Can you think positively?

Jeff Atwood wrote an excellent article that resonated with my own experiences on what separates a good programmer from a mediocre one. His advice was to take a step back from the programming itself, and broaden your skill set; not through learning more languages but learning more about the user, the industry and the business as a whole.

Atwood quotes Bill gates from the book Programmers At Work rings so true;

Does accumulating experience through the years necessarily make programming easier?

Bill Gates: No. I think after the first three or four years, it's pretty cast in concrete whether you're a good programmer or not.

It was clear, I hate to say, who the good and the bad programmers were on my Masters. Now why was it? Naturally, and rather immodestly, I counted myself on the side of the fence that shepherd the good programmers. But why?

• Was I that intelligent, other and above others? No.
  
• Did I have more experience then they? No
  
• Did i have access to more/better study materials? No
  

I went through many similar questions, before finally finding the answer: I was patient and willing to learn.

Because I always assumed I would learn to programme, and programme well (which I still am doing - you never do stop learning), any time I came across problems I was able to surmount them while others stumbled, lost confidence, and eventually gave up.

Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten wrote an interesting article looking at and comparing the thinking patterns of successful and unsuccessful entrepreneurs.

The attitude of the failing businessman matched exactly those of my failing classmates, who would focus on short term problems and not the final goal.

When I trained to do a static parachute line jump, pretty much everyone on the course were motorbike riders, including the trainer. When it was explained to us how to avoid not ending up swinging from a tree, the analogy of two motorcycles riders was used.

They are both going round a bend with a tree on the outside corner, the first looking at the tree he wants to miss, the other looking at the point on the road where he wants to come out of the corner. Which one hits the tree?

My fellow masters students who kept focusing on the hurdles, without keeping their eye at the end of the track, were the ones who fell.

Is the way you think, your attitude, the real barrier to your progress?