How To Create A Better Work Environment

00:00:00.000 | All right, we're gonna start our first question block

00:00:02.140 | with something we've been excited about for a while now,

00:00:05.400 | a live caller, so I can actually talk to someone

00:00:09.780 | back and forth.

00:00:10.920 | We have video on the live caller too,

00:00:13.020 | so if you're a YouTube listener,

00:00:14.900 | youtube.com/counterpartmedia,

00:00:16.420 | you can actually see both of us on the screen.

00:00:19.080 | Our first live caller is Spiros,

00:00:23.140 | who has questions about lifestyle-centric career planning

00:00:26.700 | and concerns about falling into the second control trap

00:00:30.420 | with his current career that may be going too well,

00:00:34.900 | and because of that, it is steering him,

00:00:37.260 | the pressures of that are perhaps steering him away

00:00:39.140 | from a deeper life.

00:00:40.380 | All right, so let's go to our phone line

00:00:41.720 | and talk with Spiros.

00:00:43.460 | All right, we have our next caller here.

00:00:48.440 | Spiros, thank you for calling into

00:00:50.820 | the Deep Questions podcast.

00:00:52.460 | Now, from what I understand, you actually have a case study

00:00:55.460 | you wanna share with us of some of the principles

00:00:57.740 | I talk about actually put into action.

00:01:00.540 | - Yep, exactly, yeah.

00:01:02.300 | So what I would like to do is I would like to talk about

00:01:04.700 | how I've been applying So Good They Can't Ignore You

00:01:07.500 | since I read it like a long time ago, actually.

00:01:09.900 | But then I feel like I kind of messed up

00:01:12.140 | somewhere along the way, so after I kind of summarize,

00:01:15.340 | I would like us to go into kind of like,

00:01:17.060 | where did I go wrong and where do I go from here?

00:01:20.020 | - Sounds good.

00:01:21.660 | - All right, so I moved to the US from Greece in 2012,

00:01:25.580 | like literally 10 years ago to do a PhD in robotics.

00:01:29.140 | And I read your book a couple of years later, so in 2014.

00:01:32.660 | And I was like, whoa, okay, I see what I'm supposed to do.

00:01:36.460 | So I started applying it first to research,

00:01:38.580 | but then I got the opportunity to participate

00:01:40.620 | in the 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge.

00:01:43.380 | So then I started applying the principles

00:01:45.020 | to robotics software as opposed to just robotics research.

00:01:48.660 | That went pretty well.

00:01:49.740 | I got really into kind of like

00:01:51.620 | the more the software side of robotics.

00:01:53.820 | I decided to take a little bit of absence

00:01:55.740 | to join a robotic startup,

00:01:57.420 | ended up dropping out of the PhD program with a master's,

00:02:00.460 | did really well in that startup.

00:02:01.780 | I was the first software engineer.

00:02:03.340 | I hired a team eventually,

00:02:05.060 | followed the startup to Austin, Texas in 2016,

00:02:09.820 | then moved to San Francisco in 2017

00:02:11.740 | to work for another robotic startup.

00:02:13.460 | Again, did really well, got promoted,

00:02:15.420 | got to travel to Hong Kong and China

00:02:17.100 | for manufacturing purposes.

00:02:18.980 | And now since 2018, I've been working for one of the top

00:02:23.580 | three, perhaps the top self-driving car company

00:02:26.660 | here in San Francisco.

00:02:27.740 | Again, I've been doing really well.

00:02:30.980 | I've gotten very high performance reviews.

00:02:32.780 | I've gotten promoted.

00:02:33.620 | I'm on track to get promoted again.

00:02:35.380 | I'm considered a very reliable, high performer,

00:02:38.820 | all of the good stuff you would expect from somebody

00:02:41.460 | following these principles.

00:02:43.180 | I have tons of options.

00:02:44.740 | I don't mean to like sound,

00:02:47.620 | I don't mean to brag,

00:02:48.460 | but like I get so much recruiter email these days

00:02:50.740 | that it's almost like spam.

00:02:52.060 | So I do have options.

00:02:53.380 | Now, the reason,

00:02:57.340 | now this is where this is turning from a case study

00:02:59.300 | more to a question.

00:03:00.140 | I feel like to put it in terms of your book,

00:03:02.380 | I think I fell for the second control trap.

00:03:05.580 | I think I got too excited about the performance

00:03:08.780 | and the promotions and the compensation

00:03:10.820 | and the recognition that I've kind of become too busy,

00:03:16.340 | I have too many responsibilities, I'm too busy.

00:03:19.060 | My compensation is too good to ignore, if you will.

00:03:22.500 | So that's kind of where I would like to focus

00:03:24.620 | the question part.

00:03:25.740 | - Excellent, excellent.

00:03:26.580 | Well, let me first,

00:03:27.420 | I'm gonna back you up to the beginning of your case study

00:03:30.780 | just for the edification of our audience.

00:03:33.100 | I wanna go back to you as a PhD student,

00:03:36.620 | you read so good, they can't ignore you.

00:03:38.980 | Now you glossed over a little bit,

00:03:40.740 | oh, I put those principles into play

00:03:42.460 | and started becoming very successful in my studies.

00:03:45.940 | Let's go back and try to make that concrete.

00:03:48.140 | So like, can you identify what did you start doing

00:03:52.140 | that let's say other students in your cohort

00:03:54.620 | who weren't as successful

00:03:55.740 | or you, the password yourself weren't doing?

00:03:58.340 | Let's try to do some differential analysis here.

00:04:00.460 | 'Cause I'm curious in this beginning point first

00:04:02.140 | and then we'll get to you now.

00:04:03.860 | - Yeah, yeah, for sure.

00:04:05.300 | So because of your own case study in the book,

00:04:09.180 | you were also a PhD student

00:04:10.500 | and eventually a postdoc, et cetera.

00:04:12.140 | I was like, oh, I'm just gonna do exactly

00:04:13.660 | what Kyle talks about here.

00:04:14.980 | Kyle talks about getting a very fundamental research paper

00:04:18.300 | and kind of like going deep into the research paper,

00:04:20.740 | trying to understand the proofs,

00:04:22.060 | trying to understand the results.

00:04:23.740 | So that's something that I did,

00:04:24.660 | I scheduled some time every week

00:04:26.060 | to go through either fundamental papers in my field.

00:04:28.540 | So I was in formal methods in robotics,

00:04:31.500 | which is like formal verification, formal synthesis.

00:04:33.980 | Anyway.

00:04:34.820 | - Yeah.

00:04:35.940 | Which by the way, I'm happy to geek out with you about that.

00:04:39.220 | We can talk about your improvers

00:04:40.980 | and we would lose all of our audience.

00:04:43.540 | But just let you know,

00:04:44.380 | I'm restraining myself right now.

00:04:46.500 | - I'm tiptoeing around it on purpose.

00:04:48.740 | 'Cause this can be a rabbit hole, yeah.

00:04:50.660 | So that's one thing that I remember very distinctly doing.

00:04:53.740 | Then once I got the opportunity though,

00:04:57.220 | to participate in the DARPA Robotics Challenge,

00:04:59.300 | I was like, okay, I can apply this here as well.

00:05:02.220 | So then it shifted from like reading research papers

00:05:04.940 | as my deliberate practice, let's say,

00:05:07.420 | to learning C++, learning Python,

00:05:11.740 | which are like some fundamental languages

00:05:13.460 | for this kind of thing.

00:05:15.340 | And then something called the robot operating system,

00:05:17.580 | which is like a middleware for robotics applications.

00:05:20.060 | So I knew that these things existed

00:05:22.020 | and I knew some programming of course already,

00:05:23.860 | but I was like, okay,

00:05:25.180 | these are the three fundamental things I need to know

00:05:27.540 | if I wanna write robotics software

00:05:29.260 | and like get the robot to actually do something.

00:05:31.420 | By the way, we got to work,

00:05:32.660 | like my team for the DARPA Robotics Challenge

00:05:34.780 | got to work with those like Atlas humanoid robots

00:05:37.220 | from Boston Dynamics.

00:05:38.860 | So yeah, pretty crazy platform to be working on.

00:05:43.380 | - Also terrifying, but yeah, go on.

00:05:45.620 | - Yeah.

00:05:46.460 | And so that's another way I applied that.

00:05:47.860 | So like I was, for example,

00:05:49.500 | I remember very distinctly scheduling blocks

00:05:52.180 | at the very beginning of my day,

00:05:53.420 | like before I even went into the grad student cubicles

00:05:57.940 | or whatever, like I would, let's say,

00:05:59.740 | go to a coffee shop or something like that.

00:06:01.500 | And I would spend like, let's say two hours

00:06:03.180 | just going through tutorials, writing code,

00:06:05.660 | just deliberate practice.

00:06:09.260 | - Okay, so just to clarify for the audience,

00:06:12.380 | the first thing you did was,

00:06:13.940 | it's hard to understand these fundamental papers.

00:06:16.700 | Having that knowledge will be useful.

00:06:18.820 | Quick follow-up here, because I get this question a lot.

00:06:21.460 | How did you actually structure the reading of hard papers

00:06:24.300 | without a formal forcing function?

00:06:27.020 | Like I need this for a project I'm working on.

00:06:29.380 | You just had a system, a quota?

00:06:31.540 | How did you do that?

00:06:32.380 | - So yeah, so the way I motivated myself was that,

00:06:36.300 | hey, I'm seeing that I'm having a hard time

00:06:39.420 | with like the very formal aspect of writing.

00:06:41.700 | So I was able to write research papers,

00:06:43.860 | but they were kind of like,

00:06:45.420 | they weren't going very deep on the math,

00:06:47.700 | on the proof side of things.

00:06:49.180 | So I was like, okay, I'm gonna motivate myself

00:06:51.060 | by saying that by understanding the fundamental papers

00:06:53.380 | and how these proofs work,

00:06:54.500 | I will be able to do that myself eventually.

00:06:57.700 | Then in terms of like how I structured that,

00:06:59.820 | I think it was something like,

00:07:01.780 | kick off a note in Evernote,

00:07:03.500 | pick one of these papers

00:07:05.340 | and then schedule time within the week.

00:07:07.460 | You know, as a grad student,

00:07:08.780 | I kind of like reminisce about the flexibility

00:07:12.900 | I had in my schedule as a grad student.

00:07:15.620 | - I reminisce about that.

00:07:17.300 | Yeah, once a month, at least once a month,

00:07:19.740 | I have a moment where I just insanely nostalgic for that.

00:07:22.860 | But anyways, go on.

00:07:23.860 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:07:24.700 | And so I was, if I recall correctly,

00:07:26.660 | this was like eight years ago at this point,

00:07:28.340 | I was scheduling time like on a weekly basis

00:07:32.060 | to make sure I get in at least a couple of hours.

00:07:34.340 | So it's kind of like go over the paper.

00:07:36.060 | And then the other thing I was doing,

00:07:37.100 | which I think you also mentioned in the book is,

00:07:39.540 | when I was reading like papers around what I was writing,

00:07:42.900 | around like papers I wanted to reference

00:07:44.860 | and I wanted to cite in my own paper,

00:07:47.220 | I wouldn't just like skim through them or read them

00:07:49.340 | and then forget about them on a pile.

00:07:50.900 | I would actually take notes.

00:07:52.420 | Like I would take digital,

00:07:54.420 | I would take notes on the paper and digital notes

00:07:57.420 | and I would kind of sketch out

00:07:58.540 | what this paper is trying to do

00:07:59.860 | and how it proves the results.

00:08:04.380 | - Yeah, right.

00:08:05.700 | Well, okay, so just to summarize that

00:08:06.980 | before we jump now to the current moment,

00:08:08.700 | just to summarize that for the listener,

00:08:11.300 | what Spiros is doing here,

00:08:12.380 | which is straight out of "So Good They Can't Ignore You"

00:08:15.300 | is identifying the thing that is actually valuable

00:08:19.020 | in the field where you are,

00:08:20.180 | not what you want that answer to be,

00:08:22.220 | not what matches how you want your day to go,

00:08:24.580 | but what is actually valuable.

00:08:25.980 | So first off for him,

00:08:28.500 | that was understanding how to do

00:08:30.100 | this more fundamental theoretical work.

00:08:32.340 | And then later on, okay,

00:08:33.860 | understanding how to use

00:08:34.980 | all the different programming language tools

00:08:36.820 | that are relevant to the DARPA Robotics Challenge

00:08:39.460 | so I can be as useful as possible.

00:08:41.340 | And in both cases, what you did, which I think is right,

00:08:43.660 | is said, okay, that's the reality of what matters.

00:08:46.420 | What do I actually have to do to learn that?

00:08:47.940 | Oh, it's hard.

00:08:48.780 | I have to read these hard papers

00:08:50.100 | and I'm in the same place.

00:08:51.900 | Theoretical computer science is the same

00:08:53.780 | as early in your grad student career.

00:08:55.860 | Understanding papers is how you advance.

00:08:58.740 | Understanding papers is incredibly hard.

00:09:01.100 | And those two things are true at the same time.

00:09:02.980 | And it was a big differentiating factor

00:09:04.820 | when I was coming up,

00:09:05.780 | those who would wrangle papers

00:09:07.420 | and those who would just look for what's easy.

00:09:09.060 | So I think that's a great example

00:09:11.820 | of the principles in action.

00:09:14.140 | And it worked, okay.

00:09:15.300 | So it worked too well.

00:09:16.220 | So now we jump ahead.

00:09:17.660 | You're suffering from the second control trap.

00:09:20.700 | So for people who haven't read that book,

00:09:23.260 | the first control trap is trying to get

00:09:25.420 | a lot of autonomy in your career

00:09:26.780 | before you built up the skills to actually justify it.

00:09:29.620 | That's where you are 23 and you quit

00:09:31.980 | to start your nonprofit that's gonna change the world,

00:09:34.180 | but you don't know what you're doing.

00:09:35.900 | The second control trap is when you get enough leverage

00:09:39.740 | and skills and power in the marketplace

00:09:42.100 | to actually have control of your career

00:09:43.660 | is exactly when all of the pressure in the marketplace

00:09:45.940 | is gonna be to stay, to move up to the next level,

00:09:49.340 | to take the higher salary.

00:09:50.460 | So it's when you're most able to be autonomous

00:09:52.780 | is when it's hardest.

00:09:53.740 | And that's what you're hitting now.

00:09:54.940 | So why don't you explain to us a little bit more,

00:09:57.180 | what is your job like now?

00:09:59.060 | What is your day-to-day like now?

00:10:01.020 | Is it managerial?

00:10:02.100 | Is it technical?

00:10:02.940 | Let's get a sense of where you are.

00:10:04.660 | - Yeah, so my title is Staff Software Engineer.

00:10:08.540 | So it sounds like I'm a software engineer,

00:10:10.420 | like I'm writing code every day,

00:10:11.460 | but I'm not actually writing code every day

00:10:13.060 | because at a certain level in the individual contributor,

00:10:16.580 | like a real ladder, as we call it,

00:10:18.020 | you kind of like fork into different archetypes.

00:10:20.260 | So there is the software engineer archetype,

00:10:22.660 | and this is the person that like writes really good code.

00:10:25.580 | There is the domain expert archetype.

00:10:27.340 | This is the person who has like three PhDs

00:10:29.540 | in convex optimization or machine learning or whatever.

00:10:32.380 | So domain expert.

00:10:33.860 | And then there is the archetype

00:10:34.860 | that I think I better fit into,

00:10:36.100 | which is kind of like high level tech lead,

00:10:38.740 | is what we call it.

00:10:40.220 | And so this is the person who is able to kind of

00:10:42.620 | understand how the system works end to end

00:10:45.340 | and kind of coordinate this team with this other team

00:10:48.420 | and this other person over here

00:10:49.820 | and get this other subsystem to do the right thing.

00:10:53.300 | And then you get the entire project

00:10:55.220 | or the entire effort to do the right thing

00:10:57.140 | just by understanding the system end to end

00:10:59.620 | and leading the integration effort.

00:11:01.460 | So to put it more concretely,

00:11:03.260 | I do everything from analyzing kind of like metrics

00:11:07.980 | to see kind of like where we have gaps,

00:11:11.300 | writing project proposals, writing design documents.

00:11:14.780 | And then once we kind of move into the execution

00:11:17.140 | part of the project,

00:11:18.020 | I'm usually maybe I'm running some meetings or not,

00:11:20.860 | depending on whether we have

00:11:21.820 | a program manager support or not.

00:11:24.860 | I'm coordinating all of these different individuals,

00:11:27.340 | software engineers, systems engineers, test engineers,

00:11:30.980 | sometimes operations teams that are like

00:11:32.980 | handling the self-driving cars on the road.

00:11:35.820 | - So what's a day look like?

00:11:36.980 | Is it how much of it is Slack and email?

00:11:39.900 | How much of it is-

00:11:41.020 | - That's exactly what I do.

00:11:43.020 | You hit the nail on the head.

00:11:45.020 | It's very much hyperactive, hive mind mode all the way.

00:11:50.020 | I have to fight really hard just to block out

00:11:52.580 | like two hours at the beginning of my day.

00:11:54.980 | And maybe if I'm lucky, I will actually get to actually

00:11:58.140 | do the work in those two hours.

00:12:00.700 | Like today I'm on call, for example.

00:12:02.540 | So like for all I know, once my on-call shift starts,

00:12:06.980 | I will be completely derailed by like an issue coming in

00:12:11.100 | on pager duty.

00:12:13.140 | There is a lot of activity on Slack.

00:12:15.260 | I've done all sorts of really tips and tricks,

00:12:18.340 | applying some of the stuff from your books

00:12:20.340 | and your podcast to minimize that.

00:12:22.860 | I only check email like, I try to check only once a day.

00:12:27.620 | I once experimented with going a week

00:12:30.740 | without checking work email and nothing terribly happened.

00:12:33.740 | So I'm very much inclined to keep doing that again, yeah.

00:12:36.900 | But like email is okay.

00:12:39.300 | Slack is where most of the hyperactive,

00:12:41.020 | hyperactive mind is kind of like operating.

00:12:43.180 | There are lots of meetings.

00:12:45.620 | It got much worse, you know, during the lockdown.

00:12:47.860 | So I'm sure others are saying the same.

00:12:49.980 | Like sometimes I feel like,

00:12:52.700 | when am I supposed to like use the restroom

00:12:54.780 | and like make coffee?

00:12:55.820 | Like there is no time in between these meetings.

00:12:57.820 | - Yeah, which is a first.

00:12:58.660 | - So there is a lot of that.

00:12:59.540 | Yeah, exactly.

00:13:00.380 | There is a lot of that.

00:13:01.340 | One of the things I talk to with my manager the most often

00:13:05.780 | is like, hey, we need to figure out a way for me.

00:13:08.860 | I need to carve out time to do proactive work

00:13:12.140 | as opposed to waiting for a problem to arise

00:13:14.220 | and then doing reactive work and then fixing the problem.

00:13:17.060 | Like the reactive work,

00:13:19.580 | part of the problem is that reactive work

00:13:21.700 | is actually gets recognized a lot.

00:13:23.780 | So there is like,

00:13:24.620 | it's really hard to motivate proactive work

00:13:27.060 | when there is tons of reactive work to do

00:13:28.860 | and it gets recognized too.

00:13:30.700 | So that's one challenge.

00:13:31.620 | - But why do you care about it being recognized?

00:13:33.820 | - Ooh, wow.

00:13:38.460 | I was not expecting that question.

00:13:40.220 | When I say recognized, I mean, okay,

00:13:43.300 | there is a recognition in terms of like,

00:13:45.660 | like performance reviews and stuff,

00:13:46.860 | but there is also the like doing what the company,

00:13:49.980 | the business thinks is most valuable.

00:13:53.620 | Right now, this quarter, this month, this year, whatever.

00:13:58.620 | And it's often the case that what,

00:14:01.380 | the business priorities are to deal

00:14:03.180 | with the reactive problems.

00:14:05.100 | They are not to go and do proactive work.

00:14:07.620 | - Yeah.

00:14:08.460 | All right, well, I'm gonna give,

00:14:09.900 | I'm gonna give a two-part answer here

00:14:11.900 | and I'm gonna be terse

00:14:13.420 | because the second part of this answer

00:14:14.780 | is something that's probably gonna take you weeks

00:14:16.580 | of actual thinking to do right.

00:14:17.940 | So you'll have to check back in.

00:14:19.340 | I'm gonna give you a short-term,

00:14:21.100 | a short-term thing to try

00:14:22.180 | and a long-term thing to consider.

00:14:24.020 | The short-term thing to try is,

00:14:25.780 | I think this might be a good setup

00:14:27.780 | for a deep to shallow work ratio conversation

00:14:31.580 | with your manager.

00:14:32.660 | So I talked about this some in deep work,

00:14:34.620 | but then got a lot of feedback from people

00:14:36.980 | after that book came out

00:14:38.580 | about this particular strategy working well.

00:14:40.660 | So it's pretty well road tested.

00:14:42.380 | And it's where you have a conversation

00:14:44.260 | like the type you're already having with your manager,

00:14:46.380 | but it's a little more quantitative, right?

00:14:47.980 | You say, okay, this is what deep work is.

00:14:50.780 | This is what like reactive work is.

00:14:52.820 | You're in a tech company in San Francisco.

00:14:54.580 | So they probably know the term already.

00:14:56.980 | And you say, what ratio of this sort of reactive,

00:15:00.860 | shallow to deep proactive do you think

00:15:03.300 | is optimal for my position?

00:15:05.220 | Like what ratio of those two is going to produce

00:15:08.340 | the most value net for the organization?

00:15:11.420 | So we got to get a number on it.

00:15:13.100 | And when you have to get quantitative about it,

00:15:15.940 | they're not gonna come back with the answer.

00:15:17.820 | I want you to do a hundred percent reactive shallow, right?

00:15:21.420 | Because you have this other value,

00:15:23.380 | you have this training, you can produce new things.

00:15:26.420 | So when you get a number that they agree to,

00:15:28.860 | this often leads to the dissolving of ossification

00:15:33.020 | in business culture.

00:15:33.860 | So it lets loose a lot of innovations.

00:15:36.060 | They might say, okay, maybe it should be 50/50.

00:15:38.460 | So what we're gonna do is,

00:15:40.380 | mornings now are for you to do proactive work.

00:15:42.820 | No calls start till,

00:15:44.140 | you're not on call till the afternoon.

00:15:45.300 | We tell the whole team, don't expect responses.

00:15:47.420 | That's just an example.

00:15:48.300 | I don't know your exact situation.

00:15:49.500 | It might be Tuesdays and Fridays.

00:15:52.220 | You work from not at the office

00:15:54.540 | and maybe from somewhere else

00:15:56.300 | and you're just doing proactive.

00:15:57.700 | The quantitative nature of that really makes a difference.

00:16:01.380 | And the positive orientation makes a difference.

00:16:03.660 | So it's you coming to your manager saying,

00:16:06.460 | how do I produce more for the company?

00:16:09.180 | Not you coming to the manager and saying,

00:16:11.460 | I'm fed up with you slacking me all the time.

00:16:13.820 | You know, you're terrible.

00:16:15.020 | The latter conversation doesn't go well.

00:16:16.900 | The former conversation I have report

00:16:18.660 | after report of that working.

00:16:20.380 | This though is a short-term solution.

00:16:21.820 | Try that, see how it helps.

00:16:23.700 | And that might be it.

00:16:25.420 | My long-term solution,

00:16:26.540 | I'm gonna ask that you,

00:16:28.180 | you probably are at a good point.

00:16:29.460 | And let me actually ask you,

00:16:30.300 | how old are you if you don't mind sharing?

00:16:32.060 | - Yeah, I'm 34.

00:16:33.860 | - Okay, so you're in this sort of heart

00:16:35.780 | of the millennial generation, approaching middle age.

00:16:38.100 | It's a perfect time to start thinking

00:16:41.220 | through these questions of, okay, let me step back.

00:16:43.260 | How are things going in my life?

00:16:45.740 | What reconfigurations are looming on the horizon?

00:16:48.820 | It's a good time to go through a serious lifestyle centric

00:16:52.340 | career planning exercise where you really look out.

00:16:55.340 | I would look at 40 and 50 as age targets.

00:16:58.340 | And like we talk about on the show,

00:17:00.340 | have this really clear vision of all aspects of your life

00:17:04.460 | in an ideal world at that point.

00:17:05.900 | Not just work, but where you live,

00:17:07.780 | what you're doing with your time,

00:17:09.380 | who you're around, see it, smell it,

00:17:11.700 | taste it, we like to say.

00:17:13.380 | Get that vision for 40, get that vision for 50.

00:17:17.100 | And then look backwards and say, how do I get there?

00:17:20.020 | And in answering that question,

00:17:22.460 | you may end up saying, okay,

00:17:23.900 | my current career trajectory, that's fine.

00:17:25.660 | I just have to do this deep to shallow work ratio,

00:17:27.300 | maybe do a lateral move at some point into more,

00:17:30.140 | you could maybe figure it out.

00:17:32.140 | Or you might end up with an answer.

00:17:33.340 | You say, I have a lot of skills.

00:17:35.700 | I am an ML robotics expert engineer.

00:17:38.580 | Okay, why don't I take that out for a spin?

00:17:40.540 | And I can actually maybe do something drastically different.

00:17:42.860 | I'm on contract.

00:17:43.860 | I work six months out of the year.

00:17:46.220 | I live on Vancouver Island.

00:17:48.180 | I mean, you have a lot of flexibility.

00:17:51.700 | So short term, I would do that ratio conversation.

00:17:54.980 | Long term, I would say,

00:17:55.980 | let's go through that exercise in detail.

00:17:58.980 | And just see where it leads you.

00:18:01.380 | And don't be afraid if it leads you to,

00:18:03.300 | I'm more or less close, I see to make some tweaks,

00:18:06.300 | or if it leads you to,

00:18:07.620 | I'm about to buy a ranch outside of Austin.

00:18:11.060 | It could lead you in a lot of different directions

00:18:12.900 | to be open to all of that.

00:18:14.220 | How does those as a one-two punch,

00:18:16.140 | how does that sound as a potential way forward?

00:18:18.460 | - I'm glad the conversation went there

00:18:20.100 | 'cause I kind of anticipated this

00:18:21.540 | and I've already done the first draft

00:18:24.060 | of what you just described.

00:18:25.180 | - All right, tell us.

00:18:26.300 | - It could come up.

00:18:28.420 | - Should I actually go into it?

00:18:30.340 | - Yeah, okay, give us the brief summary

00:18:33.100 | of the ideal lifestyle picture you're playing with.

00:18:35.380 | - So the brief summary is that,

00:18:37.380 | so I'm originally from Greece, right?

00:18:38.900 | So I wanna get to a point where

00:18:41.380 | I can spend more or less every summer in Greece.

00:18:44.540 | Working, not working, doesn't really matter.

00:18:46.740 | Spend about six months out of the year in the US

00:18:50.860 | and then spend another quarter

00:18:52.660 | just working from somewhere else.

00:18:54.660 | Other things I wanna be doing,

00:18:57.500 | I wanna be able to be near the water.

00:18:58.900 | I love swimming, I love water sports and whatnot,

00:19:01.580 | so I wanna be able to do that.

00:19:03.780 | I want to start writing.

00:19:06.180 | I wrote a few blog posts and articles back in grad school

00:19:09.300 | and I really enjoyed that,

00:19:11.380 | but I gave that up later on to focus on my career.

00:19:13.980 | So I wanna get back into writing,

00:19:17.020 | maybe eventually actually write a book,

00:19:18.820 | we'll see about that.

00:19:19.860 | I want to, so I'm currently single,

00:19:24.340 | so eventually I wanna be able to meet somebody.

00:19:26.260 | Now I feel like I'm so busy or so exhausted

00:19:28.140 | that I don't even make enough time in my schedule

00:19:30.500 | for dating, so I definitely wanna,

00:19:32.220 | the connection back with the suffering,

00:19:35.180 | essentially, to put it in deep life terms.

00:19:37.300 | Other things in there, funny you mentioned Austin.

00:19:40.300 | It's actually Austin is on that roadmap

00:19:42.100 | because I figured that if I were to move to Austin,

00:19:45.860 | which is central time, but I work Pacific time hours,

00:19:50.340 | then I get two extra hours in the morning

00:19:52.820 | when I still have energy and willpower

00:19:54.620 | to do things like deep work, to do things like writing

00:19:57.780 | before I engage with the hyperactive hive mind.

00:20:00.580 | So Austin is actually on the trajectory, potentially.

00:20:04.700 | - Well, okay.

00:20:05.540 | I mean, it sounds like to me,

00:20:08.060 | you're heading down the path

00:20:10.780 | towards changing your career situation.

00:20:12.740 | If that lifestyle sounds like either a greatly reconfigured

00:20:18.820 | job at your current employer

00:20:20.620 | or a different setup altogether

00:20:23.540 | that's maybe more freelancer contractor based,

00:20:25.700 | is that a scary thought for you

00:20:27.060 | or is that where you've led yourself already?

00:20:29.900 | - Exactly, you're spot on again.

00:20:31.820 | What is scary is I don't wanna,

00:20:33.540 | in my attempt to escape the second control trap,

00:20:36.500 | I don't want to accidentally veer all the way

00:20:39.020 | to the first control trap 'cause it'd be easy to say,

00:20:42.220 | screw all this, I have enough money in the bank

00:20:44.820 | to last me X many years, I'm just gonna quit.

00:20:47.540 | I'm just gonna say, screw Silicon Valley,

00:20:49.380 | I'm gonna go to Mexico and work on my book or whatever.

00:20:53.100 | But then I would be probably falling

00:20:54.580 | for the first control trap if I go so extreme.

00:20:57.100 | So the scary challenge is bridging the gap

00:21:00.460 | between where I am right now

00:21:02.860 | and kind of this vision for when I'm 40 or when I'm 50.

00:21:06.220 | - Yeah, well, okay, this is great.

00:21:07.660 | So in the first answer, I gotta give some generic advice

00:21:10.980 | about deep to shallow ratios as a first step

00:21:13.340 | and lifestyle-centered career planning.

00:21:14.700 | Now we get an example of lifestyle-centered career planning.

00:21:17.140 | So I can give you a piece of advanced advice

00:21:20.100 | that goes to lifestyle-centered career planning

00:21:22.460 | and implementation and you're spot on

00:21:25.580 | about you don't wanna fall back into the first control trap.

00:21:28.500 | You're not gonna be happy if you say,

00:21:29.980 | I'm gonna go to rent a house in Cabo

00:21:32.820 | and just work on my book.

00:21:33.900 | That'll last a month before you start to get antsy.

00:21:37.380 | So what I'm always looking for in this situation

00:21:40.540 | is concrete exemplars.

00:21:42.380 | I'll often talk about the rule of three.

00:21:44.460 | So you wanna find a real person who has your background,

00:21:49.340 | who has a professional setup that resonates.

00:21:52.180 | Hey, that works.

00:21:53.060 | Okay, here's how they did it.

00:21:54.660 | Oh, they're a contractor that works

00:21:57.540 | on this type of ML project or whatever.

00:22:00.540 | Like it's concrete.

00:22:01.980 | This is someone and it's a job that they do.

00:22:05.220 | It's a six month a year job.

00:22:06.500 | It's a flexible enough job that they take summers off.

00:22:08.660 | They go up to New England in the summer.

00:22:09.980 | So real people doing with your skillset,

00:22:12.500 | what you wanna do.

00:22:13.580 | Rule of three is if you wanna be really secure,

00:22:15.340 | find three different people doing something like that.

00:22:17.500 | So now you know it's not a one-off,

00:22:18.800 | it's actually a viable path,

00:22:20.580 | but have a specific target

00:22:23.980 | that you're working backwards from.

00:22:25.540 | This guy, her and him did this setup

00:22:29.220 | with my type of skillset.

00:22:30.460 | How do I move there?

00:22:31.900 | I mean, I will say I'm doing that

00:22:32.980 | in some of my own lifestyle centric

00:22:34.700 | midlife career planning I've been doing.

00:22:36.860 | I don't share a lot of details

00:22:38.060 | about exactly what I'm thinking about

00:22:40.460 | because there's a lot of stakeholders involved,

00:22:42.300 | but this has been my approach

00:22:44.340 | is what I'm seeking is examples.

00:22:47.500 | I am seeking people with similar backgrounds

00:22:50.860 | who have already figured out a configuration

00:22:52.860 | that seems to work.

00:22:54.060 | That's how I think you can avoid the first career trap.

00:22:55.900 | I think you're there right now, the seeking stage.

00:22:59.060 | Go seek out these examples, meet the people.

00:23:01.580 | Also, by the way, say, can I call you?

00:23:03.220 | Can I take you out for coffee?

00:23:04.780 | If they're local, people are happy to share details

00:23:07.940 | of their experience and get concrete with them.

00:23:09.740 | How did you make this change?

00:23:10.820 | What are the hard parts?

00:23:11.840 | What advice do you have?

00:23:13.060 | I don't know if you ever talked, you probably didn't,

00:23:16.460 | but in that top performer course I did with Scott Young,

00:23:19.900 | we talked a lot about this,

00:23:20.980 | this journalistic approach to career development

00:23:23.020 | where it's like--

00:23:23.860 | - I know of that course, but I haven't taken it.

00:23:26.060 | - We have students actually go through this.

00:23:27.740 | It's like you're writing an article

00:23:30.160 | on how this specific type of job transition works.

00:23:32.740 | You're out there doing research,

00:23:33.980 | gathering real information, always concrete,

00:23:37.100 | always like this is something

00:23:38.260 | that people are actually doing.

00:23:40.580 | And I think you are ready to start looking

00:23:42.100 | for those exemplars,

00:23:42.980 | which is also an exciting part of the process

00:23:44.660 | because you get all the aspiration

00:23:46.460 | without actually having to yet do anything that's scary.

00:23:49.260 | So, good for you.

00:23:50.180 | I think you're in the fun part.

00:23:51.940 | But I would, no reason why you can't start

00:23:54.100 | just trying to find people right now

00:23:55.700 | who come out of your background,

00:23:57.080 | who have a setup where they work eight months a year,

00:23:59.980 | they work six months a year, they're location independent.

00:24:02.220 | I'm sure they're out there in your field.

00:24:04.540 | There may be an academic affiliation,

00:24:06.220 | there may be a nonprofit affiliation,

00:24:08.180 | maybe they're a fellow at the OpenAI, whatever.

00:24:10.780 | And there's so many options out there for your field.

00:24:13.240 | I think you're ready to start looking for concrete examples.

00:24:16.800 | - This makes a lot of sense and really resonates.

00:24:19.320 | Yeah, you've mentioned this before,

00:24:21.420 | but I never pieced it together.

00:24:22.900 | You're right, yeah, that's what I need to do.

00:24:24.600 | - Excellent.

00:24:25.440 | Well, Spiros, keep me posted.

00:24:26.660 | I wanna know what you end up doing

00:24:28.680 | and maybe we'll follow up

00:24:29.760 | and we'll share that with the audience.

00:24:30.740 | But in the meantime, thanks for the case study.

00:24:33.140 | Thanks for the questions

00:24:33.980 | and also an excuse for me

00:24:35.280 | to go through a lot of different advice.

00:24:37.180 | So I find that useful as well.

00:24:38.900 | - Yeah.

00:24:39.740 | - All right, so good luck for you.

00:24:40.560 | Thanks very much.

00:24:41.400 | - Thank you, Kyle and Jesse.

00:24:42.240 | Bye.

00:24:43.540 | (upbeat music)

00:24:46.120 | (upbeat music)

00:24:48.700 | (upbeat music)

00:24:51.280 | (upbeat music)

00:24:53.860 | (upbeat music)

How To Create A Better Work Environment

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