Trying to take over the world.
One of the things I have hated most in my career as a data scientist, is that nothing turns out the way I planned. Ever.
Each and every time I have a killer idea it fails, or succeeds for a completely different reason than I predicted.
It reminds me of a TV show I watched growing up called Pinky and the Brain. Every night, Pinky would ask the Brain, “what are we going to do tonight Brain?” And The Brain would answer: “same thing we do every night Pinky…try to take over the world!”
And every night, they failed. But the next night they were at it again with a new, crazy plan. My career working with data has felt a lot like this. A series of failures.
But, weirdly enough, I have come to love failing.
Whenever I concoct a hare-brained scheme that inevitably doesn’t work, I discover something far more interesting.
Sometimes it is an out of the box idea from a colleague, a tough lesson in consequences or just another hare-brained scheme, with a little bit more information to work with: my latest failure.
There is a unique beauty in a result that is completely unexpected. It hints at a vast mystery, hidden, just out of reach. It reminds me just how small I am and how limited my perspective is. It reminds me why I love data science.
It is the art of making mistakes and learning from them.
Every hypothesis is imperfect, every experimental design flawed, every model a flimsy attempt at describing something far more complex. But as I have accepted this, gotten comfortable with leaning into my mistakes, I’ve realised something.
I can sit back, relax, and enjoy my unique meanderings through the problems that cross my path. Maybe I will find a solution, maybe I won’t, but what I do know is I am going to love the journey I take to get there.
If you have just tackled your first problem or have been at it for a decade or more, be kind to yourself. Be true to who you are and how you work. Embark on your next adventure comfortable in the knowledge that it will be unexpected, confronting and wonderful.
Hey! Don’t just sit there – it’s time to try and take over the world. Again.
