Welcome to the Sword of Sure podcast. Where doubt looms, fear whispers, and the only way forward is through. I'm Samar Carbo, and if you've ever felt like you're just sort of sure about what you're doing, you're not alone. This is where we face the uncertainty. Push past the hesitation and keep going anyway way. So take a breath, step in, and let's move forward together. Hello and welcome to the Sort of Shore podcast. I am so excited to bring this conversation to you today. Recently I sat down with Jen Anderson, the creator of the Accomplice app. So cool to get to know about this app, about her philosophies on work, imposter syndrome, self doubt, all that cool stuff. But before we listen, if you have a story of imposter syndrome or self doubt, shoot me an email at sort of shearpodmail.com let's have a listen.

I am Jen Anderson. I am a professional imperfectionist, which means I'm not a hot mess, I'm an inspiration. But really, who are we kidding?

I'm a hot mess.

I am the hot mess slash technical non genius behind Accomplice. It's a to do app for imperfect humans. That's my main thing right now. I'm also a freelance writer. I write for plus size apparel companies, which is somehow a little bit related to perfectionism and being a mess and not living up to ridiculous ideals. So that's my jam.

That is lovely. And you know, it doesn't have to relate. You get to do whatever you want. Right. It's a wonderful way to exercise our free will.

Exactly. Yeah. It's, you know, during the pandemic, during lockdown, I read Paul Calanthetti's book When Breath Becomes Air. And the one takeaway from that book I got was, you know, find your life's purpose and it can kind of, you know, touch everything. And my thing is to help people to stop beating themselves up. So with the perfectionism and the productivity and the ending the day feeling like you didn't get enough done, you know, that's the accomplished thing with the writing. It's. Yeah, it's not that there's nothing wrong with your body. You don't keep fat in a weird place. It's. No, no. It's just some styles are not meant for your body shape and that's okay. And there's so much of this. You have to hide this and camouflage that and mitigate your hips and it's nonsense.

That is so wonderful to hear. It even more so feels like you're the right person to talk to because there are so many people and of course, you know, friends of mine, but complete strangers out there who, when they get a compliment, because I'm one of those annoying people who like, I'll compliment somebody in line, like, I really like that outfit or something like that. Just trying not to be weird. I just think people deserve compliments out in public and immediately what they say is, oh, this doesn't fit right. Right now or, or whatever. It's just so immediate and automatic. It feels like that this isn't the conversation. It almost feels like we're not talking. I'm talking to your subconscious, right?

Yes, it's. We're on the same wavelength here. And so many people. I say, you know, God grant me the confidence of a mediocre white man. And any white man with a shred of talent has the confidence of two mediocre.

Yes, that's great.

Which, fortunately, that's my husband, so.

Oh, I'm sure he's a fair bit better than mediocre.

Oh, yeah.

Yes.

And well adjusted, which is weird. It's like, what was it like having a happy childhood?

Yeah, it was nice. Yeah. Right?

Yes.

So when, when we talk about it, what was your sort of impetus for making accomplice itself? Was it in your childhood or was it just something that you sort of came out of your adulthood experiences and expertise?

Well, I think it's more of an adulthood thing. I was looking for a system. May I want you to do system that would work. And with the freelance writing, you're, you know, with deadlines, you have hard deadlines, but then there's a lot of wiggle room. There's things that I could work on this early. I could go on LinkedIn. I could be reaching out to new potential clients. And to be able to see that on a, on a planner and, or a to do list, whatever it was just I couldn't find something that worked for me is the thing. When I, I was a systems analyst back during the dot com years and after and before. And so I would go into the office and I would get my little hamster wheel and I would work and I would go, you know, sit with my manager and go over, okay, what, what's the priorities? What order should I work on things in? And fine, but with freelancing now, because there's. I could take a nap, I can do extra networking, I can do whatever. And also, you know, if, if I would put something down every day, let's say every day I want to go on LinkedIn and I don't. Every day I do it four days out of seven. That's great. That's plenty. That's a ton. But any to do app I had, if I put it down as a recurring task, if I didn't do it, it would show up as overdue. And if I clicked it was done, then today's version would show up. It's not like I'm going to go on LinkedIn twice as long to make up, you know, so I was. I don't need an app to tell me that I'm not getting everything done. I know this. I don't need the pressure. So with Accomplice, there is no overdue status. There's nothing red, it's purple, which I like.

Yeah.

And it is. You can mark tasks, skipped, delegated, and if you just don't touch anything at all, that's fine. It will show up on your today list, but it won't be showing up as overdue. And if it is a repeating task, each instance is treated like a separate instance. So if I put go on LinkedIn every day as a repeating task, I will only see today's. And then there's a built in habit tracker because, you know, I can't remember any of my habits if they're not on my to do list.

Yeah, it's like my Google calendar. If it doesn't go on the calendar, it's not going to happen.

Right. So drinking more water, taking a meditation break, going for a walk. Yeah, no, I need that on the to do list because I'll forget about it otherwise.

Yeah. And it sounds like that's kind of the magic of accomplice, that it's for the people. And I think I can count myself among these ranks who are harder on themselves than anyone else possibly could be.

Absolutely.

You'd sort of drawn earlier a parallel between you and your husband and he had a happy childhood. Would you say yours was unhappy happy?

I mean, it was happy, but it was, it was a mess. It was not without its traumas.

Ah, okay.

And there's, you know, there's generational stuff in there that I, you know, my aunts and uncles will go to their graves denying that they had any trouble at home naturally, but they had happiness and there was just a lot of dysfunction. You know, my parents did their best, but their best was not very good. And also it was the 70s. You know, it's like no one was paying that much attention. It's benign neglect was the, the major childhood rearing method which is what led to the helicopter parents. It was like, okay, the next generation, the boomers, came along and said, we're gonna pay attention to our kids so.

Much, and that's all they're gonna do is pay attention and hover.

Yeah. So there's a balance. It's there somewhere. And, you know, we had tragedy in the family. And, you know, I lost three of my grandparents in the 70s, so. Yeah. So for my parents and their siblings to become, you know, orphaned at such a young age, it's weird. I mean, you know, it was. My parents were in their 30s when they got married, or early 30s, so my grandparents were, like, in their 60s when they died. These are people who are not going to have the longevity. But nowadays, both my parents are in their 80s. And, you know, so it's less, you know, I don't know. It's because I both have both my parents. I can't quite relate, but I understand that. It's like flying without a net.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That's really good illustration. So you wouldn't say it was unhappy, of course, from that story. But when I heard. And, you know, there's a question coming, but I'm going to frame it first. When I am in those modes of, you know, you're not good enough, there's so much more you could be doing. And all of those things, those, like, believies that I put on myself, I am hearing it in a voice that's not my own. Is that how you process these things as well? Or do you hear yourself chastising yourself?

Absolutely. It is someone else. It is my mother or my aunt be in, like, the 1980s, 1990s, particular time period, too. Well, that's the thing, is that they're not like that anymore. They're much more laid back. My mother is just totally, you know, very laid back with body acceptance and. And with imperfection long after it could have done me any good.

Right.

Is the thing. But now, mom, last time they were visiting out here, we actually got in my kitchen and went live on Facebook. And my mom, you know, about. To everyone, including me, that it's fine, it's not messy, but every time I, you know, go into the kitchen, I would hear my mother and my aunt or someone criticizing me and how messy it is. And my husband is the one who does the cooking and the dishes, so why I should feel like it's on me.

Yeah.

And it's messy. You know, it makes no sense. And one thing I did do is I changed that voice into someone I don't like and someone who doesn't like me, and I'm okay with that. And it's so much easier in my brain to go, shut up. Get out of my kitchen. I'm not taking this from you. You know, it's. I just. I will put up with my own criticisms of myself because I trust my opinion. And my mom and my aunt be. Their opinions mattered a lot to me and still do. But other people, I don't care what they think. And so it's a lot easier to realize that. Oh, yeah, no, this is not valid criticism.

Yeah, so. So that's really interesting. I've never heard of anyone doing that before. Was that just sort of a practice of yours or a habit that you. You heard it and it was in your mother's or your aunt's voice, and then you said, no, it's not them. It's this other person, or it just kind of happened over time as you.

It was a conscious choice that I made. You know, fourth therapist is the charm.

Ah, yes.

You know, as. As we mentioned, we talked before that I get migraines, and I was doing the whole mind, body, health thing. And I've gotten some improvement with that. Not 100%, but part of that was I had to learn to stop being such a perfectionist. And there's all these different writing exercises. And so, you know, changing the voice, that was just something that I came up with while journaling.

As we're sort of getting older, we see, oh, wait, I'm the age my parents were when they had me or when I was this age. And now I see how human they were at the time and how fallible. But when you're little, you don't think that way. You don't think there's something wrong with them. You think there's something wrong with me because they're shouting at me or. Or what have you. What. Whatever's going on.

Exactly. Because we're the ones that set them off. And the. My mother would go off in her mid-30s would be. My life is half over. And this is what it is with your kids and. Yeah, well, her life. She's in her 80s now, so she's lived more than twice that. So there. Ha ha. Mom of the 70s. It's, you know, I mean, the mother's curse. The. I wish on you kids just like you. I'm like, okay, fine.

Yeah, I felt like I was a great kid. Why would you say that?

Doing the best hair. And it's. Yeah, my brother has a kid who's about. She's years old now. She takes Krav Maga and horseback riding lessons and all this stuff. And it's. My brother says, you know, it ran in the family until it ran into me.

That's really good.

Yes. So this is what a child who was raised by a hippie artist who is, you know, determined to raise a mentally healthy kid. That's what it turns out to be. She's taking Krav Maga.

I love that.

Yeah.

Do you have any particular habits that you've put in place in your life to keep this demeanor or. Or this incredibly positive attitude about your life?

Well, part of it is just promoting accomplice. It's that, you know, yes, I end the day feeling like I haven't done enough, but it's not helping anybody if they don't know about it. And being positive for other people helps me be positive for myself. You know, there are definitely times, even with migraines, part of the migraine attack is. Is depression and apathy. So there are definitely times when I just. I just. What am I doing with my life? I'm a mess. I'm not doing enough. I am resting my life away. But resting is an activity, and it's necessary, and it's okay.

Hey, if it's working, keep at it. That's what I say.

It's the perfectionism thing. If you don't think that you are the world's number one best at whatever, you're inclined to think you're garbage. I'm not the world's leading expert in. In anything really. But. And in perfectionism, I'm not the expert in that, but, you know, I know enough that I can kind of help other people and help people to let it go, you know, I'm not the best writer in the whole wide world, but I'm good. And, you know, I'm very experienced at it. And my B. Were. My B plus work is, you know, indistinguishable from my A plus work as far as most people are concerned. And that's something a lot of writers have to have to learn. And anything that you're expert at, you know, anything. It's been your job and, you know, leadership and management and whatever, you probably think you're not good enough because you have standards and you have high standards and, you know that you could be better. And that's good because anyone who doesn't think that. Who thinks they are the best is the worst. They're not going to be good at it at all. They're just they're all ego and no talent. And you know, that's the thing. Even the people who are the best, you know, SEO, the SEO person, I guess Neil Patel is probably the leading expert on that. I'm sure even he is like, oh yeah, but I don't know everything.

Yeah, well, because you've got to be getting better every day, right?

That's right. And it's always something like that, it's always changing.

And so I wonder, and I ask everybody this question, if somebody's out there and they want to get to where you are, whether it's developing their own app, coaching, freelance writing, any, anything that you do quite well, they're just starting out and they're in a place of self doubt and imposter syndrome. What would your advice be to them?

Do it and do it wrong and keep doing it and failing, bigger and better, but also getting advice, asking for advice because, you know, I was a systems analyst, I designed software. So when it first came to building the app, I reached out to some friends who were developers and I have this document, I've designed the whole thing and they told me it would take a thousand hours and which costs a lot of money. And finally I ended up just through connections. I had a chat with someone who has designed award winning apps and he said and is still in technology. I'm, you know, I'm out, I'm rusty, I'm a writer now. Which I prefer. But what he said was like, yeah, no, they're always going to tell you it's a thousand hours. You know, there's agile development, this is how you do it now. And yeah, no, we did it much less than a thousand hours. But I had to get that advice, you know, and for a while there I had a score mentor because I was thinking, okay, I need to, you know, do some fundraising and spent weeks walking around going, I didn't want this for my life. I don't want this, I don't want to. And finally realized, okay, I don't want this. I don't want to make a, you know, an official company, no, it is a company, but I don't want to make a big thing with investors who I have to pay back and make myself miserable. And I want to have asset. And my last chat with, with my score mentor, he was like, yeah, no, yeah, okay, great, you're giving me permission. I have asset and you know, self funding and there's all these people, they're founders and they're bootstrapping and I'm like, yeah, you know I'm. I made a thing and I'm telling people about the thing, and it's fine, you know, I don't have to do it the way everyone else does.

Yeah, absolutely. And that, that's such a big moment right now. And I think people are starting to kind of realize very, very slowly, but they're starting to kind of realize they don't have to do it the way everyone else has done it. And we have a whole generation of people that are coming. New words for things. And what is that one that really grinds my gears. Quiet. Quitting. People just. I don't even know if people say that anymore. It's been. I learned about it. So probably old, old hat now. But there are all these wonderful new words entering the lexicon and they're saying, hey, we're fed up with how you do things. This country is kind of a scam. We're not playing your game. And it's been awesome to watch. I have a hard time living that, but I can watch it and I can say, hey, you guys are great. You do your thing.

Yes, the kids are going to be okay. But it's late stage, late stage capitalism. I've been following politics for decades now. And so it's just like, yeah, saw this coming. Yes. You know, it's. The problem isn't that I'm paranoid. It's that the universe keeps making my paranoia justifiable. And that's, you know, and that's the thing. I would have these screaming arguments with my mother as a teenager because my high school had a really stupid dress code. And I said, I'm gonna get a job where I can wear jeans every day. And jobs like that don't exist. She says. And by the time I was out in the workforce, yes, they did in technology. Absolutely. The dotcommers, you know, the dress code was one thing that they did right.

Huh. Mark Zuckerberg walked so we could run. Is there anything that you haven't been able to share or a particular plug that you want to do that you'd like to share on the podcast?

Yeah. The Accomplice app. It is. You can go to accomplished app. It's accomplish with the T instead of an H. And there's links to the. The App Store and the Google Play Store where you can download it. You can just go directly and get. Get them. That way they are. There's a free trial for a week, and then it's just 99 cents a month or $9.99 for a year. And yeah, that's that's the main thing. Give it a try and play with it and. And enjoy your imperfections.

Well, thank you so much and I.

Had a great time. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely. It's been my pleasure. Bye now. Bye. Unrelatable. Jen Anderson, what a great conversation. I hope you got a lot of value out of it. I know I did. And as we close out this episode together, I just have been getting so much positive feedback on the podcast so far. It has been overwhelming. Thank you all for caring about this little corner of the Internet or even if we're. We're past all these web 1. 2, 3.0 things. Just the world, I guess. I guess the Internet is part of the world now. Anyway, this has been such a cool ride and I know the way I'm saying this sounds like I'm ending things, but. No, we're going to keep going. It's just, it's so fantastic to feel all of you just sort of wrap around me in this warm hug of attention and it's so hard to come by that these days, honestly. So thank you so much. I hope everyone gets the value out of this that they're really telling me they are. And I'll keep bringing in guests and I'll keep doing bigger and better for you and we are gonna get some really cool things coming down the pike. And do yourself the favor, no matter what, if there's imposter syndrome, if there's self doubt, if you think you can't do something, just keep moving forward. But before I go, if you have a story of imposter syndrome or self doubt, shoot me an email, sort of. Surepodmail. Well, that's about all I have for you folks today. Thank you so much for listening and we'll catch you next time. Later days.