Steve jobs on consulting
Steve Jobs once did a speech on consulting and how crucial it is for learning and improvement to “stick around” for a long time, several years, to fully “own” the consequences of your recommendations. I have worked as a consultant most of my professional life and it hit very close to home. In the building industry where I am an acoustic consultant, the delay between your first advice to a client to the finalized building is measured in years. And I am finally getting old enough to seeing several of “my” projects materialize. It is equally scary and wonderful.
I have worked with mostly dwellings, but in later years a strong focus on schools. This year, some of them are being inaugurated. A common denominator for all my finished projects is this: I spent a lot of time worrying about certain things that I thought would fail, and consequently I did what I could do to prevent them from happening. And every single time I go on a field measurement, I usually find issues with something that I had never realized could be a problem at all. Well, it is rather obvious to be that way. Why would an enemy make a full-frontal assault if they could just flank you instead? Hit them where they are expecting it the least. So of course, that is where my problems usually arise. These lessons are extremely powerful. When an acoustic problem has flanked you, the lessons will stick with you for the rest of your life. And that will be very helpful when a new set of problems finds a new angle of attack. Which will happen again and again, for as long as you keep working.
Being self-employed is sometimes very, very tough. Sometimes I even question myself whether it is worth it. But then again, I think about Steve Jobs speech on consultants, and I calm down and return my focus on the target again. Jobs also mention this, if you quit before you have seen things break down but also fixed the problems – your problems now – your chance of learning is significantly decreased. This is the type of learning that is called wisdom.
I also listened to a nice conversation with Andrew Huberman about dopamine and how it is necessary to suffer to feel positive emotion. That is also bullseye. Apparently one of the worst things you can do is to induce in dopamine releasing activities, without having to first go through the struggle for the reward in any meaningful way. That’s why I think it is so important to struggle on as a self-employed, to suffer a bit more. It is like a rollercoaster. I find the high peaks and deep valleys to be much more rewarding than a steady-state life with small fluctuations. Honestly, I can’t stand that lifestyle and I am quite sure it was a contributing effect in my burnout sick leave back in 2017. I had it too easy and was focused on the wrong target, i.e., aiming way too low. Since then, I have pushed myself a lot harder and work more hours. But with the right things. It is counter-productive to aim for a pain-free life. Embrace the pain, as much of it as you can handle instead. And stay on the path and see it through. If are going to own the consequences of your own recommendations, you must be in it for the long game. And in that case as an acoustic consultant, five years is not enough. I think more like ten years until you have “accumulated enough scar tissue”, as Steve Jobs so finely put it.
Oh, and another thing that I believe could result in massive learning and growth as an acoustician. Work on a building site for a year and get your hands dirty implementing those technical solutions that we theoretical engineers come up with. I think there are few things that would be more valuable to a guy like me and I could become a fantastic consultant.