As a child growing up in the Mmari household, the last thing we wanted to hear at night right before going bed, was the sound of tap water running in the kitchen sink 😫.

Why? Because it meant that mum was in there, with her sleeves rolled up and her head facing down, laser focused on washing the dirty dishes, no matter how many were piled up in the sink.

Being the lazy children that we were, all we could think of, silently in our little heads was: “It’s 11pm woman 😭 we are all tired, you included. We all want to sleep. Tomorrow is another day. Our helper is even coming in. Why on Earth are we washing the dishes now 😩. Can’t we do it in the morning????”

But unfortunately, because we were all minors that lived under her roof, we had to follow her rules, lest we get evicted into the streets of Swaziland to fend for ourselves. Thus, instead of complaining, rebelling or voicing out our extremist thoughts. We reluctantly accepted our fate, clenched our teeth, held back the tears, picked our station of choice for the night (i.e drying the dishes or packing them away), rolled up our sleeves and joined in on the torture. Right up until the very last teaspoon was washed, dried, and packed away neatly in the cutlery drawer.

As a child, I didn’t really understand why she did this. It was a very difficult concept for me and my still-developing pre-frontal cortex to fully comprehend. But as an adult, in my mid-30s, with a 9-5 job, living in my own house, with my own family - I finally get it now.

I 👏🏽 absolutely 👏🏽 hate 👏🏽 waking 👏🏽 up 👏🏽 to 👏🏽 dirty 👏🏽 dishes 👏🏽 and 👏🏽 an 👏🏽 unclean 👏🏽 kitchen. 😮‍💨

It’s literally the bane of my adult existence. And even though I despise it so much, I’ll still be the first to admit that it’s a very tempting exercise to skip out on each night, but every time I do skip it, I instantly regret it the next morning, without fail.

So what are the benefits of this torturous tedious task, you ask?:

1. You wake up to a clean kitchen.
2. You start the next day on a clean slate, without any debts to pay.
3. You don’t negatively impact other people who share the kitchen with you.
4. You can immediately start cooking your next meal without any daunting pre-work.

Yes it will take some time and yes, it means going to bed a bit later but it will be well worth it in the morning.

As is the case with most lessons we learn as kids, it’s only as an adult that I’ve realised the deeper meaning behind this seemingly futile activity. It turns out this exercise wasn’t just about the dirty dishes or the kitchen sink in the literal sense. "Dirty dishes" can be anything that’s weighing on you heavily which you find extremely easy to postpone for your future self to deal with.

Dirty dishes could represent negative thoughts, regrets, mistakes, lingering decisions, emotional residue, or unfinished discussions that you really ought to have. Left unattended, they quietly pile up, taking up precious mental space, making it harder for you to feel calm or present. Because deep down inside you know very well that you'll need to tend to them eventually.

It’s like how marriage counsellors tell couples not to go to bed while still being mad at each other, for the sake of the relationship? Yeah, well my mum says don’t go to bed with dirty dishes in your kitchen sink - whatever "dirty dishes" means to you.

So you should just wash the dirty dishes every night before you sleep.

Even if you don’t want to, just do it. You’ll thank me (and my mum) later.

T4aM

What does it mean to sleepwalk through your career?

Sleepwalking through your career means unconsciously living out patterns, habits, thoughts, and actions as you navigate your way through your career progression.

As a career sleepwalker you follow the same mundane cycle day-in day-out, and end up working towards goals, milestones, and achievements that you might not really want for yourself. You just do it because you “should”, because you “have to” or because it “makes sense”.

What does it mean to wake up?

Waking up means proactively taking control of your career. Reminding yourself of who you want to be and having a solid understanding of your Why.

Waking up means looking in the mirror, asking yourself some hard-hitting questions, and being vulnerable enough to give yourself honest answers, despite how difficult it is to hear.

Waking up means remembering what you want from life and where you are trying to go.

Unfortunately, waking up isn’t as easy as it sounds because facing reality can be difficult, especially if you have been sleeping for so long, but it needs to be done if you want to get your life back on track.

My realizations

I have been working for over a decade now, in a number of roles across a few different organizations. From being a young and naive intern in my early 20s, just blindly doing what I was told, to being a full-time tech entrepreneur in my mid 20s, desperately trying to be the next (black) Mark Zuckerberg, to now leading and managing a team in my early 30s as an Engineering Manager.

I recently clocked 6 years (👴🏾) at the company I currently work for, which, unsurprisingly, propelled me into yet another career-related existential crisis. So over the past few weeks and months, I’ve had to take a step back to assess what I really want from my career. Not what my colleagues want, not what my manager wants, not what my company wants, and certainly not what the conventional software engineering career ladder wants. Why? Because that’s exactly what induces sleepwalking: indiscriminately listening to others and blindly following a manicured, generic, pre-determined path.

How does one wake up?

In my process of waking up, I’ve done several things including but not limited to:

1. Adopting a more high-agency mentality, instead of continuously playing the helpless victim, whose life is at the mercy of the invisible forces around him.
2. Taking a more proactive approach to my learning and development, by up-skilling and staying relevant in topics that I'm actually interested in, not topics that I should be interested in.
3. Continuously asking myself if I am where I am as a result of passive inertia or a result of an active desire.
4. Finding an experienced and unbiased external coach to talk through my current challenges, insecurities, hopes, and ambitions (this has been an invaluable experience so far).
5. Realizing that at the end of the day, when it comes to my career, I am the only person who truly has my best interests at heart, and I am the one who will suffer the consequences of my actions and inactions.

How does one stay awake?

Firstly, you need to realize that once you’ve begun the process of waking up, you can and probably will fall asleep again, so you need to actively resist falling back into old habits.

Secondly, you need to continuously ensure that your immediate environment is conducive for the life you are trying to live and the goals you are trying to achieve. As soon as you notice anything or anyone having a counter-productive effect on you, you should address it immediately and have a plan to resolve it.

Thirdly, you need to understand that staying awake is hard, and due to the nature of our elusive egos, even when you think you are awake you might still be sleeping.

Final Thoughts

Alright, there’s my experience with sleepwalking through a career and my thoughts around waking up and staying awake.

Needless to say, your career will be long, challenging, and ambiguous, with many unexpected twists and turns. Sometimes things will be going amazingly well and other times you’ll feel like you are continuously pushing a large boulder up a hill to no avail. However, your main goal as you go through all these tumultuous cycles is to remain present, self-aware, and intentional at all times.

Stop sleepwalking. Stay woke.

#T4aM

In 2022 I made the transition from IC (Individual Contributor) to EM (Engineering Manager).

At the time, taking up an EM role seemed like the natural progression of my decade long Software Engineering career. Unfortunately this transition has not been as seamless or straight forward as I naively thought it would be.

In order to enlighten any other software engineers who are currently contemplating this switch, I've channeled my frustrations from the past two years into this article where I have provided you with 7 reasons why you should not become an Engineering Manager.

Reason 1: Growth and development

Growth and development in my role as an IC was easier because it was a lot more natural and organic.

As a software engineer, I would either work on high-impact projects that were challenging and interesting, which automatically came with new learnings, or I would work with people on my team or across different teams who had much more experience than me, whose thoughts, ideas, approaches and competencies would gradually rub off on me, catalyzing my growth and development, often without me even realizing it until after the fact.

As a manager it’s very different, the progress seems slower and the journey feels lonelier and a lot more isolated. When I was an engineer I often worked on teams or projects with other engineers that had varying levels of experience. However, as an EM I’m not on a team of managers where we can pair together on management challenges and where I can see how a more experienced manager approaches their day-to-day. I can’t log into GitHub and look through novel approaches to engineering management problems that have occurred over time throughout the company, in the same way that I could as an engineer.

Unfortunately, a lot of the challenges that you face as a manager don’t happen in public and are not visible in real-time for everyone else to see and use as an example or case study. And even if they were, management isn’t really science per se, it’s non deterministic. And because it’s not very transparent it's difficult to assess how you are performing in relation to your manager peers, which makes it even harder to assess your own growth and development.

Reason 2: So. Much. Talking

I’m known for many things (entrepreneurship, coding, writing and my toxic love-hate relationship with Manchester United to name a few) but the one thing I’m not known for is my desire to talk. In fact, I actively try and avoid talking uneccessarily. I hate hearing the sound of my voice and whenever I do talk in public I always feel like I’ve either talked for too long or said the wrong things (#socialAnxiety).

Unfortunately as an EM the one thing I’ve had to do a lot more of is talking. Talking in Sprint planning, talking in Sprint reviews, talking in stand-ups, talking in meetings, talking in 1-1s. Talking, talking, talking - oh the horror! Tis truly an introvert’s nightmare.

My default has always been to listen, to process, and then to act in my own time. I don’t like taking up space or being too loud, I’m way too self-conscious for that. The only times that I really want to speak and command the room is when I feel absolutely convicted about the topic at hand. Unfortunately, as a manager of an engineering team, I don’t always have the luxury of engaging in my favourite past time of unassuming silence.

Reason 3: Less time to code/build

One of the biggest challenges with taking up a management role is that I don’t code as much as I used to. The problem with this is that for so long I’ve defined myself by my ability to make and create. It’s my default and it’s also what really fulfills me. Why? Because, I’m a creator at heart. I live to make. My purpose is to build. If I was born a few hundred years ago I'd likely be a carpenter, ok fine, maaaybe a philosopher, definitely one of the two.

As a result of this predisposition, when I’m not making, building or creating, it’s easy for me to end the work week without feeling a sense of accomplishment, and when this happens I feel empty inside 💀.

Reason 4: Feeling “unproductive”

Following on from the above, something I struggle with on occasion is feeling that I’ve been “unproductive”. As a software engineer, you can jump into your daily standup with the rest of the team and say “Yesterday I worked on XYZ, I merged A into production and I started looking into B” and the rest of the engineering team enthusiastically cheers your name as you wrap up your impressive yet concise 30 second update.

In contrast, as an EM there are days when you do something that takes up so much of your time, focus and energy yet it still doesn’t feel tangible or “worthy” enough to proudly verbalise to others during a standup because it doesn’t feel like “real work”.

Reason 5: Longer feedback loops

When you are an engineer you can deploy something to production today and instantly see the impact. The feedback loop is short, you can immediately tell if you’ve done something good or bad and you can react accordingly.

In contrast, the feedback loops with management can be quite long; you can hire someone today but only know whether it was a good decision 6 months later; you can implement a change with the team process this week but only notice the impact several sprints down the line; you can provide detailed performance feedback to a report but at times only really see their growth (or lack thereof) up to a year later.

These longer feedback loops make it much harder to feel like you are doing a good job and it makes it difficult to iterate and improve upon.

Reason 6: Dealing with ambiguity

The further I've gone up the ladder of seniority and the closer I get to Product, the more ambiguous things have become and I personally struggle with ambiguity. I despise rules but I love order. I need the world to be black and white. I need things to make sense, otherwise, my logic board short-circuits, and my brain malfunctions.

As a manager, I’m no longer shielded from ambiguity in the same way that I used to be as an IC, and when I am directly faced with ambiguity and multiple potential paths forward, it’s not always immediately obvious what is “right” and “wrong” (this is something I've written about before).

Reason 7: The Competence Game vs The Confidence Game

We are all playing a particular type of game at work, whether we are aware of it or not.

For the longest time, one of my games of choice has been The Competence Game where I accumulate knowledge first and then base my actions on what I believe is objectively the “right thing” to do. This approach has taken me far in life. However, as I’ve transitioned into management I’ve realised that more often than not I should be playing The Confidence Game instead, where I confidently make a leadership decision which might not always be backed up by theory and knowledge but rather, intuition, intention and conviction.

I’ve always associated confidence without competence as straight-up bullshitting. And hey, sometimes it is just people bullshitting or overcompensating, but other times, it’s a valid move to make and an extremely useful skill to cultivate.

Final Thoughts

OK, there you have it. Another post where I’ve poured my heart out and laid my vulnerabilities out bare in the open, for the sole purpose of your reading pleasure - OK, I lie, it's also very cathartic 😮‍💨.

After reading this post, one question I’m sure some of you might have for me is: OK Ben, so do you regret making the transition from IC to EM?

Honestly, the answer is both Yes and No.

Yes, because there are some days when I’d rather just be sitting in my man cave with my headphones on, in a deep state of flow, staring at my one of my three monitors and coding away, without having to worry about my persistent Google Calendar notifications.

And No, because there are some days where I actually want to contribute to the growth and development of others, increase my influence on the wider organisation and continue mastering the dark arts of technical leadership and people management.

Also, I've spent the past 10 years of my career building business ventures and software products, so it's about time that I explicitly focus on building high performant teams.

So I’ll continue down this Engineering Management path for now. We can catch up in another year and I’ll let you know how it's going.

Ait. EM Ben out. ✌️

New Relationship who dis!?

I’ve been in my current relationship for about 8 months now. Well technically, it's been 7 months, 23 days, 14 hours, 37 minutes and 20 seconds… but I mean who’s counting right 🌚? It has been quite the journey thus far and right now it feels extremely stable, which is, surprisingly, not something that I am used to.

Reflection and Introspection

One of the benefits of reaching a state of stability, peace and calm in a relationship is that I now actually have time to sit back and analyze my own behaviours and tendencies, without getting caught up in the whirlwind of emotions that often come with newfound romance.

While analysing myself over the past few weeks in particular, I’ve become quite acquainted with some of my many triggers - triggers that I assume have been with me since my childhood.

“Someone’s triggers are events or situations that cause them to have an extreme reaction of fear, upset or anger - especially because they remember a traumatic experience.”

At the beginning of this relationship, I wasn’t really that aware of my triggers, so when my partner did something that triggered me, I’d automatically and unknowingly go straight into trauma mode. This would involve me being either defensive, frustrated, sad, angry, or eventually even going distant. Initially, these reactions of mine seemed completely natural and justifiable, but over time I slowly realized that these reactions and behaviours that I had become so accustomed to - despite how natural they felt - were not at all rooted in the here and now.

As time gradually passed from one encounter to the next, I realised that I wasn’t basing my actions and perspectives on the events that had just transpired, how my partner currently felt or why she felt that way. Nor was I taking the time to figure out what I could actually do to make the situation better. Instead, I immediately started reliving past trauma. Re-enacting the child-parent relationship dynamic that I became so accustomed to while growing up. Placing myself as the main opposing figure in the story, the chastised antagonist, even though on some occasions it actually had nothing to do with me, and even when it did involve me it was hardly ever to the extent that my catastrophizing self thought it was. (i.e "ok she's not happy today, what did I do this time? it's not my fault, it was a mistake, I didn't mean it, why does she hate me? Now she's going to leave me 😱. I can't do this anymore. Relationships are hard 😞.  I'm going to die alone 😭 ")

My Triggers

So what are some of my emotional triggers you ask?

1. 1-word responses 😩 (bane of my existence)
2. Reduced expressions of affection, written or verbal 💔(why you no love me no more? 😞)
3. The slightest change in communication behaviors 📵(where are my goodmorning Whatsapp messages? 😭)
4. Silence 😶
5. Disagreements & disapproval 😡
   

Sure, they might seem minor at face value but as soon as those triggers occur I’m immediately thrown back into fight-or-flight mode. Why? Because that is exactly what I did as a child. I either fought in an attempt to defend myself and vigorously prove my perceived innocence, or I took flight, in an attempt to distance myself as far as possible from the situation, with the hope that by the time I returned, everything and everyone would have calmed down. These were the coping mechanisms I relied on when I encountered difficulty in my relationships as a child, and it turns out that I have unknowingly and involuntarily adopted these exact same tactics decades later, deep into adulthood.

“Thoroughly unprepared, we take the step into the afternoon of life. Worse still, we take this step with the false presupposition that our truths and our ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning, for what was great in the morning will be little at evening and what in the morning was true, at evening will have become a lie.” ― Carl Gustav Jung

The Unlearning

Given my realizations, I’ve started paying a lot more attention to my own behavior on a daily basis. Constantly reminding myself that just because the person I love is unhappy, sad, or for whatever reason exhibiting a change in behavior, it does not automatically mean that I’m the problem, that I’m in trouble or that I did something wrong. And even in the cases where I did do something wrong; frowning, shouting, raising my voice, throwing my toys out of the pram and storming off is not the solution anymore. I’m an adult now and I need to approach situations accordingly.

So now in my relationship, whenever I do feel triggered, instead of hastily reacting, defending myself, or drastically jumping to conclusions, I’ve started lowering my guard a bit more, patiently taking my time to assess the situation, while asking a whole lot more questions in the process. Actively choosing to be open, apologetic, humble and vulnerable, instead of being closed off, defensive, arrogant and resistant. Opting to work together with my partner in an attempt to collectively come to a resolution instead of working against my partner in an attempt at self-preservation and self-vindication.

It’s definitely not an easy journey, but it is certainly one that will help prolong and preserve this relationship, paving the way for a brighter, calmer, and much more peaceful future.

#T4aM

“If you don’t heal what hurt you, you’ll bleed on people who didn’t cut you” - Unknown

Peace is scary. Serenity is concerning. The feeling of equilibrium almost feels too good to be true.

"Why are things ok?, "Why do I feel fine?", "This feels way too easy, it can't be right"

Passively choosing doubt over certainty and vigilance over satisfaction. Desperately afraid to just be content.

Actively seeking problems at every opportunity we get. Continuously craving resistance.

“Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of fear - are caused by too much future, and not enough presence.  - Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

Engineering managers, or EMs, are experienced developers who manage the development and design of software projects. This usually involves leading a team of developers and helping them with their day-to-day tasks and projects. They are also responsible for inspiring the team members and for creating and maintaining a positive team and work culture.

2022 saw me transition from being an individual contributor (IC) to being an engineering manager (EM) at Zappi. What this change has meant is that I’ve gone from mostly worrying about my work and myself as an IC to being responsible for multiple business domains and a team of 3 developers as an EM.

In this post I’d like to give a breakdown of what this journey has been like by touching on some of the lessons I’ve learned as well as the challenges that I have faced along the way.

Hi, I’m Ben and I'm an introvert 👋 “...Hiiiiii Ben”

Anybody who knows me well enough will know that I’d be the last person to jump at the opportunity to willingly engage with other human beings (having to talk to other people? oh the horror! 😱). Why? Because, I’m an introvert by nature and quite a highly strung introvert at that.

I thrive when I’m in my own controlled environment, I feed off my own energy and I live in my head the majority of the time. I’m never the loudest person in the room, I absolutely detest hearing myself talk, I hardly ever have super strong opinions that I’d be willing to die for and I avoid interpersonal conflict as if it was the plague… because… well… it is 👀

OK, so why Engineering Management then?

Firstly, I’m an introvert. Secondly, it appears that absolutely everything makes me anxious, and thirdly, I don’t particularly love the idea of dealing with people, if I can avoid it. So why would I opt to take up a role in engineering management then?

Well it’s simple really. I believe that discomfort accompanies growth and that there is no progress without change. As someone who has been in the tech industry for more than 10 years either as a co-founder, director, consultant, IC or team lead; and as someone who still has a burning itch for startups, entrepreneurship and business, it made perfect sense to me that engineering management be the next step of my career at Zappi.

A bit more info about Zappi and my team

Organisations across multiple verticals use Zappi to gather insights from countries all around the world, through a variety of market research tools that we provide on our platform.

We currently have about 15 engineering teams across the company, with each team being comprised of between 3 to 7 team members. My team is called The Rollout Team (yes, Ludacris is our mascot). We enable our customers to “roll out” their market research tools to different countries, in order to gather insights from different audiences. Our main technical focus is survey localisation and providing a framework for flexible research categorization.

We are currently a team of 5. An EM (that be me), a PM (Product Manager) and 3 developers. 1 of our developers is based in JHB, with the other 2 developers along with our PM based in London. I used to be based in Cape Town but I am currently staying in Eswatini. I have been working completely remotely for the past 2 years, making occasional trips to our offices in Cape Town and London, in order to spend time with my team at hackathons, conferences, company events and the like.

Zappi, being the maturing startup that we are, has gone through a Domain Driven Design (DDD) awakening over the past two years. This structural renaissance has led us to disband old teams where necessary and create new teams, with the intention of having clear, well-defined, concerns, responsibilities and boundaries split between each team. So while the Rollout team itself is new, the business domains that the team is responsible for are not.

Lessons learnt

While transitioning into engineering management I have come across a few situations that are quite new to me. I obviously haven't figured everything out just yet, as each week brings its own unique set of obstacles, challenges and learnings, some of which I have outlined below.

1. Revise how you define and measure success

The first lesson I learnt fairly quickly while making the transition from IC to EM is that one needs to revise how they define and measure success. Needless to say, this process has been quite tricky for me.

I’ve gone from my old life as an IC where I would happily close my laptop on a Friday evening after a super successful week of merged PRs and multiple deployments to production, to my new life as an EM where I go to sleep every other day stressing about whether or not I am doing a good job and meeting the expectations that my team and company have of me.

See, as an IC, my feelings of success were highly correlated to my sense of productivity and output. A successful week for me was finally getting out that PR, solving that annoying bug or making headway on a big feature. Measuring this success was quite easy because I could count the number of lines of code that I wrote, the number of PRs that I submitted or the number of features I developed and released. However, as soon as I crossed the chasm into managing others, naturally writing less and less code overtime, I found that my output was not quite as measurable any more and that my definition of success needs to be completely different to what it was before.

As an EM, some of my main focuses are establishing a vision for my team, maintaining team health and ensuring that my team members are continuously growing and being constantly challenged. Unfortunately, I still haven't figured out how best to measure how well I'm doing this.

Not only have the goal posts shifted but the game itself has changed completely and it's pretty clear that what brought me here won't take me to where I need to go.

2. Manage your time and learn to prioritize

With the responsibilities that come with my new role I’ve found that instead of doing 1 well defined piece of work over the course of the day, I can easily find myself jumping between multiple different matters that require my attention. Spending the entire day switching between each of them and then at the end of the day feeling like I did absolutely nothing at all.

As an IC there were periods where I would have, on average, 2-3 meetings (not including daily standups) per week, allowing me to have multiple hours of my day dedicated to uninterrupted coding (#nostalgia). Whereas now as an EM I find that I often need to make animal sacrifices to the Google Calendar Gods just to have half a day where I can focus on writing code without any distractions.

Upon realizing that my time is now at the mercy of many more stakeholders, I have tried to take a more proactive approach with how I schedule it. Blocking out hours in advance for “focus time” and playing a more active role in managing where my time goes. In addition to this I have also learnt that not everything that comes my way needs my immediate attention. It’s ok to handle it tomorrow, next week or even next month, depending on where it sits on the importance vs urgency matrix.

3. Trust your team and practice “letting go”

An aspect of engineering management that I am still coming to terms with is the concept of taking full responsibility for the delivery outcome while being semi-detached from the actual implementation journey itself.

As the highly strung, anxiety-prone, perfectionism-oriented, Type A individual that I am, the process of “letting-go” and trusting others to get the job done is definitely not one that comes naturally to me.

In my experience as an IC I would pick up a Jira ticket from the To-Do column, work on it from beginning to end, deploy it to production and then move on with my life (granted this is an oversimplified breakdown, but you get my point). Whereas with being an EM, the onus is on me to ensure that the Jira ticket is in the right state to begin with. I need to ensure that the team is aligned on what the outcome we are trying to achieve with this piece of work is. I need to support my team as they work on it and I need to take full responsibility of the when and the how of the delivery of the work.

However, while doing this I cannot and should not be involved in every line of code, commit or deploy. At some point in the process I need to let go and trust that my team will get the job done. Being present enough so that they don’t get blocked or end up going down the wrong path unnecessarily. Yet being distant enough such that I give them the space to solve problems, be creative and have a sense of ownership and autonomy with the work that they are doing.

As if this process isn't nuanced enough, I’ve also come to realize that people management is not a one size fits all approach across the entire team. Different members of my team require different levels of attention and engagement during different periods of the implementation journey. It's my responsibility as an EM to figure out where each individual needs to be met and to make sure I meet them there.

4. Build authentic relationships and foster psychological safety

Over the course of my journey the one thing that I can say with 100% certainty is that relationships are everything (as the crowd snaps their fingers, and one random lady in the back yells “amen”).

As an EM you need to have good relationships with your PM, your team, EMs/PMs/QAs/developers in different teams, the group engineering managers, the head of engineering, as well as all of your team’s stakeholders across the rest of the business. Keeping in mind that building these relationships is not just about grabbing a drink after work or exchanging a few Slack messages, no, it’s also about being authentic, transparent, honest and vulnerable.

When building relationships with your team, you need to try your best to understand how each person thinks, what makes them tick, what motivates them, what frustrates them as well as what their strengths and weaknesses are. In order for you to truly accomplish this it's essential that you leave your ego at the door and let go of any facades that you may be making use of. Why? Because, you can't expect people to be authentic with you if you are not authentic with them.

Now I’m not suggesting that every team standup becomes a therapy session. I just feel that the team and the workplace in general will be a lot better off if we are all just a bit more real with each other.

But EM Ben, how can we be more real?

Well it’s in the little things really. I.e If you weren’t able to focus at work yesterday because of XYZ then just bring it up in your standup. If you need to take leave next week because you have a Drs appointment then say so (without needing to divulge anything further). If someone asks you how you are doing at the beginning of a Zoom call and you are actually quite tired and feeling a bit out of it, just mention it. And when there is a difficult conversation to be had, either as a team or on a 1 on 1 basis, tackle it head on instead of brushing it under the carpet.

Sure, these are a few random, generic, out of context examples but the point is that being a bit more honest, authentic and transparent can go a long way in building strong relationships based on empathy, understanding and trust.

Final Thoughts

As someone who enjoyed and excelled in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) subjects throughout school, I often get frustrated at the areas in life that don’t have a rubric/answer sheet for everything (because then I won't know if I did it correctly or not 😭). If you couple this with my perpetual anxiety, introvert tendencies and my extremely high level of self-criticism, it's easy to see how taking up a role in managing people can be quite challenging and nerve wracking at times. I’m literally always concerned about whether or not I’m doing or saying the right things. ("Damn maybe I should have done it this way, or that way, wait why did I do anything at all, OMG was I too forward? aaaaaaaah, now everyone thinks I'm incompetent 😩💀").

In order to pre-empt this stress I’ve done my best to read books and articles on the topic of engineering management and people management in general. However, if there is anything that this journey has taught me it's that no matter how many books you read, how many podcasts you listen to or how many videos you watch, the majority of the learning can and will only really ever come on the job.

With all that said, the nuggets of wisdom that I'd give IC Ben of a year ago, before he embarks on his EM journey is that he needs to have:

1. The right mindset to tackle the challenges that come his way (#growthMindset gang gang),
2. The right support structures to lean on in the times of need (other EMs, a manager, a coach/therapist), and
3. Enough patience, self-love and empathy, so that he is not so hard on himself when things don’t work out the way he expects them to.

Alright that's all from me. Once again, I really hope that my journey helps you make sense of your own 🙏🏽.

Some books that have helped me a long the way:

1. Managing Humans
2. The Making of A Manager
3. Outcome Over Output
4. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking (for my introvert gang out there)
   

EM Ben out ✌🏽

We often make the mistake of thinking that love means the same thing to different people. It doesn't.

For some people love is a familiar, nostalgic and overwhelmingly positive feeling that they've felt before. A feeling they are able to easily replicate in different situations.

For certain people, love is a feeling that they are vaguely aware of but only from secondhand experience. They know what love should be but they can't really say that they've felt it themselves.

For a number of people, love is a foreign object that their heart, mind and soul treat as a deadly invader. An unwelcome intruder that their psychological immune system fights off at every opportunity it gets, with the ultimate intention of ego protection and self preservation.

So which category do I fall into? All three I suppose.

Having recently entered into the fourth decade of my life, it's evident that I'm still grappling with the idea of love and intimacy. Constantly trying my best to unlearn what I've become so accustomed to doing, thinking, feeling, and saying. Fully cognisant of the fact that I need to correct the many misconceptions I have about myself and my surroundings. Reassessing how I see love, how I give love, how I receive love and how I interact with the ones that I love and those that love me.

I grew up knowing that I was loved. I had no major doubts about that. I just thought that love always came with rules, regulations, guidelines and stipulations:

- I had to behave.
- I had to be quiet.
- I had to finish my food, do well at school, stay awake at church and clean my room.

That's why this type of love feels strange to me.

Being shamelessly myself and still being loved almost feels uncomfortable. What do you mean by "unconditional", "consistent", "unregulated", "unyielding"? I thought love meant that I had to act a certain way? Do certain things? Or be a certain person? What do you mean by "come as you are"? This can't be right. Are you sure I deserve this?

Yes, this type of love feels strange to me.

Going to sleep, waking up and still having love patiently waiting for me is a feeling I still need to get used to. At some point growing up I associated love with abandonment. I love you meant I can't be with you. I love you meant I need to leave you. I love you meant that I'll provide for you financially but I can't be there for you emotionally. I love you meant that I'll make sacrifices for you but I might not make time for you. I love you meant leaving the house before sunrise and coming back after sunset. I love you meant dropping me off at school in the morning, chasing money during the day and staying out drinking at night. I love you meant cooking on Friday, house cleaning on Saturday and a full day of church on Sunday.

I equated love with distance. I grouped love with perfection. I assumed love and understanding were mutually exclusive. So I adjusted my personality, lowered my expectations and built walls around my heart purely as a coping mechanism.

Yet that's not the case here and that's why this type of love feels strange to me.

On the one hand it's beautiful, majestic, warm, bubbly and exciting. Yet at the same time it's repelling, disgusting, overwhelming, annoying and frustrating. What do you mean you love me? You want me? You need me? You miss me?

I'm sorry, but this type of love feels strange to me.

It's not a pattern I'm used to, nor a feeling I've felt. It's not a script that I've read, or a scene that I've rehearsed.

Yes, this type of love feels strange to me.

So bare with me. I'm new to it.

I want it and I need it. I crave it and I seek it. I have faith and belief in it. But I'm absolutely terrified of feeling it. So just know that it's going to take some time, a bit of patience and whole lot of understanding.

Why?

Because, this type of love feels strange to me.

You cannot save me
You are not the answer
You will not change my life

No

You won't solve my problems
You can't make me whole
You won't fill the void
And you can't bring me peace

The sooner I accept this, the better off I'll be

See, these demons are mine to face and you can't face them with me
This mountain is mine to climb and you can't climb it with me
This battle is mine to fight and you can't fight it with me

This is a journey I must make on my own

Cause I've been broken for too long, yet still waste time running in circles
Over and over again
Silently searching for solutions in all the wrong places
Selectively seeking solace from all the wrong people

Longing, chasing, engaging, embracing
Neglecting, deflecting, rejecting, regretting
Rinse and repeat - rinse and repeat

And one way or the other, it always ends in tears

But this cycle has to stop now
It can't continue
It won't continue
Something's got to give

And that something is me, not you

Why?

Because:
- You cannot save me
- You are not the answer
- You will not change my life

No

Don't get too close
Reduce the intimacy
Don't get too close
Less vulnerability

Don't get too close
You'll see my flaws, witness my gaps, notice my scars

My self esteem's a work in progress
Confidence has been suppressed

I have:
- Attachment issues
- Daddy issues
- Childhood trauma
- Paranoia

Scared of being loved by you
What if I can't reciprocate?
Afraid of being judged by you
What if that love turns into hate?

Cannot receive your love for me
Still learning how to love myself
Love without pain is new to me
Love that is free is frightening

I'm not sure what to do with you
Have no clue how to keep you here
Worried that you'll stop loving me
Scared that one day you'll walk away

I've loved before and been abandoned
Loved before and been deceived

I've tried and failed
My heart mishandled
Can't give out what I've not received

I've looked for love
Searched high and low
But always end up on my own

I've longed for love
Would sell my soul
Plant many seeds that never grow

Don't get too close
Cause I'm a mess
I don't deserve the love you have
Don't get too close
Please keep away
I'm better off all by myself

Always searching
Never finding
Never resting
Always grinding
Always looking
Never seeing
Ever seeking
Never being

Always wanting
Never having
Never giving
Always grabbing
Always planting
Never growing
Ever learning... never knowing

“There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it.” ― George Bernard Shaw

I am extremely proud to announce that I have just published my first book, Philosophical Suicide. 🥳

It’s a bit surreal, to be honest. Sometimes I can’t believe it’s actually happened. It was just a thought in the beginning of 2017 and now, almost 5 years later, that thought has manifested itself into a - remarkably beautiful - tangible product, 100X better than anything I could have ever imagined. Surely, this must be what giving birth feels like?

It’s been a very interesting journey thus far: the writing, the coaching, the editing, the book compilation, the iterating, the doubt, the self-criticism, the fear and the procrastination (there was a lot of procrastination).

For a long time during this 5 year period I was fighting a war with myself. I was my own enemy of progress, refusing to acknowledge my own light and continuously brushing off my inner desires and ambitions. Then whenever I’d come across someone else who was either working on or releasing their own book, I’d cry a little on the inside. Because I knew deep down that this was my portion in life, yet for some reason I was still holding myself back.

Thankfully I’ve managed to conquer all my demons and come out on the other side of this battle triumphant, with my head, pen and pad held high.

I have a whole lot more to share with you, I’d love to explain why I wrote a book, how I wrote the book and I’d love to detail all the ins and outs of my self-publishing journey. But I’ll save that for another post.

For now let us just celebrate the fact that I can finally, with confidence and evidence, call myself a published author 😭!!!

So, where can you get a copy?

Philosophical Suicide is available as a paperback, an Ebook and a PDF. Please head on over to http://philosophicalsuicide.com  to get yourself - or someone you think would benefit from my musings - a copy.

Thanks for all the support over the years. Without readers like you reading, sharing and commenting on my various articles, I wouldn’t have felt enough confidence to actually write and publish an entire book.

Spread the word, don't be shy

If you do buy a copy, please don't hesitate to share it on social media and tag me @benmmari. As daunting as it may be, I'd really love to get this book into as many people's hands as possible.

"My Life is my Message"
- Mahatma Gandhi

6 years ago on the 9th October 2015, I resigned from my first full-time job after 19 months, in order to focus on my own business ventures.

I acted on impulse and relied on my intuition
I only had R49,700 (~$3300) to my name

It's now 6 years later and life hasn't turned out exactly the way I naively thought it would
I'm employed again
I'm yet to appear on the Forbes list
And I haven't made a significant dent in the world

However, I have absolutely zero regrets
I'm at peace
I'm content
I'm proud of myself
And I'd do it again in a heartbeat

Why? Because I don't want to die with my music still in me.

Life is way too short to play it safe.

Just do it.

I cry at least twice a year.
On Father's day and on the 1st of October.
Usually at night when I am alone, in the comfort of my own bed.

Sometimes I actively try and avoid these feelings by pretending that I'm not fazed. Desperately trying to convince myself that I'm ok:

- "Yes my dad is dead, so what?"
- "It was 6 years ago."
- "I've come to terms with it."
- "I'm at peace with it."

- "Life goes on...."

But does it?
Does it really?
No.
No it doesn't.

For as long as I live, deep down inside the depths of my soul will reside a small boy still longing for the validation of a father figure.
A naive son trying to make his father proud.
A vulnerable, sensitive child trying to navigate through the chaos of this cruel world that we live in.

Life doesn't just automatically continue and I cannot and should not pretend that it does.

I don't usually write about death or grief or sadness or mourning. But over the years I've come to learn that we need to explicitly acknowledge and work through our emotions. Instead of continuously dressing them up and then tucking them away where nobody can see them.

What I've realized by taking time to grieve - even if only for a few minutes twice a year - is that I clearly have a whole lot of emotions pent up inside me. And I know that if I don't deal with them directly, they will continue to manifest in all sorts of ways. Whether it be through ill-health, obscure career goals or wayward relationship dynamics.

Anyways, back to the bi-annual tear festival, while I listen to Promises by Ben Howard.

I'll pay a therapist to deal with this mess.

Happy Birthday Dad.

We miss you.

I think it's fair to say that, in life, we are all searching for happiness in one form or another. Unfortunately, a lot of the time we fall short and are instead left mindlessly chasing dangling carrots, desperately seeking something that is merely just an illusion.

As humans, we constantly look for joy derived from material, impermanent and illusory: objects, people, events and situations. This is not a major problem in and of itself though, we can't help it, we do live in a material world. The problem exists in the thinking that this feeling will last forever. That is where the fault lies.

I often take stock of the world around me and find it hard to overlook the fact that people are always trying to get somewhere, to obtain something, to be someone. Never happy or content, always searching, needing, craving and wanting. At times I even take a look at the man in the mirror and I catch myself desperately striving to move forward, budgeting for the future, planning for years ahead. Writing up a list of where I want to go, what I want to own and who I want to be. Then I pause, take a step back and I ask myself: "what the hell am I doing?", "where the hell am I going?", "what the hell am I actually looking for?"

It seems as though the very moment we reach the end of one race, we immediately want to start another one, why? Because we think that finishing it will finally fulfill us. A cycle that can repeat indefinitely. A common yet dangerous aspect of reality, one which, if we are completely oblivious to, can lead us to live our whole life simply as a means to an end.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with having clearly defined goals and objectives. There is nothing wrong with striving to live a life that has some sort of direction. The problem lies in the flawed thinking that after achieving the things we set out for ourselves, we will be internally and eternally fulfilled. Unfortunately, this is not and will never be the case. The more we search for happiness and fulfilment external from ourselves, the more we amplify our present-day dissatisfaction and deficiency. The more we convey how much we want and need, the greater we widen the void that we perceive exists deep within us.

It is only recently that I realized that it all lies within the journey and not solely within the result. The result only ever lasts for so long, yet the journey is truly all we ever have.

Recently, while hanging out with a group of friends, I had a brief rush of self-awareness. In that moment upon analyzing my external surroundings as well as my internal state of being, I sincerely felt that I was happy. At that moment in time I had no worries, woes, issues, anxieties, needs, wants, problems or desires. I was just enjoying where I was, who I was with and what I was doing. No fantasies of where I wanted to be or plans of where I wanted to go. I was utterly and completely lost in the now, in the moment, in the journey.

What I realized and experienced in that very moment is that - as cliche as it may sound - the present moment; what we have, who we have and where we are, is the only real place that we can ever find and feel true happiness.

NB: I initially wrote this in 2012 while in university. I was 20 back then. As I read these words 9 years later, 6 months away from the big three-zero (pronounced "old as fuck") I feel that this advice could not be any more relevant. I definitely still find myself searching, planning, hoping and crafting but I try my best to reign in some much needed awareness once in a while, in order to keep me grounded (and sane). Without that it's easy to fall into the happiness trap.

A book that has been extremely pivotal in my journey thus far is The Power of Now. Check it out if you ever get the chance.

If my life ramblings interest you then keep an eye out for my upcoming book: Philosophical Suicide. In it I explore, amongst other things, my never-ending search for meaning, my continuous journey of self-exploration and my personal struggles with love, life, work and everything in between. To be released in November 2021. Sign up here for updates.

In 2015 I resigned from my first full-time job and I was convinced that I’d never be employed ever again.

After 1 year and 7 months of my first full-time job I had conceded that employment was just not my cup of tea and I had established that, come hell or high water, entrepreneurship was the only way forward for me. I put this theory into practice during my first spell of self-employment while running Simplimantis with my business partner Masharty Tembo. We did this for about 3 years full-time before unexpected financial setbacks and payment defaults from key clients forced us to jump back onto the ship of employment (oh the horror).

These +- 3 years, as tough as they were, were some of the best years of my life. Making our own money, building out our own products, living life on our own terms and working towards our own vision was extremely fulfilling and liberating. I’m really glad that I was able to experience it early enough in my career because it helped me form a solid idea of the type of life I wanted to lead going forward. When Masharty and I had finally made the difficult decision to search for employment in early 2018, I had accepted that I would probably never feel as fulfilled ever again

….but clearly I was wrong.

To my surprise, I’ve been at Zappi for 3 years, 5 months and 12 days (but who’s counting right?). Writing this time period out is even shocking to me because I honestly never knew I’d be employed anywhere for such a long period of time.

This is quite a milestone and I figured that since I published a jubilant post when I had first jumped ship 6 years ago, and then provided a transparent update 8 months after that, it’s only fair that I complete this trilogy with an update regarding my current situation.

I joined Zappi on 2 April 2018 and despite my continuous inner urge to rebel against The System, forge my own path and go solo, they’ve somehow managed to keep me grounded ever since.

In an attempt at understanding how and I why I am still here a whole 3.5 years later, I was able to narrow it down to the following 6 reasons:

1. Ownership

“Responsibility equals accountability equals ownership. And a sense of ownership is the most powerful weapon a team or organization can have.”

- Pat Summit

Over the years I’ve come to accept that I’m just a lot more engaged when I feel like I have a significant stake in what I’m working on. It’s a personality trait of mine, for better or for worse.

When I don’t have a sense of ownership then I feel weak, useless and worthless. When I am just regarded as a cog in the wheel then I feel like my life has no sense of direction or purpose.

Thankfully at Zappi I’ve managed to steer clear of this for the most part by being able to take ownership of key projects and initiatives. This has given me a sense of meaning, significance and importance. There is just something about ownership that suddenly shifts the gears in my head. Even if the work is mind numbing, as long as I know and feel that it is MY mind numbing work then I’ll be able to commit my heart and soul to it.

2. Autonomy

“Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement.”

- Daniel Pink

Some may think that the lines are a bit blurred between autonomy and ownership but it is very possible to own something yet still not be free to act and make decisions on it. Fortunately at Zappi I’ve been privileged enough to experience both.

Being the rebel that I am, there's nothing more frustrating than feeling restricted in life, whether it be in movement, information, direction or even something as superficial as dress code. I cannot emphasize it enough: I ABSOLUTELY HATE BEING TOLD WHAT TO DO. And due to my impulsive nature and strong sense of self, if at any moment I feel like a pawn on a chess board then I will drop everything and I will leave. You can call it arrogance, entitlement or even narcissism, regardless of the label you assign to it, that’s just what it is.

The process of “finding myself” over the past 29 years has definitely been long and arduous. However, one thing I knew even as a young child navigating his way through adolescence, is that I need to be allowed the room to grow, make my own mistakes and - above all else - feel like a sovereign entity. And if I happen to bring down production in the process, then so be it. If it was my decisions that led us there, then I’ll be the first to take responsibility for it.

3. Creating and problem solving

"The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul."

- Dieter F. Uchtdorf

I’m a computer scientist by qualification, but I am a creator at my core. It just so happens that writing code is the medium I’ve chosen to express myself in this lifetime.

I need to plan, I need to design, I need build. It’s my lifeblood. When I’m not making, I'm dying. When I’m not creating, I’m regressing. When I’m not applying myself and solving problems, my mental faculties begin to slowly wither away into the abyss.

I need to be allowed the freedom to make, produce and create. I need to be given the time and space to explore, learn and try out new things. If I can’t find that at my 9-5 job then I’ll search for it in my own time outside of work, and if push comes to shove, outside of the company all together.

Thankfully over the years at Zappi, my inner creator has been able to flourish. Whether it is through building out a new API in Elixir, rolling out a Salesforce integration to facilitate payments or working on an internal Slack app to promote interaction throughout the company.

There is something extremely gratifying about seeing a problem or opportunity, designing a solution for it, building it out and then seeing people use it. There are few things in life - if any - that I find more satisfying than this.

4. Culture

“Determine what behaviors and beliefs you value as a company, and have everyone live true to them. These behaviors and beliefs should be so essential to your core, that you don’t even think of it as culture.”

- Brittany Forsyth

Companies looooove to make noise about their culture. It’s written on their website, it’s painted on their walls, it’s littered all over their job specs. It’s beaten into your subconscious through the use of catchy phrases and pretty pictures. But regardless of what is said about the culture in theory: what the culture really is, is how the company is run in practice. A culture is how management behaves when you’re not looking. A culture is how the employees think when they’re by themselves. A culture is how the company treats you during difficult times and it’s this culture that will keep you at a company even when the work is draining, tedious or frustrating. This being something that I can attest to first-hand after working on a tedious - yet business critical - data migration project over the course of the past few months.

There were some days and weeks during this period, where for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t jumping out of bed each morning, eager to spin up terminal windows or write some code. I wasn’t extremely enthusiastic about what I was doing, because it wasn’t exciting, novel or stimulating. However, despite my frustrations about the what, I was still enthusiastic about the who, the where and the why. This, I believe, is the importance of good culture and this is probably the main reason that I'm still here.

5. Flexibility

“It's about workplace flexibility. It’s about giving our associates the opportunity to be who they are as an individual, whether that is a community member, a spouse or parent, or anything in between.”

- Amy Freshman

Something that I only realized in my early 20s is that I’m extremely introverted. To the extent that I genuinely wonder if it’s bordering on mild social anxiety. Yes, I love me a good time, but the truth is that I can only really handle about 10 - 30 minutes of active, in-person, social interaction on a daily basis. Up to 60 minutes on a really good day and about 2.5 hours if I’m intoxicated.

As soon as I’ve reached my social quota, I stop engaging. Not because I don't want to engage further, it's because I'm literally incapable of engaging further. At some point the hamster in my head just stops running on the wheel. In addition to this, I also absolutely adore being in my own space. That is where I feel most comfortable.

Knowing this, it is not difficult to understand why, when I first started working in 2014, I really struggled with the whole idea of commuting into a place that is not mine, to be with people that are not me, for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. It was an absolute nightmare. Don’t get me wrong, I love people, but constant peopling is extremely difficult for me. I only have so much mental capacity. Mental capacity that I would much rather dedicate to more pertinent tasks.

I’ve only really come to understand these idiosyncrasies of mine more recently in life. Now that I know this about myself I need to ensure that I can foster a conducive working environment that caters for these personality traits.

Thankfully I’ve been able to do this at Zappi. Pre-pandemic I was going into the office between two to three times a week (I published an article about this, literally one month before the world shut down in 2020). This allowed me to offset the social interactions I have at the office with much needed personal time which I used to recharge in the comfort of my own home.

Having such flexibility has been invaluable. Being able to work remotely and plan my work around my life has allowed me to spend more time with family, travel the world and above all else appease my inner, socially-averse, introverted-self.

6. Remuneration

“Cash rules everything around me, CREAM,  get the money, dollar dollar bill, ya’ll.”

- Wu-Tang Clan

It would be amiss for me not to talk about money. Let’s not kid each other. Money is extremely important and while it won’t solve all of your problems, you will definitely need it to solve some of your problems.

We all know the role money plays on the material front, but we shouldn’t take for granted the key role that it plays on the psychological front as well. When it comes to your salary, you don’t want to be continuously wondering if they are paying you “enough”, if they are giving you what you “deserve” or if they understand what you’re “worth”. This will take a heavy mental toll on you. You don’t want to spend the majority of your time considering whether you should move from company A to company B just because you feel like you will get paid more.

Sure, money isn’t everything, but this doesn’t justify any company to short-change you in any way shape or form. As a company that has the means, you’re doing something horribly wrong if your employees spend the majority of their time wondering what other company will pay them better.

Salaries are definitely complicated and I can say this as someone who has been both an employer and an employee. Naturally, a company wants to minimize the compensation it gives out and an employee wants to maximize the compensation they receive. It’s simple economics.

However, during this convoluted evolutionary dance, it’s important that:

1. You are being recognized for what you bring to the table, and
2. You have a clear framework that you can use to establish where you are and to determine how you can progress.

Fortunately I have been able to tick both of these boxes at Zappi.

I mean, I know that I am worth at least a few billion dollars in the bigger scheme of things, but I can accept slightly less than that... for now.

Conclusion

Alright, there you have it. These are the 6 reasons that I am still at Zappi.

While 3 years and 5 months might not seem that long to some people, for someone who - not too long ago - completely gave up on the idea of employment altogether, this is a lifetime.

Granted, I am still a rebel by nature and my heart and soul will forever yearn for complete independence, freedom and autonomy. But I know that my time will come again, it's inevitable.

Up until then, I’m #ZappiToBeHere.

If you are interested in working at Zappi you can check out our available roles here. If you have any questions, you are more than welcome to slide into my DMs on social media or hit me up on me@benmmari.com

Also, if my life ramblings interest you then keep an eye out for my upcoming book: Philosophical Suicide. In it I explore, amongst other things, my never-ending search for meaning, my continuous journey of self-exploration and my personal struggles with love, life, work and everything in between. To be released in November 2021. Sign up here for updates.