Of course I don't mean stupid chances with major risks for minor possible gains, like jumping over canyons in a motorcycle, mouthing off to the gang of bikers at the bar, or voting for <insert personal least favorite political candidate here>.

But, don't be afraid to take any risks at all. Even in the security business, they don't try to eliminate it all, just reduce it to an acceptable level. Life without any risks at all, is so dull and constrained as to be not worth living. As I've said many times before, the freedom to succeed is meaningless without the freedom to fail.

So, what risks have I taken recently?

I mentioned last time (more than a month ago, sorry!) that I was being laid off. (BTW, the "four weeks" was ultimately nine.) I interviewed with a small defense contractor, who ultimately said they wanted to make me an offer. As I was in the midst of talks with Google, I told them that I didn't want to give anyone else a firm yes or no, until I had one from Google. This incurred the risk that Google would take so long to say no, that the contractor would have filled the spot with someone else.

(By that time, MITRE had already said no, at least for the Lead Infosec Engineer slot a friend had put me in for. The door is still open for more appropriate slots in software engineering. Unisys and BAH have been "on again, off again".)

As it turns out, Google did indeed say no. (After five rounds of interviews, including flying me out to California!) And, I had heard shortly before then, that the contractor had indeed filled the spot.

So, I took a risk, and lost. Would I do it again? Heck yeah! Don't get me wrong, the offer the contractor would have made, would not have been something to turn down lightly. But a shot at working for Google, even more so.

Meanwhile, there are often things you can do to mitigate a risk. For instance, you can buy insurance. (Okay, technically, that's what the security business calls transferring a risk rather than mitigating it, but let's not get picky.)

So how did I mitigate this risk? I kept the search going throughout the whole ordeal. How's that working out? I just heard from Google on Wednesday. Meanwhile, several additional companies are interested in me. For those interested in the details, they include ComScore, General Dynamics, AOL, and ThinkGeek (which is very close to home). Also, some friends of mine are putting in my resume at Microsoft (despite my mainly Mac and Linux leanings), and my cousin is putting it in at Apple.

So, it's going to work out okay one way or another. Who knows, the next offer might even be better than the little contractor... though it will be hard to measure up to Google.

Your turn! What risks have you taken lately, that you think most people would have been afraid to take? How did you mitigate, transfer, or otherwise deal with the risk? How did it turn out?

Horse hockey! I think these people are just afraid of competition themselves. Getting over such fears is what this blog is all about, so here we go!

Competition has many benefits:

• You'll be exposed to the audience/public. As I've said before, you don't want to let down your adoring fans, do you? So you're going to do your best... and that often improves your best.

• You'll be exposed to the other competitors. At first, their skills will likely be better than yours. They may have some tricks up their sleeves, that you can observe and learn.

• Even if you don't pick up on the others' tricks, there will be no shortage of people willing to give you helpful hints for improvement, some of which really will be helpful. (Depending on the context, you may need a decent BS detector.)

• Make it to the upper levels of a competition, and you're likely to wind up with a coach. That (almost) always helps.

Take for instance... Toastmasters speech or evaluation contests. Many people are afraid to give a speech or feedback in front of a small audience like their work group, so they join Toastmasters, a safe and supportive environment in which to practice and gain confidence. So you'd think that people would jump all over the chance to enter Toastmasters contests, right?

Nope. Many people are afraid that they'll look bad next to all those people who are so good at it. How good? Well, good enough that they dare to enter contests!

Don't let that stop you. Believe you me, I've seen (and even given!) some pretty bad speeches in speech contests. Those folks who are up there doing so well, are probably not doing it for the first time. Their first time, they were probably no better than you. Maybe worse.

Ask yourself, what's the worst that can happen? Most likely, the worst is that you won't do very well. Okay, fine. Whoop de doo. Fact is, you'd do just as poorly in another context. So what is it really? More likely, you're scared that people will see you do poorly.

But ya know what? People (especially Americans) tend to like the underdog, the little guy, the scrappy contender. It goes all the way back to David and Goliath. They won't remember you as "the guy who gave that really awful speech". Chances are, they're no better themselves! That goes for almost any kind of competition that people are watching. No, they'll remember you as the guy who gathered up his courage to compete against the best, to streeeeetch out and reach for the brass ring, to go for it!

I was originally formulating the ideas for this blog entry during Toastmasters Spring Contest season, when we do the International Speech Contest and the Evaluation Contest. I entered both, coming in second in the Speech Contest at the club level (BAE Lunchbreak Toasters). As of this writing, though, I've won the Evaluation Contest at the club and Area (42) level, and will compete at the Division (D) level Friday evening next week.

(Alternately, you may find yourself in a competition without even trying, due to need for a scarce resource, but that's a whole 'nother story.)

Your turn to sound off! What do you like to compete in? How did you get started, especially getting up the nerve? How have you done? What have you learned, especially anything that helped you improve? Would you do it again, or have you?

But some people sometimes believe that they need to hide their real feelings, hopes, fears, etc., for various reasons. They may want to impress someone, "fit in" with the "in crowd", etc.

Sometimes this can be okay, or even good. Hiding your fear, for whatever reason, can help you face whatever it is you're afraid of. This is often key to conquering your fear. Even then, though, you may as well admit it.  At the very least, that makes it easier to get help.

More often, though, the pretense is all a sham, to no real useful purpose. You wind up essentially lying to the world, including your friends, family, and colleagues. Like any other lie, you will not be able to keep it going forever. You will be stressed by trying to remember what version of the story you told to whom. You will eventually slip and get caught. The consequences can vary widely, but in any case, as usual, honesty is indeed the best policy... including being honest to your nature.

On the other claw, don't take "daring to be different" too far, by being different just for the sake of being different. That's just as fake, and therefore just as wrong and un-excellent, as being untrue to your nature.

That said, though, perhaps you don't like your nature. That's a whole 'nother story, which perhaps I'll address in a future post.

Are you?

Probably not. At most, one of my readers is. More likely, none.

Chances are pretty good that, once in a while, you run into something you're just not able to complete alone. So what do you do then?

Some people would say, tough it out. Give it all you've got, and if you are indeed excellent, you'll get it done.

Alone.

Eventually.

Yeah... right! And the sun will shine once those monkeys I mentioned last time, stop blocking it.

Ask for help. Admit that you're human. (Uh, you are, aren't you?) Done correctly, this will get the problem solved the fastest, and with the least amount of total pain and effort, including not only yours but others' too. That's what being excellent is all about, not about looking like Superman.

And now, since this post is late (I'm trying to do them early in the month and it's now about half over), and because it was so short so far, you get an extra-special super bonus section!

Now we will address the question of how to ask for help. Not just how to phrase it politely, like your mommy should have taught you, but how to lay the groundwork, so that you will likely get a good helpful response.

Eric S. Raymond wrote a wonderful essay titled "How To Ask Questions The Smart Way". He's best known in the computer world, and the essay is mainly aimed at getting technical help from "hackers" (rant on the media mangling of that word, omitted). However, the principles are pretty much universal. In fact, if you apply them outside that realm, you'll meet with even greater success. To break it down, way down:

• Try to solve it yourself first. The essay details several information sources to try.
• Ask the right person or group.
• Communicate well, including:
• Use correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.; don't m4Ke 7h33 07h4R P3r51n 5p3Nd 4 !07 uv h1z 7yM3 f!9uR1nG oU7 wU7 u m33N!
• Get to the point. Preferably as early as the Subject line, if asking by email.
• Be specific about the problem or question, and what kind of help you're looking for.
• Give all the data you have.
• But still be concise.
• Say what you already tried, and why that didn't satisfy you.
• Above all, be nice about it! Don't assume that any problem you're having, is his fault, or even not yours. Don't expect an instant solution on a silver platter. You're probably not paying the person who's helping, so be grateful that they're putting forth any effort at all for you.

Don't fall for it, unless of course it's a true emergency. That means, something not only unforeseen, but unforeseeable. It's a manager's job to plan for the things likely to go wrong, allow slack time for them, and recovery time afterward.

If you give in, even once, you set a precedent. The boss now knows he can count on you to work your buns off, probably for little to no recognition (let alone actual reward), on a whim. He will expect you to do it. If you don't do it next time, you are "not meeting expectations". Never mind that the expectations are utterly unreasonable.

There is an old military expression about this: "Take more than your share of objectives, and you will be given more than your share of objectives to take."

It can be tempting, as so many short-sighted companies pay all glory and homage to the fire-fighters, but slight the diligent workers practicing fire-prevention. In the programming world, this shows up as support for, for instance, 80-hour weeks of debugging, versus 40-hour weeks that include good unit test coverage.

Repeat after me: "Your lack of planning, does not constitute my emergency."

Okay, putting it that bluntly may not play well with the boss, but if you get fired for sticking up for yourself, well, would you want to work for such a jerk anyway? (By the way, one of the first jobs I ever quit, I quit partly because the boss was a jerk.)

Boss:	I need this report ASAP!
You:	Sure, boss, I'll get right on it.
	(You cancel your lunch plans, work work work, and crank out a report.)
You:	Hey, boss, I just finished the report! Had to skip my lunch plans, but I got it done ASAP, just like you said!
Boss:	Uh, thanks, put it in my in-basket.
	(Time passes.)
	(You find out he didn't really need it quite as fast as his tone implied.)

Okay, you can be excused for doing that once.  But what about next time?  Wouldn't you be much happier, and your boss just as happy as before, if it went more like this:

Boss:	I need this report ASAP!
	(You recall your 12-1 lunch plans, estimate the report will take one to two hours, and do the math.)
You:	Will, say, 3:00 be okay?
Boss:	Uh, yeah, sure.
	(You have lunch with your buddies as planned.)
	(You come back and do the report, finishing at 2:45.)
You:	Hey, boss, here's your report!
Boss:	Fifteen minutes early, and it looks nice! Great job!

Okay, sometimes it won't quite work out that way, but more like:

Boss:	I need this report ASAP!
	(You recall your 12-1 lunch plans, estimate the report will take one to two hours, and do the math.)
You:	Will, say, 3:00 be okay?
Boss:	No, I need it by 1:30!
You:	Okay, I'll get right on it!
	(You cancel your lunch plans, and rush out a report, giving it to the boss at 1:29.)

Is that really any worse than the first scenario? No, in fact it's better, because now you have a much better idea of exactly when the boss needs the report, and therefore how much time you can spend on it. Since he stated a time, chances are, he really did need it by then. (If not, and he does this a lot, find a new boss. That's a whole 'nother exciting episode of Dare to Excel.)

So where's the "excelling" in this, you may wonder? There are two pieces.

First, you are exercising the skill of time management! Okay, maybe having lunch with your buddies wasn't terribly important, but it's what you planned to do, and you're finding a way to stick to your plan. This may involve honoring important commitments (another important aspect of excellence); maybe your buddies were counting on you to bring the birthday cake for the one of them that's only in town for the day and you all haven't seen for years.

Second, your lunch plans may have been something a bit more important than just lunch. Maybe you were attending a seminar, or some other self-improvement. I see this a lot from certain individuals in my lunchtime Toastmasters club. It would help them, and the rest of the club, if they would stand up for themselves, ask the boss when the report is due (or whether they can hold the meeting after 1:00 or whatever), and Dare to Excel!