while learning the technical ins and outs of service now are important for your career there's more to being a great service now Dev than knowing how to hack XML files or all the JavaScript apis in this episode Lauren and I have a chat about some key moments in our lives that changed our careers welcome to breakpoint the service now developer [Music] podcast hello service now admins Builders developers and curious individuals and I always say that with the utmost love and respect welcome to or welcome back to breakpoint the service now developer podcast where we bring you the latest tools tips and tradecraft to accelerate your career my name is Chuck tamasi senior developer Advocate and I am joined by the one and only the beautiful and smart and somewhat storm beaten Lauren mcmah weather beaten yeah hey Chuck it's nice to see you trying to mix in some events because as we record this uh Lauren is going through some storms in your area storms is putting it lightly we were battered awake at 5:00 a. with uh tornado sirens and 80 M hour wind so strong they were blowing fullsize planes like off the tarmac at DFW airport so needless to say um if that happens I no longer need an alarm in the mornings to get me out of bed your your your puppy dog is doing okay he's he's more angry I woke him up early he was not bothered by the weather at all in fact we were all talking on our neighborhood like Facebook page about damage and like how everyone was doing and I I checked in like oh I'm I'm fine and all my neighbors were like what about B I'm like what about me's fine is fine as long as the dog's all right we're okay no he's doing great he's what he's the star you know what can I say well Lauren this one clearly falls into that tradecraft category when we say tools tips and tradecraft CU in this episode we thought we'd have a career chat of our own but unlike our usual chats with a guest we're going to we we came up with this idea to explore some of our experiences outside the service now technical realm that have enriched and enhanced our careers so that they may also have the same kind of idea or at least people will keep those that that radar on for those opportunities in their own career so we're going to be doing the top five five moments events inflection points I don't know how you want to put a frame around this and then what happened and and kind of what we learned from that experience or how it impacted our career to make our entire portfolio better yeah it's a bit more of an abstract conversation today but we thought it might be fun to kind of analyze our own like you said series of events and seeing what those big inflection points were like what and lessons that we learned from them too I think it's really important to discuss these type of things because sometimes when you're living them you don't know how impactful they will be so I think you know when you hear from others what to maybe keep an eye open for and how to really capitalize on those learning experiences right and I'm glad you did this because there's there's some of them that I don't really know where they came from you know why why do I do things this way or how did I get to this point in my career and if you weave the path back he's like wow this goes back 40 years or more to this one person that steered me to this other person that brought me to this event that got me that job and it it it it can really take you on quite the Mind trip if you let it but I want I I wanted to isolate it down to just a few well key points or or things that went aha if that hadn't happened I probably wouldn't be on this trajectory so let's start with your number five so I organized mine in chronological order I think you did the same so my number five uh I have apply titled flunking my first computer science class in 2009 so uh when I was in high school it was very rare to have the opportunity to learn computer science as part of a school school curriculum but we had that opportunity we had AP Computer Science there was no alternative so there was no uh just regular class it was only exclusively offered as an AP class and I was very interested in it I had an apt for science I had a historically pretty good batting average with science courses and so I thought oh my gosh it sounds fascinating um definitely was eager to try it out needless to say uh as the title implies I was not doing well I was the only girl in the class which I was stunned by I really did not I don't know I was maybe ignorant and just never thought that that was a possibility um but I was the only girl and I was the only one without computer science experience in the beginning so every else in the class had some degree of background in it either from clubs or from personal interest and so the teacher who will not be named kind of skimmed through some stuff and moved at like a very fast page which again it might be a be appropriate for AP but was very reluctant to help me um he would blister through topics I would fall like more and more behind to a point where like we had a parent teacher conference about it it was that bad I and I I was devastated by I had never gotten below like C's Before and those were so rare So to be like actively failing a class was so bad in reality it is good that I was doing so bad that I needed to get a tutor because if I had just been doing okay I would have marked it off as something like ah computer science really isn't for me but whatever it moved on but because it was like this big chip on my shoulder I was like I've never done bad in a science class so I got this tutor his name was Mr Herman and he completely turned around how I viewed computer science it wasn't a aptitude problem it was a teaching problem or maybe a a style of teaching problem right communication prob yeah yes he was very good about taking very abstract Concepts illustrating them through metaphor through visual aid and I remember this like so distinctly like nothing really made sense and I was really struggling with recursion I never understood recursive U methods and things like or recursive functions and the day I got recursion and I really understood what that meant everything else like fell into place do you remember how he communicated that to you was it like towers of Hanoi or anything no I don't remember how he communicate unfortunately but I do remember that feeling of like oh my God like now it all makes sense and it really it really pushed home a when I am good at it and understand I do like computer science and b i i really learned in that moment anyone can learn this because like when I was failing it I was like oh my gosh maybe this is something I can do like maybe maybe it's just it's the it's the bound of my uh capability right but he was the first person that really showcased even someone that's literally flunking this class if they're taught the right way and this is something that I would always lean on is in conversations as an sc in conversations as a developer Advocate today is something I truly and earnestly believe is true anyone can pick up the concepts of development if in the right if they have the right attitude coming into it as well as if you meet them halfway with the right teaching methods so huge shout out to Mr Herman I do not believe that without his encouragement I would be in the career path I am today and that was back in 2009 I was in high school so have you had a chance to go back thank him yes I did I I I think I told him immediately that I was majoring in it um we're still connected on LinkedIn so maybe he'll see this um he's reached out to me or we've talked a few times about other students other girls that were like interested in computer science throughout the years so this is actually a good opportunity to reach out to him and tell him how much it meant to me so give him an at mention yeah that's that's my first my first one all right I'm saving my failure for a little bit it's not number five I have a lot of them yeah we learned from our mistakes we've made lots of mistakes yeah everyone does mine aren't quite in chronological order so I'm going to jump around a little bit mine's my first one's from 2004 and this is when I found podcast I was writing I was actually writing a ticketing system on my laptop at home listening to some streaming service I still remember it was Ken rowski and he was talking about how in gadget seems to have this thing on podcast I went this is a new word I have to go go look it up and from there uh I started listening to several that I could find it was that there was there was no apple podcast there was no Google or Amazon or anything back then it was some people had a directory that you could look at and there were less than 50 podcasts in the whole world so it was slim pickings but oddly enough I still keep in touch with many of those early podcasters that were out there they become good friends of mine in fact I plan on seeing one in September when I got out to San Diego so it's there's that that turned into hey I'm listening to these I could do some of these and I my first ones were not all that good don't go back and listen to them I don't even think they're still out there but that turned into I'll start writing for some of the Publications around the podcasting system there were there was a podcast conference that started in 2005 there were some podcast online magazines I contributed to that that led to being discovered as an a co-author for podcasting for dummies the second edition which had a strong influence to what I do today so you're listening to this podcast because way back in 2004 I was banging out some Pearl code listening to a live stream and followed my curiosity so my lessons out of this one are one don't be afraid to try something new go explore that try it out it may work it may not and the second one is keep your spouse or partner involved in your interest interests and what you do you'll go a lot further a lot faster with that support from the family member uh I didn't originally I did what was called ninja casting I did not tell her I was making podcasts I was posting these audio files and it nothing nothing bad came of it but it always had this you know guilt associated with like should I be doing this without telling her and then eventually I I did describe what it was and Donna has been very very supportive of it ever since U she's she stopped questioning my crazy Antics now and goes hey what can we what what is this going to lead to rather than so that that and the bow tie kind of worked in my favor so that's Don't Be Afraid try something new and keep your your family involved awesome I love that one obviously I love that one because otherwise we wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation today it's really crazy different path yeah we can rename this episode The Butterfly in fact or something cute like that that's a good title yeah my fourth one this is the next one chronologically the first one was 2009 this was 2016 so a little bit further in the future um is doing really poorly on my first big service now assignment that's my my next wow you're not instilling confidence here no I'm not I'm doing the opposite I'm being I'm being real that's the whole purpose of this conversation so and there's lessons to be learned so lead on there are a lot of lessons to be learned so at this point I I had joined a company called ethos group I I am so grateful for the opportunities they gave me because at this point in time I had already attended knowledge I had attended your certified um uh system administrator at developer course oh yeah the appd course yeah yes yeah so I I was certified I was knowledgeable at service sow I had tinkered obviously with the platform pretty significantly but I hadn't owned a project yet and so we had lots of departments at this company that were excited and very uh interested in having a custom service now app buil for them and so there this one Department in particular that was the the highest on the list and so that was my first solo project was building an application to handle this very expansive multi-level process for this team now this process had dozens of layers of potential approvals it sent things out to other teams and so we had multiple meetings where like I heard out all the requests I remember they had these huge sheets of paper where it was all diagrammed out and I took exceptional notes I was very present in these meetings and you know I worked on it for like four to six weeks I think I came back I did exactly let me let me be clear I did exactly what they asked for and they and they and they hated it and I initially was so angry I was talking with my boss of like I don't understand I did exactly what they asked for how could they be angry or not angry they were disappointed it wasn't what they were wanted it was a good first attempt but they're like all right next try and I'm like next try this is the finished thing so perfectly logical that that that's it's a perfectly reasonable response for a first timer a I didn't do it in an agile fashion right I took the request ran away for a month and a half and came back not good second of all I just listened I didn't probe I never asked why they were this process the way they were doing it I didn't challenge them on hey you're you're wanting us to build something new why would you want us to just copy and paste exactly what you have right if you're doing a whole new system maybe the process should also be improved upon potentially nope never asked that so I I was so upset by this failure that's what it was it was a failure but if I hadn't felt that pain I don't think as an sc I would have remember remembered that lesson so well and so even in calls with like very big intimidating customers that even at times my boss was like just give them what they want I'm like people don't know what they want you don't understand so I have these scars I have these battle wounds from from this like eight person department at e group but seriously like I was so uh those those moments in your career especially when you're early in your your career like I was and you're not going to like I'm not gonna get fired for it right you're just going to get embarrassed but you don't have the confidence yet to push back on some of these things either no you I had no confidence to push back all these people are you know 10 20 years older than me and I like was was my first project they must know what they're talking about of course they've been doing it for a decade and I just graduated of course they but but you don't know what you don't know until you learn you don't know it so I I'm very grateful for that opportunity to a that my boss gave me the opportunity to a have that project B still encourag me even once I had failed to go at it a second time and I believe where we left it off the second time was fantastic but that first one I was like this will this will brand me for future engag well good for you and I hope the listener got something out of that too it's like no matter how new you are how if if something doesn't sound right or feel right be sure to inquire about that well any person Works in even if you're not in sales right still going to be engaging with a quote unquote customer you're going to be engaging with someone who's asking you to do something and it's a good thing for you to ask why I mean I think as an sc they tell you to ask why five times before you actually get to the heart of why someone wants something and so doing that a helps you understand where they're coming from better and B helps you bridge the gap between you and them you're offering a skill set that they might not have so they don't know necessarily how to communicate what they want to you so um learning that skill is tricky and it takes time but that was my first taste of like learning Lear that's the title of one of my most popular blog articles on the community it's got to be at least 12 or 13 years old it's called ask why ask why y it's a good one all right my next one is also a failure finally finally it's not just the Lauren this isn't all about failures people it's not just the Lauren failure show we we we'll get to be little bit brighter this is uh many moons ago back in the 1980s actually starting in the 70s uh my family ran a scuba shop and a charter scuba diving service for people around the Midwest we lived in upper Michigan we had a wealth of shipwrecks in Lake Superior and people would come and Charter our boat that we could take them out there but in order to do that for hire you had to have a certified Coast Guard Charter captain's license for Inland seas and I won't get into all the the technical stuff I had two older brothers and a younger brother and my dad we were we were the charter captains well eventually my my dad was certified early on so he could start the business run the business Etc but he also had a full-time job at Northern Michigan University so if somebody wanted to come up in the midweek in the Sumer summer time to go scuba diving he couldn't do that we we we didn't have the means legally to take people on for hire so my older brother got his charter license few years later actually I think the next year or maybe even concurrently my second older brother Vince he got his and then they went off to college and went and got careers and eventually it fell on me if we're going to keep doing this I need to get mine so I think I was like the tender age of 19 or 20 I thought how hard can it be well they hand you this big thick book called Chapman's piloting course which is full of all kinds of it's dry it's really dry and everything is in there if you know where to find it and then you're supposed to go to drive three hours to St ignis Michigan take this test written test and you find out a few days later if you passed or failed it's a five-part thing and you have to pass all five parts with a certain level of passing grade and there's stuff on navigation there's stuff on safety there's stuff on rules of the road there's there different parts of the test very much like you know kind of like the CSA if you think about it there's security and there's yeah I about to say like an accountant yeah well I had tried and failed four times and realized this was this was starting to hurt the ego it's it's now been a couple of years cuz I'm trying it you know once orce twice a summer make the drive take the test and and I learned this is not the best way for me to learn was through study you know self-study was not my style even today I'll watch a YouTube video if I want to learn something new I I I've learned what my what my study style is and much like you and your computer course you got to learn how how to communicate and how to absorb that so what what I eventually did is found a guy who coaches people mentors people he's he's a tutor he found he's a tutor for this test specifically for this test so he got four or five people and we would meet twice a week for the course of about 6 weeks then we all piled in my dad's custom conversion van and drove to Toledo Ohio about 10 hour drive took the test in on site that you will know right away if you pass or fail because everybody takes the test in the morning there was one guy who didn't pass so he could retake in the afternoon otherwise we would have been on the road a lot sooner uh but we had to hold out for Chad or whatever his name was to retake one part of his test while the other four or five of us just kind of kicked around went to the coffee shop I don't remember what we did got in the conversion van and drove back home but we passed so it was it was a lesson in learning what your learning style is and persistence because there was no way after four attempts I was going to finally give up I I frankly couldn't or part of the family business wasn't going to work the way it should work and and you if at first you don't succeed try try try try try try again I think I had five tries so keep at it I love that you got one I do and it's not a failure it's actually a success this time that's nice um this one's from 2018 so again we're getting closer and closer to the the current day uh this was from volunteering to present I'm flow designer at the Dallas snug so we uh back when I first first join service now this is obviously preco I feel like there were a lot more snugs there were they were like happening every couple of months I felt like so there was a constant churn and need for people to present on topics for people to extend the snug to see right and so I was still on demo Center or maybe I was very new to the app engine SC team and flow designer had just out like it was a relatively new product I think it had come out a few months prior but I hadn't I hadn't used it at all I'd only used workfl editor and I was like well I was interested in becoming better at public speaking and I thought well snug will be pretty small it's you know it's not it's pretty low calorie as far as there being like a huge consequence to it going like very poorly and um and also it was a new I I thought like well I am on the app engine team I have to learn flow designer anyway I might as well use this as the incentive to learn flow designer and so I committed with that team to presenting on that date first off if you need to learn something do that promise someone you will teach them that subject on a certain day and commit to it because nothing will make you learn something faster than the pressure of teaching another person because not only will you learn it because you don't let someone down but you will learn it to a point where you can communicate the important things about it right you're not just regurgitating definitions or things like that you're teach you're teaching right um and I was you know it's going back to my first point of like how important the style of teaching is especially when teaching abstract things like development and development tools and so on top of that too I I had an interest in becoming good at public speaking and there are not that many opport o unities to practice it so I was actively looking for them and so I I'll tell you I was really really nervous like for this Not only was I presenting on this new technology that filled the room like that was my biggest like wind getting knocked out of me was when I walked into the room and I realized it was full because I thought oh it's a stug you know we have these every couple of months but it but it was a new it it would be like it if I did it on developer studio today you know people people would be in the room and so um it was my first it was my first public speaking engagement on a technical level I had done like high school theater and Middle School theater but nothing for a job and it was really it was pretty good like for a first time it was pretty good and getting that under my belt gave me the confidence to try it again and also spoiler alert if you want to get good at public speaking and increase your opportunity and audience sizes having people in the audience well then if you perform well they'll go oh she's really good at public speaking maybe something bigger so like it's kind of like you know going back to my first point a recursive success of like you slowly keep getting larger engagements based off of the positive feedback you get from the audience in previous smaller ones too so um my lessons from that you get if you want to learn something commit to teaching another person and if you're wanting to get to a a larger goal find smaller opportunities to to hone your skills for said goal I was like I would love to do larger speak engagement but at the time I was still getting nauseous for them I did not have the ability to not use filler words and so the snugs were a perfect opportunity wow you you took that right out of another script that I was writing I did wait what do you mean one one of my favorite mantras is if you want to learn something teach it oh and and the other is start small with topics you know and then grow from there and get that feedback that you can trust so yeah yeah that was spoton couldn't agree with you 100 and now you're on the keynote stage well that's what that's that's amazing where that ended up because I the reason that I initially got kind of the green light to do those Keynotes was because of snugs I did snugs therefore the team that did those larger marketing events knew my name they reached out to me for the now Summit and ially in Dallas first which was like like a big big snug right and then performance that one yeah the performance in that one got me the attention for Tech Summit which is our internal SC conference and then this team like that's literally how the Domino fell was just started with that snug wild yeah again Butterfly Effect you never know where things are going to lead you if you if you do well and stay positive it has a positive effect this one is not so positive at least it doesn't start out that way my next one is about a former manager that I had back in 2005 uh he had been my manager for about five years we even shared a cubicle together while some building construction was going on Good Times Good Times won't get into all that he was a neighbor I could look out my kitchen window and see in his kitchen window kind of thing um so our kids grew up for a while together uh we'll just call him Bob for the moment but in Spring of 20 2005 Bob was let go maybe was fall of 2005 but uh for whatever reason it might have been political and frankly I don't know I don't care at this point but um the the team had several options we were a team of four and I said option one someone internally to the company steps in and says I'll be the it manager option two is someone external comes in as a new manager option three is one of us steps up for it now I had been there the longest but that didn't mean a whole lot there was also another gentleman who' been there about 10 12 years and and we were good friends and whatnot uh and then there were two newer people like three to five years and and you know they all said I don't want to be a manager I said well then I'll give it a shot yeah I said I'll I'll give it a shot and see what happens I I had been effectively you know the senior member of the team very much the way we are right now with the with the Advocates um but then uh I I quickly realized I need some help this was again seeking out a mentor seeking out a coach and uh what I mentioned this on the early days of podcasting as a matter of fact and one of our listeners says you've got to listen to the manager tools podcast I think they had been on the air for maybe three or four months at that point now it's coming up on 20 years uh and they they launched a second one called Career tools can't speak highly enough about this if you're interested in career or or management or both I I've listened to both for decades and hundreds and hundreds of actionable stuff so promo for another podcast the uh I even had a mentor for about a year and a half was one of the guys from that podcast oh no way that's cool drink it from a fire hose is what it was um but I learned a lot I learned a lot I had uh you know a couple years experience doing that and then when the opportunity came up to be the uh they said we're going to repatriate our service desk it had been outsourced for about 3 or four years wasn't working out they wanted to bring it back in we had some m&as so we had lots of different ticketing systems that didn't talk to each other said we need somebody to lead this and that led to my lateral transfer to corporate to become the global service desk manager which we brought in service now and again history kind of spells it out from there so the lessons I learned from that were step out of your comfort zone be willing to take that next challenge much like Corey Wesley said say yes to everything yeah there's there's a little debate in there but I I said this is an opportunity I realized that my ceiling in in that company when I was on the engineering side was only was limited to so much at least so I thought I didn't have an electrical engineering degree and I wasn't going to be director of anything at any time soon so I thought let's do a lateral transfer over to corporate it and see where that goes so step out and the second one is seek help when you're in a new role yeah go get that Mentor go get somebody who's done that before and can give you that guidance and advice and understand your scenarios and situations to to lend you that advice I was giving Mark weekly updates my mentor uh here's what here's what Steve the SVP said and um you know here's the challenges we're running into it was really really good info but a lot of times these are based on what first appears to be tragedy loss like that's that's an opportunity it's like oh dang my you know my buddy Bob just got let go what does that mean yeah and also seeing the like seeing the potential in in you you could have easily just focused on like the bad news right right and kind of like Spiral of like oh I've lost my boss I've lost my friend but instead like you you know you're like well I can't change certain things right so I I can only move forward in the best way possible so focus on what you can control yeah which is very similar to my next one so oh good segue go yours was guidance related mine's also guidance related and this was back in 20120 So 2020 obviously a very iconic year for the whole world really something happened did I miss something you might have um so obviously 2020 was like the majority of lockdown right I know what it was we started the breakpoint podcast in 2020 yes yes that's the that's the thing that impacted the world not the the global Pand but at the time I wasn't on this team yet I was still in the SC team and I was really struggling I I lived by myself during covid and not being able to leave the home at time I didn't have my pet either so like it was truly a lot of like sitting around and thinking about bad stuff for like for many many months and so I was trying to shake myself out of it and I was exploring different philosophies that I hadn't really explored to help me with that I've written a lot about um stoicism and like how I still like read a lot of like stoic philosophy uh like Sena and like epicus uh obviously Marcus aelius is really interesting but the one that really caught me off guard I saw because of Tik Tock surprisingly uh were concepts related to Zen Buddhism so I never I mean obviously growing up in like the Midwest you're not exposed a lot to to a traditionally like very like Japanese or like East Asian religion um but this one book came out in 2020 called The Art of simple living and it was by a Buddhist monk from Japan named shuno masumo and he wrote like a hundred just daily practices from taught tradition trally from like the Zen perspective and like just how to lead a less anxious life honestly a very interesting foil to stoicism very similar in like end result of like focus on what you can control push off the stuff that you can't but but but it was more practice oriented so like I I did an entire I I became obsessed with this book I did a whole pachucha presentation on this book and how it related to work and working digitally and like the first like I think it was it was in the top like the first couple of lessons was truly like pair down your belongings discard what you don't need and that is important digitally too like ever since then I am so strict about inbox zero I have a clean desktop other than the things I'm actionable upon if it is if it's something that should be saved it's in the right folder because otherwise you know you've seen those like horrendous desktops where it's just like a cacophony of of mess and it gets to you like it gets to you after a while um similar to that one was like thinking thinking simply that's like a huge practice of theirs um there's a principle called like Ichigo zanai which is it's for meditation but it it just strive for one thing so it means like focus on one thing and then beat that and then focus on another beat that that's also really important for software development right you don't want to boil the ocean you get get these requests that are like I want to do this I want to do this I want to do this and it kind of goes back to like developing in an agile way too of like focus on one goal iterate upon it iterate a it once it's successful iterate a it that's fine but like you'll see so many people just want to throw everything into the blender and and are surprised we're like oh it's disorganized and it's not what I wanted I'm like well yeah because you didn't have a purpose you need it's so important on projects in life you know to have a singular purpose that can shange but in the moment it keeps you anchored to like why you're doing what you're doing and I love that book I highly recommend that book it's a really short read too um and all the other you know stoic books get a lot of PR already so I figured i' toss in a PR for this one the art of simple living interesting yeah we'll link it in the show notes all right my next one is an event called knowledge 10an pretty pretty important one about pretty important yeah I I had gone there like many people to their first knowledge not really realizing what it would be and could be uh had a mission to you know go to the agenda Builder and go to these sessions and talk to these people but it turned into obviously so much more just meeting people in real life like Jared leam we saw him in April walked up to him said how you doing you know not only is he a service now employee but he's a cooworker and old friend at this point or Kristen Mitchell or Fred luy you know met him at knowledge 10 yeah and uh making those connections get again getting out of the comfort zone and shaking hands saying hi with other customers with some of the partners and that led to well it led to here yeah because you know the innovation of the award thing was was was a nice award for the app of the year but when I got back and they said hey Chuck we no longer need you at this company after 22 years it was going to knowledge 10 and having those connections and calling those people up and saying hey how you doing they what kind of work you looking for yeah like wow or here's some contact information at service now you should reach out to it was it was that impactful to my career and that's why I say to people if you're I've seen knowledge transfer transform careers including my own just by going to that I'm pointing at me too this is Audio Only podcast but I'm pointing at myself so my lessons from that one stick out your hand and say hello create that Network build that Network and keep it alive because all relationships Decay over time it was one thing to meet Fred luy and go hey nice meeting you and you know have a few words with him but it was what I had done after that made a stronger impact sent him a thank you note with a phony million doll Bill inside you thanks a million Fred it was great seeing you look forward to further discussions did not know that in a few weeks I would be in the same building with him and saying hi to him as a cooworker right so keep those keep those connections alive after I know we we talked about this a little bit on our our knowledge wrap-up episode uh like what one week ago two weeks ago no the live coding happy hour whatever it was when you make those connections you got to keep them alive not just the week after you go to the conference but in the following weeks and months and years and it's not don't don't have the expectation that it will pay dividends it will it will but you will get so much more out of it even if somebody doesn't offer you a job you've got that friendship you've got that camaraderie you've got that connection that you've made that common event or common uh experience that you've been through that you can always reflect upon yeah and and build from there ear this is a very nice video reminder of that as well on LinkedIn of like don't forget to like the the conference is not over until you follow up with people even if it's something of like it was like you said it's very nice to meet you very nice to see you the selfie that y'all took together and then on with your day you never know where that will go yep agreed well now we're down to the final one all right we're down to our number ones yeah our final one um my final one is kind of of agnostic of a time period because it's something that I've always done and it's having artistic hobbies and interests that I still actively pursue you know as adults especially adults working in Corporate America you see a lot of people that were really interested in artistic Hobbies or artistic Pursuits as children and one of two things happened either a they gave them up entirely or B they made those elements exclusively their career right you very rarely find people that try to sustain both and I think it's very very important especially working in a technical job to balance it out with creativity right it not only enhances the work that you do but it provides a a relief and exercise for the other half of your brain to um to feel fulfilled like I've always had a huge interest in drawing and photography and videography to some extent although I'm not that good at videography yet but I like it right and so you know you'll find yourself doing things on a hobby level and then you'll see that bleed into the work that you do either the practice of it or lessons that you've learned from it or just the fun of doing it too like I've had certain projects like for example for Tech now we have to put out or no we don't have to we've chosen to put out social media posts about it they do create a stock one that we could just use we could just use that one however boring it's boring right so I've always thought well I'll Tinker around this and create like a fake boarding pass one or I'll Photoshop Chuck and I into some random you know scenery for Santa do and you know I I don't know if that's good or bad but it's always helped me find the fun and balance in work and life and it's something to a degree that uh I think I don't know his name but the the guy that made Dilbert had a very good quote Scott Adams Scott Adams he had a very good quote years ago I heard this um about like creating a niche for yourself in that way too like there's tons of service now developers but there might not be tons of service now developers that combine X and Y so it does help you to some extent stand out like for you like creating this podcast like podcasting about service now I don't think existed in in math right until things like breakpoint and like Latin we pratton and CJ the Duke like it does create this um inflection point right that drives interest of combining those niches so I highly I challenge everyone to like it doesn't have to be necessarily A artistic Pursuit but things that bring you Joy or things that uh help you get up in the morning if there are little points where they could cross over with service now like or whatever work that you do um it's fun to try and find them it's it's a fun thing to try and find them it makes working a lot more fun um and it helps you stand out too so that's my my number one couldn't agree more the uh case that I've got is I got interested in karaoke so I started writing a karaoke app on service now exactly yes if that's not a crossover between Hobby and interest and Technical and that allowed me to learn more about service portal and then take that and make content out of this so there's this pipeline of new content that I can draw from just from that now my latest hobby is playing the ukulele it gives me a creative Outlet as as I learn it's very much like learning a new programming language you know learn the basics then add on a little bit each day and before you know it a few months later hey you know you playing a bunch of whole new songs that it also takes me out of the moment to from technical to do something a little more left bra no right brained right brain for for the creativity just to give your left brain a break once in a while so there's there's that aspect of it too it it's just AB yeah have have a like you said get have a reason to get out of bed in the morning and and apply that it can be a distraction I will tell you there are days where I'd rather be true you know instead of making a PowerPoint about this next upcoming webinar I'd rather be strumming a few cords of hotel California okay there's there's that so you know it can be a distraction but use it as a reward system too you be your own parent in that case yes my number one I have to go back to Bob the the the guy who got let go in 2005 I'm going to back up a little bit into 2002 and Bob was one of these people that either seemed to have a gadget of the month he was constantly getting a new PDA this is before the smartphone era so bear with me this pal or that Trio or this HP handheld there was always some new Gadget or he had some self-improvement idea of the week like oh you know our our whole team would go Bob Bob he's got another one here comes um but through that he introduced us to David Allen's getting things done oh okay so for over 20 years this has been the backbone I will say it has morphed um I'm now using this combination of different philosophies to keep track of stuff personal and professional we all have tasks and projects at home and at work that are competing for our time and I prefer the term priority management over time management because you can't manage time it's still happens at 1 second per second true and but what you can do is manage your priorities what you do with that time won't get into the whole philosophy and practice of that I'd love to make a video series of that someday day but not on this podcast but what I learned from that is uh aside from having a system to stay organized where you've got quick collection and easy review and Mindless execution because you already did the planning to make that happen it's become as routine as you know morning breakfast for me it it is one of the things I do in the morning and in the evening is I look at my Daily Review and how does that play how does that work with my weekly review what's on the task this week and each week I look at those projects and go is this move in is that move out what do I need to pull off the bench there's there's a system to this and it it I would I would be lost if I wasn't constantly reviewing and checking things off feels really good too yeah you go what are the three things I need to get done I need to record an episode of breakpoint and edit it up check you know you get to the evening you go that felt good I did what I set out to do and if you don't you negoti with yourself and say what do you do to take what are you going to do to carry that forward what's what now needs to change in the grand scheme because something may come up family emergency or weather or whatever that that throws you off your game but if you've got all this captured you don't need to worry about losing it you can come right back to where you left off when the crisis is over the other the other thing I learned from that experience is to keep an open mind on new ideas you know even though Bob had idea after idea after idea started to wear us down um you know one of those did pay off in the end it it really became I didn't realize at the time how big it was that David Allen had this running program I thought oh here's a book that somebody wrote but it became huge it became really huge yeah how would you know though you don't know what you don't know right H it it just felt right though because we had all of the basic pieces in place we were doing collection but we weren't processing right or we were doing you know there was there was a lot of pieces that were there it wasn't radically like hey you've got to upend your life and go get this specific tool set it was platform agnostic you could do it on paper you could do this on digital you could do it on any one of things and and it really it really was uh profound in the way that I ran my career in terms of being accountable uh which adds to trust and integrity and everybody wants that right you don't want to promise things and then forget to deliver because oh I forgot to write that down or it was stuck in my inbox about three decades down the list going okay I I I I don't know about you but every time someone has their mail open and they have the badge of how many unread messages there are oh they do let me do a screen share and it says 15,000 unread messages like I'm not sending you an email because you'll never read it I those it gives me anxiety to see people with inboxes like that like I'm like well you just that that I'm glad your spirit is so free that you can never read email yeah what's the best way to communicate with you and don't say email he your pigeon hope we shared some ideas that resonated with some of our listeners today it was a lot of fun and uh you know we've we've got other ideas that we might explore too but if you've got something for us let us know reach out you can get a hold of us by sending either of us lauren. McManaman servicenow.com or chuck. tomasi Serv now.com send us emails we're also available on LinkedIn of course you could just look for service now developer Advocate you probably find us thank you very much Lauren for sharing thank you don't forget listener you can find all the other service now podcasts over at servicenow.com Community under the events menu you can subscribe to this one or any or all of them they're all freely available to get automatically delivered to you so you never miss another one breakpoint is brought to you by service now executive producers would be me and Lauren that smiling face on the screen well it's an audio podcast you're missing out sorry find out more about the service now developer program head over to developer. servicenow.com again thank you so much Lauren for spending some time and sharing today thank like guys thank you please let us know what you think about this podcast you can leave feedback or ask questions in the service now Community for more great information on service now development check out the service now developer portal at developer. servicenow.com thanks for listening yeah let's start with your sorry we're a good start already go ahead you're obviously feeling better or you're really tired and Punchy right now no are you okay uh um yeah sure yeah absolutely yes is it crazy um a bit that's crazy very very very very very very very very few people can say I am smed lead no way you smell like wet dog today surprise T Tada well Lord you did your job woo that was drinking from a that's literally what it was Chuck I'm not kidding oh