Stephen Godfrey, Author of Imposter Therapy: How to Overcome Imposter Syndrome and Start Living

Len: Hi I'm Len Epp from Leanpub, and in this episode of the Frontmatter podcast I'll be interviewing Stephen Godfrey.

Based in Lindon, Utah, Stephen is Senior DevOps Engineer at Omadi, a Utah-based startup that works on technology supporting the tow service industry.

You can check out his courses on freelance consulting at freelancecollege.com, and see his web design and development work at mountainfreshmedia.com

Stephen is the author of the Leanpub book Imposter Therapy: How to Overcome Imposter Syndrome and Start Living. In the book, using stories from his own and other people's lives, Stephen teachers readers how they can try to overcome imposter syndrome, which can be defined a number of different ways, but can be described as the surprisingly common feeling that you're regarded as a person with qualities you don't believe you actually possess.

In this interview, we’re going to talk about Stephen's background and career, professional interests, his book, and at the end we'll talk about his experience using Leanpub to self-publish his book.

So, thank you Stephen for being on the Leanpub Frontmatter Podcast.

Stephen: Thank you Len, I'm glad to be here.

Len: I always like to start these interviews by asking people for their origin story. So, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about where you grew up and the circuitous path you took to a career in web development and DevOps?

Stephen: Well, how long do we want to go on this podcast? As for origin stories, I don't have anything amazing like joining the Avengers or whatnot. But my origin story is pretty interesting.

I grew up in Canada in Sherwood Park, Alberta, which is just east of Edmonton.

So picture this. It's winter. It's 5:30 in the morning. Delivering newspapers. It's so cold that your eyelids freeze shut. You have to wear two pairs of socks, leather parka - everything. That's how I grew up. I grew up Edmonton, where the summers are sunny, but not warm. And the winters are cold as cold can be. Not as cold as Alaska, but it's still pretty cold.

And then, as for origin story - I grew up like a normal kid, and then did a service stint as a missionary over in Australia, which was awesome. I go to go through Alice Springs. I lived in South Australia, and also lived in North Australia. So that whole gamut from South to North. And then I came back, and did school.

I went down to a college in Salt Lake City. So, I'm from Canada. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, but I got a chance to go down to the States. I wanted to go to BYU, just because they had a good program in Information Systems, and just because it's where I felt I should go. So it was kind of a circuitous route.

I think of our listeners, not everyone here has finished college - or they started and they didn't finish, or they took longer than they wanted.

And that's the thing in impostor syndrome, or even just life - I think we set this unlofty expectation. This goal that we should hit this goal by a certain date. You should be married by this date. You should've gotten this salary by this date. You should have finished by this date. And I didn't. I was 27 when I finished by Bachelor's Degree in Information Systems. And the circuitous route was, basically - I had a really bad relationship experience, where it just knocked me to my knees part way through BYU. And so I was starting to fail classes. I mean, I took calculus three times, and finally trying to figure out life.

So I took a break to go back to northern Canada. Picture this. If I'm from northern Canada and Alberta, and then I go to a place called Thornbury, which is about four and a half hours north. So it's even colder, even darker in the winter. But I trucked. I was a trucker for a while. I did garbage truck, freight truck. Hauling things. Seeing the Northern Lights up there was just phenomenal. One night was a hot shot trip up to the plant sites, and I saw the whole sky from - a good, at least 180 degrees, my vision. I could just see from left to right - the skies danced, and the gods battled, and it was just poetic and beautiful. I had to stop my truck, because I would've crashed it. Because it was just so impressive.

But yeah, I lived up there for a while. Did some trucking. Got to go back to BYU. My goal was, I wasn't going to date, I wasn't going to get married. And then I got married. Which I'm grateful for. But it was - it was good. It's good. It's been a good marriage. We've been married 12 years now, and we're still happily married. We have two kids, Aliana and Finn, nine and seven. We live in Lindon, Utah. I've got a house. We've got a cat, which is nice. That was a new addition to the family last year. It just showed up on our property, so we took it in.

So for an origin story, that's kind of like my upbringing, growth - that kind of thing - in a nutshell.

But workwise, I took a break from BYU after I graduated. And then I was just - I was so burnt out from school, I was just done. I was just tired and worn out. And so I took a job during the great recession, and it was - this is kind of interesting, because we want to talk about the pandemic and COVID 19 and how I had to get any job I could during the great recession in 2009.

I was doing upper-level tech support for a company, fresh out of college. And then I got a chance to go work for a company doing web development and reporting and analytics - that kind of thing. Processing, handling the reports that process payroll for a whole bunch of teachers. And so I did that for, oh, I don't know? A good year or so.

And then there were some company politics. Half the company got let go, at least at Provo. And that was during my Master's program. I was going back to be where you get the Master's Degree. And so I worked for a startup, they ran out of money. Everyone got fired. I started looking for work.

And then the interesting thing is that, I just - it wasn't - it's not what I wanted to do. Somebody called me up and said, "Hey, we've got this project. I want it scoped, can you scope it out?" I'm like, "Yeah, I could scope it out." And so I've done contract work before, but never really freelancing. And so that was my first real freelance gig.

I scoped it out. I got a check in hand. I thought, "Well, I really have to deliver, because I'm paid for this." So I did, scoped it out. And I did work for that client for a year and a half.

And then I gained more clients and more clients. I did - that was for a self-storage company. And then I got a client doing work for a bank, and then for a financial tech institution. Then for a management consultant, then accountants, optometrists. A whole bunch of things. Building websites, which you can see on mountainfreshmedia.com. I just did freelancing for a good five solid years, and did pretty well. Really successful, we're talking six figures towards the end.

And then, dun, dun, dun, dun - COVID 19 hit. And I'll be honest. They had a string of just unaccepted projects or contracts or things like that. I didn't have the systems I do now, or at least the knowledge of how to get leads and sales, that I do now. In fact, I'm writing a book on how to find freelance clients. It's just in its very infancy, but that's my next project on the docket. And so, yeah - I was running out of cash. I had this huge runway of $50,000 saved up from my freelancing, and I was starting to burn through that. I'm like, "I need to get a job."

So I got a job doing devops. I've always wanted to get into devops just to know, "Could I do it?" And I've been working there for - oh gee, a good eight months now. I'm a senior devops engineer at Omadi, and I could do it. Which is kind of cool, because I have definitely suffered with impostor syndrome and wondering like, "Am I good enough? Do I belong? Do I deserve [to be] here?" It's been really good to have that achievement. And they're like, yeah. I can tow the line. I can fix things. I can handle it when the fire's going on and make things work.

In the meantime, I freelance on the side. I've got a project I'm delivering this Monday that's 7K, so $7,000 US. And life is good. Full-time job. Stable marriage. Kids. Kids are kids, right? But they're pretty good. And then life is good, no complaints.

Len: Thanks very much for sharing all that. We were chatting a little bit before the interview, and I mentioned to Stephen that I'm from next door originally - to Alberta - in Saskatchewan.

Stephen: Yay.

Len: And so I've had my own version of many of the experiences you described of seeing the Northern Lights, seeing the whole sky. Because the joke is that, "The land is so flat - that if your dog runs away, you'll still see where it is after three days."

Particularly the nighttime sky is an amazing thing in the remote north. I say "remote," in the north. And yes, the winters - when I lived in the UK for a few years - and I'm sure you probably had a version of this in Australia. But telling people that like where I grew up, in winter it was a normal thing for the weather report on the radio to say how long it's going to take for your skin to freeze. Where we grew up, that's just like part of the weather report. But other places, it sounds totally horrifying.

Stephen: Well, it's funny when we say "north." I mean, it's all relative, right? If you talk to somebody's who's from Minnesota - kind of Minnesota would be on the same level as Saskatoon or whatnot, Regina, Edmonton - that kind of level. But then you talk to somebody who's a Canadian. It's like, "Well are you from Tuktoyaktuk or north west, like -? Well not northwest territories anymore, but - Yukon, they think that's far north.

But if you talk to somebody from Texas and say you're from Edmonton or you're from Winnipeg or something, they think that's far north. And so it's interesting that you and I both canoed up in Northern Saskatchewan. The land of 1,000 lakes, they call it. And it's just - gorgeous, gorgeous area. Where you're in the middle of nowhere - like literally middle of nowhere. And, yeah - I did a 10A trip up there, same place where you canoed. So that's kind of an interesting coincidence.

Len: Yeah actually, it's funny. This is a total coincidence. But when I was on a three or four day canoe trip up there with the high school I was at, we ran into another group of teenagers canoeing - who were from my old high school. Like they were in my class.

Stephen: Up there?

Len: There, yeah.

Stephen: Of all places.

Len: Yeah, it's strange.

Stephen: That's like saying that you went to Antarctica with a bunch of your friends, and you ran into your old high school friends down - like that's just totally random.

Len: Yeah, it was wild.

Stephen: Yeah.

Len: But these kinds of coincidences do happen sometimes. And yeah - it's a beautiful country, if you ever get a chance to go there. And if you're willing to brave the winter, it actually is - it's bracing at first, but if you dress well and you ask for some advice, you might even enjoy it after a while.

I wanted to ask you - so you said you were in Australia for two years on a mission. I'm assuming, given the university you went to, that this was probably a Mormon mission.

Stephen: Yeah, guilty. We don't really use the term "Mormon" anymore.

Len: Yeah sorry -

Stephen: But - it's fine.

Len: Would you say "LDS?"

Stephen: Yeah, LDS is fine. It's not offensive, it's just -

Len: Yeah.

Stephen: I was the guy with the - I mean, I don't know if some reader's going to be some like hate thing and like, "I'll just go turn this off right now," click. Oh my gosh. But I mean, I've got some stories to tell. So, yeah - I did a service mission as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints over in Australia. And it was good. A lot of service work. A lot of serving in libraries and Meals on Wheels, and helping poor people and teaching and working with the Aborigines. It was just a really fantastic experience. Because - well, there's a couple of things.

One time - in Adelaide, where we were - it was the hottest summer in 100 years. I think there was 30 days straight where it was 40 degrees plus, Celsius of course. That'd be 110 degrees Fahrenheit plus-ish. And it was hot. There was a story where - this is funny. So we're up in Darwin in Northern Territory, and we're going to go for a crocodile tour. And they have it where they take these - a big hunk of meat, and they tie it to a string, and they tie that to a rope, and that's tied to a stick. And they will drip that in the water and the crocodiles will come out. Just like Peter Pan, like do, de, do, do, do, do, do. And you just see them just come out. They will leap, literally leap out of their water. We're talking eight to ten feet up in the air. Sometimes they can clear the water. Because they have that huge tail. And they can actually grab the meat, rip it off the line and chew it.

But yeah, we're waiting for a croc tour, and there was a guy who says, "Hey, see that green tree snake? You should grab it." I was scared. And so like I kind of half-hesitantly reached for the middle of the snake slowly. And it turned out it bit me. I looked at my hand, and there was just these white scratches on it. It didn't even break the skin really. And so like, "Oh, I can do this." So I grabbed the snake, pulled it down, put my hand behind its head so it can't try and bite me. And it was kind of cool to have that confidence, where I used to always be scared of snakes as a kid. And like, "No, I can do it. I can catch snakes." Now I catch snakes all the time.

But that was funny, because when I let the snake go, there was a bunch of girls around - and let it on the ground, and it went right towards them. They freaked out and shrieked and jumped on the chair. Just like out of a movie kind of thing. It was a good memory. So a lot of good experience over in Australia. Great people. Loved it. And it was good. Good experience.

Len: Regarding people turning off the podcast, I've actually interviewed at least one or two people who have gone on Mormon missions, or - sorry - LDS missions, and talked about it before. And in fact, one person I interviewed actually worked on the development of the system for like candidate selection and assignment. So this subject has come up before.

Specifically in the context the concept of impostor syndrome, I wanted to ask you - so, I've often wondered this when I've seen people on their mission, and encountered them - and I hope that's the right term to use. But how did you feel when you, as it were, knocked on your first door?

Stephen: I think it's the same as if you have any - like the first day on the job, first date with a girl. Not - I guess not - with first date with a girl. But the first day in a job, the first day doing anything positioned where you're unfamiliar. You're scared as heck. You're totally scared as can be. It's unfamiliar, and you think you're not good enough. "What am I doing here?" Like all of those questions go through every person, every missionary's mind ever.

They went through my mind for sure. Like, "What am I doing here? Is this right? Am I crazy? What's my purpose? Is this what I want to do with my life? Am I good enough? Am I clean enough? Am I worthy enough? Am I -?" All those questions go through your mind.

I think with life - we just - you knock on the door, metaphorically and literally speaking. But you just do. Knock on the door. You just take it, and you take each moment at a time in twelve steps. I've done that, I go to a twelve-step group just for maintenance and whatnot and accountability. It's been really good, a good place of healing and just kind of accountability. Where they say, "You take each step at a time, each moment at a time." And sometimes you think, "Well is a year too much, is 2020 too much? Well, I'll take each month at a time. Is each month too much? Take each week. Or each day, each moment."

And moment by moment, that's what we are. You think about breathing. Each time you take a breath, you're literally resetting your death clock. Because if you don't breathe for two minutes, you're going to die. I think when you can accept that and just realize that we're here on this earth just to grow and progress and find meaning, help others, do the best we can - and then go onto the - whatever happens after this. You just, you take each moment by moment - and you live your life. And all that worrying and the fear - yeah, you live with it, and you work through it. And it all works out.

Len: And actually, that's really interesting, particularly about how things can work out. So you mentioned that you started studies maybe a little late. You had a little bit of an interruption, and finished a little bit later than people might have otherwise. I've got a question that I wanted to ask you, that - I mean, just building up that context - that I often ask people on this podcast if they're in tech - which is, if you were starting out now, like in 2021, with the intention of having a career like the one you've had, would you actually get one or more formal university degrees before starting out?

Stephen: Oh no. So, I have a lot of respect for education, for professors. I've been a professor. I actually was able to be an adjunct professor at BYU, teaching undergrads. Picture this. 350 undergrads. Teaching them Microsoft Excel and being like, "Professor Godfrey, I have a question about my life. What should I do for my major? What should I do for this class? Who should I date?" All these questions. Like, "I am just a graduate student, hold the phone."

I have full respect for it. But I also think that there is - there's a, kind of like, How To Train Your Dragon 3 so to speak - a hidden world where - let me go back.

There is this paradigm where we all think that you're supposed to go to school and you're supposed to get your degree and go work for a big company in Information Systems. It would be KPMG or PricewaterhouseCoopers or Accenture - or any of these kind of management consulting-type firms. And then you go get your degree and you put your time in. And then you finally get in with a chain, and maybe you go get another Master's Degree or what not. And then you have to get a degree to succeed. In some cases, the former way - yes. I mean that is true.

When they look for applicants, then they want somebody who has that kind of experience and that piece of paper. But what you're doing when you go to school is learning how to learn. You're getting the network, and you're basically getting the confidence to go and do things. You're getting this exposure for this project and this project.

I'm going to say something bold. You don't need an education. If you've got hustle, you might need education if you want to work for a big company that has these rigidized processes. But if you want to go make money, take care of your life - you don't need it. Freelance, you just need to know how to write or code or design - and you need to have the confidence to pitch and the no how to run a business - which you can get, just by getting experience.

I think having that degree is good for a lot of people. Because they feel that they aren't good enough. Because, "Oh, I missed one class in my degree, and because of that then five years went past and it expired." I know people who did that. Where they went to school for four years, minus one class - and it's a waste. Not a waste, but they don't have that piece of paper. But it gives them that confidence. It can make hiring easier. It can make finding a job easier. But you don't have to have it. If you have solid experience, it can help. But yeah - there's arguments for both sides.

Len: Thanks very much for sharing that.

Stephen: I mean, I'd like to go back and teach at BYU again. I don't need to have a PhD for that, but I could go get one. I've got a couple of published papers. Not to be like, "Look at me, I'm so fancy." They're literally just conference papers and whatnot. But it's, I don't know? It's not where I want to go. I'd rather have the experience. I'd rather build products, inventions, write books and showcase my skill set that way. Instead of saying, "I went to school and I can take this course, because -" I can take courses without going to school, and I can have them be more applicable to my life than just a school course that's three to five years out of date.

Len: Thanks very much for that really great answer.

Just before we move onto the next part of the interview where we talk about your book, I wanted to ask you - you mentioned a little bit about how the pandemic has affected your professional life. But I just wondered if you could give us a little bit of a picture of just the life around you, where you live in Utah. Did people start wearing masks right away? Did they - outside, I mean - did they not start wearing masks at all?

Stephen: Oh man.

Len: Did all the restaurants shut down? That kind of thing.

Stephen: This is my official on-microphone sigh. Where a bleepity-bleep mask. I mean, yeah, there's all these - the conspiracy theories, and there's all the people saying, "You don't need to." And people saying that, "Tuberculosis is just as infective," and what not. "The flu's just as infective." Yada, yada, yada. I mean, I think the comfort that it comes from giving - wearing a mask - to other people, comfort. And it helps just to be obedient. It helps, it does slow down the spread. You can find science that says, "Masks aren't very effective." And you can find science where it says, "It is effective." A lot of it.

And I think that people here, yeah - there are still people who go to parties. There are still people who don't wear masks, from what I see - because I only go out to shop - is that most people wear masks. Some of them dangle their nose out from their masks, like they shouldn't. Which is - yeah, you shouldn't do that. But no, people generally started wrapping up slowly here in the States. And I'd be a little exasperated why some people just don't, just didn't care - and it was really frustrating. Still is frustrating. But now more and more people are wearing masks and I can go to the store. And they've got mandatory rules.

So it's not a big deal, but - yeah, I'm really excited - because in Utah, there's a population of about 3.3 million - and we've got about, oh 500,000 doses so far. People vaccinated. Of course, you know that there's two doses, right? But it's slowly wrapping up. And the more and more we get people vaccinated, and the more people who've been infected and who have healed - you get that herd immunity. And just a lot less stress, because - I'll probably get vaccinated in three or four months, and it'll be a good thing.

But yeah, COVID 19 - you also before had asked about my work. That's why I took a full-time job, is because of COVID 19 - my lead flow wasn't as good. I had some projects, and then just things just dried up. I've learned my lesson, sort of. But I know more about finding clients. How to reach out and what not. But that's why I'm working. Is because, just the work dried up. Now - as soon as I had work and works been good and got my feet wet, then I started getting more side work. But I'm happy where I'm at. I think I'll stay with Omadi for a good while.

Len: A lot of Leanpub authors are people who have kind of - either been independent their whole careers, or chose to go independent at some point. There seems to be some connection, often, between writing and self-publishing books, and just being someone who naturally gravitates towards being freelance or on their own.

And particularly at the beginning [of the pandemic], one or two people were very concerned about how it was going to affect them over the course of the year.

Particularly people where a big part of their revenue stream was being invited to give talks by companies, or doing onsite consulting, and things like that. So there's a lot of people who have been negatively affected by that. And then there are other people who are maybe in other parts of the industry, who are like, "Wow, I've got more work than ever." It just kind of depends on your situation. For example, I'm thinking specifically about someone who works in book publishing. He's a consultant. And so all of a sudden, people are reading more. And so people see it - it can kind of depend where you're in -

Stephen: I've got a friend, Spencer Bean - Hi Spencer - who runs a puzzle company. He does custom puzzles and his business boomed, because people are at home wanting things to do. And so his business actually took up - his Stitch People business as well, his wife - he and his wife wrote [a book]9https://stitchpeople.com/products/do-it-yourself-stitch-people-2nd-edition) on cross-stitch patterns. Which has been phenomenal, like super successful.

And I've got my Impostor syndrome book, I've sold my Freelance College Course, and made some money that way on the side. But most of my income has either been - early on - W2 work, so full time work. Or, basically trading time for money through consulting. So this is my first passive income stream. And I love it. I love waking up and getting a little email in my inbox, saying, "Your impostor syndrome book sold for $5," or $10, whatnot. And I just love it.

I mean, this sounds crazy - totally, totally crazy, right? But I had a chance to take on a Shopify project. This is last week. Lead came in. A referral lead. Usually those ones convert at a really, really high rate. Like we're talking 90%, 95%. Because it comes from somebody who they trust. And it was for a $15,000 project. I'm pretty busy these days with my full-time work. But also because my side hustle - I'm working on that $7,000 project that's due on Monday. I've got another $11,000 project that's due next month. And I just didn't have time for it. And so I turned down a $15,000 project.

I could have scheduled things out by a month or something and tried to work on it on the side. And I just - I want to work on my own stuff. And this sounds so crazy to me now. But I get way more joy out of a $5 email or a $10 email that I sold a book, than doing another $5,000 or $10,000 client project. And it's so weird to me. Like I'm more excited about that little teeny bit. I'm more excited about starting my blacksmithing hobby. Which, I have a forge ready to be built in my garage. I'm picking up a burner tomorrow. And those things excite me. And so having been a person who has just kind of coasted for a lot of my life - yeah, I've got things done, I've had some really good success.

For me, it's coasting, right? The perfectionist Stephen says he's coasting. But I want to start having more meaning, more purpose, more progress. More things that give me joy. And writing gives me joy. Building things with my hand and working in the forge, and having that propane roar, that gives me joy. And so, its nice to have these side hustle things.

Len: Speaking of writing, moving onto the next part of the interview. You've written a book called Imposter Therapy: How to Overcome Imposter Syndrome and Start Living

Stephen: I have.

Len: It's really, it's got a great cover - I just wanted to mention that.

Stephen: Thank you.

Len: But it's a really well-written book. I wanted to start talking about it by just asking you - how would you go about defining impostor syndrome, if someone were just asking you about it over dinner?

Stephen: So I would define impostor syndrome a little deeper. I think that impostor syndrome actually has two different categories. Some people will think, "Well, impostor syndrome is a feeling, where - that you don't deserve the success that you have. So the accomplishments, the awards, the adulations - all the - sort of the praise, that you don't deserve it. That you don't deserve to be there. You don't belong here. You're a fraud, they're going to find you out. And that's kind of the common dictionary definition, that you feel like you don't deserve the rewards that you have.

I also think that impostor syndrome is - and that's kind of like the super successful, the person who's actually achieved things - they feel that way. I believe there's also the newbie. The beginner - the person who just starts the job. The person who just goes to college. The person who is just trying to pick up a new hobby. The person who is just starting something. Those people often will say the word, "impostor syndrome."

That, "What am I doing? Can I do this? Can I learn this? Am I good enough to learn this?" Especially with a job, like, "Do I -?" Again, "Do I belong? Do I deserve to be here? Do I belong? Look at that person, they're so smart." That kind of, a new mentality of, "Do I even have the right to have my presence here? And so, when I think of impostor syndrome, I think of that. Both for the beginner, and for the accomplished pro.

Len: There are a number of interesting stories in your book. But there's one in particular, involving Neil Gaiman and Neil Armstrong. I was wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing with people - just to get a sense of, how - the type of person that can get impostor syndrome can actually be like profoundly accomplished and what not, celebrated.

Stephen: So there was a story where Neil Gaiman, he's an accomplished author and writer. He was at this gala, this presentation for people who've done amazing things. And he's sitting at the back thinking, like, "I'm just a writer, what do I -? Here's the person who's curing cancer, and this person doing genome sequencing. And this person's doing this fantastic mapping," or whatnot. And feeling just this heavy, heavy impostor syndrome. And so he's just in the back. You can just picture a guy to kind of lean back on his chair, thinking like, "What am I doing here?"

And he starts chatting with this really nice and kind elderly gentleman, who basically felt the same kind of thing. It's like, "What am I supposed to be doing here?" It turns out that person was Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. And Neil Armstrong says, like, "Why am I here? I just went where I was sent. They said to go to moon, I went to the moon. This person's doing way more amazing things than I have." And so Neil Gaiman basically says, "If Neil Armstrong can have impostor syndrome, I suppose that's okay for me too."

And that's the thing in the book, where I've got tons of examples. I actually started writing this book with a developer mindset. And then also, just switch to a more general approach for imposter syndrome. Because I didn't want to single people out. But I find that actors and both developers have both - yhey have - yeah, actors and developers have both written a lot about imposter syndrome.

You think about Tom Hanks and Natalie Portman. And you also think of other developers like Scott Hanselman or Brendan Dunn or John Sonmez. There's a whole lot of people who have written about impostor syndrome, and that's the first thing I teach in the book really - is that you aren't alone. That so often we get in this mental state where we think with these internal fears of, "I'm alone. No one else feels this way. I feel like this. I am so fearful." All this, these internal feelings. And if you don't express those, if you don't connect with other people, then you're never going to know how they feel.

There was a story in my book, where, after I get laid off at that startup - and other people were getting laid off too, but I was the first to go, because it was [last] in, first out - right? But I'd worked there for a few months, and I was talking to a friend there and said, "I don't really know what I want to do with my life." And he's like, "Stephen, join the club." And I thought this guy Jason had everything figured out. He was smart. The girls liked him. He was just doing well. He was super skillful, and I thought that skill and technical aptitude equaled direction, purpose, meaning.

And I was dead wrong. And so, before I talked to him, I thought, "I'm the only person." And the more and more I researched, most of us feel this way. That if you don't have impostor syndrome, great. Good for you. But it's those people who'll either overcome it, or they have some pretty good mental health - or some people are delusional. They don't think they have a problem, but - yeah, most people do - and that's okay.

Len: What is it about software development, do you think, that makes impostor syndrome particularly common amongst those people?

Stephen: So imagine this. You get into a field. You don't know what you're writing. Like you try and Bash programming, right? It's been around for years, decades. It should be easy to pick up. But then you start forgetting to put the space between the equals sign when declaring a variable. Or you try and do an "if" statement. And this is different than everything you've seen. But programming is literally failing your way to success. You basically start with something, and you break it so badly, and you keep breaking it and making mistakes. You make it a little better, a little better. And then finally, eventually - eventually at the end - you've got it working the way you want.

And that is so stressful and so heart-wrenching sometimes for somebody, especially who's new. Or even if you're experienced. Because we've all been there. A misplaced semi-colon, some Python, some - having an issue where something was off by a certain tab.

I think it's so common in tech, because there's all that weight. We're building systems sometimes, where people's livelihood depends on it. We're building code, when we won't know it's going to work until the very end. You've got to look at things on Google or Stack Overflow.

And each time you do, you think, "Am I a fraud, am I fake? I should know this stuff already." And, well - yeah, you can figure it out, but what's the point of wasting all that time trying to figure out one original solution, where you could look on Stack Overflow, find something remotely close to what you need - make sure it's best practice, good syntax - and then go for it.

But I think it's - yeah, it's super common in tech. Really, really common. And the people who listen to this, they think that they're the only one, they're the only person who struggles or has to look up on Stack Overflow. You're not alone. We all do it.

Len: And in the book, you set out three steps that one can follow to try and overcome impostor syndrome. Which are, "Reach out, reach in, and reach forward." I was wondering if you wouldn't mind talking about each one briefly, just so we get a sense of what the steps are?

Stephen: Absolutely. So I wouldn't even call these "steps," but more of a section. When you have reach - so there's - again, like you said - reach in, reach out, reach in - and then reach forward. So when you want to reach out, it's because - even though you have an internal problem, the solution really is external. It's connecting with others, getting - finding out that you're not alone - and also having a better perception.

There's an analogy that I found, where - if you're a ship - and say you're an old time ship captain, sailing on a ship. You've got the sails, the rigging, you're standing on the deck and you're trying to find the new land. And you look out as hard as you can, and you still can't see land. But all of a sudden, the crew member up in the crow's nest, says, "Land ho!" And they can see it, and go like, "Well, well." You look, you squint your eyes. You get your telescope, and you still can't see it.

Life and impostor syndrome is just like that. It's not that there's a problem with the captain's vision, or he's not looking hard enough, or he's doing things the wrong way. There is a mathematical way of physics. Like, just with trigonometry and line of sight - that the person on a crow's nest can actually see about - for an average sailing ship, we're talking 12 miles. What is that in Canadian, right? We're talking 18 clicks. But 12 miles away. And it just has to do with the physics. It's his position. And so there's nothing wrong with the captain. There's nothing wrong with how he's trying to look. He literally just can't see it from his position. And when you have impostor syndrome, you need to connect with others. Because they can see things you can't.

There was a - my wife, this is funny. She had a Microsoft Excel issue and was like - no - there's a couple of stories with this. One's a Microsoft Excel issue where she - it was super simple. We just had to - connecting two cells together, change some color, change some headings. Just some real simple formatting stuff. And so I just whipped it up, helped her. It took me three or four minutes. And she says, "You're a wizard." And here I'm thinking, like, "That's nothing." Like that's Excel, that's past stuff. I rarely use Excel anyway, right? It's not even real coding.

And, or - you go see your grandma, and she says, "The internet doesn't work." So you go and you unplug it, and it works once you plug it back in, right? And then she thinks you're a hero and you're the Greek god of tech. Technonisis or something, she calls you. And like, I unplugged a router. It just depends on your perception.

So that's what you have to ask people - "How am I doing? Do you feel this way? I feel this way, have you ever felt this way? I feel alone. I feel scared." And if you can find someone that you can trust and connect to - they're going to help put you straight, and say, "No, you're actually a really good person."

I remember feeling fearful when I joined a company, and one of the co-workers was like, "I'm so glad you joined. You've done this and this and this. You were absolutely the right hire." And inside I'm thinking, like, "Are you sure?" Thinking that there's always somebody better, right? A better hire, a better candidate. You've got to connect. And that's where you can actually have - if you can't even connect with friends, you can also read about it. They say, "Have a coach or a mentor in life," right?

Well, you can also have virtual mentors, where you're reading people's stories they have written. Because when you read up on Neil Gaiman meeting Neil Armstrong, right - at a gala. Or you read up on Brendan Dunne talking about his impostor syndrome. I've got my book. I think list-wise, let me find it here. You've got John Sonmez, Natalie Portman. Let's go through a list real quick. People who have actually written - actors - so Tom Hanks, Emma Watson. She says when she gets recognition, she feels incredibly uncomfortable. Tom Hanks saying, "When are they going to discover that I am, in fact, a fraud and take everything away from me?" Robert Downey Jnr. was really fearful about being Charlie Chaplin. And you've got - like Daniel Radcliffe saying that, "Am I doing the right thing? Is this what I'm meant to be doing?" Don Cheadle saying, "All I can see is everything I'm doing wrong that is a sham and a fraud."

And Sigourney Weaver. This is an awesome one. The last actor. "Have I ever doubted myself? Have I ever not? I feel self-doubt whether I'm doing something hard or easy."

And that's actors, just a snippet of people who have suffered through impostor syndrome.I've got a whole list of developers, people who have worked for GitHub, Microsoft, Braintree. I wrote my story in there as well about impostor syndrome. And, yeah - you've got to be able to reach out and connect. Because then you can find out that you're not alone. And you get that right perspective of your life. So that's, the first section, is, Reach Out.

Len: And the second section is Reach In, which is about overcoming fear and finding peace. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how people can - how you recommend people go about trying to find that.

Stephen: So with the next section of, reaching in. Once you've reached out and you have that instant win, that low-hanging fruit of finding out, "Oh, I've talked to so and so, I'm not a fraud." And, "Oh, they felt the same way I do," then you can reach in and deal with your internal emotions.

This is where you actually want to dig in deep and you want to find ways to overcome fear. Because here's the thing with fear. Fear is like this smokescreen, this little nebulous cloud, this ether of that. It looks really scary.

But once you get close to it, it still doesn't hurt you. You inspect it, you look at it. It doesn't hurt you. And you can become an observer. There's a - I didn't talk about this in the book, but there's a way of picturing your fears inside you, and then there's people, the [?], might call it "transcendence." We're trying to transcend. Other people would say it's like an observer state, where you want to look and see and view your fears as the observer.

And to do this, there's tools such as breath control. The Navy Seals though use something called "box breathing." And a couple of things, first - when you breathe, you want to put your hand on your belly. You make sure you're using your diaphragm to breath. And your belly should be going in and out. And then, as you do it - you can just - be mindful of that. And just - when you're breathing in, breathing out. And then you can do box breathing. And this is really helpful when you've got a meeting coming up or a podcast that you're being on or being interviewed. You can breathe before.

And box breathing is simply this. You breathe in for say four seconds. You hold for four seconds. You breathe out for four seconds. And then you hold for four seconds. And, yeah - you definitely hold the emptiness at the end. Because it helps you become more comfortable with discomfort, and that's what fear is. And through breath control, just doing that again and again and again. And if you're in a stressful situation, you can drop the hold.

So if you're in a fight or if you're trying to speak to somebody, you can just breathe in one, two, three four. Out two, three, four. In two, three, four. Out two, three, four. And you can slow that down and stretch it out.

I've been able to breathe eight seconds on each side, ten seconds. So it's ten seconds in,ten seconds, hold. Ten seconds out. Ten seconds hold. And keep going. It really helps. It's how the Navy Seals get ready for combat. How they recover from combat. How they can actually shoot between heartbeats and get their heart rate down, like 60 beats per minute. And that's the first part of reaching in, is breath control.

Then you've got things such as meditation and mindfulness. I mean you can - I use Calm. And I bought the lifetime app. And I didn't get any kickback or anything for this. I just love Tamara Lovatt and her meditations. And I -

Len: It's interesting, sorry to interrupt. You reminded me of a really great story I heard of Bill Hader, the comedian. He was probably on Seth Meyers, or something like that. And he was talking about how he's just got terrible - basically stage fright and performance anxiety. And then they joked of course, "So you took the hardest job in television," which is Saturday Night Live. But anyway he said - if I recall correctly - whenever the anxiety comes or the fear, he imagines that this cute little monster has appeared, sitting on his shoulder. And he's like, "Oh, you again. You can't hurt me. But there you are, and you're not going away." And he just uses this technique to kind of get through it.

Stephen: Yeah, and whatever technique you want to use. For me, I'll picture a box. I'll picture this transparent Plexiglass box. And I'll put my - inner fears for me, it's this - this sounds crazy and weird. But it's like this snake kind of object, where it's got this kind of murky dark black mass cloud. And I'll picture it go into the box, so I can just observe it and be observer of my fears. And Wil Smith says, "Everything that you want is on the other side of fear." I believe he's quoting Jack Canfield on that one.

But having fear in life, fear's okay. It's okay to be scared. It's your natural brain saying, "Oh no, oh no, I'm scared. Oh, I'm in danger." But just because you're in danger, doesn't mean you have to be scared. There's a - that horrible movie, After Earth with Wil Smith. I love Wil Smith, by the way. He's great. But when he talks about how, "Don't misunderstand about how fear is real, if danger is real. But fear is a choice."

I think in life, we come across so much fear. Fear about asking - in my case, a girl out on a date. Fear about buying a house. Fear about taking a new job. Fear about, "Am I doing this right?" Fear about, "Will I keep my job during the pandemic?" Fear about - all the sort of things. "Am I raising my kids right?" And that's just your brain doing what your brain's supposed to do. Is trying to pick out threats and issues and say, "Am I okay? Am I safe, am I safe?" And so you can just sit with your fear. Just sit with it. And be okay - because as you investigate it - and this is where writing things down with a pen and paper, is really helpful - because when you say, "Well why am I scared? Oh, I'm so scared about losing my job." Why? "Because I don't have a lot of savings." Why? "Because I don't know how to save." Why? "Because nobody taught me." Why? "Because I never asked." You can go down to the root of the cause, and find the source. There's always a solution. There's always a solution. And the solution with fear, is to get close to fear. Embrace it, hug it, look at it, inspect it, get deep - and find out why are you scared. And this is the scary thing. But it's a better way.

Because - here's a secret that a lot of people don't know about fear. You know what a flywheel is, right? You see those in turbines or whatnot. A flywheel's this energy storage device. And it's always rotating. I believe that inside us we have these feelings that keep coming up.

And so - yeah, I guess - let's be honest, here's the story of my upbringing. Or the story where I was dating a girl for a year, and I was engaged for a year - and then on our wedding day at the Salt Lake Temple -

I mean, here's the secret process of how things work when you're a Latter-day Saint, right? How they married in a temple - is you show up in your normal church clothes. You go down, you dress in white - and then you go into a waiting room. I'm not going to share any secrets or anything. But you go hand-in-hand, and you walk up to a sealing room, where it's 50 seats, 40 seats. And your family's there, from both sides of the family. And then you get sealed for time and all eternity. That's the belief of the LDS church.

But here I am. The girl shows up. And we go through the front desk, and we go [separately] to get dressed, andthen sit in there waiting. I'm waiting in the waiting room. And I see these couples come in. Shining, beaming. They hold hands. They look at each other all googly eyed and whatnot. And then another couple goes, and another couple goes, another couple goes - another one goes. And I finally say, "Hey, can you find out what's going on." And they call and say, "Godfrey, wedding number 19. Yeah, can you go see President Baxter in the office?"

And there's my bride to be. I go upstairs, take off the white clothes - into simple, simple clothing. And she's bawling, she's crying. And that is my getting dumped at the altsr story. It turned out that - we all had our own issues. There was a lot of baggage and whatnot, and she wasn't as honest as she could be. I should have been more courageous than I was, so there's definitely fault on both sides.

But that rocked me to my core. And so that means failing school for a few semesters. Going back to Fort McMurray, making a lot of money doing trucking - and going back to school. And so, I think a lot of us, we need self-compassion. Because life will just kick you in the groin and kick you and kick you and beat you down if you let it. Life is beautiful and amazing, and I'm so grateful to be alive. But we all have hard things we grow through. Most of them we cause ourselves. But, yeah -

Len: Thanks very much for sharing that. That reminds me of - I think it's in your book, or it may have been somewhere else, where I read you talking about one technique you can use for analyzing your fears. Thinking about, "What's the worst case scenario?"

Stephen: Yeah.

Len: And I guess, the - very unfortunately, in that particular circumstance - that was pretty much, the worst thing you could imagine happening.

Stephen: Well that's the thing. I mean - looking back, this is one of the best things that could have happened to me. But when it happened, it was really hard. And so that's why I talk about the flywheel and bringing things up. Because your emotions and your past are going to keep coming up. Your fear's going to keep coming up. They're going to go round, they might - three months, six months a year. But they're always going to come. And so, unless you deal with your fears - unless you find ways to actually approach your fears and sit with it and analyze it and asking like, "Why am I scared of this?" And, again, "What is the worst that can happen?"

But digging into those fears, you are always going to have that come up. And this isn't a threat or anything. It's just the way life is, and the way that we're built. So, but yeah - with fear, looking from the point of view of, "What's the worst that can happen? Why do I feel this way?" Just get deep. Get close with your fears. And if you do that, you will find that you're - there's nothing to really be scared of. Because you can break it down, and then you can find out why are you really scared. What's the root cause? And then you can solve it.

Len: And the final section is, Reach Forward. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that?

Stephen: So reaching forward, is - in my belief - I don't think that we're sent here in this life to just survive and get through. I think that we need to thrive. There's a philosophy in the ancient Stoics. So the Stoics, they were in Ancient Greece - Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus. And they believed that you should have eudaimonia, which is a Greek word that literally means - and there's a lot of living well or not, I think the best translation is "human flourishing."

So you think about a garden, right? [?] A garden that's bursting into life. Where you've got vines and overflow and everything's growing in an abundance of life. And too many of us are just surviving. We're just getting through. We're just trying to make it through life. And that's okay. But I think the goal is to thrive,is to progress and really to flourish in life.

And so I go through two frameworks. One for the - again, the beginner, they can't learn anything. "I'm not good enough to be here."

And that's a framework of learning anything you want to learn, leveraging the 10,000 hour rule - science and the new expertise. Using grit and basically dedicated practice and learning anything you want.

And the second part is Stoicism. Where we do real-life applications of how Stoicism can work. If you feel like a fraud - there's quotes where like Epictetus will say that, "You would be -" Let me see if I can find it here. But, "You would be offended if somebody gave your stuff away to anybody who's walking by. Yet you so easily will give your mind away and your thoughts away. Have you no shame on that?"

Or how Marcus Aurelius will talk about how - even the ant and the bee and the miser, they do what their nature demands - your human nature, right? And so as you lay there in bed thinking, "Oh this is nice." Were you born to feel nice? Were you born to lay there in your warm sheets? This is me paraphrasing of course. But how - we need to get up and do what our nature demands. And so I basically take impostor syndrome, and take this thousands and thousand year old framework of Stoicism - and it still applies, and it still works. Because Stoicism is all about living a life of courage. Of managing emotions.

You think of a Stoic. Well - like Spock in Star Trek. The people who created that character - I mean, Spock's awesome, right? "Live long and prosper," he's great. But his character was taken erroneously from what people thought Stoics were, where you don't have emotion. It's fine to have emotions. It's fine to have fear. It's fine to feel scared. But you need to manage that fear. You need to be in control of that fear.

And so, if you think you can't control fear - well, think about those soldiers who stand on the front line, and see the whites of the enemy eyes, and they still hold firm. You think about the CEO who has to make payroll, and he still makes it or puts his house on the line. He's still there. You think about fear. You think about a mother going to give childbirth. Because in this day and age, it's still dangerous. And how you can still be present and you can still stand strong, even though you're scared.

Len: One thing that nature demands is that all things must come to an end. And so I think it's probably good for us now to move onto the last part of the interview, where we talk about your process as an author, writing the book. I guess my first question there, would be - why did you choose Leanpub as a platform to publish your book?

Stephen: Well, I didn't choose Leanpub as a platform to publish my book. It was expediency. So I'd written my book originally in Google Drive, Google Sheets actually. And it was pretty good. I wanted to find a publisher, because I - well, not a publisher, an editor - because I wanted to have a better - just a better reader experience. I had gone through and done four different, like four drafts of just revising and revising, cleaning things up. And it was all on Google and Google sheets.

And I said, "Hey," to a publisher, "How do you want this?" It's like, "Well we actually do Microsoft Word," which - there's this whole, in writing, "Microsoft Word is king." Which I don't understand why. Yes, Microsoft is fine. But just the whole process of formatting it is such a beast. And it's a hassle. And trying to get different versions. It just - it wasn't enjoyable. And so I took my Google Sheets, exported it as a Microsoft Word, sent it to my publisher. She turned on "track changes," made her changes. And I accepted all of them. But I found that - after that, I could export Microsoft Word as a PDF, but it wasn't - What about MOBI? What about EPUB? What about PDF? What about web versions? Any of those.

And so I found Leanpub, like, "Okay, let's review this." And once I got the edited book back, I took every single word - copy, paste, manual formatting typesetting - everything in Leanpub. And it was a really good experience. I love that I can actually export - make a change and export different versions and whatnot. So, I posted the book on Smashwords. Which - it really hasn't sold well at all on Smashwords. I don't know if authors get - if they advertise and sell better there?

But I have had really good experience with selling through Leanpub. And so, most of my sales come through word of mouth, posting, friends, mentoring people on freelancing. People find out that I wrote a book, they want to buy it. And so it's been - I don't know, do we talk about numbers? But you first want the writing process, right? So that was really it.

Len: Yeah, yeah.

Stephen: Putting things in Leanpub. And so the next book I write will be written just in Leanpub. And I want to - I don't know how to find an editor who can work with Git and work with Leanpub. But I'm sure I can find somebody who knows English, like an English major who knows Git.

Len: Thanks very much for sharing all those details. That's gold to people who are getting started or who are sort of running into roadblocks. To hear the experiences that other people had, and how they made it through.

I would say in particular, whenever I have to turn on Microsoft Word, it makes me cry. It is such a terrible - we don't normally complain about other people's products here, and who am I to complain about Microsoft Word, right? But -

Stephen: It has a place, right?

Len: It's terrible for writing. And it's really unfortunate for the writing world that Microsoft Word is still the default thing. I mean, I wrote a doctoral thesis. It was - it had no images in it. It was only about, I don't know? 300 or 400 pages long. And when I wanted to take it to the printer, I had to-- Like, even when I was writing it - I had to split it into like eight different files. Because it couldn't handle anything more than like 50 pages. Otherwise you just got the spinner all the time and stuff like that. And so what I mean is like - not just visually or with all - like all kinds of other features that - basically, using Microsoft Word to write an ordinary book, to write the manuscript for an ordinary book, is like getting a fighter jet to go to the corner store. Like, when you're writing a normal book - it's got like chapter headings and then paragraphs.

Stephen: Yeah, yeah.

Len: And a table of contents, and maybe an index. And to use something with like mail merge in it, to do - Anyway, that's my bleepity bleep Microsoft Word rant.

Stephen: Well, that's why I love Leanpub. Because it puts the image in at the start of it. And we'll just say for the PDF case, right? Because EPUB, I think EPUB has it - but MOBI - you've got to upload your own image. But it comes with the front matter. It comes with the copyrights. It comes with table of contents generation. And so writing a book in Markdown, I mean Markdown's super, super simple to pick up - even for a non-coder. And so I would suggest writing your next book in Markdown in Leanpub. Because that's - even Smashwords, they all recommend that Microsoft Word is the way to go. And they only have it where if you write in Word, then you can have the different formats to export. Where, I mean - I've never - Is it Scribner? Is it - how do you say that?

Len: Scrivener.

Stephen: Scrivener, that's the one. Scrivener. And there's other ones that you can use for writing. But yeah, Leanpub did really good for publishing, and I'm really happy with it.

Len: It's interesting actually just to talk a little about that. I actually interviewed the founder and CEO of Smashwords on the podcast once. So I just want to say, much love to Smashwords. And I know you weren't casting aspersions either.

Stephen: No.

Len: But - so I go on complaining about Microsoft Word to a lot of people. Like to people like you and me - maybe we hear about, oh - a markup syntax called Markdown. And we're like, "Oh yeah, let's check it out." But a lot of people, they hear all those words, and they're like, "What the hell are you talking about?"

Stephen: Yeah, yeah.

Len: "I don't want to learn anything. I know how to - yeah, sure it's clunky - but I know how to use Microsoft Word, and I don't want to become a programmer, and I don't want to do all that."

Stephen: And that's the thing.

Len: People in that world, using Microsoft Word is just like - even though, from my perspective - you're actually causing yourself a lot of pain by not just learning this other thing that'll take you ten minutes to learn now. But I understand it completely, psychologically - that you're just like, "That's not me, that's not the kind of thing I do, just give me Word, I know how it works."

Stephen: And that's okay if they want to do that. I mean, Microsoft Word has its place. It does really well in academia and the publishing world. I mean, that's what a lot of people use. And so, great. If that's what you're comfortable with, go for it.

I just want people to be more aware that there is a better way. And I don't think Microsoft is the future. I mean, and I'm not going to rant on Microsoft. I think that every nation that has been - the sun never set on the British Empire, and how great the United States arguably has been power wise in the world. And there was Spain before England, and then you had all these countries who have just - the Vikings, right?

And I just think Microsoft will have its day, where eventually it will just kind of go away. I mean, they don't - in my opinion, build as good products. And so, not to rant - I just want people to know that there's a better way of doing it. If you can, spend 5 minutes, 10 minutes learning Markdown. Just literally, you want to do a header? You put a pound sign and a space for header one. Two, second level header - two pound signs and the space. You want an unordered list? You want bullet points? You put a star or a dash in the space. I mean, it's really super easy - and it's going to save you all this - five minutes, ten minutes, you might even take to write in Markdown - it's going to save you hours of formatting. If not, hours or days of tweaking and changing things.

Because I just make a tweak in Leanpub. And then I re-export a new version, and then that's it. I can upload that to AWS, or - sorry, Amazon. You can tell I work in tech when I think Amazon is AWS, not amazon.com. But, yeah - Leanpub is, I think a forward, future way of writing - and I hope people find a better way to write.

Len: And regarding sales - so it sounds like you're doing something that we typically recommend that authors do, which is try out a bunch of different platforms. Just to be clear about that - you can use Leanpub to write your book and produce the ebook formats, but you don't actually need to publish it on Leanpub - that's not like a requirement that we have, or anything like that. And so you've been doing different platforms.

Stephen: Yeah. So I basically wrote that book in Microsoft Word, exported it as a PDF. And then I put it in through the Kindle Create, and put that on Amazon. I really need to go through and take the latest version. Because I've tweaked the typesetting and the formatting on Amazon. But you know how Amazon works - if you sell a book on there, you'll be in like the latest releases. And then, unless you market specifically to Amazon, you just kind of drop off the face of the planet - because there's so many ebooks.

And so my Leanpub's done pretty well. I mean - and we can talk numbers, I think I've sold $160 in royalties. Which isn't huge, but for me, who - for a book that's been released as of - oh, I'd say the start of this year - January 1st. Through just kind of passive word of mouth, I'm happy with that. I mean, I haven't done any marketing funnels, I haven't done any launches with an email list or anything like that. And so it's just this small little passive thing, where every third morning, I get a little email saying I got - a book sold for nine bucks or five bucks.

And it's just something where I can say, "I did it. I wrote it. I'm going to write more." And that's the thing with writing a book. I mean, you write one book - and then you might get some exposure from that. But you write two books, you get way more exposure, right? Three, you get more exposure, more sales. And when they - by book three they think, "That's pretty good. I'm going to buy book one and two." And that's just how readers work. And so, this first book is literally a foot in door of my future of writing on the side. And it gives me meaning and joy. And so, if I can make a little bit of money, I'm happy with that.

Len: I don't know if you've done any reading in the self-publishing kind of blogosphere, but you've just exactly described the process that the most sophisticated self-publishing authors use and recommend to people. Which is, like - remember that your first book is your first book, and it will still be there when you've finished your third or fourth.

Particularly with genre fiction, people often make their first book completely free. And then there's all kinds of things you can do with special offers and stuff like that, on - particularly on Amazon, to get yourself boosted up the lists and things like that. And so what was Eric Ries's "Lo, my five readers", or something like that - a famous post. You've got to start somewhere. And keeping in mind that you're at the beginning of a journey.

Stephen: There is a quote, or basically -I'm willing to quote anybody, but - trust the process. Trust the process - that if you keep writing, you keep producing and you keep churning things out - then eventually you'll find your success, whatever that means. But a lot of us, they think, "Ah, I wrote a book, I need to make money off this." I mean, that's why with writers - yes, there's always those rare people who can self-publish, or they get this amazing book deal. But those people are rare.

For most of us, it's - those people who have written three or four or five or six books. I know people who - one girl, I won't share names. But she makes $100,000 a year doing romance books. A couple of her friends were talking, where they make a couple of hundred - if not close to a million in sci-fi books. Brandon Sanderson, who I've met and shook hands and talked to - he's awesome. He gave me a bit of advice saying, "Keep writing." Like literally, that was it.

So hard to sit behind him in a seminar, by the way. Where he's just right in front of me, and just thinking, "That's Brandon Sanderson. I've read all his books. He's amazing." I' starting, like I'm a new writer. I have impostor syndrome. Like, really hard to focus on the seminar, when you're right behind Brandon Sanderson.

But, yeah, just trust the process. Trust it's going to work out. Trust that if you keep working, you keep writing and you get to your three or five or six drafts - whatever it takes for that particular book - you send it off to an editor. If you need to - you pay for it, you get it done, and you publish. And then you write the next book. And then you publish. And then you write the next book. And eventually, you get to a point where people are reading your stuff. You're finding out that they like your stuff. And then you can start really promoting your work. And finding joy and meaning through helping people and getting your work up.

So I don't even want to really set up funnels for my impostor syndrome book yet, because I'd rather write. Because there's - it's just that compound effect by having more books. I almost wonder if it - is it really worth it to push my impostor syndrome book when - why not spend my time writing two or three or four more books, and then start to push the marketing, and just trust that it'll all work out.

Len: The last question I always like to ask in the podcast, if the guest is a Leanpub author, is - if there was one thing we could fix for you that really bugs you, or if there was one feature we could create for you - can you think of anything you would ask us to do?

Stephen: Oh, I already know.

Len: Okay.

Stephen: As soon as you said this question. Like, "Oh my frigging goodness, I want you to fix this." So if you make one little mistake with your - with the footnotes, if you have one little space enough - so, say in Markdown - and footnotes are pain in any system, right? But you know - Markdown, you've got the square bracket with the caret sign in front, then your number and then your colon. And then you have to have a space. If you don't have that space there, it doesn't work and it just shows up as just this kind of gibberish on your page.

I would take a look into that and maybe the highlighting when doing your typesetting. Trying to say "this is an error." I'd say error highlighting is a better thing to have. Because there's gotcha's. Like I need to have processes with writing the book. I need to search for a double star or a double pound sign or something, because I have missed a space. But besides that, it's pretty slick.

Len: Yeah, no - thanks very much for that. We've had people ask for - I mean, better error reporting, and actually error highlighting is a really - I have not heard that idea before. That's a really interesting idea. And yeah, I'll note that for the team. Working on error reporting is kind of like a medium-term thing that we are going to be taking very seriously. Because for example, like - yeah, if you - we're extolling the virtues of writing in Markdown, right?

But if you - there are things like where - like if you're trying to insert an image and you type the wrong filename or something like that, then when you create a preview, you'll just get a little exclamation point, triangle going. And there's no image here. And probably the best, one of the best things we could do in that - is actually have like, when you create a preview or publisher version, have a little error log. Which will hopefully be empty all the time, or something like that. But actually show the file and the line where the issue is, would really help people a lot.

So yeah, thanks very much for that suggestion. That's along the lines of something that authors have asked for before and that we know is very important. And, yeah - error highlighting in particular's a really good idea.

Stephen: But I'll be honest, the writing process on Leanpub is super slick. I wish there was a way to have the distraction-free mode - either turn that on or off. Because when writing, you want distraction free, right? And going through- but when actually going back and forth pasting - copy paste, copy paste. If you click in, then it has a little blur on the side, where it gets rid of the sidebar. It'd be nice to have the interface where it doesn't hide automatically - where you can choose to hide or show it, or have at least the option saying, "I want to turn it off, turn it on." Because, when doing typesetting - it's such a pain to go back and forth.

But no, I love Leanpub - I really do. I mean - without getting paid for it, I think it's a great writing- a really great writing process, and I think most authors should use something like Leanpub. I think that Markdown has its - a small limitation - like tables, right? It's really easy to create a table in Microsoft Word. Markdown, I would suggest that writers - when they do it, to use a table generator - like outside Leanpub, and just do a Markdown table generator. Because trying to write them by hand and get the right types and the right hyphens and everything, that's just a pain. Use a free table generator, and then paste the text in. But no, Markdown's the future, I think.

Len: Well, thanks very much for your suggestions and for a really great interview. And for using Leanpub as a platform to write and publish your book. Thanks very much.

Stephen: Alright, thanks Len.

Len: Thanks a lot.

And as always, thanks to you for listening to this episode of the Frontmatter podcast. If you like what you heard, please rate and review it wherever you found it, and if you'd like to be a Leanpub author, please visit our website at leanpub.com.