Episode 03 · 35:10
Stop disqualifying yourself
Dan and Tom explore the ways people disqualify themselves before a real decision has been made: not enough experience, money, stability or permission from the people around them.
Through career moves, team dynamics and creative ideas, they argue that another person’s discomfort with your growth is not reliable evidence about your ability to grow.
The useful bits
What to take with you
- Do not reject yourself on behalf of a gatekeeper who has not assessed you.
- Separate a real constraint from an assumption that has never been tested.
- Someone who benefits from you staying may not be an impartial judge of your next move.
- Build a small piece of evidence that makes the possibility more concrete.
Watch the conversation
The original episode.
Full conversation
Transcript
Transcript generated from YouTube captions. Dan/Tom speaker attribution is AI-assisted and may occasionally be incorrect.
So you finally come back for episode three or this might be your episode one so if this is your episode one then welcome and if it's your episode three then welcome back uh we're trying some new tech out so Tom has got a little um what's it called mic clip or clip uh one of these things yeah so don't rub it too much otherwise yeah that's the one lapel mic this is a classic kind of the Watchers being interviewed so um as you.
Readjust and crackle into everybody's ears so this week what we want to do I wanted to basically talk about [Music] um disqualifying yourself and why you might currently oh and this is how to do it yeah this is how to disqualify yourself basically I want to talk a little bit about um why you still might be a doorstop when you're actually a hammer so a lot of the time this stuff is driven off fear um fear of what ifs so it might be that.
There's a fear of what happens if I can't find a job what happens if they say I'm not experienced enough what happens if um I I'm not good enough I don't have the skills so there's a bunch of uh skill related stuff there's a bunch of Lifestyle related stuff it might be like well I can't do that because my wife's currently doing this or my partner's doing this or I have kids and there's a bunch of reasons um why you might not do.
The jump and I think for me some of the kind of the processing so I did a jump from a permanent role to a freelance role or a contractor role starting my own business because the the Crux of it was why build someone else's dream when I can build my own now I've broadly speaking been kind of an entrepreneurial anyway but I've always been more so a bit of a worrier in in the past and a little bit more like reluctant to do the.
Jump so the roughly what what age were you slash how many years did you do yeah so uni just to give a bit of context so it's two years after University so I didn't have a gap year I went in at 18 up to then 21 at 21 I moved to London and started a two-year role which was web and design so that's a two year and then just short of five years so basically seven years of working so seven years of.
Working and also broadly speaking I would include my freelance experience which is I was doing stuff at sixth form I was doing stuff at a level um but yeah I would kind of say seven years but I would class it as 10 years because you'd include University um and and making the jump at that point and some of the things that I went through is one I didn't feel good enough and the way that I kind of counteracted.
That is basically got encouragement from others so my brother-in-law basically has had already done the same of shifting from permanent employment to running his own business as a developer so asking him talking then to a bunch of recruiters so it's kind of like if you're unsure utilize somebody else's confidence in you to muster the energy to make the jump so I think that's one part I think the second part was a case of like you know you can always readjust.
Expectations if I speak to one recruiter and they're like oh you're not going to forget this rate and oh you're going to find it hard that's just one opinion again so not only is it ride off other people's energy or other people's encouragement but also realize that person could be just one opinion and there might be many opinions and and getting that many opinions is a better balance of approach so I spoke to loads of different people and I never took.
Like anybody saying something too harshly or I I always thought this is their opinion and that's fine obviously it doesn't mean that I was cool I'm kind of like oblivious and going harsh you're kind of still measuring it and still taking it and then I think the third thing really is in my situation and I recognize everybody has different circumstances I was like what's the worst that can happen now the worst that can happen to me is I never find a.
Contract role which is the first easiest quote-unquote easiest starting point to starting a business in my industry I don't find that role therefore I either go and get another permal permanent role permanent employee or I go back to where I just left because left on good terms left on really good terms and so I could just go back to where I was now of course there'd be a little bit of an ego involved in that a little bit of like oh.
This is embarrassing isn't it but failure is the first step to success right success doesn't come without failures so sometimes you might have to do it and also we realize eyes it's kind of like training for any sort of expedition or a mountain climb you might not have climbed up right to the top on the first go because you've not done this ever before so it's okay it's Unique it's new so if you don't quite get to the top and you come back down.
Recharge and then try again like basically it's the fact that you're trying again it's that great aspect and by grit I mean perseverance which is basically sticking at something even though it's hard um so I would say yeah think of like the worst case scenario and to me it's like either go back to ephemeral or I don't find a job and if I can't find a job then I can't find my rent I can't pay my rent and I can't pay my bills if.
I can't pay my bills worst case and this is actually a privilege I basically move in with my mum and dad now of course at that time I was married so it would have sucked moving in with like her her in-laws my parents it wouldn't have been great but that's better than you know if I was homeless on the street so I think it's about challenging every rebuttal that you have um and and just trying to find out if.
That's rational or irrational and if it's rational yeah I might not be good enough um because you know they expect 10 years and not seven years awesome then what can you do to decrease that um kind of barrier to entry of sorts just by walking through mentally um those things and I think like one thing I wanted to talk about a little bit is disqualifying yourself because you don't feel like you're good enough imposter syndrome imposter syndrome is.
Such a big deal like I've felt it um quite a lot because you think at some moment someone's going to turn around and say cool so we've given you all this stuff but actually we've realized you're not good enough we've realized that you don't meet the standards and therefore we're going to get rid of you and to live in that state is tiring and it's always not and sometimes it's not true it's just my perception of a situation.
And again to like debunk that it's about asking for other people's opinions of course we all have places where we can improve but it's about asking for other people's opinions and not feeling oh well I need to do this extra course if I have this extra qualification then I will do the hammer move um and not to be in that analysis paralysis so yeah I would say a lot of the time we will disqualify ourselves and we'll say no to ourselves.
Before anybody will say no to ourselves so how do we counteract that you counteract that by really facing up to the fears and attacking them one by one and debunking them one by one by just rationally and logically thinking about them and scene don't come in haven't you coming in that's my heart take that's my heart take that that was a low to impact you're probably gonna have to re-watch that bit or re-listen to that bit I should say slow it down yeah yeah.
That's interesting and then I guess when you did the jump other than potentially moving in with in-laws or parents what practical thing finances did did you have what people call a Runway like money to pay for at least one month's rent or did you gamble or what so what was your Runway apart from just fall back on your on your parents so there was probably just one month if if that to be honest and I was working obviously.
I was working frantically trying to get a role so three months even before the move I was having these conversations prepping myself you know in my industry getting your portfolio up to scratch you know getting your CV up to scratch having all these conversations and what I also did is I switched Industries or switched roles within an industry so I was a front-end developer which means a web designer and they designed the stuff that you see um rather than the data manipulation in.
Like a back-end engineer as they would say I moved from being a front-end engineer to being a user experienced designer so I'd shifted more into design and in doing that that's also they're asking different questions so again um utilize utilize everybody realize that you're not you're the one with the the Golden Goose you're the one with Golden Goose because recruiters want you in that thing so it's kind of like figuring out the power the power dynamics of that and and running with.
That so yeah I would say we probably I definitely would have had to go back to another job if it hadn't worked out in a month and that's not a lot of time at all because usually things take minute like if you're starting a business usually I would say you know just estimate that it's going to take three to six months to find you your first job and your first job might not pay as much as you'd like it to pay and.
And that's okay so over time um because it's a like a bit of a slug and I also think it's okay to find the simplest route into the switch so for example for me I could have quit everything called up all of my friends to be like hey now I'm a designer and web designer do you want me to build a website I I didn't do that because that would have potentially been even harder than going to find somebody that's.
Already spending money in this area so corporations are always trying to grow if you look at LinkedIn again if you don't if you're not on LinkedIn that's a really good resource look at people that are already hiring and align yourself to that if they're already hiring that means that they're growing and they've already got budgets to hire therefore align yourself with that and again you don't have to find the hardest route you can find the simplest first iteration.
And change later so for me that was doing specifically contract work and I knew I only heard about contract because my brother-in-law was doing it started to research I was like actually yes this exists and the the differentiator of like if I didn't get it yes I would be a bit of a bit of a struggle but if I did get it I would be within a week instantly in a much better place with basically twice the income.
That I was on already because when we when we talk about contracts they typically do a three-month stint with a day rate and that day rate is extortionate a day rate could be anything from 250 pounds all the way to 500 550 pounds like this a real good range um so yeah that that's there's massive reward and I think I can't I can't not say the story without acknowledging faith in this which is believing in something that you can't see in the.
Material sense um or trust and another word and having faith and believing in God I believe that this jump was inspired by God in the sense of um I was encouraged by God to do something like this and trust in him or trust in this higher power which I believe that her power is God to make this jump and I think sometimes we we like control and it's very difficult in life to give up that control for faith.
And trust and if you're anybody with you know an understanding of um kind of spirituality and that stuff that's always the age-old balance because we liked be in control we like to know you know these things are in order so we can minimize fear minimize damage minimize turmoil and kind of have it as a manageable life and sometimes there's a balance where having that manageable life might be great but if you just kind of 10 20 increase on.
Instability there might be a much much better situation and all we need is that 10 discomfort 20 discomfort for a small season which then has unlocked basically five years of growth and for me I've I've never I'm so thankful that I've never had a zero month in the time that I started even though that could be a possibility I could think that as well like what happens after I finish this first three month contract what do I do then so I've.
Started to release this controlling habit that I think all humans typically have a degree of control um and kind of separate that need for control for trust and belief that this higher power has the best for me if I can just trust this higher power then there's another route that will be slightly better and slightly more sustainable if I had just done it in my own strength and by that I mean you know emailing a thousand people and doing all this hard work.
Um without the direction or kind of the the hints and the and the the input from something additional I guess take a rewind um obviously it must have been a built up logical point of view or an emotional element either from you or you and your wife or whatever to get to the Tipping Point to then step out how is that build up what does that feel like some of the listeners might be going is that what I'm feeling now that.
Turmoil to jump could you go into a bit more detail with the the difficulties or the struggles of dealing with that and discernment of knowing if it's not just a bad day in the office and actually you do enjoy your job and you don't want to leave for maybe someone else yeah I I think the analogy that comes to me is kind of like um when you're in the water and and you're kicking kicking about trying to stay.
Above water sometimes that actually makes you sink and if you just relax you basically realize that you can float on your back and that's sometimes a little bit better but to to relax in a situation is like completely opposite to what your mind wants to do because it thinks that action is the best survival mechanism whereas it's kind of like it is action but it's a different type of action it's more so relaxing and kind of recognizing that okay we're playing with.
Water here broadly speaking we have this natural buoyancy if I can just float on my back I can use less energy so I think with all this stuff um it comes from it's not easy it's not easy it is very hard and you have to do it little by little so again it's a case of one just talking with other people and having those reference points and sometimes people will come to you without you you've not even mentioned.
That you'll think doing this and they'll say hey I feel like you should be doing something you know like go into like a different season in life and I would say like oh the word that comes to mind is kind of like a pioneer I feel like you're about to go into like a pioneering season and they would feel that prompting because it's an idea that has been kind of that's come to them or a or a prompt that's come to them that's.
Specifically about me and about my situation so I had multiple people come over to me without them even really knowing the situation the Dynamics saying something that I affirms or like confirms or kind of reassures the direction in which I feel like many things are drawing me towards um and I think that's it it's the kind of the confirmation side of it confirmation comes through other people it comes through conversations that you generally have if you're very self-aware.
You'll notice that um oh there was this story that this friend was talking about like my brother-in-law was talking about Contracting that's interesting how would that fit to me in a case it's a case of measuring the conversations that you have with oh could I see that happening for me how how would that feel to me and start measuring those conversations and other people's experiences so good bad cop was there any experiences that someone was like I think it'd be.
Amazing at a chef or something that you didn't think or or come across people that you like actually I can think of the idea process it and go actually that's not for me and shelve it or bin it um unfortunately yes I think sometimes um if you're very good at one thing and that becomes your identity so for example I also drum and people might only know me as a drummer and they've never seen me as an employee because.
Typically you don't get to see somebody as an employee you also typically don't get to see somebody you know doing a side hustle or being entrepreneurial um to begin with so I think sometimes there are these lanes that people will kind of know you for and similar for you like people may know you more so for hockey so then that becomes the kind of attachment of when they think of hockey they think of you and when they think of.
Entrepreneurship they think of something else so there is those anchor points in in life and then when you step out of that it might be for example in a team if somebody in a team really likes the fact that you are their Striker or you are their Winger and you decide actually I know I'm good at hockey to a degree but there's something else that is um inspiring to me right now in this season and it's over there it's not in this.
Team it's somewhere else then of course the captain of that team and obviously you were the captain at some point so like the manager of that team or the captain of the team will be gutted that you're going to move and in that moment that manager or team member might be like oh don't go you're not going to enjoy it over there like you're better here because we work dynamically so well just think like you're gonna have to.
Restart over there so that manager could negatively impact your kind of sense about it's good for me to go through their own through their own um kind of insecurities or their own wants because right now it's good if Tom leaves what happens and I also think it's the idea of lacking um I I'm starting to again I recognize people's situations are very different I'm starting to not instantly think that there's not enough but instantly try and think that there's.
Enough so for example there are enough jobs for the job that you want to find they are out there it's just a case of me finding it rather than oh there's no jobs that are my that are going to fit me right now kind of trying to think more positively to recode um your own brain in that sense and I think that also comes with if if you are somebody um that's reliant on that person in your team then think that we'll find another.
Striker and that'll be okay and that'll lead into something else so I definitely think that it's two ways of the person experiencing maybe some negativity of like why are you doing this you're selfish and leaving this team like it'd be better for that person to be like no Tom was great and we really enjoyed having Tom in the team and also whoever fills that role it will also be great for them too it might be hard but it will it will be there it'll be great.
And also I think it's an awareness that actually yeah I'm excited for where Tom's gonna go so you want to surround your surround yourself with people that are comfortable when you're there and comfortable when you're not there because they see that there is a greater potential for you because I believe that we're not necessarily kind of this like mono kind of like singular Talent we usually are a good a few things like two things three things you know we're.
Usually like that but we don't get to to experience that we don't get to try that out we don't get to taste it to test it to see if actually you know what actually you're better at business than at hockey even though you're really good at hockey but you would have never known if you didn't try so yeah there are people that kind of get in the way and it's always a case of trying to look at behind the the motive of whatever.
They're saying and are they saying it out of you know an insecurity of well hang on a minute I'm gonna have to find somebody now and that's going to be a task for me to do and it'd be better for Tom to stay in the team you know yeah it's very interesting finding what what works for you as a hobby or as a job and then trying to find the next stage of Life depending on if you're getting married or got kids or split up.
Or whatever the the positive change or negative change that that might change what you're feeling for your season because I think that's the thing is when you get when you have big milestones in your life like marriage or have kids or whatever I think there are times to that you tend to reevaluate everything and sort of start from scratch and look at your stock and sort of figure out do you want to continue to build where you're at or do you go and.
Go out and build a new house or or find a new hobby or whatever but it is very interesting and I think like I think one of the biggest things is when when like you and I speak to people about this kind of jump or this kind of like movement there's always a sense of I can't do that like I can't do that oh I need this I I I'd want to do this first and they're trying to produce a a more.
Comfortable jump which is completely understandable um but I think experience is the best kind of measuring stick as in just doing it rather than prepared to doing it I remember listening to a podcast like a couple days back where broadly speaking if you have a to-do list of any sorts chances are one of those to-do list items is plan something like plan business or like your to-do item is to plan something and maybe sometimes it's not to plan something it.
Should be to just do it you know what can you do today which means then tomorrow somebody could buy off you you know that they could prepay for something tomorrow and I'm I'm personally an advocate of the the action over the the kind of the analysis because we all know there's this analysis paralysis and it's all in the name of I understand why because I've been there too it's all because of that fear and the need of control.
So if you can manage that and do action and I think as well like find the smallest iteration if you want to build a business um you don't necessarily have to do six months of planning to get it off what would be like a business like a startup version of it that you could do in um one month or what could you do in two weeks what could you do in one day and sometimes you'll surprise yourself that.
Actually there is an iteration that you could do in a much shorter time scale which then you can get the feedback quicker which then you can adjust your situation sooner because it might be that everything is a everything is a um an assumption to begin with and assumptions get clarity to like certainty so your assumption might be I love animals I love dogs in particular I think I could build a new um dog biscuit like product or something now.
That would take a long time to do so what would be like the quickest easier iteration of that you know it might be that you first um resell a product um or white label a product that already exists rather than going from scratch and start to build your own product of mixing the right ingredients and stuff it might be that you white label it and just brand something then at least you could sell tomorrow because it already exists and you're just creating a brand.
So that'd be quicker than doing a massive six month kind of 12-month product development cycle as well yeah it is very interesting and then what do you advise for people that might want to get out of the situation but they have no idea where to start like how do they get into the creative headspace to figure out what works for their skill set or their experiences I think I ask for help and I don't mean paid help just go and ask kind of.
Friends like hey what do you think I'm good at or like you know sometimes we forget to ask people to build up that knowledge base to build up the confidence build up the reference points to to be able to do something and I think that um really it as well it kind of comes down to character entrepreneurship isn't going to be for everybody and that's completely fine um you know the person that's like number five at Facebook is probably.
Doing way way better than someone starting a business you know so it's okay to be an employee it's not that it's bad to be an employee it's about finding the right fit for you um and of course there's a character you might find that oh I'm not creative um and I would challenge you to be like if you feel that you're not creative speak to somebody and and ask them and speak to the right type of people the.
People that are for you the people that encourage you um because you might find out okay you're not creative in the sense that you can draw a picture and paint a painting but you're creative in you know using the skills that you have to solve a problem and that's what business is Right solving people's problems um so yeah I would say talk to people and Tom and I love talking to people about exactly this stuff now I was thinking a.
Couple weeks back that we should basically say if you comment on this post we'll pick the best comment and we'll give you a free hour of Consulting um consultation we'll give you a free hour of chat where you can share what you feel and it might not need to be like fully formed and it might be like hey this is my situation I don't really like where it is I don't know where to go but what do you see what.
Opportunities you see so I'm more than happy to talk to anybody um even even actually yeah like a half an hour more than happy to have a free half an hour no strings attached it's not going to be like and therefore you should now join our course that's 5.99. none of that stuff because we love helping people um yeah yeah the second hour I don't know like I'm happy to give like a half hour or an hour to kind of just Chuck this.
Through um because we typically don't give space for this we typically think oh you know we've always known that lawyers are expensive you know we know that counselors are expensive or we perceive those to be expensive you know any sort of external help or a physiotherapist is expensive you know or an acupuncturist we we think that those are expensive and that means you kind of like don't do um you don't do it which is completely understandable and what I want to do is.
Kind of remove that like barrier to entry to like hey like let's just chat Let's see we we might not have the answer and that's fine too but at least you've started to give it space you have to be intentional about I know I said don't plan Drive action but you have to be intentional about finding out the answer as well um and push yourself towards that by booking in your diary okay this time I'm gonna just like sit and imagine I think.
I've I've not imagined enough um what could be and in doing that a little bit more I've kind of imagined like I said in the first episode like I'd love to build a university and the reason why I'd like to build a university is yes of course I'd call it Ryan University and that'd be great but more so is because I think education is the like the foundation and I think there's a type of education that's more interesting which is this.
Problem-solving in teams like Elon Musk basically created a a school in his own company because you had um parents coming over to work for him and they would have to drop off the kids and all this stuff so you try to make it a little bit easier in the same way that a company might feed you um like Googles and those they feed you and give you snacks like Elon Musk wanted to basically give child care so he got this.
Guy to create a school with him and the school is driven around um problem solving real life problem solving because a lot of the time we're shared we're taught Concepts like the concept of Pythagoras I don't really know what the real situation is to use Pythagoras but let's say that there's a challenge of you just bought a bunch of Ikea furniture and you need to get it through your front door like you actually need Pythagoras to calculate that um to get it through and.
Working in a in a group as a team that is good skills so they've driven this kind of like School creation out of teams problem solving and they're like kids and um they've actually developed it now so anybody can join yes it's a bit expensive but it's like a monthly subscription that your kid your child would join online and do those kind of activities and that would be a new methodology of school I mentioned in the first episode about um Daughters of.
Destiny documentary about this kind of like Rich business guy sells his business he um out in kind of like India Direction sells his business he then starts a um private school where he's taking one child from from these families in a particular uh deprived area and they he's taking them on board at four years old and they teach him in this school all the way from four up until like college and then they pay for their college and what they're hoping to do in.
Taking that one child that child then is taught the skills necessary and then take a kind of go back to their family like twice a year to impart that knowledge and help their own community and the basis is exactly that that we help one so you can help many and I thought that was a really really cool idea so I think that would be the execution potentially of removing somebody out of their situation so you can impart completely different.
Understandings of the world and about Society because it's not impacted about it through like what you see if you see kind of like a particular situation you might believe that that is the roof that's that's your life you you can't go any further so in taking someone out of course that's like hard um but in taking someone out that that gives them the best circumstance to create a culture of encouragement of like like I was going to say thriving.
And flourishing in the same sentence I couldn't say it in the same word yeah that thriving and flourishing in the same sense together basically so yeah that's that Vision imagining that gives me the drive to as I said last time to be then efficient today over being inefficient be efficient tomorrow be efficient be efficient and and it builds to this vision of life it would be freaking awesome to build a school or a university that kind of does something.
Like this because I think that is the Baseline for everything is that education and out of Education things like impact then can happen yeah and that's the thing it's it's an idea that then you flush out with different people you find out things that will work and things that won't work but also you look at different ways of how different countries are doing it or Elon Musk of how he's doing it and you slowly get closer okay you might not have a.
University tomorrow but it is that step forward that that feeds that I need to do this at some point so it's feeding that knowledge so when it does come to fruition it's like tend in a garden and then you finally got an apple tree after 20 years or whatever with fruit on it yeah there was some slow watering process yeah and there was another place that I went to I went to this conference in Denmark and it was on site of this school where they.
Were teaching like they were teaching like sport as like a course and then they're teaching another like two other courses and it was like I I'm not sure if it was like sport entrepreneurship and something else and that's just a little bit different we're basically building someone to be a athlete or building someone to be a footballer or something like that that's really cool um so yeah it's just trying to take a different approach to what has worked.
Maybe not it might not be the best iteration so while we have to sustain what we have can there be another branch of people that go out and innovate and try and figure out if there's a better iteration of what we know as school um because we're not all people that can sit still from 9am to 3 P.M and we're not all that way so can we adapt that a little bit further and I think it is just different ideas.
Are developed so people are listening might have an idea that they had eight years ago but there wasn't the infrastructure or the community around them or whatever to implement that idea doesn't mean it was a bad idea it just sometimes isn't the right timing yeah and to add to that when you were asking about like um how do you know that this this thing is the way you should go and I was talking about like other people sometimes will say something and they've.
Not even been told about the situation they'll say something that kind of aligns quite nicely to what you're trying to do I I would also say that sometimes you'll listen to podcasts and something in the podcast will jump out and by jump out it will sound like that particular word or those phrases have been loud oh yeah blow your eardrum then will be louder but it's not louder it's just like you've heard it with more Focus than everything else that they spoke about.
Like even two nights ago um Kevin was kind of thinking about a situation and she put the TV on a particular guy was preaching called TD Jakes and he line for line word for word explained exactly what was going on and the benefits of X and and this is what you're thinking and this and kind of gave like basically the answer to the question that she had um and it's funny because I heard it at the exact same time and that recording.
Was done 11th of August 2022 like a couple months back so it's just it doesn't always have to be a person it might be that you've listened to the radio and something's come out or you've watched a TV program in a Simmons come out or a podcast or whatever and I I think that's cool cool like this is ultimately a partnership I don't feel like it's this distant thing it's a partnership of I've got some stuff um inside of me like skills and talents.
That you know need that kind of like watering to to come out and flourish and stuff so um yeah it's interesting so I would just repeat again if if anything that we've said is like irritated you that's the best way probably irritated your worked yourself up or like challenged you in any way then chat to us um we're not going to charge you we can do it with video or without video because I know there's introverts around and I think sometimes not having videos.
Helpful um just to like help you out that there's no there's no um you therefore have to carry on talking to us at all I would rather just help you from where you are than anything else go and handle those Nails Hammer Time.