Don’t Panic

Whenever change occurs within my job I am comforted by the words written on the cover of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, “Don’t Panic.” I say this because that’s the first thing I usually do. Change is inevitable and how you adapt to it is how you can grow. Every change should be seen as an opportunity for something new. The change could be as simple as you are assigned a new project or task. Or it could be something more daunting like a new boss, losing a team member, or changing your team entirely. Each of these is an opportunity to step up to the plate and swing for the bleachers. Make the most out of it! When change occurs, and notice I said “when”, because it will, it’s time for you to shine. If it’s a new boss it’s a chance to show them what you’re made of. If it’s the loss of a team member, show your boss that you can pick up some of the slack. If it’s a new team, make the most of it and see what you can learn from your new team members. Change will often put most of us outside of our comfort zone. However, you never grow by staying in your comfort zone. You will need to adapt as quickly as possible. The less you panic the easier it will be. I know personally I wouldn’t want a career that doesn’t allow me to grow. With every new change I can grow and become a more valuable asset. Up to this point I’ve been talking about external changes. Things that are out of your control. You shouldn’t wait for an external change to grow. If external changes are not coming your way then it’s time for you to make your own changes. Try to figure out how you can change personally to improve yourself. Make yourself more valuable. Learn something new. Take on a new responsibility. Offer to help someone else with their work, even if you don’t know how to do it. Don’t just sit on the sidelines and wait for that magic moment to happen for you and get on the field and make it happen. Just remember that the only entry in the Hitchhikers Guide on Earth states “Harmless”. Then Ford Prefect updated the guide to say “Mostly harmless”. That’s how I like to think of change. It’s mostly harmless.

The Importance of Developing Your Character

It used to be that when a person made a deal they would shake hands on it. The deal was guaranteed by a person’s character. You valued your character and what people thought about you. Honoring the deal was vital to your relationships. There are still people today who value a handshake more than a contract. The thing is your character is what people will remember you by. Whether it be after you’ve left a job, a relationship, or after you die, it will be your character that lives on. So it’s vitally important to develop a strong sense of your character to leave behind a good impression. One’s character is the building blocks to all relationships. At work it is your character that enhances your relationships with your teammates, leaders, and the people who work for you. We always say when we leave a job we don’t want to burn bridges. It is your character that keeps those flames away from those bridges. There are three elements to the equation that makes up your character. What you say + what you do + your values = character. In this equation your values are the constant that influences the rest of the equation. Your character starts with your values. Your values should be the guide to your every decision. If you don’t have your values listed out in priority then you might want to start doing so. I have my values written out in priority and I rewrite them in the same order each day. I have them memorized so that when a decision comes my way I can refer back to them to guide me. In other words your values should stabilize what you say and do which develops your character. If you want to be a great teammate, friend, or leader it all falls down upon your character. The only way someone can judge that character is based on what you say and do. So identify those values that matter most to you and let them guide you in every aspect of your life. So when you do leave a lasting impression, it will be a good one.

Three Lessons on Leadership

For the past 16 years I have been a youth hockey coach. For the last 6 years I’ve coached 18 and under teams whose age range from 15-19 years old. These are three valuable lessons I’ve learned along the way. When I coached younger players I learned an anecdotal trick for determining players' positions. It’s not something that I have actually applied but it emphasizes a point. At the first practice of the season you shoot the puck down ice. The kids who race after it are your forwards. The kids who hang out on the periphery are your defensemen. Finally that one kid that just stands next to you is your goalie. The point I’m trying to make here is to learn what your team’s strengths are. Understand each member of the team and what they can bring to the table. Utilize those strengths whenever possible. Now another part of any youth team is the parents. For anyone who has ever coached or had a child in youth sports, you know full well that you need the parents on board as well. When I have my first parent meeting at the beginning of each season I always ask them three questions. I first ask how many of them see their child going to play professional hockey. Usually a few brave souls will raise their hand. I then ask how many think their kids will play for a college hockey team. A few more are willing to raise their hands. Finally I ask how many want to see their kids coaching youth hockey when they get older, at this point everyone raises their hands and nods their heads. I tell them, those are the players I’m coaching. The next generation of coaches and leaders. Now my point here is subtle. I am establishing common values within the team. Values that they all agree on and use as their guiding light. A team with a set of common values will make better decisions based on those values. The final lesson I want to talk about comes from the most talented player I have ever coached. He was amazing on the ice, however his problem was he wouldn’t pass. He was not a team player, he wanted to score all the goals. He was 17 at the time and we made him an assistant captain. Not for his talent but because we knew we could teach this kid how to be a leader. The other coaches tried pleading with him to pass and sometimes lecturing him. I took a different approach. I took him aside before a game and said to him, “Look, you know more about hockey than I will ever know. You are the most talented player I’ve ever coached. There is nothing I can teach you about hockey. But what I can teach you is how to be a leader. Your team looks up to you as an assistant captain. As a captain you want to lead your team and see them grow to their fullest potential. Their skills will never grow if you score all the goals. So could you be the leader I know you can be and pass the puck?” That game he got three assists and was more proud of those assists than he ever was of any goals he had ever scored. This final point is something that I learned from John C. Maxwell. Develop your leaders. You should want to make each member of your team better. You want to see them grow and learn as if they were your own children. When your team sees you are putting value in them, they will want to give value back. There are many more lessons I’ve learned from coaching youth hockey, but these three have been the most successful for me. Go out there and be the best leader you can and invest heavily in your team.

Continually Learn

The advice I’m going to give you is not necessarily mine. It’s a mashup of a few ideas I’ve heard over the course of the last couple of years. The advice is to continually learn. If you have aspirations to grow in your career then spend a little time each day learning new concepts and ideas that will help with your work. The rate at which knowledge is growing in your field seems to be exponential. You can’t just sit back and rely on what you know so far. You will grow stale in your field of expertise. This happened to me when I worked for the Air Force Research Laboratory. I was starting to get assigned more and more managerial projects and paperwork as opposed to doing actual research. I stopped learning about technical things and started learning bureaucracy. I was lucky that I recognized this and switched to a job where I could challenge myself technically again with Talkdesk. I became a Site Reliability Engineer and have loved every minute of it ever since. Yes I had to beat off some rust and learn quickly on the job, but my manager and team had faith in me. Now I spend a little time each day reading in my field. Whether it be learning the Bash Shell, Linux Administration or improving my Python skills. I work to absorb and practice what I need to learn to better myself for my job and career. I have already started to see the rewards paying off for doing this. I refuse to grow stale again. No matter what field you are in, you should be learning a little every day. I’ve heard it said that you should be investing 3% of your income into yourself and your education every year. I thoroughly believe this. My wife might beg to differ though when she sees how much I spend on books and audiobooks. The main point of this is, if you want to advance your career, take the time to care about your career and improve yourself. This post isn’t just about how to grow in your job though. It’s also about how you can grow as a person, a teammate, a leader, and much more! I had always been interested in motivational speaking, however I was ill equipped to do it. I didn't have the ability to present very well, I also didn’t have any material to present, and I didn’t know where to begin. I thought becoming a speaker would be a great side job and a great way to improve myself. So I started reading all kinds of motivational books. I have applied a lot of what I have learned in the last couple of years and have found great success. However, there was one thing I learned that topped all other things. It was how much time you have to spend listening to audiobooks. The books I read said the average person spends thousands of hours in their car each year. Most people listen to music or nothing at all! They suggested that you listen to audiobooks while driving and turn your vehicle into a mobile university. I started doing this not only when I drive but when I work out. I spend most of my time listening to more motivational books. I particularly like the books written by John C. Maxwell. This has changed my life! You see, I’m a slow reader compared to most people. So audiobooks speed up the process. I know that I need to take a speed reading course to improve or I’ll never get through all the books I’d like to read. That being said, the time I spend listening to these books has been invaluable to me. They have sparked many ideas and topics to talk about in my blog and later as a speaker. I even went as far as presenting to my team the topic of overcoming the fear of failure at work. Now I am by far not ready to become the speaker I want to be, but I’m taking little steps each day to get there. The key takeaway from this post is to take action and learn what you can when you can. Learn about your career, your personal growth, and even biographies of the people you admire. It will pay off enormously in the end.

Taking Action

The timing is never right. If you wait for the perfect time then you’ll never do what you want. When I told my wife that we should start thinking about kids I said, “No matter what you are never prepared for kids.” I wasn’t very far from the truth. There was no perfect time to have them. The first step toward getting something you want is to take action. Even if it’s just a little step it is better than nothing at all. I have always wanted to write a book or a novel. I finally decided to take action and not wait for the right timing. I wasn’t going to wait for my writing skills to magically improve. I was just going to do it. I have talked about being creative in solitude before and now I have put it to action. I sat down for an hour and wrote the titles to all the chapters I wanted to write. They may not have been in order but they were the key points I wanted to talk about. Have you ever heard of someone being frozen with fear? Waiting for the right timing is kind of like that. You are frozen with the fear of failure. I’ve talked about the fear of failure extensively already. I was training with the Air Force once as a civilian. It was a mini boot camp for scientists to get an exposure to what it was like to be in the field. We were doing a training exercise with guns that had lasers on them that could trigger a vest just like Lasertag. We were walking to a mock village when all of a sudden special forces pinned us down in an ambush. We all hit the ground. I dropped down into a puddle and froze with all the other people I was training with. When the training was over they taught us that if you are in an ambush the only way to have a chance of surviving is to push through it. I did not know this. This was a valuable lesson in life for me. When life gets you down you need to take action and push through it. If there is something you want in life, something you want to accomplish then start taking actions to do it. It’s like I learned when trying to lose weight. Don’t wait till Monday or New Years to start a diet. Start right now!

Being Creative

Creativity is like a muscle. The more you use it the bigger and better it gets. Many people feel they are not creative at all. However, I argue that you just forgot how to be creative. All children are creative at first. Their imaginations run wild. You used to be this way. I’m not saying tap into your inner child, but you do need to remember that you can be creative. So as I said, like a muscle the more you use it the more creative you get. My daughters spend a lot of time being creative. They are currently 15 years old and yet they have started writing novels, drawing, and creating the most amazing things. I encourage this kind of activity even if it does interfere with their homework. I can’t complain because their grades are great. But as long as they are using their creative muscles I’m happy. In a previous post I talked about sitting in solitude for an hour and just thinking. I still do this with one change. I take notes about the important things I think about. I try to think about what I’m going to do in the future and how I’ll get there. Then I take notes of the ideas that come to me. This is creative thinking! I can’t emphasize enough how important sitting in solitude is to me. This blog is another creative outlet for me. It doesn’t take me long to write a blog post because I do it so often. It’s interesting because I’m just as much a reader of my blog as I’m a writer. I don’t know what’s going to come out of me until I’ve typed it. I will someday use this blog to feed my book that I’ll eventually write. It will be some sort of motivational book. I also like writing stories. I have a novel that I started to write a couple years ago and abandoned when Covid hit. I often use what is going on around me to inspire my creative writing. I didn’t want to write about Covid so I put it down for a couple of years. Now I’m ready to pick it up again. Why is being creative so important? Creative people can solve problems. Creative people can also come up with new ideas. Imagine what kind of products you can come up with if you started being creative. Creativity gets easier and easier the more you do it. My daughters can write a story very fast because they do it so much. Interestingly they write their stories on their phones rather than a laptop. The key to being creative is believing in yourself that you can do it. Find the area you want to be creative about and start thinking about it. I recommend sitting in solitude and start imagining the what if!

Taking Responsibility

I’ve heard it said that if you make a mistake for an excuse you have made another mistake. I firmly believe this. You need to understand that you are to blame for all that has happened to you and where you are in life. Your choices or lack of choices have put you right where you are. There is no one to blame but yourself. So take responsibility for yourself and start making the right choices. As an example, before I met my wife I was a healthy 185 lbs. Shortly after meeting my wife I gained a lot of weight and have been hovering at the 240-250 lb range ever since. I made the unfortunate excuse that I was content with life and didn’t need to worry about it anymore. I stopped playing sports and ate what I wanted. I chose to put myself in that position. It is my fault. Not my relationship with my wife, not with the fact that food was readily available. It was simply my fault. I own up to that. As mentioned in a previous post I dropped out of my Master’s program in computer science. I had multiple excuses and none of them had to do with me. My father-in-law died, I had 4 year old twins running around, I had a full time job, I was a hockey coach. The list was endless. The real reason was I feared failure, which was also in another post. It was my fault and my fault alone. Fortunately there were not any negative consequences for dropping out. I still had a job and I was still considered a decent computer scientist. The point I’m trying to make is that we need to admit when we are wrong and do the right thing and agree that we are the cause of where we are in life. Once you have done this you are liberated from where you are. You can start making progressive steps to where you want to be! The economy is not crushing your dreams to start a business for example, you are. Your perceived lack of education is not why you can’t get a better job, it’s your lack of motivation to educate yourself that is holding you back. These are just a couple of examples. Now for the key to all of this. You need to forgive yourself of all the mistakes that put you in this position. There is no need to beat yourself up over it. The thing to do is forgive and move on. Start taking those steps that will get you to where you would like to go. Trust me you will be free!