Impostor Syndrome: Meghan Markle Brought Me Here with Devin Torres

Luis Malbas  
Okay, welcome back, everybody. Thanks again for being a part of the transitioning to learning and development virtual conference hosted by the training, learning and development community. Thanks so much for joining us. Let me take a look here. I'm seeing Okere just posted in chat. And I want to make sure that we have folks rolling in. Yep, yep. Yep. People are slowly coming into the room. Alright, excellent. Hope you guys are enjoying the event. The schedule is something I'm really curious about. So if any of you have any time afterwards and want to give me some feedback on the schedule, just sort of let me know. Me doing a week long thing with a bunch of sessions sort of like space, the way that they are, is really different. For me. Personally, I thought I wanted to try this, to see if I could like get work done in between sessions, and actually even try to make it feel more like a conference in some ways. And I feel like it sort of has I like the fact that in between sessions, there's time for the virtual tables and and I can and have been getting work done in between. It's been pretty helpful. So yeah, let me know if, if, if you have any feedback on the schedule, final session of the day, and we have the incredible Devin Torres here to to share with us about impostor syndrome. Meghan Markel brought Devin here. Um, let me tell you a little bit about Devin devensian, Instructional Designer at two ad group, the owner of Torres content creation creation. Devon's, an educator. And although New to the official title of instructional designer, Devin has been developing curriculum and assessment for K through 12, and higher education for nine years. Devin is passionate about equitable and relatable elearning in distant edge distance education. And, you know, she has participated in supporting T LDC with some of our events that, that, that whose subject matter cover those types of things. And Devin likes leveraging data and educational technologies to deliver experiences that best fit learner need. In 2021, she launched she launched Torez content creation in order to develop and grow in the content space, adapt to a changing work world, and leave something for her daughter for the future. All right, Devin, I'm gonna go ahead and hide myself and let you take it away.

Devin Torres  
Thank you so much, Lisa. That was amazing. And thank you everybody who is tuning in. I'm on the east coast. It's 5pm here. So if you're tuning in late, Super, thank you. And I wanted to talk about impostor syndrome. Not going to tell you a ton about myself, because I think that plays out in the story that I'm going to tell. But I'm going to share my screen and we can jump right into

it. Okay, so can I get a thumbs up that people are seeing my screen? Okay, perfect. So I want to talk about imposter syndrome. And how Meghan Markel brought me here. If this is why you're tuned in. I love her. So I will do my best to do her the justice that she deserves, right. So we're going to cover some topics about imposter syndrome. We're going to talk about what it is or where does it show up. We're going to talk about if it really is imposter syndrome, because there are things that impact us as people. That may not mean it's imposter syndrome. systemic barriers, for example, we'll get into that. I'm going to tell a story about my own experience with imposter syndrome and how Meghan Markel is helping me overcome mine. And then we're going to talk about how we move forward. So what is impostor syndrome? By definition, we can see it here is the persistent inability to believe that one success is deserved, or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one's own efforts or skills. What does that mean? In transitioning, or anytime you do something new, you know, you'll get those Hey, first day jitters, new experience kind of freaking out. impostor syndrome is a constant feeling of you don't deserve it. You don't deserve to be here. You don't measure up. It's not for you. Even though you've done it, you got the job, you did the thing. It's you still feel like it's not for you. And it can feel like a couple of different things. It can feel like self doubt, can present as anxiety, unease and a general feeling of incompetence. And we're going to talk about that we're going to pull in the next slide and kind of see how that's impacting some of the people in this chat. There's, there's a science behind it. So there's five types. I'm gonna go over those briefly. There is perfectionism. So, you've heard of perfectionism. Oftentimes people will describe perfectionist as control freaks. They set excessively high goals for themselves. And when they fail to reach that goal, they experienced this major self doubt. We also have the superhuman complex, I will say superhuman, you'll see it as Superwoman Superman. But when people experienced this phenomenon, they're convinced that they shouldn't be there, they're a fraud. And so they tend to take on more work to kind of measure up. And what happens when we take on way too much work. It can lead us to fail. And it can lead us to stress and have you know, mental health impacts and physical impacts. And those impacts not only impact our work and impacts the relationships with those around us. We have the natural genius, gifted child syndrome. Anybody seen the memes? Anybody heard of that? So you know, you're young, you do something, you pick it up really quickly. I see some laughter. You pick it up really quickly, and then you try something new, and that thing doesn't come as quick. And you automatically feel like you failed, because it didn't come as naturally to you. We have the soloist very guilty of this one myself, I hate asking for help. Sometimes a soloist presents, as someone who feels if they ask for help, it shows a weakness shows a flaw. So that's pretty common. And then we have the expert. And the expert is kind of an interesting one to me. It's it's the they measure their competence, like their competence on what and how much they know. But they'll never know enough because you can never know everything right? We've heard in a couple sessions this week. We're lifelong learners. That's kind of how you fall into learning and development. And that's how you fall into teaching, right? So you're never going to know everything. But when you don't know everything, and you can't shoot out that answer, it gives you that fear of self doubt. You start feeling bad. And you know, that contributes to it. So those are the five types of impostor syndrome. And and so where did those things show up? They can show up professionally in your work. And you know, this is we're talking about transitioning into learning and development. So show of thumbs up how many people have felt impostor syndrome professionally as they've tried to make this transition or when they made this transition? I'm seeing a lot, okay. It can also present personally, people have a lot of identities, right? So you hang out with certain friends. And maybe you don't choose to show parts of yourself. And you get in with these friends and you kind of feel like an imposter in certain settings.

I feel like that with my friends, like they will use you know, to like to go out or whatever. I'm fairly introverted. And so anytime I would go out, I'm like, I don't belong here. So not for me, right. And just other like other spaces. I wanted to actually pull some people going to post the poll now. It should be shown Okay, on stage. So go ahead and vote. Where does impostor syndrome show up most for you? Alright, that's coming in a lot of professionals please. All professionally, okay. Cool. All right. So I'm personally coming in. Alright, so in this group, it seems the majority are showing professionally and there's some personally floating and now. So I'm gonna go ahead and close this poll. I just wanted to show and talk about it does come up in multiple places. Also, we have I said other. So in the chat, what do we have? Okay, so let's definition care. I'm super introverted in real life. Same definitely can relate actually. That's how I met Kara. I bought a at a table, a virtual table. And we started talking and I was like, This is painful for me. And you seem nice. And she was extremely nice. So thank you for that. So good, good feedback. See if we go ahead and close this poll out. All right. So those are places it shows up. It shows up everywhere. And the thing to remember about impostor syndrome is everybody feels it, right. I don't care if you're an expert or not. Everybody feels at some point. Imposter syndrome. It's really handling what happens when it doesn't start to go All right. So we're talking about transitioning into learning and development. And I know, there's a lot of teachers that are joining us. And we've heard a lot of if you don't feel impostor syndrome, you're probably an egomaniac. I like it. But we have a lot of teachers joining us, we've heard a lot of good panels about breaking into l&d, but breaking into it specifically. And I've been interested on LinkedIn to see how this transition is going for people who are teachers and coming in. So this, this is making its rounds on LinkedIn. My friend Holly shared it, I've seen it a couple of times, prompted a lot of interesting conversation. So I'm going to read it, and then I'm going to open a poll again. So this is the job listing. And it says there's all the text for the jobs, there's, you know, what things that you're supposed to have, and then it says, Please do not apply. If you've never formally practice, instructional design is your profession. And then there is a second level that says you are a K 12 Teacher without any formal instructional design, training and experience. And then please send work samples in your response. So in the chat, can you type how this particular listing makes you feel? Okay, so an old Java similar language, poor form. Confused, not worthy, getting kicked in the gut get one. A bit angry. Discouraged, not a place, okay. Not a place, I want to work suggesting that teachers have no value, like a loser, and letting you know not to work there. Everyone thinks teachers are great. I've been lied to. Okay, someone more experienced than me. And thanks for letting me know.

Not valuable. And obviously, they don't understand what teachers do at least that like what happened to them in school. So there's no right or wrong here. But those, those were the kinds of feelings that I was seeing on LinkedIn, it makes people feel uncomfortable, it kind of is a gut punch when when you're a teacher, and you see that right? Why is it a separate line? And so I'll walk you through my initial reactions of seeing this. Because I can see it both ways, right? I read it and I see this red highlighted K 12 Teacher without any formal instructional design, training and experience. And I'm like, Ah, like I was in K 12. And I, you know that why are you calling? Are you calling me out? But then I see that it says without any formal instructional design experience? Well, I do have formal instructional design, training and experience because I moved into higher ed and I got that experience. But after reading that, and after seeing that they had caught out k 12. And this is just for me, personally, I don't want to send my work samples anymore. Because it may it didn't make me feel good. Now, that's just me. And as someone who has worked in hiring and sat on panels, I've had people apply for jobs, not reading them thoroughly or not understanding the posting. And they come in and it's not working. And so maybe maybe this company has an influx of K 12 teachers, and it's not a fit, and they felt the need to do it. But exactly what Kayleen says, The donor don't apply if you don't have any formal ID training and experience calling out K 12 was unnecessary. I agree. And again, this is just me personally, I've seen a lot of conversation around this, like this is fine. They're weeding out candidates, they've gotten an influx. But the thing of it is, yes, there are weeding out candidates. This also sets a precedent though, because it did feel that I haven't been in K 12 since 2017. And it's still felt bad to see even though I am former K 12. I'm not cable teacher now. But I was without any formal instructional design, training and experience. I have it but I don't want to send you my work anymore, because it doesn't feel good. And this leads to impostor syndrome. Because when you read this, as everybody says it's discouraging, it's there. Exactly. Exactly. There are ways to reframe this conversation. And again, I wanted to share this because I saw it there was a lot of good conversation about it. And I was like This fits in perfectly here. So now I'm going to open up another poll. And I'm going to ask without having the conversation I just had let's see, would you still apply so vote yes or no? And again, I don't even know what company this was for. To be honest. I just wanted to use this as an exercise. Okay, getting some yeses getting a lot more nose. All right, starting to soften and creep up. Alright, we have about 16% saying yes. 85 I percent saying no. All right, I'm gonna go ahead and close that poll. But uh, that was just kind of an exercise in to show people that there is a narrative or not a narrative. There's when you're a teacher, and you're kind of moving into this space, you will see, you'll see a lot of this discouraging stuff. I hate to say it, but I've seen it. And it does mean it kind of makes you doubt your skills, right. And that is something that feeds into imposter syndrome. And that's what we're going to talk more of next. Let's see. So, does anyone remember that commercial? And it was like, maybe she's born with it. Maybe it's Maybelline? So when I was making the slide, I kept saying, maybe it's imposter syndrome. Or maybe it's a systemic barrier. I like to talk about this. Because I think sometimes when we see somebody struggling where we, we hear somebody is struggling, we say, oh, it's imposter syndrome. And you'll get over it. Sometimes you can't get over it, because sometimes, it's not imposter syndrome. And there are a couple, there are a couple of things, right? Is it systemic. So if you are following me on LinkedIn, I shared this exact quote, which says calling it impostor syndrome hides the fact that oppressive systems teach many of us to actively suppress and hate ourselves. It's not impostor syndrome, it's the consequence of oppression. And that quotes by Blair money.

And I, you know, I have a couple identities, right, I'm very proud of, I'm a biracial black woman. And in my career, I have worked at a PWI and predominantly white places. And I grew up in a small, predominantly white town. And sometimes when I'm applying for jobs, or I was working in certain jobs, especially in meetings, right, I felt the need to be quieter. And it's kind of an embarrassing statement. And it's, it's a hard statement to admit, but I felt the need to be quieter, because I was a biracial black woman in at a PWI in a, in a meeting of a sea of white men. And that's uncomfortable. For you know, black women are often told to tone down, if you if you challenge, you're the angry black woman, I don't want to be the angry black woman at work, I never want to be the angry black woman, it feels bad, it makes you feel bad to think that people think of you that way. But those barriers do exist. And those cultural nuances do exist. And we have to be cognizant of that. Because sometimes in a situation, it's not imposter syndrome. It's a systemic barrier. And maybe that's not for you. You know, I like to think that in education and learning and development, we're working to change some of that. But it's real. And it's real in the transition process. And so we have to be aware. Additionally, systemic barriers are really easy to disguise as equal, but they are never easy to describe, disguised as equitable. When I worked in K 12, it was a lot of hay, the lunch calendars on the internet where everybody can see it. So it's equal. But it wasn't equitable, because not everybody had that access. So yeah, it's available technically, to everybody. But was it accessible? No. The same thing happens in hiring is especially in especially, you know, we're learning we're learning in this culture. So I just want to remind people before it's, oh, it's imposter syndrome. No, sometimes it is a systemic problem. Feeding right into that isn't poor company culture. So it's really hard to feel like you belong somewhere or excelling when the culture of the company doesn't support you or make you feel that way. So how does poor company cultures feed into impostor syndrome? By criticizing when problems and failures occur, by tactfully endorsing behaviors like routinely working late or when sufferers often feel like they have to work harder than others just to prove their worth? By never encouraging employees to recognize the achievements of others or themselves? So thumbs up? How many people have been in a poor company culture? In their career, okay. And how many times did you just take a step back and think is it Poor company culture? It's not your company culture. It's me. How many times did you blame yourself? Honestly, thumbs up for that too. Yeah, it's it's hard. to thrive in, you know, plants don't grow in a dry environment, right? It's hard to thrive in an environment where you're not supported, or the culture is not supportive or the culture is not to empower and celebrate the small ones. If you're already feeling like you don't belong there, and the culture doesn't support it, you'll never feel that way. Right? Unless you change it. And the third thing is, sometimes it's not imposter syndrome. It's just the wrong thing. So before I left K 12, I had taken a job at a mental health organization, a nonprofit, as a caseworker, because I was determined to be a social worker. That is not for me. I knew it was. I 100% knew it was like I went to college for it, I studied for it, I was going to do it. Maxine gray did it on judging me. So I was going to do it. It was not for me, I failed. It was not like I was terrible at that job. And it was really hard for me to, to accept that. And, you know, Kimberly Scott, give a great presentation on other areas outside of ID, it's more than just ID. And, you know, don't box yourself in as you're making this transition. Because sometimes things aren't for you, you'll go into the interview. And you'll know that. So just keep those things in mind. Sometimes it's not imposter syndrome, sometimes it's just not for you.

No matter what they say, or what are the core values of an organization, the culture is always the behavior that is tolerated. Yep. And oh, my first job out of college had such a toxic culture. And I felt so incompetent, I was terrified that the rest of my career was going to be like that. And it took a long time to get out of that mindset. 100%. And as we move into this next topic, that's what I'm going to talk about. And I want to address one more comment as a business woman we're often discriminated against when it comes to di issues. I once held an executive networking group of all women, all of you are leaving me and all the women on your team out of the discussion. And that's not cool. Stop it. Good for you. I love that. We need more of that, right. But I want to talk a little bit about toxic culture, and just my journey with impostor syndrome. So I started in K 12. I was an ABA before I knew a lot about what that practice was. Did it for a little bit, wasn't for me. I was a teacher and an after school Park prep assessment program. I loved it. I love you know, I love getting the kids out for the exercise portion. And you know, kind of working through some things and then going back to the curriculum. But I did it for a while. And again, I was a man, I was ready to go. So not you MGC not University of Maryland. I wish I wanted to go there. But I went to school online. And there's a reason. So then I went and I finished my bachelor's at the University of Maryland Global Campus. And my Bachelor's was in social sciences. And then I moved into a master's program there and distance that an E learning. What better way to take a master's program about that than online, right. So in this time, between University of Maryland and higher ed and K 12, it was all kind of blending together up here. And I left K 12. And I said I need a different job. I want to work with data. I really like data and how it impacts behavior and how it can influence behavioral change. So I took a job as an Institutional Research Analyst at higher ed institution. And that Job was tied to an underrepresented student program. And they had a bridge program. So underrepresented for us was minority first gen rural area, low income area. And we had a bridge program where we brought students on campus for two weeks right before the start of the semester. And we gave them this like mini section of courses and we help them find community and build a cohort, amazing program called the D'souza front Scholars Program. My boss is named after Italie. He's amazing if he's on here, hey. And he took a chance on me. And he let me teach courses in this in this bridge program. So I started out with public speaking, which is funny because public speaking terrifies me. I have impostor syndrome right now. And I taught it. And then we moved into kind of shifting these courses towards more of a social emotional learning. And we moved into a course on impostor syndrome, and I taught that with my coworker JP, she's awesome. And it was impactful. I was sitting in sessions and students were really opening up they were acknowledging some impostor syndrome. They were working through it with other students around them. They were really building community. I did this for three years. So I had experience And then that program was grant funded, so didn't know if the grant was going to be secure. That was scary. And I transitioned into an academic support and technology specialist role in an ED studies department. So still working in education, supporting students through field placements and assessment and things like that.

And this was my first time in an all faculty department, it was all faculty and to staff. We had tenured and non tenured faculty in the department. And this is where I started to kind of feel some of that imposter syndrome. I wasn't just doing data analysis and Institutional Research, which I found myself really good at, I was being challenged to play in the students schedules I was being challenged to advise was terrifying to me. And I was terrified, I was gonna mess up. And because I'm a perfectionist, when I did mess up, it started to impact my work, I would get stressed, I would miss things. And that starts to impact students. So that feels terrible. Additionally, I'm in an all faculty department, I'm surrounded by a lot of PhD holders, which is great. I am not a PhD holder. And sometimes comments were made. And that made me kind of feel like my expertise in certain things, including distance education, which I do have a degree in, didn't matter. Sometimes it was age comments. I am about to be 32. And so I was younger side in this department. And it felt like because I didn't have the level of experience or the number of years of experience that my ideas or the work that I was doing didn't matter. And that that felt bad. And so wrote it out for about three years. COVID happened, I got pregnant, perfect timing, right. So while I was pregnant, I had thought about it. I said I wanted, I said I wanted to be a better person for my daughter, right? I wanted to be a stronger person, I wanted to come home and be really excited about what I did. So I made a switch to an externship coordinator position for the career development at the same institution. And that position gave me a lot of skills that I needed for instructional design. I was hiring faculty, but I was also developing curriculum and training those faculty. And our faculty were experts in the field, but not necessarily teachers, right. So it was kind of a good mix of developing training for people who had to learn how to train. It was super fun. I really enjoyed that job. I really enjoyed that team. But then they told us we were coming back in person. And I also decided that that wasn't for me anymore, either. And I wanted to stay remote. So I started an LLC that I really don't do much with and it wasn't going to make enough money to support me. So I was like, Okay, it's time to start looking for another job. But it was really hard to start that job search after being somewhere for five years, and prior to that being somewhere for five years. Because I didn't feel like I belonged anywhere else. So I could go work at a community college in the local area, because I wasn't moving. I could try to find a remote kind of advising or support tech job. I even had written to written to UMBC and was like, Hey, do you have any adjunct positions open in the distance and elearning? Department I'd love to help. And they didn't, unfortunately. So I was really scared to make that leap because I didn't feel like I belonged anywhere else. Yeah, Laurie. So getting back in the job search after 12 years, that gap is tough. It was really tough. And luckily, I had because I had my daughter, I also got a therapist because I knew that postpartum I was going to be feeling a little different. And I wanted to talk that out with somebody. And my therapist is amazing. I love her. And she was actually one of the people that encouraged me to make this leap because she's like, you're obviously unhappy. You know what you're doing? Make a portfolio. So I did and I started asking people Hollyoaks was one of those people. I looked at work from people I sat in on sessions, I looked into YouTube, I didn't do any of the I didn't do a program for instructional design. I had some instructional design programming in my degree. And I worked in an ED studies department and an MIT department that taught instructional design, so I could go to those faculty and have conversations around it. And I started building and I started learning. And then it was time to interview and I interviewed for a couple places. And I ended up at two ad group who really stood out to me. Because as I was interviewing, I kept saying, so they're the optimized Product Management. That's the thing. I don't know anything about product management, at least that's what I kept saying, when I interviewed I wanted to be very transparent that I don't know product management. And one of the people hiring me at the time he laughed. He said, You'll get it. It's fine. You know, do you know instructional design? And I'm like, Yeah, I think I know that. So I got the job, super, super excited.

I make the jump. And I, one of the things I realized looking back, as I was always holding on to the statement of, I don't know, product management. So our company is remote. And we do this cool thing where we have doughnuts. So like, we get on Slack, right? And we get to one on one with people. And I would always open with, Hey, Gary, I don't know anything about product management, in that imposter syndrome, that I was trying to be so vulnerable and open about really served as a shield for a little while, because as an introvert when I said, Oh, I don't know this, no one made me talk. Right. And that's good for me, in my mind. But it was imposter syndrome, I wanted to make sure people did not know what I was doing. So that when I inevitably failed, I had a reason because I didn't know what I was doing not because I was new, which makes total sense to not know what you're doing. Not because I was at a new company and learning new people. But because I just didn't want to fail. And on top of that, I didn't want to ask, right. So as we're doing these donuts, I'm meeting all of these great people and all of our all of our Client Services team, have all these great years of experience. They've worked for these amazing companies. They're so knowledgeable. Everyone loves Star Wars, I'm in heaven. I'm like, This is great, right? But I'm nervous when I hear their experience. And when I hear it, I'm like, Well, why would they care what I have to say? And then my, my direct co worker, we haven't, we're a new ID team. And she had been doing instructional design, like the actual instructional design longer than I had within her own company. And I'm like, I can't keep up with her. Like, what am I going to do. And I was nervous, I was nervous to work with this person. And it impacted relationships, because I was I was watching her like, make these leaps and share these ideas. And I couldn't bring myself to do it. I just couldn't. I was like, they're not going to care what I have to say, I'm not experienced enough, I'm new. I'm just going to sit back here and I'm going to wait for direction and I'm going to do it for a year. And then after a year, I'll know it and then I'll then I will start to try to make change, then I'll start to get in there and do something cool. But that imposter syndrome was hope. It's what's holding me back that sometimes if you can do it, imposter syndrome will just hold you back from doing it, it'll feel safe, and it'll feel good because you can fall back into the I'm new. And I don't have to try this. I don't have to do it. But then you're not experiencing anything. You're not learning. You're not doing that continuous learning that we always talk about, and you're not challenging yourself. So luckily, I am at a place with a great company culture. And, you know, it all kind of happened at once. So I gotten hooked up with the to DC when I started instructional design, Christine Melzi. I had found her on LinkedIn and she had put me here and I had met such amazing people. And we were talking about this conference and we were throwing out ideas and I said imposter syndrome because I know this is something that everyone struggles with and I remember my own transitions. And I was like this will be a good topic and I set it hoping that somebody else would take it anybody like aliens gonna take it. Bella's gonna take it, somebody's gonna take it. But nobody took it was some like a week before we were supposed to put this on. And I'm like, this is such an important topic. But you know, no one wants to take it. Whatever. We'll skip it. So here's where Meghan Markel comes in. Right? I love Meghan Markel for 1000 reasons, right. biracial black woman loves her mom, super cool. Mom, Dad sides a little off can relate, right? She married my childhood crush, a million reasons I love but the thing I love most about her is when I watched her interviews, and I, you know, I watched the Oprah interview, I have the wedding cup, we got married the same year, we had a baby at the same time, like, pretend to be friends. You know, I hope she sees this one day. But the reason I like her so much is because she's vulnerable. And she's honest, when she has these conversations. I feel like you know, you see a lot of stuff in the press. You see a lot of hate, you know, for women who speak out about being vulnerable, who speak out about not feeling that they're meant for something and she does it and I'm like I can relate to that. And then I listen to how she grows and how she just continues on and I'm like, I want to do that. So I see she's coming out with this. This podcast. I hear her first guest is Serena Williams. I'm immediately invested because one of the things I like to do as someone who doesn't like to kind of like push as I like to listen to women who have that in them who have that push and that drive because I want to be that I aspire to be that so I like to live And,

and I'm listening to the first episode, it was a Wednesday, Wednesday's are my like, days for myself, right? And I'm driving and I'm listening and she started showing snippets of what her podcast is going to be like, and who's going to be on it. And I hear a Mindy Kaling quote, and she essentially says, sometimes when I hear about imposter syndrome, I want to say, I know the answer is yes, but my answer is no. Because if I still think that I am not capable of doing this after so many years, then I must be like, clinically, unable to, like see my success. This is a clinical thing at this point. And I heard it, and it snapped, and I'm like, I'm gonna go home. And I'm going to tell Luis that I can talk about impostor syndrome, because I proposed it. And for weeks, I told myself, I'm not the person to do that. I'm new to instructional design. I'm new to l&d. This isn't for me. But I taught this. I taught this, this idea and this concept to students for years. So why not me? Why does it have to be somebody else? Why couldn't it be me? So that's what I mean by a. Michael bought me here. Her podcast bought me here. Mindy Kaling bought me here. But you know, I'm here because I had to take a step back and think why can't it be me talking to people, right? And I'm super thankful that you are here listening to it. So that's the that's the Meghan Markel story. So I hope I did her justice. But the other thing, the last thing I want to talk about is, so what do we do, right? Like, what, what do we do with impostor syndrome? And these are the four things that work for me. But I'm going to ask at the end, what are the things that work for you, and I want to talk about it. My first one, sit with it. No one likes feeling uncomfortable. But we have to, because it challenges us, and it makes us change. And it makes us think. So you know that the feelings that you have are valid, and it's okay to have them. And eventually, they'll start to shift. And you know, you got to think about all the things that you like you didn't know how to teach, right? You didn't wake up one day and like, I'm a teacher, you learn how to do that. The first time I got in front of a classroom, especially in college, I was like, I was the worst instructor. I didn't think that at the time because I was like, I was really motivated. But I look back and I'm like, I could have done some things differently. I could have not ate breakfast during that presentation that I was giving. That was super professional Devin, right? So we all we learn. The first time at this company, I worked with an SME, I was challenged. And I love that about our SMEs. They challenge us, our SMEs are internal, and they challenge us. And when I was dealing with such impostor syndrome around this role, it felt like an attack that challenge felt like an attack. But what they were doing was prompting me to make sure that we have the right why for the course I was delivering the same way in K 12. When I had a student that challenged me it wasn't necessarily because my lesson sucked because my content sucked. That student needed a way to learn, I had to adapt so that student could understand the concept. And I'm okay with that. Some people aren't okay with that. But I am. Same thing for ID, I'm okay with being challenged. Because if it leads me to deliver a better product, then it's about the learner. It's not about my ego, or SME ego or anybody's ego, it's about the learner, right? So sit with it, build community, these events, the things that you're doing right now, they're important. I think it's important to have a good mix of people in your circle, because we talked about Corp poor company culture. You know that burnout contributes to that and but when you're around people who are feeling down or feeling negative, aren't trying to push forward don't want to see the way forward are settled. You can't move forward, either, right. So I think it's good to one meet people who are at your level, talk to new people making the transition. I'm a newbie, I've only been doing this for a year on September 17. I'm new to this. And I like talking to other people who are new to this because I've learned so much and it's so nice to feel heard and feel like I can relate to people. And I've learned so much from this conference. And that's the next thing. Meet people who can challenge you to meet people who are up here in their career. I learned so much from the people I have met in this group.

You know, Glenn runs this excellent peer mentoring circle. And I've learned so much just and even today, I'm listening to like some of these conversations about like what you should do as an idea. I'm like, I'm going to take that to work on Monday and it's going to be great. Right? Um, and you know, for me, it was also building community within my company. I can tell I knew that the day of that Meghan Markel podcast it might have been maybe like feeling empowered. But the SME, one of the SMEs that I'm working with said to me, you know, what you're working on now is it's really showcasing what you bring to the company that made me feel so good. Like, I was like, Okay, I belong here. And this is an SME, like, I value their opinions so much, because they're, they come with so much knowledge. And I was like, that little thing just made my day. And then I could go into a meeting, and I could challenge an idea. And I did, because I felt empowered to do so because of community. Right? This next one I love, I started doing this when I was in K 12. And have just kept up with it. It's the I'm great folder doesn't have to be a folder. Keep some things that make you feel proud of your accomplishments. I gave a talk at UMBC about Connectivism and building online learning culture. And the host had emailed me and said it was a great presentation, we should work together again. I printed that email when I worked in higher ed and I hung it on my door because it was motivated. It was motivated to see that somebody cared about what I was talking about. somebody cared about remote learner populations and building community and I could continue to do that work. cards from kids are my favorite when I had in home I did in home ABA for a little bit. And once I shifted, I was kind of just doing in homework in general with students and I got cards for my birthday and I got you know, you're the world's greatest ABA therapist. So I kept all of those things. I keep these accomplishments I you know, I keep recordings I do I keep letters that I get written, I keep good student letters, because I like to look at them and say, okay, even if I'm not feeling great, now if I feel like I'm an impostor now wasn't an imposter there. And I can get back there. And then the last thing I want to talk about is remember that not only are you multifaceted, so are other people. So we talked about how comparison is a sealer of joy. You may see people who it looks like made this really easy switch right into l&d into it, it was like they woke up one day, they made a decision and they jumped. I'm as guilty as everybody else's of like, only posting good stuff on social media. Because you know, no one wants to see my kid screaming because she stole my goldfish. And I was mad about it. Like no one wants to see that they want to see the cute pictures, right? They want to see me they want to see my my college graduation certificate. And not that I was up crying at 2am because I was working on my thesis, right. But you never know the other things that people have going on. And again, we talk about systemic barriers, we talk about poor company culture. People don't often openly talk about those things, because they're hard and they present, they present an issue, right? Like, you can get fired for talking about poor company culture, unfortunately, I live in an at will state. So I follow the processes the best I closed when we had poor company culture, and then I just, you know, I made the decision to leave. And the other thing is, someone's always looking at you as an expert in something. And I like to tell the story. I have told my former student I was talking about it tonight. But when I was an advisor I and in that academic tech role, I had to manage student workers. And if you've ever talked to me in real life, you know that managing people also gives me anxiety because I do that thing where like I said, I don't know anything about product management, I cannot manage people. I can't. And I say that, right. But I had a student worker and we had an incident, you know, would in the position I worked in I worked a lot with data, confidential data. And so did my student worker. And something got shared something accidentally was said in a public setting. And I was like, You can't do that. So we had to have a conversation about it. And I felt that right. I was like,

I don't think I handled that. Well. I think she's gonna feel really bad about being called out. But I had to do it. And I like debated about it. Like all night, I'm like, she's gonna be so mad. We went to lunch the next day. And she said to me, you know, I'm really glad you called me out. And I was like, Oh, really, because I hate being called out. And she said, You are the type of professional I want to be. That meant, because I didn't feel like a good professional, then I felt terrible, right? But it meant something to her. And it's so funny because now she's in a very similar position and student support to what I was in, and she has to be that person. And I know she's probably great at it. Like she's always been great at it. But that felt really, really good, right? So just remember that you are an expert in something. And you know you you can eventually be an expert in this and we've heard a lot of conversation this week too. Like there's a lot of we talk about influencers and we talk about these really expensive Academy mes and, you know, people kind of playing up on the surge of moving into l&d. And sometimes what presents you know, as an expert, and they know everything there, they've probably struggled to, they probably have had some negative feedback, they had to learn things. So don't necessarily look at everybody in just feel like they had it all together, they have it all together, I'll never be there. You don't always know what it took to get them there. So, yeah, I want to look through some of these comments. And then I also want to ask you all, you know, what are the things that you do when you're feeling imposter syndrome? Or as you felt imposter syndrome through this process? Like, what have you been doing? Who have you been talking to? I want to discuss it and I will move this slide, just how you can reach me if you want. I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on Twitter at Karen northcap. Me Back on Twitter. I'm not on it much. But I am on it sometimes. And I'm on Instagram. So I want to look through some of these comments though, and I will do want to hear about the imposter syndrome. Oh, I love my good job reminders are saved in my notes folder on my phone. I recently moved from hometown to Phoenix and found a birthday card for my great grandma. Oh, I love that. I've kept a card from 1997 From a third grader, because girlfriend after I volunteered in his classroom, those are always fun. Whole IKEA box letters and cards from students and colleagues why I teach Why didn't keep me in the profession. It's nice to go back there. Absolutely. The one thing I do want to say, I struggled with this when I moved on. When I moved from higher ed to corporate, right. I was like I'm losing a piece of me. That's an educator. That's a lie. So I was telling myself, I'm still an educator. And I want people to remember that too. If you're making the shift. You're not giving up a piece of yourself. You're evolving and taking skills that you've used, and you're just using them differently. It doesn't mean you're not an educator, it doesn't take away from that. So I want to remind people because that is something I definitely struggled with. I think of Doris mantra and Finding Nemo, just keep swimming. Vulnerability is a necessary part of leadership is one of the characteristics that defines a difference between a manager and a leader. Yes, good, Rick. There are people in my life who can give me great and level advice. But I also have my cheerleader. Sometimes it helps us to hear from those people. 100%. How, okay, studying, how did you work to work through your public speaking fear? Hi, Nicole. Good question. It's funny. So Nicole works with me. And it's really interesting. I refuse to speak at company meetings a lot. Because I get really nervous. And because of that company, it's very hard for me to say things even things. I you know, I work with these people every day and it makes me nervous. I don't think I'm through it yet necessarily. But I'm getting better because I know I have to be. And I think I just think about if I can say something that can impact somebody positively and help them grow, then why not do it? After I had my daughter I started challenging myself It is I 100% attest that to her.

Slowly working through it. I'm curious as I have a sign I mean, a hidden behind my monitor on the wall that says don't tolerate negative self talk about yourself when you wouldn't tolerate that language from others and it helps me deal with struggle bus days. Absolutely. I can be pretty pessimistic. If you listened to the podcast, the Chromecast episode I did with Luis, my mom watches all this stuff, which makes me happy but then she'll call me and be like, Why do you say you were a terrible this? Why don't you say you suck did that and like because I did and like to me it's just honest. But like, you know, I don't necessarily suck. I'm just habit, right? calian Absolutely. When you're feeling impostor syndrome creep in. Definitely call up your cheerleaders and let them beat you back up. One of my colleagues gives me a compliment. I asked him ask if they'll add it to my LinkedIn profile. Good. That's good. If they don't want to write something, then I'll ask them to click on the skills I know I have on bad days. I'll reread them. That is a great idea. I've never thought about that a little bit. stop sharing the screen. Rehearsing helps me being as prepared as I can be. Yes, I did rehearse before this presentation. Okay, and do we have any questions? Okay, I wanted to look at the q&a too.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, that's what I wanted to bring up so my camera doesn't like to run for this long so I don't have because I've had it on all day at overeats. But there is there was this question on here from Laura. Okay, any advice on not letting imposter syndrome creep into your resume or cover letter have such a hard time promoting myself that I'm sure it comes through,

Devin Torres  
yes, um, what I have done is I write my resume. And then I, I've had good relationships with my supervisors. And I've never been shy about the fact that I'm leaving with my direct supervisors, I haven't had to be, so they have read it. But what I do recommend is finding a colleague that is a safe person. Because I know when you're making an employment transition, it can be really difficult. Find somebody who works with you. And, and let them read it and let them also give feedback because one of the things I actually got this from Caitlin's presentation, I never thought about it. We like metrics, right? So I never put metrics in my resume. And I should, but I never, I never thought about that. So I think when you work directly with people, and they do know your skills very intimately, it helps to kind of have that, that kind of feedback. But that's a really good question.

Luis Malbas  
I think there's an answer, maybe, or maybe this is in reference to

Devin Torres  
the new cover letter templates in work, I just fell on that list bullet points of why you're a good fit for the job and keep it simple cut out any negative thoughts from your draft? You don't want to give them a reason to reject you, 100%, Mary, and somebody had mentioned this earlier this week, where they have the question, that's, like, what, you know, give me some of your weak points, or what are some things you can do to improve? There are ways to say that positively. There are definitely ways to say that positively. So you know, if you're, if your weak point is, I take on too many tasks, and I do take on too many tasks. I try to find ways to just say, you know, I, I liked, I like to problem solve, and sometimes, you know, I can get wrapped up in things. I'm not saying that good right now, I'm not, I'm not good on the spot, either. Let me tell you that. But if I hope people are following what I'm saying there are good ways to spin things that you find are a weak spot. Because sometimes when we talk about our weak spots, it's easy to just be like, I'm terrible at this and I know I need to work on it. And I'm being very honest in this interview about that. Mary says I also asked my oldest friends and colleagues what they like about me or how they would introduce you to someone new. I love it. Good.

Luis Malbas  
Hey, I'm for that first one from Mary. Is that the templates in Word? Or it because it says work? Or is there a workplace that has templates? I just don't know it. In Mary's first comment, check out the new cover letter templates in work work.

Devin Torres  
Yeah, I don't know about work. Mary's. That's supposed to be word.

Luis Malbas  
Okay. Word it's supposed to be word. See.

Devin Torres  
One phrase I work them in taking out of someone's resume. When I reviewed it really was strive to like Yoda says, Do or do not. There is no try. Yes. I love it. I'll get Star Wars reference. Think about how your biggest supporters would describe you and then work on describing yourself that way. Awesome. All right. And yes, Mary, when you find that template name, if you can drop it in the chat, and maybe we can get that in resources.

Luis Malbas  
Yep. Great. Okay, well, I'm gonna go ahead and start wrapping it up here. I just want to mention tomorrow we open the day with Katie Kirby, who is incredibly knowledgeable about this stuff. She spoke about transitioning at an earlier event this year. I think it was yeah, it was Matt that had referenced it. Matt VAs making the last session but tomorrow should starting with how to gain useful ID experience before you get the job. So that is going to be a really really good one. Ricky Fisher and Stephanie Diggins are coming back for a couple of virtual tables, and Kayleen as well later in the afternoon. And then we have a second session from Joelle transitioning or transitioned. Navigating the in between so tomorrow, great stuff. Hope to see you there. Sorry, my camera's not working. But like burns out by the time after so many hours. And yeah, that's it, Devin. Wonderful. I knew this was gonna be a great one. really had an impact. Thank you so much.

Devin Torres  
Thank you for having me. Thank you to everybody who came through and I hope I see some of you all tomorrow.

Luis Malbas  
Yay. Okay. Bye, everybody.

Devin Torres  
See ya.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

‍