How to master IT Automation
Most companies strive for IT Automation. While some make it seem effortless others are kind of stuck in the process. This article will show how to master IT Automation.
Approaching things with half power will not lead to mastery. Even though this is obvious many people don’t even get close to their full potential. No one has ever figured out what their full potential was. In 1869 no one could have imagined that a century later man would land on the moon. Who would have imagined in 1969 that 50 years later all the computational power that was necessary for the Apollo program would fit into a pocket calculator.
We never know what our true potential is and we will never be able to more of it unless we search for it. IT Automation seems to be a discipline that is essentially technical in nature. Everyone dealing with it knows that he has do develop more and more knowledge in this field. But often times we are so busy acquiring new knowledge that we don’t have time to deal with the basics. Our focus is so narrowed that we are no longer able to look what is left and right of our path.
What we totally miss out is that knowledge does not lead to mastery. Everyone knows that smoking is unhealthy. However there are 1 billion of smokers around the world. Why do they do this? Because they don’t what it actually means. Mastery comes not from knowledge but from understanding. Understanding comes not from reading but from experience. Experience does not happen in our mind, it happens in our heart. Knowledge alone doesn’t do us any good.
In order to master IT Automation we have to go through 3 levels: Technical, mental and emotional.
Technical mastery
Mastering our field technically means we have to understand how things are going and why they are the way they are. Memorizing all the options of each linux command is good for efficiency but it does not bring us any closer to mastery. On the other hand if we write our own http server in C we will understand how things are working together. As soon as we understand what we are doing, we don’t have to memorize it at all.
Mental mastery
As long as we purely focus on the technical part of IT Automation we will not discover the levels beyond it. Everyone knows people who are experts in their field but can’t get along with other people. If anything goes wrong it is always someone elses fault, there is always someone else who is repsonsible. What we have to understand is that we ourselves are those kind of people. We are the ones who blame others and never admit any mistake. Reponsibility does not mean that “others” are responsible it means that we are accountable to ourselves for what we do. Mental mastery means to take full repsoniblity for everything we do.
Emotional mastery
Emotional mastery is the deepest level we can get to. A prerequisite is that we master the mental level first. Most of the people around us don’t even think about emotional mastery. Having goals like serving more customers, progress and earning more money are all desirable but these are things that happen all in our minds rather than our hearts. If we really want to know why we do the things we do we have to dig deeper and deeper and find our true mission.
For all of those 3 levels there is no shortcut. Copy and paste does not work, we have to go through all 3 levels by ourselves. Even though we look for our true potential our entire life we will never be able to find it.
A simple question reveals where you are on your path to mastery: “What are your feelings if you think about your retirement?”
