The Highlander
I was sitting in Paul Randal-Tripp’s (blog | @PaulRandal) session at PASS last week (he saved me a seat in the front row bless his heart) and listened to him talk about logging and recovery. At some point Jonathan Kehayias (blog | @SQLSarg) asked a question and I remember hearing the question, thinking that I knew the answer, and listened to Paul’s response. And at that very moment I was struck with the most incredible thought:
I understand what they are saying.
Five years ago I was at my first PASS conference, sitting in on a pre-con being given by Kimberly Tripp (blog | @KimberlyLTripp). And I understood maybe a tenth of what she was saying at the time. I still have my handouts from her talk with all my notes that say “find out what the hell she just said right here”. I was not new to SQL Server, but I was very new to the inner depths of the product, and Kim was going into some deeper knowledge than I was used to hearing. I understood enough, but some of the conversations that day might as well have been in another language. Wait, I guess they actually were.
And with Kim in the back of the room last week, and sitting next to an power outlet (how did she get so lucky?), Jonathan asking in-depth questions, and Paul explaining everything in a way that would make Carl Sagan proud, I was stunned to realize just how far I have come. I can remember when I felt that everything was way over my head, or that I didn’t belong. The truth is that over time you acquire the skills and knowledge and before you know it you not only belong, but you can get right up on stage as I did in 2007 and again in 2008.
In the past two years I have been approached by many people who say something similar to: “I want to go to the Summit, but I do not think I am technical enough, the content will be over my head.” All I can say is that we all started out with little to no knowledge. Ask anyone. But if you want to grow your skills, then you need to connect, learn, and share with others. And there is no better place to do that than at PASS.
And before you know it you will be sitting in a session and be able to follow along in the conversation.
It’s that simple.
