Developing Perspective

00:00:00 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to Developing Perspective, developing perspective is a podcast discussing

00:00:04 ◼   ► news of note and iOS development, Apple and the like. I'm your host, David Smith. I'm

00:00:08 ◼   ► an independent iOS and Mac developer based in Heard, Virginia. This is show number 124

00:00:13 ◼   ► and today is Friday, May 10th, 2013. Developing Perspective is never longer than 15 minutes,

00:00:18 ◼   ► so let's get started.

00:00:19 ◼   ► All right, so I'm going to, before I get into the main topic for today, I'm going to talk

00:00:23 ◼   ► a little bit about, I just wanted to remind you everybody about, especially if you're

00:00:26 ◼   ► going to WWDC in a couple weeks, or even if you're not, but you

00:00:30 ◼   ► have no people who are or so on, this is a great time to be

00:00:33 ◼   ► starting to think about things that you would have questions

00:00:35 ◼   ► for when you go to the labs, when you have access to Apple's

00:00:38 ◼   ► engineers, when you have those kinds of people around and

00:00:40 ◼   ► available. I always find that when I get to WWDC, and I go to

00:00:44 ◼   ► the lab, it's always difficult to actually think of all the

00:00:47 ◼   ► things that would have been useful, helpful to kind of walk

00:00:49 ◼   ► through with somebody to talk to someone about. And if I'm not

00:00:52 ◼   ► prepared for that ahead of time, so this is the kind of time that

00:00:54 ◼   ► it's good to sort of take a post-it note and stick it next to your computer. Every time

00:00:58 ◼   ► you think of something, you encounter something over the next couple of weeks, write it down

00:01:02 ◼   ► so that when you actually get there or when you know somebody who's going, you can take

00:01:06 ◼   ► your question with them. They can engage with that for you rather than showing up unprepared

00:01:11 ◼   ► and realizing that you don't really know what to ask, you don't really have anything to

00:01:14 ◼   ► say, you just kind of end up waffling around. So that's just a little tip or a hint that

00:01:18 ◼   ► I found very helpful in the past.

00:01:19 ◼   ► All right, so I'm going to get into the main topic for today.

00:01:23 ◼   ► And today, I'm going to--this is a far less technical talk.

00:01:27 ◼   ► I think it's much more, I guess, sort of emotional or relational or whatever.

00:01:33 ◼   ► And it's just--as a disclaimer, I figured I'd let you know that upfront.

00:01:36 ◼   ► But essentially, I'm going to be talking a little bit about fear.

00:01:40 ◼   ► And this is something that has, you know, been on my mind since launching TheaterAngler

00:01:44 ◼   ► a couple--this was last week, gosh, if it feels like it's been forever.

00:01:48 ◼   ► but just last week when I launched feed wrangler.

00:01:50 ◼   ► And it's something that happens,

00:01:51 ◼   ► it's a process that I feel like I go through

00:01:54 ◼   ► every time I watch something new.

00:01:56 ◼   ► And it's not a very productive process,

00:01:57 ◼   ► it's not a particularly helpful process,

00:02:00 ◼   ► but it happens enough that I don't,

00:02:03 ◼   ► and then when I talk to people about it,

00:02:04 ◼   ► it's a process that seems like it's fairly universal,

00:02:06 ◼   ► that a lot of people kind of struggle

00:02:07 ◼   ► with this kind of thing.

00:02:08 ◼   ► And so I figured it'd be worth kind of talking about,

00:02:11 ◼   ► putting out, putting out in the open,

00:02:12 ◼   ► and hopefully helping other people kind of navigate that.

00:02:15 ◼   ► And specifically kind of what I'm thinking about

00:02:17 ◼   ► is every time I build something,

00:02:19 ◼   ► every time I start something new,

00:02:21 ◼   ► every time I'm launching out on some new endeavor,

00:02:24 ◼   ► there's always this latent anxiety

00:02:26 ◼   ► that it won't meet up to expectations,

00:02:29 ◼   ► that it'll fall flat.

00:02:31 ◼   ► And really the core of the fear part of that

00:02:34 ◼   ► is that it's almost like I'll be discovered as a fraud,

00:02:37 ◼   ► that sort of the talk I do about development,

00:02:41 ◼   ► about the kind of things that I hold dearly,

00:02:44 ◼   ► the things that I strive towards,

00:02:46 ◼   ► those types of things.

00:02:46 ◼   ► find a form of fraud, turns out she's actually not that good,

00:02:49 ◼   ► turns out he really doesn't know what he's talking about. And

00:02:52 ◼   ► there'll be that. And that as a senior, this is the same thing

00:02:56 ◼   ► that happened when I want to check the weather, we're going

00:02:58 ◼   ► to launch feed wrangle launch a lot of products, there's always

00:03:01 ◼   ► this latent almost insecurity or anxiety about what how that's

00:03:05 ◼   ► going to be received. And that is really damaging and difficult

00:03:10 ◼   ► because I find that it really hard hurts my ability to be

00:03:15 ◼   ► excited and motivated for that last little bit of a project,

00:03:18 ◼   ► especially, and really to be excited about the launch and to

00:03:21 ◼   ► not just kind of have this, you know, this is almost like this,

00:03:25 ◼   ► but this sense of foreboding about putting something out

00:03:28 ◼   ► there, that should be an exciting moment. But there's

00:03:30 ◼   ► this fear about it, that there's this anxiety that, oh, my gosh,

00:03:33 ◼   ► you know, what if, what if people find out that I'm really

00:03:35 ◼   ► not as, you know, I don't live up to my marketing that I'm not

00:03:38 ◼   ► as good as I think I am. And as a result, it's kind of, you

00:03:42 ◼   ► know, a tricky thing. It's something that I've been doing

00:03:44 ◼   ► this for a long time. I've gone through this experience so many times. And thankfully,

00:03:48 ◼   ► at least I can see kind of almost the insanity of it having done it so many times, having

00:03:54 ◼   ► gone through and launched things and having things not be what your worst fear is, then

00:04:00 ◼   ► in typical reality, typically anytime you put something out, you're going to have,

00:04:05 ◼   ► there'll be a small group of people who love it, there'll be a large group of people

00:04:08 ◼   ► who don't care, and there'll be a small group of people who hate it. And the funny

00:04:11 ◼   ► thing is, no matter how successful something is, that is pretty much the case universally.

00:04:17 ◼   ► There's always those people fall into those two, three groups and probably in roughly

00:04:22 ◼   ► the same, roughly the same proportion, just, you know, the numbers may change. You know,

00:04:27 ◼   ► if you're very popular, if you're somebody who has a huge following or wants to think

00:04:32 ◼   ► very successful, you know, there'll be more people who love it, more people who hate it,

00:04:35 ◼   ► and more people who don't care at all. But the reality is, that's always going to change

00:04:39 ◼   ► and nobody has it all together. Nobody launches something without problems, without issues,

00:04:46 ◼   ► that isn't that perfect in some way. You know, it's easy, I think, to sometimes to look at

00:04:49 ◼   ► other people and say, if only I was so and so, if only I was a Lauren Brikter or somebody,

00:04:55 ◼   ► say, for someone like me, when I look at what they do, and I just really admire it, it's

00:04:58 ◼   ► like, if only I could be that person. And the reality is, I suspect they have the same

00:05:02 ◼   ► kind of anxieties and concerns and problems. And you know, I'm just in the group of people

00:05:08 ◼   ► who love what they do. And so I don't see any of the downsides of the failings or the

00:05:12 ◼   ► issues with it. And so it's easy to kind of, you know, you have this like selection bias,

00:05:17 ◼   ► or whatever you call it, where I because I'm looking for something positive about it, I

00:05:21 ◼   ► see all the positive things. And potentially with my own work, I'll see all of the negative

00:05:26 ◼   ► things. And I mean, this is always kind of a funny part. I want to do help desk or when

00:05:30 ◼   ► I do tech support on Twitter or those kinds of things. And you can have five people in

00:05:33 ◼   ► a row say, Oh, I love your product. I wish you did this. I love your product. I wish

00:05:37 ◼   ► I wish you did that.

00:05:38 ◼   ► I love your product, I wish you did this.

00:05:39 ◼   ► I love your product, I wish you did that.

00:05:41 ◼   ► And then the last person says,

00:05:42 ◼   ► I hate your product, I wish it didn't exist.

00:05:45 ◼   ► Right?

00:05:46 ◼   ► And if you've done any amount of help desk, you'll get that.

00:05:48 ◼   ► You just get this kind of,

00:05:49 ◼   ► this raw negativity from people.

00:05:51 ◼   ► And as soon as you get that,

00:05:52 ◼   ► you forget the five things that came before it,

00:05:55 ◼   ► and you start feeling really depressed and sad.

00:05:57 ◼   ► And honestly, that's part of why I have someone

00:05:59 ◼   ► who does help desk for me,

00:06:00 ◼   ► because it kind of shields you from that,

00:06:02 ◼   ► because if you get too much of that negativity,

00:06:03 ◼   ► and it's very hard, at least I find,

00:06:05 ◼   ► to stay motivated and engaged in what you're doing.

00:06:08 ◼   ► But it's the reality of understanding

00:06:10 ◼   ► that that's sort of a simple truth,

00:06:12 ◼   ► and understanding that you will never be ready.

00:06:14 ◼   ► You'll never have arrived or be skilled enough

00:06:16 ◼   ► or have enough Twitter followers,

00:06:17 ◼   ► or you'll have spent enough time on a product or anything

00:06:20 ◼   ► to have something launch that will be perfect.

00:06:22 ◼   ► There'll be a perfect--

00:06:24 ◼   ► what is it, the platonic ideal of what

00:06:26 ◼   ► your application should be.

00:06:28 ◼   ► The reality is you're going to launch something,

00:06:30 ◼   ► and then you're going to learn.

00:06:31 ◼   ► And then you're going to iterate,

00:06:33 ◼   ► and you're going to develop, and you're going to improve.

00:06:35 ◼   ► And often what I really mean there is you personally, not your product, not your, what

00:06:40 ◼   ► you're working on, not what you're sort of striving towards, that really the goal in

00:06:45 ◼   ► general, and the only this is me, this is how I kind of rationalize it to myself is

00:06:47 ◼   ► that my goal and whenever I'm building things is that I'm constantly learning that I'm getting

00:06:52 ◼   ► better at what I'm doing so that I can be more prepared for whatever the next thing

00:06:56 ◼   ► I do. And that may mean that, you know, sometimes I ship things that I wish were better. But

00:07:00 ◼   ► the reality is, if I don't get better, I'm never going to be able to make that best thing.

00:07:05 ◼   ► I'm never going to be able to do that next thing. And you learn much more by doing and

00:07:09 ◼   ► by learning from those mistakes, learning from the challenges or the issues that you

00:07:14 ◼   ► had, than you would by preparing to make those mistakes, that you would by preparing or thinking

00:07:18 ◼   ► about what that would be. It's kind of like you learn more by trying and failing than

00:07:24 ◼   ► you do about thinking of all the different ways that you could fail and focusing on the

00:07:28 ◼   ► failure itself and focusing on that issue and that that anxiety that you can have. And

00:07:34 ◼   ► So in some ways, it's one of those things that I wish there was like five easy ways

00:07:38 ◼   ► to avoid this.

00:07:39 ◼   ► But in my experience, this is something that I always experience, that every time I launch

00:07:43 ◼   ► something new, I'm going to have this fear, this anxiety, this insecurity about myself,

00:07:47 ◼   ► my skills, and my abilities.

00:07:49 ◼   ► And what I find is the reality is the most helpful part that I've ever found is to just

00:07:54 ◼   ► make sure that I understand that, yep, this is how I feel every time I launch something.

00:07:58 ◼   ► And it's not just me.

00:07:59 ◼   ► I've talked to many people who have the exact same experience.

00:08:01 ◼   ► And so I should probably not worry about it quite so much.

00:08:04 ◼   ► I should just embrace the fact that that's part of that insecurity is hopefully helping

00:08:09 ◼   ► motivate and drive you to do a better work. But as soon as it crosses over that line,

00:08:13 ◼   ► and instead makes you avoid doing work, avoid taking risks, avoid doing being ambitious,

00:08:19 ◼   ► it becomes very damaging and problematic instead. And so you just understand that, sort of saying

00:08:24 ◼   ► it out loud, like, Yep, I'm being silly, I need to just, you know, embrace the fact that

00:08:29 ◼   ► what I'm doing is interesting. I like it, other people I've showed it to like it, I

00:08:32 ◼   ► I think it's interesting. And I think I'm going to learn a lot

00:08:33 ◼   ► from this experience. And understand that that is really

00:08:36 ◼   ► all you can do. All right, it's gonna be a short show today.

00:08:39 ◼   ► That's all I have. But it was something that I wanted to talk

00:08:41 ◼   ► about. As we're getting ready for WWDC and heading in that

00:08:45 ◼   ► way, if you have questions or things related to things you're

00:08:48 ◼   ► looking forward to adapting to change in new iOS stacks, come

00:08:53 ◼   ► out, whatever it is, you have things like that, by all means,

00:08:54 ◼   ► let me know. The best place for questions for the show is David

00:08:57 ◼   ► at developing perspective.com. And always, if you have

00:09:00 ◼   ► questions, comments, concerns, or complaints, I'm on Twitter @_davidsmith, I'm on AppNet

00:09:04 ◼   ► @davidsmith, and otherwise I hope you have a great week, or I guess weekend now. Happy

00:09:08 ◼   ► coding and I will talk to you next week. Bye.