do we change the way we’re doing things to fit this new solution or do we fit the solution to what we are already doing to prevent more work? - People at Larry’s company even read Who Moved My Cheese to lay groundwork for change, but the change never really happened from what Larry saw. - John remembers reading that book around the same time. + Larry’s company grew through acquisitions and still does to this day. He says they reached the $1 billion mark in the last few years and continues to grow. - John mentions we can often see technical debt at companies if they do not have a true merger and acquisition strategy and integrate ERP and other systems with the systems from the company which was acquired. Lack of data flowing electronically between systems can really slow down business processes around order flow and fulfillment. - Larry mentioned his wife is going through this very thing and is teaching the JD Edwards system to accounting personnel from an acquisition so everyone can be on the same system.

8:43 – Acquisitions and the Struggles of Working in IT* Larry says mergers and acquisitions really impacted his career. In one particular acquisition his company acquired another company and brought over a number of the people from the acquisition. Larry highlights this an extreme culture shift. + “It changed my perception of my role and my position within the company quite a bit. That’s where things started to go a little south for me, and I started to realize ‘this isn’t where I started working. This isn’t the same company today.’ It’s still an amazing company. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t necessarily the fit for the company any more, and it made me have to start looking for some outside alternatives.” – Larry Roberts * Larry tells us the experience working in IT was quite intimidating and that he was lost much of the time. He had taken a Pascal programming course at one point, but outside of Atari and Nintendo, it was his only introduction to technology. + Larry did not know how he would survive in that environment. Team members would talk about RPG programming and other technology terms that he didn’t fully understand. + Larry had to go through what he calls a “time of evolution.” + Being part of the core team, Larry tells us there was probably a year of planning during which he and other members of the implementation team would visit a site to understand it operationally. Based on the observations, Larry and his team members would determine if they needed to make changes to the way the new ERP system would be implemented for the site in question’s operational processes or whether some operational processes needed to change to fit the new system. + These visits were an opportunity to absorb some of the tribal knowledge at each facility. Larry was able to develop an intimate knowledge of the JD Edwards software (JDE as he calls it), how to navigate through the various screens, and a deep understanding of the back end database. + “When you understand a database and you understand the data, at least from my perspective, I didn’t have to know the concept. I just had to know where to go to get the data that this person wants to see….And if I knew where to go get that, I could give them the information they were looking for.” – Larry Roberts + There is a parallel here to understanding techniques (like throwing punches and kicks) but not understanding their application. + Larry felt secure learning the data over the years. He says after the majority of the implementations were complete, they would only need to do implementations when there were acquisitions. The implementation process had been streamlined to the point where there was little to no training to do, and Larry was not traveling much to do training and teaching of ERP system users. Other members of the team who were doing business analysis and passing data back to programmers for these acquisitions would do that as part of the streamlined implementation process. + Larry realized he needed to understand things at a more conceptual level. It was about understanding the data as well as how it applied to different departments. He needed to understand how the data could allow management to make decisions with information from the business at a transactional level. + Larry says he started to flounder a little bit and started to improve in what he understood, but then the company started to expect more and wanted him to become a programmer. + Larry considers himself more of a creative and feels programming is not his thing. He might get focused more on how a report looks and lose sight of the fact that the data in the report didn’t provide what someone needed. + “I struggled in that arena, and that’s kind of where I was at at the end of my career with that company – still struggling with how to apply things conceptually.” – Larry Roberts + Larry knew the database schemas well (database table layout). When this went one level up and they needed to measure how the business was doing, Larry was able to learn this as a skill (more of the context and concepts around the data). He started struggling when they wanted him to do things programmatically. + Larry says he was skilled at writing SQL queries and considers himself above intermediate level. He would even train other people to write queries within the JD Edwards query tool to get day to day information that went beyond just reports. It was using the more complex languages like RPG programming and C# where he really started to struggle. + People also called him “Crystal Larry” (a name he didn’t like) due to his expertise in Crystal Reports, and he would often teach and train others to use the software. + “Crystal Reports, SQL…man I’m good to go, but we take it to that next evolution, that’s where I started having some issues.” – Larry Roberts + Larry highlights ETL (extract, transform, load) processes as a challenge, things like writing a program to take data from multiple sources and normalize it. + At this point in Larry’s career he was in his 40s and not eager to learn new things. There were people on the team fresh out of school or considerably younger (some in data science / with a data science degree) who were writing programs Larry couldn’t understand very well. - Looking back Larry feels maybe he got a little desperate near the end of his tenure with that company.

17:12 – A Changing Culture* Perhaps what Larry wanted to do was leave the company * After absorbing the new company Larry referenced earlier, there were new people from the absorbed company placed in management roles. Larry ended up reporting to one of them. + “The very first conversation I had with him…he called me his subordinate. And that did not resonate with me. And I let him know….And that was just our first encounter.” – Larry Roberts, on his first interaction with a manager + Larry let his boss know that he wasn’t going to be called a subordinate but that he would be happy to show the respect that his boss’s role deserved by calling him sir. + This new manager brought a very different culture that did not work for Larry, and nothing changed even when he gave feedback to people in higher levels of management. + “This is just not the company that I grew to know and love, and I don’t really fit here. And I knew I didn’t fit there not just culturally, but I knew I didn’t fit there from a skills perspective either.” – Larry Roberts + Larry felt his skillsets were dated, and the employees coming in were younger and doing amazing work. He felt threatened by not having the skillset to keep up with others but also did not feel motivated at the time to bridge the recognized skills gap. + Though Larry was skilled at SQL, he didn’t love writing SQL queries or code. It was not personally rewarding even though the job was rewarding from a financial perspective. - “We had all the toys we wanted. But, Monday through Friday from 7 AM until 6 PM and on call 24×7…the toys didn’t justify the responsibilities enough in my eyes at the time anymore. I started to become very jaded, less engaged…I just hated it. I grew to hate it. And I knew I had to get out.” – Larry Roberts, on compensation vs. job fulfillment

19:47 – Side Hustles* Larry mentions burnout on the Red Hat Media website. How soon before leaving did he start to notice it was time to do so? + Around 2017 / 2018 was when Larry founded a media company (not called Red Hat then). Larry had the idea that podcasting and content creation could be a full-time job (i.e. a way to exit the corporate world). + Larry says even before this he’s always had some sort of side hustle. Even when he was loving his corporate job Larry had started a swimming pool company, growing it with the help of Google Ad Words. Larry says he grew the pool business to the point where he would either need to pursue it full time and leave his corporate job or sell the company. - “And at the time I was still loving my job, and I just did not have that internal fortitude to cut that guaranteed paycheck and pursue that entrepreneurial journey. So I ended up selling the company.” – Larry Roberts, on selling off his pool business - Before the swimming pool company Larry had a number of online businesses. As one example, he would sell all sorts of things on eBay (digital copies of manuals, etc.) and did much of that at work. Any money he made doing this was referred to as “mailbox money.” - Larry started one online business that would break up with someone for you. Listen to the story he tells about it. - “Side hustles were always my thing. I always had to have some fun on the side. This entrepreneurial thing wasn’t something I jumped on when I fell into podcasting. I’ve always had that entrepreneurial spirit on the side that kept me going too.” – Larry Roberts + How did Larry feel about parting with companies he may have sold off? - Larry had a lot of regrets selling the pool company and looking back wonders where he might be if he had kept it. - Larry says he had over 50 customers when the swimming pool company was sold and 2 employees who worked under him. The person who recruited Larry into IT was a friend and mentor (and still is), allowing Larry to arrange his schedule to do both his normal job and run the pool company. He would work 6 AM – 3 PM for example and still have time to take care of pool customers after work. - Things were in place to make the pool business as successful as it could be, but at the time Larry didn’t have the courage to step into it full time. It’s the only endeavor he started that he regrets letting go.

23:48 – Getting Lost* In 2014 Larry became interested in podcasting. * If you recall, Larry continued practicing martial arts even after getting a job in the corporate world. After training with some excellent fighters and realizing he wasn’t going to make it to the UFC as a martial artist, he felt a little lost. * Larry was born with a birth defect leaving him with only 60% of the average person’s lung capacity. * “Once…I started fighting athletes that knew how to fight, it was over. And there was nothing, nothing I could do to overcome that because I had no gas tank….That was a very difficult, difficult time in my life…that realization.” – Larry Roberts, on reaching a peak in his fighting career * After his happened, Larry threw himself into corporate life. The implementation team he worked on was a tight knit group almost like a fraternity. + “Everybody hung out together, everybody was kind of family-esque….We would work, and then after we would get off work we would go to a bar. And we would hang out at the bar, and we’d close the bar down. And that became life for the longest time.” – Larry Roberts + Larry likes to throw himself into things he does wholeheartedly, and he threw himself into partying heavily. Partying was not something he had done in his earlier years. + In November 2013 alcohol became a problem to the point where he had to go to rehab. In July of the same year Larry had to go into the hospital for several days for alcohol poisoning. + After returning from the hospital, the person who had hired Larry in the IT department (now a VP) confronted him about the problem. Others at work knew Larry had been drinking and the real reason why he was in the hospital. Larry was given a choice – if the issue happened again he would either go to rehab or have to find a new job. + Larry says he cleaned up for a couple of months, but the habit slowly crept back slowly with consumption levels rising over time. + “And before you knew it I was just in a complete state of utter chaos.” – Larry Roberts, on slowly starting to drink again after trying to kick the habit + Looking back, Larry isn’t quite sure why the company didn’t fire him. But they didn’t. The company really cared about their employees. + Gin was Larry’s drink of choice. Thinking back on the times right before he went to rehab, Larry remembers being pretty low and having a moment of clarity. Listen to Larry tell the full story. - “I had a realization that if I didn’t get help right then, I wasn’t going to see tomorrow.” – Larry Roberts - Larry reached out to a friend and co-worker (Kenny), saying he needed help. Kenny pulled in Ray (the boss and VP who had hired Larry originally) and Larry’s wife to take him to rehab. - Larry was taken to a very distinguished rehab center thanks to some arrangements Ray had made. Upon initially arriving at rehab, Larry had to be taken to the hospital to stabilize his vitals. - After several days in the hospital Larry went to the recovery wing of the rehab center for about a week and then went through the process for around 7 more weeks. At that point he was sober. - Larry had done a lot of damage to his nervous system and was in some pain. But the treatment and the rehab process was effective.

28:45 – Warning Signs and Recovery* What other warning signs were present aside from the conversation with Ray?

+ Larry says his inner circle encouraged him to “dial it back.”
+ There were also physical warnings.
    - Larry had paranoia and could not drive on a highway without having a panic attack (i.e. shaking in fear). He ignored this and would drive on side streets and through neighborhoods instead (which did not cause panic).
    - “I love to drive with the windows down and the tunes cranked up and just escape in my ride. But I couldn’t do that anymore.” – Larry Roberts, on the physical warning signs of an alcohol problem
    - When there was any kind of stress (even the smallest bit), Larry’s body would be drenched in sweat. He remembers one specific instance of being called into a late afternoon meeting and beginning to sweat through his pants to the point where his khakis looked like camouflage.
+ Larry was missing work because of his drinking. In fact, he was out of work for 2-3 weeks right before going to rehab. Without that moment of clarity, Larry might have continued to drink until it was over.
    - “You’re playing this game, and now the game’s over. This is it. This is your last call. So do you really want it to be over? Or do you want to reach out and say, yeah, I gotta do something about this? Thankfully I reached out and did something about it.” – Larry Roberts
+ Larry was supposed to be at rehab for 6 weeks but felt he wasn’t ready to go home yet or ready for social interaction. After a brief lunch with his wife, he asked her to take him back to rehab for another week.
    - “I went back and I did another week, and at the end of that week I was ready…because I think I had that time to mentally prepare myself and…go through some discussions that helped me balance out the reality of the situation….” – Larry Roberts, on going back for an additional week of rehab

After finishing his rehab, Larry was on a number of medications. Certain things did and did not work once he was sober and integrating back into regular life. The intent is to share his experience.
- Larry did not attend support meetings after the fact, finding that meetings were not his thing. If you are reading this or listening and need to attend them to help on your own journey to sobriety, please do it!
- We cite two support organizations each person in rehab had to choose from – Alcoholics Anonymous (or AA) and SMART (Self-Management and Recovery Training).
  - Larry chose SMART because there was a goal / end, which was sobriety.
  - The model of Alcoholics Anonymous (a continual program) did not work for Larry. While Larry does have an addictive personality, he does not consider himself an alcoholic any longer.
- Larry’s employer had taken care of him in putting him through rehab and upon return, no one was allowed to ask him about where he was or what he had been doing.
- Overall, Larry says this was a very difficult time in his life.
- Mentioned in the outro
- Larry’s entrepreneurial endeavors alongside his main career speaks to the balance of passions with professional responsibilities. It also may hint at the path to becoming a successful full-time business owner (more on that next week).
- Larry was amazingly candid in what he shared related to his struggles with alcohol. There was a key role of supportive community in his recovery. So many were willing to help, and we got to hear about his personal resilience afterward.
  - John can see parallels in this section of the discussion to other people’s experience with burnout, anxiety, depression, and a number of issues we face during our careers that may cause us to not be as effective as we could be or once were.

Who Moved My Cheese? : An Amazing Way to Deal With Change in Your Work and in Your Life

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Welcome to episode 254 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 1 of an interview with Larry Roberts, detailing how Toastmasters made Larry a more effective communicator, and getting into teaching as a martial arts instructor, what made him a successful corporate trainer. We’ll also reflect on Larry’s time as a people manager.

Original Recording Date: 11-11-2023

Topics – Meet Larry Roberts, A Summary of Corporate Life, An Instructor Joins Toastmasters, Teaching and Effective Communication, Techniques vs. Concepts and Application, A Trainer’s Effectiveness, Reflections on People Management, A Move into IT2:17 – Meet Larry Roberts* Larry Roberts is a budding entrepreneur and owner of Red Hat Media. Red Hat Media focuses on podcasting, building better brands through podcasting, and building better podcasts through leveraging AI tools. + He spends Monday – Friday doing podcasts, interviews, taking client calls, and doing speaking engagements. Saturdays are the days when real work gets accomplished. + Larry is involved in a number of speaking engagements for organizations like Entrepreneurs Organization or EO and has spoken at conferences like Podfest, Podcast Movement, and Outlier Podcast Festival. He has also been doing some work with the and the Texas State School Board on the use of AI technologies in education from the perspective of both teachers and students.

3:57 – A Summary of Corporate Life* Larry worked a corporate job until January 4, 2021. * In his 20s Larry was a karate guy, and he tells us “fighting was life.” He owned a karate school for a while but said it failed miserably (his first business venture). * Right out of high school Larry started selling cars. Though he did well as a salesman, he wanted to focus on karate and eventually moved into martial arts full time. * Once Larry realized his martial arts venture was not going to work he needed to get a real job. He began working at Texas Instruments on something they called the clean line. Think of the Intel commercials where you would see people in the white suits (what Larry calls ninja suits). These same people worked in clean rooms. + “I worked in a clean room, and I wore a ninja suit every day to work. So that was kind of cool!” – Larry Roberts + Larry would work 12 hour days for TI and still had time to pursue martial arts in his spare time. * From the clean line / manufacturing position Larry moved into a corporate training position, which opened up some opportunities. * Larry leveraged the training opportunity to get a training management position in Coppell (a suburb of Dallas), wanting to relocate from the Sherman / Denison area of North Texas. + Though this was supposed to be a short stint for a couple of years, it turned into a 21 year career. + Larry started off as the training manager in a distribution center who implemented policies within the warehouse to reduce high employee turnover rates. + During this time the various warehouse locations of Larry’s company (which was global) had different operating systems and realized they needed to implement a global ERP system to share inventory data across all warehouses. They went with a product called JD Edwards for this purpose. Larry was recruited from the warehouse to be the training lead for the team who would implement the ERP system for the company. + The JD Edwards project lasted 16 or 17 years. During that time, Larry got to know the data extremely well and became a bit of a JD Edwards database expert. This led Larry into reporting, business intelligence, gave him his first introduction to AI, and many other aspects of IT. + Larry says he has never been much of a programmer but got proficient with SQL. + Upon leaving the corporate world in January 2021, Larry was a business intelligence analyst.

9:16 – An Instructor Joins Toastmasters* The training position was an open position within Texas Instruments (TI) for which Larry applied while he was working on the clean room line. * Larry attribute much of the reason for getting the job to his already being an effective communicator. + He had worked a successful career selling cars previous to working at TI and was used to reading body language to determine if someone was receiving what he was trying to communicate. Larry knew how to adjust his approach during the course of a conversation accordingly to sell people cars. + Also being involved in martial arts, Larry taught for a karate school overseen by Rick Arnold. Rick required every instructor go to a Toastmasters group to improve their speaking abilities. - Larry says the local Toastmasters group in Sherman was brutal. Members of the group would ring a bell any time someone used a “grammatical grunt” during a speech, or what we might call filler words like “um” or “you know.” - Larry says he had built relationships with people at TI who were doing training before applying for the role as a trainer. + Nick wonders about the impact of the bell ringing on a person’s willingness to continue with the Toastmasters group. - Larry says he’s not aware the bell ringing happened at every group but knows it happened at his. He says it was nerve racking. - At the time Larry had what he calls a “black belt mentality” in that he felt negative reinforcement made him better. - The bell ringing acted as a motivator and brought the grammatical grunts to Larry’s attention. But he also remembers getting very frustrated during speeches at times (to the point where he wanted to sit down and stop). - The group was extremely supportive of attendees. - “No one was there to embarrass anybody. No one was there to demean anybody or make them feel like less of a speaker than anybody else. And we had people in that group like me that had no professional experience all the way up to the dean of the local community college…. We had proficient speakers all the way down to completely inexperienced speakers in the room.” – Larry Roberts, on the tone and variety of the local Toastmasters group he attended - The intent was to point out the slip ups so people could keep that in mind moving forward and get better. Larry calls the atmosphere very supportive. It was nerve racking at the time but something that he feels led to improvement. - In John’s experience with Toastmasters it was very common to have someone who would time your speech and someone else who was in charge of telling you how many pause words (or “grammatical grunts”) you had. + Many of our listeners may be looking to break out of entry level roles or to reach that next level. Larry talked about bringing in previous experience from unrelated fields like communication and assessing body language but which transfers nicely to other jobs and roles. Then while a martial arts instructor he was sent for specific training on the communication part (i.e. Toastmasters). - By attending Toastmasters, you are essentially asking others to give feedback on specific skills and specific behaviors (like the “grammatical grunts” mentioned earlier). So perhaps the bell ringing was not so out of context in that setting like it might have been if Larry had been giving a speech / talk at a technology user group, for example. - “It’s been 30 years since I was in that Toastmasters group, and still to this day, everything that I learned there has stuck with me that whole time….They did a good job in reinforcing the message they were delivering.” – Larry Roberts, on attending Toastmasters - Larry says he was part of the Toastmasters group for a little over a year and at one point delivered the best speech even with a dean of a local college in the group.

17:45 – Techniques vs. Concepts and Application* Did the interest in teaching come from Larry’s interest in martial arts or through some other avenue (like his experience as a car salesman, for example)? + Larry remembers days in high school called student teacher day when students were given a chance to be the teacher. He was consistently being selected as a student teacher. + “Regardless of the topic, regardless of how complex the topic may be, I’ve always been able to break it down in a way that really anybody can understand it. And I have seen over the years that I can be an effective communicator whether it’s with someone that is highly skilled in the subject matter or someone that’s just being introduced to the subject matter.” – Larry Roberts, on teaching + Larry says breaking concepts down like this is something he’s always been able to do and something he enjoys. When Larry shares information with someone in a way they understand (or he sees “the light bulb come on”), it gives him a sense of fulfillment and purpose. + “If I can break it down to a point that it passes the mom test, then I think that’s effective communication.” – Larry Roberts, on teaching and communication - Larry likes to try and explain things in a way his mom could understand them. * John says he has a bias in his stance that teaching a skill helps cement that skill in the learner’s mind. Did teaching martial arts skills help cement them in Larry’s mind? + Larry says yes and agrees with John 100%, feeling this goes way beyond the area of martial arts. + Teaching something can expose our gaps in understanding from when we initial learned it. + “Going through a motion is one thing. But understanding how this motion or this technique or whatever it may be impacts others and the way that it impacts those individuals gives you an entirely different perspective on accomplishing whatever that task may be.” – Larry Roberts + Larry gives the example of throwing a side kick, a very technical move with many things to keep in mind to do it correctly. If you have learned the proper technique and begin to teach others, you will encounter people with different body types and levels of flexibility. - “You have to find new ways to convey that message, and as you learn to convey that message in different ways, you learn the intricacies of whatever it is you’re teaching.” – Larry Roberts, on changing one’s approach to fit the learner + Larry says people have a tendency to teach directly. He finds more value in teaching at a conceptual and application level as opposed to a step-by-step approach. Following step-by-step and not getting the outcome you would like may mean you don’t really understand what you are trying to do. - John mentioned having a college professor who only ever taught using pseudocode in a programming class with the syntax of the programming language up to the students to learn on their own. They needed to know what concepts like logic tests and loops before trying to use them in code. + Before Larry became an instructor under Rick Arnold, he was already a black belt, but he didn’t know how to fight. - The first night Larry was at the Rick Arnold school he worked with a fight team and got knocked out. - “I knew the techniques…but I didn’t understand the concept of fighting. I didn’t understand timing. I didn’t understand distance. I didn’t understand rhythm. I didn’t understand foot work…. I didn’t understand picking up reads and adjusting my approach to the individual that I was sparring with. So I got wrecked…until I started understanding the concepts of fighting.” – Larry Roberts - Larry says fighting is a mixture of techniques and concepts and that we cannot assume someone with a black belt actually knows how to fight. - John says this is analogous to knowing all the syntax for a programming language but not knowing how to design an application (i.e. not knowing how to apply it). - Nick calls this conceptual dependency mapping at a high level. This is a mix of Larry’s ability to read people (developed from his time as a salesperson) with an ability to meet the learner where they are and help fill the gaps in concepts they do and do not understand.

25:41 – A Trainer’s Effectiveness* John asks about the “iceberg under the water” that made Larry effective at the training role. Though Larry had skills that were helpful for someone in that role and had built relationships with others doing the job, it is still not a guarantee of being successful at a given role. + Texas Instruments had a culture of “ongoing learning,” requiring employees to take a number of professional development courses per year to maintain a certain status for raises. The requirements were less for those who had been with the company for a long time. + Larry says often it was the same required classes people had to take each year. It was a challenge to get employees who had been with the company for many years to participate in these classes and to keep them from distracting the newer employees who had never taken the classes. It was very tough to put these types of employees together in a classroom environment and deliver the material in a way that benefits people at all levels of tenure at the company. Larry refers to this as creating “equalized learning.” - “I made sure that everybody enjoyed being there and ideally took some sort of value away from their attendance in that classroom….Trying to maintain that level of equality and accessibility of the content that I was teaching was the biggest challenge, and I loved it.” – Larry Roberts, on the challenge of training people at different levels of understanding - Larry says he generally had a good time doing this. The courses were evaluated by employees and then audited. Larry mentioned getting good ratings and felt this was a result of striving to ensure students walked away with something valuable. - Nick would refer to this as community building and says we should be trying to do this in meetings we attend (having a value-adding influence on others). - Larry says this was not his mentality at the end of his corporate career.

29:52 – Reflections on People Management* Larry leveraged the position at TI to get another position in the suburbs of Dallas. When Larry applied for a role at a different company, he followed up on his application 7 different times. + A number of times when Larry would drive from where he lived down to the Coppell area where this company was located he was met with “we haven’t made a decision yet” by the HR personnel. + After the 6th time this happened, Larry was ready to give up. The girl he was dating at the time encouraged him to be persistent and try one more time. Upon the 7th occasion, Larry met with HR, and they made him an offer. + Larry left TI after working there for about 3.5 years. * The new position was a step up. Larry went from being a corporate trainer at TI into a role managing 6 people who did the training with Larry developing the curriculum based on his understanding of processes in the distribution center. After writing manuals for processes and procedures, Larry would then train the trainers. * Was managing people something Larry wanted to do or something he was asked to do based on the specific job requirements? + “It was something that I wanted to do (or so I thought I wanted to do it) because I felt that getting into a management role would open up more opportunities for me to obviously have a bigger salary down the road. But, at the time, I was not prepared to be in a management role whatsoever.” – Larry Roberts, on becoming a manager + There was a large learning curve in this role according to Larry, and he tells us being later recruited to be part of the ERP team was a saving grace. + Larry did not understand leadership, how to be a manager, and since he wanted people to like him his goal was to be friends with everyone who reported to him. + Larry feels this experience as a manager may have been a bit of a power trip on his part (letting his ego get in the way). + Larry was only in this role for about 1.5 years before being recruited into the IT department. * What would Larry tell people to really consider before taking a role as a people manager? + “Consider what that role means. Consider what leadership means. Consider what management means. Understand the role thoroughly before you jump there. It’s not just a logical progression. You don’t just work in a position and go, ‘ok, cool, I’m ready to be a manager now.’ Because you’re not. Leadership is an entirely different role.” – Larry Roberts + Keep in mind Larry was a karate guy, a fighter. He was undefeated in kickboxing and did fairly well in MMA (mixed martial arts). + Larry was a big fan of Richard Marcinko, one of the founders of Seal Team 6, and read all his books. - Larry admits he was a bit of an egomaniac during this time, and it really backfired. + Make sure before taking a role you understand what the role of the leader is in the specific position you are considering and what it means. + This definitely speaks to John as a first-time manager. The skills gained from being an individual contributor are only about 20-30% applicable. - The skills are important to help understand what good looks like, the problems someone you’re going to manage is facing, and the background. - The rest of it is people management, skills development, recruiting, having to fire people, etc. + Larry mentioned though he had communication skills, he failed to communicate well with the people he was managing. - “There’s a lesson there. I didn’t rely on the communication skills I possessed. I relied on what I ‘thought’ I had to do in this leadership position. I’m surprised I didn’t get fired in all honesty.” – Larry Roberts - Larry tells the story of being in a meeting with his manager and the HR director of the company and making a specific comment that almost got him fired. Larry’s manager at the time protected him. - Looking back Larry says the comment he made was ego and arrogance talking and was not effective communication. - “I wasn’t in a position to be fighting for anybody. I needed to be fighting for me and communicating openly with all stakeholders, and instead, again, the ego got in the way.” – Larry Roberts - Nick points out a parallel to knowing techniques and not understanding how to fight. This instance is the next iteration of that. - Larry agrees and tells us this is part of a pattern where his ego gets in the way, he gets squashed for it, then humbled, and as a result he learns how he should have handled the situation. - “But I’ve never taken the easy approach to learning but anything. It’s always been the absolute most difficult way that I can do it.” – Larry Roberts

38:48 – A Move into IT* Larry did not apply for the ERP focused role. He was approached by someone about it (a director in the IT department).

+ Larry thinks his manager that saved him previously may have played a part in this, perhaps suggesting Larry was not a fit for the manager role but had other skills which could benefit this new team.
    - John says not all companies or management teams would think to do something like this.
+ After having a conversation with Ray (the IT leader who hired him for the role), Larry was moving his stuff into a cube in the IT department.
+ Larry was with the company in question here for 21 years and says it was a place where employees were cared for like he’s never seen elsewhere.
    - Larry used to joke with coworkers that if someone made it a year at this company that person essentially would never leave. Rarely does he remember seeing anyone get fired.
    - Larry met his wife at this company, and she started about a year after he did. She is still at the company today as a manager in the accounting department who worked her way up from customer service. Larry says she has done a much better job at being a manager than Larry did.
    - John recognizes how hard it is to hire someone and the time investment needed there. Companies may recognize what they really need is a first time manager development program.

Mentioned in the outro
- Transferrable skills matter! In Larry’s case, experience in sales and being a martial arts instructor translated well to being a corporate trainer. This highlights the importance of recognizing and leveraging these types of skills when seeking new opportunities or exploring potential career paths.
- Larry’s career demonstrates ongoing learning. We mentioned Toastmasters from Larry’s experience, but acquiring new knowledge and skills can open doors for us all.
- Effective leadership requires dedication, continuous learning, being humble, having self-awareness, and being an open communicator.
  - Ego can be detrimental.

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Welcome to episode 253 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We are John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 2 of an interview with Russell Swinney, detailing the role of the BISO (Business Information Security Officer), other types of executive leaders and their focus, how Russell builds trust as an interim leader, and advice for those seeking to get into cybersecurity.

Original Recording Date: 10-24-2023

Russell Swinney provides interim CIO, CISO, and CTO services for companies in times of transition or trouble through his company InterStructure. If you missed part 1 of our discussion with Russell, check out Episode 252.

Topics – The BISO Role and Path, Other Executive Lenses, Building Trust in the Interim, Cybersecurity Expertise and CISO Services, Advice for Those New to Cybersecurity and Parting Thoughts2:58 – The BISO Role and Path* We shouldn’t overlook the BISO role (Business Information Security Officer), which is essentially the CISO for a business unit or division inside a large company. This person’s job would be to embed deeply in the way the business is running. + The leader of the business unit is your partner in obtaining funding to keep the business unit running well. Russell says the BISO would be closer to the business than even a CIO might be. + The BISO is often overlooked but can lead to tremendous opportunities like a CISO role, a CIO role, a COO role, or even a divisional vice president role. + “They have to have an expert knowledge of every component, human and technical, and how to keep them functional, safe, secure…and it can be a game changer in terms of knowledge….They know how the entire division runs….In manufacturing, they know how the whole plant runs and works what it takes to make it run best. They are in the weeds of securing all those devices, which is a myriad things.” – Russell Swinney, on the role of the BISO in a manufacturing environment + Cybersecurity can become a profit center in the case of the BISO rather than just a cost center. * The path to BISO can come from people with varying backgrounds (i.e. someone with operational knowledge who learns security, someone with security knowledge who learns operations, etc.). They need opportunity, mentorship, and training. In some cases they may need to learn people skills to progress into this role. * John mentions we maybe don’t talk about the leaders of business units enough and gives the example of GE when it was the largest company in the world. Those different divisions of GE likely had different requirements for both operations and information security. It’s easy to see how specialization within a business unit could be a great stepping stone. Perhaps some companies would rotate people through different business units. + Russell says someone who has deep knowledge of the operations of a business unit being placed in other business units to expand their knowledge is on track to be president of the company. + Note we had one other guest who spoke of targeting leadership of a business unit, and that was Scott Egbert in Episode 227 (targeted the CFO of a business unit as his progression path). * The BISO role was one Nick had not heard of previously (not having seen a job description for this anywhere). + Even the deeply technical person can pursue the BISO role and learn / go deep. It would allow that person to go deep into what makes the business work. + Moving to BISO is a move from cost center to profit center. + “It’s technical skills for a purpose, for a business purpose.” – Russell Swinney, on the deeply technical person who pursues a BISO role * John and Nick have worked at companies which had business units with their own CTO (Chief Technology Officer). It would certainly make sense that there are other C-level roles within these business units, but John says it never really occurred to him. Would BISO be a job title or in the description of a job posting or perhaps something more general? + Companies may refer to the role of the BISO as Deputy CISO because it is similar to that. But a job description could reference either in title. + The O designating officer as part of a title is a big deal in the corporate world. + Some companies may have an ISO (Information Security Officer) and no CISO. This person (the ISO) would be responsible to the board as an officer for the security program. Some companies can get in trouble for this in compliance because they need someone at the Chief level (or executive level) driving the program. + Being named under director and officer insurance is extremely important for the CISO and other executives for protection and was a topic discussed at the RSA 2023 conference. Russell mentions the situation that happened related to this at Uber. * What is the path to CISO / BISO from technologist or cyber specialist? + Russell feels the BISO role is excellent for a technologist who has been working with cybersecurity technology systems and programs. Some management experience may also be helpful here (but may not be required). + The primary focus for the BISO is the security of the business unit you’re in. People interactions are with peers up and down inside the business unit and with the main cybersecurity organization (likely central to the company). - A BISO would lobby for the security needs and tools of the division with support from the division’s president. - If you don’t have the people skills for a role like a BISO before taking it, the experience will help you learn them. + John and Russell agree some background in program management is very helpful to progress to the role of BISO. + A BISO might lead a DevSecOps team, for example, working to enable developers to build code rapidly that is safe to deploy. - “You want talent doing what talent does best and not getting slowed down by what bureaucracy does best.” – Russell Swinney

13:30 – Other Executive Lenses* John wonders what other lenses might he also need to look at a business through which he has not been doing to this point. * The role of CRO (Chief Revenue Officer) is something Russell has actually be doing for a while. He had incorrectly assumed the CRO was the financial person or was only concerned about money. + “In reality the CRO role is about ensuring the product and the marketing and everything is lined up right with all the right resources to deliver the goods to the customers and stacked in such a way that you have the short term revenue to get through to develop the long term vision….That just lines up perfectly with I’ve been doing as a business leader for many years.” – Russell Swinney + Nick thought it was a fancy term for a high ranking sales leader. + Russell tells us the role allows a company to move things around such that product is what customers actually want. + The ideal candidate for the role is someone with knowledge of customers and the technology stack. + This person doesn’t have to come from sales or finance but could be someone with a more technical background. * We mention the CFO and other C-levels John has seen speaking about the business being managed through their lens. Even though they spoke about the business in this way it was for the same high level goal. + Russell stresses the importance of hugging a cactus when starting one of these roles as well. John says we need goal alignment. * This goes back to conversations we’ve had about the CEO / board of directors setting the company vision which is then translated into lower levels of strategy and trickles down to employees (who we hope can understand how the work they do fits into the larger company vision). + Russell says the attractiveness of agile is aligning the CEO’s business purpose with the person writing lines of code. + Russel says we might be missing out if we’ve never worked somewhere that allows us to interact with executives.

19:09 – Building Trust in the Interim* How does Russell build trust with the employees he is leading when stepping in as an interim CISO / CIO / executive leader and determine what the focus of the team should be? This advice would apply to anyone taking over as the leader on a team because unless the role never existed, someone was there before you were. + Normally Russell is pulled in to fix a problem (a direction, a structure, an issue with a process or technology, etc.). There is little to no trust at first, but there is also a sense of relief amongst the teams to see a new face. + “At the very least I’m not that person.” – Russell Swinney, on stepping in as interim CIO / CISO + One of the first things Russell will do is break down barriers and start hugging the cactus (seeking to make allies). + Organizations can go off the rails when talented people leave. This can often be due to poor leadership. + “To gain trust you have to earn it. It’s person by person. You have to be open minded. You have to listen to them honestly.” – Russell Swinney - Russell likes supporting the expertise people have and looks to them for guidance on how things should be done. - He will also support and protect the team from perceptions of other groups and organizational bureaucracy. - Making hard decisions is part of the job when Russell steps into one of these situations. - Russell earns trust by listening to everyone at every level to get their take on why the company got into the current situation and get ideas on how to remedy the situation. Russell can take notes from these conversations back to the board of directors who hired him and present solutions. + “I just talked to your people. They knew all along. The secret is that solutions to all the company problems were likely already solved by the teams, but their ideas weren’t listened to. That’s a key point.” – Russell Swinney, on listening and building trust as an interim leader and presenting ideas to the board of directors + Another challenge is motivating people over a short time period, which is driven by relationships. + Vision casting is also important. Russell tells us this is about describing a picture of how he sees things should look. + Lots of 1-1 mentoring is helpful to boost morale of employees, especially if the recent times have been challenging. - Russell highlights the importance of human beings taking care of one another. If there is a staffing shortage which needs to be addressed it is Russell’s job as an advisor to communicate the need and find the right resources so the company can somehow address it. + “But the other thing is…an interim CIO doesn’t come in because I know the answers….I just know how to work with people. I just help each person I encounter be better, be the person they know they want to be.” – Russell Swinney + “I’m not a respecter of titles, honestly. I treat everyone the same.” – Russell Swinney, on working inside big companies + Russell works with other leaders to understand the kind of person they need. One of the services he provides as an interim leader is hiring his replacement. - Upon arriving at a company in an interim situation, Russell begins to ask other leaders about the type of person who needs to be in the role / the type of person they want for the role. People begin to see Russell is helping them solve the problem for their benefit, which can disarm potential enemies. - Russell really loves it when he can find someone inside a company he is working with who is a perfect fit for the open role but who might need some polishing and maybe a little push. He is willing to help others develop to be effective in the role. Once the company realizes they have a strong internal candidate they may ask Russell to stay engaged longer to help with the roadmap he’s created for them. + “Tribal knowledge is both good and bad…. It’s great to know how things work internally, but there’s also a great deal of freedom in not being tied to some silly internal thinking….It’s about meeting the business need.” – Russell Swinney + As an interim leader, Russell says he is not tied to or limited by the tribal knowledge. Russell is known for getting problems solved quickly (often times short circuiting internal processes), replacing himself, and getting out. * Do people ever ask Russell to come in and execute on a vision someone else was not able to execute? + Russell says this can be because there was a flaw in the vision, a flaw in the hiring process, or a flaw in HR that wouldn’t allow firing someone. + Russell likes to get the vision from the board to hear if they have a direction the C-suite is planning to pursue. If the company does have a vision, Russell will try to follow it. In some cases the company vision might need a minor adjustment to achieve what company leaders really want or to bring it into clearer focus. + Usually Russell is called in when there is a problem. He helps identify and understand the problem, bringing a solution set in to help solve it. + Nick remembers reading Ben Folds’ biography (A Dream about Lightning Bugs) and hearing about the idea of turning on the brown water so the clear water eventually comes out of the water spout (getting the bad ideas out so you can get to the good ones). + Russell says a company vision is somewhat fluid, and when the board meets together they will make adjustments as needed, even if they are very small. + John says someone may need to learn that visions are fluid, and they must be this way because current events cannot be projected forward. + “What I think is great about the vision statement is that it helps you align…Everyone in the company is making 100 decisions a day, from the smallest decision to the bigger decisions that require huge budgets…that affect how the company is working. So the vision allows you to align those generally.” – Russell Swinney, on vision and alignment with the simplification of decision making

30:44 – Cybersecurity Expertise and CISO Services* Where did Russell’s expertise in information security originate? Since he’s providing leadership services in this area, we wanted to make sure we got the full story. + “When I started doing cybersecurity it wasn’t called cybersecurity. It was just called secure networking….It was just good technology practice at the time, and then it became…cybersecurity.” – Russell Swinney + Russell did technology consulting for CIO roles for 15 years, which included a great deal of security. As cybersecurity terms gained popularity and use, Russell went out and took the CISSP exam. He decided to not just advertise CIO services provided by his company but to expand it to CISO services as well. + Russell progressed as a technologist on the technical side and then in management. He added to that security information he learned along the way as well as cybersecurity certifications. + Russell stresses the importance of cybersecurity experience and understanding for CIOs in today’s world. - “You couldn’t be a CIO of a major corporation without having a thorough understanding of at least the concepts involved in cybersecurity….That was the bridge. You took the technical work you are doing and you begin aligning it with the concept of compliance or risk in an organization. That’s the thread that takes you to the C-suite for sure.” – Russell Swinney - John mentions there was absolutely a time before the CIO role was called out specifically despite someone doing that work already or having the expertise (analogous to Russell adding in CISO to his list of interim services).

34:02 – Advice for Those New to Cybersecurity and Parting Thoughts* What is Russell’s advice for those wanting to break into cybersecurity? This topic came up at the North Texas ISSA conference Nick and Russell recently attended in the Dallas area.

+ Learn how to learn, and develop a passion for learning.
+ “Every day if I don’t learn 2 or 3 new things, I’m history.” – Russell Swinney, on learning and the requirement to stay current
+ Russell tells us he learns from those he mentors.
+ We should find something interesting or inspiring and dive into it, even if you end up not liking it. In doing so you may find something else you might want to pursue.
+ Seek out advice from peer groups and mentors for advice on where you should focus next in your role (i.e. perhaps a topic centered on AI, for example).
    - Russell mentions ARPANET and how it was going to change the world (and it did when it led to the internet).
+ Russell says one does not necessarily need to go to school to be in this field and that some of the best people are self-taught.
+ Cybersecurity beginners can find free training at TryHackMe.com.
+ Russell would encourage others to seek out mentors.
+ Work with others who are trying to learn as well. This can be very helpful. Russell says he learns new things visually and that he is a “shared people learner.”
    - “If two of us are learning something together, I learn so much better. And it’s more fun….Don’t write off the nerd next to you. They may have the answer you need.” – Russell Swinney
+ For those just starting out, Russell would encourage learning a specific technology and learning some popular acronyms and what they mean like IAM, IPAM, etc.
+ Russell likes certifications because they force us to learn something new and will pursue them now and then. They are not quite the same as real life experience.
    - “Certifications help as an indicator that you can learn. That to me is a big deal.” – Russell Swinney
+ Russell tells us cybersecurity frameworks are a great source for learning as well. Russell often takes a framework and digs into one of its foundational pillars (lots of detail in these).
    - The CIS framework may be a good place to start.
+ Russell seeks out resources where he can learn about current technologies and new ideas.
+ Russell enjoys going to technology conferences. He tells us that while many avoid vendors at conferences, he seeks out vendors with a passion when attending events.
    - He looks for new vendors solving interesting problems to learn about how they are doing it.
    - In addition to this, Russell will look at “old” vendors / existing vendors who maybe have not spent enough in research and development to see what may have changed. He wants to if these vendors have invested in innovations in their roadmaps since the last interaction with them. One example Russell shares is a vendor-sponsored briefing he recently attended that made him very excited about what the vendor in question has coming with their product offerings in the future.
    - Russell meets a lot of people at conferences and cites recently having met some mentees at the North Texas ISSA conference from which he has learned a great deal already. He also uses conferences as a way to meet peers in the industry.
    - Russell says they do a lot of cybersecurity happy hour events in the Dallas / Fort Worth area.
    - Russell also tells us he will attend a Data Connectors conference next, and you can check out the site and find one in your area as another cybersecurity community. This is what Russell would call a high quality sleeper conference and has both vendors and attendees at all job levels.
    - “People in leadership are not the ones with the most innovative ideas, so seek out those that are new to the field…or they’re new to being in a crowd…especially a crowd of executives….It may look and feel uncomfortable.” – Russell Swinney
    - Russell thinks introverts may have the best ideas, and many in cybersecurity are introverts. He tells us he can be an extrovert for a time and then needs to recharge.
    - John says in summary those who are new to the field will likely be the most sensitive to the lack of knowledge in others.

“If you’re getting into cyber or you’re getting into any kind of new role, the fact is, even management, we’re all a bunch of knuckleheads. None of us know enough. We all need each other. So jump in. It’s ok not to know the right answer. It’s ok to ask questions. And if it’s ever not ok, you’re in the wrong room.” – Russell Swinney
To follow up with Russell on this discussion…
- You can find and connect with Russell on LinkedIn.
- Russell also says if you see him at a conference, please find him and talk to him because he wants to talk to people.
- Mentioned in the outro
- We call out a couple of conferences in the discussion, but they are part of larger cybersecurity communities.
  - ISSA or Information Systems Security Association – a global organization for cybersecurity professionals with local chapters in many places who sponsor events / conferences; it is a paid membership
  - Data Connectorsis another community group focused on cybersecurity which holds different community events, mainly in North America. They also have a newsletter.
- Russell takes a very humble approach in talking to people at various levels across the organizations he is serving instead of just his executive peers.
  - In doing this, he is effectively completing the research needed to choose a proper replacement for the role he is filling on an interim basis and ensure his successor will meet the needs of the business and its people.
- Confidence that the people working at a specific company already know how to solve the problems at hand is a call back to part of the reason Russell wanted to pursue leadership in the first place (after seeing many potentially impactful ideas overlooked). He’s giving people a voice by supporting their ideas at a leadership level. You can hear more about that in Episode 252.
  - A fresh face in leadership could be a chance to gain support we didn’t previously have. But we might not see the opportunities when leadership changes happen and should keep an open mind as we evaluate the effectiveness of the new leader(s).
- The BISO (Business Information Security Officer) was not a role Nick had previously heard mentioned before this discussion.
  - This is likely to exist only in larger companies and is a true partnership with the operations leader for the business unit in question.
  - The BISO is certainly a business focused CISO (one of the two types Russell highlighted in part one of our discussion). Helpful skills coming into the role could be program management, people management, or project management.
  - There may be other technology leadership opportunities within business units like a CIO, CTO, or maybe even technology operations leader.
- For those new to cybersecurity or trying to break into it, remember to check out Episode 239 and Episode 240 with Kenneth Ellington, founder of Ellington Cyber Academy.
- Maybe another way to gain experience is to work for a consulting firm that provides interim type positions, even if it’s not interim CIO or CISO. Think about a specific project you can work with a company on for a time and then move along to other projects with other customers. This allows working with a wide variety of people and customers. Some recommended listening based on those who have worked for consulting firms:
  - Episode 229 – A Depth and a Breadth with Chris Williams (1/3)
  - Episode 230 – A Steward of the Community with Chris Williams (2/3)
  - Episode 231 – It Comes Back Tenfold with Chris Williams (3/3)
  - Episode 119 – Tinkering into Specialty with David Klee (1/2)
  - Episode 120 – A Time to Build with David Klee (2/2)

A Dream About Lightning Bugs: A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons

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Welcome to episode 252 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 1 of an interview with Russell Swinney, detailing Russell’s journey into the technology field after starting as a mechanical engineer, his progression into leadership, the genesis of his business, the interim and virtual roles for technology leaders, and some thoughts on both the CIO and CISO roles and the lenses people in each of these roles use to view the business and the world.

Original Recording Date: 10-24-2023

Topics – Meet Russell Swinney, Learning and Onboarding, The Role of Mentors, Staying Technical and Organizational Constraints, Path into IT, Finding Inspiration and Hugging the Cactus, A Business Idea, Advice for the Potential Business Owner, The CIO and the CISO2:50 – Meet Russell Swinney* Russell Swinney provides interim CIO, CISO, and CTO services for companies in times of transition or trouble. + Russell tells us he works well in a crisis, and it is a good opportunity to apply his experience. * In the 1980s Russell started supporting personal computers (PCs) for the forestry department’s computer lab while he was in college. + He was not a fan of mainframes, punch cards, or Fortran. + Russell was asked to connect all the computers and make them work, starting with the TRS-80 models with 8.5" disk drives. + Russell wrote a book on how people could utilize these computers, and as a result of that work he was offered a graduate teaching position within the college of agriculture at Texas A & M. + Russell would later help supporting building newer computer labs as personal computing took off around this time. + “I became a technologist and have been learning ever since.” – Russell Swinney * Russell started out in mechanical engineering, worked with Fortran, and did graphical drawing with pencils. He thought this would be a good choice and feels he is pretty mechanically inclined. * Russell was in Boy Scouts and spent a lot of time hiking. Due to this interest he thought maybe he should get into forestry since he “knew that stuff” (or thought he did). + “It was a good ride because I did very little actual forestry and a great deal of technology.” – Russell Swinney, on getting into forestry + Russell focused on applying technology to the business of forestry, gaining experience with the wood and paper products industries.

6:05 – Learning and Onboarding* Russell had learned what he knew about computers on his own even leading up the graduate teaching assignment. + Russell remembered the struggles he had gone through learning the material he needed to teach, and that made him better as an instructor. He cites doing lab practical type activities with studies to take computers apart and see what they looked like inside. + When we’ve recently acquired knowledge we might have more patience for someone just learning compared to someone who is working with that knowledge constantly. * Being in leadership has taught Russell that everyone is on some kind of learning journey. This also was the driving force behind his desire to mentor others. + “It helps me stay current with what they are learning but also how they are learning. People learn differently today than I did, and it helps me to understand how that works.” – Russell Swinney, on how mentoring has helped him understand people + Nick thinks if it’s been a while since we learned something we might easily forget what the challenges in learning the material were. This is similar to someone who has been in a role for a while realizing an employee just onboarding wasn’t told something the longer tenured employee had internalized as part of the job (i.e. they forgot it needed to be communicated). Usually this happens when someone asks a question we might think on the surface the person should know the answer to. + In Russell’s role as a consultant, he changes jobs / companies frequently, usually only staying in one place for 6-18 months. He has become sensitive to the new employee onboarding experience. - Russell has seen instances where a new employee starts with a company, and nothing is ready for them on their first day (no equipment, no people ready to support, etc.). - “If you’re going to hire someone, the day before you make sure everything is ready for them…a place to sit…all their technology they need. Their boss needs to take them to lunch.” – Russell Swinney, on what a good employee onboarding experience looks like * Ideally a boss would check in with their new employee over lunch and ask if they need anything, introduce them to teammates, etc. * Russell likes the idea of giving new employees company branded swag / merchandise to make them feel welcome. * If we compare this to job descriptions from HR, one would think for candidates who have met the requirements and been given the job, the company would care enough to show them where to sit. - Maybe onboarding experience is something we should be asking members of the team we could be working on during technical interviews / team member screenings? * Check out Episode 204 for more discussions of technical interviews and what we mean by that. * Russell says this alerts the interviewer (someone who could potentially become your team member) that you’re going to be looking for some help / give back as you onboard. * This also sets people up to understand the culture of the organization and the team is. John says even if there is a delay in a new team member getting all they need from a technology standpoint to do the job, just having teammates there to welcome and support a new team member can compensate for a lot of shortcomings in the onboarding process.

11:38 – The Role of Mentors* How did mentors impact what Russell did after getting out of school? + “I would says the reason I want to be a good mentor is I really wanted one and I never could find one.” – Russell Swinney, on mentoring + Russell takes the approach of having made many mistakes in his career and wants to help others avoid those if he can. - John says this was one of our principles for starting the podcast (to help people learn from mistakes and learn from others). * How does someone become a good mentor when they don’t themselves have one? + Russell says it may be like the people who grow up without a dad but become good dads. It’s the case where you do not have a good or bad example to learn from. + Russell also learns from his mentees – the challenges they face, how they learn, etc. He understands the technology and business worlds enough to provide some guidance. + Russell sees leaders as synonymous with being mentors. A manager might be someone who merely enforces HR policy, but that isn’t enough to be a good manager. - “The objective of a manager is to have somebody who can step into your role. At every step you take in life your goal is to train up someone who can take your place. Even if you’re an entry level person, you’re going to want to have somebody trained up to take your place. My role as an interim CIO / CISO is to find the person that can step into this role…and let me leave.” – Russell Swinney - Russell gives the example of working with a mid-career mentee who was thinking about changing jobs. The person had a great job, was getting globally recognized experience, had great pay, and a had a boss who protected them. * Russell encouraged the person to stay put and not make a change right now, especially in the current economic climate. It was only because Russell had made the wrong choice that he was able to recognize the danger and provide some guidance.

14:34 – Staying Technical and Organizational Constraints* What would Russell recommend people think about before taking on the role of people leader or people manager? + Russell has worked in organizations where the only way to advance was to move into management. In fact, a move into management was the only way for him to advance at a specific point in his career. + “Just remember…you can always feed your family with current technical skills….Management becomes dime a dozen.” – Russell Swinney, on advice for the individual contributor being pressured to go into management + Russell tells us that he has to keep learning because the unique, hands on skills can fade when you pursue management. + “Forget the management track. If you’re a technical person and you want to stay that way…the organization you work with needs to support that. They need to have a track that lets you advance…. If somebody’s working for me and they’re a technical person and they’ve reach the top, let’s just break the top.” – Russell Swinney + Technical people need to be able to advance financially and in recognition, even if they make more than managers or directors. Good managers want highly skilled technical people who keep systems running and working well. + Often times companies will have boundaries set by HR that they aren’t able to break out of. Russell believes this isn’t the right thing to do (i.e. placing these limits on people). We should be looking to maximize the talent of our people. + Both Nick and John have worked at companies which had really strong tracks for individual contributors to advance. Another way might be moving to a different team within the same company / greater internal organization. * Maybe the existence of the type of track above is about designing organizations. How did Russell learn to do that (building / designing organizations)? + Much of Russell’s graduate studies were in operations research (very heavily focused in statistics related to biometric data, manufacturing process data / how to shave time off a mechanical process to save a company money, etc.). + The above got Russell interested in more analytics, which eventually became a business focus. + “If you’re not doing just what you need to do to meet the needs of the business so it’s successful, you’re building it all for naught.” – Russell Swinney, on the purpose of building technology systems and programs + Russell contrasts two different clients in similar industries - One that invested heavily in technology and spent a lot to get it right but failed as a company a year later - Another that did technology things on a shoestring budget and constantly needed help but succeeded / are still around + Often times technology professionals or cybersecurity professionals strive for things to be right, but Russell tells us in certain circumstances it’s ok not to be right. - Russell gives the example of the conflict between a need to update systems and a critical business function which cannot be interrupted. We need to (or the company needs to, rather) weigh the business need and the technology need and look at the risk involved. The decision as to which takes precedence is really an upper management decision (Russell mentions the CEO as owner of the decision).

19:56 – Path into IT* Russell’s master’s thesis was based upon a manufacturing plant study where he was applying statistics. + In 1986 he built an AI (artificial intelligence) module for an Allen Bradley PLC controller. It was really just a database and lookup tables which based on conditions referred to one another, and these databases would be considered tiny by today’s standards. * If Russell had stuck with AI, things may have turned out far different than they did. He did not have a mentor and ended up moving to Dallas to teach computer programming with things like Paradox (database). + The book Russell had written for college covered spreadsheets, databases, and word processors. He brought that same concept to his work at Nations Bank. * Russell then worked for a company called CyberTech, traveling the country and building Novell networks for many of the world’s largest life insurance companies. + He was a young single guy at the time and really enjoyed the work. Russell calls out this role as one that led him down a path of focusing on building datacenters for financial services companies. + After this experience, Russell thought he could do the same kind of thing for himself and led to the start of his business. That was 26 years ago, and his business is still running today. * Did Russell just work with small language models back in the 1980s as opposed to the large language models of today? + John mentions these systems of lookup tables mentioned were called expert systems which had the purpose of emulating human decision making ability. But the company brochures said AI. + John says they were only missing the generative qualifier to AI at the time.

22:47 – Finding Inspiration and Hugging the Cactus* Was Russell a people manager at any point before starting his own business? + When he was building datacenters, Russell had a team of 28 engineers he hired from across the country to help build and operate those datacenters. + Before that when Russell was designing networks for the life insurance companies, he would ensure these companies had properly hired and trained help desk support teams and systems administrators. - Russell would get involved when there was a problem these teams could not solve. - Russell refers to these times as being at the top of his technical career while also doing “some people work.” + Russell says he preferred the technical work at first but found he liked the people side of things also. He also noticed management missed some important ideas that could have had a big impact because they didn’t look or listen. * I found I could bring technical, data and fact based information to management and impact the course of decisions. I could bring these to the conversation and have an impact. Technical information that’s factually correct with data points could sway management to change their mind." – Russell Swinney + This kind of thing might be displayed in a PowerPoint presentation today. + Russell found the above in inspiring to do (changing the course of decisions in a company) and kept pursuing this kind of work. + “I still say gain technical skills and experience in your career because you can always feed your family with technical skills when you keep them up. So that’s important. But at the same time, you can see how you deal with people. The people that you strongly disagree with…they honestly may become your greatest allies if you work it right. And management is war, so you need allies.” – Russell Swinney + John says we might disagree with people over decisions, strategy, or something else. - Russell says people could agree with him and still do it in a way that irks him. He saw the disagreements with others as a challenge to work through that would help both him and the other person grow. It also allowed Russell to (most of the time) impact others in a positive way. - Some people Russell could never reach. - When landing somewhere new in an interim role Russell seeks out those he thinks will hate him and takes them to lunch. Generating an ally from an enemy helps encourage positive changes. - It’s easier when Russell goes into a company to take the place of someone who made a lot of enemies and work to be an ally of the people there. He’s tasked with making progress before leaving the company but asks people what kind of person they would want in the role. * Did Russell know about the people challenges before stepping into the role of people manager (and that it was going to be war)? + Nope! Russell says he basically got hit by the train with these types of challenges in the beginning. + “I’ve learned to be prepared for it, but I have also learned to just go seek it out and embrace it at first. I call it hugging the cactus. You find out what’s going to be painful. Let’s just go get it over with right now.” – Russell Swinney, on embracing the hard things of management - John likes the idea of seeking the things which will be painful (hard conversations, difficult decisions, etc.). We have a natural tendency to seek the comfortable as humans. - Russell has also learned not to overlook the talent in a role, believing that talent (i.e. the people) was put there for a reason, even if it needs to be developed. It’s very rewarding to “polish up the rough stone” as Russell says. * Is it fair to say Russell went into people leadership to make a larger impact and that others seeking to make a greater impact will need to do a lot of hugging the cactus? + There are some protections found in continuing to pursue technical excellence instead of leading people. Expert technical people are hard to find. + If Russell can help someone in their career (provide advice or guidance on training, etc.) they will remember him later.

28:33 – A Business Idea* Where did the idea for Russell’s management consultancy company come from? + Russell was doing a lot of infrastructure work and developed the name InterStructure as his business name. + Russell would often be sent to help with financial services company acquisitions and would get involved as soon as the announcement was made to help assimilate the new company. This usually involved heavy travel. + Russell wished he would have been involved earlier in the acquisition process and encouraged leaders to involve him (knowing he could have pointed out issues along the way). + While his wife was pregnant with their first child, and Russell came home saying he had just engineered his own exit from his employer (including a severance package). + Small business has its challenges, but Russell’s decision to work for himself has worked out well (despite being a little tense when he broke the news to his wife). - Russell has hired and trained many people over time and feels this sets him up to be a good mentor to others. - Russell gives the example of having trained a printer repair technician to be a top tier networking expert and others who have pursued CCIE certifications (some of this for his business to become a Cisco partner). - Many of the people Russell trained would be hired away, and he has to find others to fill those roles. + “Always talk to somebody else before you make a life impacting career change just to bounce the idea off somebody who’s maybe been at that level or been at that role or been at that company or just might have some input that’s not what you would expect. It really helps.” – Russell Swinney, on making big career decisions * Where did the idea for the interim CIO / CISO originate? + It made sense for Russell because it was something he was already doing. He was working with a lot of customers who needed help with technology decisions, strategic and even tactical decisions (any of which could be time sensitive). This is where the idea of virtual leader came to mind. + There’s a difference between interim and virtual leaders. - Interim leaders dig deep for 6-18 months with the goal being to help enable a lasting impact / change (some sort of transformation). Messing this up can hurt one’s reputation, and someone should be very focused on making sure this kind of experience goes well. - Virtual leaders are dedicated for a slice of time to one company but will have many identical engagements with different companies at once. The goal is to provide “better and best choices” advice for ongoing technology operations. Failing at this means customers maybe didn’t listen or perhaps the recommendations didn’t fit the company (which can be because your depth at a company was limited). - The virtual CISO (or vCISO) is a challenging role because it’s hard in the limited amount of time you have as a virtual leader to determine what is best for a company. - Russell calls out the Office of the CISO construct (a group of virtual CISOs) as a silver lining for the virtual leader. This is a group of CISOs who have different experience in different industries. If you end up on an engagement for an industry in which you do not have experience, you can “phone a friend” by asking another virtual leader from the Office of the CISO to help. - “No one of us knows enough, but together we can solve anything….You bring a team when you’re a virtual [leader]. When you’re an interim [leader], it’s you leading the whole show.” – Russell Swinney, on the differences between virtual and interim leaders - John delineates the two this way – the interim leader steps in when someone has left or has been asked to leave and there are outstanding decisions or projects to be done but the search process for a permanent person will be lengthy. The virtual leader steps in when a leader needs guidance but maybe hasn’t had exposure to a certain area. - Russell compliments the tight knit community group of CISOs in the Dallas / Fort Worth area and speaks to its helpfulness. The people who make up this group provide advice, guidance, and support for one another.

34:26 – Advice for the Potential Business Owner* What advice would Russell give the person who wants to start their own business? + Have cash available and at least one good customer lined up. + Consider getting a business address that is not your home address and a business phone number. + Take the time to create good legal documents for proposals so you are protected. + Do not issue credit even to your best customers. Russell says to the business owner, “you’re not a bank.” + Have a clean, current, and helpful website with reference information people can use. + Partnering well is key to success and what Russell highlights as the most important thing, which includes vendors who support products and services you sell and other companies in the same line of work as you for sharing overload / times when you cannot take on more customers. - Russell gets calls at times from peer companies who do not have the bandwidth to service a good customer, and Russell also asks those same companies for help when he is oversubscribed. - “Having partners you can share the load with is great.” – Russell Swinney, on managing workload as a business owner - Nick likes the idea of knowing the limits of what your business can take on from a workload standpoint (requires some self-knowledge and awareness). + Remember to consider the Office of the CISO if you want to do cybersecurity. * Did Russell jump into his business full time immediately or begin to do it part time while still working a different full-time job like many of our guests have done? + Russell may have pursued starting his business on a part-time basis before leaving his full-time job if he had benefited from the advice of a mentor. But he didn’t have one at the time and went into it full-time. + Russell recommends choosing the type of company you will start carefully (like a LLC, S Corp, etc.), how you start it, whether you will have stock, and seek out guidance from lawyers who can help. There is also the possibility of gaining investors.

37:44 – The CIO and the CISO* Nick posits many of us do not understand what a CIO (Chief Information officer) and CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) really entail. * Russell tells us the CIO role (Chief Information Officer) is very much business focused with broad responsibility for all the technology, people, processes, and the organization. The CIO has a fiduciary responsibility to the board of directors to ensure all spending (and staffing) is setup to sustain operations.

+ While the CIO is thinking years ahead they have an immediate focus on the upcoming quarter or annual report. The annual report is for the board of directors.
+ A CIO would be tasked, for example, with selecting a new ERP system at a company. They would work to ensure conversion of systems does not impede business operations and negatively impact revenue.
+ “The specific lens…in a CIO role it doesn’t really matter what technology we use or who we need to run it. It just needs to work to meet the operational needs of the business….In my mind it’s the technology direction of the company….If we are going to acquire a company do we even want their technology or not? Would we even decide not to buy them if their technology’s bad….So a CIO would be very involved in those choices and decisions.” – Russell Swinney, on the CIO’s lens
    - Russell says the CISO should also be involved in decisions relating to company acquisitions. You don’t want to find out too late that a company you are about to buy has horrible security.Russell has seen cases where the CIO reports to a CEO as well as those in which the CIO reports in to another executive leader. Who the CIO reports to is a “personality trait of companies.”
    - “As leaders change in those upper roles the reporting structure should change accordingly too because a lot of it’s driven by personality.” – Russell Swinney, on reporting structure for executives

The CISO might not be able to report to CIO due to compliance reasons.
- Likely you would not want to CISO to report to the CFO (too much of a financial focus and might leave the impression that a CISO is a cost center).
- One option for the CISO to report into is the CEO. No matter what a CISO would likely have a dotted line to the compliance / audit committee of the board of directors.
- The best choice in Russell’s mind is for a CISO to report to COO (Chief Operating Officer) because cybersecurity is part of operations and is working to keep things running. The COO can be a champion for this.
- Much like a CIO, a CISO shouldn’t really care what the technology is. Russell says there are two types of CISOs – a business CISO and a cyber CISO
- A business-focused CISO has a broader view and tends to be more facing the board of directors. This person would lead programs based on the purpose the organization has to be in business (such as financial services, healthcare, energy, etc.).
  - A business-focused CISO would mitigate threats through risk acceptance, insurance, or program changes based on impact to the bottom line.
  - “The best CISOs are going to come up with an idea to impact top line revenue….But they are also quick to outsource something that needs to happen quickly to meet business needs.” – Russell Swinney, on the role of the CISO
- A cyber-focused CISO is focused on running operational aspects of the security organization. This role is very important in highly regulated and highly sensitive environments.
  - You need someone who can understand what is going on from a technical and compliance perspective.
  - As opposed to the business-focused CISO, the cyber-focused CISO already has some solutions in mind (a small change, a new program, a “fix everything script,” etc.) for when problems arise.
  - A company could peer someone with the cyber focus with someone having the business focus.
- “The truth is we all need a little bit of both of types of personalities and understand to work at our best, but we have to figure out which one we’re best at, which one we’re uniquely gifted for…or else we’ll lose our sanity trying to be the other one.” – Russell Swinney, on the two types of CISO
- “It’s a management skill, but it’s a management skill with technical depth.” – Russell Swinney, on being the top cybersecurity person at a company (i.e. the cyber-focused CISO)
- John summarizes and points out these types of CISOs may have skills that lend themselves to being more vertical (cyber-focused CISO) or horizontal (business-focused CISO) in nature.
  - Russell says someone with the vertical depth would make a great addition to an Office of the CISO team.
  - John can see that any regulated industry needs experts in the regulations and compliance that are industry specific. This requires massive ongoing education also because regulations change.
- Mentioned in the outro
- Russell tells us it’s ok to pursue technical excellence and not be forced into management as the only way to progress.
  - Perhaps we should at least consider the management track if someone else encourages us to do so, but only you can determine if that pursuit is interesting.
  - If your company has no way for you to continue on a technical career path / to progress as an individual contributor (in salary, impact, and responsibility), it might be time to look for employers who have staff or principal level roles like we discussed in Episode 242 with Ken Collins.
- We spoke about different modalities of staff and principal engineers (4 of them) in the discussion with Ken Collins mentioned above. This is similar to the two types of CISOs Russell mentioned in our discussion (i.e. 2 modalities – business or cyber focus).
  - For those interested in pursuing a CISO with either focus, we recommend reading the job description carefully to determine which one is being described. Consider asking people you meet for professional networking purposes where their focus is within these two areas.
- Russell wanted to move into management / leadership to influence decisions, and Nick feels this is another iteration of remembering and learning from struggle.
  - Russell remembered the struggle learning computers in his younger days and leveraged that to help him write a book and then to teach a class as a graduate teaching assistant. This same idea makes him a great mentor (since he never had one).
  - It seems like Russell’s purpose has become remembering the struggle and using it to help others.
  - Our experiences and struggles uniquely position us to solve problems, and many times it is the experience of struggle. This discussion with Russell in that light parallels the one we had with Al Elliott in Episode 235. In Al’s case it was his struggle with bankruptcy that gave him his next business idea.
- Russell has been a successful business owner for 26 years as of the recording of this episode. Here’s to many more years of successful business! Unlike many other guests, Russell pursued starting a business full-time immediately once he made the decision.
- Does hugging the cactus work better as an interim leader or a virtual leader?
  - We didn’t talk about it in the episode specifically, but likely it could help one grow in either scenario.
  - Are we intentionally making ourselves do the difficult things?
- The Office of the CISO construct is a great way to poll expertise and draw from it. It should be ok to seek out help you need through a short term avenue like this to learn. Hopefully the people with expertise remember the struggles when they were just learning.

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Welcome to episode 251 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 2 of an interview with Todd Cochrane, detailing how his company works through product and service roadmaps collaboratively, how to keep employees engaged in their work, the challenges of being CEO, and thoughts on developing a strategy for emerging technologies like artificial intelligence.

Original Recording Date: 10-06-2023

Todd Cochrane is the founder and CEO of Blubrry Podcasting, a full service podcast hosting platform. If you missed part 1 of our discussion with Todd, check out Episode 250.

Topics – Filling Expertise Gaps, Corporate and Individual Roadmaps, Leadership and Employee Engagement, Developing a Useful AI Strategy3:32 – Filling Expertise Gaps* Nick feels like the above experience is an iteration of being mindful of our gaps in knowledge just like when Todd got on his show and asked people with different expertise for help. It’s learning from others but also humility. + Todd says he was a high school graduate going into the Navy and didn’t get a degree until he had been in the Navy for 20 years. In a way he was getting credit for much of what he had learned via the school of hard knocks. + Todd has seen people fail because they hung out with others who may have been fun people but who just were not going to advance in a company. It’s important to surround ourselves with good people. * John points out that just like skills diversification when one is riding a technology wave, it’s also about having a diverse set of people around us whose experience we can call upon to fill gaps in our own expertise. + We cannot be experts in everything. Having access to others with different expertise can enable the kinds of pivots we spoke about earlier (for the individual or for a business). + As company owner and founder, Todd would rather collaboratively come up with a plan with his team than just give them a directive. - Todd calls himself a geek and says there are times where he wants something geeky (i.e. a feature) that 90% of his customers may not ever need. It’s important to be careful and prioritize for the 90%. - There are certainly times when Todd’s team are building a feature that is intended to promote adoption (i.e. building it for only a small subset of customers) like some of the podcasting 2.0 work they have done. But these occasions are pretty rare, and the team knows why they are building it. + Todd says the team are very cognizant of the products and services roadmap when making decisions, and he looks at the year’s roadmap every day. Every 2 weeks there is an oversight meeting to discuss the roadmap with other company leaders. - Priorities may need to change based on the marketplace conditions. - “You have to be careful. Because if you’re working Scrum…if you interrupt the cycle you could really do huge damage.” – Todd Cochrane, on being flexible in your product roadmaps

7:32 – Corporate and Individual Roadmaps* Nick posits that most of us do not have a roadmap for ourselves and our careers, nor do we look at it daily. + Todd says the roadmap is the company roadmap but might as well be his personal roadmap. + John emphasizes the company’s execution on a roadmap is analogous to a individual contributor’s view of themselves / their career as a product. - Excellence in what a company is doing today is of course important. - Companies often have innovation budgets to enable building products people might not know they need until they use it / can have it (i.e. the iPhone or perhaps certain podcast hosting features). - Maybe as individuals, in addition to excelling at what we do today (a baseline of excellence in execution), we should have our own innovation budget allotted for building new skills and learning about the next / current technology wave. This avoids us from being locked into excellence in only what we do today just like Todd’s company was able to shift away from being only a media intermediary in the early days. + Todd says his team is fully remote but does come together a couple of times per year for planning purposes (1 time in person, 1 time 6 months later remotely as a follow up to that). - These meetings are a chance to look at what is going well, what isn’t, and a chance to solicit new ideas. - During these discussions, teams criticize one another and give feedback. It is a very frank set of discussions that results in action items. Todd says they try to preserve people’s feelings during the discussions, but it is about honest evaluation of how things are going. - The above will be quite difficult for companies with more than 20 employees. Todd says the approach works well for his company. - Todd also tells us a bad apple (1 person) can make a very negative impact on the company. This person might not be staying current or is constantly fighting with others. - “Sometimes it’s better to cut those folks loose. Even though you think you shouldn’t, sometimes getting rid of that just maybe 1 person can completely change how a company’s atmosphere is and the flow and the speed….So I learned this late – that sometimes it’s just better to say ‘thank you for your work it’s time to part ways.’ It’s just like pivoting. Sometimes the employee mix needs to change.” – Todd Cochrane, on making difficult decisions around people - Todd says there was someone who left the company about a year ago, and the business had a complete transformation (in a good way) as a result.

12:00 – Leadership and Employee Engagement* Many people moving into leadership are not prepared for the hard personnel decisions. What are other challenges Todd has noticed as CEO, being in charge of the roadmap and the people? + Todd says he has been quite lucky with very little turnover, having only a couple of people leave the company over time and a couple of others get asked to leave. Overall the team has been strong (a possible sign they are doing something right). + “We all get bored if we’re doing the same thing, but we’re in a business where we can build new stuff all the time and have new challenges. So I think from my perspective…if you’re not innovating, then your employees are going to get bored, and they’re going to go some place that is innovating to give them a challenge.” – Todd Cochrane + Ideally Todd wants employees to feel their work is exciting, that it is making a difference, and for them to be excited to start work on it again each day. + In IT sometimes work is drudgery (or “the thunking” as Todd calls it) and is not something we enjoy doing but need to do (i.e. keeping servers up to date). + Nick mentions Todd recognized the need for people to be interested and engaged in their work, and Todd has iterated upon that methodology in terms of the way people engage with the company and its products. - If you’re listening to this episode and intend to become a leader but have not thought through the importance of people understanding the purpose in their work, think on it. It was extremely important for Todd to share the vision with employees. - “How is my role here having a larger purpose for this organization? And hopefully that gives me some personal satisfaction and sense of accomplishment.” – Nick Korte, on the importance of leaders helping employees to understand the purpose of their work + Todd says he came from a field where he was able to work on multiple projects on a monthly / semi-annual basis. This kept him excited about the job. - There were legacy systems to support, of course, but there were brand new systems. - “I understood that that job satisfaction of having something new to work on is fresh, challenging, you have to really think…I mean hard, hard problems to solve.” – Todd Cochrane - Todd gives the analogy of working with airplanes. Both power and space are constrained resources, and there is a give and take between them. - Translating this to running a company, there is server space as well as mind space. They would not want to do something that will be an extreme burden from a technical support perspective, for example. + AI (artificial intelligence) has Todd a little frightened, but the strategy for the company is to not be locked into a single language model (Claude, ChatGPT, Meta, etc.). - “We’re using the dumbest AI we’ll ever use today. It’s exciting at the same time, but it’s hard to pick a strategy that is not going to be obsolete in 2 weeks.” – Todd Cochrane + Todd says right now (at the time of this recording), the economy is tight with podcasting being fairly flat. But he and his team have been through cycles of economic downturn and know what to expect, having been profitable every year of their existence. - “As long as you keep the green line above the red line I think that’s the key in almost any business industry. Otherwise you don’t survive.” – Todd Cochrane

17:29 – Developing a Useful AI Strategy* John understands the desire to stay flexible and diverse in terms of different language models and asks Todd about his AI strategy and where he feels like it will help podcasters.

+ Todd always likes to ask himself whether something the company is doing will help the customer base by saving time or making a customer product better.
+ Todd says helpful areas for AI use will likely be content creation and post production. Many companies are doing things related to social media, and Todd doesn’t think he wants to compete in that space.
+ The number one question Todd gets asked consistently by content creators is “how do I grow my show?” Any use of AI tools would need to help in this area.
+ The team at Blubrry has taken several months to think through a strategy.
    - For those who follow Todd’s shows Geek News Central and New Media Show, he is public about the things in the AI space with which he has experimented.
    - The “thunking” is in creating documents (outlines, drafts, proposals, etc.) and will likely be done by the AI. The creative individual will still be needed, but some of the show prep (based on creative thinking) could be handled by AI, for example.
    - “On the other side of it, you have to be the subject matter expert of your topic, your content, so that when the production piece is done by the AI you can validate….You are going to be the person that is going to review the output.” – Todd Cochrane
    - We need to remember that the output from AI tools will not be perfect and won’t be for some time. Todd says the work of his team will be to educate creators on this fact.
    - Todd references a book on NATOPS with all the information needed (sort of like a bible for the airplane). There is a disclaimer on the book that it is not a substitute for common sense.
    - For example, if an AI provides poor topic suggestions, we need to not use them. Podcasters need to know that these are merely tools to help with content creation and production.
    - Blubrry will be working on tools to help podcasters grow their show, but it will be tricky. People need to understand the models / AI tools will lie.
    - Todd says for a show like ours where we are having a ranging discussion, AI has a hard time summarizing it. But for shows that are one point after another, AI does well there. Nerd Journey may not get as much value out of a transcript analysis as a news show covering a set number of topics.
    - Todd shares the results of some tests lately that were lower quality than what an intern at his company should produce.
+ Nick feels like this is just the tools and the SME (subject matter expert) changing a little.
    - Todd says we (as the SME) need to be able to check to see if output is too flowery, if the AI added something that wasn’t discussed in a show summary, etc. He feels the tools will get better over time (pretty quickly) but just are not there yet.
+ John mentions these tools help with the problem of starting with a blank page as well as with summarization. It’s easier to work from a draft than from nothing.
    - Todd says podcasters have often been lazy with show notes.
    - “You record for your audience. You write for Google.” – Todd Cochrane on podcast creation and show notes (advice for the podcaster)
    - As language models become more widespread searches will change, and we want our content to be easily findable. The metadata we feed into Google is becoming more important.

To follow up with Todd on this discussion…
- E-mail Todd – todd@blubrry.com
- Todd is also on LinkedIn and many other places. Search for his name to find him.
- Check out the podcasts he’s a part of as well:
  - Todd likes to say listening to the New Media Show consistently could essentially get you a PhD in podcasting. Rob Greenlee is the co-host of this show with Todd, and he has worked for almost every major podcast company over time.
  - Geek News Central is Todd’s twice-weekly tech show that is a broad range of everything technology.
  - Podcast Insider is a Blubrry podcast hosted by Todd and 2 others at Blubrry to discuss strategies for podcasting.
- Mentioned in the outro
- Our hope for leaders listening is that they would try to keep the same mindset Todd has about providing employees the ability to do interesting work.
- We hope everyone listening has the chance to do interesting and exciting work every day. You can take control here as it is not 100% up to our managers to provide opportunities for us to do interesting work.
  - We can ask for more opportunities (different projects, work on new technologies, etc.) much like Jason Langer shared in Episode 218.
  - If both we and our managers are thinking about this, perhaps we can meet in the middle to find the right level of challenge, promote employee engagement, and provide the most value to the company.
- Part of keeping the work interesting for the employee base may be recognizing when it’s time to part ways with certain employees.
- The last part of our conversation with Todd focusing on the strategy for artificial intelligence technologies is about far more than just AI.
  - The CEO of a products and services company like Blubrry needs to understand how using new technology could help the company do things better to drive revenue, margin, and customer value.
  - The technologist needs to understand how new technologies will out of necessity or helpfulness integrate into the work we do or change the way we do it.
  - To avoid being disrupted in a negative way maybe we need to utilize the innovation budget in our own careers to tinker with or learn about something new / something to which we have not been exposed.
  - Consider what colleagues and peers are learning about for their own growth. Maybe it’s going to a conference to learn from others or to learn about what interesting problems technology vendors are solving in the industry.
  - Nick is reminded of the technology hype cycle discussions we had with Duncan Sparrell in Episode 249.
- Have you ever tried creating a roadmap for yourself?
  - It might be analogous to signing up for a training course and a certification test because you have dates and milestones. Even if we have one for ourselves, how often are we looking at it to validate it’s something we want to do / a direction we want to go?

View Details

Welcome to episode 250 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 1 of an interview with Todd Cochrane, detailing his Naval experience in electronics working on special projects for aircraft, experience in program management, how Todd got into podcasting and later became a business owner, the nuances of running a business part-time, and how a company and individuals can shift based on market conditions.

Original Recording Date: 10-06-2023

Topics – Meet Todd Cochrane, Naval Service and Technical Knowledge, Program Management, An Injury and a Different Role, Getting into Podcasting and Monetization, A Tech Wave and a Shift, Diversification of Focus and Expertise2:30 – Meet Todd Cochrane* Todd Cochrane is the founder and CEO of Blubrry Podcasting. Blubrry is a full service podcast hosting platform. + At the time of this recording they are working with around 100,000 shows / podcasts at a variety of levels (some shows using Blubrry for hosting, some for analytics, some using the PowerPress plugin for WordPress). + The team at Blubrry is about 17 people, and they have been in business since 2005. + Nerd Journey proudly uses Blubrry statistics and the PowerPress plugin!

3:51 – Naval Service and Technical Knowledge* In vocational tech school Todd took 2 years of electronics and then joined the Navy in 1983. His official title at that time was aviation electronics technician. * Todd also served as a back end operator in specialized P3 aircraft used more as platforms for intelligence collection. Todd tells us he was involved in this kind of work for 25 years. + During his tenure in the Navy, Todd got exposed to something called special projects. + People would bring a box for a specific function in the plane (a “box de jour”), and Todd would do the mechanical and electrical designs for these to get them in the planes quickly. * Todd’s true Navy background was in synthetic aperture radar and involved work with Sandia National Labs. * To pair with his deep technical knowledge of electronics, Todd started to tinker with other things like bulletin boards and downloading shareware while stationed in Guam. + This was back in the days of dial up modems. + “I really was kind of a geek in all aspects of job and life….When the bulletin board era died, I basically became a blogger.” – Todd Cochrane, reflecting on his time in the Navy. + Todd calls himself a failed blogger, feeling he was not great at it. This was around 2002. + In 2004 Todd got into podcasting but continued to work another job. After retiring from the Navy in 2007, Todd spent 12 years as a tech rep (basically the same job he had been doing but as a civilian). + Todd continued to work with and for Naval personnel until 2019 while running his own company on the side. + “Needless to say those were some exciting years because there was not a lot of free time.” – Todd Cochrane, on working a full time job and running his own company on the side + Todd has only been out of aviation for about 4 years now but has been running his business (Blubrry) the entire time along the way since it began as a side project. * Todd retired from the Navy as a senior chief (an E8). He did have the opportunity to go warrant officer but was happy being a chief, “punching out” just before hitting the 26 year mark for Navy service. + This was largely because they offered him a civilian job, and he took the opportunity to make the change. + Todd tells us he was exposed to a great deal of high end technology during his work (much of it will remain classified for many years). + Looking back, Todd says it’s pretty amazing to see the advances in technology from 1983 when he joined to when he retired and up to the time of this recording because of the technology changing so fast.

8:10 – Program Management* Was designing the boxes for airplanes like being a product designer or a product maanger? + Todd’s degree from Emory Riddle is in professional aeronautics with a minor in program management, and he was able to put the program management skills to good work. + For systems that the Navy personnel designed, built, and owned they had input into the capabilities desired as well as features they wanted. - “It was a full scheme. Some of the systems were born from an idea – built, designed, UX, UI, the whole nine yards…that I was able to have a hand touch in.” – Todd Cochrane, on working with a team to design and build systems for Naval aviation + In the last 15 years of his work, Todd says someone would show up with a box that he and others would have to wire up / connect. These ranged from computers that needed installing to electronics that need to hook into multiple systems in an aircraft. - From day to day, Todd didn’t really know what might come his way. This made the job quite unique. - They might get a call from a well known company who wanted them to test something, for example. - “So our job was really to kind of test and evaluate, and more importantly, in a real world situation, not necessarily on some range….It was fun.” – Todd Cochrane + In the case of 787 or 777 commercial aircraft, they are built exactly the same (with exception of some of the electronics in the cockpit). Often times the supply chain is setup so you could walk over to the airplane next to you and “rob it” for the parts you needed. - In Todd’s situation, everything was unique, and each airplane was different in some sense. It was important to have configuration control across multiple aircraft. - Sometimes they would need to upgrade multiple airplanes at a time.

11:08 – An Injury and a Different Role* In 2004 Todd was hurt badly in a swimming accident in Bahrain, which grounded him from flying. * Todd was in Waco, Texas doing contract enforcement – making sure taxpayer money was spent wisely and monitoring aircraft builds. + Todd says he saw a lot of the government / civilian interaction during this time, and it was a very interesting job to do for a few years. * Todd had insight into the process of building aircraft from beginning to delivery of and testing of aircraft. + The team was multi-faceted and in multiple locations (i.e. teams with some specialties in the northern US, others elsewhere, etc.). + Specific systems might require their own reviews and discussions and planning. + Budget and what could be done within the time frame were also factors. It was a team effort. + Todd tells us there were also subject matter experts (or SMEs) for various systems. + Todd has publicly shared that his background was in electronic warfare, synthetic aperture radar, etc. while on active duty for the Navy. He would have been considered a SME for these kinds of systems during his service. - Todd would work with and support the team putting in systems for which he was SME as well as the sailor who was deployed and had run into issues (i.e. provide troubleshooting / fly out somewhere to resolve the issue, etc.). - The role was part design and implementation as well as ongoing platform support. * Nick feels like this SME role is extremely analogous to life as an IT generalist. + Todd says it would have been very bad for someone to infiltrate the software they used software. As such a number of security measures were put into place to help prevent this. + The IT group gave people like Todd the hardest time because they might lock something down so tight it causes something else to break. And Todd calls this “par for the course.” + Todd says having this experience set him up well for success later when he pursued working for his company full-time. + “For me the transition from military to civilian was pretty smooth because I had worked with civilians a lot….So I didn’t have this mindset of someone that maybe just came out of the military that had never had a lot of civilian interaction.” – Todd Cochrane, on transitioning out of the Navy and how it might be different than others leaving military service * Todd had been running his company as his part-time job for a number of years until he transitioned to working there full time. + While still working in the Navy, Todd had to be very careful about keeping his business and Navy work completely separate. + The separation was an important part of security clearance reviews, and Todd even had to ask permission to have his own business. + Todd would leave his phone in the car during his normal workday and take business calls either during lunch or after work to help keep the separation. + “But when I transitioned, it really made me realize I should have probably done it about 10 years earlier.” – Todd Cochrane, reflecting on his transition to running his business full time * For the last 4 years, Todd’s job as CEO of Blubrry has been coordinating with the software development teams, production, and marketing. + Todd says they use Scrum at Blubrry and that he is essentially the Scrum Master in many ways despite being the owner. His project management skills have come in handy.

16:39 – Getting into Podcasting and Monetization* When Todd speaks to being in Waco, TX he was in a full body clam shell after smashing his L1 vertebrae in a swimming pool accident. + Todd tells us he was lucky to be alive and be able to walk after the huge spinal cord displacement from the accident. + Todd worked in an unairconditioned shop after being able to walk again (still in Waco) and was exhausted at the end of most days. + He would spend evenings on his laptop surfing the internet and stumbled upon Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code, one of the early podcasts. + At this time (October 2004) Todd was a tech blogger who didn’t have many people reading his site, but he liked to talk. + Todd picked up a cheap portable microphone at Wal-Mart and started recording a podcast. He already understood things like XML that one needed to know to get a podcast online back then and was able to execute on his own. + “Really the eureka moment came when I woke up one morning and my webhost said, ‘hey, you’re out of bandwidth. We’ve shut you down.’” – Todd Cochrane, on an interesting situation after starting a podcast in the early days + There was no Blubrry at this time, and the only way to fix the problem was to spend more money on shared hosting accounts. Todd’s podcast website had to be moved around every few days at that time to keep it going. - October 9th, 2023 marked the anniversary of Todd’s 19th year of doing podcasting! * Todd was spending a lot of money to keep the show online. When he returned to Hawaii and let his wife know what he was doing, she didn’t really know what podcasting was (almost no one did at that time). But, Todd’s wife told him he needed to be making money from this endeavor after a year or two or would have to stop. * In November of the same year, Todd received an e-mail from a publishing company asking him to write the first book on podcasting. + At first he was not sure if they were serious. But it turns out they were and offered him a sizable advance to do the book even though he did not consider himself good with grammar or a writer. + Agreeing to write the book fixed Todd’s money issue. + Todd eventually started his own tech network and then in 2005 GoDaddy called Todd wanting to sponsor his podcast. - GoDaddy is still a sponsor of Todd’s show Geek News Central. + At this time Todd was one of the very few who had advertising on his podcast. He wasn’t quite sure how to charge in the beginning. After a month of sponsorship GoDaddy got around 370 customers and wanted to sponsor Todd’s show for a full year. - “Here’s one of those things where you have to understand your worth, and I really had no idea what my worth was.” – Todd Cochrane, on having to come up with an amount to charge GoDaddy to sponsor his show - Todd says he ultimately gave a price that was far too low (an underbid as he calls it), but in the moment he suggested a bonus if GoDaddy converted a certain number of customers as a result of the show. Ultimately Todd’s contact at GoDaddy agreed to this. - The lady Todd was working with to construct a deal asked if he knew anyone else looking to advertise with GoDaddy. Todd said yes and that he needed a couple of weeks to get back to her. + The tech network Todd had built had 12-13 shows he could potentially represent and take a percentage of the proceeds. + “And on my next podcast I said, ‘I need a lawyer, I need a MBA, I need a graphics guy, and I need programmer. And we’re having a call in 10 days. If you’re one of those, be on it……’ And in the end we formed RawVoice, which is the parent company for Blubrry, over the telephone. And we all had regular jobs, so everyone was working this at night.” – Todd Cochrane, on the beginnings of his business - Todd made the ask on his show and got all the personas he needed on a call. - The company was profitable from month 1, and each member of the group contributed some of their own money in the beginning to fund the startup. - Todd was told he was too old at 40 to receive a round of funding from venture capitalists in silicon valley. And it would have required the entire team to move there (not feasible with everyone having a family). - “But the one thing we were always smart with is we knew that we had to have money in the bank. We knew we had to be profitable. We knew we had to make payroll because…I didn’t have $25 million of VC to use. We had to build this slowly, and that’s what we did over the years. We built it slowly and never extended ourselves too far.” – Todd Cochrane

23:28 – A Tech Wave and a Shift* John mentions Todd identified what we would call a technology wave, was passionate about what he was doing, and he made a bet. + Todd maybe could have gone to work for someone looking to monetize in this space but made a bet. The structures Todd had put in place enabled starting a business without too much work compared to someone with a cold start. + Todd says in a lot of ways the team figured things out as they went with the first product being an “abject failure.” But the team learned from this experience and made changes to their model. + "We build a lot of stuff, and if something is not working, I don’t dwell on it. I don’t ride that ship into the ground. We move on. Maybe we keep the product, and maybe we don’t. " – Todd Cochrane + Todd mentions many people with a product or idea believe in it so much they burn all their money and don’t make a change or shift early enough. + In the early days Todd’s company was like a media agency and represented podcasters for ad deals. Most shows they represented were fairly small, and their second product in 2006 allowed them to track podcast listening statistics. + As larger more popular shows came online, Todd could see the advertising budgets shrink and shift to be put into these larger shows. - As a result of seeing this trend, Todd’s company did a strategic shift to become a service provider. - “So as the advertising revenue was declining the service business kind of crossed in the middle, and we dodged a bullet. We would not have made it had we not shifted to a service business….Keep your eye on the ball, what’s going on in the space. At that time I had 5 competitors. Now I have 30.” – Todd Cochrane, on a strategic company shift + Todd tell us his product is commoditized today and competes today on features based on feedback from customers and the market. - In the technology sector, companies have to look around and understand what is happening (cannot be blind to this). - “You do have to teach the old dog new tricks. You have to.” – Todd Cochrane, on the need for companies to adapt to changing market conditions - The above is also true for knowledge workers, especially with the growth and emphasis on AI (artificial intelligence). If people do not stay current and get educated on these technologies, they may find themselves out of a job in a few years. + When Todd originally built his show (that first podcast), he was trying to build authority. Todd wanted a press pass to CES (Consumer Electronics Show), which he eventually did get. - This was before his wife’s mention of monetization. - “I did it out of pure desire just to go and hag out and check that show out….Then things kind of morphed as time went on.” – Todd Cochrane, on the reason he started his podcast in the first place

28:06 – Diversification of Focus and Expertise* John says we’ve heard about startups and the term “pivoting.” It may not be a pivot of the company but a diversification of where success and money will come from (which is also true for an individual).

+ John shares that at one point his ability to crimp a CAT5 cable was a skill that brought money in. But if he had held tight to this and focused on it holistically forever, John would not have a job right now.
+ Diversifying a skill base or what provides value to an employer or a business (i.e. your own business) is something we can do to keep ourselves from having market forces destroy us.
+ As we age we get more expensive to employers, making it even more important to keep our skills current and requiring that we bring expertise to our next role.
+ Early on in Todd’s Navy career a friend / mentor named Randy gave him some great advice.
    - “You just need to attach yourself to the smartest person in the room and suck them dry, basically learn everything they know or everything they will tell you.” – Advice from Todd Cochrane’s friend Randy
+ Todd says using this strategy has really paid off for him long term, and he does this today with his CTO at Blubrry (someone who knows the tech well and someone that Todd trusts to provide direction).
+ “I think it’s more than surrounding yourself. I think if you are in a field that you’re trying to stay current on, you need to become the person other people want to attach to. But when you’re early in your career it’s easy to be annoyed by that older wise individual. But they have so much experience.” – Todd Cochrane
+ Todd tells the story of asking someone with more experience at Sandia National Labs for help on a schematic. The person told Todd exactly what to do to fix the problem (which worked). But Todd didn’t leave it there. He went back to the person and asked how they knew their suggestion would fix the problem.
    - “A 15-minute conversation I had with him literally fixed hundreds of problems that I had going forward years in advance. When you have that opportunity to get help from…a genius and they can bring the topic down to your level, man you just need to…milk that dry.” – Todd Cochrane, on picking the brain of a brilliant colleague with more experience
    - Todd thinks that advice from Randy (who is still a friend to this day) was one of those pivotal moments / pieces of career advice.

Mentioned in the outro
- If you are someone who has served or is serving in the military, we thank you for your service!
  - For those making the transition from military to civilian life, don’t be ashamed of getting support through this transition. One such resource in the US is the Transition Assistance Program.*For the part time business owners out there, check with your employer before doing this to avoid conflicts of interest in advance!
- The injury Todd suffered was not so devastating that he got depressed and did nothing. He started tinkering around and occupied himself with something fun (podcasting).
- Each of us has a platform we can use to ask for help (social media, blogs, podcasts, videos, etc.). How can you use what you have to tap into personal and professional networks to ask for help?
  - We won’t know if we can get the help until we ask. People are listening!
  - Maybe you can ask for guidance on something you want to learn from your network.
- Maybe we should ask others in roles we find interesting what they’ve had to learn over time to get better during the course of being in a specific role.
- Perhaps as we shift our focus of expertise over time we can become more like the “T-Shaped Engineer” Chris Williams describes in Episode 229.
- To follow up with Todd on this discussion…
- E-mail Todd – todd@blubrry.com
- Todd is also on LinkedIn and many other places. Search for his name to find him.
- Check out the podcasts he’s a part of as well:
  - Todd likes to say listening to the New Media Show consistently could essentially get you a PhD in podcasting. Rob Greenlee is the co-host of this show with Todd, and he has worked for almost every major podcast company over time.
  - Geek News Central is Todd’s twice-weekly tech show that is a broad range of everything technology.
  - Podcast Insider is a Blubrry podcast hosted by Todd and 2 others at Blubrry to discuss strategies for podcasting.

View Details

Welcome to episode 249 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 2 of an interview with Duncan Sparrell, detailing Duncan’s progression into management and back to life as an individual contributor, how he evaluated decisions to change jobs and companies, advice on technology hype cycles and where to place yourself in them, and the genesis of Duncan’s cybersecurity experience.

Original Recording Date: 10-02-203

Duncan Sparrell is Chief Cyber Curmudgeon at sFractal Consulting, a boutique consulting firm for software and cybersecurity that Duncan founded which helps with his personal mission to make the world a safer place. If you missed part 1 of our discussion with Duncan, check out Episode 248.

Topics – Progression to Leadership, Training and Gaining Influence, Player Coach and the Manager to Individual Contributor Move, Move Choices and Enjoying Your Work, Information Warfare, Technology Hype Cycles and Following the Money3:19 – Progression to Leadership* Is climbing the ladder that Duncan mentioned going into people management or continuing to progress as an individual contributor? + The answer is both! He went back and forth between the two (individual contributor and manager). Duncan climbed the tech ladder as an individual contributor as well as doing it as a manager. + Duncan was promoted to lead engineer early in his career (more responsibility and more pay) and later into “actual management” which required performance reviews and real people management. + Duncan was able to learn to manage people in what he calls the ideal way and was in a role that was half an individual contributor and half a people manager (so some responsibilities for each or a foot in both worlds). In this case the group he was managing was small enough to allow him to do it. Duncan says being in this position allowed him to get involved in bigger and bigger projects. - We might refer to this type of role as a player coach type role based on conversations with other past guests. + Duncan mentions direct reports (people reporting through you) and indirect reports (those you lead through influence without authority). - In order to succeed you need the ability to influence without authority. This requires credibility, integrity, and trust with your co-workers (trust with both subordinates and trust with your management). It is a balancing act do it well, and one must be persistent. - A mistake or bad day (like being a jerk) can erase many “did greats” and may come back to bite you. In Duncan’s experience, jerks do not get rewarded. - “Being a jerk is just the wrong time to be a jerk.” – Duncan Sparrell * Did Duncan ask for the role as half individual contributor and half manager (player coach), or did someone encourage him to do it? + Duncan says people encouraged him to do it and went through the process of feeling him out for it. Once an opening came up, he was sort of pushed into it. Some of Duncan’s other career moves were somewhat similar to this. + “I do think if you want to progress you have to both look up and look down. Look up in that you have to recognize the objectives of your management and what they are trying to do and how can you help your boss do their job better. But you can’t do that at the expense of your co-workers or the people who work for you.” – Duncan Sparrell, on progressing your career + At some point in the middle of his career Duncan was told if he wanted to progress further he needed to spend more time “looking up.” - Duncan progressed all the way to being a 4th level manager at one point in his career and made a decision to not spend too much time looking up. Maybe he could have progressed further into upper management, but Duncan chose to focus on his people’s needs, wanting to keep them happy despite his job acting as “the middle point in the hourglass.” + “When something needs to get done, somebody’s got to do it, and it isn’t always you that’s doing it. So one thing you’ve got to learn is it’s not always you that’s doing it.” – Duncan Sparrell, on tasks that may be better for a manager to delegate + A manager should play to their strengths and get others to help where they aren’t as strong. It’s important to get others to help in areas where they are strong because they can (even if you, the manager are strong in that area). - Sometimes it’s important to give someone the chance to do something when they don’t know how. It’s you training them. - This is you acting as a force multiplier for others, which can lead to career progression. People will take notice if you are a force multiplier but even quicker if you are acting as the opposite of one. + “My sole objective was always to have fun and enjoy what I was doing, and I happened to get a very successful career from doing that.” – Duncan Sparrell + Duncan would encourage us to keep the big picture and the organization’s goals in mind. + “In management you can learn something from everybody. Some are behaviors to emulate. Some are things not to do. You need to look at that.” – Duncan Sparrell, on learning as a manager + Duncan speaks to performance reviews not happening as quickly as perhaps they could and mentions people think certain behaviors go unnoticed. Likely there is just a delay in getting the feedback to the individual, particularly bad news. - Duncan has had to lay people off and fire people, and it is NOT fun. It’s also very hard. - Duncan mentions surviving both ATT splits and having to decide which members of his team would go to a new organization with him and which would remain. Even then he did not have full control of what happened and was only able to make recommendations. It was near impossible to make everyone happy with the outcome of the moves. - “People don’t like doing things that aren’t fun to do….Bad performance feedback doesn’t get given as often as it should because it’s hard to do. I have not had fun doing it…but I have done it.” – Duncan Sparrell + Was there support in place like training for the hard things Duncan had to do like layoffs and poor performance feedback? - Nick posits the individual contributor who steps up to even player coach likely does not know how to do this well. - Duncan says you sort of have to emulate the behavior before they give you the new position. Often times the training does not come until after you have been given a position and you are in it for a while. It is a tough trade off. - “The problem is if you go to the training and you haven’t had the experience, it doesn’t sink in.” – Duncan Sparrell - Duncan gives the illustration of emergency room doctors being forced to stay up for 24 hours so they can learn to deal with the mistakes they make. - Bell Labs was really into training. Duncan got to take some excellent management courses after he had been a supervisor for about a year. - Duncan did a lot of reading in his early years as a manager and learns well from books. The Mythical Man-Month was a new book at one point during his career. - Duncan says pressures on management have only grown over the years but that management theory has come a long way.

13:30 – Training and Gaining Influence* John mentions the ATT System Center for Technical Education. + Duncan says the name has been changed over time, but it had massive training centers. There were a million employees working for ATT at one point. Now it’s more like over 300,000 employees (still very big). + When a company has this many resources, the best way to utilize them is to train people well. That’s looking at it from a business perspective. + Duncan mentions they had training budgets that they had to figure out how to spend. And he emphasizes our day jobs do not go away when we have to do training on top of it. + Some training we get by experience. Duncan is a big fan of influence without authority and people being able to do it - “It’s usually knowing what you are talking about and not being a jerk. And then people respect your opinion.” – Duncan Sparrell, on how to influence without authority - Duncan’s reputation in cybersecurity gave him influence without authority (inside ATT), but after retirement he needed a certification to prove his expertise (CISSP. - “Doing what’s right will get you recognized and get you that influence.” – Duncan Sparrell, on gaining influence

16:01 – Player Coach and the Manager to Individual Contributor Move* If Duncan was designing an organization, would he ensure there were player coach type roles to try people out in a management role? + Duncan says if he could afford it he definitely would. + A piece of advice for listeners is to have a good life partner. Duncan was an electrical engineer and his wife a chemical engineer. They worked for different companies in different roles, but they did a lot of “bedroom benchmarking” and discussed how things were going at each of their companies. Duncan’s wife progressed along the management ladder up to senior executive at Exxon Mobile. + At Exxon, there was a player coach type role people were put in for 6 months as part of career pathing. Later on some people would get full time roles as managers while others would not. - Nick sees this as being like an internal internship. - Duncan saw this program as a way of acknowledging not everyone was going to work out in management and that there was a way back to individual contributor. - Duncan enjoyed going back to individual contributor and mentions he went higher up the technical ladder than he did on the management ladder. He tells us not all companies have equal ladders up to senior most positions because they may be limited by size. - When Duncan went back to being an individual contributor he had a lot of influence already and perhaps even additional influence because of his title. Part of his job description was to be broad across many areas, and that was something Duncan really enjoyed. * Nick asks about what questions are asked when someone goes back to IC from being a manager. + At Duncan’s company the management ladder went higher than the technical ladder. There are only so many senior level executive roles, for example. + Duncan says he went higher than he needed to go, and he was compensated better than he ever thought he would be for his work. + His goal was to enjoy is work and have fun, but he did not enjoy every job. Duncan would either stay in it until a job change arose or seek one out on his own. Being in a big company also helped, and he was able to find different jobs within ATT when needed.

20:25 – Move Choices and Enjoying Your Work* Duncan found different jobs inside ATT when his wife was transferred. + Duncan lightly mentions getting involved in the federal workspace and having a clearance to do so. * Be open when management comes to you with an ask to do something that they feel will help your career. If you say no, your manager will remember. + Duncan mentions a manager coming to him suggesting he needed a security clearance to work in a specific area. Duncan had come to Bell Labs because he did not want to get a security clearance. + Listen to the story of how Duncan’s manager presented the value of getting a security clearance by having him first focus on the reasons he did not want to get the clearance. After the discussion, Duncan thought about it and decided to get a clearance. Looking back, Duncan is glad he got the clearance, acknowledging that it helped his career. * Duncan’s wife was transferred to Virginia, and he used the clearance as a way to get a job inside a new organization. This was another boost to his career and was extremely rewarding. + Duncan got to run a business unit for a while. - Duncan had to handle contracts, operated his own profit and loss statement (or PNL), and even got to brief the ATT chairman of the board once per year on the program. - Duncan made his own luck in that he went and found this particular role working in an organization he was already supporting through previous work inside ATT (supporting through being a consultant to this group on a part-time basis). Working with this specific group in the first place is what got Duncan the security clearance mentioned earlier. * In the early to mid-1990s, a friend of Duncan’s from earlier in his time at Bell Labs made the move to a small company called Microsoft located in Seattle. When he suggested Duncan consider making the move as well, Duncan declined, saying he was having too much fun where he was. * If Duncan had known Microsoft was going to take off like it did, would he have made a different decision? + Duncan does not think he would have, feeling the work he was doing back then was really making the world a safer place and also something he enjoyed. * John makes the observation that it’s important what we say yes and no to throughout a career. Likely something such as working for a tech startup may have always been an option, and the Microsoft suggestion was likely not the first time someone suggested Duncan do something different. Each choice set him on a specific path. + Duncan says there were job move choices for both him and his wife over time which they would look at together and make a decision. Based on specific reasons for Duncan or his wife, they were both ok with saying something wasn’t for them. + "If our objective was to make the most money we could ever make we would have probably made some of those differently, but we’re very happy with the ones we made. I’d much rather be happy at a well paying job than unhappy at a super rich job. " – Duncan Sparrell, on making job move choices jointly with his wife + John mentions therapy from working a high stress job / a job you hate can be quite expensive and have an impact on your overall health (mental, physical, etc.). + Duncan says there will likely be periods of our careers in which we will have a certain amount of angst and not be happy. But these periods should be brief, and we should see some sort of end to them in the future. Otherwise it might be time to make a change. + John mentions there may be difficult times during a career we need to endure because it will be best over the long term. + “Don’t confuse working hard with being unhappy.” – Duncan Sparrell - Duncan tells us he put in so many hours over the course of his career usually because he liked what he was doing most of the time. Even in retirement Duncan is still working on the things he likes to do. - Before retirement Duncan was working much more than 40 hours each week. Now that he is retired he’s cut back to 40 hours each week with a few paid hours via his consulting business and the rest for volunteering. - “It’s not like you can coast. You gotta provide the value, however you provide the value. Some people can provide the value in a very short amount of time. Some people have to really slug at it to provide the value. Most people are…it’s a combination of both.” – Duncan Sparrell - “It can be exhausting, it can be draining, and you can still love every minute of it. And you could be in a situation where you’re not actually working that hard and also hating every minute of it.” – John White - Maybe we should not equate required or requested effort with good or bad. You can enjoy or not enjoy your work separate and apart from how hard you’re being asked / required to work. + Duncan says enjoyment can come in different ways – liking something we are doing or liking the end result of what we’re doing. - Duncan is very proud of the work he did for the government and feels what he did has helped make the world a safer place. Not every hour of it was fun. But the result was rewarding. - There was an on-call aspect to the work which sometimes made it rough. - “It was literally saving lives at times…that you just walked away feeling very good from, that it was worth it after the fact.” – Duncan Sparrell - John says this goes back to process and outcomes. Sometimes the process can be enjoyable, and other times it is the outcome that brings the enjoyment. Both can be ok. - “In the ideal world it would be both. The case you want to avoid is the neither.” – Duncan Sparrell, on enjoyment of process and outcomes

29:45 – Information Warfare* Duncan got the security clearance we mentioned previously as a result of his knowledge of digital processing. He and his wife moved to Washington, D.C. This turned out to be a career move for Duncan’s wife and a career move for him. Duncan got involved with an organization inside ATT focused on special projects. + Before this, Duncan’s experience was at Bell Labs. The focus was research and development, and they had high quality individuals as employees (i.e. many who were at the top of their class at a university). These people were all well versed in technology. - When Duncan went into the special projects organization, many of the people had worked their way up from being phone technicians in the field after getting a high school diploma (very different from Duncan’s career path). Some of these people were at the same level as Duncan or higher. - This presented Duncan with an opportunity to grow and gain a broadened perspective from working with this new group of co-workers. He’s made many friends from that time period and from every stage of his career. - Certain career choices expand our breath as humans and help people become better managers, and this was Duncan’s experience working in the special projects organization (i.e. it made him better). - Duncan’s wife had a similar experience. On her path to becoming a senior executive (previously a chemical engineer with a R&D background) she was a leader of people who drove tanker trucks and those who piloted tanker ships. Having different types of people work for you or with you can teach you a lot (and it did for Duncan’s wife too). * The security clearance was for work on special government projects. + This entailed working with the White House Communications Agency, working with communications of the FBI or NSA, and other projects that cannot be shared. + Duncan had the clearances and the technical knowledge. He says he was a hacker without realizing it, and people noticed. + Duncan tells the story of having someone work for him, and he was not allowed to know the location where this person worked. He had the clearance level to know but not a need to know. + ATT was not allowed to make computers back then, so early computers they had were called processors. - These ran the PBX or telephone switching system, and the systems needed some work. - This was a highly classified, covert operation. The leadership wanted to bring in a technician without a clearance to repair the computer. Duncan had the clearance and happened to know the operating system of the PBX was Linux-based (something he was familiar with). - Duncan asked for an hour to report back anything he could find and was granted access to the test system that had the same configuration as the live production system. Duncan figured out the program and did the work on the live system. They did not allow the uncleared technician access to come help. - “It turns out that was my first experience being a hacker without realizing I was being a hacker. But it got noticed.” – Duncan Sparrell + Not long after Duncan fixed the system mentioned previously, the first Gulf War broke out Desert Shield. And in 1990, because Duncan had the clearance and had a depth of knowledge they sent him to a place that would eventually be known as the Air Force Information Warfare Center. - “I had literally never heard those words information and warfare in the same sentence before….This is not the internet as you know it. This was way before all that.” – Duncan Sparrell * At this time we had 4.8 Kbps modems, and Duncan had been involved in making standards to upgrade them to 9.6 Kbps speeds. - The Air Force had hackers who would break into systems. Duncan was part of an attack team tasked with attacking enemy air systems so US bombers would not be shot down. They could only do reconnaissance once planes were in the air. - Duncan says they were not great at it and would practice on dead systems (which the team got really skilled at doing). + Once Duncan returned to ATT he shared what he had learned from his time with the Air Force and explained the same things could be and needed to be done for ATT’s network. - The word cybersecurity had yet to be invented at this time. - Duncan got in on the ground floor of creating the Chief Security Office at ATT, and one of his proteges became the first Chief Security Officer of ATT and only the second ever Chief Security Officer (CSO) at a company. - Duncan was ATT’s Chief Architect, and the organization eventually grew to 2000 people. - All this happened because Duncan had the right clearance, the right skills, and was sent to the right place at the right time. - At this time in history any vulnerability known in a government computer system was classified information (classification level of secret). It would be the equivalent of a CVE today on a Microsoft system and not being able to say you had a Microsoft system with that CVE present. - Duncan became skilled at thinking evilly, and because of that he was able to help stop people from doing bad / malicious things. * “I saw all sorts of ways to do bad things, and then we stopped people from doing them.” – Duncan Sparrell, on his cybersecurity work at ATT - In the 1990s about 10% of the world’s internet traffic traveled through ATT’s network as they transitioned from voice only to an internet provider also. Duncan and others started running into things never seen before. For example, one of Duncan’s patents is on how to detect DDoS attacks because that is one of the things he and his peers started to see as they were setting up and working on ATT’s systems. - “Some of that’s just luck because it was a new field and I was there. But you know what? There’s going to be other new fields created in the next decade.” – Duncan Sparrell, on getting into cybersecurity at its infancy

38:08 – Technology Hype Cycles and Following the Money* It’s easier to innovate in brand new fields. Duncan would encourage us to take time to learn about the newest fields if we can spare the time.

+ Newer fields according to Duncan will be automation in cybersecurity, things in the AI (artificial intelligence) realm, quantum computing, and something else that we don’t even know about yet which could be next year’s hot topic.
+ John mentions we have seen the pattern of educating ourselves on technology waves, picking one we enjoy, and trying to “ride it.”
+ There is a timing element here too according to Duncan.
+ “Things are going to follow the hype curve. You want to be NOT following the hype curve. You want to be ahead of it on its way up, and you also want to be ahead of it on its way down.” – Duncan Sparrell, on the hype cycle of technology waves
+ In the early days of cloud, people were against it from a security stand point. Duncan knew it would save money and allow some funds to be put into security. But he remained ahead of the point where cloud became overhyped.

Duncan says we should recognize the hype cycle for a technology wave will be a curve, and it will not happen for all technologies at the same time.
- AI (Artificial Intelligence) is finally making it Duncan thinks even though he has been hearing about it for 20 years now it seems. IoT (internet of things) is another trend that could make the world a different place in 10 years. Quantum computing seems further out (i.e. not a reality as of yet).
- We need to do our research on a topic to determine when a technology’s popularity will really go up and down. Duncan suggests reading up on the technology, the problems it tries to solve, and what it means to you.
- “If you really like the stuff you’ll get into it enough to figure all that out, and if you don’t like it you probably should find a different one. There’s going to be enough of them.” – Duncan Sparrell, on selecting a technology wave to pursue
- John emphasizes that market timing is also important for different technologies.
- One of the sayings Duncan likes to use is “follow the money.” But we need to be careful and diligent when it comes to following the hype curve.
- Pouring money into venture capital endeavors may not be the right money to follow. Money gets poured in here because many of these will fail (i.e. on the upslope of the hype curve) – and this applies to companies and the technologies.
- But in general following the money is a wise thing to do. Duncan says most anything can be turned into money, even cybersecurity risk for example.
- Duncan references a book by Hubbard and Seiersen called How to Measure Anything in Cybersecurity Risk that is helpful in understanding how to turn things into monetary risk.
- If we can speak in terms of monetary risk we’re leading people in the right direction in our organization and will be successful. These are the things on which business decisions should be based. And this is all a byproduct of following the money.
- John reiterates how much people generally hate buying insurance.
  - Duncan has hopes for the insurance industry in cybersecurity. His father was a safety engineer for an insurance company and is co-author of a paper about why we have seatbelts.
  - Duncan shares the story of the invention of the Survival Car 2 made from popular car models at the time. The team of people working on it added safety features like seatbelts, anti-lock brakes, and many other items to it. They proved with statistics that people would be safer in our country having those features in cars and convinced regulators it was the right thing to do. No single car manufacturer would have included these features on their own because it drove up manufacturing costs, but when the government said they had to do it to decrease traffic deaths, it was a different story.
  - Duncan is hopeful the same model will end up taking place in cybersecurity. It took a long time for this to happen in the auto industry. We’ll see what happens in cybersecurity. Duncan says we have to get smarter in that area.
- Nick says follow the money and know how to create the business case to get what you want. But in order to follow the money you need to be able to speak the language of money. The business case demonstrates that you can speak it.
- Duncan also says “the cobbler’s children should not go barefoot.” This is in reference to some of the worst security things getting overlooked in the security discipline.
- Duncan learned in the first Gulf War that the first thing taken out is enemy radar (even before taking out the guns). Ideally the radar works perfectly and just doesn’t show he planes coming.
- “The first thing a cyber attacker should go after…the cybersecurity stuff.” – Duncan Sparrell
- To follow up with Duncan on this discussion, you can find him…
- On LinkedIn
- On Twitter / X
- On Mastadon
- On GitHub
- Follow Duncan’s genealogy page
- Mentioned in the outro
- Special shout out to our listeners in Poland – thank you for putting Nerd Journey in the top 250 on Apple Podcasts in the business and careers category! If you’re out there and think we need to be on the charts in other countries, please share an episode that you found helpful with a friend, rate the show 5 stars, and leave a review.
- Sometimes gaining influence means you need to build expertise, and the perception of your expertise will be differently inside and outside your company. Maybe you pursue a certification like Duncan did or perhaps it is a blog, video, a talk you gave, etc. Put all these things that are public proof of work on your LinkedIn profile!
- We hope you have someone (even if not a spouse, perhaps a friend or family member) to go to about career decisions and job changes just as Duncan and his wife did in their “bedroom benchmarking.”
- Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi shared in Episode 246 that if someone recommends you for a new role it is a compliment to you and evidence they understand your reputation.
  - We can be open to maanger suggestions of things we should pursue. Be careful if you decide to say no, and make sure it is for the right reasons.
- There’s another great example of relatable experience in this episode in the way Duncan took his experience from the Airforce Information Warfare Center to ATT to help provide value. Are we seeking to apply learnings from other areas to what we do?
- Nick mentions getting the chance to work with an innovation team inside VMware earlier this year for two straight weeks and getting an energy high from it the entire time. If you want more detail about that experience you can read about it in this blog article.
  - We should pay attention to the energy we get or don’t get from the work we do. We have to be mindful of this and really pay attention to energy levels over time to really understand the elements draining us or energizing us. Maybe it’s not everything and only some things. Consider taking on a new task or project.
  - Listen to Episode 173 with guest Evan Oldford for discussions on energy.
- We’ve talked to at least 4 people (including Duncan) with some measure of cybersecurity experience now, and each of their paths was slightly different.
- Donovan Farrow now owns a cybersecurity consulting firm.
  - Episode 133 – Forensics and the Boredom of Peacetime with Donovan Farrow (1/2)
  - Episode 134 – Pass down Your Legacy with Donovan Farrow (2/2)
- Bill Kindle was a systems administrator who took that experience and applied to security engineering.
  - Episode 180 – Hired on the Spot with Bill Kindle (1/3)
  - Episode 181 – Crossing the Burnout Fault Line with Bill Kindle (2/3)
  - Episode 182 – Security from the System Administrator’s Lens with Bill Kindle (3/3)
- Kenneth Ellington got into cybersecurity and has founded Ellington Cyber Academy, a place that can help others looking to break into the industry.
  - Episode 239 – Introduced to Cybersecurity with Kenneth Ellington (1/2)
  - Episode 240 – Nurturing Cybersecurity Talent Development with Kenneth Ellington (2/2)

Mythical Man-Month, The: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition

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Welcome to episode 248 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 1 of an interview with Duncan Sparrell, detailing how he became a programmer, the innovations he was a part of at Bell / ATT Labs, what it was like to work between research and development, the work he has done on standards, the breadth of the cybersecurity field and possible roles, why we should keep the big picture in mind, and thoughts on helpful meetup groups.

Original Recording Date: 10-02-203

Topics – A Chief Curmudgeon, Technical Origins at Bell Labs, Learning to Program, Meetup Groups and Lesser Known Cybersecurity Roles, Working on Standards, Cybersecurity Perceptions and Moving Up, Connecting to the Big Picture, Sources of Innovation, Life at The Idea Factory2:15 – A Chief Curmudgeon* Duncan Sparrell is Chief Cyber Curmudgeon at sFractal Consulting, a boutique consulting firm for software and cybersecurity that Duncan founded which helps with his personal mission to make the world a safer place. + After retiring, Duncan wanted to give back to the community. He does some consulting, a good bit of pro bono work on standards, and also non-profit work in the area of cybersecurity. + Duncan really likes fractals and has a tag line about the closer you look the more you see. He also tells us the name fractal was already taken, so he had to put a letter in front of it (in this case “s” which could align to his last name, security & software work, etc.). + As for the curmudgeon label, Duncan says he is old and can be one at times, but he also likes to push back. And rather than refer to himself of the CEO of a one person company, Duncan needed to come up with some other title. Chief Curmudgeon is where he landed.

3:50 – Technical Origins at Bell Labs* We’re rolling back well into the last century here. Duncan attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (or RPI), which had only 1 computer at the time. + When the school’s computer was upgraded Duncan said they had to build a new building for the new one (since computers were quite large at the time and were programmed with punch cards). + Duncan did well in school and stayed for a master’s degree. He only took one computer course, and that was in Fortran. Duncan tells us this was the worst grade in a class received over the course of his academic career. + Duncan’s masters thesis was focused on programming an arithmetic processing unit (which was the size of a refrigerator) attached to a mini computer. This had to be programmed using assembly language, and Duncan programmed it to do Fast Fourier Transforms (or FFTs), which was how he learned to program. - The mini computer project got Duncan interested in programming. * Duncan went to work at Bell Labs (or Bell Telephone Laboratories) after being offered a job there, which was the R&D (research and development) arm of the Bell System of companies. John and Duncan refer to this as the “Ma Bell” days. + Bell Labs was a high profile employer, and Duncan mentioned the only way people would get in was right out of school. + Duncan’s degree is in electrical engineering, and he got involved in hardware design. Duncan designed and programmed and compiled his own assembler for a specialized processor. + Bell Labs had recently invented the C programming language. Duncan has a first edition of the book The C Programming Language and even worked with one of the authors (Brian Kernighan). + Duncan got involved in programming electronic switching systems for phone networks. * At Bell Labs there was R (Research) and there was D (Development). Duncan says most of it was development, and that is where he worked. But there was a research arm where Kernighan and Ritchie (authors of the above book and inventors of the programming language C). + Those in the research arm would publish papers much like those in the academic world, and the papers often contained advanced mathematics equations and calculations. + At this time (in 1978) word processors did not yet exist. They would write in pencil on sheets of paper and hand it to someone else who would type up what was written. Fancy equations were a real pain and were not something one could type on a typewriter. + Researchers wanted to photo type set their own papers and developed troff to help do that (a simpler version of the text formatting program nroff). The team was trying out different operating systems and different languages to do this. C was the one they liked the best after trying A and B, and the team developed a Unix operating system on which to run it. The origin was really about helping them write academic papers. Duncan knows this from a conversation with those who developed the language. - John mentions LaTex as something that was used by certain folks to prepare documents instead of troff. But inside Bell Labs it was only troff. - Also, this creation of the C language was different than C++. Duncan mentions C++ as a language was invented later by another person at Bell Labs.

8:51 – Learning to Program* After not having a great experience learning Fortran, was it harder for Duncan to get excited about doing development / programming work at Bell Labs? + No. For Duncan’s master’s thesis he was able to program with a keyboard as opposed to using punch cards. Also, one was a class, and the other was programming sound to be displayed on a screen (which was actually funded by the Navy). - Duncan was working to design sonar screens without realizing it until seeing the technology in movies years later. + When Duncan was coming out of school and entering the job market, all the job offers except Bell Labs required a security clearance, which he did not want to have to pursue. And interestingly enough he later spent over half his career with high level security clearances in the intelligence and law enforcement communities. - “You don’t always go the way you think you’re going.” – Duncan Sparrell * John mentions it seemed like Duncan was able to overcome discouragement from the formal learning process. + Duncan says this comes into play in both software development and perhaps even moreso in cybersecurity. + Software engineering and development is a new field (came into fruition during Duncan’s career), and cybersecurity is even newer (came in more toward the back half of his career). Because these fields are so new and everyone made it there via a different entry point there are different opinions on what a “right” path into the industry is. - “Don’t get disheartened if on the path you’re on it doesn’t look like the right one. There’s probably some other ones.” – Duncan Sparrell, on paths into fairly new fields - Some people learn by doing, while others like to get into the theory and background (i.e. the academic side). Both of these are valid. - Duncan says both fields are likely new enough that you could pave a totally different path which gets you into one of these two fields. There are far more ways to get into either of these fields (software engineering or cybersecurity) than most people realize. + Nick mentions the challenge of hiring managers who could look and see someone’s performance on paper being not so great (i.e. results of the academic side) and wonder if providing the person with hands on opportunities would unlock potential. - Duncan says it could be the other way also and calls cybersecurity “a practitioner’s field.” There is a real people shortage in the field, and jobs are found often times by knowing someone. - Because of the shortage, most companies want people with experience and not beginners. A clear training path may not exist like it could / should. - Duncan says schools are getting better about adding training, but in his opinion these programs can be too academic in nature and do not place enough emphasis on practical learning. Learning on your own, however, may be too practically oriented. - Things like meetups and the ability to learn from other practitioners are helpful as are activities like capture the flag. - “There are certifications, there are academic courses, and there are ‘hey just go do it,’ and all of them are valid.” – Duncan Sparrell on gaining cybersecurity experience

13:21 – Meetup Groups and Lesser Known Cybersecurity Roles* What meetup groups should someone consider attending to get into cybersecurity? + Duncan would first encourage people wanting to get into cybersecurity to consider what they want to do. Cybersecurity as a field is quite broad. + There are a number of reasons one might want to get into cybersecurity. These could be financial, a love of problem solving, or perhaps altruism. For Duncan, the work he has been able to do since retiring makes him feel that he is making the world a safer place. It’s important to note his successful career to the point of retirement provided stability to be able to do the work he does now. + Consider also if you might want to get into the policy aspects of cybersecurity, the legal aspects, or be a salesperson as some examples. Duncan feels with cybersecurity being a large industry and growing the way it is many of the opportunities are in sales (which people do not realize). - People don’t often think about these “non-traditional” roles as options and feel they should be a hacker or a pen tester. - There is nothing wrong with pursuing being a hacker or pen tester, but they are not the only options. Duncan has a tag line of “think evilly, act ethically” and tells us you need both of these. Thinking evilly isn’t really something that comes naturally to most people. People will do the things we think no one would actually do, and therefore the cybersecurity professional needs to worry about it. - Duncan emphasizes after working with law enforcement for years…if want to be a hacker you should pursue being a white hat hacker and not a criminal hacker. That means you really need the act ethically portion of Duncan’s tag line. + If you’re interested in the legal side of hacking, there is a group in Washington, D.C. called DC Legal Hackers. Duncan tells us this is interesting if you’re coming from the lawyer side or the technical side because it is a place where they both meet. + Because cybersecurity is a new field, there are many meetups run by recruiting firms to promote talent development and encourage more people to get into the field. Attending these types of meetups may be a form of interview without you realizing. Attend meetings like these to learn by doing. + Duncan is a fan of BSides, which started up beside DEF CON / between Black Hat and DEF CON. - Duncan goes to many of these meetups in different cities and feels each one has its own character because they are run by local professionals. - Every BSides Duncan has attended has been focused on helping attendees learn. - “You learn not only what you want to do but also what you want to NOT do……Learning to go a different direction is important….If I had to give one single most important thing that you should learn about your career…it’s not going to turn out how you expect, and the world is going to change a lot over the course of your career….You have to be prepared to learn. You have to be prepared to change, and if you are, you’ll be successful.” – Duncan Sparrell, on learning from others and your career - Duncan started as a hardware engineer and quickly became a software engineer (a field that did not exist when he was in college right before this). And he later became a cybersecurity engineer, which did not exist at the beginning of his career. - Only doing one thing means that the thing may at some point no longer continue to exist. + Nick mentions it takes time, investment, and effort to investigate both what you do and do not want to do (which is not a sunk cost). At RSA 2023 where Nick met Duncan he remembers being exposed to the law track. Since this was Nick’s first RSA conference, he went to some of these sessions and found them fascinating even though he realized it would not be something he wanted to pursue in his career. - Duncan says there is a law side as well as a policy side to these types of conference tracks. There are lawyers who interpret the laws and policy makers who make the laws. - Duncan mentions a group he is part of called Hackers on the Hill in Washington, DC which seeks to educate policy makers and assist them. It was founded based on a request that community members provide help to cybersecurity policy makers. - “It is much easier to program than it is to write a law that won’t have unintended consequences.” – Duncan Sparrell, on helping policy makers write laws - John ponders whether public repositories might solve some transparency issues with laws. - Duncan is also involved in cybersecurity standards and is encouraging the groups to use GitHub for document creation. It makes it easier to see who made which change and who approved it. This might be obvious for source code but becomes very important (and less obvious) when you are writing a standard or law.

20:06 – Working on Standards* Duncan has done a great deal of work on standards boards. This allowed him to insist that these adopt something like GitHub or some other repository tool for transparency during standards development. Previous to this these groups were not using such tools. + GitHub and other tools like it are not that old. * Duncan got involved in standards fairly early in his career. + He was working on something called ADPCM or adaptive differential pulse-code modulation. At this time there were mostly phone networks with very little data. Any data transfer being done was referred to as voice band data which was transferred over the voice lines. + The network was mostly for analog transfer, but the switches were digital. Duncan was involved in the technology that helped with conversion of analogue to digital. - Duncan remembers someone who worked for him having to go before the US FCC (Federal Communications Commission) to confirm it was economically feasible to run fiber optic cables between North America and Europe. - One of the things that made this fiber link possible was packetizing the voice traffic, and he shares an example of how packet transfer actually works as we recorded the interview. - Duncan and others found a way to change PCM or pulse code modulation into ADPCM. - Countries on the same continent often had agreed on what to use to communicate, but not all countries of the world really had to agree on a standard until fiber optic cables were run under the ocean. - Even with PCM there were 2 different versions, a European version and a North American version. With ADPCM they were trying to come up with one standard. This effort ran through the ITU or International Telecommunications Union (a UN agency), and Duncan still works with this agency 43 years after his first experience with it. + Duncan started attending ITU meetings originally because one of his co-workers didn’t like going to Switzerland to attend. Duncan decided to volunteer for the assignment. - Standards have never been part of Duncan’s main job or responsibilities but more of a side job. He refers to it as something which became his “extra thing.” - Duncan believes the standards are very much needed, and in the latter half of his career all of his efforts have been toward cybersecurity standards. - At present Duncan is serving on the board of directors for a standards development organization called Oasis Open. He is serving as the chair of a technical committee for OpenC2 (Open Command and Control). - Early in Duncan’s career at ATT they would put out contracts for a lot of cybersecurity gear. Switching from one vendor to another would require a re-write of all applications. OpenC2 seeks to make it easy to transition between vendors and prevent lock in. With many solutions in the cloud today, this is even more needed. - Duncan also mentions STIX, which is a way to share threat information. Duncan says the bad guys are better at sharing this information than the good guys are. - Another way to get into cybersecurity is through cybersecurity automation (a booming area). We need to be able to defend at machine speed, and standards like STIX that allow companies to share information about threats are things Duncan is passion about. * Is there a vetting process one has to go through to participate and contribute to standards like we’ve discussed? + Duncan says it depends. He started doing the standards work in 1980 during his days at ATT. In those days ITU was called CCITT and has changed names along the way. It was a UN agency and a big deal for a company like ATT to be involved. + “I was writing the contributions for the guy going to Geneva before I got to be the guy going to Geneva.” – Duncan Sparrell + Today it’s a lot easier with the ability to have virtual meetings. You don’t always have to go to Geneva to participate. Also it is in general a more open process. - Understand that if you plan to go represent your company in a forum like this there is usually a specific process to follow to do that. - Not everyone wants to do this kind of work, and companies may encourage people / beg them to volunteer. It’s not usually anyone’s actual job to participate but more something in addition to their regular job (almost like a hobby). This gets you working with other people in your field at other companies and represents a very diverse group of folks with perspectives from which you can learn. * Nick posits some of the work Duncan has done with standards is analogous to being an open source maintainer. + Duncan says one could argue open source is a form of standards. + If you’re just starting out, there are many ways to help with open source projects – open source software development, open source cybersecurity, or open source standards. + You’re not going to be asked to make some kind of policy decision that is above your pay grade. Anyone can help test something or make sure a document / explanation is readable. You do not need to be an expert to help. + As we spoke about before, you may find something that isn’t for you. It might just mean one specific project or a specific working group or a specific standard isn’t for you. + It’s much easier to dip a toe in and try something than when Duncan started his work in these areas (standards and cybersecurity).

27:33 – Cybersecurity Perceptions and Moving Up* John says we can pick a field that on the surface seems quite narrow, but that may not be the case at all. Many feel cybersecurity means penetration testing, which we know is a fallacy. It’s sort of like a fractal in that the closer you look the more you see. * The encouragement to join a community is a pattern we see from guests. John likes the encouragement to attend meetings of different community groups and see what is being discussed. These could be in-person meetups or even virtual in many cases. It seems like the possibilities are near endless to create a career if you have the interest and passion. + “Find what you’re passionate about because again, if it’s fun to do it’s not work….If you’re not enjoying what you do you probably should be looking to do something else.” – Duncan Sparrell + Ideally we would make it a personal objective to enjoy what we do (knowing that we cannot enjoy everything 100% of the time). * Movies have affected our perception of hackers and what cybersecurity is as a field. Duncan tells us this term is misused. When he learned about it hacker was the good guy and cracker was the bad guy. + A hacker was meant to describe someone who likes to tinker with technology / do things on their own. Duncan refers to himself as a hacker since he likes to play with code. But he’s not a bad person or someone trying to cause harm. + The perception around hackers is thinking they are more like penetration testers who break into companies and have to know a number of programming languages. + Duncan tells us there are many people who work in a SOC or Security Operations Center who respond to cybersecurity threats. He mentions creating the term SOC and building the first SOC for a government project many years ago. + There are also threat hunters who chase the base guys as well as people who focus on legal and policy aspects of cybersecurity as well (discussed earlier). And there are many people in cybersecurity sales (playing the role of the seller or the purchaser). Nick suggests there are roles in between like product maangement. + “There’s a lot more to it than people realize.” – Duncan Sparrell, on the field of cybersecurity being broader than most people know + “The world is a lot messier. And careers don’t tend to be made up of all the exemplar jobs that people think of.” – John White * John mentions the path to careers as electricians, plumbers, or engineers may not be clear to someone outside the industry. + Duncan says the path to move up the corporate ladder is not always clear. + Another element of being in cybersecurity is the business aspect. We spoke about learning that things will change, but there is another (value to the business). + “What is the business your organization is in, and what value do you bring to it? Do everything through that lens….If you want to move up the corporate ladder then you have to think bigger picture than your narrow niche.” – Duncan Sparrell, on advice for the cybersecurity professional - Whether a corporation or government agency, the above is driving the senior leaders. If you want to continue to focus only on your narrow niche and are happy there you can certainly keep doing that. But Duncan learned to think bigger picture early on. + When Duncan went to work for Bell Labs he was required to take a course called “Engineering and Operations in the Bell System” shortly after starting (in summer of 1978). He still has the book on his bookshelf as a reminder of his roots. - The course talked about how the telephone company worked and how it was run. Duncan found this very interesting. - Of the 1 million employees of the company at the time, around 400,000 were telephone operators. If they could cut one nanosecond off the average operator connect time it would save the company one dollar. That meant cutting a second off that time would save the company one billion dollars. - Learning this helped Duncan understand that business matters, what he did mattered to the company, and his work had the potential to impact the business in a positive way to improve those numbers (the numbers being what the senior leaders and shareholders care about). - Looking at things through the lens of what an organization wants to accomplish can help us move up in a company in Duncan’s experience. It has also helped people he has mentored progress at a company. Duncan also mentions some of the people he mentored went on to become his boss at various times.

34:03 – Connecting to the Big Picture* John mentions there is an unlocking process here. It seemed like the metrics helped Duncan understand the organizational goals at Bell and how an improvement to current processes could make an impact to the organization as a whole. Should companies share operational processes in this way with incoming employees and how improving these process can lead to big organizational improvements? + Duncan happens to be big into innovation and tells us that innovation has some aspects to it which people do not realize. + “You can’t be innovative if you’re not looking at the bigger picture.” – Duncan Sparrell + You can be innovative in a small area to tune a process, but true, disruptive innovation (what Duncan calls being 10X innovative) requires understanding the bigger picture. Too many people may be focused only on their specific area and in a way hold themselves back from making a wider impact. + Duncan speaks to his introversion and that he gets energy from being by himself (i.e. working on some type of coding project perhaps). Interacting with others takes energy away from him. His wife, on the other hand, is an extrovert. - Duncan feels many people in the fields he’s worked in are introverts, and he stresses the importance of stepping out of your comfort zone to attend a meetup, for example. - “I do because I recognize the long-term value to get over the short-term anxiety of walking into a room full of people that I don’t know.” – Duncan Sparrell, on going to meetups and getting out of his comfort zone / seeing the bigger picture - Duncan also mentions the high anxiety he had at a high school reunion despite knowing the people he would see there. - Duncan sort of forces himself to do these social type things because he knows it pays off in the end. - “You have go out of your comfort zone a little bit. If you stay in your comfort zone you’re going to keep doing what you were doing.” – Duncan Sparrell + Maybe the comfort zone idea applies to learning about things that on the surface do not seem extremely interesting, but these things could become part of your range of expertise. - Learning about something which ends up not being very interesting can help you learn where to place your focus. You at least understand that something may not be for you and can seek out something more interesting. - Duncan recounts his time as a systems engineer and emphasizes the importance of being mindful of things that are requirements as well as those things which are not requirements.

37:35 – Sources of Innovation* John suggests sometimes innovation comes from those with operational experience in a different field. He cites watching a PBS series called Connections, which posits real innovation comes from collisions of people doing different work and working together to solve problems (like punch cards coming from the industrial loom industry). * Does this kind of thing still happen in highly specialized industries, or might we be losing it today? + Duncan says the world is more interconnected now and more possibilities to have what he calls “mash ups.” A mash up is taking two disparate things that get put together to form something new (like the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup). These come from people with different perspectives looking to solve problems and can happen in technology often. + Innovation could also happen in a way that seems small. - Duncan recounts the story of his first patent. He was asked his opinion on a problem some engineers were working on, and after giving an answer, they encouraged him to patent the idea. Duncan says this ended up becoming a pretty fundamental patent on which an entire product line was based. - “It can be as simple as you just had the right idea because you saw the problem a different way than they saw it and no one else had seen it that way before….Everyone’s perspective is unique. People can be more innovative I think than they realize they can be.” – Duncan Sparrell, on innovation - We can be more innovative if we are able to look at things in the bigger picture of what we’re trying to accomplish. Bringing a broad range of experience to something could enable seeing connections no one has previously seen. * In response to John’s question above, Nick suggests placing introverts in a new area might not make them feel comfortable enough to suggest a new idea. + Duncan feels like this is less to do with introvert / extrovert and is really just change management / how people respond to change. + In that light, being in an environment where you are not comfortable means you are less likely to speak out. + Duncan tells us there are no dumb questions and that we have to speak up. We can always word something as a question in a group setting. + Duncan considers all meetings for him. If he was asked to attend a meeting, Duncan feels he should be contributing to the discussion and ask questions if he doesn’t understand something. + Duncan has also had a lot of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) training, which has helped him understand not all individuals are at ease when it comes to speaking up but would still encourage them to strive to speak up and seek to understand the larger business problem at hand.

41:58 – Life at The Idea Factory* John read The Idea Factory written about Bell Labs. One idea mentioned in the book was collisions of people working on diverse things (either by design or by accident) may have contributed to the innovations. Was there any truth to this?

+ Duncan thinks there is some truth to it. The company would rearrange people occasionally (move people or entire groups) to possibly keep the from getting stuck in a rut.
+ Duncan was with Bell Labs or some derivative of it for his entire career, but during this time the industry changed quite a bit.
    - For example, the system was broken up after operating as a regulated monopoly for some time.
    - “It was a regulated monopoly in an area where technology was causing the cost to decrease continually. We could basically afford to reduce the phone rates every year and still have a certain amount of money that went into the rate base for this to basically fund The Idea Factory.” – Duncan Sparrell, speaking of Bell Labs and its funding of the idea factory
+ Duncan refers to the Bell Labs during the time he joined (around 1978) as very egalitarian. This was the year Arno Penzias was one of the winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
    - Duncan remembers being behind Arno in the lunch line one day (who had the same title Duncan had at the time).
    - Duncan also later got to be on a task force with Brian Kernighan, one of the creators of the C programming language.
    - There were 25,000 employees at Bell Labs, and it felt really cool to run into people like Penzias and Kernighan occasionally.
+ Later in Duncan’s career he ran the organization they called the ampersand of R & D. This was after ATT Labs came to be.
    - Bell Telephone Laboratories morphed into ATT Bell Labs which then split into Bell Labs and ATT Labs. Duncan stayed with the labs organization but ended up in the ATT portion.
    - Within ATT Labs there was a research organization with a number of great ideas. But there was a gap between research and development which was the catalyst for creating the organization called the ampersand (which Duncan led), and its purpose was to help research teams make things develops can accept and start faster.
    - During this time Duncan got to see across the research organization and understand the projects that had the most commercial potential which could be brought over into the development arm.
        * This included things like text-to-speech, voice recognition, and early AI (Artificial Intelligence).
        * Duncan had been doing a lot of government facing work around network security and was able to bring some of it to the commercial side of ATT because of the ampersand role.
+ “I do think they did a lot of things right in that area, but I think it’s because they could afford to. Nowadays businesses are much more ‘this quarter’ oriented. It’s not a regulated monopoly any longer, so they don’t sort of have the cash set aside to do that. I think the world is suffering some for it. I think we could use Bell Labs again.” – Duncan Sparrell on The Idea Factory at Bell Labs

To follow up with Duncan on this discussion, you can find him…
- On LinkedIn
- On Twitter / X
- On Mastadon
- On GitHub
- Follow Duncan’s genealogy page
- Mentioned in the outro
- We’ve talked to at least 4 people (including Duncan) with some measure of cybersecurity experience now, and each of their paths was slightly different.
- Donovan Farrow now owns a cybersecurity consulting firm.
  - Episode 133 – Forensics and the Boredom of Peacetime with Donovan Farrow (1/2)
  - Episode 134 – Pass down Your Legacy with Donovan Farrow (2/2)
- Bill Kindle was a systems administrator who took that experience and applied to security engineering.
  - Episode 180 – Hired on the Spot with Bill Kindle (1/3)
  - Episode 181 – Crossing the Burnout Fault Line with Bill Kindle (2/3)
  - Episode 182 – Security from the System Administrator’s Lens with Bill Kindle (3/3)
- Kenneth Ellington got into cybersecurity and has founded Ellington Cyber Academy, a place that can help others looking to break into the industry.
  - Episode 239 – Introduced to Cybersecurity with Kenneth Ellington (1/2)
  - Episode 240 – Nurturing Cybersecurity Talent Development with Kenneth Ellington (2/2)
- Remember how broad cybersecurity is!
  - It includes tracks like law and policy. People need cybersecurity expertise in these fields.
  - Duncan also mentions cybersecurity automation, which is a potential path for people who may already be doing automation today.
- Duncan mentioned contributing to standards development and how it is often in addition to your normal job.
  - Open C2 (mentioned earlier) has its own GitHub page to which you can contribute. Contributing can broaden your skills through exposure to the standards development process and the field in which it is focused as well as get you some experience using GitHub (even if all you did was contribute to documentation). This builds more than one skill at once.
- We don’t always know what our progression path could be from where we are. Some of this insight can be had at community meetups by having discussions with people.
- Understanding the big picture or greater context might lead us to a more innovative idea.

The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation by Gertner, Jon 1st (first) edition [Hardcover(2012)]

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Welcome to episode 247 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 3 of an interview with Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, detailing how Sirisha made the decision to leave the corporate world, how she became interested in podcasting, and how life has been as an entrepreneur.

Original Recording Date: 09-16-2023

Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi is an entrepreneur who started her career working for a semiconductor manufacturer in the tech industry which resulted in 17 years of experience. If you missed parts 1 and 2 of our discussion with Sirisha, check out Episode 245 and Episode 246.

Topics – Walking away from the Corporate World, An Interest in Podcasting, Loss Aversion and Sunk Cost2:35 – Walking away from the Corporate World* Nick had the chance to meet Sirisha at a local podcast meetup and wanted her to share the story of walking away from her job at TI with our listeners. Did it have anything to do with learning to set boundaries, the pressure of the role she was in at the time? And did the two months away provide unexpected clarity? + Sirisha was working her full-time job, she was podcasting at night, and she had teenage kids at home. At some point she realized she was dropping things at home. + “When I looked at it, I realized time was my biggest constraint.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi + Sirisha tells us she had her finances in a state which allowed her to make a calculated risk decision. + What Sirisha is working on now is constantly changing she says. She has many ideas, some that work and others that do not. + During the time of this recording Sirisha has kids in college and tells us it’s probably not the best time to make a decision like this. + With time being the biggest constraint, Sirisha had to decide where she wanted to go. + Sirisha’s organization was very supportive, and she was able to take a leave of absence. Her son was about to be in college, and this time also gave her the ability tot think about what she wanted to do. + As Sirisha was working through the various projects she had going, the time off gave her the space to come to a decision. + “There are all these things I want to work on. There’s never going to be a great time, and the time for me is now.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on the decision to walk away from the corporate world + Sirisha feels she will probably re-enter the corporate world in some manner, but it might not look the same. The experience she has gained to this point doesn’t go away because of the decision. + Sirisha tells us she has learned many things from podcasting that she never would have otherwise. She can, for example, combine her tech experience with knowledge of how we show up externally and the importance of it. + The two month break reiterated how well each team member who was working for Sirisha at the time performed in their role. The fact that she was able to disconnect helped Sirisha understand there were other things she could do and that the time to take a larger break was now. + Sirisha says this is her 3rd career break. The layoff and being a stay at home mom were the others. + It’s not that Sirisha has retired. The things she is choosing to do just are not inside a corporate structure.

5:46 – An Interest in Podcasting* Podcasting came into play during her last corporate role somewhere around the time COVD hit. * Sirisha had been mentoring young women (college students) virtually and in person for many years and was looking for additional volunteering opportunities. * Sirisha had specific types of opportunities in mind but wanted to ensure it was something she could commit to doing. The age and stage of her kids was a consideration on use of her time as well. During COVID, she started thinking again about what she could do. * Sirisha saw podcasting in some ways as a larger form of mentoring. Mentoring / volunteering wasn’t the only aspect. In her progression into leadership she realized there are groups of people who will ask for what they want, a group that is very good at what they do and happy where they are, and another group that might be unsure about things like pursuing management or something else. + Sirisha found herself in that last group for a long time (unsure). + We have to do some setting up to prepare ourselves for career moves like going into management, for example. Things do not happen by just flipping a switch. + Sirisha decided to start the podcast to talk about the set of questions women might want to ask who are in this same category (unsure). Sirisha started with some of the questions she had from earlier in her career. + The first few seasons of Sirisha’s podcast (the Women, Career, and Life Podcast) are about returning to work after a break, and the first season starts with getting laid off. - Sirisha had been laid off in the past, and her guest host at the time had taken a break from work at one point. - They also felt mentorship was very important and discussed it in some of those first few episodes. + When Sirisha and her guest host at the time looked around at the podcast ecosystem, they saw many great podcasts but didn’t see a lot of people who looked like them. + Sirisha says the culture she grew up in is part of who she is. There are things that do and do not go well when trying to fit into a different culture. + Sirisha wanted to talk about some of the above topics because she felt like they were not being discussed enough. She also selected other topics of interests (something she saw or read about), starting with career and doing an entire season on finance. + Sirisha tells us there were not many sources supporting women holistically combining the topic of finance and career. Most would talk about career but not add the finance piece. + “As much as we all love our jobs, we go to work to get a paycheck and to be financially vested and have independence and have the opportunity to make choices. If I do not know how to manage my money, I am always going to have a challenge. I am going to work forever.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi + Sirisha tells the story of a friend who had a big misconception on how much to save for retirement. Sirisha helped this friend understand she only needed about 25% of what she originally thought. - After the lunch meeting with her friend, Sirisha had the friend run a retirement savings calculator and held her accountable to go and do it - Almost any investment account we hold will have a simple calculator for retirement. If we know how much we spend, usually you need 25 times that for retirement. - Knowing the target amount we need allows us to make certain choices about choosing to work and aspirations for things we or our families might want to do (i.e. travel, etc.). - We talk about this lifting some of the weight off your shoulders knowing retirement is covered, etc. - Sirisha suggests working backward from an amount you need and working it toward an age of retirement. You need to start somewhere. - Sirisha says in looking back on her financial plans over time the target retirement age she has used or estimated for has always been consistent. - “No matter how much money you make, everybody worries about it.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on the topic of retirement and its relevance to all of us

12:31 – Loss Aversion and Sunk Cost* What does it really take to walk away from a job you might have enjoyed?

+ Sirisha says she was able to work with some wonderful people in her corporate job, but for her, it was the right time to walk away (from the role at Texas Instruments).
+ Sirisha doesn’t actually miss her job. She likes what she is doing now, even though it is in an ideation stage. There are certain things upon which she has been executing as well.
+ Sirisha had been thinking about making the move the summer before she did it. She had a friend who could not afford to leave her corporate job, and Sirisha had been thinking about doing it. There are many things a job provides, and it is a risk decision to walk away.
+ For Sirisha to take the next step in her career for upward mobility would require a lot more work and a lot more learning. The point of doing something new for Sirisha is learning, and she would not do something like that half way.
    - Each of us builds a personal brand and wants it to be good regardless of what we pursue.
+ “I want to leave on a high note on my terms as much as possible.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi
+ Sirisha knew it was going to take a lot of time in a new job. Maybe she could keep the podcast going, but it was not going to allow her to focus on many of the ideas she had going in her head. She had to decide how and where to spend her time.
    - “If I couldn’t do justice to the job then it wasn’t fair to that job, to the people in it, and not to me either.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi
+ After the 2 month break Sirisha realized that though she may have ideas in her head, when she was at the office the only thing she could work on was office work, even if it was her peak mental output window.
+ Sirisha wanted to work on things that were important to her. If she put it off for a year or two, she may not have the energy and enthusiasm to pursue the different ideas on her mind. And waiting could mean the ideas may no longer be relevant.
+ Sirisha also wanted to be there for her kids (who are older teenagers getting close to college). The choice to leave the corporate world has given her the luxury of taking her kids to school, which she has enjoyed doing (getting to do it when they were young and recently in this phase of their lives).
    - “I will never get that time back with them…in whatever way that ecosystem turns out.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on the importance of spending time with her kids
    - Sirisha emphasizes for us that a decision like what she made is a hard one.
+ Sirisha doesn’t classify this decision as loss aversion but more like sunk cost. She tells us these concepts are some of the hardest we have to deal with.
    - Over the course of 3 months Sirisha has tried different things and spent money pursuing those things. She refers to it as being a journey. Some things did not have the potential she originally thought they might in the beginning.
    - Sirisha has learned she did not do customer research as well as the thought she had as one example. She also sought help from friends who own and operate their own business.
    - After focusing on one thing that was not working well, she had to decide to let it fade away to focus on something else she wanted to do. Even if we have spent months ideating on something, we might need to let it go and move on because it isn’t working or it won’t produce what we wanted.
    - “Because we have put so much into it we keep thinking we need to keep throwing more at the pile. It just doesn’t get any better. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses. But I’m making it sound simple. There’s nothing simple about it. There are things that I have not made decisions on like that, that I continue to sink cost into.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi
    - Sirisha likes to make pros and cons lists by hand in a notebook to help make decisions due to having so many thoughts in her head and hearing so many opinions on the matter. It’s hard to really think through a situation in all of this. Sirisha likes to write it down, think about it, and then use the information to try to make the best decision she can.
    - “In hindsight it doesn’t matter if it was good or not, but that was the decision.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on making the best possible decision you can on something at the time
    - When Sirisha was trying to decide whether to go back to work after the 2 month leave of absence a friend suggested she try the role for a couple of months. But having been a hiring manager she did not want to do that to the organization and at the same time did not want to make the commitment. Her advice to all of us would be to not look back on making a decision like this after we’ve made it.

Was the moment she realized she was oversubscribed in many areas when Sirisha started thinking something needed to change?
- Earlier in her career when Sirisha quit to be a stay at home mom she was oversubscribed. She had a 2-year-old, was expecting another child, taking 2 graduate classes, and working full time. After already previously thinking about being a stay-at-home mom she decided to quit.
- Sirisha stresses the importance of self-care and doing things that are important to us. She shares a story of taking time to read after having a newborn and already being sleep deprived and said it was the only time she got for herself. Sometimes we will have to lose time to make time for the things that are important.
- If you want to follow up with Sirisha, you can find her:
- On her website sirishakuchimanchi.com – this contains information on her background, her radio show, her podcast, the keynote speaking engagements she does
  - Sirisha does speaking engagements on leadership and getting more women into the talent pipeline. She also partners with universities to get students ready for the corporate world and financial journey ahead.
- Connect with Sirisha on LinkedIn and send her a message – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi
- Mentioned in the outro
- Nick wishes he would have had 10-15 more minutes to ask about Sirisha’s resignation from her executive role and the reaction from her managers to that decision.
- The pros and cons list Sirisha made to help make a deicision on whether to stay or leave her job seemed similar to the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis discussed in Episode 246 she had previously done when evaluating career moves. Sirisha did a detailed analysis before making a decision and did not just react to a situation on a whim.
  - John tells us this is about trying to make a conscious decision with all the necessary context after doing some analysis.
- Nick feels it might not be proper to call what Sirisha is doing a sabbatical. She is definitely working but working on things that are more interesting than what she was doing.
  - John pushes back a little bit here, saying the whole idea of a sabbatical is to take time away from work but to work on something else (i.e. not just take a massive vacation). Maybe it’s to study something or taking time to write a book / pursue some other creative endeavor.
  - John would agree that the sabbatical usually involves some kind of continuity with an existing employer. Or is John just being sassy here?
- Sirisha’s comfort with trying different things and not continuing the things that did not work sounds similar to the entrepreneurial spirit Al Elliott discussed in Episode 235 and Episode 236.
- Sirisha was able to choose to walk away from her job because she had prepared herself financially. We do not all have the luxury of choosing to just walk away from our jobs tomorrow.
  - John says she likely changed the way she was spending money as a result of the choice to ensure a longer term financial success.
  - In addition to the pros and cons list, Sirisha sought the help of trusted friends and advisors before making the decision to leave her corporate job.
- Nick can understand getting creative ideas during your peak mental time of day and not being able to act on them. If he has a great idea pop into his head for an episode of the podcast, he cannot just abandon everything at work to go execute on it.
- Using your peak mental time for things that are interesting reminded John of our discussions of Cal Newport’s Deep Work book. We have a finite amount of concentration time during any day to spend on important intellectual tasks.
  - Check out Episode 141 through Episode 147 for our full review of the book.
  - If you’re not using concentration time (or deep work time) for a creative project on which you wish you could be using it, think about where you could preserve some of that effort. If it absolutely must all be spent only on your day job (i.e. cannot reserve any for yourself), then you have some things to consider.
  - One option here upon noticing something is more interesting than your current day job is to consider using relatable experience to get a job that allows leveraging your current skillset and experience to do something different and focus at least more on the topic(s) of most interest to you.
    - John reminds us this is not a binary decision and isn’t just between continuing in a job and quitting to work on something else.
    - Some of this time may be reserved for passion progress or personal pursuits if one were to take a step back from a lead role or focus or something less demanding.
    - Even for Sirisha who measured her decision very carefully, the process was a transition of attention.
  - Nick thinks there are 4 categories:
    - Can I fit the things that are more interesting to me into my day job in some form? It might not be exactly the same but could be similar to / a form of what is more interesting to scratch an itch.
    - If I cannot do the above, can I preserve some of my deep work time to work on what interests me outside of work hours so that I still make progress?
    - Can I leverage my relatable experience and the skillset I have today to get a different job that uses some of the skills I have but allows me to do some / more work that falls under my area of interest? I could be bringing a lot, a little, or no expertise in my area of interest potentially.
    - Do I have the financial means and support to completely turn toward the thing that is the most interesting? If not that may answer the question for you. Maybe the finance element comes into play even more if this is an entrepreneurial effort where you are completely self-supporting. Consider also jobs outside of your current organization which might support what you want to pursue.

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

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Welcome to episode 246 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 2 of an interview with Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, detailing Sirisha’s progression from team lead into people management, the responsibilities of a manager, ways Sirisha built a culture of excellence, and a framework for evaluating new career opportunities.

Original Recording Date: 09-16-2023

Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi is an entrepreneur who started her career working for a semiconductor manufacturer in the tech industry which resulted in 17 years of experience. If you missed part 1 of our discussion with Sirisha, check out Episode 245.

Topics – Gaining Leadership Skills, Team Lead vs. Manager, What Good Looks Like, Exposure to and Evaluation of New Opportunities, Leadership Metrics and a Culture of Excellence2:59 – Gaining Leadership Skills* Looking back, Sirisha feels she has moved jobs about every 3 years. She also knows how to gauge her level of boredom. * Before moving on to a next job, Sirisha remembers meeting a friend for coffee who asked her, “why do you keep moving laterally? Why would you not try for a management job?” + Like many others, Sirisha was having trouble answering this question. She didn’t have people management experience and was not sure if she could lead people. Most of the managers Sirisha had encountered had great ideas, and she felt she did not have any great ideas. + After being asked this question and initially dismissing it as a no, Sirisha thought more deeply about it. + Sirisha had gained some supervisory experience by this time, feeling like the person she was supervising may not have needed much from her. + “Being a manager is a hard job.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi + While we can acknowledge there are both good / average / bad managers out there, we need to understand the role of a manager is quite difficult. They are getting feedback and communicating information both up to their management and down to their reports. They have to filter the information and keep things on track. There is more heavy lifting involved than you might realize looking from an outside perspective. + After thinking about the discussion with her friend for a while, Sirisha told her boss in the next 1-1 that she wanted his kind of job one day. Sirisha saw how spectacular her manager was in the role (feeling there was no doubt he was going to progress and move up the chain), and she felt comfortable sharing her aspirations with him. She had worked in some different organizations and understood the spectrum of roles available to her as a possible next step. * By the next 1-1 meeting, Sirisha’s manager shared some things she would need to do to begin pursuing a role as a manager. + She would need serious leadership experience such as leading disparate teams where you have to influence without authority (i.e. no one works for you). + Even managers still have to influence people who report to them and get the people to take action and make progress in different areas. * The next part of the journey was about gaining certain skills and experience. + Sirisha’s manager had to use his political capital to vouch for her and get her certain roles to gain the necessary experience. Some of these roles were part of a different organization within the company (with Sirisha being part of a support organization). + Sirisha recounts one specific experience leading a team. Something had changed related to manufacturing compliance, and experts were encouraging the team to handle the situation in a certain way. Sirisha was new to leading the team and was planning to do things the way experts recommended. - At one point, Sirisha met with her peers and asked the question, “what if we don’t do it the way they are telling us? What if we do it a certain way and just push back and say these are the reasons?” - Sirisha had kept her boss in the loop but had to go seek out his help after her team reached an alternate solution to what experts had recommended. While what the experts were recommending looked good on paper, the alternate solution would actually be better for running manufacturing processes. - Sirisha remembers having to pull in her skip-level manager into some of the negotiations and feels it allowed him (her skip-level manager) to see a different side of her. She tells us this became more critical later on in her story. + Around this same time there was a role in a peer organization that opened up, and Sirisha told her boss she had applied for it. - Her boss thought about it, and in one of their next conversations he recommended Sirisha highlight certain skills in her upcoming interviews since she did not have exact experience. - Sirisha leveraged professional connections she had within the organization that had the opening (people who would be peers if she got the job) asking if they might be willing to share some of their last few presentations. - After preparing for the interview process (which included a panel interview) and completing it, the hiring manager reached out to Sirisha to provide some extremely valuable feedback. - Sirisha tells us hiring managers know who they want to hire for a role whether it’s published or not because they know the skillset needed. For those looking at job sites, Sirisha feels 40% or more of job openings for the company in question will never show up there. - It’s critical to remember the importance of networking with others and communicating what our skills are (in the proper way) so that they will think of us when opportunities come up. - “She chose the other person, but she chose to give me feedback.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on getting feedback from a hiring manager who chose not to hire her - The hiring manager mentioned above had trouble deciding between Sirisha and one other candidate through all of this. But, this hiring process helped Sirisha gain indirect exposure to people at higher levels in the organization (i.e. the hiring manager’s boss, for example). The hiring manager shared what people thought of Sirisha at these levels and their perception of her, which Sirisha feels was extremely valuable to know (and gave her things to improve upon). - Once Sirisha’s boss was promoted, everything above intersected. The exposure she had gained with her skip level, the hiring manager who gave her feedback, and others was pivotal to her success in interviewing for the role left open when her boss was promoted. + “All these things become very important, where you show up and how you show up in these meetings.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on meetings she was in which got her exposure to other leaders - Sirisha’s skip-level manager was now the hiring manager and distinctly remembered the way the team she was leading handled coming to a consensus in the compliance situation we mentioned earlier, suggesting this method be used in other situations. - “When there are strong experts and opinions how do you navigate a space and still reach a consensus?” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on the team situation she had previously navigated which her skip level saw - Sirisha’s style is collaborate with others on decisions and understand the why behind what is being done. - Sirisha stresses the importance of giving people feedback quickly on what they did really well and what we feel should be done differently. This applies to peers and direct reports. - “If we don’t hear it we do not know what to do, and you’ll be completely blind.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on the importance of feedback

11:45 – Team Lead vs. Manager* Nick stresses that feedback from others is a gift. * Was Sirisha’s role leading a team more of a tech lead (i.e. lead without role power) or a full on people manager role? + The team lead role was NOT a people maanger role. Sirisha mentions in the sectors where she worked there was no concept of tech lead. Those who are not managers that lead a team are considered team leaders with a focus on a specific project. This responsibility includes managing the people, the project goals, driving and reporting on progress until the project is complete. - “You are essentially holding the bag, and you have to carry it through to the finish line.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi * What was the difference in leading a team as Sirisha did and being a manager? + Managers have people responsibilities and have huge KPIs (key performance indicators) that they manage. + Sirisha gives the example of a team of 5 people. Each person would have well defined roles and responsibilities, and the manager would ensure each person is meeting their responsibilities, providing necessary support when team members need it. + A manager has to filter what is important to share with the team and help drive strategy and execution. + Mangers have a different level of responsibility. They are driving projects but not just at the team level. Sirisha shares an example of what she would do toward the end of the year with her team. - Sirisha would send everyone on the team an e-mail asking them to send their project ideas directly to her without talking to each other, regardless of which group inside the company the project might affect. - She would then aggregate and classify items in the list and take it to a staff meeting to get everyone’s input on the focus items for the team. - The manager of a team like this would know what does and does not make sense in terms of projects to pursue / not pursue. Managers are driving projects at levels beyond just the team level. - There can be silos within teams where certain people do not interact. Sharing the projects in this way encouraged team members to collaborate. - Sirisha emphasizes the importance of not putting people on the spot in this process so they will be more comfortable engaging. If the project would require working with another team, Sirisha offers to help team members connect with the right people. - “I think we should never underestimate the people in your team. Think about it. The people in your team did not come only with this job experience. They have sometimes 5 / 10 / 20 years of something else they’ve done before, so why would you not leverage it?” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on the importance of not underestimating your people - When someone on the team came to Sirisha with a project idea, she would let them run it, providing ideas and suggestions for the person but expecting to get updates and understand what the person is doing. Allowing people to run with an idea (or empowering them) gives them a sense of freedom, accomplishment, and makes them want to come to work. Empowering a team as much as you can makes it better for the manager. + Sirisha says in many ways she wants to walk herself out of a job. If you are some kind of linchpin for a job or the only one who can do something the company will likely keep you where you are.

15:32 – What Good Looks Like* Nick mentioned that Sirisha learned what good looks like to some extent from her managers and was able to demonstrate that to her skip level and to other leaders in different organizations. * Sirisha says we should understand it is likely that a skip level manager would call your manager to have a conversation about you before you meet with the skip level manager. The skip level manager may want more details on why you want to meet with them, what you want, and how you’re performing in advance. + There can be many reasons we would seek to meet with a skip-level manager. + There are also HR systems and support networks in place should one need to use them. + Sirisha has had friends who have worked for very trying managers but have still learned things from it, referencing one of her earliest podcasts that discusses this. - We sometimes will have managers who will push us, even after sharing that we’ve done something we feel was phenomenal / that we are quite proud of. - “But then you realize that maybe they see something in you when you look back. They’re challenging you because they think you can do more.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on managers who challenge us - Some managers could be intimidating in the way they show up. Sirisha says she has worked with some of them really well. - “I’ve had to stand my ground for what I thought was important. I don’t think I realized at that point that that’s what I was doing….There was a reason I made a decision or I did something the way I did or when they ask ‘will you come back and say this to me again the next time?’ I will be like ‘yes I would because I still think it’s the right thing to do.’” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on standing up for decisions as a manager - We should remember everyone has a boss, even a CEO. People have to justify why they are making decisions and why it is in the best interest of the company. If you can tie the justification to performance, revenue, or overall priorities (or perhaps all of these), it supports the reasoning to do something. - Sirisha encourages listeners to do their due diligence when making decisions. This will help you build rapport with your management, even if you are not friends with them. + We never know who we might interact with. Sirisha tells the story of connecting with someone whose organization she worked in 20 years ago. Despite the person not really knowing her and Sirisha not interfacing with him back then, the work connection gave her the recent opportunity to ask for a conversation to get his perspective on something. - “You never know who you’ll intersect where and when.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi * Nick suggests managers have to own the budget for time and people just as they would for spending. + Sirisha says meetings have a cost, and if we have highly compensated and talented people sitting in meetings we should have a good agenda for the meeting to drive desired outcomes. Send that agenda to meeting attendees! + Sirisha’s staff meetings had specific agendas. Sometimes they would look at metrics. Other times team members might present something to the rest of the group. It was hard to keep the team engaged during COVID, so they might discuss fun topics related to their background, foods they liked, vacations, etc. + If Sirisha was in a meeting without her team and could share something from that meeting with the team she would do it to help the team understand the role their work played. - Managers often ask their team for reports and other information, and team members don’t always know how that information is used once they provide it to their manager. - Sirisha tells us it is important to come back and let the team know what you did with the information they provided to you, the feedback you received on it, and what people might be saying about it. This helps team members better understand how what they are doing maps to priorities and elevates team members at the same time. - Sirisha says this sharing of information helps build collaboration and trust. Once of the first few times she shared how information the team gave her had been used, a senior engineer stopped by to tell Sirisha that it was the first time he had ever been told this kind of thing. That engineer felt it was a good thing Sirisha was able to share it with them. This was an eye opening experience for Sirisha. - “If my boss is taking my report, I’m curious to know what he did with it.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on how managers use information they get from employees - As someone preparing the information, you may wonder why you don’t get to present it. Sirisha would encourage us to ask our managers if we can present it in their meeting. - Once Sirisha got to know her team of peers and was comfortable with them (a group she calls the leadership team), instead of presenting in these meetings herself she would often have members of her team present, citing this as the opportunity for them to get visibility in front of the leadership team. This allows team members to talk about work they are doing and for people to get to know them. - “Think of ways to, while you’re elevating yourself as a manager, as an individual contributor…don’t forget to elevate the people in your organizations or your peers or someone who is working with you or somebody in a completely different organization.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on elevating others - Nick says the additional context managers can bring back to us is so helpful and can often help employees see that their work has a purpose. We may not often see the impact of leaving out this kind of context. - Sirisha says no matter our level at a company, there will be closed door meetings to which we just do not have access. We should consider sharing the things that we can which are not confidential. There are likely alternate ways to report on some of these things or discuss them than what we’ve discussed. - Regardless of the job we do, we are often seeking to hit a revenue target, a customer target, a product target, etc. We should think about which of these buckets our work falls into and how we contribute to the bottom line.

24:13 – Exposure to and Evaluation of New Opportunities* As you get different roles, you may be tapped on the shoulder and asked to pursue opportunities. Sirisha shares a story of interaction with her boss right after someone else got promoted. When he asked Sirisha who would be a good person for that role and heard her feedback, the boss asked if she wanted to apply for the role. * As much as she would encourage all of us to learn to advocate, everyone learns through the process. Many of the things Sirisha speaks about on her podcast are from personal experiences, things she has seen with others, or just conversations. * Sirisha realized other people will see your capabilities (what you are and are not capable of, what you do well and what you do not) differently than you do. + Sirisha spoke to many of her peers because she knew the role her boss had asked her about was quite challenging, wanting to determine if it was right for her. She also spoke to former bosses and co-workers to get ideas for interviews. * “If someone taps you on the shoulder for a role…in hindsight I would almost always say yes for two reasons. One is they thought of you, and they thought that you could do the job. You may not have thought you could have done the job, but they have thought of it and used their social capital. If they have put your name in the hat, they are usually going to have your back. They are not going to leave you out there and let you just figure it out.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi + You may fail at a role someone puts you up for, and worst case you get demoted. You learn something no matter what and can build a network. + “Only reason you should say no is there’s a concrete reason you do not want the job….Be very sure why you are saying no.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on when to say no to a role that is suggested to you - Sirisha encourages us not to say no if we feel we are not ready or fear of not being able to do the job, especially since someone asked you. Saying no may be a personal reason like timing or truly feeling like it is not the right role for you, for example. We should say no for the right reasons, and sometimes it could burn bridges. - You will only be asked so many times. Sirisha has said no / backed out at times because she could not articulate what she wanted to her manager clearly. - Sirisha says as a manager, she might ask someone once, twice, or even 3 times about a new role. If the answer is always no she would likely stop asking. + “Don’t not take a job because you think you’re not capable of it….If you think there is even a drive to do it, do it.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi * Sirisha recounts talking to a friend about what they each wanted to do next. Sometimes in these conversations they would assess the risk of moves to specific teams (some teams doing well, some seem like they may not last). + Sirisha mentioned even if she was offered a role on a team whose future seemed risky she would take it. + Getting a level up gets you access to different levels of conversations you did not previously have and presents new networking opportunities. For example, Sirisha did not get more exposure to finance teams until she took a certain role at a certain level. * We should think about what a role will get us and where it will get us to next (i.e. the potential pathways) if we accept it. Think about the pros and cons of accepting it. + This is different from accepting a project. We’re specifically talking about a role (a job). + “If it is overwhelmingly positive, then think about doing that role. If not, maybe there’s a good reason for declining it. But be sure why you are declining it.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on when to take a role after looking at pros and cons + Sirisha mentions she has looked at roles at different levels (beginning manager or other) and not seen a path forward from it. They seemed like dead ends. + Sirisha tends to use SWOT Analysis to consider a new role, something she learned about when managing cost budget for a specific group. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. - After spending a year talking to various groups, Sirisha wrote down the experience she wanted, opportunities she was looking for, and looked at the greater ecosystem. - Sirisha shares the story of being fixated on a specific role when another opportunity came her way. After using the SWOT tool to truly look at both jobs, the second one would leverage a lot of her expertise instead of needing to learn everything from scratch (which the first role would). - “It’s not about a 3-year plan or a 5-year plan or a title even. I’m usually looking to see what skills do I want to learn or what do I want to know, and then it kind of transforms that way.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi * You get support when someone taps you on the shoulder. Maybe it gets you past self-doubt? + Sirisha tells us to expect things will be hard and that we will have highs and lows no matter what level we are. - “There are going to be days when you feel this huge pit in your stomach.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on what to expect in any job + People issues are hard. Sirisha was lucky to have a HR partner who helped her navigate a lot of this when she first became a manager. - “That is the reason people don’t want to be managers more than anything. It’s the people challenges that they dread. And I’m not going to tell you it’s going to be easy by any means.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi - Sirisha says the HR partner helped with constructing conversations and input to learn how to handle situations. - It’s important not to drag things on but to address them quickly. - Find the mentors you need to help you through these kinds of things, and those mentors could come from a variety of places (a peer, a former manager, etc.). - Managing people is a tough job. There will be different people with different personalities. People will be unhappy. Managers may not be able to do everything they would like to do for an employee or do everything an employee wants. * Managers should try to listen and share why something cannot be done (which in all cases cannot be shared). * Sirisha would encourage us to find peers to share things with, realizing that in an office professional setting we may only want to share so much.

34:03 – Leadership Metrics and a Culture of Excellence* Nick references the metric on LinkedIn that 25% of Sirisha’s team were promoted, asking how she learned to showcase the metrics in this way.

+ There are different measurements as you progress up the leadership chain like followership, strategy, and execution. There is also one that relates to bringing up / developing people on your team. It cannot just be about you.
+ Sirisha says it is exciting when someone gets promoted and becomes your peer, but it is a different relationship to navigate for both them and for you.
+ Sirisha has in the past had about 40% of her team turn over because they got promoted or wanted to do something different, for example.
    - “I know you have to be cautious as a manager that if you are losing a lot of people it can be a very bad thing. It’s a reflection upon you. But if they are doing it for the right reasons and you can see where they are going, I think it really helps to be able to speak to it and why there’s this sort of navigation process.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on keeping track of the right kind of turnover
    - When Sirisha looked back and reflected on where her team went she realized about 25% of them were promoted from her team into more technical roles or manager roles.

How does one create a culture of excellence?
- This is about being as transparent as you can and building trust.
  - This goes back to the example of Sirisha bringing the team’s ideas for projects to a staffing meeting for deciding priorities for the year. That action gave everyone a way to contribute, regardless of their level within the organization.
  - Managers with a large number of reports may have to think of the appropriate way to do something like this (i.e. some methods will not work for teams of a certain size).
- Another thing is empowering people on your team to make a lot of the decisions, which is something Sirisha ended up doing.
  - Over time, Sirisha had her team step in to make certain decisions. She needed time to work on certain projects.
  - Once Sirisha empowered team members to make decisions she did not take them back from the team but made herself available to answer questions they had.
  - Sirisha mentions one particular summer not long before she quit her job she went to India for 2 months.
  - “Sitting in a leadership team in kind of a manufacturing environment you don’t step out for 2 months and be completely unplugged from a role.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi
  - When someone asked whether Sirisha would respond to messages or be completely unplug, it gave her pause. She said she would be completely unplugged and would only respond to emergency messages via text message (i.e. she would not be checking e-mail).
  - Sirisha says her team did an amazing job while she was away and even asked them if they could manage before she decided to take the trip to India. The team said they could.
- Sirisha says her time off was not a last minute scramble for which everyone needed to prepare. Sirisha’s first act as a manager of this team had been a roles and responsibility chart that she presented back to her team (really for her own knowledge of what people did). After digesting the initial chart, Sirisha asked her team for 2nd and 3rd level backups for certain responsibilities based on people’s skillsets.
  - This allowed people on the team to cover for one another.
  - “It becomes very hard as a manager to manage all these moving pieces.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on keeping track of team members and staffing levels
  - The team members were to designate a backup for themselves and let her know if she needed to manage an escalation or issue that no one else could cover in their absence.
  - As a culture we are so plugged in to work. It took time for Sirisha to learn to unplug and was not an easy transition.
  - “I tell my team, ‘if you’re out I would prefer you not show up at work and not respond to any messages. The expectation is you are out at work. Your team should be covering for you. You will tell somebody who your counterpart is. If you think your counterpart cannot manage or is already overwhelmed, you tell me what the job is, what needs to be covered, and it’s my responsibility to manage what that escalation is.’” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on the expectation of her team to be off work
  - Sirisha says there may be times when she needs to call team members while they are away, but the intention is not to have to call them.
- Over time Sirisha would check e-mail intermittently throughout the day (learned to do this). She tells us managers are often sitting in meetings all day and have to work on their own things in the evening.
  - Sirisha communicated to the team that sending them an e-mail after hours does not indicate an urgent need for a response unless she is texting them.
  - As Sirisha got even better at this she would schedule sending messages to balance with people’s out of office. This way it would show up when people need to see it.
- Sirisha would let her team know if there is something going on and something urgent they need her to do, they should text her. E-mails might not be seen in time to take an urgent action.
  - “I still do read my e-mail. It’s just I am not a slave to my e-mail. Because otherwise e-mail is going to manage my life. I don’t need it to manage my life. I want to manage it.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi
- As mentioned earlier, Sirisha would give her team members power to make decisions, and in this team’s case it had to do with manufacturing and quality.
  - Team members would own certain decisions and the responsibility for the decision. Sirisha expected team members to detect when something was not being done right and to let her know.
  - Managers who worked for Sirisha would be able to decide the way their team worked, the projects the team would work on, etc.
- Sirisha once heard the quote “every organization will take everything you can give it.” We have to decide how much we want to give. There are job expectations, and the higher you go the more expectations are there, including lots of pressure and likely more hours. We need to determine how we will draw boundary conditions around the expectations, figuring out what we will give and when.
  - Sirisha remembers managing a specific crisis and working with a young engineer who would provide a nightly update. But she learned for this engineer it meant he would send something at 3 AM. Rather than putting extra pressure on the engineer Sirisha would wake up and see what he sent at 3 AM and then follow her process in the morning. She adapted herself to his style of working.
  - “There was no point me stressing him out when he was already going way beyond and doing some amazing stuff.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on learning to collaborate with others
  - Sirisha’s way of doing things is talking to people and trying to collaborate with them.
- Nick feels giving someone ownership of the decisions engages people more to do the work.
  - The maanger still owns the outcome of the decisions made. They do not delegate authority and just walk away. The manager still has oversight responsibilities.
  - Sirisha tells us there will be mistakes and says things did not always go right for her. For example, when someone makes a mistake because they were not trained, it is as much on the manager to ensure team members are trained and necessary processes are in place to prevent future mistakes.
- Sirisha spent a lot of her time driving productivity and optimizing processes. Ensuring data integrity is one example.
  - As part of the roles and responsibility exercise, every member of the team was asked to create training documents and keep the ones that existed up to date. The intent was that new members o thr team could read the training documents and get an idea of what the role is. Roles were very different on Sirisha’s team, but the documents were to contain a general idea of what to do.
- If you want to follow up with Sirisha, you can find her:
- On her website sirishakuchimanchi.com – this contains information on her background, her radio show, her podcast, the keynote speaking engagements she does
- Connect with Sirisha on LinkedIn and send her a message – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi
- Mentioned in the outro
- People management is not always your idea, which is a pattern with our guests. This was true for Sirisha too (i.e. someone else brought it up to her). Nick sites Yvette Edwards and Charlie Nichol as 2 examples that come to mind immediately (though there are many others). Those episodes can be found here if you would like to listen to them:
  - Episode 51 – Individual Contributor to Manager with Charlie Nichol
  - Episode 52 – Considering a Management Career and Learning to Develop Teams with Charlie Nichol
  - Episode 201 – Generate Depth On-Demand with Yvette Edwards (1/2)
  - Episode 202 – Having Some Career Zigzags with Yvette Edwards (2/2)
- Nick wonders if there is any correlation in the type of leader you get when someone has had a goal to pursue leadership for a long time compared to someone who is told they ought to consider it / pursue it by someone else and then decides to do it.
  - Maybe we should ask a future guest!
- Managers have the power to advocate for the careers of their employees.
  - Sirisha demonstrated we need to ask for what we want. Different managers helped her prepare for the roles she wanted.
- Remember, based on Sirisha’s experience we can look for opportunities to get team leadership experience even if not a manager (i.e. team lead for a project). And a team lead can still empower team members in ways similar to what a manager does.
- Employees need to hear the message that it’s ok to not work when they are taking time off. For whatever reason, people need to hear it. Nick has had managers tell him this, and John gives an example of a similar situation.
  - Thinking we “need” to work almost like a superman syndrome or hero complex can lead us down the road to burnout!
  - Sometimes we need our managers to help us tend to our own self-care. It’s one thing for them to tell us what they expect in terms of us not working when we are out of office taking time off but another entirely when they also model it themselves.
  - Part of the culture of excellence was documenting team member responsibilities and designating backups as a way to empower the team and have coverage when people are out of office.
  - Add to the above Sirisha’s scheduling of e-mails to align with employee working hours so no one feels pressure to respond when they are not working. John calls this black belt level cultivation of the culture of excellence.
  - Sharing where information provided to your manager goes and why the ask came in can be extremely impactful.
- Sirisha’s approach to new career opportunities was about leveling up in some way, gaining professional relationships, and getting access to conversations she was not privy to before making the move.
  - One way to get the thoughts in your brain on paper is to use the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis tool Sirisha mentioned. Nick admits to not using this tool in the past for career moves but will remember it for the next time he’s evaluating opportunities.

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Welcome to episode 245 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 1 of an interview with Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, discussing Sirisha’s pursuit of physics in school, thoughts on women in STEM fields and how to support them, suggestions for working with finance teams, the story of Sirisha being laid off and bouncing back, and thoughts on meetings with your manager and your skip level manager.

Original Recording Date: 09-16-2023

Topics – A Background in Physics, Women in STEM and Getting Support, Moving to the US, Working with Finance, Getting Laid Off, Communicating with Your Manager, On Skip Level Managers3:28 – A Background in Physics* Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi calls herself an entrepreneur today. She started her career working for a semiconductor manufacturer in the tech industry which resulted in 17 years of experience. + During this time, Sirisha has been laid off, been a stay-at-home mother, and went back to graduate school to get a Ph.D. Most recently she quit her corporate job to venture out on her own. + Sirisha is the host of the Women, Career, and Life Podcast which covers topics such as women in leadership and financial independence. * Sirisha liked sciences and problem solving when she was younger, but physics was the one she liked most of all (more so than chemistry or math). + Sirisha also grew up an area of India which was an academic institution. Her father is a physicist but did not influence her decision to pursue the field of study. + At this point in India the process for getting into university was write an entrance exam in your chosen field of study after graduating high school. Sirisha had decided not to write an engineering exam because she wanted to study something more interesting – physics. - Software engineering did not exist as a field really during this time, so the “engineering” reference above would have meant mechanical engineering.

6:01 – Women in STEM and Getting Support* We want to help increate the number of young ladies / women who pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Were there any specific challenges Sirisha faced as a young woman pursuing physics at the time she did? + Sirisha tells us that in many ways the ecosystem is quite different between the United States and India. + “In India in some ways, to broad brush stroke, the smarter you are, the more you’re thought of. In the US, if you’re an athlete, you’re given credit. If you’re a nerd, well, good luck to you. So I think there is sort of this flip side of the coin of how you’re viewed, which I think makes a difference.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi + Because of the state in India in which Sirisha grew up, studying sciences meant going to either a men’s or a women’s college, and she ended up at a girl’s college at that time. She would study at co-ed colleges later during her academic career. + Sirisha had friends in engineering schools to study mechanical or electrical engineering, and these women were greatly outnumbered by men in the classroom. + Nick mentioned his teenage daughter loves math today. + Sirisha has a picture at home from when her kids were competing in math and science competitions during their middle school years. She tells us there were around 40 kids in the picture and only 6 of them girls. + “We talk about high school girls and math and STEM. You need to catch them at elementary school because you’ve kind of already lost the pipeline. And then when you talk about the corporate world, and that pipe is just continuously leaking with holes.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, commenting on reasons for a shortage of women in STEM fields + In speaking with young women that are high school age, some of the challenges are these young women doubting and questioning their own ability to succeed. Listen to Sirisha’s story of a young girl wanting to study architecture but being unsure if she’s “good enough.” + Sirisha doesn’t remember ever wondering or thinking about being “good enough” to pursue her field of study. Many of the girls in her group of friends were in competition with one another when they were younger. Sirisha also tells us that several of the girls from her friend group who were interested in science obtained PhDs over time just as she has, taking breaks along the way to become mothers in many cases. It was not a linear path for most. + “You have to find your support network.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on advice for women wanting to pursue a career in STEM fields - Sirisha would advise young women interested in a STEM career (like Nick’s daughter as one example) to seek support from others in their local community (other girls or even boys). - If someone is taking away from your confidence, it may be best to stay away from that person. - Finding mentors and peers is extremely helpful. Young women may not be seeking these out, so Sirisha would advise if we see the spark dimming out a little to help our daughters / young ladies we know by seeking out others like Sirisha who have already walked the path for a deeper discussion. + Sirisha shares that recently she was asked to help provide guest speakers in specific fields for a career club at the school where her kids attend. + “You need to see people like you.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi + Sirisha tells us when she was younger she had many people around her who were on an academic path and that not many girls went that far down the path. - Convincing others and your parents to pursue a specific field of study and sticking to that path can be challenging. Sirisha says we have to navigate these situations and find our allies along the way. - It’s going to be very difficult if you feel like you are alone through this process. People may have the talent but also have doubt and a lack of support. - For those attending or about to attend college, try finding a teacher, a club, or maybe a community center for support. Reach out to people on social media as well. - Any listener of the show is always welcome to contact John or Nick (or both) on LinkedIn or some other platform. - “There are so many avenues. I know it takes work, and it’s hard work. But usually people are willing to help especially if they see where you’re coming from and what your ask is. If it’s very transactional, then it may be off putting, but if it’s something like ‘I’m seeking knowledge, I’m seeking to understand this, or I need support for this, absolutely.’” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi + Not asking at all means there is zero chance of getting any kind of help! + Sirisha recently attended Dallas Startup Week, where she heard someone say the 3 most beautiful and important words of the English language are “please help me.” + Remember to also be specific when you ask for something. If you want career advice, for example, give some context behind where you’re coming from and where you want to get to rather than just saying “I need career advice.” + When reaching out to people working on similar things as her, Sirisha might ask for 30 minutes. For those people Sirisha knows are super busy, she may only ask for 15 minutes and is very specific on what she wants out of the 15 minutes. - Sirisha says the 15 minutes is not often an exploratory conversation, that she is up front about why she came to the person and what she would like to get out of the time period. Sirisha tells us she is also respectful of the 15 minute window and will not run over it if the person does not have time. - Being respectful of meeting time boundaries is great advice as general good meeting etiquette. Sirisha tells us that standing / walking meetings can actually shorten meetings and allow you to build a different type of rapport.

13:55 – Moving to the US* At some point Sirisha relocated from India to the US. + With so much knowledge out there these days and tools like social media platforms, the relocation might not be so difficult for someone seeking to do it today. + Sirisha had watched many Hollywood movies, but some of the challenges were things like the language, learning the lingo and etiquette, ordering food to go, etc. - She remembers taking a class for international students at one point on how to communicate. One of the most important pieces of advice was to ask “what does that mean?” + Some of the most challenging things to Sirisha were necessities like finding accommodations, figuring out social security cards, credit cards, and cell phones. Each of these can build on the other in a lot of ways, and someone usually has to walk you through the various processes if you’re not familiar. + Regardless of the age at which you relocate, finances become extremely important. + “You have to know about the tools that are available to you, and we never talk about these tools….Finance is such a taboo, stigma subject that rarely any of us talk to our friends about it. So where do you learn about it?” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on the importance of finance + Sirisha shares the story of a friend who had not heard of IRAs (Individual Retirement Accounts) until her 30s and was not able to take advantage of the benefits at an earlier age. The earlier we start focusing on our financial wellbeing, the better!

16:16 – Working with Finance* Nick mentioned in addition to finance being something that isn’t taught to us well on a personal level, finance can be viewed as a black box in the corporate world, and technologists often have trouble understanding the role of the finance team (other than possibly feeling that they are the ones saying no to cool technology projects). * Sirisha’s experience in leadership was largely in manufacturing environment. + We need to remember there could be equipment to consider. There are certainly people and processes as well. There are many factors to consider. Equipment repair could be one of them, and investments could be another. + “They are looking at the future projection of what does the market look like, what are the needs of the organization, and where you want to invest those resources.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on the role of finance in organizations + Finance teams may be looking at projections and targeting specific goals. + Sirisha emphasizes how helpful it can be for finance, leadership, and engineering teams to work together. It might present a different way to tackle the problem. + “Just like you said, it can rub people the wrong way by just hearing the response but not the whys and the whats.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on interactions with finance teams + Sirisha gives the example of putting in a project package for capital expenditure. These submissions may go through many iterations, and Sirisha would encourage us to go back to review the original submission to remember the original intent and close the loop. + It is also helpful to develop a working relationship and to understand what they (finance personnel) are doing and why. + “In the end, we are all people working on whatever problem it is. So we will have to work together. You don’t have to always see eye to eye with the other person…. It’s not a bad thing to have a conflict because you might drive an innovative solution or think outside the box. But finance is a key part. Literally nothing runs without money.” Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on relationships with and perceptions of finance + Without revenue generation, resource generation, or fund raising there’s not a point for doing all the work. + In her current state as an entrepreneur (what she calls a bit of a transition phase), Sirisha has to constantly evaluate how she is spending her time and the return on investment for it. Time is a constraint just like finances are. + “Think of yourself as running your own business, whatever your life looks like, even if you are working a full time job or you’re a student. And, translate that to a bigger ecosystem. Everyone needs to manage their budget.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi * Did Sirisha study finance in school or pick it up later? + Sirisha studied physics in college and didn’t even have economics. She did not pick up finance until later. + Though Sirisha did not study engineering after high school, she later chose to pursue studies in engineering and material science because she was doing materials research as a physicist and felt like the upper level math of quantum physics was above what she could comprehend. The materials research turned into material science and engineering. + Sirisha mentioned she is doing a TedX talk in October 2023. The topic for the talk is “Are We Rich or Poor? Money Conversations with Kids.” - Sirisha shares how important it is to discuss financial matters with our kids, especially in the absence of any required financial education in school. + Finance is a topic we should be open to discussing with our kids, friends and family, and even with those we may be mentoring. + Sirisha mentioned she learned some financial concepts from her father before coming to the US (because it was discussed in their home). + Sirisha was laid off from her first job here in the US and had a number of things to figure out as a result. + She heard people talking about rolling over her 401(K) during this time, but she did not really understand what that meant. After calling the company who serviced her account, Sirisha followed the advice she was given to do so (which she later realized was not good advice). - “I didn’t know what all that stuff was. I thought whoever was giving me advice was going to give me…good advice. And then later as I learned more and more I realized ‘this is such a mess.’” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on getting some poor investment advice + Sirisha mentions it is a scary decision when you’re seeking to “undo” something (i.e. change an investment situation). She read a number of books during this time and tried different things based on what she had learned. + Sirisha speaks on financial independence, especially for women, and tries to keep her own investments pretty simple. - She has created an automatic, pretty hands off system that is simple seems to work well for long-term investments. This works well for Sirisha. But we don’t learn any of this in school! - Nick mentions her system seems to be very much like The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach.

23:55 – Getting Laid Off* What was the impact to Sirisha (psychological or other) of getting laid off from her first job, and how should one recover from something like this? + Sirisha was laid off less than a year into this first job, and it was during a difficult time for the US economy. + Today we talk about layoffs now using hashtags on LinkedIn or other platforms, but that platform didn’t exist when Sirisha was laid off. And it certainly was not a topic many people were willing to talk about (i.e. a bit of a taboo topic). + Sirisha had an immigrant visa at this time, and when it was time for her to transition back to working again, it took a long time for the hiring company to process her visa status. + “I had this wonderful manager who held a job for me. He could have quite literally let me go and said ‘I’ll hire the next person,’ but he held the job for like 4 months til they figured out how to process the visa for me to come back.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on the impact a manager made based on her situation + Sirisha says going through a layoff can be very hard and cause you to doubt yourself (and even more so if it’s your first job). + “Statistics show I think it’s like 40% of the US will experience a layoff….Don’t take it personally. It is going to happen….Instead you think about how you’re going to make yourself financially resilient and career resilient while this is going to happen.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on layoffs + Looking back, Sirisha feels getting laid off may have been the best thing that happened to her. She got called back from the client where she was working to see if she wanted to work for them. + “I didn’t know what mentorship was then. I didn’t know what networking was then. But if I look back those were the things that were happening without my knowledge.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi + Sirisha would ask questions and have causal conversations with her co-workers and customers. This approach helped her build relationships, and she would encourage all of us to make it a priority to build relationships. - “You will have to build some rapport. People have to know what you’re doing.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi + Before getting laid off, Sirisha was working at a client site. She tells us she did not stop by her company’s office very often or talk to her manager very much. Thinking back, though unsure if this affected the layoff, Sirisha realizes her manager probably had limited visibility into what she did. + Upon going back to work, Sirisha made it a point to meet with her manager 1-1 regularly. - If you work in the same office as your manager, dropping by to say hello and let them know what you’re working on is an option. You could also drop them an e-mail to share this. There should be other collaboration tools for remote workers. - “Keep your boss in the loop, what you’re working on, what you’re going to be doing…and deliver on time….At least deliver on time, and give them a huge heads up if you’re going to be late. Don’t leave them hanging.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on communicating with your manager + Getting through a layoff will be hard. Sirisha encourages us to find people to meet and other things to do. She remembers taking some art classes at a local community college. + Sirisha didn’t have a television at home. She had moved to a new city and didn’t know anyone. She got a TV to supplement her lack of adult conversation. + “Do something where you get in front of people. You don’t have to interact with them if you’re not ready….There are so many ways, but don’t isolate yourself. I think that’s what can become very hard.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on recovering from a layoff - Some of the examples of avoiding isolation we discuss includes going for a walk, seeking out a library, hanging out with friends / playing board games, etc.

28:23 – Communicating with Your Manager* How often should we update our manager on what we’re working on? + Sirisha feels everyone, regardless of role, should have a scheduled 1-1 with their manager every 2 weeks, even if only 30 minutes. + “Well, you own your career, so if it’s important to you, you schedule the 1-1 if you want to make progress.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on taking action if our manager does not get around to scheduling 1-1s + As we talk through this, Sirisha is looking at things from the perspective of reporting to a manager and being a manager (having done both). + Sirisha would normally schedule the 1-1s or tell her team to schedule the 1-1s every 2 weeks, and if it worked for her she would accept it. + Even if it’s 15 minutes every 2 weeks, go in with an agenda or just have a chat. You need that to build the rapport, and Sirisha tells us she has gotten to know some of her managers really well. + “Because you end up working for people….So you never know where anyone will end up.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on the importance of getting to know your manager as a person + Sirisha reminds us that the corporate world can change to shuffle people around to where they are reporting to one person one day and a peer of that person the next. * If you take the initiative to schedule a 1-1 with your manager, what kinds of things should you bring to that conversation? + Sirisha says we should start by asking whether your manager has defined / helped you understand what your job role is. If not, find out what the role is and the expectations of your role. - This is not an exercise just for around performance time or for when you’re setting goals for the year. - Expectations have to be set first before you can set goals. + If you want to speak to your manager about specific topics or give an update on something you’re working on, let your manager know beforehand the purpose of the time you need with them. Keep in mind your manager will also need to discuss specific items with you during the time slot. + If something you previously discussed with your manager is changing (i.e. a deadline, a process) or something is being added, send it to your manager in an e-mail to keep a record of what was agreed upon. This can also be something you keep as a reminder of what you accomplished over the course of the year. - We will likely forget what we’ve worked on by the end of a year. - Sirisha has a friend who keeps a color coded Gantt chart of her work to share with her boss. + It’s not just about your style but also about your manager’s style and how they might like information presented or how much they want at one time. - Some managers may want a monthly or a weekly report. It is important to find out what those expectations are. - “There’s lots of things we negotiate in life, not just our salary in the beginning of getting a job.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on the realities of negotiating with your manager on what you want in your career and how you update them on your work - Start having conversations with your manager about future roles you might want. + Start with defining your role. Then think about the projects you’re working on and provide your manager with updates. + Let your manager know if you want to learn a new skill or take some training. The way in which you communicate depends on what works best for you and what works to suit your manager’s style. But it’s really important to communicate! + Not everyone may have a good relationship with their manager. In these cases we will have to be careful and decide what is right for us (knowing there is no one size fits all approach). If you feel your manager is not the right person, Sirisha would recommend you seek to build your career in other ways: - Have skip level conversations consistently without throwing anyone under the bus or burning bridges (whether you get along with your manager or not). If you want to be promoted to be an eventual peer of your boss, it is your skip level manager who can do this (and not your direct manager). + Be intentional about what you ask your manager. - “Have you told them what you want to do? Because they cannot read your mind. They do not know.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on the importance of letting your manager know that you want to be promoted / do something else - Remember also that managers go to bat for (or advocate for) us. Managers may spend political and social capital to get an opportunity for you, and disconnects can happen if you say no consistently. It is extremely important to keep the lines of communication open with your manager about what you want to do. - If you aren’t sure what you want to do, try different things (new projects / assignments, team leadership, etc.). - If you’re looking to move into an entirely different organization inside your current company, start networking with people in that organization. Moving to a different company is a whole other conversation. You will have to determine the best time to let your manager know you’re planning to make a move. - “But you have to invest in your career. Your manager will invest with you, but you have to first sow the seeds. They can only help you nurture it.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi * What if we’ve requested a 1-1 with our manager, and they just don’t see the importance or necessity of it? + Sirisha says all managers may not be keen on having a 1-1. Some managers may not have had a good example set here by their managers. + You could try asking for a different time for the 1-1 or (if you work in the same office) suggest a walking meeting. Listen to how Sirisha would handle walking meetings with her team during her time as a manager (asking if the team had time / other meetings that conflicted). + Once you’ve exhausted all possibilities of scheduling or mode of meeting, it may be that the manager is not the right fit for you. + “If your career is not progressing and you feel like you’re getting stalled, go look elsewhere.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi

35:14 – On Skip Level Managers* Is it a risky move to meet with a skip level manager without speaking to your manager about it?

+ Sirisha says it can certainly be risky. In many cases she told her boss she was meeting with their manager, and in some cases she did not (unsure if that was a conscious decision).
+ Sirisha used to encourage her team to have skip level conversations, feeling they needed to meet her boss.
+ Sirisha made sure her team understood that for certain roles, she could only advocate for them and would not be the final decision maker. Even when she was the final decision maker, buy in would be required from many other people as well.
+ Some people make their entire career reliant on a single manager or sponsor. Once that person moves on (either inside or outside the company), what do you do? Sirisha emphasizes the importance of building a web of influence.
    - We need to be networking with more than just our manager and skip level manager. Sirisha would encourage getting to know your manager’s peers but not in a transactional way. It could be a casual conversation or even a meeting you’re in with that person where they can see what you’re working on and how you contribute.
    - Sirisha feels this is a challenge for women specifically. Many feel if they do an outstanding job they will be recognized. But this is not likely because there is so much happening at once.
    - It may be hard to speak up in meetings, but it’s critical to do it. Sometimes people will move on and might not give credit where credit is due. Hopefully in these cases allies and peers step in to give proper credit for ideas and contributions.
    - Sirisha suggests we can go and meet in a smaller group or 1-1 with meeting stakeholders to share ideas and what we’re working on as a way build rapport. Knowing someone else in the meeting can help us feel more comfortable speaking up. And this development of rapport helps people remember you and what you are doing.
+ Sirisha tells us the risk of meeting with your skip level manager is much less than not doing it.
    - Sirisha has been through a layoff and has come back to work after being a stay-at-home mom. She tends to look at things from a worst case scenario standpoint.
    - When Sirisha came back to work from being a stay-at-home mom, she realizes her perspective changed and that she was much more willing to ask for and push for things she wanted. She already understands the worst case scenarios.
    - “If I don’t ask, who is going to come and give it to me? I will have to ask for it myself. If I get it, good. If I don’t then I’m going to try a different way, try asking again, or do something else.” – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, on asking for the things she wanted in her career
    - Sirisha prefers direct feedback and wants to be told if something is / is not a viable option for her so she is not wasting time. In some scenarios Sirisha chose to make moves (i.e. jump ship) without asking for feedback because she knew how it was going to go.

If you want to follow up with Sirisha, you can find her:
- On her website sirishakuchimanchi.com – this contains information on her background, her radio show, her podcast, the keynote speaking engagements she does
- Connect with Sirisha on LinkedIn and send her a message – Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi
- Mentioned in the outro
- The leaking bucket of young women interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) starts in primary school! We need to figure out what the pressures are causing us to lose potential talent so early. We need people from diverse backgrounds and with diverse points of view, or we lose the ability to solve problems better in group settings.
  - We really liked Sirisha’s advice to be mindful and watchful of young ladies who may be losing their spark or interest and pairing them with a role model / someone who looks like them. We (as a society) need to understand what happened to discourage these young ladies, figure out what messages they received, and do our best to put a stop to it. Making progress in this area will result in better economic outcomes and is in addition something that is ethically the right thing to do.
  - We can all be positive role models in young lady’s lives when we hear negative messages.
- Don’t overlook the understanding of the finance team’s metrics for success and including them in your project funding discussions.
  - It made John wonder how high you have to go within an organization to know the point where finance is involved.
- If you want to get inside the mind of a former finance professional, check out our episodes with Scott Egbert:
  - Episode 227 – Through Profit and Loss with Scott Egbert (1/2)
  - Episode 228 – The Displacement of Joy with Scott Egbert (2/2)
- Don’t overlook the personal finance discussion, especially when it came to layoffs. For more episodes we’ve done on the topic of personal finance or guests who have discussed it, visit this tag search on our website.
- Understanding expectations of the job role comes before goal setting which comes before career aspirations when it comes to meetings and communicating with your manager. We liked the way Sirisha laid this out sort of in an order of operations way. We’ve spoken previously on the show about executing well on your current job before pursuing another role (i.e. not likely to happen if you are not doing a good job now).
- Speaking to your manager’s manager is a net positive balance of risk according to Sirisha, and it’s both a networking opportunity (which John calls “networking for the future”) and an opportunity for exposure.
  - Tim Crawford spoke about the importance of exposure to others within an organization in Episode 243 and also the importance of exposure to a board of directors in Episode 244.
  - Nick also thought about the discussion with John Nicholson from Episode 225 about your skip-level and many others being part of your own promotion process.
  - John mentions regularly leaving a positive impression on others is a key to success, even in the job you have. It can also result in people thinking of you for future opportunities.
- As far as layoffs are concerned, Nick had not considered the importance of being with people even if you don’t want to talk right then.
  - This reminded John of the prevalence of PTSD in people who go through traumatic situations (i.e. veterans coming back from combat). The number one positive correlation to PTSD after going through trauma was isolation. There is something about not being isolated that cuts down on the presence of this disorder. If you’re under stress, don’t isolate yourself even if you would like to do that.
  - In a layoff situation, you have to go through what past guest and business psychologist Leanne Elliott calls the psychological transition of layoffs as we discussed in Episode 237. Nick can John would also highly recommend checking out the Truth, Lies, and Workplace Culture Podcast hosted by Leanne and her husband Al (both former guests of ours).

The Automatic Millionaire, Expanded and Updated: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich

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Welcome to episode 244 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 2 of an interview with Tim Crawford, talking through how to determine if pursuing management makes sense for a person, how to better communicate with executive leaders, thoughts on executives progressing to the board of directors, coaching as a form of teaching, and how to decide what’s next in your career.

Original Recording Date: 09-01-2023

Tim Crawford is founder and CIO Strategic Advisor with an advisory services and research firm called AVOA. You can find part one of our interview with Tim in Episode 243.

Topics – A Choice of Interest and Priority, Communicating with Executive Leaders, Teaching and Coaching as a Way to Give Back, Deciding What’s Next3:50 – A Choice of Interest and Priority* Is leadership about choosing to follow the greater interest (people or technology)? + This was hard for Tim, especially since he started out in technology. + Tim says at some point we need to give up the technology and recognize we are a leader. + Tim had a boss who told him once, “my job is to deliver an organization.” At the time he did not really understand what it means. + Tim is still learning today what it means to be a leader and feels we should all be looking for ways to continually better ourselves. + As one progresses down the leadership path, there is an eventual realization that you can only do so much hands on work. A balance must be struck between leading the organization and being hands on with the technology. + Tim gives the example of a manager having an opening on a team but keeps fixing technology problems on their own. + “It really comes down to that balance and then what you’re prioritizing. Are you prioritizing being a leader or the technology? If it’s the technology that drives you, then maybe leadership is not your interest, and that’s ok too. We need individual contributors as much as we need leaders.” – Tim Crawford, on decisions to be in leadership + The highest level leader (or ultimate level) is serving on a board of directors and being part of a governance body (and not an operational body). The way you communicate and what you communicate has to be different than what it was in previous roles. + At some point, we make the choice as to whether we are interested in leadership and people or technology. Tim remembers going through this at multiple times over the course of his career (finding he was more interested in leadership than technology). It isn’t just a single point in time where you make this decision and never look back.

7:32 – Communicating with Executive Leaders* Tim says this is a challenge, citing he had given a presentation to some CDOs (Chief Digital Officers) and at other times CIOs (Chief Information Officers) on how to ascend to the board of directors. * While many of us think we need to progress up and out of our current role, we need to remember to ask if that progression is really what we want or where we want to be. * The presentation Tim gave to senior executives was to help them understand how a board of directors work, what it’s like, what they are interested in, how to interact with a board, how to get invited to a board meeting, some of the personas that often sit on boards, what to talk about in a meeting and how to present it, etc. + “Even at an executive level they may not have exposure to their board….I know CIOs from publicly traded companies that do not have access to their board.” – Tim Crawford, on tech executives and access to the board of directors + The advice Tim gave to the group of executives is the same that he would give to the most junior person – “understand your business.” + The language of business is more than just money. We need to understand how our companies make money and how they spend money. + Tim gives an example of a clothing manufacturer (GAP). - Customers can engage with the company through a website, by visiting a company store, by using a mobile app, or even through buying merchandise secondhand. This is how the company makes money. - GAP doesn’t make its own clothing and would work with contract manufacturers in other countries who build the designs GAP creates. These products then have to be shipped and distributed to stores or to customers. This is where the business would spend money. + Good places to learn about how a company spends and makes money are by looking at its financial reports. The big 3 as Tim calls them are as follows: - The income statement - The cash flow statement - The balance sheet - A 4th component could be earnings and owner’s equity + The big 3 say a lot about a publicly traded company. Even if you cannot read them all at a deep level, it allows you to see where risks and opportunities for the company are. - Look at what you’re doing in your daily work and think about how it connects to what you see in the financial reports. - It’s important to understand how what we do in our role creates value for the company in line with the objectives in the financial statements (set by board of directors). Tim says understanding how to connect those dots is a huge step forward. + It isn’t just junior level folks who struggle with connecting these. Even more senior personnel struggle here. Over time one can learn a little more. - “What it also does is it causes you to sit in a meeting, and you start to hear things a little differently. You start to hear things that you didn’t notice before or maybe you tuned out of…It starts to inform you in a different way, and you become much more sophisticated in your thinking, which then just helps you advance your career.” – Tim Crawford, on how understanding financial statements and the business can help you progress + John mentions this is like watching a suspense movie and not understanding why characters act the way they did until the very end. When you watch the movie again you can see motivations leading to patterns of behavior. + Tim has been given feedback that he has the reputation of going into a contentious meeting and once it ends all parties seem to walk away with what they were looking for (and the situation is much less contentious). - Tim realized he was reading people’s body language in meetings and not just the things they said (which is harder to do on a remote session). - “You start to watch the body language of people, and you get a lot more information about what’s resonating and what’s not. It becomes really interesting when you’re trying to negotiate and make something work….These meetings are about negotiation. At the end of the day it’s about negotiation.” – Tim Crawford - We should pay attention to word choices people use and if they are different than what would normally be used. It’s an indicator. - The clues are something we can notice earlier as we go through our careers. - “But it’s important to keep your eyes open, your mouth shut, and your ears peaked.” – Tim Crawford, on paying attention to the body language and behaviors of others - Speaking in meetings should not be about who can talk the most but rather about who can provide the most value to the discussion, project, etc. - “It’s not the most air time. It’s the most insight.” – John White

17:42 – Teaching and Coaching as a Way to Give Back* Sometimes it is not about you producing the answer. It may be helping someone else produce the answer (even if you know the answer). + Tim tells us this is a skill. And it is NOT manipulation. What you’re trying to do is help others see the path to buy into the outcome. + We need to strike a balance between speaking and not speaking / encouraging others to speak. + John says the skill we’re discussing is called coaching – evoking a realization, decision, behavior in someone. - “I’m realizing…leadership and management has in it a set of extremely technical skills that are almost orthogonal to the technology that is underlying those roles.” – John White * Tim says we are exposed to leadership when we’re very young from our parents and from our teachers. + Teachers don’t generally provide the answer. They teach you how to work through a problem. + What Tim suggests is we’re teaching people how to work through the problem in meetings by coaching. We need other people to learn as well and not just be given the answer. + Tim says this goes back to community. We are gaining from and giving to the community. - “This is a way you can give to the community, by teaching them how to fend for themselves, how to work through a problem on their own. Don’t just give them the answer. Help them through it. And then the next time, they can work through the problem, and they don’t have to come to you with it. But the other thing is the next time they come to you it’s probably going to be a juicier problem that they’re stuck with. And that will be the next opportunity for you. So, it’s a cycle that you go through.” – Tim Crawford, on teaching as a way of giving back to community

21:14 – Deciding What’s Next* How do we go about approaching what is next in our careers?

+ Tim says this requires a heart to heart with ourselves for which most people are not prepared. We need self-reflection and to understand our values / things that are important.
+ We must also be humble and realize we do not know everything.
+ Think about whether you’re really right for a role and if you’re ready for it.
+ Consider also…
    - Is this worth the risk to get what you want / what you’re looking for?
        * Think back to things you need to be successful to help here.
    - Is this just about a bigger paycheck or different title?
        * Perhaps this should not be the only thing we’re seeking.
+ Tim has told groups of CIOs seeking board level positions that not all are board level material and that they should be ok with it.
    - We need to understand what is and what is not really a fit for us. Mentors can really help here, no matter where we are in our career.
    - Are you the right persona that would be appropriate to sit in a board room and engage in a board meeting? Many IT people, including CIOs are not (may not be the right demeanor, may not have the right relationships to be invited in to the board).
+ Tim wanted the ability to affect companies and organizations at a completely different level, so serving on a board / as a board advisor is attractive.
    - A board advisor provides greater flexibility than a board director in terms of who you engage with.
+ “At the end of the day whether you’re the most junior person in IT or the most senior person in IT…relationships, knowing who you are, knowing the value you bring to the organization, understanding your business are all super critical….If you start there, that will take you a long way in the right direction to determine who you are, the value you bring, and where your place is as you go through that career ascension.” – Tim Crawford

If you want to follow up on this conversation with Tim, you can reach him…
- On AVOA’s website
- On LinkedIn
- On Twitter / X
- Mentioned in the outro
- Tim mentioned the job of delivering an organization in one of our favorite all time episodes of the Datanauts podcast (hosted by former guests Chris Wahl and Ethan Banks) – Datanauts Episode 101.
  - John highlights that the product / output of managers at multiple levels is that high functioning organization.
- Knowing the value you provide to an organization falls in line with the advice Don Jones gave in Episode 137 to think of yourself as a vendor who provides a service and knowing the problem you solve.
  - Knowing the value you provide can help you articulate it and show evidence of it in your next performance review or job interview.
- We were surprised to hear that even high level executives did not have access to board of directors meetings. It’s great that we have folks like Tim to help people prepare for getting to that level.
  - We have shared advice before on knowing success metrics of your manager, but it’s a similar story when you move up from there. Are we taking the time to understand what success metrics exist for C-level executives?
  - Remember to go and read the financial reports, and maybe you can ask questions about these when you speak to executives.
  - John says we should do some research on who does the hiring / firing for executives and who usually does the performance management at a company. Find out who the CEO manages directly, for example.
- Self-reflection for what’s next in your career takes the deep work and being bored we discussed previously (see Episode 144 for more on this).
  - Nick advocates for journaling here, and we discuss the morning pages discipline. It’s been mentioned in The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. See also Nick’s blog article on morning pages.

The Artist's Way: 25th Anniversary Edition

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Welcome to episode 243 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 1 of an interview with Tim Crawford, discussing his early career experiences, getting experience at scale, the importance of relationships inside and outside our companies, and some thoughts on people leadership and why Tim chose to pursue it.

Original Recording Date: 09-01-2023

Topics – A Project Manager in Title, Experience at Scale, The Importance of Relationships, Good Leaders and Not So Good Leaders, Tim’s Choice to Pursue People Management / Leadership2:44 – A Project Manager in Title* Tim Crawford is founder and CIO Strategic Advisor with an advisory services and research firm called AVOA. * Though the first job we see on Tim’s LinkedIn profile is project manager, he started much earlier than that, which he refers to as somewhat nontraditional. + Tim went to a high school with a number of different trades, and he became hooked on electronics, feeling he might graduate and pursue electronic engineering. + Tim would consistently get bored after being one of the first to finish his circuit designs in electronics classes. Since Tim was working on a computer he started to wonder what else the computer could do. This curiosity and interest led him to change his major from electronic engineering to computer science. + Tim’s first job in the industry was by happenstance. He was helping a friend with their computer, and they needed to take it to a local repair shop. Tim asked the technician who helped them a lot of questions about the repairs he was doing, and this person offered Tim a job. Being right out of high school, Tim took the job at the repair shop. + As things progressed, Tim worked for a technology reseller and began to design networks, eventually making his way into IT. + About 6 years later Tim got into the project management role we see on LinkedIn. * Tim was working for a global semiconductor company, and project manager just happened to be the title. + He started working for this company as a consultant, managing a number of architecture projects. - Some examples were building one of the largest Citrix implementations at the time, building one of the largest Lotus Notes implementations at the time and doing a large ERP upgrade from one product to SAP. - These big projects required the ability to manage many different moving parts at once, and Tim ended up being quite good at this. - Tim feels the role was a focus on strategic architecture around infrastructure and applications. + Tim’s manager when he was a consultant mentioned they needed him to start traveling but didn’t pay for consultants to travel. The manager offered Tim a job doing what he had been doing which would allow the necessary travel.

7:22 – Experience at Scale* What should someone do who has some experience in a technology (at the small business level perhaps) but not at the global scale needed to meet job requirements global company, for example? + This is much harder today Tim says. Many people without the scale of experience at the time Tim entered the workforce (in 1990s) found companies willing to take a chance on them. + While Tim ended up not attending college right away to enter the workforce, he did go back for an undergraduate degree and eventually for a MBA. + It’s much harder for someone today without the experience to step into a company who will take a chance on them. We are even more reliant on technology, and it presents more risk. + If you have experience in a technology area but not at the scale needed, find ways someone can bring you in “under their wing.” The idea is to gain exposure without being the person responsible for a specific project. Look for companies also who have not found the right fit. + “So you’re not going to go from 0 to 60 all at once, but at least you can start to get exposed to it.” – Tim Crawford + You might need to take some chances because many times taking risks is where you get the chance to advance in your career. + Looking at this from a leader’s perspective, Tim would rather hire someone who is eager to learn with the right persona, decorum, and ability to work as part of a team over someone who only has the experience. + “I can teach you the technology and the scale. It’s much harder for me to teach you those softer skills. So if you work on the softer skills and you bring them and put them forward, someone is likely to take a chance on you to go after these other technology problems that maybe you’ve never touched on before. But the way that you act, the way that you react to things, the way that you solve problems is good enough. And you’ll figure it out.” – Tim Crawford * How should someone present the softer skills tactically or strategically? + Tim says find your people within a community / multiple communities, and get involved. It can help you know where you rank and is a great way to learn from others and how they do things. + Focus on building relationships. We can model ourselves after others or perhaps get a mentor to help. This focus on relationship building is something Tim still coaches executives on doing to this day. - For example, to get into a boardroom a CIO or CDO needs to begin with a deep relationship with the CEO. - Even if you’re listening to this and are earlier in your career, these relationships help you build into what comes next in your career. - Tim tells us there have been multiple roles he found out about because he knew someone and they knew him and the way he operated and what he could do.“‘They need someone like you. Let me make the introduction.’ One of those jobs was when I went to work for Stanford University.” – Tim Crawford, citing an example of how relationship building has helped his career progression

12:50 – The Importance of Relationships* Tim says early in his career he isn’t sure he really understood or respected opportunities presented to him (like getting to work for Stanford University). He wishes he would have thought more about it earlier in his career. + “Learning about relationships, learning about how you can grow personally and then on top of it the skills, not the other way around. is really, really important.” – Tim Crawford + Most every company Tim has worked for have been either number 1 or 2 in their industry. He tells us it was not planned that way but can really open doors when we think about relationships and the network of people. + “Remember…community is as much about giving as it is taking.” – Tim Crawford * In some of his earliest roles, Tim felt like he had to prove himself, especially since he was one of the youngest to have those roles. The space was somewhat emerging, and the people in it were older and much more experienced in IT. + Tim says people eventually realize that this proving oneself can cause some behaviors you don’t want and really isn’t necessary. Focus on what you’re doing, how you contribute, and how you provide value for your company. + “When you get more focused on that, a different type of community starts to expose itself to you, and that’s a good thing because you’ll learn from that as much as you’ll be able to benefit from it.” – Tim Crawford, on how focusing on the right things can foster community connections + For most people, your community will be developed both internally and externally. - External people to your company would not have the bias of working inside your company but perhaps similar interests (could be personal or professional – technology, hiking, traveling, etc.). This allows people to get to know you outside of the workplace. - It’s important to understand how to build relationships inside your company. This can be challenging for many IT people due to a lack of exposure. The exposure of a junior IT person to people outside of IT is likely on average not very much. It’s not extremely common for a junior engineer to be able to articulate how what they do contributes to the company’s business and have strong relationships outside of IT. Tim would like to see this more common. - To build relationships internally, you can start within your team, look at the greater department, and then seek to expand beyond that. Doing this provides exposure. - “Don’t wait for people to come to you. Go to them.” – Tim Crawford, on networking internally - Tim shares the story of someone he knows who makes even the senior most leaders work the help desk when they begin working for the company. This “trial by fire” method can help someone understand what the common problems are and allows a fresh perspective. It can often lead to uncovering that IT groups need to work more collaboratively with other departments to solve a problem. This would be an opportunity to build relationships. We need to be volunteering to seek out these types of relationships and be willing to put in the work. - “Maybe it’ll work. Maybe it won’t. But I think it’s worth the effort, and I think it’s worth the try. Let’s do it.” – Tim Crawford, on volunteering to go build relationships - Nick mentions that most junior IT folks would get exposure to others within the company through helping with break / fix issues but not so much from the standpoint of understanding how other roles / departments provide value to the organization.

20:02 – Good Leaders and Not So Good Leaders* “There are good leaders and good managers, and there are bad leaders and bad managers. One of the things you will start to learn is what defines those.” – Tim Crawford * It’s important to understand what you need from a manager / leader. For the more junior person, you will figure this out, but these are things we need to look for and be mindful of throughout our careers. + What do I need to realize my potential? + What do I need to operate at my highest potential? + This isn’t about a specific benefit or perk. This is about the people interactions you have with the rest of your organization. These interactions can help you define what is going to work for you and what is not and can help you understand what the next job should be. + John refers to this as “feeling the blanks and then making the decision to fill those blanks.” * Leaders should hire to their weaknesses / blind spots / area where they lack expertise. + “Eventually what you’re putting together, what you’re building as a leader, is this organization that fills those gaps. It’s like a puzzle.” – Tim Crawford + Tim says differing opinions and perspectives are always welcome in his organization, feeling it makes us all stronger. + If we can try to look at this like a leader would, we can think about what specifically we bring to an organization.

22:57 – Tim’s Choice to Pursue People Management / Leadership* “Managing people and managing things are two vastly different things.” – Tim Crawford * Tim feels there is a natural progression into people leadership and was still pretty young when he began leading people (still in his 20s).

+ For the young leader out there, Tim says people will knock you down and feel you don’t know anything because of your age.
+ Tim tells the story of a mentor who shared some insightful advice, which at first Tim didn’t quite understand until he really thought about it.
    - “It’s like boxing. You’re in a ring. Someone just knocked you down. You have 2 choices. You can stay down, or you can get up. But, you’re going to get up, and you know you’re going to get knocked down again…maybe not the same way, but you’re going to get knocked down again. And you’re going to learn from that, and that’s a continual process of learning.” – Tim Crawford, sharing advice a mentor gave him once
+ Tim decided to get up. That’s how he kept progressing.

At first Tim does not feel he had prepared himself well enough to be a leader, calling himself more of a manager or supervisor in mindset.
- It took time to understand what it took to be effective at managing people.
- “You can be a great leader and not know anything about technology. And you can be a great technology wizard and not be really good with people.” – Tim Crawford
- One way to gain leadership experience is to lead a project / a team working on a project. You do not have to be project manager but can still take initiative to lead the team.
- We can provide leadership in any conversation even if we’re not the leader of the group.
- Tim says he started to “get the bug,” feeling he could see how people were developing while wanting to help them become better people.
- “I want to be a better leader, and I want to help people be better leaders too.” – Tim Crawford, on his realization of wanting to pursue leadership.
- Mentioned in the outro
- We need to remember people may have dropped some of their earliest job history off LinkedIn. We found that to be the case in our discussion with Tim.
- The questions we ask can showcase our expertise to others.
- We spoke to Joe Houghes in Episode 188 about some of the challenges that happen when you work with technologies at scale (which you might not understand if you have not used it at that scale before).
  - Maybe it’s up to organizations to develop and scale their people like the expanding blast radius we talked about with Andy Syrewicze in Episode 158.
- Building relationships and making connections is really about professional networking. We spoke about how colleges don’t often teach us this in our interview with Kenneth Ellington from Episode 239.
  - We can build relationships inside and outside our company. One way to do build relationships and to grow our skillsets and thinking is to participate in technical communities.
- Is project management good relatable experience for a people management role?
  - John says it is because you’re demonstrating qualities of managing / leading without role power. Listen to his other reasons why.
- If you want to follow up on this conversation with Tim, you can reach him…
- On AVOA’s website
- On LinkedIn
- On Twitter / X

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Welcome to episode 242 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 2 of a discussion with Ken Collins, detailing Ken’s contributions to open source software and how he got into it, his experience as an AWS Hero, and thoughts on the staff and principal engineer roles and what they really entail.

Original Recording Date: 08-12-2023

Ken Collins is a principal engineer at Custom Ink and an AWS Serverless Hero. Find him on Twitter @metaskills. If you missed part 1 of our discussion with Ken, check out Episode 241.

Topics – The Open Source Habit, Learning in Public and Staff Engineers, Far Transfer and Guidance on the Staff / Principal Engineer’s Path, Advocacy and Being an AWS Hero, Managers and Principal Engineers2:56 – The Open Source Habit* What are some of the things Ken sees people missing in realizing that they need a portfolio of work and some ways we an better communicate what is in our portfolio of work to show the impact we’re making and our expertise? + Ken mentions you might be working for a company and doing amazing things, but what you’re doing might not be publicly available (i.e. not something you can point to on GitHub). Unfortunately some people have a perception that if you don’t have a certain status on GitHub it’s a strike against you. + Ken feels there are likely engineers out there who can communicate their non-public facing work in an interview when changing jobs perhaps better than he ever could. + “I just happened to find out that for me, one of the things I’m really good at is separating core business logic and sort of core open-sourceable code. So I’ve always ended up, in a weird way, working from that…continental railroad perspective on the business’ needs but in a way that’s very…abstract and…componentized….I’ve always had this amazing open source portfolio that I’ve just always built, and it’s just my default way to work.” – Ken Collins, on open source contributions as a way of working + Ken mentions that the above is a habit that was forced upon him. When he joined as a first time software engineer, Ken knew he wanted to program in Ruby on Rails because he loved the language so much. - The company Ken worked for served the trucking industry in that that made the software dealers used. Everything used SQL Server as its database back end. When a specific version of Rails came out they dropped support for the SQL Server adapter. - Because Ken loved the language he was using and enjoyed the company, to keep his job enjoyable he decided to take on the task of developing the SQL Server adapter needed to maintain functionality. - “That was that specific moment that was very specific to me that was very specific to a point in time that was very specific to the market at that time where it just really shaped my career.” – Ken Collins, on getting into open source + Nick says the above is a great job interview story! Ken saw a gap and decided to fill that gap, which allowed him to develop greater expertise as a developer and started him down an open source path. - Ken says he was able to be a better partner and contributor to the work at hand. * We’ve heard some people say contributing to open source isn’t really relatable experience if you want to go into software development while others have said it definitely is. What is the perception from Ken’s view among software engineering leaders? + Ken has worked at a company that has grown its number of software engineers to less than a dozen to many dozens. + “There’s always a focus on being able to grow people and help them and nurture them through their career and recognizing the underlying talent. I would say it is unusual to find a candidate or a way of working inside a company that places emphasis on open source.” – Ken Collins, on open source as a way into software development + Ken says many times companies want soft skills in candidates, how well they collaborate with others on a team, etc. + It definitely has worked well for Ken and shortcut some interview processes, but open source contributions are certainly not required for most people to work in software development. + “I was forced into open source from trauma. And ten that trauma keeps playing out in just the way that I work….I like showing my work, and I like seeing how other people sort of critique it….I do very much like to learn from my mistakes and success at the same time, and the only way I know of doing that is broadly sharing it with people.” – Ken Collins, on showing his work via open source - Some call this learning in public.

9:01 – Learning in Public and Staff Engineers* Was the learning in public what accelerated his programming career to become more senior? + There are different roles / personas / archetypes of principal and staff engineers. - Sometimes they are problem solvers for a specific need or around a specific technology. - It’s hard to be a leader within a company and it not be public. The open source work and community engagement has helped Ken, but he’s still working to improve to be a better speaker, have more empathy, and be a better active listener. - Ken shares a story about himself as a young child and not realizing there were grades for the work he did in school. He tells us he went in and tried to be himself every day, realizing only in about 6th grade that there were numbers by which we are judged in school. This has carried over into Ken’s career. - “Every day I just try to show up and be excellent and be amazing to myself and other people. And that goes all the way back apparently to grade school.” – Ken Collins, on his attitude each day at work + What is a staff engineer, and why pursue it? - Ken mentioned Custom Ink has been a growing organization over the years. They have different teams which need healthy levels of autonomy. Ken provides a nice analogy that you don’t want all the rooms in a house decorated differently. - “A company can only go so far on purpose-based alignment. Sometimes you need that sort of strategic understanding of how to get there.” – Ken Collins - There’s nothing wrong with being an individual contributor, but companies will need help setting strategic direction for technology and understanding how to get there. - A specific archetype of a staff engineer is focusing on architecture (which fits the strategy focus above). - Ken was sold on the staff / principal path because he had always been curious about the why behind things. - At Custom Ink, Ken was the first remote employee 10 years ago when he started. The people who worked in an office were in the same building. Those people didn’t really get up and walk to the next room to talk with others about their work. - “There was no pull request culture. You didn’t ask somebody why they pushed something into main.” – Ken Collins, on the lack of collaboration amongst different engineering teams when he started at Custom Ink - The engineering level to which Ken had progressed was more around coordination, vision, and strategy. - We recently spoke to business psychologist Leanne Elliott in Episode 237 and Episode 238 about how leaders that wanted to encourage more collaboration for people in the office didn’t design the office to create more collisions of people on different teams. - Ken references Conway’s Law and how people not talking to each other in the office likely impacted the way they built software at the time.

15:04 – Far Transfer and Guidance on the Staff / Principal Engineer’s Path* Ken is an AWS Serverless Hero, and he has a lot of content on Lambda, architectures built, and often shares stories of problems solved at Custom Ink. + “I’m going to show you something that I’ve done and a way that we’ve solved a problem. But I want you to understand that the context I’m giving you this in is very much wrapped up in something that you may not be experiencing. Even if it looks technically interesting…don’t think it’s for you because it’s solving our problem, and our needs are very specific in where we are.” – Ken Collins, on the disclaimer he shares when giving tech talks + Ken likes to ensure he gives the context around technical things to help people truly understand. + Nick says this mirrors the advice Ken gave about people’s career (i.e. something that worked for Ken may not work for others due to a different context). - Ken says this likely goes back to open source versus who you hire. You want to hire problem solvers and thinkers and not just a programmer to fill a seat. - “It’s the thinking that’s the problem solving.” – Ken Collins - John says this goes back to putting ping pong tables in offices and the lack of context that caused it to catch on as a way to encourage collaboration for many companies. It might not be the right thing for other companies. - Ken mentioned being at the AWS Hero Summit in Seattle recently. * Nick says the meta lessons align with the idea of far transfer mentioned in David Epstein’s book, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. It’s about transferring knowledge across domains into a different context by using the deep structural similarities in each. * What should someone really think about before pursuing a role as a staff / principal engineer? + Ken would talk to the person about learning to grow past technical into people, which he tells us is difficult when your background is doing technically amazing work. + It might be easier to make the shift for those who were more people focused than technically focused. + “Be ready more for personal development and non-technical development, and / or trying to figure out the right balance for you as you navigate those two spaces….I think technical things are easier to move along. People are not.” – Ken Collins, on pursuing staff / principal engineer + Ken tells us that architecting something (like a system design) on paper doesn’t automatically mean it aligns with the way people do work and follow processes. One would need knowledge of these aspects to form a well-architected system. It takes both empathy for people and technical knowledge. Ken reiterates the difficulty of navigating this space well and that he continues to seek to improve himself. + For many in the role it may mean being in a lot of meetings, and for others, it may mean you won’t code any longer. Be honest with yourself about what you want to do. + Ken cites Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the Management Track by Will Larson as an excellent resource. This book is something Ken and other principal engineers at Custom Ink have discussed quite a bit. + For a long time Ken was the only principal engineer at Custom Ink. - “Do the research. Look at how the role operates for different companies and how you can be successful in that role. And pick one, tack to it, evolve it, and be different. Do you want to be the right hand? Do you want to be technical? Do you want to be more the architect? What percentage of technical knowledge versus high level technical do you want? Find a persona. Find an archetype. And pick it out and start tacking toward it.” – Ken Collins, on advice for the would be staff / principal engineer + John says the different modalities of being a staff or principal engineer are interesting and that very few of them are “super senior” in that they tend to go along with force multiplication, depth and breadth, and context at multiple levels. Climbing up the career ladder in a role and gaining seniority and that up means only one thing seems to be a fallacy to which many fall victim. - This reminds Nick of the guests we’ve spoken to who have progressed into a seemingly less technical role and the fear of shedding the technical. Perhaps people don’t realize we can be technical in bands or spectrums in different roles, and it sounds like they can do that inside the staff or principal engineer roles. Nick hadn’t thought about this before having the conversation with Ken. - Ken remembers hearing about tech lead, architect, solver, and right hand as the different staff engineer archetypes from Will Larson’s book. - “There’s always an area where you can add value as a principal engineer at an org….One of the things I love doing in my role within the commercial organization is gluing together marketing, merchandising, and sales. I’m a conversion junkie at the end of the day. Helping those people be excellent is just always fun for me because you can watch the output so easily.” – Ken Collins, on what he loves about being a principal engineer

25:14 – Advocacy and Being an AWS Hero* John wonders if the advocacy program in which Ken participates is an extension of community involvement? + Ken is an AWS Serverless Hero, but AWS Heroes covers categories like compute, serverless, containers, data, IoT, etc. + AWS is a huge company, and the Heroes program recognizes people doing amazing work using different AWS technologies. + Ken works for a company that doesn’t do external recognition or developer relations. He is impressed with how well AWS does as a company of speaking to and reaching the technical community. + Ken says he received an e-mail one day asking if he wanted to be a hero (not something he signed up for). With the Heroes program there are different levels of engagement with the community. - Some Heroes are specifically community Heroes like Chris Williams. + Ken’s focus is on Lambda and compute. He does a lot of work on Ruby on Rails and helps people get applications running inside Lambda. - Ken maintains a site called lamby.cloud which is sort of like an open source organizational unit with the technologies that help people use Ruby on Rails and AWS Lambda together. It allows people to get up and running with these technologies quickly and with the ability to scale. - Ken continues to do this work and also gets to work with AWS product teams closely on the Lambda product, feeling that when he talks and gives directional feedback, AWS teams listen. This proximity to product teams at AWS is very much in line with how principal engineers like to function and work with internal product teams at their companies. - Ken calls being part of this group “an amazing gift” and really enjoys bouncing ideas off other Heroes. He was able to do a lot of this at the recent AWS Hero Summit. - “Some of the coolest things I use at AWS were actually recommended by other Heroes. And that is so cool!” – Ken Collins + Nick says the transferability of the staff / principal engineer mindset to being part of an advocacy program like the AWS Heroes program is once again evidence of far transfer.

29:17 – Managers and Principal Engineers* What are some of the differences between a staff / principal engineer and people managers / people leaders?

+ Ken does not have any direct reports as a principal engineer. No one is asking him for raises, and he doesn’t do regular 1-1 meetings with direct reports (since there are none).
+ Organizationally, Ken is adjacent to engineering managers and people that do have direct reports. He is also at a leadership level in the company as an individual contributor.
+ Ken says he lacks some line of sight into people management from where he sits. He has seen principal engineers on Twitter who do have direct reports.
+ “It’s a way for you to be an influence on the organization or the communities that you’re in without having to really be responsible for people. That’s great and bad at the same time.” – Ken Collins, on differences in the principal engineer’s role compared to that of a people leader

Did Ken’s early experience as a manager influence the decision to stay individual contributor?
- Ken didn’t come out with a negative feeling / perception from earlier experience as a manager. He was young, focused on execution, and lacking empathy / emotional intelligence.
- Ken feels he naturally (not necessarily intentionally) stayed at the technical level and feels he has been afforded the ability to be himself.
- Would Ken rule out management?
- Ken thinks it might be needed, but he’s not sure, thinking he will have to figure it out when the time comes. It seems like there is a natural tendency of having people report to you.
- Nick mentioned we’ve interviewed people who went up to management, back to individual contributor, and back to management again. We’re busting stereotypes that say once you pursue management you are stuck there forever. It could be an option for a time, forever, or for never.
- Ken says at Custom Ink 30-40% of principal engineers used to be managers.
- John likes the fact that there is a path for people who may not want to manage a team but still want to impact the technical culture in the same way a manager or director would (or have the same impact radius).
  - Some may be better at their impact if they don’t have to lead people. These people may be more effective as influencers of people than leaders of people.
- Ken thinks people who went from manager to principal engineer may have had growth burnout, some effect from the pandemic and the remote culture, etc.
- “The natural tendency toward growth is to push people to managing….I think it’s really amazing that recognizes that you can go from a manager to some sort of individual contributor and that’s amazing and celebrated. We’ve certainly done that at Custom Ink. It’s never looked down upon.” – Ken Collins
  - Maybe if someone couldn’t make the impact they wanted as managers (with people) might be able do it in other ways (moving things forward, etc.).
- Mentioned in the outro
- We’ve explored the principal title and role with some other guests whose perspective you might want to learn from in these episodes:
  - David Babbit
    - Episode 197 – Connected to the Customer Base with David Babbitt (3/3)
    - Episode 195 – Perceptions and Realities of Startup Life with David Babbitt (1/3)
  - Phil Monk
    - Episode 185 – Make Accommodations for Success with Phil Monk (1/2)
    - Episode 186 – The Unassuming Architect with Phil Monk (2/2)
  - Joe Chenevey
    - Episode 170 – Signal What You Want with Joe Chenevey (1/2)
    - Episode 171 – Coaches as Mindset Curators with Joe Chenevey (2/2)
  - Josh Duffney
    - Episode 233 – Leaps of Faith That Fail with Josh Duffney (1/2)
    - Episode 234 – Sunk Costs and Pivots with Josh Duffney (2/2)
  - Scott Lowe
    - Episode 152 – The Theme of Your Career with Scott Lowe (1/2)
    - Episode 153 – Creating a Full Stack Career with Scott Lowe (2/2)
  - Andrew Miller
    - Episode 167 – Pause and Step Outside with Andrew Miller (3/3)
- Staff and principal engineer type roles are different at different companies. We need to be looking at job descriptions to understand what that means at a specific company.
  - You can adapt our way of working and your style to roles like this, and it may look different from the way others do it.
- Be sure to check out Will Laron’s book Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the Management Track!
- Ken is a principal engineer inside the realm of software development and brings a unique perspective as a result.
- Nick thought back to Episode 123 and Josh Duffney’s comment of just adding value being synonymous with a principal engineer’s ability to add value and an attitude we can all adopt.
- There is nothing wrong with making a move from manager to individual contributor. Check out Episode 202 with special guest Yvette Edwards discussing some career zigzags and moves between individual contributor and manager, back again, and then back the other way.

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Welcome to episode 226 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 3 of an interview with John Nicholson with a focus on ways to negotiate offers, some food for thought on different company benefits, levels of risk as it relates to startups, and numerous tips on personal finance.

Original Recording Date: 02-02-2023

John Nicholson is a Staff Technical Marketing Architect at VMware and co-host of the Virtually Speaking Podcast. If you missed the first parts of our discussion with John, check out Episode 224 and Episode 225.

Topics – Negotiating Offers, The Purple Squirrel and more Company Benefits, Personal Finance3:00 – Negotiating Offers* When negotiating an offer and health insurance for example is more expensive than your current company, can you ask for the company to pay more for your insurance instead of offering more salary pay? In other words, does it come from a different bucket on the back end? + John N feels like health insurance options have to be pretty flat across the board (i.e. standardized for everyone). + 401K matches have to be flat as well. The company / companies will get into trouble if only the executives or "highly compensated individuals" are using the full match. - Additionally, the IRS has strict rules on fringe benefits. + John’s blog post even talks about hotels. What kind of hotels would the company put you up in if you need to travel? Is it Motel 6 only, or would a nicer Marriott be ok? + Consider any and all differences when you’re in the negotiation phase, and come into it by stating you’re taking the position of really wanting things to work out. Is the percentage of variable compensation negotiable (i.e. bonus or commission)? - If not, is there room in there to raise the base salary? You may or may not be coming in at the top of a salary band (which could be good or bad). - John N mentions raises are generally distributed heavier for people at the bottom of a pay band and lighter for those at the top. - If you’re at the top of the salary band and cannot adjust bonus / commission percentages advantageously, ask about the RSU bucket and if it can be increased (i.e. you want to enjoy the risk with the company). - John N has seen some startups allow designing your own compensation package to a certain extent. John provides the example of a married couple he knows in the San Francisco Bay area with one spouse seeking to always work for a well-known established company (being able to live within their means off the base salary) and the other spouse working at different startups structuring the base salary is low and the number of stock options is high (i.e. once the startup hits a successful exit the person can retire). This is a strategy. - Each person has a different risk tolerance level. Some take risks that seem crazy. John N tells us startup founders may turn down an offer to buy the company because they have had success in the past and are "swinging from the fences." - When working for a startup, your risk tolerance and your founder’s risk tolerance could be completely different. In the case where founders are trying to gain all they can from the startup, it can potentially end in tears for all parties. Listen to John N’s illustration. - There’s also something called secondary offerings. John N encourages us to go look at Crunchbase. In this situation the company executives might instead of taking an exit of the startup and putting money back in the company sell their shares for personal gain (i.e. lowering their ownership stake and making sure they have a way to retire but not doing it for the benefit of the company. * Nick mentioned wellness benefits that we might need to take into consideration when working for our current / future employer. + John N mentions a 2-day intensive speaker training in which he participated. They would record each person as they delivered some kind of presentation, and John says it was surprising how much this experience improved everyone’s speaking abilities. + Spending a chunk of money on 5 members of a team for a 2-day training to make them better is not something companies casually do. This is why John encourages us to ask about training. + It’s possible people may not want to make more money by making a move. They may just want to not work on Fridays, for example, or work from home all the time. Others may want to go to the office because working from home isn’t an option or something they want to get away from, for example. + Working from home sounds great until you realize you have to provide an office space for yourself and place to work (including furniture, etc.) that is not necessarily funded by the company. John White tells us this may require raising your standard of living to get a bigger house or apartment for a dedicated room. - John N shares an illustration about the difference in cost of an extra bedroom in Houston, TX (around $40,000 extra on your mortgage) and one in Palo Alto, California (around $2,000 extra per month in mortgage / rent). - Maye you enjoy working remotely and are willing to go live somewhere cheaper. Some companies have an offset for this and may or may not be transparent about it. - John N feels the more senior someone is the more they will push back on what they get paid regardless of where they live. Junior candidates may not be able to push as hard and may see the company pushing back.

11:13 – The Purple Squirrel and more Company Benefits* John N tells us a purple squirrel is a term recruiters use to describe an impossible list of skills needed to fill a specific role. In other words, someone is looking for something that doesn’t exist (which can happen a lot with internal IT). Realistically a company might need to change what they are looking for or split it between multiple roles. Listen to John N’s illustration. + John N isn’t sure why HR and recruiters refer to folks as purple squirrels but says HR folks have some of the best stories. John N would encourage us to ask HR personnel who don’t work for our company some fun questions about interesting situations. + This gets back to the suggestion of always having questions to ask people. If John N is in a cab in a foreign country or meets somoene who works a 24-hour job, he will ask about the weirdest things those people have ever seen. You can learn all kinds of things by doing this. + "If they have listed a bunch of random stuff and you’re the one guy who has it, stare down the recruiter and be like, ‘I am the purple squirrel, and you’re not going to find anyone else. Show me the money!’" – John Nicholson + John N tells us to be likable, lively, and fun. But also think about randomly switching to being completely serious about execution. * John N says some companies will let you do a mega back door Roth or other longer term tax avoidance tactics. + The more senior you are and the more research you do, think about what the company does at anniversaries. VMware, for example, will 100% match charitable donations to non-profits in the US up to a certain amount per year. Many companies like to do non-profit matching since they can write off the match for tax purposes. * Look for benefits like companies contributing some annual amount a Health Saving Account (or HSA) for employees. + If you have a Health Savings Account John N recommends investing it and not letting it sit in cash. + There are some interesting ways to put in money tax free, let it grow tax free by investing it, and in some cases, remove it tax free.

14:55 – Personal Finance* There are a number of hyper-optimizations you can do with these benefits, which are things you’re not going to do when fresh out of school. * As you become more senior there is a lot you can do to help work backward toward leaving the industry on your own terms, for example. John N says we should try to set a target date for retirement, a date you would like to work past but one at which you could retire if you wanted.

+ "I don’t want to be that guy who is burned out, making half what he used to, is having to work, and angry. I’ve met that guy. I don’t want to be that guy." – John Nicholson

John White says when it comes to personal finance it is wise to get yourself healthy in that area before uncertainties come your way.
John N says the lower you are paid the easier it is to find a job. He once did a stint as a bartender / bar / manager / waiter and mentions it was pretty easy to find a new job quickly.
- As you gain experience and begin to target more senior roles, the funnel is smaller. It’s important to understand this.
- Some say for every $10,000 you make over $80,000 add another week to expected time to find a new job (which may not be true in the tech industry).
- John N gives the example of a sales engineer being able to land something else fairly quickly even if they did not like it.
  - John White’s story of getting laid off and needing to find a new job is something to reference. Check out Episode 220 for the first of a 4-part series showcasing that story.
- If you are a niche specialist and have some unique skill that not many might be looking for, you may decide you need some reserves ready for this.
- The advice of many people is to keep a 6-month or more emergency fund for tough times. The longer you work, the more you should have in reserve.
- Should you leave all reserve that sitting in cash? You might if you’re a bundle of nerves or extremely worried about it, but there are alternatives.
  - If you keep $100K in cash only, you are potentially burning 8-9% per year because of inflation (so $9K annually).
  - If you want some kind of yield over time for the money, maybe you look at TreasuryDirect and look at i-series bonds. You can buy $10,000 per year per social security number in your house, and if inflation goes up, the value goes up. John N is laddering by buying $10K per year in these so he can shift his emergency fund to i-series bonds (which will auto-adjust to inflation).
  - This type of bond can be cashed in after 1 year of being purchased but not before. If you sell before the end of 5 years, some of the interest earned gets taken away (the previous 90 days). But if you lose your job, that’s fine because you would need the money.
  - Perhaps you keep some reserves in cash and some in i-series bonds.
- Maybe you decide to keep your reserves in blue chip stocks since these do not shift up and down as much as others. The largest bad stock event with these kinds of stocks are generally no more than 20%. So if you wanted to have $100K in reserves you could invest $120K and still have your target even if the market is down.
- Perhaps you take a blended approach and have some cash, some i-series bonds, some treasuries, and some blue chip stock you can sell if needed.
- We also need to find tools to look at where our money is going.
- There are a number of products out there. John N likes to do a 1-month review of the top expenses on credit cards and categorize them. He uses Personal Capital (which seems to have moved to Empower). Many people use tools like Mint or YNAB which are spending management tools and can really help if you need to get on a budget. The tool John N mentioned is more of a finance tool.
- It can be very helpful to sit down with other family members monthly to go through spending.
- John N looks at top spends and likes to look at it from a cash flow basis (cash going out, cash going in, and where he and his family are). Some people do envelopes and specialized savings accounts.
- Be sure to factor in extra overheads of yearly expenses like property taxes and ensure you are saving enough monthly to account for it.
- John N likes the aggregation of all financial assets. It helps to see everything in one place across your brokerage, retirement accounts, etc.
  - Be sure to roll over any 401(K) funds and do not leave with the old company (roll into existing 401(K) or some kind of Roth IRA).
- If all this sounds painful, go hire a financial advisor who will take 1% of your assets per year to manage it. John N likes to read the Wall Street Journal and is kind of a finance nerd (likes to do it himself).
  - Also look into r/personalfinance on Reddit – there is a good wiki there.
  - Many people have too much cash on hand and do not invest enough.
- If you’re saving up for college, you could look at a 529 plan and work backward from what projected tuition will be.
- If you have extra money in their your kids could roll it over into a Roth IRA as part of the SECURE Act.
- John N tells us not to copy him and that he does not use 529s. He’s heavily investing in Roth 401(K) using he mega backdoor conversion plan as well as Roth IRA. Roth accounts seasoned for 5 years will allow you to withdraw the contributions and then spend on anything (since it was post-tax anyway) but cannot withdraw the gains.
- Crazy rich people might start looking at family limited partnerships for example to hide money in assets. If colleges know you have a ton of money they expect you to pay more.
- If you’re severely in debt, consider the Dave Ramsey Debt Snowball approach.
- You might need to go with envelopes for budgeting.
- Nick says The Automatic Millionaire is good too.
- John N says he likes Dave Ramsey for people who have a spending problem but isn’t a fan of Ramsey’s investment and finance advice.
- Many of the investments we have discussed are going to be much more fun to do once you’re no longer in debt or broke (which John N experienced in his 20s).
- People often look to others as examples. Many will say they have done a specific thing and encourage others to follow the same path.
- "The road behind you is always changing. The specifics of your situation is always different….How we got to here, that path or the most efficient path to it is probably not what we did." – John Nicholson, on following the same path as others.
- Personal finance is deeply personal and deeply specific, and there are easy mode solutions like…
  - Max out your 401(K) match, put at least 10% in, and use a target date fund
- John N wants us to know he’s qualifying why he does what he does and is not going to sit and tell everyone to do exactly what he does / did.
  - Part of the podcast thesis is to help people get ahead faster than we did, and there is no one path.
- Some book recommendations and other resources if you want to gain knowledge
  - A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton G. Malkiel will teach you why you’re likely not going to beat the market guessing stocks
  - Freakonomics – it makes statistics fun
  - Against the Gods by Peter L. Bernstein – if you want to get into risk and assessment of it / why humanity is poor at it
  - If you like podcasts, check out Planet Money
  - Reading these books and reading the Wall Street Journal for a couple of years could provide a fantastic background which may be comparable to someone who went to school for business administration.
- Parting thoughts
- Remember to check out John Nicholson’s podcast Virtually Speaking Podcast.
- He also has a blog, which is where you can find the article that prompted much of our discussions.
- You can find John Nicholson on Twitter at @Lost_Signal.
- Mentioned in the outro
- Don’t forget to do your homework in advance on pay bands using online tools like levels.fyi, in conversations with the recruiter, in reading job descriptions, etc.
- At small enough startups maybe it makes sense to ask the founders what their exit strategy is and how much risk they are accepting (if they are willing to share) or at least get their perspective. You could also try to get perspective from the people interviewing you on the exit strategy.
  - We would want to ask this of people in a respectful way. It cannot be the most important topic of conversation or your only question, but it’s part of your total compensation.
- Benefits like insurance can be wildly different from company to company. Understand what your healthcare costs would be when evaluating an offer.
- Retirement benefits are also important to understand as there could be huge advantages to one company over another (matching employee retirement benefits like 401K and the mega back door IRA options).
- Needing to add an extra room because you’re working from home (and the cost of doing it) is not something Nick had considered before this interview.
- Check out other episodes in which we discussed personal finance:
  - Episode 57 – Preparing for Unexpected Opportunities Part 5 – Personal Finance
  - Bonus 07 – Influence of Family on Career and Career on Family
  - Episode 169 – A Thoughtful Personal Sabbatical with Mike Wood (2/2)
  - Episode 218 – Explaining Hard Concepts in Simple Terms with Jason Langer (1/2)
  - Episode 189 – Capture the Intangibles with Joe Houghes (3/3)

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk

Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

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Welcome to episode 225 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 2 of an interview with John Nicholson with a focus on compensation. We’ll talk through stocks as compensation, how resumes might highlight expensive skills in a manager’s eyes, and how good managers look at employee compensation.

Original Recording Date: 02-02-2023

John Nicholson is a Staff Technical Marketing Architect at VMware and co-host of the Virtually Speaking Podcast. If you missed part 1 of our discussion with John, check out Episode 224.

Topics – Compensation, Org Charts as Tools, Stocks as Compensation3:35 – Compensation* This blog John Nicholson wrote about points of consideration before taking a job offer was a jumping off point for much of our discussions. * It’s probably best not to start with talk of numbers unless a recruiter asks you. + Listen to John N’s strategy for dealing with random recruitment direct messages on LinkedIn. He mentions this has helped him avoid a lot of conversations but also that this blunt approach sometimes gets a recruiter to keep you in mind for something down the road (i.e. level sets on what you want). + If you’re interviewing with a hiring manager / other members of a hiring team (not the recruiter), John N recommends not leading with numbers. * If you’re working for a large technology company, you can do your own homework and get an idea for what the salary range might be. + Check out levels.fyi – it’s a bunch of compensation specialists and former HR personnel who have experience with FAANG companies that have done salary surveys and reverse engineered pay bands. + They (levels.fyi) also have details on stock benefits like RSUs (restricted stock units) and how vesting works for this type of compensation. If you get $250K in stocks but won’t see it until year 3, that’s a big deal! + The above is different than Glassdoor, which usually only talks about base and variable components of compensation. + Much of the above is covered in John N’s blog post if you want to learn more, but the idea is to consider all elements of overall compensation for a position. + What is the bonus structure for the company, by how much are people usually hitting their bonus targets, and how often do bonuses get paid? It’s helpful to have people in your network who work for the company in question and will be able to tell you. If people tell you they haven’t hit the bonus in a number of cycles, it would likely not be contributing to compensation by much (if any). + Start with the bigger numbers, but don’t overlook smaller things like ESPP (employee stock purchase plans). It’s a little bit of a roulette game, but you can earn some extra money by participating. * Should we ask a recruiter how the benefits have changed over the last 6-12 months because of the economy? + Some survey data John N has seen shows offers are going down slightly. Even with that said, the growth of offers over the past 10 years has probably been pretty crazy. + If you look at the levels.fyi site, you can actually look at a specific pay band and see when the offers were made (i.e. recently or years ago). + The site also allows you to compare multiple companies to one another. + Knowing whether the salary you want exists in the job level being offered in an open position is helpful. You may be able to advocate for raising the job level based on your experience during the interview process. This may not work, but the right person advocating for raising the level inside the company may be able to make it happen. + This could go the other way as well. If you seem like a good fit but perhaps do not have all the experience for the level of an open role, a hiring manager may lower the level to hire you. - John N did this now and then as a manager when he spotted someone who could grow into becoming a senior consultant in a couple of years with mentorship. John recognizes a hiring manager can get an employee for a good price and also help the person looking for work get a raise. - When John N looked at resumes as a hiring manager and saw skills that were expensive but that he didn’t need, he might not even interview that person (knowing they would be looking for high compensation as a result of the skills in question). - This goes back to tailoring your resume to the job you want. If you keep being contacted about positions that are different than what you want, it may mean your resume does not reflect the proper skills and experience. This includes leaving out expensive, unrelated skills that may get you filtered out of the hiring process completely. Listen to the examples John N provides. - Neither John White nor Nick had considered leaving out expensive, unrelated skills from the resume. - John N tells us if he had an A+ certification he would remove it from his resume or from LinkedIn if he didn’t want to do doing entry level printer repair, for example. - If you have a CCNA but have not touched a network for several years or don’t want to work on networking, John N would recommend removing it from your resume. - Ideally you want a hiring manager to look at your resume and say "these skills all look like they are relevant, and I can afford them." - John White says this is the idea that looking at a resume could (without needing a cover letter) convey to someone else the job the candidate is looking for. * When John N looked at resumes he was essentially seeing dollar signs for every line item (much like a scene he saw in a movie). * Do hiring managers get some type of incentive / extra budget if they get the company a good deal on an employee hire (i.e. come in under expected budget)? + It never bothered John N that his people were making good money (during his time as a manager). + Many younger IT folks believe their managers get incentivized to not give raises or pay their people better. There might be someone in recruitment who is incentivized to come in under budget (which is why they are likely part of the negotiation phase). + Most managers are concerned with getting a hire approved and do not want to feel like they were burned or slighted somehow in the process. + John N tells us most managers are not trying to keep people down in pay. Another consideration point is that if managers are paying people too little, they will leave. + A nice thing about the people under John N in the consulting world is they were each billable. John could create a profit and loss statement to see how much his people were making the company (after taking into account certain overhead items). + John N would compare what he was making for an employee compared to his cost of having the employee, and if the gap was too high (i.e. profit more than 2x employee cost), he needed to consider closing it so as to not lose the employee to another company. + Sometimes a manager may need a person with a very specific and unique skillset for a role. Are you looking for a purple squirrel, hiring manager? - When specific people leave they might have to be replaced with two people, teams may be shuffled around, or other personnel may need a lot of training to fill the gap. + "Good managers just don’t want people to leave. It’s expensive. It’s time consuming." – John Nicholson + A manager may have to help fill gaps when an employee leaves or explain why the team is missing SLAs. + "A good manager should not begrudge anyone getting paid what they want or they are worth." – John Nicholson + An employee moving to a different area of the company is not quite as damaging because you can get a little bit of overlap from them or at least ask them questions easily. - It is much more challenging if someone left the company. You can only ask them questions about how internal systems worked and other tribal knowledge for a very short period of time. Even then it might be awkward. + Good managers will encourage lateral movement within the company. Good managers John N has had in the past have encouraged an open dialogue about career aspirations and offered to help him work on things he wanted to pursue as a next step (i.e. "let’s work on that"). - Not everyone wants to be honest with their manager about career aspirations and would rather sneak out like a thief in the night. - If a manager thinks you’re not going to be around very long and they have budget for raises, they may choose to give a raise to someone else they know is going to stay. - "There is a perverse incentive to not reward your best employee if you know you can’t keep up with his skills and his pay." – John Nicholson - John N has seen people sabotage their career by moving around too much. He shares the story of someone who despite their brilliance never got a raise or promotion because the person was never seen as loyal to the team they had joined. - John White says people likely do not realize that giving raises or more stock rewards (whatever shape the compensation might take) have a political cost to a manager. - John N says it’s not just your manager asking to get you or other members of the team a raise. It’s about multiple managers / directors making a case to higher level leaders for who gets part of the "pile of golden coins" they have to spend on raises. - John N says he did not understand the above process until a director sat down and explained it to him. It’s not just about your manager liking you and wanting to get you a raise. It’s about other managers and other teams within your greater organization liking you and advocating for you too. - In tech marketing, for example, John N would need directors and senior directors of product management to be advocating for him (i.e. agree that John has made an impact for them) for one thing. Listen to his description of who else might need to agree he’s made an impact. - You may be great at making your team look good. But if you’re not helping the other teams within your organization look good, when up against others for a limited number of promotions available within the organization, it may not happen for you. You need the other managers / other people at the table to agree "it’s his time." - We should be willing to help others even if it does not directly help drive our own KPIs (key performance indicators) or MBOs (manage by objective). It can hurt us in ways we might not realize. - John N tells us if your manager’s peer asks you for something and you are busy, it is your manager’s job to block the request. But, if you can spare the time to help with these kinds of things now and then it can really help you build relationships that will help down the road. - John White says we can also follow up with those peers of our manager to ask their opinion on what you need to do for promotion. - There’s something to looking for feedback on how we are perceived. Some managers will give you blunt truth. Others are going to tell you everything is fine and then say (in meetings about raises) you meet goals but may not overachieve. John N prefers the blunt ones but reminds us there is a spectrum containing both. Spending time working with your manager’s lateral peers can provide some subtle hints as to how your manager actually views you.

20:38 – Org Charts as Tools* John White says perhaps we should learn to use company organization charts as tools if we’re not already using them. + John N says it’s one thing to know the organizational structure from an org chart, but what should you be talking to people at each level of the organization about? The org chart tool on its own may not tell you. + John N has been able to learn the org chart of companies for which he has consulted even better than the people who work there. + It’s helpful to go to lunch with or meet others who work in your company (even if done at random). Working at a campus gives you an opportunity for happy interactions. John N tells us he found out about a team working on Arm years before the project was released because he asked what some other people do. + This is harder if you work remotely because you don’t have the happy interactions. John N tells us to be guided by our curiosity. Ask people to have a brief discussion about what they are working on. + Making lateral connections is advantageous from the standpoint that these other teams could be landing spots should you need a job, lose your job, or be in danger of needing one. + John N tells us that at very large companies you can lose your job, reapply for another position internally, and get a new job. This may sound odd if you have never worked for a large organization like this, but it does happen.

22:48 – Stocks as Compensation* What about compensation in the form of stocks? This could be from being granted RSUs (restricted stock units) or participating in some kind of employee stock purchase program (ESPP).

+ John N says we should not look at the company stock each week and freak out. He’s been through turbulent times after being awarded a stock grant and shares the story of stock value splitting in half after he was awarded some stock shares.
+ Stock can be a golden handcuff because it is on a time delayed plan. Let’s define some terms.
+ Cliff – if you get a stock grant, when do you get the first part of that money? A 4-year stock grant with a 1-year cliff means you would see the first part of that money 1 year after the grant took place.
+ Nick shares that RSUs can be part of an offer letter. Not everyone might know this.
    - John N agrees. You would need to ask for these up front as part of an offer and not after the fact.
+ The cliffs we mentioned may not be an exact year of time. It could be a certain number of months for a specific percentage of the stocks in the grant to vest (i.e. you can sell them if you want).
+ The stock grant could be back-loaded where you might not see the majority of the grant vest until toward the end of the vesting period. John N feels Amazon might have done this at one point.
+ John N has heard of one specific software company that has a cliff period of 1 month (i.e. a certain percentage vests every single month that you can treat like consistent variable compensation tied to the stock price).
+ John N recommends finding out what the cliff is (how long), what the releases are (i.e. if they are evenly distributed), etc.
    - There is the initial stock grant, and then there will be what are called refreshers, which could be less than the original grant (but may not be).
    - Keep in mind the company is aware of the stock price. John N knows of one person who was promoted and thought they would get a raise, but when the stock price went through the roof that person was told congratulations and that they were already paid for the great work (because of the stock).
+ A release of stocks that were granted means they have become vested (i.e. you hit the cliff period) and can be sold.
    - John N says we should sell released RSUs immediately upon vesting unless you’re extremely wealthy.
    - Your RSUs are taxed as regular income at vesting time (i.e. they show up on your 2). The company may have held / sold some shares for you to help offset taxes (which may show up as stock offset or RSU offset on a payroll form). Be mindful of your tax bracket.
    - Suppose you have a lot of stocks that vested in your ETrade account and the company goes bankrupt tomorrow. You still owe taxes on those stocks! Reporting a capital gains loss is not going to offset regular income.
    - John White tells us it could be extremely ugly if you work for a company that both does stack ranking (i.e. 10-20% of people are going to get fired in a given year) and they back load the restricted stock. It might look like you got a great offer, but there is a big chance you will not be around to get all the money. So it’s all funny money.
+ Zynga was highlighted in the news for looking at stock options (generally given out at private companies but could be given at public companies).
    - The options are usually tied to a strike price and heavily back-loaded for periods of up to 5 years even (i.e. something to keep you at the company).
    - John N shares the story of someone working for Zynga who had options that were about to vest after the Zynga IPO who was approached by finance and asked to surrender options under threat of being fired before the vest date (because the person was about to cash in millions). The company got sued over this.
+ The above (stock options) is not something a person with RSUs working for a public company really needs to be concerned with.
+ With private companies, stock options are like negotiating the right to, in 5 years, lease a car of unknown value in an unknown currency.
    - John N shares that we should check out tldroptions.io. Based on the series of funding your company is in, it will help give you an idea of how you should value the stock options (based on likelihood of company IPO, how well it will exit, etc.).
    - If you have stock options after having been with the company for 5 years and then need to leave, you essentially have to execute the options and pay taxes on them. The company could still fail or delay in its IPO, leaving you with worthless lottery tickets.
    - "People commonly refer to options for private companies as lottery tickets for good a reason." – John Nicholson on stock options
    - We emphasize the vast difference between RSUs granted by a public company that can be sold upon vest for immediate cash and stock options.
    - John N cautions us to watch out for promises of private shares / stock options as they are often greatly talked up when offered to you. What are they actually worth, and how many were given out to others? What were those folks promised?
    - Sometimes things like ratchet clauses come into play in late stage startup funding rounds when a startup hits IPO lower than what was promised. These are used by investors to take back equity for investors before anyone else can benefit from the transaction.
+ When it comes to being offered stock options, consider…
    - How many shares are outstanding?
    - How many more funding rounds will there be?
    - There’s no real SEC involvement in private companies. Someone could posture they are going for big IPO and then sell a week later with your options being worth nothing.
    - One of the startup trends John N is seeing as a result of regulatory overhead is startups going public much later than used to be the case. You may only have the chance to work for a startup once or twice in a 5 to 10 year period to try and see it through exit to public offering, and we only have so many working years.
+ Pay attention to stock performance of a company over time. If you’re applying for a job there and the stock is trading significantly lower than it was, why is that? Try and find out as this is a sign something unhealthy may be happening.
+ Employee stock purchase programs (or ESPP) allow you to purchase company stock at a discounted rate over time by withdrawing post-tax funds from your paycheck.
    - There are IRS maximums per calendar year in which you contribute, but this can be limited by the company allowing ESPP as a benefit to employees. See this article for more detail. The stock can be offered at up to a 15% discount to employees and is essentially a 6-month guaranteed return of 15%.
    - Even if the stock goes up during the 6 month period, your share purchase through ESPP is based on the price when the period began (i.e. could be more than a 15% return). There are variations to how this could be done at a specific company within the bounds of IRS limitations.
    - Some companies may require you to hold the shares 1 year before selling, but if they are given to you immediately after the period of investment, that is free money on the table. The amount of return above 15% is dependent on being in the right place at the right time according to John N.
    - Remember we’re talking about investing post-tax funds to then buy stocks at a discounted rate as part of ESPP. If you invested $10,000 and made $1,500 as a result of selling the stocks you owe taxes on the $1,500 (the gains). Selling the stocks immediately means it is a short term capital gain and is taxed the same as your normal tax bracket percentage. If you hold the stock for a year after it gets purchased and released to you through ESPP, it would cost less in taxes and be a long-term capital gain for the $1,500 for example.
    - John N tells us there is risk involved in waiting the year. He prefers to sell the stocks once they are released as part of the program. We are risking the original investment to save tax money on the gains. Unless you’re in some odd situation where the stock has doubled in value over the ESPP period and you need to hold the stock to optimize taxes, it is more advisable to sell the stocks immediately.
    - John N would caution us about holding our own company’s stock. If something bad happened the stock would go down, we might lose our job at the company, and by holding stock we’re risking the savings we would need to rely on if we lost a job. We need to make sure we have contingencies.

Mentioned in the outro
- Stock options as it relates to startups are not something previous guests have shared with us in detail, and we’ve covered restricted stock units in detail here too.
- The discussion about removing seemingly expensive skills from your resume was fascinating. The perception of expensive comes from the hiring team and not from the candidate applying. Maybe you should leave skills off that aren’t relevant to the job for which you are applying?
  - Maybe we should bring this up with other guests who are hiring managers in future episodes!
- The discussion of John Nicholson’s filter for unsolicited recruiter messages is proof that we shouldn’t expect a recruiter to always tailor their contact to us in the same way we would tailor a resume for a job description.
  - But, interacting with a recruiter and letting them know what you’re looking for can make them a potential advocate for you. Check out Episode 213 with guest Leah White for more detail.
- The idea that there is no incentive for managers to hold down employee compensation strongly aligns with John White’s experience with his tenure as a manager thus far (i.e. pay people well to promote longevity and retention).
- Remember John Nicholson is a co-host of the Virtually Speaking Podcast with Pete Fletcha. In addition to good Vmware and virtualization ecosystem content there are some good episodes that focus on career. Be sure to browse their catalog!

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Welcome to episode 224 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 1 of an interview with John Nicholson, talking through the role of a tech marketer and how to progress into that role. We also discuss some of the points in John’s blog on considerations before accepting a job offer (which includes considerations during the interview process).

Original Recording Date: 02-02-2023

Topics – The Tech Marketing Role, Consideration Points before Accepting a Job Offer, Interview Questions and the Vibe Check3:06 – The Tech Marketing Role* John Nicholson is a Staff Technical Marketing Architect at Vmware and co-host of the Virtually Speaking Podcast. + Technical marketers can work with customers, product managers (PMs), and product marketing. + In John’s role, technical marketing sits within a business unit (or product team). A lot of what technical marketers do is produce content and then get the content out there. + Some organizations put this group within an office of the CTO, within a special evangelist group, or elsewhere. + Often you see tech marketing personnel on stage at conferences or producing videos, for example. John tells us roughly 80% of the work is behind the scenes working to support the next product launch – collecting information, training sales engineers, building enablement for partners, conducting workshops, etc. There is a lot that is very visible but much that is hidden. + Nick says John N is part of the team who creates all kinds of pretty pictures and diagrams people love, right? - John says yes. They create PowerPoint slide decks for consumption and even things like interactive infographics (one example being the vSAN infographic). - The team is constantly evaluating what people click on and what closes deals, speaking with sales engineers, customers, etc. - The vSAN Design Guide, for example, can be a challenge to maintain due to its length. But when you look at the traffic statistics, many people look at it. - John tells us there are long form content options that they team maintain as well as shorter, byte size content like 2-minute videos / demos or even a quick GIF. + You have to like writing to do tech marketing. Perhaps you like blogging and communicating. You don’t have to be the world’s most gifted speaker but cannot be afraid / paralyzed to go and present to audiences of 150 people or more. + John likes to say people get into tech marketing because they are already doing it. This role recruits heavily from solution engineers or customers who were already presenting at conferences and blogging. + John N mentions he knows John White from a presentation they did together probably 10 years ago at Spiceworld on storage virtualization. - Nick was in the audience for that presentation and says it was excellent! He remembers each John sharing a couple of slides and speaking for probably 5-10 minutes on each slide. + If you’re interested in pursuing this path, go speak at a VMware User Group (VMUG) or a local BSides. The idea is to speak at local area user group events to practice and work your way up. - John N. tells us Duncan Epping has a great 2-part blog (part 1, part 2) on working his way up to where he is today. John says he and Duncan have presented to a room of 750 people before, and at his core Duncan is terrified of public speaking. - The recruiting for technical marketing comes from pools of people who are already doing the speaking and writing. That shows you have experience before you take the job. Managers in tech marketing want to see that experience in people they hire. + This is a pattern. If you want a position, you should develop a history of doing the different parts of the job that are in that position (as much as you know) which builds a referenceable body of work and relatable experience. - John N says he didn’t actually apply for the role until somoene recommend he do so. Duncan Epping sent him a message about it. - When John N started interviewing for a tech marketing role he had been speaking, had been on podcasts, had already written technical notes for vSAN (which happened to be the product team he was going to join), and he had been involved in giving product teams feedback through mechanisms like CTAB (customer technical advisory board). + Coming into this field or moving between tech companies can be challenging due to the amount of tribal language and acronyms. It’s not welcoming, and we can each do our part to help people understand what we mean and ensure people new to it really understand the terminology being used (all part of removing jargon). + In tech marketing John N presents to many people whose primary language is not English. - Knowing your audience is important. Things like idiomatic expressions may not translate well and could be offensive to some audiences. Be sure to clean up the language you use in presentations so it is clear to your audience and represents what you really want to say.

11:11 – Consideration Points before Accepting a Job Offer* John Nicholson wrote a great blog article we’ve referenced previously on the things you need to know before taking a job offer. + John thinks it started as a Spiceworks post and eventually became too large to copy to a Reddit thread, so he decided to move it to a blog and let it live as a document. + The blog is written in two parts. The top part it is when you as a candidate are interviewing a potential employer. - When John N interviewed at VMware it was different for him. He felt happy in the job he had at the time managing a team and felt he was making good money. As a result John decided there were certain questions he needed to ask to "interview them." - Being in consulting gave John a view of what healthy functioning companies looked like. He would often have to meet with CFOs (Chief Financial Officers) to understand some of the reasoning behind IT project funding. - John N learned the signs of a healthy company, signs of a healthy team, and signs of things to avoid (i.e. evidence of red flags). - For example, if you do not meet your future manager in the interview process or just meet the manager and not a member of the team on which you would be working, those are both red flags. - The article was originally written for the IT practitioner (with discussion of budgets, services you might need to manage / administer if you get the job). - The blog also gets a lot into how to look at a company when applying for a role there. - John has seen people in the tech industry move from a safe, healthy job that pays well to a startup that isn’t nearly as safe. He would encourage us all to bookmark crunchbase.com and look at things like the cap table and funding rounds. One could look at that and see how easy / challenging it might be for a company to reach an IPO. John has seen senior directors move from well established tech companies to startups that die 6 months later, for example. - Understanding business finance can help you make decisions about companies. + The second part of the blog is more about compensation and questions related to it. - "What the base salary is not the full story. There’s a lot of detail there." – John Nicholson on total compensation for a job * The first question the blog encourages us to ask is the company’s view on training. + John White says this can in some ways speak to how fast the company is moving and how much they want people to develop skills. + John N tells us we need to determine if on day 1 we would be managing something with which we have no experience or if there is a gentle ramp up. Or maybe you enjoy the chaos? + Another good question to ask is "why is this position open?" - John White had not thought about asking this one before speaking with John Nicholson. - This can make people feel a bit awkward, but we should pay attention to whether people say positive or negative things about the person who last occupied the role. John Nicholson has also seen someone completely destroy a datacenter on their way out of the company (which also could be a sign of a toxic culture). - Having a strong network can help here also (knowing people who have worked for the company at some point or people who work there currently). If you were going to work for a large organization like Amazon for example, likely there are great teams and some not so great teams to join. It would be wise to learn about the team you’re joining from people who interact with that team or perhaps work on that team so you know (at least somewhat) what you are getting into by joining the company as a member of that team. - John N says we need to get out there and meet people. We can stay in touch with former co-workers on LinkedIn, for example. - John White mentions he had a calendar reminder every other month to follow up with someone on LinkedIn. He would export his LinkedIn connections and leverage a random number generator to select the person. - If you go have coffee with someone you’ll find out about opportunities. People will make connections for you / keep you in mind for opportunities (even if you’re not looking for a job). It’s like having a parachute packed and allows you to have a pulse on the market in a way.

17:57 – Interview Questions and the Vibe Check* Nick doesn’t feel like the average interviewee develops a list of questions to ask their interviewers throughout the process.

+ John N says he’s been in too many interviews where the candidate has no questions. Do not be that person! Make sure you have questions.
+ There are certainly tricky mind game type questions, but asking a few questions (even if you borrow them from John N’s blog) helps the people interviewing you see you have thought about the role and are interested. It also helps you make a decision.
+ Not understanding what the job is going to be and not understanding what the compensation is going to be is like trying to buy a car without knowing the color it will be, what the trim package is like, and trying to negotiate without knowing the currency being used.
+ It’s important to establish some kind of ground truth, or you may not be getting what you think you’re getting.
+ John N shares the story of someone he worked with who was excited about another company offering him a 15% raise. It turned out there was no bonus structure at the new company, and insurance was more expensive. This person actually ended up taking a pay cut to make the move even though it didn’t seem that way on the surface.

Another question from the blog John White hadn’t thought about asking (especially when moving into a role you’re not familiar with) – how is success measured?
- Is the measure of success a stack rank on the team?
- What are the outcomes or OKRs (objectives and key results)? Are these measured on a short sprint, a couple of times per year, continuously, etc.?
- Do you do 360 assessments where peers judge each other?
- There can be environments where the measurements are nonexistent or solely based on the discretion of the manager, and those can work.
- "Managers to me are binary. Can I work for this person? Do I respect them? Are they going to help me with my career?….People don’t quit jobs. They quit managers more often than they quit jobs." – John Nicholson on determining if someone is a good manager
- Signs of a poor manager could be…
  - Are they someone I’m going to want to avoid meetings with, that I know is never going to have the ball in my court?
  - Are they someone I will have to work around to advance / get basic resources / accomplish my day job?
- In the interview process you’re interviewing potential managers who could (depending on the company) fire you but could also annoy you enough to encourage you to leave the company.
- What are some of the top questions John Nicholson would ask a potential manager in the interview process?
- What is the expected time for productivity, or what does that look like? What is the ramp up period for the job you are about to take?
  - If you are moving from being a SRE (site reliability engineer) at Google to a role at Amazon, it will take time to learn new things.
  - One example John shares is a manager telling him for the first 6 months he probably would not be terribly productive due to a large number of unique systems and different types of activities than John had previously done.
  - This was very different than John’s experience in the MSP (managed service provider) space where someone’s first day on the job might be to lead a project.
  - If it’s a support role, how long will it be until you’re expected to take customer calls?
  - If it’s a sales role, how long will someone be shadowing you before you can take calls on your own?
  - Will there be specialists who support me?
  - Who do I reach out to when I’m stuck? The hope is your manager would assign someone in the short term and for a longer term. Another reason to meet the team is to see if there are others who will be invested in your success.
  - You don’t want to walk into a system that incentivizes people not helping each other (i.e. the stack rank option mentioned previously).
  - Stack ranking puts people into a tiered structure based on how they perform (or an executive leader’s perception of their performance / value to the company) with the top tier containing the top performers and the highest rewards. Lower tiers may contain some rewards but perhaps not as many. Listen to the way John Nicholson describes it.
  - The lowest tier of people in a stack rank system may be on performance improvement plans or get unknowingly volunteered for the next reduction in force. John N knows of at least one tech company where if you’re in that bottom tier (i.e. bottom 10-20%) your bonus will be zero. If bonus or some variable component makes up a lot of your compensation, this can have a big impact on your pay.
- As part of the interview process, try to meet the skip-level manager (the person 1 level above the hiring manager).
  - When John N interviewed at VMware he interviewed all the way up to the VP of the (then) small business unit he would be entering. Having that conversation helped John understand even the VP wanted him to be successful, which helped sell him on the role overall.
  - When John N worked at an 18-person company he interviewed with one of the owners. If you’re at a company that small there’s no reason not to meet an owner. Make sure there is a success alignment.
- Nick suggests it is more nerve racking the higher the title of someone you meet with in the interview process. John N says it can be but that people tend to treat executives like wild bears.
  - John N worked for a class C zoo at one point in his career that had bears. The training they took taught you to stare down a charging bear.
  - John also spent time as a hiking guide. That training for bears advises you to make yourself big and to make lots of noise.
  - "Those execs, maybe they are like bears, but they are more like the bears in the wild…People who are VPs are not all out to get you or eat you….They have kids. They are normal people." – John Nicholson, on interacting with executives and facing our perception of them
  - If a new executive comes in, learn about their career and how they got to where they are today. Try to make a connection with that person, and give them a chance to do some mentoring. It may open them up a bit.
  - "Flip the script a little bit. You’re not a good vice president or you’re not a good senior director if you haven’t been a good mentor." – John Nicholson speaking to executives and leveraging them for mentorship
  - If an executive barks at you like a bear, you know you don’t want to work at that company.
  - John N has worked for companies where he could go ask the CEO why the company ran the way it did and get good feedback. He tells us that during the hiring process we may have access to more people like this than we might after becoming an employee (i.e. executive leaders wanting you to follow a chain of command with lower levels of management first).
- John White suggests if we are speaking with a senior director or VP it’s really a vibe check point in the process and not to override the hiring manager’s decision.
  - John N says they will be the person who makes your manager fire you if they decide they need to save budget in the future. In large companies it’s generally somewhere up the management chain where a directive is given to trim budget by a certain amount (usually at the VP level, possibly senior director). It is rare that your manager ever actually wants to fire you.
  - "I like to say culture comes from the top." – John Nicholson, speaking about executives of companies and their influence on the overall company culture
  - Listen to John N’s comparison of two different CEOs, their lifestyles, the type of books they might write, and how it might affect your decision to join a company.
  - John White reiterates the vibe check is two-way. The high level manager / executive who is interviewing you is looking for red flags, and we should also be checking to see if we would be ok working for the person one level removed from our direct manager.
  - We don’t need to share our life story in these types of conversations or share everything we were frustrated about from previous employers. Restraint is needed in these situations, but we also don’t want to interview as one person and show up as someone entirely different. Show the person interviewing you some of who you are, and always be working on yourself.
  - "Be yourself, but be a good person." – John Nicholson on the person we should be when interviewing
- Mentioned in the outro
- Nick says the advice on interacting with executives sounds similar to what Anudeep Parhar shared in Episode 209 on bringing a point of view and something to ask.
- For more ideas on questions to ask in interviews, check out some of the questions John White wanted to ask and did ask when he interviewed for his current role at Nutanix:
  - Episode 221 – John Got Hired
  - Episode 222 – A Closer Look at John’s Recent Interview Process
- Other episodes to check out on the tech marketing career path:
  - Andy Syrewicze
    - Episode 158 – The Ever-Expanding Blast Radius
    - Episode 159 – In Pursuit of a New Path
    - Episode 160 – Anxious Living, Worry, and Hope
  - Jon Hildebrand
    - Episode 37 – The Journey to Architectural Thinking
    - Episode 38 – Recovering from a Layoff

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Welcome to episode 223 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we discuss John’s initial observations of the first 8-9 weeks as a first time sales engineering manager.

Original Recording Date: 05-04-2023

Topics – Episode Context, A Manager’s Onboarding, Overhead for Meetings, Attachment to the Team, One Step Removed, Tactical Differences, Closing Thoughts1:11 – Episode Context* In Episode 220 we talked about John losing his job as part of the Google Cloud reduction in force in early 2023. * In Episode 221, John shared the story of deciding what his next move would be and getting hired as a Sales Engineering Manager at Nutanix. * In Episode 222 we took a deeper look into John’s interview process and how he approached conversations with people at different organizational levels. * This week John will share his impressions of being a first time manager. It’s like an audio log of the first several weeks on the job that he can go back and reference / reflect upon later. * As of this recording John is in the middle of week 9 as a sales engineering manager at Nutanix. John says it’s been a whirlwind, very exciting, and filled with a lot of information.

2:14 – A Manager’s Onboarding* Onboarding as a manager was essentially no different than onboarding as an individual contributor. * Nutanix had a first day / first week schedule for John with training. + John was in the sales engineering training with a number of individual contributor sales engineers. This consisted of learning about the Nutanix software stack and gaining hands on experience in tinkering with the technology inside lab environments. + Previous to this John understood the products conceptually but had not been able to use them. John could, as a first time user, see that product teams had worked really hard on making the technology easy to use. * John said there was also a pilot of a new multi-week manager program that started around week 5. + Members of the program meet once per week with homework in between sessions. There is a great deal of coaching on the job of being a manager and how it is different than being a technical lead, for example. - John confirmed he’s been doing the homework, so don’t worry, listeners. + John said there was a conversation in this class that mimicked almost exactly the one about an operating manual for the self from Episode 217 with guest Kristen Carder. - The tool shared in John’s classes was very similar to the tool shared in the above episode. The idea is to share what you’re good at, how you communicate effectively, when you run into challenges, etc. John and his classmates were encouraged to fill it out and share it with their teams. Then, he encouraged them to have team members do that for themselves. + John is still in the middle of going through this program with a cohort of other first time managers. It is a remote program today. John hopes those going through the program can come together as a community to support one another moving forward. This seems to be with other employees in the US only at this time. * John’s onboarding has not been extremely different from that of an individual contributor joining a technology company. One in a similar situation would onboard, learn the company’s products, and then meet teammates. + An extra step for managers specifically is meeting the team that reports to you. John says all of this got jammed into the first week of his employment. + Managerial onboarding started a little bit later. * A first observation in the onboarding process was good support in teaching John the kinds of things he would need for his role. + All of it could not be jammed into the first week (with the exception of manager training as we mentioned), but John had access to the resources nonetheless and continues to learn about new tools via the manager training program. * John had not met his team during the hiring process (not normally something that happens to have a potential manager meet team members during the interview process) and only met them during his onboarding. In his personal experience, John does not recall meeting a potential new manager before they got the job.

7:39 – Overhead for Meetings* John’s second observation is the overhead of having a lot of meetings. * John started out with 30 minute 1-1 meetings with his direct reports and has had to extend them to 45 minutes. This required some additional calendar management. + John has 9 direct reports. At 45 minutes each, that is 6.75 hours total. * John also has a weekly meeting with his team of direct reports. * John is covering 2 different sales managers and attends their weekly team meetings with the extended sales teams (salespeople, field marketing, channel sales managers, etc.). * John’s direct manager has a meeting every other week. And there is also a sales leadership meeting John attends plus forecast calls each week. * John also has a 1-1 with his boss each week. * This totals to about 20 hours or more of meetings in a week. * John also has 1-1 meetings with each of the sales directors with which he partners. * There are people who offered to mentor John, and he has not put weekly 30 minute meetings with them on his calendar just yet but feels he should. These are experienced managers (not necessarily in the same time zone) whose calendars are also quite full much like John’s has become. * The time John spends in meetings makes it challenging to spend time on the outputs and deliverables for which he is responsible (as a result of being in the meetings described earlier) while also learning new things. This was not something John anticipated. + John feels this will get better with time. He may become more skilled at 1-1 meetings and be able to fit those into 30 minutes instead of 45, for example.

11:41 – Attachment to the Team* John had a very quick ramp up to an emotional investment in the success of the team and the individuals on the team. + As a manager of these people he expected to be invested in their success, expecting it to be true intellectually but not realizing / anticipating how quickly he would become emotionally invested in their successes as individuals and as a team. + John says he needs to own the team culture or at least act as the guardian and director of it. + The individuals on the team contribute to execution of the culture just as much as John if not moreso because there are more of them. + It’s the individual relationships that normally 9 weeks into getting to know someone John might not have expected to be as attached to the success and career of team members as he’s become to this point. Their success has become extremely important to John. + John has a strong sense of purpose about all this. His primary job function is the success of the individuals and the success of the team. + John isn’t sure if he’s embarrassed or shocked by the fast emotional attachment but feels a little vulnerable saying it out loud. - The team members are extremely competent, hard working people who have a difficult and ambiguous task to do. It can be both infuriating and thrilling to be in the sales engineer role. John wants his team to do really well and know that he as the manager has their backs (which will take time to prove to them). - "Anybody can say words. It’s the actions to back that up that matters." – John White on having his team members’ backs * It will be interesting to see how this evolves over time and how it affects John over time.

15:37 – One Step Removed* The next observation was the reality of being one step removed from the business of helping to sell product. + John’s job as a sales engineer was already one step removed from the actual sales process. He wasn’t negotiating discounts, pricing tiers for products the company sold, or understanding the way a company procures products. John was focused at the technical level (technical validation). + It was already technical validation of solutions, making solutions, building technical relationships. * Now, instead of doing the work he was doing as a sales engineer, John is helping a team of people who are doing the work that is sales engineering. + It is rare that John will be called in to build or maintain a relationship as described earlier. Intellectually, John knew this would happen, but the experience of it happening is different than he expected. + John misses the very specific kind of interaction you have with customers as a sales engineer. And John has a new set of customers which are his reports (and to some degree the upstream sales organization). + John still attends events and gets to meet customers, but his team owns the relationship with the customer while he takes a back seat. John’s team members know what customers need from him as the manager and they know their customer’s needs much better than John would. They direct how they want him to interact with customers and help him understand what the customer needs to hear / understand from someone at his level. - John feels it should be rare that he is the most important one in a meeting with a customer. It’s important for him to have as much context as possible from the team who owns the relationship with the customer. * John isn’t just covering a single territory / set of customers like he was as a sales engineer. The customer base he covers is spread across two sales regions and many team members. + There is no one customer he will be close with immediately. In these situations John is one step removed and is there to maybe own a relationship for a time and hand it back to the team he supports who formally owns the relationship with the customer. + "It’s an interesting thing to know that is going to happy and a different thing to experience it." – John White, on being one step removed from customer interaction + Nick says this is The Matrix effect and that no one can be told what The Matrix is. You have to see it (or in John’s case experience it) for yourself much like being a parent. + John thinks back to what Don Jones said about not knowing if today was a good day for a while as a manager because your success is dependent upon others. This was advice shared in Episode 137 and Episode 138 on a manager’s measure of success. - Don said it, and now John is living it, which is a different experience than John has had previously.

21:36 – Tactical Differences* John is responsible for owning a team meeting agenda. That means having productive and meaningful meetings which add value to people’s week and encourage fruitful discussion, something that isn’t just another meeting people have to attend. + Being able to run an effective meeting is a skill, and the process of owning it is different than just showing up and wondering what you will talk about. You need a plan and some effort before the meeting to make it effective. * Performance reviews began recently. John had written performance reviews in the past but feels it is an entirely different thing to have a team’s performance reviews be your responsibility. It’s pretty daunting to have this responsibility. + Going into the process John did not know the criteria by which his team was being evaluated. There should be some sort of objective criteria in any process that indicate someone is doing well at their job. John knew what the job his people did was, of course, but not the criteria. + John knew the Google methodology to explain performance of individuals to leadership but had to go and research the Nutanix methodology for evaluating sales engineers. + This process was a journey, and it took time for John to find out the proper criteria. It probably happened a week or so before this recording. - Nick suggests it would also be good to know how these criteria map to different job levels. John says you would need to know what each of the criteria look like at a particular level (sales engineer, senior sales engineer, staff sales engineer, etc.). - If someone wanted to be promoted and knew the criteria at each level they could show how they are currently performing skills desired at the next level for their job role. + John says the difficulty finding the criteria may have been due to the process changing a little bit. + John trained on the evaluation criteria and is working to incorporate the criteria into 1-1 sessions once per month to enable discussions about skills for promotion with team members. For those who are not looking to chase a promotion right now, it’s an open discussion on ways John can help. + John reiterates that some people may need to tread water for a while, and that’s ok. Maybe your life situation dictates that training on new products and serving your customers is all you can do right now. This is where John was when his daughter was born last year, so he understands. + Finding out where each person is (i.e. getting a baseline), documenting it for a shared understanding, and then consistently checking in with each person can help both John and his employees decide on next actions. If someone wants to get promoted to the next level John can then help that person create an actionable plan. + Nick is happy to hear John is having career conversations with his team members and would encourage listeners to go back and revisit Episode 45 on career conversations with your manager. John says he’s not sure if this process of career conversations was formalized before but added these as something he does with his team immediately after getting into the role. * John has also had a person resign and move to a different company. It turned out to be a really good thing for the person in question, but it put John into hiring mode. + Though this was unexpected, John was fully supportive of the person’s career and asked what he could do to help. + It is part of the job for John to hire people. He needed to start a cycle of getting approval to hire someone, recruit for the position, do interviews (initial screening interviews, informational interviews, and the formal interview process). + There was a little pressure to hire someone quickly because the company was about to pass a financial quarter boundary. When you pass a financial quarter boundary usually budgets are re-examined, and it can create more difficulty than if an offer has already been extended. + It was about a 30 day gap between when John received approval to hire someone and they wanted all open positions to have an offer sent. John could not meet that boundary in this case. But overall the situation added some pressure John had not anticipated. + The process of hiring when John knows he is the one responsible for the output and performance of the person is a little different from being emotionally separate from their performance if the person is hired. - At Google John did a lot of interviews for prospective sales engineers (or customer engineers at Google). He was evaluating them on whether they could do the job at a specific seniority level, but he remained professionally detached in a way. - That scenario was different than hiring someone who reports to you (as the case would be now), whose progress you oversee, and the decision around which you as the manager are ultimately responsible for if things do not work out. It could be devastating for an individual to join a company and find out later it was not a good fit. + Nick asked John how much control over hiring process steps managers have. - John says usually there is a template for the process given, and the manager could then say they may want to bypass a specific step because the role or the people involved don’t justify having it. + John feels the hiring process can be a bit slow. He did way more informational interviews than he thought. Check out Episode 169 with guest Mike Wood in which he details what informationals with Microsoft were like. - The sales engineering role is a role people don’t know about often times. They may see the word engineer or systems engineer and be a little confused on what the job actually is / what the role does. Reading the job description is different from having someone tell you what you’re responsible for and why the role exists. - John also spend time sharing the profile of the person he was looking for to fill the role – experience with the Nutanix products / something like them in the market or experience as a sales engineer. - Nick loves this and says John gave applicants the relatable experience requirements in the process! It doesn’t make sense to keep it a secret. Every sales engineer took their first job as a sales engineer at some point, and John tells us you want to be open to people who do not have experience as a sales engineer. - John says this is an interesting position to be in and remembers the people who first hired him and gave him a chance as a sales engineer (after he had worked in IT operations for a while). Now John has the opportunity to give someone a chance as a hiring manager to dive into sales engineering. The potential impact on someone’s life is daunting to John. John knows he would become emotionally invested in a person’s success after having been through the transition from IT operations to sales engineering himself. + John has learned that in this process he must rely on multiple points of view on potential candidates. - John cannot be the one evaluating people on everything but rather needs to put candidates through a process. This process can involve multiple people with different backgrounds and points of few who will ask different questions than John would, and it is needed before John can make a final hiring decision.

36:11 – Closing Thoughts* Should Nick become a manager some day? + Nick is currently undecided. But when John talked about tinkering around with technology it got Nick’s attention in a positive way. + Nick’s wife keep telling him he’s destined to be a manager someday. Should he go back to teaching math? + Nick says there is going to have to be an element of education in whatever he does. He also loves to learn and feels the teaching and learning feed one another. - John says it is supporting people in their learning journey. People are growing and have things they need to do to support the growth, and they need help from others to support that growth. That is a state we are all in in, and ideally we have a manager supporting us there. * John wants to get to a point where he defines the growth he should be looking for but isn’t sure yet. That’s all the more reason to invest in those mentoring sessions with peers! Feedback from the team has also been a big help for John. + Maybe we can check in periodically on John’s progress over time (perhaps every 6 months)? + John isn’t sure how long it will take for him to have a different opinion on things or how long it will take for him to be in a different place of growth cycle in his current position. + For those interested in checking back in on John’s progress, let us know via Tweet or in the episode comments how often you would like to do so! John is also open to mentorship if you’re willing.

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Welcome to episode 222 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we probe deeper into the hiring process John went through at Nutanix, discussing the end-to-end process, how John prepared, what he experienced, and the advice he would give to others going through a similar situation.

Original Recording Date: 04-29-2023

Topics – Discussion Context and the Hiring Process, Working for a Former Manager, Compensation and Offer, Taking Notes in Interviews, Meeting the Team, Interviews with Upper Management, Plan for Success, Advice for Others on Manager Interviews, A Good Process1:12 – Discussion Context and the Hiring Process* In Episode 220 we talked about John losing his job as part of the Google Cloud reduction in force in early 2023. In Episode 221, John shared the story of deciding what his next move would be and getting hired as a Sales Engineering Manager at Nutanix. The intent of this week is to dive deeper on the interview process John went through at Nutanix and see how it lines up with the advice from our career foundation series recently and the episodes on interviewing: + Episode 205 – Revisiting the Foundations of Job Interviews, Part 1 + Episode 206 – Revisiting the Foundations of Job Interviews, Part 2 * John tells us the structure of the hiring process was well established from the first informational call. + For more on what an informational is, check out Episode 169 with guest Mike Wood in which he details what informationals with Microsoft were like. + The hiring manager (a sales engineering director at Nutanix, and former manager of John’s at a different company) had reached out to John. When they had a discussion, it covered what the open position for sales engineering manager would look like and what the interview process would be like if John was interested. + Once John understood the interview process, he felt pretty good about it. + John says it’s important to try and figure out in these early conversations if you’re walking into a disaster or if you’re walking into something for which you are not qualified. - This would be a first time manager position for John, and he was sensitive to the latter situation. - John generally trusts the people in his network not to bring him into a bad situation. - People in your network usually reach out to you because they have a problem to solve, and that’s not something they generally want to do if they are on their way out / in the process of leaving. - One should always ask questions about the opportunity to ensure the situation is a good one. * There were two things going on in that first call. + John wanted to know what the opportunity was and if it was a good fit for him. + The hiring manager was trying to figure out if John was interested and if it would be a good fit. A hiring manager may reach out to someone who has worked for them before, and it might not be a good fit.

5:09 – Working for a Former Manager* Are there nuances / important points of consideration in working for the same manager again at a different company? + John says yes. He has no idea what went on after he left a previous company to go in a different direction. + Maybe the level of trust he and the former manager had needed to be revisited, re-examined, or rebuilt as a result. This is all part of due diligence to think about in a general sense for anyone in a similar situation. + Going into the process John had a level of trust that what he knew of his former manager was probably still true. + "When we worked together we worked together well, and we would probably still work together well." – John White, on considering working for a former manager at a different company + There are always questions to ask in these types of situations. - How would the hiring manager picture John succeeding knowing that he would be walking into a first time manager role? - Would John be setup with some mentors to help guide him in addition to his manager? + John would recommend asking these same questions (or forms of them) if changing companies or changing roles within the company where you work today. - If you haven’t worked with this specific technology before, what are the ideas a potential manager has so you can succeed? Bring some of your own ideas to the conversation as well. + Part of the questioning is a presumptive close. Notice John used phrases like "when I come, what would that look like?" If you start talking to people as if you are coming, they begin to think of it that way as well. - Nick says this sounds like what Bret Hill had to say regarding mindfulness in interviews in Episode 192. - John says the people he spoke with during this process operated within a sales organization, so it is not like they had not seen this tactic from interviewees. And they may have used the same tactic on John.

8:27 – Compensation and Offer* The recruiter was in charge of scheduling and facilitating the next set of calls John would have with people within the interview process defined by the hiring manager. * Discussing compensation was part of John’s vetting the situation. John shared what he was making at Google Cloud (including base and variable compensation components). This did not raise any red flags on the Nutanix side, so John moved forward in the process. * John asked about other benefits that are part of a compensation package also such as insurance, wellbeing allowances, 401K, etc. Much of this information was publicly available. + Many public companies will speak to these as part of their recruiting package to entice candidates to find a position at the company. * In John’s hiring process he was not getting real-time feedback on interview performance specifically, but people did make suggestions on what others he would speak to later in the interview process would care about as it related to his experience in certain areas. * After interviewing with the hiring manager, the first round for John consisted of… + Discussions with two regional directors of sales he would be paired with if he were to get the job + A sales engineering manager who would be a peer under the hiring manager * After raising no red flags during the first round of interviews, the next round of interviews for John consisted of… + The VP of sales to which the two regional directors mentioned previously reported + The VP of sales engineering to which the hiring manager reported + John perceived these discussions as a final vibe check and the leaders getting a feel for what he was about as a person. * John tells us the process described here is fairly typical (talking to the managers of the people you would be working with) and parallels what a sales engineer might go through but at one level up since John was applying for a sales engineering manager role. + For sales engineers specifically, often times one will have a technical interview with a member of the team and then possibly an interview with the sales manager of the salesperson you would potentially be partnering with. + You might even have an interview with the person you would be paired with directly (if that person is known in advance). + The final check might be an interview with the manager of the hiring sales engineering manager and then maybe a sales leader one level up from the sales manger mentioned previously. * Nick has seen instances where a verbal job offer was made by a hiring manager with compensation package that someone can agree to take or discuss further. Or, this news may be delivered by a recruiter. + Usually once the candidate agrees to the verbal offer, a written offer is issued. + John says the verbal offer came through the hiring manager in this case. The numbers made sense, and John remembers it being smooth sailing from there. + John was up front about his expectation early on in the hiring process for it to make sense to move forward. This paid off. + John wants to acknowledge that he feels like he was in a privileged position. John came from a company that paid top of market, and he was earning top of market. + John wanted to find the right position…not just the first position or any position. Becoming a first time manager was enough to encourage John to take a deep breath before saying yes (making sure that the compensation and the opportunity were right). + To a certain degree there are a limited number of people who can apply for and be qualified to fill these roles (i.e. a supply and demand issue). John didn’t approach this as holding out for the maximum compensation he could get right now as this puts the hiring manager in an awkward position to have someone be an immediate top performer - John knew he was not a seasoned manager and kept that in mind. - John believed in his abilities and was joining near the end of a fiscal year with a promotion likely not to come before being there at least through an entire fiscal year cycle (likely 1.5 years away). That would give him enough time to execute on being successful in the role.

16:27 – Taking Notes in Interviews* All of John’s interviews were remote. Not everyone involved in the process lives in the same place (especially since John would map to people leading multiple regions), and conducting interviews remotely made more sense. * The interviews were Zoom meetings rather than direct phone calls. John feels he has become a camera on kind of guy from his time at Google Cloud. * John took meticulous notes during each of the interviews in the process, feeling he may have learned this at Google Cloud because of the need to take them while conducting interviews. + At Google Cloud, John had to evaluate candidates based on what was said during the interviews he conducted. + John wanted the notes from interviews during the Nutanix process to see if he could extract patterns to learn from, to understand what interviewers might be probing for, and to remember what was discussed t a later time. + Did John use the smart notes methodology for note taking? - See Episode 156 for more on the smart notes methodology. - John is not sure how first person notes of this nature would be recorded with the smart notes methodology, but John did record his notes in Obsidian, creating structure and links to and from each set of meeting notes to a centralized table of contents. - Applying the smart notes methodology here would be something like going back to extract additional lessons from the interview notes by learning from the structure and the way questions were asked. Maybe John should go back and do this? + Nick loves to take notes in interviews as well (but might not do it the same as John). He likes to have video on one screen and notes on a second screen, usually communicating to people he will be taking notes during the conversation. + Nick advises if taking notes at an in-person interview it may be less distracting to write them on paper on or a tablet. It could get distracting if you open up a computer in that meeting. + John would not normally ask for permission to take notes but rather believes in an interview it may be implied that both parties are taking notes. + John tends to not look at the notes while he types them (which is how he learned to touch type) and focuses on trying to speak into the camera. He’s not concerned what the notes look like during the meeting and knows he can review them afterward to clean up misspellings, formatting, etc. - Nick says there will be enough to help you remember what the conversation was about this way and is much better than not taking notes at all.

22:15 – Meeting the Team* Is it appropriate to ask to speak with a member of the team you would be leading / managing in a process like this? + John says this might not work. It depends on the organization, but the question is more about what you might hope to get out of that discussion. + If John had not known the hiring manager and had noticed some red flags during the interview process, he might have asked to speak to a member of the team or asked for a follow up with the hiring manager to ask more questions addressing his concerns. + John definitely wanted to understand views of the people on the team needing a new leader (in aggregate and not individually) from the hiring manager and regional directors. - John was told the team was made up of pretty seasoned professionals who did not need a lot of performance management but may need help, coaching, and brainstorming assistance. - John knew he was not walking into a situation with an immediate need to manage someone out of the company. * Nick says he likes that John got a feel for team strengths and weaknesses, and he could combine that with his own strengths and weaknesses. + John went into each interview with what he felt he could bring to the team if they chose to hire him for the role. - John felt he could bring a sense of structure (something he has had to bring to his own process during time spent as an individual contributor). He would not need people to use his structure but could showcase some of how he would structure things so team members could develop their own structure. - Managers need a certain level of insight into the team’s projects. It helps if there is a mutual understanding of how team members keep records so John as a manager can get an update without having to call or instant message a team member.

25:50 – Interviews with Upper Management* Speaking to people with higher level titles in an interview process can cause nervousness. Did John approach these conversations differently than the conversations with the hiring manager and peer sales engineering manager? + Johns says he doesn’t think it made him nervous to speak with people having higher titles. In the sales engineering line of work interaction with people at these levels happens pretty often whether it be a VP at a customer or inside your company. - A VP inside a software company may have information on the strategic direction of a product that they deliver to an account team or to the customer, for example. - "A VP is just a person with a title who has an increased level of scope and coverage." John White + Generally the higher up you go in an organization the less tactical and more strategic things get. John assumed this would be the case in his discussions during the interview process and that these people where trying to determine if having John be a sales engineering manager would meet their strategic needs. - John needed to be open and honest on what he’s about as a person and tailored this to what he felt the strategic needs of the organization looked like. - John was also not shy about asking questions related to the strategic vision. Would their strategic vision be at odds with what he could provide as a new sales engineering manager? The answer to this question might have made John decide this was not a good fit for him. Listen to the examples he gives. - Fortunately, John found this was a very good fit. The executives he spoke with were very strategic individuals who knew the talent in their organization well, valued it, and did not feel like they needed to micromanage the tactical details at the front line level from the VP seat. + Every time John spoke with someone he reiterated his interest in the role and that he would be a first time manager if he gets the role to make sure everyone understood. The more John learned about the opportunity, the culture, and the strategic direction of products the more he was interested. + For John the goal of these discussions was to get questions answered on the company’s strategic direction, the strategic opportunity, the vision from leaders for the success of front line managers like John would be, etc. John felt all this needed to be out in the open up front. + Nick feels like this goes back to what Neil Thompson shared with us about individual contributors not being well prepared to have a conversation with somoene at the executive level. John had a little bit of experience here from interactions with customers and internal discussions at previous employers. Check out these episodes for more detail: - Episode 193 – Communication for Specialists with Neil Thompson (1/2) - Episode 194 – Question Askers and Problem Solvers with Neil Thompson (2/2) * What about overcoming nerves when speaking with someone in these higher levels of management? + John says start with having empathy with that person (the executive with whom you are speaking). + In doing this, we want to try to understand what that person provably cares about hearing from you. - Suppose a front line salesperson is covering 5 customers. This is representative of the person’s reach. - A sales manager could have 10 people on their team, for example, and covers up to 50 customers. - When this happens you lose track quickly on the fine grained detail except maybe the top 5 deals. - Then go up one level to a sales director or VP. They can probably only keep track of the details of say 5 deals out of that entire scope. They cannot afford to be tactically involved in everything. There is not enough time. - These folks need to steer a much larger ship, keeping an eye on the strategic direction of the business so the lower level tactical items can take care of themselves. - The scope of these people could be region of a country (i.e. south region), a specific customer segment across a country, or even multiple geographies / continents. - As someone’s scope increases the ability to get down to fine grained details gets untenable. - If you go up another level you may have leaders from multiple customer segments (each segment being a fairly large sales business on its own) reporting into an executive leader to discuss challenges and actions being taken to stay in line with current strategic direction. - In the interview process one could be speaking to a leader of a business unit at a non-technology company (or an organizational leader as we might call them). So the advice above certainly applies in a general sense.

35:51 – Plan for Success* John referenced getting guidance on a 30/60/90 day plan for success from Manager Tools. How much detail did John put into this as he wrote it out and as he communicated it to people in the interview process? + This type of plan generally will have the same structure, and it follows a similar pattern to skill acquisition. + The first step is imitation (30 days). The second step is when you get to small variations (60 days). The third step is when you try to inject your innovations (90 days). - It’s possible the time periods for each step could be longer than a 30-day window. - Hopefully nothing big needs to happen in the first 30 days. In everything that John has read, managers need to push back against getting hired and then needing to fire people almost immediately. It is an awful situation and does not make a great deal of sense. And it’s a giant red flag and may be a sign not to take the job! If firing a bunch of people is something the company wants to do, they should do it before you show up. - Ideally you want the breathing space when you begin as a manager to allow the business to operate as it has been to this point for the first 30 days. Learn some of the context behind the way things are during this time. Maybe you could make small tweaks during that next 30-day period or make larger changes in that 60-90 day window. + At the time of this recording, John is in his 9th week on the job, and he is still in the small changes phase. - John knows he may not have enough context on everything that went into creating a certain policy, etc. - Some things John assumed needed to be instituted right away like weekly 1-1 meetings. He found these needed to be extended to 45 minutes instead of 30 because of time constraints.

39:14 – Advice for Others on Manager Interviews* What would John tell someone else interviewing for a first time manager role? + John isn’t sure if he’s in a position to offer advice yet. + John has some reflections on what the job is like, and these feed directly into advice we have previously given, such as… - Listen to Don Jones reiterate that managing people is a different job! The manager does a different job than that of the team(s) they manage. + A big chunk of John’s time on a weekly basis is spent in meetings with the individuals he manages (1-1s and the team meeting), meetings with his peers, leadership meetings, and then meetings with his peers and both his and his peer’s reports. - Individual contributors might have a team meeting they attend and then some calls about active project work. p John’s meetings are at a larger scale than his reports. - The number of meetings doesn’t give John time to do any sales engineering, but he also did not expect to do be a sales engineer as a sales engineering manager. What John can do is ensure his responsibilities up the chain of command as a sales engineering manager. + Keep in mind the job you are interviewing for as a new manager is not the job that you have been doing. Everything you do as preparation should be about the job you want to take as a result of the managerial interview process. - Preparation should be things like building relationships with upstream managers, understanding what those managers care about, explaining what value you would bring to managing a team (thinking of any team you could manage and not just one), etc. - John’s strengths are empathy and organizational structure. He can bring those to managing a team anywhere to add value.

42:47 – A Good Process* How can we take away some of the pressure we’re putting on ourselves in the interview process / when looking for a job? + John has empathy for anyone going through the interview process or who has been laid off (each of which can be traumatic). Even just the decision to make a change from what you’re doing today can feel traumatic. + Telling someone to take the pressure off themselves doesn’t really help. John would like to share his viewpoint of why putting pressure on yourself does not actually help you. A certain level of detachment will actually help. + "You have to be attached to having a good process. You can have a great interview process and not get the job. And you should be ok with that." – John White - What else can you do except have a really good process of preparation that involves researching the people you will be speaking with, following up with them and thanking them, and answering questions you’ve been asked. - You can control things like the above in the interview process. The company may have a better candidate. You cannot control their decision. - "All you can control is your process. So have a good process, and then repeat that process. Document that process. Make sure that is a process you can execute over and over again. And learn to detach yourself from the company’s decision to hire you or not hire you…because that is not where your success is. Your success is ‘did you have a good process?’" – John White, on the importance of a good preparation and execution process when it comes to interviews - A decision not to hire someone may feel personal, but it really is not. - Nick says it’s very hard to do, but if you focus on the preparation, it gives you less time to mentally spin out of control on the "what ifs" and helps channel the effort into what you can control. + You may have to go after a job you really want multiple times. Neither Nick nor John were hired as solution engineers the first time they applied. - If you make it to the final round of interviews for a job, you are one of at least two the hiring team think can do the job really well. It may come down to specific expertise or background needed, etc. * Check out Episode 83 to hear Brad Pinkston’s viewpoint on candidates who make it deep into the hiring process. - Making it to a final round of interviews and don’t make it, you still had a really good process. Maybe you can iterate that process and even improve it a little for the next time. * "Independent of the outcome, maybe you can still be better." – John White on process over outcomes * Be sure to listen to our episode on process over outcomes as a compliment to this episode! - Try to make a connection with people during the process. Even if you don’t get this job, a hiring team member may advocate for you to get another position down the road or provide valuable feedback on what you can do better. * You can also maintain a relationship with someone you meet during the hiring process without an expectation that they will give you anything in the future.

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Welcome to episode 221 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we walk through John’s hiring process after being laid off, the options he considered, the questions he asked in interviews, his mindset, and the end result of the offer he accepted.

Original Recording Date: 04-22-2023

Topics – Focusing on What’s Next, An Unexpected Call, Points of Consideration, Attitude of Openness, Reflections on the Interview Process1:11 – Focusing on What’s Next* If you missed Episode 220, go back and give it a listen. John discussed what it was like to get fired and how he processed the event. This week John is going to tell us about getting hired and things he did to land the job. * When you’re coming off the shock of being fired there is a great deal of processing to do. + One advantage John had was being fairly emotionally even. He didn’t have an existential crisis over the whole thing. He was able to process the question of what’s next fairly quickly and easily. + John had options. After being a sales engineer for several years, he considered sales engineering management (managing a team of sales engineers) as one option and felt he could be good at it. - And let’s not forget that John needed to learn about saying smart manager things as part of this. + Another option was to expand into being a sales engineer in a different area of technology that would push John’s knowledge boundaries. Possible areas of expansion could be analytics, business intelligence, machine learning, or artificial intelligence. + John could also look for sales engineering roles that focus on a different industry or type of customer such as healthcare solutions or ERP solutions. + Should John have considered starting a media company called Nerd Journey? - John certainly had some relatable experience but discarded this idea pretty quickly since he and Nick didn’t get into doing the show to make it a business. - Monetizing the show through paid coaching or something like it was not really what John had set himself up to do. + John could have moved to another hyperscaler like Amazon or Microsoft.

5:33 – An Unexpected Call* Before the layoff happened, one of John’s former managers reached out to him about a sales engineering manager role in the bay area, so in many ways it was top of mind and heated up even more after the layoffs happened. + John says he would always take a call from this specific former manager (highlighting a previous very good experience). + John had let this manager know while still working for her that he would be interested in pursuing sales engineering leadership roles. There were no in-depth career discussions about it, but it was something John brought up in conversation. + And when a slot opened up, this manager remembered the conversation and reached out to John. + This is the position (sales engineering manager) at Nutanix that John applied for (and landed). He’s about 7-8 weeks into the role at the time of this recording.

7:13 – Points of Consideration* There were some things John had to consider when coming to a company like Nutanix. + Nutanix competes with VMware, a former employer of John’s. John still has great relationships with VMware personnel in his area and needed to consider where he might overlap those people, if it would cause competition with them, and whether it would cause friction in personal relationships. - John keeps in touch with former co-workers and has good relationships with them. Once he knew the direction he was going to go he reached out to let those people know. - It might have been different if John was to be the one directly involved in competition with former co-workers, but in this case he would be slightly removed from direct involvement and only assisting people in that competition as a sales engineering manager. + Making the move to a different company was potentially a cut to the high end of what he was making. - John was working for a company that was paying at the higher end of the pay band for individual contributors at Google Cloud, and almost any other company where he could work was a potential pay cut. - Nick mentions Don Jones shared in Episode 137 that managers at lower levels may make the same or more than individual contributors at higher job levels. See also Episode 138 for the rest of the interview with Don Jones. - John says a manager may make a higher base salary than an individual contributor but likely would have a variable part of their compensation that isn’t going to go as high as in the case of an individual contributor. - Sales engineers are incentivized to help their sales counterparts sell more but are not the primary commissioned people on any account. Sales engineers normally have a small percentage that is variable compensation (could be 70% base salary with 30% variable compensation, 75% base salary with 25% variable, or even 80% base salary with 20% variable). If you have a high enough base salary, you will be comfortable no matter what happens. - It’s very possible in this scenario for the individual contributor to out-earn the manager unless everyone under the manager was over achieving. John as a sales engineering manager is mapped to two sales managers’ pool of quota. - This is very much like what Don Jones said about the success of the manager being determined by the success of the team. You might not know if any given day is a good day for perhaps weeks / months. - Nick says you could look at the compensation through the lens of companies who have bonus structures that are MBO (management by objective) with the individual contributor and manager each having specific targets that affect their bonus. If each individual contributor has to complete 2 trainings to hit a specific target with more than that being overachievement, the manager has the target for the entire team added together (i.e. a team of 10 people would need 20 trainings completed to be on target). + Another aspect was the mixture of maturity on the team itself. - John was not walking into a gimme situation where everyone around him that he would be supporting and working with was tenured and high performing. - "Opportunity comes with a little bit of uncertainty." – John White - here is a flip side here in helping a team mature and helping with strategy and execution. It was a chance to grow something. - The sales engineers that would be reporting to John in this situation were mostly tenured and performed well. - John says he could see opportunities to grow but did not find anything that would rule out the opportunity. + John has had some relatable experience in the primary solution area for Nutanix (hyperconverged infrastructure). - John worked with solutions in this area from VMware as well as compute and storage abstractions at Google Cloud. - John felt he could enable himself fairly quickly on the Nutanix technical solutions, keeping in mind the job of the sales engineering manager is not to be the best technical person on the team. He was relying on his team to be technically excellent and would be in a role to support them. - Nick says the manager of a team like this isn’t supposed to be by default the most technical person on the team. John says a team may have a technical lead who is in charge of being the ultimate technical escalation point. That’s different job than the manager’s role.

16:07 – Attitude of Openness* John knew there was no single perfect opportunity for him and was open to any number of positions at any number of companies (keeping an open mind). He applied for sales engineering manager positions and sales engineer positions and felt those roles would be the ones in which he could succeed. + Nutanix happened to move the fastest for the most part. John disqualified opportunities in areas of technology where he was not passionate. + John feels like the breakdown of applications for job was about 75% individual contributor in sales engineering and 25% sales engineering management. + John got aggressive and went to LinkedIn, reaching out to people at interesting companies who did not have open positions and inquiring if they were looking for sales engineering leadership or high level sales engineers who could progress into leadership as the company grew. There was nothing really to lose by doing this. John got some responses from companies with no open positions but who thought it sounded interesting. These folks suggested having an informal conversation. * Did John communicate the intent to progress into management when he interviewed for individual contributor sales engineer roles? + John says no. He wanted to be "all in" on a specific role because it was interesting on its own. John would not apply for a sales engineer position and then tell them up front what he really wanted was a sales engineering manager position. He would apply for a sales engineering management position if that is what he wanted. + John approached this from a place of having the opportunity to do many interesting things and not just trying to get something to leverage it as a step up toward management. + As John mentioned last week, there were 3500 open roles with a title of sales engineer or systems engineer. There was no perfect opportunity but rather a spectrum of opportunity across a number of different roles. Some folks in an early stage startup might need a sales engineer that also does tech marketing and maybe also pure sales (i.e. some sort of hybrid). + Nick thinks John was channeling Jason Langer’s attitude from Episode 219 in the openness to either a management role or an individual contributor role. + John didn’t feel like management was a requirement. He just felt it was interesting. And he accepted that it might mean making less money.

22:26 – Reflections on the Interview Process* Nutanix moved the fastest, moving John through the interview process quickly and expressing strong interest. * The team shared the potential match for John and why they liked him, the challenges of the role, and the potential upside…all in very candid terms. * Before any of the other opportunities John was looking at progressed he had an offer in hand from Nutanix. It looked like a good fit in John’s eyes, and he chose to accept the position. * The interview process + John borrowed heavily from our guests who shared what it was like to interview for a manager position. + John thought a lot about adjacencies and relatable experience. - John had done between 20 and 50 interviews of candidates at Google Cloud during his time there. And he’s interviewed a few people on the air for the podcast to understand and learn about their stories. - John tells us when you are the lead sales engineer you are sometimes in charge of holding technical professionals accountable on an opportunity with only relationship power and not role power. This could be product managers, technical marketing, or specialist sales engineers and takes a lot of coordination and accountability. - At Google Cloud John had done peer reviews (assessing peers in an open and honest way to address growth areas for these folks and point out strengths). - John also acted as front line manager for a time for an individual straight out of college who was to be a sales engineer. He had to do a performance review of this person and help her grow into a more experienced sales engineer. - John also had a lot of mentorship activity during which he would help people grow through giving advice. + When applying to other positions John had other adjacencies. - In cases where John had not used or helped sell a specific company’s product he would talk about things he had focused on which were similar. Google Cloud had a data warehouse product called BigQuery, and he leveraged this adjacent / relatable experience when applying for a sales engineering management role at SnowFlake. + John also looked at weakness areas / places where he would need to grow. - Lack of experience actually doing the job of firing somoene, managing someone out of the company - John had interviewed people but had not been a hiring manager. There is a difference between being on the interviewing team and being the person who is ultimately responsible on making the call on which candidate gets hired. - At Google Cloud John participated in interviewing an extended pool of people who might be qualified to fill a title and which level they would be placed (junior, senior, staff, etc.). The goal was to evaluate if there was a good fit between the person and the position. Generally Google had high standards, and they had a continuous process running to find qualified candidates to fill the openings. - John evaluated weaknesses for any given position to which he planned to apply. And they were different in each case. + How would he succeed? - This was more focused on the sales engineering manager position at Nutanix because he was in the advanced stages of the interview process for it. - John borrowed the Manager Tools guidance of a 30-60-90 day plan. - He would need to watch and learn for 30 days and gain context. Likely he should not change anything until the 60 or 90 day point. It is important to understand why things are the way they are and why things need to change. - The 30-60-90 can be thought of similarly from the individual contributor standpoint as well. + All of these topics came up (strengths, weaknesses, experience, places to grow) talking to the hiring manager and beyond. John talked to the sales managers he would be working with, a VP of sales, a sales engineering manager who would be his peer, and a VP of sales engineering during the process. - When you talk about adjacent experience, you can share what you have done and state that it shares some overlap with what somoene is talking about. "I’ve done this thing that is like it." - As an example, a help desk person has to sell the end user on the solution to a problem which may produce a better result. That is not the same as selling a product for money, but there is a lot of overlap with this and the technical sales process (understanding the root problem and whether the portfolio of solutions can solve the problem, etc.). - The hiring team knew John would be a first time manager. John asked when it makes sense for a company to hire a first time manager and when it is a challenge, wanting to know if he was stepping into the situation where the company would hire a first time manager. - Nick had not thought about this specific question. John restates it as "here’s the profile that I fit into and where I am in my career. What situations do you think would disqualify that profile?" This helps you understand the situation you’re stepping into. + Some of John’s questions in the interview process… - What is the culture? He was looking to work with really smart people who were smart in different ways from him, having different experiences and backgrounds to cover for his blind spots. And he could help cover for their blind spots. - John wanted a culture where growth is emphasized mistakes are tolerated because there will always be mistakes. - What is the team like? What are their personalities like? - Talking to the sales managers was important to see if there was a personality clash. - What is the path to success in the role? What is the baseline, where is it starting, and what are the actions that need to happen in order to get success broadly speaking? - Specific to Nutanix, John wanted to know how the business becomes a more strategic vendor and goes up the stack from infrastructure or what the plan was to do so. He answered it for himself ahead of time but wanted to hear about things not on the website from leaders. + Nick loves the fact that John is modeling for us all to bring questions to determine if something is the right opportunity for us. * John wants to acknowledge he had a privileged position in all of this. He was financially secure in this case and could have paid his bills for up to a year if needed (all based on prior planning). + John could make sure the position in which he would be a first time manager was something in which he could execute and be successful. + John says it was his job to figure out if this was true or not. + When the offer was on the table, compensation and benefits were discussed. John came to the conclusion that the role would be a good for him. * John felt the questions he asked were pretty direct and down the middle, but he asked them in multiple ways to ensure he was getting an answer that made sense. * Nick would love to hear John’s impressions of being a first time manager at some point.

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Welcome to episode 220 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we discuss John’s experience being laid off in January 2023 and how he managed to get through it.

Original Recording Date: 04-02-2023

Topics – Context for This Episode, Financial Preparation, Professional Skills, Processing Emotions, Thinking of Options, Resume Updates, Leverage Your Professional Network1:12 – Context for This Episode* Did you notice we changed the intro a little? * John was part of the 12,000 person layoff at Google back on January 20, 2023. We’re going to talk about this. + This was the first time something like this had happened to John. While it certainly caused some anxiety, John feels he got through it pretty successfully. + Whether part of a layoff or fired for a specific situation, we’re never going to come out of something like that feeling great. + John wanted to take the time to lay out (objectively) why he got through it relatively unscathed for the benefit of others. + Some of the things we will discuss were done in the moment. Others were done in advance, and the way it is presented may not necessarily be the exact order in which things were done. + If you’ve been part of a downsizing or in a tough situation, we would love to hear feedback on what is helpful and what is not from what we share.

3:57 – Financial Preparation* The first thing that was really helpful to John in de-stressing was the financial preparedness. + We shared Episode 57 on unexpected opportunities and spoke to personal finance. John wrote some of the advice in that episode and had taken it. + John and his wife had built up an emergency fund to cover their bills and expenses for 9-12 months or more. The severance package from Google extended it even further. - John felt like they had a good buffer despite paying for health insurance out of pocket (which they were able to do no problem). - Despite this John feels like there are some things they could have done better. For example, in households where both spouses work, one might have the option to get healthcare through the other spouse’s employer in this kind of situation. John and his wife were not in a position to do this.

5:44 – Professional Skills* John was prepared with professional skills. + From late 2022 to 2023 when we’re recording this there have been a lot of software engineers on the market, for example. + The sales engineering role is always pretty difficult to fill because hiring managers are looking for a specific mix of skills in which people have experience. It can be a struggle to fill these roles even in the best of times, and because of these things, John felt he was going to be ok. + John received the e-mail from Google at 2 AM Pacific time (which woke him up), and the first thing he did was search LinkedIn for sales engineering / sales engineer roles. In the US there was somewhere between 2500 and 3500 open positions. - Obviously not all of these roles were going to be directly applicable to John, but that was enough to help him stop thinking about it (the situation). - John logged into his work laptop, said goodbye to some people, gave out his contact information, and went back to sleep. - John didn’t wake his wife up to tell her about the layoff. He waited until the next day. - It could have been ego or denial, but John felt secure in his ability to find another job. There were not 2500 people seeking sales engineering roles. It’s just not that easy to hire sales engineers, and that role suffers from talent shortages. + Nick had not thought as much about the sales engineering talent shortage but can appreciate keeping your skills sharp and your connections hot / at least warm, and using LinkedIn to your advantage. Nick calls out the Louise Bunyan episode series: - Episode 162 – A Love for Digital Marketing with Louise Bunyan (1/3) - Episode 163 – Horseback Lessons, Keywords, and Business Growth with Louise Bunyan (2/3) - Episode 164 – Secrets of a LinkedIn Expert with Louise Bunyan (3/3) + Nick would also highly endorse the emergency fund and its ability to de-stress many situations. - When John mentors people he always councils them to live within their means and even below. He suggests cutting out major spending in your life if you can until you have built up the emergency fund or until you are tracking toward it. - There is a constant urge when you get a promotion or some extra money to spend it on things you’ve always wanted (taking a special trip or making a big purchase, for example) rather than saving it. - John wants to do all those things too but prioritized the financial safety net first. John and his wife took a vacation to Hawaii a few years ago but didn’t spend safety net money to go on that vacation. - Any kind of lifestyle inflation will affect the safety net you need. When John and his family bought a new car they needed to increase the safety net to be able to pay off the car or at least have a year of car payments in the safety net. - When moving from renting a house to purchasing one the monthly cost increased, which meant they needed to increase the safety net to account for it. - The things you add to your life also have to be added to the safety net to account for it. John cites having a child as another reason he and his wife needed to consider when planning to have a safety net covering 9 months to a year of income.

10:22 – Processing Emotions* It really helped John to try and move forward instead of looking backward. * There were times where he felt low, anxious, and angry at times. But there were some things he found were not helpful. + The question of why this happened was irrelevant. It happened, and answering the why behind it would not help John move forward. Any time spent thinking about that would not help him in his goal of getting a new position. + The question "why did this happen to me" seems more relevant but really isn’t in a mass layoff situation. John’s name was on a list based on a metric somewhere, and figuring out that metric would not help with the next position (i.e. no help in the short term). - John was intentional about not spending time on this. It was not denial or that he did not care. It did not help to put effort in to figure it out. + John had been with the company for nearly 4 years / a little over 3.5 years and feels that probably wasn’t long enough to say his identity was tied to being a Google employee (as may have been the case for others in this situation who had worked at Google for many years). + John looked at what he did at Google as a position, a job, a part of his career that he was super passionate about doing. If they did not want him there he could be super passionate about helping a different organization. - And he was fine with this fact. He could move on to the next exciting thing. + None of this was easy. It was just something he found himself being a little more even keeled about. - Things like "what did I do wrong" did not make sense to think about. It does not mean he didn’t think about it, but it was not a major focus on John’s time and efforts. * Nick imagines feeling angry is quite common in these situations and mentioned Brendon Burchard (author of High Performance Habits and founder of GrowthDay) recently did a podcast on anger for people who subscribe to GrowthDay. + Burchard highlights that anger is an emotion that is also very physical. + He recommends taking a break to do some kind of exercise to help get the anger out physically before we react. + Then think about what you really want from the situation. Design a request for what you want, and try to step into your best self when you do it (having the intention of doing no harm). + John has a document he wrote that details why he was upset at what happened, why it was an unjust situation, etc. + When John was upset he would open the document and check to see if he had written down the things he was upset about, and 95% of the time they already existed in the document. Thing like… - This was a stock price move from the Google side, but it didn’t affect stock price enough. - There was a bobble with Google’s artificial intelligence demo day that negatively impacted the stock price more than laying off 12,000 people positively impacted it. + Once all those things went into a document, and then it was about 80% cleansed from John’s system. - If someone asked why the layoffs happened, John could open the document and read from it. But he didn’t have to think about those things any longer. + John didn’t feel angry enough to seek out help from other people. If something like this was consuming you, get help. - Seek out a spiritual leader, a professional therapist, a friend or family member, etc. (many options). - Get some exercise to help with the stress. + You do not want to get to the point where the anger at the organization who let you go is dominating your life because it will not help you. - Do no harm to yourself. - Focus on the things that will help you like what your next position is going to be.

17:41 – Thinking of Options* John consciously set aside time to think about what he wanted to do next. He had several options. + Going into sales engineering for another company would require determining the company where that would be. John thought about interesting competition he’s had over the years, interesting news and press, etc. - John also did a brainstorming session on the types of pain companies are experiencing and the solutions in the marketplace that address these, etc. - John feels he could have done better over time by leveraging a living document to record companies and people he might be interested in working for some day. + Another option was being a manager on a sales engineering team. - John has been considering this since before he event went to Google Cloud (for a period of about 5 years). - While at Google Cloud, John started acquiring some of the skills necessary to become a manager (but not necessarily at Google Cloud). - It seemed overwhelming what front line managers were doing at Google. It seemed difficult with a lot of split attention. - John wanted to acquire the skills of helping someone to get better, how to onboard someone effectively, how to interview people to best understand whether they could do the job expected for the company. - These were all skills John could work on that made him a valuable employee at Google and that were portable, tying back to the tenant of adding professional skills. + John looked at tech marketing and developer relations and pretty quickly discarded them (but not because he didn’t find them interesting). - These are very front line roles and you represent the company more and more and could become the face for a product or an entire suite of products, for example. - We’ve talked to many people where that is the job. - John says he just hadn’t prepared for that job. He had not put in the time and effort to be front of mind for a role like this. - John didn’t have his finger in those kinds of activates so he could easily point to them and say he’s had one foot into tech marketing for a while (the proof of work that would show someone he had been doing it). - This was part of the reason for discarding this option as a strong one. Recruiters were not reaching out to him to discuss tech marketing roles and his interest in them. They were reaching out to discuss interest in sales engineering roles. - "If that was something that I wanted to do in the future, then I would need to change how I prepared in the present." – John White, on not being prepared for a shift into tech marketing - Nick says John would have needed to gain expertise for this area while he was working on something else just like the people interviewing.

22:20 – Resume Updates* John says updating his resume was fairly easy because he had been keeping it up to date. As he accomplished things with metrics (activities that he could point to, sales campaigns he had had a technical role in or that even originated from having a technical idea, etc.) he could showcase the major job skill these led to over time. + John had been keeping his eye on SE roles and the requirements people wanted in this type of role. He looked at more of the senior positions open out there as part of this research. + On LinkedIn John didn’t make a big post about being laid off, but he did flip the setting saying he is open to work and actively looking (to increase chances of being found by recruiters). * John wrote a resume that was specific to each job type he was targeting (sales engineering and sales engineering management). + In order to do this John needed to make sure all of the experience at each of the roles he’s had were up to date. + Then he made a job skills area like we talk about in Episode 203 on his different resume versions for a sales engineer on one and a sales engineering manager position on the other. * Some people may wonder why John considered both an individual contributor and a manager position. + The natural progression of someone who is a sales engineering role is not sales engineering manager. It’s a senior version of the sales engineering role. + John says there’s roughly 40% overlap between sales engineer and sales engineering manager (knowing the technology, knowing the skills, etc.) - You have to know (as a sales engineering manager) the skills needed to be a sales engineer and what good looks like in the role. But that’s not all there is to the position. + John also looked at what a major sales engineering role would look like, which branched out to things like maybe an early sales engineering hire at a startup or a high level sales engineer at a company out of the startup phase and into the growth phase with a possible transition into an upper level manager in line with organizational growth. * For the sales engineering manager resume, John added performance management. + John had a person report to him for a quarter who was just out of Google’s recent college graduate academy. + Large organizations who recognize talent shortages in sales engineering try to grow their own sales engineering talent by hiring new college graduates and training them in the discipline. + Part of that program at Google was rotating through field assignments. - John was basically the manager who was overseeing day to day work for the person in question. + John said it was an extremely positive experience that really helped cement some of the advice he had been given about being a manager like not doing the person’s job for them, not holding their hand for longer than a couple weeks, etc. - You can help the person begin to see different ways of doing things and start to pattern match across their experiences. + These kinds of things were very much on John’s mind when he wrote the sales engineering manager resume. * For the sales engineering resume, John emphasized coming up with a whitespace campaign. + The majority of John’s customers at Google Cloud were not Google Cloud customers. + John kept track of how he matched (from a technical standpoint) solutions from Google to the industry vertical / horizontal pain point the organization that was his customer might have. He helped find the people at those organizations who might be interested in learning more about how the solutions from Google address those pain points. - John tracked the statistics of these activities over time and adjustments made to campaigns. + John was adding the new activities and their statistics since working with this type of customer (new to Google) was not something he had previously done before his time at Google. * When John applied for jobs, he customized his resume even further to address specific requirements and skills from job descriptions for a specific company. + This involved sometimes adjusting words to use the same terminology or say something in the same way the job description he saw would say it.

30:19 – Leverage Your Professional Network* John went to his professional network. This means he first took the time to create that network. * John uses LinkedIn quite frequently to connect with people. + It’s helpful to keep up with people at his employer, especially after they move on to other roles. + John also makes it a point to keep up with people in the channel partner community as well. * John also thought about where the people in his network have worked and where they are now. That gave him an idea of the variety of organizations to which he might be able to get a recommendation. * Every time a recruiter had reached out to John in the past and the person had done their research, he tracked them in a list. + In the initial interaction he had told these people the position was interesting but that he was not on the market at present and happy where he was. + John reached back out to those recruiters and let them know his situation had changed and what he was targeting in a next job. - This ended up producing a number of interesting interactions and interviews. * John took the list of companies from his brainstorming session and reached out to people he knows who work for those companies to see what it’s like there. And if it sounded interesting he would ask that person for a referral. + This avenue also produced a number of interesting interviews. * You have to create that network ahead of time, and you have to keep it active over the years. + Reach out to people you know who switch jobs. Ask if you can help them in some way and to learn about what they are doing and how it is going. + You may be able to introduce that person to someone who can help them down the road. + Growing and maintaining your professional network may seem challenging, but it’s important, especially if you need to call on it to get help in an unexpected employment situation. * John feels maybe he should have made a LinkedIn announcement post but never felt stressed enough to need people’s sympathy at the time. He was looking for active help. + He was getting a little bit overwhelmed with active help in some ways. + There were a number of people reaching out to John who noticed he changed his profile to turn on the open to work flag, offering to help. + John considered making an announcement post but was too overwhelmed by already getting help. + Apart from this, people who knew John was at Google reached out to him about news of the layoff. * Many people were notified about the layoff at 2 AM. By 6 AM, everyone was frozen out of their accounts (no access to contact list, calendars, e-mail). + John managed to get into some teams group chats after seeing the notification between 2 and 2:30 AM about the layoff to say goodbye. + He doesn’t remember if he put his personal contact info in there for people to get in touch with him later. + It wasn’t like he had put in his two weeks notice and could send everyone his contact info on the last day. John found out unexpectedly, and it was too late to think of everything. + This event impacted people negatively in different ways. John still thinks of himself as fairly fortunate. * John did find a new position and was about 4-5 weeks into it as of this recording. You’ll have to wait for a future episode to hear the remainder of the story.

High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way

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Welcome to episode 219 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 2 of a discussion with Jason Langer, exploring his various stints as a people leader and the reasons for doing it, his move into product marketing and what that means, being technical in the tech industry, and how a leaving a job that made him unhappy and taking a break helped him bounce back even stronger.

Original Recording Date: 01-12-2023

Jason Langer is a Solutions Marketing Manager at Pure Storage who focuses on Pure Storage products as they relate to both VMware and cloud solutions. You can also catch up with Jason on Twitter – @thejasonlanger. If you missed the first part of our conversation with Jason, check out Episode 218.

Topics – Reflecting on Multiple Experiences as a Manager, Another Type of Management, A Move to Product Marketing, Marketing is Like Cloud, Being Technical In Technology, A Break in the Action, Boundaries and Going Back to Work3:24 – Reflecting on Multiple Experiences as a Manager* Jason was managing those business relationships with technology partners for the VAR at the same time he was managing the SE team (sales engineers / solution engineers). * Jason has managed people a few times in his career and is something he’s never aspired to do. Some people want to be in leadership and want to climb that ladder. It is not something Jason has ever felt compelled to do. * The times when Jason has managed people, it was sort of asked of him. * When Jason was director of the SEs within the datacenter space for the VAR, it was a mixture of him being asked to do it and him basically asking for it. + He had spent so much time trying to build the practice for end user computing. Now instead of focusing there Jason was focused on anything that landed in the datacenter. + The goal was to try and replicate some of the same processes, type and format of documents, etc. they had created for the end user computing practice in this new area. + Being a people leader too was more of a meeting in the middle that just made sense. * Another time in his career Jason was asked to manage people, and he agreed to do it. + Jason says he enjoys doing it and is happy to do it, but he does not feel like he must do it. * "Right now I am an individual contributor in my current role, and which is totally fine. It’s great." – Jason Langer, on people leadership as a career path + Jason shared that when he went to interview for his current role (an individual contributor at the time of this recording), he was asked about being a manager and had to help the recruiter and others understand he was completely fine with taking an individual contributor role. * Jason feels like he did ok at people management (but is also a pretty humble guy). * When he became a people leader, Jason reached out to his own mentors (people he trusted and looked up to), leaning on his professional network, for advice and some recommended books to read. + Jason kept thinking about what he did and did not want from his previous managers. - Jason didn’t want a micromanager, but he also did not want a manager that was not engaged. - Jason wanted a manager who would support him, someone who will defend him but also let him know when he has done something wrong. + After thinking about these things they sort of became Jason’s core systems / guiding principles of managing people. - Jason tried to be as open and honest with people as he possibly could, giving people straight answers and not tapdancing around important concerns. - Jason never tried to micromanage people. He would often give people a task / something the company wanted complete and then share the due date, not minding so much how people got there. He also understood life happens and that team members need flexibility in their schedules (i.e. the illustration of needing to go pick up your kids, etc.). - "I get it. Life happens. Especially managing a team during the pandemic…whoa. That was tough. That was mentally tough." – Jason Langer - In addition to being empathetic to not making the assumption people would be working every second of 8-5 every day, Jason did communicate the expectation of hitting due dates for task completion (flexibility with some accountability). - Jason also made himself available for questions or help if people needed it. Some might need extra assistance or a midweek check in. + Jason always did 1-1 meetings with people who reported to him, scheduling for every 2 weeks but making himself available if people needed them more frequently. - One thing Jason never liked (and still does not like) was managers consistently cancelling or moving 1-1 meetings. It made Jason feel like he was not a priority. Managers and employees know the agreed upon time for these meetings. - Jason is sure he had to cancel a few 1-1s when he was managing people, but he never tried to cancel them. He kept them when he and the employee said they were going to do them at the agreed upon frequency. - The 1-1 meeting was not meant to be a status report (keeping track with other tools). People could talk to Jason about whatever they wanted. It was their time. They owned the agenda. - "Let’s have a conversation….It’s their time (the employee). It’s not my time to dictate the conversation to them. I want them to come to me with whatever they want to talk about." – Jason Langer, on the purpose of 1-1s - Jason also tried to protect team meetings. He considered it his 1-many platform to communicate priorities for the team. The 1-1 was more about what people wanted / needed from him and how he could help remove obstacles for the person. + Nick suggests a manager could come to a 1-1 and have a couple of things they need to address, but there should be more time for the employee to go through their list. - "Don’t suck the air out of the room as a manager. You have enough opportunities to usually do that." – Jason Langer, in context of 1-1 meetings - There are cases where it’s a performance issue (i.e. people not completing work as expected). - Jason has always had really good teams and has always really liked his teams. Hopefully they have liked him as well. - Jason says he tried to promote having fun now and then and does not feel you must be serious all the time as a leader.

11:33 – Another Type of Management* Was it easier to make the move to a manager role (something less technical) because Jason had an interest in business and wasn’t concerned as much with deep details on the technology? Nick’s hypothesis is that when you’ve been extremely technical, it can challenging to take what is perceived to be a "less technical" role. + Jason isn’t quite sure. Maybe he did subconsciously. + If you recall, Jason likes writing documentation (which his 14-year-old self would balk at) and structure. At the VAR, he was driving the need to follow standards and processes, and to ensure those were followed it made sense to slide certain people under Jason’s management. * When Jason became a manager at VMware, he thinks it was different. This is what Jason calls act 3 of his career where he switched over to marketing. + Jason says he had a great boss at the time who he still keeps in touch with to this day. + When Jason joined this marketing team at first there were 5 people, and it grew to 15. No manager can have 15 direct reports. + Jason’s boss and the VP above her approached him about managing people. He was grateful to be presented with an opportunity and agreed to do it because they asked. + At the same time he agreed to make the move to manage people, he asked for things. - Jason asked for his manager’s full support. He also asked that they meet to determine success criteria. - "Managing marketers is probably completely different than managing SEs. It’s not really because it’s still just people management, but I didn’t know that until I got into it." – Jason Langer on managing a team of marketers

14:05 – A Move to Product Marketing* We’ve talked to a number of guests who went into technical marketing, but that’s not the kind of marketing Jason pursued. * When Jason shares with other folks in the industry that he is in marketing, they often assume he means technical marketing. It does not, however, mean Jason is not technical. There is a difference. * Putting in 8 years at the VAR, Jason had built his career around VMware and the surrounding ecosystem. He wanted to go work at VMware specifically (or the mother ship as some call it, where he and Nick eventually met). * Through working at GCSIT (the VAR) and attending VMware PTAB (Partner Technical Advisory Board), Jason developed a lot of relationships with people who worked for VMware. + Once again Jason used that network of connections to reach out to people and make it known that he wanted to come work at VMware. + A friend of Jason’s was a vSAN solution engineer (or SE) who was about to move to a new role. This friend told his boss they should hire Jason as his backfill. + After going through the interview process Jason got the job as a vSAN SE and did it for about 18 months. * Jason wanted to work at the mother ship but didn’t want to work within a sales organization the entire time. + At the time this was the easiest path to get into the company to later try to get into a business unit. + Many times it is easier to get an optimal role within a company after getting in first (then moving around). + Jason truly believes any good SE (solution engineer) is a good marketer and feels it is part of the job (knowing how to market yourself and the company’s products). + Jason wanted to take this to the next level. He wanted to get into a business unit to focus on the positioning of products and the messaging around them as well as the personas that buy software and outcomes they are looking to gain from the software. - These are all things Jason was already doing at the VAR and as a solution engineer at VMware. Ultimately you are trying to help someone get to a business outcome. + Jason went to the VP of the business unit in which he worked and a woman named Ishen. He told them if there was an opening he would be really interested in speaking to them about what it would take to get into a product marketing role. + After a few months they reached out to Jason and mentioned there was an opening. The specific role was directed around sales enablement for products like SRM (Site Recovery Manager), vSAN, and other products in the storage and availability category. + Jason had so much experience in these areas already it was an easy transition for a first product marketing role. + Jason knew the VP (Lee Caswell) and would take him on customer visits when he was in town. Jason had a comfort level with the VP before he reached out to "take his shot" to try and get into the marketing world. + Jason refers to this as the start of act 3 of his career.

18:20 – Marketing is Like Cloud* Jason says every company does product marketing a little different. He has exposure to how it was done at both VMware and Pure (each one slightly different from the other). * In product marketing (if done correctly in Jason’s opinion) you’re kind of in the middle of sales and product management. You work with different business units also when you’re crossing the portfolio or solution boundaries. You also work with different product marketing managers as well as with technical marketing. + You need to know where the messaging is coming from (product marketing teams). + You need to know things like product features and the roadmap on what is coming from product managers. + Then you put these things together and work with sales to come up with enablement plans. You also need to decide the mediums for these enablement plans (i.e. recordings,, webinars, tests, etc.). + It’s similar to the scenario of having many masters like when Jason managed the business relationship with partners. + You’re sort of in the middle because you get to work with these different teams. You get different pieces from each. Remember that Jason likes to build things. - Jason might talk to product teams to see what the market is driving and what the feature set is. - Then he would work with product marketing to work on messaging and positioning. + What about making pretty slides? Doesn’t Jason have to make pretty slides? - Jason does create a lot of slides (presentations), and he likes making diagrams. - It makes Jason smile when he sees a slide he created used by someone else. + Being in product marketing and having all of these interactions gives you a feel for how all the different layers of the cake are being made. * To Jason, marketing is like the word cloud. It can mean many things and reminds him of the cartoon The Smurfs and their use of the term "smurfing" for so many things. + The marketing Jason did at Vmware was all internal marketing. The things he and his team produced was for the audience of internal sellers or sales engineers (SEs). + There are marketing teams that do outbound marketing as well. This would be things such as coordinating webinars, blog posts, promoting conferences / participation in them, etc. + Marketing doesn’t mean any specific thing to anyone. It’s about how the company or organization within that company implements this function. + Technical marketing teams at VMware, for example, do internal work but also do a lot of external things too. + In Jason’s role at Pure in Solutions Marketing, it’s still marketing, but he is focused on solutions (VMware and Pure Storage in this case). He does things like webinars, makes blog posts, creates the content for infographics (which someone else will make look prettier), etc. - Some of Jason’s content is also used for internal enablement at Pure. Knowing VMware technologies is helpful to Pure employees, but it is not their main discipline. - For example, Jason might share content on how VMware SRM (or Site Recovery Manger) works with Pure Storage solutions both from an outcomes standpoint and also some technical stuff. + Marketing can mean cloud depending on how different organizations treat different things. - You could have true outbound marketing consisting of people who are creating content for the company’s website. This still comes from a marketing team. - Marketing might also create campaigns. They might use data from a CRM (or Customer Relationship Management) tool and use it to create 3 different e-mail templates that target decision makers, technology practitioners, and one other type of persona. There’s a lot that goes into this. + Sometimes people will tell Jason "oh, you’re in marketing. You’re not technical." Jason says he is still technical, but he doesn’t have to do the practitioner level of technical any longer. - "I still need to know how the solutions work. I still need to know the problem that it’s solving…kind of like an architect would, which would be viewed as technical. But now I’ve got to communicate it in a different way." – Jason Langer, on being in marketing and still being technical - Jason tells us going into marketing does not mean you have to give up your technical hat to focus on things like website impressions and Twitter statistics.

24:44 – Being Technical In Technology* What would someone who is quite technical as a practitioner right now but applies for this kind of role (i.e. product / solutions marketing) need to communicate to the hiring team to demonstrate the person can do the job? Or maybe there is some step in between? + Jason says he feels like the person would have already made steps in that direction without realizing it. + For example, early on in his career when Jason was working on all the certifications, he started writing blog posts. Marketing people write blog posts. At the time he was writing these posts, they were usually how-to articles that were quite technical. + Jason was already making steps toward where he is now in certain ways. His job description said one thing, but activities like blogging were a bit of a side hustle. + If a practitioner who was a systems engineer applied for a job that wanted 4 years of experience in marketing, that resume might not reach a hiring manager’s desk. + But, if you have been doing things on the side that which are really interesting and might represent some of the experience they are looking for in a marketing type role, you have to start making those connections for people. + Jason feels that is the route he took to get into his current role. For example, Jason had done blogging. He had been on some podcasts and had spoken at conferences such as VMworld. This shows he was more of an outgoing / outbound personality who wasn’t just focused on only knowing how to tweak certain technologies. - Nick says things like speaking at a conference session shows you know how to communicate something in a set amount of time based on a specific topic. - Submitting an abstract for a conference session is someone’s marketing attempt targeted at the people who pick what gets selected to happen at the conference. - It’s not just the abstract but the title as well. You can’t just toss something out that says "best way to do X." The title needs to be carefully thought out and catchy. Jason submitted a session, for example, called "Any which Way with Tanzu," which is a play on an old Clint Eastwood movie. - Jason says sometimes we take ourselves too seriously and encourages us to market ourselves the same way we might market a conference session. + Jason has seen more people who are technology practitioners slide into marketing via the Technical Marketing role, feeling it might be an easier change. - If you are a systems administrator or engineer today, there are technology user groups for VMware, Cisco, AWS, Microsoft, and many others who are always looking for presenters and content. You can submit a session to present in one of these places. - If you start doing that, people start to recognize you. And you can send abstracts to speak at different conferences. - "You’re doing that leg work. You’re doing that homework. You’re doing that extra side work to show that’s where you want to go…because if you want to go there you’re going to probably do that anyway." – Jason Langer on doing leg work to get into a marketing role - You’re likely not going to convince yourself that you can go into technical marketing if you’ve never written a blog post or developed technical architectures. You need some evidence of technical writing skills. - Many people Jason knows who went into technical marketing led user groups like VMUG first. These people gained speaking and presenting experience from it and later presented at conferences because they were a known name / entity. - "Just like anything else, there’s extra work that has to be put into it if that’s where you want to go." – Jason Langer + Nick says maybe the extra stop in technical marketing is what allows someone to learn more of the marketing specialty before they move into more of a product marketing type role. - Jason has a friend who was once his solution engineer (or SE) for Veeam. This person was a SE at VMware who came to work for came to work for Jason as a Product Marketing Manager. - This person was a "deep product guy," wanting to know what the features were, what the roadmap was, and why those things were selected to get prioritized as part of the product roadmap. - These are the types of things a product manager does, and this person is now a product manager at VMware. Now this person is dictating the roadmap and feature set for a product he was passionate about. - There are some interesting steps here. When Jason hired this person as a product marketing manager, he had a feeling the person would do it for a couple of years and then go do something else. That’s exactly what happened. + This is similar to when Jason used to hire SEs at the VAR. - "If you’re good at this job, I only expect you to be here for 2 years, maybe 3. And the reason for that is the vendors are going to find out that you’re good. And they’re going to come poach you." – Jason Langer, speaking to SE applicants at the VAR - Jason lost employees to HPE, Veeam, and other vendors. But he sees it as a good thing because he knew the people were growing and going on to the next thing. + Jason tells us marketing doesn’t have to be the end game for him or anyone. Once you get into a business unit a whole new world of possibilities opens up. - "Having technical chops accelerates your ability to quickly impact and deliver on different things within a product group." – Jason Langer, on getting into a business unit * Nick thinks with Jason’s technical chops he could easily slide into technical marketing if he wanted or back to being a practitioner. + Jason says he still reads technical things and that we don’t have to shut off the technical part of our brain. + If you’re working at Nick, Inc. as a systems administrator, you can go become the enterprise architect. But, there are new skills you’re going to need to hone and work on. - You need to know how to write, how to create diagrams, and how to communicate. - "Now you’re selling to your internal CIO and CTOs on why you need to do something." – Jason Langer on being an enterprise architect + Being in tech doesn’t mean you have to be technical. Jason’s wife works in IT at Starbucks but does not feel she is technical. But she’s still in technology. + "You don’t have to be the speeds and feeds person. You don’t have to be the ‘I know how to configure this person.’ You can do a lot of different things in technology and still be involved in technology…and probably scratch a lot of the itches you’re looking for." – Jason Langer on technology career options.

33:29 – A Break in the Action* Jason’s 4-year anniversary at VMware was his last day there. He went to go work for a smaller company where a former manager of his was working. * This is another example of where relationships were important in Jason’s career. Jason is a very loyal person and really trusted his former manager. * Jason’s former manager had gone to another company (a smaller company) to build a product marketing management team at a company focusing on the database market and wanted Jason to come as well. + Jason had focused previous to this on servers and storage but had not focused in the database market. And he made the move. + "If you’ve been doing your career long enough, sometimes you zig when you should have zagged, and this was a scenario where I should have zagged." – Jason Langer reflecting on a career decision + Jason tells us it did not work out with some of it being him and some of it being them (this other company). + At this point Jason was starting to feel a little burned out. He had been working since age 20. The pandemic did not help matters. + Jason knew it wasn’t working out and was not happy. He had a conversation with his wife, who has always supported his career. - "This isn’t working out for me. I’m not very happy. I just need a break. I just need to collect myself a little bit." – Jason Langer on being unhappy after a career move and the next step - Jason’s wife supported this decision. * Jason took 3 months off, and it was great. + He started taking time for himself, got outside, and started going to the gym again. + Jason did all the things people say they want to do when they are working from 7 AM to 6 PM and too tired and unmotivated to do. + Jason is grateful to his wife for letting him do it. His parents are retired, lived close by, and he would pick them up and take them on road trips for a day. + One thing Jason would not let himself do was sit at home and watch TV all day. He wanted to make something of the time. This was summer time in Seattle (no excuse not to be outside). + "It was really good, and it put me into the right mindset for when I came back into the workforce." – Jason Langer on his experience taking a break from working + When Jason took the break, he did not know what he wanted to do next, knowing only that he did not want to stay employed where he was. + Similar to when he was laid off earlier in his career, Jason felt he would find something when he needed to get back to work. + If Jason was set on managing people, it makes his options automatically narrower. + "I just want to go work somewhere where I’ve got a good culture of people and I think the work is going to be enjoyable…but I’m not going to work myself to death." – Jason Langer on his mindset in approaching getting that next job - There are factors we don’t discuss here that could come into play for people like a specific salary they want or title they may be after, etc. + The only thing Jason really did think is that he would end up at VMware, a company that has been so good to him in its products that helped build his career. And he really enjoyed his time there as an employee. - But it didn’t work out this time. - Jason feels like he landed in a great spot with a great boss. And he’s in a culture he really enjoys. - "I feel very fortunate that I was able to do that break and then land somewhere that’s a really good fit…for me…hopefully for them too, but for me." – Jason Langer on finding a great job after taking a break

38:31 – Boundaries and Going Back to Work* Jason knew going into the break what was important to him. Early in his career the technology was in the top 1 or 2 spot of importance for him (something to learn, build expertise in, talk about, etc.). * This time around the technology was less important in his list (around item 5 in priority)

+ If the technology really excites you but you’re miserable at work, it isn’t worth it. Think about where the technology needs to rank to keep yourself satisfied in some other areas.
+ Jason didn’t want to be on a phone call or Zoom from 7:30 AM until 6 PM in the evening. He wanted pieces of his personal life back.
+ Nick references Brendon Burchard‘s advice to add things to your day that replenish energy if you have many things that suck it away to avoid a complete drain by the end of the day.
+ If it’s the right audience, Jason might take a conference call while on a walk (assuming he does not have to present something). He encourages us to know the audience if we are going to do this (i.e. not if there is a VP on the call, for example).
+ It’s nice to get out of the 4 walls we’re inside and go touch some grass.

How did Jason know it was time to go back to work?
- When Jason first spoke to his wife about this, he assured her that he would go back to work at some point. They did not set a specific timeline, however.
- People had sent Jason job postings for various companies they thought he should investigate further. One of the companies was Pure Storage, and there were a few others.
- Reading the description of the job he eventually ended up in at Pure, Jason thought it would be an excellent fit.
- Jason was doing interviewing for some jobs that sounded really fun and interesting, but through his past experience in working for the VAR, he knew enough about the culture of the companies to feel they would be good places to go (based on everything he had heard).
- Once he got the offer from Pure, he asked them to delay the start date just slightly so he could round out a full 3 months off. They were fine with it.
- After coming back to the workforce, Jason has structured his schedule a bit differently. Keep in mind this might not work for everyone everywhere but is worth considering.
- The first thing Jason did was set the boundaries. He blocked his calendar to prevent taking / scheduling meetings before 8:30 AM. In fact, those get auto-declined.
  - Jason tries to go to the gym every morning. That is the intention (to get some workout time in before the workday begins). He knows he won’t go at lunch or after work. Structuring this for mornings brings a greater success rate.
  - Jason set this boundary day one and communicated it to his teammates. After sharing his intention to go to the gym and be ready to go by 8:30 AM, the boss and teammates were super supportive.
- Jason also tried to make sure he ended his day around 5:30 or 6 PM. It may not always happen due to the nature of work (i.e. we sometimes have to work late), but Jason tries to follow this schedule to allow himself to go touch grass.
  - Jason works 100% remotely and has for almost 10 years now. He tries to allow himself opportunity to go outside or for a walk around the block.
  - Working remotely like this you have to do things that will keep you from losing your mind (i.e. must keep sane since you’re not going to an office).
- Jason tells us to set the boundaries if we can up front and to know our management and greater audience.
  - Now when Jason takes a vacation he turns off e-mail on his phone.
  - Try to disconnect, and don’t check work messages (e-mail / Slack, etc.). If he’s off for 4 days, Jason is off for 4 days.
  - "If you want me to be at 100% of what you want me to do when I’m here, I need this time to be disconnected." – Jason Langer on disconnected vacations
  - Nick says if you’ve never done this (taken a disconnected vacation), you should do it!
- The above is a conversation with your manager to set those expectations.
  - Jason feels like most managers are good (despite having some not so good ones in his time) and has never had one say no to this request.
  - Tell them (your manager) what your plan is, and it can make those conversations about boundaries with vacation (or something else) a lot easier. It shows you at least thought it through.
- Reach out to Jason on Twitter Jason Langer if you have questions or want to follow up on this episode.
- Jason has had many people help him in his own career and is happy to pay it forward for others.
- It only took Nick bumping into Jason while he was eating lunch to get Jason on the show. Watch out for the ask to be a guest if you have an interesting story to share!
- Mentioned in the outro
- Jason adopted a similar attitude to Don Jones in regard to wanting what was best for people under them, even if it meant they needed to move on to another company or job. Check out Episode 137 and Episode 138 for more detail.
- Should we be communicating the intent behind our boundaries when we discuss them?
- Go back and listen to Episode 140 with guest Eric Brooker regarding disconnected vacations. You can also hear part 1 of Eric’s story for context in Episode 139.

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Welcome to episode 218 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 1 of a discussion with Jason Langer, detailing his early career in phone support, learning and gaining experience in various technologies, surviving a layoff, working for a VAR (Value Added Reseller), a move to architecture, and his time spent managing the EUC practice for the VAR.

Original Recording Date: 01-12-2023

Topics – Meet Jason Langer, Hard Concepts in Simple Terms, Working for the Mouse, Asking for More Opportunities, Dealing with a Layoff, Architecture and Optimization, Manage the Practice and the People, Attractiveness of VAR Life2:45 – Meet Jason Langer* Jason Langer is a Solutions Marketing Manager at Pure Storage who focuses on Pure Storage products as they relate to both VMware and cloud solutions. You can also catch up with Jason on Twitter – @thejasonlanger. * Jason’s first tech job was doing phone technical support for a company called Sierra Online (a video game company) back in 1999 (making $6 per hour). His job was helping people make bootable DOS disks to play classic video games like Red Barron or Leisure Suit Larry. + Jason was a gamer in his youth (had an Atari 2600), and his first computer was a Commodore 64. + Jason built his first computer in the early 90s because he could not afford to buy an off the shelf model. He’s currently looking at a water cooled PC for his gaming these days. + Jason thanks his parents for getting that first computer (on which he and his brother would constantly play games). + When Jason bought that first PC, his parents co-signed on a loan for it in order to teach him how credit worked. And Jason has always been thankful for that. - Is this foreshadowing something we cover later?

6:05 – Hard Concepts in Simple Terms* In the phone support job at Sierra Online, Jason was working with end users who were game players. + Jason says it was phone support, but people were encouraged to e-mail support personnel. He would often be sharing specific DOS commands that were easier to understand if someone could see them. + Doing phone support like this made you very good at describing things. - Jason went on from here to do phone support for Starbucks. + At the time Jason worked for the video game company technologies like screen sharing and even USB did not yet exist. He was dealing with things like parallel ports in the Windows 95 / 98 days to interoperate with flight simulator games his company made. * Jason says he learned a ton from this first position, and it led to doing technical support for Starbucks stores. + In the role at Starbucks, if there was a problem with a terminal, Jason might need to walk someone through how to reboot a modem that controlled the store’s connection back to the corporate headquarters. He would have to walk the person (usually someone without a technical background) through troubleshooting processes like this using only verbal descriptions. + Other users might call because they needed help with Microsoft Office, for example. * It was about a two year period across both companies doing phone support and a great experience according to Jason. + One lesson Jason has carried throughout his career is that people who have worked in a technical support role have probably been called some of the worst things by frustrated people. He can usually spot people who have had this experience. Technical support personnel have a lot of scars from trying to help people. * Nick thinks as you solve more and more problems for people over the phone like this it becomes easier to quickly detect the level of technical savviness of the person on the other end of the line and cater your explanation to the level of detail needed. + "You have to explain hard concepts in very simple terms. And you start digging through your bag of analogies or things that are going to cross a lot of gaps for folks. " – Jason Langer on catering your technical explanation to your audience + People also may not mean the same thing when they use a word that you do. It’s good to check that.

10:56 – Working for the Mouse* Jason tells us we’re going to hear a pattern of relationships throughout his career. * "Doing phone support jobs usually only leads to potentially only more phone support jobs unless you find a way to break out of that." – Jason Langer * Being at Starbucks, Jason got into more "actual IT" or corporate IT type role. + Windows Active Directory did not exist at this time. Jason started to learn more about Netware and file shares and permissions, thinking it was kind of cool. + Jason was working graveyard shifts (or the overnight shifts) in his time at Starbucks. He bought a Windows NT 4 book pertaining to a professional certification, the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer or MCSE. When the phone was not ringing at night, he would be studying and learning. * Jason’s brother had a friend who was a systems administrator for Disney Internet Group (which at the time was called go.com). This company (located in Seattle where Jason resides) hosted the web properties for the Walt Disney Company. + The company needed a backup jockey (someone in charge of running server data backups), and Jason applied for it and got the job. + Jason officially became the backup guy for Disney back in 2000. The servers were all physical (no virtualization in use). Jason was in charge of backing up around 2000 servers to tape , sending the data offsite, and doing recovery operations. It was here Jason started gaining experience in Windows system administration. + Jason’s pay by taking this job went from roughly $12 per hour at Starbucks to around $20 per hour here (again…in the year 2000). Often times career moves are for exposure to new interesting work but at the same time also bring more compensation. + For Jason, this time period was about learning new skills. + He worked with technologies like BackupExec and Networker to take backups, a HPE virtual storage array, and others. + "Hey, you’re the backup guy. That’s kind of data related, so why don’t you learn a little more about storage?" – Jason Langer, on being able to learn adjacent areas to backup technologies + Jason kept being presented with opportunities to learn about new technologies in this role. When asked if he could go and do it, he kept saying yes to the opportunities. - This started him down a path of a number of different certifications. - Jason remembers when the HPE SAN (storage area network arrived). The user manual was printed and sitting on his desk. His immediate thought was "I guess I’m learning this."

17:02 – Asking for More Opportunities* Though presented with many opportunities to learn new things in the early days, Jason doesn’t feel he really began to ask for those opportunities until he got a little further along and more comfortable in his career (or got his "sea legs" so to speak – possibly after he went to Microsoft). * There was a large layoff at Disney of around 40% of operating staff when the .com bubble burst (right before Christmas one year). He remembers being escorted to a large conference room one day after arriving at work to receive the news. * Jason was then unemployed and ended up getting a job at Microsoft. They were building out datacenters for Xbox Live at the time (a technology which had not yet launched), and they were looking for someone to work on the back end storage systems (SANs) to support this effort. + Feeling more comfortable after getting the job at Microsoft, Jason would ask how he could help with / get involved in certain projects. He had experience in the area and didn’t feel so much like "the new guy." - There was so much work to do. The first year it was about building out the datacenters for the Xbox live launch in the following year. + Jason was working at Microsoft as a vendor and not a fully badged employee. Since he was not a badged employee, certain projects and activities were restricted to only being worked on by in-house Microsoft employees. And Jason understood this. He has always tried to understand what is happening around him (and not assume things are there as a slight). + If you’re asking for specific opportunities and being told no, Jason says we should keep in mind management may have someone specific in mind for the project. Jason suggests asking your manager what you could to do be better positioned for the next opportunity, what you might need to learn, or what gaps you might need to fill. + "You have to take control of your career sometimes, but you also have to know when to do that." – Jason Langer, on asking for additional opportunities / work - If you’re not in good standing or something with the boss, it may not be the right time. - If it was something you really wanted to do / was important to you and you want to know, ask for those questions. This applies to promotion situations as well, for example. - There are many ways to stay active in asking for what you want. You could even offer to shadow the person who is going to be doing specific work or offer to sit in meetings and only listen. - Nick says if you do not ask for what you want, it is very possible your boss or the person leading the project does not know you wanted it. If you ask you are going to at least get an answer (which may not be what you wanted). And if the "best" option is not possible maybe some option at least is. - Jason says we should not always take it as a definitive no. Follow up and ask some questions. Each situation is different, and it may require that we accept the no / do not press to hard and move on.

23:05 – Dealing with a Layoff* Of course you take a layoff situation somewhat personally according to Jason. * In his scenario, he made it to the 3rd wave of layoffs. + At first, Jason told himself he was the only guy that did the SAN work and the backup work, wondering who was going to do that if he was impacted. That line of thinking only lasted until the 3rd round of layoffs. + Jason tells us to keep in mind that usually layoffs are not personal (unless maybe you’ve done something wrong at work). If you’re a good worker, it may just come down to number crunching in Finance. Don’t take it personally. + Jason had confidence in his skillset and knew he would find a job. + Jason was laid off in November. He and his wife had a huge Thanksgiving coming up and a huge Christmas holiday trip with family planned. + Jason knew he likely would not get any job interviews for at least a month because of the holidays. The goal in his mind was a February timeline for a new job. + Jason and his wife were careful about their spending habits, and he worked on additional certifications to stay busy. + Jason leaned on his professional relationships and would talk to others. This was before things like LinkedIn and Twitter. He ended up starting at Microsoft in January (out of work a total of 2 months). + At the time Jason wasn’t extremely mindful of the economic situation and whether many companies were laying people off. He trusted himself, feeling he was better than average in the industry, and felt he would find something. + "It’s business. It’s not a reflection on you." – Jason Langer, on layoffs + Being laid off doesn’t mean you’re a poor worker or that someone had it out for you. + Nick has not been through it but has known people who have, and there a lot of emotions that come up. He feels it has to be super hard not to question whether there is something wrong with you. * Getting laid off was one of the best financial things that ever happened to Jason and his wife. + They had a house payment, 2 car payments, call phones, the most expensive internet package, and the biggest cable tv package. To this point they had been "keeping up with the Jones’." + Jason took the severance check and paid off his wife’s car, and they turned off their cable. Jason has not had cable tv since about 2002. They have also never had 2 car payments at the same time after this instance. + Jason reiterates not to take the layoff personally, reiterating the sun will come up again and that people will find other (and potentially better) jobs. We should definitely lean on personal connections in these cases. * When Jason started at Microsoft, he brought along two of his colleagues who had also been laid off from Disney. + After being hired Jason found they needed 2 more people. Jason told them he knew the exact people they needed (his friends Steve and Mike). + They worked a lot and on many a fun project, and working with friends made it a good time. + If you have questions or want to talk more, contact Jason on Twitter @thejasonlanger.

28:14 – Architecture and Optimization* Jason is a big movie buff and calls the move to more of an architect role more of an act 2 of his career. + Act 1 would contain the work he did in phone support, the work on Xbox Live for Microsoft, and maybe a couple of other experiences sprinkled in there. In the latter part of act 1 he was doing the work of what we would call a systems administrator. - There was project work certainly, but Jason feels the work of a systems administrator (or sysadmin) is mostly break fix work. A lot of times you are focused on helping someone fix a problem (i.e. a server is not working, etc. + When Jason moved into act 2 of his career and got into more of an architect role, he moved to working for a VAR (Value Added Reseller) and worked as a consultant. - Jason ended up switching jobs a lot around this time. And he figured out that he liked to build things (perhaps not surprising with him liking Legos as a kid and later building PCs). - Jason doesn’t really like maintaining things (sitting there and waiting for something to break or waiting for the latest updates, for example). - This got him into VAR life. It was a progression from doing (generally) break fix work to having business outcome conversations or getting into problem solving on a larger scale for customers. - Sometimes there were smaller problems to fix, of course, but it could be meeting with banking executives who needed help developing a business continuity and disaster recovery plan and didn’t care as much about the technical details of what was inside it. The focus was more on meeting the requirements. - The conversations where very much business outcome-focused and how to achieve them. This is where the architecture piece came in…understanding and knowing how a given technology solution (a set of hardware / software products, for example) could be used to deliver the outcomes people who were paying the bills cared about. * This is the type of work Jason was doing at GCSIT. He started out as a "deployment guy" and later moved to architecture work. + You get the technical "chops" through speeds and feeds conversations certainly. But you start thinking about how to engage with managers, directors and vice presidents (VPs) though trying to build up the conversationalism. + Certainly we tease that architects make pretty diagrams. They certainly do that, but that is only part of it. + To do the work of an architect and have meaningful conversations with leaders, Jason says the passion has to be there. - "If you’re not into it, you’re not into it. You’re not going to go there. That’s not your path or your career arc." – Jason Langer, on the desire to become an architect + Jason also got more involved on the business side of thing for the VAR also. This helped him think more about how businesses are working. + Jason still had the passion for the technology, but he didn’t need (or want) to know every checkbox and setting for a given technology. He had also been in tech for about 15 years at this point. + Jason started thinking about how he might advance and have more meaningful conversations. + He also really enjoys writing documentation, which is an element of an architect’s job. It’s not just making diagrams but a lot of documenting and writing. - Jason says he never would have guessed that he would enjoy writing the documentation as much as he did. + Jason was focused more on business value and business cases and less on having the "stump the chump" conversations. * When Jason was doing deployments at the VAR, at first he was not given a deployment plan by someone in an architect role. + It was not for lack of trying but rather that everyone was moving so fast. + Over time at the consulting firm Jason progressed to architect, became a practice manager, and then eventually became the head of the systems team. + With exposure to larger opportunities / projects and larger customers, Jason came to understand technical documentation was an expected deliverable. Go back to Jason’s example of the banking customer that wanted implementation guides as part of an engagement. + The team Jason was on became more process oriented, and he helped develop some of the improvements the firm made. - By this time, implementation engineers had some guidelines and diagrams to help them understand the expectations and not need to start from scratch. This was especially important because the person who sells the solution, the person who designs the solution, and the one who implements the solution are not usually the same within a given organization. They would often have handoff / turnover meetings to make sure everyone was on the same page since no one would own something beginning to end. + Jason began to develop relationships with others who worked for technology partners inside the VMware ecosystem. Even though many were competitors in some way, learning about processes other companies used causes you to reflect on your own processes and likely was a contributing factor to the process optimization we heard Jason describe.

35:44 – Manage the Practice and the People* We talked about the delineation between types of technology partners in Episode 165 with guest Andrew Miller. * Since Jason held the title of practice manager, what exactly did that entail? + Fun fact – Andrew Miller worked with Jason Nash, who eventually became a mentor to Jason (Langer). This hits on the theme of relationships that Jason mentioned earlier in the discussion. + Jason has seen the practice manager role implemented in different ways. At first he was a practice manager for end user computing as it related to VMware technologies (Horizon, Workspace ONE, etc.). + Jason had to consider how to - Get the right training for the engineers that worked at the VAR to be competent in pre-sales, post-sales, design, and architecture - Come up with a standardized bill of materials - Determine which pieces of software and hardware would be in the company’s solution portfolio + Jason was focused on running the practice like its own business unit or entity that would bring in end user computing revenue through the various offerings (consulting, deployment, sell the solution to a company who will deploy on their own, etc.). - Jason would meet with representatives from different technology companies that made up the VAR’s portfolio (VMware, Dell, NVIDIA, etc.). - "In the VAR world you have many masters because everybody wants you to sell their thing." – Jason Langer, on life as a practice manager at a VAR + Partners exist to help technology companies achieve greater reach (help with deployments of the technology but also scale the sales force to reach more customers). The partner ecosystem is important for technology vendors that use the channel for sales. + As practice manager, Jason had to come up with business plans and figure out how to position the VAR’s solution portfolio. He would need to consider how the company would do assessments, what statements of work would look like for services, etc. - It was a little bit of the architecture he had done in his previous experience and some business elements like how the company would make money on services and solutions they sold. * At the time he was a practice manager the engineers (or SEs) did not report to Jason. It was more like a dotted line. + Jason might help with pre-sales conversations or ensure training was conducted / completed for the team, but he was not their manager. He didn’t approve time cards, encourage people to take time off, or any of those types of things. + Jason was also ensuring the AEs (account executives / account managers / salespeople) were trained on use cases for the portfolio of solutions inside the EUC practice Jason managed. * After serving as end user computing practice manager for a while, Jason ended up running the SE organization for the systems side of the VAR. + There were networking personnel who worked on routing and switching, and there were systems personnel who worked on servers and storage. * Jason ended up managing the business relationships with the technology partners that his VAR would resell (i.e. those technologies inside the solution portfolio like Veeam, Pure, Dell EMC, VMware, etc.). + These technology companies would want Jason and the VAR where he worked to do a certain amount of activity to promote their products (webinars, conferences, etc.). Trying to keep everyone happy made for strange bedfellows. + Jason says it was fun and feels the VAR was successful at it. They even won an award for their VMware practice at one point. + Despite the working with technology partners being fun, it could also be a headache. Sometimes Jason would have to have some uncomfortable conversations with people (keeping in mind it s not personal but just business). He tried to be up front, honest, and kept his word. + The technology partners would want to have a specific number of SEs at the VAR certified on their platform to help the VAR stand out as having a services competency, for example.

41:57 – Attractiveness of VAR Life* For listeners out there looking to gain certifications, working for a VAR as a consultant or SE could be a viable next steps. Those VARs need the certifications to help with relationships with other technology partners. + Jason says there are financial reasons for a lot of this that make it nice. + When Jason made the move to the VAR originally, he had been working on certifications. At the time he wanted to make VMware technologies more of his career. + It was very attractive that Jason came to the VAR with the certifications already (such as the VCP or VMware Certified Professional). They did not need to pay to send him to training or pay for testing. Many technology certifications require classroom training as part of the certification. + Jason tells us it is a good career arc to move from working as a customer (as a system administrator or sysadmin) to a VAR and that he learned a ton. There were many things he had no idea he was getting into when he made the change. + Jason got the opportunity to interview with some VARs through a relationship he made while working at Microsoft. Someone Jason worked with at Microsoft introduced Jason to a woman who managed the Seattle area VARs for VMware. - Jason sent her his resume, and she did the work of getting his resume out to VARs in the area. - Though Jason considers himself above average, he feels fortunate to have made relationships like this one which have done so much for his career. Being a people person is important, and it’s become a lot easier in the last 10 years to build those bridges.

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Welcome to episode 217 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 2 of a discussion with Kristen Carder, talking through ADHD from a leader’s perspective, behavioral trends in people with ADHD, the start of Kristen’s coaching career, and how she became a podcaster.

Original Recording Date: 02-06-2023

Kristen Carder is a complete ADHD nerd and says she is obsessed with ADHD and how it affects adults. Kristen has been studying ADHD for about 10 years and has worked exclusively with adults with ADHD for the last 4 years. If you missed part 1 of our discussion with Kristen, be sure to check out Episode 216.

Topics – The Leader’s Strengths and Weaknesses, Giving Time and Attention and Presence, Operating Manual for the Self, ADHD in Tech and the Challenge of Getting Help, Becoming a Coach, Developing Expertise, Curriculum Builder, Hosting a Podcast4:36 – The Leader’s Strengths and Weaknesses* Kristen says being in a leadership role with ADHD is going to take a hefty amount of self-awareness and self-acceptance if you intend to do it well and without burning yourself out. + Leaders with ADHD may want to hide it and ensure no one finds out about the ADHD individual’s struggles with details, time management, and deadlines. What can often happen is a sense of guilt and shame in who the leader really is underneath everything. + One of the ways Kristen combats this and encourages clients to combat it is make piece with who you are. While it sounds simple to say, Kristen believes this is the work of our lives. This starts with really understanding what your strengths and weaknesses are. + If you can understand that you’re in the leadership role for a reason, it gives you perspective. Kristen uses herself as an example. - It probably isn’t that she is amazing at managing her time. - It’s probably that she’s very creative, she solves problems quickly, and she can do many things at one time. - Knowing all your strengths helps you understand why a company is really paying you. + Your weaknesses could be supported by someone in a different position, some kind of assistant, or some other form of accountability. + Kristen recommends being willing to share your weaknesses even if you don’t want to share your ADHD diagnosis. - Sharing your ADHD diagnosis is a different animal altogether. There is no obligation that you share that with anyone. - If you are going to share the diagnosis, Kristen recommends understanding who you’re talking to – whether they are a safe person, whether they have a track record of being understanding or critical p/ dismissive, etc. - Kristen has heard people say things like "everyone has ADHD now / everyone is on medication." Beware of people who make statements as it really shows you who you can and cannot share information with. + There is a way to share your weaknesses and the things with which you struggle without revealing you have an ADHD diagnosis. + Kristen is open about ADHD because it’s her life’s work. - She recommends thinking about why you want to share the fact that you have ADHD with someone. - In the United States you are covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act if your ADHD is severe enough, which may be a reason to disclose it to an employer. - The decision to share your diagnosis is individual and very personal. + Once your strengths and weaknesses are known, find the people who can work with you to support the weaknesses. Kristen uses herself as an example. - Kristen tells us she has a team of people managing her and that her company would not exist otherwise. - There are 2 people who work very closely with Kristen on tasks like managing her calendar, ensuring e-mails are responded to, and even sit with Kristen while she does the things she hates to do. - Kristen shares the story of having a contractor who had to be paid by paper check only. When it is time to do this, Felicia on her team has to make her do it. - "I’m running a 7-figure company. Why can’t I just write a check? Because I don’t want to. That’s not what I actually get paid for. That’s not what I’m actually growing my business for….I need support with the easy things so I can get the hard things done. And every ADHD leader is going to resonate with that." – Kristen Carder - People with ADHD are able to achieve amazing things that people wonder…"how are you able to do that?" But they may not be able to get their dishes done or get to a meeting on time. They are going to need support with the little details.

11:12 – Giving Time and Attention and Presence* John likes the idea of sharing weaknesses with the people you work with and putting some structures in place. It’s the life’s work that is embracing that part of yourself. * Kristen says this can be extremely difficult. Those with ADHD have been shamed since they were toddlers for the fact that they are unable to do the easy stuff (putting a backpack away, turning in a paper, transitioning from video games to homework, etc.). "Why can’t you just (insert comment here)?" + Because of this shame being carried over the years, Kristen tells us it is hard for the ADHDer to advocate for themselves and to communicate their needs to others. + There is a fear of being told you’re stupid or that some judgement will come from others for asking for help on something so simple. Think back to Kristen’s example of needing support / accountability to write the check. + When clients get down on themselves about not being able to do something they believe they should be able to do, she has to remind them to think again. It is the basics, the things we might consider very simple, with which the ADHDer struggles (despite their ability to do incredibly complex things with ease). + John says we don’t understand how much effort something takes someone else (even if we might categorize it as "easy"). + John was thinking about how hard it can be for anyone to ask for accommodations. People with physical disabilities might find it hard to say they can’t walk the same speed as others and that the pace needs to be slowed. + We need to be more thoughtful about the hidden things. If it’s in your brain that isn’t externalized like someone sitting in a wheelchair is. People don’t wear an ADHD flag on their back to let everyone else know or to serve as a reminder that they need help. * Kristen says the most vulnerable part of the disorder is being willing to ask for what you need. You recognize what you need, make peace with what you need, and then you have to externalize it (and ask for help). * "We’ve started creating actual meetings for the tasks that I just hate to do. My team just gathers, and they just sit there. And I do the thing, and they are there with me." – Kristen Carder, on getting support from her team + This is called body doubling. Kristen sees her team there in the meeting, and it helps her stay on task. + Kristen wants to do the hard stuff on her own (walk around, take notes, etc.). But for the "easy stuff," she needs to do it in a group. + "I need to write these 4 e-mails. I don’t want to do it. Please, somebody sit with me while I do this." – Kristen Carder, on having a body double to hold space for her + Kristen only hires people who are empathetic and understanding and who are willing to help with the smaller things so she can get the hard stuff accomplished. + Not everyone has this luxury, of course. You won’t always work on a team of empathetic people. It may be time to find some new people or a different place to work. + Nick feels like he has seen a part of the body doubling happen and mostly been on the support side. He feels like supporting someone in that way helps them to de-escalate situations. + Kristen says you don’t even need to be a participant. You can (for kids with ADHD, for example) just sit with them and do your own thing. And you might need to get onto the person if they pick up their phone, and tell them to get back to work. + For the parents of children with ADHD out there, offering to sit with your child who struggles to complete homework can be very helpful (even if you pretend to do something / work on something as you sit there). - "While you do your work, I’m going to do my work….And when you get really frustrated, I’m just going to breathe with you. We’ll take 5 deep breaths together, and then we’ll get back to work. It’s an amazing tool." – Kristen Carder - Nick says this is the gift of your presence (as a parent in this case). - "Hey, I’m with you. I know you’ve got to do the work. I can’t do the work for you, but I’m with you in it. I’m here." – Kristen Carder describing a beautiful picture of humanity and the gift of being present with someone else + Nick remembers as a kid his mom would sit up with him while he finished his homework. She would just be there and be present to support him, and he’s never forgotten it. - Nick shares that now his daughter often needs the same thing from him, even when he’s tired. "Tough it up, man" is what he has to tell himself in those moments because she needs him. + John says time and attention are two of the most powerful gifts we can give.

19:28 – Operating Manual for the Self* John asked if Kristen has come across the idea of publishing an operating manual for your team which describes how you work, the strengths you have and how you can support them, and the areas where you need support from the team. + Kristen has not come across it formally but loves the idea of it. + To be able to write something like that down you have to know something about yourself. And it might be worth going through this exercise even if you never publish the manual. Think about… - How do I work best? - What do I actually need? - What supports would work best for me? + If we’re going to share such a manual with others, Kristen advises that we should know who we are giving it to in advance. + There are two types of people in the world, safe people and unsafe people. - A safe person is going to read this and appreciate the opportunity to learn more about you. They are going to make an effort to refer to the manual, trying to work with you in the most effective way. - An unsafe person is going to think it’s strange. They are going to treat it more like a "thanks but no thanks" kind of thing. + Kristen tells us that knowing the audience is key because we cannot control how others will respond. + John says he heard about this from Jim Hogan at Google (someone with the principal title, also on the spectrum). John remembers hearing a talk Jim gave about this concept of the self-manual which detailed how Jim preferred to be scheduled for meetings, best communication methods for reaching him and working with him effectively, etc. - For example, John knows he tends to go on and on with his stories, and if he was managing a team, he would tell them to feel free and interrupt him with "hey, I get it." + Thinking about this again, Kristen thinks handing something like this to people who work for you is awesome. She was picturing handing it to colleagues at first. - Leaders could hand this to people and tell them it’s a way for others to make the most of the relationship with that leader, and it also sets the standard for a culture that allows expression of needs and boundaries right away. - Kristen says a leader could even have their team members do a similar exercise. For example, develop a half-pager of the most important items to communicate to your colleagues how you work in the best way. + John even thinks about it from a sales engineering perspective. Many times we need to bring in more specialized colleagues to help our customers, but those specialists have requirements / things they want to know ahead of time before meeting with a customer. - Doing the work ahead of time allows the specialist to be more effective in helping to solve a problem, and it parallels the operating manual idea. - Nick calls it a preferred engagement model that fits the operating manual and procedures within it.

25:53 – ADHD in Tech and the Challenge of Getting Help* Nick asked Kristen if she’s seeing any specific trends with ADHD in the tech industry. + Kristen sees trends in a behavioral way. + Kristen says many of her clients work in the technology space and that she is seeing brilliant minds who can hyperfocus in amazing ways. - Kristen tells us that hyperfocus is the ability to sit and be extremely persistent with one task for so much time you’re ignoring basic needs to do it (i.e. not going to the rest room, not eating, not sleeping, focused on solving a problem / whatever the task is, etc.). + She sees a lot of perfectionism in these clients (people wanting to make something perfect / do something perfect) and even some spiraling when things are not perfect. + There’s also a lot of overwhelm (sort of thriving in the hyperfocus but being overwhelmed by it at the same time). + Meeting deadlines can also be very difficult and stressful for these folks. - "The ADHD brain is just an amazing thing; however, sometimes it just does not cooperate." – Kristen Carder speaking on the ADHD brain and deadlines + John mentioned if you had thousands of people on which to do a research study to capture industry, you would be biasing toward the population who had thought to get a diagnosis. * John mentioned people who need help might seek a diagnosis and realize it’s not pure medication to solve all the problems. The next step could be behavioral coaching. + And kudos to people out there with ADHD who got past all these hurdles to get the help needed. + Kristen agrees wholeheartedly, especially since ADHD can be so debilitating and so many people are walking around undiagnosed. + If you’re listening and believe ADHD is over diagnosed, it is very likely you are misinformed. + Kristen says so many people out there just think they are lazy, who just think they are a bad person who cannot manage their time, who just think they are selfish because they cannot seem to show up places on time, who just think they are bad with money, who just think they make bad decisions, etc. + So many people are walking around with shame and don’t realize the things they hate about themselves are symptoms of ADHD. + Even getting access to healthcare can be a challenge. It could be a year wait or more to get a diagnosis even (outside the US and sometimes inside the US). + Think about all the executive function needed to keep track of medications and various appointments. Kristen has 2 kids who are on medication for ADHD, and she keeps track of all this for them plus herself. - It is hard for people with ADHD to get the medication they need. + Getting to that next level (hiring a coach, seeing a therapist, doing trauma informed therapy, mindset coaching, etc.) is so admirable. It’s nice to see people taking advantage of those things.

31:17 – Becoming a Coach* Kristen was listening to a podcast about business back in the days when she was running BeyondTutoring. She wanted to learn more about how to grow and scale the company. + This podcast happened to have a life coach as a guest on the show who said something that changed Kristen’s life – "B- work can change the world, but work that never gets done doesn’t help anybody." + Kristen did not really know what a life coach was at this time. + After this Kristen went straight to this lady’s podcast and started hearing other things like "you can make more money than you’re making" and "your thoughts impact how you feel." - These were things Kristen hadn’t really heard. - "I was a 37-year-old woman just trying to live her life, not knowing that the way that I think actually impacts how I feel. That was news to me." – Kristen Carder, on listening to advice from a lie coach + Kristen joined this coach’s program soon after, and it was extremely helpful. - Joining the program was the extra push Kristen needed. She had been medically treated for ADHD and was at the same time deepening her understanding of what it means to have ADHD, and she was also bringing in the life coaching tools learned from being a part of the group coaching program. - The combination above according to Kristen was life changing and was exactly what she needed at the time. - Kristen modeled her coaching program after the one she had joined (Brooke Castillo was the coach, a pioneer in the life coaching field, Self-Coaching Scholars was the program), but Kristen is no longer values aligned with this coach. + Kristen got certified as a life coach and built the FOCUSED program, bringing in her knowledge of ADHD and the coaching tools. + "It’s just explosive what the ADHD brain can do once there’s more understanding of who you and why you are acting the way you’re acting….And then, how does the human brain work, and how can you sort of hack it to get yourself to do the things you don’t want to do." – Kristen Carder

34:32 – Developing Expertise* Kristen’s ADHD expertise journey began when she was supporting students through her tutoring business. + So many of the students Kristen worked with had ADHD. Kristen knew she had ADHD, but other than being medically treated for it she did not know much about it. + Kristen started researching ADHD to help her students. This led her to understand that things like time blindness, an inability to remember things in the moment, and being emotionally explosive were all symptoms of ADHD. - "And so I just ferociously began devouring all kinds of ADHD material." – Kristen Carder, speaking to the realization of understanding so many things she was experiencing were ADHD related + Kristen cites Dr. Russell Barkley’s work as well as the work of Dr. Ned Hallowell, Dr. Ari Tuckman, and Sari Solden as sources for her research (big contributors of research and writing for the ADHD brain). + Kristen realized once she started doing this that reading information like this (research, etc.) and synthesizing it for an audience like her podcast audience and clients (i.e. pulling out the parts the ADHDer really cares about) is her superpower. + Nick thinks Kristen and John share a superpower with that consumption and synthesis aspect. Sometimes Nick will find himself saying something and then John will say it so much better. - John says part of this is listening and echoing back. If you’re actively listening / have those skills and are focused on what the other person is saying (maybe even hyperfocused), you’re paying attention to context and what the person is going through in the moment as well as the future state. - Echoing back what someone said with their context and their future state seems very profound to the person who was originally speaking. - Kristen agrees John should give himself a bit more credit in this area. The things that are complex come quite easily to the ADHD brain, while the things that are easier do not. + Not everyone can do these complex things. Kristen can read a book and know very quickly the things her audience cares about (i.e. what to highlight for them). + From all the books Kristen has read and conversations with ADHD giants, Kristen is able to create classes for her coaching program. At the time of this recording she mentions one about money. Doing this kind of thing is a joy for Kristen.

38:38 – Curriculum Builder* John sees a lot of parallels between us and our audience with Nerd Journey and Kristen and her audience. + We’re trying to help people understand they could be making more money, they shouldn’t limit themselves, etc. We like to discuss books that we’ve read with some important takeaways for listeners (giving them the option to go and read the book if they want). + John wonders if he and Nick should look at putting in the time and effort to create a class? * Getting to the point of creating classes relates back to Kristen knowing herself. + She’s never going to record something in advance for her students to digest later. Kristen is always going to record it in real-time. She likes the feel of community and the adrenaline rush from having so many people at once on a call. + All calls are hosted webinar style. Kristen comes prepared with some bullet points but likes to keep things conversational. + Kristen doesn’t really understand how people create courses for others to consume later. + For example, in FOUCSED they are studying money for the entire month. Kristen is doing 4 strategy classes (what she considers the teaching element), 4 coaching calls on money, and then 4 body double type budgeting sessions. These will be recorded and stored somewhere (i.e. a money course section) for people to consume later. + Kristen knows she is not going to develop a curriculum and just record it in front of her camera (i.e. without the live element). She’s not that person. + It’s fun for Kristen to do these live. It allows people to ask questions in the moment. And it makes people feel like they are not alone. Kristen can read feedback people share in the webinar shat back to the group to help here. It’s the community element. + When Kristen first started she was creating a new course each month. She did 11 courses her first year and was pretty tired. + Kristen tells us she would write the entire workbook for the class (the part she can do on her own). She is a good writer and writes the way she talks, leading people through a self-coaching practice in her writing. + Kristen would use the workbook (which could be 50 pages or so) as a guide to teach the class. In her mind, once the workbook was done, the work was done.

42:58 – Hosting a Podcast* Kristen created the I Have ADHD podcast out of necessity.

+ In the 2015 – 2017 range Kristen kept looking for a podcast on ADHD (and would look every few months). But she didn’t like any of the ones out there.
+ Kristen would listen to those she could find and think "this is not what I want" or "this is not what I need." She remembers having conversations about it with her husband.
+ "When is somebody going to create a podcast that is concise and fun but also full of really useful info? When is somebody going to create a podcast that has coaching tools and ADHD resources combined? And I just kept waiting around for someone to do it, and I got really frustrated. And then that little voice came that was like ‘excuse me, why aren’t you doing it?’ But you never think that you can do it." – Kristen Carder, speaking to why she created her podcast
+ Kristen told herself she wasn’t an expert and that the was still learning and that "grown ups needed to do it" (create the podcast she wanted).
+ Kristen realized if she were looking for this others were too. And maybe it would be a gap she could fill.
+ It was around the end of 2018 when Kristen dropped her first episode.
    - "I just kind of threw it out into the darkness of the night and hoped that nobody ever listened to it…and it is THE most downloaded episode I have…." – Kristen Carder on releasing the first episode of her show
+ But Kristen was right! People were looking for a resource like this. The I Have ADHD podcast is now one of the top rated podcasts with over 4 million downloads.
+ Looking back, Kristen says it’s (still) really fun.
+ "I feel very grateful that there were other people out there just like me who appreciated a straightforward but fun vibe…and who were looking for real ADHD resources combined with some mindset tools." – Kristen Carder
+ Kristen says podcasting is the hardest thing she does. It’s hard for her to sit in her own office by herself to record.
    - "I like having a podcast, but I hate podcasting. I love interviews like this…but if it’s a solo episode, there’s a lot of drama." – Kristen Carder
    - Kristen tells us she often thinks about other things she needs to do or procrastinates and that it’s very hard to pull a solo episode out.
    - Kristen knows the work is important and that her solo episodes are some of the best episodes she has. Reminding herself of how much she loves having a podcast helps her do the hard work.

If you want to follow up on this episode, you can find Kristen on…
- Onher website
- On Instagram
- And check out the I Have ADHD podcast!
- Mentioned in the outro
- Being open about an ADHD diagnosis can be really hard.
- John has built an operating manual for himself but hasn’t yet shared with his team. Stay tuned to hear how that goes when he does share it!
- Are John and Nick on the verge of working to build classes? Or should they?
- Nick mentions Kristen’s discussion of "what I get paid for" reminds him of Don Jones’ discussion of knowing the problem you solve mentioned in Episode 137.
  - Would you be able to say you know the things you get paid for? It’s something to ponder.
- We talk about the idea of ignition from Dan Coyle’s The Talent Code.

The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How.

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Welcome to episode 216 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 1 of a discussion with Kristen Carder, talking through her early life and education, her ADHD diagnosis and impact, and lessons learned in starting and stopping a successful business as a person with ADHD.

Original Recording Date: 01-16-2023

Topics – Meet Kristen Carder, The Early Years, ADHD in the Family, Detecting and Diagnosing ADHD, More than Just Personality Traits, Something to Prove, Accountable for Maintaining the Culture, Transition to CEO4:21 – Meet Kristen Carder* Kristen Carder is a complete ADHD nerd and says she is obsessed with ADHD and how it affects adults. Kristen has been studying ADHD for about 10 years and has worked exclusively with adults with ADHD for the last 4 years. + Kristen hosts a weekly podcast (called the I Have ADHD Podcast) and also has a coaching program through which she supports adults with ADHD around the world. Both of these bring Kristen a great deal of joy.

5:12 – The Early Years* School was challenging for Kristen as a kid who never could seem to live up to her potential (often a hallmark trait of those folks with ADHD). * Kristen also had a hard time thinking about the future and picturing what it might be like. It was hard for her to create a picture of what she wanted to do. + This is something ADHDers struggle with across the board due to challenges with nonverbal working memory (the "mind’s eye"), a very deficient executive function for this population of individuals. + As a result, Kristen went to the same college her father and grandmother attended (thinking that was something she should do). She studied music because she was good at it, beginning with music education. - She never pictured herself teaching in a classroom, nor did she visit a classroom outside of the one she attended. + She struggled to see herself doing anything but knew she was good at music and that generations of family members had attended this college. Kristen ended her time in college with a vocal performance degree. + Rather than build her self esteem by focusing the study in an area of strength, Kristen thinks having to perform in front of critical people constantly may have wrecked her self-esteem in a lot of ways. Kristen says you’re always getting negative feedback on what to improve. + Unless you’re the star of the music program (which Kristen was not, claiming to be merely a competent singer), it became a constant need for Kristen to prove herself. * The college experience did help Kristen start her entrepreneurial journey. She knew coming out of college that she wanted to teach voice and piano lessons. + This laid the foundation of entrepreneurship and helping people one on one (including teaching them how to get from point A to point B). + It was important for Kristen to start with something she was good at and layer in things she didn’t know she was good at like teaching, communicating, encouraging, and helping people to realize who they wanted to be. + In college Kristen had been working 1-1 with students in a tutoring capacity. She knew she was good at that. Then she built up the music skills, so she knew she was good at that too. Kristen then put the two together and created her own business in that way. + Looking back, Kristen says she is not sure how the 23-year-old version of herself was able to do that. At the time she was very low functioning. + Kristen came out of college depressed, a little bit traumatized from the program, and had just planned a wedding. As a person with ADHD herself and parents with ADHD, she came out of college very low functioning and started watching a lot of daytime television. - She was still able to get a couple of students on her own. She is very good at teaching, encouraging, and also good at music. Her students loved her. - Organically this grew into a music studio and Kristen seeing 25 students per week within a year or two.

10:06 – ADHD in the Family* Kristen’s dad was diagnosed with ADHD in his 40s (when she was in high school). Her dad began to nag her and say that he saw this present in her as well. + Kristen was 16 years old around this time and didn’t put a lot of stock in what her dad said. + It was not until Kristen was in college getting As and Fs (nothing in between), struggling with binge eating, struggling with depression, struggling with anxiety, struggling with maintaining life…that she finally called her mom stating she was ready to see if ADHD was a thing for her. + Kristen was diagnosed right away and medicated right away. + This was extremely helpful, and her grades immediately jumped to As and Bs exclusively. Previous to this Kristen was used to always having that one class in which she struggled or that she didn’t care about, feeling that the gap was now starting to be closed. This experience was validating and a confidence boost.

12:03 – Detecting and Diagnosing ADHD* When people experience something similar to Kristen’s situation, what do they do? + Kristen tells us it depends on the family and their own level of cognitive functioning. + As a parent, if you have a child with ADHD it is very likely that you or your partner have ADHD. It can be a challenge as a parent to know what to do if you also have undiagnosed ADHD. + ADHD impacts executive functioning, and there is a great deal of executive functioning in just figuring out what to do. - You’ll have to do some Google searches and make some phone calls (which is very difficult for the person with ADHD). - Luckily there is a great deal of information out there right now. It’s very trendy at present (as of this recording). - Being trendy on one hand is a good thing (i.e. many people who never knew they had ADHD are looking at TikTok videos and thinking "this sounds like me"). On the other hand it may also be a little detrimental that ADHD is trendy. In general the availability of so much information is a good thing. + For parents who suspect your child has ADHD, a great place to start is with your child’s pediatrician. + If your child’s pediatrician dismisses it another place to go to is your child’s teacher. + If both dismiss it, stick to your gut instinct because as the parent you know your kiddo the best. Kristen says at this point look for a psychologist who does independent educational evaluations. * If you’re an adult who suspects you have ADHD, starting with your family doctor is a great place to go. + If you have a good job, a good family, and a good life they will probably dismiss it. + If you are a person of color they will likely dismiss it. + If you are a woman they will likely dismiss it. + It is very important to do some research on your own. Kristen says Taking Charge of Adult ADHD by Russell Barkley, PhD. - The author walks you through diagnostic criteria, what to say to your doctor / how to talk to someone, etc. - There is a list of symptoms and also a list of characteristics (i.e. things people with ADHD struggle with). - Kristen spent an afternoon one time going through this book and marking the things she struggled with in childhood, as an adult, and what she struggles with now. + Going into your doctor’s appointment with some information can be very helpful. Kristen has a list of symptoms she compiled from Dr. Barkley, Dr. Tuckman, Dr. Ramsey, and many others in ADHD psychology on her website. - For example, Kristen shares things like you may struggle with impulsivity and explains what it means (i.e. you make rash decisions, jump to conclusions, are very impatient, hate waiting in line, etc.). - Being able to see how a symptom / characteristic plays out in your life can be really helpful. * Nick says this jives with what Jon Towles shared in Episode 129 and Episode 130 regarding Jon’s diagnosis and journey. + Jon was diagnosed as a kid, and as an adult he has become quite the advocate for people with ADHD.

16:29 – Reacting to a Diagnosis* For Kristen, an ADHD was very validating. All of the things she hated about herself were looked at in a new light (i.e. reasons for things being so hard are because of ADHD). * As she coaches clients of different ages and races all over the world, Kristen notices many people experience the diagnosis with grief: + "If I had only known sooner…" + "If I had only figured this out earlier…" + "Why didn’t anyone pursue this? Why didn’t my parents or my teachers notice?" + "Why has it taken until my 30s / 40s / 50s / 60s / 70s to be diagnosed?" Yes, Kristen has worked with people who were diagnosed in their 70s. * Imagine getting the diagnosis and going through all of the different memories of job loss, relationships severed, debt accumulated, etc. that come up. You might start to think if you had been diagnosed sooner maybe those things would not have happened. + Much of the work Kristen does with people having ADHD is related to helping them process whatever may have come up for them upon diagnosis. + She teaches people to honor whatever comes up for them (grief, etc.) to help that person move forward. One person may experience validation and grief. Another may experience grief and regret. We each get to have a different reaction and experience. + If you are tethered to anger, resentment, regret, and grief it will be difficult to move forward with any type of change. Some time must be spent honoring and healing. + Nick can see how someone could get the diagnosis and then do a "loss inventory" (almost like the flip side of seeing your wins after a big achievement.

19:49 – More than Just Personality Traits* "When I was medicated, it was very helpful, but pills don’t teach skills." – Kristen Carder on receiving medication for ADHD shortly after her diagnosis * Kristen had grown up in what she would call a very chaotic, ADHD family. + She was never taught how to arrive somewhere on time. + She was never taught how to gather everything needed before leaving the house. + She was never taught how to keep a planner. * Her parents may have attempted to teach Kristen some of these skills, but she definitely had not mastered them. That help came when she married a very neurotypical, gentle, safe man. + Kristen’s husband taught her to always put her keys in the same spot when she got home, for example. Previous to this she had been guilty of constantly losing basic things and never really feeling like she was prepared. + Kristen says in the first couple years of their marriage her husband helped her regulate her nervous system and taught her some very basic things (i.e. getting places 10 minutes early to account for time needed to walk inside instead of getting there right when things start). + The basic skills were taught to Kristen by her husband, and years later she found coaching. As a result she was able to take ownership of her own thoughts and emotions and begin to set goals and make changes. That along with medication has allowed Kristen to evolve into a fully formed adult: - Somoene who can set goals and reach them - Someone who can prioritize and plan, spending time on the things that are truly important instead of dividing her time across a million things and not really being present anywhere. + Coaching got Kristen to that next level. * Kristen’s husband didn’t have any kind of ADHD specialization. In fact, neither she nor her husband attributed some of the things they saw in Kristen to ADHD. + At the time Kristen knew so little about ADHD she attributed much of this to her personality. + She graduated from college in May as a 23-year-old, and was married in August of the same year. + The ADHD brain’s frontal lobe is about 30% behind developmentally and can take until someone is in their 30s to function at the same level as everyone else. The frontal lobe is your "adulting" zone (i.e. making decisions, plan, prioritize, set goals and achieve them, etc.). + The characteristics Kristen was exhibiting were NOT her personality after all. - Now that Kristen is "the real me" as she calls it, she is still fun but likes to be places on time, get things accomplished, have things in proper order, etc. During the time we’re discussing here her nervous system was built for chaos. + Kristen’s husband taught her how to clean, that dishes should be done right after dinner, and other basic things. * "Later on when I was researching ADHD in my early 30s, I learned, oh, this isn’t my personality. These are all symptoms of ADHD. But nobody ever told me that." – Kristen Carder + Kristen says there is no pamphlet you get when diagnosed with ADHD that tells you all this. Most clinicians don’t even know that much about ADHD (i.e. maybe have only taken a course on it). It’s not something people know much about. + When Kristen was diagnosed and handed a stimulant medication she was very grateful but did not know ADHD affected so many areas of her life. It affects all areas of your life from the boardroom to the bedroom and everything in between. She wishes clinicians would tell people this information but feels they made not know it themselves. + Nick says this is analagous to the primary care physician we visit who didn’t specialize in nutrition. There’s only so much guidance they can provide in certain areas. * On her podcast, Kristen had her husband Greg guest to talk about what it was like being married to someone with ADHD. You can find them here: + Podcast Episode #53: Married to ADHD with Greg Carder [Part 1] + Podcast Episode #54: Married to ADHD with Greg Carder [Part 2]

27:25 – Something to Prove* Kristen for the most part is very conscious about work. When she did tutoring, she worked very hard to arrive on time and to have it together. + By this time she knew herself pretty well and that she would have to work pretty hard to get places on time. + Work is the one place she would arrive on time probably 9 out of 10 times, even as a college kid. + Kristen says there’s a hierarchy in her brain where she can get to work on time but won’t be to church on time. + If someone is paying Kristen to show up (like she would do for her FOCUSED coaching program clients), she will show up on time. If she is paying someone to show up on time she is always late. - Kristen is notoriously late for meetings with her assistant and her team. - Kristen says her brain knows what is important and will only consent to arriving on time for things in that top tier bracket and embraces this. She doesn’t care as much about things in the lower tiers almost like capacity is full. * Kristen felt like she had a lot to prove with the tutoring business and that she needed to prove herself. + It was a brick and mortar business in her town with online delivery not really being an option for the service she intended to deliver. + Kristen would dress up (i.e. get fancy and wear a blazer perhaps) and arrive on time. + Kristen feels she did prove herself and is grateful for this time in her life when she could start something from the ground up and run a successful company. + Previous to this Kristen had not taken any courses on entrepreneurship. She learned by doing. Any time Kristen hit a wall or ran into a new problem, she would get what she needed to solve it. + This experience also taught her how to lead a team. By the time she left she had 6-7 part time employees. + Looking back it seems like the right move not to have taken courses. Kristen moved through the problems systematically and figured things out along the way, seeking out help and more information as needed. * Did asking her mom for help and getting the diagnosis of ADHD make it easier for Kristen to ask for help when / after starting a business? + There was a family characteristic passed down of "how hard can it be" that Kristen adopted going into this. "I’ll figure it out. It’s fine." + Kristen has learned to temper this mindset a little over time, but back then she had been taught that she could figure it out and didn’t even consider asking for help (which may have been a little egotistical). + Kristen had an accountant and a lawyer at the time and would always hire and surround herself with people smarter than her. - Kristen mentions hiring people with education degrees and psychology degrees, for example. + The attitude / mindset above has served Kristen well and only causes challenges once in a while. + Nick says you need confidence to excel of course, but it’s not like Kristen quit her job and decided to start a business without investing in the right kind of help (lawyer, accountant, etc.). It wasn’t a blind hope without research behind it. + A strong value of Kristen’s in grounding herself with people who know more than her. + Kristen has a good sense and can get a lot accomplished but always wants to be surrounded by people who are experts and who make up for Kristen’s weaknesses. - Kristen knows where her weaknesses are and is not ashamed of it. She solves for it by surrounding herself with people who make up for that. - Nick says many people do not want their weaknesses exposed because it puts them in an uncomfortable spot. - One of Kristen’s strengths is being very in tune with who she is and where she is weak, and she is not ashamed of it. - Kristen coaches so many people who are ashamed of their weaknesses. She tries to look at the situation for herself logically. - "I have some really amazing strengths and some very stark obvious weaknesses, and I am both. That’s what makes me a human." – Kristen Carder - In light of running a successful business, Kristen thinks about how to solve for the weaknesses. One of the ways Kristen gives as an illustration of this is paying people to hold her accountable for things she does not like doing but needs to do. Listen to her story about it.

35:26 – Accountable for Maintaining the Culture* Kristen’s tutoring business was profitable enough to be able to rent without a loan. * When she got the lease for the space, Kristen was very insecure and nervous. She made her lawyer, accountant, and realtor all read over the agreement (which was a commitment of 2-3 years). + As an adult with ADHD, committing to the future that you can barely picture is very difficult. + "I don’t have a beautiful vision for that future, but I’m going to make a 2 year commitment to it? Is that really what we’re asking ourselves to do right now?" – Kristen Carder + Kristen went through this process with people who were experts in the field because she was scared of signing the lease. * Kristen had to learn how to hire the right people and how to manage them. + The most important skill Kristen had to learn was direct, assertive communication and immediate feedback. + Give people feedback in real-time without letting it fester and lead to resentment. + This is something Kristen learned and implemented right away. Her employees were working with young children and teenagers. The way employees spoke to the kids and interacted with the kids was important. + Kristen knew the culture she wanted to create. Kristen knew that people loved working with her, and she was kind and encouraging but also firm in pushing people to their limits in a safe way. - She wanted to teach her employees the same thing, and it turns out this was more of an art than a science. - Kristen tried to teach it and eventually learned how to hire for it. - Instead of hiring a nice person with an education degree, she began to hire people who had more of a coach-like personality who could be encouraging but firm. + Hiring and firing was something Kristen learned and hated. She still hates it. - While not fun, learning how to fire quickly without letting things go on really helped Kristen to create a healthy culture and a healthy business. - If the person was consistently not meeting goals, it was not a good fit. + "When you make your first hire, when you interview people for the first time, that’s on the job training. You can read about it in a book, but really just doing it and figuring out as you’re going has been the way that I learn best in every aspect of my life." – Kristen Carder - This includes how to hire, how to fire, how to give someone feedback in a review, and how to make sure you’re paying well enough that people feel valued (all things important to Kristen). - Looking back on it, Kristen realizes she learned a lot from this experience. * Nick says if you’re not a culture fit, you can’t force it. * When we’re building companies and there is a hole which needs filling, Kristen says there can be a desperation to fill the hole (i.e. a warm body who can do the work). + Kristen found herself hiring too fast just to fill the gap quickly and later realized it was a mistake. + In the long run the quick fix is not the best solution. Waiting for the culture fit serves the overall company so much better. + Thinking back to when she closed out her end of the business and sold it, her team was the cream of the crop. The team was kind, were amazing with the students, and they really got the job done in a beautiful way. Kristen says reflecting on this is really encouraging. + Kristen hated the conversations with the team about closing. She had to inform them that she would be transitioning out of Beyond Tutoring and into full time coaching. The team loved working for Kristen and was very sad to heat the news. + They had a great, great culture by the time Beyond Tutoring was ready to close (6-7 part time employees). Kristen had also been a part time employee. + It was a great team, a great culture, and a great location. That’s what made it so hard to close. * Does the ADHD brain handle this closing of a business different than a neurotypical brain might? + "So hard…it’s so hard to end something that’s working…to do something that you think might be a better fit for you. But you’re not sure…." – Kristen Carter + The ADHD brain really loves novelty (the new), and there is a huge amount of dopamine involved In starting something new. + This actually held Kristen back from going full on into coaching. She didn’t want it to just be an ADHD decision. Kristen wanted it to be logical, sensible, well thought out, and to not do it on some kind of whim. + "We’re great problem solvers. We’re great at getting things started. We struggle to maintain." – Kristen Carder, speaking to challenges and struggles for the ADHD brain + Many ADHers want to start, start, start. It’s the long term follow through where they struggle.

44:32 – Transition to CEO* Around the time she was pregnant with her 3rd kiddo, Kristen realized it was not sustainable for her to be the one working with students at Beyond Tutoring. * Kristen had other people working with students during this time. It was not just her, but she was still heavily involved with student sessions. * Kristen felt a lot of pressure to grow her family’s financial future as a mom of 3 boys and being married to a pastor and help carry that load. She felt the financial future of her family rested on her shoulders.

+ Kristen knew this was not sustainable and decided to work her way out of seeing students and transition into more of a CEO role. Kristen did managing, marketing (ensuring high demand for the services offered), and the hiring / firing / leading of the team.
+ Kristen feels she transitioned during this time to team leader. Rather than still being a member of the team, she communicated it was no longer her job to work with students but to…
    - Make sure they were getting a lot of business in the door
    - Make sure the team was doing their jobs well
    - Make sure she was talking with parents and writing reports
    - Make sure everyone was happy
+ "Why am I sitting here working with this student when there’s so much admin that needs to be done? The efficiency of it no longer made sense." – Kristen Carder
+ When the thought became pervasive Kristen realized she needed to be paying someone to work with students so she could go do the administrative work and get clients in the door.
    - Getting clients in the door is not easy.
    - If Kristen could go back she feels she would do a lot of things differently, including pricing. Kristen feels she was priced too high.

Mentioned in the outro
- John mentioned that hyperactivity and hyperfocus are coping mechanisms for ADHD and that we often overemphasize the hyperactivity portion.
- Nick is reminded of coping mechanisms from our discussions of burnout with Cait Donovan from Episode 214 and Episode 215.

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Welcome to episode 215 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 2 of a discussion with Cait Donovan, talking through Cait’s experience as a keynote speaker (with tips for speakers at various levels), a business owner, a published author, and a content builder…all within the context of her burnout recovery.

Original Recording Date: 1-21-2023

Cait Donovan spends most of her time giving keynote speeches, recording audio for her podcast (FRIED: The Burnout Podcast), authoring books, and / or working 1-1 with coaching clients who are going through burnout. In case you missed it, part 1 of our discussion with Cait can be found in Episode 214.

Topics – Creating Space and Authoring a Book, A Love for Public Speaking, Charging for Services, Advice for the Content Builder, A Business Owner’s Safety, Breathing Room for the Business, Board of Advisors, The Breakout Speaker and the Keynote Speaker3:32 – Creating Space and Authoring a Book* When Cait was recovering from burnout, she was in Prague with a huge patient list and was booked solid. There was a large community of people who knew what Cait was going through and were reading what she was writing (blogs, etc.). * Cait had some people tell her they needed help with some of the areas she was exploring. + She started helping them by doing it for free or doing it through bartering / for a very low price. + Cait wasn’t doing this to build a business. She wanted there to be a minimal exchange in these situations, and this is how she created it. * After getting back to the states and had the achilles issue, she had half of her book written (wrote it while on vacation) and knew it was a great opportunity to finish it. + It was hard for her to get back to working on the book after she got back to life post vacation, and with the injury she couldn’t go anywhere and was all the more reason to finish the book. + At that same time, she started the podcast and did about 35 interviews in around 5 weeks. It was something else to do. + Cait didn’t do the podcast originally to get new clients (not the original intent). After about a year into doing the show, people started asking what her coaching packages were. At first she did not quite know what to tell people. + Things kind of built up from there. Once Cait realized she could use the podcast for lead generation she started putting in a promo stating people could hire her as part of the show. It became very intentional after not starting out that way. * When asked about her motivations to write a book, Cait cites So You Want to Be a Writer by Charles Bukowski. + Cait read this poem as a senior in high school and knew when she read it that someday she would feel like this (what the poem mentions). + The idea of having something inside you being so full you just had to get it out really hit Cait as an 18-year-old. + When Cait was going through her recovery from burnout, she read all kinds of research. She had all kinds of information built up inside her that if she didn’t get it out into a book, she might not be able to learn any more. + Cait felt so full she couldn’t help herself any longer. When she sat down to write while in Croatia on vacation, she had written 20,000 words in 7 days. + Writing a book for Cait was nothing more than for the purpose of creating space in her mind and body so she could keep going. + The book that came to be as a result here is The Bouncebackability Factor: End Burnout, Gain Resilience, and Change the World. Go get yourself a copy! + Indirectly, writing the book added to Cait’s reputation as a speaker and to a lesser extent as a coach.

9:15 – A Love for Public Speaking* Cait always loved public speaking. * School was easy for Cait growing up. From a young age, she would watch her teacher explain something to the class and notice her classmates did not understand. She thought if she was at the front of the room she would have said it differently. + Cait has much less judgement for those people now than she did as a young child (even thinking she would say things differently from some of her speaking sessions after listening back). + "I have always wanted to be at the front of the room, the person explaining the things….I am always happy to leave my own words behind and find another way in that suits a listener, a student, a participant." – Cait Donovan + Cait loves teaching, and for her speaking is a way to allow people to experience a shift in the time she has with the audience. She wants people to understand they are not alone, something can be done differently, that there is another option, etc. + This desire has always been a part of Cait (to stand at the front of the room). * When Cait was in Poland, the first corporate event Cait did was a stress management event in 2009 for an audience of executives. + She spent the next several years in Europe teaching acupuncture skills to acupuncturists via teaching at acupuncture schools and weekend workshops. She was teaching orthopedic acupuncture, scalp acupuncture, and other things people in Europe don’t have access to (schools there less robust than in the US). She would often teach the courses in Polish or Czech and is fluent in Polish. * When doing speaking, Kate gets anxious but excited (or anxcited as she calls it) and tries to combine the energies for each. + No matter how good you are and how well you show up, there will always be somoene in the audience who hates you (part of the life of a speaker). + Cait has learned to tune more into her own authenticity and integrity to show up and be the person she wants to be on stage rather than shifting to please those who are going to hate her / might say something bad about her. She spent many years with the opposite problem. + Cait shares some feedback from a recent speaking engagement at which she was 1 of 9 other speakers. She was rated the highest out of the 9 by about 12%. Despite this and getting feedback from 75% of attendees about the usefulness of her content, 2% of the audience said attending Cait’s session was a total waste of time. Cait tells us it’s always going to be like that. + Cait is not afraid to say she doesn’t know if she doesn’t know something. Cait also aims to speak to audiences that she feels a resonance with. - Listen to Cait’s example of a fellow speaker who went in to speak on joy but had the wrong audience. - As a speaker you have to understand and choose the right audiences or risk being less successful. You need market fit.

14:42 – Charging for Services* Nick suspects doing something for free for a long time and then deciding to charge money for it later is challenging. + Cait doesn’t like to admit it, but this is torture. + The prices she charges now are absolutely not reachable by people she grew up with. + When Cait charges less than what she feels she should, she feels resentful. Part of market fit is choosing the people she will serve carefully so that the time invested is worth the return and benefit. + One of the things that helps Cait have higher prices is the social justice element built into her business – FRIED. This is a weekly podcast that is 100% free that takes up a lot of time and money. + After doing the math, Cait figured out producing the podcasts costs her anywhere from $30,000 to $40,000 pear year in time and money. To Cait, this is something that must be paid for through speaking and coaching. + When Cait is coaching, the money people pay is more about how much the coaching changes their life. - Dealing with burnout now could save you hundreds and thousands in healthcare down the line. - The money Cait charges is minimal compared to what you save getting this in order now. You can also get back to work faster as a result and start earning money again. If you were going to have to take 2 years off work to deal with burnout but working with Cait could get you back to work in 7 months, that’s 13 months of savings compared to doing this on your own. + Cait feels the transformative aspect of what she is offering is well justified. And if you are somoene who is fortunate enough to pay it, you should want to contribute to the fact that she does these other things we’ve discussed. - There are people who cannot afford to hire Cait, but they can leverage the podcast and the Facebook group. - For context, Cait answers questions in the Facebook group the same way she would answer a client (no holding back). - In addition to the podcast and Facebook group, Cait offers office hours 4 times per month. You can ask Cait whatever you like, and she would answer your question the same way she would answer a client. + Cait does all these things so people with no access to resources can still access help. People who invest in working with Cait for coaching or speaking are helping to further her mission and purpose (i.e. helping people who do not have the resources have access to as much of them as possible). + Building these things into her business helped her balance the fee she was charging

19:05 – Advice for the Content Builder* When Cait first started the podcast, she did it on her own. She had an expensive microphone and did not realize it needed to be well suited to a room. + With her foot in a cast after achilles surgery, Cait was living with her parents. She couldn’t get out to walk the dog twice per day because she could not walk. And her husband worked in an office all day. + Cait would sit in her mother’s living room with her mic plugged into a Mac. Reflecting on it, Cait says the sound is terrible for the first season and shares a recent review from a listener about the early audio quality. Cait tried her best and says the quality is way better starting about halfway through season 2. + Cait learned how to edit by herself, was doing show notes by herself, and doing all of it alone (guest recruitment too). + June 2023 will mark the 4th anniversary of Cait’s podcast starting. It was April 2021 when she started paying someone to do it, saving her 6-8 hours per week at least between editing, show notes, social media (a full working day to get the things finished). + Cait was also pursuing another degree at the time. She knew she could not run a business, pursue a degree, and run the podcast all concurrently. * What about the creator who wants to turn something they are creating into a business? + Keep it simple. You don’t have to do all the things at the beginning. - As soon as Cait realized the sound wasn’t great, she made changes. Cait recorded the next year or so of podcast episodes with standard Apple ear buds. And it still sounded ok. - You might need to lower your expectations a little bit. - Be careful on deciding how often you plan to publish. Releasing a show once per week may seem like not so much because you have an entire week to do it. In reality, you don’t have that full week. Nick can confirm you cannot do it last minute. + You don’t have to do anything like anyone else is doing it. - If you want to give people a 3-minute tip every morning, record it and post it. Don’t use intros and outros and keep it simple. - "Just get it out there…because you’re not going to find out if you love it and if it really fuels you until you’re really doing it." – Cait Donovan on shipping your work. - If you produce something that is terrible but you love it, you can shut it down and start fresh. + You don’t have to really dig in from the outset. That can come later. - Cait says there are a lot of people selling expensive microphones on Facebook Marketplace because they recorded a few episodes and stopped. - Nick cites his and John’s plan to invest in higher quality gear if they made it to 100 episodes. They started with $80 microphones. - Cait uses a podcast mic now that is popular in the podcasting space but that came with the boom arm and headphones…all for about $130 on Amazon.com. And it sounds great! - Cait had an extra closet in her house that she built into a podcasting studio. She ordered felt pads from Amazon and taped them to the wall. It works. We’re not talking about someone coming to build a new room onto her house or a broadcasting booth. + Keep it simple by not making it any more difficult than it needs to be. + Don’t expect to hit 1000 downloads quickly unless you are really popular. + Don’t expect your friends and family to listen to your show. They don’t care and already listen to you talk enough. They have heard you talk about the show and probably know some of the things you are going to say. - Nick says his wife has listened to a couple of episodes and probably knows what he’ll say. - Cait says he husband has never listened to her show.

24:56 – A Business Owner’s Safety* Cait has only ever worked for herself and cannot speak to working for an employer vs. working for yourself. * If you dislike inconsistent income, entrepreneurship is not for you. If you need a check to come in consistently, this is not for you. It goes back to the discussion on safety (in this case financial safety). + Financial safety for Cait means she has the ability at any given moment to earn as much as she needs. + If she needs extra money, she can create a new course, advertise more, and several other possibilities. + Cait’s husband can do anything (feeling there is no wiggle room here). Cait likes the control of owning a business, but that is her version of safety. * Build the business the way you want it to run in the future. + For example, if you only want to work for 20 hours per week so you can do other things, build the business only working 20 hour weeks. + If you don’t do this, it is extremely easy for an entrepreneur to fill days with other things and can lead to 40, 50, and 60 hour weeks. + You may think to yourself that you will cut things back once you get the business going. Don’t lie to yourself. No, you won’t. + Parkinson’s Law essentially states a task takes as long as you have to do it. This is absolutely true. + "You can post to social media in 5 minutes or 3 hours. Trust me…I’ve done both." – Cait Donovan + Cait does not take coaching calls on Mondays or Fridays. Taking a call on one of those days is to connect with someone or to network (something she wants to do that is extraneous). You cannot book a coaching call with Cait on Monday or Friday. She’s made her availability and its boundaries very clear. And if she wants to take a trip out of town for a long weekend to be with her husband who often travels, she can do that and not have to cancel a full day of her schedule. + "I can only do that because I work for myself…and because I trust that during the other 3 days a week, I can earn the kind of money I want to earn." – Cait Donovan + The blocking of Monday and Friday enables Cait to have more energy during the other 3 days of her week. If there’s anything she specifically wants to do and needs to take care of on a Monday or a Friday, she is not interrupted by calls. - Cait really likes focus music on YouTube. She will put it on for 3 hours and sets a timer for 45 minutes at a time. Cait will work straight for 45 minutes and will then get up and leave her office. - "I just have to get up, leave the space, and then I come back and do it again." – Cait Donovan - When it comes to setting herself with how she wants to work for engaging with work when she feels like it, Cait owns all the decisions. - Once Cait starts to feel resentful that the calendar is too full, she will sit back and take stock of how she is spending time. Every once in a while Cait has to not take networking calls for a month since her natural tendency is to want to help people (and can lead to overextension). You cannot notice these things unless you’re mindful that they are happening. You need to know your baseline as well. - "You offered your time. They are using it. But if you’re mad about it, change the rules." – Cait Donovan on avoiding victim mentality when your calendar gets too busy

31:09 – Breathing Room for the Business* Though Cait has people working for her, she still has trouble releasing control of certain things. + Cait’s understanding from talking to other people that a CEO does much more delegation and management. + Cait considers herself in the trenches and not CEO style just yet. She’s not sure if that is a place she might want to be in the future. + "Right now, I want to be in the trenches. I want to be on the stages. I want to be with my 1-1 clients. I desire those moments. And I don’t think CEO mind is that. But, I could be wrong…because I don’t know." – Cait Donovan * Cait has owned her own businesses since 2007, and before this she was a bartender (which is really working on tips alone and like working for yourself). * Cait says she’s learned that planning too much in advance and deciding how she wants things to be sometimes blocks the business from growing in a way that is surprising and even more fulfilling. + "If I give the business a little bit of breathing room and watch what unfolds, I can sometimes follow that and lean into the things that are working so that things are easier rather than trying to build something and pull everything along behind me." – Cait Donovan + Cait tells us she can be the caboose of the business instead of the engine in front. She can pull the brakes from there if needed. - Cait didn’t know what FRIED is going to do when it began. - Recently people have reached out to Cait about helping to start a podcast for their business to showcase employee stories and build up culture. It’s not come to fruition yet, but previous to hearing about it she didn’t even know that was a possibility (and certainly was not in the business plan). - "If I would have created these really strict rules about where I’m going, I might have missed the beautiful right turn that could be happening. I don’t want to miss the beautiful right turns. I don’t know what’s best all the time." – Cait Donovan on allowing a business to be flexible as it grows

34:08 – Board of Advisors* Cait currently serves on the board of directors of the New York City National Speaker’s Association. + The most difficult thing for Cait as part of this and also the most valuable to her is learning how to better work with a team (learning teamwork). + Cait is very good at doing things by herself, and it can be difficult for her to wait for people to come to a consensus. + There are beautiful things about boards of directors that she did not previously realize. When the board comes together, it can be an environment where ideas flourish (i.e. someone pitches an idea and then people add to it to the point the idea is something the group should further investigate). + Similarly the group can often help people see an idea may not be as great as someone may think (i.e. good in theory but perhaps not in practice). Proposing something to the group in this way can also allow someone to release a hold on an idea they may think is great. - "You don’t need to have it take up any more space in your brain or your body…because you’ve had people check it out with you, and there are too many holes in it." – Cait Donovan - Cait says it is a powerful thing to be able to let go of ideas that aren’t going to work and gives an example about a business plan that her friend worked on for a year but in the end found was not feasible. + There’s something to be said about having a board or a set of trusted advisors who can poke holes in your ideas to ensure your eventual success. It can save you so much time, money, and headache on things which might not be viable. + In the case of something not being viable, maybe the board can help you figure out what would make it viable. And if that goes against your values you could sell the idea. + "Sometimes it is good to have people around who that can both build up your ideas and make them better and break down your ideas so you can let them go."- Cait Donovan + Being on a board also provides a sense of belonging. * Qualifications to serve on a board are usually a willingness to serve on one (usually unpaid) and a network (you need to know the people who are going to ask you).

37:46 – The Breakout Speaker and the Keynote Speaker* When asked about gaps in the breakout speaker at a conference and the keynote speaker, Cait mentions The Referable Speaker: Your Guide to Building a Sustainable Speaking Career by Michael Port and Andrew Davis. + In the book they speak to people being in expertville and others in visionary town. + Expertville is breakout sessions. The focus is knowledge and sharing it. + Visionary town is keynotes. It is changing people’s hearts and getting them to think a different way. These are usually more inspirational. They can still teach people something, but the focus isn’t specifically more knowledge but more wisdom. + Cait says neither of these is better than the other. She likes living in visionary town because it suits her heart. But we need people who are living in expertville, people who are teaching concrete tools to get through specific problems. * Cait says the distinction between the two types of speakers above is important. When you’re getting on stage to keynote, you have to bring all your good energy with you. You have to boost yourself so you are giving people everything you have. + "You don’t have to do that in a breakout room. In a breakout room you just have to go and tell people what you know." – Cait Donovan + Nick says maybe as a breakout speaker you get to the point where you start to bring in more energy. + Cait says you can be a breakout speaker and have a great career and make good money. Not everyone is designed to be a keynote speaker, and that is ok. + "I don’t think the impact is different in those rooms [breakout rooms]. It’s just different." – Cait Donovan * The best place to get in touch with Cait is on the site for FRIED: The Burnout Podcast

The Bouncebackability Factor: End Burnout, Gain Resilience, and Change the World

The Referable Speaker: Your Guide to Building a Sustainable Speaking Career—No Fame Required

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Welcome to episode 214 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 1 of a discussion with Cait Donovan, talking all things burnout from what it is and is not, how we miss diagnosing it, burnout prevention and recovery, seeking help, and some patterns and trends.

Original Recording Date: 1-21-2023

Topics – Meet Cait Donovan, Definition of Burnout and Why We Miss Detecting It, Patterns of Burnout and Values Mismatch, Recovery vs. Prevention, Seeking Help, Corporate Burnout Trends, This Is Over2:47 – Meet Cait Donovan* Cait Donovan loves everything nerd. + She spends most of her time giving keynote speeches, recording audio for her podcast (FRIED: The Burnout Podcast), authoring books, and / or working 1-1 with coaching clients who are going through burnout. Everything falls under the umbrella of burnout recovery (her main focus). + At the time of this recording, Cait is working on another degree focused on the way stress impacts the body from prenatal times until death. There is a lot of research Cait has access to now that she can read which didn’t previously exist. - Cait spends her time thinking about burnout, dreaming about burnout, talking about burnout, and writing about burnout. - Nick remembers hearing about Cait’s study of acupuncture on an episode of Teach the Geek and says a study of stress makes complete sense. People would definitely appreciate the focus on continued professional development in their coach! - Many people talk about the research these days and share what the neuroscience says. - Cait wanted to pursue a degree to read the research firsthand and really digest it to understand the research as well as she can at her level. She’s not a neuroscientist or a neurosurgeon, but when we’re talking about a stress response in the brain Cait has a pretty good handle on it. - Nick refers to this as seeking the holistic context points around burnout.

5:09 – Definition of Burnout and Why We Miss Detecting It* After listening to Cait’s podcast, the use of the word burnout may be equivalent to the use of the word cloud. We don’t always know if people mean the same thing when they say it. So let’s level set and define terms! * As of the date of this recording (January 2023), the World Health Organization (or WHO) has an agreed upon definition for burnout. + Burnout is the result of chronic stress in the workplace that has been mismanaged or unmanaged. + In order for us to say a situation is burnout there must be 3 things present. All 3 must be present to call it burnout. - Physical and emotional exhaustion – counts as one thing but could encompass 700 or more symptoms - Cynicism and detachment – being negative, feeling you cannot connect to people at work or people in your family, etc. - Feeling like your work is not impactful, having low productivity, feeling a lack of appreciation for what you do and why it matters (listed in various ways and forms but boils down to these items…with this possibly being a more holistic definition than what is listed on the WHO’s website) + The thing that differentiates burnout from something like depression in the mind of the WHO is that burnout is about your workplace / is a workplace syndrome (which Cait disagrees with). At present this is the only delineation (which seems nonsensical). + Cait shares a story about a post on LinkedIn in which someone wished we would stop using the term burnout and say we’re depressed. - While there may be some overlap between burnout and depression they are not really the same thing. In a similar light, depression and anxiety are not really the same thing though they do share an overlap. - We may not have enough information on how stress sits in the body over time, about neuroscience, and on the gut microbiome, to really wriggle out strict differentiators between this and that. - Cait has experienced each of these at different times, and her own experience says they are different things. * Cait realized she was burned out in 2016. At that time she had not really even heard the word burnout. Even at that time it wasn’t something commonly said at all. + Now burnout seems to be part of our normal lingo, and people may be saying when they are tired (definitely not the same thing). + Cait feels people may also not be using the term when they should be, so burnout is over and under used at the same time. * When Nick asked how people might be able to notice / determine they are burned out earlier, Cait uses the analogy of hip pain. + Have you ever noticed random hip pain while sitting at your desk? This seems to only happen when you sit too much and doesn’t require a doctor visit. So you put a small cushion underneath you and make an effort to get up once an hour to stretch. + Two months later you are used to the hip pain. It’s not better or worse, and you have many mechanisms to deal with it. And then your neck starts hurting (which is likely connected to the hip pain even without you realizing it). + After a number of adjustments for your neck, you start having consistent migraines a couple months later. It begins to really become a problem for which you are seeking help. + If you had dealt with the hip pain months ago, you might not be in this situation. + Burnout is much the same. Many of the stressors that come into our lives are things for which we end up creating coping mechanisms that mostly work. With all the adjustments we are making we don’t realize something is wrong until we are unable to do our work, to get through a day, or to wake up and feel any motivation. + Cait says it seems like people get judged for not taking action sooner, but we shouldn’t judge them. It is human nature to have a problem and then adapt. We need to give people a bit more grace when it comes to noticing something before it reaches this stage. + Nick suggests this is equivalent to the aggregation of marginal gains that Ben Bergeron references in Chasing Excellence but more like an aggregation of detriments. + Cait says things can be as small as ignoring your bladder signals when you have to pee. - If you do this all day long your body starts to get tense. That tension tells your body that you are stressed. - "The only thing you’re doing is writing 3 more e-mails instead of going to the bathroom. But when you do that, all day every day it becomes part of a pattern. What do you ignore next?" – Cait Donovan - Next you start ignoring drinking water because you don’t want to have to go to the bathroom because it’s interrupting your e-mails (and you’re holding it anyway). Now you’re dehydrated. - "It’s just this series of missteps. None of them have to be very serious or with any sort of malintent. You’re just trying to get your work done." – Cait Donovan * Since the pandemic, many are working from home, and many are working more than before. + Cait doesn’t agree that one needs a commute to work. But the commute did get you up, showered, dressed, and walking to your car, from a car to an office, getting up from your desk at the end of the day, and having a ritual that broke up your working day from your home day. We don’t necessarily have those things in place any longer. + Cait says this is dangerous. We need those rituals and transitions. Cait has a recommendation for coaching clients who work from home to help here (a closing ceremony if you will): - Shutdown your computer fully when you finish your day (not put to sleep but completely shut off). - Cover your computer with a blanket or something else as an indication that your day is over. - The person is not to uncover the computer until it is time to sit down and get back to work. + Nick calls this a shutdown routine for the end of the workday and mentions we don’t often have one of these. - We understand many will merely move to using their phone upon computer shutdown. Ideally there would be some separation from the phone as well for work related items, but that’s an area where both Cait and Nick themselves struggle. * Where are Cait and Nick’s respective phones during this interview? Would they do the same during a work day? Listen closely.

15:04 – Patterns of Burnout and Values Mismatch* We know (due to studies on it) that doctors and nurses are highly stressed and at high risk for burnout. * Event planning is on the top 5 list of most stressful jobs (and would be at a higher risk). * In the medical field, veterinarians and dentists are higher than most anyone else. * Even in the tech world, we are looking at 52% of people at a minimum are saying they are on the edge or burned out already. * Nick does not remember hearing anything about burnout before around 2017. + Cait says in the tech world so much of the work does not / may not rely on human connection, which is a protective factor against burnout (also a longevity and a happiness factor over the course of a lifetime). + Though someone may love working on a computer all day and not really needing to deal with people, but long term it works against you. + Nick mentions a TED talk about longevity and connection (view the video here). + Cait mentions a Harvard study (85 year study) on happiness and longevity with the most important factor being connection. Read more on that here + Nick asked if these studies and talks were speaking specifically to in person connection or whether our context of connection extended to video calls and other remote options. Cait says she believes they both count. + "The idea of connection and community is around feeling safe and accepted and that you belong somewhere." – Cait Donovan + The understanding that you will not be alone in really harsh times and that people will support you when things go haywire is the most important piece. This kind of connection requires people know each other long enough, be in each other’s lives long enough, and go through enough ups and downs together to have confirmation that the belonging is real. - Cait says the breakdown of church communities, for example, can be an issue on the belonging scale for many people. Even if they were not big believers people still would feel like they were part of a community which would support them in difficult times (i.e. if a house caught fire, etc.). - We’re missing the belonging piece, specifically the belonging to each other (which Cait says is very Brene Brown). - Nick says this is similar to marrying into a family and having the realization one day that you really do belong. Nick says his father-in-law treats Nick as his son. - Cait says not everyone has this kind of experience with their in-laws or even their own families and that we must choose carefully who we surround ourselves with. + The stress response is not just about being in physical danger as Cait says. The other incredibly being factor was being ostracized. We used to live in very small communities of people (like 50-150 people). - If you’re part of a community this small everyone has their function (helping others get food, ensuring they can sleep well, etc.). - If you’re ostracized and only ever learned your skill you have no way to protect yourself, no way to gather food, no way to feed yourself, no way to cook anything, etc. Being ostracized was just as dangerous as being chased by a tiger. + This belonging piece has been very much overlooked in a lot of literature. + Cait says you don’t need to belong to a large number of people. It can be 1 or 2 even. You need to have a space where you as you are accepted fully for who you are, where you can mess up and still be loved. * Nick suggests many people in the workforce are looking for this belonging in an organization / their employer. + Cait says this is psychological safety and is a huge area of study as far as workplace development and workplace culture are concerned. + Is Cait seeing a big mismatch in the way people want to work and the way they are forced to work? - If you’re being forced to work in a way that you don’t want to in today’s day and age, go get another job. - Every single worker needs something different, and we cannot make every work environment ideal for every worker. - If most people are cool with the way things are and you aren’t, get yourself out of there. - We cannot put all the responsibility on our employer and have to own the fact that we are choosing to show up somewhere. + There is a ton of research by Christina Maslach and Michael Leiter (considered the leading burnout researchers of the past 40 years). One of the 6 main factors they notice in the workplace that leads to burnout is a values mismatch. - A values mismatch can become evident when you want to work one way but a company wants you to work a different way. For example, your value is in this case being home with your family while the company value is being connected to people at work. - The mismatch is more in the values and not the method of working. - The values determine the method, and they are actually more important than the method. We needed to go one level deeper to really understand this process. - A values mismatch can be between a company and a person. But it can also be between a company’s spoken values and its values in action (i.e. what the company does vs. what it is saying). If company actions and words are mismatched, many employees can have a values mismatch because of the lack of integrity. This is a major contributor to burnout. - As an example, Cait has been studying health since graduating high school (roughly 23 years) and probably would not go work for Philip Morris due to a clear values mismatch.

24:06 – Recovery vs. Prevention* Nick states that we’ve hit on root cause analysis twice in the discussion (values mismatch and hip pain that turned into a huge problem). These seem very helpful for burnout recovery. What about burnout prevention? + If you’re a naturally high stress person, focusing on burnout prevention is a decent plan. However, Cait doesn’t really believe in burnout prevention because most of the time we’re not aware that burnout is happening. + Likely everyone should be on some form of cancer prevention diet, but the chances we are going to do that before there are some signs is minimal. + If there are signs of something being wrong, we already have to talk about treatment. + "Burnout prevention tools are stress management tools. There is no difference. That’s just what they are." – Cait Donovan + People who already have cancer need treatment, for example. It is the same with burnout and those who are already burned out. They need treatment, and prevention won’t get you anywhere in those cases. + Burnout recovery requires unwinding layers of adaptations and coping mechanisms, the minor shifts you have been making from a young age to… - Please other people - To be a perfectionist - To not have boundaries - To never say no + You’re unwinding all these things in an effort to create a better system for yourself. The layers of protection you’ve put on over the years that you thought would keep you safe have now become too heavy a sweatsuit to wear all the time. + Cait has created a holistic board of what makes people vulnerable to burnout (see this page for the link). - The biggest shift we would make if we could control it would be for everyone to grow up in a family that loves them, secure attachment would happen, and we would learn emotional intelligence as we grow. This likely is not going to happen. - Cait grew up in a very low income family in Massachusetts. The people she grew up around and in that environment don’t have time to think about these things. They are just trying to feed their children more than twice a day. - "We cannot expect the people who do not have the skills or the resources to make the kind of shift we need them to make so that people don’t burnout 30 years later." – Cait Donovan - This has nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with resources (i.e. resources inform and shape the priorities like feeding your family, etc.). + If we look at overall root causes of burnout it is a combination of - Your health - Your constitution (genetics / epigenetics) - Your family of origin - How you were spoken to - The kind of coping mechanisms you created to survive and feel safe - Cultural factors that protected you from or enhanced the coping mechanisms + This goes to show that fixing corporate culture is only one part of the picture. + Cait mentions a very interesting piece of research which states that if a mother is pregnant with a daughter and has a very high stress event during her pregnancy, it possible for an epigenetic shift in the fetus makes the daughter’s stress response less apt to function at a normal level (often times 30% less). This is typically passed down by a mother to a daughter and can make it really hard when we tell someone to go find a new workplace to get out of a less than ideal situation. - Epigenetics do not modify DNA but certainly impact the function of DNA (like pa volume lever on a DNA chain). - These types of things can be shifted into a better situation, but it requires safety, belonging, the ability to receive love, meditation, a good amount of movement, good food, etc. + If you’re born with this condition you’re at 70% capacity and are already more stressed out than anyone else. You create coping mechanisms around eating and drinking. - You’re not getting the things you need but don’t know you need them. - You might start to judge yourself because you cannot get as much accomplished as everyone else. - If you grew up in a family with some kind of an addiction or something else, that adds even more complication.

31:22 – Seeking Help* At what point do people generally ask for help, or what does it take? + Most people that burn out are DIY (do it yourself) type people who think they can do it all themselves (which is part of the reason they made it here in the first place). + At first people seek out help independently and will find a podcast like Cait’s (FRIED) or will reason some books (Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily and Amelia Nagoski). + After 6 months or so when people still don’t feel right is generally when they begin to seek help. There are many things that can help you, such as: - Therapy with a trauma informed therapist who understands burnout (i.e. look for trauma informed and burnout on a therapist’s website). - Coaches can help, but you have to be careful because coaching is not regulated. You need to be around someone long enough to ensure you can actually trust them. - This is one of the reasons Cait has FRIED. If you don’t trust her after over 180 episodes, then you never will. She is not your person. And that is ok. Part of burnout recovery requires that you feel safe. - "If you’re not going to trust me and you’re not going to feel safe with me, we’re not going to make progress." – Cait Donovan on the importance of finding the right someone to help if you’re burned out - You need that belonging (must be there). It can be therapy, coaching, or community work / volunteering (even though it seems like extra work at first but in the end creates belonging and safety). - You can try yoga, rapid transformational therapy, EDMR, etc. There are millions of ways to begin the recovery process. * During the recovery process, the things that you need to know most are: + You need to feel safe. + There will be coping mechanisms and things you think are "just your personality" which will need to shift (requiring you to let go of some things). - Cait shares a story from the FRIED Facebook Group in which someone was worried about going back to work. Cait had to tell this person they can’t be a give it 200% kind of person any longer. Get it down to more like 110% or even 80%. That kind of effort is what originally got the person to where they ended up. - Identity, personality, and trauma response mechanisms get mixed together often times. - We have to let go of some coping mechanisms that got us to burnout without demonizing them. The number 1 rule in FRIED burnout coaching is to never demonize a client’s coping mechanisms. - When these mechanisms were created, they were useful and probably worked for 20 years. They would not have been repeatedly used if they did not work. - "But now, something in the system has changed, it’s hurting you more than it’s helping you, and it’s time to make a change." – Cait Donovan on getting away from certain coping mechanisms - Cait gives the example of being rewarded as a child with ice cream and this process continuing to the point where you’ve given yourself diabetes as an adult. - "Nobody became a perfectionist just because. They became a perfectionist because they did it a few times and got praised for it." – Cait Donovan - We don’t demonize the coping mechanisms because they were originally put in place to protect us. Be thankful it was so useful in your life. - Look for areas in your life where the mechanism is still useful (i.e. a neurosurgeon being a perfectionist in surgery) and the areas where you might need another way (i.e. no need for perfectionism in the way a neurosurgeon fold towels, etc.).

37:19 – Corporate Burnout Trends* From Cait’s perspective, toward the end of the pandemic there was a big upswing in wellness resources and benefits offered by different companies. + But, with current fears of an impending recession, some companies are making cuts. Some of the first things to go are employee resources. * Some companies made promises and commitments that they meant and continue to dig in, while others are ok waiting a few years to really take action on providing employee resources that would help in regard to burnout. + Some companies that have a great culture might think they are ok and that they don’t need to do anything at present. + Burnout isn’t just a workplace issue. One of the reasons it went so high over the course of the past couple years is because dealing with the pandemic was hard. It was emotional and introduced the needs for all kinds of coping mechanisms (some we had, some we never knew we needed). + No one had the wherewithal to deal with some of these things in the moment. People are just now beginning to be able to deal with the pandemic’s impact on them. + A lot of companies are waiting for the bomb to hit. If only 5% of employees are experiencing burnout, perhaps some leaders would say it isn’t worth it…yet. The numbers will continue to increase until eventually an intervention gets requested. + People Cait knows working in the corporate space are doing 12, 18, and 24-month corporate interventions and charging a hefty price to implement the work (i.e. might take 8 people to help implement the necessary changes for coaching an executive team, etc.).

40:50 – Watching the Signs* People who burnout and recover are more likely to burnout again. * Cait has to keep an eye on herself. Her natural coping mechanisms are to overdo it, ignore her body, be a perfectionist, please everyone around her, and not say no. * When Cait finds herself in those positions, there are specific signs with her physical sign being neck pain and emotional sign being resentment. + When Cait is resentful more often than not she is not in a good space. That means she has committed herself to too many things, she isn’t happy about the way the commitments are paying her back for her time, and at this point Cait needs to do an assessment of what needs to drop off. + A keynote presentation requires around 40 hours of prep for a 1-hour presentation, and once it is over, Cait needs some time to recover from the depletion. + For example, Cait received a request to present at a summit during a week when she was already committed to doing 2 keynotes. The person running the summit was planning to allow free access and then paid access at a later time. In this instance Cait would not have benefitted from participating and not being compensated. The keynotes are paid work and in front of Cait’s target market. - "I didn’t even say yes yet, and I was already a little bit resentful. To me, that’s a beautiful thing. Because as soon as I see that resentment I’m like, oh…I don’t actually want to do this. If I do this I am going to be mad about it. I don’t want to do things I’m going to be mad about….If I’m going to do something, I want to be able to show up the way I’m able to show up today. I’m happy to be here. I was excited to talk to you. I like what you’re doing, so I’m happy to show up and be here fully and be engaged in it. If I’m not going to do it that way, then I don’t want to do it." Cait Donovan on using feelings of resentment to help make decisions about a time commitment - Cait ultimately said no to the summit request but feels several years ago she would not have been able to say no.

43:56 – This Is Over* Speaking of saying no, Cait had to say no at one point to continuing in her acupuncturist business. + People who go through burnout have to release a way of working, which is releasing an identity, and there is a grieving process you have to go through for this. + Cait was an acupuncturist for 13 years, moved back to the United States, and wanted to open an office there but could not due to a ruptured achilles. She couldn’t even stand as a result, so it took her a while to look into investing in opening an office. + Once she opened the office and wasn’t in constant debt, COVID hit, shutting them down for 4 months. Things started to open up a little, but people were still nervous. + They were shutdown a second time. It was too much of a fight and wasn’t working. Coaching and speaking was working. + Holding onto the acupuncture business meant Cait was spending 2 days per week going into New York City (a 45 minute commute). She would get there around 10 AM and get home at 9 PM, and there was no room for anything else during those days (no coaching, workshops, speaking), leaving only 3 days per week left over to pursue what was working. + "It just was a smarter decision for me to throw all my eggs in this basket and really try and make this part of things work." – Cait Donovan on deciding to give up her acupuncture business + At the same time, Cait did not close the door to the possibility of opening another acupuncture business in the future. These services are great for mental health. + Even though this was a "not right now" kind of thing for Cait, she treated it as "this is over." She needed to allow herself to go through the grieving process and not sit in the "what ifs" for years. She continued staying educated on acupuncture topics to keep a license. + "I have to say goodbye to this right now…because I can’t be both feet into building this business if I’ve still got a toe over there." – Cait Donovan

Chasing Excellence: A Story About Building the World's Fittest Athletes

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

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Post-Edit Show NotesWelcome to episode 213 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 2 of a discussion with Leah White. We’ll hear the story of what prompted Leah to make a job change after losing an advocate and how the transition has been, address layoffs and resume gaps, explore the idea of recruiters as advocates for candidates, and discuss the current job market.

Original Recording Date: 01-24-2023

Leah White is a sourcing recruiter for Veeam who works on roles across the US and Canada identified as needing additional recruitment support. In case you missed it, part 1 of our discussion with Leah can be found in Episode 212.

Topics – Following the Lead, Making an Impact, Document Accomplishments, Reasons for a Job Change and a Niche Market, Trust in Recruiters, Layoffs and Parting Thoughts3:24 – Following the Lead* At Accenture Leah was really in her comfort zone and enjoyed the work she did. Even as a remote employee, she did not feel like she was on an island but rather that she was very engaged with peers across the country. * It was very comfortable until the day Leah found out her amazing lead at Accenture (Jennifer) was leaving the company. + It was at this point in time Leah realized how important it was for her to have an advocate. Jennifer would constantly raise her hand for sourcing, and Leah always felt like a valued employee even though she was a contractor. + When Jennifer left there was a void. Leah knew she didn’t have an advocate and became unsure whether people would still see her value. + "Even though the environment hadn’t really changed, I didn’t feel as comfortable as I had been." – Leah White, describing her feelings after departure of an advocate + After spending a few days being a bit depressed at this loss Leah told herself she needed to be open. She had not been looking for other roles because she had been so comfortable. This is when Leah began to look. * Leah found that Jennifer had gone to Veeam, and at the time Leah had never heard of them (which she found odd since it was part of a solution package Accenture consultants offered). + After Leah did a little research on Veeam as a company she found them to be a great company with industry leading solutions and over 30 countries. From what Leah saw they had some amazing initiatives for women. + Leah began to talk to others within Veeam and was able to learn about the ERGs (Employee Resource Groups). These are groups within the organization founded by employees to promote things like inclusion and community activities for example. + When people say the culture somewhere is great you tend to wonder how much of that is talk and how much is real. Even if Leah didn’t trust everything she heard about the culture automatically, she trusted her former lead and her decision making. Leah says she was an amazing lead. Because Leah did not believe her lead would make a move to another company without some due diligence, it prompted Leah to do more investigation on Veeam. * Leah can say she was not disappointed transitioning to Veeam. + When she started she was of course looking around to see if it was going to be what she thought. There was a large virtual event in which Leah saw a woman as one of the keynote speakers. This woman had blue hair, black lipstick, and was dressed casually standing next to a man in a 3-piece suit. Seeing this made Leah think, "this is culture. This is really diversity." - This experience was eye opening for Leah. She was able to really see the women’s initiatives. * "It wasn’t just talk. It was real." – Leah White + In every other organization where Leah has worked there was a feeling of not being able to be 100% herself. She would wonder what she should look like when presenting herself on behalf of the company. + Leah has completely embraced the culture and the ERGs and can use this when communicating with candidates. She isn’t just talking fluff but rather can speak to her experiences. It’s so important to a candidate conversation to get this kind of perspective. * The interest in looking at Veeam was because that’s where her lead went. Leah had planned to look at multiple options no matter what. + Since she knew nothing about Veeam this made her take a look at the company. + As Leah looked at other opportunities, they didn’t stack up to what Veeam was offering.

8:48 – Making an Impact* Leah moved from a publicly traded company in Accenture to a privately held company in Veeam. + There overall structure of the two companies was different. + While Leah did a lot of great things during her time at Accenture, she feels there is more value add to her impact at Veeam. + Sourcing was new to Veeam, and it was a new investment they decided to make when Leah came onboard. She feels like she is making more of an impact as a result. + When you are evaluating your opportunities, get a feel for what it is you are looking to achieve. Then consider whether you can do that within the setting of the company with the open opportunity. + As Leah looked for that next opportunity after Accenture, she wanted to find something that would allow her to make more of a difference, something that would allow her to be a difference maker. + Leah had a co-worker who, speaking about a recent candidate interview, said she thought the candidate could step into the role but was not sure the candidate could make a difference. The candidate had not shared anything in previous discussions that indicated they were wanting to make a difference. When Leah’s co-worker asked this candidate what he wanted to do, there was no real answer about what the person really wanted to accomplish. + Leah went into her job search looking to make a difference and felt she would make a greater impact at Veeam versus some of the other options. * Nick suggests getting in on a role that was new to the organization aligns with the pattern of seeking flexibility that John pointed out earlier. + Leah says yes and would add opportunity to make an impact. When speaking to a candidate about a new role at the organization, Leah calls that out to the candidate. It’s not a backfill, not something the company has had before, and is something the candidate has the chance to shape / put a hand print on. - A role being new means they likely would not necessarily keep it as it is written on paper. The candidate may come in, make a huge impact, and the company then realizes they found exactly what they were looking for even though they did not realize it. * Nick says the ability to make an impact gives purpose to our work. But it is likely we do not think enough about this when we go looking for opportunities (communicating the purpose we want in our work). + As an example, when doing a technical project you need to be able to state the business outcome. When you go and do technical work, think about the outcome this will make on the company and the outcome for yourself. If those align maybe it’s a good fit, sort of like candidate career alignment. + Leah says it is so important as a recruiter to get a clear idea of what the candidate truly wants to do. A recruiter can then go and see what a typical career pathway is for a specific role. + If a candidate wants to be in a specific spot in 5 years and a certain role is not a way to get them there, it enables an open conversation with the recruiter about something being the right fit / right opportunity. The candidate is likely going to leave the company if taking a role is not in line with what they want to eventually be doing. + Leah says candidates have not often thought of this kind of thing. Recruiters can raise this question in a thoughtful way, and sometimes the candidate will bow out as a result. But it is the right thing for the company making the investment and the right thing for the candidate. * What does Leah wish she would have known going into a role that was new to the organization (i.e. sourcing at Veeam) that she would advise others keep in mind? Is there a way to figure out how serious an organization is about this new role and what would happen to the people in it if it doesn’t work out (i.e. fired / moved to other positions, etc.)? + Leah was worried about those same things. She didn’t want to go somewhere that had only temporary opportunities. She had many questions. + Leah wanted to know what the goal was for this new department and what else had been brought to the table recently. She wanted to know what other new initiatives have happened. + Leah learned sourcing was not the only new area of the organization recently created. There were other areas where they had brought in talent and put in leadership for within Veeam (a sign of clear investment). + Leah suggests if you’re in this situation look at the choices company leadership is making. + As of this recording Veeam has not had layoffs like many other companies in the technology industry. Leah feels this is a reflection of good leadership, decision making, planning, and responsible growth. + If you can ask about those initiatives and get some information about company decision making, you have a pretty clear forecast of what you can look forward to in working at a company. + John says these things can be difficult to tease out in the interview process, and we would need to keep them in mind as we think of questions which need to be asked. For example… - What do you see as the organization’s commitment to this type of role? - Do you think it’s long term or short term? - Have you experienced them changing their mind about this kind of investment in the past? + Leah says ask the hiring manager / person interviewing you what their next initiatives are and their personal goals. It can give you a little bit of a baseline for your opportunity.

17:48 – Document Accomplishments* In a time of many layoffs across various industries, people find themselves on the market looking for jobs and are not experts in looking for new jobs. People don’t want to think about having to change jobs and do not really have a process. * We’ve advocated on the show that perhaps people should take 2 interviews per year even if you aren’t thinking about changing your job. * John suspects maybe Leah has run into people who have not thought about changing and as a result might be coming from more of a cold start position. What are the types of things people should "keep warm" so that in the event they find themselves recruited / sourced or maybe in a reduction of force (RIF) scenario? + Leah advises us to keep notation of our accomplishments. When we work on so many projects we forget the great things we were a part of over time. + Leah is frequently speaking to people who do not have a resume handy because she has sought them out. She has seen a blurb of who they are on LinkedIn (which never on its own tells the whole story). - When Leah is speaking with people she is trying to learn more about them and will often times ask for a resume to share with her team internally. Many times people do not have one handy, which is fair. In the event you don’t it is great to have the documentation of your work to refer to for making the edits to your resume. - You want to have the numbers available for a conversation if and when needed (which comes from documenting the work). John says it is handy to have even when not looking for a new job because you may want a raise or to look for an internal role at your company that opens up. People don’t get huge raises without justification. You need a record of accomplishments. - Leadership just is not going to know all of the great things you’re doing. How many things will they be tracking or in charge of, for example? - Keeping a record of your achievements allows you to be accountable and responsible for what you have achieved. You can ask yourself if you’ve done enough, if you have been accountable enough, and whether you need to brush up in a few areas. - "Am I bringing all I can to the table? Am I making sure that I’m going to have longevity here if I’d like to have it?" – Leah White on the accountability of tracking your accomplishments + We may not remember what we’ve done but at the same time have an unreasonable expectation that our manager or skip-level who has 10 to 100 more people under them than we do should remember. That doesn’t make any sense but may also speak to people not quite understanding how managerial jobs work.

22:16 – Reasons for a Job Change and a Niche Market* In Leah’s experience, the motivations for people to make a job change really varies. + Some people are a little bit bored or lacking challenge in what they do. They may have been doing the same thing for a long time and really thought they would have received a promotion by now (and no longer feel as excited or as valued in that role). + There are some who feel they should have already moved forward in their career and are now wondering if they will ever get the opportunity to do so. + Leah has seen people who no longer enjoy the people they work with perhaps due to changes in personnel, corporate restructuring, or maybe even an acquisition. Sometimes the comfort is no longer there. + In general folks may be a little burned out and are looking for a change. + One of the more recent things Leah has seen has been compatibility with a person’s lifestyle. Companies have moved from remote work to back in office in some cases. And it could be a person’s situation has changed to where they cannot work with that change in place (i.e. the travel requirements). + There are many reasons people move around today, but Leah cautions us to be careful of that movement. Recruiters are very keen on stability. It is really a red flag if somoene is moving to a different organization every year or every 2 years. The investment a company makes in you will be perceived to last only a short time. + Make sure the brand you are building shows who you are. You want to make sure that you look good, that you look professional, and that you are really going to be somewhere and do your best. This will be a huge reflection of who you are to a recruiter. + Nick says even if you bow out of a hiring process or have to turn something down you still want that positive brand reflection. + Leah says the community is small. It’s not what it used to be where you turn in a page of referrals. Referrals are via word of mouth these days. Somoene knows somoene. + "You need to know that you are your brand, and your brand needs to stay positive." – Leah White * On the flip side, it’s really hard to move away from happy. + We often say not to break happy or move away from happy. + If Leah reaches out to someone and that person loves the culture where they work, they love the people they work with, they feel valued, and ty feel they are really on a trajectory upward it’s hard to get somoene to walk away and move to a new place (potentially risking happy by moving). + The above is probably the number one reason Leah is seeing for people not taking a new opportunity. * John keeps hearing the job market is incredible and unemployment is super low. People still need to compete for jobs, but at the same time certain organizations are cutting huge amounts of people. There is a perception that one might be competing with many people for those opportunities. Is it a job seeker’s market or an employer’s market or not that simple? + Leah says what complicates things are the particular roles. She thinks it depends on what type of professional you are. + If you are a niche professional with a very in-demand and technical skillset, you have options and will probably always have those options. + If your skillset is a bit more general or there are many folks who can offer the same skillset you have, you are going to be competing with more people. That is the way it is going to be. + At Veeam just like at many other organizations, they are still hiring but only in certain areas. And it isn’t necessarily in the areas where skillsets are more general. + You as a candidate want to ensure your skillset is very valuable. If there are extra projects or classes you can participate in to grow your skillset at your organization, you need to do that to give yourself a bit more job stability and be part of that niche market. + There are jobs out there, but the job marketplace is much more dicey than it was a year or two ago. + "Got it…so there’s not one job market. It’s a series of micro markets." – John White + There is a lesson here. As we are employed, we should work to grow our specialized skillsets that are in demand and can keep us employed (or at least in high demand if we suddenly need to change). + For example, John has a friend whose spouse went to medical school across the country. So one needs to find a job as part of this, but if the person has highly in demand skills maybe that’s not such a big deal. + Leah says the highly in-demand skills often times does not have the same location restrictions or parameters. The more niche someone is the more open employers are to employ that person. + Leah says we should be very aware of what we bring to the table and cannot ever get comfortable to the point where you stop raising your hand and stop learning. You have to be willing to grow.

30:05 – Trust in Recruiters* Nick thinks there is a certain connotation and a wondering of how much we should / can trust recruiters. + Leah says this is fair. When we speak with people on the other end of a phone call we don’t know what their intentions are or what their end goal is. It’s very fair to be hesitant on what you share. + If there are any non-negotiables for you, it is in your best interest to share those in advance to avoid wasting anyone’s time. - For example, if you know that 50% travel is not going to work for you, don’t be afraid to come out of the gate and ask about what the travel situation is going to look like. - If you’ve recently received a compensation increase, be comfortable bringing this up. You don’t need to be going through multiple rounds of a hiring process in hopes that everything is going to align with what you’re wanting. - It’s fair for you to ask your questions and get the information you need early, in advance. - It’s ok to be confident in stating what your needs are (the non-negotiables). You don’t have to provide a bunch of reason why they are your needs. - "If you are confident in what you have to offer and if you’re the best candidate for that role, be confident in asking those questions and making those non-negotiables known up front. + Nick says this can help the recruiter qualify you in or out of a role. For example, if the compensation you were looking to get was never something the company would offer for a specific role, it’s probably better not to continue talking about that role. + Leah says there is also the job leveling piece to consider. Career titles are different from one organization to another. - If you’re a consultant at a specific company, that same role at another company may mean a different job level and a different pay level. - A recruiter may have a different idea of who you are, what you do, and what you earn. Telling the recruiter what you are looking for can help you get on the same page from the beginning so expectations are where they need to be on both ends. + John says during his experience at Google most people did not understand that the leveling conversation begins the first time a candidate speaks with a recruiter. - People didn’t realize that judgement was being unofficially made and being solidified as conversations during the hiring process continued. - As you went further in the process the more people are locked into judgements made to that point. - John says maybe we should have a candid conversation with a recruiter to share what our job level has been and some of the projects we have worked on both in scope and complexity as well as dollar impact. Maybe that means you’re expecting a certain job level and compensation, and you can ask if you’re on the same page with the recruiter. - Leah tells us the recruiter may have done a little research on who you are (through LinkedIn or a referral) and have an idea of your level based on a role they are looking to fill. During a conversation with you they can come to understand you are actually more senior than the role they have to offer and can keep you in mind for a more senior role when one opens. - Unless you really share all the details about what you’ve done and what you’re looking for, you may close the door on opportunities you may have been brought in the future because the recruiter does not have a clear understanding of who you are. - The level at which you come into an organization is key because it is also a basis for your performance growth. If you said all the right things and come in at a level that’s too high, you might not get that performance bump you had been expecting. Leah recommends we be fair to ourselves and come in at the right level so we can achieve the growth we want. - "You don’t want to make the targets. You want to make and surpass the targets. So it’s important that everyone has a clear picture of the level." – Leah White, on coming into an organization at the right level. - This is easier in some roles because of tests during the hiring process, but in other roles it is not as easily determined. It is important to have that conversation about what you’ve done and what you’re looking to do to ensure everyone is on the same page about the level.

37:08 – Layoffs and Parting Thoughts* With layoffs in the tech industry top of mind right now, how should someone approach this with recruiters if they have been affected?

+ There is no shame in telling someone you were let go according to Leah (and she shared a story about it earlier).
+ You want to be very transparent about any gaps on your employment record. If you were let go a couple of months ago, make that known. Recruiters are usually trying to determine what is going on, why you left your previous employer, and what you’re up to now.
+ Sharing that you were let go but also what you did to be successful in your role before being let go is very helpful to a recruiter.
+ Leah says recruiters are likely looking at COVID with a grain of salt in many ways because things were a little weird during that time.
+ If you worked a contract position, for example, but the length of the contract where it is visible to highlight shorter stints in specific roles. The recruiter can then believe (due to your transparency) that you are going to be an invested professional in the future if selected.
+ John says if you looked at someone’s resume during the 2008 / 2009 time period and saw some gaps it would be easy to understand because of the housing market collapse and other economic problems.
+ Leah often finds herself giving similar advice to mothers who have gaps because they had a child and have been out of industry.
+ "It can’t be something we feel like we need to hide. That’s your life. That happened in your life. That was your decision, and now you’re back in the industry looking for a new role." – Leah White speaking to gaps in resumes
+ We can share thst we have a resume gap because we were taking care of a sick parent, for example. This lets a recruiter know this was a personal decision and thst you were not let go due to poor performance and couldn’t find a job, etc. In just seeing a gap like that on a resume, a recruiter has no idea why you were not working.
+ Remember the recruiter can be your advocate. They are having conversations with the hiring manager and the team about candidates.
+ "We’re the ones that met you and that have a feel for you being great for a specific team." – Leah White on recruiters as advocates
+ The recruiter is passing your resume along to people who have not had a conversation with you, and the recruiter can easily speak to gaps in your resume and the reasons for those gaps (assuming you have shared it with a recruiter).

We discussed the reasons for people changing jobs such as
- You’re in position and are not being challenged
- There’s been a lack of promotion
- You don’t enjoy the lifestyle any longer
- Or you don’t enjoy the people you work with any longer
- Even if you’re happy in your role, you need to look at your skillset on a consistent basis to see if you’re developing the specialized, in-demand skills which will keep you employed and in demand if you’re suddenly back on the market (i.e. job loss).
- Leah tells us this lets you think about whether you should be raising your hand more.
- It puts the onus on each of us. Am I not receiving a promotion because I haven’t been raising my hand and trying to work outside of what my current role is? The initiative really brings you into consideration when there opportunities arise internally at your current employer.
- One of the reasons people decide to stay at an organization is because they enjoy their co-workers. Make sure you’re a part of that. Make sure you’re one of those people that helps people stay at an organization. This helps you and it helps the rest of your organization.
- If you can be that mentor or that teammate, that person who helps people smile more, the person who coordinates that virtual party or congratulatory message / gift to someone…then you’re that great person who helps those other people you so enjoy working with stay.
- Doing this helps you and the people around you.
- We own the culture on our teams. We cannot own the culture organization wide, but we do own it for our teams.
- "We model the culture that we’re looking for, right?" – John White
- Feel free to reach out to Leah on LinkedIn. She is connected to a pretty diverse set of people across industries and backgrounds and is always happy to answer a question or point you to someone in her network who has more answers.
- Grow your network, and stay engaged with people. If you come across something you feel would be helpful to somoene else, share it with that person whether career related or personal.
- Mentioned in the outro:
- We should have asked to get more detail on the unique perspective of a recruiter doing job seeking.
- We need to see leadership model culture. If we don’t see leaders exhibit company values, that could be a red flag.
- Another question we should have asked was about advisability of following a leader to a new company, especially more than once. If you’re out there and have done this we would love to hear from you!
  - Nick is reminded of Evan Oldford’s advice about finding that great manager from Episode 173. See also Episode 172 featuring Evan and a story about his move to a different company (recruited by his former manager).
- Nick doesn’t remember talking to other guests in regard to sniff testing a role that is new to an organization as a way to determine if you should take it. The one exception may be Tom Delicati’s story back in Episode 13 of essentially creating his own position at a company.
- John mentions the advice on documenting your work is wise to use for a promotion if you stay at a company but also if you choose to leave (helps with building the resume for that next role). Nick recommends keeping this info somewhere not controlled by corporate access policies as a backup (so you have it in the event you are laid off and access terminated).
- What if we tried to assume positive intent when working with recruiters unless proven otherwise? Recruiters can be our advocate.
- Maybe recruiters are doing a personnel sizing exercise in much the same way we would size / plan an enterprise technology roll out (licenses, new hardware, subscription costs, etc.). You cannot plan and budget effectively if you don’t have a feel for the overall size of a project like this, and it is much the same with candidates and recruiters (i.e. can we afford this candidate, etc.).
- We are going to have to collect our questions (and yours) for when we have Leah back on the show sometime.

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Welcome to episode 212 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 1 of a discussion with Leah White, detailing her early career and the transition from engineering student to recruiter, getting laid off and finding work at a culinary institute, the value of internship programs, and how through it all she was constantly redefining success.

Original Recording Date: 01-24-2023

Topics – Meet Leah White, The Discipline of Sourcing, Defining Life Success, The Identity Crisis and a Mindset Shift, Becoming Part of the Institute, Internships, Seeking Flexibility3:27 – Meet Leah White* Leah White is a sourcing recruiter for Veeam and as of this recording has been with the company a little over a year. She works on roles across the US and Canada identified as needing additional recruitment support. + Leah lives right outside of Houston, Texas and works remotely. She is married with 3 children (a 15-year-old, a 10-year-old, and a 5-year-old). + And for the record, John and Leah are not related.

4:28 – The Discipline of Sourcing* Leah says people understand the term recruiter in our industry much more so than recruiter. A sourcer is someone who is going to seek out passive talent. * As a recruiter you’re generally working with candidates who have applied for a job at a company. But a sourcer is going to seek out prospects that could fit a specific role you need to fill. + This may involve attending events, networking, spending time on LinkedIn, asking for referrals…but you’re really sourcing talent for a role that needs to be filled. * It depends on the role as to whether sourcing is needed. If there is a role that is going to be a role hired in mass volume that people generally are going to express interest in on a continuous basis, usually sourcing would not be needed for this. If you’re looking for a niche role, a higher level role, or if an open role isn’t attracting the quality of candidates you would like to see…you might need additional recruitment / sourcing. + In Leah’s situation, she is often times sourcing for diversity. Maybe there hasn’t been enough gender diversity come in for a role in the candidate pool. + "It’s really you’re seeking a specific need. That’s when you’re going to pull in sourcing for additional help." – Leah White + Nick had really only heard the term sourcing in the context of needing someone on the legal team to help with a specific request. * Sourcers are not used across every organization because it’s an additional expense. Likely you would see sourcing on teams within larger organizations that have the budget for it or a specific need for it. Leah says you aren’t necessarily going to see sourcing at every organization across the industry.

7:14 – Defining Life Success* Leah had a pre-determined set of honorable ventures to target when she was in school like engineering, medicine, or law. * Leah began at the University of Oklahoma and was recruited there through a minority STEM recruitment program. Her focus was chemical engineering with a minor in pre-med "just in case." * She even did an internship at Exxon. * Leah had a friend (Miranda) who worked for the athletic housing department at the university. Miranda got Leah a job as a desk assistant, and she later would transfer to be a resident advisor. + The job was a lot of student management – checking to see if people were safe, adhering to the curfew, and in many ways almost acting as a bodyguard. + Leah really became more of an advisor to female underclassmen who were student athletes. This was really her first time working with students. * Then life happened. Leah met her husband at the university. He played basketball, and when he graduated, he wanted to play overseas. + Leah and her husband moved to France and spent some time in Germany. + This wasn’t really something Leah had on her list of life plans. + While overseas Leah tried to figure out what she could do with her education. She found engineering wasn’t really an option there, but she was able to obtain a psychology minor during this time. * After the time overseas, Leah and her husband relocated to Louisiana (his former home). + She decided to enroll at LSU (Louisiana State University). It was too tough to transfer credits from previous education there and would have taken much more time, so Leah went back to her list and chose to study in the medicine field (a kinesiology degree). She thought maybe sports medicine made sense. + Leah really enjoyed her work in this discipline. Her husband had started coaching a club team, and Leah found herself once again working with students. + Leah acted more as a mentor to younger students. She handled the business end of things while her husband did the coaching. * Life happened again. Leah had her first child, and at this point her life plan no longer made sense. She would not be able to do years in a medical program and take care of children. + Leah’s husband had to travel for his job, and she felt one parent needed to be home with the children. + Leah had to redefine what success would look like for her and her family in such a way that she would not miss out on non-negotiables like time with the kids (being at their school programs, games, etc.). + Leah started to look at opportunities that she could pursue even if her family relocated. + After researching, Leah got her first exposure to real recruitment at the University of Phoenix. + She initially enrolled in an MBA program at the University of Phoenix. But she really enjoyed recruitment and was recruiting students, attending career fairs, and working on curriculum development. The focus was on adult students who were looking for a new career (i.e. their first career did not work out). + Leah could identify with the students because she too had some twists and turns that changed what she had planned to do originally. + Leah was advising students on career and encouraged them to think about the careers that would fit within their desired lifestyle. She was truly an advocate for the students and felt very fulfilled seeing the students she had helped eventually graduate. * Nick likes the way Leah continually defined success professionally but also personally, thinking of it more as life success. And she kept iterating on that.

13:32 – The Identity Crisis and a Mindset Shift* Did Leah get training when entering recruitment, and did her previous experience actually make her qualified to do it? * Certainly Leah received some training when she went into recruitment, but what made her successful was more about earning trust than getting someone to believe in a product or service. + When someone enrolled, Leah genuinely believed they did so because of their trust in her and because of the research she had done with that person. She was an advocate for that person. + In the case of some students it was not the best fit or the right time for them. + Leah feels like she still served in an advisory capacity and leveraged her previous experience as a resident advisor to help. * John says when he abandoned his first college major it was pretty traumatic. It should not have been in retrospect, but he sees it now through the wisdom of distance. Leah had multiple changes to navigate in her studies yet still was able to define success on a personal level. + Leah says it really wasn’t an easy thing. She had to rely on her faith. To that point she was someone who had been successful at everything she had done as a student. + She was picked as most likely to succeed and had a bunch of plans that just didn’t work out. + Leah was the only freshman from University of Oklahoma to land an internship at Exxon and felt she was really achieving some great things. + Moving from one path to another for Leah was about evaluating what was more important. Her husband was pursuing a career in playing professional basketball that really had a shelf life and couldn’t really ask him to wait on her. + "But I knew there were other things that I could be successful at, and that was a compromise we had to make as a family." – Leah White + Leah had a little bit of an identity crisis as many people do in these types of situations. But it was a clear decision, especially when they had children because the one thing she was not going to sacrifice was time with them. - It wasn’t going to be a situation where her husband was playing overseas / in another state and someone would have to come take care of the children. She didn’t want to tell her kids she wouldn’t be there for a recital or to help with homework. It was a clear decision. + "I had to just really have a different mindset in what success would look like for my family because it would no longer be just my personal success." – Leah White * Did Leah have some advance warning of the likelihood of travel for her husband’s career as they approached getting married? + Leah’s husband played basketball for the University of Oklahoma and pretty much knew he would continue pursuing it as a career. + Even now Leah’s husband coaches at the D1 level for the University of Houston and since the early days has been something requiring a lot of travel. + Leah tells us we need to not just look at how we identify with things as an individual. Telling yourself you have not achieved what you wanted to achieve can even create problems with your family. - Having this perspective as early as possible really sets you up for long term success. - When you plan your career at a young age, career advisors don’t often talk to you about your relationships. - "When you are choosing your career pathway you are choosing one that is going to compliment your lifestyle…not just what’s a part of that sequence of courses you’re going to complete." – Leah White + John says when he was in school he didn’t need to / did not think about the ramifications of being in a relationship with an upper classman (who graduates and may not necessarily stick close to campus afterward). This is a complication. * Nick thinks the mindset Leah had is what made her so successful in recruitment of students. It seems like she has internalized this process so much that it was imparted to the students she worked with as well. * Leah believes it is important to be as transparent as possible. These are huge decisions (taking a new job, investing in a career, etc.). + It’s important to have the real conversations about additional consideration points (i.e. obstacles to doing something, whether it will be long or short term, etc.). It’s only fair to visit these topics. * Even in her job today, Leah encourages people to ask as many questions as possible during the hiring process. + Ask to speak tot someone who would be working on your team to get a real perspective. + You should ask enough so that when you walk into a new role there are no regrets and no mismatches in what you expect it to be and what it actually is (as close to what you expect as possible at least). + Nick suggests we likely do not ask enough questions in job interviews to try and figure out what the land mines might be.

22:06 – Becoming Part of the Institute* John wonders if the experience of self-evaluation and defining success carried over into roles beyond the job at University of Phoenix. + Leah really enjoyed her job there and joked that the only thing truly missing was a meal plan. Her husband would often times talk about the good food he was having. + A family friend really became a mentor of Leah’s. She really taught Leah the basics of external recruiting principles. + Leah got an MBA and a HR graduate certificate from University of Phoenix, but there were facets of recruitment she had not yet explored. + Leah was able to do some contract work with this family friend (some HR stuff), and she also had some small stints with various agencies for some supplemental income. - As part of this experience, Leah was exposed to a variety of tools, strategies, goals, and platforms. This was very helpful to her. It was not anything to provide longevity, but it was some good exposure. + At one point the University of Phoenix decided to close the campus where Leah worked, wanting to close their brick and mortar locations and focus on the bread and butter of online courses. + Despite the unfortunate closing of the office where Leah had been working, she had leadership who were looking out for those who were impacted by this decision. - There are leaders who still text Leah happy birthday to this day. - One specific leader referred Leah to a personal friend at the Louisiana Culinary Institute who was looking for support in admissions. * In a way the opportunity at the Louisiana Culinary Institute was that meal plan Leah had been talking about. She would get to taste things that students made and eat wonderful food. + The opportunity expanded Leah’s knowledge quite a bit. It was a private institution where everyone would wear many hats. Leah served as the admissions director, internship director, and career development coordinator at different points during her time at the institute. + Leah gained experience in sourcing partnerships and nurturing those she brought to the school (and even spearheaded a partnership with Disney). In addition to this, Leah partnered with different employers (like restaurants) and brought in different clients. She taught psychology classes (using her minor from school), small business development, and even HR courses. - The institute had added a business track to prepare students for opening their own restaurant, for example. + Leah was able to use the thing she had learned from other hats she had worn at different places in her past and really enjoyed the experiences. + She was on that other end of recruitment working with adult students who were often career changers, some had families, and most wanted to become chefs / business owners / be somewhere in the culinary field, etc. + Leah does not believe she would have been able to do all these things if she had been part of a larger organization. + Leah is thankful for the people who believed in her abilities to make a difference there. She was given the freedom to go and try things (not all of which worked) that expanded her skillset. + Leah didn’t specifically ask for the freedom and latitude she was given at the culinary institute during the interview process. Remember Leah had been laid off from the University of Phoenix previous to this role, and she was open to just about anything. + Many of the opportunities given to Leah at this employer were provided after some gaps / specific needs were identified and she raised her hand to give it a try. Other times certain things were asked of her. - As Leah demonstrated success in one area her scope would broaden, allowing her to shift from one area to another. - She might then be part of the hiring process to replace the area in which she was working and move on to a different area. - "It really was a progression over time where I moved from one department to another where I grew it and then moved to a different path in the organization." – Leah White - Nick says this was a chance to really learn the business, its processes, and how they connect. * As a recruiter now, could Leah have identified someone who would have been well suited to have the same success she did at the culinary institute (i.e. someone who fit a job description but that the company was looking to grow into certain areas)? + Leah says this happens often with lower level roles (i.e. junior level). You are often gauging potential. + "The point is that you’re wanting to invest in someone you’re hiring, so do I see that you have the potential for growth?" – Leah White + Much of this is scouted during a conversation and maybe asking questions like - Where do you see yourself in 5 years? - What is your ideal role? - What are your interests? + You’re trying to gauge whether this is someone who is really going to work on their personal growth within the organization. + When Leah speaks with people she is looking for adaptability, passion, purpose, and a willingness to grow skillsets.

29:49 – Internships* There are multiple reasons companies see value in internships. * If you are taking an emerging professional and putting them in an internship opportunity, you are able to gauge whether that person is going to be a quality future hire. * There is normally a predetermined time frame of 3-6 months with the goal in many situations to at the end being to take that person on full time. But if you have not seen what you were hoping to get out of the time with that person (as an employer), you can end the relationship. * This works both ways. The person taking part in an internship may decide the experience was not what they expected it to be or that the company is not a place where they would one day want to work. * The internship is like dating and then deciding if you really want to marry the person. During the internship you really get a feel for whether you want to move forward. * The internships at Louisiana Culinary Institute were developed with the idea of growing a partnership. + It was also to help students get a feel for how to seek a job. Despite being a great student, the person may have no idea how to go about doing that (to move on past school). + An established internship program really provides guidance for students in this way and putting them in a better position to land a full time job. + You also have to consider career changers. If you are looking at someone’s resume and all experience is in a different area than the job for which they are applying really wants. If that person had spent time in an internship they are able to show proof of experience with possible backing recommendation letters. + Nick mentions the connotation of internship is usually associated with someone new to the workforce, and he hadn’t thought about it from the standpoint of the career changer. Maybe in some cases you might refer to it as an apprenticeship? * John says it is much more common in the culinary world to do an internship, and it doesn’t make sense to graduate with a culinary degree with no professional kitchen experience. But this is likely true for almost any job and degree. + Leah says this is more prevalent in some industries than others. She had a great time during her engineering internship, for example. Likely one would not have engineering experience without participating in some kind of internship. + Some places have co-op agreements where you would take a semester of school and then a semester working. One could have 2 years of experience working at an organization by the end of this and would be coming in at a higher job level and higher pay. But it’s also about whether you are ok with lengthening the time period you are in school. + John says the last time he thought about this was when he was a senior in high school. He didn’t think about how joining a company with the degree and some experience there compared to a degree and no experience might set someone up to be ahead of the game in total earnings down the road. + Leah says in the IT world we often see this with boot camps. Someone who wants to change careers may invest in a 6 month boot camp, for example. The investment someone made in a coding boot camp is looked upon quite differently (in a positive light) than someone who took a class or two on the side or was self-taught. There are often partnerships with boot camps for recruitment. + Nick says it would make sense that recruiters who need to fill job roles would want to partner with programs bringing people into an industry in this way (i.e. building talent pipelines). + Leah says it speaks volumes when a company has someone came from a boot camp succeed within that company. Some companies have a very strong brand, but having someone be successful (in Leah’s mind) is the picture perfect role model of what works for your organization. + And the more people who end up successful coming out of the program, the more confidence is placed in the program itself. * John asks if there were programs to be a YouTube food influencer during Leah’s time at the culinary institute. + Nope – they did not have any programs like that at the time. + Students did (as part of the curriculum) practice being recordedcooking. They might be featured at an event or news segment. + Being recorded was something many students avoided. They loved being in the kitchen as a solo act, but being recorded meant they had to focus on how they looked, whether they were following sanitary guidelines, etc. This kind of thing was very important for many of the pathways people wanted to go down. + We’ve found in the tech industry the more you can present your work in public (even if pre-recorded), it raises your profile and can act as proof of work.

38:13 – Seeking Flexibility* After the Louisiana Culinary Institute, Leah transitioned to Accenture. * This was another life pivot. Leah’s husband had been coaching in Louisiana and got his dream opportunity at the time to coach at University of Houston for his former coach. This required relocation to Houston.

+ The same family friend mentioned before (a mentor) stepped in to help, suggesting Leah look at Accenture for remote recruitment.
+ This sounded perfect for Leah since her family had a tendency to relocate fairly frequently. Something she could take with her would work way better.
+ After speaking with the Accenture recruiting team there were two opportunities available – general recruiting and sourcing.
+ Leah loves sourcing because you’re a little bit of a matchmaker, and it’s a bit like a treasure hunt. You’re seeking amazing candidates, bringing opportunities to them, and the person has the choice to pursue it or not.
+ Leah felt like in a sourcing role you are going out and helping others, and that is what she really liked about it.

Leah was at Accenture for about 4 years and was able to work on a number of projects such as diversity projects and was able to really use a lot of the technical foundation learned at The University of Phoenix.
- She had worked on IT program recruitment previously and was now at Accenture sourcing IT professionals, which became a sweet spot for her.
- Leah loves IT folks and feels they are straight to the point and transparent about what they are looking for in a job. She really enjoyed this about technical sourcing.
- Leah says Accenture has a great culture. It’s a massive organization with many facets where there was never a dull day. She might be sourcing a life sciences role, a SAP professional, and a Workday professional on consecutive days (for example).
- This was a fun opportunity in which Leah was able to meet so many people and grow in her work.
- The only piece missing for Leah when she was there was that she was still a contractor, which was the way it worked for that portion of the HR division.
- Leah had done a great job while there and received good feedback and reviews while there, but the structure was really all contractors and did not change.
- Leah was comfortable there because of the people she worked with.
- Does a broad range of roles to source actually make it more difficult on the sourcer?
- It depends on personal preference. Leah had co-workers who would specialize in a single area, and it was where they preferred to remain (i.e. becoming a subject matter expert in a specific area or particular platform).
- Leah raised her hand to be a little bit of a floater because she enjoyed being able to try something new. It’s also a little job stability because Leah was up for going into these different areas and understanding those parts of the business. Accenture is a huge organization.
- If someone like Leah is learning roles on the life sciences side, on the business side, and then on the tech side…she is getting a better understanding of how the organization works and is able to better direct candidates.
- It’s very common to reach out to a candidate about a specific role and then once you get to know the person, you may come to the realization that there may be better for the candidate within your organization. And you keep looking and perhaps bring another opportunity to that candidate.
- If you’re open to learning more about your organization (as Leah did), you are able to be a greater asset to your organization and provide more value in what you do.
- Nick says this speaks to the generalist / specialist divide for technologists and the struggles in moving back and forth toward each end of the spectrum. We have seen many organizations that do not value hyperspecialists and prefer more generalists while other companies may prefer more specialists.
- John suggests seeking flexibility seems to be a pattern for Leah since he has had to flex in the past and not depend on any one thing.
- Early on in her career Leah was more structured and later found it did not really work for her situation.
- Leah believes she has fully embraced the flexibility, and this also keeps things interesting. She loves to participate in different projects, being able to raise her hand and get plugged in to help in various areas.
- This helps Leah learn more about the organization, the industry, and trends. She believes we have to continue to grow instead of saying "this is what I am gong to do" and "this is what I am always going to do."
- As we have seen from the last few years it’s very important to be flexible and adapt in order to be successful.
- Mentioned in the outro
- Success for Leah was a byproduct of defining the non-negotiables like family time, etc.
- John has been through an identity crisis as well after going to school to become an electrical engineer and then figured out he needed to do something else (which had to be figured out).
- Sometimes we assume as men that our spouse / partner is going to relocate and follow us if needed for work. That is not always the case. Listen to John share the story about a friend of his who needed to relocate to the opposite coast of the US support his wife.
- Continuing to hone and sharpen your skills can make you more marketable if you were to experience a layoff.
- We should have asked if it would be a good tactic to reach out to sourcing personnel at companies if one was looking for jobs!
- Remember that focus on flexibility. Perhaps if you’re listening that is something you would like to highlight in a job search.

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Welcome to episode 211 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 2 of a discussion with Shailvi Wakhlu, talking through her move to 100% people management, how she’s built strategy, thoughts on job leveling, an explanation of what data science is, and resources that can help with a career move into data science.

Original Recording Date: 01-17-2023

Shailvi Wakhlu (she/her) is based in San Francisco and was most recently a senior director and head of data at a sports tech company. During the time Shailvi was there, she ran a department of 27 product analysts and machine engineers. Catch part one of our discussion with Shailvi in Episode 210.

Topics – Targeting the C-Suite, Manager of Various Teams, Thoughts on Strategy, The Manager Who Built Career Paths, Job Levels and Hiring, Data Science and Related Fields4:37 – Targeting the C-Suite* Shailvi didn’t get her first fully management role with no individual contributor responsibilities until about 3 years ago. This was a very conscious decision. + Prior to this role, 50% of Shailvi’s time was focused on coding or delivering something as an individual contributor. Her title may have said technical lead or manager, but the 50% split was the reality of her true responsibilities. + Shailvi didn’t want to move fully into management and stop growing her technical skills. For the longest time she would turn away from any role that was 100% management…until a couple of years ago. + Nick says those who have led very technical careers seem to have a hesitancy when they move up into leadership (i.e. loss aversion, loss of identity, etc.). + Shailvi says she can identify with these feelings and the desire for staying in your comfort zone. + When Shailvi works on code, she can see the impact she is having and can point to more tangible outputs from what she is doing. + People leadership is very different. Sometimes it’s all the bad things that have not happened that are a measure of your success. And it’s not for everyone. * One of Shailvi’s biggest wins over the last 2 years is that out of 27 people only one person left the team. This all happened during what was called the great resignation. + Nick says talent retention is important and has heard it costs companies 2.5x someone’s salary to turn them over (i.e. backfill the role). + Shailvi says you try to do a lot of things that are right. Sometimes it works and sometimes not. + Management life is so different than life as a coder (where Shailvi started). - "You do X,Y,Z. You get A,B,C. And there you go. Checkbox. You’ve met your goals." – Shailvi Wakhlu, speaking to life as a coder + Shailvi loves being at the strategic helm of a company and making key decisions. She enjoys businesses, shaping businesses, and shaping businesses that will do well. + "Look at the jobs that you want, and reverse engineer what needs to happen for you to get there." – Shailvi Wakhlu * Shailvi wanted a C-suite job. That’s what she still wants and is working toward. + Shailvi realized that for a C-suite job you need to have a very good grasp on the people aspect of it such as how to get the best work out of people, how to hire great people, how to grow them, how to motivate them, and how to retain them. + There is a big people leadership aspect to most C-suite jobs, and Shailvi realized she needed to go into the roles that would push her into situations which would really help her progress to grow that skillset. + Shailvi knows she was a good individual contributor, but could she be a good manager? She did not know for sure yet. * Nick mentions that communication aspect that was so important for software engineers comes into play here again for the manager who needs to communicate upward (their management) and downward (to the people under them). The way you communicate and the things you talk about changes as you hold roles at different levels within an organization. You have to change and adjust your communication to fit that level, which takes time. + Shailvi says getting the right words and the right communication is a lifelong journey. Shailvi still says things that she will think about later and wonder why she framed it in a certain way. + "It’s a journey in self-improvement to keep finding the right things to say at the right time and still sound authentic…and still make it clear that you care about the individual situation and that you’re not reading off a play book." – Shailvi Wakhlu

10:19 – Manager of Various Teams* Is it more comforting to manage a team where you have experience working as an individual contributor in that area compared to a team where you have not? + When Shailvi was at Salesforce, she started by doing the work and then later had someone report up to her. She knew how to do the work and was hiring someone who could do the same / similar things. + By contrast, when she entered Komodo, Shailvi inherited a team that already existed. Some of the things people on this team did Shailvi did not know how to do (i.e. did not have some of the skills, was not familiar with some of the tools being used, etc.). + Shailvi feels she was a successful manager at Komodo despite these things because she understood the business relevance and the strategic nature of what that team did. + "I knew how to position the team well for their own success and for the success of the company." – Shailvi Wakhlu on her role at Komodo * There’s no doubt Shailvi has walked into situations with roles where she felt impostor syndrome at first, wondering if she could really handle it. But, after several months she would come to the realization that yes, she was the right person for the role and that others agreed with that. Shailvi is grateful for this. * Shailvi doesn’t think a manager needs to know exactly what everyone does for them to be successful at the management piece. * How can a manager who takes over a team and lacks individual contributor experience in that area set the team at ease? + Shailvi likes to understand people’s individual career values and makes it a point to ask those she works with what they care about. In most cases, that is the blueprint around which you want to optimize for the success of your report. + Shailvi has now been a department lead twice, and in both cases, she was generally skewed toward managing senior talent who do not necessarily need help with their technical skills. That’s not why they need a manager. They need a manager who understands the concerns they face, who listens, and really cares about solving a problem for the employee. + It’s about building rapport. It’s about the employee communicating where they need help and the manager finding proactive ways to unblock them (due to the access you have to senior company leadership). + Knowing employee career values is a way to keep honing in on the specific things that are important to people at that individual level. + Shailvi mentions if she gets asked to help someone with technical skills (which usually happens if the person is earlier in their career), she will set that person up with a specific mentor who can help the person build those skills. + Nick says this a great way to frame up that the manager does not need to be the most technical person on the team.

14:08 – Thoughts on Strategy* Staying on top of individual career value for your team isn’t a direct input into building strategy. It’s a separate path compared to staying in touch with upward management and ensuring your understanding of company focus (which can mean many things). + Company focus can mean what the CEO cares about, what the C-suite in general cares about, what the company advertises publicly, etc. There are many different pieces. + The more clarity you can get on where the business is headed and what it needs, it will be easier to map it out with how that fits into what your team can do and what different people on your team want to do. + It’s like a match making of what the company needs and what individuals need. + "There may not always be a 100% match, and you as the manager, as a leader, have to find the best way to sort of merge those two pieces." – Shailvi Wakhlu + If the company asks for something, a leader has to give feedback and let others know what is realistic. Shailvi was a data leader and could leverage the data to show that something would be a better path for them. + "Finding the pieces on both sides, actually connecting them, and making sense of them is what the job is." – Shailvi Wakhlu + Nick says in doing this you’re giving each employee a heightened sense of purpose and the impact they could make to the strategy. * Are there strategies at various levels within an organization (i.e. one for a manager’s team, one for the C-suite, one for the board of directors, etc.)? + Shailvi says companies have different ways in which they come up with that cohesive strategy. + She’s seen companies that are very top down with each department or group trying to match up to that top-level strategy and how they fit into it. + Shailvi has also seen companies that are very bottoms up, sharing the general direction in which the company is headed and then asking what departments and teams want to do in your to take steps in that direction / in service of that larger goal. + There are pros and cons to both options. In Shailvi’s opinion, going in one of those directions totally does not yield the best results. + It’s helpful for companies to be honest with themselves and share their strategy generation tactic (whether top down, bottom up, a mix of both, or if some guardrails are present) so people will know. People can do something good for the company but also do something good for themselves. + Nick says the word strategy is used often enough we might sit back and wonder what they really means.

17:37 – The Manager Who Built Career Paths* Shailvi says we have as an industry made some things very murky. Once you’re a senior enough individual contributor, there is almost this expectation of you going into management. + Shailvi heavily pushes back on this mindset, wishing as an industry we would do better. + "I don’t think going from individual contributor to management is a promotion. I think it’s a different job. You either choose to do that job, or you choose to not do it." – Shailvi Wakhlu + Taking on management as a career is really personal preference based on the things people care about. We should keep repeating the advice that going into management is not the only way to grow your career or progress in some way. + Shailvi has a lot of respect for companies who have mapped out individual contributor paths that rise all the way up to principal, senior staff, etc. By having these roles a company is saying there is a place for you at the highest levels of individual contribution which is both valuable and critical to the company’s success. * Shailvi has managed a lot of new managers in the tech industries (mentoring over 60 or so in a single year at one point), and they have grappled with the question of whether management is the right place for them. + Shailvi suggests talking with people in management at the company where you are considering being a manager to find out what it really means to be a manager there. Find out what these people actually do and how they spend their time. - The management role can vary a lot from company to company (i.e. comes in different shapes and flavors). + Shailvi says we should first decide if we want to do management at a specific company (usually the one where we work) before deciding whether to do it elsewhere. + Sometimes taking a management role at your current company is a way to get your foot in the door and gain experience, even if it’s not your preferred flavor of management. + Shailvi says it is really helpful when people dive into what it actually takes to be a manager with someone doing the job. + Even within the same company, depending on which team you might be leading, it might be full on people management for one team and for another it might be half people management and half technical lead. + Shailvi tells us that teams come in all kinds and sizes. People will leave. People will join. There are so many things that can keep changing. + "Ultimately the manager has to adapt to a lot of changing situations, and they are the ones who have to prioritize the success of their individual reports above their own individual success. And that can be really hard for a lot of people." – Shailvi Wakhlu + If someone is used to receiving kudos as an individual contributor, the measurements for a manager become more along the lines of what kind of kudos are coming for your team. + If people are getting promoted off your team to elsewhere that is not necessarily a bad thing. + Shailvi has trained new managers to not shy away from having someone report to them who are at the same level or higher than the manager’s current level. If someone you manage out-earns you it is not a bad thing (but it can be uncomfortable). * Shailvi has done work in her previous leadership roles to ensure career paths exist for those individual contributors wanting to move up to the highest levels without pursuing management. + Shailvi cites Komodo as one of the employers that while very good at focusing on the business and its growth, also really and genuinely cared about the people. + Shailvi had previously worked at Salesforce, which she cites as hands down having one of the best company cultures she has experienced. She went from there to Komodo (a much smaller company) and cites it as another blessing to experience. + Sometimes smaller companies like startups tend to have a misalignment with market reality. Shailvi has worked with many startups over the course of her experience. - Sometimes those who bet on a startup over time get an outsized idea of titles, levels, and sometimes even leadership opportunities. - Someone could be very good inside this company, but by the rest of the market’s standards they do not stand up to that same level. + Shailvi joined Komodo during series B funding, and the company was rapidly growing. They (Komodo) knew there was a need to add more structure to departments like engineering. In this case, Shailvi reported up to the head of engineering and took on owning this structuring framework as part of the engineering leadership team. - Shailvi had discussed this need with her boss as well as an HR business partner. She helped create what could be defended against market realities. + The ultimate deliverable of this effort was so people at the company could clearly see what growth and progression looked like, what reward and growth looked like, and what expectations at different levels were. It was intended that job level would accurately reflect where employees were in their progression (and to avoid a situation where "everyone here is a principal engineer," for example). + Nick didn’t consider that many startups might not have the job leveling in place but can certainly see that if they are small. + Shailvi would say (for smaller companies) once you have crossed 50-60 engineers you should have something in place like this (i.e. job leveling). + Shailvi says at larger companies teams can be quite small. In her time at Strava, they had a 2-person sub department that reported up to her for almost a year. There were only 2 people in a specific role, and in these cases you have to default to a larger framework the company uses for leveling (i.e. not as specific to the person’s skillset in this case). - Once you get past the point where 2-3 pizzas is not enough for everyone in a department, you should probably have something more structured and formalized. + Without the structure, you start having promotions based on feelings and not on facts. It will always make people who are not promoted feel resentful since they won’t really know what it takes. Having a good feeling associated with somoene is not the same as the person showing progression of skills and what they can achieve as a result. * With a manager’s knowledge of employee career values and the clear leveling and expectations defined, it allows an improved feedback mechanism from manager to employee that can be frequent (and not just in yearly / quarterly reviews), pointing out gaps to fill in the progression process over time. + If you (as a manager) care about people and you care about growth you have to give them useful feedback. If you’re unsure as a manager of what the company is willing to reward for progression, it is very hard for you to give effective feedback. + Companies can default to making decisions based on time / tenure in a role when things like what a senior analyst should be able to do, for example, are not clearly defined.

26:59 – Job Levels and Hiring* It also really matters that when you hire people that you are placing them at the correct level. + When you have experience in a large company and in a startup it can be really hard to align to the right level. + Someone could be considered a senior analyst at a company with a department having only 2 people in a specific function. If that person moves to a different company, their skills might not match what a senior analyst is expected to do. + Transparency in the things a company values for specific roles is really important here. * Usually a job description or job listing will show the job level (senior, staff, principal, etc.). Do companies usually share the differences in levels with job candidates? + Shailvi has done this in the past, authorizing recruiters to share the internal leveling standards and distinctions with candidates to present a mismatch in level expectation. + These are shared in a respectful way to show someone what the standards for the company are. This is about transparency. + Shailvi has had job changes where she’s had to lower her title, and in those cases she was ok with it. She does, however, understand that a title can be important to people and that they might not be ok with taking a lower title than expected (even after seeing the standards). + Shailvi tells us it is helpful to ask for the leveling standards when interviewing for a role. In her case, she asked for it on at least one occasion and was able to justify a more senior level as a result.

29:24 – Data Science and Related Fields* Shailvi has what some may consider a hot take on this. She wishes our industry would align the terminology across the board.

+ It is frustrating for candidates to apply for roles that are unclear about what the role really entails.
+ Shailvi worked in a company where everyone who came to be a data scientist expected it to be a machine learning role. In actuality machine learning was barely 5% of what the role required. It was more of an analytics role.
+ In this case Shailvi had to clarify terms and what they meant based on her research.
+ Originally, data science was the umbrella term, referring to the science of data. This encompassed everything from analytics to engineering to machine learning with many other things thrown in.
    - Visualization is an expectation, pipeline infrastructure fits in there, etc.
    - A "full stack" data scientist can do engineering, analytics, and machine learning.
+ A lot of courses started using data science and machine learning interchangeably, and then companies started doing it too. It’s become so pervasive it’s weird.
+ Shailvi likes to clarify what she means when she says data science.
+ The best thing to do is look at the job to see what parts are expected and what parts are not expected. Sometimes it can be more than one piece.
+ For example, sometimes you can be expected to do analytics and data engineering, analytics and machine learning, or even machine learning and data engineering. There can be a mix and match of these. Most roles require some level of visualization, but that can vary.

People come under the umbrella of data science roles from a variety of backgrounds.
- Shailvi thinks development and engineering backgrounds are represented quite a bit in this field, but she has worked with data scientists who came from a psychology background, a customer service background, some type of people facing job, some type of research background, people with hard math skillsets, etc.
- There are a number of PhDs who have become data scientists (former physicists, for example).
- An aversion to math or basic coding will make getting into this field difficult and are likely disqualifiers for candidates.
- A desire to tell stories with data helps, especially for roles that emphasize machine learning and analytics.
- Shailvi has had product managers, marketers, and many others who come from different functions get into the data science field. This includes people who were once IT generalists.
- There are a number of free resources out there people can use and many who are willing to share their knowledge to help others progress.
- When people are clear about the subset of problems they want to solve and explore, Shailvi thinks there is a lot of opportunity.
- Recommended tools and courses to get into data science
- Bootcamps, as discussed earlier, are a way to quickly get a lay of the land, have some hands on experience with actual projects, learn the languages that are relevant, the techniques that are relevant and which to apply in a given situation, etc.
- There are a lot of resources in the open source community. Shailvi cites the #100DaysOfCode hash tag on Twitter as a resourced used by a number of data folks.
- There is also the Kaggle Community which hosts projects and competitions as well as courses.
- Data.gov is a huge resource anyone can use to practice with real data sources. This would allow formulating some problems on your own and seeing if you can get to an answer that makes sense.
- Nick suggests looking on Meetup.com for user groups in this discipline.
- Shailvi has participated in the Women in Data Science or WiDS community (lots of resources here), speaking at various WiDS events and keynoting at the Miami chapter conference in 2021 (see keynote video here).
- Shailvi has also been a part of Data Umbrella. They regularly host events covering core technical training which can benefit anyone.
- Data Umbrella is a larger community that covers many topics, and Women in Data Science (WiDS) has multiple chapters which are for in-person meetups in specific locations.
- Where does a data science organization fit in a company?
- The three most common places Shailvi has seen where a company starts to indicate a need for data science (i.e. analytics, etc.) are:
  - Product engineering (you’re building something and want to understand the meaning behind it, measure it, etc.)
  - Marketing is a common place where the first data scientist in a company is hired. They benefit from understanding the return on investment from their (usually) very big expenditures. Staying on top of this is very useful to companies.
  - Finance is always interested in core analytics of product performance, engineering performance, etc.
- Companies usually start off where a couple of departments usually have their own analyst or their own data scientist. Eventually the company becomes large enough that you decide to centralize that entire function.
  - At Strava they were at the centralized phase where they had product analysts, marketing analysts, and community analysts; but all reported up under one organization. That organization can then report up through product, technology, a chief operating officer, or even the CEO. Any of this can change based on the specific company.
  - Nick suspects if listeners do not work for a software company (or even if they do), they might not know where to look within their own company to speak with someone who is in a data science type role.
- You can find Shailvi on her website, shailvi.com.
- There are links to her social handles on Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. on the site.
- She also offers free office hours for people who are looking for mentorship.
- Shailvi is also working on a book titled Self Advocacy, a topic she is very passionate about and has spoken about for years. At the time of this recording she is looking for agents. More details about the book can be found on her website.
- Mentioned in the outro
- Don’t think of going into management as a promotion. It’s a different job. Don Jones mentioned in Episode 137 that a lower level manager will get paid the same as a higher level individual contributor due to market value of management skills.
- Check out Episode 45 on Career Conversations with Your Manager for tips on how these discussions should go and what to do if you are not having them.
- In interviews, it’s ok to ask for job leveling standards for a company that show the impact / skillset tied to the level of the role. And knowing the standard for your title at your current company could help you articulate it to a new company so they can level a new role appropriately for you.
- Data science personnel, whether in a centralized data science organization or not, should consider the value they can add to a company. They should consider line of sight to revenue. Previous guest Anudeep Parhar mentioned this (line of sight to revenue) being important for executives in Episode 208 and Episode 209.
- We need to say one more special thanks to Neil Thompson of Teach the Geek for connecting us with Shailvi.

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Welcome to episode 210 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 1 of a discussion with Shailvi Wakhlu. We’ll talk through Shailvi’s early experience as a developer, her love for coding, a shift to focus on data, and her experience as a tech lead and business owner who eventually went back to life as an individual contributor.

Original Recording Date: 01-17-2023

Topics – Meet Shailvi Wakhlu, The Development Life, Mentoring and Education, Engineer and Full Stack Developer, A Forced Decision, Realities of the Analyst Role, Tech Lead to Manager and Owner, A Business Sunsets4:28 – Meet Shailvi Wakhlu* Shailvi Wakhlu (she/her) is based in San Francisco and was most recently a senior director and head of data at a sports tech company. During the time Shailvi was there, she ran a department of 27 product analysts and machine engineers. + Shailvi recently left that job to take a break and see her family in India after not being able to visit home for a 3-year period due to COVID. After the 3 years we’ve all had, the visit was much needed. + At present she is interviewing with multiple companies for VP of Data roles. * Nick listened to this episode of Teach the Geek featuring Shailvi to prepare for today’s discussion. It’s a great episode to go learn more about Shailvi’s public speaking experiences. + Special thanks to Neil Thompson for making the connection to Shailvi!

5:28 – The Development Life* Shailvi trained as a computer engineer in college. Coding was a basic skill needed for software engineering jobs.Shailvi’s first job was titled web engineering, and then after moving locations it was changed to software engineering. Coding was the skill the company wanted for those who were being hired in this type of role. * Many companies have a specific language in which they expect candidates to be competent, but even more important according to Shailvi is being able to break down problems into component parts is something used in every developer job. + Being able to estimate project timelines and costs are important skills for the would be developer (i.e. knowing what it takes to get something completed). + Communication is also important for the developer. You have to update people, give them some idea of what you are doing and how you are doing it, and how you actually get things accomplished. * Shailvi says being able to articulate (on a resume) not just the experiences you’ve had but also what you have learned from it is very helpful. + Shailvi has seen candidates be successful when they not only described the project they worked on but also how they went about doing it. + For those looking to break into development or who may be fresh out of school, the ability to take something that is somewhat ambiguous, come at it from a customer perspective, and get to a solution can be demonstrated on your resume. And this is a distinguishing characteristic Shailvi looks for in candidates. + Shailvi says demonstrating experience solving a problem in a different language than a company may have on a job description is still helpful. She would hesitate to discount experience in another language because though there are syntax differences between programming languages the basic concepts remain the same. - For senior level roles you may need multiple years experience in a specific language, but for something entry level, experience in a specific language is not required (assuming you have some relatable experience from using another language). - Most good companies tend to look for buckets (or groupings) of languages and for candidates to have experience in at least one of them. They do not expect you to know everything about what they need for a specific job. - Nick says this is analogous to a compensation range but for programming languages (i.e. a range of languages) and would likely lead to more strong candidates as a result. - Shailvi says it is important for companies to list multiple languages in the job description, especially those closely related to what they are looking for. - When Shailvi was a PHP developer, she would search for those keywords, for example. If a company listed Python or Perl in the job description, she would not landed on the job in question because it did not match her search terms. We also know that applicant tracking systems are looking for keywords in resumes as a way to filter candidates.

10:48 – Mentoring and Education* Shailvi is big on mentoring. + She has volunteered at a local middle school to teach students math in the past. + Shailvi has also taught coding students ranging from middle school to those right out of high school. + Shailvi is very interested in the questions young people ask regarding what her job is like. - Some young people even want to know how much Shailvi gets paid in her line of work. Young people want to know which jobs are going to pay well and get them the lifestyle they want. - When we say lifestyle someone may want to be able to travel frequently or stay close to their family and would prefer a remote job. For those who love learning, they may want to find a role that will require them to keep learning year after year. - For the example lifestyles we discussed, software engineering is a great option. It has creative aspects and learning aspects. Shailvi feels there is something in it for everyone. * Shailvi loves to code, and she finds it to be like solving puzzles. She grew up on detective stories and was fascinated with being given a problem and being able to get to a solution in multiple ways. + Having creative control of solving a problem was exciting to Shailvi, and she enjoyed the coding lifestyle. + Shailvi enjoys coding so much that even now, despite not getting a chance to code much in her current job, she will still dedicate time to do it now and then. + Many people think when they move up or into different roles they have to leave everything behind. Shailvi is an example that we can still take time to do the things we enjoy. + Even if not coding for part of our day jobs, we can still find time to code in our free time. + Shailvi not only enjoys coding but seeks to keep the skill of coding current as much as she can. + Shailvi has been focusing in Python as the language she works with in her spare time as it is finding more usefulness in the data space where she works. A few years ago she had to make a decision between Python and R, and at the time she chose Python. - Shailvi feels many other in the industry made a move toward Python as well, and though she learned Python long ago, she tries to stay on top of new use cases and applications of it (always something to learn). * Each company has their own perspective on value of a degree compared to a boot camp for incoming job candidates. * As a hiring manager, Shailvi likes to look at the totality of the experiences someone is able to bring. + She has a lot of respect for people who want to learn a new skill like coding to change careers or learn something they were not taught in college. + Shailvi may not be in a position to put these candidates in a senior role based only on their experiences before acquiring coding skills. + Remember it isn’t just about being able to code. + While coding is something you can certainly be taught at a boot camp, but hopefully through your other experiences you have picked up skills that can add to your journey as a software engineer / software developer such as… - The ability to explain what you are doing - The ability to understand problems and care about the solutions + The above are typically not something a boot camp will teach you, but they are things other life experiences and other jobs will teach you. * What about apprenticeships? + Shailvi has not known many people who have taken this path but has heard about it as an option. She has heard of specific companies offering specific learning paths. + As a concept it does sound like a very interesting option.

17:10 – Engineer and Full Stack Developer* Shailvi tends to use the terms software engineer and software developer interchangeably. When she worked at her first job some folks had the title of software engineer and some software developer. But no one seemed to know the difference. * Shailvi believes there used to be some difference in educational skillsets, but if there is a massive distinction she has not seen it. * When she worked for Monster.com, Shailvi’s role was defined internally as full stack developer even though the external facing title was still software engineer. + Some engineers inside the company were considered full stack and some were not considered full stack with the primary difference being full stack developers work on everything related to an application such as… - The front end - The back end, which would include databases (allowing Shailvi to pick up some database manipulation skills like SQL / MySQL) - Programming the browser with HTML / CSS - Programming the server with PHP and Perl + Nick loved learning SQL when he worked in IT operations and systems administration. There is an elegance in typing a command into a command line or blank window and getting the data back that you wanted to get. * What about that technical generalist who knows some scripting languages? How could they slide over into software development? + Shailvi says we should look at the jobs out there in this area (whether on LinkedIn, a company website, or some other site). + She loves that now most jobs have a posted salary range. Find some jobs that based on location, salary, and some other parameters make sense to you. + Think about what is common between those jobs as well as what you really want. Shailvi says we can almost reverse engineer and think about what it might take to get a "job like that." + As a word of caution, be aware of technology change. Something that is a hot skill today could be obsolete if you take 5 years to learn it. This is part of the reason Shailvi thinks going to boot camps instead of pursuing a second degree is quite powerful. - This enables a faster turn around time to get industry relevant job skills and learn programming languages that are in high demand. - For newer technologies there may not be many people who have experience with these which can often mean people are willing to take a chance on someone who has spent time learning and doing projects in these areas (allowing the candidate to position themselves in a much better way. * Are code snippets on GitHub going to get the attention of a hiring manager? + Shailvi hasn’t hired software engineers in a long time. When she is on hiring panels for these roles she is looking at how they collaborate with data, etc. + She says even when hiring for data-focused roles (like analysts), they are also expected to code. Snippets can be very helpful as can linking to a portfolio of work you have done on your resume. + But no one will hire someone without getting them to do some form of coding exercise. This could be a live exercise, pair programming, or an assignment you complete on your own time. Different companies have a mix and match approach to how they test coding skills. The expectation is there that you will be asked to demonstrate proof of code (i.e. prove you can write code for something).

22:58 – A Forced Decision* Shailvi has told this story multiple times but is going to reframe the story for our current climate. * After working as a software engineer for 5 years (at Monster) she was encouraged to move to the analytics side. + During the 5-year period Shailvi moved across 3 different continents. + The business had also decided to (by this time) layoff the rest of Shailvi’s team who were in the United States. She was the last person on that team left and was working in India. + The business did the layoffs and gave Shailvi some options. She was told the team she was on no longer existed and she could take the severance package and make tomorrow her last day or take an analyst role. + This is the part of the story Shailvi hasn’t really mentioned previously. This came as part of a tradeoff in a layoff situation. It was an interesting situation because the company offered the option of a very generous severance package, but Shailvi also had no clue what being an analyst meant or what an analyst did. + After hearing that in the new role as analyst she would still get to code 50% of the time, Shailvi agreed to take the analyst role. And that is the story of how she got into analytics. It was chance, luck, timing, and a bad economy. + Shailvi was only giving a day to think about it before being forced to make a decision, and this may have been due to the fact that she was working out of India and not in the US. + She felt lucky that she had an option and strongly considered taking the severance. Shailvi is glad she chose to learn something new and try something different in taking the analyst role. It worked out very well for her. * In all of this, the roles Shailvi and her teammates were doing were completely eliminated. + The team had been slowly shrinking in the years leading up to all of this and was not a huge surprise. + The company was a great company to work for, and Shailvi was grateful to have worked there for so long. + The analyst role was a net new position. * In her time working as a software engineer before the change to analyst, Shailvi was working for a US-based team with no operations in India at all. + Shailvi indicated to her employer she would like to move back to India but keep her job as a software engineer. She even took a pay cut to do this and would work out of her company’s office in India. + There was another team at the India office working on a completely different part of the business who knew they could use an analyst to help what they were doing. + The move of Shailvi to analyst was a way to take someone who had experience at the company and knew the business and retain them (Shailvi). + Since Shailvi had made relationships at the India office with members of the other team, they knew of her reputation and were willing to make a new role. + Shailvi would ask others in the India office for help when she ran into issues because her colleagues were sleeping. Even though Shailvi was asking for help, it was still showcasing what she was capable of doing. - One thing she was capable of doing was asking for help with a problem when she got stuck. - Nick likes this perspective of asking for help demonstrating to others what you are working on and the problem you are trying to solve.

28:55 – Realities of the Analyst Role* Shailvi was told the analyst role would still be 50% time spent coding, and she thinks in many cases it was more than that (which is not a problem for someone who loves to code). * Shailvi says some of her mathematics skills from time in education had atrophied by this time. As an analyst statistics is a very highly prized skill, but it was something she had barely used as an engineer. * Shailvi had to learn things like how and when to run an experiment and how to evaluate the success of an experiment (something she did frequently as an analyst). * She also had to present the findings in a compelling manner (which some may consider a soft skill). It was a very different skill for her. + As a software engineer, Shailvi did not have to try to convince someone to select the right option based on hard data findings (i.e. trust her findings). + "As a software engineer, you don’t have to convince somebody about trusting your findings. You are asked to solve a problem, and you either solve it or you don’t solve it." – Shailvi Wakhlu * Shailvi also had to learn things like basic dashboarding (not something she had done previously). * As far as getting help filling the skills gaps… + During her time on different continents in previous years Shailvi had met people in Europe who worked on other teams at the company that she ended up contacting for some guidance and help filling the skills gaps. + Shailvi also had a personal network of people she knew from college and friends which could be tapped for help. They pointed her in the right direction at times. + Shailvi’s manager was also quite helpful in providing general guidance on what she could learn / focus on. * Shailvi loved the data analyst role after getting into it and is extremely happy she made the move. + Looking back on her career. Shailvi doesn’t know if she would have stumbled into it on her own but feels like data would have found her. After the analyst role she has never looked back. + "I loved my software engineering days, but now that I’m in data I’m not going back." – Shailvi Wakhlu * When Shailvi would run experiments one of the reasons behind it (to take an example) was to make the Monster.com alerting algorithm more relevant to more people. She would test multiple iterations to see which one would in fact land people more jobs, better jobs, more relevant jobs, etc. + Likely very few people understand the analytics back end that goes into sites like Monster.com or other popular sites these days.

32:57 – Tech Lead to Manager and Owner* Shailvi would go on from there (after 6 years at Monster) to start a business called Abundance Group. Nick calls this an experiment in and of itself. * Shailvi says part of this was timing, location, and things she was seeing. In the worst case scenario if this did not work out she had a job she liked and that suited her. * She was setup financially to try something, and if in a year she didn’t get enough traction it would still be ok. She had skills and experience that would still be relevant. * Shailvi and her husband were at a stage where they could start a company together, so they did! * Shailvi and her husband met in college and were used to navigating things together but still maintaining boundaries and discipline. They are each pretty structured. + They had set times in which they would work and tried to only work within those time slots. Your own company is never a 9-5 job, but they did try to separate work time and time not working. + They kept a cadence of vacations, family events, and spending times with friends. When it was time to work on their startup it was a different thing. + Shailvi and her husband established clear areas of ownership. She owned pieces, they might work on them together, and she owned the final decisions for those pieces. In a similar way here husband owned certain pieces and was the final decision maker. Because of these mechanisms, they had ways to overcome disagreements (if there were any) before they even started. + Her husband was in charge of getting customers, for example, and would sometimes sell things they did not know how to build. Shailvi was responsible for the technology. * Shailvi had experience as a tech lead before owning a business, which indicates leadership experience. But she had not previously acted as a manager. + Drawing on experience down the road, Shailvi constructed a spreadsheet outlining the difference in responsibility between a tech lead and a manager. + To summarize, tech leads are primarily responsible for the technical delivery of something. They can own decisions around the architecture, how something would be delivered, and various other technical decisions which may arise. + Unless there is a separate project manager, often times the tech lead will be responsible for communicating timelines, coordinating with stakeholders, making sure requirements are met, etc. + A manager’s primary job is to manage the people who report up to them. This means a manager is responsible for… - Employee career growth - Employee satisfaction in work being done - Giving important feedback to their reports on things which need development / areas of further growth + Managers can sometimes be technical leads that manage a technical project and all the people who work on that project. These roles can be separated, and it really depends on the company. + Someone who is a manager and not a tech lead also is responsible for employee health, happiness, and growth. + Player / coach tends to mean the person doing the managing or leading is also doing some of the work themselves. This is another distinction. Someone can be accountable for delivery but not actually executing on it (i.e. might just be coordinating the people who are executing on it). There are many different terms which resonate with different people. * During the time she owned her business, Shailvi was both player and coach. + When the company began, Shailvi wrote all the code herself. She knew as the business grew more people would be needed to shrink delivery time and meet customer demand. + Once there were more employees on board, Shailvi would serve as tech lead for some projects. For the rest of the projects, a different employee at the company served as the lead. + Shailvi also served as manager to a group of employees. management was very new to her, and her skills were in a very nascent state. + Shailvi started by hiring one developer, and this person brought along 2 others to work with Shailvi and her husband. Shailvi says this is the kind of thing you want. You want to retain employees, for them to refer other employees, and for employees to care about the outcomes of the business. * Shailvi certainly had aspirations to move into leadership after her early experience as a tech lead, but it was not the primary motivator to start a company. + Starting a company for Shailvi was more about trying something different and stepping outside her comfort zone (a structured environment working for an employer). She wanted to try something that was ambiguous, that had the potential to grow, and that had the potential for her to learn in many areas, etc. + Though the outcome from starting a company was some great experience in leadership, the primary motivation was something very different. * Advice for someone wanting to start their own business… + Finances have to work out for you to do something like this (a very critical piece). + You must have conviction in your skills and the proper discipline. + Making as many decisions as you can up front with rationale behind the decisions and sticking to those decisions makes the process easier. + The idea here is decide what you will do in specific situations before those happen. That means you need to think about possible scenarios in advance and have a planned action. - For example, if you are starting a business right now and you need to get 5 paying customers within a year for it to make sense. - In an ideal world you would spread these out over a year (i.e. once every few months you get a new paying customer). This is typically not how it happens. You may reach month 11, convince that first customer, and then get a couple more. * Before staring Abundance Group that she co-ran with her husband, Shailvi had started her own company. It was a failed startup that she worked on for a couple of months and then gave up due to lack of traction (not listed on her LinkedIn). + This was the first time Shailvi learned she did not have a fully formed plan. She had not accounted for the fact that it could take a lot longer to get something than she expected. + If you’re considering starting a company, have a plan, and have a fail scenario (i.e. what you will do if you do not hit your timeline milestones). Nick suggests this means you need a run book for success and failure. * There is one key difference between product manager and product owner. + The product manager owns the strategy and the vision of a product. + A product owner is more tactical. They are usually executing on someone else’s strategy and vision. * Shailvi says when owning her company the strategy and vision came from the clients. Clients would normally share a high level "pie in the sky" of what they want / want to do. + Shailvi might give feedback on a client’s strategy and vision, but it was ultimately owned by the client. + Most companies have product managers to develop a clear strategy and vision so that people working on the product can execute within that vision and strategy.

44:11 – A Business Sunsets* Part of this always comes back to timing, location, and logistics. * While she was running her own company (somewhere in the middle of it), Shailvi and her husband decided they wanted to move back to the United States (San Francisco).

+ Some of Shailvi’s clients were based in Menlo Park, California while others were based in the Middle East or in India.
+ After coming to the US, she realized the business would not scale in the same way.
+ The finances worked when she was earning in dollars and spending in rupees. Now she was living in one of the most expensive cities in the country, and she needed to earn a lot more for it to make sense.

It was a conscious decision that Shailvi did not want to scale the business to a giant operation.
- Being in silicon valley was also something very exciting in Shailvi’s line of work.
- This was an opportunity to learn on someone else’s dime. Shailvi wanted to learn from others who are building interesting things. She had a lot of value to add but also a lot of value to gain from other ways people might be doing things.
- Shailvi likes to make decisions based on data (and considers herself to be a data driven individual).
- A spreadsheet helped her make the decision to move to San Francisco (SF), so she made the move.
- By the time she was in San Francisco, she had worked as an engineer for 5 years, had run her own company for 2-3 years, had worked as an analyst for a year, and there was product ownership in between. There were a few different options as to which path she could take.
- At this point Shailvi picked the thing most interesting to her, which was analytics, despite only having a year of hard experience in the discipline. She decided to go after this for a couple of months, and if she could not find something, her plan was to re-evaluate to see if she needed to go after something different.
  - But she never ran into this problem. It worked out well for her.
- Shailvi did get asked why she wanted to become an individual contributor again, but overall, she felt it was looked upon very positively in the interview processes to become an individual contributor again.
- Shailvi says it was appealing to people that she had tried something on her own.
- There were also multiple applications she had built that she could point to and share the reasons for building them.
- There were companies who really questioned how Shailvi would fit into a role where she was not the boss (which is a valid concern).
- Her next role after owning her own company was working for Prezi. It was framed as a leadership role, and the company was happy to have someone with that type of experience. It was framed as an opportunity which still kept some of the things she was used to doing.
  - Shailvi was told she would start as an individual contributor but would be given her own team after a few months, which did not end up happening (nothing to do with Shailvi).
- Some months later a leadership role opened which was more of a tech lead for all of the analysts in the San Francisco offices (2 of them).
- Mentioned in the outro
- Continuing to spend time on coding despite Shailvi’s progression to higher levels of management is similar to the advice in The Manager’s Path by Camille Fournier.
- Maybe we should add Shailvi’s guidance to articulate lessons learned on a resume to our standard advice? It was a great point!
- Check out John’s mention of the dangle from Manager Tools.

The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change

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Welcome to episode 209 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 2 of a discussion with Anudeep Parhar, exploring the difference in the CIO and CTO roles, communicating with executives, conducting executive 1-1s, and progression from CIO to COO (Chief Operating Officer).

Original Recording Date: 01-06-2023

Anudeep Parhar is the Chief Operating Office for digital operations at Entrust. Entrust is a technology global company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota servicing two broad sectors – payments and identities sector and digital solution and cybersecurity sector. If you missed it, catch part 1 of our discussion with Anudeep in Episode 208.

Topics – A Moment of Ignition, The CTO and the CIO, Communicating with Executives, The Chief Operating Officer’s Lens, Passions and Knowing Yourself2:37 – A Moment of Ignition* Nick thinks it has to be hard to get used to walking into rooms with everyone in the room smarter than you. It’s not that you are not smart and do not bring experience to the discussion, but the people around you have a deeper, often different level of expertise than you. + This is not just book smart. People are a lot more savvy in their own disciplines. + You have to challenge yourself to walk into situations like this. If you want to be the smartest person in the room you’ve already lost. + Doing this is uncomfortable. It drives you to learn things you wouldn’t really think you need to learn. For example, maybe you realize you need to learn about what the FCC is doing about the broadband channel. - It may have little to do with your day job, but it definitely impacts you. This is part of a learning mindset that can be beneficial to us all. * At Thompson Reuters in the 1990s, there was a lot of effort being put into developing people, including formal and informal mentoring programs. Anudeep feels lucky to have been there during this time and was able to meet a number of very business minded people (not just technology minded people). * Anudeep very clearly remembers when his company originally acquired Thompson and the company creating a new entity. He was at the time a young engineer trying to figure out how to run a small team. The CTO of the company was picked to become the CEO of the company. + It was the first time a large company had made this kind of decision (the CTO to CEO promotion), and it was very empowering for Anudeep. + Anudeep learned that it is much easier for a technology leadership people to cross over into being business minded if you have the right attitude rather than a purely business minded person to understand the nuances of technology. It will be easier to upskill in business than if you need to upskill in technology. + Anudeep saw this and thought, "if he can do it then I can do it. What do I need to know to do that?" + "If you want to exist at those levels, you have to be in line of revenue. Figure out a way to get there. Fight hard. Be able to talk about how you’re in the line of revenue. Otherwise you’re just a productivity measurement" – Anudeep Parhar + At a certain level you cannot just be a cost and say that is what it takes. You have to be able to speak to how something enables and the business and therefore in line of sight of revenue. * Anudeep was fortunate to work at a company with a lot of mentorship. * He also believes you have to be out there in the community (for professional networking). + This was before LinkedIn, so you formed local networks with like-minded people and would push yourself to take the time for having conversations with others. + Platforms like LinkedIn have made this easier, but in Anudeep’s opinion, people still do not use it like they could be. + You have to put yourself out there and be humble about requesting assistance. Ask for 30 minutes, and make the effort to go see people where they are. + "You have to actively seek out mentors. Mentors are not going to come look for you. You have to take the initiative." – Anudeep Parhar + Nick mentions with a tool like LinkedIn, you have to determine how much time and effort you want to spend using it compared to other tools out there. * When we see people who are more like us succeed at something we might want to do, it gives us more confidence that we can accomplish the same thing.

8:35 – The CTO and the CIO* By CTO we mean Chief Technology Officer, and by CIO we mean Chief Information Officer. * According to Anudeep, these roles are somewhat malleable with people in them doing different things depending on where you look. * If you’ve been on an executive team long enough, there’s not a specific framework for the roles. They usually get assigned to make sure the team is cohesive. + Businesses have challenges, and you assign roles based on what you need done. It cannot be just randomly built but rather built on some industry definitions. Don’t take it too literally that there is only one definition of CIO or CTO. * Since these are chief positions, you are the owner of whatever that function is. + Generally speaking CTOs are considered more outward looking technology if you have any. + Historically healthcare companies and other industries did not have / build outward looking technology and therefore only had CIOs (mainly concerned about internal technology). + A CTO’s stakeholders are generally customers, partners, and people who pay to buy your product / stuff. + If you’re a CIO your stakeholders are usually internal folks – colleagues, the board of directors, etc. + Numbers and money come into play here. We’re talking about the internal technology infrastructure (servers, etc.) and the budgets for it getting rolled under the CIO (whose budgets and span of control only grew by impacting internal functions). - This got rolled under the G&A (or General and Administrative Expenses) line on corporate income statements. - When that became big, there was a clear shift that happened. Unless you are a purely tech company whose primary focus is technology, CTOs used to work for CIOs because most it was part of the broader head of information technology and companies didn’t have much outward facing technology for a CTO to manage. This is one way it was structured. - Another way was if you’re a technology company your head of technology needs to be able to talk about the tech you built. There, the roles were reversed with internal IT reporting up to the CTO. The same thing happened with the Chief Security Officer as well (CISO). - Depending on the company, these functions could be collapsed into one organization, formed into a structured hierarchy, or could even be peer organizations. This is all evolving. + Generally CIOs largely look at internal technology and CTOs external technology. If you are a technology company, CTO is the head of all technology. And if not (healthcare, retail, etc.), a CIO usually holds the top job. * How "technical" should the CIO be? + Anudeep says technical is a continuum. + Would you ever trust a company whose head of sales has never carried a bag (i.e. a quota)? The answer should be no. Would you ever trust a CFO (Chief Financial Officer) who has never done accounting work? + These are not generic general management jobs like they were 50 years ago. They are functional roles. Anudeep expects people who have the head technology job to be pretty technologically savvy. They don’t have to know how everything works, but if Anudeep said ChatGPT, a someone in a CIO role should at least know about it and not have to Google it right then. + Staying on top of current trends is really important for technical leaders whether they be CIO, CTO, or other. + When leading people organizations you need to be able to make reasonable arguments and justify why you think a certain way. + These are not general management jobs like general management jobs of old where you just preside over an organization. You are expected to know your stuff. * For the would-be CIO… + For those who have worked in infrastructure organizations, there are businesses where all CIOs do is run networks and provision servers. That’s one way to achieve it. + Based on where Anudeep believes the industry is going, you need things like project management skills, the ability to run large cross-functional projects, and leadership skills to get there. And you have to be able to zigzag a little within functions. + Within traditional technology organizations, there are infrastructure people, project management people, application development people, and then application admin people (i.e. those who maintain large Oracle / SAP ERP systems). + In order to move ahead you have to be able to show that you can do more than just one piece. You do not need to be an expert in all of them, but you need to be able to say you have the wherewithal to do them. + Gain more skills. If you’re a core infrastructure person, try to get into the application environment. If you’re in the application environment, try to get into application development. And do it early in your career. + No one is going to look down on you for doing many different things over the course of several years. People actually like to see it. Anudeep personally went through this. + Anudeep’s first job (at Thompson Reuters) was 16 or 17 years. And he’s had 5 jobs since then. He’s felt bad taking roles for just a couple of years, but in hindsight, they were deliberate choices he made to gain other skills (which is how he explains it). - He wanted to get into healthcare, how to bring a company in house, how to build and sell a company, etc. + If you want a CIO gig or head of technology gig, try to get into at least 1-2 other functions, and don’t be afraid of only doing it for a year. That’s fine. + Things are seldom given to you. You have to take the risk and try it.

16:06 – Communicating with Executives* You have to know the audience a little bit. * Anudeep projects a very clear picture to his organization that he is very commercially minded. He has expertise in areas as we discussed (how to build and run things, etc.) and proven experience doing it. + Over the past 10 years or so Anudeep has been shifting his viewpoint to be more commercially minded. + If you’re an individual contributor in Anudeep’s organization, you will get a lot more attention and time with him if you bring that point of view (wanting to learn the commercial side, for example). If somoene wants to come talk to him about other things, he has interest but not that much interest. + People need to know how to communicate and what to communicate. With that you need to know your audience and prepare yourself to talk about things the right way. + Many times you don’t need to go and say all the smartest things. Anudeep has been very fortunate in his career to have senior executives take his calls and met with him. + When you speak to an executive, bring a point of view on a situation, and bring something to ask. + Anudeep clearly remembers when at Blue Cross one of his peers ran the government business, which was very profitable. Anudeep had no idea of the nuances of health insurance in the government sector. - Anudeep went and spoke to his peer about some technology topic, which he really liked. But then, Anudeep asked his peer about his business. - It builds a relationship where people actually want to talk to you. People like to talk about what they are good at and what they do. If you can create communication like that it is a very effective tool that will lead to repeat visits. + Nick says this speaks to what we encourage people to do in job interviews – bring questions. You can learn all kinds of things from people just by asking questions. - Anudeep reinforces the point that people love to talk about themselves. Use that to your benefit! - "People love to talk about what they have done and how good they are at what they have done, especially folks who are successful. Use that because there are nuggets of learning there. Bring something to the table, and don’t be afraid to ask for something." – Anudeep - Most executives Anudeep knows will respect this approach. * Anudeep says for most interviews done at his current company, by the time someone reaches his desk, they have already been vetted. It’s largely a fit conversation at that point. + Anudeep shares the recent story of interviewing someone for 30 minutes for a pretty critical position. He told the candidate in the first 15 minutes he wanted to hear about why they were having the conversation (i.e. more about why the person wanted the job). But the second 15 minutes was to be for the candidate to allow that person to ask Anudeep whatever they wanted. + Anudeep says you see a distinct difference in people when the 15 minutes for questions happens. They start asking about the culture, how aspects of the business works, etc. This tells Anudeep the person is excited and interested to work at the company. For whose who say they don’t have any questions, he’s not no sure they should be added to the company. + People need to take the time to prepare for these conversations, and leverage the fact that people love talking about themselves. + Nick says this element of preparation is important. Don’t forget to use the tools available to research those you speak to in advance!

21:12 – The Chief Operating Officer’s Lens* Anudeep says titles and compensation are very important. Don’t let anyone tell you they are not. * In addition to this, Anudeep likes developing people. Over the years in the jobs he’s had Anudeep remembers a lot of the tech built, but largely he remembers the people. It’s the people he has developed who are now in better jobs and running large organizations (i.e. people who are now CIOs at large organizations). Anudeep says it’s fun to see this. * One of the commitments Anudeep had made to his CEO and board of directors was developing someone inside the organization who had potential to fill his role as CIO in the event he decides to leave the company. * Also, outside of technology operations, Anudeep could provide value to the organization as someone with a broader operational point of view. + Anudeep loves being out with customers as well as talking to partners and brainstorming to help solve problems. + Anudeep says two thirds of this was him wanting to provide an opportunity to some very smart people within his organization (like the now CIO of Entrust as well as the new CISO). * That gives Anudeep time to focus on more of the commercial operations, and with the company’s growth he gets to sort of fly at a different altitude and impact more areas. + Managing managers is one thing. Managing VP level people is another. Managing C-level executives is a totally different thing. These people are high performing and high achieving. It’s a growth and stretch opportunity for Anudeep as well. + Anudeep brings reasonable humility to what he does. It’s not about him but about the smart people doing the work. Anudeep is fortunate to have management and a board who supports it. * What kinds of things is Anudeep looking for in a 1-1 discussion at his lens? + Anudeep works with great people and wouldn’t send them a form to fill out beforehand or anything, but there are basic structures in use. + Even if the dialogue is more informal, you know the key points you need to hit and must make sure the people you are having a 1-1 with are clear on what the expectation is. + There’s a concept called the ten five. If it takes you ten minutes to explain it and five minutes for Anudeep to understand it, a 1-1 makes sense. But if it’s longer than that we should have a dedicated meeting on the topic (gives time to look at something and absorb). + A privilege of being in positional authority is the ability to clobber anyone’s calendar. + A 1-1 is really Anudeep being available for the said person (a subordinate, a peer, etc.). - And if the person does not show up, Anudeep will not be offended. It’s a time to have a conversation on what the other person wants to discuss. + If Anudeep needs something specific he will setup a meeting and send the person what he’s expecting in advance. - He believes in the importance of setting goals for a meeting very clearly (including the outcome you are looking for) and using the subject line for the meeting appropriately. - After the meeting you have to follow up with action items from the discussion. Anudeep likes to write it down and send it out so both he and the other person remember what was discussed and the action items. + You need some formalization on how you do 1-1s, how you do meetings, especially if you are running large organizations. * If you impact growth and other organizations in the company, you need to be able to do quarterly business reviews (QBRs), discuss operations reviews, etc. Structure is important. + As you are part of larger organizations, not everyone may care or want to do a QBR, but you have to show line of sight. + There are corporate QBRs with the CEO to discuss how the business is doing and how to adjust (i.e. how revenue and margins are doing, how different business areas are doing, etc.). + Then you have to bring that back from a line of sight to the next level of leadership down and make it a little more relevant to them, for example: - People are going to get paid this year (a very personal one). - The priorities are shifting, so if you see the company make a change, don’t be surprised. - "It’s good to have a line of sight. Not everybody cares for it or wants it, but absence of it is clearly felt (if you do not have a line of sight)." + You don’t have to do a physical QBR, but you have to be able to send out some materials about company performance and where challenges are. It prepares people for shifting priorities and helps them understand the reasons behind the changes. * The comment about QBRs and operational reviews are examples of a leader (like Anudeep) knowing the audience downward and how to communicate it to them, making sure people understand how what they do fits within the organization (i.e. understanding their purpose). * It’s hard to do it according to Anudeep, but it is important. And you need to make the time for it as a leader. * "If you do these things consistently, nobody is going to thank you for doing them, but they will certainly notice when it’s not done." – Anudeep Parhar

29:40 – Passions and Knowing Yourself* How does a busy technology executive prevent burning out?

+ Some of this is about passion for what you do.
+ Anudeep’s family comes first, and he cherishes the time. Especially during COVID and over the holidays, his entire family is together. Flexibility of working from home helps.
+ Anudeep isn’t someone who can completely disconnect from work. It’s largely because he is interested in what he does and enjoys doing it.
+ He will carve the time out. If the family is going to spend time together during the day, at night he may read up on items of interest and finish work tasks.
+ Music and performing arts are a big part of Anudeep’s personal life (sort of his happy place). He might end up in the middle of the night watching a 1991 Frank Zappa concert in Prague, for example. And it’s good for him when he does things like this.
+ Anudeep says you have to know yourself. He knows what brings him peace and calm, and he has to find time for it (which sometimes may mean doing it in the middle of the night).
+ Technology has advanced in ways that can help when we have limited time. If you don’t have time to read a lot of books, there are a number of tools and podcasts where you can get snippets / summaries. It is good to keep yourself informed at a very quick pace.
    - Anudeep also recommends Masterclass. He had been using it for a while and got it for his family for Christmas. It was fun to do that together as a family (i.e. listening to Samuel L. Jackson talk about how to act).
    - "You have to find time to do these things. Do not give up your passions because otherwise it becomes work." – Anudeep Parhar
+ There are late nights and much coffee, but Anudeep still likes to do what he likes to do outside of work. And sometimes you have to carve out the time.
+ Nick says taking the time to do things you like gives you energy to go and do things you need to do.

If you want to follow up with Anudeep, you can find him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
- Anudeep loves talking to people and giving back by helping others learn, and if he has the time he would be happy to do so.
- Mentioned in the outro
- Regarding regular 1-1s with your manger, check out
  - Episode 45 – Career Conversations with Your Manager
  - Episode 12 on Effective 1-1s with your maanger
- Check out these episodes with other executive leaders on their progression stories.
  - Episode 71 – Journey to Executive Leadership with Brad Tompkins of VMUG
  - Episode 72 – Board and Executive Relationships with Brad Tompkins of VMUG
  - Episode 93 – Leadership and Supporting Employee Potential with Paul Green
  - Episode 94 – Career Progression, the CIO Role, and Growing Towards It with Paul Green
  - Episode 201 – Generate Depth On-Demand with Yvette Edwards (1/2)
  - Episode 202 – Having Some Career Zigzags with Yvette Edwards (2/2)

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Welcome to episode 208 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 1 of a discussion with Anudeep Parhar, talking through his early career as a developer, and interest in technology in business, and the progression up to different levels of management.

Original Recording Date: 01-06-2023

Topics – Meet Anudeep Parhar, A Heads Down Developer, Talking about and Learning about the Business, The Move to Management, Progression to VP2:05 – Meet Anudeep Parhar* Anudeep Parhar is the Chief Operating Office for digital operations at Entrust. Entrust is a technology global company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota servicing two broad sectors – payments and identities sector and digital solution and cybersecurity sector. You can find Anudeep on Twitter here. * Anudeep pursued a degree in computer science in college. He shares that it was the only thing he’s good at and was easy for him. * Both of Anudeep’s parents were academics, and he grew up near a university in New Delhi, India. As a result he was around cutting edge technologies for the time (when punch cards and mainframes were considered posh). + When he was growing up people pushed those with the attitude and aptitude toward engineering and other STEM fields. + It was something Anudeep discovered he was good at, and he remembers the fun of writing his first program. In his middle school / high school years he gained exposure to some bespoke programming languages before personal computers existed. + Anudeep says he really doesn’t have any other skills. It is all he does and all he knows. * Anudeep likes to learn new things, and early on learning was a source of energy for him. + Finishing his bachelors was hard core computer science stuff like data structures, algorithm development, abstract mathematics, and how finite state machines work. + Learning these foundational concepts provides depth and informs how the technology we see and use (phones, desktops, etc.) actually work. * One reason for pursuing a master’s degree was his family background. It was kind of expected. + Anudeep mentions some general advice at people a young age was to do engineering and then do an MBA to get into business. + He received advice from his parents and some of his parents’ co-workers that on the job management experience might be better, and computing was exploding. + Since people thought computer networking was going to be huge and there wasn’t really any on the job training, you had to go to school to learn these things. + "I was interested in learning about some of the emerging, cutting edge technology which was supposed to change business forever, and there was no other way to do it except got to school" – Anudeep Parhar

6:37 – A Heads Down Developer* Anudeep started as a heads down developer. At the time many of the storage devices in use were still CDs. + Many in the financial services and legal space had CD towers people could access from their personal computer. + One of Anudeep’s first projects was writing some publication software that allowed taking digital content and publishing it to a CD in a form that was easily searchable. * Is this first role where Anudeep’s interest in FinTech began? + Anudeep left Thompson Reuters in 2009, but when he joined in the early 90s it used to be called West Publishing, a very forward looking technology trying to take legal and financial content and put it on digital media. + This was digital transformation 101 happening 30 years ago. They would take content that financial and legal worker could use to be more efficient in their daily work. + Financial and legal professions are based on research, precedents, being able to look up historical information, do what-if analysis, etc. + Another way to state the high level goal is rudimentary control systems purely based on research. - One system was to build media where you could put digital content. - In a time before Google search when Netscape and Mosaic were only beginning to be a thing. - Search algorithms to this point revolved around terms and connectors like "and" as well as "or." - Natural language search algorithms, in contrast, would allow searching a large set of data using verbose terminology (i.e. give me all cases in the state of New York in the jurisdiction of Manhattan where personal injury was involved as well as a banana peel in the rain). The search would translate natural language into terms and connectors and bring back a resultant set of data. + Anudeep had a lot of fun doing this. Around 1995 / 1996 he realized the technology was very cool, but realizing how professionals and businesses use the technology was also very cool. Being able to understand how using the technology made legal or financial services professionals or legal professionals better at their jobs was a very early form of digital transformation. + Anudeep got his technical chops in content-based systems in the financial services space.

10:54 – Talking about and Learning about the Business* Nick says many technologists do not dig into what the business they work for does, and it ends up making them less valuable to the company than they could be otherwise. + Anudeep agrees and cites a discussion from a community meeting he attended in Minneapolis with other technology leaders. In these meetings technology leaders are often providing mentorship to other attendees. + If we expect technology exec leadership to be a critical part of the business, one must be able to explain how your company makes money. It’s not a generic statement about the company selling health insurance, for example, but rather a description of how the business actually works. If you don’t understand that, your job is not as much fun, and you are really only an enabler of value creation as opposed to a creator of value. + Anudeep has a personal drive to be in line of sight of revenue regardless of what he does. Even if you are essentially cost to the business, you have to be worried about productivity, how to enable growth, etc. If you don’t bring that point of view how would you expect the organization around you to do it? + In peer groups, Anudeep likes to ask people to explain how their company makes money and what the go to market is. Often times people will say "that’s not my job." That is how you will limit your career. People who are interested in these things will have a really interesting career trajectory. - Many who are interested in these things go into leadership. - Anudeep has seen individual contributors who are really good at this as well. + Anudeep says technology career development is not a linear path like other disciplines. - "One of the reasons I like the technology career path and the technology discipline so much is there is a lot of zigzagging you can do to move your career around." – Anudeep Parhar - There is a large need for talented programmers, architects, quality assurance, and network engineers and a lot of money to be made. - In order to be effective and really good at what you do as you move higher up in an organization (even as an individual contributor), you have to be able to understand the business impact you are making and be able to articulate it. It does not mean you will have a bad career. It just means you will be limited. - Anudeep sees many high potential high performers get very frustrated because they do not have the vantage point in their careers to be able to have those conversations. They get relegated to saying "when we understand what we need from tech we’ll come back and tell you." - You may have ideas but not have the internal personal brand that people might expect (i.e. part of it being the ability to talk about the business you are in). - Just to emphasize, this is not specific to executive leadership and applies to the individual contributor as well. - "If you understand what the business is, that will make you better at your job. That’s just a fact." – Anudeep Parhar * Not everybody needs to be extremely technical or extremely business savvy. From the lens of career development, these are some of the skills and talents and perspectives that people look for. + Anudeep’s master’s thesis was based on the concept of retargeting target code for different hardware implementations (a nerdy way of saying what Java does). The idea is write code and then regardless of the underlying microprocessor architecture, one could retarget the code to run on that specific microprocessor architecture. Many years ago, the software and hardware were very tightly coupled. + When Anudeep was at Thompson Reuters, there were people who said they needed to move their code from C to C# or Java, but no one could explain why. Usually the reasoning was "because it’s better." They could not explain how it was better (i.e. the business benefit). + In the above scenario where no one could explain why swapping the code language was the best move and it’s business benefits, it is thought to be a bunch of technical people talking about new shiny objects. If you talk in terms of productivity, enabling growth, creating value for your customers and partners, etc. it’s a slightly different way of talking about it. + When people hear the benefits described in this way, they think "I should be enabling newer technology and upgrading technology in order to do this." + There were similar conversations that happened when Microsoft came out with the .NET framework. People wanted to make a switch because "it’s better." But how is it better? + Anudeep has seen it happen so many times, and it happens even now with technologies like ChatGPT. + "Unless we are able to at least talk about it and how it impacts our business, it’s just a piece of tech." – Anudeep Parhar * There’s a deeper level to this point in that we should be communicating with people in ways and terms they understand. A front line manager or skip-level manager likely will have a greater understanding of the business as a whole. We need to be able to effectively communicate why we should do something to our leaders or peers, and it seems like that it something that is not always developed or taught as people come through the ranks. * Anudeep agrees, and from his point of view, some of this comes from: + Not everyone has the desire. At various levels you have to be dangerous enough technically and must have enough "chops," but you’re expected to be more "business savvy." + It’s leading by example. If you’re an individual contributor you have to spend your time learning about these things. The morning of the day we recorded the interview Anudeep was reading the news about labor numbers the way they are and how it might impact macroeconomics (which someone may or may not need in their day job). Anudeep’s CEO even sent out his thoughts on the news. - "It surrounds your thinking on how you look at the business." – Anudeep Parhar + Anudeep believes a lot of this is setting the example and making people aware of how you think about these issues (i.e. the news on the labor market above), and then naturally people will gravitate toward a need to learn more about it as well. + There’s no specific playbook here according to Anudeep. It’s more of a mindset. If you are interested, you should learn, and if you learn your career will likely progress. Both your growth and earning potential will increase if you are more savvy.

19:16 – The Move to Management* Anudeep says there wasn’t really a time when he had a mindset shift / switch in progressing to people leadership. The individual contributor term did not really exist during his early career. If you wanted to grow your career, going into people management was just part of that journey. * Later in the growth of the technology ecosystem the term individual contributor became a larger part of human resources vernacular. + Around this time people realized there were subject matter experts who were needed to do certain things really, really well but that . But those individuals did not need to manage people. * Anudeep did not wake up one day thinking he wanted to manage people. He thought that was just what you were supposed to do. + "Otherwise you’re just pounding code all day long, and I just didn’t want to do that all day long." – Anudeep Parhar * There is no reason you have to lead a team of people to understand the business better. + There are several positions even at an executive level where you have a team of 1 but are a critical driver of the business. * Not everyone is predisposed to interpersonal skills, which is not a knock on anyone. Some people do not care for it or do not want to do it. * Self-realization is important here because moving into people leadership is a journey. More and more of your time goes toward enabling the team to be effective rather than on you being effective. + You get things accomplished through the team rather than with just yourself. It’s a different skill that you have to enjoy doing. + Many with an engineering mindset found you cannot be a super engineer and manage people, and Anudeep also went through it. If you try to do it you will not have work life balance (i.e. you will be pounding code at night and managing people during the day). You have to explicitly understand that you will make some tradeoffs. + In today’s business environment, Anudeep does not believe you have to go through people management to be successful. + There are some very strong roles which traditionally may have been individual contributor roles that are very high in the organization (may have smaller teams around them). Very large organizations like Microsoft, Amazon, or United Healthcare have CTOs (Chief Technology Officers) that are not there to manage large teams and build products but rather put them in positions high enough to have some positional authority and enable them to spend more time thinking about how technology will transform the business. You cannot do this if the majority of your time is spent on people management. + There are positions at high levels inside organizations where you can lead a small team and still have a very meaningful impact on the business (while also growing your career potential). * Anudeep struggled with becoming a little less "technical" and not being a super engineer any longer. + It’s a great feeling to solve a big problem, and you want to tell people about it. But more and more as a people leader you have to see that it’s about what other people are doing. - "Your idea of success and that eureka moment changes. You start enjoying more when teams do work. The higher up you go, there is a very clear shift that happens." – Anudeep Parhar - When you move from a manager of individual contributors to a manager of managers, it changes your perspective. You have to be more empathetic to the fact that you are working with people managers who themselves are career-oriented. - The work becomes how to build better teams, and when you are not around, how do you keep delivering all of this? + Nick says it does not make you less of a person to step up and put something down partially that you used to do full time. - Impostor syndrome for technical types has always been there but presents a little differently across generations. Anudeep’s kids are growing up and think they can take over the world (not seeming to be inhibited by impostor syndrome). Anudeep felt it and still does today. + Some of this was a lot of right time / right place / right opportunity instances for Anudeep backed by hard work. - The feelings we’ve discussed are all natural feelings and provide us with a healthy way of looking at things.

26:17 – Manager of People Managers* If you’ve chosen the career of managing people, Anudeep advises not shying away from it unless it’s something you really don’t want to do. * To step beyond front line management, invest the time to learn how to lead people who are themselves people managers. + Your line of sight changes. Empowerment becomes a lot bigger part of your job as opposed to just getting the work done. + When leading a team of engineers, though no one admits it, the mental model becomes, "if they cannot do it I will just do it myself." So some people will stay up late and do the work for their team. + "Once you are managing people you have to be able to build skills and chops to be able to get people to do it." – Anudeep Parhar + You need to be particular about those softer skills like learning to do 1-1s, monthly meetings, etc. because each of these becomes a data point in driving people to complete work. + If you do not learn and spend time on these frameworks you will become someone who is a week away from delivering on something with no idea why you are behind. + Spend time learning the frameworks. Don’t think it’s obvious to learn these things. It’s good to read some books or take some classes. Most companies already have these frameworks, and it’s important to spend time learning about them. + Nick has heard of internal programs at VMware for those looking to pursue a career as a people leader / determine if it is right for them, and help in getting a placement in that type of role. - Yvette Edwards shared some details on this and other programs in Episode 202. + People who were hired during COVID times were certainly subject matter experts, and the expectation for them to come in and transform the business at all levels is high. But these folks despite understanding the business at a how level may not understand the internal business processes and policies or internal politics of the organization. - Anudeep suggests many will put more emphasis on upskilling people at all levels who have entered the organization in the last couple of years. And employees should take advantage of these benefits!

29:17 – Progression to VP* Anudeep owes a lot of his management and leadership success to his days at Thompson Reuters. He learned a great deal about the ins and outs of how technology organizations work. At some point the organization gets very large, which makes upward mobility harder. + When Anudeep left Thompson Reuters in 2009, it was about a 12 billion dollar business. This means management frameworks on how the business runs and how the business works were very different. + Anudeep was in a position where he needed to decide what he wanted to do. Increasingly running bigger teams or larger global teams was not as exciting to him. + He started to think about the next level where he could make a meaningful impact. + "You have to strive for those positions where you are increasingly walking into rooms where everybody knows more than what you do." – Anudeep Parhar - This could be people who run finance, HR, or some other function. + These experiences were exciting for Anudeep. He had a lot of good mentors and eventually decided to challenge himself. + If you want to be in this type of role, sometimes you have to look outside your current organization. It does not always mean that, but this is how it happened for Anudeep. He knew he had to go somewhere else and learn something else to have the type of impact he wanted. * Living in Minneapolis / St. Paul, it is a hub of health IT. Anudeep thought getting experience in this industry would be valuable, and that is how he got into Blue Cross. + This was a healthcare company that was also a non-profit (something different than Anudeep had experienced), and Anudeep wanted to learn how that sort of business worked (how it functions differently, drivers of the business, etc.). + This was an explicitly different job. Anudeep wanted to be out of development. He had done it for many years and wanted to take himself out for something he was very good at to learn (for example) how to architect large scale claim systems, how to build analytics systems that can decrease the cost of healthcare for providers, or how to build a better pricing or underwriting engine. + These things were very new to Anudeep. He would be able to work on solving a different industry problem with the same technology. + This was in the early days of digital transformation. Anudeep’s leadership at the time gave him a great opportunity to take a look at a new area and self-fund the things he wanted to do with technology. Doing this makes you start to become a lot more relevant. * Anudeep likes working for technology businesses and eventually came back to businesses that are a lot more technology focused. * In the move from senior director to VP, the expectations and span of control are different, but Anudeep wanted to be in his peer group, which is increasingly less technical. + He kept driving into newer positions in this way. * Anudeep was at an eCommerce company for a couple of years and learned a lot about how to take a public business private and what is really involved. + This is not something you get to do from a mid-level manager point of view. You have to be at the CEO’s table to be able to do that. * Anudeep was a CTO at Bloom Health (a late stage startup). + The expectations of the board and expectation of the senior leadership team are very different. + As CTO you’re expected to know the technology. But there are other functions. - Product management – how do you get out there in the market and understand what your customers want? - You become an evangelizer for what the company does using technical terms to share how your company will solve problems for other companies. + This was an interesting point of view because you become sort of the chief loudspeaker of the company as CTO. Anudeep loved this. He loved talking to partners, customers, and investor relations folks. * Nick mentions Anudeep must have learned a TON taking a public company private, much like Michael Dell did for his company as detailed in Play Nice but Win.

Play Nice But Win: A CEO's Journey from Founder to Leader

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Welcome to episode 207 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode Nick shares his experience going through two different interview processes over the last year.

Original Recording Date: 01-14-2023

Topics – A Personal Slant to the Career Foundations Series, Interview Process # 1 – External Company, Interview Process # 2 – An Internal Role, Resources Nick Leveraged1:02 – A Personal Slant to the Career Foundations Series* We are doing a series on the foundations of career progression. + In Episode 203 we talked about resumes, their structure, how to showcase your accomplishments, and how you can keep them current. + In Episode 204 we talked about what type of reflection needs to be done as before searching for jobs, places and methods to search for jobs, research needed for each job listing, applying for jobs, and ways you can let jobs come to you. + In Episode 205 we did a part 1 on job interviews. We talked through the goal of an interview, how to prepare, and some of the types of interviews such as HR screens and first interviews with a hiring manager. + In Episode 206 we continued discussions on interviews with the technical / team member screening process, executive screening, the process of an offer, and what happens if there are delays. * This week it gets personal. Nick wanted to share his experience going through two different interview processes over the last year – the processes, the steps in the processes, what he did to prepare for the experience, what he learned as a result, and how it might compare with / align to our previous discussions. * Before any of this happened… + Nick wasn’t really looking around for a new job. + Nick had not updated his resume since 2017. + From a LinkedIn standpoint, Nick had kept it pretty well up to date, trying to post there at least once per week (often times about the podcast or something career related).

2:19 – Interview Process # 1 – External Company* The first process was with a company outside Nick’s current employer. * The process started with a message from a recruiter stating she felt Nick would be a good fit for a specific job (a sales engineering job at another company). + Nick chose not to apply because it did not seem interesting, but he did ask the recruiter what that person liked about working for this specific company. The recruiter was kind enough to provide the answer, and Nick appreciated the person sharing. + Some time passed, and the same recruiter sent Nick a different job description. And it was something that wasn’t really on Nick’s radar as even a possibility. It was a role that was very much community facing, involved a technical specialty, and it would involve doing some very different things than Nick does today. - Nick does not think if he had seen this job posting that he would have considered himself qualified, and he’s not sure he would have considered applying. + Nick thought this role sounded pretty interesting and exciting, and as a result he was willing to take some time to learn more about the role. The first recruiter passed Nick on to a second recruiter to have a brief discussion (what we might call a recruiter screening). * The second recruiter was able to tell Nick more about the role and share some additional insight on the company. + Nick was able to learn about company benefits and some context about the role that might not be in the job description. + He was also able to ask some questions. When Nick asked the recruiter why she thought he might be a good fit for this specific role, she pointed to his experience on the podcast, feeling Nick would not have an issue going and talking with people out in the community. + It was one of those times where someone else saw relatable experience that Nick could not see. + During the conversation the recruiter asked what it would take to get Nick to this company were he to successfully go through the interview process. At that point he provided a compensation range (which the recruiter confirmed was realistic). This is a good checkpoint to ensure Nick would not be potentially going through the process and having a mismatch in expected compensation for the role. + Nick also mentioned he was not quite sure he wanted to apply just yet. Maybe sharing an expected compensation range despite not knowing if he was going to apply was his way of trying to short circuit the process if he did apply. + The recruiter mentioned she understood Nick was unsure about applying but said the hiring manager was interested in speaking with him. She suggested a 30 minute discussion with the hiring manager, and then Nick could decide if he wanted to apply. He agreed to speak to the hiring manager. * The next step was the call with the hiring manager. + There were two open positions under this hiring manager. - One was a community manager role similar to what Nic Tolstoshev described in Episode 62 and Episode 63. - The second was community facing and sort of an evangelist type role. It was very technical and would be a chance for Nick to get extremely deep in an area where he is more of a generalist today and learn a lot of new things. + The hiring manager asked Nick about his skills and the things he was interested in doing. + After about 7-10 minutes the hiring manager suggested Nick have a conversation with someone who had been working for him in one of the role to determine which role might fit Nick best. And then the hiring manager opened up the floor for questions. + If you had 20 minutes with someone just for questions, how many questions would you have ready? Nick filled up the entire rest of the meeting asking questions. + Nick was asking about what success looked like in these jobs in 6-12 months and what the metrics were to demonstrate somoene in the role was doing a good job. He asked questions about the hiring manager and the company. + It was a good conversation. Since the hiring manager recommended Nick speak to a member of the team, Nick was ok with proceeding to that step next. + At this point Nick still had not applied for a job at this company. Keep that in mind. * The next step was what we might call a team member screening. + The team member Nick spoke to was doing the second open position mentioned above (the community facing evangelist type role). + Nick was able to ask a number of questions about what this person did day to day, what drew him to it, what he likes about the company, and how he thought about his career. + It was a great conversation, and Nick really enjoyed meeting this person. + After that conversation was over, Nick didn’t really know what would happen next. He still had not applied for anything. + Then some time passed. Nick was at a community event to give a presentation, and it just so happened the hiring manager Nick had previously spoken to was at this event. Nick received an e-mail from the recruiter that the hiring manager wanted to meet with him in person. * The next step was meeting with the hiring manager in person at a community event. + Nick met with the hiring manager for about an hour that day. + The hiring manager asked Nick some questions about how he might explain certain things. + Nick asked things like things expected in a regular 1-1, how the manager managed his organization (down and up), perception of a specific business unit inside the company from the perspective of other business units. + By the end of the hour, the hiring manager told Nick he wanted to work something out for Nick to come and work for him. + Nick didn’t quite know this would be the outcome of the conversation. But he was up front and honest, communicating that he wasn’t sure he was ready to leave VMware. + After that first conversation with the hiring manager Nick realized most of his questions were geared toward finding out whether the person on the other end of the phone was a great leader. Nick didn’t write it down as something he needed in a new role, but he learned one of the things he needs is, if given any kind of choice in the matter, to work for a great leader. - Nick shared this need with the hiring manager and that he was still trying to figure out if the hiring manager was that next great leader for which Nick wanted to work. Nick did not mean this to be offensive or anything like that. - Then the hiring manager did something really interesting which Nick did not expect. The hiring manager called a member of his team at the event and said Nick was going to come talk to her about what she does and what it was like working for the hiring manager. The hiring manager asked Nick to ask this member of the team any questions he wanted. * Nick met with a member of the team under the hiring manager in person and then via phone call. + He was only able to meet with the team member the hiring manager had called for a few minutes in person, but they scheduled a follow up remote discussion for the next week. + This team member shared what she did for the company with Nick and how they might work together if Nick got the job / decided to take the job. + Nick asked her about the hiring manager. She had worked for him at a previous company and really liked him and his style. Others on her team had worked for this hiring manager at a previous company. The team member shared that the hiring manager was very good at advocating for his team up the chain and keeping them out of internal political battles. * The recruiter then wanted to know how things went meeting the hiring manager in person. + The recruiter told Nick that they would love to make him and offer and were very interested in having him come onboard. + At this point Nick was blown away and extremely humbled. He never applied, and they wanted to hire them. + Maybe this was a case of letting the job come to you? + Nick had to figure out at this point if it was something he really wanted to do. He told the recruiter he still wasn’t sure if he wanted to walk away from VMware after almost 5 years. + At this point he told the recruiter he did not want her to make him an offer unless he would strongly consider taking it and asked for some time to decide. + Nick thought about it, let his mind wander on it, compared pros and cons, things different about the new role that he liked / did not like, and the overall impact to his family wife and daughter), etc. He needed to take all the things into consideration. + Nick mentioned asking your family about pros and cons of a new job is a good idea. Nick’s wife pointed out that his daughter had just started middle school, was still getting used to the structure and requirements of it, and would need his help to adjust and excel. Too much travel could end up being a deterrent to providing the right level of support. * The last step was an e-mail instead of a call, and it was after Nick had reached a decision. + Nick said he did not want them to make him an offer at this time. He decided he was not ready to leave VMware. + Thinking back to the Yvette Edwards episodes (Episode 201 and Episode 202), it was not the right time. + Nick thanked the people who were involved in the hiring process who had spoken to him and spend time with him. He left the door open, of course. These were all incredible people, and maybe there is some way to work with them in some form or fashion in the future (even if not at the same company). Nick hopes people found it valuable meeting him just as he found it valuable meeting them. * Lessons learned from this process + Nick learned that he needs a great leader, and he thinks that hiring manager was a great leader. It took a little time to figure this out only through asking lots of questions and talking to other members of the team that worked with and for this manager (getting the holistic context). - Remember Evan Oldford’s advice from Episode 173 to "find that great manager." + Nick was honest and up front about where he was in the process with the hiring team and wasn’t in it to play games. + You don’t always know what you might be qualified to do. In this case he was not able to see his own. The recruiters saw it, and the hiring manager and others did too. In this process, it was a blind spot for Nick (seeing the applicable relatable experience).

16:02 – Interview Process # 2 – An Internal Role* This was a job inside VMware doing something different than what Nick does today (solution engineering). * In the first process Nick was contacted by someone else. In the second process Nick saw something interesting and decided to take action. * Remember also that at no point in the first process did Nick have to submit a resume. He had LinkedIn updated and proof of work out there (podcasts, blogs, etc.). * In this process, somoene posted a job description in some internal chat channels, and Nick happened to see it. + Nick knew who the person who posted it was part of some of the same programs internally (like CTOA Ambassadors) and had no issues reaching out to that person to ask some questions. + The person who posted the job was part of the team of people doing that job today. + Nick asked questions via chat and received some examples of what the job really entailed, communicating that he was thinking about applying. * Nick wanted to learn even more about the role and had a phone call with a different member of the team (different from the person who posted the job internally) who Nick knew from the CTO Ambassador Program. + This person met with Nick after work hours one day, sharing how he got into that role, what it was and was not, what he liked about it, and that it took him a little time to get the job. This person really enjoyed the ability to work on a number of different things. + The job in question was a bit of a specialist overlay. Nick is a technical generalist across the VMware portfolio today. The job was a specialist solution engineer in a way but would also involve working closely with teams building early stage products. The focus would be on trying to make those products better and providing education to other teams within the company on product capabilities and the problems these products solve. + Like the role from the first process, this one required more of a technical focus and specialty (a common pattern). + During the call with this team member, Nick brought up the job level in the posting being 1 level higher than he is today, which means getting the job would be a promotion and lateral move. The team member Nick spoke with was not sure and encouraged him to ask the hiring manager or somoene else to get clarity on whether Nick would even be eligible to apply. * Nick thought about it a little bit more but wanted to make sure his name was in the hat for the position. And this meant updating the resume. Nick’s was not up to date (5 years old). + The good news is Nick was documenting his work along the way. He tries to update his OneNote weekly with some sort of accomplishment even if it’s small, which provides the detail needed to write or rewrite a resume. This is the intent and not something that always happens. + If he had not updated the resume in 5 years and had also not been tracking accomplishments it would have been way harder to start from ground zero. + The resume updates still required a time commitment. It wasn’t as simple as upload and click. - Don’t forget our advice, even if your resume is up to date, to customize the resume for each job application (update experience and skills sections based on job requirements). + After updating the resume and tailoring it to the job description and requirements, Nick had a friend inside VMware review the resume and provide some feedback before submitting. + Nick went ahead and submitted the updating resume to get his name in the hat. * Because of the job level discrepancy Nick went ahead and reached out to the recruiter to mention it and ask for a meeting to address questions. + The recruiter had a call with Nick for about 30 minutes and had already looked at his resume. + The recruiter gave Nick some good feedback on resume structure. He liked the skills section and shared that the role was deeply technical, suggesting Nick add anything else that might demonstrate that expertise to the resume if he had it. It was extremely kind of the recruiter to provide this feedback. + During that conversation, the recruiter shared a compensation range for the position and some idea of what the hiring process might be like (a couple of team member interviews, a stakeholder panel, call with the hiring manager, and maybe one more interview). + In light of this comment, Nick made a couple of additional resume tweaks and send the updated resume to the recruiter which was then passed on to the hiring team. * After some time passed, Nick received an e-mail from the recruiter about scheduling 2 interviews with members of the hiring team. + Nick was given some background on the expectations for each interview and guidance on what to be prepared to discuss. + One of the interviews was more demonstrating company values and technical expertise. + The other interview was more about technical fit and team fit. + The recruiter encouraged Nick to reach out if he had additional questions about the expectations of these interviews, and Nick did ask some clarifying questions to ensure he would be prepared. + To prepare, Nick spent time thinking about the stories he wanted to share which fit the expectation for the discussions. - He made notes to help prepare himself and continued to review them before the interviews. - He reviewed the job description again. - He made sure to review his resume. - Nick wanted to ensure he prepared stories that were most relevant, most impactful, and can best answer the questions people have. * Team member screen # 1 + Nick had never met the interviewer before this discussion. + These discussions usually start with the interviewer asking some questions of the candidate. Nick was asked about what he does today and what made him interested in the role. + This team member had come to the company through an acquisition, and Nick was able to learn more about her career during the discussion. + Nick shared technologies he had been talking about most with his customers to solve their biggest challenges. + It was a very good conversation, and Nick appreciated the time. The interviewer let him know if he had questions about the role or the team he could contact her to ask. + Keep in mind…if somoene leaves the door open to ask questions after the fact, don’t abuse that privilege. Save questions about your status in the hiring process for the recruiter. Sending questions about the role, the team, or the company as a follow up with an interviewer should be ok. + Nick remembers getting asked questions about how he would convince product teams to do something without role power. This goes back to the discussions with David Babbitt about influence without role power. - Check out Episode 196 specifically for more details and Episode 195 and Episode 197 to hear David’s full story. * Team member screen # 2 happened within a few days of the first one. + This was with a different team member (another Nick had never met). + Nick reviewed the job description and his resume but made some different notes for this interview since expectations were a little different. + The first time this interview happened, Nick’s interviewer never showed up (which he had never experienced). - After about 10 minutes, Nick reached out to the interview to see if the time still worked and to see it that person was ok. - Eventually the interview time slot had come and gone. Nick reached out to the recruiter to let them know the interviewer never showed up. - The interviewer did message Nick back stating he was ok and had unfortunately missed the meeting. So the interview was rescheduled. + Just like the first interview, this was another good conversation. The interviewer had questions for Nick, of course, but did something Nick did not expect. After asking a few questions, the interviewer asked "is there anything you would like to share with me?" + This question has some interesting impacts. The interviewer was telling Nick that he was ready to listen to whatever he wanted to share. Also, it put the onus on Nick to share the highest priority items / most impactful items for this discussion and articulate them well. (all based on what the interviewer was looking to hear). + Nick had notes and was prepared to share stories, but the way this was asked suddenly made it challenging to answer in the moment. Nick loves what the interviewer did here and will probably never forget it. + The interviewer had more questions of Nick after this and Nick had time to ask questions of the interviewer. The discussion even went past the 30 minute time limit. * After both interviews were over, some time passed. The recruiter got back to Nick and said the hiring team decided to go with a different candidate this time. + The recruiter did send some good feedback from those who had interviewed Nick during the process, which he was grateful to receive. + The feedback was positive, the team liked Nick, and they would encourage me to apply for open positions on this team in the future. * Reflecting on this interview process + Of course when things don’t work out on something you were excited about, you can get bummed. But Nick has a job he really likes. It just so happened that the role he applied for seemed a bit more interesting at the time. It was a chance to do something different, and he didn’t get it. + Taking a process over outcomes mindset here (from Episode 19)… - Nick feels like he did decent during the interviews and might rate himself a B+ overall. - He definitely was not ready for the question in the second interview and feels we always wish we could do better. - He received feedback from the recruiter and from the two people who had interviewed him. - In the second interview Nick was asked what his technical specialty is. Nick is a technical generalist today in what he does and was also a generalist during his time in systems administration. He finds it very hard to answer that question. Nick thinks his specialty may lie in being a generalist much like Stephanie Wong shared in Episode 178. After looking at the content Nick had put on his blog, he was able to suggest what his specialty is and send it to the interviewer as a follow up. It’s still a hard question to answer. * Lessons learned + Nick made some great connections inside the company through this process and feels he has built rapport with people who he could contact for help if need be. The interview process can build your personal network. + Nick feels moving from generalist to specialist can be tough. Despite being a generalist inside VMware today some might consider that a specialty compared to being a systems administrator. Nick was applying for something that was more of a specialty within the VMware product set. + When applying for a specialized role, really think about things that show evidence of this specialty (proof of work, projects you have worked on, heavy interest and attention to it, etc.). + If we reflect on it, there are probably areas where we naturally spend more time in than others (even the generalist). Nick does not think he had taken enough time to reflect on this. + Don’t wait until you want to apply for a job to update your resume. Nick owns the fact that he had to do this before he could apply. Oops. + The right time to apply for something that looks really exciting is right now. Even a conversation to learn more about something does not mean you have agreed to take the job. - If it’s exciting enough to you it will be a priority.

31:48 – Resources Nick Leveraged* The second process Nick went through was beginning as the first one was nearing the end (a little overlap). * Through all of this Nick continued his morning pages practice. It sort of became an evening pages routine to dump out his brain. * Nick listened to a number of episodes of [Real Job Talk] (https://realjobtalk.com/) with Liz Bronson and Kat Troyer in addition to past episodes from the Nerd Journey catalogue. * Nick had a lot of conversations with John White about this process. * Nick spoke to community members, reaching out to people who had worked at the external company to pick their brains. * Nick spoke with mentors within VMware and beyond. Dale McKay has been mentoring Nick for a while now and shared this thought:

+ The opportunities did sound exciting (both of them), but he encouraged Nick to think about what would happen if neither one worked out.
+ Dale encouraged Nick to pay very close attention to his emotions, how he was feeling about the work he does in his current role to be on guard against feelings of bitterness and cynicism (which would 100% lead to a lack of engagement and leaving the company). Nick was encouraged to be mindful and watchful of these thoughts and feelings and found himself in this exact situation (neither job worked out).
+ Nick doesn’t feel like at any point he got bitter or felt entitled to something. He decided to focus effort in other areas. He didn’t have to jump right on chasing something new but understood there were now some options that maybe he had not considered.
+ It sounds like we might need an episode 100% dedicated to mentors!

It’s likely a consideration point during these processes on if you tell your boss about it and when you tell your boss.
- Nick has a good relationship with his boss and told him about both job opportunities.
- Nick was encouraged to really think about what excited him about the jobs in question and especially in the first case, since he didn’t apply, what kept him wanting to learn more information.
- The boss would support whatever Nick needed to do.
- If you are going to go through interview processes like this, make sure you don’t have one foot out the door already!
- Assuming you have a job while going through the interview process, continue to do your job well. If you are applying for a job internally and not doing a good job in your current role, it probably will not be looked upon kindly (unless you’re in some kind of severe mismatch situation where you cannot succeed).
- You can still chase something new without giving up on the role you’re in. You can still ensure you’re doing a great job in your daily work.
- Nick had a number of conversations with his wife about all this. She saw some things he could not see and had a different perspective on it all.
- There was a lot of prayer and soul searching with Nick wondering about whether these roles were right for him or not right for him (probably thinking way too much about both jobs).
- For anyone out there that helped Nick in some way during this process who was not mentioned by name, you know who you are. He really appreciates you taking the time!
- If this conversation has been helpful, please go out and rate the show 5 stars and share it with someone!

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Welcome to episode 206 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we discuss what to expect in other types of interviews like a technical screen, a team screen, an executive screen, the job offer process, and what to do if you experience delays after the interview process concludes.

Original Recording Date: 12-18-2022

Topics – Continuing the Career Foundations Series, Understanding the Interview Process, Team Member Screening / Technical Screening, Executive Screening Interview, After the Interview Process is Over, The Process of an Offer, Delays after Interviews are Over and A Focus on Process0:56 – Continuing the Career Foundations Series* We are doing a series on the foundations of career progression. + In Episode 203 we talked about resumes, their structure, how to showcase your accomplishments, and how you can keep them current. + In Episode 204 we talked about what type of reflection needs to be done as before searching for jobs, places and methods to search for jobs, research needed for each job listing, applying for jobs, and ways you can let jobs come to you. + Last week in Episode 205 we did a part 1 on job interviews. We talked through the goal of an interview, how to prepare, and some of the types of interviews such as HR screens and first interviews with a hiring manager.

1:45 – Understanding the Interview Process* The HR person or first person you speak to at the company you’re interviewing with should communicate to you what the hiring process looks like (number of rounds, etc.). + The hiring manager is NOT always the first touch after the HR screen. Sometimes it’s a member of the team you would be joining. + John says at Google Cloud the hiring manager is the last person you talk to in the hiring process. You would first talk to a recruiter and do a screening, but after that the formal process is a general cognitive ability interview, a general role related knowledge interview, a Googliness or leadership interview, and a possible presentation interview to a group of mock customers (especially if you are customer facing like John is). After all of this they decide if you can be hired or not. After that you get shopped to a hiring manager. + If the first person you speak to does not explain what the interview process looks like, make sure you ask! + You should also get some information funneled to you regarding what to expect in each round of interviews (a technical interview, a cultural fit interview, etc.). This allows you to better prepare your thoughts and the right stories to highlight. + Competent organizations should provide you with information on what each interview in the process is going to cover and maybe even how to prepare for it.

4:07 – Team Member Screening / Technical Screening* This is usually conducted by members of a team you would be joining. * Some organizations will have you do a technical interview where team members are trying to evaluate your technical abilities in a specific area. + If you’re interviewing for a role as infrastructure architect, expect questions about infrastructure architecture. Your interviewer(s) will have questions that someone with the requisite job experience would be able to answer very cleanly and clearly. + You don’t need to expect to get 100% of the answers, but you should be prepared. + Think about approaching a technical screen in a similar way toa certification exam. + Consider the technical level that is appropriate for the role to which you are applying (i.e. kind of high level, super technical, etc.). If you’re applying for the role of principal architect for an organization, maybe you should be looking at some typical high level architectures for that organization size, the type of work the organization does, etc. + When preparing for interviews, even if not as prepared as you would like to be, getting a good night’s sleep could potentially help you fill the gap. It would be better to be well rested and less prepared than fully prepared and running on 4 hours’ sleep. Know yourself and how much sleep you need. If you need 10 hours of sleep to operate at peak performance, block the time on your calendar, and create a reverse timeline so you can achieve your goal of getting the 10 hours of sleep. * Reiterating from last week, your goals in this process are twofold: + Convince the person interviewing you that you are appropriate for (or maybe even their preferred choice for) this role. + You are trying to understand whether this is an organization where you want to work. Even if it’s a technical interview with someone quizzing you, remember you are talking to a member of the team you would be joining. Be sure to ask questions at the end of / where appropriate in the discussion! - It is entirely appropriate to ask what the team culture is like, how often the team meets as a team, what it’s like to work for the manager / their management style, how the manager onboards new members, how many people have joined the team in recent months (indicator of team growth / turnover), etc. - What is a 1-1 with your manager like? - What kinds of things does your manager generally want to know? - Is it typical for team members to do a technical screen, or are those normally done by the manager? That will tell you if the manager is more technical or perhaps non-technical. Maybe team members rotate through and each do technical interviews, and in 6 months you would need to be able to conduct one on your own. - How does the team keep up to date with technology? Does the company provide paid training, or do team members need to fund all of that on their own? - Keep asking what people like about working at the company and if they have been there a while, what made them stay for so long. It’s interesting to triangulate this across people at different levels and in different job roles. + It is easier to get information like the above when being interviewed by a potential team member and the discussion is more focused on going over your resume. You can share stories from your background that demonstrate your qualifications, ask questions that reference the job listing, and get feedback. You can also ask if the requirements in the job listing are in the correct order of importance from the interviewer’s perspective. * You can ask some of the previous suggested questions like what somoene needs to be effective in the role, what someone would work on if hired today, what the person would like to see in 6-12 months to consider it a successful hire / recommendation to hire, etc. Even if you are not talking to the hiring manager these are still great questions to ask. + Your willingness to ask these types of questions will speak to your seniority. + Hopefully your interviewer is providing some time for you to ask questions. If that is not provided to you and you’re toward the end of the time block, consider interrupting to ask them then or ask for more time with the person specifically for questions. The person may be willing to answer questions via e-mail after the meeting.

12:45 – Executive Screening Interview* John’s experience, before engaging in this type of screening you have likely spoken to a recruiter, the hiring manager, had a technical screen, and maybe even met with people in other job roles who are not directly on the team you would be joining but work with that team. * The hiring manager may want you to speak with one of their leaders (a very positive thing). This is a strong buying signal and may indicate a final rubber stamp / approval to hire you. * Nick remembers meeting with a director level peer of his boss with a director title when going through the interview process at VMware for a pre-sales technical engineering role. But he has not been through the exact scenario here (meeting with a potential boss’s boss in the interview process). + The manager of a sales team is peered with the manager as a sales team since sales engineering works in parallel with sales but may not have a "sales manager" title (could be head of sales, director of sales, VP of sales, etc.). + The scenario Nick describes is still a very good sign you’re close to the end of the hiring process since it’s a screening with a manager of a group of people he would be working closely with.

15:45 – After the Interview Process is Over* By the time you reach the end of the process, you should have completed your evaluation on whether this is somewhere you want to work. In this way when the organization with which you have been interviewing is ready to speak about a job offer, you are 100% on board. + If you are not 100% on board and need to continue the evaluation once the potential employer wants to talk about a job offer, this is the point at which you need to ask for the things you still need to make a decision. Do it before talking about a job offer. + John has been in a situation like this when interviewing for a sales engineering role. He asked to speak to the salesperson he would be working with if he got the role. - For a request like this, it is possible you would only be able to meet with the sales manager because the salesperson has yet to be hired. Or, they might tell you they don’t know which team you would work on (i.e. not being hired to partner with a specific person). - This is additional information to help you make a decision. + Maybe you don’t have a full cultural picture and you want to talk to another team member and ask further questions. Perhaps you ran out of time during the team member screen / technical interview and still need to ask these questions. + This part would need to happen relatively quickly because the potential employer will want to know if you are a yes or no so that they know how to move forward (i.e. present you with the offer or look at more candidates). Be sure to block time to allow this to happen.

17:48 – The Process of an Offer* You likely will not get a written offer unless they know you are a yes. The offer normally comes verbally first (i.e. discuss before it comes in writing). A verbal offer will contain: + The compensation package – if adjustments need to be made here, the time to negotiate is before the formal written (and usually electronic) offer is made. Make sure you don’t get to the point of formal written offer without talking compensation. - Evaluate benefit amounts for dental / medical, the retirement plan (401K and matching policy, etc.), reimbursement for phone or internet expenses, support for speaking at technical community events like VMUG, etc. - If your salary is $10,000 more on this offer but the medical benefits are such that it would cost you more than $10,000 with this new employer, you are taking a pay cut! - When John moved from VMware to Google Cloud he had to factor in moving from a company with unlimited vacation to one with a specific vacation allotment. It was a consideration point.

20:05 – Delays after Interviews are Over and A Focus on Process* As a candidate, you may experience delays after the interview process is over. * You may have come in second or third. Probably anyone who has made it to the finals is appropriate to be hired, and those conducting the interview process have ranked candidates in order of preference. + The person in first place is likely evaluating the compensation package and weighing whether they want to accept an offer as described above. + You may be on ice just in case the person in first place does not accept the offer. + The person in first place may have said they don’t want an offer. * If you’re not going to take an offer, don’t ask someone to present the written offer to you. It wastes that person’s time. + If recruiters are contacting you, a couple of times per year, take some calls to keep your interview process knowledge fresh and to be aware of what is out there as a progression opportunity for you. + At the urging of a former colleague, John went through an interview process to learn the hiring organization wanted specific technical skills which were for him pretty rusty (would have taken a long time to get back up to speed in certain areas). He decided that probably was not the right role for him. + There was another instance where John opted out of a process after reaching the finals. He couldn’t get his head around the value proposition of the product this company was selling. Despite the recruiter telling him how much money he could make, John opted out. + It’s hard to say no, but if you need to, you need to. * Another reason for potential delays is problems with the funding of the position. + It could have been pulled after the interviews finished. + If delays like this happen, what you want from the recruiter or your main point of contact is frequent updates and when they might have some answers. * If they just go silent on you, that is indicative of how the organization is run. If you follow up multiple times over the course of several days with no response, it may be indicative of a greater problem (i.e. could mold the opinion in your mind that this is how they treat potential employees). + Even a response that you didn’t make it, were not qualified, or it is a straight up no…that would be something. It would keep people’s minds from wandering. No response is wicked to anxieties people have when anticipating a response. + If your point of contact at the company is on vacation, there should be someone acting as a backup for hires in flight that can help you in their absence. + Maybe you leave a review of the process on Glassdoor. You have no other way to judge the organization except how they are treating you. You can go on Glassdoor, state the name of the company, how long you invested in the process, and the name of the recruiter. You are warning someone else going through the process to be careful how much time and effort they invest and what might happen as a result. People may want to qualify the organization in or out based on this. * If you know people at the organization as you are going through the interview process who are willing to speak to you, they can provide guidance on what may be happening at the organization in question. + Maybe they know, for example, that the recruiter you were working with was part of a 3rd party the company has just fired. It’s information you likely would not have access to without an internal contact. + Remember it’s ok to explain the situation to someone you know, but you should not be holding that person accountable for what happened (since that person is not the recruiter). Approach the conversation as a way to potentially get additional context. * We’re suggesting that even if you were ghosted we should come together as a community and post public reviews that accurately depict what happened when candidates are treated this way. * There’s no one magical job that is the best you could ever have. There are just possible jobs. + There’s not one manager, one company, or one position. There is a spectrum of each of these you could have. This references Episode 19 and dreaming in bands. + Certainly everyone who enters this process wants to win and get the job. + Hopefully even if you don’t you can recognize that you did something better than the last time you went through this process. + Consider whether there was some feedback you received along the way that was helpful and would allow you to improve for next time. + Maybe you chronicled your experience in the process and realized you told a specific story better this time compared to the last time. That’s a bright spot. + You’re trying to focus on the process over the outcome even though you really want the outcome. No one will blame you for being bummed out after not getting a job, but hopefully you can become better through the experience (even if not the right fit, not the right company). + Outcomes are things we cannot control. Things that can be controlled are the way we execute, and it’s not just on a project or a sales campaign. This is including participation in the interview process. - Maybe you interviewed really well this time and felt much better during this round of interviews than the last time you interviewed. Maybe you set proper expectations throughout to ensure you knew the process well. - If you can tie how you feel to your process and not the outcome, in the long run you will be much better off.

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Welcome to episode 205 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we discuss previous episodes on job interviews, the goal of an interview and some types of interviews like HR screening and first call with a hiring manager.

Original Recording Date: 12-18-2022

Topics – A Focus on Interviews, Your Goal When Asked To Interview, Types of Interviews – HR Screening, Initial Call with the Hiring Manager1:37 – A Focus on Interviews* Today we’re talking about job interviews. This is the third episode in our series on the fundamentals of career progression. This episode was recorded during a time with news of company layoffs, and it is still an incredibly hot job market. + In Episode 203 we talked about resumes, their structure, how to showcase your accomplishments, and how you can keep them current. + In Episode 204 we talked about what type of reflection needs to be done as before searching for jobs, places and methods to search for jobs, research needed for each job listing, applying for jobs, and ways you can let jobs come to you. * This episode presupposes that you have applied for a job or been approached to apply for a position and are now either being contacted for a first interview or are currently going through the interview process. * For previous episodes focusing on interviews, check out: + Episode 2 – Different Types of Phone Interviews + Episode 9 – Blowing an Interview and Dressing for an Interview - This episode contains Nick’s favorite John White rant ever. + Episode 11 – Questions to Ask in an Interview + Episode 15 – Interview Myths + Episode 16 – Reasons Not to Pursue a Career Opportunity Part 1/2 Before Applying + Episode 17 – Reasons Not to Pursue a Career Opportunity Part 2/2 During Interviews and After the Offer + Episode 53 through Episode 57 – Unexpected Career Opportunities Series + Episode 66 and Episode 67 detail John’s move to Google Cloud and touch on the interview processes involved. - As of Episode 200, Episode 66 was the most downloaded Nerd Journey episode of all time! + Episode 81 – The Joy of Interviewing with Manny Sidhu (A Part 2 of 2) + Episode 84 – Management Interviews and Transitions with Brad Pinkston (a Part 2 of 2) + Episode 122 – Storytelling in Interviews with Brianna Blacet (a Part 2 of 2) + Episode 192 – Mindfulness in Interviews with Brett Hill (a Part 2 of 2) * To this point we lacked a central repository for discussions on interviews so listeners can dig in further on the topic in other episodes. Should we do another more recent roundup on the topic of interviewing, we will update show notes in this episode and point you there. * Today’s structure will focus on discussing the philosophy behind the interview process – the goal when you are asked to interview / what your goal should be, different types of interviews and what to prepare for, and what to do after the interview process is over and preparations you should make.

7:31 – Your Goal When Asked To Interview* Warning – people often overcomplicate and overthink this! * Your goal should be twofold + Overall the long-term goal when going through the process is to get to an offer + The short term goal is to make it to the next round of interviews (i.e. convince the interviewer to pass you on to the next round) + As you go through the process, you want to present the version of yourself that is tuned to the problems the organization at which you are interviewing is trying to solve by making a hire. + The interview process is a chance to evaluate the company. Do you actually want to work for this company, work on this team, or work for this manager? * Nick has heard of an interesting approach to the interview process that may help you. + Play to win, but if you lose, you have made a number of great personal connections along the way. + John makes it a point when interviewing at a company to keep track of the people he’s talking to so he can connect with them on LinkedIn. Generally he likes to connect with the people on LinkedIn and thank them for their time during the process. + Even if you do not get the job offer, you are going to learn something by going through the interview process. * One of the articles we have previously reviewed is – Here’s the #1 way people blow a job interview (Moneyish). Despite the clickbait like title, this article covers multiple ways people blow job interviews, such as… + Arriving late to an interview (the number one way) + Whining + Showing a lack of preparation + Bad mouthing a former boss + Bad mouthing a former company + Grammar or spelling mistakes on a cover letter + Poor grammar in an interview + Having unrealistic compensation requirements + Being underqualified + Answering questions incorrectly * Many of the points listed from the article above highlight an inability to communicate effectively. + Badmouthing is bad taste. It is always more effective to be graceful. + If pressed to give more detail about why you chose to leave a company is to be positive and focus on your needs. Here’s an example John gave: - "One of the things I have learned about myself is that I need X to feel safe and Y to succeed." You can stop there or add that the need was not being met in other environments. + In regard to communication, Nick is reminded of an episode with Scott Lowe (Episode 152) where we discuss writing as a way to make you a better communicator. - So many guests have mentioned writing as something they want to do well and something they practice to improve their communication. + John mentions effective communication is a practice and a process. You will never achieve perfection, but you can bias yourself toward success by doing it over and over again (and have people check it for you). - Ask others for constructive feedback on a presentation you’re developing, something you are writing, etc. to see if it is clearly communicating what you want (i.e. your goals, etc.). Then continue to work on it. - When you reach a higher stakes situation like an interview, you can rely on this practice and experience to help you (i.e. might not have to think so much about it in the situation). * From a preparation standpoint, Nick takes that to mean prepare some things you would like to know about the person interviewing you. + You need to think about these in advance because you likely will not be able to think of everything on the spot. Make some notes in advance. + There will be information you want to extract from an interviewer about the organization, the team, the manager, company culture, how employees are treated, the organization’s goals, whether all of this aligns with your goals and values, etc. + Don’t forget to go back and review your resume and the job listing before going into an interview. You need to know each of them well. - Make sure you’re reviewing the version of the resume you submitted for the company in question. This may mean you need to have different stories ready for interviewers compared to a different resume submission / job application. - When you answer questions during an interview you can then point back to experiences listed on your resume. * Another article we’ve referenced is 5 Myths About Interviews You’ll Want to Stop Believing from the Washington Post. The Washington Post has a good jobs and careers section that John likes to read regularly. The myths discussed in the article are as follows: + Your Interviewer Is Completely Prepared + Interview Questions Have Correct and Incorrect Answers + Let the Interviewer Ask All the Questions + The Most Qualified Candidate Gets The Job Every Time + Thank You Notes Are No Longer Required - Nick advises the goal is not to just send a thank you note to send it. You need to actually mean it and appreciate the time someone invested in speaking to you. + Worried about how to dress? Just ask the Recruiter during a phone screen.

16:33 – Types of Interviews* HR Screening + People don’t often realize this is an interview. + Many companies have recruiter roles (possibly inside a human resources or people operations department of an organization), and the people working in these roles work to screen a large list of candidates and qualify them in or out of the pool of candidates that need to be passed along further into the hiring process. + This person is going to screen you on experience and appropriateness for the job, skills you have, seniority level, etc. + On a screening call, be able to speak to skills and experience that demonstrate your seniority level with stories from your resume such as the scale of projects you’ve worked, how those experiences relate to desired skills from the job listing, etc. + Usually the requirements in a job listing are in the order of importance to the employer (first in the list is most important, etc.). With a limited amount of time, you probably want to be prepared to address the items from top to bottom. + This is also a good time to ask clarifying questions about the job listing if something is unclear. For example, what does 20% travel mean to this organization? Is that traveling every Friday, being gone every 5th week, etc.? + Many people have questions about addressing salary. - John says his bias here is that he feels fairly secure in his ability to find a new position should his be unexpectedly terminated or he needed to quit. As a result John feels comfortable stating his salary requirements up front. - John thinks it is very fair to share the minimum salary you would need to consider changing jobs or joining this new organization. You can share this without the fear that the organization thinks this is the maximum amount a company would ever need to offer you. - If you say something like, "I really can’t change for less than $100,000" it does not mean all a company needs to do is to offer you $100,000 to make the change. You’re saying that you can’t really even consider anything less than $100,000. If a company cannot get to at least that threshold, they may need to look at other candidates. - You don’t want to find out at the end of the process (i.e. getting the offer) that the position does not meet your minimum salary requirements because it has wasted your time as well as that of others. - Nick says there is nothing wrong with asking a recruiter about the pay range to expect for the position to ensure no one’s time is wasted. - Be sure to check out the Real Job Talk podcast as they may have episodes on this specific topic. They each have experience in recruitment and would be considered a specialized resource. + Be prepared to cover your resume, job requirements, the day-to-day work, and how you would approach it (with stories ready). You’re trying to figure out if this is something you want and trying to get to the next step. + There are some different scenarios in which the recruiter is working with the company looking for somoene to hire. - Internal recruiting resource (employed by the company wanting to make a hire) – probably has a bonus structure based on successful placements but may not be leveraged as much as contract recruiters - Contract recruiter – not a full time employee of the company (just a contractor),likely a base salary given to this person with variable compensation dependent upon successful candidate placements - 3rd party external recruiting company – seeks to provide the organization with qualified candidates and makes a percentage of the candidate’s salary as compensation, likely not compensated until a candidate is successfully placed (hired) + Working with a 3rd party recruitment service may indicate a company is not large enough to merit an in-house resource for recruitment (whether internal full time employee or contractor). It could be a company in startup mode, for example. + Another episode to check out and reference would be Episode 174 with Dominique Top. She was a recruiter for DevOps roles at one point.

25:12 – Initial Call with the Hiring Manager* You might go straight to this call depending on the company or may get passed on to the hiring manager after a screening call with a recruiter. * Make sure you prepare!

+ Know the job listing.
+ Have a story you can tell about each potential requirement or what the daily activities are.
+ We encourage saving a copy of the job listing. If the listing has already disappeared and you do not have it, you may want to try to find a similar job listing.
+ Make sure you have good answers for some of the top interview questions in your job are. These are more generic questions:
    - How would you address conflicting time requirements?
    - How would you handle conflicting ideas on how to address a technical issue?
    - How would you address a conflict in work style between you and a colleague?
    - What is leading you to consider changing jobs?
    - Think about some of the things that are specific to your role and how these questions might be tailored to fit that role.
        * If you were interviewing for a sales engineering role, for example, the question about conflicting time requirements might be something about how you would handle supporting two different salespeople who schedule you to help them at the same time on the same day. For an IT operations position the question may be about how to decide which department meeting to join when you have a scheduling conflict.

Think also about questions you might need answered during this process. Companies need to see that you are also evaluating them. Check out [10 (More) Questions to Ask at the End of an Interview to Stand Out](https://jobs.washingtonpost.com/article/10-more-questions-to-ask-at-the-end-of-an-interview-to-stand-out/
- Nick’s favorite question in the article is "what do you like about working here?"
- Nick likes asking recruiters a form of this question (assuming they are internal employees of the company doing the hiring). "What made you want to work for this company?" Sometimes the answers come with really interesting stories.
- Nick suggests asking hiring managers what made them want to go into people leadership.
- Ask the hiring manager what a typical 1-1 would be like, the types of things that would be discussed during a 1-1, the things they would want to know during a 1-1, how frequent 1-1s are, what team meetings are like, etc.
- These are the types of questions indicate you are experienced and want to know if this person is the type of manager you would want to work for, if the organization is a place you could see yourself working, etc.
- You might also want to ask about career conversations.
  - What percentage of the 1-1s would be dedicated to career advancement / me getting better at the role or progressing within the organization?
  - Is there a technical career path available if my next step is not going to be people leadership?"
- John likes these questions:
  - What qualities would a person need to succeed in this position?
  - Can you give me an example of what I would be working on if I started tomorrow?
  - What would I need to be doing 6-12 months from now for you to consider me a successful hire? What does success for me look like 6-12 months down the road?
  - Questions that speak to stability, growth, dynamism
    - How often do you expect the responsibilities of this position to change?
    - What challenges are you facing as a company or division right now?
    - Do you expect to make additional hires in the next few months?
    - If 70% the team responsibilities turn over ever 6 months, maybe that’s not fine.
    - If you’re interviewing at a hypergrowth startup, for example, it could be a new company every quarter. Go back and listen to Episode 166 and Episode 167 with Andrew Miller for more on this.
- The first call after speaking with a recruiter / having the initial screen is not always with a hiring manager. Tune in next week for more details!
- Next week we will complete the discussion on types of technical interviews and talk about what you should be looking at after the interview process is over in terms of next actions and how you’re treated.

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Welcome to episode 204 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we discuss processes and considerations for your next job search, including ways to allow jobs come to you.

Original Recording Date: 12-17-2022

Topics – Setting the Table to Discuss Job Search, What Characteristics Do You Value In A Workplace, What Kind Of Work Do You Want To Do, Search for Jobs Online, Other Job Search Methods, Apply for Jobs, Letting the Jobs Come to You1:20 – Setting the Table to Discuss Job Search* Last week in Episode 203 we talked about resumes, their structure, how to showcase your accomplishments, and how you can keep them current. * As part of revisiting some of the foundational elements of career progression, the next logical step after you have a resume is to execute on a job search. * Past episodes to revisit on job search + Episode 4 – Company Culture as a Filter + [Episode 13][https://nerd-journey.com/nerd-journey-013-the-sniper-approach-to-job-hunting-with-tom-delicati/] – The Sniper Approach to Job Hunting with Tom Delicati - We talked through Tom’s interesting approach to finding a new job after relocating, and we also discussed a Spiceworks post by BBigford about cold calling companies for jobs. + Episode 57 – Preparing for Unexpected Opportunities Part 5 – Personal Finance - We talked about finances and how stability in this area helps prevent urgency and stress. + Episode 20 – Reasons to Quit, Area of Destiny, and Finding Your Area of Destiny - Check out the concept of area of destiny when it comes to career. + Episode 19 – Dreaming in Bands * Today we will discuss characteristics valued in a workplace, the type of work you want to do, the actual search for jobs, the application process and how to apply for jobs, and ways you can let jobs come to you.

4:17 – What Characteristics Do You Value In A Workplace?* We continue to advocate progressing your career, and in that you want to make things better. * There are different things we might want to improve to progress, but sometimes we might want to improve the environment in which we’re doing the work. There will be things you do and do not like about your current and past work environments (i.e. things you value highly and things you want to avoid in the future). * At the time of this recording we’re seeing tech companies downsizing but doing so in an incredibly hot job market. Though you may be going through an involuntary change in jobs, you still have a lot of opportunity to make a choice about where you want to work next. * This is the time to really think about where you want to work. We advocate that you should evaluate this periodically and not just once. * For example, here are the things John values in a workplace: + Co-workers who are smart in a different and complimentary way than John + Supportive and collegial culture + Challenging and interesting problems to work on + Support for growth and learning + A technical / individual contributor career path to progress in seniority and compensation without being forced into management + Fair to generous compensation package * As you think about this, consider the constraints that you have and the aspirations you have. + Maybe you want to travel and would be excited about a role that requires 80% travel, for example. + Maybe you have situations that will not allow any travel or minimal travel. + Is it important for you to be close to the company headquarters, or is being farther away from it ok? + What about the distance between you and your immediate manager? John once had a situation where he and his managers were on opposite coasts of the US. Is that ok for you or not ok? + In our current environment, do you want to work in an office every day, at home only, or some mix of the two? * Gain clarity and categorize the "must haves," the "nice to haves," and the "must avoids." * Something important to Nick is the ability to potentially grow into a different area of the company. + This allows keeping a network of people inside your company who know your reputation without having to start over somewhere else. + John says this is always easier (an internal move). But, we should consider how healthy the organization we are looking to join (within the same company) really is. + People may want to know about that organization’s culture or at least investigate it during the job search. You might reach out to people you know in that organization, try to figure out how many people have held multiple roles in that organization, or see how many people have geographically relocated and stayed with the company. * Each person has their own set of circumstances to consider. Be mindful of what those are as you do this exercise, and consider having a conversation with your family, group of friends, etc. (the people most important to you). * The timing has to be correct as well just like Yvette Edwards shared in Episode 202. + If the timing is off, it’s not the right opportunity. * Nick suggests considering reimbursements for things (mileage, tolls, etc.), wellbeing allowances, mental health benefits, insurance and family health concerns, etc. + Maybe you have an elderly parent that you need to take care of. Is time off for this covered, or can additional insurance be purchased to cover it? + It would be great to know about these things as you go into applying for a job. * Consider expected work hours, time off, doctor appointments and whether you can make up the time or must take time off for it, etc. + John remembers hearing about a company that was installing bedrooms in their headquarters recently and how this set some expectations with employees to be hard core. This was about Twitter. Check out this article for further reading. + Maybe being hard core at an organization is something that excites you and you don’t have family obligations. That is something to consider and may be a way to become highly compensated and get some bumps in seniority quickly. * You may want to participate in a technical community (even if meetings happen on work days) and have your company support you going to speak at events. + This reminds Nick of the discussions with Joe Houghes, specifically the discussion in Episode 189 about capturing the intangibles. + Even though Joe asked about these things during his interview process, he had determined they were important in a company before entering that process. * "If you go through this exercise a couple of times…and are able to articulate that to yourself, then that is the first step in being ready to articulate it to a hiring manager during an interview process." – John White

13:55 – What Kind Of Work Do You Want To Do?* This is where dreaming in bands comes into play. + Many times we are locked in on a job role / title and might want that with more responsibility, at a larger company, and with a slightly better pay scale. The dream is about what you have now but a little bit bigger and a little bit better. * One of the reasons we started the podcast was to get people to think about just how many roles exist in the technology space that are well compensated, encouraging listeners to think a little outside the box. + One example is sales engineering (what John and Nick do). It is well compensated, fairly technical, and often pulls from the pool of people who have experience in IT operations, enterprise architecture, software development, and many other technical roles. + Make sure you explore the types of roles that are available, the different industries those roles might span, etc. + Another role in infrastructure operations might be in that band of possibility for you, but it’s not the only thing. We want to make that very clear for listeners. + Think outside of what you’re doing right now. What about joining a cloud platform team, a site reliability engineering team, a DevOps team, an architecture team, moving into technical sales, technical marketing, product marketing, product management, etc. + There are so many possibilities for the next job for most people that we don’t even realize it. * To spend time thinking about what you want to do you have to spend time thinking without distraction, letting your brain really churn on it. Write some stuff down, and think on it regularly. You have to get outside the normal bubble of what you do today in many ways. + Consider taking a walk after your work day ends and thinking about these things, for example. + Expand your mind a little by looking at job listings online, even those for which you may not seem qualified. Check to see whether you have relatable experience that applies to the job in question. This is to help you see the realm of possibility and understand what is out there and could help you spot potential gaps. + There is no requirement to take action other than looking at job listings for positions that might be a stretch for you. Pay attention to requirements and description of what daily tasks might be like in the job. + After looking at several job listings and doing some gap analysis, you may find that there is only a small skills / requirements gap in what you do today compared to a job listing that excites you. Maybe you’re willing to work really hard to close that gap because the job is exciting. Or maybe you aren’t. You will not know until you go through the exercise of looking. * Think of this process like implementing a new technology solution to solve a problem. + The problem is needing to determine what you want to do next. + You’re trying to determine the level of effort to make the implementation happen (or to get to "I can do this job"). + Is the gap 20%, 50%, etc.? You might not know until you talk to somoene who has done the thing. If I need to implement a cloud PBX (phone system), I probably want to talk to somoene who has done it and pick their brain about what went well, the person’s background to that point, what they had to learn, etc. This applies to jobs too and may allow you to spot some of your own gaps. + To fill gaps, maybe there are training courses, certifications, in workplace apprenticeships, etc. We’ve talked to many people on the show who found a team that did interesting work and asked to tag along / shadow, help with the work, moonlight in that department, etc. * Nick remembers Mike Wood’s experience in doing informational interviews as mentioned in Episode 169 to learn more about a role from a hiring manager / someone doing the job. + In this scenario there is no pressure on the person you contact to evaluate you for a role. They are explaining what the job is to you so that you can determine if it’s a job you want to do, if you are qualified, etc. * If you have a gap around a specific technology, you may be able to bring that into your current company. Many on the show have mentioned bringing VMware, Microsoft, or other solutions into their company to add value, for example.

22:01 – Search for Jobs Online* There are many possible tools that can be used to search for jobs. + LinkedIn + Indeed + Monster + If you have a specific company in mind you can visit their careers page to see postings and often times apply. * If we take LinkedIn for example… + In the jobs section you can create a search term (i.e. infrastructure architect). You can see all positions that contain the search term. + Then there is a set of filters you can leverage to refine the results (i.e. limit results to a country, region of a country, experience level, work from home / hybrid, etc.). + You can then turn on alerts based on the search term and filtering so that you know about new postings. Alerting can be done for multiple search terms! + John recommends setting up alerts and reading through postings fairly intensely, especially at the beginning of a search. + As you see more job postings and look at requirements, you can feed them into your resume as we discussed in last week’s episode. + LinkedIn, like other platforms, wants to socially engineer people and will make recommendations. Based on the skills you have placed on your LinkedIn profile, you will see recommended jobs based on those skills, what you post and comment about, etc. - If you don’t have skills in your LinkedIn profile, be sure to add them! + And if the recommendations aren’t titles you might immediately think of, read the job description. It could be completely in your wheelhouse, but you will not know until you read the description. + Don’t have blinders on as you do this!

25:23 – Other Job Search Methods* In [Episode 13][https://nerd-journey.com/nerd-journey-013-the-sniper-approach-to-job-hunting-with-tom-delicati/] we spoke to Tom Delicati and discussed what we called his "sniper method." + If you’re highly skilled in a specific software or technology that has a community built around it, go look for other companies in that community who are using the software (in Tom’s case it was a user group for Epicor software). + This is a great approach if you’re speaking at the user group, any conferences around the software or technology, or perhaps publish some blogs / papers or other proof of work to demonstrate expertise. Having a company or people at a company know your reputation in advance is always a plus. * The user group approach is helpful in a secondary way for tips on technologies or trends and the ability to network with others to find out if their companies might be hiring. + Meetup.com is a great resource for this and has options for attending user group meetings in person or remotely. + User groups are often people coming together who are using / interested in the same technology or in the same industry coming together to share learnings, best practices, and how to better prepare for the future together. * Also in Episode 13 we mentioned a Spiceworks post by Bbigford on cold calling for jobs. + This is a method that could be utilized when moving to a new area where you don’t have a network of contacts. + It involves having a customized set of resumes in hand and walking into companies to ask for a discussion with a hiring manager. + This touches on what Tom did as well and involves asking if the company has openings despite what may be listed on their site. + You can ask for a discussion and ask for someone to look at your resume even if you do not know anyone at the organization. + One downside is you would need thick skin. You may get told no a lot, and this can be scary to do. People may have fear that prevents them from even trying. + Also, the people you would want to talk to may be working from home or in a different office building than you visit when cold calling. Keep that in mind. + If this method gives you anxiety, perhaps choosing a different method is best.

30:09 – Apply for Jobs* Once you’ve searched for jobs and filled your funnel, it’s time to apply. * Here are some ideas: + Look for connections you might have at the company to which you are applying. You could reach out to that person and see if they know anything about the role, the hiring manager, the team, the type of work done in the role and products supported, workload and expectations, company culture, etc. - There nay be a bonus program at the company for referrals, and if that is the case, the person may offer to refer you and possibly even coach you through the interview process. - You may need to sell the idea of recommending you to someone you do not know extremely well. And it may not happen at all. It’s ok if someone may not feel comfortable referring you. Be thankful the person was willing to provide you with some help. + Don’t forget to look for people who at one time worked for the company in question but do not currently. - There is a LinkedIn filter for people formerly employed at an organization. And some people may be willing to tell you why they left (i.e. new job was more money, it was an awful place to work, etc.). + Customize the resume to the job listing. + Save the job listing somewhere in case it is taken down once all candidates apply. + Customize the skills to the skills in the job listing. Map the things you have done to the things they are saying are important activities for the job in question. There will never be 100% overlap, but you want to highlight the right things. + You probably do not want to apply for 10-15 jobs at the same company at the same time. Maybe more than 1 is ok, but the shotgun approach may not be fruitful. And, it’s tough to write a custom application for 10 different jobs at the same company.

33:31 – Letting the Jobs Come to You* Even when you are happy and not looking for a job, make sure your LinkedIn profile is up to date with skills you have, responsibilities you have, and the tasks you do. People looking for these things may come knocking on your door to hire you. + LinkedIn makes money from giving recruiters access to certain access and data on the platform. Recruiters are constantly on the platform looking for talent. + There are unexpected opportunities out there. Sometimes the best time to consider opportunities is when you don’t need to consider new opportunities. It makes it low stakes. + Be desirable on LinkedIn. Engage with current technology, and share what you are doing with it. Update your profile semi-regularly. Post blog articles you have written. Make interesting posts that promote engagement. + Anything you post demonstrates writing skills to a potential hiring manager / recruiter and could also act as proof of work. * It is important to build a network of contacts inside your company and outside your company. + Get to know people on different teams inside the company. Meet your skip level manager like Yvette Edwards discussed in Episode 202 + Meet people outside the company. User groups are a great way to do this. User groups and mutual connections on LinkedIn are a great way to do this. + Maybe someone you are connected to on LinkedIn comments on a post about data science from one of their other connections. If you’re interested n dat science, perhaps you could reach out to this other person and talk to them about the type of work they do to learn more. - If you don’t ask, you can’t know! - When connecting with people on LinkedIn, take a second to send a personalized note with the connection request. If the person says no or does not want to talk with you, it’s very low stakes. + In addition to in person user groups, there are online communities you can leverage: - Check out Twitter, Mastadon, Spiceworks, MangoLassi, Microsoft community sites, and many others. + John likes the idea of connecting with people at your current company on LinkedIn. Over time, a certain percentage of those people are going to leave the company to work elsewhere. Now you know someone who works at a different company who you can ask what it’s like working for the company, why the person made a career shift, etc. + Nick shares that we’re always in guest acquisition mode (a technique you could use too). - If Nick meets someone in person or comes across them on Linkedin, and they have an interesting story, he wants to connect and learn more. - Often times this is followed by some information on the theme and purpose for Nerd Journey and Nick suggesting the person be a guest to discuss some of their background (i.e. getting laid off, taking a sabbatical, making a specific career turn, etc.) and the offer to build an outline for their review and collaboration. - Make it easy for people to say yes to your request. The same technique can be used to ask for a discussion with someone. - Ask the person if there are good blogs in a specific area that you should be following or to recommend another connection with specific experience. If the person you are communicating with knows someone who has transitioned from the job you do to the job they do they could recommend you. - Maybe there is a way you can help another person that you did not realize when the discussion began. - Think about developing the reciprocity style of a matcher instead of a taker. John says this sounds similar to advice we received from the Career Tools podcast to build and serve your network as a primary focus, allowing you to make a request every now and then. When you’re giving and serving and keeping connections active, it makes everything better. + Publicly accessible proof of work (LinkedIn posts, posts in a technical community, a blog, a video you made, code you put on GitHub, a recorded presentation you gave, etc.) can demonstrate expertise and enable jobs to come to you. Be sure to collect those links so you can easily share them with others. + John reminds Nick that we need to take our own advice and be sure to put things like past VMworld / VMware Explore sessions on our LinkedIn and kitchen sink resumes.

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Welcome to episode 203 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we discuss tips for resume writing, format, structure, and how to get from accomplishment to resume bullet point.

Original Recording Date: 12-17-2022

Topics – Focusing the Discussion on Resumes, Focusing the Discussion on Resumes, Foundations and the Goal of a Resume, No Fancy Formatting, Appropriate Length, Skills Section, Job Experience Section, Keeping Current Accomplishments in Resume Format, Edit Your Resume for Each Job Application1:56 – Focusing the Discussion on Resumes* Should we get content on YouTube in 2023? Let us know what you think! * We’re starting a new series of discussions to revisit the fundamentals of career progression. While we did address it in our earlier episodes we want to highlight and present some of the things you need to do regularly for career progression (progressing at your current company in the form of promotion, responsibility shift, leaving your company to pursue an opportunity, etc.). * Today’s episode is all about resumes! + In the future we plan to have discussions on job searches, preparing for interviews, and possibly lining somoene up for a discussion on job offers and considerations around them.

3:12 – Previous Episodes that Involve Resume Discussions* Episode 4 – Resume Writing Tips * Episode 53 – Keeping Your Resume Updated * Episode 64 – Your Position has been Eliminated with Mike Burkhart (a Part 1 of 2) * Episode 114 – Career Insight from the Manager Lens with Brad Christian (a Part 2 of 2) * Episode 173 – Collect Your Portfolio with Evan Oldford (a Part 2 of 2)

3:48 – Foundations and the Goal of a Resume* Foundations of resumes + No fancy formatting + Aim for a single page with an optional second page detailing job experience + Contact info as header for entire resume + Skills section with specialized job section + Job experiences in reverse chronological order with quantified accomplishments featuring your job skills * We recommend this structure to align with the goal of a resume. + A hiring manager is trying to solve a problem by hiring someone (someone who has left a position, team growth that requires a specific set of skills in a new member, etc.). + Your goal should be to articulate that you are a very strong possibility for solving that problem and communicating that as quickly a possible in the resume (in the top 1/3 if possible). + You want to get to the next step in the process and for someone to look at your resume and pass you through. + In order to solve a hiring manager’s problem you need to know what it is. Read the job description carefully, and read it multiple times to ensure you are addressing the problem statement.

6:10 – No Fancy Formatting* Usually when working with medium to large size companies, the resume will be going into an applicant tracking system (not read by a human as a first touch). * This means we want the resume to be as easily machine readable as possible (i.e. successfully scanned with OCR / optical character recognition, type / font recognition, etc.). + If it’s a physical resume you want it scanned as quickly as possible. + If you’re filling out an online form with resume information this is less of an issue. + Choose an easily readable font that easily distinguishes between characters which may look the same when typed in other fonts (lower case L, capital I, and the number 1 for example). Tahoma and Verdana are usually good, freely available selections to help here. + If headed to a job fair maybe you have physical copies of your resume. + You want the information on your resume to be located where someone expects it to be, and for this fancy formatting like inserting a photo or using multiple columns does not make sense. * When submitting a digital resume to an applicant tracking system, the system often will scan the digital copy and spit out its contents into a form that you can then view, edit, and approve. + Bullets may be carried into the new submission form but may not be. Make sure the data is pulled in the way you wrote it before submitting! + For example, if you’ve had multiple positions over time with the same company, how is that being imported by the software? Is it pulled in as multiple jobs or jumbled together in a way that does not clearly articulate multiple positions at a company? Make sure this is clear before submitting.

9:18 – Appropriate Length* Target a one to two page resume. * Generally one page is a great target but may not be possible when trying to articulate complex technical jobs. + You might need more detail in the resume to showcase skills through your accomplishments and completed projects. Two pages is acceptable. + Needing a 3rd page may indicate your editing skills are questionable. Seek to convey everything needed in a maximum of 2 pages. Likely someone reading your resume would not get to a 3rd page. * Think of the full resume as an aggregation of information that is very concentrated like laundry detergent. You will add water to it in the interview. + You’ll never be able to add enough information in your resume that will compel someone to hire you on the spot (highly unlikely), which may be the root problem of resumes that are too long.

10:41 – Skills Section* We call it a skills section, but it could be skills and software, skills and tools, etc. * We are trying to articulate specialized job skills and specialized job experiences. * Many times you will find skills listed in the required section of a job posting. + You should be looking at multiple job postings for the type of job you want, and we encourage you to stretch a little within reason (i.e. look at slightly more senior positions even if you don’t own that senior title right now). + Look at the required skills and experience section in these sample job postings. - Some examples of these in a technical job posting could be experience with Unix / Linux systems administration or enterprise architecture design experience. - If you have those skills but do not have it in your resume, they need to be in the skills section. The end goal is to pack the skills section in a way that answers the question of whether you as a job applicant have the ability to do the things a hiring manager wants (item x, item y, item z, etc.). - Skills on your resume are very brief and showcase you have specific skills. More detail comes in the job experience section. - A skills section is a great place to showcase industry certifications that are relevant to the job posting. This section of the resume could be titled skills and certifications as an option.

13:01 – Job Experience Section* This is a section to list positions you’ve held in reverse chronological order. Multiple positions at the same company could show up as sub-bullets or separate jobs in this section. * Under each position you want quantified accomplishments, and you want accomplishments that address or map to the skills in your skills section. The skills section is almost like a table of contents for what will come in the job experience section. + From our example of Unix / Linux systems administration as a skill, one might use the statement below. It’s a quantified accomplishment (how many, what kind, what scope, etc.). - Oversaw lifecycle management of 300 production Debian Linux VMs as well as the Dev, Test, and Deployment pipeline. + For the enterprise architecture design example, a quantifiable accomplishment might be the following. This quantifies and features use of skills from the skills section, speaks to the scale at which it was done, and gives the reader an idea of how well it was done. - 5 years experience applying TOGAF principals in the design of a 250 business-user, 10,000 customer eCommerce environment; Met SLOs for three years in a row. + Try using quantifiable business metrics and not just technical metrics. For example… - Designed and oversaw deployment of a new DR process, which cut downtime by 6 days, year over year, saving approximately $1M in lost revenue. - While the mention of cutting downtime here may be more of a technical metric, the revenue number is definitely a business metric. This example has both. + Nick suggests another way to frame and think about this. He has learned about a concept called an impact report with 3 components: - An activity something you did (i.e. designed and oversaw deployment of a new DR process) - An outcome that was produced as a result of the activity (i.e. cut downtime) - The evidence that the outcome was achieved with metrics that show the impact (i.e. cut downtime by 6 days, $1M in lost revenue) + Nick mentions he has built PowerPoint presentations that have illustrated impact using the categories above, but this method can easily be used in a bullet point on a resume (separate components by semi-colons or commas to make one entry, for example). + The evidence in an impact report can speak to the scale of the environment in which you have worked and help someone understand whether your thinking / skills could scale to the size of a new environment. + John likes the idea of scaling up and scaling down and showing evidence of staying in budget in each scenario. * We kind of glossed over contact information as a header, but this goes long with avoiding fancy formatting and saves space on the resume for evidence that you can solve a hiring manager’s problem.

17:52 – Keeping Current Accomplishments in Resume Format* Doing all this from scratch can be challenging. We recommend constantly keeping things up to date (an iterative approach). + Every time you embark on a new project, think about the point you would want to add to your resume upon successful project outcome. Write that down as it can be a project goal. + For example, we had some budgetary constraints as well as these challenges. Based on these business objectives we were able to accomplish A, B, and C by doing X, Y, and Z. + As the project changes (i.e. budget, scope, change to anticipated outcome, etc.), you can revisit and revise the statement in order to keep it current. Remember to include milestones and awards (i.e. project manager of the year, etc.). You would need to do this for your project regardless. + You can save an in progress item to your resume as points to make in the job experience section. + As you continue this process, items from your current resume can be transferred to LinkedIn (and obfuscated as needed so you are not exposing business confidential information in your resume or on LinkedIn). + It is a good practice to make sure there is not a huge gap between what is on your resume and what is on LinkedIn. Likely people are going to check you out on LinkedIn when you apply for a job. * Nick suggests adding links to any publicly available proof of work to your resume (a script on GitHub, a course you authored, a blog series that demonstrates expertise, a video, etc.) so it’s easy for a hiring manager to check out. * Make certain words in the resume active links. That way if an applicant tracking system keeps a digital copy of your resume that is passed to a recruiter or hiring manager, they can easily follow the links to learn more.

21:35 – Edit Your Resume for Each Job Application* This presupposes that you have a kitchen sink resume or everything resume from which to pull data / information (contains all possible relevant points).

+ This may or may not match the level of detail on LinkedIn (might be more room to have extra detail on LinkedIn).

For each job application you need to rearrange / refine the skills section and choose which accomplishments from your work experience are most beneficial to put on the resume…all based on job requirements.
- Read the job listing / posting carefully and save a copy. It could disappear after you apply.
- The job listing will tell you requirements, nice to have items, and daily responsibilities. You want the items from your experience that match what is in the job listing, editing out the projects and accomplishments not relevant to the job in question.
- Trimming down the skills and job experience sections and customizing to the job to which you’re applying encourage brevity and help you keep the resume 1-2 pages in length. You don’t want a skills section that takes up 75% of the first page of your resume.
  - NOTE: The skills section is probably the only place in your resume where two columns / a multiple column format is something we would encourage to help save space.
- A job posting is like a cheat sheet that tells you all the questions on a test. Make sure your resume answers all those questions for the specific job (i.e. you have the skills they want and demonstrate them though experiences shared in the resume document).
- Remember to consider holistic experience when you write your resume. There may be something you are doing outside of work that demonstrates you have the necessary skills (something you do through volunteering efforts, etc.).
- If a hairstylist wanted to move into a customer service role, would you say they don’t have customer service skills? How about a hairstylist who maintained a 30-person customer base with 5-star reviews over a period of years and positioned and maintained a customized set of hair care products for each customer?
- The hairstylist probably had a marketing plan they needed to develop and execute and marketing materials they needed to create. If there was a marketing element to the job where this hairstylist was applying, this is something to mention. All you are doing is speaking to things you did that map to skills a company needs.
- The skills on a resume are not all technical skills! Don’t forget the soft skills.
- Working with a cross-functional team means you’re working with a group of people reporting to different managers. And you’re doing this with no role power other than influence.
- Everything you put on your resume needs a story to go with it. That way if someone asks for more detail, you have the story ready.
- If someone were to ask which pieces of lifecycle management you handled related to those 300 Debian Linux VMs mentioned earlier in our example, what will the story be? Maybe 100 VMs were for project A, 100 for project B, and 100 for project C…with each project having different lifecycle and uptime requirements. Then you can speak to how you handled each case (which is far more detail than you could have put in a single bullet point on your resume).
  - An interviewer may be looking to see if the lifecycle management skills you have either match what they need, are similar to / can be modified to what they need, or not what they need.
- If you cannot tell a larger story about something on your resume, you need to develop it or perhaps not put it on the resume.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for help with your resume.
- It’s challenging to be mindful of all the relatable experience you have. Sometimes a friend, peer, or professional resume writer can see a skill you have that you didn’t think to put on the resume.
- In the resume writing process, a 3rd party may be interviewing you to sniff out specific skills and experiences to help bolster your resume.
  - For example, when you were in this role, did you ever have to market your skills to get retained? Did you ever have to market a product? Did you ever have to market your team? All of these instances would indicate you have done marketing functions in some form or another.
  - John and Nick both have had to have people do this kind of thing for them to tease out the relatable experience.
  - In the moment when you’re doing resume writing, you are so in your head it will usually keep you from seeing the whole picture.
- To the perfectionists out there, we can sympathize.
- It will never be perfect. Get to good enough to answer the questions in a job description in a timely manner so you’re in the candidate pool.
- Do the best you can, and you have to be ok with what you’ve developed to submit.
- "In the time frame that I have, this was as perfect as I could get it." – John White
- Whether starting from a blank page or not, there are two different processes to be aware of – writing and editing.
- Writing is getting something down on paper. You then come back to edit later to reword things, add clarity, etc.
- Don’t edit as you write. The editing needs to happen later. This is easier said than done.
- We’ve had guests on the show mention incorrectly interpreting what they actually have written as what they meant to write. You need to let your writing sit long enough to forget the context of what you meant to write so you can evaluate only what was written.
  - This happens to so many people (the brain interpreting what you wrote as what you meant to write), including John. Phil Monk mentioned this happens to him in Episode 185 and spoke to some tools that could be used to reach things back as they are written in Episode 186.
- This episode is the result of listener feedback. We really appreciate it and welcome feedback on topics to ponder and potential guests.

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Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track

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What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful

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The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts

The Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods

An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management

A Game Plan for Life: The Power of Mentoring

Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware (Pragmatic Programmers)

The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips for Improving Your Skills

How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers

A Craftsman’s Legacy: Why Working with Our Hands Gives Us Meaning

The Story of You: An Enneagram Journey to Becoming Your True Self

A Champion's Mind: Lessons from a Life in Tennis

So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love

Feedback That Works: How to Build and Deliver Your Message, Second Edition

The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist's Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults

The Master: The Long Run and Beautiful Game of Roger Federer

Your Brain at Work, Revised and Updated: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long

Ghost Rules: Unspoken secrets to getting ahead

The Art of Being Indispensable at Work: Win Influence, Beat Overcommitment, and Get the Right Things Done

Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention--and How to Think Deeply Again

Strategic Relationships at Work: Creating Your Circle of Mentors, Sponsors, and Peers for Success in Business and Life

The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company

Every Tool's a Hammer: Life Is What You Make It

Blah Blah Blah: What To Do When Words Don't Work

Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise

The Back of the Napkin (Expanded Edition): Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures

Success Is in Your Sphere: Leverage the Power of Relationships to Achieve Your Business Goals

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate The Three Essential Virtues (J-B Lencioni Series)

Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

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Making Work Visible: Exposing Time Theft to Optimize Work & Flow

Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain

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The Craft of Research (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing)

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work that Lasts

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Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

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Mastering VMware vSphere 4 (Computer/Tech)

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Welcome to the fourth Bonus Episode of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solution Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we talk about community resolutions, an annual career checkup framework, … Continue reading "Nerd Journey Bonus 04: New Year’s Resolutions"

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Welcome to the third Bonus Episode of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solution Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we talk about the effects of work on holidays and … Continue reading "Nerd Journey Bonus 03: Holiday!"

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Welcome to episode 19 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solution Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we have a discussion about Process-oriented thinking over Outcomes-oriented thinking and dreaming … Continue reading "Episode 019: “Process Over Outcomes” and “Dreaming in Bands”"

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Welcome to episode 18b of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solution Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we have Part 2 of a two-part interview with Joseph Griffiths, Staff … Continue reading "Episode 018b: Joseph Griffiths Interview Part 2"

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Welcome to episode 18a of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solution Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we have Part 1 of a two-part interview with Joseph Griffiths, Staff … Continue reading "Episode 018a: Joseph Griffiths Interview Part 1"

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Welcome to episode 17 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solution Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we have Part 2 of a two-part discussion on when to stop … Continue reading "Nerd Journey 017: Reasons Not to Pursue a Career Opportunity Part 2/2 During Interviews and After the Offer"

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Welcome to the second Bonus Episode of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solution Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we talk about the community discussion we had about what … Continue reading "Nerd Journey Bonus 02: Thankful"

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Welcome to episode 16 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solution Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we have Part 1 of a two-part discussion on when to stop … Continue reading "Nerd Journey 016: Reasons Not to Pursue a Career Opportunity Part 1/2 Before Applying"

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Welcome to episode 15 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solution Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we discuss some Interview Myths and dealing with Boss Problems. Original recording … Continue reading "Nerd Journey 015: Interview Myths and Boss Problems"

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Welcome to episode 14 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solution Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we have part 2 of a 2-part interview with Tom Delicati, founder … Continue reading "Nerd Journey 014: From IT Ops to Entrepreneur"

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Welcome to episode 13 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solution Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we have part 1 of a 2-part interview with Tom Delicati, founder … Continue reading "Nerd Journey 013: The Sniper Approach to Job Hunting with Tom Delicati"

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Welcome to episode 12 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solution Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we discuss how to have effection 1-on-1 meetings with your manager and … Continue reading "Nerd Journey 012: Effective 1-on-1 Meetings with your Manager and Gracefully Leaving an Organziation"

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Welcome to episode 11 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solution Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we discuss and professional networking and revisit the topic of training. Original … Continue reading "Nerd Journey 011: Questions to Ask in an Interview and Hero Complex"

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Welcome to episode 10 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solutions Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we discuss Nick’s first seven months at VMware and Impostor Syndrome. Original … Continue reading "Nerd Journey 010: Seven Month Check-In and Impostor Syndrome"

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Welcome to bonus episode 1 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solutions Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we discuss our recent experiences at VMware’s user conference (VMworld 2018), … Continue reading "Nerd Journey Bonus 01: VMworld 2018 Experiences, Vendor Announcements, and More Professional Networking at Conferences"

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Welcome to episode 9 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solutions Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we discuss a Career Clickbait article on blowing interviews and how to … Continue reading "Nerd Journey 009: Blowing an Interview and Dressing for an Interview"

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Welcome to episode 8 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solutions Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we discuss using MBA Students’ use of LinkedIn as a model and … Continue reading "Nerd Journey 008: Learn LinkedIn From MBA Students and Thought Leadership"

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Welcome to episode 7 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solutions Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we discuss and professional networking and revisit the topic of training. Original … Continue reading "Nerd Journey 007: Professional Networking and Training Revisited"

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Welcome to episode 6 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solutions Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we discuss the topic of skills and product training: Why, How, What, … Continue reading "Nerd Journey 006: The Ins and Outs of Training: Why, How, What, and When"

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Welcome to episode 5 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solutions Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we discuss sales skills which IT Operations people can use to advance … Continue reading "Nerd Journey 005: Sales Skills for IT and Questionable LinkedIn Advice"

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Welcome to episode 4 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solutions Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we discuss company culture’s effect on career choices and resume writing. Original … Continue reading "Nerd Journey 004: Company Culture and Resume Writing"

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Welcome to episode 3 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solutions Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we discuss career advancement’s effect on work/life balance and hero-worship in IT. … Continue reading "Nerd Journey 003: Work/Life Balance and Hero Worship"

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Welcome to episode 2 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solutions Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we discuss early process interviews, both screening interviews with HR / recruiters … Continue reading "Nerd Journey 002: HR and Hiring Manager Early Process Interviews"

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Welcome to episode 1 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solutions Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. Today’s episode discusses career advancement (Committing to it and Evaluating Options) and Nick’s first week … Continue reading "Nerd Journey 001: Career Advancement and Nick’s First Week at VMware"

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Welcome to the trailer/pilot episode of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solutions Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. Original recording date: 2018-07-11 Topics 01:05 – Why did we start this podcast? We … Continue reading "Nerd Journey Podcast Trailer / Episode Zero"

Nerd Journey Podcast: Recent Episodes

John White | Nick Korte