Good morning folks,

This week's newsletter is a follow up to my first reflection post I'd posted on what I learnt in my first year as a Graduate engineer. You can check it out here! 👈🏽

1 year 7 months later, I'm now a System Engineer 👨🏽‍💻.

The hedonic treadmill of a new role, a new feeling, but it doesn't last for a long time. The feeling plateaus and job becomes just another title. A title that brings in amounting responsibilities, a title that I can highlight on my LinkedIn profile to glorify this status-obsessed world.

But to close the accountability loop of my first reflection, I wanted to highlight what I learned from my time as a graduate engineer - this will be a follow-up, you could more or less say a two-part series to close this chapter.

So to answer the question: What did I learn in my second year as a graduate engineer?

1. Seek discomfort - The principle around seeking discomfort is through leaning into learning that is new and profound because that is where true growth resides.

2. Learn to read the room - Often the way we react depends on how we manage our conversations in our day to day life. I've defaulted into a practice of building rapport with my colleagues, to assemble an understanding that creates a working relationship consisting of trust and confidence.

3. Saying Yes! - This pandemic has opened new opportunities. The way I was able to achieve this is by accepting a single word called 'YES'. The amounting opportunities that become available was a compounding factor in honing my learning through various project work. Opening doors in the improvement department for:

   1. Accountability - of the work I'm responsible to complete.

   2. Teamwork - working alongside others to identify solutions to problems.

   3. Leadership - to learn from others and teach others. 

Well, that's all for this week. I'll see you next week.

Abhishek

P.S - check out my home on the internet abhisheknair.org

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Snippet of Value 💫

1. A video I enjoyed watching - How to Make Better Decisions — Decision-Making Mental Models — Using Intuition: Highlights the inclination of making a decision through various mental models, here are a few to name: a/ To create a risk/benefit analysis around your decision. b/ A whole-body YES - (mind, heart and gut). c/ Identify NO SIGNALS - anything that provides contraction to your mind, heart or gut. The conclusion that's a calling for not to proceed with that decision. d/ Follow your intuition.

2. A book I’m looking forward to read - The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries

Kindle Highlight 🔥

We humans are unhappy in large part because we are insatiable; after working hard to get what we want, we routinely lose interest in the object of our desire. Rather than feeling satisfied, we feel a bit bored, and in response to this boredom, we go on to form new, even grander desires.

Extracted from the book - A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine

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