Meet Chris & Zoë

Chris:
Hello, and welcome to the imposter syndrome network podcast, where everyone belongs, especially if you think you don't. My name is Chris Grundman and I'm here with my co-host Zoe rose. Hey, this is episode zero, and we are going to introduce you to ourselves a little bit about why we're doing this podcast and what you can expect in future episodes. So Zoë, why don't you kick us off? Give me, uh, your life story in 60 seconds. 

Zoë:
Hey, my name is Zoe rose. I'm currently located in the Netherlands. My current area of expertise is security and I work with some really brilliant people in. Doing the defensive side and supporting the ones doing more of the offensive side, but I didn't actually start out there. I started out many, many years ago as a non-technical person and I moved into an it management and then later network management system administration, offensive security, defensive security. And then now I've kind of transitioned and set, I guess my footing I'm quite happy in the defensive side. Not that there's anything wrong with the offensive, but this is where I'm comfortable.

Chris:
Awesome. So I had a little bit of an opposite journey. I started out very technical as a network engineer on the CLI building out router and switch configs and, and building networks and internet service providers, and have slowly transitioned to less and less technical jobs or at least higher level jobs. Moved into management and more into entrepreneurship. And so a lot of what I do is on, you know, technology strategy and actual product marketing and, and talking about technology and helping to convey the messages of technology to other folks. So with that out of the way, Zoe, why are we here? Why did we, uh, start the imposter syndrome network and this podcast? And, uh, what do you hope to get out? 

Zoë:
Yeah. I mean, as I said, I originally started as a non-technical person. My career goal was to be the person that I needed 10 years ago. And so going into a highly technical industry is bloody scary. And when I started out, I had no confidence. I, I felt like I didn't belong. And I realized through my career that a lot of people start out in that place. And even ones that, like you said, started out technical, even they struggle and want that external validation sometimes. And I think the goal for me with this podcast is to understand different careers because going into this industry, you also don't know what's available. And, you know, we talk a lot about the sexy hackers and that, but actually there's so much more to it that I find even more attractive. And so that's one is understanding different career paths, different types of careers, but also understanding that even though the person on the other side looks so bloody confident and has everything put together, They struggle with imposter syndrome too. They struggle with confidence. I'm X amount of years into my career. And I run into situations where I'm struggling with my confidence and my. Do I actually belong? Am I good enough? And so I want to kind of demystify that to the users and make them feel worth listeners and make them feel actually you don't have to have it all together to be bloody brilliant.

Chris:
Yeah. That resonates a lot. And, and I think you're right, you know, for me, starting out in a very technical role, uh, I was never technical enough, right. There was always something more to learn. There was always somebody who knew something more, there was always a task that I had to do that I didn't quite know how to do, or even if I knew how to do. There was no way to be sure I was doing it right. And so I think imposter syndrome has been a huge part of, of my life and my career throughout the last 20 years or so. And then moving into less technical roles, right. Moving into management and moving into kind of more marketing and, and those kind of roles and is gut wrenching, I think for technical person to kind of let that go, right? And so moving away from being on the CLI every day definitely was giving up part of my identity. And so that's been a struggle of imposter syndrome as well. And, and yeah, definitely to your point, right? There's all these different roles out there, different ways to be technical, different ways to support technology. And hopefully make the world a better place. 

Chris:
So yeah, this podcast is happening. We have, uh, a LinkedIn group, we'll put a link in the show notes. If you wanna join the community for real time discussions about career advice, mentoring, you know, what different jobs different people have been doing and, and liked, or didn't like mistakes people have made. So if you wanna give or get advice, please go join the LinkedIn community and then stay tuned. For, uh, weekly episodes that will start coming out in the next month or so once we hit with episode one, they'll be every week. And, uh, until then we hope that you have a great time.