career

Pick a Needle and Move It

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Employees have one job: move needles. Company executives track their most important metrics using dashboard graphs like the example at right from Geckoboard.  The VP of Sales, the Chief Financial Officer, the Board of Directors, or anybody else with a fancypants title can all name their top 2-3 key metrics, what the numbers are today, and where they need to be. Your job – no matter what you think your job title is – boils down to these 6 things: 1. Figure out who you need to impress.  If you’re just getting started with this technique, odds are your direct…
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Treat Criticism Like Spam Email

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When you do something – anything – you’re going to get criticized. I used to lose a lot of sleep about it, but I’ve figured out there’s an easy way to filter criticism: treat it like incoming email.  Use a series of filters and scores to determine whether it meets your threshold, and if not, throw it away. All criticism starts at 0 points. Filtering the Critic Is the critic anonymous? -5 points Does the critic know me in real life? +5 points Has the critic given me helpful criticism before? +5 points Has the critic given me unhelpful criticism…
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Why I Quit My Job(s)

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I’m far from a job-hopper – I like to stick with a company for as long as I can.  The grass looks greener on the other side of the fence because it’s Astroturf.  But when you’re in a long-term relationship – whether it’s with a company or your significant other – the tiniest things can drive you crazy.  We start to dwell on those small problems, and they bother us more and more until we’re ready to walk away and start again somewhere else over the tiniest thing.  Maybe we got passed up for that 3% raise this year, or…
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My 6 Rules for Incredible Time Management

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I’m always surprised when people say, “I don’t know how you do all that stuff.”  I feel like I hardly do any work at all, honestly – I think I’m the least hard working person of anybody I know.  I just follow six simple rules: Even my mirror self-portraits are incredible. And by that I mean lacking credibility. Rule #1: Decide that you want to be incredible.  If you’re okay with doing an okay job, then you don’t need any time management.  But if you want to have incredible results, you’re going to have to do incredible work.  That doesn’t…
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Hi. I’m Brent.

That's me, Brent.

I live in Las Vegas, Nevada. I'm on an epic life quest to have fun and make a difference.

I co-founded Brent Ozar Unlimited to help make your SQL Server go faster. I also maintain sp_Blitz® and the open source First Responder Kit repo.

My current car collection includes a 1986 Ferrari 328 GTS, a 1964 Porsche 356, a 1971 VW Type 3 Squareback, and more.

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