SDS 124: Reckless Commitment

Welcome back to the SuperDataScience podcast. Super excited to have you on board today. And today I would like to reiterate what we discussed in the previous episode with Rico Meinl, the concept of reckless commitment. So if you haven’t yet heard the previous episode, episode number 123 with Rico, I highly recommend to check it out. It’s very, very energising, very inspiring, one of our most inspiring episodes to date. And at the same time, it will give you context for what we are going to discuss today, reckless commitment.

If you recall, in the previous session, at the end, when I usually mention what my biggest takeaway was, I said that in this discussion, this conversation with Rico, my biggest takeaway was this whole notion of reckless commitment, because I could finally see how it is a necessary tool in Rico’s personality to facilitate, to enable his passion, his drive, and his ambition. Rico’s got a lot of that. He’s got endless ambition and passion. But without the reckless commitment, it would be underused. That’s what I believe. So let’s talk about reckless commitment. What is this whole concept?

I was first introduced to reckless commitment by Ben Taylor at DataScience GO 2017. If you attended, or if you watched it on the live stream, this was the very first live stream episode after the keynote, or if you had access to the recordings, you will see it. He just mentions it at the very start of his presentation. And I love his metaphor, I love his example. For of you who haven’t seen the session, Ben does skiing. Hardcore, snow skiing. And he lives in Utah, where they have mountains, and he does crazy stuff, to the extent that they drop him off on a helicopter at the top of a mountain and then he skis down these slopes that have never been explored by humans before. That’s kind of like their thing, who gets the top of a slope first ever in history.

He was talking about doing a back flip off a mountain. What a cool metaphor, right? So he was talking about doing a back flip on skis from a mountain, and he says that data science is somewhat similar to that. How is it similar? And this is where he brings in the concept of commitment. So if you jump and you do a back flip, and if you undercommit, you don’t really believe in the fact that you’re going to do it, you don’t really put everything that is required into it, then what will happen is you will probably fall and break your bones. And that would be very bad. On the other hand, if you overcommit, then again, similar things will happen. And I think many of us have probably been there, when you’re training for sports or something, and you just put in too much effort, you’re too passionate, or even too stubborn about it, and then you break your bones, or you hurt yourself really badly. So we’ve all either been there or probably heard stories about that.

So there are these two extremes, of undercommitting and overcommitting. And so how does reckless commitment then tie in there? With the back flip, there is a required amount of commitment, and that’s where you’ve got to be, in the vicinity of that. Not too much less, not too much more. You’ve got to commit to it properly. And so how does reckless commitment come into play? Well, the way he explains it is that in data science, it’s also very similar. That sometimes, people undercommit. We all know that data science is booming, it’s an exploding space, there’s lots of huge positions with huge salary ranges, starting at $100,000 going all the way to a couple of million dollars. But people sometimes undercommit, and they just say ah yes, I really would like to be a data scientist, it sounds really cool, and all they do is they read the occasional blog posts, or watch a YouTube video, or read a book, or something. And that’s all the effort that they put into it. And that gets them nowhere.

On the other side of the spectrum, you have people who overcommit, and they just blindly put in hours and hours and hours of studying some sort of algorithm or some sort of approach to data science, or being very, as in this metaphor of sports, being very stubborn about it has to be this way, and venturing into a certain space, that in the end, they’re either going to burn out or they might be barking up the wrong tree. They might be trying to learn something that’s not the optimal, not the most efficient, but at the same time, they’re putting all their time and effort into it, and that’s not good either.

And so the notion of reckless commitment and what Ben suggests, is that you commit recklessly to things, but you’re very strategic about it. We had plenty of examples in Rico’s podcast, the previous session, but a good example of that is, for instance, you want to build an agenda for yourself in data science so that you get your name out there that you have something to stand for you, that you meet people, that other people start connecting with you proactively. And so how do you do that? Well, you need to present somewhere. You need to attend some sort of event and be a presenter there.

And so one way to commit to that is to actually, like what Rico did, set up a meetup group, and he did one on AI, and start inviting people. And as soon as you’ve set up that group, and as soon as you’ve invited the first person, that’s it. You’ve committed. And so why is it a reckless commitment? Because you might not know anything about AI at that stage. You’re committing to something that you have no idea whatsoever about. And hence it’s reckless, but it’s strategic because that will force you to learn about that. You have a few weeks, you give yourself that time, and you know it’s going to happen. So there’s no way around it. You’ve put yourself that goal, you’re going to have to do it. And so, therefore, you’re going to learn about AI, and you’re going to have something to present to those people, to tell those people.

So that’s just one example of committing to something recklessly, but that’s a very powerful one. And you can find lots of other ways where you can commit recklessly. A good [inaudible] thinking is a good component of the formula for reckless commitment is accountability. There has to be some sort of way that you, or even better, other people, especially if it’s other people that you don’t know, will hold you accountable for it. It might be a reckless commitment at work, where you’re like, “I really want to master Tableau. I have no idea about Tableau right now.” But you go and talk to your manager and you say, “We need to buy Tableau. We need to implement it. It’s the best visualisation tool. Let’s kick it off in a month.” And if they agree to that, and they invest $1000 or $2000 for a Tableau licence and you have a month to learn it, you’re going to learn it. Because you have no way of walking out of it. You don’t have a way to cancel this promise, cancel this commitment and backtrack everything.

So that’s the notion of reckless commitment, and what I would like to encourage you to do this weekend is to think about if you have a reckless commitment. What has been your reckless commitment? Your reckless (but strategic) commitment for your career? Have you had one? You’ve heard the podcast with Rico, you’ve had a few days to think about this notion. And so did something pop to mind? Have you had a reckless commitment like that? And if not, then what could your reckless commitment be? What could you commit to in the course of the next month, or in the course of the next couple of months, or in the course of the next year? What would you be able to, or interested in, learning or doing that you could commit to recklessly but strategically in order to push you to actually achieve it?

So there we go. Something to think about. And I hope you enjoyed this episode and the whole concept of reckless commitment. If you know somebody who needs that push, who needs to commit to something, then forward them this episode and maybe that will help change their life. And on that note, thank you so much for being here today. I can’t wait to see you next time. Until then, happy analyzing.