Rob Walling

It combines a lot of experience, judgment, reasoning, and creative problem solving, and probably quite a bit of education that you've given yourself, right?

And so there are a lot of things.

There's some things that I consider myself stage three at.

Back in the day when I was still writing code full time, I was definitely this in software.

I was never this in design.

I was often stage one and I dabble in stage two now and again.

So why am I telling you this?

Well, I'm telling you for a couple of reasons.

Number one, so that as you interact with people at your day job, or if you have clients, let's say you're a developer, designer, and you're freelance, that you can start identifying this in yourself and in the people you work with.

I think it will be helpful.

Second thing is if you're a founder or you're hiring freelancers or contractors or full-time employees that you can accurately grade yourself and get the hell out of the way and let an expert maybe do it a little better if they can.

So if you're a stage one in design and you hire a really good designer, you might need to get out of their way and put your opinion aside.

Likewise, if you hire a designer and you feel like they're not even at a stage three, well, that may be a problem for you.

I think having some type of framework for thinking about editorial eye and, you know, this trichotomy of knowing what's good and bad at stage one, understanding why, and then knowing how to fix it.

I really do think that being competent at these levels is something you should strive for.

in the areas of your expertise.

You're not going to be this in everything.

You are not going to be a stage three in movies, books, design, code, and all these things, right?

It's very unlikely because it takes a lot of exposure and it takes a lot of work to get there.

My second topic is a realization that a listener had.