I Haven’t Been Able To Write

It has been almost two months since my last goal update. My life has been very tumultuous as I have struggled with an awkward transition. I spent the last few years working on a domain-expertise partnership in order to facilitate the development of my long-term project, which we will call “Matador.”

In the last year, it gradually became clear that this was not going to work. My partners and I have very different long-term goals; they have decided to transition away from the domain whose expertise formed the basis of our partnership. I talked with them and we decided to part ways, very amicably. The time was well spent, as I leave with a deep and thorough understanding of the domain and the legal and procedural context of the future product.

The End of One Chapter Is The Beginning of Another

When I realized that the partnership would not work, it became clear that I needed to redefine my direction and radically transform my life in order to accomplish what I have set out to. My long-term goals have not changed, but the way I get there will have to be very different from what I had planned.

After talking at length with Upendra Kulkarni, I feel very strongly that what he calls “The burden of proof” for non-credentialed engineers is too high for me to reach my goals if I remain uncredentialed. I need to finish my degree.

Moving Forward

Upendra also highlighted the importance of tangible projects and results as a component of that burden of proof. To that end, and also out of adoration and envy for Pieter Levels, I decided to take on the Levels Challenge. I will build a dozen startup products in as many months. I am currently on #2. At some point during this year, the real work on “Matador” should begin, maybe even as part of one of the 12 startups.

I finally feel like I am in a place where I can properly reflect on my goals and give myself meaningful, constructive feedback. I completely redesigned my goal vision-board. The old one categorized goals by time-horizon, while the new one categorizes them by what they are; Learning, Project, Staying Current, and Continuous Reinvestment. The time-horizon and urgency of each goal is reflected by its position on the list rather than its category.