The builder's mindset: a way out of the "drill sergeant" / "Zen master" dichotomy

Here's a radically new way to relate to your work.

[For a fuller elaboration of this mindset and its philosophical contraries, see A different and better way to live.]

Almost every ambitious person I know has at some point found themselves caught in a battle between two seemingly opposite mindsets, with neither bringing full satisfaction or optimal performance. These mindsets show up in many guises and go by many different names, but for present purposes I’ll refer to them as follows¹:

1: The drill sergeant mindset (“outcome-over-process”)

2: The Zen master mindset (“process-over-outcome”)

The way of the drill sergeant

This is the traditional “authoritarian” approach to (self-)management: the unforgiving voice of judgment and reproach whose sole focus seems to be on getting you to “succeed.” It's the voice in your head that says things like:

• “Get to work, you lazy idiot”

• “You’re pathetic”

• “What the hell is wrong with you?”

• “You’ll never be good enough”

Not coincidentally, the markers of success that matter to this mindset tend to be of the gener…