Helpful Quotes I've Learned over my Life and Career
Documenting the learnings from the journey
Purpose
Throughout my personal life and career, several quotes from peers, mentors, close friends, etc resonated with me. If there is ever an interesting quote we learn from somewhere that resonated with us, I invite all to post in the comments.
Day-to-Day Software Engineering
Anything you do should have the following tenets:
1. Benefit the team (team needs to realize this)
2. Not optimized purely for personal gains
3. Involve overcommunication with your manager, your team, and stakeholders to keep everyone in the loop
Funnel analysis/thinking is a nice way to understand how your team works. It also helps you contextualize problems your team is trying to solve at the macro level
“We erroneously think that to do good work, we need a good project. Instead, take any project and make it the project you want to be!”
“Blame the process, not the person. Cultivating a blameless environment opens up innovation”
Using “we” more often than “you”/”I” in communication helps you come off as more collaborative
For any initiative/project you are proposing (or taking on), reading Heilmeier’s catcheism (written by a former director of DARPA) helps you ensure clarity and focused scope
Growth
“Specificity helps you get tailored and actionable feedback”
Instead of asking “What can I do better?”, ask a question like “Based on what you’ve seen from execution on the recent project, how could I have made the project 10% better?”
Promos:
Getting promoted is understandable, but that’s generally a short-term goal
Optimize on the growth mindset rather than the promo mindset
Growth is hard/painful, but those “things you see which feel unfair” are common in the short term. Over time, those variabilities level out! Optimize for “long-term greed” instead
“Strong relationships don’t need agreement. They need alignment. Agreement is having identical opinions. Alignment is having shared values. Agreement is taking the same path. Alignment is heading in the same direction. Closeness is a matter of commitment, not consensus” - Adam Grant
Living Life
“It is your attitude, not your aptitude that determines your altitude” - Zig Ziglar
A helpful rule of thumb for understanding impact:
Anything you do that OTHERS take notice of and express interest in IS IMPACT. The key is how you “sell/market your work to others”
Analogy: Ask 100 people to describe a cow. The majority would describe a cow as a “farm animal with black/white spots that goes ‘Moo!!!’ and produces milk”. Someone who answers the question from a different angle might discuss topics such as different species of cow, how cow populations behave, and the effect of cows on other animal populations. The latter would pique one’s interest/curiosity
“While we’d all like our pre-mistake lives back after a mistake has been made, we have to remember that no one changed the circumstances but us. It is not others’ duty to give us back the life we took from ourselves. That always begins with admitting our faults quickly and emphatically”
“When you expand the translation to include common interests, common experiences, common goals, the truth is that we are only one degree away from anyone”
“At the end of the day, people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel” - Maya Angelou
Huge thank you to all my friends, mentors, peers, close friends, and family that have supported me on my journey and motivated me to start this newsletter. There’s more to explore and very excited for what lies ahead!
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