Overcoming Impostor Syndrome

About this Episode

Do I belong here? Am I good enough of a developer? These are questions someone with impostor syndrome may ask themselves. Today we discuss how we overcome these hard feelings.

Transcript:

MIKE: Welcome again to our podcast that still doesn't have a name. I'm Mike Challis. I'm hosting today. Also with us, we have Afton. Afton, do you want to introduce yourself?

AFTON: Yeah. I'm Afton. I've been developing for four and a half years professionally: about. Happy to be here.

MIKE: Ramses, would you like to introduce yourself?

RAMSES: Hi. I'm Ramses. I've been developing for a little bit about a year now, professionally, for just a couple of weeks.

MIKE: So this is a great group. Maybe let me introduce myself a little bit. [laughs] I'm Mike Challis. I've been doing development for a couple of decades now. [laughs] So we've got a perfect mix for today's topic.

Today we are going to be talking about impostor syndrome and how you overcome it. And this is perfect because we've got a mix of people at different spots in their career. I've been doing this for, like I said, a couple of decades. And then we've got Afton, who's getting...what do we say? Is that mid-career? You know, into your career.

We've got different places in our careers, but we're all...I'll lead out by saying sometimes I feel like I have the question in my mind: do I really belong here? Am I doing okay? I think that's something that we all deal with. It's something that I regularly deal with. I think, well, am I really doing this okay? Sometimes I feel like I'm just winging it all the time. I'm not sure if I'm doing it right. And that's a hard thing. You sometimes don't have landmarks to go by. So maybe I'll go in the same order as before. Afton, do you find this feeling sometimes?

AFTON: Yeah. I've been curious as to why that's so prevalent in this field. And I don't have experience in other areas, so I don't know if it's more engineering is just, you know, problem-solving, figuring things out, creative, if that kind of field is what gives the right environment for this feeling. But yeah, I felt it a lot more as I was younger in the career.

And then I was actually just sitting here thinking, well, I haven't had that feeling in a while. And I was like, wait, you just said, "Oh, should I even be here?" And I was like, oh yeah, I thought that two days ago. [laughter] Yes, I do have that thought a lot. It's not debilitating to me. It used to be a little bit more so. But it does cross my mind regularly.

MIKE: Ramses, you just started as a full-time developer in the last couple of weeks. How are you feeling?

RAMSES: Generally pretty good. I always have that sense of like, do I belong here? Am I good enough of a developer to be a part of it? But I think that's part of the overall experience is learning and making those mistakes, so you just continue to learn.

MIKE: I love how you said that, making those mistakes, so you continue to learn. There's a suggestion there that you're not going to be perfect, that you're going to make mistakes. And nobody's over here judging you. That's a part of the process.

I'm also really interested in what Afton had to say. You wonder if this field, because of the problem-solving aspect of it, creative problem solving lends itself to that imposter syndrome. I think that's an interesting question. You started to explore that a little bit. Do you have an opinion on that, Afton?

AFTON: I mean, this is my first career, so I don't have other career types jobs to compare it to. But other jobs I have had in my life, I've never felt this way. They give you an exact set of this is what you need to do, and then you did exactly that. [laughs] There wasn't a lot of unknown. There wasn't like, oh, is this my role or isn't it? It was always very clearly defined. This is exactly what I expect from you, and that was it. So I've never felt it before in a job, and this is the first time.

So I do really think that, I mean, we know what our job is; it's to take what the business needs, find a way to solve problems and produce something to better the experience for our own company and our customers. [laughs] But there's not an exact right way to do anything. There are lots of options. It takes a lot of work to figure out what's going to work best. And you've got to collaborate with a lot of people to make projects and features happen. So I think all of that openness to what's the answer, there isn't an exact answer. I think that's a big part of what creates this feeling.

MIKE: I think you're right. It's been a while. I did construction work mostly before I started doing software. It was a family thing. I kind of got into it as a kid. It feels like when you can see what you're working on; there's a clear goal. You got to build a wall. You got to frame a wall. There's really just one way to do it. You maybe learn a trick, and then you use that trick for the rest of your life. You build the wall laying down; you stand it up. But beyond that, it's very obvious when you've got it right.

And you can look at it like, hey, look at this wall I built. I did that right. [laughter] Or maybe you didn't do your [inaudible 05:02] very well, and so you really had to put a lot of mud in between the gaps. And you're like, oh, that was kind of bad; I'll have to do better next time. It's really clear whether you're doing well or not. I think it's a lot less clear here in software. You build something, and hopefully, you solved a need. There are no guardrails. It's just this wide-open field. You just try to figure it out.

AFTON: That reminds me of when I was...I went and spent a couple of weeks my first year here on a different team. And we were building this kind of...just spinning up this little project to solve one problem, and then I was going to go back to my team. And while I was there, I was the only Ruby developer. And they said, "Hey, this is what needs to be done." And I built something that worked. And then I was like, "So is this okay? What do you think about this? They're like, "Does it work?" I was like, "Well, yeah, I think so." "Well, then, it's great." [laughter] I was like, "Oh, okay." [laughs]

MIKE: You also said something interesting before. When you described the job, you didn't say the word code. That was dead on.

AFTON: [laughs]

MIKE: We're here to solve problems, and that's it, right?

AFTON: Yeah.

MIKE: We're here to solve business problems, and that may or may involve writing code. In fact, it seems like we're all most happy when we come up with a solution to the problem that doesn't require us to write any code.

AFTON: [laughs]

MIKE: We're just sticking a couple of things together already there, and, hey, it already works, and everybody's happy.

AFTON: Yeah, that's really interesting. And I do think of it as a problem-solving job. But you have to know how to code; I mean, it involves writing code. So yeah, that's an interesting shift in thinking about maybe how much code we don't write sometimes. [laughs]

MIKE: Well, and you've been around long enough; how do people feel when they get to delete code?

AFTON: Oh, deleting code is great. [laughs] Oh, man, you feel like you have a junk drawer, and you get to clean it out. It feels so good.

[laughter]

MIKE: It's like the best feeling in all of software. And it's, I can delete stuff? Yes! [laughs] And it solves a problem at the same time once you really understand what we're doing. You recognize that it's not about writing code. It's about exactly what you said; it's about solving problems.

And I think that also leads to the main thrust of what we really wanted to talk about today, which is we've talked about having impostor syndrome seems to be something we all deal with. But the real question is, how do you deal with it? How do you avoid having that constant, nagging feeling that I don't belong here; I'm not good enough; I can't do it? I like how you led into some solutions, Afton, because you stressed, well, yeah, we're here to solve problems.

I've got a one-year-old, and I've been watching him recently learn how to walk. This morning, he figured out how to open the little fold-out drawer in front of the sink and pull out the bottle brush. [laughter] And it took him a while because he just couldn't quite reach it. He picked it up, and he played around with it for a while, and he got it like halfway in. And finally, he got it out, and he ran off in the other room. And when he came back and tried to put it back in, he ended up pushing it through the back, and it dropped into the cupboard behind it, and he couldn't access it anymore.

But there was a new problem, and he experimented with it for a while, finally found a solution. And then he thought, oh, I'm going to experiment some more. Let's see if I can do the same thing in reverse. And he almost got it, you know, not quite.

AFTON: [laughs]

MIKE: He's one years old, and he is spending his life solving problems creatively and trying to fix them. I don't think that he is plagued with impostor syndrome. I think that it just comes naturally to him, and I think that that does come naturally to people. And if we approach this as like, well, I'm a problem solver, and I'm going to go solve some problems. And if I'm solving problems, I'm providing value. And if I do it a little bit differently than somebody else, well, maybe that's even a good thing. What do you think, Afton?

AFTON: I was just thinking about as I was studying...because I'm a self-taught developer. I spent a couple of years at home on my own time just building an app, figuring it out as I went. I was thinking, did I have impostor syndrome then when I was isolated in my own little office at home, didn't have a bunch of other people?

Because the thought came to me just before we started this session today that impostor syndrome, I'm thinking, is caused by this assumption you make about other people and also this comparison that you imagine or feel between what they can do and what you can do. And so you're like, oh, well, they're better than me. So why am I here? How can I fit in? And the assumptions you're making about how accomplished or competent they may be maybe that fuels this feeling of being an impostor.

I do recall when I had to reach out to developers that I knew as I was learning with some questions, occasionally I'd be like, oh, am I out of my league here trying to get someone who knows what they're doing to help me? But for the most part, I think I just felt really awesome. [chuckles] Like, oh man, I just spent three weeks on this one problem, and I just solved it. And I'm so cool. And other than that, it was just like, okay, I gotta figure it out. I just had to keep going, keep going. But I wasn't comparing myself to anyone else's progress.

So I think that the culture of the team you're working in or the company you're working in has a huge impact on impostor syndrome. And if you have a culture of we support each other, we're all learning together...look, I've been here five years, and I have this question that I feel like I should totally know the answer to, but I can't think of it right now, and just being vulnerable and being real, and not being afraid to ask questions.

If your culture, your team culture, your smallest level culture is that way, I think that mitigates impostor syndrome to a large extent or can because I can see how it could be otherwise if you didn't have a culture of we're learning together. It's okay to ask questions. We don't expect anyone to be perfect and know everything.

MIKE: I really like that. It's interesting that you focused on culture. I think we all are at least in some position to influence it, but some more than others. If you just started in a new company, you're probably not going to be able to influence the culture a lot unless you're one of the first couple of employees. If you're in a large organization, that's harder.

So those who are in leadership positions...I'm sure that's going to apply to some people who are listening to this podcast that we have...and that applies to both you and I, Afton as well. We have an obligation to establish that kind of culture. And I think that that may be the most important thing we do as leaders in software engineering because we can't write all the code, and everybody's finding their own way. The other people you're working with they're their own selves.

And you can enable them and create an environment that fosters their growth and development so that they feel safe and can be their own selves, achieve their own goals, be successful on their own terms. Or you can throw a wet blanket on all that and smother it. And you might get something done if you're trying to control everything, but it's certainly not going to get done as well. And you're going to take all the joy out of it if you don't allow the wild variety that's going to come out when everybody's trying something new.

I also thought, as you were talking, I just feel like a superhero when I accomplish something, and you do. That feeling when you solve a problem as a software developer it's an indescribably good feeling. It's hard to explain.

AFTON: [laughs]

MIKE: I don't know how to explain it, that moment. I don't know if it's dopamine or some other neurotransmitter, but there's a flood of it.

AFTON: [laughs] Yeah, absolutely.

MIKE: [laughs] It's amazing to have that moment. That moment is deserved. It's earned. And nobody should be able to take that away.

I thought, again, I've got a toddler at home. We don't expect toddlers to do anything other than what toddlers can do. And we give them a lot of praise when they do things that we wouldn't give adults praise for. [laughter] But we recognize that where they're at is where they're at and genuinely feel, I mean, I feel genuinely excited when my toddler makes an achievement, even though if I made that achievement, I wouldn't be all that excited about it. When he does it, I know that he's making this great achievement, and I feel great.

When we're starting a career in software...so I'm going to focus on starting because that's when you probably feel most vulnerable. If you're in a healthy organization, going back to that culture, if you're in a healthy organization, nobody expects you to do exactly what the senior developers are doing. And in fact, they're celebrating with you with every achievement that you make.

When they see you do something, everybody feels great. They're like, yes, look what they did. Look what they got done. They got code in production. Wow, already? That's great. Nobody was expecting you to be more than what you are. They're just happy to see you grow and having a willingness to ask and be curious. You might feel self-conscious, like, I'm asking so many questions.

But on the flip side, with a toddler, you expect them to ask questions; that's their job. As adults, we get shy about that. We don't want to go back to that place of, oh, I have to ask questions and be vulnerable again because we're afraid we might get hurt. Again, in a healthy company, in a healthy culture, you're going to be supported. And people want you to ask questions. They want you to grow because that's exactly how you're going to progress in your career.

AFTON: And in fact, when there's someone who will not ask questions or seems to really not want to ask questions, that actually is a cause for concern. Like, do they need help and are they not getting it? Are they not using the resources available to them to get the job done? And asking questions of your co-workers and getting that variety of perspective and opinion coming in is crazy valuable in solving the problems. So it actually worries me if someone isn't asking questions and it seems like they're not making a lot of progress. [laughs]

And in fact, I was thinking now that I'm a team lead, I have a little bit more insight into the work that everyone's doing on my team and the variety of experience that they each have. I'm not at all concerned that so and so matches the level of this other person or that so and so takes a little bit more time to get through a piece of work than someone else might. Really, if I see curiosity, if I see reaching out, asking questions, getting opinions, an outward I'm figuring this out; let's use my resources, if I see progress, I'm thrilled.

Progress and curiosity that's driving this person forward, I know they're going to be fine. I know they're going to find a good solution. I know they're going to do good work because they're using the resources and all the skills of everyone around them to help in that. So that's what gives me the most confidence in the team is when they rely on everyone.

I just thought of the it takes a village to raise a child. Use the village, use your team to create good work. That's actually better than trying to do it all on your own and say, "No, I can do this on my own. I'll figure it out. I don't need anyone's help. " That actually may stunt your ability to come up with a good variety of solutions and pick a good one. And so, yeah, it's that mentality, that willingness to use the resources that makes me be like, you've got it. I'm not concerned about how fast you're getting something done. If you have that attitude, you're going to be fine.

MIKE: I couldn't agree more. I've talked to other team leaders as well when they're interviewing prospective new hires. And a common theme is if we hear somebody that has a lot of curiosity regardless of what their skill level is, that's someone we want to hire because that person is the one who's going to solve the problem. They're going to keep playing with that bottlebrush [laughter] until it comes out of the drawer.

Our field moves quickly enough. And we're solving new problems nobody's ever solved before. So none of us is going to go into every problem and know exactly how to solve it. And so the key to being good at this is not about knowing all the things; it's about being curious enough that you're willing to poke around it until you figure it out.

AFTON: Right. I just remembered, probably in my first, maybe second year as a developer, you were my team lead. And I had reached out to you for some help with a feature I was working on. And I said to you, "Well, I mean, you obviously would know the right answer. So what do you think?" And you were like, "Well, actually, no. You've been in the code more than I have in the past long while, so you actually probably know more than I do."

And I was like, wait, what? [laughter] And yeah, I just assumed your knowledge encompassed all the things and all the time and that you were up on every piece of the code everywhere because of your years of experience. And I said something like that, and you were like, "Well, actually, no, you probably have better perspective and context and decision making because you've been digging into that code for a few days now." [laughs] And that really surprised me.

And I was like, oh, you can be a little expert in your own little zone but only until...if you stop working in that zone, then a year later, someone else has mingled with it and tangled it up. And now you're not quite up to par on what's happening over there. And you have to research all over again if you need to work on that piece of the code again. So yeah, I'm just trying to say you can't know everything. You're not going to know everything. And whoever is focusing on a piece really will gain the best ability to make decisions in that problem, maybe than anyone else at that time.

MIKE: How many times do you think you go to Google every day if you were to average?

AFTON: I mean, at least several, I don't know, ten times a day at least. If I'm doing a lot of helping the team, meetings I'm not on there as often, but when I'm primarily developing, oh yeah, many times a day. [laughs]

MIKE: If there's one most important tool, it seems like that might be it. To share a personal story, when I was in my...not even my first full-time job. I was working a part-time software development job right after I graduated from college, and I was trying to solve a problem. I could go into details, but the details aren't that important. The important thing is I was trying to find the answer in the documentation. I was trying to do the responsible thing. And I was digging through the documentation trying to find the answer, and I was not finding it. And this is think early 2000s.

The guy I was doing work for (I don't know exactly what to call his role.) the guy I was doing work for went out, and he came back with an answer in like a minute and pointed me to some documentation online. He's like, "Let me tell you how I found this. There's this new tool called Google," which was brand new at the time. I hadn't really used it. I'd used some other search engines, but they were kind of useless, honestly. [laughs] If you ever used search engines back then, you'll know that they weren't very good, just flooded with spam.

But he said, "I used this tool called Google, and it is this amazing tool. And you should always use it when you're trying to find this thing because it's much better than trying to find it yourself." And I learned my lesson. I've learned that you use that tool. The arc of my career [laughs] from beginning to today has been heavily reliant on this tool that came into existence about the time that I started coding full time and has been an essential.

I have a hard time imagining software development without being able to use the search engine because there are so many things that we don't know. That little piece of information you're talking about is what you know, and this field is far more vast. It's full of so many things that you can't know that you have to rely on that tool. And our job is more about learning how to find information and use it than about necessarily having that information, all of that information just in our brains.

AFTON: Right. I ran a mentorship for several months here at our company a couple of years ago. And I had some brand new developers who were taking their first Ruby on Rails course and JavaScript, and they were just learning to deep their toe into coding. And we would sit, and they'd have a question like, "Well, I don't know what to do next. I'm getting this error." Or like, "How do I move forward?" And I was like, "Let me show you Google." [laughter] I'm like, "Copy and paste the error and drop it into Google. You might have your answer in one minute."

So I remember showing them this really is one of the most valuable skills in being a developer is being able to Google research effectively, learning how to cater your words to pinpoint the answer you're looking for. [laughs] And I remember as I was self-teaching myself just spending hours trying to figure out how to Google the right thing to get what I was looking for because I only knew what my problem was. So I would use some of the words, and I'd read the results, and I'm like, ah, this isn't really getting me what I'm looking for. And so I'd tweak my search, and I'd try again.

And what I would do is notice that over time, I would see the same terminology being used in a lot of the results as I was going. So I'm like, okay, I don't know what that term means, but I keep seeing it, so I'm going to Google that. And I would just eventually dig my way down to this fine-tuned...and figure out how to finally get what I was looking for. But it's a lot of work. It was a lot of work learning how to do that, but one of the most valuable things that I know how to do and that helps me as a developer today.

So it was really fun running the mentorship, teaching, or helping these new developers realize how important that skill is and encouraging them to use Google all they want because they often feel like, oh, I shouldn't be using Google. I should just know it. [laughs] And no, use it, use it as much as you want, and it's going to benefit you greatly. [laughs]

MIKE: Interestingly, before I was a software developer, I did customer support for Microsoft Windows through a contractor. They didn't do it themselves. They contracted it out. Anyway, I was doing support for Windows, Windows 98, and Windows Me. That gives you a sense of when this was. And I don't know how they run things today, but I can talk about how they ran it back then.

Microsoft had a knowledge base where you could search for information. And they actually had a rule that when there was a call that came in from a customer, even if you knew the answer, you were supposed to look it up anyway because that practice of searching for information was so fundamental to being successful. While I worked there, I became very good at finding the kinds of keywords that would get me the information I wanted. [laughs] And I was very diligent about that. I'd always search.

And I had my favorite knowledge base articles that I would look up. Like, when somebody called in, and they had a network issue, I knew what the keywords to look up. And when they had...a lot of people had network card driver issues. They happened a lot. So I knew exactly what to look for because it happened all the time. I knew what to look up. And I think that has served me extremely well in my career because I spent months practicing how to look for information. And then when we got a search engine, that index, not just our internal information but the whole internet in a very effective way, it allowed me to start exploiting that.

AFTON: Right. So I was just kind of thinking about the imposter syndrome. If developers have the tools and they feel confident they can get answers...because they know how to search; they know how to use Google. They know how to read through documentation and are willing to reach out to the people around them. If they are in a zone where they feel confident that they can get the answer if they don't know it, then I would imagine that would be a big factor in mitigating impostor syndrome.

If they feel like, ugh, I don't know how to even start solving a problem; I don't even know how to get answers if I need it; I don't know where to turn, I can see that being like, oh, I don't belong here, like, being a really difficult thing to get through. And so maybe people who are brand new in the field are just developing those skills. So all the encouragement and support to continue to develop those skills and use those I think would be a good way to help reduce impostor syndrome.

MIKE: I like what you're saying. It also suggests that as mentors, what we want to focus on most may not be what you traditionally think of as tech skills. Most colleges, most computer science programs I'm aware of, don't have a class on how to use Google, you know, search engine of your choice. We're not playing favorites here. [laughter] I don't remember ever seeing a course like that.

But as a mentor, being able to help somebody do that, say, "Hey, that's Stack Overflow. If you see those Stack Overflow results, they're likely to be a good source of information " Being able to give that guidance as to where to go look for answers is maybe even more valuable than saying, "Well, this is how you iterate over an array in Ruby." That's useful information, but they could find that themselves if you taught them how to Google it.

AFTON: Right. And then next time, they'll find it for themselves again. [laughs]

MIKE: Exactly.

AFTON: Or they'll know how to get the answer.

MIKE: Yeah, teach a woman or a man to fish, and they can do that thereafter.

AFTON: Yeah. When I was running the mentorship, it was really fun to see them come upon a problem or a question they didn't know the answer to. I'm like, "How do you think you can find the answer?" [laughs] And they're like, "Well, Google or something." I'm like, "Yeah, let's go there." And I would let them...They're like, "Well, what should I Google?" I'm like, "Well, what do you think? Think about what exactly are you looking for. What question do you have? And just type your question; that's a good starting place," and letting them struggle through it while I'm sitting there watching them.

And they're all uncomfortable and like, "I don't know if I'm typing the right thing or if this is going to get me there." I was like, "The practice is great. And letting you do it is going to be so much more valuable than me telling you what to write, what to say, where to go." So that was a lot of fun helping them figure that out at that time. [laughs]

MIKE: Yeah. And to people listening in, if you're starting your career and your mentors are encouraging you to do it on your own, that doesn't mean that they're pushing you away. They may be watching very closely, just smiling [laughter], knowing that that's such a useful thing for you to learn.

AFTON: Critical, I would say.

MIKE: Well said, well said. We've talked a lot about culture and how important that is. I guess there may be a flipside. If you find yourself at a place where you can't find mentors, or you are not getting support, or people expect you to just know things somehow, that maybe is a red flag. Well, I'd say more than maybe. Pay attention to the red flags. Especially right now, in 2022, there's work out there. If anybody wants to come work for Acima, let us know. It's hard to find people.

If you really have deep curiosity and drive to go solve problems, you can be successful, and you should find someplace that will allow you to do that. And you don't have to stay stuck somewhere that will hold you down. When you're interviewing, you should actively interview the company for their culture as well. Is this a place that is going to support my growth? And if they're not, it's not just your growth that's going to be stunted. They're not going to be very good at writing software. Is that consistent with your thoughts, Afton?

AFTON: Yeah, yeah. And I was just thinking if you feel like it's too big of a risk to try and leave if you don't like the culture; also, I'm big into improving the place you're at, especially if that risk is too great for you. Maybe starting to push and ask for a change in culture or just start doing things, being the change you want to see. [laughs] And hopefully, you could improve your own culture and environment. To some extent, that would improve things.

MIKE: There is no situation that's going to be perfect. If you're not helping, well, then you're not helping. If you are helping, then you're making it better. There are toxic situations that you should have self-respect, and if you're able to get out, you should probably get out. But a lot of situations are not so clear. They're not perfect, but they're not necessarily horrible, and maybe you can have an influence.

And I think there's going to be a recurring theme as we talk that the things that aren't purely technical are sometimes the most important, willingness to try to make a difference and make things better for yourself and others. What can I do to improve the culture? To reach out and be a mentor, for example, or to take some portion of your day to go and just study and learn to improve your skills, or to seek out a mentor. Find somebody you can trust and establish that relationship so that you can be learning from them. Things like that that you do they do take some vulnerability and stretching yourself, and that's easier for some people than others as well.

They're as much a part of software development as are the technical skills. Technical skills are important. They don't accomplish much if you're not in a position to do the work. And some of the best developers I've worked with actually didn't necessarily write a lot of code. But they were very much this kind of thing we're describing, that Afton has described where they've gone out and tried to improve the environment that they were working at.

I'm thinking of somebody in particular. I don't want to name names for somebody who's not here. But, Afton, you'll probably think of somebody who was here and has gone on to be a manager of another company who really made a big impact in mentoring other people around them and had a big influence. They didn't get a lot of code written but was hugely valuable to the company in helping other people be successful.

AFTON: Yeah, that was also a really good segue into the thought that I had I just remembered. And I do have to say this, Mike. You've been my team lead since I came to Acima. And I've watched you really, really put in a lot of effort, time, and energy to create this culture we're talking about. You've always had it as a top priority, from my perspective, to have this culture for the team that we are on. And you've really, really dedicated a lot of time and effort to make that happen.

And as a new team lead, I am trying to carry that on for my portion of our team because you've been such a great example in how valuable this is. And I think it's just created a really awesome culture on our team. And I've heard within our department at our company that our team culture is unique, and it's a place where people want to be. We've had developers move to a different team and then say, "Can I come back [laughs] to this team? Because the culture was really great."

And they really appreciate this culture of acceptance, support, learning, mentoring. Mentoring is a really big part of our team culture. And I just want to say you have really worked to create that and worked hard to maintain it over the whole span of my career here at Acima. And that has been really incredible. So you are an example of this yourself.

MIKE: I didn't expect joining the podcast would bring tears to my eyes [laughs], but it did. Thank you, Afton. That was very affecting. I would hope...if there's anything that I would want to accomplish in my career, it would be that because I believe what I'm saying here. I think that providing that environment for people to be successful is the most important thing we can do as leaders in software.

And to add to that, when people are enabled to show their own skills, to grow their own skills on their own terms, they do great things. And our team has grown and split. We were budding like microbial growth. We're splitting and forming new nodes. But as we've done that, the people on the team have grown into that and have themselves fostered other people and have enabled other people.

And we all have different personalities. But those core principles of caring for other people and their autonomy, and their human dignity, I'd say that, and giving them a chance to shine has continued to happen. And that has just been tremendously gratifying for me to see and really the most rewarding experience of my career.

We are running up against the end of the time we had scheduled for this. But I think we hit on some key points on how you can be okay with getting started and feeling like you don't belong. What I hear is that we are all figuring it out as we go. And the important part is to not compare yourself against others. If you're building your career, embrace that curiosity and be willing to ask questions and try stuff, and if you are in a position of a mentor or a leader, enable people to do that, and they will shine. Any final words from you, Afton?

AFTON: I was just thinking, yeah, it's very rewarding to hand-off a project or something and let someone run with it. Let a developer on the team run with it and see what they come up with, and see how they collaborate with each other. And it's awesome.

And, I don't know, I just feel very fortunate to be here at Acima and to have been part of this culture that you have created and to be in a position now where I can work to continue that. And I'm just really hoping our teams will always feel free to explore and use their own skills and that they'll feel like they belong here and that they can do great things and that we're here to support that.

MIKE: Thank you, Afton. And with that, we'll see you next time.