347 lines
16 KiB
Plaintext
347 lines
16 KiB
Plaintext
[matomo]
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[1] Test Double The Test Double logo
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Menu
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Menu An icon that displays an illustration of a website menu
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• [3] Home
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• [4] Agency
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• [5] Services
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• [6] Careers
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• [7] Blog
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• [8] Contact
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[9] Blog [10] Posts
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Only you can give meaning to your career
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How to mark moments that matter by planting a flag
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An icon of a clock Publish Date
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January 2, 2024
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An icon of a human figure Authors
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[11]Justin Searls
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I have, for whatever reason, live-blogged my career. Posting technical tips
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I’ve learned. Complaining about bugs I’ve uncovered. Elaborating on struggles
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my teams have faced. Mixed in with the substantive stuff has been plenty of
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vain ephemera that many would rightly describe as “over-sharing.” My brother
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sent me [12]this last week and I felt personally attacked:
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Everyone is fighting a battle you don’t know about. Except for me. I am
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complaining loudly about my battle. Everybody knows about it.
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So if you’ve borne witness to how much of my life I have spewed
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indiscriminately onto the Internet: first, I’m sorry. And second, please know
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that my vocation as a limelight enthusiast is emphatically not what I’m
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encouraging when I say this: I really wish more people took the time to reflect
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on the moments that mattered most in their careers and did more to memorialize
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them.
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Ask yourself: what experience in the Spring of 2019 had the greatest impact on
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how you go about your work today? Or 2017… what was 2017 all about? Think about
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the project you’re focused on right now. What will you remember about it a
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decade from now? In what ways are you reaching (or being stretched) beyond your
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comfort zone? If Walter Isaacson were writing a bullshit hagiography about your
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life instead of some [13]other schmuck, what would he have to say about you in
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your current chapter?
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How does it feel to be asked these questions?
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Early in my career, being asked those questions would have felt like a personal
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attack. But why? I had the tremendous privilege to have a job that paid me to
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use my mind instead of my hands, that afforded me the comfort of working behind
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a desk instead of out in a field, and that saw value in my continued growth
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instead of viewing me as a resource to be extracted and consumed. Those
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relative luxuries signaled that (by some definitions) I had “made it,” but
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nevertheless there I was: working overtime and shedding hair to deliver
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projects that meant nothing to me. As the years passed, I knew I was
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accomplishing something and growing somehow, but I found myself totally unable
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to articulate what or how.
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Not unrelatedly, I grew to hate answering “what do you do?” at parties.
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People tend to spend about a third of their lifespan at work, and that’s
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assuming they’re fortunate enough to retire at some point. That’s a big chunk
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of life to be rendered meaningless! So I decided to be someone whose work
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mattered—to myself, if no one else.
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Deciding to take ownership over the meaning of my work has unquestionably
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changed my life for the better. This post is the first time I’ve shared my
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process publicly, and my hope is that others will benefit from reading it.
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Given how dissatisfied most people seem to be with their careers, maybe that’s
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you.
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[14]Periodically plant a flag
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Despite the fact that I live in Florida and I’m typing this sentence poolside
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in shorts and a t-shirt in mid-December, I conceptualize time with the passage
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of seasons. There are seasons when my life demands a lot from me and my career
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is forced to take a back seat. There are seasons when my work is particularly
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engaging and my life falls into a pleasant-but-unremarkable routine. There are,
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of course, seasons when both are challenging simultaneously, but hopefully not
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too many. Whatever the case, I find myself pausing every three or four months
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and pondering, “what from the last season of my life is worth remembering?”
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It’s not like I have a reminder scheduled or anything. I don’t gather my
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colleagues and family for a standing meeting to review my achievements from the
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prior quarter. It’s more like an itch I’ve trained my brain to scratch whenever
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I go more than a few months without examining where my time has gone and what I
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have to show for it.
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I often refer to this regular act of reflection as “planting a flag” to
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symbolize whatever I want to stand out when I look back on a period of my life.
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In my case, these flags usually take the form of creative work like a blog
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post, a conference talk, or an open source library, but however you choose to
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imbue meaning into your experiences is entirely up to you. The most important
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thing is that you sit with them long enough to associate your memories of those
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experiences with why they mattered. When useful artifacts shake out of my
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process that can help others along in their own journeys, that’s a happy
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accident as far as I’m concerned.
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[15]How to plant a flag
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So, how does one actually assign meaning to a heretofore meaningless
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experience? This is the process I’ve settled into over the years to identify
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and commemorate my life’s watershed moments:
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1. Reflect: spend some unstructured time—maybe on a walk or with a
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notebook—and let your mind wander through the previous season of your life.
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A lesson you learned. Feedback that encouraged you. An interaction that
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left an impact. A moment that inspired you. I’m especially drawn to
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memories where emotions ran high—maybe I was really worried before a hard
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conversation or relieved after a colleague helped me solve a hard problem.
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If I draw a blank, I scan my e-mail and calendar to jog my memory. If,
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nothing stands out after all that, I don’t force it; I’ll give the exercise
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a rest and come back to it a few days later
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2. Collect: considering the experiences that came to mind when reflecting,
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which ones were distinct and new to you? Anything new you learned is, by
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definition, novel, and would obviously qualify. It’s naturally harder to
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identify familiar-seeming experiences as novel, but perhaps there was
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something unique and interesting hiding in the otherwise banal UI control
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you shipped last month. Why do this? Because by filtering out everything
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you’ve seen and done before, whatever flag you plant will stand taller, and
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you won’t risk mistaking this moment and its meaning for another. If this
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step filters everything out because nothing seems sufficiently novel, widen
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the aperture a bit—surely something interesting happened in the last few
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months. And, try as you might, if you go long enough with nothing to show
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for it, the meaning you’re searching for may be that it’s time to make a
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change
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3. Connect: for each of the experiences you’ve collected, try to understand
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how they might connect to future situations. A new tool or technique might
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empower you to do something you couldn’t accomplish otherwise. A painful
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mistake might warn your future self to avoid try a different approach next
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time. Since I can’t see the future, I imagine what impact each such insight
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might have had if applied to experiences from my past. “If I’d had learned
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this years ago, how would it have changed other events in my life?” If I
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can think of several moments in my life that would have played out
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differently, that’s as good of evidence as any that it has the potential to
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make an impact on you going forward
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4. Protect: memory is fleeting, and the work you do to identify moments that
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matter will quickly fade away if you don’t do something to mark the
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occasion. Memories thrive in novelty and wither in predictability, so the
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only wrong answer would be to enshrine every life lesson in the exact same
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way. Because creative endeavors necessarily result in the creation of
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something new, they’re a great way to clarify meaning and cement memories.
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My go-to creative outlets are essays, videos, and code, but yours might be
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songs, recipes, or [16]Etch A Sketch portraiture
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That’s it! Reflect, collect, connect, and protect.
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(See what I did there? How all the steps rhyme. That’s the kind of thing you’ll
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be able to pull off with a decade of practice doing this.)
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[17]This all happens in hindsight
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If you’ve ever had a job that encouraged you to make quarterly or annual goals
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for yourself, you may have noticed that a lot of those goals go unfinished. By
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the time performance reviews roll around, people often feel forced to justify
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why they didn’t achieve this or that goal. Regardless of the reason—maybe
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learning some skill was no longer relevant or the business’s strategic
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priorities shifted—the failure to meet a goal is often rooted in a failure to
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predict the future. I’m sure managers hope people will feel inspired and
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accountable to pursue their goals creatively, but in my experience they more
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often instill procrastination and anxiety. If there’s any creativity exhibited
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in annual goal rituals, it’s usually when people feel forced to weave a
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narrative that kinda-sorta connects a stated objective to whatever
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mostly-unrelated work they actually did.
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To wit, I’ve never accomplished anything I felt proud of by setting a goal. In
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fact, the surest way to ensure I don’t do something is to set a goal. When
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asked to set goals for myself, I’ve found that expressing the goal (as opposed
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to achieving it) becomes my overriding objective. The moment a manager approved
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my list of goals, I felt that I had completed the work asked of me and I would
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instantly lose all motivation to pursue the goals themselves.
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This explains why planting flags can succeed where goal-setting fails. If what
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I’m searching for is meaning in my work, setting a goal creates an expectation
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of where, when, and how my future self should find that meaning. High pressure.
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Focusing on doing my job well and reflecting on whatever I did in retrospect,
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however, has allowed me to sift through my experiences, identify patterns, and
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give meaning to them. Low pressure.
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Instead of studying something you think you might need in the future, wait for
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the need to arise and then immerse yourself in learning it. Instead of feeling
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stressed and distracted by the fear that you’ll run out of time before hitting
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an annual goal, do your work diligently and look forward to the next
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opportunity to reflect on the things you’ll achieve. Instead of reducing your
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existence at work into a series of boxes to check in a prescribed career plan,
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focus on being truly present and intentional at work and open to wherever that
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might lead you.
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[18]Who, me? Yes, you!
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There’s just one last thing to talk about: you, and why you don’t already do
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this.
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It’s not like this retrospective process of imbuing meaning into one’s work is
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particularly clever or insightful. I don’t think I’m a genius for arriving at
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the following three-step formula to having a deeply meaningful career and
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leaving a memorable legacy:
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1. Work really damn hard
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2. Occasionally gather highlights
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3. Commemorate them somehow
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But if it’s so obvious, why don’t more people do this?
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I wonder if it’s because everything above might seem like the exclusive domain
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of the Thoughtleader™ class. “I don’t have (or necessarily want) an audience to
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read my blog posts or watch me speak, so this ain’t for me!” you might be
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thinking.
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This line of thinking is reasonable, but it’s based on an assumption that
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doesn’t always hold.
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It’s true: if you believe the purpose of creating something borne out of your
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career experience is for other people to see and appreciate it, then maybe it
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makes no sense for you to bother. Not everyone craves attention. Building a
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following inevitably attracts a certain number of trolls. And if you build it,
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odds are people won’t come. I can’t guarantee anyone will run your code, read
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your blog, or watch your talk.
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But here’s the thing: I create these things for me and me alone. When a bunch
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of people read something I wrote or show up to one of my talks, do I find it
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encouraging and validating? Sure. But it’s not what drives me. I started
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creating things to punctuate my life’s sentences long before anybody took an
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interest in me and I wouldn’t stop even if everyone loses interest in me.
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What’s more, a lot of (ugh) content creators are the same way. In the course of
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my travels, I’ve gotten to meet many of my heroes, and while a few have
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disappointed me spectacularly (don’t meet your heroes!), I’ve found that a
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surprising number of them got into the thought-leading racket for the same
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selfish reason I did. They create stuff to scratch their own intrinsic creative
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itches and to give meaning to their careers. If other people’s attention
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factors in at all, it’s usually to justify the time they spend making stuff.
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[002]
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[19] Justin Searls
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An icon of a human figure Status
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Double Agent
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An icon of a hash sign Code Name
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Agent 002
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An icon of a map marker Location
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Orlando, FL
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[20] Twitter [21] Mastodon [22] Github [23] LinkedIn [24] Website
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Related posts:
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[25] 16 things you believe about software
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Over 6 years ago, I made up an unscientific personality quiz as a joke…and
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people can't help themselves—they're still filling it out! Here's what they
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think
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An icon of a clock Publish Date
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October 10, 2023
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An icon of a human figure Authors
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[26]Justin Searls
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An icon of a paper organzier Categories
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[27]Community
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[28] Shared values can make the difference for your engineering team
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Ever feel challenged in how to level up your engineering team's effectiveness?
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Apply values in day-to-day work. That's how you build great software and great
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teams. Here's how Test Double does that.
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An icon of a clock Publish Date
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February 20, 2023
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An icon of a human figure Authors
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[29]Cathy Colliver
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An icon of a paper organzier Categories
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[30]Leadership
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[31]Teams
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[32]Our Company
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Looking for developers? Work with people who care about what you care about.
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We level up teams striving to ship great code.
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[33] Let's talk
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[34]Home [35]Agency [36]Services [37]Careers [38]Blog [39]Contact
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[40] Mastodon [41] GitHub [42] LinkedIn [43] Twitter
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[44] 614.349.4279
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[45] hello@testdouble.com
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[46]Privacy Policy
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Founded in Columbus, OH
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[47] Test Double
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References:
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[1] https://testdouble.com/
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[3] https://testdouble.com/
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[4] https://testdouble.com/agency
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[5] https://testdouble.com/services
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[6] https://testdouble.com/careers
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[7] https://blog.testdouble.com/
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[8] https://testdouble.com/contact
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[9] https://blog.testdouble.com/
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[10] https://blog.testdouble.com/posts/
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[11] https://blog.testdouble.com/authors/justin-searls/
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[12] https://x.com/TheAndrewNadeau/status/1647622603698257921
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[13] https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1982181281
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[14] https://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2024-01-02-plant-your-flag-career-advice/#periodically-plant-a-flag
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[15] https://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2024-01-02-plant-your-flag-career-advice/#how-to-plant-a-flag
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[16] https://www.etsy.com/shop/PrincessEtch
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[17] https://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2024-01-02-plant-your-flag-career-advice/#this-all-happens-in-hindsight
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[18] https://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2024-01-02-plant-your-flag-career-advice/#who-me-yes-you
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[19] https://blog.testdouble.com/authors/justin-searls/
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[20] https://twitter.com/searls
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[21] https://mastodon.social/@searls
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[22] https://github.com/searls
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[23] https://linkedin.com/in/searls
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[24] https://justin.searls.co/
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[25] https://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2023-10-10-16-things-you-believe-about-software/
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[26] https://blog.testdouble.com/authors/justin-searls/
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[27] https://blog.testdouble.com/categories/community
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[28] https://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2023-02-20-shared-values-make-the-difference/
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[29] https://blog.testdouble.com/authors/cathy-colliver/
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[30] https://blog.testdouble.com/categories/leadership
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[31] https://blog.testdouble.com/categories/teams
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[32] https://blog.testdouble.com/categories/our-company
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[33] https://link.testdouble.com/blog-cta-sales
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[34] https://testdouble.com/
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[35] https://testdouble.com/agency
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[36] https://testdouble.com/services
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[37] https://testdouble.com/careers
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[38] https://blog.testdouble.com/
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[39] https://testdouble.com/contact
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[40] https://mastodon.social/@testdouble
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[41] https://github.com/testdouble
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[42] https://www.linkedin.com/company/testdouble
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[43] https://twitter.com/testdouble
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[44] tel:+16143494279
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[45] mailto:hello@testdouble.com
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[46] https://testdouble.com/privacy-policy
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[47] https://testdouble.com/
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