8 Mental Models to survive and thrive in a Web3 Job
There are probably a plethora of articles out there on “How to GET a web3 job” but not enough that explains How to Survive one.
While it might seem just like any other remote job, there are some significant differences in a Web3 Job.
Web3 is one of the most insanely growing industry with tons of innovations, development, regulatory conflicts and, to top it all off, the web3 security attacks that leads to huge financial losses.
To survive and be able to perform a job in such an industry consistently can be a challenge for many.
This article is designed to help you with that.
The main version of this article can be found in the Decipher with Zaryab offical site — HERE
1. Comprehensive understanding of the product/service is always “PRIORITY-1” 📱
This part might be helpful for the beginners in Web3, if you aren’t one of them feel free to skip to next sections
There is a direct co-relation between your understanding of your firm’s products/services with your growth in the company. The better your understanding, the faster your growth.
The best course of action in the initial weeks of your Web3 job is to throughly understand your the product or service your firm offers to the web3 community — period.
In case you wish to do better than that, use your time to figure out the parts where the products/services still needs improvement. (And then ways to resolve it, if you can).
No one is going to judge you for asking stupid questions in your first few weeks.
That’s an opportunity, USE IT.
For the initial weeks in your Web3 job, there is no better strategy than:
- Throughly understanding the product/service your company offers,
- Identifying areas that can and should be improved,
- Discussing with team members possible ways to fix them.
Irrespective of your job profile, this strategy will always help in standing out and perform better in the longer run.
Nothing is more welcomed in a startup than team members who genuinely collaborate to solve problems. And to collaborate effectively, you must get an adequate grasp on the problem your firm is trying to solve for Web3.
It’s as simple as that.
2. Delivering more than Expected is an underrated strategy 📝
Restricting yourself to only assigned tasks in a Web3 job and wrongly assuming that you’re excelling — is a mistake.
Again, nothing wrong with sticking only to things you are assigned, but hey, we are talking about significant growth here. These are mental models to Thrive in Web3, not just survive.
You cannot be ambitious & lazy at the same time.
Gotta pick one.
Can we deliver more?
You are in Web3 and it’s still quite early.
There is always something to contribute.
Tons of things to be built, fixed, developed, designed, written, and marketed.
What to Deliver?
However, delivering more than expected requires two areas of awareness:
- Being aware of the parts your firm needs help with, (using Model 1 discussed above)
- Being aware of the parts where you can actually be helpful
For instance, even if you’re the new developer intern in the firm, leverage your other skills, i.e.,
- If you’re a good writer, contribute to improving your product’s documentation,
- If you’re good with people/devs, assist community members,
- If you understand UI/UX, list out UI/UX issues of your product & start resolving them.
All of these additional tasks aren’t necessarily expected from you but,
A truly valuable contribution in the Web3 world in any shape or form, never goes unnoticed and will eventually be rewarded in the long run.
Best Part: Even if not immediately rewarded, consider these additional tasks as opportunities for learning and growth. Remember, you’re in it for the long run. Every experience counts, especially in the initial phases.
3. In Web3’s Storm, Organization Is Your North Star 🌟
This is one of the most valuable ones.
Web3 is a super-dynamic space full of non-conformists experimenting and innovating around the clock, new EIPs & ERCs emerge frequently, and non-stop weekly web3 attacks.
Amidst all this chaos, you will often find yourself caught in a chaotic mode, struggling with prioritization, and overwhelmed.
Worst Part: You cannot do anything about the chaos. Web3 is still in its nascent stages and it’s supposed to be chaotic.
I soon realized that to be in Web3 for the long run, one needs to find ORDER in CHAOS. One must build strategies to stay organized amidst the madness.
You need your own North Star that allows you to be on track despite the storms in Web3. 🌟
You don’t want to be the person who performs exceptionally well JUST ONCE, but someone who consistently excels in the long run.
Being Organized helps with that.
However, there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for being organized. You gotta build your own ways.
Here are just a few of the mental models that I follow to consistently be organized in Web3 despite its chaos:
a. Identifying and Protecting my FLOW STATE hours ⏰
It seldom matters if you are an early bird or a night owl.
What truly matters is:
- You ability to identify your best productive hours
- And, then ruthlessly protecting and utilizing those few hours every day.
Flow State Hours is something I refer to as the duration of the day (or night) when it’s the easiest for you to get into Flow State, a.k.a be the most productive version of yourself.
Once you identify yours, cut off every other distraction (even your company’s slack) during these hours and get into a flow state with the most important tasks of yours for as long as you possibly can.
I personally go as far as using Blocksite to literally block all the distracting sites like YouTube, Twitter etc during my flow hours.
Doing this continually for a longer period of time, you will most likely make significant leaps in whatever areas you aim to excel in.
b. Ensure NO collision between Reflective Work and Responsive Work
Nir Eyal, the writer of Hooked, explains something called reflective and responsive work, where:
- Responsive Work mainly involves responding to emails and Slack messages of colleagues, providing tech support to community members on Discord, etc.
- Whereas, Reflective Work revolves around strategizing, planning, coding, writing, etc. — the heavy stuff.
🧠 My Mental Model: Ensure these two different types of work never intersect each other.
While responsive work is crucial as well, you cannot let this consume all your time. And you definitely should not confuse this with “work” as this is just a small part of it.
Reflective work is the one that must be a major part of your day and is probably best to include it in the Flow State Hours.
However, for what it’s worth, Keep separate time slots for these two different types of work and make sure they never collide because:
Being responsive while continuing with Reflective Work will eventually lead to chaos.
c. Documentation is your best ally in maintaining organization 📚
Documentation is undoubtedly crucial for being organized in Web3.
For instance, I use documentation, primarily notion, for quite a few things like:
- Process Documents to create a step-by-step guide of how a specific procedure works.
- Content Calendar to keep track of all the pieces of my write-ups for social media or my website. This article started from Notion too
- Product Requirement Document to provide detailed insights into our feature plans, purpose, and functionalities, instead of communicating these in Slack or in meetings.
And the list goes on.
d. Bi-Weekly Reshuffling of my Priority List 📝
One of my realizations in Web3 was that I must re-evaluate and update my priority list (if need be) at regular intervals.
In fact, if you are in a position of leading a team or making decisions of any kind, this part becomes more important.
This is more of a self-reflection process where you analyze tasks/decisions to see if they are significant enough at present or can be delegated or delayed.
Ineffectiveness is not always a result of insufficient work…Sometimes it means you worked on the wrong things at the wrong time.
4. LEAD it like you MEAN it 🦾
As time goes by and you continue to contribute, you’ll likely identify opportunities for you to take the lead on a particular task.
These opportunities could range from launching a new product feature, introducing a new product, developing/deploying new smart contracts on a new chain, or spearheading a marketing campaign.
Regardless of the specific opportunity that arises, the key to standing out and becoming a dependable team member is seizing the initiative to lead based on your expertise.
It doesn’t really matter how significant the task is that you lead, what matters is your dedication to leading it adequately & with minimal handholding from your manager or seniors.
This will undoubtedly be the hardest initially. You will have to navigate uncharted territory, conduct research, and probably make mistakes.
However, making mistakes is only a problem if you aren’t learning from it and hopefully not repeating the same ones ever again.
As Harsh Rajat, the founder of Push Protocol beautifully puts it — Make new mistakes.
Despite the hurdles in leading any task, it’s all actually worth it because you are already doing things that scare the hell out of most people — You are taking the LEAD. You are ready to hold yourself accountable not just for the success but also for the failure of the task that you lead. You are putting skin in the game. And that’s rare.
These are risks that are quite imperative to prove your worth so Lead it like you Mean it.
5. Building in Web3 is a Non-Zero-Sum Game, Play accordingly
In case you aren’t aware of ZERO-SUM Games, here is a quick summary:
- Zero-Sum Games: This represents games where for one party to WIN, the other must LOOSE.
- Non-Zero-SUM Games: Represent scenarios where for one party to win, the other doesn’t necessarily have to lose. These are games where there is either a net benefit or a net loss for all involved parties.
Building in Web3 is like a non-zero-sum game where everyone can win.
It’s a game where we all collaborate together on improving different components of this world — be it UI/UX, communication, security, user onboarding with Account Abstraction, Proof of Personhood, etc.
And every single component is equally important.
In fact, Web3 communities have thrived so far not by competing but by collaborating with each other.
In Web3, either we all WIN or we all LOOSE together.
The best example of this is the Twitter Web3 Security community where auditors selflessly share incredibly valuable knowledge with other fellow auditors to help them grow their skills and their business.
Now, a similar mentality applies to your Web3 job as well.
For instance:
- Find ways to collaborate with your peers instead of unnecessarily competing.
- The product or protocol that you build is greater than your own self and therefore, it’s imperative for the best ideas to win instead of specific individuals.
- While it’s hard to not compete in a workplace, knowing that this is a Non-Zero-Sum-Game makes it easier to let go and focus on the right things — becauseIf we all Win or Lose together, why not collaborate to WIN?
6. Imposter Syndrome and FOMO are NOT BUGS 🐞
Out of all the mental and emotional blockers that folks have in Web3, these two are probably the most common ones. And for very valid reasons.
FOMO
If you have been around in Web3, you know FOMO is a constant companion here.
A common FOMO among some of my Smart Contract developer frens right now is with the Web3 Security Audit industry and its big bug bounties.
Dealing with FOMO
- Bad news: You can’t ever get rid of FOMO completely. Not just in Web3, but for life in general.
- Good News: — You don’t necessarily need to get rid of it. FOMO isn’t a BUG.
FOMO isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s more of a natural alarm that forces you to re-evaluate the current state of your life and your decisions.
Therefore, the aim should never be to kill this alarm forever.
Instead, the goal is to be capable of:
- Listing to it,
- Understanding it,
- And, then consciously deciding on either accepting or rejecting it.
The problem begins when you take too long to make this decision of accepting or rejecting a FOMO.
Therefore, instead of trying ways to get rid of FOMO, simply develop a strategy that allows you to calm your mind during such scenarios & rationally evaluate the cause of the FOMO. This requires patience, obviously.
As an example, dropping 2 instances of my life:
- I was a Python developer working with Django when I had a strong FOMO to explore Web3. I embraced it.
- I recently had a FOMO about AI, especially during the GPT launch. However, I consciously decided to focus on Web3 for the time being and rejected this FOMO.
FOMO only becomes a problem when you take too long to act on it.
Imposter Syndrome
The most common trait of imposter syndrome that I have seen among Web3 devs is (and developers in general) is “I am not smart enough”.
Out of the 5 main types of Imposter Syndrome, this probably lies somewhere between The Natural Genius type and The Expert Type. If you don’t know what these types are, Read More Here.
This mindset can hold you back in several ways:
- Hesitation in approaching experienced individuals, hence, slowing your growth.
- Overthinking before initiating a project — fearing you’re not capable enough yet.
- Collaboration with peers might be daunting because you worry about revealing your self-perception of “not being smart”.
Dealing with Imposter Syndrome
Here’s some good news:
Research says, if you’re dealing with Imposter Syndrome, you’re likely a hard worker and high achiever. Imposter Syndrome isn’t a sign of stupidity; it’s a common challenge among serious, intelligent, and hard-working folks.
However, if not handled adequately this can definitely slow you down.
While I am no expert, I am only gonna share what’s been working for me.
The most effective way I found to deal with Imposter is to continually build evidence of my self-worth — not for the world — but for myself.
What Evidence?
The evidence that you are who you say you are.
Whatever it is that you aim to excel in, you need to put in the hours and create more of it, document it, and build a portfolio around it that demonstrates your work in that specific domain.
How to build evidence:
In simpler terms, it’s basically working hard on your preferred domain to create value for others, without getting distracted — for a longer period of time.
- If you aim to be a writer, write consistently.
- Aspiring to be a reliable team member? Demonstrate your leadership team-player qualities consistently.
- Want to be a successful security auditor, build your portfolio with as many critical or high bug reports as you can.
And i feel like dropping one of best tweets of Alex here, so here it is 👇
How does it help?
Building evidence of your self-worth over time will technically create greater resilience against imposter syndrome, as your work speaks to your worth.
It must be noted, however, that if you are ambitious and hard-worker you will most likely always strive for better outcomes, meet folks doing better than you, and aim for more. And therefore, imposter can always kick-in even after years of building evidence.
And that’s okay because it’s not a BUG.
For instance, unlike the majority, people with imposter double-down on their work after their first achievement because they think they can do better and are still not where they want to be. They push themselves more than others and that’s good.
Therefore, the aim with building evidence is not getting rid of imposter but providing enough tools to yourself to handle it adequately so that it doesn’t deteriorate your own self.
Its highly unlikely that you feel “not smart enough” when you have a stack of good work that is useful to the community.
However, building useful stuff that can help the masses takes time. So, being patient while during the process is imperative.
7. Be a Learning and Unlearning Machine
This one is really simple but imperative.
I can write another 300 words to explain why this is crucial but if you need reasons to become a life-long learner, you are in the wrong industry.
The moment you decide to not learn-unlearn anything new, Quit Web3.
8. Prioritizing Health is not just an option, it’s a Necessity
One of the side-effects of breathing in Web3 24*7 is that you will most likely start overlooking the significance of health gradually.
After long hours in front-of your screens, the moment you decide to take a break, there is probably a new security hack, a fresh staking pool with juicy APY, some new twitter trend, an urgent debugging call, the new episode of your favorite web3 podcast or even worse — all of these at once. Quite possible in web3.
You gradually find yourself in a lifestyle where you no more prioritize your health at all because you simply don’t have enough time.
Remember that no growth strategy or mental is a effective for someone who is unhealthy, sick or deteriorating.
It’s imperative to allocate at least an hour each day for physical activity, regardless of the Web3 whirlwind.
Remember, good health isn’t merely a choice; it’s a necessity to perform better in the long run.
Alright decipherer, hope that was helpful.
See you later. 👋🏻
