Hey, what's up?
John Sonmez here from simpleprogrammer.com.
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Today, we're going to be talking about getting into a high position too early.
This is something that has been coined—there's a few different terms that have been coined
around this.
One of them that's popular is impostor syndrome.
I did a video on impostor syndrome here that you could check out if we could find that
video.
This question—let me see, I don’t think I've got a name here, but he says, "Thank
you for your advices and a lot of work.
I've managed to get into a senior position in a single year of commercial life."
Okay, that's pretty cool.
I spent one and a half in the academic market on this new company, but now I'm feeling insecure
about my work even though I do not have any clear reason.
Anyways, I'd love to hear your thoughts."
He gives some more details here.
He basically says that "I absorbed all the knowledge I was able from you, worked hard
and the result was that I'm getting into a senior position one year before my graduation
and in a big company."
What he's saying is, "What if I'm not ready?"
He's been working at this company for 45 days and he hasn’t faced any challenge that made
him think he was not capable of delivering what's accepted.
He never saw himself as a prodigy.
He's having this problem.
This identity crisis of "am I fraud, am I"—Now, I'm reading into this but "am I an impostor?
Do I belong here and am I qualified for this?"
This is a very common thing.
Anywhere that you should be, you should feel like you're a fraud and you're not qualified
for it and that the position is above you.
You should have a little bit of fear.
I always talk about this idea of diving in over your head into a water that's too deep
for you where you have to sink or swim.
Even when you fail in these situations, you benefit way more than when you do something
that's easy and that you don't fail.
I mean think about it.
If you think about a sport or some kind of competition.
If you enter some competition or let's say that you're an adult and you enter a kid's
T ball league.
I'm going to say T ball because I'm pretty sure that the little league could whoop your
ass.
All right?
Let's say T ball, all right?
You're like, "Man, I just whacked the ball out at the park with the T ball.
I just smashed those 4-year-olds.
They don't even know what's coming, right?"
You're not gaining anything.
It's an easy win for you.
You're not learning anything, right?
If you go and you play with the—I don’t know who—Your favorite professional baseball
team.
You go and you go just the training or you go and you play a game and you suck, I mean
you're going to suck so bad, you're going to learn so much, even just by failing.
If you did happen to succeed, that would be pretty awesome.
You see what I'm saying?
Like even a failure would be great.
You want to always challenge yourself to that higher level.
I'll tell you a secret here with software development jobs and with jobs in general,
is that most of the time, it seems more intimidating than it is.
Most of the time, you're overqualified.
You're more qualified than you think you are.
Even when you're trying to get in over your head, you're not.
In this particular case, you haven't had any challenge that you didn’t seem—that seemed
like you couldn't face it in 45 days?
You need a better job, man.
You need to go up higher.
You need to like face some shit that makes you think, "Oh, man.
I don’t know about this.
Ahh.
This is hard."
If you're not facing that, you need a challenge.
Honestly, you do.
I wouldn’t sweat this at all.
Don't think of it as—when you're given a gift, when you're given an opportunity, don't
think of it as, "Oh, I don’t deserve this."
You do deserve this.
If you feel like you don't deserve it, you know what you do?
Freaking earn it.
Go and do the best job possible.
Go and prove to yourself and everyone else that you do deserve this right after you've
gotten it.
That's fine, but don't do yourself the disservice and don't do to people that are working with
you and counting on you the disservice and saying, "Oh, I'm not worthy."
I know it seems like a humble and a thing of humility, but it's not.
It only harms people.
They want a leader.
You know, sometimes I've been in leadership positions.
I'll tell you where I did not feel up to the task, but do you know what I did with my team?
I gave them 100%.
I told them, "I got this.
This is no problem.
Don't worry.
I can handle this.
We're good, man.
We're good.
I've never felt better."
Inside, I was feeling like, "Oh, my gosh.
Oh, crap.
How am I going to do this?"
On the outside, I was projecting that because I wanted to inspire that confidence in the
team because I wanted to make sure that I wasn't—I wasn't making other people afraid
and I wanted to do the best that I could.
You're in the position.
Maybe you didn’t deserve it and maybe it's above where you should have been.
Great.
Take advantage of that situation and double down on that.
Don't worry about it.
Don't be afraid.
I mean it's fine to have these feelings that you're having.
That's totally normal, but get over it.
Get over yourself.
Realize that there's a mission.
You're part of a bigger team.
You've got to—whatever happens, sink or swim, being in these positions, being in these
situations that make you nervous, that make uncomfortable, that's how you grow.
I'll point you to a video I did or a talk I did on five soft skills every software developer
should know.
What it really is about is about how the only way to grow in life is to be uncomfortable.
This is great that you're uncomfortable because it means that you're growing.
All right.
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I'll talk to you next time.
Take care.