202 - How To Get Good (Question Mark) ❔❔
Hey there, !
A longer rant for today's post, just before I go on leave...
TL;DR:
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Do things
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Reflect
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Adapt to that information
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GOTO 1
Just to be clear, I'm not really good...at anything really. Maybe writing email newsletters? 👀
But this piece I wanted to write to a. remind myself of the Career Moat series of posts which I like to re-read every year, and b. write it as if I could send this back into the past for my 18 year old self and c. because, well, my tutoring students are currently in this quandary, so it's been top of mind.
It's a collection of random thoughts around how to git gud related more specifically to work (but is generic enough to cover anything I reckon!), and boils down to a simple framework you use in any stage of the process.
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Do something: try something out - usually an informed course of action, but sometimes it can just be 'being open to things' - planning can't solve everything!
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Reflect on it: think about what you just did - did you like it? not like it? why / why not? You've just learned more about yourself - congratulations!
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Adapt: okay, so now use that information to inform your next choice - what do you want to do next?
Kind of adapted from this image from Ray Dalio as well, but slightly different:
As always, remember not to take any advice at face value - you gotta try it yourself and then come back and tell me I was wrong :D
LET'S GO:
If you already know what your purpose is, and what you've been put on Earth to do, congratulations - go do that thing - skip to B2. If not...
A. Search phase
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Try things out. Honestly, this is the main thing. Go and do things - whatever they are! Join a club, go to a movie, collect new experiences, travel - all of it. These things come from your friends, your family, reading about things that interest you, being bored and trying to notice what you naturally gravitate towards, and are usually the easiest during school / uni.
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Did you like the thing you tried? Why or why not? Like, I know I've just said do stuff but if you just do stuff, then who cares? Very much the fake gun scene from Community - if you just do random stuff, who cares?! Spend some time and just go - y'know, I liked it, but I don't care about it. Or - definitely not my vibe. Or, hell yeah let's do this!
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Repeat these steps until you have a better understanding of why you like what you like. Usually, you should be able to say 'I've found out something new! This is what I like and don't like, and why' - that's the goal. Then, you can say 'okay so it looks like I like this much more than anything else'. Once you've chosen something (which doesn't have to be set in stone), move to the next phase.
B. Exploit phase
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Go and find things out - understand the 'shape' of this area - become an expert from a knowledge standpoint, since you don't have experience (yet). Talk to people as widely as you can, read about as much as you can - it's about understanding the metagame of the industry or area you wanna be in. Questions to start this investigation would be: what's happening right now? What's worked in the past? What does the future look like? What does it mean to be 'successful', and what is valuable in this field? Who do people look at as really good, and why? What do people think and what do you actually see?
- E.g. if you're a musician, what kind of band or orchestra is best to join? Why? What are the opportunities? What if you want to go solo? How do people market themselves? How do they find opportunities?
Be a sponge - find out as much as you can about the area in as little time as possible so that you can use that information to ask better and better questions.
If you want to be truly mercenary about this - think about whether this is gonna fulfil what you want for your life going forward (money and lifestyle-wise). That's one that's up to you - and is an analysis of what you're feeling now. Don't feel wed to one thing or another - if the area looks shit, then get out and go back to the Search phase.
You're young, go find something else! You got plenty of time.
Regardless, these observations and conversations help you try to find the next thing, which is...
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Reflect on your findings and identify the rare and valuable skills: essentially, you want to know what types of skills are valuable to people in this field, but also rare. You can be valuable as a musician by, for example, being a good performer, but is it rare? Good performers are a dime a dozen. You could also have a rare skill, like playing a super rare instrument (a theremin perhaps?), but is it valuable? Do orchestras have theremin concertos they're trying to play?
Perhaps this depends on the opportunity area and the niche you're in (i.e. maybe there are theremin bands that you want to be in), but it's important to understand what kind of skills you have that no-one else has, and that people actually want.
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Is it something you could acquire? - if it's something that's hard to do, even better! It means others are more likely to not follow down that path, which means it'll be even rarer. If it's an easy to pick up skill - perhaps it's not as rare or valuable as you thought.
But it's important to also know yourself - sometimes a skill is just too hard to acquire; it might require too much effort, or too much time, or too much money than you have. That's okay - identify the next thing that you could acquire, and go after that!
C. Work Hard phase
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Focus on the hardest one first - whatever it is, go and get experience, go and learn - practice it over and over again. Get help from mentors, put yourself in situations that will force you to learn it, and even if you fail, who cares? It's all experience in the end.
This is usually easiest in fields that are brand spanking new - e.g. in AI or crypto spaces. If you're a first mover in learning something, you can explore new frontiers that others aren't looking at yet. The problem here is that you gotta keep going faster and faster and trying new things, but it's easier to do that if you've already started it than for people who aren't looking at it at all!
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Reflect - is this still the right path? What new opportunities open up for you now you have these skills? What's next? What can you do that you couldn't do before? It could be good to go back to A and see what other opportunities there are by trying new stuff.
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Rinse and repeat! Keep going - gain more skills for breadth, practice with the ones you have for depth, and keep going until you #gitgud.
Don't know if this is useful, and I'll probably come back to it later. There are lots of caveats that would blow up this explanation in terms of different domains where this is easier or harder to do, but we'll save that for another time.
Please help me refine it in the meantime - keen to hear all your thoughts!!
(NB: I just realised after writing this whole thing that this boils down to "trial and error". Sigh. Have all the thoughts been thought already?)
Anyway, in the meantime, I'm off to the UK for a few weeks so have fun reading some of my earlier posts in the next few weeks if you haven't before!
Chat soon :)
Let me know if you have any feedback for the newsletter!
✔️Real Life Recommendations
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Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 3 - honestly, a good one! It had its moments, a great character backstory / focus, and an acceptable way to finish the trilogy. Really interested to see if we'll see any more of their characters, and it did seem a little bit disjointed (which, well, is kinda what we see from the Marvel franchise at the moment anyway). Still, a nice watch for some old characters - recommended!
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It's Always Sunny in Philadelpha Season 16 - the newest season! They look older (except Charlie, who is immortal), but still have the same level of quality scenarios and dumb shit that they do. Bit of flanderization but that's bound to happen - I'm just recommending it again because this latest season just came out and was quite good! Disney+ my boys and girls - have a go :)
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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Ig Nobel Prize Winner Higashiyama Atsuki and the “Between-Legs Effect” Mystery - I love the Ig Nobel prize. It's the weirdest research, with some fascinating results. In this one, it's the fact that your physical proprioception (i.e. how you feel in a space) impacts visual illusions - for some reason, when you look at something upside down, 'between your legs', the visual illusion of certain things disappears! What! That's pretty interesting, right?
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Watching Paint Dry - the story behind things is so interesting - in this part, looking at car paint! All of these physical things that needed solutions - so fascinating! More interesting things :D
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The Door Close button - are elevator 'close door' buttons actually hooked up? Answer: yes, but specifically:
...Since the ADA requirements impose a minimum, it's likely very common for the minimum door hold time and the "normal" door hold time to be the same... meaning that the window to use the "door close" button is zero seconds in duration...