If you never take any risk you will never lose. But you won’t win either!
Calculated Risk is the Ticket.
If you’re a builder with premium skills standing at the perfect intersection of experience and opportunity: must stop playing business, embrace the discomfort of the market, and start acting like a professional contractor. What are you waiting for?
This may very well be a question for the self!
Are you clear on why you work?
Reflecting on what I told one of my mentees yesterday, it applies to us all:
Have a job that you don’t hate and separate it from your identity, form you self esteem and self view. Work to live don’t live to work. And use this acceptable job to finance your desired lifestyle. Allow for a satisfying life on your own terms!
For years, I suffered from the same Impostor Syndrome. I used to think my value was in knowing every deep technical detail, and discounted my ability to just bring order to a chaotic project.
I realised the hard way that trying to be the deepest technical specialist in every room is a losing game.
I asked my newest automated buddy to synthesise and distil our latest support videocall. This is the best it came up with …
Any useful?
Most ambitious engineers try to level up the same broken way: stack another certification, master another tool, wait for someone to notice. No one notices!
They end up overqualified on paper and completely invisible in the room: anxious, overlooked, and wondering if they’re the problem.
Passion comes AFTER competence, not before.
Don’t know what’s your calling in life? Don’t wait for it. It will never come to you. Pick something instead and get good enough. Then you can explore your passion.
And life is flowing ...
.. like a river to the inevitable vastness of the ocean. Am I making the most of it, enjoying the journey? Experiencing every single meter of it with the full knowledge I will never travel this way again! Will never see this part of existence again. In some sense, this me won’t exist anymore. Just a memory frozen in time. If that … .. memories are changing and fading so fast!
You may already know I’m a strong believer that practical learning is the best possible learning! What’s my view?
I won’t faff about this more:
๐๐๐ถ๐น๐ฑ ๐ฎ ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐น ๐ฝ๐ฟ๐ผ๐ท๐ฒ๐ฐ๐! ๐๐จ๐ง ๐ธ๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ฝ ๐ถ๐ ๐๐ถ๐บ๐ฝ๐น๐ฒ ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐๐บ๐ฎ๐น๐น ๐ฒ๐ป๐ผ๐๐ด๐ต ๐๐ผ ๐ณ๐ถ๐ป๐ถ๐๐ต.
Built for Complexity, Not Maintenance grind
Learned that I am a builder who thrives in the “complex” entrepreneurial domain, not a maintenance drone. When I manipulate my environment to suit my nature (like using the office AC or a coffeeshop) my focus returns. So I need to stop polluting my mindset with guilt-inducing “Should Statements” and recognize that rejections are just system feedback helping me fail forward. Furthermore, applying ‘Tragic Optimism’ means accepting I cannot fix someone else’s problems; I can only control my attitude and how much of their stress I absorb.
The Value of Dabbling
I don’t always know what I’m doing even while I mostly do .. Still, some of my biggest wins came out of this, as positive as they were unexpected exactly because I was dabbling and exploring. Some ot the oucomes were life-changing!
Because, if you always know what you’re doing then you can predict the outcome too. And there’s no unexpected, No stretching boundaries and limits, No leaping out of the familiar tank.
What do YOU think?
Mastermind Call to Bypass The CV "black hole"
The last Video Call we run was a blast. The results were amazing, all happy faces now having clarity on just what they will do next! … I’m running this event again on 11. Jun:
Where you don’t just hear theory but actually learn what is working right now for engineers in the exact same position as you. You’ll get to share your own stories, trade tips, and get that “horizontal” peer feedback that my mentees found so incredibly valuable.
And I will be right there guiding the entire process. I will moderate the discussion and validate exactly what works (and what doesn’t) from the perspective of a senior hiring tech leader.
And now you can Join too! But hurry up before the end of the week, seats are limited! Click here for more details and how to join.
Another day passed by, another client bought a session on my professional expert page. It always makes my day when this happens, even when my day is shit otherwise …
I’m writing today afternoon from a pub instead of my customary morning coffeeshop. I wonder if this will get to be a more inspired session?
Procrastination (whether it’s studying for a certification or the dread of updating a CV) is rarely laziness. As a mentor your job is to help them find the right tools to overcome the resistance and build momentum.
Ghosted by the One Who Needs It Most
I’m mentoring a number of people, all great and smart. But one is struggling with motivation and mood. Let’s call him John.
He now wants to get another job and faces massive resistance and dread to update his CV. Well.. build it from scratch, some time passed, and the world changed. LinkedIn is a significant piece of the puzzle nowadays. And not that he doesn’t have some presence, he has no LinkedIn account whatsoever …
Trying to be useful, I proposed to set up some kind of a mastermind session, a group video call putting all my mentees together so they can share experience and tips. Talking to the others they are all up to it, and responded with their availability, happy to help.
John is the ONLY one who didn’t answer!
How would YOU approach this situation?