We talk about trust on this show all the time. This is one of the key ingredients for a healthy team. And it's certainly a key ingredient for healthy relationships in general. In today's episode, I want to talk about trust from a different angle. From the angle of looking at yourself. My name is Jonathan Cottrell. You're listening to Developer Tea. And my goal on the show is to help driven developers like you find clarity, perspective, and purpose in their careers. I want to preface this show really quickly by letting you know that you might hear a little bit of rain in the background. I thought about waiting until the rain ended, but in the spirit of transparency, I decided to leave it in. Also, I personally like the sound of rain, so maybe I should do this more often. Anyway, enjoy the episode. Trust is critical. It's critical for relationships. It's critical for teams. Because so much of our energy is wasted when we don't have trust. When we don't have trust, we try to prop up all of our promises and each other's promises. We try to prop up all of our values or our commitments with ways of ensuring that those commitments are kept. And very often, we will put into place. We will put into place negative and positive reinforcement in order to take the place of trust. And all of this is inefficient, ultimately. Unfortunately, this kind of effort tends to backfire in negative ways, and it doesn't lead to incredible results in the end anyway. There are times, obviously, when we can't have trust. When we have to rely on certain systems of accountability. But most of the time, trust is a critical ingredient for high-performing teams. Now, of course, we've talked about this on the show before. Today, I want to talk about trust from a different angle. I want to talk about how you trust yourself. There are things that you trust yourself to do. There are ways that you trust yourself to be. You have confidence about certain... Certain things in your life. And a lack of confidence about other things in your life. It's easy to prove this because all of us have a vast majority of skill sets that we haven't developed. And it's not like we necessarily have to confront this every day. If I was suddenly to be put on a basketball court, then I would have a lot of trust issues for myself. I am not a practiced basketball player. But... But there are plenty of other skills that I do have plenty of confidence in. And it's not just about these straightforward skills. These obvious kind of big high-level skills. It's also the more nuanced skills. The softer skills. And the things that we wouldn't necessarily call skills directly. There's not really a name for those things. But rather, situational experiences. Or situational comfortability. And I want to talk... And I want to talk... And I want to talk about both sides of this coin. Because there will be things that we don't trust ourselves to do. And I want to kind of go through a mental exercise with you. I want you to think about a couple of things that you do not trust yourself to do. That you don't feel confident in. Maybe you don't feel like you have the right skill set. Or maybe the right experience. Or for whatever reason, you just don't trust yourself to operate in that particular environment. Now, I want you to accept two things. Two realities about the things that you don't trust yourself to do today. The first reality is that you have the power to change your own perspective on your comfortability. In other words, if you want to become more comfortable with a particular skill set. A particular situation. Then you have the opportunity to do it. Do that. You can grow to become more comfortable with those experiences. With those situations. Sometimes this is about learning a skill set. Sometimes this is about becoming more comfortable with situations where you already have the right skill set. And your perception is telling you that you don't. Or that you somehow are inadequate. You have the opportunity to change this. And then the second thing that I want you to accept. Is that just because you can't. And change this level of comfortability. This trust in yourself about this particular situation. Doesn't mean that you should. It certainly doesn't mean that you have to. So these are two very important things to accept about your trust in yourself. That number one, there are things that you can change about your self-trust. And number two, you don't have to. This. Acceptance of areas of our life where we don't necessarily feel comfortable or confident. It's a common message. That self-confidence is broadly a good thing. And while it makes sense. From a high level. There are things that we will never be confident about. And we should be able to accept that. And to affirm it. Why should we be able to accept it? Well, that's what we're going to talk about. Right after we talk about today's sponsor. Linode. Whether you're working on a personal project. Or if you're managing enterprise infrastructure. You deserve simple, affordable and accessible cloud computing solutions. That allow you to take your project to the next level. And Linode is going to help you do that. In fact, they're going to give you a hundred dollars to help you do that. I'll tell you how to get that in just a second. With Linode, you can simplify your cloud infrastructure. With Linode's Linux virtual machines. And develop, deploy and scale your modern applications faster and easier. With that hundred dollars worth of free credit. You can do all of this stuff and more. You can find all the details at linode.com. Slash developer T. Linode has 11 global data centers. And provides 24-7. 365 human support. With no tiers or handoffs. Hopefully you're not working all 365 of those days. But if you are. So is Linode. You can use your hundred dollar credit on both shared and dedicated compute instances. But you can also use it on things like S3 compatible object storage. Managed Kubernetes and more. Visit linode.com. Slash developer T. And click on the create free account button. To get started. Thanks again to Linode for sponsoring today's episode of developer T. We've been talking about trusting yourself in today's episode. And I want to make something clear here. When we say that it's okay. That we should affirm ourselves. In things that we don't trust ourselves about. In these situations that we don't trust ourselves to be in. This is very different from broadly not trusting ourselves in general. This is very different from having low self-confidence. In fact in some ways. Understanding when we can't trust ourselves. Is a critical factor in our self-confidence. So let's break this down. When we know what we can't trust ourselves in. And what we can trust ourselves in. Then we can more confidently. Accept responsibility. For both sides of that coin. When we know that we're not very good at something. And yet we still have to participate in that particular activity. Then we can take responsibility. Up front. Knowing that we're not very good at that thing. But being willing to try anyway. And this willingness. To. Understand our strengths and weaknesses. That is a marker. Of self-confidence. It's not our confidence in our ability to do something. It's not confidence. In being the best at everything. Instead. It's confidence. That we know. Ourselves well. That we know what we're good at. We know what we can trust ourselves to do. And. Perhaps most importantly. We know. When we need to lean on someone else. This is once again. An incredibly important part. Of self-confidence. Because. If we feel insecure. And we try to bolster our insecurity with. Something fake. We try to fill in that gap. As if. We needed to. Well now we've lost all sense. Of self-confidence. And instead. We participate in this. Artificial. Artificial. And often. Transparently artificial. Version of ourselves. But. If instead. We can embrace. The parts. That we don't understand. If we can embrace. Our shortcomings. And. Remind ourselves. That. Those shortcomings. Are okay. That having shortcomings. Is a part of life. And that. Not only is it a part of life. But we also are dynamic. And we can overcome. Some of those shortcomings. In our lives. Because. This. Is the marker. Of. True. Self-confidence. Thank you so much. For listening. To today's episode. Of Developer Tea. Thank you again. To Linode. For sponsoring. Today's episode. Head over to. Linode.com. Slash. Developer Tea. To get started today. You're going to get. A hundred dollars. Worth of credit. If you start. A new account. Open a new account. On Linode. Linode.com. Slash. Developer Tea. Thanks again. For listening. This episode. And every other episode. Of Developer Tea. Can be found. On spec. Dot. FM. Today's episode. Was produced. By Sarah Jackson. My name is Jonathan Gautrelle. And until next time. Enjoy your tea.