Life Lessons

After 20+ years in the technology industry, I will be going back to school in Mar 2023 for a yearlong educational sabbatical. 2022 was a roller coaster ride. I felt hanging by a cliff at many junctures (bear with me, had to write a sentence to justify the cover picture :)). The year closed on a contemplative note wherein I decided to do some extensive travel. The extended time off allowed me to ponder on some key life lessons. Some newfound, some older ones. These have served as my guideposts, some for many years. Thought I did pass it along to a broader audience and see if it helps affirm anyone else thinking along these lines.

1. Activities can be more powerful than goals: I have always been goal driven in my life. In fact the places I worked in were fiercely goal driven. It somewhere percolates to your lifestyle as well. The latter I questioned heavily in the last year. I have increasingly felt that following a few activities without necessarily having an end to them can also be quite powerful. It enables you to go into 'flow ' and produce more than what you might have initially set out to. For example, setting a goal to write a book chapter in a week's time vs just writing for the love of it are two approaches which can theoretically give the same end result. But the latter can be more satisfying and has the potential to surprise you. It is more selfless when you are doing something just because you love doing it, not attaching an end gain/goal out of it. Don't get me wrong. Goals have their space and meaning in life. But I think it is important to distinguish which actions you take justify being part of a goal vs activity. Personally I am not giving up my goal-driven outlook entirely, but am making a lot of space for becoming more activity driven. And it has been a liberating experience.?
2. Range is valuable, especially early in one's career, more than depth: I have always valued range more than depth. Not that I don't respect depth. But the choice on when and to how long one goes deep vs broad is a dilemma almost everyone faces in their life. Prior to joining Amazon I had spent over a decade specializing in computer graphics. Have a modest number of publications and patents to my name (google scholar me if you don’t believe it!). About 10 years ago, I would not have even dreamt of doing anything but computer graphics for my professional career. But things changed once I joined Amazon. I went to work in domains like Data Mining/ML/Speech/AI/Search Analytics. These had not much to do with computer graphics. Yet I could pick these up and carve out a name for myself in what I accomplished therein. It all started with a piece of advice from Eric D. 2013. While I was exploring internal job options, he said ”You have reasonable expertise in graphics/embedded Systems. You can come back to it anytime. If you intend on a long term career at Amazon, why don’t you explore other areas we do business in. We believe in fungibility so I don’t think it will be a stretch for you to pick up, learn and succeed in something new. It will help you broaden your horizon.”. That advice stuck with me for long. It somehow became a cornerstone to many of my future career decisions. One of my favorite books on this topic has been “Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World ” by David Epstein. The key thesis of the book is don’t rush to specialize. Take time to find your 'match quality' - degree of fit between the work you do and who you are (abilities and interests wise). In essence don’t decide on what you should be before first figuring out who you are. And you don't need to necessarily time bound it. The world around you on the contrary forces you towards hyper-specialization from very early on. Self-help literature is ripe with stories and arguments on how one must start early, focus intensely, and rack up as many hours of deliberate practice as possible. All the 10,000 hour rule, how Tiger Woods or the Williams’ sisters became successful, Nobel laureates, corporate success stories selectively focus on highlighting the value of early specialization.? Yet there are plenty of counter examples of athletes, musicians, scientists, artists and inventors who are actually generalists, not specialists. Very few highlight those. For example Van Gogh changed multiple careers (pastor, teacher, etc.) before taking up painting. Or that Roger Federer dabbled in a range of sports in his teenage and didn’t start focusing on tennis until his late teens (when it is considered too late for a career in tennis). After specializing in computer graphics in the early part of my career, I took up sampling much later in my life. And I am not done yet!
3. Don't be afraid to take up or do something unfamiliar: Sometimes feeling stupid is good. It propels you to learn new stuff. When I started with the Amazon Catalog team in 2013, I was moving into complete unfamiliar territory (Data Mining/ML/Operations). As part of interviewing with the team, I met up with the then VP, Andrew Hamel . He owned the parent organization called Search and Discovery.? I still remember my conversation with him. He had an org of about 500 people then. When I read about what the team did, it felt like a job that won't require more than 50 people. I could not comprehend why it needed 500 people. And I asked him right away. He smiled and replied "Well you should come and join us then to learn why it requires 500 people". I took him up on the challenge and realised that there is so much that I didn’t know about. Running search and discovery on Amazon Catalog was a fascinating and deep world.?I learnt quite a lot and ended up making some meaningful contributions to the Amazon Catalog space along the way. That decision to move out of computer graphics and take on something unfamiliar left an indelible mark on me. Always ask yourself if you are learning something new or just chasing a never ending career ladder.
4. Good artists don't starve: That is also the title of a book you can purchase on Amazon! It simply means that big career changes, like going from directing a software team to being a part of a film production crew, can be done, if planned well. One needn't do a kamikaze style maneuver, wherein one fine day waking up and saying that I am going to follow my dreams starting tomorrow, especially without a long term plan. Money is important. Work on creating the right capital and path to do major career moves. I will write a separate article on this later. For now the aforementioned book is a good read, if you are contemplating a big career move.
5. Life is short, not just yours: This might sound cliched but let me still write. Look around you and make a list of folks you care and value for. Try spending more time with them now. Don't procrastinate. Work towards fulfilling their and your bucket list items. One can always take work sabbaticals of 3-6 months. Work and career can wait. Life happens. Be part of it. If you are a new parent, don't rush to work, take time to cherish those memories with the kid for as long as you feel is the right time. Spend more time with your parents, siblings (you are fond of), friends or whoever else you care for. My mom was suddenly detected with fourth stage cancer and I lost her within 20 months at 67 years of age. Had I known this coming, many of my life/career decisions would have been different. There are many things I regret - top on the list is not spending more time with my parents. One of my good friends recently became an empty nester. They were a tech executive who feels that they really missed out on their kids' childhood and growing years and could have taken more time to spend with them. I have countless more examples I can write on. But the point is quite made I think :)

There are a few more I wanted to write on but for now the above made the cut in my top 5. If time permits and interest prevails will come back with more. Thanks for reading through!