You have to learn to keep up. We have to learn to keep up. This is a part of what it means to be in this industry. It's a part of what it means to be an engineer. It always has been. You know, we've talked about this on the show quite a few times. It always has been, even more so more recently. Of course, you have to learn to keep up. And that's nothing new. In today's episode, I want to talk a little bit about a couple of signals, a couple of signals that you might watch for in yourself. Or if you have reports, maybe in your coworkers or in your reports as a manager, what are you watching for to determine if you might have a regressive mindset? A regressive mindset. What is a regressive mindset? It's someone who is regressing, they're returning, they're regressing. They're avoiding progress, right? It's kind of the opposite of progress. The regressive mindset is going to lead you to not adopting something new, for example, right? Now, I want to be super clear before we get into these things that a progressive mindset doesn't always come with immediate adoption. The opposite of regressive doesn't necessarily mean aggressive. Aggressive. Aggressive adoption. Aggressive, you know, picking up new tools or throwing out the old tool set and replacing it or constantly up, you know, a constant upheaval. That is not what we mean by progressive mindset or, you know, the opposite of regressive, right? Instead, the opposite of regressive is to continue progressing and learning. Okay. Not necessarily. Not necessarily in adoption, in change, et cetera. The thing that is changing is your orientation and understanding of the world. Right? And so this, what you're going to see in these two signals, these two kind of heuristics, you know, signals that you might be in a regressive mindset is an avoidance of learning. An avoidance of learning or a, you know, defensive mechanisms, defense mechanisms. Okay. Avoid, you know, learning more nuanced information. So the first signal that you might be in a regressive mindset is you begin to intentionally avoid or ignore information based on the category that that information is in. All right. We're going to absolutely harp on this because it's in your world now. We've been talking about it for over... I don't know, a year, over a year now. If you are avoiding information about AI just because you're tired of it or you're a skeptic or because, you know, it's scary or for any reason, for any reason, if you are intentionally clicking away from, you know, articles when you find out that they're talking about AI, it's, this isn't proof that you have a regressive mindset, but it's possible. It's possible. It's possible. Now, again, just to be clear, we're not saying that you have to read every article that mentions AI in order to combat this. But the signal here is that you're avoiding it based on the subject matter. You're avoiding it based on the fact that somebody is talking about an agent or somebody is talking about, you know, this, this subject that you, maybe you're, you've grown cynical. There's a lot of reasons why you may not want to read this thing. Um, or, or watch this video. You know, you might have the, the kind of, uh, repulsive feeling right now to this episode. It's important for you to dig into why. Um, important to dig into why, because if all you're doing is avoiding it because it's about AI, I challenge you to consider what your alternative path looks like. Okay. If you are going to avoid it. If you are going to avoid this kind of information all the time, then there's kind of an ostrich effect where you're sticking your head in the sand. You don't want to reckon with, uh, you don't want to deal with, you don't want to have to manage whatever changes are going to happen as a result of the changing world around you. And this, that may not be how you're cognitively or like intentionally thinking about this, which is why you're listening to this episode. Hopefully you haven't clicked away yet. Okay. Because that mindset will eventually lead you to just being behind. Right. And maybe becoming, um, you know, a little bit out of touch with the state of the art and what it takes to continue being competitive as a software engineer, as the world changes. So try to figure out, does that signal exist? Are you clicking away the moment you see agents because you are just tired of hearing of it? Um, then maybe it's time to take a break, right? Maybe it's time to go on a vacation. Um, but if you're clicking away because you can't be bothered or because, um, you know, you're, you're highly skeptical or if you are avoiding information because it feels uncomfortable, it's a different story. It's worth investigating why and what you think your alternative route look like. Are you going to continue avoiding that information? Forever? I would argue that that's impossible. The second signal that you might be in a regressive mindset is you begin to tie. This is a little bit nuanced. You begin to tie a concept to a person or vice versa. Um, again, going back to kind of the same concept, let's say you are, let's say your organization has come out with a new policy. Congratulations. You all have to adopt agent. Uh, agentic engineering, right? Um, I imagine that many of you, if not all of you are in a spot where this is becoming just a very real thing for you, that your organization is, is enforcing this in some way. Maybe you're token maxing, whatever, whatever. Um, now if you're in this position and it's early on, you may have had a person. Um, a lot of organizations have these couple of people. Who are sort of carrying the flag for the, for the initiative, right? You may have labeled them the AI enthusiast. Now the signal that you want to be listening for in yourself or looking for in others is whether that, uh, label has essentially kind of replaced what that person means to you in their work. Right. Not necessarily, uh, you know, I'm going to be clear what I mean here. Um, that you're essentially like using their interest. In AI as a symbol for all of their value or all of what they bring to the table that you're kind of doing a substitution there. And, uh, you're calling them, you know, the AI guy or that the AI enthusiast, right? And, uh, because of that, maybe if you're, again, if you're in that cynical position, you may also be dismissing a lot of what they say. Uh, even things that don't have anything to do with your agentic engineering practice. At all. You may be attributing some negative, uh, you know, cognitive, um, uh, association with this person because of what they're interested in or the information that they are gathering. This is actually kind of the same as the first signal, right? You are avoiding information kind of by proxy in this case. So, uh, uh, you know, and then, so the flip side is true. If you have a person that you don't. Trust or, or that for whatever reason, um, you know, you're, you're not interested, interested in what they have to say, and they're bringing a topic to the table. It is likely a regressive mindset. It's you're going to learn less. You're going to avoid information. You're avoiding information because of who is bringing it to the table, right? This is kind of related to, uh, fundamental attribution error, um, where you attribute somebody. Uh, uh, you know, uh, you, you essentially decide that a person has made a bad decision because they themselves are not capable, right? Or they themselves are not intelligent or they themselves are lacking in some fundamental way, right? Fundamental attribution is an attribute of who they are. Um, that is, you know, longer standing than just a simple mistake or something like that. This is kind of similar to that. Because you have. Um, you have this information that they might be bringing to the table. And because you, for whatever reason, you have this fundamental attribution, uh, perspective on them. In other words, you don't think that they are trustworthy or that they're a good engineer or something. Maybe it's a, another function. They're bringing information to the table and you dismiss the information outright. Then you're going to, uh, uh, that's a regressive mindset because you're, uh, you're essentially missing out on what might be valuable. Information, regardless of whether that person has those fundamental attributes or not. The first version of this is more associated with our current kind of state of the world. The current, um, uh, uh, you know, adoption of agents, et cetera, that we've talked about a million times on the show. Um, that you are going to essentially, you're going to kind of throw people into a bucket of, oh, that person, right? This is, this is the common, the common behavior. That person. That person has kind of drank the Kool-Aid they're in on agents there. You know, they have AI psychosis. I don't need to listen to anything else they have to say because they've kind of proven who they are. Right. Um, this is, this is a regressive mindset for sure. And, um, you have to be aware of this because again, just says with the S the first signal, what is your alternative? Is your intent to ignore what they say? Do you believe that this person? Is so wrong that they will fail and you don't have to care about what they have to say? Is that the, do you believe that's the longterm? Do you think that this person is, you know, ultimately going to have to.