Everyone’s personality is different. This is the best way to work specifically with me.
last updated 2023-11-06
My style
- I focus on today and the near future, and prioritize long-term effects. We can’t reliably predict beyond the next 3 months, and the past has a limited scope to gauge precedence, so I firmly believe healthy decision-making comes through well-tuned intuition.
- I am energized when I can vividly feel a large-scale grand scheme, and obsessively distill it into a tangible set of tasks ahead of me. When I don’t have that, I’m a depressive mess.
- I habitually strip away portions of experiences to make abstractions, which I use across almost everything else.
- Most of my insights come from teaching others, which I love to do.
- I do my best and learn from the consequences, and get anxious if I imagine I could have done better. If I’ve done my utmost, I tend to disassociate from my past tasks.
- I insist people become their best possible self. I have antagonized people to that end, but have become more patient with others.
- I’ve worked intimately with technology since I was 7 years old, and have scaled my skills with it. When I’m using a computer, I tend to forget everything and everyone else.
- My habits are constantly in a state of continuous improvement, and I’m always either trying to maximize my environment for efficiency or find ways to optimize things to not have to do things in the first place.
What I value
- I value openness, a positive attitude, principled moral integrity, and focus.
- I want people to stand by their convictions to the degree they believe them.
- I expect associates to value open and healthy communication as much as me, but respect their right to bad social decisions. I wish them to stay focused on the end and always stay reasonably open to “third alternatives”.
- I insist everyone stay humble enough to accept utter failure, myself included. I expect everyone to hold me accountable before talking with others about me.
- I’ve grown to believe that secrets are detrimental to group cohesion, and expect everyone to admit their failures and move on. Failures don’t matter, but not showing up does.
- I dogmatically believe each thing is widely connected to many other things. Career success is the balance of work, rest, recreation, energy, and spirituality. My personal spirituality is toward Jesus Christ, but I reserve that discussion for its time and place.
What I have no patience for
- I find oversimplified thinking dangerous. It leads to false presumptions and deviates over time from truth.
- I believe elaborate explanations, especially when filled with jargon, cloud the truth, and can be dangerous in the wrong time and place. Jargon is often a sign of inexperience, so I usually have trouble respecting “professionals” who use more jargon to explain their jargon.
- Fear is useful because it helps us discover risks. However, fear has no place in rational decision-making. We can only accomplish purposes if we summon the courage to persevere. I tend to treat vagueness, running from ideas, ignoring painful things, and unexplained distrust as a type of misplaced fear.
- I am intolerant toward anyone disrespecting people for who they are. Not everyone was designed or positioned to become an Ivy League valedictorian. No human has the One True View. Some people are more correct than others, but everyone is missing parts of the whole picture. That disrespect, though, is also part of human nature, and worth overcoming.
- I despise entitlement. Nobody owes you anything, but you owe others. God made you, your guardian(s) raised you, your teachers invested in you. Ingratitude is sin against those who sacrificed for us.
How to best communicate with me
- Trust me more than I look. 99.9% of the time I have noble intentions, obscured by a bristly personality and some high-functioning autism. If you’re withholding information, I usually know more than most, and am oblivious to most of the subtext.
- I’m rarely offended, so bluntly give me information. I’m very low-context, and don’t follow implications.
- Come to me with more than a problem. I love the brainstorming. Give me your theories on why that issue exists, where it may originate, resources that could help, and anything you feel may be relevant related information. Discovering a problem is often a solo experience, but solving it rarely is.
How to help me
- I deeply analyze everything, so details sometimes discourage me. Break my cycle by reminding me of the big picture.
- Other times, I get so consumed in the big picture that I forget the day-to-day. Break my other cycle by reminding me of what’s in front of me.
- Inform me when I’m blunt or rude. I’m usually unaware and will promptly change it.
What people misunderstand about me
- I’m an introvert who looks like an extrovert. Give me at least a few minutes to realign, and I’ll respond with full attention.
- I tend to have an optimistic and encouraging mindset, but I frame it in the worst possible way. My attitude is usually framed as “it could be much worse” and my affirmations tend to frame as “you’re not as bad as other things”.
- I speak with conviction, but am usually not as set in my thinking as it may appear. If you give me a more well-assembled narrative of the facts, I’ll promptly change my views and speak with a new contrasting conviction.
- I vacillate between an image of detached calmness and complete anxiety, but my mind is running on a different wavelength than my body language.
- I’m a great crisis manager and a terrible counselor. I’m also a great person to fix your problem, but not to hang out with unless you like philosophy and technical discussions.