Adversity as described in Webster’s Dictionary is a state, condition, or instance of serious or continued difficulty or adverse fortune.

Not really a topic most want to talk about, but nonetheless is something we experience on any given day. There are all types of adversity if you think about it. The Data Professional might face adversity on the job, one may face adversity with their health, or one may have ongoing issues with family. Whatever the case may be adversity at some point in ones life will come.

How does the Data Professional handle adversity when it rears it’s ugly head?

You look at your board and you see over 20 initiatives waiting to get completed, a process on one of your SQL Servers is executing extremely slow and you need to figure out why, log shipping decided to croak and you need to ensure that you get this back up and operational, and to top it off your core business server decided to fail over to another node all of a sudden.

All that ever hit at once? If you’ve worked in this business long enough than you realize that adversity will present itself in some form or fashion ~ it’s inevitable. If you have not had to be faced with adversity before than you will at some point.

With all that said adversity does not have to be viewed as a negative occurrence. Looking back, in my own circumstances of being a Data Professional, I see that in some of these instances it is where I have grown and built the experience that I longed to obtain.

Get your learn on

Let me ask this question; when is the last time you ventured out and really dug in and started to learn something? If you had down to learn CMS or Policy Based Management would you depend on others to facilitate that or would you install it on a local machine or spin up a VM and start tinkering around with it and how it works?

In today’s work environment we have so many tools at our disposal; so many community members who are willing to help and offer advice. One of the best phrases I ever read stated, “Failure to learn is not an option”.

The Peaks and the Valleys

Careers can be a set of peaks and a set of valleys. Have you ever heard someone say, “I’m stuck in the same old mundane rut”. How do you break that? One great thing about being a data professional is that we have so much that goes on in a given day. If you really step back and look at it you can start your morning on SSIS, follow it up with some log shipping or disaster recovery planning, review capacity planning, heck why not even throw in some learning of Always On and column store indexes.

I’ve seen the gamut from professionals who are on fire, the flame starts to dwindle, they get burned out, and then you never see them anymore as they move on to other things. Will that be you?

The Opportunities

Now here is the great part that is just lying around the bend. Opportunities abound ~ daily. When adversity strikes don’t get faint hearted or weary. I have first hand knowledge that inspiration is rampant through the SQL Community. When we fall we pick each other up, when you least expect it someone that you works with SQL from overseas will say one encouraging word that will ignite that flame that was about to go out.

Yes, I know it won’t always be a bed of roses for this is the game called life, but how do you handle adversity when it comes your way. Tackle adversity head on, it is in times when you are faced with something great that character is built and learning abounds.

Game Time

It’s fourth quarter and game is on the line. It’s now time as a Data Professional to “D” up. Tackle every day as if it were your last and when you seem to faced with adversity whether it revolves around SQL, learning in general, Cubes, Azure or whatever the case may be – stop, assess, learn, and grow from it.

Be Challenged

Don’t let that flame burn out

Keep Pressing Onward