Software engineering is all about a soft engine. Just as everything else.
My previous story turned out to be a blast. A week after it was published, more than thirteen thousand people clicked the link, nearly half of them have actually read the piece if we choose to believe the Medium stats. We surely do. These are mind blowing numbers for an aspiring blogger whose most viewed article before that has accumulated around 400 reads in two years. I don’t know if I should mention that the subject of that piece was shower gel.
So, after I told the world that I had been fired six times, it seems only logical to continue giving out career advice. My credibility is proven, it is safe to move on. Embrace yourself, the pearls of wisdom are on their way.
Today I want to share the most missed, underrated, unspoken of, and unfairly neglected skills and traits of successful and happy people. How do I know these people are happy? I’m one of them. How do I know they are successful? It’s an educated guess.
[Body] Part I. Deaf ear.
Do you remember that old world we once had? Morning newspapers for introverts, lunch with colleagues for extraverts, and evening TV-shows for everyone. Those good calm days when people lived a simple life and worked a simple work. Even if it wasn’t simple. Someone worked better, someone worked worse, someone didn’t work at all. There was a commonality though. There was almost no noise. You would come in the morning, do your job, leave in the evening. C’est tout. Pardon la simplification.
Today we live in sensoric hell. We start with news. Literally. You wake up to the news, you go to bed with them. Local news, global news, political news, economic news, sports news, your industry news, weather news, celebs news, news news… Once it was a 16 page newspaper in your postbox. Today the whole world is at your fingertips 24/7.
Then, you have social networks. I won’t even start. It’s the biggest noise of all. When you’re done with scrolling (you never really are), there’s texting, messaging, chatting, whatever you prefer to call it, that catches you up and doesn’t let go. Let’s say, we pretend that these are fictional people and they don’t exist if we don’t open up our digital door.
The problem is that we have real people too. These do exist. They were in those good old times as well, I know. Now, they are just worse. The times, not the people. People are pretty much the same (plus ADHD, OCD, FOMO, and many other acronyms) but this time around they have more information to pour out, more TV-shows to discuss, more Instagram reels, whatever the heck it is, to shove to your face. There is just more of everything.
If people were not enough, there are robots too! Those that send notifications, alerts, requests, threats, appeals. To buy, to sell, to donate, to pick-up, to drop-off, to attend, to leave, to eat, to drink, to workout, to save yourself, to kill yourself.
N-O-I-S-E. NOIZZZZZ….. Everywhere. High volumes. High volume.
Chances are you’ve been to a time management course or at least a lecture. You may even read a book on the subject. You know how to differentiate between important and urgent. You have a WhatsApp group with yourself, a planner, or at least a pack of sticky notes. It helps to get things done. It rarely reduces the noise. The noise that harms our work, hurts our mental health, brings stress and anxiety that we may not even be consciously aware of.
If you want to work better and to live happier, you need to learn to kill this monster. Or at least put him to sleep. It doesn’t only mean to make (and follow!) all sorts of rules and to change habits, though these are great too. They can work. However, we are more vulnerable to outer noise when there’s something unsettling inside. I know it from my experience. I get sucked into those waves of distractions, when my boat is filled with all sorts of mental junk.
In order to cancel the noise outside, you need to crawl back to your inner shell and find comfort there. Put noise canceling headphones on. Literally and figuratively. It doesn’t mean to be a sociophobe or, God forbid, a sociopath. On the contrary. Love people, people are great. It’s not about canceling others. It’s about accepting yourself.
You have to know how to be alone and to be fine with that. It means to like this person you physically cannot leave till death sets you apart. Ideally — to experience deep connection and affection for that I, me, ego. Sounds trivial and obvious — who doesn’t like themselves? The truth is — lots of people.
You can throw away your smartphone, cut off all social networks, and never talk to a single person. It won’t help. You’ll always keep a ear out — to hear maybe someone else likes you. It is in our nature to be liked, valued, appreciated. (Hello to all those likes on social media.) Once that ear is out — the noise hits it — you lost. Being in peace with yourself, being content with who you are wherever and wherever you are, helps to keep the noise out of the door. No FOMO. I personally struggle with this sometimes. This is why I’m just happy. Not always successful. Work in progress.
[Body] Part II. Thick skin.
Work means communication. Communication means variety. Variety of characters, opinions, emotions, relationships, motives, moods. Way too many variables that can lead to all sorts of outcomes. Who said what, how, when, and why — all that may impact us enormously. It doesn’t really matter if you’re an extrovert or introvert, communication is hard for almost everybody. Essentially every human being is susceptible to other human being’s words, let alone actions.
It becomes especially hard in the work environment. First, a business organization, or almost any organization for this matter, will have an hierarchy of some sort. Most probably you’d have superiors. Frequently, you’d have subordinates, too. Lastly, there’s a peer-to-peer network to deal with. The position a person holds affects our communication with them. Age, gender, personal connection (or disconnection) play their part too, no matter how developed and prejudices-free we are or strive to be. People are complex creatures. Workplace is a complex jungle.
Your company’s culture may be great, HR people may be amazing, diversity and inclusion may be encouraged and enforced, there may be adopted every safety mechanism possible. Still, a workplace is never 100% safe in the sense that nothing and no one can hurt you. They can and probably will.
An unfair criticism, an uninvited remark about appearance, a joke about your work ethics, a patronizing “advice” from a senior colleague, whatever — there are tens of human interactions throughout the day that can potentially shake you up or bring you down. Some people are naturally more resilient, some are less, but at the end of the day everyone is human, everyone has feelings, and those feelings can be hurt.
What’s the best way to treat all that? To get offended, to confront the offender, to complain to the aforementioned amazing HR, to put it on social media, to try to change the world, to spend your life fighting windmills… Right? Well.. You can do all the above. And there are definitely times when you should do all or some of that. But. 99 times of 100 — there’s a better way around.
There’s exactly one skill that you have to master in this regard. The ability to grow thick skin and wear it 365 days a year. Sometimes 366. This skin may be of any color to serve any disguise but it has to be thick. You need to learn to ignore whatever hits the fan and comes your way. It may not be a simple thing to do. Still, it is the best solution, both short and long term. No gunshots, no gunpowder residuals on your garment, no wounds, no crime, no punishment, no hard feelings, no nothing.
I call it — care but don’t give a duck. You do care about your relationships with co-workers, management, suppliers, partners, contractors, everyone. To have thin skin doesn’t mean being a schmuck. You are kind (see further). But you don’t give a duck. People matter, the work matters, the joy of being at work matters, the feeling of comradery and achieving common goals matter. You know what, i.e. who, matters too? You. You, your inner peace, your sanity.
If you click with people at work — awesome. Can’t be better. If you don’t — that’s alright too. Just keep yourself safe. You don’t have to please anyone, no one owes you anything either. They are not your family, never will be. Be loyal but don’t be dependent. Be self-sufficient but don’t be a jerk. Nobody should be able to hurt you. You should not hurt anyone. I personally struggle with this sometimes. This is why I’m just happy. Not always successful. Work in progress.
[Body] Part III. Open heart.
Keep your heart wide open. I could finish with that and get to my favorite part — spamming everywhere to make people read yet another masterpiece of the best career advisor with 89 (and nervously counting) followers. I won’t. Well, I will, just a few paragraphs later.
I said earlier that people were great. I take it back. People are different. Some are great, some are good, some are ok, some — you cross the road not to meet them. You don’t have to love everybody, or anybody for that matter. Co-workers included. Our feelings are just as private as our body parts. Captain Obvious is here again. The captain is also not fit to teach emotional intelligence or to preach humanity. He just wants to share his attitude and personal experience.
First, some hard truths. I’m cynical much more than I’d want, my humor is adequately accepted a bit less than I’d want. I’m far from having awesome relationships with everyone I meet. Unlike my mom, by the way. Read about her, she is awesome. A bit softer truth is that I don’t actually want to have awesome relationships with hundreds and thousands of people. My resources are limited. I’m only human after all, as they sing.
This is exactly why I try to open my heart as wide as I can. It saves so much energy. Instead of putting the masks, playing the games, calculating the risks and rewards, doing all this stuff that eats up your life battery, — just be who you are and treat people the way they are. It is absolutely easy, completely liberating, and totally free.
Here all the dots connect. To be who you are and not to be afraid to show it, you need to love yourself first. Second, you need not to give a duck about what others may think or say about you. Deaf ear and thin skin harmonize beautifully with an open heart. Who would have thought. It’s all one simple sequence — be authentic, be kind — to yourself and others, and nothing else matters. Yep, song references start coming up. Too late, I’m afraid.
A single word on authenticity. Works. Yes, this is the single word. It simply works. One of my colleagues is a bird lover. He is a super technical and an extremely experienced engineer. Like, really serious dude. Who loves birds. Each presentation he makes, no matter what the subject is, has birds in the slides. This is his thing. Would I respect him and his abilities less if he wouldn’t bring up this side of him? Nope. Do I absolutely love that he does this? You bet!
And a single word on empathy. Simple. Once you’re kind to yourself (this is really the toughest part), being kind to others is semi-automatic. It does take a moment and an effort to recognize someone’s needs and vulnerability but then it costs you nothing to be empathic and to offer help. Very often just this offer alone is the only help they need. To be seen, to be heard — that’s so little to ask for and to be given. Yet, we tend to be occupied with all kinds of noise, what others think, what is there for us, and we miss these opportunities to be happier and more successful, whatever the success is. I know I do. I miss the opportunities. This is why I’m just happy. Not always successful. You guessed right — work in progress.