Make it happen, don’t just dream it

Post previously featured on my old blog, posted on 02/07/2016.

A month ago I started my 2016 challenges. One of these is reading at least one book not computer science related each month. This choice has been very important for me, for my relationships and my career. Last month I had the pleasure to read It’s not how good you are, it’s how good you want to be by Paul Arden.

I don’t completely agree with everything written in the book, but I do agree with some parts of it. The book inspired me a lot, and especially helped me to better define my own vision of what matters in life about who you are, what you want to be, and how you want to be.

First of all, I want to say that I totally agree with the idea of why we strive for excellence when excellence is not required and mediocrity is more than enough.

It doesn’t mean you don’t have to make or be your best. It simply means sometimes your best is not perfect, which it’s absolutely fine. Or if it is, and it’s not needed, maybe you can delegate the task to someone else giving them a chance to improve themselves and gain experience.

Don’t get wrong, at work for example, I always try to get the best people on board, but sometimes the best people aren’t the excellent one. If I need to hire a developer for something which I define an easy job, I won’t certainly focus only on technical skills, neither on personality for example. I rather hire someone smart, passionate and helping them to realise their dream. Because when you have a dream, and you believe in it, everyone around you will conspire to help you achieve it. I am not sure I am right, but I believe so.

Anyway, you should always be able to know what are you capable of, but at the same time you need to aim beyond that. Try to do the things you’re incapable of. Nothing is impossible and you should always try to make what you wish for to be reality.

Don’t try to have people around you telling you how good you are, or how good your work is. Trust me, I’ve been there not a long time ago. It’s seriously not worth it. You’re going to spend your days waiting for a bit of praise which clearly won’t change your life or make it better. You must seek for criticism instead. Work on the criticisms and make it better. You can always say fuckity bye if you think the critics are wrong, but try to not do it too often.

Another important thing, especially for people who work in creative tech agency like me, it’s about winning awards. I heard many people around me saying I WANT TO WIN AWARDS. Almost everybody likes to win awards. As Peterson said, awards create glamour and glamour creates income. But we should take this prudently. Awards are unconsciously (or maybe not) judged in committee by consensus of what is known, what is fashion. But originality can’t be fashion, because originality itself means something which it hasn’t yet had the approval of the committee or more in general of people. Charles Ives said, AWARDS ARE MERELY BADGES OF MEDIOCRITY. I thinks it’s a very extreme, but it give you something to think about. Again, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that YOU MUST NOT WIN AWARDS you must actually if you to want good money, I am just saying DO NOT TRY, JUST WIN THEM BECAUSE.

The last thing I want to say in this post is that in life, or more precisely at work, making mistakes is normal and quite common. Anyway, the problem isn’t making mistakes, the problem is not taking responsibilities for them.

Blame no one but yourself and accept total responsibility for what happens where you were involved. There are no excuses. Excuses are for kids.

Really, don’t look for excuses.