In this episode, we’re thrilled to feature Glenn Dekhayser, a tech virtuoso whose career spans over 28 years, marked by a relentless pursuit of simplicity in technical solutions for complex business needs.
Glenn takes us back to his roots, where a computer gifted by his mother ignited a lifelong passion for technology, leading him to an early job at Radio Shack. His knack for sales, honed by his experiences as a musician, paved the way for his college years, where he learned the invaluable skill of learning how to learn.
From developing one of the first B2B online sales platforms in the early ‘90s to his audacious leap to Equinix, Glenn’s journey is a narrative of innovation, risk-taking, and the joy of doing what you love. He candidly shares the challenges of feeling like an outsider in the channel, selling others’ products, and the imposter syndrome that accompanied him even as he joined a large company surrounded by brilliant minds.
Tune in to this compelling episode with Glenn Dekhayser, as we explore the power of embracing “I don’t know,” the courage to solve problems without seeking permission, and the personal and professional growth that comes from stepping out of comfort zones.
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“Make sure you know that ‘I don’t know’ are three good words…
The wrong approach to imposter syndrome is to try to make something up.”
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Links:
--
Thanks for being an imposter - a part of the Imposter Syndrome Network (ISN)!
Make it a great day.
In this episode, we’re thrilled to feature Glenn Dekhayser, a tech virtuoso whose career spans over 28 years, marked by a relentless pursuit of simplicity in technical solutions for complex business needs.
Glenn takes us back to his roots, where a computer gifted by his mother ignited a lifelong passion for technology, leading him to an early job at Radio Shack. His knack for sales, honed by his experiences as a musician, paved the way for his college years, where he learned the invaluable skill of learning how to learn.
From developing one of the first B2B online sales platforms in the early ‘90s to his audacious leap to Equinix, Glenn’s journey is a narrative of innovation, risk-taking, and the joy of doing what you love. He candidly shares the challenges of feeling like an outsider in the channel, selling others’ products, and the imposter syndrome that accompanied him even as he joined a large company surrounded by brilliant minds.
Tune in to this compelling episode with Glenn Dekhayser, as we explore the power of embracing “I don’t know,” the courage to solve problems without seeking permission, and the personal and professional growth that comes from stepping out of comfort zones.
-
“Make sure you know that ‘I don’t know’ are three good words…
The wrong approach to imposter syndrome is to try to make something up.”
-
Links:
--
Thanks for being an imposter - a part of the Imposter Syndrome Network (ISN)!
Make it a great day.
Machines made this, mistakes and all...
[00:00:00] Chris: Hello, and welcome to the imposter syndrome network podcast, where everyone belongs, especially if you think you don't. My name is Chris Grundemann, and this is the Glenn Deckhazer episode. Glenn finds great joy in developing comprehensive yet simple technical solutions to complex business requirements and having clients tell him years later that the solutions he recommended still apply to their evolving needs.
[00:00:33] Chris: More concretely, he has been a technical and business process consultant for over 28 years. With particular expertise in enterprise storage, disaster recovery, holistic data management, and it security is varied background as a developer, DBA network engineer, infrastructure architect, and CTO allow Glenn, not only to understand the need from the client's perspective, but to be able to help the client understand their solution options as well.
[00:01:03] Chris: Hey Glenn, uh, would you like to introduce yourself a bit further to the imposter syndrome network?
[00:01:07] Glenn: Well, sure. Appreciate the, uh, the intro. I've basically been in the industry now for long enough where, uh, I've built in a nice network of, of folks that I've learned from and have been able to, to, uh, kind of take their experiences, make them my own and to, uh, build a nice career out of it.
[00:01:24] Glenn: Today. Um, I am a global principal at Equinix, which is, everybody knows who Equinix is. We're kind of the, we're the center. I like to say we're the, the tip of Mount Everest of the, uh, IT world. We get to see what else everything else is going on, uh, around us through all the vendors and stuff like that.
[00:01:40] Glenn: It's an amazing perspective. And there I get to work on things like storage strategy. I get to consult with our, uh, our channel group and I get to work with a lot of very, very, very smart people. And that's a lot of fun.
[00:01:54] Chris: Awesome. Awesome. That's great. I really liked that, that idea of kind of the, the top of the mountain view of, of everything else.
[00:01:59] Chris: I hadn't thought about it that way before, but definitely you are in kind of that, that kind of a, yeah, central kind of high location where you see a lot of what's going on, right. Cause people are bringing this stuff in. Into your facilities and you're, you're using a lot of it yourselves and that kind of thing.
[00:02:10] Chris: That's, that's interesting. Yeah.
[00:02:12] Glenn: Yeah. Well, we get to see what all the customers are doing. We get to see what all the vendors are doing across whether it's storage or compute or whether it's a, you know, a network and security. So, and we also get to, to work with both those vendors and, and, and the customers to try to create the better experiences.
[00:02:26] Glenn: So, and Equinix is kind of a neutral Place where all that happens. Um, it's built into our, into our name and kind of our credo. So we don't play favorites really. So we, we work with everybody and that's why, you know, we're as successful as we are in the marketplace. So, uh, of course I, I, I, I'm here now three years, so I have a very little to take credit for this.
[00:02:47] Glenn: And a lot of it was done before I got here, but it was. One of the reasons I wanted to come to Equinix was, uh, was that positioning and the perspective that I knew I didn't have from doing what I was doing before in the channel, in the storage world. I knew that there was, there were things that I was missing and that the vendors quite frankly were missing.
[00:03:02] Glenn: I'm talking about things like my hybrid multicloud and things like that. So had I known then what I know now about things like interconnection and And, and the locality of things like storage and compute, I would have definitely changed a lot of my architectures. So, and I thought I knew what I was doing back then.
[00:03:17] Glenn: And so there's always more to learn and there's always a perspective that you don't have. And now what I try to do is I try to help others who are in my former situation to, to understand, Hey, you're missing something. Here's what you're missing. Now go take that, put it on, you know, with what you already know.
[00:03:34] Glenn: And now you've got, you know, a better picture, what you're trying to do.
[00:03:37] Chris: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And those blind spots are really interesting. And kind of, like you said, the, the, the way you frame things and the perspectives of things based on, you know, where you've been in your life and in your career is a very interesting.
[00:03:47] Chris: I remember really early on when I first started getting deep, I've mostly been on the customer side of things, right? When I first really got deep into, I guess, a high enough level position where they were sending me to the vendors to go, you know, to the, um, the demos and that kind of stuff. One of the things I found interesting, somebody, I forget who it was.
[00:04:04] Chris: Might've been Mike Bouchon at Juniper, but somebody was kind of talking about this kind of flow that happened, at least back then, I don't know if it's still going on as much, but between kind of the vendors and the service providers, where a lot of the brain trust of the service provider industry would kind of migrate into some of the vendors.
[00:04:20] Chris: And create a new protocol and kind of develop it into the hardware and software and things. And then once that job was done, they kind of would actually kind of migrate out to the service writers and go deploy that technology. And then once that had kind of reached its limit, you know, some of these folks would kind of come back to vendors and create the next thing and back and forth.
[00:04:37] Chris: Not exactly what you said there, but kind of interesting. Um, anyway, I I'm interested, you know, with Equinix kind of being, at least for now, the pinnacle of your career, where it started, right. And kind of how and why did you get in technology at all? Where did that tech bug bite you?
[00:04:51] Glenn: Well, it bit me early when my mom bought me a Vic 20 for, uh, uh, a Christmas present one year.
[00:04:57] Glenn: Hanukkah present at the time. So, uh, and outgrew that in about a week and she had to return it and get a 64 Commador 64 instead. And that kind of got me on the bug and developing little basic programs and gotten a little assembly. And then, um, just kind of, that kind of grew with time. Then once college came around, uh, I got a job at Radio Shack actually selling Tandy computers, uh, got into that a little bit, did that really well, uh, found out that, uh, I, it's sales or something I was actually not bad at.
[00:05:27] Glenn: You don't really know that. And one thing that you may not know about me, uh, as I'm a musician, you got some stuff behind me. So performing on stage. It was something that I'd gotten something used to and there's, uh, it makes sales a lot easier. You just, it just allows you to talk to people and, and you're not really afraid of it.
[00:05:43] Glenn: Then I got into, you know, I did really well, well, you know, the radio shack stuff. And then, uh, once I got out of college with a political science and economics degree, it had nothing to do with computer science. It's the computer science program where I was. Uh, kind of a weed out program. And, um, I just, uh, you know, for many reasons, I just wasn't ready for it.
[00:06:00] Glenn: And so, but I did learn how to learn. That was the other thing that college I think is the, is the best thing for. And from there, um, I just, uh, I got my first job at a white box manufacturer, white box retailer that, you know, did their own white box PCs and it was getting this, uh, in Morristown, New Jersey actually, and did that for a little bit.
[00:06:18] Glenn: And one of our customers at the time stole me, that's the best way to put it. They stole me. Uh, they were, they were getting into the white box business themselves. Uh, they were B2B instead of just a B2C company. So I got, once you get into the B2B world, uh, that's really, in my opinion, you don't really, that's where the, the regular salary starts to get to be better than the B2C world.
[00:06:37] Glenn: Anytime you're selling to somebody and you're taking their money out of their pocket, it's tough. So once I got into that company, uh, the company's name was prison business products at the time, but they were just getting into it and they were a company that did a lot of like printing forms and computer supplies and stuff like that.
[00:06:53] Glenn: And I had a couple of contracts. And I got into that as their kind of computer guy in, in their customer service department. And I remember, I think I was making like 21, 000 a year. This is like 93. And so this is like pretty cool. And I was having a ball. It was a long commute for me. I mean, everything in Jersey is a long commute, let's face it.
[00:07:12] Glenn: So did that and actually stated a version of that company for. More or less 25 years, it went through name changes, identity changes, bankruptcies, splits, sister companies, and then an acquisition, but pretty much, you know, three years after I joined that first company, I was running the customer service department I was hired into, and what I had done in 94, not little, like between 94 five.
[00:07:38] Glenn: Is I had written a website, a B2B website for one of our customers at the time it was bell core. So if you remember bell communications research, they were, uh, uh, the, they were the, the baby bells, bell labs, right? That they, they owned ISDN, they owned DSL. And so I wrote a website for them. We get the floppy disks from the distributors like Ingram micro and tech day and tech data and Maricel at the time.
[00:08:03] Glenn: And they've never long around. And, uh, I developed a website that they could order, do searches of, order and, and it would send the orders automated to our customer service who'd make the, place the order and get the things to them. And we think it was the first B2B website, at least in Jersey back in 94, 95, it was early, right?
[00:08:20] Glenn: In the internet. And they were kind of reluctant to do it, but it kind of propelled me on a path where I just did it. Didn't ask permission. I just did it. Said, look what I can do. My boss actually said, stop wasting your time on this thing. I'm done. And if you saw anybody trying to use the tool I'd made, he'd like, he'd yell at him and make him these, you install it.
[00:08:37] Glenn: And anyway, long story short, that's how I actually took over the customer service department because the president of the company saw it and fired that guy because he was getting it. My shirt.
[00:08:45] Chris: Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome.
[00:08:46] Glenn: Yeah. It was, uh, it was, it was kind of fun. So that was kind of the first sign that, okay, look, don't, don't, don't.
[00:08:51] Glenn: Just do what you think is right, you know, do the job that you want to do or that, you know, that you think you should be doing as long as you're doing your own job too, by the way, you can't just forget your job. But if you do the job that you think is the, is where you think your job is headed and to make, you know, to make yourself obsolete or just to make it a lot more efficient, um, good things will happen.
[00:09:11] Glenn: If not there, then somewhere else. Yeah. I just didn't. I didn't ask for permission. I just did it. And it was fun, quite frankly, that was the thing is do what make, you know, get you going. Cause if you're not doing to get you going, that's what are you doing? Right?
[00:09:23] Chris: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that, that definitely helps everything, right?
[00:09:26] Chris: So to enjoy what you're doing or at least want to do it. That's kind of what I look for in interviews more than anything else is like, you know, from my perspective, does this person seem to want to do the job that I actually need done? That to me is one of the biggest success factors over experience and knowledge and a lot of other things, because people, if they really want to do something, they'll figure it out.
[00:09:44] Chris: Right. And a lot of cases.
[00:09:46] Glenn: Yeah. I never understood people who like took jobs or, or, or pathways that didn't, you know, get them going. It didn't get their passion up. Right. Because I can't, I, and you, you can ask anybody that I work with. That's one thing I am definitely passionate about whatever I do. Right.
[00:10:02] Glenn: If I, if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. Right. I'm not going to, I'm not going to like, you know, Um, half, you know what it, so, and, and over the years, you know, some people respond really well to that and they, and, you know, they'll, they'll be inspired by it. They'll, you know, they'll do it themselves and others are actually not happy with it at all.
[00:10:18] Glenn: Right. Uh, cause they, you know, they, they think you're trying to show them up, which I'm not, I really, it's not about them. Right. But, and for a while I was kind of worried about that. It's like, and I would go and. You know, I would maybe hold back or I would just, you know, uh, I don't, I don't want to make them mad or whatever.
[00:10:33] Glenn: And after a while, I'm just like, you know what, that doesn't make any sense. It's their problem, not my problem. Right. Right. So I'm just going to do. And again, if the, if the organization doesn't support you. That you're in for being like that, you're in the wrong place. Right. So, so far knock on wood, it hasn't, you know, it's, it's always worked out positively for me personally and never negatively for anybody else.
[00:10:54] Glenn: That's important. It's not good. You don't want to like climb over someone else, push someone else down. That's not, that's, that's, that's not the way to do it.
[00:11:01] Chris: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:11:01] Glenn: But I'm always looking for, for ways to like make. the environment better to come out with the better outcomes. And it's like I said, it's always worked out for me in all the different versions of what we have done.
[00:11:12] Glenn: Like the, even when things like really bad, I mean, you know, I told you to do not that company I was with for a very long time. We, we did a, uh, what's actually called a liquidation out of bankruptcy. We shut the doors and abandoned all the stuff. That's basically what we did. We paid off the bank and they were happy.
[00:11:26] Glenn: And then when we did, um, we stuck the distributors for some money, but they didn't really care because other companies at that time, this is like around just after the. com bust. They were getting stuck with hundreds of millions of dollars. We weren't even close to that. So they were like, ah, I'd leave you, leave you guys alone.
[00:11:40] Glenn: But you know, we, we shrunk down to like a fraction of the, of our size of the company, and we kind of discovered at the time that there were customers that were starting to put these Sam spam assassin boxes on Linux in custom, you know, on their sites, but they were impossible to manage. This is like around 2002, right?
[00:11:55] Glenn: When spam was just become coming a problem. And so again, again, what we did was say, well, let's solve that problem. So I wrote some. You know, I wrote this, uh, this kind of business application and then the front end to it with, you know, some other teammates of mine managing the back end stuff. And I was interfacing with that and we wrote this solution called content catcher, which was a kind of like a message labs posting the type of solution MX logic.
[00:12:19] Glenn: None of these tools exist anymore, by the way, it's all like proof point. I think it's the only one left. And so, uh, but a lot of the things that we did in that solution, you'll see in Proofpoint a lot. They, they, they subsumed a lot of that functionality. But we, we had a blast doing that for a while. Like, um, we were, you know, we had at some point almost half a million mailboxes coming at that solution.
[00:12:40] Glenn: And that was like in two or three years we'd taken right outta bankruptcy. But again, it just comes to like. There's a problem. All right. Well, let's go solve that problem. Let's see. What will they pay for it? And then pick up a couple of customers. And then we had the John Kerry for president campaign on it.
[00:12:54] Glenn: I like to make the joke. We actually had Hillary's email and that thing, but, uh, it was, it was a fun time. Um, and, and, but it was like, again, it was like everybody benefited. When you're trying to do the right thing, you know, we, we were able to take a, you know, we were all taking pay cuts and then this thing pulled the company out of, out of the sewer.
[00:13:10] Glenn: And then it allowed, it allowed me personally to kind of, once that thing was going to get back into the, the kind of the data center infrastructure stuff that I really enterprise storage and the data management stuff and build a business on top of that. Cause that was kind of our cash, you know, that was, that was paying for the business and now I can go grow this other thing.
[00:13:26] Glenn: Um, and then that's when I started really, you know, I'll say achieving success in the business.
[00:13:32] Chris: Awesome. So through all of that, right. I mean, what would you say is the greatest achievement of your career so far?
[00:13:38] Glenn: I'll say, well, the, the greatest achievement is, is, is I'll say, Equinix. That was, and when I say this, why is that an achievement?
[00:13:48] Glenn: Because I had stated that other company for 25 years, And so I missed a lot of parties. I did well, but I mean, I'm not going to complain. You know, I missed a lot of parties. A lot of guys, you know, went to, you know, at the time when, you know, when EMC, everybody's making a boatload over there. And, you know, even in the nineties, the whole sun microsystems thing, when people were killing it there.
[00:14:08] Glenn: And, and I was in, I was kind of peripheral to all that world for a very, very long time. Everybody kind of, I worked with all these people, but I wasn't, I was, uh, As, as a partner, you know, running a partner at that point, it, it, it was a different world, right? You were, you were never quite in the family, right?
[00:14:24] Glenn: And so the, you know, finally making the decision, it was time to get out of that channel was the biggest achievement because I was so comfortable there. So I think the biggest achievement I ever, that I can claim from personally was getting myself uncomfortable and putting myself in a situation that I'd never been in, in a huge company.
[00:14:42] Glenn: Right. Coming in and kind of proving myself from ground zero again. And then, so that's, you know, at, when you're at a later stage in your career, that's scary, but to be able to actually take that risk and do it, I consider myself somewhat successful at it. I mean, uh, I love where I am. I love my teammates and it's definitely a great place to be.
[00:15:01] Glenn: And, and, uh, there were doubters who said, Oh, you'll never make it in a big company. I've had like my old bosses were telling me that like, Oh, you'd never make it in a big company. You're too aggressive. You're too, you know, too passionate. They'll eat you up. They're wrong.
[00:15:14] Chris: Yeah. Awesome. Definitely wrong. Good.
[00:15:16] Chris: It's always fun to prove people wrong in that way anyway.
[00:15:18] Glenn: My best thing, best way to motivate me is by telling me I can't do something.
[00:15:22] Chris: Yeah. It happens to me too. I remember actually there was a time I wrestled through my, my whole younger life. I'm from pretty young in clubs all the way through high school.
[00:15:30] Chris: And I, Uh, we were at a, um, a duel, right? Two high schools kind of wrestling against each other. And, uh, one of the wrestling managers let the, um, the coaches kind of crib sheet slip, and I saw that he had me down as a, as a loss. And, uh, I remember just being so ticked off that, you know, I went out there and, and, and I got the win, uh, which I probably never would have gotten if I had not seen the sheet, you know, saying that I was going to lose.
[00:15:53] Chris: He was probably right. If I hadn't seen it, maybe he wanted you to sit. Yeah, maybe, maybe it was not, it was an intentional slip. Who knows? So on the flip side of those kind of, you know, the, the achievements you had kind of in, in that one job for such a long time, as well as kind of taking the leap, coming to Equinox, coming to a big company and kind of starting over in some ways, along the path of kind of blazing this trail and doing what you thought was right and seeing problems and solving them and not asking for permission in that.
[00:16:18] Chris: Is there ever a time where. Where you didn't feel like you were, I don't know, good enough. I mean, did you ever feel like an imposter to, to take the name of the, the show,
[00:16:25] Glenn: my entire time in a channel? I mean, so the, the thing is about the channel is that you have to somehow win with no leverage. You have zero leverage when you are in the channel, because customers can buy from anybody.
[00:16:42] Glenn: Vendors can sell through anybody. So you, you have no ability to, you know, you have to, You have to show somehow that you are worthy of being that customer's vendor, as well as being that vendor's partner. It's a very, very tricky situation to be in. And there's always someone, you never have access to the real information.
[00:17:05] Glenn: Like I worked with, uh, with net app, but I was a big net app bar for a long time. And while I knew everybody at net app, they knew things about what was going on that I did. Now I knew what I knew and, you know, and I had to prove to the customer that my value of being that net app partner was, was high.
[00:17:22] Glenn: But I never, you know, I was always on the outside of like where these, I'll call it the parties we're, we're, we're heading now. I know it wasn't always, you know, all rosy over there. Right. But the part, I would say like being someone coming from the partner world is, is you are the perfect example of the imposter.
[00:17:41] Glenn: All right. So, you know, you're selling someone else's stuff, not yours. And you're going to integrate it and do something wonderful. Okay. Well, now you got to go and do something wonderful after you close that deal. So you, you have to go and deliver on all the things you just promised. And sometimes you're not quite sure that maybe I oversold this a little bit.
[00:17:59] Glenn: Right. So you want that deal. So there's a lot of imposter syndrome in the channel. And then you get to the large company, you make that big leap. And then I really dealt with the imposter. It's like, Oh my, there's a lot of these brilliant, smart people around here. And you know, am I really worthy about being around all these people?
[00:18:17] Glenn: It's, it's, uh, and the answer is you'll learn. The funny thing is if you're passionate about what you do and you put yourself out there, the more you do that, that imposter syndrome goes away. I no longer feel that way. Even with the smartest people in the company, I know there are smarter people than me and that's good.
[00:18:32] Glenn: I want those people around me because I'm gonna learn from them, right? So, but I don't feel like I'm an imposter around them because the culture is very much a let me bring you into this at this company. I know not all companies are like that. It's one of the things I love about Equinix in general. The culture is unbeatable and that kind of inclusion is If, if you want to help solve a problem, you're all, I have not gotten the word no, since I've been here.
[00:18:56] Glenn: If I've ever asked to be included in something that I, it's in my world, I do storage channel stuff, right? I've never gotten the word, no, no, you don't stay out of this. This is not for, for your ears. That's never happened. And, and, and that I know that's not, that's not typical of a lot of companies. And that was even before I was, you know, I'm now a global principal is my title.
[00:19:16] Glenn: We don't have field CTOs. And Equinix per se, but even before I was in that position, I was, uh, you know, I was a systems architect. They, it was the same thing. They didn't really care. They, if you were, if you have passion, you have an ability to solve a problem, they'll see it. They'll, they'll use it. And, and so I credit Equinix a lot with being able to counter that imposter syndrome.
[00:19:34] Glenn: Right. And so, and I, but I know that there are other places that they may not be true, right. Where they, it's very much, Hey, stay in your swim lane. You do what you do. I'll do what I do. Right. And, and I think in that kind of a place, I wouldn't work as well and, and, and I can understand why people would, would suffer that insecurity.
[00:19:53] Glenn: I don't think that's a good management style.
[00:19:55] Chris: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. No. And as we talked about earlier, right. I think from an individual perspective, right, following my passion is where you're going to get my best work, my, the most energy from me, you know, all those things. And so, you know, flipping that over from an organizational perspective, it seems to be the logical choice, the right choice to help foster people's passion and let them go the path they want to go down.
[00:20:15] Chris: As much as you can. I guess there's always some kind of constraints, but it just seems like better, better management. Yeah, for sure.
[00:20:20] Glenn: Yeah. I, I look and we all know everybody's got it, right, imposter. Everybody feels that way once you it, it takes a while. I mean, pe I think everybody needs to be trained that everybody feels that way.
[00:20:29] Glenn: If, if everyone's trained that way, then it, it goes away. Right. Just to, to a large extent. And I didn't really learn that till a couple years before I came here. Hey, you know, for the most part, even the smartest people in the world are faking it to a point.
[00:20:43] Chris: Absolutely. Look, in my opinion anyway, if you're not.
[00:20:45] Chris: You're not growing. I think there, there's some level of like, the only way to actually do something new is to do something new, which means you're doing something you've never done before, which means you're faking it, at least in some way. Right? I mean, no matter how much preparation you've had, there's always the first time, right?
[00:20:59] Chris: Which is a little bit of, you know, it's new territory.
[00:21:02] Glenn: Yeah. The trick about imposter syndrome getting over is making sure. That you understand that I don't know are three good words, right? And if what people do wrong, the wrong response to imposter syndrome is not doing that is by saying something that it's going to, you know, you get over your skis and you say something wrong or, or, you know, that's when you're, that's when you're gonna get exposed.
[00:21:26] Glenn: You're only going to get exposed if you try to. If you try to, um, you know, say something you don't know is true, if, if you're, you know, or make, try to make something up to sound smart, that's a bad idea. Right. But, and they've been, I've, I've run into some of those guys and coach them, but you know, I don't know.
[00:21:39] Glenn: I think it's one of the most mature things someone, if someone says, I don't know, or I don't know, I'm going to find out if it's, if it's on a customer side, right. That you always got to do, but if you're even internally at a work and working, I don't know, you know, does anybody know this and not, and can you help me here?
[00:21:51] Glenn: Or I get someone point me to something. I can, you know, I'll go look at it. And I'll go research that and I'll, I'll be ready for that next time. That's like, you're a hero in my book. You do that, right? Cause that's, that's adding value and that's all anybody wants.
[00:22:03] Chris: Absolutely. I completely agree with that.
[00:22:05] Chris: Yeah. I was lucky enough to have a, uh, a boss really early on who kind of hammered that home to me. Cause, cause I think, especially for, at least for me, and I think I've, I've heard this from other technologists, other engineers and stuff, you know, those of us who kind of, you know, At least early in my career, right?
[00:22:18] Chris: A lot of my self value was based on the work I could do and the intelligence that I had. And so saying, I don't know, it was like, uh, almost antithetical to that in some ways. Right. So it was really hard for a long time to be able to say that. Uh, but I had a boss who was, uh, just didn't take, you know, uh, a baloney answer for anything and really kind of harped it in it.
[00:22:38] Chris: You know, if you don't know, say, you don't know, go figure it out, come back and tell me. And that's the other piece too, is coming back.
[00:22:43] Glenn: Yeah. Well, what I learned later is that people don't care at all how smart you are. They care what you can do for them. And so if you were originally basing your whole thing on how intelligent you are, that's missing the boat.
[00:22:54] Glenn: They don't care about if you, if you try to, you know, if it's totally based on how smart you are and then you, then sure, you're going to say, I don't know, he's going to be a pejorative term. Saying, I don't know, and I'll go find out, you're still adding the value and that's what they care about. They only care about the value.
[00:23:09] Glenn: So, you know, that, that's the trick. And, and it takes, it takes some maturity to learn that. And, and when you've been told you're like, there's a lot of kids have grown up, right? They're brilliant. And they get told they're smart throughout their whole school. They breeze through school and. You know, and then they get to the real world and they realize, you know, nobody cares how smart you are, man.
[00:23:28] Glenn: It was, yeah. Everybody was praising you, how smart you are as a kid, but nobody cares. It's like, uh, what value bring it?
[00:23:35] Chris: Absolutely. I like that a lot. Well, um, we are just about out of time already, Glenn. This has gone, uh, lightning fast. Uh, there's tons more stuff I want to talk to you about, but, uh, for now, is there anything That we either have talked about or haven't talked about any, any causes or projects you'd like to highlight for the network here that might be listening.
[00:23:53] Glenn: You know, just, I personally don't do a lot of the, the, the projects. I, I tend to get all into all everything that I'm doing, but, um, I'll say my hobby that I do, the, the music stuff that I, that I'm into is, is it, that keeps me sane, what I do like to do is. Like online charity gigs. So if you go to YouTube, you'll see, you have to search for it, but I've done shows for charity online.
[00:24:19] Glenn: Oh, cool. Yeah. Started during COVID. It's kind of like a tiny desk deals. Yeah, so I, I would do that and, and, and collect money for like food banks or whatever that specific need was. I've done it for the American Diabetes, uh, Association, uh, what is it, um, I think it's what it is. That sounds right. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:24:34] Glenn: And, um, other people have set up the, like the, the charity portion. I just play and they'll, they'll do the things, uh, St. Baldrick's I've done it for St. Baldrick's.
[00:24:42] Chris: Okay. Yeah.
[00:24:42] Glenn: So, uh, uh, yeah. So that, you know, it's not a particular thing. I just like to do it for, to again, help out whoever needs help. Yeah. So I don't, I don't pick a specific one.
[00:24:50] Chris: No, that's great. Being able to, uh, kind of take another one of your passions, right. And, and apply it in a, in a way that helps solve some problems. That's, that's awesome. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us, uh, with the imposter syndrome network and thank you. To all of our listeners for your time, your attention, and your support.
[00:25:05] Chris: If you found this episode insightful or interesting, or even just entertaining, please consider paying it forward by letting others know about this show and the great guests we have on. Before we shut the mics down here, Glenn, I am curious. If you could roll back time or open that interventional time portal that I sometimes talk about and, and, and whisper something to your younger self right before you were starting kind of your, your career, what advice would you have for, for younger Glenn
[00:25:30] Glenn: advice for younger Glenn, focus on the academics in college a little bit more.
[00:25:34] Glenn: That's what I would have done. I would, cause that was a time with no responsibilities and you have the chance just to. Get your brain stuffed with experience and, and, and knowledge and, uh, and sure you can have fun, but, you know, you're there for a reason. Learn how to learn.
[00:25:49] Chris: Yeah. Yeah. I like that a lot.
[00:25:51] Chris: Yeah. And that, that comes up to me a lot too. I mean, with, with, with my kids and kind of seeing them and thinking back to my past and things and just, You know, I look back at, you know, eventually you get loaded up with responsibilities, right? Um, and in various, various different ways through life. And, and so there is this freedom to be able to, to go learn, to take risks, do some things when you're younger that, uh, you don't realize when they're, when they're there.
[00:26:10] Glenn: Yeah. The only responsibility you have is to yourself at that point, right? And so don't squander that because it ain't coming back.
[00:26:18] Chris: Definitely not. Excellent. Well, thanks Glenn. This has been a lot of fun and we will be back next week.