The New Year’s Post: 5 Things I’ve Learned in 2012 (or Five Things I remember learning)

January 1, 2013

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A lot of things happened in 2012 for me. I graduated from college, I became a partner at Suits & Sandals, I discovered a love for WordPress, I started dating my amazing girlfriend, I got a Mac Book with Retina Display (holy crap), I discovered SASS (holy holy crap), my voice was on Shop Talk Show twice (and made Chris Coyier laugh both times), I got a cat. Five is such an arbitrary number for listing out what I’ve learned but its a good cut off point. The topics below will vary and I hope there’s at least one thing that may help you along in your own learning process.

 

1. Don’t rush to know everything

 

Where I needed to learn this lesson the most was in my web development; where I learned accept that I don’t know everything came from a much different place. To be honest I’m a relative newcomer to the world of web development. I have been programming for about four years but only became serious about web development about a year and a half ago. I instantly loved it and wanted to absorb every bit of knowledge I could find. But as I got further into it, finding that I didn’t already know something began to be a blow to my ego. Why didn’t I know it? Why couldn’t I just know everything now?

 

Tangentially I’ve been studying the martial arts arts since I was six. I began with American Kempo Karate (reaching second degree black belt), took a couple years off and then studied Okinawa Go-Ju Ryu Karate (reaching Green belt), and began to learn Shoto-kan following my move to the NYC area early this past summer. Third time a white belt I quickly learned to love it. It has given me a chance to focus on the basics. In fact, this dojo never stops focusing on the basics. Without hammering them out the rest of the art will falter.

 

And that … is a good metaphor. Good job Zack.

 

2. Preprocessing is awesome

 

If you haven’t learned this lesson I recommend this video by Chris Coyier. I’ll also have a post up soon explaining this more thoroughly.

 

3. Running a business doesn’t mean you have to give up your values

 

The same week I joined the Suits & Sandals team I was arrested on the Brooklyn bridge along with 700 others who were part of the Occupy Wall Street movement. I’m still in the process of reconciling running a business with my far left beliefs. What I have learned though is that a business is what you make of it. You have a choice as to what actions you will take and how those actions will affect others.

 

I haven’t actually read much about this myself but one of my business partners keeps telling me this is called Zen Business. I’m going to leave this link here as much for myself as for you.

 

4. You won’t like all your clients

 

But you have to deal with them. I say client, because as a web developer that’s who I do work for but this can extend to anyone you do business with.

 

First off, if you don’t like a client because you’re working relationship with them is leading you to being frustrated I suggest reevaluating everything in relation to this client. Everything contains the nature of the project, your workflow, how you and your coworkers talk about the project, and your communication with the client. Especially how you communicate with your client. You may just find that what is causing you frustration is a matter of miscommunication. In another instance it may be that your contract, or other legal document binding you to work, may not be strong enough to handle greedy clients (there are clients out there that will extort loopholes); in those cases its up to you to deal with the current situation and make sure that your documents are stronger next time.

 

If your dislike comes from something personal, that’s another story but I advise not to through in the towel on your working relationship right away. Life is about dealing with people different than yourself. My leftist ideals are the basis of who I am. One of our first clients was a man on the exact opposite end of the political spectrum as myself. We still work closely with this client and I have found a friendship there despite our strong opinions. You can’t go through life only dealing with people you like; you definitely can’t run a business and turn away everyone you disagree with.

 

If the difference is too great, and the legal documents and your financial situation allow you to do so, maybe it is best to cut of relations to this person. You’re mental wellbeing is just as, if not more important, than your financial well being. However, I have not yet found someone so vile that I had to make this move.

 

5. Check your privilege

 

This phrase was actually introduced to me just this last year but I wish it had been so a long time ago. Below is a bunch of videos I HIGHLY encourage you to watch.

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