Amateurs think in absolutes. Professionals think in probabilities
One of my favorite blogposts this week comes from Farnam Street. The topic is the difference between amateurs and professionals. It’s a short read, essentially listing out a lot of one-liner differences between how amateurs react to a certain circumstance, versus professionals. My favorite difference was “Amateurs think in absolutes. Professionals think in probabilities”. Often times we get sucked into thinking in black and white. This can lead to sub-optimal decision making at work or in life. Thinking in probabilities can help a lot. Couple other favorite differences:
Amateurs focus on identifying their weaknesses and improving them. Professionals focus on their strengths and on finding people who are strong where they are weak.
Amateurs have a goal. Professionals have a process.
I liked this post from Shubheksha on Lessons learnt in year three as a software engineer. Its a short one as well, but lists some interesting points of view. One of the more tricky ones is “Titles do matter, even if they’d like you to believe that they don’t”. I work at a company where we do not have titles. But in our industry, we do have titles. As a result, we need to map our internal levels (which are private) to external titles. But I find it personally very relieving that I do not have to bother about titles. Or have to give more weight to someone in a meeting just because they have a certain title. However, Shubheksha makes a good point. Titles do become important because we, as an industry, still give them some weight.
Lastly, I want to bring this tweet to your attention by Leo Polovets.
In a lot of competitive roles (CEO, engineer, VC, etc), most of your peers are smart. And when most peers are smart, the thing that helps you stand out is not being a tiny bit smarter, but being strong in other areas, like EQ.
This is 💯% true. If you are in a profession where everyone is smart, then to stand out, you need to master another skill. Is doesn’t have to be a degree, but something that compliments your current work in your current role.
Finally, based on the above articles, here’s some thoughts to ponder on:
When do you tend to behave like an amateur, when in fact you should be behaving like a professional?
Shubheksha mentions in her post that programming gets easier over time? is this also the case for you? Do you think you have leveled up in your programming skills?
What skill or tact could you hone to stand out from your smart peers?