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Better Goals - Deriving Values from Personal Investment and Risk Tolerance

Summary

In this episode of Developer Tea, host Jonathan Cutrell presents a framework for deriving personal values and setting more meaningful goals. He argues that short-term goals lack significance unless they align with long-term identity, and proposes a mental model to bridge this gap.

The core of the episode is a practical exercise: drawing a two-axis quadrant. The vertical axis represents ‘Risk Tolerance’ (how much you’re willing to let something fail), and the horizontal axis represents ‘Personal Investment’ or ‘Care’ (how much the subject matters to you). This creates four distinct categories for evaluating any activity or life domain.

Cutrell defines each quadrant: Bottom-left is ‘Necessary Evils’ (low care, low risk tolerance—like doing taxes). Top-left is ‘Avoid’ (low care, high risk tolerance—things you could stop doing without consequence). Top-right is ‘Moonshots’ (high care, high risk tolerance—big bets you’re willing to pursue despite high failure risk). Bottom-right is ‘Sacred’ or ‘Protected’ (high care, low risk tolerance—things like family time that you value deeply and will not risk).

The exercise involves populating this quadrant with personal examples. The resulting visual map helps clarify why you spend time on certain tasks (like necessary evils you can’t risk) and identifies areas for goal-setting (moonshots) and elimination (things to avoid). It serves as a lens to reconcile activities you don’t care about but must do versus those you don’t care about and can drop.

Cutrell concludes by encouraging listeners to use this quadrant in their next goal-setting session. He suggests it will provide clarity on where to make concessions, what to optimize, what goals to set, and—most importantly—what activities to avoid altogether, ultimately helping to define unique personal values.

Recommendations

Tools

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Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Introduction to the problem of goal-setting — Jonathan Cutrell introduces the episode’s focus: helping listeners who struggle to decide on meaningful goals. He emphasizes that short-term goals need to align with long-term identity to be significant. The episode will present a simple exercise based on internal feelings and personal resonance, not just writing things down.
  • 00:02:57 — Introducing the quadrant exercise framework — Cutrell explains the simple exercise: drawing a big ‘T’ to create a quadrant. The vertical axis is labeled ‘Risk Tolerance’ and the horizontal axis is labeled ‘Investment’ or ‘Personal Care’ (how much something matters). The goal is to create a mental model for evaluating different activities and subjects based on these two metrics.
  • 00:04:26 — Defining the ‘Necessary Evils’ and ‘Avoid’ quadrants — Cutrell defines the two left quadrants. The bottom-left is ‘Necessary Evils’: things with low risk tolerance but low personal care (e.g., doing taxes). The top-left is ‘Avoid’: things with high risk tolerance and low care—activities you don’t care if they succeed or fail and should stop putting time into.
  • 00:06:22 — Defining the ‘Moonshots’ and ‘Sacred’ quadrants — Cutrell defines the two right quadrants, which both involve high personal care. The top-right is ‘Moonshots’: things you care deeply about and have a high tolerance for risk—big bets you’re willing to pursue despite a high chance of failure. The bottom-right is ‘Sacred’ (or ‘Protected’): things you care deeply about but have a very low risk tolerance for, like family time, which you are not willing to jeopardize.
  • 00:07:35 — How to populate and use the quadrant — Cutrell instructs listeners to go back and place specific activities or life domains into the quadrants. He notes that placement can be nuanced (e.g., a necessary evil you care about slightly more can be placed further right). The quadrant reveals what you value, what you want to pursue (moonshots), and what must be protected (sacred). It also helps reconcile why you do things you don’t care about (low risk tolerance) versus things you can drop (high risk tolerance).
  • 00:09:16 — Applying the quadrant to goal-setting — Cutrell recommends taking this quadrant into your next goal-setting session. He guarantees it will clarify where you’re willing to make concessions, what to optimize, what goals to set, and—most importantly—what activities to avoid altogether. The unique items on your chart help define your personal values.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2022-10-18T07:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:10:38

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] If you struggle deciding on what your goals should be in today’s episode, we’re going

[00:00:15] to look at it from a different angle.

[00:00:17] My name is Jonathan Cotrell.

[00:00:18] You’re listening to Developer Team.

[00:00:20] My goal on the show is to help driven developers like you find clarity, perspective, and purpose

[00:00:25] in their careers.

[00:00:28] Hearing out a goal sounds like a big, difficult task.

[00:00:35] Sure, you can do short-term goals, but if you’ve been listening to the show, you know

[00:00:40] that short-term goals really don’t mean much unless you have a long-term plan.

[00:00:46] Short-term goals should align to your long-term identity goals.

[00:00:52] And so, if you haven’t figured this out yet, in today’s episode, we’re going to do a

[00:00:57] simple exercise, and this exercise is going to be based on two metrics that I want you

[00:01:04] to pay close attention to.

[00:01:07] And these are going to be things that you’re going to feel.

[00:01:10] This isn’t something that you’re going to simply figure out by writing down a bunch

[00:01:16] of numbers.

[00:01:17] This is going to be something that you have to decide internally.

[00:01:21] What resonates the most with you?

[00:01:23] You may be able to review something that you’ve written down that helps you understand who

[00:01:28] you are, but ultimately, the exercise that we’re doing today is going to be about you

[00:01:36] deciding how you feel, deciding what that long-term identity looks like.

[00:01:41] Now, instead of putting a set of words to that long-term identity, we’re going to create

[00:01:48] a mental model, a way of thinking about different activities, different subjects.

[00:01:54] You get to decide what those things are in this activity.

[00:01:58] First, let’s talk about today’s episode.

[00:02:06] This episode of Developer T is sponsored by Square.

[00:02:09] There are millions of sellers across the globe who are using Square right now, right this

[00:02:14] second.

[00:02:15] They are running every aspect of their business using Square.

[00:02:18] Many of them are looking for customized solutions that are deeply connected to their business

[00:02:23] and easy for them to use in all of their specific situations.

[00:02:27] This is where you as a developer come in.

[00:02:29] You can grow your business by extending or integrating with Square using free APIs and

[00:02:34] SDKs to build tools for those sellers.

[00:02:38] Purpose-built tools for sellers are going to help you grow your business.

[00:02:41] Head over to developert.com slash square to get started today.

[00:02:45] It’s developert.com slash square.

[00:02:47] Thanks again to Square for sponsoring today’s episode of Developer T.

[00:02:57] This exercise that we’re going to do today is very simple.

[00:03:00] It doesn’t make it easy, but it is simple.

[00:03:03] I want you to draw a big T, just a horizontal line and a vertical line intersecting.

[00:03:13] We’re creating a quadrant here.

[00:03:15] On the bottom or on the top of that vertical line, I want you to write risk tolerance.

[00:03:22] This is risk tolerance.

[00:03:23] This is one of the metrics that I want you to be thinking about and getting in touch

[00:03:27] with today.

[00:03:29] On the horizontal line, you’re going to give the title investment.

[00:03:32] I want you to think about this as personal investment.

[00:03:37] On mine, I wrote care.

[00:03:39] How much do I care about this thing?

[00:03:41] How much does this personally matter to me?

[00:03:45] We have risk tolerance and care.

[00:03:51] We’ve created these four boxes.

[00:03:53] There’s four different categories that I want you to explore and start writing some things

[00:03:56] down.

[00:03:57] Again, the output of this is going to be this picture for you to take a look at it and see

[00:04:03] what is this telling you.

[00:04:04] When you see certain activities, maybe you didn’t think about this particular model.

[00:04:08] You didn’t think about the intersection of care and investment and risk tolerance.

[00:04:16] That’s why we’re doing this exercise.

[00:04:18] This should be enlightening.

[00:04:19] On the bottom left quadrant, you’re going to label this one necessary evils.

[00:04:26] These are things that you don’t have the tolerance to risk.

[00:04:32] There’s a low risk tolerance, but you don’t really care very much about them.

[00:04:36] A great example of this might be getting your taxes done, but there are other things that

[00:04:42] other people may actually enjoy doing that you don’t really enjoy doing, but you believe

[00:04:47] are really important, things that you’re not willing to risk.

[00:04:53] So that’s the title of the bottom left quadrant.

[00:04:55] On the top left quadrant, we’re going to label this quadrant avoid.

[00:05:02] These are things that you have a high willingness, a high tolerance for risk and you don’t care

[00:05:10] about them.

[00:05:11] In other words, you don’t really care if it succeeds or fails.

[00:05:16] You could never do it again and it wouldn’t matter to you.

[00:05:19] These are things that you should avoid doing.

[00:05:23] Avoid putting your time into these things.

[00:05:28] As you’re thinking about this, I want you to think on both of these axes individually.

[00:05:35] Consider a particular topic like, for example, spending time with family and determine how

[00:05:41] much do you care about that and how much are you willing to risk it?

[00:05:45] In other words, how much are you willing to do things that cause that thing to be put

[00:05:51] at risk?

[00:05:53] Now we move to the right two squares in this quadrant.

[00:05:57] It’s important to note both of these right two squares you care a lot about, right?

[00:06:03] Both of them you care a lot about.

[00:06:05] So there are things that we care a lot about that we also have high tolerance for risk

[00:06:10] in, and then there are things that we have low tolerance for risk in.

[00:06:17] The things in the top right corner, we’re going to call these moonshots.

[00:06:22] These are things that you’re willing to make really big bets on.

[00:06:26] These are the things that you’re willing to try your best at, at the high risk of failure.

[00:06:33] And you’re willing to do that.

[00:06:35] Moonshots, the bottom right corner, we’re going to call sacred.

[00:06:40] If you don’t like the word sacred, you could put protected or even something like untouchable.

[00:06:46] These are things that you care very much about and you’re not willing to risk.

[00:06:52] Things you care very much about and you’re not willing to risk.

[00:06:55] For me, family time is in this quadrant.

[00:07:00] I care very much about family time and I’m not willing to risk family time, for example,

[00:07:06] for the sake of work.

[00:07:08] I’m not willing to risk the time that I spend, the quality time that I have with my family.

[00:07:14] And so that is sacred to me.

[00:07:16] Alright, so look at this quadrant.

[00:07:19] You have four different categories.

[00:07:20] You have necessary evils, you have things to avoid, you have moonshots, and you have

[00:07:25] things that are sacred, things that are protected.

[00:07:29] Now the job is to go back through, go back through these quadrants and place things on

[00:07:35] them.

[00:07:36] Now notice you don’t necessarily have to treat everything that’s a necessary evil as an equal

[00:07:41] amount of ambivalence, right?

[00:07:45] You may care about some of those things a little bit more than others.

[00:07:49] It may be a necessary evil, but you like it more than doing taxes.

[00:07:53] That’s fine.

[00:07:54] You can put those things further to the right on this quadrant.

[00:08:01] What does this quadrant tell you?

[00:08:03] What does it tell you?

[00:08:04] Well, it gives you some idea of the things that you value.

[00:08:10] It gives you some idea of the things that you value.

[00:08:12] It also gives you some idea of the things that you want to pursue.

[00:08:18] The higher risk categories on the top right, those moonshots, the things that you’d like

[00:08:24] to pursue even at risk of failure, that can drive some of your goal setting.

[00:08:31] But you can also evaluate your life goals through the lens of are you able to keep what

[00:08:37] is sacred sacred.

[00:08:41] This picture also helps you reconcile between the two categories of things that you don’t

[00:08:46] care very much about.

[00:08:47] One, that you are willing to risk, right?

[00:08:51] In other words, you’re willing to allow something to fail because you don’t care very much about

[00:08:56] it.

[00:08:57] And two, the things that you’re not willing to risk.

[00:09:00] This gives you clarity on why, why you have to spend time doing something that you don’t

[00:09:06] care much about because you have a low tolerance to risk for that thing.

[00:09:12] Now take this quadrant into your next goal setting session.

[00:09:16] I guarantee you that if you cross reference your goals to this, to this chart, it’s going

[00:09:22] to help you clarify where you’re willing to make concessions, where you’re willing to

[00:09:28] optimize, what you’re willing to set your goals around, what kinds of goals you should

[00:09:33] be setting.

[00:09:34] And then perhaps the most important thing here is what you should avoid doing altogether.

[00:09:41] Thanks so much for listening to today’s episode of Developer T. I hope you like this exercise.

[00:09:45] It’s a little bit of a different lens on how you can derive what your personal values are.

[00:09:51] The things that you find on this chart, I hope that you will create the chart in a way

[00:09:55] that is necessarily different from another person.

[00:09:59] Not very many people enjoy doing their taxes, right?

[00:10:03] So there’s not a lot of value in adding that to this chart, but if you focus on things

[00:10:08] that maybe somebody else might enjoy, but you don’t, you’re going to get more value

[00:10:13] out of this chart.

[00:10:14] If you can find the things that are unique to you, then you are probably kind of walking

[00:10:19] down the road of determining your own values.

[00:10:22] Thanks so much for listening.

[00:10:23] Thank you again to today’s sponsor, Square.

[00:10:25] Head over to developert.com slash square to get started today.

[00:10:29] Thanks again.

[00:10:30] And until next time, enjoy your tea.

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