you've probably heard this advice before to advocate for yourself in today's episode i'd like to give you an optimistic but rational argument for why it's so important that you learn how to advocate for yourself the uh the basis for this the importance of this is what i want to drive home today and it's based on a simple argument that no one else could possibly be a better advocate for you now recognize that what we're talking about here is a very important thing is within a a reasonably bounded context right we're not talking about situations where your ability to advocate is compromised for some reason assuming you are generally healthy and well and uh you are you are capable of advocating for yourself then this should apply to your situation you are going to be your own best advocate we can look at this from two angles either by proving that you are a better advocate for yourself or by proving that you are a better advocate for yourself or by proving that you are your own best advocate on its own merits or by proving that no one else could be your best advocate and we can kind of look at both of these this is not a purely logical proof but i have not encountered anyone who could destabilize this proof entirely without uh you know entering into the categories mentioned before where you are not able to advocate for yourself uh for some reason generally speaking we're applying this to uh to advocacy within your career if we start talking about other parts of your life advocacy and other parts of your life then the the stakes change uh in certain circumstances so advocating for yourself in your career uh you are almost certainly the most important advocate that you have the first reason for this is because of the simple fact that you are a better advocate for yourself the first reason for this is because of the simple fact that you are a better advocate for yourself principle of self-interest this is not a uh a violation of any kind of ethics this is not a problem per se it is a natural uh part of being a human we are going to watch out for ourselves before we watch out for anyone else now importantly notice that we didn't say instead of anyone else we're saying before so it is very unlikely that any advocate you have would advocate for you at their own peril and certainly not for an extended period of time in other words those kinds of risks i often do actually have a long-term benefit for the people who are taking them and these benefits are not easy to quantify necessarily we're not necessarily talking about benefits but we're not talking about benefits but we're not necessarily talking about benefits but we're not necessarily talking about in the way of uh compensation etc uh someone kind of advocating on your behalf is not doing that entirely without self-interest they may be for example fulfilling their own values which is valuable to them now there's nothing bad about that necessarily there's nothing wrong with that but what it does mean is if they were presented with the situation where advocating for you did not fulfill their values they were not going to be able to fulfill their values they were going to did not fulfill uh some uh self-preservation at all and here we're not just talking about survival we're talking about self-preservation of identity then it's very likely that they will not advocate for you in that situation and here we don't necessarily need to prove that someone wouldn't advocate for you at their own peril instead we need to discuss whether that makes them the best advocate for you which is the kind of the premise that we're that we're presenting here in this episode who's the best advocate for you another kind of rational uh reason why you are the best advocate for yourself is that your success uh has the longest lasting effect on you out of anybody who is affected by your success or by your advocacy you are the most impacted by this in the average case you're the most impacted by this and you're the most impacted by this in the average case you're the most impacted by this and you're the most impacted by this example uh let's say that your boss advocates for you you get a promotion you do a great job your boss has some kind of kickback benefit from this but then you leave the company now your boss may still receive some kind of latent benefits from uh that promotion that you got uh and by way of you know let's say ripple effects of the work that you did while you were while you were at that company or maybe in the form of a relational capital with you uh you're the most impacted by Maybe you refer people to your boss in the future. But you are the one who's going to have the most potent consequences in that scenario. You're the one who will carry that as a mark on your resume. You're the one who perhaps went on to a new job based on the experiences you had in that previous job. It's going to impact you more than any other single person. Now again, an argument could be made that another person is impacted perhaps close to the same amount. But again, we're trying to make the original argument, which is, how does this actually make you a better advocate for yourself than anyone else? That is because you have the highest incentive. You have the most to gain from your own advocacy. This is perhaps the short answer. This is the strongest part of the argument. You have the most to gain. You have the most incentive, the highest incentive, positive incentive as well. The highest incentive out of anyone to advocate for you. And when you combine all these factors, and there are more, when you combine these factors, it continues to paint the picture that you are your best advocate. Another supporting piece of evidence is the fact that you, are directly in tune with your own desires, emotions, nuances, your own experiences. You know the most about yourself. Now you could argue that another person who knows only the good things about you might serve as a good advocate. But this kind of gets into the detail of what an advocate really is going to do for you. In this case, understanding the nuanced details of your strengths. And the nuanced details of what you care about, the things that you like. These are going to be important kind of data points that you use in your self-advocacy. It also reduces the risks associated with any kind of delay or any kind of message transmission. Something we've been talking about on the show recently. Being your own advocate, you have this very tight feedback loop. There's very little. Loss of information between the kind of venues of advocacy, if you will. And your own parsing of those experiences. There's plenty of other reasons why you would make a great advocate for yourself. But I want to clear up some kind of predict and then clear up some misunderstandings about what I'm saying here. Some potential misunderstandings. One misunderstanding is the idea that advocacy that I'm talking about here is, you know, coaching, or, you know, somehow getting you placed in a role, you know, acting like a recruiter might, and advocating for you to receive some specific benefit. And while advocacy is part of the things that we just mentioned, that is not necessarily what we're talking about here. Because the pushback that I anticipate from this is that, well, people may not necessarily know what's best for them. People may not know what roles are out there for them, or they may not know, you know, what role am I best suited for? People may not necessarily know what kind of advice they should be giving themselves. And is in a particular situation that, you know, let's say in their current role. And really, these kinds of terms can start to get a little bit fuzzy because an advocate doesn't cover all of those bases. An advocate in the framing that I'm using here is someone who is incentivized to do the thing that will be best for you. Someone who has an incentive, a reason to go to bat for you. And of course, it helps if you can evaluate on your own behalf what you may benefit from. What kind of role do you think, would work well for you? And then use that information to inform your self-advocacy. Right? So, this may mean that because you are your own best advocate, you know that you will benefit from someone helping you. You will benefit from getting career coaching. You may benefit from reaching out, you know, to your coworkers and learning a little bit about them. And learning a little bit about how, you know, some feedback from your coworkers and learning how to act on that feedback. Whatever it is, your advocate will kind of stand in the gap for you. Right? You can stand in the gap for yourself in this case. And seek out information that would benefit you. And the important thing here is that the advocate is focused on what is the best thing that I can do for this person. Once again, you are the best person for that. You will be your own best advocate. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Developer Tea. This idea of self-advocacy is not easy all the time. Doing what's best for ourselves is not a selfish thing in and of itself. We can do things that are good for us and good for others. Recognizing that all of us are good for others. All of us are advocating for ourselves. And that that's probably the best possible option for each person. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Developer Tea. I hope you enjoyed this kind of diversion. This is a basic principle. We've been talking about principles on the show recently. A basic working principle that you can apply in your career. If you are not advocating for yourself, there's no one who is doing it better than that. The worst possible thing, the best possible advocate is going to be you. And if you are not advocating for yourself, that is the best advocacy that you are receiving at that moment. So I encourage you to do kind of a quick audit. Check in and see how have I advocated for my own self this month. That's probably a good range to put on it. Thanks so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review for the show on iTunes. This is the easiest and kind of highest impact way to help us reach more engineers like you who may enjoy Developer Tea. Also, come and join us on the Developer Tea Discord community. Head over to developertea.com slash discord. That community is continuing to thrive. It's a great place to discuss your career and questions you have about your career. That's developertea.com slash discord. Thanks so much for listening. And until next time, enjoy your tea. Thank you.