This has been a post I have been wanting to write for a while, but never found the courage to write it. You never really know which way your career is going to go when you are just starting out. I am proof positive of this. My original trajectory had me becoming a police officer. Often it’s these subtle hints that life presents to you along the way, and it’s up to you if you actually see those hints and connect the dots. It took me a while to understand what the world was showing me and boy, I never thought it would take me on this journey I am on now. Being a Technical Evangelist at Forward Networks sounds like a cool job, and it is. I love every minute of what I get to do but what did my journey look like to get there?
One could say that my journey started in the most unorthodox way possible. I was 20 and was faced with a decision of going back to school or paying rent to live at home with my parents. So like any rational human, I flipped a coin. Yes, I let a coin toss determine what would turn out to be a very unique career. In hindsight, paying rent would have been the cheaper way out, but I digress. So I enrolled in a “technical college” and off I went, little did I know what waited for me on the other end.
No one wanted to hire a young kid, especially this kid with a 6 month technical college certificate. So, off to Best Buy I went to work in their in-store tech services department. This was before the geek squad, so I had one of those nifty black polo’s with my name stitched into it. Something was missing, I couldn’t figure out what it was. One of the techs who worked for me left to go work for a law firm in NYC and systematically took some guys with him. Soon he brought me along for what would be the ride of a lifetime.
I started as a PC Technician for this law firm, met some awesome people and got exposure to other parts of what an IT organization looked like. I fell in love with networking and knew that’s what I wanted to do. Over the next 10 years, I systematically went from PC Technician to closing out my enterprise story as a Sr. Enterprise Network Architect for the Coca-Cola company.
Along that journey, I met a gentleman named William Zambrano and he ran this group called NYC Networkers. Oddly enough, this was four years before the USNUA was formed. He asked me if I wanted to do some presentations to the group. Back then, the mere thought of getting up in front of anyone and talking made me want to crawl into a dark hole in the ground and never come out. But this time, I figured why not. When I say that was the one hint that I needed to do something else, that is an understatement. Surprisingly, I liked it, and It was now a new goal to figure out how to get to the next level. Here are some pics from a few of the meetups I did back in early 2013/2014
After Coca-Cola and several failed attempts to break into the vendor world, I finally succeeded. It was at a start-up that moved at 1000mph. Let’s just say coming from the enterprise world, I was not ready for it. I will never forget the first presentation I had to give. It was internally between my account manager and their most seasoned SE. The feedback that I was given after that presentation made me want to crawl back into that hole I mentioned before. That feedback was (I am paraphrasing and keeping it PG) “You can’t present, you had too many awkward pauses. You have two weeks to fix it or we will have to part ways”.
I did what any normal person would do, I worked on myself and started building that confidence up. Figuring out how to navigate this, they surprising key to my success was to just be myself. That is easier said than done, especially when you still don’t know who you are. From this start-up, I wound up at Nokia as an SD-WAN Subject Matter Expert. Something was still missing though, I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Not knowing what to do, I did what any logical person would do in this instance. I went to work for a Big 4 consulting company. Why you may ask? Well I am a glutton for punishment, but that’s for another post. I had already seen what life looks like working for enterprises, selling to enterprises; how bad could consulting for enterprises be? In all honesty, it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t for me. Because there was still something missing.
I love to talk to people about technology and help them based on what I have learned. If you have seen one of the presentations I have done at Forward, I hope you will agree. As you can see, it has taken a lot to grow from a newby pre-geek squad PC technician to get to this place. But I believe, there is so much more I can do, but until recently, I couldn’t see my next goal. After 20 years, that switch flipped the other day. Even sitting here, knowing where I want this post to go and what I want it to inspire and teach people, it’s hard to get it out.
For as long as I can remember, I have dealt with imposter syndrome. That voice inside of my head that when I got the job at Coca-Cola, I said “Are they sure they emailed the right person…” to wanting to spark a great debate on LinkedIn or Twitter (yes, I am going in the way back machine before X). I would have it all typed out only to delete it or just abandon the post immediately. Either out of fear that I might being called out for not knowing what they are talking about, or falling prey to the trolls. It’s often easier to hide in the shadows rather than face that fear head-on. I have lived in the shadows for too long, its time to take this to the next level.
Something happened last week, I cant explain it, but I no longer feel this way. We all have unique ways at looking at the technology field and just because I say “Oh the way I learned the BGP path selection process is by memorizing “We Love Oranges AS Oranges Mean Pure Refreshment” but you learned it a different way is not bad, its a different outlook that may help someone who is struggling to master a new skill using the traditional approach. It is these different outlooks and approaches that can spark healthy debate that creates progress (or just wake the trolls up from their slumber in which case we laugh at those who criticize instead of achieve).
I always prided myself on being the one who would teach anyone anything, but I immediately crawled into this impostor syndrome black hole when it meant teaching in public. Letting that fear win and keeping to myself isn’t helping engineers or architects who want to move beyond what they are doing today. I’ve realized it’s time to be myself and share what I know without trying to hold myself to some arbitrary presentation standard. This is the key to learning and bettering yourself and I don’t know what made me have that ah ha moment, but here we are, and I am not going to let this inspiration go to waste.
If you stuck around for this long, thank you for reading my journey. Is this something you struggled with? I would love to hear your story! If you are currently going through something similar, don’t be afraid to reach out. Looking forward to sharing more with everyone.