Blake: [00:00:00] All right. On the podcast today, I have Cecil cross who's going to help us understand the ins and outs of a imposter syndrome. We're going to go into this in detail, but before Cecil, how are you doing?

[00:00:16] Cecil: [00:00:16] I'm doing great.

[00:00:19] Blake: [00:00:19] Yeah, so it's almost the weekend. I'm excited.

[00:00:22] Cecil: [00:00:22] That's right. And,

[00:00:23] Blake: [00:00:23] and I would love to get just a little bit of context on you before we dive into the topic at hand.

[00:00:29] So if you wouldn't mind just giving the audience an idea of, w just a brief history of your career so far, where you got started, how you got to where you are now, and everything in between.

[00:00:39] Cecil: [00:00:39] Sure. I'm a graphic designer slash creative director. And, I currently work for a software company, Around the Dallas, Texas area.

[00:00:49]but I was born in Michigan and I came up drawing like a lot of, a lot of young people, and I've been a designer for about, huh, almost 20 years, about between 18 and 19 years at this point. And I've had different roles where I've served as the designer and art director, one for school districts. That was my first major job.

[00:01:11] And, after that, a, a direct mail marketing company that was right around the time of the recession. And so that became a difficult time. And that was around the time that I really started kicking my fire of a up in third year because I had to provide for my family. After that, I worked for the Fox affiliates, from my hometown.

[00:01:34] And, just a few years ago, I moved out to Dallas and up in here. working in different positions, as increased responsibilities, touched a little bit of everything in the graph, buying industry from retail education, government technology. So that's kind of where I am now. And, and I also run a freelance brand consultant, brand consultancy and that creative direction.

[00:01:58] Okay.

[00:01:59] Blake: [00:01:59] So I think it's safe to say with all the different areas that you've worked that you've probably dealt with imposter syndrome before.

[00:02:05] Cecil: [00:02:05] Absolutely.

[00:02:06] Blake: [00:02:06] Yeah, we'll definitely get into that, but before that, one final context question, what would you consider to be your professional superpower? Connecting with

[00:02:18] Cecil: [00:02:18] people.

[00:02:19] Just connecting with people. Everything that I do from a creative standpoint, I try to find the human element. There's so many. Acronyms and businessy terms and jargon that can get in the way of that last scene it happened. But once you find that human connection, it's easier to tell a story no matter what, no matter what the industry is.

[00:02:42] So I think it's finding that human connection and treating people accordingly. This is my simple palette.

[00:02:47] Blake: [00:02:47] I love it. All right, well let's, let's talk about imposter syndrome and let's get into it because the audience is going to skew more toward people like, like me, where. Just trying to do side hustles cause that's what I like to do more at the beginning.

[00:03:01] That the end of my journey trying to build things that that means something to me. Yeah. Kind of starting from zero. So with that in mind, I think most of us at some point are going to feel imposter syndrome. I think it. When we think of that, it's often more of like a Silicon Valley kind of term where these big founders of big companies have imposter syndrome because they don't, I think that they're up to that task.

[00:03:22] But do you think it applies to a much smaller scale when you're like freelancing and things like that?

[00:03:28] Cecil: [00:03:28] Absolutely. from my perspective, imposter syndrome, has, has come up in the form of, I think I belong here, but for whatever reason, I feel like. I don't know, really belong here. Like I didn't really earn my way into the position that I am today....