I spent twenty years saying “I can do that!”
Which, in retrospect, is probably why I wrote a book called Shouldology.
Which, in retrospect, is probably why I wrote a book called Shouldology.
I’m Jared Heymann. I’ve been a scientist, professor, corporate R&D leader, startup CEO, coach, writer, and several other things that seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. For a long time I interpreted that range as capability.
I can do that.
Those four words opened a lot of doors. They also made it easy to keep walking through doors without asking whether I wanted to be in the room.
I have a chemistry Ph.D. from Duke and spent most of my career in science and innovation. I never really felt much like a scientist.
There’s a scene in Ghostbusters where Sigourney Weaver tells Bill Murray he doesn’t seem like a scientist, he seems more like a game-show host. I always loved that line. It took me a decade to understand why.
I could do the science. I liked solving problems. I loved learning. But the part that consistently energized me was taking something complicated, working out what was actually going on, and explaining it to someone else. That, I’m increasingly convinced, is the level where we create value.
One of my favorite shows was The Pretender, whose main character could walk into almost any profession, work out how the system operated, adopt the identity, and solve a larger problem. It took me years to notice why I liked it. I didn’t want a professional identity. I wanted the activity underneath all of them.
That pattern showed up whether I was teaching chemistry, developing consumer products, leading teams, building a startup, or writing a book about why successful people get stuck.
The costumes changed.
The underlying activity didn’t.
I call that deeper pattern our Source Code, and it’s one of the ideas underneath Shouldology. It’s also why I think Angela Duckworth’s case for grit and David Epstein’s case for range aren’t opposite instructions. They may be describing different layers of the same person.
I write, speak, teach, coach, and occasionally consult on questions about work, decisions, leadership, and human behavior. They usually start somewhere ordinary.
Then I go one question deeper, which is where it gets interesting.
Underneath the career changes, the pineapples, the plywood, and the pop culture is a simple obsession. I like understanding why people and systems behave the way they do, especially when the obvious explanation feels incomplete. Complicated ideas become useful once you can actually remember them, which is most of why the metaphors exist.
I’m skeptical of easy formulas. I’m interested in failure before we turn it into inspiration. I like ideas that survive contact with real life. And I think the most useful insights tend to live in the gaps between disciplines rather than safely inside one of them.
Most of my work starts the same way.
Huh. That’s interesting.
Why does that happen?
Then I keep digging.