The problem with this phrasing is it implies that motivation is an inherent aspect of individuals. Nobody is a do-er. Motivation is impacted by a variety of factors.
Actually there are people who are do-ers. Not everyone is wired the same.
Personally I can’t NOT do things. Regardless of if I get paid, it works out, or I even get yelled at for doing it - I fix things, pull things apart and make them better, clean things up, learn, and solve problems regardless of the discipline. If I’m not doing those things, I feel terrible. If I do those things (and the more the merrier), I feel good. I’ve built large scale engineering teams at FAANG’s and laid (inspected) foundations for buildings I’ve made myself without error - concurrently.
It pays well, if I’m smart enough to do things that provide value and most people can’t. But even if it doesn’t, I can’t help myself.
So far that includes networking, electrical (permitted, household and commercial), coding, welding, machining, commercial contracts, logging, real estate investment, piloting small aircraft, rock climbing, concrete work (inspected, residential and commercial), fathering 2 healthy strong and well adjusted boys, framing, hydraulic engineering and water delivery design, teaching and mentoring many strong leaders, bespoke financial instruments, and many more. All at a level equivalent or exceeding highly rated professionals or successful folks I’ve worked with or partnered with. It’s weird, but it is what it is. I can’t help myself, and it feels almost like a disease sometimes. I did El Capitan (Mescalito) solo aid in my early 20’s for my first big wall, ‘off the couch’.
It causes friction because either people don’t believe it, or once they do they can’t understand it - sometimes they even get angry or resentful. I don’t do it because I’m trying to show off. It just is who I am.
I'd be interested to hear the perspective of the people left in your wake. The cost of engaging with a strong-willed "do-er" is what happens when someone, by the do-er's measure, fails to keep up (or, god forbid, gets in the way). At that point, the do-er's productive ability has to be weighed against their capacity (or track record) for coercion or abuse. Steve Jobs comes to mind. If you've personally received pushback or resentment, it may be less out of misunderstanding of, or a lack of appreciation for, your ability, and more to do with your having been an asshole.
But that may just be my own trauma speaking.
In any case, I think a zen approach is often undervalued, especially per productivity and creativity. "Do" is, after all, a verb, not a noun; a performance, not a crafted object. It's one thing to be proud of one's manifest accomplishments, but to define oneself as a "do-er"...? One can "do" a great many things, including "damage" and "harm."
I for one would really like to see more action-bias in the world about me, & less zen / uninvested / amotivated.
Computers are fascinating as heck & we have so much to do. Abiding by the non-weird people who don't see this as the most interesting, fascinating, richly-interesting field, playing by their rules, giving them endless comfort space & grace, being zen about it all... it's boring. It's less than I want to see for humankind.
I find it hard to figure out how the two sides tolerate each other better. Your own phrasing of "I'd be interested to hear the perspective of the people left in your wake" is how I think the overwhelming amount of people feel & see motivated individuals, is what gets thought about them. I try to be sympathetic & helpful & meet people where they want, but I feel like the "normal" behavior to deal with weird people is to be silently pissy & angry & unhelpful & isolate them, to hold them in contempt of normality for their urges to be a bit extra. I don't see a lot of bidirectional sympathy, a lot of recognition that mismatched motivations are a two way street, are a bidirectional issue. And I see a lot of assumptions that the extra behavior is almost always problematic & troublesome.
I consistently got top ratings from everyone I worked with as a leader and manager, and the issues I mention have been rare - and generally from those I’ve not wanted to be around because I didn’t agree with their approach or didn’t like their ethics. If that answers your question. Some of
It is from clearly great pain they have been in, in the past, that had nothing to do with me, but was funneled in my direction when I did not fail like they wanted me to.
And I work hard to ensure what is done is the best that can be, and others don’t get hurt. Which, interesting enough, does involve a lot of meditation.
It really doesn't, considering the proposed metric was "perspective of people left in your wake" and not "ratings from colleagues, as related by you." A hypothetical aimed less at considering what people think of you and more of what people think of themselves after having encountered you, it's a matter of who is being centered in such a meditation.
You sound like a great self-marketer. What I've learned is that great self-marketers are fun to be around and work with as long as the reality distortion field is up; however, the risk one takes is in someday finding oneself outside the field, which is a life-altering and frequently psyche-shattering experience. The do-er generally does not care, if they even notice at all; convinced of the virtuousness of their ethos, they're too busy "doing." (Though, to be frank, there is some schadenfreude-tinged consolation in that that often includes "doing" themselves into legal or ethical trouble, or a divorce.)
I'm sorry if that's harsh. I've seen careers destroyed and dreams deferred by people who speak like you speak. Maybe you're different.
You’re welcome to talk to them if you run across them, somehow. I tend to be overly honest, and pretty much the opposite of self marketing.
The only reason I replied here was because I felt it important that folks know where Carmack might be coming from.
The only legal trouble I’ve ever been in, the other side filed to settle and dismiss (which I was ok with, despite having a strong claim for civil damages into the 6 figures on them), because once I pulled my records for the court it was clear they had committed at least one crime of felony perjury - hard to prove, but what I had certainly seemed to
show they had met the bar - and likely 4-5 other identifiable crimes while doing this including potentially criminal conspiracy - for which evidence would
be visible in discovery.
Never had a complaint at work filed against me, never even been questioned by the police or detained except for some speeding tickets a decade ago.
I have had to file criminal complaints against a few people over the years when they persisted in clearly criminal acts despite being confronted about it. I wish I hadn’t needed to, but I made sure to provide a comprehensive set of evidence to the investigators, and they all were seen through.
Also, with projects, I’ve always worked my ass off to make sure we’re persuing solid projects that aren’t pie in the sky BS, and if something isn’t working out, people are able to land well in other teams. I’ve never had to lay people off or fire someone because something blew up, even when it wasn’t my doing. I have been on the receiving end of it happening, which is part of why I care so much to not do that to others I suppose.
It has really not been easy to do so, but I put in the work, because it matters to me.
Replying defensively was a surefire way to prove that you'd missed the point. I'll give that you truly embody the salesman ethos, at least. Unfortunately, that includes a tendency to try to spin potential negatives into positives. What that means is that anyone aware that you are attempting to "sell" cannot trust your characterization of events. And so, I do not.
You know the beauty of not actually selling? That’s ok if you don’t believe or care or whatever.
The only reason I even bother is I guess a version of the whole ‘what if you could go back in time and tell yourself something when you were a kid’.
I honestly had no clue of what was even possible, or what it even meant to be congruent with ones values, and it took a lot of pain, mistakes, and learning to figure it out.
> So far that includes networking, electrical (permitted, household and commercial), coding, welding, machining, commercial contracts, logging, real estate investment, piloting small aircraft, rock climbing, concrete work (inspected, residential and commercial), fathering 2 healthy strong and well adjusted boys, framing, hydraulic engineering and water delivery design, teaching and mentoring many strong leaders, bespoke financial instruments, and many more
That seems like extremely useful wiring; it's often an uphill climb for me. Do you have any sense of what is going on under the hood? Why do you feel good if you do these things / bad if you don't? Did this come factory installed, or did things happen in your life which set this in place?
Also, do you feel this trait has made your life happy?
I happen to know two people who have a similar trait. One, I learned, did it to distract themselves from inner demons. I don't know the other well, but they seem to enjoy themselves much more than the first.
Hard to say frankly. Some of it is learned, some pre wired. When I was about 11, and at a friends house, his Dad came home in a rage and started beating him. I intervened, stood up to him (despite him being 2+ ft taller and about 120 lbs bigger than I was at the time and in a raging fury), and made him back down. I remember calculating the odds at the time he would snap and kill me vs back off at the time, and toeing the line I know I would likely get away with to protect my friend. I also remember looking directly into his eyes with cold fury as he raged. My friends Mom talked to my Mom afterwards because she was worried I would get myself killed. My mom made sure to let them know if the father ever did anything like that again, the Sheriff’s would be visiting and not in a friendly way. Both of us have always been that way.
I wouldn’t describe my life as easy - but it has been easier than a great many, and the traumas I’ve been exposed to I’ve handled better than most near as I can tell from this, and haven’t been made worse by it. I haven’t ever really enjoyed easy for the sake of easy?
If and when I feel that I pushed and did what I could, as hard as I could, that feels, at worst, ok. Usually even good? If I made a difference, did something I did not know or others did not know was possible, or helped someone in need and made a difference - that is even better. It is often hard to know the results of ones actions, but I do the best I can. Sometimes, you’re not allowed to know. During my EMT clinical rotations, I held the hand of and calmed an older man with obstructive stroke as they attempted to (and failed) to stent him, as I was the only one with the right type of blood pressure measuring equipment, and I wonder sometimes how he did. He was very scared, and rightfully so - but we aren’t allowed to follow up. His story is one of many I’d like to know, but never will.
When I don’t do the best I can, it feels like I’m wasting my limited time here, and that feels terrible, because I know often what could be. The further I diverge, or even worse, if I don’t live my values - being honest, working hard to make the right thing happen for everyone, learning and pushing myself to grow, facing harder truths or working to improve from mistakes or weaknesses I’ve discovered - the more it bothers me - at first, like a mosquito in the back of my mind, then like a knife in the gut if I refuse to listen.
When I live in line with my values, take care of what is important to me, that is - the right thing. It feels good. Even if it is brutally or emotionally hard work, it feels right, I sleep well, and I’m ready to go the next day.
Very interesting. I think I understand where you're coming from, and also why this is trait is not common.
The values you place focus on are particularly well developed, and it's helpful to see how important they are to you. I tend to default to a goal orientation, with values mostly "implied in" through choices of goals at various levels. I'm going to think about how I might use some of these ideas in my life. Thanks for taking the time!
I’m glad it’s helpful to you. It has taken time to understand - and the single most valuable part, if anything, I’d recommend is spending the time to meditate and understand yourself and how you’re wired, so you can understand and better live in a way that aligns with your values.
The closer you get, the easier it gets, and the better the feedback loop works. It takes time, and never really ends.
I'm in the same group as you. I'm completely unable to keep my stupid mouth shut if I see people doing stupid shit or being inefficient.
This got me promoted at my last company, which was fun for a while, I could actually change the stupid processes and ways of working - but it wasn't my thing in the long run.
Now I'm working in a smaller team as a normal coder and still can't keep my trap shut - but at least people are a lot more experienced and I've got less stuff to complain about =)
When I was younger, I did that a lot. And being around people who are more experienced is a great place to be in general, as it helps to learn!
I learned over time a lot about structural incentives and the environmental and emotional reasons why people do things (including myself), and it’s helped me at least in figuring out how to make the right thing happen more often, instead of causing more friction by pointing out that clearly the right thing is not happening instead. And how to avoid places where their values and mine don’t align, and so I’d just end up constantly trying to swim against the current.
Not sure if it helps - it took time to learn (and prioritize) the mentoring and guiding skills and how to avoid the folks and situations who are real problems.
> Nobody is a do-er. Motivation is impacted by a variety of factors.
Many people are motivated by the satisfaction of getting things done and working together with others toward accomplishing something.
There are many people who are motivating more or less by doing. The people who would still be coding in their spare time if programming jobs paid minimum wage simply because they enjoy doing it.
Counterintuitively, you usually have to pay those people more because they're usually in the highest demand.
While you're right that motivation isn't purely an inherent trait of the individual, it is certainly a factor. The old nature vs nurture (or circumstance) debate. The answer is usually a mix of both.
There's a neurochemical component to it for sure. Motivation is a complicated process that takes place in the brain, and can be influenced by genetics, lifestyle, and drugs.
Some people's brains are just wired from the beginning to be more of a Do-er. Some people gain that skill through practice or drugs, and some people learn to Do in spite of a brain that seems to be constantly fighting against that.
Motivation for a particular thing is also highly dependent on your material circumstances. I ski a lot more living by the mountains than I did when I lived two hours away. I ski a lot less than I did before I had kids.
Agreed, and key to both job negotiations and many other situations is to find out what motivates the other party to do as they do, even if it seems to be aligned with your own interests, if the motivation is a different one then that may spell trouble down the road.
