This is a part of a three-article series on my journey so far as a programmer:

1. How I learned to program
2. Programming lessons that changed my life
3. Why everyone should learn to program (and where to start)

I’ve previously said that the problem with attracting new programmers is not in explaining how to program, it’s in helping people understand why to program.

So why learn to program, aside from the life lessons mentioned in the last post? A lot of reasons, actually.

It really is a form of “digital literacy”. Even if you decide programming isn’t how you’ll make a living, having these skills is like knowing how your car is put together: you will often know how to fix problems yourself, but even when you have to take it to the mechanic, you’re more likely to be taken seriously.

You’ll run a better business. If you have an entrepreneurial bone in your body, learning to program is going to return rewards to you many times over when starting your own company. I’ve seen many startups fail because of poor technical leadership by founders, and many succeed due to good communication between management and engineering.

You’re uniquely set up to succeed. Whether your background is as a writer or a pizza maker, it will likely help bring a completely different perspective to programming, which benefits everyone, including you.

Don’t let your subconscious lie to you

One life-impacting lesson I’ve learned recently from Paul Graham is that we too often let our subconscious make the decision to steer away from things that seem difficult. We mentally file it under “impossible” and let our conscious mind plan our goals around the perceived roadblocks.

Let’s run through some of those:

“But doesn’t programming require a formal education?” No. Next question.

“Isn’t it hard?” Yes. But not in the way you’re thinking. It’s hard in the way that playing an instrument is hard, in that it is merely a matter of practice. In fact, learning to play a musical instrument is the most direct parallel to programming of which I’m aware.

“Isn’t it just for antisocial, nerdy guys?” Oh dear, let’s dive into that one.

First off, it’s time to let go of the programmer stereotype from the 1980s, because it’s not useful and no longer accurate. We have a whole new crop of stereotypes for you to choose from.

Most distressing is the fact that most women have had a lifetime of exposure to the idea that “programming is for boys”, and from a young age, mentally wall that area off. This costs us in software quite dearly, both in sheer numbers and in the diversity of perspective that smart women bring to the activity.

Don’t let a lifetime of people trying to intimidate you (even subconsciously) prevent you from realizing that you have all the capability they do.

Programming is a special ability, akin to a superpower. It transforms you from a consumer into a maker. But it’s not for special people.

Some programmers feel otherwise, that programming is something you need special skills for. Instead of punching them in the face, just remember that a few hundred years ago, these are the types who thought reading and writing should be reserved for clergy. Learn and make all you can, so that these code hipsters can someday complain that they were programming before it went all mainstream.

Starting on your own path

Learning to program isn’t as hard as it sounds if you’re working with people who know how to ramp up the difficulty properly (and speak English instead of jargon). The Learn to Program (Ruby) book I used is a tried-and-true introduction to programming concepts, and I recommend it highly.

Because I evangelize programming to non-programmers, I am often asked, “What language should I learn?” That actually does matter, but mostly because the quality of materials available varies greatly from language to language. This is why I’d say Ruby, Python, or Javascript are great first languages: the quality of instruction materials available for all three is quite good, and they’ll have you actually building things relatively quickly.

There are great resources for new programmers online at Codecademy (Javascript), RubyMonk, and Learn Python the Hard Way. But my personal favorite, by a wide margin, is Hackety Hack (Ruby).

Find the community

Plus, with those languages, there are communities of people who are knowledgeable and generally helpful. There’s simply no substitute for personal, interactive feedback with experienced mentors. Even as a brand-new programmer, I found the pattern of showing up to local Ruby User Groups and following the attendees on Twitter to be incredibly valuable. It helped me create a support network of people who could answer questions or buoy me up when I felt like I was underwater.

Finding a local User Group, following helpful people on Twitter, joining related IRC channels (I use the fantastic IRCCloud service for this), and generally trying to grab the attention of people who do this for a living are all good ways to help luck start to fall in your favor.

Later this year, my understanding is that Mendicant University will be holding classes for newer programmers, and that may be a great time to start. If your local programming groups don’t offer workshops for new programmers, I bet they’d be open to the suggestion.

If you’re interested in learning to program, find me on Twitter and I’ll do my best either to help you or line you up with people who can.

If you knew half of the doors it’d open for you, you’d be starting one of these books or tools tonight and beating down the door of your local programming community leaders to build an initiative for new programmers. If you give learning to code half a chance, I can promise that in some significant way, opening your mind to it will have an impact on the course of your life.

This is a part of a three-article series on my journey so far as a programmer:

1. How I learned to program
2. Programming lessons that changed my life
3. Why everyone should learn to program (and where to start)

In the last post, I talked about how I learned to program. This process has had a profound impact on the way I think, the way I approach problems, and my outlook on life in general. Here are just of the few of the lessons this process has taught me:

Unknowns are not bad. I used to work from a place of fear. If I didn’t know how we’d solve a problem, the risk was unacceptable and we’d abandon the effort. Programmers almost never know exactly how they’ll solve a problem, only that historically, they’ve been able to solve them. This is a much better place from which to start thinking if you want to change the world.

Breaking problems down is my job. Along with the last point, if a problem looked too complex, it was easy to get overwhelmed. But programmers know they’re the last line of defense: the enzymes whose job it is to break complexity down to manageable chunks. This is the key mindset difference that makes programmers so damn special.

Sharing is good. Previous jobs, Marketing in particular, taught me each and every idea is a trade secret and must be protected. Programming leads the way in thinking that “none of us is as smart as all of us,” which is part of why software is moving humanity forward at an astounding pace.

Black boxes are stupid and harmful. I used to think that if I didn’t understand how something worked, I probably never would. Programmers don’t allow “black boxes”: they have to tear everything apart to know how it works. It’s okay to not care how something works precisely, as long as you have a general idea of what’s going on. My friend Dave Brady calls it “Leaver’s Law”: “Anything that a system does for you, it also does to you.”

Sleep is amazing. Programming has taught me that your brain will chew on things for you and often bring you the answer after a good night’s sleep (or even a long walk). Letting your subconscious process things for you is a gift and a curse: I’ve had horrible code nightmares where I couldn’t solve a problem. But more often, I’ve awoken to find last night’s unsolveable problem quite easy to untangle.

You’re a free agent. I used to feel chained to my employer, completely subject to the ups and downs of the company. I felt if I lost my job, I might just die. Programmers tend to think in projects, and an employment contract is just that: a contract that needs to be mutually beneficial, or they’ll find somewhere better to spend their time.

Develop, then trust, your intuition. Programming is a surprisingly intuitive process. Things that just “feel wrong” or “feel right” typically are. You can then find the principles that define and back up these intuitive feelings.

People get paid to do this? If you don’t marvel at that from time to time, chances are your work isn’t aligned with your passion. Even on rough days, programmers generally have a sense of how fortunate they are.

Don’t give in to the overwhelming temptation to quit. The highs are high, but prepare for soul-crushing, ego-obliterating lows. It’s important to build a network of people who know exactly how you feel.

They’re not going to eat you. You will embarrass yourself. You will write hideous code. You will ask stupid questions. But all the embarrassment you’re conditioned to feel is unwarranted, because 99% of the time, sharing things you make with other makers is a safe thing to do.

It’s not as hard as it looks. There are a number of reasons that programming looks hard from an outsider’s perspective, but it’s only hard work (there’s a big difference). Things that appear to be a cliff to newbies actually have a gentler slope on the other side. It’s still a hike, but it’s doable.

Feeling dumb is normal. We’re trained like seals to bark the right answers back at teachers, bosses, etc., and to feel awful with anything less. Programmers get really comfy with not having any answers upfront, and finding fulfillment in the discovery process.

Your capabilities are limitless… eventually. Programmers are special because they tend to look at ignorance on a topic as a passing phase. Because they have to re-learn their own profession as it’s reinvented every few years, they know that given sufficient time and attention, you could become an expert on anything you want.

Show me the code. Years ago, I figured I had to try to play political games to get ahead. I even tried to learn to golf to get in my boss’s good graces (shudder). Not so with programming. Coders either deliver a result, or they don’t. Next to sales, it’s difficult to imagine a more results-driven culture. It’s basically impossible to BS your way through, because you either make things or you don’t.

Feedback is feedback. It’s better to move forward on the wrong information or without permission than to sit still and wait for the perfect opportunity. Being proven wrong is always an acceptable outcome, because it means you’re moving, and the “perfect opportunity” seems to prefer a moving target.

It’s about the journey. This is probably the lesson that’s had the biggest impact on my life. It’s too easy to become so focused on chasing some big reward while missing all the wonderful experiences in between. If you can’t enjoy the journey you’re taking, you probably won’t love the destination either.

Above all this, I’m generally a much happier, more patient person. I’m infinitely grateful to all the people who taught me these lessons and encouraged me to keep pressing forward.

Learning to program has changed my life in vastly more ways than listed here, and it’s why I’m so passionate about making the onramp less steep for new people. In the next post, I’ll talk about why you should learn to program and how you can get started.

This is a part of a three-article series on my journey so far as a programmer:

1. How I learned to program
2. Programming lessons that changed my life
3. Why everyone should learn to program (and where to start)

Quite often, when I tell people I left a career in marketing to teach myself to program and develop software, they react with surprise or even amazement. As much as my ego wants it to be, it’s really not all that special, and it’s something I believe anyone can do, and many should.

Here’s how I learned to program, how it changed my perspective, and how you can do the same without falling into some of the same pitfalls I did.

The spark of interest

After spending nearly 5 years learning online marketing for the startup I worked at, I had become profoundly unhappy in my job. The only path forward I saw for myself was “marketing guru” (ugh), and I was constantly depressed.

Several people, including my dad, suggested that I pick up programming, and that I might enjoy that more than my present career. I perceived it as a serious affront to my abilities as a marketer and fumed at the advice.

But eventually, I decided to take a few minutes to talk with our lead developer and brought the idea up. His response surprised me and sidestepped all my concerns: “Everyone should know how to program. It’s a part of living in modern society. It’s like knowing how to change your oil or change a tire.”

We talked late into the night, and he wanted to show me how amazing programming was. He wrote a little program in Ruby that would create different animals, give them stats, let them fight, and see who would win.

I watched the strange symbols dance around the screen and was totally fascinated and thoroughly confused.

He handed me Learn to Program by Chris Pine and suggested that I start reading it. He said that I’d know whether I had any interest within two weeks, and my response would be either “this isn’t for me,” or “people get paid to do this?”

Learning to program

I started in on the next night, and asked the second question within hours. Captivated, I spent every night for the next few weeks working through the exercises in the book.

Each day I’d run into the developers’ room to talk about concepts, check my code, or get help on the tougher exercises (looking back, a recursive algorithm for parsing an array of arrays is a bit much for beginners).

Clearly, it was a stroke of luck that I worked with wonderful, knowledgeable people who were too happy to help me along the path.

I continued this pattern of learning new concepts through several more books, the best of which was Beginning Ruby, by Peter Cooper. I then picked up Agile Web Development with Rails and started building Rails apps along with the tutorials. I was actually making stuff, and felt like I could take on the world.

Getting overwhelmed

From there, the books thing was working so well that I kept rolling with it. I picked up several advanced books that started to take me off track. Somewhere between Design Patterns in Ruby and Test-Driven Development, I started to feel like I’d gotten in over my head.

To make matters worse, I couldn’t separate what I was learning about Ruby from Rails. I didn’t understand where the language ended and the framework began. Did I have to read the whole “Programming Ruby” book? What about Rails books? What was MVC? I had to learn Javascript too? And CSS? And HTML?

I confided in my friend and admitted that I’d failed as a programmer. I couldn’t do it all at once, and there didn’t seem to be a way to break it up. He told me, “That’s enough, your problem is too many books. You need to write some code and go from there.”

My first projects

My friend was right: it was time to just start making things. I got tiny assignments from the dev team: small copy or functionality changes, or bite-size features that were low-risk if I failed.

The things I built were embarrassingly elementary, but it’s an amazing feeling to ship code, and I felt back on track.

I tried and failed at a few more side projects. I was wholly unprepared to build the square-foot-gardening app I wanted to make, having underestimated its difficulty.

It was about this time that the company started to go under and I was shown the door. I suddenly lost my support network, and it became more difficult to practice my coding skills.

Luckily, just a few months later, I discovered Ruby Mendicant University. Started by Gregory Brown, it’s a free online school for intermediate programmers with a strong focus on building stuff for real-life situations.

Going full-time

After completing the core Mendicant University course, my projects became slightly more ambitious: A video upload site that limits you to 1 minute (a terrible idea, if you’re considering it), then a lunch-voting app, ToDoGroove, and now Hashbadges, which is mostly under wraps for the time being.

Even with all that, I still had a mental block about becoming a full-time programmer. I was more comfortable hanging back a bit and helping manage programmers than trying to write code that would actually be used in the business.

Luckily, I had a friend call me out on this and tell me that it was do-or-die time. I either needed to start coding and stop making excuses, or be happy with a non-technical role. We spent the next week pair programming, and I realized that I really am capable of programming full-time.

That week, I moved my desk into the programmers’ area and decided to become a full-time developer. (Kudos to my employer for not firing me for that one.)

I’ve only been a full-time programmer for about 5 months, but it’s been the most fun and interesting few months of my career thus far.

I have no idea where the future is taking me, because I’m having so much fun with what I’m doing now. No matter what I decide to do next, the act of learning to program has taught me lessons that completely altered the course of my life.

I’ll outline those lessons more fully in the next post.

by Cyron via Flickr

Specifically, I’ve drawn a lot of value from the story of Stone Soup.

The story

For the unfamiliar, it’s a very old story of a tramp who travels to a town in search of some food. Hungry and destitute, he knows better than to ask the townfolk for a handout. Instead, he offers the villagers the best soup they’ve ever had, “Stone Soup.”

Having intrigued the villagers, he drops his “soup stone” in a large pot and brings it a boil. He tastes it, adding that it just needs a bit of barley and salt to be complete. Then, the story goes, he gradually asks other villagers for more ingredients to make it “just right”: chicken stock, celery, flour, and so on. Everyone shares in the soup, and the stone is extracted, ready to earn a free meal for its owner in the next town.

Starting with nothing

Most projects (especially software projects) are astonishingly like this story.

If you’re building software for a customer or group of customers, you must start with only a stone and a promise of soup to come. That’s probably a familiar feeling to many developers.

Unless you’re writing software to an exact set of specs (in which case, you’re doomed, sorry to say), your customers don’t know exactly what they want. They also don’t want to provide you with the tools, data, and requirements you literally can’t move forward without.

Making matters worse, their expectations are that you’ll magically appear with the project, after reading their minds, overcoming all obstacles, and satisfying all dependencies.

Stone soup is how you show them some of this magic.

Some see the tramp in this story as a charlatan, but I am going to use the term “instigator”: the guy or gal with the guts to set up a pot of boiling water and throw in the stone. The instigator goes out on a limb to make things happen.

Here’s how you can start making some soup:

Find your stone

You are now the keeper of the stone. You’re the instigator. Why you? Because you are probably the only person that knows there’s even supposed to be a stone.

In my experience, throwing the stone into the pot involves skipping a lengthy requirements phase and taking that risky first stab at the product.

There are arguments for building low-fi mockups and some for high-fi, functioning prototypes. As I’ve gotten better at building products, I’ve found high-fidelity prototypes to extract more valuable feedback.

I’ve also heard this called a “straw man”. The point is to start the conversation by putting something in a customer’s hands to either love or hate.

Adding ingredients

Projects often grind to a halt when people fail to deliver on their part of the bargain. This is where I’ve watched projects languish and then die.

Momentum is everything in this phase. No, you won’t get all the ingredients you think you need for your soup. But you do need ingredients of some kind or the boil dies down, interest is lost, and everyone goes home with empty stomachs.

So if one person or group isn’t delivering and is holding things up, it’s time to get creative. What can you put in that would move the conversation forward? Can you get data from a different source that would still be valuable? Can you show a reasonable facsimile of this feature using only the tools you have on hand?

This ingenuity both helps solidify the product and creates a vacuum for the actual item you need, pointing a spotlight on the reason it’s being held up.

The finished product

Actually, that’s kind of a misnomer. The product is never finished.

But after a few iterations on the original concept, you have something worth sharing, even if it’s not perfect. You may never have all the ingredients you’d planned on, but just getting the wheels unstuck generated an outcome that would never have existed otherwise.

At a micro level, the instigator never knew how the soup was going to turn out. The ingredients and tools on hand vary wildly. But at a macro level, he or she knew enough about the process to guide the participants to a shared goal: making something great.

Want to change the world? Be an instigator.

To be successful as an instigator, you must have a decent mental picture of how the soup gets made. If it’s a software project, you’d better have a working knowledge of the parts of the process, from servers, to data, to code.

Once armed with this knowledge, developing a habit of making stone soup is what sets leaders apart from those who are led. It gives you the ability to know that you’ll be able to deliver a result, even without a sure knowledge of exactly how you’ll do it.

Most people aren’t wired to want to be instigators. It’s scary and the risk of failure or embarrassment seems high. But it’s a skill that can be learned, and whether you’re a coder, a manager, or an entrepreneur, it’s required if you want to help lead successful projects and create great products.

I found this terribly moving, despite the fact that the idea of work/life balance is somewhat clichéd. (via @ashedryden)

by Daniel Incandela via Flickr

This time last year, my wife and I were planning her escape.

We worked together at the same company, and she had a promising executive career track mapped out for her there. She’d been promoted several times, and would have actually been my boss (but for that bit about her being my spouse).

So when she talked about how unhappy she was, I resisted. I didn’t want to let her give up on a great career. We never loved the idea of conforming to stereotypical gender roles. And perhaps the fact that she brought in two-thirds of our income played a part.

Ultimately though, she helped me realize that putting our son in daycare and going to work was chipping away at her self-esteem and putting her into a pretty scary depression.

So, we started plotting her exit. If we could just pay off the credit cards, we could eke by on my income. It only took a few months of austerity before she was able to say goodbye to the golden handcuffs and stay home full-time.

A couple of weeks ago, while pushing Soren in the grocery cart, she ran up and down the aisles of the store to get a laugh out of our son, who invariably requests, “go faster, faster!” While speeding down the aisle and laughing herself, she nearly ran over a group of our former coworkers.

They stopped for a few minutes to exchange pleasantries, and she trotted off, a bit embarrassed for the display.

The picture in my head of that scene makes me a bit misty-eyed, remembering the depression and pain she was in while I was encouraging her to “stick it out”, contrasted with the carefree happiness of hurtling down a grocery aisle with our three-year-old.

My wife’s been a stay-at-home mom for nearly a year now, and it’s certainly been a tough adjustment. But as long as I can help it, I’ll never ask her to trade it back away. That was her dream, and she pushed herself and me until she reached it.

So now, I have to wonder: Is what I do every day the equivalent of running up and down the aisles? For sure, some days are like that. If not, what am I trading them for? How many of those days will I let pass without doing something about it?

Credit: ShoppingDiva via Flickr

“You have to face the fact that maybe you’re just unemployable.”

I flushed with anger. My dad knew my job was on the bubble, and it was a pretty callous and insensitive thing to say.

It wasn’t until a few years later that he explained that he meant that as a compliment. He said, “unemployable means that you stop being able to work for idiots, and you start realizing they’re all idiots.”

I still don’t know about the “unemployable” bit, but imagine the hell it would be to live as someone who fits that definition of unemployable and yet tries to fit into a mold of the model employee. I think I could live down the legacy of, “Wow, he sure was lame at working for idiots.”

I used to get frustrated with my wife for not caring enough about her work. Where was the ambition? Her coworkers and bosses recognized her potential, so why didn’t she?

It turns out that their (and my) mold for her wasn’t what came naturally to her. She wanted to be a mom, and she’s turned out to be so wonderful at it that I could burst with pride.

What about you? You’re probably awesome at a lot of things. You’re probably also lame at a bunch of other things. Those peaks and valleys make up your gifts, temperament, skills, and pretty much everything else that we cobble together to form an identity.

And it’s all too tempting to look around and see the peaks in others’ lives and fixate on the valleys in your own. How hypocritical and unfair is that?

If you’re anything like me, you too often spend your days filling in the valleys, obsessing over your weaknesses, then start piling up guilt for not having the time and energy to get it all done (which itself deserves another post).

Meanwhile, you’re sitting on a gold mine of talent. There are things you do naturally 10 times better than most of the people around you, and it’s likely that you’re downplaying those gifts to fit in a mold that was cast for someone else.

Most people I meet who feel insufficient and broken are exactly the right fit in a completely different puzzle.

The most innovative and successful people of our time have almost universally been unemployable misfits. The universe needed exactly them, and they were lucky or brave enough to discover why before they let society hammer them into the wrong holes.

Let me break it down for you:

(Stuff you’re good at)  x  (Time you have on earth) = Your impact

There is simply not enough time to get really great at everything, even if you did have the capacity. Which you don’t. Sorry.

I believe that if you’re not spending the majority of your days exploiting your own talents and experience, doing what comes naturally to you, you’re not having the impact you could at your work, in your life, or in the world.

This is not to say you won’t have to do hard things! But life is hard enough, you don’t have to dial the difficulty up and handicap yourself.

Stop for a moment. Think about what it is that you do really well. Do those things give you a multiplied impact where you are? If not, that may be a sign that you’re the exact right fit for something else.

Will this guarantee that you’re happy? No. But not following the simple formula pretty much guarantees you’ll be unhappy.

So go ahead, keep improving you, but exactly you is just great. You need no additional skills or experience to do amazing things. Ironically, to do so, you have to make peace with being lame at everything else.

Pop quiz: what’s your vision for your current job or project? For your career? For your life?

Don’t know? Many of us don’t. And that’s a shame.

You can knock the Color guys for having a comparatively short-sighted vision, but Nest creator Tony Fadell’s original vision was to be acquired by Apple. That seems to have worked out relatively well for all involved.

Whether they succeed or fail, they’re likely to win eventually, because they have a vision, and it’s theirs.

I spent years throwing myself wholeheartedly into helping realize “someone else’s vision”, but came up empty and disappointed. After that, I bristled at the idea of fulfilling and enriching someone else at the expense of my time and talents.

Back then, I used to sit around and wait for “leadership” to come down from the mountain with their “vision” engraved on stone tablets. But that’s a copout, and like all forms of giving away personal control and accountability, it’s likely to end in frustration and resentment.

Not long ago, I was talking with a friend who said of his boss: “I can’t wait to go make him a bunch of money.” I was surprised. Why would he want that?

When I thought about it, I imagined that it was twofold: 1) This meant my friend knew that if he could make someone else a bunch of money, he could do it for himself if he really wanted to, and 2) He got to have a clear idea of what he wanted to accomplish and how to measure his success.

After that, I started thinking about my areas of influence, the things I was good at, and the things I cared about, and picked something to try to drastically improve at my workplace. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be mine.

I now make a point of developing a very clear idea of what I want to accomplish and how I’ll measure it. It helps to write it down. I try to keep this vision short-term, and re-evaluate about every 90 days. I’ve also found that it’s crucially important that this vision is of  your own making, and not handed to you.

Having a clear vision like that puts all of your thoughts and activities into a crucible. It’s easy to turn down distractions like needless meetings, tasks, or time-wasting when you have a strong, understandable, near-term vision for what you want to accomplish.

There’s a sort of primal, inherent fear of taking the risk in accepting that kind of responsibility. But if you really analyze it, would you trade risking greatness for a guarantee to wallow in the hell of mediocrity?

Yes, it can be scary. But if you are able to discover a vision, nail it down, focus on it, and achieve it, I promise you won’t find many things in life so energizing and rewarding. And it won’t be long before yours is the only vision you’re striving to achieve, while others line up to join you.

Think about it. Are you laboring for someone else’s vision? Have you been frustrated by it? What can you do to find your own?

Sometimes Seth Godin’s posts are a little too short and sweet.

His argument is that a decision without tradeoffs is not a decision. I assume the point was that without acknowledging that you’re giving something up, you’re probably deluding yourself into thinking you’re doing things “the right way” rather than “the best option given current understanding”.

I sort of have to infer that, because there’s no context or explanation. I would also assume that Seth would agree that those “decisionless decisions” are lazy and cowardly and optimized for shifting blame for failure, rather than a calculated risk with a specific reward in mind.

But I’d go a step further and say that unless you embrace the tradeoffs, you didn’t make a decision, you’re letting decisions feel like circumstances, and letting them push you around.

About a year ago, my wife and I made a commitment to getting out of credit card debt and letting her become a stay-at-home mom. She’s now been home for about 9 months, and it’s been wonderful in many ways.

But last night, I caught myself complaining about my financial situation. It’s our first holiday season on a single income, and some unexpected home repairs didn’t come at the best time.

The thing is, we knew this was coming. We knew we’d be making some sacrifices after years of high comfort and low worry. So it’s disingenuous to complain about it at all. It’s certainly not true of every couple, but in our situation, we’d much rather have a little stress about money and have the benefits of a stay-at-home parent. When I’m being mindful to embrace the tradeoffs, I’m immensely grateful that’s even an option for us.

Why embrace the tradeoffs?

It’s a formula for focus. Creating a product for a niche market imposes severe limits on mass adoption, but it lets you stop trying to be everything to everyone.  For my wife and I, embracing the tradeoffs gave us the vision we needed to get out of debt.

It provides strength when you need it most. When people undertake something without predicting and embracing tradeoffs, the first serious challenges come as a shock, and this is where most people quit. Understanding and remembering what you planned to give up is often all it takes to stick through those rough patches.

It puts you in the driver’s seat. Embracing the tradeoffs means that even when everything isn’t rosy, the decision was yours, and you also have the ability to change couse if necessary. You’re not the victim of circumstances beyond your control, you’re experiencing the effects of a decision you made.

How do you know whether you’re embracing the tradeoffs?

If you’re complaining about your circumstances, I can pretty much guarantee you’re not embracing them. Any time you catch yourself complaining about a circumstance, you’re probably complaining about the effects of a decision that you made. This is, in essence, complaining that you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

If you’re choosing the lesser of two (or more) evils, it’s unlikely that you’re embracing them. This type of decision allows you to absolve yourself of the results of that choice, and lets you place the blame on the fact that your choices were limited. It’s nearly impossible to embrace the tradeoffs you make with this mindset.

If someone else is at fault, you’ve forgotten that you even made tradeoffs in the first place. This signals a serious need to dig deep and analyze the decisions you made that put someone else in charge of such a big part of your life.

This is a fundamental concept that means the difference between success and failure in business, and often between happiness and despair in life. It isn’t about taking control, it’s about taking responsibility and ownership for your decisions. Control simply tends to follow along for the ride.

“Engage in combat fully determined to die and you will be alive; wish to survive in the battle and you will surely meet death.”  -Uesugi Kenshin, 16th century

At lunch with a friend last week, we diverged into a subject that got a lot deeper than we’d intended. He asked me, “has anyone ever told you that you’re too emotionally invested in the business… that you care too much?”

Um, yes? This sent back a flood of memories.

If there’s one trait that people will remember me for at the startup I worked for, it was that I was deeply, tragically invested in the ups and downs of the company. Which isn’t ever healthy, but never less so than when your company is a nuclear meltdown of a startup.

I felt as if I might die if the company went under, if I lost my job, or a whole host of other things that were outside my control. I was anxious, I never slept, and I was profoundly depressed almost all of the time.

That company and those feelings are well behind me now. But when I’m honest, I recognize that I never did figure out how to truly divest myself of that need to attach so deeply. It’s been part of the “passion” package that I bring to the table, right?

Back to the conversation: needless to say, my friend had my attention. Another mutual friend (whom I actually knew from the nuclear startup) had relayed a story, which drove home the point in a way neither of us had thought through before:

Before a samurai goes into war, his family holds his funeral. His memory is laid to rest, his family and loved ones grieve, and he is dead for all purposes. All but the purpose of battle. 

What is left to fear? He is already dead. The only thing to gain or lose is grace and dignity in the face of an inevitable death. The samurai is now unbound by attachments and fears of pain, loss, or death, and he fights with an unmatched fearlessness and fierceness. 

I consider this to be apocryphal until I can source it, but it does create a lovely and profound metaphor for office politics.

You probably care a lot about the projects you’re working on. You want them to be done right, but there are obstacles in your way. Managers, red tape, approvals, deadlines. It’s all so bloody important.

But the thing is, you’re already dead.

When you look your boss, coworker, or CEO in the eye, you’re talking to a person that you’ll eventually have an awkward conversation with. One of you will explain to the other, in the politest terms, why you won’t be working there anymore.

All the things that mattered so much: the deadlines, the approvals, the frustrating coworker, none of it matters one whit anymore.

So what do you have left at that point?

You have the relationships you built and nurtured, the lessons you learned, the impact you made, and maybe a little bit of money for your trouble. But that’s pretty much it.

Relationships. Lessons. Impact. Money. That’s pretty much all you get, and I believe in that order.

If you’re worried about things that you don’t get to take out the front door with you, why?

When you leave, will they remember that you beat the deadline, or that you were kind and invested in the people around you?

When you leave, will they hand you a trophy for “doing it right”, or did you learn ways of doing things you’d have never thought of on your own?

When you leave, will they feel remorse for all the bureaucracy that tied you up, or that you always seemed to make things happen?

So before you stress yourself sick for that deadline, talk down to that coworker, blame that boss, or wait for someone else to fix your problems, remember that you’re already dead. You’re going to walk away with a cardboard box and precious little else, so make damn sure you’re investing in things you get to take with you.

P.S. It’s also interesting to note that life, as a whole, is exactly the opposite. You get to keep nothing, but you get to leave behind relationships, lessons, impact, and money… again, I believe, in that order. So as noble as it is to build these things, hoarding them is futile and sharing them is everything.