In my work as coach, teacher, designer – I keep coming back to this question:
How do I present all that I do such that it might make sense to others… that they might understand;
it’s all about connecting to the other human’s perspective!
However different software development as a discipline might seem from design or from teaching or coaching or self reflection — what, for me, drives the activity is approaching reality as-is.
What fundamentally motivates me to do anything is connection! If you dig deeper, you can see that connection, in turn, boils down to presence; to listening nonreactively.
- That’s fundamentally where being a good teacher comes from: being capable of recognizing a learner is in their learning process so you can talk to them in terms that takes them to the next step
- That’s how you learn about the customers for your product about what they’re looking for
- That’s how you develop a good understanding about internal stakeholders; the best technical architecture and tools to use to satisfy constraints that are relevant when implementing software
- And that’s how you coach people to find their deepest longing: by hearing them with your whole being and reflecting back honestly
Sometimes all the passions I have may seem unrelated and perhaps even disorganized.
In reality, it all plays into my own learning towards becoming a human who can truly serve life and people, in all the different facets life may take for me and you.
If we wish to succeed in helping someone to reach a particular goal, we must first find out where he is now, and start from there. If we cannot do this, we merely delude ourselves into believing that we can help others.
Before we can help someone, we must know more than he does, but most of all, we must understand what he understands. If we cannot do that, our knowing more will not help. If we nonetheless wish to show how much we know, it is only because we are vain and arrogant, and our true goal is to be admired, not to help others.
All genuine helpfulness starts with humility before those we wish to help, so we must understand that helping is not a wish to dominate but a wish to serve. If we cannot do this, neither can we help anyone.
Søren Kierkegaard