Autonomy and Opportunity

Autonomy and Opportunity are 2 of the external constraints to our actions and accomplishments.

1. Autonomy is to say no to what you don't want to do.
2. Opportunity is about the choices available to you.

Every accomplishment is constrained by these 2 external factors. You can be busy doing work you don't want to do, or unable to access the work you want to do.

You increase your autonomy by building automation and delegation, and increase opportunity by building credibility.

How to say no, the easy way

Let's talk about autonomy and saying no.

You might think saying no is about your courage, you're overcoming your innate conflict-aversion, "I'm holding the line! Suck it!" Or maybe you think saying no is for disagreeable people, conflict-prone people, those people hard to be around.

I don't think it's either of those, at least not the good type of saying no. As Naval Ravikant said on his first rule for handling conflict:

The first rule of handling conflict is: Don’t hang around people who constantly engage in conflict. I’m not interested in anything unsustainable or even hard to sustain, including difficult relationships.

Jorgenson, Eric. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness (p. 148). Magrathea Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Amen.

The autonomy of saying no is not about the hard no, the sacrifice, the constant conflict. It's about the easy no, it's about making unnecessary that which was previously necessary.

If you need a clean house, it must be cleaned. You could say no, and refuse to clean it, but then all you'd have is a dirty house. And you don't want a dirty house.

Instead of living in the dirt because you refuse to clean your house, having autonomy to say no feels more like having a Roomba that cleans it up for you.

Don't make having a clean house unnecessary; make cleaning it unnecessary.

While you could say no and fight for scraps, live in the dirt, and go through the constant conflict and stress, instead you build your autonomy by removing needs through automation and delegation.

If you spend a lot of time every month building your monthly release, or manually calculating your monthly financial results, or manually analyzing your sales team's pipeline, you could say no to those activities and suffer its business consequences: lost bug fixes and features, lost runway visibility, lost customers. Lost job, and lost company.

Or you could automate or delegate it, and use your time elsewhere.

Most saying no through delegation and automation looks like that: an investment that pays dividends for the foreseeable future. Solving problems once.

Again, like a Roomba.

To build autonomy, you must build automation and delegation.

But what if you don't get to do the important stuff, even if you had the time to do it?

From "I have to" to "I get to"

"How do I train to be a manager, Dui?" – it's a terrific question many mentees have asked me.

A lot of software engineers can learn and explore new technologies on their own: programming languages and libraries are open source, many tools are free, cloud platforms are cheap.

But you don't get to be a manager unless you are a manager. At one point, somebody has to look at you and say, "You, right there. Yes, you. You were never a manager before, right? Now you are. Good luck."

That's the difference between work you have to do and work you get to do. Work you have to do is usually work where you don't have autonomy, while work you get to do is work where you have opportunity.

I was recently talking to a friend about their intent to work at a big company, and they said "I just want to see what it's like to build software at that scale of hundreds of millions of people, you know?" – Yep, I know. That's something you either have the opportunity to do, or you don't.

You can't just play around on your spare time and affect hundreds of millions of people; it's gotta be an opportunity that you have.

OK, you say, but how do you build opportunity?

You build opportunity by building credibility.

I know; it’s hard. Building credibility is tough because it’s essentially self-promotion. So let's dive into that.

Credibility is your ability to quickly convey your competence to others.

Credibility will not just appear automatically just because you have competence. You have to convey it.

To start, I'll assume you have many competencies, meaning an exceptional ability to affect the real world in ways that are valuable to others. Now the challenge is marketing it.

One of my favorite references on building credibility comes from Michael Port's Book Yourself Solid, a book on consulting that's applicable to many who work at startups, like you.

I also love his chapter title:

Becoming a Likeable Expert in Your Field

Have you heard the expression, “It's not what you know that's important but who you know”? There's some truth to it but, if you're a professional service provider, consider the importance of “Who knows what you know and do they like you?” If you want to establish yourself as an expert in your field, a “category authority,” potential clients as well as marketing and referral partners need to know that you know what you know…and they need to like you.

Michael Port starts with simple, basic things. Despite their simplicity, though, most people who are ambitious and want access to new opportunities don't have them:

The standard credibility builders are the things that you need to do and have in place to appear credible and professional. [..]
- You must have a professional email address: [..] [email protected] [..]
- Invest in quality business cards: [..]
- If you don't have a website, have one built now! [..]
- Make sure your social profiles represent you professionally: [..]
- Have professionally produced photographs taken: [..]
- Obtain and showcase specific testimonials rather than general testimonials: [..]
- Bonus: Establish an advisory board: If well-known individuals will lend you their names, it will help you establish credibility within your target market.

Port, Michael. Book Yourself Solid (p. 63). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

He starts from the very beginning: you care about what you can do, your "Product", so care, also, about how it comes across to others, your "Marketing."

After you start from the fundamentals, you can expand: Social Media posts, blog posts, online community engagement, participating on podcasts, online videos, meetups, conference talks – there are many ways to keep helping make you a likeable expert in your field.

But it's important to be really good at what you do first. Marketing yourself without a good Product will not build your credibility. This is about Marketing yourself as an authority in a category once you are actually an authority in the category:

Although being a category authority and establishing yourself as one may, at first glance, appear to be the same thing, they're not. This isn't about faking it until you make it. Before you can establish yourself as a category authority, you must be one. How do you do that? You truly become a category authority by learning everything you possibly can about the one thing you've decided you want to become known for.

Port, Michael. Book Yourself Solid (p. 67). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

I know what you'll say next:

"Ugh, Marketing. Do I have to?"

Michael Port will answer that one too:

Do I Have To?

If, now that you've avoided the dark side, some other side of you has taken over and is whining, “Do I have to?” the answer is a firm and resounding, “Yes, you do.” Like it or not, becoming a category authority, an expert in your field, isn't optional if you want your business to be as successful as it can be. It's a must.

Port, Michael. Book Yourself Solid (pp. 68-69). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

If you want opportunities, you must build credibility. If you want credibility, you must market yourself.

Again, assuming you're competent. If not yet, keep building it.

Building autonomy and opportunity

Building autonomy and opportunity is critical to increasing your accomplishments. It's the mix of being able to say no to what you don't want to do, and to say yes to what you do.

To exercise building autonomy, do the following:

1. Find a task you can't say no to right now that's top of mind.
2. Think about what you need to have in place to say no to it in the future. It's likely a mix of automation and delegation.
3. Step 2 is likely expensive, time-consuming, or both. So sketch a plan to build it.
4. The plan you created on step 3 is now a project for you to prioritize alongside your other work.

Creating autonomy by building automation and delegation is hard; it's expensive and time-consuming. Building the ability to say no has the form of new projects in your backlog to prioritize and work on.

To exercise building credibility, do the following:

1. Google yourself by typing your first and last name.
2. Click the first link that refers to you: website, social media, etc.
3. Quickly update that page by making it up to date, if it isn't up to date yet. It probably isn't.
4. Plan to update the page more thoroughly by illustrating why you're an expert in your field in a way that makes you likable.
5. If you were already nailing these 4 steps, think about expanding these into a social media, blog, or podcast presence.

Increased autonomy and opportunity won’t happen automatically; they must be deliberately built.

Build the systems that grant you the freedom to say no, and market your expertise to ensure you’re the one who gets to say yes.

Building autonomy and credibility is a habit, a discipline that you must start and continually develop over time.

By laying these foundations and building upon them, you’ll find yourself increasingly working on and accomplishing what truly matters.