Being successful is not complicated. Work hard. Treat people well. Push yourself to keep getting better. Don’t permit yourself substandard work. Keep your commitments. Communicate often and clearly. Don’t give up. There are more elements, but they’re all common sense.

We see this in many fields. You want to run a marathon in under 3 hours? Run often and far, and push against your limits. You want to be a superb oboe player? Practice for hours every day, and focus on the parts that are most difficult. You want to be well off? Spend frugally, save diligently. Again, it’s all common sense.

The problem with common sense is it’s not commonly applied. Software engineering is a profession that gravitates toward complexity. As a result, we fetishize intelligence and cleverness. We do it to the degree that we forget what it really takes to be successful. We confused complicated with difficult, but complicated is rarely the key to professional success. If you think that complexity and cleverness are the key, you will overlook the simple things you need to do.

The simple things come up every single day with every single thing you do. The complicated things are rare, and they only matter if you’ve gotten the simple things right. But simple does not mean easy. They’re not just hard; they’re harder than the complicated things. Maybe that’s why so many people want the answer to be complicated.