September Garden Report

Autumn has fallen upon us and the garden is starting to wind down.

The strawberries are alive, but not really producing. The green beans may still produce some, but I am not counting on it.

One of the tomato plants is done, but two others continue to bear fruit. However, ripening happens slowly, and the first frost that we get will kill them all, so I now need to keep an eye on the weather forecasts. The first time it looks like we will dip below freezing, I will pick everything left and see what sitting on the counter can do for them.

However, the second planting of peas and the lettuce seeds are growing. That frost could still ruin everything, but I continue to hope.

I am still getting some new zucchini and crookneck squash, but they are not getting as big. I am not sure how much longer they will last. The pumpkins would have actually thrived under cooler conditions if they had grown, but that leads me to one of the big questions of this whole gardening experiment - why didn't they grow? I am starting to think that they simply mutated.

I guess the idea was planted when talking with one friend about gardening, and worrying about nutrient sharing and competition, and she mentioned in passing that the only risk was squash cross-breeding.

At the time it didn't seem important, but yes, there are many different kinds of squash, some of which are quite similar to each other. I would not automatically be suspicious that the crooknecks are thriving and that I never got a single pumpkin fruit, but there are a few things that make me wonder...

1. One of the crookneck vines is extending from the area where I planted the pumpkin seeds. Things can get mixed up a little, but it is pretty far away from where I put the crookneck seeds.

2. Some of the crooknecks are suspiciously orange, instead of the regular pale yellow. Are they really mutated crumpkins?

3. One of the other garden patches has some squash that are dark green and elongated at one end, but yellow and narrow at the other. Crookini?

My zucchini have remained intact, but they started as plants, and had time to get established while the crookneck and pumpkin seeds were just sprouting.

Really, the most suspicious thing is that yet another garden patch has some thriving crooknecks in the space that they planted watermelons. Are crooknecks like the Borg? You have been squashimilated?

Fortunately, they are pretty flexible for cooking. We have sauteed them with onions, cooked them au gratin with zucchini, and baked them with sausage. I think I will be trying squash breads and cookies soon.

Preparing to have a mission

I know, in the church that means something else. However, we also have our own definition of calling, where most of the world uses it more in the way Newport does, as something you feel drawn to as a life purpose, and a sense of mission goes along with that.

The final section of So Good They Can't Ignore You is Rule #4 Think Small, Act Big (Or, the Importance of Mission). It starts with a chapter called "The Meaningful Life of Pardis Sabeti".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardis_Sabeti

I still recommend reading the book, but if not, Sabeti's Wikipedia entry is still pretty impressive. What she does with her work is impressive, but there is also impressive field and charity work, and she plays in a band and in a volleyball league. It is a good life, and she does a lot of good in the world.

It is also a life that demonstrates the previous rules coming together. She did not automatically know what field she would work in, but worked at it, developing her skills and becoming very good at what she could do. She has skills that people are willing to pay for, and it gives her some control, both for the projects she sets up and for giving her the time for a personal life. As she goes down that path, she finds more things she can do.

For me the most intriguing part of this sentence was a reference to "the adjacent possible". The idea is that at the edges of what we know, there are new discoveries for which the base is already in place. Once those discoveries happen, they become the base for more knowledge and innovation, but at any given moment there are some things that are available.

The description made me want to know more, which is why I am now reading Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson. (For what it's worth, I also recently finished Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin because I wanted to know more about deliberate practice.)

I believe Newport mentioned Crick and Watson's discovery of the double helix formation as an example of a breakthrough that other people were working on simultaneously, and Johnson covers many more such examples, but there were two things that I got from Johnson's book that relate to Sabeti.

One of the common characteristics of people who make large discoveries or innovations is that they have hobbies, or they have studied other things. Working out the double helix required tools from biochemistry, mathematics, genetics, information theory, and a sculpture metaphor. And, perhaps because it is so impossible for one person to know everything, it is important to have contact with different sorts of people in different fields.

From that way of thinking, it is not just that part of a good career is that it gives you a chance to play volleyball against the other departments, or play in a band and spend time with musicians and music fans, but that it makes you better able to do well in your job.

I know many members whose jobs have been influenced in some ways by their time spent in the mission field, if for no other reason than that they have picked up a new language. I have also heard stories of older couples going on service missions where they use knowledge acquired in their career to serve others.

Even without a formal mission in the mix, life can be like this. We learn, we connect to people, we learn more, and there is a circle where knowledge leads to knowledge, connection leads to connection, and we not only make our own lives better but the lives of other people. That is something worth working for.

Preparing to exert career control

We are now at Rule 3: Turn down a promotion (the importance of control)

Newport used to opposite examples to demonstrate this principle. One example had written up a list in her early 20's of things she wanted to do. They included making her way across each continent without normal power, like maybe unicycle for one, and dog team for Antarctica, learning to eat fire, and surviving in the wilderness for a month without supplies. She dropped out of school to do this, but then found her job prospects did not really support her goals.

The other started out with a very basic entry level code testing job, but she became very good at it, learning ways to debug and automate and consistently rising in terms of her level of ability and responsibility. She then was able to request various things that they would not normally give, like Fridays off, or a three-month leave. If the first person had followed that kind of a path, she would have been more likely to be able to follow her interests.

One point of this is that you have to be able to offer something that people will pay for. Someone who has traveled the world by unconventional means may be interesting to talk to, but it doesn't automatically make them a good employee. Even if you look for ways to monetize it, by writing a book or creating a reality show, there are no guaranteed sales.

The most detailed example was about Red Fire Farm: http://www.redfirefarm.com/

As a teenager Ryan tried various things for making money, including some very typical ones. One of those ended up being selling wild berries that he picked. That led to selling extra produce from his parents' garden, then taking over the garden, expanding the garden, and renting land to grow more. By the time he was ready to purchase his own land, he had acquired career capital that he could put to work. It started as a way to simply make cash, but it became a career.

One thing worth noting is that the first few rounds wouldn't have required much of a financial investment. If the berries hadn't sold, he could have moved on to something else easily. As he succeeded, there was a gradual progression to bigger things. At various points the risk would increase, but there had been a commensurate increase in knowledge and experience before each expansion. He is now doing what he wants in the way he wants, but it started small.

As the proprietor of a family business, he has control, but also has responsibility for his own financial well-being, which is going to affect decisions. When you work for an employer, you may have less risk, but also a trade off with less freedom, and that requires other decisions. That's where turning down promotions may come in.

I have a friend who works at a large chip manufacturer, and is not on the typical career path where he should be seeking higher advancement. He is looked down on for that, but he knows that the normal route will seriously compromise family time, and mental health, and evaluating what his family needs are financially and emotionally, has made his choice. That takes some strength, but it also takes clearheaded analysis.

This section of the book had many examples of people who did turn down promotions or walk away. When you are valuable to your employer, they may want to nail you down more. They will probably not want you to be gone for three months or to work four days a week. If that's what makes the situation workable for you, that may work, as long as you have something to offer them that is worth the concession.

For the woman who did take the three-month leave, part of it was that in preparation for it she trained her team to function without her. She wanted to know that they could do it, it would be a relief to her company to know that while she was valuable she was not irreplaceable, and it was probably good for the individual team members to expand their abilities.

Exerting career control is a two-part process. One is knowing what you have of value, so that you have something to offer and to barter with. In addition, you also need to know what you value, so that you can decide the worth of various options. Combining those things can help you build a desirable career.

Preparing to get good

After realizing that it was not possible to capture the entire book So Good They Can't Ignore You in a single post, I started thinking that perhaps I should do additional posts, with one going over each rule.

I still think that if people are interested they should read the book, and I can also confirm that there are copies of the book in Washington County libraries, but I suspect that spending more time writing about it will be valuable for me.

The overall cycle is that as you become very good at your job, having skills that are valuable, you can take more control, which allows you to not only improve your job conditions but also to control the direction your work takes, allowing it to become more of a mission, thus making this a job you are passionate about.

Building skill is the most basic step, but part of that is also deciding where to focus. There may be jobs where you should leave instead of try to become better. Newport gives three possible scenarios for that:

1. The job presents few opportunities to distinguish yourself by developing relevant skills that are rare and valuable.
2. The job focuses on something you think is useless or perhaps even actively bad for the world.
3. The job forces you to work with people you really dislike.

Many of the people who would benefit from this book are those just starting out, but it can also be useful for those who are already working but dissatisfied with their situations. In that case, the first step may need to be to examine why it is not satisfying. If the reasons fit into the three situations above, it may be better to move on than to try and fix.

(I will say that I have noticed that a lot of stories -- not from the book; just that I have heard -- about people who changed jobs and been happy, or were miserable about their jobs on their deathbeds seem to involve the advertising industry.)

If you are ready to stay and build, then Newport talks about the "craftsman mindset" and gives examples of those who have followed it well, along with five habits.

1. Decide what Capital Market You're In
Newport divides these into "auction" and "winner take all", which basically means whether there are several types of skills and niches to fill, or basically one necessary type of skill. He uses one person working in venture capital and one working as a television writer for examples.

2. Identify Your Capital Type
The venture capitalist had some experience and knowledge about energy that made him valuable for firms focusing in clean energy, and making that connection helped him in focusing his search and making choices. The writer just needed to keep producing better scripts.

3. Define "Good"
This could mean having a script good enough to land an agent or being able to quickly assess whether a company with a new energy saving device will be successful. Having identified your capital type, knowing what makes it valuable should give you an idea of the level of skill that is needed.

4. Stretch and Destroy
This is where the deliberate practice comes in. We have all heard about the 10000 hour rule for becoming an expert at something, but it looks like how you practice is more important than for how long.
Neil Charness did a study of chess players, and of many tracked over 10000 hours, some became grand masters and some stayed intermediate. The grand masters had spent half of their time on serious study of the game - reading books, working with teachers, and identifying weaknesses. The players who were still intermediate had spent only about 1000 hours on this, spending more of their time on tournament play.
Deliberate practice is not always enjoyable, because you are constantly finding the weak spots, and the areas where you are not very good, and attacking them. At the same time, you end up eliminating those weak spots.

5. Be Patient
The point in the previous habit is that thousands of hours don't automatically give you valuable career capital, but it does not mean that you won't still need thousands of hours. For the two main examples, it took them two and five years of deliberate practice to get where they wanted after deciding what they could do and how to get there.

Of course, those years would have passed anyway, whether they had been working toward a goal or not.