Today, we’re chatting with Blake Thomas, Director of Engineering at NoRedInk. Blake has had a long career in technology, and the reason I want to share Blake with this community is that he is really practiced at making calculated career decisions. What does this mean for people who work for themselves?

Well, it’s easy to be business-centric and forget about the career we want and are crafting for ourselves through our business. We don’t always have answers to the questions of what do I want to learn next? and what do I want to be creating? If you are in this for the long haul, it’s important that you know what you want to learn and how you want to grow so you can thrive going forward and understand how you are crafting a career through your business. 

“The biggest blessing in the world is constraints.”

Some things we talk about in this episode:

• Working in finance leading to other insights and opportunities
• Math is the ability to describe systems and order of things
• The why of your efforts
• Situational awareness
• Leveraging your passion
• Assign purpose to your work blocks
• Procrastination via productivity
• Establishing appropriately malleable boundaries

Key takeaways:

• Ability to create order that serves a purpose
• First thing to ask yourself is what is your purpose?
• Building your personal brand while pursuing your career
• Protect your time ahead of time
• IBNU – Important But Not Urgent
• Best to do list – scheduling on a calendar
• Normalize your home life

Questions for Blake: 

Q: What are you reading?

• • Getting Things Done
  • Haskell
  • The Magicians
  • The Book of Not Knowing

Q: What’s your superpower?

• • Fake: Teleportation
  • Real: Discernment

Q: What’s an exciting mission you/your team/your family on now?

• • My team: building software that resonates with teachers, serves students, engages the classroom, builds better writers
  • My family: HERMIT CRAB TAKEOVER!

Helpful links mentioned:

NoRedInk

NoRedInk Jobs

The Peter Principle

Deep Work

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