​The Unknown Attribute to Help You Become an Expert Global Engineer

Or: Make Time Work for You

If you want to become a great engineer (particularly a great global engineer), then there is one capability that matters more than most people realise.
It is not domain knowledge. It is not even intelligence. Most people think of those.
It is your relationship with time.
This idea is explored in The Time Paradox, by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd. I also noted this in my book. The Time Paradox examines how people orient themselves toward the past, present, and future; and how those orientations shape behaviour, achievement, and satisfaction.
The important orientation I am talking about here is the future focus – because of its link to successful people.
The key to the future focus is the attitude that what you do now will pay off in the future.
You don’t try to frame problems, or apply first principles, or think systemically, see no immediate change in outcome, and then think: well, that didn’t work; what a waste of time!
You work on these skills now, and tomorrow and the day after that. Knowing that each time you do, you get a bit better at it.
If you go to the gym each day and lift weights, then you’re going to get muscles. If you keep on working deliberately on developing core engineering skills, then you’re going to become an excellent engineer – and keep getting better.
You probably already have a strong future focus – but there is likely room for improvement.
Because you are an engineer, you had to get through your degree. You gave up a significant number of years to invest in your engineering knowledge for a better outcome.
Still, you might have just taken it one step at a time or simply responded to each task put in front of you during your studies – viewing this time as a student as simply what you do and making the most of the present.
Think now about how you viewed this when you studied. Were you thinking about how each action was going to make for a better future or were you just doing what you did and making the most out of your situation at the time? This will help you work out your future focus tendency.
Does it work?
Have you ever noticed some people who are not that bright, but have still been successful?
You have likely come across people where you have thought “How did they get to that level?”
They simply do not seem to have that much going on upstairs and yet they have a senior role.
They might have been lucky, but the likely had a strong future focus. So they were able to keep on working on mastering key skills that were needed to get the role they wanted – and they are probably still working on getting the next role.
That can be you!
But what could be stopping you from having this perspective.
Have you ever met someone who just seems to react to everything? They don’t plan, they never seem organised, and they never seem to just pull it together.
These are people who have no future perspective. The things that rob people of a future perspective are:

• Culture – some cultures are more hedonistic, and they focus more on enjoying the present.
• Stability – if you come from a place or time that was economically or politically unstable, then you learn that there is no benefit in long-term plans. You simply focus on surviving each threat and stay ready for the next.
• Bad luck – some people have just had plan after plan invalidated by circumstance. Probability says it will happen to someone – even in a stable place and time. So that someone has misfortune, and then they lose their future focus.

Ask yourself now if your background discourages a future focus. If it does, then you know you need to start thinking more about how your actions now will pay off in the future. Especially when it comes to improving your engineering skills.
If your background does encourage a future focus, then you can probably still improve it further.
You have likely heard about the idea that you need ten thousand hours (or ten years) of practice to become skilled at something. So you likely know, logically, that time is needed. But is it having a strong future focus that allows you actually to put that time in – and keep at it after that.
So think now about maintaining a future focus so you can stay on the journey to engineering excellence and all that will come from it – be it material or personal gratification.