I’m reading Cal Newport’s So Good They Can’t Ignore You, and I keep seeing his argument play out in real time at work. Newport says rare and valuable skills — career capital — are what give you leverage. The craftsman builds that capital through reps, not passion. Show up, get deep, get good. The leverage … Continue reading The Craftsman and the Machine
Category: Work & Data
The Craftsman
I’m reading Cal Newport’s So Good They Can’t Ignore You, and he makes an argument that I can’t stop thinking about. Most people are told to follow their passion. Find the thing you love, then figure out how to get paid for it. Newport says that’s backwards. The craftsman doesn’t start with passion. The craftsman … Continue reading The Craftsman
Nobody’s Going to Tell You to Go
Day 76 | The 7-40 Challenge I started reading Seth Godin's Tribes this morning. Early in the book, he draws a line between managers and leaders that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. Managers make widgets. Leaders make change. Managers manipulate resources to get a known job done. Leaders create change they believe in. I've … Continue reading Nobody’s Going to Tell You to Go
A Tomb or a Library
Day 71 of 280 | The 7-40 Challenge I’ve spent nearly twenty years working in data management. It’s my day job. I think about how data flows through systems, how it gets organized, how it turns into something useful. I think about the architecture behind it — the tables, the databases, the business processes, the … Continue reading A Tomb or a Library
SELECT * FROM imagination WHERE creativity IS NOT NULL
Day 50 — The 7-40 Challenge February 24, 2026 I spend my days writing SQL, talking with people about their data, and making sure systems talk to each other the way they’re supposed to. It’s not glamorous. Nobody’s making a movie about the guy who finds the duplicate data records. But here’s the thing nobody … Continue reading SELECT * FROM imagination WHERE creativity IS NOT NULL
