Nice. Self talk is about the way you can face the challenges that you. That you have on your daily basis and your work on your project, on your team, with people you are surrounded by. Hello, and welcome to the Pibytes podcast, where we talk about Python career and mindset. We're your hosts. I'm Julian Sequeira. And I am Bob Beldibles. If you're looking to improve your python, your career, and learn the mindset for success, this is the podcast for you. Let's get started. Hello and welcome back, everybody, to the Pibytes podcast. This is Bob Belldebos, and we're up for three episodes on mindset. Can you believe it? And it's me saying it. It's not even Julian. Right? Amazing. So with me for the coming three episodes is Alejandro Briseno talking about several mindset topics. So first we start off an episode with positive self talk. Then the second one will be growth mindset, and the third one will be the big malian effect. So be prepared for some really useful mindset tips that if you're a developer or anywhere in your career, in any profession, really, this should really help you. Enjoy. Welcome back, everybody, to the Piwise podcast. This is Bob Eldebos. You're not here with Julian today. I'm here with Alejandro Berreseno. Alejandro, welcome to the show. How are you doing? Thank you. Can't complain. I'm in a sunny city, enjoying the weather. I'm really, really glad to be here with you. Awesome. Yeah. Because you're based in Madrid, but now you're traveling, right? That's true. I'm actually in Santander city. Yes. In the north of Spain. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. So you get some fresher weather than most parts of Spain right now. Sure, yeah. So thanks for joining. We had this coming for a long time, but for several reasons, we had to postpone. But really happy that you finally are on the show. And we're going to talk mostly mindset, which is funny, because usually Julian does that, but I much enjoy that as well. Of course. Yeah. So we have actually a three parter, so we're going to talk about self talk. Then there will be a growth mindset, and there will be pygmalion effect. Exactly. But before going into the spicy details, maybe you want to introduce yourself to the audience so that we can get to know you a bit, what you do and what's your background? Thank you, Bob. Well, I'm a chemical engineer, actually. A lot of people, when they see that in my curriculum, they are like, what how did you study that? Because when you get to know me, you will realize that I'm actually a guy who is more into the people side. So I've been working in HR for several years now. I'm leading a department of sales. And you might be thinking, what, what are you doing with your life? What is that kind of career? Well, I go with the flow in my life, meaning that I study chemical engineering. Then I decided to do a coaching course. And after that I realized that I liked technology a lot and I was studying artificial intelligence, Internet of things. So I like to always be learning new things and having this learning mindset because I like to get new knowledge and I like to meet people. And then I realized that I was good with people. So instead of listening to my mom, she was always telling me that you should study engineering because that's going to get you money. I think that was not what I wanted to do. Not engineering. So then I decided to start a career in consultancy. I work as a senior consultant for IBM. I worked for PNG, and then I joined an organization called Opino. That's where I'm working right now. And I became a senior consultant. And after that I had the title of director. So I've been leading several departments like HR and now sales. Quite a background. Interesting. And so the shift from tech to people is really like, that was what you really like to do, right? Like working with people, helping people. It's really hard because, you know, when you have a technical background, people might think that you're not good managing people. But for me, it's important to have both sides. You need to be really good with the technical skills, but also you need to be good with people, because business are about people. So if you understand people and you know how to manage them and you know how to motivate them, then it's going to be easier for you to get the things done. So for me, when someone is asking me like, oh, I have to do this on because I was implementing Jira in one of my projects. I was implementing SAP in one of the projects that I did in the past, and everyone was so into the technical side that they didn't see that it's more important to keep your people motivated, because if you have them motivated, then they're going to achieve great things, they're going to implement it faster, they're going to implement a new software, um, smooth. So, uh, smoothly. Sorry. So I think this is, um, what I get from my experience, that you need to learn skills that allows you to understand people. Totally agree. Yeah. And the pirates, we have to say, like, people come for the python and they stay for the mindset. Exactly. Yeah. I like that python code of, uh, people come for the python, stay for community. Kind of similar. Um, but, yeah, we find so much people skills to be needed and kind of also not really taught very well or kind of underestimated how important it actually is. Right. Even at the coding level. Right. Do we write code for machines? No, we write code for people. For people. Write code for your future self or your team, for people that's going to maintain your project. The code you're going to write is going to be inspired by some business logic which is defined by people. Right. Yeah. It's very important and central. So thanks for sharing the background. So, these days, what are you exactly doing day to day now? Well, on my daily basis, I'm working, leading a community of experts that actually know a lot about innovation. And Opino is innovation consultancy, and the community that I'm building, that I'm working with people who allow us to get to new clients. So this is like a soft sales, because we have experts that they introduce us to new clients. And these clients, you know, they could be big corporates, and they want. They have a specific need. Maybe they want to create a new innovation department. They want to create an innovation team, and that's where Opino can help them, you know? So that's what I'm doing right now, building this community of experts. Right now, we have 400, more than 400 experts in Italy, UK, Spain and Mexico. That's what I'm doing right now. Awesome. And I understand you also on the side do coaching and presentations. You want to share a little bit. Yeah, that's true. You know, my biggest passion, actually, in life is to teach other people. So besides my current job, I'm also a teacher of soft skills in several universities here in Spain. So in a speaking skill, I have a speaking skill course. I also have a coaching course. So I teach people how to implement these methodologies into their life, but also, how can they use these methodologies with their teens? You know, because I think it's so important for them to speak in a good way, in a proper way, so they can express their ideas. And also, it's important for them to know how coaching is a tool that can help them to lift or to motivate people. Nice. Yeah. Don't get me started on coaching. It's our core business and it's career transforming. But that's awesome. Yeah, very inspiring how. And I'm pretty busy. Right. Like you have your day job and doing things on the side. You're also pretty prolific on LinkedIn. I want to call that out. Yeah, I like to do that, you know, but to be honest, I have a trick. I do all of my posts, but also I have a little, a little help from Chachi PT. Yeah, you mentioned that the other day and that's really cool. Right? We should leverage the tools we have and we're very fortunate in these times how advanced tooling is now. But yeah, I will definitely link your LinkedIn so people can check it out and follow you there because you have some really cool posts. Although you post mostly in Spanish or also in English. Now I'm just posting in Spanish, but then in the near future I'll be doing it in English. So I'll kid you. Post it. Okay. Stay tuned. Okay. Because our audience is mostly english. Yeah. Cool. So that also ties nicely into the topic of today, this first episode, the importance of positive self talk. Yeah, I'm fascinated by this because we have these voices in our heads, right. And we often our own worst enemy. So yeah, let's just kick it off. What is the importance of having a positive internal dialogue with oneself? You know, I think it's really important to speak nightly to ourselves. It's really important that you motivate yourself. But why? Because it can boost your confidence, it can boost your self esteem, and also it can create a positive outlook in the things you're going to do every time you're going to face a challenge in your life. If you have a positive outlook, if you speak to yourself nicely, then it's going to be easier for you to address those challenges. And, you know, when I hear people speaking in their teams and I hear a lot of like, oh, I can do this. Oh, that's not for me. Why you already saying a statement? Why don't you start doing something different and start saying, I'm going to find a way to do this, or maybe instead of saying, and that's not for me, let's say I'm going to give it a try. So I think that the importance of speaking to yourself, like having an internal dialogue of nice self talk, is about the way you can face the challenges that you have on your daily basis and your work on your project, on your team, with the people you are surrounded. Yeah. Because it's really true. Like what you tell yourself or how you phrase things, it's really how it then actually comes to. It's going to happen in real life. Right? Exactly. Caringly. I also like to call out or link maybe Carol Dweck's work might the book because she taught me or us in pyrebites or everybody whatever, to say, I'm not yet, I don't know this yet. Meaning like not having a fixed mindset about it. Like it's never going to happen. But no, I'm not there yet, but I will be or I can be. Right? So yeah, this is powerful stuff. And it's also, I think, insidious in the sense that you realize what we're saying is actually might be mostly negative, right? So we really need to put it upside down. And, you know, sometimes people, they do not notice that they are being negative. They think that it's normal to say that. But when you are aware of the things you're saying, then it's easy for you to learn new things. For example, having, for example, a learning mindset comes from the idea that you are capable of learning. Everyone is capable of learning. You were not born knowing how to drive, but then you learn, right? Why is it hard for you to learn new skills? Because you are actually creating a mental barrier. And, you know, I'm a coach. I'm not a magician. I'm not going to make you happy. That's a bad idea about what coaching is. As a coach, I would say to you, are you aware of the things that you're saying to yourself? Are you aware of what you are thinking right now? Because if you're not aware of those negative stuff or those negative affirmations, then you are going to behave in the way you're speaking. So it's better for you to start being aware of the things you say to yourself, because the outcome or the behavior that you're going to have is going to be better based on those affirmations. And I think that's some of the techniques that I would like to explain. Like something that I do every day is positive affirmations. And in the past, I used to be a non believer of all of the theory about having a good self talk for yourself, like speaking nicely. I was not a believer, but I went to the work at a forum and I met a girl. She's a senator in the US. She's in a national seat. She run for a national seat, and now she's there. And this girl, I was sharing the room with her and she told me, why don't you use positive affirmation? I was like, I don't believe in that, but everyone is using that, like Tony Robbins, like famous people, celebrities. And I was like, I'm not into them. So I decided to try with her. That was like four years ago. And I remember that I was so into that this, like I was saying all my day, I was telling myself, I can do this. I'm going to meet this CEO, I'm going to go to this party and they're going to let me in, you know, because I was in a really special place and I did it. And I don't know if it was because of her, her influence. I started reading about this and I started to apply into my life. So I just wanted to let you know. Yeah, I think, I think people that are skeptical about this, they might put it up as woo woo or like, you know, but yeah, that's, again, it comes back to how the mind works. What you tell it to do, it's going to execute. Right. It starts in the mind. So super powerful. But yeah, on the strategies. Yeah. Maybe you want to share some strategies or techniques to foster positive self talk. Yeah, I was explaining this one with an example of the story of this girl. Positive affirmations are good. I would say that another technique that is important is that you have to practice self compassion. You know, a lot of people, they say, like, I'm really bad at this and I'm not doing this good and they just feel guilty about everything they do. So stop. Have some self compassion for you. You can be compassionate about others and not for you. You need to start first with you. So that would be another technique. Another is self praise. Sometimes when you say, like, thank you for achieving this important title in your life or this new role that you have in your organization. And you say thanks to everyone except you. Hey, hey, hey. You're forgetting the most important person. You're forgetting yourself, which is the person you're going to be the rest of your life every time. And your mind is a powerful place to be in. So I think that self praising is important because you can recognize your extremes, you can recognize the things you do best. And just like you said, we need a good input to have a good output. So maybe we need to put in our head a lot of the good things that we know how to do. You know, in the past, and I'm a really good public speaker, let's put it that way. And in the past, I didn't just say, I didn't say this because I was afraid of people looking at me like, oh, he thinks he's the best. No, I'm not saying I'm the best. I'm saying that I'm capable of doing this because I've been trying all my life to do it in the most proper way. So now I consider myself a good public speaker. I'm not saying that I'm the best one, but at least I know my strength. So now I can actually congratulate myself. And I didn't do it in the past because I was afraid or I was, like, skeptical of this method. But now I know that it's important to recognize the good things you have and then apply it then to put it out there in the world. Yeah, we do something similar with a brag wall or windstock, where we can just shamelessly boost our wins. I do. Together with Julian. I didn't know this. Yeah, it's a really great tool to keep motivated and to brag because you can, because you should. Because when things are tough, you can go back to that file and see the awesome things you did, which we often forget. So. Yeah, and, yeah, it's kind of staggering how, going back to your point, like, how hard people are on themselves or how little credit they give themselves. Right. As opposed to others. So it's so crazy because, for example, you're in a team and you're a manager, and you're leading a team of, I don't know, developers, a team of consultants, and you're always telling them, oh, you're doing this. This is a great job. Oh, you're always congratulating, giving them congratulations, but then you forget about yourself. I remember there is a singer really famous in the US, Snoop Dogg. And I saw that he won an award, and he said to himself, I want to congratulate my mom, God, and myself. I want to congratulate me because I was the one who did all that. And I was like, you know, people might think he was, like, bragging about himself, but he was actually telling an honest truth. He's like, yeah, you did it. You earned it. So you put a lot of effort into doing that. So I think it's funny. That's noob dog, right? You're mentioning it. That's exactly. Utter level of confidence, maybe. Exactly. Yeah. But also a good example in a sense. Yeah. We should praise ourselves as well, right? Yeah, definitely. It's a good technique, to be honest. Yeah. Not be too modest. Okay. So going on to how can somebody and then overcome difficulties in maintaining a positive internal dialogue? You know, I think that people need to start being aware also about their negative thoughts. You know, most of the times, it's not something that I'm saying scientific research shows that people spend their day thinking about negative stuff that are not going to happen or that never happened. You are, oh, I'm not going to get this job. Oh, I'm not going to be able to open this bank account. Oh, I'm not going to be able to run this code. Most of those things are only happening in your head. So you need to be aware that you need to these intruders thoughts, you need to remove them away from you. And in order to do that, you need to start practicing in your head or putting in your head good thoughts about the things that you want to envision in your life. Instead of thinking on the negative side of the thing that might happen, why don't you start thinking about the positive things that might happen to you? Oh, maybe I'm going to get this promotion. Maybe I'm going to get this go in, maybe in two days. But it's going to run a smoothly. So I think that people, when they have a lot of issues of intruder thoughts or negative thoughts, they need to start reframing the way they think into thinking positive things. Otherwise, you're going to be all the time the negative guy that no one wants to be around. Another strategy or thing that you have to do in order to overcome this kind of thinking. That negative mindset is surrounding yourself with good people that can motivate you. I don't know why, but so many people have friends, or they call it friends, and it's people that once you're with them, you started having a conversation or whatever, and they just make you feel down. Why are you surrounded by people that make you feel down? Start creating a community, people that support you, people that want to see you grow, people who wants to get the best person out of you. So I think that's also important to have a good group of friends. That's the reason why I believe in Spain. I like my life here because also people here is really optimistic. And I like that. Most of them might not be, but at least my group, they're always optimistic. So I like to be surrounded by them. I can attest that having moved. Yeah. Being in the country almost 20 years, I like what you said about reframing. Yeah. It comes with awareness, I guess, as well that you first recognize that you're thinking something negative and then reframe it to something positive. Also, I want to call out the information diet by Tim Ferriss work Week. I became pretty critical over the years. What I again, input, output. Right. What you put in your brain and if you watch the news a lot and there's like this negative bias, like things are going to go wrong. I mean, obviously there's a lot of things going wrong, but the news tends to stress that and doesn't say the million things that are going well, actually. So, yeah, information diet, right, kind of limits what you consume and let it be positive. I mean, not, not talking like sticking your head in the sand, but definitely dosify it and have sound dance. And lastly, what I often quote as well, Jim Rohn, as usual, you're an average of the five people. Right. You surround yourself with. So very true. Very true. Thank you. Thank you so much. Because now you remind me of a concept that is really famous now. That is the intoxification, information plus toxicity. The media is always showing us negative things about everything. So that's the reason why we put our attention into that kind of things. Of course, you can have a negative mindset if you keep seeing that. So you need to docify the information that you receive from the media and start creating your own channels where you get the information. I don't read the news. Okay. Not. At least not the typical newspapers. I have my own influencers, journalists on Twitter, for example. And I get a lot of information on Twitter, but I have mute a lot of people in Twitter. But then I got a lot of information from this social media. Yeah, awesome. Good tip. Yeah. I think by now it's pretty clear that positive self talk is going to impact your overall mindset and well being a lot. But anything to add to that, how it's influenced, I think that I want to say. I want to highlight something first. This is not an easy thing to do because society is always telling us, be negative, be negative, be negative, pay attention to the negative things. And then you are like, oh, oh, and the positive guy, no, I'm not telling you to do this. This is like going to the gym. You need to start reframing your thoughts, and then it's going to be hard because at the beginning, you're going to be thinking, oh, I don't want to do it. But then you will notice that in the long run, it will be better because it will boost, as I said at the beginning, your confidence. It will make you feel more motivated. It will make you understand that every time you receive a negative phrase, then you can rephrase it and say, instead of, I'm not going to do it, I think I'll try it. You know, so it's a different mindset. It's something that you need to put in practice, and it's a hard work to do, but everything in life, you can learn it, but you just need to put effort into it. So that would be my only highlight, because with having a positive self talk with yourself, you're going to be able to. To improve your well being. You're going to feel healthier, more mentally healthy. I wanted to say that. Sorry. Yeah, no, no. I think people associate health a lot with the body being okay, healthy eating, exercising, but as equally, if not more important, is the mental health. Right. And that's definitely how you manage stress. And stress has a lot to do with negativity versus positivity. Right. So. Exactly. Awesome. So, Leslie, do you want to share any personal experiences or examples where positive self talk made a difference in your life, career, whatnot? Absolutely. You know, when I was changing from an engineering role that I was working in IBM in a technical role, and my mom was like, why are you changing IBM for an small consultancy? I had a lot of self doubt and I didn't know what to do because I had a good job offer, a small consultancy, but I was leaving IBM, and everyone was like, why are you doing that? No. So, of course, you're listening to everyone telling you that's not what you have to do. But I had a positive thought to myself and I said, you know, guys, I don't know a lot about innovation, but I'm going to learn, but I'm going to try it, but I'm willing to learn. So that conversation, it only happens in my head. I didn't even have to, you know, it was the voices in my head telling me, like, I had to take this opportunity. And now I'm really glad, because after nine years, I can say that I've been working for the same company. Nine years. That doesn't happen too often, you know, because I used to work for other companies and I was jumping from one company to another. And I think that, of course, in that moment, I needed to motivate myself. No one else was going to be able to motivate me because everyone was telling me that I was doing their wrong thing. But I did listen to myself, and I think that was the moment where I did use this positive self strategy, and it helped me out to get from that situation. That's pretty powerful, because basically you had a lot of naysayers around, and if it wasn't for your self talk, you might as well gone down that path and not made the change, right? So. Exactly. Yeah. Well, amazing. I think we wrap this episode up here we have two more topics to come. So thank you very much. This is very insightful and helpful for audience, I'm sure, because as we said, mindset is definitely an important topic of also for developers. Thank you, Bob. So, yeah, thanks for sharing, Alejandro. And we'll be back in the next one to talk about growth mindset. Exactly. We're going to be speaking about that. Awesome. Let's do it. Well, thank you very much and see you in the next one. See you. We hope you enjoyed this episode. To hear more from us, go to Pibyte Friends, that is Pibit es friends, and receive a free gift just for being a friend of the show and to join our thriving slack community of python programmers, go to Pibytes community, that's pibit es forward slash community. We hope to see you there and catch you in the next episode.