Yesterday the wonderful people from Lucky Cat Tattoo put a piece of art on my arm.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
This was the ‘farewell message’ of the whole earth catalog. It was placed on the back cover of the final edition in 1974. Steve Jobs used this quote in his famous commencement speech in 2005 on Stanford University. While writing this blog post I found this article by a neuroscientist explaining what the quote means…

Hungry
Hungry points to always looking for more, striving to improve, being ambitious and eager. Everything I do, I do with passion. What keeps me moving is energy and passion. I need challenges to feel comfortable. I want to be good in almost everything I do. Not just good, but the very best. All that makes that my surroundings sometimes suffer from me because I always want to do more and do better. Fortunately, I have an above average energy level and that helps me do what I do. This video of Steve Jobs summarizes how I work.

Foolish
Foolish points to taking risks, feeling young, being daring, exploratory and adventurous. Like a child learning how the world works by trying everything. It also reminds us not always do what people expect us to do and not always take the traditional paths in life.

I’m curious. This is an important characteristic in a software tester. Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize winner was a tester, though he was officially natural scientist. In this video, “The pleasure of finding things out” he talks about certainty, knowledge and doubt (from 47:20). Critical thinking about observations and information is important in my work! Richard Feynman never took anything for granted. He took the scientific approach and thought critical about his work. He doubted a lot and asked many questions to verify.

Because of my curiosity, I want to know everything. This has one big advantage: I want to develop and practice continuous learning. The great thing about my job is that testers get paid for learning: testing is gathering information about things that are important to stakeholders to inform decisions. I love to read and I read a lot to discover new things. I also ask for feedback on my work to develop myself continuously. Lately, experiential learning has my special attention. I wrote a column about why I like this way of learning. When it comes to learning, two great TED videos come to mind: “Schools kill creativity” and “building a school in the cloud“. These videos tell a story about how we learn and why schools (or learning in general) should change.

Think different!

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

jediJedi
Besides I am a huge fan of Star Wars, the Jedi sign has a deeper meaning:
“Because testing (and any engineering activity) is a solution to a very difficult problem, it must be tailored to the context of the project, and therefore testing is a human activity that requires a great deal of skill to do well. That’s why we must study it seriously. We must practice our craft. Context-driven testers strive to become the Jedi knights of testing.” (source: “The Dual Nature of Context-Driven Testing” by James Bach).

I believe that learning is not as simple as taking a class and start doing it. To become very good at something you need mentors who guide you in your journey. I strongly believe in Master-Apprentice. Young Padawans are trained to become Jedi Knights by a senior (knight or master) who learns them everything there is to know. The more they learn, the more responsibility the student gets. That is why I am happy that I have mentors who teach, coach, mentor, challenge and guide me. And that is why I am a mentor for others doing the same. Helping them to learn and become better.

bearBear
In 2013 I took the awesome Problem Solving Leadership aka PSL workshop facilitated by Jerry Weinberg, Esther Derby and Johanna Rothman. This amazing six day workshop gave me many valuable insights in myself and how to be a better leader by dealing effectively with problems (or as Jerry says it: enhancing the environment so that everybody is empowered to contribute creatively to solve problems). During the social event we visited the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center which also made a big impression on me. Here I bought a talisman stone with a bear engraved. In native American beliefs the bear symbolizes power, courage, freedom, wisdom, protection and leadership (more info on bear symbolic: here,  here and here).