Mastery & Craft
Mastery is the result of deliberate practice, deep work, and an unwavering commitment to craft. It's about building expertise that matters, finding flow states, and understanding that true mastery is not a destination but a lifelong journey of continuous improvement and refinement.
In the AI age, your expertise might be your biggest liability. Here's why flexibility beats depth, and how to build your adaptation advantage before it's too late.
The speed at which you can absorb, process, and apply new information becomes the ultimate edge in today's fast-paced world.
When you see others achieving 4-minute miles with new tools while you're stuck at 8 minutes making excuses, you don't have a tool problem, you have a skill issue.
True success isn't about external achievements—it's about mastering yourself. Learn how to integrate Areté and Eudaimonia into your daily life for deep fulfillment.
Navigate the AI revolution with practical wisdom and strategic thinking
You don't have a knowledge problem. You have a craft problem. Most people understand excellence intellectually but lack the embodied competence to execute it consistently. Techne bridges the gap between knowing and doing.
Most people consume information like they eat at a buffet, grabbing everything that looks appealing without considering nutrition or purpose. Then they wonder why their thinking is sluggish and their decisions are poor. Greatness requires intentional information architecture.
Excellence isn't a destination you arrive at once and maintain through willpower. Excellence is a flywheel. The six-stage cycle that transforms ancient Greek wisdom into systematic excellence methodology.
The fundamental difference between position thinking (comparing to others) and trend thinking (tracking your own trajectory). Why your direction matters more than your location.
Your meetings aren't just boring. They're killing the ideas that could transform your company. Ancient Greek wisdom about questions reveals why most conversations extract information instead of developing breakthrough thinking.
Discover how B.F. Skinner's revolutionary insights into pain and pleasure can engineer unstoppable motivation. Learn the five-method framework that turns behavioral psychology into practical productivity mastery.
The most indispensable people aren't those who avoid problems, they're those who actively seek them out and solve them effectively. Here's the framework for building that rare and valuable skill.
Just as literacy transformed society, AI fluency is becoming the fundamental skill that separates those who thrive from those who struggle in the modern workplace. It's not about coding, it's about thinking.
Your 5-star vacation restaurant would get 2 stars at home. Context isn't an excuse for mediocrity, it's a test of your standards. The Disney Churro Effect is killing your judgment, and you don't even know it's happening.
In the AI age, your expertise might be your biggest liability. Here's why flexibility beats depth, and how to build your adaptation advantage before it's too late.
The speed at which you can absorb, process, and apply new information becomes the ultimate edge in today's fast-paced world.
When you see others achieving 4-minute miles with new tools while you're stuck at 8 minutes making excuses, you don't have a tool problem, you have a skill issue.
Clean test output isn't just about aesthetics, it's about developer productivity, debugging efficiency, and maintaining code quality. When your test suite runs quietly and only speaks up when something's wrong, you can focus on what matters: building great software.
Everyone's racing to build Model Context Protocols, but they're solving the wrong problem. You're not building for operators—you're building for agents that interpret, decide, and act.
Your test looks fine. The records match. But sometimes it passes, sometimes it fails. Uncover the hidden gotchas of comparing ActiveRecord Relations in Rails tests.
Leadership is a high-stakes game where the cards are rarely all face-up. Learn how to read the room, filter the noise, and make winning decisions.
True success isn't about external achievements—it's about mastering yourself. Learn how to integrate Areté and Eudaimonia into your daily life for deep fulfillment.
Every decision creates ripple effects. Learn how to see beyond the immediate impact and think like a master strategist to build long-term success.
Discover how AI-driven, adaptive learning is reshaping education. Parents no longer have to wait for change—they can take charge today.
Tech debt isn't just about cleanup—it's about discipline. If a team is still making the same mistakes, they're not solving the problem, just hitting reset.
Most developers spend years learning these lessons the hard way. You don't have to. Master these principles now and take control of your dev career.
AI isn't coming. It's here. The teams that master AI-native development now will define the future of product delivery. Learn how to navigate this shift and accelerate your team.
Struggling with imposter syndrome as a new software engineer? Learn why you're more ready than you think, and how to build confidence through action and learning.
Dive into the world of private class methods in Ruby. Understand their purpose, implementation, and when they're the right choice for your code.
Struggling to decide between concerns and service objects in Rails? This guide dives into the pros and cons of each approach, helping you choose the right tool for clean, scalable, and testable code.
Discover how ChatGPT is changing the landscape of education and tutoring, while understanding the unique value that human tutors bring to the learning experience.
Master the art of legacy code refactoring with a practical five-step approach that helps you modernize your codebase while maintaining stability and reliability.
Discover the art of mental switching - how to activate and deactivate different aspects of your personality and skills to excel in various contexts.
Product managers need to be proficient in three key areas: technical skills, data analysis, and empathy for customers. Neglecting any one of these areas can lead to difficulties in successfully managing a product. However, a well-rounded product manager who excels in all three areas can drive success by delivering innovative products that meet customer needs, are technically sound, and supported by data-driven decision-making.
Explore why the pursuit of perfect balance might be holding you back, and learn how embracing strategic imbalance can lead to extraordinary results.
Discover practical approaches to balance daily responsibilities with innovation initiatives, ensuring your organization stays competitive and forward-thinking.
Discover how Price's Law explains the distribution of knowledge and productivity in organizations, and learn how to leverage this understanding for better team management.
Discover how to harness pressure as a catalyst for growth and achievement, turning challenging situations into opportunities for success.
Discover how to recognize and fix common code smells, making your code more maintainable, efficient, and easier to understand.
Discover how strategic sacrifices can give you the edge you need to excel in your personal and professional life.
Discover why your mind often gives up before your body does, and how to overcome these mental barriers to achieve more.
Discover the importance of creating the right environment for effective learning and skill development.
Learn how to strike the right balance between giving teams autonomy while maintaining high performance standards.
Are you looking to make self-improvements in your life? These 10 questions can help guide your reflection and introspection to better understand your values, strengths, weaknesses, and goals. From identifying what led to your biggest achievements to examining your responses to challenges, these questions can help you better understand yourself and your path towards personal growth. Take a moment to ask yourself these questions and discover what you can learn about yourself and your journey to self-improvement.
Discover why traditional daily standups might be holding your team back, and how to make them more effective.
I see a lot of new teams search endlessly for the best process for to use. They tend to ask what is best for us? Which usually devolves into Scrum vs Kanban. I am firm believer in experiencing them to understand, but one could argue you have to start somewhere. For those seeking here is a very brief quick side by side view.
Using metaphors to describe being booted with the Core Protocols.
Six ways to improve your scrum planning meeting.
How to estimate everyday things.
I am a proponent of pairing (not just for programming). Anytime I introduce it to a new team I get a number of objections. The most prominent is that pairing slows me down (because I am so awesome and everyone else sucks so bad).
Sometimes when Getting Things Done, you need a little more power in your inbox than the default. Boomerang for GMail is the extra horsepower you need.
Going to cross-functional teams for product delivery is always interesting, but DevOps seems to be particularly loaded in it's meaning. How to tell if your DevOps relationship is failing you?
Abraham Maslow made the concept of hierarchies of progression in systems popular via his work on a hierarchy of needs. Here is a theory about the hierarchy of different types of readers.
Desert Code Camp has opened it's call for suggestions. This is a great FREE event that brings together technologists of all kinds together at a single location to learn (while feeding them breakfast and lunch) new technologies, improve on existing technology or share your favorite technology. There has been a good dynamic languages track in addition to a strong Microsoft track. There has been a track for kids (Gangplank Jr) and even sessions on sales or running a business.
It is no secret, I love books. One of my favorite things to read is autobiographies. I enjoy them because I love to hear the authors reflect back on how they got started. A glimpse of what made them who they became.
Develop deep expertise through deliberate practice and commitment to your craft.
Connect with Derek