Speaker 1: Hey, work, what's going on?
Speaker 2: Hey?
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean where we're live on our stream platforms,
Speaker 3: and which obviously happened every wage and post recording will
Speaker 3: be along on the.
Speaker 4: Website, Yeah, for sure. And today we're talking about masterminds.
Speaker 1: Which.
Speaker 4: May not seem directly DevOps related, but it actually can
Speaker 4: be a huge game changer in the success of your career.
Speaker 4: But I can just say from personal experience that nine
Speaker 4: hundred and ninety nine percent of all masterminds are absolute garbage.
Speaker 4: So today we're going to talk about what makes a
Speaker 4: good mastermind, how to find one or create your own,
Speaker 4: and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, I mean I'm super excited about this actually because
Speaker 3: I've tried to being masterminds and i feel like I've
Speaker 3: fallen into the ninety nine percent category of my experiences.
Speaker 3: So I'm really interested in what you've done well in
Speaker 3: this area and what that's actually looked like for sure.
Speaker 4: So let's start with For anyone who may not be
Speaker 4: familiar with the concept of a mastermind, I think it
Speaker 4: originally started with that book whose title just absolutely disappeared
Speaker 4: from my brain this very second. Oh no, no, thinking
Speaker 4: go Rich from Napoleon Hill. I think the concept started there,
Speaker 4: But the whole idea is to meet with a group
Speaker 4: of people that have similar goals, maybe not the same goals,
Speaker 4: but have similar goals as you, And the whole idea
Speaker 4: is you talk through your ideas, your thoughts, what you've
Speaker 4: been working on, and it's the sole responsibility of everyone
Speaker 4: in that group to just absolutely call you out on
Speaker 4: your bullshit, because most of the time, the reason we
Speaker 4: fail to achieve our goals is because we make excuses,
Speaker 4: and that's all they are. Like, if you want something
Speaker 4: bad enough, there's not going to be an excuse. But
Speaker 4: we all fall into those traps of of making excuses
Speaker 4: of why we're not going to continue to pursue this goal.
Speaker 4: It turned out to be harder than we thought. And
Speaker 4: so the objective of the mastermind is to call your
Speaker 4: fellow group members out whenever you catch them doing that
Speaker 4: and hold them accountable.
Speaker 1: And you have to do the same.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, I really like.
Speaker 3: The idea on a concept. There really is something I
Speaker 3: was reading a study not too long ago about even
Speaker 3: if we know what to do in an emergency, something
Speaker 3: triggers in our brain where we fall back into some
Speaker 3: sort of native state and execute the wrong thing, even
Speaker 3: though in hindsight we know what the right thing to
Speaker 3: do is. Being prepared upfront, we know what the right
Speaker 3: thing to do is. So having an outside perspective, being
Speaker 3: able to just completely share on every idea that we
Speaker 3: have or whatsever most critical to us, it gets a
Speaker 3: lot of I think there's a huge strategy of success
Speaker 3: behind that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's it is. It's hard to do.
Speaker 4: It's hard to be in a good mastermind. But this
Speaker 4: is completely off topic, but what you say just made
Speaker 4: me think of do you ever get on an airplane
Speaker 4: and walk past the exit room and look at the
Speaker 4: people in the exit room and go, there's no way
Speaker 4: that mfor is going to be able to open that
Speaker 4: door if they have to.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm not I'm not particularly known for my good
Speaker 3: evaluations like on surface level of people. But I assume
Speaker 3: that the flight staff are doing that check. And I
Speaker 3: do know that they ask for a verbal que you know,
Speaker 3: are you okay doing this, and they have to say yes.
Speaker 3: But we do know that even a verbal agreement is
Speaker 3: really passive, and you almost want them to repeat what
Speaker 3: they're going to do in the event.
Speaker 2: Of an emergency. Because there was a video that I
Speaker 2: actually came out not too long.
Speaker 3: Ago from a plane with a fire on it, I believe,
Speaker 3: and the passengers were all going back and getting their stuff,
Speaker 3: and it took quite a long time for a nice.
Speaker 2: Who actually occurs.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I do think about that unfortunately, So thanks
Speaker 3: for reminding me of that fear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my pleasure.
Speaker 4: When I was in the Navy, that was what a
Speaker 4: majority of the time we spent just training and rehearsing
Speaker 4: for disasters because it was a known fact that when
Speaker 4: the disaster happened, you fall down to that primal monkey
Speaker 4: mind level, and so to be successful in mitigating the disaster,
Speaker 4: it just has to be ingrained muscle memory where no
Speaker 4: thought process is required. So we just drilled on it
Speaker 4: over and over and over.
Speaker 3: It's really interesting that you bring up the muscle memory
Speaker 3: because the Olympic are on and there is this aspect
Speaker 3: of you aren't in the moment thinking about how to
Speaker 3: execute effectively. You are always going You don't have time
Speaker 3: to respond realistically, you just have to memorize exactly the
Speaker 3: routine that you're going to do and execute on it.
Speaker 3: But talking about your Navy experiences, I'm wondering, did you
Speaker 3: have the benefit of some sort of group to prepare
Speaker 3: for those circumstances or just regular run of the mill
Speaker 3: activities that you have to do, like people that maybe
Speaker 3: not necessarily directly in your area that could give you
Speaker 3: feedback on But is there a group aspect to that,
Speaker 3: you know, thinking about the mastermind topic.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in the military, there is a feedback mechanism, usually
Speaker 4: in the form of some senior officers screaming at the
Speaker 4: top of their lungs.
Speaker 1: What the hell is wrong with you boy? So feedback
Speaker 1: group was definitely incorporated there.
Speaker 2: I have to wonder like, did you were you ever
Speaker 2: on the receiving end of that?
Speaker 1: Oh? Many many times?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can tell stories, but they're way off topic
Speaker 4: from the mastermind.
Speaker 2: So the group is super important, And like who's in
Speaker 2: your group?
Speaker 3: And I feel like there's tons of communities out there
Speaker 3: that are like on Slack or discord that you can
Speaker 3: join and maybe ask questions about what you're doing or
Speaker 3: try to get some feedback, but it doesn't feel like
Speaker 3: other people necessarily, Like there may be some generous souls
Speaker 3: out there that will review your product or wherever you're at,
Speaker 3: your technology stack, your current issue, but they're not that great.
Speaker 3: So if we know that ninety nine percent of the
Speaker 3: masterminds you know are not fantastic, aren't.
Speaker 2: Able to help us.
Speaker 3: How do we even get into a situation where we
Speaker 3: can find people that can provide insight into what we're
Speaker 3: working on and give recommendations.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure, it's a curated experience, you know, like
Speaker 4: a lot of the online mastermind into type communities. It's
Speaker 4: the equivalent of posting your question on stack overflow, you know,
Speaker 4: best of luck and your answer that you get if
Speaker 4: you get one at all. But the thing that makes
Speaker 4: a mastermind really successful is curating a personal relationship with
Speaker 4: a small group of people over time.
Speaker 1: Because it has to be.
Speaker 4: A small group number one, because we all have limited
Speaker 4: mental capacity to retain amounts of information. But you also
Speaker 4: you can't form deep, meaningful bonds with a large group
Speaker 4: of people.
Speaker 1: So just for that.
Speaker 4: Reason, you want it to be a small group of people.
Speaker 4: And then it has to be personal because to be
Speaker 4: truly successful in this, like, you're going to be talking
Speaker 4: about some stuff that is very uncomfortable at some point
Speaker 4: in your career, and you have to have a level
Speaker 4: of confidence in the group that you can be open
Speaker 4: and honest with that because if you aren't able to
Speaker 4: be open and honest. You're not going to disclose all
Speaker 4: the relevant factors that they need to help you make
Speaker 4: the right decision. And I've been in one group for
Speaker 4: it's been ten years now, and it's Yeah, but the
Speaker 4: people in that group, like, there's no doubt in my mind,
Speaker 4: every single one of us would lie to a grand
Speaker 4: jury to protect the others in it. That's how tight
Speaker 4: the trust level is in there. And that's the only
Speaker 4: reason it's been successful.
Speaker 3: I think it's a good analogy for how close of
Speaker 3: a relationship you've formed with these other people. Do you
Speaker 3: find it like bi weekly bi monthly when you're meeting
Speaker 3: everyone sort of knows where you're at, like what's going,
Speaker 3: what's current on in your professional life, And when you
Speaker 3: bring up a new idea, they just know where it's
Speaker 3: next or is it sharing your current situation and bringing
Speaker 3: in concrete questions or stat is in the way they
Speaker 3: don't need to sort of pay attention to know everything
Speaker 3: about you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a little bit of both.
Speaker 4: We meet bi weekly, and the bi weekly meeting is
Speaker 4: organized so that each individual has a certain a fixed
Speaker 4: amount of time and a certain list of things that
Speaker 4: you have to communicate, you know, it's almost like a
Speaker 4: like a gram type or agile type meeting. Here's what
Speaker 4: I've been working on, Here's what I'm planning on doing next,
Speaker 4: Here's where I'm having problems.
Speaker 1: But then there's also we have a private chat.
Speaker 4: Channel that we use so that we post messages in
Speaker 4: between those and do longer form conversations in there. And
Speaker 4: then there's also a third option there if something happens
Speaker 4: in your life that you either need immediate feedback or
Speaker 4: you need more time than what's allowed in the bi
Speaker 4: weekly meetings, will do ad hoc meetings specific to that topic.
Speaker 2: Is there just for contexts?
Speaker 3: Would you be willing to share maybe one of your
Speaker 3: recent either realizations or what you were what we had
Speaker 3: brought up in the meeting, just as far, you know,
Speaker 3: for people that maybe haven't been in a Mastermind before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4: The range of topics is not solely focused on careers.
Speaker 4: A lot of it has been you know, hey, I'm
Speaker 4: thinking about taking this new job, I'm struggling with this
Speaker 4: at work, thinking about launching this new business. What do
Speaker 4: you guys think about it? But it's been personal stuff too,
Speaker 4: like whenever, whenever my mom passed away earlier this year.
Speaker 4: You know, I was I made a lot of bad
Speaker 4: decisions after that and fell off the train, and they
Speaker 4: were are super helpful and instrumental in calling me out
Speaker 4: and getting me back on track. Some of the members
Speaker 4: there have been through divorces and those were extensive topics
Speaker 4: with getting that done.
Speaker 3: Wow, I mean it sounds you know, it sounds like
Speaker 3: it's more than just the ideas having a dedicated support network,
Speaker 3: not just like I know people talk about it, you know,
Speaker 3: how do I deal with certain personal situations?
Speaker 2: Where do I go? Who can I talk about that?
Speaker 2: But actually having gone.
Speaker 3: Out and found the appropriate group, you know, we're calling
Speaker 3: them a mastermind group, but you know, by any name,
Speaker 3: really having a dedicated a team of people to support
Speaker 3: each other, Like I can see how valuable that is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4: I think that's probably one of the big misconceptions around
Speaker 4: masterminds as we think it's career or business oriented, and
Speaker 4: it is because that consumes a large part of our life.
Speaker 4: But you know, if you're dealing with the passing of
Speaker 4: a family member or a divorce or something in your
Speaker 4: personal life, that's going to affect your professional life as well.
Speaker 1: So it's in scope.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I totally totally got that. I feel like,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe you skipped over this. It's so it
Speaker 3: must be so difficult to have found this group of
Speaker 3: people that you've been with for ten years now, How
Speaker 3: did that even come to exist?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I responded to a tweet.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 4: One of the one of my friends sent out a
Speaker 4: Actually this is how we met. He sent out a
Speaker 4: tweet and said, hey, I'm thinking about starting a mastermind.
Speaker 4: Anyone who's interested let me know. And I had read,
Speaker 4: you know, Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich and was
Speaker 4: familiar with the concept and had tried at that point
Speaker 4: a couple of online masterminds, and.
Speaker 1: I tried like some.
Speaker 4: Subscription based mastermind groups where you actually pay to be
Speaker 4: in there. Pro tip don't ever do that, I know, right,
Speaker 4: And so I was like, yeah, we'll try it, you know.
Speaker 1: And it really was.
Speaker 4: Awkward at first, you know, and it was very at first.
Speaker 4: It was you know, totally focused on things that you
Speaker 4: would only say in public, like you know, oh, here's
Speaker 4: what I'm working on at work, or hey, I'm thinking
Speaker 4: about launching this product, you know, and things like that.
Speaker 4: But then as we as we got to know each
Speaker 4: other better and became closer over the years. That's whenever
Speaker 4: things really started to take this whole group to a
Speaker 4: next level and make it something that I just can't
Speaker 4: imagine being at this stage in my life without that group.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I know.
Speaker 3: Now it's actually become a more common topic to find
Speaker 3: your job. Group I think is now a thing if
Speaker 3: you're searching for a career and some other people are too,
Speaker 3: you can bounce ideas off of them and it's more
Speaker 3: focused in that way.
Speaker 2: But I feel like it's sort of.
Speaker 3: Limited and people aren't changing their careers or their jobs
Speaker 3: so frequently, so having the context already of where you're
Speaker 3: at can be I think super helpful there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure, Like the long term, being with the
Speaker 4: same group for a long time is helpful because just
Speaker 4: to use myself as an example, like, they know I
Speaker 4: will jump on a shiny object and chase it all
Speaker 4: day long and then drop it and walk away from it,
Speaker 4: and so they're great. Whenever I come up with something,
Speaker 4: they're like, nah, dude, we've seen this before. We know
Speaker 4: exactly where this is going. Go back to what you're
Speaker 4: supposed to be doing and quit fucking around.
Speaker 3: I think we have a new alias for you for
Speaker 3: the coming episodes. It will be Will Colden Retriever button.
Speaker 2: Right, a ball, you get a ball. I just read this.
Speaker 3: Actually he mentioned it Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow,
Speaker 3: but I don't know if this is true. Google says
Speaker 3: it was originally coin in the Law of Success, which
Speaker 3: is I mean more so. There's lots of books dedicated
Speaker 3: to this topic realistically, and I think, well, we see
Speaker 3: them in some sort of form. I think in the
Speaker 3: professional world we even see things like guilds that pop up,
Speaker 3: or mentorship groups or you know, a buddy system or whatever.
Speaker 3: But I feel like really having an intentional aspect behind
Speaker 3: it is something so totally lost. I probably worked in
Speaker 3: tech for ten years before this concept even came up
Speaker 3: to me as something that could be done, and that
Speaker 3: is really surprising.
Speaker 2: Honestly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think about that a lot as I get older.
Speaker 4: Well not I am old, let's just be realistic on that.
Speaker 4: But anyway, like, I feel like somewhere in the last
Speaker 4: few generations, we lost a skill set as humans that
Speaker 4: we had for tens of thousands of years. You know,
Speaker 4: of sitting around the campfire with the trialible elders, you know,
Speaker 4: teaching the younger people in the group what they learned
Speaker 4: and how to avoid those mistakes. And I feel like
Speaker 4: somewhere in the last couple of generations we've lost that.
Speaker 4: And I think that's where the mastermind is helpful, as
Speaker 4: it's trying to like reconnect that storytelling and close knit
Speaker 4: group process.
Speaker 2: That's interesting.
Speaker 3: So there's a psychological or sociological impact from our own
Speaker 3: evolution that actually drives the success of this sort of.
Speaker 2: Group collaboration that by nature we're not focused in.
Speaker 3: Because I mean, I think you're right, because there's also
Speaker 3: something at the family level. I mean, certain culture is
Speaker 3: obviously focused more on that than others.
Speaker 2: Being an American and.
Speaker 3: I believe you are too, I know that's super underplayed.
Speaker 3: I feel like depending on where your roots are from,
Speaker 3: I don't discusslenging even business problems with my immediate family
Speaker 3: is not the sort of thing. And if I was
Speaker 3: looking for a new job, I can't really ask them.
Speaker 3: I mean, they may have some high level feedback, but
Speaker 3: like what my industry is like was never something that
Speaker 3: they would be able to really understand.
Speaker 2: I remember when I was in high school, my brother.
Speaker 3: Would ask me frequently, does that make a lot of money,
Speaker 3: and I know after many years that that's not the
Speaker 3: thing he cares about. But it's very hard to describe
Speaker 3: your situation to someone that is in a completely different
Speaker 3: field with completely different challenges. So finding those people that
Speaker 3: you can actually work with on an ongoing way is
Speaker 3: I feel like huge can be a huge win.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4: Like I think the quality of advice is directly proportional to.
Speaker 1: The context that the person giving.
Speaker 4: That advice has, you know, like, I'm not going to
Speaker 4: go ask my family doctor whether he thinks that terror
Speaker 4: form is just completely out the door because of their
Speaker 4: changes to their open source licensing model.
Speaker 2: I mean now, and I wonder, you know, it could
Speaker 2: be a secret terror form lover.
Speaker 3: That you're missing out on that opportunity. Really, you know,
Speaker 3: maybe he's been thinking about leaving medicine and going over
Speaker 3: to software technology for the last ten years and never
Speaker 3: really got that opportunity and need someone to you know,
Speaker 3: push them.
Speaker 1: In that direction, right, can't rule it out, you know.
Speaker 3: The thing I'm thinking about is, since it's so late
Speaker 3: in our careers, that at least for me to learn
Speaker 3: about this, Like, why is it this way?
Speaker 2: You mentioned that we may.
Speaker 3: Have lost in the last few generations as a society.
Speaker 3: But I'm like looking at the education system even all
Speaker 3: the way through university, Like you're very focused on as
Speaker 3: an individual you solve problems, especially in academia, right, you
Speaker 3: know there's concrete questions with definitive objective answers or at
Speaker 3: least a grading system in place. And I remember some
Speaker 3: of my high school teachers would say to certain study
Speaker 3: group clicks, you won't get accepted to a university as
Speaker 3: a team. You go as individuals, and you won't get
Speaker 3: hired as a team to jobs. I feel like from
Speaker 3: working professionally for a lot of years and also thinking
Speaker 3: about masterminds and how groups and our networks can help
Speaker 3: us in our individual careers specific problems professionally personally, it
Speaker 3: just seems like that's wrong advice, Like realistically learning how
Speaker 3: to operate as a team in some capacity not necessarily
Speaker 3: tied to your job seems like a huge miss for
Speaker 3: our education systems across.
Speaker 1: The world, Oh for sure.
Speaker 4: Like I've spent a majority of my career in early
Speaker 4: stage tech startups, and it's a thing one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: You know you'll have the founder who starts the company
Speaker 4: and then they hire a tech person and oh, we
Speaker 4: need another tech person. Well, guess where that hire is
Speaker 4: coming from, somebody that the first tech guy knows. And
Speaker 4: even at the advisory level, you know, oh, we need
Speaker 4: an advisor on the board who has financial experience with
Speaker 4: SaaS based applications. Oh, hey, my buddy does that? Oh
Speaker 4: your buddy, how convenient? You know, because it's because and
Speaker 4: I don't think that's a bad thing. It's a limiting
Speaker 4: thing for sure, because unless your buddies with someone your
Speaker 4: your options are limited.
Speaker 1: But it is I think it is a good.
Speaker 4: Thing for bringing in known expertise to help you succeed.
Speaker 3: I mean, there is there is a just recently, I
Speaker 3: think we've learned of concerning bias where obviously you you're
Speaker 3: in network is people who are similar to you, and
Speaker 3: who you hire through interview process, of course, is bias
Speaker 3: towards similar thinking. But yeah, I mean the startups obviously
Speaker 3: go the route you're pulling people from your network can't
Speaker 3: be helped there and you would just be at a
Speaker 3: loss without that. You do need someone to fill that spot,
Speaker 3: and it's so much easier to evaluate someone you know
Speaker 3: than random people from the Internet, of which ninety nine
Speaker 3: percent of them are resumes that were completed by AI bought.
Speaker 4: Now right, can you imagine what you would have to
Speaker 4: go through if you posted a job ad for like
Speaker 4: a CTO or an advisory board member on indeed dot com?
Speaker 3: You know, I don't actually have to imagine. So one
Speaker 3: of the groups I'm in actually talks about this some
Speaker 3: of the challenges where they have a new position open,
Speaker 3: even at the executive level, and how to find people.
Speaker 2: And obviously the challenge is.
Speaker 3: The higher up you go, the more concern you are
Speaker 3: that they're able to maybe be effective in that role,
Speaker 3: and so you may be more likely to pull from
Speaker 3: your network, which is incredibly limiting. So focusing on having
Speaker 3: the appropriate network is critical for success. But even at
Speaker 3: the lead engineer, architectural level, engineering manager, et cetera, you
Speaker 3: have a spot open and you'll have thousands of resumes
Speaker 3: coming in for people that are, according to the resume,
Speaker 3: are qualified. And that's a non trivial problem to solve.
Speaker 3: There's some there's some statistical models that say the thirty
Speaker 3: seven percent rule is what applies?
Speaker 1: What's the thirty seven percent rule?
Speaker 3: Ah, So, like the most random number that exists is
Speaker 3: the number thirty seven, people believe.
Speaker 2: People believe that.
Speaker 3: The numbers, like the numbers three and seven are the
Speaker 3: most random because they're not five, which is the middle
Speaker 3: and even fields not random. One is first, you know
Speaker 3: zeros out nine is and so the numbers thirty seven
Speaker 3: and seventy three tend to be random. And it actually
Speaker 3: turns out that thirty seven is like part of the
Speaker 3: golden ratio there, it's part of the derivation. And if
Speaker 3: we're hiring something, it's called the I think it's called
Speaker 3: the marriage problem, hiring problem, et cetera. How do I
Speaker 3: know when to actually hire someone? And the strategy goes
Speaker 3: that interview thirty seven percent of your pool that you
Speaker 3: want for some pool size, and after the thirty seven percent,
Speaker 3: don't hire any of those people, but use them as
Speaker 3: the strategy for knowing where your bar is, what sort
Speaker 3: of quality of engineers are getting in hire the next
Speaker 3: best one that's better than all the rest of the
Speaker 3: pool that you've sampled. And that's so you know, if
Speaker 3: you say I want to go through one hundred applicants,
Speaker 3: even tho if I have a thousand or ten thousand,
Speaker 3: go through the first thirty seven and then starting with
Speaker 3: a thirty eighth one, hire the first one that's better
Speaker 3: than all the other thirty seven you've hired, And that's
Speaker 3: that's the strategy.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. Seems like a lot of work, but hiring
Speaker 1: is a lot of work anyway. So we're going to
Speaker 1: be nice to pull from your network, right Yeah.
Speaker 4: Speaking of which, I I think that's a really important
Speaker 4: precursor to finding or creating a mastermind group that works
Speaker 4: for you, is like, how do you connect with those people?
Speaker 4: And you have to you have to know people, which
Speaker 4: means building your network. And I know, for me, for
Speaker 4: a long time, I was not a fan of the
Speaker 4: word network because it sounded all salesy and smoozy and
Speaker 4: you know, it was going to have to make small
Speaker 4: talk with Bill and Ted on the back nine, you know,
Speaker 4: or whatever, and.
Speaker 1: So I had a really negative perception of network. But
Speaker 1: I don't think it's that way at all.
Speaker 4: I think it could also be synonymous with your your
Speaker 4: work buddies or you know, you're even your gaming buddies.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: No, I'm totally with you.
Speaker 3: I I always shutter when I hear the word networking
Speaker 3: as a thing that you can do. I'm definitely in
Speaker 3: by nature and so that doesn't come to me naturally.
Speaker 3: That just you'll have some a Pao after party or
Speaker 3: something and you can go and talk to people. So
Speaker 3: if that works for you, you know, it's a great
Speaker 3: way to start building a network. I found I need
Speaker 3: to have some sort of strategy that works to actually start.
Speaker 2: So if I'm at a conference.
Speaker 3: I will go and specifically talk to the vendors. I
Speaker 3: find that it's much easier for me to do that,
Speaker 3: and I have real questions about how they're finding the conference,
Speaker 3: whether or not it's affective for them, what they're doing there,
Speaker 3: what they hope to gain out of it. And I
Speaker 3: try to build my network that way because I may
Speaker 3: actually need to get back in touch with one of
Speaker 3: them for a product that I want.
Speaker 2: So that's where I start.
Speaker 4: Yeah, an approach I used that I kind of liked
Speaker 4: was actually giving talks at conferences, you know, applying for conferences,
Speaker 4: filling out the paper. And the reason I like that
Speaker 4: is because then I'm not going to the conference to network.
Speaker 4: I'm going because I have to give a talk there.
Speaker 4: And then I give my talk, which introduces me to
Speaker 4: a lot of people, and for the rest of the conference,
Speaker 4: you'll actually meet people and they'll be asking you a
Speaker 4: question about something you said in your talk or something
Speaker 4: related to your talk. So now I'm not meeting strangers
Speaker 4: and having to make small talk or figure out what
Speaker 4: to say next, or stand there awkwardly staring at my shoes.
Speaker 4: There's an automatic conversation starter there, and that's been super
Speaker 4: helpful for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if you're talking super controversial, you can post
Speaker 3: it on LinkedIn and have people you know coming up
Speaker 3: to you and say, hey, well, you know I disagree
Speaker 3: with everything.
Speaker 2: That used that right.
Speaker 1: As you should, because I'm just making this up.
Speaker 3: I mean, realistically, I think there is this aspect of Oh,
Speaker 3: conference speaking is so difficult.
Speaker 2: It's such a challenge.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't want to have to do all
Speaker 3: this work, or I'm afraid of conference speaking, or I'm
Speaker 3: not far enough of my career or experience. I think
Speaker 3: almost everyone out there, after about two years professional work,
Speaker 3: has done something unique that almost no one else has
Speaker 3: done before, in that exact way that you were.
Speaker 2: Now qualified to talk about.
Speaker 3: And if you want to get accepted to conferences, you
Speaker 3: just think about what you care about, and I bet
Speaker 3: you can come up with a thirty minute talk which
Speaker 3: discussed that and teaches people about that subject. And I
Speaker 3: remember standing up at a conference and giving a talk
Speaker 3: on security and.
Speaker 2: Someone's like, how did you be?
Speaker 3: Like, how do I become a security expert like you
Speaker 3: and you know, can give talks.
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, you know, I didn't really.
Speaker 3: Consider myself a security expert, but here I am standing
Speaker 3: up on stage giving a talk about this.
Speaker 2: You know, you start doing something over and over.
Speaker 3: Again, and eventually someone may be like, you know, hey,
Speaker 3: I want you to speak at our conference.
Speaker 2: So I think it's actually if that's the strategy that
Speaker 2: could work for you.
Speaker 3: I think really having that justification for where to go
Speaker 3: what to speak about, is for sure really helpful to
Speaker 3: expend your network.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think there's a hidden benefit there as well too,
Speaker 4: because everyone gets nervous giving a talk, and it's natural
Speaker 4: you're putting yourself out there. But I think it's something
Speaker 4: that you have to force yourself to get through. You
Speaker 4: may not get over it, but you will get through it.
Speaker 4: And it's a precursor to having more difficult conversations at
Speaker 4: some future point in your life, because if you're no
Speaker 4: matter what your life looks like, you're going to have
Speaker 4: awkward difficult moments and doing something like speaking at a
Speaker 4: conference where there's literally no way to fail. But you
Speaker 4: get through that mental obstacle, it's going to help you
Speaker 4: build that muscle memory to have future conversations about difficult
Speaker 4: topics where there is a meaningful impact to not having
Speaker 4: that conversation.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's really not a lot different than sitting
Speaker 3: in a room with six people and discussing some sort
Speaker 3: of architecture or a tool choice. Like when I'm standing
Speaker 3: up there and giving a talk, there's just the six
Speaker 3: people in the front row. It's hard to pay attention
Speaker 3: more than that. The lights are blinding your eyes anyway,
Speaker 3: So it's not really like there's a lot of people.
Speaker 3: And there's usually a lot less people than are listening
Speaker 3: to this podcast. So as far as nerves go, that's
Speaker 3: not really super relevant.
Speaker 4: You usually get through it, Yeah, for sure, and it's
Speaker 4: something you'll just get accustomed to over time.
Speaker 2: Do you remember how you got started speaking of conferences?
Speaker 1: No? Absolutely, no idea?
Speaker 2: Are you do you still get up on stage and
Speaker 2: get nervous sometimes?
Speaker 4: I get nervous every time, Yeah, every single time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is it noticeable to me? It is?
Speaker 4: But I think That's an important component of it because,
Speaker 4: like to me, the way I look at at a
Speaker 4: conference and I view meetings the exact same way. In
Speaker 4: our industry, we can say that the value of a
Speaker 4: person is one hundred bucks an hour, you know, just
Speaker 4: pretty much across the board around the world, tech labor
Speaker 4: is one hundred bucks an hour. So if I'm speaking
Speaker 4: to ten people for an hour, that's a thousand dollars investment.
Speaker 4: So if I'm speaking to you know, one hundred people
Speaker 4: at one hundred dollars an hour, that's a significant amount
Speaker 4: of money. And so I put that pressure on myself,
Speaker 4: like how am I going to deliver one hundred thousand
Speaker 4: dollars of value to these people? And that's the way
Speaker 4: I approach giving my talks. So yeah, I am nervous
Speaker 4: whenever I grow up and I have to deliver one
Speaker 4: hundred thousand dollars of value in one hour.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: I mean if I was thinking about it like that,
Speaker 3: I don't know if I would be confident getting up
Speaker 3: on stage. Ie just scared some people away with that mentality,
Speaker 3: you know. I think I think having something you're passionate
Speaker 3: about is relevant, and your passion actually helps other people
Speaker 3: is how I look at it. So when I'm giving
Speaker 3: a talk, it's usually from a place of like, I
Speaker 3: really want to rant about something, Like I hear people
Speaker 3: doing something ridiculously in a weird way that I just
Speaker 3: would never personally approve of.
Speaker 2: Why do I not approve of it?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: Why do I think that way?
Speaker 3: And then I evaluate that I'm like, Okay, I can
Speaker 3: actually say something about this topic, whether or not it's
Speaker 3: the expert advice or anything, and it's just another idea
Speaker 3: that I'm throwing out there and trying to make a
Speaker 3: little bit entertaining for a group of five to a
Speaker 3: thousand people at a time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed. And then you know, the way that comes back.
Speaker 4: Is in you meet people. People will give you feedback
Speaker 4: on it. Some of those will turn into relationships, and
Speaker 4: then those relation relationships will help you form either form
Speaker 4: a mastermind or join a mastermind they may already be
Speaker 4: part of, or whatever group name you want to call it.
Speaker 4: You know, the name mastermind, I think is just a
Speaker 4: easy term to describe what the goals of this group is.
Speaker 4: But you can actually call it an anything you want,
Speaker 4: and there's probably other names for it out there that
Speaker 4: I'm just not familiar with.
Speaker 3: I mean, I really wish I had support for some
Speaker 3: of the challenging decisions that I had to make earlier
Speaker 3: on in my career, Like what is even the difference
Speaker 3: between these different jobs? How do I negotiate a salary?
Speaker 3: But it you know, it keeps on going more than that, Like,
Speaker 3: I don't know when I'm trying to solve a challenging
Speaker 3: technical problem, who I can necessarily turn to. And I
Speaker 3: can obviously ask random questions on the internet, but I
Speaker 3: don't necessarily feel like other people are super invested in
Speaker 3: making sure I have the best answer that I couldn't.
Speaker 3: I wish someone had said to me early on in
Speaker 3: my career, you need to find your group where you
Speaker 3: can start asking these questions too, that are comfortable and
Speaker 3: invested in actually giving you relevant answers. Because it's also
Speaker 3: a great way for you to find out what other
Speaker 3: people are doing. What is it like in other companies?
Speaker 3: How are they working on things that could be relevant
Speaker 3: in helping you figure out what you want to do
Speaker 3: next to your career or challenging tech problem.
Speaker 1: You've got, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4: One of the things that I only realized in the
Speaker 4: last few years was that I actually had mentors my
Speaker 4: entire career. I just didn't know what a mentor was.
Speaker 4: You know, I grew up in rural Texas in the seventies,
Speaker 4: and I can guarantee nobody.
Speaker 1: Used the word mentor there.
Speaker 4: So I was probably in my thirties before I ever
Speaker 4: heard the word and had a definition for it. But
Speaker 4: in retrospect, looking back, there were a lot of people
Speaker 4: who were mentors in my life that I just didn't
Speaker 4: realize that that's what they were doing.
Speaker 1: And so I think I would.
Speaker 4: Encourage anyone listening to do that same retrospective exercise. You know,
Speaker 4: who was it in your past that's been trying to
Speaker 4: tell you what to do, whether you were receptive to
Speaker 4: the way that they communicated that or not. You know,
Speaker 4: things specifically back to some of my senior officers in
Speaker 4: the military, they were.
Speaker 1: You know, they didn't have the greatest.
Speaker 4: Social skills, but they were trying to do the right thing.
Speaker 4: And so that's something to reflect on. Hey, the delivery
Speaker 4: of the message was wrong, but the message itself was accurate,
Speaker 4: you know, and that can help you identify the people
Speaker 4: who have been trying to help you in the past.
Speaker 1: That may help you.
Speaker 4: Narrow the list of people of how to reach out of,
Speaker 4: who to reach out to for questions about your future.
Speaker 3: I mean the dedicated group, thinking of them as all
Speaker 3: sort of peer mentors on whatever act see there have
Speaker 3: experience on right, you know, whether because we're all have
Speaker 3: different careers in some way, you know, we didn't all
Speaker 3: go to the same schools and get the same jobs
Speaker 3: at the same companies, that varied experience can be really
Speaker 3: helpful there. And you mentioned this to me actually offline
Speaker 3: a while back, And so I went through this little exercise,
Speaker 3: and I realized that my version of mentors out there
Speaker 3: were people at every job that I felt comfortable asking
Speaker 3: a lot of questions too, no matter what I thought
Speaker 3: the question like, it was never like Okay, you know,
Speaker 3: this is a stupid question. I'm afraid of having you
Speaker 3: answer it. But like I was always trying to get
Speaker 3: more understanding of what I was working on, like who
Speaker 3: I could go and actually ask stuff to. And the
Speaker 3: more questions I asked of these couple of individuals, the
Speaker 3: more comfortable I felt asking sort of maybe non directly
Speaker 3: professional related or work related questions, you know, things about salary,
Speaker 3: et cetera, and then eventually about my career and maybe
Speaker 3: personal life as well, and I never really considered those mentors,
Speaker 3: but looking back, it does really feel like if I
Speaker 3: had to coin that term for something, it would be
Speaker 3: people that I'm comfortable asking questions to and being told
Speaker 3: answers that I could then go execute effectively.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure, and that that process of asking questions
Speaker 4: is another one of those areas where it's uncomfortable at first,
Speaker 4: but with practice, it gets easier over time, and just
Speaker 4: like any skill, you become more advanced with it over time.
Speaker 1: So at first, you know, you may.
Speaker 4: Be only comfortable asking one or two people very limited questions,
Speaker 4: but over time you'll get better at that, and then
Speaker 4: you'll get a little more courageous, and then pretty soon
Speaker 4: you know you're posting on stack overflow, whose stupid idea
Speaker 4: is JavaScript anyway or whatever?
Speaker 3: He's got a personal vendetta there against the creators.
Speaker 1: No, not really.
Speaker 4: I love to make fun of javascrouped, but it has
Speaker 4: done a lot of great things for our industry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think a lot of it was
Speaker 3: like an accident, the creation like one week thing to
Speaker 3: in the browser, and now it's something way more than.
Speaker 4: That, right, It was a it was an emergency patch
Speaker 4: to resolve an issue in thirty years later.
Speaker 1: Sure we are.
Speaker 3: I mean I feel like that's actually what happens with
Speaker 3: a lot of companies in their software that they're making right.
Speaker 3: You know, things don't die that quickly in some circumstances,
Speaker 3: and whatever work you've done can end up as that
Speaker 3: critical component in your company software. And you know, I
Speaker 3: for sure want to have someone sort of evaluating the
Speaker 3: work then I've done. And maybe I don't have that
Speaker 3: peer in my current company that I can actually go to,
Speaker 3: and so I need to go out and the world
Speaker 3: unfortunately and try to find someone. And I just have
Speaker 3: to say, as like, being an engineer doing anything like
Speaker 3: this is super uncomfortable, Like at no part and earlier
Speaker 3: on would I feel like, oh, yeah, no, I just
Speaker 3: want to go do this, Like if someone told me
Speaker 3: to go do this, I would definitely not at least
Speaker 3: I would have been told. But I just it's just
Speaker 3: such a struggle, Like you say, responding to someone on
Speaker 3: a Twitter after posting a message like that was not
Speaker 3: okay for me, Like that was definitely something I didn't
Speaker 3: want to do and looking back, yeah, like just do
Speaker 3: it anyway.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure, I think that's a really good point
Speaker 4: to elaborate on.
Speaker 1: Is why bother doing this? Like why you know I.
Speaker 4: Started off this episode saying it can be I can't
Speaker 4: remember the exact words I use it. It can be
Speaker 4: a game changer for your career or something like that,
Speaker 4: which is just like a bullshit term.
Speaker 1: You can't actually measure that at all. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about specific.
Speaker 4: Measurable benefits to taking the time to curate your own
Speaker 4: personal mastermind group. Just using myself as an example, I
Speaker 4: directly attribute my mastermind group to the success of where
Speaker 4: I'm at now, and I measure the success of where
Speaker 4: I am now as having spent three decades in early
Speaker 4: stage tech startups, where I have to keep my technical
Speaker 4: skill set above average for three decades. I feel like
Speaker 4: that's a pretty significant accomplishment working in tech startups. There's
Speaker 4: various metrics floating around, but an overwhelming majority of tech
Speaker 4: startups fail. But I've been doing it successfully for this long.
Speaker 4: Not all of the ones I've worked with have succeeded,
Speaker 4: but enough of them have. Where like five years ago, oh,
Speaker 4: I just didn't have to work anymore, and I do
Speaker 4: at this point because I really enjoy my trade and
Speaker 4: because I suck at golf. Butte I attribute that to
Speaker 4: having deep conversations with the people in my mastermind and
Speaker 4: them calling me out and helping me think through.
Speaker 1: Decisions that led to this.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I think some of those those are some
Speaker 4: of the big wins for me of belonging.
Speaker 2: To this group.
Speaker 3: There's something really interesting thing that you said there when
Speaker 3: we call it like our network. So I'm not going
Speaker 3: to spoil my pick at the end of the episode,
Speaker 3: but there is something about your success is definitely determined
Speaker 3: by who your network is, more than what you're working
Speaker 3: on or the promise of success there being able to
Speaker 3: share getting someone else to even use your product, or
Speaker 3: them knowing someone who could be your customer. That feedback
Speaker 3: on it is actually more attributed to success by your network,
Speaker 3: what your network looks like, than it is by any
Speaker 3: individual thing. When we say that all startups fail, some
Speaker 3: of them get lucky, that luck is really the result
Speaker 3: of knowing the right people, and by knowing the right people, Well,
Speaker 3: how did you get there? One way is through starting
Speaker 3: out trying to find your group that can provide insight
Speaker 3: but also potential customers, etc.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And I think another potential misconception is that you
Speaker 4: have to join a network with already successful people, and
Speaker 4: I don't think that's true. Just I think it's more
Speaker 4: important to join or start a group with people you're
Speaker 4: comfortable with, and then you'll all grow over time, you'll
Speaker 4: all get better and help each other, which is going
Speaker 4: to help each of you, and then it's like a
Speaker 4: compound interest type effect. So you don't have to join
Speaker 4: a mastermind group with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
Speaker 1: You can start with the people you know.
Speaker 2: I mean you actually shouldn't.
Speaker 3: So the research says that it's really interesting about who
Speaker 3: gets Nobel Prizes and how they detail them. And you'll
Speaker 3: find that the earliest papers by Nobel Prize award winners
Speaker 3: is that they're not the first one listed on the
Speaker 3: revolutionary work that they're being awarded the prize for.
Speaker 2: And I think.
Speaker 3: It's really interesting, like your name is not first on
Speaker 3: that thing that you want to so why isn't it first?
Speaker 3: And it turns out because often they were a part
Speaker 3: of the project, but then the rest of their career
Speaker 3: was still dedicated to that same idea and they wrote
Speaker 3: more and more papers on the topic, and eventually over time,
Speaker 3: they were seen as the cornerstone of success of the
Speaker 3: innovation that happened there, and so the original work may
Speaker 3: not have been by them, but it now is so
Speaker 3: totally attributed.
Speaker 2: And if you are in a.
Speaker 3: Group where there are two other people who or one
Speaker 3: other person that's well known in any way, then whatever
Speaker 3: success comes out of that will be actually attributed to
Speaker 3: that person who's already been identified as the leader in
Speaker 3: that area.
Speaker 2: So you like, you won't get success.
Speaker 3: You'll get some betup that, right, you know, maybe more money,
Speaker 3: more opportunities, but it will never be your own fame
Speaker 3: fortune whatever you're going for our personal enlightenment. If you
Speaker 3: are joining groups just because you see high profile names there, realistically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I think another.
Speaker 4: Similar continuation of that thought process is when you're talking
Speaker 4: about Nobel Prizes.
Speaker 1: I find it fascinating to look.
Speaker 4: Back one hundred two hundred years ago at the era
Speaker 4: of scientific discovery. Then you know, not only with people
Speaker 4: like Albert ein Stein and the work that.
Speaker 1: He did, but the group that he was part of.
Speaker 4: You know, there's like pictures of him where he's standing
Speaker 4: next to like Neil's War, you know, and these other
Speaker 4: amazing physicists, and they were just all writing letters to
Speaker 4: each other, even to the point where whenever Einstein released
Speaker 4: his theory of relativity, you know, he published a paper
Speaker 4: some I think it was a German physicist who was
Speaker 4: on the front line during World War Two, plotting the
Speaker 4: trajectory for missiles to launch at Russia. On holding the
Speaker 4: line during the war, he had time to stop and
Speaker 4: read Einstein's Theory of relativity and then came up with
Speaker 4: his own solution to prove the parts of it that
Speaker 4: Einstein didn't know how to prove, and then mailed a
Speaker 4: letter back to Albert Einstein saying, hey, here's the missing
Speaker 4: piece for you, you know, all while getting bombed on
Speaker 4: the front line during World War One. And like, to me,
Speaker 4: that was like that was inspiring because it's like my excuses.
Speaker 1: Are no longer valid.
Speaker 4: You know, I am not reading Albert Einstein's Theory of
Speaker 4: Relativity by candlelight while getting bombed on the trenches of
Speaker 4: World War One.
Speaker 1: I don't have an excuse for not being successful.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's with the Scotch in hand, that's right.
Speaker 3: It's not a very long amount of work, Like it's
Speaker 3: a very thin book. That's dedicated to relativity, so you know,
Speaker 3: you kind of get through it really quickly. No, I
Speaker 3: mean I actually found the collaboration between scientists to always
Speaker 3: be a very interesting topic of discussion, and I feel
Speaker 3: like something that gave a lot of color to it
Speaker 3: is if you've seen the movie Oppenheimer, there is a
Speaker 3: scientists basically collaborating and what that actually looked like. And
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously is it super accurate, but it does
Speaker 3: add some flavor there of like not necessarily experts that
Speaker 3: are all experts in the same area, like there have
Speaker 3: different specialties that are all collaborating together in some way.
Speaker 3: Now it does seem professional in nature, but there is
Speaker 3: definitely an academia. You're passing back new ideas and if
Speaker 3: this is something that's interesting. There's actually a video from Veritassium,
Speaker 3: which is a YouTube channel that talks about math problem wars,
Speaker 3: like wars between mathematicians where apparently in the eighteenth century
Speaker 3: and earlier, you could have your position revoked from an
Speaker 3: institution if another mathematician challenged you to a math duel
Speaker 3: and gave you questions couldn't answer, then you would get
Speaker 3: their position.
Speaker 1: That's the ultimate in nerdory right there.
Speaker 3: Sorry, you know, I really appreciate this stuff, but you
Speaker 3: know there's something interesting.
Speaker 2: I mean literally, you know how you figured stuff out?
Speaker 3: Was one intellectual in academia writing to another one totally
Speaker 3: unknown or their descendants or disciples. You know, hey, they
Speaker 3: were working on this problem. What does that look like?
Speaker 3: Do you have any ideas? The same still holds true today,
Speaker 3: and I feel like the Mastermind group really combines it together.
Speaker 2: And I have this problem, like I don't.
Speaker 3: Know event buses was sending messages in some sort of
Speaker 3: network that things can be down.
Speaker 2: How do I even do that correctly?
Speaker 3: How do I come up with the strategy of raft
Speaker 3: or whatever Bitcoin uses for consensus.
Speaker 2: And go to town? Like that's not one person envisioning everything.
Speaker 1: I'm stuck on the whole math dual thing.
Speaker 3: Fantastically, the episode was actually about discovering.
Speaker 2: Third degree differential equations.
Speaker 3: So like first degree and second degree have close form solutions,
Speaker 3: but if you have a third degree differential, then how
Speaker 3: do you how do you get the route the actual
Speaker 3: equation that comes out of it? And some people are like, oh,
Speaker 3: that's impossible, there's no solution there, and others will say, well,
Speaker 3: you know, you can actually solve it for some situations like, well,
Speaker 3: if the equation looks like this, then we can come
Speaker 3: up with an answer, and so they start eliminating whole
Speaker 3: sets of problems. And so at the time, the duel
Speaker 3: was like, I can figure out solutions to these problems,
Speaker 3: but you can't. And then they always get surprised when
Speaker 3: the mathematician others had had to invent new calculus in
Speaker 3: order to solve those problems. And then the world you know,
Speaker 3: went further, and of course keeping it a secret of
Speaker 3: how you solve these equations became a thing where I
Speaker 3: don't think secrets went out today anymore.
Speaker 4: No, But I'm just picturing like a bunch of women
Speaker 4: like in a nineteen eighties era Michael Jackson concert, and
Speaker 4: then the math nerds solves his differential equation in the
Speaker 4: women then just start fainting and the bouncers are carrying
Speaker 4: them out at this math duel pretty much figuring that's
Speaker 4: how this went down.
Speaker 3: Like on stage, I honestly don't know what those specifics were.
Speaker 3: I mean, I assume they were in their offices, you know,
Speaker 3: because they weren't near each other.
Speaker 4: No, this was a really out event. They were like
Speaker 4: screaming fans. There were groupies, bouncers.
Speaker 3: He wants to say, this is the eighteen eighteen, seventeen,
Speaker 3: sixteenth century version of like hacker duels and you know,
Speaker 3: cracking software run by governments.
Speaker 4: This was like a Leonard skinnerd playing at bike week
Speaker 4: type event.
Speaker 1: Sorry I'm taking this off topic.
Speaker 3: Yeah no, Actually there's something that we didn't really talk about,
Speaker 3: and it's something that's been going on in my mind recently,
Speaker 3: and that's the idea of sponsorship more than mentorship.
Speaker 2: And are you familiar with that?
Speaker 1: So Nope, not at all.
Speaker 3: So this is idea floating around that just having people
Speaker 3: give you feedback isn't necessarily enough.
Speaker 2: You need people to sort of go and vouch for you.
Speaker 3: And so within your company, if you want to get promoted,
Speaker 3: having someone to actually say, not just here's how you
Speaker 3: get promoted, but oh, you know, at the next promotion round,
Speaker 3: I will speak.
Speaker 2: On your behalf. I'm actually helping you specifically.
Speaker 3: And I don't think enough people take like are comfortable,
Speaker 3: you know, I think it's definitely cultural dependent, but comfortable
Speaker 3: enough to take the opportunity to actually ask someone to
Speaker 3: not just take the first steps, but recommend them or
Speaker 3: really help them actually succeed.
Speaker 4: Ah, that's interesting because I've had this idea for a
Speaker 4: couple of years now. Then my initial thought process behind
Speaker 4: it was the difficulty in finding qualified people to hire. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and it goes back to when I was in the military,
Speaker 4: Like I was a nuclear engineer in the Navy, and
Speaker 4: to be qualified to operate the nuclear power plant. When
Speaker 4: you got to your ship, that gave you this big
Speaker 4: book and it had all these lists of tasks that
Speaker 4: you had to know how to do. And so you
Speaker 4: would run around the engine room asking people, hey, will
Speaker 4: you watch me do this task, and you would do
Speaker 4: the task, and if you did it right, you know,
Speaker 4: and they felt comfortable with you, they would sign that
Speaker 4: line in your book. And when everything was all signed,
Speaker 4: you were qualified to operate the power plant.
Speaker 1: And then.
Speaker 4: The reason that's tied to sponsorship is because if at
Speaker 4: any point in the future you screwed up doing that task,
Speaker 4: they would look at your book and see who signed
Speaker 4: off on it, and that person is partially accountable for
Speaker 4: the damage that you caused, or you know, the partially
Speaker 4: owned that mistake. And I thought we could translate this
Speaker 4: to the tech career, you know, just to take like
Speaker 4: JavaScript for an example. You know, I'm not going to
Speaker 4: pick on JavaScript this time. I'm going to say, like,
Speaker 4: you know, you've got a list of things that are
Speaker 4: related to JavaScript, like writing an asincle weight function, you know,
Speaker 4: writing a callback or whatever. And so I could go
Speaker 4: to you and say, hey, will you check this asinkle
Speaker 4: weight function that I wrote, and you look it over,
Speaker 4: I'm like, yeah, that's right, and then you sign off
Speaker 4: that I know how to do that task. And so
Speaker 4: then whenever as an employer, when I'm looking for someone,
Speaker 4: I just list the tasks that I need and I
Speaker 4: find someone who has all those skills, and I can
Speaker 4: validate or see like who who signed off on that,
Speaker 4: and who signed off on it for that person above them.
Speaker 4: And so there's this whole accountability thing where now it's
Speaker 4: not just me saying I know how to do a
Speaker 4: sinkle weight functions. I can prove that someone else has
Speaker 4: said I know how to do a sinkle weight functions.
Speaker 3: That's certainly the sort of thing that may be impossible
Speaker 3: to actually hold anyone accountable for.
Speaker 4: No there I think it is because there's a there's
Speaker 4: another component to it that's a feedback mechanism. So if
Speaker 4: if you sign off that I know how to do
Speaker 4: a sink a weight, someone else working with me who
Speaker 4: has that skill looks at my asincle weight function and says,
Speaker 4: there's no way this guy knows what he's doing. So
Speaker 4: they dispute it and it gets revoked. But then that
Speaker 4: also passes back up to the person who signed off
Speaker 4: on it. So if you're just out there just blind
Speaker 4: signing a bunch of people for skills, then it's gonna
Speaker 4: eventually come back to where you no longer had the
Speaker 4: ability to sign off on a skill, because that's that's
Speaker 4: another component of it is if you're going to sign
Speaker 4: off on a sink a weight for me, someone has
Speaker 4: to have signed off on a sink a weight for you.
Speaker 2: I mean, I totally get it.
Speaker 3: Working in any sort of military branch or public office,
Speaker 3: it just you know, in the tech industry, there's a
Speaker 3: short timeline for people working at the same job and whatnot,
Speaker 3: and I don't think people are often held accountable as
Speaker 3: much as they should be, or realistically beneficial for the
Speaker 3: business as we want them to be, because there's a
Speaker 3: lot of architectures that we fall into, you know, that
Speaker 3: were there when we got there.
Speaker 2: And you're like, who signed off on this? You would
Speaker 2: be really curious to know, you.
Speaker 3: Know, maybe there's a product here, you know, trace your
Speaker 3: you know your your work that you've done.
Speaker 2: Say that sort of a network. And I think LinkedIn
Speaker 2: tried this with.
Speaker 3: Giving thumbs up on people for recommendations for different technologies
Speaker 3: that they've got, but.
Speaker 2: That's yeah, I didn't really get anywhere. I feel like, no.
Speaker 4: I think the reason that that failed is because anyone
Speaker 4: could any endorse anyone for anything. Like I had a
Speaker 4: ton of recruiters that endorsed me for skills that I
Speaker 4: know for a fact they have no idea whether or
Speaker 4: not I could do those those things, And so I
Speaker 4: think that was a failure there is because the endorsement
Speaker 4: was meaningless because you didn't know, like who's endorse in
Speaker 4: this person?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean they want that so that they can
Speaker 3: sell your resume to a company and get paid, right
Speaker 3: so for sure? Yeah, yeah, I mean I know we
Speaker 3: try to do this to the micro level with pull
Speaker 3: requests and feedback through there, right, you know, at least
Speaker 3: the second person in the moment who supposedly knows that,
Speaker 3: But that's very specific and doesn't really get at a
Speaker 3: cross of that you've learned the skill someone has taught you,
Speaker 3: you understand it. There seems like an opportunity there in
Speaker 3: ed tech going forward. It's I'd be really interesting if
Speaker 3: we got that to become a thing.
Speaker 2: It's fun to merit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a lot of it's a lot of work,
Speaker 4: you know, like the it's a lot of work for
Speaker 4: the people, the senior people to mentor the junior people
Speaker 4: who are coming in to take over their jobs. And
Speaker 4: I think that's something we don't spend enough time and
Speaker 4: effort on. I think our industry is moving so fast
Speaker 4: currently that we can sort of wave that off because
Speaker 4: by the time the junior people are taking our positions,
Speaker 4: the job that I was doing is kind of obsolete anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but I don't know that we can count on that
Speaker 4: being true going forward.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the future is unknown right right for sure.
Speaker 2: So I feel like we talked.
Speaker 3: A lot about in and around Mastermind groups and your experiences.
Speaker 3: I feel like you've got a wealth here that we
Speaker 3: haven't really dove into though. I'm just curious if there's
Speaker 3: anything specific that you wish you had shared, you know, unprompted.
Speaker 1: Share it in my group.
Speaker 3: No, I mean you know what if people need to
Speaker 3: know about masterminds, Oh yeah, like today, you know, I
Speaker 3: guess they go and find one, But you know, maybe
Speaker 3: there's something else.
Speaker 1: I think I think there is.
Speaker 4: You know, assuming that you're the type of person who
Speaker 4: has career goals and you have certain things that you
Speaker 4: want to achieve in your career, regardless of what they are,
Speaker 4: you're going to need help to get there. If you
Speaker 4: try to do it alone, it's going to take exponentially
Speaker 4: longer to do it. So find those people or curate
Speaker 4: those people that you can talk with, because it's going
Speaker 4: to short circuit achieving all of your goals.
Speaker 1: I think that's the best way to say it.
Speaker 4: Like, if you're really right, yeah, if you're really serious
Speaker 4: about accomplishing your goals, you know, stop fucking around and
Speaker 4: go find some people to help you.
Speaker 3: I feel like, you know, there's a lot to be
Speaker 3: said there because concretely understanding what your goals are is
Speaker 3: something that a lot of people push off. But if
Speaker 3: you do understand what that is, then the next step
Speaker 3: is fine, find the help and it's out there. Like people,
Speaker 3: people for sure and want to help. I know for
Speaker 3: a long time, people messaging me on LinkedIn. I will
Speaker 3: for sure respond, you know, join the discord server that
Speaker 3: I'm in and ask questions and some will pop up.
Speaker 2: If our.
Speaker 3: Viewers, you know, have questions, then you know will answer them.
Speaker 3: There's a thing, right, you know, there are people out
Speaker 3: there that definitely do this and don't expect anything in
Speaker 3: return other than you know, maybe they will have questions
Speaker 3: about how their thing is going and what support that
Speaker 3: you have in your personal sphere. You know, your experiences
Speaker 3: that are unique to you and one day will become
Speaker 3: your superpower in a way that makes your experiences special.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I guess the last thing would be who is
Speaker 1: it not for?
Speaker 4: Because that's always important to Like, if you're the type
Speaker 4: of person who just wants to work at your job
Speaker 4: until you hit retirement age, you're going to invest money
Speaker 4: the whole time, So you just want to do your job,
Speaker 4: you don't care.
Speaker 1: What it is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and when you're ready to retire, you're retiring. You're
Speaker 4: probably not going to get a lot out of a mastermind.
Speaker 4: And there's nothing wrong with that plan. I'm not trying
Speaker 4: to say that that's a bad plan by any means.
Speaker 4: It's perfectly viable for some people. But if that is
Speaker 4: your plan. You probably won't get a lot out of
Speaker 4: a Mastermind group.
Speaker 2: If you think you're going there to somehow.
Speaker 3: Directly benefit yourself by taking rather than contributing, then it's
Speaker 3: not going to work out. Like going to and advertise
Speaker 3: your thing or you know, help me make mine successful,
Speaker 3: like is not necessarily the right mentality. It's does anyone
Speaker 3: have an idea about what I'm doing? You know, tell
Speaker 3: me why it's wrong. Is a much more direct path
Speaker 3: to success than trying to extract value, so specifically, I think.
Speaker 4: For sure, Yeah, you're gonna give as much as you
Speaker 4: take from the group. And the other thing is it
Speaker 4: takes time, Like this is not a stack overflow thing
Speaker 4: where you post your question, get an answer, and your
Speaker 4: goal away, Like it's going to.
Speaker 1: Take you years to.
Speaker 4: Start seeing the benefits of this, but also years to
Speaker 4: build the personal relationships that are going to be required
Speaker 4: for you to have the deep conversations that actually have
Speaker 4: significant impacts on your your goals.
Speaker 3: I think you said this, like some of those conversations
Speaker 3: it's gonna be really challenging for you. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 3: like you asked the question to get the answer, and
Speaker 3: maybe like why are you asking that question, you know, right,
Speaker 3: really diving into.
Speaker 1: That, Yeah for sure, for sure.
Speaker 4: And I think that's something that's missed in a lot
Speaker 4: of superficial conversations we have, Like someone asked a question
Speaker 4: and you give an answer. But one of the objectives
Speaker 4: of being in the group is to understand what was
Speaker 4: the event that triggered this question? And based on that,
Speaker 4: are you even asking the right question?
Speaker 2: Yeah? For sure.
Speaker 3: And if you're not an expert in that area, then
Speaker 3: you don't necessarily know whether you're asking the right question
Speaker 3: or not. So having a group of other people to
Speaker 3: point that out for you is worth an incredibly.
Speaker 1: Large amount for sure. All right.
Speaker 4: And just some picks, yeah, definitely, all right, bringing on,
Speaker 4: you were touting your pick before we even started recording,
Speaker 4: So I've been waiting for an hour here.
Speaker 3: I mentioned this a long time, so you may you may.
Speaker 3: You may know this one, but I'm gonna bring it
Speaker 3: up again. It's a book called The Formula by Bara Bassi.
Speaker 3: It's the science of success. So where does success play
Speaker 3: in and how do you get there? And it's a
Speaker 3: a huge number of case studies that have been evaluated
Speaker 3: and through scientific study, and we know things like your
Speaker 3: network is super important. So I brought that up that
Speaker 3: you may go to some conferences or get some jobs
Speaker 3: in some circle, and if you want to higher paying
Speaker 3: job that's completely different, well you need to somehow get there.
Speaker 3: So knowing someone in your network to be able to
Speaker 3: help you make that jump is required. Almost statistically speaking,
Speaker 3: we don't make that migration ourselves. And it goes into
Speaker 3: a lot of different areas like the top song that
Speaker 3: shows up on the charts, why is it number one?
Speaker 3: What keeps it in the number one spot? Why is
Speaker 3: the one at the bottom of the chart at the
Speaker 3: bottom of the chart, So a lot of different areas.
Speaker 3: And it really talks about human psychology, how our network matters,
Speaker 3: and I really I think is.
Speaker 2: Really relevant to the mastermind group concept.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure, I would add to that one. Napoleon Hill,
Speaker 4: We mentioned it in the episode here. Napoleon Hills Think
Speaker 4: and Grow Rich definitely a good read for understanding how
Speaker 4: this process works and some case studies of how it
Speaker 4: has impacted other people. Big disclaimer though, this was written
Speaker 4: in the early nineteen hundreds, and he references some scientific
Speaker 4: facts that we now know are not true. So just
Speaker 4: just gloss over that and say Okay, well, that's that's
Speaker 4: what they knew at the time, and we've since learned differently.
Speaker 4: But the process is still true because even though that
Speaker 4: specific example, you know, even though their understanding of the
Speaker 4: laws of physics was wrong, using some of those same
Speaker 4: principles in the book was led to the formation of
Speaker 4: the groups that understood how the laws of physics actually
Speaker 4: are as we understand today.
Speaker 3: So when you say that, I think of this show
Speaker 3: called QI. It's quite interesting as a British comedy fact show,
Speaker 3: and every year they have new facts that are relevant
Speaker 3: to some letters, some topic, and by like the ten season,
Speaker 3: they had done a study about how true the facts
Speaker 3: were at the time that they were released, and then
Speaker 3: every year later, so the facts from ten seasons ago
Speaker 3: were decreasing in truthfulness over time, and it was like
Speaker 3: exponential curve. So the further away from the time we
Speaker 3: said the fact, the more wrong it was likely to be,
Speaker 3: which I found was super interesting.
Speaker 2: So is that book your pick?
Speaker 1: Will No, Actually that was just a on the fly thing.
Speaker 4: My actual pick for this week is an application, an
Speaker 4: app called on X. I've been using it to go
Speaker 4: out into the mountains and track locations and mark waypoints
Speaker 4: and stuff, and the user interface on this app should
Speaker 4: really just be like a reference for everyone who builds
Speaker 4: apps on mobile, because you know, pulling up a map
Speaker 4: and accessing coordinates and tracking your location saving that data,
Speaker 4: and then you can go back to their website and
Speaker 4: log in and all your waypoints and stuff are right there.
Speaker 4: Just the app is so intuitive and easy to use
Speaker 4: that I just thought it was great and worthy of
Speaker 4: a call out.
Speaker 3: Here is that a Blackstone? So like Oscar November Yankee
Speaker 3: X ray or spelled.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, it's a O n X. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a.
Speaker 4: ONX and they have hunt and I think the other
Speaker 4: mode is like ATV or something.
Speaker 1: Like that for for that. But yeah, just super cool.
Speaker 4: If you're ever outdoors, you can download the offline version
Speaker 4: so that whenever you're deep in the mountains or wilderness
Speaker 4: or whatever and you don't have self service, it uses
Speaker 4: satellite GPS to continuously track your location on the map
Speaker 4: so you're not actually getting lost. But it was just
Speaker 4: such a cool app I had to.
Speaker 1: Share it here.
Speaker 2: It sounds like something I should actually have and I don't.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if you ever go hiking or if you're ever
Speaker 4: just out somewhere where you need to navigate, I highly
Speaker 4: recommend it.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm in Switzerland, so I do find myself on
Speaker 3: the mountain right frequently.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, cool, All right, well listen For all of
Speaker 4: the listeners out there, thanks for staying tuned this long.
Speaker 1: I hope that you found this helpful. If you have questions, comments, concerns,
Speaker 1: you can find either Warren or myself on LinkedIn is
Speaker 1: probably the easiest way. I'm on Twitter every once in
Speaker 1: a while, or sorry X every once in a while.
Speaker 4: We have the discord channel. I think there's a public
Speaker 4: form on the discord channel. Or if you Google search
Speaker 4: for more than like two or three minutes, you're probably
Speaker 4: gonna come up with my email address.
Speaker 1: You can email me too, so yeah, hit us up.
Speaker 4: Let us know your thoughts on this, let us know
Speaker 4: questions you had about this, If you have future topics
Speaker 4: you would like to see, bring those up as well,
Speaker 4: or if there's something you want to talk about, we'd
Speaker 4: love to have you as a guest on a show,
Speaker 4: because that's honestly, this is this is my tool for
Speaker 4: navigating the tech space and figuring out what's relevant, what's current,
Speaker 4: what's changing.
Speaker 1: So if you're in.
Speaker 4: If you're involved in something, I'd love to have you
Speaker 4: on the show to hear about it. So yeah, Warren,
Speaker 4: thanks as always for being here, and we'll see everyone
Speaker 4: else next week.
Speaker 1: H