alishah novin + building a culture around vulnerability

full transcript

auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.

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What I want to talk to you about me, and I pulled up because I've been admiring you from far and your activity and ultimately I know a few devs that you've snatched up as well. Been very jealous. But then you tell me which ones. Say what? I said you'll have to tell me which ones. Yeah, yeah, I will. And then you started kind of post on LinkedIn and then you started to kind of engage with each other in LinkedIn. I really love what you said on one post and I pulled it up And this is what I wanted to talk about because I think leadership and tech is broken.

Yeah. From what I've seen. And it's this kind of thing. I follow a bunch of engineers on Twitter, and it's like this whole thing where there's this negative context around leadership, like you rather like promote your best dev and he or she hates it and they quit it. Or you take the worst dev and get them out of burning the code base down. And then no one respects that individual. Yeah. And, and, and so one thing you said, so I posted something I linked in last week around job hopping, this career suicide, and you said this, you said, people stay, leave for money, experience managers, a good manager can help with the money and experience while bad manager undermines it.

If you're worried that someone is going to leave your job in eight months, offer them something that lasts longer than eight month experience, offer them growth, pay them for what they're worth, especially when they don't always know it. When they grow to a point you can no longer support and curse them and take them next step, connect them, recommend them. That's what investing in others and your community is all about. And I tell you what, that is just straight fire. And so I wanted you to kind of go to intro about yourself. What do you do? And then let's kind of start picking apart that comment.

Yeah, sure. So I guess to introduce myself. So I'm currently the director of engineering at Slatoro Commerce. I'm coming out of school, I actually didn't have an engineering, a computer and software, a computer science degree. I actually did physics and philosophy. But I was one of those kids who really benefited from the time that I was born straight on because, you know, the internet was becoming popular at the tail end of high school for me. So I was kind of like, you know, ninth, 10th, 11th grade. I was like, oh man, I was a geek for these last three years, but 12th great. That was pretty good.

That's awesome. So, you know, I got, I was building websites and even when I was really, really young, just tinkering around with computers. That's one of those kids. But yeah, so when I graduated college, I just got right into coding. And I learned about the hustle just because, you know, 2006 is when I graduated. And that was when you started seeing articles about, you know, college kids are graduating. They have no professional experience. they can't get a job and it freaked me out. And so, you know, that final senior year that I had, I went on Craigslist and just took any kind of job that I could keep saying.

No money, like sometimes 200 bucks. I got paid 150 bucks to make a background for someone's MySpace when that was a thing. That's amazing. We didn't bring MySpace back. It literally, I think, helped so many people get it in the coding. I mean, yeah, yeah. It was great. And it's just, so you know, I went from having no resume to over the course of eight months. I had, you know, all kinds of projects, but I learned how to like, you know, deal with clients, deal with people, work with the, you know, the softer side of tech, which is really important. And one of the nice things I like about boot camps right now is that there are people who are, they've had former careers, and so they already know that stuff and they're bringing technical, they're learning to be side, right?

And it's that's the the softer side is a part that's hard to learn. The code you can always learn pretty easily if you if you practice enough at it. But anyway, so yeah, so I got to work at startups and some a couple of big fortune, 200s and lower. So I've had, you know, pretty wide range of experience, but just about one of the most rewarding ones I'd say and why I'm so passionate about it is hiring because I love getting to meet people and talk to them and see what where their fire is. But then also I think it's tremendously privileged to be in a position where I can give someone an opportunity because I faced the resistance.

I didn't have the comp side agree. There were no boot camps. So no one wanted to let me in. So there were a few people who gave me chances and I've been trying to pay that forward ever since. getting to give someone an opportunity is like just about the best part of the job for sure. Well, I can tell because you're kind of lighting up, right? So the people who are going to be listening to this, you can't... How do you say your name, Al Shaw? Alicia. Alicia, yeah. So you can't see Alicia right now, but he's smiling when he's talking about obviously hiring. So, I mean, that obviously is deeply like you said, kind of growing up and whatnot.

But where does kind of the passion, because I mean, what you said in this post, very few people understand. Yeah. Right. And so like was there times where like, you know, you in your career where you've seen, I'm sure flawed management, I mean, is there some pivotal times where you'd be like, man, I want to fix this. Yeah. You know, so, so I've definitely had it, you know, in work, but I've also had it in the hiring and interviewing cycle. So I've been across the table from people who were I love it if they listen to this part. They can say, oh gosh, he's talking about me as a.

But you know, they're so in tech, right? One of the most popular things to do is like throw out a left field kind of curveball question that is completely unrelated. And I'm just as guilty of doing it, but I don't see myself as having done it in a negative way. So people will ask you questions that they're designed to let you think openly and kind of cover sort of the riddle. And they're really weird ones like picking up an island or a box off of an island and how would you do it? Or if you're a rock, paper, a scissor, what would you be and why?

Yeah, I like to do one that paints a picture of like a toaster and how do you solve the broken toaster kind of problem. But what I'm looking for and what I've faced other people is when they, when people don't understand the spirit behind that question, it makes for a brutal interview. And it kind of gives you insight as a candidate of what type of manager or person that would be that you'd be working with. Because sometimes people just want to like make people squirm and that's not the right approach. Yeah. I'm doing it not to see if they can come up with the right answer.

And while there might be a right answer, it's not, that's not the goal. It's really just about seeing how they handle a weird circumstance and it being the person interviewing you is gonna ask you a weird question. What are your mechanics to solve that situation? I also have asked people questions that I know are wrong or I've made statements that I know are wrong to see how they handle that. Because I've had, I've learned off the bad experience that I've had where someone has said something wrong to me in an interview and I've had to, as the candidate, navigate, explain to them that that's incorrect.

Or I've had people who have been so focused on me giving the right answer that there was no right answer because they would keep on changing the question on me. And it just soured me as a candidate. And so that's really been in my career as a software engineer. I've had people who have lifted me up and have really kind of made me feel good beyond just the code, letting me feel like I was capable of doing something. And then I've had people who have, I've sat in code review sessions where you just go, that is not the way I wanna be. That is not the type of leader or teammate or colleague that I wanna be, just because it's, especially in the tech world, it is, there's so much passion and vitriol and there's so much of the, oh gosh, I'm bad with words, so don't even look to me until I even come up with a good word.

The imposter syndrome, that's about it. Yeah, yeah, that's it. And that's big in tech. I mean, speaking of conferences, I mean, why, why is there such a terrible imposter syndrome thing in tech? So part of it is the culture, right? But the other thing that I think is such a big player is, It's one of the areas where, you know, in every aspect of business, professional life, personal life, you're always solving problems, right? But code is one of the unique areas where you're actually laying your thoughts out on paper for someone to dissect. Which is very vulnerable. Oh, exactly, yeah. And that's why code reviews are some of the most stressful situations.

And so as a result, if someone critiques something, which perfect code is impossible, right? You'll always find something even as nitpicky as how you name your variables and what casing you use. You're laying yourself out there to just be criticized. And if you're especially new at it, when you're still trying to like get that comfort of your own capabilities, any criticism is going to make you feel inadequate. criticism is going to make you feel like your brain doesn't solve problems correctly. And so everyone feels like an imposter syndrome. I feel like it today. And I've had the years to sort of prove that I'm not, but I still feel like they're going to bust down my doors and say, you know, you don't belong here and pick me out.

But it's because you're constantly laying out how your brain has solved a problem. And there's no right or wrong to that. It's just how you operate and based on the experiences you've had. So, how do you develop a culture within an IT organization to where developers and just anybody alike has that vulnerability and feels comfortable? Yeah. So I like that part because you didn't just say, how did you develop a culture? Because I'm kind of on this weird kick right now where I hear people toss around culture, culture with culture, but they never say what the culture is, right? There's so many different cultures. and some people gravitate towards others.

And that's something that's been something I've learned over my career is that the thing that I think, the thing that culture means for me, I've always felt that everyone would gravitate towards that. But I've learned that other people like different styles. And so when you talk about people feeling comfortable and being able to fail. Vulnerable. Yeah, I mean being vulnerable. Yeah, exactly. That vulnerability, that's something that I've really, I think I've always had the sense in me to wanna foster that, but over the years, I've gotten better at being able to foster that. And that is an element of the culture that I wanna bring to some places that, I've met people who would much rather just be told, you know, your code sucks, and that's all they need.

And everyone makes it, right? Yeah. That is not me. I'm a big, huggy feeling guy, I cry at commercials. So I, yeah, I couldn't do that. We got it. We got it what they just grabbed some drinks and watched commercials and tried together. I'm telling you, man. Dude, it gets brutal around the holidays with these Hallmark commercials. Tell me about it. Yeah. So it's funny because that's the area where you can't fake it, right? It's going to be how much do you genuinely care about the person behind the code, right? They know the goal. They know the obvious things, right? The code's got to work.

It's got to be fast. not have bugs. But what you need to sort of, to be effective at allowing them to be vulnerable is that you have to have a relationship with them beyond that code. You have to be able to laugh with them and joke around with them. And so I'll tell you the kind of the funny thing that you, so in my comment that I had made, the first word that I wrote was yes. And I was thinking back on when I wrote yes, because I thought, who was going to misinterpret Am I saying yes to is it career suicide versus right? I didn't even take it that way.

I didn't even take it that way. Good. But then I started worrying about it. I thought, should I edit it? Well, that thought, well, it's actually, and here's the truth of it. I actually think it is. Yes. It's career suicide, but not to the person who's doing a job hopping. It's career suicide to the person who is managing the person who is. So good. So good. So, so because because the truth is, I mean, you hear it all the time, like people leave bad managers and people stick with good managers, right? And that's, you know, I don't want to take, you know, it's not, if I get any credit, it's not completely because it's conscious effort on my part.

I think some things may might have been luck and some things might have been subconscious, but I've had the benefit of having people stick with me for longer than that 18 month average or sometimes 24. I've had people who stick, most people who've stuck with me for 36 months plus. And I've wondered about the ones who've left and what way are the breakdown was. And a part of it is to that culture aspect. But another part is how well did I establish that ability of being vulnerable with one another, right? If you can't do that, if you can't, if you can't establish the way in which you need to be a welcome coach and welcome is key, but a welcome coach to the individual and know that every individual has a different style.

That is where if you've got people who are leaving, they're fine. It's you who asked to wonder how much am I committing career suicide here? What do I need to change by myself? And I'm still learning all the ways in which I am imperfect at it because it is the type of thing where you're always encountering new personality types and some people it works with great and they click and you can laugh with them, you can cry with them and you can code with them. The three most important things. Yeah. And then others. Left-crying code. I love it. Yeah. But then there's others who, you know, I'm still figuring out and it's, there's things that are just not intuitive to me about how to, you know, some people prefer a request, some people prefer a what feels to me like a command.

Sure. It's a discrete statement. They don't see it as a command. And so navigating that is still challenging. but the probably the takeaway there is that I'm openly and actively trying with them and telling them, hey, I might not get it right, but I'm here to ultimately make you successful. And the go-to kind of line that I have is that, at this point in my career, I'm not the one building the product. And so you can look at it as these people work for me to get this job done. That's not quite the best perspective, I think the real view is that you're there for them, right?

You're there to remove obstacles, get them what they need, and understand how they want to grow so that in 18 months, when they start feeling bored of what they've been doing, you've been planning well in advance so that they actually never get to that point, that at 15 month mark, you started to expand their skillset, whether it's more technical areas or it's more leadership areas or other aspects of the business. And then finally knowing where that, you can no longer support them within that business, but then setting them up for success, whatever that is, like a recommendation letter or helping them. The, when I've had people leave or when I've known that there are people who are on the task of leaving, the thing I've always asked them is, go someplace better, right?

If you leave and go someplace worse, I'll know it was because of me. But if I get you set up somewhere better, I love that. Feel good about it, right? I love that. But it's so important, right? Because that then makes you know that you did write in that relationship. And it'll probably pay off and spades later down the line when you're old and trying to find a job and facing all the criticism and whatnot. So you're saying so much as resonates for me. I mean, that's, I mean, ultimately, when I came in at Vaco, wanted to kind of fix and culture things and wanted to, I mean, when you're in a sales driven organization and going up against a bunch of type A people.

I mean, you can get pretty cutthroat, right? And essentially, I mean, we have nine recruiters that I manage and or eight and me and it's like, we technically are all against each other. But yet we still have to be transparent and open. And I think my question to you is like, you know, I mean, are you it seems like you and I are very, very similar from a personality perspective, just an initial meeting. Like, are you like, like are you one of the leaders that like open up a little bit about you? Or do you kind of keep yourself closed off because I'm wide open, right?

Like my leadership style like listen, like, like my team knows my wife and like all that stuff and like I share about difficulties and challenges. And I'm not saying like that needs to be, because listen, that that is backfired to me and some others parts of my life. So I'm not saying that is what it needs to be, but I'm curious how you build rapport with your team. Do you do a lot of one on ones? What does that look like? I mean, just kind of give me a peel behind the onion. Yeah, I think so. So the obvious part that I guess I need to stay is it's like a legal preamble.

It has to be genuine, right? You can't fake it. The things that I do that help me, but it's not formulaic, right? You have to, it depends on the relationship with a person, but what I think my habit is with people, and this is just with anybody, there's two angles to it. One is I know all my bad habits, right? And knowing that helps you be better with people. And I'll tell you the story of my wife, when we first started dating, I told her because I knew that I just, I don't consciously do it, I just habitually do it. I dial all my bad behaviors up to like 11.

And the thinking there is, hey, if you can withstand, it's not that if you can hate me in my worst or love me in my worst or anything, but it's just more that, you know, the things that I do that I know can drive people nuts. I just almost, as a defense mechanism, will do that more. And then I'll sit there and go, why do that so much? And I just do that. And then if they stick around with me, then I go, OK, there's actually some of the points that I've been here, right? But when it comes to people who are, I'm not looking to marry.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're only stick to one of those. Yeah. But the thing that I've noticed is that when I show that same kind of vulnerability. That's when I start building a relationship. And so, you know, the, so you mentioned kind of like my, my website and like little thing I drew of myself. The thing that's most prominent that I'll tell you about. So my eyebrows are thick. They are visible. They're really good. They're great. They're great. But when I was, you know, seven, eight, you know, it was the thing I get teased about. When I was in high school, it was brutal, right? I got big forehead, man.

Like literally like I got made fun of that too. You know, it's funny with the guy who does, it's I want to get back to this. The guy who does all my video content stuff, he tweeted it out, he goes, you typically the thing you got made fun of is the thing that is going to be basically your platform now. I had a major stuttering, major speech impediment for years, speech therapy until sixth grade. Real rags to Richard's story. Now, my Republic speaking do is a thing. Right? And so now, go back to what you were saying, because I think there's a little correlation there.

Yeah, no, there is. Because I mean, for me, I've not been able to use my eyebrows to my advantage other than really to let, you know, I think most people who have worked with me have known the sensitivity I've had about them early in life. And it's not like I didn't need to sit on a couch or anything about it. But it's more that when, you know, because I also like to, most people will tell you that I like to, I play the angle of somebody who's got a big ego, but it is all in jest. But the thing is that I do that almost humorously, at least to make myself laugh sometimes, because I think at times having that kind of ego is so absurd.

And so I like to sort of play up that angle, almost like, you know, Stephen Colbert did on Colbert Report. But like the the eyebrows thing is that is, you know, inevitably, I end up talking about the things that I'm sensitive about in my life, right? And so that's that's one of those things. And that's why when I was first trying that, I wanted that to be one of those prominent things about it because it was sort of like embracing that aspect. You know, I don't feel comfortable about them right now to this day, but it's like, at least in, I know that I can be comfortable in my vulnerability about it, but that's what opens up the doors, I think, with people.

It's not just talking about my eyebrows and something like someone can go and talk about their eyebrows or whatever they feel vulnerable, because there are some things that probably are too personal and probably are too heavy. But the point is that if you can show people that you're there to be a person with them and not talk to them like, you know, subordinate or like a machine or get the business crap out of the way, right? Like don't talk as though you're not human. And that's so that ties back to what I was saying about culture, right? I see so many people talk still to this day.

We've got a great culture, but they don't say what that culture is. And that culture has become a business term. And that's unfortunate because it really should mean a whole lot of things. And so that's why when I hear people talk to me about, oh, I want to help build a culture, my immediate question back on this, what is that, right? What do you call in culture? Because to me, if I was going to say, well, my preferred workplace culture I go in, I clock in, I don't talk to anybody, but I'm just there to do work. I clock out and they leave me alone, they don't message me.

That is a culture, right? And there are people who genuinely like that, and I'm not portraying that as a bad thing, but I don't think it's usually what people talk about with culture, but it's one that you need to think about when you're talking about it. And for me, all of it, the culture that I try to foster is the ability to be vulnerable with people, but also work and kind of work together to build each other up and support each other. Whether it's at work, whether it's in a personal life, it all kind of goes into man. So do you think that vulnerability is one of, and again, wrong answers only is my wife and I like to say during this COVID time, wrong answers only, do you think vulnerability is one of the most important traits to build a good culture?

I think it's I'd probably generalize it further to just honesty and trust. Okay, true. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, the thing I'm realizing right now because I'm only now four months into this new place that I'm at Salero. You know, I'm building this new place. And you've hired half of Nashville already. Yeah. So, but I'm faced with some weird, weird challenges that I've never faced before, right? How do you build trust with people that you don't know and you've only really met virtually? And how do you build that rapport? How do you let them know that you're someone, you know, the bulk of them have not come directly through connections?

And so they are otherwise, or they've been strangers to me. How do you get there and how do you get there fast, right? And it isn't formulaic and I've had times even told them, listen, I want you to trust me, but I know that the only way that that's never gonna happen is if circumstances arise where I show that you can trust me. And unfortunately, those circumstances are usually bad, because how do you trust someone in good scenarios, those are what I always play out. So I try to establish that that's what I'm working towards, but I know that I can't just say trust me and it just be implicit.

So I try to show the proactive ways in which they can trust me. Part of that is, again, tying this into the vulnerability and honesty side of things, part of that is knowing how they operate. So right now with COVID, some of my folks that got kids, some of them have dogs that need walking. Some of them just have life happening around them and I can either hear it or see it. And part of that is establishing, listen, I don't need you to worry about if you need to step away. I don't need you to worry about telling me, oh, I had to do this, go do it.

I'm not here to make your life more miserable. I'm here to try and make work be the least of your concerns because you have a lot of other concerns right now. And if I can show in showing them in a genuine way that I care about those aspects, that's how I'm trying to build that trust with them. The other thing that work-wise that I've been doing, especially for developers because context switching so challenging, right? And getting a solid hour just to work on something as often comes at a premium. Sure. I've actually started to try to really cut back on how often I reach out to them, how often I message them.

It's the reverse. Is the reverse of what most companies are doing right now? Exactly. And I'm trying to, and it's showing my trust in them, right? Because if I'm not breathing down their necks, if I'm giving them three hours where I'm not even spoken to them, you know, but I'm assuming that they're working and doing what they need to be doing, then they kind of understand sort of the parameters of how it worked together. And the sort of the more, I guess, putting it into practice, one of the things that I did, because I know that especially in my world, we're a SaaS company. So, fires happen.

Everything's always, I was literally about saying everything's always burning always, yeah. Exactly. So, the truth is, one thing is that I found that, you know, everything's a fire. So you have to kind of measure and take a slower approach to putting them out. can't always rush around. But the thing that I've established on my team is, listen, I'm not going to message you to say, I need you to look at this. I'm not going to email you to say, hey, can you get that report from me? I'm going to leave it completely alone. I'm going to, what I basically did is set up what looks like, it's basically like a Trello or a Jera board, and it just has three buckets and it has by the end of the day, by the end of the week, and by mid next week.

And I just put it in there, I tag them, tag the date that I would need it by, and I let them come up for air whenever they need to get it done. I'll get alerted and I'll be able to move on. And that way they get that unblocked kind of time. If it's life, if it's work, whatever they need, they're not just getting that notification overload of like, oh, he's messaging me about this and I've got to get these other things done. I'm trusting people to manage their own schedules because I'm not you know, the last thing I need is a babysitter, whether it's in-person or virtual, right?

So. But I think too, and we'll wrap up here, you did just answer my kind of wrap up question, but like, but it comes from a confidence with you though, right? Because I think a lot of times leaders lead out of insecurity. And what that kind of manifested itself is micro management, constant check-ins. you're doing this wrong, let's do this instead. Or just kind of what I actually even say, long-wittedness, insecure managers just kind of drone on and on and on. And it's like, well, yeah, but I think you just like to talk like I do. That's a different thing. But so yeah, I mean, again, and I didn't know your thoughts on that.

I mean, but I just think that shows confidence as a leader from your end that a lot of people don't have. Yeah, okay, so that is going, you asked the question of like how I sort of hone into my own style and that is definitely from, you know, I think, I think bad leaders create bad leaders and good leaders create good ones, right? So I can't always pick a specific example from a leader who helped me kind of create my style because it wasn't that they were absent. It wasn't that they were checked out. It's just that they recognized that they didn't need to be present at every moment.

And so they didn't create moments for me to succeed. They allowed me to room to fail brutally. But in me recognizing the space that I had to operate, the autonomy that I had, it forced me to step up in the way that I needed. And that probably doesn't work for everybody. But that made me realize that, if you, again, there are people who probably would have used it, but if you hire the right people and you look for that in terms of the attitudes that they have. It's not rocket science, and it's not like you need to work very hard at it. It's actually probably even a lazier way to do it, because I don't want to be checking around people.

Last thing, I've actually had a circumstance where I threatened to leave a company because it was expected of me to micromanage someone. And I said, that is not me. Yeah, because it isn't me, right? And I knew that I would be miserable. And if I'm miserable, then I'm a miserable micromanager, and that's probably even worse, and I just start a regular micro- I gravitate towards the things, the areas that let me foster who I am as a person and let who I am as a person kind of come into how I work, how I manage, how I lead. And I create that space for people.

Now, you do need the verify to the trust part. And the verify is not, You know, that was a trust, but verify it. And that seems like they're diametrically opposed, but the verify is actually, in my mind, more to provide, you know, the guide rails to people, you know, like that. If I ask someone to put out a report for me, my ask of them is not to only come back when it's done, but have seven, eight, 10, 15 check-ins with me on your progress. So I can steer you. If you're going down the road that I think, you know, maybe I didn't communicate my requirements correctly or maybe you had a different perception of what needed to be done, let's just like agile software, I like just check in frequently, get results back and get that feedback loop going so that I can steer that.

But the trust part is still that implicitness of, I trust that you'll get it done. And if I did leave you alone, and you came back at the final stage, it'll probably be solid. But it would be the thing that I need might not always be the case, right? And if that comes down to how well that communicates with requirements. So that's the part that again, I try to balance that out by having those verified check-ins with people, whether it's about a project or their career. And so, yeah, so that's where getting that space is important, but checking in with people and knowing that you're progressing in the right direction is key.

I love that, man. So we'll finish up with one last question. We talked more a lot about communication management leadership, which was awesome. That's exactly what I want to talk about. So thank you for just weighing in this whole thing with me. Let's go job search real fast for the three people that probably are still going to listen to this all the way through. What would you say like one tip you would have for somebody who's on in the job, on the job search right now, dealing with COVID and kind of during this time? What is just one nugget that you would share with somebody?

Yeah. So as cliche as it sounds, it's that dial yourself up to 11B, like just to be yourself because I've been in interviews where I've not been myself and I've gotten the offer and other times I've not gotten the offer. You know, there's someone, I'm 15 plus years into my career now and I don't get all the offers, right? It's so knowing that you're not going to get every single one, that's okay. But what you never want to do is set yourself up to walk into a door with a different expectations of who you are and what your expectations are. And it's weird because it's right now there is no power struggle, right?

Employers have all the power. There are so many people who are looking for the first job. It's that they are very vulnerable and some of them I know for a fact, I've been looking for more than six months and that is terrifying to me. I mean, that's, I'm incredibly grateful and don't forget the fact that I'm so part of where, part of why I'm where I am is because I just luckily got born the year that I was born and didn't have to face the challenges people have faced. But so, so employers have so much control and power, but at the end of the day, if you are catering to the power that they hold, you're gonna end up in a position where you're not going to be happy.

So part of that is just don't, not changing who you are or changing your attitude or what you expect. But it's also just career-wise, I've seen some people, especially developers right now, who are looking for non-development jobs out of desperation. And I get it because, especially if you've got financial struggles, that is a tough position to be in. The only thing that you run the risk of is losing out. Actually, this is someone applied to a job that is not a technical one, but does report to me, excuse me, not a developer job, but does report to me. And I told them that, listen, you'll end up getting pigeonholed.

If you put this title on your resume, you'll always be seen as that title. And so don't make that sacrifice. I have liked you and I want you to work for me. And if you did work for me, I would do my best to get you out of this title. But if I don't have the, that role that you're looking for on the horizon, you'll be in this role a lot longer than you want to be breaking out of it is really tough. So it's kind of, it's, it's a tough one because it really, you know, I'm telling, I'm telling people who are already in a tough spot to sort of stick to their guns and a very tough time to stick to your guns.

but this will end and we will get out of this. And I'm actually seeing more and more companies say in the last couple of weeks starting to hire more. Yeah, so it's great because a lot of the people who are entry level, I'm seeing them actually post about how they've landed jobs. I'm so happy for them. Yeah. So ride it out as best as you can. If there's ways that you can find like temporary gigs to ride out that thing and, you know, make the financials work and do that, then make any kind of sacrifice. Awesome. Well dude, thanks for hanging.