Knowing everything about anything is impossible. When we see ourselves as experts, we can easily become blindsided.
Even Steve Jobs had the humility to know and to openly admit that he could not predict where technology was going to be in five years.
Regardless of how much you learn. Regardless of the recognition you may get over time. — Never forget to cultivate and treat the knowledge you acquire with the humility it begets.

Treat knowledge with humility

<ol>
<li>Practice good deeds and celebrate success in silence. The point is to do good. Not to elevate your status.</li>
<li>Always assume good intentions and don't take anything personally.</li>
<li>Set clear expectations for what you want out of a relationship as soon and revisit them as often as possible.</li>
<li>Know when to give something up. The time, money and energy you invested doesn't make it more worthwhile. Keep the concept of sunk costs in mind.</li>
<li>Don't waste time or energy in things you cannot change.</li>
<li>Stand up for what you believe in. Be willing to walk alone if you have to.</li>
<li>Embrace your uniqueness. No one else in the entire world thinks the way you do or has your life experience. And that's your unfair advantage.</li>
<li>Trust yourself and your decisions.</li>
<li>Extreme people get extreme results. Work as hard as you can.</li>
<li>Focus on the things that don't change. The books, technologies, ideas, relationships that are likely to still be here in 50 years.</li>
<li>Prioritise practical experience over books and theory. The shorter the feedback cycle, the better.</li>
<li>Admit your mistakes and shortcomings openly and emphatically. That will make you grow.</li>
<li>Be humble with knowledge. What you know is so much less than what you don't know. And every person knows more about something than you do.</li>
<li>Surround yourself with people who challenge you and help you grow.</li>
<li>Be consistent and practice your craft deliberately but be patient with results. It takes time but sooner or later they'll come. Keep showing up and doing the work.</li>
<li>Reject most labels and boxes. Don't let them define who you are or who you can become.</li>
<li>Cultivate disobedience. In yourself and others. That's how new knowledge is created and how society evolves.</li>
<li>Seek to understand the world. Leave your bubble and travel as often as you can on your own.</li>
<li>Don't try to be perceived as smart. That will keep you from learning and connecting with people genuinely.</li>
<li>Question everything about yourself and about what you believe in. Don't be afraid of changing your mind or seeming inconsistent.</li>
</ol>

Turning 26.

<a href="https://rsms.me/">Rasmus Andersson</a>, known for designing the <a href="https://rsms.me/inter/">Inter typeface</a>, co-creating Spotify and GraphQL, and shaping Figma as lead designer, is one of my personal heroes. I look up to him for his proficiency in both design and computer science. Something I too aspire to achieve. Besides the work everyone knows about, he spends his time tinkering and creating <a href="https://rsms.me/projects/">other projects</a>. Among them multiple programming languages.
Mastering both design and software is no small feat. And since I'm graduating soon, I decided to reach out and ask for advice. He was kind enough to share his thoughts on <a href="https://twitter.com/rsms/status/1645135344134942721">a tweetstorm</a> I'm sharing here in a compiled format.
<h3>Rasmus Andersson:</h3>
Every person is different and we all have a unique perspective, so it's hard to give general advice, but anyhow:
Do! Make! Do a lot of work, do A LOT of work. The saying that in order to be great at something, you have to do it 10 000 times is true (in most cases.)
You can read all the books in the world about playing soccer but the only way you can be a great soccer player is (obviously) by playing a lot of soccer (and maybe reading a few books.) The same is true for any path to mastery — you have to practice, a lot.
Now, about software design vs engineering. Think about software the way you'd think about furniture: To build a good chair you need to consider everything from reason and personality to materials and maintenance.
There are of course people specialized in many aspects of furniture: materials, types of furniture, part of the process (ie. concepts, development, production etc.) and so on. But as a designer of a chair you can'd do a good job without considering and prototyping the whole.
It is important to find your specialization of course, otherwise you will have a hard time selling yourself (ie. what—concretely—do you bring to the table?)
What I often see in the software industry is people putting themselves into silos (which is different from specialization.) For example someone who only does motion design but would never imagine actually implementing an animation in e.g. an iOS app (for prototyping purposes.)
A furniture designer doing that would be pretty terrible at designing chairs;
"I design the most exquisite legs"
Very pretty! But they break if you put the chair on a carpet and apply lateral force, so we can't ship that.
I think it’s REALLY hard to take this advice to heart in the insanely-fast paced software industry. The idea that you might have to work hard for 5-10 years to get to where you want to be might seem crazy when the software people build only lasts for a fraction of that time.
<hr>
Rasmus's advice echoes what other people I admire have told me in the past. Working hard and <a href="https://moonwith.com/posts/train">showing up every day</a> probably matters more than any other thing. Sometimes it can be discouraging not see results right away but we have to have faith. Trust the process.
And regarding bold goals and achieving mastery: Only we can know who we can be. — Never forget that.

Advice from Rasmus Andersson

We can change the thoughts that naturally come to our mind by deciding to take charge of the things we focus on.
When we ask ourselves the same question every single day, we train our minds to focus on that.
Where are you putting your attention? What do you ask yourself every night before going to bed?

Control your frame

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Treat knowledge with humility

Turning 26.

Advice from Rasmus Andersson