Positive self talk under pressure | Bayron Toruño | TDSU Ep. 40

(0:00 - 0:10)

I would say to the customer, well, I'm not really a real estate person, but I know software. And then I would go to the software people and, well, I'm not really a software person, but I know project management. I go to talk to project managers, and I was like, I don't know what I am.

(0:21 - 1:33)

What's up, Lifers, and welcome to The Daily Standup with Lifetime Value. This is your daily dose of fresh customer success ideas. Quit smiling at me like that, JP.

JP, do you want to say hi? What's up? Oh, they're getting increasingly aggressive. Rob, would you like to say hi? What's up, NSYNC listeners of the Lifetime Value podcast? Why are we doing this? What is that? Because it's by Bayron. Bayron, would you like to say hi? Yeah, definitely.

Hello, everyone. Hola a todos. I love it.

I love it. Pura vida. Pura vida.

Pura vida. There you go. Oh, my gosh.

I'm losing control. I am the increasingly exasperated host of this podcast. My name is Dillon Young.

Thank you so much for being here, Bayron. Would you like to introduce yourself? Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

So I'm Bayron, of course, the host of Customer Success Talks, Real Challenges, Experts Advice, and I'm here constantly learning and happy to be here. Amen. I like that energy, Bayron.

Bayron, you already know the deal. We want to hear what is on your mind when it comes to customer success. So hit us with it.

(1:35 - 3:08)

Yeah, there are a lot, but definitely what comes to mind is personal branding. Going through this process of having a podcast and having imposter syndrome kicking in and until when are you actually, what are you doing? Why am I here? Sometimes I say to myself, why? Should I continue or not? So definitely imposter syndrome is the topic that I have on my mind, to be honest and transparent. So break it down a little bit more for us, because I haven't gotten here yet.

I got a two-year-old and I ask myself every single day, who let me have this? I got to provide food and shelter for this guy every day. And so I feel imposter syndrome in that regard, talking to you guys today, looking at my beautiful wife every day. But so how do you talk through that and kind of build yourself up, even if you can't get rid of it entirely? Yeah, this started in my last job when I just came to Germany and I started there as a customer success specialist.

But for some reason I was not feeling comfortable and I had always this voice in my mind saying, what are you talking about? Why should you say something in front of everyone here? Why? So then I talked to a partner about it and she said, just leave the present. If you make a mistake, you make a mistake, but leave the present. And since then I start talking more about it and everyone goes through this.

I wasn't the only one. And it was so interesting. And now it's easy for me to talk about it.

(3:08 - 3:14)

I like that you just dropped an F-bomb on here. You didn't strike me as that sort of guy. Yeah.

(3:15 - 5:11)

All right, boys, what do you think? I've got some thoughts, but JP, do you want to go first? Oh, sure. I feel like I can definitely relate to this a lot, Bayron, coming up in the space. Here I am, right? Right now I'm on a podcast.

Whoa, that's crazy, right? And I think it really comes down to, I'm very fortunate that I have a job, right? I'm able to do the work. I'm very fortunate to be a part of the community. I think that a lot of the, let's say, either the confidence or the whatever sort of cut imposter syndrome, I get from knowing, hey, I'm involved.

And I know that my guiding star, my compass is just ultimately help people, whether that's through giving them advice or whether that's just giving them a smile, right? And I think no matter what, as long as I'm doing those things, I'm okay. I don't put a bar on myself. You didn't go up there and talk about the square root of pi and how that data relates to people opening up their emails, or you didn't revolutionize the QBR process.

No. To me, honestly, QBRs are for the NFL. Oh my goodness.

I just want to add in there really quickly. I think this could branch out really to a lot of different things. I have a motto that I think I've shared before, which is do good work and allow a lot of the other things to fall into place.

A lot of people will say it's control the controllables. Worry about the stuff that you have influence on. I think the second piece of that is giving yourself some grace.

Mistakes are made. And I have another saying, which is you can make mistakes all day long. You just can't make the same mistake twice.

(5:11 - 5:58)

It's about learning and improving and getting better and trying to always do better work. So Rob, I want to give you a chance to jump in there too. Yeah.

Bayron, thank you for bringing up a really important topic and a very relatable topic. I relate 100%. I think I really experienced this at its peak when I entered my first job that I formerly called Customer Success at this company, Qualia.

I picked up a support call. It was my first support call. And someone said, hey, yeah, I'm looking to do a piggyback loan on a 1099 file and I'm like, I don't know what any of these words mean.

And the next remainder of this conversation is going to be painful. How do I explain that? I don't know what these words mean. And then how do I relay this to my product team that I can just kind of write down what the customer said, but it's just going to look like chicken scratch and hope that it doesn't backfire.

(5:58 - 7:32)

Next thing you know, I had an angry customer, I had an angry product team. And then I'm sitting in the middle thinking, I don't belong here. Why am I here? I would say to the customer, well, I'm not really a real estate person, but I know software.

And then I would go to the software and well, I'm not really a software person, but I know project management. I go to talk to project managers and I was like, I don't know what I am. So I get it.

I think that part for me, I had to do a lot of self-discovery to sort of realize not to be like overly mindfulness oriented here, but I really did have to take those moments to watch how that imposter syndrome sort of manifests in me, in my body. Where do I feel the tension arise? Is it like in my chest, in my neck, in my shoulders and that kind of thing. And then sort of be mindful of that.

Take a deep breath. Remind myself, I actually kept a list of things that I was good at. And I know this sounds kind of crazy and almost elementary, but I like kept a list in front of me of like things that I was good at.

I didn't want anyone to see the list because I didn't want them to know that I was going through this. And I would refresh myself and it would sort of ground me in not only where I was, what I was doing, but also why I was nominated for this job to begin with, right? The CEO didn't hire me for no reason. And so that helped me sort of find my voice.

And then the other thing that I did was I took that conversation and I incorporated it in every single new employee onboarding process that we did from there. I told every new employee who joined, you're going to go through this. And if you don't, good for you, but most of you are going to go through this.

It's going to hurt, stick with it. And I'm living proof that you're going to survive on the other side and it's going to work out for the best. So thank you again for bringing up a really important topic.

(7:32 - 9:03)

Yeah, definitely. What was the quote? There was a quote I just saw recently that was, there are two types of people in this world, people who suffer from imposter syndrome and liars. I don't totally believe that because I have some friends who are like, they're like robots.

They don't feel anything and they're great at their jobs, but they're the exception to the rule. So Bayron, how do you deal with this on a regular basis? How do you remind yourself of maybe what you're good at or to give yourself a little bit of grace? What are your tactics? Yeah. So over time I learned that that voice that you have inside of you is just telling you the negative side of the things.

So why not transform that into positive things? And then if you're not good at this, why you're not good at this. Go into the five whys and then you will actually find either it's true or either you can actually improve on it. Confidence, like JP said, is super important.

That's something that there are things that you can learn to do. I mean, we all have different ways of expressing ourselves and we should always express ourselves. And JP told me something really cool one day that we were talking because I was like, I don't feel comfortable yet writing articles on my LinkedIn.

I just don't feel, yes, an expert. He said, you're from Costa Rica, right? Well, it doesn't have to be customer success. You can write about anything, maybe culture wise.

People are really interested on that too. And you know, we always have something to share. We're books.

(9:04 - 9:59)

I think there's also, there's some truth or some wisdom in this idea that, you know, everybody's scared. The only difference are the people who are too scared to do a thing and the folks who power through it. And so there's a lot to be said for just defaulting to action and just going for it and learning on the fly.

Totally agree. Bayron, that's our time. Thank you so much for joining us.

Really appreciate you bringing this energy. Would love to have you back into the future, but it's bye-bye for now. Bye-bye, Bayron, for now.

Thank you. Bye-bye. See you, Bayron.

Pura Vida. You've been listening to The Daily Standup by Lifetime Value. Please note that the views expressed in these conversations are attributed only to those individuals on this recording and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of their respective employers.

(10:00 - 10:28)

For all inquiries, please reach out via email to Dillon at lifetimevaluemedia.com. Find us on YouTube at Lifetime Value and find us on the socials at lifetimevaluemedia.com. Until next time. Hey, folks. It's Dillon here.

Thank you for tuning in, as always. Now, I've got a favor to ask of you. If you've made it this far, hopefully it means you like what we're doing with our program.

(10:28 - 10:48)

So I'm asking you to please give this a like and a follow or a subscribe and leave a comment, too. Your likes and your follows and your subscriptions, they allow us to keep doing what we're doing and reach a larger audience. Your comments help us make sure that we're making the best content for you.

Best of all, it's free besides a few moments of your time. Thank you again for following along and we'll see you next time.