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Interview with Kalid Azad (part 1 of 3)

Summary

In this first part of a three-part interview, host Jonathan Cottrell speaks with Kalid Azad, the creator of BetterExplained.com, celebrating over 10 years of the site. The conversation begins with a discussion about the challenges of maintaining consistency and motivation in creative work. Jonathan shares his personal ritual of finding inspiration during showers, which Kalid expands upon as the “shower test”—a method to discover one’s natural passions by observing where the mind wanders in undistracted moments.

The dialogue then delves into the intricate relationship between mental health and creativity. Kalid introduces a powerful programming metaphor, describing emotional state as a “hidden global variable” that affects output, even when the input (willpower/motivation) remains constant. This leads to a broader discussion on being gentle with oneself and recognizing that factors like anxiety, hunger, or fatigue are external variables influencing productivity, not reflections of personal failure.

They explore practical methods for self-discovery and maintaining emotional balance. Kalid shares his “feel-good.txt” file, a log of moments when he feels most alive and energized, which he later analyzes to identify core values like curiosity, learning, and helping others. This ties into a larger theme about distinguishing between stated values and actual celebrated behaviors, both in personal life and company culture. The conversation also covers the importance of not taking feedback personally, separating skill from identity, and focusing on the creative process rather than external validation.

Recommendations

Media

  • Inside Out (movie) — Referenced by Jonathan when discussing how we form our perceptions and identities based on key ‘anchor’ memories, similar to the core memories in the Pixar film.

People

  • Tim Ferriss — Mentioned by Jonathan as someone who popularized a concept similar to Kalid’s ‘feel-good.txt’ file, called the ‘Jar of Awesome,’ where you write down and collect positive moments.

Tools

  • Headspace — The episode’s sponsor. Presented as a meditation app that helps improve mental clarity, focus, and creativity by ‘practicing focus.’ Mentioned as a tool beneficial for developers and anyone interested in mental health.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Introduction to Kalid Azad and BetterExplained — Host Jonathan Cottrell introduces the episode and guest Kalid Azad, creator of BetterExplained.com. He mentions the site’s 10-year anniversary and sets the stage for a discussion about Kalid’s epiphanies and lessons learned from a decade of creating valuable content. The episode is split into parts to maintain the podcast’s shorter format.
  • 00:01:30 — Challenges of consistency and finding inspiration — Kalid and Jonathan discuss the struggle with motivation and maintaining a creative schedule. Jonathan reveals his personal method for finding inspiration: taking a shower after a short workout. Kalid relates this to the “shower test,” a way to discover genuine passions by observing where the mind naturally goes in a quiet, distraction-free environment.
  • 00:06:18 — Mental health as a hidden variable in creativity — The conversation shifts to how mental health impacts the creative process. Kalid introduces a programming analogy, describing emotional state as a “hidden global variable” that influences output, independent of conscious willpower. They discuss the importance of recognizing factors like anxiety or fatigue and being kinder to oneself when productivity fluctuates.
  • 00:13:39 — The ‘feel-good.txt’ file and reverse-engineering values — Kalid shares his practice of logging moments when he feels most alive and energized into a “feel-good.txt” file. By analyzing these entries, he reverse-engineers his core values—curiosity, learning, helping people, and achieving flow state. This data-driven approach helps identify what truly matters to him, separate from constructed narratives.
  • 00:17:09 — Company culture and the gap between values and actions — Jonathan introduces a quote about culture being defined by what is celebrated, not what is stated. They discuss the example of a company valuing work-life balance but celebrating employees who work late. This highlights the importance of aligning actions and rewards with professed values, both in organizations and personal life.
  • 00:24:02 — Learning not to take things personally — Kalid discusses the critical life lesson of not taking feedback or criticism personally. He explains how creating content online provides many opportunities to practice this. The goal is to separate one’s work from one’s identity, viewing feedback as information about the work, not a judgment of self-worth.
  • 00:29:31 — Separating skill from identity and worth — The discussion explores how society often conflates skill with identity and worth, using examples from school grading systems. Kalid advocates for viewing abilities as skills that can be developed, rather than as reflections of innate intelligence or value. This mindset reduces emotional charge and fear of failure, making learning more approachable.
  • 00:37:21 — The unwinnable pursuit of external validation — Kalid and Jonathan examine the futility of seeking lasting validation from external sources like likes, reviews, or money. Kalid uses the analogy of trying to balance a broom on its handle—it’s a constant, unwinnable effort. The solution they propose is to focus on the process of creation itself, rather than the unpredictable and fleeting outcomes.
  • 00:40:21 — Imposter syndrome and developer identity — They address imposter syndrome common among developers. The conversation encourages listeners by noting that even experienced creators like Kalid and Jonathan started from the same place. The key is often a perceptual shift, recognizing that the feeling of not being “enough” is a common experience, not a unique personal failing.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2017-01-25T10:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:43:35

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hey, everyone, and welcome to developer team. My name is Jonathan Cottrell. And in today’s

[00:00:07] episode, I’ll be interviewing Khalid Azad. Khalid has been on the show before. I’m really

[00:00:13] excited to have him back on. He is the creator of better explained.com. And we interviewed him

[00:00:19] about a year ago, a little bit less than a year ago. And he recently rolled over 10 years on

[00:00:25] better explained, hugely popular site, and also incredibly helpful. We’re going to talk about

[00:00:32] some of the things that he has had epiphanies about. We talked about some of them on the last

[00:00:37] episode. We might end up actually talking about some of the same ones again, but some of his more

[00:00:43] recent epiphanies. But more importantly, we’re going to discuss the 10 year history of better

[00:00:49] explained and some of the lessons that Khalid has learned along the way in creating content

[00:00:55] that is that is fundamentally valuable. That’s what we’re going to talk about in today’s episode.

[00:01:01] Of course, as usual, with with these interviews, we split them up into two parts. That’s because

[00:01:07] we still try to keep the length of the episodes on developer T as low as possible. Obviously,

[00:01:14] with interviews, they’re longer than the other episodes. But we split it up into two parts for

[00:01:19] that reason. Make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss out on the second part of the interview.

[00:01:24] Now, let’s go ahead.

[00:01:25] And jump straight into the interview with Khalid.

[00:01:30] Let’s see. Can you hear me OK?

[00:01:32] I can. It sounds great.

[00:01:34] Oh, perfect. And you, too.

[00:01:35] Good, good.

[00:01:35] Been a little bit since I’ve hooked up all the mic stuff. So it’s still working. Good.

[00:01:40] Yeah, I totally understand. Cool. So I’m really excited about the interview today.

[00:01:45] Thank you very much for coming on the show.

[00:01:46] Oh, yeah. No, thank you. I was going to say, I really I mean, actually, it’s funny. Even

[00:01:53] well, our our previous interview, I would just in the car.

[00:01:55] Sometimes if it’s in my player, like my podcast player, I’ll turn it on. It’s just it was

[00:02:00] it was so much fun. And there’s just something about it where because I myself, I forget

[00:02:07] a lot of things that I figured out. Like, actually, I have to write things down because

[00:02:10] it’s so easy for me to forget. Oh, like that was something I figured out. And then, you

[00:02:14] know, it just leaves my mind. So I come back to it and I’m like, oh, my gosh, that’s like,

[00:02:18] you know, that that was a kind of a fun way to approach something or something. So it’s

[00:02:21] sort of like for me, too, is informative just to remember.

[00:02:25] It sounds like the podcast is going really well. I mean, you’ve been cranking them out

[00:02:29] and, you know, that’s something I’ve been impressed. Man, I think last time, too, we

[00:02:33] started basically I’m going to talk your ear off. So whenever I know, go ahead. Yeah.

[00:02:38] So, I mean, no, I’ve just that’s one thing for myself that I one of the things I’d like

[00:02:43] to become better at is being a little bit more consistent or having a schedule. I’m

[00:02:47] sort of a little bit I think maybe a little bit of a diva in some cases where I try to

[00:02:52] get myself inspired or in the mood sometimes to.

[00:02:55] To create and I think I feel like you have a more kind of disciplined, like in a good

[00:03:01] way, just OK, you know, we’re just going to every week have a recording or I’m not sure

[00:03:06] how often you’re doing these, but it’s enough that you basically have a pretty big pipeline.

[00:03:09] And I think taking the whether or not you’re motivated question out of it, it seems like

[00:03:15] you’re you’re kind of it’s happening no matter what. And, you know, it just sort of happens.

[00:03:20] And I feel to myself, I still have a little bit of a sense that I need to be kind of

[00:03:25] ready, so to speak.

[00:03:26] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:03:28] You know, who knows if you’re feeling ready one day or not, but I feel like you’re just

[00:03:30] like, OK, like we have an interview lined up. Let’s just do it. So it’s awesome.

[00:03:34] Well, you know, normally I have like a couple of minutes where I talk to interviewees, I

[00:03:41] guess, interviewees that that I have on the show.

[00:03:46] You know, it’s really interesting that you mentioned that because I think it’s actually

[00:03:50] actually very relevant to our discussion that we’re going to have about the 10 year

[00:03:55] years and the lessons that you’ve learned along the way. The podcast is going well.

[00:04:02] I have a tenuous relationship, kind of a frustrating relationship with this thing called

[00:04:08] motivation or inspiration. And it’s a really hard thing to try to put into a box, right?

[00:04:14] Like when the idea strikes, whether it’s at dinnertime, you know, with my wife or if it’s

[00:04:20] at three o’clock in the morning, if I don’t capture it in some way or something like that,

[00:04:25] then I end up losing it. And so what I’ve tried to do is create some kind of semblance

[00:04:30] of a regular schedule and a space to be motivated or a space to be inspired. I actually talked

[00:04:38] about it on the last episode. So one of the things that I do actually is I will I’ll work

[00:04:43] out for like 20 or 30 minutes, really short workout, and then I’ll take a shower. And

[00:04:47] as strange as it sounds, like 90 percent of my ideas for these monologue type episodes

[00:04:53] that I do end up coming back.

[00:04:55] From the shower. It’s kind of a weird thing.

[00:04:58] That’s awesome. Actually, that’s I don’t I think I’ve heard it or this is kind of my

[00:05:02] own little kind of gut check, too, is a lot of people. Sometimes they ask me what like

[00:05:08] how to find their path. I mean, not that I’m an expert in this, but they say, oh, you know,

[00:05:11] how can I discover my passion? It seems like you figured out what you like. And the shower

[00:05:15] test is a great one where when your mind has nothing to do and you’re in a comfortable

[00:05:19] situation and there’s no distraction. So a shower is perfect for that. You know, where

[00:05:24] does your mind naturally go?

[00:05:25] Yeah.

[00:05:26] Where does your mind naturally gravitate towards? And I think that’s where, you know, ideas

[00:05:28] come up and, you know, half finished thoughts. And for myself, too, little intuitions or

[00:05:32] an essay I want to work on, they seem to come up in the shower as well. And I think it’s

[00:05:37] a great place to just, you know, in the absence of all these distractions that we’re used

[00:05:41] to just to see what’s what’s there, because your mind rarely is it blank. It’s usually

[00:05:45] there’s something going on, but often that’s something is driven by external events. So

[00:05:49] when it’s just your mind on its own, what you know, what what pops up. And so I think

[00:05:53] that’s an awesome test.

[00:05:55] I use that sometimes if I’m working on a post and it’s really interesting to me, that’ll

[00:05:59] be what comes up. And other times it’ll be, oh, you know, I might want to do something

[00:06:03] with the site. So I think it’s a nice way to kind of figure out what I guess subconsciously

[00:06:08] you’re thinking about. And it kind of emerges a little bit in the in the quiet of the shower.

[00:06:12] So that’s great.

[00:06:13] That’s a really interesting insight. I think that this actually outlines something that

[00:06:18] we don’t often really connect. And that is that the health of your of your mind, right?

[00:06:25] Your your mental health is going to have an effect on on this when you when you’re in

[00:06:30] the shower and it’s quiet or, you know, whatever, whatever your space is. I’m not going to say

[00:06:35] you have to take a shower for that to be the only thing. Maybe you go for a drive out in

[00:06:40] the countryside. I don’t know. Wherever you find your space. A lot of people who have

[00:06:48] and I’ve dealt with it before. So I’m going to speak from my very limited and like kind

[00:06:53] of smaller.

[00:06:54] Example, but I’ve had I’ve dealt with anxiety before. Right. So and when it gets quiet and

[00:07:01] then when there’s nothing to do, you know, are you able to be inspired or are you dealing

[00:07:06] with with thoughts of anxiety or and there’s a lot of reasons for us to pay attention to

[00:07:13] these things that go beyond just whether or not we can be inspired, obviously. But it

[00:07:19] certainly has an effect on on the creator mindset. And, you know, that’s that’s just

[00:07:24] something that I think is really important.

[00:07:24] Something to be aware of if you’re listening to this podcast and maybe you’ve never dealt

[00:07:30] with mental health issues or maybe you are dealing with mental health issues right now.

[00:07:34] This is not really my area of expertise. So I try to tread lightly in areas where I don’t

[00:07:42] have a lot of authority. But, you know, certainly don’t take it for granted that your job or

[00:07:48] your creativity, that those things can be separated or somehow contained away from your

[00:07:54] mental health. It is all certainly driven by that one big organ in inside of your head.

[00:08:01] Right. Like it’s a really interesting thing.

[00:08:03] Exactly. And I see when I’m talking with you, I just get all these analogies in my brain.

[00:08:08] And so something in a similar way just now, it struck me that so our output or our creativity

[00:08:16] or productivity, we normally think of it as maybe a function of one parameter. So you pass in

[00:08:22] something like willpower or willpower.

[00:08:24] Wanting something. But I think it’s actually there’s a kind of a hidden global variable

[00:08:28] that this function is referencing, which is your kind of emotional state. And so you don’t really

[00:08:33] control that variable directly. So you can say, OK, I’m going to you know, I want to

[00:08:37] make a recording or write an essay or work in a program. And I’m just going to put in my

[00:08:42] motivation level. So that’s, you know, X is being put in the parameter. But that function of whether

[00:08:46] you actually do it is reading from a global variable, which is your emotional state,

[00:08:50] which you don’t really control directly. And so you can for the same.

[00:08:54] For the same amount of motivation, sometimes you’ll do something, sometimes you won’t.

[00:08:58] And there’s kind of this other factor which you don’t directly control, which is, oh, you know,

[00:09:03] are you do you have energy? Are you hungry, tired, sleepy? Are you emotionally,

[00:09:08] you know, maybe upset because of something or maybe you’re frustrated or there could be 50

[00:09:12] different reasons that something doesn’t happen. And unfortunately, we only control that kind of X

[00:09:18] parameter, which is maybe my conscious willpower. And we don’t realize there’s so many other things

[00:09:22] that can get involved. And so we might beat ourselves up.

[00:09:24] We say, hey, and that’s actually a life lesson that I learned is to be a lot more gentle with

[00:09:28] myself and say, hey, wait a minute, if I’m putting in the same mental determination,

[00:09:32] but it doesn’t seem to be happening. I mean, it’s funny. It’s this paradox where if you’re

[00:09:39] logical and, you know, a lot of programmers pride ourselves in being very logical. But if you’re

[00:09:43] logical, you should realize that there’s places where logic doesn’t work because clearly for the

[00:09:47] same intention, you don’t have the same output. So therefore, there’s something else or some

[00:09:51] hidden variable, which is not contained in what you’re putting in. That’s

[00:09:54] the output. So you have to say, okay, what is that your mental state, emotional state.

[00:09:58] And so over time, I learned to be gentle with myself and say, okay, let’s, let’s try to suss

[00:10:02] out maybe that there’s something else going on. And it’s hard to directly, like you can’t will

[00:10:06] yourself into, into happiness or, or out of, you know, if you’re feeling anxious, you can’t really

[00:10:11] will yourself out of that, but you can at least recognize it. And then there might be things you

[00:10:15] can do from there. So that was a big kind of aha moment for me was realizing there’s kind of that

[00:10:21] hidden global variable that’s around.

[00:10:23] Yeah, that’s such a cool.

[00:10:24] Such a cool metaphor. Like we can understand this as programmers that the idea of having a

[00:10:31] clean program that you can recognize and control the inputs and outputs. And the, I guess the human

[00:10:38] brain is best described as a extremely poorly written piece of code in one way in that there’s

[00:10:46] so many side effects that, you know, any given function may be modifying the state of everything

[00:10:52] in your brain. And in fact, there’s probably,

[00:10:54] some pretty good evidence to say that that’s true, that literally every experience you have

[00:11:00] changes the way that you perceive every new experience, right? Of course you could,

[00:11:05] you could say that it is actually the best written software that our brain actually works

[00:11:11] exactly how it should. And that our perception of that is actually the broken part. But

[00:11:16] in either case, you know, it is a really interesting thing to say, okay, I’m going to,

[00:11:22] I’m going to give myself a little bit more credit.

[00:11:24] Than I did previously, because, you know, it’s, it’s easy for us to reduce things as much as

[00:11:30] possible. In fact, our brains are super good at that, right? We try to reduce the, uh, the things

[00:11:37] that we have to think about. We try to reduce things to their simplest form so that we can

[00:11:41] understand them. Um, we try as, as many times as we can to make something, um, to make something

[00:11:47] binary, right? Like we, we try to say, okay, it either is this way or it isn’t this way. If I do

[00:11:53] this thing, then I will be successful.

[00:11:54] Uh, if I don’t do this thing, then I won’t be successful. And usually more often than not,

[00:12:01] things are not that way. And it’s a, it’s kind of a weird part of our brain, maybe a survival

[00:12:07] instinct. Um, or maybe it’s just our brains being lazy and trying to save calories, but it’s

[00:12:13] something in our brains that is saying, okay, you know, I’m going to simplify this, even though it’s

[00:12:18] not, that’s not a picture of reality. I’m going to try to approximate reality and then round up

[00:12:24] or round down.

[00:12:24] Uh, however I, I, I see fit.

[00:12:29] Exactly. And I think I’ve heard, I mean, again, this is all, it’s sort of pop

[00:12:33] psychology or biology, but you know, our brains aren’t really like happiness isn’t necessarily,

[00:12:38] isn’t really necessary for, for survival. Like if you’re, if you’re sad or depressed or upset

[00:12:43] or anxious, but it makes you do something, then, Hey, that’s a really good way to get you like

[00:12:47] fear is a great motivator. So you feel horrible, but you know, fear is a great way to get you to

[00:12:51] run away from a tiger. So like, maybe that’s just a way to get you to run away from a tiger.

[00:12:54] It’s the way that it turned out is that

[00:12:56] So harness your fear is what you’re saying.

[00:12:59] Harness your fear, or it’s more that I guess, yeah, it’s that your brain

[00:13:01] Or understand it at least, right?

[00:13:03] Understand it. Yeah, exactly. And realize that it might, it might just be a signal that

[00:13:07] historically has been very useful in terms of survival, but it’s not particularly useful. It’s

[00:13:12] not, uh, enjoyable necessarily. And so you can sort of separate that. And actually one,

[00:13:17] one approach I’ve taken too, is like you said, like the, like the, the brain in our mind,

[00:13:21] I mean, again, as programmers, we’re, you know, it’s fun.

[00:13:24] You have a system and you want to reverse engineer it and figure out how it works. But I think,

[00:13:28] you know, the, the, the human mind consciousness and the brain is these are so abstract and

[00:13:32] difficult. Um, my, my kind of high level approach is to sort of, uh, work backwards from what’s

[00:13:39] happened in the past. So for example, it’s hard for me to know, to explicitly state my values,

[00:13:46] let’s say, like, if you just asked me right now, uh, you know, what are the most important things

[00:13:50] in your life? I mean, I can think for three seconds, but that’s kind of my brain trying to

[00:13:54] construct scenarios and saying, Oh, okay. It could be like relationships and, Oh, learning. And

[00:13:59] like, you know, I can just off the top of my mind, think of a few things, but is that really

[00:14:03] what my values are? Or am I just, you know, creating kind of a little bit of a story.

[00:14:08] And so, um, uh, yeah. So one thing I’ve done is basically over time when I feel alive. So my,

[00:14:13] uh, notion of alive is, you know, you have that aha moment, you know, you feel energized, you,

[00:14:19] you’re in the, you know, kind of flow state. You’ve, you know, you’re basically just these

[00:14:22] happy moments in your life. Um,

[00:14:24] whenever they happen, I just try to write down what I was doing or what happened. So it might be,

[00:14:28] Hey, yeah, I had a really great interview, or maybe, um, I got like a nice note from somebody

[00:14:33] that something was helpful, or maybe I figured out a problem that I was working on or, and,

[00:14:37] you know, there could be dozens of different events that are happening. And so I’ve been

[00:14:40] keeping a text file. I call it the feel good dot text file basically. And it’s just kind of a

[00:14:45] straight, you know, just notepad text file. And whenever I have an entry, um, or something happens

[00:14:49] that really makes me feel alive and energized to write it down. And so, um, actually in the blog

[00:14:54] took that file and you can look through it manually, but it, but just, I ran it through

[00:14:58] kind of a word cloud diagram. So I said, okay, let’s just add a purely, and this is kind of the

[00:15:03] programmer part coming out. Okay. Just from purely, um, kind of analytical perspective,

[00:15:07] like what words or themes seem to be showing up for me. Uh, I ran it and it was basically,

[00:15:12] I have a word cloud and it’s essentially curiosity, learning, helping people, um,

[00:15:16] getting in the zone. So being in that flow state is, is itself super enjoyable and then sort of

[00:15:21] having fun and kind of a playful sense of,

[00:15:24] uh, like, you know, playing with ideas and being kind of a little bit of irreverent and so on.

[00:15:28] Uh, those things really get me alive or they make me alive. And so, um, I was able to kind of

[00:15:33] like extract out the emotions or the, the things that created good emotions. And I didn’t, I

[00:15:40] couldn’t, I don’t know if it’s necessarily a conscious, you know, thought process. It’s really

[00:15:44] just, just write down what happened and then you kind of reverse engineer out, Oh, these things

[00:15:48] were happening every time I was happy. Yeah. I have this on my list of things to talk to you

[00:15:54] about. So I’m really glad that you brought it up and not me because it’s one of my favorite ideas

[00:16:00] that I’ve heard from you. Um, and, and I also have heard a similar idea from the great Tim

[00:16:07] Ferris. I’m going to invoke his name. I know in, in the podcasting world, there’s, there’s probably

[00:16:12] a ferry somewhere that’s carrying him a little note to remind him that he still is at the top

[00:16:17] of the business list on, on the podcast, uh, you know, top 10 or whatever. But he talks about the,

[00:16:23] the jar of awesome and i think he actually stole it from somebody else too um or borrowed it but

[00:16:29] he talks about the jar of awesome which is a very similar concept whenever somebody experiences

[00:16:34] something really awesome that day write it down on a piece of paper and drop it in this jar right

[00:16:40] and and the whole goal here is there’s a couple of things that um that both of you have mentioned

[00:16:46] is the review portion it’s not the process of actually collecting it it’s going back and

[00:16:51] learning it’s almost like collecting data and then you’re going back and learning about yourself

[00:16:57] based on reality rather than based on your like you’re saying a constructed story right

[00:17:03] it’s very similar to a quote that i heard recently and this is a really good it’s like a little gem

[00:17:09] an extra little nugget here for you business owners that are listening to developer t but i

[00:17:14] heard a a quote i can’t remember who it was from but they said your your culture is not

[00:17:20] your culture is not your culture is not your culture is not your culture is not your culture

[00:17:21] what you say but what you celebrate right and it was a very interesting explanation of a lot of

[00:17:29] feelings that i was having so let’s say for example that one of your stated values at your

[00:17:35] company is that you believe in work-life balance this is a very common one that we believe in

[00:17:41] people having families and having free time and uh we also believe in hard work and and we want

[00:17:46] to set you know good boundaries etc etc but then you have someone

[00:17:51] stay uh past their normal working hours let’s say you know some project fails and uh you have

[00:17:58] a work explosion and then somebody has to stay until 7 p.m one night right okay now in this

[00:18:05] scenario how often does that same company that states that one of their biggest values is family

[00:18:13] values right they state that going home at five o’clock every day is an important part of their

[00:18:19] balance metrics or whatever

[00:18:21] and then they celebrate this one person who decided to stay late

[00:18:25] now it’s a really interesting thing because certainly we want to celebrate the the um the

[00:18:32] efforts the above and beyond efforts of workers right that’s a really important thing but how

[00:18:38] many times are you are you celebrating when you actually accomplish balance are you actually

[00:18:43] giving this message clearly to the people that you work with when you don’t celebrate the things

[00:18:51] you value it’s a good question right i’m not i’m not certain that it’s a hundred percent the case

[00:18:57] that you should be celebrating every day at five o’clock when people leave i don’t i don’t know

[00:19:01] that that’s you know any better necessarily but i do think it’s an interesting study to determine

[00:19:08] okay you know the things that make me feel good or the things that i actually emotionally that

[00:19:13] are emotionally evoking for me am i actually recognizing those things when i say these are

[00:19:18] the things that i value exactly and i think um

[00:19:21] that’s a good analogy too because you’re right if a certain for example you know pulling an all-nighter

[00:19:27] or cranking or you know having kind of a like a like a you know a death march to finish a project

[00:19:32] and that’s rewarded i mean it is sending a pretty strong signal that that is really what’s important

[00:19:37] versus the other things um and i think yeah for yourself personally your own happiness right like

[00:19:44] if you feel alive when something happens then that is a pretty strong signal that that’s actually what

[00:19:48] matters um and so i think it’s yeah i think it’s a pretty strong signal that that’s actually what

[00:19:51] matters and it’s really easy to uh the thing i like about this too is that it’s not it’s yeah it’s

[00:19:56] the celebration or looking at your own happiness levels over time it takes a little bit of the

[00:20:02] guesswork out of it like you don’t have to do anything in particular you don’t have to

[00:20:05] you’re not telling somebody celebrate here it’s just pay attention to when you celebrate

[00:20:09] so when it naturally arises you’re sort of extracting out um kind of the the circumstances

[00:20:15] versus um you know it’s it’s all these things like as soon as you get your brain involved there’s

[00:20:19] uh some studies i think they’re

[00:20:21] you know they ask people about life satisfaction and you know people give the one to ten rating

[00:20:25] but if they put a dollar on the ground on the way to the study and then the person picks it up and

[00:20:30] say oh i got a dollar and now they ask them about life satisfaction you know it’s like a point or

[00:20:33] two higher yeah like a one dollar and it’s such a temporary thing but we’re so easily swayed by

[00:20:39] these things so you have to sort of look over time and maybe look at what really made you fulfilled

[00:20:42] um and not necessarily intellectualize it too much today’s episode is sponsored by headspace

[00:20:51] if you haven’t heard of headspace headspace is an application that helps make meditation simple

[00:20:58] hopefully you have heard of headspace hopefully you’re listening to uh developer t enough that

[00:21:03] you’ve heard the last couple of episodes we’ve talked about headspace a few times

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[00:21:11] we’ve already talked about that on today’s episode and we’re going to talk about it on plenty of

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[00:21:38] practicing focus and we’ve talked about practicing focus on this show before but that’s what

[00:21:45] meditation is like it’s like practicing focus now there are plenty of ways that you could meditate

[00:21:51] headspace makes it simple they really do they guide you through this very pleasant application

[00:21:56] very well designed uh and it’s it’s much simpler to approach than than just going on youtube and

[00:22:02] trying to find guided meditation so go and check it out headspace.com of course you can find it in

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[00:22:28] join dash us or spec.fm slash headspace will take you directly to that link but again headspace is

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[00:22:42] at a world-class development team with over 10 million downloads worldwide thank you again to

[00:22:47] headspace for sponsoring today’s episode of developer tea

[00:22:51] just wait for a day even uh or wait for a few hours don’t send that email because

[00:22:58] that could be that primary stake in the ground memory you know if you’ve seen i’m sure you’ve

[00:23:05] seen inside out right yes you have these particularly important memories that like

[00:23:10] anchor memories sorry for spoiler alerts hopefully hopefully we’re past that now but

[00:23:15] particularly important memories right and this is how we build our perception of something you have

[00:23:20] if you think about it and you think about it and you think about it and you think about it and you

[00:23:21] your childhood home for example and i think i’ve talked about this on the podcast before but

[00:23:26] you don’t think about the entire home you think about like your bed sheets right or like you

[00:23:32] think about a particular toy that you played with or that one time that your mom made cookies with

[00:23:37] you or something like that right and everybody has different versions of those but trying to

[00:23:41] construct an average experience across your entire you know relationship with someone that’s not

[00:23:48] going to be the way that they evaluate that relationship with you and that’s not going to be

[00:23:51] they’re going to evaluate it based on the high points and also based on you know more recent

[00:23:56] memories exactly and on that um as well another life lesson that i came to appreciate was yeah

[00:24:02] the value of not taking things personally and again that’s an easy thing to say like don’t

[00:24:06] take it personally just you know it’s not an issue with you you can kind of uh deal with it

[00:24:10] more abstractly but actually learning to internalize that um was probably one of the

[00:24:14] biggest things because a lot of uh yeah our reactions and so on it’s not just what somebody

[00:24:19] did but it’s our interpretation of it and it’s not just what somebody did it’s not just what somebody

[00:24:21] did it and so all that emotional heat that comes extra um it’s like a cat you know things can

[00:24:28] and writing online essentially gives you many many chances to see or to kind of you know test

[00:24:36] your or put or doing anything you know whether you’re podcasting or writing or making videos

[00:24:40] you know being on forums open source software anything anything that you’re making um you’ll

[00:24:46] have a lot of chances to to test your don’t take a personal uh approach to things yeah and

[00:24:51] you know after time i mean unfortunately it can be tough i mean you see people that’s actually

[00:24:57] another thing too a lot of people some people figure it out thankfully or figure it out in

[00:25:02] the sense that they learn how to manage it but oftentimes um you know like i’ve been close like

[00:25:06] to you know either burnout or getting upset or something and saying okay is it worth it and i

[00:25:11] unfortunately in the open source world especially um recently like you see posts of people that are

[00:25:15] just you know they they don’t want to deal with the negative consequences of having something out

[00:25:21] there um and it makes sense because you know they’re getting i don’t i think in general i i get

[00:25:26] probably 95 to 5 positive to negative so it’s a pretty good ratio and it doesn’t yeah it’s easy

[00:25:32] to manage but i think for certain projects i’m sure it’s closer to 50 50 or even worse so um

[00:25:37] some people they have to deal with that a lot more in a difficult circumstance so that is i think the

[00:25:44] other skill is just learning how to take it personal and it kind of it helps a lot of parts

[00:25:49] of your life as well yeah i think it goes back to

[00:25:51] that discussion on how we have really um inefficient software running running our

[00:25:57] emotional state right um that somebody’s somebody could have had a bad breakfast that morning

[00:26:03] and therefore they’re going to leave a bad review for your app that has nothing to do with their

[00:26:08] breakfast at all like there’s so many things and you know one of one of the ways that i’ve kind of

[00:26:14] proven this to myself is whenever i get a bad review on itunes which by the way is totally fine

[00:26:20] uh whenever i get a bad review on itunes i get a bad review on itunes and i get a bad review on

[00:26:21] itunes i’ll go and i’ll look at that reviewer’s history and more often than not you’d be surprised

[00:26:28] more often than not people who leave a bad review for one thing very often have also left a bad

[00:26:35] review for another thing um so i mean just just watch out for that kind of stuff you know it’s

[00:26:42] very likely that the uh when you take something personal the problem that you’re kind of

[00:26:48] propagating i guess for yourself is that you’re you’re thinking about it and you’re thinking about

[00:26:51] that person has really well constructed their criticism on you that it really is actually your

[00:27:00] fault but most of the time there are a hundred other factors that you’re not considering that

[00:27:05] you couldn’t consider there’s no way you can know what’s going on with that person exactly and i i

[00:27:11] sort of have this uh so the flip of that too is if something goes really well so this is kind of the

[00:27:16] uh the yin and the yang of it i suppose but yeah you know somebody loves your stuff like it’s great

[00:27:21] i’m happy when somebody likes one of my articles but i try not to think oh i’m such an awesome

[00:27:25] article writer i mean it’s maybe like they were just ready for it like they they had the right

[00:27:30] background so when they saw it the analogy just popped into place and for somebody else they

[00:27:34] didn’t have the background or maybe like you know what i thought was funny was actually really boring

[00:27:38] to somebody else so there’s a lot of uh factors in there so i think ultimately i i try to put forth

[00:27:45] my my best effort in the sense that um and this is another another little paradox like best doesn’t

[00:27:51] mean 100 max effort so you know my best effort uh at writing doesn’t mean that i spend 20 hours

[00:27:59] uh every day writing something my best effort might be two hours like that’s the the reasonable

[00:28:04] amount that i can put in sustainably so okay let’s say it’s two hours uh for a week and then

[00:28:08] i have you know 10 hours and then i make a post based on that so based on my best effort i feel

[00:28:12] like okay that was that was what i could accomplish with that let’s put the post out there and then

[00:28:16] some people like it some people don’t okay like i i can’t really control if they like it or not

[00:28:21] my mind if i feel like i put in an honest effort then i can’t really ask for more yeah you know i

[00:28:26] can i can learn from things and keep going but um the flip of the not feeling bad about things is

[00:28:31] also it’s not that you don’t feel good but you don’t you don’t necessarily want to take it

[00:28:35] personal that i’m great like i it’s more that i i was able to to you know put something out there

[00:28:42] and maybe my skills is improving over time but it’s not really a reflection of me as a human

[00:28:47] being or anything it’s just i i’m i’m like a um like i’m

[00:28:51] it sounds a little bit impersonal but i’m like a machine that’s like you know it’s getting better

[00:28:55] it’s it’s you know the the friction is getting smoothed out i’m a little bit smoother at doing

[00:28:58] this thing but i’m not anything special because of it it’s or or bad if it doesn’t work out it’s

[00:29:03] just i’m going to keep kind of trying to um put forth what i can yeah that’s that’s a really good

[00:29:09] insight i think that you know having this overly positive view of your own stuff is that’s a common

[00:29:17] problem um people are are generally proud of themselves

[00:29:21] about one or two things right i think it’s you know we have this encoding in our brains

[00:29:27] maybe it’s from school um you tell me what you think of this because i think it’s a pretty

[00:29:31] interesting analogy or maybe it’s more like the etymology of the way we think about ratings for

[00:29:36] example um but we have this encoding built into our brains of uh less than 60 means failure right

[00:29:44] or less than a particular number means that you you are actually going to experience something

[00:29:51] you’re going to fail this class you’re going to fail this grade uh maybe even fail you know lose

[00:29:56] your scholarship if you’re on a scholarship in college and it relies on your grades um which i

[00:30:02] went through that right well i didn’t go through losing my scholarship but i had a scholarship and

[00:30:06] i had the fear that failure would mean you know something largely negative for me and i think that

[00:30:12] you know when it comes to putting out content in particular and here in a second we’re going to

[00:30:18] all about uh your 10-year history with

[00:30:21] better explained but um when it comes to putting out content we have that same encoding in our

[00:30:27] brains that anything less than approval is actually doing something bad in the world

[00:30:32] right like this somehow we’ve made somebody’s day worse because of the the article we posted

[00:30:39] or the podcast we recorded and usually more often than not i would say um it’s a better way to

[00:30:47] evaluate your stuff by how much good it has for you and how much good it has for you and how much

[00:30:51] created and even 20 is still some level of value right like i think we still view that if we have a

[00:31:01] 20 approval rating then we’re actually hurting the world but that’s not true the other 80 they’re

[00:31:08] likely just to ignore us like they’re likely just to move on with their day and and you know it’s

[00:31:15] not a big deal and we we don’t really focus on the fact that most of what we’re doing is just

[00:31:21] going to be creating some level of value and it’s our jobs to increase that level of value

[00:31:27] not to focus on how high of an approval or like how close to an a plus we get with this

[00:31:35] with this kind of thing because we don’t have a scholarship to fail on we don’t have

[00:31:39] that level of of negative response when we have a negative review exactly and i think

[00:31:45] there’s this kind of emotional uh element to or yeah especially

[00:31:51] you know in the in the school system and all these things there’s sort of this um worthiness

[00:31:55] or unworthiness that we’re associating with it and i think for me that one of the tricks was to

[00:32:01] separate that or or to to say that you know like a test or a grade or something it’s not a question

[00:32:06] of worth or unworth it’s just skillful or non-skillful so it’s okay to say hey i’m skilled

[00:32:11] at this and i’m not skilled at that okay that’s fine like not being i’m not skilled at knitting

[00:32:15] i’m not skilled at cooking there’s there’s a bazillion things i’m not skilled at i’m not

[00:32:18] worthy or unworthy because of it and it’s something that

[00:32:21] i can i can develop the skill sure but you sort of take away some of that emotional charge

[00:32:26] um but unfortunately certain things in society are held up as these are the things that to

[00:32:32] to be you know a worthy person so to speak you need to be doing these things and so having

[00:32:36] succeeding in school or having good education or whatever it is we sort of put a lot of

[00:32:41] emotional charge on these things and i think what happens is we get now you know we’re

[00:32:46] afraid to fail we’re afraid to explore because if i you know if i fail i it means i’m not

[00:32:51] worthy i’m not good enough for something so uh seeing that connection for me at least was

[00:32:56] pretty important because once you separate it a little bit you can start to treat it just like

[00:33:01] it’s like a skilled i’m trying to think of a of a good analogy but something yeah something like

[00:33:06] knitting like nobody very few people probably are upset that they don’t knit that well but you know

[00:33:12] you know like you’re not like oh like it’s like okay but not doing well in school oh my gosh like

[00:33:16] ah like this is my life’s gonna be horrible and of course there’s more outcomes attached to the

[00:33:21] but in terms of wanting to improve or trying to improve there’s sort of like like a gentleness

[00:33:26] that you can take that that you would approach yourself with hey i want to improve at knitting

[00:33:30] okay let’s try this and um you know maybe you practice but you’re not charged up about it but

[00:33:35] with uh something like yeah math especially there’s a lot of emotional energy around there

[00:33:40] so when people are failing at math or they’re not doing well they don’t see this as skill thing they

[00:33:44] see it as i’m stupid or it’s an identity thing it’s an identity thing exactly and uh i think one

[00:33:49] of my realizations is that

[00:33:51] i mean pretty much any skill can be can be seen as this kind of just it’s just a skill it’s

[00:33:57] something to learn um but unfortunately there’s a lot of emotional baggage there so for math

[00:34:01] i’m trying to approach it a little bit where it’s a skill and let me show you how easy it could be

[00:34:06] if you approach it the right way yeah i mean that it’s uh and actually easy or maybe simple i have

[00:34:11] it’s straightforward if approached the right way just like a marathon is straightforward it’s it’s

[00:34:17] not difficult to understand the concept of it i mean right executing it can be hard but you at

[00:34:21] the like the gist of it and so for a lot of math um to at least understand what’s going on and

[00:34:26] actually doing it can be laborious but sometimes just understanding it is not too bad and so

[00:34:31] even that level a lot of people would feel like they can’t um they can’t approach it actually i

[00:34:35] think programming is similar where you know a lot of people probably fear the you know the technical

[00:34:42] side of things and some things are very intricate and laborious but a lot of the high level things

[00:34:46] like just i think everybody most people in society could become really good at excel let’s say

[00:34:51] and that’s like very simple programming you have kind of cells and fields and there’s if statements

[00:34:55] and i think most people in society could be pretty proficient at excel um if we really saw that as a

[00:35:01] skill to be to be good at yeah it’s a pretty you know it’s a pretty um useful level of programming

[00:35:07] for most people i’d say sure yeah i i agree i think you hit on something that’s that’s really

[00:35:14] interesting and man we’ve just this is this has been such a cool stream of consciousness

[00:35:18] conversation with you um something

[00:35:21] really interesting that is the identity piece i think you know in society in large we have these

[00:35:27] moments and and you know again encoded maybe by school or uh but by something but we have these

[00:35:35] moments where we put something out into the world or we do something and we’re basically waiting for

[00:35:41] our grade like we we’re waiting for the reaction like i send out a tweet and i’m evaluating my

[00:35:50] ability to write a book and i’m evaluating my ability to write a book and i’m evaluating my

[00:35:51] ability to write a tweet and therefore you know some other aspects of my identity or personality

[00:35:55] or likability uh based on the number of hearts i get when really you know or likes i don’t know what

[00:36:02] what the noun is but um really it’s it’s you know there’s going back to that side effect thing

[00:36:09] there’s so many other things that could go into why i only got one like on that tweet like for

[00:36:13] example you know i sent it at the wrong time of day or you know everybody’s at work and so uh when

[00:36:20] i sent that tweet at three o’clock i got a like on that tweet and i got a like on that tweet and

[00:36:21] three o’clock in the afternoon nobody even saw it like but i think the the fundamental problem

[00:36:26] there is that we aren’t taking a minute to say wait a second i’m waiting i’m letting everyone

[00:36:33] else tell me what my identity like i’m i’m searching for this thing i’m trying to uncover

[00:36:41] the thing that’s most valuable and the only way that i’m doing it is is through some really uh

[00:36:48] poorly formed user research right like i’m trying to uncover the thing that’s most valuable and i’m

[00:36:51] like um you know based on whatever people are responding with i’m i’m just taking that and

[00:36:57] applying it to my self-esteem or i’m applying it to my uh to my own self-perception and i think

[00:37:04] that’s a really broken uh aspect of the digital age and something that we we have to actively be

[00:37:11] aware of so that we don’t put our self-esteem into a tweet or for you and i i don’t put my

[00:37:17] self-esteem into how people respond to this into this interview

[00:37:21] exactly and you know it’s easy to this is one of those i’ve i’ve personally become better at it

[00:37:27] over time and again i think just being online and sharing things for a long time you you you try

[00:37:32] every approach and eventually the approach of not taking it personally i think sticks or at least

[00:37:37] helps the most so you know i tried everything else and that’s the one that actually finally worked

[00:37:42] um but that’s it i mean it’s a it’s a race you can never win or it’s like it’s like a

[00:37:46] i’m trying to think again my brain goes to analogies but you’re you’re trying to balance

[00:37:51] a broom on its handle and you’re and you’re just constantly in this you know oh you know go over

[00:37:57] here go over here oh the broom is moving this way and you’re just chasing this um a need for

[00:38:01] approval or something and unfortunately it never goes away like you don’t you’re never validated

[00:38:07] to the level where it lasts for the rest of your life right there’s no there’s no like number of

[00:38:12] hearts or likes that could ever say okay that’s it i’m i’m done i i’ve reached the finish line

[00:38:17] yeah i’ve reached finish like i’m done with likes i’ve i don’t i never i don’t need another like to

[00:38:21] eat no like inevitably say well i got this many i need more and so uh i started to realize that

[00:38:27] this is sort of an unwinnable situation that you can’t as long as you think that somebody else can

[00:38:33] give you that validation it’s it’s you know uh because see the flip of it is that i i’m i like

[00:38:39] these little paradoxes is that as soon as you let’s say you get that validation let’s say there’s

[00:38:44] some number in your head which is you know like a million likes or something and you do a tweet

[00:38:49] and it gets a million likes well you’re not going to get that number in your head and you’re not

[00:38:51] okay now your next one is it going to reach that like there’s always a next thing that yeah may or

[00:38:57] may not be as good as the previous so you like even getting what you want there’s always another

[00:39:02] want or keeping what you have let’s say it’s amount of money let’s say you need to make you

[00:39:06] know 100 million dollars okay well once you have that now you’re going to be afraid of losing it

[00:39:09] what if the economy turns yeah it’s all downhill from here right it’s all downhill right yeah

[00:39:13] you’re at the top of the mountain the only place is down so now you have a different fear and you

[00:39:17] haven’t uh you haven’t really solved the issue so i think

[00:39:21] for me the the kind of i guess the the solution was yeah to kind of try to think about the process

[00:39:27] and not the outcome because ultimately the outcome man that is so good yeah it’s really hard and and

[00:39:32] it’s not like i i’m you know it’s not like i figured this out day one it was just over time

[00:39:38] and again i’d say i’ve removed maybe 90 of the things that bothered me about about these kind

[00:39:45] of emotional issues so there’s still things that do bother me but i’d say the vast majority of

[00:39:49] ones that used to like a bad review or you know like a bad review or you know like a bad review

[00:39:51] like i have books on amazon if somebody doesn’t like it okay no problem like i used to be i used to

[00:39:55] be more upset about that or or saying oh what did i do wrong and now it’s okay it’s it’s just not a

[00:40:01] fit for that person it’s fine i mean you want to you don’t want to dismiss their feedback if somebody

[00:40:04] has concerns sure like you want to consider them but you’re not putting that extra emotional weight

[00:40:10] behind it where i’m a bad person or i’m not worthy it’s just okay here’s some issues that perhaps i

[00:40:15] can address you know if it makes sense for me yeah this is something that’s really important

[00:40:21] uh more than most groups i would say developers in their in their professional lives uh they

[00:40:28] experience that imposter syndrome right and you know that’s such a that’s such a trigger word now

[00:40:35] and i almost hesitate to use it because it’s so commonly discussed in these circles but it’s a

[00:40:41] real thing and it’s something that i still get messages about pretty much weekly about feeling

[00:40:46] like i just don’t think i have enough knowledge to do this thing or

[00:40:51] you know and there’s there’s some level of of identity crisis as a result and you know my hope

[00:40:58] is that the people who listen to this podcast can can gain a little bit of encouragement from people

[00:41:03] like colin and i um we both started out you know at the same place that you started out and i i

[00:41:11] know that that’s also another common way of describing this like you know everybody starts

[00:41:17] out not being able to walk and eventually you have these master athletes and all that

[00:41:21] uh and and i understand that everybody’s situation is different but you know it really is a a uh a

[00:41:28] perception thing most of the time most of the time there’s something that is you know blocking

[00:41:34] your perception on what you’re able to do thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of

[00:41:40] developer t my interview with khalid azad i hope you were as inspired by today’s episode as i was

[00:41:46] khalid is a great thinker and as simple as

[00:41:51] may seem the the enlightenment that you can get from seeing someone else’s way of perceiving the

[00:41:59] world and seeing people like khalid his way of building metaphors and analogies and explaining

[00:42:04] things in a new and a better way uh this this is inspiring and it helps it helps us think better

[00:42:11] right so thank you so much for listening to today’s episode thank you again to today’s

[00:42:15] awesome sponsor headspace if you haven’t tried out meditation

[00:42:19] because you think it’s a good idea to do so please do so and i’ll see you in the next episode

[00:42:21] it’s it’s odd or it feels weird i challenge you to try it out even if it’s just for the trial period

[00:42:27] which is totally free by the way head over to headspace.com of course if you are looking for

[00:42:32] a job and you would like to work for a company that has mental health as their top priority

[00:42:37] their primary focus then go and check out the offerings uh the job offerings at headspace

[00:42:42] it’s headspace.com join us of course that link can be found in the show notes at spec.fm

[00:42:51] we’ve also created a quick a quick link for you to use instead spec.fm slash headspace

[00:42:56] uh if that one is a little bit easier for you to remember spec.fm slash headspace thank you so much

[00:43:02] for listening to today’s episode don’t forget to uh to listen to the next episode we’ll continue

[00:43:08] our interview with khalid uh and if you don’t want to miss out on future episodes make sure

[00:43:12] you subscribe and whatever podcasting app you use i like overcast i like pocket casts hopefully

[00:43:18] you have found one that you like as well

[00:43:21] so go ahead and subscribe in whatever podcasting app you use if you don’t want to miss out on

[00:43:25] future episodes thank you again and until next time enjoy your tea

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