Learn from me!
Not too long ago, someone literally asked me what they "could learn from me", and that question has stuck with me since.
One thing it made me do was label about 30 earlier blog posts in a new blog topic "Learn from me" that contains posts I consider to be teaching something, be at least somewhat timeless, and be somewhat unique to this blog of mine — posts like:
Maybe more importantly though, there are some non-IT learnings that I would like to share with you now for a draft answer to that question "What can you (potentially) learn from me?" below:
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Sometimes "throwing 50 bucks at it" is a good solution to a problem if you can.
Especially when you experienced poverty or near-poverty and were lucky to grew out of it later, there can be learned resistance to spend (reasonable) amounts of money to solve a problem. When you have an okay salary, spending ten hours on a problem, that does not give you joy and could be solve with spending (or giving up on gaining) 50 bucks can be worth reconsideration. (There is one particular person that learned this from me.) -
Pay attention to what people did not say.
Sometimes people use particular wording or omit things where a closer look reveals that their omission, them not saying it differently, reveals a hidden truth that they did not intend to share. Ask yourself: Why did they say it this way? What is that difference saying? What are they not saying? -
Meaning depends on the right level of zoom.
What do I mean? Activities like watering a plant can have meaning if your zoom level is a garden or the humans around that plant every day. If you zoom out too far or even up to universe level, the plant and these humans become a bunch of cells that lack any meaning. Zooming out to far destroys meaning and zooming in allows finding or creating meaning. Be mindful of the right zoom level. -
You can be one in a houndred and still not be wrong.
Just because everyone else says something is true does not make it true. Just because it's written in a book or told by a professor does not make it true. Trust in that possibility that you could be right. (From personal experience.) -
Be kind to service personnel.
It takes five positive things to outweigh one negative, and then… who is making up for the bad-day customers before you? Authentically be that someone if you can, pay it forward. -
The word "must" is hardly ever true.
When someone says they "must" do something, it's almost always they "want" or decide to do it but are afraid to take responsibility. Pay attention to use of the word "must" (and its siblings "have to", "must not" and "cannot") and try to be true about what you "must" or "want" to do. (Learned from Marshall B. Rosenberg.)
If you learned something here or would like to share your own answer, please find me at sebastian@pipping.org.
I will likely edit this post over time. Please be invited to bookmark it and return later 👋
Best, Sebastian