pgriz
Been spending a lot of time on here!
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2010
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- 6,734
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- Location
- Canada
- Can others edit my Photos
- Photos OK to edit
Chris gives good advice. I mentor from time to time, and one aspect of working life that sometimes breeds cynicism is that many that you come in contact with are nowhere near what they represent themselves to be. So the mentoring advice is, figure out what you want and need, and when you meet new (potential) employees/associates/colleagues, keep checking to see whether they are as good as they represent themselves to be, and whether their characters are such that the benefit can be realized. Some will deliberately overstate their abilities, luring you in with false promises. Some have ability, but not the desire to make it work with/for you. Some have good intentions and inflated ideas of their own abilities, and therefore can't deliver on their promises. It takes a lot of patience (and effort) to find the relatively few that are as good as they appear, and have the mental/emotional tools to work collaboratively.
This is true whether one is looking for programmers, or labourers, business partners or life partners, makeup artists or photographers. You have to put the hard effort in at meeting many, and hopefully, you will find the few that have the ability to contribute (and don't forget, some of that is compatibility with you). If a contact doesn't work out, you move on and keep looking. The wider is your net, the better is the chance that you will find the people you want to work with. As Chris has noted, it IS an endless search, because even when you find someone who's compatible and can contribute, over time your and their interests may diverge and you will again be looking.
One of my own faults is that I tend to believe and trust people too much, and that has caused me all kinds of grief over the years. My wife is more pragmatic about these kinds of things, and more than a few times she'd note that so-and-so isn't really contributing in a useful way. I'd deny that, and try to change the situation, and in the end she would still be right. Unfortunately, it's a lesson that I am still learning, and even though I can freely dispense the advice, I don't always apply it to myself.
One of the sources of this hesitation is that I have some insecurity about just how well I know my field (much of it is self-taught), and I tend to defer to those who have the formal credentials. And yet, in the end I usually have a better understanding of the issues we're trying to correct or deal with, than the experts. An example of this is the art of selling. I am not a natural salesperson, and it takes considerable effort on my part to meet with people and engage in the necessary small-talk to establish a level of comfort after which we can start getting down to the business. And yet in the end, the agreements I end up signing are almost always successful, whereas the ones sold by the salesmen often have issues that require a lot of additional work after-the-fact to make right. So it comes back to giving yourself enough credit for what you've already proven you can do, and not giving away for free your skill, knowledge and expertise.
This is true whether one is looking for programmers, or labourers, business partners or life partners, makeup artists or photographers. You have to put the hard effort in at meeting many, and hopefully, you will find the few that have the ability to contribute (and don't forget, some of that is compatibility with you). If a contact doesn't work out, you move on and keep looking. The wider is your net, the better is the chance that you will find the people you want to work with. As Chris has noted, it IS an endless search, because even when you find someone who's compatible and can contribute, over time your and their interests may diverge and you will again be looking.
One of my own faults is that I tend to believe and trust people too much, and that has caused me all kinds of grief over the years. My wife is more pragmatic about these kinds of things, and more than a few times she'd note that so-and-so isn't really contributing in a useful way. I'd deny that, and try to change the situation, and in the end she would still be right. Unfortunately, it's a lesson that I am still learning, and even though I can freely dispense the advice, I don't always apply it to myself.
One of the sources of this hesitation is that I have some insecurity about just how well I know my field (much of it is self-taught), and I tend to defer to those who have the formal credentials. And yet, in the end I usually have a better understanding of the issues we're trying to correct or deal with, than the experts. An example of this is the art of selling. I am not a natural salesperson, and it takes considerable effort on my part to meet with people and engage in the necessary small-talk to establish a level of comfort after which we can start getting down to the business. And yet in the end, the agreements I end up signing are almost always successful, whereas the ones sold by the salesmen often have issues that require a lot of additional work after-the-fact to make right. So it comes back to giving yourself enough credit for what you've already proven you can do, and not giving away for free your skill, knowledge and expertise.