The power of self-narratives
We make sense of the world with stories and narratives we tell ourselves and others around us. Overtime, as we grow and change, so do our narratives. Our truth is not an absolute fact, but rather an interpretation of the story. And embracing this perspective allows us to communicate better with others. We also interview Nikhil Suresh and discovered his Save-your-relationship shakshuka recipe.
We have an inherent need to make sense of the world around us and ourselves through storytelling and narratives. While we often share our stories with others, we also believe we have this innate truth in our heads about who we are, where we come from, and what kind of person we are. These internal narratives shape our identity and perception of reality.
Over time, as we grow and change, so do our narratives. We may hold onto certain beliefs about ourselves and the past, but it is crucial to remember that these are stories we tell ourselves. When faced with new information that disrupts our narrative or revisiting past memories, we might realise that our interpretations have shifted. What happened in reality is different to how we previously thought of it.
It is not only about the stories we tell others, but the stories we tell ourselves. Recognising that our former core memories, which used to define who we are, are now just stories we tell ourselves. And as the authors of those stories, we have agency over them. Our truth is the interpretation of the story, and how we see it. Our truth is not an absolute fact but rather an interpretation of the story, which can evolve as we grow and learn. Embracing this perspective allows us to communicate more effectively with others, as we become open to the idea that different interpretations exist. It also frees us from feeling the need to force our truth on others.
Coaching can be an invaluable tool in helping us reframe our own narratives. With the guidance of a skilled coach, we explore new perspectives and gain clarity on how our stories have shaped us. Through this process, we can develop a deeper understanding of ourselves and the power we hold to author our own narratives.
What are the stories you’d like to tell about who you are and what you do?
~ Elle
What’s been happening?
Blackmill at Web Directions Next
Elle and Lachlan will be at Web Directions Next this coming Friday (tomorrow!), November 29th to learn what people are saying about what’s next for the Internet. We’ll also catch up with old friends and make new ones. If you’re there, come say hi!
Interested in group coaching?
Blackmill are introducing group coaching next year, but we want to find out what would be of most benefit to you! This form is anonymous, but if you’d like to join our waitlist, there’s an option to leave your info at the end.
https://blackmill.notion.site/1382b691602d80eab9efe47f8b91d5ed?pvs=105
The Career Reshaped podcast
Somehow our friends at My Career Angels convinced both Elle and Lachlan to be interviewed for their newly launched Career Reshaped podcast this month. Both episodes will be out as soon as they’ve been edited for any actual wisdom.
What are we reading?
- PACE: Graded Assertiveness – We’re still on a psychological safety kick here (aren’t we always?) so here’s a great framework for ensuring difficult messages are heard without upsetting people needlessly.
- You can't just cancel 76,500 hours of meetings – Becky Kane in the Twist newsletter last year critiques Spotify’s organisational declaration of meeting bankruptcy.
- Reframing Change Leadership – Andrew Hollo details the practical tools he uses to implement strategic change in organisations.
- The Rules of Engagement – A.R. Moxon offers a cogent interpretation of the rules of boundaries and rules of engagement (or disengagement, or non-engagement). He uses current political events in the US as his framing, but these ideas are also broadly applicable in work and life.
- We Need To Rewild The Internet – Earlier this year, Maria Farrell and Robin Berjon published this essay applying the fundamental precepts of the environmental rewilding movement to the Internet. It’s partly looking back to how the Internet began but also looks forward to what it might become.
- Lessons learned from the CIA sabotage field manual – On our own blog, Sebastian shares some extracts from the Blackmill field counter-sabotage manual to deal with unintentional organisational sabotage.
A cuppa with Nikhil Suresh
1. What do you do? And what do you like about your work?
I’m a founder and director of Hermit Tech, a data consultancy out in Melbourne that’s committed to treating the field with serious software engineering discipline. I started with a few of my closest friends as an act of calculated violence against how much work is wasted in modern corporate environments. It’s all about authenticity, compassion, and honesty. We mostly work in data engineering and governance these days, as we believe that participating in the AI hype cycle is only one step removed from selling cryptocurrency to my grandfather.
As for what I like — being able to do work to a standard that the team is happy with is very fulfilling. I had a period of fairly severe burnout very early in my career, largely due to having a great deal of sensitivity around business value. That’s a polite way of saying that I knew most of my work wasn’t being used by anyone. Now those feelings are largely gone, and I struggle with the weird feeling of having to stop myself from working thirty seconds after getting out of bed in a desperate attempt to not become the avatar of every cocaine-fuelled salesperson on the planet. There’s something incredibly satisfying about watching what Fred Brooks called “thought-stuff” materialise into a well-oiled machine.
I also write what has become one of the bigger tech blogs out there Ludic, which is sometimes about software engineering, but I occasionally write about absolute destroying my friends at board games.
2. What aspect of your work do you find most challenging?
The most challenging thing, by a huge mile, is finding clients that share our values. One of my hot takes is that most of the technology sector is driven by projects that never had a chance of succeeding, by people that are trailing a string of failures. That’s an honest assessment of my own career before I decided to start my own business, and it was no one’s fault. Big organisations have too many strange interpersonal dynamics to effectively deliver work with any consistency. Finding a project that is not ill-conceived from the outset, and thus actually going to yield returns on engineering effort, is hard. Our sales strategy is all about forming relationships with people and ensuring that we can solve a real problem together — we regularly have three month sales cycles on non-enterprise projects. We have had to reject leads that would have made us instant “successes” because we felt that the projects would have been wastes of investor money. This means that the entire team is still at least partially engaged in conventional employment. But my last sales exchange started with a long discussion about poetry, so we’re moving towards the dream!
3. What are you passionate about?
I want people to be well-paid to do work that they find fulfilling. That means autonomy, respect, low stress, and the development of a personal philosophy, free from the excessive pressures of what one of my readers calls “unreflective rogues”. Hermit Technology exists because I want to develop the blueprint for other people to succeed at doing things that resonate with their deeper selves. Yes, that is a bizarre goal for a business.
I also spend a lot of time helping people find employment, teach students, perform theatre nerd stuff with Impro Melbourne, and take music classes at the Michael Avery school of music. And of course, I write a lot. I do love programming, but am increasingly seeing that the larger project is not programming specifically and instead cultivating the mindset that allows for good programming. Cooking carefully is, in some sense, useful for software engineering, and I have accepted that I sound like a weirdo.
4. What are recent accomplishments you are happy with?
Most recently, I wrote a viral article pushing back against the hype surrounding generative AI, titled “I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again”, a title which might surprise you given that I probably sounded balanced until now. It was large enough that, as I am writing that the CEO of Tumblr asked me if I’d like to get coffee. But it was also small enough that he had to cancel for an unexpected flight. You’ll live to regret this, Matt Mullenweg. Since originally writing this, it has become apparent that threatening Mullenweg is unwise at this moment in time.
I don’t really optimise my writing for attracting clicks, preferring instead to just trust that putting the right energy out will eventually attract the right attention, but it was wonderful seeing it resonate with so many people. If I have a core belief, something that I take on faith despite reality sometimes suggesting otherwise, it’s that authenticity will pay off. Though it does have to be paired with some systems thinking and self-presentation skill.
5. What is one mistake that you will never make again?
When I started working, I was really fixated on money. It was miserable and I burned out doing work for people that would say things like “All jobs are meaningless” and “We’re lucky to be paid to do nothing”. Now I’ve learned to live with much less, with much better people, and I ain’t ever going back. Plus if you’re tactical enough, the money seems to sort of handle itself, though you’ll never be Bill Gates this way.
6. How do you manage stress?
- I use a lot of checklists which is how I know that I’m never forgetting anything. That removes a lot of stress.
- I unplug whenever it’s possible. Especially after going viral, I will only make one podcast appearance per week, and schedule three hours to help readers with things. This does mean that I can’t get to everything, but that’s life.
- I have at least a few people in my life who don’t really understand anything about my job or online reputation, so I’ve got some spaces where I can pretend that hasn’t happened, hah.
7. What is the best advice you can give?
Cultivate gratitude for what you have, but never settle. If something feels toxic for your soul, you’ll know it, and it’s okay to take risks to do better for yourself. And if I can be a rebel and add a second piece of advice, take care of your mental health as soon as you start to feel it slip. A good therapist pays for itself when you really need one, even if the cost seems prohibitive at first. The biggest investment in my business is not technology or staffing, it’s consistent counselling and therapy. Your mind is the your important machine in work and life.
8. What one thing would you change about our society?
I would want more people to realise that the number one way to uncommoditize yourself is to be your authentic self and position yourself that way, even if that means taking risks. Software developers, writers, and doctors are all fungible. You aren’t. It’s better for your spirit and your wallet.
9. What are your goals or aspirations for this year?
My only goal for 2024 is now to survive low levels of fame without turning into Synergy Greg. Wish me luck.
What is Nik cooking?
Save-Your-Relationship Shakshuka
I make this version of shakshuka, but I add a few extra steps before preparation.
- Have your writing blow up internationally
- Massively over-commit your schedule because you are 30 and have no experience with any of this
- Have your partner, with a real job that isn’t just shuffling electrons around like a nerd, become increasingly concerned that you’re never free to watch Buffy
- Begin preparing shakshuka in a desperate bid to demonstrate that all of this attention has benefits for her too
And we’re out
Thank you for showing an interest in our newsletter and we hope that you enjoyed the read. Feel free to contact us if you have any feedback, a burning question, or just a recipe that you would like to share.
Until next time, keep learning!
Everyone at Blackmill