It may *look* easy — but it isn’t

The great ones make it all seem so easy, don’t they? And, mind you, it’s not just the Usain Bolts of the world, it’s some of the folks that you work with, who barely break a sweat, and make you feel so … unworthy.

• • There’s the golang code that you’ve been struggling with, that you can’t quite get to work right, and Alice, after a brief look, suggests a library that you didn’t even know existed, but does just what you need.
• • During the standup, Bob points out that you might be missing a critical (and undocumented!) customer requirement, and it turns out he was right! HowTF would he even know this?
• • Carol, who comes up with an obscure variation on traversing DAGs which takes care of the requirement. But good grief, where did she learn thatstuff?

I mean, how do they all make it seem so easy? It’s surely natural talent, right? I mean, they’re clearly wicked smart, it must be so awesome to be able to coast through life on that level of talent, isn’t it?

Well, NO.

That’s what it looks like from the outside, but pay attention to the Alices, Bobs, and Carols of the world, and take a look at how they actually lead their lives.

• • Do you know how many hours Alice put in over the last few years to gain proficiency in golang (or erlang, python, etc.)?
• • Were you aware of Bob’s past life when he was doing front-line customer support?
• • Or Carol’s voracious consumption of technical literature — across Deep Learning, Graph Theory, and gods know what else — all driven by her insatiable curiosity?
• • Or that all of them have other interests — MMA, cooking, trail-running, etc. — that actually act as stress releases, and keep them fresh?

And that, my friends, is the point. All the work that they did over the years,— and continue to do — is what they actually rely on on a day to day basis. That routine is what takes you through the seemingly dark moments when your instincts fail you — when you can fall back on that wealth of experience to help pull you through.

Take it from The Boss

“Many of the music’s most glorious moments feel as though they were birthed in an explosion of raw talent and creative instinct (some of them even were!). But . . . if you want to burn bright, hard and long, you will need to depend upon more than your initial instincts. You will need to develop some craft and a creative intelligence that will lead you farther when things get dicey”