I know exactly what time it happens.

It’s usually Sunday night, around 8:00 PM. Or maybe it’s Tuesday morning, right before the daily stand-up. Your heart rate spikes. Your palms get sweaty. And a single, terrifying thought loops in your brain like a runaway script:

"Today is the day they find out I have no idea what I’m doing."

We call it Imposter Syndrome. In the 717, I just call it "The Backpack."

In this week’s Digizen Chronicles, we showed Jordan walking into the office crushed under the weight of a massive hiking bag. It wasn’t filled with servers or cables. It was filled with the crushing fear that he is a fraud.

I want to validate something for you right now: That weight is real.

Tech is an industry built on the quicksand of obsolescence. What you knew three years ago is useless today. You are constantly being asked to solve problems you have never seen before, using tools that didn't exist six months ago. Of course you feel like you’re faking it. In a way, we all are.

When a Junior Dev looks at a Senior Architect, they see a wizard. They see someone who never panics, someone who seemingly has the entire documentation for Kubernetes memorized in their frontal lobe.

But that’s an illusion.

Yes, the Senior has experience. But she also has something you haven’t built yet: A Distributed Availability Zone.

The reason the Senior Architect is confident isn't just because she knows the answer. It's because she knows who to text if she doesn't.

She has spent ten years building a "Social Safety Net"—a group of ex-colleagues, drinking buddies, and mentors she can ping at 10:00 AM on a Tuesday to say, "Hey, am I crazy, or is this API broken?"

She creates safety through redundancy. If her brain fails, she fails over to her network.

The challenge for you—the Junior Dev carrying the backpack—is that you are currently operating as a Single Point of Failure.

You haven't built that external cluster yet. You are trying to process the entire load of the industry on your own local hardware. That is why the Imposter Syndrome feels so heavy—because if you don't know it, you think the system crashes.

We are going to go deep into this in future issues. We’re working on a "Tribe Protocol" to help you build those external connections, because you cannot survive this career in isolation. You need to engage with technologists outside of your work org to build that redundancy.

But building a network takes time. And you need to survive today.

Here is the brutal, liberating truth: Nobody cares about you.

They are too busy worrying about their own broken builds, their own Jira tickets, and their own backpacks. The system is too loud for anyone to be obsessed with your silence.

Imposter Syndrome is actually a perverse form of ego. It’s the belief that everyone is watching you, judging every keystroke. They aren't.

So, how do we fix it right now, while you're still building your network? We don't use affirmations. We don't look in the mirror and say, "I am a smart person." That’s weak data.

We use Protocol.

We treat the brain like a buggy server. When the error log starts spamming "I AM A FRAUD," we don't panic. We look at the logs. We check the uptime history. We look at the evidence.

Put the bag down, Jordan. You can’t type with that thing on.

— Don

Feelings are volatile. Documentation is permanent. Until you build your "Social Safety Net," you need a local script—a literal set of instructions—to navigate social situations when you feel out of your depth.

This week’s One-Page Tool is the Imposter Syndrome Protocol. It is a cheat sheet for the "Human API." It gives you the exact words to say when you don't know the answer, and a method for tracking your wins so you have evidence when the doubt creeps in.

Download the PDF at the end of this edition. If you aren’t a subscriber, sign up and you’ll get it for from.

When a stakeholder or senior asks you a question and your mind goes blank, do not lie. Do not guess. Use one of these responses to maintain authority while admitting ignorance.

The "Brag Doc" Requirement:

The Protocol also includes a template for a "Brag Doc." Every Friday at 4:00 PM, you must write down three things you fixed, learned, or shipped. When the Imposter Syndrome hits on Sunday night, you open this document. You look at the data. The data kills the fear.

Remember what we said about the "Social Safety Net"? You can't build it if you never leave the house. Here is where the 717 is gathering this week to build those connections.

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