Life Lessons
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Life Lessons from the First Half-Century of My Career - Sharing 16 life lessons, and nine magic words. https://cacm.acm.org/opinion/life-lessons-from-the-first-half-century-of-my-career/
People-Focused
- Family first! Don’t sacrifice your family’s happiness on the altar of success.
- Choose happiness.
- It’s the people, not the projects, that you value in the long run.
- The cost of praise is small. The value to others is inestimable.
- Seek out honest feedback; it might be right.
- “For better or for worse, benchmarks shape a field.
- “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.
- Beware of those who believe they are the smartest people in the room.
Career-Focused
- “Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.”
- “Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.
- “There are no losers on a winning team, and no winners on a losing team."
- Lead by example.
- “Audentes Fortuna iuvat.” (Fortune favors the bold).
- Culture matters.
- It’s not how many projects you start; it’s how many you finish.
- Look for the positive opportunities.
- When you’ve been together that long, people ask what your secret is. It’s not that we don’t argue; one repeated source of friction is she tells me a problem she is having in the hope of getting empathy and I, as a good engineer, instead try to solve her problem. The secret is what we say after we resolve a disagreement. Usually one of us repeats these nine magic words: “I was wrong. You were right. I love you.” No substitutions! The last three words can’t be, “You’re a jerk!” And absolutely no additional use of the word “but”.
By David A. Patterson