Speaker Notes: Story: senior engineer declines greenfield service (Go + event-driven) because they're a "Java person"; opportunity + visibility shifts to someone who learns. Ask: Where does your real leverage come from?
Speaker Notes: Updated to reflect consolidated adaptive section (loops + decisions + learning debt) and clearer progression: awareness → diagnosis → durable skills → operating system → artifacts → resilience → action. Reassure: no shaming—this is an upgrade path.
Speaker Notes:
Frame: Normal to anchor identity to tools. Cost appears when growth = avoiding discomfort.
Bridge: Recast discomfort as the leading indicator of future leverage.
Anchor themes (3): Architecture (upstream leverage), Judgment (trade-off clarity), Leverage (multiplying effect across domains).
Transition Cue: Next we unpack how that identity hardens.
Speaker Notes:
- Early wins in one stack = comfort and speed
- Positive feedback reinforces the pattern
- Labeled as "the X expert" by teams or orgs
* Hard to walk away from years of investment
* Feels risky to be a beginner again
- "This isn't a flaw-it's human psychology. We all like to stick with what we're praised for."
- "Teams and orgs reinforce it too-once you're branded the X expert, people keep pulling you back there."
- "That's how identity calcifies. Not because of weakness, but because of perfectly normal incentives."
Speaker Notes:
- "Think of these like code smells - they're not disasters, just signals worth paying attention to."
- Introducing yourself by stack: "Back in the day it was normal to say ‘I'm a Java developer' or ‘.NET developer.' But now systems span languages, platforms, and services. Defining yourself too narrowly can box you in."
- Preferring the familiar: "We used to roll our own authentication flows. Today, with OAuth and managed identity, doing it yourself is often a security risk."
- Refactoring early toward known patterns: "Forcing everything into MVC worked when web apps were simpler, but microservices and event-driven designs pushed us toward new patterns."
- Hesitant to review outside your specialty: "Infra-as-code used to feel like ‘not my job.' Now, reliability and performance are defined as much by infra as by code."
- Equating speed with seniority: "In the past, being the fastest at writing raw SQL was impressive. Today, ORMs, caching, and distributed databases have shifted what ‘senior' really means."
- "Now, those patterns we just walked through? They're not abstract. Most of us can probably think of times we've done at least one of them. Let's take a moment to reflect privately."
- "This isn't about guilt or sharing - just noticing where identity shows up in your own work."
Speaker Notes:
- "We're going to pause for 90 seconds. No sharing, no judgment - this is just for you."
- List 3 tech areas you reflexively avoid:
"For example, some of us shy away from front-end frameworks, or from infra-as-code, or maybe even machine learning. Write down yours."
- Last time you shipped in an unfamiliar stack:
"Think of the last time you had to work outside your comfort zone. How did that feel? What did you learn?"
- Decision biased toward comfort:
"Maybe you picked the database you always use, even if another one might have been better."
- What fear drove it:
"Was it fear of slowing down, of looking junior again, of losing credibility? Totally normal."
- Circle one to interrogate later:
"You don't have to solve it now. Just pick one that feels worth revisiting after this talk."
- "Okay, let's bring it back. You don't have to share what you wrote - this is just for you. But keep that note nearby, because we'll circle back later when we talk about action plans."
- "The point isn't to feel bad about the past - it's to notice the patterns so you can choose differently in the future."
Speaker Notes: Frame core thesis fast: identity over-fitted to stack shrinks leverage surface and erodes future optionality. Set urgency without shame.
Speaker Notes: Four fast costs: (1) Task funnel shrink. (2) Design pivots arrive late. (3) Practice displaced. (4) Automation erodes speed-as-identity. Transition: hidden compounding losses.
Speaker Notes: Emphasize compounding: intuition & trust curves start earlier for those sampling paradigms now. Encourage audience to note which bullet stings most.
Speaker Notes: Tie to resilience: adaptability becomes core value as automation rises; artifacts + breadth = insurance.
Speaker Notes: Human side: sustained motivation requires novelty + progress signals. Link to preventative maintenance for career energy.
Speaker Notes: Keep it plain: AI accelerates average implementation. Differentiation shifts to upstream problem clarity, early constraint/risk detection, and disciplined non-adoption. Emphasize: senior judgment = deciding *not* to add tech. Prompt: This week, replace one auto-build impulse with a short decision record capturing a clear “not now.”
Speaker Notes: Pivot from cost awareness to diagnostic mode: name the triggers and anti-patterns so they become observable and interruptible. Encourage note-taking of personal matches.
Speaker Notes: Standardize pattern: Trigger → internal effect → reflex. Goal: label early so you can pause instead of auto-selecting the familiar path. Prompt: Star the two that fire most for you; those become interruption targets.
Speaker Notes: Each bullet = Name: primary consequence. Use to map directly to counter-pattern slide. Prompt: Star TWO you personally slip into; those become your habit replacement targets.
Speaker Notes: Normalize subtle pattern: avoidance disguised as efficiency. Emphasize quiet opportunity erosion rather than dramatic failure. Prompt: Ask for a quick show of hands: who has deferred a <30 line script because it felt outside lane?
Section Divider
Speaker Notes: Transition into the assets that transcend stacks; reframe identity around durable, compounding skills. Prompt audience to inventory their own.
Speaker Notes: 60–75s silent exercise. Reinforce: We surface THEIR inventory first (avoid anchoring). Prompt: "Non-stack = would still matter if the language changed tomorrow." After time, quick show of hands: who picked a skill outside pure coding? Transition: now reveal example inventory to calibrate & fill gaps.
Speaker Notes: Ordered from foundation → analysis → comparison → structured decision → diagnostic loop → alignment → horizontal quality → scaling via diffusion. Encourage audience to star their weakest two.
Speaker Notes: Constraints early prevent rework & credibility loss. Sets stage for explicit trade-offs.
Speaker Notes: Trade-off clarity signals seniority; written review date creates revisit trigger when context shifts.
Speaker Notes: Borrowed from Bezos framing. Goal: accelerate safe, reversible bets while slowing & formalizing irreversible ones. Prompt: Identify one pending decision you can re-shape into a two-way door this week.
Speaker Notes: Tech-agnostic loop: frame → rank → observe → disprove → institutionalize. Emphasize INFORMATION GAIN and making learning portable (artifact + guardrail). Prompt: Which link do you skip?
Speaker Notes: Alignment multiplier; explicit assumptions + live capture slash thrash & meeting recursion.
Speaker Notes: Treat as dimensions on every design: ask explicitly how choices impact deployability, threat surface, identity scope, observability.
Speaker Notes: Diffusion compounds organizational leverage; lightweight artifacts + rapid teach-backs convert personal learning into team capability.
Speaker Notes: Month 1 centers on awareness, reframing, and reflective loops—lightweight artifacts over volume.
Speaker Notes: Month 2 reinforces identity shift via habitual framing, safe micro-experiments, and diffusion by inquiry not authority.
Speaker Notes: Month 3 consolidates identity evolution; focus on codified principles, distributed clarity, and sustainable reflective practice.
Speaker Notes: Pair each pitfall with its antidote: Ship thin slices; treat mistakes as artifacts; frame before adopting; schedule depth reps. Prompt audience to pick ONE to actively counter next week.
Speaker Notes: Replace with repo links / handout. Encourage choosing ONE resource to operationalize (e.g., adopt ADR template) rather than bookmarking all.
Speaker Notes: Capture public commitments (skill + experiment + success signal). Encourage writing experiment hypothesis format: “If we do X, we expect Y signal within Z timeframe.”