Exploratory Q&A - Dave Lush

00:00

Passion and enjoyment of the subject gives you an intrinsic motivation to really excel certainly. And I think that can make you last longer before you burnout, but it's never going to completely stop it.

00:15

What's the biggest trap that you see people falling into in the early days of their career?

00:23

I don't know how you pronounce it, is it Dunning-Kruger effect or something like that? It's the thing where you lack the skills to recognize that you're not necessarily competent in something.

00:33

So then you get out there, you get looking for a job. And you're looking for your early tech job as well. And you probably latch onto the first opportunity that you get an offer on. And maybe jump in there too soon. You don't recognize, and this what Dunning-Kruger is, you don't have the skills to recognize what a good team and a good opportunity looks like.

00:56

And you can only accumulate those skills as you get more experience. And even then, I'm 42, I struggle with it a bit sometimes. "Is that really the right opportunity?" So, I think I've had a little bit of luck combined with a growing amount of experience and insight.

01:11

So, that's not a trap, that's just a decision-making ability. I think the trap is if you then stay somewhere and it's not the right choice for you. And then it's recognizing what the smells are that something is not the right opportunity for you to carry on with. And I don't really have too much insight on that because there's so many different smells.

01:38

People worry about the sunk cost, don't they? And the amount that they've put into something. That they don't want to lose the amount that they've learned.

01:51

Yeah. There's those kind of things. It's not a million miles off just being in a relationship as well. And there's almost some weighing scales of, "These are the positive things outweighing the negative." It's probably not a bad heuristic to use even early on.

02:03

It's an interesting thought that you raised that, because I think that there's really close relationship between love and work.

02:13

If you go back to the Renaissance, before then, didn't get married for love. We got married for the sake of just being with someone else and creating a child, and having security.

02:28

In the same way that you didn't have a job in order to find fulfillment, you got a job in order to just get you by. And the two have come together in some way, and the problems are the same.

02:46

Yes. And you're right. There's that something that's shifted. I feel lucky that I have a job and a career that I love. And you wish for that same thing for your kids as well. And I suspect that many people working, especially down a technical route, an engineering route, are hopefully doing it because it's something that they love.

03:07

And they've maybe got the geeky vibe that's carried on with them through the line. I've had many jobs that I didn't love. I've done roofing, I've done door-to-door sales, I've worked in warehouses and factories, I've been a removals man. All in quite a compressed timescale really early on. Which I think gives me a better appreciation now of how much I do love my job as it is.

03:27

Does it help you in your relationships too?

03:29

In my work relationships, absolutely yeah. Because, I've worked in hospitality as well. So, I know what it's like to be on the sharp end. I've done maybe jobs that have been unfulfilling as well. Yeah, it gives you the skills to deal with a broader set of people, even if it was quite early on in my life.

03:50

Did you ever experience imposter syndrome early on in your career or later on? And if so, how did you deal with it?

03:57

Every time that I changed a job. And every time that a new responsibility gets put to me in a current job. And whenever I come into contact with a new group of people in my current job. So yes, it's daunting.

04:09

I think I'm finding it easier and easier to overcome as I go through my career. And I even coming into the CTR role that I'm in now, massive imposter syndrome when I first started, because you're in a different company and it's a different shape of company. It's a different domain you're in. You've got new responsibilities. You're working with new people.

04:36

And I guess, there's that feeling of, "The things that we did before, were they really as good as I think they were. Or am I deluded and I'm about to find out as I start working with new group of people?"

04:48

How do you overcome imposter syndrome?

04:52

And it's, I guess, challenging the reasons for why you've got that imposter syndrome. And I'll try and not use business bingo language like facing into it and leaning into it.

05:07

But you know what I mean as well, I'm facing up to the fact that, "Okay, this is the thing that I'm worried about. I'm going to go and tackle it and then try and get rid of the thing that I'm afraid of, rather than letting it fester and start hiding away from it."

05:20

So for example, in my current role, the early imposter syndrome was around new relationships and in new parts of the business. I had not needed to worry about a huge amount before. Which was like, "Okay, I'm going to come..."

05:32

In fact actually, what I did as I joined, very few people knew that I was joining the company. So we were going through quite a period of transition. So I went through the org channel, underneath the chief exec, and just went and put in half an hour with all the people that reported into the chief exec.

05:48

Because that's for people, the scariest for me. So, "Okay, I'm going to go and talk to you all first and ask you the same few questions."

05:54

So you proactively just put yourself in the line of fire in order to get rid of the imposter syndrome? You'd argue that maybe you'd do the opposite and try and get away from it.

06:03

It's only something I've started doing in the past say, five years. It's not something that I would've done earlier in my career. But if you see someone do it, who's early in the career, it really makes them stand out.

06:14

I guess, there's another part of imposter syndrome where we've, someone said this the other day, it was amazing.

06:21

It was like, "I'm using my insides to look at your outsides." As if you know all of your vulnerabilities and all the bad things. But when you look at something else, it's just so much greener. Is there a way of getting over that?

06:43

Can I just check that I understand as well. It's all like the other thing, you view what you do subjectively and other things that other people do objectively. Is it similar? In that, "I understand my own motivations and therefore I'm looking at my insides but all I see is your behavior."

07:01

Yeah. It's almost like, I think roughly, in your sphere, you see all of the shit stuff and all of the good stuff. Whereas, when you look at someone else's sphere, you only ever see the good stuff.

07:12

Right. Okay. Yeah. And especially if you traverse in skillsets and stuff as well. Yeah. So if I look into a product team, for example, which is not my specialism, all I see is the confidence and the behavior. Yep.

07:26

Sorry, and then what was the question again? Now I understand fully.

07:29

What the fuck do you do when you're going into a new company for the first time. What practical things could you do in that moment?

07:37

Love the way that you booked the calls with the sea-level staff, which is a brilliant idea.

07:41

Are there any other ways that you could just snap that imposter syndrome out of you in the early days, to try and give yourself...

07:47

What you're not going to do is, you're not going to magically, it's not like The Matrix. And I can plug in a tape and suddenly I know all about programming and I've developed 10 to 15 years experience. So in reality, what you then need to do is grow your comfort and your confidence. And recognizing what you value as well.

08:07

So, I guess we were talking about values last time we spoke actually as well. And in myself, recognizing that I hold integrity highly and work ethic, et cetera.

08:17

And just working in a way that sits with your values and being yourself. And watching for the feedback coming back and listening to it and learning from it.

08:30

And I guess, picking out who you really value that feedback from and which you're going to act more strongly on.

08:36

Almost as if you've got a bit of a sieve in your mind, where you're taking in bits of information that you want, but not the other stuff.

08:43

And gradually learning to be comfortable in your own skin as well, which is not just about work imposter syndrome, I don't think. It's something that some lucky people are just born with, which I'm not one of them. And some of us, we need to develop over years. And some people just never get to it either.

08:59

Have you ever seen people start off their career not comfortable in their own skin, but as their career progresses, they're feeling more comfortable?

09:14

Yeah. So there's a person I can think of that I'm working with now that, I'm not going to name him, but who you are. We've been working together for about four or five years and he gets quite significant imposter syndrome. He is extremely effective despite it.

09:31

And you can tell that he's got it going on as well, otherwise I wouldn't mention it and wouldn't raise it. But even in those four or five years that we've been working together, I guess he's learned to tackle and break down the barriers.

09:46

He's like, "Okay, I'm not worried about this thing anymore and I'm not worried about that one."

09:51

So there's still concern there and niggling like, "Am I good enough?"

09:55

But his bubble has expanded even through that period of time. And it's expanded quite a lot in that period of time.

10:02

When does your own personal growth border on self sabotage?

10:09

And has that happened to you?

10:09

Yeah. I don't think I've ever bumped into that. I think I've seen other people bump into it. But I can see a couple of potential examples. One's maybe not about personal growth. Well, you see people that are focused on career growth and see career growth as personal growth. So, climbing the corporate ladder, salary progression, et cetera.

10:31

Because you're focused on the next job title or salary progression instead of just doing the right thing and enjoying yourself, I've seen that definitely backfire in terms people have either not got what they've wanted or they've got what they wanted and realize it doesn't maybe fulfill them.

10:50

A separate avenue is, people burning out, basically, just from that appetite to learn, working really hard, keeping going, but just never stopping, never taking a break and then burning out too soon.

11:09

Did you have other examples in mind when you think of that or when you asked that question rather?

11:13

No, not particularly. No.

11:17

There's a really interesting distinction between career growth and personal growth.

11:21

How do when you're optimizing for your career growth versus your personal growth? Because, it must be difficult to tell in that moment if you're an individual, because the two things must blend into one a bit.

11:32

I guess, it's worth thinking about how I equate the two, because I'm equating career growth to job title, responsibility, that growth of control and influence bubbles. I can't remember what book that's out of, but you probably know what I might mean.

11:48

And salary progression and package and everything else, maybe the brands that you're working for. Personal growth is about skillset, knowledge, your personal skills and...

12:01

What's interesting, the relationships you hold with people, I'd put that in personal growth. But it does support your career growth as well. And I guess, that depends on your motivations. I view it as personal growth because I'm just caring about treating other people as humans and working well with them. But I can see how it supports my career growth as well.

12:24

I'm sorry, was the question, how do you distinguish between the two?

12:28

Yeah. How do you, if you are in that situation, know whether you're optimizing for the wrong one?

12:35

It's interesting because, so the personal growth side of things as an engineer often is, I'm learning about new technologies. I'm learning new techniques. I'm learning to work better as part of a team. That all supports your career growth. That's the thing that when you move onto the next role, sets you up for interview and being a compelling candidate.

12:59

It's hard to see how that might backfire because it's all good stuff. You're working towards things that fulfill you and set you for the future. Where I think that could fall over is, if you don't recognize that you've spent too long the same company. And you just carry on plugging away, doing the same things, learning new skills, but not breaking out of that local minimum of, "There's a limit to how much I can grow as an individual in this company."

13:29

You've probably heard the quirks as well of like, "The best people aren't grow out of companies quicker than sort of the less capable people."

13:35

But I'm saying all of that and I've spent nine years in the same company. And I think I carried on growing personally and career in there. I think we talked about it last time as well. I probably would've progressed quicker in my personal skill set because I moved on a little bit sooner. I think probably five years might have been a good boundary for that.

13:56

Called it a local minimum. So, great phrase. How do you go about understanding that local minimum and whether it's giving you what it should be?

14:10

So the reason why I mentioned that phrase is, it's stuck with me for 20 odd years since I did my degree. From robotics and path finding and things like that. Sorry, and heuristics as well, rather. You do something that spikes away from a local minimum at and, "Can I get past the local peaks? If I look in another area, do I find something that's a better solution?"

14:35

If you apply that to personal and career growth, that means really looking at the market outside and understanding what's going on. But I don't want to recommend that in case the engineers in my team listen to this, because I don't want any of them to leave. Because I love them all. I love you all.

14:54

So definitely don't that. That's a slightly more serious answer as well is, I guess don't exist purely in the echo chamber of the company that you work for. So being there, reading articles, understanding how other people are thinking.

15:16

And actually recognizing, you've probably come across Thoughtworks' Tech Radar before. And for anyone that's not come across it actually. So there are four quadrants around frameworks, techniques, languages platforms, I think. And then four different gradings for adopt this, all the way through to hold this.

15:38

I've found that's been a really good tool through the years as well to recognize. So we've landed on this internally as a team. Where we've evolved into this practice or we've evolved into this new technique.

15:50

So it's been really helpful to be able to look out and get feedback from someone else without asking. "Well actually, we did recommend it out there in the industry as well."

16:00

So you feel like, "Actually we've arrived on a good solution." That's been great. And I guess that's recognizing that we're not stuck in a local minimum. We've got confirmation that, that's the direction the industry's going in.

16:10

It's almost the job of the CTO to keep on expanding the local minimum.

16:15

Yes. Yep, 100% agree. I feel like I'm going to be boring now because I've said this a lot to our team in the past two weeks. So if anyone listens in, I apologize.

16:28

But then for the other people that listen, this'll be new. So, I guess we're coming to the end of our financial year. Ends at the end of March. I've recognized that we're at a scale that I can't work with everyone day in day.

16:44

So we're not massive. We've got a tech team of about 40 people. I think actually, I told you about this last time, so I am being boring.

16:51

So I've gone around and I've done 30 minute conversations with everyone of the team. Asking about what we're doing well, what we're not doing well and what we could do better.

17:00

Since we last spoke, I've managed to tag all the data. I've written it up, I've done an internal report and sort of shared some of the themes with the rest of the tech team, with our product team, with leadership, et cetera. So we're ready to start acting on it.

17:18

So in my role, I'm recognizing that if we carry on as we are, we'll potentially not stagnate, but you just carry on at the same level. By reflecting on where we are and gathering suggestions from people in the team, we can look at, "What do we do next to progress?"

17:36

And then it would just been me that sits there, in the middle of the ivory tower and goes, "Yes, we shall do that."

17:41

What does burnout look like to you?

17:45

I guess you're saying how do you recognize burnout?

17:47

Yeah. And also, what does it look like? So I think a lot of people don't know that they're experiencing it or can't spot it in other people.

17:57

Yeah. It's quite a big topic. Definitely, we did talk about this because it's quite a big topic as well. And I guess it's understanding the physiology of what leads to chronic stress and the fact that you're not switching off and you're just keeping it going. Or even if you feel like, "I've stopped work for the day.", it's still so demanding that you are waking up thinking about in the middle of the night.

18:23

So I guess the warning signs for me in the past are genuinely that. So, waking up in the middle of the night. And it might not be just, "Work is waking me up." But it could be that, "My wife's fidgeting in bed, waking me up. And the first thing that happens is, I start thinking about work. And that's it, I'm doomed. I can't get back to sleep for another two hours."

18:45

But then I guess that's an extreme example of where it's like, "Okay, I've gone way too far." And the there's a path that leads towards burning as well, where I'm finding myself working slightly longer hours. And it doesn't necessarily need to be that the company's sort of pushing me to do it however, as well. It could be that, "I'm enjoying what I'm doing so much, but I'm pushing harder and I'm accidentally just doing that little bit too much and not stopping and taking a break."

19:19

I think a person I recognize it in myself if I get grouchy as well. I find that I lack patience for the people around me, especially if I find I lack patience for my family and friends. Because, it's easy to be patient with people at work quite often. And it's been also easy to be sort of slightly less lazy and controlling your emotions with those classes too.

19:39

Yeah. Their line, the main ones. What I've not touched on is really extreme examples of burnout. I think it's quite obvious then as well. I think if I find myself getting overly frustrated with things whilst I'm in a work environment as well, is a warning sign.

19:57

Sounds like it's more likely to come from a lack of passion or a lack of fun and motivation than it is to come from an overdose of hard work.

20:13

I guess I'm maybe describing what's led to burnout in me. And for me, it's come from an overdose of hard mental work quite often, and sustaining it for...

20:25

Because I think it's not unhealthy to sustain it for a month and to go for a burst and, "I'm going to really go for it." But it's recognizing when to back off and then recover recuperate and then go again.

20:35

You're right as well. Where I've seen it in other people, it can come from not feeling supported and that you've got the right source systems and structures around you. It can come from, I think we talked last time, about if the values of the team around you or the company around you don't align with your own personal values.

20:58

So it creates that incongruously. That it's just going to niggle away day by day until it does make you fizzle out. If you feel like you're just fighting a never ending battle. And I guess that feeling that I can't stop because otherwise if I get off the treadmill, I'll never catch up again.

21:16

So you mentioned the lack of passion and something else?

21:22

It's almost, does it come from a lack of passion and enjoyment maybe, I said?

21:36

I think it was just basically the same word, just repeat it.

21:38

Yeah. And because I waffled on and I didn't actually respond to that. So I think a passion and enjoyment of a subject gives you an intrinsic motivation to really sort of Excel in it. And I think that can make you last longer before you burnout, but it's never going to completely stop it.

22:07

Could make you last years longer. There was another one, he was a head of QA in in a previous, around about seven years ago. And I was thinking about this the other day, actually. I've always been the same of, I will go out and grab after the different issues around there and try and just help fix them.

22:27

And I remember him saying to me something about, "If your candle burns too bright, you burn yourself out quicker."

22:34

And it's essential, the thing is literally burning as well because the candle's gone out. And I was thinking about it the other day because I was thinking, "I'm still going."

22:45

And the passion for the things that you are working towards is what keeps you going and keeps you fueled quite well, I think. But then definitely recognizing sort of the Ebb and Flow, especially as you get passed through it.

22:56

As we've gone through our conversations, you strike me as the type of person who proactively seeks out that accountability and responsibility.

23:05

So how has the stress that, that's brought on, either curtailed or accelerated your career?

23:14

I think it's definitely accelerated my career. Interestingly as well. I recognized it starting quite early on. In that, if I see something that I think is not working quite right, even if it's inside of my area, I struggle to keep quiet. And I'll speak up about it and I maybe offer a suggestion. Even if it's well outside my realm of, "Maybe this is what I we could do."

23:39

And it sort of pulled me into those leadership and management type positions. So it's definitely accelerated. I mean, I think in the past 5 to 10 years, I've recognized that it helps add additional responsibilities to what I do and adds extra interesting challenges as well. Because it can bring up things that are completely different from anything I've done before.

24:10

And then if anything, in the past few years, it's needed to be a recognition of, "Don't take on too much and take on the wrong shape of things." Because then, you'll either not have the skills to do it successfully and maybe won't be able to learn them quick enough to do something successfully. Or you just find yourself swamped under too many different things at a time.

24:29

So that has become about recognizing what are the right opportunities to go and grab hold of. And the right accountabilities to grab a hold of, that are going to benefit the business or the team.

24:45

And crucially, it's the right accountabilities and responsibilities that benefit the business or the team, not yourself.

24:48

Yeah, absolutely. And don't get me wrong, I am selfish. There's an element of, "And is it interesting?"

24:55

But it's definitely overridden by, because you've been paid to do a service for a business and it's about delivering that service. I think last time we spoke as well and I said that I will therefore do a decent job of the things that I don't enjoy and then really throw yourself into the things that you probably enjoy.

25:15

How has stress itself curtailed or accelerated your career?

25:22

I think it's tempered it. I've definitely suffered from periods of sort of acute stress at times. And it's always been down to my own behaviors. So it's always been, so I've either pushed too hard and I've not recognized.

25:41

And I think the embracing of it has probably helped accelerate my career at times, because you've genuinely pushed after achieving something. But it's also given me the most enjoyable periods of my working life as well. Especially on some crunch projects earlier on when you're around 30 years old, really loved it.

26:03

And it's been some of the sort of best team experiences that I've had. And then, as I've got older and moved into managing people as well, having gone through those experiences has given me a better toolkit to recognize it in the people in my team. And to be able to recognize where their stress is coming from and help them work through it and resolve it. And just do the right things for them.

26:32

And also then helped around retention, attrition, et cetera, because you just help solve things with people.

26:42

I still find myself embracing it a little bit as well now and just enjoying the exhilaration of pushing hard after something. But it's just doing it in shorter and shorter bursts.

26:53

It's super difficult to balance isn't it? Because was it a Jordan Peterson that he says, "Pick the biggest responsibility you can possibly put on your shoulders and hold it."

27:04

And that is what we should be looking for. We should not be searching for happiness. We should be searching for the biggest amount of accountability we can hold on the back of our shoulders because ultimately over a longer period of time that will find us some sort of fulfillment. It's almost as if fulfillment cannot come if the work that you do, isn't inherently, in some form, hard and stressful. Yeah.

27:29

Sorry. Who said that? You just quoted someone.

27:32

Jordan Peterson. Does 12 Rules for Life or something like that? It's good.

27:41

Okay. Yeah. I've seen a little bit by him. I'll have a read of that later. Thank you.

27:47

Yeah, it's good.

27:48

Yeah. That absolutely makes sense. The deeper fulfillment comes through that type of route and that path.

27:55

Yeah. My granddad said one time and I'll misquote this. But it was something like, "Hard work is the mortar that binds achievement and fulfillment."

28:08

It's so true. Without it, we're bricks just stacked on top of each other and our achievements don't mean anything of value to us. They only stick because we've given a part of ourselves to each one of those projects in some way.

28:22

Yep, can completely see that. It definitely took me until my mid 20s to start recognizing that as well to be honest.

28:28

It's hard because there's on the one hand, burnout is a massive issue that we need to keep an eye on. But on the other hand, trying to wrap everyone in cotton-wool, also won't work, because we then won't have the chance to go after the things that we want to and create that fulfillment among other things.

28:46

Yeah. And very similar as well to if you wrap your kids in cotton wool. They won't be equipped to solve their own challenges basically. So I'm not comparing my direct reports to kids, definitely not.

29:01

That's a really good point though. Are there any direct comparisons between the decisions that you've made in your working life and your working career, and the lessons that you've learned from that and how you parent?

29:20

I think it's definitely, it's been a one way street. There's things that I've learned from work that I've applied to parenting rather than vice versa. So I really value transparency at work and explaining how I've got to where I've got to and why I think something's really important. Just because at work it gives people chance to sort of pick you apart and potentially change your mind and driving in a different direction.

29:51

And I definitely find that with my little boy, it works really well. Again, he's eight years old and he's quite logical. And will correct me as well and point me back in a different direction sometimes. And it means we can talk about things. With my teenage stepdaughter, definitely don't work. She doesn't want any feedback from me whatsoever. She just needs attention.

30:15

I'm not going to ask you any other questions about that. We'll go down rabbit the rabbit hole.

30:20

I'm just trying to think if there's any other sort of skills that I've learned from it. Or any other things that I find myself applying.

30:31

Yeah.

30:33

Actually, my motivation as well and understanding motivation, definitely helps with the kids quite a lot. And the thing of, "If I extrinsically motivate you and give you six pounds for helping refill your uncle's shed roof." That's going to help motivate you a little bit and you might help again next time.

30:55

But what really is going to motivate you to help me next time is that, you've enjoyed it and you found it fulfilling. And you've had some accountability for nailing down that part of the film.

31:04

Do you think that these working lessons are applicable outside of startups?

31:09

Yep. 100%. And now I need to justify. So that's my gut that's responding and saying, "Yes, 100% apply." And then I need to back it up a little bit.

31:25

The biggest difference I see between startups and sort of big corporates is the risk appetite and the amount of control that a large corporate needs to put around sort of the structures of the people that work for it.

31:40

You're still, at the end of the day, working with other humans. You've got the same sort of social dynamics going on. You're potentially still working on new products, new investments, dealing with similar levels of uncertainty. And your internals probably no different, whether you're in one environment or the other.

32:04

So if you're suffering from imposter syndrome, it might even be bigger in one of the big corporates because you're working in this recognizable brand name and assume that everything's done brilliantly. And it's probably not because there's those controls that are slowing down the speed of change with the organization.

32:23

I think one of the bigger differences is, in a startup, you're probably going to get more diverse and faster paced experience, but you're also going to get less support structures around you. So some things are maybe slowing down the pace of changing a bigger company.

32:44

Also, the things that bring in L & D, training courses. Enough slack in the system that you can spend on learning away from the pressure delivery. If you're in a start, it's just going to be pressure delivery quite often and about shipping the next set of features.

32:59

And then lastly, could we touch upon perhaps technology? Because I'm really conscious that we've spent a bit of time going through how to make decisions at a higher level, if you're working in technology and then working in a startup.

33:15

There's also parts to it where it's hard enough to work out roughly what type of company you want to work in. One of the things that's so challenging in technology is, everything is changing so much.

33:29

How do you self-reflect all of the time to know which technologies best suit your own character and your own skill set?

33:36

And then not just that, but then which ones are being used more, which ones are being used less? How do I make sure that I'm staying up to date?

33:46

How does someone navigate that journey when they're starting out now?

33:50

Yeah. So in terms of, I guess, picking technologies and making the wrong choices. As I mentioned, there's one or two really good resources around, I think it's called the Web Developer Roadmap and the DevOps Roadmap. Both on GitHub. Just really good flow charts of the foundational skills that you can build up.

34:13

And it's like a multiyear pathway that's got there a number of links that you can then dig into and sort of really start getting into the depth of different things. And I personally would always lean towards becoming really good with techniques and understanding the standards that things are based upon.

34:33

So different occurring formats or different protocols for communication, et cetera. The libraries that are on top of that, that people tend to get drawn to, especially early in your career, they're just tools in a toolbox.

34:48

You want to learn how to use them, but the things that you really want to understand are the underpins, the principles and practices and the standards based pieces. In terms of what you enjoy, though vendors tend to manifest, the actual libraries. You enjoy working with one tool or another.

35:07

And I guess it's working through and recognizing why did you particularly enjoy working with that thing? Because, it's probably nothing to do with the branding. Or it might be the documentation for the tool that you've used, that made it easy to work with. But there's probably something that clicked well.

35:24

So, if I think about a concrete example. For me, I've really enjoyed working with both Kubernetes and Kafka in the past. Kubernetes in particular, I guess recognizing what I enjoyed with it, it solved a lot of problems for me. Problems I had to experience earlier on in my career. And it just made a whole classes of problem disappear.

35:47

But it was quite complex as well. So I really quite enjoyed the complexity of it and getting to know the ins and outs and the depth in the number of different directions. With something like Kafka, some of the design decisions had been made.

36:00

So, in terms of things like sequential rise of the disc and seeing performance through that, I said, "Okay, that's a nice, neat decision. I like that. I'm enjoying working with it and the things that sit on top of it."

36:12

How much of choosing a technology is a genuinely intrinsic love of that technology, versus what someone just thinks is cool?

36:23

I think they're sort of the same thing. Like, I love a technology and I think it's called, the Path Emotional Based Decision. And I think that's something that comes into play if I'm looking for a new job. Or it's something that comes into play whilst I'm working with something. It definitely shouldn't be part of a decision making process for, "I'm about to introduce this new technology into the company that I work for."

36:51

So if we're making a decision about tech in MindGym right now, it would be, "What is the success criteria for introducing this new tech. Basically, what problem are we trying to solve?" A broad sweep of the options that are out there. Maybe looking at the features that exist and how easy are they to work with and then prototyping the short list.

37:18

And if anything, there will be a little bit of emotion in there. But is recognizing the emotion as you go through that process and being able to abstract it away from the decision making.

37:29

Thanks so much taking out the time. I've really loved it. I think that the thing, and I'm so grateful that you did the second one too. Is that, you just have a very no bullshit way of talking about it, which is really refreshing. It's just very, very real.

37:48

And there's no, it's like earlier when you said, "I'm not going to use this business word." And I think the business word you used wasn't even a business word. So it was so nice.