Taha | Ep 55
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[00:00:00] Taha__Zubin: Hey everybody and welcome to the Easiest said Than Done podcast
[00:00:03] today. I've got for you the one and on Taha Jose.
[00:00:06] Now if you don't know who this guy is, that's 'cause you've been living under a rock and not on LinkedIn at all. If there's one person on LinkedIn, I recommend you follow and join what, 80,000 other people following this guide. Follow Taha because if you just get a sense of how this man communicates, you'll understand why he was so, he's so tremendously successful.
[00:00:26] This guy's had senior roles at Microsoft, at Yahoo, at SAP. You name it. He runs his own business now. He's got a phenomenal Substack newsletter which is really, really good. You guys have to check it out. It's called the Conscious Leader. He's got a top rated, he's got two top rated courses. You the top engineer method, the Top tech Lead Leader method, and his posts.
[00:00:48] I promise you, if you read any of TA's posts on LinkedIn, you better be sitting down because if you're not, he's gonna make you sit down just and go like, what the heck? Wow. That was something else. So Taha. Welcome, man. Welcome to the podcast. I am so excited to have you here. Can you tell. This is amazing.
[00:01:05] Thank you so much, Ruben. I'm gonna take this section and take it everywhere from Introduction forever. I think this is the best I heard about me or anyone ever. Thank you so much. No, I mean it, man. Like I, I here I've gotten to know you a little bit, you know, directly through, through you know, our WhatsApp chats and also indirectly through what through LinkedIn and stuff in your newsletter.
[00:01:24] So. I am one of those people who truly believe there's not many good voices in the world. Like there's a lot of marketing Bs out there. And you are one of the good voices, Taha, because I think and that's how I wanted you on the show is because you've, you're an old guy like me. No, just kidding. You know, you and I have been around a little bit, right?
[00:01:41] We've been around before the hype cycles. We've been around before social media took off and took over the world. We've been around in a world where building careers came down to common sense. You know, modeling what worked from people that actually done it, observing success empirically, directly or indirectly being put in context where there was no, you know, Molly coddling and no, you know, soothing.
[00:02:04] There was just reality and you had to deal with it. And I think because we've grown up in that generation, we sort of see things di a bit differently from how people are trained to see it now by social media. Would you agree? I would agree that, that the way they're thought about these days is very different.
[00:02:19] It's more of a. A fantasy. Mm-hmm. And we are chasing that and the world is changing significantly faster. So that's one. But you know the point about, like, I want to go back to your point about defining the odds of what a journey looks like or what it looks like on LinkedIn and stuff, because that's not the path.
[00:02:38] That's never the path. Mm-hmm. And if we get stuck on it, then we have certain expectations. I'll talk about that today. I've been coaching people. Landing roles in this tough market. And the tough part is not about clearing the interview, but it's more about overcoming what happened, right? And those things, you, after the interview, after they've left a company or something in the past, there is things which are causing issues.
[00:03:06] And I look at these pattern. So one of the things that I do as a software engineer is I look at parents. Pattern is bound to repeat if it'll always repeat hundred percent. And so just like a doctor will look at symptoms, Hey, you have this, you have this, you have this, these three things have been happening.
[00:03:19] You must have this right? And then you try that. So I've been doing that for three and a half years now in this tough market. And like, I love the amazing insights and I've been writing that on Substack. So yesterday I wrote a, i, I wrote the upcoming newsletter for this weekend. I'm really excited for that.
[00:03:35] It's in two parts though. The part one is good, but I'm waiting for part two. I'm gonna for next week. It's amazing. And, and one of the part and the insight is amazing. The, the part that I like, I'll tell, I'll talk about the parent rate that I learned about this, but one of the parts that I want to say is that your journey, man, from the lawyer towards what you're doing and now what you're doing, it's, it's phenomenal and that's what people are looking forward to.
[00:04:00] Everyone wants evidence. Can this be done? If it can be done, then people have courage to do it too. Right, a hundred percent. So thank you for coming forward, making an effort talking about it. Well, Taha, you know, thank you. That's very kind of you for saying, but it's, it's really interesting that you use the P word, the pattern word, right?
[00:04:19] Because with my students, and you know, you and I look at very different. Sort of people different people at different stages in their, in their career, right? You tend to look at already people who are already engineers, junior ic, whatever, but they're in engineering. I look at people who are like, you know, like I was 10 years ago, right?
[00:04:35] Mm-hmm. People in other careers who are feeling a bit trapped, wanting to get at. And the P word comes up over and over again. The, I have to constantly hold up. I, I tell 'em, I said, my job is not, you know, teaching the code and stuff. That's frankly the easy part. My job ends up being holding up the mirror and say, are you seeing this pattern?
[00:04:50] And I ha Are you seeing how your habitual decision making or observation on the world? The, the sort of the image you're imposing on the world is what's driving decisions over and over again that bring you back to the same position you're trying to escape from. You know, there's this, like you said, it repeats, there's a loop going on, right?
[00:05:10] It's, it's like human beings are programmable. We are programmed and we get programmed by experiences, and that programming shows up all the time in future experiences that look similar to the previous one, even if they don't have to be, you know, because we, we are always in a decision tree, right? Every moment there's a folk in the road, and if you choose the same folk you've always chosen, you're going to come back to square one every time, emotionally, financially.
[00:05:34] You know, career wise it's always gonna be the way, and it doesn't matter whether you're a coder, you're not a coder. It's the same thing. So pattern recognition and dealing with the individual's experience is why I do the personal coaching stuff. Because I tried doing the courses thing and it wasn't working for me.
[00:05:47] It wasn't giving me the kind of impact I wanted to have on people's lives until I started speaking to the people. Mm-hmm. It is had a dialogue, you know, before I could really make that difference. So, you know, thank, thank you for saying that because something that's, that I'm very, very passionate about.
[00:06:01] Now let's talk about. You know, before we dive too deep into some of the other methods that you talk about, let's talk about what's on everyone's mind at the moment, right? We are in a moment here in, you know, in, in, in the latter half of 2020 five. Where it appears that people are not very optimistic things in the us the economy on grid, the jobs market, the numbers got revised, you know, in interest rate is high.
[00:06:24] If uncertainty is high about the future, you know of certainties low, depending on how you wanna look about it, look at it. AI is taking over lots of or appearing to in make infringements on lots of knowledge work. Why should people be listening to people like you and I, or at least, you know, leave me out of this.
[00:06:42] Why should people be listening to leaders like you on what they should be doing in their career when tomorrow looks so uncertain,
[00:06:49] but the patterns will repeat human beings the same patterns. I agree. I agree. But what, what would you say to someone saying, Hey, I don't even know I'm an engineer. Let's assume, because that's most of your audience, right? I'm an engineer today. Do I want to be an engineer? Because I get this question a lot saying, why did you leave from law to engineering?
[00:07:05] You know, we want to try and leave engineering. Right. So what would you tell people that who are not optimistic about engineering? I'm extremely optimistic about engineering, which is why I'm staying in it. But other people who never sort of observe these patterns, there are some that are less optimistic.
[00:07:21] What would you say to them? You know, I think before I can answer that question, I'll tell you a bit about my, my philosophy over here. I'm one of those people, actually I will tell this incident, this is a funny incident. I always try to break rules. That's just my thing. Mm-hmm. But I did one year of hiring the next year.
[00:07:39] I said, you know what? I wanna hire like better talent. Mm-hmm. How do I do that part? So one thing I realized that I want people who are serious about just engineering. So the next job description I sent HR rejected it. The job description on the top, it started in capital letters. If you took computer science in college, because it's a safe career choice, this job is not for you, and HR said you can't put that.
[00:08:03] Right. Of course they did. Yeah. That's okay. I'll ask them in private then in the correct, because I don't want people who are just coming here for nine to five job. I understand people need that. I do understand this part. I just don't want to work with them. That's very simple as that. I, another part I'll explain, my son is doing mechanical engineering.
[00:08:21] I don't care what he does actually. Mm-hmm. He has been making legos since the age of five. Mm-hmm. And you give him any piece of, and he is been making Legos. When he was seven years old for like 15 plus people. Mm-hmm. These Legos, he would spend eight hours, you have to tell him, Hey, go, go back to bed. And then he would you wake up, he's again making it.
[00:08:40] Right. Right. So there is nine no, nine to five. No. Like, hey, I'm burning out. Hey, you know what I need promotion. Nothing else. Right. This is just something I love doing. Right. So he started college last week. And so he, as he was going and I was saying, what you're taking, you say, I'm taking this, this, this, this.
[00:08:58] And I'm like. I want you to focus on one thing. I said, what I don't know mechanical engineering, but I know you can find your Lego in it. Mm-hmm. I want you to find what that Lego was for me. When I went to college, I took a computer science. I never did it before. You know, my first year in university, I went to the lab and I told the lab guy that computer is not working, and he said, it's a brand new.
[00:09:21] 20:00 PM I was like, yeah, but it's not working. So he turned it on. It did turn on. Next day when I learned about computers more, I learned that I was pressing the floppiness button. It was pointed out. Right. And so that was me. Yeah, but then I was coding, I was just coding, coding, coding. And next semester there were people who were, we got assignments and they were just focusing on assignments.
[00:09:41] And I was doing assignments, and I was like, that's boring. And I was doing my own thing. Then I learned visual basic. I was like, wow. So I made mind sweeper calculator. Right. And people are still writing code in Dawson. All I'm writing code in Windows doing applications. Right. And my projects have to fail.
[00:09:59] Like if I finish a project. I didn't like that part. Yeah. So next semester assembly I took like making a game more serial cable. Everybody was writing A TSR. I was like, oh, that's boring. That's like five lines. Right. So the idea is that you are not doing things because you want to become successful. Yeah.
[00:10:16] You can pick up anything. As long as you like it, you will find ways to make money. Money making a different business. You can be really good at something and still not make money. Not make money. A hundred percent. Absolutely right. That's a hundred percent money making different business. And then she learn that part too, right?
[00:10:29] That's different. So. Yeah. Yeah. So to answer your question, where we are going, right? If I were to say that if you in any, like you were, you were riding horses, then cars and something else, there will be something you will find. You can't say that, Hey, I like horses. So because horses alive and all of that, if we change our mindset, car has horsepowers.
[00:10:48] It has, it's not alive. But I would argue that, hey, you know, some cars are alive. Yeah. And I think. Ultimately you can't fight the change and nor should you, because the change brings opportunities that weren't there before. Right. And those who are looking for it are gonna find it. And a lot of, you know, folks who come to me like, oh, you know, don't even think software engineering is dead.
[00:11:09] And I'm like, maybe, you know, I said software engineering as far as I can see from the history. And I've only been an engineer about six years or five years, something. As far as I can see, it's died three or four times. Okay. It, it's been died and reborn three or four times the way software engineering's practice has changed over the years.
[00:11:24] If you read how, you know, I remember reading what was that book, Paul Allen's book about his story with bill Gates and the founding of Microsoft. The way they did programming back then is completely different from what we do now, like as a practice, as a trade, as a craft. And so that's just gonna happen.
[00:11:40] The tools will change, the technology will change, it'll change the practice, it'll change the craft, you know, you know, nowadays copers use you know, complex alloys and resins and stuff like that to build works of art. Back in the day it was marble and wood, you know, in some storm, like, you know.
[00:11:55] How you express yourself will change and it'll change the profession. But that's not, not something necessarily to be afraid of. And, and if anything, I think you know, I, I do, I do strongly agree with you that people with the wrong motives will, even if they succeed. Could be unhappy because I was that person for a very long time.
[00:12:15] You know, I succeeded at goals that was set for me culturally and socially and by ego. You know, be a lawyer, go to this kinda law school, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was, while, while I didn't enjoy that world, it wasn't right for me. And I succeeded in it. And that's a really strange trap to be in where you're succeeding at something you don't want to succeed at or you don't want to keep getting it better at the thing that you don't love.
[00:12:38] And so, you know, there, there is that trap also that doing what comes naturally to you, what you're naturally intrigued by and interested by, and then learning how to build a life around that is probably a wise, a strategy. In fact, I, people don't realize that when I do my private coaching thing. I only work with very few people at a time, but I've said no to far more people who are willing to pay me for the full year.
[00:13:00] I've said no to far more people than I've said. Yes, for the same reason that you said Taha, which is, I don't necessarily wanna work with someone who just wants to get rich quick, who just wants to have their ego, you know, delivered in a certain way. Or if their goals are not what I can help them deliver on.
[00:13:16] Right. So it's, it's, I'm, I'm glad that you are sort of. Emphasizing that message again for people at this moment, because when I remember the GFC, when you know people get wobbly, when they get wobbly, they want to escape the pain of their current uncertainty by saying that, okay, this is not the right part.
[00:13:32] Then they think that a change that they control is better than a change. They don't control. And that's not necessarily true. You know, that's not necessarily true. Now let's talk also about, you know, one of the things you said to me that really struck me, because again, it's very meta and a lot of your principles are meta that I see you know, you apply them to the engineering world, but the fundamental meta principles in my view, right?
[00:13:54] You said that you know, your goal is to help people become someone they want to be, right? That's a simple set of words, but it's extremely profound if you ask me. What, what have you noticed about why, why this is so hard? Why is it so hard, Taha for someone to become who they want to become?
[00:14:14] Oh, I'll show you how I do that part. Sure. I'm gonna give a very high level example. Then I can talk about, I don't want to become all lecture or like preachy hair, so I'm going to give some example to think about. Mm-hmm. We need a direction all the time. Mm-hmm. Human beings without direction is not a good thing.
[00:14:35] It's like an animal just grazing grass. Mm-hmm. It's not a good thing. Mm-hmm. There needs to be a direction as to anything you're doing. We need the direction. If we don't have the direction, then naturally our body is designed to create anxiety. Correct. We don't know where we are headed, something that may not be unsafe.
[00:14:49] So we need a direction for that. So number one part is that if you don't put a goal out there and you're feeling anxiety, put a goal out there. Now, if you feel the anxiety is because you're not taking action towards that part. So you need to solve that part. The problem over is that many people think about, Hey, I want to do this piece, but they're not taking the action.
[00:15:07] Okay. And then they've been taught about build habits, all of that. I can tell you I've tried to build habits even for like six months. Then I stopped doing it for one week and it did not build back again. It's gone. Yeah. Okay. So, but there are habits which I keep going back to no matter what happens. So I'm gonna talk about those pieces to how I build that part.
[00:15:25] Then I do it with other people. So the way we want to think about is that we always work with people. This is why people are very important. Mm-hmm. People, people, people. If you think about religiously, there are leaders, correct? Right. If you look at, you know, all the talk about people arguing, it's about which president you like or not like.
[00:15:42] Correct. And there are, so it's about, we don't buy ideas. I wrote about this recently. We don't buy ideas. We, we basically trust people. People. A hundred percent, right? Yeah. I was in I was, it's a long time back. There's a movie came out five. In India it's called fire. It's about lesbian. Mm-hmm. And that was a taboo in India, obviously at that time.
[00:16:02] I think it still is, but at that time, like 20 years ago was really huge. Yeah. And they were covering on on News Z news I bet. If it was done in Pakistan situation. Yeah. Right. And what happened was there was this guy coming out in brand, in, in broad daylight from a theater and he just threw this ball of fire inside.
[00:16:20] And he just ran out. And this reporter asked him, why did you do that? Why did you do that? And he says, because re says so. Mm. There is somebody called Re and he said something and that's why it's gonna happen. That's it doesn't matter, like what the idea is. Right? So even the educated people, right, they'll do the same thing.
[00:16:37] Very true. We work people so understand this part. When we understand this part, we don't reject the idea. You want to work with it versus against it. If it works with that, let's do that. So one way to think about is that people work with role models. Mm-hmm. And I, and, and one objection I used to have when I was growing up is that I don't need a role model.
[00:16:54] 'cause if I take a role model, then I won't grow beyond that. Mm-hmm. Right? And what's happening is that this is ego in disguise because ego is about comparison. So in a way, you are also threatened by a role model. Right. Yeah. So I realized is when I was growing up, teenager, Arnold used to be a role model without even thinking about it.
[00:17:11] Like I watched his going in the Barbarian and I was like, wow. Like that scene in the beginning, I, I don't remember. He's like pushing that thing and he's, everybody keeps dying and he grows old. He is the only one pushing it and he's pushing it. Everybody's gone. Yeah. But that, seeing that, I just remember it then terminate to, I mean, I just became a fan of this guy.
[00:17:28] Yeah. Right. So what I noticed was I was 15 years old and I was doing bodybuilding. Right. And I used to live in a very slum, kind of an area in Karachi, and the gym was next to a Nadi, which is smelly and all. Yeah. And the, the dumbbells were like those things you put in, in construction. And then they have these tins with cement in them.
[00:17:51] So now you have those dumbbells made with cement, right? Right. So you're doing pushups or s with that, right? Swinging all of that. So that's how, why 'cause Arnold, I wanna do that part. Now Arnold also came from Austria to America, right? On his own. And he has. I also came from Karachi towards that. He had a different journey and a different journey.
[00:18:09] He did different things to come over, had different things, but that motivation kept there and so throughout my life I've been hitting gym. No matter what happens, I'll go to the gym, I'll do bodybuilding. Then he has thing about his principle is that learn things first. Master them. Right. Then break them.
[00:18:25] You have to break them. Right. That's my rule as well. It doesn't matter what I'm gonna break the rule. Right, right. No matter what you do, be. Excellent at that. He was, his dialogue I'll be back, is the most famous dialogue in the history of Hollywood. Absolutely. And it cannot be said in any other way than his Austrian robotic accent.
[00:18:46] It has to correct, correct. Right. Then he became a movie star and he did really well in that. People say if Arnold is on the set, you have to bring your A game. 'cause he would not leave you without that. Yeah. Then they became a governor. Oh, you look at this part, right? Yeah. So what happens that. So I'm describing it.
[00:19:02] This piece? Yeah. And then what happened is 20 twelves, I'm giving another piece to think about and one or two more pieces quickly. One is that I thought about James Bond, right? I watched Skyfall. I'm like, I'm James Bond, like this guy. You know, I never like wearing watches, like I'm wearing a watch right now, but I don't like wearing watches 'cause you know it's itchy and all of that.
[00:19:20] And you go through airport, take it out like shit. So I don't wear them, but then I want to wear them 'cause they look nice to, I want to adapt them once I embrace the James Bond identity. Yeah. You know in Skyfall he's standing in some hotel in China and he's butt naked and he's shaving with straight razor, wearing an omega watch.
[00:19:39] Nothing else but the guy wears watch, right? Guess what happens? Each time I think about not wearing a watch, I wear a watch 'cause interesting James Bond, right? That mindset. So when you allow that, what happens? I also noticed something. I also started going to the gym even more. I started doing hit workout.
[00:19:53] Now Anna doesn't do hit workout. Right. I started doing hit work workout because this James Body is athletic. I even bought a suit called James Sharp from Boss, right? And I looked at Yahoo's party and I looked really like really good because I had lost weight. I was muscular, all of that. Right? Now, these days, like three years ago, I've been struggling and writing.
[00:20:12] I was like, what do I take? So I don't fear about writing and writing stuff. You have to write and you know, what do people think about you? You can. So what I did was I started reading a book called On Writing from Stephen King. Stephen King. Yeah, I read it. It's fantastic. Yeah, right. You know what? I started writing like him.
[00:20:29] ' cause I won't write like him. And he has habits. He says, you need to go and sit in one place, just like coding. Sit in one place, wait there, and then, and then write like 2000 words. So he has his habits and what's happening is that I was trying to build them right, but they weren't building. When I think about Stephen King and listen to him more and more, what happens that I start acting like him.
[00:20:46] Now what happens that I can even go beyond Stephen King if I even if I go halfway there, right? That would be amazing. Right? But here's the thing. We have to pick the roots. So we have from Stephen King. Yeah. And then we break those rules. See, that's the idea, that's the goal you have to think about. Right?
[00:21:00] So those is coming in. So, so on that. So why do you think it is, 'cause something you said, I think, you know, describes what I've observed as well because I, I mean, I. I do any sort of coaching is about taking someone from who they are to who they want to be, incrementally step by step. You directionally correct.
[00:21:17] Moving towards that goal. Right. Why is it that people find it so hard to take action? Because the observation that I've had after years of doing this with people, you know, changing creative software engineering from whatever they're doing is actually everybody knows what they need to do. But they always think there's some special secret that somebody else has.
[00:21:37] There's some unique formula, and they always looking for the next hit of dopamine rather than doing the thing they already know they should do. What is your analysis of human nature that makes that behavior so common, you know, of the default state?
[00:21:52] I will say this answer in a different way. Last week I had this girl, you were talking, this girl came up. And she was going through some tough time because she had lost her job 10 months ago and she was like really down. So that's the real coaching about changing the energy. Correct. And so I, what I do is that I've learned how to orchestrate the emotions.
[00:22:12] So emotions, what happens that we have several emotions. Mm-hmm. And for a person to change their behavior, you have to orchestrate emotions in a certain way. For example, if I want to change someone's behavior, they have to feel guilty. You people don't change their behavior without, oh, it makes sense. We change, the behavior doesn't work like that.
[00:22:29] So last week, for example, there's one girl, she came up and she was depressed. She was that, and then she was talking about her weight and then, you know, et cetera, et cetera, was talking about what she's eating, et cetera. So apparently she eats two Len chocolate bars at night and she had gained weight. No, she had gained weight.
[00:22:45] So I asked her that you are worried about your weight. It's an obvious solution, right? So I said, have you thought about. Not eating chocolate. Mm-hmm. You know, she got mad. She said, it's not the chocolate. I have what? Childhood trauma. And if I don't eat it, then I feel that, and if I don't eat, I'll get even fatter.
[00:23:02] So it's not the chocolate I'm thinking. He has found a reasoning to keep on doing what she wants to do. You understand this part, right? Explain. So, number one part that I tell people, if you really care about yourself, you have to also be okay that you have to say no to things which you daily care about.
[00:23:16] So number one I tell people is you wanna zoom out and in your identity, I want you to build a principle. Yeah. Reasons don't matter if you steal, that's it. It's wrong. Why you stole, somebody was hungry, you didn't eat for five days, et cetera, et cetera. You can, so whatever you want to. But that doesn't justify it, unfortunately.
[00:23:36] Right? So when you say reasons don't matter, then you stop. You basically say, Hey, chocolate, eating chocolate is bad, right? So you stop justifying it, right? But thing is that your emotional one wants that. So one of the part I tell people is that if your energy is already in a low energy, you need actually some help to somebody to help you get emotion, energy, unstuck.
[00:23:54] Release that. So one of the, I'll give people two things. So as an example, the same lady that came up, she basically had a job and I saw her resume. She was not getting calls. Her resume told me that she's not commi. She basically was everything. And her resume was very confusing. Are you, are you a team lead?
[00:24:14] Are you a manager? It's not like clear. She's also using, like, I could see she did not brand herself really well. Now she's saying that, that I left a previous job because I did a lot of work and my boss did not promote me, promoted somebody else. And that's politics. And I did all the work and so I left the company.
[00:24:31] Mm-hmm. And now I don't have a job for 10 months. Mm-hmm. So the issue over is that she's stuck at that incident and she doesn't know how to deal with that. Mm-hmm. Thing is that as you go in life, people will touch you, right? I imagine you're going through some subway station, somebody hitting you mad.
[00:24:46] Yeah. I mean they drop something on you, but yeah, it happened, but you have to let that go 'cause you can't do anything about this. Correct. So the idea is that finding a way to release the energy the right way. So if you say, I don't care about this one, it doesn't go away. So here's what needs to happen.
[00:24:59] What people don't realize, the reason you're angry, you're stuck is because you are first mad at yourself. Why did I let it happen? Mm-hmm. Because you don't admit that you're not going to fix a solution. Either she was stuck at it or she was not learning how to influence herself. Right. And that's causing issues and are branding and representing herself and in interviews.
[00:25:16] Right. Because she's not, she's not struck at, I'm not gonna learn this. We, without even thinking about this. Right. So I told her this. Just say it out loud. 'cause when you say out loud, your emotional might listen. So I said, say it out loud. I forgive myself for the decisions I've made that led me to this point.
[00:25:32] Right? When you say it out loud, your mind listening and it takes off effect slowly, then you want to detach from the other person too. So think about what they did and what you didn't like that moment. So bring that emotion and then say, your behavior is not my responsibility. Correct. So you let go of that.
[00:25:49] So each time it's coming up, because mine works one called object permanent. So you keep on thinking it becomes like, like magnetizing it, right? Yeah. So the group will again play There again, you have to intentionally say these two things again. So you say it three, four times a hundred percent. Who are listening to what TA saying I, I want you guys to really take on more what TA saying because.
[00:26:07] This is not specific to engineering or this, or that. This is actually the human experience. And you know, I keep telling my students it's not your mind, it's the mind. The mind does this, this object fixation the object, permanence, the, the, the tendency to self flagellate, to beat yourself up. The tendency to always replay a negative past scenario and say, I could have done this, but I do this.
[00:26:25] You know that, that in self-directed anger, that inner critic, that rather the inner coach, these are all, all universal attributes of the human mind. And I don't want anyone to think that. You just say some mantra and it's gone. It's a, it's, it's a forever practice. It's a, just like going to the gym and Taha talks about always, you know, you always need to go to the gym and stuff.
[00:26:42] It. You do need to, in your mental gym, have weights around your own self narrative, your own, you know, inner mastery and constantly practice as a lifestyle. These habits, these counter responses to the, to the negative, you know, impacts of life. Like if you're a planet and you're gonna get hit by comments all the time, you just had to deal with the fact that comments are gonna keep flying at you, right?
[00:27:05] That's just how it is. And you've gotta adapt and be resilient to it. So, you know, pay attention to what task saying, because you, you'll notice that. Even at a, at a very senior engineering level that Taha iss at, it's all about mastering your inner world. You know, it's, it's about having control over your inner world and and about the thoughts.
[00:27:22] You think so, so, Taha, you know, with that in mind, you know, I, I, I do wanna share with you some interesting sort of anecdotes 'cause they're very similar, even though you're dealing with someone far more advanced in their career at the coding level, and I'm, you know, dealing with people who want to enter coding, it's the same.
[00:27:39] Pattern Back to that word again, it's the same pattern. I've had people come in who will fight to the last breath to protect their choices, right? Even though you can establish a clear causal connection between the choices and the results they're living, because there is cause and effect in the universe.
[00:27:55] It's a principle of physics, right? And you know, there could be people who are, you know, very busy. There could be people who are parents, and they've always got the reasons why they can't change anything. But they want to change life, and I keep telling them, your life, your circumstances, your career, your relationships will not change.
[00:28:13] Unless you change, like there has to be a cause that then triggers the downstream effect of the change you want. The downstream world is not gonna change until things upstream change. It's just not gonna happen. It, you know, defies laws of physics. So I'm really glad that you are sort of reinforcing that message for a lot of people out there because I think people want, I keep telling folks, you know, you, you guys all wanna go to heaven, you just don't wanna die to get there.
[00:28:36] That's the problem, you know? And, and, and, and that's the, that's the, that's the real difficulty with, with, with, with what you guys want. So, you know, I, I, I, I heard, I heard a, another. Dialogue about this one. Uhhuh. I, I'm watching a show called Yellowstone these days on Netflix. Amazing. I'm watching it for foreshadowing.
[00:28:53] It has very good foreshadowing stuff in it. So anyway, so this guy in it cowboy, he gives another cowboy before he kills him. He says, is this the Kevin Costner one or is this Yeah. Kevin Costner one. I've seen the images. I haven't watched it. Yeah. Mm-hmm. This guy's about to shoot this guy, and he says, for the record.
[00:29:08] I've read about heaven, there is no heaven. And then she like, wow, what a crashing thing to tell somebody. That's hilarious. Yeah, no, I, I've heard good things about the show. I really need to find some time to, to watch it. I've heard really good things about that show. So, so Taha question for you, 'cause I, I, you know, I wanna sort of, I'm mindful of time for the listeners as well, so.
[00:29:25] You know, do you find that a lot of people come to you? 'cause I know you, you know, in in both the, the top engineer method and the top tech leader method, you're, you're focused on certain types of engineers with certain kind of track record already, or, or even if they don't feel they have a track record in the, in the, in the conventional sense, you're looking at engineers with some level of experience prior.
[00:29:43] Have you found that, are you finding that most people continue to fixate on the thing that they're most familiar with? Namely the coding? Because I noticed that a lot of your public messaging is. Hey, there is a lot more to this game of success. Exactly what you said earlier, you know, making money is a different set of skills.
[00:30:01] Your message is guys climbing up the career ladder is about all these other things that no one ever talks about, but has a profound impact every day. Are you finding that people tend to fixate on the coding and technical excellence part? And forget about anything else. Yeah. I mean, people are, so, I have both kind of people who come to me.
[00:30:22] So there are people who come to me and say that I am more on the people side. Mm-hmm. And I, I am not a great engineer. Mm-hmm. But I'm an average engineer and with my people skills, I, people like me and they want me around, they want me here. It also works for me. 'cause you know, I want to work nine to five.
[00:30:42] And it works for the guy. Yeah. So that's there as well. Then there are part people who are about all technical and coding because they found their Lego. Mm-hmm. And if you haven't noticed, people who work really with engineering, whether you call it bias or not a data, I, a lot of people are neurodivergent.
[00:30:56] Yeah. And so with that, if you like my son, if you like something that you just like that, if you like that food, you are only gonna eat that food and nothing else. Right. And you want more simplistic things like sometimes I've seen people like they only do like eight, just white rice, nothing. Right. And that's wrong.
[00:31:10] It's just a food, but this is how they find taste in it. Right, right. I also find some taste differently anyway, so when we think about this, some people want their work to be plain, like plain rice. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And that's a preference. Who are we to decide? So the issue over here is that we want everyone to march.
[00:31:27] Like the same, right? Look right and tuck. Everyone should use ation like this. 'cause everyone wants is this so it doesn't work. It is not that fun. You know, I'm one of those people, if everything is going fine, I'm gonna break the rule. I'm again gonna change the standards. I'm gonna say a new standard, right?
[00:31:43] That's it. I don't care. The new standard that I don't care. So people will stick back to what they. A, a group either finds out who wants to be where and helps people accordingly. And so what, what kind of person is it that you over the years have observed? What, what is the kind of person, how would you describe the attributes of the person that realizes, Hey, what I'm doing is not working, that things that I don't know that I need to know to get to the next level?
[00:32:10] How would you describe that sort of person? Who is that person who is. Stuck or who wants to be the next, what is it? What, what are the attributes that the person is willing to accept that, hey, I need help. I see. Oh yeah. So I've seen, so generally this is when could come, right? And then you can find parents.
[00:32:27] They will come and sp out everything. They'll become very vulnerable. So this lady I helped last year, she came, she, I was in Australia at that time in gold Coast and. She came to me and she just, she said, Hey, I'm very pouty. I don't have stories that where I work with multiple teams I worked with Facebook for, before that I worked with this company, but even though they were big brand names, I did not do much over there.
[00:32:52] I only got average ratings and now I'm having issues with my technical lead. And then so I said, okay. And then she went away for two months. She said, I'm going back here and there. And then she came back and then she signed up. And the first thing I have message from her. First thing she came back, she said, I came back my vacation.
[00:33:07] And again, a very pouty message from her. Right? So what happened that because people don't take action when they don't accept they have a problem. Once you accept they have a problem and they take action, the issue in accepting a problem is also very human. We have not been told how to process guilt.
[00:33:25] Mm-hmm. When you say, Hey, I lack something, then you're gonna feel guilty, right? Hey, I did something wrong. Mm-hmm. So people don't want to go there because they don't know how to get out of that. And if you can't get out of that right, because you caused some bad action or didn't do some action, for example, and you didn't resolve that in your head and you let it happen, like in your mind, okay, I admit it, right, you are now going to feel shame, right?
[00:33:47] Shame is that you as a person, you are bad. Guilt is the action was bad because you did not resolve that. Now you're stuck. So people don't even go there. Like they won't even go there. Right? As the example about that lady is eating two chocolate bars, she knows she's not going there. It is because she doesn't want to deal with the guilt you already done, right?
[00:34:04] This is what I tell people that tell yourself, I forgive myself for the decision I made so far. So you let that go. Let go. Once you accept it, then you can take something. So build processing. I think I would say if somebody wants to learn anything today. To program their emotional state if they can take action, is to learn how to process guilt.
[00:34:22] Interesting. Yeah. Okay. I teach this in identity programming as an engineer who wants to become a top engineer, the one who wants to things like Lego and also teach the skin as to how to demand. So one of the things Arnold said, Arnold said, imagine you going to the gym working out for four hours. 'cause he used to work at four hours.
[00:34:41] Yeah. And then not eating well and not sleeping. It is equal to working very hard and when it comes to getting paid, not negotiating what you want to get paid. So that was wasted. So when you work, you also want to get paid because that drives more energy as well. Money is always good, it's how you use it.
[00:34:58] So people have guilt against money as well. So one of the folks who come to me who want to do something but then they don't come is because they feel like they have some fear of money. People do. Yeah. Yes. So you want to, you want to also work on that money programming, and that is through this good stuff as well.
[00:35:14] So it's top engineer, top tech leader, both have this in the first four lessons. It, it, it tells you to program it. It's so interesting that you, so several things. You said that you, I think you talked about identity engineering and you also talked to us now about how it's the first, you know, four, sort of the first four steps in your programs.
[00:35:31] So it's exactly the same. And I didn't know about this, about it was exactly the same in my, in my in a coaching program because, and I call it state, inner state engineering. Mm-hmm. Because I like that, you know, our inner state just decides a lot of actions. Right. And if we are not self-aware enough to know how we are feeling in the moment and how we act with those feelings, if we don't observe those patterns.
[00:35:53] We are unable to break those patterns. Mm-hmm. Right. It comes from that self-awareness first, but it's a form of inner state engineering. And then later on when they learn the coding stuff, they understand why there's a double meaning to, you know, the state engineering and you know, your, your inner state, so to speak.
[00:36:06] Right. So, it's, it's, it's so, and it's so foundational. Taha. Because there's no point diving into the technical stuff that you think you need right now without fixing the underlying cause of why you don't already do the things you know, you do have to do. You know? So, because giving you more things that you then know you have to do is not gonna help when you don't already do the ones that you're supposed to do, and you don't, you know, there's, there's a blocker there.
[00:36:31] So it's really fascinating you say that. And by the way, I, I love that you use the irony analogy because one of my favorite books of all time was his Total recall. It's a big book. Mm. But if you haven't read it Taha, you will love it. It is a phenomenal autobiography. I think it's one of the best autobi.
[00:36:47] That and Bruce Springsteen's Bond to Run, I think are my favorite autobiographies of all time. Totally recall, I watched the movie He Yeah, but he named his book the same thing. The one with three. The three, correct. Yeah. Yeah. But he named the book the same thing because it's his. Oh, I see. Totally recall.
[00:37:01] You know, he writes on LinkedIn he has an in editor. Yeah, what motivation? We've been doing sort of a motivational and sort of, you know, performance kind of content for about 10, 12 years now. A lot of his comments and speeches, he talks about the six rules. You know, he's fantastic. He's really amazing as an individual.
[00:37:17] So, look, Taha before, before we wind up I'm gonna just ask you the question bluntly, and you tell me how a, how a metric of comfortable to talk about. Okay. I'm sure you use as a, a one listeners are wondering. What is TA ha's method. My method is, I'll describe it. I've tried every other research method.
[00:37:34] People talk about Uhhuh Brain works and giving feedback and doing this, doing that, doing this. I've tried all of that and I've seen why it doesn't work. Researchers are not doing it. They're observing people. They don't know what's happening inside. So when I've that in myself and I'm a researcher myself across people, I have built my own methods, which basically take what research ever done.
[00:37:55] And find that missing ingredient and do it the right way and then show it to. So I take that and I mix emotional intelligence into it because everything we do is based on emotional intelligence and that's the house method. It's my own way of doing things. Fantastic. No, that's, that's really great. And I think this is why I love speaking to people who actually.
[00:38:14] Work with individuals at an individual level. You know, there's a certain depth of perspective that comes from actually having that bilateral discussion that doesn't come with just, you know, putting a course up and nothing wrong with putting the courses up and stuff, but if you don't actually speak to the people who are trying to learn from you, you don't learn what they need to learn.
[00:38:35] You know's it's a feedback loop. Yeah. This is why you have to keep on doing it. Right. So I, I used to coach 12 period time. Now I'm coaching in six because I want to spend more time do writing newsletters and I want to write some book as well Now. I wanna go back to that part about that what Paha method is, right?
[00:38:52] So I talked about it takes what people talk about, like it re frameworks and all, or what we understand the high level from a conscious level. Yeah. This is why something called conscious leader because I want to expand the consciousness. Yeah, that's, yeah. That's one part. Right? So this is what Taha method is.
[00:39:06] I'm gonna tell you now what Taha using Paha method. What is Taha method? Okay. I'm a kind of a guy who likes to put his name in front of the inventions. That's it. Why not? Nothing else. Why not? Everything is, everything is top that I do, so this is why it's everything is top engineer. Top tech. Good. Good for you.
[00:39:24] I'm trying to, maybe you can support me in this. I'm trying to coin bin's law and, and, and, and Zins law is that the time spent prompting will exceed the time spent implementing. We invite coding. So, so you That's good. That's good. You know, I'll tell you what, here's how this works. Again, I'm gonna tell you 'cause I'm just, I'm gonna accept my emotion intelligence say, this is how my body and my mind works, uhhuh.
[00:39:47] I actually don't care about a definition that comes later on. I mean, look at, hey, what I, what do I do? And I'll just put that over there. Right? Doesn't matter. Whatever invention I have, I'm gonna put the high in front of it. That's me. See, that's the thing. That can be Thomas TA's name naming convention.
[00:40:01] Yes. That's, that's the, and then, and then any product and stuff you're doing like this, like engineer and stuff, you have to put a name in something. That keeps me honest that I have to provide that service like that. I have to be honest towards that. Right? Yeah. So I wanted to, there's a I in my top tech leader, the first lesson of ownership, which is we all need to let go of this energy insiders, right?
[00:40:23] I think everyone should get, even though it is part of a paid program. I have made that free for everyone because I think every, and it's a complete lesson, meaning you don't need to buy the course to get value out of it, right? It's a full fledged course for 80 minutes. You watch that people have left reviews, see how they have changed their life.
[00:40:42] It's all about releasing energy and it's, it uses emotional intelligence as science. It doesn't tell you about do this, do that. It'll teach you how you can program yourself, right? Yeah. So I think everyone should watch their ownership course. It'll, it'll help them understand this piece. So, question on that, Dan.
[00:40:57] You know, we linked to all of this. Obviously what I find that a lot of people. ' cause I have similar stuff around the, you know, first build yourself, before you build your, your skills. Then you build your career, you know, your self skills career broadly in that sort of order. I find a lot of people are like, no, I don't need all that mindset in a woo woo stuff.
[00:41:16] Just show me the thing that I came here for, which is learn to code in, in my case. Right? And in your case it could be getting or whatever. And they don't realize that that, yeah. So I guess my question for you is. A, do you see that? And B, how do you respond to people who don't realize that they're diagnosing the symptom, not the problem, or they're attacking the symptom?
[00:41:38] Not the problem. So this is, I faced it last year with one guy. Mm-hmm. Then I had another person who came recently. The first one that I had last year was this person wanted to become principal. And he had been, had 20 plus year experience working only at Cisco systems, but hasn't become principled. So when I was talking to this person, I realized this person likes to coast mostly.
[00:41:59] Basically he has been coasting. He just wants to get to his couch, right? Live a life like I'm here supporting her children. So nothing wrong with that. But I think is that what ended up happening? He said that every year there's a principal committee that sits and they decide who to like promote into it and you have to present it.
[00:42:15] And so he shared the presentation deck with me in an Excel file, et cetera, et cetera. So all of that. So I said, Hey, let's work on these things. Let's talk about you're doing, he said. So after a few session, I realized this person actually is just saying things, but he does not want to do any of that.
[00:42:29] Basically, for him to get promoted, he has to take a project, look at the opportunity, right? Go and do something. Then come back and say, I tried, it did not work. Right? This person is just sitting every meeting, he's not doing any, Hey, what's going on? It's been like three sessions already, and he is like, you're gonna build a presentation, right?
[00:42:45] I said, are you thinking I'll build a presentation that you'll go present or promoted? He said, yes. I said, dude, how will that work? Yeah, he said he is like, because I will tell you what things I did. I said, you already told me and I, I told you this is not principal material for that we have to these gaps.
[00:43:00] I see. I said, if you paid me that much money, $15,000 to make your presentation, I think you paid too much. I was like, and good things. So I basically, I had a good thing, I had a contract with him. I had a refund policy with him. 'cause he said, Hey. I can't help you with this man, but best of luck that you can do that part.
[00:43:17] Another guy came this year, basically took my one session, second session, said I have an intro interview coming, and they gave me this project, I'm think like, get up. So I was helping look at that. He said, I want you to tell me exact question they'll ask. I said, dude, how do I know you got people right? I said, I do, but I don't know any exact questions.
[00:43:33] They'll, a good thing was first 15 minutes. So I said, Hey, you know what? I can refund you the money. We don't have to. He said, no, no, no. I wanna still continue. He continued. Then he came back in the next session again, another one. He went to it, he did not get the role. Mm-hmm. I was telling the guy, he was focused on telling me exact answers.
[00:43:50] Because what's happening is that, that when people are doing it right, they're not, they don't, they don't have confidence on their skillset. Mm-hmm. So they want cheat codes. That's it. They want the cheat code a hundred percent. The problem is that if one question is not from a cheat code, I'll tell you the example I was, when I was in high school, I was there for some exam and what happened was I went there and what happened?
[00:44:12] I had chemistry. I, I knew everything, but I went there and in the room a teacher said, it's open book. So I, I got the book now. I knew the answer, but I was still looking for the answer in the book. Right. And. After the first answer I found I stopped trusting my answers, which I had, I, I only knew now I was just searching for answers in the book.
[00:44:32] Interesting. Yeah. You get it. So that's what happens when, you know some cheat codes you let go of your 'cause you, you don't trust your, your anymore. Correct. The important to understand is that here's the part I tell people, this is the motto I live by. You know, we all worry about this and that. Sure.
[00:44:47] Emotion intelligence. I'm trying to tell you how to program about this part number one reason. There are few things you need to have some blind belief in. Without that, it's very hard to move on. Right? I'll always have food no matter what. You need to have that. I'll always have shelter no matter what. I will always have safety no matter what.
[00:45:05] Once you understand this piece, I'll give an example. I didn't have a job. I didn't make a single dollar in my first year of my coaching career, and my kitchen money was also gone in three few months. Right. I still survived. I had food. I was living in California. Oh wow. Yeah. Even I went to six months from Pakistan and mom made me great food over there and so I was like still in air conditioned stuff like that.
[00:45:26] Big, big. Next year again, six months, the house, I did not make any money. I was still fine. I was going still fat. I was going fine. So, so good thing is that we care too much about these things. Yes. Find your legal. Yeah. Find you later. No, that's very true. That's very true. I, I remember when I did the startup thing, I was terrified of being, you know, hungry and homeless and for two years, no income.
[00:45:48] I spent a lot of money trying to build the startup and I still survived, you know, with a more, like, it was hard. It was difficult, but mm-hmm. It's never as life-threatening as we fear, you know, our fears are far more exaggerated than, than real life words. Yeah. But it also drives a certain amount of focus.
[00:46:04] And, and I really want people to understand that, you know, your desire for change has to exceed your desire, your comfort in being the same. If that balance doesn't exceed where your desire for the change has to override your, your desire to be the same. You are not going to change. There is actually no biological imperative to change at that point of time.
[00:46:21] There's neither a rational one nor a biological one. And so, change will not happen. You know, ch change is, is it requires a certain amount of force to exceed the resistance before, before that's going to happen. So look, that, thank you so much for your time, your generosity, your good humor, the incredible I, you know, insight and wisdom.
[00:46:38] I, I absolutely love your material. Your content. I, I devour it because it makes me be a better person. And it makes me realize, you know, there's so much, there's so many wonderful ways in which we can grow and improve in things that we never thought we, we were even interested in improving. I think you've made me wanna be a better writer.
[00:46:56] You've definitely made me a sharper thinker. So, you know, thank you for all of that. And I'm not even one of your paying customers. So, you know, even without that, I got that. Thank you so much Rubin, for, for such a amazing introduction and also the end. I mean, this is amazing. You are, you are very kind.
[00:47:11] I'll tell you that I really admire your journey. I've been the reason you and I talking is because I've been following you since you've started showing up on my feed. And I really love the the way you, you, you encourage people to take this hard step towards program. It's amazing. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:47:26] No, it's been a real pleasure. And look, when I'm next to a downstate side or Canada side, I'm gonna look you up and we are gonna sit down and, and, and grab some food and get fat together. Why not? Awesome. Yeah, let's do that. Alright, I'll see you next time, Taha. Thank you. Alright, I'm ending the recording.
