Making a dent starts with doing great work. Doing great work starts with knowing yourself and finding the perfect situation. This is one way to figure that out.

1. why
Making a Dent
is all that matters
Phil Buckley @1918

2. In 1959 Peter Drucker coined the term
“knowledge workers”.

3. 50 years after Drucker we have what Google calls, “smart
creatives”.

4. She is user smart. No matter the industry, she
understands her product from the user or consumer’s
perspective better than almost anyone. We call her a
“power user,” not just casual but almost obsessive in her
interest. She is the automotive designer who spends her
weekends fixing up that ’69 GTO, the architect who can’t
stop redesigning her house. She is her own focus group,
alpha tester, and guinea pig.
Smart Creatives don’t keep quiet when they disagree, they get bored easily, they’re multi-dimensional, combining technical
know-how with business acumen.

5. simple 5 question test

6. are you doing
meaningful work?
Question 1
YES = 1 NO = 0

7. are you surrounded by
smart(er) people?
Question 2
YES = 1 NO = 0

8. are you
challenged?
Question 3
YES = 1 NO = 0

9. are you
trusted?
Question 4
YES = 1 NO = 0

10. do you feel
safe?
Question 5
YES = 1 NO = 0

11. To leave a dent, you
need a score of 5.
If you didn’t score a 5 today, it’s time to start doing things differently.

12. becoming the
trophy

13. focus on where you provide the most
value
Future Hall-of-Famer David Ortiz brings value by hitting clutch home runs for the Red Sox in the post-season in the most dramatic fashion.
This gif shows Ortiz’s ONLY HIT in the American League championship series – a grand slam homerun in bottom of the 8th inning to ties the game.
David Ortiz also plays first base, but that’s not where his greatest value is.

14. The word practice has a slightly different definition than most people think. It’s not just swinging a baseball bat in the backyard - it’s about a concerted effort to improve. What that means to software engineer is “show me the stuff you’re working on in your free time”. Tell me the story
about the weekend you stayed up 36 hours to figure something out. If you’re not working on some kind of moonshot, then you’re not challenging yourself.
GIF is the MIT mechanical cheetah jumping over obstacles with only about 1 meter in which to figure out what to do.
passionate
practice

15. That doesn’t mean you speak at 100 events a year, it means your peer group know of you as a leader. You don’t need a certain
title to be a leader - but you do need to stand out in front, and inspire people to follow you.
That can happen in many ways, but you have to make a real dent. By “dent”, I mean - you have to be noticed.
Maybe you have your graphic design stuff featured on Dribble or your code is popular on Github or your posts on Medium get a
zillion comments. People respect your work.
become
known

16. BONUS – Give it away. Make a habit of taking everything you
know, everything you’ve learned and all your crazy ideas of
what’s coming in the future and share them liberally.
When people ask you for help with something… help them. For
free! Help them because you’re amazing at something and they
want to learn. Stop worrying about “should I be getting paid for
this?”
I love something my friend Ashley Berman Hale told me one
day after she moved out to Colorado, “The more I help people
for free, the more people want to hire me.” It sounds crazy at
first, but when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. If you
spend an hour with someone and they fall over backwards
watching your magic, they’re not going to want to do it
themselves, they’re going to want the master magician! They
want YOU.
Ashley spends hours and hours every day answering questions
in Google’s Webmaster Forum - for free. She’s been doing it for
years. Her only reason is that she has a ton of useful knowledge
that she can share with others which will improve their life.
THAT’s someone I want to work closer with.

17. In baseball there is a Sabermetric statistic called WAR. WAR
stands for Wins Above Replacement. What it attempts to
measure is how many wins that player personally added as
compared to a “replacement” player.
sabermetrics and
Wins Above
Replacement

18. So if the 1923 Yankees had to call up a guy from AAA instead of
having Babe Ruth, what would have been the impact?
According to the stats, Babe Ruth added 14 wins to the 1923
Yankees. That’s pretty darn impressive. Every team wanted
Babe Ruth. 14 wins is often the difference between 1st place
and 3rd or 4th place.

19. Being part of a fast-growing company, we’re always looking for
Babe Ruth or Don Draper or Tom Brady…
in search of
Babe Ruth
or Don Draper
or Tom Brady

20. The problem is that everyone looks good on paper… There’s no
Marketing Combine to put a social media manager through.
candidates

21. At lunch, we’re talking about you… “Hey Karl, who’s the best
project manager you know?”
not so secret

22. The most powerful question I ask is the simplest. If you were
going out on your own and you could reach back over your
professional life and take one person with you who would it
be?
How is that one person who you’re sure could help you
succeed?
who is your
one?

23. Your “one” may not be known outside that company. They are
probably not actively looking because they’re focused on doing
great work.
the power of
one

24. Tom Brady at the 2000 NFL scouting combine. He was
ultimately picked in the 6th round, the 199th pick overall –
behind 6 other quarterbacks. Brady set the record for "slowest
quarterback time" ever electronically recorded at the league's
prestigious (and overhyped) evaluation event. The four time
Super Bowl winner ran 40 yards in a ponderous time of 5.28
seconds.
identification
Tom Brady at the 2000 NFL scouting combine

25. Tom Brady has certainly made a dent in the NFL – he’s the
Patriot’s Babe Ruth.
success

26. How do we get to that podium of success? It starts with
knowing yourself and knowing where you’ll thrive.
“In the military we give medals to people who are willing to sacrifice
themselves so that others may gain. In business we give bonuses to
people who are willing to sacrifice others so that we may gain. We
have it backwards.
Wouldn't you like to work in an organization in which you have the
absolute confidence and the absolute knowledge that other people,
that you may or may not know, who work in the same organization as
you would be willing to sacrifice themselves so you can survive? I'm
not even talking about giving up your life - we don't even like to give
up credit.” – Simon Sinek

27. This is
Iris

28. Iris feels like she’s doing
meaningful work
Helping PrecisionLender grow, helping our customers become
better bankers, make smarter loans and help grow the
businesses in their communities.

29. Iris feels like she’s surrounded by
smart co-workers
Iris is expected to keep up with discussions about banking,
commercial lending, video production, API construction, book
publishing, HTML5, javascript frameworks, nurture campaigns,
podcasts and more. Since Iris is super smart, why would we
expect anything different?

30. Iris is designing her first book cover, she’s also designing her 3rd
website in 6 months, working closely with the development
team acting as a defacto UX and UI ninja. She also been tasked
with building out an in-house photo and recording studio –
almost none of this was in the job description of her job, it
didn’t need to be – when you hire amazing people they see
things that need doing and then do them.
Iris doesn’t need a task list left on her desk, she’s writing the
map as she goes.
Iris feels like she’s
challenged

31. Within a week of starting Iris was interviewing people, because
as part of the team she has as much say as anyone else. She
also ordered thousands of dollars worth of equipment for the
studio. Major initiatives get handed off to her as if she’s been
here since day 1. When you hire the best people, there’s no
reason to limit them.
Iris feels like she’s
trusted

32. Sitting around the table in her first week, Iris knew that she
could voice her opinion openly and directly. Telling the team all
the ways to get better from her fresh perspective helped
everyone. That only happens when you feel like everyone is
together – it’s not us against them, it’s just us.
Iris feels
safe

33. Know what’s important to YOU!
Think about what you value. What are the things you would
whisper in the ear of a child to help them grow up smart and
confident? Your values are not actions, but are defined by your
actions.

34. SuperCamp - http://www.supercamp.com/summerstudy/tag/quantum-learning/

35. Know what’s important to your company!
Make sure that the things YOU value line up with the things
your company values. If they don’t, you’ll never thrive there.
You’ll never do the meaningful work you need to do to feel
complete.
our
values

36. Make sure your values align
COMPANY
VALUES
YOUR
VALUES

37. Make sure your values align
OUR
VALUES

38. It took me a long time to realize what was important
professionally. Did anyone ever say to you, “You will become
the average of your 5 closest friends?” – The same is true of
you professionally. If you’re surrounded by clock watching
slackers, you will become that as well. If your surrounded by
amazing, generous, smart people – you will become that.
So if you’re currently somewhere where your boss forces a list
on you - figure out a way to start working beyond that list. Start
thinking for yourself. Imagine how much easier your boss’s life
would be if she didn’t need to worry about spoon-feeding you
your tasks.
Is it time to
change?
𝑣 𝑒𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑝𝑒 =
2𝐺𝑀
𝑅

39. thank you
Phil Buckley @1918