Do Programmers Confuse Intelligence with WISDOM?

After my first decade of coding, I learned so much I thought: "I must be at least somewhat intelligent, right?". But there was something more valuable I lacked - wisdom. Without wisdom, you'll make decisions in your career that look right in the short term - but turn out disastrous over time.
Wisdom is the ability to make decisions when the rules don't apply. There's no book you can read, no guide to follow, and no clear cut answer. It's derived from experience, sound judgment, a broad perspective, and considering the ethical implications of a decision. And if you learn to cultivate wisdom, you can achieve the things that really matter in your career - and life.
In this episode I share why people in tech careers often mistake intelligence for wisdom. Then I'll help you understand why our industry is so prone to making unwise decisions. I'll go on to help you see the dangerous outcomes of short-term thinking. And finally, I'll share some practical things you can do to become a wiser programmer - and technologist in general.
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CHAPTER MARKERS
0:00 Introduction
1:23 Defining Intelligence and Wisdom
2:14 Stories of Intelligence and Wisdom
5:10 1. How Tech Jobs Confuse Intelligence and Wisdom
5:20 1.1 Equating Problem Solving with Broad Insight
6:27 1.2 Prioritizing Speed over Sustainability
7:51 1.3 Specializing vs Holistic Understanding
9:44 2. How Ignoring Wisdom Hurts Us in Tech
9:51 2.1 Ethical Implications
12:42 2.2 Short-Term Over Long-Term Thinking
13:45 3. How To Be a Wiser Technologist
13:52 3.1 Expand Your Breadth of Knowledge
16:35 3.2 Get a Mentor
18:30 3.3 Reflect and Be Mindful
22:02 3.4 Seek the Counsel of Generalists
25:02 3.5 Engage with Non-Technical Communities
#programming #wisdom #programmer

[@HealthyDev]

Have you ever been faced with a problem where you couldn't find a book, podcast, or person who could tell you which way to go? How do you go about cultivating wisdom in your tech career? ►► Get your free Healthy Software Development career guide → healthysoftwaredeveloper.com/guide/

[@douglascounts4634]

"who could tell you which way to go?"

[@monterreymxisfun3627]

Intelligence makes you able to work on almost any project. Wisdom is knowing which projects NOT to work on.

[@bitchesdontgotoheaven2184]

pretty deep. i dig it

[@RemmelttenNapel]

Perfect ❤

[@calmhorizons]

Intelligence is when you tell the stakeholder how it can be done. Wisdom is when you tell them why it shouldn't be.

[@robbertou]

Ofcourse anyone with wisdom wouldn't have become a programmer to begin with

[@dinoscheidt]

Word.

[@user-cr8ik2bb9y]

Why not?What would wise man become - a monk?

[@JorgetePanete]

Of course*

[@bitchesdontgotoheaven2184]

is your comment kind of a joke btw ? cuz if you truly mean it... then either you are a programmer and you are aware you aren't wise, or you are not a programmer and you have abs no frickin clue what ur talking about. either way, i consider myself wise and am a backend dev so.. you are inherently incorrect. i am just stating that for the record, over 30 people agree with you so i had to ... i just had to :D

[@ffatheranderson]

😁👍🏻

[@KaitoQueiroz]

Same as you, the book “Continuous Delivery” was a game changer in my career. Another suggestion is trying to have more exposure out of the tech knowledge. Like psychology, history, finance, philosophy, theology (if it’s your case), etc. Technology is important to get updated, but I think is good to learn things that will make you a better human being and able to manage your health, mind, socialising, financial health, relationships, etc. Your life is not your job. When someone asks who are you, have something better to say than what you do for work.

[@HealthyDev]

Agree 💯

[@XueYlva]

I agree your life is not your job unless you're a lucky mfer and actually love your job that much Your point still stands though

[@netgamersk]

​@@XueYlva I would argue that everyone who is programming started at least with some of the love for it. Myself included. It's just that companies know that, they'll try get the most advantage of this while they can. You may not realize it at that moment but I think this is the time when burnout really starts to form. It's just all about balancing it. My life philosophy is based around balance. Despite I love what I do I also try to detach myself from it. It's just a work in the end of the day. Of course it's important having passion and fulfillment in what you do but as well it's important to realize that meeting some arbitrary deadlines isn't what should you worry about. We're not doctors that we have dying patient on the table and we have to decide quick how to save them, same for firefighters and other professions. That's just my two cents.

[@tacorevenge87]

As a programmer I can state that Tech people in general are arrogant and far from wise .

[@knw-seeker6836]

Your Perspective is really interesting A lot of people act like there is only work and money Yet they’re not noticing that their health and so many other areas suffer and often it’s very late when they realize

[@HealthyDev]

That’s me in a nutshell. But you probably know that if you watched my burnout episode 😉

[@deepfuchsia7204]

This reminds me about what I read in Plato's dialogues. Socrates engaged in conversations with various craftsmen, artisans, and professionals in Athens as part of his philosophical inquiries. He spoke with them to explore their understanding of their own expertise and wisdom. Turned out that while these individuals had practical skills and knowledge in their specific trades, they often lacked a deeper understanding of virtue, wisdom, and other philosophical concepts.

[@yurisich]

My personal, "go to" wisdom domain is general home contracting. The way the specialists all fit together in phases can help contextualize the current state of team based software development processes. Particularly, the standardization efforts of the 1970's surrounding things like dimensional lumber, residential electrical codes, and the constant innovations in HVAC in particular. Retrofitting an old house for new work without going down to the studs is a worthwhile endeavor, if only to learn the fundamentals of home ownership.

[@TravisHi_YT]

Yep, I watch a property inspector and understanding that there's a code and requirement for how to build every single part of a house, helps me understand that as builders ourselves, we should have the same. There's nothing more annoying than differing opinions on how to format things for example. Just pick one and keep doing it that way across all projects, all I can say is thank goodness for prettier.

[@jokelot5221]

Good video, very helpful, i will sub. I am a Java Developer, currently developing a smaller business with apps im making for some medical health centers in my country, its going well. Of course, there has been some ups and downs in my programming journey as well, but its very important to find inspiration of why you do programming in the first place, and not give up easily until you answer that question. For me, programming is like a tool that sharpens my creativity and general intelect, that are my biggest sources of motivation for me, but of course, not all the time i feel great when i code. What many people dont realize is that we are only humans, not robots, so we wont always be able to have our best performance in the things we do. What i figured out, is that people nowadays, and i noticed that with myself also, are overstimulated with social media, youtube and internet in general. Im not that big on social media, dont use that very much, but i do platforms like youtube. So when i reduce the time i spend on the internet, my performance and motivation improves. Reading books, exercise, doing activities that arent related to programming only, can widen the perspective and clense the brain. And i can see you are man of faith, i am as well, so nice to see that with my colleagues.

[@HealthyDev]

Welcome to the channel!

[@gabrielpinheirodecarvalho8023]

I just want to take a time to appreciate your efforts on making your videos. You are doing great! Keep going

[@HealthyDev]

Thanks for the encouragement! It means more than you know. 🙏

[@MyCodingDiarie]

Your energy and enthusiasm are contagious. Love it!

[@HealthyDev]

Thank you. ❤

[@MyCodingDiarie]

I've watched this video multiple times. Never gets old!

[@ElAlphaChad]

Wasting years on specializing in a profession requires neglecting everything else.

[@Ced3kGama]

Yup. Specialization is not about having extraordinary skill or talent, but to deny all the others.

[@Daroqe]

rather be a jack of all trades than a master of one

[@Minecraftpecake]

Thanks u helped me so much with my junior dev carrer so far!

[@HealthyDev]

That's awesome! So glad to hear. 🙏

[@carlosirias4474]

Excellent comments on this topic. Thanks.

[@gregorriusadolphus2729]

I think another worthwhile discussion would be can you be a programmer AND have high EQ? Just in my experience, 90% do NOT LOL

[@ErnaSolbergXXX]

Its funny how that mindset is exactly why it is this way. «We need make sure we have a good environment for the developers» and this will attrackt a certain group of people and make sure another group of people cant stand it.

[@Gnoll-1337]

Amazing wisdom, thank you so much for sharing

[@HealthyDev]

You are so welcome

[@alandoe6622]

You dear sir are gold! I am grateful for your insightful, more importantly, well articulate content.

[@glyph_official]

The GMO metaphor is kind of unfortunate. See Wikipedia's "Genetically modified food" page under "Health and safety": "There is a scientific consensus that currently available food derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food". There are plenty of things that qualify for extreme examples of this sort of unintended harm in the food system (microplastics, PFAs, tetraethyl lead) that you don't need to scaremonger about relatively safe technology like GM foods.

[@HealthyDev]

Consider checking out the book "Seeds of Deception". You'll find information that explains why the consensus appears to be universal from a scientific perspective - but it most certainly isn't. As with many things online, there's often special interests and money involved in whitewashing unfortunate complications.

[@monad_tcp]

GMOs are bad just from an ideological point of view. They're all subject to IP laws, you absolutely don't want food to be property in a way that it can't be freely cultivated by anyone. Food should always be public domain, its genetic code should always be free to use, no questions asked, like all natural crops are. After the seed is sold, the farmer should be free to replant any derivative seed. The fact that they make sterile plants is unacceptable. You don't even need to start debating if they're scientifically safe or not, it doesn't even matter.

[@jamestucker4800]

@glyph_official really proving the videos point here with the lack of wisdom. "Scientific consensus" can be easily bought for a price, this is extremely common knowledge, not to mention the enormous replication crisis currently.

[@glyph_official]

​@@jamestucker4800 The idea that everyone is corrupt, that science doesn't work, and that institutions are inherently dysfunctional is not wisdom; it is cynicism dressing up in a wisdom costume for a halloween party. I am well aware of the replication crisis, and the implications it has for public trust in science, which is exactly why it's important to be informed specifically *on the merits of each specific issue*. Which is why I provided a specific independent citation for evaluating the reliability and bias of the particular author in this case, and why I went with an independent media bias org that is unlikely to have a dog in this particular fight, rather than other critics who are researchers (who, to be clear, I personally find reputable) whose funding might be dependent upon Monsanto. This is actually a thing that applies super well in the context of software engineering as well, something that has been a theme of this channel! It's easy to form broad generalizations about the impact of a technology, but if you want to be successful, you need to take a careful look at the specifics of any given situation and whether that technology is appropriate. Maybe legacy framework X is really bad, but if you look at the context of a project that is a small modification to a huge system written using X, it actually makes sense to mitigate the problems with X rather than rewrite. Or, maybe those problems are so severe that a rewrite *is* warranted. It all depends on the facts of the individual situation.

[@HealthyDev]

@@glyph_officiali appreciate your attempt to cite reliable sources. I think that's great. And I agree that we have a big problem with the public’s lack of trust in science. However it's not completely unfounded. The scientific community has sold some serious lies over the years. Now I don't make a blanket assumption that everything science says is automatically false though in the face of that. So equally, I think it's probably a stretch to assume anyone who questions science is saying it's all wrong, and they are just a conspiracy theorist who sees corruption in everything. In this case we're talking about one specific issue - GMOs. You cited Wikipedia, which is a great resource for tons of knowledge. However you probably know information there can be gamed. Regardless of whether it is in this case, or the editors of those articles are simply misinformed by the same information the public believes, that book I cited may be a real eye opener.

[@AkhilJain]

Lot to absorb, really good video

[@RobertHorvat93]

Happy to see you are also a man of faith (from your church mention). I'm happy you use your guitar skills in worship 😊. Bless you and keep up the great content ! Love from Romania

[@HealthyDev]

Thank you. I actually don't use my guitar in worship. It's just something I do personally.

[@errrzarrr]

Of course there's a lot of information and knowledge in software, but not so much wisdom. Otherwise software wouldn't have so naively allowed be taken control by Scrum gurus and Scrum Masters. Non-technical people who openly despise technical people with a 2-day certification in Total control of the process and joy of creating software

[@raccoons_stole_my_account]

Absolutely true. Amount of managers who as you said openly despise technologists who make them money is insane. We need to fight back and protect our dignity...

[@ErnaSolbergXXX]

7:18 everybody is making a wise descisions, but that is based whatever information is available at the momenet. What is really the key is to be able to «look into the future» and make sure you understand the long term consequences of what you are doing

[@DieterPrivate]

Wisdom is sadly lacking in lots of programmers, which makes it a pain to work with them. Also, it's not always a lack of wisdom, but chasing money and fame that takes priority.

[@ordinarygg]

Why someone buys your coaching if everything is already here in youtube))) thanks for the content!!

[@HealthyDev]

Good question. Coaching is where I help people with specific issues in their career. It's not something that can be done just by watching a bunch of videos. It's where I help people achieve a specific outcome by working closely with them. Hope that makes sense.

[@gsit80]

I was in London back in 2010 and I was always convinced that Americans won WW2 when I was talking with somebody. In another occasion I discovered that the communists won WW2. For sure project management skills are useful.

[@monad_tcp]

Well, in London, they certainly have won

[@niksatan]

Great smart video, above similar videos on yt

[@AsdrubaleRossi]

I have the opposite problem. Since when I was in high school, I had more wisdom than the average person, and it only grew from there. My problem is knowledge and skills, and that's equally hard to grow

[@gediminasmorkys3589]

The challenge is to work in a position where your wisdom is valued more than your intelligence, and you can use it to boost the work of the intelligent teammates. This could mean doing product owner/analyst/project manager/tech lead work, where actual business value is considered more than the way code is written.

[@AsdrubaleRossi]

@@gediminasmorkys3589 yeah, I know, but have you tried applying for an entry level job as a project manager, architect or tech lead? Also, I don't speak the local language, so I'll never get into any of those things anytime soon. The only way you can get there quickly is through a trainee program in a large company, but that's boring. I'll just keep being an average engineer and get the experience I need to get there.

[@Pest87]

I loved the GMO example.

[@JorgetePanete]

How do we deal with a company that doesn't push its clients to, for example, let us add testing to the app and not commit to absurd deadlines? The company just complains about having no time/money, while wasting all time in weeks long manual testing...

[@HealthyDev]

Great question. First I would ask, how much trust have you built with management? They may be frustrated that overall projects have problems, but have you been able to deliver on your commitments fairly consistently? This has a big impact on how much they’ll be willing to listen. Second, how bad is the pain? They may be frustrated, but often I find it’s not until a customer is lost or some other negative event that people are able to be open to new ways of doing things. Third, can you propose to help them with their problems with a tiny aspect of everything you see is wrong? If you can demonstrate improvement in one thing (perhaps testing) they’ll be more likely to heed advice you might offer about estimating and commitments in the future. If you haven’t already, consider checking out the episode I did about persuasion. Everything I’ve mentioned here is covered in more detail there. Hope that helps a bit!

[@JorgetePanete]

@@HealthyDev I had checked the episode about persuasion, I think I hadn't built trust since I was only there for 6 months, but I delivered on my tasks and proposed better code practices, they were adamant on doing the minimum for each task since they were consumed by deadlines

[@HealthyDev]

@@JorgetePanetemakes sense. I guess you may have to wait until the current fire is out to get them in the state of mind to be more open. Patience is really hard!

[@cassandrasinclair8722]

The GMO comment was totally wrong and utterly unnecessary btw.

[@gediminasmorkys3589]

healthy => software.developer Unless I am reading your code wrong, you are inputting "healthy" (something), and outputting a property of "software" called a "developer". I have to call WTF on this. You got 100% WTF per line of code (Technically, it's just one line. I don't care for your formatting here, this could have been a one-liner). Explain yourself.

[@HealthyDev]

Healthy is an anonymous method. It’s up to us to choose what aspects of health to focus on. In my case, being a software developer. Developers are only one property of software, but that’s the role I focus on the most. In conclusion, it’s a brand logo 😊

[@Norstator]

I've been following this channel for a couple of years and was overwhelmed on how I felt suddenly understood. It was like there's a voice that speaks out how I feel. Someone who probably did encounter the same ugly type of management people I did and went through scrum hell. However the religous content emerging lately is something that is too tough for me to listen to. It's not been an easy decision but this is where my journey and my subscription ends. Thank you for all the outstanding videos and the advice and help they provided.

[@HealthyDev]

Glad you got some value out of it. Thanks for watching.

[@TravisTennies]

Sad that young people ignore the truly wise people because they think they're "old". And yeah, most celebrities are completely clueless as to what makes a country GREAT! :( Crud world we live in now. I hate it.

[@philipoakley5498]

It's always the teenagers who down to the basement in the vampire movies. What goes around comes around ;-)

[@gantamk]

Like Elon Musk (and his fans) believe he is an expert in geo politics and got good ideas about the Ukraine-Russia war.

[@gzoechi]

Wise people don't work as programmers (and most other employments)

[@Jaryt]

When you mentioned automation pushing people out of jobs, how are some ways we can reconcile that? Of course, at the end of the day its the company using our software making those decisions, but I want to be able to automate tasks to provide employees with the ability to achieve more, rather than them losing their employment. Luckily, I'm still at the point where our software just enriches our customer's workflows, rather than making anyone within a company redundant. Still, I would like to do automation, but ideally circumvent any blow back on people in those roles. A potential solution I have around this are working with customers are to adapt the employees roles around the automations, so that the entire company is more efficient overall. Another idea, which is less pragmatic and more idealistic, is to guarantee coverage of wages for any robotic replacements. That'd have to be at a regulatory level to have any sort of effect though. I worry that this is going to be a huge problem before there's even a solution proposed. Yet we all see it coming eventually.

[@gediminasmorkys3589]

The same amount of people doing more through automation might not be such a nice solution either. Sure, they keep their jobs. But what about the impact on the world? We already produce and consume so much. Do you really want to kick that into hyperdrive with automation?

[@HealthyDev]

It’s a tough question. I can’t say I know the ultimate solution. I mostly brought this up as an example of the negative effects short term decisions can have.

[@joshuamartin5085]

Jokes on them when the majority of their jobs are gone in 4 years lol.

[@mumuchi9594]

hey is it just me who thinks that im extremely stupid ???

[@HealthyDev]

In my experience the more stupid you think you are, the higher your emotional intelligence (and self awareness) YMMV.

[@raccoons_stole_my_account]

Most of IT field is cargo cult and fashion. Shockingly little actually based on any real verified, validated foundation. I work in web related area and the amount of bullshit we do is astronomical. Wisdom is badly needed.