Detailed Notes
In a recent episode of the Building Better Habits podcast, hosts Rob Broadhead and Michael Meloche tackled the important topic of managing anxiety and stress, especially in high-pressure work environments. This episode explores practical strategies for identifying, understanding, and managing anxiety and stress through effective habit-building. Here’s a summary of their insightful discussion.
Read more... https://develpreneur.com/managing-anxiety-and-stress-insights-and-strategies-for-daily-life/
*The Weekly Challenge: Build Gratitude into Your Day*
To help listeners take actionable steps, Rob concludes the episode with a challenge: Start each morning by listing three things you’re grateful for. This habit not only helps in managing anxiety and stress but also fosters a mindset of gratitude and positivity. Over time, it builds resilience and allows you to tackle challenges with a clearer head.
*Stay Connected: Join the Develpreneur Community*
We invite you to join our community and share your coding journey with us. Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just starting, there’s always room to learn and grow together. Contact us at [email protected] with your questions, feedback, or suggestions for future episodes. Together, let’s continue exploring the exciting world of software development.
*Additional Resources*
* Navigating Communication Tools in Modern Workplaces (https://develpreneur.com/navigating-communication-tools-in-modern-workplaces/) * Why it's counterproductive to lose sleep over a project or deadline (https://develpreneur.com/dont-lose-sleep/) * Eating the Frog and Reducing Stress (https://develpreneur.com/eating-the-frog-and-reducing-stress/) * Assumptions and Patience – Reducing Stress in Your Life (https://develpreneur.com/assumptions-and-patience-reducing-stress-in-your-life/)
*Follow-us on:*
* https://develpreneur.com/ * https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZOuFN_LhczvGyT2KSItH_g/featured * https://facebook.com/Develpreneur * https://twitter.com/develpreneur * http://linkedin.com/develpreneur
Transcript Text
[Music] and I hit record because we were about to have some brilliant stuff and by that I mean Michael was about to say a couple of brilliant things well I throw a little bit of food in my mouth because I found snacks left over from Christmas so so we're bouncing some ideas around about dealing with anxiety and how to work that into a habit and I I think it's a good habit um or a good what a good habit episode because not all first we have to like identify the problem you know what is anxiety you know what are some of the triggers of it and then uh I think the Habit building process is essentially us kind of walking through ways where we basically how anxiety affects us when you know how do we identify that we're essentially being triggered by anxiety or what are the triggers and then uh kind of some of our Solutions or things we do to deal with it and then uh The Habit uh or the challenge essentially will be you know take a look at at your current situation look at some of your anxiety driving factors and then give them some tasks to kind of walk through like how to identify them maybe some tips to walk through it and spend a week or so analyzing what they do every day and maybe see what's not so much stress but what is actually anxiety because there is a little bit of difference between the two that makes a lot of sense I like that so that's a good one um just going to see I don't think we had anything else in our list of some cool things to do uh let's see what else may throw another one I idea or we can wait and go through this one and then figure out what our next one's gonna be I'm looking at the that jumps out focus we did that yeah let's do this one first cuz this might trigger some ideas for the next one CU I almost since these will go out at the like the same week it would be really good if we can find something that kind of pairs well with this so let's go through this one and then kind of have a small discussion as to what might be a good pairing to go with this yeah this may be something that we yeah be a good one because we may stumble into something here that goes right into hey here's a followup uh let's see so anxiety good bad I got to think of something on the challenges I got to think through I got 30 seconds or so before I get there so I'll figure something out on how I've been doing in the challenges L later well hello and welcome back we are continuing our season of building better habits we are building better developers we are developing or podcast a matter of fact so if that's what you're looking for you came to the right place I am Rob Brad I'm one of the founders of developing nor and I happen to also be a founder of r Rec consulting or we are we're the guys that you come to the guys the gals the peeps that you come to when you have got technology issues you've got that technology sprawl you don't really know how to handle what's out there and how is that going to how does that apply to you and your organization that's what we do is we help you maybe build your team enhance your team but also a focus on products and services that are out there that you can Embrace and do so in a way that allows you to leverage technology to to do your job better to make your company better more profitable and all of those things that we want to have so that technology works for you instead of that thing that you cuss at as soon as it turns its back on you good things bad things uh this was I have a lot of these lately but the good and the bad I start I guess it's the bad thing is I went to a a show a musical this weekend and I'm not going to say what it is but if you ever see it you'll know it sucked I'm just going to like cut to the chase that is a bad thing the good thing is is that we got to the intermission my wife looked over and was like I would be more than happy if we walked out right now and I was like that's why I married you actually there's other reasons but that was a good thing we talked about it we hmed and hawed a little bit we're like do we really want to I don't know and we made the right decision as we were walking out she was listening to the the opening song for the next SEC the next ACT and she's like yeah we made the right decision so that was a good thing is we didn't waste another hour and a half of our time with the show that we really didn't need to hear and we had better things to do as far as challenges are concerned the um love the Pomodoro I'm I'm just going to keep like beating that drum because doing just a couple of those has been really effective I do want to go into the I want to also say that the do the thing you like is really one of those things has been a great way to start the year with all of the changes and resolutions and all the stuff that comes with it I have very I have done very good at 15 minutes a day I've got my little thing that I do that's like this is really it has value it's a side hustle kind of thing but it is it is really for fun it is the kind of thing that like really you know energizes me and it has been a great way to start my day because I normally do it during the day I think I had one day I missed so I was so happy the next day that I took 30 minutes and did two days worth of it basically and caught up as we would say so I highly recommend find something that you enjoy doing and work that into your day particular if it's something you haven't you're just too busy to do on a normal basis even a few minutes a day you'd be amazed at what the the difference is I'm not going to give them a whole 15 minutes but a shorter period of time because you guys would just have too much fun listening to him let Mike introduce himself hey everyone my name is Mike malash I'm one of the co-founders of developer building better developers I'm also the founder of Invision QA where we essentially bring test driven development to software development and businesses we help small to midsize businesses clinicians nurses essentially look at the software that you're working with and help you identify problems with your software or your processes around your software because sometimes the cookie cutter software you buy off the shelf does not work for you and sometimes you find that you are spending more time working for your software than having your software work for you and that's where we come in we help you analyze that and we help you come up with a solution to make your lives better and make the software work for you not the other way around good and bad uh good finally we got snow I love snow that's the good part bad part I got Cabin Fever really bad couldn't get out of the house for a few days and actually could barely get out with the dogs and let them run around uh even though Lea are uh blue healer loves to play in the snow it froze overnight and then the next day she's trying to step and crunch and play with the snow and it's solid ice so it was uh that was kind of the bad thing so we had to keep her kind of calm for the next day or two so her uh hip would kind of heal uh habits so this has actually been kind of an interesting week for me so one of the projects I've been working on uh we've kind of been dumped into a new project uh set with one of the projects I'm working on and we're dealing with a legacy application that a couple different uh teams are working on it but no one has really stood this thing up in a long time and the directions are kind of all over the place so we've been spending probably a couple weeks reading through documentation trying to figure this thing out and we finally figured out how to make it work so I've been spending a lot of time improving my coding skills figuring out how to break things down so I've taken a lot of the different habits that we've talked about for these things and really kind of just spending a lot of time ramping up skills on things that I haven't touched in forever and there's uh some new technologies well I don't want to say new but technologies that are new to me but have actually been sunsetted since 2013 that this application still uses but I it's like okay okay you're using Hornet Q I'm used to active mq it's like uh okay similar message queuing but I'm dealing with a product that is basically end of life and there basically all you have are message boards there's no support so it it's been fun so that's the kind of week I've been having well that's actually a good little segue into our topic this time this time around we want to want to settle back a little bit get our notebook and our a pencil on a notepad and hang out on the couch and talk about anxiety and stress now if you if you spend any time in the the world of like the self-help books and how to get ahead and all of these kinds of things and podcast and all that one of the things you've heard about a lot is impostor syndrome is people that get into this get into a situation they're just like I don't I don't belong here I didn't earn this or something like that this is not where we're where we're going this time around because there's like a there are your fears and stuff like that and then there's your less defined anxiety type fears it's the kinds of stuff that you know when somebody says don't worry and you worry that's more that kind of thing it's like or worry less you're like I can't worry less because now I'm worried that I'm going to worry less and as developers this is a this is a real Challenge and it's I think part of it is there's a machismo or whatever you want to do however you want to talk about it with developers where it's like you know I I didn't sleep for six days and I wrote four billion lines of code and you know dealing with you know my boss said this but we managed to get it across the finish line and all that anyways but there's still I think we brush it off sometimes I think it is very helpful for us becoming better developers is to figure out how to identify these things how they affect us how they impact us and then how we can fight them because it is very much a devastating way to be prod it devastates your productivity it is just in the same lines as burnout and you can think of it as almost them going hand in hand to some extent too is if you go too far and you burn out you know it's like you are totally unproductive and usually burnout occurs at the worst possible time it's like you know your boss is suddenly like said you know everybody's got to work 20 hours a day and no vacations no holidays no weekends for the next three years years and you're burned out at that point it's like well I can't unburn out during this time anxiety and and that kind of stress is the same way and it really is I think that's part of what we want to talk about is the the differentiation between what is stress versus the in the anxiety the you know the technical not just it is stress but the the technical angst kind of thing not the Teen Angst and how we see it and we're going to talk about some habits to maybe address that or or to at least improve that with yourself and I'm going to toss that to Michael first to sort of set the table for this one thanks Rob yeah so one of the things and I'll be upfront about this anxiety is something I personally deal with a lot over the years it's it comes and goes and it's just one of those things that you may be feeling just fine and the next thing you know the sky is falling and it's the weirdest thing um especially in our industry and especially in specific IND Industries as well uh one of the things I've noticed a lot for developers you know yes we get stressed we have deadlines it's like oh you know I'm trying to get something done I've got a bug you know I'm really stressing trying to get it done that's not quite the anxiety we're focusing on here the anxiety we're kind of focusing on here is the type where yeah you you run across that you get across that line but then once you get with the coding you put it away it's still in your mind you're still thinking about or you're thinking about oh you know I got that out there but is that really going to work you know is that going to cause a problem or is the software you're working on unstable so it's like did you fix it enough to keep things running or are you now worried that oh it's going to fall down theor and oh I gotta stay by my phone you kind of get those weird anxiety Twitches where you're constantly waiting for something bad to happen or thinking that the sky is falling when it's not and in particular with software development some of the key areas where this is really important and unfortunately kind of comes with the job is Healthcare you know when you're dealing with Healthcare software especially with like hospitals or even police force or you know public service if the software breaks people's lives potentially could be impacted and so it's kind of an extra layer of stress and anxiety because if the code goes in everything works good but it goes to production and then things go down you just took a hospital down that's you know that's not stress that's you're beyond stress at that point it's like oh my God you know you've got to get it fixed and it's hard sometimes to differentiate between what is stress and what is anxiety and I can be stressed for couple days couple weeks on a project trying to get things done but when you get into that anxiety rule and you you really start to kind of feel bad you start getting like repeating thoughts in your head about oh this is wrong this is all the wha ifs and it's kind of a strange mindset that you end up in where it's like everything is probably working fine around you like today today is no different than yesterday but in your mind it's a dumpster fire everything's wrong but yet nothing's changed but in your mind mind something's changed so you got this level of anxiety that you've got to get out of and sometimes it can be a part of burnout but sometimes it could just be you just have a bad day you just something triggered it and now you're stuck in this mindset and that's kind of where my thoughts are when we start talking about anxiety so with that and this is a this one of those things that there that you can't it's like a disease or something else to some extent where it's like you can only do so much it's like you're not going to be able to like eliminate it and so I think that's where you know when we step into this habit it's not one of these things where it's like you know if you have a habit of grabbing a snack at noon every day that we're going to you know maybe you can find an anti-ab to eliminate it this is more about embracing it a little bit and and finding ways through it and things like that so it's it's one of those things it's like instead of saying all right I've got to get rid of this I've got to stop this it's figure out how to work through it a little bit more and so that in itself should hopefully like alleviate alleviates one's anxiety about the anxiety is I think that's the hardest part is when you get in a situation where it's like all right I I feel it even if you can identify it but if you do that and then you start as Michael said if you start going down the paths of well what could go wrong well now you get to have a whole another list of things that go wrong because you're in the middle of an anxiety attack or something along those lines that you know you're not at your at your best and now you can depending on what your level of this is you know one of the best say my one of my favorites that I've used a lot um goes back to one of the Tim Ferris ones is that basically as you look at stuff and say well what's the worst that can happen and really when you start thinking through that and you you do it in a a rational way you're like well what's the worst that can happen then it can help draw you back a little bit and say okay and it helps with like risk and a lot of other stuff involved as well because then you're like all right well is the worst GNA happen I could die well okay then if you die then I guess the rest of the things don't matter that much well okay then you start ratch it back and the first you know 500 options are and then you die and you're like okay well then I don't have to worry about it because I'm dead but then you start getting into the things where you survive and now it's like what is what does that look like and then starting to think about well is that How likely is that and then maybe part of that is like okay depending on the likelihood then there are certain things you can do to U you know to alleviate the the bad side of whatever it is is to sort of like mitigate your risk and things like that which is what we do all the time and I think that's why we are so susceptible to anxiety and just overthinking things because that is our that is our bread and butter is we sit in our heads a lot we're you know we're working through these problems we're writing this code and yeah we're yelling at the the computer and stuff like that but it's it's really us having arguments in our head so what are some of the things because you said this is something you've worked through for a while that this has been something that's been a part of you know what you've you've struggled with so what are some of maybe the uh the habits or some of the you know maybe some of the tools that you've used to to knock this back a little bit and keep yourself effective yeah so one of the biggest things is figuring out when you're kind of having an episode because there's like I said there's stress and there's anxiety they they are kind of hand in hand but one is a lot worse than the other and what I find is if I start getting into those what ifs like I'm constantly like what if this or what if that I take a moment and I start writing them down so first I I make a list kind of like Rob said you know the Tim Ferris model you know you figure out what's the Worst That Could Happen well you just start writing out you know the what if I just write down what's in my head and then the first thing I do is I kind of do a brain dump and I walk away if I can leave it on the paper and if I walk away in about 20 minutes later I'm not as hyperfocused on what's triggering my anxiety great I'm doing well that works sometimes sometimes it doesn't sometimes it still sticks with you so then the other thing you do that I've typically tried next is like I'll pick up a book I'll try to read or I'll listen to some music or an Audi book I don't really try to watch TV because TV is Visual and it's too easy for me to get fidgety and start picking up my iPad and doing other things but if you're listening or you're focused on a book you're kind of focused you have to either really listen or you have to pay attention to what you're looking at TV again yes you can but it it's just too easy to get distracted with the TV sometimes with those um I go about 20 minutes to 30 minutes maybe an hour and I focus on that and then sometimes that works like I'll be fine but then there's other times where I just go through episodes where I'm stuck like for hours trying to get through this and all I can do during those times is just think about okay is the situation I'm in today any different than the situation I was in yesterday I start doing daily Compares and it's like okay nothing has changed the only thing that's really changed is something triggered my thoughts down this path you know something triggered the anxiety for instance I got a piece of news last week through one of the companies I work for we got basically told something that none of us were happy about it was basically we kind of knew it was coming but they didn't tell us it came through the news outlets and now they're SC Ling to try and basically we got a lot of bad news no clear Direction on where the company's going with it how does that impact us but the potential impact and this is where the trigger happens is right now we have some information but we don't have the whole picture and the problem is without having the whole picture there's this gap of what can really impact me and change what's going on and if you think about a lot of situations that's really the trigger you have something that you are either following or something you're doing but there's an unknown between where you're at and where you're trying to get to and that unknown is what triggers this anxiety it it kind of sets you off so the like I was going with this example is so within this situation like Rob said like the tin feros model where you know what are the worst things that could happen well in this particular situation unfortunately that sent me down the wrong path I actually found that I was better off going back to where what the trigger was and going back to the day before because really what happened was yes I was given some information the problem is that information while scary really has no Direction yet basically it's like here we're going to drop a bomb on you but yet we're not going to tell you anything about what's going going on so really why the hell tell me why the hell tell you know why share this information there's no real transparency with it there was no real benefit to sharing this at this time other than to scare the hell out of a lot of people and give them anxiety so it took a probably a day or two of walking back a little bit and looking at okay has anything really changed no that's kind of the first thing to look at has anything really changed in the situation secondly is there anything that triggered the anxiety that is really impacting your quality of life is there anything that is impacting your life right now you know is there anything dangerous coming at you no okay step back again is there any impact to my family to my environment if not okay again walk it back okay no so essentially you kind of get back to kind of the rule of thumb you know what do you need to live you need food water clothing roof over your head if you got those four things and you can kind of walk it back to that where do I have what I need to live then typically if you can get back to that point you're probably fine you probably have walked back the path of the anxiety um but you know if you run into situations where you can't you know that's when you go seek professional help you know you go talk to a doctor and you get help but a lot of times in our situations it really is just changing the mindset change the narrative in your mind and that will set you back on the right path and you know I'm no doctor but I've been dealing with this for over 30 years and it comes and goes you know it's not something I live with daily but it's something that could come at me out of the blue and I could lose a date or two just being stuck now early on in my career in my life when that happened it was very dysfunctional like I kind of shut down but if you work through it and these are some of the challenges I think we can talk through for better habits is as you work your way through this you'll set challenges up you'll set habits up that will get you in a place where you won't shut down you'll be able to work your way through it may not be a quick fix you may not like oh I'm really bad in an hour I'll be fine no you work through it it's not a quick fix you just keep telling yourself I'll be okay things will get better and you know what you there is gold on the other side of the Rainbo that's a happy thought and I think that's where I want to go with this challenge is and this this actually has a lot of of health benefits and mental health benefits and stuff like that but I think it's it really is it's a uh developing an appreciation had habit and an attitude and I think the best way to do this and I've talk to a lot of people over the years that do these kind something similar to this and they all are it's it's lifechanging to them I mean I don't I'm not a doctor or anything like that but this so this is all anecdotal evidence but it also is free you it's just one of those things that it really does help and that is start each day put down a list let's say three things that are going well or that make you happy or that have you know that and usually you may struggle initially but it shouldn't be too hard after a little bit of doing this day in and day out to do to build a list of the three things that every morning start like I am I'm happy that I have this or that I got to do that now when I started out I'm not going to lie if you look back like every third day because was I would have breakfast and stuff like that bacon was one of the things of my three every day just about every other day every third day whatever it was it was like you know I'm really happy that I had like a bacon and egg sandwich or something like that there's going to be seasons of your life where it may be like I was so happy to have a you know some wine and cheese last night or you know or that my team won you know there's just sometimes there very little things it is the fact that maybe it is it's like that I have a hot cup of coffee in front of me in the morning when I start up and then it's the coffee I like and it's not some crappy coffee that I had to get down the road or something like that I mean there's like there's so much that we have to be thankful for and happy about that I think just developing that attitude of gratitude as they say and getting that habit I think will help you quite a bit because it does allow you to when you have those challenges it starts to give you sort of a a track record of yeah I've had that challenge before but it worked out okay and so it it helps maybe give you a little bit more of a shift from when you know as Michael says when they drop the bomb on you but you don't know there's no Direction so you could go it could be really really good or really really bad it'll maybe help your mind drift towards it but it could be really really good I mean it's the stuff like you know you get bad news at work the bad news you could look at it and say I could lose my job and then lose my house and die okay granted I'm going back to and you die but I could lose my job and not die which is possibly even worse so I could lose my job but if that's thing about like I could lose my job and I don't have a paycheck for a long time and you know you can take that down that path but maybe you look at it as I could lose my job but now that you have that positive bench you say I could lose my job but I could get a better job I could be happier I could get paid more stuff like that so it's and it's not polanish it is just when you don't know stuff when you have those unknowns the best thing is to just not bother with with them but it's hard for us to do that and so the second best thing is to try to take them in a way that is uh growing instead of draining you hopefully this has grown you which would remind me as you know Mike did mention essentially maso's hierarchy of needs where you need like food and water and clothing and protection you also need this podcast it's like been it has been scientifically proven there are I don't know millions of doctors that have signed a little thing that said and one that disagreed that said that this podcast is something that will help you feel better and make your life a better place I may be making that up we'll find out some point that being said please give us feedback uh e info@ develop order.com you can check us out at develop and.com you can leave us contents there or contact stuff there comments contact form X you can leave us something there you can follow us there you can follow us on Facebook all those kinds of places wherever you find podcasts like this one then you can you know jump in and leave some comments some feedback there also on YouTube we're out on the developing North Channel we've got this and lots and lots and lots of other content out there we are coming up soon on another season we would love to hear thoughts and suggestions and where you want to go with that starting to try to think through that and where we want to go so we're always welcome to uh bring you guys in and sort of make that a community decision where we can that being said go out there and have yourself a great day great week and we will talk to you next time bonus material so one of the I guess the best things I could say about this is if you find yourself struggling and it's you realize it's not stress you realize it's anxiety which you know could even lead towards depression things of that nature get help either through books through doctors through your friends talk to someone you know so don't try to do this by yourself especially if you have not really worked through this before if it's your first time talk to people I've been at this for over 30 years I still reach out and talk to people but there are times where you will shut down and it's okay it you will get past this there is always sunshine on the next day so keep at it it may be a struggle but you will be fine uh like I said audio books help sometimes self-help books help I prefer um fantasy books uh sci-fi uh it's just kind of my thing um but when it comes to physically picking up a book and reading I try to go for something that is enough of a challenge to keep my mind engaged don't do something that is too light too I don't want to say frivolous but just don't do an activity where your mind will wander you want to do something that will keep your mind engaged because that is how you're going to essentially Short Circuit the anxiety and get past it I would also add um don't be afraid of the possibility of going to a doctor and and seeing because there are chemical things in that there are chemical balances and such that sometimes it literally is it's something that a little bit of medication can go a long way um sometimes not and the medications are there can be are you don't want to dabble in them you want a professional that can you know a psychiatrist that understands this stuff and all of the things involved in it uh because it does get into the the brain and biology and chemistry side of our human makeup and it is very complex and sometimes a little bit of a tweak can make a big difference sometimes in a bad way sometimes in a good way we're going to pray for the B good way for you guys uh which is what I've seen I've there have been people very near and dear to me that have you know done a little bit of that had you know sometimes it's just been a little bit it hasn't taken too much sometimes it's taken longer it's a longer road but um there's a lot of tools out there so definitely you know don't give up there is hope there is and there are a lot more people struggling with it probably than you realize so definitely you know don't be afraid to talk about a little bit and at the very least with your family or close friends stuff like that and uh they can they will help you through it I guarantee you they want to we do not want to waste any more of your time because you know that's the kind of people we are so we're going to wrap this one up thank you for watching and we will be right back as far as you know as far as we know actually I guess could be years before you come back to this but we are not done yet we will come back with yet another episode and we will talk to you later [Music]
Transcript Segments
[Music]
and I hit record because we were about
to have some brilliant stuff and by that
I mean Michael was about to say a couple
of brilliant things well I throw a
little bit of food in my mouth because I
found snacks left over from
Christmas so so we're bouncing some
ideas around about dealing with anxiety
and how to work that into a habit and I
I think it's a good habit um or a good
what a good habit episode because not
all first we have to like identify the
problem you know what is anxiety you
know what are some of the triggers of it
and then uh I think the Habit building
process is essentially us kind of
walking through ways
where we basically how anxiety affects
us when you know how do we identify that
we're essentially being triggered by
anxiety or what are the triggers and
then uh kind of some of our Solutions or
things we do to deal with it and then uh
The Habit uh or the challenge
essentially will be you know take a look
at at your current situation look at
some of your anxiety driving factors and
then give them some tasks to kind of
walk through like how to identify them
maybe some tips to walk through it and
spend a week or so analyzing what they
do every day and maybe see what's not so
much stress but what is actually anxiety
because there is a little bit of
difference between the
two that makes a lot of sense I like
that so that's a good
one um
just going to see I don't think we had
anything
else in our list of some cool things to
do uh let's see what else may throw
another one I idea or we can wait and go
through this one and then figure out
what our next one's gonna
be I'm looking at the that jumps
out focus we did
that yeah let's do this one first cuz
this might trigger some ideas for the
next one CU I almost since these will go
out at the like the same week it would
be really good if we can find something
that kind of pairs well with this so
let's go through this one and then kind
of have a small discussion as to what
might be a good pairing to go with
this yeah this may be something that we
yeah be a good one because we may
stumble into something here that goes
right into hey here's a
followup uh let's see so anxiety
good bad I got to think of something on
the challenges I got to think through I
got 30 seconds or so before I get there
so I'll figure something out on how I've
been doing in the challenges L
later well hello and welcome back we are
continuing our season of building better
habits we are building better developers
we are developing or podcast a matter of
fact so if that's what you're looking
for you came to the right place I am Rob
Brad I'm one of the founders of
developing nor and I happen to also be a
founder of r Rec consulting or we are
we're the guys that you come to the guys
the gals the peeps that you come to when
you have got technology issues you've
got that technology sprawl you don't
really know how to handle what's out
there and how is that going to how does
that apply to you and your organization
that's what we do is we help you maybe
build your team enhance your team but
also a focus on products and services
that are out there that you can Embrace
and do so in a way that allows you to
leverage technology to to do your job
better to make your company better more
profitable and all of those things that
we want to have so that technology works
for you instead of that thing that you
cuss at as soon as it turns its back on
you good things bad things uh this was I
have a lot of these lately but the good
and the bad I start I guess it's the bad
thing is I went to a a show a musical
this weekend and I'm not going to say
what it is but if you ever see it you'll
know it sucked I'm just going to like
cut to the chase that is a bad thing the
good thing is is that we got to the
intermission my wife looked over and was
like I would be more than happy if we
walked out right now and I was like
that's why I married you actually
there's other reasons but that was a
good thing we talked about it we hmed
and hawed a little bit we're like do we
really want to I don't know and we made
the right decision as we were walking
out she was listening to the the opening
song for the next SEC the next ACT and
she's like yeah we made the right
decision so that was a good thing is we
didn't waste another hour and a half of
our
time with the show that we really didn't
need to hear and we had better things to
do as far as challenges are
concerned the um love the Pomodoro I'm
I'm just going to keep like beating that
drum because doing just a couple of
those has been really effective I do
want to go into the I want to also say
that the do the thing you like is really
one of those things has been a great way
to start the year with all of the
changes and resolutions and all the
stuff that comes with it I have very I
have done very good at 15 minutes a day
I've got my little thing that I do
that's like this is
really it has value it's a side hustle
kind of thing but it is it is really for
fun it is the kind of thing that like
really you know energizes me and it has
been a great way to start my day because
I normally do it during the day I think
I had one day I missed so I was so happy
the next day that I took 30 minutes and
did two days worth of it basically and
caught up as we would say so I highly
recommend find something that you enjoy
doing and work that into your day
particular if it's something you haven't
you're just too busy to do on a normal
basis even a few minutes a day you'd be
amazed at what the the difference is I'm
not going to give them a whole 15
minutes but a shorter period of time
because you guys would just have too
much fun listening to him let Mike
introduce himself hey everyone my name
is Mike malash I'm one of the
co-founders of developer building better
developers I'm also the founder of
Invision QA where we essentially bring
test driven development to software
development and businesses we help small
to midsize businesses clinicians nurses
essentially look at the software that
you're working with and help you
identify problems with your software or
your processes around your software
because sometimes the cookie cutter
software you buy off the shelf does not
work for you and sometimes you find that
you are spending more time working for
your software than having your software
work for you and that's where we come in
we help you analyze that and we help you
come up with a solution to make your
lives better and make the software work
for you not the other way around good
and bad uh good
finally we got snow I love
snow that's the good part bad part I got
Cabin Fever really bad couldn't get out
of the house for a few days and actually
could barely get out with the dogs and
let them run around uh even though Lea
are uh blue healer loves to play in the
snow it froze overnight and then the
next day she's trying to step and crunch
and play with the snow and it's solid
ice so it was uh that was kind of the
bad thing so we had to keep her kind of
calm for the next day or two so her uh
hip would kind of heal uh habits so this
has actually been kind of an interesting
week for me so one of the projects I've
been working on uh we've kind of been
dumped into
a new project uh set with one of the
projects I'm working on and we're
dealing with a legacy application that a
couple different uh teams are working on
it but no one has really stood this
thing up in a long time and the
directions are kind of all over the
place so we've been spending probably a
couple weeks reading through
documentation trying to figure this
thing out and we finally figured out how
to make it work so I've been spending a
lot of time improving my coding skills
figuring out how to break things down so
I've taken a lot of the different habits
that we've talked about for these things
and really kind of just spending a lot
of time ramping up skills on things that
I haven't touched in forever and there's
uh some new technologies well I don't
want to say new but technologies that
are new to me but have actually been
sunsetted since 2013 that this
application still
uses but I it's like okay okay you're
using Hornet Q I'm used to active mq
it's like uh okay similar message
queuing but I'm dealing with a product
that is basically end of life and there
basically all you have are message
boards there's no support so it it's
been fun so that's the kind of week I've
been
having well that's actually a good
little segue into our topic this
time this time around we want
to want to settle back a little bit get
our notebook and our a pencil on a
notepad and hang out on the couch and
talk about anxiety and stress
now if you if you spend any time in the
the world of like the self-help books
and how to get ahead and all of these
kinds of things and podcast and all that
one of the things you've heard about a
lot
is impostor syndrome is people that get
into this get into a situation they're
just like I don't I don't belong here I
didn't earn this or something like that
this is not where we're where we're
going this time around because there's
like a there are your fears and stuff
like that and then there's your less
defined anxiety type fears it's the
kinds of stuff that you know when
somebody says don't worry and you worry
that's more that kind of thing it's like
or worry less you're like I can't worry
less because now I'm worried that I'm
going to worry less and as developers
this is a this is a real Challenge and
it's I think part of it is there's a
machismo or whatever you want to do
however you want to talk about it with
developers where it's like you know I I
didn't sleep for six days and I wrote
four billion lines of code and you know
dealing with you know my boss said this
but we managed to get it across the
finish line and all that
anyways but there's still I think we
brush it off sometimes I think it is
very helpful for us becoming better
developers is to figure out how to
identify these things how they affect us
how they impact us and then how we can
fight them because it is very much a
devastating way to be prod it devastates
your productivity it is just in the same
lines as burnout and you can think of it
as almost them going hand in hand to
some extent too is if you go too far and
you burn out you know it's like you are
totally unproductive and usually burnout
occurs at the worst possible time it's
like you know your boss is suddenly like
said you know everybody's got to work 20
hours a day and no vacations no holidays
no weekends for the next three years
years and you're burned out at that
point it's like well I can't unburn out
during this time anxiety and and that
kind of stress is the same way and it
really is I think that's part of what we
want to talk about is the the
differentiation between what is stress
versus the in the anxiety the you know
the technical not just it is stress but
the the technical angst kind of thing
not the Teen Angst and how we see it and
we're going to talk about some habits to
maybe address that or or to at least
improve that with yourself and I'm going
to toss that to Michael first to sort of
set the table for this one thanks Rob
yeah so one of the
things and I'll be upfront about this
anxiety is something I personally deal
with a lot over the years it's it comes
and goes and it's just one of those
things
that you may be feeling just fine and
the next thing you know the sky is
falling and it's the weirdest thing
um especially in our industry and
especially in specific IND Industries as
well uh one of the things I've noticed a
lot for developers you know yes we get
stressed we have deadlines it's like oh
you know I'm trying to get something
done I've got a bug you know I'm really
stressing trying to get it done that's
not quite the anxiety we're focusing on
here the anxiety we're kind of focusing
on here is the type where yeah you you
run across that you get across that line
but then once you get with the coding
you put it away it's still in your mind
you're still thinking about or you're
thinking about oh you know I got that
out there but is that really going to
work you know is that going to cause a
problem or is the software you're
working on unstable so it's like did you
fix it enough to keep things running or
are you now worried that oh it's going
to fall down theor and oh I gotta stay
by my phone you kind of get those weird
anxiety Twitches where you're constantly
waiting for something bad to happen or
thinking that the sky is falling when
it's
not and in particular with software
development some of the key areas where
this is really important and
unfortunately kind of comes with the job
is Healthcare you know when you're
dealing with Healthcare software
especially with like hospitals or even
police force or you know public service
if the software breaks people's lives
potentially could be impacted and so
it's kind of an extra layer of stress
and anxiety because if the code goes in
everything works good but it goes to
production and then things go down you
just took a hospital down that's you
know that's not stress that's you're
beyond stress at that point it's like oh
my God you know you've got to get it
fixed
and it's hard sometimes to differentiate
between what is stress and what is
anxiety and I can be stressed for couple
days couple weeks on a project trying to
get things done but when you get into
that anxiety rule
and you you really start to kind of feel
bad you start getting like repeating
thoughts in your head about oh this is
wrong this is all the wha ifs and it's
kind of a strange mindset that you end
up in where it's like everything is
probably working fine around you like
today today is no different than
yesterday but in your
mind it's a dumpster fire everything's
wrong but yet nothing's changed but in
your mind mind something's changed so
you got this level of anxiety that
you've got to get out of and sometimes
it can be a part of burnout but
sometimes it could just be you just have
a bad day you just something triggered
it and now you're stuck in this
mindset and that's kind of where my
thoughts are when we start talking about
anxiety so with that and this is a this
one of those things that there that you
can't it's like a disease or something
else to some extent where it's like you
can only do so much it's like you're not
going to be able to like eliminate it
and so I think that's where you know
when we step into this habit it's not
one of these things where it's like you
know if you have a habit of grabbing a
snack at noon every day that we're going
to you know maybe you can find an
anti-ab to eliminate it this is more
about embracing it a little bit and and
finding ways through it and things like
that so it's it's one of those things
it's like instead of saying all right
I've got to get rid of this I've got to
stop this it's figure out how to work
through it a little bit more and so that
in itself should hopefully like
alleviate alleviates one's anxiety about
the anxiety is I think that's the
hardest part is when you get in a
situation where it's like all right I I
feel it even if you can identify it but
if you do that and then you start as
Michael said if you start going down the
paths of well what could go wrong well
now you get to have a whole another list
of things that go wrong because you're
in the middle of an anxiety attack or
something along those lines that you
know you're not at your at your best and
now you can depending on what your level
of this is you know one of the best say
my one of my favorites that I've used a
lot um goes back to one of the Tim
Ferris ones is that basically as you
look at stuff and say well what's the
worst that can happen and really when
you start thinking through that and you
you do it in a a rational way you're
like well what's the worst that can
happen then it can help draw you back a
little bit and say okay and it helps
with like risk and a lot of other stuff
involved as well because then you're
like all right well is the worst GNA
happen I could die well okay then if you
die then I guess the rest of the things
don't matter that much well okay then
you start ratch it back and the first
you know 500 options are and then you
die and you're like okay well then I
don't have to worry about it because I'm
dead but then you start getting into the
things where you
survive and now it's like what is what
does that look like and then starting to
think about well is
that How likely is that and then maybe
part of that is like okay depending on
the likelihood then there are certain
things you can do to U you know to
alleviate the the bad side of whatever
it is is to sort of like mitigate your
risk and things like that which is what
we do all the time and I think that's
why we are so susceptible to anxiety and
just overthinking things because that is
our that is our bread and butter is we
sit in our heads a lot we're you know
we're working through these problems
we're writing this code and yeah we're
yelling at the the computer and stuff
like that but it's it's really us having
arguments in our
head so what are some of the things
because you said this is something
you've worked through for a while that
this has been something that's been a
part of you know what you've you've
struggled with so what are some of maybe
the uh the habits or some of the you
know maybe some of the tools that you've
used to to knock this back a little bit
and keep yourself
effective yeah so one of the biggest
things is figuring out when you're kind
of having an episode because there's
like I said there's stress and there's
anxiety they they are kind of hand in
hand but one is a lot worse than the
other and what I find is if I start
getting into those what ifs like I'm
constantly like what if this or what if
that I take a moment and I start writing
them down so first I I make a list kind
of like Rob said you know the Tim Ferris
model you know you figure out what's the
Worst That Could Happen well you just
start writing out you know the what if I
just write down what's in my head
and then the first thing I do is I kind
of do a brain dump and I walk away if I
can leave it on the paper and if I walk
away in about 20 minutes later I'm not
as hyperfocused on what's triggering my
anxiety great I'm doing well that works
sometimes sometimes it doesn't sometimes
it still sticks with you so then the
other thing you do that I've typically
tried next is like I'll pick up a book
I'll try to read or I'll listen to some
music or an Audi book I don't really try
to watch TV because TV is Visual and
it's too easy for me to get fidgety and
start picking up my iPad and doing other
things but if you're listening or you're
focused on a book you're kind of focused
you have to either really listen or you
have to pay attention to what you're
looking at TV again yes you can but it
it's just too easy to get distracted
with the
TV sometimes with those um I go about 20
minutes to 30 minutes maybe an hour and
I focus on that and then sometimes that
works like I'll be fine but then there's
other times where I just go through
episodes where I'm stuck like for hours
trying to get through this and all I can
do during those times is just think
about okay is the situation I'm in today
any different than the situation I was
in yesterday I start doing daily
Compares and it's like okay
nothing has changed the only thing
that's really changed is something
triggered my thoughts down this path you
know something triggered the
anxiety for instance I got a piece of
news last week through one of the
companies I work for we got basically
told something that none of us were
happy about it was basically we kind of
knew it was coming but they didn't tell
us it came through the news outlets and
now they're SC Ling to try
and basically we got a lot of bad news
no clear Direction on where the
company's going with it how does that
impact us but the potential impact and
this is where the trigger happens is
right now we have some
information but we don't have the whole
picture and the problem is without
having the whole picture there's this
gap of what can really impact me and
change what's going on and if you think
about a lot of situations that's really
the trigger you have
something
that you are either following or
something you're doing but there's an
unknown between where you're at and
where you're trying to get to and that
unknown is what triggers this anxiety it
it kind of sets you off so the like I
was going with this example is so within
this situation like Rob said like the
tin feros model where you know what are
the worst things that could happen well
in this particular situation
unfortunately that sent me down the
wrong path I actually found that I was
better off going back to where what the
trigger was and going back to the day
before because
really what happened was yes I was given
some information the problem is that
information while
scary really has no Direction yet
basically it's like here we're going to
drop a bomb on you but yet we're not
going to tell you anything about what's
going going on so really why the hell
tell me why the hell tell you know why
share this information there's no real
transparency with it there was no real
benefit to sharing this at this time
other than to scare the hell out of a
lot of people and give them anxiety so
it took a probably a day or two of
walking back a little bit and looking at
okay has anything really changed no
that's kind of the first thing to look
at has anything really changed in the
situation secondly is there anything
that triggered the anxiety that is
really impacting your quality of life is
there anything that is impacting your
life right now you know is there
anything dangerous coming at you no okay
step back again is there any impact to
my family to my environment if not okay
again walk it back okay no so
essentially you kind of get back to kind
of the rule of thumb you know what do
you need to live you need food water
clothing roof over your head if you got
those four things and you can kind of
walk it back to that where do I have
what I need to
live then typically if you can get back
to that point you're probably fine you
probably have walked back the path of
the
anxiety um but you know if you run into
situations where you can't you know
that's when you go seek professional
help you know you go talk to a doctor
and you get help but a lot of times in
our
situations it really is just changing
the mindset change the narrative in your
mind and that will set you back on the
right
path and you know I'm no doctor but I've
been dealing with this for over 30 years
and it comes and goes you know it's not
something I live with daily but it's
something that could come at me out of
the
blue and I could lose a date or two just
being stuck now
early on in my career in my life when
that happened it was very dysfunctional
like I kind of shut down but if you work
through it and these are some of the
challenges I think we can talk through
for better habits is as you work your
way through
this you'll set challenges up you'll set
habits up that will get you in a place
where you won't shut down you'll be able
to work your way through it may not be a
quick fix you may not like oh I'm really
bad in an hour I'll be fine no you work
through it it's not a quick fix you just
keep telling yourself I'll be
okay things will get
better and you know what you there is
gold on the other side of the
Rainbo that's a happy thought and I
think that's where I want to go with
this
challenge
is and this this actually has a lot of
of health benefits and mental health
benefits and stuff like that but I think
it's it really is it's a uh developing
an appreciation had habit and an
attitude and I think the best way to do
this and I've talk to a lot of people
over the years that do these kind
something similar to this and they all
are it's it's lifechanging to them I
mean I don't I'm not a doctor or
anything like that but this so this is
all anecdotal evidence but it also is
free you it's just one of those things
that it really does help and that is
start each
day put down a list let's say three
things that are going well or that make
you happy or that have you know that and
usually you may struggle initially but
it shouldn't be too hard after a little
bit of doing this day in and day out to
do to build a list of the three things
that every morning start like I am I'm
happy that I have this or that I got to
do that now when I started out I'm not
going to lie if you look back like every
third day because was I would have
breakfast and stuff like that bacon was
one of the things of my three every day
just about every other day every third
day whatever it was it was like you know
I'm really happy that I had like a bacon
and egg sandwich or something like that
there's going to be seasons of your life
where it may be like I was so happy to
have a you know some wine and cheese
last night or you know or that my team
won you know there's just sometimes
there very little things it is the fact
that maybe it is it's like that I have a
hot cup of coffee in front of me in the
morning when I start up and then it's
the coffee I like and it's not some
crappy coffee that I had to get down the
road or something like that I mean
there's like there's so much that we
have to be thankful for and happy about
that I think just developing that
attitude of gratitude as they say and
getting that habit I think will help you
quite a bit because it does allow you
to when you have those challenges it
starts to give you sort of a a track
record of yeah I've had that challenge
before but it worked out okay and so it
it helps maybe give you a little bit
more of a shift from when you know as
Michael says when they drop the bomb on
you but you don't know there's no
Direction so you could go it could be
really really good or really really bad
it'll maybe help your mind drift towards
it but it could be really really good I
mean it's the stuff like you know you
get bad news at work the bad news you
could look at it and say I could lose my
job and then lose my house and die okay
granted I'm going back to and you die
but I could lose my job and not die
which is possibly even worse so I could
lose my job but if that's thing about
like I could lose my job and I don't
have a paycheck for a long time and you
know you can take that down that path
but maybe you look at it as I could lose
my job but now that you have that
positive bench you say I could lose my
job but I could get a better job I could
be happier I could get paid more stuff
like that so it's and it's not polanish
it is just when you don't know stuff
when you have those unknowns the best
thing is to just not bother with with
them but it's hard for us to do that and
so the second best thing is to try to
take them in a way that is uh growing
instead of draining you hopefully this
has grown you which would remind me as
you know Mike did mention essentially
maso's hierarchy of needs where you need
like food and water and clothing and
protection you also need this podcast
it's like been it has been
scientifically proven there are I don't
know millions of doctors that have
signed a little thing that said and one
that disagreed that said that this
podcast is something that will help you
feel better and make your life a better
place I may be making that up we'll find
out some point that being
said please give us feedback uh e info@
develop order.com you can check us out
at develop and.com you can leave us
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kinds of places wherever you find
podcasts like this one then you can you
know jump in and leave some comments
some feedback there also on YouTube
we're out on the developing North
Channel we've got this and lots and lots
and lots of other content out there we
are coming up soon on another season we
would love to hear thoughts and
suggestions and where you want to go
with that starting to try to think
through that and where we want to go so
we're always welcome to uh bring you
guys in and sort of make that a
community decision where we can that
being said go out there and have
yourself a great day great week and we
will talk to you next time bonus
material so one of the I guess the best
things I could say about this is if you
find yourself struggling and it's you
realize it's not stress you realize it's
anxiety which you know could even lead
towards depression things of that
nature get help either
through books through doctors through
your friends talk to someone you know so
don't try to do this by yourself
especially if you have not really worked
through this before if it's your first
time talk to
people I've been at this for over 30
years I still reach out and talk to
people but there are times where you
will shut
down and it's okay it you will get past
this there is always sunshine on the
next day
so keep at it it may be a struggle but
you will be fine uh like I said audio
books help sometimes self-help books
help I prefer um fantasy books uh sci-fi
uh it's just kind of my thing um but
when it comes to physically picking up a
book and reading I try to go for
something that
is enough of a challenge to keep my mind
engaged don't do something that is too
light too I don't want to say frivolous
but just don't do an activity where your
mind will wander you want to do
something that will keep your mind
engaged because that is how you're going
to essentially Short Circuit the anxiety
and get past
it I would also add um don't be afraid
of the possibility of going to a doctor
and and seeing because there are
chemical things in that there are
chemical balances and such that
sometimes it literally is it's something
that a little bit of medication can go a
long way um sometimes not and the
medications are there can be are you
don't want to dabble in them you want a
professional that can you know a
psychiatrist that understands this stuff
and all of the things involved in it uh
because it does get into the the brain
and biology and chemistry side of our
human makeup and it is very
complex and sometimes a little bit of a
tweak can make a big difference
sometimes in a bad way sometimes in a
good way we're going to pray for the B
good way for you guys uh which is what
I've seen I've there have been people
very near and dear to me that have you
know done a little bit of that had you
know sometimes it's just been a little
bit it hasn't taken too much sometimes
it's taken longer it's a longer road but
um there's a lot of tools out there so
definitely you know don't give up there
is hope there is and there are a lot
more people struggling with it probably
than you realize so definitely you know
don't be afraid to talk about a little
bit and at the very least with your
family or close friends stuff like that
and uh they can they will help you
through it I guarantee you they want
to we do not want to waste any more of
your time because you know that's the
kind of people we are so we're going to
wrap this one up thank you for watching
and we will be right back as far as you
know as far as we know actually I guess
could be years before you come back to
this but we are not done yet we will
come back with yet another episode and
we will talk to you later
[Music]