“Changing Yourself”

Hey friends, I had a chat with a new acquaintance, we’ll call them Dan, a couple weeks ago and they asked me how to change themselves. I was very confused for a bit. The following conversation went like this:

Me: “What do you mean?”
Dan: “I want to be a cyber guy, but I’m just not a cyber guy”
Me: “What do you mean?”
Dan: “I’ve been taking X course, and Y class and I just can’t get it”
Me: “What don’t you get?”
Dan: “I don’t know, it’s hard, I think I’m just not a cyber guy”

To save time, we then had a lengthy discussion about how “changing yourself” is kind of a terrible construct we put on ourselves by wrapping our sense of identity around the things we do (or want to do).

And to be blunt. I think it’s crap.

A year ago, I began the process of building Clipt with two of my best friends. We’re almost complete with the app development and soon we’ll do a launch, bring in clients and contractors. I’ve founded a startup; I own a business. So did my friends.

I’ve run major programs for the Department of Defense. Am I a different person than the guy who crashed his first car into a parked car because I had my head out the window to “see better” in the fog?

Probably not, but that memory did make me smile.

Have we changed because we’ve gone through a process? Some say yes. Ok, so what if tomorrow, I do exactly the opposite of everything I do normally? Have I changed? Or did I try something different?

Getting back to it, the idea is that I think we become overly attached to the things we do by identifying that as who we are. Failure in an endeavor is failure as a person, causing a crisis. Success causes a dopamine rush, the high wears off and we have to succeed in “changing” again.

I don’t think there are such things as a “morning person” or a “productive person”. There are people who do productive things regularly and people who get up early regularly. They don’t always do them, sometimes they sleep in, sometimes they procrastinate.

Despite what all those late-night infomercials say, you can’t change. You’re you. You’ll always be you. Our behaviors don’t define our worth as human beings and our membership in the people club isn’t revoked when we make a suboptimal decision.

When I started my career off, I struggled to get over myself. If I wasn’t perfect at everything I tried, I was obviously worthless. I overworked, I over stressed, and I failed oh so many times.

I did, eventually, figure out that I don’t know what I’m doing or who I am. Here’s a shortcut that took me many years to realize. No one really does. That’s ok, it’s called life and growth.

So, you failed at something, ONCE. Was the thing a good thing? What did you learn? Go do it again. You’re not a failure because you weren’t a breakout success the first time.

Michael Jordan played in the NBA for fifteen years. He won six championships. Is he a failure because he didn’t win fifteen? Dan isn’t a failure. By saying he wasn’t a cyber guy, he was just giving up before he actually started.

Wrapping this one up, there is no “self” in what you do. You can put a lot of energy (emotional, intellectual, or physical) into something, but it doesn’t change who you are. You are a person who chooses to do certain things and not to do others. Take the identity defining construct out and you’ll find that the thing or things you want to start, or stop, are not so daunting.

Interesting Things

My New Book to Read
Night Angel Nemesis by Brent Weeks

I don’t often read fiction as of late. But I have a special place in my heart for the Night Angel Trilogy. Brent has a great way of spinning a tale and captivating the reader. I haven’t finished it yet, but I’m loving getting back into Kylar’s world!

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NIST Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework (AI RMF)

Personal computers, Windows, the internet, automobiles. They’ve all significantly transformed society and commerce. Artificial Intelligence is going to do the same. It’s already disrupting most every market from commerce to cybersecurity, transportation to medical, and everything in between. With new technology comes new risks to calculate and controls to implement. NIST has produced the AI RMF as a practical and adaptable model for operationalizing AI while employing protections.

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A.I. Is Getting Better at Mind-Reading

Mind reading robots are pure science fiction. Right? right!? Possibly not for much longer. Researchers at the University of Texas, Austin are working on something amazing. They’ve successfully pulled text from the thoughts of human subjects via fMRI data. Meaning they watched the brain activity of someone consuming media with dialogue and brought those patterns back to recognizable text. It’s not 1:1, and not perfect, but it’s impressive. I imagine part of the issue they’ll find is that reading brain activity likely reads the subjects interpretation of what they processed, rather than the exact reproduction of the media they just consumed. It’s exciting regardless!

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Quote I’m Musing

“We are in the habit of saying that it was not in our power to choose the parents who were allotted to us, that they were given to us by chance. But we can choose whose children we would like to be.”

-Seneca, On the Shortness of Life

This isn’t an admonishment of poor parents. It’s an empowering reminder that we all get to choose whose footsteps we will follow in. Who we are going to acquire as mentors. Who are we going to surround ourselves with and who will be our role models?

We expand who are with the decisions we make and things that we do.

Our influences matter. Regardless of station, stature, or socio-economic status. The purpose of learning and growth is to trim down our flaws, take in the values we hold dear from those exemplars and endeavor to better master ourselves.

Whose child will you be?

I would love your feedback!

Which musing is your favorite? What else do you want to see or what should I eliminate? Any other suggestions? Just send a tweet to @erichaupt on Twitter and put #SundayMusings at the end so I can find it. Or, eric@erichaupt.com for long form email.
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Have a wonderful week, I’ll see you Sunday.
​-e