From DevNet to Yoga, Balancing Tech and Mental Wellness with Stuart Clark - C2C031

Stuart: 0:01

the cost of that trying to prove yourself, pushing yourself, trying to stand out in hope that you're not on an LR the cost of that can be really catastrophic, on both a professional and personal level.

Chris: 0:14

Welcome to the Cables to Clouds podcast. Cloud adoption is on the rise and many network infrastructure professionals are being asked to adopt a hybrid approach.

Tim: 0:41

As individuals who have already started this journey, we would like to empower those professionals with the tools and the knowledge to bridge the gap. Welcome back to the Cables to Clouds podcast. This is Tim. I'm going to be your host this week and joining us this week. We have a very special guest with us, Stuart Clark, who is BigEvilBeard on Twitter. Of course also, we have these two chuggleheads, Alex Perkins and Chris Miles, always with me. But, Stuart, do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself?

Stuart: 1:08

Sure. Thanks, tim. Thanks for having me here today. So, hi everybody. I'm Stuart Clark. I'm a Senior Developer Advocate with AWS. I've been in DevRel for seven years now. Some of you might know me. I was with DevNet for five years. I was with CiscoNet for uh, five years. I was with Cisco for I think 10 years. Um, I worked on a lot of the DevNet certifications, including the DevNet expert. Um done a whole bunch of stuff around network automation and, uh wrote a couple of books as well, just for the fun of it.

Tim: 1:38

That's right. Uh, you just actually. You just finished one, didn't you?

Stuart: 1:49

You got one, uh one that's up on Amazon now, don't you? I did, yeah, so I got a little bit kind of bored over Christmas I'm not one for really taking breaks and then. So I'd saved them up some holiday for over Christmas and I got a couple of days spare and I just kind of sat down at the table and I thought you know what? This would be really fun to write, a DevNet Associate kind of study guide. And I think I've. I think it's around 250 pages, Um, and I think I put that out in about four days.

Alex: 2:10

That's impressive.

Stuart: 2:11

Yeah, that's crazy, yeah, so yeah, it was just about just kind of just sat there and just, you know, went over the blueprint and just thought, yeah, what, you know, what do I want to? What do I want to read? Um, and I think you know you've authored a number of pieces, tim, including a very great book and um, I think there comes a point where, like with a lot of books, you know you've read a lot of books and then so one day you just think you know what I'm gonna write a book, yeah, you know, so why not?

Tim: 2:38

no, yeah, the. The pace is absolutely amazing. I mean, I'm sure chris can attest as well, since, uh, you know he's working on this other book, uh, with me and this was. Was this? This wasn't your, this was. This was your first. Sorry, was this the one first one that you wrote back to back? I know you've done contribution in other books as well yeah.

Stuart: 2:56

So this was the first one I kind of solo did um, you're right, I did the um ocg dev core book, um for cisco press with bearded brother quinn, um, jason and hazim, two distinguished engineers over at cisco, and back when I was with cisco got that opportunity because one of their authors dropped out and they knew I was really keen as musta to have a go at that um. So that was, yeah, I was one of four authors on that one. I'd done other sort of contributions to books and just chapters and kind of ghostwriting previously before that and then obviously most of the writing experience had just been through technical blogs, you know, through various personal blogs and also through the stuff that I was publishing through, you know, the developer channels when I was with DevNet. But yeah, books are totally different mindset.

Alex: 3:47

I was going to say I'm the only one here who's never written a book. Apparently I struggle to do like one blog post a year, so I can only imagine.

Chris: 3:55

Don't speak too soon. I haven't written a book yet.

Stuart: 4:00

I've helped do a couple of chapters.

Chris: 4:03

But dude, 250 pages in four days is is insane.

Stuart: 4:08

Yeah, I think it's once you get into that mindset and I found that when I was, you know, first writing the, the, the, the dev core book, there's a real sweet spot for me and that's 90, the first 90 minutes in the morning so, but that's not like the first 90 minutes when I wake up. It's the first 90 minutes I sit at my desk, yeah, so I can go and do my cardio, I can go and do the gym, I can go and go out for coffee with my wife, I can go and do my morning stuff. But the first 90 minutes I kind of sit down in my, in my work desk. That's the. That's the kind of the, the, the biggest and the most complex tasks I do in that first 90 minutes. And for me, me, that is writing. I can write, my brain is kind of really active, it has the majority of blood flow, I guess that kind of day. So, before it starts to get foggy, you know, usually about 11 am and yeah, for me that's the best time to write.

Tim: 4:56

Yeah, I do the same in the morning. I mean, I write my best in the morning and that's what I. I kept keeping a schedule is really, really important.

Stuart: 5:04

So totally agree with that yeah, Start writing for like five minutes and then expand that out to like 10 minutes and just do that.

Tim: 5:13

You know, and then it just builds up over a period of time.

Tim: 5:14

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Tim: 5:15

Um, so, yeah, I actually this is a really good segue, because you mentioned, you know, uh, especially that you start writing when you get down to you know, sit down at the desk, but you actually do some some things before that.

Tim: 5:26

And, uh, you know, one of the reasons, uh, that we asked you to be on today is because, well, besides the fact that you're you're an awesome guest and we love you, uh, is that, um, you've been really vocal uh lately, um out, you know, in the community and and on Twitter and stuff about kind of I've kind of seized the reins of this you know mental health journey that you're on, and I'd really like to. I mean, you know, a lot of podcasts have done a lot of things about mental health, but I'm really like I, you know, obviously we've known each other for a while, right, and we both have had our, you know, ups and downs with it ourselves. So, you know, call it selfish, but I really wanted to dig into your brain a little bit and talk about that. So maybe just start with when you kind of said enough is enough and kind of seize the reins for yourself on the whole mental health journey.

Stuart: 6:16

Yeah, I think, tim, it became a kind of I think I needed to take a little bit more stock about my life and my wellbeing as a developer, advocate or somebody that's also as well a natural empath as well. You can give and you can give, and you can give and you can give. And, as the saying goes, you can't pour from an empty cup. And I take being an advocate really seriously. It's a privilege to be an advocate, um, especially, you know, when you're like me. You're, you know, subservient to your community. You're a conduit for many people, um, and also as well, you're, you know, you're kind of a North star for people as well, because people, you know people follow you and they look for you for advice and they look for you because they want to walk a similar, similar sort of journey as you as as an advocate.

Stuart: 7:08

But for me it wasn't, it wasn't just one big event, but it was kind of the series of just small awakenings that made me realize how crucial mental well-being is, um, not just to individuals but for our entire community.

Stuart: 7:25

And even you, you know, in the workplace, probably like you and a lot of other people, you see friends and colleagues and they're struggling silently and they've always had this kind of way of realizing, when people are struggling and just reaching out and saying, hey, you know, you okay, you kind of just see a change in pattern in the behavior and even then it's just sometimes a feeling you know that you just want to check in with somebody and they might be putting on a brave face and they're dealing with something you know that's in a turmoil, and then so I kind of realized that far too often we treat our mental health as this afterthought instead of making it a priority right from the start.

Stuart: 8:07

I started, you know, when I I I started having like really bad anxiety, probably about 10 years ago, and honestly, for me it just came out of the blue understand what was going on. I didn't understand now the way that my mind was actually working, and so it's been a real sort of it's been now a good 10 year journey and a lot of reading, a lot of research and a lot of talking to different people from all walks of life or different as many people as I can just get in different perspectives what it is like to actually put your mental health at the forefront of everything that we do with, with your life. Um and yeah, that's really where it kind of it started just the series of just series of small awakenings and just steps moving forward into it.

Chris: 8:58

Yeah, I think I was. I think I was kind of like you for a long time, whereas, like I will, like I I found it hard to actually empathize with people that were suffering from anxiety, because I didn't understand it. I was like I've never really felt that way. You know what I mean. Um, and as of late, I've started to like have these like instances where I actually feel it and it is truly like crippling, like you don't really know what to do in the moment. It's it seems like you don't have control, and that's another thing that that really scares me is losing control, right, um, but it's, it's funny, cause you know, like, obviously you talk about prioritizing mental health, but you also previously just said that you're a person that doesn't really take a lot of breaks. So I mean, is it more of an exercise of kind of staggering your breaks into your daily life and in a much more organized fashion, to make sure that you don't, you know, need that big break towards the end, or something like that?

Stuart: 9:51

Yeah, it is, and it's also I work incredibly fast. I mean, you know, that's one of the things that people have said about me. They, you know, they said that you know I'm able to execute really quickly, and for me, what I used to do in the past was anything that was on my plate, I would try and execute it all in one day, absolutely everything. I would try and do everything in one day in the same way. Yeah, and it's. It's a very, very bad habit to get into, because you're kind of I've always lived in this like paradox where it's me against me and I have to be better than the way that I was the day before, and and that isn't possible. It's not, it's not possible to do that. You know, your days are different and your priorities are different day by day. Um, and so I've learned to pace my work Now I've learned to slow down, and this was part of the journey that I went on was instead of living in this future.

Stuart: 10:47

So, as we know, with anxiety is is that anxiety is is pretty much living in the future. You're catastrophizing about something that is possibly never going to happen, and so you kind of reach this point where you're looking at something, and then what your brain says is okay, you've got these like five options, just for example. And what your brain says is okay, you've got these like five options, just for example. And what your brain will do is it'll start eliminating these, starting off with the least likely to happen, and then you've got catastrophizing, where your world is essentially feels like it's going to implode, and it's the worst case scenario. That's where your brain will just go to. You will go to straight to level five, straight away. You'll catastrophize. The chances of that actually happening are thousands to one, even sometimes millions to one, of that actual aspect actually of your life playing out, or what you're thinking you're playing out.

Stuart: 11:38

And so you mentioned that about control with anxiety and the one. I exactly said those exact words and what I learned with anxiety is this you can't control it and by trying to control it, this is what makes your anxiety actually worse and it's releasing that and it's living in the present. This is the point that I got to. So depression is thinking a lot about the past. Anxiety is catastrophizing against the future To actually get to that state of inner peace.

Stuart: 12:15

You live in the present and so this is the point now that I am slowly getting to and it's a journey, a real journey to get to this, to live in this inner peace kind of moment, which is like when you look at a chart of vibrations, for example the lowest vibration is shame and guilt. The highest vibration is kind of inner peace. That's really where you want to aim to be at the highest end of the vibrational scale. The highest end of the vibrational scale and it's about living, like I said, in the present and concentrating on what is in front of you today, what is in front of you right now, not what's going to happen this afternoon, what's not going to happen tomorrow. Because you start to get into this cycle and you start to worry about things. And you know I'm a big worrier, so I worry about things which haven't happened and most of the time never happen. So you know it's a very different place or thought to be in with your mind and it can take a lot of training to do that.

Tim: 13:18

It's funny to and we've talked about this, you and I probably a hundred times already, but it's funny to what you said about living in the present is a funny statement, because not funny, but like it's a but. I guess it's a good statement Because one of the ways when you're having a panic attack that they tell you to pull yourself out of the panic attack is to focus on what you can see, smell sense you ground yourself in the present.

Tim: 13:39

So I find that to be a very prescient thing, and I'm a person who struggles with panic attacks, especially the catastrophizing part. Right, One out of three times I get on a plane. When we take off, I'm fighting to breathe, Even though I know I've ridden so many planes so many times. Right, it doesn't matter. Right, it's a parasympathetic response, meaning you don't control it.

Stuart: 13:59

Yeah, the parasympathetic nervous system, I think, pns.

Stuart: 14:04

I've done a lot of reading on this and it's kind of like parasympathetic nervous system is kind of like the accelerator, you know, and then you've got, like you said, you've got to concentrate on that one thing, so you're kind of like squeezing on the brake to actually do that.

Stuart: 14:17

And you can do that through, like you said, concentrating on something that's directly in front of you in the room might be a person, an object or whatever and then controlling your breathing, because, and if you can slow your breathing down and get to that sort of balanced rhythm, you can't be panicked and be slow breathing at the same time, your, your brain is only capable of actually thinking of one thing at once. I know we all like to think that we can multitask, but this is the one of the things I've learned from doing meditation. Yeah, exactly, is your brain can only think about one thing actually at once. That's the only thing you can do. So focus on that one thing and then start to control, you know, your breathing and it takes a little bit of practice to do and, like you said, that really does help with panic attacks yeah, it's funny you mentioned that about the plane thing.

Chris: 15:08

I remember like I, like I I rarely have it anymore, but there you know, you always like I think I heard some statistic one time and this could be completely false and I don't care because it helps me in the moment um that like 90, it was like 99 of plane crashes happen within like like the first 30 seconds of takeoff.

Stuart: 15:27

Yeah, so I don't know if it's true.

Chris: 15:29

Don't even tell me if it's true, because I don't want to know, but it helps me. When the plane's taking off I just kind of close my eyes and count to 30. And if I'm still there then you know it's all good. But it's like if I didn't have that like grounding thing that I can just like focus on for that short period of time, I would probably freak out.

Alex: 15:46

Yeah, okay, I was going to say, you know it's a little bit ironic about the. You know, I think two of like the most well-known books kind of in this area would be like atomic habits and deep work. And right, you mentioned how you can't really be the better version of yourself every single day, even though that's like the kind of the whole premise of the Atomic Habits book, right, but it doesn't really tie the two together. What you're talking about is kind of almost like a gap between how you can improve every day while also staying grounded. There's a gap missing there between those two books, I think, and I think this is what you're hitting on.

Stuart: 16:25

Yeah, and I think just to add on that is that you know. Let's just say, for example, that I go to the gym on a Monday and I bench press 100 kilograms. I'm going to say I'm going to get this completely wrong Yoked bro.

Stuart: 16:41

In pounds. Okay, so let's just say I do 200 pounds. You know, for example, example, I go on a bench for 200 pounds the next day. To go and expect to do 250 is chances of that are really impossible, you know. So if you break your pr on the monday, breaking your pr again the next day with a big increase isn't going to happen, and so it's one of the things I like talking about as well is consistency.

Stuart: 17:05

We often think that success is big milestones, right. We think that the success can be so many things, and I think you have to also get that into your mind is that the wins that you have every day and we have wins every day day is to acknowledge every single win. You don't just acknowledge the big ones, you acknowledge the small ones, and it's that kind of. You know, there's a kind of a gratitude thing in there of acknowledging those rings, uh, wins, and grateful people statistically have less anxiety. So if you're grateful for, if you can have gratitude and and celebrate the, the small wins, no matter what those wins are, and actually take a break, and and I'm guilty as hell for this is not acknowledging any success, and I can talk about that as well for length as well, is acknowledge your success, no matter how big it is, no matter what it is. Acknowledge that success. And to your point yeah, you are moving forward every day, but you're not trying to break your kind of personal best every day.

Tim: 18:13

I was real bad at this as a kid. I've not gotten any better as an adult.

Tim: 18:16

When I was a kid, I was that kid that always if I did something, yeah, I would always place the next roadblock in front of I would move the goalposts for myself forever and I still do it as an adult, and I catch myself doing it and you're, you're I mean what you said is spot on right, like you can't do it because at some point you're gonna, you're gonna, miss the mark. You have to miss the mark, right, yeah?

Stuart: 18:35

yeah, yeah, yeah, you are, that's, yeah, you are you, you are, you're gonna, you're gonna miss the mark. Yeah, and that's you know. And yeah, another piece to this puzzle is learning to fail. You know, I think that's the kind of the the side that people don't see, because they see folks like yourself, chris and alex and the tim, you know, they see what you do here with the, you know podcasts, and they see you, the content that you put out, and they see you on social media, but they don't see what goes on behind the scenes, the hard work, the hours. You know the people don't, people who don't see that. And there was and it's what. It's what a lot of people say. This takes place in the darkness and this is the kind of the, the, the dark side of getting social media in general, or yeah yeah, it's, it's kind of it's.

Stuart: 19:21

It's the failure, the it's the failure is the pain, it's all of those things that go along with that, and people, a lot of people don't see it and, of course, a lot of people don't talk about it as well.

Tim: 19:31

Um, that's right, it's not exciting.

Stuart: 19:33

No, it's not exciting and it was kind of. You know, I think if you've ever seen any of the kind of presentations I did with when I started doing presentations about automation, our network automation, I never kind of painted it like, you know, fluffy, shiny, great unicorns, and this was your network automation was going to solve all of your problems, because it it just doesn't. You know, if I was to say that, that would be just a kind of an outright lie. And so I told the story of outage. I still told the story of pain. I told the story of problems from a business level, from a configuration level, from a change level, from every kind of level that you see within a business. But at the end of the day I took those lessons that I'd learned when it, you know, feels like you, you, you ran some script and it's caused huge problems. What did I learn from this?

Tim: 20:24

Yeah.

Stuart: 20:25

When I fail, what do I learn? And it's hard to see what you're learning while you're failing, because all you're thinking of is well, I nearly said the F word there. I shouldn't swear, it's okay.

Stuart: 20:35

Oh, I can swear, you can say the F word if you want, it's okay, you can say the F word if you want. It's like holy fuck. You know, you just brought all of this down. What's the lesson here? You know, and it's really hard to see that during that, you know, when you're going through hell, it's hard to see the freaking lesson. It really really is.

Tim: 20:55

I like Churchill's take on that I always have. It's always been one of my favorite quotes right, when you're going through hell, keep going.

Alex: 21:01

Yeah, yeah. Well, on that overnight success thing, right, there's all kinds of quotes that are like oh, it takes only 10 years to be an overnight success, right, yeah.

Chris: 21:10

And it's it's so true.

Alex: 21:11

Like there's so many little steps along the way, like like you're talking about.

Tim: 21:19

Malcolm Gladwell's book outliers uh covers that really well about how, about how bill gates was in like exactly the right time, exactly the right place yeah, yeah to become who he became and it was. It had very little to do with his amazing natural talent and everything to do with with where he was and when, and who he was and when he was yeah, yeah, had nothing to do with his dancing at that hour. No, that did not come into play. All right, I want to rein this back in a little bit. That's the Balmer for the dancing.

Tim: 21:46

Balmer was the I don't even know what to call that dancing. That was just walking around the stage pumping his fists, but whatever anyway.

Chris: 21:51

That's something dude Dancing.

Tim: 21:53

It's interpretive All right, let's pull it back a little bit. So, um, because I mean I want to tie this in a tech and the truth is it's already tied in tech like inextricably, as we all know, right, it's inextricably tied to tech. But what do you think good mental health in a tech like industry, as a tech person, would, would look like? And, more importantly, when do you think and this is this is kind of an open question for everybody when do you think that you're far enough in your career that you can actually do that versus the hustle of being new right?

Stuart: 22:38

Yeah, it's an amazing talk that she did last year and it was, I think the title was how a chicken tried to kill me, something like that. It's an amazing thing. What Emily talked about in that was was how companies will say we, we want you to be your authentic self. You know, we want you to be your authentic self, we want you to bring your full vulnerability to work, we want you to be yourself. But that's great from a HR perspective, but do companies actually really mean that tech?

Stuart: 23:07

What good mental health looks like, is this environment where people feel safe to be vulnerable. They can ask for help without feeling judgment repercussions. They can ask for help without feeling judgment repercussions. It's where companies essentially will actively invest in the holistic wellbeing of all of their people, all of their staff, through things like resources, education and also a culture of compassion. For me, it's also the place where unhealthy work habits like burnout, endless crunch times they're just no longer glorified. I think you know I've seen a bit of this as well, as on social media as well you know, like how we celebrate big hours and all of those things, and diving catch culture.

Tim: 23:50

Yeah, I was just gonna say yeah yeah, um, but it's.

Stuart: 23:54

That is that needs to be recognized as basically being unsustainable and damaging Now and again. It's all right to do this once or twice. In engineering that happens. It's almost a rite of passage in engineering, especially network engineering, where you're a whole engineer. It happens.

Stuart: 24:15

But the stage of your career absolutely influences your experience very early on and they can. There's like an intense pressure to always, you know, prove yourself, especially in, in in the early days. You know, you see it in job space. You must, must, hit the ground running, you know, and all of this the buzzword, and you're. There's also the kind of the culture as well where you're not only working around the clock but you're also expected to chase that next promotion.

Stuart: 24:44

Yeah, and it's okay to have that conversation with your, with your manager and with your, your leadership, to say I'm not interested in going to the next grade because it's kind of there's a, there's a really great book where it's, I think, think it's called it Doesn't have to be Crazy at Work, and they kind of talk about this process of you know, you say you get to this grade let's just give it a hypothetical number, just 10, for example. Say you're a grade 10 and you do this grade 10, you just get good at being a grade 10 and they promote you to a grade 11. And then all of the pressure from the grade 11 is you expected to perform at this grade 11 for the next cycle. And you've only just learned to master this grade 10. And so it has to become achievable and it has to be doable and it has to fit in with your. You know your entire life, your, your structure as well, you and me and everybody. We've seen so many immensely talented people just flame out.

Tim: 25:37

Oh yeah.

Stuart: 25:39

They fail to set boundaries, and we have to challenge the idea that professionally success does not require sacrificing both our health and our humanity.

Tim: 25:50

Yeah, I think there's a big danger. Everybody has to make their own choice on this, especially because everybody's different. Everybody has to make their own choice on this, especially because everybody's different.

Tim: 25:58

But in making that trade-off between where do I want to be in my career, how quickly do I want to get there, what's important to me right now versus 10 years from now, and what am I willing to trade for it, is mental health, one of the things you're going to burn out doing it, and the answer usually is yes, especially in technology. It's a treadmill. We've said that 100 times in this podcast, right yeah, technology is a treadmill and you're always on it Like once you're in it you're always on it.

Stuart: 26:21

And with that, I've always felt that with technologies, you're always going to be two steps behind. You're always going to be just when you know. It's like just when I thought I was getting the grips of Python, you know, and this is the, you know, this is the you know, this is the thing. And then, and you, you kind of see it and stuff, and you you think how am I meant to do this, how am I meant to stay on top? And it's like not everybody knows everything. That's impossible, you know, it's just, it's just a myth. Yeah, there's some really really smart people out there. You know, we all know some really really smart people, but they are very, very few and far between that. They know such a lot over there that they seem to know to master all of these things, but really everybody's kind of really good at two or three things, and then that's it.

Tim: 27:15

Yeah, and and you know, once in a while, you find the people that really good at two or three things, and then that's it. Yeah, and, and you know, once in a while you find the people that are good at those two or three things and are also good at communicating those things, and that's, that's. Those are the ones that really move the needle right yeah yeah yeah, yeah, one thing I think.

Chris: 27:29

Yeah, obviously talking about burnout, um, and you're talking about the idea of acknowledging your you, your successes or your victories pretty much on a daily basis, right, um, do you feel that using that exercise helps you avoid burnout, because you can see at least some kind of progress every single day? Cause I mean, in my events where I've reached burnout, it's like I feel like I'm just on the hamster wheel going nowhere and it's just like I'm.

Chris: 27:57

But I'm sprinting on it Right and I'm running as the hamster wheel going nowhere. And it's just like, but I'm sprinting on it right and I'm running as fast as I can and getting nowhere. Do you feel that that kind of goes hand in hand? And, if so, how are you acknowledging your small successes? Are you writing them down, or are you just having a moment to think about them later in the day? I feel like we've talked a lot about the why, and now I kind of want to get into the how.

Stuart: 28:16

Yeah, there's a couple of ways to do that, and I know a lot of people say you know that they can, they write their, their things down.

Stuart: 28:27

And I think it's whichever works for you you can write them down or you can think about them, or you can. You can sit with somebody and you can, you can actually do it. You know, almost like kind of pair programming. You know you can sit down and you can say, yeah, this is, let's talk about the five things, five things that make me happy. But you know, as long as you acknowledge them, I think that's you know the kind of the.

Stuart: 28:47

The main part is actually acknowledging those things. For me it's, you know, I acknowledge them at nighttime. That's my acknowledgement. I look back on my day and I think, yeah, these are the things which I've achieved today and these are the things which went well today. And then, once you've kind of gone, once I've gone through those and I've kind of reaffirmed that positivity, then it's really really difficult to think what were the things that went shit. You know what were those things that went. You know, completely sideways, and you look at those things. You know what were those things that went. You know completely sideways and you look at those things, you know that did go completely the way that you didn't want them to go and it's kind of like, well, what can I have done to have veered those back in? What's the what's the process like? So, yeah, a couple of different ways write it down, think about it, acknowledge it, say it out loud, which, whichever way you've got to do it.

Stuart: 29:38

I think there's and I can't remember which book, I can't remember for the life of me which book I wrote it in, as well as the accountability mirror. I think it's a David Goggins book, actually, and he talks about the accountability mirror and it's it's. It's basically looking in the mirror and saying, okay, I'm accountable for this, but you can do it in a gratitude way as well. You know. You can just full look at yourself in the mirror and say, you know I did this well today and you know, fuck, I'm amazing. You know I'm, I'm fucking amazing, I'm a rock star. That's it Period, and just repeat that over and over again and then try to find the negative things of that, and it's really difficult.

Alex: 30:18

Yeah, I think also this is like kind of like a side benefit that I don't hear talked about often of something like a performance evaluation. Yeah, you know. But the problem is at least most of the places I've worked, uh, they're.

Alex: 30:29

They're usually done by yourself, right, and they're not really self-evaluate yeah, exactly and I just think if there was some kind of system for better feedback like that, that would also help a lot just to have, like you said, like you can sit down with somebody, but to have that peer or supervisor review and their perspective on things that you're doing well and maybe things you need to work on would be extremely helpful.

Stuart: 30:51

Yeah, I agree, and I think you know we have a very nice system at AWS for that as well, for peer reviews with managers as well, and I think for me in the corporate worlds that I've been in and things everywhere that I've been, I think it's called Ivy what we use at AWS, and for me, that's about the best system that we have for feedback as well, so you get feedback from others and you can ask other people within your team, other people outside your team how you're working with. You know, and it has to be a kind of a you know the things that you do well and the things where you can improve. You know there has to be both in there as well.

Stuart: 31:32

And they have to align with, yeah, they have to align with. You know AWS's tenants as well. So you know you've got disagree and commit. You know all kinds of stuff you know within the AWS tenants and it's those things where you're you know working with others and you're collaborating and where you're you know always thinking about putting out the best content in my case, content. You know that I can and how that aligns to our organizational goals and things. But then you know I can ask for feedback on that from from others and they'll they'll give you that back and then you review that with your manager.

Stuart: 32:07

So you know you go over all of these things with you know, with your manager, step by step, and you go over that no-transcript you're far exceeding. You know, uh, your job and you're doing really well and projects are delivered on time, and you know, doing this, doing this, you're like great. So, uh, yeah, pay rise. You know, well, not quite wait a second, you just said I'm doing everything right. Well, you know. So you know and you're gonna think, well, you know, and that's yeah, that's no. I actually this is good timing as well. I want to draw this towards something like and it's a theme that we you're- going to think well, you know, and that's yeah, that's no.

Tim: 32:50

I actually this is good timing as well. I want to draw this towards something, and it's a theme that we're just going to see probably throughout 2024, right, you know, the industry is on fire right now. We've got, I mean, everybody's on fire. Right, there's so many layoffs happening, uncertain future In America. We also are, of course, in an election year, which is Yep we all have. Oh, are you? Oh, brilliant. So yeah, same kind of uncertainty in.

Tim: 33:18

America and I'm sure in the UK as well, you see a lot of businesses unwilling to commit, unwilling to do anything in an election year. We're waiting to see where the hat's going to fall. So I don't, I don't predict great times ahead for 2024. So, you know, if we could tie this a little bit, you know, to all the people that are impacted by this, and let's just acknowledge that, like psychologically being laid, off is just one of the worst things you know that can happen to a person.

Stuart: 33:46

Yeah, I'm speaking with some folks who are going through that now and a lot of the companies and it's. I've always been very I've always enjoyed networking with people. I've always enjoyed speaking with people, meeting people. You know, one of the first things I kind of when I got into tech was was you know, grow my linkedin as wide as possible, connect. You know, pretty much every day I was sending out 20 requests.

Stuart: 34:08

You know, every day meeting people. You know, finding out what they did, how they worked and everything requests. You know, every day meeting people. You know, finding out what they did, how they worked and everything. And then you know, if you, if you get the chance to you know face to face, then even better to to to network with, with them and then, because your, your network, really is your worth, and when things go tits up and you find yourself on an LR, then that's when you realize you know it's and I'll get the quote hideously wrong here that there's you kind of it's not the people who are there for you when you're successful, it's the people for there when you aren't successful.

Stuart: 34:41

You know that's that's when you need that support, that's when you need that, that network. And I said to a lot of I'm helping a lot of people at the minute find new roles, whether I can help them find the aws or whether I'm connect them to. You know the people, you know somebody messaged me the other day and they said hey, you know, do you know anybody at this company? I'm like, actually I know three or four people at that company, you know, including a vp. What can I do for you, you know? And they said you know, can you just give me an intro? I'm like I'm on it, I'm doing it now. I was doing it on the weekend, I was doing it this morning, first thing when I woke up. You know it's, it's helping people.

Stuart: 35:15

But I think the one thing that it is driving right now with with all the layoffs and things, it is creating a real big culture of fear yeah also what you can see within companies as well, as I hear this a lot, as it's really driving down collaboration, because people within the companies, people within teams, are trying to prove their worth to the company and a lot of people can get into a mindset of okay, then I can't do that as well through collaboration.

Stuart: 35:41

I need to do that as a, as an IC, I need to do that as an, as an individual. This is, I think, where, when you're in this culture of fear, it's a danger zone, because then we start pushing ourselves past a breaking point which is very, very real. The cost you know the cost of that trying to prove yourself, pushing yourself, trying to stand out in hope that you're not on an LR the cost of that can be really catastrophic on both a professional and personal level. And that's something as well that I think leaders have to be good at recognizing, seeing those signs within both themselves, within others, and intervening before that's too late. It goes back to that thing that we said right at the start about control. Control what you can control. Let go of everything that you can't control.

Chris: 36:28

Yeah, I think it kind of echoes back to the point we were talking about being able to monitor your performance in some capacity, and I think it's important to do that for yourself just as much as you expect your employer to do that. Right, because if you're wanting performance reviews to come down from your manager every, you know, every so often that's fine, um, but if, if there is a moment where you get laid off, then you're gonna be like oh well, mega, megacorp was just telling me that I was exceeding expectations and doing great for 12 months and then they just laid me off. So that means fuck all. Right, I think it's good to to monitor your wins in your professional and personal life. Right, because we don't, we don't, we don't, yeah, do this just to to make the shareholders happy. Right, where we're, we have lives that we want to lead and things like that. So I think it's just making a point.

Stuart: 37:22

I think it's just as important to measure that I think that's something that I as well I learned that early on in my career as well is that, especially when you're negotiating, moving forward, whether that's into the next level, that you know the recs open you're trying to, you know, get into that team, lead position in your team, or you're looking to level up in any such shape or way, is having a list of all the achievements and the successes that you've had, you know, within that company. You know, um, I know a lot of people who've gone for like principal engineers, um, within uh companies, and the prince of principle is it's a big leap for a lot of companies. It's not. Your manager can't just make you a principal and then that can't even be done by your manager's manager, your director.

Stuart: 38:05

That often has such a senior level and everything has to fall right. You know, the finances have to be there, the wreck has to be there, the moon has to be in the third quarter.

Stuart: 38:16

There has to be a small dog, you know, passing through the sun on a tuesday morning with a half a tail or something for you it's such a difficult position to get and then, a lot of times, you know you have to appear, and not only does your manager have to have all the evidence, you have to have the evidence and you have to be prepared to speak about it. And so how many people can you actually, or how many times can you say, okay, so you've got on this principal package here that in 2018, the you know, you save the company this much amount of revenue 50,000 pounds, $50,000 per month in revenue. You saved the company this much amount of revenue $50,000 per month in revenue because you did this, you did this, you did this, you did this. Tell us about that. And you're going to get like a deer in a headlights kind of scenario.

Stuart: 39:01

You have to have all of those things, and if you've got all of those things, like you said, written down, it's kind of when the shit hits the fan. You've got the LR. You need to look back at your achievements and say I am that. You know I am worthy. I am enough. You know this is going to suck. It's really going to suck, but I am worthy of that next job. I mean, I can't imagine honestly, what what being on an LR was like I really, really can't, but I imagine that the imposter syndrome comes at you hard, oh yeah.

Tim: 39:33

I've heard this from multiple people, many people. It's like I mean it's hard. It's hard not to take it personally anyway, but it's especially hard not to take it as a performance review of sorts. Right, even though it might not have anything at all, you're just at the end of the day someone had to round a zero on a budget sheet and they didn't care, like you want.

Chris: 39:57

You want a reason, right, you want. You want a reason. You want to be able to blame on something. You and it's easy to blame things on yourself because that's it is yeah, that's what you know about fallout, or exactly yeah that's.

Stuart: 40:02

That's kind of how we're brought up, isn't it? You know, your first girlfriend dumps you and you're kind of like, well, why? And she sort of like just shrugged her shoulders and says I don't know why, and you're like it's me. Then you know, and then we kind of have this culture of blaming ourselves. And I think it can start from something as simple as that oh, it's me, you know. And you start blaming yourself for those. You're looking inside and looking, and that is when we're talking about that vibration thing. You're looking at that kind of guilt and you're looking at shame and it's a very bad place to be, very bad place to be. It's kind of so easy.

Tim: 40:36

It's the easiest place to go, though, right, because you know yourself. You know yourself more than you know anyone or anything else, right. So it's very easy to look inward and see the reason in yourself.

Chris: 40:51

I think it relates also to how much you want to admit that you control the situation, like if you, if, if you are blaming something on yourself, it's easy to be like oh well, it happened because I didn't do something. I can be better, I can do it when if it's out of your control, even sometimes you'll. You'll draw correlations like, oh well, I should have done this, you know, three months ago, you know. But like you're not forgiving with yourself, right, you're not. You're not saying like, oh, I should have had the foresight to see this or something you know. It's like I want a bit of blame it on myself, yeah Right.

Stuart: 41:18

Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, I've. I've heard from people who've been on LRs both recently and you historically, and it's kind of like it's it's just come completely out the blue, like one of my friends relocated from the uk to to san jose. He'd been there nine months, he was just settling in. Um, he just put the deposit down on apartment, you know, moved out the corporate accommodation. Then, you know, somebody came around the office and they said to him we're all going to this meeting room. He's sort of like why, what are we going to the meeting room for? And everyone's like, don't know, you know, and everybody kind of gets down there and the meeting room goes in there. You know, senior leadership comes in and just basically wipes out the entire team Sounds right Like that.

Stuart: 42:00

And he's just sort of like well, just moved here from England.

Tim: 42:05

And they're like doesn't, doesn't matter to them, they don't have to worry about it no, well, they were gone as well, you know.

Stuart: 42:09

Oh well, there you go they were all gone as well. And you know, the leaders, the leaders that were stood up there, friends manager was like yeah, I'm, I'm gone as well, I'm like all of you just gone, that's it. They've just decided, canceled what we're doing and we're all you know, so we'll help you find other work.

Stuart: 42:23

You know blah, blah and yeah, that's just just how it is. It almost feels like numbers in a hat. Sometimes I don't think it's based on performance. Sometimes it is based on performance, but I think also there's numbers in a hat.

Tim: 42:37

And they'll never tell you which is which, which makes the whole thing just much more hard on yourself, right, yeah?

Stuart: 42:43

And, like Chris was saying, then all of a sudden, it's because you don't know you start to turn in on yourself Tough issues.

Tim: 42:49

Okay, a sudden, it's because you don't know, you start to turn in on yourself tough issues, um, okay, so I mean, we're all, we're running out of time, but I think what's important is that you know, rather than just because I mean, anytime we talk about layoffs, especially this year, things have just gotten kind of dark, uh what. What I would love to do, though, is to say you know, all right. So, so how do we pull this back? How do we, how do we help people that need to to have that kind of you know that, that improvement? Now, how do you pick? How do they pick themselves up and move on and have that mental health to go after the next job? I think it's the, it's the real positive message we're going to try to bring together I think it really starts with empathy, and for ourselves and, again, those around us.

Stuart: 43:27

So you know how, if something, how, if something happened, uh, tim, and how would I talk to you about that? How would I comfort you? How would I what, what were the things I'd say to you? Say, hey, you know, man, I've just been put on. I come to you and I'd say, tim, you're going to find an amazing job. You know you're awesome. You know you've got all of this experience, you've got all of these things and you have to. You know, if I can talk to you that way, I can talk to myself that way. We have to move forward and lead with vulnerability and compassion. For me, that is the true strength. It's really true strength within a team culture and outside of that as well. So it's you know, help us, help as many people as you can listen when people need to talk to you and just network, network. You'll network your way through out of that. It will happen.

Tim: 44:22

Yeah, good network definitely means a lot. I mean a lot, a lot. So that I mean obviously you know, if you haven't spent the time building network, it's a network. It's a little tougher when you're behind the eight ball like that, but it's never too late to start building your network, to start talking to other people. No, and I like what you said too, how you know if I can be nice to other people, if I can support other people and believe in other people, you know I should be able to believe in myself as well. Yeah, yeah.

Chris: 44:46

All right, quick. Well, so yeah, yep, all right quick, quick question. Uh, rapid fire.

Stuart: 44:55

Top three books you'd recommend for maintaining this health? Uh, the business of belonging by david spinks is really good. Uh, for community. I love david spinks is is writing um crumbs. I'm a big fan of david goggins.

Stuart: 45:09

I I like his books too um, yeah I'm a big fan again of brené brown as well, who you know, talks a lot about vulnerability and being, you know, being yourself. I think that they're the, they're the really sort of, they're the top books. I think dare to lead by brené brown is my favorite one. If you was to to really push me on which one of hers is, is the is my favorite. And then, um, uh, yeah, I think, I think. Yeah, you know it's cliche, but phoenix project's amazing oh yeah, that's true.

Chris: 45:42

Yes, unicorn projects are amazing.

Alex: 45:44

Yeah, you know, it is there, there's, there's some, there's some really, really really good books, what you know at the very beginning you mentioned, you seem to kind of have like a morning routine. Is there like certain things that you do outside of work to kind of, I guess, keep you grounded, if you will like mental health wise, outside of work.

Stuart: 46:04

Yeah, there is. It's a great question I found as well. If you know, certainly with anxiety yourself in a routine, is is is going to really help um, um, I morning in in the morning it's kind of I don't know if you've seen the stuff by andrew hooberman. Andrew hooberman's an amazing, great person to follow, has a hey, has a really, really great morning routine, and so I've adapted some of that into my morning routine. I was kind of already doing most of the things but added a couple more. So, first thing in the morning, if you can get out and get sunlight first thing in the morning, that's amazing to do, to go out in the sun straight away in the morning and I admit, that's a little bit only do during this in you know the summer, which, well, uk summer is just generally two weeks of warmish rain, um.

Stuart: 46:57

So I am first thing in the morning is just kind of get up, get some fluid straight in my body, you know. So a good amount of water, um, have a sort of like a stand up and a stretch and then I'll just straight into sort of 10, 15 minutes meditation. Every morning there's I tend to practice, yoga nidra, which sounds like I'm trying to bend myself into like a pretzel in the morning, but yoga nidra is more actually centered around the parasitic nervous system. So I don't know if you do this as well, but sometimes you can wake up in the morning and you think I've got to do this. Don't know if you do this as well, but sometimes you can wake up in the morning and you think I've got to do this, I've got to do this, or this day's pressing, I've got this meeting, this is going to be happening, and your mind just starts racing. The first thing that I want to do is I want to remove that from my day. I want to not wake up feeling flustered and I've got a million things to do. I do have a million things to do most days and so I do 15 minutes, you know easy.

Stuart: 47:55

Just meditation and meditation is. You know I always thought about. Meditation was sitting, you know, kind of cross-legged and going into this trance kind of state. There's only a handful of people in the world who can do that. And meditation, it just takes a little bit of time. But yoga, nidra practices on both breathing and identifying and focusing on your body first thing in the morning. It's really good. 10 minutes every morning. You'd see the benefits after a week. I promise you would see the benefits after a week.

Alex: 48:30

I think that's hugely important. I don't want to gloss over that one because, it's so true, if you wake up and the first thing you're doing is jumping on your phone or, yeah, thinking about the stuff you have to do that day.

Stuart: 48:41

Yeah, and it's about removing that morning stimulus straight away and after you've done your kind of meditation. One of the things after meditation is don't do anything too stimulating. So I kind of come downstairs, I've got my kind of breakfast, you know routine, which is actually the same Greens, drinks, vitamins, more water, that kind of all goes in. If I don't do that and I'm doing cardio, I do fasted cardio. So I do 30 minutes stationary bike in the morning. If I'm going to the gym I need food in me, so I'll. If I'm not going on the bike, it'll be straight for breakfast or after the meditation. It'll just be 30 minutes just gradually on a bike. Come down breakfast. I'll either go to the gym if I've not done the bike I haven't done that my wife and I will go for a walk and then.

Stuart: 49:24

So after that I've come back and you know I'm a lover of coffee, even though I'm only allowed one cup a day now. So I kind of come back and I have that's when I'll have my morning coffee. We might go out for coffee and then it'll be, I'll go. That's when I'll start my day, you know. But I wake up for, like you know, six in the morning. I always get up at six, and I'm kind of always sort of, and by the time it comes around to about 8, 8.30, that's when I'm starting to begin to check emails, even though I've been to the gym, I'm checking emails 8.30, 9 o'clock, that's when.

Stuart: 49:53

I'm going into my work mode.

Tim: 49:55

So don't start too early. Basically is what I'm hearing Don't start too early, don't work too, early. Don't get too stimulated too early. Give your body, give your brain, a chance to ease up into it.

Stuart: 50:11

Yeah, ease to ease up into it. Yeah, reason ease into the day. And then, yeah, just go through my tasks and take out all the important stuff. First, work out all the you know what's the most important stuff to do, and then anything that is kind of needless waste or just go into the afternoon or just go into the afternoon or might even go the next day. If it's not, it's not on that kind of high level priority to me.

Stuart: 50:27

I have my priority things I work on and then, just make sure you know plenty of fluid going in, uh food just to graze on during the day, to make sure you're getting a break getting out. I have two 45 minute walks a day as well, so I'm up and about walking as well. Um, the rest of the day is herbal tea and water two liters of water a day. Um yeah, balance your nutrition out, because you've got to have a healthy gut, because the gut is the second brain and you get 30 of your dopamine from your gut as well.

Tim: 50:57

I've heard it, I've read a lot about that.

Stuart: 50:59

It's it's kind of interesting my gut health a lot the last couple of months as well, because I've had ibs all my life. So yeah, get yourself into. Get yourself into that routine and consistency.

Tim: 51:11

Yeah, routine and consistency, that's what everybody says. So, yeah, I mean. And yeah, especially if you want to take the reins of your mental health. It starts with all of those things. Right, because you got to slow your brain down and let your brain, let your brain slow down, you know, to be able to really take things in, just take things in.

Stuart: 51:30

It's a fascinating world and you know, everything is getting quicker, you know? I mean, are we down to one second videos? Now for people's attention. You know that's that's kind of really what it feels like, isn't it? And you're doing this all day or this.

Tim: 51:45

You know where your attention is and you're looking for that dopamine rush all the time time and it's kind of it's, it's, yeah, it's a, it's an addiction we could do a whole other episode about how our kids are going to be in trouble because we're training them with this kind of uh media but anyway um, no, we go ahead.

Tim: 52:02

We need to go ahead and wrap up. So, uh, I want to thank you, stewart. This has been awesome. Thanks for for coming on. Uh, thanks for making the time. I know it's late over there in the UK, so it's it's great having your own brother. Hopefully we'll be able to do it again yeah, I love it.

Stuart: 52:14

Yeah, and I think it's you know. I just want you everybody to wake up every day, like I said before, and create the individual that you truly admire. Don't lie to yourself and give that you know. Give the person that you are to the people around you. That's's your only goal, and for me, it's all about not what you know. Don't wait for nothing to change around you. Change and then watch how everything changes around you. I read a really nice quote the other day and it said the world is not as it is. The world is as you.

Tim: 52:45

That's good, I like that Um any. Uh final thoughts uh, alex Chris.

Alex: 52:50

No, um, thanks, stuart for coming on. I think this is a great topic to discuss, so if anyone you know anyone ever wants to talk about this stuff, please feel free to reach out to any of us.

Chris: 53:02

Yeah, and um, all the all the stuff that Stuart talked about today, we'll we'll throw it in the show notes as well.

Tim: 53:08

We'll have a packed one.

Chris: 53:10

Thanks again.

Tim: 53:11

All right. Well, let's go ahead and close it out. I'm Tim. This has been the Ketels Clouds Podcast. If you like what you heard or saw, or both, go ahead and subscribe to us on your favorite podcatcher YouTube. Go visit Chris in Australia, He'll put you up for the night. All those things are fine.

Chris: 53:33

I got you.

Tim: 53:34

He's got us. Until next time, take care. Hi everyone, it's Tim. This has been the Cables to Clouds podcast. Thanks for tuning in today. If you enjoyed our show, please subscribe to us in your favorite podcast catcher, as well as subscribe and turn on notifications for our YouTube channel to be notified of all our new episodes. Follow us on socials at Cables2Clouds. You can also visit our website for all the show notes at Cables2Cloudscom. Thanks again for listening and see you next time.